This Thing Of Darkness (83 page)

‘Evidently so.’

‘Then, of course, there were those in the Admiralty who were not best pleased by your forcing their hand in the first place, and who were even less pleased by your decision to purchase no fewer than three supplementary schooners.’

‘Three schooners without which I could never have accomplished my commission, sir - you know that. The chain of meridian distances . . .’

‘I am grateful to you. But it was a commission of your own making - you know that.’

The two men faced each other across the desk in silence. Finally, FitzRoy spoke. ‘So what am I to get, sir?’

‘Damn it, FitzRoy, don’t be obtuse. I am trying to be as clear as I can without rubbing it in.’

‘I don’t understand. I — ’

‘Yes, you do. There isn’t going to be another boat.’

‘There isn’t going to
be
another boat?’ FitzRoy fought for balance in his chair, as the room whirled round and round. ‘For how long?’

‘There isn’t going to be another boat, ever again. Ever. It’s over. I’m sorry, Robert. I did the best I could.’

FitzRoy shut his eyes, hung on to his chair arms and fought hard not to throw up.

William Sheppard inspected himself in the looking-glass, and was forced to concede that there was much to admire there. The dazzling gold and crimson silk-and-velvet waistcoat, for instance, with its thunder-and-lightning buttons; the stylishly pinched boots in soft calves’ leather; the fashionably chunky rings that raised a steely crenellation upon the line of his knuckles; the elegantly undersized watch at the end of its robustly plated guard-chain; and the extravagant, scented bandanna-handkerchief in maroon silk that he drew out now to complete the pose. No matter that his legs looked a little like pipe-cleaners in their buckskin tights. He was only in his mid-twenties, and his muscles would undoubtedly bulk out with age. No matter that his undeniably weak jawline appeared to have withdrawn its support for the flesh of his cheeks, causing an unsightly pink sausage to settle on either side of his rolling collar, one of a dozen that had been specially tailored for him in London. If he held his head high, the problem disappeared. It was a simple matter of remembering to maintain the correct posture at all times. And no matter that the hair on his head was already in full retreat, a disorganized ginger rabble on the run from an advancing regiment of pink freckles. A top hat, placed at a jaunty angle, created the convincing illusion that battle had not even been joined, let alone lost.

Sheppard’s clothes became him. His home furnishings became him. The saloon of his brand-new villa had been decked out in the very latest India-patterned chintz and rose-coloured calico. There was an improved piano in the back drawing room, where a local music-teacher, hired for the duration, would perform Donizetti and Mendelssohn in the evenings. Afterwards, he would take supper at the fashionably late hour of ten o’clock, having dined at the equally modish hour of five. He ate fowl every day, with madeira and claret, and fresh fish from the coast at Whitby, where he kept a bathing-machine during the summer months. He took the London evening papers at breakfast, just a day and a half after their publication. He drove four-in-hand. He sat on the local bench and quarter-sessions, the Brewster sessions for licensing public houses, and the Poor Law Board of Guardians. He was the lord of all that he surveyed.

Now, at the age of twenty-six, he knew deep in his soul that he would soon outgrow County Durham. It was time to set his sights, and the tolerable fortune that his father had accrued from the coal-mining industry, on a bigger prize indeed: no less a jewel than a place in government. William Sheppard was to become a Parliament-man. He had been selected in the room of the present incumbent, the Honourable Arthur Trevor (who had gone to the Lords as Viscount Dungannon) to stand on the Conservative interest, as the party’s candidate for Durham City. The general election could only be a month or two away now. Melbourne’s administration was an utter shambles. Income tax was running at a staggering three per cent, half the country was up in arms through lack of food or lack of work, Chartist mobs preached violent revolution unchecked on every street corner, and the Liberal government seemed quite incapable of restoring order. A firm hand was needed. Sheppard’s ringed finger closed over the top of his silver-topped cane like the gauntlet of a mailed knight. His time had come.

‘Ram Das!’

His butler’s starched white turban floated silently across the landing behind him, caught in the angle of the glass as its owner tried to pad unnoticed past the open doorway. As the man halted and deliberately retraced his steps, Sheppard fancied that he could discern a hint of insubordination in the set of the Indian’s shoulders, and in the moment of hesitation that had preceded his about-turn.
By God
, he thought irritably,
I’ll teach the fellow not to go skulking about the place like a common cracksman
! ‘Ram Das. Fetch me a cheroot, and a brandy pawnee. And bring me the cellar book. I wish to inspect it. I am sure the rack punch has been diminishing faster than I have been drinking it.’

‘A brandy pawnee. That’s brandy-an’-water, sir?’

‘Yes, Ram Das.’

‘Very good, sir.’

The butler’s face did not flicker, which irritated Sheppard all the more. Ignoring the insinuation of theft, the servant ghosted away across the landing as if pulled by invisible strings. It was all the rage to have Indian servants, of course, but Ram Das was not really an Indian. Not a full-blooded native, anyway. His real name was George Dawson, and he had been born in South Shields. His English mother had returned pregnant and disgraced from Cawnpore, where she had made the grotesque error, in Sheppard’s eyes, of carrying on with a local minor official. Of course she had utterly sacrificed her station in the world as a result, and her half-caste son had grown up a ballast-man at the docks; but Miss Dawson, who had become a lonely spinster with nothing to do but dote on her sole offspring, had educated the boy at home - so, in spite of his colour, he was the only ballast-man in the north-east who could read and write. Sheppard had encountered him at the quarter-sessions, where he had proved a surprisingly articulate witness to an assault case; and, with a philanthropic gesture that had profoundly impressed himself if nobody else, he had stepped in to save the fellow from the short and brutal life of a dock labourer. There were times, however, when he had come to regret his generosity.

The butler returned, minus the requested brandy-and-water but bearing a visiting-card that cut a dun-coloured rectangle on its gleaming silver tray.

‘Where the devil is my drink, Ram Das?’ enquired Sheppard, peevishly.

‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir,’ replied the servant, in his embarrassingly broad South Shields accent, ‘but Lieutenant Colonel Taylor wishes to enquire whether or not you are “at home”. He says it’s urgent, sir.’

‘For heaven’s sake. Can’t it wait ’til the morrow?’

‘He says not, sir.’

Pringle Taylor was Sheppard’s chief election agent. One of seven election agents, mind - Sheppard was not the sort to do this kind of thing by halves - but if the old man was barging in at this time of night then it probably was important.

‘Very well then. Fetch him in.’

Sheppard was careful to let his servant know by his tone that his annoyance at the colonel’s arrival would later be visited, with interest, upon the domestic staff. Ram Das departed, and returned with the unwanted caller in tow. Taylor was a lugubrious man with drooping moustaches, whose progress up the stairs resembled that of a melancholy Afghan hound lolloping after its master. Too young for Waterloo and now too old for the North West Frontier, the colonel had never seen action. Sheppard found it hard to imagine Taylor making any decisive contribution to the military fortunes of his country. The man was, however, a perfectly competent and diligent election agent, for which at least he could be thankful.

‘How do, Taylor? I presume you haven’t come here to partake of my brandy.’

‘No, Mr Sheppard sir. There are news from London on the mail coach, sir — news you may find . . . incommoding.’

‘Come on then man. Out with it.’

‘Lord Londonderry, sir, being an influential man within the party hereabouts — ’

‘Yes, I’m well aware of who Lord Londonderry is, thank you, Colonel.’

‘Lord Londonderry has selected a second candidate sir. For the seat sir.’

‘By Jove! Has he indeed?’

Mentally, Sheppard cursed that old fool Londonderry, that old fool Taylor, and all the other old fools who made up the old-fashioned, disappearing aristocratic rump of the Tory Party. There were two seats in Durham City. At the last election the Tories and the Liberals had divided the spoils, one seat each. Unless there was to be an upheaval of seismic proportions, it meant that one of the Conservative candidates must lose out — and he was damned well going to make sure that the loser would not be himself.

‘Do we yet know the name of Londonderry’s man?’

‘It is his nephew — a Captain FitzRoy.’

‘His nephew. You surprise me. The name rings a bell, though.’

Sheppard pondered for a moment, then he had it. He crossed to the bookshelf, and took down the
Journal of Researches
by Charles Darwin. That was where he had heard the name before. FitzRoy was the sea-captain who had been privileged to ferry the famous scientist around the world. They’d authored a volume each, or something like that: Darwin’s was a thriller, all about his adventures riding with the gauchos, and crossing the Andes single-handed; the sea-captain had written an interminable tract about the rights of negroes, all about their language and history and other such twaddle. Darwin’s had become a best-seller, and had been reissued without its companion volumes - he checked the frontispiece of his own copy: published by John Murray, third edition - while everyone had ignored the mariner’s dreary nonsense. And now the blighter had the gall to show up here, trying to snatch
his
parliamentary seat, just because he was a square-toed aristocrat with an important uncle. Well! - Sheppard’s shellfish-pink lips clamped tight with determination - he would see about
that
.

 

Three days later he rode into the city, taking the closed carriage, naturally. As the horses’ hoofs thundered assuredly down the rain-slicked cobblestones of Old Elvet, and the mighty silhouettes of castle and cathedral loomed through the blue-grey northern twilight ahead, Sheppard imagined himself a Christian knight, lance in hand, tilting at the fortress of some dark lord. The horses’ momentum took the vehicle at a pace across Elvet Bridge and up the hill opposite; they pierced the dark lord’s outer battlements of drab, slate-roofed houses with consummate ease. A sharp turn into the narrow confines of Saddler Street brought him to the very heart of the enemy’s lair - the Queen’s Head Hotel. As the postboys ran to take the ribands of his steaming chargers, he stepped down from the coach. He watched his boot-leather, soft as butter, settle confidently on the hard wet cobbles.

A sudden gust of cold air took him unawares. It may well have been springtime by the calendar, but there was a raw, sore chill in the air, and he wound his expensive cashmere comforter twice about his neck. That was the trouble with Durham - too deuced cold - but not for long, whatever this Captain FitzRoy had to say about it. He’d gone into FitzRoy’s lineage — a real Park Lane aristocrat by the look of it, all race-balls and regatta gaieties and servants in shoulder knots. He probably passed his time hob-and-nobbing with the great and good. Well, his West End airs would cut no ice up here.
My father may have been a mine-owner, thought Sheppard, but he was a gentleman and he kept his carriage. I won’t give you the pas, Captain Whatever-your-name-is.

‘Walk in, sir, walk in.’

The landlord, recognizing Sheppard for a gentleman, had scurried out to pay his respects, and to steer him away from any of his rowdier customers who might have chosen that moment to stagger out of the taproom. ‘Do ye stop here, sir?’ he enquired solicitously.

‘No I do not,’ replied Sheppard emphatically, annoyed the man had not realized that here was an individual of some stature within the County of Durham. All that would change very soon.

‘We have a very fair room, sir, very fair. The bed’s no’ a large ‘un but it’s an out-and-outer to sleep in, sir, and there’s a warm fire in the grate.’

‘Thank you, but I do not require a room. I am here to visit one of your customers — a Captain FitzRoy.’

‘Ah, the captain, sir, he arrived this afternoon. Follow me, sir, if you please.’

The landlord led the newcomer through the bar, not, as Sheppard expected, to the parlour but to a humble curtained booth in the travellers’ room, containing only a lantern, a clock and the lone figure of FitzRoy, sitting before a supper of kippered salmon and finnan haddock.

‘How do. I am William Sheppard.’

FitzRoy rose to his feet behind the rough little table and extended a hand. ‘I give you good evening. Robert FitzRoy.’

‘I’ll take a chair if you’ll allow me.’

‘Please do. Shall I bespeak some more food?’

‘No . . . thank you. I prefer not to eat ’til ten.’

‘Pray forgive me — I am but three years out of the Service, and still take my meals according to the naval timetable.’

The potboy brought a jug of ale, and trimmed the lamp wick. Sheppard used the flurry of activity to scan his adversary for any physical signs of weakness. He had been expecting easy pickings — a pampered fat boy, no doubt — but the man sitting opposite was quite different from the FitzRoy of his imagination. His fellow candidate was slim, self-confident and well-mannered. There was a sadness about the eyes, which were dark and drawn, a softness to the cheeks, which were beginning to sag with age, and a hushed restraint to the speaking voice, which sat oddly upon a naval officer; but these were details, mere details. Sheppard immediately identified FitzRoy as a worthy opponent, and felt his own self-confidence slip as he did so. Not that he would give the fellow the satisfaction of seeing that. He proceeded with the due pleasantries.