La Trilogie Roxbury, Tome 2 : Esclave de ses charmes

Extrait offert par Hope Tarr :

CHAPTER ONE

“A many years ago

When I was young and charming

As some of you may know

I practiced baby-farming.”

—Gilbert & Sullivan, HMS Pinafore

Roxbury House Orphanage

Kent, England, 1876

Footfalls bounded up the attic stairs. The three children tensed, breaths bated, gazes flying to the unlatched door. As soon as the last of them, Daisy, had stolen inside, they snuffed out the stub of candle and settled in to wait. Almost a quarter of an hour hence, the fading sunrays admitted through the smudged glass of the one weather-beaten window served as their sole source of light. Dust motes floated like feathers in the still, heavy air. In the artificial hush, the slightest creak of a board or the unsanctioned crack of knuckles or, God forbid, a sneeze seemed to ring out as loudly as the chiming of the famed Bow Bells of which all three occupants had been born within earshot, rendering them forever East Londoners, true-blooded cockneys.

The door opened on a screech, sending a sliver of light slicing through the shadows. Harry Stone poked his silver-blond head inside. “All’s clear,” he announced in a high whisper, drawing his friends’ collective sigh. He crossed the threshold, the lantern he held serving as a spotlight for the lopsided grin that girls, the older ones especially, seemed to find so very irresistible.

Scowling, Patrick O’ Rourke—Rourke—popped up from the milk crate he was crouched behind. “Jaysus, Harry, you’re late again. This is the third time in a row.”

Ducking to avoid the low-hanging eaves, the lanky sixteen year-old drew the door closed behind him. “Is it my fault some of us have work to do?”

The Scot answered with a snort. “Aye, hard labor it must be coaxing the bonny Betsy out of her knickers and into the straw with you.”

Making a seat on a stack of old school books, Harry shrugged. The son of a dockside whore from East Cheap, for him sex was a necessary physical function, an activity as inevitable as eating, sleeping, or pissing. “Spying on me again, mate? Well, mind you watch close. You just might learn something.”

Rourke snorted though in the dim light his cheeks burned bright as any candle flame. “Och, I’ve had plenty of girls.”

Legs swinging, Harry let out a laugh. Goats, don’t you mean?”

Rourke faced him, fists clenched. “Best close your clapper, Stone, or I’ll see it closed for ye.”

Crawling out from the underbelly of an old pedestal desk, Gavin Carmichael decided it was time to intervene. At fourteen he possessed neither Harry’s golden good looks nor Rourke’s brawn and glib tongue, but he had a canny knack for diffusing arguments between friends and foes alike, a trait that had earned him the sobriquet of Saint Gavin. He wasn’t entirely certain he fancied being likened to a saint. Saints tended to live short lives of poverty and self-sacrifice only to be broken on wheels like Saint Catherine or beheaded like Saint John the Baptist or burned at the stake like Saint Joan of Arc. The latter fate held a particular horror for him.

“Rourke, Harry, that’ll more than do. We’ve a lady present, after all.” He jerked his head to indicate the “lady” in question.

Nine year-old Daisy sat atop a sea chest, skinny legs swinging. She tilted her head of wheat-colored hair to the side and pursed her pretty upside-down mouth, a sign she was working on unraveling life’s latest mystery. “But straw’s itchy.”

Rourke tossed back his head of long auburn hair and hooted with laughter. Swiping a broad-backed hand over watery eyes, he said, “Dinna fash, sweeting. If ever the lovely Betsy has an itch, our mate Harry will be more than happy to scratch it for her.”

Wincing, Gavin cleared his throat, a signal that a change of topic was in order. “Ladies or rather lady and gentlemen, I hereby call this twelfth monthly meeting of the Roxbury House Orphans Club to order. Have I a second?”

“Second.” Jumping down, Daisy tugged on the skirts of her plain brown school smock.

The foursome settled in to form a circle, huddling cross-legged beneath the eaves. Harry set his offering, a handkerchief full of lemon drops and peppermint sticks pilfered from the kitchen, in the center along with the lantern. Later the booty would be divided among them, though Gavin always gave most of his share to Daisy.

Daisy reached across and tugged at Harry’s shirt sleeve. “You’re forgetting the best part.”

“I am?” Harry hesitated, looking puzzled, and Gavin surmised his friend’s mind was still in the stable with the bountiful Betsy.

“The oath, blockhead,” Rourke hissed.

“Oh, that. Right-o.” Catching Gavin’s pointed look, Harry began, “Through thick and thin.”

He elbowed Rourke. Rubbing at his poked ribs, the Scot scowled and said, “Forever and ever.”

Beaming, Daisy reached across and wrapped her small hand about Gavin’s little finger. Smiling into her shining eyes, he dutifully added, “Come what may.”

“We’ll stay together…just like a real family.” Breaking hands, Daisy clapped hers together, clearly awash in delight. Their oath was her favorite part of their monthly ritual, especially as she always got to say the finale. “Do real families hold secret meetings in their attic?” she asked of the circle though her gaze rested on Gavin.

As Gavin was the only one among them who’d had a proper family, two parents who were married to each other and a baby sister, Amelia Grace, he was uniquely qualified to answer. Still, he hesitated, emotion threatening to trip his tongue, gaze riveted suddenly on the feeble lantern flame, which seemed to grow into a raging inferno before his eyes. His parents and Amelia Grace had died when their tenement had caught fire, and they were trapped inside. By rights Gavin should have died, too, but at the last minute his mum had pressed a penny into his palm and sent him off to the bakery for a day-old loaf to stretch out the leftover supper stew.

“Gav?” Daisy tugged on his sleeve.

He pulled his gaze from the flame and turned to look at her. Working to overcome the invisible chokehold about his throat and the thickness blanketing his tongue whenever the word “family” was mentioned, he said, “They c-could, I…I s-suppose, if they w-wanted to. But no, n-not usually. They’re too…b-busy w-working.”

In truth, he couldn’t recall his parents doing much else but work, his mother especially. Even sitting before the hearth in the evenings reading aloud from her small library of cherished books, his mother had kept her nimble, work-roughened hands busy be it making brushes, putting the final “fancywork” finish on ladies clothing, or sewing canvases for hammocks.

Daisy slipped her small hand into his. “Then we’re the ones who’re better off, aren’t we?” She punctuated the statement with a brisk nod and a bright smile as though the riddle of familial relations had been solved at long last.

Of all of them, Daisy had the least experience of what it meant to be part of a family. She’d been left in a laundry basket on the steps of St. Mary-Le-Bow in Cheapside when barely a month old with no legacy beyond the blanket wrapped about her and a roughly scrawled note that read, “Be good to my baby.” Whether she’d come to Roxbury House under the auspices of the boys’ benefactor, Prime Minister William Gladstone, or by some other means was anyone’s guess. Regardless of who had brought her to the Quaker orphanage, it was a far more desirable destination than a parish workhouse or, worse still, one of the so-called baby farms. In the latter, gin-soaked country crones charged desperate young mothers fifteen shillings a month to take over the care of their infants. The money supposedly went for the child’s keeping, but more often than not he or she was slowly murdered with feedings of lime-laced milk and sundry other poisons. Many a small, newspaper-bundled body had been found on a country roadside. It was a terrible trade.

“Yes, poppet,” Gavin said, grateful she’d escaped such a gruesome fate. With her pale hair, slanted green eyes, and slight built, she reminded him of a wood sprite or an angel depending upon whether she was in a mischievous or reverent mood. “I expect we are.”

Daisy divided her gaze among them and said, “Can we act out the story of the pussy cat who wore boots? I like that one best of all.”

The other two boys answered with groans, but a warning look from Gavin brought them quickly around. If Rourke wanted Gavin’s help with his next history assignment and Harry someone to take over sweeping the horse stalls so he might busy himself with Betsy in the loft, they knew they’d better consent. Before long Harry was acting the part of the king with gusto and Rourke throwing himself into the role of the ogre. That left Gavin to serve as narrator and stage director, the perfect position for him. After nearly a year he knew all the parts by heart and yet he could never be certain when his stammer might crop up.

There was no question but that Daisy would assume the lead role of Puss. Being the center of attention was the entire point of the game, and the cat’s cunning and sheer pluck resonated with her Cockney soul. Watching her strut about the dusty floor, an old cavalier’s hat falling low over her brow and a moth-eaten mantel of velvet flung about her narrow shoulders, Gavin felt at perfect peace.

“Good show, sweetheart,” he called out at the play’s end when she swept off her hat and took her bow. “What a brilliant little actress you are, isn’t that so, lads?”

“Aye, that was a crack performance,” Harry agreed, tearing off his paper crown as though happy to be free of it.

“A bonnier lassie there’s not to be found treading the boards in London or in Edinburgh either, for that matter,” Rourke added, for though he’d lived on English soil for most of his life, he always made it a point to give equal due to his birth country.

Obviously transported to grander times and loftier circumstances in the world of make-believe, Daisy curtsied and dimpled and blew kisses to an invisible, adoring crowd. Gavin presented her with the last of the props, a papier-mâché rose she liked to drape over her arm and pretend was a full, fresh bouquet.

None of them knew it, but that evening was the last they would ever meet in the attic.