Carla Kelly (2 page)

The vicar sighed
a prodigious sigh and extended his hand again. Omega took it and
stepped lightly to the soggy ground. Without a word, she helped the
clergyman brush the mud off his coat. She was used to tending young
girls in similar circumstances and thought nothing of
it.

“
You
are too kind, miss, too kind,” said the clergyman, his face redder
than before.

“
It is
nothing,” she replied.

The vicar
directed his gaze at the traveling coach, which had swung to a stop
by the inn door. “You would think that the better classes would set
the example for the rest of us, miss,” he said darkly.

“
Yes,
you would think that,” she agreed. No purpose would be served for
the clergyman to know that when she had been a member of the
“better classes” she had never thought of herself as an improving
example. Better to let him labor under the misapprehension that his
betters really were better.

When the largest
chunks of mud had been returned to the innyard, she retrieved her
traveling case from the coachman and followed the vicar into the
taproom. The inmates of the private coach were nowhere in sight,
and the landlady was just returning to her guest
register.

Omega spoke for a
room, but turned down the offer of a private parlor. Too many of
those would end her trip far south of Durham, as much as she would
have enjoyed the comfort.

“
And
may I have my dinner brought to me?” she asked.

“
Of
course you may, Miss Chartley,” said the landlady. “Only you must
please wait until I have served the members of that private coach
and four.”

“
I
understand,” Omega replied. Her head was beginning to ache, but it
would hardly have been fair to blame it on the private coach and
four.

The room was
small and cool, with the lingering scent of cigar smoke. After the
landlord deposited her trunk on the floor with a thump, Omega went
to the window and opened it, leaning out and breathing in the fresh
smell of countryside after a rain. Her room fronted the street, but
beyond the busy thoroughfare were the haying fields. She could make
out sheep on the hills, and as the wind blew, she caught the sound
of their bells, one here, one there, almost an echo.

“
I
will not miss Plymouth,” Omega said out loud, and smiled to
herself. If she never again saw the mesmeric swells of greasy ocean
or breathed in the pungency of tar and hemp from the ships, she
would not mind.

Omega rested her
elbows on the windowsill. As she watched, the sky reformed itself,
the clouds parted, and the watery sun shone through for the first
time since the Plains of Salisbury. The sky lightened, almost as if
dawn were approaching, rather than dusk. People on the street
hurried home to their dinners, and mothers called in their
children.

At the end of the
street, where it divided into two roads, men were dismantling a
tent and folding it away into an already overloaded wagon. Another
Waterloo fair, Omega thought.

She remembered
the Waterloo fairs around Plymouth in the early weeks of July, the
mad, joyous parades celebrating Wellington’s victory in Belgium.
Miss Haversham had permitted her to take some of the older pupils
into the streets, where they all gazed in wide-eyed wonder at the
French eagles and bloodstained battle flags of both sides carried
through the shrieking crowds.

After that first
night, they did not return. The spontaneous parades where children
skipped alongside their parents gave way to vulgar burlesques of
Napoleon and Marshal Ney with their trousers down around their
ankles, as Wellington beat them with a broken sword.

Here it was, late
August, and still the fairs continued, the sideshows moving from
town to town, and people in villages more and more remote turning
out to hear the stories of the Thin Red Line and the orchard of La
Haye Sainte.

Omega refreshed
herself with a splash of lavender water on her wrists and forehead,
and then sat down with a book to wait for her dinner. Tonight, when
the plates were removed and the fire was lighted, she would pull
the lamp closer and work on her course outline in English
grammar.

Her good
intentions slipped away when the empty dishes were withdrawn and
she was left alone with English grammar. After all that rain, it
was too fine a night to be wasted on the subjunctive. The sky
continued to lighten as more and more clouds scudded away like the
Waterloo fair.

Omega pulled on
her shoes again, gathered her shawl around her, and left the room,
tucking in her curly hair where it always seemed to fly out from
under her cap. She whistled to herself, looking around to make sure
no one was within earshot, and pulled on her gloves as she hurried
down the stairs.

She had no
knowledge of the village, so she resolved to walk only to the end
of the street where the road forked. The wagon was gone now; there
would be no fair again until Harvest Home. She sniffed the air. It
was late summer, but already there was something in the wind that
smelled of winter. And then in January, when the dreariness of
winter threatened to overwhelm, there would be that faintest hint
of spring in the cold air. Another year would pass.

And I will be one
year older, she thought.

She reached the
fork in the road, stood there a moment, and was preparing to turn
back when she noticed a boy digging about in the garbage heap left
by the Waterloo fair. Surely her eyes were deceived by the dusk.
She looked again, squinting against the coming darkness.

The boy,
scratching about in good earnest, did not pause in his rapid search
through the rubbish. He couldn’t have been more than ten years old.
Omega stepped closer and watched him. His clothes were grubby about
the knee and elbow in the fashion of little boys, but they were of
excellent cut and fine cloth. His black hair was trimmed smartly,
even modishly, in imitation of his elders. Her eyes caught the
sparkle of the buckles on his shoes.

As Omega watched
and wondered, the boy stopped and turned around. He looked at her
in silence, as if wondering what she would do. Omega was too
well-bred to show surprise, but she knew that the face was
familiar.

It might have
been the way he held his head slightly tipped to one side, or the
way he pursed his lips. Whatever it was, she wondered if somewhere
she had seen this boy before, or someone very like him.

He smiled at her,
the uncertain, tentative smile of someone who knows he should not
be pawing about in a midden.

“
I
thought I could find something to eat,” the boy said at
last.

He made a motion
to leave, so Omega sat down on a tree stump. She did not want him
to run away. “When did you last eat?” she asked, leaning forward
and clasping her arms in front of her knees.

“
Yesterday I found some apples.” He grimaced. “They were too
green by half, and my breadbox hurt for hours.”

“
Apples do that to me, too,” she said. “And do you vow never
again to eat a green apple, and then break your promise next
summer?”

He grinned.
“Something like that,” he agreed.

They regarded
each other in silence. Omega heard voices; people were coming up
the street from the direction of the inn. She did not recognize
them from the mail coach. They must have been the contents of the
coach and four.

The boy eyed
them, too. “You see, I am not good at this,” he said at
last.

“
Are
you running away?” she asked.

He measured her
with his eyes for a moment, as if trying to gauge her response, and
then nodded. “And I won’t go back,” he said. “No one can make me.”
He scrambled to his feet, as if fearful he had said too
much.

Omega put out her
hand to reassure him. “How can I help you?” she asked.

When he said
nothing, she continued. “Would you like some food?”

He fixed her with
that penetrating, naggingly familiar stare again, and then smiled
in some relief. “I would like that above everything else,” he
admitted, “but it did not seem polite to ask.”

Omega rose to her
feet slowly so he would not bolt. “Then come with me to the inn,
and let us find something.”

“
I
should not,” he said. “I think my uncle has set the Runners on
me.”

Her eyes widened.
“The Bow Street Runners?” she asked. “Good God.”

He realized he
had said too much, and began to edge away from her.

“
Oh,
please don’t run away,” said Omega as the boy darted away from
her.

He did not get
far. He ran directly into the arms of the gentleman strolling with
his companions toward the fork in the road. The man was thrown
backward several paces by the force of the boy against him, but he
did not fall, and did not lose his grip on the child, even as the
boy struggled.

Omega hurried
toward them.

“
Was
this snatch-gallows bothering you, miss?” asked the man, a bit
breathless from the encounter. He gave the lad a shake.

“
Oh,
no, no, nothing like that, sir,” Omega replied. “Please let him go.
He means no harm, I am sure.”

The man only
tightened his grip, whirling the boy about and grabbing him by the
hair. He pulled his head back for a good look, and jerked his head
from side to side as the boy struggled.

“
You’ll hurt him,” said Omega.

“
You
can’t hurt scum like this,” said the man to his companions, an
elderly lady who stood a little back, and a younger woman who
ignored the boy and stared instead at Omega Chartley.

The man took a
firmer grasp on the boy’s hair, making him cry out.

“
Oh,
please stop!” cried Omega, and took the man by the arm. He shook
her off.

“
And
did you say something about the Runners, boy? Did you?” he asked
again, shaking the boy. “Answer me!”

The boy sobbed,
but he would not speak.

“
I’m
going to march you back to the inn and we’ll see what we see,” said
the man.

Before he could
act on his threat, the boy raked his heel down the man’s shin. The
man threw him off and into Omega’s arms. Without even hesitating,
Omega grasped the boy firmly by the shoulders, whispered “Run!” in
his ear, and gave him a shove in the direction of the forked
road.

Whatever
possessed her, she could not explain even to herself, much less to
the man who stood glowering at her. For all she knew, the boy was a
desperate felon, wanted for crimes she couldn’t even
imagine.

In her heart she
knew this was not so. Omega recognized the look of terror mingled
with humiliation on the boy’s face. It could have been her own face
eight years ago, chalk white and on the edge of tears. No one had
helped her then, but that had not stopped her now.

The man could
scarcely speak. He worked his mouth open and closed a few times
like a hooked fish. “You ... you let him go!”

“
She
did more than that,” declared the young woman, who had watched the
whole incident. “She gave him a push. I saw her.” The woman looked
back at Omega again. “And
wherever
do I know you
from?”

Omega said
nothing to her. She squared her shoulders and looked the man right
in the eye, even though her knees trembled. “Yes, I let him go. You
had no right to treat him so roughly. If the Runners want him, they
can find him.”

Pulling her skirt
closer to her and settling her lips in what Alpha called the
“Chartley schoolteacher look,” she shouldered her way past the trio
on the sidewalk and walked toward the inn. She wanted to break into
a run, as though she were pursued by barking dogs, but she did
not.

“
Did
you ever?” she heard the old woman say.

At the woman’s
words, Omega squared her shoulders again and gave her head a little
toss. Instantly she regretted the gesture. She heard the young
woman behind her gasp. “I know her now!” she said. “Oh, Mother, do
you not remember? I have been puzzling and puzzling where I have
seen her before. Oh, Mother! How could you forget? Remember the
Bering-Chartley wedding? Oh, Lord, the wedding of the
Season!”

Omega sucked in a
ragged breath and hurried faster, lengthening her stride and
putting distance between herself and the voices and stares. Another
hundred feet would put her back at the inn. She could walk calmly
inside and then scurry up the stairs and hide in her room until the
morning, when the private coach and four would depart. Omega gave
herself a mental kick for succumbing to the blandishments of a fine
evening and forsaking the safety of English grammar.

A hand reached
out and touched her sleeve as she entered the inn, her eyes on the
stairs. She whirled around to see the landlord, who stepped back,
frightened momentarily by the look in her eyes.

“
Miss?
Miss? Did you not hear me? I must request your presence in the
taproom.”

She shook her
head. “I have a headache,” she managed.

There was
another, stronger hand on her elbow, and she found herself
propelled into the taproom. “Sorry, Miss ...
Miss ...