by Karen Odden
“What does it mean?”
“It’s a song about life as a gathering of opposites. You’ve probably heard the English version.” He leaned closer and sang a huskier, quieter version of the melody that was being bellowed at the corner table, but with the English words: “Life is a mix of betwixt and between, of boats and carriages, deaths and marriages, lilies and thistles, and wiles and whistles, of silver and sixpence, today and a week hence . . .”
When he finished, I sat back. “I’ve never heard that version. I had no idea that’s what Amalie was singing about. I wonder where she learned her French.”
“I taught her,” he said simply.
I stared. “You did?”
He smiled. “Amalie’s not her real name, and she doesn’t really speak French. But back when she was looking for work, she knew it was something that would set her apart. She has a near-perfect memory, as well as a perfect ear.”
“She has new songs every few weeks,” I said. “Do you teach her all of them?”
He nodded.
“That’s kind of you.”
He shook his head, as if to correct me. “After my mother died, my father wasn’t well, and Amalie’s family looked out for me. It was mostly Amalie, though, who mended my clothes and made sure I ate. She told me she had three younger brothers already, so she didn’t even notice.” A faint smile. “It wasn’t until later that I realized she said that so I wouldn’t feel beholden. But I know what I owe her.”
I felt my perception of Amalie shift. “How long has she been singing at the Octavian?”
“Since it opened, so seven years. Her father died when she was seventeen, and they needed the money.”
So Amalie is twenty-four now, I thought. But seven years? That might explain some of the weariness I saw in her face when she wasn’t onstage. “And did you convince Mr. Williams to hire her?”
“I didn’t have to; he was lucky to get her. She probably should’ve gone to the Academy herself.”
“Did she want to?”
“I think so. But she’s happy now, married and all.”
“She’s married?” I blurted out.
“Sure. Has been for two years.”
I felt my view of Amalie realign yet again. And I realized something else, too: if Jack had in fact injured her cousin, Amalie wasn’t the sort who’d forgive him. Now I knew, without a doubt, that Stephen’s story had been false.
The French song finished with a boisterous chorus and a good deal of laughter. Some of the people at other tables clapped, looking amused.
We were silent a moment, with Jack lost in some private thought and me trying to decide whether to broach what I knew would be a difficult subject.
“Jack.”
He took the last bite of his stew and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “What?”
“Tonight, back at the music hall, I was on my way out, and I—I saw your father. There were two boys with him—and he was terribly angry with them.”
“Two boys?” he repeated, his voice carefully neutral.
“I assume they were pickpockets. The younger one was called Gus, and he had a scar here.” I touched the side of my mouth. “He seemed to have difficulty talking.”
Jack nodded. “Rob and Gus. They’re brothers.”
“You know them?”
“I’ve seen them around.”
“Do you know how Gus got that scar?” I asked.
“He was stealing a hot potato from one of the stalls in Covent Garden.” His voice flattened. “When he got caught, the owner shoved it in his mouth and made him hold it there.”
I was silent at that, horrified.
“What were they doing?” he asked.
“They were leaving—I think. But your father was—well, he was yelling at them.”
“Yelling?”
“He hit them,” I admitted, and then added, more softly, “He frightens me.”
The minute the words were out of my mouth, I wished them back in. Jack looked away toward the fire, his whole body rigid. He was angry, but also ashamed and—it seemed to me—uneasy.
“I’m sorry.” I reached an impulsive hand out, though I pulled it back before touching him. “I’m truly sorry. He’s your father, and . . .”
His gaze came back around to me. “And what?”
“And—well,” I floundered. “I wouldn’t find it easy to hear something like that about a . . . a relation.”
“It’s no matter,” he said tonelessly. “I know who he is.”
“But it does matter. It’s not my place.” I swallowed. “We were having such a nice time, but now you look . . .” My voice trailed off. “You look like you used to at the Octavian. Closed off.” He said nothing, and I added hurriedly, “There, you barely say a word and until the other day, when you were fixing my piano, I might even have called you sullen. But here, you’re so . . . different.”
“You’re different at the music hall, too,” he retorted. “You’re a man there, and a woman everywhere else.”
“But that’s because I have to pretend.”
“I know.” He watched the fire for a moment, and as the tension eased out of him, he looked back at me with a sigh, seeming resolved to explain. “My father wasn’t always like he is now. Back when my mother was alive, he was happy. He’d laugh so loud it would hurt my ears.”
And he changed when she was gone, I thought, picturing my own father.
He pushed his plate aside and set his elbows on the table. “My mother grew up in a small town not far from Toulon, and she caught influenza as a young child. It made her lungs weak, and from then on, she was prone to illness, especially during the rainy season. When she was twenty-two, she met my father and moved here to be with him, and though she wasn’t sickly, she wasn’t what you’d call strong.”
“What was her name?”
“Eugenie. Here in England everyone called her Jane.” His expression lightened, as if even saying her name brought a measure of happiness.
“Where did you live?”
“Not far from here. I went to school in the mornings, and then I’d help my mum with chores and go on errands for the baker and the butcher down the street in exchange for good bread and meat. That’s how I know Mayfair. I had manners, they said, so they’d usually send me when there was a delivery ’cross Regent Street.”
I smiled to think of a young Jack running around the streets of Mayfair.
“The winter I was nine,” he continued, “my mum got sick again. It was her lungs, just what the doctors said it would be. At first it was just a touch of flu, like most folks. But with her, it turned into pneumonia. By September, she was gone.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, my heart aching for him.
“What about you?” he asked. “How did your mum die?”
I laced my fingers in my lap, considering what to tell him. Everything about this evening made even a lie of omission feel wrong. Finally, I said, “I told you I lost my mother, and that was true.” My voice caught a bit. “But she didn’t die. She ran off.”
To my relief, he didn’t look disgusted or appalled at the idea of a woman who would abandon her husband and children.
“Where did she go?”
“To Europe. To become a professional musician. Before she left, my mother was ill. Not like your mother, I mean. She was . . . she had a disease in her brain. I don’t remember her myself because I was so young, but she vacillated between mania and melancholy, and during one of her worst times, she became fixated on the idea that her genius required her to go to Europe. So she left, and my father couldn’t find her.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What does he think of you playing?”
“He passed away.” I picked up my spoon and put it inside the empty bowl. “My father changed, too, afterward. Oh, he was always fair to us—my brother, Matthew, and me, but he was”—I searched for the right word—“distant, and resigned, as if he just couldn’t bring himself to care about much.”
“Your brother�
�s older?”
I nodded. “By four years. I feel like I was raised more by him and our housekeeper and our doctor than by my father.” I paused. “Dr. Everett is the one who had concerns about my playing. He believed my mother’s illness was exacerbated by it, which is why he designed a practical education for me, to balance out the music.” I couldn’t quite meet Jack’s eyes as I added, “Although recently he reminded me that I still need to be careful. He heard me playing Chopin.”
“Do you feel you’re like your mother?” Jack asked.
The frankness of the question brought the blood to my cheeks. “I don’t have any delusions about being a genius, if that’s what you mean. And I’ve never had a night when I couldn’t sleep, or a day when I didn’t want to get out of bed. But I do lose myself at the piano sometimes. Hours will pass, and I won’t even notice. That worries me.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I’ve been around pianists my entire life, and I think they all do that.”
Before I could answer, the mantel clock struck, startling us both.
I stared in dismay at the two hands pointing, one nearly straight up and one down. “Oh! Jack, I’m sorry. I have to go.” Still sitting in the chair, I struggled with putting on my coat, and he reached around to help me find my sleeve. “Matthew doesn’t know I play. He doesn’t even know I’m not home some nights.”
His eyebrows rose. “How’ve you managed to keep it from him?”
“He works late.”
He stood up, dug in his pocket for some coins, counted them out, and set them on the table. “What are you going to tell him about your ankle? You can’t hide that.”
“I’ll have to say I was out for a walk and fell, or . . . well, I’ll think of something. And I can take a cab. I’ll just have it stop at the corner. I can hobble from there.”
He put on his coat. “I’ll come with you.”
“You don’t have to,” I said.
He said nothing, only bent down to pick up my boot.
Sarah came over to our table. “You’re going, then?”
He looked up. “Afraid so. Say hello to Ben for me, will you?”
“I will.” She picked up our dishes and stepped away. But she was still watching us as he picked up my boot.
Yes, I thought. I think Sarah cares for Jack a good deal more than he realizes.
He made the opening as large as he could.
“Do you think it will go back on?” I asked.
“We’ll leave it unbuttoned at the top. The swelling’s not bad, what with the ice and keeping it up on the chair. You should be able to walk on it in a day or two.”
“I hope so. I need to get back to the Octavian on Monday.”
“Let’s try.” He slid the boot on, and I felt the swollen part of my ankle push against the sides.
He put out his hands to help me up. He was right: the injury was already better, without the shooting pain, though it was still tender. Leaning on his shoulder, I could manage, and we half walked, half hobbled through the front door. I think he bore most of my weight the entire way down Wickley Street, but being at least half a foot taller than I, he had to stoop to help me.
We paused at the corner, where the street crossed Howland, at a gas lamp. The metal of the post felt cold to my perspiring hand.
“We can rest a minute.” He straightened up.
“The problem is I’m shorter than you are. It’s so awkward—”
He was standing quite close to me. “Is it?” A smile played around his mouth. “I was just thinking it was rather a pleasure.”
My heart thudded once, hard, but not a single coherent phrase came to my mind, much less out of my mouth. I stood there dumb as the metal post I was leaning against.
When he spoke again, his voice was flat but not unkind. “You must be exhausted. Wait here. I’ll find a cab at the corner. There’s no reason for you to walk anymore.”
With that, he left me, my insides churning with uncertainty. He returned in a hansom cab pulled by a plodding brown horse. It stopped beside me, and Jack climbed out, helped me over the wheel, and got back in. He looked at me expectantly, and when I said nothing, he said, “I need to tell him where to go.”
“Oh! Of course. The corner of Cork and Dunsmire.” Jack repeated the words to the driver, and the cab began to move.
He kept to his side of the seat, his elbow on the edge of the window, and looked out. His silence was hard for me to read, but if I had to guess, his thoughts were at least partially occupied elsewhere. Still without speaking, we crossed Regent Street, and the gas lamps became more regular, the streets smoother and quieter, the hic-hac of the horse’s shoes rhythmic on the cobbles.
Finally, I made myself speak, determined not to have my silence misunderstood for indifference. “Jack.” I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at talking when I’ve more feelings than I can say at one go.”
I couldn’t see his face in the shadows, but his voice was easy as he said, “I understand. I don’t mind.”
“But I’m very grateful for what you did tonight—and dinner was lovely.”
To my ears it sounded inadequate, but it seemed to be enough. He turned, and as the light from a street lamp fell through the window, I could see he was smiling. Though neither of us spoke, a kind of wordless exchange occurred that felt as confidential and comfortable as our conversation at the public house, and my heart lightened in my chest.
We reached the corner of Cork and Dunsmire. The cab stopped, and Jack helped me out, slowly, so I wouldn’t knock my ankle on the step.
Jack spoke to the driver. “Wait for me. I’ll be just a minute.”
The driver grunted in return.
“I need to go down the alley,” I said. “My key is to the back door.”
This time when he picked me up, I put my arm around his neck; when he set me down on my back doorstep, he didn’t step away.
“I’ll check on Rob and Gus tomorrow,” he said.
Had that been what he’d been thinking of in the cab?
“And, Nell . . .” A hesitation, as if he were making up his mind about something. “I’ll keep your secret. Don’t worry about that. But for now, don’t come to the music hall before half past six, and go straight home afterward.”
I stared, surprised. “Why shouldn’t I come before half past six?”
“Just trust me on this, all right?”
“All right,” I echoed.
He touched my shoulder. “Take care of your ankle.” A quick smile, and he was turning away.
“Good night,” I called softly after him. I wasn’t sure if he heard.
I watched as he strode away, his hands jammed into his pockets, his long coat flapping behind him, his dark head down. The wind made a hollow, high, whistling noise that echoed against the backs of the houses.
As I unlocked the door, the bells of Grosvenor Chapel tolled midnight, the tones deep and somber and familiar to my ear.
I found myself grinning like a fool as I ascended the stairs in the dark.
Chapter 13
My dream felt so real, I could have sworn that I heard glass smashing and had tumbled out of a carriage onto a dank and desolate street overrun with rats.
I came awake with a gasp, flat on my back, my eyes wide open, my heartbeat fast and unsteady. The room was still dark, and I sensed I’d only been asleep an hour or so. I sat up, my every nerve on fire. But all was silent, and the coolness of the air in my room was reassuringly normal and bracing. I took a few deep breaths to clear the nightmare and terror from my mind. Slowly, I lay back, burrowing into the warm blankets.
And then I heard a noise downstairs, and I sat up again. This time I pushed the covers off and fumbled for the matches at my bedside, finding the box and lighting my candle with unsteady hands. My mantel clock said half past two, later than I would have guessed, and I gave a sigh of relief. It was wholly likely that it was Matthew downstairs. Had he just come in? Or was he simply unable to sleep? That wouldn’t sur
prise me.
Without thinking, I dropped my feet to the carpet. The pain in my injured ankle sent me back onto the bed with a soft moan. I ran my fingertips carefully over the area; the outer part of my foot was swollen and tender. Gingerly, I tried to take a step and realized I’d need some sort of support. Fortunately, we had a cane, from when Matthew had injured his knee a few years ago. He’d borrowed it from Dr. Everett and never given it back. I wrapped myself in my dressing gown and, hopping and hobbling, opened my door and made my way to the hall closet. I pushed aside some clothes, groping until my hand found the cane’s curved ivory top. A bit too tall for me, but it would do. With one hand on the wall and the other grasping the cane, I headed toward the stairs, my bare feet silent on the carpet. Halfway down I paused on the landing, from where I could see Matthew’s coat on the rack and a light coming from the study.
Carefully, I made my way down, and as I entered the room, I opened my mouth to say, “Matthew, are you all right?”
But it wasn’t Matthew. It was a woman in a black cloak.
I let out a small cry, my hand tightening instinctively on the cane. She was standing still, facing the doorway, as if she’d been waiting for me. Her figure was slight, but I couldn’t see her features, for a black hood covered her hair.
“Who are you?” My words came out just above a whisper.
“I need to speak to the inspector.” Her voice was hoarse, and she broke into a raspy cough that made her double over. When she stood up again, she pushed back her hood, and I saw that she looked frightened.
“Inspector ’Allam,” she insisted. “Is he here?”
“He’s upstairs. But who are you?” I asked again.
There was the sound of a door opening above, swift feet on the stairs, and Matthew was behind me in a rush. I heard his quick intake of breath. “Thank God! You’re all right.”
I looked up to reassure him that I was fine—and realized he was talking to her, not to me. As he went toward her, the lamplight caught the shining grip of Father’s revolving pistol, which he’d tucked hastily into the back of his trousers. My eyes fixed on it, and I felt myself go very still. Matthew had been anticipating trouble tonight.