Rebel Angels (26 page)

“Nell,” I croak. "Nell . . . please.”

She releases me, and I fall to the floor, gasping for air, my head aching from her sudden brutality. Nell has faded into her madness again, but her face is slick with tears.

“Don’t hesitate, Lady Hope. Set me free.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

TODAY IS CHRISTMAS EVE. ACROSS LONDON, THE shops and taverns are filled with people in high spirits, the streets bustling with this one carrying home a fragrant tree or that one selecting a fat goose for supper. I should be filled with the Christmas spirit and the urge to spread goodwill to my fellow man and woman. Instead, I am contemplating the puzzle that Nell Hawkins has left me to put together.

Go where no one will, where it is forbidden, o fer hope. Go where
the dark hides a mirror of water. Face your fear and bind the magic
fast to you.
It makes no sense.
Stick to the path. They will lead you
astray with false promises.
Who? What false promises? The entire thing is a riddle wrapped inside another and another. I have the amulet to guide me. But I do not know where to find the Temple, and without that I have nothing. It vexes me till I want to pitch my washbowl across the room.

To make matters worse, Father is not home. He did not come home from his club last night. I am the only one who seems concerned about this. Grandmama is busy barking orders at the servants for our Christmas dinner. The kitchen is a flurry of cooks tending to puddings and gravies and pheasant with apples.

“He wasn’t here for breakfast?” I ask.

“No,” Grandmama says, pushing past me to yell at the cook. “I think we shall omit the soup course. No one bothers with it, anyway.”

“But what if he’s hurt?” I ask.

“Gemma, please! Mrs. Jones—the red silk will suffice, I should think.”

Christmas Eve dinner comes and goes, and still there is no Father. The three of us set about opening our gifts in the parlor, pretending that there is nothing amiss.

“Ah,” Tom says, unwrapping a long woolen scarf. “Perfect. Thank you, Grandmama.”

“I am glad you like it. Gemma, why don’t you open yours?”

I get to work on the box from Grandmama. Perhaps it is a beautiful pair of gloves or a bracelet. Inside are matching handkerchiefs embroidered with my initials. They’re quite lovely. “Thank you,” I say.

“Practical gifts are always the best, I find,” Grandmama remarks with a sniff.

The unwrapping of gifts is over within minutes. Besides the handkerchiefs, I receive a hand mirror and a tin of chocolates from Grandmama, and from Tom, a jolly red nutcracker, who amuses me. I’ve given a shawl to Grandmama, and to Tom, a skull to keep in his office someday.

“I shall call him Yorick,” Tom says, delighted. And I’m glad that I’ve made him happy. Father’s gifts sit under the tree, unopened.

“Thomas,” Grandmama says. “Perhaps you should go to his club and ask for him. Make some discreet inquiries.”

“But I’m to go to the Athenaeum tonight as a guest of Simon Middleton, ”Tom protests.

“Father is missing,” I say.

“He’s not missing. I am certain that he will be home at any moment, probably laden with gifts he’s traveled to get on a whim somewhere. Do you remember the time he arrived on Christmas morning like Saint Nicholas himself, riding an elephant?”

“Yes,” I say, smiling at the memory. He’d brought me my first sari, and Tom and I had coconut milk, lapping it from bowls as if we were tigers.

“He’ll be home. Mark my words. Doesn’t he always turn up?”

“You’re right, of course,” I say, because I want desperately to believe him.

The house falls into hushed tones of gasping fires and steady clocks, the lamps shushed to glowing murmurs of their former brightness. As it’s after eleven o’clock, the servants have retired to their rooms. Grandmama is snuggled into her bed, and she thinks I am tucked safely in as well. But I can’t sleep. Not with Father gone. I want him to come home, with or without an elephant. So I sit in the parlor, waiting.

Kartik slips into the room, still dressed in his coat and boots. He is out of breath.

“Kartik! Where have you been? What is it?”

“Is your brother at home?” He’s very agitated.

“No. He’s gone out. Why do you ask?”

“It’s imperative that I speak with your brother.”

I rise to my full height. "I’ve told you, he is not at home. You may tell me.”

He takes a poker and stabs at the brittle logs. They flare to life. He says nothing, and I am left to imagine the worst.

“Oh, no. Is it Father? Do you know where he is?” Kartik nods.
"Where?”

Kartik cannot look me in the eyes. "Bluegate Fields.”

“Bluegate Fields?” I repeat. "Where is that?”

“It is the dregs of the world, a place inhabited only by thieves, addicts, murderers, and the like, I am sorry to say.”

“But my father . . . why is he there?”

Again, Kartik cannot look at me. “He is addicted to opium. He is at Chin-Chin’s, an opium den.”

It’s not true. It can’t be. I’ve cured Father. He’s been better since the magic, hasn’t asked for a drop of laudanum.
"How do you know this?”

“Because he bade me drive him there last night and he hasn’t left since.”

My heart sinks at this. "My brother is with Mr. Middleton at his club.”

“We must send for him.”

“No! The scandal. Tom would be humiliated.”

“Yes, wouldn’t want to upset The Right Honorable Simon Middleton.”

“You’re too bold by half,” I say.

“And you’re lying about not wanting to humiliate Tom. You’re saving yourself.”

The hard truth of this stings me, and I hate him a little for saying it.

“There’s nothing we can do but wait until your brother returns,” Kartik says.

“Do you mean leave my father in that place?”

“There is no other choice.”

“He’s all I have,” I plead. “Take me to him.”

Kartik shakes his head. “It is out of the question. Bluegate Fields is not the sort of place for ladies.”

“I am going whether you take me or not.”

I walk swiftly toward the door. Kartik takes hold of my arm.

“Do you know what could happen to you there?”

“I shall have to risk it.” Kartik and I stand, opposing each other.
"I cannot leave him there, Kartik.”

“Very well,” he says, relenting. He gives my figure a bold appraisal.
"You will need to borrow your brother’s clothes.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you must go, you shall have to go dressed as a man.”

I race up the stairs, hoping I do not wake Grandmama or the servants. Tom’s clothes are a mystery to me. With difficulty, I manage to undress, taking off the many layers and my corset. I sigh with relief when free of it. I pull Tom’s trousers over my woolen stockings and select a shirt and coat. They are a bit snug. I am tall but not slender as he is. Still, they will have to do. Securing my hair beneath his hat is a task, though. It threatens to spring from my head. And to wear Tom’s shoes requires that I stuff the ends with handkerchiefs, as his feet are a full inch and a half larger than my own. It makes me walk like a drunk.

“How do I look?” I ask, coming down the stairs.

Kartik scoffs. "Like someone who shall be set upon by every hooligan in East London. This is a terrible idea. We’ll wait until your brother returns.”

“I will not leave my father to die in an opium den,” I say.
"Pull the carriage round.”

A light snow’s begun to fall. It coats Ginger’s mane in a thin gray powder as we pull slowly into the East London slums. The night is still and cold. Every breath is painful. Narrow, filthy alleys wind between ramshackle buildings that stand stooped as beggars. Crippled chimneys jut up from the sodden roofs, crooked metal arms asking the sky for alms, for hope, for some reassurance that this life is not all they can ever know.

“Pull your hat low over your face,” Kartik warns. Even on this night and in the cold, the streets are crowded with people, drunk, loud, swearing. A trio of men in the open doorway of a gin house takes in my fine clothes, Kartik beside me.

“Don’t look at them,” Kartik says. "Don’t engage with anyone.”

A group of street urchins clusters about us, begging. This one’s got a sick baby sister at home; another offers to shine my boots for a shilling. Still another, a boy of no more than eleven or so, knows of a place where we can go and he will “be kind” to me for as long as I like. He does not smile or betray any feeling as he says this. He is as matter-of-fact as the boy offering to clean my boots.

Kartik pulls six coins from his pocket. They glisten in the black wool of his gloved palm. The boys’ eyes grow wide in the dark.

“Three shillings for whoever watches this carriage and horse,” he says.

Three boys are on him at once, promising all sorts of harm to whoever would bother such a fine gentleman’s carriage.

“And three for the one who can escort us to Chin-Chin’s without incident,” he says.

They’re quiet. A filthy boy in tattered clothes and shoes worn down to holes grabs the last of the coins. “Oi know Chin’s,” he says. The other boys look at him with envy and scorn.

“This way, gents,” he says, taking us down a maze of alleys damp with the wind blowing off the nearby docks. Fat rats scuttle across cobblestones, poking at heaven knows what by the curb. Despite the raw wind and late hour, people are out. It is still Christmas Eve, and they crowd the gin houses and streets, some of them falling down with drunkenness.

“Roight ’ere,” the boy says as we reach a hovel inside a tiny court. The boy pushes through the decrepit door and escorts us up steep, dark stairs that reek of urine and the damp. I trip over something and realize it’s a body.

“That’s jus’ ol’ Jim,” the boy says, unbothered.
" ’E’s always ’ere.”

On the second floor, we reach another door.

“ ’Ere you go. Chin-Chin’s. Give us a gin for the trouble, eh, guv?” the boy says, sticking out his hand in the hopes of more money.

I press another two shillings into his palm.

“Merry Christmas, guv.” He disappears and I knock on the grime-thickened door. It creaks open to reveal an ancient Chinaman. The shadows under his hollow eyes make him seem more an apparition than a flesh-and-blood man, but then he smiles, showing a handful of teeth mottled brown as rotted fruit. He bids us follow him into the low, cramped room. Everywhere I look there are bodies. They lie about, eyes fluttering; some jabber on in long strings of sentences that mean nothing. They’re broken by long pauses and the occasional weak laugh that chills the soul with its emptiness. A sailor, his skin the color of India ink, nods and sleeps in a corner. Beside him is a man who looks as if he might never wake.

The opium fumes make my eyes water and my throat burn. At this rate, it will be a wonder if we can escape the room without succumbing to the drug ourselves. I put my handkerchief to my mouth to keep from gagging.

“Mind the floor,” Kartik says. Several well-to-do gentlemen are clumped together around an opium bowl in a stupor, mouths open. Above them, a rope stretches across the room, dingy rags hanging from it forming a rotted curtain that smells of sour milk.

“Which ship are you on, my boy?” comes a voice from the darkness. A face moves into the glow from a candle. The man is Indian.

“I am not a deckhand. Or a boy,” Kartik answers.

The Indian sailor laughs at this. There’s an ugly scar snaking from the corner of his eye across his cheek. I shudder to think how he might have gotten it or what happened to the other man. He fingers his dagger at his side.

“You trained dog to English?” He points at me with the dagger. He makes a barking sound that tumbles into more laughter and then a terrible coughing fit that leaves blood on his hand.

“The English.” He spits. “They give us this life. We are their dogs, you and I. Dogs. What they promise you cannot trust. But Chin-Chin’s opium makes the whole world sweet. Smoke, my friend, and you forget what they do. Forget that you are a dog. That you will always be a dog.”

He points the tip of his dagger into the sticky black ball of opium, ready to smoke his troubles away and float into an oblivion where he is no one’s inferior. Kartik and I move on through the smoky haze. The Chinaman leads us to a tiny room and bids us wait a moment while he disappears behind the rags over the door. Kartik’s jaw remains clenched.

“What that man said... ” I stop, unsure of how to continue. “What I mean is, I hope you know that I do not feel that way.”

Kartik’s face hardens. “I am not like those men. I am Rakshana. A higher caste.”

“But you are also Indian. They are your countrymen, are they not?”

Kartik shakes his head. “Fate determines your caste. You must accept it and live according to the rules.”

“You can’t really believe that!”

“I do believe it. That man’s misfortune is that he cannot accept his caste, his fate.”

I know that the Indians wear their caste as a mark upon their foreheads for all to see. I know that in England, we have our own unacknowledged caste system. A laborer will never hold a seat in Parliament. Neither will a woman. I don’t think I’ve ever questioned such things until this moment.

“But what about will and desire? What if someone wants to change things?”

Kartik keeps his eyes on the room. "You cannot change your caste. You cannot go against fate.”

“That means there is no hope of a better life. It is a trap.”

“That is how you see it,” he says softly.

“What do you mean?”

“It can be a relief to follow the path that has been laid out for you, to know your course and play your part in it.”

“But how can you be sure that you are following the right course? What if there is no such thing as destiny, only choice?”

“Then I do not choose to live without destiny,” he says with a slight smile.

He seems so sure, while I feel nothing but uncertainty. “Do you ever have doubts? About anything?”

His smile vanishes. "Yes.”

I’d like to know what they are, but the Chinaman returns, interrupting our debate. We follow him, pushing aside the fetid rags. He points to a fat Englishman with arms the size of an elephant’s legs.

“We’re looking for Mr. Chin-Chin,” Kartik says.

“Lookin’ a’ ’im,” the Englishman says. “Took ofer from th’ ’riginal proprietor t’ree years ago. Some cawls me Chin. Ofers cawls me Uncle Billy. Come fo’ a tayste o’ ’appiness?”