Chapter 5 #3
Honeywell drained his teacup and set it aside, reaching for the dusty bottle. He commenced cleaning it on his sleeve with complete disregard for his clothes. “Sadly, that is not so far from the truth, but I wish it were not so. Now, have a taste of this and tell me what you make of it.”
With evident glee, Honeywell uncorked the bottle and poured them both a generous measure, handing one to King.
Then he sat, lifting the glass to the light and turning it this way and that and making sounds of approval.
Finally, he gave it an expert spin in the glass, held it to his nose and sniffed.
A sigh of deep content then emanated from his portly frame before he took a sip, smacking his lips appreciatively.
“Oh! Oh, ho, that—” Honeywell pointed at the glass in his hand. “That is jolly good. Jolly good indeed. Now, then, you strike me as a man with a discerning palate. Drink up, my good fellow, drink up.”
King laughed and did as he was told, savouring the sweet, mellow flavour of a well-aged cognac. “Well, I’ll not contradict you,” he said with a smile. “It’s the best I ever tasted.”
“I concur.”
They communed in amiable silence with the fine French brandy as they sipped and appreciated and King relaxed a degree.
The Reverend Honeywell was just as he had always been.
He was somewhat plumper about his middle, and greyer than he had been in King’s memory, but his easy warmth, his lack of judgement and his unending kindness were still evident and abundant.
King knew now why he had come and forced himself to say the words out loud.
“I wanted to thank you,” he said, as Honeywell reached over to top up his glass.
“Me? Whatever for?” Honeywell said with a laugh, refilling his own glass.
“For what you did all those years ago. For trying. For believing me.”
The reverend sighed and shook his head, looking down into his glass with a sorrowful air. “Trying is not succeeding, Jasper, so you owe me nothing. Though perhaps fate was not so cruel to you as it might have been. Are you truly as prosperous as you appear?”
“I am, though I’ll not deny it was a hard and bloody road. I’ve done many things I’m not proud of, Reverend, but I have plans that might make you feel you weren’t so terribly mistaken in me.”
Honeywell gave him a sweetly crooked smile. “I am rarely mistaken, my boy. Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
Rather to his own surprise, King did just that, describing the wet autumn day when he had left this town for good, trudging through mud and muck for days, until he reached London with no clear idea of why he was there or what he might do.
At seventeen years of age, he had found himself alone, which was no novelty for a boy who had always felt other than those around him.
For the first few months he’d been lucky to find work as a labourer, for he was fit and strong, but a run of bad luck found him out of work for a few weeks, which got him turned out of his lodgings on a night when it poured with rain that promptly froze in the gutters and turned the streets into rivers of glassy filth.
He took ill, out of his head with fever, but had the rare good fortune to choose Mrs Fairway’s kitchen door in which to huddle.
For reasons he still could not fathom, she took him off the street, nursed him better and fed him too, though she had not so much to spare, being with child and her husband recently dead in the French Revolutionary War.
“Ah. So, you are acquainted with Mrs Fairway?” the reverend said, his eyes alight with interest.
King hesitated. It was not in his nature to speak unreservedly, but having faith in his audience, he had not considered until that moment that not all parts of this story were his alone.
“I am, though I would ask you to do her the favour of not making that known to anyone else. It’ll do her no credit, as we both know, and I’d not bring her trouble for the world. ”
“You’ve no need to caution me,” Honeywell said, looking rather affronted by the idea. “We have not spoken in many years, but I hope I am not so changed that you might think it of me.”
King smiled, shaking his head. “Not changed much at all, though a few too many excellent dinners are telling their own tales,” he added with a wink.
Honeywell chuckled good-naturedly and patted his stomach. “I would deny it, but as you see, my cook makes the most wonderful pies and puddings and, alas, I am not so firm in my resolve as I ought to be.”
King shook his head. “Well, some stories are not mine to tell but suffice to say that Mrs Fairway did me a great kindness, which I hope I have gone some way towards repaying her for. But back then I was a sore disappointment to her, for after saving me from an untimely end, I repaid her by going to the devil. I fell in with smugglers, which I’d intended to do here, so it made little odds. ”
“The fate of many a young man when his options seem so limited,” Honeywell said mournfully.
“True enough, but I was rather better at being in bad company than most, until it got to be that I was the worst of the lot, and by dint of surviving and knocking down any other fellow who thought to knock me down, I rose to the top of a very undistinguished pile,” he said with a mocking smile.
“But I had a knack for buying and selling, for recognising quality and what people wanted, and before too long I had money enough to set up a small gambling hell. The first of many places where I prospered by enticing foolish fellows to part from their money.”
Honeywell considered this, gazing down into his glass as if all the answers were writ there if only he looked hard enough. “I suspect you are too harsh, but we shall not quarrel over it.”
“Too harsh?” King laughed heartily at that. “Lord above, you’d forgive the devil himself.”
“The devil was an angel once,” Honeywell said with a shrug. “He only got himself in a bit of a tangle.”
King shook his head, diverted by the idea. “A bit of a tangle! I do believe you’d have set Old Nick straight should you have been there to do it.”
“Don’t flatter an old man,” Honeywell said, shaking a remonstrative finger at him. “It is a terrible weakness of mine, for I am prone to be prideful, you understand. Now, have another drink.”
“Are you trying to get me foxed?” King asked with amusement.
“Foxed? No, no, as if I could. I’m certain you are far too hard-headed to succumb to such tricks before I was passed out at your feet.”
King suspected that was not as true as he might like to believe but did not say so.
“No, I should not attempt such trickery, more perhaps you might consider it a… a softening up?” he admitted.
Narrowing his eyes at the old man, King experienced a sudden and unpleasant premonition. “And what might you be softening me up for?” he asked, suspicion dripping from every word.
Honeywell huffed and sighed. “Now, don’t look all squinty eyed at me.
I cannot pretend that you will like the idea, but I would not ask if I did not need your help quite so desperately and surely that must be why you are here.
What other reason could there be for your sudden appearance after so long?
No, no, I consider that providence sent you to my door this day and you won’t dissuade me of the notion, for I have only this morning told the good Lord that I am at my wits' end, and here you are! I ought never to have doubted him, of course,” he added penitently.
“Why do I feel perfectly certain I have just walked into a trap and wrapped the noose about my own throat?” King demanded.
“What it is you want, you old devil? For old devil is right, you’re as sly as Beelzebub himself and I’m a blasted fool for letting you lull me into your hands.
Not like it, my eye. I’m damned sure I shall dislike it beyond measure! ”
Honeywell pulled a face as he reached out to top up King’s glass once more.
“Well, you have me there,” he admitted. “I’m afraid you will dislike it a great deal, and yet I must ask it of you.
If you really do have any fondness for me, for anything I may or may not have done, I would ask you to recall it now. ”
King growled with frustration, glaring at the man. “I could wring your neck.”
“I know,” Honeywell sighed apologetically. “I do know, and I beg your pardon.”
“Dammit, ask then and get it over with,” King demanded, knocking back the fine cognac now in the vain hope it might not be as dreadful as he feared.
“Well, you will recall, naturally, the reason for which you left all those years ago?”
“Naturally,” King repeated, his tone scathing.
Honeywell cleared his throat. “Yes, well, young Miss Tanner was delivered of her child, though she is sadly no longer with us, having succumbed to a virulent bout of influenza that carried her off a good many years ago. Alas, the only person left responsible for the lad was her father.”
King groaned, covering his eyes with his hand as he recalled Bob Tanner, a regular drinking companion of his own unlamented sire.
“Quite,” Honeywell said sadly. “Well, the lad was neglected and allowed to run riot and if ever his grandfather tried to rein him in, when the town became too irate, it was only to beat the lad senseless. I’ve done what I can, and I know there is much good in Thomas, for I have had some very sensible conversations with him over the years, but he is young, and he is angry at the world—and with good reason. ”
King laughed, a sound he was aware was mocking and cruel and yet he found he could not help himself. “And what would you have me do about it? For if you’re thinking I’ll adopt the little bastard—”
“I think no such thing, and I will thank you not to use such language about a boy who can no more help the circumstances of his birth than you can. I might have believed you’d know better,” he said, and with such severity King fell silent, wondering when was the last time anyone had dared to chastise him so harshly, or indeed, at all.