David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

But I could not entertain this fantastical notion for long. I would not flee from this country. And I knew Miriam would not flee with me.

I felt the pain of not being able to cling to my illusion for more than an instant, so I said perhaps not the kindest thing in the world. I said, “Mary?”

She did not look up. “It is what he calls me.”

“I suppose the name Miriam sounds too Hebrew for his taste.”

“I cannot endure to have you judge me,” she hissed. And then, in a somewhat kinder voice, “What are you doing here?”

“I am attempting to restore my good name,” I said.

“By insinuating yourself into my husband’s life? Why?”

“It is complicated. It is best I don’t say more.”

“You won’t say more?” she repeated. “You must know that I will have to tell all of this to him.”

It took all of my strength to keep dancing, to keep acting as though nothing had changed. “You cannot tell him.”

“Can you imagine I have a choice in it? He is standing for Parliament. I had thought it passing odd that your name should begin to be associated with his party in the papers, but now I understand it is but some scheme of yours. You may plot what you like, but if your deception should be revealed, the scandal will ruin him, and I will not permit it. Can you think to involve him in your business of mutilating judges and murdering evidence brokers?”

“I did with that judge no more than I had to and no more than he deserved. And I hope you know me well enough to understand that I’ve murdered no one. As for my connection to your husband’s party, if you think I have arranged to become a Tory hero, you give me more credit than I deserve. I have become so because the judge who sentenced me against reason is a Whig of some importance. I have done nothing to encourage the notoriety that now follows me but decline to remain in prison.”

“That will hardly help Mr. Melbury if it is learned that he has become the particular friend of an outlaw.”

“I don’t give a fig for Mr. Melbury or his scandal. If you tell him who I am, do you know what will happen? He will be obliged to turn me in to the courts. I did not escape from Newgate because the accommodations were not to my liking. I escaped because they intended to hang me by my neck until I died, and if I am recaptured that is precisely what will happen. You seem mightily concerned about Mr. Melbury’s reputation and not nearly concerned enough about my life.”

She said nothing for a few minutes. “I had not thought of that,” she said. “Why have you put me in this position? Why did you have to come here?”

“I promise you I never intended to make things awkward for you. All I want is to find out who killed Walter Yate and who arranged for the judge to all but order the jury to find me guilty. Once I learn these things and can prove them, I can have my life returned to me. Until then, I will do what I must.”

“I don’t understand why what you must do involves passing the time with Griffin Melbury.”

“You needn’t understand,” I said.

“If you are working against him, I shall never forgive you.”

“Do you think you might cease thinking of me so skeptically? I will tell you this much, if it will put your mind at ease. My true enemy is Dennis Dogmill- I know that with near certainty. If I can use your husband to get what I want from Dogmill, I will do so. That he will surely benefit from my efforts is but a consequence. I tell you, I mean him no harm.”

“I believe you. I wish I could believe, however, that your meaning him no harm means that you will allow no harm to come to him.”

“I will not value his well-being over my own, Miriam, even though he be important to you.”

“Do not call me that. It is not proper.”

“Mary, then.”

She let out a sigh. “You must call me Mrs. Melbury.”

“I will call you no such thing,” I said. “Not so long as I am in love with you.”

She began to pull away, and if I had not gripped her tight, she would have left me on the dance floor. I could hardly permit that to happen, and after her initial struggle she seemed to understand that abandoning me in anger might well ruin me forever.

She therefore took a different approach. “If you say that to me again, I shall leave here at once and let you offer what explanation you may. I am married now, sir, and not a fit object of your affection. If you have regard for me at all, you will recall that.”

“I do recall it, and I will not speak of the depth of my regard so long as you understand it.”

“I am told that there is some depth to your regard for Miss Grace Dogmill as well.”

Here I could not but laugh. “I did not expect jealousy.”

“It is hardly jealousy,” she said coolly. “I merely think it unkind to court a young woman, regardless of her reputation, if you are not serious in your regard.”

I decided not to pursue her barb regarding Miss Dogmill’s reputation. Perhaps because I knew she was right: It was unkind of me to pursue her, regardless of how frivolous the pursuit. How could I be fair to the lady when I was unable to tell her so much as my name? “Miss Dogmill and I understand each other very well,” I said, in an effort to make myself seem less cruel.

“I have heard something of her ability to reach understandings with gentlemen.”

The music being over, I had no choice but to end our dance. Miriam and I had exchanged some hard words. We had fought and we had each said unkind things. Though she was yet married, I somehow could not but rejoice in what I believed to be a considerable success.

THE NEXT DAY I made my way to a local coffeehouse and began my now-usual ritual of scanning the papers to learn what they had to say of me. The Whig papers were full of tales of Benjamin Weaver and his murder of Arthur Groston- murdered, it was suggested, as part of a plot orchestrated by both the Pretender and the pope. I should have found the accusation laughable had I not understood that most of the Englishmen who heard these claims did not find them so very absurd. There was no bugbear as frightening as the pope and his schemes to take away British liberties and replace them with an absolute and totalitarian regime, such as that which governed France.

The Tory papers, however, cried out with rage. No one but a Whig or a fool- which is much the same thing, they said- could believe that this note was authentic, that Weaver would leave a penned confession with the body. The anonymous author claimed to have corresponded with me in the past- certainly possible- and could assert that both my spelling and style were superior to those found in the murderous epistle. Someone, he claimed, though he stopped short of saying who, wished the world to believe this was a plot against the king when it was truly a plot against Tories.

It is, in general, an odd thing to reach some measure of fame and see one’s name bandied about in the newspapers. It is quite another to see oneself turned into a chess piece in a political match. I should call myself a pawn, but I feel that does some disservice to the obliqueness of my movements. I was a bishop, perhaps, sliding at odd angles, or a knight, jumping from one spot to another. I did not much like the feel of unseen fingers pinching me as I was moved from this square to that. It was in some ways flattering that this party or that might want to make me its ally or even its enemy. It was quite another that men, even unsavory men, might be killed in my name.

Such were my thoughts when I noticed that a boy of eleven or twelve years called out a name Mendes and I had chosen to use. “I ain’t to ask your true name,” he told me when I tipped him, “but to ask you if you might be expecting something from Mr. Mendes.”