He had watched the siege and then the capture of Hannah Pupker— had observed it all from a peeping spot behind the curtain of one of the windows of my up-stairs rooms, and then had crept down the stairs and stood behind a Cheval glass in the dress shop showroom and was there situated so that when Charlotte entered the room after all had grown quiet and Hannah had gone, he could step out and take her by the hands and kiss her upon the lips and dry those tears that would flow so freely to see him returned.
But it did not happen exactly that way. Gus stepped out and Charlotte promptly fainted away. However, it took hardly any time at all to revive her, and her cheeks were quickly thereafter flooded with those anticipated tears, and husband and wife — kept several days asunder by the most trying and frightful circumstances — could not now be wrenched apart for worlds, as their loving embrace was far too strong.
Charlotte urged her husband to come with her to their house, but was quickly dissuaded. It was too dangerous to risk his being seen, and so this was to be his address for the time being and no one must know that he was here (besides those who knew it already and swore not to reveal the fact to another soul.)
“Then I’ll come to stop here as well, to be at my husband’s side,” said Charlotte. “Frederick, you will have to find another place to sleep, for your older brother and I are now laying claim to your bed.”
“And I am happy to give it up to you,” said I.
We repaired to Mrs. Lumbey’s breakfast parlour, where we gathered about the table: Gus and Charlotte, and Antonia and Timberry, Mrs. Lumbey and her assistant Amy and I. We drank tea and ate sweet seed cake, and cheese and celery, and Gus hungrily fell to a dish of kidneys and the remnant carcass of the roast fowl that had been Mrs. Lumbey’s supper the night before, and some anchovy toast drowned in egg sauce, whilst I breakfasted on a basin of mutton broth, and Antonia and Timberry shared a slab of potted ham and then three or four raspberry tarts. Amy nibbled upon a morsel of cheese, as would a finicky mouse, whilst Mrs. Lumbey finished the morning’s porridge, and then we all had a peppermint drop and pronounced the meal an unqualified success.
Gus was coaxed by Mrs. Lumbey into telling some of what he had seen and experienced in the Outland. He spoke for a few moments on the topic before I interrupted him. “I’m sorry, Gus, but I cannot hear the end to this story. My mind is too much on Harry Scadger and his family now turned out from their new home. I must go and find them.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Timberry, “to see how young Flora is doing.”
“What is this most sudden interest in a Scadger?” asked Gus, without sharpness but nevertheless with a free-and-easy manner that reminded me that I’d yet to tell Gus of his connexion by blood to Harry and his children.
“It is this, Augustus: Harry Scadger, the second oldest of the Scadger brothers, is your half-brother. Our father was also his father. I haven’t time to tell you the details of how this came to be. You must, for now, simply accept it. We have a half-brother. And we have a half-sister-in-law and several half-nephews and nieces, and all, I fear, are put in some jeopardy now by their expulsion, and I must know if they’ll be safe.”
“A Scadger — our brother? I find it almost too incredible to believe!” said Gus.
A darkness fell upon Charlotte’s face at that moment. I knew with certainty the reason for it: Newman. Gus noted the change in his wife’s expression as well, and as Gus would often do, he turned a sad reflection into something that must have a culpable author. As often would be the case with my brother, I became that author.
“But no more incredible,” he continued, “than to think that you have now substituted these half nephews and nieces for the one nephew-in-full now apparently banished altogether from your thoughts.”
“You cannot believe that, Gus!” I earnestly rejoined.
Antonia rose from the table and beckoned me with a crooked finger to join her in the passage. When we had both assured ourselves that a confidence or two could pass between us without being overheard, she whispered sagely: “Frederick, your brother and sister-in-law are in great need of hope about their lost son. Perhaps you should tell them where you believe Newman to be, to give their minds some small measure of ease. It’s the right thing to do, you know that it is.”
“And my impulsive brother will take this information and promptly put himself in the way of God-only-knows-what sort of danger through a reckless attempt to effect Newman’s rescue. He will — as a result of this fool’s errand — find himself likewise enchained within that place, and who knows what will happen to Newman in consequence? Perhaps to prove that Newman hasn’t been there all along, he will be made to disappear altogether and for good. It is a risk I dare not take, so I must keep Gus and Charlotte in the dark about it for a while longer, for everyone’s good.”
“And yet…”
“How you’ve softened, Antonia.”
“I haven’t softened. I may not be a sensipath, but I am still fully capable of feeling in my breast what it is like to be put asunder from one greatly loved. I am as human as you are, Trimmers.”
“I never said elseways. I simply—”
“I concede that your argument is the stronger. Let us suspend this discussion. There is silence in the breakfast parlour as all are no doubt straining to hear what we’re saying.”
I forbore telling Gus and Charlotte about where I believed that their son was being kept. Timberry and I excused ourselves and started off for the apricot grove, where I hoped to find my half-brother Harry, reaffiliated by necessity of circumstance with his other half-brothers.
Upon reaching the grove, Timberry and I were received with brusqueness and calculated indifference by Harry Scadger’s oldest brother Sol. “Harry ain’t been here,” he said, poking a whittled twig casually between his dingy teeth. “Didn’t know he and the wife and the kidlings was evicted. Could’ve told him you get nothin’ from them high-handed snakes and swindlers that you don’t got to give back or you ain’t a-goin’ to have to pay for in the long run. We’ll take him back if he comes to the grove, but I figure he’s got too much pride to slink back to the likes of us now.”
The brother who had been resting upon a deadfall log now uprose, turned without ceremony, and walked away.
Before Timberry and I began our return trip to Milltown, I wanted a moment to look about. It had been a good while since I had last visited the apricot grove, and I noticed that there was a bit more of the Scadger presence emplaced there. The settlement had become a small hamlet of sorts, composed of old, weather-rotted deal wood shacks appointed with castoff rubbish-pile appurtenances to create some semblance of domesticity. Here was a rustic tinker’s table and over there a weaving place for some of the women, with half-completed baskets and straw hats strewn about. Most members of the clan were doubtlessly off at this moment harvesting salad weed, for the Scadgers had become adept at finding nutritious wild greens to put upon a plate that anyone else would extirpate as an inedible garden nuisance.
Our delay in withdrawing from this spot was quickly rewarded by the appearance in the distance of Harry’s brother Zephaniah, who waved to us and called my name to detain me as he ran toward us.
After raising a hand for permission to fetch his breath once he had gained us, Zephaniah Scadger finally exhaled: “My brother Sol said you were here. He told me what happened to Harry. You’ll find him beneath the Westminster Bridge, I wager, but that ain’t the reason I require to speak to you.”
“What is it? Oh, Timberry, this is Zephaniah Scadger. Zephaniah, this is Dr. Timberry, the most recent addition to the medical fraternity of Dingley Dell.”