Touchstone (33 page)

Chapter Forty-Four

B
ACK UPSTAIRS
, S
TUYVESANT FOUND
that a shuffling of personnel had taken place, and that more had been added. New arrivals, dressed less formally than if they had been dining, were spotted here and there, most of them young and with the look of students about them. And the ladies had returned from wherever ladies went after dinner, although neither the Duke nor Duchess were present; it occurred to Stuyvesant that apart from Gallagher, he was the oldest person in sight.

Drinks were again set up in the solar, with the doors that linked it, the billiards room, and the long gallery propped open to ease the flow of movement between the three spaces. There were a few people talking in front of the fire in the solar, including Bunsen, but most of the girls were draped around the billiards table with cigarettes and glasses, waiting for the music to begin. Several men had removed their jackets to concentrate on the game, and others were sitting down to cards on the other side of the room.

The band was taking its place at the far end of the gallery, putting down their drinks and tuning their instruments. Half a dozen eager dancers stood waiting, and shortly, Simon Fforde-Morrison stood up beneath the mirrored ball they had hung from the ceiling, and signaled to his musicians. On the downstroke of his arm they launched into “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue.” The waiting couples began to gyrate; a number of those in the billiards room extinguished their cigarettes and hurried to join them.

Bunsen stayed where he was in the solar, leaning against the fireplace with an audience to hand. Stuyvesant slipped behind the others to fetch himself a drink, then took it to the doorway, where he could appear to be watching the dancers while he was listening to Bunsen’s voice.

On the stage at Battersea, the man had looked and sounded like the educated son of a working man; his hair was slightly wrong, his suit had come off the peg, and his wide gestures were designed to reach to the farthest row back. Tonight, however, he wore an accent as expensive as his suit, and the motions of his hands were controlled and subtle.

Still magnetic, still compellingly intelligent, just working a different class of crowd.

He felt a touch at his elbow: Sarah.

“Is my brother all right?”

“Oh yeah, just plastered. I put him to bed; he’ll have a head on him in the morning but he’s fine.”

“I wish he wouldn’t do it.”

“He hurts,” Stuyvesant said bluntly. “And booze is the world’s oldest pain reliever.”

She took a metaphorical step back to look at him. “You are a remarkably sensible sort of a person, Harris Stuyvesant. Come, you must meet Richard properly.”

Slipping her hand into his, she began to pull him across the room. Stuyvesant wished her grasp felt more like a woman conscious of her skin against his and less like that of an eager acolyte: “Sensible” was little threat against a sleek-haired firebrand with eyes like chips of amber and a face like Ivor Novello.

Sarah pushed him forward into Bunsen’s admirers, and Harris Stuyvesant held out his hand to the man, showing no sign that his entire body hungered to beat his brother’s destroyer to a bloody pulp.

As soon as they started in his direction, Bunsen had turned the search-light of his attention on them, drowning them in his brilliance. He hesitated now for the briefest of instants, looking down at Stuyvesant’s hand, before removing his shoulder from the mantelpiece and returning the handshake. His clasp was experimentally firm, although the man’s fingers would be more suited to the delicate work of attaching wires to blasting caps than to wrenching off stubborn engine bolts. If it came to a squeezing contest, Stuyvesant knew he could make Bunsen wince. But that game was far too childish for what he had in mind.

“So you’re Sarah’s American.” Bunsen’s voice was amused and therefore dismissive; in that instant, Stuyvesant’s role became clear.

“I’d like to think so,” he replied, meeting the hazel gaze with all the confidence he could muster. Set out baldly like that, it could be taken either as brash American humor, or as a declaration of intent. Bunsen’s eyes narrowed briefly as he tried to decide which; Stuyvesant gave him no help, merely maintaining his air of open, firm friendliness.
Yeah, I’m a Yank, buddy, and we can beat you so easy, we don’t even got to say it.

Their hand-clasp had gone on for just a bit too long; Bunsen ended it, with a brief squeeze before relaxation. Stuyvesant widened his smile, and looked down at Sarah, who had a little frown line between her brows. “You didn’t tell me your friend here looked like a movie actor.”

No one could take it as an insult, but at some level, Bunsen had to wonder. Stuyvesant barrelled on. “Sarah tells me you’re something with the government. I have to say, I sure chose an interesting time to come over here, didn’t I?” Another, double-handed slight—“something with the government”—but again impossible to pin down as anything but amiable stupidity.

“Indeed you did, Mr. Stuyvesant. Although in fact I’m not with the gov—”

“Oh, call me Harris. Any friend of Sarah’s, and all that.”

The interruption threw Bunsen off track, although he was experienced enough at the tooth-and-nail techniques of British debate that he didn’t show it. He nodded, and said, “I spent the day with a group of miners who would say we are looking at interesting times, indeed.”

“You ever worked down the mines, Richard? You don’t mind if I call you Richard, do you?” He glanced around and admitted, “Never much caught on to the shades of English formality. We Yanks are always putting our feet in it.”

Bunsen gritted his teeth genially at the familiarity. “No, I’ve not worked down the mines. Been down, of course, a number of times. How else to understand the lives of the miners?”

“Good plan. And shoveling coal isn’t to be recommended, really, as a permanent way of life.”

“You’ve worked…” Bunsen began in surprise, before he could help himself.

“Oh yeah,” Stuyvesant said. “Just for a few months, back when I was fourteen or fifteen. A cousin got injured and needed someone to help out, so I put on his clothes and took his place until he was back on his feet. ’Course, by that time I was already nearly six feet, constantly hitting my head. But you being a government man and all, maybe you can tell me, I hear that one of the demands your coal miners are making is for seven-hour days. Seven hours sounds pretty cushy to me.”

Bunsen’s mouth compressed at the idea of being a government man, but his voice stayed even. “In this country, the miners’ workday is determined exclusive of winding time. That’s the time it takes to deliver the man to the coal face itself,” he explained, less for Stuyvesant’s benefit than the rest of the ears. “In Europe, the statutory eight hours is from the time they leave the surface until they reemerge. Considering the depth of some of our mines, men often end up with considerably longer than eight hours below in order to spend their seven hours at the face.”

“That makes sense,” Stuyvesant agreed amiably. “Thanks for clearing that up. You play billiards?”

“Not just now, thank you.”

“Maybe later, then. Sarah, you must dance? Even Red Emma was a prize hoofer, when she was young.”

Reaction to the name rippled through the room—Stuyvesant had made sure he’d spoken loudly enough to be heard.

“You know Emma Goldman?” Laura asked.

“Met her a couple times. Quite a woman. Not much to look at, but she knew how to have a good time—’course, this was before the War.”

Sarah stared up at him. “You—did you dance with her?”

She’d have been less surprised if he’d claimed to have done the Charleston with the Queen. “Sure. ’Course she’s getting on in years, but she used to be a terrific dancer. Full of…” Deliberately, he looked over at Bunsen before he finished the thought, and half lowered one eyelid. “…enthusiasm.”

And then he seized Sarah and whirled her onto the impromptu dance floor, not waiting to see the thought hit Bunsen: When it came to Red Emma’s appetites, “enthusiasm” might readily describe something more intimate than dancing.

Stuyvesant was not a bad dancer, and he’d picked up some of the latest steps on the ship from New York. His pleasure at having Sarah to himself was intensified by the waves of frustration coming from Bunsen’s corner: sniping at Bunsen but giving him no target in return had definitely got the man’s attention. Especially when there were pretty girls in the vicinity.

But looking at Sarah, seeing her face go pink with exertion and happiness, was bittersweet. She was the one vulnerable place that he’d shown Richard Bunsen, and Stuyvesant had no doubt that Bunsen would seize the weapon he’d offered. Sarah was not going to have an easy time, before this was over.

Sometimes, he really hated his job.

“Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby” bounced and jangled to an end, after which Simon Fforde-Morrison, with more sensitivity than Stuyvesant would have expected, slipped into the slower “It Had to Be You.” Stuyvesant did not hesitate, but wrapped his arms around the girl and swung her into the dance.

Blonde hair smelled different from other shades, he reflected. All too soon the song was over, and Sarah was tugging him back in the direction of the solar.

Bunsen was waiting. He looked as if he’d been chatting with his friends, but Stuyvesant could tell he’d been waiting for him to return. “Did you know that Emma Goldman now lives in London?” Bunsen asked, his voice silky: Anyone could claim to know a person, it said, but not everyone could back their claim up.

Stuyvesant looked Bunsen in the eye. “Yeah, so I heard, giving speeches on modern drama, isn’t it? I’m glad she got out of Russia before she froze to death. But if you’re asking if I’m going to look her up, no, she probably wouldn’t remember me. This had to be twelve, fifteen years ago.” In fact, the Goldman meeting happened during the first political outing for big, young Harris Stuyvesant, who’d been brought in when the Bureau needed an agent able to pass for a working-class tough. “She and I got arrested together, if you must know.” He took a swallow of his drink, making sure that everyone in earshot was hanging on his words, then admitted, “I got picked up by mistake, really, one of those wrong place wrong time situations. But she was a nice old girl, tons of fun as we got ourselves driven in and booked, and she told me to look her up later. So I did.”

“Why were you arrested?” This was from Laura.

He summoned a look of embarrassment. “Well, there was this demonstration of garment workers. I wasn’t involved in it, but I worked down the street and was going by when the police charged the crowd, on horseback, their nightsticks flailing. I saw one of the bas—one of them aiming straight at this skinny little girl, couldn’t have been older than seventeen, and I, well, I stopped him.”

“What did you do?” Sarah asked, enthralled. Stuyvesant did not look to see the effect of all this twaddle on Bunsen; he didn’t have to.

“I didn’t do anything to him, not really. I mean, I’m not about to get charged with assaulting an officer—but I had this tube in my hand, just a cardboard tube with some papers rolled up in it, and the horse’s…er, a sensitive part of the horse was right there in front of me, so I waited until the creature was, what do you call it, tipped upwards?”

“Rearing?” supplied Laura.

“Exactly, rearing a little, which meant it couldn’t kick backwards, and I just sort of, poked it. Distracted the cop no end.”

The group around him erupted with laughter. Even Laura’s dark eyes were dancing. Stuyvesant shrugged modestly and drained his glass. “Anyway, Emma and I were hauled in, we struck up a conversation, then later I did look her up once or twice. That’s it.”

“So, what, are you a Red, too?” This slurred question came from the doorway to the billiards room, where the burst of laughter had attracted several of the players. The boy who spoke was one of the evening’s latecomers, drifting in after dinner in an ordinary lounge suit and a definite lack of focus to his eyes. Stuyvesant hoped for the sake of the felt on the tables that the tipsy idiot didn’t try to play billiards tonight.

“Nope,” Stuyvesant answered, “just a working stiff. Not, I think, like you.”

The young man heard the insult in Stuyvesant’s tone if not in his words, but before he could do more than bristle, his friends had come forward
en masse.
In a practiced set of moves, one placed a cue in his hand and told him it was his turn while another offered him a drink, and the young drunk was hustled away.

Stuyvesant glanced at Laura. “At a guess I’d say that’s not one of your friends.”

She shook her head, both vexed and amused. “Patrick’s.”

“I wouldn’t want to be inside his skull tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t want to be there tonight,” she said repressively, then turned to her sister Constance and asked about the dress she wore.

The evening went on in the same vein, with Stuyvesant and Bunsen like a pair of jousting chameleons, taking on each other’s colors as they aimed their jabs. Stuyvesant played his American face for all it was worth—gullible, self assured, competent in a score of areas, mature but energetic, uninformed politically but clearly on the side of the angels, brash but forgivable because he meant no harm. He flirted with the girls and acted the buddy with the men, sent the occasional innocent but stinging remark in Bunsen’s direction while giving nothing to grasp in return.

Except for the one. By the end of the evening, everyone there including Sarah herself knew how smitten Harris Stuyvesant was with her. And everyone there could see how hopeless it was, because Richard Bunsen already had her.

It was crystal clear to Stuyvesant that Bunsen had not laid claim on Sarah Grey before that night: If Sarah’s earlier surprise at Bunsen’s attentions during dinner hadn’t already shown him, Laura Hurleigh’s growing puzzled resentment would have proved it.

He had marked Bunsen on the nose: Like many leaders of causes, Bunsen was possessive about his women, even those he did not intend to make use of.

And beyond that, Stuyvesant thought Bunsen would be a believer in the dictum
Keep your enemies near.
In fact, he was putting all his chips on it, waiting on the result with increasing anxiety as the night progressed.