On the Road to Peace

With the full vigour of a thoroughbred, Lysander galloped along the sidewalk, never daring a glance behind him as his soles smacked their way through grainy puddles of refuse. His breath, heavy and dry, burned his lungs as they stoked the furnace of his adrenaline.

Ignoring the glances and inaudible whispers from a horde of bewildered witnesses, he stuffed the brass-barrelled pepperbox in his coat pocket as he took a headlong turn down a narrow alley of destitutes. He hurdled over misshapen sacks of drunks, penniless tramps, and familiar wanted posters that claimed the brick walled lane on the left side of the textile mill. And aside from sideways glances, not else followed but for the hollers that echoed towards him from the road behind.

He had done it. Or at least he had no reason to believe otherwise. He had seen him fall, almost as if he were ducking and avoiding rather than dying, but nevertheless, his quarry fell to its face upon the slimy concrete. How brilliant! How superb! Open murder was not so easy a thing to accomplish, but Lysander prepared himself to be the first; for surely all those weeks spent at the range had been worth his time. Runnels of sweat drizzled into his open mouth as his pace continued unabated, but their salty bitterness would not deter his yellowed smile.

“Stop! Stop now,” a worker shouted, and so his legs carried on. “Someone stop that man!”

He was halfway through the passage when his eyes glowed alight as freedom glowed upon him from a sunlit opening straight ahead. Waving him down from a black hansom cab was his man, his good friend, Brantley, who had been conspiring with him on this endeavour since its inception. The tosher had went and got his own personal hansom for the purpose of escape after the deed was done, and, as far as Lysander was concerned, this was but the final piece of an ambitious puzzle that would see him gone not only from the squalor, brick maze of East End’s Whitechapel, but from London’s ghastly cesspool in its entirety. 

“Hurry on, then!” Brantley yelled. He took the seat, sliding himself as far left as his pudgy circumference would allow. “Come along! Come along before the rascals get a hold of you.”

In three great bounds, Lysander’s scrawny form lurched forth with all the might of a speedy hare, and he landed his rump upon the velvety leather with ease. His legs had accomplished their task, and it was time for their equine conspirator to continue the remaining stretch of their journey. In spite of the thronged mess of omnibuses, carriages, coaches, and pedestrians, the driver weaved their way through the commotion with a precision only attributed to the finest seamstresses. 

The thick, sickening stench of smoke and raw sewage engulfed every hard breath Lysander took, but the miasma had lost its effect on him so long ago that there was no inkling in his mind of how fresh air was supposed to smell. Soon enough, all misfortune would draw to an end; an end which would see him fulfilled with the promise of a worldly living beyond the impoverished, mortal coil that was his supposed station.

Brantley handed the man a handkerchief from his coat pocket, but aside from sweat, it helped little to clear away the dirt and soot that plastered his skin in a thin layer of filth. “So, I guess it all went well, then?” he said as Lysander handed the cloth back to him. He regarded the dirtied cotton with a tight lip, not so much folding it than he was fiddling it, as his friend answered. 

“You best believe it,” said Lysander between breaths. “Put one right in his breadbasket, I did. Should be sleeping easy for the rest of my days.”

Brantley nodded, his face lifting as he looked solemnly ahead upon the bustling road. Lysander expected him to be excited about the otherwise dire, and not-at-all ludicrous, situation that he perpetuated, because what good reason was there for feeling otherwise? 

His victim was a Mr. Welcome, a portly overseer at the mill, who aside from his stringent adherence to company policies and exacting expectations, was known for not else but the ferret atop his lip that was his so-called moustache. He had shot the man while he was on his way into the mill because he had been the worst of the abusers he and his brother suffered from under the work and care supplied by the mill factory, a cramped place of limited freedom where pain was as readily available as a good whipping. He could remember nothing of the prison but of how it stunk of black smog that strangled his throat, how he would be slapped or kicked into line for the slightest provocation, and how his brother, always tired and always hungry as most pauper children, had fainted and fallen onto the machinery while fixing a clog, resulting in a most grisly death that he saw firsthand.

He remembered how his mother, a woman whose beauty and cheerful disposition was the light of life, had been assailed so harshly by his brother’s passing that it rendered her full of neglect for herself and the world about her. The remainder of her nights and days were spent nursing away bottles of gin as though they were water and sacrificing her body for sixpence almost every night. She had become a lost soul who lacked proper function to care for anyone at all, let alone herself till the day of her passing. 

And Lysander, who suffered no more than the loss of skin from his hand and a broken finger, was so very lucky (or cursed, as he often thought) to reach eighteen, albeit he looked the better part of thirty. He carried the scraggly composition of a beard that much resembled a tangled mess of brown bushes that were never trimmed. And atop his head was a crude, russet jungle of greasy tendrils that laid hidden beneath a gifted top hat. The rest of him was insignificant, save that his thinness was a sight so common amongst the working-class, especially the youth that polluted the streets as wandering mites. Alas, such was the case for vagrant children abandoned of any love or care as ought to be imposed upon the innocent.

For Lysander, vengeance was a ravishing, scarlet rose within a thick bush of teeming thorns. It entranced all who laid their eyes upon it, and if one desired its seductive bliss, then they must be willing to damage themselves beyond repair to claim it for their own. So he did. Where poor parishioners dedicated their lives to the church and to God, he forsook his faith in favour of enslaving himself to revenge. It was a divine bounty, and he was glad to relish in it.

He would have killed the man who owned the mine where his father died as well as part of his criminal and justified (or so he believed) plot. But the likelihood of achieving such a feat were too far-flung from reality to consider, even with the resourceful mind of his longtime companion.

Speaking of Brantley, he was positive his friend had not forgotten their younger days, the likes of which were spent much in the company of grubby companions. Their youth was riddled amongst the desolate nooks and crannies of small courtyards and smaller tenements steeped with trash and layered in a thick film of grime as though their home was the city’s collective dump heap. The arrangement of these workhouses besieged the needs of survival insofar as clean food and drink were concerned. And such necessities were about as foreign to them as warm clothes, sunny days, and good shoes. How troubling it had been to know their water well stood several feet away from a creek of mucus, bile, and cholera that was the open sewage passing by their homes without any sort of barrier at all.

It was from those same sewers that Brantley, having found work as a tosher, had pilfered forgotten and abandoned wealth from deep in the mire of the city, providing himself with enough shillings and sovereigns to the point of appearing a proper gentleman; a visage most assuredly complemented by a nice house on the outskirts of Westminster. And west was very much where they were headed as the cab continued its venture amongst the indefinite paupers of Whitechapel Road.

***

Brantley should have been happy for him. He should have been hugging him and lavishing him with every manner of praise for the conduct in which they carried out their swift plan. But no. Ever since he whisked him away from the crime, there was no utterance of such appreciation. In fact, he seemed particularly disturbed—or rather, disheartened by the procession of events as gloom possessed the entirety of his expressions. Lysander was befuddled by it but not wholly concerned. After all, he had just killed a man, a sin he would surely suffer for in the next life. Perhaps, it was too heartless of him to expect that the delivery of such news would be a cause of joy for anyone, regardless of intent; and upon realising this, he sank into his seat as his lips slowly drew themselves back into a flat line, adopting a neutral look that opposed the uncertainty which followed Brantley’s eyes like a loyal hound.

“Have you nothing else to say?” Lysander said, the rasp of his voice coming clearer as he spoke over their rickety vessel. His friend, who still fiddled with the handkerchief, folded it and stuffed it away before summoning a perfunctory grin to his rounded face. 

“You still have the pistol?”

Lysander opened the right side of the frock coat bestowed upon him, and from its interior pocket, retrieved the corresponding pistol that committed the deed. “That I do. Don’t suppose you’d like it back, would you?”

“Yes,” he answered curtly. “Yes, I think I would like it back.”

“It’s a fair weapon, no doubt. But I won’t keep you from it any longer.”

Lysander handed the gun over to its original owner, and Damien scrutinised the black rim of residue upon one of its four barrels as he bit his tongue. “Are you certain you actually killed that man?”

“What’s with all the questions, Bran? We should be all smiles and laughs after escaping that trouble. Is something the matter?”

“I surely hope not,” he said, retreating the pistol to his own interior pocket as he sighed. “If this ‘Mr. Welcome’ of yours is breathing long after, I can only hope he didn’t glimpse your face before you ran. God knows the trouble we’d be in, otherwise.”

“Don’t worry yourself over the particulars, mate. He got what he deserved. But if you want to doubt something, then doubt that the greater lot of those kids won’t miss him. I’ve done right by my brother. And I bet you a dozen quids I’ve done right by them too.”

“As you say. Still, I suppose this completes the escalation of all our crimes. First, it was pickpocketing, then burglary, and now murder. If I doubt anything at all, it's whether or not we'll see the Lord’s mercy. I know we’ve too many sins troubling our souls to expect otherwise. And it doesn’t quite sit right with me either.”

Lysander straightened his back as he crossed his arms, and regarded his friend with a questionable gaze, up and down. He had not known Brantley as one for divulging regrets, not even in a religious or spiritual context, but he was not opposed to the idea that his good friend simply desired to right his life after spending so much of it in turmoil. He looked forward to doing the same.

“Perhaps. But this is the beginning of something good for me. It’s high time I’ve moved on to lawful work, though I’m not entirely sure where I should start.”

“Maybe you’d feel inclined to be my valet?” Brantley said halfheartedly. The suggestion urged a chuckle from both men for the first time since the start of the ride. They had travelled through a dozen or so parishes, and were now on approach to the ever buzzing crowds of Oxford Street.

“I served a fat man for over twelve years, Bran,” he said. “Don’t think I’d care much to serve another.”

“And if you did, you’d have more meat on that skinny twig you call a body,” Brantley jested, to which Lysander could only titter as he watched the city pass them by, wondering if he’d truly be able to live the rest of his life as a changed man.

***

Lysander observed the brick facades of the terraced houses as Hyde Park approached on their left, wondering what sort of differing occupations could have afforded such luxuries and why so many like him were forced to live without.

“I think I should take up an apprenticeship with whoever would have me,” he said, having thought on it for a time. “Would that not be a better future for a man like me?”

“I would miss you terribly if you left,” said Brantley, sounding rather apathetic.

“And I would miss you, but I think it necessary once I’ve settled down. I want this place far behind me.”

“I understand,” Brantley breathed before ordering the driver of their hansom to divert their route onto The Ring, a fenced off path that encircled the entirety of Hyde Park north of the Serpentine. It was there where many high-class citizens came riding about on their horses and carriages, smiling and greeting passerby as though they were well-acquainted.

“Just a pleasant diversion,” said Brantley upon acknowledging Lysander’s confusion. Their cab proceeded at a trot wherever possible as they travelled amongst the sea of man and horse which was now all that Lysander smelt, and which was assuredly better than what he fared back in Whitechapel. The distraction was unexpected but not unpleasant, and he was glad to accept it till his friend continued to speak.

“I don’t believe I ever told you my father’s last words, have I?”

The young man had let his eyes drift closed, and they jumped in response to his voice.

“No, I don’t believe so.”

“‘You can’t run forever.’ He said as much after he discovered that you and I had stolen again so that he might have enough money for more medicine. I believe he meant I’d have to pay for my crimes some day, and I don’t believe he was wrong. Running is a very tiring and needless expense, Andy, always taking more than it gives. And I wish to do so no more.”

“What do you mean? Why are you telling me this now of all days?”

Brantley instructed the driver to stop their cab before a southern intersection between the Ring and a narrow side road just east of the Receiving House for the Royal Humane Society. It was on that road that a patrol of constables were making sure everything was in good order amongst the visitors of the park as they conducted their rounds. They were only about fifty feet away to their right, and before Lysander could utter a question, his heart leapt to his throat as he was shoved onto the grass.

From behind him, Brantley stood and reached into another of his coat pockets and brandished a wanted poster, a cream coloured leaf that displayed in goodly, bold lettering, METROPOLITAN POLICE:￡1,500 REWARD. Although he couldn’t make out the text beneath the announcement, there was no mistaking that the gentleman represented by the black and white composition beneath was indeed him.

“Come on over, good sirs! I have your thief,” Brantley proclaimed, alerting the crowd, and especially the police, to their presence. While the sudden gathering of curious, well-to-do onlookers would have been cause for humiliation, there was no emotion to be had save for the burning fire that raged in Lysander’s mind; a fire stoked by the unfortunate knowledge that the one person he had in his life betrayed him for a profit.

“What are you on about? Who is this fellow on the grass?” one of the constables inquired as they drew within twenty feet of the duo.

Without so much as giving the traitor time to answer, Lysander hopped to his feet and wrestled with the man, their bodies pressed against the side of the cab as he fought for the pistol beneath his coat. In the span of only five seconds, the young man managed to secure his palm about its wooden grip, much to the threat of Brantley, who panicked and yelled as he yanked at his wrist, thrashing about with the immeasurable grace of a wild boar as he tried to wrest the pistol from his grasp. 

The constables, with their shrill rattlers and imposing truncheons, jogged over to the struggle with the intent to separate and possibly arrest the both of them. But Lysander was not so willing. 

For twenty years, he ran from death. It had greeted him at every possible turn from the moment his mother birthed him into squalor. Whether it be disease, involuntary famine, or his fellow man, there was always another disadvantage; a taller hurdle for him to leap over; till life deemed him too weak to do anything more than lay down and accept fate as it was. 

Whatever happened next, Lysander wanted nothing more than for Bartley to suffer horrendously till he saw the end of his days. So, it was amongst the disturbed peace of a rich crowd and a richer park, that a sudden crack struck the air with a sharp staccato that echoed for only a breath; the last to be given for a freedom not easily gained. And for that, he was a happy man indeed.