Chapter Nine: Reflections of the Past (2)

[manniness]

This chapter is rated M for domestic violence and miscellaneous mature themes.

 

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Tamial Hightopp – secret sorcerer of Time and Place – gawks, unabashedly, with his mouth hanging wide open. It’s a good thing that it’s late autumn here and there are no flies buzzing around, because he’s pretty sure he would have caught one or two in his gaping maw. Of course, it’s also a good thing that the things and people here don’t seem to hear or see him. Those flies probably would have buzzed right through his head and kept on going...

“Did your father just...?” Win rasps.

“I... think so,” Tam admits as the verbal argument heats up in the small field. As unbelievable as it had been to watch Uncle Hamish duel – and duel well at that! – it had been even more shocking to watch his own Fa throw a knife with a tiny flick of his wrist and strike Lowell Manchester’s companion in the shoulder with it. Accusations are thrown, guns are mentioned, the duel is called to a halt and threats are issued (by Lowell Manchester to Uncle Hamish) and then everyone is climbing back into their respective carriages.

“Twimble fumpt,” Tam swears – part of him thrilling with glee at the liberty of saying the forbidden words and the knowledge that no one can possibly catch him at it! – and turns to Win. “Who do we follow?”

Win looks back and forth between the two carriages for a too-long moment. “My father,” he finally declares and Tam rolls his eyes.

“Which one?”

“Lowell,” Win replies, eyes narrowed at Tam’s sarcasm.

And then, as Tam turns toward the carriage, he realizes Their Problem. “Uh, how are we going to get inside... and stay inside?”

Win gives him a panicky glance.

So it’s up to me to figure it out... again, Tam acknowledges. “Bluddy bulloghin’ boggletogs...” he mutters, glaring at the carriage. The driver begins gathering the reigns. Well, one way or another, they’ll know if they have any other abilities in his place.

Tam lifts his foot, frowning with resolution, and places it on the carriage step. Stands up. And stays there. He grins. “Grab on!” he calls to Win as he focuses on grasping the nearest protrusion and braces himself with his Will. “Grab on and mean it!” he orders.

Win complies, his expression morphing from a fierce scowl into a grin of delight in the second it takes the driver to crack the reigns and the horse to take off.

“Does this mean we can touch other people if we really think about it?” Win asks as the wind does not blow through their hair or snatch away their words.

“I don’t know!” Tam admits. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could?!”

The ride is long and bumpy but the poor performance of the coach’s wheels over the rutted forest road and then the country lane and then the gunk-filled London streets never bothers them. Tam inhales deeply, relishing the lack of coal dust and the absence of shukm-stink in the air. They wind though the maze that is The Great Upland City until the carriage clatters to a stop in front of a residence Tam has never seen before. He glances at Win, who is frowning up at the building.

“You know this place?”

“No,” his cousin replies, stepping down from the carriage. Tam does likewise. The sun has risen, but it’s still early and not many people are out and about. The carriage door opens slowly and Lowell Manchester’s companion gives the street a brief inspection before pulling Win’s father outside.

“Roberts,” Lowell calls to the driver.

“Yes, sir?”

“After he sees me inside, Mr. Blakefield will require transport home.”

“Very good, sir.”

Tam and Win follow the pair of men up the stairs. “What do you think?” Tam whispers, despite knowing no one except Win can hear him. “Do we stay with Lowell or go with Blakefield?”

“Lowell,” Win decides again.

A startled-looking butler – far more animated than Mr. Brown! – pulls open the door and Blakefield more or less drops Lowell into the man’s arms.

“Do let me know the details of the next meeting, won’t you?” he drawls, already turning on his heel and trotting down the steps.

Lowell doesn’t answer. “Get me inside, damn you!” he barks at the still gaping butler.

“Yes, sir. I beg your pardon, sir!”

Tam and Win scuttle through the open doorway before the butler manages to close it. It seems silly, Tam realizes as he stands in the foyer of the grand but unfamiliar house, to have rushed. They probably could have just walked through the door...

“Lowell?”

“Madam Manchester,” the butler begins, “I have no notion—”

“I don’t pay you to have notions. Help me upstairs then smarten yourself up!” Lowell demands of the butler, ignoring the woman hovering uncertainly in the hall. Tam stares at this much younger version of Aunt Margaret. He stares and he thinks, maybe Uncle Hamish really did fight Lowell for her heart...

Win charges up the stairs after his father and the butler who is assisting him. Tam, unwilling to be left behind in this Mirror Past (even if he is the master of it!), scrambles after them.

Just like with the carriage, his Intent is enough to keep his feet from sinking through the steps and then down through the second floor rugs and back onto the first floor parquet. He follows his cousin at a brief distance, feeling somehow shy at this moment.

The butler settles Lowell Manchester on his bed and then hurries from the room when his employer bellows, “If you’ve finished gawking and gathering up gossip, GET OUT!”

Tam flinches, glad that this man isn’t his Fa and Very Sorry that he is Win’s. Tam moves to stand next to his cousin in the room but doesn’t say anything. Lowell removes his boots and jacket and waistcoat, wincing very dramatically with each motion.

“I wish we could do something to help,” Tam mumbles awkwardly, seeing the red blood – just like his Mam’s – seeping through the man’s white shirt and staining the bed sheets beneath his sliced thigh. “We could try to touch him, I guess...” His stomach rolls at the thought. Tam does not want to be anywhere near this man.

“I don’t want to touch him,” Win answers in a hushed and strained whisper. Tam glances at him and watches as his cousin’s fingers curl in on themselves until Win’s hands a fully fisted and his skin stretches white over his knuckles. “I don’t think I like him very much...”

Tam probably would have thought of something to say – although maybe it wouldn’t have been all that wise or funny... it’s hard for him to imagine a saying that would sound nice or a joke that would be funny Right Now – if the door hadn’t opened behind them and Aunt Margaret hadn’t swept into the room with a pitcher of steaming water and a pile of linens over her arm.

“What happened to you?” she asks her husband as she sets the stack of fabric down on the bureau and goes to collect a very old-looking porcelain water basin.

“Nothing, Margaret.”

Surprisingly, Tam’s normally Muchy aunt doesn’t argue. He’s heard her get after Uncle Hamish often enough to know that her silence is very strange, indeed. Win scowls, obviously agreeing. Aunt Margaret never accepts “Nothing” as an adequate response... to anything.

She sets the basin down on the nearby sideboard and pours some of the steaming water into it. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’ve been out dueling, Lowell Manchester,” Aunt Margaret remarks in a tight tone. She reaches over to pick up the first square of linen but a hand darts out and wraps itself around her wrist.

Tam and Win watch, frozen with horror, as the man pulls her to the bedside. She tries to twist away, to free herself, and then, gasping, begins clawing at the hand that looks far too big, far too strong, far too tight around her slender arm.

“You’re... you’re hurting me...” she protests with frightening hesitancy.

“Good,” he replies, shackling both her wrists in his hands. “Good, you despicable harlot. It’s meant to hurt!” His fingers wrap even tighter around her arms.

“Ah... Ah-ha!! Please stop, Lowell!”

“Why should I? Will you? You’ve been spreading favors behind my back, Maggie?”

“Ow... Lowell! Please!”

“Please, what?” he demands, a sharp-toothed, humorless grin stretching his mouth. “Please forgive you? Please don’t punish you? You deserve it, you know.”

“PLEASE STOP!” she shouts and with a growl and a sneer, he shoves her away from him. She steps backward, trips over his discarded boots, steps on the hem of her skirt and crashes against the wall. The sound is a sickening smash that makes Tam want to heave right there in full view of... well, the only person in the world he would rather die than be violently ill in front of.

Lowell laughs as Margaret pushes herself up off of the wall and probes her jaw and cheek gingerly with her fingertips.

“Have I broken anything?” he asks with amusement.

“Only my illusions,” she replies. She does not look at him as she gathers herself and makes her unsteady way toward the door. “I’ll call the doctor. Clearly, you are not well, sir.”

When she leaves, Tam and Win go with her. They don’t even have to confer on this; neither of them wishes to stay in the presence of that... that...

“I don’t like your father very much, Winslow,” Tam whispers.

“I don’t either,” his cousin replies after a moment. “And my name is Win.”

Tam nods. “Sorry.”

Win sighs and stops at the bottom of the stairs. Aunt Margaret orders the butler to go and fetch the doctor immediately and, once the front door closes, her stiff posture melts and she dashes for the first floor water closet. Through the door, they can hear the sounds of her sobs and retching. Win takes off and dashes into the library. Tam watches as he struggles with the door, trying to close it, trying to shut out all the awfulness in this house, but his hands slip and slither through it.

He finally gives up and presses his hands to his ears. “I want to go back,” he declares, glaring at Tam. “Right now.”

“Go back?” he parrots stupidly. Go back?! Tam isn’t even sure how they’d managed to Get Here in the first place! “Uhm...”

“You don’t know how,” Win finishes for him, sneering. “Bloody fantastic, Hightopp. Brilliant. Now we’re stuck here! For how long? Do you even know that?”

“No, I don’t,” he shouts, his frustration boiling over. “And don’t blame me for this! You wanted to know the truth! You don’t get to put it all on me just because you don’t like it!”

Tam rushes from the room in silence. He pounds down the hall without a single percussive step. It’s very unsatisfying, he decides, to stomp and blunder so very quietly. He races over to the window and glares at what he can see of the world outside through the weave of the draperies. He reaches for the curtain, absently trying to push it aside before he remembers that he can’t. He can’t touch or be touched by anything Here. He can’t be heard, either. Still, there is an advantage to being so quiet; he can hear everything else in the house. There’s a bit of clanking occurring in the kitchen and a floorboard squeaks above his head at one point. None of these noises alert him to Win’s return, though.

“Sorry,” he says. “For shouting.”

“It’s all right,” Tam replies turning from the lace-curtained window and the view of the backyard garden. “It’s... fine.”

“So... how are we getting home?” he asks after a minute.

Tam sighs. “I’m still not sure. But let’s try.”

And they do. They find the nearest full-size mirror and Tam struggles to copy his actions from earlier.

“Take us back to Uncle Hamish’s house in London!”

“Take us home!”

“Open up, you bloody-minded looking glass!”

“Please?”

Nothing.

Night approaches and, oddly enough, despite the meals that have come and gone, Tam doesn’t feel the least bit hungry. “Do you think we’re ghosts?” Tam asks off-handedly as he lounges on the sofa with his booted feet up on the low table opposite.

“Or figments?”

“Yeah, maybe this is a dream.”

“That would mean we just have to wake up.”

But neither of them can think of how to do that.

The sun has sunk down behind the line of houses across the street from the front parlor – which they had decided to inspect to pass the time – when a carriage pulls up out front and a black-cloaked man in a very fine top hat steps out. He ascends the steps slowly and with the aid of his cane, his back rigid with pride. Once again, the butler attends to the door.

“Lord Manchester! May I take you coat and hat, sir?”

“I won’t be staying long.”

Tam joins Win at the door and they watch as an older gentleman relinquishes his hat and walking stick to the butler’s care.

“Make yourself comfortable, sir. I shall let Lady Manchester know you are here.”

“No need. I’m here to see my son. Where is he?”

“Upstairs in his chambers, resting, sir.”

Tam exchanges a look with Win. Again, they do not need to say anything to decide their next course of action. They follow.

They have to run up the stairs to keep up with the older man’s brisk pace. And Tam feels his brows climb up his forehead when the man simply barrels into his son’s room without knocking.

“You have humiliated this family for the last time!” the elder Lord Manchester announces in a mockery of greeting as he slams the door shut. Tam and Win press their way through the door and watch as Lowell attempts to rise from the bed. His face is pale and sweaty and his eyes feverishly bright.

“Father, I...”

“Am a waste of Manchester flesh! Gaming debts. Women. Brothels. Drinking in the middle of the day! And now this! Dueling!” The man glares down at his son.

Lowell blinks, confounded. “How did you know about...? Ah. Bloody Roberts.” He snorts. “I see my driver has found additional gainful employment with you.”

“An expenditure that would never have been necessary if you weren’t so obviously in need of nannying!” the elder Manchester retorts. “Do you know how much your exploits have cost this family?”

The mention of money seems to jar Lowell and he hastily rasps, “I just need a little more – just a small advance on next year’s salary – and everything will be fine, sir. Just—”

“It is never just a small advance, is it Lowell? Let’s call a spade, a spade.” He stares at his son who has finally managed to sit up and is slumped on the edge of the bed. The effort has cost him; he can barely keep his head up. The man doesn’t protest his father’s next words, “You are useless to me. Utterly useless. No, I should like to amend that. You are an utter loss, Lowell Manchester. You have cost me time, money, and pride. I’ll not permit you to destroy the Manchester name as well.”

“So you would have me be thrown in gaol?” Lowell asks weakly.

“Are you deaf, boy? No, I won’t let you ruin this family and disgrace our reputation by going to gaol!”

“Then what...?”

“You will go abroad. To the Americas.”

“The Americas?” Lowell chokes, raising his head finally. “What am I to do there?”

“Do whatever you feel compelled to do,” Lowell’s father replies. “My preferences have never held much weight here; I don’t expect you to honor them anywhere else!”

“I’m sor—”

“Yes, you are. A sorry excuse for a son. I wash my hands of you.” Lord Manchester turns on his heel and storms toward the door. Tam and Win reflexively dive out of his way. “I will make the arrangements and be back later this week with the details of your travel itinerary. In the meantime, I suggest you make your preparations.”

He pauses at the door and turns to inform his badly shaken, pale and trembling son. “I believe one of Ascots’ ships is setting sail this following weekend and you will be on it.”

“Heading for America...” Lowell mutters, shuddering with distaste.

“Yes.” And with that, Lord Manchester opens the door and makes his displeasure felt in his abrupt exit. He stomps down the hall toward the stairs and Tam stares after him, Win by his side.

“America,” the older man mutters to himself with grim determination. “But I’ll be damned if you ever have the chance to set foot on it!”

Tam gasps, turns toward his cousin, reaches out and grasps Win’s shoulder, opens his mouth...

… and then the wind currents that had sucked them both into the Looking Glass Past swallow them up and spit them back out... onto the rug in Tam’s room in Uncle Hamish and Aunt Margaret’s house.

For a moment, he stares up at the ceiling, which looks exactly the same as it had when they’d left; the gloaming not-quite-light of the gray day is still reflecting across the plaster and – there! – across the room the window is still displaying the same rainy scene that it had earlier...

“We’re back!” Tam announces. Grins.

He turns toward Win and finds his cousin lying beside him with his hands covering his face.

“Win...? What is it?” But then, just as he asks, Lord Manchester’s parting remark catches up to him:

“Yes... America... but I’ll be damned if you ever have the chance to set foot on it!”

He swallows, turns toward the mirror, remembers his own desperate command to the looking glass, and gapes:

“Show us the duel... Show us who killed Lowell Manchester...”

The mirror had done precisely that. It had transported them to the duel and it had kept them there until the murderer had revealed himself. And – if the Looking Glass Past is to be believed (and Tam fears it can be trusted to show the Truth... for what else would it show?) – the man who had killed Lowell Manchester is Lord Abbercombe Manchester.

Win’s own grandfather.

 

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Notes:

 

1. In OPK Book 3, Chapter 18: In Her Name, the time line is described thusly: the duel happens; Lowell comes down with a fever; he manhandles Margaret (yes, she did fib a bit – here we see he hadn’t come down with that fever yet when he’d hurt his wife); and then a week after the duel Lowell’s father shows up to help him pack for his trip, informing Margaret that Lowell will be going abroad for an indefinite period of time and requesting that Winslow take Lowell’s place with the company when he is of age. The day after this, Margaret goes to visit her mother and sister (and reveals her not-yet-healed bruises). The next weekend, Lowell is on the ship bound for the Americas.

 

Here we see that Lord Manchester actually paid his son a visit the evening after the duel and had already made up his mind about what had to be done. Margaret is actually the “last to know” the details. (It’s often the case that the wife is the last to know, isn’t it? Or, it seems that way...) So Margaret thinks Lord Manchester came over that first day to quickly check on his son (she has no idea he was actually there to be his son’s judge, jury, and executioner). As she assumed this was merely a social call, she does not mention it to her family in OPK Book 3.

 

As for why Lowell’s father would have wanted him dead, well, I mentioned in OPK Book 3, Chapter Sixteen: Progress and Productivity that Lowell’s father had been a very distant parent. Also, he is very dedicated to developing and expanding the family business, something that won’t happen if your reputation becomes a joke in London. So, the man had motive for getting rid of his bothersome and humiliating son (especially now that he has a grandson – Winslow – to “carry on” the family name and take over the business one day). As a wealthy businessman, he also had the means to hire someone to do his dirty work for him. We still don’t know how Lowell died, but we know who was behind it and that it was not a timely accident.

2. What would have happened to Tam and Win if they had not chosen to follow Lowell? Well, actually, they wouldn’t have been able to: the magic would not have allowed them to grab onto Hamish’s coach or stay with Lowell’s in order to follow Blakefield. I know it seems as if the boys had a choice in the matter... but, actually, they didn’t.

Comments

[starlight623.livejournal.com]

I loved the additional info to those moments of/after the duel. How exciting/scary to see those happening.

And how awesome it must have been for Tam to watch his dad be a total knife throwing badass! Woot Tarrant!

And now that the truth comes out, just what will they do with that knowledge ...