Chapter III: A Fateful Night
Previously, on Calamity's Trinket
Nell danced with an aggravating man and later found him bleeding in the street.
1789CE, somewhere in Paris
The city was on fire and that was all to the good.
His sister was in place in the tower ready to cause a distraction. Perhaps now they wouldn’t need it. Instead of slipping through the shadows, he charged with the crowds, letting the tide of people carry him along.
He saw her sooner than he expected. She’d tried to disguise herself – she was dressed as a boy, and she’d shoved her red hair into a worn cap – but she’d clearly done it too quickly. And she was looking around too much, seeking her pursuers instead of trying to stay hidden.
For a moment she seemed to be trying to fight the crowd and he worried they’d wind up face to face, but she soon gave up and turned away from him.
He kept his eyes on the back of her head, he kept his mind focussed on his task. There was no room for thoughts of the smell of her, memories of that red lock of hair wound in his fingers.
He moved through the sea of bodies, coming closer to her slowly. He knew she’d have it on her. Foolish, but understandable. The upheaval made people afraid of their homes being raided when they’d be better off worrying about their bodies.
Finally he was within half a step of her. He slipped his hand into her pocket. It was empty.
At his touch she gasped and he felt her pull out a knife, but he already had a blade pressed to her neck.
‘Are you going to tell me which pocket it’s in?’ he whispered in her ear. Throngs of people surged around them.
‘Of course it’s you they’d send,’ she said. ‘Forcing you to choose between me and their war.’
‘There is no choice,’ he said, steel in his voice. ‘Shall I strip search you at knifepoint or just kill you now?’
She twisted in his arms, trying to look at him but he held her fast.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Where is it.’
She nodded down towards her feet.
He kept his eyes on her wearily as he crouched beside her but she was still. The dagger she’d pulled hung limp from her fingers.
The turn-ups on her trousers were haphazardly sewn shut, with large clumsy stitches. He tore through them quickly and there it was.
He didn’t look back as he tucked it into his shirt. He disappeared into the crowd. He didn’t see how long she stood, still and silent, in the turmoil.
1923CE, somewhere in Chelsea
For a moment Nell’s brain stuttered to a halt. There was blood on her mother’s hands, her mother was bleeding, her mother was hurt, her mother needed help, her mother…was still talking to her.
‘Nell!’ she was saying. ‘Are you listening to me? Nell!’
Nell started and took a breath, forcing her mind to focus.
‘Nell,’ her mother said again, looking at her intently. ‘We need to help this man. He’s been stabbed.’
Not her mother’s blood. Not her mother’s hurt. Nell nodded.
‘I need you to find Joe and have him bring the car to me here, so we can take him to a hospital.’
The man stirred and opened his eyes. He looked like he was trying to say something but he couldn’t get the words out. Nell’s mother turned back to him.
‘It’s ok,’ she said. ‘We’re getting you help.’
He was still trying to talk. Nell felt herself leaning forwards to try and catch it.
‘…no…doc…doc…’ he coughed and was still for a moment, then with a sudden burst of energy, as if he’d summoned every ounce of strength he had left, he lurched up, raising his head a couple of inches off the ground.
‘They’re coming after me,’ he said. ‘You can’t let them get it.’
He slid back down, his breathing laboured, his eyes closed.
Nell let out a gasp and her mother’s head snapped towards her.
‘What are you still doing her?’ she cried, ‘Go, go now.’
And Nell ran.
It would have been clear to anyone watching that Nell was not good in a crisis. We can’t blame her for this; she’d encountered very few crises in her life. Or at least, the crises of her life had been slow moving, chronic struggles. She’d never been faced with a true emergency and she had no idea how to behave and if it wasn’t for one piece of solid good luck the evening would have taken a very dour turn.
Joe, the new chauffeur, was not used to late nights. His previous employer had been a retired army general who rose at five every morning and saw no reason to be out of the house later than eight in the evening. He didn’t attend late dinners, he didn’t attend the theatre, he went out in the morning or not at all and, as a result, Joe had become acclimatised to an early bedtime.
He’d been readjusting since coming to work for the Bartlett women who, by contrast, never left the house earlier than eleven in the morning, but it was still a work in progress. The end result was that, on the evening in question, he’d been snoozing in his car since nine.
With Nell running blindly down the street and Joe asleep, this might have been goodbye for our American stranger. He owes his life to Bobby Monaghan, eight years old, suffering from toothache and awake in the middle of the night. Desperate with pain and exhaustion and his nanny’s inability to solve either of those problems, he took the dish of ice cream she’d brought him as a special treat, walked to the window and ceremoniously threw it into the street below. Where it landed squarely on the roof of Joe’s car and startled him awake.
Joe did not know until the next morning that it was ice cream that had been their salvation that night. All he knew was that he’d been sleeping, he was know awake and – he checked his pocket watch – it was nearing two in the morning.
His heart jumped into his mouth. He knew the ladies were experimenting with a daring existence, but he could not fathom that they’d intentionally be out this late at a place they didn’t know. They must have been calling for him and not found him, he’d abandoned his post, he was definitely going to be fired, also what if they were in danger?
He started the car and began driving towards the dance club, already practicing his apologies. He turned into the next street just in time to see what looked like a madwoman running from one side of the street to the other. Then back. And back again.
He stepped out of the car and ran forwards.
‘Miss Bartlett!’ he called out.
As for Nell, hearing his voice was like the sun breaking through after a storm. She’d been quite sure she’d never find him; she had no idea where to start looking. She grabbed Joe and began pulling him back to the car, panting heavily as she tried to explain what was going on.
When they got back to her mother and the unconscious, bloody man, her mother stood to meet them.
‘Oh thank the lord,’ she said. ‘I was honestly entirely sure you had no idea where the car would be.’
‘I didn’t, I didn’t, it was Joe, he found me, he’s a wonder.’
Nell looked down at the American.
‘Is he…’ She started talking but found she couldn’t continue.
‘He’s still alive,’ said her mother, ‘and I think the bleeding has slowed. But we need to get him off the street. He’ll need stitches and rest.’
She and Joe loaded the man into the car, his head lolling to the side as they moved him, and she directed Joe to drive them home. Nell looked at her in surprise.
‘Surely we can’t take him home,’ she said, as the car moved gently through the night.
Her mother sighed.
‘I don’t know where else to take him. He woke up again for a moment while you were gone. He seems terrified of going to a hospital or a doctor. Kept saying they’d find him.’
‘Who’d find him?’ said Nell, mystified.
‘Presumably whoever stabbed him, my dear,’ said her mother.
‘But then…’ Nell hesitated. ‘Is it safe? Bringing him home? What if he’s a criminal? What kind of person gets stabbed?’
Her mother fixed her with a steely gaze.
‘Eleanor Bartlett, he is a human person who needs help that we are in a position to provide. Whether it is safe to help him is immaterial.’
Nell stared at her mother and said nothing.
‘If all your talk of throwing off the shackles of polite society, abandoning what is seemly only means getting a haircut and drinking gin in public then I’m sorry to say, but it’s not worth very much, is it. If you’re going to be daring be daring to some purpose.’
Nell’s eyes widened further. This was a side of her mother she’d never seen.
‘Oh,’ she said after a moment. ‘Do you know I think you’re absolutely wonderful.’
She was almost sure she saw her mother blush before she replied with, ‘Really, Nell, this is not the time.’
When they got back to the house Nell found herself summarily dismissed. She was sent to summon Niamh and shooed away while her mother tended to the stranger in the downstairs parlour.
She paced her room for an hour or more, knowing she couldn’t do anything useful but desperate to help. Eventually she heard her mother in the hall, talking to Niamh.
‘No, you need your sleep,’ she was saying. ‘Nell will have taken care of herself and gone to bed.’
Nell stood quietly listening as Niamh’s footsteps retreated and the door to her mother’s rooms closed. She waited a few more minutes and then carefully eased her own door open. She crept downstairs and made her way to the parlour.
The door creaked as she opened it, quietly at first and then very loudly. She jumped into the room and shut the door behind her with a clap. The stranger was lying on the sofa, with linens wrapped around his chest as a makeshift bandage.
He looked pale but his breathing was slow and deep, nothing like the shallow, pained way he’d been breathing earlier. He looked peaceful. Nell felt somehow foolish and ashamed for coming in and while, that’s understandable, would anyone have behaved differently? The man was handsome and infuriating, who among us wouldn’t want to make sure he was alive.
So we also cannot judge her too harshly for moving closer, despite her shame. For leaning forward a little, so that when his eyes opened unexpectedly, they looked right into hers.
She jumped back and started apologising, but he grabbed her wrist.
‘Did they find me?’ he asked. ‘Did they take it?’
‘Who? What are you afraid of?’
He was looking around the room, his eyes wild. He looked a bit feverish.
‘Where is it? I need to find it!’
He went to sit up, and gave a sharp gasp, pressing a hand to his side.
‘I’ll find it,’ said Nell. ‘I’m sure it’s just been put somewhere out of the way.’
She turned and looked around the room. She didn’t know what her mother and Niamh would have done with his clothes – they must have been covered with blood – but she was sure they would have left anything important with him.
She glanced around a couple of times before she spotted a small leather bag on the mantel. She held it out towards the stranger.
‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ She crossed back to the sofa, holding it out towards him.
He grabbed it and held it in both hands as if confirming that it was real. He closed his eyes for a moment in relief.
‘Don’t let them get it,’ he said.
‘Ok,’ said Nell. ‘I’ll hide it. I can hide it somewhere.’
The man nodded and pushed the bag into her hand. There was something helpless about him. Something trusting.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, hide it.’
His head fell back and his eyes drooped shut and his breathing evened out again. He was asleep.
Nell looked down at worn leather bag in her hand. She glanced back at the man, and then pulled on the string tying the bag closed. She upended into her palm and a chunk of stone fell out. It looked like nothing but it was very smooth to the touch. Like it had been handled a lot over many years.
She moved closer to the lamp and looked at it more closely. It was a dingy grey, with carved markings swirling over the surface. It almost looked like a clumsy figurine. Nell thought for a moment. The best way to hide something was to pretend it wasn’t hidden.
There was a whatnot in the corner with a small collection of decorations. A figure of a shepherd was too big. The quartz lion was one of her mother’s favourites. The jade turtle, that would do. She quickly slipped it into the bag. She took one last look at the sleeping man, and slipped out of the room.
She crept back up to her room. She wrapped the strange stone in a silk scarf and tucked it into her dressing case.
No, she intended to wrap it in a silk scarf and tuck it into her dressing case. Instead she held it in her hand and stared at it. There was something about it. It felt like it wanted something from her. Like it was trying to say something. Whispering it just beyond her hearing.
Nell stared at it for what felt like hours. Until an owl hooted right outside her window. She gave a start and shoved the stone into a drawer. She crawled into her bed and pulled the covers over her head and it only took her an hour and fifteen minutes to fall asleep.
Next time, on Calamity's Trinket
Nell has an important breakfast meeting.