The Devil's Company (27 page)

A NEARLY SLEEPLESS NIGHT of confusion made matters no clearer to me, so it was my good fortune that I had the opportunity to encounter Elias that very next morning. It was distressing enough that the French wished to labor upon my death, but to learn that Miss Glade, a lady to whom I was forming an attachment of no small measure, might well be one of their number left me both confused and morose.

I had some business that morning with one of the clerks of Craven House, and after the meeting I was delighted to see Elias in the building’s lobby, in close conversation with a woman. I momentarily wondered at his presence until I recollected he must be in the building on account of Ellershaw’s malady. I hurried forward, but my eagerness dissipated almost instantly, for I saw that the person with whom he spoke was none but Celia Glade.

Before I was close enough to hear a word that came from his mouth, I recognized his posture: his tall form held ramrod straight, his smile wide and dazzling, one hand pressed to his chest in a continual performance of gentlemanly poise. Elias sought his prey as surely and as single-mindedly as any predator.

I divined that he had just spoken something meant to amuse, for Miss Glade put a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh—a noise considered most inappropriate inside Craven House. It struck me as most inappropriate that he should try to charm her or, more horrifically, that she should be charmed by him. I told myself I could not trust Elias to maintain his defenses against such formidable female graces, but I knew better than to believe my own explanation.

Accordingly, I rushed forward, fully intending to break up this most unpropitious meeting. What, I wondered, did Miss Glade know? Was she aware of my friendship with Elias? Did she know that his fate was so closely bound to mine? The only thing of which I might be certain was that I wished she should learn nothing more than she knew already.

“Good morning, Celia,” I said to her, ignoring Elias for the moment. “Do you think it wise to advertise to all of the Company that you have need to speak with a surgeon?”

In retrospect, I realized I might have chosen a less venomous method to end their discourse, one less suggestive of what I had learned of her—now likely false—history. At the time, I was pleased enough that it did the business. Miss Glade turned red and hurried off.

Elias narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together, a sure sign of his irritation. “I say, Weaver, that was most unkind.”

Given that I had much to discuss with him and could not do so here, I hardly hesitated before violating the rules and quitting the premises for a journey to a nearby tavern. The entire way, he complained about my ending his congress with Miss Glade.

“That girl was a delectable nugget, Weaver. I’ll not forget this outrage soon, I tell you.”

“We shall discuss it later,” I grumbled.

“But I wish to discuss it now,” he insisted. “I am far too irritated to discuss aught else.”

I ducked my head to avoid one of the metropolis’s many and notorious low-hanging shop signs we came hard upon. Elias was too distracted to see it, and indeed I was so angry I nearly let him strike himself, but in the end I could not see him take an injury, even a minor and comical one, so I reached up and pulled him down as he walked. He kept his balance and did not miss a stride.

“Oh,” he said. “That was a good turn. But it does not excuse this outrage, Weaver. Outrage, I say. I shall order something very dear and insist you pay for it.”

Once we were equipped with our pots and Elias had called for a plate of bread and cold meat, and then fortified himself with a pinch of snuff, he began once more.

“In the future, Weaver, when you see me with a pretty girl, I should very much like—”

“Your life and mine and the lives of my friends depend on what happens in Craven House,” I said, not a little harshly. “As far as concerns you, I am the lawgiver there. You do what I say and when I say, and you do not grumble about it. I’ll not let your insatiable appetites and inability to sense danger when it is under your nose lead the two of us and others into ruin. You may think being unable to govern your appetite for women is nothing but amusing, but in this case it may well prove to be nothing short of self-destruction.”

He gazed into his pot, taking the time he needed to master his passions. “Yes,” he said at last. “You are right. It is not the appropriate place to seek out pleasures, and you are right that I am not terribly good at making wise decisions when it comes to women, particularly the pretty ones.”

“Good.” I clapped my hand upon his shoulder, that he might understand it best to let the thing pass. “I’m sorry I grew so hot with you. I have been tried most sorely of late.”

“No, you need not apologize. I require a good thrashing now and again, and better it be done by my friends than my enemies.”

“I shall make an effort to recollect your words,” I said with a grin, feeling much relieved that the discomfiture had passed. “Now, tell me about your more appropriate adventures.”

I cannot say if it was with effort or if his mercurial nature allowed him to drop his resentment so readily, but he brightened at once. “Your friend Mr. Ellershaw is terribly afflicted.” The news sounded grave, but he delivered it with a grin.

“The French pox?”

He shook his head. “Not the French pox but the English malady. Madness.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean, Weaver, is that he believes he has an advanced and virulent case of syphilis—though at times he speaks of it as gonorrhea, not comprehending the difference—and yet he has not a single symptom. I can find no sores, pustules, rashes, or inflammations, nor can I find signs that there have ever been such.”

“Are you certain?”

He took a long drink of his ale. “Weaver, I’ve just spent the last hour handling a deranged old fat man’s privy member. Please don’t ask me if I’m certain. I must obliterate the morning from my mind, and on the spur of speed too.”

“What, then, did you tell him?”

“You know I am obligated by oath to treat my patients to the best of my ability.”

“Yes, yes. What did you tell him?”

“As I’m under no obligation to refrain from pretending to treat a well man who believes himself ill, particularly if doing so will bring him peace, I informed him that I knew of some very particular cures, recently brought back from the Barbadoes, that I had no doubt would relieve his symptoms. I let a small quantity of his blood, purged his bowels, and left with him a rather violent diuretic. When I am done with you, I shall write my apothecary and have him send over a variety of mixtures that will have no other effect than to calm his agitation. And, as he appears to believe in my cure, perhaps it shall settle his spirits.” He held up a shiny guinea. “Certainly he appeared most obliged.”

“I should think. And will you continue to treat him?”

“As best I can, but he may grow agitated when I refuse to apply mercury, and I should rather avoid doing so since he does not require exposure to so strong a property as it contains.”

“Give him whatever he likes, so long as it keeps you in his employ.”

“Mercury is marvelous effective against the pox, but it has unwholesome effects. It is hardly ethical to give a man a cure he does not need that will engender a sickness he need not suffer.”

“Is it ethical to allow you to spend the remainder of your years in debtor’s prison to protect the health of a rapacious madman?”

“You make a compelling case,” he said. “I’ll consider my options when the time comes.”

I nodded. “A wise course, though consult with me before doing anything, please.”

“Of course. Now, if you’ll permit me to bring up the matter of the girl one last time. Have you considered that if I could strike up an amour with her, it would give me a reason to return more often, and then there should be two of us inside who might more effectively than one—”

“She’s a French spy,” I said, ending his discourse with the suddenness of a fired pistol.

I regretted it at once. Even if my knowledge and his will could tame Elias’s predatory impulses, I doubted he would be a match for the lady’s own skills. If she pressed him, I feared his knowledge of her true nature would be legible upon his face as clearly as if written in ink.

Nevertheless, I had began and had no choice but to continue. “There is a French plot here somewhere, Elias. I know not if it be the most villainous of the schemes that surround the Company, but it is a plot. First we find that there are Frenchmen investing in my death as though it were a fund upon the ’Change, and now I find a French spy contriving to discover all about the Company and about me.”

I proceeded to tell him of my encounter the previous evening with Miss Glade, and though I was careful to disguise the more amorous elements, Elias had known me too long and was too good a student of human nature not to suspect something.

“I say, have you an affection for this treacherous creature?”

“She wishes me to have one,” I answered.

“And given that she is beautiful and charming, you find it difficult not to comply.”

“I am master of my passions,” I assured him, “and I have no desire to form a connection with a woman whose motives we must presume to be malicious. You need not worry about me on that score.”

He took a moment to stare at his closely cut fingernails, a clear indication he wished to say something awkward. “I trust you have accepted that you shall never be successful with your cousin’s widow.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Do you really believe that a longing for Miriam stands as the only obstacle between myself and true love with a deceitful spy?”

“I know you have long loved Miriam Melbury, and she has quite dashed your heart to bits, but I admit when you phrase it in such a way that my theory does not appear valid.”

“I am relieved to hear you say as much.”

“Still, you are reaching the age where a man ought to seek out a wife.”

“Elias, if I wished to have this conversation, I might as well visit my aunt Sophia, who could make the case far more eloquently while irritating me far less and probably serving me something quite pleasant to eat. Besides which, I might make the same claim of you, yet I hardly see you seeking out a bride.”

“Oh, I am not the marrying kind, Weaver, and if I were I should require a woman with a massive dowry who would overlook my relative financial difficulties. You, on the other hand, are a Hebrew, and your people cannot help but marry. If you wish to hear my opinion, I think a wife would do you good.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “I should ask Mr. Cobb to send you to debtor’s prison now.”

“Those who speak the truth must face the brickbats of resentment.”

“Yes, and your lot in life is to suffer. May I suggest we confine our time to discussing the meaning of the French involvement?”

He let out a sigh. “Very well. I have never heard of the French sending agents to work against the great companies, but it does not surprise me that they would think to do so. After all, these companies produce prodigious wealth for the nation, and the East India Company is also an arm of exploration and expansions. There could be any number of reasons why the French should wish to infiltrate Craven House.”

That, unfortunately constituted the extent of Elias’s analysis. By this time I had finished my pot and thought it advisable to return to the East India yard, lest my absence be noted. I did not think any great harm would come of such an observation, but it served my interests well enough that I should draw no attention to myself.

I came in through the main gate, therefore, and proceeded to the warehouses, but I had not advanced more than a few feet before I heard my name called quite briskly.

“Mr. Weaver, pray you stop.”

I turned to find Carmichael chasing after me. He ran forward, holding his straw hat to his head. “What is it?”

“Mr. Ellershaw come down here not half an hour past. He appeared most grieved that no one knew how to find you.”

I nodded and headed back toward the main house and proceeded directly toward Ellershaw’s office. He called for me to enter when I knocked, and when I stepped in, I found Mr. Forester sitting across the desk from him, several samples of cloth draped across the desk. Neither man, I soon observed, appeared happy to see me.

“Weaver.” Ellershaw spat out some of the brown kernel on which he chewed. “Where have you been? Do I pay you for your leisure time or for your labors?”

“I’m sorry to have missed you,” I said. “I was about an inspection of the warehouses when you called upon me.”

“If you were inspecting the warehouses, how is it that no one knew of your whereabouts?”

“Because I did not wish for them to know. Inspections are most effective when they are a surprise to those inspected.”

Ellershaw pondered this suggestion for a moment and then nodded slowly while he worked at the mass in his mouth. “Just so.”

Forester held in his hand a piece of blue fabric, which he studied most attentively. Indeed, he tried most assiduously to keep his eyes from wandering from the cloth. I suspected he did not trust himself to contain his expression should our eyes meet, and I thought that a useful detail. Forester believed himself unskilled at dissimulation.

“What is it you want?” Ellershaw now inquired of me.

“I only wanted to attend to you, as you called upon me, sir,” I said.

“I haven’t the time for you now,” he answered. “Can you not see that we are busy with things that are none of your concern? Is that not your opinion, Forester?”

Forester continued to cast his eyes downward. “It is. A man of his sort can have nothing to add to our discussion.”

“I say,” Ellershaw blurted out, “that is rather a harsh assessment. Weaver may not be a Company man, but he’s a sharp fellow. Do you think you have something to say to us, Weaver?”

“I do not know what you discuss,” I said.

“Nothing of interest to you,” Forester murmured.

“Only these cloths. What you see before you, Weaver, are the fabrics the Parliament, may it rot in hell, will permit us to sell domestically after Christmas. As you see, it is devilish little. Most of our trade on these islands will now be in these blues”—he held up a piece of light blue cotton—“and I fear what trade we do with it will be a mere shadow of our former enterprise.”