The Devil’s Company: A Novel

by David Liss

  I had thought to say this was what I hoped she could tell us, and I believe the words were upon Elias’s lips as well, but he too refrained. What, after all, could be gained by asking a question so obviously answered?

  “Madam, we are clearly operating under a false impression,” Elias said. “Can you tell me whence the annuity does come?”

  “I told you, didn’t I? It’s the silk weavers’ guild. After Mr. Pepper died, they sent a man to me who said that, as Absalom was a member of the guild and as I was his widow, I was entitled to a death benefit. You must swear you ain’t taking it away.”

  “Allow me to explain,” I said. “You see, madam, we represent the Seahawk Insurance Office, and there was a clerical error with one of our claims relating to the East India Company. I will work with all my efforts to make certain the claim does not come into jeopardy, you understand. It is merely a matter of remaining orderly with the records. In any event, we believed the annuity came through the Company, but our records may be even more confused than we thought. Let me assure you that nothing you say will harm the security of the annuity. You can only aid us in better organizing our management of it.”

  Now she appeared somewhat mollified. She took from her breast a locket and studied the picture inside, a picture of her late husband I could not doubt. After whispering a word or two in the jewel’s direction and placing a loving finger upon the image, she replaced it and turned to us. “Very well. I shall try and help you.”

  “I thank you,” I said. “Now, if I understand you, you say this annuity is part of a common benefit provided for members of the silk weavers’ guild?”

  “That is what I was told,” she said.

  The very notation stretched the boundaries of the absurd. One hundred and twenty pounds a year for the widow of a silk weaver? Such men were lucky to earn twenty or thirty pounds a year, and while I knew the linen men formed combinations and looked after one another, they had no guild that I had ever heard of. It was good for me, however, that I had a contact among their number, the very same Devout Hale whose riotous impulses I had put to work in first getting me inside the East India Company. I could only hope he would be able to serve me once more—this time with information.

  “Just so the matter may have no more confusion,” I said, “your husband was a silk weaver in London. Is that right?”

  “That’s right. Aren’t you one as well? You said you were a weaver, did you not?”

  I chose to disregard the question and allow her to continue with her misunderstanding. “Madam, you must know what your husband earned in his trade. Did it not surprise you that he would have a death benefit worth so many times his annual income?”

  “Oh, he would never discuss anything so base as money,” she said. “I only knew that he earned enough for us to live well. My father persisted in his belief that a silk worker was no better than a porter, but did not my Absalom buy me clothes and jewels and nights at the theater? A porter indeed.”

  “There are many degrees and levels of expertise among the silk workers, of course,” I said. “Perhaps you could tell me more of the capacity in which Mr. Pepper worked in the silk weaving trade, so I might—”

  “He was a silk worker,” she said, with brusque finality, as though I somehow soiled his name by making such inquiries. And then, with a lighter tone, “He would not trouble me by speaking of his labors. He knew he did rough work, but what of it? It earned our bread, more than our share for our happiness.”

  “As to the East India Company,” I said, “you know of no connection with your husband?”

  “None. But as I said, I did not pry into matters of business. It would not have been seemly. You say there is no danger to my annuity?”

  Though I hated to cause so agreeable a lady distress, I knew I had no choice but to present myself as her ally against possible attack, for if I wished to speak to her again, I wanted her to speak with eagerness and honesty. “I hope there will be no danger, and I can assure you I will do all in my power to make certain you continue to receive the sum.”

  ON THE COACH on the way back, Elias and I spoke in quiet voices, for we shared the vehicle with two older tradesmen of unusually severe countenance. They smoked me for a Jew almost at once and spent the bulk of the trip staring malevolently. On occasion, one of them would turn to his companion and say something along the lines of, “Do you like sharing a coach with a Hebrew?”

  “I never love it,” his friend would respond.

  “It does not answer,” the first would say. “It is a low way to travel, indeed.”

  They would then return to their malevolent staring until enough time had passed to engage in another terse exchange.

  After perhaps three or four of these exchanges, I turned to the gentlemen. “I make it my habit never to toss from a moving coach a man who is above forty-five years of age, but each time you open your mouths, you cushion that scruple by approximately five years. By my calculations, and based upon your appearance, the next time you speak so rudely, I will be fully empowered to toss you without a second thought. And as for the coachman, you need not worry about his interfering. A few coins will answer his concerns, and as you know, we Hebrews have no shortage of the ready.”

  Though it was unlikely that I would actually throw a man hard by seventy years onto the road, the threat of such a punishment rendered these wits silent. Indeed, they appeared thereafter reluctant even to glance at us, which made conversation somewhat easier.

  “Heloise and Absalom,” Elias mused, directing my attention once more to the matter at hand. “It is a most unpropitious conflation of names, and a poem I should hate to read.”

  “Mrs. Pepper hardly seemed to note the evil omens, so enchanted was she with her late husband.”

  “One wonders what sort of man he must have been,” Elias mused. “Indeed, beyond his personal charms, I cannot think why the Company would pay his widow so handsomely.”

  “It seems to me rather obvious,” I said. “They have done something horrific, and they wish to keep the widow quiet.”

  “A fine theory,” Elias agreed, “but there is a problem with it. You see, if the Company had offered her ten or twenty or even thirty pounds a year, the story of a guild annuity might have been creditable. But one hundred and twenty? Even blinded by an inflated sense of her late husband’s worth, as is surely the case, the widow cannot truly believe that such beneficence is standard. So if the Company has somehow engineered the death of that fellow, why would it behave now in such a way as to draw attention to the very irregularity of it?”

  His question was a good one, and I had no easy answer. “Perhaps the Company’s crime is so great that it favors a smothering benevolence to any masquerade of veracity. Perhaps the widow knows this guild is not the source but wishes to perpetuate the fiction of Mr. Pepper’s superiority to all other men.”

  Elias mulled upon the notion but had no sound conclusions, and we agreed that we would see no logic of it until we were able to learn more.

  BACK IN LONDON, I sought out Devout Hale, for he, I hoped, could clarify the role played by Pepper among the silk weavers, but I could find no trace of him at his usual haunts. I left word everywhere and then returned home, where I found none other than the duck-faced Edgar awaiting me. Many of his wounds had begun to heal, though his eye remained blackened and, of course, the gaps remained where his teeth once stood.

  “I’d like a word with you in your rooms,” he said.

  “And I’d like you to leave,” I countered.

  “I won’t, and you can attempt to shove me off if you like, but I suspect you don’t want to draw attention to yourself in your own neighborhood.”

  He had the right of it, so I reluctantly permitted him to come in, where he informed me that Mr. Cobb had reliably heard that I had not attended Craven House that day. “The word is that you claim ailment, but you look quite well to me. I see no sign of blood flowing from your arse.”

  “Perhaps you would care for a closer
inspection.”

  He made no response.

  “I was indisposed,” I now attempted, “but I have begun to feel better, and I went for a walk in the hopes of clearing my head.”

  “Mr. Cobb wishes me to assure you that no clever tricks will work upon him. You’ll be at Craven House on the morrow, sir, or he’ll know why. You may depend on it.”

  “You’ve delivered your message. Now be off with you.”

  “Mr. Cobb also commands that I ask if you have grown any closer to discovering aught of the name he gave you.”

  “No, I have learned nothing.” I knew well how to look like the very model of veracity when telling the greatest of lies. I had no concerns of having betrayed myself by my demeanor, but if Aadil worked for Cobb, and the somewhat veiled contents of my message had been understood, it was possible that my enemy had spoken with the Widow Pepper and knew what I knew. Possible, I thought, but unlikely. I knew not what Aadil was nor to what end his allegiances stretched, but I did not believe they were to Cobb.

  “It had better be so,” Edgar said. “If he learns that you withhold information, there will be terrible consequences, and you’ll have cause to regret them. I don’t doubt it, and neither should you.”

  “Get on with you then. I’ve heard your message.”

  Edgar did, indeed, depart. I was both relieved and disappointed to have an encounter with him that did not conclude with violence.

  I HAD THOUGHT MY DAY ended and indulged myself in a glass of port by my fire, attempting, as best I could, to think of nothing—to forget the day’s events, revelations, and questions, that I might better prepare my mind for sleep. It may well be that I dozed off in my chair, but this slumber was abbreviated by a knock upon the door. My landlady informed me that there was a boy below with a message, and he believed its contents could not wait.

  With some consternation I arose, angry that what little quiet in which I might indulge had been so destroyed, but when I descended the stairs I saw at once that the boy was of the Hebrew nation. I recognized him from my uncle’s warehouse, and by the reddening of his eyes I knew without looking what his note said. I nevertheless took it with a trembling hand and read its contents.

  It came from my aunt, written in her native Portuguese, for in her hour of despair her uncertain English had perhaps abandoned her. And it said what I most feared. My uncle’s pleurisy had struck him another blow, and from this one he had not recovered. It came hard and fast, and though for an hour he had struggled most heartily to breathe, his strength could not match the power of the affliction. He was dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  WILL SPARE THE READER AND MYSELF FROM THE SCENES OF SADNESS I was forced to endure. I will say only that by the time I reached the house, much of the neighborhood was already in attendance, and the ladies of her acquaintance labored to give my aunt what little comfort can be had in such times. My uncle had been ailing, yes, and his days had plainly been limited, but I now understood that my aunt had never believed the end to be imminent. Eventual, certainly, and more quickly than she would have considered just, but not this year, or the next, or, perhaps, the one after. And now her great friend and protector and companion, the father of their lost son, was now himself lost. Though I have many times been despondent in my solitude, I cannot say that I have ever been so alone as she was without her husband.

  The men of the burial society had already sequestered my uncle’s body to prepare it by washing and then placing the lifeless form in a burial shroud. One of these men, I knew, would by custom be asked to stand guard to the body, that it might not be left alone at any time. It has ever been our custom that the body be buried quickly, within a day if possible, and after making inquiries I learned that arrangements had already been made by several of my uncle’s associates, including Mr. Franco. A representative of the Ma’amad, the ruling council of the synagogue, informed us that the funeral would be scheduled for eleven the following morning.

  I sent a note to Mr. Ellershaw, informing him that I would be absent from Craven House the next day and explaining the reason. Mindful of Edgar’s warning, I sent a note to Mr. Cobb, informing him as well. I would be indisposed for the next day or two, I told him, and given that I believed his actions had accelerated my uncle’s decline, I advised that he would be wise not to trouble me.

  The long night somehow passed. Mourners faded away, and I remained in the house, along with several of my aunt’s closest friends. I begged Mr. Franco to stay but he declined, saying he was too new to the family’s friendship and had no wish to impose himself.

  As has ever been the custom, friends brought food the next morning, though my aunt ate little, partaking only of some thinned wine and a piece of bread. Her friends aided her in dressing, and together we walked to the magisterial Bevis Marks synagogue, that great monument to the efforts of Portuguese Jews to establish a true home in London.

  Though she was in the horizonless darkness of grief, I must believe that it was some consolation for my aunt to see how full that building was with mourners. My uncle had made no small number of friends among our community, but here too were members of the Tudesco race and even English merchants. If there is one feature of Christian worship I admire, it is that women and men are suffered to sit together, and never have I more lamented our synagogue’s separation of the sexes than that day, wishing to remain with my aunt and give her comfort. Perhaps the need for comfort was my own, however, for I knew she sat with her friends, women who offered her what friendship she desired and who, I must admit, knew her far better than I. To me she had always been a quiet and congenial lady—when I was a child, quick with a sweet or pastry; as an adult, equally quick with a kind word. Her friends would know her inner heart; they would know what to say while I remained too torpid of mind to find the right words.

  I, too, had the comfort of friends. Since my return to the neighborhood of Duke’s Place I had been warmly embraced, and I sat with many well-wishers. Also by my side was Elias. I had neglected to inform him of the event—out of pride, I suppose, not wishing for him to see me in my sorrow—but my uncle was well known about town, and he received word in very little time. I must say he surprised me by knowing enough of our traditions to refrain from bringing flowers, as he would to a Christian service, and spoke instead to the beadle of the synagogue about a gift to an appropriate charitable cause in my uncle’s name.

  The day was cold and crisp, full of dark clouds but surprisingly free of wind, rain, or snow, and so when we retired to the nearby grave site, the weather seemed to me fitting—hard and cruel without being punishing. It accented our sorrow without distracting us from it.

  After the conclusion of prayers, we took turns tossing a shovelful of earth upon the plain wooden casket. Indeed, here was one area in which I believed absolutely that Jews have the right of it over Christians. I do not understand why members of their churches insist on dressing their dead in finery and burying them in ornate coffins, as though they subscribed to the superstitions of the Egyptian kings of old. The body, it seems to me, is a thing without life. The commemoration should be of the ineffable thing that has passed, not the material thing that remains, and such showy ostentation is a product of earthly vanity, not the hope of heavenly reward.

  The service concluded, we made our way slowly back to my aunt’s house, where we would begin the traditional ten-day period of mourning. It is the custom of my nation that in this time the mourner is not be left alone but rather visited throughout the day and given gifts of food and other provisions so that the necessities of life need not trouble her. Here I felt great consternation, for I believed it my responsibility to tend to my aunt’s needs, yet I could not stay away from Craven House and Cobb for ten days. There would be too much to do during those days of mourning, and if I was to aid Ellershaw, as was indeed my task, I could not retire from my duties now without endangering Elias and Mr. Franco. Cobb might grant me a day or two, but more than that, I knew, would push the limits of his humanity. />
  As I walked among the swirling crowd of friends and mourners, I felt a hand upon my arm and turned to see Celia Glade walking beside me. I confess I felt my heart leap, and for a wondrous fleeting moment I forgot the depths of my sorrow and felt joy, unambiguous joy, at her presence. And though the recollection of grief soon returned to fill my heart, there was another moment, a more deliberate moment, in which I allowed myself not to dwell on the disturbing truths of this lady—that I knew not who or what she truly was, if she was a Jewess as she claimed, if she was in the service of the French Crown, and what she wished of me. In that moment I allowed myself to think of those questions as mere trivialities. I allowed myself to believe she cared for me.

  I stepped aside, under an awning, and she came with me, her hand no longer upon my arm. Several of the funeral procession studied us with interest, so I entered an alley that led to an open courtyard, a place I knew to be clean and safe and where she followed me.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked her.

  She had come dressed in black, and these colors showed off the dark of her hair and eyes and the light of her skin to advantage. A slight wind had picked up since the burial, and it blew strands of hair about her dark bonnet. “I heard the news of your uncle. There are no secrets among Jews, you know. I came only to tell you of my sorrow for you. I know you and your uncle were very much attached, and I feel for your loss.”

  “It is interesting that you know of my feelings for him, as we have never spoken of it.” My voice was low, steady. I could not say why I took this tack with her except that I so wanted her to be someone I might trust that I could not stanch the urge to thrust all doubt forward.

  She bit her lip, caught herself, and closed her eyes briefly. “You must know, Mr. Weaver, that you are something of a public figure, among the Jews and among the English too. Your friends and relations have all been noted by the men of Grub Street. I cannot stop you from assigning sinister meaning to my visit, but I wish that you would not.”