The Devil's Acre (29 page)

Palmerston walked to the fireplace and swivelled around on his heel, striking an oratorical pose. ‘Colonel Colt,’ he began, ‘I am certain that I need not tell you of the situation in the East. You read your
Times
and your
Morning Post,
as does every man here. Our Prime Minister, poor Aberdeen, still holds out for peace, and with every passing day it becomes plainer that his feeble-minded indecision will finish him. Now, I have long pressed for action, proposing most recently that the Navy sail into the Black Sea and occupy it, thus preventing any further Russian manoeuvre. We must show this blood-steeped Tsar that we are serious, Colonel – that we will halt his aggression towards his neighbours at the point of a sword!’

His voice had been getting steadily louder, building to a rousing, flourishing finish and a defiant snap of the fingers; the assembled aides, Street included, seemed ready to applaud.

‘There will be war,’ the minister added carelessly, ‘it is quite certain. Nothing less than British honour is at stake. Turkey, our weak and brutalised ally, must receive our protection. I’m trying to push this question of the Black Sea to a division in the House. We’ll see what happens there, eh?’

Sam revised his initial, rather dubious opinion of the flamboyant old fellow before him. There was plainly a rod of best steel running up Lord Palmerston’s spine; this was a man who faced the goddamn situation, who called it what it was and did not shy away from the prospect of a necessary conflict. He met the minister’s speech with an impassioned rendition of his own about the fabled Anglo-Saxon bond that had first inspired him to set up a manufactory in London – glancing
over at Street again as he did so. Palmerston seemed well pleased by this, and continued to pay close attention as Sam described the Pimlico works’ unrivalled production speeds, mounting stockpile and extremely competitive prices.

‘So, my dear Colonel Colt,’ the nobleman asked with another of his savage smiles, ‘if a man was so disposed, might an order – a really very
large
order, I think – be placed with you right now, this minute?’

‘A fair price will get you however many you ask for,’ Sam answered. ‘Under five thousand and you can have ‘em today.’

He waved Lowry forward to present the pair of pistols they’d brought along with them, which he did with a low bow. Palmerston was delighted by this gift, opening up the case at once; and there it was, Sam’s beautiful Navy, engraved and blued and glinting fiercely in the firelight. The minister started to wave it around, advancing playfully on Street, jabbing at him as if it were a rapier. Sam managed a pained smile, and gave a quick explanation of the firing mechanism. He stared at the landscapes for a minute, at the soaring mountains and shady plains, hearing the soft
click-click
of the hammer drawing back – and then the sharp
clack
as it sprang back into the body of the gun. This was repeated several times, and the weapon declared a positive
wonder
of engineering in tones so loud that they almost jingled the coins in Sam’s waistcoat pocket.

Something seemed to occur to his lordly host; turning around, he let the shining pistol go limp in his hand, the barrel angled towards the floor. ‘You gave a tour of your marvellous factory to my dear friend Lajos Kossuth, did you not, back in April? I noticed it in the newspapers and meant to see you then, but events got the better of me. You are a supporter of his, I take it?’

‘I am,’ Sam said with a grave nod. He noticed that a tiny ironic line had appeared at the side of Lawrence Street’s mouth. ‘A true American always backs the cause of liberty.’

The minister inclined his head in polite acknowledgement, raising his eyebrows. ‘Of course he does. Not that such admirable sentiments will help Mr Kossuth, I am afraid. The poor devil is doomed to fail. He has too many foes, and of
the most inconveniently influential variety. Why, when I attempted to have him to stay at my country seat a few years ago – as a rather modest demonstration of support – the cabinet, including several close colleagues of mine, passed a vote expressly forbidding it! Imagine that, Colonel!’ He sighed, laying the Navy on the oval table that stood in the centre of the room. ‘Have there been any other noteworthy guests since?’

‘There have not. I’ve been back in Connecticut, y’see, and my brother –’

Lord Palmerston exchanged a look with Street. ‘We really should remedy that with all haste, I think. Your renown must spread yet further, my dear Colonel – you deserve it, and I will do everything I can to ensure it. Come, let us drink to your amazing invention! What would you care for?’

‘Bourbon,’ muttered Sam gratefully.

‘Bourbon, then, for Colonel Colt!’ cried Lord Palmerston, sending a servant scampering immediately from the room. ‘Bourbon for us all!

The drinks came in moments, far more quickly than Sam would have thought possible. He swallowed his down at once and was promptly poured another. They settled themselves in a ring of high-backed chairs, upholstered in oxblood leather – apart from Mr Lowry and a couple of the minister’s more junior aides, who remained by the door and windows respectively. Cigars were lit and snuff taken. Sam cut a plug of Old Red, thinking to make use of the wide fireplace; but to his surprise, a fine silver spittoon was brought in and placed at his feet.

‘Presented to me by an American friend,’ Palmerston said. ‘Suitable for all manner of expectoration, I find.’

As evening approached they talked their way through the meatiest issues of the day, the minister leading the conversation in his expansive, erratically voluble manner. Sam did his bit but grew increasingly unsatisfied; after such a promising start, their discourse stayed well away from the definite pledges of government custom that he’d been pretty confident of receiving. He reminded himself that the Home Secretary’s area of authority was domestic issues. Lord
Palmerston was in no position to patronise the Colt Company, whatever his views on the necessity and inevitability of war and the superior quality of the Colt revolver. Finishing off his fifth whiskey, Sam tried to raise the subject of the police, and how fearfully under-equipped they were for what was a damnably dangerous job – only to be knocked back down at once. Englishmen, he was informed rather pompously, instinctively deplore the idea of an armed police; the sure and certain result of such folly would be an enormous rise in shootings by policemen, and a new breed of criminal who carried a gun of his own as a matter of course.

Chewing hard, the gun-maker fixed his gaze on the Navy that lay on the table before him, trying to halt the turning of his temper by running his eye over its perfectly fashioned lines. An invitation to dine was extended. Sam wasn’t inclined to accept at first, but the expression on Street’s face made him reconsider – the purpose of this meeting, it seemed to say, has not yet been attained. Leaning around in his chair, the gun-maker instructed Mr Lowry to return to the factory and see to the close of the day’s business.

It was fine enough fare, some woody-tasting game-birds followed by baked turbot and a rich macaroni pudding; Sam got the servant to leave him the bourbon bottle, deciding that he would make the best of the situation. There was no sign of a wife, or indeed women of any kind. The minister simply stated that Lady Palmerston was out of town visiting a friend, and called for another bottle of Bordeaux. As they ate, their host regaled them with the story of his latest ingenious play in the Commons, in which he outsmarted his rivals (who, it seemed, were legion) and saw his own murky political ends achieved. Here was a man, Sam mused, who revelled in cunning and subterfuge at the highest levels – Lawrence Street’s true master. This dinner would not be innocent. Something was up.

At some advanced point the discussion moved on to America, specifically the Kansas-Nebraska Act that was just about to be introduced to Congress. Sam had heard much about this over the summer. Slave-owners and antislavery
abolitionists were both pouring into the same western regions, and President Franklin Pierce, in an ill-conceived attempt to calm the situation, was going formally to create the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and then allow the residents to vote on whether or not they would have slaves there. This potentially meant the expansion of America’s slave ownership; everyone Sam had spoken to in New York and Connecticut was staunchly opposed to the Act, considering it a presidential sop to the slavers made by an openly pro-Southern Democrat, a doughface of the weakest kind.

Palmerston was very interested in this affair; he’d obviously been following it closely, and had in fact given it a good deal more thought than Sam had himself. ‘Your President is storing up trouble there, Colonel, you mark my words. The people in these new states will not separate themselves neatly, in accordance with some unseen celestial plan. There will be violence, bloodshed, conflict even – in the western territories, yes, but also in America at large. I fear that the evil of slavery is set to bring your young nation to a very dismal head.’

Street spoke up from the end of the dining table. ‘Surely, Colonel, as a proud Connecticut Yankee, you are as fierce an opponent of slavery as any man in this room?’

Sam sat back, frowning, swilling the bourbon around in his glass. The pious tone of these Englishmen was annoying him; he felt that they were passing judgement on something they could never hope to understand. ‘I’ve seen the South,’ he answered slowly. ‘I sailed along the Ohio River in the thirties, and I’ve spent some time in New Orleans. And I have to admit that slavery is a deeply wrong-headed system.’

‘Hear, hear!’ hollered Palmerston, banging the tabletop.

‘Bravo,’ said Street, rather more quietly.

‘To my mind,’ the gun-maker went on, ‘it is above all very wasteful and inefficient. The blacks are ignorant and idle beyond belief, and they do nothing well. And the whites, so used to being slave-masters, have forgotten how to perform even the smallest service for themselves. The result is a society where every meal is lukewarm, every bed
unmade, every shirt but half-washed and burned by the goddamn iron.’

There was an uncertain pause.

‘You favour emancipation, though,’ Street said. ‘Surely.’

‘More than that,’ Sam came back, ‘I believe that every Negro in the American states should be returned to the African lands from which he was originally taken, without delay. The southern states would improve beyond measure if they had decent workers toiling for a decent daily wage. And I can tell you, gentlemen, that could such a thing be arranged, there wouldn’t be a single plantation owner who’d oppose it.’ He knocked back his whiskey, barely feeling it pass down his throat. ‘But it’s impossible, sadly; there’s already far too many of ‘em. And I’m told they breed like goddamn rats.’

The Englishmen were looking at each other over their half-filled wine glasses. Someone, one of the aides, coughed.

‘At any rate,’ pronounced Lord Palmerston after a couple of seconds, ‘whichever way it all proceeds will be favourable for you, eh, Colonel? Ah, the great comfort that must reside in manufacturing weapons for one’s livelihood! No danger at all of the market for your worthy productions drying up, now is there?’

He gave Sam that smile again, the inside of his taut upper lip blackened by red wine. Sam looked back at him, feeling adversarial and pretty goddamn drunk. He couldn’t make this old bastard out. Was he mocking Sam, or the divided people of America, or both? Or neither?

The gun-maker picked up the bourbon bottle. ‘As I often have cause to remark, Mister Palmerston,’ he snarled, drawing out the stopper, ‘the Colt revolver is a
peacemaker.
Brought to a dispute of any size, in any part of the world, by any man, it will make the goddamn peace. You can take that as the seller’s guarantee.’

This bold claim brought Sam’s gift of pistols back to the minister’s mind, and he proposed that they go out into his garden right then to shoot off a few bullets. Sam consented without really thinking, and lurched through the mansion’s luxury out into the darkness. The evening, he realised, had slipped past him entirely; it was night, full and proper, black
as the bottom of a pond. He was aware that it must be cold as the breath was coming out of their little party like rushes of steam, but he hardly felt it. The garden was seriously big, far more space than should rightfully be reserved for one man in the heart of the largest city on earth. Two lanterns had been set against the base of a wall, and for a second Sam thought that they were to serve as the targets; then he saw the half-dozen old boots arranged in a line between them. Someone had loaded one of the pistols, and by general consensus it was offered to Sam.

‘Show us how it is done, Colonel!’ they cried.

Sam refused, pushing his trembling hands deep into the pockets of his coat, which some obliging flunky had brought over and helped him into. He found himself longing for the rocking of a railway carriage, for the swell of the sea against a steam-ship’s hull; for the sweet freedom of travel.

The company proved insistent. ‘Come, sir,’ urged Palmerston. ‘Why, a revolver-shooting lesson from Colonel Samuel Colt is akin to instruction in music from Charles Hallé – or in sculpture from the immortal Buonarroti! Do not deny us, I beg you!’

The gun-maker shook his head, turning to spit his plug away into some bushes. ‘I don’t shoot at targets,’ he said firmly. ‘Not ever.’

After a short, quizzical silence, the minister gestured for the pistol to be given to him instead, briefly weighing it in his hand before taking aim with offhand confidence. His first shot sounded rather muted to Sam, a dry pop more than a bang; then a split-second later it echoed back from somewhere with its volume doubled, setting several distant dogs off into frenzied peals of barking. The old fellow fiddled with the hammer and fired again. One of the boots spun and flapped like a leathery bird, prompting a round of huzzahs – the loudest of which came from the shooter himself. Curtains started to open in houses all around the garden, and faces both irate and fearful peeped out. Palmerston glanced up at them with clear satisfaction before loosing the remaining four shots in a deliberate, emphatic rhythm. Only one hit home, shearing off a toecap before striking the brickwork behind.