The Gilded Scarab (11 page)

If he isn’t a politician, he at least is the man who knows where all the political bodies are buried.

Sir Tane often called into the coffeehouse on his way from his home in Bedford Square to the Parliament House. He was very pleasant when Mr. Pearse introduced me to him.

“I can’t remember how to genuflect,” I said, offering my hand.

Sir Tane was a kindly old man, unaffected by his greatness. He merely laughed, shook my hand, and welcomed me to the coffeehouse. He was a true gentleman, and I started to look forward to our meetings. He was an intelligent and entertaining conversationalist. Sir Tane, too, could be relied upon for a stimulating discussion about horse racing, although his interest was mainly academic. He never actually laid a bet.

“Where’s the fun in that?” I wondered, and Mr. Pearse grimaced and shrugged. He didn’t appear to understand it either.

Mr. Abrams, the apothecary from across the road, came in most days. A pleasant young man in his thirties, he appeared to prefer coffee to his own pills and concoctions as a sovereign remedy for all ills. Something to remember when Cousin Agnes drove me to drink and a distempered liver. His was the shop with the lintel carved with exotic birds and animals, and some days I called in there to greet the monkey and the crow.

Two businessmen were also often at the coffeehouse when I was. Rosens and Matthews, apparently, although I had no idea which was which. They had an import-export business occupying part of the same building as the coffeehouse. Mr. Pearse, I noticed, was always polite with them but a little distant. I got the impression he didn’t like them much.

Mrs. Deedes, who owned an antiquarian book shop in the next street, called in every morning for a large mug of black coffee, unadulterated by milk or flavorings. “I dare say,” she said, in quelling tones, when Mr. Pearse introduced me to her. She put me in mind of my old nanny. I found myself standing on one leg, polishing the toe of my shoe on the back of the other trouser leg, and checking I’d cleaned my fingernails. She didn’t offer to shake hands. Just as well. I wasn’t entirely convinced I’d get mine back. It was another week before we had anything resembling polite conversation, in which I carefully tried not to inquire after her grandson and Mrs. Deedes told me about him at great length anyway.

The baker next door led a life of such irregularity—with regard to hours—that he came in for a midafternoon coffee before retiring to sleep. “William Somers,” he said, shaking hands and transferring flour from his cuffs to mine. He gave Mr. Pearse a wide smile. “And I’m not a baker, I’ll have you know. I’m a pâtissier, a pastry chef. I supply all the best hotels in Londinium.”

“Paris trained?” It wouldn’t surprise me. The small cakes and pastries I’d tried had been superb.

Somers inclined his head. “I am. I keep trying to tell Mr. Pearse he should sell my goods in here. Increase his trade, and send his customers to me to buy by the dozen.”

“So he should,” I agreed, much struck. “It would save me the walk next door each morning. I’m all for things that would save me trouble.”

One regular I hadn’t yet seen was Mr. Pearse’s favorite. Professor Winter of the Britannic Imperium Museum and University College was away in Aegypt for the winter on an archaeological expedition. He would return in spring.

Winter, eh? That was the Gallowglass family name, and not one to ignore. This professor had to be the House man who was something or other to do at the museum, the one the publican had mentioned. The one whose guard had pointed harquebuses into the faces of innocent passersby who happened to have rounded the corner into Museum Street at an inopportune moment.

But since the man was evidently well in with Mr. Pearse, I made no comment about the sort of person who employs trigger-happy guards to frighten the local populace. “An archaeologist? Don’t tell me. He’s ninety, doddery, and eccentric.”

“Not quite so old.” And Mr. Pearse smiled. He sighed, and for a moment he looked strained, as if something worried at him. “I’ll be glad when Ned gets home,” he said, half to himself.

“Seventy, then. I’ll wager he keeps bones in his bedroom.”

I was glad to see the anxious look disappear and Mr. Pearse’s smile broaden. “He’s never mentioned them if he does. He does have bodies in the cellars, though, over at the museum and the university.”

“Lovely,” I said and rolled my eyes.

All in all, I was enchanted with the coffeehouse. It kept me from fading into a real decline. You know, I hadn’t realized such comfortable, homelike places still existed in the world. I’d forgotten, in fact, what “home” meant. Pearse’s reminded me.

T
HE
COFFEEHOUSE
stayed open until late, but I usually returned to my room at the Stravaigor hostel as dusk fell to spend an hour or two before the fire with a book on my knees. Sometimes my eyes were well enough to allow me to read it, so long as I shaded the lamp and angled the book carefully. Odd that I embraced scientific developments in some areas, notably my wonderful aeroships, but I still preferred an old-fashioned book to a datareader screen. I knew all the arguments for the convenience of datareaders—and, indeed, I owned one—but I loved the feel of paper and leather bindings. Hopelessly out-of-date.

At around eight, I ventured out to find somewhere to dine in one of the local chophouses, where the photon globes were usually dimmed to hide the poor quality of the food offered to the customers. I ate occasionally in one of the grander restaurants on Oxford Street, but these were often more brightly lit with great globes of aether hanging from the ceilings. A couple of hours in the strong light would have my eyes stinging and watering, and my head aching.

After dinner came play. Not every night, of course, but three or four times a week, I looked for some companionship.

I went back to Margrethe’s twice over late November and early December. I didn’t, of course, expect to see Edward Fairfax there since he’d been so careful to tell me he would be away for some time, but I had two very enjoyable evenings nonetheless. Neither of those were anything but casual liaisons with pleasant-enough men who wanted no more than a night’s entertainment. Margrethe’s, though, could be only an occasional treat, given the costs. I was very cautious with my funds in a most un-Lancastrian way.

Luckily for me, though, more of my old haunts still thrived than I could ever have expected. They may have been a little quiet following the shock of the Cleveland Street affair when the police raided a molly house and prosecuted owner, Mary Anns, and clients, but they had reemerged, it seemed, after a period of keeping their heads well below the parapet. The Hundred Marks on Charlotte Street was still there, for example, and The Crown on Charing Cross Road. Not to mention the dear old Intrepid Fox in Soho.

I had had my first ever full encounter with a gentleman at the Fox and very enjoyable it had been too. It was before I came down from Oxford, I remember. I must have been in Londinium over the Easter break before the Trinity term began. I had been young—eighteen, perhaps—and uncertain of where my impulses were leading me. Of course there had always been an undercurrent at Eton among the boys there, but it had seldom gone the full length, even among those boys most addicted to the traditional vices. My own experiences had been of tussles in a darkened dormitory with the naked body of a prefect rubbing against me while his hands pulled and tugged me to my own release, and taking my turn to do the rubbing when I too achieved the grandeur of the higher forms and a prefect’s badge. But the man I met at the Fox introduced me to the fullest expression of Greek love in an afternoon and night of sheer hedonistic pleasure, and all those odd impulses and feelings clicked into place with such a sense of rightness that I’ve never looked back since.

Oh yes, I had very fond memories of the Fox. It was a pleasant venue to create new ones too. Rather better than some of the newer meeting places.

In my second week home, I visited one of the cheaper molly houses in Soho, a haunt of many of the Piccadilly renters, available for a pound or two. I gave up on it very quickly despite it being the easiest place of all for encounters—no well-appointed bedrooms here, but only dark little booths curtained to shield us from view. I had no objection to a strong young man pushing me back against the wall and falling to his knees before me. It was entirely enjoyable, feeling his hands pull at my clothes and rub against my buttocks while his mouth swallowed me up. That particular Mary Ann was very skilled and worth every penny I paid him for his services.

But I didn’t want more, not in a place like that. If I were to be thoroughly fucked, or wanted to mount another man, I preferred to do so in a decent bed with a comfortable mattress. Bending over a chair back in a dark room with a dozen other men in close proximity is an activity for the young and heedless. I was neither, and if a molly house had been all that was available to me, I’d have given it up for a while and been content with, well, taking myself in hand, so to speak. It was back to the Fox or the Marks for me—I wasn’t literary enough or precious enough for The Crown—with the thought that if I saved up my pennies, I could afford an occasional night of luxury at Margrethe’s.

Perhaps age was catching me up at last, with this desire for creature comfort over sexual adventure. And that was a thought almost as depressing as the state of my eyes.

Chapter 8

“C
APTAIN
L
ANCASTER
!
Captain Lancaster, sir!” Phryne skittered down the house steps after me, waving a couple of letters. “Oh sir, I thought p’raps you hadn’t seen your post on the salver on the hall table, sir. They look important.” She blushed such a rosy hue I was positively warmed by it. A man could put his hands to those cheeks and escape frostbite.

I took the letters and rewarded her with a smile. “That’s very kind of you, Phryne. Thank you.”

“Oh no, sir. The missus sent me after you, sir.” Phryne reddened a little more, bobbed me a curtsy, and ran back up the steps with a skip and a jump that served to ruffle her skirt hem and accidentally, I was sure, show off her ankles. The lace at Cousin Agnes’s sitting room window twitched.

I glanced at the letters, expecting one or other of them would be from Beckett or Hugh Peters. Both had proved faithful correspondents. But the handwriting on both letters was unfamiliar. One was a white business envelope, addressed with a clerk’s neat, economic hand, and with my bank’s seal on the flap. The other was of heavy cream parchment, thick and expensive. The ink was very black and the hand most definitely that of a gentleman, educated to be an art unto itself. My name was inscribed in letters so exquisite the envelope should be framed somewhere.

I turned it over. The seal was embossed in a metallic silver wax. A ship, sails bellied out, and… I squinted. The letters encircling the ship were tiny, but yes, there they were—
errant in aeternum
.

Well, hell. In fact, hellfire and damnation. What the blazes did they want?

Cousin Agnes knew about this. Or perhaps had recognized the seal. I glanced at her window, where a shadow lurked behind the lace panel, and made a point of tipping my hat to it. The lace quivered with agitation.

I slipped both letters, unread, into the breast pocket in the lining of my greatcoat. The cold wind twisted insinuating fingers under my waistcoat, and, shivering, I did up the buttons and walked quickly on. I needed coffee. If it weren’t so damned early in the day, I could have done with a brandy. It would help me face my correspondence.

Ensconced in my favorite chair before the fire and refreshed with coffee and several of Will Somers’s exquisite pastries, I braved my post. The letter from the bank was brisk and businesslike: the bank’s compliments to Captain Lancaster, this is to notify you we are in receipt of the sum of… blah blah…. Her Majesty’s Paymaster General… blah blah… paid to your account at our Trafalgar Square branch… blah… await your instructions re investments… blah blah… I remain, sir, yours truly… signed Henry Frith Esq. on behalf of Drummond and Co.

Well, that was that, then. The British Imperium Armed Forces had washed its hands of me. At least they’d paid over the gratuity on time.

I watched the flames flicker in the grate for so long my coffee got cold. So. It was over. It made everything else seem insignificant, even the other letter. And if it were insignificant, why hesitate so long to read it? Sliding the blade of my penknife under the glittering silver seal on the second letter was the work of a second. I extracted a thick invitation card.

“Good. God.”

I must have said it aloud.

“Is everything all right, Captain Lancaster?” Mr. Pearse looked up from the notebook he was studying, frowning.

I must have said it aloud very loudly. I repeated the sentiment. “Good God. I’ve been summoned to Stravaigor House for Christmas Day.”

“Ah.” Mr. Pearse’s mouth curved up. “You look rather as if you expected that card to explode in your hand.”

“Well, it’s from the House, isn’t it? Of course it’s going to explode in my hand, if only metaphorically. It’s what the Houses do.” I turned the card over, to read in the thin spidery writing that bore the signature of the Stravaigor himself, a personal hope that I would accept the invitation. I tried for some variation in expressing astonishment. “Good. Grief.”