Lord John and the Hand of Devils (23 page)

He had not realized it until much later, but that moment of abnegation had had the paradoxical effect of making him whole, as though the heat of battle had melted all the shattered bits of mind and heart and forged him anew—into something hard and adamant, incapable of being hurt.

Then, of course, Tom Pilchard had blown up.

His hand had grown damp on the leather of the scabbard, and it took an actual effort of will to relinquish it.

Mr. Lister looked at the sword for some time, holding it upon the palms of his hands as though it might be some holy relic. Finally, very gently, he set it upon his knees, and coughed.

“I th-thank you, Lord John,” he said. His face worked for a moment, formulating words with such effort as to suggest that each one must be individually molded of clay.

“I—that is, my wife. His m-mother. I d-do not wish to…cause offense. Certainly. Or—or discomfort. B-but it would be perhaps some s-solace, were she to know what…what…” He stopped abruptly, eyes closed. He sat thus for some moments, absolutely still, seeming not even to breathe, and Grey exchanged an uneasy look with Tom, not sure whether his guest was merely overcome with emotion, or suffering a fit of some kind.

At last, Mr. Lister drew breath, though he did not open his eyes.

“Did he speak?” he asked hoarsely. “Did you talk…talk to him? His last—his last w-words…” Tears had begun to course down Mr. Lister’s pale face.

Methodist be damned, Grey thought. Prayer doubtless had its place, but when you were right up against it, there was no substitute for alcohol.

“Brandy, please, Tom,” he said, but it was there already, Tom nearly spilling the glass in his haste.

“Mr. Lister. Please, sir.” He leaned forward, tried to take Lister’s hands in his, but they were clenched into fists.

He remembered the lieutenant’s last words, vividly. Likewise, Philip Lister’s expression of openmouthed astonishment as the cannonball had struck the ground, hit a stone, and soared up into the air—an instant later decapitating the lieutenant and rendering his last words ironically prophetic.

“Fuck me!” the lieutenant had said, in wonderment.

Mr. Lister was so much overcome with emotion that he made little protest at the brandy, and while he coughed and spluttered, Grey managed to pour sufficient into him as to induce a semblance of calm at last.

He had had it in mind, seeing his guest’s distress, to compose some suitably noble speech in lieu of Philip Lister’s actual exit line, but found that he could not bring himself to do this.

“I saw your son for the first time only moments before his death,” he said, as gently as he could. “There was no time for talk. But I can assure you, sir, that he died instantly—and he died bravely, as a soldier of the king. You—and your wife, of course—may be justly proud of him.”

“May we?” The brandy had calmed Mr. Lister, and had the salutary effect of relieving his stammer, but had also brought a hectic flush to his pale cheeks.

“I thank you for your words, sir. And seeing that you share the profession of arms, I suppose you mean them.”

“I do,” Grey said, somewhat surprised.

Lister mopped at his face with the handkerchief Tom had discreetly provided, and looked directly at Grey for the first time.

“You will think me ungrateful, my lord, and I assure you I am not. But I must tell you that we—my wife and I—were completely opposed to Philip’s choice of career. We—fell out over the matter, I regret to say. In f-fact…” He swallowed heavily. “We had not spoken to Philip since he took up his commission.”

And now he was dead, as a direct result of having done so. Grey took a deep breath and nodded.

“I see, sir. You have my sympathy. A bit more brandy, perhaps? Purely for medicinal purposes.”

Mr. Lister looked at the bottle with a certain longing, but shook his head.

“No, my lord. I…no.”

He fell silent, looking down at the sword, which he now clutched tightly, one hand wrapped around the scabbard.

“May I ask a great favor of you, my lord?” he said abruptly.

“Certainly,” Grey replied, willing to do almost anything, firstly to relieve Lister’s distress, secondly to get him out of Grey’s sitting room.

“I said that we were opposed to Philip’s pursuing a career with the army. He bought his commission with a small inheritance, and left almost immediately for London.” The hectic flush had faded a little; now it came back, washing up Mr. Lister’s throat in a tide of shame. “He—he t-took…” The words dried in his throat, and he looked down, fumbling with the ring of the scabbard.

Took what? Grey wondered. The family silver? Was he to be asked to comb pawnshops for bartered heirlooms? With a sense of resignation, he poured more tea, picked up the brandy bottle and added a healthy dollop, then firmly handed the cup to Mr. Lister.

“Took what?” he asked bluntly.

Mr. Lister took the tea with trembling hands and, with an obvious effort, went on, looking down into its aromatic depths.

“He had formed an…attachment. To the daughter of our minister—a most suitable young woman; my wife and daughters were terribly fond of her.”

The minister had been, if not fond of Philip Lister, at least amenable to the match—until Philip had declared his intention of becoming a soldier.

The upshot of this had been that the minister had broken off the attachment—evidently it had not reached the stage of betrothal—and forbade Philip the house. Whereupon the new lieutenant, inflamed, had come round by night with a ladder, and in the best romantic tradition, induced his love to elope with him.

The little he had heard from Quarry of Philip Lister had already convinced Grey that perhaps the son was not so religious in outlook as were his parents; thus this revelation was not quite the shock to him that it plainly had been to his family.

“The scandal,” Mr. Lister whispered, and, gulping tea, shuddered convulsively. “The disgrace of it nearly killed m-my wife. And the Reverend Mr. Thackeray, of course…The things he preached…”

Familiar with the ways of scandal, Grey had no difficulty in envisioning the aftermath of Lieutenant Lister’s elopement. The religious aspects of the matter had—as they usually did, he reflected—merely magnified the damage.

The Lister family had been summarily dismissed from the congregation, even though they had already publicly disowned Philip. Their dismissal had in turn caused dissent and schism in the congregation—which had, naturally, spread throughout the village of which Mr. Lister was squire, resulting in general bad feeling, fisticuffs in the pub, the burning of someone’s hayrick, and specific and personal denunciation of the Listers and their supporters from the pulpit.

“It is not that I consider the practice of arms immoral in itself, you understand,” Mr. Lister said, wiping his nose—which had gone bright red with emotion and brandy—with a napkin. “Only that we had hoped for better things for Philip. He was our only son.”

Grey was conscious of Tom Byrd on the opposite side of the room, prickling like a hedgehog, but was careful not to catch his eye.

“I quite understand, sir,” he said, meaning only to be soothing.

“Do you, my lord?” Lister gave him a look of puzzled anguish. He seemed intent that Grey
should
understand. His brow drew down and he turned the sword over in his hand, seeming to search for some means of making himself clearer.

“It is such—such a
brutal
occupation, is it not?” he burst out at last.

Grey stared at him, thinking,
Yes. And so?

Before he could formulate something polite in reply, Tom Byrd, bending over the table to retrieve the seed cake, leapt in.

“I daresay,” he said hotly. “And if it wasn’t, you’d be saying what you just said in bleedin’ French, wouldn’t you?”

Lister regarded him, openmouthed. Grey coughed and motioned Tom hastily out of the room. The young valet went, with a last glower of disapproval at their guest.

“I must apologize for my valet, sir,” Grey said, feeling a terrible urge to laugh. “He is…” A faint rattle from the cup and saucer he held made him realize that his hands had begun to shake, and he set them carefully down, grasping his knees with both hands.

“He is honest,” Lister said bleakly.

Outspoken honesty was not a virtue generally prized in a valet, but it was a virtue for all that—and Grey prized it. He nodded, and cleared his throat.

“A, um, favor, I believe you said?”

“Yes, my lord.” The recounting of his woes—and the recollection of the Reverend Mr. Thackeray’s most iniquitous sermon—had revived Mr. Lister more than brandy. He sat bolt upright, cup clutched to his bosom, his dead son’s sword across his knees, and fixed Grey with a burning gaze.

“I wish your help, my lord, in finding the girl. Anne Thackeray. I have some reason to suppose she was with child—and if so, I want the babe.”

I
am completely insane.”

“You’ve a very kind heart, me lord,” Tom Byrd said reprovingly. “Not the same thing at all.”

“Oh, I am reasonably sure that it is—at least in this instance. Kind of you to give me the benefit of the doubt, though, Tom.”

“Of course, me lord. Lift your chin a bit, if you please.” Tom breathed heavily through his nose, frowning in concentration as he drew the razor delicately up the side of Grey’s neck.

“Not as I know why you said you’d do it, mind,” Byrd remarked.

Grey shrugged one shoulder, careful not to move his head. He wasn’t sure why he’d said he’d do it, either. In part, he supposed, because he felt some guilt over not having made an effort to return Lister’s sword to his father sooner. In part because the Listers’ village was no more than an hour’s ride from his brother Edgar’s place in Sussex—and he anticipated that having some excuse to escape from Maude might be useful.

And, if he were honest, because the prospect of dealing with other people’s trouble was a welcome distraction from his own. Of course, he reflected, none of these considerations proved that he was
not
insane.

Tom Byrd’s considerations were of another sort, though.

“
Brutal occupation,
is it?” he muttered. Lister’s words of the day before had clearly rankled. “I’ll brutalize him and he don’t mind his manners summat better. To say such a thing to
you,
and half a minute later ask you a bleedin’ great favor!”

“Well, the man was upset. I daresay he didn’t think—”

“Oh, he thought, all right! Me lord,” Tom added as an afterthought. “Reckon he’s done nothing
but
think since his son was killed,” he added, in less vehement tones.

He laid down the razor and subjected Grey’s physiognomy to his usual searching inspection, hazel eyes narrowed in concentration. Satisfied that no stray whisker had escaped him, he took up the hairbrush and went round to complete the chore of making his employer fit for public scrutiny.

He snorted briefly, pausing to work out a tangle with his fingers. Grey’s hair was like his mother’s—fair, thick and slightly wavy, prone to disorder unless tightly constrained, which it always would be, if Tom Byrd was given his way. Actually, Tom would be best pleased if Grey would consent to have his head polled and wear a good wig like a decent gentleman, but some things were past hoping for.

“You’ve not been sleeping proper,” Byrd said accusingly. “I can tell. You’ve been a-wallowing on your pillow; your hair’s a right rat’s nest!”

“I do apologize, Tom,” Grey said politely. “Perhaps I should sleep upright in a chair, in order to make your work easier?”

“Hmp,” Byrd said. And added, after a few moment’s strenuous brushing, “Ah, well. P’r’aps the country air will help.”

T
om Byrd, always suspicious of the countryside, was not reassured by his first sight of Mudling Parva.

“Rats,” he said darkly, peering at the charmingly thatched rooves of the cottages they passed. “I’ll wager there’s rats up in them thatches, to say nothing of bugs and such nastiness. My old granny come from a village like this. She told stories, how the rats would come down from the thatch at night and eat the faces off babies. Right in their cradles!” He looked accusingly at Lord John.