Jane Steele (32 page)

She answered readily enough; but I, much closer to her, could see that her hands shook, and knew that what had previously been a perilous situation was now absolutely a deadly one.

“Miss Stone!” Mr. Singh exclaimed. “What a happy moment I
seem to have chosen for a long winter’s walk. I have passed many a frank hour in Charles’s company since you departed, but had hardly hoped you would return after you sent no forwarding address. Welcome home—or so I hope you think of it.”

Garima Kaur aimed a painted puppet’s smile at him even as her eyes flooded with tears.

Not long after my mother’s death I had a nightmare I actually remembered, the screaming sort which led Taylor to single me out in the Reckoning: a creature came to the doorstep of our cottage, and I knew without seeing, as one does in dreams, that it was a rabbit, and I picked up the small animal thinking to pet its fur. Only after I had lifted it did I realise that it had already been skinned by a hunter, and begun to be butchered as well; deep knife marks were scored along the spine, and only half its head remained, as if the brains had been reserved to tan the pelt. Though it moved as if alive, nuzzling my chest, I knew it must be in unfathomable pain, and I awoke shrieking about needing to kill something because in the dream I had no proper weapon.

I had not thought of that nightmare in years; but Garima Kaur’s expression brought it immediately to mind.

“Mr. Singh,” said I, stepping two paces away from her.

“Whatever is the matter?” he asked, frowning. “Have I interrupted you?” These questions were followed by what I assumed was the Punjabi equivalent.

Garima Kaur waited to see what I would say, her attention flicking rapidly between us.

For the first time in my life, I decided that truth was preferable.

“She speaks English,” I announced. “Very well indeed, and she has the treasure—look in the garret of the cottage, under the false bottom in the crate of records.”

Several expressions fought for supremacy on Mr. Singh’s face, the winner proving disbelief. “Miss Stone, I cannot imagine—”

“You don’t have to; you can find it yourself. She wanted to protect your sister’s fortune, but now there are Company soldiers in the village, Mr. Quillfeather is keeping them at bay, and she killed David Lavell in Amritsar all those years ago. I know you won’t mourn him, but she’s the reason Sack was here—she sent him a letter in your name.”

Garima Kaur’s fleshless face reacted not at all to my betraying her secrets, but she swayed slightly. I had told only a fraction of what I knew, and only what I thought Mr. Singh and Mr. Thornfield might forgive. Slanting my gaze, I willed her to understand me.

I will never tell them you killed John Clements, nor that you sent Jack Ghosh—not if you and I can both survive this.

Sardar Singh stood there motionless, taking in my words with eyes wide; I saw the exact moment when he believed me, for he flinched. Then I remembered that—unlike Mr. Thornfield, who seemed to expect trouble to find him magnetically—Mr. Singh had always known that the key to the conundrum lay in how Mr. Sack came to be at Highgate House in the first place.

The fact of his being here was, I agree, the greatest mystery of all.

“Garima, is what Miss Stone says accurate?”

“Yes.” The tears spilled down her bony cheeks. “But it was all for you, for
us.
Why should I have told you I speak English? You would talk of your problems to Charles, and I solved them without your ever asking me to—I was your djinn, your secret granter of wishes. You used to need me. How can you think you don’t need me any longer?”

“We all of us need one another,” he said softly, but she was a rudderless ship close to capsizing.

“Sahjara and I were fine, we were all
fine
, until
she
came!” Garima Kaur may as well have been brandishing the knife, for her words slashed through the air between us. “So you didn’t seek me out any longer, banished me to the servants’ quarters, and never thought to
visit—none of it mattered whilst I still had our sweet girl to tutor. But you took even that pittance and gave it to
her
, and never noticed I was fading away right in front of you.”

Mr. Singh raised his hands, seeming as contrite as he was appalled. “We shall set all this right. Do you hear me, Garima? Please—I am to blame, you are correct, but as to Augustus Sack’s coming here—how could you even consider bringing such a plague upon us when he had thought Karman’s treasure lost in the Punjab?”

“Because the only time you ever loved me was when I was fighting beside you!” she cried.

A ghastly silence fell. I took in her terrible scar, her posture like prey caught in an iron trap. I did not blame Mr. Singh for being celibate, nor for being stupid, because I am apparently remarkably dim-witted myself where Clarke is concerned. Imagining the eternal desert Garima Kaur had walked through all her life, however—next to the man she loved but never near him—repelled me on her behalf. I had chosen to leave Charles Thornfield, and she had locked herself in a prison with a view of paradise through the window.

Mr. Singh, meanwhile, seemed to have forgot his own mastery of our language—any language—regarding Garima Kaur as if he had never truly set eyes on her previous.

“There were five of them, and they came on us, thirsting for blood and spoils, and you’d no heart to take their wretched lives, but I was there, and so we lived,” she said brokenly. “We
survived
, Sardar, and for two terrible, magnificent minutes, I wasn’t invisible. And after it was over, after they’d marked me and my chances at marriage to anyone else had vanished, I disappeared again the same way my hopes did. So courteous you were, so distant—I may as well have been your shaving mirror.”

Had she whipped the blade from her skirts and slit his belly, I do not think Mr. Singh’s expression would have differed.

Then I did something entirely brainless, and thus set a number
of dreadful events in motion. What I ought to have done was to bolt whilst her attention was fixed on the object of her affections; I ought to have sprinted to the main house shrieking for Charles Thornfield, and many ghastly consequences would have been avoided.

Unfortunately, I scarcely ever scream when I am meant to.

“I think we must—”

The instant I opened my lips to offer an unsolicited opinion, Garima Kaur bellowed in rage and swung her knife at my throat.

There was not enough time.

Had there been enough time, I could have evaded her; had there been enough time, Mr. Singh could have drawn a weapon. Had there been enough time, Garima Kaur would not have been almost unhampered in her decision to send me to hell.

I say
almost
unhampered.

Sardar Singh emitted a wordless sound of protest and leapt, using what I only then realised was a final recourse when lacking other shields, and blocked her blade with his metal cuff. The knife slid with a horrid scraping noise down the sheath and then soundlessly sliced off his right hand.

Garima Kaur emitted a despairing groan, dropped her weapon, and ran.

Mr. Singh roared in pain and fell to his knees; I whipped off my cloak, bundled it, and I buried the gushing stump within. The hand with its severed tendons and its white gleam of bone lay to my left, pointing in the direction whence its butcher had fled.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I— You saved my life.”

Mr. Singh’s lips were pressed so hard within his mouth that nothing save beard remained; he had not lost enough blood yet to faint, but the shock did battle with his consciousness nevertheless.

“Please, you’ll be all right. You have to be.
Please
.”

I think my uselessness roused him, for he ordered, “Help me to stand.”

Between the two of us, we managed, though I nearly toppled under his weight; the instant he was upright, he was striding for the main house with his good arm about my shoulders, I pressing the ball of my cloak against his stump.

“Can you make it?”

“I don’t know, but I needn’t,” he gasped. “Not if you fetch Charles to wherever I collapse.”

The journey, I am sure, took less than three minutes; if ever three minutes were drenched with horror enough for three lifetimes, it was those. We burst through the front door like marauders, interrupting Charles Thornfield as he came from his study into the hall, dropping several pieces of mail on the table.

“What in the name of the devil—” he began, and then paled. “Is this our Jane returned? Oh my God—Sardar, what has—”

“We’ll talk about it later, Charles,” Mr. Singh said, breath heaving. “If you could stop me bleeding to death in the meanwhile . . .”

Mr. Thornfield’s cry of dismay was the only signal I had that Mr. Singh was about to topple like a felled tree; I was dragged a bit by his bulk, but Mr. Thornfield caught him round the waist and together we made it into the parlour. Mr. Singh landed on the settee and lay back, all his limbs quivering.

“Jane, whatever are you doing here?” the love of my life demanded. “Who dared to lay a finger on—”

Mr. Thornfield tore off the makeshift bandage of my cloak and saw what had been done.

“No.” He closed his eyes and shook his head as if the sight could be erased. “For Christ’s sake, no. Sardar—”

“No!” I cried, lurching towards the window.

Mr. Singh managed to raise his torso, and the three of us watched as Mrs. Garima Kaur, saddled on Nalin, galloped past the bay window with Sahjara seated between her knees and exited the estate through the gate where my forgotten horse was still tethered with its trap.

“I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as you, I am sure do.”

W
hat in hell is the meaning of all this?” Mr. Thornfield shouted as he tore off his coat and rolled his sleeves up, dropping to his knees. “Where is Garima off to with Sahjara?”

“Go,” Mr. Singh gasped, eyes on me. “Please bring her back. It is unfair to ask it, I know, but—”

I was already running; the last sight which met my eyes before I flew out the parlour door was that of Mr. Thornfield viciously cursing at the spectacle of an arm without a hand attached before tearing off his gloves.

There was no time to think about what that meant as my feet and lungs propelled me towards the stables, my ears burning in the cold. Homelike smells of leather and manure assaulted me as I charged into the refuge of my childhood, my exhalations hanging in the atmosphere like malevolent ghosts.

The Sikh grooms stared at me in astonishment. There might have been some trouble over procuring a mount; but as it happened,
Sahjara’s new mare was still saddled, having just returned, so I swung myself up onto Harbax, tearing out of the stable as if Satan were at my heels. For the first five minutes of my pursuit, I despaired of catching up to them before we reached the village, for Nalin was the fastest steed in Mr. Thornfield’s stables, and young Harbax the most unpractised.

Gift of God.
Sahjara named you that, and Mr. Singh supposed it important, though Mr. Thornfield joked about the meaning. Please, please prove to be a gift of God.

I caught sight of them—a silhouette, really, just an outline in the gathering crystalline fog. Recalling with a thrill of hope that Nalin was the least tractable of her species I had ever encountered, I urged the more docile Harbax onward, feeling the mare surge as she sensed my distress.

Garima Kaur heard her pursuer and craned her head to glance behind, her emaciated form looking dangerously fragile atop such a powerful beast. Nothing of Sahjara could be seen save her rhythmically swinging feet; but reader, I loved her then, for she was the victim of blighted hopes and blind circumstance, as so many are, as I am, and Garima Kaur did not have a knife any longer, and I would return Sahjara to the people who quietly, carefully cherished her if it cost me my own right hand—or worse.

Abruptly enough that I feared snapped necks would result, Garima Kaur reined Nalin, and the mare emitted a wild, wary sound; she turned the horse with difficulty, and then it was that I saw Sahjara’s lovely face—uncomprehending and panicked.

“Miss Stone!” she gasped. “Where is Charles? Mrs. Kaur says we are to escape to London, that there are Company soldiers making for Highgate House.”

“Mrs. Kaur,” I cried through the mist, “there is no one more sympathetic to your situation than I. I beg you, however—”

“You will ruin more lives, but you will not ruin mine entirely,” Garima Kaur snarled. Nalin’s nostrils flared, her hooves agitatedly stamping the ground.

“I seek to ruin no one, I swear to you upon any holy book you like.” Harbax, conversely, was an island once halted, perfectly quiet. “Only let me take Sahjara home.”

“Sahjara is
mine
!” she cried with the cracking voice of a breaking woman.

At times disaster visits us when we least expect it; and at others, we see the fraying rope and know that the hour of peril is nigh. I did not know what form disaster would take, but I knew then that Garima Kaur would not be returning to Highgate House, knew it with every fibre of my being.

I should have loved to stop the inevitable, but there was nothing whatsoever I could do.

Nalin reared—triumphant, angry, frightened. One never quite knows what a horse is thinking, but I like to imagine that horses are able to sense what people are thinking.

My frantic cry as Garima Kaur was tossed like a flour sack from the fractious horse was not so loud as the hammering of my heart when I saw Sahjara begin to slide after her kidnapper. Dismounting to catch her was impossible, and riding to meet her would cause Nalin to career off until she found the horizon.

Helpless, I flung out an arm.

Falling, Sahjara did the same.

Except she did not mirror me, not quite; she hooked her arms round Nalin’s neck, swung a leg over, and tumbled almost gracefully, a pendulum swinging within a clock. When she dangled from the mare’s neck, dropping to the ground a few seconds later, I could have wept for relief; she had Nalin by the reins immediately, thanks only to instinct. Then she viewed the tragically contorted body of Garima Kaur and began to cry.

How long I held her there in the road after dismounting Harbax, I cannot say; how long Garima Kaur took to die I can, however, for she was stone still by the time I had reached Sahjara. Not wanting to leave any erstwhile friend of Sardar’s crushed and discarded, I instructed Sahjara to mind both horses and not look at me as I hid the sickeningly light shell of a body under a holly tree.

When I emerged again, I was a wreck and Sahjara similarly blasted. We embraced for a long while, each supporting the other, until I realised that I was freezing to death.

“We must get back to the house,” I grated. “Ride Harbax, and I’ll take Nalin?”

“Miss Stone,” she sobbed. “We can’t leave Mrs. Kaur so. What if—”

“There are no more
what ifs
for her, darling,” I said, hoping Mr. Thornfield’s favourite endearment might calm her. “She is sleeping peacefully, and no one can hurt her ever again. Ride back with me—the gentlemen are worried sick over you.”

“Because of the Company men?” she asked, touching the knife in her hair.

“Yes,” I lied. “We’re going home now, as fast as ever we can.”

“Miss Stone?” She raised her tearstained face. “You won’t tell Charles that I learnt to hang from the neck of a horse—”

“Oh, Sahjara,” I gasped, pulling her back to me. “I’ll never tell. You’re alive, and you’ve a secret—well and good. Live as long as you can, and have as few secrets as possible. Mr. Thornfield wouldn’t last a day without you—remember that, for all our sakes.”

•   •   •

W
hen we arrived back at Highgate House, my first task after guiding Sahjara to her bedroom was to take Sam Quillfeather’s neglected horse and trap to the stables. The grooms were absent, probably speculating as to what the deuce had happened to Sardar
Singh; so I rubbed the beast down and afterwards stood, silently weeping, with my brow against its ribs.

I simply did not wish to face learning that anything disastrous had befallen Charles Thornfield—for he would equally be lost without Sardar Singh, and I had begun to suspect that I might be similarly affected by his absence.

After cursing myself for a weakling, I hurried to the main house, tapping upon doors and tumbling through them as if I had a right to be there. They had made me feel as if I had a right to be there, after all—they had made me feel as if I had a home.

At last I found Charles Thornfield in the kitchen, speaking urgently to Jas Kaur as he washed his bare hands; they were already clean, but his crusted shirtsleeves told a gruesome story, and his white hair was liberally speckled with blood.

“How is he?” I questioned. “Did he tell you . . . did he—”

“Jane!” Mr. Thornfield dived for a cloth, drying his fingers; seeing them naked again was peculiar, as if I ought to turn away and grant him privacy. “Say that you found Sahjara, I beg of you. If she—”

“I’m here,” came a small voice, and I saw that the commotion had brought Sahjara out of hiding; she stood in the hall just outside the kitchen, eyes puffy and strained.

I am not proud of many of my actions; most were committed for selfish reasons, and bringing Sahjara back ought to be numbered among these, for I could not bear the thought of losing her. However, the look on Mr. Thornfield’s face as he crossed the flagstones in a frantic leap and swept her up into his arms, cradling the shivering child’s face against his shoulder without any barrier between them, I thought might be cause for celebration.

“Mr. Singh?” I asked again. “I must know how he fares, and what he told you. Please—”

“He told me, in brief, everything. And he will live, thank God. I
was just arranging with Jas here to steep claret with oil, rosemary, and oregano to prevent infection. Supposing that fails us, I’ll resort to pine pitch, but Sardar is an accommodating bastard, so I don’t suppose he’ll put me to the trouble if he can help it. I’ve knocked the poor fellow cold with laudanum, so now it is merely a matter of vigilance. All right, darling, hush,” he spoke against the crown of Sahjara’s head. “I was sick with worry over you, but I was busy saving your uncle’s life.”

“My uncle?” she repeated, dazed.

“Yes, I know you don’t remember,” he returned tenderly. “Your uncle Sardar he has always been, and ever will be. I didn’t quite know how to introduce the topic. Forgive me?”

“Of course,” she murmured. “What happened to him?”

“He was hurt.” Mr. Thornfield shifted as if to set her down, but she clung to him. “All right, all right, Young Marvel—he’ll be fine. Everything is fine now.”

“It isn’t fine,” she choked, clutching his collar. “Garima was thrown from Nalin. Miss Stone dragged her out of the road, but she’s . . .”

Charles Thornfield had endured such atrocity in his life that he simply glanced at me and then closed his eyes, nodding after he had seen the answer there. Yes, his jaw tightened painfully, but he gave no other sign. I do not think he meant to be stoic; he had already suffered so deeply, however, and gained so much back in a single hour—Sardar’s life, Sahjara’s safety, Karman’s fortune—that news of Garima’s death caused him to bend rather than break.

I shall never forget, however, that after he turned to Jas Kaur and told her the news in Punjabi, she sat at her worktable and split in two—sobbing, palms upwards in helpless anguish before her, her breaths like a death rattle.

It was a lesson, and a welcome one, that one member of the household had not been indifferent to Garima Kaur’s existence; it
was a lesson that everyone—even myself, I dared to hope—would be mourned by one fellow traveller.

Mr. Thornfield pressed her shoulder warmly and carried Sahjara from the kitchen. As I likewise exited, granting Jas Kaur some privacy in the rawness of her grief, I called, “Mr. Thornfield, there is much which I can explain to you, if you will allow it.”

“Allow it?” Despite all which had occurred, a spark of gallows humour entered his eye. “Jane, I think it is safe to say I shall insist.”

He was about to take Sahjara upstairs when a forceful knock sounded; instead, he set her down with a quiet, “Stay with Jas, darling,” whisking her behind the kitchen door and shutting it firmly.

It is a testament to how well used to this household I had grown that I did not even blink when he pulled a short sword with a carved ivory handle from its place upon the wall. When I snatched up a dagger from farther down the corridor, however, he hissed, “What the devil can you be thinking? That could very well be half a dozen Company soldiers.”

“Your point, Mr. Thornfield?”

“For God’s sake, Jane, I—”

“Mr. Singh is incapacitated, and if you think I am going to allow you to face
badmashes
alone, you’re cracked in the head. Sir.”

Mr. Thornfield pronounced several exasperated curses, barked, “Keep
well
back, do you understand me?” and then strode for the entrance, where our visitor was creating still more of a racket than previous.

When he threw wide the door, however, I dropped the blade upon his pile of correspondence there on the table, weak with relief; Sam Quillfeather stood at the top of the steps, his aquiline nose thrusting urgently indoors. Mr. Thornfield gripped his hand even as he turned to cast a concerned eyebrow at me.

“Inspector, I hardly dare inquire as to what happened between you and the Company men—though last I saw you, this pixie
vanished seconds later, and that sits poorly enough in my gut. We have much to discuss.”

“Yes, upon this very
instant
lest disaster befall you!” Mr. Quillfeather returned. “And Miss Stone will correct me if I am mistaken, but I think she and I have reached an amicable understanding? Good heavens, Thornfield, whose blood is that?”

Mr. Thornfield gripped his neck, rubbing exhaustedly. “Sardar’s, I am sorry to say. He will live, thank heaven, though ’tis a grievous injury. There are tales to be told.”

Mr. Quillfeather’s fingers clenched around his tall hat. Stepping within, he scuffed his boots upon the rug.

“Then shall we pour a spot of brandy, sit before a fire, and tell them?” he suggested. “Perhaps if we are wise enough, there may be a happy outcome after all?”

“I don’t think after all this anyone will accuse me of possessing a speck of wisdom, but I can certainly contribute the brandy and fire.” Mr. Thornfield sighed, taking the inspector’s place before the door. “Only let me quick march to have men sent for Garima’s remains and I’ll join you in the parlour.”

“Remains?” Mr. Quillfeather asked softly when Mr. Thornfield had vanished. “Oh, Miss Steele, what must you have seen today?”

“Enough,” I admitted, drying my eyes. “But far less than some.”

We talked much that afternoon, and though I explained that I had schemed to outwit Mr. Sack—much to Mr. Thornfield’s belated but vocal dismay—I said nothing yet of my greater history with Inspector Quillfeather, nor did that gentleman press me into broaching the subject. The most difficult moment, therefore, occurred when we had reached an understanding and regarded each other in the pale amber glow of the dying fire, knowing we could postpone the inevitable no longer.

“I shall glance at Mrs. Kaur’s remains and fill out the death report, as the task would pain you, Thornfield,” Inspector Quillfeather
kindly offered. “There is, if all I have heard is true, no need for an autopsy?”

“I should not be offended,” I assured them.

“No need.” Mr. Thornfield tapped his fist against his brow, the curve of his wide shoulders slack with grief. “I just stitched up what Garima did to Sardar—she could have been in no state to manage Nalin. I only thank Christ you were there, Jane.”