Sleeping Beauty (34 page)

You’ve won.

He said, “I found out when I inspected the books, Phillip.”

“And your journal? How did you know that?”

Ha, the bastard had admitted it, all of it. “I found out on my own.” James knew the heady rush of expanding triumph. “Why, Phillip? What about Willy? Her expenses can’t have been that much.”

Phillip snorted, the bitterness of a man who got no sympathy. “No, but they were eternal.” He closed his eyes, reached both his hands back onto his own shoulders, squeezing, rubbing, while he made a pained face. “And we never really planned for them,” he said. “In fact, outwardly we kept planning for them never to come again. She’d come home, feel better. We’d celebrate, spend more money. But those damn clinic bills and doctor bills and hospitals and the laudanum itself. The expense of it all just kept coming.

“And the house. Do you know what it takes to maintain a three-hundred-fifty-year-old structure halfway decently? And, James”—he glanced up, a brief look of bewildered regret—“I didn’t expect anyone would walk out of that expedition again, not after word came of mass graves and a jungle illness. I didn’t think it would matter.” He went on. “I
had
to, you see.” He lifted his head, looked around at the men, all sitting or standing in the same state: stunned. Then he looked directly at James again. “You know, she went through three different clinics just last year alone, then ended up in the hospital for nine weeks when we thought she would die of pneumonia.

“She was never a huge expense, just a constant one, a slow leak I couldn’t stem, no matter what I did. The total built up. So I found a new kind of income. Then you came back. I thought it still wouldn’t matter. I mean, it was too buried. But Nigel found one of the places I doctored, the stupid Bible Fund—”

“Phillip, the Bible Fund wasn’t even thirty pounds.”

“Exactly. Who would miss twenty-eight quid? Of course, after a while, I’d done it all over the place. Then I thought if I got the gold, I could put it back. I always meant to put it back, James. Willy and I were just a little strapped for the time being. Only I couldn’t seem to get ahead. And then it got so easy…and there were things we wanted, that people of our station had a right to expect, that Willy expected…. And an expedition of a hundred forty-eight men sponsored by three different organizations, well, there were a lot of places to tuck away a lot of money.”

“Phillip, you should have said something. I could have helped. I could have lent you a little.”

“You? Saint James? Ask you to cover for my larceny?” Phillip laughed. “Well, I did ask, in a way, but you wouldn’t, would you?”

He left an ugly silence filled with true enmity, then with a snort asked, “So what did you promise her, James? Not marriage, I hope. Because if you did and you intend to follow through, you should let these gentlemen know. I mean, I think they’d overlook a little discreet adventuring, since we’ve, most all of us, been there. In fact”—he laughed—“a few of us have been
exactly
where you have.” Before James could react, Phillip had looked at the Bishop and said, “What do you think, Nigel? When you were in James’s place—well, Coco’s place, to be technical—did you think she was worth giving up a promising career?” He held his hands out, answering his own question. “Well, of course not. You didn’t do it. Neither did I. But did we miss something, do you think? Has James got a point here?”

The room had grown silent, so silent no one drew breath. A dozen men, all educated, relatively worldly, and every single one, save Phillip, awestruck by the hideousness of crudity so flippant no one could respond.

“Oh, that’s right,” Phillip said. “Mrs. Athers is in the solarium watering her plants. We’ll pretend you don’t know the lovely Mrs. Wild. So what about you, Tuttleworth? You ever know a woman who could make the old poker stiff as fast as Coco?”

Deathly silence.

James was so utterly appalled he couldn’t even be furious with Phillip. The man had apparently decided to go out in a blaze of shame: a keen desire to alienate everyone permanently.

“What about anyone else?” he asked, looking around. If they had all been staring at any man but the Viscount Dunne, Vice-Chancellor, Provost, scholar, good Samaritan, anyone else, anyone but the man they had all known and respected for decades, he would have been knocked down, had a roomful of men on top of him, James first. “Who else here has shagged Coco?” he asked. “What do you think? How good is she?”

Tuttleworth came forward. “Phillip”—he cleared his throat—“that is, Lord Dunne, I am relieving you of the duties and office of the Vice-Chancellory.” To James, he said, “Dr. Stoker, as Deputy Vice-Chancellor you become here and now the acting administrative head of the university. You become also the acting Provost of All Souls and the ex officio chairman of the Council of the Senate and the General Board. Lord Dunne, should you prove
innocent of the charges against you, your positions will be reinstated.”

The constable took Phillip’s arm. “I’m afraid I have to take him.”

Tuttleworth interceded. “No. The Chancellor can’t try him as he once could, but we can hold him till his arraignment. You draw up the warrant, but he is a gentleman and a scholar, sir, and was the head of our institution. We will be responsible for him.” Tuttleworth was sacrificing the necessary ground, then closing ranks. To Phillip, “Sorry, Phillip, but you must confine yourself to your home until further notice. Ted will take you, then stay with you.”

Teddy acknowledged with a nod, and at last they all in unison moved, a general dispersion that followed Ted and Phillip toward the door.

James rubbed the back of his head. It was over. He closed his eyes. And all in all, it had gone much easier, quicker, and cleaner than he’d had any right to expect.

Someone on his way out of the room patted him on the back once, a bit of man-to-man reassurance, while James stood there. He realized he was shaking and tried to control it.

He followed at the rear as they all escorted Teddy, Phillip, and Tuttleworth out. Like everyone, apparently, he felt the need of movement and fresh air. The rest of them would go back in. There was much to discuss. How best to handle the scandal that was sure to become public. How to manage the smoothest possible transition as power shifted. How to keep the university on an even keel while one of
its highest members sank to the bottom like a stone. Fresh air, yes, James thought.

Nigel held his front door open while men filed through. It was twilight. Tuttleworth’s carriage was pulling up in front of the portico. James was just about to step outside, when Nigel stopped him by simply saying his name in a lowered tone.

“James.” He spoke nothing further for a moment, folding his hands over the bottom of his waistcoat, steepling his index fingers. Then he asked, “How deeply involved
are
you with Mrs. Wild?”

The others, already on the front stoop, turned with interest.

James had to push down a nasty tantrum, a spate of resentment into which he could have lost everything he had gained. After all, Nigel only asked for the same damn lie he’d already spoken to Phillip. Only now he had to tell it to the Bishop. With witnesses. He was supposed to say, We aren’t involved at all. That was what he and Coco had agreed he’d say. They would live the truth—in a secret house where no one would know—but speak this lie to the world. She expected it. They had both expected it.

Yet it wouldn’t come out.

“You’re not involved, are you?” Nigel asked.

James tried to answer, but still no words. They’d agreed, he kept telling himself. Just say it. He was going to.

Perhaps the bewilderment on his face made Nigel compassionate. He patted James’s back and said, “No, you aren’t involved at all. Of course not. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Whatever reprieve James might have felt was lost when Teddy, a few steps ahead of them, chimed in cheerfully with, “Really?” He looked from James to Nigel and back to James again, searching the silence for what shift was afoot. Then he lowered his voice to a quasi-confidential tone and asked, “So the path is clear to her, then?” He awaited James’s answer, his face, bright, intent.

Dear God. The shaking inside James increased. His mouth was dry. His tongue felt fat, sluggish with all it wouldn’t speak.

Teddy’s eagerness faltered for a moment. “I mean, James,” he murmured, “if I thought for a minute she meant something to you, well—”

Damn him. Teddy wasn’t playing. Unlike Phillip, he wasn’t manipulating. Unlike Nigel, he wasn’t asking for hypocrisy. He was genuinely asking if Coco meant something to James; he would stay away, if she did.

Teddy said, “You see, I’d like to send her, oh, just some flowers, you know? God, I think she’s gorgeous. And regal, the way she carries herself—”

James got out, “She’s too old for you, Ted.” Never mind that Teddy was a year older than James himself.

Teddy laughed—James’s expression couldn’t have been too cordial. “Heh, heh, heh,” he said uncomfortably. “Just interested. I’ve always been interested in her. You know that; who isn’t? Don’t get cross—”

James took a step toward him.

But another voice stopped him. “Let me help you out here, James, since you seem to be confused.”

James turned to face Phillip, and something in the man’s expression made James’s head grow light. His vision blurred.

Phillip stood before the open door of Tuttleworth’s carriage. Smiling, he said to Teddy, “What the new Vice-Chancellor here means to say is that the good Mrs. Wild means nothing to him. She can’t. Circumstances don’t allow it.” He laughed. “Have at it—”

James saw white. It was as if electricity snapped along his muscles, innervating his limbs in a way that shocked him as much as anyone else.

His strength amazed him. He ascended into the air in a leap to fall on Phillip, who collided back against the carriage, half into it, taken completely by surprise. Rage roiled so hard through James’s veins, he couldn’t see. He was barely aware he was striking Phillip but for the impact of his fists against against bone and flesh, the jar up his arms, in his elbows, at his shoulders. They slid somehow to the flagstones. He had Phillip by the shirtfront, shaking him. “You rotten, sodding son of a—”

“James!” “Stop!” Voices called. Arms, hands tried to grip and pull James off the man beneath him. He’d straddled Phillip, who held his forearms over his face and bellowed like an animal, caterwauling. James was loathe to give up the satisfaction of breaking flesh and bone, of blood. He wanted more.

He was dimly aware of being lifted forcefully off Phillip, of the others helping Dunne to his feet. His mouth bled. His nose was broken.

Good. James sat huddled on the doorstep, his arms wrapped around his chest, breathing like a bel
lows, trying to catch his breath, his sanity.

Nigel clapped the carriage door shut. “Get him out of here,” he said, then turned to James. “Are you all right?” he asked.

James nodded, staring at the flagstones. He wasn’t of course. He wasn’t all right at all. He was ashamed, outraged, stunned by his own behavior—and frightened. He was so scared somewhere and to such a degree, he couldn’t even make sense of it.

Then Nigel drew a crystal clear picture of the worst that could possibly have come to be.

The Bishop of Swansbridge, of all people, sat down beside James there on the front doorstep. They sat shoulder to shoulder. Nigel murmured, “I know what you’re going through.” He paused, then said, “And I am so, so sorry.” He left a space of silence before he told James gently, oh, so gently. “But you know Phillip is right. You can’t go to her. We need you, James.”

James bowed his head over his crossed arms, clutching himself across his chest, rubbing his own arms.

Nigel continued in a reasonable voice, the tone of a man of the cloth consoling the bereaved. “There is going to be a horrible mess over what Phillip has done, and we must count on you to pull us through it. Don’t abdicate. We need your sterling reputation—your sterling character, for that matter. We need a leader. An unsullied one behind whom we can all rally. You can’t afford to be smeared or even put in a shady light, not while you are taking us through what is going to be a very bad time. James—” He paused, waiting until James had
raised his eyes and looked at him. “You can’t go to her. You can’t afford her anymore.”

Coco waited, but James did not arrive that night as he had said. She wandered the house of strangers. Her house. But it wasn’t. It was the house of a family, of an affluent English couple who entertained and had friends and children and responsibilities to the community.

She liked it. She touched the loom of the lady of the house, a big wood frame on which were interwoven the beginning warp and woof of what might have become an amateurish tapestry—the woman was a weaver. It amused Coco when she found, beside a basket of carding equipment, a small spinning wheel. She rummaged through a writing desk, where she found paper and made a few sketches of the thing.

A spinning wheel was a piece of folk craft now, archaic since the advent of spinning mules and jennies, new machines that made yarns a hundred times stronger and faster. Nonetheless, archaic or not, Coco was superstitiously careful not to touch the spindle. Ha, ha, ha, she thought. Wouldn’t James laugh?

The spindle didn’t look sharp or dangerous. It was blunt, dumb wood. She couldn’t imagine how it could prick a person’s finger.

When James still hadn’t come or sent word by midnight, Coco fell asleep with her drawings in her lap. Drawings not just of the wheel, but of the fragile-looking writing desk with its neat cubbies filled with vellum envelopes, announcement cards, rose-scented papers, drawings she had made for no
other particular reason than the desk struck her as pretty.

When the estate agent arrived the next day with all the rental papers, she delayed him. Her “husband” had been called away on business. Then she asked him for a ride back into Cambridge. She left a note on the house’s door.

Gone back to Cambridge, my sweet. I’ll be at the boardinghouse. Hope you’re all right. Come to me soon
.