Hugo and the Maiden

you, sir.” Hugo imagined what the old fellow would say if he knew Hugo’s facility was the result of making whips, crops, and floggers for erotic punishment.
He was accustomed to using the finest, most supple leather, but the only materials available on the island were scraps of fishing rope. It wasn’t bad rope, but it didn’t offer much comfort or cushion to a person’s hand if you needed to carry a bucket a long distance. So, he’d decided to braid several pieces together to make thicker handles for the buckets that Cailean carried all over the island like a beast of burden. Other people had seen the handles and the requests were pouring in. One old man had even offered to trade him a pair of gloves for two handles.
“Could you make one of these just as thick, but longer?” the vicar asked, the question pulling Hugo from the hypnotic task of braiding.
“I can make them as long as you want, although I’d need longer pieces than the pitiful scraps I’m using for this one.”
“I can get you longer rope,” the vicar said, his pale cheeks flushed with excitement. “Would you mind taking a walk down to the church so I could show you what I need?”
It was all Hugo could do not to leap to his feet and cheer.
So off they headed.
Their pace was, by necessity, snaillike as the old man was as thin and fragile as a twig.
“You are an exceptionally well-spoken man, Mr. Higgenbotham. What did you do before you were, er, put onboard that ship?”
“I own properties in London, which I lease for income.” That wasn’t entirely a lie.
“Ah.”
A pregnant pause followed as they strolled down the hard-packed road that linked both ends of the island. Hugo suspected that knew what the old man would say even before he did.
“I do hope you will pardon my temerity,” the vicar said, his pale, papery cheeks coloring, this time with embarrassment rather than excitement. “But I can’t help thinking that you and Mr. Franks seem, er, out of place among the others. I only say this based upon my impressions after calling on all the rescued men to offer the opportunity to unburden their consciences.”
Hugo smirked at the man’s careful substitution of the word rescued for convicts.
The vicar had offered the same chance to the five men at the meeting house. Hugo had politely declined, not wishing to contemplate either his tarnished conscience or how many years of the vicar’s life it would take to listen while Hugo unburdened it.
“Out of place?” Hugo said when it appeared the older man was waiting for an answer.
“You both seem like good men to me. How did you come to be in the hold of that ship?”
He experienced an odd sensation at hearing this kind and intelligent man’s description of him. Nobody, to his knowledge, had ever called him good.
Even Melissa had often told Hugo that he was a soulless bastard only out for his own gain.
He was a soulless bastard out for his own gain and the vicar was wrong, of course—that went without saying—but Hugo decided he liked that this saintly man had a good impression of him.
I wonder if he’ll feel that way after you steal church money and abscond with it?
Hugo scowled. I’ll send him back a hundred bloody pounds to cover whatever I take.
He glanced down at the vicar, whom, he saw, was patiently waiting for his story.
“It is widely accepted that every man in Newgate has been wrongly accused,” Hugo said.
The vicar chuckled. “Oh, I daresay that is true.” He cut Hugo a surprisingly shrewd look. “I’d also say some of those men are innocent—or at least no guiltier than many others who are walking free. Being confined is not, in itself, proof of criminal behavior, Mr. Higgenbotham.”
“You are a philosopher, sir.”
“So my daughter tells me. But we were speaking of you,” he reminded Hugo gently.
Hugo sighed. He’d tell as much of his story as he could without shocking the old man into heart failure.
“I believe my business partner paid to have me abducted and wrongly accused of theft. I was given no opportunity to provide a defense before I was convicted. Afterward, I was put into a cell with other men who had similar experiences.
“I’ve done more than my share of questionable things in my time,” Hugo confessed, not wanting to look the other man in the eyes when he said that. “But I’m innocent of what I’ve been charged with. I would wager my left bal—er, a good deal of money,” he amended, “that the same is true of Albert Franks.” Hugo chuckled. “In fact, Mr. Franks has the look of a man whose mind has never been violated by an illegal or immoral notion in his entire life.”
The vicar nodded as he followed Hugo up the steps to the stone church. “I concur that Mr. Franks radiates innocence.”
Hugo pulled open the heavy door and entered a church for the first time in his life. He was more than a little surprised that the clouds didn’t part and a bolt of lightning didn’t strike him dead.
The vicar led him to a stone bench whose wooden top lifted to reveal rolls of canvas, a toolbox, and other bits and bats.
“What I’d like is one of your braided pulls for our church bell,” the vicar confessed as they studied the contents of the bench.
As they discussed the best way to replace the worn ties with something sturdier and yet still attractive—a task that Hugo would never actually complete—Hugo thought about the vicar’s earlier statement: that Hugo was a good man.
There’d been a time in his life—for most of it, really—when he would have felt proud to have deceived another person so thoroughly.
Now, all he felt was a profound sense of loss.
◆◆◆
Hugo waited until two hours after dark to make his escape.
The vicar had left him alone in the church to work on the new braided ropes, trusting him in a way that made Hugo want