Chapter 28
Sophia and Theodore—tacitly deciding that it was best to get off the streets, at least until dark—took another job carriage to Rossio Square, after asking where they might find a stagecoach.
The square buzzed with muleteers haggling over fare and vendors selling roasted chestnuts or cherry liqueur.
It seemed to be the bustling heart of Lisbon—inns, taverns, and coach houses all clustered there, with the ocean breeze blowing through it all.
They even found, thankfully, another friendly Portuguese man who explained that if they wanted a carriage to Coimbra, Porto, or Badajoz/Seville, they could buy a ticket on a public road coach.
He eyed them a little carefully, but Theodore had left off his bumbling but harmless youth persona, and he now played the capable and earnest young man.
Sophia had forgotten to ask if he planned to introduce her as his sister—this could get very Abrahamic, she feared—but this time he did not. “My wife and I want to see more of the continent before we sail home.”
“It’s hardly a safe time with the war on, Senhor.”
“You’re right, of course, but surely after Soult was pushed out of Seville last year, it is safe again?”
“Safe as cats, as they say, but cats have claws. Seville is still wrecked from the French looting and destruction. And you would need passport or safe-conduct if you’re passing all the way to Spain.”
“Oh, I don’t want to wait for that,” put in Sophia, feeling she ought to help a little, “it would take Father weeks to get the proper paperwork. What about the other city you mentioned— Coimbra?”
“Yes, Senhora. Coimbra is very nice. The universidad—the university is from the twelve hundreds, also the ruins, and the—how do you say?—aqueducts. Very ancient.”
“That sounds delightful!”
Theodore smiled indulgently. “Where would we get tickets for a coach to Coimbra?”
“The diligência leaves from the Corpo Santo Hotel. It runs from Lisbon to Santarém to Coimbra and then to Porto, but it is a difficult trip—maybe two, three days.”
“It can’t be worse than the Mail to Bath,” put in Sophia, with real feeling.
The vendor looked bemused. “As you say, Senhora.”
They took their leave of him and Theodore took a room at the Corpo Santo Hotel for the night. He requested a private parlor as well, and dinner to be brought to them. Sophia wouldn’t have chosen to spend that much at once, particularly on the private parlor, but she couldn’t deny she was famished.
In a way, it was a blessing that they spoke only broken Portuguese and the hotelier only broken English, for despite a strange look or two, no one could ask why she did not have any baggage or a maid.
There were a few questions that tended in that direction, but confusion, laughter, pointing, and eventual shrugs turned it away.
After all, it was not unheard of for a woman to travel alone with her husband—and Theodore did a very good job of appearing solicitous but slightly exasperated—not at all as a man faking a marriage or running away from the law.
He was so open and friendly, even those who could not understand him responded well; he simply made people smile.
Sophia followed him wearily up the carpeted stairs, for although it was only mid-afternoon, she felt as if it had been days since she stood on the wharf.
Perhaps longer. The private parlor was a small, tidy room on the first floor, nestled among the other parlors for rent and above the public dining room on the ground floor where anyone might come in and get a meal.
The porter took them a floor higher to their bedroom and bowed them within.
When the door was finally shut, Sophia collapsed into one of the two upholstered chairs that stood on either side of the unlit grate. The cushions, though rather stiff, felt like a cloud to Sophia.
Mr. Belvedere had no more energy than she, having also folded his larger frame into the other chair. “Phew, this is something like.”
“And the silence!” Sophia said. She tipped back her head and closed her eyes. “It is such a relief after—everything.”
It was not perfectly silent, but despite the hawkers’ cries of bread and ink and such, muted and far away, it felt an idyll of peace.
Finally she was safe; no onlookers, relative security.
“Perhaps we should have gone to a cheaper inn,” she said, “but I suppose it is far less likely anyone will come looking for us here?”
“Yes. No one will think we have the money to burn on a place as nice as this.”
Sophia rested in the silence for a good long while, but finally her stomach growled.
She sighed and shifted. Theodore, she saw, had also thrown his head back and had actually fallen asleep.
His mouth was slightly open and although he didn’t snore, his breathing grew heavy.
Good heavens, she was married. She would now find out whether he snored, or grumbled in the morning, or—or anything worse.
Of course, she had seen him nearly every day for a month during the voyage.
He had never gotten drunk or even made serious indentures when the men had lingered at the table.
He had not seemed prone to sudden rages or ill-temper.
Indeed, he had been remarkably sunny-tempered for the difficulties they had faced.
She simply would not indulge those fears until she must.
He stirred and rubbed his eyes, smiling when he saw her watching him. “Apologies! I’ve done little more than rest the last few days, and so much action has exhausted me.”
“Of course.” Sophia hesitated but then pushed on ahead, despite her blush. “I don’t at all wish to start in as a nagging wife, but I really must ask—should we be budgeting ourselves a trifle more? How close are we to Point Non Plus? You won’t scare me; but do tell me.”
He smiled. “You really do not believe I have any money, do you?”
“Of course I do, I saw the coins at the notary. A few crowns will take us to Coimbra and pay for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but…”
“Sophy—I really do like that name, you know—you must have a little faith.” He had tossed his cane on the bed when they entered, along with his satchel, and he now got up and retrieved it. He sat back in the chair and began—unscrewing the head of the cane.
“Oh—oh, a secret compartment? Why did we not think of that?”
“I think someone did,” he said, “for the head was loose after Wentworth and Sir Mark—er, Mr. Knapp—searched my room. Everyone knows about compartments in canes. There are snuff canes, you know, where the knob unscrews and allows an easy pinch. And you’ve probably heard of sword-sticks, although they’re illegal in London.
There are even liquor canes which can hold a dram of brandy. True! My friend Traversham had one.”
Sophia watched as he unscrewed the cane and showed her the snuff inside.
“I keep that there to allay suspicion, which it seems to have done. But there’s a little twist lock—” he moved his hands dexterously—“and the snuff cylinder pops out to reveal—this deeper hole. A gadget cane, that’s what they call these.”
“What’s in it?”
He slapped the cane in his palm several times until the edge of a tightly rolled tube of paper became visible, thinner than her smallest finger.
He gingerly plucked it out with his thumb and forefinger.
The papers, of which there were several, were half-size sheets, like bank notes.
He put them in her lap, and she smoothed them out.
“Theodore! This is a twenty-pound note. And this one. Why—a hundred and twenty pounds. There is enough here for a year—more if we are careful.”
“Exactly, my love. Now, exchanging such large notes may be a small problem, but I am sure we can overcome it. I propose we only exchange one at a time and save the rest for later. Do you concur?”
“Oh, of course.” Sophia allowed the notes to roll back up in her lap. “But are these—forged? I’m not angry but do please tell me.”
“Never fear! They’re right as rain, I promise.
Good, solid notes backed by the Bank of England.
” He tapped the cane on his hand again, for there seemed to be more papers lodged further down the hollow core.
Finally another tight roll came into sight, and he plucked it out.
These pages he did not hand to her but unrolled meditatively in his lap.
They were not banknotes, but something larger.
“These, I am forced to say, are forged.”
Sophia leaned forward and he handed the top page to her. A looping ink border decorated the left and right, and in the center there was a form which seemed to have been pre-written, with blanks left for the particulars.
No. 127, One Hundred Twenty-Seven
Exchange for 300￡ Sterling or Madras Rupees.
To the Honorable the COURT of DIRECTORS for the Affairs of the United COMPANY of MERCHANTS of England trading to the East Indies by Order of the Honorable the Governor in Council.
A decisive signature followed in a different ink, and another, in a spidery hand. The bottom of the document was graced by a fancy stamp in blue ink and an exchange rate which read: Eight hundred and seventy-five Madras Rupees for ￡100 Sterling, for which credit shall be given…
“The East India Company? Was it true all along? You were the man in the notice?”
“I was. Are you very angry? I suppose one could say we signed the civil contract under false pretenses. I knew what you had done, but you did not know about me.”
“I knew you were up to something nefarious, but I really thought we’d missed the boat with that EIC. It could have been anyone. But—but it is true?”
“Yes, it is. My letters of recommendation were badly done. I could kick myself for that, but the thing was, you see, that I had very little time. My flight from England was—precipitate, as you can imagine. I can do a much better job when I have time.”
Sophia eyed the Bill of Exchange. “Yes, I see that.”
He grimaced. “Some of my best work! I already exchanged a few of these, hence the funds. However, I had deuced bad luck with the numbering. It seems a clerk in Bombay mistook his book and skipped ahead. To my humiliation and discomfiture—there are no Bills of Exchange between a hundred and twenty, and a hundred and thirty-five.” He shook his head sadly.
“Everyone kept saying how you would be hanged for this. I’m not angry, but I am frightened.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” He rose and stretched his long arms, loosening his cravat a trifle. “What do you say to a fire? It is a little warm, but we must make the best of it.”
“Would you really burn them?”
“Certainly. This is the end of that chapter, and the start of a new one.”
The fireplace was cold, but there were several fresh logs and tinder, plus three curls of paper for lighting.
He fetched the candle the housemaid lit for them and used one of the screws of paper to start the fire.
After a few minutes they had a nice little blaze.
He took the first Bill of Exchange and held the corner to the flames.
At first the edge only browned and smoked, but then it began to curl.
An orange flame licked up the paper. Theodore held it until the flames were nearly at his fingers, then dropped it on top of the log.
“I’m not regretting this, mind you, but it is rather like burning art. ”
He took the next and burned it likewise.
“Is this all there is?” Sophia said. “Only these two left?”
“Yes. All that business about five thousand pounds was nonsense! I don’t know where they got such numbers.”
“But this money—could it implicate you somehow?”
“Not a bit,” he said cheerfully as the flames ate the second document.
“It’s real currency, same as any other. And twenty-pound notes are a little high, but they will not draw notice the way a larger denomination would.
” He began to roll them up, except for one, and reinsert them into his ingenious cane.
He showed her the trick of it and had her practice.
“Just in case anything should happen to me, I’d want you to be able to extract them. ”
“But you don’t think anything will happen, do you? I would be heartbroken to—it would be terrible to lose you so soon.”
“I solemnly do not. If someone comes to this exact hotel with our description, we may be in trouble, but like I said, I doubt that Captain Smythe or any other will expect it. They will not think we are so bold or so plump in the pocket as to stay at one of the foremost hotels in the city.”
“That’s true.” Sophia began to smile. “Meeting up with Caroline and the colonel was quite bad luck, but she was rather magnificent, wasn’t she?”
“She was, and I believe I have you to thank for that. Both she and Mrs. Wentworth were very much on your side.”
“They were, weren’t they? It was very strange.”
He held out a hand to help her rise from the chair.
“It is not strange to me. I was quite on your side from the very beginning. There I was, fleeing the country, and the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen happened to be in the next cabin!
Oh—that reminds me. Did you mean to stumble into the captain and knock all those newspapers into the sea? ”
“Yes, I did. Lady Marston gave me a sharp nudge, and I went along with it. I knew not why, but now I realize she must’ve feared that news of Sir Mark’s death had been printed in the papers.”
“Ah, of course. I like to understand it all. Now, shall we go see about having some supper? I am famished, and I can only imagine how hungry you must be.”
“That sounds delightful.” She took his arm, wondering when was the last time she had felt so light. “In fact, if we are truly not purse-strapped, I’ve one more idea we might execute tonight. It would relieve my mind, but it’s a little reckless. If you don’t think—”
“I am the last man in the world to censure you for recklessness. If it can be done, I’ll make it happen.”