She hadn’t seen him for months.
He had come back, wild as ever, smiling, with that damned velocipede and his damned plan. He hadn’t been hurt at all. But every time she saw him, she still bled.
He was right. His words had only been harsh and painful because they’d been true. She was, as these things were reckoned, a complete waste of a woman. No money. No family. Nothing to give to a marriage but a beauty that would fade in a matter of years.
Crash reminded her of the truth. Of course it hurt to look at him.
And what had she done to deserve his cutting words? She’d forgiven him.
For taking wagers.
For that.
You forgive me for being a bastard, I suppose.
She stopped, coming back to herself from her reverie. She was in the shop where she worked. The day was winding down, slowly, surely. She had only a handful of flowers left, sitting forlornly in empty buckets.
You know I do, she had told him.
You surely forgive me for having the stones to believe I’m worth something.
Yes, she hadn’t delivered her sentiments properly. Who could choose the perfect words at a time like that? But Crash was invulnerable. She’d heard him laugh at constables when they’d shoved him against a wall.
He was arrogant, full of himself, confident, audacious…
And she could see him as he had been yesterday glaring at her.
I am good at going fast, he had said. So good that sometimes all everyone sees is a blur.
He was right. She had known that. She’d known beneath that brash exterior that he was kind. Devoted to his aunt. Boastful, yes, and ambitious, but he’d caught her up in his ambitions, making her feel she could do anything.
Yes, she’d heard him laugh off far worse insults. He’d always laughed the hardest at the cruelest ones. His laughter, like his wickedness, was a persona he put on. He never let anyone know how he really felt.
Anyone, that was, except her.
All this time, she’d felt her own hurt. It had been so all-encompassing that she hadn’t heard his.
She had forgiven him for existing, and when he’d complained, she told him he couldn’t be hurt by it. How must that have felt? To have had Daisy shrug off his pain as inconsequential simply because he was good at hiding it?
All she’d seen was the blur of speed. The illusion of him that he cast. She’d thought that his laughter made him invulnerable. She hadn’t seen him, not really, not even in the moments when he’d stood still for her.
Daisy exhaled and felt the world around her coming into sharp relief. For the first time since Crash had walked away from her, she understood why.
Chapter Six
Crash stood at the narrow window of his aunt’s flat. Aunt Ree was bundled up in her seat, her feet warmed by bricks, her eyes narrowed on the street in front of them.
“Did that man just hug a goat?”
Crash found the person she was speaking about, a tall, thin man. “Ah, that’s George Mirring. And no, I suspect it wasn’t a hug, not knowing his habits. It was likely more of a glancing embrace. He tends to be private with his affections.”
“Hmm.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re making this up.”
He didn’t let so much as a smile touch his lips. “That goat saved his life once.”
She turned to look at him. “Did it?” Her words conveyed the utmost disbelief.
“Here’s a little known fact. Goats are excellent watch-creatures. Better even than dogs.”
“Crash,” Ree said with a shake of her head, “are you capable of speaking without making up a story?”
“I wasn’t!” Crash smiled at her. “This is the truth. Mirring got the goat because its nan rejected it. Everyone had given up on getting it to eat, and he raised it from a bottle and a rag. After that, the goat followed him around everywhere. They were nearly inseparable. One day, a man tried to cosh him over the head. The goat grabbed hold of his would-be assailant’s coat and held him back.”
“And did you see this?”
“No,” Crash admitted, “and the goat ate the coat, so there isn’t any evidence. But—”
A knock sounded on her door, and they both turned to look in its direction.
“You have a visitor,” Crash said slowly.
“How exciting.” A glimmer of a smile showed on Ree’s face. “Maybe it will be a goat. My very own personal watch-goat. Since they are so very much in vogue these days.”
Crash went to the door and opened it. There on the other side stood Daisy.
She looked weary. She looked beautiful. Her eyes were wide, her hair slipping out from under her bonnet. She must have been awake since the early hours of the morning.
She looked up as the door opened, and when she saw it was him, she gave him her shop girl smile—the one that occupied her lips, but not her heart, the one that was all faked politeness. It was the smile she’d give a man who was dallying in her shop at the end of the day.
It was an act. She’d always fooled him with the way she looked: so carefree, with that smile that said she was up to mischief. He’d let that lead him astray. He’d let himself make no such mistakes any longer.
“Ah.” He met her eyes. “How appropriate. We were just speaking of goats.”
He really shouldn’t goad Daisy. He knew he oughtn’t. He knew it was unkind, unfair—every un he should avoid. But he’d waited and waited for her. He’d expected that telegram in France every day for months.
I’m sorry. I need you. I love you.
He’d come back to discover that in his absence, she’d found another sweetheart.
So yes, he was annoyed with Daisy Whitlaw. Annoyed, frustrated, and…
Her chin squared. There was no mischief dancing in her eyes now. Just a fierce determination. She cradled a brown paper package in her two hands.
“Here,” she said. “I hope you’ll excuse my calling on you without a prior appointment, but Mr. Lotting said that you were here with your aunt. This is for her.”
His eyebrows rose.
She pushed the package into his hands. “You were right,” she said simply. “I feel terrible. I was angry about everything you said to me. I never thought through what I said to you. I…” She paused, then the false smile fell from her face. Her tone lowered. “I told you that I would forgive you for who you were, for what you did. That was unfair. It wasn’t even true. I didn’t forgive you. I was still sniping at you about those other things, even last week, which I oughtn’t have done if I had actually forgiven you.” She frowned and looked down. “I thought nothing could hurt you. I didn’t realize that I could.”
Crash could not have been more stunned.
Her cheeks were pink with emotion; she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I think I am discovering that I’m something of a horrid person who lies to herself. You were right about that, too.”
“Daisy.”
“No, don’t stop me. I can’t stop, or I’ll fall.” Her words came out in a rapid stream. “I lie to myself. I lie to myself all the time. I would apologize, but I don’t know how to stop. Women like me don’t get wishes granted. Instead we just keep making them and making them and making them, and what else I am to do…” She trailed off. “So.” She shook her head. “In any event, there. I’m sorry.”
His fingers closed around the package as she unceremoniously dumped it in his hand.
“Good-bye.” She turned to go.
He reached out and took hold of her elbow. “Wait. Daisy. That’s all. Really?”
“Really.” Her cheeks turned an even brighter red. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go…” She pointed out the door.
“You’re going to go where?” He felt somewhat stupid.
“Out there,” she said. “Just because you were right doesn’t mean I want to spend time with you. I may be a waste, but I’m my waste, thank you. Good-bye.” She said that last in a tone that brooked no denial. “I’ll see you for our appointment tomorrow, still, becau
se I haven’t stopped lying to myself. I can’t appear to give up on anything.”
He let go of her, and she turned and marched down the stairs.
He stared after her, his mind whirling. Of all the things he’d ever expected to happen, having Daisy apologize to him…
“What on earth was that?” Ree asked behind him.
Crash sighed and let the door close. “That was…a woman.”
“A woman.” His aunt said the words with care. “And does this woman have a name?”
“Daisy,” he muttered. “Daisy Whitlaw.”
“Ah. That woman. The one you said I should meet.”
“I…possibly, I….” He looked over at his aunt, who was watching him with her head tilted.
“It’s like this,” he said. “I was smitten with Daisy for a while.” He still felt stunned. “She is clever and kind and funny, and she never made me feel that I was beneath her. Not until…” He looked upward. “In any event, I thought we were of like mind. We were taken with each other. Then the inevitable happened, and after that, she found out about some of the things I’d done in the past, and she…”
Ree was watching him with a frown.
“To make a long story short,” he said, “we argued. She made it clear what she thought of my past, and I told her she was…” He couldn’t say those words. Not to his aunt.
“I heard what she said.” Her voice was cold. “You told her she was a waste?”
He’d heard that voice before. Not for years, but that warning tone could still make his blood run cold. “Aw, Ree. Not like that. It was more in the context of—”
“The context of the inevitable happening?” Ree frowned at him. “Do you mean that you had sexual intercourse with her?”
“I…” He frowned. “Yes.”
“And she’s been brought up to be a good little English girl, hasn’t she? Don’t lie; I can tell from her accent.”
“Yes, but—”
“So that was the context you refer to, then? ‘I know I just took your virginity; terribly sorry, but it was a waste of my time.’”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He winced. “It wasn’t— I didn’t— She was the one who overreacted in the first place.”
“Think of it from her point of view.” Ree folded her arms. “The way she talks—she has gentility in her background, does she not?”
He gave her a curt nod.
“So all her life, everyone has told her the only thing she has of value is her virginity. That she must guard it; that it’s the only thing she can sell to safeguard her security. And here you come. You overwhelm her.”
“I didn’t—”
“Oh, shut up, Crash,” his aunt said. “Don’t be stupid. Of course you overwhelmed her. She told you she loved you, I wager.”
He looked down. “Maybe. But I said it back, and—”
“And,” his aunt continued inexorably, “you idiot, you removed her of the one thing she’d been told had value, and you went right ahead and made her think everyone else had been right. That without it, she was a waste.”
He stared at her, appalled. “It wasn’t like that,” he said. “It wasn’t. There were other things that happened first. I offered to marry her.”
“Crash,” Ree said, “do shut your mouth and listen. Do you know how hard it was to raise you to believe you could be more?”
He stopped.
“Every day,” Ree said. “Every moment we had. Your grandmother, your uncle, my friends… Every day we had to sit you down and tell you. ‘He doesn’t know who you are; he’s accusing you of stealing because he can’t see you.’ Every damned day we had to drum it into you until you believed it.”
He put his hands in his pockets.
His aunt wasn’t finished. “Do you suppose anyone told her she was worth anything?”
He paused, and for a moment, he didn’t know how to answer. “But… She…”
“I’m sure she never had anyone think her a thief just by looking at her,” Ree said. “But men have thought her a great many other things. Including a waste.”
He had nothing to say to that. His aunt was right.
“So tell me,” she said. “Why did you pay attention to Miss Whitlaw in the first place?”
Crash swallowed. “The first time I saw her, she was defending her mother. Her mother has pains.” He indicated. “She tries to work, but, well…”
Ree nodded.
“Someone was accosting Daisy. Telling her that if she didn’t confront her mother about her malingering, she’d end up walking the streets.” He could almost remember that moment. “Daisy threatened to punch him in the kidneys to see if he could work while in pain.”
He could still see her, her hands on her hips. Do you know my mother, or do I? Then stop telling me what she’s doing. If you felt pain the way she did, you’d never leave your bed.
He shrugged and looked over at his aunt. “I…liked that. I wanted it. I wanted someone who was so loyal to me that she’d punch a man. And then I started talking to her, and she was…”
He stopped again.
“She was trying,” he said. “So hard, with so little, and I thought, this is someone who can understand what it was like to be me. Finally. To have to try so hard, and to not let anyone know how hard I was trying. And she understood. I thought she did.”
“Crash,” his aunt said quietly. She didn’t offer advice. She didn’t tell him he was wrong. She just looked over at him.
For a long moment, neither of them said anything.
He’d been holding on to his anger—righteous anger!—for so long. Daisy had forgiven him his existence, damn it all. She’d been as bad as that lady, telling him he was a sinner because…
No. She hadn’t been that bad. He frowned. He had this to complain about. She’d sent him away. She had found someone else.
He had told her she was a waste.
Maybe… Possibly…
Damn it. Under the circumstances, he’d have sent himself away, too.
He exhaled and looked at the package in his hands.
“There,” she said. “Now what do you have?”
He didn’t know. Slowly, he unwrapped it. Inside was a glass flask labeled carbolic acid. An india rubber ball was attached to a tube. He turned the ball and found a little opening.
She had found him a carbolic smoke ball. He had read an advertisement. This was supposed to rid a room of the fumes that caused pneumonia and influenza. He’d looked for one for days.
And Daisy had obtained one for him as an apology.
Oh, God. What was he doing?
Daisy was angry with him. Crash could tell by the way she smiled at him when she saw him the next evening—a cold, glittering smile that came from the quiet reserve of strength she always kept.
She came up to him at the bench near the canal. “I understand how it is supposed to be now.” She looked over at his velocipede leaning against a wall. “If you fall,” she said, “you get back on and go faster.” Her eyes were dark and steady. “You don’t think I can do it. Well, if this is my one chance to secure my fate, I should try to go faster.”
She’d leave him behind.
“Daisy.”
Her eyes cut to him. “I prefer Miss Whitlaw.”
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
“You owe me at least two.” She looked away from him. “Don’t worry; that’s one debt I don’t intend to collect. Now are we going back to the velocipede?”
“No. I wanted to show you something else today.” He gestured. “Come. Walk with me. We’ll get cold otherwise.”
She looked at him a moment, as if considering walking away. Finally, she took a few steps toward him. It was enough. They started down the gravel path, a sedate two feet apart.
“There’s a trick my grandmother taught me,” Crash said. “She got it from her mother. She told me to imagine I had a bubble around me. When someone said something about me—something harsh and untrue—she told me to push out on my bubble, t
o shove those words away. Someone said I had shifty eyes and was up to no good? That was his thought, not my reality. I had to push it away. I looked like the devil’s spawn? That was their belief, not my truth. It wasn’t inside my bubble, so I could push it all away. Don’t let anyone else’s rubbish inside your bubble, she would say.”
Daisy didn’t look at him.
“It was a good trick,” Crash said. “And when it became hard to believe that I was good for something, when everyone told me I was destined for the gallows, I just pushed harder. She taught me to let my mistakes just be mistakes. Not an indictment of my character.”
“Is that what I need to do?” Daisy asked. “Learn to push those thoughts away?”
“Yes,” Crash said. “And…no. Not yet. You see, you got inside my bubble. Back when we were something to each other. You said things, and I reacted the way I always had. I pushed. Hard. I pushed those thoughts away from me the only way I knew how.”
She didn’t look up at him.
“I sometimes forget how much of me is truly invisible. People have assumed I was wicked since before I could spell my name. They wouldn’t hire me on for respectable work, so I decided to use what they thought of me, and make a name for myself as fashionably unrespectable.”
Daisy nodded imperceptibly.
“People look at me and think only the devil will care about me. So I laugh off all their insults with my best devil-may-care attitude. I give the impression that nothing can ever hurt me, because that way…” He shrugged. “That way, fewer people try.”
She looked up at him. “I didn’t understand. I hadn’t thought it through. And…” Her eyes glittered just a little. “I think yesterday was the first time I understood that I hurt more than your pride. I am sorry.”
“So am I.” He wanted to take her hand. To tip her chin up. “I was at least as wrong. You didn’t have a bubble. You’ve never had anyone telling you what thoughts you could push away. Yes, you made a mistake. But so did I. All your life, they’ve been tossing rubbish at you, telling you that you had to believe it. Blaming you for not understanding it was rubbish. That was my mistake. I should have trusted you enough to explain, instead of dumping more garbage on your head.”
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