David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

Clearly Melbury had used his influence to add my name to the books. I could not imagine that I was the only voter he had illegally added. If he had managed to insert so many as a hundred men into the register, it could make the difference in a tight race.

“How can you manage such a thing?” I asked.

“As for that, it is nothing. I have more than my share of contacts with the men who order these matters, and I may owe one or two of them a few pounds incurred at play. If I owe a man a small debt, he is more inclined to make things go my way, as it shall make me more inclined to pay him. It is nothing more complicated than that.”

“I have never before heard that debts of honor could be deployed so effectively,” I told him, “but you will have my vote with all my heart.”

He smiled and shook my hand and led me back to his party. Hertcomb had been joined by Dennis Dogmill and his sister, and the three of them made some small chatter together. I flatter myself that Miss Dogmill’s face brightened upon seeing me.

“Why, it’s Mr. Evans, the Tobacco Tory,” she said.

“The lover of geese,” Dogmill said, with a kind of ease only to be found among those born with wealth. He sounded both furious and calm at the same moment. “For a Tory, you seem to find yourself in Whiggish company often enough.”

“In Jamaica, we never fretted so about party,” I explained.

“All those years in the sun,” Dogmill proposed, “explain your swarthy complexion.”

I laughed agreeably, for I thought doing so would anger more than a show of irritation. I even felt an undesired kinship with Melbury in our mutual dislike of this brute. “Yes, in that clime, one cannot be squeamish about the sun or working under it. Many’s the day I had to inspect my fields and my laborers in heat that you of this temperate land cannot even imagine.”

“Did you not cover yourself,” Miss Dogmill asked, “as I have heard men do?”

“The ladies always keep themselves covered,” I said, “and so do many men, but I found the feel of the sun on one’s body one of the few pleasures the island’s clime had to offer, and some days I would strip to my breeches as I made my way about my lands.”

I would not have my reader think I spoke so boldly always to ladies, but she had asked her question with an unmistakable twinkle in her eye, and I knew at once that she wished me to further tease her brother. I hardly needed more encouragement, and though she now blushed, she clandestinely winked to show that she had taken no offense.

“Did you also put a bone in your nose like the natives?” Dogmill asked me. “I’ve been to the colonies many times, to find that in a place where it is often hot enough to cook an egg on the sands of the beach, English rules of propriety often don’t apply. But as they apply here, I should inform Mr. Evans, lest he embarrass himself further for his ignorance, that it is not considered polite to speak of stripping to your breeches in the company of ladies.”

“Don’t be such a blockhead,” Miss Dogmill said sweetly.

Her brother, however, turned a bright red, and his massive neck began to stiffen with anger. I thought for a moment that he would strike out- at me, at her, I hardly knew. Instead he smiled at her. “A brother can never be said to be a blockhead if he acts out of concern for a sister. I may know a thing or two more things than you, my dear, regarding the rules of propriety- if only because I have been alive for more years than you.”

I found that when I stood in Dogmill’s company, my mind raced to think of the most stinging reply to anything that ventured from his mouth, but here I could only keep quiet. There was an unexpected kindness in his voice, and I understood that no matter the harshness of his behavior, no matter what crimes with which he had dirtied his hands, no matter the cruelty with which he had struck down Walter Yate and caused me to stand in his stead before the law, he truly cared for his sister. I should have been busy attempting to determine how best to put this weakness to use were I not under the impression that I cared for his sister too.

The band now struck up a new piece. Miss Dogmill looked over my shoulder and observed that the floor was now crowded with dancers, and unless I was mistaken there was a gleam of yearning in her eyes.

“Perhaps, then, I might invite you to dance with me,” I proposed.

She did not even look to her brother. She offered me her hand, and I led her out to the dance floor.

“I am afraid Mr. Dogmill is not overly fond of you,” she said, as we glided along to a pleasing bit of music.

“I hope that does not make you disinclined to be overly fond of me,” I said.

“It hasn’t yet,” she said merrily.

“I am glad to hear that, for I am fond of you already.”

“We have only just met. I hope you will not begin your protestations of love before our dance is complete.”

“I have said nothing of love. I hardly even know you well enough to like you. But I think I know you well enough to be fond of you.”

“What an unusual response. But I must say that I like it. You’re very honest, Mr. Evans.”

“I endeavor always to be honest,” I said guiltily, for I do not believe I had ever in my life been so false to a woman I admired than I was to her, pretending to be a man I was not with means I did not have.

“That may not always serve you well. There has been much talk of you among the ladies, you know. It is far enough along into the season that the arrival of a new man with a fortune to his name is bound to excite interest. If you are honest with all of them, you will not make many friends.”

“I think a man can be honest without being unkind.”

“I have known very few who were capable of it,” she said.

“I think your brother has yet to master that skill.”

“You are certainly right there. I don’t know why he dislikes you, sir, but I must tell you his behavior toward you is mortifying.”

“If that mortification played any role in your agreeing to dance with me, I would gladly endure the barbs of a thousand brothers.”

“You are beginning to sound like an untruthful man, sir.”

“A dozen brothers, then. No more.”

“I do believe you would be more than a match for them, sir.”

“Have you lived with your brother alone for long?” I asked, in an effort to change our subject to something more material.

“Oh, yes. My mother died when I was but six years of age, and my father some two years later.”

“I am sorry to hear of your early losses. I can only imagine the grief you must have endured.”

“At the risk of sounding unfeeling, I must tell you that it occasioned far less grief than you might suppose. My parents were of the habit of sending me off to school from the earliest age and, before that, of leaving me in the care of my nurse night and day. Upon their deaths, I understood that people materially close to me had been taken, but I hardly knew either better, sir, than I know you now.”

“Your brother seems some years older than you. I hope he proved a more tender parent.”

“Tenderness is not his great strength, but he has been good to me always. I knew nothing of a home life until after our parents died. He continued the practice of keeping me away at school until the school pronounced me too old to keep, but I was welcome home during holidays, and Denny was always happy to see me. He even came to visit me at school three or four times a year. After I completed my education, he told me he would set me up with my own home if I wished, but he would prefer that I lived with him. In truth, he was very kind to me once, and I shan’t ever forget it.”

“Just once?” I asked.