Honor's Kingdom (49 page)

“Not so long ago, you seemed to have a very high regard for gentlemen. Even for gentlemen who were criminals.”

“A bloke don’t ’ave no chance ’ere, don’t you see?”

“And then, how glad you were to be rid of me, Inspector Wilkie. You didn’t even want me to remain in London long enough to give my testimony about a boy’s hand in my bed, or to question me as to what I might have known about a series of brutal murders. The Good Lord knows I should have seen that was wrong. But I had taken the lure, and would not see what did not support my own prejudices. You have made a very great fool of me. Almost as great as I have made of myself.”

“Please, sir. I’ll do anything. You couldn’t name me a thing what I wouldn’t do.”

I let him suffer a bit longer. For he deserved no less. Then I did a thing I never thought I would do upon this earth. I offered a criminal a chance to evade the law. On conditions I knew that he would find an immeasurable relief.

Now, you will say: “Again, you are a hypocrite, Jones. For you make such a to-do about justice and order.” But I will tell you: We were at war. At war with our own brothers. And I had lost my taste for British justice. The justice that I wanted was a Union victory. And I had seen a way to further our cause.

I did not like it. But this world is not so simple as I wish it. I want to be a good man and a Christian. But every morning the struggle begins again.

I told Wilkie I would hold my evidence back for the present, then leave the details in the care of Mr. Adams. To whom the inspector was to report every incident rising to the attention of the Metropolitan Police that might in any way affect the United States, have to do with Americans—especially the Confederate variety—or involve anyone who even whispered the word “America.” I fear it brought a deluge of reports to poor Mr. Adams over the next several years, but I like to think he found a few of them useful.

THAT EVENING I GOT a lesson in diplomacy that I wish had not involved such gross indecencies. For it deserved a page in all our history books.

When Mr. Adams and I arrived at Parliament, Lord John Russell, the Foreign Secretary, was waiting in the first lobby to greet us. He looked like a man who had eaten poisoned fruit, if you will pardon the implication.

Mr. Adams, for his part, was in the best of spirits. Which meant that his face had softened from granite to oak.

“How kind of you to meet me, Your Lordship,” Mr. Adams said. “And even kinder of Lord Palmerston to receive me with so little delay.”

“I assure you,” Earl Russell told him, “the Prime Minister has only the very highest regard for Your Excellency. Indeed, he was honored by the prospect of your call.”

For all his fine upbringing, Lord Russell could not quite keep his eyes off the leather portfolio Mr. Adams carried.

Now, I will tell you the queerest thing: Mr. Adams and Lord Russell were so alike in visage and stature that they might have been close brothers, if not twins. They even shared similar expanses of round, pink scalp when they tipped their hats. And I understand they did become great friends as time marched on. But friendship was not the foremost concern that evening.

Lord Russell ignored my presence, nor did Mr. Adams trouble to introduce me. I think he enjoyed the lack of clarity in my situation. As for the Englishman’s opinion, I suppose the plaster upon my face and the damage my new suit had suffered in Glasgow did not recommend me to his highest opinion.

“Would you, please?” the Foreign Secretary said to our Minister, gesturing that they might go side by side.

I brought up the rear. From which position I marked the curious glances the two of them got as we crossed the great lobby and found our way to a staircase. The Foreign Secretary led us to an intimate smoking salon, in which a decrepit fellow sat alone. I recognized Lord Palmerston, “Old Pam.” Small he was, and must always have been so, and he had more wrinkles than the seat of an Irishman’s trousers. The sun of age had browned him, and he sat bent, as if an invisible bully were pressing his shoulders toward his knees. His teeth looked artificial, even from a distance, and I suspected that he was not the first of God’s creatures to wear the hair that graced his august head. Like Mr. Seward, he had a nose the courteous would describe as Roman, though ailments had gnawed it a bit. He might have been on holiday from the tomb. Yet, he sprang up at the sight of Mr. Adams, agile as a man in the prime of life. He looked a relic of a bygone era, but perhaps of one that had been more enthusiastic about living. Not that I fault our age’s preference for decorum.

“My dear,
dear
Mr. Adams! What a notable pleasure to see you again!” As he spoke, he nodded to Lord Russell, who promptly faded out the door, leaving the three of us alone. In a lingering miasma of Havanas.

Lord Palmerston turned an expectant face to me.

“May I present Major Jones, Your Lordship? He’s been visiting our legation. The major’s responsible for the opportune recovery of your effects.”

I already knew Mr. Adams well enough to understand what he was about. He was no man for social frivolities or wasting time, and he had a knack for coming to the point. I wonder if, in New England, people have conversations of more than a dozen words at a time?

The Prime Minister’s face shifted from an artifice of delight through a brief glimpse of anger to a mask of accommodation.

“But my dear Mr. Adams. I haven’t asked you to sit down. How unforgivable of me!”

“I understand Your Lordship has business in the House this evening. I wouldn’t dream of detaining you. My business won’t take a moment.”

I watched as Old Pam struggled to keep up that pleasant mask. Only half a century and more in politics could have given him the necessary training.

“Then let us address the issue, Mr. Adams. I believe you have come here tonight to make a request. Perhaps two requests. Or even more. I think you might know that the degree of friendship I feel toward your person, as well as to your American nation, is such that I am inclined to grant any requests to the best of my abilities.”

I expected Mr. Adams to tear into the old rascal then. To give him what he had coming, and to lecture him about warships that were no better than pirates, and contraband, and threats of all descriptions. But that was when I got my lesson, for Mr. Adams had mastered his trade as few other men have done.

“Not at all, Your Lordship!” he said, in a voice at once wronged and almost jovial. “There must have been some error
of communication. I only wished to return certain properties to you that accident carried into my possession. I could not think of associating requests or conditions with such a matter.”

He held out the leather portfolio.

He trumped Palmerston, our Minister did! Old Pam may have been a master of the political arena, but he could not quite hide his astonishment in that first spatter of seconds. His mouth hung open as if he might start drooling.

But he took the pouch of letters, quick as a cat.

Then the Prime Minister got the beauty of it. I suppose he liked a good game, too. And he saw well enough that, had Mr. Adams strutted in with demands, he would have owed him nothing more, but now he was deeply in our Minister’s debt.

“I have always found it a pleasure to deal with American gentlemen,” Lord Palmerston told Mr. Adams. “Thus, it gratifies me to know that our future relations shall be entirely cordial, despite any minor problems that might annoy us. I speak of surmountable problems, sir. Of trivialities. Have I told you of the first time I met your father?”

I EXPECTED MR. ADAMS to lead me into the visitor’s gallery, so that we might hear what that Lindsay fellow had to say. Instead, our Minister took me by the arm and turned us toward the great doors that would let us back out into London.

“But Mr. Lindsay, sir . . .”

“Oh, I think we might let the Gentleman from Sunderland have his little say. Better to display our confidence by being absent. We’ll read what he has to say in
The Times
on Monday.”

We found we could not walk arm in arm, because of my hampered gait and the difference in our heights. But after we had come apart, our Minister showed no interest in the cab rank.

“I’m feeling absolutely splendid,” he told me, although his face still looked as grave as a burial. “Major Jones, would you do me the honor of taking a turn with me? I thought we might
stroll into Westminster. Or have a look at the progress on the new bridge.”

We managed a pace or two, then Mr. Adams nodded to himself. “I wonder if the English won’t have some benefit from all this themselves? They’re apt at learning their lessons.” His chin drew into his whiskers. “I doubt we shall ever see another such sordid affair in the British government.”

The evening air was soft and not too grimy, and the city had slowed enough to allow a man a bit of peace. I was delighted to walk with him, of course. And proud. For I felt I had just witnessed a scene of greatness.

When we turned the corner by the great clock tower, he produced something from his pocket and held it out, closed in his fist.

“I thought you might have this,” he told me. “As a remembrance. A pleasanter remembrance, I hope, than that injury to your face.”

It was a plain brass watch. I knew what I would see when I opened its lid: Another reminder still, of a bygone life.

Glad I was that he gave me the watch, for it also gave me an opening. I had a thing to ask him, and it was not entirely delicate. But I am one for knowing each detail.

“Mr. Adams, sir. Begging your pardon. But there is a question I have.”

“Yes?”

“It may offend you.”

He gave me a curious look. “I believe I want to hear any question you feel obliged to ask. Especially one you fear might offend me.”

“Mr. Adams, did you know Mr. Campbell had betrayed your trust?”

“Yes.”

“And . . . was it you who then hinted that he had, in turn, betrayed those to whom he had betrayed you?”

“That’s more than one question. But I’ll answer it. Yes. I let the matter slip when I was talking to Moran in my own dining
room. Poor Moran hadn’t the least idea what I was talking about, but the butler knew.”

“And did you expect them to murder him?”

“Yes. But you understand me, Major Jones. We are at war. And it is a war we must win. We cannot be gentle with traitors.”

We passed a slump of aged walls, where new buildings crowded the old.

“You do understand. Don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. I wish I did not. But I do.”

“Are you perturbed that I kept the information from you? About Campbell being a traitor?”

“No, sir. I mean, yes. A bit.”

“I did not want to prejudice your views, you see. And, frankly, you were unknown to me. Despite the recommendations from Washington. Having once been betrayed, and by a man of the cloth . . . I thought I should watch you for a little while.”

Which was only sensible.

“And Mr. Disraeli? There will be no cost to him for all these doings?”

“Mr. Disraeli will do what it takes to survive. He is a spider whom men mistake for a moth.”

“And Mr. Pomeroy? The elder?”

“You’re full of questions tonight,” he said, but not without some slight tone of amusement. Then he sobered his voice again. “Mr. Pomeroy has retired to the country, where I expect him to remain for some time. I believe his penalties have been sufficient. His only son is dead. And the sister was lost before him.” He traced the tip of his walking stick across the pavement. “All because of this appetite for titles. I think perhaps the most important thing my grandfather’s generation did for us was to avoid any sort of hereditary titles or patents of nobility. Although I don’t think some of the Virginians would have minded a duke or two.”

We had turned toward the river. The unfinished span of the bridge behind Parliament loomed in the deepening twilight.

“You’ve done a remarkable job, Major Jones. I won’t forget it. And I’ll see that Washington knows, of course.”

“That is unnecessary, sir,” I told him, though it bordered on a lie. For who among us does not like a bit of praise and respect when we do our best? Even when the results are sadly flawed?

“Necessary or not, I am indebted to you, and an Adams pays his debts.” He seemed about to say something else, and I had an uncanny sense that it had to do with his son. But we had approached the bridge and Mr. Adams recognized a figure in the shadows. Someone who did not merit a share in our conversation.

It took me a moment to place the fellow, for he sat there in the gloaming half hidden by a sketching tablet. Then I fixed him as the man I had seen making a drawing on the docks behind the fish market.

“Ah, Mr. Whistler!” our Minister said. “My congratulations on the success of your ‘Woman in White.’ ”

The young fellow was as surly as he was slender. A slouching man in a slouch hat he was. He did not even rise to greet our Minister.

“’Evening, Adams. Thanks, I s’pose. But she ain’t called ‘The Woman in White.’ That’s all nonsense the gallery made up. Provoked by the success of that Collins book. Which is a piece of rubbish, I might add. My painting’s titled ‘The White Girl.’ ”

“Then I congratulate you on the success of ‘The White Girl,’ Mr. Whistler. All London is at your feet.”

“I don’t know,” the artist said. “I wonder if I shouldn’t just go back to Paris.”

“London’s loss,” Mr. Adams told him, with a grim little ghost of a smile, “would be the gain of all France.”

Mr. Whistler offered to do a character study of my head, for he said I might serve for a dust-man in a painting he was contemplating, but I declined his generosity.

We bid one another
adoo,
and Mr. Adams and I turned back toward Westminster Abbey, which wore a fresh garland of gaslamps.

“Impossible fellow,” Mr. Adams confided. “Entire family are Confederate sympathizers, I understand. I’m told his mother’s an insufferable Rebel.” He made a sound surprisingly like a snort. “If he ever does a portrait of her, he’ll have to limit his palette to shades of gray. Know anything about painting, Major Jones?”

“No, sir.”