Halton Cray (Shadows of the World Book 1)

by N. B. Roberts

  ‘All this time,’ I mumbled. ‘It was true!’

  ‘I wanted you to know, Alex, but how could I tell you? Eventually I hoped to find a way. I tried to be as honest as I could, though fear turned me defensive and I used humour to relieve it. I can’t help what I am, and I never wanted to deceive you. I could not be deliberately dishonest with you.’

  I shook my head, unable to comprehend much of it.

  ‘Will you let me explain?’

  I looked towards him but I couldn’t lay my eyes on his. Those eyes were that Thing’s and it made me want to run. I looked away again. It was hard to conduct any reasonable thought process; I highly suspected I was dreaming. But if I was, I might as well find out the depth of the delusion.

  ‘What did you mean,’ I began, ‘when you said it was a parting gift? If you want me to understand, you’d better tell me everything. How did this happen?’

  He threw himself into the armchair again and leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees. After a moment of looking at the floor, he leant back.

  ‘You don’t know how many times I’ve rehearsed telling you about myself. Now it comes to premiere night, I find that all my rehearsals have been in vain. I don’t even know where the beginning is to start with. But I’ll try.’

  What a different look he had on his face, to the other numerous times he’d teased me about revealing the truth. He looked like – forgive the tired expression – but he looked like he’d seen a ghost.

  ‘A very long, long time ago – no! That’s no way to begin. You see, Alex, my father was the eldest son of an English nobleman, from a very respectable family of wealthy merchants – and Protestants, I might add. You’re not a silly girl. You’d have already deduced by some key words I’ve used that I’m not talking about the 1970’s. I’m talking centuries ago, two in fact.’

  He stared at me intently, waiting for some response.

  ‘You’re telling me that you,’ I muttered, ‘you, Thom, are from the 1800’s?’

  ‘Correct. This will be hard to accept, but let me explain. When my father was a young man, he fell in love with and secretly married one of the family maidservants. An Irishwoman named Imogen. A beautiful, warm-hearted girl. She was my mother, and a dark, blue-eyed Roman Catholic. Their marriage was discovered whilst they expected their first child. Attempts were made to separate them, but my father, very nobly, refused to privately divorce her. Therefore, his father disinherited him and turned him away without financial support – most probably in the hope of forcing him to reconsider. He did not. Now you must imagine, Alex, a very different way of life to that of today; almost like a foreign land, where men are answerable to their fathers and women are answerable to everyone. Reputation, connections, were as important as money and status. So, without any of these, cut off from the family entirely, my parents travelled to Limerick in Ireland on what little my father had to hand. There they sought aid from my mother’s family, who were quite poor. Despite monetary issues they were a contented lot, and very hospitable to my father. You must picture in your head, Alex, these people as farmers, living in a small village on land owned by local gentry. I was brought into the world already, before my parents had left England. Born on the road to Bristol, and given my father’s name.

  ‘He was a well-educated man. But in Ireland then it was difficult for him to procure work, and being English didn’t help. He was particularly good at drawing, having had the privilege to learn from masters all his life. Sadly architecture was then a profession in decline. He couldn’t even hope to become an under-draftsman for half the salary. So he ended up working with my grandfather on the farm.

  ‘My sister, Bronagh, was born two years after me. In the following decade we lived more comfortably than before, for a while. It’s funny how memory works. I don’t remember what I wanted to be when I grew up, only that I wanted my father to be proud. School for Bronagh and I was too expensive, but my father made time to educate us to his standard. That is until he died.

  ‘His own mother had been against their marriage, but she wrote to my father from England asking his forgiveness. She wanted to see him, her first-born son, and find a way to reunite the family. I remember my father’s relief and excitement at going to see her and his home again. It gave him a new lease of life. I’d never seen him that way before. I watched a bag of bricks lifted from his shoulders. He set off and we received word from him when he reached English shores. It was a long time after that when we heard from one of the other servants, whom my mother kept a correspondent. He’d had an accident on the road, which fell his horse and proved fatal. He never made it to see his mother.’

  Thom turned his head away slightly. The corner of his eye appeared bloodshot and glistening.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, recalling how he’d vaguely mentioned his father’s death before – and how I’d imagined it to have happened maybe fifteen years ago.

  ‘It was another lifetime, Alex. Life goes on whether you want it to or not. – But how are you feeling now? Do you need anything?’

  ‘I don’t know how to answer, about how I’m feeling. As for wanting anything, just the rest of your story for now.’

  ‘Very well. We struggled to survive in that impoverished village. My mother was truly heartbroken. A few months on she received a package. It bore the seal of my English grandmother, but contained no note, just my father’s gold pocket watch. I suppose she sent something to relieve her mind of guilt, or whatever she felt.

  ‘My uncle and grandfather ran our farm, while I took what work I could get. Never a thing my father had educated me for. My grandparents died within months of each other, owing to a lethal concoction of old age, malnutrition and hopelessness. So I returned to help my uncle. In the following years the Great Famine struck and suddenly the only food was the grain we paid our rent with. To lose our house would have meant certain death on the street. Some people, including my uncle, took to the city to find work. Others made for England, but my mother would never agree to that. She’d developed repugnance for that land.

  ‘Wildlife vanished around us where people were desperate to feed themselves. There was even talk of our neighbours having cooked their own dog. The world was falling apart. People committed petty offences to get transportation, as you’d be fed and clothed if sent to America. But I heard stories of those who were condemned to the ultimate penalty just for stealing food. I couldn’t risk that. Bronagh fell ill while death and disease surrounded us. My mother begged me to escape to America where food and work was said to be plentiful, the latter well-paid, so I could send money back to them.’

  ‘And–’ I interrupted him, my head spinning with his story. ‘How old were you at this point?’

  ‘Thirty-one. You look surprised because you thought I was younger.’

  ‘I never thought you could be over thirty. So you are – well, not technically, but you’ve remained thirty-one?’

  ‘Not technically, but yes.’

  I reminded myself to breathe.

  ‘So then you went to America?’

  ‘I did. We scraped money together for my single passage, and I went just after parliament passed the Soup Kitchen Act in 1847. Leaving them behind was the hardest thing– But even if we’d found the money, Bronagh was too ill to make the journey. She would have died on-board that coffin ship, which bore the sick and perishing across the Atlantic. These timber vessels weren’t designed to carry passengers. Our sleeping quarters below decks were just a run of boards down each side. We cramped on them to sleep. I spent the time dreaming, as did the other passengers, about all the wonderful things we’d heard about America. The idea was that you could do anything you wanted; acquire some land quite easily and very cheaply.

  ‘The journey took almost two months. After one it became roomier. Many died of cholera, or some other disease. Could I say I was one of the lucky ones to have survived? I was filled with an awesome hope at travelling across that magnificent ocean – I saw a rainbow on the other side, Alex; o
nly when we got there I discovered it was nothing but mist disguised by the light.

  ‘We docked in Boston and I remember my disappointment at finding the land of dreams to be one of nightmares! They shunned us there. Immigrants had swamped the Bostonians already. The poor were fighting for work. My visions of finding some well-paid labour were dashed. As for sending back money, I was hardly able to feed myself.

  ‘My mother had given me my father’s pocket watch, with its gold chain and personal seal. It was a beautiful timepiece and my father would have given it to me himself. She made it clear that it was not for food, not even if I was starving. “No place could be as barren as Ireland!” she’d said, in her harsh but devoted way. “It’s to pay for your passage home, if it’s hopeless and you need to return. I’ll forgive you.”

  ‘I gave my word. And I did go hungry rather than sell it. It crossed my mind, of course, what little point there was in starving to death with a gold watch in my pocket – which a grave robber would take from my bones anyway! No matter what logical truths I told myself, I could not break that promise to my mother.’

  Thom sank in the armchair, his eyes glazing over. He covered his mouth with his fist to keep back a rush of emotion. Before I could consider comforting him, which I presently fought the urge to do, I would let him finish telling me his account.

  ‘I survived on the streets. Sometimes cramped in wooden huts with the overflow of unfortunate Irish. I took any work I could get, and that was unskilled manual labour: cleaning yards, unloading ships. The only good thing was that there I could earn up to a dollar a day, ten times what they’d pay in Ireland. I started sending money home and received news that Bronagh was recovering. In my mother’s letter, she wrote, “A Mrs Neale was helping to care for her.” I feared it wasn’t true, and that she wrote this not wanting to worry me, being so far away.’

  ‘How long did it take – I mean, for you to receive letters?’

  ‘Roughly a fortnight, as they’d have gone by steamship. A decade later and we’d have been able to send telegrams, which would have taken minutes. C’est la vie!

  ‘I’d soon send more money, however. I took a job delivering a cartload of crates and furniture to a house just off Beacon Street in Boston. They called it a house, but no such thing existed in that part of town. It was a mansion. Nothing like I was used to seeing. We were almost finished moving crates in there when a man appeared from upstairs. I assumed he was the owner since he was very well dressed. He was quite short and balding at the crown. I remember how the fairness of his hair betrayed his ruddy complexion: it made his scalp glow. There was a plumpness to him, a swollen look. He had an arrogance about him and took no notice of us, except when passing me. At the bottom of the staircase, he stopped and looked me over as a full-bellied cat might observe a mouse.

  ‘After quizzing me on my history, I realised he was only interested to know I’d travelled alone. I couldn’t figure out if that’s why he separated me from the others, who were just as emaciated and poor. He told me his name was Johan and he’d recently arrived from Europe, before offering me employment as his coachman. I found his voice sinister and his black eyes cold and terrifying. On telling him I didn’t know the city well enough, he answered that he’d teach me himself. I told him I had work already and found myself conjuring up more excuses. From his pocket he drew more money than I’d ever seen, and offered it to me as an advance for a month’s trial. Everything about him put me on edge. But what did I have to fear from the little man I could knock down with one fist! How could I refuse the offer? To my family it would be a small fortune.

  ‘Until now’ – Thom stared at me – ‘I lamented the day I agreed to it. I stayed in a back room of that accursed freezing house! After only one night there I began locking my door. Though I never saw or heard him, I often felt his presence in the room with me. Far as I knew, no one else resided there. I hardly ever slept for the strange noises I heard, but when I did, nightmares constantly woke me. Often he’d have guests until all hours in the downstairs rooms and these parties always sounded like they got out of hand. I saw no sign of them the following day. When asking him once about his guests, he denied all knowledge of them. He lounged back on a couch and played with something between his fingers. I couldn’t be certain, but it appeared to be a lock of fair hair.

  ‘“It’s not for you to question my habits, young man,” he declared in his broken English. “You’d do better with me to remember that. So if you should hear such noises in the night again, it was unquestionably one of your nightmares.” – Only I knew I’d never mentioned them to him.

  ‘He insisted on calling me young man, never using my name. Every day he would spend hours wrenching the life out of a violin, which he was convinced he could play well, before cursing inexplicitly that his talent was lost.

  ‘I didn’t believe he ever had any musical gift whatever. Why he was deluding himself was a mystery. I believe he wanted to gain my trust, because he began telling me personal things. He confessed at one point to having had a wife and two daughters, whom he claimed died in tragic circumstances. The ghost of a smile crossing his face when admitting it, and the elevation in his voice, suggested to me that the circumstances were to him far from tragic. I saw him as their murderer. He once hinted that his eldest daughter was an exceptional musician whom he envied and hated. But he never disclosed to me how they died, despite many subtle questions. He then avoided the subject altogether. I hoped to find out more by exploring the rooms of his house. But most were locked, like some Bluebeard’s castle. One I discovered open was a child’s nursery, overfilled with playthings. At the time I believed it must have belonged to his youngest daughter. Later I realised these things were trophies.’

  Thom paused and his eyes fell.

  ‘Three days I was there before he ordered me to drive him – it was the first time I saw him leave the house. Remembering my predicament, he pointed in a direction and I merely navigated the carriage through the streets. This happened regularly and we always ended up in poorer communities. He would tell me to stop somewhere, randomly. I could only imagine that he sat there within, watching the commoners go about their routine: scrubbing clothes in washtubs outside, with a handful of children playing nearby – before ordering me to drive on.

  ‘Sometimes the kids would run up to the carriage to beg. He’d already given me instructions to pull away if this happened. There was an occasion where I heard a child scream. Terrified I had run over her foot, I turned to look. There I saw Johan leaning out the coach window with a fistful of her hair, dragging the girl along the road. I halted, sprang up and threatened him to let her go. He found it funny. But he did release her. He yelled out to me that she tried to rob him. I didn’t believe him, but I wasn’t sure what action I could take. I felt like an accomplice to a greater crime unknown to me. I’m certain he recruited me to collect his guests. He was working me up to it, I’m sure of that now. He mistook my good nature for stupidity, and presumed I was weak and biddable. He would use my decency to assure those people safety, as he couldn’t so easily gain a strangers trust. I speculated how many other coachmen he’d had in training before me, whom had failed him, or he’d failed them.

  ‘I was glad when it came to the end of that first month. Equally as miserable when he persuaded me to stay another for more money. Although I sent what I earned back to my mother, I’d heard nothing more from her since she wrote that Bronagh was recovering. My worry increased for them both, but I could only try to earn more. Two months elapsed and I couldn’t agree to stay longer. I wanted to get away from him. I felt the walls of his house closing in on me like a living grave. As politely as I could, I declined. Anger is not the word for what I saw in his eyes, although he laughed immensely in that moment. – It was a disturbing belly laugh that he cut from suddenly, as if he’d realised the joke wasn’t funny. His face instantly became solemn and he sighed, as if he’d bored himself.

  ‘“If it’s a matter of more money, young man?”


  ‘“It’s not the money–”

  ‘“Everybody has his price!” He hemmed, and then flushed an unnatural colour, but repressed rage quickly. I couldn’t refuse again. It would’ve antagonised him and sealed my fate. Moreover, he’d seen my letters back to Ireland. He knew my family’s location – what he could do with that I didn’t know. But it frightened me. I decided to get away stealthily and return home.

  ‘Ordinarily it would torture me to be so sneaky on someone who’d done me a good turn, but I understood his intentions by then. I agreed to his face that I would stay. Only I would attempt to escape as soon as chance presented itself. He anticipated this because he withheld my wages saying he’d pay me at the end of the oncoming week. The bastard had me in a hard place, but that wasn’t going to stop me – I still had my father’s watch. I made up my mind to go that night, though it sickened me to even consider parting with it.’

  Thom fell silent, his face becoming still as any photograph on the wall behind him.

  ‘You didn’t sell it?’ I asked, breaking his deliberation.

  ‘Alex, when you’re starving, wretched and yet still carry a morsel of hope, it is very difficult to see the dangers about you. Now fed and rested, I heard Johan’s words and watched his eyes with a rising sickness in my soul. He was dangerous beyond comprehension. I had a narrow chance to get far away. I waited up, dressed and ready to leave. I was a pipe smoker back then, and I smoked heavily that night. He was entertaining his guests downstairs. It was growing very late and I feared falling asleep, and missing my opportunity. So I stole down hoping they wouldn’t hear while occupying the front rooms. The voices of women blared from inside as I snuck past. Beneath this I caught the cacophonous sound of his violin, accompanied by raw laughter and a girl’s humming. I heard Johan’s voice –

  ‘“What now shall we play?”

  ‘No sooner was I contented I’d make it across the threshold safely, than I heard a crash of furniture; the holler of a woman, and a muffled scream! The piano keys rang out together, as if laden with something heavy. A door flung open; a hand appeared, but instantly flew back. I heard a thump, followed by unintelligible yelling. She sounded dazed – delirious. I wanted to run but her hysterical voice – I still remember it now, ringing in my ears. I ran to her aid.