I went to Belinda’s, but even before I knocked, I sensed she wasn’t home. The entire place was dark. No one answered the door, and wearily I climbed back into the hansom cab, directing it to drive on to my street.
My house was cold, but I was too tired to make a fire.
With my coat still on, I collapsed into my most comfortable chair. I dropped my hands limply over the cushioned arms, tipped my head back, and closed my eyes.
I must have slept, for the room was dark as pitch when I heard a key scrape in the front door lock. My eyes flew open.
“I wonder where he is,” came Belinda’s voice.
“I’ll light a lamp,” said Harry. I heard his two suitcases thunk to the floor in the entryway, and then came the scratch of a match and the squeak of the lamp key.
I didn’t want to startle them, but there was no help for it. “I’m here.”
By the light of the lamp, I could see Belinda. One of her hands held a sack with a loaf of bread sticking out of the top; her other hand was just below her throat, and her eyes were wide and peering at me. “What are you doing sitting in the dark? Are you all right?”
“Just arrived home,” I said, rising from the chair. Every muscle in my back and legs ached. “I went to your house first, but no one answered.”
“I gave the servants the evening off. We must have just missed you. Harry had to stop at the hospital first.” Belinda came toward me. “Is it finished?”
I nodded. I didn’t have it in me to explain everything. Not now. And she understood, for she rested her open hand on my chest and said only, “I’m glad.”
Harry came toward me. He looked taller, somehow, though it had only been three weeks.
“Mrs. Gale told me about Colin,” he said awkwardly. “I’m very sorry, truly.”
“You didn’t know him well, did you?” I asked.
Harry hesitated. “I was only with the Doyles for a few days, back when I first arrived in London. Colin was gone a good deal. Busy with work, I expect,” he added hastily, as if to excuse him.
I smiled my thanks at his kindness.
“How are Aunt Mary and Elsie?” he asked.
“Grieving, but they’ll manage,” I said.
“Have you had supper?” Belinda asked, and when I shook my head, she set the sack on the table and removed the loaf of bread. “Harry and I haven’t either. I’ll make some tea.”
“I’ll lay the fire,” Harry said. “After I put my cases away.”
I heard his boots clomping up the wooden stairs, and I followed Belinda into the kitchen. “How did you happen to arrive together?”
“Oh, he stopped at my house first,” she said as she set the kettle to boil. “I’d forgotten some things at my sister’s, so I asked him to bring them down for me.”
“Ah.”
She emptied the sack, set it aside, and turned, so she could look me full in the face. “Are you all right, truly?”
“Just tired. And hungry.” I swallowed. “The food will do me good.”
She wrapped one arm around my shoulder and laid her palm against my cheek. I took her into my arms and kissed her deeply, feeling some of the hard ache of the past two weeks soften.
At last, she broke away, and her eyes, dark and somber, met mine.
“I’ve been so sad for you about Colin. And so worried,” she murmured. “Ever since I heard about Lord Baynes-Hill. His poor wife. It’s just wretched, all of it. Do you know who killed him?”
“Houghton did, by his own hand.”
“Dear lord.” She shivered. “How could a man be so … depraved?”
“Fanatical,” I said. “With hate. He’s had years to let it fester inside him.” I remembered what she didn’t know and added, “His wife was with child when she died.”
Her mouth formed an O.
Together we listened as Harry came down the stairs, opened the coal hod, and scraped out the ash. The mundane sound was surprisingly pleasant to my ear. I kissed her again and drew her close.
Her breath was warm on my cheek. “Now, go talk to him. I’m certain he wants to tell you about it, but he won’t unless you ask.”
I went in and sat. “How was Edinburgh? Was it worthwhile?”
Harry hung the poker back on its hook before he sank into the chair opposite. He pushed his hair out of his eyes, studying me for a moment as if to assure himself of my interest. “It was astonishing,” he said fervently. “The most exciting, marvelous three weeks I’ve ever had.”
“Oh?” I settled back. “What did you do?”
“I was allowed to watch everything,” he said, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. “Surgery began each morning at eight o’clock, and I could sit in the amphitheater all day, until they finished at half past six. No one minded at all. There were nine different surgeons who came and went, but there were three that I followed particularly. They were more careful, more studied in their approach, and none of their patients became infected or died afterward. I saw them operate on lungs, hearts, legs, arms—even an appendix.”
“That sounds interesting,” I said, trying to add enthusiasm into my voice.
“It was brilliant. Yesterday, Dr. Finley operated on a woman with boils, here.” He tapped the back of his neck. “She’d begun to have tremors and was losing her sight. He removed the boils, and when she woke from the chloroform, her vision was wholly restored, and her tremors were completely gone!”
“That’s remarkable,” I said. “When does James think you’ll be able to attend?”
His excitement diminished. “Eighteen months,” he said philosophically. “They don’t take students any younger. But Dr. Everett says he’ll help me learn as much as I can before I go. And I brought home some of the books they assign in the first year. That’s why I needed a second case.”
Belinda entered, carrying a tray with some bread and cheese and ham, and three cups of tea.
“Mrs. Gale told me some of what happened,” Harry said. “The Princess Alice and all. How that League stirred up trouble for the Irish.” He tore a piece of bread and buttered it generously. “There was a man at the hospital who refused to be treated by Dr. McWynn because his name is Irish—although it was just stupid because he was born in Liverpool. He was one of the best surgeons there, too.” He grimaced. “It made me grateful Father’s last name is English, and I was born in Leeds.”
Yes, it was probably for the best that his Irish half could remain safely tucked away, at least for the foreseeable future.
Belinda curled herself up in one of the chairs, drawing her shawl closely around her. “Do you think home rule talks will move forward again, now that people understand it wasn’t the IRB behind the railway crash or the Princess Alice? It would seem the best way to honor Lord Baynes-Hill’s legacy.”
“Perhaps.” I took up the poker and nudged some of the coals toward the center of the fire. “I hope the newspapers do what they can to disseminate the truth.”
“Not everyone reads the papers,” Harry said. “Besides, they get it wrong sometimes.”
“True enough,” I acknowledged.
“Will the League of Stewards be shut down?” Belinda asked.
“I doubt it,” I said, “as most of the members aren’t directly linked to the disasters or the murder of Lord Baynes-Hill.”
“That doesn’t seem right.” Harry frowned. “They only exist to cause trouble.”
“It isn’t against the law,” I said. “But the police will certainly be aware of their movements now, and that’s something.”
The warm food, the fire, and Harry and Belinda’s easy conversation lulled me to tranquility and then to drowsiness. I woke to Belinda’s hand on my shoulder. I squinted up at her.
“You should go to bed,” she said. “My carriage is here.”
I looked around the room. “Where’s Harry?”
“Upstairs, just now.”
I fumbled my way to standing. “I’ll call tomorrow, love, when I’m awake,” I said as I helped her into her coat.
She gazed up at me, her mouth curving in a smile. Just knowing she only looks at me with that much love in her eyes slays me nearly every time. With Harry upstairs, I took the opportunity to take her beautiful face in my hands and kiss her goodbye fiercely, for a long moment, hoping she would take from it everything I wished to convey—gratitude, admiration, love—and regret that I was so damned tired that I had nothing left for her tonight. Eventually I let her go, and her face was tender. “Sleep well,” she whispered. I nodded, opened the door, escorted her to her carriage, and helped her in. I kept hold of her hand for an extra moment, anticipating the cold feeling when I let her go. I never liked it.
Inside, I started upstairs to my bedroom, my feet heavy. Harry waited on the landing, at the threshold of his bedroom, with the lantern, and I bid him goodnight.
“Will you be going to the Doyles’s for tea on Sunday?” he asked.
My hand on the doorknob, I turned. Again, it struck me that he looked taller than when he’d left. But perhaps my memory was of him when he first came, not as he was a few weeks ago. Memory could be deceitful that way.
“I plan to,” I replied.
“I’d like to come,” he said.
“I’m sure they’d like that. Only, I wouldn’t share too many of the details about the surgeries, if I were you,” I added. “The boils and all.”
His grin flashed and then faded. “You couldn’t have kept me from going, you know,” he said hesitantly. “To Edinburgh.”
I frowned, not understanding. “Why would I have wanted to?”
“Well, you wouldn’t,” he said. “But if you had wanted to, you couldn’t have. I’d have gone anyway.” A strained, apologetic look came over his face. “I was thinking of Colin.”
Now I understood. He meant to take some of the blame off my shoulders. “Your aunt Mary said the same, but it’s hard not to feel that if I’d only said something different …”
“I know, but …” He swallowed. “I want you to know you did right by me.” His face was earnest. “Taking me in and bringing me to the hospital that first day. I behaved like an ungrateful, sulky brat, and you were still good to me. Better than I deserved.”
His gratitude twisted something inside my chest, but I managed a smile. “It’s good to have you home, Harry.”
I opened the door and realized with surprise that the room lacked its usual chill. The stove was throwing off heat. Harry must have lit this one as well as the one in his own room. I turned back to him. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “Good night.”
I shut the door, thinking that Harry would be a good doctor someday. He understood what it was to be considerate, to care for people. I should remember to tell him so.
His door closed in a soft echo of my own.
The burning coals cast a golden light, but not so much that I couldn’t see outside my window. I peered out in one direction and then the other, down my long street, with gas lamps at regular intervals and half a dozen roads crossing it, one small section in London’s large web. I watched a lone carriage roll along the cobbles and around the corner. Across the way were windows, some lit but most darkened. A gray, skirted shadow moved behind a curtain. The glow of a lamp moved from one room to another.
At that moment, I felt myself connected to every denizen in the entire, sprawling city. All of us across London, across England and beyond, striving and managing, losing and learning. The work of life was as varied as grieving a death and sweeping the ash from the hearth, plying a trade and putting on the water for tea, forgiving one’s own worst mistakes and remembering to thank someone for a kindness.
From Harry’s room came a loud sneeze. Bless you, I thought. Another sneeze followed by what sounded like the cutting of a book’s pages with a paper knife. Harry would probably read late into the night.
The thought reminded me of McCabe’s note, unread in my pocket.
My stomach tightened.
I’ll read it tomorrow, I thought as I undressed. I drew on my nightshirt and climbed into bed. The sheets were cool on my skin, although the stove had done its work and warmed the room. I closed my eyes. But a moment later I opened them.
I couldn’t sleep until I knew what McCabe had written.
Barefoot, I felt my way downstairs in the dark, slid my hand into my coat pocket, and drew the missive out. Then I climbed the stairs to my room, relit my lamp, and opened it. There were only two lines:
You told me the truth. I owe you. My grandfather told me what happened to your mother.
The paper shook in my hands, and the words blurred and came into focus as I read them once more and then yet again. I shivered, chilled down to my bones, as if I’d been thrown into the Thames in the middle of winter.
Dear God. My breath came in shallow, jagged gasps. After all this time.
As the first shock subsided, my mind began to work properly again, and I realized it wasn’t impossible that McCabe knew something about her. McCabe’s grandfather’s reach and influence extended into Whitechapel in the 1860s, and he could have passed anything he knew down to his grandson. But what had my mother been or done that McCabe’s grandfather would know of her?
Next came a wave of anger at McCabe for keeping this secret—a secret that mattered terribly to me—for God knows how long.
Fast on the heels of anger came uncertainty. Did I want to know? If my mother was still alive, of course I did. But what if she’d died a gruesome death? I gulped and stared up at my ceiling. There was a crack in it that seemed to have widened of late.
I lay the paper on the washstand and turned down the lamp. I stood again at the window. There were fewer lights in the windows opposite now. Most of them were dark, like mine would appear to anyone looking. Perhaps someone else was awake and troubled and alone.
Whatever McCabe could tell me about my mother could bring me any amount of fresh pain.
I sank down onto the bed and dropped my head into my hands, already feeling a weight gathering in my chest. Lord Baynes-Hill had spoken of regret being a heavy weight. But the thought of my mother brought more than regret. It brought grief and despair that had once nearly broken me.
The thought recalled Ma’s words about her own mother. How every grief showed her what she could bear.
I knew what Ma would say if she was here.
I lifted my head and took one deep breath. And then another.
This weight, I thought. My pieces.
These pieces had a heft that did not ever wholly evaporate into the air of everyday life. My despair over the loss of my mother, my grief over the deaths of Pat and Colin, my regret for my ignorance, my shame for my mistakes, my pain over hurting the people I love—these were ugly, rough-edged shards that cut me sometimes when I touched them. But each shard was also a piece of ballast that lodged inside my heart. Lumped together, perhaps they could guard me from steering once more into the rocks and steady me in the face of the next storm.
They were—if nothing else—my own.
My hand crept up to land on my chest, as if the ballast were a physical thing that I could hold in place.
Let me not lose this, I thought, and my plea was as desperate as any I’d ever made. For I have earned it honestly, and it is mine.
I had a feeling I would need it soon.