I hid my surprise behind the handkerchief. “I do not believe I mentioned sailing, Mr. Wickersham.”
“Did you not, Miss Tulman? Dashed odd. Are you certain?” He leaned back again, ungentlemanly in his chair. “Then perhaps I just assumed that you were going to your grandmother’s residence in Paris?”
I stared at him, rooted to my seat, watching his little eyes go dreamy.
“Rather a nice old place, though the neighborhood, I fancy, is not quite the fashion it was before the current emperor’s reign. But still, I think you will enjoy it. The Reynoldses are in residence next door at the moment, a fine old family, fleeing the cholera in London, I believe, as are many. Do tell them I wish them well. As I do you, Miss Tulman.” He stood and bowed, causing the scribbling man to leap to his feet. “Good-bye. Or maybe I should say
And once again Mr. Wickersham walked out my door, leaving me with nothing to say.
In reality, it was more than an hour before I said good-bye to Mrs. Cooper, and the clocks, and my grandmother’s room, everything I had once been certain I would never leave. Marianna’s portrait I carried out the front door with me, wrapped tight in a cloth. Mary climbed into the carriage, and I looked toward the tunnel and the moor hills surrounding us. I saw no sign of Mr. Wickersham’s man, the one that young Tom had seen watching from the grasses, but that did not mean he wasn’t there or that he was alone. I turned to the driver of the wagon that waited behind us, the last of the boxes, bags, and my steamer trunk lashed to its bed.
“You are certain all is secure?” I asked him. He nodded his assent. “Then we will drive as quickly as we are able. But keep out of the ruts as much as you can. I want nothing broken.” He responded with a scant tip of his hat before handing me up the step.
Inside the carriage, Mary was not crying as I’d thought she might. She sat grim-faced in the green velvet interior, bonnet tied tight, her carpetbag of things perched primly on her knees. The pocket watch she wore pinned by a chain to her dress lay open on her palm.
“Will we be making the boat, Miss?” she asked as I settled the portrait into the seat beside me. I heard a chirrup to the horses and felt my body jerk backward. The carriage was rolling.
“It will be close, but I think we shall. Mr. Babcock should be there before us; he sent the other luggage on this morning, and I am in hopes that he can convince the captain to hold if we are delayed.” What we would do if we missed that boat was more than I could fathom. “Mary …” Her round eyes darted to my face. She knew me well enough to know that her name in that tone meant nothing to our advantage. “Mr. Wickersham knew we were sailing. He knew what house we’re going to, down to the names of the neighbors. We could have … visitors, I’m afraid. Much sooner than I’d planned.”
Mary whistled beneath her breath, her face screwing up in thought for only a second or two before her eyes went round. “Miss! There’s men up there, Miss!” The carriage was coming around the circular drive, giving us a view of the cemetery. “At Mr. Tully’s grave! What can —”
“They’re from the village, Mary. I sent them.”
She squinted at me. “But why, Miss?”
“Because Mr. Wickersham will want proof. At some point he will want it, and he will come and try to get it.”
Mary squinted even harder, her nose wrinkling before her eyes snapped open wide. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t dare, Miss. He wouldn’t dare be digging up Mr. Tully!”
When I did not respond, Mary began a lengthy opinion on the morals, personal appearance, and maternal origins of Mr. Wickersham. I watched the neatly trimmed grasses of the lawn go by, and then the more wild, swaying stems, yellowing with the season, blowing on the hills that ringed the entrance to Stranwyne. We had need of speed, but it was all going too fast. Everything was passing me by, and it was too fast. I looked back, and could just see Aunt Bit, still standing at the front door.
The road dipped, the slopes and grasses disappearing into brief blackness before that, too, melted away into the soft glow of gaslight. We were in the tunnel. The air of the trogwynd shoved and harried us, shrieking, pushing me back toward the house. I counted the gas lamps as the carriage rocked, but I counted them backward,
6
We watered the horses and ourselves at Milton, I checked the security of our luggage in the wagon, and we did not stop again until the beasts were drooping and we were in Devonport. For a long time I had leaned against the threadbare velvet wall, suspended in a hazy mixture of waking and sleep, but I went bolt upright at the sudden stillness of the carriage. A set of iron gates blocked the road before us, rising up from wisps of trailing mist, illuminated by a lantern in the hand of a uniformed guard. Our driver appeared from the dark and I opened the carriage window, silently handing him a sealed paper that had arrived by express from Mr. Babcock the night before. I had no notion what promises Mr. Babcock might have made or what favors he might have called forth to gain the privileges this letter contained, but whatever they were, the paper seemed to work. The guard waved us through the gate. Mary rubbed her eyes and flipped open the pocket watch with a soft click, waiting for the light of a passing streetlamp to hold it up.
“’Tis past time, Miss,” she whispered.
I bit my lip and looked out the window, craning my neck to see the wagon rattling over the road stones behind us. We were moving past buildings on both sides of the carriage now, almost military in their sameness and precision, and then the last remnants of haze lifted from my mind, burned away by the significance of the gate, the guard’s uniform, and the port we were entering. We were driving through a Royal Navy base. I sat back against the seat cushion, the burning knot in my stomach twisting tight. Mr. Babcock had failed to mention this particular complication, but then again, what difference would it have made if he had? Devonport was the closest harbor, and everything depended on our speed.
I kept my eyes on the dark rows of naval barracks, waiting irrationally for armed marines to come pouring out after us in the fog, but then the barracks were gone and the street became more like a small city, lined with churches and taverns and other public buildings, most sleeping and dark. We were stopped by another set of gates, again produced Mr. Babcock’s paper, and at last the carriage was rattling onto the docks. I sat forward, competing with Mary for the view.
Air blew soft from the still-open window, and with it came the smell of fish and the odor of something else, different from what I remembered of the Thames, not pleasant or unpleasant, but powerful. A bell tolled, and I could hear chains clink and the creak of stretching rope, while farther out, bobbing against the dark horizon, were huge, hulking silhouettes, spiderwebs of rope and mast lit by a quarter moon. Waves were out there in the spray of light, glinting beneath the thin, hovering mist, but beyond them was nothing but a vast expanse of water, melting black into the night.
“Lord,” said Mary under her breath, sitting back to click open the pocket watch, but I had eyes only for the sea. Lane had always wanted to see the ocean. I wondered what he had thought of it. I half stood, sticking my head out the window.
“Wait …” I began.
“That ain’t such a good idea, Miss, if you don’t mind me saying,” said Mary, frowning at the pocket watch.
“No, I mean, there’s someone coming.”
A shape was running toward us down the dock, short, squat legs pumping an uneven beat, arms flapping against the restraint of a long-tailed coat. It was Mr. Babcock.
“This way, this way!” he called, panting and, after a concurring nod from me, the driver slapped the reins and I pulled my head back through the window. We followed Mr. Babcock’s frenzied gait down the dock, the
