Winterking (1987)
Page 5
into the seat beside Houseman,
The Duke shook his head. He would see Houseman
fired. He could do that much. It’s a different world, the Duke
thought sadly. Nothing will make it the same. But all at once
he felt that he had got it wrong.
He cocked his head with a slightly puzzled air.
The pale light fell on Joseph’s dark face.
It hadn’t even occured to the Duke to confuse the matter
with family resemblance. He had looked and he knew. In that
he had not been mistaken. His Grace was nearly invisible in
the darkness but he stepped deeper into the shadow. I must
be getting old, he thought. And yet, he was almost smiling as
he saw the two young men in the window, William with
Joseph’s face, Houseman with a face that once might have
been his own.
How then is the world different, the Duke wondered, if
the years are nothing and there is no time?
5.
At first the train moved slowly, crawling past docks and
shipyards. Twenty minutes from Water Street Station
Wykeham could still see the outer reaches of New Awanux,
the slums gone, but the buildings no less slovenly. For a time
the tracks left the river, and the train, now rocking gently,
clattered past derelict houses. It depressed him to think of the
men who must live there, men he imagined who rose early,
starting out along the edges of the roads in darkness to walk
to the mills at the city’s heart. The great trains sped by them
but there was never enough for the fare.
His thoughts made him restless and he was pleased
when at last the river swung back into view. Far out in the
channel he saw by the lamps hung from their cabins the small
black shapes of trawlermen returning late from the bay. He
found as always a sort of reassurance in the fact that there were
yet some men who steered their own lives. They would ride
down into the bay again in the morning, just as fishermen had
done for thousands of years and would do for thousands more.
The thought comforted him. Perhaps they were not
entirely free, for the sea bound them, but they were as free
as men needed to be. He understood such men for he had
spent the greatest part of his life in crossing the oceans.
Helped by the memory, he stared once more into the
dark. Because he was thinking, he did not hear at first the
words of the man sitting next to him.
“Barnum,” Houseman repeated, “Phineas T. Barnum, to
set it out whole.”
Wykeham looked perplexed.
Houseman allowed himself the satisfaction of a grin.
Even by his own harsh standards he had to admit, given the
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little time there had been to manage things, he had performed
a miracle. But now that he had secured Wykeham’s notice,
Houseman waited. There was a great deal to be discovered
about Wykeham and it was best to be careful.
Wykeham recognized that look. The first months with a
new man were always dangerous. At the start, as good a man
as His Grace had made foolish errors. His strength was that
he learned from them. Toward the end, in some few matters
Wykeham had even begun to trust his judgment, although it
was backed by less experience, as much as his own.
But in this the Duke had failed. Already the prohibition
had been violated.
He will be disappointed, Wykeham thought, that his last
decision did not do him credit. Still, Wykeham hoped for the
best. He even smiled, lightly, because Houseman, who had
smiled once, was now trying very hard not to.
“Barnum?” he asked.
“Surely you’ve heard of him— the man with the circuses,”
Houseman answered. “I rented the stable car from his agent
in Bridgeport. Where else was I to find one large enough?”
Then despite the best of his intentions he broke into a grin.
“They use it, he told me, for shipping elephants.”
Wykeham turned. “Painted red I would gather.”
Houseman nodded. “With large yellow letters.” Hearing
himself, his smile vanished. “ ‘The Greatest Show on Earth,’ ”
he said softly. He could imagine what Wykeham was thinking. “But— ” he began.
“But?”
“It’s dark,” Houseman filled in quietly. “We loaded in
the dark as well. It was after midnight, yesterday. Or this
morning really. Too dark to see the hand in front of your face.
The car went right into the barn. The tracks were there just
as you said they would be. Apparently had been for years
although you coidd see they served no purpose. Hadn’t any,
until that is— ”
Wykeham watched the sudden change in his expression.
At least he isn’t stupid, Wykeham thought, not very much
relieved.
Houseman was no longer quite looking at him. “Well,
whatever it is went in by itself and no one’s the wiser. I
closed the doors myself.” He managed to turn toward
Wykeham. “I was there,” he said without apology. “Someone
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responsible had to be. And I saw to it,” He waited. “But even
I couldn’t tell you what was in there.” He waited again. “In
any event,” he said, “now it’s done. And it will be with you in
Devon.”
“It’s a horse,” Wykeham said although the question had
not been asked directly. “A rather peculiar and rather unusually
large horse,” he said in answer to the unasked question that
followed.
Houseman kept his hands in his lap and nodded.
“You realize,” Wykeham said without a trace of awkwardness, “that you should not have come.”
“His Grace said,” Houseman started but he saw that led
nowhere. “There are things that will need doing at the other
end. Arrangements. . . ”
“Which I shall see to. Or others will. I am not without
resources. Letters were written. I already have at Greenchurch,
I believe, several dozen men in my employ. New men, I will
grant you. Like yourself, untested— ”
Houseman looked pale.
“Of course, I recognize you acted out of the best of
intentions,” Wykeham added. “And I have always appreciated
a certain zeal. I expect that His Grace saw that in you.
Perhaps, when you return, you will have another talk with
him. I shall write you. You may trust to that. But for the time
being— ”
Houseman knew enough to stand.
“Make certain you look up His Grace,” Wykeham said
by way of good-bye.
The evil rumblings in Houseman’s stomach told him all
too clearly he was going to be ill. He lurched down the aisle
heading for the next car, only stopping a moment outside the
lavatory. He rattled the handle desperately but the door was
locked.
There are pieces which belong in the puzzle, their
curious irregularity perfectly matching the oddly shaped hole
in the left corner, their unexpected shading the exact color of
sunlight on dark foliage, pieces which nevertheless are set
aside at the outset and only rediscovered after searching and
anguish. So Nora, who had begun looking for portents in
dreams, had taken the ten-pound note from the drawer in
The l^ver
35
anticipation of nothing, simply because she felt she had
earned it.
She had never intended to follow him. When the letter
had come, she had set out merely to discover whether the
ticket was real and not a joke in cranky repayment for having
asked him to pay once more for what had already been paid
for. For if in fact their meeting had been destined, she had
not recognized the first stirrings of the thought until, fleeing
from the vulgar insinuations of the ticket agent, she had come
upon the young man once again at the station. Without
looking I have seen him twice, she had thought, as though
twice was lucky and a sign. And so, even as near as she was to
the beginning, she had missed the start. She had taken the
ten-pound note not knowing she would or that she would
have need of it, but remembering perhaps that it was more
than she had ever taken into the streets of Bodp. It was not
until she had mounted the steps of the train that she realized
that while ten pounds would more than cover the fare, it
would leave her less for all the uncertainty that must surely
come after.
The first time the conductor came through he collected
no tickets. Nora stared out the window waiting to be certain
he had gone, keeping her face turned so he would not
remember it. But it was that face, before her journey had
ever started, that Harwood had seen from the platform and
would remember though the year was nearly over when he
next saw her, running across the snow-covered lawn, down
from the great house at Greenchurch, though her hair would
then be golden.
Before the conductor returned she had locked herself in
the lavatory. Later, someone had stood outside and rattled the
handle frantically. She could hear little gulping sounds. But
eventually whoever it was had gone away.
The train made its first stop at Stratford, which the
Indians had called Cupheag, and the next at Metichanwun,
whose name, for no more reason than they had rejected the
other, the English had kept. They were small towns and few
passengers either left the train or joined it. The conductor
hadn’t bothered to come through punching tickets until just
before Bristol. Four miles out, when the train came onto the
flats by the river, one could sometimes see the tall smoke
36
WINTERKING
stacks of the factories. But the furnaces no longer burned at
night. They made clocks in Bristol and the demand for clocks
had diminished. Even at this hour there would be men on
the platform waiting to board the train, workmen with their
families, their few belongings packed. From up the river,
from Devon, there had come rumors of work.
The conductor paused before Wykeham and asked for his
ticket.
"You’re the gentleman with the circus car,” the conductor said, not quite making it a question for he had seen how the young man was dressed and now that he had been
through the cars he had found no one else who looked likely
to have been able to afford the expense.
Wykeham turned slightly.
"You wouldn’t mind saying what it is you have in there,”
the conductor said carefully, not certain as yet whether the
young man was being rude or whether he had been dozing.
The conductor rested his arm on the back of the seat.
“You’re too young a fella to remember perhaps,” he said.
“But the circuses used to come through here quite often.
Years back, when times were better. And, of course, they
would stop at Bristol. Then on up the line to Ohomawauke.
Queer name, Ohomawauke— Indian.” He seemed to think of
something else. “But then the circuses brought queer folk
too. You’re not, by the way— I mean you’re not dressed
like. . . ”
Wykeham looked disinterested. “Horses,” he said matter-
of-factly.
“Rather a large car for horses,” the conductor said testily,
beginning to take offense.
“Large horses,” Wykeham answered.
“The windows all boarded up.”
“— And blind.”
The conductor took Wykeham’s ticket, punched several
small holes in it, and, muttering, went hurriedly on. He had
no intention of coming back to speak to the young man.
Certainly he would not have except for the second young man
in the car after who when he tried to wake him he found was
dead. There was no need to go through his pockets. Unfolded
in his lap was the rental agreement for the circus car. There
were three names on the paper, one clearly that of the
business agent for the circus and two others.
The River
3 7
*
*
*
The train was held in Bristol for a little under an hour.
Two policemen, who arrived at once, stared defiantly at the
corpse rather as if it deserved most of the blame, turned its
head, felt for a pulse and asked questions of the nearest
passengers. A woman said that she had thought the man was
drunk. She said:
“He kept on making little coughing noises. And mumbling. Not that it made sense, you understand. I could tell he wasn’t right.” She shook her head with knowing sadness. “But
don’t his eyes look odd,” she said.
The policemen were not distracted.
“Do you remember the words exactly?” the sergeant
asked.
“Just foolishness.”
The sergeant tugged at his belt importantly. “We shall be
the judge of that,” he told her.
“The world’s coming apart,” the woman answered softly.
She was a small tense woman. She seemed about to blubber.
The sergeant stood in front of the corpse so she would
not have to stare at it. “Yes,” he said in a calming tone, not
looking at her but at the other policeman. "These things can
be difficult. If you would just— ”
“No!” the woman said with a sudden fierceness. “It’s
what the poor man said. The world's coming apart, coming
apart. Over and over.”
It was the doctor who asked if anyone knew the man. So
it was not until then that the conductor, who had already
thought of it but who had not been asked, went into the other
car and came back with Wykeham. A shadow of stern regret
passed over his features.
“This is Mr. Houseman,” the conductor said, guessing
from the names he had read on the paper and introducing the
young man to the policemen.
The policemen shook hands with Wykeham. They had
not thought of that before either. They had sons who were
older, but somehow, looking at the young man, you did.
“That, I am sorry to say, is Houseman,” Wykeham
corrected th
em. Something caught the corner of his eye.
Wykeham stopped, fished under the seat and, retrieving a
piece of paper, presented it to the sergeant. “We were
traveling together from New Awanux,” he told them. “He
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WINTERKING
was only newly in my employ.” Wykeham looked down at the
collar buttoned firmly around the throat of the dead man. A
fragment of straw clung to the starched white cloth. He
brushed it off. “Understandably we rode separately.” Only his
eyes betrayed his grief. “I wish he had told me he was ill,” he
said.
The passengers kept edging nearer and had to be shooed
away. The doctor had closed the dead man’s shirt and was
wiping his fingers on his handkerchief. Death, he told them,
was the result of heart failure or shock, or perhaps both.
Unusual in a young man but it happened.
There was not much else to be done. The body was
taken off. Shortly afterward Wykeham himself left the train to
telegraph the bank. He left instructions for someone to travel
out on the next train and ride back with the body. At the
funeral there would be a lavish array of flowers and a card
signed in his own hand. Houseman, it would be discovered,
to the surprise of his family, had purchased a generous
insurance policy for which his parents, because there had
been no wife, were beneficiaries. Death always leaves loose
ends. But those which could be tidied up would be.
In something short of an hour the new passengers were
permitted onto the train. In the confusion Nora came out of
the lavatory. The window in the cubicle had been painted
over and she had sat in the little space, her knees drawn up,
unable to look out. Over the course of the journey persons
unknown had banged at the door and wrenched the handle.
To make matters worse she had begun to hear whispers about
policemen. She had been frightened and she was now more
than willing to pay the fare from wherever she now was. But
though she sat in the open, no one thought to ask for it.
II.
The Hill and the
Tower
1
.
The error in the maps of that time seemed to arise both
from the limitations in the knowledge of the world of the