The Aylesford Skull

heart and mind, and I knew what was false in it. And yet I came into London in secret, because I couldn’t let it alone.”

“You come into London for the good of us all,” Kraken told her.

“So I told myself. Listen to me, Bill. You’re not to risk yourself trying to recover it. I forbid it.”

“The dreams, Mother…”

“The Professor’s boy is our aim now, Bill. As for the dreams, we’ll leave Heaven and Hell to sort themselves out.”

The train slowed and stopped, and they stepped out onto the platform, Kraken carrying the satchel that Mabel Morningstar had lent Mother Laswell. At the end of the platform, beyond the stairs to the street, stood a shop in the old style, the long front window set with horizontal shutters, the top tilting upward to make for a bit of shade, and the bottom tilting downward to make a counter. There were pipes and tobacco and magazines for sale in the shop. A small sign advertised a lending library. Mother Laswell’s spirits raised a notch at the sight of it. She dearly loved a lending library, which was a variety of Aladdin’s cave, although, like so many things, it was often better in anticipation than in fact. If she were at loose ends today, she thought, she at least might have something to read.

“I’ll just look into this shop, Bill,” she said. “They’ve books to lend.” She walked toward it, her eyes on the dim interior, which even from several feet away was redolent with the pleasant smell of cut tobacco. A man stood within, measuring something on a scale. Behind him, on the rear wall were several shelves of books – a tolerably small Aladdin’s cave, to be sure.

“I’d like to borrow a book,” she said to the man, who was small and vaguely amphibious. He wore heavy spectacles through which he blinked at her. “A novel,” she said. “Something in the Gothic line.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a man sitting on a nearby bench stand up and walk away, which was nothing remarkable in itself. And yet there was something about him that drew her attention. She was half certain that she knew him, but from where? Or did he know her? Yes, she thought; that was it. She had felt the very instant of recognition, like a random thought passing through her mind. He was utterly nondescript – medium height, neither fat nor thin, dark clothing slightly down at heel. He crossed the road now, looking straight ahead so that she could see nothing more of him than his back, and at the first opportunity he turned up between two buildings and disappeared. Perhaps she was wrong, she thought now. In any event, he was gone.

She brought her mind back to the shopkeeper, who was clearly waiting for her to attend to business, and after a brief exchange she settled for a dilapidated copy of Mrs. Gaskell’s Lois the Witch. “Can you recommend an inn?” she asked him.

“Yes, ma’am. The Chalk Horse, just across the street. A coaching inn, ma’am, on the Strood road, which runs along behind. Comfortable, they tell me, and I can vouch for the food and drink.”

She thanked him, rejoined Bill Kraken, and the two of them waited out a chaise and a slow-moving wagon before crossing the road to the inn, a pleasant place built of whitewashed stone. There was a deeply carved wooden sign out front depicting a white horse against a dark hillside, and on the broad porch stood monstrous great dahlias in pots, bright red and pink and yellow, the size of dinner plates. She took a room on the second floor, and after Kraken saw to food and drink and a basin of hot water to soak her feet, she sent him down again for foolscap, quill, and ink. When all was done, Kraken put on his cap and stepped to the door.

“I’m a-going on into the marsh,” he said, “now that you’re settled.”

She nodded at him, recognizing the look in his eye – the same squint that he had worn when he was laying into Lord Moorgate with his fists, and although she admired his resolve, she feared it as well. She saw the pistol in his hand now, with a long barrel, a wicked looking thing. “You’ll take care of yourself, Bill? You’re no good to me nor anyone else if you’re shot dead or if you’re taken up for shooting someone else.”

“I’m no good to myself if I don’t do what I must, Mother.” He stepped out into the hallway, then turned back to the room and said, “You’re a good woman, and I’m main glad to have found you.”

Before she could answer he shut the door quietly. She listened to his footsteps dwindle away down the hall. His words remained in her mind, however. There was something doomful about them, as if he had said what couldn’t wait, because there mightn’t be a chance to say it if he waited.

Here she sat, soaking her corns. Yesterday morning she had lain in the darkness in just this same condition, knowing that she must act, but not acting, as if she were a thing of clockwork that had wound down. Her goal had changed somewhat, but it was equally urgent. It was true that Kraken was now acting for her, and he was a capable man, but that didn’t make the pill go down any easier.

She soaked her feet until the water grew cold, and then dried them, mopped up the floor with the towel, and pitched the cold water out the back window onto the lawn below, surprising two goats that were cropping grass. She saw the ostler at work near the stable, and thought of the coach into Strood and then on to Maidstone, which was next door to Aylesford, no great distance to the south.

Her corns felt tip-top now, all things considered, and she regretted having stayed behind. The wild idea came into her mind that she might catch up with Bill if she hurried – except that he had a half hour’s start and would be moving quickly. Probably he was already making his way north through the tunnels that he had spoken of. She couldn’t abide the idea of going into a tunnel at any rate – spiders and bats, no doubt, and eternal darkness. The very thought of it brought her dreams back into her mind, and she slammed the door on them.

Resigned to her fate, she took up the quill and turned to the paper and ink, thinking hard about what she meant to write. Plain speaking was best – no false hope. Language, she thought, was as often as not meant to deceive as to speak the truth, but there could be no deception here. She wouldn’t be guilty of the crime of euphemism.

Mrs. St. Ives, she wrote. We’ve never met, and yet we’re thrown together, perhaps by fate, if it’s fate you believe in. I believe in something more than that, which is helping oneself, if only I can find a way. We both have a son named Edward, and the man that murdered my son is the same man who has taken yours. We have a bond, I mean to say, and I must share with you what I know. I’m writing to tell you that last night I saw your boy Eddie, and he was unhurt. He’s still in the hands of the man you know as Narbondo, who is feeding him and treating him well for all I could see. I tried to take Eddie back and failed, and we’re now looking for Narbondo in the Cliffe Marshes, where he’s gone to ground, perhaps to further his schemes. It’s my belief that he’ll return to London, and soon. Bill Kraken is in the marsh now searching for him. You know Bill, I believe, and so you know he’s a good man, who would die for any one of us. I was told that Professor St. Ives came into London, but I don’t know his whereabouts. There’s a very marvelous boy, too, who is doing his part and has the gumption to prevail. We’re all of us hard at work, is what I mainly wanted to say, with saving your boy Eddie as our one contentious goal. If it comes into your mind to go into London, you can get word of me and what I’ve learned from my dear friend Mabel Morningstar, who lives above the Ship Tavern, Lime Street, the City.

Your friend and neighbor, Harriet Laswell of Hereafter Farm, writing from the Chalk Horse Inn, Cliffe Village.

She reread it, was satisfied with the missive, and went downstairs to ask the innkeeper about the post, thinking to buy a penny stamp and post the letter straight into Aylesford, to Hereafter Farm. “I’m in a great hurry,” she told him.

He shook his head. “Aylesford, ma’am? Sure enough it’s close by, but the post is roundabout, you see, what with the sorting and sending on. I doubt it’ll reach Aylesford for days.”

“That won’t do,” she said, disappointed. “It’ll be of no consequence then.”

“Send it with the coach, ma’am. It’s due any moment. I don’t mean to come it too high, but a few shillings might speed your letter on its way directly. It puts in at the Chequers in Aylesford, you know.”

“Splendid,” she said. “Can you lend me a slip of paper and a pen?”

“Certainly, ma’am.” The man found the items and laid them on the countertop, where she jotted down a quick note, waved the ink dry, and folded it.

She brought out a half crown and two shillings from her purse and pushed the coins toward him. “If you could just ask the coachman to give the shillings to young Sweeney, at the Chequers. He’s to run the letter and this note out to Hereafter Farm and pass it on to the boy Simonides. The half crown he’s to keep for himself, with my thanks.”

“That’s generosity, ma’am. He’ll do it happily enough, will old Bob.”