The Crimson Inkwell

by Kenneth A Baldwin

  “I think we’re all interested in some answers,” he continued. “She is a young woman, but she’s not getting any younger, and you are taking a considerable portion of her time with whatever it is you’re after. Don’t you think it’s time to man up?”

  “Byron!” I hissed. “Do you really think it’s your place to ask such a question?” I could feel the temperature of my blood rising at his bourbon-tinged audacity.

  “Well, if not my place, then whose? The girl’s father isn’t here, and I don’t know if I could stomach it to see a young lad take advantage of that kind of situation.” I bristled at the word father.

  “What exactly are you insinuating?” Jacob asked, red in the face.

  “You’re very young,” Byron went on. “And everyone at this table knows that Anna is your senior. I just want to make sure you are taking this seriously, and before long, if you are to continue seeing her, we might see a proposal on its way.”

  I felt itches creep all up my spin and into my scalp. Perspiration beaded my forehead and clammed my palms. I looked around, wishing we were anywhere but in the middle of Bunbury’s. Jacob scooted his chair back and rose, leaning over the table.

  “Now wait just one minute, here!” Jacob seethed, unsteady from the alcohol. “You forget your place shop keep. Do you know who you’re talking to?”

  “Don’t you flounce your family name around me. Your father may be rich, but you’re not nobility,” Byron said, rising from his own seat. I put my hand firmly on his arm.

  “Byron, do not do this,” I whispered through clenched teeth.

  “If I were afraid of fancy upstarts like you, I’d still be in the gutter. But, I’ve grown long enough to know that a pedigree is not enough to save a bad egg.”

  “Is that what you consider me sir?” Jacob’s question sounded like a threat.

  “I demand you tell me your intentions with this girl, or you will not see her anymore!” Byron shouted. The restaurant had silenced.

  “And what do you intend to do about it?” Jacob sneered.

  Before I knew what happened, Jacob was on the floor with a red handprint across his face and a hint of blood on his lip. Byron breathed heavily. A gentleman from a neighboring table instantly went to Jacob to help him up.

  “Anna, we’re leaving,” I said, glaring at Byron. “If these two gentlemen want to continue dueling on your behalf, we’ll leave them to it.”

  I grabbed my sister’s hand and led her from her seat, ignoring Byron’s protests. Anna kept her face to the floor to hide the inevitable onslaught of hot tears I knew were coming. I felt all eyes in the dining room watch us as we made our exit, tracing our steps. I retrieved our coats from the maître d and ordered him to bring around a hansom. “Please, put the cost on Mr. Livingston’s check,” I demanded. I saw a vase of flowers. It looked relatively expensive, expensive enough at least. “Put these flowers on his check as well.”

  When the hansom came, I helped Anna in and clambered up after her. Byron trailed out of the restaurant after us.

  “Luella, please, be sensible!” he said. I responded to him with a fierce look I had learned from reading about the Medusa. It was enough to shut him up as we drove off. I put an arm around my sister, and to this day, I remain impressed at how well she kept it together on the ride home. It was not a girl’s response. It was a woman’s.

  As soon as we were indoors, however, the emotions burst out of her. I followed her to the bed and cradled her in my arms, rocking her back and forth.

  “He’s ruined everything!” she sobbed, taking deep, hiccupping gulps of air between her breaths. I didn’t know what to tell her. I was surprised to feel tears on my own cheeks. I wanted to say that it would be alright, or that Jacob was a strong young man that wouldn’t be deterred by such a slight to his character, but I had no idea what might come of such a public incident. Instead, we just cried together.

  “We’ll make it through this,” I whispered as her cries slackened their furious pace.

  “You can’t marry him.” She sat up out of my arms and grabbed both of my hands. “If he costs me Jacob, you just can’t. I could never forgive him.”

  “Anna, let’s not think of that—”

  “If you marry him, I’ll leave you.” And she meant it. I’d never seen her so resolute. I didn’t know what to do but nod dumbly. A brand-new fear, one I had never felt before, seeped into my bones. If I lost Anna, how would I live?

  She burrowed her face back into my lap, allowing me to stroke her hair to soothe her. I knew she was right. If I could forgive Byron, he had to know it would become his sole objective to smooth things over between Jacob and my sister.

  Otherwise, how could I marry him? He would drive a wedge between my sister and me. As far as I was concerned, if it came down to choosing between the two of them, I had decided long before I met Mr. Livingston.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Muddy Old Stories

  THE NEXT MORNING felt like a funeral. Anna ducked in and out of consciousness, lounging in the bed for hours, growling at me whenever I attempted to open the curtains to let in some light. Could I blame her? Last night had felt like a nightmare, but sleep had helped to clear my head at least, and knowing the best thing for heartache is iced buns and a cup of tea, I set out to Mrs. Barker’s at once. Mrs. Crow was waiting for me on the steps outside.

  “Lovely to see you, dear,” she said, a whole basket of flowers in her hands. “Would you like a daisy? Last blooms of the year. Only a few pence.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Crow. I didn’t know you got into flower selling,” I said.

  “Oh, just a hobby mostly,” she said, looking down at her bushel. I suspected she was downplaying her financial situation. “Have to keep busy with something.” I smiled and started past her, but she stepped in my way. “I was wondering, Luella, if everything isn’t well with poor Ms. Anna.”

  Of course. Somehow, she knew. Perhaps Mrs. Crow had been hiding out in disguise at the restaurant. One day, I would sit this woman down and learn her information gathering ways.

  “It’s just,” she continued, “I heard her crying last night. I hope everything is faring well with her gentleman prospect.”

  I cursed our thin walls. Do the poor possess no privacy?

  “There’s just been a hiccup,” I said. “I expect things will smooth out. Young love, you know?” I nodded curtly and tried to make my way off the step, when again she butted in.

  “And how are things going with Mr. Livingston?” she continued. “I don’t get to hear much about that since you accepted his proposal. Any word on a date for the wedding?”

  Her bold question caught me off-guard and started my blood boiling. I tried to respond but managed only to get out a pensive hum. I swallowed hard.

  Why did I have to answer Mrs. Crow? It wasn’t her place to ask such a thing, and it wasn’t something I much wanted to talk about either. Annoyance and frustration flared inside of me. I put a steadied hand on her shoulder. I just wanted to get back to Bram to learn more about the pen. Was that too much to ask?

  “I’m afraid I really must be going.” I dropped some of the few coins left in my purse in her hand and took a small bunch of dianthuses from her. “For the flower,” I said and left her open-mouthed on the steps.

  As I walked away, my temper simmered down again. My patience had been so short lately. It wasn’t like me to get angry at little things. My mother had a temper. I never liked her for it. The stress and pressure of the writing must have been getting to me. Perhaps I judged my mother too harshly. She must have been stressed as well, what with our economic condition and her two children to raise.

  When I got to the Barkers’ Bake Shop, I encountered similar questions. I evaded them artfully, if I do say so myself, with vague responses of, “Anna isn’t feeling well” and “Byron is as Byron does.” I threw in a cocked eyebrow to seal the deal. If I know anything about people, they prefer to feel like they’re in the know over knowing precisely what they’re in t
he know about.

  Back at home, Anna still had not roused from bed.

  “Sister, are you planning on getting up today?”

  “I’m not well,” she said. I put the back of my hand on her forehead.

  “You feel fine to me.”

  “I tell you! I’m not well. I think I may have cholera,” she said, flopping another direction on the bed. I worried over her, but there wasn’t much for me to do for her in this state. Heartbreak is dealt with in stages. The utter devastation of the first movement must be ridden out like a section of disagreeable road on horseback.

  “There are iced buns on the table. I’m going out,” I told her, fastening my shawl.

  “Not to see that despicable man!” she said, face fresh with energy, shaking off her bout of cholera. Now, she was lucid as a fox. Was there any hope for Byron?

  “If you mean Byron, then no,” I said. “I won’t be seeing him today. You get some rest.”

  I left the house to a chorus of grumbly, backhanded remarks about my betrothed. I didn’t feel like defending him. I had my own reasons for being upset with him, and I feared that he didn’t possess the character required to make it up to me. How can a man apologize for being overassertive and violent? To grovel would be uncomely; to snivel would make things even worse. I would accept only one form of currency for his forgiveness, a solid, well-backboned apology without any self-deprecation. Yes, that would be the only way to convince me even to think about standing up for him to my sister.

  Byron, on many occasions, had proved he adored me. He worshipped the ground I walked on in many respects. If I had asked to holiday in Paris, I would fear he might break his back moving the channel, so I wouldn’t have to cross it. I could not have that in a husband. I needed someone to look up to, an equal, who treated me with respect and himself with equal respect. How could I ever be happy with a man that, on committing human error, created a serf of himself. Was that a genuine apology? How could it be?

  I found myself wondering about what Edward Thomas might do to apologize to a woman. He was so firm in his ideals, unmovable in his honor. I wondered if he ever found himself in a position to apologize for anything in the first place. If so, I imagined him shaking heaven and earth to right his wrong in the least ostentatious way possible.

  “Dearest Luella,” I imagined him saying, “my behavior was inexcusable at dinner last night. Please accept my apology. I’ve spoken with the two affected parties, and they’ve agreed to be married, happily, but both desire your blessing, something I concur is wholeheartedly necessary. Forgive me if you can. In the meantime, I will continue to catch criminals.”

  I smiled just thinking about.

  I wasn’t on my way to Edward, though. I had been distracted the evening before from my purpose of confronting Bram, and now I wouldn’t wait until the evening. I was marching right to the fairgrounds, secrecy be damned. If someone saw me, let the news trickle back to Byron. If he were concerned about me inquiring after another man, he could chew on that a while for all I cared.

  I crested a hill and crossed the river to the east side. The fairgrounds lost a considerable portion of their magic in the sunlight. The electric lights had no effect, and the eerie blue glow I had seen on my first visit dissipated in the sunlight, if it existed at all. The crooked and gnarled poles holding up tents and bunting, peculiar and strange in the evening, just looked like shoddy workmanship in disrepair.

  It was still before noon, and the carnival’s personnel were busy at work around cooking pots or else debating the appropriate way to hang new banners and flags to attract more onlookers to less frequented side shows. The fair, clearly, didn’t open to the public until late afternoon when the sun set.

  As I walked to the entry gate at the edge of the grounds, a giant, burly man in a bowler hat dropped his mirror and razor and rushed to block my entrance.

  “Fair is closed until four, mum,” he said, with a deep, gravelly voice.

  “I’m not here to see the fair. I was just looking for—for a friend of mine,” I replied. I cleared my throat and tried to sound confident.

  “A friend of yours, eh?” he replied, working at a bit of something between his teeth with his tongue. “Name?”

  “Bram.”

  “Surname?”

  “I don’t know his surname,” I said.

  “It doesn’t sound like you really know the bloke. You’re his friend you say?”

  “Yes! He has a messy crop of brown hair and eyes the color of honey.” On hearing this, the big brute folded his arms across his chest and buried his chin into his neck, looking at me under his bushy eyebrows.

  “It sounds like you might have a thing for this guy,” he suggested.

  “Oh, that’s original,” I quipped. I was quickly losing my patience with this behemoth. “If you won’t let me in, just go ask him yourself! I’m sure you know him. Tell him the woman from the other night is here to see him.” This last request did nothing to help my case.

  “The woman from the other night?” He raised both eyebrows and smiled toothily. “Oh. I’ll tell him. You, uh, just make yourself comfortable.”

  He left me at the front, fuming. As he walked off, I looked for something to throw after him. The best I could find was a paper advertisement, which I feared wouldn’t deliver my desired effect. The girl from the other night. Please. I plopped myself onto a rather primitive wood bench, more of a plank set across two stumps really, and hoped this wouldn’t take long. I was tired of too much time to myself to stew and mull things over. Tired of thinking about Byron. Tired of dealing with Jacob Rigby and my sister.

  I was drawing circles in the dirt when the man returned.

  “He says he will receive you in his tent.” The big buffoon grinned. “Have a nice time. I believe you know the way.”

  “I don’t actually,” I said as a quick reprimand, and I forced him to direct me to the very doorstep—if there was a door or a step. He left me there, grumbling about more important things he had to do than waste time chauffeuring Bram’s women around.

  The tent looked so plain and unassuming. Bram’s dog lay in the dirt, gnawing on a girthy shoulder bone from what I imagined was an elk. The pointer didn’t even look up at me.

  “Mr. Bram,” I called.

  “Come on in,” he replied from the dark interior.

  “I think I would prefer not to,” I said. This time would be different. I would maintain control of the situation.

  “Suit yourself.” I waited but saw no movement.

  “Well, aren’t you going to come out?”

  “I think I prefer not to,” he replied. Insufferable man! “Excellent story today, by the way. Though I think you may have missed some of the finer details.” Curse him and his little games.

  “How did you do it?” I shouted into the tent.

  “Do what?”

  “Convince Mr. Bradford to rob a bank,” I said, trying to peer in. It was useless, though. The morning sun blinded me, and I couldn’t make out any details inside the dark interior, though I could faintly smell the exotic perfumes from the night before clinging to the canvas of his yurt.

  “That’s a conversation best had over a cup of tea,” he called back. “I’d love to tell you whenever you feel like you have the time to join me.” The dog yawned.

  So, this is how it would be. I evaluated my options. I could walk away without any explanation, any hope of writing another big story, and without getting answers about my bizarre connection to this man, or I could walk inside.

  I folded my arms and stamped back toward the entrance. How did I even fit in that tent the other night with his ego? I walked through the fair, seeing the empty stalls that, in a few hours, would be filled with illusion and spectacle. Did I really doubt that man was capable of finding some underhanded way of forcing Mr. Bradford into a robbery? Flyers and discarded pages from publications lay dirtied in the mud.

  Familiar words caught my eye. “The Steely-Eyed Detective.” The page lay there r
ipped and splattered with grime. I bent down to pick it up. It was almost unreadable.

  I glanced across the river at the west side of Dawnhurst on Severn, where somewhere my little flat and grieving sister waited for me, a fiancé who inspired little affection, the expectation of the next great story.

  At this point, what did I have to lose really? I felt the crushing indifference of the world, the short lived, muddy echo of my words. No one would care if I went in. No one would care much what happened inside the tent either.

  I rolled my eyes, grit my teeth, and turned back around. The pointer perked up its ears.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Magic

  THE YURT WAS almost exactly as I remembered it, though now, being better lit from a generous portion of sunlight coming in from the hole on top, it seemed considerably smaller and less foreboding. I saw the bed, neatly made, the writing desk where and I scribbled down that silly little story, and even got a better glimpse at the chest from which he collected his so-called magic pen.

  The chest was painted a weathered seafoam color, and every edge was decorated with appliques and wooden panels in what looked like a type of otherworldly hieroglyphic. Its hinges and metal components were a pale pewter.

  Bram sat at the little table, a plate of half-eaten scones in front of him. He looked very comfortable, his face hidden behind an edition of my very own Langley’s Miscellany.

  “All in all, I’d say it should sell quite well.” He started reading aloud. “Steel and mettle (clever play on words there) clashed as iron-clad bandits unsheathed an historic plot. Equal parts awe and fear kept bank employees glued to the floor as one of King Arthur’s own emptied the vaults at Victoria’s National and tried to make his escape. Our own police force gave chase in nothing less than a pseudo dream state. If by chance, you happened to see two knights, clad in full armor on horseback chased by our city police, know that you were not dreaming or drunk. These are just the type of ruffians the Dawnhurst coppers must deal with: the president of the railway station, Mr. Bradford, and his manservant.” He lowered the paper. “Between this and the fogman, it’s a wonder anyone left their house this morning. What kind of city is this, anyway?”