The Devil's Company (21 page)

My aunt, who sat on the bed holding his hand, nodded. “He has come,” she said, in her heavily accented English.

She said no more, so I knew there was nothing more to say. Perhaps he despaired for my uncle; perhaps he did not know. When she showed no optimism for recovery, I could only presume there was none.

I came to the bed and sat upon the other side. “How fare you, sir?”

My uncle attempted a weak smile. “I do not do well,” he said. A rattling sound emerged from his chest, and his voice was heavy and labored. “However, I have walked this path before and, though dark and circuitous, I have ever found my way back.”

I looked to my aunt, who offered me a half nod, as if to say that he had suffered these attacks previously, but perhaps not so bad as this.

“I am full of remorse that this has happened,” I said, keeping my words vague. I hardly knew if he was aware of the outrage that transpired below.

“As to that,” my uncle managed, “it is of no moment. Minor setbacks. Soon all will be well once more.”

“I know it will,” I told my uncle.

I looked to the door and saw Mr. Franco hovering, as though he had something of urgency to discuss. I excused myself and stepped outside.

“The men are done,” he told me. “They’ve taken several pieces, but I fear that is the least of it. If word spreads, the creditors will show no mercy. Your uncle, sir, will lose his house. He will be forced to sell his importing concern, and in its current diminished state, he must sell it very cheap indeed.”

I felt my face grow hot. “Damn them.”

“I am certain you do what you can,” he said. “Your uncle and aunt know it too.”

“I am meant to attend this cursed dinner tonight, but how can I go with my uncle so unwell?”

“If you must go, then you must,” Franco said. “With whom do you dine?”

“Ellershaw and some other men of the Company. I hardly know any more than that. I must send a note excusing myself. Cobb cannot expect me to be his plaything while my uncle lies so gravely ill.”

“Do not excuse yourself,” Franco said. “If by attending this dinner you bring yourself any closer to your goal, I am certain your uncle would far prefer you do that than spend the evening looking sad by his side. No, you must find the strength to attend to your duties. Your aunt and I will make certain your uncle has all he needs.”

“What did his physician say?”

“Only that he may recover, as he has in the past, or he may decline. This attack, he fears, may be worse than what we have seen before, but he cannot say what that means.”

We whispered together for a few more minutes, while I attempted to inform him of some of what had transpired in recent days at Craven House. I kept the discussion brief, in part because I wanted to return to my uncle, but also because I had not entirely recovered from the revelation that my most private conversations appeared to be available to Cobb. I only said that I had, at Cobb’s request, become employed by the East India Company, where I looked into any of a variety of internal turmoils. But, I said, as Mr. Cobb’s agenda remained opaque, I could hardly say if I grew closer to my end or not.

During this conversation, my aunt emerged from the bedroom with a look of some relief upon her face. “He is better,” she told me.

I entered and saw that, in the space of half an hour, he did appear remarkably changed. Though he still breathed with some difficulty, his face now had more color. He sat up, and his countenance was one of a normal man, not one about to leave this mortal realm.

“I am gladdened to see you so much improved,” I told him.

“As am I to be so,” he answered. “I am told you witnessed the unpleasantness below.”

“Yes,” I said. “Uncle, I cannot endure that this continues, yet I hardly know how to offer you relief other than by giving my full efforts to Cobb.”

“You must for all the world make him believe you do, but you must never cease looking for advantage.”

“I fear what happened today is but the beginning,” I said. “Can we afford to play games with this man?”

“Can we afford to let him turn you into his puppet?” he asked.

“Both of us,” my aunt said. “Both of us want you to fight him.”

“But so that he suspects nothing,” my uncle added.

I nodded. Heartened by his spirit, I told him I would do no less, and so I was determined, but I could not help but wonder how we would feel when my uncle was turned to a destitute man, homeless, broken, and without health. He was no fool and knew what bargain he made. I, however, was not certain I could endure it.

I SPENT WHAT TIME I could with my family, but at last I made to excuse myself, to return to my rooms, and change for the evening. Once I looked presentable, I hired a chair to take me across town and arrived with a satisfying promptness.

I could pretend to no surprise that Mr. Ellershaw’s house on New North Street, not far from the Conduit Fields, was a fine one—a director of the East India Company ought to have a fine house, after all—but I could not recall that I had ever been invited in the capacity of a guest to a finer, and I admit I felt an unexpected apprehension. I had no Indian calicoes to wear, so I put on my finest suit of black and gold silk, woven, I could not but reflect, in the cramped garrets of Spitalfields or the dark hall of a workhouse. And though I knew I wore upon my back the labor of the cheated and the oppressed, I could not but reflect that I cut a fine figure in these fine clothes. We are all of us Adam’s children, the saying goes, but silk makes the difference.

A polite if somewhat grave servant met me at the door and guided me inside and to a receiving room, where I was met shortly by Mr. Ellershaw, resplendent in his full-bottom wig and dressed in the height of imported finery. His waistcoat had quite obviously, even to my ignorant eyes, been woven in India, and was magnificent in its red and blue and black floral designs of indescribable intricacy.

“Ah, this is a very important evening, Mr. Weaver. Of the utmost importance, you know. Mr. Samuel Thurmond is here tonight, a Member of Parliament for Cotswold. He has been one of the great champions of the wool interest, and it is our role to convince him to back our proposal in the House.”

“The repealing of the 1721 legislation?” I asked.

“Exactly.”

“And how shall we do that?”

“You need not worry on that score for the moment. You need only follow my lead, and all shall be well. Now, as you are the last guest to arrive, you must follow me to the sitting room. I trust you will do nothing to embarrass me before my guests?”

“I will attempt to acquit myself to your liking,” I assured him.

“Ah, good. Good.”

Mr. Ellershaw led me through a maze of closely wrought corridors and into an expansive parlor where a number of guests were sitting upon sofas and chairs, sipping at glasses of wine. The only person in the room I knew was Mr. Forester, who did remarkably well at paying me no mind.

I was quickly introduced to Mrs. Ellershaw, a beautiful woman at least twenty years younger than her husband, though no doubt at least in her middle thirties. “This is my new man, Weaver,” Ellershaw said. “He’s a Hebrew, you know.”

Mrs. Ellershaw had hair so pale it was nearly white, her skin was the color of porcelain, and her pale gray eyes were remarkably bright and lively. She took my hand and curtsied and told me she was delighted to meet me, but I could see that she was not. It took no great interpretive skills to see she was displeased by my presence.

Ellershaw appeared to have no recollection of having introduced me to Forester, and Forester showed no sign that he had previously met me. He too introduced his wife, but if Mr. Ellershaw held a winning ticket in the matrimonial lottery, Mr. Forester had drawn a blank. Though he was still a young man, and of a fine and manly appearance too, his wife was a great deal older than he was. Indeed, to call her elderly would not exaggerate matters. Her skin was leathery and hard, her muddy brown eyes sunken, her teeth yellowed and broken. And yet, unlike Mrs. Ellershaw, Mrs. Forester was of a jolly disposition. She told me she was glad to meet me and appeared to mean it.

I was then introduced to Mr. Thurmond and his good lady. The Member of Parliament himself was far older than Ellershaw, perhaps even a septuagenarian, and his movements were frail and uneasy. He walked heavily on his cane and shook slightly when he took my hand, but he appeared in no way lacking in his capacities. He made easy and intelligent conversation, and of all the men in the room it was he to whom I took the greatest liking. His wife, a handsome older woman dressed entirely in woolens, smiled kindly but said little.

Because the British dinner party cannot function without equity of the sexes, a fourth woman had to be presented to balance out my presence. To this end, Mr. Ellershaw had invited his sister, another older woman, who made it clear that she had been forced to abandon tickets to the opera in order to dine with us and was not at all happy about it.

I shan’t bombard my reader with the tedium of the dinner itself. It was hard enough for me to endure, and I therefore have no desire either to relive the event or force my reader into a sympathetic misery. Much of the talk, as is the usual for talk at these sorts of events, revolved around the theater or the popular amusements about town. I thought to participate in these exchanges, but I observed that every time I opened my mouth, Mrs. Ellershaw eyed me with such evident disgust that I found it more agreeable to remain mute.

“You may eat freely,” Ellershaw told me loudly, after he had helped himself to innumerable glasses of wine. “I have asked Cook not to present any pork. Weaver’s a Jew, you know,” he told the rest of the group.

“I daresay we do know,” answered Mr. Thurmond of the wool interest, “as you have noted that point several times. And while our Hebrew friends are certainly in the minority on this island, I hardly think them so rare that they must be remarked on in such a way.”

“Oh, but it is a remarkable thing for us. My wife does not think it proper to have Jews at the dinner table. Is that not right, my dear?”

I attempted to say something distracting, something that would change the subject away from this awkward business. Mr. Thurmond, however, decided that it was he who would rescue me. “Tell me,” he said, too loudly, so that his voice would crush the discomfort of Ellershaw’s comments, “Where is that charming daughter of yours, Mr. Ellershaw?”

Mrs. Ellershaw took on a high color, and Mr. Ellershaw coughed awkwardly into his fist. “Well, yes. As for that, she isn’t my daughter. Bridget came with my marriage to Mrs. Ellershaw. A rather fair bargain, I think. But the girl’s not about these days.”

There was clearly more information regarding the daughter, and none was forthcoming. Thurmond could not have appeared more mortified to have stumbled upon so delicate a topic. He had attempted to distract from an awkward moment but had only succeeded in making the moment worse. His wife, fortunately, launched into an encomium of the pheasant on our plates, and in the end that did the business well enough.

After the meal had been completed and the ladies retired to the next room, the true business of the evening was at hand. Now that we were men only, the conversation turned at once to the East India trade and the legislation against it.

“I must ask of you, Mr. Thurmond,” Ellershaw began, “that when Mr. Summers, a true patriot, introduces an act to repeal the 1721 legislation, as I believe he will do in the near future, you might consider lending your support to the effort.”

Thurmond let out a laugh. His old eyes sparkled. “Why, that piece of legislation was an enormous victory. Why should I ever countenance its repeal?”

“Because it is the right thing to do, sir.”

“Freedom of trade,” chimed in Mr. Forester.

“That’s just it,” Ellershaw said. “Freedom of trade is the thing. Perhaps you have read the numerous works penned by Mr. Davenant and Mr. Child on the theory of free trade and how it benefits all nations.”

“Both Davenant and Child were directly interested in the East India trade,” Thurmond pointed out, “and can hardly be considered impartial advocates.”

“Oh, come. Let’s not be petty. You shall see for yourself if this wretched legislation is allowed to stand. The trade in calicoes here may cost some small number their employment, but its absence will diminish the available livelihoods as well. I believe that the East India trade offers far more opportunity than it takes away. What of the dyers and patternmakers and tailors who will be out of work?”

“That is not the case, sir. These people will earn their living through dyeing and making patterns for and constructing suits made of silks and cottons and the like.”

“It is hardly the same thing,” Ellershaw said. “There can never be the same enthusiasm for those clothes. It is not necessity that drives the market, sir, but fashion. It has ever been our way at the Company to introduce new fashions every season. We bring in new patterns or cuts or colors, and we put them upon the backs of the fashionable, and we watch while the rest of the nation lines up to get the newest thing. Our stock, not the desire of the people, must drive commerce.”

“I assure you, fashions can and do exist in materials other than imported Indian textiles,” Thurmond said, with great satisfaction, “and I believe the very notion of fashion will survive your ability to manipulate it. Allow me to show you something I brought along, suspecting as I did that the conversation might take such a turn as this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a square of cloth about a foot in diameter. It was of a bluish base with yellow and red floral patterns upon it—remarkably handsome.

Forester took it from the old gentleman and looked it over, holding it in his hand. “An Indian calico. What of it?”

“It is no such thing!” Ellershaw barked. He snatched it out of Forester’s hands and held it for less than two seconds before his face twisted into a grimace. “Ha, you clever dog! Indian calico, you say, Mr. Forester? This is spun of American cotton, I’ll wager, by the coarseness of it, and printed here in London. I know every Indian print there ever was, and this is a London pattern if I’ve ever seen one. Mr. Forester is new to the India trade, for only an innocent could make such a silly mistake. Indian calico, indeed! What is your point, sir?” He returned the fabric to Thurmond.