Page 19 of Infamous

‘Oh, God,’ said Eddie. ‘Are you sure? Have you checked the fireplaces?’

‘Do you think she could actually climb a chimney?’ said Lucy-Anne, chewing on a piece of her hair, as she did when thinking. ‘I don’t think she’d really have anything to hold on to, and she’s too small to shimmy.’

Mr Miller walked in, reading glasses balanced on the end of his nose, looking around for something.

‘Father, have you seen Trix?’

‘Beatrice? No, no, I haven’t. Have you seen my newspaper? Perhaps they’re together. The last time I saw Trix she told me she was packing a bag for China.’

Lucy-Anne and Eddie exchanged a grimace.

‘So she’s finally done it,’ said Simon, sounding impressed. ‘I didn’t think she had it in her. How far is it? To China?’

Eddie got up, shuffling her papers into a pile, just as Lucy-Anne rose from her harp stool.

‘Simon, she’s seven years old, she doesn’t even know the way to Marylebone. Has she told you anything about where she thinks China is?’

Simon looked thoughtful. ‘South.’

‘I’ll get your mother,’ said Mr Miller. ‘We’ll search the house and then look farther afield.’

‘I’ll get Amelia,’ said Simon, ‘although we were playing Carriage Crash and she was the unlucky soul this time, and you know she does commit to her roles, so we might have a tricky job getting her up from the floor.’

*

It was looking decidedly dusky by the time all six of them left the house, and although Eddie had reprimanded Simon for spending too long rummaging around in the kitchen with Caroline the maid, she was glad of the lanterns they had managed to unearth; all hopes that Beatrice might be hiding very well in the garden or that she had only made it a short way down the road were dashed quickly, and Eddie started to feel an uncomfortable swell of panic in the vicinity of her lungs as they decided to split up and search in smaller groups.

Eddie was partnered with Simon, both of them calling out Beatrice’s name as they journeyed south-east. As they walked, he grew increasingly frantic in a way that only those very close to him would recognise.

‘Did you know that bees actually have four wings, not two?’ he said, as Eddie peered over a stranger’s gate to see if Beatrice might be hiding among the shrubbery.

‘You told me that last week,’ said Eddie. Simon had an excellent memory; if he was forgetting the facts he had already dispensed, he must have been feeling truly wretched. ‘Chin up, Simon. We’ll find her. She’s nottryingto be lost, after all.’

‘Well, did I tell you that some people think bees communicate by dancing?’ said Simon, rolling up one of his sleeves and then unrolling it again. ‘I didn’t tell you that, did I?’

‘Yes,’ said Eddie, moving on to the next house and appraising what she could see of the exterior. ‘She couldn’t fit inside a barrel, could she? I mean, she could, but I don’t know why she’d .?.?. unless she thinks all barrels end up on ships, and that all ships end up in China .?.?.’

‘No,’ said Simon, ‘she knows some barrels go in cellars. I don’t think she’d risk ending up in a cellar, do you?’

Eddie did not. Beatrice didn’t thrive in any situation where she was forced to stay still, or without diversion, for more than approximately eight seconds.

‘She’s so friendly,’ she said suddenly, her hand gripping tight around the handle of the lantern. ‘I wish she weren’t quite sofriendly.’

‘D’you mean .?.?. you think she may have just gone off with the first person who told her good afternoon?’ said Simon, his brow furrowing.

That wasexactlywhat Eddie thought, but she had momentarily forgotten that she was supposed to be repressing her own fears to keep Simon’s at bay, so she perked up and started marching down the street again.

‘She’s not a fool,’ she said, somewhat untruthfully. ‘And she wouldn’t go with anybody who said they were bringing her home, not when she thinks she has a ship to catch.’

Simon offered up a few more half-hearted facts, but after a while they lapsed into silence, only opening their mouths to call Beatrice’s name. When they reached a busier thoroughfare with shops and traders closing up for the night, Eddie went from person to person describing her sister, and receiving only shaken heads in response. There was an acidic tightness in the back of her throat, her voice coming out strained and croaky as she asked the last few with little hope – and then she turned to Simon, who was on the verge of tears.

‘No matter,’ she said, pausing to clear her throat. ‘We shall just go back in the direction we came, but we’ll take a different route. All right, Simon?’

‘All right,’ he said miserably.

They were almost home again and it was nearly truly dark when Eddie saw a figure rushing towards her from the opposite direction, holding a bundle in her arms; as they drew closer, Eddie realised with a leap of joy that it was Rose, and the bundle in her arms was none other than—

‘Beatrice Elizabeth Miller, you absoluteweasel!’ Eddie cried, as Rose placed her on the ground looking harried and Beatrice ran to Eddie’s skirts and grabbed two fistfuls of them. Eddie ducked to squeeze her by the shoulders, hard, and then gave her a small shove. ‘What on earth were you thinking, running off like that? The whole family has been out looking for you – Mother may have called for the constable by now!’