Belgravia (19 page)

“No!” said Stephen loudly. There was a trace of panic in his voice, which they could all hear. As if to save a situation that was already lost, Stephen let out a bold laugh. “Please, no!” He put his hand in the air, waving it jocularly, trying to take control. “Come on, can’t we play one more round? Surely? It’ll only take twenty minutes. Oleg, you can go straight to the theater from here. Black, you can’t just leave the table, you have to give a chap a chance to win back some of his money!” He looked from one man to the next, his small dark eyes pleading. “Just one more round. It’s not much to ask…”

Stephen’s voice trailed off. He was aware of how pathetic he sounded but he couldn’t stop himself. He had to do something. They were getting up now, leaving the table, leaving him here in the dark basement with Schmitt. And there was no telling what the man might do. Stephen had owed him money in the past, but it had never been as large a sum as this, and he’d always managed to pay Schmitt back.

He remained seated as Captain Black and Count Sikorsky ascended the staircase, their feet on the wooden steps sounding unnaturally loud in the echoing space. The wax from the cheap brass candelabra slowly dripped onto the table in front of him.

“So, your lordship,” said Schmitt sarcastically, getting out of his chair and stretching his large frame.

“Yes?” Stephen shook his head defiantly. He was not going to be intimidated by this frightful man. He had connections, he reminded himself, friends in high places.

“There remains the question of one thousand pounds.”

Stephen winced, waiting for the man to crack his knuckles or hammer his fist down on the table. But Schmitt did neither. Instead, he paced the stone floor, his hobnailed boots clicking as he went.

“We are both gentlemen,” began Schmitt. Stephen resisted the temptation to point out that perhaps Schmitt, as a moneylender with a dented head, was not. “I am also a pleasant fellow, and I’m prepared to be reasonable.”

“Thank you.” Stephen’s reply was barely audible.

“So you have two days to get the money. Two days to deliver it to me.” He paused, and with a sudden gesture smashed the empty gin bottle on the table right in front of Stephen, shattering the glass. Stephen leaped out of his seat. “Two days,” Schmitt hissed, his odd-shaped skull bearing down on Stephen, the broken bottle still in his hand. “Two days,” he repeated, bringing the jagged glass edge closer and closer to Stephen’s neck.

Stephen ran out of there as quickly as a small, fat man full of gin possibly could, and he kept on running until he reached the corner of Sloane Street. It was only then, while he stood, panting and huffing, leaning against a wall for support, that he realized something else was wrong. Two ladies taking a late-afternoon stroll avoided him. A man drew near and then quickly crossed the road. He ran his fingertips over his face. It felt wet. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his skin. It came away covered in blood. A nearby shopwindow told him that there were cuts all over his face, from tiny splinters of shattered glass.

The next day things looked a little better. Or at least Stephen’s face did, as he checked himself in the glass. It was only a few small cuts, he told himself, nothing too bad, nothing too remarkable—which was fortunate, as he was about to go, cap in hand again, to his brother. The last thing he needed was to look remotely disordered.

Downstairs in the bleak dining room of their Harley Street home, the atmosphere between Stephen and Grace was frosty.
Neither of them really enjoyed living there. The house had been a wedding present from Grace’s mother, but, like most things associated with Grace, it was now a little faded and shabby around the edges. With so many developments and so much building in the capital, it sometimes seemed to him that one day Harley Street would be left behind. And the house itself was narrow, dark, and always cold. No matter the weather outside, there was still a chill in the air; whether this was to do with Grace’s parsimony when it came to lighting fires or whether it was the lack of staff to keep those fires lit, the net result was the same. Guests had a tendency to shiver as they crossed the threshold. Not that they entertained much. Grace occasionally had some ladies up from the parish, or from one of her charitable committees, but usually Stephen dined out and Grace ate alone.

They survived with a skeleton staff: a cook and a kitchen maid, a butler who doubled as valet, a head housemaid who dressed Grace, and two other maids who seemed to leave with numbing regularity. Grace told herself this was because of the low wages they offered, but she’d come to suspect that Stephen might be behind several of the hurried departures. The truth was, they couldn’t really afford a London life, and if they’d had any sense they would have sold the house years ago and been content in Hampshire, saving the money they had to spend on their curates. But then they had no sense. Or Stephen had no sense, thought Grace wryly; no sense, no ambition, and, heaven knew, no intention of performing his parish duties, light as they were. She ate her unappetizing breakfast. Grace always prided herself on not having breakfast in bed like the other married ladies she knew, but today she rather regretted it. At least her bedroom was warm. She picked up the envelope on the table.

She did not raise her eyes from her daughter’s letter when her husband arrived downstairs. She knew he’d been out gambling the day before and that he’d probably lost. She could tell by the way he sighed when he sat down. If he’d won, he would have clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together as he walked into the room. There would have been a spring in his step. Instead, he
could barely be bothered to eat. He lifted the lid of the chafing dish and stared down at the dried-out scrambled eggs.

“Emma is well,” said Grace, eventually, lifting her eyes to his face and stiffening with shock. “Good God, what happened to you?”

“Nothing, nothing. A window broke when I was standing near it. How are the children?” He helped himself to a sliver of lukewarm bacon.

“She says Freddie has a cough.”

“Good, good.” He slumped into his chair.

“Why is it good?” Grace looked down the length of the dark table. “Why is it good if the boy is not well?”

Stephen looked at her for a moment. “I was thinking I might visit my brother today.”

“Does this have something to do with how you spent yesterday afternoon?” Grace said, rising from her chair.

“It wasn’t one of my best.” He spoke without lifting his eyes, as if he were voicing some inner thought without reference to his wife.

To Grace, this did not bode well. As a rule Stephen never admitted to defeat or failure of any kind. In fact, he would seldom admit to gambling. “Exactly how bad was it?” she asked, thinking there wasn’t much left in her depleted jewelry box that they could sell. Thank heaven she’d already paid John’s rent on his rooms in Albany, though why he wouldn’t live with them in Harley Street she simply could not understand.

“Nothing to worry about.” Stephen had regained control of himself, and now he smiled blandly at his wife. “I’ll sort it all out this afternoon.”

“Sort out your face first.”

When Stephen arrived at the house in Belgrave Square he paused before making his presence known. Standing on the wide paved street, staring up the steps at the shiny black door flanked by white Doric columns, he shook his head at the iniquity of it all, singing the same refrain as always in his head. Why, by some
fault of birth, did Peregrine get to live in such splendid surroundings, while he had to contend with his own cramped and grubby house? No wonder he gambled, Stephen thought. Who wouldn’t gamble when life had dealt them such a bitter blow? Was it any wonder he sought comfort in the embrace of women with loose morals? Was it his fault if he was addicted to the thrill and danger of the game?

Stephen knocked on the door. It was answered by a young liveried footman who ushered him into the library to wait for his brother.

“What an unexpected pleasure!” declared Peregrine, walking in some five unhurried minutes later. “I was just about to head out to White’s.”

“Then I’m glad to have caught you,” said Stephen. He was not quite sure how to open the conversation, even though he knew only too well that his brother already expected what was coming.

“Whatever’s happened to your face?” Peregrine stared at the spattering of small scabs across Stephen’s cheeks.

“I had a bad experience at the barber’s,” replied Stephen. It seemed better than the broken window, but they both knew it was untrue.

“Remind me never to use the fellow.” Peregrine chortled, sitting down at his desk. “So, to what do I owe this honor?”

They both knew he was teasing. Stephen only ever wanted money from him, but Peregrine needed to hear his brother say it out loud. If he was going to give him anything, he demanded that the maximum humiliation should precede it.

“It seems I’m in a spot of bother,” began Stephen, bowing his head. He hoped if he displayed remorse, or made a show of genuflection a little in front of his brother, Peregrine might be more generous.

“How much bother?”

“One thousand pounds’ worth of bother.”

‘A
thousand
pounds?’ Peregrine was genuinely shocked. Everyone enjoyed a flutter now and again. His old friend the Duke of Wellington was easily capable of dropping more than a thousand
in one night playing whist at Crockford’s, but he could afford to do so. Really, Stephen had lost a thousand pounds? He raised his eyebrows. He had not been expecting such an enormous sum. Quite apart from the fact that he had already given his brother almost as much quite recently, after luncheon at Lymington.

“I wouldn’t normally ask…”

“Yes, but the thing is you
do
normally ask,” interrupted Peregrine. “In fact you ask continually. I cannot remember when you last came to my house
without
asking for money.” He paused. “No.”

“No?” Stephen was confused.

“No. I won’t give it to you. Is that clear enough?” Was Stephen hearing correctly? “Not this time.”

“What?” Stephen was incredulous. The feigned humility drained out of his face to be replaced by simple fury. “But you have to! You have to! I’m your brother, and I need it! I must have it!”

“You should have thought of that before you gambled it away. You played with money you did not have, and this is the result.”

“I didn’t gamble it away! That wasn’t what happened at all!” Stephen’s plump hands were clenched into fists. This was not the outcome he had imagined. His brain was whirring. If he hadn’t gambled, what was his excuse? What could he say had happened to the money?

“We both know that is a lie.” Peregrine felt quite calm. His brother was intolerable, devoid of the slightest trace of responsibility, a disgrace to his blood. Why should he keep financing the wastage of his life?

“How dare you accuse me of lying?” Stephen puffed himself up. “I am a man of the cloth!”

“I say you are lying because it’s the truth.” Peregrine shook his head. “I will not pay any more of your debts. You have a decent income from your inheritance and the Church, or you should have, and your wife provides you with additional funds. You must simply learn to live within your means.”

“Live within my means!” Stephen was ready to explode. “How
dare you? Who do you think you are? Just because you’re two years older than me you take the title, the house, the estates, and all the money—”

“Not quite all.”

“Do you ever think how unfair it is? Do you?” Stephen was spluttering. “And you have the audacity to tell me to live within my means?”

“Life is not fair,” agreed Peregrine. “I will grant you that. But it is the system into which we were both born. Nobody ever told you to expect any more than you were given. There are many men who would think it a fine thing to be a cleric living in a large rectory, without having to do a stroke of work from January to December.”

“Well, one day John will inherit.” Stephen raised his chin triumphantly. “My son, not yours, will have everything.”

This was a low blow, but Peregrine decided to rise above it. “And when he does I would remind you that, by definition, you will be dead and so it will be too late for him to take over the funding of his father’s vices.”

Stephen stood staring, his teeth gritted and his scabbed face bright pink. He was so angry he was at a loss for words. “Well, well,” he said at last. “Good day to you, brother!” He marched out, slamming the door hard enough to make a little sprinkle of plaster fall from the wall.

Outside, on the landing, Stephen stopped for a moment. He had no idea what to do next. Peregrine had not followed him out of the room. He had not run after him and pushed a collection of notes into his hand. What was he supposed to do? He had no way of paying his debts. As for Schmitt, even the thought of him made Stephen shiver. He paced up and down, wondering if he should go back inside and beg, tell his brother how sorry he was, appeal to his better nature. He needed a plan. Should he stay? Or should he go? He tugged at his chin, deep in thought.

The sound of laughter rang out, a woman’s laughter. He looked across the gleaming stairwell. It was coming from Caroline’s sitting room. Had she heard their argument, he wondered? Was she
laughing at him? She was definitely laughing. Was she delighting in his downfall? Stephen crossed the gallery, toward the door. There she was, that hateful woman, giggling away, and was that a man’s voice he could hear? Who could possibly be entertaining Lady Brockenhurst so much? He knelt down to put his ear right next to the keyhole. Then the door opened.

“My God! Stephen! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Caroline clutched her chest in shock. “What on earth are you doing down there?”

“Nothing,” said Stephen, standing up with some difficulty, his eyes narrowing. Who was that dark-haired fellow? He looked familiar. The young man’s cheeks were flushed, as if he’d been caught out. Caroline was still looking at him. “I was just…” His voice trailed off.

“Do you remember Mr. Pope? He was here the other evening,” said Caroline, taking a step back and proudly presenting her guest.