Death Below Stairs

by Jennifer Ashley

  The men were of good size and battering Daniel viciously. Daniel punched, kicked, spun, and elbowed, keeping the three at bay, if only barely. I realized as I watched that young Minty and his friends wouldn’t have stood a chance if Daniel had fought them in truth.

  Daniel spun in a crouch, bringing both arms hard into one man’s middle. That man folded up, staggered, hit the low wall on the side of the bridge, and toppled over. He crashed through the trees and landed on the lane below, where he lay in a heap and moaned.

  The remaining two men redoubled their efforts. Daniel fought harder as the train grew ever closer—despite it slowing, it would take some time to stop. Rain beat on my face and wind jerked at my skirts, bringing with it the smell of coal and, incongruously, the sulfurous odor of a match.

  One man had broken away from Daniel, while the other still fought him. He ran to the heap of debris, and I saw a flare of flame in his cupped hands. He was going to light the pile.

  I wasn’t having that. I grabbed a stout branch that had been discarded on the track, and I ran at the man, raising my weapon high.

  He never saw me. He reached to thrust his match into the debris at the same time my branch came down hard on his shoulder. The match spun away, dying in the wind as it fell to the wet ties.

  The man whirled, snarled, and came at me. I drew back my weapon and smote him in the middle, a maneuver I’d learned on a day long ago, when a friend of my husband’s had become far too ready with his hands. That day I’d had a rolling pin, and this early morning it was a branch, but the principle was the same.

  The man grunted as he doubled over, but he was soon up again, his face so tight with his snarl it was like looking at a skull with skin stretched thinly over it.

  I saw out of the corner of my eye that Daniel and the man he fought were struggling on the low wall at the edge of the bridge, the man pulling Daniel over onto the steep bank below us. I could not rush to make sure Daniel was all right, because the man I fought came at me once more.

  I hit him again, this time in the face between those glaring eyes and drawn-back lips.

  My attacker shouted and pawed at his face just as Daniel sprang back over the wall, the man he’d fought gone, and landed a blow on the side of my attacker’s head with a balled-up fist. The man staggered, but as Daniel reached for him, the man twisted aside and sprinted away from us, straight toward the train.

  The black bulk of engine came closer and closer, the round of its face, the glaring lamp above it, and the belching smokestack growing larger every second. The noise of the train drowned all other sound; the hiss of steam and shriek of the wheels filled my ears.

  The man who’d attacked me ran right at the engine, and it hit him. Because the train had slowed, it only knocked him aside, but hard, and he tumbled rapidly over the wall of the bridge and vanished. If he screamed, I couldn’t hear. The rumble of the wheels, the blast of the whistle, the roar of the engine suffused my body until nothing else existed.

  The next thing I knew, something careened into me, wrapped me in tentacles, and yanked me from the tracks. It was Daniel, and in his arms I hit the side of the bridge, and then we were falling, down, down . . .

  We halted abruptly on the nearly vertical grassy bank, Daniel having reached out to snag a thick branch of a tree with one arm. We hung there, face-to-face, the roar of the engine and clang of the bell moving by only a few feet above us.

  I heard no crash, no explosion, just the metal wheels protesting as they slid on the rails, until the cars jolted again at the train’s sudden lack of movement. Puffs of steam rolled upward, along with a billow of smoke, and constables swarmed from the station toward the train.

  Daniel let go of the tree. We slithered down through mud and grass, he holding me and slowing our descent with his booted feet until we landed on solid earth beneath the bridge.

  Cold wind blasted us through the cut in the hill, jerking at my skirts and tossing Daniel’s wet hair. My legs were numb, and my knees buckled. But I didn’t fall. Daniel had his arms around me and kept me on my feet.

  He kissed me.

  And such a kiss. Daniel pressed his hand to the back of my neck and pulled me up to him, his kiss hard and deep, the like of which I’d not had in a long, long time. Daniel’s arms were shaking, even as solidly as he held me, even as soundly as he kissed my mouth.

  When Daniel finally lifted his head, his breath was ragged, but so was mine, oxygen eluding me.

  Daniel cupped my face with his torn, wet, and muddy glove. “Kat,” he said, his voice the only thing I could hear. “What am I going to do with you?”

  I stood toe-to-toe with him, speechless. For once in my life, not one thing came into my head to say.

  James said it for me. “Bloody hell, Dad.” He appeared out of the darkness, silhouetted by the glow of the lamplight from the station, the glare of the train’s firebox, and the dawn light that touched the sky.

  I tried to step away from Daniel, but his arm remained firmly around my waist. Because of this, when James launched himself at Daniel to grab him in a merciless embrace, he caught me in it too.

  The breath went out of me entirely as I was squashed against Daniel and James both, Daniel’s laughter in my ears like a soothing caress.

  24

  After the track was cleared of the detritus, which did contain two sticks of dynamite, the Queen’s train rolled on following its brief halt, clacking its way toward Penzance. The engineer, worried and angry, gabbled with the police before he climbed back into his aerie and nudged the train forward.

  If the Queen had been awakened by the unscheduled stop, I was not to know. She never appeared, nor did any of her retinue.

  I thought Daniel might accompany the train to make certain all was well for the rest of the journey, but he’d faded out of sight as the police in uniforms began checking the train, the tracks, and the station, and finally waved the train through. The train was gone, and quiet descended on the village once more. The villagers themselves were shaken, but tended to those hurt in the blast and then headed out to clean up the debris in the river.

  Dressed in dry clothes, James and I walked through the village with Mrs. Rigby—I insisted on helping those in need, as shaken as I was. I knew that if I remained indoors, I’d only huddle in my bedchamber feeling sorry for myself.

  I noticed as we moved along the shore carrying baskets of bread, James with blankets, that the cottage where the American nephews had visited was deserted. The villagers must know by now that the dynamite had come from there. The local constables would have let that slip, and the information would have flown to all ears. The villagers’ own people had been hurt in the mad scheme, and they’d want justice. The woman must have decided to flee before she was driven out or arrested, if she hadn’t been arrested and taken away already.

  I did not see Daniel until James and I made our way back to the inn later that morning, both of us exhausted, though neither of us wanted to admit it. Daniel was there, seemingly out of nowhere—I hadn’t seen him approach the inn as we walked back. He too was in dry clothes and informed us that we had just enough time to pack our things to catch the eleven thirty up to Town.

  Dratted man. No mention of where he’d been or what he’d been up to, and he didn’t linger to explain. He only slung his valise over his shoulder and left again for the station, where he’d purchase the tickets and meet us.

  Mrs. Rigby was sorry to see me depart and insisted I take a basket heaped with bread, tea cakes, cold meat, and cheese so we wouldn’t grow faint with hunger on our journey.

  “You come and see us anytime, Mrs. Holloway,” she said as she walked me outside. James was waiting for me, strolling along the river, looking up at the bridge that had taken so much of our attention. He was nearly as tall as his father now, their gait and stance so similar my heart missed a beat when I saw him.

  Mrs. Rigby pulled me out
of my contemplation as she handed me the basket. “You look after that Mr. McAdam now,” she said. “I’d say he’s a man what needs a lot of looking after. Mayhap when you return, it will be to take one room together?”

  She gave me a coy look, and my cheeks grew warm. “I don’t know about that, Mrs. Rigby,” I said hastily as I took the basket from her.

  “I know something about it.” Mrs. Rigby’s eyes glinted with amusement. “He’s got fine manners, does Mr. McAdam, but he needs a bit of the softer life. Once he takes your excellent meals regular, he’ll stop running around with policemen and stay home. You’re a kind woman, Mrs. Holloway, and he’s a good man. I know it.”

  Mrs. Rigby spoke as a woman who was long and happily married. I had been quite unhappily married and knew the situation was a bit more complicated.

  But I thanked her, shook her hand with affection, and trudged out to meet James. James gave me a grin, his spirits restored, and he took the heavy basket from me as we walked up the hill.

  Daniel, dressed in his working-man’s clothes, had procured third-class tickets this time, and while the compartment was nowhere near as comfortable and spacious as the first-class one, I breathed a sigh of relief as I sat down. The train was not very crowded this day, and we had the compartment to ourselves.

  This time I took the forward-facing seat, with Daniel and James opposite me. I expected Daniel to fall asleep right away after being awake all night long—James kept nodding off—but Daniel only gazed out the window as we pulled out of the Saltash station.

  The train crossed the bridge we’d spent so much time defending, the arcs of its iron beams soaring high and then bowing down as the small train snaked past them. Then we were on the other side, in Plymouth and Devonshire, the famous curved trusses falling behind us. The gale of the night had calmed, and now a gentle rain fell as the train took us into the countryside.

  As I watched the bridge fade into the mist, the questions bubbling inside me came forth.

  “How on earth did those men get all that debris onto the tracks without anyone noticing?” I asked Daniel. “I know you lot were rushing about the river looking for dynamite, but surely the signalman would have seen them creeping about near the station. He seemed a responsible gentleman, so he must have been at his post. The Queen’s train was due any minute.”

  Daniel’s eyes were tired as he turned to me, but I saw a gleam of triumph deep inside them. “The signalman was in on it,” he said. “He was friends with the ‘nephews’ of the fisherman’s wife and assisted them at every turn. He was arrested this morning. The fisherman’s wife gave us the slip, but the police are hunting for her.”

  My mouth hung open as Daniel related the news about the signalman, but I closed it as my anger surged. “Drat the fellow. To think I gave him my best tea cakes.”

  James opened his eyes. “I’ll eat your tea cakes, Mrs. H. I ain’t no Fenian, I promise.”

  “No, but you are a bloody nuisance,” Daniel growled at him. “I can’t stop villains and their evil plots and keep you out of danger at the same time. Next time I tell you to stay in London, stay there.”

  James gave him a mutinous look. “Well, you don’t have no call to go running about after villains at your age. You ought to stick to delivering goods and paying calls on Mrs. Holloway.”

  Daniel scowled, but I could see that James had been very badly frightened. I remembered his desperate cries for his father when he was terrified that Daniel had been killed. Daniel might believe James thought their connection casual, but James, I could see, had latched on to Daniel and wasn’t about to let go. He’d been in need of a father, and then Daniel had appeared, not to stifle him, but to love him.

  “I likely will, for a time,” Daniel said, surprisingly compliant. “I wouldn’t mind putting me plates up for a bit.”

  “Chuffed to hear it,” James said, his frown in place.

  “Where will you be putting up these plates?” I asked calmly. More rhyming slang: Plates of meat—feet.

  “Yeah,” James echoed. “Where?”

  “Where I bloody well choose, lad,” Daniel said in near shout. “I always tell you where I am, don’t I?”

  “Yeah,” James said, deflating. That wasn’t enough for him, I could tell. The poor lad longed for a home, a true family, though he might not admit it.

  But perhaps people like us didn’t have families, not in the way others did. We grubbed about doing our best, coming together when we could, enjoying the time in one another’s company as something to treasure.

  “You’re welcome in my kitchen anytime, James,” I said. “Your father, now . . . well . . .” I gave James a look of mock despair.

  James laughed, as I had intended. “Cheers, Mrs. H. Don’t be too soft on ’im.” He unfolded his long body, steadying himself against the sway of the train, which had started trundling along at a good speed, and reached for the door to the corridor. “Just popping out for some air.”

  “No cigars,” Daniel said sternly.

  James looked crestfallen a moment, then brightened. “Right you are, guv.” He threw back the door in all exuberance, bounded into the corridor, and was gone.

  “Bloody hell,” Daniel said softly as he reached up and closed the door. “I forgot to say no pipes, cigarillos, cheroots . . .”

  “Lecture him later,” I said. “He is exhausted, and he was scared. As was I, of course.”

  “Yes, but you’re not likely to hang off the end of the train smoking cheap tobacco. What am I to do with him, Kat?”

  “What you’ve been doing,” I said. “Be his dad. He admires you, but he’s not going to worship you. Not at that age.” I let out a breath, all of me suddenly craving to be back in the metropolis, in a lane near St. Paul’s in particular. “My daughter will be his age in no time. Then she’ll have no use for her old mum.”

  Daniel didn’t answer for a time and only watched me, weariness lining his eyes. “Have you decided what to do?” he asked, his voice gentle. “About Grace?”

  “I have.” I glanced out the window at the rainy expanse of Dartmoor spreading to the horizon, so lovely, so empty, beckoning me to discover its secrets. “I will thank my friends for being generous and kind, but tell them Grace will remain my daughter. We’ve come this far together, she and I, and we’ll continue.”

  “Good.” The one word, spoken firmly, with Daniel’s approving look, was all I needed. “I know a solicitor who can ensure Grace is permanently in your custody until she is of age, no matter who should appear and try to claim her. I assume your husband left no instructions for her upbringing, or any money for her care?”

  “He left nothing but an old pair of boots,” I said, ancient pain raising its head to see if I would acknowledge it. I didn’t, and it subsided, dispersing to nothing. “Not even fit to be sold to the rag-and-bone man.”

  “Will you let me do this for you?” Daniel asked. “The solicitor I have in mind would do it as a favor to me, no expense.”

  My heart squeezed until it hurt. I had investigated my rights to Grace when a housekeeper I’d once worked with had mentioned that mothers could be separated from their children after the child was a certain age, especially if the father’s family interfered. She was mine in her “tender years,” but later, she could be taken if someone wanted her enough to fight for her.

  If Grace was made my legal ward until she was twenty-one, then it would be much harder for anyone to claim her, or so I understood. I would have done such a thing long ago, but hiring solicitors cost money I didn’t have, and I might have had to go to court, which would reveal to the world that she’d in truth been born out of wedlock. Such a thing might negate my custody of her altogether, because apparently women who bore illegitimate children had no natural maternal instinct. Absolute idiocy, but then, most law is written by men.

  “Would it have to come out?” I asked in a small voice. “None b
ut you and the Millburns know about Grace. I am not ashamed to be Grace’s mother, but there is a matter of my employment. Few families want a brazen hussy as a cook.”

  Daniel’s smile flashed. “Mrs. Holloway, I’ve never met a woman surer about right and wrong than you. My solicitor can do this without anyone in the world knowing but you and me.”

  I swallowed the lump that had wedged high in my throat. “Then please do.” My answer began in a ringing tone then died to a whisper. “And thank you.”

  • • •

  After all that had happened, I still was uncertain who had killed young Sinead or why. We didn’t discuss it as we rolled the many miles back to London, but it was in my head. Daniel seemed happy to assume she’d been murdered by the Fenians she’d been passing messages for, but I was not so certain.

  One reason we did not discuss it was that by the time we reached Taunton, Daniel and James—restored to the compartment and smelling faintly of tobacco smoke—finally succumbed to fatigue. They’d partaken of most of Mrs. Rigby’s basket, then they’d slept, each leaning against the walls on either side of the compartment like slumbering bookends.

  My thoughts were running too feverishly for sleep, my mind spinning with the remembered terror of the explosions under the bridge, when I’d been convinced Daniel was gone forever, and then the fight on top of it.

  The stunned moment when I’d stared down the locomotive, its iron face and blaring light coming straight at me, continued to play in my head. I could still hear the rumble of the engine, feel the hideous vibration of the ties under my feet, hear the loud clanging of the bell. The moment would be forever imprinted on my mind, would forever haunt my dreams.

  My thoughts moved to the sensation of falling, and Daniel kissing me in a way he’d never kissed me before. He’d given me a lover’s kiss, more intimate than anything I’d shared with my husband, even when I’d been in his bed.

  I would have to think about that for a while.