Jane Steele (17 page)

Happily, this was nothing save God’s truth; a pause ensued, but the menacing steps resumed with greater speed.

Wrenching myself fully up on one arm, I had the blade aimed at the stranger two seconds later; there are commodities some men want on deserted pathways which have nothing to do with currency.

“By all means, come closer, you whoreson bastard,” I shouted. “I’ll cut you to ribbons and laugh at your funeral!”

“Miss Stone, we haven’t been long acquainted, but I had hoped I
inspired in you a fonder spirit of camaraderie than
that
,” came a deep, pleasantly grainy voice.

My heart lurched. I forced myself to breathe, replacing my knife in the pocket obscured by the pleat near my waist.

As Mr. Charles Thornfield approached, still snow-obscured save his broad shoulders and the white gleam of his hair beneath his hat brim, I debated whether instantly switching personas would be canny or dense. I had cursed, threatened, and brandished a weapon when I could simply have screamed.

You never scream when you’re meant to, you dunce.

“I think I’m hurt.” Indeed, my ankle seemed to have burst into flames. “Forgive me, please, I couldn’t see you properly. Is Nalin all right? Are
you
all right, sir?”

The muffled clop of hooves sounded, and I glimpsed Mr. Thornfield quickly tethering Nalin’s reins to a thick hedgerow branch. Once the mare was secured, his silhouette turned to face me with the moon rising behind him.

“If you never speak to me again, it’ll prove difficult to sack me.” I rolled to my hands and knees and a bolt of brimstone shot up my leg.
“Oh.”

He strode swiftly towards me. “The devil take your impatience!”

Attempting to stand, I insisted, “I only—”

“Wait a moment or you’ll make all worse than it need be. Here, please sit down—
sit.
That’s right. Heavens, but you’re a feral soul at heart, aren’t you? No, stretch your legs out straight.”

Sitting upon the ground with icy granules accumulating in the folds of my skirts as I sprawled awkwardly, I allowed Mr. Thornfield to clasp me round the torso. The wind cut at my ears, and the stones bit through my petticoats. It had not been the reunion I had anticipated; in fact, I had amused myself by anticipating every possible reunion, from schoolroom tranquillity to defending the house from marauding seekers of mysterious boxes, save this humiliating one.
With him at my back, I managed to get my hands round my knees and wrench both limbs to the front, shaking with effort and pain.

“All right, hush now. We’ll be fit to conquer the subcontinent in no time.”

“Why hush? I didn’t say peep.”

This earned me a startled chuckle. “’Pon my life, there’s some truth there. No plans on blubbing, or swooning, or stabbing, come to that?”

“Not at present.”

“Capital woman,” said he. “Now, I saw how you landed, and damned if it weren’t a smasher—feel along your legs to the ankle, very carefully, unless you cannot and wish me to do so.”

His scruples, for which I ought to have been grateful, seemed merely irritating. “A highly considerate question coming from a sawbones—I heard you were a medical man, sir.”

Mr. Thornfield huffed, still bracing my spine. “And I heard you were a governess, but not many of that set can say
bugger
with quite so much purity of conviction.”

A fresh wave of embarrassment washed over me. “I am not yet myself, Mr. Thornfield, but I think my legs remain intact.”

“Blast, what a shame! I was so looking forward to having ’em off here in the road. Would’ve been like old times, I can hear the drum and the fife even now. Make certain all is well, please.”

My brains were addled, my pride dented, and my ankle probably sprained, but nothing permanent had befallen me; that is, supposing I did not lose my position upon the morrow.

“All my bones are inside. I do beg your pardon, sir—had it been someone other than you there in the roadway, I don’t know what I should have done.”

“Called some other whoreson bastard a whoreson bastard, I expect.”

Fully five seconds must have passed with my neck craned round
to look into his eyes before I burst into helpless laughter. I waited for dismay to manifest, but Mr. Thornfield only smiled crookedly, and I wondered what could produce that lopsided mirth again.

“I’d every right to expect the worst of you,” I complained as he lifted me easily upright. “Whatever were you doing out here in the middle of an empty dirt path?”

“I requested the local inn to house Falstaff for the night to take a weight off my conscience, for the old fellow was fatigued enough as was, and I trust them, and my mind needed clearing on the route homeward anyhow. My mind, Miss Stone, is now clear as holy water. Shall we see about getting you home?”

I used Mr. Thornfield’s support to take a few steps, nearly gasping at the pangs shooting through my ankle. The joint was already swelling—and I left to the mercy of the man I had just threatened with a pocketknife.

“I think I can ride back,” I suggested.

“Yes, come to that, what are you doing jumping hedgerows with one of my most expensive mares?”

“Attempting to prove myself to Sahjara—we study nothing save horses in every subject.”

For a few lengthy moments, the only sound was the snow crushing under our soles as I limped towards my disappointed steed; Nalin, one of the most intelligent and yet Puritanical horses I have ever met, tapped her right hoof as if to say,
You are a disgrace.

“Supposing you desire Sahjara’s respect, shall I assume you don’t want your corpse to be discovered with a snapped neck?” Charles Thornfield asked, regaining his testiness.

By the time we had reached Nalin, my entire body was confused—an ankle ballooning, breath taut and hoarse, rough but kind fingers imprinted upon my torso, roiling anger in my belly at being caught out in such a pathetic state, a strange echoing sweetness in my ears at,
Shall we see about getting you home?

“I’ll lead Nalin,” Mr. Thornfield proposed, linking his fingers together and leaning to make a step for me. “Quick, now, before you indulge the urge to faint at last.”

This barbed remark proved all that was necessary to effect a complete cure.

Setting the boot of my uninjured foot in Mr. Thornfield’s hands, I hoisted myself onto Nalin. My other ankle pulsed bubbling tar, but it would keep; as jauntily as I could, I dipped my head in imitation of his first snide bow and calculated the distance from the hedgerow to Highgate House.

A quarter of a mile,
I thought: close enough for me to make it without danger of falling; close enough for the master to make it on foot.

“I fear this injury should be seen to speedily, Mr. Thornfield,” I called down. “I’ll send one of the grooms back to fetch you.”

With this insane parting jibe, already anticipating my return to London and imminent penury, I set off on my master’s horse for my own ancestral house.

I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye.

I
retired straight to my aunt’s former room wretchedly humiliated and at once sipped at the laudanum bottle I had packed as a precaution against melancholy or sudden disaster. I awoke to an ankle blazing like a lighthouse beacon, a small breakfast tray of broth and cold green rice, and a folded communiqué written in Sahjara’s friendly scrawl:

Dear Miss Stone,

Thank you for seeing to Nalin, as I was ever so worried when I heard there was an accident and the more so for your sake but I was yet glad you returned her to the stables unharmed though you were harmed yourself. Charles has returned! Happy day! He says not to disturb you, but only send you this note and ask that you ring for Mrs. Kaur when you awaken so she might treat your ankle properly and he won’t let me see you as he says you must rest but know I am thinking of you every second.

Very sincerely affectionately and kindly,

Sahjara Kaur

This brought a smile to my face; but, hark—here was another missive below the first, penned on much more masculine paper and in a matching hand:

Dear Miss Stone,

As you refused my offices so far as to flee the scene entirely and barricade yourself against enemy encroachment, I will not crudely offer them again but rather suggest that Mrs. Garima Kaur has a working practical knowledge of the whereabouts of the human ankle and a steady hand, since I’ve no wish to further alarm you. A repast has been provided, lest your strategy be to remain in your fortifications, but I assure you that should you emerge under the white flag of truce, the natives—though savage and frankly even heathen—will greet you with unparalleled interest.

Your servant,

Charles Thornfield

Groaning aloud did me no tangible good, reader: and yet, groan aloud I did. I rolled over with a twofold whimper—half because it hurt my ankle, half because stupidity (particularly my own) hurts my heart.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Just a moment,” I called.

A glance at the ivory light through the window told me it was already ten if not later; duly considerate of my responsibilities, I stepped out of bed and promptly collapsed.

The door flew open to reveal Mrs. Garima Kaur’s feet. If feet could be amused, I have no doubt but that her toes would have laughed, such was the indignity of my position.

“All right?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

“No,” I admitted.

She entered, tension marring the straight sweep of her scar. After she had got me safely seated on the rumpled bedclothes, she searched my face; this was not simple concern, but rather a critical study—or perhaps I only thought so because her own physiognomy was so very apparent, her face resembling nothing so much as a handsomely clothed skull. Though she spoke English poorly, Mrs. Kaur’s eyes positively radiated intellect, and I wondered what heights of nuance she could achieve in her native tongue.

“Hurt with Mr. Thornfield?” she prodded.

“No, he found me in a ditch.” I pushed my posture straight with my fists. “I was hurt
near
Mr. Thornfield. He was unhurt, thank God.”

“You . . . not want his help? Do not like him?”

Answering this question truthfully would have been impossible. “I don’t like anyone at the moment. Save you, I think, depending on what you have there.”

“Poultice.” She lifted one hand. “Bandages,” she added, raising the other.

“Bless you,” I sighed, relief provoking bald sentiment.

“Do not worry,” she answered quietly, casting her eyes down.

Some ten minutes later, Mrs. Kaur had gifted me with medical attention, and spiced tea I enjoyed very much, and a crutch I did not in the least appreciate.

“Ready?” she asked when I had fully dressed with her assistance and regained a bit of my colour.

“As I will ever prove,” I agreed.

I walked step-thunk, step-thunk, step
-
thunk down the narrow carpeted strip upon the staircase. I was terrified to meet Mr. Thornfield; when I had not been pathetic the night previous, I had been glib, and when I had not been glib, I had been obstreperous, a truly heady concoction of undesirable traits.

Upon my arrival in the dining room, however, I discovered the household preoccupied; where I imagined my disaster of the night previous would be the sole topic, instead I found master and ward glaring daggers at an unknown person—one who beamed at my arrival and half stood, making an awkward bow.

“Augustus Sack!” he exclaimed, offering a pudgy hand. “Mr. Augustus P. Sack, and this can be no one save Miss Jane Stone. Might I be pardoned for expressing my
absolute
delight that you’ve rallied valiantly enough to join us for a late breakfast?”

Propping my crutch against the chair’s arm, I clasped his clammy fingers. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sack.” I sat, wincing.

“The captive emerges,” Mr. Thornfield drawled. “What can she have been through, this poor prisoner, trapped behind enemy lines after such a daring escape?”

The tone may have been gently needling; but he was up in an instant to fetch me a tasselled footstool, which he deftly slid under the table, where I might take advantage of it.

“Oh, Miss Stone!” Sahjara commiserated. She was clad in sage green with her dark hair hanging loose. “When I imagine what could have happened to you—it’s
too
dreadful.”

“My dear Young Marvel,” Mr. Thornfield put in, seating himself, “what
could
have happened was my trampled corpse, followed by a closed-coffin ceremony.”

“Charles, don’t!” Tossing her head, Sahjara added under her breath, “He thinks because he served in campaigns in the Punjab, he has the right to be dramatic.”

“He does indeed, and correctly so!” Mr. Sack spoke in the style of a compliment; it was received in the manner of an insult, however, for Mr. Thornfield’s eyes furiously darted to the pine trees just visible at the top of the windows, and there they remained.

“Well, I feel as terrible about what could have happened to Mr.
Thornfield as he does—anyhow, I’m fine, Sahjara.” I lifted my napkin as Mrs. Jas Kaur appeared, placing fried breakfast cakes smelling of rose water upon my plate.

“Miss Stone is undoubtedly fine,” Mr. Thornfield agreed, “or we should be informed otherwise in highly colourful language.”

I promptly redirected attentions. “You arrived this morning, Mr. Sack?”

“You are as observant as you are beautiful, Miss Stone, I state so with absolute conviction.”

Hardly a compliment
.

Mr. Augustus Sack was a portly fellow—tan as Mr. Thornfield, but budding pink at the crests of his cheeks, the tips of his ears, and the end of his nose. He wore a dark green jacket with a brown velvet waistcoat, accented by an emerald tie, and if he wished to appear more thoroughly English, I honestly have no notion how he would have gone about working the miracle. His face was a plump oval, beaming relentlessly, and this disturbed me, for Mr. Thornfield looked enraged and Sahjara ill.

“Have you some business with Mr. Thornfield, or may I congratulate you upon a trip devoted to pleasure?”

He chuckled, an oily sound. “I fear it is a private matter. Old friends, you understand, and what with Mr. Thornfield having so recently taken possession of this magnificent estate—I absolutely had to see him, and dear Sahjara as well.”

Mr. Thornfield’s fingers tensed as if a poisonous insect had appeared, one in need of smashing.

“I thought it had been some nine months since,” I observed.

“Correct, as you doubtless always are, Miss Stone. I encountered Thornfield here at my former assistant Mr. John Clements’s funeral four days ago; I was
most
distressed that he had not sought me out sooner, as I’ve been back in London since August.”

Mr. Thornfield threw down his napkin. “That’s the worst thing about funerals—not only is someone you once liked dead, but there’s an indecorous number of people you don’t like swarming about.”

Augustus Sack only smiled; if a grubworm had smiled, it would have looked similar.

“I should have offered you condolences, had I been aware,” I ventured to Mr. Thornfield.

“Are you offering ’em now, or merely filling uncomfortable silences?”

It would have been easy to take offence at this, but the master of the house took no pleasure in the dig himself. His long white hair was neatly tied, his collar and jacket perfect, his slab jaw smooth—but he ought to have been regaling our houseguest over tales of my clumsiness, and instead he appeared almost frightened.

Augustus Sack began to nod as if a profound point had been made. “Miss Stone, Thornfield here values discretion to the point that he errs on the side of secrecy. Mr. John Clements was my assistant, as I mentioned already—he was most instrumental in helping Thornfield regain his health following the Battle of Sobraon. Four of us, in fact, were close as brothers during the first war, serving at the behest of the Director: Thornfield, myself, Clements, and a David Lavell, who was Sahjara’s father.”

When I turned to her in surprise, Sahjara’s face was angled downward. “I don’t remember him at all. It’s
shameful
.”

“That’s the least shameful facet of your character, you magnificent nitwit.” Mr. Thornfield rapped his knuckles twice against the table. “Sack, I must suggest that, having conveyed your best greetings, you now—”

“It pains me to think how few of us remain from the small set of British in Lahore before the regime fell.” Mr. Sack affected an air of wisdom, but it looked merely as if he were about to sneeze. “Matters were so confused—who was friend, and who foe? Who amongst
the Khalsa did not scheme, and who amongst the Company did not plot?”

The master of the house pushed back his chair. “We aren’t discussing this here,” he said, but it was his teeth speaking, pressed tight with rage.

“Of course, your . . . unusual closeness to Sikh affairs rendered your own judgement so much more
nuanced
than that of the other members of the British regime. I know the Director always thought so.”

“Stop talking in riddles, it’s nauseating. I don’t have what you’re after, so what more do you want from me, damn you?” Mr. Thornfield’s fist clenched as it struck the table, but a distressed sound from Sahjara caused him to soften a second later.

“Want?” Mr. Sack swivelled his pink countenance, smirking. “Only to reminisce—poor John Clements’s death, oh, you’ll find it excessively sentimental, but I couldn’t bear to think your own call to immortality might come, Thornfield, with so much left unsaid between us.”

“Mr. Sack, your carriage has been brought round front.”

Mr. Sardar Singh stood at the end of the dining table with his hands clasped behind him, wearing a sympathetic frown as if he were the bearer of unfortunate news. Sahjara shifted, eyes darting anxiously, whilst Mr. Thornfield’s expressive face set in a look of quiet determination.

“Ah, there you are,” Mr. Augustus Sack purred. “What’s this talk of carriages? No indeed, I’ve a great deal to discuss with you both.”

“Your coachman is under unequivocal instructions to take you wherever you should care to go.”

“Of all the—
whose
unequivocal instructions, you scoundrel?” Mr. Sack snarled. “Confound it, you’re the entire reason I—”

“Mine, sir.”

The already stifling tension twined about our necks. Mr. Sack
spluttered, then emitted a laugh which sounded like the yapping of a wild fox.

“Thornfield, any man who once juggled so many export concerns is doubtless most effective at household management, but is this really your idea of a proper butler? His joke is in decidedly poor taste.”

“Do you know, Sardar hardly ever jokes,” Mr. Thornfield replied, shaking his head sadly. “A deficit in foreign breeding, I’ve always assumed.”

“I am remiss in the arena of humour more than any other.” Sardar Singh placed one hand regretfully over his heart.

“That man could run an empire, but when it comes to puns? Satirical drolleries? He’s positively dismal.”

“After many fruitless attempts at improvement, I have abandoned hope.”

“What the hell are you two playing at?” Mr. Sack snarled.

A natural unspoken understanding crackled among Mr. Thornfield and Mr. Singh and Sahjara, fast and ferocious as a thunderstorm, and I felt a surge of irrational jealousy.

“A brick,” said Mr. Thornfield, the glimmer of a wicked smile now lurking behind his mouth, “could be on display in the warm glow of the stage footlights and garner more chuckles than Mr. Sardar Singh.”

“You will
rue
the day
you ever dreamt of mocking me,” Mr. Sack growled, lurching up.

“No, no, that’s the crux of the thing!” Mr. Thornfield cried. “When Mr. Singh says that your carriage is ready—”

“And that you are about to travel away in it,” the butler added, idly examining his fingernails.

“Then it’s absolutely inevitable.”

It happened so quickly that I must have blinked and missed it—
one second, Mr. Augustus Sack’s rosy cherub’s cheeks were purpling, and the next, all the blood drained from his visage as he beheld the knife in Mr. Singh’s hand.

“You pack of bloody infidels!” Mr. Sack cried. “Do you honestly think you can threaten a Company man?”

“Oh, ’pon my word, yes.” Mr. Thornfield had risen now, and another knife glinted from his slack, practiced grip.

“Don’t test them,” Sahjara warned, arm extended, and I saw that what I had always imagined merely a silver hair ornament was also a blade.

“Sahjara!” I threw out a protective forearm.

“Miss Stone has a knife too, Sack,” Mr. Thornfield drawled. “It’s part of our dress uniform, don’t y’know.”

“You cannot seriously intend to defy me!” Mr. Sack backed towards the door, soft hands trembling. Strangely, he seemed to address Mr. Singh.

“It’s as serious as a Turkish prison,” Mr. Thornfield hissed.

“I’ll have it out of you one way or another,” Mr. Sack spat, jabbing a finger at Sahjara. “That nasty puppet—”