The Symbol Seekers

by A. A. Glynn

Dacers laughed, remembering the comic figure she presented, running along in clothing too big for her, trying to hold her outsize hat on her head.

  ‘To mention the unmentionable, are you wearing trousers?’ he asked.

  ‘Trousers of a kind. You must remember Mrs. Bloomer’s dress reform for ladies. It became a positive mania when she introduced the idea to America before our big war.’

  ‘It caught on here with radical ladies for a little time,’ he said. ‘Surely, you were only a youngster at that time.’

  ‘Yes, a headstrong young schoolgirl. Our mothers disapproved of course, but we all tried the Bloomer costume on the sly. The Turkish trousers and the short skirt were very comfortable. I still have a pair of the trousers which I altered for tonight’s venture. You don’t know how daring and adventurous the American schoolgirl is.’

  ‘I think I have good cause to know that some remain daring and adventurous after they cease to be schoolgirls,’ commented Dacers.

  They reached the wall which looked dauntingly high now they were close to it and Dacers’ anxieties rose in case the men lost in the maze found the way out and came on their heels again. He stepped close to the wall and bent down, bracing himself with his hands on his knees.

  ‘Climb on my back, jump up and you should be able to grip the top of the wall and haul yourself up. Sit up there and you can give me a hand up,’ he told the girl. She responded quickly, climbing on his back, launching herself upward, clutching the top of the wall at the first attempt and reaching its flat top by pulling and scrabbling with her feet against the brickwork.

  Sitting on the top, she reached down, gripped one of his hands and hauled him up with all her strength until he could throw his free hand up to grip the top bricks and take the strain from her arm by making an all-out effort to pull himself up. From their position on top of the wall they could see two ways along the King’s Road with its twin rows of yellow street lights dimmed by the rags of wintery fog gathering about them. The road, normally busy, looked deserted. Dacers knew that their best chance of returning to town lay in catching a late-plying hansom cab if one could be found.

  Descending from the top of the wall was easier than ascending it. They simply hung on to the top course of bricks by their fingers and dropped into the King’s Road, still deserted of humanity and traffic. Now that he had gathered a normal rate of breathing, Dacers wanted to know why Roberta was eavesdropping on the meeting of the LUB, although he believed he already knew.

  ‘When I last saw you, you were full of pious resolutions about taking up romantic novels and needlework to save your father from the anxiety your so-called detective antics might bring on,’ he said. ‘Yet, only a matter of hours later, here you are in a ridiculous disguise having been scared out of your hiding place and chased all over Cremorne Gardens. I don’t know what that bunch would have done to you if they caught you.’

  She looked at him like a penitent child, just caught out at some mischief and Dacers had to supress a sympathetic laugh at the sight.

  ‘I gave in to my detective instincts’, she Stated with grave dignity. ‘I simply had to know what was going to happen at that meeting. I don’t regret anything I did for a minute.’

  ‘Yet you gained nothing but the benefit of a strenuous run. All I heard from the fellow doing all the talking was a history of the relationship between the State of Georgia and Great Britain. It meant nothing to me’ Dacers said.

  ‘That’s because you came late. I learned a great deal before you arrived. These people and the movement they represent have quite astonishing plans of a kind that leave me in a quandary as to whether I should laugh or cry’, she said. ‘I was right in my guess at the name of their organisation. It is the League of the Unconquered Banner, taking up the spirit of Father Ryan’s poem. So that should show you how uncannily gifted I am at solving a riddle.’

  ‘Ah,’ he breathed. ‘So it is, as I thought, another group with foolish dreams of starting the war between the States all over again.’ He was feeling irked, as when Roberta scored off him in their breakfast arguments. He was amused at her grotesque disguise and her dramatic notion of detective procedure but her foray into Cremorne Gardens against his express wish had obviously borne fruit.

  ‘Tell me more,’ said Dacers.

  ‘No, later. Here comes a cab.’

  The clop of hooves and the jingle of harness trappings came out of the thin mist cloaking the King’s Road and the shape of the vehicle formed itself out of the murk. Dacers looked at Roberta and saw that a full-frontal view showed her to be wholly feminine.

  ‘Quick’ he said. ‘Face me, put your arms around my neck and hang on. In that outfit, you still look like a girl and the cabbie could think you’re in disguise and we’re eloping—strange things happen in the vicinity of Cremorne. Keep your face hidden in the front of my coat and play my drunken young brother—but don’t speak.’

  The cab drew nearer.

  ‘Cab!’ shouted Dacers.

  The vehicle halted and, from his high seat, the cabbie, wrapped around in the cabman’s usual winter multiplicity of mufflers with his head haloed by pipesmoke, watched going on before his eyes a perfect rendition of a stock situation of the Punch cartoonists: a man trying to get his inebriated companion home.

  With her arms around Dacer’s neck and her tilted top hat kept turned away from the cabbie, Roberta allowed Dacers to more or less drag her to the cab. He opened the door and pushed her inside the vehicle before the cabbie had a chance to disengage himself from his seat and perform the cabbie’s usual duty of helping his fares into his “London gondola”.

  CHAPTER 9

  A DILEMMA FOR ROBERTA

  ‘’Ere, ’e ain’t goin’ to heave up in my keb, is ’e?’ called the cabbie as Dacers settled Roberta into the limited space of the hansom’s interior.

  Dacers snorted and strode to the rear of the vehicle where the driver was perched on his seat near the roof.

  ‘My good fellow, if you are insinuating that my brother can’t hold his liquor, let me tell you that he could drink you and a full regiment of cabbies under the table any day you care to take up the challenge,’ he called in the stentorian tones of the officer class. ‘Furthermore, he’s shown how well he can hold his drink in the company of some of the most eminent crowned heads in Europe including that of a most gracious and noble lady whose name I decline to bandy about in the vulgar surroundings of the street,’

  ‘’Ere, I didn’t mean no offence, sir’, said the cabbie, obviously affected by the suggestion of these fares having some royal connection. ‘It ’as ’appened, y’know when gents ’ave been on the spree at Cremorne.’

  ‘Such gents were no part of our clan,’ Dacers retorted. ‘Take us to Doric Square near Grosvenor Square and let us have no more jaw from you.’

  He strode to the front of the cab again and climbed in to share the double seat with Roberta, chuckling.

  ‘You can take the cabbie’s remark as a comment on the excellence of your drunk act’, he said.

  He could see that she had learned through her eavesdropping—something that had profoundly affected her. As the hansom moved off, he asked: ‘What did you hear at the meeting? What was it that made you so undecided as to whether you should laugh or cry?’

  ‘Their plans. They’ve got a completely crazy notion for the future of the State of Georgia that is so bold, I almost applaud it and wish it would succeed and, at the same time, I know it couldn’t possibly work. I can see as plain as day it could easily set off a war between Great Britain and the United States. It’s a desperate and dangerous reaction of a brave people who are being ill-used but it could only end in more misery.’

  Dacers was growing frustrated. ‘What is it? What do they want to do?’ he almost demanded.

  ‘They want to secede.’

  ‘What? But Georgia seceded with a dozen other States in 1861 and look wher
e it got them: wholesale loss of its young men in battle and, in the end, even its boys and old men, too and heaven knows how many were wounded. And there was the destruction of property, including the burning of Atlanta and the ruin of the State’s economy.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘They don’t mean secession as it was done last time. They mean to take Georgia out of the union of States on its own and have it go back to being a British colony.’

  Dacers gave a low whistle. ‘What? So that’s why that fellow was harping on the Englishmen who started the original colony and did great things for it in its first days.’

  ‘Yes, and, since the British are so solidly opposed to slavery, he reminded his audience that Georgia did not start out as a slave State’, she said. ‘The ‘peculiar institution’, as they like to call slavery, came later. And he reminded them that neutral Britain was reasonable enough to turn a blind eye to a Georgian, Commander James Bulloch, when he built and converted ships in Liverpool to serve the Confederate side in the war. He could not say enough about the goodwill between Georgia and Britain.’

  ‘But this idea of an American State reverting to its old status as a British colony must be unconstitutional,’ Dacers said. ‘If the British government helped to make it a reality, it would spark off a war with the United States as you fear. The American government would see it as treason.’

  ‘Someone brought that up at the meeting before you arrived and that sergeant-major fellow claimed Britain would hold all the cards,’ Roberta said. ‘She already has a far stronger navy than the US whose navy, which is small anyway, is exhausted after the Civil War. The army, too, is cutting its numbers and many of the wartime volunteer regiments have stood down. As for anything being unconstitutional, I’m not sure what is constitutional any more. Can it be constitutional for the Federal government to put the sovereign States of the South under military law and deal out such punishment? Mr. Lincoln was overjoyed by the end of the war. He declared we are one people again and he would never have acted as Mr. Johnson and his friends have.’

  The hansom cab was making good time, speeding towards central London and Dacers absently watched the dark landscape passing by. He was thinking of what they had learned during their hectic visit to Cremorne Gardens and he asked Roberta: ‘Didn’t some of the Southern generals go to Mexico to join the Emperor of the French in his invasion after the Confederacy collapsed?’

  ‘Yes, some of the best who survived—Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jubal A. Early, Kirby Smith and others. It was a betrayal of their American republican heritage to side with a monarchist invader from an alien land and you know I mean no reflection on your own monarchy.’

  ‘Well isn’t this proposal by these Georgians the same thing on a bigger scale? Instead of just a few soldiers choosing another flag, a whole State choosing to switch allegiance to another nation because it has lost faith in its own still divided nation?’ said Dacers.

  ‘Yes and it can only be doomed,’ she replied. ‘For one thing, the idea will not have the support of the whole State. The Georgia that developed as a true American State after our War of Independence is the only Georgia a great many will accept. I believe in the Union and in what Mr. Lincoln hoped to achieve. This League of the Unconquered Banner with its title taken from Father Ryan and slogan taken from John Wilkes Booth’s shout of defiance obviously wishes to keep the old Confederate spirit alive in its traditions even if it goes under the British flag. That’s why I’m torn between laughter and tears. It’s so crazy as to be laughable and yet it’s audacious and, in its way brave, I have some admiration for it. I guess only Georgia Crackers could dream it up, but the bulk of their fellow Crackers will turn it down flat.’

  Dacers fell silent for a moment then said: ‘There was mention of a Mr. O but I don’t know where he fits into the LUB’s plans. I have an inkling I know of him from a long time ago. He sounds like a fellow who once figured in a legal case and was tied up with the artistic world.’

  The street lights became brighter as the cab drew nearer central London. Presently, the small window in the roof opened and the upper part of the cabbie’s face appeared in it.

  ‘Nearly at Doric Square, gentlemen,’ he stated.

  Roberta was leaning against Dacers’ shoulder with her hat tilted over her face.

  ‘Tell him to stop just inside the mews, where it’s really dark,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll go into the house by the back way and through the kitchen.’

  Dacers instructed the face peering through the roof-window in a loud voice.

  When the window clicked shut, he said, surprised: ‘You’ve done this sort of thing before, haven’t you? Rolling home late at night and going in by the back doors, I mean?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Father almost never requires the coach and Richard in the evenings and he’s a predictable creature of habit. We always have a late supper together but until supper time, Father keeps to his room with any papers from the embassy he needs to deal with, then he reads the latest American newspapers and the latest English ones. So, Esther and I have often had a pleasant evening outing in the coach with Richard driving, then home to supper.’

  ‘All without your father’s knowledge, I’ll wager.’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘And to think your father believed you needed to know more of London! Every day, I learn more about American tomboys who never cease to be tomboys or at least about one of them. Aren’t you putting Richard in danger of losing his place?’

  ‘Oh, Father would never discharge Richard, he’s too good at his job. And you know what a big man he is. Any ladies under Richard’s protection are well and truly protected.’

  Their destination came into view and the cabbie steered his cab into the wide mews area at the rear of the Doric Square houses, which was in deep shadow. At this late stage, Roberta remembered the League of the Unconquered Banner and its objectives. It had provided Dacers and herself with a hectic evening but it had slipped her memory chiefly because she thought its aims were so utterly far-fetched that they could not possibly work. Nevertheless, she realised that she had a duty to the United States and it would be proper to report what she knew to either her father or directly to Ambassador Charles Francis Adams.

  The roof window creaked open again.

  ‘Doric Square, gentlemen,’ reported the cabbie.

  ‘What about the Georgia people who are here, trying to work mischief?’ asked Roberta. ‘Should I tell Mr. Adams or Father about them?’

  Dacers’s brain had been racing on that subject through the last part of the journey and, mingled with his concerns about it were those to do with the attempt on his life about which he had said nothing to Roberta for fear of frightening her. So far as he knew, the LUB had never heard of Septimus Dacers but was that body possibly working with anyone remaining of the Dixie Ghosts?

  ‘No, give it twenty-four hours. I don’t believe the Georgia people mean any harm—at least not in this country but there is another aspect to this affair I want to go into,’ he told her.

  Movements from the cabbie’s high seat at the rear of the cab suggested the cabbie was coming down to assist his passengers in leaving the vehicle and Dacers did not want the man to discover that Roberta was neither a male nor intoxicated.

  ‘I’ll take care of things down here, cabbie, but wait awhile. I want you to take me to Bloomsbury.’

  ‘Right y’are, sir,’ answered the cabbie, probably grateful that he would be spared handling the hopelessly drunken young man he believed entered his vehicle.

  Dacers opened the hansom’s small, front-facing doors, helped Roberta out and went through the performance of assisting her drunken footsteps into the shadowy mews and up to the rear entrance to the house while she kept her face hidden.

  Disgustedly, the cabman addressed his horse across the roof of the hansom: ‘Blimey, Wellington, I thought me and my pals was uncommon goo
d at soakin’ up the grog when we were young ’uns but these toffs is a sight wuss than us—it’s disgraceful!’

  At the rear quarters of her home, Roberta said: ‘I’m in good time to change for supper and Father won’t even know I was out. He’ll still be reading his papers in his room.’

  Dacers considered her strange and slightly comic disguise.

  ‘You’re going through the kitchens dressed like that?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Cook and the domestics won’t give me away. They’re used to seeing me slip in the back way.’

  Dacers shook his head as if in despair. ‘What a simpleton I must be. Not so long ago, I thought you were the very essence of the sweet, innocent and gentle American rose.’

  ‘Oh, come now, Mr. Dacers, you cannot have it both ways. You told me my pioneering spirit would always have me seeking what was on the other side of the hill,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I must say I am enjoying my first investigation, I realise we still have a lot to do.’

  ‘We?’ he echoed, ‘Now, look here, young lady. I told you I would not take you on—’ His protest died. ‘Oh, forget it,’ he said lamely.

  He had told her he would not allow her to exercise her amateur detective talents in any of his investigations but this matter of the ambitions of the General from Georgia and his followers was not properly his investigation. It was something he was caught up in after Roberta drew his attention to the announcements appearing in the press.

  She had every right to be concerned about the League of the Unconquered Banner. She was loyal to the United States, although not happy about the President’s policies in the South. She was the daughter of a US diplomat and if the plans of the LUB amounted to a criminal or treasonable conspiracy against the United States, she had a right to be fully informed about it and to let her father and his chief, Charles Francis Adams, know about it.

  Having reached this point in this intriguing affair Dacers had, in conscience to continue giving Roberta a helping hand. So they were jointly involved in the investigation, whether he liked it or not.