Petty Treason

by Madeleine E. Robins

  Miss Tolerance returned to Manchester Square to dress for the purpose. It took some ingenuity to devise a costume fashionable enough for such an evening but not so fashionable as to draw attention. Upon this errand she was determined to stay in the background, whence her best observations might be made. She settled upon an evening dress of moss-green silk, a particular favorite of hers. With her dark hair pinned up with a beaded ornament and her warmest cloak wrapped around her, and armed with no invitation but her own wit, she set out for Audley Street.

  She gained entry to the party without much ado, mingling with a crowd as they entered the building. Once inside she left her cloak with a weary attendant at the door and proceeded in to the party.

  The apartment was made up of several large rooms, all quite crowded. By the evidence of plates and cups already emptied and abandoned throughout the first room, Miss Tolerance understood a refreshment table to be located further in. She assumed the hopeful expression of one in search of sustenance, which gave her license to move through the party without the need to speak to anyone. A group of writers expounded upon the perfidy of publishers; a throng of somberly dressed men debated the government’s handling of the war, their boisterous pessimism fueled by gin punch. An intense young man with a soft collar and sloppily tied kerchief attempted to attract her attention. A young woman in sheer silk and deep décolleté was arguing passionately upon the subject of girls’ education with a man whose eyes did not once rise above her collarbone. A tall, spare man of middle years was listening to the views of a substantially younger man with very bad skin; they appeared to be debating the War Support Bill and whether it would cause outright starvation among the peasantry; the older man kept his hand on the younger one’s shoulder, kneading it possessively, and it appeared his thoughts were upon hungers which would not be solved by a good harvest.

  It was, all in all, very much what Miss Tolerance had expected.

  In the last and largest of the rooms she found a table piled with cakes, fruit and savories, and a man dispensing cups of punch and lemonade. Across from the refreshments a group of men were clustered; from the center of the group distinctly feminine laughter issued, cutting through the masculine noise. Casually Miss Tolerance worked her way to the edge of the crowd, whence she saw a woman holding forth with great animation upon the crimes of the current French regime. This, Miss Tolerance surmised, was her hostess, Madame Camille Touvois.

  “—The property of the poor? May the Good God preserve us from sentimental optimists! The poor have no property! The only right the poor have in France, Mr. Allen, is to provide more fodder for the cannons.”

  Madame Touvois turned to hear a murmured question, then threw back her head in a great laugh. She was not a beauty, Miss Tolerance observed. Her features were irregular, her hair was sandy-colored and coarse—from the sheen of candlelight upon it Miss Tolerance gathered it was unruly and had taken a generous amount of pomade to subdue—and her skin a little sallow. However, she was amply supplied with that confidence and vivacity which made beauty inconsequential. Her eyes were handsome, dark, and compelling. Her mouth was small and neatly shaped, with small white teeth. When she smiled, Camille Touvois looked as though she were poised to bite something.

  Or someone, Miss Tolerance thought.

  She drew back from the crowd and made her way back to the refreshment table, where she took a cup of lemonade and a plate of pretty, flavorless iced cakes. Armed and disguised by these items, Miss Tolerance took a seat and observed all who came and went from the circle around Madame Touvois. The hostess liked to hold court, and that suited Miss Tolerance exactly. Tonight she wanted to observe rather than act, and was grateful that the press of guests made this possible. But in the course of an hour she observed little more than she had in the first five minutes: Madame Touvois was a lively, informed speaker who preferred her own opinions to those of the majority of men around her. What fascinated Miss Tolerance was that each man hung on her acerbic utterance, apparently convinced that Madame Touvois’s darts were directed at some other fellow, not at himself.

  Miss Tolerance grew restless. She rose and began a circuit of the rooms again. While the conversation was lively, she did not find it compelling. What was the use of arguing over the wisdom of the government doing this or that when the government plainly meant to prosecute the war and govern the nation without recourse to the opinions of Madame Touvois’ guests? And how seriously could one take a poet after hearing him argue the merits of sonnet forms and bootblacking in almost the same sentence?

  “You have enjoyed yourself this evening?”

  Miss Tolerance turned to find Madame Touvois herself examining her with an expression in which amusement seemed to take the greater part, but the tone of her question had been all solicitousness. Although she was known to be an emigre it was her manner of speech, rather than an accent, which suggested that English had not been Camille Touvois’ first language.

  “Indeed, ma’am,” Miss Tolerance said. “I have never heard so many deep thinkers speaking with such authority!”

  “Authority, yes.” She leaned forward confidingly. “Between us, mademoiselle, my guests come for the table, and the drink, and most of all to hear themselves speak. There are a few who are clever, but the rest—” She shook her head.

  It was so exactly what Miss Tolerance had been thinking that it took her a moment to respond. “Then why invite them, madame?”

  “Why, to hear myself speak!” Madame Touvois looked delighted with herself. “At least I have the consolation that someone is speaking sense.”

  Miss Tolerance put on an expression of mild shock.

  “Surely, ma’am, Mr. Southey and Mr. Cobbett—”

  “Poets?” The woman shrugged. “No poet should be permitted to have ideas beyond meter and rhyme. Now I have shocked you. How very bad of me.”

  “Oh, no, certainly not.” Miss Tolerance’s tone suggested otherwise.

  “Mademoiselle, you have me at an advantage, for you have guessed that I am Camille Touvois, and I do not know you. But wait—” She put her hand out in a theatrical gesture. “I do know you!”

  “I do not think so, ma’am.”

  “I do,” Madame Touvois said positively. For a moment she said nothing more; Miss Tolerance suspected she would wait until she saw some disquiet on the part of her guest. It became her own goal to show no such emotion. After an awkward moment of silence Madame Touvois repeated, “I know you. But not from my evenings. Shall I tell you how?”

  Miss Tolerance smiled politely.

  “I saw you speak at the trial of the earl. Versellion. Edward Folle.”

  “You were in the gallery, ma’am?” Miss Tolerance strove to keep strong dislike from coloring her voice. She had testified against Versellion with outward composure, but she had come to loathe the audience that crowded the gallery. They treated the trial as a gala or a pantomime, bursting often into laughter, cheers, or catcalls.

  “Indeed I was, every day! ’Twas your evidence convicted him. It’s a clever thing to bring a peer down, my dear. I commend you.”

  “I did not bring him down, ma’am. He did that himself.”

  Madame Touvois’ smile broadened; the disquieting quality increased. It was as if the woman felt she had the upper hand in the conversation and was waiting for Miss Tolerance to acknowledge it.

  “Did he so?” she asked. “So, what brings you to us tonight, Miss—I regret that I cannot recall your name.” She moved, Miss Tolerance thought, from one manner to another; from polite disbelief to polite inquiry, each attitude a little more theatrical than real.

  “Did I not give my name, ma’am? It is Sarah Tolerance.”

  “Tolerance? What a curious name.” It seemed Madame Touvois’s habit to leave something unstated—in this case, the fact that her name marked Miss Tolerance as a Fallen Woman—to unsettle her guest.

  “‘Tis a good old English word,” Miss Tolerance replied evenly, “and a quality I aspire to.” She was conscio
us of a pang of excitement, as though at the beginning of a fencing match. She must be entirely upon her guard with this woman.

  “Whatever your name, I am delighted that you have come. But why should a—what are you? A thief-taker? What does a thief-taker in my salon?”

  “Even a thief-taker may read poetry, madame, or have an interest in the arts or politics. I was curious about these parties, to which so many interesting people come.”

  Madame Touvois sketched an ironic curtsy. “I am delighted that the company entertains you. Then I need not fear that a woman who has brought down one criminal is on the prowl for more?”

  A cat with a mouse, Miss Tolerance thought. Her jaw set; she was no mouse.

  “Oh, I seek no criminals unless I am hired to do so, ma’am. Merely enlightenment. Why? Do you suspect your guests of villainy?”

  “These?” Camille Touvois scanned the room, her eyebrows raised as if to invite Miss Tolerance in on the joke. “Villainous verse perhaps? Malicious government? Criminal arrogance? I doubt it. Most of these gentlemen could not summon up a backbone shared between them.” She turned back to Miss Tolerance, observing her through narrowed eyes. “But with one of my regular habitués so recently dead, I cannot help but wonder when a woman such as yourself turns up upon my doorstep.”

  “A guest, dead? What, this evening?”

  For a moment some strong emotion was evident in Madame Touvois’s expression. As quickly as it had come it was gone, and the bland, slightly predatory smile was in its place. “Is he so soon forgotten? What a sad thing is mortality! But surely your profession requires you to be a little more au courant, my dear—”

  “The requirements of my profession are necessarily elastic, madame. But you were speaking of the dead?”

  “Etienne d’Aubigny. He used to come and listen to the poets hold forth. Much as you have done this evening.”

  Madame Touvois was watching Miss Tolerance closely.

  Miss Tolerance impersonated bemused incomprehension. “Take me with you, madame. Are you saying that attendance here was the cause of his death?”

  “What, talked to death?” Camille Touvois laughed. “No, rather, bludgeoned, if the newspapers are right. As M. d’Aubigny was known to visit me, I wondered if you had not been sent by Bow Street.”

  “I do not work for Bow Street, ma’am.”

  “Do you not?” Madame Touvois’ smile became acute. “I should like to know for whom you do work.”

  “When I am working, my client’s identity is confidential.”

  “So you are not working tonight, mademoiselle?”

  “I am enjoying myself this evening,” Miss Tolerance said, and realized that it was not untrue.

  “I am happy to hear it,” Madame Touvois said. “I wonder—” she trailed off provocatively.

  “Yes, madame?”

  “I wonder how one becomes what you are.” The emphasis, and the thinly disguised insult behind it, did not elude Miss Tolerance.

  “An agent of inquiry?”

  “Yes, I should like very much to know how an Englishwoman of good birth becomes an agent of inquiry.”

  Miss Tolerance recognized a bolt meant to draw her into some indiscreet comment. She only smiled. “Oh, I am sure someone could tell you that story. I make no secret of my past, madame.”

  “But you have some questions about mine, I think, Miss Tolerance. You must come some afternoon and I shall give you tea. Perhaps we may exchange confidences.”

  To what advantage Miss Tolerance might have turned this invitation she could not know. At that moment Camille Touvois was interrupted by a manservant who murmured urgently into her ear. She nodded and turned back to Miss Tolerance.

  “A special guest has arrived and I must greet him. You must remember: tea and confidences, Miss Tolerance.”

  Before Miss Tolerance had risen from her curtsy Madame Touvois was gone, leaving Miss Tolerance with a sense of breathlessness, as if she had just completed a brisk fencing match. She had no idea whether she had won, lost, or drawn, but she was left with a lively curiosity about the identity of the special guest. It was not kept a secret. Within a moment the manservant stepped to the doorway and cleared his throat.

  “His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cumberland!”

  Cumberland? Was it possible the announcement was a jest? Of all the royal dukes, why would the violently conservative Cumberland show himself in this hotbed of talky radicalism?

  Miss Tolerance, like all the other women in the room, dropped into curtsy at Cumberland’s entrance, all a-maze.

  She had once met Cumberland’s eldest brother, the Prince of Wales. Her impression of Wales had been of a good-natured man, quite possibly a clever one, who disguised his wit with a manner both informal and friendly. Watching from behind lowered lashes, she noted that Cumberland had neither of those qualities: his eye was sharp and intelligent, but there was a malicious light in it. His air was disdainful and condescending; he appeared to view his fellow man, or at least that sample gathered at Madame Touvois’, as he might a collection for curiosities from the Antipodes. In looks, too, he was unlike his brother: he had his brother’s height, but was thin where Wales was corpulent, handsome in a cold way, but marked with several still-livid scars. From the attempt upon his life in August, Miss Tolerance thought.

  Cumberland let the room remain in obeisance for a full minute before he motioned the guests to rise again. From the appearance of his manner to Camille Touvois, and hers to him, he was on cordial terms with the hostess.

  What had Sir Walter said? D’Aubigny’s murder had come hard on the heels of the attack upon Cumberland. It had been the similarity of it, that both men had been attacked in their beds, which brought the two together in his mind, a similarity he had then dismissed. But it appeared that Cumberland and d’Aubigny were connected by the common thread of Madame Touvois. What would Sir Walter say to that?

  Miss Tolerance meditated upon these questions for some time, until she grew restless. Cumberland held court in the first room, with Madame Touvois at his elbow. The hostess had ceded her position at the center of the evening to the duke, and made herself his faithful audience. The rest of the party seemed inhibited by his presence: many of the guests Miss Tolerance had marked as government men departed, and a good number of the poets as well. Where earlier the party had seemed largely male, now the balance had changed. Many of the women who were left appeared to be parading themselves before Cumberland, quite as if … The women were indeed parading, Miss Tolerance realized, hoping to catch the duke’s eye. He looked at each one but appeared in no hurry to make his selection. Madame Touvois stood at his elbow, apparently commenting upon each woman who went by.

  The salon had suddenly taken on the character of a market, and Miss Tolerance had no interest in being mistaken for part of the commerce. She was just about to take her leave when she saw Madame Touvois smile encouragingly at one of the women, who advanced to join her at Cumberland’s side. Miss Tolerance had met the woman, but on that occasion she had been dressed in a stuff gown with her hair pulled tightly back. Now she wore a dress of rosy silk, banded with gold embroidery, and her hair fell in pomaded curls from a Grecian knot. There was nothing about her to suggest the courtesan except, perhaps, her bearing and a knowing smile. Her look appeared to please Cumberland, who returned her smile and nodded.

  Mrs. Vose, whom Miss Tolerance had met in Half Moon Street the first time she had called there, seemed as much at ease in Camille Touvois’ drawing room as she had in the d’Aubigny parlor.

  As Cumberland had evidently made a choice, the conversation in the room started up again. Miss Tolerance had had enough, and more than enough to think about. She collected her cloak and requested that the porter fetch her a chair. The noise was as loud behind her as it had been when she arrived, and she found herself thankful of the chance to think in the icy night air.

  Seven

  Miss Tolerance hoped for nothing more than to go home, have a cup of soup or a dram of wh
iskey, and fall into her bed. She had the chairmen deliver her to Manchester Square and Mrs. Brereton’s house, the better to wheedle supper from Cook, but was greeted there with trouble. Cole opened the door, saw her, and turned his head to summon someone else forward.

  “I was hopeful you’d come through the house tonight!” Her friend Marianne Touchwell, in a plain gown and apron which made her look more like a worried farmer’s wife than a popular fille de joie, came forward and took Miss Tolerance’s arm. “Give me your cloak, please. I wish you will come see your aunt; she’s not well at all.” Miss Tolerance was less alarmed by the words than by the uncharacteristic anxiety which she saw in her friend’s light eyes, and the crease of a frown between her brows.

  Miss Tolerance did her best to shrug off her exhaustion. She followed Marianne up the stairs, noting that while the business of the house went on as usual, Cole admitted gentlemen to the house with an expression of gravity not unlike Marianne’s. Miss Tolerance, who had never known her aunt to fall prey to more than a head cold, grew apprehensive.

  Mrs. Brereton’s room was hot and close; the windows were tightly shut and curtained, and the bed hangings were drawn. Mrs. Brereton slept in the center of the large bed, lost in a tumble of sheets and blankets. Her cheeks were flushed. She frowned deeply in her sleep and, as Miss Tolerance watched, made a feeble motion with one hand as if to pull the covers off. Her maid, Frost, pushed the hand away, pulled the covers back into place, and returned to sponging Mrs. Brereton’s forehead with a damp cloth.

  “Aunt Thea?” Miss Tolerance said quietly. “Aunt?” She went to the bed and bent to kiss her aunt gently on the forehead. Her skin was damp, warm but not frighteningly so: she smelled of rosewater.

  “The fever is not high,” she said to Marianne.

  “But she don’t rouse, not even to piss. Twice we’ve changed the sheets. I’ve never seen her like this.”

  “What does the doctor say?”

  “She doesn’t want the doctor.” Frost, on the far side of the bed, put up her hand and the cloth as if signaling Halt! Her lips were as pursed as her patient’s. “I’m taking fine care of her.”