Mrs Norwood backed into the room balancing a tray.
‘I thought you must be in here,’ she said. ‘I know you said not to, but it’s late, and I thought you should have something to eat.’
James had been so engrossed in the life of Tennyson that he hadn’t noticed his hunger, which, at the smell of food, rumbled through his stomach.
‘Thank you, Mrs Norwood,’ he said. ‘I should have thought to come down.’
‘You’re the man of the house tonight, Sir,’ she said. ‘We’re just temporary, here to do whatever’s needed.’ She spoke gently, and her City accent was light. Her voice rang more bells than her face. ‘I’ll pop it here, shall I?’
She laid the tray on the reading table before James could answer.
‘Were you really one of my teachers?’ he asked, studying her soft features as she placed a glass and water jug before him.
‘I was, Sir, and after, your sister’s. The Dame School on Lavender Lane beside the church. Your parents worked very hard to send you, but we gave the Sunday school for free. You won’t remember. You were no more than ten.’
‘It’s coming back to me,’ James said. ‘I was sent there every day from about six, I think. I remember Sunday school up until I was eleven, but then I stopped going. I was in trouble for that, but Mum understood.’
‘Nice lady, your mother.’ Mrs Norwood’s attention was drawn to the room, and she gave it a polite once over. ‘Think how she’s feeling now, seeing you doing so well at His Lordship’s house.’
‘I think she would tell me off for taking liberties with his study,’ James said. Her presence was cheering, and the more she spoke, the more his memories returned.
‘I am sure you have a good reason, and His Lordship knows.’
‘Oh, he does, Mrs Norwood. He has asked me to carry out some research for him while he is away.’
‘And look at you.’ Her eyes were back on the table. ‘Reading… Tennyson is it? With blackest moss the flower-plots were thickly crusted, one and all. That’s one of my favourites. I heard him read it, you know.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes, many years ago now at The Whymore Hall. Mr Norwood and I met that night, and we still go once a year as near to that anniversary as we can. Sometimes a concert, sometimes a reading. You would enjoy it. Of course, he has also said other very wise words beyond his poetry. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers,’ she quoted. ‘That’s one of my favourites, and I can see it at work now. Look at you. What one are you reading?’
‘The Splendour Falls,’ he said, uncertain of the poem’s title.
‘Beautiful,’ she said. ‘I just picture the scene and hear the sounds when I read that. Snowy summits, horns of Elfland, the waterfall and castle. It’s beautiful. His followers have this thing where they try and work out where he was when he wrote it, what was the view it describes and everything. He says no-one’s got it right yet, Well…’ She had been wandering from her business and pulled herself back. ‘I’ll leave you to your supper.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Norwood, and very kind of you to think of me.’
‘Oh, Mr Wright,’ she laughed. ‘You don’t know what joy you’re bringing me.’
His face must have crumpled in confusion, he certainly jerked his head in surprise.
‘You were a chubby little thing,’ she explained. ‘Well behaved, did your slate, and if I am not mistaken, the first boy to learn his letters and draw them so neatly within a week of starting at the Dames.’ She was reminiscing to the book of poetry rather than James and, as he sipped his glass of water, he let her ramble on. It was comforting to hear about himself from the past, his mother hardly spoke of it. ‘You would come to the schoolroom all neat and tidy. Polished, we’d call you, Polished Wright, because you were always so correctly turned out.’
‘I never knew that.’
‘Mind, by the time you left each day, your knees were as scuffed as any boy’s and your hair, curly-blond then, looked like a haystack after someone had pitched it over.’ She chuckled. ‘But you learnt so fast and now look at you. Sitting in His Lordship’s room, doing his work and reading Lord Tennyson. You make me proud, Sir.’
It was moving but embarrassing. ‘I am only doing what my master requires,’ James said. ‘But I am able to do it because of your teaching, Mrs Norwood. As Lord Tennyson says, “Our echoes roll from soul to soul”, as has your good work. You have fed my mind, and now you are feeding my belly.’ He removed the cloche to discover a plate piled with potatoes and beef, vegetables and gravy. ‘Good Lord!’
‘You’re still a growing boy, Sir.’
‘And I shall be as chubby as I was then if you continue to spoil me like this.’
‘On that note…’ Her voice altered as did her focus. ‘If you are to be at the house for any length of time, or if the season at Larkspur has been changed, you will tell me, won’t you? I was only expecting to order for the two of us.’
‘I will,’ James promised. ‘As soon as I know. For now, consider it just me and Mr Hawkins.’ His stomach turned. ‘As soon as His Lordship’s business is concluded, we will be away.’
‘Very good. Then I will leave you. You know,’ she said, turning at the door, ‘you can ring for me if you need me. You are, at the moment, the master of the house.’
It was a terrifying thought, but James didn’t want to deflate her ego by telling her it was the most nerve-racking position he had been in, including the night he leapt from a runaway locomotive.
‘I will be fine, thank you,’ he said and, hinting, picked up the knife and fork.
Mrs Norwood left as quietly as she had arrived, but she left behind more than a dinner tray. As James ate, scouring the map of Westerpool, he thought over her words and pictured himself as a fat little bookworm turned out as if every day was Sunday. No wonder he was bullied.
Refusing to allow the darker side of those days to overtake him again, he pictured the schoolroom with the impossibly high windows through which sunlight streamed in great tracks of glowing dust. The schoolroom was stone and smelt of wood polish, the bench was hard, and his chalk grated on the slate. Squeaks, coughs, boys laughing at farts, a male teacher throwing chalk sticks at the perpetrators, always missing. Then there was the woman who calmed them down and read them stories, the pretty lady who brought a sweet in the folds of her black dress and awarded it to the boy who read the best. There were at least twenty boys in the room and a different one received the prize each day no matter how well they read. The same woman had just delivered his dinner.
‘Funny how life turns out,’ he said, chewing. ‘Who’d have thought I’d bump into…’
The fork clattered to the plate. He swallowed his mouthful but stared at the wall. Mrs Norwood’s words had lingered along with her perfume, and he dragged across the book of poetry and moved away his plate. His attention alternating between the map and the poem, he whispered, ‘Elfland.’
Ten
After a hearty meal, a warm fire and a bath, Archer slept the sleep of the dead, but due to the vodka, woke up with a headache. Fecker, who had drunk most of the bottle on his own despite swearing at the ‘Russian traitors’ with every shot, had suffered no ill effects. Archer clawed his way to the edge of the bed and looked down. His coachman was on the floor between the cots with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
‘Were you there all night?’ Archer asked, groggy.
‘Da.’
It was too much to contemplate at that time of day. Archer hung there, eyes closed, one arm dangling.
‘Three,’ Fecker said, his voice clear and loud.
‘Three?’ The echo was dull and quiet.
‘Train go at three and five minutes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I ask.’
‘Who?’
‘To eat.’ Archer corrected.
‘You too want eat?’
Archer gave up. ‘What time is it?’
The conversation continued in this fashion until Archer learned that it was after ten, the train service was still disrupted, and they would arrive late, Fecker had been awake since before dawn, checked on the horses, wandered the town, eaten, made up the fire, had a bath and lain on the floor since eight.
The viscount groaned as he pulled himself upright and leant against the headboard. ‘I must send messages,’ he said. His mind, although not clearing of its dull ache, engaged its gears.
‘You want me to take? There is a post.’
‘Actually, Andrej, that wouldn’t be a bad idea.’
Fecker leapt to his feet, fully dressed apart from his boots. Archer had secured the best room in the hotel, thickly carpeted and with an adjoining, private bathroom. The bed was so comfortable he didn’t want to leave it, and the room was warm. Fecker had wanted to stay in the coach house, but Archer insisted he make the most of the comfort, saying he deserved it.
A heavy hand landed on his chest, making him cough and open his eyes. The Ukrainian was towering over him, showing his teeth in a dumb smile.
‘I make your bath,’ he said and entered the bathroom leaving behind hotel stationery and a pen.
‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘I want.’
If Archer had learned anything on this journey, it was that if Fecker said he wanted to do something, it took a lot of persuasion to change his mind, and frankly, he didn’t have the energy.
Fecker’s unshaven face appeared around the bathroom door. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I give you pen? I am Silas. I make your bath? I am Thomas.’ He laughed and disappeared.
Fecker was either very cheerful or still drunk, but it was beyond Archer to care. He slid gingerly from the sheets and instinctively looked for his dressing gown, tutting when he realised he was without one. He was also without his shaving kit and a change of clothes, but no-one knew him in this part of the world, and it wouldn’t draw comment.
Sitting at the dressing table, he wrote three messages to be telegraphed. One to James to update him on their whereabouts and ask him to send regards to Silas as if nothing was amiss. The second was to Culver asking for a carriage to meet the train and giving its approximate arrival time. He also imposed on the man to visit the sisters at Canter Wharf and bring them to his home for when Archer arrived. He expected to be greeted by the news that they were not to be found, but if they were, his troubles were over. Lady Marshall was to be the recipient of the third, but he paused and thought better of it before writing. If he was to show Fecker that he was truly sorry for not showing him respect, then the third matter should be delegated.
‘What’s best to do about the horses?’ he asked when Fecker appeared, rolling down his sleeves.
The coachman considered and drew the curtains, shocking Archer’s eyes.
‘Weather quiet,’ he declared. ‘Stable is shit. Petrov should come.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Archer agreed. ‘But that would mean telling Lady Marshall our whereabouts, and if that gets back to Silas… You see?’
‘I write in Russian.’
‘Her Ladyship speaks the language, and I doubt the telegraph operators would know what to do with it.’
Fecker lifted his braces over his shoulders. ‘You pay shit hotel groom to take them back.’
That decided, Archer was free to move on with his day and, after languishing in the bath until the water cooled, he ate and was ready when Fecker returned. The messages had been sent, and there was nothing to do until the afternoon apart from read and re-read the inciting letter from Quill.
No matter which way he looked at it, he could only ascertain the challenge and the consequences of failure, but not the location of the meeting. He pondered the verse while Fecker fussed over the horses and came to be on first name terms with the stable lad. Over lunch, the coachman tried to be over-familiar with a barmaid who he clearly scared half to death, and Archer had to have a tactful word about how a gentleman behaved.
‘Me no gentleman,’ was Fecker’s usual self-deprecating and blunt answer.
‘You are in my book,’ Archer said. ‘And you will be on this journey. I intend us both to travel first.’
He expected Fecker to be grateful, but he should have known better.
‘Why? I go with chickens. Is my place.’
‘Not today, Andrej,’ Archer replied, wondering what chickens had to do with anything.
‘I do as you tell me.’
‘Then I will tell you that you are to travel with me in first, and if you ask me again, I will tell you, truthfully, why.’
‘Why?’
That was predictable. ‘Because I want to know you better, and because it’s going to be a slow, torturous journey otherwise, for both of us.’
‘As you want,’ Fecker said and returned to ogling the barmaid.
Archer watched him with interest. His hair was tied back as it often was, but he had plaited the sides rather than the back, perhaps out of boredom after waking so early. The effect was to give him two chords of golden rope from above his ears to his shoulders while the rest, swept back from his forehead and over the top, was kept in place under its own weight. It reminded Archer of a braided mane on a dressage horse. With his dark-blond eyebrows, long, regal nose and stubble to his high cheekbones, he cut a more handsome figure than usual. He also looked older than his supposed nineteen years. His age was one thing Archer wanted to discuss along with other unexplored facets, he just had to choose his time wisely.
The onward journey didn’t start well. In fact, I nearly didn’t start at all.
The service was due near the estimated time, but the weather disruption wasn’t the problem. The difficulty was in the ticket hall where the booking clerk decreed that Fecker was not suitably dressed for first class.
Fecker said he was happy riding third. Archer reminded him that he had agreed, and Fecker said, ‘So? I change mind.’ The debate bantered back and forth until the clerk, distressed at how they were holding up the queue, took matters into his own hands.
‘Oi, lads,’ he barked, bringing the discussion to an abrupt end. ‘Alright. I don’t care where you sit, but these people want a chance to get home. So, make up your mind, Mr Ruskie, and you, Sir, as an Englishman, should know better than to travel first with one of them anyhow. Now, what do you want?’
Archer, still not completely recovered from his hangover, drew in a breath deep enough to empty the ticket hall of oxygen. Ignoring the jumped-up clerk, he addressed the waiting passengers.
‘Ladies, Gentleman,’ he said, employing a voice dripping with contrition. ‘My humble apologies. Not for keeping you waiting, but for the attitude of this good railway’s bad staff. I shall keep you no more than one minute longer.’
He turned back to the clerk who was rolling his eyes and tapping his pen and spoke with enough clarity to be heard two stops down the line.
‘My man. You are clearly unaware to whom you address your outrageous xenophobia. My companion is merely embarrassed that I have offered to pay his fare, but not nearly as embarrassed as I am for him to be treated so.’
He was vaguely aware that Fecker was backing away, hoping not to be noticed, but he stopped when he heard Archer’s next controlled outburst.
‘As a board member of the Great North and East Railways Company,’ he announced, bringing gasps to those behind, ‘I must consider reporting your attitude to Sir Malcolm. I am immune to the middle-English dislike of all things foreign, but if you speak this way to my guest, I hate to think how you might treat the good working people behind me. Two first-class tickets to Westerpool charged against my account
, one in the name of Lord Clearwater of Larkspur, and the other in the name of Count Kolisnychenko of Odessa. If you like, the Count could spell it for you.’
He showed the man his back, gave Fecker a wink and collared a passing porter.
‘You, Sir. Is there a refreshment service at this station?’
‘There is, Your Lordship.’
‘Excellent. Then please see that those I have delayed have what they need. The company will pay.’
‘Very good, Sir.’ He doffed his peaked cap to Fecker. ‘May I take your luggage, Sir?’
‘Nyet.’ Fecker pulled the saddlebags away.
‘Shall we?’
Archer offered Fecker to follow the porter first, but Fecker walked beside him.
‘You crazy,’ he whispered, grinning.
‘Sometimes it pays to act like a snob.’
‘I not dvoryanstvo.’
‘You are nobility in my eyes, friend. Now keep up the pretence until we have boarded this thing, or they will discover I’m not a member of the board at all.’
Fecker laughed until the train arrived.
His last quip had been partially true. Archer was a major investor in the company and did have an account, but he wasn’t on the board. His father had been, and he had a seat if he wanted it, but since his father’s death, he hadn’t decided if he wanted to commit his time, and the board were happy to wait. He was more interested in the Northern and Western Electricity Company of which Culver, who they were journeying to meet, was the managing director. The late viscount set up the company on Archer’s recommendation, one of the few times he had listened to his son, and it was performing well.
His business interests were the last thing on his mind as the train crawled through the snowbound countryside.
Fecker sat opposite in an identical armchair, gazing from the window as Archer studied Quill’s letter. No matter how many times he read the first verse, he could only think that the word ‘gaol’ was a reference to the location, but it was so vague, it made no sense. Did it have another meaning? Quill was referring to a specific gaol, because he used ‘the’ and not ‘a’, but he could think of nothing resembling a prison that he and Quill had in common, no place, no shared history and no connection to such a facility. Perhaps the word was a metaphor, like the words ‘our gold’ which could only refer to ‘Simon Harrington’, the golden boy of the ship’s crew, the treasure of Archer’s heart, and, as he later discovered, Benjamin Quill’s. If ‘gaol’ was metaphorical, what did it mean? If it was a specific location, where was it to be found?
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