The River of No Return (32 page)

Julia took her friend’s hand and swung it between their chairs. “You should be glad I can’t participate,” she said. “I was raised by wolves. Or rather, by a wolf. I don’t know how to dance, or play the harp, or anything.”

“All you have to do is learn how to simper. A good simper disguises all blemishes.”

Julia snorted. “You wouldn’t know how to simper if your life depended upon it.”

“That is why all the other girls go flying off the shelf and I am left behind, gathering dust in the shop window.”

“You just said you were a valuable commodity.”

“Ah. Do I contradict myself?” Bella wiggled her toes and squeezed Julia’s fingers. But her expression was thoughtful. “I wonder if Count Lebedev knows this Altukhov?”

“Ask him during dinner.”

Bella flopped her feet apart and then together. “Wouldn’t it be thrilling if the count were involved in some infant-smuggling scheme, and we were the ones to expose it to the eyes of the world? But we cannot ask him. He is gone.”

“What?” Julia sat up straight in her chair, pulling her hand from her friend’s.

“Yes. The footman said so. I told him to alert the count about the maniac, in case he did know anything about an Altukhov who might be hiding a baby. But Lebedev is gone. And not just for the day. He loaded up the second-best coach and drove off this morning, early.” She put the back of her hand over her brow. “‘Of joys departed, not to return, how painful the remembrance!’”

“Oh, Bella, be serious! Where is he gone? Is he ever coming back?”

“How should I know?”

Julia had to will herself to remain in her seat and not climb the walls. Devon. That was the answer. Julia knew it. Lebedev was gone to Devon to investigate Eamon. To find out if he was Ofan. When he got there it would take the Russian five seconds to realize that Eamon was a buffoon, with no more power over time than a broken pocket watch. And when the count knew that, he would start wondering: Who else had been at Castle Dar that day?

Bella was eyeing her with some trepidation. “Are you well, Julia? I know you are chafing after all this isolation, but please don’t start talking about lepers.”

Julia forced herself to smile. “I’m fine.” She placed her shoulders back against the chair in a semblance of relaxation and turned a rigid smile on her friend. “Tell me more about Greenwich. With whom did you dance?”

Bella shook her head. “You can’t fool me, Julia. It is high time that you kicked over your traces and I’m the one to help you.”

“Oh, no!” Julia curled her feet up under her and held on to her chair’s arms with both her hands. “You are far too corky, Arabella Falcott, and I won’t be led astray by you.”

“But, my dear,” Bella said, with real concern in her hazel eyes. “You would do the same for me, were I in your shoes. And take it from me: You are curling up at the edges.”

A
t eight thirty the following morning, Nick set out for Soho Square without a pang of guilt, although he had just sold his mother a bag of moonshine about how he was going again to the House of Lords. He was sorry to lie to her, but she had cornered him in the breakfast room and ranted about some gentleman who had the misfortune to look strangely at her upon her return from Greenwich. She had even set the coachman on the poor man.

Alva had told him to find her in Soho Square—no address, no description of the house. He supposed he would just turn up and wait. Kicking his heels in the square seemed as reasonable a way as any other to escape one’s whinging mother on the one hand, and the House of Lords on the other.

He had survived yesterday’s ignominious ceremony by remembering Julia crammed into a chair with him, sending paper airplanes into the fire. He was able to keep a private smile on his face all through the parading and hat doffing and bobbing up and down. The smile slipped when he had to get down on his knees to present his Writ of Summons to the Lord High Chancellor, but he had soldiered on, reading the oath of allegiance and signing the test rolls. Finally he was conducted by Black Rod to his seat among the other marquesses. They had welcomed him with a collective “woof,” much like the simultaneous sneezing of a row of bulldogs.

He had been allowed out of his ceremonial robes after that, but the day was just beginning.

The corn bill would clearly pass; nearly everyone was in support. And yet it was as if they knew that history would prove them wrong. Each peer wanted to go on record explaining himself, and for each the explanation was nearly identical: I must keep hold of my wealth, yes—but in addition and more important, England must remain the same. The future threatens. The past is safe.

It had all sounded uncannily familiar.

Kirklaw, sitting with the other dukes, kept staring at him, willing him to get up and make his speech. Nick turned in his seat so that he couldn’t see him. But there was Delbun with the earls, and Blessing with the barons. Nick stopped looking at faces and began counting types of knots in neck cloths.

Just when he had thought he would slide from his seat and expire from boredom, Baronet Burdett had presented the House with forty thousand and more signatures from Westminster in opposition to the bill. England, Burdett had argued, must meet the future by making everyone free and equal, without restriction. His speech was met with jeers, and really, Nick thought with sympathy for the poor, kindly-looking man, it was like asking a pack of hyenas to voluntarily knock out their own teeth. Burdett’s speech so enraged one viscount that he had leapt to his feet, declaring that he wanted to strangle the baron right there in front of everyone. The viscount said they might as well roll England up like a scroll, and go home and wait for the mob to level the city. This was good stuff, and Nick leaned forward, hoping that something energizing might happen now, but it all simmered down again and an old earl got up and began to speak in a particularly soporific drone about how the poor like to be hungry.

He had looked away, and then he felt the river rushing all around him, all around them all—rushing at full flood. And he the only living man, afloat on a broken spar, among the drowned.

Nick stood up at the next opportunity, bowed to the men seated near him, and then he left. Arkady was right. This was no place for a man who knew the future.

Kirklaw had leapt to his feet and scurried after him, catching up with him just outside the door. “You didn’t give your speech.”

“No.”

“Will you yet? The vote won’t come for several more days.”

Nick had thrust his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat and found the acorn there. “I don’t think so, Your Grace.”

Kirklaw nodded, once. “Well, then.”

“Indeed.”

They had bowed coldly to each other and gone their separate ways, Nick out into the world, the duke back into the chamber.

Nick had sent the carriage home with his robes, and then he strolled alone up Whitehall in the light of a spectacular sunset, tossing the little acorn from hand to hand. He couldn’t feel the river now. The spring evening was alive with birdsong and breezes, which, for this half hour anyway, blew the scent of meadow grasses in from the surrounding farmland and carried away the stink of human strife and struggle.

Nick tossed the acorn high and caught it low.

* * *

Now he stood beside the decrepit statue of Charles II in the center of Soho Square. Two boys and a dog were driving a lowing herd of cattle along the east side, past what had been, in the eighteenth century, the notorious White House brothel. It was probably still a brothel, Nick thought, then saw a man in fine but decidedly rumpled clothing open the door and slip out into the morning sunlight. He stood on the step yelling at the cows that blocked him from entering the street. So it was a brothel—but the “skeleton room” and sinking sofa and other contraptions for which the White House had been famous in the last century—Nick didn’t think they would be in the style of calm, elegant Alva Blomgren. Nick looked around the square at the other houses. Which was Alva’s? He would simply have to wait and hope that Alva emerged sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, it was a pleasure to stand here beside the slightly bilious-looking marble monarch who presided over Soho Square and watch all of society scampering past. Horses and carriages, men and women, everyone busy, full of life, chattering to one another like magpies. All the different accents, the cant, the half-loving insults flying from everyone’s lips; Nick found himself listening intently to the snatches of conversation that passed him by, his brain spinning with all the old information he had forcefully buried after his jump.

It wasn’t that there weren’t things to worry about. Kirklaw’s insinuations and the marchioness’s unhappiness and how to find a way to be with Julia and who was Mr. Mibbs and whether to betray the Guild and the looming horror of the Pale—still hundreds of years away but coming closer, according to the Guild, every day. But London was big and brassy and noisome and rude—it was full of suffering and vice and folly—and Nick loved it. This—here and now—this was his city. It was going to be hard to leave and go back to cars and high-rise buildings and underground sewers. He cast an ironic glance at Charles II, who was holding his tummy and sneering down at it all from under his monstrous wig. “You loved it, too,” Nick told the statue. “Mr. Twelve Illegitimate Children.”

Here was a sight. Walking toward him along Frith Street, a countrified maiden in an old-fashioned homespun skirt and stiff bodice was carrying a huge basket over her arm. It was bulging with beets. She switched between bending uncomfortably forward to carry it and listing comically off to the right or the left. Beside her, an enormous mongrel dog the size of a Dartmoor pony kept pace with her quick, short steps, but it was whining and hopping along on three feet. As they turned the corner onto the square, Nick could see that the dog was harnessed to a cart; clearly this was the intended beet hauler, but the dog had sustained an injury somewhere along the way. The girl was chattering angrily at it, and it hung its heavy, jowly head in sorrow. Together, girl and dog looked like something out of a fairy tale. Nick was about to step forward and offer his help when she looked up, and he saw that she was Alva. He half raised his hand, but she shook her head ever so slightly. He carried his hand on up to his hair and tried to look as if it were the most natural thing in the world to stand in the street scratching one’s head.

Alva and her dog continued on their mutually uncomfortable journey on around the square, eventually coming to a stop on the corner of Carlisle Street, outside a dapper yellow house with white pilasters. Alva shook her finger at the dog, and it dropped onto its belly and put its head down on its paws. She put the basket of beets into the cart, then went up the steps. The door was opened, before she reached the top, by an old woman dressed in black, and Nick watched in some amusement as Alva harangued her with the tale of the dog’s failings. Every time she pointed down the steps at the dog, it lifted its head, only to drop it again as she continued her tirade. Finally Alva went in, and the old woman came creakily down the steps. She hoisted the basket of beets and led the dog and cart around into Carlisle Street, and presumably thence into the mews.

Nick stood considering the yellow house for a few minutes. Did Alva want him to go away and come back later? Go away and never come back? Or maybe she did not wish to be accosted by a fine gentleman while she was playing at being a beet-toting rustic. He was about to turn around and take himself to a coffee shop to consider the problem in more comfort when he saw a window on the third floor of the yellow house raise, and a white arm emerge and beckon him. He set out across the square to his first assignation with his Guild-proscribed mistress.

* * *

Alva received him in a green and silver salon on the ground floor of the house. He had no idea how she had managed to change so quickly from her strange street clothes into a fashionable pale pink muslin dress. The Norwich shawl draped over her elbows must have cost a fortune. Her hair was dressed elegantly but without flair; she looked like someone’s respectable wife or sister. The dog was with her but clearly still in disgrace, for it sat like a statue gazing at her, and she was refusing to meet its eye. It was a bitch, part mastiff and part Cerberus.

After initial greetings were over, Nick petitioned on behalf of the animal. “She can’t help being in pain,” he said. “Did she pick up a splinter on your walk?”

Alva put her nose in the air and glanced sidelong at her pet. The animal caught the glance and perked her ears, but Alva withdrew her attention immediately. “She’s a big baby,” she said. “We bought her on the promise that she would make a good watchdog, but she befriends everyone. Then I decided she could at least help me carry things home from the market, and instead she goes lame. I never liked dogs. She eats us out of house and home, she is ugly, she smells horrible. . . .”

“Does she have a name?”

“Solvig. It means ‘Strong House.’”

“Here, Solvig.” Nick snapped his fingers, and the dog limped to him. Nick knelt down and stroked her silky ears and rubbed her between her eyes until he felt that they were good friends. “I’m going to help you, Solvig,” he said, “but it won’t be comfortable. Are you ready? Give me your paw.” She gave him her good paw. It filled his whole hand. “Not that one. Paw.”

Solvig whimpered and tremblingly gave Nick her bad paw. “Good girl.” He pulled on her ear. “You are an ugly beast, aren’t you?” he said gently as he felt the tender pads. Solvig whined and made to pull away, but Nick held the paw firm. “Yes. Good girl.” He looked up at Alva, who was watching with a half smile on her face. “She has a stone lodged between her pads. I think . . .” He focused on what he was doing for a moment, and Solvig’s whine grew sharper. “Yes . . . oh, shit. Excuse my French.”

Blood spilled from the dog’s paw onto his white cuff. But he brought away a small, sharp flint. Solvig immediately set to licking her paw.

“Let her lick it for a while,” Nick said. “Then she’ll need a bandage.”

“Yes, doctor.” Alva sat down lightly in a little silver chair. “You will find a washstand behind the screen over there.”

As he passed it, Nick noticed that the embroidered screen depicted a mildly lascivious scene of ladies with their bosoms spilling out of their clothes, and gentlemen looking slightly startled; this was the only sign that the house was something other than a genteel home and really, it was such a ridiculous image that it hardly served to stir the senses.

Nick scrubbed his hands clean of the dog’s blood. He didn’t even attempt to wash his cuff; it was clearly ruined. Then he dried his hands, taking his time. He had every intention of betraying someone, and it wasn’t going to be Julia. It was going to be Mother Guild. He pulled his ring up to his knuckle to dry his finger. Life had certainly taken an interesting turn. He draped the towel over the edge of the washstand, twisted his ring into place, and stepped back around the screen.

Alva gestured for him to take a delicate chair that was the twin of her own. “Sit down, Nick. Thank you for helping poor Solvig. Look at her. She’s in love with you now. I might as well not exist.”

Indeed, devotion shone from the dog’s eyes. She lay on the floor, licking her huge paw and staring at Nick in a delirium of adoration. “Oh, dear,” he said, disposing himself in the stiff chair. “I’m sorry.”

“No. It’s wonderful. You will take her home with you and I will be free of the smell, the expense, the feeling that I am constantly being watched.”

“I’m not taking your dog. Besides, who will pull your beet cart for you?”

Alva seemed to consider the problem. “Perhaps I will buy a donkey.”

“I would like to see that. You in that ludicrous outfit, leading a donkey through the streets of London. But a donkey cannot guard a house. You said you needed a guard dog.”

“Yes, I do, and Solvig is useless.”

“You’re just a big cream puff, aren’t you?” Nick asked the dog.

Solvig lumbered to her feet and came over to Nick, leaving bloody paw prints on the parquet. Alva groaned and rang for a servant as Nick stroked Solvig’s powerful shoulders and murmured endearments into her ears: “Ugly baby. Smelly puppy.” Solvig blinked her red-rimmed eyes and panted hot breath happily in his face. “Turnip face.”

Solvig responded to this last sally with a soft woof.

“Do you approve of the nickname,” Nick asked her, “or disapprove? Shall we try again? Turnip face.” The dog blinked at him and curled her black lips back in a broad grin.

An elderly footman answered the bell. Alva told him to take the dog to the kitchens, bandage its foot, and have it ready to leave with Lord Blackdown.

“I am not taking your dog.”

“Oh, but I insist. Solvig is clearly your soul mate.” Alva turned to the servant and spoke quickly in what Nick assumed was Swedish.

Nick was transfixed by the vision of the old man wrestling the enormous dog from the room, managing to bow and close the door without losing control of the animal. Nick heard deep barks of protest descending into the basement.