was? Was it his job to protect them from fear, as well as actual physical danger?
Or would lying by omission make them act less urgently? He had thought about that on the train, and vacillated one way and then the other, making up his mind, and as quickly unmaking it.
“Why are yer ’ere, then?” Gracie’s voice cut across his thoughts. “If nothin’s wrong, why aren’t yer in the city doin’ yer job? ’Oo killed the ghosty woman? Yer get that all sorted?”
“No,” he answered, moving inside to allow her to close the door. He looked at her pale, set face and the rigidity of her body inside her hand-me-down country dress, and he had to fight to keep the emotion down, stop it from tightening his throat until he couldn’t get the words out. “Mr. Pitt’s working on it. There’s been another death he needs to prove isn’t suicide.”
“So why aren’t yer doin’ summink about it, too?” Gracie was far from satisfied. “Yer look like summink the cat drug in. Wot’s the matter wif yer?”
He could see she was going to fight him all the way. It was infuriating, and yet so characteristic of her he felt tears sting his eyes. This was ridiculous! He should not allow her to do this to him!
“Mr. Pitt isn’t satisfied this is a safe place for you,” he said tartly. “Mr. Voisey knows where you are, and I’m to take you somewhere else straightaway. There’s probably no danger, but best be safe.” He saw the fear in Charlotte’s face and knew that for all Gracie’s bravado, they were just as aware as Pitt that the danger was real. He swallowed. “So if you’ll get the children up and dressed we’ll go tonight, while it’s dark. Doesn’t stay long, this time of year. We need to be well out of the area in three or four hours, because it’ll be daylight by then.”
Charlotte stood motionless. “Are you sure Thomas is all right?” Her voice was sharp, edged with doubt, her eyes wide.
If he told her, it would relieve Pitt from having to try to find a way when they finally got back to London. And perhaps it would ease her physical fear for him. Voisey would never damage him now, he was too precious alive, to watch him suffer.
“Samuel!” Gracie demanded sharply.
“Well, he is and he isn’t,” he replied. “Voisey’s made it look like it was Mr. Pitt’s fault that this man committed suicide, and he was a churchman, very well liked. Of course it wasn’t, and we’ll get to prove it. .” That was a pretty wild piece of optimism. “But for now the newspapers are giving him a hard time. But will you please go and get the children up, and put your things into cases, or whatever you brought them in. We haven’t got time to stand here and argue it out!”
Charlotte moved to obey.
“I suppose I’d better pack up the kitchen,” Gracie said, darting Tellman a fierce look. “Well, don’t just stand there! Yer look as starved as an alley cat! Come ’ave a slice o’ bread an’ jam while I pack up wot we got. No sense leaving it ’ere! An’ yer can carry it out ter wotever kind o’ cart yer got out there. Wot ’ave yer got, anyway?”
“It’ll do,” he answered. “Make me a slice, and I’ll eat it on the way.”
She shivered, and he noticed that her hands were clenched, knuckles white.
“I’m sorry!” he said with a wave of feeling so intense his voice was husky. “There’s no need to be afraid, Gracie. I’ll look after you!” He reached out to touch her, a stab of physical memory bringing back the moment he had kissed her when they were following after Remus in the Whitechapel affair. “I will!”
She looked away from him and sniffed. “I know yer will, yer daft ’aporth,” she said savagely. “An’ all of us! One-man army, y’are. Now do summink useful an’ get these things inter a box an’ take ’em out to yer cart, or wotever it is. An’ wait! Put that light out ’afore yer open the door!”
He froze. “Is someone watching you?”
“I dunno! But they could be, couldn’t they?” She started to take things out of the cupboards and put them into a wicker laundry basket. In the dim candlelight he saw two loaves of bread, a large pot of butter, a leg of ham, biscuits, half a cake, two jars of jam, and other tins and boxes he couldn’t name.
When the basket was full enough he shaded the candle with his hand, opened the door, and then, blowing out the flame and picking up the basket, he stumbled his way to the cart, several times barely missing tripping over the uneven path.
Fifteen minutes later they were all sitting wedged in, Edward shivering, Daniel half asleep, Jemima sitting awkwardly between Gracie and Charlotte, her arms gripped tightly around herself. Tellman urged the horse forward and they began to move, but the feeling was extremely different from when he had driven in. Now the cart was heavily laden and the night was so black it was hard to know how even the horse could find its way. He also had very little idea where they were going. Paignton was the obvious place, the first that anyone Voisey employed would think to look. Perhaps the opposite direction was equally obvious? Maybe there was somewhere off to the side? Where else was there a station? By train they could go anywhere! How much money had he left? They had to pay for lodgings and food as well as tickets.
Pitt had said a town, somewhere with lots of people. That meant Paignton or Torquay. But back at the Ivybridge station they would be remembered all standing together waiting for the first train. The stationmaster would be able to tell anyone who asked exactly where they went.
As if reading his thoughts, even in the dark, Gracie spoke. “Where are we goin’, then?”
“Exeter,” he said without hesitation.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because it isn’t really a holiday place,” he replied. It seemed as good an answer as any other.
They drove in silence for a quarter of an hour. The darkness and the weight of the cart made them slow, but he could not urge the horse any more. If it slipped, or went lame, they were lost. They must be over a mile from Harford and the cottage by now. The road was not bad and the horse was finding its way with more ease. Tellman began to relax a little. None of the difficulties he had feared had come to pass.
The horse pulled up abruptly. Tellman nearly fell off the seat, and saved himself only by grabbing hold of it at the last moment.
Gracie stifled a shriek.
“What is it?” Charlotte said sharply.
There was someone on the road ahead of them. Peering forward, Tellman could just make out the dark shape in the gloom. Then a voice spoke quite clearly, only a yard or so away.
“Now, where are you going at this time o’ the night? Mistress Pitt, isn’t it? From Harford way? You shouldn’t be out at this hour. Get lost, you will. Or have an accident.” It was a man’s voice, deep and with a lift of sarcasm to it.
Tellman heard Gracie gasp with fear. The fact that the man had used Charlotte’s name meant that he knew them. Was it intended as a threat? Was he the watcher who had told Voisey where they were?
The horse shook its head as if someone were holding its bridle. The darkness prevented Tellman from seeing. He hoped it also prevented the man from seeing him. How did he know who they were? He must have been watching and ridden ahead, knowing they would come this way. If he had seen Tellman go to the cottage door and then carry the boxes out, then it meant he had been there all the time. He had to be Voisey’s man. He had come ahead of them here into this lonely stretch of road between Harford and Ivybridge to catch them where there was no one to see, or to help. And there was no one-except Tellman. Everything rested with him.
What could he use for a weapon? He remembered packing a bottle of vinegar. It was half empty, but there was enough in it still to give it weight. But he daren’t ask Gracie for it aloud. The man would hear him. And he did not know how she had stacked the basket!
He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Vinegar!”
“Wha. . oh.” She understood. She slid back a little and started feeling for the bottle. Tellman made some move himself to cover the sounds, climbing off the box and slithering down the side of the cart until his feet touched the ground. He felt his way around to the back, hand over hand on the rough wood, and was coming around on the other side when he made out in the gloom the figure of a man ahead of him. Then he felt a smooth weight against his forearm and Gracie’s breath on his cheek. He took the vinegar bottle from her hand. He could see the dark shape of Charlotte, with her arms around the children.
“It’s you again!” Gracie’s voice came clearly from just beside him, but she was speaking to the man at the horse’s head, drawing his attention. “Wot yer doin’ out ’ere in the middle o’ the night, then? We’re goin’ ’cos we got a family emergency. Yer got one, too, ‘ave yer?”
“That’s a shame,” the man replied, the expression in his voice impossible to read. “Going back to London, then?”
