That was why she could not do it. But she could have today. She could have this time with him, just have it and keep it as a gift of fate.
“Are you well, then?” she asked him. “You look very dashing.”
“I’m well, thank you.” He gave her a small, wan smile. “I’ve brought you something.”
She recalled, vaguely, seeing an object in his hands when he came through the door—perhaps the basket that she noted now, sitting on the dressing table behind him. She supposed he would fetch it for her, but instead he did something most peculiar: he bent forward and began to unlace his boot.
She watched him, too bewildered to see any meaning in it except that he might be hurt. Or perhaps it was just a piece of gravel, for he took the boot off altogether and reached inside, groping as one might for a stone. But what he extracted was a long piece of foil. He opened it and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed it to her gravely. “Would you do me the honour of reading this?”
It was the most official-looking piece of paper she had ever seen, with a coat of arms printed at the top. She thought it was the Queen’s coat of arms, but she was not sure. Below, in fine black script, was printed: Colony of British North America, Office of the Governor.
She looked at Erryn in astonishment, but he said nothing. She read what followed:
Know all men by these presents that the bearer, Mr. Erryn Shaw, has been engaged under my authority as an agent of the British crown, and is specially entrusted with making such enquiries and investigations as may be necessary to protect the neutrality and peace of these colonies during the present conflict in the United States. All civilian authorities, and all officers of Her Majesty’s army, navy and colonial militias are hereby requested and required to offer Mr. Shaw all reasonable assistance, and to respect absolutely the confidentiality of his mission.
Monck
Governor General
Engaged under my authority as an agent of the British crown … Awed, she stroked the paper softly, briefly, and then handed it back. She felt dazed with happiness, and at the same time painfully small. She had judged him so ill.
“You’re … you’re a …” She hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Madame.
“A spy,” he finished calmly, “just as you thought. But not for the Southern Rebels. For us.” He leaned forward. His voice was still quiet, even gentle, but she had rarely seen more passion in his eyes. “I wanted so much to tell you. The night you came to the club—the things you saw and heard there—I could see how much they hurt you. But of course we were told to keep it from everyone, no matter what. I shouldn’t have listened, I know as much now. I should have told you everything. I’m sorry, my heart. I’m sorrier than I can ever say. Can you forgive me?”
Could she forgive him?
She reached for his hand and, when he gave it, drew it close and covered it with kisses. For a small time they huddled together, each of them rushing to speak, swearing they had been wrong, that the other had absolutely nothing to forgive.
“I was so cruel,” she said mournfully. “All those dreadful things I said!”
“No, my heart. You took me at my word, and everything you said was right. I was so proud of you then, you have no idea—”
“Proud of me?”
“Utterly.” He brushed her hair back from her face, kissed her cheeks, her nose, her forehead. “Devastated, I’ll admit, little pieces of me lying all over the carriage floor. But proud nonetheless, and thinking, God, how strong she is, and how courageous! I mustn’t lose her! I simply mustn’t!”
It astonished her that he would say such things. She had no idea what to say in response.
“Whatever did you tell Madame?” she asked. “To persuade her to speak for you?”
“She left me no choice. I had to tell her the truth.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“Then you’ve trusted both of us with your life.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “But if I hadn’t, I would be spending the rest of that life knowing you hated me. And every time I thought of it, it seemed quite as horrible as dying.”
“I never hated you, Erryn. I couldn’t.”
“You were trying hard,” he said. “I was afraid you’d get better at it with practice.”
She laughed then, a tiny cat’s laugh that ended in a cough. It hurt, but it felt wonderful. She had not laughed for so long.
He wrapped both of her hands in his own. “I still want to marry you,” he said. “Just so you know. Nothing has changed. Someday soon, when you’re all better, I shall take you to dinner, and tempt you with bonbons and rich wines, and we’ll go walking in the moonlight by the sea. And then, who knows? Perhaps you’ll say yes.”
Yes, perhaps I will. I adore you, Erryn Shaw. Whatever happens in the end, whatever becomes of us, I adore you, and I will until I die.
CHAPTER 29
The Rising Storm
Confiding special trust in your zeal, discretion and patriotism, I hereby direct you to proceed at once to Canada, there to carry out such instructions as you have received from me verbally, in such manner as shall seem most likely to conduce the furtherance of the interests of the Confederate States of America …
—Jefferson Davis to Jacob Thompson, April 1864
FOR DAYS ERRYN’S most constant companion was fear. Fear stalked him in the streets, and huddled night after night in the shadowed corners of his room. It sat brazenly on the window ledge by Sylvie Bowen’s sickbed, tormenting him in every breath of silence: She could die. Her lungs are wrecked from the mills, and she could die … Twice a week he went with Madame Mallette to visit her, and each time he found her much the same, thin and pale, with a cough he feared would shatter her to pieces. Sometimes, after leaving, he could do nothing more than slip away to a quiet spot by the sea and put his head in his hands and weep.
Only his work took his mind off his fears, and he was grateful when Matt Calverley sent word to arrange a meeting. It would be good, he thought, to talk for a while about the public world. It would be better simply to see his friend.
They could no longer meet at Matt’s boarding house, even in the dead of night. A Confederate operative had moved in—for no other reason, Matt was certain, than to keep an eye on him.
“It seems I have a reputation among them,” he said. “‘That God damn Yankee-loving son of a whore—he plots, he lies, he follows us everywhere. The bloody bastard’s always up to something.’ You’ve heard, I suppose?”
“Oh, quite. I’ve heard you’re on Jabin Romney’s payroll, too. Come to think of it, maybe all your new neighbour really wants is to sneak in your room some night and steal the wad of Yankee greenbacks you’re hiding in your mattress.”
“Maybe I should leave him a note.”
In a heartbeat Erryn recalled another note, the one he left on a bench in Place Viger: Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree…
“No,” he said. “No notes. I tried that once, remember?”
“I wasn’t serious.” Matt reached a little and turned up the wick on the kerosene lamp. They were in a small, ill-furnished office just off the waterfront. The one window was heavily curtained. Outside, since it was spring now and the weather pleasant, a drunk took his ease near the door, wrapped in an old, half-ruined blanket—a drunk who, when the men inside had left, would quietly go home, bathe, and return to his ordinary life as a member of the Halifax constabulary.
“So,” Matt went on, “what can you tell me about these two chaps who turned up last week? This Captain Carson, as he calls himself, and his mate Lacey? I know Carson’s left already, but I wondered what you might have heard.”
Erryn cocked an eyebrow at his friend. Southerners came and went here all the time, and Matt was always interested in anything he might learn about them. But he had never before arranged a meeting to ask about someone so recently arrived.
“Why do I get the feeling you already know more about them than I do?”
Matt
only smiled and waited.
“I can’t tell you much,” Erryn said. “They were both supposed to go directly to Montreal—I do know that. But Lacey decided to stay on for a week or two. Apparently he isn’t well.”
“Is that a fact or a pretence?”
“A fact, I think. He looks like death on a stick.”
“You’ve met them, then?”
“Just once,” Erryn said. “They were fairly discreet, but they did talk a lot about how war-weary the Northerners supposedly have become, and how much support the Rebels have in places like Ohio and Illinois. So it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re thinking about another Northwest uprising. And they came well supplied with money; they did let that slip.”
“How much money?”
“Carson left five thousand behind just to keep his mate warm and cozy till he feels better.”
“Five thousand? Jesus. D’you ever have the feeling we’re working for the wrong government?”
“All the time.”
Matt laughed. “Anything else?”
Erryn shrugged. “Just gut instinct. But Captain Carson is no soldier, no matter what he calls himself. And they’re men of substance, both of them. That I could spot from a mile off. Add it in with their impressive bankroll and I’ll wager they have high connections.”
Matt nodded. “The very highest, probably. Lord Lyons has been hearing some interesting rumours down in Washington. Seems Jeff Davis has chosen himself a pair of so-called commissioners to come up here, name of Jacob Thompson and Clement Clay, politicians from away back. Thompson was Minister of the Interior under President Buchanan, and Clay was in the Alabama senate. The descriptions we have fit Carson and Lacey pretty well. And everything you’ve just told me fits too.”
“Commissioners for what?”
“Well, that’s the question. The Hawk’s been back and forth with Governor Monck for days, and I gather he’s been back and forth with Lyons. Depending who they ask, Thompson’s role is purely diplomatic. According to others, it’s the usual sort of troublemaking.”
“Diplomatic?” Erryn murmured. “That could get rather boring for him.”
“Rather. There’s no way Monck will meet with them. So I’d vote for the troublemaking role myself. Things are likely to get lively in the West.” He smiled then, just a little. “Don’t look so gloomy, mate. I’m not sending you to chase after them. I need you here, and even if I didn’t, Bryce has a solid team behind him now, he can handle it. And Hawkins says a lot of ordinary chaps have started paying attention too—keeping track of the Southerners, and reporting anything that don’t look right. They make a lot of mountains out of molehills, he says, but it’s worth it. They keep the buggers off balance.” He dug about in his pocket and retrieved a battered muffin wrapped in newspaper. “Do you mind? I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“No, please, go ahead.”
“You know Mason packed up and left England? The Confederate envoy? He damn near set off a war getting over there, on the Trent, and when the Rebels didn’t get their way with those rams in Liverpool, he just said bugger it and left town.”
“Yes, I know. Kind of reminds you of the 1860 election, doesn’t it?”
Matt laughed and bit off a great chunk of muffin.
“So tell me,” Erryn went on, “this plan that’s afoot for uniting the provinces—what do you think about it all? I’ve wanted many times to ask you.”
“I like it. Some are scared, of course, thinking the West is so much bigger and going to gobble us up. They might even be right, to a point, but I don’t think we have a choice. I gather the Southerners like the idea, most of them?”
“Oh, quite. They have this vision of an independent Confederacy all arm in arm with an independent Canada, and the poor humiliated Union squished in the middle. Just the other day, one chap was describing to me the fabulous resort trade they’ll bring us after the victory, since they’ll never want to spend their summers in New England again. Oh, and we’ll soon be building mills, too, for the cotton. We’ll replace Lowell as the textile capital. Hell, in a few years we’ll replace Manchester.”
“Really?” Matt murmured. “And what about this uncomfortable little business of the Underground Railroad?”
“Nobody ever mentions it.”
“No, of course not. Doesn’t it occur to them that if they do win, it might be Canada and the Union standing shoulder to shoulder to keep them in line?”
“God knows what occurs to people, Matt—or what doesn’t. I used to think we were reasonable sods, most of us. Since this war started … I don’t know. There’s times I think reason is something we take off the shelf and play with when we’ve nothing else to do.”
“And here I thought I was a cynic.” Matt licked the last crumbs of muffin off his fingers. “So how are you, mate? You look rather wrung out, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I’m all right.” Erryn hesitated, knowing he had to go on, knowing also that his friend would be sadly disappointed in him. “I’ve fallen in love.”
Matt considered this for a moment. “Have you now?” he murmured.
“Well, yes, and the thing is, I had to tell her what I’m doing.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Erryn wondered sometimes if Matt had learned his quiet, dangerous patience from his spiders; or if he came to fancy them because he saw in them some shadow of himself. Matt waited for Erryn to continue. Only his eyes betrayed how seriously he was taking this.
Briefly and simply Erryn told him the facts—how he and Sylvie Bowen had met and become friends, how she had turned against him when she learned of his work with the Grey Tories, how he had come home from Woodstock and found her gravely ill.
“I couldn’t leave her so. I simply couldn’t. She’s alone in the world, except for me. I had to see her, make it right with her if I could. And for that I had to talk to Madame Mallette.”
“You told both of them?”
“Yes.” Erryn made a small, apologetic gesture. “I know you’re wanting to call me a romantic fool, and maybe worse. But I love her terribly, and quite apart from that, I owe her my life. It was she who got me rescued on the Saguenay.”
Matt examined his boots. “What do you want me to say, Erryn? If we were making bets, I’d give you decent odds—you’re a good judge of character. Hundred to one, maybe, that both of them can keep their mouths shut. Trouble is, mate, it’s still your life on the table. And maybe some other lad’s as well.”
“I know. And I weighed the risks, really I did. But how do you walk away in such a case? When it’s someone who loves you, someone you owe your very life, who needs you now, who’s maybe dying—how in God’s name do you walk away?”
Silence fell, troubled only by bits of sea wind sighing past the windows, and once, briefly, the scampering of mice somewhere in the walls. The lamp flickered, shifting the dark shadows on Matt Calverley’s face. He was almost forty, and for the first time Erryn could remember, he looked it.
“I hear stories,” Matt said at last. “Oh, I know most of it’s rubbish, just whiskey talk and old gaffers trying to make themselves important. But a man can’t get his head kicked in on Barrack Street anymore without someone telling us he was selling information to the Yankees, or to the Rebs. Anyone who turns up dead is a spy. And you can’t help wondering if there ain’t a few grains of wheat in all the chaff. I watch my back now like I never did when I was running the streets and thieving for my bread.
“So …” He looked up and met Erryn’s eyes; his own were unyielding. “So you’d best not take this any farther. She knows who you work for, so be it. She’s not to know more—no names, no places, not a solitary move you make, nothing. And that’s not a suggestion, Erryn, it’s an order.”
Matt had never, ever, stood on his authority before. Most of the time neither of them considered the fact that he had any. They were best mates, after all; what else was necessary?
“Yes, sir,” Erryn said.
It rained the next day, great drowning sheets of rain that slammed against the carriage windows and ran like rivers down the streets. Erryn’s fear lay over him as dark as ever, but at the Den he found Sylvie sitting dressed in a chair, reading. He found a brightness in her face and a strength in her voice that astonished him. Soon, she told him, she would be back to her chambermaid’s duties, and the servant girl they had borrowed from the Ortons could go home again.
It appalled him to think of her staying on, with the work so brutal and the days so long, with nothing but a garret room to sleep in, sunless and cold as a barn. Yet he dared not tell her of his fears. He dared not say to her, “Sylvie, for the love of God, marry me now, today, and leave this place while you can!” She would see it as protectiveness, or even pity, rather than as love, and she would back away. She would marry him when she was convinced that he meant it, that he knew his own heart. Till then … till then, he thought, he could only go on loving her, and wait.
On one thing, however, he was determined: they would continue their courtship as before, and be damned to the war. At first she objected. Everyone who worked at the Den knew how her aunt had died, she told him. They knew she backed the Union. They knew she had been friends with the Yankee woman, Aggie Breault. Surely this would get back to his Rebel friends sooner or later, and then they might come to doubt him.
“I want to see you,” she said fiercely. “I want to more than anything! But if you were to come to harm because of me—”
“I won’t come to any harm,” he said. “Whatever there is to know, they know most of it already, ever since that day at Compain’s when we met Miss Isabel. If I continue seeing you, it won’t matter. I mean no offence, my heart, but the Grey Tories will never take you seriously. A gentleman’s son could have only one possible interest in a servant girl, and it most assuredly is not her political opinions. I fear it’s your reputation that will suffer, not mine.”
The Halifax Connection Page 40