The Crimson Inkwell

by Kenneth A Baldwin

  I took a deep breath. Rebecca had gotten me this far. I could go the rest.

  I stepped into the square, doing my best to look casual while still keeping a watchful eye on the officers chatting near a chestnut roaster. I felt out of place and awkward. I looked ridiculous in these clothes. I couldn’t walk like a man. How does a man walk?

  Halfway there. I choked down my relief. It wasn’t time to celebrate yet.

  A fish vendor shouted at me. I gave a polite nod back, not hearing the words coming out of his mouth. I could see the coach now. It must have cost Rebecca a good portion of her weekly income. Four horses stood in front, bridled to each other. The driver sat cross-legged atop it, reading a newspaper.

  I dodged around a group of men coiling ropes and hoisting heavy wooden boxes. I was almost to the coach. I was almost free. I turned to see the police officers. They hadn’t moved. I smiled with relief. I had a straight shot now, hidden safely behind the grocer’s stand. The police wouldn’t see me now. I could start a new life. Perhaps one day I could even reunite with Anna, once I’d re-established myself. I was used to living under a fake name. I could work in a mill or as a seamstress. I could put writing away, put it all behind me.

  The coach shone bright with renewal, beckoning to a longing inside of me I never knew was there. I could be done with the constant, hard competition of the Dawnhurst print industry. I could love a quiet life.

  I put a foot on the step of the carriage when a hand grabbed my elbow forcibly. I looked down in terror at a police glove.

  “Mr. Blakely, you do make a funny looking man.”

  Edward Thomas, dressed in full uniform, pushed me into the carriage, following right after me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The Steely-Eyed Detective

  I SAT IN the carriage across from Edward, feeling very afraid and very stupid. Sweat clung to me in uncomfortable places. I tried hard to steady my breathing. There was no telling what Cooper had told him or what he believed.

  He studied me calmly, but his features betrayed the confusion at work behind his practiced demeanor. This was the face, I was sure, that had unraveled so many criminals under questioning. I wished he would say something, yell or scream at me, hit me if he had to. I felt the weight of his father’s tragedy suffocate me, like our carriage was running out of air. The silence, heavy as a millstone, stretched on for what felt like hours, but my heart rate did not slow.

  “Do you have anything you want to tell me?” he finally asked. Couldn’t he have just arrested me? The question told all. Cooper must have clued him into his suspicions about my involvement in his father’s death. There was little I could do now to explain; I was sure of it. If only I had confessed everything to him before he had heard an alternate version of the story from someone else.

  “You wouldn’t believe any of it,” I said, peeling off my stupid, false mustache. I was even disguised. The guilty run, so they say. Perhaps the guiltiest run in costume. I loosened the tie around my neck and buried my eyes in my own lap. Looking at him was so painful. He must think me the wretch of the earth.

  I felt his hand on my chin, firmly lifting my face toward his.

  “Try me.”

  “What did Cooper tell you?” I asked, the shame building. I couldn’t stop inventing details that the old sergeant must have fabricated in order to secure my arrest or thinking about the atrocious things I would rather go through than explain that I inadvertently killed Edward’s father.

  “Nothing of consequence. Just that the beautiful woman that has been inhabiting my thoughts for months is likely involved in my father’s financial scandal and subsequent suicide.” He said it so nonchalantly that I almost missed the grimace between words. Yes, probing a little deeper under the surface, it wasn’t hard to see his significant stress and deep pain. His jaw clenched in what I assumed was an attempt to curb his emotions.

  “I can’t imagine what you must think,” I choked out.

  “I think that Cooper’s accusations were absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “I was ready to dismiss them entirely, until I heard what Rebecca had to say.”

  “You spoke with Rebecca?” A painful lump caught in my throat. My mind was arrested by a bizarre, slow panic. Had Rebecca betrayed my confidence and revealed to Edward what I had so adamantly decided to hide from him?

  “I did. She sounded even crazier than Cooper,” he said. “And now, I don’t know what to believe. I would have sworn that it was impossible that you had anything to do with my father’s death. But, two of my closest colleagues have approached me, unprovoked, either to accuse or excuse you. So, forgive my abrupt manner of speaking, but do you have anything you wish to tell me?”

  “I wanted to tell you so badly,” I said, warm tears pooling in my eyes. I was wondering when they were going to surface. Crying had become a daily reality. “You have to believe me. I had no malicious intent toward your father. I’ve never wanted to hurt you in any way. You must know that.”

  “You don’t deny your involvement then?” he asked with wide eyes.

  “Had I been in my faculties, or otherwise in control of my senses, I could deny it in full conscience.”

  “And yet?”

  I searched for reasoning, an excuse, anything that could help make him understand. But, there was nothing available to me. I had played my hand so strategically, with such devious gamesmanship that I now found myself where all cons and tricksters end up. I was adrift, with no defenses, destined to weather whatever storm assailed me. I couldn’t lie to Edward if I wanted to. Not only would it break my heart, but he had me out by two witnesses.

  I was a fugitive disguised as a man, escaping from the law, skulking away like a sneaking fox, now caught by the tail and hung out for inspection. My hands trembled.

  Edward grabbed and steadied them.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “You have entrusted me with your other secrets, with friendship even. Was it all a means of getting to my father?”

  “I didn’t even know who your father was until you told me at our lunch.”

  “Then what the devil is going on?” He looked desperate, confused. “Please, Luella. I’ve lost my father inexplicably and without warning. He was accused of a crime that was leagues beside his character, and I’m left with no answers. The way you’re evading my questions leads me to no other conclusion save that you were somehow implicated in this rotten business. Whose story is true? Rebecca’s or the Sergeant’s?”

  I mustered my courage. If I were to lose everything, I could at least decide now to maintain my integrity. What was the point of hiding it? I took off the oversized coat Rebecca had provided and pulled off the vest as well, leaving me intimately vulnerable in just a work shirt. I wanted Edward to hear this from Luella Winthrop. I knelt in front of him awkwardly in the small space and looked up into his face in supplication.

  “Rebecca’s,” I said. “Though I don’t know what details she included. Cooper’s suspicion that I was an accomplice to a murder, or otherwise participated in the financial scandal that ruined your father, could not be further from the truth. The honest truth, which you may believe or not, is that I tangled with forces beyond my understanding and inadvertently, though not without culpability, set off a chain of events that ruined an honest and good man. I am so sorry.”

  “I don’t understand. Forces beyond your control?”

  “Magic. I met a man in a carnival, and he taught me to use magic.”

  “You mean to say that magic killed my father?”

  I hung my head and nodded. Edward’s face flushed. He leaned back in his seat and released my hands, looking out the small window of the carriage at the square outside with its handful of police officers. I tried to follow his gaze. I wouldn’t fight. They could take me quietly.

  Absent-mindedly, he fiddled with a ring on his finger, taking it off and putting it on. His jaw was clenched tight. I stayed on my knees, darting my gaze to the seat, the floor, his boots, anywhere but into his face. />
  I think what hurt the most was knowing that it all could have been different, that instead of arresting me, he might have married me, if I had just the courage to leave Byron and the humility to stay away from Bram.

  Without warning, Edward lifted his arm and delivered two sharp blows to the roof of the carriage.

  “Hiyah!” I heard the driver cry accompanied by the whip of the reigns. The coach jolted forward, and I watched the world outside pass by like sheets off a printing press. The police in the square shrunk and soon vanished from view, obscured by buildings. I felt the bumps of the road reverberate up through my knees, gravity pulling my torso awkwardly this way and that.

  “You knew the signal for Rebecca’s driver,” I wondered aloud.

  “My driver,” he said. He continued to stare out the window. “This is my carriage after all.”

  “Your carriage? What are you talking about? Where are we going?”

  “We’re leaving the city. I’m taking you to my home in the country, a day’s ride away.”

  “I’ve never left the city,” I stammered, watching as we passed streets I knew so well. These streets used to feel so safe and familiar to me. Now, I feared someone would see me in the passing window and signal Cooper. “Why would you take me there?”

  “I need to get you away from Cooper,” he said. “He is convinced that you have acted with my father’s competitors in a plot for financial gain. I cannot dissuade him from the idea. He says that I’ve been blinded by—well, by everything going on.”

  I wiped my eyes, blinked blankly, and clumsily retook my seat across from him. Edward was rescuing me. After everything, he was rescuing me.

  “I’ve sent a message ahead to my mother,” he continued. “She is expecting us there.”

  “Edward,” I whispered.

  “We can stay there for as long as needed to sort everything out.”

  “Edward.”

  “I think it’s time I took a break from police work, anyway. At least until everything with my father is settled.”

  “Edward.”

  He exhaled loudly and finally turned his head to look at me. “What is it?”

  “Do you believe me?”

  He chewed on his thoughts before sharing them. “I don’t believe Cooper. And, I don’t believe you could be a criminal. I could very well be blind, as the Sergeant said, but I can think of nothing more contrary to nature than a vision of you scheming and colluding to ruin or kill Luke Thomas.”

  “I will explain anything you ask to the best of my ability,” I replied.

  “There will be plenty of time for that when we’re both in a better state of mind. For now, I’m trying to satisfy myself with what you said, that you’ve never harbored any malicious intention toward my father.”

  I kissed the palms of his hands and let my tears run. I squeezed them in mine and felt regret overcome me, regret for every choice I’d ever made that had separated me from him. There, in that moving carriage, he did not reciprocate any of my affections, but he did not pull his hands away from me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’ve lost control of everything.” I wrung my hands incessantly. I felt so restless, uneasy. I looked out the window to distract myself from crying again. We were in a part of the city now that was unfamiliar to me, on the far north side. Soon, we would be past its most outer buildings, into agricultural land, and then off to a new, foreign world. I watched the world I’d known my entire life disappear, clattering along the cobbles.

  “I heard that you were to be married next week,” Edward said tenderly.

  I coughed out a laugh in spite of the painful knot in my throat. I couldn’t help it. The thought now was so absurd it couldn’t be believed.

  “We had the church scheduled,” I said. “I guess the wedding is off.” I hadn’t thought about Byron. Rebecca had forbidden it. It was time to act, not to feel. Time to act. Her words had given me the strength to ward off the terrible anger inside of me. I clung to them still. Thinking of Byron kicked up the embers.

  “I hope not to offend any feelings you may have toward your fiancé if I can offer you my support,” he said.

  “Rebecca said he recommended me for an asylum.” Time to act, not to feel.

  “Forgive me, but a man who treats his wife-to-be that way can, in my opinion, hardly deserve her.”

  I laughed again, darkly. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “He was more than I deserved.”

  “A man like that? He measures very low on my ledger.”

  “Even so. After hearing my explanation, is an asylum not unreasonable?” I asked. My emotions swelled, and I fought to push them down and shut them up. I was afraid to unstopper whatever foul brew was concocting inside of me in response to Byron’s betrayal.

  Edward scrutinized me, trying to decipher my words and fit them into the great puzzle before him. He shook his head.

  “I’m afraid we were unable to collect your things,” he said. “I’m not certain we’ll be able to retrieve them anytime soon, either. Cooper will certainly have your flat watched in case you return.”

  This wasn’t excellent news, considering my only outfit was the men’s clothes on my back, but what could I feel but gratitude at being snatched out of the hunter’s snare? Did I have the sense to grab anything during our flight? I couldn’t remember.

  I patted my pockets and discovered, with great relief, a crumpled version of Anna’s letter.

  “What is that?” Edward nodded his head to the paper.

  “It’s from my sister, Anna,” I said. “She has just gone off to stay with her fiancé’s family in the country.” I clutched the paper desperately, trying to feel my sister’s presence through it. In many ways, I was glad she hadn’t been around for what just happened.

  “Congratulations,” he replied. “You must be very happy for her.”

  I nodded, choking back fresh emotion. Time to act.

  I patted my other pockets and, to my surprise, felt a strange lump in my right trouser pocket. I reached inside and pulled out a small crimson inkwell.

  The sight of it sent a jolt of electricity through me. I stared out the window to hide the feelings on my face. I couldn’t identify the emotion. Fear? Panic?

  We were out of the city now. I craned my head to catch a final glimpse of the familiar clock tower before it faded away. The sound of the wheels on cobblestones had softened to the crunch of gravel roads then to the muffled sound of earth. Green and yellow patched meadows, preparing themselves for winter dormancy, spread out before us like a dream, spotted with occasional ponds and great willow trees. We passed a fieldstone wall, and everything that I had known was behind me. Unbidden memories of my father flashed through my mind. This had been his home and his resting place. He married my mother here. He spent his life here, and I had made a mess of his city.

  I’d make it right somehow, Papa. The Golden Inkwell was out of the question, but at the very least, I’d clear our name and go home. I just needed time.

  We rounded a large bend, and I was ambushed by a final panoramic view of my home from across a river. It shrunk smaller and smaller until we entered a wood. Then, it vanished from my view entirely, replaced with dappled shade and wild nature. Shafts of light stole through the trees, and the wood stretched out before me, staggeringly exponential until the very edge of my vision and beyond. One might vanish among those trees and never come out again. One might become a tree themselves if they didn’t have their heads about them.

  At some point, my adrenaline dumped off. Exhaustion, exertion, and the gentle rocking of the carriage lulled me to a heavy, dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Fernmount

  I WOKE TO the sight of Edward, peacefully looking out the carriage window, an angel in uniform. He had unbuttoned his jacket and rested his face on his hand, which I noted still had the scrapes from his sparring match with Big Bill yesterday.

  We were now navigating hills covered by vast lawns
and fading heather. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. I had read about places like these in my favorite stories, but I had never had the opportunity to see them in person. My whole life was wrapped up in work and toil. I inherited that life when my parents passed. Even as a governess, I was never taken along on holiday.

  “How long was I asleep?”

  “Several hours,” Edward said. “You had quite the morning.”

  I stretched my limbs under my clothes, remembering that I was dressed in trousers and shirt still. “Where are we?”

  “Near Dursley. By now, I think it’s safe to say we haven’t been followed. I imagine you could use a stop for some refreshment.”

  “Thank you,” I said, my stomach growling. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. There was nothing that morning, and the evening before had been eclipsed by my episode at the station and the following events. Did I eat anything at Doug’s the day before?

  “We’ll see what we can do about some clothes as well. Nothing raises suspicion like a traveling woman dressed as a man.”

  I blushed and nodded. “Of course, I’m all a mess.”

  “On the contrary. You are quite becoming,” he said. “That’s not to say—I mean—I think only of your comfort.”

  “Of course.”

  The conversation lapsed, and we sat quietly as the carriage made its way into Dursley. Edward made some clumsy inquiries about size and style of clothes I might prefer. To his relief, I asked for a piece of paper and pencil, leaving specific instructions for whatever shop keep waited on him, then waited for him in the carriage, trying to remember the last time I had purchased a new dress, tailored to my size. I hoped that I would fit into whatever Edward brought back. I couldn’t recall the last time I wrote down my size for someone.

  Before long, he returned with a very sensible skirt, a jacket, and a blouse only moderately decorated with frill. He passed the parcel into the carriage and waited for me outside while I changed. I breathed a sigh of relief when the buttons closed comfortably. The whole situation felt less alien to me now that I was back in a more familiar set of clothes.