The Revenge of Captain Paine pm-2 Page 14

  ‘No sign of them?’ he asked.

  Emily shook her head. ‘Nor in the garden?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘They will be here somewhere,’ Morris said, sounding simultaneously angry and embarrassed.

  ‘Where could they be?’ Emily stared at Pyke. ‘They’ve been gone for almost an hour now, haven’t they? And Felix has only just recovered from a dreadful cold. If she’s taken him outside…’ She paused and added, ‘Why would a complete stranger insist on throwing herself at our child?’

  ‘She isn’t a complete stranger,’ Pyke replied, trying not to show his concern. ‘And remember Jo is with them.’

  ‘I’m sure my wife hasn’t thrown herself at your lad,’ Morris said, sounding a little hurt. ‘And, to be quite frank, he would be perfectly safe whether your nursemaid was with them or not.’

  ‘If they’re not in the house,’ Emily said, ignoring Morris’s intervention, ‘and not in the garden either, then where are they?’

  Morris didn’t know what to say and muttered something under his breath.

  Gore heard something first and sprang up from his armchair. ‘There; that’ll be them.’ He sounded as relieved as any of them.

  They looked around and from a door at the other end of the room Felix appeared, closely followed by Marguerite and finally Jo, who immediately gave Emily an awkward, apologetic look. Felix ran across the room to greet Emily, who lifted him up into her arms, Felix explaining that Marguerite had taken them up to the attic, where there were all these toys and games. Pyke exchanged a brief look with Marguerite, who seemed, as far as Pyke could tell, almost pleased by the worry she’d caused. Morris shot her the dirtiest of looks and once again apologised for delaying their departure. The carriage was waiting for them at the front, he assured them, and it was ready to leave as soon as they were.

  Having said their farewells, and having made a point of not taking up the matter in front of their hosts, Emily turned on Jo once they were safely ensconced in the carriage.

  ‘I tried to insist we rejoin the rest of you in the drawing room,’ Jo said, almost in tears, ‘but she wouldn’t have it. And Felix was so happy playing with all of the toys…’

  ‘Didn’t you suppose I’d be worried?’ Emily said, shaking her head. ‘After all, you were gone for almost an hour.’

  Reddening, Jo stared down at her shoes and mumbled another apology.

  ‘And that’s another thing,’ Emily snapped. ‘Why does she have all these children’s toys and what are they doing in the attic?’

  Felix was sitting on Pyke’s lap and had started to doze off. He was exhausted and Pyke kissed him on the top of his head.

  ‘I don’t know if you noticed it too,’ Emily said, this time to Pyke, ‘but she kept on staring at you. That is, when she wasn’t fawning over my son.’

  ‘I didn’t notice.’

  ‘Well, I did.’ She turned to Jo. ‘Did you get that sense, too?’

  ‘She seemed very determined to keep us up there in the attic.’

  Emily shook her head, as though Jo’s innocuous remark confirmed her suspicion. ‘You had a brief conversation just after we arrived, Pyke. What did she say to you then?’

  ‘I don’t remember having a conversation.’ He looked at Emily and shrugged. ‘She might have said something about the cold weather and the fact that the nights are drawing in.’

  ‘Well, I can’t go to her party,’ Emily said, folding her arms, ‘and I hope you don’t go, either.’

  ‘I hadn’t given the matter any thought.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want you to go. I can’t stop you, of course, but there’s something about that woman I don’t trust…’

  ‘You don’t trust her or you don’t trust me?’

  Jo looked away, embarrassed that they were talking this way in front of her, and Emily stared out of the window, making a point of not answering his question.

  Pyke woke up while it was still dark outside, the treetops swaying in the wind and rain beating against the windowpanes. His body was lathered with sweat and his heart was pumping. He sat upright and was considering returning to his own bed when Emily asked him what the matter was.

  ‘What did you make of Abraham Gore?’ Pyke said, still puzzling over something in his mind. When she didn’t answer him straight away, he added, ‘You knew right away he was chairman of the Birmingham railway, didn’t you?’

  Emily pulled the blanket over her shoulders. ‘Is that why you’ve been tossing and turning all night?’

  ‘How did you recognise him so quickly?’

  ‘He’s a well-known figure. I’ve seen him at charity events.’

  ‘And it’s got nothing to do with your association with Julian Jackman?’

  ‘Why bring Julian into this?’ Emily waited for a moment. ‘You didn’t tell me you fought alongside the navvies in Huntingdon.’ She was sitting up and ran her finger across the side of his cheek. ‘Is that how you got this bruise?’

  ‘The fact you know means Jackman’s returned to London,’ he said, not bothering to temper his indignation.

  The silence hung between them like an invisible barrier.

  ‘It’s obtuse and a little sad,’ Emily said, eventually, ‘that I have to learn about my husband’s exploits from another man.’

  ‘And that I have to learn about my wife’s fortitude in the face of a crew of strike-breakers from the same source.’

  Briefly they lay there in silence, listening to the wind buffeting the windows. ‘So what was Jackman doing in Huntingdon?’ Pyke asked.

  ‘What were you doing there? You told me you were attending a business meeting in Cambridge.’

  ‘The disturbances you read about were orchestrated. Until now I suspected a local landowner, Sir Horsley Rockingham. He’s dead set against the railway crossing his land. But it suddenly struck me that Gore has also got a good reason for wanting to damage the prospects of the Grand Northern.’

  Emily was quiet for a moment. ‘Because he’s in charge of a rival venture?’

  ‘If the Grand Northern fails to reach York, or has its terminus at, say, Cambridge, it’ll leave the London and Birmingham Railway with a monopoly on freight and passenger traffic between the capital and all of the Midlands and the North.’

  ‘That could be worth a lot of money.’

  ‘I know.’

  A while later, just before she drifted back to sleep, Emily whispered, ‘Pyke?’ And when he turned over to face her, she added, ‘Does this mean we’re on the same side?’

  Lying on his back, Pyke stared up at the ceiling and listened as the rain continued to beat against the windowpanes, thinking about the question she had just asked and what side, if any, he was on. Soon he could hear her quiet snores, but Pyke knew that sleep was beyond him and after a few minutes he slid out from under the sheets without waking her up and went to retrieve the laudanum that he kept hidden in a cabinet next to his own bed.

  ELEVEN

  At a quarter past seven the following evening, Pyke met Jem Nash in the banking hall. Having apparently put their altercation of the previous afternoon behind them, they had agreed to share a hackney carriage to the Colosseum in Regent’s Park where Morris was hosting his charity ball.

  While Pyke hadn’t bothered to change his frock-coat and trousers — he had always disliked evening wear and a shirt with a frilly front was the only concession he’d made — Nash’s outfit was typically extravagant: a knee-length grey woollen coat with shiny brass buttons over an embroidered waistcoat made of white cotton and a matching white linen neckcloth wrapped several times around his throat and tied in a loose knot.

  ‘Tell me. How’s William seemed these last few days?’ Pyke asked as they left the building.

  ‘He sulked a bit after the last meeting but he seemed all right when I talked to him this morning. I think he’s still worried about the scale of our debt, though.’ He waited for a moment. ‘You don’t think we’re in trouble, do you?’

  ‘Of cour
se not.’

  They’d walked through Sweeting’s Alley to Cornhill, the Royal Exchange directly in front of them. Pyke was looking for a cab to hail and didn’t see the elderly woman until the last moment, by which time she’d taken his hand and stripped off his glove. He tried to shoo her away but her grasp was surprisingly strong and she seemed intrigued by what she’d seen in his palm. Under the hissing gas lamp, he could only see her beak and jaw, since the rest of her face and head was covered with a black lace bonnet, but her features looked foreign. Perhaps she was some kind of gypsy. While Pyke wanted to push her away and find a cab, when she finally looked up at him there was something in her eyes which unsettled him.

  ‘I can see you’re a powerful fellow, sir, and you’ve achieved great things but the signs…’

  Pyke tugged his hand away and went to put on his glove. ‘Move out of the way, you dishclout.’

  ‘I fear a terrible tragedy lies ahead.’

  That stopped him dead. She’d hooked him and she knew it. ‘What do you mean, a tragedy?’

  ‘If you’ll cross my palm with silver…’

  Pyke felt himself relax. She was just a con artist, someone trying to trick him out of a few coins.

  ‘I can see you’ve a beautiful wife and a young son, five years old.’ Her accent was indistinct but it had a lilting, almost hypnotic quality.

  ‘How did you know that?’ Pyke stared down into her wizened face.

  Next to him, Nash tried to shove her to one side, but Pyke held out his arm. ‘What about my wife and child?’

  ‘Come on, Pyke. She made a lucky guess. That’s how these harridans make their money.’

  ‘You live in a big house in the country,’ she said, closing her eyes, perhaps trying to conjure an image of it.

  ‘She knew Felix’s age.’ Pyke held her by the wrist. ‘How did you know his age?’

  ‘Leave her be, Pyke,’ Nash said, stepping between them and giving her the chance to wriggle free. ‘The old hag’s just playing with you. It’s the oldest trick in the book.’

  ‘What tragedy?’ he called out, as she darted behind them into Sweeting’s Alley. A few passers-by stopped to look at him.

  The old woman disappeared into the darkness, moving quickly in spite of a limp. But later, as they rode in silence, Pyke couldn’t shake the feeling that the old woman had known more than he’d allowed her to say, and that he’d just been afforded a glimpse of his own unpleasant future.

  A gargantuan edifice overlooking Regent’s Park, the Royal Colosseum was less a gladiatorial arena in the Roman sense of the word than a modern pleasure palace where the middle classes could go and wonder at the ‘Panorama of London’, which occupied an acre of canvas and stretched around the inside of the central rotunda. Morris’s charity ball was held on the ground floor under a tent-like roof that prevented people from seeing the panorama but partygoers could either walk up to the viewing promenade using a spiral staircase or take the ‘ascending room’, an iron cage powered by steam that transported them up to the spectacle without any physical exertion. Pyke left Nash in the rotunda and walked up the circular staircase to the viewing promenade, where Morris was greeting his guests.

  Immediately Pyke could tell that Morris was inebriated. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused and his hands were shaking more than Pyke remembered. He didn’t know the older man well enough to tell whether this was in character or not, but he had to wait a full five minutes for Morris to acknowledge him and another five before he came to greet him. Briefly Pyke wondered whether the older man was still smarting from Emily’s implied criticisms of Marguerite.

  ‘I’m glad you could make it,’ Morris said, formally. ‘And I’m just sorry your wife couldn’t be here with us, too.’

  Pyke acknowledged Morris’s conciliatory remark. He had argued again with Emily before she had left for the Midlands earlier that morning. He hadn’t wanted her to travel on her own but had been powerless to stop her.

  ‘I had a thought about what happened in Huntingdon.’

  That drew a weary groan. ‘Can’t you leave it for tonight?’

  ‘If the Grand Northern terminates at Cambridge, it means the Birmingham railway will have a monopoly on freight and passenger traffic between London, the Midlands and the North. That could be worth a huge amount of money.’

  Morris removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting Abraham had anything to do with that terrible business.’

  ‘Why not? He’s the chairman of the Birmingham railway, isn’t he?’

  ‘As I told you yesterday, Pyke, he’s also my oldest and best friend,’ Morris said, with a scowl.

  Pyke looked around at the promenade, still thinking about the old gypsy who had approached him outside the bank. ‘Friend or not friend, Gore will stand to make a small fortune if your railway goes no farther than Cambridge.’

  Morris shook his head angrily. ‘As you know, I’ve invited Abraham to the ball. I don’t want you peppering him with awkward questions, either.’ With inebriation came a belligerence that Pyke hadn’t seen before.

  He waited for a moment, looking into Morris’s rheumy eyes. ‘When someone tried to kill me, the business in Huntingdon ceased to be just your problem. I’ll do what I think is necessary.’

  They were the last words he’d spoken to Morris that evening.

  The 360-degree panorama replicated the view from the top of St Paul’s in painstaking detail and was an impressive feat in its own right. Apparently the artist, Thomas Homer, had spent weeks in a cabin above the dome at St Paul’s, sketching the view in preparation. But Pyke couldn’t work out why people would pay money to see a painting of a view that they could witness for themselves, just by scaling Wren’s mighty dome.

  ‘Look, over there you can see the market where my parents once plied their trade.’ Pyke turned around suddenly, surprised to see Marguerite next to him. She was pointing towards New Cut on the panorama. She stared at him with her cool eyes, her shimmering crepe dress nearly filling up the cramped promenade with its puffed sleeves and flounced skirt.

  ‘As a child, I used to love the sight of that market at night, the candles and tallow dips twinkling among the fruit and vegetables.’ She wound her little finger around a coil of strawberry-blonde hair that had fallen on to her face. ‘But I can also remember the stink just as well. I like to think it taught me not to be nostalgic, to see things for what they are.’

  They were standing at the end of the viewing promenade and beneath them was a sheer drop of a hundred feet on to the tented roof that hid the panorama from the guests on the ground floor.

  ‘You always did have a knack for stripping away other people’s pretensions.’

  Marguerite joined him at the railing. ‘Your wife was angry at me for taking your son away from her yesterday, wasn’t she?’

  ‘I think she was surprised you were gone for as long as you were.’

  ‘And you? Were you angry with me, too?’ she asked, flirtatiously.

  ‘What do you want me to say, Maggie? That I lay awake last night thinking about you?’

  ‘You’re here, aren’t you? Without your wife, who I’m told is off somewhere trying to help the needy.’

  ‘She sends her apologies.’

  ‘And her best wishes?’ Marguerite asked, mocking.

  ‘Is it so wrong that she cares about more than her appearance and what clothes she wears?’

  But instead of responding angrily, Marguerite chuckled. ‘Not all of us are cut out for sainthood. I would have thought you’d have appreciated that more than anyone. Just as I’m guessing you don’t really believe in her attempts to improve the lot of the working man.’

  ‘And why’s that?’ Pyke asked, gritting his teeth.

  ‘Because, like me, you’re a selfish bastard when it comes to it.’

  ‘When it comes to what?’

  Marguerite smiled, apparently pleased that she’d rattled him.

  Pyke looked around for some sign of Mor
ris. ‘Did you know Edward’s more than halfway to being drunk?’

  ‘Yes, he’s upset about something.’

  ‘As in?’

  ‘Is that any of your business?’ she snapped at him. ‘Look,’ she added with a sigh, ‘it’s just difficult for Eddy to see the world as it really is; how ugly, cruel and deceptive people can be.’

  ‘You make it sound like a weakness.’ Pyke looked out at the panorama but could see the creaminess of her slender neck out of the corner of his eye.

  ‘My first years in Paris weren’t happy ones. I despised every man I slept with and I slept with a lot of men. Then I met Eddy. By then, my reputation, such as it was, was beyond salvation and I was past caring about it or myself. But Eddy didn’t seem worried in the slightest by what I’d done and what other people said about me behind my back. It didn’t matter to him because he only saw what he wanted to see. So you see, Pyke, I’m not suggesting his idealism is a weakness; just that I’d never known such unconditional acceptance, such gentleness and such goodness in a man.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t it sound like you’re paying him a compliment?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean. Unlike my younger self, I’ve come to value a good heart more than good looks.’

  ‘Then I hope it’s made you happy.’ Turning to face her, he felt a jolt of excitement in his stomach.

  ‘Can’t you see it? I’m delirious.’ Even as she said it, he could see the lines crease around her eyes.

  Pyke was going to say something else but managed to bite his tongue. He gave her a nondescript shrug. ‘For someone who no longer cares about looks, you appear to be attracting rather a lot of them this evening.’

  Marguerite allowed a smile to settle on her lips as she gazed out at the panorama. ‘You know as well as I do, this is a gathering of waifs and strays. Society types wouldn’t come to anything as vulgar as a ball to celebrate my birthday, even if Eddy is a very well-respected businessman and the cause is a charitable one.’ Her stare drifted back towards him. ‘People like you and I will never be invited into the private homes of Park Lane and Mayfair.’