The Triple Goddess (13 page)

Thought Arbella, aha!, he must wear out so many quills by writing lines on brokers’ slips.

Ended Carew, ‘…for underwriters around the Market. They’re much in demand.’

Stupid me, thought Arbella, getting ahead of myself. ‘I quite understand. Fly-tying is an art. My grandfather, on the other hand, who couldn’t tie flies for toffee [what a childish expression to use, she thought] and bought all of his, was nonetheless passionate about the sport; he said it elevated the spirit and made one feel at one with Nature.

‘Ah, I do recognize these feathers: peacock and pheasant. Duck. This might be partridge.’

‘It is.’

‘And ostrich?’

‘Right again.’

‘It’s coming back to me a little, and not just from remembering my mother’s collection of old ladies’ hat decorations. And my father used to shoot. It’s criminal the animals and birds that people have hunted to extinction. The Victorians and Edwardians slaughtered any creature they could get their sights on, not just game. Let’s see…these are domestic: cock and hen and…goose I should think. Turkey? These I don’t know.’

‘Guinea fowl and heron.’ Carew opened a drawer. ‘Speaking of hats, here’s half a marabou plume that I got it off a bonnet a lady left in a railway station waiting-room. And part of a beaver hat I acquired at a sale of unclaimed items at the lost-and-found office at Euston Station.’

Arbella smiled. ‘You and my grandfather would have got along famously. Though, the only headwear he ever pinched was a policeman’s helmet on Boat Race night. You probably know that there’s a ceremony going on at the rostrum at the moment, and there are plenty of ladies there in fancy hats, so I could nip over while they’re distracted and….’

She shut up, unable to believe what she had been about to propose. And had she suggested that Mr Carew had stolen the marabou? She must be making a terrible impression, she thought.

Carew did not seem to have taken anything amiss. After a furtive look around the box he took from the drawer a few feathers that had creamy white eyes on them.

‘Jungle cock,’ he whispered conspiratorially; ‘but very old, I hasten to add. It’s illegal to procure these days because of the species’ rarity. I got these way back in...they were purchased well before the ban. Beautiful, don’t you think?’

Relieved, Arbella nodded. Then she remembered why she was there, and was embarrassed by the paltry nature of the new and unquoted risk that Oink had entrusted to her and which she would have to produce. It was for a small fleet of privately owned fishing vessels, based at a terminal in Seattle on the west coast of the United States: purse-seiners that caught salmon in Puget Sound and in the waters off Alaska.

The commercial risk was such an ungainly contrast to the refined sport of fly-fishing: surrounding the fish with a wall of commercial netting rather than catching them one by one with dry flies. The irony would surely not be lost on Mr Carew, a man who was so sensitive as to disdain the practical side of fishing in favour of the delicate task of manufacturing, not attractor flies or spinning lures, but delicate entomological imitations on size twenty-four hooks and two-pound nylon tippets for accurate presentation to trout rises.

Arbella felt suddenly miserable. It was as if her whole life had just been channelled into the contents of her slipcase; and she was reminded of the line from the
Book of Job
, “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?”. How could she have thought to catch this whale with a single plankton?

Rattled, she heard herself prattling. ‘Now my grandfather, eccentric that he was, for some reason liked to fish at night. His line would get into an awful mess, and often he fell into the water of whatever lake or stream or river he was fishing. It was a miracle that he didn’t drown or catch pneumonia, trying to retrieve his flies from trees and bushes by the light of a torch. He didn’t mind not catching fish, and he never did very many, even by day, but he hated to lose the flies.

‘What’s odd is that although he didn’t have the patience to make flies, my grandfather would spend hours and hours constructing model ships, the old tall ones with lots of sails, to put in Haig Dimple whisky bottles. He said it was even more fun than drinking the whisky. He made them with the masts lying down, so that he could put them in the neck of the bottle and pull them upright with thread.

‘I know that now, but my grandfather would never tell me the secret of how he did it: no matter how much I cajoled, he just tapped the side of his nose and winked and said it was an old sailor’s trick. He had been in the Navy during the First World War.’

An involuntary movement of Arbella’s arm caused a stab of pain, which turned out to have been caused by a hook that had lodged in the back of her hand. She stared at the thing. Barbed hooks could not be removed without tearing the flesh, she knew that, unless they were in a finger in which case the larger ones might be pushed through, the point clipped off with pliers, and the shank withdrawn.

Arbella was horrified: she was squeamish and could not stand the sight of blood, especially her own.

Carew said soothingly, ‘Don’t worry, it’s barbless, I shouldn’t trust myself to have them around them otherwise. If you will permit...’ Reaching across the desk and taking Arbella’s hand, he picked a curved haemostat from his collection of instruments, and gently removed the hook with the pincers.

‘There, see, it’s not even bleeding.’ He gave her the fly. ‘For you, as a memento of your visit, a number twelve Greenwell’s Glory, an original imitation tied by Canon Greenwell himself. Hardly glamorous, but it’s one of my favourites.’

Arbella, not knowing what to do with it, opened her slipcase and stuck the hook in the leather inside pocket at the back that was designed to hold folded slips. Hers had in it only the new one from Oink; all the rest were unfolded in the main section for ease of access and had scratch panels on them.

‘Gosh [Gosh?!], I’m sorry, that was stupid of me. Thank you
very
much.’ As surprised as she was, Arbella was also ashamed: usually people gave her prettier things...today, perhaps an attractor pattern such as a Wickham’s Fancy.

‘It’s my fault for not clearing everything away. I should do that now.’

Mr Carew unscrewed the vice from the edge of the desk, stowed it in a cupboard, and busied himself putting the tools and accessories of his hobby in the differently sized drawers around the box that should have held the appurtenances of his trade: the stamps, and the record and premium and loss advice cards.

When everything unprofessional was gone, he swept a few fragments of fur and feathers onto the floor, and folded his hands. The box now looked like that of any underwriter; there was a silver inkwell, a tortoiseshell pen-holder, and a pointed and notched swan quill. A clean sheet of pink blotting-paper, torn from one of the ubiquitous rectangular pads, was clamped in a semicircular wooden roller.

Briefly Arbella wished that Carew might invite her to become his deputy. She wondered what he would give her to do...nothing, probably. What a lovely change it would be, to be reprieved from having to traipse round the market all day on murderous heels, not peddling proper business like a real broker but taking care of the dull detail side, and returning to the office to send telexes to ungrateful and nit-picking clients.

Instead she would spend all day watching Mr Carew tying his fishing flies, perhaps lending a hand and learning to do it herself. Daydreaming, reading—Mr Carew did not seem to be an exacting sort of person, and frankly there did not seem to be much that might require to be exacted. It really was a very quiet and peaceful spot here, so near and yet so far from everything else that was going on.

There was a lot to be said for such a life, one in which no demands were made of one, and where there were no major issues to confront or be confronted by, and no decisions to be made.

It would be just like home.

After a short silence Arbella realized that, now her leather slipcase was open, there was nothing for it except to do her best to interest Mr Carew in Oink’s risk. But something rebelled within her, and she closed the case and buttoned it. There was one excuse she could use.

‘Look, sir, I’ve got a risk I could show you, if you didn’t mind sometime—not now, because trading has been suspended while the Gold Medal presentation to Dum…to Mr Dodge-Bullitt is going on—if the Bell has rung again so that everyone can carry on I didn’t hear it. But to be honest I don’t think it would appeal to you. I’ll come back when I’ve got something more worth your while. Thank you very much for your time, however, it was a pleasure to meet you.’

And she stood up.

Chapter Nine

Before she could leave Arbella was smitten with an idea, one that had nothing to do with having had second thoughts about “broking” Carew, but an idea prompted by a surprising pang of hunger. As a rule, in the strict sense of never, Arbella did not get hungry.

‘Mr Carew, would you like to go to lunch?’ she said; ‘I mean, as in have lunch…you know, eat lunch, rather than “go” to lunch as in being entertained like brokers entertain underwriters in order to soften them up to write their business. Soften is the wrong word. Sorry. What I mean is, presuming you don’t always have lunch at your desk, perhaps we could have it jointly somewhere. Nothing fancy. If we went now we could beat the rush because if the speeches are over and it’s business as usual, then there’s still forty-five minutes or so left before the rush.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have an expense account. Anyway, the decent restaurants are probably all booked, and I don’t see you as the sort of person who would be comfortable at the Jampot. I know, perhaps we could pick up a sandwich and take it over to the Tower. The weather’s decent enough.’

Carew stared at her. ‘Lunch? The Tower? What…Why…I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name.’

Again Arbella felt a tweak of injury, at not being recognized. ‘Sorry…my, we are doing a lot of apologising, aren’t we? Sorry, I should have introduced myself at the beginning. It’s Arbella, Arbella Stace. Not Arabella, and never Abby, which hints at the hateful Abigail. Arbella Mary Stuart Stace. At your service, sir.’

Carew’s body stiffened against the high back of the box, and he went even paler than he already was. Then he slowly leaned to one side and his mouth opened and closed, like a trout that had just been released after a strenuous contest with a fisherman.

Slowly he righted himself. ‘It is an unusual name. One doesn’t hear it much these days, if at all.’

As averse to revealing anything about herself as she was, Arbella was proud of her name. Somehow it seemed as though, in the limbo that she felt she was in at the moment, there was no need for secrecy.

‘That’s very true,’ she said. ‘The most famous Arbella, Arbella Stuart, was the niece of Mary Queen of Scots, and cousin to Henry, the Prince of Wales. She was the daughter of Charles Stuart and Elizabeth Cavendish, and the granddaughter of Bess of Hardwick. She had red hair, and was described as the eighth wonder of the world, and the phoenix of her sex.’

Carew said faintly, ‘“More fairer than fair, more beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself.” How came you by the name?’

‘I’m descended from Arbella Stuart on my mother’s side. My hair has only a hint of red in it, though. My father’s surname is Stace, of course, and his name is Charles, too; though nobody has called him that in years. He was made a baron for his services to industry.

‘I often go to the Tower at lunch-time. It’s the perfect place to get away from insurance, and there are never any Chandler people there. I’ve felt an affinity with the Tower ever since I learned that Arbella Stuart was imprisoned in the Bell tower, on the upper floor.’

‘She was in the Lennox tower as well,’ said Carew.

Arbella’s eyes widened. ‘You know that?’

‘I’m a student of things other than fly-fishing. I can go on if you like.’

‘Please.’

‘When Arbella was released but remained under supervision, she gave her guards the slip and—disguised in a peruque, doublet, and black cloak, and wearing russet boots and a rapier—she sailed for France. Her plan was to unite with William Seymour there, the man she’d married without permission from her royal cousin King James. William himself had been imprisoned in the Tower, the fourth of five generations of Seymours to spend time there, but he escaped to Ostend. You might finish the story for me.’

‘Arbella didn’t know William’s whereabouts. Though her boat was within sight of Calais, she gave herself up to those who were pursuing her, who were convinced of her identity by her “marvellous white hand”. She was taken back to the Tower, and died there of starvation, having lost the will to live.

‘William was pardoned by King James and went on to live another fifty years. He became a Member of Parliament, Earl of Hertford and Duke of Somerset, a Privy Counsellor and a Marquis. He offered to be executed in place of Charles I.’

Arbella was shocked to have found someone whose knowledge of the Tower, and her eponymous antecedent, rivalled hers. She decided to throw in a personal detail. ‘Arbella’s diary makes interesting reading. She had a chain of fifty-one pearls, or marguerites as they were called. My father had a similar chain made, which he gave me for my twenty-first birthday.’

‘You had to dress the part in those days,’ said Carew, ‘if you were to make a good impression at Court.’