Cinderella Sister (41 page)

On an easel facing her was the painting on which Gabriel had spent so much of his time, refusing to allow her even the smallest peek. Lily had instantly recognised herself, but on closer scrutiny the girl in the portrait was strikingly beautiful, determined and yet ethereal. Gabriel had captured a hint of vulnerability in her eyes, and an innocence which seemed at odds with the background of a conflagration that blazed against a black velvet sky. With her hair flying out behind her and glowing as bright as the heart of the fire, she stood in the well of the firemen’s wagon, holding the reins like a modern Boadicea. It was a picture alive with colour and drama. The firefighters were in the background but that did not detract from their heroic efforts to contain the blaze. Lily caught her breath. She could almost feel the heat; hear the crackling and crashing of burning timbers, the shouts of her brothers and the men who formed a human chain taking water from the river, and the hiss of steam as it evaporated in the intense heat. The scene could have been the gateway to hell’s inferno and the pale-faced girl an angel from heaven caught up in a tussle with
the devil himself. It was, by any standards, a masterpiece. Lily felt tears running down her cheeks as she was caught up in the emotion of the painting.

‘You weren’t supposed to look.’ Gabriel’s voice made Lily turn with a start.

‘I didn’t hear you coming.’

‘It’s finished. What do you think of it?’

Lily’s hands fluttered in front of her face as she struggled to put her feelings into words. ‘It’s wonderful. I didn’t know you were such a brilliant artist.’

He smiled, shrugging modestly. ‘I was inspired by my subject.’

She studied the painting, stepping backwards so that she was standing side by side with Gabriel. ‘You’ve captured the ferocity of the fire so well. It’s as if you could warm your hands by just holding them close to the canvas. You might have been there yourself, it’s so real. How could you have known what it was like? I don’t understand.’

‘Perhaps I felt it through you, Lily. The fire in the warehouse was not my inspiration, it was you.’ His eyes held her for a moment and then he looked away. ‘I’ve named it
Lily in the Flames
.’

‘That was what that horrible reporter called me,’ Lily said, grimacing at the memory of Christian Smith’s unscrupulous attempts to grab the headlines.

‘I don’t think he’ll bother you again.’

‘What do you mean, Gabriel? Have you seen him recently? I thought he’d given up trying to get a story out of us.’

‘I wasn’t going to tell you, but he’s got a nose like
a bloodhound. He knew about my father’s suicide, God knows how, but he was snooping around the prison and we came face to face. In the end, we sorted it out like gentlemen.’

‘You didn’t fight him, did you? A broken hand would end your career.’

He took her hand and curled his fingers around hers. ‘No, my love, I wouldn’t resort to fisticuffs with a bruiser like Smith. I know I’d lose, so I paid him off.’

‘Oh, you didn’t. If you gave him money he’ll come back again and again. He’ll bleed you dry.’

‘I made it worth his while to keep silent, and he understood that if he broke our agreement he would risk losing his job. I made it clear that I’d go straight to his editor if he tried to extort money from me, or if he came anywhere near my family.’

‘I suppose that includes me, although it’s not strictly true.’ Lily raised his hand to her cheek. ‘You have been like a brother to me, but we are not related in any way. Ma wasn’t legally married to your father and we aren’t your responsibility. I can’t and won’t allow you to support us, Gabriel. It wouldn’t be fair.’

‘That’s nonsense, Lily. Do you really think I would abandon you now?’

‘Well, not at this precise moment.’ She made an attempt at a smile but her lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears. She flicked them away with a quick movement of her head. ‘We won’t talk about this now. It’s getting late and we’re both tired. Things will become clearer in the morning.’

She was about to walk away but Gabriel held on to
her hand, looking deeply into her eyes. ‘My feelings won’t have changed tomorrow, or forever after that. I won’t abandon you or your mother. We belong together, Lily.’

‘I love you for saying that, but you mustn’t let us hold you back.’ She laid her finger on his lips as she sensed he was about to protest. ‘You are a great artist, Gabriel. I think this painting will make you famous, and you’ll mix with the toffs. You’re already one of them and we aren’t. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Never let me hear you say anything of that nature again.’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘There’s something I want to ask you, but this isn’t the right time or place. Be certain of one thing, Lily, I’m not going to desert you, even if I have to put up with that cheeky girl Prissy for the rest of my life. You may not be my sister but that doesn’t affect my feelings for you. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

The look in his eyes made her heart miss a beat. Until recently she had thought of him as a brother, but something had changed subtly and it was disturbing. At a loss for words and overcome by emotion, she reached up to brush his cheek with a kiss, and leaving him no time to respond, she left the room and hurried downstairs to the kitchen.

Prissy was dishing up the boiled mutton. ‘What’s up with you?’ she demanded. ‘You look all of a dither.’

Before Lily could think of a plausible explanation for something that she did not quite understand herself, Gabriel followed her into the room and took his seat at the table.

‘That smells good,’ he said appreciatively. ‘I haven’t eaten all day and I’m ravenous.’

‘So did you sort out the funeral arrangements?’ Prissy filled his plate to the brim and set it in front of him. ‘Eat up, there’s plenty more where that came from.’

Gabriel paused with his spoon at his lips. ‘That’s just it, I’m afraid. We’ll have to be careful with the housekeeping for a while. I had some unexpected expenses today.’

‘I suppose you had to bribe the vicar,’ Prissy said knowingly. ‘It happens all the time in our village. They’re all at it, from the verger to the parson, taking tuppence out of the collection here and there for their own ends, and charging folks a fortune if their love child dies at birth and needs a Christian burial. Lizzie Manners drowned herself in the duck pond when her lover went off with someone else. Her pa was the local wheelwright and they say it cost him dear to have her buried in the churchyard, and that were in the dead of night and no hymns nor bells. It weren’t right and it was the talk of the village for months.’

Lily knew that Gabriel was referring to the money he had given Christian Smith and not whatever it had cost him to pay for his father’s funeral. She glanced at him, but to her relief he did not seem upset by Prissy’s ramblings. ‘Is it all arranged?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Yes, tomorrow night at ten o’clock, but I think it’s probably for the best if we don’t tell Charlotte.’

Lily thought for a moment. ‘No. I think Ma ought to be able to say goodbye to Everard. She really did
love him, and I don’t think she would forgive us if we kept it from her.’

It was bitterly cold in the graveyard, and as if on cue the rain began to fall the moment the coffin was laid in the gaping black hole. By the light of a lantern, the vicar murmured the words of the burial ceremony, and the wind moaned through the yew trees like a ghostly choir accompanying his melancholy voice. Charlotte’s sobs were muffled as she leaned against Lily, but she had held up well so far with none of the histrionics that Lily had feared. Prissy stood at Charlotte’s side with her head bowed and her hands clasped in front of her. Lily glanced at Gabriel’s strong profile, etched against the darkness by the faint glow of the gas lamps on the other side of the stone wall which separated the churchyard from the street. On a bitterly cold winter’s night there was little traffic in this part of Shadwell, the nearest place that Gabriel could find where the vicar was willing to perform the interment.

The last words were uttered and clods of wet earth dropped onto the coffin, echoing eerily around the empty graveyard. Lily reached out to touch Gabriel’s hand, closing her fingers around his and giving them a gentle squeeze. He turned to her and she could see that his dark eyelashes were moist with tears. ‘He was a good man for all his faults,’ Gabriel murmured. ‘We had our differences but I did love him.’

Lily’s arms ached to hold him and whisper words of comfort, but Charlotte had spotted the sexton and his helper as they arrived with spades. They were about
to fill the grave with soil when she broke away from Lily, and with a loud scream she threw herself into the hole, falling with a thud on top of Everard’s coffin. The vicar had walked off but he rushed back with his vestments flying about him like the wings of a demented seagull. ‘What happened?’

The sexton leaned over the yawning chasm, holding up a lantern. ‘She’s fallen in, vicar.’

‘She jumped,’ Prissy said, shaking her head. ‘Someone had better go down and heave her out.’

Hysterical sobs emanated from the grave and Lily clutched Gabriel’s arm as a wave of dizziness swept over her. It was, she thought, a living nightmare. The anxious faces of the men leaning over the hole in the ground were made ghoulish by the flickering light of their lanterns. Charlotte’s heartrending sobs were accompanied somewhat bizarrely by the sweet song of a nightingale somewhere in the bushes, and in the distance a dog barked.

Gabriel slipped his arm around Lily’s shoulders. ‘We’ll get her out, don’t worry. Go and wait in the cab with Prissy.’

She opened her mouth to protest but Prissy took her by the hand. ‘We can’t do no good here, miss. Come with me and wait in the warm. There’s no point you catching your death of cold in the rain just because she’s taken it into her head to bury herself along with him.’

The words might not have been sympathetic but they brought Lily back to reality and she held on to Prissy as they made their way through the dark graveyard,
stepping over stone slabs and feeling their way along the wall to the lychgate. The cabby had been paid to wait and his horse pawed the cobblestones, snorting and champing impatiently at the bit.

It seemed like hours to Lily but she knew by the hands on the clock in the church tower that it was little more than ten minutes before Gabriel lifted a semi-conscious Charlotte into the cab. She was covered in mud and her clothes were sodden. Even in the dim light, Lily could see that her mother’s face was turning blue and her breathing was shallow. ‘We must get her warm and dry quickly,’ she said anxiously.

‘It’ll take a good half hour to get home,’ Prissy muttered. ‘She could be dead by then judging by the colour of her face.’

‘We must take her to Pelican Stairs,’ Lily said in desperation. ‘Prissy’s right, Gabriel. She’s cold as ice and barely breathing. We must take her home.’

It was getting on for midnight by the time they reached the house on the wharf. Gabriel had paid off the cabby and he carried Charlotte all the way along the narrow passage to Pelican Stairs. She lay in his arms like a broken doll despite Lily’s attempts to revive her.

‘They’ll probably all be in bed,’ Prissy muttered.

Lily hurried on ahead. No matter if the family were sound asleep, she was determined to wake them, but as she approached the old inn she saw to her relief that there were lights in the windows. She rapped on the knocker, calling for Nell, but it was Grandpa who opened the door. He did not look pleased. ‘Is that you, Lily? What d’you think you’re doing roaming the streets in the dead of night?’

‘I’m not alone, Grandpa. Let us in, please.’

He stood aside and his eyes narrowed as Gabriel carried Charlotte into the house. ‘What’s up with her?’

‘Brandy, Grandpa. Is there any in the house? Ma had an accident and she’s frozen stiff.’ Lily hurried into the parlour and almost bumped into Nell in the doorway. Even in the dim light she could see that her sister had been crying. ‘What’s the matter? Are you ill?’

Nell shook her head. ‘It’s Molly. She eloped with Armand. Matt and the boys are on a shout and it will
be too late to do anything about it by the time they come off watch.’

For a moment Lily almost forgot their mother’s plight. She could see that Nell was deeply distressed and her first reaction was of anger towards Molly; selfish, thoughtless, wilful Molly, who must be the centre of attention at all times.

‘I’m afraid I’ll drop her if I don’t put her down soon,’ Gabriel complained, pushing past Lily and Nell and carrying Charlotte into the parlour. He set her down on the rocking chair by the fire.

‘What happened?’ Nell rushed to her mother’s side, taking her limp hand and chafing it. ‘She’s soaked to the skin and covered in mud. How did she get in this state?’

‘She had a bit of an accident,’ Lily said, sending a warning glance to Gabriel.

‘She’s nothing but trouble,’ Grandpa muttered. ‘Always was and always will be.’

Prissy turned on him. ‘That sort of talk don’t help one bit. Where d’you keep the brandy, mister?’

He recoiled, staring at her as if faced by a dangerous animal. ‘Who are you?’

Ignoring them, Lily went to the dresser and after a brief search found the bottle of brandy hidden behind a dented pewter tankard. She took a glass and poured a generous tot, taking it to her mother and holding it to her lips. Charlotte swallowed, coughed and opened her eyes. She looked dazedly round the room and uttered a low moan. ‘Let me die. I don’t want to go on without him.’

‘What nonsense,’ Nell said briskly. She turned to Prissy. ‘You, girl, whatever your name is, go into the kitchen and make a pot of tea. You’ll find everything you need in the pantry.’

Prissy stood her ground. ‘Me name is Prissy, and I don’t take orders from no one but Miss Lily.’

‘It seems you can still afford to keep a servant,’ Nell said, frowning.

Lily opened her mouth to protest but Gabriel answered for her. ‘Prissy stayed on out of loyalty. I don’t know what we would have done without her.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Nell murmured. ‘I didn’t mean to speak out of turn, it’s just that I’m exhausted and worried sick about Molly, and now Ma is here in a dreadful state and what Matt will make of all this I dread to think.’