A Private Gentleman

by Heidi Cullinan

  “You say you had no friends. Was there a period where that changed? Did you have friends at a previous point, and then things shifted?” She finally seemed to realize he was offended and gentled further. “It isn’t my intention to pry into your life. I merely wish to find that moment where things changed for you. And failing a defining moment, I hope to find a pattern. I’ve been accused of peddling female nonsense and much more colorful things, but I do believe there is some merit in examining our pasts. For myself, it wasn’t as if I decided to stop speaking. Certainly I don’t remember any such thing. All I remember is being afraid—afraid, and guilty. Afraid somehow I would do or say something that would make horrible, bad things happen again. Afraid that this time they would happen to me. Afraid that I would be spared again, and this time someone would think to be angry with me for not suffering along with them. And none of this of course was even conscious. Just a demon following me wherever I went.”

  She reached out, tentatively, and placed her hand on the side of Wes’s chair, almost touching his knee, but there was nothing remotely sexual in the advance. If it was anything, it was motherly. “Do you have such a demon, my lord?”

  Wes stared at her. He didn’t know where his rage had gone. He suspected it had evaporated as he’d huddled again with her beneath a wagon in the dark, in the terrified space inside his mind. No, she wasn’t poking. She’d suffered beyond anything he’d ever heard, except perhaps Michael, though it was a bit like asking which was worse, cutting off both legs or both arms. Yes, she knew demons. She knew that cold fear, worrying what might come, worrying that one should have done differently, worrying that one might be found out, that they might know—

  The room, already still and quiet, seemed to darken at the edges of his vision, and an odd ringing began in his ears as the old, sludgy memory surfaced.

  “One,” he managed at last, stumbling w-w-w-w-w-wuh over the word for almost twenty seconds. She sat through the whole of it, patiently, undisturbed by his struggle. Which perhaps was why the rest came much easier. “One d-d-demon.”

  She didn’t look eager. She didn’t look apprehensive. She only looked like Penelope Barrington, ridiculously patient, kind and eager to listen. To his surprise, Wes found himself willing to speak to her.

  “When I was a small b-boy,” he began, “just seven years old, a b-burglar broke into our house while I was at home. My n-nurse had fallen asleep, and I had crept off to the library to r-read. A corner by the window boasted a strange little n-nook made by remodeling some thirty years p-prior. The carpenter had simply used a f-false board to cover the gap, and he did not nail it into p-p-place. If I removed it and h-hid it behind the curtain, I could settle inside with an old b-blanket and a few pillows.” He smiled, lost in the memory, seeing the space so vividly in his mind’s eye. “It was m-my favorite place.”

  His smile faded. “The burglar, h-h-however, came in through the w-w-window beside me—there was no h-hiding from h-him. I suppose he had expected easy p-p-pickings. The library isn’t far from the b-b-butler’s p-pantry, and with my p-parents away, they had let most of the st-st-staff take h-h-holiday. My b-b-brother was at school, so it was just my n-nurse left with me at h-home. Who would suspect a thief in m-m-midday with servants still about? But there I was, upsetting his p-p-plans.”

  Wes stared off into the darkness of a corner of the room. “I r-r-remember that he had a knife. I r-r-remember it glinting in front of my face. I r-r-remember him threatening to c-c-cut m-me—” He shut his eyes, cheeks burning crimson. “I r-r-remember soiling my b-b-breeches. He l-laughed at me.” Wes kept his eyes closed and went cold as he recalled the rest. This part took some doing to spit out. “Th-Then h-h-he-he t-t-told m-me he kn-kn-knew where m-my m-m-mama’s r-r-room was, and if I w-w-wasn’t a g-g-good b-b-boy and h-h-helped, he’d c-c-come b-back and c-c-cut her th-th-throat.”

  “Oh,” Miss Barrington cried. This time she didn’t just place her hand on his knee—she reached for his hands and clasped them tenderly. “You poor boy. And you did, didn’t you? You helped him to save your mother. Helped him rob your own house.”

  Wes had his eyes open again, but he was staring down at the carpet, eyes blurry. “T-T-Took him to all of it. H-Helped him f-f-find m-m-more than he ever c-c-could have alone.” She had withdrawn from him as he began to speak, and he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “He m-made me hide b-back in my c-c-corner. S-Said he would be w-w-watching. S-S-Said if they c-c-caught him h-he’d expose me and I’d h-h-hang with him.”

  She didn’t give an outburst this time, but he could hear her fury in her exhale. It soothed him, in an odd way. He pressed on.

  “Wh-When my father came home, he was in a r-rage. H-He was v-v-vicious to the staff, c-c-certain it had been an inside j-j-job. I l-l-lurked in the h-h-h-hallway, guilt t-t-t-tearing me ap-p-part.” Memory caught him for a moment. He recalled that sick, terrible feeling, knowing that rage should be directed at him. Then came the rest, like lifting a dirty rock and finding worms. He shook a little. “Th-They d-d-decided it w-w-was the sc-sc-scullery boy. B-Beat him b-b-b-bloody. Kn-Knocked out t-t-teeth. N-N-Never kn-knew wh-what happened to him after. Just that he was g-g-gone.”

  Her hand touched his arm this time, just briefly, like a grounding wire. “And it was after this that it started?” she asked, after a lengthy period of silence. “Your stammer?”

  He nodded. He wasn’t sure, but he thought so. “N-Not right away. C-Came on s-s-slowly. F-F-Father scolded me for it. M-Made it w-w-worse. At school they t-t-teased m-m-me, m-m-more than b-b-before. T-Teachers s-s-said I w-w-w-was w-w-wrong in the h-h-head. M-M-Mother stood up for me.” He let out a ragged, heavy sigh. “B-But th-then she was d-d-d-dead.”

  It sounded so pathetic, out loud. Like he was a silly child complaining about his lot. His mother had died in childbed: nothing extraordinary. Yet lost as he was in the past, it indeed felt, as it had then, like the most crushing blow the world could deal him. He’d been able to bear it then, but to have his one advocate, his one solace gone—the only person who had ever seemed to understand him, extinguished—it had been too much.

  He had stammered after the burglary. After his mother’s death was when he’d begun to withdraw.

  “I h-had n-no friends,” he whispered. He shook his head, staring unseeing at the carpet still. “N-Not before. N-Not after.” He swallowed. “Not n-now.” He let the words hang in the air for some time, a terrible confession. Part of him hoped she would say something. Offer pity. A cry of dismay. Laugh, even. But she remained quiet, and he couldn’t look at her, and somehow he began speaking again. “M-My brother, for a w-w-while. When we were y-young. But I was too sh-shy for other b-boys. I d-didn’t d-d-d—”

  He stopped abruptly, going cold as he realized what he’d been about to say.

  I didn’t dare let them find out what it was I truly wanted of them.

  Now he had to glance at her, and of course she was looking eager, encouraging. “You didn’t what? Go on. It’s all right. You can tell me.”

  “No.” He almost barked the word. “No.” Sliding back into his chair, regaining his posture, he shook his head. “N-No.”

  He braced himself, ready for her to goad it out of him—or to try, for he would not confess this, not to her, not to anyone—but she did not make the attempt. She only smiled that smile of hers and leaned back in her chair as well, though her posture was much more relaxed.

  “That’s enough for today, I imagine. Perhaps we should end with more vocal exercises.”

  It must have been all the thinking of his youth, for Wes in honesty almost groaned aloud, like a boy at his lessons. He did not, however, and he did her exercises as instructed. “Maw-maw-maw-maw-maw. Moo-moo-moo-moo-moo.” Covering his ears and reciting the alphabet at the top of his lungs as she banged on the piano in the corner in discordant clangs and slammed a cymbal against the top of it to add clatter off the beat. Repeating childish rhyming phrases with every word repeated. “The the the the rain rain r
ain rain fell fell fell fell on on on on the the the the plain plain plain plain.” Trying to stammer. “T-T-T-T-T-Tickle. P-P-P-Pickle.” He didn’t know why they did any of it. It wasn’t as if it had helped. Just as dragging up his past had not aided him in any way.

  It made him angry. Helplessly, maddeningly angry.

  When she called their session complete fifteen minutes early, he was relieved, and after stammering the barest of thanks and essential pleasantries, he reached for his coat. When he started for the front door, she stopped him and nodded toward the back of the house.

  “There’s one more exercise I’d like you to try, my lord. And to do it, we’ll need to go to the alley.”

  He frowned at her, but more out of confusion than anything else. When she reached for a thick woolen shawl and headed into a hallway, he followed her.

  She led him through the house, past closed doors and cupboards, all the way to a set of stairs leading to a door which opened into a sort of crude garden. No plants of any sort grew here, and there was barely any rock to stop the mud. The small space was bordered all around by high walls of brick, wood and wire—keeping it safe, he realized, from the more usual occupants of east London alleys. Even in its crudeness, there was an elegance about it. A table and chair sat to one side beneath a tarpaulin, a rough-framed child’s painting hanging as decoration from the wall beside it. A much-patched ball sat beside bricks clearly used as building blocks for play. All this was separated from the back half of the garden by a wall made of rough planks behind which, Wes assumed, refuse was stowed. As Miss Barrington led him around it, he realized this was not the case. It seemed another game was set up here, though this one was much stranger. A box of random bits of glass, whole, cracked and broken, stood to the side. Beneath the opposite wall lay a pile of entirely broken glass.

  “We stirred up a great deal today,” Miss Barrington began, her tone breezy, but it belied the grimness he heard beneath. “If I send you away now, you’ll be unsettled all day, and very likely you’ll fall back onto more opiates again. That may not be something I can halt. But I would like to try.” She gestured to the box of glass. “Use as much as you like. Throw as hard as you’d like. Shout. Curse. Weep. Swallow it—whatever suits you, do so, but spend as much of that rage and uncertainty I see on your face against that wall in whatever means seems best to you.” She nodded back toward the house. “I will sit at the table and wait for you. Take as long as you’d like.”

  She disappeared then, and Wes watched her go, more than a little stunned. She wanted him to break glass? As if it would help? Was she mad?

  With Penelope Brannigan it was difficult to say for certain. What he did know was that it would be easier to toss a few pieces of glass than it would be to argue that he had no need to do so. Sighing, he turned to the box and tried to decide which piece to pick.

  He chose a drinking glass with a large chip on the top. Hefting it in his hand, he measured its weight, feeling slightly ridiculous. Then he lifted it up to his head, tensed his arm and threw.

  The glass shattered with a sharp, almost melodic crash and fell to join the heap on the ground.

  Wes stared at the point of impact on the brick, feeling a strange sense of…relief? He couldn’t quite tell. Generally he detested strong noise, but the glass breaking had an almost quiet shatter. Even so, it drowned out, in that moment, the din from the tavern behind, children’s voices from the mouth of the alley, and the sound of wheels and hooves on the streets. It had felt oddly good. Noise. Destruction. His noise. His destruction. And there was a remarkable mischief about it all. Breaking glass was the stuff of accidents and punishments. Messes to be scolded for. There was no scolding now. In fact, he’d been told to break it. And encouraged to break more.

  He decided that, in fact, he’d be happy to.

  The second piece of glass hit much harder, delivered with greater intent, and as such it wasn’t just relief but release that coursed through Wes. Good God, yes. He’d like to buy out a shop full of the stuff and spend an hour at this. Crash. Shatter. One after another, glasses, decanters, bowls and shards of heaven knew what went sailing against the brick and came down onto the heap.

  And he did shout. He swore as well. As he released each bit of glass, Wes insulted its honor, called it names, told it where to fuck itself, and ultimately simply roared at it. All the rage and frustration and confusion he’d felt in the parlor came out of him now, and he suspected some of it came from the boy who’d been tricked by a whoreson thief into giving away not just his family’s treasures but his own dignity. His happiness too—that boy had possessed so little true happiness, for all his advantages of birth. The thief had stolen that from Wes as well. He realized that now. It infuriated him. It made him want to scream. And sob. And break every piece of glass in London.

  He didn’t, though. He didn’t even break every piece in the box. After several minutes of destruction and shouting and a bit of frustrated weeping, he surprised himself yet again by reaching the end of that well. The rage was done. He felt tired. He felt lonely and empty. But he felt…better. Less angry. Less anxious. Now he was simply sad, sad for what he had lost, for what he could not get back.

  A glimmer of hope flared deep inside him, a tiny flame in the darkness. Is that the magic? Is my stammer gone now too, shattered within that pile of glass?

  He took a deep breath, let it out and tried to speak.

  “H-H-H—”

  He pressed his lips back together quickly, embarrassed and disgusted.

  A gentle hand rested on his shoulder. “No, I don’t think it works like that. Not for you. Not for me either. I spent years practicing those exercises, and even then I still don’t know what really allowed me to relax.” Miss Barrington sighed and let her hand fall away from his arm. “Hopefully, though, this has let go some of what remembering stirred up. I’ll see you to your carriage—but if you please, wait a moment. I must see to something of my own first.”

  To Wes’s great surprise, she walked over to the box of glass and selected a piece of her own.

  She threw with viciousness and speed, and it didn’t take but two throws to wipe away her careful, kind mask. Her eyes were hard with anger, her nose wrinkled and her lips flat as she swore and spat and then, abruptly, sobbed. Her throws slowed a bit as she paused on occasion to wipe her eyes with the back of her glove, then screamed an obscenity and threw again. It was unsettling and yet engaging to watch her.

  Then she was done. She drew a few breaths, wiped her eyes again and turned to Wes. Her mask was still down, and as she smiled tentatively at him, the wise mentor Miss Barrington was gone, replaced by a weary, damp-eyed young woman.

  “Penny,” she said to him. “It would please me if you would call me Penny from now on.”

  Wes frowned at her, uncertain as to how to respond.

  She turned her gaze back to the wall. “I’ve been doing this for a while. Rescuing, some have called it, and usually with a bit of a sneer. And yes, I’m aware it’s all because I couldn’t save my own family. It seems a fair trade, though. Without them I had nothing else to live for, but instead of ending myself messily, I’ve chosen to help others. It makes their deaths—and my loss—mean something. It gives me a sort of peace.” She sighed. “The only trouble, of course, is that it isn’t that I have any sort of training for such things. I’m not even sure it exists. I simply do my best and hope it’s enough. When I meet people who need help, I try to give them what it seems they need.”

  She glanced at him with a crooked smile. “I’ve been trying to give you a strong anchor. It seemed to be what you needed, so proper and formal and with your high rank. I thought I could give you a space you could be at ease. Even if that is what would help you, though, I don’t think I can play that any longer.” She had to wipe away another tear. “Perhaps you don’t see it, but your story felt so much like mine. You were a bit older, but not much. It felt the same, hearing about you sitting in that library, the same as me lying under that wagon. Excep
t you had to walk about with your monster. Odd, how I’d always thought it would have been better to have been hurt. But when I listened to you, I thought of myself and all my what-ifs, and I realized no, it would just be different pain.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t see you as just another soul I’m helping. And I know most British people find it offensive to be overly familiar, but I can’t be your mentor or guide in this any longer. But I would like very much to be your friend. Your friend who listens and helps—and, I’m afraid, bleeds with you.” She paused, then flattened her lips briefly before adding, “And I’m not laying bait for you or any such nonsense. I’m not marrying anyone, but if I were, I certainly wouldn’t marry the son of a marquess. God in heaven, I don’t need that kind of headache.”

  Wes laughed. The sound simply burst out of him, surprising him as much as it did her. When it faded his smile lingered. “W-Wes.” It was her turn to frown at that, so he explained. “W-What my f-friends call me is W-Wes.”

  He saw the delight and happiness reach her eyes, but she lifted her eyebrow and gave him a mock-stern look. “I thought you had no friends.”

  He shrugged, but he was still smiling. “P-Perhaps I was f-f-feeling a bit s-s-sorry for myself and exag-g-gerated. I have s-some. Not g-g-good ones, but s-some. And they c-c-call me W-Wes.”

  She nodded, giving in to her own smile at last. “I shall endeavor to fill that void, then, and be a good one.” She enveloped him in a gentle, sisterly hug and bussed a dry kiss against his cheek. “Until tomorrow, Wes.”

  “G-G-Good day, P-Penny,” he replied.

  He left her in a much better mood than he had anticipated—a much better mood than he’d felt in some time, in fact. He felt light and easy as he lingered in her doorway, waiting for his carriage, for once not even slightly upset by the noise from the tavern beside him.

  He wasn’t due to meet Michael for another hour, and so he went home and freshened up, catching himself humming every now and again, which made him laugh. Heavens, but it felt good to feel good. His buoyant mood continued as he left the house to meet Michael. Michael, his very good friend. His blood quickened, and he let his mind wander over all the things they might do together today. Perhaps he would be brave and try something daring. Perhaps one of the coffeehouses Michael kept mentioning.