Chapter Twenty-One

What to do? Nothing in his life had prepared Avon for what he had just witnessed. He was familiar with the hard and callous side of life – it was all he knew – but to see someone so cavalierly take a life that was going out anyway… He couldn’t fathom it.

He walked slowly, unmindful of the rain because it matched his mood. He wondered that anyone inhabited Scotland. Had they no imagination? Did it never occur to Scots that there might be something better than this?

No one gave him a glance from under their umbrellas. Maybe people were eager to get home to a warm hearth and food. He trudged on, stunned by what he had witnessed, even though his life had been full of hard knocks. How could they?

He didn’t know what to say, but he knew he could not remain silent at such injustice. He hadn’t the courage to go up the front steps of the cheerful, well-lit house and act as if nothing had happened. He walked back and forth, feeling more alone than at any time in his life.

To his surprise, Miss Teague opened the door and peered out. “Avon,” was all she said, but she opened the door wider and gestured him inside.

“Please, miss,” was all Avon said, before tears came to his eyes and spilled over. It had been a terrible afternoon and now it was nearly dark.

“My goodness,” she said, but she came out, not minding the rain. “Avon, what happened?”

She was looking at him, as if she saw something he was unaware of. To turn his dark day lighter, Miss Teague put her hand on his shoulder and pulled him close. In another moment they were both sitting on the floor in the entryway, because his legs failed him.

Why didn’t this phase her? Miss Teague handed him a frilly, nearly useless handkerchief and he blew his nose.

“I hope you haven’t been wandering around, wondering if I would let you inside,” Miss Teague said.

He knew it wasn’t a scold, but more of a kindness. To his amazement, she nudged him as they say there on the floor, a friendly gesture. “Let me get you a big towel.”

“Not, not yet,” he said. “Can we just sit together for another moment? It…it feels good.”

Now why that should bring tears to Miss Teague’s eyes, Avon had no idea. He blew his nose again.

“Certainly we may,” she said promptly, which meant he had to stuff the handkerchief against his eyes after he found a clean spot. Where was all this coming from? Why was he feeling this way?

Miss Teague did something them that cemented him to her forever. She put her arm around his shoulders and said, “You can lean against me, too, Avon. It does feel good.”

He wondered briefly if she had wanted someone as much as he did. Oh, but she was a calm and organized lady, living in comfort and probably never missing a meal or a night’s sleep. What did she have to ruffle her days? Never mind. He could think about it later. Right now, right here, he closed his eyes in relief.

The moment passed quickly. Mrs. Perry would probably scold, if she saw all the mud he had carried in. Surely Miss Teague had noticed, and was just being kind. “I’m sorry to make a mess,” he said. “This is such a nice house and I…I suppose I don’t really belong here.”

She could have said anything then. To his further relief, she laughed. “Avon, I don’t belong here, either, but here we are. I’m pretending I know how to take care of Gunwharf Rats, and you’re probably feeling out of place in stuffy Edinburgh.”

“But you’re in charge,” he said, unused to opinions of others kindly spoken. True, the Sixes, all of them, were kindness personified, but Miss Teague had likely been informed by Mrs. Munro that she would admit two strange lads to her house on Wilmer Street and not argue about it, because she had no more standing than he did, in all likelihood. The idea gave him pause.

“Strictly speaking, it is Mrs. Munro’s house,” she said, then appeared to give the matter some thought. He watched her face, aware that she would never win at cards in a gaming hell. Her face was so expressive. Everyone would cheat her. She had a dimple, too, larger than Davey’s.

“Mrs. Munro is a long way from here and you are in charge,” he reminded her.

“So I am,” she replied.

In a short life of fearsome, fraught days of deprivation, humiliation, hunger, war, death and triumph, this was the day Avon knew he would remember and treasure above all else. Something was happening to him as he sat on the floor beside a lady who had suddenly turned into someone both memorable and essential. Was this what a mother felt like? He had no real way of knowing, except that he knew he never wanted to leave her kind orbit.

This is what belonging feels like, he told himself. I wonder if Miss Teague feels the same way. He wanted to ask her, but he didn’t even know the words.

He could try. “I hope you don’t mind us here,” he said.

She tightened her grip on his shoulder, he who observed and watched and skulked, almost as if he belonged to her. Would she even understand what he had to tell her? “Something awful happened this afternoon,” he said. “I need to tell Davey, but I want you to know, too, because it frightened me.”

“I thought something was wrong,” Miss Teague said simply. “Let’s figure out what to do. Whatever it is, you’re not in this alone. Problems are best solved with more than one or two opinions.”

Oh bliss. He wasn’t going to be alone, maybe not ever again. He stood up and offered Miss Teague a hand up. She took it and they walked into the kitchen, in league with each other, united to help him do…what? He knew he had never been young. Was this what it felt like to let others do the worrying? He felt his shoulders relax for the first time in his life, and he liked the feeling.

He sat at the kitchen table, then closed his eyes and put his hands over his face, uncertain how to deal with the terror of the last few hours, followed by the equally strong feeling that his life had taken an unexpected turn. He heard Miss Teague and Mrs. Perry speaking softly, and he recognized the same gentle conversation he sometimes heard between the Master and Meridee Six, if he was really lucky. Was he eavesdropping? No, he was learning how people lived. His heart rejoiced.

His cup ran over even more when Miss Teague set a thick slice of warm bread, well buttered, in front of him. She rested her hand on his shoulder for a brief moment, then gave it a pat. “This should tide you over until Davey gets here.”

“Aye, Miss Teague,” he said. Another slice followed the one he finished too fast, and then another. He surprised himself again as he looked down at a third slice, equally well-buttered. A workhouse boy, no matter how full, would have gulped it down, too, since nothing in his life was guaranteed.

Miss Teague sat across from him. He wondered if she would understand. “I don’t think I’m hungry now,” he told her. “I think I’m full.”

“They were big slices,” she said.

He looked beyond her at Mrs. Perry, and saw the tears in her eyes. She understood. “I’ll go wash up,” he told them both, and went into the next room with its tub and basins and towels, and soap, all he wanted. Some instinct told him that Mrs. Perry would explain to Miss Teague that workhouse boys were never full, and that this moment for Avon was a memorable one. He was full.

Dash it all. He saw the tears in Miss Teague’s eyes when he came from the washing room, uncertain himself how to negotiate this new way of feeling. He didn’t want her pity, if that’s what her tears meant, and he didn’t want to cause her pain. All he could do now was mumble something about going upstairs to think about things, and wait for Davey, someone older and perhaps wiser.

He must have dozed then. When he woke, it was full dark and Davey was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Avon had always been somewhat in awe of Davey Ten, a quiet and immensely capable Gunwharf Rat who had not flinched or faltered at Trafalgar, and who had endured a year of silence and more at the college of medicine.

Avon tested his new-found epiphany, telling him about the novelty of realizing that ordinary people didn’t devour food because they knew there would be more. He didn’t think he explained himself well, and in truth, the whole business of having enough of something did seem silly, childish even. “Never thought I’d see the day when two pieces of bread was enough, and a third one too much,” he said, knowing how lame he sounded.

Davey laughed softly, but it was not a mean laugh. “I discovered that at Mrs. Munro’s house back in Portsmouth. The Sixes took me there one evening. The matter was sirloin, and all those courses, from soup to salad to fish to venison to... oh, whatever else. I couldn’t finish what was on my plate, and I wondered what was wrong with me.” He sat up and poked at Avon playfully with his foot. “Damn me, Avon, but you explained that rather well. I think you should trade your skulking garb for a barrister’s robes!”

They both laughed at the absurdity of that notion, but Davey turned serious, true to his nature, or so Avon had observed through their years together. “And here we are. The world is at war and I am to become a physician. What do you want to be? A skulker?”

Avon thought Davey was teasing, but then, it was hard to tell with Davey. Since everything had changed for him, he gave the matter some thought. “Someone who finds out other people’s secrets like Captain Ogilvie?” Then came a wry smile. “I don’t believe I want to, the same as deciding I didn’t need that third slice of bread.”

“D’ye think Captain Ogilvie likes what he does?” Davey asked.

Avon had never considered that, but his answer came quickly. “I wouldn’t.”

“I heard Master Six say once that we all dance to Napoleon’s piping tune,” Davey replied. “Him, Captain Ogilvie, me, you.” He looked beyond Avon. “Maybe even Miss Teague, now that we have been foisted upon her. Do you think she minds?”

Avon heard Miss Teague calling them to dinner. Did she mind? He needed to know.

Davey started to rise obediently, but Avon reached out his hand to hold him in place. “I watched two students smother a dying man in the indigent ward this afternoon,” he said quietly. “I’m not saying the old boy wasn’t on his way out, because he was. Still, he had life in him until they snuffed it.” His voice hardened; he couldn’t help it. “The other one said he didn’t want to be late to supper. They laughed.”

Davey sat back, startled, but not surprised, Avon noticed. “They were probably your classmates.”

He heard Miss Teague again. “We have to go,” Davey said.

“There’s more.”

“Will it keep? We shouldn’t keep Miss Teague waiting.”

Avon nodded. “It will keep. “T’old man is past caring.” He shook his head. “Maybe it shouldn’t bother me. Maybe it was mercy. Except…”

“It’ll keep.”

“Should we tell her?” Avon said, indecisive now. What would Miss Teague think of them? Maybe there was no one they could trust with this awful turn of events.