Читать книгу Ride With Me - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 6

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All the other homes on the south side of Dacre Square formed a solid terrace, and so the Ellery town house took on an air of importance by standing back in a garden of its own, with a standoffish stone fence and a forbidding high iron gate. The lights which penetrated the fog from all the windows on the first two floors warned Frank that his mother had come to town and was entertaining at dinner. He paused at the gate, so utterly tired that he dreaded the thought of facing guests. From where he stood he could see the outline of the Tablet Building on the north of the square, and he decided that the mist was beginning to thin a little; at any rate his eye could follow the sharp angle of the spandrel above the main entrance, and there was a curl of smoke visible from each chimney.

“I ought to have looked in for a few minutes,” he thought. The foreign newspapers were due from the post office that afternoon, which meant the whole staff would be kept busy. Oh well, Cope would have things in hand.

He felt guilty nevertheless. He knew that his desk would be heaped high with mail and damp proofs marked Rush, and that old Clayhorn would be waiting to pounce on him. That ancient pest would be pacing up and down the corridors, his head full of complaints and suggestions. It would be a relief to escape this daily inquisition for once. Old Clayhorn had been his father’s business manager, and by some quirk in Joseph Ellery’s clouded mind he had been left a tenth interest in the business. Perhaps the old publisher had foreseen how it would work out and had planned it that way. No longer capable of serving actively, old Clayhorn spent his time in furtive observation of everything that went on, quick to detect any departure from the established way of doing things. He slunk in and out of the pressroom; he dug into the ledgers like a clawing terrier after moles; he peered into all the tiny offices with a cheap round watch cupped in a greasy hand; he jotted down notes on a cuff rancid from long wear. And each evening at five forty-five to the second he would come pattering on eager tiptoe into the corner office which had been Joseph Ellery’s and was now occupied by Frank. He never failed to begin his long recital of error and shortcoming with either one of two opening salvos: “I feel you ought to know——,” or “Now, Mr. Francis, your father would never have allowed this——”

Fancies will flock into an exhausted mind which would never find lodgment there at any other time. It seemed to Frank there was something symbolic about the struggle the lights of the Tablet were making to show through the fog. In much the same hesitant way the press of the country was moving toward the right of free opinion and expression. There were times when he felt bitterly concerned about it, as his father had been before the paper began to pay so handsomely that its revenues were worth conserving at any price. Most publishers, he knew, were unhappy under the restrictions imposed on them, although they did nothing much about it. Perhaps they were waiting for someone to take the lead. Despite the depth of his feelings in the matter, Frank was quite sure he would never be the one. He was no Jack Wilkes and he had no taste for notoriety; and in any event his interest in publishing was limited to performing for the time being the work which circumstances had forced on him. As soon as he could, he intended to relinquish the control of the Tablet.

They had not waited dinner for him. When he made his belated appearance in the long and narrow dining room, Caradoc was seated at the head of the table with their mother on one side and a rather nice-looking girl with honey-colored hair on the other. Frank was surprised to see Lady Mary here, for the old Duke of Westgate had been showing some exasperation lately over her open infatuation for Caradoc. Her cheeks, he noticed, were flushed (sitting beside his handsome brother would account for that), and she was dressed rather better than usual in something pink. She was the first to notice him, and called out in a happy voice: “Well, Frank, you are late. I don’t think it very nice of you when you knew I was coming up with your mother.”

“But I didn’t know it. I had every expectation of dining alone tonight on a grilled bone and a bit of cheese.”

“Francis, I sent you a note.” His mother’s voice carried a definite suggestion of annoyance, and her blue eyes were frowning at him under her fringe of reddish hair. She was still a very pretty woman.

“I’m sorry but it never reached me, Mother.” There was only one chair left, at the foot of the table, and he slipped into it, happy to find that Aunt Francilea was his neighbor. She patted his hand under the table and whispered, “Watch your step, young man. The Queen of Sheba is very angry with you.”

“Francis!” When his mother used that tone all talk was certain to stop. She had a way of accenting her words, as though she thought in capital letters. “The note was sent this afternoon. I must say, you show little Pride of Family. Didn’t you remember what an important Occasion this was?”

“You mean because Carr was making his maiden speech in the House today? I didn’t forget.” He added, smiling at his brother: “I was sorry to miss it, Carr. I’m sure you gave a fine performance and put Billy Pitt completely in the shade. But a drill was called at the last minute and I considered it my duty to attend. Defense comes ahead of everything now, of course.”

Caradoc waved an amused hand. He was looking more striking than usual in a suit of blue broadcloth and a black stock which overflowed the low V of his waistcoat. “You certainly take this invasion scare seriously,” he said. “I wish you had been there to hear me, old man. I don’t believe in false modesty, you know, and so I don’t mind saying I gave a rather good account of myself.”

“You were wonderful, Caradoc,” declared Mrs. Ellery. “I felt as I listened to you that it was the Start of an Epoch. But that means nothing to Francis, it seems.”

“Come, Mater, I’m going to make many speeches, and Frank will have plenty of chances to hear me.”

“Of course I will. I’ll be listening to him speak from the treasury benches before long.” The elder son’s smile vanished as he went on. “That is, if Boney doesn’t come over and use the House as a printing plant for his invasion medals.”

Their mother sniffed impatiently. “There you go again. I declare, you never think of anything else. Your mind seems to run in a perfect groove.”

Caradoc said expansively: “I was talking to a group of big men in the government the other day. Perceval wasn’t one of them, but it was plain that some were in his confidence. They agreed that the danger of invasion was over. Nelson ended it for all time at Trafalgar. I think with you, of course, that we must take steps to reorganize the Fencibles. We mustn’t leave any stones unturned. But—well, I’d put the fear of invasion out of my mind if I were you, Frank.”

“There!” said Mrs. Ellery. It was clear she considered the matter settled.

Purdy, the butler, who traveled back and forth between Caster Towers and the town house in the wake of the mistress, whispered in Frank’s ear: “The soup’s cold, Mr. Francis. And I would hardly recommend what’s left of the turbot, sir. Just the head and tail and a scrag of bones. Will you have beef or mutton, sir?”

Aunt Francilea, who was eating mutton with her usual zest, said: “This is fine billy-butter, Frank. Better have some.”

“Mutton,” said Frank.

He looked around the table with a weary air. There were a dozen guests, all of them friends of the second son. Across the table a pair of young bucks were deep in a discussion of their morning golf. One of them was saying: “That ass of a Winters turned up in a cherry-dery coat instead of the club uniform. Shockin’ bad form! He was so angry when I played my ball against his on the green and sent it slapping back into the whins that he wouldn’t give up the hole when he couldn’t find it. A shockin’ bad sportsman, really!”

The other nodded and plunged instantly into his own experiences. “I was in every water track and rabbit scrape on the course,” he mourned. “And every time I used a timber-club I knocked the leather off a ball. There were feathers all over the place. A dozen balls ruined at a shillin’ apiece! But I made two rounds, by Gad! Ten holes in one day!”

Most of them were younger members of the House, and the general conversation was all of politics, of what Castlereagh had done and what Canning, that infernal puppy, had said.

Frank was too tired to eat. It was just as well, for his slice of mutton was cold. He took a few mouthfuls and then laid down his fork. He whispered to Aunt Francilea, “Were you in the House?”

The old lady glinted at him down the length of her long nose. “I was there. As your mother says, it was quite an Occasion.”

“Was Carr in his best form?”

There was a moment’s hesitation and then Aunt Francilea inclined her head toward his ear. “He looked positively magnificent. You know that way he has of squaring his shoulders and throwing back his head? Whenever he did that I thought every woman in the gallery would swoon with delight. Poor Mary Murreys was in transports.”

“But what about the speech?”

“I don’t remember a word of it.”

“Francie, what are you saying?” demanded Mrs. Ellery suspiciously.

“I’m telling Frank about Caradoc’s speech.”

“I hope,” interjected Lady Mary eagerly, “that you won’t forget the passage about the Gracchi.”

“I was just coming to it,” said Aunt Francilea dryly.

The conversation swung back to politics at once. Someone remarked bitterly on the fact that Canning had worn trousers that afternoon, a clear indication that he was not a gentleman. They went at once into the ten-year-old controversy, most of them fanatically favorable to breeches. To Frank’s surprise, however, Caradoc was disposed to hedge.

“Well, now,” he said, “I’m beginning to have doubts. You all know I’ve stood out for the good old way. Breeches show a leg to advantage, and I don’t mind acknowledging that I’m rather proud of my shanks. But George Brummell”—by some quirk of mind he always referred to the famous Beau in this manner—“George Brummell has invented a way of buttonholing trousers snugly around the ankles. It’s quite neat, I must say; and you all know what will happen if George Brummell really takes to wearing ’em himself.”

Frank was surprised that Caradoc, who took the lead himself in practically everything, showed such a tendency to defer to the famous Beau in matters of deportment and dress. As far as he knew, his brother had never met George Bryan Brummell, but he dragged his name into conversation all the time.

He, Frank, was all in favor of trousers because they enabled him to conceal the deformity of his knee; and he was sure there were sounder standards of gentility than what a man wore on his legs.

The dessert proved to be a black currant pudding, which Frank detested. He contented himself with a small piece of cheese, therefore, and a glass of madeira. Slipping back into his chair, he let his thoughts drift to the adventure in the fog. Although he had enjoyed no more than a few glimpses of the French girl, he found that he remembered every line of her face, every expression, every intonation of her voice. Gabrielle de Salle! A beautiful name, he thought; it sounded in his ears like a bar of music.

He finished his glass of madeira and got to his feet. “Will you excuse me, Mother?” he asked. “I’m behind in my work as a result of today’s drill.”

Caradoc looked up at once to ask, “Who was on the House today?”

“Stemper, of course. He’s our best man.”

The younger brother nodded. “Stemper’s good enough. A little prosy perhaps, but he gets the substance of a thing down. His report will be satisfactory, I think.”

“It had better be,” said Mrs. Ellery.

The fog was lifting perceptibly, and Frank struck across the square with a rise of spirits. The work ahead of him was congenial; it would be better, certainly, than listening to the talk at home.

A voice whined at his shoulder, “Please, help an old sojer, mister.”

He stopped and looked around. The beggar was so bent that he looked like a dwarf, and his eyes had an almost animal-like gleam under his disreputable three-cornered hat. There was nothing about him, certainly, to suggest service in the army.

“Where did you fight?”

“I was with the Juke o’ York at Turking, and I rode ahind Bobby Wilson at Willing-an’-Catchit. Yes sir, I’ve seen my share o’ fighting, I has indeed, sir.”

“Then you were a dragoon.” It seemed impossible that this bent gnome of a man could once have had the stature for the cavalry, and yet Frank’s doubts were beginning to dissolve. He knew that only among the men in the ranks was the famous charge at Villers-en-Cauchies called Willing-and-Catchit.

“Yes sir, I was in the old Fifteent’. Ye may think as it’s not possible, but I stood me full five foot eleven then. That I did, sir; but I got a blue plum on the retreat and they kep’ me a full three days in a bleeding wagon afore anythin’ was done about it. I’ve had on’y half a back since, sir.”

Frank was convinced now that the man was telling the truth. He began to calculate. “It’s fourteen years since that campaign. What have you been doing since?”

The old soldier looked bewildered. “I don’t rightly know, sir. I ain’t good for much and I never can hold a job. I’ve just kep’ body and sould t’gether one way an’ t’other. The Old Poger’ll be gettin’ me soon, I expects.”

Frank’s hand was in his pocket. “How much were you going to ask me for?”

The man said eagerly: “Tuppence, sir, or even a bender. But seeing as how ye’re so kind, perhaps ye might run to a full slat.”

“Half a crown?” Frank’s tone was compassionate. “You haven’t been very well treated, and I’d like to make it up to you as far as I can. I might do better than a slat. And I can arrange to get you steady work if you don’t drink too hard.”

There was a long silence, and then the old soldier shook his head. “It ’ud only mean trouble for ye, sir. I’m too far gone for that. Better give me the money and let me go.”

“Here you are, then.” The man let out a hoarse whistle of surprise at the size of the coin. Frank added: “Can I depend on you to use it with some sense? It will keep you going for a while if you do.”

“I will, sir, I will!” The husky voice was trembling with excitement. “Ye can’t tell, sir, what it’ll mean to have some o’ the ready in my pocket. I’ll make it last a long time, that I will.”

“You won’t change your mind about the work?”

“It ’ud do no good, sir.” The man began to walk away in the fog but came back into sight again almost immediately. “I must ask ye, sir. I wouldn’t feel right about it if I didn’t. Would ye think me ungrateful, sir, if I laid out a bender of it on max? I’d like to forget things for oncet and get bloody well bubbed.”

Frank was realizing that there was a sharper nip in the air. Turning up the collar of his coat, he looked at the twisted back of the beggar in its ragged covering. “Go to that house across the square where you see all the lights. Ask for Purdy and tell him I sent you. Tell him to give you the mulberry coat I handed him this morning to be cleaned. After that”—shaking his head with a smile—“you might as well have whatever comfort you can find in getting well bubbed.”

Frank never entered the red brick building where the Tablet was published without a certain sense of excitement. The smell of ink and paper made him feel as though he were in a different world at once. Perhaps there would be a letter on his desk announcing a great battle fought, the death of a king, an exciting turn in the diplomatic struggle that was engaging all Europe. The leader writer would drop in on him immediately to discuss the article for the day. There were always questions to be settled. Would it be advisable to speak sharply of Mr. Wordsworth because of his persistent Jacobinism? Would there be objections if Horne Tooke were quoted on this or that? Was not a sharp reprimand due these pushing Wellesleys? Cope also would be waiting to talk over the selection of the flash article for the day. It was all interesting and exciting. The truth of the matter was that either he was unaware of the grip the work had taken on him or still unwilling to admit it.

On his desk was a neat slip of paper containing the daily balance—the revenue from the advertising booked for the day, the amount of money paid out, the amount received. This was one of the many systems that Joseph Ellery, who had a passion for detail, had devised. Frank looked at the figures and felt a certain degree of elation. Things were going very well indeed under his control.

Cope came in at once and dropped into a chair beside the desk. He was a small man with a rather belligerent air, which could be credited in part to the waxed fierceness of his mustache. His clothes were always chosen with an astonishing predilection for color combinations. On this occasion he wore a pink stock (even the most daring of the Macaronis never aspired to anything but black and white) and a waistcoat of the kind known as a Charlie Present. Accustomed as he was to the Cope magnificences, Frank gazed at this last with awe. It had been tailored out of sunset yellow and was embroidered in Chinese red; what’s more, the pockets were elaborately frilled and the buttons were the latest thing, made of porcelain and inlaid with brightly colored representations of playing cards.

“Frank,” said the assistant editor in a voice surprisingly deep for so small a frame, “you might as well have stayed home. The translations from the foreign papers came over from the post office and they’re the poorest catch yet. There’s a bit about Humboldt and his plans for a complete mapping of the world; that’s the only thing that interested me at all. Even the Vienna papers are saying gentle things about the Man of Destiny. I tell you, Frank, the little beggar has all Europe licking his boots, and it’s going to take a longer time than any of us estimated to undermine him.”

“Fifteen years,” ventured Frank. “Unless he undermines us first.”

Cope did not agree with this reckoning. “No, not more than ten. It would take a century if it depended on our efforts, but Boney himself will make mistakes. Things have gone to his head; you can see it in everything he does now. This determination of his to gobble Spain is the first of his mistakes. I know something about that country and the people. It’s pretty bare land, and if the French move in they won’t live off it the way they’ve been able to do on the fat German countryside. As for the Spanish, they’ll lose every battle they fight and their armies will run like Johnny-be-damned, but the people themselves will take a hand. They’ll pick off stragglers and skin them alive or nail them up to doors. They’ll show Boney a universal kind of war he’s never had to contend with before, and he’ll have to keep armies there if he wants to hold the country.” He bobbed his head solemnly. “If he goes into Spain it will be his first major mistake.”

“You’re the only man in London who believes that.”

Cope sat forward on the edge of his chair, his slightly myopic eyes boring intently into those of his chief. “Frank, the people of England must be made to see the light! We must be ready from now on to take advantage of the mistakes Napoleon is going to make. Our army must be ready. We must get rid of that zany of a Duke of York and have brisk young generals in command, men like the marshals of France. We must be in a position to take the initiative when the chances come.” The deep voice boomed on. “Let me preach this in the Tab. The people must be made to see how badly they’re being led in this crisis. It won’t do to mince words.” He took off his glasses and gestured with them. “On the other side of the channel there’s a keen, bitter, intuitive mind plotting our destruction. Can we leave the countermoves to old Nobs and his silly ministers? Frank, do you realize what this means? Our homes, our lives, our liberty—they’re all at stake.”

Frank protested, “The government would put us both in the stocks if we printed one line like that.”

“Very well. Let them make Babes in the Wood of us. Would it be any worse than having French bayonets in our throats? I’m willing to be locked in the harmans every day if it will help to waken England up to her peril.”

Frank regarded his fiery lieutenant with a trace of envy. “I wish it were as easy as that, Copey,” he said. “The departments would cut off our printing contracts. How long could we publish profitably if that happened?”

“Profits be damned, Frank! Anyway, we would sell so many copies we wouldn’t miss the contracts.”

“It’s easy to say that. Can you guarantee it? And has it occurred to you that my hands are tied by Father’s will? I hold two tenths only, you know. The others would vote against me solidly if I proposed this suicidal course to them.”

“There are more ways than one of committing suicide. The worst way is to sit still and let Boney come over. Oh, he will in time. If not now, when he gets the Peninsula under his thumb.” The belligerent note was oozing out of Cope’s voice, however. “I see your difficulties, Frank. If you could only get around that will! Otherwise we must continue our policy of masterly silence. My first article must stay locked up in my desk. It’s ready, Frank, whenever you are. I’ve written it and rewritten it and polished it until it’s got the roll of kettledrums in it. It glitters like a line of bayonets at the charge. Is it no good for anything but to gather dust in a drawer?”

“I’m afraid not, Copey.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Cope said: “A man named Frederick Koenig was in to see me this afternoon. I had a long talk with him.”

Frank’s hand was straying among the papers on his desk, and his voice had taken on a note of preoccupation. “Who is he?”

“Frederick Koenig is a German printer with a shop on Castle Street, Finsbury Square. He’s making a power press. When he gets it right, it will print—now don’t shake your head and say it’s impossible—one thousand sheets an hour.”

“I certainly do say it’s impossible. Does he want to sell us one of these miraculous presses?”

“Not yet. He isn’t ready. But he did want us to go and see his model.”

Frank slit the seal of a letter with a rip of his steel cutter. “How can we spare the time, Copey? And just what do you mean by a power press? I don’t understand anything about machinery, as you know.”

Cope answered eagerly. “One that operates by steam. All the printer will have to do is to feed in the sheets; a turning shaft will do the rest. When we have one of those presses working for us, Frank, you’ll hear a sound all through this building like the distant rumble of cannon. And it will be music to my ears, a symphony of human progress, the promise in booming chords of a free press and a free world. When we have that instrument for universal education running every day, no government will dare tell us what we may print and what we may not.”

The assistant editor got to his feet, revealing the fact that his knee breeches were sky-blue and his stockings white. “So much for these dreams of the future. Stemper sent me in his copy on Caradoc’s speech.” He winked. “He seemed to think it might call for some editorial consideration.”

Frank dropped the letter he had been holding and looked uneasily at Cope. “What’s the tone of the report?”

“Well, mildly laudatory. Stemper’s too honest to drape laurels on an undeserving brow even if it belongs to a member of the Ellery family. Still, I think I see a way of satisfying Master Caradoc without creating any—any guffaws, shall we say?—on the outside. He got into the question of the French émigrés and the need for watching them through the present crisis. It’s the kind of thing to stir up talk, so I’m taking the speech right out of the parliamentary report and putting it on the front page under a heading of its own: ‘Can We Trust Our Honored Guests?’ I’ve written an introduction on this danger from Napoleonic agents and I’m inclined to think we’ll skirt Charybdis with it and still not fall into Scylla—or is it the other way around?”

Frank smiled. “Thanks, Copey. You’ve taken a great weight off my mind.”

As Cope walked out of the room, Frank’s eye lighted on an item in the proofs on his desk. With a startled exclamation he picked up the long sheet and read the story through. “Copey!” he called. “This report of the trials at the Old Bailey! Who’s this Benjamin Fuller, sentenced to be hanged for stealing a gold ring?”

Cope came back at once. “I intended to mention it. It’s a simple fellow from down your way. He wanted to marry some pretty little slut of a girl and hadn’t the brass to buy a ring. So he stole one. The jury, according to reports, tried to estimate its value under the hanging limit, but the judge would have none of that. So the poor fellow has to swing for it.”

“Great God, I know him well!” Frank stared at the other with a deep horror in his eyes. “Benjie Fuller was in my company of Fencibles. A fine young chap. He can’t be hanged for a thing like this!”

“Plenty are. The only way he can he saved is to persuade the Home Secretary to do something about it. Or, failing that, to go to old Nobs himself.”

“We’ll have to save him! I tell you, Copey, he’s a thoroughly decent fellow. Surely the Tablet has enough influence to prevent such a miscarriage of justice!”

“It won’t be a miscarriage of justice, Frank. Not as long as the present law stands. It says that theft of any article over a certain value is punishable by death. Fuller’s guilt was established clearly enough. It’s practically impossible to do anything under the circumstances.”

Frank’s brow had become damp with the intensity of his feelings. He mopped it with an unsteady hand. “We must do everything we can. It’s a rotten law. Copey, I’ve played cricket with him. We used to let him fish at Willars Bend. I haven’t seen him for a couple of years because he had to hire out as a footman with some rich family in town. I’ll never forgive myself if I fail to get him off! Forget everything else and we’ll talk over what we must do.”

“Very well,” said Cope. “But remember, the majesty of the law is exceeded only by its stubbornness. I doubt if we’ll be able to save your young friend.”