Bear No Malice

by Clarissa Harwood

  Jay had warned him about the temptations of women and fighting all those years ago, and Tom expected a reminder of that warning now. Instead, the older man said gravely, “This is my fault.”

  “How could it be?” Tom asked, mystified.

  “I pushed you too hard. I tried to mold you in my own image instead of giving you the freedom you needed.”

  Tom shook his head. “It was my choice. You gave me the opportunity I wanted most—to go to university. You never tried to pressure me to enter the church.”

  “Perhaps, but I didn’t blame you for keeping your distance after you left Cambridge. You needed to make your own way.”

  “I ought to have kept in touch, at least to thank you properly for everything you did.”

  As soon as he’d been able to save enough money, Tom had sent Jay a check to repay him for the university tuition with a brief note of thanks. Jay returned it with a note just as brief, telling him to use the money for someone who needed it.

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “It does.” Tom leaned forward. “I’m sorry I resisted your efforts and made your job more difficult. I didn’t see at the time what a sacrifice you made: not just the money, but your time and energy, too. You didn’t need to do that for me.”

  “You were too young and too focused on your own survival to notice anyone else. It’s just a fact. But I’m sorry, too. You told me often enough that you were just a project to me, and it stung at the time, but I’ve come to realize there was some truth to it. I was zealous and idealistic, still new to the parish—and to the ministry—when we met, and I was trying to prove myself. You were the first person I felt I had really helped, and I lost sight of you as an individual.”

  “I hold nothing against you. After all, you inspired my passion for reform. I’m starting to realize that if anything is my true vocation, that is.”

  “Well, you inspired my club, so let’s call it even. Look, Tom, I have an appointment, but if you’re interested in returning to the Old Nichol, I may have a job for you. Will you come back another day so we can talk more?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Tom regretted having kept his distance from Jay for so long. For the first time in months, he was excited about reform work. It didn’t matter that someone else had begun it. He just wanted to be part of it. What he had expected in Yorkshire had happened here instead, in the slums of London: he had come home.

  28

  There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.

  —G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

  BIRMINGHAM: OCTOBER 1908

  Would you like me to read to you?” Miranda asked her son.

  “No, thank you.” He was looking through a stereoscope that she’d brought him as a gift a few days earlier. She regretted the gift now because it meant she couldn’t see his face.

  They were in the parlor at Richard’s house. The room, like Richard himself, was sober and utilitarian, all sharp edges and no wasted space. At least she was close to Sam on the hard sofa, and they had a rare few minutes alone.

  “May I see the picture you’re looking at?” she asked.

  Sam reluctantly moved the wooden device away from his face and handed it to her. She looked through the viewer, breathing in the mossy scent of Sam’s hair that clung to it. The photograph was of a terrier standing on its hind legs.

  “Is this your favorite picture?” she asked, lowering the device to her lap.

  “Yes. I want a dog, but Papa said no.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged expressively. It was so like Simon’s shrug that Miranda caught her breath. Little things like that were always surprising her, things that reminded her Sam was a Thorne as much as he was a Morris.

  He looked at the stereoscope in her lap as if he wanted to take it from her.

  She took a deep breath. “Sam, I’m going away today, and I want to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed spending time with you.”

  He looked at her wonderingly. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going back home, to London.”

  She waited for him to say, “Don’t go,” or “Take me with you,” as he had in her fantasies, but he just studied her face, then said, “The boys at school sometimes tease me because I have strange eyes.”

  “Do they? That’s unkind.”

  “Your eyes are the same color as mine. Do people tease you?”

  “No. You and I have special eyes that adults appreciate. You’ll see when you grow up.”

  Richard came in then, and the private moment was lost.

  “Say goodbye to your aunt, Sam. The carriage is here to take her to the train station.”

  Miranda winced inwardly, as she always did, when Richard referred to her as Sam’s aunt. She understood the necessity for the falsehood, but it still troubled her. She supposed she should be glad Richard was willing to acknowledge some familial connection between her and Sam, however distant.

  Sam stood and offered Miranda his hand. She stood too and took it, resisting the urge to pull him into her arms. Such a small hand he had. It was difficult to let go, to act as if she were saying goodbye to any child of her acquaintance.

  “Goodbye,” her son said. Then he turned to Richard. “David says he has three new minerals for his collection. May I go to his house to see them? Please, Papa?”

  “Of course,” Richard replied, smiling and reaching out to ruffle Sam’s hair.

  Sam beamed and ran out of the room without a backwards glance.

  Miranda left the room with Richard hovering at her elbow, his usual place. Perhaps he was afraid she’d try to kidnap Sam. But she had no intention of doing so. Sam was clearly happy. He had all the material comforts he needed. She wouldn’t try to take him away from a life he loved.

  As Miranda put on her cloak and hat in the front foyer, Richard waved away the maid and said, “My offer still stands. Stay here and marry me, Miranda.”

  She looked up at the man who had been the cause of so much pain in her life. He had kept his promise not to pressure her into marriage, but she felt oppressed in his presence, as if that pressure was only just being restrained, that desire to control her and make her into his image of a perfect wife.

  “I can’t,” she replied. “Thank you for giving me this time with Sam, but I can’t marry you.”

  His face darkened, but he answered coolly, “Why not? Don’t you believe I’ve changed?”

  “I can see that you have. That’s not the problem.” She hesitated. “I’ve changed too, but not in a way that would make me a good wife to you.”

  He sighed. “Perhaps you just need more time.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I don’t.”

  “I expected that my offer would be too good for you to refuse. To have Sam, a comfortable home, all the freedom you desire . . .”

  Freedom, she thought, was exactly what she wouldn’t have if she married Richard.

  “Is there someone else?” he persisted.

  She thought of Tom. With all his faults, he’d never made her feel trapped. She never felt she couldn’t speak her mind with him. But she couldn’t marry him, either. Not if he desired children of his own.

  She looked up at Richard and said, “There’s no one else.” Then she asked the question to which she was afraid of hearing the answer. “May I see Sam again?”

  “Of course. Perhaps during the Christmas holidays.”

  She thanked him and let him escort her to the carriage.

  On the way to the train station, Miranda thought about what she would do when she arrived in London. She needed to find her bearings and make a life for herself. She didn’t want to live with Gwen and Simon or Julia and Charles, though they’d all invited her to do so. She’d agreed to a temporary stay with Julia and Charles only until she could find a place of her own. She fantasized about fin
ding a tiny studio, a miniature version of Isabella Grant’s, where she could live and work, supporting herself by giving art lessons and selling her paintings.

  She thought back to her time at Rudleigh. Sometimes she doubted the reality of everything that had happened there. That last week, especially, was such a strange, terrifying, magical time that she sometimes thought she’d dreamed it. An influential art critic praising her work. Two proposals of marriage in the same day when she’d never received a single one before. And most astonishing of all, Tom, whom she’d loved secretly for so long, declaring his love for her. She blushed to think of her own actions that last night, going to his room in her nightclothes and practically begging him to take her to bed. It spoke well for him that he hadn’t, but there was still a tiny doubt in her mind about the suddenness of his realization that he loved her. Perhaps he was merely swept away by the strange atmosphere at Rudleigh.

  Her mind played tricks on her in many ways. All these years she’d been thinking of Sam as real and nearly everyone else as imaginary. But when she finally had the chance to spend time with him, she’d realized he wasn’t real, not in the way she’d expected. Everything Simon had been trying to tell her for years was true. She didn’t know Sam, and he didn’t know her. The child she’d been longing to raise was a child of her imagination. And Tom, whom she’d tried so hard to relegate to her fantasy world, had become more real than anyone else. It made no difference that she hadn’t seen or heard from him in two months. It was too easy—dangerously easy—to remember the scent of his cedarwood soap, the heat of his mouth on hers, his hands caressing her body.

  Once at the station, she pushed away thoughts of Tom and found her seat on the train to London, collapsing into it with a sigh. She’d hoped for a private compartment, but the train was crowded. A young couple, perhaps newly married, sat across from her, whispering and holding hands, completely absorbed in each other. The elderly woman sitting next to Miranda alternated between giving the young couple disapproving looks and making loud comments about the sort of people who could afford a second-class carriage in this day and age.

  Miranda wondered if she was making a mistake leaving Birmingham. Could she really let Sam go? She closed her eyes and tried to imagine him, but the memory of the real child was already fading. As she opened her eyes again and gazed out the window at the platform, her vision blurred by tears, she saw a boy begging, holding out a dirty cloth cap for coins. He looked familiar.

  She blinked the moisture from her eyes and looked more closely. She still wasn’t certain, but she jumped up from her seat just as the whistle sounded and pushed past her startled fellow passengers, hurrying to the door as the guard shouted, “All aboard!”

  “Please, let me out!” she cried.

  “It’s too late, ma’am,” he said.

  But the door was still open, and she flung herself out of it, stumbling on the steps and nearly falling onto the platform. Once she had regained her footing, she approached the beggar child.

  “Jack?” she asked. “Jack Goode?”

  His face was grimed with dirt, and for a moment she thought she was mistaken about his identity, but gold-flecked brown eyes looked up at her in shocked recognition.

  “Miss Thorne?”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Tryin’ to get back to London.”

  “I’m going to London, too. Would you like to ride with me?”

  He nodded.

  Her train was already pulling out of the station. She had her reticule, but her small trunk was in the luggage van and would arrive in London without her. By the time she wired the Carringtons to send a servant for it, bought a train ticket for Jack, and visited the refreshment room, it was nearly time to board the next train. Jack had a dirty bundle of rags that he told her he’d been using as a bed, and she was relieved that he took her suggestion to leave it behind.

  Miranda was aware of the raised eyebrows and whispers as she and Jack boarded the train together, but she paid no attention and hoped Jack didn’t notice. He certainly looked much the worse for having spent several days sleeping in the train station, but soap and water and some clean clothing would solve that problem. Fortunately, they found a compartment that was empty except for a sleeping old man. Miranda sat across from Jack and watched him eat the hot roll she’d bought for him, trying to hold herself back from asking the million questions in her mind.

  “I’ve missed you, Jack,” she said. “I was living with the Carringtons for a while and was hoping to see you there. They told me Ann took you to Scotland.”

  “She meant to, but we didn’t get there.”

  “Where did you get to?”

  “A town in the north somewhere. I think the name starts with a C.”

  “What happened then?”

  “She met a man.” He turned to the window and breathed on it, then traced a pattern with his finger that only he could see. “’E didn’t want me around, so I left.”

  “That must have been difficult.”

  “Nah, I didn’t like ’im. I’m going to London ’cause I want to live with Mr. Cross again. Do you think ’e’d let me?”

  “Oh, Jack.” Her eyes filled with tears again, but she dashed them away quickly before he could notice. “I don’t know if that will be possible.”

  “Do you know where ’e is?”

  “No,” she said slowly, “but I think my brother does. He’ll tell you.”

  “Even if I can’t live with Mr. Cross, I want to see ’im to ’pologize.”

  “What for, dear?”

  “For takin’ the cross.”

  Miranda looked at him quizzically. Jack reached into his trousers pocket, pulled out a cross on a broken chain, and handed it to her. It was the gold cross that had been her grandfather’s, the one she had given Tom. There was no other cross like it, with those telltale scratches on its surface. She bit her lip to stop it from trembling.

  “I was savin’ it,” Jack continued, “to sell if I couldn’t get to London any other way. But now I can give it back. D’ye think ’e’ll be angry?”

  She took a deep breath and handed the cross back to him. “I don’t think so. Not if you apologize and return it to him.”

  “I want to ’pologize about my sister, too. She said bad things about Mr. Cross that warn’t true. An’ she said she was my mam.”

  “She’s not your mother?”

  “Nah. I was little when my mam died, but I remember ’er.” He looked out the window. “She was nicer than Ann.”

  Miranda wanted to take him in her arms, grime and all, and tell him everything was going to be all right. For the first time in months, she almost believed it herself.

  29

  Admired Miranda!

  Indeed the top of admiration, worth

  What’s dearest to the world! Full many a lady

  I have eyed with best regard, and many a time

  Th’ harmony of their tongues hath into bondage

  Brought my too diligent ear. For several virtues

  Have I liked several women, never any

  With so full soul but some defect in her

  Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed,

  And put it to the foil. But you, O you,

  So perfect and so peerless, are created

  Of every creature’s best.

  —William Shakespeare, The Tempest

  LONDON: APRIL 1909

  Tom didn’t have an official title for his employment in Shoreditch. He was partly Osborne Jay’s curate, though having relinquished his license as a clergyman, he couldn’t claim such a title. He was still doing what he’d always enjoyed most: working with people in need and trying to improve their lives, as he was trying to do now with John Barnes.

  “Sally and the baby are real bad, Mr. Hirst. I ain’t found work yet, and I can’t afford their medicine.” John stared at his feet as he spoke.

  “Have you gone to the dispensary?” Tom asked.

  “No, sir. With a
ll due respeck, I didn’t see the point.”

  Tom hesitated, then reached into his pocket and handed the man six-pence. “Take this, then, and go directly there. Do we understand each other, John?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. You’re a good man.” And he was gone.

  When Tom had first started working in Shoreditch, Jay had warned him not to set a precedent of almsgiving. Tom knew that Jay himself gave the parishioners money sometimes, but only sparingly and as secretly as he could manage. After only a month of working together, Jay had admitted that Tom was better than he was at discerning when people were deceiving him, so he had relaxed his rule, but still, Tom knew he shouldn’t fall into the habit of giving money to these men. More often than not, they would spend the money on drink or gambling.

  Later that afternoon in the church when Tom and Jay were setting up for the next day’s service, Jay told Tom about an old charity, the Mansion House Fund, that he intended to revive to help unemployed men find work. Tom knew about the charity and listened with interest to Jay’s plan, which essentially involved identifying men who were able and willing to work and matching them with employers.

  “That’s brilliant,” Tom said, “but how will you have time to oversee it? You’re already run off your feet as it is.”

  “I didn’t say I’d be running it. What do you think about taking charge of it yourself?”

  Tom stared at his mentor. “Do you mean that?”

  “Unfortunately, I do.” Jay set down a chair, straightened up and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. “I say ‘unfortunately’ because I don’t want to lose you as my assistant, but running the charity will take most of your time.”

  “There must be others who are better qualified than I am for such a position.”

  “If there are, I don’t know any. I’ve been watching you, Tom. This work won’t be easy, but it’s in line with the work you’ve already done for the Prison Commission as well as your experience as a prison chaplain. You’ll need to brush up on Poor Law relief and state programs, but that won’t be difficult for you. And I can’t think of anyone else whom I’d trust more to make the difficult decisions about who qualifies for the program and who doesn’t. Are you interested?”