Point of Honour (31 page)

Mr. Hawley did not look up when he spoke. “I beg you will pardon me. This requires the utmost concentration, and I cannot stop what I do. Miranda says you had some business with me. Is there any hope you come from the Society?”

“The Royal Society? No, sir, I am afraid not.” She tried to remember if Banks had been mentioned in the letter she held.

“Don’t like to be uncivil, but why are you here, then?” Hawley looked down his nose at the flower under his brush, dabbed again, then groped in his pocket for something. “I am not much in the habit of entertaining young ladies.” He held his paintbrush high, as one might a dueling pistol, rose to his feet, and retrieved a pile of muslin bags from a gardening table near the kitchen door.

Miss Tolerance decided to be direct. “I am in need to determine how a piece of correspondence mentioning your name could have found its way into a fan belonging to a friend of mine.”

“Into a
fan?
What do you mean,
into
a fan?”

Miss Tolerance explained the circumstances under which the letter had been discovered. Dr. Hawley spared his visitor a glance of incredulity before he knelt and tied a bag around a flower.

“What is the sense in that?” he asked.

“I was hoping you might tell me, sir,”

The man appeared to think for a moment. “You’ll forgive me, miss. I’ve heard more than my fill of nonsense about letters these days—idiots don’t seem to understand that science cannot flourish without free exchange between—Is that the letter?”

Miss Tolerance had taken from her reticule the translation Mr. Deale had made in Oxford.

“It is a copy made in English. The letter was written in Italian, sir.”

“Was it writ to Ippolito, Miracoli, or DiPassi?”

Miss Tolerance unfolded the letter. “The salutation is to a friar—”

“Ah, Ippolito. Very sound fellow, Linnaean taxonomist. May I see?” Hawley dusted off his paintbrush on the hem of his apron, where it left a pale residue, and held out his hand for the paper. Miss Tolerance handed it to him.

He scanned it through, nodding and several times making little noises of agreement or dismay, or comments to himself. “Hah! Hah! Of course the flower’s color is useful datum! Patience indeed! Hmm. Hah! Question Miracoli? Soundest notion in the—Hmm. Well, yes, of course. Ah.”

Miss Tolerance watched this performance with interest. Whatever information Dr. Hawley had, he would plainly have to address the contents of the letter before she could get anything more useful from him.

“But this is
old,”
he said at last. “This must have been writ nearly a year ago? We’ve determined so much since then! Do you know plants, miss? No, no, of course not. Young women only know posies from their suitors, eh? But you must let me show you—” He jabbed the letter back at her absently, stepped over the twine barrier to her side. The sun was hot above them, but the air was fresh and blessedly free of the scent of mutton. Miss Tolerance’s headache had lessened. She was prepared to listen while Dr. Hawley explained his work to her.

He was breeding peas. As he took her from bed to bed, he explained the characteristics for which he was breeding. “A pattern emerges, you see? A pattern emerges from which we may predict results, predict which trait will trump another. Tall trumps short, you see? Yellow seed trumps green. Mate a yellow seed with a yellow and what do you get?” He turned to peer at her as if she were his student.

“Ah, yellow?” Miss Tolerance hazarded.

“Precisely! Mate a yellow with a green?”

“Pale green?”

Hawley shook his head emphatically. The fringe of hair over his collar fluttered behind him. “This isn’t a watercolor lesson! We seek rules here, scientific constants! The answer in both cases is yellow, do you see? Now mate that plant with a fellow of its generation!” he urged eagerly. “What do you get?”

“Yellow?” Miss Tolerance’s headache was beginning to return again.

“Yes and no. A certain number will be yellow, a certain number green. But the point is that you can predict a ratio, and I swear to you, that ratio will be constant! You can predict!
Consider the applications!
Davenant still dismisses Miracoli, but
consider the applications!”
Hawley’s pleasant red face grew redder still, and he was nearly shouting. “For plants, for cattle and all manner of animal breeding. Why, were we able to breed men the way we do peas, we might establish with accuracy which human traits trump which: brown hair over blond, tall over short, or—what color eyes did your parents have?”

Miss Tolerance blinked. It had been years since she had considered the matter. “My father’s were blue, my mother’s were brown.”

Hawley nodded enthusiastically. “And your eyes are blue. Have you brothers? Sisters? What of them?”

“I have a brother. His eyes are …“She strove to recall.”Brown. His eyes are brown.”

“So you see!” Hawley beamed.

Miss Tolerance sighed. “No, sir, I do not.”

Hawley shook his head. “No more does Davenant, I fear. But he is a scientist and should know better.” He shook his head. “But have you never wondered if it might be possible to determine such things?”

Miss Tolerance frowned. “I regret that I’ve never given the matter any thought.”

“Of course you haven’t. We may posit, we may have anecdotes which support Miracoli’s contentions, but until we can control breeding under scientific conditions, ensure that no possibility of pollution exists, we may not draw reliable conclusions upon the subject of human traits … .”

As the enormity of what Hawley was suggesting occurred to her, Miss Tolerance was hard put to keep her composure. She imagined rows of beds partitioned by twine, containing blue-and brown-eyed human subjects paired snugly in muslin bags, preparing to breed true. It put anything in her aunt’s profession to shame.

Some sound must have escaped from her, for Hawley’s expression changed.

“This must sound very foolish to you, my dear. But to those of us who have been discussing the matter for so many years—and you see that peas are so easily controlled. Not at all like cattle—”

“Or ladies and gentlemen,” Miss Tolerance agreed. The comment missed its mark.

“Interest in science has fallen off sadly in this country. The King was intrigued by our scientific husbandry, but Her Majesty does not understand, and all her interest has been for the King’s sake. But when this theory is proved, it will mean fellowship in the Royal Society at last, and …” He paused thoughtfully. “And this was not what you came here to learn, was it?”

“I’m afraid not.” Miss Tolerance smiled; it was not difficult to be affected by Dr. Hawley’s ardor. “Although you do reassure me that the letter is what it seems on its face, and not some code or cipher—″

“Of course not. We have no time for schoolboy games.”

“Just so. But if you cannot tell me how the letter came to be hidden in my friend’s fan, can you tell me anything else about it? When it was written, perhaps, or by whom?”

Hawley appeared to give the matter some thought. “By the comments, I’d have to say it was written no more than two years ago, and no less than a year. As to the author …″ For the first time, Dr. Hawley appeared cautious.”I don’t know who sent you.″

“The fan’s owner did, sir. I am not hunting out treason, if that’s what worries you. Was it Mr. Davenant—”

“How do you know that name?” Hawley barked.

“You used it yourself not five minutes ago, discussing the letter.”

Hawley put his hand to his head. “My tongue runs away with me. Miranda says I must control my enthusiasm. I have no desire to call down upon my colleagues the unpleasant scrutiny to which I have been subjected.”

Miss Tolerance assured him that she had no desire to create trouble for Davenant or any other of Hawley’s botanical colleagues, but Dr. Hawley would not give her Davenant’s full name or direction.

“Can you tell me how these letters were sent abroad?” she asked.

“We each found our own way. I sent mine to a colleague in Austria, who smuggled them from there. It’s still legal to send letters,” he added irritably.

“I believe it is the nature of the letters that has drawn attention,” Miss Tolerance observed. “Letters to papist clerics in Bonaparte’s countries—about peas! Perhaps the government may be forgiven for wondering whether they are quite what they seem.”

Hawley glared at her. “What else could they be? I am as patriotic as any man living, miss, but the squabbles of nations cannot be permitted to interfere with the progress of science!”

“Oh, yes, quite so,” Miss Tolerance murmured. Sensing that she had extracted as much useful information from this source as she was likely to get, she thanked Dr. Hawley for his assistance and left him bent once more over a vine, paintbrush in hand. She made her way back from the garden through the house and met Miss Hawley hovering in the hallway.

“Was my brother helpful?” she asked.

Miss Tolerance had already drawn a banknote from her reticule. She pressed it, folded, into the other woman’s hand, made her farewell, and had left the house before the amount of the note could be determined and exclaimed over. Miss Tolerance fervently hoped that Miss Hawley would invest the money in poultry and beef and toss out the dismal mutton that scented the house.

Out on the street again, Miss Tolerance was immediately aware that something was wrong. She was on the verge of putting it down to headache, and perhaps too early rising from her sickbed, but something at the end of the street-the movement of a man vanishing into the mews—caught her eye and persuaded her that something truly was amiss. She walked to the corner, considering. She wore a gown, Norwich shawl, and walking boots—hardly the costume for active movement-and her sword and pistols were at home. She would have to improvise.

At the end of the street she turned onto Penfold Street and walked slowly along as if enjoying the air. There were a few more pedestrians on Penfold Street, which was not an important enough thoroughfare to teem with pickpockets and crossing-sweeps, but was not so inconsiderable as to be entirely devoid of tradesmen or casual traffic. Still, by the prickling between her shoulder blades and the less ambiguous evidence of a small mirror she had withdrawn from her reticule and used to survey the street behind her, she knew that the shadowed man had indeed followed her out of Luton Street.

This neighborhood, not far distant from her own, was not well known to Miss Tolerance. She kept watch for a mews or courtyard into which she could vanish, but it took several minutes’ walking before she spied one suited to her purpose, and in the meantime, she had to keep checking the position of her undesired escort. When she found an arched gate which gave onto a small courtyard, she availed herself of the chance to enter it. She took a position tucked behind the stonework to the left of the gate, and waited.

Her follower arrived a minute later, paused under the arch as if to ascertain that the courtyard was empty, then stepped through. Miss Tolerance immediately stepped behind him and drew the edge of her mirror against his throat as if it were a dagger. She knew the man: he was one of the fellows who had chased her and Versellion from the inn only a week before. She had left him tied and gagged in the stable.

“I should think you would know by now how very little I care to be followed,” Miss Tolerance noted coolly.

The man said nothing. He rolled his eyes until the whites showed, trying to see what weapon she held at his throat.

“I did not have the opportunity, last time we met, to ask you why you were taking such an interest in me. But now—I really think I must inquire for whom you are working.”

The man spat out a profane litany which included a considerable commentary upon Miss Tolerance’s antecedents. She pulled the mirror’s edge rather tighter to his throat.

“I may be all that you say, sir, but you will pardon me if I point out that this is hardly the politic moment to mention it. What is your name and the name of your employer?”

“Go to hell.”

“Your name.”
Miss Tolerance tightened the mirror’s edge against his throat. He choked and relented.

“Hart,” he growled.

“I presume
you
are Hart? Your employer’s name?” The man writhed, trying to shake her loose. He was short and stocky, and from the way he moved, she deduced that he was the sort who relied upon brute power rather than any skill at fighting. So long as he believed she had a dagger to his throat—as she had had, the last time they met—she could keep him subdued.

“I ask again, sir. Who has set you on to me?” She pulled the mirror’s edge very tight against his windpipe.

“Folle!” The man choked and gasped.

“Sir Henry Folle? And in the country, when I had the pleasure of leaving you in the stable?”

Hart flinched at the reminder, but nodded. Miss Tolerance lessened the pressure of the mirror against his throat a trifle.

“And did Folle give you any instructions today? Was I to be killed, or merely followed?”

“Followed. Though I’d kill you myself, and welcome,” he muttered.

Miss Tolerance pulled the mirror up tightly again. “You persist in mistaking your situation,” she said mildly. “If no one has ever advised you that it’s very bad policy to antagonize someone who is in a position to cut your throat, please allow me to do so. Now: Folle merely wishes to know where I go? Well, you may tell him, if you wish. But please remember that if anything happens to any of the persons I speak to, in Luton Street or elsewhere, today or next week or next year, I shall lay information with Bow Street against you, and Sir Henry Folle, and as many of your confederates as I can. I hope that is clear to you.″

The man grimaced, nodded.

Miss Tolerance, having taken the tiger by his tail, considered the best way to rid herself of the beast and go about her business. “Good afternoon, then,” she murmured, and gave him a tremendous shove between the shoulder blades which sent him staggering farther into the courtyard. She turned and ran into the street, screaming for help. In the few seconds it took for Hart to turn and pursue her, half a dozen people had clustered around Miss Tolerance, who cast herself upon the bosom of a fat, elderly gentleman and wept, in a very good imitation of her old governess. Several men in the crowd started after her presumptive attacker, but Miss Tolerance called them back, moaning that if only someone would find her a hackney and ensure that that monster did not assail her again, she would be all right. In a moment or so, the hackney had been procured and the fat gentleman was handing her into it, while another man inquired again whether the lady didn’t want him to blacken her attacker’s eye for him. Miss Tolerance shook her head, thanked her rescuers, and implored that there would be no further violence. She then sat back and directed the driver to take her to Manchester Square. The mirror she returned to her reticule; she was interested to note that her hand was trembling, and decided that she had had all the exercise she required for one day.