The back door swung open with a painful creak; its hinges had been shattered, broken by a boot or club. Ginger half clung to Gabriel, a shivering shadow, as they slowly walked over the threshold.
It was carnage. Curtains lay ripped from the windows; every object, every spoon and shoe and lowly piece of crockery had been torn, broken or smashed. Even the bunches of herbs had been pulled from their drying hooks, scenting the air with a sad, summer’s breath perfume as Gabriel picked his way through the wreckage.
“I dunno why they did it, sir,” Ginger whispered, his eyes darting to the corners of the room as if afraid that someone was still lurking there. “We don’t have anything.”
Gabriel silently agreed. He’d never taken it upon himself to visit Ginger’s dwelling. The boy had always seemed so sure of himself when he’d seen him around Hardcote, so full of cocksure arrogance—but Gabriel hadn’t seen the insecurity behind his eyes, the desperation.
It was clear, even looking beyond the devastation, that Ginger and his mother lived in dire poverty. Gabriel could smell it in the sour, freezing air; fires had gone unlit, clothes had gone unwashed, food had gone uncooked. Dirt had collected in the corners of the room, while cobwebs lay bundled in the fireplace.
Ginger and his mother were in dire need. How had he missed this? He’d been so caught up in fixing the most obvious problems, the most visible needs...and yet, a stone’s throw from his own front door, two people had been living one cold winter away from death.
If he had taken more time, he would have found them. If he had stepped back and considered the wider picture, instead of throwing every ounce of himself into the immediate suffering of others...
A low, hoarse rattle of breath sounded in the next room. Gabriel, having visited so many deathbeds, recognised it at once. A person was wounded, mortally so—but they knew that someone had arrived, and so were calling out for aid.
“Ginger.” He gripped the young boy’s shoulder firmly, trying to steady him. “You must run for the doctor.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I already came to you.” Ginger shook his head. “I’ll come back with the doctor and she’ll be—she’ll be—”
“Then I must go.”
“You can’t leave me.” Ginger clung to his shirt. “They might come back.”
Gabriel sighed. “Then we must tell a neighbour. Someone who can—”
“No. They’ve never helped before.” Ginger bit his lip, his eyes wet. “They won’t help now.”
A longer rattle came. They were losing time. Gabriel gently disentangled Ginger’s hands from his shirt, gently holding them as he spoke.
“Then I need you to stay here and keep watch. It’s very important that you don’t come in.”
“But I have to be with her.” Tears were running freely down Ginger’s face. “I have to.”
“Ginger...you saw what happened to your mother. You know she’s very badly hurt.”
“I know. But you can’t make that better, keeping me out here.” Ginger sniffed, his wet eyes wide and furious. “You can’t make it all right.”
Gabriel paused, debating with himself. It would hurt the boy, surely, to see his mother like this. He had to protect him, had to preserve whatever innocence was left.
But...but he couldn’t make this choice for Ginger. If he made him stay out here, unable to see, to understand, he would be denying Ginger something irreplaceable.
A last look at the woman who bore him, a last kiss. A final memory.
“You are right.” He looked at Ginger, who nodded furiously. “Forgive me. You...you know it will be very hard to see, yes? Are you ready?”
“No.” Ginger shrugged. “But nothing’s ever waited until I’m ready for it to happen.”
Gabriel squeezed his shoulder, reflecting on the surprising wisdom of children. “Understood. Follow me.”
He stepped into the next room, his boots crunching on broken glass. A figure lay huddled by the empty fireplace, breathing weakly, as the quiet sounds of the village filtered through the dirty windows.
Ginger’s mother was not long for this world. Death was etched into every line of her laboured face, her pallor the waxen white of someone about to cross the threshold. A small smear of blood sat at the corner of her mouth like a dark flower; she breathed in snatches, staring at the empty grate as if she could see a fire.
“Madam.” Gabriel spoke as softly as he could; the woman’s eyes met his, shocked. “It’s me. Mr. Winters. The vicar. I mean you no harm. I bring you your son.”
The woman heaved a shuddering sigh of relief, struggling to speak. “He...he is well? They didn’t take him?”
Gabriel moved to one side, revealing Ginger. As the boy ran to his mother, causing an ecstatic smile to bloom on the wounded woman’s face, Gabriel knew he had made the right decision.
He moved closer. “Please, if you can...tell me what happened here. Was it thieves?”
“Thieves?” The woman laughed painfully, coughing to wake the dead. “I... I’ve nothing for them.” She gripped Ginger’s wrist in her skinny hand, leaning on her son’s shoulder. “Only...only him. He’s always wanted him.”
Gabriel looked at Ginger, trying to understand what the woman meant. Ginger shrugged.
Who would do something like this, if not thieves? And who would want Ginger...understanding dawned, sudden and clear.
“Did the boy’s father do this?” Gabriel leaned forward. “I need his name, madam. I must inform the authorities. No man has a right to take his son in this manner.”
“I...no authorities.” The woman shuddered; the smear of blood at the corner of her mouth grew larger. “He has them in his pocket. He...he’ll have my Arthur down a well, or in a lime pit. He never wanted him to live, after he left.”
Gabriel stared at the woman, trying to conceal his shock. This was no doting father, then, determined to have his flesh and blood by his side. This was someone who wished to erase a mistake, a possible threat to power.
A noble, then. Ginger, or Arthur, had a noble for a father. He looked at the boy, into his blank, uncomprehending face, and wondered how on earth it had come about.
“I was such a fine one, back then.” No need to wonder; the woman was unburdening her soul as her mind slipped into darkness. “Common as muck, but I thought myself above...no commoner for a one such as I, oh, no.” She wheezed out a sad, soft little laugh. “I had to have the one nobody else could get. I got a position in his house. I dressed his wife.” A tear ran down her cheek. “Young girls, sir. We don’t know. We think we’re the whole world.”
Gabriel took the woman’s thin, pale hand, trying to massage some warmth into it. “God forgives.” Poor woman, still reeling with the pain of an ancient transgression. “Especially the young, and the foolish. He forgives all. Please know this.”
“I thought... I thought he loved me.” The woman’s smile brimmed over with pain and half-remembered ecstasy. “So quiet, so kind...oh, he treated me so well, sir. Just like the devil would, so much finery on the sly, so many rings and combs and kisses in corners...and oh, the letters he wrote. Beautiful things, things I could only half read, but still.” She kissed Ginger’s cheek, smiling through her tears. “He gave me my boy. And when I started to show, he found this place. Nice and quiet, out of the way. For us, he said.”
“And then you never saw him again.” Gabriel knew this story—knew it all too well. How many young women had ruined their lives, or had their lives ruined for them, by rakes who promised them the world and then vanished into the ether?
“Oh no, sir. You have it wrong. He came here.” The woman nodded. “He lived with us, here, on the quiet...our Arthur was but a babe in arms. All hidden, like. We told the neighbours he travelled for his bread, selling shoes and whatnot...no one asked. No one asked, and we were happy.” Ginger’s mother reached up to pat Ginger’s cheek, hissing sharply a
t the pain. “But...he never stayed long.” A new note of bitterness crept into her voice. “And then he stopped coming at all, once his wife managed to do her duty.”
Gabriel was silent, lost in memory. He had shadowed Mr. Welton for all those years, seen so many faces, attended so many births, christenings, weddings...he must have seen the face of this pitiless seducer, the nobleman playing a country-dweller as his wife languished in London. He must have seen this woman before, somewhere, before age and pain had altered her.
So many pleading faces, so many outstretched hands, begging for help...but no one recognisable among them. Not one.
“He made me...” Fresh tears were falling down the woman’s face. “I knew it was a sin, but he made me! He said he’d take Arthur, spirit him away, sell him to butchers! And the old vicar, God bless his soul, he knew. He looked at the coffin, and he knew, and he didn’t say a word.”
The rain-dashed wooden box filled Gabriel’s mind like a flash of lightning. The smell of heat and hops, the strange cold of the icehouse...the crying woman.
The crying woman’s face, now recognisable, sitting a stone’s throw away.
“You told everyone he’d died.” He spoke quietly, trying not to let blame enter his voice. “You found a coffin. You had a funeral.”
The woman’s smile was ghastly. “I buried all of us that day. All of us.” A bout of coughing seized her; she bent over, hacking up blood, and Gabriel ran to her side. “Condemned my soul. And he...not one whit, he cared! Forgot us! Left us to starve! He...oh, I could never sell what he had given me, they would have hung me for a thief...”
Gabriel hurriedly took the woman into his arms, shouldering her weight as Ginger sank to his knees. Her pulse was too fast now, dangerously so—no time to call a doctor. She was dying, gasping for breath, and he had to ease her passage. He had to usher her, soothed and calm, into the world that lay beyond.
But he also had to protect Ginger. To do that, he needed the name.
“Madam.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, aware that Ginger was listening intently. “Your soul is not condemned, I promise you this. But please...do not leave your son unprotected. Tell me who did this to you.” He thought of Edward with a painful wrench of regret. “I have well-connected friends. Friends who can help your boy.”
The woman began to mumble. Gabriel leaned closer, cradling her frail body in his arms, trying to catch the strained snatches of words. Most was gibberish, half-formed syllables, whistles of breath...but some words were startlingly clear.
“Elderberries...burnt cork when the berries are done, did you make the paste? Under the hat, there’s a love...oh, my lovely boy...”
Inexplicable. Or was it? A wheel was turning, somewhere in the back of Gabriel’s mind.
“I never had a fire, oh no, not here, in the kitchen but not here...too precious to stain, to smoke...” The woman’s breath hitched, rasping. “I... I had so...so many precious things...”
“Shh.” Gabriel placed his lips to the woman’s hair. “Go with Him. He is waiting.” Ginger’s head was buried in his hands, deep sobs racking his chest. “It’s all right.”
The woman’s eyes opened, staring at Gabriel with the bone-deep clarity of nearing death. Her voice was barely more than a breath. “Take care of him.”
With a last flutter of her eyelids, she slipped away.
“No!” Ginger’s hoarse cry plumbed the depths of his small body. He dropped the cudgel as he twisted his cap savagely in his hands, putting it to his face in an attempt to hide his tears.
Gabriel stared at the woman’s lifeless body, trying in vain to understand. There was something here, something that would help, or at least reveal...but it was lost, half-hidden in her last ravings.
He laid the woman gently on the floor, finding a small embroidered cushion to place underneath her head. “She is at peace.” He folded Ginger into his arms, trying to comfort the boy as he sobbed. “She is at peace.”
He smoothed down Ginger’s hair, stopping when a strange odour tugged at his nostrils. Something green and rank, like summer in a bottle...
Elderberries...burnt cork, when the berries are done...
Not quite believing it, he held his hand up to the ivy-patterned light coming through the window. His palm was streaked with black.
“Ginger.” Gabriel pulled away, taking in the boy’s face and features with a new, frantic focus. “Ginger, let me look at your head. Please. It’s important.”
Ginger, still sobbing, bent his head. Gabriel looked at the boy’s scalp closely; he had never seen the roots of his hair—Ginger always wore a cap...
Arthur. Ginger’s real name was Arthur.
The visible roots of Arthur’s hair were red, a bright, shining auburn. Just like...
Just like the rest of the Duke of Sussex’s sons.
“What am I going to do?” Ginger looked up at him, his face crumpled. “What is happening?”
“We are going to tell the people in the street, and clear all this mess up, and we are going to take your mother to the church. We are going to lay her out, all in flowers, and—and people will keep watch over her, to make sure no one comes in.” Ginger held the boy’s small hand, his mind still exploding at the enormity of it all. “We will hold a funeral soon, Ginger. But...but...”
He looked, frowning, at the fireplace. The fireplace that never held a fire...the back of the fire thickly overlaid with plaster, just like the strange, hollow spot in the library of Hardcote House...
Reaching down, never taking his eyes from his mark, he picked up the cudgel where Ginger had dropped it. With a single, shattering blow, Ginger’s terrified cry drowned out by the sound of cracking plaster, Gabriel smashed a fist-sized hole into the fireplace that filled the room with dust.
Something shone in the darkness. Sparkled, in fact.
“Mister.” Ginger’s sob-laden voice was full of shock. “Are they diamonds?”
Chapter Forty-Four
First came Ginger. The boy was so fraught with grief and surprise, his sadness approaching hysteria, that Gabriel was forced to give him a few spoonfuls of whisky mixed with milk. The alcohol, and the exhaustion that came from severe emotional strain, meant that Ginger was sleeping in his arms in little more than half an hour.
Then came the difficult, sorrow-laden work that came with his calling. After putting a screen over the fireplace and moving Ginger to the lumpy cottage bed, Gabriel began knocking on doors; people quickly emerged, cautiously happy to see him, asking if it were true that he had triumphed over smallpox. When brought to the cottage and forced to see the horror within it, many wept.
“I heard a commotion last night.” An elderly man spoke low to Gabriel, clearly ashamed. “But I did nothing...the woman was always so haughty. She kept to herself.”
“Yes.” The man’s wife spoke, flashing a significant look at Gabriel. “And without speaking ill of the dead, Reverend...”
“So do not.” Gabriel’s words came out harsher than he had meant them; the woman looked down, chastened. “Someone alert Carstairs. We must clean this place, and take her to the church.”
The man looked at him, astonished. “The church? Why not here?”
“Because she wasn’t safe here.” Gabriel looked at the small, hunched body, and fought a wave of guilt that threatened to engulf him. “She should have been safe at the church in life—let her be safe in death, at least.”
The village folk looked as if they wanted to speak of it. But under Gabriel’s watchful eye they cleaned, and repaired, and carried the body of Ginger’s mother to the church as gently as if she had been a noblewoman. Some of the Hardcote women had stroked Ginger’s hair as he lay sleeping.
Caroline arrived in the last stages of the cleaning, her face white, her hair hastily arranged. Gabriel, once the last person had left Ginger’s squalid cottage, drew her into the newly cle
an space.
“I know you wish to discuss what occurred earlier—but what has occurred here is most pressing now.” He spoke low, mindful of Ginger sleeping in the other room.
“Mrs. Weston and Mr. Bright told me that there was some sort of violence committed here. His...his mother.” Caroline looked anxiously at Ginger through the doorway. “Is he all right?”
“As well as can be expected.” Gabriel took hold of his sister’s hand and led her to the fireplace.
“Not too well, then.” Caroline’s eyes narrowed. “Is... What’s happened to his hair? It looks markedly different without the hat.”
“Also important. Crucial.” Gabriel pushed aside the screen that obscured the fireplace, kneeling. Caroline knelt next to him, her face the very picture of confusion. “But this...”
He gingerly put his hand into the hole his cudgel had made, pulled out a fistful of what lay within, and gently scattered them on the bare floor of the cottage.
“Oh...” Caroline’s eyes widened, the glitter of the Madingley diamonds making her face sparkle in the waning afternoon light. “Oh, Gabriel.”
“I know. It’s beginning to make sense.” Gabriel turned to his sister, his voice betraying his nerves. “But you know what we must do, now.”
Caroline sighed harshly. “I said terrible things, you know. I stamped my foot—I slapped His Grace. I shocked everyone terribly.” She looked mutinous. “Do not ask me to forgive anyone.”
“I won’t.” Gabriel tried to smile but failed. “But we have to go back. With Ginger in tow, and everything here. To...to end it.” He looked around at the cottage. “And to make sure Sussex’s men don’t hurt anyone else.”
“I shall ask the women to keep vigil at the church until we return, and see that Carstairs makes the correct arrangements.” Caroline rose, one hand to her chest as she caught her breath. “I will be very glad when this had ended. For good.”
The Vicar and the Rake (Society of Beasts) Page 23