Honor's Kingdom (30 page)

“You, sir,” he began, “are impertinent! I don’t know you from Adam, yet you’ve been staring at me this hour and more.”

It was not true. My eyes, and certainly my heart, had been elsewhere.

“You are abominably ill-mannered,” he continued, “and rude. But I suppose that’s the way we live now.” He snorted. “A fellow can’t even have his peace on the railway!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said, though I was innocent, for Christian meekness sometimes makes its way, “I did not intend—”

“Intentions have nothing to do with it! I will not have discourtesy. It’s intolerable!” He reached back into his bag and drew out a book with a slip of paper sticking out as a place-mark. “Now, sir,” he concluded, “if you are finished annoying me, I beg to be left in peace!”

I did not know what to say, so I said nothing. I watched the world again, for on such days, when the Heavens droop and the brooding weather pierces us as brightness will not do, we feel our slightness, and wonder how often we will see such sights again, and when we may be taken from this vale of rending loveliness.

I had read my Testament first thing in the morning, and got through
The Times
while waiting at King’s Cross—more of the “cotton famine” and complaints of Northern “Hessians” pillaging
and plundering the South, which was all tosh. The paper said French arms were in retreat in Mexico, a form of military adventure the Frenchman doubtless has perfected, and there was more fussing in Servia, with fighting at Belgrade. The Irish were up to murdering English landlords, which seemed to have become a Hibernian sport. I had digested all the news and even the advertisements. Thus, I had no pleasurable reading left, yet felt a growing guilt at sitting idle. So I put up my deadly new cane and took down the German grammar through which I had been laboring for a time. But I could not study it, despite my strong belief in self-improvement. My mind would not settle on
sein
and
werden
and
geworden.

I sat entranced and lulled by our forward motion, with the country rising and the sky lowering, as if we were slipping down a funnel. The train clacked along, tooting like a proud and living thing, and the luggage shifted now and again on the roof of the car, as if the rain made it uncomfortable. The combination of rain, steam, and speed fair overwhelmed me. I would have been contented in my reveries, and might even have drowsed, had the fellow on the opposite bench not punctuated the afternoon’s sobriety with declarations spoken aloud as he read.

“Oh, that’s dreadful!” he declared happily. “Impossible to credit! No one could believe such nonsense for a moment.” And then, five minutes later: “He’s certainly losing his talent, if not his mind. It’s absolutely pitiable!” Happier and happier he sounded, although his outbursts seemed to tell of misfortune. “Rubbish!” he cried in delight. “He’s finished! Such drivel won’t last the season. His talent’s run out on him, the fellow’s done.” He shifted and settled and read and exclaimed, “Ridiculous! As if rats and mice would have left a single crumb of cake after all those years! It’s too absurd! And the child’s insufferable! I shall get the tooth-ache from all the sweetness.” He grunted, which I believe betokened a laugh.

I might have been a wraith, swirling in the smoke and wet beyond the window, for all the reality I seemed to hold for my coachmate. Although I am not unfriendly by my nature, I was a
bit relieved when he got down at a station, bag in hand and topper on his head.

Only after the train pulled away, did I notice that his book still lay on the cushion. I picked it up, in search of an address, so that it might be returned to him, but found only the possessive inscription A. TROLLOPE, which seemed to me an unbecoming name.

The book was
Great Expectations,
by Mr. Dickens.

IT IS THE STRANGEST THING how the mind surprises us. I was exchanging looks with a field of cows as we sped past, when I realized Mr. Adams and I had talked ourselves into a false conclusion. Foolishly wrong we were, twas damnably clear. The affair of the letters and that of the murders were unquestionably related, if not identical. They were not trains on separate tracks, but two compartments in the selfsame carriage. They fit together, back to back, they did. For the man in the red silk mask was a link to both, whether he was Lieutenant Culpeper resurrected or the Prince of Wales come out for a turn in the park.

How ever could I have missed it? The masked fellow had lured me out of the penny gaff before I had an inkling of the letters, and the slum-child had seen him earlier, going into the establishment of the murdered pawn-mother, where Mr. Campbell’s watch was found. But when he come to me in the hotel, in the wake of Miss Perkins’s unsettling escapade, he had wanted the letters of me. And now I had a sword-cane as his gift, if my suspicions were true. Why had I failed to see the clear connection? If not all of those involved with the letters had ties to ships of war, one at least was tied to both watch and correspondence.

A child would have seen it.

I am not cut out for matters of this nature. That is the sorry truth. I am a clerk, and a good one, not a detective. Why on earth did men place trust in me? I did not want it. I only longed to live a peaceful life, and perhaps to become an elder in our chapel, when I was ripe enough. To make my darling proud, and to raise our son, without shame or debts—that is what I
wanted. And here I was hurtling to Scotland, without a proper plan or even a notion.

I saw another thing, too, thanks to Mr. Disraeli. He talked too much, enamored of his cleverness and voice. Declaring he knew I had not read the letters—mocking me—he had told me I would not be sitting there, in his carriage, if I had read them. So proud of himself he was, of his wit and his knowledge. He had not meant to tell me quite so much, I did not think. Not this time. No, he had revealed that the letters were not just a matter of amorous blackmail between a wastrel son and a wanton father.

And how she had convinced me, that Betty Green or however she might call herself. She had come to the door jabbering about the return of her lover, just after the elder Pomeroy had left. And I had fallen into the trap, even though I already knew that half of what had gone on in London had been got up for my benefit. I wanted to believe a lurid thing, see. They judged me all too well.

The elder Mr. Pomeroy was no more her lover than I was. He had been there on purpose, for me to see him. They were all in it together, father and son, Disraeli, and the Lord only knew who else.

The man in the red mask.

There was another thing I saw, a wicked thing that made my heart sink down. But I let that bide, for I had pressing, if less troubling, questions.

What had made Disraeli afraid?

Who truly wielded power over whom?

Why were those letters meant to be passed through my hands to the masked fellow?

Who had really written them? And what did those letters contain?

Who
was
the secret lover of the woman in Lambeth, the made-up Jewess?

Did she have a lover at all? Or was it something else entirely, a secret masked by lust and men’s assumptions?

And what did it have to do with the Reverend Mr. Campbell?

There was a connection, but how deep did it run?

I felt too small a man for such intrigues, too slight of mind, too weak. I like to think that I am strong and sturdy, but life does not indulge our mortal pride.

I felt glum, I tell you. Fortunately, we drew into York just then, which meant I might look out for a bit of dinner. I always feel better, I do, when my belly is full.

TRAVEL AT SUCH SPEED can muddle our senses. As I stepped down onto the crowded platform, with pie-men shouting their wares and a great to-do as we all hurried to secure our victuals, I thought I glimpsed a wild Indian tribesman at the edge of things, all got up like an Englishman, but dark-skinned all the same. I was reduced to seeing ghosts about me. When I looked properly, there was nothing. As you would expect.

Foregoing the expense of the dining saloon, I bought a sausage baked in dough and a pair of apples from a shawl-wrapped missy, then tapped my way back through the anxious crowd. The new cane put my balance off ever so slightly. It wanted getting used to, for its length would have suited a taller man than me.

The locomotive shrieked like a heathen demon. The advertisement had promised twenty minutes, but I did not believe the half was up.

At first, I thought I had returned to the wrong compartment when I saw those two young ladies sitting inside. But I was not mistaken, for the number on the carriage was correct and my travelling bag sat waiting on the rack.

A bit of drip-water from the roof of the car potted me as I stepped in. It struck me in the eye and made me stumble. The young ladies, all organdy and blue, did their best not to giggle at the sight of me. So young and fine they seemed, floating on their clouds of summer fabric. Their gauzy hats looked lighter than the air, and the beribboned parasols tossed in a corner spoke of the disregard for expensive things that sets the rich apart from those who labor.

And off we went, with the clouds dispersed and the evening refined to gold.

“Oh, Harriet,” the lass in organdy said, in a haughty, South-of-England sort of voice, “you
shan’t
marry him! I shan’t
let
you . . .”

“I don’t know,” the beauty in blue said coyly.

I had taken up that book by Mr. Dickens, affecting to read, although it was a novel and wrong for a Methodist. I did not wish to intrude myself on the ladies, see. I sat as small as I could sit and, truth be told, they hardly seemed to notice me. But even a gentleman cannot close his ears.

“Well, I
do
know,” Miss Organdy declared. “Why, you’d perish in the Highlands! Whatever does one do there? As if a week in Yorkshire hasn’t been frightful enough.”

“
I
think it sounds romantic,” Blue Girl said. “After all, the Queen finds it quite the thing. All that walking and climbing about the moors with loyal dogs, and shooting grouches, or whatever those birds are called . . .”

“Harriet! You’ve never shot anything in your life. And you hate it when dogs bother your skirts. Why, you’ve never climbed anything higher than the stairs to a ballroom.”

“But he
is
a laird. It all sounds like a tale of the Middle Ages. Like one of those lovely paintings one sees about these days.”

“Fiddlesticks! I don’t doubt they
live
as though it were still the Middle Ages. But you shan’t like that one bit. Why . . . why, you’d be better off with John Grey. Cambridgeshire may be dreadful, but London isn’t far off.”

“I find I’m rather taken with the idea of Scotland,” Blue Girl said, just a bit crossly. “Besides, I understand Mr. Grey is to be married to that impossible Vavasor girl. Not that I would have had him, of course. I prefer the thought of heather and Scottish adventures.”

“Well,” Miss Organdy told her, “we shall just see how you like the reality. You’ll probably be made to read the Bible aloud to the servants and to sleep in a draught.”

“Really, Josie, I don’t see why you insisted on coming along.”

Miss Organdy gave a harrumph that verged on the unladylike. “Well, you can be certain it has nothing whatsoever to do with that brother of his,” she said, and turned her fair face to the twilight.

During our pause at York, the porters had lit the lamps within the carriages and we sat in a cheery glow. I fear I was in a dilemma, though, for as soon as the ladies fell silent, I found myself engrossed in the novel I held. It began frightfully, in a graveyard, with a convict’s threats to a child who had been orphaned. The boy’s protector, Mr. Gargery, seemed a lovely man, though weak. Twas obvious he cared for young Pip and would do what he could to protect him, but—

I realized I had been seduced. Low entertainments will not do for the conscience of a Christian. I know my Mary Myfanwy disagrees, and thinks me overly strict about the issue, although I let her read what books she will. But novels seem to me a form of gossip. What kind of man would make up untrue tales?

Let that bide. I decided I might, in fairness to my wife’s earnest views, read just a bit more before I condemned the book. As an experiment, to know mine enemy. But in that embarrassed moment, when I wrenched my eyes from the page in shame at my weakness, I had noticed the queerest thing. One of the ladies had tucked a covered basket into the corner, just behind their parasols. Twas the sort of container used for a thousand things in the Punjab, not all of them good.

I fear my curiosity got the best of me. Perhaps I was a bit lonely, truth be told. But I let my manners grow forward.

“Begging your pardon, ladies. And excuse me for asking. But does one of your families enjoy a tie to India?”

The two girls looked at one another. Twas clear enough they did not take my point.

“It is only the basket there,” I said, pointing into the corner. “It is from India, see. I thought there must be an association . . .”

Miss Organdy, who was the plucky one, said, “We thought it yours, sir.”

I shook my head in denial.

“Someone must have forgotten it,” Blue Girl said. “They’ll be frightfully sorry. It’s really rather lovely.”

Miss Organdy spied about, as if faces might be peering in the windows. Which they were not.

“Oh, let’s have a look, shall we? It might be a secret treasure.”

She reached for the basket.

I have a soldier’s instincts, thank the Lord. Just as her hand touched the lid, I lunged and grabbed her, throwing her back into her seat.

“Sir!”
she cried.

But her complaint was near-drowned out by the scream that come from her friend.

The snake slid over the edge of the basket with that vibrant smoothness they have. Long it was, til it never seemed to end.

“Get out of the way!” I barked. “Get up on the cushions.”

We had seconds. For any man could see it was a cobra.

I grabbed for my cane and near sent it clattering. Had the snake not had its own moment of confusion at its new surroundings, one of us would have perished.