Honor's Kingdom (47 page)

“But you want Richmond to win.”

“Couldn’t care less.”

“You want cotton.”

“I’ll have it from India.”

“Not in time.”

“Sooner than I’d have it from the Confederate States, to be honest. I have reasonable expectations, you know.”

“But you have supported the slavers. By helping this ship get away. And in New York. You tried—”

“And failed. First match to you, second to me. I shall be interested to see who takes the next bout. Meanwhile, we’ll just have to see which way the hounds turn. Why, you may even find I’m on your side, one of these days.”

“You will never be on my side.”

“That is ungracious.”

“Well, if I lack in manners, I do not lack in morals,” I told him.

“No,” he said, “you’ve quite the highest morals of any killer I know.”

“I am not a killer.”

“By the tenets of your own religious profession, you’re nothing less. But now I’m being ungracious. And I do think those old Jews should have added a commandment about that, don’t you? ‘Thou shalt not be a dreary conversationalist.’ Or something to that effect. Are you quite certain I can’t give you lunch?”

“Our Navy will find your ship,” I told him, in the spiteful tones of a child. “And we will sink it.”

“But it never was my ship,” he said. “I was merely a good angel on its behalf. And as for your own fleet sending it to the bottom, that does sound like a game that’s worth the candle. Shall we wait and see?”

I could not find another word, for the truth is I was chastened. And beaten. The Earl was right about that. I wondered if there would be another encounter between us. If such would come, I did not intend to lose again.

“Don’t let it get you down too low,” the Earl told me. “The truth is, I had better than average luck. When I sent that little tart to your room in London, I had no idea you’d have the letters just then. Or that she’d make off with them. I suspect she’ll be had up for thieving, one of these days. Perfect candidate for Australia. Anyway, the effect was sublime. Pomeroy, Disraeli, and that lot—and poor old Cullie—were unspeakably confused. And the confusion aided me, you see. All I wished to do was to keep the ball in play until the ship could get off.” He clicked his tongue, which I am told is a vulgar habit. But earls can do most anything they like. “Really, it was a great relief when you finally came to Glasgow. I knew I could play you out for the last few days old Laird needed to get the ship off. I should say you did your best, under the circumstances. In fact, you did rather well, given your array of opponents.”

“And you never wanted the letters? Not at all? Could you swear to that, if anything is left sacred to you upon which you might take your oath?”

“I fear I would embarrass you, if I laid my hand upon the nearest object I regard as sacred. No, the letters didn’t attract me in the least. I should have thought it ungentlemanly to use them, you know.”

The queer thing is that the fellow made me believe him.

“Hargreaves,” the Earl called in his pleasantest voice, “let the horses show us what they’re made of.”

Of course, my failure carried an awful price. The
Alabama
played havoc on the seas, and cost our Union fortune after fortune. No man was better pleased than me when Captain Winslow’s
Kearsarge
finally sank her off Cherbourg. But that is another tale. And we did not fare so badly in the end. For we won the war, and found ourselves a great power, much to our own astonishment. After Appomattox, when Mr. Adams and Mr.
Seward claimed reparations from Her Majesty’s Government for the
Alabama’s
rampage of destruction, John Bull paid up.

But all that was in the future, past seas of blood and landscapes soaked in crimson, and I have more to tell. So let that bide.

HENRY ADAMS WAS so distraught he had quite forgotten Miss Perkins.

“Father’s angry,” he informed me, as soon as I stepped inside the hotel door. “I mean, the
mini
ster’s angry. Oh, I do so hate it when he’s out of sorts. He’s an absolute bear.”

“Trouble, is it?” I asked, though I already knew. I would not need to telegraph my message.

“Oh, something about the sailing of a ship.” He fished through his clothing. “He wants us to return to London immediately, though I suppose there isn’t a train until tomorrow.”

I had forgotten how little his father had chosen to tell him. I did not wish to pry into family matters that were no concern of mine, but I thought I understood the elder Mr. Adams. Young Henry had been born to disappoint. He had no gravity, as they say, and I thought him the sort who would mock the efforts of those who had the vigor to attempt what he would not. But let that bide. The failings of the day were mine alone.

He found the message in his waistcoat pocket and handed it over.

“It’s addressed to you,” he told me blithely. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I opened it.” Then he added, “He must be terribly angry about something. Not at you, I don’t mean. You don’t quite figure, if you don’t object to my saying so. This must have to do with something important.”

The telegram said simply:

AJ. SHIP SAILED. RETURN LONDON. CFA

I raised my eyes from the scrap to young Mr. Adams. “Yes, I know of the matter. But look you. How can you tell he is angry? From four words?”

Certainly, our Minister had a right to be disgruntled. For say what you will, I had failed to stop the Rebels from gaining their vessel. But I hardly could read any rage in that brief message. Curious I was.

“That’s it exactly,” Henry Adams told me. “Only four words. Whenever he gets terribly angry, he withdraws into that New England shell of his and starts growling about economies. His telegraphic messages get shorter and shorter—to conserve funds, he says—and the shorter the message, the more out of sorts he is. I’d hate to get a one-word message from him.” Henry Adams sighed. “He drives us all mad at the legation with his counting pennies—although I suppose I shouldn’t tell you that. But, then, after last night, we’re comrades in arms, aren’t we? He even expects me to use both sides of a piece of paper, and he won’t hear of claret at dinner when he’s like this.”

Now, that sounded eminently sensible to me. But each man has his intricate form of anger. And the son must know its shape.

“Really,” young Mr. Adams added, “he’d do better if he didn’t insist on being so awfully American at times like this. He needs to take a lesson from the English.”

Now, I was angry myself, about a thousand things and more, and I nearly gave that young fellow a proper talking to. For there is nothing finer than being an American. Even if we lack Britain’s wealth and power.

“Where is Miss Perkins?” I asked, almost listlessly.

“Oh, that beastly police fellow took her off. He said he needed her written testimony about last night’s affair.” At that, Mr. Adams worked himself into a smart little huff. “It didn’t take him five minutes to copy
mine
down. And I didn’t have to leave the hotel.”

“I’m sure Miss Perkins will give a good account of things.”

“I say, Jones.” He moved closer to me, as if to force more intimacies upon me, and his tone became more English than the English. “Do you believe Miss Perkins is a flirt?”

“Miss Perkins,” I told him, trying to be just to every party, “is a survivor.”

“That’s really not an answer, you know.”

But it was. And it was all the answer I intended to give him. I asked if he might book our journey to London for the next morning, and I excused myself. For I had a number of things I wished to do. And I wanted to walk. Bothered leg or no, a good walk helps.

“Don’t worry
too
much,” Henry Adams called after me. “Father’s rarely severe with minor subordinates. He always takes the blame upon himself. And won’t he be surprised to see those letters?”

YES. THE LETTERS. Whether or not they mattered to the Earl, they would matter a great deal to many another man. I longed to see the elder Mr. Adams wield those letters as an avenging angel might, to lay into the lot of them with the shining sword of justice. Then we would see just who won what in Albion.

I did my duty first, which was to take me up to the police offices. Inspector McLeod had a look at my remembrance of the duel, declared it a “wee scrape,” and pronounced me “the luckiest laddie from Largs to Lanark.” He was glad to have my explanations down in ink, but even gladder he was when I asked if I might take my leave again. For the inspector had developed a great professional interest in Miss Perkins’s abilities with firearms, and he asked her again and again to demonstrate how she had aimed and fired in the night’s confusions. During those performances, the inspector stood behind her or beside her, rather closer than I would have judged necessary, and helped her support the tiresome weight of the pistol. Time and again, a great red bush of whiskers brushed her cheek. For her part, Miss Perkins seemed not the least bit incommoded by the inspector’s attentions, and her laugh was jolly, not stern, when she told him, “Mind yourself now. And don’t you go getting all sly with those ’ands of yours, Jock.”

Twas clear her interest in me was much diminished. Which was only proper, I suppose. The truth is that she did seem a bit of a flirt.

Off I went to Sauchiehall Street, and I bought my beloved a shawl still more expensive than the one Miss Perkins had assumed to herself. You will think me wasteful, but I would not give my Mary Myfanwy a gift of lesser value than a music-hall lass got out of me. No matter that the present was unintended.

And I bought a copy of Mr. Dickens’s book,
Great Expectations.
I wanted to know what happened to that young Pip. Now you will say, “Jones, you are the wickedest of hypocrites.” But I will tell you: We must learn as we go in life, and give new things a chance. Suppose we had never tried the steam engine? Or the gaslamp? Nor did I mean to slight my Gospel readings. Although I was anxious to cut the novel’s pages.

I took myself next to the colonel’s chapel, where we had arranged to meet. Since I had been otherwise occupied by my duties, he had taken Fanny to see her father buried. The good old fellow had insisted on giving the deceased a bit of ceremony, at his own expense, and I understand he had a piper, too. I pictured him saluting, as he would have done at the graveside, for in the end all soldiers become brothers. The colonel said the girl asked him if he believed her father would be lonely after she had gone to America, and he promised he would go by the cemetery from time to time, if she would write him letters with news to be shared.

The girl was provisionally in the charge of Miss Sharp, who had been equipped with funds to outfit her for our journey, and the colonel and I sat in the front pew of his chapel and talked for hours. Or should I say I talked to him? The summer twilight had begun to settle in before I was done, see. I did not “make a confession” as Catholics do, for I will not go near the Church of Rome. Yet, I almost see a point in how they do things. A fellow likes to get things off his chest.

And we prayed together. For prayer is never wasted. And after the evening service, which was a wonderment of barked commands, devotions, and hymns sung true, we shared a final supper. He would bring Fanny to the station in the morning and see us all off.

He seemed old and almost frail as we sat over the leavings of our stewed fruit. Yet, I recalled the lion he had been, strong when other hearts grew weak, and ever defiant. He had seemed to have no more fear of the cholera than he had of enemy lances or
jezails,
and men had died to seek his least approval. His bearing never faltered. Twas men such as Colonel Tice-Rolley who gave Britannia her empire, men who stood upright when others cowered low, and who lived on a mouthful of foreign dust while the timid dined well at home. I noticed that he had spilled a bit of soup on the front of his coat, and his thoughts wandered ever so slightly as he tired.

Cheery he was, though. He even said that he might turn his theological attentions to America, as soon as he had set the Scots to rights. And he seemed to delight each time I called him Topsy.

But the evening had to end, for the train would go early in the morning. And I needed to make certain those letters were secure.

“Rather thought you might have stayed a few more days,” he said. “Jolly good to have these little talks, don’t you know?”

He was a man long accustomed to directing regiments and judging men. Now he inspired the hearts of congregations. And, always, he enjoyed the world’s respect. But admired by a thousand, he wanted a single friend. For the bones of those he had loved were far away, and prayer will warm the soul, but not the flesh. I believe the Earl of Thertford was wrong about most every clever and devious thing he said, but there was more truth than I liked in one of his suggestions: We are too often alone upon this earth. Sometimes I think that loneliness is the greatest of the plagues upon our kind.

But let that bide.

EIGHTEEN