The Dark Unwinding

by Cameron, Sharon

  “Yes, indeed.”

  I looked to the head of the Lower Village. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know your name.”

  “Mr. Waycroft, Miss.”

  “How many of our supplies were destroyed by the flood, Mr. Waycroft?”

  “Everything that was down there, Miss, though the Upper Village carries the bulk of things.”

  “Have we any working boats?”

  “A few, though not all.”

  “Then that is a priority. Put together a crew of men to round up and repair the boats, so the supplies will not be interrupted. Can we get them to the river?”

  He bobbed his head, and I addressed the group.

  “Is the water level rising, falling, or is it remaining the same, gentlemen?”

  No one answered immediately. “It’s dropped about three feet since yesterday, Miss Tulman,” Lane said. “But has held steady since.”

  “I see. Have we any notion of how the Lower Village might be drained? We have underground places that must be emptied immediately….” I stopped for a moment, while various phases of bemusement passed over the row of faces in front of me. The thought of the water-filled tunnel was almost more than I could bear. Mr. Waycroft spoke up.

  “My understanding, Miss Tulman, is that the canal was made to be closed off and emptied, in case of repair. If we could empty the canal, and then cause the floodwater to drain into the canal, possibly by digging ditches, we should be able to lower the water level, at least.”

  I smiled at him. “Mr. Waycroft, please see if any others think this might work, or if we have anyone else that might have expertise in such a matter. If you get a consensus, then you have my permission to begin work immediately.” Mr. Waycroft bobbed his head. “Now, is there anything I haven’t considered, gentlemen, or that might need my attention immediately?”

  There was a chorus of shaking heads, though Mr. Lockwood’s stance was unchanged. His eyes were boring a hole through me. I looked away from him, and stood.

  “Then I will see Mrs. Brown and to my own preparations. Parson, would you please speak to those that are waiting here in the church and make my instructions known?”

  “Gladly, Miss Tulman.” He smiled broadly at me. “I’ll see to it at once.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I gave him a curtsy and I walked away through the crowd, head up, Mrs. Jefferies sailing in my wake. I only hoped none of them knew that my knees were trembling.

  And they trembled periodically for the rest of the morning, my hands with them, though not from fear or nervousness, but for reasons I did not understand. I sat with Mrs. Brown in the infirmary, quivering fingers hidden in the folds of Mary’s skirt, and between the two of us we concocted a plan to provide housing and provisions, and to wring as much order from the situation as was possible. Mary joined us, crushing me with one brief, fierce hug about the neck, then came back to the big house to help Mrs. Jefferies search out the most suitable rooms for temporary housing.

  The lowest wing we found to be partially flooded, the corridor to the ballroom standing in water and showing an even higher mark on the walls, and I wanted no one near Marianna’s rooms — to spare my uncle — or anywhere near the chapel, which I considered a tomb. But in the end I was able to send word to Mrs. Brown to increase the number of families sleeping in Stranwyne to twenty. In most cases the rooms were not much, but there was at least a roof and a fireplace.

  The rest of the afternoon was spent making pot after pot of soup, none of which I could eat, and while the fourth pot boiled, my entire body began to quake from the inside out. I made an excuse to Mrs. Jefferies, left the kitchen quietly, and as soon as I was in the corridor fled to the room of the ornaments, where I could cower on the yellow settee and be alone with my tremors. Fourteen minutes ticked away before my fear of sinking back into my nightmares ebbed. I closed my eyes, trying to rest, and remembered our neighbor in London, a man who would shake when short of his daily requirement of whiskey and beer. Perhaps my body was craving the missing ingredients in my tea. Or maybe my grief and guilt were just so intense that I was sick with it.

  It was full dark when I left the last scrubbed pot upside down on the dishcloth, pushed open the kitchen door, and went outside, every inch of me aching with weariness. I’d been thinking while I scrubbed, planning my coming days, and the thought of what I must do next left me bleeding inside, a slow trickle that I knew would never let me sleep, no matter how tired. The garden was alive with moon shadow and night whisperings, and then I saw that one of the shadows was Lane. I heard his feet coming to me on the gravel, watched as the tops of his muddy boots stopped in front of mine. I kept still, eyes on the ground, dreading my next bout of pain.

  At length he said, “Last night I was told, in no uncertain terms, that if I ever said a cross word to you again, the devil would burst from the ground, grab me by the ankles, give a good yank, and drag me straight back with him.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Your aunt is very … enthusiastic in her likes and dislikes.”

  “True.”

  “She told you … everything?”

  “Yes.” The wind eddied through the garden, setting leaves and stalks in motion. He let the breezes die down before he said, “Opium, then?”

  I nodded.

  “And at the party, you got too much?”

  “I think so … yes.” I still had not looked him in the face. He thrust his hands in his pockets and sighed.

  “You did well today, at the village. After you left, Lockwood had Mr. Cooper backed in a corner, waving that signed paper in his face until the man shook like a fly on a string.” He paused. “We found Mr. Bell from the gasworks, but … that’s all. The way the current was moving I guess Ben could have gone down to the river, before the wall came down. I didn’t see him when I was diving, but the water was murky.” I watched the toe of Lane’s boot move a piece of gravel back and forth. “Aunt Bit said that … you were with him.”

  He was speaking of Davy now. I could hear the grief in his voice, and it tripled my own. I nodded again, silent. We studied the cabbages in the dark.

  “I went to the rose garden,” he said finally, “and saw the broken glass.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You’re hurt,” he said, reaching for my cut hand.

  “It’s nothing.” I crossed my arms, and said quickly, “I want you to know that it wasn’t his fault. Davy, and the opium, I mean. He didn’t want to. Ben was … he was making him.”

  Lane put his hands back in his pockets, and I listened to the long, slow release of his breath. His anger seemed to have the ability to change the air. I could feel it on my skin. But he only said, “And you’re certain that he wanted that fish to explode, and that he was taking it to Paris?”

  “Yes. The stuff was like cotton that hasn’t been spun, and it had blown a hole in the floor of the cellar. There was a cask of it on the boat. I suppose that’s what … And Ben told me once that France was making ships encased in iron, ships that could not be sunk with cannon fire.”

  Lane ran a hand through his hair, thinking perhaps, as I was, of how the iron boiler of the steamboat had flown into the air in pieces. “My father,” he said slowly, “he used to talk all the time about the war, and the sea battles between the British and French. If France had had ships that England couldn’t sink, or if they could’ve sunk all of England’s, then …”

  Then this garden would have belonged to France. All of Britain would have belonged to France, and Europe with it. I understood it well. I remembered Ben’s look of satisfaction when he’d said that ideas could be rewarding. “I think he was expecting to be very rich, indeed,” I whispered. And then I shuddered. That other look of satisfaction had come unbidden to my mind, when Ben had kissed me and then thrust me aside, just before his almost friendly suggestion of my suicide. The tension I could sense in the shadows before me suddenly intensified.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  I shook my head, and the shape in the darknes
s came nearer, until I could smell the river water and silt and the unmistakable scent that was Lane. He reached again for my hands, and against every wish of my being I took one small step back. He stopped and went very still.

  “I see,” he said simply.

  I closed my eyes. How I wished I’d never come to Stranwyne Keep. Mrs. Jefferies had been right. I had been the one to make it difficult. I had ripped myself into tiny pieces, and a hundred years at Aunt Alice’s could have never hurt me so badly. But my course was now set.

  “When Mr. Babcock arrives,” I said, measuring my words, “he will manage the arrangements for repairs.”

  I could feel the gray gaze on my closed eyelids. “And then you will go,” he said.

  “Yes. I’ll do as he asked from the beginning. I’ll go back to my aunt and tell her as many lies as I can think of. It won’t last for long, but I will make it last … for as long as I can.”

  “Katharine,” the low voice said.

  I opened my eyes. I couldn’t help it. The wind gusted around my back.

  “I would have taken care of you. Both of you.”

  I looked back into his shadows, at the dark brows and unshaven chin, and knew with the same unyielding certainty as on the night of my birthday that Lane was telling me the truth. He would have cared for us as long as we needed him, and not only for the sake of my uncle. He would have done it for me. “I know,” I whispered. “I know you would have. And now, let me do the same for you, and for Uncle Tully. There’s nothing more important than keeping my aunt away from Stranwyne Keep.”

  Instead of answering, he came nearer, near enough that I could hear his breath, feel the cool of the darkness change with his warmth as a hand came near my cheek. I took a step back, my insides splitting in two, and then took another, and another before I broke into a run for the kitchen. When I put my hand on the latch, I heard him coming after me, fast on the gravel. I yanked open the door, not wanting him to make it any harder than it was, not wanting him to see me cry, but my gaze went straight to Mary. She was pressed flat against the kitchen wall, eyes round amid the freckles, her chin jerking frantically toward the hearth. I turned, and up from the smoky shadows rose Alice Tulman.

  I stood absolutely still, my breath cut short, the shock of seeing my aunt in that moment, in that kitchen, like a physical blow. Lane ran up behind me, grabbing my shoulder as if he would turn me around, but he stopped, and I could feel him near my back, tense and unmoving. He dropped his hand.

  “Katharine,” Aunt Alice said.

  She could put many meanings into my name. She could say, “You shock me,” “You disappoint me,” and “You are a worthless excuse for a person,” all with two simple syllables. It was efficient of her, really, and jarring compared to the way I had last heard that word spoken in the garden. But it brought me back to myself. We had lost, everything was lost, but despair would have to be dealt with later.

  “Aunt,” I replied. “What a surprise to see you here.”

  “I’m sure,” she purred.

  I came into the kitchen and untied my kerchief. “Please, do sit down, Aunt. You must have had a tiring journey.”

  She took in my state of dress, and then Lane, dirty and wild-headed, filling the darkness of the doorway to the lintel, and lowered herself back into the chair. I saw she was sitting on the very edge of it, to save the purity of her traveling costume, and I vowed to keep her there as long as possible. It gave me pleasure to imagine her with an aching arse. Lane shut away the night noises of the garden and came to stand beside me, arms crossed.

  “Aunt, this is Mr. Moreau. Mr. Moreau, this is my aunt, Mrs. Tulman. Mr. Moreau is my uncle’s … apprentice, Aunt.”

  Lane inclined his head slightly, and Aunt Alice just deigned to do the same. Mary was still jerking her neck at me, this time toward the corridor. Evidently she had something to say.

  “And I suppose you have met Mary Brown, my maid. And hello, Hannah. I had not seen you there.” On the hearth stool in the corner was poor Hannah, Aunt Alice’s personal maid, whom I’d always suspected of lasting so long in my aunt’s service because she was so very good at cringing. She gave me a weak smile.

  “Dear Katharine,” my aunt said, straightening the lace at her sleeve. “You are quite friendly with the help here. How pleasant. But I must admit I am concerned by your appearance, my pet. You seem to have been in some sort of accident. It was truly kind of you not to write and tell me all about it. Obviously you wished to spare me worry on the subject.”

  I’d forgotten the cut on my forehead. I smiled at her. “I am always happy to spare you any discomfort, Aunt. And indeed, I do wish that you could have written to me …”

  Aunt Alice raised a carefully plucked brow.

  “… so that we could have been best prepared for your comfort now.” I glanced again at Mary, who I truly thought might injure her neck, while Lane’s appraising gaze moved back and forth between all of us. “Excuse me for one moment, Aunt. Mary and I will just discuss the preparations for your room.”

  Mary was out the door like a shot, and I ignored my aunt’s indignation to follow, Lane coming just behind. Mary pulled us both down the corridor as soon as the kitchen door was shut.

  “What to do, Miss, what to do? I was coming down to get you and what do I find but her ladyship in the kitchen!”

  “All right, Mary. I know.” A stampede of village children came down the hall then, seven of them breaking around us like a wave as they played a game of chase through the corridors. If Aunt Alice was listening at the door, I hoped their noise might mask our conversation. “We’ll just have to put her in my room, it’s the only decent one in the house, and —”

  “But Miss! It’s Mr. Tully! He —”

  I turned to Lane. “Is there anywhere else he would be comfortable? He can’t be near her….”

  “Miss!” Mary was nearly jumping up and down with impatience. “I’m trying to tell you Mr. Tully won’t talk. He won’t even move, Miss! I was checking on him this morning, and then this afternoon, and I thought to myself, ‘My, how he’s sleeping!’ But now he’s just lying there, staring and staring, and … I think he may have,” her voice dropped to less than a whisper, “soiled the bedclothes, Miss!”

  I stared at her, then looked to Lane.

  “I thought he was sleeping earlier, too,” Lane said, and so had I. Had he really not left that bed all day? My feet moved, taking me straight to my uncle, but Lane put out a hand.

  “No. Deal with her.” He glanced toward the kitchen. “You’re the only one that can. I’ll go to Mr. Tully.”

  I bit my lip. He was right. “But what could be wrong with him?”

  The gray eyes looked full into mine. “You know. The workshop is gone.”

  Now that all I wanted in the world was to save my uncle, everything I did seemed bound to destroy him. “Mary,” I said after a moment, “run down to Mrs. Jefferies’s cottage and tell her what has happened. Between the two of you find somewhere for my aunt to sleep and fix it up as best you can. I don’t care if there are six children in there already, just make it at the opposite end of the house from my uncle. I’ll keep her in the kitchen as long as possible. And tell Mrs. Jefferies to bring breakfast to the drawing room at seven sharp. To the drawing room, mind you, and have a fire built there.”

  “I’ll do that,” Lane offered.

  “We don’t want her wandering the house if we can help it. Perhaps we can feed her and she’ll go.” But I knew this was not so. My aunt smelled blood, and she was ready to spill it. “And let’s keep Mr. Lockwood away, too, if we can. No one but the three of us, and Mrs. Jefferies, is to know where my uncle is, is that clear? If they cannot find him, they cannot take him. Are we clear?”

  Mary nodded, saucer-eyed, and started at a trot back the way she had come.

  “I’ll come up as soon as I can,” I told Lane, and took exactly one step back toward the kitchen before he reached out and took my face in his hands. Before I could think or even spe
ak, he had his lips on mine, my head held so tight that I could not have gotten away if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t want to. My arms wound around his neck, my fingers twining into his hair, and faintly I heard Mary’s snort of “Lord!” come from somewhere down the hallway. His hold on my face gentled, and he let go of me first, reaching back to untangle my fingers.

  “Go, now,” he said, and put his lips once to my forehead. It was like a benediction, in case that chance should never come again.

  I watched him sprint away to my uncle, my breath coming hard, and when he’d disappeared into the darkness of the corridor, I turned and found Aunt Alice in the doorway to the kitchen. Her mouth wore a tight, pinched little smile, a smile that told me just how much she’d seen, and just how much she was going to enjoy taking everything away from me. I lifted my chin, and she let me brush past her, back into the kitchen.

  “I was just telling my dear niece what a free and easy way you have here at Stranwyne. It’s all so very friendly, indeed.”

  Mrs. Jefferies was in the kitchen now, evidently of the opinion that I needed protection from my aunt more than Mary needed help with a bedchamber. She’d come straight from her cottage in her dressing gown and with her hair half-pinned.

  “Of course it is!” Mrs. Jefferies huffed, busily removing dishes from my aunt’s reach. “Our little Katie’s a right friendly girl!”

  She patted my cheek as she passed, and I tried not to grimace. Bless her, but she was not helping my cause. Aunt Alice simpered, her small eyes on me.

  “So it seems. I am so looking forward to informing Mrs. Hardcastle and the other ladies of the very special friends you have made during your stay. I’m sure they will enjoy hearing of it very much.”

  I met her gaze with equanimity. The children from earlier were somewhere above us now, jumping up and down on the floor, little bits of dried onion skin floating down from the braids on the ceiling to decorate my aunt’s hair. I picked up her teacup. “Do you still take two lumps in your tea, Aunt?”