Leaving Bahrain
Margaret is concerned by Shirley’s preoccupation. She had become accustomed, on the way to Bahrain, to the easy relaxed conversations they had shared on shipboard. Moreover, she has noticed that when he becomes silent, it is not a good sign so far as his emotional state is concerned. But she has taken his confidence by storm several times, and does not wish to do so again. So she finds a shady spot on deck near to the cabins, and settles with Esperanza. The clothing in the Bazaar of a size to suit Esperanza had been much too childish, so they are taking in and hemming the garments they found. It is still far faster than making them from raw yard goods. It is also a good thing she has the sewing to occupy her hands, though, as patience is not her strongest virtue. If Shirley is paying attention, he will find that she is humming—something from the latest offering by Gilbert & Sullivan.
Esperanza sees him flinch when he comes on deck finally and hears the tense hum. Nonetheless, he crosses the deck toward them. “May I join the sewing circle, or will I only be an obstacle?” he asks, his tone humble and apologetic. “I know how to hold a piece while someone else sews, and I can rip seams without leaving holes—Elizabeth taught me.” He smiles cautiously at Esperanza. “Pray do not tell anyone, but I can even trim hats.”
Margaret looks up at his approach. “I cannot imagine considering you an obstacle” she tells him. She isn’t quite smiling, but her face does not have the set, brittle look Shirley has seen, if only once. “In fact, you remind me of a young friend of my brother’s who visited us frequently. Father said of him, when he apologized for causing some extra work, that he couldn’t be a bother if he tried.” She pauses for a second, looking a bit sad. “He was terribly ill when he came to visit, but quite determined not to be an invalid for all that.” She sets a few stitches before she goes on, obviously thinking of the past. Michael had died a few months after that visit, and if she had only known then what she knows now…
“I am so very sorry,” Shirley murmurs. Perhaps this is why she has not married? For all the talk of puppies and fools, she must have had some sensible suitors—at least one. Surely one.
She sighs, then shakes herself a little and looks up. “You have the same tendency to self-deprecation, but not, thank G-d, the weak constitution. Now, if you could hold this out so I can be sure of basting the tucks evenly, I should be grateful. These gauzes are certainly more suitable to the climate than anything Esperanza and I brought with us, but they tend to stretch out unevenly. The weave is unstable.”
He folds his lean body a bit at a time into a sunny spot on the deck across from Margaret and her ward, resting his elbow casually on one drawn-up knee. “I apologize for defaulting on my word, Margaret,” he says. “Do you know, I once snubbed Lady Hester after a particularly odd court session—I was so absorbed I did not even recognize her when she passed. I’ve no idea why she forgave me.”
Margaret murmurs “I have”, but says no more than that.
He sighs. “Look, this is a worse mess even than I thought. Baxter did not say much; it is what he did not say that concerns me. He did not say they know where Addison is, or where he is going. He did not say they know where Addison gets his orders, or what those orders are. He did not say they learned anything from the Malta protesters. He did not say they understand the Damascus affair. What he did say is that they find the entire situation a confused frustration. That, from Scotland Yard!”
His voice has risen a bit too far; he takes a deep breath, and goes on in a more moderate tone. “What seems clear is that this has nothing to do with any silly wager. No wager could earn enough to offset the expense and trouble Addison has gone to. This must be serious, or Addison would have dropped it altogether and escaped to the States. What is more, there must be pressure of time to it, or Addison would simply go to ground and wait for his target in Glasgow.”
He shakes his head. “I tell you, Margaret, when I suggested some diplomatic angle to all this, I did so more than half in jest. Now, though, I am hard-pressed to find another explanation. One of the Ellipsoids, I must guess, is more than he—or she—seems. I rather suspect that Addison himself knows no more than you or I which one it is. He might well have shot poor Davies thinking him an Ellipsoid.”
He looks straight into the late-afternoon sun for a moment, then shuts his eyes tightly against it. “The one balm Gilead can offer is that we are only moderately likely to encounter him, I should think, though I can offer no assurance as to whatever henchmen he may have dispatched. The Yard is only hoping he’ll show himself in Madras or Rangoon. They’ve no more actual knowledge than we.
“And I—I cannot believe Addison takes much stock in revenge on his own account. Others’ revenges are his work, but revenge on his own account is bad for business. Nor can he think I am the dissembler, the way I have baited him in public. If he does come after me, it will be because he thinks me a danger to him—and why on earth would he think that?
“But,” he winds down at last, his voice sinking, “if I am wrong—well, I laughed with Edgar Middlebury while he witnessed my will, before I left York. I should not have. I hope the dissembler, whoever he may be, has the grace to feel gratitude. I have all but thrown myself onto a loaded gun in his stead.” Shirley gathers up a new section of the light cloth, coincidentally bending his head to catch a glimpse of her face.
Margaret sews quietly for a moment; it gives her someplace to rest her eyes so that she need not look at Shirley. He is worried enough; she does not want to add to it by letting him see how worried she is, although her concern is primarily for Shirley himself. “We do rather expect Scotland Yard to be omniscient where the criminal mind is concerned, don’t we?” she says at last. “And yet if they were, no crime would ever be committed, nor go unsolved. For all their training and resources, they are only men, after all, and they can only guess at the future. Presumably their guesses are better educated than ours, but they remain guesses for all that.
Shirley frowns. They ought to have been able to educate their guesses better than this. He does not think the Yard held anything much from him—Baxter’s annoyance at his own ignorance was genuine. It is no ordinary scheme, however, that keeps its plans and aims so rigidly segregated from its front-line men, like those in Malta. Margaret is right; it is pointless to speculate on the tiny drips of sure knowledge they have. That they have so little, so very little—that unnerves Shirley.
“I am inclined to think that you are right, that there may be more to this than a simple wager, but there need not be a dissembler among the Ellipsoids. Disrupting the event in ways that will embarrass her Majesty’s government by its inability to protect its citizens, and perhaps make Englishmen more cautious about travelling abroad, may also serve someone’s purpose. I don’t know; I keep coming back to Princess Ella’s presence at the ceremonies in London. She is a princess of Hesse, which is one of the German states, and betrothed to a Grand Duke of Russia. I confess I do not see how it fits together; I can only conclude we are trying to reason from too little information…and that Scotland Yard is in the same straits in that regard.”
“All my career, I have fought using knowledge as my weapon,” the barrister sighs bleakly. “When I have not had sufficient knowledge, I have at least known where to go to get it. Now I am a pawn on a blindfolded chessboard. Less than a pawn; I know not the rules of the game, even. My clients, poor ignorant souls—I understand now how they must feel in court.”
Margaret quirks an eyebrow, and nods. “If knowledge is power, then ignorance is surely helplessness.” Shirley shuts his eyes. His face tightens and closes into such a wretched expression of vulnerability that even Esperanza remarks it.
Margaret gestures to Shirley to shift the section of skirt he is holding. “As to why Addison should think you a danger to him, I can of course only conjecture. But for all your tendency to deprecate your abilities, your acumen is formidable, and he has no way of knowing that you are not prepared to counter him physically as well. In addition, you have spoken out very publicly against him. If there is a diplomatic aspect, then it may be that Addison’s superiors are as much in the dark about details as Scotland Yard, and we are all bumbling about barking our shins on the furniture. Since the opposition does not know upon which Ellipsoid to focus their attention, they will work against any they can find.”
She pauses to tie off her thread, snip it, and rethread the needle, holding the last scrap of thread up for the wind to carry away and watching as it floats out over the water. Then she returns to the tucks she is putting in the skirt of Esperanza’s frock. “We will have no contact with Addison or his minions at all, if luck and forethought can arrange it. We are not going by the route he anticipates, nor do we look anything like we did at the beginning of this adventure, and we are taking pains to increase that difference. What are three more Europeans in a crowd? We are hiding needles in a haystack, as it were. I had even determined that I would purchase a sturdy wicker hamper in Panaji, and transfer the contents of my medical bag to it. I can then fold the medical bag into one of my trunks…or if I can’t, I shall simply abandon it and replace it in London. A female carrying a medical bag is noteworthy; one carrying a basket is not.”
She sticks her needle in the fabric, and reaches across to touch his hand. “We know the gun exists; we shall do our best to prevent it from firing in our vicinity. We have done all we can, and so, I believe, has Scotland Yard. And if their wits have not brought them the information as to what is planned, then we shall also apply ours to the problem. It may even be more successful. I have noticed before this that specialized training sometimes leads people to ignore things outside of it, rather like blinders on a carriage horse. Who knows? Our lack of training may actually be an advantage. In the meantime, let us enjoy this voyage.”
He turns up his hand to catch hers in his fingers. Lightly, gently, he brings it toward him, giving her every opportunity to pull back, watching her for any sign of alarm or distaste. There is none; only a brief, startled blink and a world of questions in her eyes. He touches his lips respectfully to her fingers, no more than a moment’s light caress, and lets go her hand. “Bless you and your courage,” he says. “Now tell me what you really think.”
She takes a moment to answer, and then it is simply to say “I have; I think we are doing everything we can do. If you are asking me if I am afraid, then the answer is yes, of course I am. Only a fool would not be, and I try not to be a fool.” But her voice is abstracted; clearly, her thoughts are elsewhere. She takes up her sewing again. She is, to say the least, confused. Eventually she sets down the skirt, and shakes out her hands for a moment. “I am curious, though. What is it that you were writing in your cabin, if the question is not too personal?”
“Hm? Oh, a letter to Lady Hester. Nothing that need go in a telegram.” He hitches himself forward and reaches for her hand again, this time only to hold it. His other hand he holds out to Esperanza. “See here, ladies,” he says, the mild cadence at curious odds with the abrupt words. “I can assure you that I am at least as frightened as either of you—I daresay more, as you, Miss Garcia, are of an age blessedly immune to fear. I, however, have made certain commitments that neither of you has; they will do as well as anything else to stiffen a weakening backbone.” He smiles wryly at Margaret, thinking about what has been said regarding corsets and women’s health.
“On balance, your presence grants me greater safety, while mine—on balance, as I said—puts you at greater risk. For that, and because I care very much for both of you and do not wish you to suffer fear or, Heaven forbid, harm, I tell you now that either or both of you may leave me any time you wish. I will think no less of you; it is a great gift to have travelled with you as far as I have.
“No, now do not make me any promises; I will not hear them. If you stay, you stay. If not, may your journeys be safe.”
The sun, making ready to set, descends behind a band of thin cloud, sending a fantastic glow onto the scrubbed, salt-bleached deck. A smell of cooking food makes itself known from belowdecks. Shirley looses his companions’ hands and stands up, joints creaking a trifle. “Supper soon, I think,” he says. Esperanza, quick as always, gathers up the sewing, careful of needles and pins, and darts off toward the cabins with it.
Powered by FireStats