by Louis Bayard
Past Griffyn Hall we fly, past all the neighbouring houses, past every intersection in turn…our horse no longer hewing to any particular route but flying as fast as the atmosphere will allow, and Colin lying flat as a jockey, chiding the animal on in a remorseless rhythm—the two of them now a compound organism, punishing and responding in equal measure—and the cab behind them rattling like loose teeth against the cobblestones, tossing and buffeting its passengers so violently that the normal laws of physics seem indefinitely suspended.
The wheels jump and kick against the stones, straining against their own axles. And in some demarcated realm of my mind, I ask myself if any hansom cab has ever gone quite this fast before and, if so, for how long.
Then I hear the crack of a whip, and I look out just in time to see Colin clutch the back of his leg: a simple act that costs him all his precarious balance. Groaning, he slides off his mount—tips half over—and were it not for the last-minute interference of the harness, he might tip off altogether, and even so, he lies there, trapped on the horse’s side, a mere three feet from the pavement, hooves thundering in his ear.
From above, another lash descends, and though Colin ducks clear, the horse is not so lucky: the whip lands with an audible slap on its rump, and the animal, stung to the quick, unleashes yet another burst of speed, dragging the cab after it, and Colin can do nothing but lie pressed against the horse’s side, his hair frothing with wind, his arms and knees drawn to his chest, waiting, with agonised resignation, for whatever may come next.
At that very moment, the solution to Colin’s plight presents itself to me: we must give our driver fresh game.
And who better than I?
Simply managed, as it turns out. I need but push my head through the reins until I am squarely in Rebbeck’s line of vision.
The first lash takes my cap clean off my head. The second catches me in the shoulder, and as I put out a remonstrating arm, the third bisects the palm of my hand.
The pain is indistinguishable from the sensation of wetness: a slow leak of blood, seeping down the wrist and burning as it passes, so that I am perfectly astonished to hold my arm aloft and find my hand still attached to it.
The relief will be short-lived, I can tell. Once again Rebbeck has raised the whip, and his face has acquired the stoniness of an idol, and his arm pauses at its apogee as if it were gathering all its powers for one final, apocalyptic blow. I shut my eyes to the doom, but the sound that jars them open again is something else altogether: a tiny explosion in the roof of the cab, as a trap door—never before suspected—bursts open to reveal Philomela, defiantly interposing her head between me and Rebbeck’s whip.
—Vaffanculo! she cries.
A pretty rage indeed, but what impresses me most is how coolly she has calculated her risk. She understands, doesn’t she, the dilemma she has created for our man Rebbeck. He may strike Colin and me as long as he likes, till there is not a lick of flesh left on our bones, but Philomela? Mar that head, and he will be answerable to his employer.
And so, as the seconds pass, the impulses of rage and self-preservation vie within him for possession and, in their tussle, produce only agitation—a headlong dive from the driver’s box that succeeds in forcing Philomela back down and slamming the trap door after her.
But that moment’s distraction is all I need to clamber onto the roof of the cab and throw myself at Rebbeck’s prone figure, and as he rocks back towards me, I raise my elbow—the one part of my right arm that is yet free of pain—and smite him on the side of the head.
The whip flies free…the reins jump clear…and now, whatever constraints our horse was operating under are gone, and the animal speeds unencumbered down the lane, sprinting as though its very soul depended on it, relieved of any care…until the fog parts to reveal an oncoming carriage.
With a screech of terror, the horse jerks sharply to the left, and the whole cab shifts with it—Rebbeck and me included. With no purchase, no axis, nothing but our scrambling hands and legs to aid us, we both slide inexorably towards the edge of the roof.
And when at last we are disentangled, we find ourselves in oddly parallel predicaments, each of us hanging from the rein guide and kicking his legs madly to keep clear of the wheel. How peculiarly liberating it feels to put Rebbeck out of mind for the time being and devote myself to nothing but my own survival.
The muscles in my upper back gather their forces, the shoulders take up the call, the arms answer back…and the whole cogged, geared apparatus of me hauls itself back onto the roof.
The effort is sufficient to leave me sprawling on my belly, gasping for air. And there ends my reverie. For in the square of space just before my eyes lies the cold black promontory of Rebbeck’s boot.
It is instinct, pure instinct that makes me draw up my head, not quickly enough, for the boot, missing my chin, glances off my left temple, and the force of it knocks me flat on my spine and drops my head over the side of the cab’s roof, and suddenly the entire world is flipped on its end—our horse is galloping through the clouds—and the buzzing in my head is so profound it becomes quite an easy thing for Rebbeck to pin down my arms and to reach, with all deliberation, into his coat pocket.
Out it comes. That gleaming band of steel with its two beveled edges. So vividly emblazoned in my mind that my every new encounter with it has the quality of memory.
And in a way, I am remembering. I am seeing Gully’s last moments—through the medium of Rebbeck’s mild hazel eyes.
And in my heart I am saying:
You won’t. You won’t kill me as you killed him.
And then, from my upside-down vantage, I see Colin. No longer pinioned on his side, he has somehow managed to climb back atop the horse, and even more remarkable, he has gathered up the errant reins and is grasping them to his chest with sacramental care…and as Rebbeck lowers the blade to my neck in a soft, caressing declension, I scream:
—Pull, Colin! Pull!
The boy needs no further exhortation. Bracing himself on the traces, he leans back with all his might, and as the horse’s head snaps backwards and the wheels screech against the pavement, the world is once again knocked on its ear. Colin is thrown against the horse’s shoulder, and Philomela thumps against the dashboard, and Rebbeck, still holding his knife, vaults right over the top of me and lands with a sharp thwack on the running board below.
I alone remain where I was—prone atop the cab roof—but for how long? Our horse, far from stopping, has simply shifted its course onto new tangents. And although Colin is still yanking on the reins for all he’s worth, the horse is beyond minding now. It swerves back and forth, taking up every last square inch of the road, sketching out acute angles and half circles and parabolas—a fit of insane geometry.
No one is moving now, least of all Rebbeck. We are all of us, I think, braced for disaster, but there is at least another minute of mad careening before the cab, swerving to avoid a streetlight, tips onto a single wheel and then, after a suspenseful hiatus, turns over altogether.
From there, everything goes dark. I am conscious only of being hurried through the upper air—swiftly, silkily. My body goes limp in anticipation, and every nerve in me ceases firing…and then, after a short interval, those same nerves sharpen and quiver tenfold as a sensation like a thousand switches invades my legs.
It requires some investigation to discover the source of this new pain. I have been thrown into a hedge of boxwood—the border of someone’s lawn. And here I stand—in the thick of it, as it were—fully erect, like a tin soldier carefully set back on its shelf.
And as the report of my survival trickles back to me, the abrasions of these branches become a source of indescribable joy, and it is with some lingering regret that I must leave their embrace and step back into the road.
Adolphus’s cab will not be going out in service again any time soon. It lies collapsed on its side, in a posture of terminal illness, on a bed of shattered glass and splintered wood. One of its wheels,
broken off in the crash, has rolled down the hill in a trance of terror, and ten feet off stands our now-becalmed horse, cured of its madness, trailing its broken harness behind and surveying the wreckage with a kind of professional pride.
And there, clamped as tightly as a lichen to the horse’s shoulder, lies Colin, barely stirring when I tap him on the shoulder.
—Come down, Colin. It’s over.
I don’t stay to help him, for I have already glimpsed, next to the broken cab, two other recumbent forms, impossible to separate in the fog. Only upon closer scrutiny do they reveal their identities. First Rebbeck, flat on his belly, back heaving. And then, crouching close behind him, Philomela, her comforter wrested away, her bridal raiment in tatters, her arms working in a small, industrial flurry.
I am just on the verge of hailing her when Rebbeck’s eyes jolt open with an electric surge, and before I can make another move, he has jumped to his feet and thrust forward his blade—a slightly altered blade, unless my eyes deceive me, stained at its very tip with blood.
My blood, I assume. But my hand, reaching for my throat, finds only uninterrupted flesh, and after making a quick canvass of my companions, I am ultimately led back to Rebbeck’s own leg, to the gash in his trousers and the sticky rill of blood coagulating above his knee. He sways there, trying to fix me in his sights, and his self-inflicted wound, far from deterring him, seems to goad him on. Eyes wobbling, head listing, he holds out his blade like a sabre and comes for me.
And, truth be told, he is such a mesmerising spectacle it doesn’t even occur to me to run; some part of me wishes to be here when he arrives. It is Philomela who chooses this moment to act. She runs to the horse, slaps it on the haunch, and, in a voice of uncompromising power, cries:
—Su! Come andiamo!
Stunned, worn out, the horse nonetheless jerks in what’s left of its harness and, for want of any clear direction, canters off the same way it just came. Not even noticing its latest fare: one Willie the Slasher, who, much to his own surprise, is arrested in the act of charging me, pulled to his knees, and then, with a howl of frustration, dragged back across the cobblestones.
Here at last Philomela’s cunning reveals itself: she has fastened the reins round Rebbeck’s ankle.
And the horse is moving too briskly now for any of her work to be undone. Each time Rebbeck succeeds in righting himself, the reins pull taut again and haul him earthwards, and as the poor blinkered horse draws him back up the hill, back to Griffyn Hall, the only way he can stay upright is by alternately jogging and hopping—hopping backwards, on a single foot, like a senile rabbit.
Strange that in such a situation, a man’s first thought should be of his dignity, but that is the case with Sergeant Rebbeck. His face might be fairly considered a model of composure in the midst of mortification, and on any other night, under any other circumstances, the dichotomy of that solemn mask and that ludicrous hopping gait might be good for a guffaw. But as Rebbeck disappears round the corner, the only emotions we three can bestow on him are a certain dry resignation and a small degree of gladness.
Everything else is swamped in exhaustion. Colin is planted on his arse in the middle of the road. Philomela leans against the toppled cab, wiping her brow smooth. And I…well, the only acts of which I am capable are kneeling on my haunches and knotting a handkerchief round my lacerated hand.
All round us, the fog begins to wear away, like the napping of an old towel. And in this new interval of clarity, an old imperative reawakens inside me. I reach into the inner pocket of my pea coat. I draw out Philomela’s rosary beads and the rag doll. I lay them in her unresisting hands.
She examines them a bit, examines me a bit longer.
—I know, Philomela. It’s a bit early for gifts.
Just then, Colin looks up. It has taken me this long to see the full extent of the damage to his face: a smear of dried blood across his forehead, another bearding his chin; a black eye, nearly as florid as my own; and that tiny nose now leaning slightly to one side, as though it had tumbled over in a kiln.
He turns up one of the corners of his bruised mouth and, in a thickened voice, says:
—It ain’t early, Mr. Timothy. It’s Christmas Eve. Near three hours now.
24 December 1860
Dear Father,
Have you been to the Regent’s Park lately?
It’s not, as they say, what it used to be. The oaks and planes and maples have grown quite stunted, and the grand allée of Broad Road is pocketed with ruts and stones, and even the willows look to be weeping more extravagantly than usual. Any day now, I expect, they’ll bring in new gardeners to spruce up the place, but I rather like it in its current condition: stifled and longing.
I’m not quite sure how we ended up here. Our cab took so many spins and swerves before we had done I shouldn’t have been surprised to be hailed by the mayor of Liverpool. But in fact, once the dust had settled, we found ourselves just a mile or so north of Griffyn Hall, with the Regent’s Park just up the road. Not exactly beckoning us onwards, but not completely averse to the idea of us, either—willing to try us on for a few hours. Under the circumstances, it seemed a safe bet.
We found an elevated glade next to a swan-laden moat, with a commanding view of the park’s eastern end. And as soon as we were persuaded that we were truly alone, we began to scare up as many dry leaves as we could find—no small task, given the prevailing damp. Wrapped in our foliage, we dropped straight to sleep, not even stopping to disport our bodies in conducive postures. You may see the result now. Colin is bunched against a tree stump. Philomela never made it off her knees, simply balled up your old comforter, Father, into a pillow and collapsed. And I, upon waking, realised that I had spent the whole night with my left arm wedged beneath my breastbone. The feeling is only now returning.
It is quiet here. The only sound that breaks through the trees is the rumble of a carriage, too far removed to be a source of alarm. It sounds like my carriage, if you must know. The one that was to take me out of Camden Town. No surprise: it has come too late.
What amazes me, in retrospect, is how long I waited for it. Day after day, in that dank garret, with the smell of curdled dust everywhere, and those diamonds of strained light…day after day, waiting with a dogged constancy, the way a woman waits for her husband to come back from the sea.
And still no carriage. No grey brougham stopping in front of our house. No door admitting me to my future.
And then one day, a few weeks after my seventeenth birthday, Uncle N invited me to a dinner party at his home. And in that one stroke, the waiting was ended. The golden quince of opportunity dangled from the bough. I knew, as surely as I knew my name, that once I had sat down at Uncle’s table, I would shine like a newly minted sun, I would fling my sparkle carelessly, profligately, in every direction, and society would be left with no alternative but to snatch me up. I would be lionised by hostesses across the West End, I would be the envy of bachelors, the prize of heiresses. The toast of the season, the wit of the age.
And it was all to begin with Uncle N’s dinner party.
I think I must have spent half a day preparing, Father. Combing bear’s grease through my hair, brushing my coat, the nap of my hat. Inserting your prized enamel links in my turn-back shirt cuffs. Stringing my watch chain horizontally, the way I’d seen Prince Albert do it. And through it all, rehearsing an infinite array of conversational gambits, gleaned from the Times and the Morning Chronicle and Punch.
Did I even stop to say good-bye to you and Mother? Well, there was no time, you see. My destiny was rushing to meet me. I couldn’t be late.
The cabdriver engaged by Uncle N spoke to me in rapid bursts of Hungarian; it was the sound of acclaim. The elms and lilacs dipped their branches as I passed. Even the knocker on Uncle N’s door smothered its usual grimace in deference to my prospects.
I know what you’re thinking, Father. I should have guessed. I should have guessed that no one really distinguished would be there.
Second-and third-tier bankers, mostly—colleagues or passing acquaintances of Uncle’s—and the usual moth-eaten complement of charitable emissaries. All moving and speaking with alarming slowness, like residents of a private aquarium, and imparting such a heaviness to the proceedings there was no staying afloat.
The one aberration in the guest list was a large, sweating woman with a terribly forward manner…the founder of the Pure Literature Society…who patted my cheek over pie and cried out to my uncle:
—He is the sweetest little creature I have ever clapped eyes upon! I shall take him home and dress him up like a Dresden doll.
If she had called me a lily-livered knave and swatted me with her fan and bathed my face in spit, she could not have insulted me more grievously. But all I heard from the other end of the table was Uncle’s halting, shambling reply:
—Yes, capital little fellow. Awf ’lly, you know, yes.
And after that, the sparkle—what little I possessed, anyway—went out of me. Why expend any more, here or anywhere? I was still the protagonist of Uncle N’s story, and there was no breaking free.
I needn’t tell you how the evening crawled into a corner and expired, although it’s worth observing that the ride home was, if anything, slightly worse. Uncle N, you see, had engaged a grey brougham for me…and this brougham did, in fact, stop in front of our house, but only to disgorge me into the past.
Herewith my predicament, Father: I no longer possessed a narrator. Uncle N had abdicated the role. And you…you were willing, yes, but your story had finished. I was well now, wasn’t I? I no longer needed to be Good. For you or for anybody. And so that left me free to be otherwise.
Oh, yes, I sat down to breakfast and dinner at the same time every day. I answered when spoken to; my voice never wavered from its tone of mild acquiescence. But in my deepest, most private recesses, Father, I was on fire with a hard true clean resentment.
