The Gilded Scarab (23 page)

M
Y
TRAINING
at the coffeehouse went on apace. Some things were more easily learned than others. Mr. Pearse gave me ungrudging approval for my skills in making the various brews—he said I had a neat hand with the espresso machine and the slow-drip apparatus, and mixed the various coffee and milk combinations with confidence—but he was outraged (horrified? pitying? all three?) when he realized I had been planning to buy my coffee ready roasted. Perhaps he was all three, but outrage certainly won the day.

“No,” said Mr. Pearse with decision. “You are not.”

“I’ll have to—”

“No, Rafe.”

“But I don’t know how to work that thing back there—”

The old man pulled down the blind and put up the “closed” sign, then herded me into the back rooms. “You’ll learn.”

“But—”

“No, Rafe,” repeated Mr. Pearse, and I felt all too like a puppy in danger from a rolled-up newspaper. I put my hand over my nose, just in case. “This is important. You want to be better than Philtre Coffee, don’t you? I have no doubt they buy their coffee ready roasted and ground.”

The scorn stung. I couldn’t argue with that. Protests were a waste of breath. So I laughed and gave myself up to the arcane mysteries of roasting green coffee beans.

It astonished me that so far I’d overlooked the roaster. Perhaps my damaged eyesight was worse than I realized, because the damn thing should have been impossible to miss. It filled half the back storeroom with its brooding, massive bulk, a chunk of black cast iron, big as an aerocarrier, with brass hinges and decorative plates and a furnace beneath that looked like something Lucifer himself would covet. But despite its bulk, it was a thing of quirky beauty, from the polished hopper at the top to the enameled cooling tray at the bottom. The best bit was the huge brass handle on the drop door—no plain knob, but a beetle with a blunt rounded head, wing cases opening and gossamer wings, made from the finest of polished brass wires, unfurling to lift it from bright brassy flames.

Another Aegyptian beetle, a bigger and brighter version of the one Daniel had given me. The coincidence made me laugh. I appeared doomed to be surrounded by dung beetles! But for all that, the roaster impressed me. “Good God, Mr. Pearse! How old is it?”

“I have no idea,” confessed my mentor. “It was here when I bought the business, more than fifteen years ago, and it was old then.”

“Old? It belongs across the road in the museum! It’s ancient.” I traced a hand over the beetle’s rounded head. “You know, it looks like it needs to be coaxed into life with kindling and prayer before it works its way up to consume logs, entire trees, and the odd martyr.”

Mr. Pearse laughed. “Do you feel the need for holiness and martyrdom, my boy?”

“Not I! I’m not martyr material. Is it as fuel-hungry and temperamental as it looks?”

Mr. Pearse copied my gesture of caressing the beetle handle. He had an odd smile on his face. “It’s obsolete, really. A sensible man would take it out and use the space for storage or something.”

Something in my chest contracted a little. The old man was going to miss this place. He was going to miss it badly.

I put my hand over his. “Just as well neither of us ever claimed to be sensible. Show me how it works.”

He grinned and patted my hand with his free one. “You’re very good to indulge an old man so, Rafe. But once you’ve seen it for yourself, you’ll understand.”

He was right. Within a day or two, I understood why buying preroasted coffee from a supplier would not do. Not merely intellectually understood it, but viscerally and emotionally. It was fascinating. It was science and art, all wrapped up together. I freely admit I went into it a skeptic, but I was astonished to find how much it interested me. Mr. Pearse delayed his retirement for another week until he was quite satisfied I could handle it, although, as he said, it would take years for me to be an artist with the roaster.

I laughed. “I’m content to master the basics for now, sir. I’ll allow greatness to creep up on me, unawares.”

Because, of course, it would.

Focusing on learning the business reduced the tension over the peculiar approach by Josiah Stone. I was deriving great satisfaction from learning to be an expert in coffee, especially creating my own roasts and blends. Sir Tane smiled every time he saw me emerge from the storeroom. I was usually dusty with ash and clinker, and smelling of tar. That wily politician had had several quiet discussions with Mr. Pearse, when told of the change of ownership, that appeared to have assuaged his disquiet to the point he had attended the formal signing of the purchase papers as our impartial witness. Since then, he had taken a lively interest in my training.

“Buying coffee would not be the same,” I told him. “It’s the sign of the amateur. It’s the sign of someone who sees coffee as nothing more than a column of shillings and pennies in a ledger. It’s the sign of someone who doesn’t really get coffee.”

“Ah,” sighed Sir Tane. “The zealotry of the neophyte! Very energetic for you, and very wearing for the rest of humanity.”

I laughed along with him, but nothing could touch pouring a sack of green beans into the hopper at the top of the roaster and taking out gleaming, shiny brown roasted beans from the cooling trays at the bottom. It was deeply satisfying.

So I smiled at Sir Tane’s gentle mockery. “I love it. It surprises me, you know. I never expected to find it so fascinating. But there’s something about the smell of roasting coffee that can’t be beaten. And I’m learning new skills. Believe me, my old commander wouldn’t believe me capable of that if he stood right beside you and watched me do it.”

Of course I didn’t always get it right.

“No,” said Mr. Pearse to my first solo flight at the roaster controls.

And “God no!” said Mr. Pearse to the second attempt.

And “Better,” said Mr. Pearse to the third and fourth.

And on the ninth try, and the tenth, the old man rolled the coffee around in his mouth and spat it out into the sink. Anyone would think he was tasting wine, not coffee. But he pursed his lips, took a deep sniff at the aroma again, and nodded.

I straightened up. Pride could make a man glow. I felt the warmth in my chest.

“You’re on your own now, Rafe,” said Mr. Pearse. “I’ll take the train to Eastbourne tomorrow at ten.”

I said, with truth, “I’ll miss you, sir.”

He nodded. His mouth tightened, and he looked around the coffeehouse. He patted my shoulder. “I’ve been here a lot of years, but it’s time. Well past time. You’ll look after the place, Rafe, I know.” He handed me a sealed envelope. “Give that to Ned Winter when you see him, would you? He’ll want to know where I’ve gone.”

We shook hands, most solemnly.

The next day I closed the coffeehouse for a week, took Mr. Pearse and his belongings to Victoria station, and started the transformation.

I didn’t move into the top flat right away. Cousin Agnes made a visit of state and decreed a spring cleaning. She sent in Phryne and two of the local charwomen to scrub the rooms from floor to ceiling. Within a couple of days, dust had given way to the scents of lavender and beeswax. Everything gleamed, the red velvet sofa had been returned to pristine condition, and the plain pine of the kitchen table had been scrubbed to a snowy whiteness. I was grateful, particularly since Agnes instructed one of the charladies to “do” for me and the coffeehouse from then on. Mrs. Barnett meekly agreed to this disposal of her time, grateful, she told me later, for a regular daily job. I was pleased I wouldn’t have to clean the water closet.

Agnes pretended my request for help with outfitting the flat was an imposition she would bear simply because it got me out of her hostel, but she threw herself into buying rugs, bed linen, and curtains with gusto. After a few days, I had two comfortable rooms to move into, and when I left the hostel, the night before the coffeehouse reopened, Agnes even bestowed a kiss on my cheek. When I returned it, she retired blushing to the safety afforded by her lace handkerchief, muttering about encroaching, ne’er-do-well wastrels. But she was smiling.

The workmen were there from dawn until dusk for the entire week. The whole interior was repainted while the chairs were reupholstered and the new espresso machine installed. I had another artificer take out the old lighting powered by ionic discharge and install photon globes instead, for a softer ambient light. I had the furnaces overhauled, and the plumbers laid in pipes leading to big cast iron radiators in my flat on the top floor, changing its climate from arctic to balmy in a weekend. I sent the painters up there, too, as soon as they’d finished the coffeehouse, but if my import-exporters wanted to redecorate, it would be up to them to arrange it. At least I had the long side hall and the staircase painted.

I came to a mutually satisfactory arrangement with Somers about baked goods, and installed a big glass-fronted display cabinet of carved, polished walnut, and a new marble countertop. The coffee grinders got a steam clean and were polished until they shone like twin suns. The upholsterer’s steam-dray turned up as I finished painting and polishing, and my chairs and the small sofas, now in a smart dark green livery, were maneuvered into place around the fireplace and in the deep bay windows.

I had spoken at length with the people at the Westminster Town Hall and disconcerted them mightily by asking to put tables and chairs out onto the pavement in front of the coffee shop. They appeared to think the idea was distressingly continental. Un-British. But for a minor outlay of five guineas, I was put in possession of a license. One of the secondhand furniture dealers on Tottenham Court Road delivered two sets of Coalbrookdale tables and chairs in heavy cast iron. I had the tables bolted to the pavement and looked on the task of heaving the chairs in and out of the shop each day as good exercise for the arms and lungs. They certainly firmed up my muscles.

Last of all the sign-makers arrived with the new shop fascia. When they’d finished putting it up, I stood on the other side of the road and admired it. The gold lettering on the dark green paint was very fine. Tasteful and elegant.

At first I thought about renaming the place Phoenix
,
because my pretty, stylish new coffeehouse rose from the ashes of Mr. Pearse’s dilapidated and shabby premises, in the same way as my new career was rising from the dust and cinders of the old. And then I thought about Scarabeus or some other variant on the beetle’s name, given I appeared to be faced with scarabs whenever I turned around. But I had second thoughts. People had an irrational fear of beetles, especially big shiny black beetles with skittery legs, and the name wouldn’t likely entice them in if they thought scarabs bathed in their coffee and danced on their cakes.

In the end, I’m afraid I allowed vanity to rule the day.

So many people over the years—father, brother, House, Agnes, commanders—had told me I would never amount to anything, I was too much of a maverick, I was too much
Rafe Lancaster
to make anything of myself. I remembered every family member, senior officer or House functionary I had had to be respectful of in my life, and every contemptuous assessment or prune-faced disapproving look I’d ever had to suffer through. And I took huge delight in coming to attention and saluting the name above the door with far more sincere respect than my Aero Corps commanders had ever won from me.

Lancaster’s Luck was open for business.

I
HELD
a party on the day I reopened. All the regulars came, headed by Sir Tane, with Abrams and my tenants from upstairs. Even Mrs. Deedes came and consented to be gracious. The Somerses were there, of course. Mrs. Somers, it transpired, was an opera singer, and all I will say here is that she had the build for it. She had a very womanly figure with impressive… well, she was a miracle of the corsetiere’s art. I imagined she had the capacity to hit some very high notes indeed.

They were all enthusiastic and appreciative of the redecorations. They said they liked my new coffee blend—and certainly they drank enough of it to convince me they weren’t merely being kind—and they ate so many cakes I expected them to spend the night regretting it. And when, in the middle of Sir Tane’s best speechifying, toasting me and my endeavors in coffee, the door opened and a horde of visitors came in, they all cheered (Sir Tane the loudest) and stood aside to let me run to the counter to deal with my first little rush of customers.

It was a good augury. I could make this work.

I would make it work.

After that auspicious beginning, I spent the remainder of March learning the business and building it up. The trick wasn’t just to attract the passing trade Mr. Pearse had so deplored, but to get them to come back again, to increase the number of regulars. At the very least I wanted the visitors to go back to their hotels at night and sing my praises. They had to go back and say they’d had the best coffee of their lives and the most ravishing cakes, and it wasn’t at one of Philtre’s coffee lounges or any of the other coffeehouses in Londinium. But at Lancaster’s Luck.

It started out very well with a sharp surge in customer numbers. With its smart, clean paint, Lancaster’s stood out now in the street and attracted passing trade at a surprising rate. I could barely keep up with it at times. More important than the increase in casual trade was that the number of regulars started to increase, as I’d hoped. Slowly at first, of course, but it was noticeable. The publican from the Tavern came in each morning now, and one or two of the booksellers from Duke Street. That was the sign I was getting it right. The coffee was excellent, Somers’s baked goods were delicious, and the whole ambiance of the coffeehouse was hitting the target. People were coming back for more.

Mr. Pearse’s supplier, Egberts, continued to work with me, no doubt on the strength of the old man’s recommendation. They were expensive but provided the best quality beans available on the world market. A Dutch firm, their full name was far too long to fit on their representative’s business card, and they’d been in the business more than a century and a half. They knew coffee. They really knew coffee. Thijmen De Jong, the London representative, came to see me personally when I made my first order, inspected the revitalized coffeehouse with a very professional eye, and sat with me for more than an hour, chatting about the business and drinking my new blend with gusto and approval. Of course, I was a tyro when it came to our discussions, but I hoped I made up for it in enthusiasm, at least.