2
For every time she shouted “Fire!”
They only answered “Little Liar!”
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.
—Hilaire Belloc, “Matilda”
SURREY: OCTOBER 1907
Miranda had been running full tilt through the crisp morning air for at least a quarter of an hour, so when she burst through the front door of the cottage, she was gasping for breath and couldn’t speak.
Her brother, who had been reading a newspaper in the parlor, jumped to his feet. “What’s happened, Mouse? Are you all right?”
She nodded, one hand on her chest and the other struggling to push back her hair, which her mad dash had shaken loose from its knot at the nape of her neck. Simon started to guide her towards the sofa, but she resisted.
“There’s a dying man in the wood,” she finally managed to say. “We need to fetch Dr. Mason.”
“A dying man? In our wood? Are you certain?”
Simon had the look in his eyes that she had learned to dread, and she bit her lip to prevent herself from uttering a sarcastic retort. Yes, finding a dying man in the wood was strange, but it wasn’t impossible. And she didn’t make a practice of telling people unbelievable things. Not anymore.
“I’m certain. I thought he was dead at first, but then he groaned and moved his arm. He was so cold he must have been lying there all night. We’ve got to help him.”
“What were you doing in the wood?”
“Walking. I heard an unusual birdcall, so I was looking up into the trees, and I nearly tripped over him.”
Her brother gave her a diagnostic look.
“I’m going for the doctor. You don’t have to come,” Miranda said.
“No, wait here and rest. I’ll run to the village and get him.” The wood and Dr. Mason’s surgery in the village lay in opposite directions.
“Very well. But do hurry, Simon.”
It seemed like forever before Simon returned with Dr. Mason in the doctor’s trap. Dr. Mason was a tall, craggy-faced man who was kinder than his habitually stern expression implied, and he listened to her explain how she’d found the injured man. Soon the three of them were in the trap and on their way down the hill and into the little wood. As she directed them to the spot, Miranda uttered a silent prayer that the man would be exactly where she left him.
The man was still there. His clothing was torn and bloodied, and he looked as though he had been beaten: there were bruises on his face, and one eye was swollen shut. Some personal items that had presumably been in his pockets were strewn on the ground: a pocket watch, a handkerchief, a crumpled note. If he’d been carrying money, it had been stolen. He wasn’t moving.
Miranda knelt down beside the man as the doctor examined him. Simon stood several feet away, his face taking on a greenish tinge. He’d always been squeamish in the presence of physical injuries, especially if they involved the spilling of blood, and there was quite a lot of blood, even on the fallen leaves surrounding the man’s body.
Dr. Mason felt for the patient’s pulse at his wrist. Then, frowning, he tried again, this time at the man’s neck.
Miranda took the injured man’s left hand in hers. It was the only part of his body that seemed unscathed, and she thought it might comfort him a little, though she didn’t know if he was aware of her presence. At one point he seemed to be, for his fingers tightened around hers.
She hoped he wouldn’t die, for her sake as well as his. It was good to have someone besides herself and Simon to focus on for a change. Someone she could help. The bruises and scrapes didn’t hide the fact that he was relatively young, probably in his early thirties. Who was he and where did he come from? He wasn’t wearing a coat, which was odd for the season, but perhaps his attackers had taken it. He was a gentleman, too—that much was evident from the fine white cambric shirt he was wearing, despite the blood and dirt that marred it, and from his interesting hands. He had long, tapered fingers and spotlessly clean fingernails, but his ring finger was crooked and had a flatter knuckle than the others. There was also a long scar on his palm. She wondered what story lay behind these hands.
She watched Dr. Mason poke and prod the patient, muttering under his breath. Finally, he turned to Miranda and said, “This fellow’s in a bad state. He must have been lying here for hours after being attacked. He seems to have put up a good fight, but either his attacker was stronger than he was, or there was more than one. I can’t be certain about the extent of his injuries until he regains consciousness, but I suspect his leg is broken, and probably some ribs, too.”
“We shouldn’t stay here,” Simon said, still standing at a distance. “For all we know, the people who attacked him could still be nearby.”
“Let’s take him to our cottage,” Miranda said. “We’ll look after him, won’t we, Simon?”
“I suppose so,” her brother said, clearly not overjoyed by the prospect.
“I don’t think you’re in danger,” Dr. Mason said. “Your cottage is so isolated that it would be hard to find if someone comes looking for him. Besides, his attackers probably think they killed him and won’t risk coming back.”
The three of them did their best to get the man into the doctor’s trap without jostling him overmuch. He groaned and muttered something incoherent during the process, but he didn’t seem aware of them or his surroundings. When they reached the cottage and lifted him out again, his face was drained of color. They put him in Simon’s bedroom, and Dr. Mason promised to check on him the following day.
“He isn’t an injured bird or rabbit, Miranda,” Simon said as they conferred in the parlor that evening. “You can’t nurse him back to health and then release him into the wild—or keep him here—without consequences.”
“I know that.” She frowned at her brother, who seemed determined to misunderstand her intentions. “What do you propose we do with him? Drop him back in the wood where we found him and hope he survives? You know as well as I do that he needs someone to care for him.”
Simon sighed. “This man could be a murderer, for all we know. Nobody is beaten that badly just to be robbed—if he was robbed—and what was he doing in such a remote area, anyway? He was probably attacked by people who had good reason to be angry with him.”
“So he deserved what he received, then?” Her frown deepened, and she placed her hands on her hips.
“I didn’t say that. Mouse, try to be reasonable. He could be dangerous to us. After everything we’ve done to create a safe place to live, do you want to throw it all away just because of some stranger who may not deserve our kindness?”
Dangerous to me, you mean, she thought. Instead of saying it aloud, she said, “You’re making many assumptions about this man. Whatever he deserves, we may be the only people who have ever shown him kindness. Could you really turn him away?”
Her brother was silent, but the look on his face communicated his concerns clearly enough. Ever since they had moved to the cottage, he had been overly solicitous of her, as if the slightest upset would bring on an attack of nerves or aggravate the hysterical illness her former doctor had diagnosed her with a few years earlier. But Miranda was tired of being treated like a child—after all, she was seven-and-twenty—and although she knew Simon loved her, he didn’t really understand her.
She went to her brother’s side and linked her arm through his, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I do appreciate all you’ve done to ensure my safety, but please don’t allow your worries to make you insensitive to the suffering of others.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Very well. I surrender. I hope he’s worth your concern. But as soon as he is well enough to move about, we must send him on his way. You won’t argue with me on that point, will you?”
“I won’t.”
With a rush of affection, Miranda watched her brother leave the room. His loping gait and tousled dark hair made him look like an undernourished bear. He had
inherited their father’s tall, thin frame and dark coloring, while she was a pale imitation of her beautiful mother, who was small and fair. When Miranda was a child, she had been subjected to frequent sorrowful looks followed by loud whispers: “What a pity she doesn’t look more like her mother!” She thought herself just as small, drab, and insignificant as the mouse that was Simon’s affectionate nickname for her.
She entered the room in which the stranger lay and sat down in the chair closest to the bed, finally allowing herself to think about the consequences of what she and Simon had done. When this man regained consciousness, he would want to know where he was and who had taken him in. Even the simplest explanation would be risky if he couldn’t be trusted to keep their names and location a secret.
Miranda and Simon didn’t know many people in Denfield, the nearest village, only the parishioners of the small local church and Dr. Mason. She felt guilty about Simon, who missed the company of others more than she did, and she worried that his choice to live with her in such seclusion was too much of a sacrifice. Soon, she hoped, it would be safe to live openly in the world like ordinary people. Surely the injured stranger would respect their desire for privacy, if not because he was a good man, then because of his gratitude to them for saving his life.
She lost track of time as she kept her vigil by the injured man, inventing stories about him that became increasingly outlandish with the lateness of the hour. She imagined he was the eldest son of foreign royalty who had been plotted against by an evil younger son who wanted the crown for himself. Or perhaps he was a seductive Byronic hero, destined to be an outcast in the world. Her favorite story, suggested by his olive skin and the hint of the exotic in his features, made him a combination of Heathcliff and Svengali, a gypsy wanderer with the power of mesmerism, a tormented lover and musical genius. As was her wont, she wasn’t interested in the mundane truth of who he really was.
Her life before she and Simon went into hiding had been full of incident, but it was too ordinary these days to offer much scope for her imagination. Simon often cautioned her about what he called her “dream world,” but he didn’t understand that she had full control over her fantasies. Her dream world was a place in her mind that she could choose to enter and leave whenever she wished. Besides, she needed that place whenever painful memories of the past threatened to overwhelm her.
3
My first thought was, he lied in every word.
—Robert Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’”
Though Tom had hoped that Hell wouldn’t be his final destination, he hadn’t been certain. The physical pain wasn’t a surprise, but he hadn’t expected it to be worse in specific parts of his body—his head, his left leg, his ribs. He also hadn’t expected it to be so much like his childhood. The terror. The helplessness. The knowledge that the brief moments of calm would end without warning.
Eventually, he came to understand that he wasn’t in Hell, because his surroundings were peaceful and he was lying in a comfortable bed. He heard whispered conversations, felt gentle hands arranging his pillows and bedclothes, and smelled the subtle scent of lavender instead of sulfur.
When he finally awoke fully and opened his right eye, sunlight was flooding the room. His left eye wasn’t working properly. When he raised his hand to touch it, he felt the puffiness of his swollen eyelid.
The room was small but cozy. The walls were covered with drawings of plants. A large vase of daisies and other late-season wildflowers stood on a side table, and books overflowed the small desk by the window as if they, too, were alive, spilling untidily onto the floor in a heap. The iron bedstead on which he lay was covered with a bright patchwork quilt. The only inhabitant of the room that wasn’t colorful was the pale young woman sitting in the chair by the bed. She reminded him of a faded painting, as if the sunlight had drained her of the warm golds and pinks that ought to have been her natural coloring. The black dress she was wearing didn’t help—the best that could be said of it was that it was modest and neat.
“Oh, you’re awake. We were starting to wonder if you’d ever enter the land of the living,” she said with a smile. She had a low, soft voice and unusual eyes. They were such a light blue as to be almost translucent, making the dark pupils and outline of the irises stand out.
Tom’s mouth felt horribly dry. He tried to ask for water, but his words came out as an indistinguishable croak.
His companion seemed to understand what he wanted, since she reached for a glass of water on a side table and held it to his lips, slipping her free hand underneath his head for support. He took a few gulps and then lay back, surprised by the pain that shot through his left leg and the general soreness of his whole body.
“Thank you,” he said, wincing as he shifted in the bed, trying to find a better position for his leg.
“You’d better not move too much. Your ankle is broken, and the rest of you isn’t much better off.”
“What happened to me?” he asked.
“Don’t you remember?”
“No.” An image of two menacing figures on a dark, quiet road came to him, but nothing more.
“I’m afraid I don’t know.” She hesitated, as if unsure of how much to tell him.
“Where am I?”
“We’re in Surrey, but our cottage is in the middle of nowhere, really. I found you in the wood, and my brother and I brought you home. The nearest village is an hour’s walk from here.”
He digested this for a moment. “How long have I been here?”
“Three days.”
“I was left in this sorry state in the forest, and you fished me out?”
“Yes.”
“I’m obliged to you. What’s your name?”
“Miranda.”
“‘Admired Miranda,’” he said slowly, “‘worth what’s dearest to the world.’”
“You know your Shakespeare,” she said with a smile. “What’s your name?”
“Tom.” He closed his eyes as a wave of dizziness passed over him.
“One ought never to quote Shakespeare on an empty stomach,” she said. “May I fetch you something to eat?”
He felt the light, warm pressure of her hand on his arm and was absurdly, desperately grateful for the comfort it gave him. He opened his mouth to decline her offer but then realized he was ravenous. “Yes, please.”
She left, and Tom heard distant sounds of dishes and cutlery clinking. He felt too disoriented to think clearly, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his injuries, combined with the kind but ghostly presence of the woman who called herself Miranda, made him wonder again if he were experiencing some version of the afterlife. It was strange enough to be bedridden and in need of help for something as simple as a glass of water. He had always been on the other side of the bed, the one who helped others. He almost hoped it was a hallucination, so he would not have to endure this humiliating situation. If he had the strength to drag himself out of bed and into a cave somewhere like an injured animal, he would have done so.
But he had no such strength, so he had to accept the fact that he was completely dependent on the kindness of this young woman. When Miranda returned with a bowl of soup, he accepted her help, as he had with the glass of water, without showing his uneasiness. Or so he thought. After he had finished the soup, she took the bowl and sat back in her chair with her head tilted to one side and a thoughtful look on her face.
“It won’t do,” she said after a moment, as if they had been in the middle of a conversation.
“What won’t do?” he asked, worried that they had indeed been conversing and his disturbed mental state was as apparent as his physical injuries.
“You can’t force yourself to recover any faster than your body will allow. As much as you hate being taken care of, you may as well accept the necessity of it.”
“How do you know I hate being taken care of?”
A fleeting smile crossed her face. “Every nerve in your body is screaming it.”
“There are people who depend on me—”
“They’ll have to wait until you feel better. Please, just rest.”
He couldn’t reply, concentrating on beating back a wave of nausea. Miranda was gazing off into the distance as if she had gone somewhere else in her mind. Tom wasn’t used to silence, either in other people or in his environment, but in his weakened state he was grateful for it. His head was throbbing painfully, and he closed his eyes.
He must have fallen asleep, for the next time he opened his eyes it was evening. A lamp was lit in the room, and the dying light outside the window was a suggestion more than a reality. Miranda was nowhere to be seen, and this time a young man wearing an old-fashioned farmer’s smock was sitting by his bed.
“Who are you?” Tom asked, startling the man, who had been reading a book.
“I’m Simon Thorne. My sister tells me your name is Tom. Have you a surname?”
Tom paused for only a second. “Jones.”
“Tom Jones?” A flicker of amusement crossed Simon’s face. “I hope you’re nothing like your literary namesake. We live a quiet life here and don’t need the kind of excitement Mr. Fielding’s Tom Jones would create.”
Interesting, thought Tom. These siblings lived like rustics but obviously had some education. He silently congratulated himself on the cleverness of lying about his surname. It had given him valuable information about the people who had taken him in. It didn’t really feel like a lie, anyway—Cross was no more his real name than Jones or Harlowe, so what did it matter? Besides, he’d worked too hard to escape his past to let his true name come out.
“I have no desire to create excitement,” he said. “I’ve had more of that lately than I can bear.”
“Yes, I can well believe that. My sister says you don’t remember anything about the people who attacked you.”
“I didn’t see them clearly. I remember now getting into a cab that was supposed to take me to my lodgings in London. Instead, the driver took me out into the country. When I got out of the cab I saw two men coming towards me in the darkness, but the next thing I remember with any certainty is awakening here in this bed.”
Bear No Malice Page 2
