Chapter 33
A few minutes later, Max found himself walking in the direction of Oxford Street again, this time with Amadeo Schiavi as companion. The rain had stopped while they’d been inside, and the puddled streets were glistening wetly where the fitful moonlight touched them.
‘Do you speak the truth, ragassol?’ the old man said abruptly.
It was impossible to misunderstand him; Max wondered only that he had waited so long to ask.
Perhaps he thought this was a matter best discussed between men; perhaps he believed Max harboured some disreputable but commonplace masculine secret he wouldn’t share in front of Allegra and her mother.
If only it were so simple. ‘Yes, all I say is true, sir. I would marry your granddaughter tomorrow – today – if I could, and ask nothing more from life than that, thinking myself luckier than I deserve, but I cannot, and I may not even tell you why. I know there’s no reason why you should believe me.
I must be aware that it all sounds highly suspicious, and conveniently contrived to let me off the hook. ’
‘I believe who I choose, and for my own reasons. If you say it is so, I must accept it.’
‘I don’t really see why. You have no reason in the world to trust me, sir. You know I have been meeting Allegra in secret…’
That low, rumbling laugh again. ‘I too have been young, and though it was long ago I have not quite forgotten it yet. I hope I never do. That is nothing, despite what the canting hypocrite priests say; it is nature, as long as both are free and willing. But this ricatadur with his filthy threats and the pleasure he takes in it…’
‘How do you suppose he found out about you? It seems almost impossible that he should have done so. He might easily conjecture that Mrs Constantine had made exaggerated claims about her noble family – there would be nothing unique in that, and it is an obvious guess to hazard, especially for an Englishman who shares his race’s low opinion of foreigners to begin with.
It proves nothing. But he is aware of your existence too, your presence in London, and that is a different matter entirely, it seems to me. ’
‘This had occurred to me also. It argues that he does have connections beyond this so-called polite world, and that someone has been talking when they should have been silent. Who can say, then, what other dangerous information he might have, and him a blackmailer? That alone might place him deep in danger, and not only at my hands.’
‘You will go and see this man you spoke of, this Nate Smith?’
‘You had better forget that name, young man, and the fact that I uttered it. An indiscretion on my part – I must be getting old. Yes, I will see him later today. He does not live in your Mayfair, of course, or anywhere to the west. And I would not call on him unexpectedly at this desperate hour in any case.’
‘It is indeed late. I hope you are not going out of your way to see me home. I’m quite safe alone, I assure you,’ Max told him politely.
The old man snorted. ‘You think I must live in a poorer quarter, to the east? Some low slum in St Giles, or Ratcliffe Highway, perhaps, down by the docks?’
‘I have no idea where you reside, and it’s none of my affair.
But I live in St James’s Square, and I have a notion we are not neighbours.
There’s no need to find a pretext to follow me – I would have told you my direction if you’d asked.
And it seems to me you could find out easily enough, anyway, given what you’ve said of your connections. ’
He could tell that the old man was smiling. ‘It was your father’s house?’
‘My adoptive father, yes. I have no idea who my real father was. I’m a bastard.’
‘Like me, you are too polite to say. For my part, I knew my father. I lived on his estate when I was young, as his bound serf, and saw it pass to my legitimate half-brother when he died. It was no great privilege to know them – I might have wished I didn’t.
Despite their noble standing, they were real bastards, both of them, and their women were wicked, cruel creatures too.
I hope they’re all burning in hell, assuming there is one.
Have you ever tried to find your father? ’
‘I have no reason to believe he’s ever set foot in England, or even left Martinique. Where would I start? He could have been dead these twenty years for all I know.’
‘I’ll take that as a yes. And your mother?’
Steady now, Max. ‘She abandoned me when I was a baby. Look at me – I was her shame. I know nothing of her and care less.’
‘That’s the first outright lie you’ve told me. But it is, as you say, none of my affair, since you are not going to marry my granddaughter. That is your loss, you realise.’
‘Please believe that I know it. I wish it could be otherwise… but talking pays no toll.’
They were almost at St James’s now, and with a brief word of farewell Schiavi turned to leave him, setting his face in the direction of the park.
Perhaps he was going to Buckingham House, to have an early dish of chocolate with Queen Charlotte.
Max could believe him capable of almost anything.
‘How will I know what you have found out?’ Max asked the old man before he passed out of earshot.
‘I shall get word to you,’ was the insouciant reply over one dusty velvet shoulder. Mr Severin shook his head, and made his weary way up the steps to his own door. It had been a long night.