Supping With Panthers (28 page)

And indeed, in some strange way, she has helped me to understand it for myself. It is the queerest thing, but I never felt half so confident before I met her, whereas now, as you’re probably aware, I am spoken of as a possible future Foreign Secretary. Foreign Secretary! – me, George Mowberley! – whom you and Arthur Ruthven used to laugh at so! Well, Jack, the last laugh is with me, for I have found talents in myself I had only half-suspected before, and in a sense, I suppose it’s all down to Lilah’s help. I don’t mean that she advises me on policy, or makes suggestions herself, or anything of that kind – that would clearly be ridiculous, for she may be bright but she’s a woman all the same. And yet, you know, Jack, it is perhaps the very fact that she
is
a woman which has helped me so much, for though she may not understand diplomacy or politics, nevertheless she listens to my explanations with such sweet and tender concentration, and is so wonderfully absorbed in all I have to say. When I talk to Lilah, I find I’m thinking more clearly than I’ve ever done – problems melt away, while ideas and solutions start to crowd on me. Don’t scoff, Jack. I know it’s your favourite habit, but before you start off just ask yourself this: why has my Bill been such a swimming success? Before I met Lilah, there’d been problems with it – I’ve already told you that, I think. But then, actually, such a confession wouldn’t have surprised you much at all – I’ve always been a bit of a duffer in your eyes. Don’t deny it! But I can assure you, Jack, my days of dufferdom are long gone now, and what’s more I’m not embarrassed to tell you so. Only a matter of months, old boy, since I met Lilah, but my work is now the toast of the Cabinet. Did you realise that? Or that the press like to call me ‘a glittering star’? Me! Only just thirty! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Were you or Arthur ever called ‘a glittering star’? I think not. And yet, without Lilah, who knows? – I might just have gone ahead and packed the whole business in.

So you can see now how important she has been to me. I told Rosamund right at the start that my absences were caused by the pressures of work. Well, Jack, it was the simple truth. Not the whole truth, I admit, but the truth all the same – I
work at my best when Lilah’s by my side.
I can’t get round that. And remember, it wasn’t just my career I’ve had to think about – I was dealing with the future of the British Raj itself. Pretty weighty stuff, you know. So really, Jack, what else could I have done? Only what I did. I began taking my papers down to Rotherhithe. I got cracking on the spadework for the Bill. Gradually, over the months, Lilah grew more and more indispensable. An hour with her, it seemed, was worth a whole day’s work elsewhere. It was tricky of course, before the Easter recess, getting down to see her for any longer than a night, but once Parliament had risen I hied off pretty sharp and booked in for a stay. Oh, yes, I can hear you ask, in your always-suspect-the worst-of-George tone of voice – and what have I been getting up to all this time? Well, I won’t deny it, Jack, that there may have been the odd bout of carnal pleasuring – I mean, damn it all, she’s the most bewitching creature, the absolute loveliest, for God’s sake! – but I did work too, in between, and what’s more worked bloody hard and well. I can prove it. Remember what Rosa saw? Me togged up in my Sultan’s clothes? Well, I’d never have been in my study if I hadn’t needed papers from my box. It wasn’t the first time, either. Previously, of course, I’d had Rosa on that sleeping drug, so she never found me out and I was able to get away with it. I can see now that I behaved like a fathead over that whole affair, but it was tricky, Jack, damned tricky, because I thought if Rosamund saw me it would only make things worse. It was Lilah’s plan, anyway – she had the drug amongst her merchandise, and I don’t know how, she just persuaded me. Remarkable the things she can get me to do. I sometimes half-wonder if she’s not a mesmerist.

Actually, while we’re on the topic of Lilah’s ideas, the darkie disguise was one of hers as well. I know I must have looked a rare old sight, but even so I don’t think anyone ever recognised me. No, you did, I suppose – eventually – but no one else did, not even Lucy or Rosamund. We went out quite a bit, in fact – Lilah liked the occasional London jaunt, and that’s why she bought the flat above Headley’s shop as a base for our adventures in the centre of town. That’s where the togging-up went on, so I could then cut my dash as the Sultan, you see. Didn’t do the make-up, though – that was very much Lilah’s side of ship. I never worked out what she used on me – damned effective, though, whatever it was – once she’d slapped the stuff on, I seemed a wholly different chap. I wasn’t just that my skin was darker, but it gleamed as well, and the whole structure of my face seemed changed. Very odd. I used to look in a mirror and feel quite frightened of myself. Whenever I asked Lilah she’d just smile and look away, and if I pressed her she’d turn all Mystic East on me. ‘Do not lift the veil,’ you know, all that Arabian Nights sort of stuff. Actually, Jack, for a while I almost wondered if the make-up wasn’t blood – it was a liquid, you see, quite red and sticky, and it had the same sort of smell, like an underdone steak. Of course it wasn’t blood at all, but you can tell how similar it looked from Lucy’s response when she saw the stuff all streaked across my face. Hell of a business, that was. Can you imagine? There I am, innocently indulging in a spot of adultery, and I glance out of the window and there’s my ward looking up at me from the pavement outside. Pretty hairy, eh? Fortunately, Lilah’s on the mark. She smears my face with the cloth, and I give Lucy one further horrified glance, and then I’m hoofing it up the stairs as fast as I can. I wait on the landing while Lucy and some doltish constable are let into the flat, and Lucy starts yelling murder and looking for my corpse. Well, said corpse is tickled pretty pink by this – you know me, Jack, a sportsman through and through, and besides I’m longing to see Lucy again, so I do a bloody risky thing. I sneak back down the stairs; I wait out on the street; then I saunter back up the stairs again and stroll into the flat. And the damned thing is, even though Lilah had only smeared the make-up on, Lucy can’t tell who I am! In fact, she seems positively revolted by me!

Bloody amusing! And actually, even though she didn’t recognise me at the time, it was splendid seeing the dear girl again. You know she’s had a baby? Or maybe you don’t, in which case I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Oh, well – too late now. But anyway, the point about this offspring is that Rosa blames Lucy’s lover for it, and so Lucy hates Rosa, and so the two of them refuse to see each other and Lucy never comes to visit me. Add to that all the time I’ve spent with Lilah and you’ll see why I was glad to see her face again, because we’ve been virtual strangers for almost a year. I can’t deny I’ve sometimes felt pretty rotten about it. I mean, hang it all, Lucy
is
my ward, and when you think about poor Arthur and all she’s been through since his death, and her tender years and all that… well – I felt guilty, as I said. That was why I went to the Lyceum, you see. I couldn’t miss her opening night. Stupid of me, really – especially going there on the second night as well. Talk about tempting fate – or rather, talk about tempting you, Jack – you and your mighty calculating brain, honed by years of puzzles and long-division sums. I suppose I must have been pretty easy meat. Ah, well – it’s an ill wind that has no silver lining, or whatever the saying is. You know what I mean. I’ve learnt my lesson, Jack – I can see now what a total and utter fathead I’ve been. I can promise you this, though – there’ll be no more visits to Lilah’s for a while.

And that’s a gentleman speaking, giving you his word. Dear Rosamund – what a lovely, sweet and forgiving thing she is, and damn it, old man, what a lucky fellow I am, what with the warmth of the family hearth and all that. How could I ever have put it at risk? How could I ever have been such an ass? How could I ever have caused my dear Rosa such pain? Well, thank God for die straight and narrow, I say, and long may I continue on it! I can’t say I regret Lilah, Jack – she was something too wonderful and different for that – but I have had my fill, I realise now.

Come and visit me, Jack. Call in on my office. It’s damned impressive, and has the largest desk in the history of the world. But then, considering what’s being run from it, I suppose, a largeish desk is pretty much required. But no, shouldn’t boast – the point is that I’m pretty keen to see you, old man. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I would drive over myself right now, but I’m still a bit weak, apparently, and though I’m allowed to work at my desk – (my huge desk!) – I’m not allowed to travel. Damn shame, but there it is.

All the best, old man. And again, from Rosa and myself – many thanks.

Until very soon, old fellow,

Your devoted friend,

GEORGE.

Dr Eliot’s Diary.

7
May.
– A hard week, with very little time for either research or thought. Able to work in my laboratory this afternoon, though, and then later read through Kleinelanghorst on cancerous cells. Interesting arguments, but where is his evidence? The same problem I have with my own theories – lack of consistent experiential proof. I seem to be going nowhere. I wish I had samples of the Kalikshutran blood. Then at least I would have something to work on. But as it is, I am hopelessly lost.

Better luck with the Rotherhithe affair, though even that is not entirely solved, and there are aspects of the mystery which still concern me. But at least George seems to have learned his lesson; I have emphasised to him that he should keep away from Lilah – and if he can only stick to his word and not go back to her, then any future danger should be minimised. He had written to me earlier in the week, and seemed remarkably recovered from all his experiences. It is appalling, though, to think he is a Minister – the more conceited he grows, the more stupidly he seems to behave – the same George Mowberley, then. And yet… not altogether. For when I arrived at Grosvenor Street to visit him last night, I found that he was still, as he had claimed to be, exceedingly weak; indeed, so weak that I am astonished he has been attending to his work at all, for at Cambridge he would go to bed at the slightest excuse, and yet now he is slaving like some driven thing.

‘It is his Bill’, said Lady Mowberley in a private aside. ‘He believes that it will make his career, and yet if it kills him what happens to his prospects then?’ She asked me to have a word with George; I willingly obliged. But all my arguments were laughed away; George insisted there was nothing the matter with him, and when I continued to press the issue he challenged me to test his health and identify anything wrong with him. I did so, and could find nothing obvious, I admit. Yet how to explain his weakness, which remains so evident? On a sudden intuition, I checked him for any sign of scarring. The only scratch I could find was down the side of his neck, but George claimed it was a shaving cut and I see no reason to dispute his assertion. I could therefore only advise him, as a doctor, not to work too hard – at which he laughed, as well he might have done, for he is not used to hearing such advice from me.

When Lady Mowberley retired, George talked to me more about Lilah. His passion for her was evident, yet to my relief he did seem wedded to his resolution not to see her again. Much general breast-beating, and praise of his wife. I asked him how his work was progressing without Lilah’s help. He shrugged and seemed offended, then muttered that I had taken his letter too literally – he was not really dependent on her presence by his side. He laughed rather forcedly. Then, when I asked him whether Lilah might not be from a region on the Indian frontier, he laughed a second time and spluttered most indignantly. ‘Why the devil should she be?’ he asked.

I explained; I pressed him on the matter of Kalikshutra. I asked him, for instance, whose idea it had been to name him as the Rajah of that kingdom on the Lyceum register – his own, or Lilah’s? George frowned and thought. ‘My own,’ he muttered at length. ‘Yes, definitely, my own, my own, my own.’ This phrase repeated with increasing assertiveness. ‘You see, Jack,’ he added, as though worried that I was still not convinced, ‘Kalikshutra is a kingdom covered by my Bill. I have been busy deciding what its status should be. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that its name was on my mind. Don’t you think?’ He glanced up at me; I made no reply. ‘And also,’ he said hurriedly, ‘there were those jewels, the ones I bought from Lilah – you remember them? Well, they were from Kalikshutra too.’

I smiled faintly at this. George leaned forward. ‘What the deuce are you implying, Jack?’

I shrugged. I didn’t answer him at first. Instead, I asked him what he was proposing for Kalikshutra in his Bill.

He looked indignant. ‘You know I can’t tell you that’

‘Very well,’ I replied, ‘then I apologise. But all the same, George, I was just wondering… the work you’ve been doing on Kalikshutra – did Lilah by any chance help you with that?’

George stared at me in silence for a second or two; then he shook his head and laughed again. ‘For God’s sake, Jack, I’ve told you, she’s a woman – she doesn’t actually
understand
politics.’ He boomed uproariously at the very idea, and the conversation gradually drifted to other matters. Occasionally, though, I observed a faint frown on his brow, which I chose to interpret as a hopeful sign; if George had really never considered what I had suggested to him, then it was high time that he did. I hope that it will genuinely encourage him to stay away from this mysterious Lilah; I write that not just out of concern for Lady Mowberley’s wounded feelings, but for George himself. I am not certain what it is exactly that I dread; there are many strands here, and perhaps I am afraid to see what pattern they may form. I have sometimes thought of Huree: he would have an answer – he would identify the pattern for me. But of course he would be wrong; and I can’t waste my time with impossibilities. There is only one thing of which I am certain: this mystery is yet to be fathomed to its depths.

All this I was thinking in my cab last night, journeying back from the Mowberleys. Oddly enough, even as I was pondering the case I was struck by a sense I have had before that someone – or something – was watching me. Of course, I know that such a feeling is invariably irrational but nevertheless, so overpowering did it grow last night, that I leant out from the window and scanned the street behind me. I could make out nothing; it was dark by now, and even the gas lights were shrouded in curls of purple mist, while the street itself was full of traffic. I laughed at myself for being an idiot, and sat back again inside the cab. Nevertheless, when we reached the Whitechapel Road I paid off the hansom and proceeded to Surgeon’s Court on foot. The noise of traffic soon died away; before the turning to Hanbury Street, I ducked inside a tenement door and waited to see who might follow me. No one came; I was preparing to return to the street when suddenly I heard the splashing of hooves and the slicing of wheels through die Whitechapel mud. A hansom passed me; as it did so, a curtain was drawn back and I saw a face at the cab window, staring at me. A second, and it was gone; but I had recognised it all die same. It was the face I observed before by Bishopsgate – the woman’s, blonde-haired, exceedingly pale. I must assume, therefore, that my intuition had been correct, and that she had indeed been following me. I do not know why.