Resonance (11 page)

At the fire, Mickey thrust out his hand as if to hold himself away from the flames. His fingers sizzled as they closed around the rim of the metal brazier. His eyes bugged in pain, his teeth bared to the gum. Still he kept his hand there, as if holding himself in check with it; as if it were the only thing preventing him from plunging his face into the burning coals.

The driver seemed to have completely lost interest in him, however, and was striding towards Joe. He passed by the trough just as Harry managed to tip it, and the drowning men spilled like fish from a barrel in his wake. Daymo and the henchman flopped and gasped, but Graham slid to the cobbles loose and sodden, dead as yesterday.

‘You’re … killing them,’ gasped Joe. ‘Let them … go.’

Something within the driver seemed to snap entirely at that, and he released a great howl of rage. ‘Let them go? Let them … What are you
doing
here, Matthew? You have broken your mother’s heart! You
broke her heart
! And I allowed it. Decades, I held my patience.
Decades
. Thinking you simply needed to gather your pride – thinking you needed to settle your mind. I respected you. I trusted you to return.
But you did not
. I have been seeking you forever, boy! Over and over, mistaking others … and now where do I find you? Here!
Here!
Debased and huddled and degraded as you have no right to be. Subjecting yourself to the tyranny of this scum. How
dare you
. How
dare you be living this life
?’

Harry flung himself past the driver and onto the ground by Joe. Grabbing handfuls of Joe’s jacket, he pulled him into his arms as if to protect him from the man who paced before him now, clutching his hair, apparently speechless with rage.

‘Let … them … go,’ gasped Joe again.

The driver sneered. ‘Oh, you have not changed, Matthew. Even after so wicked an exposure to mankind’s crapulent brutality. You are just the same.’

Joe lifted himself from Harry’s grip, as if willing the words from himself. ‘Mister … I’m not …
Matthew
. Stop … killing …
me
cousins
.’ Abruptly his face drained of all remaining colour, his eyes lost focus, and he fell back. ‘Oh, shite,’ he whispered, his hand to his chest. ‘Oh, shite.’

He went completely limp in Harry’s arms.

The driver leapt as if to grab him, and Harry hunched over Joe’s body. ‘Leave him alone!’

‘But I will help him.’

When Harry continued to hold on, the driver shocked him by smiling gently. ‘I could order you to release him,’ he said. ‘I suspect you know this.’ From the other end of the depot, there came a loud hiss, the acrid stench of burning hair, and Mickey the Wrench released a scream. The driver’s eyes, only inches from Harry’s own, glimmered green in the flickering light of the stable lamps. ‘I am honouring you with choice, boy, because I saw you defend Matthew. Because I suspect you are his friend.’

Harry swallowed hard. ‘What if I won’t let you take him?’

‘Then he will die here, surrounded by evil men who have abused him, and who deserved the retribution he saved them from. Is that what you wish for him?’

Harry released his grip.

The driver lifted Joe as easily as if he were a baby, and crossed with him to the waiting carriage. ‘The survivors will not remain insensate for long,’ he called. ‘You had best run while you can.’ Then he was taking his place in the driver’s box, Joe pale and unmoving on the seat beside him. He
shook the reins, and the horses lurched forward, filling the depot with the ring and clatter of hooves.

‘Where are you taking him?’ shouted Harry, running to catch up. ‘Where are you taking him? He needs a doctor!’

The great wheels flashed past, missing him by inches. Then he was behind the carriage, running through the noise and chaos of its departure as it sped out into the cold grey murk of the pre-dawn street. Soon it would be gone, with Joe as its prisoner, unconscious, helpless and alone.

Harry didn’t even pause for breath. Without thought, without planning, he just leapt. The ropes of the luggage-rack burned his palms as he hauled himself up. The tarpaulin was slick beneath his scrabbling hands. Then he was wedged into the packages beneath the canvas, burrowing and squirming into the great pile of luggage on the roof. Irrevocably committed to a plan he had yet to even think of, he huddled in the precarious and swaying dark as the growl of the wheels on the cobbles drowned out all other sound.

Two Small Stops
along the Way

V
INCENT URGED THE
horses up the wide double street that would take him around the block to the theatre entrance. The boy was motionless on the seat beside him. He would be dead soon. Vincent had seen many a collapsed lung in his time. In his experience not even the healthiest of men came back from such a wound, and it had been obvious that Matthew was dangerously ill even before those animals had beaten him.

Seeing the boy in this condition had provoked such an upsurge of emotion. Vincent had not felt that way in … in how long?
Have I been asleep?
he thought.
It feels as though I have been asleep
.

‘I found you just in time, did I not, Matthew? Never mind, I shall get you home soon enough. I shall reconcile you and Cornelius to each other, and all will be well.’ He glanced again at the boy’s thin face. ‘I will have to clean you up before your mother sees you, though. You are barely recognisable as you are.’ There was the briefest moment, the
tiniest itchy flicker, of doubt. He pushed it aside. This was Matthew, Vincent was certain of it. There would be no more embarrassing mistakes.

He cracked the reins and whistled the horses on. It would be good to be on the open road again, to urge the horses into a frenzy and simply let loose. Snowflakes slanted from the brightening sky. He opened his mouth and they melted like tiny moments of clarity on his tongue.

By the devil, it was excellent to be alive!

Without thinking, he breathed deep, and pain snagged dull and wicked in his lungs. His old friend, making itself known: the wasting sickness, the consumption, tuberculosis, whatever you chose to call the disease that was once again threatening to disassemble him one cell at a time.

You and me, Matthew,
he thought.
Home and healed …

And then?
asked his mind slyly.
Home and healed … and then? Silence, and dust, and stillness once more …

Vincent frowned into the wind. ‘Cornelius spends so much time underground since you left. I am amazed he has not begun to glow in the dark. As for dear Raquel … your mother spends hours at her work table, Matthew, yet I do not think she ever sews. In your time, we were always out and about, do you recall? At the village, on the river, in the woods. When did that change?’

Matthew did not reply. He had slid to one side, his head angled awkwardly within the corner of the high-backed seat. Vincent took off his hat and gently placed it on the boy’s tousled head. ‘Things will improve when you return home,’ he whispered.

The empty streets echoed as the carriage took a corner and the theatre came into sight. Cornelius was standing
beneath the stained-glass porch of the entrance, making last-minute arrangements with the stage manager. He looked wretched, his face paler than the coming dawn, his eyes sunken in shadow.

Poor Cornelius. With so many trips up and down to the city – researching the theatre, arranging the arson – and so much time away from his beloved ‘angel’, it was no wonder he was coming undone.

‘We must get him home, Matthew, before he falls asunder. Now, do excuse this small indignity.’

The boy’s eyes widened in horror as Vincent jerked him down to lie on the seat and pulled the lap blanket up to cover his face. Vincent patted him through the fabric. ‘We cannot have him seeing you until you are both ready to admit your feelings,’ he said.

The manager, seemingly anxious that Lord Wolcroft might slip on the newly fallen snow, took Cornelius’ elbow. Cornelius tensed, his hand tightening on his sword-cane, and Vincent straightened in concern; Cornelius hated to be touched when in this state – men had died for doing so. But Cornelius simply shook free and made his own way to the carriage, choosing to use the cane as an aid to walking, rather than putting it to its other, more lethal form of employ.

The manager hovered, desperate to please. ‘You are certain your man remembers the way, Lord Wolcroft?’ he asked. ‘I can send a boy with you, if you feel he may need some help?’

Cornelius speared the man with a look. ‘Captain,’ he snarled, ‘this creature believes you are too stupid to hold his instructions in your head. He wants to know if you need
a child’s help to find your way. What do you think? Do you need a child’s help to find your way?’

Vincent couldn’t help being amused. ‘I need no help to find my way. Thank you very kindly for the offer.’

The manager huffed and tugged his waistcoat, not certain how to respond. When Cornelius had climbed into the carriage and slammed the door, Vincent took a coin from his pocket. ‘Here,’ he said, flipping it to the manager. ‘For your trouble.’

The man caught it without thinking. His face blazed as he realised he had just taken a tip from a carriage driver – a darkie one at that. Then his mouth fell open as he recognised the coin as a gold sovereign. Vincent laughed – the man’s mingled shock, horror and greed were just too comical. He was still laughing as he pulled the carriage into the street and drove off.

T
HEY COLLECTED THE
actress first. She lived on one of those square little parks surrounded by decaying houses that this city seemed to have in abundance. Her home was a shabby little three-storey hostel, the snow-crusted sign reading ‘St Martha’s Boarding House for Ladies’.

Vincent took all this in from the driver’s seat as the old woman crept out and gently shut the door. She was quite obviously slinking away. She owed rent, no doubt. Poor thing – Vincent thought she looked quite frail and tiny outside the confines of the theatre. He smiled at the thought of her in that glittering dress. Cornelius must have been appalled at the sight of her, wrapped in the trimmings he had intended for the fresh and lovely seamstress. How he must have bellowed!

The actress entered the carriage. Vincent gathered the reins as the door snicked quietly behind her. Cornelius’ cane rapped the roof, and they were on their way once more.

T
HE SEAMSTRESS’S STREET
was even seedier than the old woman’s. Soot-stained, broken, mean, it was nevertheless transformed by the falling snow. Vincent found it almost beautiful. He remained in his seat, intent on enjoying the serenity as Cornelius and the actress went to collect the girl.

At the top of the steps, however, Cornelius stumbled, and the actress put an arm around his waist to steady him. He reacted badly, of course. He was not intentionally violent – Vincent had never seen Cornelius behave violently towards a woman – but the shock of that unexpected grip around his waist startled him and he cried out, shoving the old woman aside.

She almost tumbled down the steps.

Both parties brushed it off, content to murmur
politenesses
. Nevertheless, Vincent left the carriage and went to join them, ready to intervene should his friend’s condition get the best of him. The actress nodded as he came up the steps, no doubt assuming that he’d come to protect his frail master.

Cornelius rapped on the tenement’s scarred door, and a very tiny old woman with a cat in her arms flung up the sash on the nearest window. She was wearing a nightcap and a wrap, and didn’t seem at all surprised by the odd trio standing on her doorstep.

‘I’m landlady of this house,’ she said, ‘and you can take your missionary work elsewhere. No one here needs saving.’

‘I am looking for Miss Kelly,’ said Cornelius. ‘The seamstress.’

That took her aback. She looked them up and down anew. ‘You’re not the Sally Army, then?’

The actress drew herself up. ‘I am Miss Ursula Lyndon,’ she said. ‘I am accompanying Lord Wolcroft here to his manor in the country. Miss Kelly is my … she is to be my …’

‘Your
companion
,’ snapped Cornelius.

‘I didn’t hear anything about that,’ said the landlady.

‘Are you the girl’s mother?’ he asked.

‘I am
not
.’

‘Then what business is it of yours, you old harridan?
Let us
in
!’ Cornelius began pounding the door with his cane, the sound echoing like gunshots up and down the silent street.

‘Stop that!’ cried the landlady. ‘How dare you!’

Vincent grabbed Cornelius’ arm, his fingers biting deep. He gave the landlady a soothing look. ‘You shall let us in,’ he murmured.

To his immense surprise, the woman’s scowl only deepened. ‘Now you listen here,’ she said. ‘Money and privilege may ride roughshod over most of the broken backs in this damned country, but a fancy suit and a title gets your master no purchase with me. I
own
this house, and he can go spit if he thinks he can throw his weight around here. Miss Kelly is
sick
, Lady Nana and Fran the Apples aren’t
here
, no one said anything to me about
callers
, and you can all go hang yourselves for being so
rude
.’

Vincent actually felt himself gape. What was wrong with these creatures? First that ruffian in the stables, and now this tiny wrinkled old prune of a women. He had never met people so immune.

‘You shall let us
in
,’ he insisted.

The landlady made no move for the door.

Cornelius shook off Vincent’s hand, staring in amazement at the old woman. He turned to meet Vincent’s eye.
Together?
he thought.

But gently
, advised Vincent.

As one, they said, ‘Let us in.’

Without a change of expression, the landlady withdrew from the window. Several cats leapt to take her place, prowling the windowsill and meowing their disapproval. In the ensuing wait, Ursula Lyndon laughed uncertainly. ‘A veritable Cerberus,’ she said, ‘guarding her Persephone.’

Cornelius scowled, but Vincent found it quite witty. ‘We shall avoid the pomegranates,’ he said. Instead of sharing his amusement, the actress seemed shocked that he’d understood the reference, and then embarrassed that he had spoken. Vincent allowed his face to go cold and turned away.

The locks grumbled and the scarred door opened. The landlady peered out. She was confused and wary; Vincent could tell she was already doubting her actions. He stepped forward, discreetly putting his shoulder into the gap, ready to force his way in if necessary.