Dan Vyleta - Smoke

Lord Spencer returned to us the next morning. And the morning after that, and the one after that; came at dawn, alone on his horse. He liked the village’s “prospect,” he said; was interested in the mining business. Each day, he spread more money about. Talked to the drunks, the urchins, the village roughs. Tuppence for anyone who had a tale to spare; a pint of bitter at the pub. In his purse, a more precious kind of coin for anyone who had any real information. He’d make sure to flash it wherever he went, let people hold it, to see how heavy it was. Everyone was very impressed. We had none of us handled gold before.

I doubt the young lord learned much that was of any use. He heard hints, no doubt, about the union. That’s what he’d come for, most villagers assumed. To check up on us. Though from the smile on his face, you’d think he’d come to woo the village beauties. And they came out for him, too, in their Sunday frocks, hitching their skirts up when they passed him in the street, flashing their plump calves. He doffed his hat at them, Lord Spencer did. They all talked about it for days on end.

But as to the three people we were hiding, down in the blackness of the mine, nobody said a word. Only the Union Men knew, and of them only the inner circle. I didn’t tell a soul myself; snuck down the mine, night after night, with Mr. Mosley’s help. It weighed on us though, our secret, all the more because we didn’t know what we’d got ourselves involved in. Nobody dared ask why they were hiding from the girl’s own mother. It wasn’t done to ask questions. Not down there. Against our rules and the union’s spirit. Besides, it was safer that way. The less we knew, the less we could be held to account.

All the same there were theories about our charges. There always are. An elopement, an estrangement, a fight amongst nobles. The one I heard most often (whispered, in the darkness, far from Lord Spencer’s ears) was this: that the three were running from the law. That they had committed a mighty crime, the worst crime of all. Treason Against the Crown. Now it was the noose for them. If they were found. The way these whispers made it sound, they were as good as dead already.

The thing is: sooner or later, everyone gets found. There’s not one miscreant in the village who ever gave the bailiff the slip. You can hide for a week, a month, a year. But the law don’t forget. Or so my mum always says. She would know. She has a brother in jail somewhere and an uncle that was hung.

One thing’s for sure. If Lord Spencer was trying to find me , I would be hiding too. There is something crazed about his endless ream of questions, something forced about his constant smile. The third day he came to the village, the butcher slaughtered a pig in his honour. Lord Spencer went to watch. We have all of us done it, every child in the village, from curiosity, or on a dare, or because the screams drew us there: climbed the fence and taken a peek. And we all of us smoked; got good and filthy and went home to a hiding, for ruining our clothes. There is something about blood and offal freshly raised that sets it off. It takes many months to get used to it, till you can put down a sow with the same calm you tuck in a babe. That’s what Mr. Dillon told me, who is the village butcher and once had his eye on me, though he is fifty years old and I was fourteen then and still given to blushes. It’s why Mother sent me off into service. To protect my innocence. Well, the manor house took care of my innocence soon enough.

Lord Spencer, in any case, held to village custom; showed up at the slaughterhouse in his shirtsleeves and was hastily ushered to a stool; sat, pale and sweating, a quiver in his cheek; and was seen to swallow deep when the blood poured out into the bucket. But he did not smoke, his shirtsleeves stiff with starch and lily-white.

There are other oddities, other reports. Little Beth, the Kendricks’ daughter, says she saw him crying, walking hatless down the bridle path. And old Todd swears blind he saw him out riding after dusk, wearing a devil’s face made of rubber and steel. I myself watched him whip his dog with its leather leash for straying after a squirrel or rat: his mouth moving as though in admonition, but not a sound passing his lips. He did not smoke even then.

Lord Spencer has not always been like this. I first saw him a month or two after I had been taken into service. The Naylors’ cook came from our village. She was a childhood friend of my mother’s and recommended me. I arrived in May, a six-mile walk, my good clothes folded in a basket that got sodden with rain. Milord came in his summer vacation. They made a big fuss before he arrived: the servants, I mean, not his kin. Baron Naylor was already “unwell.” I didn’t know what they meant by that word just then. When the coach pulled up, we all assembled outside, with much giggling.

I liked him, in a way. He was dark and skulking and wore tan leather gloves, even around the house. Ate a lot, especially pudding. Slept in, went hunting. Blackened his sheets more than he should’ve done, considering his station. He was very full of himself even then, but so what? He was the future Lord of the Manor. Handsome. Rakish. Always teasing us girls.

Then he started changing. It was towards the end of the summer. Talk in the servants’ kitchen was, Lady Naylor had started paying attention to him. Called him to her chambers; kept him locked in with her for hours at a time. Nobody could quite work it out: what they were to each other, how they felt. I mean, he is the fruit of her womb. But he’d been raised by her first husband’s parents, people she would not consent to see even once a year. As Mother would put it: a proper rich people’s shambles.

In the course of the summer, Lady Naylor did for Lord Spencer whatever those schools of theirs are supposed to do to all them noble-born: she chilled his blood. Beat the Smoke out of him, and put it on a leash. The few gentryfolk I have seen in my time at the manor, they always looked a little sickly. Like they had their bowels full and didn’t have no prune juice. Though, of course, the vicar says it’s the only way to get to heaven.

With Lord Spencer it was different, though. Not one of us ever saw him smoke again. Not a mark on his linen. But whatever was dark in him only kept on growin’. You could almost feel it, when he walked past you in the hallway; the way a girl knows a man’s looking at her, Smoke curling out of his skin, even if he’s ten steps behind and walkin’ against the wind. The horses felt it too, grew skittish around him, unless he’d ridden them before. Broken them in. Same with the dogs in the kennels. Only his own bitch could abide him. It’s a smell, some of the stable hands said, too fine for our human noses. It’s like his Smoke has become invisible. Scratch him, though, and I swear he’ll bleed Soot.

ф

Six days in our charges announce they want to leave. Quickly. Just as soon as we can get them out.

I go down with Mr. Mosley when he goes to fetch them, deep in the night, no shift due for another four hours. I asked to come, so I can change the bandages one last time. Only they don’t need changing. The bleeding’s long stopped. I just want to see him one more time. Thomas. For six days I have nursed him. And got a kiss for my trouble. I know myself he does not like me the same as I like him: it’s there in his eyes when we light the lamp. But it was a good kiss all the same. He squeezes my shoulder when we part, and I wag a finger. Sister and brother then. I can live with it. It’s better than naught.

Before they set off, the others, too, wish to say their good-byes. They line up like they are waiting for service at the grocer’s. We are still in Thomas’s sick chamber, what we so grandly call our Union Hall. I shan’t be taking the lift with them, will stay behind to destroy any trace they was ever here. Mr. Cooper goes first. He steps close to me and shakes my hand. “Thank you,” he says. He even gives a little bow. If he’d kissed my hand on top of it, I would have died laughing. Despite my best attempts, I have grown fond of Mr. Cooper. He is hard to dislike. The trouble though is that he is awfully posh. Well-bred, down to the vowels of his “Thank you.” It’s not his fault, mind, but he can’t open his mouth without it reminding me what he is. And what I am. Not of his class. A servant, a miner’s daughter. Common as sin. He tried to wash his clothes one day, in a bucket, and it was so pathetic I did it for him in the end. But only when Miss Naylor was out. The young milady.