Gavin Lyall - Honourable Intentions

Ranklin smiled and she said sharply: “It’s not your King I’m thinking of, it’s Pop’s reputation. Not that it sounds as if your King should be too offended . . . Is there enough to show Mother Langhorn could have known him twenty-whatever years ago?”

Ranklin nodded reluctantly.

“The Plaything of a Prince and he Cast Her Aside Like a Soiled Glove. I’ve often wondered: Why gloves? I have them cleaned and if you start casting, you end up with just one of a pair. What does she want? – just getting Grover off this extradition charge?”

“Perhaps, but we don’t know. We haven’t heard from her beyond that letter you gave us.”

“And you’ve been snooping about asking if it could be true . . . That must have been delicate work, I do wish I’d seen it . . . Hey, you didn’t ask the King if it could be true?”

Ranklin shook his head.

“And then what?” she asked. “Pulling legal strings to make sure Grover gets off?”

“No,” Ranklin said grimly, “but somebody closer to the King has been.”

“Of course, you’d have to tell them . . . Is it working?”

“I hope not.”

She looked surprised. “Why so scrupulous? Does it shake your faith in Great British Justice? I don’t think your judges are as crooked as some we get in the States, but they can be as pig-headed and biased as anyone.”

“Yes, but that’s individual. Even taking bribes is. But if I thought they were taking orders from the top, then the whole system . . . We’d have slipped back three or four hundred years.”

“Doesn’t being monarchy mean – in the end – taking orders from the top?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

She hesitated a moment, then asked: “What do you think of the monarchy? I know you don’t worship the King or think he can do no wrong, but what do you actually think?”

“I think . . .” he said, and then was silent for some time. Finally he said: “Perhaps ‘think’ is the wrong word. The monarchy just is. It shapes our whole society – society without the capital S. The still centre of the wheel, and on the whole, the stiller the better. But if we want to be a monarchy, have a king and protect his honour, that’s our business. Specifically, it’s mine as an Army man. I’m not supposed to defend freedom or civilisation or anything like that, just this country.”

“You mean that at least your intentions are honourable. More than his were, back then.”

“Perhaps . . . But whether sacrificing our ideas of law to save the King’s good name is particularly honourable . . .”

She waited a moment, then asked gently: “And what would happen if the whole story came out? – let justice be done ‘though the skies fall’?”

He sighed and shook his head. “It’s a nice idea – in theory. But whoever said that thought the skies were pretty firmly nailed in place, at least in his own vicinity. The King’s a special case. He’s not a real man; he stopped being one the moment he put on the crown, and it goes on until he dies. If he starts acting like a real man, pretty soon we’ll be a republic like you and France and Switzerland – and this time it’ll stick. Meantime, I dare say there are compensations -”

“Hah!”

“- one of which is having people like me papering over any cracks in your past. Mind you,” he added thoughtfully, “there are diplomatic aspects as well. If the French press prints nasty things about our King, there could be an anti-French revulsion in this country. And what price the Anglo-French alliance then? – just when we need it to stop Germany doing something stupid.”

“But that just derives from having a king in the first place.”

Ranklin shrugged. “Suppose they started printing nasty things about your President? – wouldn’t that come to the same thing?”

“It would not,” she said with the firmness of someone who isn’t quite sure. “You English will think we think of the President as our king. We don’t: he’s just an elected politician, like your Prime Minister. He can be impeached, even, it’s all there in the Constitution. And that’s what our military people swear an oath of loyalty to, the Constitution. And when we want a bit of reverence and show, we’ve got the flag.”

“Yes, I must say I’ve never understood the fuss you-”

She cut him off sharply. “You want to know one big advantage of a flag? – it doesn’t go around fucking the wrong people.”

O’Gilroy came back with the maid bringing a tray of fresh coffee. The staff here, who didn’t know what the two men did (really didn’t know; Ranklin was sure Corinna hadn’t been that stupid) had the idea that O’Gilroy was a sort of valet to Ranklin but, since they’d met in the Army, which was true, it was all rather informal.

“Where’s Berenice?” Corinna asked.

“Went to the toilet. Thank ye, I’ll take another cup.” At least you never had to ask O’Gilroy if he’d eaten or drunk. An Irish childhood and his years in the Army had convinced him that the next meal was a matter of luck, so be sure of the one at hand.

Ranklin asked: “And did Berenice tell you any more?”

“Mostly I should get a proper job and ‘twas me own fault me being yer servant. I told her ye’d saved me life oncest, and I was beholden to ye. Don’t worry, she wasn’t impressed, not at all.”

“Haven’t I saved your life?”

“Not near so often as ye’ve made the need of it. One thing: she’s terrible taken with this feller Gorkin. D’ye know him?”

“He was at Bow Street this morning. You saw him: beard, foreign hat, check suit. How d’you mean, ‘taken with him’?”

“Thinks he’s God with a three-speed gearbox. As an anarchist. Big thoughts, has the answer to everything. She says everyone at the Bloomsbury house thinks so, too. Sounds to me he’s missing a great career peddling pills.”

“I thought he was a reporter for that Paris anarchist paper.”

O’Gilroy gave him a superior look. “Ye don’t have reporters on papers like that. It’s got no news, jest tells ye what to think about it. He writes pamphlets, books, lectures. Big man.” Ranklin realised he should have wondered more about that doctorate of Gorkin’s; not many reporters would have any sort of degree.

Then Berenice came in. Ranklin and O’Gilroy stood up; she looked at them in listless surprise. “ Vous etes en depart?”

Corinna switched into French. “No, no. Sit down and have some coffee.”

Berenice dumped herself into a chair and took her coffee with a muttered “ Merci .”

O’Gilroy stayed standing. “Fact, I’m going. Thank ye for the lunch, delicious. Et bonjour, ma’mselle.” He bowed formally to Berenice and went.

Berenice watched him go with perhaps a glimmer in her usually dead-fish eyes, then asked Ranklin: “Is that man your servant?”

It was debatable whether she would appreciate a spy more than a manservant, but it wasn’t up for debate anyway. “I think of him more as a friend.”

That brought leaden disbelief, but she let it drop.

Ranklin said: “I talked to Maitre Quinton again this morning.”

“Do you know now what will happen to Grover?”

“No. I’m sorry, but the death of Guillet has delayed matters.”

Corinna sat back in her chair, a slow but definite movement, withdrawing from the conversation.

In a gentle voice, Ranklin said: “May I ask a question? – do you believe we’re trying to help you?”

All he got was a sullen glower. She wore a shapeless dress of faded green over holed black stockings, and sprawled back with all the elegance of damp washing, smelling of absinthe and poverty.

“Then put it another way: would you rather be in the hands of the police?” He waited for a while, then said, still gently: “I do want an answer to this. You’re not in prison here, it is not possible to stop you walking out. It would be more convenient for Mrs Finn if you did. But if you do, the police will take you back.”