‘Miss Lawless.’ George Fitzgerald, shaken though he is, parts the sea of people on the stairs to reach Constane and Verity, with a force unexpected from so slight a man.
‘Miss Lawless,’ he calls again to Constance.
The sisters turn to him in unison, but their stare is blank.
‘Make way. Make way,’ William calls out.
Sterling is close behind his brother. The three Fitzgeralds form a protective cluster around the girls.
Verity, without any adherence to the danger of it, falls to her knees right where she stands on the stone step. She crosses herself, looks through her lenses to the wild, restless clouds that she cannot see and folds her hands in prayer.
‘I pray to St Adjutor. Take your place in a boat and row to this spot. Say prayers here and sprinkle holy water. Grant Mammy the serenity to swim and help her to rise from the river Thames. I pray you perform this miracle as you have done before.’
Constance grasps her sister’s hands and lifts her up.
The expressions on the faces that surround them, which had only moments ago been struck with horror and pity, now frown on them. The first murmurings are faint, whispers of ‘papists’. And then louder, ‘They are Catholics.’ Verity trembles, and Constance notices herself quiver, too, and cannot stop it. She recognizes the Fitzgerald boy and his brother, and there, too is the older Fitzgerald. Strangely, Constance cannot remember their names. She feels surrounded by their wool, and their clothing feels hot; she is hot. The woollen clothes try to take her away. But she will not go, instead she turns stubbornly back to the river and peers as deeply into it as is possible, and now she lets loose a wail from the very bottom of her being. All who gather at the river stairs and even the Fitzgeralds step back; only Verity stays beside her, holding her hand.
Averil Lawless may sink to the bottom of the Thames where her body will join the graveyard made of the thick, ancient mud. She may be delivered to shore by a swift current, or she may be buffeted by boats, or further assaulted by seagulls. Averil may take the curve of the U-bend and appear with a host of other victims at Dead Man’s Stairs in Wapping where the tide tends to deliver the recently drowned. Or, one day soon, she may be found floating near her own home in the dusky waters at Limehouse. The currents of the Thames are ruled by something powerful; they may take her out to sea where she will ride beneath the ships that sail off to new and old worlds. It is impossible to know her course.
The news of the drowning travels swiftly. It ripples up Temple stairs, through the Inner Courts, and in its tragedy, spills out of Temple into Fleet Street.
The sisters’ gazes remain focused on the river. Lanterns have been placed behind them on the ground. In their glow, Verity rests her head on Constance’s shoulder.
George Fitzgerald has sent both carriage and boat for Francis Lawless. In this weather, there is no guessing which will reach him first, or how long it might take his dear friend to arrive. And still, the sisters stand on the river stairs.
‘Would you like to come with us to chambers? You will be more comfortable while we await your father,’ he asks the girls.
‘Constance and I will not move from this place until Mammy returns,’ Verity says.
‘My dear Verity … Constance …’ George hesitantly takes their hands.
The girls do not avert their gaze from the water.
‘Your beautiful mother is not coming back. The Thames has taken her. She is with God now.’
Verity’s chest rises as she takes a deep breath and finally turns to look into George Fitzgerald’s kind face. Constance, too, cuts her eyes to the man who smells of ink and parchment. This mention of God has sparked life from the girls.
‘Why?’ Constance asks. ‘Why did God take her from us? Why would he do that?’
‘Darling girl, your mother fell. It was a terrible, terrible accident.’
‘Might God give her back to us?’
‘No,’ George says softly. ‘She is dead and with Him now.’
‘But if God is truly God, then is it not within his power to return her to us?’
George thinks very carefully before he replies.
‘I do not know. I simply do not know.’
‘Thank you for your honesty.’
Constance takes hold of her sister’s shoulders and turns her. Then, with gentle hands, she lifts Verity’s spectacles from her face. Verity squints, and Constance passes her hands over Verity’s eyes to close them.
‘Shhh,’ she says to her younger sister. ‘Shhh.’
Constance leans in and kisses Verity’s pink eyelids.
‘We are motherless now, Verity. With your pitiable eyes, look to me for our future.’
William and Sterling had remained nearby during the whole ghastly affair, and both are shaken to such a degree that their blotched and tear-stained faces pulse with heat. William squirms in frustration for not knowing how, but desperately wanting, to be more useful. He has fetched cool drinks, handkerchiefs, and stayed alert to any miraculous news of sightings, or the discovery of a body floating in nearby water. But the black-hearted Thames released no such secrets.
When Francis Lawless arrives his pallor is grey, and there is something behind his eyes that threatens madness if he does not learn to live with his loss. The sight of his daughters seems to stabilize him, and finally they turn from the stairs and run to his outstretched arms and sink into them.
‘I cannot thank you enough, George, for the care you have shown my daughters today. I shall never forget it.’
‘I am so very sorry, Francis. My dearest and most loyal friend. Wretched, wretched day. I would like to help you in any way, please do call upon me.
