And then she stopped. She sat up, drew a shaky breath, and said in wonder, “Good Lord, where did that all come from?”
He held out his clean handkerchief; she took it, and gave a juicy blow of her nose.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She gave him a smile, bleary-eyed but true. “You Americans, you’re so polite.”
“Oh, I forgot, you Brits don’t say ‘You’re welcome,’ do you? Okay then: Don’t mention it.”
She sat back against the leather seat with a thump. He handed her the cigarette he had taken from her earlier, and she took a grateful draw, letting the smoke curl out between her lips on a sigh of appreciation. “Oh my,” she said. “I needed that.”
The words and attitude joined with the gesture of the cigarette brought a sharp memory of a similar declaration Stuyvesant had once made to a woman, following a long absence of female company. He narrowed his eyes, but she seemed unconscious of any salacious overtones.
“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” she said. “And I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you; it doesn’t really mean anything. When I was a little girl, I used to launch into the most horrid screaming fits that left me hoarse for days. Crying is much better. Or sex,” she said frankly.
He was startled at the last remark, but she didn’t appear to be asking him for any service beyond that of the handkerchief. He cleared his throat. “I did mention that I was a good listener.”
Then he shut up.
She rolled the ash end of the cigarette into the car’s ash receptacle, a deliberate gesture somewhere between thoughtful and drunken. Then she began to talk.
“Do you know your grandparents, Mr. Stuyvesant?”
“They’re dead, except for one grandmother.”
“Your great-grandparents? Did you know who they were?”
“I know where they were from.”
“It must be marvelous, to be free and unburdened from the eyes of one’s ancestors. You saw the ancestral window, over the stairs? When I was a little girl, my father and I used to sit on the top step and study the names on the branches, and he’d tell me their stories: William the Ready, the second Duke, whose insomnia meant he heard the enemy coming one night and saved his men; Richard the Firm, who resisted the tortures of the Saracen when he was captured in the Second Crusade. Another William, who distracted Cromwell’s men from their hunt for the fleeing King by deliberately tripping his own horse at the full gallop. He broke half the bones in his body, but the King escaped.”
“A lot to live up to,” he commented. What this had to do with her spasm of tears, he couldn’t imagine.
“And I was only a girl. I could never figure how Thomas could bear to get up in the morning with all those family members waiting for him, until I realized he had no more imagination than one of Father’s dogs. I was the one they bothered. I used to have nightmares of being caught up in the arms of a tree, dangled off the ground.”
He grunted, not knowing how else to respond.
“I know,” she said, as if he had contributed something intelligent. “And I assure you, I did grow out of it, and came to be grateful that I had been born a woman, so no one expected heroism of me. Still, it is a considerable responsibility, being Richard’s right-hand person. And that’s what I am, no matter what the others think. People in the Movement look at me and see either a frivolous member of the governing classes who is playing games during her summer holidays and who is sure eventually to undermine the work of a great man, or else they see a member of the governing classes who has been brought down by her blood enemy, made to debase herself for his amusement and by way of proving the inadequacy of her class: All we’re good for is keeping the men entertained.”
When he said he was a good listener, he’d rather expected her to unload her love life onto him, the pressures of having Grey here and Bunsen on his way, or something of the sort. But no, this was a true child of the Movement: everything was politics: family was politics; love was politics; fear was love mixed with politics. God alone knew how the politics worked into her sex life.
It was disconcerting, but the all-pervasive presence of politics made the job of picking her mind that much easier. And it sure was sobering her up.
“Either way, they see me as a traitor to my class, and a traitor is never, ever trustworthy. But what they don’t see is that I regard my work with Richard not as a denial of my history, but as its culmination. I am the result of centuries of aristocracy; Richard is the result of the same years of working-class values and ideas; together we are the essence of this country. I learn from him, but he learns from me, as well. That is what these men don’t understand.”
Grey had said they would find that Bunsen treated Laura abominably, which had made Stuyvesant think of Bunsen as one of those radical leaders whose impressive speeches about equality turned into petty tyranny behind closed doors—he’d sure met enough of those over the years. And there was no doubt that Bunsen had reason to feel demeaned by Laura, both her birth and her person.
However, he reminded himself, just because Bunsen doesn’t show up for a party on time, that doesn’t necessarily mean he was in the habit of treating her like dirt.
“Still,” he said, “I suppose it’s understandable, that his fellow workers would mistrust you. Asking them to accept a woman, especially one of your background, would be like asking them to suddenly start speaking Chinese. They could do it, but a little at a time.”
To his gratification, she snapped at the bait. “Time is precisely what we don’t have. Since before the War, we have been working towards a huge change in the social structure of this country. One strike after another, building all the time—if we hadn’t been interrupted by the War and D.O.R.A., we’d have got there by now. You know about D.O.R.A.?” she asked, remembering his nationality.
He knew about D.O.R.A., but asked anyway, “Who is she?”
“Our so-called Defence of the Realm Act,” she spat. “The straight path to a police state. During the War, D.O.R.A. put control into the hands of a very few men, under the excuse of national security. Parliament went its way, but in the background, for six solid years, the King’s privy council moved this country around like pieces on a chess-board. And when D.O.R.A. expired in 1920, the same men came up with the Emergency Powers Act. That’s what we’re looking at now—all they need do is declare a state of emergency and the Act comes into play, so that again, two or three men and their pocket king become absolute rulers. Democratic rights are set aside, new classes of offence can be established without the approval of Parliament, harsher penalties set, wide-scale arrests and imprisonments easily justified. Just declare an emergency, and overnight, Britain becomes a police state.”
She glared at him owlishly, looking so gorgeous it was all he could do not to make a pass at her. But instead, he got out his silver cigarette case and fiddled with it thoughtfully. “And the upcoming General Strike…”
“—will be the very definition of a state of emergency, with nothing to keep the government from sweeping the boards and starting again, re-writing all the rules so many people have fought to establish. Nothing, except the words and actions of reason.”
Stuyvesant swallowed his response to the idea of Richard Bunsen as a paragon of reason. He said, “Well, I guess I can see why you need to have a crying jag from time to time. Sounds like quite a load on your shoulders.”
“My shoulders?” she said in surprise. “It’s mostly Richard’s work. He’s the brilliant one, I just go along with him.”
When he bothers to show up, he thought, then found himself wondering, What does Richard Bunsen do when he needs to blow off steam? Or should the question be, Who does he take it out on? Again, questions he would not address to Bunsen’s lover.
“So what does Bunsen have in mind to keep that from happening?” he asked. “If you’re allowed to talk about it, that is.”
“He’s been working on it for months. And without going into
the details, I can tell you he’s negotiating a very high-level meeting between the government and the Unions, which should have some positive results.”
“From what I read, meetings haven’t proved very productive yet.”
“The government feel themselves in a strong position, since they’ve been preparing to undermine the workers since, well, one could say since the Railway Strike in 1911. We need to show them that their self confidence is without basis, that—”
She broke off. He looked up, and found her staring past him at the open doorway. Following her gaze, he saw the twin head-lamps cutting through the dusk on the other side of the valley. “Richard,” she said to herself. Suddenly she was in motion. “I must look a sight! Oh Lord, he mustn’t see me like this, I must go freshen up. Bless you, Mr. Stuyvesant, for allowing me to weep on your manly shoulder, I must keep an American to hand for that express purpose. I’ll see you at dinner—and don’t worry, I’m really much restored to myself, thank you for everything.”
“I think you should call me Harris,” he said to her fleeing back. He looked down at the sodden handkerchief she had pressed into his hand, stained with powder and kohl, and folded it thoughtfully into a pocket. He shut the doors of the Morris, twisted the switch for the overhead light, and moved over to the doorway.
Up the hill to the right, he could hear Laura Hurleigh’s fast-retreating footsteps and a muffled chorus of voices from the house. From the left came the sound of a motorcar gearing down as it approached the ford.
Suddenly, he was hit by the need to see Richard Bunsen up close, before Bunsen had a chance to look at him. He hauled the stables door shut and sprinted up the drive in Laura’s wake, dashing up the grassy verge and around the back of the lodge-house, hunched down to avoid notice from the servants’ quarters beyond. He heard an exchange from the shade garden—Laura going into the house as Gallagher was coming out—just as he eased into the giant rhododendron at the front of the lodge. Thirty feet away, the butler stepped out of the iron gate and took up a position near the street-lamp.
As the car hit the drive’s circle, the powerful head-lamps flared over Stuyvesant’s hiding place before sweeping across the shaded north garden, the corner of the house, the waiting figure of Gallagher the butler, and the gate-way to the formal front garden. The harsh illumination finally came to rest on the long wall and its massive rose, then winked out. The hiding American pulled aside the leaves.
The street-lamp cast its beam across the car, revealing glimpses of the man in the back. It was a closed car; the man was in shadow. Gallagher stepped forward to open the door, and the man emerged.
Richard Bunsen was taller and slimmer than he’d appeared on the stage. He had changed into evening dress on the way, and wore the black garment as if born to the class for which it was designed. His dark hair, which on Thursday had been slightly rumpled, now lay in perfect obedience, and his spine was held straighter. Like then, however, even in profile his face inspired confidence.
Bunsen greeted Gallagher by name and told him he’d need the top bag in the front. A servant Stuyvesant had not seen before walked around the car to retrieve a bag from the seat beside the driver’s. From where Stuyvesant stood, he could hear the butler telling him to take Mr. Bunsen’s valise into the house, followed by Bunsen’s response that he wasn’t staying the night, he’d just need his shaving kit.
The house, not the barn: The daughter’s lover was being given a room among the family.
Bunsen and Gallagher exchanged a few more words, their voices conversationally low and unintelligible. Then Bunsen seemed to stir himself into action, drawing upright in a gesture of dismissal. Gallagher gave him a short dip of the head and stepped back, and Bunsen addressed the burly man who had climbed out from the driver’s door.
“Jimmy, Gallagher here will show you where you can have a snooze, if you like. Don’t get to drinking, I need to leave around midnight.”
The driver merely nodded, cast an eye over the house as if to say he’d seen better, and followed the butler. Bunsen, left alone, stretched luxuriously, showing the lines of his lean body, and spent a moment kneading the small of his back while his eyes (what color were they, anyway?) followed the two men, a slight frown on his face.
Stuyvesant took in his every move: the man of his witness drawings, the shipboard photograph, the grainy newspaper images, and the Battersea stage, brought here to life. The man he’d hunted for half a year, the man whose box of groceries had killed a woman, burned two city blocks and reduced a beloved younger brother and husband to a vegetable, whose china doll had nearly incinerated a judge, whose bottle of Bourbon had come within a hair’s-breadth of crippling and killing a roomful of senators and officials. The man who was sleeping with the glorious woman whose tears were damp on Stuyvesant’s handkerchief, a woman with whom his new friend with the peculiar gifts seemed still in love, a woman whose fire, intelligence, and heart suited her for the best in the land.
A man easy to hate.
Bunsen’s hand came up to smooth the back of his head, as if he had felt a faint touch there; after a moment, he turned on his heels and passed through the gate to the house.
If Stuyvesant hadn’t known better, he’d have thought this was the son and heir, returning to his ancestral home.
Chapter Forty-Two
STUYVESANT REACHED HIS ROOM without being seen. Behind its closed door, he sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the wardrobe.
Okay: He’d seen the enemy, and The Bastard was even more formidable than he’d thought, every bit as handsome and confident and sharp as you’d expect of someone who’d re-invented himself, fooled two nations, and convinced Laura Hurleigh that his was the superior mind.
But what if he had? Harris Stuyvesant was good at what he did, too—no, damn it, he was the best when it came to pulling on another skin and going undercover. Better than this upstart Red, this sapper-turned-politician.
Time for the curtains-rising sensation for this performance he would put on for one man alone, its aim—nothing more, nothing less—than to bring him close to his quarry.
But what form would that act take? Stuyvesant had to be wearing a white collar, but feeling its pinch—a continuation of what he’d been giving out already to Bunsen’s two women. Stuyvesant’s teeth gnashed at the idea of Sarah Grey as one of that slick figure’s women—and then he caught himself. What about that—not Sarah, of course, but Laura herself?
Most of the radicals he knew—the men, certainly—thought the idea of free love was just fine. Opposing the possessive claims of the marriage rites was noble, and meant the man never had to step up and marry. And funny thing: Such noble belief never seemed to have much effect on the possessive claims of the radicals themselves, who were generally as high-handed with their women-folk as a potentate with his harem.
Of course, to make everyone feel good about themselves, from time to time a woman was allowed to give a speech or perform an attentat, but the men didn’t like to see too much of that. Not only did it take away from their own importance, but having too many of their women standing trial at once interfered with meal-times. In all the radical households he’d been in, he could count on one hand the number of men he’d seen scrubbing pans.
What about Richard Bunsen? Just how closely did he fit the mold, when it came to being possessive about that splendid Hurleigh woman? And if he was, how could Stuyvesant use that?
After a while, he got to his feet and went over to the wardrobe. The loose board came up readily under the point of his knife, and he withdrew the small gun. It wasn’t that he wanted it tonight, not enough to risk having someone notice it, but when he needed a reminder of who he was and what he was after, there was nothing like a revolver to do the job. Cold, efficient, deadly, patient. Absolutely safe until a part of it snapped down on the tiny vulnerable spot of the bullet and burst its powder into flame, sending its deadly scrap of lead in the direction required.
He was Harris John Stuyvesant. He had ki
lled men—not with this particular weapon, not yet—and he had trapped men, and there were men whose vulnerable spots he had snapped down upon, sending them in the direction required. Yes, he generally worked among men whose clothes stank of sweat and age, whose drink foamed into large glasses, whose faces and hands bore evidence of the work they did each day. Generally, he even looked like one of those men.
Here, he would wear spotless black and white, and his finger-nails would be clean, if not exactly manicured. He would go over to the house and make conversation about New York society and London art galleries, he would present a likable and believable persona to the assembled members of a class that was foreign to him, and in the end he would find the vulnerable spot of Richard Bunsen and send him where he wanted him.
But where might his vulnerable spot be? Possibly Laura. But he must not forget: That handsome face belonged to a man with nerve enough to carry an explosive device through a tight, lonely, dangerous tunnel, with the enemy poised above, and still have rock-steady hands when he reached the tunnel’s end. This was also a man who made much of his working-class origins while wearing a suit that cost more than Stuyvesant earned in months. A man comfortable in two worlds—
Stuyvesant caught himself: a man apparently comfortable in two worlds.
For the first time, it occurred to him that he and Bunsen were not dissimilar. He had more siblings, but their parents were dead, and both carried the knowledge of status and money a generation or two gone. Neither he nor Bunsen was purely working class, nor were they impoverished aristocracy.
In the States, except for a few small pockets of high society, this wasn’t much of a problem—in New York, a cat could look at a king. Hell, a cat could get himself elected king. But in England, where people had windows reminding them of ancestors whose bones had long since gone to dust? In England, the country that had perfected the art of the devastating remark? In England, where the servants’ entrance waited, where all ears were tuned for the tiniest wrong accent, where the exquisitely subtle vocabulary of Us and Them held ten thousand complicated traps, unspoken and unarguable?
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