Honor's Kingdom (29 page)

“The search,” Mr. Disraeli assured me, “would require a great deal of time. Allow me to spare you the toil. The young woman in question remains unwed.” He glanced at Pomeroy again, as at a beggar. “Modern youth is prone to an excess of enthusiasm, which sometimes manifests itself in insupportable exaggerations. Claims are made impulsively . . . that may not be warranted by the facts. Let us say—with the utmost sincerity—that the young woman under discussion enjoys the Pomeroy family’s protection.”

“I saw his father leaving her this afternoon.”

“I do not doubt it.”

“I have reason to suspect they are intimates.”

“I defer to your greater knowledge.”

“What do you want from him?”

“From whom?”

“From Mr. Pomeroy. That lad’s father.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Disraeli said, with his face swaying back and forth above his collar to match the rhythm of the carriage, “you should ask what the fellow wants of me.”

“What does he want from you?”

“Nothing unusual.”

“You never answered my question,” I said.

“But which one? You ask so very many.”

“Is she even a Jewess?”

Mr. Disraeli looked down at his walking stick for a moment. Sleek with lacquer, it rested against his trousers. When his eyes come up again, he said, “I suspect that was another of young Pomeroy’s needless elaborations.”

Twas odd to carry on such a conversation, with Reginald Pomeroy seated in our company. I would not say he looked like a mouse, but rather that he wished he might become so unobtrusive a creature. He stank of fear and regret.

“Why say she was Jewish?” I asked. “Why make such a wicked claim?”

Mr. Disraeli waved the question off, but answered it all the same. “Oh, I suppose he thought it might lend her a certain
exoticism.” He spoke blithely. “Tasteless of him, I will admit. But hardly without precedent. I believe the Jewess exerts a certain fascination over the Anglo-Saxon mind, a hint of . . . of dark riches, shall we say? Of private mysteries and all sorts of forbidden treats. From Shakespeare himself, down to the frivolities of Scott, the raven-tressed daughter of Judah is so often present—and ever compliant at the prospect of a Christian lad’s attentions. She longs to be rescued from her own identity, if we are to credit the authorized version of the tale. And, of course, there is always an odious parent to be rid of, a creature positively thrilling with menace.” He smiled. “The Jew may be deplored, but he compels.”

He sat back, perhaps to see me better in the lamplit interior, with its hint of smoke and its smell of oil and horsehair. I wondered how a man must feel who has abandoned the religion of his forefathers. Certainly, we must rejoice when anyone robes himself in Christ’s forgiveness. Still, a body wonders at the man who leaves the faith that runs in the family blood.

Mr. Disraeli might have read my thoughts, for he added, “Perhaps you know of my own peculiar relation to Judaism? One may weigh a certain pride against an inevitable distaste, you see. But I must send you one of my novels, Major Jones.
Tancred
would do, I should think.”

I did not mention that I read no novels. For though I could not like him, one man’s work wants no insult from another.

“So she is Betty Green from Camden Town, and not a Jewess from Budapest?”

“Really,” Mr. Disraeli said, “I’m not completely certain
who
she is, at this point. She may not be certain herself. But why don’t you ask her?”

“I did.”

“And what did she say?”

“Nothing.”

He smiled. “Perhaps . . . that is your answer?”

I shook my head. “It is not a sufficient one.”

“For whom? For Mr. Adams?”

Twas then I made my error.

“I’ve read the letters,” I told him. A man should never lie.

He laughed delightedly, ending with that twitter I remembered and touching the end of his little goaty beard. “No, you haven’t. Dear me! If you had read them, you wouldn’t be sitting here, I assure you. Oh, dear me. I have to wonder if you even have the letters at all? Whatever have you done with them, Jones? Lost them in some gutter?”

“You’ll find out,” I said lamely.

He smiled triumphantly. “I expect I shall.”

In a humor much improved, he tapped the carriage’s panel with his stick again, doubtless a signal to spirit me back to my lodgings.

“Really, Major Jones! I simply don’t know what to make of you. So artful one moment, so . . . so charmingly plain the next.”

Twas then young Pomeroy stirred himself to speak, although it clearly cost him a terrible effort.

“Tell him,” he said to Mr. Disraeli, in a tortured croak of a voice. “Tell him what else you were supposed to say.”

Mr. Disraeli gave young Pomeroy a look of such ferocious hatred that I wonder the boy didn’t crumble into dust. It lasted but an instant, though, and the man who one day would become Britain’s Prime Minister—and Lord Beaconsfield, to boot—composed himself.

“Of course! Thank you for reminding me, Mr. Pomeroy.” He turned back to me as if truly grateful that his memory had been sparked. “In the event the letters
should
come into the possession of the United States Government, Major Jones, please convey to Mr. Adams that our gratitude for their return would prove unprecedented. Indeed, I would personally guarantee my own and my party’s resolute determination to protect Washington’s interests throughout the course of your present, unfortunate conflict.” He looked at me with those impossibly steady eyes. “There is nothing he might ask which I would not grant, so long as it lay in my power.
Nothing,
Major Jones.”

And I had nothing else to say, for I did not want to embarrass myself again. I had a muchness to ponder as it was. For Mr. Adams had told me that very afternoon how Lord Russell and Lord Lyons, both of whom stood high in the faction in power, had pledged their support of America’s cause in return for some unspecified display of good will. And here sat Mr. Disraeli, the great engine of the Tory opposition, promising the same for a handful of letters.

I had not read them. Not only because I had lacked the time, but because a gentleman must not do such a thing. But England, I had begun to suspect, was hardly the place in which to behave as a gentleman.

If ever those letters fell into my hands again, I meant to read them through, although my Mary Myfanwy would not have approved. This world is hard and makes unkind demands on striving Christians. I would believe that virtue gives us strength, but fear I am so weak I could not prove it.

Well, we must have faith and go through.

I stepped down from the carriage just as the rain opened a skirmish.

“Remember,” Mr. Disraeli said, before his carriage pulled away, “my party’s unswerving loyalty for those letters. Pray tell Mr. Adams.”

I nodded as he dropped the sash, then turned to the gassy brightness of my hotel. Half-concerned, but equally astonished at the ways of the world, I wondered what might be waiting in my bedroom, which had begun to seem the most public place in London.

I was not disappointed, for a gift lay on the bed. It was a handsome cane cut out of ebony, looking a bit thicker than was common. Fine and fancy the instrument was, though with the queerest top. The handle was straight and leathered, so that a man might grip it with his fist.

Glancing about to be sure I was not in the presence of
Thug
assassins or men in red masks, I took up the stick.

It had a weight to it.

And then I saw the latch below the handle. I released it and the ebony sheath fell away to reveal a rapier.

Once free, the sword had a lovely balance, and light as a bamboo stick it was in my hand. The blade shone and sang as I tried it on the air. Now, I had been a master of the bayonet and knew how to use an army cutlass, too. But that rapier was a thoroughbred compared to the plodding mules of my experience, and I feared I lacked the skills to use it well.

There was a note, too. It had been wound up tight around the blade. It flew off as I duelled with the air and dropped onto the floor. I took it up and unrolled it:

I like to give a man a sporting chance. It keeps things jolly.

ELEVEN

ALL CITIES LOOK UNFORTUNATE FROM THE RAILWAY. The traveler sees their dirty linens only, and none of their finery. We left King’s Cross in a blow of rain, and each bleak house and courtyard looked forlorn as we rushed past. Twas a gray world, painted a loveless tone, all grime and youthful dreams come up to nothing. The rain jeweled on the windows separating us from the rubbish heap of the world, and when a spark flew back from the locomotive it seemed the only light in all the land.

The companion with whom I shared the compartment looked morbid as the weather. Pop-eyed, with spectacles and prosperous whiskers, I judged him a government inspector on his travels, or perhaps the headmaster of a middling school. He was scribbling away and offered no greeting when the porter put me into the carriage from the platform—an English railway car is cut into separate boxes, see, little worlds that shun too much democracy—and my fellow traveller glared when the door clapped shut and caged us together. But soon enough he went back to his pencil and paper, snorting in satisfaction as he wrote.

I let him be, for I am not a chatterbox. Although a Welshman likes a pleasant talk, that I will give you. Instead, I watched the world go by, the falling away of the city, then the cringe of the groves and fields beneath the rain. A blowing willow caught my eye, sweeping its branches across a swollen brook. Then it
was gone. Willows make me think of Mr. Shakespeare and that poor girl with her hair loose in the water. I have never liked Prince Hamlet, for he thought only of himself and not of others. He fussed about everything, and had no grip, and the sad lass died confused by all his nonsense. “To be or not to be” is a silly question. We are, and that is that, and we must make the best of it. I feel far more for poor Mark Antony, despite his doubtful morals, for well I understand the power of love. And we both were soldiers. Ophelia deserved a better fate. For she loved deeply, though she had her failings and went about too heedless of her deportment. But I cannot forgive that cold, young prince, who wanted a taste of honest work and a thrashing.

Let all that bide. Twas only the range of my musings as we throbbed across the lowlands, for I did not want to think of masks and murders, or of letters full of secrets. We cannot run on like a locomotive, but must pause.

Morning faded into afternoon, and the light was gray to break a fellow’s heart.

The traveller with his scribbling showed no interest in aught else, so I watched the villages go by, and the dutiful shepherds wet under broad-brimmed hats, and the scooting of sheep when our passage made them nervous. I felt at once the miracle of speed and the loneliness that comes to us with distance. I did not relish the labors that held me captive in this war, and wished me home among my lovely ledgers. I hoped the boys in Mr. Evans’s counting house were keeping up their standards. A colliery cannot run on ill-kept books.

The rain grew stronger. Across a sodden field, a pair of men stood over the smoky ruin of a fire. I knew not what they were about. Peat-burners, perhaps. But they struck me as they watched us go, we creatures of privilege. Likely they felt jealousy at those who could afford a safe, dry life and all the many conveniences of progress. Or were we queer as creatures in a storybook? What did they see? I cannot say I wished to stand beside them in the wet. Yet, there was something to them that I envied.

At times, I fear our age is one of loss. When I was young, we walked and learned the world. Those with laden pockets might take coaches, or ride a horse they hired from a stable. But now the world is sealed from nature’s blasts, protected ever more by grand inventions. I wonder if the day will come when no one but the soldier or the shepherd knows about the many weights of rain, or how the winter cuts and summer scorches. Perhaps it is that I am growing old, and that a man of thirty-four is uneasy with newfangled means of living. But, somehow, an ancient loveliness seems wanting.

At last, my companion snapped shut his notebook, put his jottings and his pencil into his travelling bag, and glared in my direction.