Pumpymuckles by Jayne Fresina

Author:Jayne Fresina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, paranormal, historical, nightmares, historical romance, edwardian, new adult
Publisher: Twisted E-Publishing

Chapter Nine

1887

He never forgot that first glimpse of the sea. As a lad of sixteen, escaping London at last, he thought he'd gone to heaven.

"You come and find me, when you're ready," Max Connolly had said, pushing a card into his bloodied hand after another victorious, bare-knuckle fight in Bell Lane. "With a little work, I can make you rich, boy."

Of course, Gabriel couldn't read everything that was written on the card— at least, he didn't have the confidence to think he could— so he'd taken it home to show his mother, in their crowded lodgings near Spitalfields market. She'd read out the words for him.

"Maximilian Connolly, Circus Management." And when she turned it over there were more words penned on the back. "Says he's leaving for Cromer on the Great Eastern Railway tomorrow."

Gabriel had no idea where Cromer was.

"By the sea," his mother had exclaimed with a dreamy look in her eye, "far away from this filthy town. Didn't I tell you, it was in the cards when I gave you a reading? Something will happen by the sea and it will change your life."

"Yes, but you said it would be a woman, not a man. And this isn't a year with a five at the end of it."

"Never you mind that. Perhaps I got that bit wrong. Sit down there and let me look at those knuckles."

Watching his mother with one swollen, half closed eye, he slumped on the little stool, his right leg twitching rapidly up and down as it always did when he considered something with skepticism or excitement. Although she was always keen and lavish with her predictions, Ruby Deverell Hart was never ashamed to twist things around later, file down a few inconvenient edges to make an incident better fit her earlier prophecy.

"Cromer," she told him, as she bandaged his hand, "is a seaside town with a pier. Travelling circuses and fairs stop there sometimes."

"But what does he want me to do there? In a circus?"

"He saw you fight, didn't he?"

He nodded

"Well, sometimes they have exhibition fighters. You must have impressed him."

"I don't want to be a performin' bloody poodle."

"Nonsense, there are more opportunities than that, but it's a start. Better than what you'll end up with hanging around here, working on the docks. With your handsome face you can do anything, go far. Wouldn't hurt to find out what he can do for you, would it?" But the light faded briefly from her expression when she went to the tea caddy and found her latest savings gone again. "Looks as if your father came by today while I was out."

So he had no money for a ticket on the train. Not that this would stop either of them. Ruby was certain Cromer would be an important place in his future and, after a childhood spent scrabbling for pennies however he could acquire them, Gabriel was willing to try anything new. For years he'd worked as a 'mudlark', wading in the Thames silt to catch packages pilfered from ships anchored there.

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