Horatio Lyle

by Webb, Catherine

  Thomas paled. A sudden abject terror curled up in his stomach, but he fought it down, telling himself that it was nothing; madness, nothing more. Tess looked thoughtfully up at the sky, then down at the ground. ‘Can I say something helpful, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Try.’

  ‘Do you think seein’ that Moncorvo will make us happy?’

  ‘That wasn’t helpful, Teresa.’

  ‘But it were an improvement, right?’

  He sighed. ‘I’ll find a cab.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Encounter

  The Moncorvo mansion was part of a new terrace of grand white houses, each one no longer than London Bridge and no higher than All Saints’ Church. Lights flooded out of each high window, and the front was busy with carriages. The hansom cab containing three humans and a dog stopped fifty yards away from the front door, which led out on to a green area of pond-dotted grass, across a sparkling new cobbled street, as white and polished and grand as the mansions themselves. The door to the mansion was open, and in and out of it glided ladies in dresses that trailed along in a rustle of silk, men who swept their hats off with the same grandeur with which they swung their canes, liveried servants with impassive expressions, expectant drivers and porters bearing lighted candles.

  Lyle, Tess, Thomas and Tate watched this from the window of the carriage. ‘A party?’ suggested Tess, sounding none too pleased at the thought.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  They sat in silence while the night wore on. Somewhere down the hill, an old stone church, lost in a world of urban expansion, struck ten. On the floor of the cab, Tate started snoring quietly. After a while, Thomas realized Tess’s head was hanging against one side of the carriage, her mouth slightly open and eyes shut. He looked up at Lyle, and found the man’s eyes fixed on his, a slight, almost fond smile around his mouth. Lyle struggled out of his own large grey coat, and Thomas noticed how the pockets bulged and how the inside had its own pockets and was cut just as the outside, but in black, not grey. Lyle laid the coat over Tess’s sleeping shape, then sat back against the seat of the carriage and watched the street, still in silence.

  The clock down the hill struck quarter past. Thomas said, ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘May I ask a question?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why did you decide to become a policeman?’

  Lyle glanced at him, saw his sincere expression, and looked slowly back towards the lights of the Moncorvo mansion. ‘I needed a job.’

  ‘The Lyle estate has plenty of money, sir. Your father built machines. You built machines. I went to one of your lectures. I didn’t understand much, sir, but when you talked about what might happen, about how machines might change the world, I understood that. No more pain, you said, no more poverty.’

  Lyle smiled wanly. ‘I wouldn’t take it too seriously, lad.’

  ‘I wish it were true, sir. Do you think it can happen?’

  ‘Possibly. There is a mathematics in the universe, a symmetry in everything on the planet, that leads me to believe machines, tools and devices, are just an extension of nature.’

  ‘Then why a policeman, sir?’

  ‘Perhaps to see if there was mathematics in people?’

  ‘Is there, sir?’

  ‘No.’ He frowned at his own words. ‘Sometimes. You can say that a wrong plus a wrong will make an even greater wrong, but that’s really far too simple. A certain kind of wrong, plus another wrong, can make a wrong. Two “x”s added together makes two x. An “x” and a “y” added together make nothing satisfactorily singular that I can see.’ Thomas nodded to himself, and didn’t speak. Lyle shot him another sideways look. ‘You want to be a detective, lad?’ It was hardly a question.

  ‘I want to make a difference, sir.’

  Lyle thought about this. ‘Good. Good, I am glad to hear it.’

  The clock struck half past ten. Tess and Tate slumbered on.

  At ten forty, a carriage drove up in front of the Moncorvo mansion. It was pulled by two large dark brown horses, immaculately kept, and driven by a man in a black cloak trimmed with red silk. Lyle sat up slowly and nudged Thomas. The driver finished eating something, and tossed the remainder over his shoulder. It was an apple core. It bounced across the pavement and landed just below the cab. Lyle slowly opened the door and climbed out, crouching in the shadows. He picked up the apple core, patted his sides for the pockets that weren’t there, and held it up to the lamplight shining dimly from the gas flame above. Very faintly he saw the tooth marks embedded in the core, sharp and small, like a fish’s. He turned to the cab and saw Thomas half-clinging to the doorframe, staring glumly across the street. He looked back to the door of the house. A man and a woman were drifting out in stately pomp. In the dim light all he could see were the green eyes in the almost white faces, and they were beautiful. He had never seen anything that expressed so much understanding, emotion and radiance. He knew that he would trust these eyes no matter what, and that they would repay his trust.

  Somewhere, though, something inside said, But how can you see them in this light?

  ‘Is that Moncorvo?’ he asked Thomas quietly. The boy nodded wordlessly. Lyle turned to the cabby shivering in the cold darkness, grabbing the door open as he moved and snapped, ‘Follow that coach.’

  The cabby stared at him. ‘You trying to be funny, mister?’

  Lyle rolled his eyes. ‘Look, I can tell you I’m a policeman and be officious, or I can give you another shilling and tell you to follow that coach.’

  The cabby frowned. Then he grinned, shrugged and said, ‘I’ll take the shillin’, thanks, mister.’

  They followed through dark London streets, and Thomas heard the clock twice as they rattled on, along endless anonymous ways, bouncing over pot-holed cobbles until, abruptly, the roads were a little less pot-holed and, outside the carriage, yellow gaslight began to wash out of increasingly large windows.

  And suddenly they were there, and the jerk of the coach coming to a halt made Tess stir in her sleep, open a droopy eye, peer out at the darkness and mutter, ‘Are we there yet?’

  Thomas looked out of the coach window. ‘Oh, my.’

  Lyle shot him a look. The couple from the coach they had followed were climbing a flight of white steps up to a pair of large black doors, which were opened ahead of them. ‘You know this place?’

  ‘The Norfolk Club,’ announced Thomas as they stood at the bottom of the stairs that led up to a building sitting in full Gothic majesty behind St James’s Square. ‘My father’s a member, and his father before him. All gentlemen of repute are.’

  ‘What kind of repute?’ asked Lyle with a raised eyebrow that received nothing but blank stares. ‘Never mind,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘What do we need to know?’

  ‘Erm . . . it’s customary to leave your sword in a vase by the door with a daffodil motif.’

  Tess and Lyle stared at him, dumbfounded. Even Tate started yapping pitifully. ‘What?’ said Tess.

  ‘Your sword. It’s part of a tradition stemming from the time of Richard the Second, when knights of the realm were requested by the Abbot of Westminster to—’

  ‘Never mind!’ repeated Lyle. ‘Thomas, can you get us inside?’

  ‘Well, membership is inherited and you are allowed two guests, and today is Thursday . . .’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Ladies’ night.’

  Tess beamed. ‘I’m a lady?’

  ‘I suppose I can get you in.’ He grinned at this realization and said, more confidently, ‘Yes! I definitely can!’

  ‘Good. Teresa?’

  ‘Mister Lyle?’

  ‘I’ll have my coat back now, if that’s all right with you.’

  The doorkeeper of the Norfolk Club was a man by the name of Cartiledge. As a youth, his heart had been romantic, his head had been poetic and his political affiliations had been conservative to an extreme. He hadn’t planned on a life of holding the door open for the aristocracy,
and years of bowing to nobility had given him a sense both of what Karl Marx had been on about, and of profound, world-weary depression. Nothing interesting happened at the Norfolk Club.

  Until tonight.

  The knock on the door echoed through the vast entrance hall of the club, but that was normal. He opened it. The handle was stiff, but that was normal too. He said, ‘Yes, sir, may I assist you?’

  The voice that answered was youthful and piping, with something that sounded almost like fear. It said at high speed, ‘I doubt it, peasant, unless it is to take my hat - careful of the lining! - and assist the lady with her . . . and assist the gentleman with his coat! Come on, come on, you think I wish to wait all day here - I do have business, you know. Are you aware of how much each turning of the tide can affect my business prospects; no, you are not, I take it. Have you heard of me? Well, sign me in then - don’t look like that, you can write, can’t you? Elwick. The Honourable Edward Elwick. “C.K.” Not “C.H.” Oh, you do know that, do you? Well, perhaps your employment is not such a drain on more deserving purses as I had previously expected. And guests. That column. Oh, you know that too, do you? A master of your trade, clearly. Lyle. L.Y.L.E. Mister H. Lyle Esquire. And the lady . . . uh . . .’ For a second the boy turned white, and his voice faltered. Cartiledge saw the boy turn in desperation to the taller, older man standing behind him, wearing an expression of surprise bordering on mirth that hadn’t left his face from the second the boy had started talking. Then the girl swept forward and said, in a voice spiky with precise consonants, ‘Lady Teresa of . . . of Rome.’

  Cartiledge stared from the boy, to the girl, to the man, to the guest book, and finally to the picture on the wall of a previous Duke of Norfolk, founder of the club, in the vain hope that His Grace might have some advice to offer. He looked back to the girl. ‘Teresa Hatch,’ she added helpfully.

  The boy, hearing Cartiledge’s silence, barked, ‘Teresa de la Hatch from the French . . . uh . . . hatcher, to be very devout. Well, what are you waiting for, sign her in, sign her in, haven’t you been taught it isn’t polite to keep a lady waiting, let alone a guest of my family. Her ladyship will leave this country for Versailles with such an unhappy impression of English hospitality! ’

  ‘And the pet, sir?’

  ‘Have you never seen a . . . bloodhound of the Saville-Sachs lineage? Dare you assume to speculate on the breeding of a creature whose left paw alone is worth more than your miserable little lifetime income?’

  Cartiledge signed him in, and swore to go back to poetry writing as soon as possible.

  Thus, Tate, Lyle, Tess and Thomas entered the Norfolk Club.

  ‘You’re shaking, lad.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘It’s all right. Just sit down. Teresa, see if you can find Thomas a glass of water.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Use your charm.’

  ‘Is that permission to pinch anythin’, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘No! Just ask someone nicely.’

  ‘That never works.’

  ‘Teresa! Go!’

  She scurried away. Lyle sat Thomas down on a low leather-padded bench between a collection of palm trees underneath a huge portrait of Lord Fashion, famously proud owner of the world’s largest wig and patron of some of the world’s worst plays, and said in a mildly awed voice, ‘That was very impressive, back there, lad.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Have you ever considered going into theatre?’

  ‘My father would never permit it, sir.’

  ‘Well, I was impressed.’

  Lyle looked around the club, noticing how full the entrance hall was of exotic plants and trees that pressed into every space where a bust or portrait of some notable hadn’t been crammed. Through a pair of black doors left ajar at the end of a corridor, he could hear the sound of polite conversation. The floors were white marble, the carpets were thick and red, and there was, indeed, by the door, a large vase decorated with daffodils and containing at least one, precariously propped, small sword. Lyle wondered whose it was. He said distractedly, ‘If you could choose, lad, what would you do?’

  Thomas stared at him, feeling his heart start to crawl into his throat. ‘Sir?’

  ‘If you weren’t the next Lord Elwick, if you could be anything you chose, what would it be?’

  He hesitated. ‘I want to build a machine, sir.’

  Lyle’s eyes fixed on him. ‘What kind of machine?’ Thomas hesitated. ‘Lad,’ said Lyle with a sigh, ‘in my coat pocket I’m carrying a magnet, a set of lock picks and several bottles of highly corrosive and occasionally toxic liquid, just on the offchance I need them. Nothing you say can surprise me.’

  ‘I want to build a flying machine, sir.’ He felt himself flush the second he said it.

  ‘Based on the design of a bird, or on the design of a seed?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Have you seen da Vinci’s sketches working on the principle of forcing air downwards to create a lower area of pressure above the craft than below?’

  ‘Yes, sir, but I didn’t think it was feasible.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘The speed at which air was forced down would have to generate a mass hugely greater than that of the craft, sir.’

  Lyle looked very surprised, and even more pleased. He opened his mouth to speak, but Tess reappeared, carrying a very large glass jug of water with both arms wrapped around the thing as though it was a child, and she was fearful of dropping it. She put the jug down on the floor next to Thomas without even looking at him, and turned to Lyle. ‘The kitchen is incredible , sir! If I’d known ’bout this place, I’d never ’ave tried to rob you. They’ve got way more interestin’ things and probably more money and ’sides, they’ve got better taste than you, ’cos it’s all glass and china and everythin’, none of them horrid cheap iron things.’

  ‘Thank you, Teresa.’ Lyle stood up quickly, and Thomas felt as if something important had just happened. ‘Now, Teresa, if you’d be so kind as to take Tate to the kitchens and see if you can find him something to eat, then I think it might be . . . erm . . . safer if you stay near the door and see if anyone we know leaves.’

  ‘All right, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘Thomas?’

  ‘Yes, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘I think you’d better come with me. I might need you to do a little distracting.’

  Thomas’s chest puffed up with pride, as he followed Lyle through the black doors.

  Tess wandered through the Norfolk Club, and tried not to look. It wasn’t that there weren’t pretty and interesting things to see - there were. In fact, there were so many it was a struggle not to ogle; so many pretty and interesting things that were so fine and delicate and subtle that they’d just fit into her jacket pocket and then later, when the heat was off, they’d be just right for Mickey to pass on, at a consideration of cost, naturally, to people who’d really appreciate them and if anyone asked she’d point at how she’d been all signed in proper and it would be Mister Lyle’s fault really and . . .

  She hesitated. In that second of doubt, her eye fell on a small pair of matching porcelain swans guarding a lit candle in the corridor, and she felt her right hand jerk up instinctively and thought, Mister Lyle’s fault really . . . and for almost the first time in her life, hesitated in the face of Interesting and Pretty things.

  Because that’s what they’d say. She’d do her weepy thing (which had been useful more than once) and they’d all say, as they always did, ‘Bless the poor lass, she’s clearly been neglected; it’s that terrible Mister Lyle for not doing his duty’ or something like that, and then there’d be embarrassment and arguments and someone else would get into trouble, because someone else always did and though she hadn’t really cared before because, in truth, someone else hadn’t ever cared about her, this time, the Someone Else was Mister Lyle. And that, for a reason she couldn’t understand, mattered.

  She wondered when that had happened
.

  ‘Excuse me, young lady.’

  Tess jumped, hands going into her pockets. ‘I weren’t doin’ nothin’!’

  The man who peered down at her had one of those moustaches that made Tess instinctively want to reach for the razor, and the kind of eyes that reminded her of the young men in the street who whistled as the pretty lass selling penny ribbons wound her way past. But these eyes would just stare until they were gorged on the sight. It made her suddenly wish to be at the bottom of a very deep, dark hole, where no one would find her unless she wanted them to.

  ‘I didn’t say you were.’

  ‘Oh.’ This restored a little of Tess’s confidence. ‘Then what you doin’ starin’ then?’ she snapped, invigorated by unease.

  ‘You have the most miraculous hair. Quite the finest coiffure I have discerned in this abode.’

  Tess snatched instinctively at her hair. ‘It’s mine!’

  ‘Indubitably.’

  The man’s grin wasn’t the kind of thing you looked at; it seemed to stretch all the way to his ears, making his face an uneven diamond shape, instead of a nice, comfortable oval, and she could feel the grin in her spine, an uneven, nervous thing. ‘Who’re you then?’ she barked defensively, in the hope it would make the grin go away.

  ‘You may call me Thomas.’

  Tess’s face screwed up unhappily. ‘Bigwig ain’t goin’ to be happy ’bout that.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘He’s called Thomas an’ all, an’ . . .’ Tess hesitated. She wanted to say, And if I start calling you Thomas, I’ll never be able to call him Thomas without thinking of slime and deep, black holes ever again . . .

  ‘In that case, you may call me Mr Hardy, a gentleman out of Wessex.’

  Tess squinted at him. There was a way he said ‘gentleman’, a strange way that made his voice almost squeaky, and that made every finely honed instinct she’d practised with the fraudsters, cons and tricksters of the East End jump up and down, pointing an accusing finger and screaming, ‘You ain’t, you ain’t!’ She managed what she hoped was a polite smile.