23. Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-three

Growing up, the time of the year when the sun only set for what felt like minutes, when evening became just a grey extension of day—it had all seemed normal. In the North, summer days had felt unending while winter days, drowned out by the monotony of the workhouse workday, were as short as an inch. It was only when he’d descended into the hull of a ship and traversed the seas, when he’d re-emerged on the other side of the world, that Phineas had come to comprehend days as a detail belonging to a place instead of an absolute thing. At the centre of the earth, days held some general, mirrored sense throughout the year. In the far north or south, days could last days, many days, and in winter, the night could stretch into eternity.

And in the first-floor bedroom of Number 1, Honeysuckle Street, in his wife’s bed, with his wife tucked into his side, he could not decide if the small summer night had proved inadequate. In the ashen hues of dusk, he had adored the feeling of her cheek on his chest as he too drifted off to sleep. When the moon dawdled across the window, he had nudged her awake and rolled her onto her back to make love to her again, without pain. Her little breaths and moans, pattering in harmony with the rain on the window, had rung harmoniously in his ears. But now, as the first sunbeams elongated across the floor, it was the most magnificent thing imaginable to watch the room fill with faint light so that he could count the freckles on her nose.

His wife.

Her husband.

Would he haul his few things down into this room? Or would she want to be placed higher in the house? He knew one thing—this two-bedroom nonsense would not be for him. Lying in his room above, knowing she was resting below and feeling the agony of separation had been hard enough before. To endure it now when he had finally been able to articulate his yearning and she had confessed to feeling the same—he wouldn’t be able to stand it. Maybe she could show him some of those catalogues and they could pick something to paper his room with, together. She would probably hate anything he suggested, just to be obstinate.

A lifetime of petty disagreements, of light snarking, of her refusal to be overruled, opened before him. He kissed the top of her head.

He could not wait.

A murmur and a movement answered him. Rosanna twisted against the sheets. She blinked a few times, cut off a yawn, and before he could draw her against his chest, she repositioned herself and sat upright, her arse against his hips, facing him. Even in waking she wasn’t slow or gradual. She tucked her legs beneath her like a nymph lounging by a stream or a mermaid luring boats to their demise, then flicked her hair over her shoulders. Her tresses formed a frame around her body, showcasing her glorious curves, the dark thatch between her legs and her areola, the delectable roundness stark against her pale skin. His wife. His own.

‘Good morning, Mrs Babbage,’ he said, scarcely believing the words.

She tugged at the coverlet so that it gathered around her waist. ‘I cannot believe of all the names in the world you could have chosen, you decided on Babbage.’

Phineas tucked a hand behind his head and propped himself against the bedstead. ‘I did not plan on having it for so long. Most certainly not forever. I might have thought about it more if I’d known. I suppose I am stuck with it now.’

Rosanna traced the D stamped on his side. ‘I was going to demand you tell me all your secrets, but I don’t think I need to know them all. Only some. How old are you?’

‘I don’t exactly know. I think thirty-four. Maybe thirty-five?’

‘How could you not know?’ she asked.

‘Not many parties in the workhouse or in the army. Keeping track never seemed important.’

She sat straighter and shook out her hair. ‘You must have a birthday. I demand you choose one.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I said you must. I think you should be thirty-two. Then I can organise a party at the hotel when you turn thirty-three. Otherwise, I will have to wait until you are forty-four, and that is such a long time. I will arrange cake and songs and decorations. I shall invite everyone in the street.’

Noise. Attention. People. Small talk. The whole thing sounded awful. He would hate all of it. He would grump about it, and the people around him would laugh and sing and bring presents.

‘February twenty-ninth. You will have to wait until next leap year.’

‘You cannot!’ she chided, then slapped at his chest.

Phineas caught her hand and lifted it to his lips. He nipped at her softness and planted a kiss on her wrist. More than roses and sunshine, she smelt like sweat and debauchery and bliss and contentment. How could one woman be so many things? How could she contain so many components in one body, in a form the same height as his own?

‘On the fourteenth of June, Rosanna Hempel was accosted, and despite her reservations, she allowed me to help her. After years of being numb, I came alive. How is that?’

Her smile started coy and delicate, but when he bit her knuckle, a twinkle of mischievousness flickered in her eyes. Far from a blushing bride, Rosanna moved with confidence as she planted her palms on either side of his head and deftly swung herself over his body. Even after availing himself of her all night, he felt himself growing hard, his cock stiffening at every little rub and nudge as she adjusted herself into a position that suited. She splayed her fingers to shake out her hair, and the tips of her hair tickled the top of his thighs as each curl twisted and settled. Everything about her screamed decadence. He licked his thumb and circled a nipple while his fingertips pressed at the softness of her breasts.

She nuzzled into his neck, then nipped his skin. Phineas squirmed. Rosanna sat back. Her eyes widened with shock, and she grinned in realisation. ‘Are you—’

‘No,’ he snapped.

‘You are! You are ticklish!’

With a shriek of delight, Rosanna attacked him, her fingers dancing and skittering over his sides and bare skin, light and searching in all his delicate places. He snuffled and tried to push down a spluttering laugh, but to no avail, as her brisk assault raged on. He caught her wrists and flipped them both, and she squawked and wriggled beneath his weight until he silenced her with a kiss.

‘Phineas…’ she muttered against his lips.

‘Hmmm?’

‘I like fucking.’

‘I had noticed.’

‘Not so much the first time. Not at the start, anyway. But after that, I liked it much more. I would like to do it again, but I am so hungry. Is that normal?’

‘I have an idea.’ He swung off the bed, grabbed his trousers from the floor and slipped them over his nakedness, then swiped his shirt and tugged it over his head. ‘I will ask Felix to make a picnic basket so that we can eat in bed. He will be beside himself with delight.’ He kissed her nose. ‘And I will bring you tea. I’ve heard that’s what men do when they adore their wives but aren’t so good with the words.’

The house mumbled with the sounds of early morning, of people waking. A door creak, feet on floorboards, pipes squeaking. A busy house. A home. His slippers scuffed the stair runner. If making tea was going to become a habit, perhaps a first-floor bedroom would be best. Then he wouldn’t have to walk so many stairs each day to bring Rosanna tea. On the ground-floor landing, Phineas swung into the lobby, making for the servants’ staircase near the dining room that led to the kitchen. He’d made his own brew daily in the army. Surely, he could manage now.

‘Morning, Babbage. Running late?’

Phineas took a few steps backwards to peer into the entrance. ‘Taylor?’

His colleague was leaning against the front door. Phineas blinked twice to convince himself he wasn’t still asleep. Taylor had never been to his house before. He’d never even asked where Phineas lived, nor had Phineas enquired after him. Their conversations never extended past pleasantries and the ledgers.

How had he even got inside?

Taylor sneered, then inspected his nails. ‘I heard you were looking for me.’

The penny dropped. How had he been so blind, so stupidly, stubbornly oblivious?

‘Pennington.’ Phineas gripped the banister tighter as terror coursed through him. ‘If Lord Richard has spent your money, I’ll pay it directly to you. I’ll pay double. Leave Rosanna out of it. She’s nothing to do with him or anything else.’

Pennington chuckled. ‘I’m not interested in that bumbling fool. Although he did come in far more useful than I expected. What he cost me is a small price to pay for finally cornering you.’

‘If you don’t want money, what do you want?’ Phineas asked, even though his stomach sunk with realisation as he spoke. Only one thing was more powerful than greed.

Revenge.

‘You cost me thousands of pounds in Edinburgh, but more than that, you cost me time. When the National came undone, I lost all my contacts. For years, I worked on that network. All of it was humming along. Then you stuck your nose in, and I lost everything. I found you here in this infernal metropolis, hiding away in your little bank, ruling your margins, watching the stock market, just like before. Quite good at speculating, aren’t you? Most clerks can barely afford a few rooms over a shop, and yet you managed this.’ He waved a finger in the air. ‘I knew money wouldn’t move you, but I am a patient man. I’ve been waiting for you to have something to care about. Something you couldn’t bear to lose.’ He pulled a slip of paper from his coat pocket and flipped the cheque Phineas had written for Lord Richard between his fingers. ‘And now, you finally do.’

‘You showed me the ledger, though… You…’ The gaping size of his failure loomed before him, stretching into the grey light of the hallway. ‘You showed me on purpose. Not because you wanted my help, but to make me curious. You wanted me to stay.’

‘Can’t help but help, can you?’ Pennington scrunched the cheque, then tossed it aside. ‘Let’s go to the bank. I’d like you to check my figures. And when I say check my figures, I mean open the safes so that I can clean them out.’

Phineas scanned the entrance. Knick-knacks, his umbrella, so many damn ornaments—there had to be something he could use as a weapon. ‘I’m just a clerk. Why would they tell me the combinations?’

‘They wouldn’t, and yet I’d wager your lovely wife that you still know them.’ Pennington opened the door. Tepid early morning light glanced off the walls, and the hum of an awakening street filled the air. Phineas edged into the entrance and craned his head just enough to look in the direction where Pennington gestured.

Across Honeysuckle Street, before the ruin that had been Number 6, Spencer sniffed the air, then scarpered and climbed the tree beside the fence, edging along a branch that ran close by a window to Number 4. A man in a black suit dropped a cigarette, then stubbed it out with his toe. He leant against the fence and crossed his arms. The man from the park and the hallway at the Aster. He raised a finger in acknowledgement. Pennington nodded in reply.

A tap and skip came from upstairs, a few levels up. Phineas’s heart contorted, its rhythm alternating between still and racing. He slunk back into the doorway to the lobby and peered up the stairs. Bare feet patted against the wood. A slip of ankle and the white hem of a nightgown skipped down the upper stairs.

‘Phineas? Did you get lost trying to find the kitchens?’ Rosanna giggled.

He swallowed a knot of fear. ‘I’ll be just a moment,’ he called. ‘Go back to bed.’

‘I’ll help you with the tea. I can’t imagine you’ve even been in your kitchens, much less know how to use them.’

‘For once, will you listen to me!’ he bellowed, his voice bouncing up the stairwell. He sucked his next breath between his teeth. ‘Go upstairs. I will bring you tea.’ Would she understand the urgency in his voice? Would she comprehend what he was trying to say?

‘No need to be such a grump,’ she snapped as she turned and clomped up the steps. ‘Two sugars and lots of milk, if you don’t mind.’

As Rosanna stomped out of earshot, Phineas eyed Taylor, weighing the man’s mettle, his reach, his fists. He could fight him off well enough to run, but to win? To knock him out and keep Rosanna safe? Uncertain. And even if he could get to Rosanna and get her away, what of the rest of the household? Felix and Hugh and Letitia and the singing one, that Jean… And an entire family next door. Her family. Her everything.

‘You can’t beat me, Babbage. Maybe if you were just you, and I was just me, you might. But you have people to look after now, and I have people who look after me.’ Pennington huffed a laugh. ‘She’ll do better without you. Deep down, you know that.’

Phineas hung his head. His vision blurred as he blinked down the painful realisation. She would do better without him. It would always be true. And the only way to give her a free life, to keep her safe like he’d promised, was to walk away.

‘How can I trust you?’ he asked. ‘I could do everything you want, and you’ll still hurt her. You could be lying.’

Pennington strode through the entrance hall, his neck muscles tensing as he grasped Phineas’s collar and pulled his face close. ‘I never lie. I always keep my word.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘That’s what makes me so terrifying.’

Phineas stumbled as Pennington shoved him through the entrance and towards the door. Phineas reached for his umbrella. Pennington smirked and shook his head. ‘Clerks. All the same.’

As a small outfit with a modest number of clients on the books but still holding aspirations to be mentioned in the same sentence as Barclays or the Bank of England, Empire Savings and Loans had invested in a range of security measures to keep their clients’ money protected. The most impressive of these was the subterranean bank vaults which secured dozens of locked drawers and safe deposit boxes. Clients placed their precious money and belongings in a box, locked them away, and kept their own copy of the key.

The bank also had small safes in each senior manager's office, and in a space behind the clerks’ rooms on the lower ground floor, they had installed two Mosler safes. As tall as a man, with fireproof double doors and almost indestructible, they secured the necessities for the bank’s day-to-day operations. New bonds, shares, banknotes that needed to be exchanged at other banks, and currency for withdrawals—they were all stored in the Mosler safes.

Keys were too fiddly and too easily stolen or lost, but a three-number-combination, spun by hand to release the lock, offered a practical means of security.

Phineas hadn’t ever intended to learn and memorise the combinations. But over the course of seven years, he had noticed the flick of a wrist while assisting a senior manager to deposit a stack of bonds. Or he’d overheard one man reminding another of the number sequence, as each safe had a different combination and occasionally the older bank officers became confused. Far more than words, numbers adhered to his memory and settled into the nooks and crannies of his mind.

It had always felt like a blessing before. His capacity to calculate had allowed him to reinvent himself over and over again, to move through life unobserved and unremarked on. But as he spun the last number on the dial, heard the bolt drop, and cranked the lever on the heavy door open, a cold shiver raced the length of his spine. The blessing had turned into a curse.

The door crept open with aching slowness. Behind them, the clerks’ offices stood deserted, their empty spaces gaping in the bank’s early morning slumber. The most diligent and eager clerks would start to arrive at around eight o’clock, not for about an hour. There was not a soul here to question them.

Inside the safe, stacks of bonds stuffed into folders tied with string, wads of bank notes, and trays of bright gold sovereigns, fresh from the mint, filled the shelves that ran along its sides. Pennington shoved Phineas aside. He shoved the wads of paper and coins into a bag and grabbed folders with client details and bank balances. For a man like himself who could read the stories behind the numbers, find vulnerabilities and secrets in the margins, it was a life-changing haul. More than money, Pennington was shoving power into his bag.

‘You have everything you want?’ Phineas asked.

Pennington sneered. ‘Not quite.’ And with a hard shove against his back, Phineas stumbled forward, his head colliding with the sharp edge of the open door. Through a blurry veil of thumping agony, he staggered back, only to be thrust forwards again. He steadied himself against the shelves. Pennington chuckled. ‘Now I have what I want.’ Phineas turned and stretched out through the blur, but he was too slow.

The last thing he saw was Pennington, smug and framed in the white light of the bank, before the door swung closed.