The Bride's Farewell (18 page)

One night, Dogman returned the boy at first light and was greeted by the sight of a horse tied up outside the cottage. He recognized it immediately and sat down nearby with his dogs to wait.

Harris emerged a few minutes later. “Long time,” he said, grinning.

“That it is.”

“You checking up on your wife?” Harris leaned back against the front of the house with a proprietary air, still grinning. “Thought you no longer cared.”

“You thought right.”

Harris laughed and shook his head. “Marion says you’ve no faith in me to raise your son properly.”

“That’s right.”

“Don’t blame you. Not much good at it.”

“Damn good at something, though.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Harris laughed again. “Want to drink to my next brat?” He crossed over to his horse and pulled a bottle out of the saddlebag. “Finest French wine,” he said, tugged out the bung, drank, and passed the bottle to Dogman.

“Don’t I recognize that horse?”

“This one?” Harris looked startled for an instant. “You might just. He’s one that girl picked out in Salisbury. Good eye she had, all right. Look at him. Turned out handsome, eh?” The deep bay glowed with condition. If it hadn’t been for the crazy blaze on the face, Dogman would never have recognized him. “Often think of that girl. Knew her business, all right.”

“Didn’t get paid, though.”

Harris frowned. “What’s that?”

“Didn’t get paid.”

Harris kicked at a stone in the path. “I waited and waited. Girl never showed.” He drank from the bottle again, and looked closely at Dogman. “What do you know about it, anyway? Hardly seems your business.”

“Girl lost her horse, her brother, and five pounds that day. A lot of people got to hear about it.”

Harris squinted annoyance. “And her spreading it far and wide that I’m some sort of criminal horse thief child-stealer?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I’d give her the damned money if I ever saw her again. Not that it’s likely.”

Dogman held out his hand. “I’ll give it to her.”

Harris laughed. “That’s a good joke.”

Dogman didn’t move.

Harris paused, studying Dogman’s face until something in his brain added two and two and came to a conclusion. He burst out laughing. “Well, well, well. So now you’re a one-man benevolent society for the well-favored needy, are you?” He reached over to slap Dogman’s shoulder. “I see it all now, I see it all.”

“The money?”

Still laughing, Harris disappeared into the house and came back with five pounds. “If I hear she doesn’t get it . . .” He handed it over. “That’s food straight out of the mouths of babes. Including your own. Don’t know how you live with yourself.”

“Nor do I,” said Dogman.

Thirty-three

S
o Bean was alive, or had been recently. Pell searched the village and asked at every place if anyone had seen a small boy, mute, on his own, but to no avail. A thousand times a day she placed herself inside her brother’s head and attempted to imagine where he’d gone. But, apart from a burning desire to put a distance between herself and this awful place, she felt nothing. Whom did he know? At what place would he find shelter? There were no options.

With the exception of Nomansland.

Pell traveled all day and half of the next, with Dicken loping at her side, setting out as the first gray light dribbled over the horizon, and barely stopping to eat. A hundred times over, she thought of sending word to Louisa, certain that by now she would be pregnant with Birdie’s child, and all rancor nothing but a distant memory. The reunion she imagined with her sisters and Bean was a joyous one.

When finally she arrived at the edge of the New Forest, she walked slowly, quietly, wrapped in Lou’s fine knitted shawl. For the last stretch of the journey, she arranged herself with dignity, imagining herself the prodigal son, anticipating welcome.

The forest foals she’d helped to raise were now sturdy yearlings, and she recognized them with pleasure. Budding hedgerows, woven through with brambles and ivy and still with a supply of red and black berries, harbored a hundred varieties of birds. The sun shone warm against a dark blue sky; soft grasses swung glowing in the early-spring light. She exchanged greetings with one or two people whom she knew by sight, wondering a little at their faces. Nobody smiled.

It was the wrong time of year to be coming home; a few months later and all the women and children would be out in their gardens. Someone would have run ahead to alert Lou, who might (even now) be rushing out to meet her. Pell rehearsed her return over and over, the forgiveness each would show, the happy couple, even her good-for-nothing pa and poor, worn-out mam rejoicing. And, best of all, she saw Bean, having found his way back to the only permanent place he knew, smiling at her from the doorway.

As she walked through the hamlet, however, no one ran to greet her. Women who happened to be out of doors stared as she passed, nodding briefly in greeting, and the children she recognized stopped in their tracks and gaped silently. “Look at me,” she wanted to say. “Look at my dress, how new it is and how handsome, and my boots, polished and of excellent leather.” She was certain that someone must have run ahead to let her family know she was back; any minute now the little ones would be shouting her name and throwing grubby arms around her. But here she was, almost home, and still no sign.

What came to her first was the awful smell of catastrophe, the dampened soil and the charcoal odor of collapse.

The house, when she reached it, was ruined.

What remained of the roof had caved in, the sidewalls lay in crumpled heaps, the front door charred and smashed. What was left of the garden lay heavy under a thick blanket of old ash. Pell brought both hands to her mouth to contain a wail of disbelief. She raced along the road to Finch’s, which she found exactly as usual, shutters open, a polite trail of gray smoke curling up from the chimney. Pounding on the front door, Pell stepped back abruptly when one of Birdie’s sisters, her eyes wide as saucers, threw it open.

“Mam!” she cried, and Mrs. Finch came, meeting Pell with the corners of her mouth drawn down.

“So you’re back, are you? Well, I’m sorry for you, I suppose, but you got what you deserved.” Behind her, a figure appeared. The face had a red, unhappy look, with bruised-looking flesh around the eyes, and for an instant Pell didn’t recognize him.

“Hello, Pell.” He smiled. “I knew you’d come home at last.”

“Oh God, Birdie, what happened? Where is everyone?”

“That’s a fine dress you’re wearing. You’re looking well.”

“Birdie, for pity’s sake!”

“You been away months.” He spoke to her as if explaining to a child. “Lou’s gone. Your mam and pa both burned to death in the fire. Buried there.” He pointed toward the chapel.

Pell moaned, but he kept on.

“Didn’t know where you were, so’s to send news. I knew you’d come back, though.” Eyes empty, he smiled again. “I been waiting.”

“
What happened?
”

He shrugged. “It started in the thatch, at the back wall, at twilight. A spark, maybe. Your father’d been drinking and your mam was in bed, ill. By the time anyone knew, it was too late.”

She could have smashed his face for the slow way he spoke.

“Lou and the girls were out when it happened.”

“Thank God.” She wept quietly.

“Lou’s gone now. Married a man from Lover. Fancy that! Old Mr. Bellings.” He grinned mirthlessly as he said the words, and leaned in till his face was right up against hers. “
Old man.
And the little girls taken to Andover.”

She sank to the ground.

“Lou’s husband wouldn’t have ’em. And no one here to care for ’em. No house, and no money.”

“But couldn’t you and Lou—” She broke off and he turned the half-question over in his head, making sense of it.

Slowly, her meaning dawned on him. “You expected me to marry
her
?” He recoiled. “But it was
you
I loved.”

She looked at him dully. “There are other girls, Birdie.”

“Who’d marry a fool? That’s what they call me. No one’ll have me now. Except maybe there’s a girl in Lover, not right in the head. Maybe you could tell her family why you had to creep out in the night, because of it being such an awful prospect, marrying me.”

“Birdie, I—”

“But you haven’t got another husband, have you, so it’s not too late to undo what you’ve done.”

The ground spun.

“Go on, I’m asking you again, aren’t I? I got no place for pride.” He was beside her, had gathered her hands in his. “Marry me if you’re sorry, Pell. Put it right.”

She stared at him, dumbstruck, and he stared back, understanding at last that whatever plans she had made did not include him. His expression froze.

“Just leave here.” Anguish twisted his features. “You’ve brought enough sorrow, to me and to everyone else.”

She stepped toward him. “Birdie—”

“Go!” He was shouting now, threatening her. “
And don’t come back
.”

She fled.

Thirty-four

P
ell retraced her steps, traveling back to Andover as fast as she could go, praying that one thing, at least, she could set right. She slept only in snatches, starting up each time in torment at the vision of her mam and pa, burning.

On arrival, she went straight to the workhouse. As the master entered the outer room, she could smell the place in his clothing. Death and depravity, she thought, and it clings to him like a shroud. The smile he smiled at the sight of her made her blood freeze, and she wished never to see a face with that particular expression on it again.

“Well,
well
. Good morning to
you,
miss.”

“I’m here to fetch three children out.”

“
Three
children, now? What a careless family you have. First one child, now three? Are they mutes, too? Or isn’t that any of my business? No, no, of course not. My business is right here, making a profit from the worthless poor.” He smiled again, this time at the desperate pallor of her face. “So today it’s three children. What a thing. Tell me, Miss Ridley, how has life taken such a turn for the better that you’ve come to collect
three children
?”

A haze of darkness enveloped her. Her very bones felt worn out with sorrow.

“Heavens above! Another mute! Perhaps that’s how the first one came by it. Runs in the family, does it? Like idiocy, they say.” He chuckled. “Excuse my mirth, miss. I’m just imagining a whole family of idiots. Did you say you were their mother, or their sister? Or perhaps both? You see quite a lot of that in idiot families.”

“Frances, Sally, and Ellen Ridley.”

“Of course, Ridley. I remember now. Been here all along, only you didn’t ask for girls. Common enough name, of course, didn’t occur to me they might be yours. Four children!” He ran his eyes slowly down her body. “And at your tender age.”

She held her ground, made her mind blank.

“Here we are.” Licking his fingers, he turned the pages of a large ledger. “If only you’d asked the last time, I’d have led you straight to them. Thought it a bit odd. Never mind, can’t be helped. Nothing lost, in any case, as it’s only been a few days. Only—” He looked up at her with the oily mock concern of a moneylender. “Oh, dear. We seem to have just two Ridley children listed here.”

“There are three. If you’d check again . . .” Her jaw tightened.

“No need, miss, no need.” He shoved the ledger at her. “Right here, you can see for yourself, it says here: Sally Ridley, nine years old.” He looked up. “Would that be right? Deceased. Just two days hence. Of fever.” He looked up at her. “Of course, everything was done to save her. No expense spared. Finest food and medicine available.”

She gasped.

The master stood grinning.

“And . . . and the remaining two?”