The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2 Read online

  Kidlington roused himself and said, “What am I to do? “

  Harrow and Needle laughed.

  “Nothing you have not done before and with agility! You will be a spy, of course,” said Harrow. “Contrive to re-attach yourself to the McDoons, most particularly to the Miss Sally. Learn all you can covertly about their whereabouts once they sailed from the Cape. We find no record of them reaching Bombay or anywhere on the Malabar, nor the Bengal, nor Madras or any lesser port on the Coromandel. No trace of them exists in the Water Indies or on the Manilhase Islands or on any coast of China.”

  “They appear to have sailed, as the Bard puts it, to the equinoctial of Queubus, the torridity lying somewhere beyond three o’clock in the morning,” said Needle.

  “In an eggshell: we believe they sailed to Yount,” said Harrow. “We want every sliver, every shard, of information you can procure for us about that.”

  Kidlington shrugged, his laughter laced with rue and hellebore, “Seeing as I have no other choice . . .”

  “We knew you were a man of reason,” said Harrow.

  “Yount,” said Kidlington. “Yount would seem a grail for others as well.”

  The two spectres of the Admiralty scythed Kidlington with their gaze, eyebrows raised.

  “What I mean to say,” said Kidlington, “is that the Admiralty is not alone in its investigation, even here in London, I think.”

  “Perspicacious, you are,” said Needle.

  “We know those others to whom you refer,” said Harrow. “In fact, we extinguished your debts to them, as part of our arrangement. Would not do to have our chief informant found floating in the Thames, missing his eyes and tongue, would it?”

  “Nevertheless, be wary still of those others,” said Needle. “We eye them and they eye us, like a tiger and a leopard do, who encounter each other over a kill each claims.”

  “How shall I report?” said Kidlington. “What do I even call you?”

  “Call us?” said Harrow. “We do not exist! We are the greyest of éminence grise—a grey that turns to white and then becomes transparent.”

  “If you must, think of us as Ithuriel and Zephon,” said Needle.

  “Sent by the archangel to discover Satan’s whereabouts in the Garden,” said Harrow. “With winged speed, leaving no nook unsearched, and all that. Protecting Adam and Eve.”

  “So, to you Kidlington, we are Mr. I. and Mr. Z.,” said Needle.

  Kidlington bowed his head slowly and just two inches.

  “As for reporting . . .” said Harrow, picking up and ringing a small bell.

  Almost immediately, a man opened a door on the far side of the room and entered.

  “This is Lieutenant Thracemorton,” said Harrow. “He will be your handler. He is not of the smiling persuasion, so do not attempt japes, jests or jokes in his presence.”

  “He served with the famous Captain Sharpe in Spain,” said Needle. “Salamanca in ’12, I believe. He also assisted Maturin in Brest and other parts of France. You won’t find better.”

  Lieutenant Thracemorton inclined his head but said nothing.

  “Well, go on Kidlington,” said Harrow. “Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

  Kidlington made to leave with the lieutenant. As the pair reached the door, the needle (was that Mr. I or Mr. Z.?) said, “Remember, Kidlington. We own you and we do not exist—you are the property of ghosts! You do not exist! Should you breathe a word of this to anyone. . . .”

  … . . .

  … . . .

  “. . . besides, even if you did, and we know you won’t, who would believe you?” said Harrow. “They’d clap you in Bedlam as soon as Michaelmas.”

  Kidlington turned on his heel and, escorted by the unsmiling lieutenant, left the hidden room by an unmarked door in Admiralty House.

  The harrow turned to the needle.

  “What do you think of our newly sprung gamecock?”

  “Useful. Highly intelligent. Motivated.”

  “Agreed. But also headstrong, cunning, untrustworthy.”

  “Agreed. In short: he’s a poet, Childe Harold, a damned romantic.”

  The harrow rang the bell again. Another man entered the room.

  “Captain Shufflebottom,” said the harrow.

  “Your humblest servant, m’lords,” said Captain Shufflebottom, peering through grey-lensed spectacles.

  “You will shadow those two,” said the needle. “Unobserved, undetected even by our own lieutenant.”

  “At all costs, protect our asset,” said the harrow. “He is not to leave our care, ever. Report only and directly to us, unless we are not accessible, in which case you may debrief with our confidential secretary, Mr. Tarleton.”

  “Keep Kidlington alive, using all your guile and all your strength,” said the needle. “But, if conditions warrant it, if you cannot obtain our instructions prior, then you are hereby licensed to kill.”

  “I understand, m’lords,” said Mr. Shufflebottom. “Off now to do your bidding, m’lords.”

  The door closed behind him. The clock on the mantlepiece ticked and tocked.

  Then the harrow said to the needle, “We have waited a long time for this moment.”

  “Agreed. A profoundly long time.”

  “Lord Melville will be pleased. Sir John even more so.”

  “The French are well out of the game, at least for now. The Dutch and Danes likewise. No more interference from the Casa in Seville either. The Moghuls we have also sent to the sidelines.”

  “The Turks still dabble, and the Persians, but they are toothless old lions, content to gnaw bones under the shade tree.”

  “The Chinese, on the other hand . . .”

  “The Chinese, . . . yes, but that’s why we sent Lord Amherst on his embassy to Peking, so recently set sail . . .”

  “And the . . . others . . . the strangers . . .”

  “Still, this round goes to us today, I should think.”

  “Agreed. So long as our Mr. Kidlington is as we think he is.”

  “Oh, he will prove to be, you mark my words, Mr. I.”

  “We shall see, Mr. Z.”

  “Impossible,” said Mr. Sedgewick. “Affenspiele. A mandrill’s conspiracy.”

  He said this to his wife, ignoring Maggie who sat in front of them on the other side of the table. On the table, between Maggie and the Sedgewicks, sprawled the source of the lawyer’s scornful disbelief: Maggie’s latest model, three feet tall, a construction of wires and gears, the Tower of Babel in miniature.

  Neither Mrs. Sedgewick nor Maggie responded right away. The ticking of the clock under the trumeau mirror pricked the silence. Outside, along Archer Street by Pineapple Court, and from elsewhere in the City, came the shouts of the water-seller and the scissor-grinder, of a huckster selling chapbooks (“read ’ere the mir’cles of Saints Florian an’ Evaristus!”), of a carter berating a neighing horse. As always, threading their voices throughout the human cries of London, rooks cawed, magpies chacked and daws charked.

  Mrs. Sedgewick stole a glance at Maggie while replying to her husband. She said, “You go too far, sir, with your accusations . . .”

  He cut her off, his belly jouncing in agitation.

  “Madam, do not presume . . .” he said. “What am I supposed to think, when confronted with this improbable monstrosity?”

  Maggie choked back tears. “Mother guide me,” she thought. “Chi di. This man, this so-very-white man, so learned, so self-respecting, so very high on his very tall horse, is so very wrong. I hate him.”

  Mr. Sedgewick was still belabouring Mrs. Sedgewick. “This is all your fault, you know, my dear. You encourage her in these whims and wigmaleeries. Or rather, you indulge and coddle her, as if she were your prize spaniel. But you raise up her hopes unjustly. You delude yourself and—worse—allow this girl to delude herself.”

  Mrs. Sedgewick, eyes glistening, made to speak, but Mr. Sedgewick slashed forward.

  “No one can believe this child of Africa has made suc
h a thing,” he said. “Its sophistication, its refinement, . . . no, ’tis not possible from such a mind as hers.”

  Maggie made to speak, but Mr. Sedgewick brooked no interruption.

  “Corchorus inter olea,” he said. “A weed among the herbs, that’s what she is, and that’s all she is.”

  “May this weed speak, master?” said Maggie, half-rising from her chair.

  Mr. Sedgewick finally looked at Maggie, shifting the sesquipedality of his mind and belly in his chair.

  “It seems I cannot stop you,” he said.

  “Whatever you believe you know, master, I did make this thing,” Maggie said.

  Mr. Sedgewick examined the model, fascinated despite himself. His gaze lingered on the intricate array of pipes and the series of cantilevered struts.

  “I may begrudge you, oh cleverest of servants, the fact that you assembled the pieces,” he said. “Nicely done, I admit, yet ’tis only insect architecture. Who instructed you? Whose was the mind that conceived this machine? Who imagined the design?”

  “Must I forgive him?” thought Maggie. “Mother, he is so unfair.”

  “I did, sir, and only I,” she said.

  “Why do you persist so?” said Mr. Sedgewick. “Patently not true, girl! I have a reputation, this house has a reputation, and you sully it with lies! Now, tell me the truth!”

  Maggie rose from her chair, her body so taut she thought she would break. Her tongue nearly cleaved to her palate. Her eyes stung.

  “I did not steal this idea, I swear to Saint Macrina!” she said.

  “There, surely that suffices, cease this interrogation!” said Mrs. Sedgewick.

  “No, my dear, there is more here than your pet reveals,” said Mr. Sedgewick. “She plays Caliban. I sense a Prospero in all this. That’s it: I shall call her henceforth ‘Calibanna.’”

  Maggie stood as still as a pillar while her mind steeplechased.

  “‘I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none,’” Maggie said.

  “So you know the reference, do you? Well, do not quote The Tempest back to me,” said Mr. Sedgewick. “You test my limits, girl.”

  As Maggie measured her own temerity, the clock ticked onward from under the mirror.

  “It’s not The Tempest, master sir,” she said. “It’s Macbeth I quote.”

  The lawyer heaved himself up, jowls quivering.

  “Out, out, out!” he said. “I will not abide your insolence any longer, leave us now, back to the kitchen or wherever your duties require you!”

  Maggie left, bumping into a small table as tears blinded her.

  “Oh great Mother,” she thought. “What am I to do? I cannot leave this house, it is all I have but I cannot stand that man. Show me the way, please help me.”

  But, if the Mother heard, deep in her ancient slumber, she gave no sign.

  Mr. and Mrs. Sedgewick quarrelled long that afternoon. In the end, they declared a stalemate and Mrs. Sedgewick withdrew.

  Alone, the lawyer contemplated Maggie’s model and felt rising the checks of remorse.

  “Perhaps you were too harsh,” he said, looking up into the trumeau mirror. “Yes perhaps you were. She quotes Shakespeare. She knows the algebra and—mirabile dictu—even the calculus.”

  He poured himself a glass of sherry.

  “Nay, this girl could not . . . she is a creature of Demerary,” he said.

  He inspected the model, with only the ticking of the clock for company.

  “Ingenious,” he said. “A bizarre clockwork, I make it. Tick tock. A meditation on torsion and balance, multum in parvo. But what is it for, I wonder? Beneath these salpincial tubes and nautiloid ’scapments, what is its purpose?”

  He sipped his sherry.

  “More to the point,” he thought. “What is her purpose? Calibanna! Fateor, paradoxa haec assertio. Mystery walks with her, and something dangerous lives within her. If only I could tell Mrs. Sedgewick . . . which I must, and then the McDoons! But how?”

  He looked at himself in the mirror again and spoke aloud.

  “Diplomacy won’t work here,” he said. “The plainest of plain talk only. They must know what the Scottish court papers document, which I have validated by my own means: that this little daughter of Caliban is a member of the McDoon family. There, I have said it aloud, and no devil or angel has stopped my mouth.”

  Mr. Sedgewick finished the sherry and said:

  “Maggie is a cousin to Miss Sally, a niece of sorts to Barnabas. Whatever is the world become?”

  “Beans and bacon, it will cost a considerable great sum,” said Barnabas.

  “Thirty-five thousand pounds at 25 pounds per ton,” said Sanford. “And that with much hard bargaining. Copper bottoming, iron for the knees and braces, good Suffolk oak, scantlings more robust and spacious than is the norm . . .”

  “Which only covers the ship itself,” said Reglum. “Then there will be the cost of outfitting and victualling . . .”

  “Precisely,” said Sanford. “Say, another 4,000 pounds at the least on the one, and—with 120 crew and maybe 230 souls recruited by Billy Sea-Hen—that’s, let’s see . . .”

  “Eighteen guns, at least,” said Reglum. “With their ordnance . . .”

  “It will take some years to complete,” said Barnabas.

  “Two years at the earliest,” said Sanford. “If fortune favours us.”

  “It will mean a rigorous focus of our minds, a menagement of colossal proportions,” said Barnabas.

  “Especially as it will need be done in complete secrecy,” said Reglum.

  “Not to mention—oh, figs and farthings!—the cost of the Fulginator,” said Barnabas.

  “Which none of us knows can even be built, let alone the cost of building it,” said Reglum.

  Sally waited, holding Isaak in her lap.

  After a long meeting, they had just bid goodbye to three visitors: the owner of the Blackwall shipyard on the Thames, his master marine architect, and the surveyor-general of the Honourable East India Company. Outside the house with its dolphin door-knocker on Mincing Lane, a woman hawked eggs and a linnet sang from the lone lime tree adorning the entire street. The endless traffic on Fenchurch, Cornhill and Leadenhall thrummed under one’s feet, mixed with the distant lowing of cattle being driven to Smithfield and punctuated with the calls of rooks and choughs from the Tower. Inside the McDoon office ticked a clock framed by Prudence and Alacrity wrought in bronze.

  Sally spoke, “Yet it must be done, whatever the expense, however long it takes, no matter the challenges of oversight and governance.”

  Barnabas, Sanford and Reglum nodded, with varying degrees of reluctance.

  “Yes, of course, Sally dearest,” said Reglum. “We’re just considering the logistics.”

  “As we must,” said Sally. “But not too long or with too much parsimony.”

  Sanford flinched almost imperceptibly.

  “I’m sorry dear Sanford, I meant that not so barbed,” laughed Sally.

  “Oh, we’ll stretch the shilling, to be sure,” said Sanford, with one of his rare half-smiles. “But not at the risk of failure.”

  “Having said that, we cannot merely wish away the costs,” said Reglum.

  “Quite right,” said Barnabas. “Hence the need to find investors. Quiet partners, investors who won’t ask too many questions.”

  “The East India Company appears willing to commit,” said Reglum. “And without probing too far into the nature of the voyage, so long as we guarantee them a specific profit.”

  Sanford clamped his jaws.

  “The Landemanns and the Brandts will invest; they know all about Yount,” said Barnabas. “Most likely our good friends Matchett & Frew also—they suspect we are up to something, and probably know more than they let on.”

  “The Gardiners don’t know, but they trust us and will follow our lead,” said Sanford. “Droogstoppel in Amsterdam, I’ll wager, and possibly Buddenbrooks in Luebeck. Old Osbaldistone might take a
punt. Chicksey Stobbles & Veneering, the drug merchants . . .”

  “. . . such snobs,” said Barnabas.

  “Yes, well, be that as it may, their money is solid.”

  “Those newcomers said to be risk-hungry, what is their name?”

  “Dawes, Tomes Mousley & Grubb?”

  “That’s the very one!”

  “We’ll get the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan & Life with us, they won’t delve too deeply. We could ask Domby but his son is so sick, I wonder . . .”

  Isaak toured the office as the McDoons, including Reglum, debated investment strategies and ship design for the rest of the afternoon.

  “We need a name for the ship,” said Sanford.

  “Sally, this is your conception,” said Barnabas. “What do you propose?”

  “Thank you. I have thought long on the matter. What keeps coming to mind are the birds that have inspired us on our journey so far. The Gallinule. The Lanner. All the ospreys. The nursery rhyme runs in my head: ‘White crow, blue gawk, black swan, red hawk/ Fetch you home yon’digo pheasant.’ So let it be the Indigo Pheasant.”

  The three men smiled and shouted, “Huzzah, huzzah! To the Indigo Pheasant! Godspeed the Indigo Pheasant!”

  At that moment, the cook appeared in the doorway.

  “Well, as a quab is a queen: call it coincidental, or call it what you will, but an indigo pheasant is printed on the pattern of the china plates I just laid out for your dinner,” she said. “I am serving good English plaice in a butter sauce, with roast potatoes in their jackets and mashed peas. Come along now, all of you, tick tock, before your food gets cold.”

  Isaak followed them into the dining room.

  “Ah, the echoes of this orb, the colliding humours of this world,” said N.C. Strix Tender Wurm. He had just stepped through the casement of a long-case clock into a quiet house off Hoxton Square in London.

  He moved his jaws from side to side, licked his lips. It had been a very long time since he wore this form. His words came out with a spilching sound.