The Toymakers(43)

Exhaustion was coming over her, her body crying out for rest. She lay down, was aware of Kaspar laying Martha down beside her, buttressing her with pillows so that she would not tumble from the bed. And oh, that first night with the baby in the world, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to hold her or lay her down, nor even if she was breathing as she should! Emil might have gone, but Kaspar, she knew, would always remain. ‘Sleep, Cathy. I’ll wake you if she stirs.’

Perhaps she would have resisted – but, for the first time, he had not called her ‘Miss Wray’. That, she decided, had to mean something, and as she lay her aching body down (was any other kind of pain as sweet as this?), the thought of Papa Jack’s fury evaporated and she did not fear for anything at all. Kaspar was there, with her baby’s fist closed around his finger, when she went to sleep, and he was there when she woke up, hours later, to her daughter crying and her chest wet and sticky with milk.

At dawn she fortified herself with toast and preserves, eggs Kaspar had lifted from Mrs Hornung’s larder, and allowed herself to be led through the paper trees. In her arms, the baby gazed up. To her, paper trees were real; were she, one day, to walk in woodland beyond the Emporium doors she might take those real trees for false. Perspectives, Cathy remembered. Kaspar had said that the magic had to do with perspectives – and perhaps, one day, even she might understand.

Her legs did not feel her own, but Kaspar was there to catch her as they crossed the shopfloor and made the ascent to the Godmans’ quarters above. Sirius followed, announcing their arrival with one of his cotton wadding yaps.

It was Mrs Hornung who answered. She gave Kaspar the same disconsolate shake of the head she had given him every time he was caught out as a child and, in return, Kaspar put his arms around her and held her tight. Then, Cathy followed him through. In the chamber, naked without the paper trees of Christmas, Emil was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, lining up soldiers as if to make war against himself. Perhaps he was making another war against himself too, for he barely looked at Cathy as she crossed the battlefield. Ahead of her, the heavy oaken door etched with Emporium insignia that led to Papa Jack’s study was hanging open, a portal of blackness with dancing firelight beyond.

Kaspar bowed to Cathy (why did he have to pretend to be so ostentatious, even after last night?) and, leaving her behind, marched through.

‘Papa,’ Cathy heard him begin, ‘you’ve every right to be …’

And after that, Cathy heard nothing: only the miniature explosions of Emil’s cannonade, the invective he muttered at his soldiers as they made battle, and the whimper of the baby asleep against her shoulder.

Soon, Kaspar reappeared. Resting a hand on each of her shoulders, he whispered four words – ‘He’s only my papa’ – and stepped back to reveal the way through. She saw the embers of an old hearthfire, alcoves steeped in books. On a perch, a patchwork owl with snow white plumage was constantly revolving its head.

With Martha nuzzling into her neck, she entered the room.

Papa Jack was sitting in a rocker, needle and thread in his brutish hands. There was little room to approach, so instead she stood on the tiny square of exposed carpet, and felt an unnatural chill as the door creaked shut of its own volition. Of all the rooms in the Emporium, this was the smallest. Its walls seemed to taper in like the walls of a cavern, or the inside of a great kiln. Books hung precariously from the uppermost shelves, every one of them the clothbound tomes in which Papa Jack had inscribed his best designs. The only light came from the hearth’s dying embers, the firefly jars pushed in between the books. And Papa Jack’s face was illuminated like that: snowfall lit up by fire.

After a moment, the old man lay down his needle and thread.

‘It’s Cathy, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Papa Jack took her in, as if he was seeing her for the very first time. Was it Cathy’s imagination, or was he looking through her, at some imaginary horizon?

‘Tell me, have you named her?’

Cathy’s blood beat black. ‘She’s named Martha,’ she replied, shocked at her own steel. ‘Sir, I understand you’ll be angry. I know people have come here, before, to steal from you. That’s not me.’

‘I don’t like liars,’ he whispered. ‘But I understand why you’d lie. Tell me – is there going to be trouble, Cathy? Trouble in my Emporium?’

In reply, she said, ‘She’s not yet a whole day old.’

‘With your family, Cathy.’

‘My family’s right here, sleeping in my arms.’

‘You’re a runaway. I see that now.’ His voice, like stones in snowfall. ‘Had I seen it before, Cathy, you could still have spent winter in our Emporium. You might still have had your baby down there, in my Wendy House. So let there be no misunderstanding. The Emporium is yours for as long as you want it. There are rules, rules of hospitality I learned long ago, and I don’t mean to work against them now. This child was born here, born in space I chipped out of the world with these two hands. That means a thing, to a man as old as me. But … when people run, people chase. So tell me, is that how it’s going to be?’

Cathy was still reeling, trying to listen to her own thoughts. The Emporium – hers for as long as she wanted? Her child, born into space Papa Jack chipped out of the world …