by Peter Sirr
They went under the arch to their old spot by the river.
‘I used to love to gaze at these ships,’ James said. ‘Imagining where they might go, imagining a new life in faraway places. Now, I don’t much care if I never see another ship again, and if I never go to sea again it will be too soon.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Harry said, as they walked back to his spot. ‘But what about your uncle? Aren’t you still in danger? How do you know he won’t try it again? Or worse?’
James might have been able to answer that question accurately if he had looked along the street and seen the tall slim figure who hugged the corner of the narrow alley that cut into Essex Street opposite the piazzas. The figure was observing the two boys very acutely and his hand was thrust deep into his coat pocket, where it lay snug around the smooth wood of a pistol butt. The figure turned full into Essex Street and began striding purposefully in the direction of James and the shoeboy.
‘If I am in danger,’ James said in answer to his friend’s question, ‘it won’t be for long. I intend to meet the danger head on, and have it out with my uncle by whatever means necessary.’
Suddenly, Harry had a customer in a hurry and had to attend to his business. James turned away from his friend just in time to see the tall figure in the dark coat striding towards him. Something about the pinched intentness of the figure’s face held James’s attention, but he was still not quick enough to see the glint of the metal barrel of the pistol.
‘James!’ He heard Harry shout behind him and felt himself stumbling under the weight of his friend’s body at exactly the moment that he heard a deafening report and felt a searing pain rip through his body. The ghostly figure with the pistol vanished in the crowd. James was briefly aware of a great commotion thundering above him and the anxious face of Harry peering down at him and calling out his name before the world disappeared from his senses.
When he came to, it was to find himself in the familiar surroundings of Phoenix Street, barely able to move from the pain in his shoulder. A small army of well-wishers was crammed into the room: Sylvia hovering over him with damp cloth to cool his forehead, Nancy’s anxiously smiling face and John Purcell’s grim one, good old Harry, who gave his friend a wink and a wave, and a man he hadn’t seen in a long time, nor expected to see again.
‘Doctor Bob,’ James said. ‘How do you come to be here?’
Doctor Bob – for it was indeed the doctor who had saved James’s life once before – held up a dull metal ball about half the size of his thumb.
‘This little fellow required my specialist services,’ he said. ‘You may thank your quick-thinking Sylvia for fetching me in good time. And your good friend for knocking you down when you did. Otherwise, you’d have more than a flesh wound and we’d be waking you in this house tonight.’
‘This has gone on long enough,’ James managed to say in spite of the pain in his shoulder.
And so, some weeks later, when his wound had healed, James found himself back in the graveyard off York Street, where he’d lain in hiding so long ago, waiting to take part in his first robbery. And now here he was again waiting for Jack Darcy to appear, except this time there was no cloak of darkness to cover him. How strange life is, James thought, how like a dream that you have over and over again, with the same scenes repeating themselves. Doctor Bob had got the word to Jack Darcy – to tell the truth James was surprised to hear he was still alive, he had always seemed destined for an early death at the end of a rope in Stephen’s Green – and Darcy had agreed to meet James. James stood in front of a gravestone and pretended to be very interested in the inscription. The above named died of a malignant fever. Universally regretted …
‘This is getting to be a habit.’ The voice seemed to leap from out of the grave.
James started in terror, but when he looked up he saw the grinning features of Jack Darcy on the other side of the headstone. He didn’t look much different from the last time James had seen him that night in Red Molly’s which seemed like a lifetime ago. A little skinnier, his face gaunter than James remembered, but still the same dapper cheerfulness. His coat was elegant, if somewhat worn, and his velvet hat was trimmed with gold as if to show the world that Jack Darcy wasn’t to be trumped for fashion.
‘A habit?’ James smiled, glad to see him, even if his memories of the period he’d spent with the gang were not exactly untroubled. ‘How so?’
‘I mean meeting you or your lady friend in the land of the dead to hatch plans for your advancement.’
Darcy doffed his cap and performed an elaborate bow. ‘My lord, I should have said. Or at least as soon will be, if I have anything to do with it. So how can I help?’
‘I’d like to take a stroll with my uncle,’ James said.
* * *
The following Sunday, Lord and Lady Dunmain were taking the air in Stephen’s Green, as was their custom. All fashionable Dublin turned out to parade up and down The Beaux Walk, nodding and bowing to each other, stopping to talk and exchange the latest news and gossip. James saw his uncle immediately. He was walking from the opposite direction with his usual swagger, as if he owned the walk and the park it was set in. He was a man who reached out and grabbed the world, James thought as he looked at him now, and it didn’t much matter to him who might be the true owner of whatever he fancied. It was the most natural thing imaginable that he should step, without a thought, into his brother’s expectations and send his nephew across the ocean into slavery or death. A quick glance was enough to establish that the cruel features James remembered so well hadn’t softened. It took him a couple of seconds to recognise the woman with him. She was plumper than he remembered, her face more thickly powdered and her body covered in finer silk, but it was her alright, Miss Deakin. James gave a little shiver of revulsion at the sight. His uncle stopped to talk to a party of strollers, men like himself, full of puff and swagger, and the sound of their laughter and loud braying voices filled the park. A little back from the group stood a man James had not forgotten, the thug Grady with his long face and huge hands. A little older, a little heavier, but just as pig-ignorant, James had no doubt. He would soon be upon his uncle’s group. Well, there was no point keeping him waiting. James strode right up.
‘Good morning, Uncle,’ he said. The men in the group looked at him in astonishment.
‘Uncle?’ a red-faced man said. ‘Did he say uncle?’
‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t call you aunt,’ he said to Miss Deakin.
Her face quivered behind its white powder and she reached a hand out to Dunmain.
‘Sirrah, you had better explain yourself,’ a portly man said.
Dunmain remained silent, staring at his nephew, looking him up and down as if to assess what danger, if any, he might be in. He looked past James to see if anyone was with him, but Darcy was too well hidden.
‘How can a man with no nephew be an uncle?’ he asked mildly. By now Grady had joined the group and was staring open-mouthed at James, but James saw his uncle’s hand almost imperceptibly reach out to restrain his thug, and Grady, though he looked like a bulldog straining on the leash, was forced to remain still and say nothing.
‘My, Uncle, can you have forgotten me so quickly?’ James responded with the same mild manner his uncle used. ‘Don’t you remember how you kidnapped me and sent me away to the colonies as a servant? I think I’d remember something of that nature.’
Dunmain’s friends looked even more astonished than before. Could there be any truth in this? The young man was well enough dressed, and sounded the part. Was there perhaps a slight resemblance in the shape of his forehead or the lustre of his eyes?
‘This man is no relative of mine,’ James’s uncle said, as if he read their thoughts. ‘Though it is not the first time he has tried this trick.’
‘He is an insolent trickster’ came Miss Deakin’s high voice.
‘Did I not live in Dunmain House with my father, Lord Dunmain, your brother? Did I not come with him to Du
blin and live with him in his house in Dublin after he abandoned my mother and married the woman who is now your wife? And am I not James Lovett, the rightful Lord Dunmain?’
Other strollers now stopped to hear what seemed a most interesting conversation.
Grady looked fit to burst. ‘Shall I pulverise him?’ he said to his master in what might have intended as a whisper but was clearly audible to everyone.
The small crowd bristled with excitement.
‘What name is this you take upon you?’ His uncle had dropped the civil tone and was now plainly hostile.
‘I take none upon me, sir, but that which I brought into the world with me and was always called by. Nobody can deny that I am the son of Lord Dunmain.’
‘By whom?’
‘By his wife, the Lady Dunmain.’
‘Then you are a bastard, for your mother was a whore.’
Now it was James’s turn to be astonished. He knew his uncle was a cold and ruthless man, but this was beyond effrontery. He couldn’t bear to hear his mother insulted. Instinctively, he drew his sword, but as he did so he felt the hands of Grady circle his throat until he could hardly breathe. There were gasps all round, with men and women scattering out of the way. James struggled for air; he could feel himself slipping away. He should have known his uncle would try to provoke him. Why had he been so rash? This was a man that could only be defeated by cunning. And he had been stupid. He heard a woman screaming. And then there was silence, and out of the silence another voice rang out, clear and confident.
‘Let him go if you want to live, cur.’
James opened his eyes. The tip of Darcy’s blade grazed Grady’s neck, a little dribble of blood already oozing down the coarse skin. Grady’s hands were occupied in throttling James so he could do nothing about it. James felt the grip around his throat slacken and gulped some air into his lungs.
A woman came forward to help him. ‘Are you alright, young man?’ she asked him.
From her attention James sensed that the crowd’s attitude to him might be changing. The three original men who had stopped to talk to his uncle had slipped off discreetly, and the crowd that now observed the scene was not rushing to Dunmain’s aid. James retrieved his blade from the ground and replaced it in his scabbard. This situation required more than a blade.
‘You are a blackguard and a thief, sir,’ James said calmly.
‘Let’s run them both through,’ Darcy offered. ‘That would be two boils lanced at once, and the city would be a better place.’
‘The city will be a better place when you’re dangling from a gallows in this green,’ Dunmain said, though his voice wasn’t as confident now.
‘Kill him,’ Darcy said.
‘No,’ James said, ‘there will be no killing today.’ He looked his uncle in the eye. ‘I will defeat you, uncle, but I’ll do it properly, I’ll let the law speak for me. Let the courts decide which of us is true.’
Thirty-Four
Epilogue
Red Molly’s was jumping. Every corner, every alcove, every nook and crevice was packed. It seemed as if the whole city had poured in the doors. Drink flowed, spilled, tumbled and was knocked back in large quantities. Steaming food floated high over the revellers’ heads, making its way on seemingly invisible arms through the throng. James’s back ached from the endless series of slaps it received from well-wishers.
The trial was a sensation, the longest the city had ever seen. People had travelled from all over to observe it. As it dragged on, James had begun to doubt his wisdom in trusting to the law. His uncle looked richer and more powerful than James had ever seen him, for he had now come into all the estates that James’s father had hoped for and had borrowed on the strength of, and the finery he wore to the court was a clear announcement of his intent to win this battle. He smiled across the crowded room at James, a smile so full of malice, cunning and confidence that it chilled James. It was, he knew, an unequal battle. But the city was full of it. James’s case had electrified Dublin. He found himself suddenly famous, mobbed wherever he went, acclaimed like a king.
‘Make way for Lord Bluecoat!’
‘Good luck to you, young sir, and bad cess to your uncle!’
So unequal was the contest that even after witness after witness appeared to testify that he was indeed his father’s son, even as he managed to puncture every elaborate counter-claim his uncle brought forward, James couldn’t bring himself to believe the judge when he found in his favour. He was the rightful heir to the Dunmain title and estates. He, and not his uncle, was Lord Dunmain. Through it all his uncle continued smiling and patting his elaborate robes. But James wouldn’t be skulking through the streets again. There would be no more hiding.
Still they kept coming up to slap him on the back.
‘A great day, Jim, great to see arrogance beaten down!’
‘You know it doesn’t matter, James?’ Doctor Bob said as he drained his wine glass.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because the law isn’t designed for you. Today was a good day, enough to convince a neutral man that the law has a purpose after all. But your uncle will appeal it immediately, and if that doesn’t work, he will appeal the appeal. The case could keep the courts busy for another decade. In the meantime you won’t be able to get at your inheritance. And you’ll still be a wanted man. You could be dead before you gain the title.’
James smiled. ‘Oh I know that,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve always known my cause was hopeless.’
‘I told you we should have killed him,’ Darcy said. ‘I could still do it. It’s not too late. Anything to oblige an old friend.’
‘No,’ James said. ‘But thank you for your offer. I don’t want anyone else to die, not even him. It isn’t worth that much to me.’
James looked round at the company. He felt as if he were seeing them for the first time. He realised that all his life, no place had ever seemed real to him, just a temporary state to be hurried through, or escaped from, until he could get to a better place. Was this victory the better place? Or would that be the day he finally came into his estate? He looked at Sylvia. He thought of everything the Purcells had done for him. He looked at the vivid, alert faces of everyone around him. Maybe this was the place, he thought. Maybe … Doctor Bob’s voice broke in.
‘It’s a lot of money,’ he was saying. ‘A lot of land. Your uncle will never give up the fight for it.’
‘And I won’t either,’ James said. ‘Even if it takes the rest of my life.’
‘In the meantime it’s back to school for you,’ Sylvia said with a laugh. ‘I don’t think your old blue coat will fit, though.’
‘I think we can rise to a new coat,’ Doctor Bob said, to the cheer of the company.
‘You’ll be Lord Bluecoat again,’ Darcy said. The company cheered again.
‘To Lord Bluecoat!’
‘I can’t think of a finer title,’ James said. ‘Lord Bluecoat it will be.’
* * *
‘It’s not the end, is it?’ Jack Darcy said.
They were back in the graveyard where they had met before.
‘No,’ James said. ‘Not just yet.’
‘You could have killed him that day in the Green.’
‘And been hanged in the same Green for my trouble.’
‘So what about the law then? Have you lost your faith in that?’
James was silent awhile. ‘I’ve had a lot of law in my life,’ he said finally. ‘It was the law that kept me a slave, and keeps others as slaves even as we speak.’
He thought of Amelia. What had become of her? Most likely sold on to another Mackenzie. That was the law. But there were ways round it. He wouldn’t rest until he discovered a way of finding Amelia again. McAllister would have to help him again. It would take money and cunning, but he wouldn’t give up.
‘Bob is right. The law is for those who can best afford it. I needed to show the world who I am, and what my uncle is, and I’ve done that. But the law won’t stop him,
the law will keep him rich, and keep me from what should be mine. I want something more than the law.’
Darcy smiled. ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘I’d like to send my uncle a gift,’ James said.
* * *
Lord and Lady Dunmain were getting ready for bed when they heard a noise. Lady Dunmain, or plain Miss Deakin as James would have called her, was at her dressing table taking off a pair of heavily jewelled earrings. The noise caused an earring to fall to the floor.
‘What on earth is that?’ she said as she bent in irritation to rummage for the earring.
It sounded like loud hammering. Richard Lovett strode to the door.
‘Grady!’ he roared. ‘What is that racket?’
The hammering continued.
‘It’s the door,’ Richard Lovett shouted. ‘Someone is hammering on the door!’
Grady appeared from the depths of the house, rubbing his eyes. He had fallen asleep in the kitchen over a pitcher of grog. He undid the bolts and opened the heavy front door, swaying dagger at the ready. The hammering had stopped. He stepped out and looked around, but there was no one to be seen.
‘I can’t see anyone,’ he shouted.
Richard Lovett pounded down the stairs and out into the night air.
‘Who would dare hammer on my door like that?’ he said. And then he saw it, nailed to the door: a large black wreath, the kind you see at a funeral, or that might be hung on a front door to indicate the death of someone inside.
‘What does it mean?’ his wife asked him when he had settled down enough to return to his bedroom.
‘It means war,’ he said. ‘It means I didn’t do the job properly when I had the chance.’
‘The boy should have been killed a long time ago,’ his wife said. ‘I urged it on his father, but he wouldn’t listen. He was too soft.’
‘Well, I’m not soft,’ Lovett said. ‘And it’s time he found out.’
‘What are you going to do?’