The Pleasure Merchant (21 page)

“But we haven’t come anywhere,” said Sabina. “We’re at home, Mr. Dryden.”

“You are a perfect thing, Sabina,” said Hallux, and from the motion of the shadows, Tom saw he had moved around to face her. She stood, and accepted his hand, whereupon he led her away, somewhere. “Beautiful, obedient…
sensual
… what man could not love you? What man would not want you?”

“I don’t care,” said Sabina, “as long as
you
want me.”

“That I do.”

Tom quietly shut the door behind him. He felt sickened, guilty, as if he had overheard something far more private than their fucking. He had often wondered what on earth passed between those two in their private moments, but now he resolved never to ask, never to snoop or seek to find out more. Hallux’s treatments clearly worked; perhaps he did deserve to be in the Royal Society. Sabina certainly seemed happier and calmer from his attentions…

Well, Hallux could have her. Tom’s feelings of desire for her, his belief that she needed rescuing, it all melted away that night, in the wake of what he had observed. Sabina was clearly far more trouble than she could possibly be worth, even being as beautiful and pleasant as she was. Keeping her calm was obviously a job for a doctor, especially one like Hallux, who enjoyed his doctoring, odd as his methods might be.
As far as Tom was concerned, they deserved one another.

***

The family quit Bergamot Mews on the first day of November. Three and a half days later they saw the dreary, rain-washed front of 12 Bloomsbury Square, looking every bit as wretched as Tom expected to be until after Christmas, at the earliest.

Hallux was ecstatic, and as for Sabina, she was back to her former self. The day following her harp-playing she had awoken with a slight fever and chill, and sat by the fire all day, caring nothing for any food, drink, or suggested activity. She would not even return to her harp, citing the bruising of her fingers and the agitation music gave to her spirits, and did not play it again. When Mr. Bewit suggested she might like to take the instrument with her back to London she silently shook her head and opened the book on her lap, though no motion of her eyes or animation of her face implied she read what was on the page. Mr. Bewit seemed dismayed by her decision, but Tom wasn’t. He agreed with Hallux—music only agitated his bride. She seemed far more content like this, more at peace, and if she had to give up her harp-playing to achieve calm in her soul, then so be it.

Mr. Bewit was not calm; no, he was wretched. The bloom the country had lent him had left him already, and he was peaked and miserable. Even so, Tom believed he was actually the most miserable about their shift of residence. While it was true that anywhere he went with Mr. Bewit he was assured of eating well, drinking better, and paying for none of it, in London everyone knew him for what he was, so he could count on no horde of amenable young women eager to please a handsome and eligible young gentleman such as himself. Mr. Bewit might miss his geese, but Tom would suffer most for the lack of birds to shoot.

This foulness of mood among those trapped in the chill, damp carriage was only increased when they finally rattled to a stop, but a door down from 12 Bloomsbury Square. Mr. Bewit, who for the last hour of their drive had sunk into a silent and gloomy meditation, came to himself.

“What the devil can James be doing?” he mumbled, peering out the window. “Does he expect us to run?”

“Perhaps he believes it is a nicer view from here,” said Sabina, bleary-eyed, repellent, and vague. “Mr. Dryden has often remarked that many things are best viewed on the bias.”

“Jolly hard on the horses,” said Hallux. “James shouldn’t let them stand in this, they’ll—ah, there we go.” The coach lurched forward, and Tom could see the problem—a different carriage had been parked where they wished to be.

At last as close as they could get to their front door, they disembarked one by one so that no one would have to stand in the rain. First went Mr. Bewit, then Sabina, then her husband, and last of all, Tom.

“Out you come, Master Tom,” said James, the great oaf. Tom purposely pushed wide the carriage-door open as he got out, getting more water on the silk interior than was necessary, for it would not be up to him to get the water-marks out. James cursed him as they sprinted up the stairs. “Laugh now,” the driver cried, over the pounding rain. “I warrant you’ll be smiling a lot less once you see—”

Tom, not at all interested in James’s low gossip, darted inside. The relief of the warm interior of the town house was very welcome, and it seemed like the day was looking up—until Mr. Bewit’s voice made Tom aware that something strange was afoot.

“But why did you send no word of your arriving?” he cried. “To think, coming all this way home only to find the house standing empty!”

“I thought it would be rather a fine joke,” drawled someone who was clearly trying to sound more jovial than he actually felt. “I would have spent only a few nights here and then come down to Puriton… but it seems you’ve saved me the trouble. How droll.”

Curious, Tom made his way through the entryway and turned the corner to find his master and Hallux standing with a young man who could only be Callow Bewit. He was the very image of the boy in the painting, though a few years older, and even more opulently dressed and coiffed. Tom noted his sneer was also more pronounced, and his chin weaker. Tom disliked him almost immediately, placing him among the ranks of simpering fops that had been the bane of his existence when he worked at Dray’s; the sort of young man who had become irate over ‘trifles’ like being asked to pay for the wigs they wanted. Not that Callow would have deigned to suffer an elegant, understated peruke from Dray’s, that much was clear—an enormous, and to Tom’s mind rather tacky European wig framed a face artfully made up, and the young man’s togs would have been ridiculous for an evening out… unless he planned to attend the Gold Braid Manufacturer’s Annual Celebratory Ball. To think, he had traveled in such finery!

“Really, though, I should be the one surprised to see
you
.” Master Callow looked keenly at his father. “Have you some business in the city? Shouldn’t you be knee deep in mud, murdering partridges?”

“We thought to spend Christmas in town.” Mr. Bewit had come up with this as an excuse to tell anyone who expressed curiosity over the family’s unusual presence. “So many of our country acquaintance were going to be elsewhere it seemed… rather dull.”

“How very jolly,” said Master Callow, smiling with a set of uneven, yellow teeth that had not made their way into the finished portrait in Mr. Bewit’s study. “And hullo… who is this?”

“Let me do the honors,” said Hallux Dryden, with perhaps the first genuine smile Tom had ever seen upon his face. “Master Callow, meet Tom Dawne, your father’s part-time valet and full-time surrogate son. Tiercel’s been grooming Tom to be your replacement for, oh, the past six months now, I’d say? Tom’s only a servant, but as you can see, your father’s been playing at Pygmalion, taking the hammer and chisel to him, trying to shape him into the perfect respectable young man.” Mr. Bewit stood stock still, gawping like a carp at his cousin. “
Master Tom
, meet Master Callow Bewit, your master’s
actual
heir. Now, please excuse me—I’d like to go change out of these wet things before I catch my death.”

Mr. Bewit found his voice at last, sputtering ejaculations his cousin’s retreating backside like “Ridiculous!” and “Don’t be a fool!” But Callow Bewit had eyes only for Tom.

The look on his face that was not at all nice.

Desirous of not making yet another enemy, Tom bowed low, hoping to do some damage control. “Master Callow,” he said. “I have heard so many fine things about you. I have long… longed… to make your acquaintance.” It was the first time he had ever stumbled over an address, damn his tongue!

“Indeed,” said Callow disdainfully. “Well, father, if you’re trying to replace me, I suggest you find someone with a bit better breeding. This one looks like you picked him up out of a shop somewhere.”

Both Tom and Mr. Bewit colored, though only Mr. Bewit tried to protest this too-accurate conclusion.

“
Charmed
,” added Master Callow, and with a high-pitched, womanish giggle entirely lacking in real mirth, he left the room.

Tom never found out if Master Callow’s arrival was due to a summons from Hallux, or if something as humdrum as diminishing funds had hastened his return. Knowing what he did of the one’s vindictiveness and the other’s extravagance, he found both scenarios equally plausible. It didn’t really matter—whatever the cause, the young master’s arrival disrupted virtually everything that had made Tom’s life with Mr. Bewit so comfortable.

Tom was not the only one affected, either—Callow’s return had finished what Hallux began. Mr. Bewit became so drawn and nervous that Tom daily feared for a relapse, and the worst part was, neither of his master’s relations seemed the least bit concerned by the ill effects of their actions.

Hallux was obviously of the opinion that dragging them all back to London amounted to a triumph; he swaggered around the house, frequently remarking on how much better situated they all were, now that they were in London. Under ordinary circumstances Tom would have found Hallux’s constant cheerfulness an improvement, for instead of complaining about everything he complimented the food, the wine, the furnishings, and the company—but it only made Mr. Bewit more miserable, as it was all in the service of comparing it favorably to that which they had found in Puriton.

Callow was less onerous only because he was less present. Every day he slept until noon, breakfasted richly, and then went away until the evening, when he would dress for a night out and stay away until the early morning. He would never tell anyone where he went or what he did, but given that he did not speak to his father but to beg for more pocket-money, whatever it was must have been terribly expensive.

Callow’s worthlessness was a source of constant sorrow to his father—as was the young man’s obvious dislike of Tom. Indeed, Callow abused Tom so constantly, and so luxuriously, that Mr. Bewit distanced himself from Tom in the interest of maintaining the peace. Tom no longer spent his days with Mr. Bewit, lest Callow encounter them together and pitch a fit. While Tom resented this treatment, he did not protest it, for it agitated his master so very much to see him abused by his son, it could not possibly be good for health.

Tom might curse Callow for his meanness, but he found he couldn’t actually blame him. While the elder Bewit might deny his cousin’s allegations about Tom’s being Callow’s ‘replacement,’ citing Tom’s quarters below stairs and appropriately low salary as evidence, the younger was no fool, however much he might look like one. He had, after all, come home to find a young man—a young
servant
—dressed like a gentleman, and standing behind Mr. Bewit in the place where a son ought to be. That in and of itself was not enough evidence, true… but Callow had since then spoken to the servants about the matter, and they, nothing loath to relate what they considered to be ‘the truth’ about Tom to a sympathetic ear, told Callow all.

Whatever Callow’s actual feelings might have been about shooting, card-playing, and dining with his father, hearing that someone else had been doing it in his absence made him furious. When he learned of the staff’s suspicions that Tom had also orchestrated the sacking of Daniel Holland, well, that was just the sugar on the Bath bun. Callow hadn’t been particularly close to his father’s valet, not really, but he keenly felt the indignity of having no male head of staff for their home, a situation Mr. Bewit had never remedied.

Tom had thought there could be nothing more intolerable than being bowed to and called “Master Tom” by his fellow servants, but he soon learned he’d been wrong. It was far worse to be paid such attentions while enjoying none of the privileges that had earned him the nickname.