Burbage's expression of boyish charm had faded, replaced by the expression Adam often saw on the faces of some of his hard-bargaining customers. He said, “I’ll tell you, certainly. Providing you’ll tell me where Miss Avery is likely to be found.”
“In Cumberland,” said Adam, at random, and gave the address of his boyhood home, on the shores of Derwentwater, wondering a little that he could lie so easily, and on such slight provocation. “That mustn’t go any further, Mr. Burbage. You people protect your sources of information, I believe, and I assure you if it got about that I had assisted you I should find myself out of a good billet without a character.”
Burbage was now regarding him bleakly. “Why should you run that risk on my account, Mr. Smith?”
“I think I can answer that,” Adam said. “I happen to think the same as you concerning Stead's motivation. And it looks to me as if he's been very cavalier about the people he engaged to assist him in the enterprise. Namely one of our lady clients. Does that satisfy you?”
Burbage relaxed again. “Perfectly,” he said, “and now I’ll keep my side of the bargain. My editor has it on good authority that Miss Avery actually participated in this so-called purchase and was present when the girl was certified a virgin by a bawd. We’ve established a direct link between Miss Avery and the procuress,
Mrs. Jarrett, and both have now completely disappeared, together with Eliza Armstrong. For what it's worth, the Salvation Army is also involved—that fire-eater Booth has a finger in every pie baked in this kind of oven. One thing more that might alter your principal's views concerning Miss Avery. She doesn’t earn pin money as a freelance. She's on Stead's staff, and writes exclusively for the Pall Mall Gazette.” He finished his drink and smiled again. “You’ll excuse me now, Mr. Smith. I’ve urgent business to attend to,” and he winked so that Adam, watching him go, thought, “Can’t help admiring the chap's professionalism… George would have made a good journalist… but he doesn’t fool me with that high-toned attitude… Every editor in London is livid with fury at watching Stead's circulation soar, and trying his damnedest to jump on the bandwagon…” But then his thoughts turned back to Debbie and he decided that Burbage's statement concerning her involvement in this mess was almost certainly true, and that she would need any amount of luck to emerge from it without worse damage than she had sustained on the witch hunt in Brussels. And this made him angry with himself that he had not exerted himself to steer her away from these waters long ago, or at least extracted a promise from Stead that she would not be employed on work as dangerous as this. “Damn it,” he told himself, as he crossed Gray's Inn Road in search of a growler, “it's no kind of job for a woman. Hetty's right. We ought to get her married off before it's too late for her to have babies and give her something more pleasant to think about!” He snarled at a fat man wearing a topper a size too small for him, who skipped nimbly ahead of him and disappeared into the cab he had signalled.
3
He said nothing to Henrietta. He wanted time to think, to weigh every possible angle, but in the meantime he kept a close watch on the newspapers, snorting when he read, in the St. James’ Gazette, that newsboys at Ludgate Circus were being brought before a magistrate for selling indecent literature. It was time then, he thought, to make a direct approach to Stead for news of Deborah's whereabouts, and he went round to the Gazette offices but despaired of getting inside, much less of locating Stead. The place looked as if it was under siege, so he returned to his turret and locked himself in, telling Tybalt he was not to be disturbed for an hour. In half that time he had written a forthright letter to the editor, demanding to know the precise extent of Deborah's embroilment in the abduction, where he could locate her, and if she needed legal aid.
He read the letter over, deciding, regretfully, that it was crusty. He did not change it, however. Convinced as he was of Stead's sincerity, he did not value it much against the happiness of Deborah Avery, to whom both he and Henrietta owed a debt that had never been fully discharged by the provision of a home and family since childhood. For twenty years now they had regarded her as the family standby in times of stress, and Henrietta's personal indebtedness to her went back to the time of the rail crash when she had played a woman's part in the crisis that came close to sending Henrietta out of her mind. He could even recall his wife's comment on Debbie a few hours after he came limping in with an artificial limb. She had said of her, at that time, “I can never look on her as anyone else's child after this…” And neither, he decided, could he, sealing the letter and blowing down the tube for a messenger to take it to Stead by hand, and wait for an answer. He marked it, in large, red characters, Copy. Personal to Mr. W. T. Stead. Very Urgent. It seemed the likeliest way of reaching a man all London was talking about.
The boy was back within the hour. In spite of his efforts he had been unable to deliver the letter personally but had given it to a co-editor, and with this Adam had to be content. Having warned his lawyer Stock that Lloyd's News might be in touch with him, and issued instructions that Burbage was to be bluffed as far as Cumberland if possible, he went on home, looking for a telegram from Stead but receiving none that day or the next.
On the day after that there was talk of warrants being issued for Stead and his associates. Mrs. Armstrong, now posing as an outraged mother deprived of her precious child by a trick, was making a great hullaballoo in Lloyd's News and the St. James’ Gazette. In all the other journals, including the Continental and American press, the controversy continued to rage. It was time, he thought, to take Henrietta into his confidence and that same evening he did, telling her all he knew and giving her back copies of both Stead's paper and those of his rivals containing attacks on his integrity.
He had looked for doubts, of the kind he himself entertained, but there was more than doubt in Henrietta's face when she emerged from her sewing room with the bundle of papers under her arm. She flung them on his desk, stared at him unsmilingly, and said, “Well, it's no more than I expected. You’ve failed her badly, Adam. The least you can do now is to find her and get her away from that dreadful man, do you hear?”
“Do you think I haven’t tried to locate her?” he growled, but she made a gesture of impatience that reminded him of her father, once the terror of his factory floor.
“You haven’t tried hard enough. Somehow Deborah has to be rescued from this awful business before she finds herself in real trouble, in gaol as likely as not. But that isn’t the real point.”
“What is then?”
“Your family is. Us! The boys particularly. How do you suppose a scandal like this would affect Alex and Giles? Alex is waiting on promotion, and Giles is hoping to marry one of the wealthiest heiresses in the land. Don’t you think you owe them some consideration?”
He said, slowly, “I hadn’t thought of that. But now that I do it doesn’t seem to me relevant. You don’t really believe Stead is doing this to boost his circulation, do you?”
“I don’t care what his motives are. They don’t concern me, or you either. The moment Debbie is found, and it's proved she helped to kidnap this child, her association with us will be broadcast throughout the land. She's regarded as a sister to Alex and Giles, and you’ll be dragged into it too, mark my words. I don’t often stand up to you, Adam, and I can’t remember how long it is since I ran contrary to you, but I do now, even if it means marching into that man's office and demanding Debbie is restored to us and her part in this hushed up, do you understand?”
“No,” he said, stubbornly, “I don’t. Why should I? Debbie isn’t a child. She can do as she likes with her life, as I told you the last time she was in trouble…”
“Indeed she can’t!” She circled the desk and stood over him threateningly, as though he had been one of the children in need of a whipping. “We’ve given her home and family, and she owes it to us to keep our name out of the mud! You won’t ever accuse me of not having been a good mother to her, I hope. I was always very fond of her, and grate
ful to her for the way she stood by me when the others were too little, and you were at death's door. But that doesn’t mean I’ll let her drag any one of us down into this… this cesspool!” and she swept her hand across the desk so smartly that some of the papers she had thrown there fell to the floor. “There's another thing, too. I’d have taken it kindly if you had let me know about this earlier.”
It was years, he reflected dismally, since they had fallen out on this scale, years since she had railed at him like a scold, or accused him, as she did now, of disloyalty to her and her children. How long ago exactly? More than twenty years, when he had taken her to task for allowing a brutal master sweep to send a boy into one of her flues and choke to death on soot, touching off a quarrel that almost parted them. He said, deliberately, “You stand by that, Hetty? You don’t give a damn what happens to any of these children Stead and Debbie are fighting for?”
“Not a pin!” she said, unblushingly, and it struck him then that, notwithstanding half a lifetime together raising of a family of five sons and four daughters, they were still as far apart on the wider issues of life as on the day they met a mile or so south of the wretched little town where her father had ridden a boy rioter into the ground.
He rose heavily and crossed to the window, looking out on the sunlit paddocks.
“Well, I care,” he said, at length. “I care very much, and I’m no Holy Joe. I care because I’m British, and sometimes I’ve been proud of the fact, for at least we have the men and the courage to scour our privies in public now and again. That's more than you can say for most tribes.”
He turned back to her. “See here, Hetty. You’ve led a sheltered life here in the country, and so, for the most part, have our boys and girls. You’ve done that on the money I earned, and I like to think every penny of it was earned honestly and decently. You’ve enjoyed comfort and security, and we’ve built something worth having right here where we stand, and up at the yard, and out along the network. But what the devil is any of it worth if we take our stand alongside the people crucifying a man like Stead, for the crime of making us aware of our social responsibilities? You quote my duty to Alex and Giles at me, as if they could be matched with the twelve- and thirteen-year-olds sold to goatish old satyrs whose sexual appetites have to be whetted on virgins. I don’t give a damn how closely my name, or Debbie's, or yours, or the children's are tied to those of Stead and Bramwell Booth in this instance. I happen to believe in those articles, even if he went about getting his material clumsily and recklessly. Someone had to do it, and it might interest you to know that because of him Parliament is already passing a law to extend the age of consent to sixteen. And not before time, God damn it.”
She was unconvinced. He realised that before she replied, calmly, “Well, there's your answer. Leave it to Parliament.”
But he burst out, “Good God, woman! Do you suppose Parliament would have lifted a finger if it hadn’t been shamed into it by people like Stead and Debbie? You ought to be damned proud of her. I am, and I wish I could find and tell her so!”
He stumped out then, undecided whether or not he had made the least impression on her but not caring either, for suddenly the serenity of Tryst became abhorrent to him and he felt a desperate need to submerge himself in the stink and clamour of the yard. He went out to the stables and saddled his favourite mare, brushing aside Stillman's startled enquiry as to where he could be going so late in the day. Five minutes later he was heading through summer lanes towards Croydon, and as he rode, scenting honeysuckle from the overgrown hedgerows, he remembered another time he had lunged out of the house in the same way, in search of a compromise between his public and private life. It was the morning after Henrietta had tried to solace him the only way she knew how, after that blear-eyed little eunuch had been dragged from his chimney and laid on his hearthrug and he thought, bitterly, “Twenty years ago, by God! Luke Dobbs then and Eliza Armstrong today, and neither one qualifying for the protection of the most powerful state in the world!” But then, remembering Stead, and the power that resided in his pen, his spirits lifted a little and he said aloud, “I’ll go to him and offer to help, damned if I don’t!” and maintained a mile-consuming trot through the darkness until he saw the lights of the livery stable where he stabled his horse.
4
Tybalt was at the weighbridge when Adam returned from his breakfast visit to the coffee stand, a regular port of call whenever he spent a night in his turret.
He saw at once that the little clerk was more than usually agitated, for he was peering up and down the street like an anxious mother awaiting an overdue daughter from a party. The moment he spotted him he came trotting across the pavement, exclaiming, “My word, Mr. Swann, I’m relieved you came straight back! He's here! He's been here twenty minutes or more!” and then, with a fearful glance left and right, “I… er… took the liberty of showing him up, before anyone in the yard recognised him. I mean, it just wouldn’t do, would it?” But Adam, not in the best of humours, growled, “What the hell are you blathering about? Who's here? Who have you shown up?” Tybalt's face went blank as he said, “You mean you weren’t expecting him? I thought, naturally… well, in the circumstances…” and then he fell into step as Adam strode across the yard and said, breathlessly, “Mr. Stead, sir! He came into the countinghouse asking for you… fortunately I was there alone, so I hustled out and showed him upstairs at once. Did I do right, sir? It seemed to me the wisest course…”
Adam stopped short at the foot of the stair. “Stead's here? Stead came calling?”
“Just after you left. He said you’d written.”
“I’d written, but I had no reason to think… Yes, Tybalt, you did the right thing. You say nobody else spotted him?”
“Nobody, sir.”
“Then make sure I’m not disturbed, and when I blow down have a cab at the foot of the stairs.”
“Yes, sir. Certainly, Mr. Swann,” and he darted away, as though the mere presence of W. T. Stead on the premises would infect him with plague or, at the very least, attract a crowd that would trample him and his clerks underfoot.
He was standing over by the window, looking down on Adam's favourite view, the broad curve of the river between the bridge and the forest of masts on the south bank. He looked, Adam thought, like a man near the end of his tether. Hunted, tense, and drained of energy and yet, if you watched the eyes, defiant and undefeated, still able, as he turned extending his hand, to summon a smile of recognition.
“I’m afraid I rattled your head clerk, Mr. Swann.”
“It doesn’t take much to rattle Tybalt.”
He found himself doing a mental sum and surprising himself with the answer. Stead, as he knew, was twenty years his junior, but no one, seeing them together now, would have believed it. At thirty-six the man looked in his mid-fifties, his beard streaked with grey, the mouth firmly compressed, as with pain he was just able to bear. “The poor devil is killing himself…” Adam thought and suddenly he was ashamed. Ashamed for himself and Tybalt, for Henrietta and everyone who jeered and cavilled and sniggered at what this North Country parson's son was about. There was even something shameful about his circumstances here. Fleeting and furtive, like a convict on the run, seeking someone from whom he could beg a meal and a refuge.
He said, more to soothe his own conscience than reassure Stead, “You don’t have to apologise to me. For being here, I mean. I already deeply regret the tone of that letter I wrote. I was concerned for Miss Avery, for, as I said, she's more than a daughter to me.” Then, “Why did you come, Mr. Stead? You could have written or sent a messenger.”
“I have the reputation of doing my own dirty work, Swann.”
He spoke with bitterness, a depth of bitterness that Adam would have thought uncharacteristic of the man.
“You’re getting plenty of support.”
“At a safe distance, yes. You’ve read the articles?”
“Very carefully.”
He moved round the en
d of the desk where lay a pile of yesterday's newspapers. Lloyd's News and the St. James’ Gazette, two journals heading the hue and cry, were on the top of the pile. He turned and looked across directly at Adam.
“I didn’t answer your question. You’re a man in a big way of business. I don’t have to tell you where your business interests stand in the matter.”
“You’re used to finding yourself in a minority, but it's my experience that you’ll win everybody over in the long run.”
“Not this time,” Stead said. He seemed to stagger, so that Adam said, “For God's sake, man. Take a seat and let me offer you a drink.”
He crossed to his cupboard and took out a bottle of brandy, pouring two measures. It occurred to him then that the editor was probably a teetotaller but it did not deter him. If ever a man needed a stiff drink it was Stead. He pushed the glass across to him. Stead said, leaving the drink on the blotter, “Concerning Babylon, Mr. Swann, I assume you’re among the uncommitted. Like most of my regular readers.”
“That depends.”
“On how deeply Miss Avery is involved?”
“No, not on that. As I reminded my wife last night, Deborah is thirty. At that age one should have made up one's mind on most issues, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, I would.” The thin smile came and went again. “But you’re getting on for twice that age and still ‘havering,’ as the Scots say. How do you explain that, Mr. Swann?”
How did he explain it? How did it come about that he had read every word of the Babylon articles, and every counter-charge laid against Stead, but was still unable to make a clear-cut decision concerning what seemed, on the face of it, a festering sore on the body of a nation that prided itself on its Christian ethics, that claimed, almost, to have invented freedom, justice, and the rights of the individual.
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