I said nothing, dismay rising in my throat.
He sighed heavily. “It’s up the steps,” he said. “Just the one room. You will have to sleep in your clothes tonight, then.”
Standing, he proved to be the biggest man I had ever seen, even in the semidarkness. “Are you waiting for a candle?” he asked. “You won’t need one; the cot is just at the top of the steps, next to the wall on your left.” He turned away, taking the one candle with him, and I scurried to the steps before the candle glow fully disappeared, leaving my trunk where the driver had dropped it.
Chapter 3
A thumb and forefinger lifted my eyelid. “He’s dark,” said a voice.
I shook my head away from the fingers, opening my eyes on my own and raising myself on my elbows. There were two boys. One appeared to be three or four years older than I, with flaming ginger hair; the other was small, with a freckled oval face and light brown hair.
“What’s your name?” asked the ginger-haired one.
“Edward Fairfax Rochester,” I said. “What’s yours?”
“Edward Fairfax Rochester? That’s far too much of a name for a boy your size.”
I blinked at him. I had little experience with boys my age—only Rowland, who was not my age, and the two stableboys, with whom I had sometimes played horseshoes when their duties allowed.
“How old?” he demanded.
“Eight.”
“Eight,” he repeated, in a tone that implied I had affirmed his suspicions.
“And how—”
But he was interrupted by a woman’s voice from below: “Boys!”
The two immediately began throwing on their clothes. I rose from my cot—despite the cold and my fears of this place, I had slept like the dead—and I set myself to straightening my rumpled clothes and running a hand through my hair and putting on my shoes, and I hurried downstairs after the others.
Mr. Lincoln was already seated at the table, drinking the first of, as I was later to learn, many cups of coffee, a huge globe on a stand beside him. He glanced up as we tumbled down the steps. “You have met Rochester, I presume,” he said, as if new boys appeared all the time.
“We have,” the ginger-haired boy said. The smaller one nodded silently.
“And,” Mr. Lincoln continued, “has he met you?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, and Mr. Lincoln spoke into it. “I thought not. That one is Thomas Fitzcharles,” he said to me, “but for obvious reasons he’s called ‘Carrot’ in this place. And the other one is William Gholson; we call him ‘Touch.’ As for you”—he leveled his eyes at me—“I shall have to see. In the meantime, sit down, the three of you, and put something in your stomachs.”
I held back, unsure, as the other boys took their places, and then I sat in the remaining chair, the one to Mr. Lincoln’s left, next to the globe. A woman, who I later learned was called Athena—but who seemed as little like the Greek goddess as I could imagine a woman to be; perhaps Mr. Lincoln had given her a new name too—brought coffee in mugs for the three of us, and a plate of bread, which the other two fell to pulling apart, leaving barely a crust for me. Mr. Lincoln seemed not to notice, and I took my crust and dunked it into my coffee and hoped my stomach would not complain too vociferously.
“Your father is a gentleman,” Mr. Lincoln said, looking at me over his spectacles.
The other two stared at me. “I believe so, sir,” I said.
“But he is also in trade.”
The boy called Touch looked down at his mug, but Carrot continued to watch me, his eyes slightly narrowing at this last.
“I suppose he is,” I bumbled on, too inexperienced to understand the disapproval the phrase might carry.
“He has business interests,” Mr. Lincoln went on. “In Liverpool, I believe.”
I hesitated.
“Not in Liverpool?” he asked, his eyebrows rising.
“I think he has some business in Jamaica as well, sir,” I said, unsure what, exactly, was the case. I felt as vulnerable as one of Rowland’s mounted butterflies.
“Jamaica,” he said, “hmm.” Then: “Do you know where that is?”
“No, sir.”
“No, sir, what?”
Panic rose, but nothing came out of my mouth.
“One must speak civilly at all times,” Mr. Lincoln admonished, ignoring my discomfort. “A gentleman does not give the shortest possible answer to a question if he is able to phrase it in a more comprehensive manner. ‘No, sir, I do not know’ is an acceptable response to such a question, although it is the least acceptable of all possible ones.” He was still staring at me over his spectacles, and I could hear the other two sniggering into their hands.
“No, sir, I do not know where that is,” I said.
“And why not?”
“I hadn’t a map that showed it, sir.” Not that I would have thought to look for it if I’d had one.
“Not even a globe?” he demanded.
“No, sir, not even a globe.” At that, I felt a quick nudge of my foot under the table, and I glanced at the two boys, who were both gazing at me, but I did not know whose foot had touched mine, nor what it had meant.
Mr. Lincoln took a swallow of his coffee and rapped the table with his knuckle. The woman came and refilled his mug. “You’re a quick learner, I’ll say that for you,” he said to me. Turning to the others, he asked, “What do we know about Jamaica?”
There was a moment of silence, and then Carrot said, “I don’t know anything, sir. Except where it is.”
“I don’t know anything either, sir,” Touch said, the first words from his mouth that I had heard. His voice sounded rusty, as if from lack of use.
Mr. Lincoln turned to the globe and gave it a spin. “Here we are in England,” he said, pointing a broad finger. Then he looked closely at me. “Do you know where London is?”
“Yes, sir, I do.” I laid a finger on the globe.
“No!” he shouted. “One does not touch a globe with what undoubtedly are greasy fingers!” He pulled out a pocket-handkerchief and rubbed my filth from the face of England.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said.
He stared steadily at me, and I wished I could melt into my shoes, and then he said, “How far from London are we on the globe—if you can tell me without touching it?”
I looked at the globe, afraid to bring my finger close to it, and unable to understand what he was asking.
“How far?” he asked again, leaning forward. “A finger’s breadth, two fingers?”
It was a large globe, but still, England is a small country. “It’s a finger’s breadth, I think, sir,” I said.
To my great relief, Mr. Lincoln turned to Carrot. “And where is Jamaica? You said you knew that?”
“Yes, sir, I do know.” He pulled a handkerchief from his own pocket and, with it covering his hand, as he had evidently been taught to do, he turned the globe, located the place, and pointed, his finger close to but not actually touching the globe’s surface. “Here is Jamaica, sir, in the Caribbean Ocean.”