Without a Summer (26 page)
He hesitated, then nodded. “Be careful.”
Jane ran after her sister. She had no idea what she would do to keep her safe, but she could not abandon her, either.
Melody seemed to have a sixth sense about where the rest of them were. She ducked through the lines of coldmongers and pulled away from Jane, Vincent, or Mr. O’Brien any time they neared. If they had not been marching, Jane might have tried to mask herself with glamour, but that was not an option while they were in motion.
As they went, they picked up followers. Neighbours and family came out in force, so that soon Melody was not the only woman marching. Fortified by this early support, the coldmongers began to sing “’Twas in the Summer Warm.”
When they got to the third verse, Jane began to feel as though she had never heard the song before. Though not well trained, the profusion of young boys gave it an ethereal beauty, making the song a prayer for deliverance. Their voices drifted upward.
But I have, when the sun is high,
put forth above the clamour
’Tis winter deep in me, and I
with heart and with my glamour
O God, O brother let me give,
the blessed cool to Thee
that through your Grace I may yet live
May pure and spotless be …
In spite of the clouds overhead, which brought an early gloom to the evening, the torches made it seem all the brighter, but they added little to the warmth unless one stood close enough to be endangered by the flames when they gusted.
“Turn the collar of your coat up.” Vincent swung down from the horse to walk beside her. “You are shivering.”
“I am nervous.” Jane glanced at the clouds. “What if it snows? The people will think it due to the coldmongers.”
“It is not that cold.” Vincent turned and perused the marchers. “William! A question.”
“Sir?” The young coldmonger drifted back two rows to join them, but showed no signs of recognising Jane.
“Is it cold enough to make it snow or do any ice work tonight?”
The boy held out his hand and rolled his fingers as though feeling the air. “Naw. Not even close. I don’t think even Ice Mike could.”
“There, you see?” The brisk air seemed to have refreshed Vincent. He walked with his head up, and much of the colour had returned to his cheeks. Jane could not feel so easy.
As they crossed over Quatre Bras Bridge, the tenor of the march changed. They continued down Quatre Bras Street and a flood of other marchers suddenly joined them, shouting and singing their own songs. More imposing than the coldmongers, these men carried sledgehammers and clubs in addition to their torches.
One of them ran past Jane, laughing boisterously. He slapped her on the back as he passed. “Cheer up! Your Luddite brothers are here to support you!”
Hooting, another man thrust his torch to the sky. A third swept one of the smaller boys onto his shoulder and danced a jig as the little boy laughed and laughed. Thoroughly wild, they nevertheless fought back the gloomy night with much-needed cheer.
Jane, however, could think only of Major Curry and how he had been forced to fire upon the Luddites in the North. The danger of their situation seemed more apparent.
And the crowds they passed changed. The walkers crowded up against the walls of the shops by their passage scowled, or muttered imprecations, or even spat. The coldmongers gathered closer, but did not lose sight of their purpose. The Luddites shouted back, starting a chant of “Shame! Shame!”
Behind them, a mob of people now followed, but not to support them. These were here to watch the chaos.
At the head of the group of coldmongers, Mr. Lucas had pulled one of the younger boys up onto his saddle and rode with the lad kicking his heels in the air and singing lustily. By his side, impossible to miss, rode Mr. O’Brien on his fire-red mount, carrying the banner of the coldmongers. He kept turning in his saddle to watch Melody.
Jane had yet to get close enough to her sister for speech.
William nodded at Mr. O’Brien. “He’s something, ain’t he, Sir David? Told you as he was a great friend to the coldmongers.”
“That he is.”
“Having you with us, too—the Prince Regent’s glamourist—we got nothing to fear, now, do we?” The boy’s hero worship was all too apparent.
Vincent blanched and turned to Jane, the expression upon his face clear to her. By coming with them, he had given the coldmongers unfounded courage. The Prince Regent did not know, nor likely care, that Vincent was here. Yet leaving them would do nothing to stop the march.
Vincent handed Jane the reins of the horse, without a word, and bent down to talk to a boy who could not have been older than six. The poor child was flagging from the walk. With a smile, Vincent picked him up and swung him onto the saddle of the mare. The boy seized the horse’s mane with an infectious grin.
“Stop making it cold!” A gin bottle flew into the coldmongers’ ranks and dashed against the pavement. Glass flew everywhere, but thankfully no one was hit. That bottle, though, gave the mob following them courage.
Another bottle flew into their midst and hit a little boy on the back of his head. He staggered forward and dropped to his knees, blood trickling down his scalp.
“Scottie!” One of the women marching with them hurried over and picked him up.
He clung to her, bawling, and she carried him to the side of the crowd, pressing her handkerchief to his head.
The coldmongers tightened their ranks and sped up to a trot, pressing the ones in front of them forward at an ever-quicker pace. They began to sing “Joy to the World” with much spirit, making the song into an almost shouted chant.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.
They turned onto Lower Thames Street and the Tower of London stood in front of them. The great causeway across the moat stood empty, with only the two ceremonial guards standing at the far end. Jane breathed a sigh of relief. She had never been so glad to be wrong.
All day—for weeks, it seemed—she had been drawing conclusions grounded in nothing but her own fears. It was a relief. A profound relief, to be wrong in this instance above all the others.
The marchers slowed as they entered the causeway. Broad though it was, it was narrower than the street they had been marching on. Jane took advantage of this crowding to finally reach Melody.
She grasped her sister’s hand to keep her from getting away. “I am sorry. I was wrong and wrong again.”
Melody pulled away. “Let go.”
“I will.” She dropped her hand, knowing that this was no way to make her sister listen. “Please. I was wrong about Mr. O’Brien. I was wrong about how I treated you. I was wrong about—”
A cry went up from the front of the crowd, followed by shouts and a rush back. Mr. O’Brien raised the banner higher and faced them. “Be strong!”
She could not see over the heads of those in front of her to tell what had frightened them. The crowd in back of them heaved, also shouting with sudden fear.
From behind her, Vincent shouted, “Jane!”
She turned to look at him and saw the thing that had so terrified the coldmongers. A great line of British militia was stepping onto the causeway, with rifles at ready. They appeared to pop out of the air. Her heart seized in her chest. They had been hidden by a
Sphère Obscurcie
.
She turned to the front again and now caught glimpses of red coats appearing in front of the Tower. The coldmongers were well and truly caught.
Jane pulled Melody by the hand, trying to work her way to the side, where the space seemed somewhat clearer. Vincent was trying to reach them, but was caught in a pocket of coldmongers. Even if Jane could get to the side, she did not know what good that would do, since the only escape left was over the edge and into the putrid moat below.
A shout, almost lost in the crowd.
Then a shot.
Screaming began in earnest. The militia opened fire on them, driving the coldmongers into the middle of the bridge.
The little boy on her horse dropped, a single spot of red on his coat.
“Jane!” Vincent shouted. A mass of boys and red coats had him pinned, unable to reach her. Vincent twisted his hands, and an explosion seemed to rock the bridge.
She used the shock to push through the crowd and pull Melody to the edge. Jane threw her down by the stone wall, dropping beside her. If nothing else, they should stay low on the ground. Melody fought her, wildly. “Let go!”
“We have to stay down.”
“Alastar!” Melody reached her hand toward Mr. O’Brien.
He rode on his horse, turning it this way and that, trying to use its body to shield those that he could. The horse reared, whinnying, and the banner streamed against the sky. Red coats surrounded them and pulled Mr. O’Brien down.
A moment later, someone in a red coat reached down for them. “Miss Ellsworth! Come with me.” Major Curry, his rifle over his shoulder, pulled Melody to her feet. “It is not safe here.”
Relieved beyond measure to see him, Jane scrambled up and helped him support her sister. Melody was in hysterics, fighting them to get to Mr. O’Brien.
“Stop it. You can do nothing for him now.” Jane took Melody by the shoulders and held her until she stopped struggling. “We need to go to a place where we can help.”
Major Curry did not waste time with words. Together they half carried, half dragged Melody back across the causeway. Curry’s fellow soldiers strode among the coldmongers, beating them with their rifles. They were undiscerning as to the age of their victims, beating men and children alike, so long as they wore the blue armband of a coldmonger.
Vincent knelt on the ground supporting a limp body. Her husband held the boy’s hand and whispered to him.
“Major Curry—my husband.”
The Major did not slow down, but turned their path toward Vincent. Making certain that the Major had Melody, Jane ran forward to Vincent. “My love?”
“I think he is dead.” Vincent lifted his head, seeming to be unaware of the madness around them.
He held William.
The sign that the boy had been carrying lay next to them, the handle still in his grasp. Vincent held his other hand. “He was not when I got here. But I think he is now.”
Blood stained the boy’s shirt and coat and cooled between the cobbles on the bridge. His eyes had rolled back in his head so that the whites stared at the clouds. So much blood. Jane thought she had seen blood before, but it was as nothing to this.
Jane touched his throat, praying for a pulse, but found none.
Somehow Major Curry managed to get them a carriage and send them home. Jane had few memories of the time in between. She went from the bridge, to a memory of Melody leaning against her in the carriage, to one of helping Vincent remove his bloodied clothing.
The sight of his breeches, drenched through with William’s blood, reminded her too deeply of her miscarriage. She sent them out to be burned.
It did not seem possible, sitting in her bedroom beside Vincent, that they had been on a bridge being fired upon by British soldiers. It did not seem possible that William was dead.
William was dead. She tried the sound of that again in her mind. The young man who had been so excited to meet them, who had possessed too much pride to take a job when it was not needed, had been shot for carrying a sign to the Tower of London. It seemed too much to have saved him from the mob at the grocer’s and have him meet this needlessly tragic end. They had taken his body to St. Margaret Pattens church and sent word to the Coldmongers’ Company, hoping they would know his relations. Only a few coldmongers had returned from the march. More were detained. Many were dead.
As much as she tried to come to terms with what had happened, the enormity of it was too great, and Jane could only muster a stupefied ache. Vincent seemed more deeply affected. But then, he had held William as the life bled out of him.
Vincent stared into the fireplace with his arm around her. At times he would tremble, then it would pass, and he would go back to staring. Jane rubbed his chest and leaned her head upon his shoulder. Mrs. Brackett had set out a cold supper for them, but neither Vincent nor she had the appetite for it. Melody had retreated to her room.
Vincent trembled and sighed. “We have to tell Lord Stratton.”
Jane held still, remembering the confrontation in front of Lady Stratton. “They will know, surely.”
“We were there. They deserve a first-hand account.” Vincent pulled his arm from around Jane and leaned forward to sit with his elbows on his knees. He supported his head on his hands. “I feel particularly responsible, after today.”
“You tried everything in your power to stop the march.”
He made that small whine in the back of his throat. When he let his breath out fully, he said, “I was thinking of the oculist’s shop.”
Jane shifted on the sofa, pulling her shawl around her. “That was unfortunate, but it has no bearing on his arrest.”
“No. Had we behaved differently, however, we could have prevented other events from coming to a head.”
“I do not know if I am equal to speaking to this.” Jane stood and walked around the room. “I am ashamed.”
