Unseemly Science

by Rod Duncan

  “If your mother won’t relent, she won’t relent,” I said, trying to move the conversation on. But then I saw Julia glance furtively over her teacup and knew there was more to come.

  “Elizabeth, have you heard of Mrs Raike’s girls?” she asked.

  “Should I have?”

  “If you read the newspapers you would. Mrs Raike is the subject of much discussion. She marshals young women from good families in and around Derby. They do charitable works – educate the children of miners, ironworkers and the like. They bring learning into prisons.”

  I frowned, unable to imagine Mrs Swain allowing her daughter to enter a prison. Even a Republican one.

  “They also bring advice to those in need,” she continued. “Among which is advice on the law. There is a case they’re working on presently – on behalf of the beleaguered ice farmers of Derbyshire. And that is what I’ll be helping with.”

  “Will be? Surely your mother won’t agree?”

  Julia blushed. “I told her that working with Mrs Raike, I would have need to associate with the lawyers who make themselves available pro bono publico. And from among them it might be that I could find myself…” She tailed off.

  “A husband?”

  “It was the only thing I could think of.”

  I put my knuckle to my mouth and bit, trying not to let my laughter burst.

  “It’s not funny!”

  “What about your lawyer friend in London?” I asked, unable to suppress a giggle. “Have you been entirely frank with your mother?”

  “I’ll be true to my word,” Julia said. “If I find a Republican lawyer to be his equal, I’ll make myself available.”

  “Pro bono publico?” I asked.

  I was about to point out that since her view of the lawyer in London with whom she exchanged letters was so high, it seemed improbable that she’d find his match anywhere in the Gas-Lit Empire, let alone in Derby. But as I opened my mouth to speak, the boat tilted once more. We both looked towards the aft hatch. Feet scuffed on the deck.

  “They’re so rude!” said Julia once more.

  “Normal rules don’t apply when you live on a boat,” I said. “Socially, I’m beyond the pale.”

  “You’re surely not!”

  “Well, let’s put it this way – such proposals as I’ve received haven’t been for marriage.”

  I was enjoying Julia’s scandalised expression when the scuffing feet moved closer and whoever it was that stood outside rapped briskly on the roof.

  Readying myself to discharge a volley of hard words, I opened the hatch. But the sight of a pair of pointed shoes and moss-green corduroy trousers made me close my mouth. A burgundy and purple paisley waistcoat covered the man’s round stomach. On either side of his round face, a thin moustache had been waxed to upward curving points. Removing his hat, he bowed.

  “Am I addressing the lady of the house… or boat?”

  “What do you want?”

  He made to climb down into the galley, but I stood my ground and he came to a halt on the second step.

  “I have business to discuss,” he said. “An offer. Not to be missed.”

  “What is it you’re selling? Window glass? Linen? Insurance?”

  “I would never discuss your business in the open. But yes, insurance of a kind. You are Elizabeth Barnabus?”

  His clothing, unmistakably Royalist, had raised my curiosity and kept me from slamming the hatch. But it was hearing him speak my name that caused me to step aside. He clambered down into the galley – much to Julia’s alarm.

  “Ladies. Thank you.” Holding his hat over his belly he stepped past us and surveyed the interior. “Very nice. Very… unorthodox. But then, I know you were a member of a travelling show before you fled to the Republic. Driven by a family debt, I understand. A life of indentured servitude awaiting – should you place a foot back in the Kingdom.”

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” I said.

  “I have indeed. That is my skill. My profession. And if you will permit, it is your evil-wishers that I would disadvantage.” Dipping his fingers into a waistcoat pocket, he flourished a visiting card, which I accepted. His fingernails were shiny, as if varnished.

  I read aloud: “Yan Romero. Solicitor. Making the Law your servant.”

  Thick card and gold lettering gave the impression of substance, as did the Chelsea address, though it could have been the address of a brick privy for all I knew.

  “Mr Romero,” I said. “I don’t need a solicitor.”

  “When you think you don’t need one – that’s precisely when you’re in danger.”

  “I really don’t.”

  “There you go!” He brushed his hands against each other as if the point were proven.

  “You expect me to guess the danger? Is that it? Has someone dropped a grand piano from an airship overhead? Pay up and you’ll tell me which way to jump?”

  “A grand piano,” he said. “Very good. Yes. Even now it hurtles towards you. But I am here in the nick of time, so to speak. Retain my services and I will take your hand and lead you safe.”

  “Your price?”

  “Five guineas a month. Plus expenses. Two months payable in advance. And court costs should it come to that. A snip. A pinch of snuff. And in return – your life.”

  “Ten guineas!” Julia spluttered.

  “You’ve travelled a long way to go home empty-handed,” I said.

  “Then perhaps you would be so kind as to pour me a cup of tea?”

  I folded my arms. “Or perhaps not.”

  “How long has it been?” he asked. “You fled the Kingdom five years ago. Or is it six? The records are vague as to the date of your crossing the border. Strange that none of that famous Republican servility has rubbed off on you.”

  I should have liked him to scowl or swear. Instead a slow smile formed on his face. He bowed with no detectable sincerity, swivelled and climbed back out to the deck. Julia made to slam the hatch closed. But I put out a hand to stop her.

  “The man’s a charlatan!” she cried, loud enough for Romero to hear.

  He stepped off the boat forcefully leaving it swaying under our feet. I poked my head above the deck and watched him mincing away. Nothing of his visit made sense. A man of expensive tastes does not cross the border merely to offer legal advice to a poor exile living in a houseboat. Ten guineas might be a small fortune to me, but I doubted it would purchase many pairs of those shoes. Italian leather they’d seemed.

  Julia must have caught my frown. “Please don’t say you’re taking him seriously.”

  “Watch him,” I said. Then I ran back to my cabin, scooped my hair under a straw sun hat and was back at the hatch before Romero was out of sight.

  “You can’t mean to follow?”

  “Better that than pay ten guineas.” I snatched my purse and a cornflower shawl and was on the deck before Julia could object further.

  Instead of climbing the bank and heading off towards the road, Yan Romero had set out along the towpath. He was one hundred yards ahead of me – a good distance from which to follow. For once I found myself glad of the Sunday tourists. With my hat brim angled down and the shawl over my shoulders, I felt secure. Dressed in muted shades, all Republicans would look alike to him. And after five years, I had learned to blend in.

  He did not strike me as a man who would choose to take the air as recreation. Nor was he poor enough to need to walk. I glanced at the surface of the path. This could not have been the way he came. I would have seen the mud on those ridiculously pointed and polished shoes.

  With these thoughts tumbling, my concentration must have slipped. Too late, I saw that Romero had stopped. A pair of ladies had stopped also and the three were standing in conversation. I slowed as much as I could without drawing attention to myself.

  Only sixty yards separated us now. One of the ladies was pointing across the canal. The lawyer nodded. It should not have taken him so long to get directions, if that is what he was do
ing. In my mind I shouted at him to finish. But the ladies seemed to be asking him about his waistcoat – attention he was sure to enjoy.

  Forty yards.

  I could hear the voice of one of the ladies now: “… don’t know where one might find such fabric. Not in the Republic. Unless one were to source it from a factory. Do you think?”

  “But I can’t imagine our factories would produce it,” said the other. “Unless for export.”

  Twenty yards.

  My foot caught a piece of gravel and sent it skittering into the water. Romero looked in my direction. Tilting my head forward to drop my hat brim further, I quickened my step. One of the ladies stepped aside to make room.

  “Good day,” said the lawyer, as I passed.

  I made no answer.

  Romero’s voice was behind me now. “Republican manners confuse me,” he said.

  The ladies giggled. “Without a chaperone she couldn’t speak to a strange man.”

  “You think me strange? Now I’m offended.”

  More giggles. Then they were beyond my hearing.

  If they had been directing him, he would soon set out to cross the canal, for that is where the lady was pointing.

  I did not risk a backward glance until I was climbing the brick steps of the bridge. By then he was well behind, seeming in no hurry. I crossed the water and headed up the road into the small town of Syston. If he intended some other destination, I had lost him already.

  It being Sunday, the streets were quiet. Finding a small park next to the road I sat myself on a bench in the sunshine. My thinking was this: a man of expensive tastes does not cross the border for the possibility of a single client. And if Romero had found some danger threatening several people, I did not see why we should all pay for the same information. There was a deal to be done if I could locate another of his targets.

  So I waited.

  The shadows of the trees shifted across the road. A man on a penny-farthing lifted his homburg to me as he rattled past. I could hear children playing in the distance. But of Yan Romero there was no sign.

  At last I got up and started to make my way back towards the canal. For every tingle of risk-taking excitement, there is a corresponding weight of despondency that follows when nothing has come of the adventure. I wondered whether Julia would still be on my boat. I expected that I would find her gone and the key hidden under the pot of geraniums on the roof.

  I was trudging back along the lane between hawthorn and crab apple and had just passed the final cottage, when a man coughed behind me.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “We passed earlier on the canal path.”

  All the excitement that had left me, now rushed back. No need to turn, for I recognised Yan Romero’s London accent.

  “Excuse me?” he said again.

  But I was hurrying away, back across the bridge, gripping and lifting my skirts to run, not caring that I was being stared at. For the first time in two weeks the darkness had been washed from my mind. The lawyer could only have come from one place to emerge behind me. He had been visiting the last cottage in Syston.

  Chapter 3

  Legal jurisdictions are like sturdy beams. It is the joints between them that are weak. In such places all manner of dirt will gather.

  From Revolution

  It was late afternoon when I returned. I lifted the geraniums on Bessie’s roof and found the key. The tourists were long gone, but as I unlocked the hatch, I thought I heard someone move behind me. Glancing back I found the towpath empty. The experience unsettled me.

  A note in Julia’s hand lay on the galley table. A page torn from her copybook, I thought.

  I shut up the stove. I hope this is right. Next time, I want to go too. I worry. You know I do.

  The words made her sound like her mother – an observation that dampened my mood. I did not like to think of what she would become if forced into a life of middle class domesticity. All that uncompromising drive would surely turn to bitterness.

  Though I had not previously allowed Julia to accompany me in my work, little risk seemed to be posed by this investigation. I resolved to take her with me when I returned to Syston to seek out Yan Romero’s other client.

  But the following day, being Monday, Julia was obliged to help the maid with the laundry. A fire had to be built, the copper heated and linen pounded in the tub. Her parents had instituted this new regime in order, Julia believed, that she might be put off from any idea of making her own way in the world. And whilst she did not like it, she seemed to take perverse satisfaction in banking her sufferings as tokens of resolve.

  I had seen the blisters on her hands. “From the mangle,” she had said, a glint of triumph in her eyes.

  On Tuesday morning, I wiped condensation from the porthole glass and looked out on a world heavy with dew. Having selected an indigo shawl to drape over my shoulders, I locked up the boat and joined Julia on the towpath. Then together we set out towards Syston.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said.

  Yan Romero had emerged from the last house on the lane. It was the kind of cottage a farm labourer might occupy. A strange destination for an expensive lawyer. A strange destination for an intelligence gatherer, come to that. But if something was threatening my life, as he had suggested, this was my chance to find out more.

  I glanced at Julia, walking beside me. “Can you stop doing that,” I said.

  “Stop what?”

  “Bouncing.”

  “I’m not!”

  “You surely are! You’re on your toes with every step. You’re supposed to make my visit seem more respectable not less so.”

  “Our visit,” she corrected.

  “You must keep quiet and let me talk. Even if you think I’m doing it wrong.”

  “I promise. But this is so exciting. You’re taking me on an investigation!”

  “Then repay me by not saying it out loud.”

  Whereas Sunday had been bustling with tourists, Tuesday’s only sounds were the slow chug past of cargo boats, the lapping of wash on the canal bank and the call of birds from bushes and alder trees.

  I had not been idle since Sunday. No one around the wharf had been able to tell me who lived in the cottage. But the boy who worked for the dairy had seen a man there and taken payment for a delivery of cheese. “Smooth hands,” the boy had reported. “And clean nails.” All said as though these were signs of some terrible wrongdoing.

  We had reached the bridge over the canal and I slowed to let Julia go first. But instead she folded her arms and looked at me.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Then, when I made no immediate answer, she added: “You’ve been frowning all the way.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “What’s your worry?”

  “A gap,” I said. “That’s all. A gap that needs filling.”

  She would have asked more but I started climbing the brick steps and, there being no room for the two of us to walk abreast, she could do nothing but follow. Once we were across and heading down the lane, the sight of the cottage distracted her.

  “You’re bouncing again,” I said.

  From a distance it seemed a pleasant enough building, though its roof sagged in the middle. But the closer we came, the more obvious its decrepitude. A few green daffodil stems poked through the weeds of the front garden. Paint was peeling from the frames of two deep-set windows. One pane of glass had been replaced by a board.

  I knocked on the door then stood back, glancing up to the chimney. There was no fire inside, but I could smell smoke. Burning paper, I thought. We waited in silence. I knocked again. Then, hearing no movement, I picked my way around the side of the house.

  A clothes line had been strung between two trees at the back. A bed sheet hung limp in the still air. I stopped and stared, feeling my pulse accelerate. The linen was not white, but pale yellow.

  “What is it?” whispered Julia, close behind me.

  I put my finger to my
lips and she fell silent.

  A heap of ash smoked among the weeds of what should have been a garden. The embers were still glowing. I glanced at the cottage. The back door was open, though it was too dark to see inside. The papers around the edge of the fire hadn’t burned completely. I stepped closer, angling my head to read the charred corner of a document. In a fine copperplate hand it listed goods – sacks of coffee and nutmeg, their weight, number and grade.

  Lifting my skirts an inch, I poked at the paper with the toe of my boot, trying to turn it. It crumbled. I began searching for other readable fragments, but Julia tugged urgently at the puffed sleeve of my blouse. My eyes snapped up to the doorway where a man stood watching us.

  “It’s dangerous,” I said, blurting the first words that came to my tongue. “The fire I mean. You shouldn’t leave it unattended.”

  He stepped out from the shadow of the doorway, gripping an iron poker, giving the impression of one who had used such an implement before. And not just for stoking.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  Julia took half a step back.

  “I came to see you,” I said.

  He was dressed to fit the cottage – a poor man’s jacket, patched at the elbow, slate grey trousers thinning to thread at the knee. He edged around the fire. I followed his glance down to the papers I’d been trying to read.

  “Come inside,” he said.

  My eyes flicked to the poker and then to the narrow doorway. “Please,” I said with all the politeness I could muster. “After you.”

  I judged him to be in his forties. He had to duck under the door lintel as he led us into what seemed to be part living room part kitchen. It was colder inside the house than out. Damper too. I could feel the floorboards bowing under my weight.