Luke walked down to the city’s market stalls the next morning wearing his father’s shirt and the jacket he reclaimed from Rennie. There was a well beside the church, and he had sluiced as much blood from the clothing as he could, although a brown stain still marred his shirtfront. Thaddeus’s coat was in a sorry state, as well, but with repeated scrubbing the stain became nearly invisible against the dark fabric.
Luke needed to find something to cover Rennie with, however, before they could hope to board a stage unnoticed. He had little experience of women and their dresses, but he was under the impression that they usually made them at home, or had a seamstress sew them to order. He didn’t know if it was possible to buy anything ready-made.
His question was answered quickly at the market. There were several stalls that offered used clothing. These had likely been passed to servants by the more well-to-do ladies of the city, used for a time, then sold to ragpickers.
He found a skirt that she could use to cover the bottom of the bedraggled gown she wore, and a plaid shawl that she could wrap around her. There were grease spots on the skirt, and the edges of the shawl were frayed, but the discarded clothing was still in better repair than the clothing Rennie had been wearing when she arrived in Canada.
He was about to turn away, well-pleased with his purchases, when his eye caught a pair of boots tucked under the trestle table the ragpicker had set up in the stall. They had been of good quality originally, and although the leather was now cracked, they were still serviceable and had no holes. Luke negotiated a price with the picker that was more than he could afford to spend, but he reminded himself that he had made a promise to Mary.
His other promises had led him only to disaster, he reflected as he walked back toward the church. He had promised that he would look for Anna Porter’s remaining family — he had done so, only to find one already dead and the other rushing headlong on a path to destruction. He was still profoundly shaken by what had happened to Jack Porter — he could not have imagined that so much blood could spill out of one body in so short a time. He spared a sorry thought for Flea Mullen, and David Porter as well. Was there not enough dying already, without making more corpses in senseless acts of revenge?
It had been too dark under the church shed to check whether or not the half-note that had fluttered to the ground matched the half that Henry Gallagher had given him, but now he stopped and fished both of them out of his pocket. Although the cut edges were a little worn and bent from wear, it was clear that they belonged together. The numbers and the images lined up perfectly. He would have to return the mutilated note to Henry, along with an explanation of what had had occurred. He would have to get it straight in his own mind first, before he could commit it to paper, but as he thought about the sequence of events, he felt a profound despair at the thought of having to relate such a depressing tale. Time enough for that later, he decided, once everyone was safe.
Rennie looked, if not distinguished, at least presentable in her new finery. They could be mistaken, Luke judged, for two gentlemen of modest means travelling with a servant girl. They walked east until they found a staging inn and boarded with two other people, a farmer and his wife, who continued with them until Whitby, severely limiting their opportunity to discuss the events of the day before.
Thaddeus, as the least recognizable of the three of them, strolled past the Whitby wharves by himself, keeping a sharp eye out for anyone who seemed too interested in his movements. He was relieved to see that the steamer that was waiting at the dock was not The Bellweather, but a packet ship that ran a regular route between the Lake Ontario ports. After he reported that all seemed normal, he returned and bought three tickets, and Luke and Rennie clambered aboard the vessel just as the final whistle was blowing.
There were only a few other passengers aboard. It was late in the season and the autumnal storms caused heavy swells on Lake Ontario, making travel uncomfortable and more perilous. There was a well-dressed family with five children who were huddled by the stove, and three businessmen with warm wool chesterfield coats and tall hats conversed amongst themselves, commenting on the weather and the lack of business in Canada. At the other end of the cabin were five more modestly dressed men who had pulled their flat old-fashioned hats low over their brows as they stretched themselves out on the benches. Two of them had wound woolen mufflers around their faces in anticipation of the creeping, damp cold that would soon pervade the cabin in spite of the stove.
Thaddeus, Luke, and Rennie claimed a corner of the passenger cabin for themselves, and by the time the packet had reached the swell of the lake they had all fallen asleep.