Andre, who had been listening to this, nodded once and moved quickly to the helm while Benoit looked at her curiously. “And what will you do when you get there, Mademoiselle?”
Sophia let out a long, slow breath. She didn’t quite know how to answer him. But she had been thinking.
Benoit said, “I see that you are scheming.” She gave him a look of innocent surprise, and Benoit made a little Parisian pfft sound. “Of course you are scheming. But may I offer you advice?”
She waited. Benoit’s advice was generally very good.
“Do not try to please her.”
Her gaze jumped to Madame Hasard, lifting her elegant dress to go belowdecks. “And why would you say that, when I am in need of her approval?”
“Because she will not respect it. It has always been her way.”
Now it was her turn to look curiously at this nondescript, enigmatic little man who spoke no Commonwealth and seemed to be in charge of the ships and, to some extent, the Hasards. “How long have you known her?”
Benoit mimicked her look of innocence. “Why, since the day she was born, Mademoiselle.” He smiled. “Perhaps you did not know that Madame is my sister?”
Sophia felt her eyes widen, sure her mouth must be hanging open. “But I thought … you were a …”
Benoit tilted his head at her. “And why would you think that?” He was smiling genuinely now while Sophia’s mind swept the deck, mentally counting uncles. Émile speaking quietly to René, Andre at the helm, Peter, Enzo, and Francois presumably on the other ship. What a prat she’d been. René had told her his mother had six brothers. Why had she never noticed that she’d only been introduced to five? Or even considered that their surname could not be Hasard?
“In any case, what sort of uncle would I be, Mademoiselle, to allow René to run about the Commonwealth, getting engaged on his own? He might get into trouble. Do you not agree?”
Sophia closed her mouth and returned the man’s smile. “Of course I agree. And so, what exactly is your name, Benoit?”
“Benoit is our family name, Mademoiselle.”
“Then what is your first …”
“I prefer Benoit. Just Benoit.”
She wondered what given name could possibly be so bad that Benoit would prefer his own family not to use it. Surely it couldn’t be worse than “Francois Benoit.” Or perhaps it could.
Benoit took her hand and kissed it. “Do not try to please her, Mademoiselle. It is my best advice.”
“Call me Sophia,” she said, before he melted away into the shadows.
The middlesun was hidden behind thick clouds when Sophia’s boots hit the shallow water of the Bellamy beach. She splashed and ran across the pebbly sand, leaving René and Benoit and Tom to get out of the boat. Orla was standing at the end of the cliff path, waiting for her. She must have spotted the ships and come running herself.
“Well, you need a wash, don’t you?” she said in Orla fashion, pulling away from Sophia’s hug. But Sophia had seen the tension leave her shoulders when she recognized Tom getting out of the boat. She dreaded telling her who wouldn’t be getting out of the boat.
“How is Father?”
“Not well,” Orla replied.
Sophia grimaced. “Has the sheriff been here?”
“Yesterday.”
“Will he give us any extra time?”
“I think not.”
“Right. Let’s see what Tom can do, then. And, Orla …”
She saw Orla’s eyes fix beyond her shoulder, where she was certain there must be another ship coming in. “We have the entire Hasard family, including René’s mother, and one hundred and twenty-three extra people coming to stay. And some of them will be sick, and …” she met Orla’s gaze “… they will have prison lice. Most of them. Or all of them.”
Orla’s face remained expressionless. “Well. We’ll see if Nancy can bring in her husband and daughters for a few days, and if she can kill some ducks. I’ll find more coal and get the oil and the combs. How long will they be here?”
Sophia smiled. She was glad to be home. Even if it was just for a little while.
By dusk Sophia had oiled her own hair, tied it in a kerchief, bunked René in with Tom, put the uncles on the ships, Jennifer in her own room, and helped Orla fill the ballroom with pallets for everyone else. By tomorrow, perhaps they could get one or two of the better bedrooms ready. Madame Hasard she had put in the more recently cleaned north wing, though the woman had not been happy about it, making her views clear as they passed in a corridor.
“I would have thought you could make your guests more comfortable, Miss Bellamy.”
Having just left the bedside of a sick child with prison dirt still on his face, Sophia had found it necessary to actually bite her tongue.
“And your father has taken to his bed, I hear,” she continued.
“Stop it, Maman!” René had warned from behind her. He was hauling buckets of water up the stairs. Madame ignored him.
“Isn’t that considered rather … weak in the Commonwealth, Miss Bellamy?” Madame ventured. “I thought you were all for self-sufficiency here.”
Sophia had merely walked down the hall and shut a door behind her, putting a barrier between them, just as she was shutting the door to her father’s room now, attempting to block out what was on the other side. Though there were people all over the house, it was quiet outside Bellamy’s room, mostly because the prisoners were exhausted and in need of rest now that they had been fed; probably that wouldn’t be the case tomorrow. She sank down along the polished paneling until she was seated on the floor, St. Just immediately crawling into her lap.
Her father had been refusing food and he’d drunk very little since she’d left for the Sunken City; now he was as wasted beneath his blankets as Tom. Only Tom would heal, was already healing, while her father was determined not to. He did react to Tom’s voice, however, giving him a slight squeeze of his hand. Sophia had stayed back, fearful of distressing him.
She looked up as Tom came out of Bellamy’s room, still bearded and in the uniform jacket of the Upper City. He sat down beside her with a little difficulty, stretching out his bad leg. He took her hand.
“Sophie,” he said. “Father’s gone.”
She said nothing, just frowned and petted St. Just. For a few blissful moments she felt nothing but numb shock.
“I tried to do the right thing,” she said.
“I know you did.”
“Do you think he ever forgave me?”
Tom put his arms around her. “Yes, Sophie. I think he did.”
They both knew Tom couldn’t know that, but Sophia chose to be comforted by it, anyway. First Spear, and now her father. The five of them reduced to three. Her grief for both of them was flavored with guilt the way salt flavors the sea; she could taste it in the tears.
It was after highmoon when Sophia stood in the Bellamy stables, watching Cartier get Tom’s horse ready, Spear’s horse and her own beside it. Nancy’s husband had been caring for them all together in Cartier’s absence. She was grieved, still dirty, and so tired she could barely stay on her feet. Jennifer Bonnard stood beside her, not much better though her fever was gone, also unwilling not to see Tom off. Sophia held her up, and had a suspicion that Jennifer might be doing the same for her. Tom mounted from his good leg, grimacing at the pain from his bad one.
“I’ll see you up on the hill first thing,” Sophia said. They were burying their father there at dawn, like people did in the years after the Great Death. No coffins and no fuss. “And don’t start any fires!” she added.
Tom rolled his eyes once. “I’m not an idiot, Sophie.” But then he smiled at her through his sadness, and smiled even more at Jennifer. He turned the horse and rode out of the stable, toward the A5 and Graysin Lane. It was going to be difficult for him to be at the Hammond farm, but there was no better place for him to hide on short notice. He might not be able to prove his ability to inherit his father’s estate, but the Commonwe
alth saw no problem in the world with Tom inheriting his father’s debt. They would have Mr. Halflife and Sheriff Burn on them. Soon.
“Will they arrest him?” Jennifer asked.
“Not if they can’t find him.” Her meager plans, begun in her head during the landover ride, had not changed in light of her father’s death. Now, it was just Tom she was keeping out of prison, instead of her father. And she would see her brother back in a prison cell over her own dead body.
“I knew it was you,” Jennifer said, looking over at Sophia. “I recognized you that night, when you shook out your hair. You always did that when we were children. But I told them it was him. I suppose because I knew you so much better, and …” She ran a hand over her head, the hair grown out only a little from its ragged cut for the Razor. “I told Tom what I did, when we were in the Tombs, and he said I did the right thing. Why do you think he would say that?”
Because he is Tomas Bellamy, Sophia thought, though she didn’t know quite how to express that to Jennifer.
“I think it is because he is the best man in the world,” Jennifer said. “That’s why.”
Sophia looked again at Jennifer. They’d been little girls the last time they’d spent any real time together, Sophia having moved beyond dolls and quiet games beside a fire rather quickly. She’d never felt sorry about that, not until now. Now she was wondering just what sort of friend she might have missed.
She gave Jennifer one slightly ferocious hug, careful of her bandaged arms, picked up the lantern, and hurried out of the stable without another word, St. Just at her heels. The sharp air whipped past her face, stinging her cheeks as she made her way across the autumn dead grasses of the lawn. Someone’s foxes were barking in the distance, and St. Just barked back. She rounded the corner of Bellamy House and found Émile waiting for her, his fading red hair pale in the highmoon light, arms crossed as he leaned against the house stones. He was in the fancy breeches and waistcoat of her engagement party, evidently preferring that to the stolen uniform of a city gendarme.
“I thought perhaps you were not coming, Miss Bellamy,” he said. “I was very sorry to hear of your father.”
“Thank you, Émile.” She retrieved the key and unlocked the door to the sanctuary. “It just makes our meeting all the more urgent, I’m afraid.”
He followed her light down the winding stairs, the skitter of St. Just’s claws moving ahead of them. Émile said, “I find Bellamy House fascinating, Mademoiselle. Pieces of the Time Before are everywhere. It is remarkable. And I have just discovered something else remarkable. My elder brother has confided his identity to you.”
“Yes. I was a bit peeved with your nephew for not telling me that himself.”
“Ah. I would never discourage you from being cross with René, Mademoiselle. It is good for him. But the fact that Benoit has told you is …”
He waited so long to complete his sentence that Sophia turned around on the stairs. Émile was grinning at her. Oh, dear. Daughter stealer. “I am impressed,” he said, “that is all.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it is a mark of particular trust. Benoit considers you one of the family.”
She smiled as she continued down the stairs. “Your sister doesn’t agree.”
“Adèle will not give up her place easily.”
“Her place?”
“I am meaning her son, Mademoiselle.”
“Well. I am going to outplay her, Émile. If I can.”
“And how will you do that?”
“By giving René the marriage fee, which he can then pay to me, and we can pay our debts and keep my brother from going to prison.” She glanced back over her shoulder again. “She has already signed.”
Émile was grinning from both sides of his mouth now. “So she has. Forgive me, Miss Bellamy, but if the fee is even more than your father’s debt, how do you propose to raise such a sum on short notice, when you could not do so before?”
They entered the sanctuary, and Émile’s eyes widened. “That is why I wanted to meet with you. I’m beginning to wonder what the Bellamy family has that might have been previously … undervalued. So, as an honorary member of your family, Uncle Émile …” Sophia crossed the patched floor to Tom’s display shelf. “What sort of price do you think these things could fetch?”
Sophia sank down into the warm bath in front of her bedroom fire, aching inside and out, but incredibly grateful for the hot water she’d discovered. And the cinnamon in her soap. Orla was a heroine.
There had been very little time during the day, but she’d taken some of it to be with Orla. Orla had only ever once been moved to tears in Sophia’s memory, and that had been when she was very small, when they lost her mother. And now they had lost her father. And Spear. Seeing Orla cry had made her do the same again, but when she’d tried to explain to her about René, the woman had only waved a hand. “There’s no great surprise in wanting to marry your own fiancé, child,” Orla said, wiping her eyes, sending her off to bed with a light smack. What had come as a surprise was who she hadn’t found when she got there. Jennifer Bonnard had disappeared, and Sophia would have gambled a marriage fee that there was another horse missing from their stables, and an extra one stabled at the Hammond farm. Not that she had a fee to gamble.
Uncle Émile had given her hope for some money from Tom’s collection, but not near enough to fund a marriage. She’d taken him to the ballroom gallery to see the statue of the Looking Man as well, a piece that made him say things like, “Ah, extraordinary!” and “I am amazed!” But he did not think the statue would bring actual money. Or not very quickly. Even with his connections.
“A collector wishes for small things, things he can put discreetly on a shelf and move when needed. With this … the transportation alone would be dangerous and difficult. A museum might risk it, but not for a tenth of its worth, Mademoiselle.”
But he was taking René and Enzo and Andre up to the west fields to dig the next day, to see what could be found. Even one plastic bottle with its label on, he’d said, especially the ones with the mysterious word DIET, could bring what she needed with the right buyers, though finding one surviving in that kind of condition was rare. Very rare. It was a nebulous hope to be sure, and much less concrete than her offer from Mrs. Rathbone.
Mrs. Rathbone had come calling in what should have been their after-dinner time, though nothing was regular at Bellamy House at the moment. Sophia had just set off to find René when she spotted a flowered hat in the drawing room.
“Mrs. Rathbone?” Sophia inquired, backtracking to the door. She’d had her head wrapped up and was still in her filthy breeches, face streaked with dirt and tears. “I thought you were in the Midlands.”
Mrs. Rathbone sat herself straighter in the chair before Sophia could say more. “I haven’t come to chat, Miss Bellamy, though it looks to me as if we could chat all night. You seem to have been doing things I would find interesting. But as I was saying, that isn’t what I came for. I have come to remind you about my offer to buy Bellamy House.”
Sophia came and sat down heavily in her father’s chair, and only then did she notice that Madame was also in the room, legs crossed and with a cup of something hot in her hand. Giving her what Sophia had come to think of as the Hasard eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t be able to offer what it’s worth, mind,” Mrs. Rathbone continued. “Who could?”
Who indeed, Sophia thought. She seemed to be flush with valuable items that could do her absolutely no monetary good.
“But you could come close to the debt. I know you’re two days from Bellamy’s arrest …”
“Actually, Mrs. Rathbone …”
“… and I thought this way you could at least keep the sheriff away. You might prefer it to jail and the house going to Parliament …”
“Mrs. Rathbone, Bellamy … my father has just … died.”
“What?”
Sophia saw Madame again raise the one brow. It made her unreasonably indignan
t, that eyebrow. Was the woman incapable of lifting the other one? Or maybe it was just heartache that made her so irritable. Or Mrs. Rathbone.
“I’m also sorry to tell you that Spear is gone as well, Mrs. Rathbone.” The woman sat still in her chair. “He was buried in the Sunken City.”
“What?” Mrs. Rathbone repeated. She seemed truly taken aback. “Buried in the city? Whatever happened to him?”
Sophia stared down at the worn place her father’s shoes had made in the carpet, started feeling tearful, and with that, her journey to anger was complete. She was not going to talk about what had happened to Spear. She pressed her lips together.
“Well!” said Mrs. Rathbone. “This is not what I was expecting to hear, my dear. Not at all. Then it all falls to you, doesn’t it? I am so terribly sorry for you.”
“If you mean the debt, Mrs. Rathbone, that falls to my brother, actually.”
“Tom? But I thought …”
“News is a bit slow coming out of the city right now …” There was no telling what the papers would say when they did come. That was probably dependent on who ended up in power as much as the truth. “Tom is free. They had the wrong man.”
“So they did,” commented Madame Hasard.
Mrs. Rathbone shook her flowered hat. “This visit has taken me by surprise, and no mistake. Not to be crass, Miss Bellamy, but it’s getting hard to keep up with which Bellamys are alive and which aren’t, who’s jailed and who isn’t. And what about Monsieur, then? Not to get too personal, Miss Bellamy.”
Sophia narrowed her eyes. Perhaps Mrs. Rathbone would also like to know the amount of money in her purse. Madame Hasard tilted her head to one side. “Mrs….?”
“Rathbone,” Sophia supplied, as if she hadn’t already said the name at least ten times. “I assume you’ve met Monsieur’s mother, Madame Hasard?”
Madame said, “I fear that things have not turned out as we had hoped in that regard, Mrs. Rathbone.”
Poor woman, Sophia thought, looking at Madame. How hard she must be wishing that lie was true.
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