Lord John and the Private Matter

Page 15

He shut the door and stood with his back against it, as though he had just escaped from close pursuit. His heart was beating fast. Then he realized that he was imagining Rab’s brutal grasp upon his own wrists, and closed his eyes.
A dew of sweat prickled on his upper lip and temples, though the sense of inner cold had not diminished. He knew the house near Lincoln’s Inn, called “Lavender.” And had thought never to see or hear of it again.
Chapter 9
Molly-Walk
The horses clip-clopped through the darkened square at a good rate, but not so fast that he couldn’t make out the row of bog-houses—or the vague figures that surrounded them, dim as the moths that flitted through his mother’s garden at nightfall, drawn by the perfume of the flowers. He drew a deep, deliberate breath through the open window. Quite a different perfume reached him from the bog-houses, acrid and sour, and under it the remembered smell of the sweat of panic and desire—no less compelling in its way than the scent of nicotiana to the moths.
The bog-houses of Lincoln’s Inn were notorious; even more so than Blackfriars Bridge, or the shadowed recesses of the arcades at the Royal Exchange.
A little distance farther on, he rapped on the ceiling with his stick, and the carriage drew to a halt. He paid the driver and stood waiting until the carriage had quite disappeared before turning into Barbican Street.
Barbican Street was a curving lane, less than a quarter mile long, and interrupted by the passage through it of the Fleet Ditch. Covered over for part of its length, the remnants of the river were still open here, spanned by a narrow bridge. The street was various, one end of it a mix of tradesmen’s shops and noisy taverns, these yielding place gradually to the houses of minor City merchants, and terminating abruptly beyond the bridge in a small crescent of large houses that turned their backs upon the street, facing superciliously inward to a small private park. One of these was Lavender House.
Grey could as easily have arrived at the crescent by carriage, but he had wanted to begin at the far end of Barbican Street, approaching his goal more slowly afoot. The journey would give him time to prepare—or so he hoped.
It had been nearly five years since he had last set foot in Barbican Street, and he had changed a great deal in the interim. Had the character of the neighborhood altered as well?
It had not, judging by his first impressions. The street was a dark one, lit only by random spills of window-light and the wash of a cloudy half-moon, but it bustled with life, at least at the near end of the street, where numerous taverns insured traffic. People—mostly men—strolled up and down, brushing shoulders and shouting greetings to friends, or lounged in small gangs around the entrances to the public houses. The smell of ale rose sweet and pungent on the air, mixed with the scents of smoke, roast meat—and bodies, hot with drink and the sweat of a day’s labor.
He had borrowed a suit of rough clothes from one of his mother’s servants, and wore his hair tied back in a heavy tail, bound with a scrap of leather, with a slouch hat to hide its fairness. There was nothing to distinguish him outwardly from the dyers and fullers, smiths and weavers, bakers and butchers whose haunt this was, and he walked anonymous through the churning throng. Anonymous unless he spoke—but there should be no need for speech, until he reached Lavender House. Until then, the swirl of Barbican Street rose round him, dark and intoxicating as the beer-drenched air.
A trio of laughing men brushed by him, leaving a smell of yeast, sweat, and fresh bread in their wake—bakers.
“D’ye hear what that bitch said to me?” one was demanding in mock outrage. “How he dares!”
“Ah, come on, then, Betty. Ye don’t want ’em smackin’ your sweet round arse, don’t wave it about!”
“Wave it—I’ll wave you, you cheeky cull!”
They disappeared into the dark, laughing and shoving each other. Grey walked on, feeling suddenly more comfortable, despite the seriousness of his errand.
Mollies. There were four or five molly-walks in London, well-known to those so inclined, but it had been a long time since he had entered one past dark. Of the six taverns on Barbican Street, three at least were molly-houses, patronized by men who sought food and drink and the enjoyment of one another’s companionship—and one another’s flesh—unashamed in like company.
Laughter lapped round him as he passed unnoticed, and here and there he caught the “maiden names” many mollies used among themselves, exchanged in joke or casual insinuation. Nancy, Fanny, Betty, Mrs. Anne, Miss Thing … he found himself smiling at the boisterous badinage he overheard, though he had never been inclined to that particular fancy himself.
Was Joseph Trevelyan so inclined? He would have sworn not; even now, he found the notion inconceivable. Still, he knew that almost all his own acquaintance in London society and army circles would swear with one voice on a Bible that Lord John Grey would never, could not possibly …
“Would you look at our Miss Irons tonight?” A carrying voice, raised in grudging admiration, made him turn his head. Holding riotous court in the torchlit yard of the Three Goats was “Miss Irons”—a stout young man with broad shoulders and a bulbous nose, who had evidently paused with his companions for refreshment en route to a masquerade at Vauxhall.
Powdered and painted with joyous abandon, and rigged out in a gown of crimson satin with a ruffled headdress in cloth of gold, Miss Irons was presently seated on a barrel, from which perch she was rejecting the devotions of several masked gentlemen, with an air of flirtatious scorn that would have suited a duchess.
Grey came up short at the sight, then, recollecting himself, faded hastily across the road, seeking to disappear into the shadows.
Despite the finery, he recognized “Miss Irons”—who was by day one Egbert Jones, the cheerful young Welsh blacksmith who had come to repair the wrought-iron fence around his mother’s herb garden. He rather thought that Miss Irons might recognize him in turn despite his disguise—and in her current well-lubricated mood, this was the last thing he desired to happen.
He reached the refuge of the bridge, helpfully shadowed by tall stone pillars at either end, and ducked behind one. His heart was thumping and his cheeks flushed, from alarm rather than exertion. No shout came from behind, though, and he leaned over to brace his hands upon the wall, letting the cool air off the river rise over his heated face.
A pungent smell of sewage and decay rose, too. Ten feet below the arch of the bridge, the dark and fetid waters of the Fleet crawled past, reminding him of Tim O’Connell’s sordid end, and he straightened, slowly.
What had that end been? A spy’s wages, paid in blood to prevent the threat of disclosure? Or something more personal?
Very personal. The thought came to him with sudden certainty, as he saw once more in memory that heelprint on O’Connell’s forehead. Anyone might have killed the Sergeant, for any of several motives—but that final indignity was a deliberate insult, left as signature to the crime.
Scanlon’s hands were unmarked; so were Francine O’Connell’s. But O’Connell’s death had come at the hands of more than one, and the Irish gathered like fleas in the city; where you found one, there were a dozen more nearby. Scanlon doubtless had friends or relations. He should very much like to examine the heels of Scanlon’s shoes.
There were several men standing, as he was, near the wall; one turned aside, tugging at his breeches as though to make water, another sidling toward him. Grey felt the nearness of someone at his own shoulder, and turned his back sharply; he felt the hesitation of the man behind him, and then the small huff of breath, an audible shrug, as the stranger turned away.
Best to keep walking. He had barely resumed his journey, though, when he heard a startled exclamation from the shadows a few feet behind him, followed by a brief scuffling noise.
“Oh, you bold pullet!”
“What are—hey! Mmph!”
“Oh? Well, if you’d rather, my dear …”
“Oy! Leggo!”
The agitated voice raised the hairs on the nape of Grey’s neck in recognition. He whirled on his heel and was moving toward the altercation by reflex, before his conscious mind had realized what he was about.
Two shadowy figures swayed together, grappling and shuffling. He seized the taller of these just above the elbow, gripping hard.
“Leave him,” he said, in his soldier’s voice. The steel of it made the man start and step back, shaking off Grey’s grip. Pale moonlight showed a long face, caught between puzzlement and anger.
“Why, I wasn’t but—”
“Leave him,” Grey repeated, more softly, but with no less menace. The man’s face changed, assuming an air of injured dignity, as he did up his breeches.
“Sorry, I’m sure. Didn’t know he was your cull.” He turned away, rubbing ostentatiously at his arm, but Grey paid no attention, being otherwise concerned.
“What in Christ’s name are you doing here?” he said, keeping his voice low.
Tom Byrd appeared not to have heard; his round face was open-mouthed with amazement.
“That bloke come straight up to me and put his pego into me hand!” He stared into his open palm, as though expecting to find the object in question still within his grasp.
“Oh?”
“Yes! I swear as a Christian, he did! And then he kissed me, and went for to put his hand into me breeches and grabbed me by the bollocks! Whatever would he want to do that for?”
Grey was tempted to reply that he had not the slightest idea, but instead took Byrd by the arm and towed him out of earshot of the interested parties on the bridge.
“I repeat—what are you doing here?” he asked, as they reached the refuge of a residence whose gate was sheltered by a pair of flowering laburnums, white in the moonlight.
“Oh, ah.” Byrd was recovering rapidly from his shock. He rubbed the palm of his hand on his thigh and stood up straight.
“Well, sir—me lord, I mean—I saw you go out, and thought as how you might have need of someone at your back, as it was. I mean”—he darted a quick glance at Grey’s unorthodox costume—“I thought you must be headin’ to somewhere as might be dangerous.” He looked back over his shoulder at the bridge, obviously feeling that recent events there had confirmed this suspicion.
“I assure you, Tom, I am in no danger.” Byrd was; while most mollies were simply looking for a good time, there was rough trade to be found in such places and persons who would not take no for an answer—to say nothing of simple footpads.
Grey glanced down the street; he could not send the boy back past the taverns, not alone.
“Come with me, then,” he said, making up his mind upon the moment. “You may accompany me to the house; from there, you will go home.”
Byrd followed him without demur; Grey was obliged to take the young man’s arm and draw him up beside—otherwise the boy fell by habit into step behind him, which would not do.
A middle-aged man in a cocked hat strolled past them, giving Byrd a penetrating glance. Grey felt the boy meet the glance, then jerk his eyes away.
“Me lord,” he whispered.
“Yes?”
“These coves hereabouts. Are they … sodomites?”
“Many of them, yes.”
Byrd asked no further questions. Grey let go the boy’s arm after a bit, and they walked in silence through the quieter end of the street. Grey felt all his earlier tension return, made the more uncomfortable for the brief interlude before Byrd’s appearance had recalled him to himself.
He had not remembered. Hardly surprising; he had done his best to forget those years after Hector’s death. He had sleepwalked through the year after Culloden, spent with Cumberland’s troops as they cleansed the Highlands of rebels, doing his soldier’s duty, but doing it as in a dream. Returning at last to London, though, he could no longer keep from waking to the reality of a world in which Hector was not.
He had come here in that bad time, looking for surcease at best, oblivion at worst. He had found the latter, both in liquor and in flesh, and realized his luck in surviving both experiences unscathed—though at the time, survival had been the least of his concerns.
What he had forgotten in the years since then, though, was the simple, unutterable comfort of existing—for however brief a time—without pretense. With Byrd’s appearance, he felt that he had hastily clapped on a mask, but wore it now somewhat awry.
“Me lord?”
“Yes?”
Byrd drew a deep and trembling breath, which made Grey turn to look at the boy. Dark as their surroundings were, his strong emotion was evident in the clenched fists.
“Me brother. Jack. D’ye think he—have ye come to find him here?” Byrd blurted.
“No.” Grey hesitated, then touched Byrd’s shoulder gently. “Have you any reason to suppose that he would be here—or in another such place?”
Byrd shook his head, not in negation, but in sheer helplessness.
“I dunno. I never—but I never thought … I dunno, sir, that’s the truth.”
“Has he a woman? A girl, perhaps, with whom he walks out?”
“No,” Byrd said miserably. “But he’s a cove to save his money, Jack. Always said as how he’d take a wife when he could afford one, and before then why tempt trouble?”
“Your brother sounds a wise man,” Grey said, letting the hint of a smile show in his voice. “And an honorable one.”
Byrd drew another deep breath, and swiped his knuckles furtively beneath his nose.
“Aye, sir, Jack’s that.”
“Well, then.” Grey turned away, but waited for a moment, until Byrd moved to follow.