Portrait of Peril

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “I’m sorry; I haven’t time to explain—”

  Lucie steps out from behind Mrs. Thornton. I see the cricket bat in her hand the moment before she swings it at me. I duck, and the flat wooden bat whistles over my head. She and Daniel are playing a game of divide-and-conquer, separating Hugh and me, the better to finish us off. What have they done to Barrett? Lucie whacks my shoulder. The force and the pain of the impact knock me to the floor. I grab her ankle with my left hand. She squeals and kicks, but I bring her down. Before she can hit me again, I punch her with my right fist. The gun I’m holding lends unexpected weight to the blow. My knuckles crack against her skull. She goes limp. I untangle myself from her, my heart pounding.

  Mrs. Thornton falls to her knees beside her granddaughter. “Lucie!” As I clamber to my feet, she looks up at me and cries, “What have you done?”

  Hitting Lucie was an instinctive act of self-defense. My relief that I’ve put at least one of the children out of action turns to horror as Lucie remains motionless. Her grandmother shakes her and calls her name; she doesn’t respond.

  If my mother really did kill Ellen Casey, is this how it was for her? Not a deliberate, cold-blooded decision to strangle the girl but an unthinking impulse like mine, an accident?

  It doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that Ellen was an innocent victim who’d done nothing to hurt my mother whereas Lucie attacked me. Ellen is dead, regardless of my mother’s motive. So is Lucie Thornton, regardless of mine.

  Mrs. Thornton cradles Lucie’s body in her arms and wails. My mind tries to deny what my eyes see. Maybe there’s still a chance of saving Lucie. The ambulance is outside; I could take her to the hospital. But Barrett and Hugh are somewhere in this building with Daniel, who is just as capable of violence as Lucie, ten times stronger, and probably insane. And now I see, with awful, nauseating clarity, that I’m even more like my mother than I feared. Leaving Mrs. Thornton weeping over Lucie, I run down the passage. Protecting Lucas was more important to my mother than the child she’d just killed. Saving my husband and my best friend are more important to me.

  I find another staircase, grope my way up. In the second-floor passage, meager light spills from a doorway. I hear grunts and ragged breaths, as if from a wounded animal. Is Barrett lying in there, hurt and helpless? I rush into the room. Large, with tall windows set in medieval stone arches, it’s furnished as a gymnasium. Leather mats are piled in a corner; bins contain rubber balls; cricket bats hang on one wall, archery targets on another. On the scuffed wooden floor, Barrett and Daniel circle each other. They’re like boxers in a ring, except that Daniel is armed with the ax. Their faces shine with sweat in the light from a gas lamp by the door. They’re breathing hard, as if they’ve fought and retreated multiple times.

  “Sarah.” Barrett glances at me before he returns his attention to Daniel. His gun is nowhere in sight—he doesn’t want to kill Daniel, even in self-defense, even though the boy is a murderer. “Stay back.”

  Daniel is the one making the grunting noises—incoherent expressions of rage, fear, misery, and aggression.

  “Watch out for Lucie,” Barrett says. “She’s around somewhere.”

  Sick with guilt, I can’t tell him why Lucie is no longer a threat to us.

  Daniel begins hacking at Barrett as if he’s chopping down a tree. He staggers; he’s panting; his aim is wild. Barrett stumbles as he dodges. They’re both exhausted, and their fight is bound to end soon, with the first one to make a serious mistake the loser. I can’t let it be Barrett. But if I shoot Daniel after I’ve just killed his sister, I will be doubly a child murderer, twice as bad as my mother.

  Daniel and Barrett retreat, gasping. As they circle each other, Barrett says, “Aren’t you tired, Daniel? Stop, and I’ll take you home so you can rest.” He sounds sincere; he’s talked many criminals into surrendering; but Daniel only moves toward him, as if to attack again.

  “Are you hungry?” Barrett says. “How about some hot chocolate?”

  If Daniel surrenders, he’s not going home, and there won’t be any hot chocolate in prison. Either the boy knows it and isn’t tempted by the false promises, or he doesn’t hear what Barrett is saying. Now Barrett rushes him and grabs the ax handle. They yank, stagger, and whirl as they fight for possession of the weapon.

  Daniel screams, his face crazed with panic. He kicks Barrett, who falters. Daniel slams him against the wall. On my wedding day, “forsaking all others” seemed an abstract, ritual pledge, but now the fierce instinct to defend my husband rises in me. Barrett pushes back hard; he lets go of the ax and sends Daniel stumbling across the room. I feel the dreaded swelling, roiling, abrasive sensation as my mother’s ghost stirs within me. Against my will, I sidle around the room, pointing the gun at Daniel, angling for a good shot.

  “Sarah, no!” Barrett shouts. I can see that he doesn’t want a child’s death on his conscience or mine. He, like most everyone else, would rather turn Daniel over to the executioner. “Let me handle this.”

  I aim at Daniel’s legs, thinking I can wound him just enough to stop him. He’s moving erratically, my hands are shaking, and I quash the idea because my shot could go wild and kill him—or hit Barrett. But my mother expands inside me, egging me on. My thoughts are a churn of conflicting impulses, my body the battleground in a war for possession of my soul. The temptation to shoot Inspector Reid was nothing compared to this. I hunger to fire one shot after another at the boy who’s menacing my husband, to hear the bangs, see the pain and shock on Daniel’s face as he drops, feel the trigger click after the bullets are all spent. My love for Barrett demands it. My mother’s grim voice whispers in my mind: You do what you have to do.

  My hatred of my mother undermines the power she’s exerting upon me from beyond the grave. I think of Barrett kissing me at the altar. If I shoot Daniel after Barrett told me not to, will that be the one disobedience he can’t forgive, the one wedding vow I shouldn’t have broken?

  I’ll be lucky if he can live with me after learning that I killed Lucie. If I kill Daniel too, I won’t be able to live with myself.

  For a moment, the world falls silent, and Barrett, Daniel, and I seem to pause in our tracks as if time has stopped. I feel something shift inside me, oddly akin to the time I climbed into an overcrowded omnibus, a man nudged me hard, and I fell onto the street. It’s me pushing against the ghost of my mother.

  She falls away from me. I lower the gun.

  Daniel roars and charges at Barrett. As Barrett peddles backward, he skids on the slippery floor. His feet fly up from under him, and he crashes onto his back. Daniel raises the ax over his head, as if to split a log of firewood. I cry out and hurl myself at Daniel’s back as he brings the ax down. Barrett yells. Daniel and I thud to the floor together. The breath puffs out of me, my vision shudders, and everything blurs. He lies under me, heaving and mewling, too weak or dazed to fight anymore. I scream Barrett’s name.

  Barrett is crouched, unhurt, near the spot where Daniel almost cleaved him. My relief fades when I see that he’s bent over Hugh, who’s lying on his back on the floor, mouth open, wheezing. Blood spreads on the floor under Hugh. The ax is embedded in the right sleeve of his coat, between his shoulder and elbow.

  “He came out of nowhere,” Barrett says, gasping. “He took the cut for me.”

  I hobble on my knees to Hugh, shouting, “Hugh! Oh, no.” I sit and lift his head onto my lap so he needn’t lie on the dirty floor. I cradle him as sobs wrack me.

  Hugh gazes up at me, his breaths shallow and labored; he smiles. His face, white and waxen, glows as if he’s the statue of a saint surrounded by candles lit by the faithful. He whispers, “Sarah. Don’t cry,” then grimaces in agony. “This is for the best.” Love and rapture shine through the pain that fills his eyes. “I did something useful with my miserable life. Now I can die in peace.”

  CHAPTER 32

  At nine o’clock in the morning, I pace the floor in the waiting room in London Hospital. Seated visito
rs eye me nervously, as my clothes are still covered with Hugh’s blood. I’ve been here for seven hours, since the doctors rushed Hugh to the operating theater. I left only long enough to send notes via messenger to let Fitzmorris, Sally, and Sir Gerald know what’s happened. I’ve heard no news of Hugh, and I’m terrified that he won’t survive.

  If only I hadn’t misinterpreted his bright, cheerful manner! I thought he was getting over his heartbreak, but he was anticipating the end of his suffering. He went to the vicarage with me not just to help solve the murder, but because he wanted a confrontation with a killer, an opportunity to die an honorable death rather than commit suicide. How I wish I could have stopped him before he put himself between Barrett and Daniel!

  But I can’t wish it were Barrett gravely injured instead of Hugh. I can only pray that Hugh survives and my husband’s life wasn’t saved at the cost of my best friend’s.

  A nurse approaches me and says, “There’s no news about Lord Hugh, but the little girl is awake, and the physician says she’s going to be all right.”

  My relief is incomplete but massive. Last night, while Barrett and I carried Hugh out of the school to the waiting ambulance, I remembered Lucie Thornton. I went back for her, even though mere minutes could have meant the difference between life and death for Hugh whereas nothing could be done for her. Barrett and I rushed them both to the hospital, where the physician discovered that she was unconscious, not dead. I crumpled to my knees and thanked God. But Lucie’s survival doesn’t expunge the fact that I struck her and could have killed her. That I helped save her doesn’t make me any less like my mother. But even while my guilt eats away at me, I wish I’d shot Daniel before Hugh jumped into the fray. I thought I was winning the battle with my mother, proving I’m a better person than she was.

  But she stood by Lucas, and my inaction led to Hugh’s terrible sacrifice.

  I try to find something good that has resulted from solving the murders. We obtained justice for Charles Firth, but that won’t bring him back. I think of his widow, lying in some other hospital with her self-inflicted burns. Mrs. Firth will probably be disappointed to learn that her husband was killed by a mentally disturbed boy rather than a vengeful ghost. The knowledge might shake her cherished faith in the supernatural, her only comfort in her time of mourning. I remember the photography equipment I lost in the tunnels under the Clerkenwell jail. As soon as I can, I’ll visit Mrs. Firth and offer to purchase new equipment from her husband’s store, at full price. At least the sale might help her financially.

  Barrett enters the room with Mick. Here, to my relief, is the one good thing to come of last night. Overjoyed, I run to Mick, throw my arms around him, and hug him tight.

  “Watch out; I stink like the jail.” Mick’s smiling face looks drawn, thinner, and older; for the first time, I notice reddish whiskers on his jaws. “Is Hugh gonna be all right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Barrett fills me in on what happened after he left Hugh and me at the hospital and went back to the church. “I brought the vicar here. They took the bullet out of his leg, patched him up, and put him to bed in the ward. He wrote out his confession and signed it. He’ll be transferred to Newgate eventually. I left a constable guarding him while I took care of business at the station. The murder charge against Mick has been dropped.”

  That’s one burden lifted off my shoulders, but another remains. “And Daniel?”

  “He was curled up on the floor in that room where we left him. When I spoke to him, he didn’t seem to hear. I had to send him to Bedlam.”

  The insane asylum is such a terrible place that I feel sorry for Daniel in spite of everything. “What will happen to him and Lucie?”

  “When Lucie is well enough to leave the hospital, she’ll live at a children’s home. Mrs. Thornton is in no shape to look after her. She took it hard enough when I told her that Daniel and the vicar are both guilty of murder. When I told her about Alice, she didn’t believe me until I showed her the body. It was too much for her. She had a stroke, and she’s here in the hospital too. As for what happens next …”

  Barrett pauses, troubled, before he says, “The vicar said in his confession that he killed both Charles Firth and Richard Trevelyan. You and I will have to testify at his trial. The verdict will depend on who the jury believes—him or us. It looks as if Daniel won’t be fit to testify.”

  The trial is a bridge to cross another day. In light of everything that happened last night, I’m thankful the outcome wasn’t worse. Barrett and I know the truth about Charles Firth’s murder, the vicar will hang for Richard Trevelyan’s, and perhaps insanity is punishment enough for Daniel. Heaven forbid that he’s ever set loose on the world.

  The nurse returns and says, “Lord Hugh is out of surgery. You can see him now.”

  Barrett, Mick, and I exclaim with relief. She escorts us to a private room, where Hugh lies in bed. He’s covered with blankets up to his chin, his eyes closed and his face so drained of blood that his lips are colorless. A white-coated doctor is taking his pulse. Mick frowns, blinks, and holds his hat over his chest, as if he’s at a funeral. I think of my wedding day and remember my words to Hugh before he walked me down the aisle: If I fall, will you hold me up? He’s fallen, and it’s beyond my power to hold him up. I cover my mouth; if I speak, I’ll start crying and not be able to stop.

  “Lord Hugh is on morphine,” the doctor says. “He’ll be unconscious for a while.”

  “What’s the prognosis?” Barrett says.

  “It’s too early to tell. If he recovers, he may lose his arm.”

  After the doctor is gone, a visitor tiptoes into the room. It’s my mother-in-law. Barrett says, “Ma? What are you doing here?”

  She’s more plainly dressed, more subdued than I’ve ever seen her. “Your father’s friends on the police force heard about what happened last night and told us. I came to see how Lord Hugh is doing.” She looks at Hugh. Nobody speaks; his condition is obviously dire. “I also wanted to talk to Sarah.” She flashes me a quick, sidelong glance, as if afraid to look directly at me. “In private?”

  I wonder what she’s up to; Barrett seems on the verge of saying this is a bad time; but Mick says to me, “Go on. We’ll hold the fort.”

  I follow Mrs. Barrett to a waiting room that’s drabber than the one at Jenny Lind Hospital. We sit down. Mrs. Barrett fidgets with her hands, then blurts, “I’m sorry for the things I said about Lord Hugh.”

  I can’t summon the ill will to retort, “You should be.” Her manner is so genuinely contrite, devoid of her usual hostility toward me.

  “He saved my boy’s life.” Her voice trembles; her eyes well. “I’ll do whatever I can to make it up to him.”

  Our love for Barrett is the one major thing we have in common. Her new appreciation for Hugh goes a long way toward softening my attitude toward my mother-in-law.

  “But that’s not all I wanted to say.” She draws a deep breath, musters her courage. “I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you, Sarah. I want Thomas to be happy, and I had my mind set on the kind of wife I thought would be right for him.”

  An image of Jane Lambert flashes through my mind.

  “But that night you came to dinner, after you ran out of the house, I had to accept that his idea of ‘right’ is different from mine,” Mrs. Barrett continues. “He told me in no uncertain terms that he loves you, he’s happy with you, and I should learn to love you too—or I’ll be seeing a lot less of him.”

  I’m surprised and gratified to learn that Barrett stood up for me after all.

  “I promise to be kinder to you and mind my own business.” Mrs. Barrett takes my hand; I involuntarily flinch at her touch. “Will you forgive me, Sarah? Can we start over?”

  A leopard doesn’t change its spots, at least not overnight. I don’t quite trust her, and I can’t forget how bad she’s made me feel. But a chance for a rapprochement with my mother-in-law is another thing Hugh gave me in addition to my husband’s life.
I can’t reject a gift he bought me at such a price. With that in mind, I smile at her and squeeze her hand.

  “Yes, Mildred,” I say.

  When I go back to Hugh’s room, Mick says, “Look who’s here.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Barrett.” Anjali is standing with Mick at Hugh’s bedside, her usual vivacity quieted by the circumstances. “I came as soon as I heard that Mick was out of jail and your friend was in the hospital. I made Father bring me. He’s waiting downstairs.”

  When I ask her how she heard, I expect her to say she had a vision, but she says, “It was in the newspaper.”

  The night editor at the Daily World must have read my note to Sir Gerald and stopped the presses so that my version of the events at St. Peter’s could be published in the morning edition.

  “Anjali, why don’t you try to see if Hugh is going to be all right,” Mick says.

  My skepticism rebels at the idea, and Barrett frowns, but we don’t object. Anjali lays her hand gently on Hugh’s forehead. He doesn’t move; the slow rhythm of his shallow breathing doesn’t change. She gazes into the distance, her expression serious but calm.

  “Well?” Mick says eagerly.

  “I saw him running and laughing in the sunshine,” Anjali says.

  The words evoke a vivid image of Hugh alive, happy, and exuberant. I can hardly bear seeing him lying pale and motionless in his hospital bed.

  Mick smiles. “It’s good, then.”

  “I think so.” Anjali smiles too.

  Remembering her vision of Lucie Thornton, I’m not unwilling to accept that she really had this new vision, but one could interpret it in various ways. It could be of Hugh in the past, or in heaven after he’s died of his injury. Anjali may lack mystical talent but instead have a special ability to empathize with people and understand what they need. I mentally shut the door on those possibilities. If there was ever a time to believe in the supernatural, it’s now.