Lost and Gone Forever (4 page)

D
ay woke and brushed a leaf off his face. The sky was completely dark and it took him a moment to realize that there was someone hovering over him. Day waited, tensing himself and wondering whether the cigars in his boot were still there. Somewhere he heard a fox rustling in the brush.

“I know you’re awake, Walter Day.”

Day took a quick shallow breath. He recognized the voice. It was him. It was the man Jack. He reached for his walking stick, but Jack put a hand on his arm.

“Why are you lying in a trench in a park, Walter Day? Why are you here in the mud, instead of . . . Well, you confound me. Why haven’t you gone home? Why aren’t you doing what I told you to do?”

Day swallowed hard. The words made little sense, but the voice filled him with fear. His mouth was dry and his eyes stung and he felt his bladder trying to give out. He closed his eyes—there was nothing to see anyway—and concentrated on maintaining his dignity.

“You should answer me now.”

“I don’t . . . I don’t know what you mean.”

“I gave you a task, Walter Day.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“You don’t know your own name?”

“I don’t know my name. Am I . . . Did you say my name? Just now, was that my name? Is that who I am?”

“Fascinating. In retrospect, I suppose I should have experimented with someone else before mesmerizing you.”

“Mez . . . ?”

“To be truthful, I was growing bored with you and I may have rushed things.”

“I don’t understand anything.”

“I know. What a shame. To think I once admired you. It’s my own fault, really. I’ve gone and broken my favorite toy.” Jack sighed, and Day heard him shift, leaning away. He kept his eyes closed. “I see you’re wearing the clothes I left for you,” Jack said. “Are they warm enough?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“We can’t have the great Walter Day wandering about in a woman’s dress. It’s remarkable you haven’t become sick. How awfully hardy you are.”

“What name did you say?”

“Remarkable. I suppose I’ll have to fall back on my secondary plan now. A shame. It would have been so much more fun if things had worked out with you. But perhaps I’ll give you a bit more time.”

“Time for what?”

“Go home, Walter Day. Go home to your wife and her adorable children.”

“Home? I don’t know . . . Where is my home?” Day waited. “Jack?”

There was a long silence, and when Day opened his eyes, the shape had gone.

H
e did not hear from Jack again and, after enough time passed, he stopped having nightmares. He threw out the cotton dress when it became too filthy and too threadbare to keep him warm at night and bought a second shirt, which he washed and wore every other day while his primary shirt dried. He traded his boots, along with eleven recycled cigarettes, for another pair that fit him well. They were also secondhand, but in better repair, and they did not blister his feet and ankles as badly as the old pair had. He left money for the vendor who had unwittingly provided him with a dress in that first difficult week outside his cell. He also purchased a shallow wooden tray that folded over on itself and fastened with a simple clasp. At night, he stored his cigarettes and cigars inside it to keep them dry. During the day, he opened the tray and displayed his wares, taking a corner at the busy junction just north of London Bridge.

He worked there seven days a week, from six o’clock in the morning until just past four in the afternoon, then closed whatever
remained unsold inside the tray, along with a small hand-lettered sign that read
REASONABLE TOBACCO
.

He would walk to Finsbury Circus and around its perimeter, scanning the ground for discarded butts, then up Moorgate to the Artillery Ground, or sometimes back down to Trinity Square and the Tower. He bypassed the end of Moorgate, where a new department store had recently opened. Traffic there was terrible and cigarette ends were hard to find.

Once, on Featherstone near Bunhill Fields, a stranger shouted at him. He turned, and the man yelled, “Walter! Walter, is that you?” and jumped up and down, waving his arms. Day hurried away, and the stranger followed after him for a few minutes, trying to get his attention. Eventually, the stranger shrugged and turned back, and Day slowed his pace. Within minutes he had forgotten about the man, but he unconsciously avoided Featherstone after that.

He retained a slight limp, the result of an old injury that he could no longer recall, but his leg didn’t cause him pain until late in the day and he rarely leaned on his cane.

By now he was well known, and the local boys would often scout the streets in advance, hoarding butts that they traded to Day in exchange for a smoke from his leftover stock in the folding tray. He learned the names of the most talented scouts and saved cigarettes back for those boys. Soon he had a network of children searching out tobacco for him, and he would retire early in the afternoon, receiving them in a short queue outside the warehouses of the East India Company on Seething Lane. Each evening he returned to Drapers’ Gardens by various circuitous routes, always careful that he wasn’t followed.

Within a few weeks of opening his Reasonable Tobacco business,
itinerant though it was, he was doing well enough to rent a room above a shop that overlooked the gardens. For sixpence a night he was able to look out his window at the trees and shrubbery he had slept in during the first and most difficult days of his freedom.

He began stockpiling the butts that were brought to him, sorting the used tobacco by color and collecting it all in three jars. He rolled new cigarettes and cigars on Saturdays, never leaving his room except for tea with his landlady, Mrs Paxton.

She was a kindhearted young widow, and she picked out a new wardrobe for him, allowing him to pay for it over time with the small addition of a penny a night on his room. Sundays he would help Mrs Paxton press the blouses and skirts to hang in the window of her downstairs shop. Her wares were strung on a thin wire across the bay window that faced the gardens. Before dawn each day he swept the path to her door and filled the gas lamp above it. She told him that she enjoyed having a man about, but she continued to be troubled by his lack of memory.

One Sunday she was folding a petticoat when she stopped and let it hang from her hands. She looked across the room at him, frowned, and bit her lower lip. “What if you have a family somewhere?”

He shrugged. “If so, there’s not a thing I can do about it.”

“Why haven’t you gone to the police?”

The question troubled him. He wasn’t sure why he’d avoided the police. He shook his head and tested the iron that was heating over the fireplace. A drop of water sizzled on its surface, but he left it where it was for a moment. “I think the police would put me in the workhouse,” he said. “I couldn’t stand it. I prefer to be my own man. I value my freedom.” But he knew it was a lie as he said it. Or, rather, it was a half-truth. He did enjoy his freedom, but there was another
reason he avoided the police, some compulsion. Even thinking of it brought a deep feeling of doom. He knew he must stay far away from New Scotland Yard and he must not think about the possibility of a family waiting for him somewhere.

But his answer was enough to satisfy Mrs Paxton. She finished folding the petticoat and placed it atop a stack on the window seat. “And what about your name? Do you enjoy not having a name as well?”

He shrugged again and picked up the iron by its blackened wooden handle. “I have a name. But call me whatever you like. I don’t care.”

“Don’t you want to know your full name?”

“Someone told me my full name. It was some time ago and it may even have been a dream. I don’t remember it well. I was half-asleep.” He thought perhaps he didn’t want to remember.

“Maybe if you thought hard about it. Maybe if you say your first name over and over, your last name will occur to you.”

“Walter, Walter, Walter . . . No, nothing seems to come after Walter.”

“Nothing?” She put a finger to her lips and smiled. “And what if I need to introduce you to someone? Shall I refer to you as Mr Nothing?”

“Why would you introduce me to anyone? Besides, I hardly need a name to press this skirt.”

“I could say that you’re a cousin of my husband’s. I could call you Mr Paxton.”

“Did your husband have a cousin?”

“Several, but he was never terribly close with them.”

“What was his name? Your husband, I mean.”

Another long pause, long enough that he had time to realize how
much the memory of her husband might hurt her and to regret giving her reason to return to that memory.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’d rather not talk about my husband.”

“Of course. I apologize.” He turned and got to work. After a moment he heard the rustle of fabric and knew that she had returned to her own chore, folding clothes.

It was some time before she spoke again. When she did, he was pressing a white cotton jacket. The work was somewhat delicate, and he did not turn around to look at her.

“His name was Ben. Benjamin Paxton.”

“Ben is a good name.”

“He was a good man.”

“He must have been very good indeed if you chose to marry him. But I’m sorry I made you think of him just now, Mrs Paxton. I didn’t intend to upset you.”

“I’m not upset. Perhaps a little sad, but that has nothing to do with you.”

“I think it might not be a good idea to tell people I’m his cousin. I think for now we can leave my full name a mystery and simply call me Walter. When you need to call me anything at all.”

“Walter it is, then,” she said. “And you must call me Esther.”

“I couldn’t,” he said.

“I wish you would.”

He finally turned and looked at her. Their eyes met, but her face immediately flushed and she took a step farther away from him. He nodded and stared down at the jacket, at the iron in his hand. The thought of calling Mrs Paxton by her given name stirred the same feelings of wrongness in him that the idea of the police did. And yet, he had nothing, he had no reasons for anything he felt, no memories of anything before his cold cell and the sun shining on a
narrow courtyard. Now he was free and alive and he could not bear the notion of shutting himself away again, of giving up the things that life had to offer. If he could not remember his old life, how could it be wrong to build a new one?

“Very well,” he said. His throat felt very dry. “Very well, Esther.”

O
f course I feel for you. You’re a woman trying to get by on suspect employment, and with four small children, with no man to help her and no future prospects so long as she remains in this city. You can’t accuse me of not understanding your life when I’m up late every night thinking only of you and the mess you’ve made of things.”

“That’s . . .” Claire stopped and calmed herself before speaking again. “Father, you have to know how cruel that sounds.”

“I think you should watch your tone of voice when speaking to me,” Leland Carlyle said. “I know women these days are encouraged to speak before they think, but you ought to be grateful to me. Lord knows I’ve been patient with you.”

“Yes, thank you,” Claire said. She was so angry she could barely see, but she knew that any outward sign of her feelings would only be used against her.

“Before you launch into another of your unwarranted attacks against me, I was only agreeing with you,” Carlyle said. “I was telling you I genuinely understand your position. It can’t be easy. That
man left you with four children. Although, of course, there’s no real reason for you to burden yourself with half of them.”

“Robert and Simon are my children just as much as Winnie and Henrietta are. And my husband didn’t leave me. I never said that.” But her father had struck a nerve, and she hoped the doubt she felt didn’t show on her face. She didn’t want to believe that Walter might have left her on purpose, and she tried not to even think about the possibility, but it was there.

Carlyle snorted and crossed the room. He poured himself a drink from the decanter of brandy that Claire kept filled for the day Walter returned home.

“You’ve adopted children when you can’t even care for your own children.” He took a drink. “Claire, perhaps I’ve loved you too much, indulged you too much. You must have some perspective, some logical sense of responsibility, rather than tripping gaily about on your feelings. Do you want the boys to go to an orphanage? Of course not. I confess I find them charming. I want what’s best for them, too. I simply don’t agree that you and this situation are what’s best for them.”

“I love them, I feed them, I clothe them. They have a roof over their heads.”

“And they have no father. They are boys without a father.”

“That’s not their fault. They lost their parents, and then they lost Walter. Would you have me abandon them, too?”

“So you admit Walter’s abandoned them? Abandoned you all?”

“That’s not what I said. You keep twisting my words.”

“I’m doing no such thing. You continue to evade my points. What kind of men will those boys become when they have no father in their lives?”

“When Walter comes home—”

“I’m tired of hearing about Walter Day. Of all the men you might have married, it escapes me why you would choose that one.”

“I did choose him. And I choose to stay here until he comes home to me.”

“The wiser choice is to come back to Devon with me. Your mother and I will see to your needs, and the needs of your children. Make the better choice, Claire.”

“Between you and Walter? I will always choose Walter over you. Always.”

Carlyle raised his hand to hit her, but then took a deep breath and lowered it. He closed his eyes and sipped his brandy. When he opened his eyes again, he smiled at her. “He has no intention of coming home. I know that’s a harsh truth, but you need to hear it.”

“He will. He’s been hurt or imprisoned somewhere.”

“Would it shock you to know that Walter is alive and well? And that I saw him?”

“Saw him?” Claire’s heart swelled and seemed to fill her, to squeeze her lungs. She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t see. Her father’s words rang like bells in her ears.

“I debated whether to tell you, but now I think it might be best for you to face the truth.”

“What do you mean you saw him?”

“I was leaving the club, and he was on the other side of the street, walking along just as daring as you please. Someone called out to him and he darted away.”

“What street? Where were you?”

“Oh, I don’t remember. As I say, I was near my club, so it must have been somewhere near the bridge.”

“London Bridge?”

“Yes, the bridge.”

“What was he doing?”

“Walking.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was also walking. There was nothing remarkable about any of it except that he turned and ran when he heard his name.”

“Walter can’t run. His leg injury prevents it. You saw someone who looked like Walter.”

“I know my son-in-law when I see him.”

“That’s the first time you’ve ever called him that. You’ve never acknowledged that he’s a part of your family, and you only say it now to hurt me.”

“Not at all. If I’ve kept my distance from him, it’s only because he makes his life more complicated than it needs to be. And he complicates the lives of everyone else around him. I honestly don’t think you can deny that.”

Claire sat on the arm of a chair and threw her hands up in frustration. “I need to know so much. Was it really Walter? Did he see you at the same time you saw him? Did you chase him away? I believe, if it really was Walter, you must have said something awful to him to drive him further from us.”

“I assure you that’s not the case.”

“Well, why
didn’t
you say anything? Why didn’t you call out his name? Or follow him? You say you watched him as he disappeared again. Why wouldn’t you try to bring him home?”

“As I say, he didn’t see me, and I didn’t wish to make a scene in the middle of the street.”

“I need to be alone, Father. Please.”

Carlyle drained his glass and set it on the table. He put his hand on Claire’s shoulder, and when she tried to move away from him, he tightened his grip.

“I understand,” he said. “But you deserved to know the truth. Your husband isn’t missing. He simply doesn’t want to be with you. It’s hard to hear, I’m sure, but I think you’ll thank me someday for my honesty.”

“Please just go.”

“Do you need any money?”

“I don’t need anything from you.”

“Very well. I’ll ask your mother to look in on you tomorrow.”

He grabbed his hat and went to the door. He turned back, and he looked as if he might say something more, but then changed his mind and left, closing the door quietly behind him. Claire sat for some time, staring at the door as if it might open again and Walter might be standing there. She knew her father had meant to hurt her with his words, to unmoor her and make her more willing to leave London, to return home with him to the estate in Devon. But he had made a mistake because he didn’t understand the depth of her love for her husband. Leland Carlyle had given his daughter renewed hope.