Somebody Stop Ivy Pocket Read online

  For my grandfather, Plantagenet Krisp,

  who never saw it coming

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  ‘What have you got for us this time, Ivy?’

  I patted the pocket of my dress. ‘“Petals on the Wind”. It’s frightfully touching – all about dropping dead and floating away on a warm breeze.’

  Ezra Snagsby gave a nod of his head, which caused his heavy jowls to flap about gloriously. ‘Very good.’ Then he peered at me rather anxiously from beneath the untamed jungles of his bushy eyebrows. ‘You will read it as written, won’t you, Ivy?’

  ‘Yes, dear. Every dull word.’

  He nodded again – but this time at Mother Snagsby, who was terribly dignified. Even when the carriage hit a pothole, shaking us like rag dolls, Mother Snagsby barely moved an inch.

  ‘I have Miss Carnage to thank for “Petals on the Wind”,’ I said, smoothing out my very best royal-blue dress (with the white sash). ‘She took over after Mr Abercrombie vanished – he was last spotted somewhere between Greek Myths and French Fiction. All very mysterious. Miss Carnage has only been at the library a few weeks, but she’s already frightfully fond of me.’

  ‘That’s very interesting, Ivy,’ said Ezra with a long sigh. He leaned his head against the side of the carriage. His heavy lids shut. The old man was snoring almost instantly.

  ‘Faster, driver!’ bellowed Mother Snagsby, hitting the top of the carriage with her parasol. ‘We haven’t got all day!’

  Before Miss Frost sent me to London to live with the Snagsbys three months ago, I had little experience of being a daughter. I remembered nothing of my real mother. I only knew that she was dead. That Miss Frost had found me quite by accident, curled up in her lifeless lap, in some ghastly house. But it turns out, I’m a natural.

  ‘You have a whip, man – use it!’ thundered Mother Snagsby, sticking her head out of the window. ‘Or must I come up there and do it myself?’

  The Snagsbys were a delightful pair. Ancient. Heads like lightly beaten melons. Matching back humps. But wondrously affectionate. Deliriously cuddly. Their daughter, Gretel, was at finishing school in Paris, so they had oodles of love to lavish upon me. It would be fair to say that I was the apple of their eye. The sun brightening their days.

  ‘Stop squinting, young lady,’ snapped Mother Snagsby, showering me with a warm scowl. ‘It makes you look like a pickpocket.’

  Mother Snagsby was always lavishing these tiny morsels of motherly advice and affection upon me. Pointing out how I might improve. Or be slightly less horrendous. Which was lovely.

  ‘Sit up straight,’ she ordered. ‘When a girl isn’t blessed with pretty features or fetching hair, she must employ other skills – good posture, refined speech, impeccable manners.’

  ‘And you use them to great effect, dear,’ I said, flashing my most understanding smile. ‘Your generous use of powder is a marvel. Never has so much been done with so little.’

  Mother Snagsby shook her head as if I were a nincompoop. ‘Whatever was Miss Frost thinking, lumping you on our doorstep?’

  ‘Miss Frost is a wonder,’ I replied. ‘Somehow she knew we would be a perfect match.’

  Mother Snagsby shook her head again. No doubt trying to stop the tears of joy which threatened to burst from her beady eyes and drown us all. The Snagsbys hardly ever mentioned Miss Frost. They only knew her in passing. Believed her to be some sort of travelling governess. Somehow Miss Frost had got word that they were in the market for a daughter. They never asked how I came to know her or what I was doing at Butterfield Park. In fact, the Snagsbys had no interest in my life before I came to live with them.

  ‘Fix your braid,’ said Mother Snagsby. ‘Your hair looks as if you’ve been out in a windstorm.’

  ‘Which is true enough,’ I said, getting to work on my hair. ‘While I was out this morning fetching the milk, buying the bread, picking up the bacon for your breakfast and taking your shoes to be mended, there was the most violent gust of wind. I saw a fruit pedlar lifted off his feet and thrown against a nearby carriage. The poor man broke into three pieces. Utterly tragic.’

  ‘Complete nonsense,’ growled Mother Snagsby.

  ‘Not to him, dear,’ I said gravely. ‘And just think of his wife and their eleven children.’

  The Snagsbys knew nothing about the Clock Diamond. It was monstrously tempting to tell them – a secret as delicious as it was horrifying – but I had promised Miss Frost. Besides, the Snagsbys were simple folk. Unworldly. All the sophistication of a scrambled egg. It would terrify them to know that I was wearing a priceless and deadly necklace.

  ‘This is not a leisurely drive through the park,’ bellowed the old goat. ‘Get a move on!’

  We were in something of a hurry. And it was all on account of death. My best blue dress. The poem in my pocket. The tape measure around Ezra’s bony neck. The Snagsbys made coffins for a living – Snagsbys’ Economic Funerals was a thriving business, specialising in generous discounts for pre-measured coffins.

  ‘The viewing chamber was in a ghastly state this morning,’ said Mother Snagsby, eyeing me with motherly affection. ‘When our business is concluded you will clean that room until it sparkles. Am I understood, young lady?’

  ‘Hard to say, dear,’ I replied. ‘You tend to mutter a great deal – I find it easier just to imagine what you have said and go from there.’

  Before Mother Snagsby could explode with merriment, the carriage came to a sudden halt. Ezra was thrust forward, his bony body landing in a heap at my feet. The poor fellow woke with a start and immediately let out a painful groan. He clutched at his back, slowly picking himself up.

  ‘Get a move on, Ezra. We haven’t got all day,’ snapped his wife, peering out at a depressing row of houses.

  ‘If your back is troubling you, I have an excellent remedy,’ I said, as the carriage door opened. ‘All I require is a cup of lard, a ball of yarn, three carrots and a field mouse.’

  Ezra began to chuckle, which was terribly unnecessary. Mother Snagsby rolled her eyes and pushed her husband out of the carriage. Then she fixed her eyes upon me.

  ‘This is a house of death,’ she said sternly, ‘so you know exactly how I expect you to behave. Stay out of the way until you are needed and do your job when you are called. Understood?’

  I nodded my head.

  Mother Snagsby stepped out of the carriage and I hurried after her.

  ‘Thank heavens you are here!’

  Mrs Blackhorn was a marvellous creature – round of belly, fat of cheek, bad of breath. But it was what sat atop her head that really made an impression. A glorious crown of golden ringlets that would slip down Mrs Blackhorn’s brow as she fussed around her husband’s sickbed. She was forever yanking it back up.

  ‘I have been counting the minutes!’ she bellowed, clutching at her perfectly dry handkerchief and ushering us into the darkened b
edroom chamber. ‘Poor Mr Blackhorn is not long for this world. The doctor says his heart has finally given in. I’ve nursed him day and night – an angel, that’s what he calls me.’

  ‘A devil’s more like it!’ barked the dying man, lifting his pasty head from the pillow. ‘I’m doomed to die in this filthy bed, full of fleas and lumps, while you spend my money on your fancy ribbons and foolish curls.’

  Ezra took off his tape measure and began the beastly task of taking Mr Blackhorn’s measurements.

  ‘Hush, my dear,’ said Mrs Blackhorn, covering her husband’s head with a damp cloth. ‘It’s the fever talking, you see. I will love him until the end of time, as you would expect, but once he is gone, I feel it only right that I treat myself to a few of the finer things. Have my lovely hair done and such.’ She patted her locks as if they were spun gold. ‘The curls are natural, of course.’

  I laughed. Rather loudly. Mrs Blackhorn twirled around to glare at me. But her curly locks did not. As such, her delightfully round face vanished behind a pile of tangled ringlets. While the poor creature retrieved her hair, Mother Snagsby pulled me towards the deathbed.

  ‘The young lady has selected a poem that may provide some comfort, Mr Blackhorn,’ she said loudly. ‘It is a service we now offer to all of our customers free of charge.’

  Mr Blackhorn pulled the cloth from his face. The candle beside his bed cast ghostly shadows upon his skin. He had sunken cheeks. Grey whiskers. But his eyes had a certain spark. ‘Haven’t I suffered enough?’

  His wife turned back and looked mournfully at him. ‘It will comfort his sister when I write and tell her that the last words George heard were a few lines of lovely poetry. Go ahead, girl.’

  ‘Last words?’ spluttered Mr Blackhorn. ‘I’m not dead yet, Martha, so you can tell these blasted coffin makers to clear off! I’m feeling better than I have in days.’

  ‘You are not!’ scolded his wife with some force. ‘You’re dying, George, so stop fighting it.’ She dabbed at her eyes and her bosom heaved. ‘I just want my dear husband to be at peace.’

  Mother Snagsby nodded at me and I fished the poem from my pocket and began:

  ‘As my true love fades away in the dying of the light,

  I know his soul will scatter, petals on the wind.

  In any life there are seasons and we all must submit

  Surrender unto death, petals on the wind …’

  It was a ghastly poem. So dull and worthy and bleak. It was monstrous! Which was why I continued with the following:

  ‘Mrs Blackhorn vows that her love will never die,

  But the poor cow hasn’t shed a tear, though she really does try.’

  Mrs Blackhorn gasped and covered her mouth. Mr Blackhorn began to chortle and clap his hands. Which was terrifically promising!

  I went on:

  ‘Poor Mr Blackhorn shall find peace beyond his flea-ridden bed,

  And his dear wife a new wig, once Old Gloomy Guts is dead.’

  ‘Stop it this instant!’ hissed Mother Snagsby. She turned to Mrs Blackhorn. ‘I do apologise for the girl. She has been warned about making up her own verses.’

  ‘I thought it was grand,’ declared Mr Blackhorn.

  His wife had fallen to the bed, shrieking something rather unkind in my direction. Mother Snagsby tried to comfort her, while Ezra ushered me over to a chair in the corner of the room. ‘Sit here, Ivy,’ he instructed, ‘while we finish up.’

  When Mrs Blackhorn stopped bleating, she left the room to freshen up and straighten her wig. A maid came in carrying a pot of tea for the Snagsbys and glass of warm milk for me. I hate warm milk as a general rule. Revolting stuff. But for some reason Mother Snagsby insisted that I drink it, while she and Ezra conducted the last part of each sickbed visit – discussing particulars with regard to the coffin and whatnot.

  ‘Shame on you,’ scolded Mother Snagsby, handing me the glass. ‘What you have done is unforgivable. Drink the milk and button your lips.’

  For once I did as I was told.

  ‘Wake up.’

  I was shaking. Or rather, a hand had grabbed my shoulder and was rattling it.

  ‘Wake up, I say.’ It was Mother Snagsby. ‘Wake up this instant!’

  I opened my eyes. Felt a burning in my chest. Looked about, blinking a great deal. Then yawned like an infant and stretched my arms. It took a moment or two to realise where I was. Mr Blackhorn’s dreary bedroom. Except that it was no longer Mr Blackhorn’s room. For he was dead. A sheet covered his lifeless body. His wife was sobbing real tears at his side.

  ‘But I thought … Mr Blackhorn said he was feeling better,’ I said softly.

  ‘He was mistaken,’ came Mother Snagsby’s reply.

  ‘How long was I asleep?’

  ‘Long enough,’ said Mother Snagsby, picking up the empty glass of milk from the table beside me. ‘You are making a habit of this, young lady. Are you not sleeping at night?’

  ‘I sleep like a log, dear,’ I said, getting to my feet. My head spun furiously and I sat back down again. I had drifted off to sleep several times in the past few months. Right after reading a poem at the bedside of a nearly departed. Which was odd. And another thing. My chest felt terribly warm. I lifted my hand to my heart. But it wasn’t my chest that was hot. It was the Clock Diamond. I felt certain there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. I just couldn’t think what.

  Ezra shuffled over to Mrs Blackhorn and offered his condolences.

  But Mother Snagsby did not. She handed Mrs Blackhorn the bill of sale. ‘My men will be along to collect the body within the hour.’ Her tone with the grieving widow was cool and businesslike. ‘Death acts quickly, Mrs Blackhorn, so I would advise against looking under the shroud. Remember your husband as he was and Snagsbys’ Funerals will take care of the rest.’

  Mrs Blackhorn nodded her head in silence.

  ‘He’s at peace,’ said Ezra. ‘That’s got to be a comfort.’

  ‘I thought it would be,’ said Mrs Blackhorn meekly.

  Mother Snagsby grabbed her parasol, then motioned to Ezra and to me.

  ‘Let us go,’ she said, already striding towards the door. ‘Our work here is done.’

  Chapter 2

  The Snagsbys disappeared every Sunday morning at nine o’clock sharp. Which was a great relief. It was all on account of Adelaide Snagsby – Ezra’s favourite sister. Once a week the Snagsbys would put on their finest clothes and set off for Adelaide’s boarding house in Bayswater. But I wasn’t invited.

  For I didn’t exist.

  Apparently, finding out that her brother had adopted a twelve-year-old maid of dubious origin would upset the narrow-minded nitwit. Therefore, I was kept a secret. Left behind with a list of chores, while the Snagsbys went off to shovel cream cake in their pie holes and chat about the weather.

  Sometimes I threw a thrilling tantrum. But not today. Mother Snagsby was still cross with me about Mr Blackhorn’s poem. Two days had passed and she had barely uttered a word in my direction.

  ‘We are running late,’ muttered Ezra as he shuffled in from the workshop. Ezra made all of the Snagsbys’ discount coffins in the carriage house out at the back, though he spent a great deal of time snoozing under the almond tree.

  ‘Mother Snagsby is in the kitchen,’ I said, moving my dustpan and broom to let him pass.

  The Snagsbys’ home was narrow and tall and terribly fond of dust. The downstairs was devoted to the funeral business – the viewing chamber and consulting room were handsome and elegant. The upstairs was for living – these rooms were faded, worn and bleak (with the exception of Gretel’s room).

  Ezra looked towards the kitchen. Scratched at his jowls. ‘Bacon?’

  I nodded my head. ‘She’s on her third plate.’

  Mother Snagsby had an unnatural fondness for bacon. Ate it by the bucketful. Poor Mrs Dickens (the housekeeper and cook) was forever sending me to the butcher for another pound.

  The old man sighed and sat down in a chair beneath a
portrait of his daughter, Gretel. There were paintings of her in every room of the house, including the kitchen – one for every year, from a little girl up until the age of eighteen, when she was sent off to finishing school in Paris. Mother Snagsby had painted each one. She was rather gifted with a brush. In the picture above Ezra’s bald head, Gretel looked to be about ten or eleven, sitting atop a horse and looking rather delighted.

  ‘It cannot be good,’ said Ezra softly, ‘all that bacon.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry, dear,’ I said, wiping my hands on the beastly apron Mother Snagsby insisted that I wear. ‘Back when I worked for the Midwinters, Miss Lucy ate nothing but turnips for a whole winter.’ I gave Ezra a reassuring smile. ‘It did her no real harm. Well, apart from her skin turning green. And I seem to recall she lost all feeling in her face. Other than that, fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘Get up, Ezra!’ snapped Mother Snagsby as she bustled into the narrow hall.

  Ezra jumped to his feet – he was frightfully obedient.

  Mother Snagsby wiped some bacon grease from her chin and regarded me coolly. ‘Why are you sitting there, young lady? The hall will not dust itself.’

  ‘I feel I must point out that, as your daughter, it isn’t proper that I should dust and polish and sweep like some sort of pint-sized Cinderella. Not to mention answering the door, fetching endless pots of tea and cleaning your diabolical undergarments.’

  ‘And where would you be if Ezra and I had not taken you in?’ Mother Snagsby slipped on a pair of pale green gloves (which matched her pale green dress). ‘This house is a place of work and everybody must play their part, even daughters.’

  It was hard to say exactly how old Mother Snagsby was. She had a most interesting face. Lumpy skin covered by a thick layer of white powder. Fine lines scrunched around her bright blue eyes and tiny mouth. Black hair with a streak of white at the temple. And a stupendous mole, sitting above her upper lip like a Christmas pudding.

  ‘But there must be more to life, dear,’ I said, picking up the dustpan. ‘Why can we never have company over? Haven’t you any friends?’ I gasped with great commitment. ‘I know! We could throw an enchanting afternoon tea and invite some girls my own age. Just think how nice it would be to have people in the house who haven’t come to view a dead body.’