Bear No Malice Read online

  He and Miranda bent to examine the plant and were soon engaged in a discussion of what it might be. Tom stood apart, not listening. The spell was broken, and the light had changed. They were standing on an ordinary hill on an ordinary day in early December, among dead grasses and plants.

  It was another reminder that he didn’t belong in this fairy tale with these innocent, adult versions of Hansel and Gretel. His place was elsewhere, among the dirt and noise of the city, among the ugliness of poverty and illness and people who had lost hope. The gates of the paradise he’d glimpsed during the sunrise were closed to him.

  Miranda didn’t look at Tom or speak to him as they walked home.

  At the cottage, they had a quiet breakfast of eggs and fried parsnip: Simon had sacrificed his Tender White Jewel to prove to Tom that it was as delicious as he’d said. It was indeed tasty, but Tom wasn’t very hungry. After breakfast, he packed his few belongings and prepared to leave for Denfield to catch his train. When he went to the parlor to say his goodbyes, only Simon was there.

  “Are you off, then?” Simon asked.

  “Yes.” Tom glanced around the room. “Where’s Miranda?”

  “I don’t know.” Simon called her name, then checked her room. He returned with a shrug. “I think she’s gone somewhere. Probably for another walk.”

  “I’ll wait for her.”

  “There’s no point. She hates goodbyes and avoids them whenever possible. She’ll come back after you’ve left.”

  “Oh.” Nonplussed, Tom paused, then said, “I hope you’ll convey to her how much I appreciate everything she’s done for me, then.”

  “Yes, of course. We’ve certainly enjoyed your company in our isolated situation.” Simon shook Tom’s hand and added, “Hopefully you’ll carry some of the peace you said you’ve found here with you to London.”

  “Thank you. I hope so, too. I can’t help thinking of Wordsworth, you know: ‘But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din of towns and cities, I have owed to them, in hours of weariness, sensations sweet.’”

  “Indeed.” Simon smiled. “Have a good journey, Tom.”

  Tom left the cottage and began to walk down the path that led to the main road, wishing he could have said a proper goodbye to Miranda.

  A few minutes later, after he had rounded a bend that took the cottage out of his sight, he heard footsteps on the path behind him and turned to see Miranda running towards him. There were wisps of hair escaping her plait, and her cloak was not properly fastened, as if she’d thrown it on as she ran. At least this time she was wearing her gloves.

  “I forgot to give you something,” she said as soon as she stopped in front of him.

  She held out a small box, and he took it and opened it. Inside was a simple gold cross on a chain. It looked very old and was surprisingly heavy for its size. Looking closer, Tom saw scratches on its surface.

  “It was my grandfather’s,” Miranda said, struggling to catch her breath.

  “I can’t accept this,” he said. “It’s too valuable.”

  “It isn’t valuable, not in the sense of being costly. It isn’t solid gold.”

  “That isn’t the sense I meant. It’s important to you.”

  “What’s the point of giving meaningless gifts?” she countered, meeting his eyes.

  “I’ll accept it, then. Thank you.” Mindful of Simon’s words about Miranda’s hatred of goodbyes, he said carefully, “I hope you and Simon will visit me if you come to London.”

  “I don’t want to go to London.”

  Daunted by her words as well as her flat tone, he said, “Well, then, I’ll just have to come back and visit you.”

  “As you wish.” She turned away without meeting his eyes, behaving not in the least like someone who had just given him a heartfelt gift. It was very provoking.

  “Miranda, wait.”

  She made a half turn back to him, gazing at the horizon.

  There were so many things he wanted to say. That his time with her and Simon had changed him. That his work was no longer the most important thing in his life. That she made him want to be a better man.

  Instead, he said, “May I write to you?”

  “Of course you may write to us.”

  Was it his imagination, or had she emphasized the word us?

  “And you’ll write back?”

  “Perhaps.”

  This was provoking, indeed. He opened his mouth to make some sort of protest, to force her to respond properly, but she looked up at him with the tiniest hint of a smile. Then she turned and ran away as abruptly as she’d come.

  8

  Unhappy men, who went alive to the house of Hades, so dying twice, when all the rest of mankind die only once . . .

  —Homer, The Odyssey

  LONDON: DECEMBER 1907

  Tom spent his trip back to the city in an uncomfortable state of mind. As soon as he was on the train, all the problems he had avoided while he was in the country hit him with a vengeance. His primary concern was what to tell the bishop about his mysterious illness and long absence. He didn’t want anyone to know he had been attacked. If his attackers were connected to his past, whether distant or recent, his sins would come out and it would jeopardize his position at the cathedral. On the other hand, if the attackers were just random thugs, there would be no negative repercussions if he told the truth. Still, he was also worried that his six-week absence would damage his chances for the deanship. Who knew what Paul Harris had been doing while Tom was away? Tom would have to work hard to remind everyone that he was the more logical choice. If the dean had died during Tom’s absence, perhaps Harris had already been appointed to the position. Tom tried not to think about that possibility.

  He had put Miranda’s gift in his pocket. Now he took it out, fastened the chain around his neck, and slipped it underneath his shirt. The weight of the cross felt reassuring against his chest.

  Canon Martin had written to say he hadn’t been able to manage Tom’s hospital visits or Prison Commission meetings, so Tom resolved to go to the hospital as soon as he arrived in London, even before going to his lodgings, to offer reassurance to the people who depended on his comfort and support. He was worried that a few of the seriously ill patients had gotten worse, or even died, in the interim.

  Death seemed to be everywhere. This trip to London was a transition from his own near-death to what he hoped was a new life—a life he would live with more integrity, devoting himself to his parishioners, telling the truth more often, and avoiding the temptations of women, especially Julia. During his time with Simon and Miranda, he hadn’t felt the need to communicate with anyone from London aside from the bishop and Martin, and the thought of whatever other letters might be piling up hadn’t troubled him even after he was well enough to care. He wanted to think of himself as Odysseus in the underworld, traveling back into life with a new perspective, leaving the old things and people behind.

  When the train stopped at Waterloo Station, Tom took the Underground the rest of the way to Whitechapel. Once aboveground, he found the noise of the city deafening: street sellers hawking their wares, the clattering of carriage wheels, the mechanical whirr of motorcars. The sounds and bustle of the city used to energize him, but he felt jolted by the modern world after his pastoral idyll. It made his time in the country seem even more remote, as if he had traveled fifty years back in time and had forgotten how to live in the present.

  He pushed aside the sense of unreality as he entered the hospital, where he was welcomed, if not like a returning hero, then with as much warmth and interest as he could have hoped. He told everyone who asked about his absence that he had been ill, giving vague answers to the few people—a doctor and two nurses—who asked more specific questions.

  After Tom had finished his visits and was on his way out of the hospital, a commotion in the front foyer caught his attention. A man was trying to carry an unconscious young boy into the hospital while another man was attempting to hold him back, amid the rai
sed voices of medical workers and onlookers.

  “What’s happening here?” Tom asked a nearby nurse.

  “The boy is Jack Goode,” she replied. “He works at the textile factory. He’s been injured there before. The man carrying him is one of the workers. The other man is the boy’s father—he wants to tend to the boy’s injuries himself and doesn’t want him here.”

  Tom had never been one to stand by passively when something needed to be done, so he entered the fray without hesitation. One glance at the pallor of the boy’s face and the blood-soaked rag wrapped around his arm convinced Tom that the hospital was the right place for him, and he stepped between the man carrying the boy and the boy’s father.

  “Mr. Goode, your son needs a doctor,” Tom said.

  “Nah, he dasn’t,” was the gruff reply. The man was short and wiry, with greasy-looking hair and a shabby coat. He smelled strongly of liquor, a smell that instantly curdled Tom’s insides with bad memories.

  “He does. Come with me,” Tom said firmly, grasping the man’s arm and hauling him none-too-gently away from his son and towards the front door.

  Mr. Goode tried to resist at first, but he was no match for Tom. Hoping the cold air outside would knock some clarity into the man’s head, Tom escorted him out, blocking the entrance to the hospital with his body. The inaptly named Mr. Goode let fly with a string of curses, the only effect of the blast of wintry air apparently being a loosening of his tongue. Tom withstood the barrage silently, waiting for him to finish.

  “Who the bloody ’ell are you?” Mr. Goode demanded. “You got no right to throw me out of the ’ospital.”

  “I’m a clergyman.”

  The man regarded him with narrowed eyes. “You don’t look like one.” He was probably right, since Tom was still wearing Simon’s clothes, which after the train ride to London were a little the worse for wear.

  “I am one, nevertheless. What happened to your son?”

  “Eh? The lad’ll be fine. ’E’s just clumsy, gets ’imself in the way of the machines at the factory all the time.”

  “Go home, Mr. Goode,” Tom said. “Your son will be well cared for here.”

  The man protested, but Tom remained firm and repeated himself when necessary. When Tom decided not to budge, few people tried for long to budge him. He’d learned many years ago from his mentor, Osborne Jay, how to use his natural stubbornness and air of authority to gain the upper hand with unruly or violent people. Having an imposing physical presence didn’t hurt, either.

  When Mr. Goode finally walked away, Tom went back inside. Although he was tired, and his stomach was reminding him that he had missed his dinner, he wanted to know more about the boy and his condition. He found Jack in the crowded ward reserved for urgent cases, where the pungent odor of the room, a mixture of antiseptic and bodily fluids, assaulted Tom’s nostrils. A nurse was in the process of bandaging the boy’s right hand and arm, and the man who’d carried him into the hospital was looking on.

  “How is he?” Tom asked.

  The nurse glanced up from her work. “He’ll live.”

  “What happened?”

  “Caught his arm in one of the machines at the factory,” said the man. “I say, mate, don’t I know you from somewhere? My name’s Bert Gunn.”

  Tom had been too concerned about the boy to pay much attention to the man, but now he turned to look at him, feeling a sliver of foreboding. Gunn was young, probably in his early twenties, as tall as Tom but so powerfully built that he appeared to have no neck. Tom didn’t recognize him or his name.

  “I don’t think so,” Tom said. He turned back to the boy, who was now awake, staring with unfocused eyes at the bandage being wound around his arm. Jack Goode had a thin face, a shock of thick, dark hair, and gold-flecked brown eyes. Unless he was unusually small for his age, there was no doubt Jack was too young to be working in a factory. Tom was also troubled by what looked like bruises on the boy’s other arm.

  Bert Gunn was still studying Tom too closely for his liking, so he decided to find out what the man knew about Jack. Tom gestured to a corner of the room where they could talk privately. Once they’d moved out of earshot of the boy, Tom asked him, “How long has Jack been working at the factory?”

  “I’m fairly new, but others say he’s been there at least a year. Bloody foreman has no heart, makes the lad work long hours.”

  “What do you know about his family?”

  “You saw his da, loutish drunken bastard. Same old story: too many little ones, the da spends his wages on drink, so the kids are sent out to work.”

  “Jack can’t be thirteen yet,” Tom said.

  “You won’t hear him admit that, but if I had to guess, I’d say he’s ten.”

  Tom knew that the law required child workers to be at least thirteen years of age. He started to turn away, intent on talking to Jack himself and avoiding the keen eyes of his interlocutor.

  “Aha! I know where I’ve seen you,” Bert Gunn exclaimed, loud enough for Tom to wince and turn back to him. “You were one of Nate Cowan’s fighters.”

  A queasy feeling settled in Tom’s stomach. “No,” he said coldly. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “It was maybe four, five years ago. I was still a youngster, but I saw you flatten a bloke twice your size. ‘The Dagger,’ they called you—”

  “As I said,” Tom interrupted, losing his patience, “you’re mistaken.”

  “Steady on, mate. I’m not going to fight you.”

  Tom’s hands had curled into fists at his sides. Loosening them was as difficult as turning rusty gears.

  “I’m going to check on Jack,” he said in a calmer voice. “Thank you for bringing him in.”

  He waited, trying to decide what to do should Gunn prove persistent, but the other man simply nodded and left.

  Tom took a deep breath and returned to Jack. The nurse had gone, and the boy looked very small and alone as he lay in the hospital bed.

  “Jack, I’m a clergyman,” Tom said. “Can you talk to me for a bit, or are you in too much pain?”

  The look in the boy’s eyes was guarded, but he answered politely enough, “I can talk, sir.”

  “Have you been injured before while you were working?”

  The boy hesitated, then said, “Yes, sir. Just one or two times. It was my fault—everybody says I’m clumsy.”

  Tom frowned. “It’s not easy working with those big machines when you’re so small.”

  “It ain’t so bad, sir. I don’t mind the work.”

  “Where did you get these bruises? At work or at home?” Tom asked, reaching out to indicate the bruises on the boy’s left arm. Although Tom hadn’t touched him, Jack flinched. There was a brief flicker of fear in the boy’s eyes, though it was quickly replaced by an impassive look. Tom’s heart sank—it was as he had feared, and he knew at once the boy was being abused.

  “I don’t remember,” Jack replied. “I’m always runnin’ into things. Like I said, I’m clumsy.”

  “I’d like to help you,” Tom said. “Do you know St. John’s Cathedral? The big white church with the dome and the cross on top of it?”

  The boy nodded.

  “If you ever want to talk to someone or just go somewhere safe for a while, you can come to the cathedral and find me. I’m Canon Cross—will you remember?”

  Jack nodded again, but his guarded look had returned, and Tom knew the boy wasn’t likely to take him up on his offer.

  There was nothing more Tom could do at the moment, so he left the hospital and made his way home, feeling exhausted. Too much had happened that day, and the conversation with Bert Gunn had been the last straw. He couldn’t let himself think about it.

  Fewer letters than he had expected awaited him at his lodgings. There were none from his friends, a group of men at his club who had been fellow students at Cambridge. They didn’t seem to have noticed his long absence. There was one letter from the bishop, asking Tom to visit him at the palace as soon a
s possible—this he had expected. There were two letters from Julia, the first dated a fortnight earlier. She wanted to know why he had been absent from Sunday services at the cathedral. She ended the letter with, You will, I know, not hesitate to reassure me if you are all right, despite the way we parted. Although I’d hardly call us friends, you can’t expect me to be indifferent to you if you are in some sort of trouble.

  Julia’s second letter, dated a week after the first, was shorter and importunate:

  Dear Tom,

  I am worried something has happened to you. I must speak with you on a matter of the utmost urgency. I don’t care where we meet, but I must see you. Don’t keep me waiting.

  Julia

  Tom couldn’t help feeling a little pleased that Julia had missed him enough to write to him twice. He wasn’t too concerned about the urgency upon which she had insisted. It was her wont to urge others to act hastily merely because she felt impatient. But another part of him wished she hadn’t written.

  Tom tossed the letters onto a side table and went into his bedroom. When he removed his clothes—or rather, Simon’s clothes—he realized he was still wearing Miranda’s gold cross around his neck. He left it on. It was a comforting reminder that he hadn’t imagined his time in the country at the Thornes’ cottage.

  As he lay down in bed and curled his fingers around the cross, he remembered curling them into fists earlier that day. Then older memories surfaced, from a time when that motion was accompanied by a rush of energy that electrified his nerves. A time when he would fight any man who would take him on.

  The next morning, Tom arrived at the bishop’s palace precisely at nine o’clock, clothed in his customary black morning coat and clerical collar, feeling uneasy. He had decided to make a clean breast of things, at least as far as the attack and his subsequent recovery in the country was concerned.

  Bishop Chisholm would have looked like a bishop even without his purple apron or other clerical accoutrements: he was a dignified, silver-haired, noble-looking man. When troubled or angry, he never looked stern, only sad, and he had the enviable ability to cause anyone he looked upon to quake, not with fear but with the sense of having disappointed someone who had his best interests at heart.