David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

“Well, once particularly. Many times, I suppose, for, if I may be honest with you, I was when I was younger inclined to be fat. Very much so, in fact, and the other girls at my school were cruel to me.”

I could scarce believe it, for she had now a shape of very pleasing proportions. “Surely it is now you who is being hurtful to Miss Dogmill.”

“No, I was an enormous girl until I was sixteen. Then I became very sick with a fever that put me to bed for more than a month. Every day the doctor despaired of my life, and every day Denny sat by my side and held my hand. He could hardly bring himself to speak, even on those occasions when I spoke to him, but he was there all the same.”

I could not join her in admiring a man whose greatest contribution to the world has been to sit in silence by a sister he presumed to be dying, but I did not tell her as much. “Such events can often yield a great closeness,” I said dutifully.

“Well, I recovered after some time, and I suppose it was all for the best. I have found I like being of a smaller frame more than I like seedcake. And Denny has been very protective of me ever since. I don’t know if I would have chosen to live in the same house with him, had it not been for that dreadful month.”

“And have you found sharing a house with him an agreeable arrangement?”

“Oh, mightily agreeable. It is a large enough house that we need not see each other but when we want to. And though Denny may be a fiend in the world of business and a cruel opponent in politics, he is a kind and indulgent brother.”

“He is not, then, one of those brothers who wishes to marry off his sister as early as he might conveniently do so?”

“Oh, no. My domestic affairs would be far too much trouble for him to attend. He did make a halfhearted effort to see me married to Mr. Hertcomb, but my brother better than most men knows what a simpleton he is, and though he thought the match might make good political sense, he chose not to force the issue.”

“I cannot but feel sorry for Mr. Hertcomb to see so great a prize slip through his fingers.”

“I don’t believe the prize was ever close to his fingers, but he fancies himself to be quite in love with me, and will occasionally mortify me by making amorous protests that are both absurd and embarrassing. I cannot see why men continue to press their case when a lady has made her position clear. It is the most troublesome thing in the world.”

I winced at the memory of my many proposals of marriage to Miriam. “Perhaps a gentleman must ask many times because it is the habit of ladies to be coy.”

“Mr. Evans, I believe I have stung you,” she said. “Is there some lady who has refused your many proposals? Some mulatto beauty, perhaps, who rebuffed you under a coco tree?”

“I only defend my sex in the face of cruel assault,” I said. “Where shall we men be if we do not offer to take up for one another?”

The music ended, and I saw she was smiling at my quip. “Before I return you to your friends,” I ventured, “I must ask you if you would be willing to allow me to call on you at your home.”

“You are welcome to call on me, and I will do my best to make you feel at your ease, but I remind you that it is Mr. Dogmill’s home too, and he may not be so happy to see you as I.”

“I may change his opinion of me yet,” I said to her.

She shook her head, and something like sadness darkened her face. “No,” she said. “You won’t. There is no changing his mind. Not ever, and not for an instant. His stubbornness is the greatest curse of his life.”

When we returned to the little gathering, I saw that Mr. Melbury was facing away from me in close conversation with a woman who was blocked almost entirely from my view. I thought nothing of it, but when I grew closer, Melbury turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Ah, Evans. Here is someone I want you to meet. This is my wife.”

When I considered the matter later, I was unable to say why it had never occurred to me that Miriam would be at the assembly. Certainly it seemed to make sense that she would be there with her husband. But the thought never once came into my head. I had grown so used to not seeing her that the idea of a face-to-face encounter would have struck me as being on the verge of an absurdity.

Miriam held out her hand to me, but she hardly even looked me full in the face and by no means recognized me. She might never have done so- she would have given my face a casual glance and forgotten it even before she had seen it- had I not stared most inappropriately, almost daring her to meet my eyes. Why should I have done such a thing? Why would I not have allowed us to pass and be done with it? I cannot say for certain. In part, it was surely because I wanted her to see me. I wanted her to face what had become of me. But there were more practical reasons too, I believe. It was far better that she recognize me now and that I be there to monitor her reaction. What if she should wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly realize who this man was who had been deceiving her husband? Once out of my sight and out of my control, she might become the greatest threat imaginable to my masquerade.

So I looked at her hard and without blinking until she looked back. She appeared to notice nothing unusual but then, after an instant, her lips quivered and then parted. She began to say something, but then she merely smiled crookedly. “How nice to meet you, Mr. Evans. My husband tells me you are very capable of handling the Whig ruffians.”

I nearly blushed at her reference to my little fiction. No doubt she now believed I had brought all of my pugilist’s skills to bear in the rescue of her husband, though she was perhaps curious about the coincidence. Nevertheless, I assured myself, Miriam had more than once seen me act quickly when the London streets turned dangerous, and I did not believe she could have suspected the truth behind that incident. “I merely encouraged some low fellows to move along,” I said.

“How-” She stopped and stared at me for a moment, as though imploring me for help. But she must have seen that there would be none coming, so she began again. “How are you liking England?”

“I like it very much,” I assured her.

“Mr. Evans is that rarest of creatures,” her husband said to her with a happy little smile, “a Tory tobacco man.” It was the warm, syrupy smile of a man who loves his wife. I should have liked to have struck him in the face with a hammer.

“A Tory tobacco man,” Miriam repeated. “I should never have known.”

An awkward pause formed and I knew not what to do, so I did perhaps the most incorrect thing imaginable. I turned to Melbury. “Sir,” I said, “might I impose upon your good nature and ask your wife to dance with me?”

He stared at me in astonishment, but he could not very well deny my request. “Of course,” he said, “if she is feeling up to it. She did not feel well earlier.” He turned to her. “Do you feel like dancing, Mary?”

I suspected that Melbury had made up this lie on the spot to give Miriam a way out, but I knew she would not take it. “I am well,” she said quietly.

He smiled his politician’s smile. “Then by all means.”

And so we were off on the dance floor.

We danced I don’t know how long before either of us found the courage to speak. I could not say what the dance meant to her, but I found it the strangest thing to hold her in my arms, to smell her scent, to hear her breath. I could, for a mere instant at a time, convince myself that this was not a fleeting moment but my real life and that Miriam was mine. Suddenly, Elias’s proposal that I flee the country appealed to me. I could take Miriam with me. We would go to the United Provinces where my brother lived quite well as a merchant. And then Miriam and I could dance every day if we wished.