Wilful Impropriety (42 page)

While I eat he updates me on the search, and how Mr. Craven has grown even more sour than usual since my disappearance, and how Mrs. Medlock has neither asked nor said anything about me at all.

Which reminds me to ask about the cries I heard earlier.

“You’re not supposed to know,” John says. “Miss Mary, neither. Mr. Craven has a son, and he’s a sickly thing. Not supposed to live long, but he keeps on living and making life miserable for everyone around him.”

I thought that was Miss Mary’s job, I almost say, but Saidie would tell me to hold my tongue and be charitable. When I leave Mary will be alone here, alone with all these strangers.

“This is an unhappy house,” I tell John.

He warms his hands over the candle. “It wasn’t always, they say. Mrs. Craven was a beautiful bride. Broke his heart when she died in the garden. He walled it up afterward so that no one can ever go in there again. But that doesn’t give him an excuse to be forward with young ladies.”

The last few words come out angrily. I think he must have had a sister or cousin who fell under Mr. Craven’s attention, but he’s protecting her by not saying so. We each have our secrets.

“Do you think he’ll go to London tomorrow?” I ask.

“Or the day after. Don’t worry, I’ll bring you food and maybe a book if I can get one from the library. Can you read?”

“A little.”

“Me too. I didn’t like school much, and didn’t think I’d need it. My father always said I wouldn’t need it. He never did. Lived and died in the fields, he did.”

“In my village the boys went to school and the girls worked. My sister had to teach me, and she only knew it because of a missionary woman. It’s not a girl’s place to get a good education.”

He stares into the candle flame. “You and me both, held back by other people’s expectations. But we’re putting an end to that, aren’t we?”

During the night, I dream of John wandering through the endless halls of Misselthwaite, a candle in hand, looking for his father. He hasn’t spoken of a mother but maybe she’s still alive, she and some siblings, too. Or maybe like me he’s alone in the world, dependent on fortune and his own resources and divine favors. In the morning I wait and wait, but it takes him a long time to come. He looks tired but crisp in his uniform, and to his credit he’s brought not only food but also two books from Mr. Craven’s library.

“They say this one’s about the moor.” He hands over the books. “And this one here is popular, too.”

“I appreciate it, John.”

He blushes and smiles. “It’s not a worry. Mr. Craven hardly reads anything from the high shelves. He’s very angry this morning at everyone, so I can’t stay long. Is there anything you need?”

Only for him to stay with me today, and to help fill the silence with words, and to keep smiling at me.

“I’ll be back when I can,” he promises.

For the rest of the day I practice walking on my bad knee, look out the window, and read the books as best I can. The first is a gloomy story about an orphan named Jane who is bullied by a boy named John, and punished cruelly, and later she has to cross the moor and live in a big house with many secrets in it. I think the author must have visited Misselthwaite. The second book is about a boy named David. His father died before he was born, and then his mother marries another man, but the man is no good in his heart, and the man’s sister is even more cruel, and then the mother has a new baby and they both die, and David has to go and work in a factory.

John comes back late that night and notices the second book clutched in my lap. “Did you enjoy it?”

“It’s terrible! Do they really make children work in factories to pay off their debt?”

“Not so much these days. I’m sorry it upset you. I’ll take it away—”

I hold it tightly. “No, I have to finish.”

He laughs good-naturedly. “Mrs. Sowerby, that’s Martha’s mum, she says a good book can make you cry your eyes dry and be glad of it. Come on, eat.”

Tonight’s dinner is stew with carrots and a thick chunk of bread and some apples from the cellar. He tells me how a groomsman found my glove right where John had left it, and that Mr. Craven is convinced I’m lost on the moor. I tell John more about David Copperfield, and we look at the fine illustrations in the book. His hand brushes against mine again, and my dark hair falls against his sleeve, but he doesn’t try to kiss me the way Barney would. After he leaves, I lie in bed thinking about all the orphans in the world, some of us encountering misfortune, and others great success. But who decides our fates? The gods I know, or the God of the English, or Mohammed the prophet? If I knew, I could make the right offerings and prayers, and pray for John, myself, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Jane Eyre and even rotten Miss Mary Lennox.

The next morning my knee is much better. John says Mr. Craven is almost convinced now that I’ve met my demise, but he sent his men out looking for one more day. In the book, David runs away from London and finds a new home with his kind Aunt Betsy. I want to run away too, but first I need the memsahib’s money, and thanks to Martha I know that Mrs. Medlock has a room on the floor above this one.

Even in the middle of the day, the hallway is gloomy with oil paintings and unlit lamps. Carefully I follow the brown carpet to the servants’ stairs, which spiral upward. The first floorboard creaks under my foot, and I hesitate. If anyone finds me, these days of hiding will be in vain. But I climb one more step, and then another, until I reach a set of garret rooms where the servants live. The floor here is bare and the plain doors are all closed. There are a dozen or more possibilities for Mrs. Medlock’s room, but if I start with this first one and work my way carefully—

One of the doors swings open. A cheerful man’s voice says, “I’d better be getting back before he misses me—” and I flee right back down the stairs to my hideaway.

When John comes that night, he has good news.

“Tomorrow Mr. Craven’s leaving for London. You’ll be able to go, too.”

We’re sitting closer than before, in chairs pulled close to the little table. I’ve finished the dinner he brought and the house is silent. But the wind is wutherin’ again, and it doesn’t take a lot of candlelight to see the sadness in John’s eyes.

“You won’t be able to finish your book,” John adds. “I won’t know what happens to David Copperfield.”

“You can read it for yourself,” I say. “It gets easier the more you practice.”

He takes my hand. “I’d rather hear it from you.”

I think that now he’s going to kiss me. It will be better than anyone else’s because he is kind. He was strong enough to help me up the stairs and brave enough to try and protect me, and I like the look of his face, the way he sees good in things, that endless blue in his eyes—

John says, slowly, “In England, when a girl looks at a boy like that, it’s very hard for the boy to control himself.”

“It’s just the same in India,” I tell him.

I think he’s going to do it. Instead he rises from his chair. “I have to go. Tomorrow you’ll be free of Misselthwaite. Ben Weatherstaff says that there’s a thousand Indian sailors who live in East London with their English wives. You might go there and find people you know. Don’t you think?”

“I suppose I might,” I say.

He nods. “Good. Goodnight, miss.”

I spend my last night at the manor alone in a big cold bed, wondering why John wouldn’t kiss me.

The next morning Mr. Craven departs at dawn in a carriage driven by a white-haired coachman. It’s raining again, just as the day I arrived, with thick fog rolling through the park around the manor. John brings me breakfast and says we can leave soon. Ben is taking a wagon to Thwaite for gardening supplies, or so he’s told the house butler. I can hide in the back of it.

“It won’t do well to get there too early,” he says. “There’s only two trains to London today, and Mr. Craven will be on the first one.”

I bid goodbye to my little room and to Mr. Craven’s books. John smuggles me down the back stairs toward the servants’ entrance. We have to move quickly and avoid everyone. But at the last minute a figure blocks the way, someone large and imposing with a stern look on her face.

“There you are,” Mrs. Medlock says. “Our little Indian princess, running away.”

“Mrs. Medlock!” John gasps.

“Go outside, John,” she orders. “I’ll speak to you later.”

He squares his shoulders. “I’m not leaving her.”

Mrs. Medlock grimaces. “Don’t take that tone with me, John Allen. Go outside.”

I squeeze his hand and say, “I’ll be right with you.”

Reluctantly he leaves. Mrs. Medlock considers me from head to toe. I try not to cower. Wind pushes at us past the ajar door, making our breath frost in white clouds. She asks, “What did you promise John for him to help you?”

“Nothing,” I tell her.

Her voice is scornful. “Nothing at all? Not your favor, or love, or maybe this?”

From her pocket she pulls out a wad of banknotes. The memsahib’s money.

“That’s mine,” I say. “You took it from me.”

“It’s not likely yours,” Mrs. Medlock replies. “Not unless they pay servants an exorbitant rate in India. You probably stole it on that ship you came on, or before you left. The rightful owner might offer a substantial reward if I return it. And you can be sure Mr. Craven would explain it away to the police in return for your affection.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see John waiting outside. He’s huddled against the wind, looking worried for me.

“I will trade nothing to Mr. Craven,” I say firmly. “I’d rather go to jail.”

“Easy to say, harder to do,” she replies. “Did you really ride an elephant?”

I blink in surprise. “Yes. More than once.”

Mrs. Medlock turns her gaze past the door and past John to the moor. “I’ve never left England. Never had the inclination. Foreign languages make my ears hurt, and I can’t imagine going to a place where all the customs are different. Why leave home when you don’t have to?”

Despite her confidence, I hear regret under the words. I think she has a story to tell. Not of orphans or adventures but maybe a romance gone wrong, or a lover who died in war, or something else that keeps a person safely chained to the places and things they know.

“Sometimes you have to make a new home,” I tell her.

Mrs. Medlock looks back at me as if she’d forgotten I was there. Her gaze is speculative but no longer quite as harsh.

To my surprise, she thrusts the money into my hand. “You’d better leave now if you’re going to make the train.”

“Why are you helping me?” I ask her.

She looks down her nose at me. “I’m not helping you. I’m removing an unfavorable influence from Miss Mary’s life. She doesn’t need the likes of you around, does she?”

I don’t believe her, but I don’t contradict her, either.

“Thank you,” I tell her. It’s the first time I’ve said those words to a white woman and meant them. But she’s already turned away, and it’s time for me to go.

•   •   •

Ben Weatherstaff is a wrinkled man with a crooked nose and a thick tobacco pipe jutting from his mouth. He’s filled the back of his wagon with sacks and a blanket.

“Aren’t you the pretty one?” he asks. “Takes me back to my sailing days.”

“Let’s go,” John says.

Mrs. Medlock aside, it would do no good for the other servants to see me leave. I huddle under the gray blanket, which smells like horses and doesn’t do much to keep out the rain. John rides up front with Ben. When I peek out for a last glimpse at Misselthwaite Manor, I think I see Mary at a window, her pale face pressed to the glass.

“Will she be all right?” I ask John.

He glances backward. “Who?”

“Miss Mary.”

“Mr. Craven won’t bother her,” he says. “Soon he’ll forget all about her, like he forgets about his son.”

The road is more rocky than I remember, sending me up and down forcefully. My knee is healed up, but now my backside grows sore. When we reach the broad expanse of the moor, Ben calls back, “No one for miles, you can come out now!” The rain has eased to a fine drizzle and the landscape is as bleak as before, but it’s nice to breathe fresh air. John climbs over the seat to share some biscuits. He’s not very talkative today, and I think I know why.

“You’ll find her one day,” I say to him, not kindly.

He looks bewildered. “Who?”

“A nice English girl. Someone who looks like Martha or Miss Mary.”

“Is that what I want?” His cheeks turn red. “A nice English girl?”

“The soldiers at the garrison would promise many things for a kiss, but then they’d go home and forget me.” The wagon jostles, nearly throwing me against him. “My sister warned me and warned me, but I didn’t listen.”

John’s face hardens as the wagon bounces again. “You think that’s what I am? As good as some soldier in a fort who’d say anything? I didn’t kiss you because I can’t. If I did, I wouldn’t want to stop. You deserve better than a footman from Yorkshire.”

We’ve reached the edge of the moor, where the high road twists downhill into the town. There’s a distant whistle in the air.