Lupus Vulgaris

Malachy Sarre is sitting in your father's chair.

He has lit one candle and placed it exactly where it makes his face look best. That's the first thing you notice, and you hate that you notice it. He's handsome in a polished way, silver at the temples, a waistcoat the color of old wine, hands soft as a priest's. A glass of your mother's last sherry sits at his elbow.

He rises when you come in. He bows beautifully.

"Miss Linley. Forgive the hour. Your brother and I have had an exciting night."

"So I hear." You stay standing. Perry hovers in the doorway behind you like a ghost who owes money. "You've had a long walk from Jermyn Street, Mr. Sarre."

"I came in a carriage. I always do." He smiles. "I'm a man of comfort."

You remember, very suddenly, a column from last spring. Lupus vulgaris, the Common Wolf. Mistakes a waistcoat for a pedigree. Approaches young men at the card table with great tenderness, the way one approaches a sheep one intends to eat.

He read it. Everyone read it. He doesn't know who wrote it.

You keep your face still.

"Sir Perry has signed vowels for nine thousand pounds," Sarre says, laying a slip of paper on the table between the sherry and the candle. "I'm a patient man. A fortnight. After that, I take this house, which will cover a little, and the courts take your brother, who will cover nothing. The Fleet is very damp in May."

"We don't have it," you say. "You know we don't."

"I do." He sounds almost sorry. "Which is why I waited up for you and not your mother. I'm told you're the sensible one."

That word again. Sensible. It follows you around ballrooms like a small dog.

"There is a gentler arrangement," Sarre goes on. "I've a house, a good income, and no wife. A baronet's daughter would suit me. Debts between family are so easily forgiven."

Behind you, Perry makes a sound like a man stepped on. "Ava, you don't have to—"

You don't look at him.

You look at Sarre for a long moment. The candle. The sherry. The soft hands.

"No," you say.

"You might think about it."

"I have. It took less time than you'd like." You walk to the door and hold it open. "A fortnight, Mr. Sarre. Good night."

He collects his hat. At the door he pauses close enough that you smell his cologne, bergamot and money.

"You've a sharp tongue for a wallflower," he says softly. "Someone should be writing it down."

And he's gone.

You shut the door. You lock it. Then you sit on the stairs exactly where Perry sat, and for one minute you let your hands shake.

"Ava," Perry whispers. "I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry."

"I know," you say. "Go to bed. I'll think of something."

You always do. That's what sensible means.

At ten the next morning you are in Fleet Street wearing your mother's oldest black bonnet and a veil thick enough to strain soup.

The Looking-Glass lives in a crooked court off the street, up a stair that smells of wet paper and lamp oil. On the door, a sign: H. BLIGH, EDITOR. KNOCK. THEN WAIT. THEN KNOCK AGAIN.

You knock, wait, and knock again.

"Come in, come in, if you're the Naturalist, and if you're not, go away." Horace Bligh peers at you over a mountain of proofs. He's fifty, spectacled, ink up to the wrists, perpetually startled. "Ah. You. Good. Saturday's copy?"

You hand it over. Militaris redux and the punch bowl. He reads it standing up, lips moving, and laughs out loud at the Salamanca line.

"Splendid. Splendid. We'll sell out by noon." He counts your fee into your glove: four guineas. "There. Don't spend it all on candles."

"Mr. Bligh," you say. "I need an advance."

"How much?"

"Nine thousand pounds."

He takes off his spectacles. He puts them back on. "My dear girl, the entire paper isn't worth nine thousand pounds. My partners would sell it for less. They might. They keep threatening."

"Then I need to write more. Twice a week."

"You'd be caught inside a month." He leans in and lowers his voice, though there's no one in the room but a cat asleep on a stack of paper. "Listen. You should know. A man came round on Tuesday. Gray coat. Polite. Asked who delivers the Naturalist's copy, what time, by which door."

Your stomach drops. "Who?"

"His name's Knell. Octavius Knell. Bow Street." Bligh swallows. "He's been hired, he says, by a gentleman who wishes to make the Naturalist's acquaintance."

"Which gentleman?"

Bligh looks at you with something like pity.

"Who do you think? You've called him a glacier nine times. The Duke of Severn."

The room tilts, a little, the way the coach did once when you were a girl and a wheel came off.

"He can't do anything," you say. "It isn't a crime to be rude in print."

"It isn't a crime to be found out, either. But it's a scandal." Bligh pats your hand, awkwardly, leaving a smudge. "Be careful how your boy comes and goes. Use your brother's lodging. Change the days. And for heaven's sake, my dear, stop writing about dukes."

You walk all the way home. You need the air. All down Fleet Street, the Strand, Piccadilly, you think about nine thousand pounds and a man in a gray coat and the Duke of Severn saying a coward with a good ear in that slow, careful voice.

He sat beside you last night. He talked to you. He has no idea.

Nobody watches the watcher.

Except, apparently, Bow Street.

Hetty opens the front door before you've touched it.

Your maid is a sturdy, practical woman who has seen your mother faint eleven times and has never once raised her voice. Her eyes are as round as saucers.

"Miss," she whispers. "Oh, miss. Where've you been?"

"Out. Why? Is Mama ill?"

"Your mother's in the back parlor having palpitations. Miss Minnie's listening at the keyhole." Hetty takes your bonnet with shaking hands. "There's a gentleman in the drawing room, miss. He's been here half an hour. He wouldn't sit down."

Sarre. Back already. Your hands curl into fists.

"Tell Mr. Sarre—"

"It isn't Mr. Sarre." Hetty's voice drops to a hush, the hush people use in church. "It's the Duke of Severn, miss. He's asked to speak to you. Alone."