C Harris - When maidens mourn

`Pshaw.' The functionary waved away these examples of ungentlemanly success with the dismissive flap of one pudgy hand.

`It is obvious you know nothing of the Army, sir. Nothing!'

Sebastian laughed and started to turn away.

`You could try checking with Mr. Abel McPherson, he's the agent appointed by the Transport Board of the Admiralty to administer the paroled prisoners in the area.'

`And where would I find him?' asked Sebastian, pausing to look back at the clerk.

`I believe he's in Norfolk at the moment. I've no doubt he left someone as his deputy, but I can't rightly tell you who.'

`And who might have that information?'

`Sorry. Can't help you. But McPherson should be back in a fortnight.'

Hero was received at the Mayflower house of the honorable Charles d'Eyncourt by the MP's married sister, a dour woman in her mid-thirties named Mary Bourne.

Mrs. Bourne had never met Hero and was all aflutter with the honor of a visit from Lord Jarvis's daughter. She received Hero in a stately drawing room hung with blond satin and crammed with an assortment of gilded crocodile-legged tables and colorful Chinese vases that would have delighted the Prince Regent himself. After begging dear Lady Devlin to please, pray be seated, she sent her servants flying for tea and cakes served on a silver tray so heavy the poor butler staggered beneath its weight. She then proceeded, seemingly without stopping for breath, to prattle endlessly about everything from her Bible study at the Savoy Chapel to her dear Mr. Bourne's concerns for her remaining in the metropolis with such a ruthless murderer on the loose, and followed that up with an endless description of a recent family wedding at which fandangos and the new waltz had been danced, and the carriages decked out in good white satin. `At a shilling a yard, no less!' she whispered, leaning forward confidingly. `No expense was spared, believe me, my dear Lady Devlin.'

Smiling benignly, Hero sipped her tea and encouraged her hostess to prattle on. Mary Bourne bragged (in the most humble way possible, of course) about the morning and evening prayers that all servants in her own household at Dalby near Somersby were required to attend daily. She hinted (broadly) that she was the pseudonymous author of a popular denunciation of the modern interest in Druidism, and from there allowed herself to be led ever so subtly, ever so unsuspectingly, to the subject Hero had come to learn more about: the precise nature of the relationship between Charles d'Eyncourt and his brother, George Tennyson, the father of the two missing little boys.

Charles, Lord Jarvis lounged at his ease in a comfortable chair beside the empty hearth in his chambers in Carlton House. Moving deliberately, he withdrew an enameled gold snuffbox from his pocket and flicked it open with practiced grace. He lifted a delicate pinch between one thumb and forefinger and inhaled, his hard gaze never leaving the sweating pink and white face of the stout man who stood opposite him. `Well?' demanded Jarvis.

`This c-complicates things,' stammered Bevin Childe. `You must see that. It's not going to be easy to...'

`How you accomplish your task is not my problem. You already know the consequences if you fail.'

The antiquary's soft mouth sagged open, his eyes widening. Then he swallowed hard and gave a jerky, panicky bow. `Yes, my lord,' he said, and then jumped when Jarvis's clerk tapped discreetly on the door behind him.

`What is it?' demanded Jarvis.

`Colonel Urquhart to see you, my lord.'

`Show him in,' said Jarvis. He closed his snuffbox with a snap, his gaze returning to the now-pale antiquary. `Why are you still here? Get out of my sight.'

Hat in hand, the antiquary backed out of the room as if exiting from a royal presence. He was still backing when Colonel Jasper Urquhart swept through the door and sketched an elegant bow.

`You wished to see me, my lord?'

The Colonel was a tall man, as were all the former military men in Jarvis's employ, tall and broad-shouldered, with fair hair and pale gray eyes and a ruddy complexion. A former rifleman, he had served Jarvis for two years now. Until today, he hadn't disappointed.

`Yesterday,' said Jarvis, pushing to his feet, `I asked you to assign one of your best men to a certain task.'

`Yes, my lord. I can explain.'

Jarvis sniffed and tucked his snuffbox back into his pocket.

`Please don't. I trust the individual in question is no longer in my employ?'

`Correct, my lord.'

`You relieve me. See that his replacement does not similarly disappoint.'

The Colonel's thin nostrils quivered. `Yes, my lord.

`Good. That will be all.'

Sebastian spent three frustrating hours prowling the rooming houses, taverns, and coffeehouses known to be frequented by officers on their parole. But the questions he asked were of necessity vague and the answers he received less than helpful. Without knowing the French lieutenant's name, how the devil was he to find one paroled French officer amongst so many?

He was standing beside the Serpentine and watching a drilling of the troops from the Hyde Park barracks when he noticed a young, painfully thin man limping toward him. A scruffy brown and black mutt with a white nose and chest padded contentedly at his heels, one ear up, the other folded half over as if in a state of perpetual astonishment. The man's coat was threadbare and his breeches mended, but his linen was white and clean, his worn-out boots polished to a careful luster, the set of his shoulders and upright carriage marking him unmistakably as a military man. His pallid complexion contrasted starkly with his brown hair and spoke of months of illness and convalescence.

He paused uncertainly some feet away, the dog drawing up beside him, pink tongue hanging out as it panted happily. `Monsieur le vicomte?' he asked.

`Yes.' Sebastian turned slowly to face him.

`And you, I take it, must be Miss Tennyson's mysterious unnamed French lieutenant?'

The man brought his heels together and swept an elegant bow. This particular French officer was, obviously, not one of those who had been raised through the ranks from the gutters of Paris. `I have a name,' he said in very good English. `Lieutenant Philippe Arceneaux, of the Twenty-second Chasseurs Cheval.'

`We met last May in the Reading Room of the British Museum,' said Arceneaux as he and Sebastian walked along the placid waters of the Serpentine. The dog frisked happily ahead, nose to the ground, tail wagging. `She was having difficulty with the archaic Italian of a novella she was attempting to translate, and I offered to help.'

`So you're a scholar.'

`I was trained to be, yes. But France has little use for scholars these days. Only soldiers.' He gazed out across the park's open fields, to where His Majesty's finest were drilling in the fierce sunshine. `One of the consolations of being a prisoner of war has been the opportunity to continue my studies.'

`This novella you mentioned; what was it?'

`A now obscure elaboration of a part of the Arthurian legend called La donna di Scalotta.'

`The Lady of Shalott,' said Sebastian thoughtfully.

The Frenchman brought his gaze back to Sebastian's face.

`You know it?' he said in surprise.

`I have heard of it, but that's about it.'

`It's a tragic tale, of a beautiful maiden who dies for the love of a handsome knight.'

`Sir Lancelot?'

`Yes.'

`Convenient, isn't it, the way Camelot, Lancelot, and Shalott all happen to rhyme?'

Arceneaux laughed out loud. `Very convenient.'

Sebastian said, `Were you in love with her?'

The laughter died on the Frenchman's lips as he lifted his shoulders in a shrug that could have meant anything, and looked away. It occurred to Sebastian, watching him, that the Lieutenant appeared young because he was probably no more than twenty-four or -five, which would make him several years younger than Gabrielle.