The Dark Unwinding (23 page)

Nothing happened. The pain in my head was excruciating. I beat the glass harder, over and over again, agony giving me strength. A piece chipped out, long cracks racing outward, and when I hit the glass again, it broke. Air escaped, whooshing past my head, the pain in my ears eased, and water gushed from the hole into the garden. I let go of the box and grabbed hold of the iron window frame, broken shards sinking into the hand that did not hold the skate, and knocked out what remained of the glass. I pulled myself through, the rushing water now a help rather than a hindrance, and sank, gratefully, into tangled rosebushes and mud.

I crawled up to the next terrace, where the earth was firm, and lay there, panting. The lowest terrace was a running river, a new spigot now pouring from the open pane to join it. I felt the rain-softened grass on my cheek, and the dirt beneath it, taking note of each breath, feeling the sun as it dried the water on my skin. Then I got to my feet, stumbling as I climbed up each level of the garden until I came to the circular drive.

I opened the front door, my steps moving faster, leaving a wet trail, taking the same route I had my on first day at Stranwyne. I ran through the clocks, shouting Davy’s name, fumbling with the door to the chapel. When I got it open, I ran to the far wall and then dropped to my knees. Water was leaking all around the edges of the hidden door, wetting the stones and seeping in pools over the floor. But the hidden door had opened into the tunnel, not out of it, and that tunnel was now full, the door held irrevocably shut by the weight of the water.

It was Mrs. Jefferies who found me there, I don’t know how much later, on the chapel floor in a muddy heap, the blood dried on my forehead and cheeks. When I told her what lay behind the hidden door and explained what I knew, she cried and I cried again with her, our shared pain echoing from the stone. And when we couldn’t cry anymore she put my head on her soft lap, sitting in the puddles that leaked from the tunnel, stroking my soiled hair with a pudgy hand. In ragged gasps, I told her about Ben Aldridge and opium and Davy, and firing the gun and breaking the glass, even what I thought she’d done to me, all in a haze of exhaustion and grief. Again and again I asked her, “And where is my uncle? Where is Lane?” She patted my back as her own breath shuddered and called me “duck” and said she didn’t know.

When I was nearly asleep, she lifted my head and helped me up from the floor of the chapel, walking me to Marianna’s room. I was calm by then, so tired that I was mostly beyond thought, and there, in Marianna’s bed, was Uncle Tully, in his black coat and with the pink coverlets pulled up to his beard, asleep. He did not wake, even when I stood next to the bed.

“Let him sleep,” said Mrs. Jefferies, her voice hoarse. “It’s good to be forgetting.” And then, very gently, she took the rolling skate from my hand. I had not known I was still clutching it.

It took two bouts in the tub to get the mud and smell of the river off me and my hair. Mrs. Jefferies soothed as she scrubbed, even while sometimes she cried herself, and I took comfort in the fact that I was not alone in my misery. She rubbed salve on my forehead and the cuts on my hands before pulling the nightgown over my head and putting me in Mary’s bed. I didn’t know where Mary was either, and the deep part of me that could still feel something, twisted with a new fear. I fell asleep with the late afternoon sun shining from the curtains, Mrs. Jefferies’s hand on my head, the sense of water and mud flowing over my body, though none were really there.

I
sat up in Mary’s bed, early rather than late sun pouring through the window. All night I’d dreamed of noise, of the rushing of waterfalls, the ringing in my ears that came with an orange ball of fire, and the flutelike voice, begging me to run. I got up quietly, a bit unsteady, put on one of Mary’s dresses, braided my hair, and tied it up in a kerchief. I sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, weak and tired, looking into the small mirror Mary had hung. The cuts on my forehead and hand hurt, and my shoulder was stiff, colored with various shades of green and purple. I was bumped and bruised in smaller ways all over, inside as well as out, but more than anything else I was aware of a heaviness inside me, a burden of weight that I did not think would leave me soon. And it was no one’s fault but my own. I had fired the gun, exploded the boat that cracked the wall. If Davy was gone and Stranwyne ruined, there was no one but myself to blame. I tiptoed through to Marianna’s room.

The heavy drapes dampened the effects of the sun, but even in the dim the first thing I saw was broken china, thousands of pieces on the dressing table, all of the teacups Mary had brought for my use from the kitchen. I touched a gritty shard.

“They was sticky,” said Mrs. Jefferies from the hearth chair, “little bits of sticky all on the inside, so you wouldn’t hardly notice, ’less you was looking.”

Not just the sugar, then. Even my cups had been coated with the stuff. “So you smashed them,” I said.

Mrs. Jefferies folded her hands. “I saw him with the green-striped cup, that devil. That first day you took tea with Mr. Tully in the workshop. Let him put that cup right on the teacart, all nice and helpful, and didn’t think a thing of it. Your sugar has been poured out, too.” I left the broken cups and went to the bed to look at my sleeping uncle. Mrs. Jefferies said, “Lane was coming up last night, but I told him you was sleeping. We had a chat and I set him straight on a thing or two before I sent him off. And Mary Brown was on the floor for a time, but she took off early. Needed at home, I’m thinking.”

“Is all the Lower Village flooded, Mrs. Jefferies?”

“Yes, it is, Miss.”

“Then Mary doesn’t have a home to go to.”

She sighed. “I’m thinking not.”

The pink coverlet rose with my uncle’s intake of breath. The workshop was gone. I remembered my dream the night I bit my hand, the nightmare of destruction Ben’s opium had given me. And I had been the one to make that nightmare a reality. I adjusted the covers and then straightened my back. If this disaster was of my doing, then so must the remedy be. “Mrs. Jefferies, I think I need to go to the Upper Village.”

“As you say, duck.” She got up heavily and waddled over to stand beside me. “But we’ll be feeding you first, or the wind’ll take you.”

“My uncle is sleeping very soundly. Will he be all right if he wakes, do you think?”

“I’m thinking he’ll stay right here, Miss. I’m thinking he won’t want to leave this room.”

I turned to look at her, taking in her red and swollen eyes. “Were you able to sleep at all?” But she only put her arm around me, her mouth a sad line, and I leaned my head on her frizzing hair. “Thank you, Mrs. Jefferies,” I said.

We stood together on the path, on the last rise above the Lower Village, and gazed down on a small sea. The canal had been consumed, and though the occasional peak of a thatched roof was visible, and the church steeple, it was a world made of water. The workshop and the smokestacks were missing. Riverboats torn from their moorings sailed serenely where the streets should have been, one of them upside down, and I saw the black-and-white carcass of a cow. I thought of the figure of my father, and my grandmother, all washed away, and wondered why everything had to die by my hand.

“Let’s go, Mrs. Jefferies,” I said. It was time to start making amends.

The Upper Village was a madhouse, as I thought it might be, and I did not forget that the people now running back and forth on its streets had been ready to put me in one. I lifted my chin and nodded at any who stared. I could smell the flood from the High Street, the stench so like the inside of the ballroom where I had nearly drowned that it gave me a thrill of terror deep in my stomach. Mrs. Jefferies followed me to the church, a small but curious crowd gathering in our wake, and there I found the greatest noise and hubbub. I pushed my way inside toward a knot of shouting men, their arguing close to becoming a fight.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” I said, though to no effect. “Excuse me!”

“Hush it!” yelled Mrs. Jefferies.

The arguing men turned about, and a gradual silence fell.

“Thank you, Mrs. Jefferies,” I said, my voice now echoing in the sanctuary. I saw Lane in the crowd, his gaze piercing me from across the room, and Mr. Cooper, and next to him, Mr. Lockwood. Mr. Lockwood’s jacket was gone, his sleeves rolled up, and he had mud up to his thighs. I walked slowly through the crowd of staring men, stepped up on the dais, and sat myself down in the parson’s chair, surveying the group. “I see the head of our Upper Village committee, Mr. Cooper, is here, but who is head of the Lower Village?”

Mr. Cooper would not meet my eyes, but a man in a mud-spattered shirt who I had never seen before stepped forward. I managed to smile at them both, a gesture Mr. Cooper could not see.

“If I could also have the parson, and you, Mr. Moreau, up here for a few moments, I would be very grateful. If the rest of you gentlemen would be so kind as to wait for ten minutes, I hope to have some instructions for you then.”

The quiet dissolved into a buzz and hum as the group I’d asked for moved toward the dais. Mr. Lockwood came and stood with them, silent, feet apart, arms crossed. I tried not to look at him. Lane hung back a few paces, watching both me and Mr. Lockwood over the heads of the other men. He was coiled up again, I could see that. Probably because he had no idea what I might do next. Small wonder.

“Gentlemen,” I began, “I wish to find out what’s being done for the people displaced, and for those injured.” I turned to Mr. Cooper. “How many are injured?”

Mr. Cooper twitched. “I’m … sure I don’t …”

“Not many, Miss Tulman,” Lane broke in. “A few bumps and cuts, one broken arm, and there have been three deaths. Most of the villagers were …” He paused.

“In this chapel,” I finished for him, “discussing me. Yes, I quite understand, Mr. Moreau. That is fortunate, in hindsight, is it not?”

There was some shuffling of feet. I caught Mr. Lockwood frowning as the parson spoke up. “There were a few still in the Lower Village at the time of the flood, Miss, but they were able to climb on the thatch and were taken out by boat.”

“I see. Thank you.” I turned back to Mr. Cooper. “And who has died?”

Mr. Cooper stammered something unintelligible, and the parson rescued him. “A Mr. Bell, who was manning the gasworks.”

“Was he from Upper or Lower Village?”

“Upper, Miss.”

“Then his family is not displaced?”

“He had no wife or children, Miss.”

“And there is also Ben Aldridge,” came Lane’s low voice. “He was in one of the boats. And there is a child.”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “Thank you, Mr. Moreau.” I took a deep breath, and turned again to Mr. Cooper. “So, it seems that the infirmary is not particularly in use. How many beds are there in the infirmary?”

“Twenty,” he finally managed.

“Good. We will use all of them, and by tonight we should be able to take perhaps fifteen families at the big house. I will see to that. And let’s not forget that Mr. Aldridge’s cottage is empty. We can put at least two nice-sized families in there. Is Mrs. Brown about? Or her daughter?”

“They’re both down at the square, finding people beds,” Lane said.

“Good. Mrs. Brown will be in charge of placing families with others in the village that might have room. I shall tell her so myself. And, Parson, I shall want a list, the name and number of all the families that have lost their homes. Is that understood? Bring it up to the big house as soon as may be.”

“Yes, indeed.”

I looked to the head of the Lower Village. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know your name.”

“Mr. Waycroft, Miss.”

“How many of our supplies were destroyed by the flood, Mr. Waycroft?”

“Everything that was down there, Miss, though the Upper Village carries the bulk of things.”

“Have we any working boats?”

“A few, though not all.”

“Then that is a priority. Put together a crew of men to round up and repair the boats, so the supplies will not be interrupted. Can we get them to the river?”

He bobbed his head, and I addressed the group.

“Is the water level rising, falling, or is it remaining the same, gentlemen?”

No one answered immediately. “It’s dropped about three feet since yesterday, Miss Tulman,” Lane said. “But has held steady since.”

“I see. Have we any notion of how the Lower Village might be drained? We have underground places that must be emptied immediately….” I stopped for a moment, while various phases of bemusement passed over the row of faces in front of me. The thought of the water-filled tunnel was almost more than I could bear. Mr. Waycroft spoke up.

“My understanding, Miss Tulman, is that the canal was made to be closed off and emptied, in case of repair. If we could empty the canal, and then cause the floodwater to drain into the canal, possibly by digging ditches, we should be able to lower the water level, at least.”

I smiled at him. “Mr. Waycroft, please see if any others think this might work, or if we have anyone else that might have expertise in such a matter. If you get a consensus, then you have my permission to begin work immediately.” Mr. Waycroft bobbed his head. “Now, is there anything I haven’t considered, gentlemen, or that might need my attention immediately?”

There was a chorus of shaking heads, though Mr. Lockwood’s stance was unchanged. His eyes were boring a hole through me. I looked away from him, and stood.

“Then I will see Mrs. Brown and to my own preparations. Parson, would you please speak to those that are waiting here in the church and make my instructions known?”

“Gladly, Miss Tulman.” He smiled broadly at me. “I’ll see to it at once.”

“Thank you, sir.” I gave him a curtsy and I walked away through the crowd, head up, Mrs. Jefferies sailing in my wake. I only hoped none of them knew that my knees were trembling.

And they trembled periodically for the rest of the morning, my hands with them, though not from fear or nervousness, but for reasons I did not understand. I sat with Mrs. Brown in the infirmary, quivering fingers hidden in the folds of Mary’s skirt, and between the two of us we concocted a plan to provide housing and provisions, and to wring as much order from the situation as was possible. Mary joined us, crushing me with one brief, fierce hug about the neck, then came back to the big house to help Mrs. Jefferies search out the most suitable rooms for temporary housing.

The lowest wing we found to be partially flooded, the corridor to the ballroom standing in water and showing an even higher mark on the walls, and I wanted no one near Marianna’s rooms — to spare my uncle — or anywhere near the chapel, which I considered a tomb. But in the end I was able to send word to Mrs. Brown to increase the number of families sleeping in Stranwyne to twenty. In most cases the rooms were not much, but there was at least a roof and a fireplace.

The rest of the afternoon was spent making pot after pot of soup, none of which I could eat, and while the fourth pot boiled, my entire body began to quake from the inside out. I made an excuse to Mrs. Jefferies, left the kitchen quietly, and as soon as I was in the corridor fled to the room of the ornaments, where I could cower on the yellow settee and be alone with my tremors. Fourteen minutes ticked away before my fear of sinking back into my nightmares ebbed. I closed my eyes, trying to rest, and remembered our neighbor in London, a man who would shake when short of his daily requirement of whiskey and beer. Perhaps my body was craving the missing ingredients in my tea. Or maybe my grief and guilt were just so intense that I was sick with it.

It was full dark when I left the last scrubbed pot upside down on the dishcloth, pushed open the kitchen door, and went outside, every inch of me aching with weariness. I’d been thinking while I scrubbed, planning my coming days, and the thought of what I must do next left me bleeding inside, a slow trickle that I knew would never let me sleep, no matter how tired. The garden was alive with moon shadow and night whisperings, and then I saw that one of the shadows was Lane. I heard his feet coming to me on the gravel, watched as the tops of his muddy boots stopped in front of mine. I kept still, eyes on the ground, dreading my next bout of pain.

At length he said, “Last night I was told, in no uncertain terms, that if I ever said a cross word to you again, the devil would burst from the ground, grab me by the ankles, give a good yank, and drag me straight back with him.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Your aunt is very … enthusiastic in her likes and dislikes.”

“True.”

“She told you … everything?”

“Yes.” The wind eddied through the garden, setting leaves and stalks in motion. He let the breezes die down before he said, “Opium, then?”

I nodded.

“And at the party, you got too much?”

“I think so … yes.” I still had not looked him in the face. He thrust his hands in his pockets and sighed.

“You did well today, at the village. After you left, Lockwood had Mr. Cooper backed in a corner, waving that signed paper in his face until the man shook like a fly on a string.” He paused. “We found Mr. Bell from the gasworks, but … that’s all. The way the current was moving I guess Ben could have gone down to the river, before the wall came down. I didn’t see him when I was diving, but the water was murky.” I watched the toe of Lane’s boot move a piece of gravel back and forth. “Aunt Bit said that … you were with him.”

He was speaking of Davy now. I could hear the grief in his voice, and it tripled my own. I nodded again, silent. We studied the cabbages in the dark.