Chapter Eight
To business that we love we rise betime
And go to it with delight.
—Antony and Cleopatra, IV, iv, 20
I related the sad tale to Brisbane as we made our way back to the Abbey. A valiant winter sun had burnt off the worst of the mist, and we were surrounded by the sound of dripping water as the frost melted. It was a strange sort of day, with the unearthly light and the cottage like something in a fairy-tale wood and the sad maiden locked away from a villainous wretch.
Brisbane took my arm. “Stop romanticising,” he said.
“I was doing nothing of the sort,” I protested.
He gave me a knowing look, and I conceded the point. “Well, perhaps a little. I suppose the truth is that Lucy is a rather stupid girl who has acted impulsively and is paying a terrible price for it. Still, we are better equipped at the Abbey to care for the child until she recovers herself.”
We walked along in silence for a few minutes, retracing the route we had followed the previous night. The countryside was solemn and still, and in the distance, I could just make out the gaily painted vardos of Gypsies camped on the fringes of my father’s land.
“It must have been cold for them in the snow,” I remarked.
“They’ll not be bothered by it,” he assured me with a quirk of his shapely mouth. “We’re hardy stock, or had you forgot that?”
I slipped my hand into his. “They’re lucky to live so lightly—everything neatly tucked into one wagon to take along in their travels. I envy them the simplicity of it.”
He shot me a quizzical look. “Do you mean it?”
I stopped to look at him. “Yes, why?”
“It’s just that I had a letter from Mrs. Lawson,” he began. “She grows tired of London, and her sister wants her to move to Bath. She has offered to sell us the house in Half Moon Street.”
“I think it’s a brilliant idea. You would own your consulting rooms, and we could let the rest of it.”
“Or we could live in it,” he suggested.
I said nothing for a moment, thinking swiftly. “The house is far smaller than anywhere else we have lived. It would mean a drastic reduction in staff,” I said, beginning to warm to the idea.
“We wouldn’t need half a dozen maids,” he agreed.
“Or footmen,” I put in with real enthusiasm. Our footmen were Brisbane’s idea, former thieves recruited for the sole purpose of acting as my bodyguards and employed against my will.
Brisbane nodded. “I thought you would like that. I could put them to work for Monk,” he said, referring to his right-hand man, his former teacher and batman and friend of long acquaintance. “They can take the day-to-day cases, the missing jewels and purloined letters and blackmail notes.”
“And what would you do?” I asked.
Brisbane’s nature tended towards the serious, but there was a graveness to his manner that told me he was speaking entirely from his heart. “I would like to work with Morgan. On a regular footing.”
Sir Morgan Fielding. Secret advisor to the Prime Minister, my distant cousin, and Brisbane’s sometime employer in activities that could only be termed espionage. “You have given this a great deal of thought,” I temporised.
“I have.” He began to walk, pulling me slowly along, his hand covering mine. “The threat in Germany grows. I don’t know how long we have, but something is stirring, something ugly and dangerous. Morgan is worried, too. He is in Berlin now.”
I blinked at him. “He said he was going to Paris for a bit of recreation. He might have told me the truth. I am taking care of his larcenous cat,” I reminded Brisbane. Nin was a violently loud Siamese with a penchant for making off with anything that sparkled.
“Morgan is not terribly trusting at the best of times, even of us.”
“But you want to work for him.”
“With him,” he corrected. “Times are changing, and we both believe that the methods that have been used in the past will no longer serve. It’s time to create a new agency with new operatives, young minds that can be trained properly to sleuth out information and pass it back to London.”
“You have thought this through,” I said, a trifle tartly. “I suppose it even has a name.”
“Morgan likes the notion of the industriousness of bees. He was thinking of calling it the Apiary.”
I thought a moment then shook my head. “No. Call it the Vespiary. After a nest of wasps. They have a more ferocious sting. If we are going to take on Germany, let them know we mean it.”
He stopped, openmouthed. “You’re serious. You raise no objection.”
“To what? You taking on dangerous work? You’ve done that since before I knew you. It was half the reason I fell in love with you, I expect. I could no more ask you to give up your work than I could hold back the tides. It is the stuff of which you are made.”
He embraced me then, and when he drew back, my lips were tingling in the cold. “There’s something else,” he said.
“Tell me.”
“Morgan and I shall want your help.”
It was my turn to stare, mouth agape. “You mean it?”
“I do. You bungle into my cases with no method or order, and yet you have the instincts of a bloodhound. You understand people and what drives them. The Apiary will have need of people like you.”
I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “The Vespiary,” I corrected.
He grinned. “We shall see.”
Just then he cocked his head. “And I would like to go up to the nursery and see the child.”
I smiled in return. Brisbane had shown little interest in babies. “Why?”
“Because I have never had a half-brother before.”
* * *
We arrived back at the Abbey hand in hand and in perfect amity. In the space of our short walk we had agreed upon a new career and a new style of living. We should embrace simplicity, at least a privileged and eccentric sort of simplicity. We would have rooms for consulting and photographic equipment as well as a sitting room and bedroom with further accommodation for Morag and Aquinas. A pair of guest rooms and another pair for a cook and maid would complete our domestic arrangements. That still left a few rooms unused, but I had little doubt we would eventually put them to good purpose. As to the work Brisbane proposed, I felt a thrill at the prospect of taking on such important and clandestine activities. There was much yet to be discussed, but I felt the new year had dawned full of expectant promise, and already it was being fulfilled.
The feeling of smug contentment was doomed to be short-lived. No sooner had we arrived in the nursery than Morag thrust the infant into my arms.
“Mind you don’t drop him. I am wanted,” she pronounced grandly.
“By whom?” I demanded.
“Lady Bettiscombe. She is feeling particularly unwell,” she told us. Heedless of Brisbane’s presence, she launched into a description of Portia’s bodily woes complete in all its lurid detail.
After a particularly informative passage, Brisbane raised a hand. “No more, I beg you.”
Morag smoothed her skirts. “The maids are fair dropping on their feet with all the running and fetching. It would help matters no end if his lordship had bothered to modernise the Abbey,” she added with a severe look at me.
“It wasn’t my idea to keep the Abbey practically mediaeval in its arrangements,” I protested. “But what am I meant to do with this?” I asked, glancing at the sleeping child.
She pulled a sour face. “Try not to drown him. Or drop him. Or stab him with a pin. He’s a baby, not a Fabergé egg.” She turned to Brisbane and spoke to him, her voice suitably respectful. “You’re wanted downstairs, as well, sir. His lordship has instructions regarding the Revels. He’s fretting himself to bits worrying over the arran
gements, and you’re the only one of the family still on your feet. The doctor says he needs to rest, but he won’t until his mind is settled.”
Brisbane looked from me to the baby and back again. “Go,” I urged. “Father will only make a nuisance of himself if he doesn’t get the Revels sorted. You know how stubborn he can be.”
“You’re quite certain?” he asked, eyeing me doubtfully.
I put out my tongue at him by way of response. “It’s a baby. How difficult can it be?”
As it turned out, very difficult, indeed.
Chapter Nine
A gallant child...makes old hearts fresh.
—The Winter’s Tale, I, I, 40
I was alone with the child in the nursery for the better part of the day. Once he woke, which happened the moment Brisbane and Morag left me alone, he seemed entirely disinclined to sleep again. After an hour of walking him to and fro across the nursery floor, we were both entirely bored of the place, so I put him carefully into a basket and carried him down to our room in the Jubilee Tower.
“This is better,” I assured him. He gave me a look of owlish consideration, as if he had not quite made up his mind about me. I hastened to reassure him.
“We’re kin, after a fashion. Your mother is my second cousin—wait, that isn’t right,” I stopped, trying to calculate the exact relationship to Lucy. “Is it first cousin twice removed? I cannot remember. In any event, we are a large family, and we take care of our own. Your father is a horror, but we won’t talk about him now. That’s nothing to trouble yourself with. All you need worry about is growing up big and strong and wise as your elder brother,” I told him. “Now, how would you like to meet a raven?”
I introduced him to Grim and then to Snug, and let the little dormouse sniff the tiny fingers that stretched and grasped at the edge of the blanket. Even Rook, Brisbane’s tall lurcher, lifted his head from the hearthrug to give the child a sniff. I told him all the animals’ names and in return—
“Heavens, I forgot to ask Lucy what she means to call you!” I told him. “I wonder if she’s chosen a name. Perhaps she’ll call you Hector after my father, although between the two of us, I dearly hope not for your sake. Or perhaps Francis after Uncle Fly. He’s a dear fellow. You were born in his cottage, did you know that?”
I had been so intent upon talking to the baby that I had not heard the door open, but Morag’s disapproving voice was swift. “What sort of daft creature talks to a baby like that?”
She snatched the baby up and peered into the blankets. “Was Lady Julia being silly with my wee little man?” she crooned. She gave me a knowing look. “You must speak sweetly to babies. Not as if they were the postman.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know?” I countered irritably. “He seemed to like it perfectly well.”
“He is too well-mannered to do otherwise,” she said, holding him close to her bosom.
I saw the warmth of affection kindled in her eyes, and I felt a rush of something like pity for her.
“Morag, we know where he came from.”
Her dark eyes flared open in surprise. “One of the village girls in trouble, no doubt?”
“Not at all. As it happens, he is my cousin Lucy’s child.”
Morag knew immediately what I had not said. “He’s the master’s wee brother,” she breathed. “He’s the son of that villain, Black Jack Brisbane.”
“He is. Lucy has been fleeing him for months. He doesn’t even know about the baby,” I told her.
“And he shan’t,” she said fiercely, clutching him even more tightly. “I’ll defend him with my last breath. I have a knife in my stocking, you know.”
The image of Morag doing battle to the death with a hardened criminal boggled the mind. But then, she had seen things the likes of which I could not imagine. And I suspected Black Jack might find her a most rigorous opponent if he ever encountered her.
“I doubt it will come to that,” I told her gently. “But your keenness to protect young Master Brisbane there is noted. The point is, he’s family, not some village cast-off. When we can persuade Lucy to let us settle her here or somewhere in London, when she’s recovered from the birth, we’ll give him back, and she will be very happy to have him.”
“He’s a fine bairn,” she said suddenly. “Any woman would be lucky to have him.”
I smiled. “Yes, Lucy is lucky. He’s handsome and healthy in spite of all her troubles. He’s just had a bit of a calamitous start in life. We must help Lucy to make him a better one. For both their sakes.”
Before Morag could reply, the door was thrown back, and Brisbane stood in the doorway, brandishing a note.
“Brisbane?”
He crossed the room and handed me the note before going directly to the table where a decanter of whisky stood. He poured a hefty measure and tossed it down, sudden colour rising in his pale cheeks. He poured another and handed it to me.
“What is this for?”
“You’ll want it after you’ve read that.”
Morag stood quietly, crooning to the baby under her breath. Rook went to stand beside Brisbane, who dropped an absent hand to his rough head. In his cage, Grim cocked his head, and even Snug seemed poised and expectant.
I glanced at the envelope to see a familiar hand, and suddenly I knew precisely what I would find within.
“Oh, Lucy,” I said mournfully.
Brisbane gave me a sharp nod. Read it aloud.
I cleared my throat, but when I spoke, my voice was oddly unlike my own. “‘Dearest Julia, I know that you and Brisbane will care for my child far better than I shall. I cannot take him with me, nor can I endure the thought of his father coming to claim him. I have enclosed a sort of document in my own hand, witnessed by Nanny Bleeker and the Reverend Mr. Twickham releasing my child into your care. He is yours now. I shall not trouble him, nor do I wish to know what becomes of him. That is too sharp a pain to endure. Let the break be complete and let it be now. Give him all that I cannot, in mercy’s name. Lucy.’”
I paused to clear my throat. “There’s a postscript,” I told him. “She says she has called him John, but that Nicholas ought to be appended as his second name.”
I watched as Brisbane went to Morag. He slid his large, capable hands under the sleeping child and lifted him into his arms. Something in his face changed then, something that had been locked within him eased, and his eyes were witch-black and shining when he looked at me.
“You must go after her,” I told him. “She will regret this for the rest of her life.”
He hesitated then placed the child back into Morag’s arms. “Of course, you are right,” he said gruffly.
“Morag, take Master John back to the nursery,” I instructed, glad at last to have a name to put with his face.
She did not obey. She merely stood, rocking him as I downed the whisky, and Brisbane pulled on his greatcoat. He pressed a kiss to my cheek. “I will not be long. She cannot have got far,” he told me.
I nodded, and he left me without another glance.
Morag said nothing, but her silence was full of reproach. “Don’t,” I told her sharply. “You do not know Lucy as I do. This was impulsive and rash, the sort of thing she always does and always regrets. She will not get two miles before she turns back to fetch him. Do you want to care for him, to love him, only to have her come back and wrench him away?” I demanded.
Still she said nothing.
“Well. Take him to the nursery. I daresay it is time for his feed or something.”
She put him gently into his basket and left him on my bed. “I will fetch his things and you can do it yourself. I quit.”
“Morag!” She did not stop. She walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. I did not follow. In a few moments, one of the footmen, William IV, arrived with a
n armful of supplies—the things Morag had cobbled together for him. There were bottles and odd bits of cloth I suspected were for some hygienic purpose, and even a small knitted dog that looked suspiciously like Portia’s decaying pug, Mr. Pugglesworth.
“His things, compliments of Miss Co-co-col—” he stumbled over the Scots surname.
“It’s Colquohoun,” I told him. “That’s why I call her Morag.”
William smiled. He was a kindly lad, and grateful to me for arranging his future rather neatly over Christmas—neatly and entirely to his satisfaction. He took the chance to peer into the basket.
“He’s got his eyes open—and yet not crying. That’s a wonder,” he told me.
“Is it? I’m afraid I’m not much use with babies. There was only Mr. Valerius younger than me, and none of my nieces and nephews were born here.”
“Oh, yes, my lady. I’ve six younger than me at home, and what I don’t know about babies isn’t worth knowing. He’s a fine little lad, he is. But the eyes are unusual.”
“How?” I asked, coming a little closer to the bed.
“They’re green. Most babes have blue eyes when they open, unless they’re meant to be dark. But his are a fine green right now, and that’s a thing to behold.”
He remarked upon the shining cap of silky black hair and the sturdy grip, and he showed me how to give him a feed and even how to remedy the discomfort of wet undergarments.
“There, nothing to it,” he said cheerfully when I managed on my fourth try. “The trick with babies is they don’t know any better. You can be an old hand or green as an unripe plum, but this little fellow will never know or care.”
I gave him a grateful smile. “You’re going to be a fine father, William. When is the happy event?”
He beamed at me, his pink complexion going quite red. “Midsummer, my lady. We mean to marry by the end of January, and the cottage will be ready for us in time for the spring planting. I’ll be a proper undergardener by then,” he added, fairly bursting with pride.
“Good luck to you both,” I told him. He smiled again and took his leave, promising to look in again later when his duties permitted. The rest of the family had given up heaving and hurling and were resting quietly after their poisonous oysters, while the staff had collapsed over steaming vats of tea and piles of toast, he had told me, grateful the worst was over. All that remained was for them to rest and recover their strength, and with three days left until the Revels, it seemed possible that they should still be held.
Twelfth Night Page 5
