15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Fat drops thwacked against the stretched skin of the umbrella. Phineas skirted a puddle. Ahead of him, the tall wall of his home came into view, and against the gloom, the windows which faced the park glowed warm with yellow light. He took his next few steps a little faster. He’d stayed back later than he’d intended to help Taylor with some paperwork, and rain had settled in sometime between his arrival and departure at the end of the half-workday Saturday.

Provided she hadn’t decided to decorate another room, Rosanna would likely be discussing the week’s menu with Jean or maybe visiting Elise or her family. She would be busy, and the house would be quiet, and he would be able to think through the problem of Argonauts Trading and Lord Richard and just how much Pennington had to do with it all. If he reported it to senior management, they might pull back from selling shares, but that didn’t change what Lord Richard owed, and it didn’t change life for Rosanna. He’d promised her a clean break and a future on her own terms. He couldn’t fail. Not again.

Those two wheel ruts in the snow… The memory of them was seared into his eyelids, taunting him whenever he closed his eyes to sleep. Over the years, he had returned to the bridge at random times to try to conjure up some spark that might lead to a clue, but he visited the place every day in his memory. Christmas had never been much of a happy time, but ever since that day, the richness of it was infused with his failure. The stone, normally grey blue, blackened with moisture and glistening stark against the crystals of snow. The smell of pine and woodsmoke, harmonious choruses; the cleanness of cold air… All of them screamed, Where were you. She trusted you. You failed.

Phineas paused at the bottom of his front steps. The cat sat on the landing before the door, his tail flicking lazily back and forth.

‘Evening, Spencer,’ he said, as if the cat might give him a response.

Spencer licked a paw. He sniffed the air, then leapt off the landing and scampered into the bushes.

A slight light, wider than it should have been, painted a line around the edge of the door.

His front door stood ajar.

Phineas took the steps in two swift strides. Shouts, cries, and hollering came from inside, and cold fear ran through him. Had Lord Richard come for Rosanna? He’d imagined his home, full of staff, even in their bumbling ways, a safe place for her. Had the lord been desperate enough to break in? Phineas threw a silent prayer to the god he didn’t believe in that she was giving them the better of the fighting.

He listened hard, then nudged the door open. He closed his umbrella and scanned the entrance for a more suitable weapon, but amongst all the knick-knacks and things stuffed onto the side table, there was nothing more menacing. He twisted the umbrella handle between his palms. Anything was better than nothing.

‘Raah!’

Phineas tensed and swung—but stopped when a person half his height and wearing a homemade wolf mask leapt into the doorway. The creature clawed at the air.

‘I am a huntsman,’ someone further down the hall bellowed. Not someone … Was that Hugh, the butler? ‘I will get you, wolf.’ The wolf squealed and scampered out of sight. Hugh’s broad frame flashed across the entrance to the hallway, so fast that Phineas only knew who it was from his voice.

Phineas lowered his umbrella. Pandemonium echoed through his house. Laughter bounced off the walls, colliding in the landing of the stairwell and the hall. The lights cast odd angles, and the air weighed heavy with the smell of sweat and sugar and hot food.

It was not the chaos of a home invasion.

It was far, far worse.

Hempels. Hundreds of them. Perhaps not actual hundreds, but far more than the one he was accustomed to, and she was problematic enough. One clapped down the stairs, screaming, while another followed, growling like a bear. One shrieked, another cried out, then giggled, and feet tramped and ran and pounded from all directions. One of the small ones leapt into the entrance, turned in a lopsided pirouette with her hands raised above her head, and tiptoed away.

‘Felix!’ Phineas shouted. ‘Are you here?’

A head poked around the corner. Not Felix. ‘Evening, Mr Babbage. How was your morning?’ Nanny Abigail scooped a child up and onto her hip. This one was smaller than the princess one, with blonde curls and green eyes the same shade as Rosanna’s.

‘Productive. Confusing.’ Phineas looked past her, still searching for Felix or any member of his staff, even the one that was always singing. ‘Why are you in my house? You should be next door.’ He patted the dividing wall in demonstration. ‘Through there. Where you all live. And I can’t hear you.’

The child on her hip squeezed a cheek, and Nanny Abigail jerked her face out of reach, brushing a curl aside with a tender hand. ‘Little baby Hazel had a fever these past two nights and half of today. It seems like she’s come through the worst of it, but poor mistress is terribly tired but still so worried she can’t sleep. I don’t think she’s closed her eyes since the babe first felt warm. Mr Hempel is with her. He promised to watch the baby so she might relax a little and hopefully get some rest.’

‘Where is Rosanna?’

Nanny Abigail bounced the child in her arms. ‘She’s gone to the Aster with Johannes. There’s a big crowd in tonight, and Grandpa Robert, he’s good with a menu but not much good in a crush. And Mr Hempel doesn’t trust anyone but Rosie at these things anyway.’

Phineas pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘But why are all these small people here ?’

‘I was lining them up to take them to see the ducks, but the weather turned dark before we’d crossed the street, and we don’t need any more sniffly noses than we already have. Rosie—I mean, your wife, Mrs Babbage—said to bring them over. I can take them home if it’s a problem, although heaven knows how I’ll keep the noise down. They’ve been as worried as poor mistress, although they don’t show it in the same way. You don’t mind, do you?’

He did mind. He liked quiet. And peace. He had been staring at columns all day, and right now, he needed to think about transport and shipping routes to chase his hunch about Argonauts into proof or obsolescence. Phineas shoved his umbrella into the stand. ‘Do you need anything?’

Nanny Abigail shook her head. ‘Felix has been ever so helpful. He’s brilliant, isn’t he? He has the children in the dining room having a picnic. He really loves his work.’

‘Sir!’ Felix, bounding down the hallway, pulled to a stop before the entry. He wore a hat folded from newspaper, and as he twisted direction, it slipped to one side. ‘Can I take your coat? This afternoon, we moved your hook and made a cloak room. It was Letitia’s idea. Look!’ He swung open the door into the room behind the entrance. Phineas peeked around the corner. A row of red coats and scarves lined the wall. Felix slung Phineas’s black coat onto a hanger and hung it on the rail. ‘We are having tea in the dining room. Hugh and I rolled out blankets because the table is too small, and we are pretending to dine en plain air , so that everyone has space to sit and eat. Would you like to join us?’

Before Phineas could reply, Felix, hollering as a small troop of children dragged him out of sight, was swept from view.

Phineas leant into the lobby. Raucous laughter and calls echoed down the hall. He shuffled along a little further.

‘Are you going to join them?’ Nanny Abigail asked.

‘No.’

‘Not even for tea? Jean has made shortcake and sandwiches.’

‘Especially not. I will be in the library.’

‘Suit yourself. I’ve been run ragged all day, and I am itching for some food. I’ll tell Felix to send something in, shall I?’

Nanny Abigail left, but Phineas was not alone. A small boy, his height in between the tiny dancing one and an adult, stared up at him. He had dark hair like Lawrence, freckles like Rosanna, and a sombre expression. He thrust his right hand at Phineas, then swapped it for his left, before deciding on his right again. ‘Good afternoon. I am Amadeus. I’m ten.’

‘Congratulations.’ Phineas stepped out of the lobby and into the hall, away from the commotion at the back of the house and towards the sacredness of his library.

‘That’s not how it goes.’ The child, indignant, trotted behind him. ‘After I introduce myself, you introduce yourself.’

‘Phineas Babbage,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘We are not strangers. We’ve lived beside each other for seven years.’

‘We have, but we’ve never been formally introduced.’ The boy scooted around, jostling him to the side, then pulled up short, squarely in Phineas’s way and obscuring his path. He offered his hand again. Phineas took it and gave it one swift shake. ‘Pleased to meet you, Phineas Babbage,’ the child said. ‘Your house is very noisy.’

‘Why don’t you tell them to be quiet?’ Phineas flicked his fingers. ‘Go on. Shoo.’

He sidestepped the medium Hempel and finally crossed over the threshold to his library. But as he turned to shut the door, the child popped up in the centre of the room. How did he move so fast?

‘Uncle Phin…’

Phineas glowered down. ‘I am not your uncle.’

‘Who are you, then?’

‘I am your brother-in-law. Of sorts. I suppose.’

‘Oh,’ Amadeus said, his voice thick with disappointment.

Phineas spun to the bookshelf and investigated the presented spines. Railways… the Midlands… handbooks… guides… where were his maps? He tapped through the books and scanned the embossed titles. Then he stopped to look down at the child. ‘What do you mean, “Oh?”’

‘Nothing.’ The boy flopped to the floor and crossed his legs. ‘It’s just, I’ve already got so many brothers, but no uncles. I always thought it might be nice to have one of those. Someone to take me to the park and show me how to shoot, like in a boy’s own adventure.’

‘People don’t shoot in the park.’

‘Oh,’ Amadeus said, even more disappointed than he had been before. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter that I don’t have an uncle.’ He plucked at the rug, then scuffed his heel against the edge.

Phineas turned back to the bookcase. ‘What number are you?’ he asked, half over his shoulder.

‘My name is Amadeus. I have no number,’ the boy replied, frowning.

‘Of course you have a number. Somewhere, we’re all a number. In your family, are you seventh? Eighth?’

‘Number six!’ Amadeus shouted with a half jump. ‘Garnett was above me. But he’s gone now. So, when people look at us all lined up, I’m number five, but Mama and Father say, and we all know that I’m number six.’

Garnett. That was the boy they’d lost. Done a sight better than many a family—especially the families in the poorhouse where he’d grown up—in only losing one. And those they’d kept seemed healthy and whole. One tragedy amidst so much life would have been considered a blessing.

But even a little loss marked a person.

And a battlefield of loss?

It scorched a person’s soul.

‘I miss him,’ Amadeus said.

‘You weren’t even born when he died,’ Phineas said, then regretted the words, not only for their brutishness but for their simplicity.

‘I know,’ the boy said, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the harsh angle of his tone. ‘Doesn’t mean I don’t miss him.’

Phineas walked his fingers along the book spines. There. The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland, Practically Described and Illustrated . Phineas took the book, pulled out his reading glasses, and settled into his chair.

‘Uncle Phin.’ Amadeus climbed over Phineas’s knee and settled into the small space on the cushion.

Phineas shifted aside with a huff. ‘We discussed this. I’m not your uncle.’

‘Will you read to me?’ The boy slid, stiff with bony angles, against the chair arm.

‘The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland? You want me to read it to you?’

The boy pressed the back of his hand against his mouth as he yawned. ‘Is it exciting? Are there pirates with swords, or magic?’

Phineas opened the book to the title page. ‘Not exactly. This book is full of something better. Answers . Have you ever been on a train?’

Amadeus shook his head. ‘I see them, but we walk everywhere. Nanny says it helps us sleep. Or helps her sleep. I forget.’

The spine cracked as Phineas opened to the first chapter. ‘If I am going to read to you about trains, you must act like people do on a long train journey. Everyone on a train is very quiet, because they are too busy looking out the window and enjoying the view. Can you be quiet like that?’

‘I’ll be quiet, Uncle Phin,’ Amadeus said in a loud whisper, and made a motion like he was buttoning his lips.

‘Very good. Now. Let us begin. The Permanent Way Railway is laid to the English standard gauge, viz, four feet and eight and a half inches. Although the land taken is wide enough for a double way, being about seventeen yards, there is, at present… ’

After a few pages, Amadeus’s chest slowed its rhythm. He rubbed his wrist against his nose, then fell back against Phineas’s shoulder and snored softly.

Phineas turned the page slowly, keeping his torso still and only moving his hands. He arched a little into his chair, and when Amadeus mumbled, Phineas froze until the boy settled back into his sleepy silence.

Children were uncomfortable.

And when they were asleep, they made all sorts of noises. They snuffled. Snorted. Grunted. Even giggled.

They were also warm. And heavy.

Very heavy.

Phineas turned another page. The letters grew fuzzy, and words lost their familiar shapes. He turned into his shoulder and yawned.

Amadeus jerked, and his elbow dug into Phineas’s hip. Phineas stifled a yelp.

Children were also painful.

Ten years old… Had he ever been like this child? Phineas counted through the years, the places on the road, and the hovels of his childhood. Could he even remember ten? He tried to place a city or even a country, but through the blur of memories, one outpost was so very like another. Ten was certainly after his mother had married the corporal, a man much older than her, but one with a steady income and who appreciated the regimen they’d learnt to live by in the poorhouse. Ten might have been when Phineas had learnt how to play the bugle. It was after his stepfather had taught him how to read, but before he’d learnt how to dodge a hand angry with too much rum. Where had those days even been spent? Nova Scotia? Port Arthur? Or further afield, in the tropics? Maybe ten had been those days when the sea had stretched into the sky, and buzzing insects had carried his mother away, not on their wings, but with disease.

The book dropped from his hands and landed on the rug with a thump.

His memories grizzled and pawed at the edge of a dream. So much of his life since she’d left him had been turned backs and closed doors. The prison cell slamming shut after he was found in a tavern instead of at his post. The quiet hush as his stepfather turned his back and left the court once he’d heard the reduced sentence. He’d been spared the coffin closing, and for that, Phineas was grateful, because if faced with the steady tap of nails entrusting a man like the corporal to the afterlife, he wouldn’t have known what to feel. Gratitude? Remorse? Shame? Anger?

As it was, he had the option of feeling nothing.

Feeling nothing was for the best.

His memory settled into a monotonous monotone, one of those simple sleeping constructions that meant nothing in the land of sleep or waking. A deep breath, and the shapes fragmented, and swirled away. Amadeus grunted, then snorted. Phineas patted the boy’s back until he calmed.

A different dream of the world right outside his door bit his thoughts. Of the world he tried to keep his distance from and remain an observer of but was forever finding himself dragged into. For all their sullenness, his Christmases with Arley had been something of a comfort. The two of them had found one another one evening when Arley had escaped his own house after Abberton took it over for a party and some mother had tracked the duke to his office and insisted he meet her daughter. And then there was that other afternoon, not even two years ago, when Phineas had been walking home, and Hamish’s manservant had demanded he come to Number 4 to hear some business proposition. By that time, he’d already sniffed out Iris’s scandal, but Irving had said he could make things better. His undoing, over and again, was in trying to help.

The front door clicked. Phineas blinked his eyes open. He listened from the edge of his thoughts, absorbing the familiar step on the floorboards, her boots probably spreading dirt everywhere. The worry around his heart loosened a little. She was home.

Outside the library door, Rosanna paused and had a whispered conversation with her sister Beatrice. Johannes flashed in, then out of view, and through slitted, heavy eyelids, the slow procession of older children carrying younger children paraded by. The second boy, Elliot, carried the small girl who always sang. Beatrice clasped the other small girl around her hip. Nanny, small yet strong, balanced the toddler she was always chasing against her chest.

‘Ammie?’ Rosanna called, her voice soft, yet edged with worry.

‘In here.’

Rosanna stopped in the doorway. Johannes bumped against her.

‘I’m too scared to move. Everything hurts,’ Phineas croaked, as loud as he dared. ‘Help.’

Johannes chuckled, his deep baritone like a gong in the settled silence. ‘Ammie sleeps like a brick. You could have pushed him onto the floor, and he wouldn’t have woken.’ Johannes caught his brother beneath the armpits and scooped him into his arms. Amadeus snuffled, his head lolling backwards. Rosanna laughed softly, pecked his forehead, and arranged him into a more comfortable position.

The front door closed. The familiar tap and tread of the staff as they moved down or upstairs faded away to silence. Phineas stretched into the firm leather of the chair, and his back cracked with relief.

Rosanna slipped his glasses from his nose, folded the arms, then placed them on the table. She smoothed his hair. ‘Do you need to be carried off to bed, too?’

Her touch brought back all his senses, and his memories collided. The bright burst of terror that had rushed over him when he’d thought someone had come for her lit in him like a furnace once more. ‘I was so worried about you.’

‘Johannes was with me, just as you told me. I was only at the hotel. Lord Richard was there, dining with Mr Vincent and skulking about, but he didn’t come near me—’

Half asleep, half twisted with anxiety, all of him flooding with relief, Phineas grasped her skirts with both fists and yanked her closer. He had no right to claim her softness with a husband’s assertion, but his body yearned for her physicality, ached for the certainty that she was well and whole and here . She yielded to his tug and slid onto his lap with a giggle. Before she could say anything, he sought out her lips as a balm to his anxiety.

She returned his kiss lightly, then deeper in intensity, like a whirlpool drawing him to a precipice where he floated, dreamlike, knowing he should stop but so unwilling to even try.

‘What is this?’ she sighed against his lips, their familiar softness nipping his. ‘Between us. Is it becoming more?’

Phineas crawled her skirts into his palms as he grasped her tighter. Could he imagine a world where he would give her the life she wanted, the freshness and freedom she needed? More of what? Family? Laughter? Light? Which of those things could he give her? They could not become more because he had nothing more to give.

‘Nothing,’ he said, his voice gravelly and harsh. ‘This is nothing. I forgot myself. You shouldn’t do that.’ He shoved her from his knee until she stood, and with a mumbled goodnight, he stumbled from the room.