Saints (9 page)

“Can’t get up!” he shouted down the chimney.

“Why not!” Raymond cried from below.

“There’s a stone crumbled out, blocks the way.”

A few moments of silence below, and then Whitesides himself stuck his head in the chimney more than two stories below. “Can you lift it?”

“Maybe!” Charlie grunted as if he were working. Actually, he was sitting quite comfortably on the lip of the chimney, scraping the sides of the chimney with his feet so soot would fall down inside. He hoped Whitesides got an eyeful. There would be no way for the sweep to get a clear view of the top of the chimney. Charlie kept up the scraping as he pulled the damp mask from his head. His face was instantly cold from the slight breeze on his wet skin; in a moment, his hair also went cold. He took off his jacket. Black as it was, it would brand him as a sweep’s boy wherever he went. The breeze immediately cut through his shirt. He reconsidered. What good would it do to escape Whitesides if the weather got him? He fingered the wet mask. Soot came off it onto his hands. He couldn’t bear the thought of wearing it again. So the decision stayed. He dropped the mask on the high side of the roof, above the chimney, then draped his coat over half the opening so anyone looking up the shaft would think there was someone in it.

Charlie swung his legs out of the chimney and looked over the city. From where he was only a small patch of street was visible; all the rest of the world was chimneys and roofs, gables, slopes, steep pitches, cupolas, dormers, and the hundred shapes and heights of the erupting stacks. Smoke rose from all the pillars like the leaves rising above the trunks of the forest, only grey and not green, dead and not living; and the wind did not rustle the smoke like leaves, it carried it, settled it out, dropped the soot onto the city like an eternal, deadly autumn. Whenever Charlie remembered Manchester in later life—indeed, whenever he thought of any city—the image that flickered in his mind was not the buildings seen from the street, not the river, not even the various cottages, good or bad, his family lived in over the years. All those things were themselves, very particular. The city itself, the whole of Manchester, was the dangerous forest of coal smoke, conjured by cruel necromancers and abetted by the blood of little boys with needles in their feet.

Charlie shook himself and shivered in the breeze, which was not strong, but strong enough to freeze him, wet and thinclad as he was. If he was to go, it must be now. In his fear he wished that he were home with his mother already, holding her hand, going to sleep with her fingers patting his back, reading to her and winning her love. This was no place for him, he did not belong here, certainly he should never have been allowed to come here. There was something bitterly wrong with the world. He deserved better than this from God.

No help for him now but his own wit, luck, and strength. He carefully lowered himself down the outside of the chimney, turning as he did so that he hung by the armpits, his head leaning over the shaft. “I’ve nearly got it free now!” he called. “Stand back, it’s going to fall!” That’d keep them from the chimney for a minute or so. He dropped the rest of the way to the roof. It was steep, but he caught the upper corner of the chimney and so did not slide. He carefully laid the brush and bar on top of the mask on the high side of the chimney, so they would not fall and would not be visible from the street. Let
them
climb up if they want it back.

He remembered that below this stretch of roof was a first-floor gable that would catch him if he fell. He was careful anyway, and just as well: when he got to the rain gutter, he could see that his memory of the house was skewed. He had come out the wrong chimney, and below him was nothing but a two-story drop onto flagstones.

He made his way carefully but quickly along the rain gutter until he reached the corner; instead of a gable, the roof sloped all the way around, and now he was only four feet away from the roof of the neighboring house. He made the decision instantly, and only climbed up enough to get a running start that let him land like a frog sprawled against the other roof.

There was still no uproar from the house he had left, and he began to believe he might really get away. The house he was climbing over met the corner of the block, and he was able to let himself down onto the roof over the entrance, and from the drop down to the ground, not on Rosamond, where they had gone into the house, but on Rumford Street.

He could not go straight home—the chance of running into Whitesides immediately was too great. So he dodged up and down the elegant streets until he came to the high wall of the burying ground, climbed over, and dropped inside among the tombstones and the graves.

Now he felt he could rest a moment—but not long. Coatless and barefoot in the middle of February, he hadn’t a chance in the world of living through the night unless he got indoors before dark. Yet now it occurred to him for the first time that he might have nowhere to go. He had no way of knowing what had happened to his family since he left. His mother had been sick. What if she had died? And if he got there, what surety did he have that Robert wouldn’t send for Whitesides to take him back again. It was a ghastly thought, what would happen to him if Whitesides got hands on him after this. Robert would surely never do it; yet in Charlie’s memory, Robert had emerged more and more as the villain. Robert only wanted to be rid of him. Robert was jealous because Mother loved him, jealous because Charlie read so much better and because Mother had kept the books for him even after the paintings were sold. Robert wouldn’t want him back.

It was the wind that sent him on his way. Perhaps he could stay downstairs for the night, hide until Robert left for work, and see Mother then, if she had lived through the illness. Perhaps he could listen at the door and hear how things were. One thing was certain—he had to go somewhere, and there was nowhere else to go.

He followed a circuitous route to avoid Whitesides, who in Charlie’s mind was just around every corner, or dogging his heels to catch him if he stopped. He ran as much as he had breath to run, as much to keep warm as to evade pursuit. And when he got near home, he crossed Irk downstream, to approach the cottage from across the river, in case Whitesides was already lurking there, waiting for him to arrive.

He walked up the west bank of Irk, glancing east across the river now and then to look for his row. When he recognized a factory bridge off Horrocks Avenue he realized that somehow he had passed his house. For a moment he was disoriented, wondering if he had been walking the wrong way; then he decided he must have got tired and inattentive, and missed the cottage and not even noticed Scotland Bridge.

On the way back downstream he recognized Scotland Bridge immediately. But, unbelievably, the row of cottages was gone and the land was smooth, except where new foundation piles were sunk into the earth.

He sat on the bank of the river and stared, looking back and forth, trying to figure out what had happened. It was impossible that his home could simply disappear. Yet there was no mistake—this
was
Scotland Bridge, and all the other buildings were unchanged. Where was his family? How could he possibly find them?

He almost crossed the river to look for some clue as to where his family had gone, but in time he noticed the tall mangy black hat bobbing among the piles. Whitesides was there, and obviously he expected Charlie to come from cityside instead of riverside. Charlie shivered, as much from dread as from the cold, and carefully made his way back from the river to a point where he would not be visible to Whitesides.

Pacing back and forth could keep him somewhat warm, but he had no layer of fat to insulate him. The ground was cold. He was hungry and thirsty and knew better than to drink the water of Irk, which had more manure in it than a pasture. Still Whitesides lingered, for hours it seemed, until at last a cold thin rain came up and Whitesides stalked away. Charlie, his teeth chattering, waited a little longer in the rain, then crossed Scotland Bridge and walked to where he figured the cottage had been. There were plenty of loose bricks around. He had to pick his way carefully in the gathering darkness. A wind came up, driving the rain in gusts that struck him like ice, and finally he took shelter in the lee of one of the piles. There was no high ground—by avoiding the wind he accepted the water that flowed toward him, seeking the river. The rain tasted slightly of the coal dust it had gathered from the air, yet it was all the water Charlie was likely to get, and he even dipped some out of the streams flowing along the ground, though he knew it could be poisoned. He did not think he could live without a drink. Hunger he was used to, but not utter fasting, not such burning thirst.

A thousand times as he sat there he hoped it would be Robert who found his corpse there among the ruins. Let him find me lying here starving and frozen. He’ll be sorry he cast me out of the family then.

In the rhythm of the rain he could not keep the snatches of poetry from his mind. Every self-pitying verse that he had ever learned came back to him.

Charlie prayed for the rain to stop, and it came down harder. He prayed for the wind to stop, and it chilled him subtly even between the gusts. He prayed for his family to find him, and he heard a voice above the wind, calling, “Charlie, Charlie!” He did not move; he was dying, he knew, and only heard his name in the rain as a taunt from the devil before the end.

In the rain Dinah walked all the faster. Every night after work she had come here to look for Charlie, and now she knew by habit the way to walk to see everywhere that Charlie might be. She was not a fool; she knew each time she came how slight was the chance he might be there. But that did not diminish her search by a single step. If he was not found, it would not be because she had not looked for him.

Even so, she almost didn’t see him. His shirt blackened by ash, his body curled against the piles, the rain so thick and swirling, the night so dark—she only came closer because she felt, in that part of her that knew truth from falsehood despite her best reasoning, that there was something different about
that
pile, something that required her to come near. And there he was, his hand up to his mouth, his whole body shuddering every now and then with the cold.

“Charlie, Charlie!” she called, and ran to him, and took his hands and turned him to face her. He moved sluggishly; he did not open his eyes. “Charlie,” she said. She took his face between her hands and kissed him. “Oh, thank God, I’ve found you.”

And now he saw her, and smiled. “She came vested all in white, pure as her mind. Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight, love sweetness, goodness in her person shined so clear, as in no face with more delight.” Then he wept.

He walked only stiffly, but with Dinah’s cloak wrapped around him he began to recover somewhat from the cold, though Dinah suffered a little from it. They splashed steadily through the puddles and did not slow for the turning wind. Only once did Charlie speak, to ask her, “Is it all right?”

She understood. “We all want you home, Charlie. Things are better now. Robert has more money, Mother’s well and working still for Mr. Hulme, and I’ve even had a rise in wages. There’s plenty at last. We never needed to send you away, and we’re all sorry for it.”

“You didn’t
all
send me away,” Charlie said. It was an accusation of Robert, of course, and Dinah could not argue with it. Not because Robert was guilty of wanting Charlie gone, for he wasn’t; rather she judged Robert guilty of the crime of thinking he knew best what others ought to do, and then making them do it against their will. For that she would not forgive him. Charlie was her true brother, her good brother. She did not let herself recognize in Charlie the one trait of Father’s that Robert did not have: weakness.

As for Charlie, he knew now that God loved him after all. The bad things had been a trial, like the fire that softens the iron only to make it into steel. When, like Ishmael, he lay close to death, God had sent an angel to him, for he, too, would be a mighty man, despite his brother’s enmity.

When they got home there was rejoicing for an hour, and then sleep. No one would mar the happiness of Charlie’s return with accusations; Robert did not know how much it all had cost him until all was done, and they were lying down to sleep, and Charlie wouldn’t take his place beside Robert on the bed. Instead Charlie took his pillow and lay on the floor. No one spoke, no one argued. Grim-faced, Anna got up and took a blanket and helped Charlie wrap himself in it. So in silence Charlie made it clear that he and his brother would not again be close, if in fact they ever had been. Their bodies would not touch in the night, any more than their hearts would touch in the day. Bitterly Robert lay awake denying the accusation that no one made. I did the right thing. I did what had to be done. I’m glad the boy is back, but at the time there was but the one course and I took it and I have no regrets at all. Despise me all of you, but trust this, too: when the hard decisions must be made, I will make them. You may hate me for it, but it will keep us all alive, and happier than if I let you have your way.

Anna also lay awake, but for another reason. The quarrels of Robert and Charlie were trivial, she was sure. They would pass. They had always passed before. All she cared about was that her child was back. God had given her seven children and taken four away forever; this fifth time he had relented and let her keep Charlie, the jewel of her crown. She had grieved for him, had said and believed it, “Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; my sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.” God had brought her to the lowest day of her life, and now had lifted her out, out of the direst poverty, out of illness near death, and most of all out of the grief of the loss of her dearest child. Quarrel, my little ones, if you like. Robert, rule us all, if you can. Dinah, be cold, be frightening to all of us, if that’s the only way you see to live. It is enough that you live, that you all three live, I ask for no more. I have lived with Job, and though I bitterly cursed God and wished to die, I have been restored. From now on every day of my life I will bless God and follow gladly every path He opens for me, for He has found me lower than the grave and lifted me up, and I am alive again.