Chapter 55 London
Chapter fifty-five
London
“Penny,” said Crispin when he found himself alone with his sister in the evening, their parents having gone out to see a new play. “Are you still hot on the trail of that secret society?”
“So hot, my shoes are scorched,” Penny replied coolly, not looking up from the novel she was reading.
“Well, then,” said Crispin, and turned a page of his issue of Punch.
“Well, what?” said Penny.
Crispin shrugged. “You don’t need your little brother’s help.”
“I certainly don’t need you following me round again when I’m on a job,” Penny retorted.
“May I point out that I arrived at the establishment a good hour before you did?”
“No, you mayn’t.”
A small silence, then a hand descended on Punch and a bright eye and rosy cheek peered over it.
“All right,” Penny said. “Out with it. What are you after?”
“You mean besides undying admiration and boundless gratitude?” He thought for a moment. “My slippers?”
Penny blinked. “What if I just don’t kick you until nineteen-eleven?”
“I’m not sure that’s a promise you can keep,” Crispin said regretfully.
“You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “You’re just too kickable.”
Crispin lowered his magazine and smoothed it out where she had rumpled it.
“What if I do something unprecedented?” he offered. “Lay all my cards out on the table?”
“All your cards?“ Penny said, sceptical.
“Well. Most of them,” he admitted. “The fact is: I’ve a certain interest in this whole affair.”
“A certain interest,” Penny repeated, cocking her head like a bird.
“A professional interest.”
“Go on.”
“It’s classified. Has to do with my work.”
“Now what on earth could it have to do with maps?“ Penny objected.
“The point is,” Crispin persisted, waving his hand, “I want to know whatever you find out about the secret society, and in return, I’ll help you with what I know. Tit for tat. No favours. And just in case you’re wondering—I do know something. I’m not bluffing.”
Penny’s eyes were bright, but her voice was cautious. “You won’t scoop me?”
“Scoop you?”
Penny folded her arms. “They fired the last female reporter at the Daily Mail because she was on intimate terms with a reporter at a rival paper.”
Crispin’s eyebrows shot up.
“It so happens he was her lawful husband,” Penny went on. “But it didn’t matter. And it wouldn’t matter to my editor that you’re my brother. If there’s a leak on an important story, I’m out. They won’t give me another chance. They don’t, when you’re a woman.”
Crispin leaned forward. “I promise: this has got nothing to do with another paper. I don’t have any ambition to see my name in print. And…I don’t know if this will mean anything to you, but…” He cleared his throat. “I find I want you to make a go of this.”
Penny raised her eyebrows.
“I really do,” he said, resisting the urge to loosen his collar. This wasn’t the sort of conversation they usually had. “You’re happier since you’ve started this gig.” He paused. Then he laughed lightly. “And it makes you a good deal pleasanter to live with.”
Penny snorted. “Well, thanks awfully. Anything else I should know?”
“Just one. You can’t tell Father.”
Penny looked sharp. “Crispin, what are you up to?”
“Nothing sinister.” He gave her a smile, the sort that he hoped would put her at ease. “You aren’t the only one who feels the need to prove themselves in this family.”
“Oh, but it’s so much was easier for me to prove myself,” Penny sniffed.
Crispin stilled. “What?”
“Something you said once, years ago,” she said, looking away. “That it was easier for me to prove myself, because I’m just a girl.”
“I see what you mean about kickable,” Crispin reflected.
“Well.” Penny scrutinised him. “Is it to be a truce then, or a lasting peace, at 14 Brunswick Square?”
“I was unaware there was a war?” Crispin said innocently.
“Ha!” Penny shouted. “That’s the first lie you’ve told all evening!”
Crispin laughed ruefully. “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” He stretched out his hand to shake. “Let’s make it an Entente Cordiale, like Britain has with France and Russia. Nothing on paper, terms to be reviewed at a future date?”
“Perfect,” said Penny, with a smile that unnerved him just a little.
Later, Penny found Punch slipped under her door.
It was open to a political cartoon that showed a gaggle of people dressed in haphazard fancy-dress from the Dark Ages, packed into motorcars, tilting at one another drunkenly.
The man next to the chauffeur held a spear and a shield with a Saint George’s Cross on it, and wore a silly pencil moustache.
The motor cars belched fumes over a distressed pastoral scene, where villagers clutched their children and pets to their bosoms.
ATHELNEY AMUSEMENTS, the caption read, and beneath it: “England for the English! We’ll make England green and pleasant once more!”
Penny was waiting in her father’s study when he came home from the theatre. She got his slippers and poured him a drink.
“Penny,” he said mildly. “What is this about?”
“I haven’t burgled you, don’t worry, you needn’t keep checking your things. I’ve learned my lesson. I just want to know what you found out about Mr Eames.”
Stephen looked at her sharply. “Where did you—“
“I was with a friend, at a restaurant, and Eames happened to be there. It was the most extraordinary coincidence. That’s his real name, isn’t it?”
Stephen nodded and took a sip of his drink.
“Who is he?”
“A war veteran. An unemployed bank clerk.”
“And a member of the Brotherhood of Saint George.”
Stephen cocked his head. “Now, that I didn’t know.”
“But you do know of them?”
Stephen paused. “Yes. I do.”
“Is it because a lot of veterans are mixed up with them?”
“I’m not sure I can say much more.”
“Then they are dangerous,“ said Penny, gloating.
“Anyone can be dangerous, Penny,” warned Stephen. “But if someone is keeping an eye on them, it will be the Home Office. Not my department.”
Penny looked thoughtful. “The Home Office? Well, I’m sure they’ve got it well in hand. Nothing more for me to do! I’ll just go see if Mother wants help with her hair.”
She made for the door.
“Penny,” her father said.
“Yes, Father?”
“Did we—have we not given you enough scope? For your abilities? We haven’t quashed you?”
Penny looked back at him from the door quite fondly. “Why, of course you haven’t quashed me, Father. Do we know anyone in the Athelney crowd?”
“I certainly hope not! They’re cranks, in my opinion, whatever social position they occupy.” Stephen’s eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t have thought there’d be much temptation for you to get yourself mixed up with that crowd. Should I be worried?”
“Of course not, Father,” Penny said with her sweetest smile. “And don’t worry about me, I’m in my element. You ought to check on Crispin, though. I fear he’s struggling a bit.”
Once by her mother’s dressing table, Penny propped her chin on her hand. “What’s the Athelney crowd like, Mother?”
“Athelney?” repeated Sylvia, her eyes shifting focus from applying a cream to her face.
“Oh, you mean those people who never got over the Norman Conquest and play at hiding in the marshes? Fuddy-duddies, dear. And they don’t know a thing about art.
I’m quite in favour of ten sixty-six, you know.
Honestly, where would the English language be without French?
We’d all be saying such coarse words all the time. And who knows what we’d be drinking!”
“How would a girl like me get herself invited into a circle of fuddy-duddies, if she wanted to infiltrate it for Reasons of Her Own?”
“That’s easy, my dear. Fall in love with one.
” Sylvia removed the Grecian-style ornaments from her hair, dropping them in her customary midden of hairpins, bracelets, and scent bottles, and began hunting for her hairbrush.
“Men adore to think they’ve tamed the shrew.
It’s better than bagging an imperial stag for them. ”
Penny’s nose scrunched, then smoothed. “What a marvellously devious thought,” she exclaimed, handing her mother the hairbrush. Penny jumped up and kissed her mother on the cheek. “You really are the dearest thing.”
Sylvia blinked.
“Have you ever thought of inviting some real people here, Mother?” said Penny. “I mean, working class ones?”
“Here?” Sylvia looked at her dressing table in alarm. “Do you think they’d approve of us?”
“Well, even if they didn’t, it might liven things up. Crispin gets dreadfully bored with the stodgy, worthy sort of females we have around, you know.”
“Really?” breathed Sylvia, putting down her brush.
“You astonish me. I’ve always expected Crispin to bring home someone really solid and respectable when the time comes.
Someone with thick ankles and a thicker skull.
A Tory, most definitely. You’ve no idea how I’ve dreaded her inevitable entrance on Stage Right. ”
“Never fear,” said Penny breezily. “Fast and foreign—that’s how Crispy likes them.”
Sylvia’s eyes lit. “Fascinating.”
Penny went back to her room humming. Her parents were terribly good sports, and so easy to manage most of the time.
Even her brother wasn’t quite as bad these days.
He was playing his own game, of course, behind the scenes.
There was no point trying to find out what it was—Crispin was as close as a clam.
He’d put on a pretty scene about letting her in that evening, but a good deal of it had been play-acting.
At least, she thought it had. Truthfully, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if the legendary Fairweather sibling rivalry ever ran aground on the sandbar of genuine fraternal affection.