If only the funeral would end! He scraped the slush with his toe, admiring the vivid green of the moss underneath. Nothing could be done; no new life could begin, until the priest shut up. His eyes passed from the patch of moss to Grisini’s recently dug grave. He smiled.
Grisini’s tombstone was a small one, ordered in haste and engraved only with his name. There was nothing else to write: Grisini had been no one’s beloved husband or father or brother, and the question of where he would spend the afterlife was best not raised. One did not describe a puppet master’s skill on his tombstone. Nevertheless, Parsefall had a nagging feeling that something was missing. Quite suddenly, he knew what it was, and he snickered, earning a sharp look from Dr. Wintermute.
He would bring Madama’s brass monkey to the grave and let it perch on Grisini’s tombstone. He had known that monkey would come in useful sooner or later. What better than to have it leering over Grisini? It had bent legs; he was fairly certain it would stay in place atop the stone. If not, he could prop it up with rocks.
He wanted to tell Lizzie Rose. He edged closer and whispered into her ear, “The monkey. Let’s bring the monkey ’ere and put it on Grisini’s grave.”
She looked startled.
“On the stone,” he hissed. “Wiv its legs ’angin’ over the edge.”
He saw her consider the idea. After a moment, she whispered, “I suppose he’d like that.”
Parsefall rolled his eyes in exasperation. He wasn’t trying to please Grisini; he was trying to desecrate his tomb. All the same, Lizzie Rose had a point. Grisini’s sense of humor had been unholy; he might like that cruel-faced monkey squatting over his corpse. Parsefall’s forehead knotted and then cleared. The thing was artistically right. He wondered what Clara would think of the idea.
She was still obstinately behaving herself. He stared at her back, frustrated. He remembered when she was a puppet. In those days, all he would have had to do was hook a finger under the string that screwed into her temple, and she would have turned her head —
Her shoulder twitched. After a moment, she twisted around to frown at him.
Parsefall whispered, “I got summink to tell you.”
Clara nodded very slightly. She mouthed the word later and jerked her head toward the casket. The priest was making the sign of the cross. The pallbearers came forward to grip the handles of the casket. It seemed that at long last, Cassandra’s body was about to be lowered into the grave.
Parsefall was tempted to fling his cap in the air. It was almost over. There was going to be roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner, and afterward the grown-ups would go off with their newspapers and embroidery. He saw Clara bow her head to hide a smile, and he turned back to wink at Lizzie Rose. They were waiting, all three of them, for the moment when they could be alone again and free to laugh together.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Carol Mason, who helped me with British diction and dialect, and inspired me with her impersonations of Parsefall Hooke and Mrs. Pinchbeck. Special thanks also to Barry Smith, of the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, who shared his encyclopedic knowledge of Victorian burial customs, and sent me photographs of catafalques, coffins, and mausoleums.
I could not have consulted two more generous experts. And any mistakes in the manuscript are my own.
LAURA AMY SCHLITZ is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, illustrated by Robert Byrd and recipient of many best-book honors in its year of publication. Her debut novel, A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama, won an inaugural Cybil Award, and The Night Fairy, illustrated by Angela Barrett, was named an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book and an Amazon.com Best Book of the Year. Other credits include a retelling, The Bearskinner: A Tale of the Brothers Grimm, illustrated by Max Grafe, and a biography of an eccentric amateur archaeologist, called The Hero Schliemann: The Dreamer Who Dug for Troy, illustrated by Robert Byrd. Laura Amy Schlitz lives in Maryland.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 by Laura Amy Schlitz
Cover illustration copyright © 2012 by Bagram Ibatoulline
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schlitz, Laura Amy.
Splendors and glooms / Laura Amy Schlitz. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7636-5380-4 (hardcover)
[1. Puppets — Fiction. 2. Orphans — Fiction. 3. Kidnapping — Fiction. 4. Witches — Fiction. 5. Blessing and cursing — Fiction. 6. London (England) — History — 19th century — Fiction. 7. Great Britain — History — Victoria, 1837–1901 — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S347145Spl 2012
[Fic] — dc23 2011048366
ISBN 978-0-7636-6246-2 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue: Fire
Part One: Fog: London, Autumn 1860
Chapter One: Clara
Chapter Two: Lizzie Rose
Chapter Three: Parsefall
Chapter Four: The Fantoccini
Chapter Five: Grisini
Chapter Six: Dr. Wintermute
Chapter Seven: The Women in the Mirror
Chapter Eight: At the Home of Mrs. Pinchbeck
Chapter Nine: The Other Time
Chapter Ten: The Photograph
Chapter Twelve: November the Fourteenth at Kensal Green
Chapter Thirteen: November the Fourteenth at Strachan’s Ghyll
Chapter Fourteen: November the Fourteenth at the Juniper Bough
Chapter Fifteen: The Staircase
Chapter Sixteen: The Morning After
Chapter Seventeen: An Unexpected Discovery
Chapter Eighteen: Awakening
Chapter Nineteen: Another Awakening: Strachan’s Ghyll
Chapter Twenty: Of Purse Strings and Puppet Strings
Chapter Twenty-one: The Egyptian Hall
Chapter Twenty-two: The Rocking Chair
Chapter Twenty-three: The Streets
Chapter Twenty-four: The Legacy
Chapter Twenty-five: A Member of the Audience
Chapter Twenty-six: In Which Dr. Wintermute Recovers a Lost Object
Chapter Twenty-seven: Flight
Chapter Twenty-eight: The Journey
Part Two: Ice: Strachan’s Ghyll, Winter 1860–1861
Chapter Twenty-nine: Strachan’s Ghyll
Chapter Thirty: Servants’ Talk
Chapter Thirty-one: The Witch’s Stronghold
Chapter Thirty-two: A Meeting with Madama
Chapter Thirty-three: The Wolf and the Swan
Chapter Thirty-four: The Treasure Hunt
Chapter Thirty-five: The Bottle Imp
Chapter Thirty-seven: An Unfinished Confession
Chapter Thirty-eight: The Bolt on the Door
Chapter Thirty-nine: Christmas at Strachan’s Ghyll
Chapter Forty: The Wintermutes’ Christmas
Chapter Forty-one: A Christmas Gift
Chapter Forty-two: The Gatehouse
Chapter Forty-three: The Maze in the Tower
Chapter Forty-four: The Puppet Master
Chapter Forty-five: The Black Place
Chapter Forty-six: Fire and Ice
Chapter Forty-seven: The Witch’s Tears
Chapter Forty-eight: In Which We Encounter an Old Acquaintance
Chapter Forty-nine: The Confession Resumed
Chapter Fifty: A Reunion
Chapter Fifty-one: Last Rites
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright