The Last Crossing (5 page)

Addington dresses himself in nothing but a pair of trousers, takes his belt from a drawer, cinches it around his waist.

Then he scrapes an arrowhead lingeringly along his jawline. Fragments of his dark beard, fine as cat dander, sprinkle his bare chest.

Creeping back into the house shortly before dawn, he is well pleased. He sniffs his hand, the salty blood that bathed it when he cut the deer haunch to pieces and scattered it in the wood, his gift for the foxes, the ravens. Somehow the blood reminds him of the smell of a woman on his fingers. Sexual congress. He holds his fingers beneath his nose and breathes it in, drinks in the memory of sweet Pearl, his best girl.

What a discovery she had been, found among the gay freelances of the Burlington Arcade, haunt of his days as a young subaltern, strolling arm in arm with brother officers, bellowing out their favourite tune when in their cups.

On a winter afternoon, chin buried in his collar against the nipping air, he would catch a cab to the arcade, sometimes accompanied by Macdonald, or Cheek, or Reynolds, but more frequently for a prowl on his own. Burlington Arcade, with its smart shops and throngs of military men in scarlet, blue, or plum, made him feel as at home as in the regimental mess.

Garish gaslights and garish strumpets making coy pauses to allow gentlemen eyeing their reflections in the shop windows to approach them. Heartbreakingly beautiful girls, disarmingly beautiful girls whose unaffected laughter was enough to stir the blood of a eunuch. And once they caught the eye of a gentleman, they were apt to take the initiative. “May I have the pleasure of paying my addresses to you?” and when you said, “Delighted,” off they would tow you to a convenient nearby apartment.

This was where Pearl had snared him, dropped her net on him in the Burlington Arcade, deft little fisher of men. He knew her only by her first name, sufficient for their purposes. Pearl, a young woman with pale skin and swirling, wickedly raven hair piled high on her head.

He had been a regular of Pearl’s. She made him feel easy. If his father had provided him with a decent allowance, he could have kept her to himself in a villa in St. John’s Wood, but Father was a miserly skinflint, so an exclusive, proprietorial interest was out of the question.

It had never been necessary to explain to Pearl what he wanted, a mere hint was enough for the clever thing. When in London, he had
her as frequently as his pocketbook permitted, feverishly pined for her when he was away.

Then Pearl vanished. He patrolled the arcade, accosting whores, cross-examining them as to her whereabouts. Several different tales were related. She had left for the Continent, contracted to serve in a brothel in Brussels catering to the English trade. It was well-known that English men of business preferred a touch of home when abroad. Another girl swore Pearl had married a Nottingham stocking manufacturer and retired to a life of respectability. Whatever the truth, she was lost to him.

Even now, thoughts of Pearl turn him a trifle sad and sentimental. She was a good, kind-hearted girl, soft-spoken, very satisfactory.

Once he had even believed she cared for him.

Tonight he would enjoy Alice the servant girl as he had enjoyed saucy Pearl. Shove his finger in her mouth, hook it in her cheek, reel her about the room, murmuring, “Little fish. Dearest trout.” Fling her on the bed, gasping for air, darling minnow.

Of course, Alice was not the charming actress Pearl had been. If you laid five gold guineas on Pearl’s bureau, she would play any part, perform like Fanny Kemble. The very picture of outraged modesty, of struggling virtue, a chaste Sabine woman shrinking from the Roman conqueror. How movingly, pathetically she would feign tears and plead for her maidenhead. Beg him to be gentle. And why shouldn’t she act the part required? If she bruised, hadn’t he paid her handsomely for each and every one? Kissed them too?

Pearl, the only girl whom he had ever permitted to see him hold some stolen gentlelady’s article to his nose at the moment of climax, of spending.

How many lace handkerchiefs, embroidered gloves, muffs, had he posted anonymously to their virgin owners after using them to sop up the juices from Pearl’s mott, after giving that curly black bush a thorough wiping after love?

But there was no Pearl at Sythe Grange. Tonight, he would inhale Miss Venables’s fragrance, imagine her under him, perform the old
rituals and ceremonies with Alice. Her protests be damned. Afterwards, he would make it right with her.

But Miss Venables’s glove must not be posted, however great the temptation. Miss Venables had exacted his promise to treasure it, to keep it close, so she might live in the knowledge that chivalry was not dead. It seemed he had given her a great moment in her young life.

Addington found himself at the foot of the stairs leading up to the servants’ quarters. He was not sure how he had got there. He looked up to where Alice lay abed. “Pearl,” he whispered, “dear girl. Best of girls.” Then he began a climb he knew would end in nothing but disappointment.

CHARLES
Until Addington attempted to requisition this room for his own use, I was disgusted by the state of it, the very room which the proprietor boasts is the finest the Overland Hotel has to offer. Pure luxury, a maple commode, a dresser missing one drawer, a bed which customarily sleeps two gentlemen, an unsteady deal table upon which to write, a ladderback chair carved with the initials of former guests of the establishment, peeling, dirty blue wallpaper emblazoned with silver fleur-de-lys.

But now, after four glasses of port, I feel triumphant that I occupy such a snug berth. All because Addington envies it and presses his claim, arguing that as leader of our expedition he requires more commodious quarters to plan operations, to spread his maps. A small victory won, not to yield place to him. Addington remains ensconced down the hall in a wretched room no bigger than a cupboard. That will teach him to dally.

Finally, the great man has arrived, assumes command, after keeping me waiting interminably. His domineering presence only softened by five cases of port which he shepherded over the deeps of the Atlantic, across the fruited plains of America, up the Missouri from St. Louis to Fort Benton. It’s very good port, the flies like it. I have to place a sheet of notepaper over the mouth of the glass after every sip, otherwise they swarm for the privilege of drowning themselves in it.

Addington, come in high style with stores and equipage unimaginable. His only explanation as to why he is more than a month late, “the difficulties in procuring necessary items in London.” Blithely sauntering down the gangplank of the steamer
Resolution
in the early June sun, offering me the coolest of handshakes and introducing his new boon companion, Mr. Caleb Ayto, a horrible, vulgar American stepped right from the pages of Mr. Dickens or Mrs. Trollope. Mr. Ayto playing spaniel, straining to establish his doubtful bona fides to me. “A mere ink-stained wretch is what I am, Mr. Gaunt. An ‘arti-cleer’ in the Republic of Letters. In short – a newspaperman. But a newspaperman who knows a thing or two about this part of the world. Hard-won knowledge of the useful, practical variety.”

Addington is given to taking up with unsavoury characters, but in Ayto he has outdone himself. His motive in collecting this buffoon resplendent in a garish waistcoat a Piccadilly pickpocket would covet is no mystery. Before leaving England, I procured a stack of books written by gentlemen adventurers in order to familiarize myself with conditions in North America. Addington dipped into them as well, a page here, a page there – read just enough to decide his forthcoming escapades will need recording too. I suspect he harbours a notion that this greasy journalist can “work something up” about his forthcoming rambles on the frontier, scribble a flattering portrayal of Captain Addington Gaunt, intrepid British explorer and sportsman, for the delight of the public back home. The man’s vanity is incredible, infinite.

So far he evinces not the slightest urgency in getting us under way. Pays no attention when I tell him I have learned nothing of any use after weeks spent interviewing whomever might have a clue to Simon’s possible whereabouts. Nothing learned, so how do we proceed? He only shrugs and says, “All in good time. I have things to see to.”

The problem is that for the moment, Addington finds Fort Benton too congenial a place to immediately remove himself. There is game to be had a short ride out of the town, and he and Ayto make frequent visits to the pestilential brothels. He immensely enjoys cutting a figure in the bar downstairs, buying rounds of drinks for men who
are only too happy to hear him bray and brag as long as he keeps the whisky flowing.

I try to force home to him our position, but he blithely waves me off. Last night, when I caught his ear for a moment and pointed out to him that more than a month has already been lost due to his dilatoriness, he suddenly said, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, Charles. You’re being a very dull boy. There’s a magic show on the steamer tonight. It’ll brighten you.”

It did not brighten me, sitting through that endless, preposterous farce. But let Addington have his fun, I thought, and perhaps that will entice him to be more tractable. Allow me to seize an opportunity to talk to him seriously after the performance. But no, that was not to be. It was so in keeping with Addington’s character to find the spectacle of yokels galloping that female magician up and down Front Street too amusing to leave. In the end, I walked away and left him there. He was very late getting back to the hotel. I fell asleep waiting to snare him for a conversation when he returned.

All these tedious weeks in Fort Benton I have harboured one delusion. That when Addington arrived, and heard my anxieties and fears, he would dispel them with some bluff, practical soldier’s talk. Assure me that Simon is being held captive by tribesmen and can be ransomed. Tell me that he is holed up in the solitary cabin of some prospector or trapper, waiting to be found. No matter how implausible the scenario, Addington could give me faith and courage if he would only act.

My reunion with him has served to forcibly remind me that we never shared one jot of fellow-feeling. My brother does not seem to experience the slightest anxiety for Simon, or be prepared to acknowledge that our reason for being in this godforsaken place is not to entertain him, but to learn what has happened to our brother. Yesterday, at the levee when I attempted to engage him on the topic of Simon, Addington abruptly announced, “I believe the Governor is losing his mind.”

I could scarcely credit my ears. “Father losing his mind? What sort of nonsense are you speaking?”

Addington seemed to have already half-forgotten what he had just said, his attention compromised by a likely-looking horse being led along the riverbank. But when I repeated myself, he vaguely answered, “Father’s got it in his head there’s a conspiracy directed at him.” So like Addington to burden me with more uneasiness when what I need is reassurance. To give a twist to my mind as he used to twist my ear when he was fourteen and I was six. “The butler found him on the carpet, beneath the library windows. He assumed the old boy had tripped and taken a tumble, tried to help him to his feet, but Father refused to get off the floor. Said he wasn’t about to show himself to anyone lurking about outside. Next day, he ordered the draperies drawn, day and night.”

“But who can he suspect of plotting against him?”

Addington simply shrugged. “Yes, that is the question, isn’t it.”

Thinking of Sythe Grange denied sunlight, that hideous interior, the sitting rooms cluttered with burly mahogany tables, Wanstead sofas, voluminous, dusty curtains of dark-red rep and bottle-green velvet, everything draped in claustral gloom, all I could say is, “The loss of Simon has temporarily driven him to distraction.”

“I’m not so sure,” Addington replied. After that, I could get no more out of him. He had to meet Ayto for a libation.

Of course, it is Simon. Father cannot really be going mad. Not that sturdy old warhorse. It is for affection that he hungers, the filial love which Simon always openly showed him and which I was chary to display, fearing rebuff. Neither Addington nor I can supply that for him. Yet, strange to say, I did hear Father claim that Addington, too, had once been capable of loving, unbelievable as that seemed to me as a boy of six or seven.

The sound of Father ranting had beckoned me to the door of his study that day. I remember earlier noting the arrival of the family solicitor, Mr. Fry, and catching a few words exchanged among the servants about Master Addington being in trouble at school again. Ear pressed to the door, I kept a lookout for Simon, who disapproved of my taste for eavesdropping. Even at that tender age, what a stickler he was for proper conduct. But not self-righteous, no, never that.
Not once did he reprove my curiosity, but if I attempted to pass on any of the intelligence I gathered, he would stuff his fingers in his ears and run away. I could not stop myself spying, but I did my best to keep it from Simon. His good opinion meant the world to me. We two were still one in everything, undivided souls, and I felt him to be my better half. He had not yet become an embarrassment to me; our adult paths had yet to diverge.