Silently Lance shucked out of his drab covering and took the fine cloak. He handed up the old one, rather obviously leaving it for Piggott to fold. Piggott did, and put it away. “Want the ’scutcheon? Or is one alone worse’n none?”
Lance seemed not to hear him, but sat looking out across the dark Thames. He felt exceeding strange, and had been silent and troubled since he had put the old barrister to sleep and gone to his inn to change. The day had been an eventful one, full of victories for itself and possibilities for the morrow, but in this hiatus he was plagued by doubts. The doubts did not go too deep; his inner confidence was that he would command the situation he was coming to as he had the one he had left.
What manner of woman yielded up her supposed utmost with such cold casualness as this—this witch? There was a moralistic response to such a question, of course, but it would derive from a code, and a code is a cipher, a set, fixed attitude to be manipulated without thought. Detachedly he set aside prejudice and looked simply at sequences of action.
The classical conduct of women was to withhold the ultimate as a reward; romance and respectability aside, that was the sum and substance of the interaction between men and women. The theory seemed to be, at its baldest, that the woman who yields is thenceforward without resources, and that therefore it is to her advantage to promise and withhold as long as the revenue continues. Elizabeth Chudleigh’s vivid history might be a demonstration of this principle at work, unless one had Barrowbridge’s extraordinary tale to measure it against; with that, one could wonder if she had used that erstwhile ultimate again as punishment instead of reward, as … how many ways might she have used it?
“Blarst thee, lad! If ye don’t want to talk to me at all, ye could say so an’ I’ll stop makin’ a fool o’ meself.”
“Wh—what’s that?” Lance had a long way to come out of his thoughts, and did it slowly.
“I’m asking d’ye want the ruddy ’scutcheon on the one side. If ye don’t want to gab wi’ me ye could nod yer bleedin’ ’ead.”
Slowly Lance reached into his great-pocket and drew out the missing escutcheon. Wall-eyed, Piggott took it. “Ye’ve ’ad a new … coo, it’s the same one. Lanky, where—”
“Buckle ’em on,” said Lance testily. The feel of the carved wood in his hand had brought back his conjectures with a rush, and he needed to be with them. The escutcheon meant Miss Axelrood, and the thought of Miss Axelrood proved to him that in fumbling through the moral wilderness of Miss Chudleigh’s acts, it had not been Miss Chudleigh he had been thinking about at all.
He had been quite ready to accept the fact that Miss Axelrood’s visit had not been prompted only by his personal magnetism; he found now, rather to his surprise, that he had been clinging to the idea that some of her conduct at least had been the result of some such feeling.
He gave her the same test he had made Barrowbridge apply: could she have secured the desired results in any other way?
He rebuilt the situation in his mind accordingly, seeing her make her plea on Miss Chudleigh’s behalf without the accompanying intimacies, and he dourly confessed to himself that she would have failed.
And this is the route through which he reached a real understanding of his good fortune in having Barrowbridge as his personal tactician. Ay, and here was Miss Axelrood with just such a mentor. He visualized, in a mad vivid flash, Miss Chudleigh, dressed scandalously as at the legendary ball, and Mr. Barrowbridge, dressed mythically in whatever might denote an Exemplification Officer of the Prothonotary’s Office, Cantab., saluting one another with foils, prepared to fence. And one foil was a nameless bastard who wished only to climb and climb until he came to the level from which he had been so cruelly dropped, and the other foil was an incalculable damsel whose dream it was merely to climb and climb.
He shook himself violently; he was unsuited and unaccustomed to having visions. He found himself face to face with the coachman, who, having attached the insignes, was leaning over the step and staring into his face like one trying to identify a sleeping stranger. “Dash it all, Piggott,” snapped Lance, “you’ve been eating raw onions.”
“Shallots,” corrected Piggott. “You are in a ’appy frame, I must say.”
Lance glared at him, and the coachman glared right back. There was no quailing this time, as the chemical of terror was lacking in the younger man, and his mien was only irritated and irritating. But with the contact he came at last to the here and now; to Piggott, the shape of Piggott and Piggott’s function in his life and in this particular episode in it.
He recalled the coachman’s discursive warning, all the way through Southwark and Bermondsey, last night, against Miss Axelrood, and how timely his estimates of Miss Chudleigh had been. Coincidence? Possibly; Piggott’s interests were catholic and his monologues could treat with anything—why not this? Then in the same instant in which this facile excuse came to him, he rejected it. There comes a time in the affairs of a man when complications overwhelm him, and he can abide no more mysteries. In the past twenty-four hours he had been through enough, accomplished enough, to drain anyone of psychic energy—and he had at least as exhausting an occasion before him. He had no resources to waste on tact or reasoning in the matter of minor mysteries. All this overload came out in a steel-edged tone, and the words he flung in the coachman’s face: “So you don’t know who stole the ’scutcheon?”
“I don’t know ’oo stole the ’scutcheon?” snarled the coachman, giving an accurate, though cockneyed, mimicry. “Now don’t be tellin’ me yer ’ighness is raisin’ ’is ruddy gall-bladder over a rotten little piece o’ wood. Besides ye got it back, so what’s the muckin’ loss? ’oo ’ad it, any’ow?”
“Miss Axelrood had it. She unbuckled it standing right there on the step last night, right under our noses.”
“Now there’s a sly little package! I never guessed.”
“I believe that, Piggott. I also believe it to be your only innocence in the matter.”
“ ’Ow’s that?” demanded Piggott, cocking his head as if to hear better.
“I’ll not fence with you at all,” said Lance sharply. “I charge you with having disclosed my address to a stranger, and with it all my affairs. I charge you with risking my safety and my future for less than Judas got, without the Iscariot excuse of not fully knowing what he was about.”
“I don’t know what ye’re maunderin’ about and I doubt ye do yourself.”
“Then I’ll make it clear,” said Lance, angry and weary. “Miss Axelrood was at the inn, inside my room, waiting for me when I got there last night. The only other person who could conceivably have told her where I was is Simon Barrowbridge, and I have excellent reasons for believing him innocent. How much did she give you, Piggott? It must have been a good bit. Grove had two gold sovereigns for his part in it.”
“She was there? Afore us?”
“Ah, come off it!” said Lance disgustedly. “Yes, she came by Westminster Bridge in a spring trap with a fine black gelding while you crept through Southwark talking filth and not minding your business. Now if you’re willing, drive me to Lady Blanton’s. If you’re not I’ll take a hackney. Which is it?”
Piggott stepped back to the curb. Surprisingly, his anger seemed to have evaporated in favor of a wonderful amaze. “Lanky, ye’ve an evil way of jokin’ a man.”
“Will you do one thing or the other?” Lance spat out. “I’ve found you out and I will not talk about it—not a word!” and with that he plumped back in his seat and folded his arms.
Piggott opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. He still, Lance noticed out of the corner of his eye, affected this posture of astonishment. He was not impressed. He had frequently seen Barrowbridge rehearsing a client in something of the sort.
Piggott turned to scan the black river and then the bridge. A hackney was clopping toward them out of London Town; the sight of it seemed to stir Piggott into decision, for he snorted and sprang up, whipped the horses so that the near one reared, hitti
ng the traces a frightful jolt. Then they were rumbling across the bridge. Lance braced his legs and set his jaw against the jolting, and let his anger bubble in his blood. He found himself enjoying it. He wondered if this enjoyment was what old Barrowbridge had meant, so long ago, when he said, “A heady thing, to know you’re right; it comes seldom.”
Not a word was said between them until they reached a point a few yards from Clerkenwell Road in Holborn, and perhaps a quarter-mile from Blanton House. And there the carriage stopped.
“Well?” cried Lance, testy as a dowager.
Piggott leaned close. “Now you listen ’ere to me, laddy-buck. I’m goin’ to speak the entire bloody truth, an’ if ye don’t believe it I got no more to say, now—or—ever.”
“Very well. If it’s the truth. If not, don’t bother.”
“It’s the truth. And that is, I never told nobody nothing about you. I never saw a farthin’ from a livin’ soul for informin’, especially not for informin’ on you; I ’aven’t and I wouldn’t. What’s goin’ to ’appen to the pair of us now I ’aven’t thought out yet but I will; but ye bloody better well know what’s the truth when ye ’ear it, and that’s my last word.”
“Take me to Blanton House,” said Lance disgustedly.
Piggott did, sitting very straight, a far more decent figure furious than he ever had been before.
At Blanton House, Lance waited for the final rumble of his wheels to cease and then stood abruptly. In a soft, intense voice, designed to be inaudible to the Blanton footmen, he said to Piggott: “You’ve this much latitude, old man. Sit and think over the whole childish story while I’m inside. If by the time I come out—an hour, perhaps—you are prepared to tell me that you did what I’ve charged you with; why you did it; and what you expect to do to make amends—well then, I can decide what to do with you. But if you persist in flying in the face of reason and evidence, then simply don’t be here when I come out. I shall never want to see your face again.”
Piggott neither moved nor spoke. Lance alighted and ran up the steps. When he was admitted and the doors closed behind him, Piggott bowed his head. He sat without moving for a very long time.
6.
“MISS AXELROOD, PENDLETON.”
“Yes, Captain. I’ll see if she’s at home.”
“Come here.”
“Yes, sir?”
“If Miss Axelrood is not at home, I shall wait. If Miss Axelrood says she is not at home, she shall not see me again.”
“Yes, sir. Will you wait in the library?”
Lance strode across the great foyer to the double doors of the famous Blanton library. Walking from the hall was like coming in from outdoors; the open space there, with its great double staircase and arched skylights, made one totally unprepared for the library. It was a wide room, but the ceiling was so low that tall men habitually leaned with their hands easily on the beams overhead. Its décor was a luminous dark green and cream—and books, books from floor to ceiling save for doors, windows and fireplace; books in a star-shaped rack free of the wall, books in racks angling out and back from the wall; there were coves, caves, nooks of books. Lance walked softly among them, occasionally touching morocco, calfskin, ivory inlay on the backs of books. He quickly learned their arrangement—they were beautifully organized—and with the greatest pleasure, stopped before as complete a little library of law as the most exacting barrister might wish.
One title in it made him laugh. He put out his hand for it, then checked himself. Time enough for that later.
“He sends me fierce messages by the butler,” said Miss Axelrood from the door, “and I find him in the shadows laughing like a wicked imp. You quite frighten me, Captain.”
In her blush-pink velvet she looked anything but frightened. He caught her hand and kissed the wrist, then, holding it, he put out his other hand to touch the lobe of her strange ear. She stood quite still at this, her welcoming smile still on her face, neither responding nor repulsing. This reminded him of something which he chased from his mind before it could be identified. Faced with control of that high order, he suddenly understood the passion of some men for the unmarked, inscrutable; to see such a mask was to want it contorted, sweat-sheened and mobile. But these were the thoughts of the libertine, and there was no room here for him. (Never a time for him, never a place …) He sighed.
“I sigh for love, I die for love …” she sang softly, a coquettish rendition of one of the more shallow ballads of the moment. But he cut it right off when he said, unsmiling, “I sigh for satisfaction, my dear; I have found you out.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“I shall never tell you.” He looked her in the face and then paced off, so that he might smile unseen at the sudden distraction in her eyes. (Suggest to your enemy that his secret is yours, and whether it is yours or is not, whether or not he has a secret, he will fear you for it. Thank you, Sr. Gracian!) He turned back and said in businesslike tones, “Miss Axelrood, I have come to report to you on the matter we discussed.”
“To report progress, Captain Courtenay?”
“Completion, Miss Axelrood.”
“I think we had better be seated, and discuss this thing.”
“I should like Miss Chudleigh to be present at any such discussion.”
“Why,” she smiled, “we needn’t trouble her.”
“We shouldn’t burden you—you alone—with it.”
“You do not fully understand my relationship to Miss Chudleigh,” she said with a certain amount of warmth.
“On the contrary, Miss Axelrood, I understand it all too well. If you will permit me an analogy, I could, in fairness, compare you ladies to a government rather like that of our ally the great Frederick of Prussia. There is a head of state whose function is to set policy. Then there is a body to carry it out. I would liken you, Miss Axelrood, to the latter.”
Two bright spots appeared on her cheeks, though her half-smile was still as soft, her eyes as clear. “A body, Captain, to—”
“And what I have to propose,” he said quickly and loudly, “will, I am quite, quite certain call for a policy decision. Do you follow me?”
“Surely that would be for me to judge, if anyone, Captain!” she said sharply; then, between breaths, she was standing close to him with her hands on his elbows. “Lance,” she said very softly, “Lance, we’re going to quarrel.”
He moved back. “We need not, Miss Axelrood.” He smiled tightly. “You gratify me, by using my given name. Do you feel you know me well enough?”
“At the moment,” she said candidly, “I feel I do not know you at all.”
“I can’t quite say why,” he said off-handedly, “but I suddenly recall a piece of news. My old acquaintance Lancaster Higger-Piggott, the lawyer’s lad, is no more.”
“Ah,” she said.
“And at almost the same time, Mr. Barrowbridge also passed away.”
“Barrowbridge—dead?”
Sepulchrally, yet smiling, he said, “He will practice no longer in Bermondsey … but of course, these are my personal concerns, and I should not trouble you with them. But perhaps their passing has made a change in me.”
“You mourn them?” she enquired, a quiet sparkle in her eyes.
“I cannot. I am so deeply convinced they are going on to better things.”
Her laughter finally escaped her; it had apparently been a-building for some moments. And he laughed with her, their eyes meeting. This was a dangerous playmate for sure, but it was a pleasure to joust with her on any field.
“Tell me,” she said, “about that conviction.”
“Ah, these are the matters I felt should be discussed with Miss Chudleigh.”
“Miss Chudleigh has gone to visit a friend.”
“May we expect her back presently?”
“I think not.”
He pondered that, and then shrugged. “A pity. It only means that this interchange must be accomplished twice, and will therefore take longer. Not that it matters to
me; the urgency, as I understand it, is Miss Chudleigh’s.”
She inclined her head. “The matter is urgent. Will you tell me what you mean? Have you really found a course of action for her, in the matter of Mr. Hervey?”
“I have. There is only one thing I must be sure of; perhaps I should not ask, and perhaps you cannot tell me.”
“Please ask anything.”
“Thank you. Mr. Hervey, the Earl of Bristol’s brother: would he oppose or favor an action which would eliminate this—ah—reputed marriage to Miss Chudleigh?”
“Favor it, with all his heart, more so with every passing minute,” she said positively. “He will not, however, accept such a remedy as an action for divorce; nor would his brother the Earl.”
“Very good then; with his agreement, we can make a positive solution—absolute.”
“You are most elusive,” she remarked, “in the matter of describing this solution.”
“I quite agree,” he said, and smiled. “You shall have it in time. At the moment, however, I would far rather discuss certain other things. You mentioned, I seem to recall, something about a little town-house in Holborn, and a number of activities this would make possible.”
She moved to an ottoman and sank down upon it, indicating by a graceful nod that she wished him to take the chair by it. He sat down, watching her carefully; and just as carefully, she said, “I should very much dislike it, Captain, if this conversation should reach an impasse. The matter you have brought up is rather completely dependent upon the solution you say you have found. You give me to understand you will not divulge it. In all fairness, isn’t it … previous to discuss matters which can only follow that solution?”
Just exactly the tack Barrowbridge said they’d take, he thought with satisfaction. He smiled. “I had no intention of discussing the house in Holborn, Miss Axelrood. Actually, no one has offered me such a thing, and should anyone do so, I would unquestionably decline it.”
“Decline it?” For a moment her containment fell away, and her mouth opened prettily. “Then what do you want?”
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