Read The Damnation Affair Online
Authors: Lilith Saintcrow
The Damnation Affair (11 page)
That
was probably the wrong thing to say, for Mrs. Granger’s eyes flashed and she sailed across the yard, dust sparking and crackling in her wake. She was so het up she was throwing mancy even though she had no Practicality, and Gabe at least had the comfort of knowing he wasn’t the only one the Boston miss had tied up in a tangle there was no working free of.
“It’s
unchristian!
” The woman stopped, her hands fisting at her sides. She probably packed a punch like a donkey’s kick under all that starch.
“Well, they ain’t no Magdala nuns, I’ll allow that.” He nodded, slowly. “But they paid her fair and square, and I can’t find no law against it.”
“Law?
Law?
It ain’t a question of law, Sheriff, and—”
“It ain’t?” He hoped she couldn’t tell the surprise on his face was a mockery. “Why are you all het up, then? And squawkin’ at
me
?”
She looked about ready to have a fit right there. “
The town shall hear of this!
” she hissed. “Do you know what she told me? That teaching was
her
business, and she thanked me kindly to keep myself out of it. Why,
I am on the Committee! We’ll see her out!
”
That collection of biddies can’t even decide what color the Town Hall should be painted, let alone where it should be built and who’s going to pay for it.
But they had put together the subscription to pay Miss Barrowe.
He’d thought about that on the ride here. If the miss didn’t watch her step, she could be sent back to Boston without a Reference.
Somehow, he thought Miss Barrowe might not mind as much as Granger thought. She’d obviously come from money and manners, which was just another puzzle about the girl. What was she doing
here
?
What did you come here to escape, Mr. Gabriel?
“Now, how would we get another marm out here?” he wondered, openly. “Was hard enough k hao esto get this ’un. Been weeks now, and she’s at least kept some of the little ’uns out of trouble.” He scratched at his forehead some more. “Why not just let her be?”
Granger’s lips trembled. For a moment he thought the woman might actually weep. Instead, she stuck her nose in the air and sashayed past him. He hurried to help her up into her wagon, and she snatched her hand back as soon as she had hefted her bulk up as if his heathen fingers singed. The horses weren’t happy to leave the trough, but they obeyed. Her wagon set off down the road for town, raising a roostertail of golden dust, and Gabe let out a sigh that threatened to blow his hat off his head.
I should have just never gotten out of bed this dawnin’.
The steps creaked under him, and he gave the door a mannerly tap. He opened it to find six women sitting straight-backed and uncomfortable in long desks just slightly too small, the bottom of the tabletops actually hitting their knees. Miss Barrowe, smoothing back a dark curl that looked bent on escaping, stood tense by the slate board, her fingers almost white-knuckled around a yardstick that vibrated with hurtful mancy discharged not too long ago.
Bet that’s what she hit Tils with.
The sudden certainty made him want to smile, but he banished the notion, reaching up to take his hat off. No reason not to act proper. Besides, it gave him a chance to compose his expression, so to speak.
“Sheriff Gabriel.” Low, and clear. “What is it?”
Given the day she’d had, he was probably lucky she didn’t say anything worse. “Just checkin’ to see all’s well, ma’am.”
“You may sit quietly.” She pointed with the stick, at the very back row. “We are rather busy.”
“Yes ma’am.” He settled himself into a seat.
Mercy Tiergale hunched her shoulders as she bent over a slate she shared with Anna Dayne. Dark-eyed Belle and sharp-nosed blonde Trixie sat shoulder to shoulder, and the youngest of Tils’s girls, Anamarie, hunched next to tall rangy Carlota like she expected Tils to come thundering in any minute. Lace shawls more fit for the saloon than for walking around town, the comb in Carlota’s hair glimmering mellow in the late-afternoon light, Mercy’s cheap paste earrings swinging gaudily. They were a sorry picture indeed, and as out of place as a sheep in a pulpit.
But Miss Barrowe continued, in the same clear tone, patiently tracing each letter on the board. By the end of the session, the women could write their names on the slates, which Miss Barrowe collected and locked in her desk. “To keep them from misadventure at a man’s hands,” she said grimly, and the ripple that went through the saloon girls, barely controlled, reminded Gabe of a flock of minnows in a clear stream.
“Very good,” she said, standing before them with her hands clasped. “You are all quick, and docile. You are capable of being educated. I shall see you tomorrow, then. You are dismissed, ladies.”
They sat and blinked at her for a few moments. The silence was thick, and Miss Barrowe’s gaze flickered to Gabe in the back of the room. He should have been in town, looking after whatever mayhem the end of the afternoon would bring, or watching Freedman Salt’s door, or any of a hundred other tasks. But here he sat, cramped in a desk the likes of which he hadn’t seen since seminary after the orphanage, and he stared at the schoolmarm hungrily.
Mercy let out a disbelieving half-laugh. Carlota breathed a profane term Miss Barrowe pretended not to hear.
Gabe unfolded himself slowly, and he found himself the object of every gaze instead of just the marm’s. “Take you back to town, ladies,” he said, and wondered why Belle and Anamarie blushed, and Mercy’s laugh seemed more genuine this time. Miss Barrowe k Miou back’s smile was like sunlight, but s
he suddenly looked very…fragile.
“Thank you, Sheriff.” Prim as always, but high color in her cheeks. The pulse in her throat leapt, and found an answer in his own chest.
It was at that moment Jack Gabriel admitted to himself that he was in deep water, and sinking fast. He couldn’t say he minded.
But Miss Barrowe might.
H
er mother would be scandalized. Her father would be amused, but perhaps also scandalized. If either of them were alive, instead of dead of Spanish flu, she would not
be
here.
But Cat could not find it in her heart to set her course differently.
The charm-hot water in the bathing-tub rippled as she stretched a foot up, her toes spreading as she relieved them of the pressure of being crammed into a point-toe boot all day. Her charing-charm was skinwarm, resting quiescent against her breastbone.
I struck a man in the face today. Mother would simply die.
Rather too late for that, though. Her face scrunched up, and she slid down farther in the rude copper tub.
Robbie was all she had left, other than her sufficiency. There was his inheritance, the bulk of their parents’ estate; but she had been left quite enough to do as she pleased for the rest of her life, or to make a fine marriage if she wished. Her father’s arrangements, as befitted a practical man of the Barrowe-Browne clans, had been most thorough.
She could perhaps wish Robbie were as practical. He might not have gone haring off into the Westron Wastes seeking adventure, if…
She moved again, restlessly. It would simply spoil her bath if she continued in this manner, and after today’s events she rather thought she deserved a small bit of relaxation.
A globe of heat from the stove downstairs drifted into the narrow, closet-sized water-room. It hesitated, but Cat’s fingers flicked, and she brought it down to meld with the bathwater’s trembling surface, sighing with pleasure as it hissed. The water sent up trails and curls of steam as she shifted carefully again.
Think of something useful. Or if you cannot, Catherine, think on something pleasing.
There was little pleasure to be had in her reflections, however. Mr. Tilson was a brute, but he was also a figure of some importance in the town. Mrs. Granger, almost apoplectic at the thought of Ladies Of A Certain Class sitting at desks reserved for the children of the hame, was a far greater worry. It was such women who were the keepers of Reputation, and Cat’s had perhaps taken rather a beating.
Still, what was she to do? Allowing Mr. Tilson’s threats to set her course was unworthy of a Barrowe-Browne. And Cat could not hie herself into the saloon and hold reading classes
there
. Nor was there a space in town likely to grant her leave to do so, now that Mrs. Granger was involved. Her own parlour might have sufficed, but…that would not
do
. Teaching such ladies to read and figure was a Charitable Act; inviting them into one’s home for more than a cup of tea was out of the question.
At least the sheriff had not made any trouble. Rather, he seemed to have quite an interest in the literacy of the saloon girls. Perhaps he was…involved? Miss Tiergale had clung to his arm, certainly. This was the Wild Westron; perhaps such things were not frowned upon.
In any case, he was a man, and could do as he pleased.
May I not do as I please, too?
n Miou"1em">No, she could not. Yet certain things that were impossible in Boston—for example, smashing a brute in his pig face with a stick—were possible here. Not only possible, but unavoidable.
What else was unavoidable?
A chartershadow, in a pawnshop. She imagined a fading, balding man, his body twisted by misuse of mancy. In novels, the chartershadow was always a villain, and those who went to him paid a price far greater than mere mancy or Reputation. Of course, one could not take novels as a foundation for one’s actions.
Oh, but wouldn’t it be pleasant if one could. For one thing, all ends well in novels.
Chartershadows were dangerous. Her fingers rested against her charing-charm, and its delicate ridges and whorls were as familiar as her own breathing. A shadow could perhaps break a charing, and where would she be then? Vulnerable to any stray mancy, at the mercy of whoever wished to ill-charm her…
Think logically. Imagine Robbie is asking you to plan some mischief that must be delicately accomplished in Society. Item one: I must acquire his locket. Item two: It is in a place none should see me enter, if possible. And nobody must connect me with Robbie. Item three: I am not in Boston; I am on the edge of civilization, in a town where the graveyards are, by all appearances, not well-cleansed. Night is likely to be especially dangerous outside a charm-locked door.
Her fingertip tapped one fluted edge.
She must merely plan carefully. And take measures to defend herself, should she wish to go gallivanting about after dark here in the wilderness.
Cat cocked her head. Slippered feet in the hallway, brushing oddly as if the person attached to them staggered. She smoothed away the frown rising to her face and gathered herself, rising gingerly from the tub’s depths and sighing a little as cool air hit her wet skin.
She had just barely wrapped a drying-cloth about herself when Li Ang appeared. The Chinoise girl’s face was contorted, and her fingers sank into the doorframe as a shudder wracked her. Great pearls of sweat stood out on her caramel skin, and her dress held large sweat stains under her arms. Her belly, held before her like a fruit, suddenly looked…odd. Flattened, almost.
The girl gabbled something in Chinoisie. She bent forward, her face contorting even further, a mask of suffering.
“Good God,” Cat breathed, just as there was a gushing patter. The fluid hit the floor, and Li Ang made a small, hopeless noise as her feet were bathed in the hot flood.
Oh, dear Heaven. She is…is she? It’s the only possible explanation.
The Chinoise girl was having her baby.
And just at that moment, a series of knocks thundered against the front door.
* * *
It was certainly not respectable to throw open the door while clad only in a flannel wrapper, her hair soaked and clinging. Li Ang made another long groaning noise overhead, and the cottage answered with a groan of its own.
She had managed to get the girl onto the bed in Cat’s own room and bolted downstairs, her bare feet slapping the floor so hard it stung.
Please don’t go, whoever you are, we need help. Please don’t go,
she prayed.
Please.
“Help!” she choked, as she flung the door open and saw the garden, dipped in dusky purple. And there, at the gate, was a familiar hat and broad shoulders in a dun coat.
A sharp prickle of annoyance—what business did he have here after today? She quickly strangled it, and cleared her throat. “I say, Mr. Gabriel!
Sheriff!
Please. It’s Li Ang, we—”
He was suddenly right in front of her, and s of throat. Cat almost stumbled back. He caught her arm, work-roughened fingers sinking in, grinding on the fresh bruise of Mr. Tilson’s grasp. She flinched, and his hand loosened. Would men never tire of shaking her about so?
“Slow down.” His pale gaze flicked behind her. “All’s well, miss. I’m here.”
It was odd, but instead of improper, the words were…comforting. Certainly he was dependable, in his own rather rude fashion. “It’s Li Ang,” she managed. “She’s having her…I mean, she is with…She is in labor, sir. Fetch a midwife. A doctor!”
I don’t care who, as long as they know what to do.
“Hm.” He nodded. “I see. I’d get Doc Howard, but he don’t hold with no Chinee. Listen to me.” He tipped his hat back with two fingers, looking down at her. “I’ll fetch help. You bar this door and the kitchen door, too. Make her as comfortable as you can. Boil water, and get clean cloths. We’ll need a lot of linen, and a lot of boiled water. Or at least, so I’ve heard midwives say. Don’t you open this door until I come back. You’ll know it’s me; I’ll shout fit to raise the dead.
Avert
.” He let go of her completely now. “Mind you lock up, and don’t you open to anyone but me. Understand?”
“Y-yes.”
Do you think I would invite the entire town in for a social while
this
is happening?
“Lock the door, make her comfortable. Boil water. Cloths. Of course. I shall, of course, take responsibility for the midwife’s fee—”