by Eve Silver
There would never be a place for him.
His heart, his hope, his faith had died here today.
He had loved her, more than he had realized.
Seeing her here, gray, lifeless, her head covered in blood, her clothes saturated with it... her blood... the horror of it was a jagged wound inside of him. Carefully he squatted low, mindful not to step in the blood, and he reached out to lay his hand on her shoulder. How long he stayed crouched by her side, he could not say, but after a time he became aware of a high keening sound, tuneless, terrible.
And he realized the sound came from him.
Blinking, he battled with himself, but the tears slid free and scalded his cheeks. He shook his head, rose, stood staring down at her.
He was cold, as though he’d been dropped in the Thames in the dead of winter. A bone-deep ache made him feel he could die, close his eyes, lie down on the floor in the pool of Ginnie’s blood, and die. He thought of her, all alone in the darkness, and he felt sick.
Tearing his gaze away, he stared straight ahead at a thin crack that ran down the wall, and a smudged handprint beside it. A small handprint, like a child’s.
Something nagged at him, breaking through the haze of shock and horror. Something...
He forced himself to follow the thread of his thoughts.
The girl.
“The child,” he croaked, distress scrabbling through him to lodge like a rock in his chest. His heart beat a frantic tattoo, overwhelming grief clouding his mind. There was something he needed to say, to do...
But his gaze slid to Ginnie’s body once more and he could think of nothing but her. He wanted to gather her in his arms, kiss her sweet lips, feel her breath on his cheek.
Nevermore.
He shuddered.
Ginnie, with her golden ringlets... Gone... Gone...
Where was her hair, her beautiful hair?
He lifted his gaze to the handprint on the wall, and his thoughts cleared. The girl—
“Where is the girl?” Henry asked, turning to the others as he spoke. He forced himself to concentrate though he felt as though a tempest raged inside him, whipping about, screaming to get free.
He ached to break something. The wall. The lamp. He wanted to beat something until his fists were raw and bloody.
“The Trotters’ granddaughter,” he rasped. It hurt his throat to speak.
Sam was in the parlor with Robert Seymour, a seasoned officer who had arrived some moments past and immediately set about searching for clues. Neither man even glanced at Henry, and he realized that he had spoken so low that they had not heard him, not a word.
What was the child’s name? He tried to recall, and failed. A surging sadness so acute that it was almost pain tore through him. She deserved to have a name.
He peered down the darkened hallway, his heart pounding a hard and brutal rhythm.
“Look here,” came Robert Seymour’s voice from inside the parlor, tight with excitement. “There’s blood here on the windowsill.”
Henry glanced back and saw Robert lean out the open parlor window, his hands braced on either side of a dark smear.
“And I believe I see a footprint there in the dirt.”
What good was it, such a find? Would it make the dead rise again?
A footprint. In the dirt.
Henry looked down at his boots, then looked at Sam’s, and finally Robert’s. Three very different pairs of boots.
“The footprint,” he said, and because he spoke louder, they heard him now, despite the hoarseness of his voice. “Measure its length. And then trace the shape to a paper.” He paused, his thoughts muzzy, his stomach clenched in a sick knot.
“Whatever for?” Robert asked and turned to stare at him.
Yes. Whatever for. It would not bring her back. She was never coming back.
“To compare to his boots. To show his guilt. If—” Henry swallowed, forced himself not to break down and sob. He looked back and forth between Sam and Robert. “When we find him.”
They were dubious of his suggestion. He could see it.
He knew the way things worked. Talk to witnesses. Survey the scene. Surmise and make a guess as to what had happened. It was the way things had been done for a very long while. Sam and Robert were seasoned officers, while he was green as new grass. They had no reason to value his opinion.
Sam frowned, long furrows marking his brow, and finally he nodded and headed toward the front door. Henry wasn’t certain where Sam went. Perhaps to measure the boot print.
Turning away, he looked down the long, dark hall. Numb and nauseous, battered by a cold fury, he could not divert enough emotion to care if they listened or not. Ginnie was dead. Dead. Dead.
But the girl... the girl...
Feeling bleak and sick and terribly overwhelmed, Henry backed away and followed the hallway to the far end where he found the staircase to the second floor. Bending, he touched his finger to the edge of the stair. It came away dark with blood.
His stomach heaved and rolled. He ought to run, ought to tear up the staircase and see with his own eyes that the child was there, asleep, unharmed. Instead, he could only drag his feet up, one step and the next, weighed down by fear and loathing of what he might find.
The child was up there.
Alive?
He did not know.
The wood floor of the landing creaked and groaned beneath his weight. He shoved at the first door on his right, and it flew open to hit the wall with a sharp crack.
The room was dark, empty.
He tried the first door on the left, with no better results. The faint stink of tallow lingered in the air, but the room was unoccupied. In a frenzy, he returned to the hallway and shoved at each door, thrusting them open, until at the end of the hall he pushed open the last, the creak of the hinges strident and harsh, the rasp of his breath loud in his ears.
A rushlight in a tin waged battle with the darkness, the meager illumination crawling across the walls, the floor, the bed. The scent of blood was strong, like tarnished silver.
He froze, shaking, hands fisted at his sides. In horrid contrast, crimson flowered against the white bed linens, a massive, dark stain right in the center of the bed.
Dear God.
On shaking limbs, he walked forward, hands outstretched. He touched the child’s pillow, the small rag doll. Finally, he turned his gaze to the crimson blot.
His breath stopped. His heart stopped.
Dear God. Dear God.
With a great, gasping breath, Henry Pugh sank to his knees and began to sob.
Chapter Thirteen
Burndale, Yorkshire, September 14, 1828
Beth lay in the dark, her limbs shifting restlessly under the covers, her emotions knotted and snarled like a ball of yarn tossed about by a cat. She had slept in fitful snatches, haunted by a multitude of disturbing things: thoughts of Mr. Fairfax, his mouth pressed to her wrist; the certainty that she had seen someone lurking in the back garden last night, standing in the dark, his face tipped up to her window; the conviction that someone had been in her room, touched her books, her clothes, even her nightgown where it lay folded beneath her pillow.
Alone, each thought was distressing. Combined, they multiplied and swelled, and the secret terrors she had thought well under her control oozed free of the confines she set.
Exhaustion and worry combined to weaken her defenses. Over the years, she had learned to recognize the signs of her fraying control. The walls she had constructed around her quirks and peculiarities were only as strong as her will, and this morning she felt poorly suited to the task, her panic threatening to slide free in a greasy torrent.
The dawn was not yet upon them, but she rose from her bed, prepared herself to meet the day, performing her morning ablutions and dressing with all haste. She had come to a determination. She must seek out Miss Percy in her office first thing this morning. The headmistress was fond of routine, and she regularly worked at her desk for an hour before b
reakfast.
Taking up her candle, Beth made her way along the dark passage and down the stairs. A damp chill seeped through unseen cracks to touch her skin with clammy fingers.
She quickened her pace, pausing once to shift to the right and avoid the place on the stair that creaked. She had noted it on her first morning, just as she had noted the crack in the bannister three steps below, the mouse hole at the base of the east wall of the refectory, and dozens of other small details that most would ignore. But she was her father’s daughter, and so she noticed these things and more.
Corridors fanned from the main vestibule, and she chose the one she sought, though it was a dark as a pit, with shadowed doorways on either side. The flame of her candle was a pallid warrior against the gloom.
She passed a partially open door, and with a hissing sound, the wind seeped through, catching the flame, making it dance and finally, snuffing it altogether.
Freezing in her place, she felt the press of darkness heavy upon her shoulders, her chest, the base of her skull. With a shake of her head, she fended off the tide of dismay. There was a bit of light, the first whisper of morning. It was enough. She willed herself to believe it was enough.
A scratching sound, quick and light, came to her. A mouse? A draft, come through a crack? It mattered not. She had a task, and she would see it done, and so she walked on.
Once, she stopped, fearing she had taken a wrong turn, only to continue on until her destination appeared out of the shadows before her.
The door to Miss Percy’s office was slightly ajar. A finger of candlelight and a murmur of sound slipped free.
Beth stepped closer, her hand raised to knock, and then the sounds became a low-voiced conversation that made her stay her movements, made her stand and listen, her pulse speeding up with each word.
“...not at all the sort of woman we wish to employ at Burndale.” Miss Percy’s voice, sounding perturbed and blunt.
“I quite agree. But we need her for the time being. Perhaps an admonishment to temper her ways?” Beth could not be certain, but she thought the respondent was Miss Browne.
The sound of china touching china made Beth think they were taking tea in the office, that a cup had been set on a saucer.
“She is barely competent in the classroom, and her overblown emotions hardly serve the students well,” Miss Percy pointed out, the words an icy dagger plunging deep in Beth’s breast.
Dear heaven. She thought they must be speaking of her, and she felt sick and terrified, horrified that she might lose this position, her family’s one hope. She had come here, to the headmistress’s office to share terrible suppositions and fears, things she had no proof of, things that would only serve to underscore her failings.
Oh, what had she been thinking?
Slowly, she backed away, feeling the heavy thud of her heart, and the sick swell of her despair. She dared not tell Miss Percy anything. Not after overhearing such a damning exchange.
They spoke of overblown emotions. Surely spouting suspicions of watchers in the night and unseen intruders in her chamber would only solidify their worst opinions of her.
Spinning, she retreated down the corridor, making her steps soft and quiet, little caring where she went. She knew only that she must get away from here before her presence was discovered, before she added eavesdropping to the headmistress’s list of her failings and gave her further cause for dismissal.
She thought to return to her chamber, then she thought she could not bear it, could not bear the confined space.
Perhaps she would go to the refectory and await the girls. The room was large, with a bank of wide windows. She would not feel so very confined there. She mentally mapped the way from Miss Percy’s office to the refectory. The halls and passages were a labyrinth, and she had no wish to lose her way.
Lifting her skirt, she began to walk, choosing a vaguely familiar passage with floors of red clay tile and walls of paneled wood the color of oversteeped tea. The walls felt like they were closing in upon her, and she pressed her palm over her heart, willed herself to settle.
With a shudder, she turned through a doorway into a wider hallway, paused, backtracked, and finally chose the same path she had started out upon in the first place. There was a little more light now as the dawn seeped from beneath closed doors to paint the walls gray and mauve.
Her footsteps echoed hollowly in the empty space, the sound ricocheting back and forth, until she began to wonder if it was merely the residual noise of her own steps that followed her, or something else entirely.
She froze, spun, her heart thudding against her ribs.
The sound of a shuffling step carried to her, unmistakable. Frightening. The suspicion that someone followed her shifted to certainty.
“Hello? Who is there?” She could not help but think of the man who had stood in the back garden, watching her window. A man she suspected had been in her room, touched her things. The thought horrified her, terrified her. “Is anyone there?” Only as the last word rang out did she think that perhaps alerting the lurker in the shadows to her awareness of him had not been her best choice.
A thin, shallow reflection of her voice bounced back at her. Then, into the silence came the scrape of a footstep.
Chilling tendrils wove about her heart, and her gaze darted along the hallway, pausing at every shadow. She was not alone. She felt the icy certainty of that close about her chest and squeeze tight.
She spun, looked behind her. To the right. To the left.
How far to the refectory?
Even as the question formed, she recognized her folly in allowing her distress to cloud her thoughts.
She recognized the pattern from multitudinous episodes in her past, the episodes her mother labeled attacks of dismay.
She was amplifying the danger, stoking the flames of her fears, feeding them with the truth of dark memories and the distress over her present circumstance. She was succumbing to hysteria, though the rational part of her knew her reaction was overblown.
It was early morning. There were people about, she reassured herself. Teachers. Students. Maids. Perhaps it was one of them she had heard, and even if it was not, even if someone did follow her along this corridor, surely someone else would hear her and come if she screamed.
A sharp sigh escaped her, and she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, angry with herself for how far she had allowed this to devolve.
Dropping her hand to her side, she looked about, getting her bearings.
Her thoughts in turmoil, she began to walk down the corridor, her heart racing, her heels tapping out a rapid pace. She fought the urge to glance back over her shoulder to make certain she was alone.
Walk, dear heart. Walk faster. And she did, her pace quickening with each step until she was running, her hand fisted tight in her skirt, her hem held high.
A part of her recognized that she was unreasonable, overblown. She tried to slow her gait, to measure her tread, but she felt as though her skin would burst, as though needles and pins poked her and gouged her. Her heart twisted with a sharp and bright pain, as though a mighty fist reached deep inside her and crushed the palpitating organ.
She tried all the tricks she had taught herself over the years: counting her breaths; counting her steps; slowing each breath by force of will.
To no avail. Her heart pounded like a smith’s hammer.
Oh, this would not do. Not at all—
“Miss Canham!” Mr. Fairfax caught her as she slammed against him, steadying her as she stumbled and swayed.
She stared at him, trembling, her heart racing. She wondered if she had conjured a mirage, or if he stood here in truth.
“Beth,” he said gently, his gaze locked on hers, his hands about her arms. “Beth,” he said again, stronger, and she felt a hard lump choking her, a lump of tears and fear and humiliation.
Confusion buffeted her. What was he doing here at such an hour? What happenstance had brought him to this hallway at exactly
this time? Or was it happenstance at all? Did he follow her, watch her, hunt her?
She jerked, but he held her arms, though his grip lightened.
“The color is gone from your face,” he said. “What is it, Beth? What has frightened you so?”
Mute, she shook her head rapidly from side to side. What was she to say? How could she trust him, his convenient presence here, the possibility that it was he who tormented her?
She found she could not bear it, not the confines of the passage, or the grip of his hands on her arms. She needed to run, she needed to breathe—
Catching her wrist, he drew her hand up, turned her palm forward. With no concern for propriety, he pushed her fingers inside his coat and his vest, against the thin linen of his shirt. Against his heart.
Warmth flooded her, the heat of his body. The heat of his gaze, so focused, so intent.
“Feel my heart, Beth. Feel the beat of it. Let my heart beat in time with your own,” he said, low.
He knew. He knew what she thought, what she felt. But how? How?
He pressed her palm tighter against him, and she did feel it, the steady, steady beat. Strong, slow, even. A metronome setting the pace for her own pulse.
Rocked by confusion and dismay, she stood, battling the inappropriate urge to fling herself against the warm, solid strength of him.
“Trust me, Beth,” he said, a low murmur that lured and beguiled. “Let me be your anchor.”
She exhaled sharply, and was left deflated and confused. Trust him? She could trust no one.
For a long moment, he studied her, his eyes narrowed in contemplation, his pupils dilated, leaving his gaze dark and unfathomable. The he smiled, a faint curve of his lips, enough to offer a glimpse of the crease that carved his cheek.
“Better?” he asked.
Oddly, she did feel marginally better. Like phantoms, her worries and secret fears shadowed her every thought, her every breath, but somehow, they felt distant now. Bearable.
Lowering her lashes, she studied her hand where it disappeared inside his coat. She could feel his heartbeat. Feel his warmth. She ought to draw away. It was the proper thing to do. But for this frozen moment, she only wanted to pull what small comfort she could from him, to steal just a little of his calm demeanor and drag it about her like a cloak.