The Halifax Connection

by Marie Jakober

  “Yeah, well, we all get a bit of comfort now and then. I knew this sod once who had four years in the constabulary behind him, to say nothing of a lifetime in the worst part of town, and he still turned his back on a lunatic. All that stood between him and a daisy patch that night was a bungling amateur and a bowl of hot stew. Do you happen to remember?”

  Erryn smiled in spite of himself. “I do.”

  “I rather thought so. You are good at this, Erryn. Damn good, actually, for someone raised all honest and civilized. And I ain’t the only one who thinks so. Colonel Hawkins was in Quebec a couple of weeks ago, had himself a fine dinner with the GG and a nice quiet chat by the fire after. His Lordship is very pleased with us, apparently. With all of us, but especially with you, for stopping the Johnson’s Island raid. He told the Hawk to pass on his personal compliments for … how did he put it? … ‘a difficult task impressively well done.’”

  “He actually said that?” Erryn murmured. “Well, my pride is much mended. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, mate. But I should tell you, if you do something that bloody dumb again and survive it, I’ll be tempted to drown you myself.”

  They laughed together briefly, softly. Erryn glanced about, noting spiderwebs as always in the corners of the walls. The creatures themselves appeared to be sensibly tucked away to sleep. He was silent for a time, unsure if he should ask the question he wished to ask or if he should let the matter be.

  “You know,” he said finally, “I’ve always wondered about Brad Taylor—who killed him that night, and for what. Did you ever learn anything about it?”

  “Beyond the usual crazy rumours, you mean? No, nothing at all. I doubt I ever will.”

  Erryn nodded. It was the answer he had expected. Nobody knew. Nobody was ever going to know. There was a certain comfort in it, he supposed—the sort of comfort one might find in the cold anonymity of a battlefield.

  “So,” Matt said, “I know you love me dearly, but I don’t suppose you’d be here unless you had news. What are the bastards up to, then?”

  “Something quite interesting, I think. The blockade-runner Moravia is sailing at dawn, Captain Fallon, Confederate Navy, with a cargo so precious they fetched a pilot specially from Nassau to take it in. Officially, their destination is Bermuda, but the pilot’s from Charleston, and he’s good—Orton says he’s the best in the game—so there’s no question that’s where it’s going. And it’s all war supplies. Not an ounce of fripperies, I’m told, except a novel the captain brought along to read.”

  “Fallon’s been commanding the White Fox for years. How did you find out he’s changed ships?”

  “The pilot was feeling cold and altogether miserable. I bought him some drinks to cheer him up. And being a kindly sort, I made sure I got him back to his ship safe and sound, just like I promised.”

  “Well.” Matt leaned over to rummage in the small cabinet beside his bed. “That deserves a drink, mate.”

  “Please, no,” Erryn begged. “But thank you.”

  Matt shoved the bottle back unopened. “It’ll make a grand story for the papers, won’t it? ‘To Charleston with Guns and Glory. The Gallant Moravia Runs the Blockade.’ And hidey-ho and fol-de-roley-roley-la. They love that sort of thing, the papers do.”

  All they shared was a small, quiet smile. They knew, as did most everyone, that the Union navy could not hope to stop every blockade-runner on the seas. But if the Federals learned of a ship with a particularly important cargo, and knew its destination …? All the rest would follow like daylight after dawn. Ten minutes after a newspaper hit the streets, it would be in the hands of the United States consul. That was a perfectly ordinary and reasonable thing. And if he was good at his job, as Mortimer Jackson happened to be, he would promptly whip off a coded telegram to Washington. That was a perfectly reasonable thing too, and nothing to concern a pair of young Canadians. And if, shortly afterwards, a steamer went hot-chugging out from Hampton Roads to find the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, well, that would concern them even less.

  It was the most innocent form of espionage imaginable, and the most delicate diplomacy. Not, perhaps, angelically neutral (as if anyone in this bloody, murderous muddle was), but neutrality and peace would hardly be served if Halifax became a gunrunners’ paradise. Of this Erryn was entirely satisfied, and satisfied also that the governor would agree—although, being next to angelically neutral himself, Lord Monck would probably not say so, not even to himself.

  “There’s something else,” Erryn said. “A matter I’ll need some help with, if you can manage it. There’s an Englishman here, calls himself William Ross. He’s captain of the runner Marigold.”

  “Ah, yes,” Matt murmured. “The greedy sod who bought out MacNab’s entire Emporium. He’ll make his owners a fortune if he gets it through.”

  “Quite. To say nothing of a bit for himself. I know him, Matt. He’s actually a naval lieutenant named Bryce Amberson. He’s also …” Erryn paused, redirecting his thoughts. “The man I killed was his cousin. Devin Amberson. They were good friends since they were boys.”

  “He doesn’t know, does he? I thought the whole affair was pretty well hushed up?”

  “There’s always rumours. Whatever else, Amberson has to know how Cuyler was killed, and how I must have felt about it. He won’t blame his mates, of course, but he has to know what happened. And he knows my family, too, a whole lot better than I’d like: five years back he married one of my cousins. Which means he’s likely heard by now, however vaguely, that the earl’s younger son didn’t simply go off adventuring. That something happened, something serious. And then there’s the timing: Cuyler’s death, and Devin’s, and my sudden and apparently permanent departure, all within the space of a fortnight. Even Bryce Amberson might make the connection eventually. I dare say he was just about the last man in the world I wanted to meet again.”

  “He saw you?”

  “Spoke to me, even. But he didn’t recognize me, at least not yet. I think I can stay out of his sight until he sails, and if we’re lucky the Yankees will send him home with his tail between his legs and he won’t be back. Otherwise we’ll need to do something. It might be useful to find out who owns the Marigold. And if someone could bring me word the minute she returns, so I can duck for cover, and not end up sitting next to him at one of MacNab’s fancy dinners, that would be useful too.”

  Erryn looked up, meeting Matt’s gaze dead-on. “The Ambersons are a shabby breed,” he went on. “Everything you think of when you imagine the ruling class at its worst—venal, undisciplined, and above all, utterly callous—every one of them I ever knew fit the pattern. And I was the one who knew them, Matt—Cuyler didn’t. They crossed his path because of me.”

  “That doesn’t make you responsible.”

  “No. But it makes me a trifle shaky. I don’t know how long I could stay in the same room with one of them and be a friendly Grey Tory. And that’s the truth, mate. I really don’t know.”

  Matt took this in stride, as he took most everything Erryn ever said to him.

  “Fair enough. I’ll do what I can to keep him out of your way.”

  “Thank you.”

  In the bit of silence that followed, Erryn considered the many things he wanted to say to Matt, but it was close to three in the morning and he was altogether spent. He wanted, in particular, to ask Matt’s opinion of the Confederation project, whether it would succeed and how it might unfold. But such questions wanted hours of discussion; to begin now would be like opening a bottle of excellent wine when there was only time to have a sip of it. Better, he thought, to just get to his feet and say goodbye. But Matt was speaking again, his voice no more than a murmur.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Erryn, but I heard the damnedest thing a few days back, and I don’t know what to make of it. I heard you were the sorry sod who helped John Braine escape.”

  Erryn looked up sharply. “You have the most amazing ears, mate.”

  “Not really. I
just put them to the ground in peculiar places. Is it true?”

  “I fear so. Are you appalled?”

  Matt shrugged. “I’d be a liar if I said it made me happy. But I know you walk a tightrope sometimes. I’m sure you had reasons.”

  “MacNab asked me to my face, Matt. He said Braine was stranded in Truro and needed to get to the coast. He said I was the best possible choice, because I could use my theatre experience to disguise us both. I didn’t see any choice but to go. I could have betrayed the scoundrel, of course, but I wasn’t sure there was much point in it. We’d throw him in jail for a month and make a lot of law-abiding noises, but in the end we’d let him go, just like the others.”

  “Oh, you are cynical,” Matt murmured.

  “There’s more. Back before he was killed, Brad Taylor told his brother he didn’t trust me, because I was always around when things went to hell. What if he told other people too, not just his brother? I could have found a way to get Braine caught, but all the way to Truro I kept thinking about it. What if Taylor’s words were still sitting quietly in some Grey Tory heads? Not a suspicion, not yet—they think I’m a great cove. But they’ve heard it. Then Braine goes down on my watch and they say, ‘Hmmm. Curious coincidence, that.’ Then I wreck something else, something I have to wreck, because it matters, and now it’s twice … So, to put it simply, I said, ‘Bugger this. The bloody pirate isn’t worth it, let him go.’ I fetched him cheerily to Halifax and onto a blockade-runner, and come morning I woke up a hero. It made a grand impression on the Johnny Rebs. They can’t do enough for me now. So you see, mate,” he finished with a wry smile, “cowardice has been duly rewarded.”

  “Well.” Matt rubbed his knuckles idly across his bearded chin. “I’d call it prudence, myself. I’m glad to see it grows in your part of town; I was starting to wonder. Sure I can’t tempt you with a drink?”

  “Thank you, but no. I should go, before you have to carry me down the stairs.” He got up, shoved the bowler clumsily back on his head. “You know what we’re going to do when this is over? We’re going out to dinner and staying for a week. Just us. Just to talk.”

  “I’ll take that as a promise.” Matt rose easily, smoothly, like an uncoiling spring. “You watch your back now, Scarecrow. I’d find it bloody inconvenient having to replace you.”

  Scarecrow. It was a name Matt called him only now and then, on those special occasions when another man might have said, “my dear, dear friend …”

  “You can’t replace me. You said so yourself. The most perfect natural spy you’d ever seen—remember?”

  They shook hands. Then, with an animal spontaneity that was sadly rare among the young men Erryn had grown up with, and that he utterly adored, Matt pulled him close and hugged him.

  CHAPTER 25

  At the Halifax Club

  We walked too straight for fortune’s end, We loved too true to keep a friend; At last we’re tired, my heart and I.

  —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  AGGIE CAME in late from her half day on Thursday. Sylvie looked up to see the housemaid, still in her street clothes, crossing the kitchen floor with a farm woman’s stride. Sylvie closed her book with a smile, thinking her friend would have stories to tell. Then Aggie sat down across from her, and for the first time the light fell clearly on her face. Sylvie felt her smile quietly die.

  “Aggie, what is it?”

  For at least a minute the woman said nothing at all. She looked at her hands, at Sylvie’s face, at her hands again. When she finally spoke, her voice was flat, as if she were holding in a torrent of anger.

  “Let’s go upstairs. We need to talk.”

  “All right.”

  In their attic room, Aggie challenged her even before the door had properly closed. “Your gentleman friend is Erryn Shaw. Isn’t he.” Despite her choice of words, it was in no way a question.

  “Yes,” Sylvie admitted, “but he’s not really my—”

  “Erryn Shaw is a Confederate agent.”

  Aggie was joking. She had to be. Such a lunatic statement could not be anything except a joke. But there was no lightness in her manner at all, no laughter. Her face was rigid with anger.

  “That’s crazy, Aggie! He doesn’t know anything about the war. He’s never cared enough to find out—!”

  “That’s what he tells you. Or maybe it’s just what you decided to tell me. What did he really say, Sylvie Bowen? ‘Go make friends with the big Yankee woman at the Den and find out what she’s up to’?”

  “How can you say a thing like that?”

  “Well, what should I say, with you carrying on like you’re all on our side, and hanging about with a miserable Rebel hireling behind my back?”

  “Now you bloody listen, Aggie Breault! I don’t know who’s been telling you what about Erryn Shaw—”

  “Nobody had to tell me anything! I’ve known about him for months! Every Union agent in the colony knows. He’s one of MacNab’s flunkeys—has been from the start. He couriers for them, helps them raise money, goes to all their dinners at the Waverley, and drinks toasts to Jeff Davis. God in heaven, Sylvie, it’s no secret! Your walking out with him was the damn secret!”

  It was a rare wind-still night, not even a whisper tugging at the eaves. Somewhere in the walls a mouse scurried and squeaked; nothing else moved at all. Sylvie sank onto the edge of the bed, knotting her hands in her lap.

  Nobody had to tell me anything! I’ve known about him for months!

  It was not that she believed it. She could not—would not—believe anything so shattering simply on another person’s word. It was that the words explained so much: Erryn’s vagueness about his activities and his friends; his preference for spending their time in quiet places; his supposed indifference to the war, an indifference she found astonishing in a man so apparently passionate about everything else in the world. It explained nearly everything … and left an absurdity that nothing in the world could explain: Erryn Shaw himself. The man who spoke to her so many times of his separation from the privileged world of his family and his peers. My father was of the old school. There wasn’t much we agreed on … I will not, under any circumstances, go back to take my proper place in the social order … I don’t care much about rank; as a way of living, it’s not worth it.

  A man did not abandon the world view of position and privilege without a good deal of thought. He might lose his place in the world through misfortune, or be forced out of it by his enemies, but he did not discard its principles blindly; in the ordinary course of things they offered him far too much. He had to look beyond the ordinary to discover what they took away. It’s like the old chap Procrustes I talked about—if any part of you doesn’t fit his bed, somebody chops it off. And if you let them, after a while there isn’t much of you left.

  Erryn wanted his freedom. He wanted to make his own decisions and choose his own friends. He wanted a life in the theatre, whether it was appropriate to his breeding or not. He wanted nobody chopping at him, ever. This much Sylvie believed without question. Whatever he might have lied about, he hadn’t lied about that.

  So how could he support the Grey Tories and the Southern slave keepers? He had seen their sort of world close up, and he had walked away from it. Was he foolish enough to believe the war somehow was for freedom, beyond the freedom of the few to go on controlling the many? Could he possibly be so naive?

  “Are you really telling me you didn’t know?” Aggie said.

  “He wouldn’t work for the Confederacy, Aggie. He just wouldn’t.”

  “He does. He’s gone to the West three times now, carrying messages, meeting with traitors like Vallandigham and Jackson Follett. And he helped John Braine get out of the country, too—we’re all but certain of it.” The housemaid chewed on her lip a little and went on, very softly: “Folks will do a lot of things for money, you know. Things we might think they’d never do.”

  “For money?”

  “That’s right, Sylvie. Money. Young Mr. Shaw’s b
een living pretty high since the war started, despite his theatre being gone—”

  “He gets money from his father!”

  “And he hasn’t touched it. Two years running now, he’s just cashed in his father’s notes and put it all in the bank. And now and then a little extra, too.”

  “I thought that sort of information were private!”

  Aggie shrugged. “I’ll tell you what a friend of mine thinks, Sylvie—you can make of it what you like. My friend figures Mr. Shaw has some natural leanings to the Southern gentry, being a gentleman himself, but mostly what he wants is to live well and somehow get his hands on another theatre. He isn’t trained for any real work, and if he was, we all know what real work pays. So the war’s his golden opportunity. He can live off the fat of the South—sleep late, drink the best liquor in town, eat at the good hotels, and stash his old man’s money away to buy himself his own playhouse.”

  “No,” Sylvie said. “I know him. He wouldn’t.” But bit by bit the tears began, and she could not force them back.

  Aggie sat down beside her. “Did you tell him anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About the Den. About me.”

  “No. I promised I wouldn’t say anything about you, remember? And anyway, he never asked.”

  But he did, she remembered now. Every time they met, he asked about the Den—casually, of course, as though he merely wanted to share her life, but he always asked. The remembrance was sharp and cold as a knife.

  “If you saw for yourself,” Aggie said, “would you believe it then?”

  Sylvie said nothing, and the other went on quietly: “There’s a man in town named George Kane, come in a few days ago from Montreal. He’s a Marylander, and a diehard Rebel—one of the top men they’ve got up here. The Grey Tories have been treating him like a king. They gave him a seat at the opening of the legislature, and a big, fancy sleighing party. Sunday night there’s a farewell dinner for him at the Halifax Club, before he heads off to Bermuda. I been told it’s very exclusive, only for the inner circle. Erryn Shaw is going to be there. You could trade half days with MacKay. She’d be glad to be free when it isn’t Sunday for a change, and the shops are open—”