The Spy's Reward

by Nita Abrams

When Anthony walked through the streets of Brussels, on the other hand, he suffered from the opposite problem. The city was full of English visitors. He had expected that some officers and diplomats would have their families with them; he had not expected that hundreds of wealthy aristocrats would have moved their entire households to Brussels for the summer. After six years of working in Italy and London, he had a fairly broad circle of acquaintances: clients from the bank, patrons of charities the Roth family supported. He learned quickly not to bother nodding to any of them if he spotted them in the Upper Town. Enlisted men were, like children, meant to be seen and not heard. Also like children, they were generally assumed to be nearly illiterate, and whenever he spoke German or French the reaction was astonishment or even irritation, as if some unwritten law had been violated.

  It seemed likely that he had many more weeks of boredom and fatigue waiting for him. Napoleon was gathering troops on the northern border of France, but no one believed he would be ready to move before the middle of July. Anthony was not unhappy, however. He was beginning to understand that he had never truly ventured out on his own before. Growing up in London, he had been with his family constantly. He had been tutored at home, since the better schools did not accept Jewish pupils; subsequently, his father and his uncle Eli had supervised him at the bank. Even after the establishment of a branch in Italy had required Anthony to travel back and forth between London and Naples, he had always been accompanied by Battista, who was in essence a Catholic, male extension of Anthony’s mother. When Anthony had sent the servant off ten days ago he had felt like a prisoner released from jail.

  At the moment Anthony himself was playing servant. The Duchess of Richmond was giving a ball in her rented house near the Botanical Gardens, and Anthony’s colonel, recollecting his talents as a translator, had suggested him for sentry duty: a glorified term for acting as an unpaid footman. He had now been standing at attention for three hours, watching a procession of officers in full-dress regimentals parade into the house. The music had started right after Anthony had taken up his post, but he was not sure how much dancing there would be. From what he had seen, there were ten men for every woman in the ballroom at the back of the house.

  After several days of relentless drilling, it was quite pleasant to form one of the Duchess’s human ornaments at the entrance to her ball. He entertained himself and his companions by guessing the nationalities of the guests before they were announced. Unlike his fellow sentries, he was hopelessly ignorant about the various uniforms; he could barely even remember, in his own regiment, which piece of braid on a jacket indicated which rank. But he astonished the others with his ability to identify the women by their clothing and hairstyle. He won several bets before his comrades realized that the odds were against them and stopped wagering. Unfortunately, once Wellington arrived, the flow of guests slowed to a trickle, and Anthony began to grow restless, wondering when he was due to be relieved.

  The first hint that there was anything wrong came when a group of officers clattered up on horseback. They were not dressed for a ball. Two of them, in fact, were filthy, and their horses were stumbling with exhaustion.

  “Is the Duke inside?” asked the lead rider, without dismounting.

  “Yes, sir,” said the corporal in charge of the sentries.

  The rider nodded to another man, who swung off his horse and handed the reins to Anthony.

  “Sir! You can’t go in like that!” protested the corporal belatedly as the grimy officer headed into the house. “You haven’t an invitation!”

  The man turned and held up a sweat-soaked packet of paper. “Urgent dispatches,” he said. “That’s my invitation.” He vanished through the door.

  “Why do you suppose they are here?” Anthony asked another sentry in a low voice, jerking his head at the riders. They still had not dismounted.

  “God knows,” said his informant. “Could be the real thing, could be a false alarm. Before you lot came we had a message the French were going to steal around our right flank and cut off our supplies from Ostend; there was a right panic at that one.”

  But the sentries closest to the street were breaking ranks and murmuring to each other, and one of the riders, overhearing Anthony’s companion, leaned over and said quietly, “This is the real thing, all right. Boney crossed the border twelve hours ago. We’ll be marching before dawn.”

  The horse Anthony was holding sidled and backed a few paces. “Here, you!” said another mounted officer to Anthony. “Mind what you’re about; he’s trampling the Duchess’s shrubbery.” Then he caught his breath and leaned forward in the saddle. “Anthony?” he asked incredulously.

  It was Anthony’s cousin James.

  Anthony had known, as an abstract notion, that he might encounter his cousin. Their regiments were in the same division. But an abstract notion was one thing; James looming over him on his horse at the very moment he had learned that he was to fight tomorrow was something else. He was miserably aware that James was mounted and he was on foot, that James was an officer and he was a private, and that James had been in countless battles while he had never fired a shot at a living creature in his life.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded his cousin.

  “Sentry duty. Sir.”

  “Don’t ‘sir’ me,” snapped James. He dismounted in one quick leap and handed both his horse and the one Anthony had been holding to another sentry. Then he hauled Anthony into the partially mauled shrubbery bed. “I thought you were going back to Italy,” he said.

  “I changed my mind.”

  His cousin raised one eyebrow. “From banker to infantryman. A dramatic transformation.”

  “At least I kept my own name,” Anthony said coldly. “And my religion.”

  That produced a scowl. “Does my father know about this?”

  Anthony lost his temper. “What business is it of yours what I do or who knows of it?” he asked, nearly shouting. “In case you had forgotten, I’m two years older than you are and have double your shares in the bank! I don’t care if you are a goddamned captain; I don’t have to answer to you—or my uncle—for my actions. Now get out of my way; I’m on duty. You have no authority to relieve me.” Shoving past his cousin, he resumed his stance by the door, still shaking slightly with the force of his anger. When his unit was hastily dismissed and sent back to quarters to prepare to move south, he did not even look to see if James was still there.

  Nothing could have endeared Anthony more to his fellow soldiers than that defiant confrontation. Their meek little banker had routed an officer—not just any officer, but a captain from their hated rivals in the 95th. The catcalls and cheerful congratulations enlivened the tedious business of packing and checking weapons and lining up for ammunition, and persisted as the company began to march south. Even Pack, the brigade’s general, somehow got wind of the affair and came by to warn Anthony’s lieutenant with mock solemnity that one of his men appeared to have a dangerous tendency to insubordination.

  Only at the first halt did Anthony suddenly realize what was happening. He was on his way to battle.

  For several days Meyer felt uncomfortable every time he saw his sister-in-law. He was unaccustomed to asking advice from anyone, at least on personal matters. On the few occasions when he had done so, it had been his daughter, Rachel, who had been his confidante. But Rachel was currently in Portsmouth waiting for her husband’s regiment to return from Louisiana, and even if she had been nearby, he doubted whether he would have been willing to consult her about her potential stepmother. It had been a momentary impulse to confide in Louisa during the carriage ride, and more than once he wished the words unspoken. In his more rational moments he trusted her to keep his confidence from everyone except her husband, and he suspected that the sharp-eyed Eli would not be very surprised by what she reported. In his irrational moments, however, he pictured Louisa and Eli sharing the story with everyone in the family: the arrogant Nathan Meyer humbled at last, reduced to begging his siste
r-in-law for help with his wooing.

  Since he had paid a high price in embarrassment for Louisa’s advice, he was determined to follow it. He scrupulously avoided the neighborhood of Goodman’s Fields. He no longer wandered into jewelers just in case he might see something tasteful set with emeralds. He had sent Rodrigo away in part because of his infuriatingly correct predictions; now he wrote to him in Amsterdam and recalled him from his trumped-up assignment. His servant believed Louisa to be the wisest woman in England; he would endorse her recommendation wholeheartedly and would stop Meyer from doing anything rash if his resolution faltered.

  He resumed his work at the Tower. There was an uneasy truce between him and White. Both men were civil, but there was a tension there. Meyer knew the colonel well; it would be a long time before White would even consider apologizing. It might be simpler if Meyer did it first, but he delayed. If he apologized the next logical step would be to volunteer to go to Brussels. It was one thing to comply with Louisa’s suggestion and wait for Abigail to soften towards him. It was another thing to be in Belgium if she finally did soften.

  Late one Friday evening he was sitting in his study. For once he was at his desk instead of on the stool by the fireplace; he was reading the latest report sent by the bank couriers from Brussels. These usually arrived several days ahead of the official army reports and often included information omitted from the latter; this one, for example, reported that friction between Wellington and some of the other Allied commanders continued to create minor problems in the disposition of the forces. He felt a small twinge of guilt. Had he accepted White’s assignment, he might have prevented the latest incident, which involved one of the Prussian generals.

  When he heard a knock he assumed it was Eli. No one else would disturb him at this hour. He grunted a command to come in and when the door did not open he got up, exasperated, and opened it himself.

  The Roths’s night porter, a stout older man named Bullin, hovered uncertainly in the doorway. It must be later than Meyer had thought; Sweelinck usually stayed on duty until eleven or so. “Yes, what is it, Bullin?” he asked curtly.

  “A lady to see you, Mr. Meyer,” said the porter. He looked very unhappy. Couriers arrived at the Roth house at all hours; ladies were another matter. “Says to beg your pardon, but it is very urgent.”

  He knew at once who it was. At this hour, on the Sabbath, something terrible must have happened to bring her here.

  “Where is she?” he demanded. Without waiting for the answer he was already headed towards the front of the house. He rounded the corner at a near-run and saw Abigail standing in the front hall, twisting her hands nervously in the folds of her pelisse. Her face was so pale he thought she was about to faint.

  When she saw him, she gave a little cry, started forward, and then stopped. “Please forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do—you said to ask you if I needed help—I don’t know how to find her—”

  He forgot all about Louisa’s advice to be cautious, to take things slowly. In two strides he had caught her in his arms.

  Abigail had not suspected that anything was wrong until dinnertime. At this time of year, sunset (and therefore the Sabbath meal) was quite late. As a result it had been nine o’clock before Abigail and Fanny realized that Diana was not in the house, and even then, since it was still light out, they were not very concerned at first. Rosie was summoned; she had not seen Diana since just after luncheon. Perhaps she had gone for a walk.

  Abigail questioned the other servants. If Diana had gone walking, she had gone unaccompanied. None of the servants reported being asked to escort her. No one had seen her leave. No invitations had arrived; no callers had stopped in after lunch.

  “She has stayed late at a friend’s house and has forgotten to send word,” Fanny suggested. She was beginning to sound anxious.

  Abigail turned to the maid. “Rosie, did you see anything odd when you looked in her room just now?”

  “It was a bit untidy,” Rosie said hesitatingly. “And her wardrobe was open.”

  Untidy might not mean much, given Diana’s habits. Until an exasperated Abigail had limited her daughter to one round of maid service every morning, the staff had sometimes felt compelled to clean her bedchamber and parlor every few hours. The open wardrobe was another story, however. She ran up the two flights to Diana’s suite with her heart pounding against her ribs like a giant mallet.

  She could tell at once that the chaos had an urgent quality to it very different from Diana’s usual carelessness. It was not as easy as it had been in France to determine what was missing—her daughter had a very ample wardrobe—but after a preliminary inventory it became clear that Diana had not simply ventured out for a walk. In addition to the dress she had been wearing two others were gone; she had also taken half boots, two pairs of slippers, and a nightgown. All her chemises and pairs of drawers remained, however—incontrovertible proof that Diana herself had done the packing. Wherever she had gone, she would not have any clean linens when she got there.

  Abigail sank down onto the bed and put her head in her hands. “Couldn’t she even leave a note?” she asked, despairing.

  The practical Fanny was looking at the scraps of paper in Diana’s grate to see if the note had been discarded by mistake. She did not find a letter, but she did find a packing list in Diana’s handwriting: new bonnet, two prs shoes, ostrich fan, nightclths, pink muslin, perhps yellow, shawl, gloves, jwlry. This last prompted Rosie to search Diana’s trinket box, which proved to be virtually empty. Diana’s father had been very generous; Abigail realized unhappily that her daughter was probably carrying enough money in jewels to run away to the other side of the world, if she chose.

  By this time it was almost ten o’clock. Abigail went back downstairs and sent out the footman to make enquiries in the neighborhood. Then she paced back and forth in the front hall until he returned. He had very little to report. The kitchen maid at Number Fifteen might have seen a young lady carrying a bandbox walking briskly west just after noon. But she could not be sure.

  Abigail sent him out again, this time accompanied by the coachman, with instructions to proceed towards Cornhill and see if they could find any traces of her. They left with a list of possibilities that would have daunted a Bow Street runner: taverns, hackney stands, stagecoach inns, shipping agents, and jewelers. The last was Fanny’s suggestion; presumably Diana would need to sell some of her treasures to obtain cash.

  The letter arrived at half-past ten, delivered by a postboy. Her first reaction was relief to have news—any news. Then she read the letter more carefully.

  Dearest Mother,

  I hope this finds you well and Fanny also. I discovered last week that Mr. Roth has enlisted in the army and I must go to Belgium now to be with him in case there is a battle. You need not worry, because I am very well chaperoned (the word very was heavily underlined) and will be back within a few weeks. I forgot to pack clean linens and my tooth-powder has accidentally become soaked with cologne, but it will be far easier to buy new things than to send anything after me, so pray do not trouble yourself. I will write again from Brussels and I remain

  Your loving daughter,

  Diana

  Abigail closed her eyes. Not content with the fifteen hundred soldiers who had escorted them to Grenoble, Diana was now headed, alone and unprotected, for a city that currently housed eighty thousand soldiers. She opened her eyes just in time to see the postboy collecting his fee from Fanny and heading for the door. “Wait!” she cried, hurrying after him. She asked the poor messenger so many questions so quickly that he began to look dizzy, but a pint of ale and a few coins remedied her error. After that she let Fanny ask the questions.

  His name was Will and he was a postboy at the Crown and Eagle, on the Dover road. The message had been given him by a young lady at about six this evening. Fanny asked him what the young lady looked like; he gave an accurate (and very admiring) description of Diana. Was she traveling alone? He couldn�
�t say; the coffee room at the inn had been very crowded. Did she look unhappy, or frightened? (This was Abigail’s question.) No indeed, she had been very cheerful and had told him her mother would pay him very well for the message. Abigail more than fulfilled this prophecy and then, reluctantly, let the person who had seen her daughter last leave the house.

  Nothing Fanny said could convince her that some immediate action was not necessary. Yes, the runaway had an eight hours’ start; that made it all the more imperative to leave at once. Yes, Diana might send a second letter with more information. Fanny would please forward it on to her at once, for Fanny, of course, must stay at home in case Diana returned. There was no point urging Abigail to rest or to wait for morning; Diana was in danger every minute Abigail delayed. Her daughter’s idea of a chaperone was likely some woman she met on the stagecoach who was not even going to Brussels, and the idea of Diana alone in a foreign city on the brink of war was insupportable.

  Fanny tried one last time. Surely Abigail was not planning to travel by herself to Belgium? That was as foolish as what Diana had done. What would she do when she arrived? How would she find Anthony Roth—the only clue to Diana’s location in Brussels—among the thousands of soldiers assembled there?

  That was when Abigail had realized that there was someone who could help her, someone who knew how to travel quickly at night, someone who could find one soldier—or one runaway girl—in a foreign city. Her coachman and footman had not yet returned, but it was less than a mile to the Roths’s house. She had run up to her room, snatched her pelisse and bonnet, and paused only to tell the horrified Rosie where she was going before running back downstairs and out into the night.

  Fifteen minutes later she was at the door of the Roths’s town house, trembling and out of breath. The servant who admitted her surveyed her very dubiously before agreeing to fetch Mr. Meyer. Some part of her knew that she should have sent a messenger rather than coming herself, should have at least brought a maid. She did not care. The only thing she wanted was to be in Brussels as quickly as possible.