Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance) Read online

  The old woman took up a decanter and poured some thick, syrupy stuff, so dark it was almost black, into two highly polished wineglasses. She handed one to Miss Tolerance. “Please take a little of my cordial, my dear. I make it myself, and it’s a specific against the summer fever. We see a great deal of it, living here by the river.”

  Mute, Miss Tolerance took the wine. It tasted of plums.

  “I blame the Queen for it,” the woman said. “And those stupid men in Parliament who gave her guardianship over the poor mad King. It would have been far more suitable to have one of the Princes as regent. When I was a girl, young women did not ride about in breeches and the world was a better place for it. Ever since the Queen became Regent, people have come to believe a woman may be licensed to do anything. Even a girl who’s ruined ought to have some standards, to my way of thinking.” She paused and looked kindly at her guest. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I’m old, and shall speak my mind. You would be happier with a husband and a clutch of children, I don’t doubt, instead of riding about the countryside in that style.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, ma’am,” Miss Tolerance said slowly. “But that was not one of the choices open to me, and I preferred this to my other alternatives.”

  “To be a whore?” The old woman smiled charmingly. “Nothing so wrong with that, my dear. Earned my keep that way for a score of years, and kept myself in a feminine way. If you’ll forgive my saying so,” she added kindly.

  “Oh, certainly, ma‘am,” Miss Tolerance said. The room was very hot, and the smell of cat, river, and lavender seemed to increase with each passing moment. “Might I know, ma’am, to whom I have the pleasure of speaking?”

  The old woman giggled. “Mrs. Smith, dear. You’ll find we’re all Mrs. Smith when we reach a certain age. Most of us that survive, anyway. Mrs. Charlotte Smith. And your name?”

  Miss Tolerance told her. Mrs. Smith giggled again. “Tolerance? What was you thinking, dear, to take a name like that? As well to name yourself Dishrag or Wholesome!” She shook her head in dismay. “Tolerance!”

  “Tolerance, ma’am. Don’t you think it suits me?”

  Mrs. Smith tsked mildly. “Gracious, perhaps it does. Well, my dear, who was it you said you was looking for?”

  “Mrs. Deborah Cunning, ma’am.”

  The old woman’s eyes narrowed for a moment, reflectively. Then she smiled, nodding her head. Curls of white hair had been stuck to her withered cheeks with pomade or perspiration, making her look rather like a painted doll.

  “Deborah Cunning. Gracious, I haven’t heard that name in a brace of years. A pretty girl, but didn’t wear well, that one. When she quit the game, I thought she’d go back to the village she come from, but it seems she didn’t manage her money well—so few do, dear—and couldn’t afford to set herself up in comfort. She did very nice embroidery, though. Perhaps one of the milliners or dressmakers on Bond Street would know of her?”

  “But not as Mrs. Cunning, ma’am?” Miss Tolerance prompted.

  Mrs. Smith laughed. “Oh, dear me, no. Not as Mrs. Cunning. Let me see, did she style herself as Smith or Jones?” She reflected, and Miss Tolerance took another sip of the syrupy wine. It left a musty taste in her mouth. “Carter, I think. Or Cook. Cook. Mrs. Deborah Cook. Took to wearing black, as though she were in mourning for her last keeper, though given how he left her situated, he must have been a monstrous unpleasant man. Well, they all are, soon or late. Monstrous and unpleasant!” She laughed again, a coarse, knowing sound that came oddly from her monkeyish face. “Oh, now I’ve shocked you. Well, I know more of the matter than you do, dear, I’m sure. Think your man wasn’t unpleasant, don’t you?”

  Miss Tolerance shook her head. “Nor monstrous, ma’am.” The smells of the room were combining with the wine to make her feel queasy. She found she was jiggling the handle of her riding crop nervously and put the thing aside.

  Mrs. Smith snorted. “Then you didn’t have him long, did you? What, did he seduce you and run away?”

  This was treading close to territory Miss Tolerance preferred not to discuss. “Perhaps it was I seduced him, ma’am,” she said lightly. “I am the sort of woman who rides about in breeches, after all.”

  Rather than be offended, Mrs. Smith cackled. “Well, you’re not mawkish, I’ll give you that. Now, have you the information you came for, Miss Wholesome-Tolerance? I hope you will not think me rude if I cut your visit short, but I’m an old woman and my cordial makes me a bit drowsy. Come, I’ll see you out.”

  But Miss Tolerance was on her feet, assuring her hostess that there was no need for her to rise. She thanked the old woman and made for the door, almost knocking over a deep bowl filled with dried lavender, verbena, and other tiny white flowers in her haste to leave. Outside, she stood blinking in the doorway for a moment, breathing deeply of the fresher air. Her horse was patiently cropping the heads from the flowers by the gate, and she led the gray to the end of the street before mounting, hoping to settle her stomach. Then she rode back to the Queen’s Arms and bespoke two baskets, each containing a ham, a wheel of cheese, and a bottle of wine, to be sent to Mrs. Cockbun and Mrs. Smith, with her compliments. Lord Trux would stand the bill; information, as she had told him, always had a price.

  It was midafternoon when Miss Tolerance arrived back in Manchester Square. She returned the horse to Mrs. Brereton’s groom and went at once to her cottage to wash away the dust of the road, and to change into a walking dress and half-boots. With the idea of stopping into some of the shops in Bond Street, she inquired in the House if any of the ladies there had need of ribbons, gloves, or other necessities. Chloe not only declared a pressing need for a new handkerchief, but proposed that they go together. This had not been Miss Tolerance’s intention, since the harlot would bring not only herself but, in keeping with Mrs. Brereton’s immutable rule, a maid as chaperone, but she could not escape from the excursion without awkwardness, particularly when Chloe was still regarding her in the light of hero for her rescue of the night before.

  “I had wanted to tell you again how very grateful I am—” Chloe began when they were out-of-doors and walking toward Bond Street.

  “There’s really no need. Mrs. Brereton was right; she would never have allowed you to come to harm under her roof. I grant it was unpleasant—”

  Chloe gave a hard little laugh. She was slight, with very large, nearsighted brown eyes and soft curling yellow hair, which made her look quite defenseless. That look, Miss Tolerance believed, was one of her stocks in trade, and the reason why men such as Sir Randal Pre preferred Chloe’s company to that of others in Mrs. Brereton’s employ.

  “He would have killed me,” she said with breathless certainty.

  Miss Tolerance shook her head. “Not then,” she said. “Not when he thought he had the power. His sort don’t kill until they think they’re losing their power.”

  “Well, if you don’t want my thanks …” Chloe pursed her mouth unpleasantly.

  “It was a pleasure to help you and my aunt,” Miss Tolerance said lightly. “Now, is there a particular shop you wanted to visit?”

  Chloe, it seemed, was unbiased. She liked all the shops, and liked to linger, touching the fabrics and having sharp little discussions of price with the assistants. She bought nothing, but seemed ready at any moment to buy a great deal, so she was assiduously attended to in each store. If the modistes and their assistants knew that Chloe was a member of Mrs. Brereton’s establishment, they gave no sign, nor did they indicate any distaste for her custom. The other patrons of the stores, in blissful ignorance of the figures of sin who moved among them, did not withdraw, either; so all parties were happy. It was, Miss Tolerance reflected, as close as she could come to reclaiming her own birthright and status.

  It was difficult to ask questions with Chloe at her side and other customers vying for the attention of the attendants. Still, in a quiet moment a murmured question, always accompanied with a coin, could be answered before Chloe began another query
about the price of jaconet muslin. At the first three shops, the assistants reluctantly confirmed that they had no knowledge of an embroiderer named Mrs. Cook or Carter. At the fourth, the description was recognized, but the young woman could not supply her direction. Miss Tolerance quietly passed along her card, and several more coins, in the hope that Mrs. Carter-Cook’s address could be discovered and a note sent to apprise her of it. She bought a pair of gloves, too, and a matching yellow ribbon, hoping that would dispose the shop’s owner kindly toward the shopgirl.

  Miss Tolerance and Chloe, with the maid, Annie, trailing just behind, returned to their stroll along Bond Street. Chloe insisted on reviewing Miss Tolerance’s purchases, and informed her she could have gotten the same gloves cheaper elsewhere.

  “Then why shop on Bond Street?” Miss Tolerance asked mildly.

  “You find out what’s the mode on Bond Street, then buy it cheaper somewhere else. Your aunt taught me that.” Chloe looked mildly surprised that Mrs. Brereton had not imparted similar wisdom to her niece—in fact she had, but Miss Tolerance was not about to explain the reasons for that day’s purchases. She was distracted from any response by the sight of Lord Trux, walking up the street with the air of a beau of fashion who need not discuss anything with the great world. He was, as he had been the day she met him at Tarsio’s, expensively dressed in a coat of fine wool, green this time, with biscuit-colored breeches and handsomely polished boots, yet the result was not elegance but strain. Trux seemed happily unaware of how poorly his clothes became him; just as well for a man who clearly gave his tailor full rein to indulge in the excesses of fashion as they occurred.

  Miss Tolerance watched the man’s face, looking for a clue. If they met, should she acknowledge the acquaintance or not? Trux solved the problem for her by changing his direction quite suddenly, waiting while a ragged, nimble boy swept the street before he crossed it. Following his course, Miss Tolerance’s eye was drawn to a knot of men on the far side of Bond Street. She stopped, on the pretext of examining the contents of her pocketbook, to see who her client was meeting. There was nothing about the men themselves that attracted her eye; from their dress, they were all well-to-do, but not members of the Dandy set. The oldest one, indeed, wore the skirted coat of the last century and affected an ebony stick upon which he leaned lightly. What drew Miss Tolerance’s particular attention was the sense of confrontation emanating from the group. Even from across the street it was plain that the brown-haired man in the brown coat and Hessian boots was in a rage, and that rage was focused entirely upon the taller man in dark blue. If the object of this fury returned the feeling, he gave no sign of it; his expression was bland, only one raised eyebrow suggesting he might dislike taking part in such a scene. Miss Tolerance was seized with a fit of curiosity and taking Chloe’s arm, urged her across the street to examine half-boots in a window there.

  As they crossed the street, Miss Tolerance kept her glance away from the group of men; when they reached the other side, she steered Chloe to a shopfront half a dozen paces from them, where she could hear some part of the conversation, and watch it all in reflection in the shop’s glassed front. Lord Trux, Miss Tolerance noted, now stood at the elbow of the man in the blue coat as if to lend him countenance, although the man in blue did not seem to require such support.

  “Have you spoken with him?” the elderly man was asking. In contrast to the anger of the man in brown, the old man seemed as calm as the younger, and taller, man in blue. “I think you’ll find the Prince’s enthusiasm for your party has waned with maturity.” His tone was smooth and pleasant, sailing upon the tension between them. When the man in blue answered, his tone was just as untroubled.

  “I never thought an interest in the opposition was the exclusive province of the young, sir. My father remained an active and convinced Whig until his death, and he was a good friend of the Prince’s.”

  “Your father—” The man in brown spoke as if the words were an oath.

  In the glass before her, Miss Tolerance saw the elderly man put a restraining hand on his companion’s elbow. “Your father, Versellion, had the sorry luck to be raised as a Whig, which His Highness was not. As we grow older, common sense—”

  The man in brown interrupted furiously. “You think to turn matters to your own advantage! You scheme to get power just as your father did, your lies—”

  The elderly gentleman again put his hand on the sleeve of the man in brown, this time with more force. “Henry,” he said mildly. “Unless you wish to find your name in the dueling column of the Gazette, I counsel you to keep your conversation civil.”

  The man in brown shrugged the older man’s hand away with little grace. “The devil with civil conversation! You heard him baiting me—”

  “I heard accusations, falsehood, slander!” This was Trux, sputtering in outrage.

  Now it was the turn of the man in blue to restrain his companion. “Let him say what he likes, Trux. It hardly matters; he knows where the truth lies, although he does not care to speak it. What the Prince believes or does not believe, we shall see, if this matter goes on for long. I, for one, do not intend to bandy it further upon the open street. My lord—” The man in blue bowed to the old man. “Cousin”—a bow to the man in brown. “Come, Trux,” the man in blue said, rather like one who was calling a dog to heel.

  Trux and the man in blue wheeled about and were suddenly facing Miss Tolerance, who turned her face slightly away and continued her examination of the half-boots in the shop window. It seemed to Miss Tolerance that as the men passed her, Lord Trux’s step faltered, but then he went on. After a moment or so longer—the half-boots really were quite elegant and wholly impractical, pale blue kid painted with delicate forget-me-nots at the ankle—Miss Tolerance suggested to Chloe that they start back to Manchester Square.

  “You don’t wish to try the boots?” Chloe asked.

  Miss Tolerance shook her head. “What was it you suggested? Find what you like in Bond Street and buy somewhere cheaper?”

  Chloe agreed, but appeared disappointed to have had her shopping excursion ended so soon. “As you’ve found what you wanted, I suppose we might as well go home,” she said disagreeably. The walk back to Manchester Square seemed a long one.

  Miss Tolerance made a quiet supper of bread and cheese and an apple, writing a few notes to herself on the matter of Lord Trux’s investigation. Briefly she considered going to Tarsio’s for a while. In fact, she was tired, and her interviews with Mrs. Cockbun and Mrs. Smith had left her dissatisfied and unquiet. She put the kettle on the hob and was warming the teapot when one of the footmen from the House came with a summons.

  “A man has called for you, miss.”

  “Called for me at my aunt’s house? Did he give a name?”

  The footman presented a card. Written on it in a small, spidery hand was the name Trux.

  Miss Tolerance sighed. “Oh, lord. Bring him here, please, Cole.”

  Given the choice of entertaining a client in her own unimpressive dwelling or in the midst of her aunt’s clientele, she had no hesitation in having Trux join her. Still, she preferred to keep her home hers; she kept her membership at Tarsio’s particularly for interviews with clients.

  In a few minutes Cole reappeared and bowed Lord Trux into Miss Tolerance’s cottage. She had a pot of tea brewing, and two cups warming. She did not believe that Lord Trux would require tea, from the look of him. The high color on his face was not a product of the firelight, she thought, but of some sudden choler. Evidently Cole thought so, too, for he lingered at the door of the cottage as if unsure whether it was safe to leave Miss Tolerance with the gentleman.

  “Thank you, Cole,” she said pleasantly. “My lord, I had not expected to see you this evening. Will you take a dish of tea with me?”

  Trux faltered. He was clearly expecting his anger to oppress her. “I have not come for tea,” he said.

  “No, of course not. But will you take some regardless?”

  He shook h
is head. His face grew redder. “I must know—” It seemed his words were being pushed out of him with great pressure. “Were you following me this afternoon?”

  Miss Tolerance permitted her eyes to open in a cartoon of dismay. “Following you, sir? Our paths crossed in Bond Street, but I would never embarrass a client by seeming to know him in public.”

  “But were you following me?” Trux shouted, then seemed a little abashed by the sound he made in her quiet cottage.

  “Of course not, my lord.” It was near enough the truth, Miss Tolerance reckoned. “Why would I do that?”

  The question apparently confounded Trux. “Well, then, perhaps you can tell me if you have made any progress on my …” He paused as if the proper word eluded him.

  “The matter of the fan? I have made good progress, I think, sir. I spent the morning interviewing women who might have reason to know Mrs. Cunning, and this afternoon pursuing more information, based on what I had learned in Leyton.”

  “Leyton!” The ruddy color returned to Trux’s face. “I told you Richmond!”

  Miss Tolerance poured a cup of tea for herself. “Indeed, she may be in Richmond, but my information is that she was removed from Richmond and set up in Leyton some years ago. So Leyton is where I went.”

  “To get information?”

  “Yes, sir. And I did obtain some useful news which I put to good use this afternoon.”

  “In Bond Street?” Lord Trux seemed determined to find some fault with her, Miss Tolerance reflected. “If you were not following me in Bond Street, then you were shopping! You had a parcel!”

  Miss Tolerance was hard put not to laugh. “Can I not persuade you to take some tea, my lord? I think you will find it soothing.” She poured out another cup and set it down upon the settle, and nodded toward it as if to invite her guest to take his ease. Reluctantly Trux sat down. He looked at the tea in his cup as if it were a substance entirely foreign to him.