At this hour, when the city clamour was muted, he wondered if she thought of him too and their madcap association seemed, at this distance, as improbable as a runaway match in one of Mr. Mudie's chain-library romances. And yet, reviewing it objectively, he discovered that he had no regrets and few anxieties concerning her, for the truth was he sometimes thought of her with amused tenderness that made him half understand what had encouraged him to make such a leap in the dark at a time when he was likely to need every penny he possessed. Then the essential lightness of her place in the new pattern of his life would reassert itself, and he would see a certain inevitability in the chain of events that had occurred since that first glimpse of her on the moor, and find himself smiling at something she had said, or one of the expressions that chased another from her face. And with this came a kind of certitude that they were, in many ways, a matched pair, striking out together in search of change and adventure.
He was particularly aware of this the night Avery appeared at his lodging shortly after supper and talked him into a night on the town. He remembered enough of Avery's reputation to know that this meant no more or no less than a visit to some of the capital's houses of pleasure, and so it proved, for after an hour's drinking and parading in Cremorne Gardens, they went on to Kate Hamilton's notorious establishment in Princes Street, Leicester Square, described by Josh as “the safest and most exclusive whorehouse in Europe.” “Kate,” he said, “not only employs girls selected and groomed for elegance, but subjects them to regular medical inspection. She numbers crowned heads among her regulars.”
They might, indeed, have been paying a call on a foreign potentate. To pass the portals of the house required the scrutiny of two commissionaires, after which they were inspected by a third through a peephole. Once inside, a dark passage led them into the most ornate and brilliantly lit salon Adam had ever seen. Mirrors covered the walls and between immense chandeliers were insets of ceiling glass. At the far end sat Kate herself, enormously fat and strikingly ugly but none the less enthroned like a queen, her half-naked handmaidens grouped about her, and, here and there, occupying couches covered in sky-blue, crimson, or black satin.
The impact of this vulgar splendour was so striking that it was a moment before Adam noticed that every woman in the salon save Kate was dressed in a single, diaphanous gown that revealed, in the greatest detail, figures calculated to appeal to every conceivable taste. The girls, all of them young and attractive, and a few possessing great beauty, were heavily rouged and carmined but their bearing, obviously imposed on them by what he assumed the parlour equivalent of a drill-sergeant, struck him as comic in such a setting. It was as though they were not whores at all but priestesses, here to perform some kind of mystic rite rather than cater for the extravagant whims and perversions of Kate's customers, and when he and Avery sat down to a supper of oysters and devilled kidneys it was served them by two of these goddesses, who introduced themselves gravely as “Olympia” and “Flavia.” Olympia was a brunette and Adam judged her to be about Henrietta's age, but his girl, Flavia, was a well-upholstered blonde, with blue eyes and smooth, slightly pendulous cheeks. She was foreign and spoke English with a guttural accent that he took to be Dutch or German. Avery, as a regular patron, was at once recognised by Olympia, and acknowledged her decorous greeting with a friendly slap on her thinly veiled bottom, after which he ordered champagne, and the girls sat with them, sustaining a conversation that would have been acceptable at a tea-party on a vicarage lawn. As they ate supper, however, the place slowly filled with gentlemen of fashion, and Avery, sardonically amused, pointed out some of the notabilities, who included an important foreign diplomat and two members of Parliament. He talked to Adam as though the girls were sempstresses’ dummies, telling him that about half of Kate's women were imported from the Continent and others, just emerging from the trainee stage, were youngsters from the provinces, some of them no more than fifteen, who had been enticed to London by advertisements appearing in journals that were Sunday reading in pious homes and promised service with a good family and the prospect of Continental travel.
“Most of them get their trip abroad if they come up to scratch,” he said, “for Kate has an exchange system with French and Belgian houses. Many of the clients here have a preference for foreigners, and this promotes a two-way traffic across the Channel. Flavia comes from Rotterdam, I believe. That's so, isn’t it, my dear?”
Flavia said it was so and poured the champagne, Avery disclosing it was four times the price of the best one could buy at a city merchant's, and that, although this was generally known, it was not resented.
“Kate's overheads are prohibitive,” he said. “She not only has to pay for these fittings and all this gaslight but for a network of provincial procurers and also for police protection. Everything in London is damnably expensive just now but nothing more so than feather-bedded vice.”
Adam was interested by all he saw about him and admitted that the food was better than any he had eaten in London, but when Avery, with a yawn, told Olympia he was ready to retire to the private apartments, Adam had little inclination to follow his example and admitted as much. Avery said, lightly, “Ah, I was forgetting. You’re to become a bridegroom in a week or so. We shall probably see more of you in due course.” Then he and his partner passed up the gilded staircase, along the brilliantly lit gallery and out of sight.
Adam's girl, Flavia, looked so bewildered that he felt obliged to explain Avery's cynical comment, saying, “It's true I’m getting married soon but that isn’t the reason. I came here as a sightseer but you won’t lose on that account.” He saw her glance uneasily in the direction of the dais as she said, in her deep, guttural voice, “I do not please you, m'sieu? Why do I not please you? Be so good as to tell me. It is important that I should know.”
“You please me well enough,” he said, amiably, “but why should that matter to you? Madam has been paid the admission money, and I shall pay you whether we go upstairs or not.”
“Madam misses nothing,” the girl said nervously. “Last week Niobe was sent away for the same reason. Madam will not keep the rejected, m'sieu.”
Adam said, suddenly, “How old are you, Flavia?” and she said she was twenty-five, and had been working in London for two years. “This is a good place,” she went on, “the very best in London, but I have not yet saved enough money to return home. Like you, m'sieu, I have plans. I hope to marry as soon as I return to Rotterdam.” Then, pleadingly, “Will you please follow your friend? For appearances’ sake?”
He said, cheerfully, “Certainly, for I wouldn’t like you to lose your situation on my account,” and got up, cursing Avery for involving him in such a situation.
Flavia led the way up the broad staircase and into a cubicle off the long passage, and even this confined space was oppressively overlit and enclosed in wall mirrors and ceiling glass. There was no furniture in it but a bed and washbasin, and the only section of wall free of mirrors was hung with a crudely drawn picture of a cherubic girl glancing roguishly down on them whilst in the act of shedding her drawers.
The combination of Flavia's uneasiness, and the torrid vulgarity of the apartment, produced in him a sensation of disgust, and this surprised him very much, for he had never thought to feel squeamish in a whorehouse. He wondered, vaguely, if this was something else that might be credited to Henrietta's account, and reacting to this felt half-inclined to accommodate the girl, if only to establish his independence. But then he realised that the reason went beyond that, and had to do with a deeper and more private distaste for the idiotic trappings of the house. He thought, sourly, “Good God, there must be a more adult way of satisfying a purely physical need. It's months since I had a woman, and this poor creature is at least clean and personable, but I’ll be damned if I need titillating, like an old badger past his prime,” and he said, as she began pulling her gown over her head, “It's nothing personal, you understand? Do you smoke?” and he offered her a cheroot, watching
her rescue a little of her dignity as she sat on the edge of the bed exhaling little puffs of smoke. He said, for something to say, “What will you and your fancé do when you marry? Will you set up in business in Rotterdam?”
“In Aachen,” she told him. “He is a baker there and would be his own master. But he has no money. It is therefore important that I bring a dowry.”
Suddenly he was ready to pay tribute to the girl's placid acceptance of realities and laid a sovereign on the washstand. “For your dot, mademoiselle,” and she looked confused, saying, “But this is not necessary, m'sieu. We are paid a percentage of the house fee, and sometimes a gratuity. But only when the gentleman is pleased with the service.”
Her attitude increased his impatience with the place, with all its absurd, sybaritic trappings, that somehow reduced the association of men and women to an obscene formula. To take her now in this bed, to watch himself sweating over her in half-a-dozen angled reflections, struck him as an act of a fool or a pervert, so that it suddenly became imperative to breathe fresh air and he went out and down the stairs, leaving her to stare after him with her puzzled expression, one hand fumbling with the fastening of her dress, the other covering his sovereign, as though he might think better of the impulse.
He passed out into the street and made his way down the Haymarket to the Strand. Out here, with a night breeze blowing upriver, he could contemplate the general rather than the particular, wondering at the stresses that created a demand for places like Kate Hamilton's, and asking himself if a girl like Henrietta would be aware they existed in every city in Europe. It was odd, he decided, that men reckoned mature and successful in so many technical spheres should find it necessary to siphon their lust into the indifferent bodies of girls like Flavia and Olympia, who were reduced to borrowing exotic names in order to heighten the illusion of adventure. Most of them, unlike himself, had a home, a wife, and a largish family, and yet, if their wives had advanced a single step towards acquiring the techniques of a spreadeagled harlot, they would be outraged. Why should this be so, when the words of the marriage service spoken in all churches they attended each Sunday acknowledged the needs of human beings to seek comfort in one another? Kate Hamilton, Flavia, and the starvelings of the Black Dwarf country, were all at one, evidence of a signal failure on the part of Western Man to match his technical achievements with self-knowledge and a real, rather than fraudulent, civilisation. Everything was topsy-turvey, every facet of this hustle into the future demanded a double-standard of values. It was practised in bed and in all the counting houses he had visited. It was present in the concept of Empire and in the conclaves of lawgivers at Westminster. One followed certain courses for gain or personal gratification but never, not even privately, admitted the truth concerning motives. Instead one groped for other, more specious reasons for worshipping money and machines, and clung to them, come what may, and for a brief moment he was able to stand back and contemplate the monstrous folly of it all, not only the mirrors and couches of Kate Hamilton's shrine, but all that nourished it, the warehouses, the moored barges clustered in the Thames tideway, the helter-skelter scramble of every living soul down there to accumulate metal tokens representing an entirely fictitious security and independence. Then, slowly coming to terms with himself, he admitted his own purely voluntary involvement in the chaos, thinking, “And who the devil am I to question it? I stole jewels and travelled thousands of miles to make my grab, and there's only two reservations so far as I’m concerned. I’ll make it with dignity and, so long as it doesn’t involve detours, observing some kind of standards as regards the use I make of people.”
The resolve brought him reassurance so that he buttoned his coat against the keen breeze and strode down towards the Law Courts, turning away from the river towards his lodging.
3
Avery appeared unannounced the following evening, just as Adam was finishing supper. His mood, Adam sensed, was tetchy, and he seemed for once a little unsure of himself. When the table was cleared, and they were alone in the sitting room, he laid a banker's draft on the table. It made payable to Adam Swann the sum of three thousand, five hundred guineas. In spite of himself and a suspicion that enthusiasm of any kind irritated Avery, Adam could not conceal his gratification.
“This is getting on a thousand more than I expected, Josh. Your estimate was three thousand pounds, not guineas!”
“I’m sharpish but I’m not a thief,” he muttered, but Adam said, clapping him on the shoulder, “You’re a rum chap, Josh. I’m only trying to express gratitude and not solely on account of the draft. I could have wasted months exploring the ground on my own,” but here he stopped, seeing in Avery's expression a positive distaste to have his patronage acknowledged.
“We struck a bargain,” he said, “and it's turned out to my advantage as much as yours, so stop prancing about like a child emptying a Christmas stocking!”
“I’ll say thank you whether you like it or not, Josh. How much did you get for the stones?”
Avery's head came up sharply and for a moment he looked deadly. “Now what the devil is that to you? Your share was more than you expected, so leave it at that, man.”
“I’ll do that readily enough,” said Adam, puzzled by the ex-cavalryman's touchiness, “so long as you tell me if you disposed of all the rubies or some of them. Remember I made a condition that one three-carat stone was to be held back when the necklace was broken up, but I won’t hold you to that if you were up against stiff opposition, and I’ll wager you were.”
Their eyes met at that and Avery's looked troubled. He said, finally, “I’ll tell you something, Swann, something I freely admit I didn’t intend telling you when I came here. I kept one stone back. As a matter of fact I kept every stone back. Twenty-nine of them are still in my bank, and they’ll stay there until you find you need more capital, as you will sooner or later. God help me, what does an eel like me do when he runs into an honest fool, with some kind of claim on his past?”
Adam shrugged. “That's for you to ask yourself, Josh.”
“Yes it is, and I’ve been asking it ever since you gave me a fortune in precious stones to dispose of, taking my integrity on trust. Well, I’ve come up with some kind of answer, and I’ll tell you what that man does, Swann. He's persuaded to play the sentimental fool himself unless he's a thoroughgoing blackguard, and I never was that, or not the kind those time-servers in India thought me.”
“I never did. Razor-sharp, maybe, but not a scoundrel. Perhaps because I took your troopers’ opinion into account, and they always thought well of you. Maybe you remember that.”
“I remember, damn it,” Avery said, “and I daresay it's cost me the easiest money I’m ever likely to pocket. You did yourself a rare good turn reserving judgement on me, that day they drummed me out, Swann. If it had been one of the others, Roberts, or one of those popinjays who prattled about the honour of the regiment, he could have gone hang and be damned to him. But no, it had to be you, someone else who didn’t fit. Well then, here's the aperitif, and we’ll discuss the main course in a moment,” and he laid a small leather box on the table, turned his back, and went over to the window.
The lid of the box opened by a spring and inside, on a bed of blue velvet, was a golden ring, slender at the waist but flattening to a broad shank, encrusted with small diamonds. The centre stone, the only one of real value, was a medium-sized ruby taken, Adam guessed, from the centre of the necklace. It was handsomely set and looked as if it had rested there ever since it was mined. But then something diverted Adam's eye from the stone and looking closely at the shank he saw that a clever craftsman had inscribed there an insignia, or rather two insignias. On either side of the mount, each facing inwards, a swan had been engraved, and when he held the ring to the lamp he saw that in place of each facing wing was a wheel.
He said, quietly, “I don’t give a damn what you’ve done with those stones, or what you plan to do with them, Avery. This is a gesture on your part I’ll remember
all my life.” And then, “This draft, it's a personal advance, isn’t it? You’ve made no attempt to sell that necklace, have you?”
“I’m well secured so long as I’ve got rubies of that quality. Did I pretend they weren’t worth ten times that sum, even on our kind of market?”
“No, you didn’t, Josh, but there's more to it than that.”
“Yes, there is. More than you know.”
Avery spun on his heels and stood with his back to the light so that his pale, triangular face was no longer disfigured by pock craters and the scar that ran diagonally across his forehead. He said, with a grin, “I’ve had a thousand field comrades, men I sometimes respected but would never have sought out in civilian life. Since then I’ve had a hundred associates, some I could trust at a pinch. But one thing I’ve never had, someone of my own generation I could call a friend. Maybe it was thinking on that that encouraged me to play the fool over those rubies and your harebrained enterprise. I don’t know and may never know, but time could tell me. Here it is then, I averaged those stones at five carats apiece. A Burmese ruby of five carats fetches three hundred guineas in any saleroom, even a backstage auction. I knew that as soon as I took a good look at them, so work it out for yourself. To you, to me, to Hatton Garden, that necklace is worth at least nine thousand guineas. Subtract three hundred for the one I had made up for the dowerless bride, and about seven hundred for recutting wastage. You still have a stake of nearly nine thousand pounds.”
God is an Englishman Page 17
