The Gilded Cage (23 page)

“Move aside, Katherine, now! They'll try to catch us on the grounds; we must hurry.” William pushes his weight against the wooden framework of the window, shards of glass raining onto the thick tweed at his shoulders. Finally, the whole frame gives way. He leaps with surprising nimbleness to the ground below, and reaches back to retrieve me.

My leg scrapes across the window's raw edge as I tumble into his arms, but I barely wince. For one moment we're in each other's arms, surrounded by fallen stars of window glass. Then we run. Muck sucks at my feet, and each breath claws at my bruised ribs. I can see William checking his speed to keep apace with me, and I force myself to go faster, faster.

“Stop!” cries a voice at our backs. Cosley. “You cannot take that girl!”

The run to the gates is even more surreal by daylight. Once we reach them, William boosts me up, and we both begin to climb. The spikes at the top stab menacingly into the sky, but I can just slide my body between them. William stands fully upright atop the fence, slipping his legs through, then half climbs, half jumps to the ground below. He puts his arms up to meet mine, and then we've done it: We're over the gates.

His horse is loosely tied a few paces away. Though she's just a middle-aged brown mare, a bit temperamental if I had to guess, I think she is the most beautiful horse I've ever seen. Cosley and another guard, Mr. Smith, are pounding toward us as William fumbles her free. By the time she's untied, I've already swung myself into the saddle. “Let me take the reins,” I cry. “Get up!”

He swings fluidly into place behind me as the men fumble at the locked gate. I hear Cosley scream a curse as we start to ride away. The horse pulls against me at first—cantankerous, just as I suspected. “Left, left!” cries William, his body warm and close behind. I swing the horse's head around, and soon I've got her in a hard trot, which I bring up into a gallop as soon as I've got a feel for the marshy road. The trees here are ancient and high; we ride between walls of black trunks. The shouts of Temperley's men quickly fade, replaced by the whipping cold air of the outside world.

When we're far enough away, William makes me slow down so that he can transfer his coat onto my shivering shoulders. “We must go back for Dorothy,” I say through gritted teeth, wringing my frigid hands.

He reaches around my shoulders and takes my fingers in his, rubbing them to warmness. “You will never go back to that place,” he says. “We'll help her as soon as we can, but you will never see the inside of Temperley's again.”

The true desperation of my plight before his arrival starts to sink in, and my face streams with silent tears. We ride over sunken lanes and open fields, pausing to let the horse drink at streams as we pass them. My body is warmed by the coat and by his nearness. He directs me to the most remote paths, and we see no one. The world feels abandoned, as if we are the only riders for miles.

When it's become clear that we're not being followed, I break the silence. “How did you know where to find me?” I ask him. “I thought Henry would have told you I'd returned to America.”

He's so close behind me that I can feel his voice in his chest. “That's what I was told, yes, when I came to the estate with the papers you requested. For five days running I'd been turned away at the door, told that you were indisposed or unable to see me. Finally, Mr. Carrick, that abominable man, told me you had set sail the day before. I didn't believe it, that you'd leave without saying good-bye, and I insisted on speaking to Henry. When Mr. Carrick went to fetch him, your dressing maid, Elsie, came to me. She looked frightened—so frightened I had to take her seriously when she told me you'd been spirited off in the night. When Henry did finally come to the door, he was as cool as ever, and repeated what Mr. Carrick had said.

“I rushed to Bristol, hoping that, of the two tales, Henry's was the true one. There I learned that you had not yet boarded a ship. So I thought on Elsie's claim, and surmised that you would be in this place. I have known of it for some years, because of payments made from Walthingham to the proprietors.”

His tale first made me angry, and then warm with confused happiness.

“There is something else,” he said. “As I waited at the harborside, I took out the watch you gave me. I thought I might figure out why it had stopped running, and began fiddling with it. But when I opened up the back … well, I discovered something remarkable.”

“What?” I ask breathlessly.

“I'll show you soon. Let's keep on toward Walthingham. No, we're not going to the estate—but to somewhere safe, nearby.”

We ride on. Mr. Simpson calls out from time to time to direct my path, but is otherwise silent. Always his hands are sturdy at my waist, keeping me upright and brave. Soon I start to recognize the terrain, and understand that we're nearing my land—the land that is mine to sell or to keep, that I will not allow to be stolen from me. “We mustn't get too close, Mr. Simpson. What if Henry is out riding today?”

“I'm taking you somewhere we won't be found. Here, let me have the reins.”

He leads us straight through the trees and over the unused tracks. When we skirt the edge of Henry's quarry, I can orient myself again—the house is nearly a mile away as the crow flies, and we're moving away from it.

Now the sun has dipped to the level of our eyes. Orange light spills over the rocks and paints my skin gold. “We're here,” he says softly, pulling the horse to a halt. He ties her up in a copse of trees, where she's unlikely to be seen, then turns to study the tree line.

“It should be just through there. Keep behind me, now.”

The air, though biting cold, feels wonderfully fresh on my skin. We duck into a tunnel of tight-packed pines, the air between them heady with resin. I keep my eyes trained on Mr. Simpson's back under his dark tweed coat as he sweeps the trees' piney arms from our path. They shush closed behind us, hiding our trail from prying eyes. Soon the scent of pine and snow melt is overtaken by a more civilized smell—that of fire and cooking meat. I clutch the back of Mr. Simpson's coat.

“Almost there, Lady Katherine.”

Finally, we break into a clearing just large enough for a single horse to graze. Across the way is a rock wall, with a low entrance carved into its front and darkness yawning beyond.

I think of my tiny cell at Temperley's, and the dingy, claustrophobic white of the straitjacket. My forehead feels suddenly damp. “I can't go in there.”

“Hold tight to my hand.” He extends it toward me, and I grasp at it and squeeze.

The smell of smoke is stronger here, and when we bend forward at the cavern entrance I can see that the darkness within is dancing, and laced with color. Once we've advanced a few yards, the rock ceiling is high enough for us to stand straight. A few paces more, and the pathway weaves left, leading to a cavern the size of a bedchamber at Walthingham. Near the back is a low, smoky fire, a spitted rabbit slung over it. The shapes of a table, a sofa, a mattress piled with furs swim out of the dim, and I nearly stumble over a slatted wooden chair piled with books.

Someone squats next to the fire, his head downturned. As we approach, the figure unfolds into a tall man with striking light eyes. I gasp and step behind William. McAllister watches us but does not speak, running rabbit-greasy hands over rough breeches.

“It's all right, Katherine,” Mr. Simpson says. “He's going to help us.”

“How do you know we can trust him?”

“I would trust him with anything. You see, Simpson is my mother's name. But Mr. McAllister is my father.”

 

CHAPTER 28

I
LOOK AT THE
tall, tousle-haired lawyer, standing straight in his worn black tweed, then at the man behind the fire. His hair's a gray thatch and his clothes are shabby, and he looks at me even now with a curdled mixture of menace and sharp pride. But I can see a resemblance now, in the dignified way they hold themselves, in the bones of their faces. I breathe in, but I can't think of what to say.

McAllister surprises me by speaking first. His voice is different with his son in attendance. It softens and relaxes, and the faint burr of an Irish upbringing warms it. “I was no great family man,” he says, “but it still came as a surprise to me when Mrs. McAllister left. Mrs. Simpson, she called herself after that—her family name. Passed herself off as a widow, I believe. Isn't that right, boy?”

Mr. Simpson nods silent assent.

“It seems a strange thing to me, a terrible thing, to wish for a man's death like that.” He holds up a hand, as if to quell his son's protests. “But I see now, and saw it even then, that she had to do it. I was no great family man, as I said, and she did what she had to. William was small when she took him, and I followed after her. I tracked her right to the very boardinghouse where they were hiding. I had the sense not to talk to her right away—they wouldn't have let her stay, if I'd come running in. But I caught her on her way to church next morning, with little William wrapped up warm in her arms. She was always a good ma.

“I wished I could remind her of our courting days, but truth is we didn't really have them. Or I could make promises of being a better man for her, but I didn't want to tell lies. Sentimentality's never suited me. So I only asked her if she'd come home with me. I told her we never need talk of it again, and that William would be too small ever to remember. And she pressed my hand and shook her head, and did not say another word to me again. Not ever. And that was the last I saw of my son until he was a man grown, a solicitor working for Crowne & Crowne. You can never say I wasn't proud, or grateful to Lord Walthingham for all he did for him.”

“But what did he do?” I ask, watching the man's sad face through the trailing smoke of his campfire.

“He was my benefactor,” says William, watching my face. “He took pity on my mother and paid for my boarding school. Then my legal training at the Inns. He also put in a word for me with Crowne & Crowne—they were already his solicitors.”

McAllister breaks in. “My son looks ashamed now—we McAllisters were never much for giving credit where credit's due, or for admitting that we had help along the way. Lucky for you, young lady, the boy's got much of his mother in him, too.”

William does look flushed, but continues. “I lost my mother to illness two years ago. When she was dying she told me the truth: that my father was alive and working for Walthingham. At the time I knew your grandfather only as the man of the house. It was only in her final days that my mother revealed his part in my advancement, something he had not wished her to do. I came to the house to thank him, and to meet my father.” His eyes meet McAllister's, briefly.

“We quickly realized that too much time had passed for ours to be more than a passing acquaintance,” he says, low. I can see that this pains him—shames him, even.

“It's all right, William,” his father offers. “I'd rather have a son who faces things honestly than one who flatters with his words. Like that blasted Henry Campion.”

The change that comes over his features when he speaks Henry's name is extreme. I see again the hardened, criminal presence that I once imagined stalking the woods of Walthingham.

“My boy came back looking for a father,” continues McAllister. “And he very nearly found one. Not me, though. Lord Walthingham.”

“That's not true—” William protests, but his father cuts him off.

“Walthingham and my son were men of a similar mind. The master had driven his own son off, as you well know, lady, and that nephew of his was the very picture of his own father: a dissolute, a charmer, a snake with a handsome face, who had married Walthingham's only sister. Lord Walthingham could never bear the thought of leaving it all to him, though he knew he'd likely have to. But Campion got to thinking that William might be given an inheritance—some small piece that would lessen his own part of the store when your grandfather died. It seemed, though, like it would be many years before that happened. Your grandfather was the halest man that I knew—and the best rider.” McAllister glared and he folded his arms. “Not the sort to fall and snap his neck.”

His meaning becomes clear to me. “You think there was foul play?”

The firelight finds the old man's eyes, and they glow with hooded intelligence. “Henry Campion was broken after the war. Your grandfather saw it and did his best to make a son of him. They rode out together every day. I saw them setting out together one morning, early, though no groom accompanied them. Just before midday, Campion came back saying his horse had thrown a shoe. When Lord Walthingham still hadn't come back for luncheon, they went looking. Found him deep in the forest with his head stoved in.”

I feel sick. “Grace never told me about a head injury. She said he died from a broken neck, instantly.”

McAllister sniffed angrily. “His neck was snapped, that's right enough, but he hung on for two days, unable to move an inch. Never have I seen a man so pale as your cousin. But he did not grieve—he feared. Feared, I think, that your grandfather would wake, and tell the truth.”

“The truth,” I breathe. “Sir, do you think that my cousin—did you ever tell the magistrate of your suspicions?”

“I am not a man to make accusations lightly, but nor do I hold my peace when I have a suspicion that something's not right. Campion was at the bedside constantly in those two days that your grandfather hung on to his life. But on the second morning, he stepped out long enough to see me—and to tell me that I was to leave Walthingham at once. I know why he did it. You see, I'm the only one who knows the grounds the way he does. I'm the only one who might have seen something—might have seen whatever it was that happened the day your grandfather died. I made no fuss, but set straight out to find William in London. ‘His Lordship's son might still be alive,' I told him. ‘In America. If not, he may have heirs of his own, who would be first in line for the estate.' Anything to keep it out of Campion's bloody hands. That's right: My son was the one who tracked you down. Not that he believed me about Campion until now. He inherited his mother's expectations of goodness.”