The Hanged Man Rises

by Sarah Naughton

  ‘Do you like it?’ Hannah nodded.

  ‘My housekeeper, Mrs Membery,’ he went on, ‘makes the best fruitcakes in the whole of London, and when I am at work she could be home to play games and bake cakes and plait hair. Would you like to stay, Hannah, and keep an old man company?’

  A smile crept over her face, but then it clouded. She shook her head.

  ‘Hannah!’ Titus cried. ‘Of course you will!’

  She looked away from the policeman and laced her fingers into Titus’s.

  Titus flushed with shame and despair and love and apologised so profusely it took him some time to realise that Pilbury was laughing.

  ‘Did you think I would abandon your brother to sleep in a ditch?’ he said.

  Hannah nodded and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

  ‘Nonsense!’ His laughter subsided. He cleared his throat once or twice and when he spoke again, his voice was rather gruff. ‘I should be honoured if the two of you would stay here and live with me.’

  His eyes met Titus’s and held his gaze for just a moment before glancing away.

  Titus could not speak. His ribs strained at the pressure in his chest.

  ‘Right, well,’ Pilbury sprang up and strode to the door, ‘lots to do. Talk it out between the two of you and let me know what you decide.’

  The last part of the sentence sailed back to them as he hurried away down the corridor.

  Titus lay back on the plump pillow and, as he did so, he felt all the shame and despair and loss and grief of the last few years wash away from him, like an ebb tide drawing away the filth and detritus from the shore and carrying it out to sea.

  Then Hannah punched him hard on the shoulder.

  ‘You are gonna say yes?’

  He kept his face grave for a moment, then, when her eyes were round and her lip had begun to tremble, he smiled at her.

  ‘You bloody sod,’ she mumbled, swiping the tears away with her fists.

  He pushed back the blankets and gingerly stood up.

  ‘Come on, we’ll go and find him.’

  As he made his way to the door he could hear Hannah sniggering behind him.

  ‘Lilly’s gonna laugh her head off when she sees you in those pyjamas.’

  He stopped.

  ‘Lilly?’

  ‘She’s in the garden. She ain’t hardly left your side for a minute. She slept on a truckle outside your door. Can’t think why.’

  He turned back so she couldn’t see his face.

  ‘Go and ask Mr Pilbury if I might have a wash out in the yard.’

  ‘Ask him yourself.’

  ‘Hannah!’ She gave in and clumped sulkily off down the hall in the direction Pilbury had gone.

  As he limped down the first flight of stairs he could hear her chattering away to Pilbury in the room that was to be hers from now on. She had entirely ignored his message and was pronouncing her opinion on the room’s décor.

  ‘Of course yellow is so much nicer than pink, and perhaps a rug here so my feet don’t get cold when I climb out of bed and . . .’

  He almost went back to chide her but there would be time enough for that later.

  He stepped out onto the first floor.

  Already the place felt different. The shutters had been flung wide and the whole house was filled with sunlight. Some of the windows were open and the musty smell of stale air and unwashed linen had been replaced by the scent of flowers. Someone had tidied up and the surfaces that had been clouded with dust were now glinting. As he went down the last flight of stairs and into the hall he could hear a woman singing to herself. Mrs Membery was in the living room, arranging a huge bunch of white roses in a vase above the fireplace. On a table by the sofa was a glass with a few dregs of milk inside, and a plate containing nothing but crumbs. Evidently she had finally found a willing recipient for all those cakes.

  There would be time to say hello later.

  He passed quietly down the hallway and into the kitchen. His heart sank. The woman was no longer sitting by the pond in the garden. But then a movement to his right caught his eye.

  Someone was in the little glasshouse that leaned against the eastern wall. The sun glanced off the panes too brightly for him to see inside so he let himself out of the back door and walked unsteadily down the brick path towards it.

  Now he could see her. His breath caught in his throat and he stopped.

  The Lilly he had known before had been a ghost of a girl. This was the flesh and blood. Her hair hung in lustrous curls down her back, tied with a crimson ribbon that matched her dress. The bodice of this new dress was tighter, and the way it clung to her shape made his skin flush with heat despite the breeze on his shoulders. Her cheeks were pinker, her lips fuller, but her eyes were the same, hidden now by her dark lashes as she looked down at something in her hands.

  And then she turned those large dark eyes on him.

  For a moment they simply stared at one another.

  Then he walked forward, trying not to limp, trying to be strong and brave and deserving of the look on her face.

  She was holding a drawing of him asleep and set it down as he approached, on a table scattered with other portraits. One was of an old woman with long white hair hanging loose on her shoulders. Titus picked it up.

  ‘That’s Florence,’ Lilly said quietly. ‘I wanted something to remember her by.’

  Titus frowned.

  ‘Will you not see her again?’

  Lilly shook her head, smiling down at her charcoal-black fingers.

  Titus went over and took them in his own. Somewhere far away Hannah was laughing and Mrs Membery was singing and the wind murmured in the trees, but all he could hear was Lilly’s breathing and the soft rustle of her dress as she leaned into him. The drawing slipped from his fingers, and the last thing Titus glimpsed before he closed his eyes was its pale ghost drifting down the garden, to be lost amongst the trees.

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank all those who helped me along the path to publication, through their encouragement, lack of discouragement and invaluable advice.

  Firstly, of course, my agent, Eve White, whose phone call that summer’s afternoon so flabbergasted me I entirely forgot I had children who needed picking up from school. To brilliant editor, Shelley Instone, whose insistence that working with her would be arduous and painful proves she can be wrong on occasion after all.

  Gratitude and respect to Venetia Gosling at Simon and Schuster for her consideration, patience and insight. So many others have worked on the book and I apologise for not naming them in person, but I must mention Paul Coomey, whose cover design is just gobsmackingly great.

  The burden of having a budding writer’s fragile ego in the family is an onerous one so thanks to all of you who have put up with me. To Daddy and Jane for their careful honesty. To my fantastic mother-in-law, Grace Squibb, for her unswerving faith in me. To Mum for her slightly unnerving degree of general knowledge and her ability to spot a good yarn.

  Thanks to Bert and Bill for keeping me out of the pub and on the straight and narrow. And finally, eternal love and gratitude to Vince, who picks oakum and pounds rocks so that I can write.