Chapter 127

The tight knot in Splendor's throat-the only thing she seemed to have an abundance of these days-may have almost choked her, the cold may have snaked up through her thin linen dress, she still knelt on the dank ground. The simple wooden cross she'd just fashioned from two sticks and pushed into the earth bore witness to the stark reality of what she now had. Not much at all. Barely even the right to come here. In this hideous bonnet it was probably a good thing.
"I wrote to Mrs. Ferret, by the way. I know you'd have wanted me to square that up. I sent her the money. I thought it was best. If they'd found out I had it ... Well, they can't now. So it was the right thing to do. Reverend Charles has been kind. Even letting me do this."
A headstone with Topaz's name on it was just another thing she couldn't afford.
She'd thought about it with the money she'd sent Mrs. Ferret, the money she'd managed to keep back and also scrape together from working when she'd been able to work, because she couldn't see another woman short as she was herself.
Ignoring the crows cawing endlessly overhead, the sea of skeletal leaves rustling beneath her knees, she reached into her apron pocket. There was just one thing she had left of that time, that time of cobwebs and gossamer spring nights, which these leaves somehow characterized. It would be wonderful to keep it. But she couldn't. Slowly she wound the silver watch chain around the joint in the cross. She had something else of Stillmore's, something far more life changing than a stupid damn watch she'd failed to return.
"There you go. Someone will come along and steal it probably, just like you did from him that night, although I will ask the Reverend Charles to keep an eye on it. Besides, it looks pretty there, doesn't it? And I suppose it's the best I can do for you now." Especially after the time she'd actually thought about putting Topaz somewhere.
Her only friend. The woman had never had a chance in life, and now she was dead, gone into a starless world Splendor could not touch.
The leaves scrunched just behind her.
"Time's up. I have to go now. The House of Industry. Very different from the house of thieves. The house of Stillmore too. At least in the Marshalsea I knew I was a prisoner."
She hadn't had to beg for everything in the hope the smallest a favor might be granted. Hodges had probably had enough of her being let out for the hour. Now he was going to herd her back along the road to that double gabled building with its towering chimney stacks. She hadn't come to entirely abandon hope there. That would be to say her bright star would never rise again. She didn't expect it to sparkle, tried clinging to the crumb that its rays weren't frozen. But it was a struggle. For a start, the bonnet and apron were awful.
"Is that, or is that not, my pocket watch?"
Stillmore.
Here.
She shrunk lower as he thundered past. She couldn't very well stand after all. There were things she needed to keep hidden.
"Your--Your Grace."
Her breath dried along every channel it was possible for her breath to dry along. Hodges stood a few yards away, killing time by the ash tree. If he saw the watch, what he'd kill was her for managing to hide it. And he was going to see it now. She couldn't very well pretend she didn't know Hodges either-she was dressed in workhouse clothes.
How embarrassing was this? Ferret must have told. How else could Stillmore be here snatching his watch from beneath her nose? She'd really thought he'd be with Babs Langley by now. Not here shouting about his bloody watch.
"Spare me the surprise." The breath rushed down his nose. "If anyone should be surprised, it should be me. This is my watch."
"As I recall, before you say another word, you said it was your father's, not yours. That ... night at the inn, I think it was."
"You mean to tell me that all the time I was looking for it, you-"
"And do you mean to tell me, you've come all the way from Londonto shout at me about it? Well?"
"Me? Shout?"
"Yes." She darted her gaze to the side. "Just listen to yourself."
"If that is what you think-"
"It is."
Whatever had brought him here, he was not going to wrestle the specter of that watch to the ground. She knew by the furious way his voice shook she should never have been so stupid as to keep it. All he knew was perceived hurts and how to hand out more. Now he was probably about to call her out after throwing some brandy down his throat. At the very least she'd be hauled to the magistrate's for theft. She couldn't be. She must run. Despite her intention to stay where she was she scrambled to her feet
"If that is what you think I said that night, then you weren't listening to a damned, bloody word I said. Because then you'd bloody, damn know that what I said was, 'Goddamn his stinking soul to hell.' As I've come perilously close to damning yours on occasion. As I'd damn you right now for proving what I suspected the entire time since this first vanished was true. As I'd damn you now for walking out. But there are reasons I'm going to bite my tongue."
She paused, running her own tongue over her lips. "You, Your Grace? Please don't feel you must. You don't usually."
"Did you take all these other things as well? These things that kept disappearing?"
"No. I returned them after they were taken."
"Well why do you still have this bloody thing then? Hmm?"