Touchstone

by Laurie R. King

  “You mustn’t torment Gallagher, Sal,” Grey said.

  “I refuse to be cosseted like a Victorian maiden,” she said. “Besides, the house smells of dog.”

  The Greys wandered after the luggage, Sarah’s arm through that of her brother, Stuyvesant walking behind as the two blond siblings chattered about the health of their mother, a business venture of their Canadian brother, and the expected birth of his second child. They might have been twins, he thought: Her hair was a shade lighter than his, now that his barber had trimmed the sun-bleached ends, and despite heeled shoes she was an inch shorter, but their eyes were identical, and the profiles they turned to each other shared the same nose. Even the tilt of their heads were mirror images, tipped towards the other as they walked, her shoulder tucked into his biceps.

  So this was the wedge Aldous Carstairs had used to detach Grey from his Cornish stronghold, Stuyvesant mused—or maybe the bait on the hook of Carstairs’ Project. In either case, very attractive bait she was, with the first cloche hat he’d seen that didn’t resemble an overturned bucket, a silk frock that failed to conceal the unfashionable curves of her body, and a set of calves that made him appreciate the recent rise in hems.

  Inside the barn door, Grey’s sister turned left and made a bee-line for the last room on the right.

  When he looked inside, Stuyvesant saw that the décor here was, indeed, a wave, with the bed its boat, riding a building swell of gray-blue water that rose unevenly up two of the walls. The furniture seemed about to pitch and toss on the blue-green rug. Sarah looked up at Stuyvesant’s face and let fly with that rich laugh again.

  “A mite disorientating, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t wake up sea-sick?”

  “Never. Although I dreamt once that I was swimming with dolphins.”

  He blinked at the picture conjured by his mind’s eye, this young woman rising and dodging through the waves among those sleek creatures that had played alongside the Spirit of New Orleans three weeks before. Fortunately, whatever he might have blurted out was interrupted by the clearing of a throat, and they turned to see Gallagher, carrying a tray with a sweating silver ice-bucket.

  “Shall I place this in the general room, sir?” he asked Grey.

  “Oh, bless you,” Sarah answered, and they moved across the hallway, leaving Deedee to the unpacking.

  With only the room’s name to go by, Stuyvesant was braced for anything: a life-sized statue of Napoleon, perhaps, or frescoed groupings of high-ranking military personnel throughout the ages, but in fact it was just a comfortable room with a fireplace and a number of sofas and overstuffed chairs: general-purpose, rather than military general. The furniture was upholstered in maroon and dark blue leather, but the paintings on the walls were unexpectedly avantgarde—Stuyvesant recognized a Picasso and a Matisse, and there were several more by artists whose work he had never seen before. It was an enormously attractive and comfortable room, the afternoon sun through the west windows making the colors glow like stained glass. The fire was welcome, although it made it almost too warm. Gallagher placed the tray on the well-laden drinks cupboard in one corner and asked Grey, “Would you care for—”

  “Thank you, Gallagher, we can take it from here. I’m sure you have a hundred things waiting for you.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “I—sorry,” Grey said, as his word interrupted the butler’s progress out the door. “I just wondered if you’d heard when the Family are expected back.”

  “Her Grace generally returns near dark; His Grace is in his study; Lady Pamela is expected back from Gloucester at any time; Lady Constance and Lady Evelyn are dressing for dinner; Lord Daniel and Lady Laura indicated that they would return in time for cocktails. Lord Patrick is in the library with a friend.”

  “Heavens, the full complement of Hurleighs will assemble. Thank you, Gallagher. We’ll change and be over in half an hour or so.”

  “Thank you, sir.” With a brief dip of the head, he left.

  The moment the door shut, Grey wheeled on his sister. “What happened to you?”

  “How on earth—?”

  “You didn’t want Gallagher to know, but something happened. You’re hurt.”

  “Oh just—it’s nothing. A little bang, just shook me up a little. I’ll tell you about it, but please, Bennett, you mustn’t mother-hen me.”

  He kept his eyes on her with that listening attitude Stuyvesant had seen before, and then the tension left him and he straightened, knuckling his temple as if to soothe a residue of ache.

  “Stuyvesant, would you pour my sister a drink? She puts on a wild front, but in fact she prefers it heavy on the tonic water.”

  Stuyvesant splashed gin over ice and filled the glass with fizz for Sarah Grey. He scooped some ice in another glass, poured a generous measure of gin over it, and raised a questioning eyebrow at Grey, who made a keep-going gesture with a finger. Stuyvesant tipped the bottle again until Grey nodded; maybe five ounces of gin. He poured a dash of water on top, gave him the drink, and made a considerably weaker one for himself.

  Grey held his up, and said, “To friends and family.”

  “Friends and family,” they echoed. Sarah took a thirsty swallow, kicked off her shoes, and pulled her stockinged feet up into the large chair with a sigh of contentment. She had watched the amount of gin going into her brother’s glass without comment, but Stuyvesant thought that some of her cheerfulness had faded.

  “So, Sal my gal,” Grey said as he dropped into the chair beside hers. “Give over.”

  “Honestly, Bennett, it was nothing. A fight broke out on the train, just short of Oxford Station, and I got a bit jostled. It was more unpleasant than frightening.”

  “A fight, actually on the train?”

  “There were some boys who’d been down in London playing at constables—practicing for the Strike, you know? And they’d stopped in for a couple of drinks before they got on the train, plus they’d brought flasks with them, and as the spires came into view they picked an argument with an elderly man who’d been harrumphing his way through the newspaper. One of the boys said—well, it hardly matters what he said, it was deucedly rude, and the man got up and threatened to thrash him for his impertinence—I think that’s what he said, his accent was rather thick—and that brought the rest of the carriage into it—”

  “—including you,” her brother interjected.

  “Well, yes, I could hardly let them abuse the poor fellow, and they were such self-righteous prigs, you can’t imagine.”

  “I can, you know.”

  “Yes, I suppose. But it actually looked as though they might take out their play-constable truncheons and use them on the fellow, and I stood up and went over, so that he wouldn’t be all on his lonesome, don’t you know? And one of the boys fell over, actually tripped over his own great feet, and bumped into me. I banged my head against the wall and my hat fell off, but it served to sober them up so it was in a good cause.”

  The two men stared at her. Stuyvesant wanted to get out the car and drive into Oxford to hunt down a pack of drunk students, but Grey kept himself well under control.

  “Sarah, sister dear, you really mustn’t get into brawls with drunken undergraduates. Your impetuosity will get you into hot water one of these days.”

  “It was just an accident, they were terribly apologetic, but if I hadn’t intervened they might have hit the old man.”

  “What newspaper was the old gent reading?”

  “Well…”

  “The Workers’ Weekly?”

  “Oh, it might have been, but so what? A man has the right to read his paper, hasn’t he?”

  “What I’d like to know is what a group of undergraduates were doing in the third class compartment. Yes,” Grey said, although he hadn’t been looking in Stuyvesant’s direction to see the surprise on his face, “my sister considers it an obligation to travel with the horny-handed sons of toil rather than splurge on comfort.”

  “I shouldn�
��t be surprised if the ticket-seller in London had seen their state and refused to place them in first class.”

  “Thus getting them off to an irritable start.”

  “If I’d been a man, I’d have pushed one or two of them out of the window,” she declared.

  “I have no doubt that you would make a top-rank bare-knuckle fighter, Sal.”

  “But you, dear brother,” she said with an air of transferring the spotlight. “What on earth brought you out of Cornwall?”

  “As I told you in my letter, I wanted to see you.”

  “You could have come to London. Or home. I’m there quite a lot, and you could’ve said hello to Mother in the bargain.”

  “I didn’t want to see Mother, I wanted to see you. And Stuyvesant happened to be in the country, so when you wrote to tell me you were going to be here, I thought it a once-in-a-lifetime chance to show the old man one of the more interesting institutions of the English social world. I did send the Duchess a wire asking if it would be too rude to invite myself and a friend. She wrote back one word: Pleased.”

  “You came to Hurleigh House to show your friend the sights?” Sarah sounded frankly disbelieving.

  Grey downed an inch of almost pure liquid courage, then said, “I’ve been feeling better. Stronger. I wanted to see if I could handle it.”

  Sarah softened instantly, and stretched across to squeeze his hand. “I’m glad, Bennett. Really so glad.”

  Which response made the gin go sour in Stuyvesant’s mouth. Still, in a manner of speaking, Grey’s explanation might be almost true.

  “But, dear boy,” she continued, “do try to play down the Mother’s Ruin. It takes the edge off things, I know, but in the long run it can make life difficult.” The bright gaze shifted to her brother’s friend. “And you, Mr. Stuyvesant; I expect you to keep an eye on him. If he shows signs of falling too far into a bottle, take him for a long walk up the Peak, or down to Batty’s Tump.”

  “I shall do my best, Miss Grey.”

  Grey balanced the glass on the arm of his chair and stretched his feet towards the fire. “And you, young thing. When you’re not brawling with the strike-breakers, what’s the pash these days?”

  “Really, Bennett, you are so out of touch. We’re all deeply serious now, nobody has ‘pashes’ any more; we have ‘causes.’ And as you well know, when I’m not at home listening to Mother complain that I’m never there, I divide my time between Women’s Help in the East End—that’s the free clinic—and Look Forward—that’s the political group.” Her words were light, even dismissive, but Stuyvesant could see that she took both groups seriously. “I don’t think I’ve told you about Laura’s latest conquest—” She paused for an aside to Stuyvesant. “Laura Hurleigh, that is, who doesn’t like to be called ‘Lady.’ She started the first clinic, and helps run them. Laura’s latest conquest for Look Forward is Cora Burton-Styles. You remember her?”

  “God. Cora Burton-Styles is seared into my memory.” Grey said it with feeling.

  Sarah laughed and turned again to Stuyvesant. “When my brother was fourteen, he fell head over heels in love with a neighbor, Cora Burton-Styles, probably because she was nearly a foot taller and could beat up any boy her brothers brought home. Unfortunately, Bennett’s very best friend had fallen for her at the same time. So the two boys decided that the only way to handle the problem was to set a quest—terribly King Arthur, you see? The first one to climb to her window and give her a red rose without getting caught would win the rights to her affections. Only the problem was, la belle dame sans merci was indeed sans merci, and when Bennett’s lovelorn face appeared in Cora’s first-floor window late one night, a rose clenched between his teeth, she screamed, flung open the window, and bashed at him with her silver hair-brush. He fell fifteen feet and landed on some prize peonies, and Cora’s father swore that if Bennett ever set foot on the place again, he’d take a shotgun to him.”

  “Nearly broke my neck,” Grey remembered. “I’ve loathed peonies ever since.”

  “Lucky they weren’t rose bushes,” Stuyvesant commented.

  “And after all that,” Sarah concluded, “in the end it turned out that Cora doesn’t like boys much anyway, so it was all for naught.”

  “But she’s lending a hand with this political group—what did you call it, March Forward?” Stuyvesant asked, steering the conversation in a direction that might do some good.

  “Look Forward. Yes, donating money, mostly. Some of us feel it’s the only hope. Bennett doesn’t take me seriously, ’cause I’m only his little sister, but honest, this country is in such awful shape, even I have become aware of it. A person has to be pretty blind not to see how terrible the inequality is—I have school friends whose sole interests in life are Paris fashion and getting invited to the smart parties, when a five-mile circle drawn around their houses will find children who go to bed hungry, men working for less than they made in 1905, and women who have one baby after another with no medical attention at all. And Laura and I thought, if people like us don’t stand up and make a fuss about it, who will?”

  “So Look Forward advocates political change?” Stuyvesant asked.

  “Among other things. Basically, it’s a meeting-place of minds,” she told him, eyes shining, feet coming to the ground so she could lean forward in emphasis. “Look Forward draws from all the levels of society, rich and poor, right and left, in an attempt to overcome the traditional boundaries and distinctions. We’ve brought together Union leaders and Members of Parliament, miners’ wives and lady office-workers, dock-workers and undergraduates. One of the projects we’re working on now is a children’s play camp in the summer, with children from all backgrounds coming together for two weeks to play together and learn from each other.”

  If her speech sounded like words composed by another, there was no doubting the sincerity of her belief. Stuyvesant found himself smiling at her enthusiasm. He caught himself up short, and turned his mind to business. “I haven’t heard about the group. Are there many members?”

  “Hundreds,” she said, sounding proud.

  “Do you have a leader?”

  “Leadership is archaic,” she said promptly. “Most of the world’s problems stem from hierarchies—laws that support the status quo, leaders whose main interest is keeping the under-classes in line. We all do what is required according to our strengths.”

  “So if you need someone to talk to a Member of Parliament, you’d send a miner’s wife with a child on her hip?”

  She shook a finger at him. “Mr. Stuyvesant, you’re teasing me. But yes, wouldn’t that be ideal, to see a coal miner’s wife sitting down in conversation with the Prime Minister? However, we’re young, we are forced into compromise.”

  “So there’s no particular leadership. Who makes the decisions about projects and directions?”

  “A group of us talk everything over. Laura Hurleigh is probably the most active member at the moment. Richard—Richard Bunsen—is the one who started it, but of late he’s been rather wrapped up in matters to do with the Miners’ Union.”

  “Along with the rest of the country,” Grey remarked.

  “I’ve heard that name, Bunsen,” Stuyvesant said, sounding uncertain.

  “Richard is beginning to make a name for himself in politics,” she said. “That’s probably where you heard of him. He’s a fine public speaker, with a real sense for what the nation needs—some of his projects have just taken off like wildfire. You’d like him. So would you, Bennett. Now, don’t scowl at me, Richard’s an interesting man. He may drop by here during the weekend, but even if he doesn’t, now that you’re coming out of your hibernation, I’ll make certain you meet him. You’d have a lot to say to each other.”

  “We shall see,” Grey said. “Another drink, Sis?”

  She tipped the glass so the ice rattled against her teeth, and said, “No, that’ll do me nicely. All shakes, gone, see?” She held out her hand, and it was indeed quite steady. “I must go dress, I feel as
though I’d been dragged through the shrubbery behind one of Her Grace’s hunters.”

  “You don’t look it,” her brother said, before Stuyvesant could. Both men got to their feet as she rose to go.

  “My brother, the honey-tongued devil. Shout me up when you’re going over,” she told him. “I won’t be long.”

  “Funny thing is,” Grey confided to Stuyvesant as they walked up the stairs, “she actually won’t be long. One of the most ungirlish girls I know.”

  “Still, that’s a nasty thing to have happened.”

  “Yes. Except that if I know her, she’ll make it into a joke and dine off the adventure for a month.”

  In his room, Stuyvesant found his evening wear laid out on the bed, wrinkles banished; similarly, the clothing he had hung in the wardrobe had been meticulously re-arranged, the shirts pressed, the suits brushed to perfection. Even his hair-brushes and shaving implements had been cleaned and laid in neat order. The shoes he had left on the floor of the wardrobe had been polished and replaced, but to his relief, the loose board had been overlooked.

  The valise was nowhere to be seen. However, he thought as he gazed at his reflection in the toes of his evening shoes, if he’d left the gun out, the maid would probably have oiled it punctiliously, polished each of the bullets to a shine, and put it back precisely where she’d found it.

  He crossed the hall to the bath-room and washed off the day’s grime, then came back and, standing in his under-shorts at the room’s small mirrored sink—hot water piped in here, too—he shaved with care. He checked himself for stray tufts, eyed what he could see of his chest critically, deciding it wasn’t all that bad for a man of forty. He brushed his hair with his favorite (unscented) hair oil, cleaned his nails, and set about the painstaking task of clothing himself in evening wear. As he was threading the studs through the stiff fabric and cursing under his breath, he heard the footsteps and voices of arriving guests, two young men by the sound of it. They took the two rooms on the other side of the hallway—carriage and taxidermy—banging and calling out to each other. Doors shut and the sound of quiet butlerian footsteps was broken when a door rattled open and a voice asked Gallagher if the drinks tray was downstairs.