Witch Hunt

by Ruth Warburton

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No. They would not let me manage them, a blind girl not of age – and I am done with money bled from the veins of the poor. No, I will sell them – or try to. And then I would like to go far away, so I never have to smell the smoke of Southing again. I have a cousin in America, near Boston. Distant relatives of ours and of the Mr Rokewood that you met at our ball. They are a kind family and would take me in, I’m sure. They offered to have me stay once before, but I did not want to leave –’ her voice faltered, ‘– to leave Mama.’

  ‘America!’ Rosa was taken aback. ‘But, Cassie, how – how would you get there?’

  ‘There are steamships. Ocean-going liners. The crossing takes only a week or two.’

  ‘But – but the icebergs! And, Cassie, you are—’

  She stopped. She could not bring herself to say it. But you are blind. How can you travel halfway across the world, alone?

  But Cassie nodded, catching Rosa’s thoughts in that uncanny way she had.

  ‘I know. But I was hoping . . . Rosa, would you come with me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just for the journey, although of course if you wanted to stay with me in America, I would love that too. I will understand if you don’t want to, but Luke could come too. It would be a new start for all of us.’

  Rosa said nothing. Pictures swirled in her head: Mama, Alexis, Clemency, Belle . . . the tall white house in Osborne Crescent, Papa’s narrow grey gravestone in the country churchyard near Matchenham . . . To leave all that – to leave the weight of expectation and duty behind, step out of the corpse of her old identity, to start anew . . .

  ‘I only thought,’ Cassie said, ‘perhaps . . . it might be easier. For you and Luke, I mean. To start afresh in another place. They see matters differently, I think, over there. A lady and a blacksmith – perhaps it would not be so impossible? And –’ her voice wavered, but she went on, bravely, ‘– I must confess it would be good to think I had a friend in America. Perhaps even two.’

  ‘It – it’s a wonderful idea,’ Rosa managed. ‘I must talk to Luke though. I cannot decide for him. If he comes, it must be his own free will.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cassie said quietly. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and walked carefully across the hearth, to where Rosa stood, feeling for her hand. ‘But you, Rosa? Will you come? No – forgive me, I should not ask. You will want to wait, speak to Luke before you decide.’

  Rosa took a breath.

  ‘No,’ she said. And then, as she saw Cassie’s smile falter, she took Cassie’s hand in hers, her words coming fast. ‘No, whatever Luke decides, I will come with you.’ I owe you that much, she thought. Your mother, your brother, your home: they are gone, because of me. I cannot give them back, but I can give you this friendship, though God knows it’s not much.

  ‘Really?’ Cassie’s face lit up, her cornflower-blue eyes like a summer sky. ‘You will come?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rosa said. She gripped Cassie’s hand in hers. ‘Yes, I will come.’

  The knock at the door broke into the silence after her words, making them both jump, and it was Cassie who spoke first.

  ‘Come in.’ She dragged a wrapper from the bed around herself and turned to face the door. ‘The door is not locked.’

  It was Luke. He came into the room a little awkwardly, pulling at his collar as if it chafed him.

  ‘You’re awake, Miss Knyvet.’

  ‘Yes, but please, call me Cassie.’

  Luke winced and shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t. It – it wouldn’t feel right. They’ve dressed me up like a shop-window dummy, but I’m still a blacksmith underneath.’

  ‘You tried to save my mother’s life,’ Cassie said softly. But Luke shook his head again.

  ‘I’ll call you Miss Cassie, if it makes you feel better. But don’t make me uncomfortable, miss. I’d sooner go to dinner in my drawers.’

  Cassie laughed at that.

  ‘Miss Cassie then, and can I call you Luke, or must it be Mr Welling?’

  ‘Mr Lexton,’ he corrected uncomfortably, and Rosa knew he was remembering the circumstances of their last meeting.

  ‘Mr Lexton then.’

  ‘No – no, I didn’t mean that. I meant – call me Luke. Please.’

  He was red and flushed, and Rosa realized afresh how impossible this would be in England. Even without the Malleus and her family to keep them apart, all of society would conspire to separate them.

  ‘Luke,’ she said impulsively. ‘Cassie has had an idea. She asks . . .’ She stumbled. It had seemed so clear on Cassie’s lips, so logical. Now as she tried to think of a way to phrase it to Luke, to invite him but not compel, she faltered.

  ‘I asked if Rosa and you would come with me to America.’ Cassie crossed the carpet to take Luke’s hand in hers. ‘I would count it a great favour, Luke. I have money and means, but I cannot travel alone. I have a cousin in American, a Genevieve Rokewood. She is married to an American, a young, up-and-coming politician called Franklin Entwhistle. He is a supporter of the Vice President, a Mr Thomas Jefferson. Have you heard of him?’

  Luke shook his head.

  ‘Franklin is a great proponent of his. He says he is sure that Mr Jefferson will rise to great heights. I asked Rosa if you would both come with me because I think –’ she paused, and Rosa could see she was trying to think how to phrase it delicately, ‘– I think, perhaps in America . . .’

  Luke met Rosa’s eyes and Rosa bit her lip.

  ‘Perhaps this is a subject to be discussed over luncheon,’ Cassie said at last. She let Luke’s hand drop. ‘I should dress.’

  ‘That’s what I came to say,’ Luke said, as if remembering for the first time the reason he had come. ‘The landlady sent up to ask if we were eating here or not. I’ll tell her yes, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, ask her to send something up to our parlour. Thank you, Luke. I see you, you know,’ she said as he turned to go, and he turned back, looking at her deep-blue sightless eyes. She smiled, feeling his gaze upon her in that strange, uncanny way she had. ‘I see you and Rosa in America. I see happiness for you. I see a future.’

  For a moment Luke stood, looking at her. And then he rounded on his heel and left.

  Luke’s heart was beating hard and fast in his chest, his eyes staring unseeingly, as he strode down the long corridor towards the stairs. He was no fool. He knew what Cassie had meant. America was the great classless society, where self-made men lived in great houses alongside old money and dukes’ daughters rubbed shoulders with the sons of Irish peasants.

  But he could not see himself pulling his fortunes from the mud, raising a railroad company, drilling for oil. He did not want to be a self-made millionaire. He wanted to be a blacksmith, and to have pride in that. Even in America, he doubted that a blacksmith could marry a lady. A man had to put down his tools, to enter the drawing rooms of the rich. That didn’t change just because you’d crossed an ocean.

  And yet . . . and yet he also wanted Rosa. For her, he could change, put down his tools, forget his past. Couldn’t he?

  He stopped at the top of the stairs, his hand on the newel post, and his rib gave a stab, as if it was his heart, not his rib that was broken.

  How . . .

  ‘Luke!’

  He looked up. It was Rosa, running down the corridor, her slippered feet light on the polished boards, her magic glowing around her. ‘Luke, wait!’

  ‘Rosa.’

  She came level with him and put her hand on his arm as she looked into his face. She saw pain there, but didn’t understand it, or not completely.

  ‘Luke, what is it?’

  ‘My rib,’ he said stiffly. She put her hand on the place where it hurt beneath his jacket, gently tracing the swelling there, and he felt the soft warmth of her palm through the thin shirt material and closed his eyes, shutting back the tears that pricked at the back of his lids.

  Rosa.

  ‘Can I?’ she
asked. He nodded, and then felt her magic flood through him, a warm wave breaking over his head, mending, making right and new.

  He took a breath, and in the old, unfathomable miracle that he would never grow used to, never take for granted, he felt it: his rib was healed. But the pain was not gone.

  They were so close, he could feel her breath on his cheek, the heat of her skin . . .

  ‘Luke, come with me . . .’ Her arm stole around his neck and he felt her lips against his throat, his jaw, each touch soft and warm as light. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Yes,’ he found himself saying, as her mouth found his. For how could he let her go? This light, flame-filled girl he loved more than life. ‘Yes, I’ll come . . .’

  The RMS Albion stood at the dock at Portsmouth, dwarfing all the other ships in the harbour. Rosa had never imagined anything so huge – like a travelling, floating hotel. She had read aloud to Cassie the brochure that had accompanied their tickets, describing with astonishment the restaurants, billiard rooms, covered walkways, quoits deck, library – every kind of amusement and pastime man could devise, crammed into seven decks.

  Now they had been shown to their cabins – she and Cassie sharing a two-room suite, Luke in a single first-class berth on the opposite side of the ship. Rosa was on the manifest as Rose Farrier, a joke that had made her and Luke smile when they came up with it. Luke had just shrugged when Cassie asked what name to put down.

  ‘Put me down as Luke Lexton. If they find I’m gone, so much the better.’ But Rosa knew the real reason, or thought she did. His surname was all Luke had to remember William by. He would take the risk rather than lose that last link.

  Below they heard the roar of the engines as the great ship began to build up steam, and she opened the window in their cabin and leant out, looking towards London, thinking of Mama and Alexis. She knew she should miss them; she knew she should feel sad at the thought of them mourning her death, burying an empty coffin with just a handful of the Southing ashes instead of a corpse. But she could not. She felt – not empty. Not even numb, for what she felt was not nothing, it was – indifference? Perhaps there was no word for this feeling, a kind of benign detachment. They would have their legacy now. And she would be free; poor but free.

  I am no one, she thought. I am nothing. I have nothing.

  But it was not true. She was Rose Farrier. She had her freedom. And she had Luke. Suddenly she wanted him, wanted to feel his skin beneath her hands, to believe that this was real, at last, that they could be together in safety.

  She found him in his cabin, watching out of the window as she had been, but he was not sitting by the porthole, he was standing, gripping the wooden surround so tight his fingers were white and the muscles in his back were tense as iron.

  ‘Luke?’

  He had not heard her come in over the thrum of the engines, and he turned, startled.

  ‘Rosa!’ Beneath the surprise, his face was troubled, and she felt something uneasy stir in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Wh-what’s the matter?’

  He swallowed and turned away to the window, but it was when he turned back to her, tears in his eyes and said, ‘Come here, love,’ that she felt a sudden coldness.

  ‘You’ve never called me that before,’ she said as she came across the little room. He sat, drawing her on to his knee and folded his arms around her.

  ‘I should have,’ he said, and his voice cracked. ‘I should have told you I loved you every day since we met, because it was true, even when I didn’t know it myself.’

  He put his face on her shoulder and she felt his breath shudder as he tried to pull himself together.

  ‘Luke, what is it?’ She took his chin and pulled his face to look at her. ‘You’re scaring me. What’s the matter?’

  He took a long breath, as if he were readying himself for a fight, or a dive into nothing.

  And then he spoke.

  ‘I – I can’t come. To America.’

  She did not speak, but whatever showed in her face made him tighten his grip round her and his words came rushing out like tears.

  ‘I wish I could . . . My God, Rose, you don’t know how much I . . . but I can’t. I wrote that book. I condemned those men and women and children. And I can’t leave that, I can’t leave it undone. Leadingham is dead, but the book is still there, and while it is, I can’t run away.’

  ‘Luke . . .’ she whispered, but the words wouldn’t come.

  ‘I could spend a lifetime trying to atone for what I did to you, but as long as your name is in that book, along with all the others, I’ll never manage. If we’re ever to be happy . . .’

  He choked again and then scrubbed furiously at his eyes. His voice was cracked with tears.

  ‘I’d lay down my tools for you, Rose. I would become something else. I’d make any sacrifice for you, and gladly. D’you understand? But this – this I can’t lay down. It’s not me I’m sacrificing. It’d be them, you. I must go back. I must destroy it. And then I can rest.’

  She felt his arms around her, feeling her heart swell and crack with love for him, and she did not cry. She could not cry. She only listened to the thrum of the ship and thought of the peaceful life an ocean away that they could have had. But she knew that he was right – that there would be no peace for him, no future for either of them, while that book seeped its black poison into London’s streets, and men, women and children that he had identified were condemned to death on his word.

  ‘Do you understand?’ he said again, and his voice broke. ‘Say something, Rose, please.’

  She nodded. She had to force the words out, and when they came they were a whisper, but she made them come.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I understand.’ She swallowed and spoke more strongly. ‘But I cannot leave Cassie. Not now, not when I’ve promised her to come.’

  ‘I know.’ His voice was hoarse with tears. ‘I’m not asking you to stay. I don’t want you to stay. I want you to go – be happy – make a new life.’

  They sat for a long time, wrapped in each other’s arms, remembering the days and nights they had held each other and thinking of the emptiness to come.

  ‘You look different,’ Luke said softly. ‘Your magic. It’s different. Did something change, in the fire?’

  ‘Perhaps –’ her throat was tight and sore, and she swallowed against the pain, ‘– perhaps it’s because I’m not afraid any more.’

  The thrum of the engine increased to a whine and she forced herself to stand, pulling herself away from his clutching arms.

  ‘I love you,’ he said hopelessly. The tears ran down his cheeks.

  ‘I love you too. Now, go, before the ship leaves.’

  ‘I’ll come and find you, I promise.’ He kissed her, his tears on her lips, his arms so tight around her that it ached, but she did not care. She wanted to remember this always, to feel his bones imprinted on hers. ‘This Entwhistle – he’s a big man, by the sound of it. He won’t be hard to find. However long it takes, I will come. Will you wait?’

  ‘No, I won’t wait,’ she said, and she put his hand to his face, trying to smile at the sudden hurt she saw in his eyes. ‘For if you don’t come to me, I will find you. We will be together, Luke. Remember what Cassie said?’

  ‘She saw us,’ he managed. ‘Both of us. Happy.’

  She nodded again.

  The ship had begun to shudder and a bell was ringing up and down the corridor. ‘Shore visitors and workmen off the ship!’ someone was calling. ‘Ten minutes to embarkation! Visitors to shore!’

  ‘Go!’ she said, and her voice was fierce, almost angry.

  ‘I love you.’ He kissed her again, and again, on her face and her lips and her eyes and her throat, until she began to sob.

  ‘Go! Luke, please, p-please just go.’

  He nodded, grabbed his bag and turned.

  ‘I love you!’ she cried after him, unable to bear it if that was the last he heard from her.

  ‘I love you too, Rose!’ he called bac
k. ‘We’ll find each other, I swear it. I love you!’

  And then his voice was drowned in the ringing of the embarkation bell.

  Standing on the desk, Rosa watched as the great boat slid smoothly away from the bustling port. Somewhere in that throng of people was Luke, but from this great height she could not pick him out of the mill of caps and greatcoats.

  Luke, she thought, sending her longing out, across the widening gulf of sea, not a spell, but just a heart’s cry of love. Be safe. Come back to me.

  And somewhere out there, although she could not see him, she knew he was there. She felt it inside her, like a warmth that burnt against the chill breeze, picking up as they headed out of the port.

  She looked away from the quay and turned into the wind, feeling its cold exhilaration on her face. And the boat turned to face America and the future.

  The first thing that hit me was the smell – damp and bitter. It was the smell of a place long shut up, of mice, bird-droppings, and rot.

  ‘Welcome to Wicker House,’ Dad said, and flicked a switch. Nothing happened, and he groaned.

  ‘Probably been disconnected. I’ll go and investigate. Here, have this.’ He pushed the torch at me. ‘I’ll get another one from the car.’

  I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering as I swung the torch’s thin beam around the shadowy, cobwebbed rafters. The air in the house was even colder than the night outside.

  ‘Go on,’ Dad called from the car. ‘Don’t wait for me; go and explore. Why don’t you check out your bedroom – I thought you’d like the one at the top of the stairs. It’s got a lovely view.’

  I didn’t want to explore. I wanted to go home – except where was home? Not London. Not any more.

  Dust motes swirled, silver in the torchlight, as I pushed open a door to my right and peered into the darkness beyond. The narrow circle of the torch’s beam glittered back at me from a broken window, then traced slowly across the damp-splotched plaster. I guessed this had once been a living room, though it seemed strange to use the word ‘living’ about a place so dead and unloved.

  Something moved in the dark hole of the fireplace. Images of mice, rats, huge spiders ran through my head – but when I got up the courage to shine the torch I saw only a rustle of ashes as whatever it was fled into the shadows. I thought of my best friend, Lauren, who went bleach-pale at even the idea of a mouse. She’d have been standing on a chair by now, probably screaming. The idea of Lauren’s reaction to this place made me feel better, and I reached into my pocket for my phone and started a text.