“Yes,” Kristin could not help saying, with considerable pleasure at the irony, “but he is a criminal under his true name, Starbane.”
Gustav got the point. Eric had gone to the consulate, had given Kristin a place through which he might be located should she ever reach New York, by using the common name, Gunnarson, that Gustav had been so eager to pin on him!
But Gustav was not without malevolent resourcefulness. Going to the mirror, he ran his fingertip along the scar Eric had etched. “Well, he will get the surprise of his life,” Gustav vowed. “I shall immediately send a message to our people in New York, informing them of Gunnarson’s ruse, demanding his arrest and extradition. That ought to end this matter quickly enough.”
Now Kristin feared for Eric. Gustav would not shrink from carrying out his evil promise. “I promised to ruin him utterly,” he was ranting, “and I shall. Just you wait and see. And do not think of warning him, much less of flying to him, or you yourself shall see what befalls a poor family named Vendahl, in Lesja.”
“Yes, husband,” she said, with counterfeit meekness and fear. Just two days earlier she had sent her family a portion of the money Gustav had given her to buy fine gowns.
Gustav and Kristin were just about to dress for dinner, in their formal evening clothes, when one of the maids knocked at the door, opened it shyly, and laid two sets of clothing on the bed.
“What is this?” wondered Gustav, appalled.
“There must be some mistake,” said Kristin.
One set of clothing was that of a common seaman: canvas breeches, rope-soled shoes, striped shirt, bandana, and a shapeless cloth hat. The other was a dress of bright hue and minimal fabric, such as Kristin had glimpsed on women walking the alleys and streets off Piccadilly.
“No mistake,” answered the maid apologetically, retreating toward the door. “The master requests that yuh wear these t’dinner and t’night.”
“Pierre told me Soames had entertainment planned,” Kristin remembered. “Perhaps a costume party?”
Gustav was of another mind. “My test,” he cried. “It must have something to do with my test!”
And, excitedly, he gathered up the sailor’s uniform and raced to his room to dress.
After a rather hurried dinner of beefsteak and kidney pie, during which Lord Soames saw fit to ply his guests with all manner of wines and spirits, several carriages were brought round, and everyone climbed in. Vitas, Pierre, and Rob, dressed like Gustav as sailors, went in one vehicle, while Soames, whose baggy sacklike costume suggested a beggar or pickpocket, rode with the Rolfsons.
“Where are we going?” Kristin asked.
“To hell,” replied Soames, laughing. And, indeed, passage from the refined West End of London to the pitiless and unremitting squalor of the East End was like a descent into nether regions. It was night, and scattered streetlamps failed to penetrate, much less to dispel, the fog drifting in off the Channel, up the Thames, and into the city. Curses of the destitute followed the rich carriages, curses against privilege and fate and luck, and frequently a beggar would pound on the door of a passing carriage, whining and begging for bread. Soames gave no alms, but always tried to look out, to see the face of the beggar.
“I wonder what it’s like,” he kept repeating, “I wonder what it’s really like.”
“Is this not…ah…dangerous?” Gustav asked tentatively, apprehensive about the area into which they were driving, yet not wanting to seem actually afraid, lest a display of fear should render him a failure in whatever strange test Soames contemplated.
“No, no,” replied the lord, dismissing Gustav’s provincial squeamishness with a wave of his hand. “My coachmen are strong and well-armed. Moreover, we have been to the Skull and Raven many times.”
The Skull and Raven proved to be a smoky tavern and dance hall, more disreputable by far than the bar in Oslo at which Seaman Ingersoll had sought to steal Kristin’s purse. An ambience of dangerous, edgy futility suffused the entire bar, a mean-spirited atmosphere of gin, opium smoke, and quick, raw, bitter sex. Kristin was revolted, by the air and odor of the place, and Gustav was clearly doubtful, but Lord Soames yelped with glee as he led them in. Vitas, Pierre, and Rob, too, strutted expectantly into the crowd and din. The men and women there, Kristin noted, were dressed much like Soames’s party, but such clothing, for the denizens of the Skull and Raven, did not constitute a costume.
Soames passed money to a huge woman, with missing teeth and one eye askew, who showed them to a corner table and then, once they were seated, drew a beaded curtain on a wire from one wall to another giving them a measure of privacy. They could readily see what was going on in the Skull and Raven, but were set apart from it. Soames ordered wine and gin, ale, and called for an opium pipe. The ugly woman went to fetch these. Meanwhile the three young men had grown suddenly animated, happy and excited, as if wondrously released from the formality of decorous social routine.
“Oh!” exclaimed Pierre, brightly. “There’s Dirk, over at the bar. He’s so strong! Perhaps he’ll see me!” He waved. “Yo, Dirk, Dirk!”
Vitas was laughing bitchily. “He already saw you come in, silly. And he looked the other way. He doesn’t want to see you, that’s very clear.”
“That’s not true!”
“Is so.”
“Is not.”
“It’s true. I distinctly saw him turn away from you.”
Pierre’s mouth was twisted, as if he were going to cry.
“Oh, hush up,” Rob told his quarreling mates. “I’m très bored with your infernal fussing. I’m going over to talk to Dirk myself.”
“You won’t!” cried Vitas and Pierre, in unison.
“Watch me,” said Rob. And, smoothing his hair, he left the table, walked to the crowded bar, and very soon, arm in arm, was engaged in earnest conversation with a broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped young ruffian who wore a golden earring.
“Now see what you’ve done,” Vitas accused Pierre. “You had to go bragging and carrying on, so now Rob gets him.”
Pierre, overcome, began to weep, got up, and left the table, rattling the curtain of beads as he departed.
The big woman brought them drink and the opium pipe.
“What do you think of it?” Soames asked the Rolfsons. “This place?”
“It’s a little…frightening,” Kristin confessed.
Gustav shot her a disapproving look. “Doesn’t bother me any,” he told Soames.
“Like it, do you?”
“One must adapt,” answered Gustav, sudden cavalier and bon vivant. He had decided that Soames would lend money only to businessmen with sangfroid and savoir faire.
Kristin declined the opium, but sipped red wine. Gustav, following his host’s example, drew deeply on the pipe. He was used to strong cigars, and did not mind the raw smoke, but never had he tried opium before, and the effect was soon evident.
“I have been considering your loan,” Soames said abruptly, lighting a second pipeful of the drug.
Mention of business, juxtaposed so suddenly against the perverse desuetude of the Skull and Raven, startled Kristin, and caused Gustav to struggle back upward toward mental acuity. “Yes?” he said, with eager wariness. Where was the test? When came his time of trial?
“Exactly how much would you be able to do in order to insure the loan?”
“What do you mean, how much?”
“I want you to meet some friends of mine,” Soames said, standing. “Come with me. Vitas, you stay with Mrs. Rolfson.”
“Oh, Anthony, I see somebody over there I want to—”
“Do as I say. You’ll get your turn.”
He left the table, passed through the beaded curtain followed by Gustav. Soon they were lost in the crowd.
“Where is Lord Soames taking my husband?”
“What do you care?” said Vitas petulantly. “I hear you have a lover in America?”
No use to deny it. Anthony Soames and his three resident pederasts obviously spent much time in the di
ssection of those with whom they came in contact, those who needed Soames’s limitless wealth.
“Someone I know and care about is in America,” she answered, cautiously. She meant to add: “I know and care about many,” but Vitas, short, burly, tousle-haired, and blunt, cut her off.
“What is it like?” he asked. “How does it feel to a woman?”
“I don’t—What do you mean?”
“The pleasure part,” he said bluntly. “Do you think it’s better for the woman or the man?”
“It’s only good if you really love somebody,” she told him. “Whether you’re a man or a woman doesn’t make much difference.”
He took a long pull of the opium pipe, smiled lazily, leaned away, and studied her. “You know, I would be very pleased if you would be my first woman. I have always wanted to know what a woman felt like.” He reached out and put his hand over hers. She nodded toward the crowded tavern. Men were dancing drunkenly with savage-looking women. Men were dancing with other men. Women were embracing women and pretending to dance.
“You may take your pick of anyone out there,” she said, “man, woman, or combination thereof. I’m sure your benefactor’s money will buy whatever prize you desire.”
He grinned. “And it will buy you, too.”
“You are very wrong,” she said.
He laughed. His mood shifted, and he no longer wished to pursue possession of her.
Lord Soames returned to the table. He looked self-satisfied, secretly pleased, like a sleek, lazy cat. “All right Vitas,” he said.
“Oh, dear me, at last.” And, with that, Vitas was gone among the swirl and swarm of Skull and Raven.
“Where is he going?”
“I promised him something special.”
Kristin was disgusted. Soames, with his good looks, youth, and fabulous money, might have bent his efforts to improving the world, or at least his part of it. Instead he chose to be a corruptor, to dally with persons like Rob, Pierre, and Vitas, who were empty husks, given to frivolity and pursuit of pleasure, narcissism and night.
“You disapprove of me, don’t you?” Soames smiled.
“I think you are a corruptor. You play with people.”
He laughed. “No,” he disagreed. “I am merely a diligent student of human nature. There is always something new to learn.”
Kristin was just about to ask what had become of Gustav, when the fat, toothless hag who seemed to be in charge of the Skull and Raven came pushing through the throng. She threw the beaded curtain aside, looking alarmed.
“What is it, Maloney?” Soames demanded.
“Two of those fools with you are fighting in the back room,” she growled accusingly. “I don’t want no trouble. You got to do something about it. If you please,” she added grudgingly, in deference to his rank.
Soames just laughed. “All right, I’ll take care of it. We’d best leave anyway. I got what I came for.” He threw a handful of ten-pound notes down on the table. “Rob and Vitas,” he told Kristin. “Probably fighting over Dirk. They do it all the time.”
He left the table again, leaving Kristin alone. She sipped wine and tried not to took at the reprobates who were staring at her through the beads. Presentiy Soames, followed by his three friends, returned. Soames looked merely irritated, Pierre amused, but Vitas and Rob seemed furious with each other. Gustav accompanied them. He had been drinking, appeared disheveled and slighdy distracted, but on his face, along with the scar, was the hard, almost bitter expression she recognized: it meant he had won something, gained an advantage, closed the deal.
In the carriage returning to Soames’s house, Gustav and Kristin were alone, the lord having elected to ride with his friends. Gustav was very quiet and now and then would drop into a doze.
“So you secured the loan?” Krisdn asked him, trying to ascertain the actual nature of the situation.
“Hmmmm? Yes.”
“Was it difficult?”
A pause. “No.”
“What sort of test did he give you?”
“It’s none of your concern,” he snapped. “It was a matter for men.”
Not wishing to seem prying, lest his suspicions become aroused, nonetheless she had to know one more thing: “Will you be taking me with you to America?”
He gave her an odd glance, which she could not decipher in the fog-dimmed light of the streetlamp they were passing.
“Yes.” He sighed. “I would have anyway, but now it is part of the bargain to which I agreed.”
She wanted to know what he meant, but Gustav would say no more. He fell asleep, riding, and when they reached Lord Soames’s home in St. John’s Wood, he managed to come only half awake.
“Poor soul,” Soames commented, and directed Vitas, Pierre, and Rob to help Gustav to his rooms. They did so, chuckling. This Norwegian might look fierce enough, indeed, but, as a carouser, he lacked stamina. No wonder Britain ruled the world, or most of it.
Kristin was about to go upstairs to her own room, when Anthony Soames laid a hand on her arm, delaying her ascent. Momentarily she thought he meant to make her another proposition, or perhaps to take her summarily. The servants had retired for the night, and the great house was dark and quiet. London lay sleeping all about, both the prim see-no-evil London of Queen Victoria, and the dark netherworld into which, this night, Kristin had been plunged.
“Let us talk.”
“Please, Lord Soames. I fear I am very tired.”
“Anthony. Call me Anthony, my dear.”
“Please…”
But he brooked no refusal. “Your husband is a good investment” he said, leading her into the library and bidding her be seated. “As a businessman very little can stop him, save possibly his capacity to do anything he thinks necessary.”
If he expected Kristin to comment she disappointed him.
“But what may be necessary might not be wise,” he went on. “As a human being, I think less of him.”
“Less of him than what?”
“Than you.”
“But you are going to provide him capital?”
He laughed. “I would be a fool not to. Your husband is willing to sign over to us a mountain range of wealth in return for some of my petty cash.”
“Five million pounds is petty cash?”
For the first time since she had met him, Soames dropped his casual, supercilious demeanor. “Kristin,” he said, addressing her directly, “there are two kinds of noblemen in the world. The first kind is, like me, hereditary. One of my forefathers had the wit to realize that William the Conqueror was going to take Britain. And so, instead of being branded a traitor, he was given lands in quantity sufficient to make a god exult. Those lands are now mine. Another of my ancestors decided that it would be wise to back Henry VIII against the Pope. He did not suffer, nor do I. We have guessed right, and we have won. That is the kind of ‘nobility’ I am. Ha!”
He walked across the library to a sideboard, and poured himself a glass of whiskey.
“What is the second kind of nobleman?” Kristin prodded.
Soames took a swig, another, then shrugged. “Nature’s men,” he said, “gentle warriors. They may lose, but they are the best in the end, because they will not do anything to achieve their goals.”
“Anything?”
Soames made a sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Tonight I gave your husband my test,” he said. “The human animal is more predictable than generally supposed, but always interesting nonetheless. I told him, ‘Rolfson, you may have that loan if you do one thing to please me.’ ‘What is it?’ he asked, eagerly. ‘Three friends of mine wish to make love to you,’ I told him.”
Now Kristin knew, and knew she had known all along, what had happened in the back room of the Skull and Raven. The monstrousness of it was underscored, in her mind, by Anthony’s blasé demeanor now.
He noted her revulsion.
“It is true,” he said “It happened. I do not lie. And it is why I am giving money to y
our husband. He will do anything, and so my investment is in good hands. He is the perfect modern businessman”—here Anthony’s voice grew bitter—“and he will allow anything to be done to him, even degradation against his nature and being, should such an assault make him more money. But you…” His eyes turned tender.
“What about me?”
“But you,” he continued, coming across the room and sitting down beside her, “deserve a better thing. My own life has been determined long ago, by money and biology. However, I am, as I said, a student of human nature, and not without gifts of appraisal and appreciation. You love another, he is in America, and it was my condition, which your husband had to accept, that you go to America with him. Whether you find there the kind of nobleman I described, the one you claim to love, is your concern, and not mine. My gift to you is that I have given you the chance.”
Kristin looked at him, holding back words, holding back a tide of commingled emotions, which included hope, anger, pride, revulsion, fear, and yes, a knowledge that Anthony Soames was like her husband, only far more dangerous, far more corrupt. And yet…And yet good and evil are brothers more than they are enemies.
“Gustav gave in to my demands,” he said. “And I love that. You did not. But I love that the more.”
He stood, a bit unsteadily, and motioned her to leave the library, climb the stairs.
“When the times comes,” he said, “bon voyage.”
Part Three
New York, Pennsylvania,
1863–65
I
The heatless room in the rat-trap tenement had only one occupant on that raw March morning of 1863. He was Eric Gunnarson, over two years now in New York, and he was ill. He coughed, cursed, waited for the uncontrollable burst of gasping and hacking that had been plaguing him for months. It did not come. A good sign. Sam Lapin, the dockmaster, had told Eric he could return to work as a stevedore when his health improved, if the job was still available. If the job was still available. Eric knew he was weak, but he was down to his last half-dollar. He forced himself from the bunk, one bunk in a room he shared with fourteen other men and fourteen other triple-tiered bunks. The men were out now, a few of them working, and the rest looking for work. The bunks rented for a nickel a night, which was more than some of the men earned in a day, sometimes a week.
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