25. Chapter 25
“It’s merely a stop-off,” Jane says with a wave as we disembark. “You’ve always been keen on Exeter, so I thought we’d make use of our changeover and take a turn about the town.”
I clutch the pillar outside the station and force myself not to look around. “I’d rather not take a turn about this town. The sooner we reach wherever it is you’re dragging me, the sooner we might leave.”
“That’s no way to go about it, dearest.” She hooks her arm into mine. “Do at least try to enjoy it. You’ve become so glum, and I’ve allowed it to carry on far too long.” She tugs me away from the station.
Uncle Elias follows silently, and Sally hurries to keep up as we cross the street and walk toward town. “Can’t say as I blame her,” Sally gripes. “This is a dirty little city for a stopover.” She shrinks back from the throngs of passengers as we move through them.
We crest the hill looking down over the whole of Exeter proper and I slow, suddenly unable to look away from the bridge far in the distance below.
My companions’ voices grow muffled, as if they exist in a parallel reality, and the world once again narrows on that crumbling old bridge over a barren basin.
Only this time, there are no people living beneath it, and I do not spot the old frock coat upon sturdy shoulders. Uncle demanded we burn the old thing when we left for London, so I left it here on our stopover, hanging it over the window of the old church tower atop the bridge.
It isn’t there now.
Perhaps it was burned after all.
Jane and Sally, I realize, sound very distant now. They have moved on.
Oh, Jane. If only you could know what you’ve done.
A low voice behind me stirs my thoughts. “He asked about you. At the end.”
Uncle.
“You spoke to Papa?”
“I received word when he found himself in prison, so I went to—”
“Why on earth did you not bring me along? I’d have given my right arm to see him again, to find him treatment. To at least say goodbye.”
“It was only prison, fool girl. I meant to help him out of it before you even knew. I hadn’t any idea…”
How wretched his condition was.
Uncle blows out a breath. “Even before he greeted me, he asked after you.”
I swallow. “And what did you tell him?”
A pause. “That you would far exceed his expectations. That he had missed out all these years. That he’d done a foolish thing, landing in prison.”
My breath hitches. “It was an accident. A terrible misunderstanding.”
Uncle frowns viciously and I cannot think why. After a moment he turns and limps after the rest of our party.
Papa limped. He had a jolly, crooked stride, and it always surprised me how well he could keep up with me. Uncle’s limp is aggressive and impatient, dragging the leg that now moves too slowly, since the fire, to keep pace.
He was injured for me—I remind myself of that.
When we turn and the shopping district closes off my view of the Old Exe Bridge, I turn, drinking in the sight of it one final time. I shall not come back here again. Pressing my gloved fingertips to my mouth, I release my last kiss to Papa and blow. An aching hollowness curls inside.
I brace myself to descend into town, boots pinching my feet. Thoughts of Papa swirl around me—memories, impressions, the sensation of loving and being loved. Just as we enter the busy town, a name on a sign drags my vision sharply to the left ahead.
Silas Snow.
The world tilts. I anchor my feet before the Theatre Royale, crammed neatly between two leaning stone structures, and blink, staring at it again. What is this?
I stare at it for an eternity before I realize Uncle has stopped beside me. I shoot him a glance that I hope tells him I wish to be alone, but he remains.
“It was no misunderstanding,” he says firmly. “He planned this.”
I clench my hands and release them. “I don’t understand.”
“He carried a great weight around for many years—physical pain and the weight of the past and what happened in the mines. It was an accident, I suppose, but he carried it about for years. Until he set it down.”
“By dying in prison?”
“He called it a replacement—a substitution of sorts, although I don’t see the point.
Sacrificing himself to save another… another vagrant, like himself, as if it matters at all.
” He shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets.
“So no, Rosalyn. It was not a misunderstanding that landed him there.
He chose to take this man's place, and he planned a way to make it happen.”
I can hardly breathe. “You’re telling me he chose to die?”
He shifts. “I suppose you could see it that way.”
I stare for a long time at that sign on the theater wall. I stare at the name Silas Snow, sensing exactly who I would find inside the theater.
And of course, I will go into the theater.