‘Yes, sorry. I fell asleep at the table. Did you need me?’
‘There’s a message for you, Sir, from Delamere.’ Norwood drew it from his pocket as he descended the final step.
James hesitated to take it. It wasn’t presented on a silver salver as it should have been, but then he was only a servant. Holding it between his thumb and forefinger, it occurred to him that this was the first time he had received one of the things he had spent eleven years delivering.
‘The tall footman from next door brought it early,’ Norwood explained once James had taken full possession. ‘Shall I find you some breakfast?’
‘Not just yet, thanks,’ James said, passing him. ‘I’ll get myself something later.’ He opened the envelope as he took the stairs, but stopped as he drew it out. Turning back he asked, ‘What are you doing today, Mr Norwood?’
‘I was to begin on the stables,’ Norwood said. ‘But the coachman has left them so tidy, there’s nothing to do. I shall be cleaning the lamps.’
‘Fine, but please, stay out of the study, would you?’
‘Of course, Mr Wright. Call me if you need me.’ With that, he slipped away through the baize door.
James continued, reading the note several times as he climbed.
Creswell will be upon you at ten. He will take you to Bow Street and see what’s what. Suggest you treat him wearing your best gloves. Not happy, but devoted and knows his every move will be reported back to me. Good luck. Here if required. FFN.
V. Delamere.
He smiled at the way Her Ladyship had signed off. Farewell For Now in case she died before their next meeting, and V instead of viscountess because, as she said, ‘Life was too short for unnecessary syllables.’ As for the gloves, the metaphor was obvious.
Folding the note, he looked up and realised that he was standing in Silas’ room, yet he had no recollection of entering. If there was one room in the house that he should not stray into without consideration, it was Silas’, especially after what had happened yesterday. He had pushed all thoughts of the kiss from his mind, but it was clearly still festering there and had now driven him to his friend’s bed.
Silas’ clothes were scattered in a random assembly of indecision. His travel bag was open and half-packed, and his shaving set littered the dressing table. It was as if the man had just stepped into the bathroom to fetch something and would call at any moment, yet James knew it wasn’t to be. The possessions waited obediently for the master who would not return.
It was too sad. ‘The glass maybe empty now,’ he reminded himself. ‘But that doesn’t mean…’
The glass.
He had left it on the atlas, but it wasn’t the thought that he might have caused a water ring on one of His Lordship’s favourite books that hit him hard, it was where he had put it. Like his dreams of last night, an image flashed across his mind, twisted not through the confusion of dreaming, but through the bevel of the glass, and it hadn’t been an image. It had been words.
‘Long Light,’ he said, racing for the stairs. ‘It had said Long Light.’
Sure enough, the words were there beneath the glass. They were small, the ink had bled, and, when he lifted the glass from the page, they were barely distinguishable from the topography around them. Holding the glass closer, the words expanded and became marginally clearer, but it wasn’t until he brought a magnifying glass and studied the map through it did he see exactly what was drawn.
A coastline, green inland for hills with patches of brown for fields and blue for the lakes and rivers. The coast itself was a mix of yellow for sand and black dashes for cliffs, the sea a light blue, turning darker the further it reached from the shore and into the Irish Sea. There were no villages nearby and no marked roads, but using the scale, he judged the place to be no more than thirty miles from Westerpool. The nearest settlement was at least five miles from this barren place, and there were no symbols for castles or fortifications. Nothing that would suggest gold or a gaol, nothing that suggested habitation and yet there was the place. Long Light, a tiny island a short distance offshore, joined to the land by a narrow dash the legend told him was a causeway.
‘”The long light shakes across the lakes”,’ he quoted and traced a line with his finger from the rock to the shore, beyond to the cliffs and inland to the patches of blue. ‘A lighthouse?’
Checking the gazetteer again, he found no mention. Flicking through Archer’s “Nautical Charts of Home Waters”, he found a more detailed plan of the shoreline and was convinced this was the place. It simply mentioned ‘Lighthouse’ and the depths surrounding it, but he could think of no other logical location.
The clock struck the half-hour, and he gave it a glance. If he could be sure, he could message Archer before the barrister arrived, and he was opening the book of poetry when his enthusiasm was given a side-swipe.
Should he also tell Archer about Silas?
His stomach churned at the thought, but didn’t settle when he rationalised that not telling him would be best. The viscount had enough to worry about, and besides, there was no guarantee that he had yet made it to Culver’s house. He had been gone for over twenty-four hours, but the weather hadn’t cleared. He might be delayed. Lady Marshall had been adamant that Creswell would have Silas released, and, that being the case, there was no need to inform Archer until he returned.
However, he had to be sure that the information he did send him was accurate, and he addressed the poem.
‘”The splendour falls on castle…” No castle there,’ he said, looking again at the map and chart. He wrote the word in his book and marked it with a cross. ‘Snowy summits?’ The atlas showed white-tipped mountains to the south. They would be visible from the offshore rock. ‘Long light shakes across the lakes…’ Comparing the chart to the atlas, he guessed that the nearest lake was a mile inland from Long Light. Its beam would be able to reach and ‘shake’ across the water. As for a ‘wild cataract’, a closer examination with the magnifying lens identified the word ‘waterfall’ in tiny print at the head of the largest lake where it emptied into the sea.
All the geographic features were there, but then he came to the repeated lines at the end.
Blow, bugle, blow… wild echoes… flying… dying… None of that made sense, apart from the repeated word, dying.
Looking at his notes, only ‘Castle’ stood out as not being connected to Long Light, while the other words were relevant. Was he certain enough of his findings to alert the viscount? Could there not be other places around the country that just happened to fit his interpretation?
He didn’t know, but it was all he had.
Forty minutes later, washed, shaved and in a clean shirt, he left Clearwater House wrapped against the cold. The sky was heavy and threatening, but no wind blew. Outside the villas along Bucks Avenue, servants shovelled snow from the paths and steps while in the road, horses had already started trampling it to mush. It was dark brown in places where it had melted into their dung which more servants collected in buckets. The pavements were still covered apart from where others had walked, and he was careful not to slip as he turned corners, taking the shortest route possible to the post office.
Arriving, he was glad to see it open and not too busy and was able to take a moment to consider one last time the message he was to dispatch. He read it back to himself.
Long Light lighthouse. 30 miles west. Castle with dungeon? All else verse two fits. Snowed in at CH.
‘Morning, Frank!’ He greeted the reception clerk warmly as if there was nothing amiss in his world, and the man seemed pleased to see him.
‘Jimmy Wright,’ he grinned. ‘On the right side of the counter at last. How’s the new job?’
‘Just perfect, Frank, thanks,’ James said. If only he knew. ‘How d’you know about it?’
‘Your old mate Eddie n
ever talks about anything else apart from you.’
‘I’m flattered,’ James lied. ‘Why’s he so interested in me?’
‘Well, you know what he’s like.’ Frank leant closer and tightened his waistcoat as if it would keep him safe from prying ears. ‘Always had a bit of a queer thing for you, did Lovemount.’
Not when he locked me in a cupboard and kicked me into horseshit, James thought. He swallowed bile.
‘Yeah, well, he’s sick,’ James replied and moved the conversation along. Handing over the one, he said, ‘Can you send this urgent for me?’
The receptionist read it, calculated the price, swore when James paid with a five-pound note, and said, ‘Too bloody early for that kind of change. Hold on.’
It wasn’t his place to comment on the content of messages, he only counted the number of words. He shuffled into the back office, returning a minute later with the right change and giving James the receipt. ‘Being sent now,’ he said.
‘Thanks, Frank. Nothing come in for Clearwater House?’
‘If there is, it’ll be delivered in good time. Blimey!’ The man laughed and admired the viscount’s coat James wore. ‘Give a lad a bit of a station and look what it does to him,’ he said. ‘No, honest. Glad to hear you’re doing alright, Jimmy. Saw your mum last week.’
‘So did I, mate.’ Now wasn’t the time for a chat. ‘Do you want to check? See if anything’s come in? Only I said I’d ask.’
‘Alright, Lord Muck,’ Frank said good-naturedly. He climbed from his stool and returned to the office.
‘What’s so urgent?’
James spun on his heels. The voice, instantly recognisable, had stabbed him in the back and its blade pierced through to his stomach.
‘Lovemount.’ More bile caught in his throat.
‘Looking mighty posh, Wright,’ the tall, crater-faced man laughed. ‘Lord Pisswater giving you extra for favours, is he?’
‘It’s Clearwater, and you’re sick.’ James turned his back, his heart thumping, and his skin crawling.
He felt Lovemount leaning over him and smelt his breath when he spoke. ‘What you doing here and so hasty?’ he breathed. ‘Or can’t you keep away from the place.’
‘Go away.’
‘Urgent business for His Lordship? What? Sending for another renter is he?’
James’ anger had shot to his fists, balled and ready. Much as he wanted to thump the man, he represented Lord Clearwater. Hell, he was wearing his coat. He ignored Lovemount, praying Frank would return.
‘Turning out decent factory workers to build another of his so-called hostels, is he? Setting up another front, another molly house for toffs?
‘You should be careful what you say, Lovemount,’ James hissed. ‘I might know more about you than you think.’
He did, he knew Lovemount was involved with Cleaver Street. He knew he had tried to persuade him to go there, and he knew what he did to the younger messengers in the washroom to tempt them into organised prostitution.
‘You know nothing, Piss-boy.’ Lovemount pressed against him, forcing James’ diaphragm against the counter, restricting his breathing.
James refused to push back, but he couldn’t ignore what the man was doing.
‘Trying to fuck me now too, are you?’ It was said loud enough for other customers to hear and the pressure eased.
‘You don’t know how fucked you are,’ Lovemount whispered.
‘No, Wright.’ Frank was back, shaking his head and frowning. ‘Sorry, nothing else. What do you want ’round this side, Lovemount?’
‘Customer, ain’t I? Got me notice to give in. You lot can stuff this.’ Lovemount slapped an envelope on the counter, ‘Give that to Hicks and tell the bastard to shove it where the sun don’t shine. I’d give myself the pleasure, but I got to find a train what’s running ’cos I got to go and help an old mate up north.’ He jabbed James in the back twice. ‘Good job, good money.’
James took a breath and tried to think like Archer. ‘Thank you, Frank. I’ll see you again.’
Turning, he pretended to trip over the messenger’s feet, and bringing one knee up sharply, he aimed it at Lovemount’s groin in a jerk easily covered by his coat, leaving him doubled over in pain.
‘Watch where you’re going, man!’ he snapped, and tutting, walked from the lobby muttering about the manners of some people.
Expecting an attack from behind, he only looked back once he had crossed the road. There was no sign of Lovemount. The man had left James sickened and angry, but those aftereffects would calm. What was not so easy to shrug off were his words.
Not the threat that James didn’t know how ‘fucked’ he was, nor what he had insinuated about the Clearwater Foundation. It was what he had said before that caused James’ mind to creep to places it didn’t want to go.
Sending for another renter is he?
Thomas had told James the story of how Silas and Archer met. How the viscount had drawn an image of a young man — his idea of perfection in a face — and sent Tom and the old butler, Tripp, to find a similar looking street-worker and bring him to the house. This was, Tom had said, because of the research he was undertaking into the needs of male sex workers in the East End. The fact that ‘The ground shook and time stood still’ when they first met in the servants’ hall was of no consequence, nor was the fact that they had met because of such an unusual quest.
What mattered to James was finding an answer to the question Lovemount had unknowingly posed.
How did he know Archer had once sent his servants to find him a renter?
By the time James turned into Bucks Avenue, the snow had soaked into his shoes, and his nose hurt even though it was protected by the scarf. The church clock struck the half as Clearwater House came into view, and he was surprised to see a carriage drawing up outside. The coachman climbed down and was about to ring the bell-pull when James arrived at the bottom step.
‘Can I help you?’ he called as he trotted up.
‘James Wright?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sir Easterby is waiting for you.’ The coachman tipped his head to the carriage. ‘Best not keep him waiting.’
‘You’re early. I’m not ready.’
‘Best not tell him that either.’
‘Will he wait?’
The coachman laughed and returned to the carriage.
James hesitated, unsure of how to greet the solicitor, not knowing what to say, and not sure that he could face seeing the inside of Bow Street police station. Looking back at the house, he decided that he had done all he could there for the time being. Thanking the driver, he stepped in and prepared to meet someone as round and difficult as Mr Marks.
‘James, sit. Harrison? Shut the door!’ Creswell’s order was barked on one note like the tap of a telegraph. Dot, dot, three dashes, two dots and a dash. It was succinct, to the point, and gave no room for refusal. It also spelt the letters I.O.U., which reminded James that from now on, he was paying for this man’s time. Rather, Archer was, but didn’t know it, and that thought reminded him that he wasn’t to refer to him as Archer.
‘Her Ladyship tells me you are a man of great talent,’ the solicitor said, rummaging in his briefcase.
When he looked up, he could not have appeared more different to Mr Marks. Where the Foundation’s solicitor was round, balding and middle-aged, Creswell was slim, had a full head of jet-black hair and was not much older than thirty. Where Marks had sideburns but no moustache, Creswell was shaved apart from a thin line of whiskers above his narrow top lip that curled perfectly at its tips, and where Marks was bluster and complaint, this man carried a calm authority which went some way to putting James at his ease.
‘Well?’
He was also a man whose time was valuable.
‘Sorr
y, Sir,’ James stammered. The anger instilled by Lovemount was simmering but was now cooled by nervousness. ‘That is very kind of Her Ladyship, but I am not sure I would say I had talent.’
‘Confidence, man. Believe in yourself.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
The carriage moved off, and James instinctively held the wall handle to prevent himself from swaying. The movement didn’t bother Creswell, he lurched from side to side, reading a document. James waited for him to finish, unsure of what should happen next.
‘You know,’ Creswell said a few minutes later, still reading. ‘Your friend is not going to stand any kind of a chance if you don’t tell me what you know.’
‘Oh, sorry. I was waiting for you.’
‘It’s a bloody divorce, it’s never going to be ended,’ Creswell said. He raised his eyes to James, and they travelled the length of his body, including his shoes which the solicitor had to lean over to see, before gracefully ascending to rest on his face.
‘Thank you for helping us,’ James said, feeling inadequate.
‘I haven’t yet.’ Creswell held him with a stare that seemed capable of penetrating the footman’s past. ‘But I will.’ He put the papers away as he spoke. ‘Lady Marshall informs me Clearwater’s man was taken last night, but was not told why.’
‘Correct, Sir.’
‘You were there?’
‘I was.’
‘You saw everything?’
‘I did.’
‘Then tell me exactly what happened, what they said, what he said, what you said and tell me in order, omitting nothing. Any mistakes now could bugger the boy’s chances.’
‘Very well.’ James’s nervousness doubled as the seriousness of the situation began to dawn on him.
‘Before you do…’ Creswell held up a finger. ‘How long have you known Clearwater?’
Fallen Splendour Page 12
