The Shadow in the North (27 page)

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little way off, where the trucks were collected by a different kind of engine altogether—one that looked as if it drew its power from an overhead wire in some way. At one point this engine broke down, and instead of allowing the steam engine to bring the trucks in, they harnessed a team of horses to them.

So that building, which was set off from the rest, and where they didn't want to bring live fire, must have been where they kept explosives.

She watched it all, immobile, free of feeling, as if she were just an eye.

Toward late afternoon she saw signs of new activity in the building with the flagpole. Upstairs windows opened, flashing in the sunlight, and a housemaid appeared at one of them, apparently dusting or cleaning. A tradesman's cart drove up, and something was unloaded; smoke appeared at two of the chimneys; another housemaid, or perhaps the same one, came out to polish the brass on the door at the platform side. And finally, toward sunset, Sally saw what she'd been waiting for: a signal changed beside the main rail line from the south, a locomotive whistle echoed through the valley, and an engine pulling a single carriage rolled in and through the maze of sidings toward the building.

The locomotive was one of the Great Northern Company's, but the carriage was a private one, painted a handsome dark blue with a silver emblem on the doors. As it.came to a halt beside the platform a servant—a butler or a steward of some kind—came out of

the house to open the carriage door. A moment later Axel Bellmann got out. His heavy build, the metallic sheen of his blond hair under the silk hat, were unmistakable even at a distance. He went into the house, and behind him a valet and another servant from the house unloaded luggage.

Meanwhile the locomotive, uncoupled from the car, steamed off and out of the valley. A minute or two later a maid with cleaning equipment—broom, dustpan, duster—came out of the house by a side door and went into the carriage; and shortly afterward, a flag fluttered up the flagpole, with the same emblem that was painted on the carriage door. She could see it clearly now in the rays of the setting sun: it was a single silver star.

Luggage, servants, a house. .. He'd come to stay, then. Sally hadn't expected it to be as simple as that.

She was feeling stiff. She was hungry, too, and thirsty, but that wouldn't matter for long. Being stiff would matter. She got up and walked about under the trees, watching as the shadows lengthened, as the glow in the windows below seemed to get brighter, as the working pattern changed. When the valley was frill of shadow, a whistle sounded, and a few minutes later she saw the first of a stream of men making their way out of the gates and homeward. Those parts of the works where a continuous process of manufacture was going on were still busy, staffed by a new shifr, but the rest were closed down with a night watchman outside each building. The area around the explosives building was

I

lit as brightly as a stage, perhaps by electricity; the lights glared on the white gravel, and the place had an unreal air, like something on a magic-lantern slide.

It was getting damp. The grass Sally was walking on was already wet with dew. She picked up her bag and without thinking found herself clutching it to her breast like a child, and sobbing.

His quiet face in the rain, among the ashes . . .

She nearly broke down altogether as a wave of pity and sorrow and love and longing crashed through the barrier around her, and she cried his name aloud in the surging grief that nearly drowned her; but she clung in her extremity to the idea that had brought her here, like a drowning sailor to a spar, and the wave washed over her and receded again.

She had to move. She picked her way through the trees, concentrating on her movements—left foot around those roots, lift your skirt to avoid those brambles . . . Then she was on the road again, with a measure of control.

She brushed her skirt down, adjusted her cape, and set off down toward the valley, into the darkness.

As she'd expected, there was a man on guard. What she hadn't expected was the sheer size of the place, which was apparent now that she was close to it. And the massiveness of the iron gates, and the solidity of the spiked fencing, and the brightness of the lights that illuminated the gravel inside the gate. And the guard's uniform, with the North Star emblem on his breast and

cap. And his arrogant manner, strolling slowly to the gate, swinging a short stick, eyeing her narrowly from under the peak of his cap. It all struck a chill, even in her remote heart.

"I want to see Mr. Bellmann,** she said through the bars.

"You'll have to wait till I have instructions to let you in," he replied.

"Will you please let Mr. Bellmann know that Miss Lockhart has arrived to see him?"

"I'm not allowed to leave this gate. I've had no instructions to admit anyone."

"Send a message, then."

"Don't tell me my business—"

"It's about time someone did. Send a message to Mr. Bellmann at once, or he'll make sure you're sorry for it."

"Suppose he ain't here?"

"I saw him arrive. Miss Lockhart is here to sec him. Let him know at once."

She stared him down. After a few seconds he turned and went into his hut, and she heard a beU ring in the distance. He waited inside. Soon she saw a light approaching from the house, which became a servant carrying a lantern. When he got to the gate, he looked curiously at Sally before going to confer with the guard.

After a minute they came out. The guard unlocked the gate and Sally went inside.

"I have come to see Mr. Bellmann," she said to the servant. "Could you take me to him, please?"

"If you'll follow me, miss, V\\ see whether Mr. Bell-mann can see you," he said.

The guard locked the door behind them as Sally followed the servant along the path between the engine sheds and the main sidings toward the house. As they went along, feet crunching on the gravel, Sally heard a noise from the sheds on her left as of gigantic metal drums being rolled along, and somewhere farther off there was a continual throbbing, like a giants pulse, with occasional flurries of hammering or the grinding whine of metal on stone; and from one building set back from the path, where the doors—great metal sheets hung on rollers—^were open, came a hellish glare and showers of flying sparks as white-hot steel was poured.

Each of the sounds hurt her and frightened her. She couldn't help but feel them as inhuman and monstrous, the noises made by instruments of hideous torture. The deeper they moved into this world of metal and fire and death, the smaller and frailer she felt; and she grew more and more conscious of how hungry she was, and how thirsty, and how tired, and how her head ached and her feet were drenched, and of how untidy she must look, how weak, how inconsequential.

She'd stood once at the foot of the Schaffhausen Falls in Switzerland and felt overwhelmed by their sheer power. If she fell in, she'd be swept away in a moment as if she didn't exist. She felt the same way now. This enormous enterprise—millions of pounds, vast intricacies of

organization and supply and economy, die secret connivance of great governments, with hundreds, if not thousands, of Viw&s direcdy involved in it—and all of it moving with a momentum infinitely greater than anything she could bring against it—

That didn't matter.

For the first time she allowed herself to think of Fred direaly. What would he do, faced with something so much stronger than himself? She knew at once; he'd measure himself coolly against it, and if it was stronger, well, he'd know, that was all. He wouldn't hesitate— he'd laugh happily and attack it all the same. Oh, how she loved that bright-eyed courage. Never foolhardi-ness: he was always aware —as if he were more conscious than anyone else in the world. He always knew. So to do what he did in the burning house needed, oh, so much courage—

She stumbled and found herself helplessly sobbing on the dark path, clutching her bag, weeping with racking, choking spasms while the servant stood a little way off, holding the lantern. After a minute—two minutes? three?—^she brought herself under control, mopped her eyes with her shredded handkerchief, and nodded to the servant to move on.

Yes, she thought, that was what he'd do: measure the odds and attack all the same, and do so joyfully. So she would do that, too, because she loved him, dear Fred; she'd do it to be worthy of him, she'd face up to Bell-mann though she was horribly afraid. She'd be like Fred

and show no fear, though now that she was closer the fear of Bellmann gnawed at her entrails like a fox. She could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

But she managed. And, head high, tears still glistening on her cheeks, she climbed the steps behind the servant and entered the house of Axel Bellmann.

Late on Sunday morning, Jim Taylor had awakened to find himself with a sick headache and a crippling pain in his leg—^which, he saw when he dragged himself to a sitting position, was in plaster to the knee.

He didn't recognize where he was. For a minute, in fact, he had trouble remembering anything. Then it came back—or some of it did—and he sank back into the comfortable pillows and closed his tytSy but only for a moment. He remembered Frederick going back up to that crazy bitch Isabel Meredith, and he remembered pulling himself free of Webster or Mackinnon or someone and trying to climb back up after him. But that was all.

He pulled himself upright again. He was in a comfortable, even luxurious, room he'd never seen before, and he could hear traffic outside the window, and there was a tree—^where the bloody hell was he?

"Hey!" he yelled.

He found a bellpull beside the bed and yanked it hard. Then he tried to swing his legs over the side, but the pain defeated him, and he yelled again.

"Hey! Fred! Mr. Webster!"

The door opened, and a stately figure in black came in. Jim recognized him: it was Lucas, Charles Bertrams manservant.

"Good morning, Mr. Taylor," he said.

"Lucas!" said Jim. "Is this Mr. Bertrams place, then?" It IS, sir.

"What's the time? How long have I been here?"

"It is nearly eleven o'clock, Mr. Taylor. They brought you here toward five in the morning. You were unconscious, I understand. You'll notice the doctor has seen to your leg."

"Is Mr. Bertram here? Or Mr. Garland? And Mr. Mackinnon—^where's he?"

"Mr. Bertram is helping at Burton Street, sir. I could not say where Mr. Mackinnon is."

"What about Miss Lockhart? And Frederick? Young Mr. Garland, that is? Is he all right?"

A flicker of compassion crossed the man's calm features, and Jim felt something like a cold iron hand clutch at his heart.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Frederick Garland died in the attempt to bring a young lady out of the building. ..."

Suddenly the room dissolved into a watery blur. Jim sank back and heard the door close quiedy as Lucas left:, and then found himself crying as he hadn't done since he was a kid—great shaking sobs of overwhelming grief and, mixed in with them, cries of anger and denial; denial that he, Jim, was crying, denial that Frederick was

dead, denial that Bellmann should be allowed to get away with this—for he knew how it had happened. Bellmann had killed Frederick as surely as if he'd thrust a knife into his heart. And he'd pay, by God. How could that happen to Fred—the fights they'd survived together, the way they'd ragged each other and teased and laughed?

Another storm of weeping. Men didn't cry in the fiction Jim read and wrote, but they did in real life, all right. Jim's father had cried when consumption had carried off his wife, Jim's mother, when Jim was ten; and the neighbor, Mr. Solomons, he'd cried when the landlord had evicted his family and left them in the street— cried with storms of curses; and Dick Mayhew, the lightweight champion, had wept when he lost his title to Batding Bob Gorman. There was no shame in it. There was honesty.

He let it wash over him and subside a little, and then pulled himself upright again and tugged on the bellpuU. Ignoring the pain in his leg, he swung himself sideways and put his feet on the floor. A moment later Lucas came in with a tray.

"Miss Lockhart," Jim said. "Where's she, d'you know?"

Lucas put the tray on the bedside table and pulled it around in front of Jim, who noticed for the first time that he was wearing a nightshirt of Charles's. There was tea on the tray, and toast, and a boiled egg.

"I understood Mr. Bertram to say that she left

Burton Street not long after the firemen brought Mr. Garland s body out of the building, sir. I couldn't say where she might have gone."

"And Mackinnon? Sorry if I've asked you before, Lucas. I'm more than a bit dazed. What d'you know about what happened?"

Lucas stood by while Jim drank the tea and buttered some toast, and retailed what he had heard. At five that morning, Webster had sent a message asking for Charles's help. Charles had gone at once to Burton Street, to find Jim in need of medical attention after falling from the knotted sheets while trying to climb up after Frederick. Charles had sent Jim back to Lucas at once and had arranged for a doctor to set Jim's leg. Charles was still in Burton Street with Webster, where he was likely to remain for some time. Sally had vanished, and so had Mackinnon. Jim closed his eyes.

"I'll have to find him," he said. "Has Mr. Bertram told you anything about this business, Lucas?"

"No, sir. Though of course I was aware, in a general way, of something unusual. I must advise you, Mr. Taylor, that the doctor who set your leg was particularly insistent that you should not move. Mr. Bertram told me to prepare the room for you and make you comfortable for a long stay, sir. I really would advise—"

"That's good of him, and I'll tell him so when I see him. But I can't sit around—this is urgent. Would you call a cab for me? And clothes—I suppose mine are

burned, or something. Damn it, I was in me nightshirt, I remember now. Can you find me something to wear?"

Fifteen minutes later, wearing an ill-fitting tweed suit of Charles's, Jim was in a cab bound for Islington. When the cab stopped outside Sallys door, Jim called up to the driver to wait, and hauled himself (with the aid of a stick he'd borrowed from Lucas) up the steps and rang the bell.