David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

“What is this?” I demanded.

“What it seems to be,” he said. “Most things are, you know. Most things are not deceptions but just what they seem. Mr. Melbury has been ill-natured enough to overlook some of his debts that I have bought up, so I have insisted he tarry here awhile and consider what consequences his reluctance might have on his bid for a seat in the House. Tomorrow, if he does not become more good-natured, I may have no choice but to forward his care to that of the King’s Bench- a prison where many men who have refused to meet their obligations are wont to congregate.”

So that was the nature of Melbury’s distress. He had been taken to this sponging house, and here he would remain for twenty-four hours unless he could convince someone to meet his debts. Clearly, he imagined that someone to be a wealthy Jamaican planter.

I have never loved sponging houses, and I say that while fully admitting that I have, on one or two unfortunate occasions, had the opportunity to examine their interior operations very closely. It is something of a shame to our British method of justice that a man may be taken off the street and held against his will for a full day before being turned over to the courts. During that day he must eat and drink and sleep, and for all of these accommodations he must pay the proprietor of the house far more than the market would bear if the customer had the freedom to try his luck with a competitor. A dinner that might cost him a few pence at the chophouse across the street would cost him a shilling or two in a sponging house. And thus have many men gone into debt and, finally being caught, found themselves in more debt than ever before.

I insisted that Miller take me to Melbury at once, so he led me through a house cluttered with old furniture, rugs rolled up and stacked in corners, crates and trunks unopened. Here were the goods men had bartered for their freedom.

Miller led me up a flight of stairs, down a hall, and up another flight of stairs. He then removed from a hook upon his coat a rather large key ring and, after a brief search, identified the necessary object.

The door creaked like a dungeon gate, but the accommodations were tolerably respectable. The room was of a manageable size and contained several chairs, a writing desk (there is no more important occupation for the man in a sponging house than that of writing letters to friends with money), and a rather comfortable-looking bed.

It was on that item that I found Melbury, stretched out and looking mightily relaxed. “Ah, Evans. Good of you to come.” He leaped up with the grace of a rope dancer and took my hand warmly. “Miller here would have had me writing letters all the day, but I sent only one, for if a man does not know whom to turn to in a crisis, he is a poor man indeed.”

I should have thought to say that a man who cannot keep out of a sponging house is a more fitting definition of a poor man, but I held my tongue. I likewise restrained myself on commenting on the honor of being the only man summoned to meet his needs. “I came as soon as I received your note,” I said.

“I do admire a man who is punctual,” Miller volunteered.

“Oh, leave us alone, would you?” Melbury snapped at him.

“There is no cause to be uncivil,” Miller said, seemingly injured. “We are all of us gentlemen here.”

“I have no interest in hearing your notion of who is a gentleman and who is not. Now get out.”

“You have been ill-natured, sir,” Miller told him. “Very ill-natured indeed.” He then backed out, closing the door behind him.

“I should like to have that fellow horsewhipped,” Melbury told me. “Now, come sit, Evans, and have a glass of this wretched port he sent up. For what he charges, he should blush to ask me to drink this filth, but it is better than nothing, I suppose.”

I ought to have hesitated to drink a wine that came with so weak a recommendation, but I joined him all the same. We sat near the fireplace and Melbury smiled, as though we were visiting in a club or in his own home.

“Well,” he began, after a painfully long pause, “you can see that I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a fix here, and I need someone to get me out. As you have mentioned to me on more than one occasion a desire to be useful to the Tories in this election, I naturally set upon you as the very man for me. I have no doubt the Whig papers will make much of this incident. I have every reason to believe that it is Dogmill who has encouraged Miller to act so ungenerously. Not that a wretch like Miller needs any encouraging, but I smell a collaboration here- one that shall be answered with strength, I assure you. But our more immediate concern is that we can ill afford to feed the Whig papers something so scandalous as debtor’s prison. I trust you are in agreement.”

“In the most general sense, certainly,” I said, with a weak smile. “But I wonder precisely how much this erasure of scandal will cost.”

“Oh”- he waved a hand in the air-“it is nothing. Nothing. The amount is so small, I hesitate even to mention it to you. I am sure a gentleman like you must spend twice as much in a year on nothing so important as hunting. I trust you like to shoot, by the way. This year, after the season, you must join me at my house in Devonshire. There is excellent shooting there, and I flatter myself that many a man of consequence in our party will be there to enjoy the sport.”

“I thank you for your offer,” I said, “but I must beg to know the amount you require of me.”

“Look how grave you have become. One might think I was to ask you to mortgage your estate. I promise you, it is nothing so severe as that. It is a trifle, a mere trifle.”

“Mr. Melbury, be so kind as to name the amount.”

“Of course, of course. The bill is for two hundred and fifty pounds, no more than that- excepting, of course, a few odd pounds for my stay here. There have been a few bottles of port, you know, and some meals. The paper and pen are a bit expensive too, which I find outrageous. But I should think two hundred and sixty pounds will more than answer our needs.”

I could hardly believe that he would speak of these sums so freely. Two hundred and sixty pounds surely signified, even to a man such as Matthew Evans. Why, it would be more than a quarter of his fictitious income. For Benjamin Weaver, however, it would mean the loss of the bulk of the money I had taken from the house of Judge Rowley. I did not know how I could afford to pay out such an amount, though I knew excusing myself should prove a mighty setback.

“If I may be so bold, Mr. Melbury, I have been made to understand that your wife is possessed of a large fortune.”

“Do you mean that she is a Jewess, sir?” he asked me pointedly. “Is that your meaning? That I have married a Jewess, so I must not want for money?”

“I do not mean that at all. I say only that I have been told she came to your union possessed of a large fortune.”

“All the world thinks that because she is a Jewess she must have money. My life, I should have you know, is not a production of The Jew of Venice upon the stage; all my wife must do is rob her father of his moneybags, and all will be well. I am sorry to tell you, sir, that there is a great rift between the truth and the stage.”

“I have said nothing of rich fathers or moneybags.”

“Very good,” he said, taking my hand. “I am sorry I grew warm with you. I know you meant nothing. You are a good man, Evans, a monstrous good man. And I have no doubt that you understand that a man cannot run to his wife’s petticoats every time he faces a danger. What sort of life is that?”

Was I to conclude then that I must surrender nearly every penny I had in the world so this man might not trouble himself to ask for money from his own wife? The very idea enraged me. Of course, I could also find no pleasure in the idea that he would squander Miriam’s small fortune on his debts while he gambled without remorse.