A Broken Vessel (43 page)
Sally came upstairs to Julian’s lodging to bid him and Dipper goodbye. She kissed them both in a sisterly fashion, but clung to Julian a fraction longer. “Think of me sometimes,” she whispered, and he thought he heard a break in her voice. But when she drew away, she was all smiles and raillery. “I hear tell it’s bitter cold up there at darkmans. You’d best find some northern gal to keep you warm.”
He had a sudden urge to take her with him.
It was out of the question, of course. He was staying with friends, and would be spending his days out shooting and his nights at cards. What would she do all that time? Be bored and lonely, and get into trouble, which they had all had enough of for the time being.
“We’ll be back in a few weeks, you know,” he said.
She tossed her head. “Think I can’t get on without you?”
“I’ll think you’ll be into some new scrape before our carriage turns the corner.”
“Then you can get me out again, can’t you? Give you some’ut to do when you gets home.”
“I should rather not have to make it a lifelong habit.”
“Go on, you liked it uncommon, finding out who hushed Mary, and all.”
“I have to admit,” he owned, smiling, “there were some parts I wouldn’t have missed.”
Julian returned to London early in December. It was a bleak, dreary night; he consoled himself with plans to winter in Italy. The trip had done him good, but he was glad to be back. He was too confirmed a city-dweller to relish the northern wilds for long.
To his surprise, Mrs. Mabbitt was watching for him at the window. While Dipper paid off the hackney coachman, he went to meet her at the door. “You’re up very late, Mrs. Mabbitt.”
“I wanted to catch you and Dipper, sir, directly you got home. It’s about Sally.”
Sally! Why had he left her alone? Suppose there were colleagues of Rawdon’s still loose on the streets, wanting revenge—!
“What’s happened?” he said quickly.
“She’s gone away, sir.”
“Disappeared?”
“No, sir, just gone. Packed up her things about a week ago and took herself off. She said goodbye and thanked me for everything, just as proper as could be. But she wouldn’t breathe a word about where she was going, or what she meant to do. I said to her, Mr. Kestrel and your brother will be back soon—don’t you want to say goodbye to them? She asked me to say it for her. I told her on no uncertain terms, it was a very poor return for all you’d done for her, sir, and a most unsisterly way to treat Dipper. But, there!—she
would
go, and go she did. She was good enough to leave me a bit of money for having her here, though I told her there wasn’t the least need. Oh, and she sent you both her love.”
Julian leaned against the mantelpiece in his bedroom, watching Dipper unpack. “Of course she knew when she said goodbye to us that she wouldn’t be here when we got back.”
“I think that’s so, sir.”
“Why should she have gone off like that—in secret, without a word?”
“I expect she thought we’d try to stop her, sir.”
“Where do you suppose she’s gone?”
“I dunno, sir. But I ain’t surprised she piked off. She never was one for a quiet life. She prob’ly thought she’d be turning respectable before long, and she couldn’t stick it.”
There was a short silence. Then Julian strolled to the window, saying in what MacGregor called his drawing-room drawl, “Well, if she wanted so badly to be gone, I daresay it’s just as well she took herself off without any fuss—”
He turned, and found Dipper gazing at him understandingly, with Sally’s warm brown eyes. “I shall miss her,” he finished quietly.
“She’ll be back, sir—you may take your dying oath on it! She was al’ays a gipsy, sir—she never could stick one place for long. But now she knows where to find us, she’ll be back— Newgate seize me if she won’t!”
All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.
A BROKEN VESSEL
A Felony & Mayhem “Historical” mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First print edition (Viking Penguin): 1994
Felony & Mayhem print edition: 2011
Felony & Mayhem electronic edition: 2012
Copyright © 1994 by Katherine J. Ross
All rights reserved
E-book ISBN: 978-1-937384-33-3
To Dana Young, who is too modest
about her abilities as a critic
I would like to thank Richard Sharp and Ken Stone, of Scotland Yard’s Metropolitan Police Museum, for their considerate assistance with my research. I would also like to thank the following people for their help, advice, and moral support: Edward A. Ross, Louis A. Rodriques, Mark J. Poerio, Mark L. Levine, Christina Ward, and Al Silverman.
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