Dangerous Dalliance

by Joan Smith

  It was a strangely isolated life for a young man like Snoad. He was not treated as part of the family by any means. I knew he had some friends amongst the footmen and maids, but he was not precisely like them either. He was in the same awkward class as a governess: too high to be at home with the servants, and too low to mix freely with the family. Being a man, he had more freedom to go about the neighborhood, but other than the bird-training trips, I did not think he made much use of that freedom.

  “Many a happy hour we have spent, over a bottle of wine,” Snoad said. “Your father showed me his trophies for races won.” He glanced to the bookcase along the far wall, where a small array of undistinguished cups and one silver-plated trophy in the shape of a pigeon rested.

  “I miss him, too,” I said. I took the decision to give Snoad some memento of my father, a watch or some such thing. For the past two years, Snoad had been closer to him than anyone else, including Aunt Lovatt and myself. “I would like you to have a keepsake of Papa, Snoad.”

  His eyes moved from the trophies to me. He seemed very much surprised at this friendly gesture. “You are very kind. I would treasure whatever you think fit to give me.”

  “Is there any particular item that has meaning for you? Perhaps his watch ...”

  Snoad considered it a moment. “I should, perhaps, mention, Miss Hume, Williams has already given me your father’s boots.”

  “His boots!” I exclaimed.

  “Not as a memento,” he said. A slight blush rose up from his collar. “We happen to wear the same size. Your father had just had a new pair of Hessians made. It seemed ...”

  I was embarrassed for him. Snoad was a proud man, and was ashamed to be caught begging a pair of boots. “I meant a more lasting memento, Snoad,” I said gently.

  “Perhaps the gold watch fob in the shape of a pigeon,” he suggested.

  “I know the one you mean. I’ll see that you get it.” I was insensibly flattered at his choice, as I had had the trinket made for my father’s birthday.

  His obvious pleasure was ample reward for my generosity. Snoad was not the man to shed a tear, but I felt he was not far from it at this moment. “You are very kind,” he said. Then he bowed and left abruptly.

  I sat on alone, thinking. Perhaps I had misjudged Snoad. If he seemed uppity, it was no doubt due to inexperience with ladies. He was the blatantly handsome sort of man with a crude, superficial charm that would appeal to a certain class of woman. No doubt he had plentiful experience with women, but that was something else. As I was feeling kindly toward him, I did not bother to lock the office when I left, nor did I arrange to have the lock changed.

  “Not sporting your oak,” he had said. A strange expression, but one I had heard somewhere before. Ah, Pelletier! That was who said it. “A term I picked up at Oxford,” he had mentioned when I asked about it. No doubt Snoad had heard it from the duke’s family at Branksome Hall, and wished to ornament his conversation with this verbal trinket.

  I sent a maid off to Williams for my father’s watch fob. When the maid brought it, it was attached to the watch. I had no earthly use for Papa’s watch. It was too large for a lady. I would give both watch and fob to Snoad, as a present. I meant to present it formally. The next thought was that Aunt Lovatt would raise the roof beams at the very idea of giving Snoad such a valuable gift.

  Her disapproval lent the undertaking an aura of intrigue. Mrs. Lovatt seldom spoke to Snoad; she was not likely to hear of the gift. As we were leaving for Brighton the next morning, I decided to make the presentation that same evening. I could not go to Snoad’s room, and disliked to have him sent for. I don’t know why I balked at that. He was a servant, but he was not a regular house servant. He had worked exclusively for Papa. It occurred to me that he might be at the loft, and I took the gift up the two flights of stairs to check.

  My patent slippers made little sound. The loft door was ajar, and I pushed it open wider. A faint aroma of cigar smoke wafted toward me, barely discernible over the pungent sea scent, but enough to tell me Snoad was there. I didn’t know he smoked. Really I knew remarkably little about him, when one considered that we had lived under the same roof for two years. My father liked cheroots; perhaps Snoad had caught the habit from him.

  In the silver light from the moon, I saw a man’s outline, limned in black against the mesh grating. It made a romantic sort of silhouette. A proud, well-shaped head was staring out at the night. Snoad was at the trap by which the pigeons left and returned to the loft. He murmured something in a crooning voice, and I realized that he held a bird cupped in his fingers. He opened the trap and let it out. There was a soft flutter of wings, and the pigeon streaked off, first toward the sea, then it got its bearings and headed north. Snoad looked around warily, as if sensing an intruder.

  “Snoad,” I called, before he caught me spying on him.

  He turned with a convulsive jerk. “Miss Hume?” he called.

  “Yes, I hope I didn’t frighten you.”

  “Not at all. Has something happened?” he asked, hurrying along the parapet toward me.

  “No. I’m sorry if I alarmed you. Is this not an odd time of day—or night—to be releasing a pigeon?”

  “They must learn to fly and keep their bearings at all hours, and in all weather.” He looked at his cheroot, and extinguished it under his foot before I could stop him.

  “You didn’t have to do that. I don’t mind cheroots. Papa used to smoke them.”

  “Yes, he gave me a box of his.”

  I cleared my throat for the presentation. “You were very close to my father, Snoad. He spoke highly of you. I’m sure he would want you to have something to remember him by. I want you to take this.” I handed him the watch.

  Our fingers met and fumbled together in the darkness. It was a strangely touching moment, not entirely devoid of romance. I pictured myself a Lady Bountiful, bequeathing a treasure on a serf.

  Snoad took the watch and examined it, smiling. “I only meant the pigeon fob,” he said, drawing something out of his pocket. “I have never seen another like it.”

  “It is unique. I had it made for my father.”

  “I know.”

  I pondered this reply, wondering if it had any significance. “But what good is a fob without a watch?” I said blandly. I saw then that what he held was a watch. Fancy Snoad having a watch! “Oh, you already have one!” I said, a little vexed that my munificence was unnecessary. But his would not be so fine as Papa’s, which was gold-plated.

  “The duchess gave me this when I left Branksome Hall.” He slid it in his pocket and attached my father’s watch in its place. “It is a fine gold watch, but it has not the sentimental value of your father’s timepiece for me, Miss Hume. I shall always treasure this.” His voice was rough with emotion.

  My nose was out of joint that his own watch was gold, but I was somewhat mollified by his words and tone. “I’m glad you like it,” I said.

  The meeting was over, yet I was loath to leave. There was some charm in the loft, with the big white moon silvering the ocean, and painting the landscape in ghostly hues. The cooing of pigeons and gentle flutter from the nests was an undercurrent to the sighing of the wind, and the breaking of waves on the shore below. “It’s pretty up here,” I said.

  His smile, when he spoke, was not far removed from flirtation. “I have often regretted that you so seldom come to visit the birds.”

  “Papa never encouraged me to. He said I disturbed them.”

  “Ladies oftimes have a disturbing effect,” he said. His tone said that their effect was not limited to birds.

  I ignored his reply entirely. I had come upstairs without my shawl, and the sea breeze was chilly. I began rubbing my arms to keep warm.

  “You’re cold. Let me get you something to put on.”

  “I should go downstairs.”

  “What is the rush, Miss Hume? Now that you are here, why not enjoy the view for a moment?” He looked around, but finding no shawl or blanket to
offer, he removed his own jacket and hung it over my shoulders.

  His body heat was still in it, warming my back and arms. “Are you sure you don’t need it yourself?” I asked.

  “Quite sure. This gives me an opportunity to display my virility,” he said facetiously.

  We exchanged a smile, but I was quite aware of the virility in his broad, straight shoulders. His shirt showed them off to advantage. I noticed his stomach was board-flat, and his hips were trim. Moonlight played over the rugged planes of his face, casting his eyes into shadows, and highlighting his well-sculpted nose and sensuous lips. I began to wonder what else the duchess had given him, besides a gold watch. This was the sort of man who caused scandals in polite households.

  “You look beautiful in the moonlight, Miss Hume,” he said softly.

  I warmed to his praise, but realized the situation was not at all proper, and depressed him with a joke. “I am one of those ladies who shows to best advantage in a dim light.”

  “I cannot agree with that. It’s a pity it’s nighttime, or I’d give you a tour of the place,” he said. “We have a few nestlings. You might enjoy to see the chicks being fed. A strange way they have of nursing. Pigeons’ milk comes from the crop of not only the mother, but the father as well. The hatchlings are fed milk for a week.”

  “The father nurses, too! How strange!” I said, happy to see he was not bent on flirtation.

  “It is unique in nature, so far as I know. The fathers also share the incubation. They take the day shift, the mothers the night. That always seems ungentlemanly to me. The ladies ought to be allowed their beauty sleep. But it is foolish to judge them by human standards.”

  “What gives the birds such a variety of colors? Papa called the prettily colored ones fruit pigeons, I think.”

  “Yes, ordinary street pigeons are drab, like the rock pigeons that are the basis of all racing birds. With so much mixing of breeds, you often see a pretty pink or green glaze on street pigeons as well. The fruit pigeons come from all over—Asia, Africa, the South Pacific islands. They are such strong flyers, they’ve spread all over the world, in a bewildering assortment of crossbreeds.

  “Caesar, I think, is our best flyer?”

  “Perhaps the best in England. Your father’s Belgian friend, Pelletier, provided the chick before he left the country. Pelletier claims to have birds that can fly two thousand miles.”

  “Goodness! I thought the races were only a hundred miles long.”

  “No, sometimes as far as five hundred miles. Those races are difficult to arrange in times of war. It involves taking the birds five hundred miles away, and timing their return. We only race from Edinburgh—about three hundred miles. After the war is over, I expect we’ll see a great interest in pigeon racing.”

  “I doubt it will ever replace horse racing.”

  “It appeals to a different sort of person, a more imaginative sort, I like to think. It is almost magical, in a way, to think a bird can soar through the sky for two thousand miles and always find its way home. That is quite a feat of navigation. Dobbin is not capable of that.”

  I was transported in my mind to that endless silver sky, arcing over vast continents. “It must be a wonderful sensation to fly through the air, looking down on life below. If I were a bird, I’d fly to Persia or Peru, and never return.”

  “You are more romantical than I had thought,” he said, with a close look.

  “I wonder what makes the birds come back.”

  “We don’t really know. The loft is their home, where they were born and bred. They know food and safety are here, and in some cases, but not always, the mate. We have bachelors and maiden birds who will also home. Just one more example of Nature’s infinite mystery.”

  “It seems strange to me that Papa became so fanatical about pigeons, almost to the exclusion of his family.”

  “You are thinking of that missed Season,” he said, and he was correct. The old resentment still lingered.

  But I did not wish to speak of it. “It is rather an odd hobby, is it not?” I said instead.

  “If that is so, then I am the wrong person to ask. I share his oddity, as men have for thousands of years. Pigeon breeding goes back to three thousand B.C. If it was good enough for the sultan of Baghdad and Genghis Khan, then it is good enough for me.”

  “You are putting yourself in poor company with Genghis Khan, Snoad,” I laughed.

  “True,” he agreed, “but clever poor company. He adopted the sultan’s system of using pigeons for post, by means of a relay system strung over continents. Your father has some excellent literature on the subject. You will notice that I am trying to interest you in it as well, to convince you to keep up the loft. It really would be a shame to lose your father’s years of work and study.”

  I gave him a pert look. “The possibility that you were trying to cozen me had occurred to me. Do the pigeons make money, or lose it?”

  He gave a pausing frown. “In a good year, we break even. It is not a scheme for growing rich, but it won’t beggar you either. The major investment of preparing the loft has already been made. It will cost you money to disassemble it. We who indulge in the sport consider it a labor of love. One never counts the financial cost when it is a matter of love.” He peered down at me hopefully. “Am I making any headway at all, Miss Hume?”

  “I shall think about it, Snoad.”

  While I would never become so fanatical as Papa, it might be an amusing hobby. Now that I was coming to know Snoad better, I thought he might be an interesting addition to my circle of acquaintances. A person knowledgeable in some new sphere will always amuse us for a while.

  We walked along the parapet as we talked, admiring the view. A star-dogged moon floated behind a rag of cloud. The cloud glowed a moment, then the moon reappeared. Two miles to the west, a sprinkle of lights announced the presence of Hythe. We stopped at the potted tree that was at the end of the walk.

  “Where is Caesar tonight?” I asked. “I didn’t see him in his tree when I was up this afternoon, and he is not here now.”

  “Sometimes he nests with Cleo.”

  “Is she named for Cleopatra, since she is Caesar’s mate?”

  “Yes, her formal name is Cleopatra, but she does not share her namesake’s fickle nature.”

  “Such a paragon of fidelity ought to be named after Caesar’s wife.”

  “Ah, but which one? He had so many.”

  “Did he? I thought he was only married to ... Octavia, was it, in Shakespeare’s play?”

  “Calphurnia, actually. But there were others. Cornelia was his first—she died. Then he took up with a lady called Pompeia. He divorced her. Not all Caesar’s wives behaved as Caesar’s wife ought. It was she who gave rise to the famous quotation that ‘Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.’ In any case, your father had a fondness for that charming wench, Cleopatra. Our Cleopatra is true to her Caesar, even when he is away on an extended race.”

  “Why does Caesar have a tree, when none of the other birds have?”

  “Because he wants one, and when you are a Caesar, you get what you want. I believe he has a strain of nutmeg pigeon in him. They are arboreal, and solitary for choice. Caesar gets his large size and stamina from his papa, and his pretty coppery-green feathers and red feet from his mama. She was a Ducula Aenea. They have a pair of offspring, young Sextus and Aurelia. Family names of the Caesars,” he added. “Your father hoped to have them officially declared Humes. When a fancier has bred a new strain, he may have it named after him. More than a hundred men have already had the honor. And also a few ladies, incidentally. The Duchess of Prescott would be angry with me if I neglected to mention her triumph.”

  This potential honor was quite effective in convincing me to keep the loft. I had no aversion to being in the company of duchesses. “What was she like, the duchess?” I asked, as the chance might never rise again, and I was becoming curious about this lady.

  “A hotheaded beauty,” he replied, with a fo
nd smile. No doubt he saw the suspicion in my eyes, for he hastened to add, “A great charmer in her day, I believe. She was nudging fifty when I left Wiltshire.”

  “Why did you leave, Snoad?”

  “I had a touch of lung trouble. The doctor recommended sea air. The duchess had heard of your father’s flock, and recommended me to him. And that is the not very exciting story of how I came to Gracefield, to help your father breed Caesar and Cleo.”

  “Did the duchess have any daughters?” I asked, with an air of casualness.

  “Three married daughters, scattered about here and there. Why do you ask?” he said. A smile quirked his lips.

  “Idle curiosity.”

  I had learned what I wished to know. Snoad was not the man to waste his charms on a fifty-year-old lady, and the daughters were not at home. “Do Sextus and Aurelia show promise?”

  “Sextus promises to outperform his father. Aurelia, we felt, would be used for further breeding. From both appearance and performance, I expect your father would have succeeded in establishing his own strain.”

  “Well, I shall think about keeping the birds, Snoad. I enjoyed our visit.”

  “I hope you will come again soon, Miss Hume.” His hand made an involuntary move toward mine. He stopped it before our hands touched, but we were both conscious of the gesture. It lent an air of embarrassment to our parting.

  “I shall be away for a few days, as you know,” I mentioned.

  “Yes—about that visit. Remember what I said. Be careful.”

  “What do you think might happen?”

  He studied me a moment before speaking. “I don’t know. I only know your father was murdered, and now you are going to the same place where he was killed. Until we learn why he was shot, I am concerned for your safety.”

  “It is very unsettling,” I said. Then before either of us said more, I removed his coat, and left.