Read Online The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King - Free Book Online
Authors: Laurie R. King
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American she’d followed for a few streets, hoping he might set down the packet he carried. She had no idea what Papa wanted, but this felt like the first time, ever, that her father had looked at her rather than Allie. The fact that her trick seemed actually to please him was enough to make the squalid room seem brighter.
He interrupted her impersonation of the sari-wearing Indian woman she’d seen in the park the week before. “Darlin’, I think you have a skill. And I think you and me, we might be able to make something of it. You think you can teach yourself to cry?”
Clarissa looked at her father, plainly intent on cajoling her into something. Why did he think she was not going to like it?
T he shock of the gun in Samuel Hudson’s hand froze me like an electric current. The world stopped: sound, breath, heart, dust-motes in a moment of sunlight. My universe narrowed down to a pair of truths: a round black gunmetal hole at the end of Samuel Hudson’s arm, and the too-sweet smell of his hair-oil. Absurd thoughts were the only thing that moved:
In my own sitting room?
flitted across my stunned brain, followed rapidly by,
God, what will Holmes say?
Then my chest thumped and my thoughts jostled to assemble some kind of order. Moving with great deliberation, I spread out my hands from the shoulders down, to illustrate a complete lack of threat. “So,” I said. “No tea and biscuits, then?”
T here were, it seemed, any number of ways to get by in Sydney—and more so, Melbourne—if one had the use of an innocent young face. According to Pa, men with yellow fever—fresh from the gold fields—were just aching to have someone take their coins from their pockets and free them up to go find more. It was doing them a kindness, really.
Clarissa knew this was a story, but playing along with it kept him happy—and sober—for the first time since Mama died. More important, it allowed her to take care of Alicia. Proper care.
Two weeks after the policeman’s visit, Clarissa stood on a busy street before a big man with a high hat and a thick gold chain across his waistcoat, her heart thumping as she sobbed and stammered out an incoherent tale about losing the shilling her mother had given her to buy milk for the baby and how Mum would
beat
her…
It had taken her some time to decide on this man among all the others bustling past, just as she’d hesitated over the pretty new frocks Papa had bought, ending up in a once-pretty, now-faded dress and a pair of shoes that looked like the well-cared-for hand-me-downs they were. Pa grew impatient, waiting for her to pick her target, but when she saw this one, she’d gone right forward because he seemed…happier, somehow, in a way that made him feel even larger than he was. It was years before she learned a word for it: “expansive.” Which sounded like “expensive,” and that was right.
The man with the gold chain had spotted her sobbing and stopped; listened to her where another might have circled past; frowned in sympathy where most would have just frowned. In the end he held out not a replacement shilling, but an entire half sovereign—then laughed when her wet eyelashes opened wide. “Can you use that, then, little girl?”
“Oh, sir, I can, yes I can.” Then she remembered her act, and was quick to add, “My little brother will eat so well, thanks to you!”
Her first lesson: no man in a good suit would turn away from a little girl with clean clothes, nice manners, and tears in her big dark eyes.
When she took the coin back to her father, waiting around the corner, he crowed in triumph. His praise flowed over her like water on a desert plant. And—was it magic, or a secret message?—the coin had been born the same year as she: it bore the date 1856 under Victoria’s profile. It went into his pocket, as did the handful of smaller coins that same act won them during the day, and they ate well that night.
Then, two days later—magic upon magic—Papa
He interrupted her impersonation of the sari-wearing Indian woman she’d seen in the park the week before. “Darlin’, I think you have a skill. And I think you and me, we might be able to make something of it. You think you can teach yourself to cry?”
Clarissa looked at her father, plainly intent on cajoling her into something. Why did he think she was not going to like it?
T he shock of the gun in Samuel Hudson’s hand froze me like an electric current. The world stopped: sound, breath, heart, dust-motes in a moment of sunlight. My universe narrowed down to a pair of truths: a round black gunmetal hole at the end of Samuel Hudson’s arm, and the too-sweet smell of his hair-oil. Absurd thoughts were the only thing that moved:
In my own sitting room?
flitted across my stunned brain, followed rapidly by,
God, what will Holmes say?
Then my chest thumped and my thoughts jostled to assemble some kind of order. Moving with great deliberation, I spread out my hands from the shoulders down, to illustrate a complete lack of threat. “So,” I said. “No tea and biscuits, then?”
T here were, it seemed, any number of ways to get by in Sydney—and more so, Melbourne—if one had the use of an innocent young face. According to Pa, men with yellow fever—fresh from the gold fields—were just aching to have someone take their coins from their pockets and free them up to go find more. It was doing them a kindness, really.
Clarissa knew this was a story, but playing along with it kept him happy—and sober—for the first time since Mama died. More important, it allowed her to take care of Alicia. Proper care.
Two weeks after the policeman’s visit, Clarissa stood on a busy street before a big man with a high hat and a thick gold chain across his waistcoat, her heart thumping as she sobbed and stammered out an incoherent tale about losing the shilling her mother had given her to buy milk for the baby and how Mum would
beat
her…
It had taken her some time to decide on this man among all the others bustling past, just as she’d hesitated over the pretty new frocks Papa had bought, ending up in a once-pretty, now-faded dress and a pair of shoes that looked like the well-cared-for hand-me-downs they were. Pa grew impatient, waiting for her to pick her target, but when she saw this one, she’d gone right forward because he seemed…happier, somehow, in a way that made him feel even larger than he was. It was years before she learned a word for it: “expansive.” Which sounded like “expensive,” and that was right.
The man with the gold chain had spotted her sobbing and stopped; listened to her where another might have circled past; frowned in sympathy where most would have just frowned. In the end he held out not a replacement shilling, but an entire half sovereign—then laughed when her wet eyelashes opened wide. “Can you use that, then, little girl?”
“Oh, sir, I can, yes I can.” Then she remembered her act, and was quick to add, “My little brother will eat so well, thanks to you!”
Her first lesson: no man in a good suit would turn away from a little girl with clean clothes, nice manners, and tears in her big dark eyes.
When she took the coin back to her father, waiting around the corner, he crowed in triumph. His praise flowed over her like water on a desert plant. And—was it magic, or a secret message?—the coin had been born the same year as she: it bore the date 1856 under Victoria’s profile. It went into his pocket, as did the handful of smaller coins that same act won them during the day, and they ate well that night.
Then, two days later—magic upon magic—Papa
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