A Broken Vessel (25 page)

The same thing happened on Wednesday and Thursday nights. By Friday, her spirits were a good deal dampened. There was no reason to think Caleb would ever come back. Her joints were aching, she was catching cold, and the inmates who shared her room were beginning to ask where she wandered off to at night. She was getting more kicks than halfpence for her pains.

But she hated giving up. Just one more night, she told herself. Mrs. Fiske was on duty. Did that make it more or less likely Caleb would come? It certainly meant Sally must be especially cautious in creeping downstairs. Mrs. Fiske had the sharpest eyes and ears of anyone at the refuge.

As soon as Red Jane, Spots, and Nancy were asleep, Sally slipped out of bed and felt her way downstairs. She was familiar enough with the refuge by now not to need a light, and she could not afford to use up all her candles. She went into the wet laundry and made for the area window, guided by the smudge of yellowish light that the street-lamps cast on the wall.

But there was not as much light as usual. Midway across the room, she realized why: the window was partly blocked off. Even as she made out a man’s shape, it disappeared.

She ran to the window, opened it, and pressed her face against the iron grating. Just enough gaslight filtered into the area for her to have seen the man run up the stairs, if he had escaped. And unless he had a key to the gate, it would have taken him some time to climb over the railings. No, he must still be in the area, and there was only one place he could hide.

Just as she thought: he was crouching behind the big lead cistern. She could see the top of his cap sticking out on one side. It was rather pathetic, really—he must know she would find him at once.

“Come out from behind there,” she called softly.

A twitch of his cap was his only answer.

“It ain’t no good playing least-in-sight. I can see you plain. So you might as well come out and get acquainted.”

His head came up slowly from behind the cistern. He was about two-and-twenty, with a thin face and round, rather bulging eyes. His clothes were worn and patched. His long brown hair was tousled, his cap pushed over one ear. He stared at her in dismay.

“Your napper’s on crooked,” she advised.

He clutched at his cap and pulled it straight.

“That’s better. Now, come over here,” she coaxed, “and let’s have a confab. I’m all alone. I’ve got nobody to talk to.”

He stood up awkwardly, keeping behind the cistern, even though it hid him only from the knees down. She saw him steal a glance at the area stairs. “You going to cut and run?” she asked. “Now, if you does that, I’ll think you don’t like me, and I’ll howl so loud, I’ll have the whole neighbourhood down on us.”

He started, and looked about fearfully.

“Now, don’t take on,” she soothed. “I don’t want nobody to come. I want us to have a talk, just you and me. Me name’s Sally, by the way.” She waited, finally asked, “Can I call you Caleb?”

The boy stared. “If you want to,” he faltered.

She supposed she should be glad of the iron grating between them. He was clearly a bit crack-brained, and he was suspected of killing a girl in his old village. But it was hard to believe he would hurt anyone. He seemed completely harmless, timid as a mouse—just the way you’d expect him to be, after years of being harried and beaten by that old cat, his mother.

“I lives here,” she told him chattily, “but I don’t like it much. You must like it, though—you been here before, ain’t you?”

“I—I wasn’t doing any harm. You think I was trying to get in, but I wasn’t—I know there’s wicked women in there.
Pray that ye enter not into temptation. When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death.
”

She was taken aback. “I know you wasn’t trying to get in. You can’t—the doors is locked, and there’s gratings on the windows. You can’t get in, and I can’t get out. So all’s right: we can have a confab, and no harm to either of us.”

But he was not disposed to converse. He closed his eyes, clasped his hands together, and rapidly moved his lips. He was praying, she realized, in a nervous, compulsive way, as some people might pace or wring their hands.

“Caleb!” she said sharply, to get his attention. “What have you been coming round here for?”

“Because I’m very wicked.”

“But you ain’t doing nothing wrong here.”

“
Lust not after her beauty in thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts.
”

“It ain’t no sin to fancy a woman. Any cove does, that’s just nature, and if they didn’t there wouldn’t be no more people at all.”

He shook his head emphatically. “
It is good for a man not to touch a woman. The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord.
”

She tried another tack. “Caleb, have you seen your pa lately? Asked him for help, maybe?”

“I’m always asking my Father for help.” He cast up his eyes. “And sometimes He gives it to me, but in strange ways.”

“I mean, your pa here on the earth. You went to his shop once. Was you looking for him?”

He was not attending. He crouched down behind the cistern again, curled his feet under him, and went back to praying.

She
made you like this, thought Sally. I don’t believe you killed nobody—not back in your old village, and not here, neither.

All the same, she had to sound him about Mary. “Caleb, did you start coming round here because you knew somebody inside? A gal—one of the ladybirds here?”

He gaped at her.

“A blond gal?” she urged. “A pretty one?”

“God have mercy on my soul,” he whispered, turning his face away.

“It ain’t nothing to be ashamed of.”

He was almost in tears. “
Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
”

She tried to put herself in his shoes—to think like a person with a religious mania. After a week in the refuge, that was not so hard. “Caleb, the wicked has to be punished, don’t they?”

He nodded, without looking at her.

“Maybe you has to beat ’em, or lock ’em up?”

He nodded again, with something between a hiccough and a sob. “
The wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors rooted out of it.
”

“So a wicked gal might have to be killed, so as to save her soul and stop her doing wrong?”

“No!” His face fell. “Well, she might.”

“Would you do it, Caleb? Would you kill her yourself?”

He looked up at that, gazing at her with big clear eyes. “
Vengeance is mine
,” he said gently. “
I will repay.
”

Suddenly she heard footsteps on the stairs leading down to the basement. “Stash your patter!” she whispered. “Someone’s coming!”

She dropped down and hid in the darkness under the window, then looked cautiously around to see who it was. Mrs. Fiske stood in the doorway, holding up a candle. She must be making one of her nightly inspections of the inmates’ house. She came in, shining her candle this way and that, and squinting into every corner. Sally held her breath.

Just then there was a scuffle and raised voices from upstairs. Red Jane and Spots must be kicking up another row. Mrs. Fiske’s little eyes lit up with zeal, and she raced off to catch them in the act. Sally sighed with relief, jumped up, and looked out the window again.

The boy was gone. He must have clambered over the area railings and run off. She was vexed with herself. She had found out nothing practical about him—where he lived, how he supported himself, or what he had been doing since he escaped from his village. Worst of all, she had not asked him about the crimes he had been accused of there.

Oh, well: least said, soonest mended. She was lucky to have seen him at all. Why had he come? Was there any point in asking? He was obviously queer in his attic. He might not have had a reason—or, at all events, no reason any sensible person could understand.

She looked thoughtfully at the grating on the window. The holes were just big enough to fit two fingers through. That suggested another way Mary might have sent her letter: she could have rolled it up and passed it through the grating to someone on the other side. Caleb? Could Mary have met him in the area and given him her letter to post? He seemed an unlikely messenger—but, then, Mary had not had many choices. He as good as admitted he had known a blond, pretty girl here. But if Mary had given him the letter, how did it get from him to whichever man Sally stole it from?

She all but acquitted him of playing any part in Mary’s death. The murder, if it was one, was stealthy and subtle. How could a Tom-noddy like Caleb have committed such a crime? Besides, she did not believe he was vicious or dangerous, whatever he had been accused of in his village. It was just like country people to think a boy must be a murderer merely because he was a bit touched.

Yet there were those ominous last words he spoke:
Vengeance is mine.
Against whom, and for what? If he really thought Mary was evil, would he murder her out of some distorted sense of duty? He seemed like a well-meaning boy, who would not willingly do wrong. But suppose, from his crack-witted point of view, he believed killing Mary was right?

Ada smiled over all the invitations she was suddenly receiving. Ever since her engagement to Charles had been announced, the Quality had been all eagerness to cultivate her. Hostesses who had not known she existed were vying for her to join their country house parties. Everyone took it for granted she would be presented at Court. It was even hinted she had only to crook her little finger to gain admittance to Almacks Assembly Rooms, that inner sanctum of the
beau monde
, where men were still forced into knee breeches, and countless daughters of wealth and power beat on the doors in vain.

Charles must be more of what Caroline would call a “catch” than she had had any idea. Everyone liked and admired him, everyone wanted a chance to laud and lionize—or envy and find fault with—his bride. Ada gazed at him, her eyes brimming over with love. He did not notice; his head was bent over a toy ship he and James were mending. He was so kind—she felt she had not half appreciated him before. She had been trying so hard to keep her feelings for him within bounds that she had dwelt too much on his faults, and not enough on his good nature and generosity. She had thought she loved him, but she had not known what it was to pour out her feelings from a free and open heart. Happiness sang inside her. The reservations she had felt when he first offered for her could not thrive in so much sunshine—they retreated into cover, like the night creatures they were.

“Here’s another for you,” said Mrs. Grantham. She and Ada were seated at a little table in their drawing room, going through the post. “It smells rather sweet.”

Charles looked up in mock indignation. “I don’t think I like my bride receiving cologne-scented letters.”

“It doesn’t smell like cologne, exactly.” Ada looked at it in puzzlement. Her name and address were written on it in a spidery hand she did not recognize. She broke the seal. There was no letter inside—only a handful of some dried herb. She held it to her nose. “How strange! It’s rosemary.”

“Mama, Charles looks so funny,” piped up James. “He’s gone quite white.”

“Not a bit of it!” Charles jumped up, smiling, and came over to look at the envelope. “What do you suppose it means? Is it a new way of wishing brides happy?”

A cloud rose over Ada, blotting out her sun. Don’t lie to me now! her eyes entreated. You can hurt me so much more than you ever could before.

He did not meet her gaze. She put the envelope aside for the time being. But later that day, when they were walking in the park with her sisters and brother, she brought up the subject again. James was trying out his little ship on the Serpentine, and Emma and Lydia had moved away to give Charles and Ada some privacy.

“Charles.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Do you know anything about that envelope with the rosemary in it that came in the post today?”

“No. What should I know about it?”

“James said you changed colour when I opened it.”