A Spectacle of Corruption (16 page)

“Perhaps,” he said quietly. I could not tell if his hesitation stemmed from a weakness of the plan or from petulance that it was not he who had devised it.

“I want to meet Melbury,” I said again. “He will be my friend, and Dogmill my foe. Can you think how I might do so?”

“I don’t believe that you can set aside your feelings for his wife. Meeting with him, trying to earn his friendship, would be a mistake.”

“It is my mistake to make,” I said.

Elias sighed deeply and rolled his eyes for effect. “Well, I just now read that there is a breakfast for supporters of Mr. Melbury at the Ulysses Tavern near Covent Garden the day after tomorrow at eight in the morning. Frightfully early, I know, but you could attend if you were intent on doing so.”

“No, that’s no good. I would hardly know what to say, and I would reveal myself as an impostor in moments.”

“Do you think everyone who attends these things is full of canny observations? Most are merely windbags who want to feel important. If you are at a loss for what to speak of, you may complain about Whig corruption or the Whig oligarchy. You may talk of the Church in danger or of villainous Whig latitudinarians who are little better than atheists. Rail against the South Sea scheme and the screening of the Company directors. If you wish to be a Tory, you must be a curmudgeon, just as if you wish to be a Whig, you must be an opportunist. All the rest is mere posturing.”

I considered my strong but ultimately limited resources. “How much will I have to pay to attend?”

He laughed. “
You
pay? You know nothing of politics, I see. It is Mr. Melbury who pays. You pay, indeed! Politics is corrupt enough without asking the voters to pay for the campaigning. But I suppose that is one of the reasons why elections have become so expensive of late. I’m told that a hundred years ago a man could win Westminster with five pounds out of pocket. Today he will count himself lucky if his bill does not exceed a thousand.”

“Why does it cost so much?”

“Because there is a great deal of money to be made, and because the other fellow will spend if you don’t. The man who wishes to sit in Parliament must offer food and drink and entertainment and pretty girls. And the Septennial Act has only made things more dear. When a man ran every three years, he could ill afford to expend a fortune on an election, but now that terms run seven years, he can ill afford
not
to. The prize is of too much value.”

“And given the dear cost of elections, can any man go to this Tory breakfast and announce that he likes Mr. Melbury and would enjoy some beer and sausage?”

“Some events do work that way. Particularly in the provinces, a candidate might well rent out an inn for the day and give food and drink to anyone who comes by. But this breakfast is for supporters only. We need only write to his election agent and let him know that you wish to follow the banner of Melbury. But in doing so you will declare yourself a Tory and thus destroy any ability to befriend Dogmill—and, very possibly, any chance to interact with him at all on friendly terms. You had better think about this carefully, Weaver. If you truly believe you may advance your ends best by befriending Melbury, that is one thing—but do you wish to risk the gallows so that you might eat some buttered bread with Miriam’s husband?”

“I have told you my reasons. Can you deny them?”

“Of course I can deny them. Look at you, Weaver. You’ve been courting this woman for years and drinking yourself numb in her name for months. And never once has she given you a word of encouragement.”

“She has,” I told him, feeling myself angering.

“Words then, but no more. She is not available to you now. She is another man’s wife. Though the truth is, she was never available to you. She was never going to leave her life of comfort and ease to marry a thieftaker, and you know it. You’ve always known it. That’s why her being married is no impediment to your love for her. It should only make you feel it more deeply.”

Elias was the greatest friend I had, so I chose not to strike him. I even bit back the bitter words that came to mind—that he, with his whores and serving girls, was no one to lecture on love—but I knew, angry though I was, that he said what he did because he wished to help. And he knew the risk. I saw his hands trembling.

“My interest in Melbury has nothing to do with his wife,” I said again. “I want only to use him for my purposes.”

He shook his head. “No doubt, but you gamble a great deal with poor odds. You must become friends with Melbury
and
he must win the election
and
he must then agree to use his newly got powers to rescue you. He may consider it a great deal to ask from a man who once courted his wife.”

“In truth, befriending Melbury is only part of my plan.”

“Am I to hear the rest?” he asked, like a jealous wife.

I took a deep breath. “We know that Dogmill is of a violent disposition. My plan then is not only to befriend Melbury but also to make Dogmill my enemy. If he hates me, despises me, he will attempt to act on his feelings, and in doing so I may be able to discover something of his operations. Between these two approaches, I can only hope one will lead me to victory.”

“You are mad.” Elias’s eyes went big. “Just a moment ago you were speaking of the danger of incurring his displeasure. Why do you now say you wish to do all in your power to secure it?”

“Because,” I said, “if he comes after me, he will be off balance, and that is when I will have the greatest opportunity to discover his secrets. If he plans and plots against me, I will learn how he plans and plots.”

Elias studied me for a moment. “You may be correct, but you may also be on the path to destruction.”

“We shall see who has more to put forth in the ring, me or Dogmill. Now, the first step will be for me to befriend Melbury.”

“I hate your scheme, but I must admit there is some logic in it. Very well, we’ll try it your way. I suppose I will have to do some extra work, for I have already made it known that Mr. Evans is a Whig—seen to it that a few lines are planted in the papers and all that. But the damage can be undone, and it should hardly be the first time the papers have made such a mistake.”

“Have you made anything else known about Mr. Evans?”

“Oh, a thing or two. For you to prosper in this disguise, people must have some idea of who you are, so I have gone to work in that regard. I should be a poor surgeon in this metropolis if I were incapable of spreading gossip. The hero of my little romance, Alexander Claren, is also quite gifted at the game of gossip. A whisper here and there, you know. I have just this evening penned a rather amusing scene in which he is attending the wife of a barrister who turns out to be the sister of the very woman he once—”

“Elias,” I said, “when I am no longer in danger of execution, I should be very happy to learn of Mr. Claren’s whimsical doings. Until then, let me hear no more.”

“I hope, if I am ever convicted of murder and then on the run for my life, I won’t be so dour about it. Very well then, Weaver. I’ve let it be known that you are recently arrived and have been in the process of establishing your household, but you are now prepared to enter the world. You are an unmarried man of singular success in the West Indies, and you are worth a thousand a year. Perhaps more.”

“You do good work. My landlady has already announced my worth to me.”

“Gossip is but one of my talents, sir, in addition to penning clever tales. But I shan’t tell you about them.”

“Unmarried and a thousand a year. I shall find myself using my pugilist’s skills to keep the young ladies away.”

“It should prove quite diverting, but you would do well to recall that your goal is to return to being Benjamin Weaver, and you should not like to sour your reputation before you do so. Now, if you are going to fulfill this role, you must know something of your background. Here is a bit of authorial musing I believe you won’t object to learning of.”

He handed me an envelope, which I opened to find three pieces of paper scribbled over in Elias’s neat, impossibly compact hand. At the very top he had written
The History of Matthew Evans, Esq.

“I suggest you study what I have written. You may make what changes you like, of course, but it would be in your best interests to learn the details of your alleged life. If you are intent on making Dogmill your enemy, you may alter all the Whig bits to Tory, but otherwise it should hold. It is far less amusing than the adventures of Mr. Alexander Claren, but it will serve. Learn it well.”

“I shall.” I examined the first page, which began, “After five years of barren matrimony, Mrs. Evans prayed to the Lord to grant her a son, and her prayers were rewarded one chill December evening with the birth of twin boys, Matthew and James, though James died of a fever before his first birthday.” I could see these pages contained perhaps more information than I required, but flipping ahead I found rich detail of Evans’s involvement in the tobacco trade. For all its literary indulgences, this document would prove invaluable.

“I thank you for this.”

“No need, no need.” He cleared his throat. “You might also wish to be advised that I have made certain that word of your presence on our isle will reach men of a journalistic stamp, so you ought not to be surprised if you read of yourself in the papers. All of this should make for a delightful debut at Hampstead.”

“Hampstead?”

“The Hampstead assembly will be held in four days.” He reached into his jacket and produced a ticket, which he then slapped on the table. “If you wish to reveal yourself to the bon ton, then this will be the place to do so. There is no more agreeable or vivacious event in London society this week.”

“The event of the week. How can I refuse?”

“You may laugh if you like, but this is what you must do if Mr. Evans is to meet the sort of people he needs to meet in order to proceed.”

“Surely some attendee will have set eyes on Benjamin Weaver at some time or other.”

“It is possible. I can only say that had I not known it was you, I should not have recognized you—at least not right away. I suppose I might have thought you looked familiar, but that is all. Remember, this is misdirection. No one is looking for you, so they will not see you. They will see what they expect to see.”

“Will you be there?”

“Under normal circumstances I would not have thought of missing it, but I might serve as the agent to make someone recognize you, and we cannot have that. I have, in fact, volunteered my own ticket.”

“You are very generous.”

“I am,” he said. “Though I should point out that I require of you the two shillings that the ticket cost me.”

CHAPTER 11

I
HAD FAILED
to mention to Elias my plans for the following morning because I knew he would have told me I was taking too great a risk. Perhaps I did not want to argue with him, and perhaps I did not want to risk his argument’s prevailing over mine. I therefore went back to my rooms, studied the biography he had written for the persona of Matthew Evans, made some adjustments, and contemplated my strategy.

I arrived at Mr. Dogmill’s fine house at Cleveland Street just after ten in the morning. Though anxious in the extreme, I did my utmost to conceal my concern. I merely knocked upon the door and presented my card to his unusually tall manservant. The fellow held it in his gloved hands and studied it for a moment the way a pawnbroker gazes at a piece of jewelry offered for evaluation.

“I promise you, he will want to speak with me,” I said.

“Any man may make a promise,” he said. “Mr. Dogmill is very busy.”

“I am certain he has time to speak with a brother of the tobacco trade,” I proposed.

The mention of my fabulous business appeared to turn the tide. Donning the slouch of a man surrendering to the inevitable, the servant showed me to a pleasant little room where I was invited to sit in a high-backed soft chair, clearly of French construction. The fellow knew not how long Mr. Dogmill should be nor how much time he might be able to spare for me. I nodded and folded my hands agreeably and gazed down at the intricate Turkey rug on the floor to lose myself for a moment in the swirl of its blue and red patterns. Across from where I sat, over the marbled fireplace, I studied a picture of an aging plump man and his aging plump wife. Dogmill’s father, perhaps?

After more than half an hour, I rose from my chair and began to pace. I have never loved being made to cool my heels, as the saying goes, and I found the experience to be, if anything, far more trying when I was in disguise and visiting the very man I believed responsible for every difficulty I faced in the world. How could I know that Dogmill would not recognize me at once? I hardly thought it likely. He might well have orchestrated my ruin, but he and I were not acquainted. He could not know me so well as to spot me in this disguise—at least, so I told myself.

At last the door opened and pulled me from a reverie of exposure and ruin. I turned, perhaps too quickly, but instead of seeing the imperious servant come to lead me to his master, a pretty young lady faced me. She was unusually tall, nearly my height, but neither gangling nor overly plump, as tall women tend to be. Rather, she was most striking in appearance, with dark, almost wine-colored hair and very pale orange eyes. The features of her face were regular and finely formed, though her nose was strong—possessing a rugged beauty perhaps better suited for a man’s face than a woman’s. I found her appearance most charming, however, and I bowed to her at once. “Good morning, madam,” I said.

“George informs me that you have been in here for some time. I thought you might wish for something to make the wait pass more easily.” She reached out with a graceful arm and presented an octavo volume. A quick glance showed it to be the plays of William Congreve. How ought I to interpret her giving me a book of plays by so naughty an author? She might easily have offered me a volume of Otway.

“My name is Matthew Evans,” I told her, still feeling the tug of doubt at using this nom de guerre.

“I am pleased to meet you, sir. I am Grace Dogmill, Mr. Dogmill’s sister.”

“Please come sit with me and make my wait more pleasant. I very much like Mr. Congreve, but I think I might like talking with you more.”

I had meant to be forward, perhaps even a bit rude. I hardly expected her to comply, but she did just that. Like a proper lady, she left the door behind her open and came and took a chair across from me.

“Thank you for your company,” I said, now somewhat softened. My first impulse had been to make Dogmill dislike me by insulting his sister. I now had other ideas.

“I must confess, sir, to something of a wicked tendency to review my brother’s appointments when I can. He is cruelly inconsistent in speaking of his business to me—sometimes he will seek my advice earnestly, other times he will refuse to speak to me at all. In those times, I must discover his affairs as best I can on my own.”

“I see nothing wicked in your offering conversation to a man with no other diversion. Particularly when he is a man new to the city, and with very little acquaintance as yet.”

“Oh?” she said. Her lips curled into a delightful little smile. “Where do you come from, Mr. Evans?”

“I am just this month arrived from Jamaica,” I told her. “My father purchased a plantation on that island when I was but a boy, and now that it is grown to self-sufficient status, I have returned to this island from where I come, but of which I have so little memory.”

“I hope someone will show you all the interesting sights,” she said.

“I hope so too.”

“I am blessed with a large circle of acquaintance,” she said. “Perhaps we might impose upon you to join us for one excursion or another.”

“I should be delighted,” I told her. And I spoke the truth. Miss Dogmill was turning out to be a curious creature—strangely forward without seeming improper. I knew I would have to be careful lest I find myself liking her more than would be prudent.

“You are in the tobacco trade in Jamaica?” she asked me.

I raised my eyebrows. “How could you know that?”

She laughed. “You are newly arrived in London and know no one, but you call on my brother. It seemed to me a likely prospect.”

“And you are right, Miss Dogmill. I am in the tobacco trade. It is the principal crop of my plantation.”

She bit her lower lip. “Mr. Dogmill will be certain to inform you, and perhaps in none the politest way, that he believes Jamaica tobacco inferior to the Virginia that he principally imports.”

“Mayhap your brother’s opinion is sound, madam, but even the poor must have their tobacco, and they cannot always afford that of Virginia or Maryland.”

She laughed. “You are a philosopher, I see.”

“No, not a philosopher. Only a man who grew weary of the limitations of island life and sought the fine scenery of London.”

“And do you like what you see, Mr. Evans?”

I could not mistake her meaning, so I met her eyes. “Indeed, I do, Miss Dogmill.”

“I thank you for entertaining my visitor, Grace,” said a voice from behind me, “but you may now return to your affairs.”

It was Dogmill standing in the doorway, looking even more massive than he had when sitting in Mr. Moore’s coffeehouse. I had thought him huge then, but now I caught sight of his hands, which were so large as to be almost absurd. His neck was wider than my skull. I had spoken manfully with Elias about who would persevere in the ring, but I knew in an instant that I should never want to try my luck with this colossus.

Yet I took some delight in Dogmill’s blank and impatient gaze. The contempt he had shown me at the coffeehouse now worked in my favor, for it was clear he had no recollection of having seen me before. Nevertheless, the leg injury that ended my career as a pugilist now began to ache, as if to remind me that I was but a frail thing in comparison to this Hercules.

“I am Dennis Dogmill, sir,” he said to me. “You have some business that I presume does not include my sister.”

I rose to bow at Mr. Dogmill, all the while keeping my eyes upon his cold face. Here, I had good reason to believe, was the man responsible for every trouble I had in the world. Here was the man who had murdered Walter Yate and made certain the blame fell upon me. Here was the man who had convinced a judge to rule against me at my trial, that I might hang for what he had done himself. I suppose—despite his size and apparent strength—I ought to have wanted to strike him, to knock him from his feet and kick him senseless, but instead I felt a strangely cool dispassion, like a medical man studying some new disease for the first time.

“At this moment, sir, I regret to announce that I do have such business with you, but I can always remain optimistic that the future will hold some more inclusive affairs.”

He stared at me for a moment, as though he could not credit his ears. His face was wide and boyish, but for the heaviness and the darkness about the eyes. He possessed what would certainly be called a handsome appearance, but I would have guessed that women were not quick to give him second or third glances. There are some men, no matter how pleasing their countenance or shape, who announce their hardness and cruelty in inexplicable and silent ways. Dogmill was such a man, and I admit I felt a queasy urge to discontinue my plan.

“Follow me, if you please,” he said to me curtly.

I offered Miss Dogmill one more bow and smile and followed her brother into an adjoining room, where another gentleman sat reading through papers and drinking from a silver-stemmed goblet. Dogmill took a moment to study this man with disgust.

“I thought we had concluded our business,” Dogmill said.

The gentleman looked up. He was young, perhaps in his mid-twenties, with a slightly feminine appearance and an air of confusion I could not judge whether situational or permanent. He smiled broadly, but his eyes would not focus. “Oh, I was just looking through some things,” he said, clearly ill at ease. “I had not thought you would be back so soon.” The fellow now noticed me and rose to bow, as though he believed I might save him from some awkwardness. “Albert Hertcomb at your service.”

I knew from my readings in the political papers that Hertcomb was the incumbent in Westminster, a Whig who would face Melbury in his race for the seat. The Tories decried him for a simpleton, a mere puppet of Dogmill’s whims. There was nothing in his easy and open face to contradict those accusations.

I returned the bow. “Matthew Evans,” I said. “You are, I believe, running once more for the House under the Whig banner.”

He bowed again. “I am honored enough for that to be so,” he said. “I hope I may count on your vote, sir.”

“You may not count on anything from him,” Dogmill said. “He’s just returned from the West Indies and has no property here. He won’t have the franchise for this election.”

“Then perhaps the next election, seven years hence,” he said, and laughed as though at the greatest joke in the world.

“We shall see how we are all feeling then,” I said merrily.

“Very good, very good.”

“Perhaps, Mr. Hertcomb, you might leave me and Mr. Evans alone,” Dogmill suggested, not a little irritated.

“Oh, certainly, certainly,” he said, oblivious to Dogmill’s impatience. “I just wanted to talk a bit about this speech you’ve handed to me. It’s grand, you know. Quite the picture of grandness. Grandeur, I suppose, really. But there is a point or two about which I’m not quite clear, you know. And, well—faith!—it should be a devilish business if I am to give speeches the meaning of which is lost on me.”

Dogmill stared at Hertcomb as though he spoke some mysterious language of the American interior. “You are not to give that speech for nearly two weeks,” he said at last. “I think in that time you will puzzle out the meaning. If not, we may talk later. As we have been in the habit of speaking every day for the past month, it is a likely prospect that we shall do so again.”

Hertcomb laughed. “Oh, very likely, I should think. There’s no need to be so sour with a fellow, you know, Dogmill. I just wanted to ask you a question or two.”

“Then you may ask me tomorrow,” Dogmill said, now with a massive hand on Hertcomb’s shoulder. In movements forceful without exactly being rough, he began to shove the Parliamentarian out of the room, but then he stopped and pulled Hertcomb back. “One moment.” He let go and pointed a finger—long and thick and unnaturally flat, like a cricket bat—toward an empty decanter of wine. “Did you finish that?”

Hertcomb seemed like a child caught stealing pies. “No,” he said meekly.

“Damn you to the devil,” he swore, though not at Hertcomb—nor anyone I could see. He then rang a bell, and in almost an instant the same servant who had answered the door appeared.

“George, did I not tell you to fill that decanter?”

The servant nodded. “Yes, Mr. Dogmill. You did tell me so, but there was a bit of confusion in the kitchens with a collapsing rack of pots, and I thought to assist Miss Betty in collecting the mess, who had been slightly hurt, sir, when the pots came a-tumbling.”

“You may conspire to get under Betty’s skirts on your own time, not mine,” Dogmill said. “Get me what I ask for when I ask for it, or you’ll know my displeasure.” He then turned and, with the same ease that you and I might demonstrate in closing a door or lifting a volume from a desk, he kicked the poor servant in his arse.

I mean that quite literally. The thing of it is, we often talk of kicking this fellow or that in the arse, and it is but a figure of speech. No one ever does such a thing. I have even seen the operation performed in comical stage plays, and part of the humor is the very absurdity of the act. But let me assure my readers that there was nothing comic here. Dogmill kicked the man quite soundly, deploying his toe as a weapon, and the servant’s face collapsed into itself in pain. Perhaps because it is something we do not think of happening literally, there was a raw brutality about the act, a cruelty one associates with nasty little boys who torment cats and puppies.

The servant himself let out a cry and stumbled, but I knew that the pain must be more in his heart than his posterior. He had been utterly humiliated before stranger and familiar alike. Me, he might never see again; Hertcomb he must see every day. Every day he would face the Parliamentarian, whose gaze, no matter how kind or placid, would remind him of this utter degradation. I understood well that if he should live another forty years, he would always cringe to think of this moment.

I have seen men abuse their servants, treat them no better than animals, but there was a cruelty here that made me wish to strike back. What have I set in motion? I wondered, as I glanced over at Dogmill’s hard face. But I never once considered changing my plans. Dogmill, in all likelihood, had murdered Walter Yate and ordered matters so I would hang for his crime. He might kick every servant in the kingdom before I would run away from him.