Page 45 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
”Oh, no, Sary,” Chastity cried. “I have a guest in there I didn’t tell you about. You don’t want to?—”
Ignoring her mother, Sara flung back the curtain. Gideon was already leaping up from the bed. Shoving back the strands of his tousled hair, he gave her a sheepish grin. “Hullo, Sara.”
Sara’s fingers clenched about the end of the curtain. “Damn you, Gideon! I put you on that stage myself. I had you out of here. Why the devil did you come back?”
He spread his hands wide in an apologetic gesture. “Well, my dear, when the stage got past the city, I chanced to look out the window.” He gave a mock shudder. “There were pastures, Sara. Cows! Sheep!”
Chastity gave a shrill giggle which died when Sara whipped around to glare at her mother. “This is not amusing, Mum.”
“Aw, Sara.” Gideon tried to get an arm about her shoulders, but Sara flung him off.
“Come now, Sary,” Chastity coaxed. “You have got yourself into a rare state of panic over nothing. Gideon told me everything about you trying to make him run off over a few suspicions. No one is accusing him of being the Hook yet.”
“When someone does, it will be far too late,” Sara snapped.
“If it’s the money you wasted upon the stage,” Gideon said, “I will pay you back somehow.”
“It is not the money, you fool! I am trying to keep you from being arrested for murder.”
“Bah, there is nothing to connect Gideon to those killings. Only rumor.” Chastity smiled, preening a little. “Mind you, it has not hurt my reputation in the neighborhood a bit, having people imagining Gideon might be the one. Why, the Hook is getting to be something of a legend like Dick Turpin or Robin of the Hood. The butcher actually slipped me an extra slab of bacon the other day.”
“When you see your oldest son swinging by the neck, I hope you will think the bacon was worth it, Mum.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t.” Chastity’s smile faded, her chin quivering. “I went to see poor Meg Cuttler’s boy turned off just last week for horse stealing. Davy and I attended the hanging. It was dreadful, though Meg did lay out a nice funeral breakfast in her flat afterwards.”
“And all the while I suppose Davy plotted to steal the corpse.”
“Certainly not!” Chastity said. “I raised your brother up to be a gentleman. He’d never open the grave of anybody he knows.”
A smothered choking sound escaped from Gideon, but Sara had no desire to laugh. She did not have the strength to be angry anymore, either. Sinking down at the table, she rested her brow upon her hands, determined not to have another headache.
What was the use of arguing? she thought wearily. What was the use of trying to help either one of them? It was hopeless. Life had always been hopeless in Bethnal Green.
Gideon drew their mother aside. After a little whispering between them, Gideon handed Chastity some coin, instructing her to bring back some rum from the shop around the corner.
Snatching up her shawl, Chastity slipped out of the room, promising to be back directly. A silence settled over the flat when the door had closed behind her. Gideon ambled back over to the table, but he did not sit down. Resting his hands on the back of one of the chairs, he stared at Sara and said, “It wasn’t any good me running away, Sara. I think we both realize that.”
“If you had just possessed the sense to keep on running.”
“I have done some checking, Sara. The authorities are as baffled as ever. They have no witnesses, no clear description of the Hook. I am safe.”
“For the moment.”
“The moment’s enough for me. It always has been.” He gave a fatalistic shrug. “Bloody hell, Sara. I can’t run away from myself. If I don’t find trouble here in London, I’ll just find it elsewhere.”
“You are utterly determined to end up in the dock.”
“And when I do, I hope they don’t call you in for a testimony to my character.”
“I would lie through my teeth for you,” Sara said bitterly.
“So you would.” Although he leaned forward to chuck her under the chin, an expression of rare seriousness stole into Gideon’s grey eyes.
“Don’t you understand, little sister?” he asked. “It is you who should run from this place and not come back. Why do you persist in returning for these visits?”
“What a stupid question! Mum needs me. And you.”
“Mum can look out for herself and so can I. And even if it were otherwise, don’t you see, Sara? You can’t help us. You are the only one of us who has ever had dreams, imagining something much better than all of this.”
