Chapter Twelve #4
So he had to be patient, and wasn’t at all good at it.
He felt like a prisoner, chafing at the thought of his life in London going on without him.
He hated being in Hallewell. The vanishingly slim chance that Theo would hear of his illness, and come to visit while he was too weak to escape, gnawed at him.
Since he’d got back on his feet, Mona had been quieter than ever. She avoided his eye. He took her arm one evening, as she helped him back to bed.
‘What is it, Mum? Tell me.’
She shook her head. ‘It . . . The way we found you, Toby. By the Roman Cross, on that bitter night . . . Snow had settled on your face, and not melted! That’s how cold you were.
And you’d . . . you’d taken off your coat and hat.
’ She took a deep breath, looking down at his shirt as she folded it absently.
‘Did you mean to do it, Toby? Did you mean to freeze yourself to death?’
‘No!’
He was shocked at the idea, but when he looked back, when he tried to think back, it was blurry and he couldn’t be sure.
‘No, I just . . .’
He did remember the skating gala, but little afterwards. He remembered looking for Theo in the darkness between the lights, and was grateful she hadn’t been there.
He cleared his throat. ‘Lily ended our engagement. Not long before I came here to see you.’
‘Yes, we know. We thought we ought to let her know what had happened to you, and she was very kind about it, but she told us what had gone on between you.’
‘I suppose I was a bit broken up about it. Not that I planned to kill myself over it – I’m sure it’s for the best. But . . . I drank too much, that was all. I was foolish. Again.’
Mona sagged in relief. ‘Foolish! There’s a fine understatement.’
‘Mum . . . Was Theo Hallewell here? Mrs Anscombe, I suppose I should call her. Did she come to visit while I was sick?’
‘Theo? Heavens, no. Why on earth would she?’
‘No. I suspected not. Only, I saw her as clearly as I see you now. Isn’t that bizarre? And I . . . I saw Kit.’
The look she gave him was full of longing. ‘You saw your brother?’
Toby nodded. ‘Right there in the bed next to mine, just like he always used to be. Breathing too loudly because he hadn’t blown his nose.’
‘That sounds like him.’ Mona laughed a little, her eyes flooding.
She rummaged in her pockets for a handkerchief.
‘Well, I’m glad. I’m glad he came to visit you.
He sometimes comes to visit me, too. Full of mischief, as ever – he hides around corners, out of sight, and if I try to catch him I hear him chortling as he runs away . . .’
Her voice trailed to nothing and all the gladness left her face, grief slipping back into place. She abandoned his shirt on the chair, unfolded.
Toby’s anguish left him mute.
‘Perhaps you dreamt of things you long for,’ Mona said flatly.
‘I don’t know about that. I also dreamt that the entrance exam was coming up, and I wasn’t ready. It was terrifying.’
‘Get some sleep, love.’
Toby lay back, exhausted. His final thought before he slept was that Theo’s presence must be something he feared, like the exam; not something that he longed for.
There was a white froth of blackthorn on the embankments by the time Toby made it on to a train back to London.
His legs and lungs would only take him a short distance at a time, but he could ride the trams and omnibuses, and give himself plenty of time to get wherever he was going.
He could still think, and write. But when he got to his rooms it was to find them occupied by a skinny man with a wall-eye, who advised him, not politely, to move on.
Toby found his things in a heap beneath the stairs, with a moth-eaten rug slung over them.
Furious, he hammered his fist on the landlady’s door. Mrs Dunn eyed him dispassionately.
‘But you weren’t ’ere, Mr Meriwether, and your rent weren’t paid. What would you ’ave me do?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, let me see – perhaps count my year-long good behaviour as your tenant in my favour, and wait to hear from me?’
‘It’s been best part of two months, and not ’ide nor ’air of you! Dead and buried for all I knew. This in’t a charity I’m running.’
‘And all of my things just abandoned there, where anything might have been stolen?’
‘I’ve been keeping an eye out, in case you came back. Made sure nothing went for a walk. Moved it all meself, I did – count yourself lucky I didn’t sell the bloody lot! Now go on – ’op it. You don’t live ’ere no more.’
‘Mrs Dunn, I will not have this!’ Toby cried, but was jack-knifed by a fit of coughing.
Mrs Dunn whacked her door against his foot until he removed it, then slammed it in his face.
Light-headed, Toby sat with his back to it until he’d caught his breath.
Constellations of black mould spangled the walls of the dingy hallway.
He coughed a bit more, and tried to come up with a plan.
The day was all but over; it would be dark soon, and it was drizzling.
He could hardly take all his books and his rickety furniture to a hotel, even if he could have afforded one – he was paid by the word, and hadn’t published any since leaving for Hallewell.
He got up, eventually, and set out to find a cart for hire.
He traipsed a long way, following the suggestions of strangers, until finally he found a man who would do the job for the few coins Toby had on him.
By then he was both sweating and shivering, which he took as a bad sign.
They loaded the cart together – Toby wheezing and stumbling and not being much use.
The only address he could give was Womersley’s, so that was where they went, and while his things were unloaded on to the pavement Toby leaned heavily on the bell pull.
He staggered inwards when the door opened, and collided with the manservant.
By then he was so tired he could hardly mumble his own name.
Any ill feeling Tom might have been harbouring about the way things had gone with his sister apparently vanished upon seeing Toby in such a state.
‘Good grief, Meriwether,’ he exclaimed. ‘You look half dead!’
‘I possibly am, Tom.’
‘What’s all that junk on the pavement?’
‘That would be all my worldly goods. My landlady relet my room in my absence.’
‘Indeed? Well, that will happen if you rent a cubbyhole in a hovel, instead of a proper apartment.’
‘I’m a cubbyhole in a hovel type of fellow.’ Toby smiled weakly, then coughed some more.
‘I’m calling the doctor.’
‘There’s no need. If I might just possibly . . . some sleep . . .’
‘Oh, hell – Barker, come and give me a hand with him.’
Mercifully, the relapse didn’t last long. By the third day Toby was on a settee in front of a generous fire, wrapped in a tartan rug, with a bowl of soup on a tray.
‘That’s better,’ Tom said, on his return from the firm.
‘I feel like an emperor,’ Toby said sheepishly. ‘Your man Barker is a saint.’
‘Yes, he’s a good sort. And you’re beginning to look less like a cadaver.’
‘You’ve resurrected me.’
Tom dropped into a nearby chair, turning serious.
‘Lily told me what was going on, after your father wrote to her. I wanted to come and visit you, but I . . .’ He trailed off, uncomfortably. ‘Well, I was still endeavouring to be cross with you about the engagement. And for being such a damned flop.’
‘You’ve never been able to stay cross with anyone for very long, Womersley.’
‘Ha! Luckily for you. That was a very stupid thing you did, Meriwether. Nearly killing yourself.’
‘I don’t think I did it deliberately.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember much about it?’
‘Not a great deal, no.’
‘Was it because of Lily?’ Tom looked away uncomfortably, into the low flames of the fire. ‘Do you wish the engagement were back on? Is that it?’
‘No . . . no, she is better off without me—’
‘Oh, come on, now.’ Tom shook his head in disgust.
‘I mean it,’ Toby said. ‘And I’m . . . I’m so terribly sorry I disappointed her. And you. I would have married her, you know. Had she wished it, I would have kept my word.’
Tom nodded gravely. ‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘Least said, soonest mended. Our Lily’s made of stern stuff, and, infuriating as it is, she’s almost always right. Perhaps it will be for the best, given time.’
Overcome by gratitude, Toby could only nod.
‘I’ve got engaged myself, by the way,’ Tom said.
‘What?’ Toby was stunned. ‘“You’ve got engaged by the way”? To whom, for heaven’s sake?’
Tom smiled. ‘To quite the sweetest thing I’ve ever encountered. Her name is Rita Bremen. You’ll meet her soon enough – she’s coming with her sister for dinner, tomorrow night. So you’d better be well by then. We plan to marry in June.’
‘But who is she? How did you meet her?’
‘It was the damnedest thing, Meriwether. It was at the theatre – our eyes met across a crowded atrium, like in the drippiest of romantic novels. She looks like a little bird – so perfect and round! Her eyes sparkle, and she has the most heavenly dimples when she smiles . . . What else can I tell you, except that the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew that I would love her? I spent the rest of the evening engineering an introduction, and have dedicated every moment since then to being as charming as I possibly can.’
Tom’s obvious joy sent an unexpected rush of feeling through Toby. His friend’s happiness made him feel that there was good in the world, and that it wasn’t entirely failing and corrupt. Gingerly, he stood up and cast off his blanket.
‘Shake my hand, Womersley,’ he said. ‘I am utterly delighted for you.’
Their handshake became a bear hug, and Tom laughed, clapping Toby hard on the shoulders.