Bar Sinister (10 page)

"He recovered quickly once we put out to sea. He said nothing to indicate that anyone
had put him up to it. We were both brought before the court martial. The witnesses, thank God,
told the truth--that he'd forced it on me. He was cashiered."

"And you were acquitted."

Richard inclined his head. "With an undeserved reputation for swashbuckling and the
strong feeling that my superiors did not look upon me with favour. I was correct."

"Half pay."

"Yes. We reached Colchester Garrison just in time for the Peace of Amiens. I was the
first to go."

Tom grimaced. As he recalled with vivid clarity, living on an ensign's pay was not an easy
trick, though rather easier abroad than at home. An ensign's half pay was derisory. "I was lucky to
avoid that. They sent me to Ireland. How did you live?"

"Very obscurely. In the circumstances I thought it prudent."

"On half pay you could hardly have done otherwise."

"I could live on it now." Richard's tone was dry. "At the time I had grandiose notions of
what was owing to my consequence."

"Fresh linen, hot shaving water, the occasional newspaper, a private room."

"Yes. I decided that genteel starvation didn't suit me."

"So you writ a book."

"I popped my watch, my greatcoat, and a spare pair of boots and bought some paper." He
sounded almost cheerful. "I was pleased when it sold. It fetched twenty guineas, which was more
than it was worth. I marched off with my booty and bought a bowl of hot stew. It was my first hot
meal in a fortnight and I couldn't finish it."

"My God."

"It took more than one campaign to wean me of my taste for luxury."

Tom had to smile at that. "Did you do your scribbling in London or Colchester?"

"London. It's easier to lose oneself in London." He stood up. "I lost my phantom
pursuers."

"They picked up the scent again when you rejoined the regiment?"

"I didn't rejoin the regiment."

Tom whistled. "Strewth. You didn't sell out!"

Richard walked over to the hearth and knelt by the fire. "I was still on the muster, but I
worked at writing till I turned twenty-one." He began methodically rebuilding the fire. His
motions were clumsy. Hand hurting.

Tom did some rapid calculations. He and Richard had been born within a fortnight of
each other. "January eighteen five, some months into the war. I recall I was surprised to find you
with the Fifty-second."

"Surprised to find me using a different name." Richard poked the fire and was rewarded
with a satisfactory pulse of light.

"I thought that was your affair."

"For which I thank you." As if blinded by the flames, Richard groped his way to the
dining table. "Shall I light the candle?"

"If you wish," Tom said quietly. It occurred to him that Richard had found it easier to
speak his piece in the dark. "You made the exchange on the proceeds of your other book, I
collect."

"There were two more books, three altogether. I only claim one of 'em. I saved what
they brought in and lived by copying letters and legal documents." He returned to the hearth and lit
the candle with a spill. "I changed my name by deed poll." He took the candlestick in his left hand,
cupping his right about the flame, and carried the candle to the table. "Better?"

"Thanks. Why Falk?"

"You mean, why not Fitz-something? I meant to stay in the army, so I tried to make it
look like a simplified spelling rather than a name change. Old Craufurd's name was always being
spelled different ways. Why not mine? I thought Folk would occasion less comment than something
completely different."

I nearly made a joke of it, Tom thought, aghast.

Richard was saying, "The law clerk misread my scrawl as 'Falk.' I didn't correct him. The
clerk at the Horse Guards was suffering from eye trouble and actually asked me how to spell
it."

"Luck."

"It gave me three years free of the Ffouke family," Richard said simply. "How Sarah
traced me I don't know."

"With the duke dead surely you'd no more cause to fear."

"Do you think I had cause?"

Tom met his friend's troubled eyes. "I don't know," he said honestly. "It's hard to believe
a peer of the realm would..." His voice trailed off.
Not a tactful thing to say.

Richard's mouth set. He pulled his left sleeve up to the elbow. "The bone the duke broke
cut the skin. You can see the scar, rather faint, next to that sabre slash I took at Fuentes."

"You don't have to prove anything, Richard, and I would have believed you without the
candle trick." Tom put conviction in every syllable, but he wasn't sure he would have credited the
story if Richard had just blurted it out.

Richard's eyes dropped. He smoothed the sleeve.

"The duke is dead," Tom ventured. "Surely your eldest brother is not of the same
stamp."

"I don't remember Keighley. He's fifteen years my senior. Lord John's a rakehell. Lord
George was five when I left. They've no cause to love me or mine and some reason to wish me
dead."

"Why?" Tom asked, bewildered.

"Because the duke left me out of his will."

"Did you expect a legacy?"

A wry smile twisted Richard's mouth. "It's a legal question. For all his rodomontade in
the Abbeymont schoolroom, the duke neglected to blot me out legally. A tirade in front of
nursemaids doesn't constitute repudiation of paternity. I'd lived twelve years as Lord Richard
Ffouke. He should have branded me a bastard or cut me off without a shilling. That would have
been final."

Tom blinked. "Upon my word, you should sue."

"For my 'share'? Don't be simple. I'm not his son. Besides, I'd no money then for lawyers,
and I haven't now. Keighley--Newsham, I should say--could command the best in the realm. Or
hire footpads. He writ me to that effect. I still have the letter."

"Lady Sarah informed you of the legal question. You've an ally."

"Sarah? She brought hell on me when I was twelve. I'm too old to play her games now."
He spoke without rancour but with absolute finality. "I prefer a decent obscurity--for myself, and
for Amy and Tommy, too. Believe me, Tom."

"It'll have to be Bevis, then."

"If there's no other choice." He shoved his hair out of his eyes. "I'll go to Mellings. I
decided you were right, but I won't leave until Wednesday."

"That'll give you two days."

"Two days too many," Richard said with sudden bitterness.

"Go to sleep."

"Very well." He got clumsily to his feet. "Tell Sims it's his turn for the floor."

"A pallet?"

"Yes, by the fire. Very snug."

"Richard."

Richard turned back. He was cradling his left hand. "Shall I fetch something for you
first?"

"No. If you were my father, Richard, I'd want to be able to say I'd met you."

He thought Richard flushed.

"Good night."

"Good night," Tom said to the ceiling. Sims was going to be late and rather drunk.
Ample time for thinking. For the first time since the Chelsea surgeons had passed their death
sentence on him, Thomas Conway found he wanted to think.

Emily had fallen in love with the Author of Doña Inez. She brought herself to
admit her feelings the day Eustachio arrived. Emily fell in love frequently. It was her secret vice,
cultivated since girlhood, when she had tumbled head over ears in love with her father's new bailiff
because he had guinea-gold hair.

Emily had never done anything about her little passions. Virtue? Rather prudence,
perhaps, or cowardice. She did not suppose she would do anything about this passion, either, but
she had now been a widow for four and a half years. Sometimes she felt as if her widow's weeds
were a nun's habit, or as if, at five and twenty, she had taken on the mantle of middle age.
Sometimes she wanted to do something quite mad--run off with a band of gypsies or take up opera
dancing. It was in this spirit of secret recklessness that she had indulged her epistolatory passion for
Richard Falk. It was not quite a safe thing to do, and that was why she did it.

As the "doing" so far consisted only in writing him cheerful details of his children's lives
and rereading the brief notes that prefaced each installment of Doña Inez for signs of the
man behind the pen, her risk had not seemed very great. But there was risk. The uncertain,
up-and-down state of mind that had driven her to write the furious letter to him when she thought he
would not come to see the children had taught her that much. Her anger had been
disproportionate. The children did not miss him. How could they? Amy would surely have missed
his letters--Matt as well. But none of the three children remembered Richard Falk as a real
presence. Emily was the one who wanted to see him in the flesh.

She also had to admit to herself that part of her anticipation stemmed from plain vulgar
excitement. She was exceedingly curious to see him again. She wanted to compare the man with
the writer of absurd adventures. She reminded herself that she had not been enchanted with him at
their first meeting. Indeed, he had struck her as remarkably cross-grained. In all likelihood she
would find him repellent, and probably that would be for the best.

Peggy McGrath's welcome of her spouse was nearly as vociferous as the children's
enthusiasm for Eustachio. Emily did not take to McGrath. A sour-faced, short-tempered, ugly man,
his glowers intimidated Matt, though Amy chattered away to him happily enough. Out of delicacy
Emily gave the connubial pair a private room in the untenanted second floor and took Tommy into
her own bedchamber. He cried for his Peg a bit the first evening, but he was a sunny child, and
Emily distracted him easily enough with his new territory. When he found next morning that his
nurse had not entirely deserted him, he decided to accept her husband with only an occasional
reproachful glance from his sloe-black eyes.

Amy coerced McGrath into saddling Eustachio with one of Emily's discarded sidesaddles,
an insult that Matt bore so ill he forgot to be afraid of McGrath. Thereafter everyone rubbed along
tolerably well--for the next week. Amy, like Doña Inez, decided she preferred to ride
astride.

It was not possible to pump McGrath about his master. Emily had thought the Irish
loquacious. Peggy certainly bore out that impression, but McGrath's idea of civil speech was
confined to grunting and scowling. When Emily ventured a cautious question about his master's
wellbeing, McGrath scowled. When she allowed that Major Falk must be pleased with his
promotion, McGrath grunted. Given her husband's unprepossessing qualities, it was curious that
Peggy took on a rosy glow in his presence. The horse McGrath had ridden belonged to Major Falk.
McGrath declined to stable the creature on Emily. "Orders." Grunt. Scowl.

Major Falk himself finally appeared on the late coach as McGrath was about to settle with
the innkeeper for the horse's board, so he did not come to Wellfield House until morning. Warned
by Peggy's welcoming screech--she had spotted her master from the window on the second-floor
landing--Emily put off the apron she had donned for her daily descent to the kitchen, tidied her cap
and her emotions, and went down to greet her employer. If the pulse pounded in her throat it did
not pound so hard that she was incapable of reason.

Phillida had stuck the major in the chilly withdrawing room where he stood looking not
greatly different from what Emily remembered, except he was clean-shaven and somewhat tidier.
His hair was cropped short. He had a new coat. Emily did not approve the coat. It looked vaguely
foreign.

"Good morning, Major Falk."

"Mrs. Foster."

"I am glad to see you well. You will wish to go up to your children directly, I daresay. I
have not prepared them for your coming, so I beg you will go slowly with Tommy." Emily was
proud of this civil, businesslike, uneffusive greeting.

Major Falk followed her obediently up the stairs and said nothing. At least he didn't
grunt, Emily reflected, philosophic. It was not in her to maintain a dignified silence. She kept up a
polite chatter. The children loved the pony, Tommy now spoke seven separate words and two
sentences, Amy was learning to write her name, the weather was agreeably mild, was it not, she
hoped he had had a pleasant voyage. She did not await his reply and ushered him into the
schoolroom
sans
ceremony.

His daughter indulged no adult tergiversations. She launched herself at him with a
delighted shriek.

"Papa," Tommy echoed, experimental.

It was not as affecting a reunion as it might have been, but it was satisfactory. Major Falk
accepted Tommy's wariness without comment. He listened to his daughter's mostly English chatter
with grave attention, and when Matt showed signs of sulk, drew Emily's son into a discussion of the
pony's points which developed into a riding lesson. That took up most of the afternoon.

Emily had decided it was time her father met her employer. That evening, Major Falk
bore with Sir Henry's Corn Law monologue without satire. No sparks flew. When Major Falk had
gone off to the inn at Mellings Parva, Sir Henry made mild approving noises. Aunt Fan said nothing
disparaging. Emily did not voice her own exasperation. It was all too tame. Major Falk left the next
afternoon with McGrath. The children continued to speak of their father afterwards, casually, as
one might speak of an uncle one saw on occasion. Amy did not repeat her silent mourning.

Emily told herself she was a fool to have wished for more. Presented with a full account
of his friend's sufferings, she had had to accept her employer's decision to stay so long with Major
Conway. Indeed she was glad Major Falk had never received the scorching letter she posted to
Toulouse, and she admitted to herself that loyalty to one's friends was always commendable.
Commendable.
Convenable.
Conventional.