I remained at the foot of the outside front steps looking upon all this activity with the greatest of concern.
One of the stout men stepped into the street and whistled. Almost instantly, a coach appeared from around the corner where it must have been waiting and drew up to him. The three officials clambered in.
“Where shall I go?” I pleaded.
“To blazes! You and your damned master!”
“I was due a half-sovereign wages! A half-sovereign!”
But the coach thundered off down the street, swaying from side to side due to the bulk of the two fat men inside.
Only once they had gone did I stop to think. That bitch Vanessa. She was the one who’d done a skip and left me holding the bag for six months’ rent. No doubt she had taken my money with her, too!
✥ ✥ ✥
Thom Cullen was able to climb up to the roof of the shop and retrieve his own clothing where I had dropped it, and for which he was grateful.
“Just as you said,” I let him know. “We are evicted.”
“My messenger friend come by just moments past and I told him so already. He said he knows of chambers for rent. Not fine like these, of course, with cook and butler.” He named a street farther south and east, toward the city. And said what the amount was.
“I can pay you but two weeks’ wages,” I told him. “But I believe I can find you gainful employment through a friend of old. In Lambeth.”
I expected Thom to protest, but all he said was, “’Twould be a shame to leave your employ. But I do know that the Metropolitan Transit Line for two cents’ fare will bring us both to the chambers I mentioned, and then we can change to an omnibus on south to Lambeth ’cross the bridge.”
“You mean that wooden car that runs on rails in a ditch in the ground?” I asked. “You’ve been in it?”
“Oh yes, sir. It’s very handy-like how it goes across the city.”
And when I looked sceptical at those words, he added, “It does rattle a bit and sometimes the young ladies all get in a bother when it goes into a tunnel. But it’s perfectly safe.”
“What kind of bother?”
“Little shrieks and cries. I pay no attention. ’Tis the wave of the future. I seen plans at the one terminus for it to be all underground in seven years’ time.”
We found a more private spot and rearranged all our clothing in our luggage, the news seller sold us the Transit Line tickets, and soon we were on our way. The rooms, half a street off Tottenham Court Road, were acceptable and I paid for a week in advance. An hour later, Michael Aloysius was surprised to see me but listened carefully to my tale of woe.
“I’m not the problem, Michael,” I told him. “I feel responsible for this lad, who I have taken on. If you could find him work.”
“That is easy enough. I need a lad here.” The wages were half what Thom had been earning, but he was satisfied with the work once it was explained to him, it being “Not hard. A species of clerkship, merely, if more so than previous.”
Surprisingly, Michael Aloysius offered to return all that money I’d given him before, when I’d left Tiger Juke’s house, assuring me he neither required it, nor since the shop was faring well, had he any need for it to be paid back as a loan. Even so, I promised to return it as I took the welcome money.
With that on hand and my expenses cut so drastically, I still found myself shocked by how easily I’d been taken in and defrauded at the hands of what Thom called “gentlefolk.”
It was the younger man who suggested that I go to visit Ex-Queue.
“To what end?”
“Sure, sir, to let him know about it all. He is a close friend. Why don’t I go by and drop a card upon his entry table for you? I can do it on my way to return to that shop in Lambeth.”
Depressed as I was, I consented, and crossed out my old address and wrote in the new one by hand. Not two hours later, I received Pell’s own messenger with a note: Meet me at the club, at half eight of the clock. We’ll dine there. Much of note has occurred.
Thom Cullen insisted I must be dressed as well as possible for that meeting. “If he is to feed you also, sir,” he expostulated. I had to agree. What counted in the world of the clubs was as much how you showed your situation as what that situation actually was.
I was expected from previous parties, I was known to the staff, and so shown in, and then into a smaller club chamber, a reading room it appeared, that I was unfamiliar with, furnished by heavy chairs and small tables in between a profusion of tall plants.
I ordered a brandy and soda and wondered how to begin.
I needn’t have worried how. The author arrived, his own drink following him into the room by half a minute, and once seated, Pell said all in a rush, “They’ve done a skip on us. On the club. On everyone.”
“Eugene, you mean.”
“Damn Eugene! Yes. But more crucially, Tay has done a skip with her. Owing the Lord only knows how much to how many people in the club, of the club, and outside the club. I myself am only in the hole for a loan of twenty pounds, but others…”
I burst into laughter. “Me too. They robbed me blind and left me to face two fat bailiffs and a constable.”
“Oh, no!” Pell was equally jocular. “But that’s serious for you, lad. You have little means or resources.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Pell stopped a moment. “I see. So, that’s why your address was so suddenly changed. But how did you get rid of them bailiffs?”
“I pretended I was my boy, Cullen.” We laughed again. “I moaned and complained I was owed half a sovereign.”
“More like a hundred sovereigns.”
“If not more.” And after we had calmed down, I said. “So, Ex, I am to be your dinner guest tonight?”
“Naturally.”
Pell had more to say about Vanessa and Lord Tay, but when we finished our drinks over that and were about to get up to head to the dining club room, from behind us I heard a voice suddenly ask, “And so I assume, young man, that you are currently in search of gainful employment?”
Startled, we both stood up. Through the fronds of a Boston fern, I saw a handsome man with a rather flat cap of golden hair, about middle age, of medium girth, and completely “tricked out,” as Pell put it, for the club.
Pell recognized him. “My Lord. Sir.” Turning to me, he said, “Lord Roland, Earl of R——, this fellow down on his luck for the moment is young Addison Grimmins.”
“I believe I have heard that name before,” the Earl said.
Still in high spirits, I allowed, “In this club, you well might have.”
“And the reports I’ve received for once do not exaggerate or deceive.” Lord Roland held my hand longer. “But I repeat my question. I assume you are in search of gainful employment.”
“Kind as the offer is sure to be, Lord Roland, I doubt if our young friend need worry for a living since—”
“You assume correctly, Milord,” I interrupted. “I am in search of gainful employment. Since, Mr. Pell, you ought to also know that I have formally left my previous lines of employment.” Not that I wouldn’t return to one, temporarily, I knew, if Lord Roland wanted me to.
But I felt certain somehow that all those previous employments were in truth now in the past and another, more substantial employment to my talents was in the offing.
“I am glad to hear of it,” Lord Roland said.
A waiter stepped into the room and requested Pell’s attention. Once he was gone, I said, “May I ask what kind of employment, sir?”
“I’ll be frank with you. I am in need of a man who can be almost myself.”
“That sounds like an impossible role to fill.”
“Perhaps not. I need a man who can do almost what I can do, but who can go to places and do things where I couldn’t possibly be, or possibly be seen. He must combine elegance, eloquence, and, of course, extreme effectiveness. Does that seem as tall an order?”
“Even taller.”
&nb
sp; “But not impossible?”
“Not impossible with some coaching, Milord. I am a quick study.”
“Don’t worry, young sir. You will receive more coaching than you ever thought possible, and in areas you never knew existed before. Enough so that in a few years you will be someone who can do almost what I can do.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, and rather sputtered, ending with, “At any rate, one could only do one’s best.”
Lord Roland pulled a card case out of a breast pocket and quickly wrote something on a card, then handed it to me.
“Shall you come visit my offices at Whitehall tomorrow? In the late morning?”
Pell returned from his confab and Lord Roland added to me, “Please hand this card to whoever tries to bar your entry.”
There were half bows all around. The Earl left the club room, leaving me amused and Pell almost with his mouth hanging open.
“Thom Cullen was right to stick by me. He it was who sent me here tonight,” I told Pell. “That man very much wishes to hire me.”
“Addison, that man who wishes to hire you is one of the three most powerful in the British Empire.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say. Addison, your fortune is made.”
4. Epilogue
To: The Earl of R——
11 Hanover Square
London, England
17 January 188—
Sir,
After the terrible assault by one Mr. MacIlhenny who publicised himself as under your direct orders and who perished in the mêlée, I was told that Addison’s very last words before losing consciousness here in Florence referred to some writings of his. Since I am his only living relation, these were easily enough obtained and read here. A fair copy has been sent off to you, along with a packet of letters, exact copies of those Her Ladyship has sent to her new daughter-in-law to be read by her during her honeymoon, lest that young person be “so completely hoodwinked” as the Lady claims to have been after her own nuptials. These have been copied out in my own hand for the purpose of possible prosecution. Her Ladyship said but two sentences: “Your dear Addison is another victim of my far-reaching and vicious husband. I fear that his fate is my fault.”
“Had he not interfered,” I assured her, “we both would have perished, it is now certain enough to me, as our own little Henriette perished before us.” So, I absolve her. Although she was correct ascribing all the blame.
I do not know how you plan to pay for this, Sir, but you have two years to think of it before I return to England to claim my estate, and we shall see then what I may be able to achieve through those with whom I hold great influence.
Her Ladyship asked myself and the Venetian lad, too, to stay on awhile in her service and to live with her and Mr. Partlett here in Italy, as much for our own comfort as for all our safety. For who knows, she asked, if there is not another assassin sent out in case of failure?
None of us would be at all surprised.
Stephen Walter Undershot
✥ ✥ ✥
“There it is! What do you think?”
“You clearly weren’t intending upon being friendly.”
“Clearly.”
“I think it a fine piece of bravado, threat, misinformation, and persiflage,” the Marchioness declared. “Send it off by Ennio. He goes into the village tomorrow, and the mail is picked up to go to Fiesole later that day.”
“And you? Brother Addison, what think you of the letter?”
“Exactly as Her Ladyship said,” Addison replied. “Do you think he’ll ever ask to see an accounting of the monies I secured at various banks and offices for my European jaunt? After all, he is the Exchequer.”
“Was the Exchequer,” she said with a little smile. “What he is now is a man with no office, and if my son’s latest correspondence is at all correct, he is furthermore someone who is awaiting prosecution for murder.”
“But still my brother warns him in any action against himself or yourself.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Davey asked.
“I suppose.”
“Shall you attempt to sit upon that ancient jade of a nag tomorrow as you promised?” she then asked Addison.
“You mean to show how well I have recovered?”
It was already winter. Christmas had come and gone and then the local Italian Natale, and they could still sit outside for several hours a day with only light jackets or heavy sweaters, although he was always swaddled like a sour-faced Christ child in one of those ominous-looking village manger scenes.
“We don’t care if you do nothing but sit there or lie there and look wonderful,” she said decisively. “I rather like the idea that he ended up paying for your grand tour of the Continent.”
“It wasn’t always terribly grand,” Addison said. “But it served its purpose. I am a finished product now. Polished to a fine degree, don’t you think? Wasn’t that as a rule the purpose of such a tour?”
“It was and you are, albeit with still a few lovely, rough edges.”
They heard noise and shouting coming up the pathway into the winter garden. It was Ennio and Luca and some of the smaller daughters of Mr. Partlett’s servants here. They all ended up in a comfortable heap at the feet of the British trio.
“Luca wants me to go back to Venice and live with the Comtesse. He’s become so spoiled by that, it’s all he thinks of.”
“Ah, no!” Luca declared, having understood it all. “No spoiled. Happy now. This place.”
Addison looked about himself, his brother healthy and comfortable, the lady safe and comfortable, Her beau, Mr. Partlett, with La Nonna coming out of the house with little crudités for them to take bits of and a bottle of wine and glasses for them to sip before the sun set and it was time for supper.
Luca was right. Happy now. This place.
About the Author
Felice Picano (http://www.felicepicano.net) is the author of thirty-five books of poetry, fiction, memoirs, and nonfiction. His work is translated into seventeen languages; several titles were national and international bestsellers, including The Lure, Like People in History, and The Book of Lies.
Four of Picano’s plays have been produced. He’s considered a founder of modern gay literature along with other members of the Violet Quill. He’s won or been nominated for numerous awards including being a finalist for five Lammies, and he received the Lambda Literary Foundation’s Pioneer Award. A teacher, lecturer, and facilitator of writing workshops, Picano’s most recent work is Justify My Sins: A Hollywood Novel in Three Acts (2019), Songs & Poems (2020), City on a Star: One—Dryland’s End (2021), and City on a Star: Two—The Betrothal at Usk (2021).
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