Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance)

by Madeleine E. Robins

  Miss Tolerance shook her head. “I believe not, ma’am. Now, Mr. Blackbottle?”

  Mrs. Virtue folded the note and pushed it into a pocket at the waist of her velvet gown. “You will probably find him in one of the houses across the river. He has several. Try Butler’s Wharf or Clink Street,” she suggested. “If you do not find him there …” She shrugged matter-of-factly. “He does not tell me where he goes with his girls. Try the Wharf first.” She smiled and stood, clearly dismissing her visitor.

  With a silent prayer of thanksgiving, Miss Tolerance took her leave.

  Smoky and fetid as the air outside the brothel was, there was at least some hint of breeze on the street. It was a relief after half an hour spent in Mrs. Virtue’s boudoir. Miss Tolerance took off walking purposefully up Bow Lane to Cheapside, where she found a hackney carriage. If the driver she found was dismayed at being ordered across the river to Butler’s Wharf, he did not show it, but shrugged and urged his horses in the direction of London Bridge.

  It was close to midnight when the hackney finally drew up near the Wharf. Miss Tolerance paid the driver and stepped out, mindful of what she might encounter in the unswept street. The buildings surrounding were either shuttered and silent or brightly lit and filled with merriment. The people she passed were either drunk or plying their trade, or in some cases both. The whores on the street corner, once they realized she did not mean new custom for them, refused to talk to her. Even the offer of half a crown left them unmoved. “I’d as soon direct you to hell as Blackbottle’s,” one spat, by which Miss Tolerance understood that a trade war of sorts was in process between themselves and Blackbottle’s establishment. A few feet down the street, in the doorway of a darkened house, she met with a man sitting, legs spread before him, gazing mournfully at the shattered remains of a square blue-glass bottle, from which the contents—certainly gin, by the smell of the man himself—had spilled.

  “It broke,” he said sadly. He repeated this observation several times, as if to test its validity; he seemed likely to slide sideways with one more repetition.

  Miss Tolerance took him firmly by the shoulder.

  “Sixpence for you if you can tell me which way to Blackbottle’s, my man,” she said. She held the coin before his eyes, which lit with the glow of salvation.

  “Third on the left, with the music. Doorman’s a little feller name Horkin’, don’t take no nonsense.” The drunkard made a swipe at the coin and missed. Miss Tolerance pressed it into his hand with a word of thanks and left him.

  If Mr. Horking would take no nonsense, he was yet quite businesslike about taking the coins Miss Tolerance pressed upon him inquiring for Mr. Blackbottle, and directed her to yet another of the brothels owned by that gentleman, the one on Clink Street, directly back in the direction from which her hackney had come. Since no carriages appeared, Miss Tolerance sighed and began to walk west. Here and there a streetwalker offered dreary pleasure, and a few times Miss Tolerance was aware that she was being appraised by those who make their living at the cudgel’s tip. At those moments she folded the tail of her coat so it more prominently displayed her sword, and walked on.

  The brothel at Clink Street was identical in all but architectural detail to the two she had already visited, including the women waiting for custom, and a large and surly doorman eager to be paid for his assistance. Again, Mr. Blackbottle was not there, nor did the woman in charge, a Mrs. Bottom, offer any suggestions for Miss Tolerance’s further inquiry. The hour was now very late—or very early, depending upon one’s point of view—and Miss Tolerance’s step was dispirited as she left. The doorman, however, was waiting for her just outside the house as she was leaving.

  “Hssst, sir!” He stood in the boarded and darkened doorway of the next building, almost invisible in the inky darkness of the street. “Mrs. Bottom give you what you wanted, sir?” The man grinned broadly.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Miss Tolerance replied gruffly. If the doorman was cup-shot enough to believe her a man, that was all to her good. “Have you any information which would help me find Mr. Blackbottle?”

  “If’n you got more coin to spread about for it.” The man was not merely half drunk; Miss Tolerance recognized the tone of voice peculiar to a large man who believes he is about to take advantage of a slighter one.

  “I might have, at that,” she agreed, slipping her hand into a pocket of her Gunnard coat. Her fingers closed around the hilt of a small dagger which she kept for those situations in which there was too little space for swordplay and no time to prime a pistol. “Mr. Blackbottle’s address?”

  “Ah, fuck old Blackballs,” the big man said. “And fuck you, too. Gimme the coin or you’ll not make it home to your mama, boy.” He threw one arm around Miss Tolerance’s shoulder and made to pull her backward into the door with him. The shock of grasping the evidence that the man he was robbing was in fact a woman set him off balance. Miss Tolerance ducked under the slack arm, drove one knee upward into the man’s gut, then grabbed his forelock in her left hand as he doubled over, and forced his head up. The dagger she pressed against his throat.

  “If would have been far more profitable for you to have given me the answer at once, you know. Now, do you know where Mr. Blackbottle is to be found?” She spoke through clenched teeth.

  “Christ! Christ, all right! He’s in the next street but one, a set a rooms he’s got there with one of the girls. Heeble Lane, third floor. Christ, you bitch, let go!”

  Miss Tolerance, not wishing to be attacked again, led the doorman back to the brothel, opened the door, and shoved him in. “Keep him still a few moments, he’s had a shock,” she called to the first whore who peered around the door sill of the saloon. She tossed a few coins after and shut the door. As she walked to Heeble Lane, she kept her hand on the hilt of her sword in readiness, but there was no further attack.

  Heeble Lane, was little better than an alley, so short that there were only three houses on each side of the thoroughfare, so narrow that even in full daylight it was doubtful that the sun ever reached the faces of those structures. Only one building—the centermost on the eastern side—boasted a doorway that let onto the lane itself. With a little inward trepidation, Miss Tolerance entered the unlit hallway and, in near pitch-darkness, found and climbed the stairs to the third floor.

  Her discomfort at the necessity of making her way blind through unfamiliar and possibly dangerous territory lent a particular authority to the knocks she rained upon the door. Almost immediately a sullen glow appeared at the bottom of the door, indicating that a light had been lit within. A moment later the door opened a few inches and a dark-haired woman in a rose-colored gown looked out. She was considerably the worse for drink—rum, by the smell.

  “I swear to you, Taffy, if it’s about that old—” Realizing the person who stood in the hallway was not Taffy, the woman broke off, blinked, and asked, “Who are you?”

  “I’m seeking Humphrey Blackbottle on a matter of business,” Miss Tolerance said calmly, as if it were not close to two o’clock in the morning. The fact that the woman, for all her bleariness, was fully dressed and gave no indication of having been asleep secured Miss Tolerance in the thought that she had come during business hours. “Would you be so kind as to tell him that I am here?”

  The woman blinked again and took a step backward, less to signify an invitation to enter than because she was extremely unsteady on her feet.

  “Will you be a-listenin’ to that!” she announced to no one in particular. “Will I be so kind?” She regarded Miss Tolerance with an owlish stare. “Christ, you a new girl from one of the other houses? Don’t know your face. Sir Humphrey is busy at the moment, as you might say.” But she took a further step back, allowing Miss Tolerance to enter. The room was small, lit only by a lamp that stood near to the woman’s hand, and by the far brighter light that squeezed through the slightly opened doorway on its opposite side. The groans issuing therefrom, and the considerable disorder of her hostess’s gown, g
ave Miss Tolerance a pretty fair idea of Mr. Blackbottle’s occupation.

  “I can wait until he’s at liberty,” she said coolly.

  The woman burst into a peal of laughter, closed the door to the hallway, and turned to go back to the inner chamber. “Can you, then? I’ll leave you the lamp.” She drew her skirts in and disappeared into the other room, closing the door behind her firmly.

  It occurred to Miss Tolerance as she waited that she was within sight of the end of her commission for Lord Versellion, and that she still did not understand the meaning of the fan or what made it an object of such interest to her client and to Lord Balobridge. It should not have concerned her—she would, after all, be paid whether she understood or no—but there was also the matter of the late Mrs. Smith, whose murder would quite likely never be resolved. She sighed, and in the dim light tried to make out the time on her watch. Nearly half-past two. She dozed.

  “Gawd, she’s still here!”

  Miss Tolerance opened her eyes and was greeted by the sight of a woman, fair-haired and wearing a gauzy dressing gown, peering from the doorway.

  “Is Mr. Blackbottle ready to see me?” Miss Tolerance asked collectedly.

  The girl giggled, then opened the door and swept a deep curtsy to the visitor. “Oh, do pray enter!” she said broadly. The effect was rather spoiled by the way she teetered in rising. Miss Tolerance thanked her and walked past. The scene which met her eyes looked like nothing so much as a satirical etching on the horrors of debauchery: everything was in disarray, from the sheets and hangings on the bed at the rear of the room to the woman who slept heavily in the midst of them, her bodice unlaced and her breasts bared. In the fore of the room, a man in a violet silk dressing gown lounged in a deep chair, one leg raised as if to ease the effects of gout. He was picking idly at his teeth with a gold-handled toothpick; a tankard lay close to hand and the remains of a chicken just beyond.

  “Mr. Humphrey Blackbottle?” she inquired.

  “You may call me Sir Humphrey,” he informed her kindly. “All the pretty girls do. Sit down, my love, and tell me what I can do for you.” He looked at her appraisingly, as if she were a bit of bloodstock on view at Tattersall’s horse sales, and waved her to a chair. He drank deeply from the tankard, put it down with an emphatic bang, and smiled broadly.

  Miss Tolerance restrained the impulse to query him regarding his self-appointed baronetcy, and said mildly, “I am sorry to call so late, sir, but it took me some time to find you.”

  “Fanny sent word someone was desirous of finding me, my dear. What I don’t understand is how you did, seeing as I hadn’t given word that I was willing to be found.” His accent was broadly northern, with the superficial tones of one who has moved in genteel society. If he was displeased with his staff, he did not seem inclined to extend that displeasure to Miss Tolerance.

  “Your staff was not particularly forthcoming,” she agreed. “However, the doorman at your Clink Street establishment extended himself a little further, with sufficient prodding.”

  Sir Humphrey grinned. His teeth were blackened and gummy, by far the most revolting thing Miss Tolerance had seen that evening. “Tried to bully you, did he? And you took him with that pigsticker?” He gestured toward Miss Tolerance’s sword.

  “You apprehend perfectly, sir. But I promise you, I am here on business. If you can help me, it will be well worth your time.”

  “So I hear. Fanny told me you was looking for something, but cut up stiff and wouldn’t tell her what.”

  “Fanny?” Miss Tolerance asked.

  “Mrs. Virtue, runs my house in Cheapside.”

  “Of course. Well, sir, I have been commissioned by a patron—I need not tell his name—who wishes to reclaim a gift that was given to a woman some twenty years ago. It was a decorated fan, gold sticks and brilliants, and painted silk. You bought it, I believe, from Mrs. Deb Cunning—”

  “There’s a name I’ve not thought of for dogs’ years!” Blackbottle sucked on his teeth reminiscently. “She’s one as has gone respectable, that’s sure as eggs. She was the type for it, couldn’t sell her little treasures direct, had to have some fellow do it for her. A fan, d’you say?” He took another draft from his tankard, then waved it imperiously until the fair-haired woman took it off to refill it. “Gold sticks and brilliants, and stretched-out looking trees. I remember it.”

  Elation and disbelief clashed within Miss Tolerance. “After nigh on twenty years, sir? Truly?”

  Blackbottle stared over the rim of his tankard at her. “I remember every damned thing I spend a farthing on, girl! I couldn’t have reached my current lofty position”—he waved the tankard in a broad circle, indicating the slovenly room; a good deal of wine sloshed out and spattered the table and his dressing gown—“if I didn’t keep a tight rein on my money!”

  “I’m sure, sir,” Miss Tolerance said. “But as to the fan?”

  “You’d as well to have told Fanny the whole tale, girl. All your chasing about has been for nowt. I gave the thing to her, years ago.”

  Miss Tolerance felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over her, but she forced a bright smile. “Well, sir, I thank you for your help. At what hour do you think I might call upon her again?”

  Sir Humphrey guffawed. “You know your way around right enough, don’t you, sweet? Unless you’re planning to go there now, I’d not show my face in that house again until late in the afternoon. Fan don’t go to sleep much before dawn. But I’ve been forgetting my manners. Will you take a little wine with me?” This as the fair-haired girl advanced again to refill his tankard.

  “You’re very kind,” Miss Tolerance said. “But I won’t take your time further. Thank you very much for your assistance, sir. If I might …” She slipped her hand into her pocket to take up her pocketbook. “I should like to buy you a bottle to drink my health.” She put a few coins on the table—she was not about to pay the man more.

  But Sir Humphrey slid the coins back to her. “No need for that among friends, my love. P’raps someday I shall need a favor of you, eh?”

  Miss Tolerance was unwilling even to play at indebtedness to a whoremaster of such longevity and reputation as Humphrey Blackbottle. “Sir, I insist,” she said gently. “If not for you, then perhaps your friends will be so kind as to drink my health? If you ever have need of my services, we can, of course, discuss the matter.”

  Blackbottle did not seem to be offended by her refusal. He smiled appreciatively and slid the coins into his pocket. “You’re a knowing one, you are, my darling.”

  Miss Tolerance agreed that she was, and took her leave.

  The sun was almost up, a dirty glow that barely cut through an unseasonable fog, when she arrived back in Manchester Square. She was so tired that she did not bother to walk round to her own entry, but knocked at the door of her aunt’s establishment and, when admitted, went straight through to the kitchens. The cook was working dough into floury rolls for the oven; a scullerier was setting chocolate pots on trays; and she found Matt Etan slouched in front of the fire, drinking tea.

  “Lord, Sarey, where have you been?” he drawled. “Your coat is all a-mud.”

  “Is it?” She shrugged out of the Gunnard coat and examined the back, which was indeed badly spattered. She dropped it on the table.

  “Leave it there, I’ll take it up with mine and have Perry clean it for you,” Matt offered.

  Miss Tolerance smiled wearily. She would have enough to attend to when she woke. Then a thought occurred to her.

  “Matt, may I call in our wager?”

  “What, at this hour?”

  “I really think so.” Miss Tolerance sat down at the table, took up a pencil, and began scribbling out a note. In two minutes she had finished, sealed it, and told him to whose hand it should be delivered.

  Matt grinned and agreed to undertake the commission. “But why not give it to Cole or Keefe?” he asked.

  “I will tell you about that once this business is concluded. My God, I’m tired.”
She yawned broadly. “Good night, parasite, and thank you.”

  “Good morning, Sarey. I’ll see you when you wake.” He put the note in his pocket, threw her coat over his arm, and sauntered off, whistling.

  Eight

  In the light of late afternoon, the precincts of Bow Lane were perhaps less threatening, but no less squalid, than they had appeared the night before. Miss Tolerance, rising very late after her night abroad, had made it her first order of business to revisit Mrs. Fanny Virtue and inquire for the Italian fan. As she walked down Bow Lane toward the narrow alley wherein Blackbottle’s Cheapside establishment was situated, she regretted that she had not taken the time to stop at Mrs. Brereton’s and reclaim her Gunnard coat from Matt’s valet: the sky threatened rain. Miss Tolerance thought philosophically that if this visit yielded the fan, she would hire a hackney to return to Manchester Square, make up a final report—with a reckoning of expenses—for Lord Versellion, and ask to meet with him at his earliest convenience. He would be primed for good news; the note she had sent with Matt desiring a meeting had been optimistic as well as discreet. There had been no reply waiting when she woke; perhaps when she returned from Cheapside, there would be one, appointing a time and place to conclude their business.

  With an unhappy glance at the brassy, unpromising sky, Miss Tolerance turned into the alley and in another few steps was at the door of Blackbottle’s establishment. The door was again opened by the hulking doorman; his ears and nose by daylight clearly bore the marks of one who has been a member of the pugilistic fraternity. Miss Tolerance recalled that his name was Joe, and greeted him by it.

  “Come back again, ’ave ye?” He did not seem unpleased to see her, and admitted her immediately to the house; something that might have been a grin creased his unshaven cheeks.

  “I have,” Miss Tolerance agreed. “Has Mrs. Virtue risen yet?”

  “Still a-takin’ of her chocolate, an not ezzac’ly dressed for visitors.” His tone told Miss Tolerance that he considered the drinking of chocolate while abed a silly affectation, but also that he was proud to belong to an establishment prosperous enough to indulge the abbess’s affectations.