Misery Loves Company
[Immediately after I Love You, I Hate You.]
Fox decided to walk home from the hall instead of hailing a carriage. The night had cooled off, and she wanted to clear her head of the bizarre occurrence of earlier. Whatever had come over her, it was lingering, and every now and then she'd look over her shoulder as if expecting to be pursued. Perhaps if she went back to her room and slept it off, that would make the madness abate.
The apprentice kicked somewhat dejectedly at a small stone, watched it skitter across the cobblestones. Well, at least she'd stood up for herself, that was something. Still, the nerve of the woman, assuming something like that. What was her excuse for having such low-minded thoughts of someone she didn't even know?
"Bugger." Well, never mind it. At least it wasn't someone she ran into often.
He left the ball feeling strangely light. It wasn't just that his companion had left with some man, perhaps even the one she'd set out to trap in the first place, it was the lightness that settled in every part of him when he couldn't think of anything to replace it. He could only walk along with the strange knowledge that a man was going to die and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
Not for want of trying, though. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight he saw that he really hadn't tried at all, in fact, he'd neatly sabotaged himself, hadn't he? He could have at least afforded to have some subtlety about him. There was, however, the ever-present fact that Izzy had all the tact of a thrown brick in a window shop. It was why he was so often quiet with the customers at The Aviary. If he kept his mouth shut except for pleasantries, he had a chance of being charming. Or indeed, of convincing someone to stay away from vampires.
But he couldn't do anything now, he knew that. This was the kind of thing he should have been able to do, and he'd failed. It made him feel as though he might just float away, disappear.
He almost didn't see the person he passed on the way back, but something ticked in his mind and he looked back. Well, at least something good had come out of tonight. "Hullo Mr. Cullen!" he said in an emptily cheerful tone.
Fox was busy kicking another pebble when she heard the voice, and like a child she almost snubbed the speaker. She'd had enough of people for one evening, thank you, and one more was only likely to make things worse. There was a reason she rarely sought company.
"Oh. Good evenin', Mr. Samuel." Because she'd made herself raise her head and look at whoever had been calling her. She did have manners, no matter what that wench thought. Funny thing about people, they either didn't see you at all, or they saw you in the worst possible light. The stone that had landed in the page of her shoes went skipping across the street, landed in the opposite gutter.
"Hope you're having a better day of it than I am."
Izzy thought of passing by, not having one more person on his case tonight. Perhaps Cullen would find some reason to try and pick a fight with him, and unfortunately, he'd have probably been the only one even remotely up to the challenge. Considering his competition included a cripple, this wasn't too much of a feat.
"Were you at the Royal Oak too? I don't think too many people were." Somehow, it seemed like a stupid assumption that a stonemason would have been at a ball with quite a lot of high-class people that he'd noticed, but since he'd been there too (and one could hardly call him a gentleman), it wouldn't have been an unreasonable assumption. There was the way he was dressed, too.
Shaking his head, he looked up at the stars and his face fell into a melancholy expression, though he didn't mean it to. It was a clear night and through the smoke and light pollution, a few stars were visible. "I seem to have a way of getting myself into this sort of thing."
Darting a look over her shoulder in the direction of the hall, Fox could feel her face reddening again. Dear Lord, let him not have witnessed her humiliation! Dropping her gaze back to the street, she shrugged and replied, "I was there for a bit, yeah. But not much was of interest, so I didn't stay long. Guess I'm not much for dancin'."
She scratched her ear, took a step towards him. He looked as if someone had been kicking him, and despite the positively foul evening she'd been having, his company she didn't find completely objectionable. If she was going to grouse, she could grouse to someone who would probably understand.
"What did you get yerself into, if I can ask?"
"Me either. Didn't even get to dance with the girl I escorted there," he gave a short, bark of a laugh, "But it's all the same. I'm not much for dancing either, and I doubt if I'll be doing it again anytime soon, especially there. I don't know if they'll let me in again, even."
Putting his hands in his pockets, he started, "Have you ever gotten the feeling you've offended someone but you don't know how? There was this man I was talking to for a little while, this Indian bloke, and he was perfectly amiable one second and then the next he just went completely off his gourd. Thought I was a thief and kept insulting me for what reason I can't fathom - I must have terribly offended him in some way, but he didn't let on as to what I'd done. It was probably a cultural thing. Eight months in London and I still don't understand them."
He laughed then. It did seem like a great joke now. "And this other chap, it was really all my fault because I was downright horrible to 'im, so of course he didn't listen to me," his tone grew softer, more serious, "And now he's going to get himself killed and I couldn't stop him for love or money. Complete bastard he might have been, but," here he looked up and smiled, "Sorry."
Raising his eyebrows, he asked, "And what about you? You don't look so good yourself."
She shrugged, rubbed the back of her neck. "It isn't important." Five seconds later she made a liar out of herself by adding, "Some woman back there. All I did was ask her to bleedin' sit with me. You'd have thought I was offering to sell her to a slaver!"
The apprentice folded her arms, grasped the sleeves of her new coat. "You should watch out for fancy society ladies, Mr. Samuel, they'll chop ye off at the knees as sure as you're livin'. What I get for 'forgetting my place', I suppose."
Fox raked dark hair away from her brow, blew out a breath. "C'mon, we can walk if ye want. Haven't seen you in a while."
"Heavens!" said Izzy, trying to sound scandalized, "Well, depending on who it is it'll be the talk of the town tomorrow. Or at least the talk of the cafe. Just a matter of whether the rest of the fashionable crowd thinks it's her fault or your fault. But I never took you to be such a villain, Mr. Cullen, asking ladies to sit with you. Soon you'll be sneaking in their boudoirs in the middle of the night and...causing...other kinds of ruckus?" He couldn't have kept it up for very longer, seeing as how he couldn't have kept a straight face if he tried.
It was easier to laugh, after all.
After he'd calmed down a little, he said, "They're not really that bad, I've noticed. They'd be nice if they had anything to do, but they've got all this etiquette and such keeping them on a pedestal, and I might not have been around them much but I think they're all just bored and need someone to take it out on. You were in the right place at the right time."
Suddenly, he realized something and snapped his fingers as soon as he did. In the darkness, it would have been difficult to see him turn red up to his ears. "I'm sorry I...didn't tell you this before," he said nervously, "But my name's not Samuel. It's Alderdice. Izzy Alderdice."
"So, what're you doing now? Still with the stonemasoning and such?"
It took her a moment to absorb the change of subject, then the reason for it, and a frown briefly lined her forehead. Alderdice. He'd mentioned something about debts, hadn't he? Had the debts necessitated the use of an alias? She supposed it depended on who he'd owed money to. She took on a solemn expression as she studied him across the distance between them. Maybe it suited him better.
"Aye, the job hasn't changed," she said with a nod. "Spoke to a gent what makes clocks, he was lookin' for a young bloke to do some work for him. I might be giving it some thought, but I haven't truly made up my mind as yet. Good jobs are hard to come by, I'd hate to lose what I've already worked so hard to get."
Izzy's confession had her mind wandering off in a dangerous direction. Because her own secret remained unacknowledged, didn't it? But here in the street was not the place for it. And this perhaps not the time. "Your money situation has changed, I take it?"
For a moment, he was sure he'd managed to get on yet another person's bad side. Apparently he was going for a record, and it wasn't even midnight yet. He looked back at Cullen, unable to hide exactly how uncomfortable this made him. At least Zahavi had been a complete stranger and he'd never liked Simon anyway, but he rather liked Cullen or at least thought he did. "Sorry," he muttered, unsure of what would make this better.
Thankfully, Cullen was apparently as willing to change the subject as he was, and his expression brightened as he listened. "You could moonlight with the clocks and then keep at what you're doing. See what kind of hours he'll let you work," he suggested, "How much did he offer you, if you don't mind my asking? That's what it all comes down to in the end, I mean," he ran a hand through his hair, mussing up whatever shape he'd attempted to get it into for tonight, "That's how I see it." Admittedly, he had a much easier time seeing Cullen as a clockmaker than as a stonemason.
When he asked about his money situation, Izzy replied brightly, "Aye. I've been working for one of them society ladies you were railing about. She owns a perfume shop, I take care of the birds she keeps in the shop. Can't say it's the manliest thing I could be doing, but work is work and I honestly don't know as I could have asked for better."
"We never discussed money, though he said up front he was planning to be generous. Also said he was tryin' to avoid hiring children, as it strikes him as wrong. Guess he's a modern sort. Might come from workin' with machines as he does."
She pondered his apology for a moment, then shook her head. "We sometimes do the things we have to, whether we like it or not. I've learned that in the time I've been away from home, and I don't think the lessons are over yet. I'm not offended, if that's what you're thinking." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, then faced forward again.
"Must have lots of those society types coming and going, a place like that. All lookin' for husbands, no doubt, at least the young ones. You should watch yourself."
"Maybe you should take him up on it, see how generous 'generous' is," he smiled wryly, "Just between you and me, some of 'em think they're being charitable, but they think just because you're one of the poor suffering masses," he made a dramatic gesture, "That you'll take some'at what ain't half as much as you'd get paid for being a factory slave. They're so high-minded and ignorant that they think it's charity." He gave a half-smile. "Course, I don't know him, you do. He could be a decent sort."
Nodding slowly, Izzy replied, "Ain't that the truth," while inwardly being relieved that his confession wasn't going to turn out as badly as he'd thought it might, if only for a moment.
At the mention of any of the women who patronized The Aviary wanting to marry him, Izzy burst out laughing. "My mum'd love that, me marryin' into high society. She'd faint, I think. She already loves the idea of me workin' around them," he shook his head, "But I don't think I could afford it, from what I've seen. I'd be flat broke by the end of the day. And I'm not dashing enough to run away with, and besides," he smirked, "It's always the older ladies what tease me."
"I'm sure they all find you plenty charming, Mr. Alderdice," Fox said with a snicker of her own. "You take yourself too lightly, I think. Confidence, remember?"
She looked off down the street, feeling glad for the quiet of the night. Likely there would still be someone awake at the boardinghouse, but she was just as glad to have no one else around other than Izzy. "Seems like both of us could be comin' up in the world," she said, making a waving gesture around them as if to encompass the entire street. "Think the world's ready for us?"
He raised his eyebrows in a somewhat over-the-top incredulous gesture. "Then God grant me all the confidence in the world," he said, looking up. Honestly, he wasn't sure what he would have done if he had it.
It was quiet tonight, it seemed that all the fights in the world couldn't have changed that. There could have been a massacre somewhere, and if you were on the other side of the city, you wouldn't have heard it. At Cullen's question, he thought for a moment, and about all that had happened that night. He shook his head. "No, I think we've got to give it a little more time," he replied finally, "It's doing its toilette."
"Well, then they should get about cleaning themselves up in a hurry, because I'm getting impatient with waiting on them."
No, she couldn't tell him now. Whatever had happened with Elspeth, it had happened so quickly that she'd had no time to study it, and without any idea of where such feelings might have sprung from she wanted time to collect herself. Besides, having told him about making a courting gesture in the direction of another woman, she couldn't imagine what he'd think of her if she said she was female. So she couldn't tell him now, at least not yet. She would have to think on that too.
"If your fortunes are improvin', perhaps you could find some time to come play cards. If you'd not mind bein' around some slightly rough sorts."
"Are you implyin' something?" asked Izzy, raising an eyebrow and giving Cullen a hurt look. Admittedly, he looked quite a bit more genteel than the last time he'd met him, and it didn't help that he'd already told him he was working at a bloody perfume shop.
He put his hands into his pockets. "I've still got to send whatever I make home, but I think I've got a bit to spare. Went out tonight, I mean," he replied in a calmer tone, "Course, that was at the behest of one of the shopgirls. I think I'll stay away from dances, now," he smiled, "But I don't think I'd mind cards. Do you go to a club or what have you?"
"More often we end up at Liam's," Fox answered. "He still lives with his mum, but since his father passed away she needs him around to bring money in. I don't think he'd mind a new man sittin' in with us now and again."
She could feel that it was getting later, and she stifled a yawn as if the long day had just caught up to her. "Be glad to see my own bed tonight," she said. "Nothin' against you, but I've about had my fill of the rest of the world for one day."
"Oh," said Izzy. He assumed that Liam was one of Cullen's friends, "If I do come, I can't say I can help him much. Might not be paying rent anymore, but as it stands I'm still dead broke most of the time. I got a mum to bring money in for, too." He smirked, though he hardly considered it funny.
"No, I can understand the feeling," he said, "It's been a queer night, hasn't it?" He gave Cullen a sidelong glance. "Do you..." No, that would be a stupid question, the man was a stonemason, for Christ's sake. He'd be fine. "But I'm looking forward to getting home, too. And I'm so damned stupid I didn't bring fare for a cab. Rosie was going to lend me some if that man she was chasing after said yes, but I didn't see her when I left, so I figure she's just gone home herself."
"Queer's a good word for it," the apprentice said with a nod. Did she what? It had obviously been a question, but when Izzy didn't finish it she brushed it off. "Beyond queer, really, but I'm not sure of what the word for that might be."
She took a step backwards, hitching a thumb over her shoulder. "I should be gettin' on, speaking of sleep. You'll be all right on the walk back?" It proably should have embarrassed her to ask such a thing, but considering that she'd met him because he'd been knocked on the head by some miscreant, it seemed like a pertinent enough question. "Shouldn't like to think there'd be no one to call the constable if you needed it."
Smiling confidently, Izzy replied, "I should be fine," he replied, "They'd have to deal with me first, you know." Then he realized that this probably didn't inspire confidence, considering how Cullen had found him the first time they'd met, and he didn't seem the type to forget.
Fox touched Izzy's shoulder, gave it a fast squeeze. "Mind yerself, then. I suppose I'll be seeing you about later on. Congratulations on your new job, Mr. Sam--Alderdice." An eyeroll as she corrected herself, an amused one. She was walking away before he could respond, hands tucking into her pockets as sheheqaded in the direction of home and bed. Time to think, just a little of it. She'd tell him when she was sure of how to go about it.