The Farm Ch. 08

Chapter 08: The Cup and Eagle

Mrs. Featherwink thrust her fat fingers into the empty space beneath the floorboards and felt around in the hope that it wasn't gone. Her fortune. Her future. Dried mouse droppings rolled in the dust as she scrabbled at the empty space. She pushed her hand farther and touched nothing but shit and wood. If it had not been for the extravaganza at the Ganymede Club, she would never have discovered the theft, not that soon at least. Most of last night's gains lay warm and safe in her bodice the rest in her locked desk in the red room.

Mrs. Featherwink crawled from under her bed draped in pink silk and sat on the floor, her plump legs and tiny feet, her pride, extended before her. She wiped her fingers on a lace-edged hanky and fought to slow her breathing. Reflect and plan. She scanned the room from her place on the floor looking for further signs of disturbance. Everything in its place as it was when she came to her room to hide the night's proceeds. She rolled onto her knees and pulled herself up, using the bed to aid her. Her knees hurt. Her corset too tight with bills and coin. The small box that held her few pieces of jewelry rested closed on the dresser. She opened it. The gold-washed and paste ornaments lay as she had left them. The music box that lay in the bottom played "I Dream of Jeanie." She'd paid a bit more for the American song. She slammed the lid. Whoever took her money knew where it was and touched nothing else. They didn't waste their time with trinkets. She snatched up the doll that sat on the corner of her padded rocker. The silent china face, apple cheeks and blue eyes. She lifted the dress and unbuttoned the body. Still stuffed with bank notes. That much still safe. The bulk of her money, her treasure, was somewhere with someone. Find that person and find the money. She compiled a list of suspects: Halden, March, Miss Liz, and that sneak Rupert, her great-nephew. All knew or thought they knew about her fortune. None of them knew where she hid it. There was Crippled Doris, too. She cleaned the rooms and emptied the night soil. She was pretty and fresh once until Lord Burnduffe. He cut her down low, a wine bottle broken inside her. Now she walked with pronounced limp, and her cunt useless. But Doris knew when to slide into a room and grease up her middle finger to help a client finish with a gasp and yowl , her finger found the golden spot faster than any other. A few firm rotations and thrusts then on to the next gent. Everyone happy.

Mrs. Featherwink examined her reflection in the silver hand mirror. She smoothed her hair. She touched her bosom, pushed so high it almost touched her double chin. A little powder took care of the perspiration on her upper lip. She removed a cameo from the jewelry box and hid it in her pocket. She descended the worn back stairs, holding on to the banister to steady her on tiny feet. The stairs listed to the left.

They all sat around the worn table talking in quiet voices and eating breakfast before settling in for a good sleep. March chewed carefully on the left side because of the teeth he'd lost to Halden. Four months and his mouth still tender. Miss Liz lifted her tea cup and smiled at Mrs. Featherwink. Rupert's chair stood empty and Crippled Doris was missing. Mrs. Featherwink looked at the faces around the table to see if she could discern the thief. Nothing.

She touched the cameo in her pocket. "Did any of you see spy anyone near my room last night?" The eyes around the table met hers. "My small cameo is gone." Distress bubbled up in her voice. She passed her hanky over her face and dabbed at her eyes. "It's the one my own granny gave me." She looked from face to face.

Miss Liz looked startled. Halden made a fist, "Alls else untouched?"

"Just the cameo gone."

Halden looked at March. "I'll turn the rooms to see if your cameo's hidden someswhere."

March glared at his plate.

"Thank you, my darling." She patted Halden's hand. "Where's that disappointment of a nephew of mine?"

Miss Liz smiled. "He's soaking his bum. Doris is taking him more hot water and some goose grease."

"Should have used that grease last night." Halden laughed and plopped an entire sausage in his mouth and shoved it to the side with his tongue. "That or gotten the mettle out o' the man with his mouth and saved his blind eye." He chewed.

Mrs. Featherwink settled at the table and extended her hand to Halden. He dropped a few coins in her palm, chewed the sausage. "As always, Abbess, I collected the difference."

Mrs. Featherwink pushed the coins between her breasts and smiled. Count on Halden. Always count on Halden.

Doris dipped into the room and sat down next to March. "Get away ya crip." He gave her a shove and rose to his feet. "Ya stink of piss. Always piss and marshy madge." March went to stand by the kitchen door.

"How's my nephew, Doris?"

"He'll live, but he swears he ain't been that sore since Lord D. used him."

"Then he'll survive."

Miss Liz sighed and rested her elbows on the table. "Times I think on him."

"We don't think about them like Lord D." Mrs. Featherwink frowned.

"No, Prize. Something 'bout him."

Mrs.Featherwink nodded.

Halden elbowed Liz in the ribs, "You were sweet on him." He looked over at March. "And not the only one."

Halden turned in his seat to watch March leave, that face like a rotten plum falling in on itself. He was glad he'd kicked in his teeth. "Maybe you'll see him at Ganymede, Liz." He looked at Mrs. Featherwink. "Any of the girls go out today I'll check 'em for your brooch.

March went out the door to stand in the alley and laughter followed him. "Fuck that Prize and fuck him I will," he told the brick wall and touched his destroyed mouth. "I'll fuck 'em all."

Always count on Halden. Let him look for a missing brooch and find a treasure.

***

When the packets of powders were exhausted, George grew anxious. He spent a sleepless night and by morning his muscles ached and his nose ran. The matron told him to stay in bed and informed Headmaster Bartleby that the boy was ailing. He visited George in his narrow bed. He placed an ink-stained hand on his brow. George looked up at the headmaster. "May I have my powders?"

"They're gone, George."

Gordy turned his head and rubbed his tearing eyes. The thought of the nights without his powders put ice water in his veins. He shuddered. "Are you sure?"

"Rest here. You're suffering from an ague."

But he wasn't. The shivers increased. The cramping in his muscles moved to his stomach and he vomited. His guts contracted. The diarrhea began. Headmaster Bartleby instructed the matron to move George to the farthest building, the one where the incorrigibles were interred behind locked doors and small windows. They placed George in a room with a high window facing the brown wall, a wall the sun never reached. If George spread his disease, it would be to those whose lives were already over. Easier to write a letter of condolence to a family that had no hope and give them peace than invite an inquiry from a well-paying family that expected a reformed son returned to them.

George vomited on his bedclothes. He shook. His bowels emptied. He called to the woman who sat outside his door to bring him his powders. She was a dour woman hired in Glasgow and brought to Sedgefall because she was steadfast and inexpensive. The sweat ran off his body. She poured water past his lips. It hit his stomach and he brought it back up. She changed his sheets. He curled into a ball. He stared at her in anguish, his pupils so dilated that his light-brown eyes appeared black. None of the other students contracted the disease. Not the boy in the room on the second floor who only knew two words, shit and mother. Not the young man in the room to the left who at sixteen started talking to St. George and St. George to him. He came to Sedgefall after he started killing dragons. One of his dragons was a little girl from the village. He slit her open hunting for dragon gold. None of the inmates of the farthest building became ill. What George suffered was his alone. He screamed for his powders. His face was bathed by the impassive nurse. He called the woman bitch, whore, cunt. And she collected her salary and dutifully sent it home to her aging parents. He saw Anthony at the foot of his bed naked and blue, dirt in his hair, the iron brace pressed into oozing flesh. At last he slept only to wake to more pain. Headmaster Bartleby wrote a draft of the condolence letter he was sure he'd send soon to Lord Downcliff. He wrote to Dr. Fellows. He didn't reply.

And when they were all sure the boy teetered on the brink of death and sure to succumb, he started to recover. Two weeks later he walked back to the dormitory and his bed by the window. The woman from Glasgow sighed in relief. The older boys left him alone, afraid of his illness. They left him alone for almost nine days, and Gordy grew strong. His color returned he put on weight. When they returned to his bed expecting the pliant boy who bent and knelt and called for his dead brother, they found him waiting with a rock hidden in the toe of his grey sock, a smooth rock he'd picked up from the yard. He was David with his sling. The boys fell back. The oldest tried to duck in under the arc of the sock and it struck with accuracy on the side of his head. He staggered and dropped to his knees. Gordy threw himself on the boy's back. He pushed his face into the floor. He hit him again and again and pulled up his nightshirt. He laughed. He stood on the balls of his feet and pushed. He made him bleed. He learned his lessons and avoided the birch switch and attended the switchings of his tormentors. He watched their buttocks redden. Nine months later Gordy returned home, strangely calm and changed, his head full of Latin. Amo, amas, amat. The relieved Lord Downcliff sent a note of thanks to Dr. Fellows and Headmaster Bartleby along with a case of wine from his cellar. He had an heir. George's mother stayed in Italy and took a Russian nobleman as her lover. Tom met Gordy by the stream beneath the drooping branches of a willow.

***

What would he do with Prize? If Nanny Grey had asked that question before Prize laid his hand on him in the warm bed, the answer would have come easily, Ganymede. The envelope with the cup and eagle on the wax seal of ox-blood red lay on the writing desk.

The club had no permanent address. It met at country estates and quiet rented houses in London away from decent society and morays. Procurers of discrete resources such as Mrs. Featherwink supplied the entertainments and location. Men of wealth and certain needs attended to enjoy delights of the most exotic and specialized variety. Connoisseurs of a certain class attended to display their acquisitions, trade, and experience new delights.

But not now, he wouldn't take his Prize to show and share. He wouldn't trade him for another or for coin. He turned to his nanny. "He'll stay here." She gave him a disapproving look. "What else is there to do? Should I put him out with some money on a country road? Is there an alley in London where I should leave him? He'll end up starved or in the stews."

Nanny considered and began to answer. William came to the door. "He's awake again." Gordy turned quickly and moved through the kitchen. On the pallet, Prize lay wide-eyed, hollow-eyed and frightened. He tried to push himself across the thin mattress away from the advancing Gordy. He fell exhausted and white. He kept his eyes pinned on Gordy. He whispered something and Gordy knelt to hear. He slid his arm under Prize's neck and shoulders and lifted him gently. He complied.

"What is it, Prize?"

"Done, is it done?"

"Yes, the fever's gone."

"No." Prize turned his head. "The bargain." And looked at Gordy as fear, hope, resignation, sorrow, and pain washed across him as quickly as leaves turn in the wind.

He had kept his hard bargain with Prize pushed far in the back of his mind. Gordy's anger boiled up and burned bitter. "Yes." He spat the word. He meant to hurt as much as the question shamed him.

Prize closed his eyes and inhaled, "Then it's finished."

Gordy stood and walked out the door. The shells on the drive rubbed and crunched like old bones beneath his boots. He needed something to hold on to, to steady his legs. There was nothing. He covered his eyes and cried. He did not let his knees buckle. He planted his feet and stood, his back to the cottage and looked out over the hills swimming through his tears. Summer was ending and the grasses yellow and brittle. Gordy rubbed angrily with the back of his bare arm across his eyes and swallowed a sob, sending it down to twist and kick against his heart. He didn't know why he lied, led Prize believe he'd exacted his price for silence about Rahim, but it was clear now that each time Prize fought to leave the bed he was leaving him, escaping him. He added to his suffering when his only desire was to comfort. Gordy squared his shoulders, ran his hands over his face and pushed his hair back. He turned to the cottage, and after a false start, returned to the hearth.

He placed his hand on Prize's arm and felt the muscles jump. He started to remove his hand, to give in to the anger mumbling in his brain. He tightened his grasp as much to anchor him to the moment as to feed his anger. He knelt by the pallet, his knuckles white.

"I lied." So easy to say once it was said. "Just before, I lied." He ran his hand down his face. He needed a shave. "Because I was angry." But he knew it was more than anger. "Because I couldn't." Couldn't blackmail him, force him, rape him. He relaxed his grip. "I wanted you to think it was over."

"But it isn't."

"I won't ask you about him again."

Prize pushed himself up on one arm and tried to sit. He started to fall back and Gordy moved to support him with his body. Prize let him. And he dropped his eyes and saw the claw marks on Gordy's forearm. "What are these?"

"Nothing, Prize. You couldn't breathe."

Prize's hand shook as he placed two fingers on a wide mark, one Nanny Grey scoured with carbolic. "More than nothing."

"You couldn't breathe. I had to keep you sitting so you could breathe."

Prize shut his eyes and lifted his hand to his throat. "The rope." He turned his head to the stairs. "A scaffold."

"There was no rope."

"The rope was new. It stretched. My neck didn't snap." He grabbed Gordy's shirt to make him understand. Gordy watched the blue eyes stare and go flat. "They wouldn't bind my hands. I thought maybe at the top."

He shook Prize. "Stay here."

Prize touched his neck. "It's gone now." He looked down at the marks on Gordy's arm. "I did this." He was back in the room.

"You couldn't breathe. You were frightened. You dreamt."

"Please, I didn't mean to. It was the noose I felt." Panic fluttered in his voice.

"I forgive you." The irony of what he said stabbed at Gordy. He pictured the slash the crop left on Prize's back.

Then Prize broke his heart. He touched his soul. He sent shivers up his spine. He astounded him. Prize lowered his head and pressed his lips to the fiery mark. That kiss, unsolicited and soft, seared Gordy more than the carbolic, went deeper than the wounds. It was warm and innocent and redolent with regret. It was fearless. Prize lay naked but for a thin nightshirt in the arms of the man who blackmailed him, who threatened him with rape, who held him through his fever dreams, and he forgave him with a kiss.

"Don't." Gordy eased Prize back on the thin pallet as the cough returned. He composed himself. "I'll have Nanny bring you water." He removed himself before Prize could speak further. Before Gordy confessed more.

They waited, Nanny and William, in the dying garden grown rank with the odor of decay for Gordy to finish talking with Prize. "Give him something to eat. Give him . . ." Gordy stopped and looked at his old nanny. "Give him . . ." He ran his hand through his hair. He pushed his sleeves over his arms to hide the scratches to hide the kiss. He tried to find any word but the one he wanted to use, sanctuary. He fought for composure.

"You're worn out with care." Nanny lifted her hand to brush back a lock of Gordy's hair. He had grown thin and pale at Prize's side.

Gordy pulled away from her hand. "I'm tired of illness. I'm bored with country life." His voice hard as flint. "Shut this cottage. I have engagements in London." He pushed her hand away. "I'm returning to Leeshore for a fortnight. If you want anything after that, send a message to me at my club." He turned his back on them.

"He'll be safe with my man and me." Nanny dropped her hand. She looked at her husband.

"Give him something to eat." Gordy slapped at the dry lupine stalk. "For God's sake feed him."

His coat lay on the dining room chair, the envelope on the writing desk. Prize watched him as he smoothed his hair and shrugged into the coat. The envelope he tucked into a pocket. He turned to Prize. The pieces suddenly fell together: tunic, bound hands, the rope, Rahim. He leaned over the pallet and yanked the blanket from Prize. He lay there momentarily frozen in fear. An arm rose to protect his head. His knees drew up. Gordy grabbed the neck of the nightshirt as Prize tried to pull away. He tore the nightshirt open and ran his hand along the scar. A wordless sound of fear, a guttural vowel sound, fell from Prize's lips. Gordy took no notice. A scimitar cut? Prize was a soldier once, a soldier set to hang.

"Never speak of that rope." Prize recoiled farther in horror. "Do you understand me?" No answer. Gordy felt his own fear rise like vomit in his mouth. He stood. "Do you, stupid whore?" His own voice startled him, fear for Prize and self loathing for himself. Prize cowered. "Say you understand." Prize turned his face to the hearth and tugged at the blanket, tried to pull the torn nightshirt together with palsied hands. "I do." Gordy left by the front door. He averted his eyes when he reached the well. The mare tossed her head. She cantered down the hill. Gordy held his back straight, his shoulders squared. He did not look back.

Two days to close up the cottage. Prize watched in silence from his place by the fire. William found him a shirt and trousers among those left by Gordy. They would do until workman's clothes were bought. A rich-man's clothes might draw curious eyes and questions. Nanny helped him dress. She pushed trembling arms into sleeves. The clothing hung on his thin frame. She never mentioned the torn nightshirt. She didn't comment on the slash on his back. She tried not to notice the shackle and chain on the floor. Prize remained silent.

Prize smelled the lemon on the shirt and questions rolled through his mind. Why's, Prize rhymes with that, too. And too much for a stupid whore to understand. He went with the old couple to the freehold at the bottom of the hill, riding in silence in the pony cart. Nanny Grey and William told him his name was Daniel, Dan Prize, if anyone asked. He didn't ask why.

And the clock on the mantle in the still cottage ran down and was silent.

***

Gordy settled himself in the hansom cab and gave the address, his half mask of black secure in an inner pocket. His heart thumped against it. The air was cold and clear and the horse moved at a good clip through the streets as purple dusk deepened to night. The windows of the house glowed. An eagle and cup emblem hung from the gate. Gordy paid the driver and turned his head from the knowing grin and walked to the double front door. He turned and tied his mask in place with a bow of satin ribbon.

A knock. His hat and gloves received and he was ushered to the main salon. A tray of champagne offered by a demure young lady with over-large hands and Adam's apple. Others dipped and smiled as they offered trays of canapés. Gordy never understood the attraction of the James Street Maidens.