Bar Sinister

by Sheila Simonson

  "It is not a question of your comfort, however, but your children's. There's a difference. Stop prowling, Richard."

  "I think I should tell you a story. I have a knack for that, haven't I? You once called me a blackguardly liar."

  "That was some few years ago." Almost twenty in fact. They had both been twelve when they first met.

  "You were right," Richard snapped. "I am a liar, a fairly gifted one. Like panders and whores and hangmen, I have learnt to turn a moral defect into coin of the realm."

  "I hardly think--"

  "Nevertheless, the story I am going to tell you now is the truth. When I've done, perhaps you'll see why I prefer not to put my children in the power of Newsham or the dowager duchess."

  Tom stared. The man was speaking of his own mother.

  "I am going to tell you how I discovered I was the Duchess of Newsham's bastard."

  "Richard, for God's sake--"

  "'Stop dramatising yourself,'" Richard mocked, his voice thick, "'Be sensible.' Do you see this candle?"

  "I can scarcely avoid it. You're shaking hot wax on me."

  "Then mark me. What I shall say is the plain truth." He placed his left hand square in the flame and held it there.

  Tom didn't trouble with words. He swung both arms up hard against Richard's right elbow, and the candle fell to the flags.

  10

  The room plunged into darkness, and Tom plunged into a black pit of pain. It was beyond his power to keep from crying out, but he did not faint, which was rather surprising. He stuffed his right sleeve in his mouth and waited. After a nauseating time he opened his eyes on a room lit only by the dying fire.

  "What other tricks do you intend to divert me with?" he said with all the sarcasm he could muster. He was exceedingly angry. Bastard, indeed. Charlatan. "Snake charming? Sword swallowing?" Except for the rain, there was absolute silence. The smell of burnt flesh offended the air. "Richard!"

  "What?"

  Tom turned his head. Richard was backed against the dark bulk of the table, halfway across the room. He was motionless, head bent, cradling his left hand. How had he got there? Leapt sidewise like a cat, Tom thought sourly. "Of all the fool tricks. That was not necessary."

  "Perhaps not."

  "Perhaps!" Tom's wrath broke through.

  Richard said dully, "I am quite stupid from want of sleep. You caught me off guard. I thought..."

  "What did you think? Well?"

  "I thought you were the last man to make such a suggestion. I thought I could trust you."

  The silence extended. Tom chose his words. He was still angry, but confusion began to edge out his wrath. "I made my suggestion reluctantly." His voice grew sharp again. "You will allow the circumstances are awkward, the choices limited."

  "Yes."

  Another thought struck him. "When did you finish the book?"

  "What?"

  "The latest episode in the riotous career of Don Alfonso."

  "A quarter past ten."

  "This morning. I see." He did. Want of sleep did explain a great deal. "And spent half the night wrestling me, and how many nights before that? I rather think you should go to bed."

  "I am now wide awake." Richard raised his head. His face was a white blur, white as his shirt. "Unfortunately."

  "Oh, go mend your hand. It stinks."

  That took some time. The wind, with a wonderful sense of melodrama, had decided to howl, and rain battered the windows. Richard had not lit the candle. Groping about in a dark scullery, Tom thought, exasperated.

  "Sit down," he snapped, when his lunatic friend returned. "I refuse to crane at you."

  The chair scraped.

  "Light the candle."

  "I don't know where it's rolled to."

  "Never mind. Does the roof of this little chateau leak? I can't say I approve your taste in architecture."

  Richard did not play. His voice was listless with exhaustion and defeat. "Bevis's agent said it was sound. It's private. The rent is fair. You should be in the town, however."

  "So that my opportunities will be greater for, what was it, Greek and bookkeeping?" Richard said nothing. In friendlier tones Tom went on, "It's a reasonable idea. I just wasn't ready to be making plans."

  "I know."

  "I think you should tell me your story."

  Richard moved across the dark room to the window. His voice, when it came, was composed, lifeless. "I was raised with the duke's children in the Abbeymont nursery. I don't know why. Perhaps some bargain the duchess struck when she consented to return to her connubial vows. I learnt I was baseborn fairly young. It was not...a devastating realisation. The duke had bastards. I thought I was one of them. Very young children accept things as they are."

  "I daresay you're right," Tom murmured, recalling several fairly bizarre features of his own childhood which had not seemed strange to him at the time. "Go on."

  "It was not until I was eight or nine that I began to wonder. Do you know how such establishments are conducted? There are wet nurses, nursemaids, tutors, a presiding governess for the girls--that sort of thing. Rather formal. Lady This and Lord That. At first I thought my name was Lordrichard. One word."

  "But..."

  "I still don't understand it. From time to time the duchess would make visitations and we would be paraded for her inspection. She powdered her hair. I don't know what its true colour was." He drew a breath. "The duke's visits were rarer and more abrupt. I was invariably hustled out of sight. I began to wonder why."

  "Didn't you ask?"

  "Oh, yes. And got no answer. 'Now, Lord Richard, you know you must not speak of such things. And mind your tongue.' As a rule I did. When I turned twelve I thought I should put it to the test. Sarah goaded me, rather. Lady Sarah. My half sister. She was two years older."

  Tom waited.

  Richard paced restlessly, stumbling a little on the uneven flags. "We decided I should confront the duke."

  "My God."

  "It was a dare. Like walking the ridgepole or jumping a three-barred gate, no hands. I thought I'd try it."

  "What happened?"

  "The next time the duke descended on us and I was sent off, I sneaked back into the Presence. He saw me at once, of course, and asked who I was."

  "And you found out your origins?"

  "Yes. He beat me to a bloody pulp."

  "What!"

  "There were preliminaries, I daresay." Richard had returned to his post by the dark window. "I don't recall. He--the duke--had a loud voice, and he made the situation quite clear to everyone, but I chiefly recall being thrown against a large mahogany table."

  Tom held his breath.

  "He cracked my head and several ribs and bust my left arm," Richard said dispassionately. "By the time he'd finished there was quite a commotion. I dimly recall Sarah screeching."

  "Didn't your mother intervene?" Tom burst out.

  "The duchess wasn't there. I came to my senses in Parson Freeman's rectory some weeks later."

  Tom frowned. "But what...why were you taken to the rectory?"

  "I don't know," Richard snapped. "I wasn't given an explanation and I'm no longer curious. They got rid of me."

  "Christ, Richard. Freeman wasn't there."

  "Lord Clanross had already sent him off across the Atlantic to rescue you from your imaginary pirates. His wife nursed me and told me how dreadful you were. I conceived an extravagant admiration for you, Tom."

  Tom shut his eyes. He had contrived by luck and a glib tongue to run off to Nova Scotia after his mother's death. He still looked upon the feat as something of a triumph. The Earl of Clanross had sent Parson Freeman to fetch him back.

  "I imitated you four times, with no success at all. I didn't even reach the next market town. No ingenuity." Richard laughed. It was not a very jolly sound, but there was honest amusement in it. "However, I put your exploits in my first book, so there was some profit in the example."

  Tom felt his cheeks flush. "Cawker."

&
nbsp; "You spun some fairly tall tales yourself. I collect you fetched up in Boston blacking boots."

  "In Halifax," Tom muttered. "Mucking out stables."

  "No pirates?"

  Tom shook his head. "Did you hear from them afterwards?" By 'them' he meant the duchess, but Richard took him literally.

  "Lady Sarah writ me after Vimeiro that the duke had died."

  Tom digested that. "After fifteen years' silence you must have been startled to see her hand."

  "I was appalled," Richard said wearily. "I thought I'd put them off the scent."

  "What do you mean?"

  Richard walked back to the chair and sat, head down like a spent runner. "I think I must have been jumping at shadows those first few years, but I'd had a fright, you know." He lifted his head. "Have I been chasing phantoms, Tom? The duke was a vindictive man. I think he made other attempts on my life."

  "Tell me."

  11

  Outside, the wind gave a melodramatic blast that rattled the windowpanes. Tom waited.

  Richard was groping. "Shipping a fifteen-year-old off to the Indian Army doesn't strike me as a receipt for longevity."

  "No, but it's done. Or was then."

  "I didn't question it at the time. I was glad to go. You took up your commission somewhat later, I think."

  "I was seventeen. Better prepared."

  Richard shrugged. "Two years would not have prepared me for India. The thing is, I kept getting into scrapes."

  "That, at least, is not startling."

  Richard pinched the skin between his brows and drew his hand down across his face. "They were not all of my making."

  "Your scrapes? I see."

  He rubbed his jaw with his right hand. The left dangled. "There were incidents. It's all very shadowy. I stopped eating anywhere but the mess, after a time, and I was careful to avoid being alone. When we were called out on campaign--Tipoo Sultan's war--the tricks stopped."

  "Seringapatam."

  "Yes. Away from garrison I was safe enough, I think. Except for the usual inconveniences of campaigning." His voice was wry. India had been his first taste of war. "I volunteered for the expedition to Batavia, and you know the confusion that followed when that was cancelled. I was ill on the troopship, but so was damned near everyone. Bad water."

  "That was the army that came to Egypt, wasn't it?"

  "Yes. Overland from the Red Sea."

  Tom winced. He had had a very bad time in Egypt himself, but he had heard tales of the Indian relief column that curled his hair. Scant food, bad water, scorpions, sunstroke--and an outbreak of plague once the troops reached Cairo.

  But Richard's mind was not on scorpions and sunstroke. He sat straighter, conforming to the chair. "After that it changed."

  "Their tactics?"

  "I'm not sure there was a 'they,' or a he." He eased his shoulders against the chair back. The wind gusted again, and the panes rattled on cue. He cocked his head. "Is that Sims?"

  "No. He's not been gone long enough. 'Spring squall?'" Tom quoted in gentle mockery.

  Richard shrugged. "It will blow itself out by morning. Where was I?"

  "Egypt."

  "Cairo and Alexandria. I called on you."

  "I remember. You were burnt black. I didn't recognise you."

  "Then we're even." Richard's teeth gleamed in the darkness. "You had enormous moustachios and your arm in a sling."

  "And a sleepy droop in the eyes from all that opium."

  "It was the devil of a thing to happen to you, Tom. I was sorry to hear of it."

  "Inconvenient," Tom agreed. "Tell me about the duel."

  "You knew of it?"

  "Everyone did."

  Richard was silent.

  "I thought you'd lost your temper," Tom prompted.

  "In the end, I did. We were all short-tempered by that time, and at first I just put it down to the heat and the waiting. Then things began to change in the mess. Snickers, sidewise looks, sotto voce comments. My friends started to look worried, but there was nothing to pin down. I never did know what went on, but I was slowly being sent to Coventry and damned uncomfortable it was."

  He paused, ordering his thoughts. "There was an older man, a lieutenant with a reputation as a brawler. He kept pushing me. I said something. I don't even recall what it was, but it was trivial. He picked up on it. There were witnesses and when he challenged me, I had to fight. You know how it used to be."

  "Yes, I see." Duelling had been epidemic in the army.

  Richard had been silent, reflecting. Now he said more brusquely, as if he meant to be done, "Hertford, that was my opponent's name, was a dead shot, which has never been the case with me. I had the choice of weapons. I made him fight with swords."

  Tom choked on a laugh. No one fought with swords anymore.

  "You taught me the foils." The smile gleamed again. "Swords are different, of course. I was rusty, but Hertford had never used a sword, and he was slow. I thought I could take him."

  "And did."

  Richard's voice was uncertain. "I daresay you'll think me a fool, but that was a damned ugly sensation. When I tried to pull my weapon out, it rasped on bone. He screamed. I dream of it sometimes, though I've done worse things since."

  Tom shuddered. After a moment, he said, "He didn't die, as I recall."

  "He recovered quickly once we put out to sea. He said nothing to indicate that anyone had put him up to it. We were both brought before the court martial. The witnesses, thank God, told the truth--that he'd forced it on me. He was cashiered."

  "And you were acquitted."

  Richard inclined his head. "With an undeserved reputation for swashbuckling and the strong feeling that my superiors did not look upon me with favour. I was correct."

  "Half pay."

  "Yes. We reached Colchester Garrison just in time for the Peace of Amiens. I was the first to go."

  Tom grimaced. As he recalled with vivid clarity, living on an ensign's pay was not an easy trick, though rather easier abroad than at home. An ensign's half pay was derisory. "I was lucky to avoid that. They sent me to Ireland. How did you live?"

  "Very obscurely. In the circumstances I thought it prudent."

  "On half pay you could hardly have done otherwise."

  "I could live on it now." Richard's tone was dry. "At the time I had grandiose notions of what was owing to my consequence."

  "Fresh linen, hot shaving water, the occasional newspaper, a private room."

  "Yes. I decided that genteel starvation didn't suit me."

  "So you writ a book."

  "I popped my watch, my greatcoat, and a spare pair of boots and bought some paper." He sounded almost cheerful. "I was pleased when it sold. It fetched twenty guineas, which was more than it was worth. I marched off with my booty and bought a bowl of hot stew. It was my first hot meal in a fortnight and I couldn't finish it."

  "My God."

  "It took more than one campaign to wean me of my taste for luxury."

  Tom had to smile at that. "Did you do your scribbling in London or Colchester?"

  "London. It's easier to lose oneself in London." He stood up. "I lost my phantom pursuers."

  "They picked up the scent again when you rejoined the regiment?"

  "I didn't rejoin the regiment."

  Tom whistled. "Strewth. You didn't sell out!"

  Richard walked over to the hearth and knelt by the fire. "I was still on the muster, but I worked at writing till I turned twenty-one." He began methodically rebuilding the fire. His motions were clumsy. Hand hurting.

  Tom did some rapid calculations. He and Richard had been born within a fortnight of each other. "January eighteen five, some months into the war. I recall I was surprised to find you with the Fifty-second."

  "Surprised to find me using a different name." Richard poked the fire and was rewarded with a satisfactory pulse of light.

  "I thought that was your affair."

  "For which I thank you." As if blinded by the flames,
Richard groped his way to the dining table. "Shall I light the candle?"

  "If you wish," Tom said quietly. It occurred to him that Richard had found it easier to speak his piece in the dark. "You made the exchange on the proceeds of your other book, I collect."

  "There were two more books, three altogether. I only claim one of 'em. I saved what they brought in and lived by copying letters and legal documents." He returned to the hearth and lit the candle with a spill. "I changed my name by deed poll." He took the candlestick in his left hand, cupping his right about the flame, and carried the candle to the table. "Better?"

  "Thanks. Why Falk?"

  "You mean, why not Fitz-something? I meant to stay in the army, so I tried to make it look like a simplified spelling rather than a name change. Old Craufurd's name was always being spelled different ways. Why not mine? I thought Folk would occasion less comment than something completely different."

  I nearly made a joke of it, Tom thought, aghast.

  Richard was saying, "The law clerk misread my scrawl as 'Falk.' I didn't correct him. The clerk at the Horse Guards was suffering from eye trouble and actually asked me how to spell it."

  "Luck."

  "It gave me three years free of the Ffouke family," Richard said simply. "How Sarah traced me I don't know."

  "With the duke dead surely you'd no more cause to fear."

  "Do you think I had cause?"

  Tom met his friend's troubled eyes. "I don't know," he said honestly. "It's hard to believe a peer of the realm would..." His voice trailed off. Not a tactful thing to say.

  Richard's mouth set. He pulled his left sleeve up to the elbow. "The bone the duke broke cut the skin. You can see the scar, rather faint, next to that sabre slash I took at Fuentes."

  "You don't have to prove anything, Richard, and I would have believed you without the candle trick." Tom put conviction in every syllable, but he wasn't sure he would have credited the story if Richard had just blurted it out.

  Richard's eyes dropped. He smoothed the sleeve.

  "The duke is dead," Tom ventured. "Surely your eldest brother is not of the same stamp."

  "I don't remember Keighley. He's fifteen years my senior. Lord John's a rakehell. Lord George was five when I left. They've no cause to love me or mine and some reason to wish me dead."