Crown Phoenix: The South Sea Bubble

By Alison DeLuca

An Edwardian hospital hides many secrets:

A mysterious patient lurks in the cellar...
A secret passage leads to danger...
Coded messages reveal new riddles...
Visions of danger haunt the people of Grimstead Manor...

Lizzie and Miriam find horror, adventure, and romance surrounding the strange vessel known as The South Sea Bubble.

“Compulsive reading!”
“Addictive steampunk.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alison DeLuca
• Release date: Oct 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781939296238

Alison DeLuca

Alison DeLuca is the author of several steampunk and urban fantasy books. She was born in Arizona and has also lived in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Mexico, Ireland, and Spain.Currently she wrestles words and laundry in New Jersey.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

No author works in a vacuum, and many wonderful people helped me with The South Sea Bubble.

As always, my family stoically put up with my indifferent housekeeping skills while I storm ahead with my writing every day. Thanks to my husband and daughter, and I promise to finish that laundry now the series is complete.

A very special thanks goes to my wonderful editor, Carlie Cullen. I have never seen such passion and dedication as she exhibited with each new version of this book until at last a polished work emerged, to her meticulous specifics. Thanks also to Maria Johnson, who assisted Carlie in the final stage and was a true star.

Once again, cover artist Lisa Daly gave me the best of her talent to make my Bubble beautiful, inside and out. She is the very dearest of friends.

Ross Kitson, an extremely talented author in his own right, did the maps for the Crown Phoenix series, and I simply must add a shout out for his books here.

Kara Stewart, my main beta reader, gave me wonderful feedback as always. I send her love and lots of bolly, darling.

Any errors that remain are entirely my own.

From the Private Journal of Barbara Cantwell

Chapter One – The Patient on the Second Floor

LIZZIE OPENED THE door to Grimstead Hospital. A small black bundle bumped into her, causing the letters she held to spill onto the step. Matilda! Where are you off to, love? Lizzie put out one hand to grasp her sister’s arm.

None of your business. Let go of my arm! Matilda wriggled free, stuck out her tongue, slipped round her sister, and dashed off down the path. The little girl’s defiant laughter floated back on the autumn wind.

Come back - you shouldn’t be out by yourself! Lizzie scowled as she shaded her eyes. She still wore spectacles, her present from Toby, and with their help she could just make out her sister as she disappeared into the distance.

Lizzie swore under her breath and started out after the small, determined figure. By the time she reached the end of the wall surrounding Grimstead, Matilda had disappeared.

Matilda! Lizzie shouted again. Get back here this instant! Her voice blew back to her on the gathering autumn winds. Although it was only September, the air was already cold. She shivered, wrapped her arms around her thin chest, and returned to pick up the small pile of letters. They had to go into the post before she returned to the second floor patients.

The letterbox was red with gold letters; it was set into the wall that surrounded the Manor, now called Grimstead Hospital. The envelopes contained bills addressed to former patients and cheques, to pay for medical supplies for the hospital. The last contained a long letter.

Lizzie had written to Toby before, but she always tore up the pages afterwards. He was still on the steamship, The Lamplighter’s Special, in the secret room they had found below deck. She wanted to tell him what she was doing now she and Ninna had returned to England. More than that, she wanted to be in touch with him, if only on paper.

Her first attempt to write to him had been an overly jolly note, filled with bad puns. She winced as she remembered one line, in which she told him to mullet over, but if he felt he must, he should stay in plaice. She had torn up the next letter, as it sounded like a long lecture given by the Reverend Grice in church, and the third attempt was a long, tear-stained plea begging Toby to try again to leave the ship and come home to her and his father, the Squire of Grimstead.

Finally, she pretended Toby was right there in front of her as she wrote. She pictured sitting with him on the sun-warmed attic roof as she talked to him about Ninna, Mam and Da. In her daydream, he rolled up his shirtsleeves, leaned back on the slates, and asked her about Matilda. She explained how drastically her little sister had changed over the summer, while she and Ninna had been away on The Lamplighter’s Special. He grinned, exposing the slight gap in his teeth, as she mentioned how much she enjoyed her work at the hospital with Doctor Draper while she and Ninna learned nursing. It was perfect for her, she told him. The job kept her busy and interested at the same time.

That was the letter she was going to send to him now, along with the other correspondence from the new Grimstead Hospital. She poked them in through the flap of the new letterbox, and the envelopes landed with an empty thump. The sound told her no other post had arrived; therefore, there was no letter from Toby.

She narrowed her eyes and peered through the trees again, looking for Matilda, but she couldn’t wait any longer. Doctor Draper would need help with the round of new patients admitted the previous week. As well as the usual cases of troublesome coughs and childbed fevers, there were the copaiba addicts on the second floor. More of them arrived every few months, needing special care and constant supervision. Some were out-and-out fiends who had ingested the drug in the same manner as snuff, from ornate enamel boxes hanging from chains round their wrists. Others, like Lizzie’s parents, were addicted to the tonic and drank the drug from a bottle. Getting them to give it up was, to quote Doctor Draper, enough to test the very devil himself.

The newest arrival, a pale young woman called Miss Skelton, wouldn’t respond to any treatment. During the night she shouted that her skin was filled with centipedes and spiders, and she insisted any attempts to help her were plotted attacks. Lizzie, as well as her eldest sister Ninna and the other nurses, dreaded the time spent at Miss Skelton’s bedside.

Even with the added difficulty of the second floor patients, Lizzie hadn’t lied when she wrote to Toby that the job was tailor-made for her. If Toby could have been there as well, it would have been ideal.

Naturally there were always problems, she considered, as she turned back and closed the front door. Matilda’s behavior was the most immediate one. The girl seemed to have lost all her youthful innocence and sweetness, and now she was outright rude to Lizzie, Doctor Draper, and even Ninna.

Inside Grimstead Hospital, the air was warm against Lizzie’s icy cheeks. One of Doctor Draper’s first improvements had been the addition of gas heating throughout most of the Manor. In addition, several rooms were cleared and turned into areas for patients. Lizzie entered the largest ward downstairs, which only a few months prior had been a drawing room where she had served tea to Toby and the Squire. Ninna was there already, bent over the bed of a young man with a broken leg. When she saw Lizzie, she straightened and massaged the small of her back with one hand. Did you post the letters?

Lizzie nodded. How is he? She indicated the young man, who seemed to be asleep.

Peaceful enough, as you can see. He’ll be fine eventually, with just a bit of a limp. In fact he can go home to his farm in a few weeks, Lawrence says.

Lawrence? Lizzie’s eyebrows shot to the top of her head.

Yes, Lawrence - Doctor Draper. It’s really ridiculous to call him Doctor, when he’s so close to my age. Our age.

Is he now? Lizzie hid a smile. She often thought Doctor Draper, or ‘Lawrence’, was sweet on Ninna. Whether her sister returned that feeling or not was a mystery.

She decided to change the subject. Matilda ran off again.

Ninna put her hand on Lizzie’s sleeve. Did she really? It’s too bad of her. After Ellis gave her such a talking-to yesterday. What’s gotten into her?

I don’t know. She was fine before we sailed off on that old ship. Perhaps we never should have gone at all.

Ninna raised her fine eyebrows, considering. She must feel a bit abandoned, she conceded. After all, first Neil disappeared, our parents were drinking that copaiba tonic, and on top of it all we sailed away. It’s a bit much for a little girl to handle.

She’ll just have to learn how to behave, Lizzie retorted. Quirks and disgrace are all very well for the gentry, but we must make our own way in this world. We can’t do that with a black mark against the family.

I’m certain she’ll be fine. She’s probably found a nest of baby foxes or badgers somewhere and she just wants to go and visit them.

This late in the year? Hardly! Lizzie realized she was speaking loudly and lowered her voice. And she used to be so clean, remember? Now she comes home dirtier than a tramp in a coalmine.

She was going to say more, but she was interrupted by the arrival of Doctor Draper. Hello, Ninna! Hello, Lizzie. How’s young Tammas doing? He indicated the farmer with the broken leg.

He seems better. I gave him a bit of broth earlier and he called for more, so he’s getting his appetite back. Ninna laid her hand on the white sheets of the bed. The patients adored her; they all brightened when she came into the room. How could they not? Lizzie thought. Ninna was a beauty, even in her nurse’s costume.

But it was to Lizzie the doctor spoke. Is there any chance you could come with me and look at that new tonic patient, Miss Skelton? She started to scream at the top of her lungs an hour ago and still hasn’t stopped.

Oh, the poor thing! Ninna exclaimed. Go on, Lizzie - I’ll keep an eye on the wards. I’m almost finished with the rounds.

Thanks, the doctor said. He watched Ninna bend over another bed before he motioned to Lizzie. I moved Miss Skelton to a private room so she wouldn’t disturb the others.

As they mounted the stairs, Lizzie could hear the patient’s shouts. They came from the Gold Room, where Barbara Cantwell had once stayed and terrorized her and Ninna. Now the elegant suite of rooms was a safe place for frantic tonic fiends like Miss Skelton.

In the room, the young woman had climbed out of bed. She was on the large windowsill, and as they entered, she fumbled with the catch.

Doctor Draper uttered an oath and sprang forward. Please come down from there at once! he said. It’s not safe.

No! she screamed. I have to get away from it! I have to leave it behind! We’re underwater. Do you see the crabs? And the eels? Their teeth are sharper than needles - they could chew off your face if you get too close.

He struggled with her and, with Lizzie’s help, managed to get her back into bed where she thrashed and screamed. What is it, do you think? he panted. Is it merely the tonic talking? Or is there something physically wrong with her?

Lizzie could already smell it; there was the scent of trouble and infection on Miss Skelton. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pointed one finger. Very gently she followed the source of the pain until she touched Miss Skelton’s side. The patient shrieked again; when Lizzie opened her eyes she saw the pale woman had fainted.

There, Lizzie said.

He nodded and supported the girl’s limp body. Appendix. Probably about to burst too, with the way she’s carrying on. I’ll give her some ether and get her into theatre at once.

Will you need help?

He frowned. You can’t be in the theatre while I operate. It’s not seemly, for one thing. He looked at her and added, Go and get Will Farrow for me, will you?

Lizzie ducked her head and went to look for Will. He was the assistant doctor, although sometimes she wondered if poor Will didn’t cause more trouble than anything else.

Once she had dispatched the young medical student to aid the doctor, she dashed to the kitchen. Perhaps Ellis would have a quick cup of tea for her.

The cook was up to her elbows in a large bowl of bread dough. As Lizzie entered the kitchen, she sniffed the smell of rising yeast and flour. It helped to clear her head of the stench of sickness which came from Miss Skelton’s side.

Matilda ran off again? Ellis demanded as soon as she saw Lizzie. It was more of a statement than a question.

Aye. Lizzie sank into a chair.

Annie! Ellis shouted. Lizzie’s Mam came in from the pantry with a covered plate in her hands.

Must you shout like that? Mam asked. Loud enough to wake the dead from their graves you are! Her tone was belied by the broad wink she gave Lizzie.

Get your girl some tea, Ellis responded. Mam nodded, fetched a cup and a jug of milk from the dresser, and poured.

Lizzie took it and warmed her hands on the cup. It was still a miracle to see Mam out of her chair and moving about. There were new lines in her face, grey streaks in her hair and she had never regained her full vitality, but her recovery from being one of the tonic fiends had secured Doctor Draper’s reputation and filled the second floor with the other copaiba patients.

Now then. Where did you say Matilda went?

She ran off again. Lizzie took a long sip of scalding tea. That’s lovely, Mam, thanks.

Mam nodded. Lizzie reflected how years ago she would have been after Matilda with an open palm, ready to deliver several smacks as well as a kiss or two. Now she merely seemed to accept that Matilda had completely changed.

Ellis pulled large handfuls of dough out of the bowl and slapped them into the waiting bread pans to rise for the second time. That young one wants a hard smack. Mam ignored her comment. She picked up the covered plate and took it to the stove.

Where’s Da? Lizzie asked.

Down by the pond. He’s showing a few of the lads how to fish. Mam closed the stove.

Ah. Lizzie gulped down the last of her tea. That was brilliant. I’ll be back in an hour to start meals for the ground floor.

What’s the difference between being a housemaid and a nurse? They seem like the same job to me. Ellis covered the last pan with a white cloth.

Lizzie laughed. It’s true - I’ve served loads of trays in my lifetime. Still, I get to wind bandages now and give sponge baths, so there’s that to look forward to. There was also the possibility the doctor would call her in to do another examination and diagnosis. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, she felt as though she was of real use to the small hospital.

As she left the warm kitchen, she wondered about her new ability. Why could she smell things like sickness and disease? She could also sense danger and even personalities. Everything had a new odiferous dimension after that fateful trip over the summer, and she had no idea why. There was only one person who understood this about her, and he had locked himself in the hold of The Lamplighter’s Special.

Ninna, as dear as she was, didn’t know what to think about Lizzie’s ‘nose’. She was a very beloved sister, but sometimes there was a wondering, puzzled look in Ninna’s eyes when Lizzie discovered the source of another patient’s agony.

Lizzie didn’t blame her. Who would believe that she, the daughter of a fisherman brought up on the docks, could assist someone like Doctor Draper?

She stole a look at herself in an old, spotted mirror hung in the long hallway. In another lifetime, the Manor had been the setting for hunt balls, dances, concerts, and parties; now only a few priceless pieces were left. Lizzie looked at her face and tapped her nose. No, she was just as thin and ordinary as ever.

A door burst open further up the passage. The Squire, as if in answer to her thoughts, wove down the hall. You there! he shouted. What are you up to, girl?

Just about to finish my rounds, Squire, Lizzie replied.

Nonsense. He breathed heavily, and she caught the strong smell of brandy. She didn’t need her new ability to detect that.

Sorry?

Nonsense! he thundered. What falderol, to fill up the house with weaklings who can’t hop onto a horse and take a ride! Best cure I know for anything, except gout. Clear them all out at once.

We can’t do that, Squire. Lizzie spoke gently. She had the idea he had never fully accepted the forced sale of his property to Doctor Draper. Of course, there was also the issue of Priam. The Squire never spoke of his son, but the thought of Priam’s death tinged the air with sorrow whenever she saw the large man. And did he think about Toby, now his only surviving family, at all? Yes - there seemed to be a growing smell of despair about the large Squire.

He swayed and jabbed her thin chest with one finger. You listen to me, girl. I want everyone cleared out of here by this evening, or you will be thrown out of my house with only the clothes on your back. Do you hear me? Eh?

Squire!

Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief. Ellis must have heard his shouts and come to the rescue. The cook marched up to where they stood in the hall, already waving her wooden spoon in the air.

Squire, that is outside of enough! Do you want the roof to fall down on top of our heads? Get back to your study now, and leave this girl alone, before I count to three! Ellis nodded with determination as she spoke, and the thin knot of hair wagged up and down on her neck.

It is nonsense, I say… the Squire began to bluster, but the cook cut off his words.

That’s enough, as I’ve told you before, and if you don’t go and sit back in your study and work on accounts, I’ll not serve you another meal this day!

The awful threat seemed to take hold. He blinked, muttered something, and shuffled back to his desk. Ellis folded her arms and watched him go.

That should keep him away from us for a bit. Her thin lips creased in a satisfied way.

I feel sorry for him, you know, Lizzie remarked. I think he really misses Priam and Toby, but he refuses to admit it.

Ellis snorted. I don’t know about that, but I won’t have his shouts and roars upsetting those who keep his large backside in bacon and eggs.

Lizzie opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment there was a terrific bang at the front door. Bless us and save us! Ellis said. Who could that be, rapping a grand tattoo?

The Squire must have felt the same. Lizzie saw his large head poke out into the hallway. He saw Ellis and quickly withdrew into his dark, cavernous room.

I’ll go and see. Lizzie went to the door and wrestled with the huge doorknob to get it to turn. Usually visitors, for the most part tradesmen and patients, arrived by the back kitchen entrance. Her arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets as she pulled open the black and gold door.

A girl stood in the entrance. Her black ringlets were tangled, her hat hung down over one eye, and tears streaked her cheeks.

Lizzie stared. Miriam! she cried.

From the Private Journal of Barbara Cantwell

Chapter Two – The Boy in the Courtyard

MATILDA HEARD HER sister’s shouts, but she ignored them and headed for the woods away from Grimstead Hospital. Her short legs pounded through the leaves, already fallen among the trees, and she didn’t stop until she no longer heard Lizzie’s voice. She halted at last, out of breath, with a deep pain in her side. There was a robin in one of the branches; Matilda saw a flash of red as the bird lit out, disturbed by her sudden arrival. The wind faded, and for a moment the little copse was so silent she could hear its wings flutter as it took off, leaving her alone. Her triumphant grin faded, and she wished there was someone she could brag to about her escape from Grimstead and her sisters.

A few twigs crackled under her boots as she knelt to examine the ground. Once she found a silver button among the roots of the trees, and another time a bent ha’penny; she kept them in her treasure box under the bed in her room.

Her fingers sifted the leaves as she pushed them into piles, not caring if they caught on her stockings. In fact, she suddenly noticed, she already had a hole on one knee. Lizzie would give her what for when she saw it later.

Matilda shrugged and rubbed one finger around the edge of the hole; it got bigger as a result. There had been a time, before the summer, when she always kept her hands clean and liked to wash the floors and crockery. When that Toby fixed some sort of machine in his attic room, Lizzie and Ninna abandoned her. After Mam and Da retreated into their dependency on the tonic bottle, she knew her sisters would leave her as well. Just as she suspected, her grim prediction came true.

Her nose started to run as she recalled the past year. If keeping herself clean didn’t get her family’s attention, perhaps being a dirty ragbag would. Still, old habits died hard. She rubbed her hands on her skirt as she stood. There were no treasures among the leaves. In any case, the little patch of trees was not her final destination.

A few days earlier she discovered something curious, and she wanted to get a closer look. It would require some top-secret spying on her part. Perhaps, she thought as she wriggled under a hedgerow at the border of the woods, I could become a top-rate detective. Yes. She nodded to herself. This is my first case: The Mystery of Thirteen o’clock.

She was now at the edge of one of the farms. There were thirteen of them at Grimstead Commons, and all of them surrounded the Hospital in the manner of a strange clock that chimed an extra hour.

Neither Matilda nor her sisters had been present when Grimstead changed hands from the Squire to Doctor Draper. Most of the farms were purchased by outside buyers, one by one. There were only five remaining to the estate; she had overheard the doctor tell Ninna one night. The one at Five o’clock had become a school; Eleven and Twelve were leased out. But it was the one on the corner of a spit of land shaped like a fat teardrop which interested Matilda.

Like the school at Five, Thirteen o’clock was no longer a farm. The house was sold, and the land had been walled in. A few days earlier she had crept up to the wall and peered over it, and now she wanted to spy on it again.

She crept up to the boulders, neatly piled in a double wall and topped with capstones. There were neither smoots nor creeps, as there were in many of the other farms, to allow the sheep to move between fields when one piece of land went fallow. The barrier ran in one long, unbroken line down to the small house.

Matilda studied the stones. If she stood on tiptoes and stretched her body, she could just reach a bit of a ledge caused by a shingle that had shifted under its capstone. With its aid, she was able to wedge her boots into a space between a few of the flints and pop her head over the wall. She clung there and her fingertips turned white with the effort.

The house itself was at the narrow end of the teardrop; at the wide portion, near to where she clung, the land was divided by a low wall with steps and a small strip of lawn.

In the center of the makeshift garden was a tall piece of equipment, covered by a thick cloth. The folds, as they blew in the autumn wind, revealed brass supports shaped like the double plinths on the picnic table Lizzie discovered in the attics at the manor. Matilda called them grasshopper legs, since at the bottom, the feet spread out to support whatever was under the huge cloth.

Matilda peered cautiously over the wall and waited. After a few minutes her patience was rewarded; a boy with short dark hair ran out of the house towards the steps in the wall. He stopped to lift his fingers in an extremely rude gesture at one of the windows of the house before he continued on. There was a flutter of white inside, as the curtains were pulled shut by a pair of unseen, angry hands.

The black-haired boy jumped over the low wall into the small courtyard. He doubled both his fists, tilted his head up to the sky, and shouted a long, wordless yell of fury. Matilda tucked her head down. Whoever the boy was, he was in a rage.

After a few moments the noise stopped. There was silence, followed by some odd, muffled sounds. It’s as though a huge tiger is padding through