Pumpymuckles

by JayneFresina

"Not really. I was not raised in a convent. I know what goes on in the world. But I am surprised she would tell you all that. Confess to it so readily."

  "She's quite shameless is our Lucretzia. Money drives her. I do admire her ability to thrive, but I don't believe happiness should be traded for wealth. For me, the latter can be the way to the former, but it cannot replace it. If I had to chose between them, I'd go with happiness. That's why it could never last between us."

  Relief trickled through her, but she kept her gaze on the windows of houses they passed. Almost all had their curtains drawn against the cold night, but occasionally there was a glow of lamplight, and the slight glimpse of a holly wreath or pine bough looped across a mantle.

  "What of your blood family, Mr. Hart?"

  "I've not been home since I were sixteen. I wrote to my mother, sent her some money for a few years, but then I heard she'd died."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Everybody dies, don't they? In any case, my brothers and sisters will all be long grown and fled the nest by now. I doubt they'd know me, or I them. There were thirteen of us."

  "A large family!"

  "Yes. My ma married a no-good bastard and paid for it dearly. We all did. Before she married she were a Deverell."

  He said the name as if she should know it. "Oh."

  "My father treated her as badly as he treated us. Was never around when needed, but always showed up when he weren't." His profile was stern, lamplight revealing the rugged chin and slightly flattened bridge of his nose. "What about your family, Greene?"

  "I am an only child. And unexpected. My parents had me late in life, when they had given up on the idea of children." Not that she was certain they'd ever had such an idea.

  "But you were well loved, educated, cosseted?"

  "In many ways, yes." Her mother had difficulty showing it, but Ever knew she was loved. For some reason she knew it now more than she had done while at home. Could it be that proximity made it harder to see the truth? With distance one could look back and cast a clearer eye over the whole picture.

  "Schools?" he asked.

  "I was tutored at home, by my father mostly. Books were my life." It meant that she had very few friends her own age, which she had always regretted, but what else could be done? Her unpredictable "illness" had made it impossible to live the life she might have liked, for her parents seldom let her out of their sight. Not after Cromer. There were organized afternoon visits with the neighbors and their offspring, but Ever always felt ill at ease with children her own age and they thought her "odd". On the other hand, left alone with a book, she could disappear into another world— one in which she was free to observe without being called upon to join in, and without being criticized or mocked by others because she was not like them.

  Mr. Hart spoke again, "I expect when Lucretzia got a butcher's hook at you today she jumped to conclusions about us. You know women, they always jump to conclusions."

  "Only women do that, do they?"

  He laughed. "True, I jump into everything I do. Headfirst. It's the best way to do it. No hesitation. Nobody on their deathbed ever said they wished they hadn't been so bold."

  "How do you know? Some might say that in the end. You haven't been at everybody's deathbed, have you?"

  An odd look crossed his face and then was gone as quickly as it came. "Well, Miss Greene of the uncommon bleedin' mind, I've taken a fancy to you already and I see something more than governess in your future. Whatever you think at this moment."

  She sighed. "I must ask you not to get any different ideas about me. I wouldn't want either of us to be distracted from your training."

  "You can teach me how to act the gent, Greene, but you can't tell me what ideas I can and cannot 'ave. I'm a grown man, and nobody rules my mind. When I take a fancy to a woman, nobody's going to tell me I can't, whoever she is. I'll win her over. If they say I can't, it just makes me more determined to prove 'em wrong."

  Genuinely curious and bemused, she inquired, "Has no woman ever turned you down before?"

  "No. Why would they?"

  She laughed. Couldn't help herself. But he too grinned, so perhaps he teased. "And do you usually make up your mind about women the moment you meet them? Before you meet them?"

  "I spent a good ten minutes sizing you up. That's all I needed."

  "A whole ten minutes? Gracious."

  "Didn't Palgrave warn you, I get a lot of ideas come to my 'ead all of a sudden and generally I act on 'em right away?"

  "Indeed she did. And I heard your friends say that you enjoy practical jokes. I have also discovered for myself that you like to tease and make ladies blush. So forgive me if I don't take your remarks very seriously. Marriage, for you, would be as bizarre, pointless and awkward an undertaking as learning to swim would be for me."

  "But you've no other gent pining for you. I can make you a damn good offer. You'd have no regrets. I might not be the perfect 'usband you always dreamed about, but I'll make up for it in another ways."

  "How do you know I have no other young man?"

  He looked smug again. "You wouldn't be here, if you did. Wouldn't be looking for excitement in the newspaper. Throwing it all in and coming to work for a man you've never met. And if you keep pressing your lips together like that, you're going to wear them out!"

  She glared.

  "Which would be unlucky," he added, with a husky whisper, "because you're going to need them."

  "Mr. Hart, I didn't come here to play games with you."

  "But this is a game. Life is a game. And winner takes all."

  She shook her head.

  "Don't matter what you say, Greene. Or what you think about yerself. Can't choose where and when you fall in love. Not even you, Princess."

  "Are you trying to say that after a sum total of half a day, and those vital ten minutes, of course—"

  "I'm saying you will fall in love with me. It's inevitable. You won't be able to help yerself." He stuck out his jaw, reminding her of a spoiled boy. Of thirty-four.

  "Well, as soon as I have such an unfortunate feeling, I'll let you know."

  "It's the way it goes in romances, according to Palgrave, although she says she don't read 'em. Just like she says she can't abide children." He sniffed and looked down at her again. "I thought all women read romances."

  "I don't. I prefer horror stories."

  Abruptly he laughed. "That's just another form of romance. Sometimes a nightmare is just a love story in the dark."

  Startled, she didn't know what to say. He had a habit of leaving her dizzy, spinning her around with his words. She couldn't predict what he might say next, or read what went on in his mind, so with him she was completely and utterly bereft, feeling her way in the dark.

  And what he said next was another example of this terrifying ability to drag the sand out from under her feet.

  "I've met you before somewhere, ain't I?"

  She took a breath. "I don't believe so. Where could we have met?" But even as she spoke those words, Ever knew what he meant. It was a sense of familiarity, too strong to be ignored or explained away.

  "I've been wracking my brains," he muttered.

  "Well, don't wear them out," she replied brightly, tossing the phrase back at him again, "because you're going to need them."

  He shook his head. "And here I am, wonderin' why I'm so set on keeping you and winning you over, when you make cheeky remarks like that. I must be a glutton for punishment."

  "Of course. You're accustomed to being knocked about. As Signora Brunetti said, you must miss it."

  They said nothing for a while until, watching the fog slowly roll closer, curling around the distant end of the pier like cotton wool, he suggested they turn back.

  "I suppose you want your dinner," he said.

  Actually she wasn't hungry anymore. A brisk walk should have sharpened her appetite, but being with him had made her forget everything else that was once important. "I was hoping to walk along the pier."

>   "Not in this weather," he muttered. "Treacherous."

  So they turned and walked back toward his house, she glanced over her shoulder at the pier where it slipped away into the fog. "When do I have my afternoon off, Mr. Hart?"

  "I'll think about it." His voice sounded curt again now, but she didn't know if that was her fault or if it had something to do with his own thoughts. For in that moment he seemed very far away, withdrawn like a snail into its shell. Ever took the opportunity to study his profile— the dented bridge of his nose and the sharply chiseled jaw, the dark, heavy brows and those deep thought-lines etched across his forehead. His lips were quite full, often bent in a half smile that made him look cocky, although she suspected he wasn't aware of it. Sometimes she caught those lips moving without making a sound, as if he worked a thought through his mind by practicing with his lips first. So despite his arrogant claim of diving headfirst into anything he did, he liked to be sure first. It just didn't take him long to be certain of what he wanted. Or what he thought he wanted.

  What a curious man he was. An enigma.

  She had thought, at first, that she wasn't going to like him; then, when they met, she found herself attracted, leaping to that giddy feeling quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Then she'd felt fear, doubt, suspicion, primarily because she'd never liked anybody as soon as she met them. Ever was always slow to trust, slow to warm-up to people.

  But she was at her ease with Gabriel Hart already. Remarkably he had chased away her anxieties about being there and about managing in this brave new world. She was warmed again now, not just by her coat and the shelter of his body beside hers. But also by his company.

  It might not all be his achievement, however; she allowed that the bracing sea air surely helped somewhat.

  Wouldn't want to give him all the credit. He was already conceited enough.

  * * * *

  "You said you would tell me about Max Connolly," she said.

  Ah, he'd hoped she'd forgotten about that.

  Lucretzia and her big, trouble-making mouth. He used to find it amusing.

  "Max is my manager. Was. Has in mind for me to fight again."

  "To come out of retirement?"

  He nodded. "Wants to make a few more gold sovereigns off me." Or should it be silver pieces? "Seems he spent all what he made off me before, and since he got a taste for the good life he wants some more."

  "And will you? Fight again?"

  Gabriel looked at the woman beside him. "Not if you can make me into something new."

  Her solemn green eyes widened. "Then my mission here is even more important than I first imagined."

  "It is?"

  "Certainly. I wouldn't want you to go back to fighting."

  He stopped walking and studied her face. "Why not? I ain't ashamed of it. It's what I do best. Made me rich."

  "Yes, I know. You win. But I'm sure you can be successful in other ways too. You can be so much more than that."

  "Reckon I'm too old to fight now, eh?"

  "No, of course not," she replied with a slight frown. "But every man and woman should push themselves, challenge themselves to grow and develop into something more. When we leave this world we should have transformed from what we were when we came into it. Fighting was your natural, god-given talent. Now you must find what else you can achieve."

  How very sure she was for one so young. Suddenly he felt very glad she had come there to be with him. Women in his life were mostly there for pleasure. Palgrave, of course, was different—a loyal ally, trustworthy and eternal. But he'd never known a woman who could be all those things and a companion in pleasure. And, even more, a worthy opponent, clever, shrewd and brave.

  "Besides," she added, "what if you were hurt?"

  He looked askance. "Hurt?" Then he laughed loudly. "Clearly you've never seen me in action, Princess."

  "I hope I never do. I would not find it entertaining."

  "But I'm bloody good."

  "I don't care. I would not want to see you hurt."

  He watched her mouth, remembering that she didn't even think herself pretty. Once again, he had cause to wonder where she had been all this time before she came to work for him. Why had nobody ever told her she was beautiful, he mused warmly.

  Usually such an oversight by other men would serve to his advantage when he pursued a woman. But in this case he sensed it would not. She'd almost seemed offended when he said it earlier, so he would not say it again. He'd have to find some other way to win her over.

  She didn't want him to be hurt. How strange. Nobody had ever expressed such an anxiety, including his own mother, who was probably glad to have one less mouth to feed. Ruby Hart saw fighting as her eldest son's only way out of poverty and so she had encouraged it.

  "It's in your blood to be a winner," she'd said. "Your great-grandfather, True Deverell, made himself up from nothing, built a fortune and a dynasty on gambling. You do what you must to survive and thrive. He'd approve."

  But Miss Greene, who had only just met Gabriel, didn't want him to be hurt.

  Apparently she didn't worry about herself though. Despite the meddling Lucretzia's warnings, she was still here. He'd given her a chance to leave without him and something stopped her.

  Thankfully.

  Then he still had time to make this work— for this woman to turn him into a gentleman. Her perfect gentleman. What better way to win her over than to let her rebuild him to her own specifications?

  Chapter Nine

  1887

  He never forgot that first glimpse of the sea. As a lad of sixteen, escaping London at last, he thought he'd gone to heaven.

  "You come and find me, when you're ready," Max Connolly had said, pushing a card into his bloodied hand after another victorious, bare-knuckle fight in Bell Lane. "With a little work, I can make you rich, boy."

  Of course, Gabriel couldn't read everything that was written on the card— at least, he didn't have the confidence to think he could— so he'd taken it home to show his mother, in their crowded lodgings near Spitalfields market. She'd read out the words for him.

  "Maximilian Connolly, Circus Management." And when she turned it over there were more words penned on the back. "Says he's leaving for Cromer on the Great Eastern Railway tomorrow."

  Gabriel had no idea where Cromer was.

  "By the sea," his mother had exclaimed with a dreamy look in her eye, "far away from this filthy town. Didn't I tell you, it was in the cards when I gave you a reading? Something will happen by the sea and it will change your life."

  "Yes, but you said it would be a woman, not a man. And this isn't a year with a five at the end of it."

  "Never you mind that. Perhaps I got that bit wrong. Sit down there and let me look at those knuckles."

  Watching his mother with one swollen, half closed eye, he slumped on the little stool, his right leg twitching rapidly up and down as it always did when he considered something with skepticism or excitement. Although she was always keen and lavish with her predictions, Ruby Deverell Hart was never ashamed to twist things around later, file down a few inconvenient edges to make an incident better fit her earlier prophecy.

  "Cromer," she told him, as she bandaged his hand, "is a seaside town with a pier. Travelling circuses and fairs stop there sometimes."

  "But what does he want me to do there? In a circus?"

  "He saw you fight, didn't he?"

  He nodded

  "Well, sometimes they have exhibition fighters. You must have impressed him."

  "I don't want to be a performin' bloody poodle."

  "Nonsense, there are more opportunities than that, but it's a start. Better than what you'll end up with hanging around here, working on the docks. With your handsome face you can do anything, go far. Wouldn't hurt to find out what he can do for you, would it?" But the light faded briefly from her expression when she went to the tea caddy and found her latest savings gone again. "Looks as if your father came by today while I was out."

  S
o he had no money for a ticket on the train. Not that this would stop either of them. Ruby was certain Cromer would be an important place in his future and, after a childhood spent scrabbling for pennies however he could acquire them, Gabriel was willing to try anything new. For years he'd worked as a 'mudlark', wading in the Thames silt to catch packages pilfered from ships anchored there. He'd sold stolen goods to the various receivers lurking at any corner. He'd picked pockets and stolen meat to feed the family. Finally he'd found work at the docks. But fighting was a faster way to earn money for his mother, and although it wasn't entirely lawful, in his opinion it was more honest than some of the methods his father depended upon.

  "Honest?" his father had sneered. "No honest man ever got rich. Ask your bloody great grandfather."

  Growing up, the infamous 'True Deverell' was often mentioned in their damp, crowded lodgings. His father always spoke the name with hatred, but his mother clearly held her grandfather in great awe. Even devotion. Perhaps that only encouraged her husband's ire against the name, just as it made her eldest son yearn to emulate True's success.

  Gabriel had never known his great-grandfather, or even his grandfather— with whom his mother had fought so bitterly that she ran away from her family at eighteen to elope with Jem Hart, who described himself as a Jack of all Trades and promised her a life of luxury that never materialized. But Gabriel always felt a strong connection to the notorious True Deverell— a figure who shone in his imagination like a brilliant guiding star in the sky.

  Like hope.

  So he decided to seize this opportunity with both hands— or fists, in this case. He said goodbye to his mother and tricked his way onto that train heading for the Norfolk coast.

  He never went home again.

  * * * *

  He dived into the water headfirst, fearless, only his old boots removed. This was different to the water in the Thames, colder but cleaner. It gave his heart a jolt, and he came up gasping for breath, thrilled from head to toe. As he floated there in the sea, the dirt of the city drifted off him and he felt renewed, reborn. He knew babies were baptized with water, but he never had been. His father said it wasn't worth the trouble of going to church.