Hide Me Among the Graves

“We might do that,” said McKee, surprising Crawford. “But is there anything … quicker? Something we could do today, tomorrow?”

This time Trelawny was silent for so long that Crawford wondered if the man had forgotten the question.

“There’s a certain crazy trick,” he said at last. “Have you ever heard of the translator men in St. Giles?”

McKee grimaced. “Devil worshippers, I’ve heard.”

“Not good Christians, certainly — not their clients, at any rate. But the trouble is that Miss Diamonds is a good Christian, and you’d need her cooperation — hell, you’d need her presence there. She should do it — she’s got amends to make, like us all — but it’d be wrong to tie her up and take her there by force.” He paused and then nodded. “Yes, that would be wrong.”

“Devil worshippers?” ventured Crawford.

“They make shoes to hide you from God,” said Johanna solemnly.

“That’s right, my dear,” said Trelawny. “And their clients pay a lot too, silly fools, to hide from somebody who’s not even there in the first place. But … if there were someone there, their trick might work.” He squinted at Johanna. “And you’re in a position where there is someone there to hide from.”

Crawford was frowning. “If you don’t believe God exists,” he began — Trelawny glowered but didn’t contradict him, so he went on—“then why do you have the Mud Larks baptized?”

Trelawny visibly restrained himself from throwing an angry glance at Johanna.

“Pascal’s wager,” he snapped. “Dunking them and saying the words is no trouble or expense, and if there should be a God, the Larks are thus benefited. If not, I’m nothing out of pocket. If baptisms cost a penny a shot, I wouldn’t bother.”

“I presume you’ve been baptized yourself, then,” Crawford went on.

Trelawny spat. “I won’t unmake who I am. If I thought there were more than a negligible chance of such a being existing, I’d get a pair of translator shoes myself.”

“How do they work?” asked McKee. “These shoes.”

“They don’t, Miss Rahab — they can’t, as I just now said. But what they aim to do is deflect — refract, reflect! — the special mutual awareness between redeemer and redeemed. Hah! To make the shoes, they use consecrated wine from a Catholic Church — what they believe is the blood of their Redeemer. I don’t believe people have a Redeemer … but Polidori surely has one, and with luck you can talk her into contributing some of her blood for a special pair of shoes — the blood she rubbed on him years ago to quicken him. With that blood fixed in your daughter’s shoes, your daughter will seem to his special sight to be just a stray reflection of the actual living Miss Diamonds.”

Crawford tried to imagine talking Christina Rossetti into cooperating in this. “Wouldn’t your blood work?” he asked. “You’re the — what did you say? — the Rosetta stone between the species?”

“Impersonally, at a distance — like the tidal effects of the sun compared to those of the moon. Miss Diamonds is Polidori’s immediate redeemer, by her personal blood.”

“You think, then,” said McKee dubiously, “that this has a chance of actually working?”

Trelawny pursed his scarred lips. “I’d be very surprised if it did. But I wouldn’t be … astonished.” He turned and began striding away from the river, toward the close pillars and the pavement of George Street.

Crawford raised a hand, intending to call him back, then just let his hand fall.

“So much for our ambush idea,” he said.

McKee shrugged. “We could do what Trelawny’s daughter did. Sail to America. Or France — Trelawny said that might do. The Magdalen Penitentiary might still front me money for passage, if I undertake to work it off as a domestic servant.”

“I could buy three tickets,” said Crawford, squinting thoughtfully. “To France, at least. And we’d want some money for food and lodging. I might need to convert some things to cash.”

“In the meantime,” said Johanna glumly, “there’s the blood shoes.”

“One way or another,” said McKee, “we need to talk to Sister Christina again.” She started to walk away in the direction Trelawny had taken, but Crawford caught her arm.

“If passage to America should be possible — or to France, I can certainly afford that — for the three of us here, you’d do it?” Suddenly he despised his own circumlocution, and he said directly, “Would you come with me, and leave Tom?” His heart was beating rapidly.

“Yes,” said McKee in a level tone, “if that would save Johanna.”

Crawford nodded. “Are you married to this Tom fellow?”

McKee raised her chin. “Common law.”

“Will you marry me? Properly?”

For several seconds, McKee didn’t speak. Crawford could peripherally see Johanna staring intently at them, but he didn’t take his gaze from McKee’s.

She looked away. “That would probably be necessary, for us to get travel documents with our child.”

Johanna exhaled audibly through her teeth.

“What I mean is,” persisted Crawford, “do you want to marry me?”

McKee looked at him almost angrily. “Do you want to marry me?”

“Yes,” said Crawford. “As I have for seven years.” He was still holding her elbow.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, if you’ve got to have it said straight out. I still think you saw that in my head, then, in that tunnel.”

Johanna clapped her hands. “Oh, well done, you two.”

Crawford couldn’t take a deep breath, and just nodded. He took Johanna’s hand in one of his, and McKee’s in the other, and started walking back up the pier toward the pillars and the Strand beyond. McKee was looking only straight ahead, but she was holding his hand tightly.

“Where does Johanna sleep?” she asked finally. “At your house.”

“It’s been Mrs. Middleditch’s old room, on the second floor,” said Crawford. “You didn’t meet her, though, did you? But last night we both wound up in the basement, and I think I’m going to set up two beds down there, for now.”

“Could you set up a third bed? Over on Johanna’s side of the stove?”

“Easiest thing in the world,” said Crawford.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Listen, listen! Everywhere

A low voice is calling me,

And a step is on the stair,

And one comes ye do not see,

Listen, listen! Evermore

A dim hand knocks at the door.

Hear me; he is come again;

My own dearest is come back.

Bring him in from the cold rain…

— Christina Rossetti, “Death’s Chill Between”

IT WASN’T ONE of Gabriel’s raucous dinners, with jokes and impromptu limericks flying