by Zoë Archer
He put his cap back on and gave it a tug. “See you at half six.” Whistling, he strode up the high street, toward the bachelor lodgings. She stood staring at the place where he’d been, as if he’d left behind his words. Words that hovered in the air like glowing lanterns.
CHAPTER 5.
A chair and spare plate had to be borrowed from the Penroses, their neighbors, and Sarah added extra barley to the stew in order to make it feed four rather than three. Much as Alyce disliked cleaning, and little as the snug house needed it, she still swept the place out and spent ten minutes making and remaking her bed, even though it was hidden behind the screen.
Glancing at herself in Sarah’s hand mirror, Alyce decided against trying to dress her hair in some attempt at elegance. And neither she nor her sister-in-law owned any cosmetics. Alyce set the mirror aside with a shrug. She’d make the house appear as tidy as she could, but there was no changing her appearance, and she was fine with how she looked. Her face was her face. She was a bal-maiden, with the rosy cheeks to show for it, and a fancy hairstyle would be silly—and desperate. “Silly” and “desperate” were two words she made sure didn’t describe her.
Still, with just a few minutes until half past six, she fussed around the house and hovered over the stove, causing Sarah a bit of annoyance.
“I think you let a butterfly in with you, Henry,” Sarah said to her husband as she cooked.
“Just swat her with a rolled-up newspaper,” he answered.
“You don’t swat butterflies, lummox,” Alyce snapped. “And I’m only trying to be helpful.”
“Be helpful and sit still.”
At her sister-in-law’s gentle but firm command, Alyce sat down and folded her hands in her lap. Her toes tapped briskly against the floor, until Sarah’s warning look forced her to be calm. As calm as she could be, given the circumstances.
You’re being thickheaded. It’s only one supper.
But he wants to see me, even after I’d been so cold to him.
At least he’d stuck with it, with her, when most other men had just crumbled away. That counted for a lot.
A knock sounded at the door. Alyce nearly leaped out of her skin. Checking the clock, she saw it was exactly half past six. She forced herself to stay seated as Henry opened the door and welcomed their guest. Only when Simon stepped inside did she finally get up and give him a nod. Her heart seized when she saw the posy Simon carried—oxeye daisies, meadow buttercups, wood cranesbill. The season for wildflowers was in its wane, and the blossoms themselves looked a little tired, but they still brought welcome bright color into the drab house.
Henry frowned at the bouquet of flowers, and Alyce could guess that he thought it too forward of Simon to bring them to her. But Simon held the posy out to Sarah.
“Mrs. Carr,” he murmured. “My thanks for making room for me at your table.”
Sarah’s cheeks flamed as she stammered her thanks and took the bouquet. She glanced around in confusion until Alyce stepped forward with an earthenware jug. In went the flowers, with some water, which Sarah set in the middle of the kitchen table. She kept lightly touching the petals as if unsure they wouldn’t fly away.
“No wooing my wife,” Henry warned sternly, but his smile undercut his threat.
When Henry turned away to help dish up supper, Simon gave Alyce a quick wink. Her own cheeks probably turned as red as Sarah’s. And she had to admit, it was a smart strategy on his part. No one could find fault with a man who brought charming gifts to a hugely pregnant married woman, especially right in front of her husband. Sly, he was, and that made him dangerous.
Once the meal had been set out on the table, everyone sat, though with each week that Sarah’s pregnancy progressed, it took some careful negotiations to get her down into her chair. Henry helped ease her down and made sure that the pillow placed at her back was in the right spot. Henry sat next to Sarah, with Alyce facing her brother, and Simon seated to her left. The table wasn’t large. If she leaned just a little, she’d brush shoulders with him.
Once Sarah had been situated, Henry asked Simon, “Care to lead us in saying grace?”
Confusion and panic crossed Simon’s face for the barest second, then he said, “It’d be my honor.”
They all bent their heads and folded their hands, and waited.
Simon cleared his throat. “Lord, we’re grateful for the riches beneath the earth, for the means to bring your hidden treasure above into the sunlight, but most of all for the ability to provide for those we care about most—our friends and families. Amen.”
“Amen,” she, Henry, and Sarah echoed.
It had been a brief and simple speech, but Alyce had felt it echo deep within her. She wondered if Simon knew how his voice had deepened when he spoke about providing for those he cared about—or was aware of the faintest note of longing in his words. Did he miss his own family? And he never mentioned any friends, but perhaps he had old army chums. It seemed like a lonely existence: wandering around England, looking for work.
Then again, she’d never left Trewyn. Getting out of here sometimes sounded like paradise.
Almost as soon as they began to eat, Henry launched an avalanche of questions about rugby at Simon.
“For pity’s sake, Hen,” Alyce said, “let the poor man get a mouthful of stew before you bury him alive.”
“Sorry, Simon,” Henry muttered.
“No apology needed,” Simon answered, “but I’ve got to say, Mrs. Carr, that this is the best thing I’ve eaten in months. No, years.”
“Not surprised, given what I’ve heard about the food at the bachelor lodgings,” Sarah said, but she smiled at the compliment. “And he’s a passionate man about rugby, our Henry.” Sarah laid her hand over Henry’s and looked at him with fond forbearance. “He doesn’t get to talk about it at home.”
“Well, if you’d let women play,” Alyce said, “the way I’d suggested, you wouldn’t have to head down to the pub to get an earful about it.”
“No one’s going to let a woman out on the pitch,” he answered. “Either she’d be crushed to bits, or else she’d score a thousand tries because nobody’d want to tackle her.”
“Me and the other bal-maidens swing bucking irons all day. We’re not that fragile. I bet I could tackle Davy Bale without a lick of trouble. Remember how I used to make you cry for Ma when I’d leap out and knock you to the floor?”
“Don’t remember that at all,” her brother said, shooting a look at Simon. “Besides, not every woman’s a mad she-devil like you, Allie.”
“But I made you a better player, didn’t I? Think how fast you got, dodging me.”
He whispered loudly to Simon: “Don’t tell anyone my special training weapon was my savage little sister.”
Simon nodded solemnly. “Your secret goes with me to the quiet of the grave.”
“What do you think, Mr. Sharpe?” asked Sarah. “Do you think women should be allowed to play sport with the men?”
Alyce turned her full attention to him as he answered.
“Cricket maybe,” he said after thinking for a few moments. “But I’d have to agree with Henry. Don’t think most men would feel entirely easy getting into a scrum with women.”
“What if the women are comfortable with it?” Alyce challenged. She tore at a loaf of bread. “Shouldn’t that be their decision to make?”
“Absolutely. And I know some women who are damned, I mean, very strong and courageous.” He gave a little secret smile at that, and she wondered who he was referring to. His sister? Some past sweetheart? “They’d be bang-up additions to a rugby club—but even if a woman wasn’t that strong, it’s a truth that most men can’t let themselves hurt a female. No matter how willing she is to get hurt.”
“Rather a good thing, I’d think,” Sarah murmured.
But Alyce wasn’t mollified. “I still think it should be the girls’ choice.”
Simon took a contemplative bite of stew. “What if you formed a women’s rugby c
lub?”
“You mean, women playing against women?” Henry asked.
“It could work just like the clubs for men from the different mines, but with all female teams. You’d have your matches after the men’s on Sundays.”
“And then everyone would go to the pub after,” Alyce said brightly.
“Maybe they’d trade off hosting each other at home,” Simon suggested. “Slip a little whiskey into the tea.”
Henry sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “Blast me, that actually sounds like a good idea.”
“It really does,” Alyce added. How was it that she hadn’t thought of it before? She’d been so busy trying to shoulder her way into the ranks with the men, she hadn’t thought of any other option. And maybe this way, she could convince more women to play, since they wouldn’t be afraid of being pummeled into the ground by hulking forwards.
Simon laughed. “You don’t need to act so surprised. I work with complicated machines all day—other complex issues, too.”
“And you were in Her Majesty’s Army,” Alyce noted. “Organizing groups of people to batter into each other ought to be a walk on the seaside.”
“A very noisy, rough walk on the seaside,” he added. “But if the women are willing, why should anybody stand in their way? As you said, Alyce, the choice is theirs to make.”
A slight lull fell on the conversation as everyone attended to their meals, but in that quiet, Alyce felt something inside her grow warm and supple. It was all she could do not to stare at him and sigh like the silly girl she’d never been.
* * *
Family dinners at the Addison-Shawe home had been chilly affairs: long silences punctuated by the click of silverware against Meissen china and the occasional terrifying interrogation from Simon’s father. His mother had barely spoken. His siblings had answered questions with as much brevity as possible. And for his own irreverence—flinging peas at his sister, making his brother snicker at a whispered, filthy limerick—Simon had been sent from the table without being allowed to finish his meal. Many times. He’d never gone hungry, though. After his father had retired to the study for brandy and newspapers, Simon would sneak down to the larder and charm the cook’s assistant into fixing him a plate. He’d take his real dinner down in the kitchen, warmed not only by the huge iron range, but the servants’ gossip and comfortable ways.
They’d known they could speak and act openly around him, and he wouldn’t go tattling.
You’re not like the other ones, the head housemaid had said. Got mischief in your heart, you do.
And roast chicken in my belly, he’d answered. The cook always gave him leftovers from the servants’ meal—meat pies and roasts and other simple fare, instead of ris de veau grillés or poulet sauté au fenouil.
But you shouldn’t make your father so cross, the butler, Tindle, had said. You eat more of your dinners down here with us than you do upstairs.
Simon remembered looking around the kitchen, with its bustle and noise and jokes and chaos. I like it better here, he’d said.
And he liked it better here in the snug kitchen of the Carrs, as brother and sister exchanged loving barbs, and Sarah took it all with affectionate patience. He’d been eating in the bachelor lodgings all week, and it had been much like his time in the army. Insults, stories, or the quiet of tired, hungry men shoveling food into their mouths as fast as possible. Sometimes the different members of Nemesis would take a meal together at their headquarters—business being the main topic of conversation, and business meant nefarious deeds against nasty men. Not exactly cozy, comfortable environs.
But here, with the Carrs, warmth blanketed him. For as much as Henry and Alyce badgered each other, real fondness and concern shone in their eyes when they looked at each other. And Sarah formed a buffer—against the siblings, against the world outside, keeping the space of their shabby little house as safe as possible. Heroic, in her own way. Especially carrying a child, both she and her husband occasionally placing a protective hand against her round belly.
In those moments of intimacy, both Simon and Alyce studied their plates intently. They shared glances, the looks of people on the outside.
He’d never believed a wife and family would be his. He still didn’t. And he didn’t want them, either. But watching the way Henry and Sarah looked after each other and their unborn child, sitting at this small table with clever, pretty Alyce, that strange emptiness in him filled slightly. A tiny, glowing warmth, small and flickering as a tinder lit in the wind.
Careful. Getting too involved puts the mission in jeopardy. He wouldn’t be able to think with a level head.
Yet he fought against himself uselessly. This place, these people—Alyce—already shaped him. Stole the distance he needed to get the job done. But he was a veteran of more than one campaign. He’d find a way to make everything work out.
Whatever he planned, it’d have to involve the Carrs—especially Alyce. They were key to figuring out Wheal Prosperity, where even a simple family supper turned into a debate between the siblings.
“While other mines have been shutting down, ours has been making a good profit,” Alyce contended. “I don’t see why we can’t push for an increase in wages.”
Henry shook his head. “Push—no. The managers are mule-headed bastards. Push them and they just push back. It’s got to be worked at slowly, subtly.”
“Too slow and there won’t be enough to feed the baby when she comes.”
“When he comes, and I’ll make my suggestions to the managers—in my own time.”
Having seen the ledgers, Simon knew how vast the disparity was between the mine’s earnings and the miners’ portions of that profit. Even Henry, who sought peace between the two groups, would be brought to a rage if he understood. But Simon couldn’t very well tell them that he’d broken into the managers’ office, picked the lock of the strongbox, and reviewed all the numbers.
“Someone has to give them a shove,” Alyce fired back. “If you don’t, then I will.”
“Naturally. Steam-shovel Alyce just storms ahead, and forget about if it lands you in gaol or you lose your position.”
Sarah gave Simon an apologetic smile. “Henry should’ve warned you. It turns into a regular battle royal here every night.”
“Only because Henry insists on moving as fast as a drunk tortoise when it comes to change,” Alyce said.
“It’s because my sister has a good heart but the subtlety of a charging bull.”
“Sounds like you want the same things,” Simon noted. “Only there’s a basic difference in tactics.”
Alyce rose. When he scooted his chair aside to make room, their arms grazed. She began to clear their empty plates, and he immediately got to his feet to help. She tried to wave him off, but he wouldn’t be dissuaded. Their fingers brushed as they passed dishes back and forth. With the table cleared, she set a kettle on the range and took down three mugs from their hooks on the wall.
“Damn,” she muttered. “I forgot to borrow an extra one from next door.”
She dashed out before he could tell her that he’d forgo tea.
Simon eased back into his chair, but, despite the fact that the fire in the stove still blazed, it felt as though the heat and light had gone out of the room.
“She’d throttle me if I tried to apologize for her,” Henry said.
“Nothing to apologize for,” Simon answered at once.
“She’s always been headstrong, but when our da died in the mine six years ago, and then our ma took sick and died soon after for want of a good doctor, Alyce became a woman on a mission.”
A smile curved Simon’s mouth, even as his heart contracted from the loss of the elder Carrs. Their stories weren’t uncommon, but that didn’t make them less painful. Sometimes he wondered if he’d have an easier time with his work for Nemesis if he cared less—but if he cared less, he wouldn’t risk his life over and over again. “I understand having a mission.”
He always had goals
, objectives. A never-ending fight. But, unlike Alyce, he never fought for himself. Just others. Even when he’d been in the army, struggling for survival, he’d mostly worried about keeping his fellow soldiers safe.
Thinking on it now made him frown. Why hadn’t he taken up any battle on his own behalf? Always it was for someone else. As if … as if he didn’t merit the fight. Easier to take up another’s struggle than his own.
Odd, that. When it came to his own conflicts—with his family, his role as a gentleman—he’d turned away. Found somebody else’s war to wage.
A troubling thought to have, especially in this place, now.
“Here we are.” Alyce came back inside, brandishing an earthenware mug. “It’s only got one chip it in, which means it goes to our guest. Keep the handle on the right side so you don’t cut your lip.”
She bustled about, getting the tea ready over Sarah’s objections. “I can take care of that,” Sarah complained.
“And stagger around with that giant belly of yours, knocking everything to the ground? No, thank you.” Yet Alyce’s words were teasing and affectionate, and her sister-in-law only smiled.
The kettle whistled, and Alyce added milk to each cup before pouring in the tea. No sugar. Soon four full mugs were set on the table, along with a seed cake, unwrapped from a soft muslin cloth. Simon held his cup close to his face, breathing fragrant steam deeply. It was better than what they served in the bachelor lodgings, but hardly more than twigs compared to the special blend that his father drank—a mixture of Assam and Formosa oolong—and always with the milk added last. Simon sipped this gratefully. It tasted damned better than any custom blend served in a Sèvres.
Leaning back in his chair, he asked Alyce, “Is yours a one-woman crusade to change things at the mine? Anyone else willing to stick their necks out?”
“Not as far as I do,” she said with a rueful smile.
