The Story of Cirrus Flux (11 page)

T
he figure staggers down the twilit street, barely conscious of where he is going. Coaches and carriages rumble past, kicking up a filthy spray, but he carries on through the driving rain, willing himself away from the scene he has just witnessed.

“Is ’e ill, d’you reckon?” says a woman from the doorway of a nearby shop.

“Nah. Drunk, more like,” says her companion, a red-haired woman in tattered lace. “Either way, ’e don’t look long for this world, now do ’e? Pity, seein’ as ’e’s so young and ’and-some and all.”

The two women turn their attention to the other figures passing up and down the crowded street. The man could be fatally wounded for all they know, but neither can guess at the extent of his injury. There is a scared, haunted look in his eyes, as if Death is just around the corner.

A few minutes later, a boy detaches himself from the shelter of a ledge, under which he has been keeping dry, and falls into step beside him.

“Need a light, sir?” he says, blowing on a torch to keep it aflame. The light gleams on his hopeful face, washed clean in places by the rain.

The man shakes his head and moves on.

“You all right, sir?” says the boy. “I can guide you anywhere you need to go. From Holborn to Shoreditch, Marylebone to Chelsea …”

“No,” says the man. “Leave me be.”

“Honest, sir—”

“I told you. Leave me be!”

The boy stops. His torch sinks slowly to his side.

Relenting a little, the man glances back, digs out a coin and tosses it to the child. The boy palms it hungrily and speeds off down a neighboring alley.

The streets are slick with mud and the man slips on the paving stones, nearly falling, but he manages to right himself and keeps going, stumbling toward the outskirts of the city.

Finally, he rounds the corner of Red Lyon Street, the dimly lit thoroughfare leading up to the gates of the Foundling Hospital. He can see it in the distance, a boundary against the fields. Two brick buildings stand inside the gates, edged by covered walkways. He scans the row of windows, searching for the room in which he used to sleep, but his mind is a blur of memory and he cannot find it.

An iron railing runs across the front of the hospital, lit by
a solitary lantern. The flame is barely bright enough to illumine the crest beneath: a woolly lamb standing on top of a shield in which a naked child reaches out for help. A bell hangs nearby and the man grabs it, clanging it more forcefully than intended. The noise rends the silence and a dog barks somewhere in the distance, chasing echoes through the night.

A wedge of light appears from the doorway of a lodge inside. A man with stippled gray hair appears. He is dressed in a wrinkled nightshirt. He shuffles across the rain-soaked drive, looking like a grumpy hedgehog.

“Will ye be quiet, for heaven’s sake?” he hisses, as the man continues to ring the bell. “Ye’ll wake the children if ye’re not careful.”

The porter holds up his lantern and inspects the young man on the other side. He is a naval officer, by the looks of it, in a sodden blue uniform. Abundant curls are plastered to his brow.

“Sorry, sir, but there ain’t no room,” he says finally, motioning toward the little bundle the man cradles under his coat, the precious cargo he has been carrying across the city. “We’ve too many mouths to feed as it is.”

“Please,” says the officer. “You must help me. My wife. She’s—she’s—” He cannot bring himself to say the word.

“Ye’d best come back when we’ve got a place,” says the porter sadly. “We’ll post a sign as soon as we are able.”

The officer’s heart sinks. He knows all too well about the hospital’s system of admissions. It is a lottery. He has seen
mothers lining up to pull colored balls from a sack, each deciding the fate of a newborn child. A white ball means the child can be admitted, subject to a medical examination; a red ball means the child is put on a waiting list; a black ball, and the child is turned away. There are far more babies than places available.

“Please,” he says, reaching through the bars of the iron gate and clinging to the other man like a prisoner. “It is a matter of life and death.”

“It always is, sir. It always is.”

“But I cannot wait,” says the officer. “My ship sets sail tomorrow. Summon Mr. Chalfont. Tell him—”

“Mr. Chalfont?” says a lady, who has emerged from the lodge behind them. She stops when she sees the dark-haired officer.

“James?” she says, rushing forward to take a closer look. “James Flux? Is that you?”

A bashful smile creeps over the young man’s face and he shifts from one foot to the other. Years have passed, but there is no mistaking the woman who once cared for him as a child. She was just a slip of a maid back then, but now her bosom has filled out and her waist expanded. Still, her face is the same, kind and considerate, marred only by the pockmarks on her skin.

“Come, come, man,” she says, clobbering the porter with her fist and nearly grabbing the ring of keys from his hand. “Let him in, Mr. Kickshaw, and be quick!”

Unconsciously, she tucks a lock of fading brown hair
beneath her muslin cap. “Well, I’ll be. James Flux,” she says. “I’d recognize those devil’s curls anywhere! Sweet Jesus, how ye’ve grown!”

She pulls James into an embrace, but then, just as quickly, holds him back. “Lord Almighty,” she says, her eyes coming to rest on the bundle under his coat. “What’ve ye gone and done?”

“Please,” says James, his voice cracking. “I must speak to Mr. Chalfont. It’s Arabella. She’s—”

Once again, he cannot bring himself to say the word. The crestfallen look on Mrs. Kickshaw’s face, however, tells him that she has guessed it.

“Follow me,” she says, grabbing the lantern from her husband’s hand and steering James toward the entrance.

The porter shuts the gates behind them.

“Poor Arabella,” says Mrs. Kickshaw as they pass down one of the covered walkways. “She was such a good-natured child. Did she live to see the baby?”

Miserably, James shakes his head.

“Poor Arabella,” says Mrs. Kickshaw again, this time making the sign of the cross.

She opens a door and they enter a dark hall. The quiet is broken only by the ticking of a clock above them. All of a sudden memories crowd round him: Felix, fat and heavy, sliding down the banister of the staircase; children marching off in pairs to hear Mr. Handel’s latest composition in the chapel; the sound of sobbing issuing from the Weeping Room upstairs. His mind travels back to the cramped closet under the
stairs where he and Arabella once hid after stealing strawberries from the garden. He remembers the thud of their heartbeats in the confined space, the sweet smell of her breath, the taste of strawberry on her lips.…

“Wait here,” says Mrs. Kickshaw, leaving him alone in the darkness.

She climbs the stairs, taking the lantern with her.

Something stirs against his chest. The little weight he has been carrying for miles has started to wriggle, kicking the sleep from its limbs. Carefully, he reaches inside his jacket and brings out the ugly, wrinkled face—a stranger to him still.

“Ah, would ye look at the wee thing,” says Mrs. Kickshaw, returning. With practiced hands, she scoops the infant into her arms and cradles it against her chest. “God bless his soul. He’s the image of his father.”

She places a work-toughened hand on the baby’s head and straightens the curl of hair that has swept across its brow. James feels a sickening stab of loss. Just for a moment he thinks of Arabella, wrapped in crimson sheets, and goes numb.

The baby watches him with unfocused eyes and then reaches out to catch the words gushing from the woman’s lips: a lullaby Mrs. Kickshaw has sung to many a new foundling. The child snatches the woman’s finger in its fist and begins to suck on it, making nuzzling noises in the dark.

“Ah, ye’re hungry, ain’t ye, poppet?” says Mrs. Kickshaw, cooing over the infant.

“James?” A voice startles James out of his reverie and he
looks up. Mr. Chalfont is peering down at him from an upstairs landing. “Come on up, boy, come on up. Eliza’ll see to the child.”

James finds himself following the familiar figure up the stairs and across the landing to his study, while Mrs. Kickshaw takes the baby to the nursery. The spry little man he once knew has rounded into a podgy figure with fluffy white hair, and James cannot help thinking of the day Mr. Chalfont arrived at the hospital, fresh from the Navy, inspiring the boys with his tales of adventure.

Before long, James is standing before a fire in the Governor’s study, surrounded by objects from the gentleman’s past. He picks up a shell from a nearby shelf and listens to it, hearing a distant echo in his ear. Then he notices the painting of Mrs. Chalfont above the desk and goes over to examine it.

“Tell me, James,” says Mr. Chalfont, sinking into the chair before the fire and elevating his gouty leg on a footstool. “Exactly what has happened?”

James feels his throat constrict. His cheeks grow hot. Once again he can see the midwife running back and forth, ridding bowls of blood in the yard and calling for more hot water. Then he remembers his wife’s agonizing scream, followed moments later by the tremulous cry of a newborn infant.

And then the silence. More than anything, the terrifying silence.

Tears are flowing freely down his cheeks.

Mr. Chalfont listens patiently while he describes the
scene and neither man notices Mrs. Kickshaw, who has returned with the infant.

“I wish we had room,” says Mr. Chalfont finally, “but you know how it is.”

“Please,” says James. “I do not know what else to do. I have nowhere to go. The hospital is my only home.” He is aware of the panic rising in his voice and fights to keep it back.

“I am sorry,” says Mr. Chalfont, “but you must try to understand. We have limited resources. There is nothing we can do.”

He holds out his hands as if to prove the point, but James cannot accept his answer.

“I can pay,” he says suddenly, reaching into his pocket for all the money he has with him. “The Guild has promised me much, much more on my return. This must be enough, at least for now, to pay for his maintenance.”

Mr. Chalfont looks affronted. “James!” he says. “You, more than any, ought to know that your responsibility lies with your child and not the Guild. What the boy needs—and deserves—is love. Be a father to him, James. Do not leave him.”

James shakes his head. “You do not understand,” he says. “The ship is docked at Deptford Yard. I am due to sail tomorrow.…”

He thinks of all the preparations the Guild has made, loading the ship with the finest cargo and equipment. He
feels the weight of responsibility round his neck and touches his terrella, recalling the celestial light that once hovered above the
Destiny
.

A thought suddenly occurs to him. “I can get her back,” he mutters faintly.

“James?” says Mr. Chalfont. “I do not understand. What are you suggesting?”

“I can get her back,” he says, with greater certainty. He remembers the icy continent he saw. The very gates of heaven, the clergyman called it. “I can sail to the edge of the world and find her!”

Mr. Chalfont shakes his head. “James, be reasonable, man! You are not talking sense.” He turns to the picture of his wife on the wall. “Do you not think that I miss my Elizabeth? I know how it is to lose someone so loved, so cherished. But such is the will of God. There is nothing I—or anyone else—can do to change it. We must accept these things.”

But all James can see right now is the glimmer of otherworldly light beyond the horizon. “I must try!” he cries. “At least let me try!”

“But James, think of your son,” says Mr. Chalfont one last time, trying to dissuade him. But he can see that James’s mind is already made up; there is a faraway look in his eyes.

With a sigh, Mr. Chalfont turns to the child. “At least a token, then, for your son, James,” he says. “So that you can return and reclaim him.”

James stares at the infant in Mrs. Kickshaw’s arms and
chokes back a sudden sob, struck by the enormity of his decision. The child is looking at the silver sphere round his neck and reaching out with shell-pink fingers.

“Give him this,” James says, removing the terrella and handing it quickly to the Governor, along with all his money. “It is everything I have. Take them! Before I change my mind.”

Mr. Chalfont’s eyes are glistening, but reluctantly he accepts the silver sphere and places it on the desk, underneath the image of his wife.

And then, before Mr. Chalfont can prevent him, James flees from the room, rushing past the Weeping Room and tripping down the stairs, not daring to look back, afraid that if he stays even a moment longer he will not be able to leave his son behind.

Above him, the infant starts to scream.