Florence and Giles (20 page)

He pushed with his hands and got himself upright. He managed to get one foot on the ground, so he was now only on one knee, like a suitor popping the question, only what he said was, ‘Florence, don’t do this! I didn’t see a thing! I won’t say a word.’ The effort of talking was too much and he commenced to coughing so brutally it painfulled me
quite too. Somehow, with what reserves of strength I do not know, he got himself onto his feet.

He staggered toward the stairs. I backed away and leaned against the wall behind me, watching in horror as he advanced. He reached the stairs and all but collapsed against them, sliding down, but at the last moment clutched the rail with his hands and then, after a dreadful pause, hauled himself upright again. ‘Florence!’ His voice sawed through my heart.

I made no reply and he lifted one foot and put it between two of the banisters. Pulling hard with his hands, he hauled himself up and got his other foot between another two banisters; resting the weight of his long body over them, he reached out a bony, plaintive hand. ‘Florence, please, give it to me!’

I held fast against the wall, clutching the flask behind me. I watched in dread as he lifted one leg like a drunk trying to mount a horse and, after two or three futile efforts, threw it over the banisters. He pushed up with the other foot and got his body on top of the banisters. He lay there, one leg and one arm either side, resting on the rail. He tried to say something but the word or words just gargled and died in his throat. His breath gave one tremendous last rasp and then there was nothing but silence. Poor Theo, my poor heron boy, who used to graceful on the frozen lake; poor, poor Theo would skate no more.

My first difficulty was to downstairs without disturbing Theo. His dying on me like this had not been part of my plan, but now that it had happened I recognised it had necessaried all along; for his straightforward nature would never have been equal to the task of maintaining my secret. I overed to him and put my ear to his side. There was no sound from those poor tired-out lungs. It mercifulled that after so much misery they were now at rest. I lifted his head a little and pressed my lips to his and gentled him the kiss he had always craved but never properly received. It took but a moment; I had no more time to lose. I slipped the spray bottle into the pocket of his jacket and went up a few steps. I overed the banisters. I could not use them to get down to the ground because Theo was in the way. I did not want to push his body off the banister because already a plan was forming in my mind which necessitated him remaining where he was. I was here some ten feet from the ground and there was nothing for it but to jump. I deep-breathed, closed my eyes and let go. I landed hard and my right ankle, the one that had been injured before, so sored I thought I had broke it, so that for a moment I anxioused putting my weight on it, in which case I would be trapped and have some mighty difficult
explaining to do. I got myself up and slowly let my weight onto my right foot and was relieved that although it pained me some, it did not prevent me walking.

It was now dark, but it fortuned the sky had all but cleared, with only a few rags of cloud remaining and the full moon gave me good light. I went to the barn and found John’s wheelbarrow. I wheeled it in through the back door and along the corridor to the bottom of the tower. I set it down beside the staircase directly below Theo. Then I hauled myself up the bottom two banisters and tugged him off. He fell like a sack of potatoes straight into the barrow. I clambered back down and took the handles of the wheelbarrow, silentpraying that I would be able to lift them, for I did not know if I could manage Theo’s weight.

I deep-breathed again and lifted and surprised me; he seemed to weigh no more than a sparrow, and as I pushed him back along the corridor and out the back door I thought how weak and frail his illness had made him. He was long but he was not broad, and that was my good luck. I took him into the barn and wheeled the barrow up the loading ramp that John used for horse and chicken feed and the like. It was a hard push, light as Theo was, up the incline, but I just put my head down and ran right at it and was up it in no more than a few seconds. I left the wheelbarrow and its contents there and next-doored to the stables, where Bluebird was waiting patiently, all harnessed up to the trap. I took his bridle and, stroking him and whispering kindly to him, led him into the barn, where I positioned him so the trap was below the loading bay. Still crooning to him softly, I climbed up onto the seat of the trap and put on the brake. Then I jumped down, went up onto the loading bay, took the handles of the wheelbarrow, turned it to face the trap and with one
almighty shove tipped it up so that Theo tumbled down into the back of it.

I had to rest me a moment or two after that. I was sweating and panting. I went to the apple barrel, took one out and offered it to Bluebird. After he’d finished it and having certained that he was content, I went back up the ramp, got the wheelbarrow and took it back into the barn, leaving it as I had found it.

Then I went back into the house and made my way up into the tower. Giles was still sleeping, although now he restlessed a little and murmured to himself. I took the cloth with the chloroform on it and gave him another dose, but only a quick one this time, for I feared giving him too much. I waited a few minutes to certain he was breathing easily and normally and then slipped out of the tower and up to the governess’s room to fetch the money and the other item I had taken from her bag. I went to my own room and put on my black cloak.

I returned to the barn, took Bluebird’s bridle and led him outside. I mounted the driver’s seat and gentled the reins so that he began to trot. The wind had dropped and the night was crisp and clear and the moonlight showed me the way almost as plain as day. Bluebird of course knew the road to town, it was almost the only place he ever took the trap, so I had little need to steer until we reached the drive to the Van Hoosier place. I turned into it and made my way about halfway up it. I dared not go any further lest Theo’s tutor or the servants hear the noise of Bluebird’s hooves.

I had Bluebird turn around, so the back of the trap was facing the edge of the woods, and then I put on the brake and climbed into the back. Somehow Theo seemed to have grown heavier in the hour or so since I had wheeled him
up the ramp, or perhaps it happened that I had weakened from all my exertions, but it took me some considerable time to manhandle his body over the edge of the trap. All the while I heart-in-mouthed, fearing someone might come. It was now well into the evening and I reckoned it to be long past the time Theo should have been home for supper. The servants might be searching for him already and if they found me here, all would be up with me.

But at last it was done. I was so tired I would fain have laid me down there and then and slept, but I knew I could not. I mounted the box again, took off the brake and flicked the reins to gee up Bluebird. I greatly relieved to turn again onto the main road; the greater the distance between me and Theo, the better.

It colded now and even under my cloak I shivered. The frost had come down hard and the road was slippery, so that sometimes the wheels of the trap would slide across it in a most alarming way. I had so little experience of driving the trap, just a few minutes when John occasionally let me try for fun, that I nervoused to go too quickly, even though I knew those other horses, the horses of the night, were flying fast. I met only a farmer’s cart upon the road and, soon as I saw it, drew the hood of my cloak over my face so that I would not be recognised. The driver of the cart did not hail me but simply raised his whip by way of greeting, which I repaid with a silent nod.

After that I aloned with the moon and the squeaking of the bats that darted here and there; fear rose up my gullet, like food too rich to digest, but not of the night, which I regarded as my friend, but of what I had to accomplish and of not being able to do it.

Eventually lights began to appear in the distance in front
of me and to multiply the further I went, and in a few minutes I outskirted the town, passing the first scattered houses. I turned round and picked out of the trap the item I had taken from Miss Taylor’s room, her hat. I lowered my hood and placed the hat firmly upon my head and drew the veil over my face, entering Main Street with my features shielded from view as Miss Taylor’s had been when we visited the dentist. There were few people about, for it was a night to indoors and huddle around a fire, an idea that appealed me now. At the turn to the railroad station I made a mess of controlling the reins and could in no way get Bluebird to turn, so that before I knew it we were almost past the turn.

‘Whoa, boy!’ I called out, giving the reins a good jerk, for stopping him was one thing I could do. The good old horse duly halted. I hopped down from the box and, taking his bridle, turned him around and, when he was pointed in the right direction, got back up on the box and flicked the reins to start him up again. In a couple of minutes we were trotting up to the station.

Right away the silence was gone. There was a bustle of people walking to and from the station and many buggies and carts going in either direction too. I awared the clanking of metal and, as I approached the railroad station itself, the hiss of steam, for there, like a dragon lying in wait for me, sat the locomotive, its long tail of passenger cars stretching out behind it. Men were shouting, doors crashing shut, horses whinnying. At first I afraided at all this commotion, but when I saw that no one paid me any attention, for I was but another among many, I realised it was to my advantage. I stopped the trap by a hitching rail, climbed down and hitched Bluebird to it. I knew where I was going from the time we brought Giles here when he went off to school. Looking
neither right nor left, I marched straight into the booking hall, past the people gathered there, many of them saying goodbyes to loved ones, and up to the ticket window. There was no one behind it.

I looked around. A man and woman had come up behind me. The man was carrying a carpet bag and it evidented they were going for a train. I looked up and saw the station clock and near dropped dead from shock. It wanted only ten minutes before nine o’clock. If I didn’t hurry I would be too late for the Flyer, which I knew departed upon the hour.

The man and woman were behind me now, waiting in line, and I sensed them impatienting. The woman bent her head over my shoulder. ‘You have to tap the glass,’ she said and gave the window a sharp rap with her knuckles. As if by magic a small bald head bobbed up behind the counter in front of me.

‘Yes, ma’am?’ he said.

‘I’d like to buy a ticket on the Flyer for New York, please.’

‘Would that be a return, ma’am?’

‘No,’ I loud-and-cleared. ‘Just the one way. I shall not be coming back.’

He handed me a ticket and I paid him from the money I had taken from Miss Taylor’s purse. The man behind straightway began purchasing tickets for him and his companion and didn’t seem to give me another thought.

I walked out of the ticket hall to the track. As I approached the train a cloud of steam hissed from the locomotive and engulfed me, for which by instinct I gratefulled, for it hid me quite, until I reminded myself that this would not do, that I needed to be seen. I duly walked the whole length of the train and back to the front again, nervousing inside, for the locomotive was pawing the ground, anxious to be off,
snorting louder and louder as it eagered. At the front car I found a group of some six or seven men mounting the stairs and bolded up to them. Spotting me, one of them pulled another man aside and, sweeping off his hat, indicated the steps. ‘After you, ma’am.’

I nodded a thanks and upped the steps. The car was more than half full, for the train had made many more stops before this one. I walked along the aisle, looking this way and that as though searching for a seat. Near the end of the car a man in a loud check suit and a bowler hat glanced up as he saw me pass. He hastily moved a carpet bag from the seat next to him and said, ‘Here, ma’am, this seat is free.’

I did not know what to do, for I could not take the seat, but nor did I feel I could rudely ignore him. My moment’s hesitation near cost me dear, I can tell you. Collecting myself quickly, I nodded a thanks and waved a dismissive hand and proceeded to the end of the car and out the door, as if to go through to the next car in the hope of finding a better seat. My plan was to descend by the steps at the end of the car and make my getaway, but as I exited the first car into the second a couple of ladies were coming through from the opposite direction and I had to give way to them.

When they had gone I was about to descend the steps when I heard a voice behind me. ‘You’ll find it just as busy the whole length of the car, ma’am.’

I turned and found the loud check. He took off his hat and leered me one. I faltered, feeling trapped. There was a sudden great hiss of steam from the locomotive. The train gave an almighty jerk and I had to grab hold of the door frame so as not to stumble.

‘I – I.’

‘Come on, ma’am, I won’t bite you, y’know.’

‘Why, of course, thank you,’ I said. ‘But you see, I wasn’t going to look for another seat. I was after my bag, which I left a couple of cars back.’

‘Why, ma’am, I’d be happy to go fetch it for you. If’n you’ll just describe it to me, that is.’

The train lurched again. ‘You can’t miss it, it – it’s red. Bright red velveteen. I put it down on the last seat in the car before this one. I – I was waving goodbye to my sister and wouldn’t you know I was so upset at leaving her that I went and forgot all about it. What a nincompoop I am! Would you really be so kind as to go fetch it for me?’

He put his hat back on and tipped the brim to me. ‘It’ll be my pleasure, ma’am. Now, you just go back there and sit where I was sitting – and be sure to take the seat by the window – and I’ll be back directly with your bag.’

As he disappeared into the next car the train jolted again and this time there was another hiss, a loud grinding of metal upon metal and through the open doorway I saw the booking office begin to move. I looked right and left; there was no one in sight. I whipped off my hat and stuffed it under my cloak and downed the steps and stood on the bottom one. The train was moving at a brisk walking pace and gathering speed all the time; if I didn’t jump now it would be too late. I jumped and managed not to stumble, which was just as well, for I no longer wanted to draw attention to myself.

The trackside was still busy with people waving their friends goodbye and porters hereing and thereing. I pulled my hood over my head and fast-awayed, not going through the booking hall this time but around it, and could not help smiling to myself at the thought of the loud check searching for a red velveteen bag he would never find. Of course, Miss
Taylor would have had a bag if she had really caught the train, but if I had taken one I would have had to leave it on board, and it later being found abandoned might suspicion things more. I had to hope that any witnesses to the veiled woman at the station misremembered whether or not she was carrying baggage.

In the street outside I last-looked at Bluebird and the trap. The good old horse stood waiting patiently as I had left him. He was in for a mighty long cold wait, which brought a tear to my eye, for I sorried to have caused him that. I thought of Theo, lying on the cold ground with the frost now stiffening his hair, and, I do confess, shed a tear or two more at that.

What had taken so little time in the trap, even though at the time I felt I slowed because of my inexperience at driving, now seemed to take an age on foot. It must have been a good twenty minutes before I cleared the outskirts of the town. I tireded not only because I would normally have long been in bed but from all that I had been through, the heavy work of lifting the wood and stones off the well and then putting them back, hauling poor Theo around, the running hither and thither, and also at the very thought that I now had ten miles to walk or else all so far would be for nought.