Fairchild

by Jaima Fixsen

  The sexton found him in the early morning, cut him free and supported him back to the school. Tom was not the first boy he had found left in the graveyard. The night porter put Tom to bed with a nip of brandy and a hot brick. Safe in his bed, Tom swore he was done with school. Once he’d evened the score with Harvey, that is.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Revenge

  Tom was prepared to bide his time, waiting for the perfect revenge, but it fell into his lap two weeks later. Surely this was the work of divine providence, and not just Bella Finch.

  One hesitated to mention Bella Finch in any relation to providence, unless it was her making—she had clearly been drawn on one of God’s better days. But she was the younger sister of Finch, the Blacksmith, and though the men in a five mile radius might lust after her, she was given a wide berth. Finch was an attentive brother and a strict Methodist.

  Tom was such a fixture at the smithy that Finch scarcely noticed his comings and goings; certainly he didn’t know that Bella had allowed him to kiss her twice. For practice, she said. Tom knew full well that Bella intended to marry a certain local farmer with a fine house—it was only a matter of time before the farmer realized it himself and bowed to the inevitable—but he was no fool, and made the most of Bella’s offer. Two afternoons he had spent with her. They talked, when their mouths weren’t busy kissing. Tom might even have fallen in love with her, if she had let him, but Bella was a sensible girl. Tom liked her immensely.

  Bella made good use of Tom, and often asked him to walk with her to the green when she knew her farmer would be sitting outside the tavern nursing a pint. Bella’s farmer was not the only one who noticed. Lord Harvey noticed too.

  As Tom reluctantly strolled back to prison (school could never be home), Harvey stepped out of the tavern and joined him, keeping pace but staying out of arm’s reach.

  “You’ve an eye for a sweet arse, Bagshot,” he said.

  “Do you mean Bella Finch?” Tom asked, missing a step.

  “Yes.” Harvey knew her name. All the Rugby boys did. “How is she?”

  Not a twitch of an eyelid betrayed Tom’s flaring temper. He said coolly, “Damn good.”

  “I knew it!” Harvey tipped his face up to the sky, exulting. “Stolen a march on all of us, you lucky dog.”

  Revolted equally by Harvey’s crudeness and his friendliness, Tom kept his eyes on the road, listening to the gears whir in Harvey’s head. Fearing intimate questions that he wouldn’t be able to stand, Tom moved first, asking levelly, “Fancy a go yourself?”

  Harvey laughed. “Who wouldn’t?” When Tom said nothing, he added. “Of course I would! Is it possible, do you think?”

  A keener fellow than Harvey would have taken note of Tom’s crocodile smile. “Sure. I’ll put in a good word for you. Give me a week. I’ll let you know.”

  Harvey clapped Tom across the back, then hesitated, sensing something not quite right in Tom’s face. “You’re a decent fellow, Bagshot,” he said lamely. “Think I made a mistake before. Misjudged you, you know.”

  “Don’t,” Tom said, waving away the apology like a troublesome insect. “I assure you, there is no need.”

  All week, Harvey grew twitchier as he tried—and failed—to catch Tom alone. Finally on Thursday, Tom let himself be cornered in the study hall. Spying Tom from the doorway, Harvey glanced nervously about the room before joining Tom at the table in the far corner.

  “Well?” Harvey asked, licking his lips. Unable to resist, Tom looked up from his book, presenting Harvey with a mystified face.

  “Bella Finch,” Harvey prompted in an urgent whisper.

  “Oh yes. Nearly forgot. She’ll meet you tomorrow at midnight, in the choir loft.”

  “Not in the church—”

  “That’s where I did it,” Tom said, challenging. “Where else can you go where you won’t get caught? You’ve seen her brother, right?”

  Harvey licked his lips again, blinked twice. “I see what you mean. All right then. But how do I get in?”

  “I’ll look after that.” Tom’s night in the graveyard had not scarred him so much that he had failed to notice where the sexton kept his keys. “I’ve done this before, remember? I’ll unlock the church and leave the keys in the choir loft.”

  “All right,” Harvey nodded. “Thanks, Bagshot.”

  Tom smiled, flashing teeth.

  *****

  Two nights later, Harvey slunk out of the dormitory alone, clutching a stolen lantern that was shuttered so it let out only a razor blade of light. The lapels of his coat were turned up to hide his white shirt, so only his pale face floated ghostlike across the quad. Distracted by the dark, his moist palms and dry lips, Harvey squelched into a pile of muck crossing the road to the churchyard.

  Idiot! Now your shoes will stink! Closing his eyes, he swore fluently. He wiped his foot on the untrimmed grass against the wall surrounding the churchyard, scuffing his shoes against the stones, but hopefully removing any signs of his misstep.

  The creak of the gate as he swung it wide was loud enough to summon the seraphim. Harvey hunched and looked over his shoulder.

  Bagshot had to be the hardest, coarsest fellow alive if he was able to meet his doxies here. Suppressing a sigh of envy, Harvey crunched up the gravel walk to the church door, muttering under his breath that superstition was for fools. This injunction did not, however, make him immune to the gothic atmosphere. The gravestones were mottled and diseased in the shaky light of his lantern, and rolling fog covered the ground. Feeling his own dread creeping up behind him, Harvey closed the distance to the church at a sprint and shoved against the door. It was heavy enough he had to shoulder it wide, flinching as it groaned like a waking spirit.

  “Bella?” his frightened voice echoed in the church, a high falsetto. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Bella?” There was no answer. He left the door open behind him. Cutting off his escape was more terrifying than the imaginary creatures that might be following him.

  His footsteps seemed to shake the floor. It was a fight to keep his tread slow and measured with his heart whirring like hummingbird wings. Doing anything with Bella here was impossible. He’d have to bring her somewhere else. Hang Bagshot and his iron nerve.

  The stairs to the choir loft were narrow and steep. He heard a noise, like someone shifting their feet and raised his lantern so that he could see the door above him. It stood halfway open. Dropping his fear on the steps, he gathered the remaining anticipation and anxiety into a knot in his stomach and pushed past the door.

  “Hello?”

  Something collided with his head, sending him sprawling. He picked himself up as his cry of surprise echoed through the church, buffeting him from all sides. His lantern was gone, flung into a far corner, the whip thin slice of light tilting crazily at the wall. He could not see, but he could feel the person approaching. Without thought, his feet found a defensive stance and he raised his fists.

  A low blow stole his breath, collapsing him like a set of empty bellows and he fell again, hard on his tailbone. Understanding came as he rose. Bella wasn’t here. Bagshot hadn’t even spoken to her. He’d used her as bait to draw him here so he could pound him like a piece of meat.

  “What do you want?” he asked, clinging to anger lest he betray fear. He and Bagshot were matched in height, but his strength was with the blade. He stood no chance with his fists, tripping in the dark over the rails and benches of the choir loft. Maybe he could pay Bagshot off.

  “Just the satisfaction of using my fists,” Bagshot grunted. Harvey dodged the first punch and the second, but the third caught him hard in the shoulder. He shuffled back between two benches. Bagshot wouldn’t have as much room to move here.

  “Settling the score? You got me this time, Bagshot. But what about the next? You can’t—” Bagshot’s fist cannoned into his face and Harvey spun like a drunken dancer. He raised a hand to his jaw, tasting warm blood from his split lip, but Bagshot was done waiting. With businesslike efficienc
y, he yanked Harvey’s arms behind his back and bound them together with a leather strap, towing him out of the benches and throwing him up against the wall.

  “My father’s been to Canada you know,” Bagshot said and dropped him. Harvey choked back a cry as his hip slammed into the floor. Leaning back against the wall, he watched Tom circle him. His lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear the words over the blood pounding in his ears. Bagshot’s cheerful face made the hairs on his arm stand on end.

  Harvey swallowed, wiping the blood trickling down his chin on the shoulder of his coat. Bagshot moved closer and Harvey whipped out a leg to kick him, but Bagshot was kneeling overtop of him in an instant, drawing a cord tight over his ankles.

  “You like playing Mohocks, so I thought I’d share some of my father’s stories with you. He’s met many Indians.” A heavy threat lay under Bagshot’s conversational tone.

  “You can’t hurt me,” Harvey sputtered, marshaling scattered thoughts in his ringing head. If anything happened to him, his father would—

  Bagshot raised his hand. He was holding a knife.

  “My father said he’s never seen a neater piece of work than an Indian skinning and gutting a beast,” Bagshot said over a high squeal that filled Harvey’s ears. It was the sound of uncorked terror, and it was coming from his throat. He strangled the sound with an effort that left him panting. His eyes were riveted to the blade in Bagshot’s hand. Surely he wouldn’t. He must be mad.

  “No doubt you’ve heard what they do to their enemies,” Tom said and he took a step closer. Harvey froze, then his heart thundered back to life, his breath coming in shallow gasps as Bagshot stretched his fingers into his hair, yanking it so that his neck stretched, long and vulnerable.

  “For God’s sake. Don’t. I’m sorry,” Harvey gasped. Bagshot stopped, his knife halfway to Harvey’s head, level with his eyes. “Please,” Harvey begged.

  “You’re apology isn’t worth anything to me.” Bagshot shrugged. He slashed the knife through Harvey’s hair. Harvey screamed, unaware that he felt nothing, only strands of his hair sifting over his face and shoulders. Bagshot grabbed another handful.

  “God’s mercy!” Bagshot was going to kill him. Sobs rattled out of his chest, and he thrashed, trying to tug free from Bagshot’s hands. Bagshot forced his head back against the wall, pressing his lips together as he executed another swipe and released another handful of hair over Harvey’s shoulders.

  “I might listen to an apology for Bella,” he said.

  Incoherent, Harvey retched out words. He was sorry, he ought never to have presumed. Miss Finch was a virtuous lady, who ought never to be touched. He wouldn’t speak of this; he wouldn’t even look at her—

  “Good. Cause I told her brother. You won’t be handsome when I’m done, but you’ll really lose your looks if he gets his hands on you. Might be best if you stay away from the village.”

  Harvey’s shrill wails rang through the church. Even when Bagshot put away the knife, he only quieted to ratcheting sobs, fearing what was next. Bagshot was staring at him, exasperation pinning his lips together.

  “Maybe I belong on the midden heap, Harvey, but you’re the fly who eats it.” Turning, he disappeared down the stairs. It took a half-hour for Harvey to realize he wasn’t coming back.

  *****

  Growling, Mr. Henry Bagshot crumpled the letter from the headmaster and stormed from his study. “Sally! He’s run away again!”

  She came running from her parlor, where she did worsted work when the maids weren’t looking. She had never been good at fancy stitchery.

  “What?”

  “Yes. Run away again! And this time the headmaster says he’s expelled! Some rubbish about leaving one of those starched and ironed boys tied up in the chapel and hacking off all his hair. They won’t have him back, not after this.”

  Sally’s face blanched. “Not our Tom. He would never do such a cruel thing.”

  “He ran Friday last. Who knows where he’s got to in this time. Have to call out the runners again.”

  Sally clutched his sleeve. “Harry,” —for that was what she called him—“Do you think he’s all right?”

  “Of course he is. We’ll have him in no time.”

  But it took three weeks.

  Three weeks of combing the countryside, asking at roadside inns, and checking shipyard manifests. Three weeks of Sally growing paler and paler, praying with every thought and word for her son to be restored, while Henry sickened with guilt and grief. At last they found him in London, working in a livery stable. Sure of a handsome reward, the lucky runner brought Tom back to Chippenstone, whistling in appreciation as they drove up to the house.

  “Why’d you run from this then?” he demanded, but Tom, who had not spoken since his arrest, merely scowled.

  After Rugby, he hated this house and all it represented. Give him honest folk and honest work.

  When he owned this house, he would tear it down brick by brick, just to spite his father. In the meantime, he allowed himself to be escorted inside.

  It was a remarkable day for the neighborhood, though no one knew of it, for both Cordell and Chippenstone were welcoming children home. As Sophy tripped up the nursery stairs, flanked by Henrietta and Jasper, Tom marched into the hall and into his sobbing mother’s arms.

  There was no help for it. Tom had to be birched, but Henry deliberately softened his arm. Tom didn’t even squeak. That told Henry more than anything else. His son was not a boy anymore. He had no idea what to do with him. The boy he had threatened to scalp was an earl. Word got around; it was unlikely another school would take Tom after that. With an earl as his enemy, it would be hard for Tom to ever gain entrée with England’s elite.

  Henry glared, leaning over his desk. “You’re well and truly finished, boy.”

  “Good.”

  “Just what do you plan to do now?”

  “I was doing well enough for myself.”

  “Working at a livery!” Henry snorted.

  “I enjoyed it. If you won’t let me work with you, I’ll find my own way.”

  “I meant you to have better than this.”

  “I don’t want it. You can’t make me.”

  His dream of his son being a gentleman was finished, impossible. Henry sighed. “You’re right I can’t. Sit down.”

  Surrendering to the inevitable, Henry gestured Tom to one of the armchairs by the fireplace. He sat without a grimace, causing Henry to reflect that he really had done a poor job with the birching.

  “Well, Father?”

  Henry rubbed his thumb over his side whiskers. “I won’t have you worrying your mother again, hear?”

  Tom had the grace to look ashamed. “I am sorry for that.”

  “You should be. Since you’ve left me no other choice, I’ll give you a start. You can go with Fulham on the next ship. If you want to be in business, you’ll have to learn. I’ll expect you to work hard.”

  “Of course. I can earn my place.”

  Henry gave a loud humph. “You’d better. You’ll leave before the month’s out. In the meantime, you do what you can to make your mother happy.” Sally would not like seeing her son take to sea. But what else was there to do?

  Tom’s lips parted, as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune. Well, and if this was what the boy wanted, why shouldn’t he have it?

  Springing from his chair, Tom crossed the distance to his father, then hesitated, swinging his empty hands. His face was bright, flushed with pleasure. “I won’t disappoint you father,” he promised.

  Henry smiled, and took his son’s hand. “Of course not. You should tell your mother.”

  Long after Tom raced from the room Henry sat there. He had known for a long time that Tom would be good in the business. He’d also known that no matter how Tom succeeded in the world of commerce, he could not help but be disappointed. It was not the life he wanted for his only son.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Seasons

  Up in Cord
ell’s nursery, Sophy spent a sleepless night, agonizing over the loss of her mother’s sketches and the consequences of angering Lord Fairchild. She could not afford to offend her only protector. In the morning, she trembled as the new nursemaid conducted her to the library. Though Lord Fairchild accepted her wooden apology, she seemed to have killed any interest he had in her. She glimpsed him only once in the following fortnight.

  The nursery was lonely and dark at night; she often woke, cold and terrified, too afraid to leave her room and with no one to call. Awake or asleep, she dreaded being sent away from Cordell Hall.

  Escaping in her free hours to the park, it didn’t take Sophy long to find the ruin her mother had painted. How she longed for those pictures! Surely she would not be so troubled in that great empty nursery, if only she had them with her. After her angry outburst she was too afraid of Lord Fairchild to ask for the pictures back. The more time passed without speaking to him, the more timid she became. It hurt, knowing he had taken a share of her mother’s love, but she locked pain and resentment away.

  Lord Fairchild did not guess she was lonely, or he would have gone to her again. After her rebuff, he told himself he must wait until she was willing to know him. He watched carefully, but she never gave any sign. Always, she subdued herself in his presence, retreating as soon as possible. Only when he watched her unobserved did he see her come to life: running back to the house, red-cheeked, from the gardens; rollicking with Henrietta in an empty salon; flitting away from the kitchen with a ginger biscuit in her hand. He waited, increasingly impatient, but the sign never came.

  Despite his own repeated counsel—she was young, she knew nothing of him, she was grieving—he was wounded by her cool dislike. She lived in his house, yet he felt almost as removed from his love-begotten child as he had the past ten years.

  Sophy spent most of her time in the schoolroom with Henrietta and the adenoidal Miss Frensham. From the beginning, Henrietta had been eager to embrace her half-sister. Illicit novels were her lifeblood. She viewed Sophy as a tragic heroine, becoming quite disappointed when she learned Sophy had not been rescued from the workhouse. But she was an eager listener and Sophy’s stories turned out to be better than the one she had imagined. She liked few things better than hearing Sophy’s caricatures of Mr. Lynchem and the worthy ladies of Bottom End, or her retellings of Fanny Prescott’s fairy tales. Sunny natured, there were truthfully very few people Henrietta disliked; even dour Miss Frensham was not wholly despised.