Rose

by Martin Cruz Smith

  “We have that in common.”

  “If I felt better I’d shoot you now, but I don’t have the strength to drag your body anywhere.”

  “It comes in waves. You’ll feel better soon.”

  “I expect so.”

  Blair left Rowland on the driveway and went around the screen of the hedge, controlling the urge to break into a run. By the time he was past the slag heaps, though, his stride lengthened and, gaining speed, he dodged through the willows on the far side.

  Reference points were different in the rain, but Blair followed his compass. Water poured in when he opened the mine cover. He let himself down, found the spring gun and, like a man putting the shot with both arms, threw it up through the shaft onto the ground, then swung the base up and hauled himself out. Carrying gun and base, he waded through bracken to where the carriage was still tied, the horse nickering in the downpour. He opened the suitcase, the Railway Companion, and packed the gun and base in towels. Soaked and covered in mud, he whipped the horse onto the path as if Rowland might ride one more wave of energy and fly after him.

  At the hotel, he assembled the gun on the threshold of his bedroom with three separate trip strings stretched into the sitting room and rigged between chairs. He approached the bedroom from different ways; each time he touched a string, the snout of the barrel swiveled in his direction and the flintlock slapped shut. He rammed home gunpowder, a linen wad and the rod and sat down in the dark to have some of his own arsenic and brandy. But with the image of Rowland before him, arsenic lost its appeal. Brandy wouldn’t help either. The problem wasn’t malaria, he decided, it was fear. Between Bill Jaxon, Smallbone and Rowland, he was afraid to leave his room, afraid to answer the door without artillery.

  He heard clogs marching home in the street below. The storm ended and the night went from dark to black, as if Wigan had been inverted over an abyss. He felt the fear lapping like water. Nigger Blair in a chair too afraid to move.

  Finally he stepped carefully over the trip strings, uncocked the gun’s hammer, pushed the spring gun under the bed, went into his knapsack and from chamois cloth unwrapped a gleam, the brass tube of his telescope.

  He went out the rear door of the hotel and took the darkest crossing of the street to the Parish Church, where the whisper of an evening service was taking place at the front pews. Reverend Chubb shuffled around the altar. While the congregation muttered a response, Blair slipped into the tower and climbed the stairs.

  From the parapet at the top, the lack of a moon revealed how little illumination streetlamps actually cast. Wigan was a black lake, the sidewalks incidentally visible by the spill of window light.

  For once, rain had succeeded in cleaning the air. Stars shone with a clarity and generosity that made the tower seem to rise toward them. He brought out both the telescope and a tripod of adjustable legs with brass fittings that he screwed into the bottom of the telescope and set on the wall.

  It depended where a viewer was. Orion stalked the equator, where the Gold Coast lay. The stars of the Southern Hemisphere gathered in white archipelagoes, leaving dark seas in between. Wigan’s northern sky was more evenly ablaze, a bed of burning coal. Where a viewer was, however, depended on the planets—on Polaris and the morning star, but most of all on Jupiter. It was white to the naked eye. To the telescope, though, the planet revealed rose-colored bands and three moons. Io, a pinpoint of red, hung to the left of Jupiter, and to the right were the gray pearls, Ganymede and Callisto.

  As his eye continued to focus and adjust, Jupiter grew and intensified into a disk of roseate paper. Features sharpened: the Great Red Spot and ribboned currents light and dark. With nothing but addition, it was possible to determine the longitude of any visible place on Jupiter. Better, with Blair’s dog-eared book of Jovian tables and Jupiter’s moons, he could determine his longitude on Earth. This was the way navigators did it before the chronometer. It was the way, without an expensive watch, that Blair still did it.

  In an hour the moons shifted. Io swung wider. Blair had once seen them through a big Newtonian telescope, which revealed colors that he had never forgotten, so that as Ganymede and Callisto overlapped they changed color to bitter, frozen blue. From Jupiter’s shadow rose the fourth and largest moon, Europa, smooth as a yellow stone.

  “What are you doing?”

  Blair glanced behind him. He had allowed his attention to depend too much on everyone in Wigan wearing clogs or boots; Charlotte Hannay had climbed the tower in shoes like slippers. She seemed dressed the same as she had been in the morning, perhaps a little more disarranged, although it was hard for him to tell in the dark.

  He put his eye back to the telescope. “Finding out where I am. What are you doing here?”

  “Leveret told me the different places that you went.”

  Which meant she had been looking for him, Blair thought, although she didn’t seem ready to say for what.

  “Why are you doing that? You can look at any map,” Charlotte said.

  “It’s interesting. It calms the nerves. Jupiter has four moons, and they’ve been observed for centuries. We know when each is supposed to rise according to Greenwich mean time. The difference in time is where you are. The longitude, at least. It’s a lovely fact: there’s this clock up in the sky that we can all check.”

  Moons rose fast. Europa was already half into the light shared by its sister moons. He made notes on paper.

  “You’re covered in dirt. Where have you been?” Charlotte asked.

  “Poking around.”

  “Exploring?”

  “Yes, ‘walking up and down in the earth.’ That’s what Satan says in the Bible, which proves Satan was an explorer. Or at least a miner.”

  “You’ve read the Bible?”

  “I’ve read the Bible. When you’re snowbound in a cabin for the winter, you read the Bible more than most preachers. Although it’s fair to say I think missionaries are shills for millionaires who are trying to sell Manchester flannel to the world. Of course that’s just one man’s opinion.”

  “So what else have you gleaned from the Bible, aside from the conceit that Satan was a miner?”

  “God was a mapmaker.”

  “Really?”

  “Without a doubt. Nothing but maps. In the beginning a void, waters, heavens, earth, and then He lays out the Garden of Eden.”

  “That is indeed the reading of a small mind.”

  “No, of a fellow professional. Forget Adam and Eve. The important information is, ‘A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good.’ ”

  “You are obsessed with gold.”

  “So was God, obviously. Take a look.”

  Blair moved to the side, but Charlotte waited until he was at arm’s length before she took his place at the eyepiece. She looked through the tube longer than he expected.

  “I do see little white dots. I didn’t even know you could see that much,” she said.

  “In Africa it’s even better because there are no lights at all. You can see the moons without a telescope. Straight up is best, of course. Lie down and you can feel the universe move.”

  She stepped back into the dark. “You were shooting with Rowland today?”

  “I watched him blast some inoffensive birds.”

  “You didn’t tell him anything?”

  “No. I don’t think you’re quite so terrible that I’d put you directly into Rowland’s hands.”

  “So where are we? By the moons, I mean.”

  “Well, I haven’t figured that out yet. You didn’t know about this escapade Maypole had in mind, to go underground with the miners, pursue them and preach to them during their miserable half-hour break for tea?”

  “John wanted to preach in the yard.”

  “No, down pit, a mile down at the coal face. What I don’t unders
tand is what put it in his mind. Being a preacher is one thing; a masquerade is something else. You see what I mean? It’s not unusual for a curate to join miners in sports, but it would be unique for him to try to pass himself off as a miner. He wasn’t that imaginative. Where did he get the idea?”

  “What else don’t you understand?”

  “Why anyone would help him.”

  He waited for her to mention the fright he had given the girl in her cottage. Since this was the second time that she hadn’t brought it up, he assumed that the girl hadn’t reported his visit.

  “You can’t wait to get back to Africa, can you?”

  “No.”

  “It seems to have great allure. I’m beginning to understand how much you miss it.”

  What is this? Blair wondered. A little light in the dark? Sympathy? Something besides withering scorn? It struck him that Charlotte’s voice wasn’t as tight as usual, and there was more shine to her eyes in the dark than in the day.

  “You obviously care about the Africans,” she said. “We are supposed to send troops to help them, but all we do is shoot them.”

  “The English are good soldiers … they’re fighting for beer and silver-plated spoons and Pears soap. They don’t know why they’re fighting, they’re just sent. But I know. I know the maps I draw bring more troops and railway engineers and hydraulic hoses to wash out the gold. I’m worse than a thousand troops or ten Rowlands.”

  “At least you’re doing something. You’re out in the world, not playing with—what did you call it—a dollhouse?”

  “It’s not a dollhouse. I was impressed by the Home. You’re helping those women.”

  “Perhaps. I think I’ve educated a girl, and then she steps out the door and goes right back to the man who ruined her. It doesn’t matter whether he’s a miner, a footman or a shop boy. I’ve learned that a girl will believe anything a man says. Anything.”

  “Sometimes it’s the other way around. I met a girl here who could convince a man she was the Queen of Sheba.”

  “She convinced you?”

  “Almost.”

  “But that’s a flirtation. I mean otherwise sensible women with babes in arms who listen to a man declaim that the moon is a round of bread that goes best with ale and a feather pillow.”

  “That’s not believing, that’s wanting a man and a feather pillow.”

  “So what other landmarks do you search for?” Charlotte looked up.

  “I travel everywhere. A poor man’s odyssey. I used to do this when I was a boy and made up stories. See Virgo chasing Leo, instead of the other way around? What did the ancient Greeks make of that? Then a swim across the Milky Way over to Orion and his faithful Canis Major.”

  “You had a poor but loving family?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t mine. A Chinese family fed me. Later I found out that the mother’s greatest fear was that one of her daughters would fall in love with me, a barbarian.”

  “Did one of them?”

  “No, I was a barbarian through and through. I did fall for one of them, though.”

  “You seem to have a weakness for exotic women.”

  “I don’t know that it’s a weakness. You were never in love with Cousin Rowland?”

  “No, but I understand him. A Rowland is a Hannay without money. Not poor as you understand it. Worse. You were poor among poor. I mean, to be poor when the society you move in is rich. The humiliation when the family money has gone into gowns so that your mother and sister might attend the proper balls. Without my father’s assistance, the Rowlands would live in three rooms in Kew. Rowland doesn’t see the stars, he only sees money.”

  “Don’t marry him.”

  “My father will shut the Home if I don’t. I’ll never have sufficient funds to start another. I’m as trapped as Rowland.”

  “It sounds as if you’re more trapped than the girls in the Home. They may suffer the consequences, but they did have some fun. Did you have any fun with Maypole?”

  “I don’t think I gave John a moment’s fun.”

  “Yet he loved you.”

  “I thought you said he was infatuated with a pit girl.”

  “That’s one more thing I haven’t figured out. Are you cold?”

  “No. What constellation is that triangle?”

  He followed her hand across the stars. “The Camelopard.”

  “What is a camelopard?”

  “A giraffe.”

  “I thought so. I’ve seen pictures of camelopards and thought they looked like giraffes. So they are giraffes. I can go to my grave with that question off my mind.”

  “Were you going to jump? At the knacker’s drop?”

  “No, I didn’t have the nerve.”

  “Not that time, you mean?”

  “I’m not at all sure what I mean.”

  They were silent. The sound of a cab horse below seemed far away.

  She said, “I abused John. He would have accepted such a meager marriage and let me go my own way. He was too good, too pure, a Christian snowman.”

  “Not a complete snowman.” He thought of Rose.

  “Better than me.”

  “Earnshaw?”

  “Hideous. I wish I had made him suffer.”

  “If you couldn’t make him suffer, no one could. I mean that as a compliment.”

  “Thank you. For your sake, I should tell you that you’ll never find John Maypole. Where he is exactly I don’t know, but I do know that he’s gone. I’m sorry you became involved. You’re an interesting man. I’ve been unfair.”

  She came to the edge of the parapet. An ashen light from the street crept up to her face. “I’ll leave you to your stars,” she said.

  He felt the briefest touch on his hand and then she was gone, descending swiftly down the ladder to the stairs of the belfry.

  Blair found Jupiter again. The moon Io was still suspended to one side. On the other side, Ganymede and Callisto merged into blue twins. Europa had risen clear of Jupiter like a stone cast by a giant arm.

  But his mind still turned on Charlotte. When she had stood in the faint light from below she had been a completely different Charlotte, and a new thought had been born. He was too distracted to work out longitude by the Jovian moons. Now he had no idea where he was at all.

  What swam into Blair’s mind was Rose, when he caught her paler than pale reflection. And the girl in Charlotte’s cottage. How she had hidden in the dark like a maid caught trying on her mistress’s dress. In silhouette there was a shadowy resemblance to Rose, but whether it was a matter of height or a glint in her hair he couldn’t say. He saw again the interrupted tea on the kitchen table, a plate without a book, without even a lamp. What struck him was that in spite of her fear she hadn’t said a word to Charlotte about a strange man at the window.

  He packed the telescope and tripod into his pack, climbed down into the belfry and rushed down the tower steps. The service was over, the church a barrel of black except for watery votive candles at side chapels. When he went out the door there was no sign of Charlotte at the front of the church or among the gravestones at the back. Most likely she had a carriage near his hotel.

  The fastest way was the alley by the butcher’s stalls. Blair was running after her when he tripped and his hat flew. A foot came out of the dark and kicked him in the stomach. He rolled and tried to breathe while other feet continued to stomp and kick. An oil rag was pushed and tied into his mouth, almost stuffing his tongue down his throat. Hands tied belts around his wrists and ankles and threw him onto a wooden plank, which began to roll. A cart, he thought. Crossing the street there was enough light for him to see that the cart’s side walls were red. Though it had no horse, the cart gathered speed to the sound of a dozen clogs on cobblestones.

  Bill Jaxon looked over a side of the cart and said, “He can see.”

  A sack was pulled over Blair’s head. Within it a pungent cloud of gunpowder stung his eyes and stopped what little breath he had. The cartwheels crushed shells, s
lid on sheep muck, raced from alley to alley. The procession squeezed through a door and flew down an incline. He hoped they would only roll him around town to scare him and let him go. Maybe it was a good sign that Jaxon wasn’t alone. Heavy doors opened and the cart lumbered into the echo of a tunnel. Blair couldn’t think of any functioning mine in the middle of town. His hand felt a loose peg on the cart floor. It was smooth and split on one end and woolly at the other, and he understood that the red he had seen on the cart wasn’t paint, and that he was back at the knacker’s drop.

  The sack came off with a handful of his hair. This time he was at the bottom of the drop where, during the day, the knacker waited for sheared sheep to fall and break their legs, the easier to kill and butcher. There was no knacker now and no sheep, though the floor was ridged with crusts of accumulated fat and gore. A pair of butcher blocks stood at the side, red as altars. Lanterns hung on meat hooks. On the walls, ancient whitewash was barely visible through layers of black and new sprays of pink.

  Bill Jaxon stripped to a silk scarf and brass-toed clogs. Blair recognized Albert Smallbone. He could tell that four others were miners by the masks of coal dust on their faces, and a man with a brush mustache he remembered as the stableman from the Hannay mine, the man he had helped with the pony. They tore off his clothes, ripping his shirt so that buttons sprayed the floor. As they knocked him on his back and dragged off his pants, he wished the miners wore real masks, which would have meant they were worried about being identified. But they didn’t seem to think this was a problem.

  “Tha’ve a dark face neow, like oos.” Bill gave his words the full local twist. Dark from the sack’s gunpowder, not coal, though, Blair knew.

  Bill made a muscular dancer prancing in anticipation. Pulled upright, Blair felt small and naked, daubed with blood from the cart and floor. The men forced a pair of clogs on his feet and pushed the clasps shut.

  “Ah’ll keep an eye for constables,” the stableman said, and ran off.

  Bill said, “See what ‘appens when tha messes with a Wigan girl? Tha wants t’be a Wigan lad, tha mun learn t’purr.” He told Smallbone, “Pull t’cork.”