Chapter Seven #4
‘A’ ye no pity in ye, man?’ Oxcott called from behind his door, which earned him a loud clang of the baton against the metal hatch.
Toby could hardly speak by then. His throat had closed completely. He watched his mother and father hug Kit, and this time no one bothered telling Mona not to cry.
‘Don’t go, Mum!’ Kit followed them to the door, snatching at their hands. ‘Don’t go, Dad. I want to come home with you!’
‘I’m so sorry, my boy.’ David sounded broken.
Toby held Kit tightly; rubbed his hand across his stubbled scalp, where the skin was soft and vulnerable.
‘Be brave, Kit, and it’ll all be fine,’ he whispered.
He didn’t want the last thing he ever said to his brother to be a lie, but he couldn’t think of anything else. He kissed the top of Kit’s head and fled.
‘Missus! Missus!’ Oxcott hissed at Mona as Kit’s door was locked behind them.
They saw the gleam of his eyes behind the hatch.
‘’Ave a sing-song later, the bey an’ I, geddon? Won’t let ’ee all by hisself, will I?’
‘Thank you,’ David said, when Mona could not. ‘You are a kind man, and we’re grateful.’
Kit pressed his face to the bars of his hatch as they left. Strained to reach them with his fingertips.
‘We can’t just . . . go,’ Mona said, once the prison gates had slammed behind them. ‘We can’t just leave him here!’
‘There’s nothing else we can do,’ David told her quietly.
‘Well, I’m staying. I’ll wait here, on the street. I shan’t sleep anyway. How could I? And I’m not leaving him.’
David hung his head, adjusting his weight on his cane, and Toby saw how close he was to giving up.
‘My dear, they will not let us back in to see him. They will not let us. And it won’t help him if you make yourself ill.’
‘Will it help him if we abandon him?’ she said. ‘I can’t bear . . . How can we just go home and . . . carry on, when he . . . When our boy . . .’ Her face crumpled.
‘It will help him to sing songs with Oxcott later,’ David said softly. ‘It will help him to remember what the vicar has said, and how very much we love him. And he knows it, Mona. He does.’
She sagged, and they held each other. A cold breeze fluttered around them, and Toby stood to one side. Separate again. Excluded by their pain, with no one to help him shoulder his own.
They went to bed that night because they didn’t know what else to do.
None of them slept. They’d decided to sit at the table together shortly before nine the next morning, to join hands and pray and remember happier times.
It had been David’s idea: they needed a structure, a ceremony of some sort.
They needed to brace themselves, to survive the terrible moment of losing Kit.
He had burned so brightly in their hearts since the moment of his birth, none of them could imagine life going on with any semblance of normality without him.
In the end, Toby couldn’t do it. The slow march of the night ended in a grey dawn, and at ten to nine Toby knew he would go mad if he stayed.
Sitting at the table like fools at a seance, while thirty miles south the best of them was extinguished.
The idea of Kit’s fear was insufferable.
The knowledge that he had caused it was excruciating.
‘Toby? Where are you going?’ David said, as he ran for the door.
But he couldn’t stay. He could not look into their faces as the clock struck nine.
He followed their footsteps from Midsummer’s Night.
Through the village, past the Roman Cross, and up the steps to the castle mound.
He didn’t drop a coin into the box by the gate.
He didn’t go near the Anglo-Saxon chapel, or the symbol of Uroboros.
Instead, he went across the courtyard to the section of wall Kit had climbed, and sat down with his back to it.
Tipped his face to the blinding white sky.
Tiny spits of drizzle hit his eyes, and the wind was chill.
He thought he heard Kit’s hooting laughter, and the flap of his clumsy feet.
He’s so full of joy, isn’t he? Then came an image of his brother crouching in the vegetable patch, holding the tip of his tongue between his teeth and pricking out baby radishes with an excess of care.
Toby’s chest clenched. He stared, until his eyes ached, at the spot where he’d dithered like an idiot instead of saving his brother. He could have prevented it all, if he’d only moved faster. Then the wind carried the tenor bell of St Mary’s up the valley from West End, as it struck nine times.
Toby had no idea how long he remained there.
Eventually, he found himself looking down at Hallewell House, hunkered against the autumn weather, lights burning in several windows.
Theo could have saved Kit. She could, at the end, have gone to see him, and made him feel better.
But she’d done nothing – not even replied to Toby’s letter with some paltry excuse.
Anger came like a flood, sweeping Toby up and momentarily drowning out the pain.
He flexed his stiff hands into fists at his sides.
Then the front door of Hallewell House opened, and a female figure emerged.
For a second Toby thought it was Theo, but no.
He watched Diana make her way down the path, out into the lane.
Unusual, to see her leave the premises. Even rarer for her to go alone.
Without thinking, Toby set off to follow.
Diana turned in at the Meriwether cottage. Toby couldn’t imagine why. She’d never called on them before, not in his lifetime.
‘Mrs Hallewell,’ he heard David saying. ‘You must forgive us. I’m afraid today you find us . . . indisposed.’
He was grey-faced, leaning heavily on his cane.
Behind him, Mona was sitting on one of the settees as though cast in stone.
She hadn’t even turned to see Diana Hallewell, standing there in her maroon dress with its matching cape, her hands stuffed defensively into a sable muff, gazing around the parlour as though she couldn’t quite believe people lived like this.
‘What I have to say will only take a minute,’ she said, starting slightly when Toby appeared.
‘Well, it’s a minute that will have to wait for another day,’ Toby said. ‘You heard my father.’
‘Toby, there’s no need to be rude,’ David murmured.
‘I think there is,’ Toby said.
Diana lifted her chin, eyeing him coolly. ‘Young man, I have a simple enough question to ask.’
From a distance, Toby had always thought her beautiful, but now, close to, he saw the powder on her face and the creases along her top lip. He saw her arrogance like a tarnish, dulling the surface.
‘Really?’ he snapped. ‘On the very day my brother has been hanged, for a silly game initiated by your daughter, you stand there when you have been asked to leave, because you have a question?’
Diana paled. ‘I . . . I had no idea that today was—’
‘No? Well, I suppose it’s of scant interest to you.’
‘I shall leave you,’ Diana said.
‘Say what you have come to say,’ Mona whispered.
Diana wavered. Toby folded his arms and glared at her, and his hostility seemed to galvanise her. She looked him straight in the eye.
‘My daughter has alerted me to the loan of an item that she made to Christopher some weeks ago. We wish for the item to be returned.’
‘Item, Mrs Hallewell?’ David said. ‘What item is this?’
‘A silver coin, of ancient origin. As I understand it, my daughter loaned the coin to your boy as a . . . talisman, of sorts. She had managed to convince herself that it possessed magical properties. A childish game, nothing more. And now—’
‘She wants the coin back?’ Toby could scarcely credit it.
‘Young man, I would not have made such a request on this very day had I been permitted to withdraw. But yes. It is valuable, and it belongs at Hallewell House. And with Christopher in such . . . an unfortunate situation, there is a danger it could be lost.’
‘“An unfortunate situation”? He’s dead, Mrs Hallewell.’
The words winded Toby momentarily. Diana stared at him without a flicker.
‘I offer my condolences for your loss. But he has met this sorry end by his own actions.’
‘Leave us alone,’ Mona murmured.
David simply stared at the floor.
‘We want neither your condolences nor your opinions,’ Toby said. ‘I thought for a moment you’d come to say you were sorry. That Theo was sorry! But I should have known better.’
‘I’m sure I haven’t the first idea what you believe we ought to apologise for. In any case, my daughter is not well.’
‘She got my letter, then? Is that what reminded her about the coin? And instead of going to visit Kit like I asked, she sends you to fetch it back?’
‘That’s not—’
‘It was the only thing he asked for, other than to come home. He wanted to see Theo before he died, and she wouldn’t even do that for him!’
‘Toby, that’s enough,’ David said.
‘No, it isn’t enough!’ Toby’s fury was suddenly thrilling; he felt invincible.
‘My daughter has been most deleteriously affected by this whole affair,’ Diana said. ‘Whether she will ever fully recover, only time will tell. But it was not she who cast that stone, and I shall thank you to write to her no more.’
‘Well, you needn’t concern yourself on that score.’
‘Very well. And my property?’
‘Gone. Lost,’ Toby declared. ‘They took Kit’s clothes, shaved his head, and put him in a freezing cell. I suppose some warder has your precious coin now, and I expect he’ll pawn it for half a crown and drink until he falls over. Or at least, I hope he does.’
Diana bridled, twin blotches of colour appearing beneath the powder on her cheeks.
‘I see. Then I shall take my leave. Mrs Meriwether; Mr Meriwether.’
She left Toby desperate to say more. To shout her down, and make her sorry. To break her world apart.