The Prisoner (19 page)

Genevieve tightened her grip on Charlotte. “I am also going to speak to Mr. Ingram, and see if I can get him to speak kindly on your behalf.”

“I don't think he'll be willing to say anything good about me,” reflected Charlotte soberly. “He was sorely mad after Annabelle broke a painting over his head. Grace and I had to throw a tablecloth over him to stop him from grabbing her, and that just made him even angrier.”

“After he has had a little time to calm down and consider the situation, he may see things differently,” said Genevieve, although she feared the possibility was remote. “At any rate, I don't want you to worry. I just want you to try to eat and stay warm and think about how all this will be over in a few days. When I come tomorrow I shall bring you some books and some food, and we shall have a nice long visit.”

Alarm flared in Charlotte's eyes. “You're not leaving now, are you?”

“No,” Genevieve said, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “I shall stay for as long as you like.”

Charlotte relaxed a little and settled herself against Genevieve once more. “Is everyone else at home all right?”

“Everyone is fine. Of course, they were horribly concerned when they realized what had happened to you. Your brothers and sisters came crashing through the door like a herd of mad elephants, flinging mud and snow all over Doreen's freshly washed floor.”

Charlotte managed a wan smile. “That must have made Doreen upset.”

“I do believe she was far more distressed by the fact that you had been arrested than a bit of wet mud on her floor. Poor Jack was particularly shaken by it all. He wanted to come down here and offer himself to Governor Thomson in exchange for your release. Oliver had to practically chain him to the stove to stop him from doing so.”

“Oh, you mustn't let him do that, Genevieve.” Charlotte regarded her imploringly. “I know he thinks he could stand prison better than I, but Jack is far more likely to make the warder or the governor angry, and then they might lash him. At least they won't lash me, because I'm a girl.”

Genevieve regarded Charlotte in surprise. When had this special, selfless bond developed between Charlotte and Jack, she wondered, and why had she not been able to see it? Charlotte was an extremely gentle, reticent child who was typically wary of new people. And Jack was a detached, suspicious, angry young lad who seemed determined not to have feelings for anyone, lest it interfere with his jealously guarded independence. Yet here the two of them were, each apparently determined to sacrifice themself for the sake of the other.

“I'm not going to let him do it,” Genevieve assured her, feeling a sense of wonder that these two abused children could be so protective of each other. “I made him realize that he would be very lucky not to have Constable Drummond arrest him as well, and then I would have the both of you to worry about in here.”

Regret shadowed Charlotte's gaze. “I'm sorry for what I did, Genevieve. It's just that Simon overheard you saying that the bank was going to take our house from us, and then we would all be sent away. None of us wanted that to happen. We thought that if we could just find enough money to pay the bank, then you wouldn't have to worry anymore.”

“I don't want you to concern yourself about that, Charlotte. I will find a way to pay the bank, and no one will take you or any of your brothers and sisters away from me. Do you understand?”

Charlotte nodded.

“Good. Now I want you to lie down and try to sleep.”

She helped Charlotte to pull her legs up onto the hard slats of the bed, then arranged the thin blankets over her. Seating herself once more, she placed Charlotte's head on her lap and began to sing in a soft, lulling voice as she gently caressed the child's cheek.

“Sing to me,” pleaded Margaret, who was watching her from her corner. “Sing, sing, sing.”

“If you want me to sing to you, then you must lie quietly upon your bed and promise not to yell out or frighten Charlotte,” Genevieve said. “Can you do that?”

Margaret obediently crawled onto her bed and closed her eyes.

“Sing, sing, sing,” she pleaded softly.

Genevieve resumed caressing Charlotte's cheek and began to sing once more, and did not stop until the candle had burned down low and both prisoners in the barren little cell had drifted into the fleeting sanctuary of slumber.

 

H
AYDON PROWLED THE CONFINES OF THE DRAWING
room like a caged beast.

He never should have permitted Genevieve to go to the prison without him, he realized furiously. It would have been dangerous, but the threat of being discovered and thrown back into a cell would have been far better than this goddamn interminable waiting. She had been gone for hours now, the streets were pitch-black and it was taking every shred of his self-restraint to keep himself from going out to find her. The fact that she had not returned immediately with Charlotte could only mean that bastard Drummond or whoever the hell had been responsible for her arrest had refused to release the terrified girl. Haydon could only imagine Genevieve's horror when she realized that one of her children was going to be detained in the foulness of that jail. She had probably decided to stay with Charlotte, to try to calm the poor child's fears. Perhaps she even intended to remain with her through the night—or until Governor Thomson had her bodily dragged out of Charlotte's cell. It would be just like her to do something like that. Genevieve MacPhail was not a woman who would easily leave the side of a child whom she knew to be in jeopardy. Her determination to help others was a trait he had respected and admired in her from the first moment he saw her standing in his cell.

He wished he had possessed the same indomitable resolve with Emmaline.

He cursed and downed the last of his whiskey. Thank God Oliver kept a bottle in his room, “for medicinal purposes.” After watching Haydon restlessly pace the drawing room for nearly an hour, the old man had suggested that perhaps Haydon needed a wee drop to help calm himself. Haydon had drunk well over half the bottle and still didn't feel the least bit calm. If anything, the need to take action was like a fire in his gut. If Genevieve was spending the night in the jail, then she should have sent word to him so that he wouldn't worry, he decided furiously. How was he supposed to be calm with Charlotte in prison and Genevieve wandering the streets of Inveraray alone in the dark? The streets were crawling with all kinds of vicious scum at this hour, a fact to which he could well attest. For all he knew, she had set out to come home hours ago, and on her way home had been attacked or abducted.

He banged his glass down upon a table and strode toward the front door, determined to find her.

Before he had reached it, a key twisted the lock and the door slowly swung open. Relief flooded through him as he saw Genevieve standing before him, her face shadowed by the brim of her bonnet and the dim light spilling from the single lamp burning in the hallway. Paradoxically, the realization that she was safe and whole only fueled the wrath now blazing within him.

“Where in the name of God have you been?”

His voice lashed at her like a whip. She did not flinch, but tilted her head up, until the small, pale oval of her face was exposed to the dusky light.

“They refuse to release her,” she murmured, her voice a wisp of sound against the stillness of the night. “They have locked her up in a cell with a murdering madwoman who screams and babbles constantly. They intend to keep her there three days, at which time she will be made to stand trial. I went to plead with Mr. Ingram to speak on her behalf, and he refused. He said Charlotte must serve as an example to all the other undesirables in our society. Then I swallowed my pride and went to Charles, to beg him to hire a good lawyer for us. And he said it was up to my new husband to pay for my brats, and that I had made my choice the day I chose to keep a whore's bastard over wedding him. He said he has always known that my life would end in disaster. He knows about the bank, you see, knows that I am in grave danger of not only losing my home, but my children as well. And he doesn't care. He thinks that this is what I deserve.”

Pain was etched with haunting beauty upon her delicate features. Rage churned through Haydon at Charles's cruelty, but in that moment it was Genevieve's suffering that mattered most. Ashamed for speaking to her so brusquely, unmanned by his own inability to be at her side to help her endure all that she had been through that night, he stood there, paralyzed.

And then, not knowing what else to do, he held out his arms to her.

For a long moment neither of them moved. The air between them hung frozen, suspended by fear and grief and need.
I can bear this alone,
thought Genevieve, desperately grasping at the last vestiges of her composure.
I have endured worse.
But she could not remember ever feeling so lost, so heavily burdened by the responsibility of saving Charlotte from the fate that was swiftly unraveling before her and all the rest of her children. She was losing control, she could feel it, and she knew that if she did so, all would be destroyed. And so she stood utterly still, feeling as if she were about to shatter, terrified that if she shifted or spoke or did anything at all, the carefully constructed facade of her brave independence would begin to crumble.

Haydon watched her as she struggled with her emotions. It had not been his intent to add to her burden, and the thought that he had apparently done so wounded him more than her obvious rejection of him. He lowered his arms.

And then Genevieve cried out and flew to him, burying her forehead against his chest as she broke into agonized sobs.

He clamped his arms tightly around her, encircling her with his strength.

“It's all right, Genevieve,” he said, his voice low and sure as he held her fast. “Everything is going to be all right.”

He had no grounds to make such assurances, yet he continued to murmur it over and over, soothing her the way he might a small child. He guided her into the drawing room and closed the doors so that no one else in the household would hear her weeping, knowing her distress would only increase if the other children were witness to it. He gently removed her hat and cloak, which were cold and soggy with snow, then seated her on the sofa before the fire. Her flesh was chilled, as if fear and weariness and all the hours spent at the prison and arguing with Ingram and Charles had sapped her blood of heat. He went to the hearth and threw two logs on the fire, then blew upon the coals, quickly coaxing fresh flames to life. Returning to her side, he pulled her into his arms once more, vainly wishing he could somehow wash away all the terrible things she had been through.

“We will hire a lawyer without Charles's assistance,” he began firmly, stroking the soft silk of her pale hair as he spoke.

“We cannot afford to hire a lawyer,” sobbed Genevieve, “and the ones that the court provides for those who are unable to pay fully expect the children they are defending to go to jail. They imprison eight-year-olds for taking an unripe apple to fill their bellies, or a pair of old stockings to warm their raw, blistered feet. And then they send them to reformatory school, where they are forced to work and are starved and beaten and only learn more about violence and stealing. But no one cares about their fate, as long as they are not sullying the streets and threatening the precious welfare of fine, upstanding citizens like Lord and Lady Struthers.” Her tone was bitterly scornful.

“It is not the same with Charlotte,” Haydon argued. “She has a fine home and a mother who loves and cares for her—and there is also the matter of her injured leg. Surely the judge will demonstrate compassion, and realize that it is far better for Charlotte to return here than to go to jail.”

“Sheriff Trotter is due to preside over the court that day, and he has sentenced Charlotte once before,” Genevieve informed him. “She was only ten, and had been arrested with her father for stealing. The drunken brute used to force her to hobble about and lift her skirts to show her crippled leg and beg people for money. And while they shook their heads in false sympathy and crowded round with cruel fascination, her father would slither in and out amongst them, picking their pockets.”

“Where is her father now?”

“He was sentenced to four years in prison, which he is serving in Perth. And for the crime of being a victim of his greed and violence, Charlotte was sentenced to forty days in prison, to be followed by three years in a reformatory school.” Her voice was ragged as she finished, “How can we expect compassion from a sheriff who could be so cruel?”

Haydon said nothing. He was appalled that any judge could impose such a harsh sentence on a girl who was so obviously at the mercy of an abusive father. On the other hand, perhaps Sheriff Trotter had genuinely believed that he was doing the best thing for the girl. At least in prison and reformatory school she would have a roof over her head and three meals a day, however meager and unpalatable they might be.

“But you took Charlotte before she was sent away,” he surmised.

She nodded. “Over the years I have worked out an arrangement with Governor Thomson, and the court has always agreed to it. He lets me know when there is a child in his prison who has no parents or family willing to intervene on their behalf. Providing the child is not guilty of a violent crime, he has permitted me to assume custody.”

Haydon thought of how anxious Governor Thomson had been for Genevieve to take Jack out of prison. “And what benefit does Governor Thomson extract from this arrangement?”

“I pay him a fee for his trouble.”

“You mean a bribe.”

She sighed. “I suppose you could call it that. I sign an agreement assuming full responsibility for the child for the remainder of his or her sentence. The document stipulates that if the child breaks the law or runs away while under my care, our arrangement is void and the child must be returned to the jail to serve the full extent of their original sentence. Governor Thomson said that was why he and Constable Drummond couldn't release Charlotte. He fears there will be a public outcry, because everyone knows Charlotte has violated the terms of our agreement.”