Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

'There is no good news,' he said, standing. He looked at her and felt his heart miss a beat, so that he could scarcely speak. 'There is really no good news anywhere in all the world,' he managed to say.

'Then we must make some,' Eleanor said, 'you and I.' She handed an umbrella and her damp coat to one of the waitresses, then stepped close to Sandman and planted a kiss on his cheek. 'I think I am yet angry with you,' she said softly, still standing close.

'With me?'

'For coming to London and not telling me.'

'Our engagement is broken, remember?'

'Oh, I had quite forgotten,' she said acidly, then glanced at the other tables. 'I'm causing scandal, Rider, by being seen alone with a damp man.' She kissed him again, then stood back so he could pull out a chair for her. 'So let them have their scandal, and I shall have one of Gunter's vanilla ices with the powdered chocolate and crushed almonds. So will you.'

'I'm content with coffee.'

'Nonsense, you will have what is put in front of you. You look too thin.' She sat and peeled off her gloves. Her red hair was drawn up into a small black hat decorated with tiny jet beads and a modest plume. Her dress was a muted dark brown with a barely distinguishable flower pattern worked in black threads and was high collared, modest, almost plain, and decorated with only one small jet brooch, yet somehow she looked more alluring than the scantily clad dancing girls who had scattered when Sandman leapt down onto the stage the night before. 'Mother is being measured for a new corset,' Eleanor said, pretending to be oblivious of his inspection, 'so she will be at least two hours. She believes I am at Massingberds, choosing a hat. My maid Lizzie is chaperoning me, but I've bribed her with two shillings and she's gone to see the pig-headed woman at the Lyceum.'

'Pig-headed? As in obstinate?'

'Don't be silly, Rider, I trust all women are obstinate. This one is pig-headed as in ugly. She snuffles her food from a trough, we're told, and has stiff pink whiskers. It sounds a very unlikely beast, but Lizzie was enchanted at the prospect and I was quite tempted to go myself, but I'm here instead. Did I see you limping?'

'I sprained an ankle yesterday,' he said, then had to tell the whole story which, of course, enchanted Eleanor.

'I'm jealous,' she said when he had finished. 'My life is so dull! I don't jump onto stages pursued by footpads! I am exceedingly jealous.'

'But you have news?' Sandman asked.

'I think so. Yes, definitely.' Eleanor turned to the waitress and ordered tea, the vanilla confection with the chocolate and almonds and, as an afterthought, brandy snaps. 'They have an ice house out the back,' she told Sandman when the girl had gone, 'and I asked to see it a few weeks ago. It's like a cellar with a dome and every winter they bring the ice down from Scotland packed in sawdust and it stays solid all summer. There was a frozen rat between two of the blocks and they were very embarrassed about it.'

'I should think they would be.' Sandman was suddenly acutely aware of his own shabbiness, of the frayed cuffs of his coat and the broken stitching at the top of his boots. They had been good boots, too, from Kennets of Silver Street, but even the best boots needed care. Merely staying respectably dressed needed at least an hour a day, and Sandman did not have that hour.

'I tried to persuade father to build an ice house,' Eleanor said, 'but he just went grumpy and complained about the expense. He's having one of his economy drives at the moment, so I told him I'd save him the cost of a society wedding.'

Sandman gazed into her grey-green eyes, wondering what message was being sent by her apparent glibness. 'Was he pleased?'

'He just muttered to me how prudence was one of the virtues. He was embarrassed by the offer, I think.'

'How would you save him the expense? By remaining a spinster?'

'By eloping,' Eleanor said, her gaze very steady.

'With Lord Eagleton?'

Eleanor's laugh filled the big space of Gunter's back room, causing a momentary hush at the other tables. 'Eagleton's such a bore!' Eleanor said much too loudly. 'Mama was very keen I should marry him, because then, in due course, I would be her ladyship and Mama would be unbearable. Don't tell me you thought I was betrothed to him?'

'I heard that you were. I was told your portrait was a gift for him.'

'Mother said we should give it to him, but father wants it for himself. Mother just wants me to marry a title, she doesn't mind what or who it is, and Lord Eagleton wants to marry me, which is tedious because I can't abide him. He sniffs before he talks.' She gave a small sniff. 'Dear Eleanor, sniff, how charming you look, sniff. I can see the moon reflected in your eyes, sniff.'

Sandman kept a straight face. 'I never told you I saw the moon reflected in your eyes. I fear that was remiss of me.'

They looked at each other and burst out laughing. They had always been able to laugh since the very first day they had met, when Sandman was newly home after being wounded at Salamanca and Eleanor was just twenty and determined not to be impressed by a soldier, but the soldier had made her laugh and still could, just as she could amuse him.

'I think,' Eleanor said, 'that Eagleton spent a week rehearsing the words about the moon, but he spoilt it by sniffing. Really, Rider, talking to Eagleton is like conversing with an asthmatic lap dog. Mama and he seem to believe that if they wish it long enough then I will surrender to his sniffs, and I gathered a rumour of our betrothal had been bruited about so I deliberately told Alexander to inform you I was not going to marry the noble sniffer. Now I find Alexander never told you?'

'I fear not.'

'But I told him distinctly!' Eleanor said indignantly. 'I met him at the Egyptian Hall.'

'He told me that much,' Sandman said, 'but he quite forgot any message you might have sent. He'd even forgotten why he had gone to the Egyptian Hall.'

'For a lecture by a man called Professor Popkin on the newly discovered location of the Garden of Eden. He wants us to believe that paradise is to be found at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. He informed us that he once ate a very fine apple there.'

'That sounds like proof positive,' Sandman said gravely, 'and did he become wise after eating the fruit?'

'He became erudite, learned, sagacious and clever,' Eleanor said, and Sandman saw there were tears in her eyes. 'And,' she went on, 'he encouraged us to uproot ourselves and follow him to this new world of milk, honey and apples. Would you like to go there, Rider?'

'With you?'

'We could live naked by the rivers,' Eleanor said, as a tear escaped to trickle down her cheek, 'innocent as babes and avoiding serpents.' She could not go on and lowered her face so he could not see her tears. 'I'm so very sorry, Rider,' she said quietly.

'About what?'

'I should never have let Mama persuade me to break off the engagement. She said your family's disgrace was too absolute, but that's nonsense.'

'The disgrace is dire,' Sandman admitted.

'That was your father. Not you!'

'I sometimes think I am very like my father,' Sandman said.

'Then he was a better man than I realised,' Eleanor said fiercely, then dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. The waitress brought their ices and brandy snaps and, thinking that Eleanor had been upset by something Sandman had said, gave him a reproachful look. Eleanor waited for the girl to move away. 'I hate crying,' she said.

'You do it rarely,' Sandman said.

'I have been weeping like a fountain these six months,' Eleanor said, then looked up at him. 'Last night I told Mama I consider myself betrothed to you.'

'I'm honoured.'

'You're supposed to say it is mutual.'

Sandman half smiled. 'I would like it to be, truly.'