The Sweet Far Thing (53 page)

When the teachers are not around, the girls fall into excited chatter about their approaching debuts.

They’ve stacks of invitations—those tempting promises of romance, elaborate feasts, and new gowns engraved in neat script upon fine cream-colored cards. I should be thinking of my own debut. But I’m far too distracted. That time seems to exist in another world, and I cannot see my way clear to it just now.

Rather than take tea with the others and listen to talk of this party or that ball, I excuse myself on the pretense of practicing my curtsy, and comb the school’s nooks and crannies, hoping I might find the dagger Wilhelmina Wyatt stole or additional clues to its whereabouts. Unfortunately, I discover nothing but dust, empty drawers, and overstuffed cupboards, and the rather unfortunate surprise of an unwrapped toffee gone to goo, which even after three soapings still coats my fingers in a nasty stickiness.

I’m at a loss, especially now that Miss Wyatt won’t show herself to me in visions or dreams. It’s as if she’s toying with me, and I recall Dr. Van Ripple’s comment about her enjoying her little cruelties. It casts doubts on her trustworthiness.

I’m just about to give up and return to the others when I spy Kartik’s bandana in the ivy. I reach down and pluck it free. There’s a note attached:
I’ve arranged it. Meet me in the laundry. Midnight. Bring
five pounds. Dress sensibly.

Tonight. I shall have to thank him for giving me such short notice. Still, it is arranged, and if I can speak with a representative of the Rakshana about saving my brother, I’ll go whenever called.

Felicity’s not happy about my plans. She expects another visit to the realms, and she’s sure Pip won’t forgive her absence—but she understands that I must help Tom. She even offers me the use of her fencing foil in case I need to stab anyone. I assure her that won’t be necessary, and I hope I am correct in this assumption.

Just before midnight, I ready myself for my meeting with Kartik in the laundry. He has said to dress sensibly, and as we will travel through London’s streets at night, I decide there is only one possible solution.

With the magic at hand, I give myself trousers, a shirt, a waistcoat, and a coat. I shorten my hair and am astonished to see myself like this—all eyes and freckles. I make a good boy, perhaps a prettier one than I am a girl. A cloth cap completes the illusion.

The laundry house is dark when I enter. I don’t see or hear a thing, and I wonder if Kartik has come after all.

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“You’re late,” he says, stepping out from behind a beam.

“It is good to see you as well,” I snap.

“The note distinctly said midnight. If we’re to make London in time, we must leave now. Have you the money?”

I hold up my coin purse and give it a jingle. “Five pounds, as requested. Why do I need it?”

“Information is costly,” he answers. He takes in the sight of my trousers. “Sensible.” His gaze travels up.

He turns away. “Button your coat.”

My bosom swells slightly under the shirt. That part of me has not been disguised. Embarrassed, I button the coat.

“Here,” Kartik says, wrapping his scarf around my neck. The ends hang down, obscuring the front of me.

He leads me to the hitching post where Freya waits. Kartik pats her nose, soothing her. He swings into the saddle and offers his hand, then pulls me up behind him. We take off with a start. I put my arms around his waist and he does not object.

We ride for what seems an eternity—my backside aches—and at last the lights of London glimmer in the distance. Just short of the city, we dismount, and Kartik leaves Freya hitched to a tree with assurances to her that we will return. He feeds her a carrot and we join the pulse of London nightlife. The streets are not as quiet as I would think. It is as if the city itself has sneaked out of doors while its counterpart, the ordinary day city, sleeps. This is a different London, a London more daring and unknown.

Kartik secures a cab and raps on the roof to signal the driver. With Kartik sitting beside me, the cab feels quite close. His hands rest rigidly on his thighs. I push myself into the corner.

“Where are we to meet?”

“Near Tower Bridge.”

The night is smeared with hazy light. Kartik is close enough to touch. His shirt is open at the neck, exposing the curve of his throat, the delicate hollow there. The cab feels warm. My head is as light as down. I require some distraction before I go mad.

“How did you arrange the meeting?”

“There are channels.”

Kartik offers no further comment, and I ask no more questions. The cab falls into silence again save for the horses’ quick clip-clop shuddering through me. Kartik’s knee falls against mine. I wait for him to move it, but he doesn’t. My hands tremble in my lap. From the corner of my eye, I see him looking out at the streets. I do the same, but I cannot say that I notice the scenery. I am aware only of the warmth of his knee. It seems impossible that so small a collection of bones and sinew could produce such a thrilling effect.

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The driver stops short, and Kartik and I alight on the streets just below the Tower Bridge. The bridge has been in operation for only two years, and it is a sight to behold. Two large towers rise like medieval buttresses. A walkway is suspended between them high over the Thames. The bridge lifts to allow the passage of the ships that come into port—and there are many. The pools of the Thames are crowded with them.

An old beggar woman sits in the damp muck on the walk. She shakes a beaten tin with one penny in it.

“Please, sir, spare a copper.”

Kartik places a sovereign in the lady’s cup, and I know that it’s likely all he has.

“Why did you do that?” I ask.

He kicks a rock on the ground, balancing it nimbly between his feet like a ball. “She needed it.”

Father says it isn’t good to give money to beggars. They’ll only spend it unwisely on drink or other pleasures. “She might buy ale with it.”

He shrugs. “Then she’ll have ale. It isn’t the pound that matters; it’s the hope.” He kicks the rock in a high arc. It skitters down some stone steps. “I know what it’s like to fight for things that others take for granted.”

We’ve reached the pools, which are crowded with vessels of every type, from small dinghies to large ships. I cannot see how they make their way in and out, as the ships are crowded so closely together that one could easily step from the bow of this ship to that one without getting wet at all. They line the wharves and docks waiting to unload and receive their cargo.

Small steps lead down to the bank. I wait for Kartik to offer me the aid of his arm. Instead, he starts down without me, his hands bunched in his coat pockets.

“What’s keeping you?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say, taking the stairs at a fairly quick clip.

Kartik rolls his face heavenward. “Why do ladies refuse to say when they are angry? Is it a skill they teach you? It’s terribly confusing.”

I stop and face him in the weak blue light. “If you must know, you might have offered me your arm at the top.”

He shrugs. “Why? You have two of your own.”

I struggle to keep my composure. “It is customary for a gentleman to help a lady down the steps.”

He smirks. “I’m no gentleman. And tonight, you’re no lady.”

I try to protest but find I cannot, and we follow the Thames without another word. The great river laps against its banks with a rhythmic sloshing. It rises and falls and rises again, as if it, too, should like to be free for a night. I hear voices coming from below.

“This way,” Kartik says, running toward them. The voices grow louder. The accents are hard and rough.

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The mud thickens as the fog lifts. In the water are perhaps a dozen people of all sorts—from old women to dirty-faced children.

One of the old women sings a seafaring song, stopping only for the violent coughing fits that rack her body. Her dress is little more than rags. She is so caked in mud she folds into the murk like a shadow. As she sings, she dips a shallow pan into the Thames and brings it up. With quick fingers, she picks through the pan while shaking it, searching for what, I’m sure I don’t know.

“Mud larks,” Kartik explains. “They sift through the Thames for whatever they can find of value to sell or keep—rags, bones, a bit of tin or coal from a passing ship. If they’re lucky, they might find the purse of a sailor who met with a bad end—that is, if the riverman’s hook hasn’t found him first.”

I make a face. “But to wade into the Thames…”

Kartik shrugs. “It’s far better than being a tosher, I can tell you that.”

“What, pray, is a tosher?”

“Much like a mud lark, but they scour the sewers for their finds.”

“What a wretched existence.”

Kartik takes on a hard tone. “It is a means to live. Life isn’t always fair.”

The comment is meant to sting and it does. We fall into quiet.

“You’re the one always speaking of fate and destiny. How do you explain their lot, then? Is it their fate to suffer so?”

Kartik shoves his hands into his pockets. “Suffering isn’t destiny. Nor is ignorance.”

A woman’s voice cuts through the fog. “Wot’s the rivah give you tonigh’?”

“Luv, I go’ apples ’n’ stuffin’!” another shouts back.

They fall into loud gales of laughter.

“They’ve found apples and stuffing here?” I ask.

Kartik grins. “It’s Cockney rhyme. The last word is a rhyme for the word they mean. ‘I’ve got apples

’n’stuffing’ really means ‘I got nothing,’ or, as she’d say, ‘I got nuffin’.’”

“Oi! Kartik!” One of the urchins stumbles up from the filth and muck of the river. “Been waitin’ on you, mate.”

“We were delayed, Toby.” He apologizes to the mud-coated boy with a bow.

Toby nears, and so does his smell. It is a horrible mixture of stagnant river water, rubbish, and worse. I dare not think about what lives in his ragged clothes. My stomach lurches and I find I have to breathe through my mouth so as not to swoon.

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“How is the treasure hunting?” Kartik asks. He thinks he’s clever but he’s got his hand at his chin. His fingers cover his nose.

“No’ grand, but no’ bad, neither.” Toby holds out his palm. In it is an odd collection—a small lump of coal, two hairpins, a tooth, a shilling. Every bit of it is coated in filth. He smiles widely, revealing a lack of teeth. “That will buy a pint of ale.” Toby views me suspiciously. “’At a lady in gent’s trousers?” I’m certain the horror shows on my face.

Kartik raises an eyebrow. “Can’t fool everyone.”

Toby jingles the loot in his hand. “She’s no beauty, mate, but she looks clean. ’Ow much?”

I do not understand straightaway, but when I do, a fierce rage overtakes me.

“Why, I—”

Kartik wraps his hand over my fist and stays it. “Sorry, mate. She’s with me,” he says.

Toby shrugs and adjusts his grimy cap. “Meant no ’arm.”

Big Ben announces the hour. The great chime cuts through the fog and I feel it in my belly.

“Let’s take a walk, eh?” Toby says.

“The cheek of it,” I grumble.

She’s no beauty, mate.
He thought me no better than a prostitute, and yet, why is it that this statement is the one that pierces me through?

A young boy steps from the shadows. He has sores on his lips and great hollows under his eyes. His voice hasn’t yet changed—he can’t be more than ten—but there’s an empty sound to it already, as if no one is left inside him. “Lookin’ for comp’ny, guv? Tuppence.”

Kartik shakes his head, and the boy fades back, waiting anxiously for the next passerby.

“There are others here who will take what he offers,” Kartik tells me.

Toby leads us to a wharf stacked with empty crates, and the greasy light of only one lamp. “This is a good spot,” he says.

Kartik looks about. “No escape route. You could be cornered easily here.”

“By wot?” Toby asks. “Ships ever’ where.”

“And the men on them are drunk or sleeping. Or the very sort we need to watch out for,” Kartik warns.

“You fink I’m daft?” Toby says, challenging him.

“Kartik,” I warn.

“Fine.” Kartik relents. “Gemma, the money.”

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I give him the small purse with five pounds inside. It’s all the money I’ve got, and I’m loath to part with it. He hands it to Toby, who opens it, counts the coins, and packs it into his pocket.

“Now,” Kartik says, “what did you discover about Mr. Doyle?”

I look from Kartik to Toby and back again. “He’s the one we’ve come to meet?”

“Toby makes himself useful as an errand boy sometimes. He knows how to barter knowledge for money.”

Toby smiles as big as life. “I can find out anyfin’. On my life.”

“But this meeting was to be with the Rakshana,” I protest. I want my money back.

“First, we gather information, so that we know where to strike,” Kartik explains. “If we called a meeting, they’d have us caught for sure. I was one of them. I know.”

“Very well,” I grumble.

Out on the Thames, the boats sway with the current. There’s something soothing and familiar about it.

“They’re pullin’ ’im in, all righ’. Got a ’nitiation planned for ’im and ever’ fin’,” Toby says. “Don’ know

’ow much they’ve told ’im, though.”

“And is Fowlson the one who brought him in?” Kartik asks.

Toby shakes his head. “Fowlson’s ’is minder. Somebody at the top asked for it. A gen’leman.” He points to the sky. “High up.”

“Do you know who?”