The Black Country

Hester pulled away from him and looked up at his face. The room was dark, and lamplight from the corner table caused silver hairs among her yellow tresses to sparkle. The corners of her mouth were lined with hard experience and her eyes were rimmed with red. Day looked past the evidence of the years and saw how beautiful she once was. And he looked past the traces of her grief to see how lovely she still was. She reminded him, in some small and indefinite way, of Claire, and he understood Campbell’s devotion. He felt something well up in his own chest, but he swallowed his empathy. He was careful not to look at the little boy lying on the bed.

“Go, Calvin,” Hester said. “Bring the doctor and come back fast.”

Campbell nodded. “You won’t have time to miss me.”

“I’m finished with Blackhampton now,” Hester said. “Do you understand? There’s nothing for me here.”

Campbell nodded again. Without another word, he turned and left the room. Day heard his footsteps on the stairs and then heard the inn’s front door open, heard the wind raging through, and then heard the door close. Suddenly the room was very quiet.

49

The American had not lost his way (he never lost his way), but the journey from the woods to the train depot, while a straight line, was difficult. He wore a good pair of brogans, but they were old and worn and the seams leaked. His woolen socks were soaked through, and he couldn’t feel his toes. He had known too many soldiers, in the old days, who had lost their feet to frostbite. He didn’t want the same for himself. But there was nowhere to rest. The few outbuildings he saw along the outskirts of the road had lights on in their windows. People were inside, cozy and dry by their fires. He knew from hard experience that if he went to their doors they wouldn’t let him come inside. One look at his face would be enough to ensure that. But he simply didn’t have the heart to kill a family just so he could enjoy the warmth of their home for an hour.

And so when he found the two horses, hitched to a carriage, he counted it as a blessing from above. They were standing in the field, only a few yards to the west of him, as still as some statue built to depict a brave and patriotic journey through the storm.

He veered in their direction, mildly worried that the horses were frozen in their tracks, dead already. He was nearly dead with cold himself. If the horses were dead, he would lie down in the carriage and, he imagined, people would come along someday and find him there and wonder how an American had come to be driving a carriage across the English countryside in the middle of an unseasonable late storm.

But the horses weren’t dead. The younger one-he could tell by her size and energy-stamped her feet at his approach and snorted. The older one stood in her tracks, but followed him with her black eyes. He approached them slowly, and not only because he didn’t want to scare them. He couldn’t have moved quickly if he’d wanted to. He reached out a shivering hand and patted the younger one’s muzzle, stroked her, and whispered nonsense until she calmed. It didn’t take long. She was cold and hungry and tired. The older horse wasn’t a problem. She wasn’t going to last a lot longer, no matter what happened, and she knew it. Horses had small brains, but they were even more conscious of their mortality than humans were.

He pulled himself up into the carriage, slipping on the step and recovering, trying not to jolt the thing too much and scare the poor horses. The reins hadn’t yet frozen, and he scooped them up in his stiff hands, gave an experimental snap. The horses obeyed, dug in and moved. He snapped again. The wheels gritted against the packed snow and spun, and then miraculously found purchase and rolled.

He pulled the reins and the horses slogged around, slowly, painstakingly, blinking their big dark eyes at the snowflakes that landed on them, and finally they were facing in the opposite direction and he began to steer them toward the train depot, where he was certain Campbell was waiting.

He had no idea what he might do if he found himself alive and well in Blackhampton tomorrow, but he had no other life or purpose but to finally enact his revenge upon Calvin Campbell.

50

Jessica Perkins was wiping sweat from Heath Biggs’s forehead when Calvin Campbell burst through the doors of the church for the second time in an hour, his hair frosted white, his face raw and pink. He stopped at the back of the sanctuary long enough to glance around, located Dr Kingsley, and ran down the center aisle to him. An hour ago, Campbell had taken Hester Price from the vicar’s room, and they had left the church. The children had not seen their mother. She had hurried past them and was gone so quickly that even Jessica wasn’t sure what she’d seen. Now Campbell was back, but without Hester. Jessica dropped her cloth and glanced over at Peter and Anna, who seemed to be deep in conversation with little Virginia, then hurried over to where Campbell was gesticulating wildly at Kingsley. Campbell grabbed Kingsley’s shoulder, but the doctor pulled away from him. Even before she was close enough to hear what they were saying, she recognized the tension in their voices.

“I have an obligation to these people,” Kingsley said.

“He’s a baby,” Campbell said.

“From what you’ve told me, there’s nothing I can do to help the baby. I can help the people here.”

“It was your man, Day, who sent me to fetch you. I’m not going back without you.”

“Good. Then you can lend a hand here.”

“A baby?” Jessica said. The men stopped arguing and looked at her. “Did they find little Oliver?”

Her voice broke as she asked the question, and she realized she didn’t want them to answer. But Campbell was wild-eyed and uncaring.

“Yes,” he said. “Oliver is dead.”

Jessica gasped and clutched the lace at the throat of her dress as if the air were attacking her. “Oh, no,” she said. “I had so hoped. .”

“I must get back to Hester. I haven’t time for this.”

“Hester?” Jessica said. “Then that was her. I thought it was. You’ve found the children’s mother.”

“She’s at the inn.”

“Is there word of Mr Price?”

“He’s there, too.”

“You must take the children to their parents.”

“I’m not here for that,” Campbell said. Jessica thought he sounded cruel, uncaring, but realized that he was completely focused on something else. He seemed to be barely aware of her next to him in the cavernous room full of Blackhampton’s sick and dying citizens. “Come with me, Dr Kingsley, or I will carry you back to the inn.”

Kingsley’s eyebrows shot up with surprise, and he took a look over his shoulder as if determining whether he had room to run. Henry, Kingsley’s massive assistant, materialized at his side. Jessica wasn’t sure where he’d come from or how he managed to move so quietly.

“If the doctor wants me to,” Henry said, “I will make this man go away.”

Henry sounded utterly sure of himself, and Campbell reared back, sized up the other giant. Jessica wondered who would win in a contest between them. They were the two largest men she had ever seen. But Kingsley laughed, and it was enough to break the tension.

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Henry,” Kingsley said. “But thank you.”

“He should be careful how he talks to you.”

“I think Mr Campbell is upset and simply forgot himself.”

“Yes,” Campbell said. “I’m afraid I’ve spent too much time alone over the years. I sometimes forget my manners.”

Henry nodded. “Doctor’s teaching me manners. He could teach you, too.”

“The children should be with their family,” Jessica said.

“If the doctor will come with me, I’ll come back for the children. The storm’s too much right now for them.” But there was something in Campbell’s eyes that made Jessica think he was lying. He had no intention of coming