Mr. Timothy: A Novel (44 page)

--Oh, Lord, Tim! It's...you've done so much...really, it's...more than anyone's ever done...so much....

So very much, apparently, that she can hardly bring herself to articulate it. Her face is cauterised with shame, and I feel my own tincture of shame at having elicited it.

--You mean...you're not referring to our
lessons
, Mrs. Sharpe?

--What else?

--But I have...I have had compensation enough. Room and board....

--Oh, room and board! What's that next to
words
? An entire language, Tim. A
world
. How could I ever repay that? Except with blood.

She draws nearer and cups my chin in her hand, and even as I recoil from her touch, her face--importunate, trembling--presses closer.

--My boy Tim, listen to me. It's not too late. We can salvage this, can't we? George there...no one need know about that.
Iris
won't tell, she knows better.

And now, for the first time, she awakens to the presence of others. Her eyes widen to encompass Philomela, stationed by the coffin...and Inge, bobbing her head on the stone floor.

--Well, that's...that's all right, Tim. They won't tell, neither. How
can
they if no one asks 'em?

Oh, I could very well pity her.

--We'll get rid of the body, Tim, it's easily done! People disappear every day from London, and no one's ever the wiser. Christ, you don't think anyone round
here
will weep about it, do you?

She flings a look at George's body, as though expecting him to rise up and corroborate.

--And really, the way things have turned out...weren't you always saying you wanted to handle the accounts? Well, now there's no one to stop you. And we can go on with the
reading
, Tim. Just the two of us, every day at three-thirty. And once
Crusoe
is done with, we'll find
more
books. I've got a whole list drawn up, you know, I'm ready to read
everything
.

The glittering eye, the smacking lips--I feel quite churlish raising an objection.

--What of Lord Griffyn?

She looks at me.

--Oh, Christ, Tim. You don't think
you're
the one to take him on? We're none of us big enough for
that
job.

--I mean to try, at any rate.

And with that simple avowal, I render her, for the first time in our acquaintance, mute. Her mouth wrenches downwards, and her hands drop to her sides as I step round her and make straight for the girl on the floor.

--Inge. Is that your name?

Her face, rising to greet mine, is wiped clean of feeling and thought. The very countenance that Philomela has presented to me any number of times. It holds almost a charm for me now.

--Would you like to come with me, Inge?

I am fully prepared to use persuasion on her, but the coffin has already worked its dark magic. She jumps to her feet and gazes up at me, plastic and obedient.

--We'll find a nice bed for you, shall we? Would you like that?

I take one of her arms, and I signal to Philomela to take the other. Together we walk the girl towards the stairs. And because her legs are still recovering their identity, we end up having to lift her from step to step, and in this slow, halting way, we ascend.

--You make me laugh, d'you know that?

That's Mrs. Sharpe, calling from below. The voice is higher now--a raucous cawing--and even easier to ignore. Our backs become a kind of fortress against it, and the sight of us must provoke her beyond imagining, for she cries, at the top of her lungs:

--You won't fucking catch him, you know! I don't turn round. I don't raise my voice. My only concession is to inquire, in the softest possible tone:

--Why is that, Mrs. Sharpe?

--Coz he's leaving the country, isn't he?

An unmistakable note of triumph, but the voice lacks foundation, and in the very next second, it comes crashing down into a low, trailing moan. And when at last I do turn round, I find that Mrs. Sharpe has herself collapsed into a great flamboyant heap on the stone floor--her crinoline billowing up round her, nearly swallowing her whole. Only her head rises clear.

--May I never see his wretched face again!

I come down two steps. I call out to her, gently.

--Tell me what you know, Mrs. Sharpe.

And now her whole body is seized with a palsy. Everything vibrates, down to the lowliest petticoat. The very threads of the fabrics quake.

--Please. Please tell me.

She passes a hand across her face. She says:

--It's a shipment.

--You mean, more girls?

--It's a shipment. Antique pedestals. From Ostend.

Her head rocks back until she is staring at the ceiling.

--He always likes to be there, you see. To check the merchandise. Only this time...

A final sob shakes out of her chest. Her voice goes on, listless.

--This time round he means to leave it all with what's-his-name...

--Rebbeck.

--Leave it all and slip downriver. Till everything blows over.

She lowers her head until it is once again facing mine.

--It
will
blow over, Tim. I'm sorry, it will.

No crowing now. Just a blue, mournful tone.

--Where is the shipment landing, Mrs. Sharpe?

She doesn't answer, and so I repeat myself, with an asperity that surprises me.

--
Where is it landing
?

--Bermondsey. By St. Saviour's Dock.

What an effort those words have cost her. Her head sinks from view, and now it appears, the crinoline really has sucked her into its maw, without eliciting from her even the faintest murmur of regret.

--Thank you, Mrs. Sharpe.

She calls out to me a few seconds later.

--Tim.

--Yes?

--What happens to Mr. Crusoe?

In the receding light of our lantern, the insults to her person shine out for all to see. The henna wig, slightly askew on her head. The smear of rouge between her mouth and nose. And the blood, of course, spattering her glove, forming a chocolatey crust along her muslin undersleeve.

--I'm afraid you'll have to finish it on your own, Mrs. Sharpe.

By this time, we have reached the top of the stairs, and Philomela is pushing through the open door, and the three of us scurry past the bald parrot, squinting our way into the grey, twilit hallway, breathing with a special luxuriance the sweet heavy smoky aroma of upstairs.

--What on earth?

At the end of the hallway stands Mary Catherine, wringing the life out of a tea cosy. Surely this is the last thing she was expecting: Mr. Timothy descending with one girl and reemerging with two...George and Mrs. Sharpe nowhere in sight. What an astonishment we must be. I can feel Mary Catherine's awe wrapping me round, investing me with a new authority.
The master of the house
.

--Mary Catherine, this is Inge. I'm afraid she's been through quite an ordeal, and she'll require new clothes and a bed and very possibly a meal. Do you think you can arrange all those?

--Certainly....

--I should be glad to help, but I've an important errand calling me away just now.

--What sort of--

--Before I go, I must leave a note for the police. In the increasingly unlikely event that they ever arrive. May I entrust you with that?

--Of course! But is there-- --That's all I have time for just now. If you would please see to Inge? Many thanks.

It is in Mrs. Sharpe's study that I find the pen--a shiny steel lozenge--along with an inkwell and a stack of stationery. With Philomela standing close by like a tutelary spirit, I sit down to write:

Have gone to St. Saviour's Dock. Come at once.

I place it in an envelope and convey it directly to Mary Catherine. Then I pull the shawl from Mrs. Sharpe's piano and wrap it round Philomela and guide her down the hall and out the front door. So deft am I in bustling her along, in fact, that it is only when we are standing on the sidewalk out front that she thinks to protest.

--Listen to me, Philomela. I'm sending you to my uncle's for the time being.

A frown etches its way across her face. She shakes her head.

--Please don't argue. I've endangered your life enough for one day.

Bafflement, skepticism, all the usual melange of emotions work their way across her face and produce the usual fragment of language:

--No.

--I promise you'll be safe.

--No.

In a fit of impatience, I grab her by the arm and drag her over to Regent Street, gesticulating like a monkey. In a matter of seconds, a northbound cabman has spotted us, and when he pulls over to the curb, I hand him a piece of scrawling.

--There's the address. Please take this young lady there. Directly, if you please.

I hold open the door, but she balks.

--Please, Philomela.

She pulls one end of the shawl over the nape of her neck, tightens the other end round her waist, and, with a queenly disdain, steps away from the cab. And then, from behind me, comes a new voice:

--Looks like she don't want to go.

It is Colin. That poor bruised face of his, bathed in gaslight and hardened over with resolve. Devil take the man who gainsays him.

--The police, Colin. Where are the police? --Ooh well, bloody surprise! Surtees were out of office, just like I guessed, and they're takin' their bloody sweet time fetchin' him, ain't they? So I told 'em where to meet us, and I come ahead on my own. And if you mean to do me or Filly out of any more Ad-ven-ture, Mr. Timothy, you got another think comin'.

Gully's boat is exactly where he left it--in the little watery alcove by the Hungerford Stairs. What a shock it is to see everything still in place: the winch and the grappling iron and the oars in their locks and even Gully's flask of brandy, resting on one of the benches, awaiting its owner's return.

Out of deference, I leave the flask undisturbed, and I take up my usual position by the oars, and as soon as Colin and Philomela have clambered in, I let slip the rope. Just as the pier passes from view, the first speculative drop of snow falls.

Nothing more than a gauzy shred, caught by the wind and blown back whence it came--but as we pass along, the snow gathers heart. The flakes hiss against the hull and boil along the crest of each new wave. Everything that is theirs to claim, they claim, and when I cast my eyes upwards, even the sky appears to be dissolving into its constituent elements--exfoliating into nothingness.

And yet what a charm it all has, despite the circumstances. The first snow of the season. Falling on me. Falling on Philomela and Colin and Mrs. Sharpe. On Gully. Falling on all of us, dead and alive.

--Mr. Timothy?

--Yes, Colin.

--You got any sort of...well, like a
plan
or anythink?

--Not particularly, no.

Other than to stop the world on its axis. But that's more a job for Atlas, isn't it? And I am not he.

All the same, there is something supernatural keeping my arms in motion. Something pumping the blood through my arms and shoulders and making me forget the chapping of my hands and the chattering of my teeth and the lingering fumes of burnt wood in my nostrils.

Perhaps it is simply the river itself...the winking lights of barges and coasters and dories...the chaff of men's tongues. A ceaseless highway of goods and humanity, flowing in each direction, with the three of us trundling right along inside it.

Yes, it all comes back to me now, this feeling of being absorbed into the river's own rhythm. But there is no giving in tonight, for we are absorbed in another mission entirely, and this mission is already teetering with uncertainty.

What if we're too late?

This is the possibility I cannot shake off. What if the shipment from Ostend has already arrived? What if Griffyn has slipped off in the darkness? What if his men are even now towing their cargo to the bowels of Griffyn Hall?

What if nothing has changed or will ever change?

And rather than answer one way or the other, I simply pull harder on the sculls--harder and harder, until my back clenches like a fist and my arms fall almost out of their sockets and my hands burn like firecrackers. And when the rowing fails to distract, I begin naming the bridges as we pass under them: Waterloo, Blackfriars, Southwark. And then the wharves: Grand Junction, White Friars, Scots, Dowgate. And beyond those, every random landmark I can recall--every shipyard and sailor's lodging, every custom house Gully ever pointed out to me.

It has taken me this long to recognise what a good teacher he was, for I
know
this river! Not in the way a pilot knows it, but in the way a priest knows his breviary--an understanding that precludes any large surprises while, at the same time, absorbing every small surprise, every turn and nuance and whim.

That is how I come to know--after more than forty minutes of incessant rowing--that the pier up ahead and to starboard is St. Saviour's Dock. So preordained and miraculous is its appearance that I feel as if I am the first ever to discover it.

--There!

Colin, mystified, squints into the night.

--I don't see nothink. You certain, Mr. Timothy?

But of course I'm certain. How many times did Gully draw my attention to it? How many times did he talk of Bermondsey, and Jacob's Island, and the time he saw a man killed there? And there I sat, taking it all in without even realising it, and here now is my reward: the assurance of St. Saviour's Dock.