Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
The Devil’s Bargain
The following morning had been quieter than I had any right to expect.
I was awaiting the tutor Lark had recommended, a gentleman from her literary salon who was expected at eleven, along with the more extensive report from my solicitors regarding the Kent Institution.
If the report had not arrived by the time I finished with the tutor, I intended to visit their offices and enquire into the delay.
In anticipation of its arrival, I had cleared my desk of the responsibilities I had inherited.
Letters had been answered. The estate ledger had been dealt with.
I’d given the railway prospectus the half hour of attention it deserved and no more.
Dawson had taken Will to Mr. Felling’s establishment in Bond Street at half past nine.
They were not expected back until well after one.
The clock upon the mantel struck ten. Not a quarter of an hour passed when Dawson appeared at the study door. “My lord.”
I set down my pen. “You are early.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Where is Will?”
“In his bedchamber, my lord. He is unharmed.”
The careful construction of the sentence—unharmed, with all its battlefield resonance—was the first warning.
“And Mr. Felling?”
“Mr. Felling is likewise unharmed, my lord.”
I folded my hands and waited.
Dawson drew a measured breath. “Master Will declined to remove his coat upon entering the establishment. Mr. Felling, with such tact as he could muster, suggested this was a customary preliminary to being measured for new clothes. Master Will replied that he did not require new clothes, that the coat he was wearing had been his, was his, and would remain his. Mr. Felling then attempted to explain that the coat in question was somewhat in disrepair and that a young gentleman in your lordship’s household ought to be properly attired. ”
He paused. Beneath the gravel of his composure lingered the faintest indication of a man choosing his next words with care.
“Master Will informed him, my lord, that he was not a young gentleman, that he had no intention of becoming one, and that any further conversation on the subject would be—and I quote, my lord, with apologies--wasted breath.”
“Wasted breath.”
“His exact words, my lord.”
“Did Mr. Felling persist?”
“He made one additional attempt. He approached with a measuring tape. Master Will retreated behind a chair and stated that any man laying hands upon him without consent would receive a response he would not enjoy.”
I held my expression with some difficulty. “Did he elaborate upon the response?”
“No, my lord. I judged the omission deliberate. Master Will is not, in my estimation, a boy who issues threats he does not intend to carry through.”
“No,” I said. “I should not think him so.”
For one fractional instant Dawson permitted himself the suggestion of a smile. Then he was Dawson again. “I judged a tactical withdrawal preferable to a public engagement, my lord. Mr. Felling has been compensated for his inconvenience.”
“Quite right. Has Will eaten?”
“He has been offered food. He declined.”
“Then I shall go up.”
I found him sitting on the floor of his bedchamber with his back against the wall beneath the window, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them.
He had not removed his coat. He looked up when I entered--quickly, with the readiness of a boy expecting attack—then deliberately fixed his gaze somewhere to my left.
I closed the door behind me, crossed the room, and lowered myself into the chair opposite him. The chair was, I noted, poorly positioned for conversation with a person seated on the floor.
“Will.”
“Aye.”
“Dawson informs me you and Mr. Felling failed to come to terms.”
“Mr. Felling can keep his measures. I’ll not be measured.”
“So I understand. May I ask why?”
He did not answer.
I waited.
Eventually, he said, “His hands.”
“Pardon?”
“He were going to put his hands on me. Tape and all that. I’ll not have it.”
It was not an answer I had anticipated, though in truth I should have done. The boy had spent ten years in a house where touch possessed meanings he understood all too well. London had not yet taught him the brisk impersonality polite society took for granted.
“That is fair,” I said.
He looked at me then. The deliberate avoidance of my gaze had broken at last. “It is fair?”
“It is. I should not care to be measured by a stranger myself. I failed to consider you might feel the same. I ought to have done. I apologize.”
He stared at me as though I had spoken in a foreign language. “You’re saying sorry.”
“Yes.”
“For Mr. Felling?”
“For failing to consider the matter from your point of view before sending you to him. The decision was mine. The discomfort was yours. I owe you the apology.”
He considered this in silence. His mouth shifted once, much as it had three days earlier when I informed him he was my brother’s son, and I was sorry he had not claimed him.
He was, I had begun to understand, a boy to whom adults rarely admitted fault plainly.
“What else,” I asked, “did not meet with your approval?”
“You’re talking like a book again.”
“Forgive me. What else did you not like?”
He shifted one shoulder against the wall. “The clothes.”
“Which clothes in particular?”
“All of ’em. Stiff things. Collars that choke a man. Coats with too many buttons. Trousers that pinch.”
“You have not yet worn any of them. How do you know they will pinch?”
“I’ve seen ’em. Boys round the village with their fathers. They walked like they was in armor. I’ll not walk like that.”
At twelve, I had walked through a great many drawing rooms feeling very much encased in armor myself. I had not enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I had also not been offered a choice.
“Some clothing is necessary, Will. The weather will grow colder both here and in Yorkshire. The coat you have will not see you through November.”
“Then I’ll have a coat. I’ll not have the rest.”
“What precisely constitutes ‘the rest’?”
He began counting upon his fingers. The list was suspiciously specific. I suspected he had spent the better part of his return from the tailor composing it.
“No starched collars. No waistcoat with watch chains. No boots what need polishing every morning. No shirts with frills at the wrists. No hat what wants taking off and putting on every five minutes.”
“Reasonable, on the whole. I shall not insist upon the frills.”
“And no school.”
“That is not clothes,” I said. “Though clearly it has occupied your mind.”
“Aye.”
“We shall address school in due course. For the moment, we are discussing clothing.”
He nodded once with the air of a negotiator satisfied to have secured a postponement without overplaying his position.
“What,” I asked, “would persuade you to return to Mr. Felling—or any other establishment of his sort—and permit yourself to be measured?”
“Why would I?”
“Because it is necessary, and because I am asking. Neither of those things is insignificant, though I grant they may not suffice. So I ask again. What would suffice?”
He weighed me carefully. And the question as well. “A dog,” he said.
“You want a dog?” I had not expected that answer.
“Aye.”
For the first time since the conversation began, he looked away from me altogether. “I had a dog once,” he said quietly. “Back at Beckwith. She were old. Died a fortnight before Mam.” He swallowed. “I’d like a dog.”
I said nothing immediately. Nothing I might have said would have honored the trust implicit in the admission. He had named both what he had lost and what he desired. And he had done so before a man he had little reason to trust.
A soft scrape of claw sounded beyond the door.
I had not summoned Ajax. He came when he pleased. He chose now with the unerring instinct of a creature who always knew where sorrow had settled.
“That will be Ajax,” I said. “Would you open the door?”
Will rose, crossed the room, and turned the handle.
Ajax entered at his unhurried pace, glanced at me, glanced at Will, and reached his decision.
He went directly to the boy and pressed the broad warm weight of his head against Will’s hip exactly as he had once pressed it against my hand the night I first brought him home. Will stood perfectly still. Slowly, uncertainly, his hand descended to rest upon Ajax’s neck.
The boy did not weep. Nor, so far as I could tell, did his expression alter at all. Yet his shoulders—held so tightly these past three days I had begun to suspect they were built that way—lowered by half an inch.
Ajax sat heavily against his leg and regarded me with the satisfied expression of a creature convinced he had accomplished precisely what was required of him.
“He is yours for the afternoon,” I said, “if you will have him. He is not obedient to anyone but myself, and even then only in matters he considers worthy of his attention.”
“He’s a fine dog.”
“He is.”
“Why’d you call him Ajax?”
I considered offering a comfortable evasion. Instead I gave him the truth, because he had given me one of his. “He was a Greek soldier in the old stories. He did not receive what he was owed. The men who told the tale were not especially kind to him. I thought he deserved better company.”
Will absorbed this quietly. He looked down at Ajax, who looked back up at him. “He’s not like the dog I had at home.”
“No. Nor do I propose him as a replacement. But I believe he is prepared to be a friend, and you will require one of those.”
“Aye,” Will said softly. “I might.”
He settled back onto the floor more slowly this time. Ajax adjusted himself until his head rested within easy reach of the boy’s hand. Will scratched behind his ears with the economy of someone who had spent years in the company of dogs.
“About the clothes,” I said.
“Aye.”
“We may return to Mr. Felling tomorrow morning. Or you may instead accompany me to my own tailor, Mr. Wells, on Pall Mall. He has measured me since I was twelve. He is not a conversational man, and he will not touch you without warning. I shall remain present throughout. And you may keep your present coat until you possess one you prefer.”
He did not answer immediately. He was considering the full architecture of the offer. No coercion. Company instead of abandonment. And the assurance that the coat—his final surviving piece of Yorkshire—would not be taken before he was prepared to relinquish it.
“Mr. Wells,” he said at last.
“Mr. Wells.”
“Will Ajax come?”
“He may, provided he is not asked to be measured himself. He is firm upon that point.”
Will smiled then. Briefly. Crookedly. The first true smile I had seen upon his face. It vanished almost at once, but I had seen it. “Aye,” he said. “Mr. Wells, then.” He looked up again. “And the dog?”
“You shall have a dog of your own. Not merely the temporary loan of mine. We shall see to it. But you shall choose him yourself.”
He received this information slowly. I suspected he had spent most of his life believing choice to be a privilege reserved for other people. “All right,” he said.
“Now then. About school.”
His shoulders climbed at once toward his ears.
“I have asked a tutor to call upon me today. He was recommended by a friend of mine. If I approve of him, I shall ask you to meet him. Then I shall leave the two of you alone together so you may each hear what the other has to say. If, and only if, you agree to his instruction, he will become your tutor. If you dislike him, we shall continue the search elsewhere.”
“Thank ’ee.”
“But upon this point I remain adamant. A gentleman requires an education. That is what you are. So tell me—what say you to the arrangement?”
“Will the cove talk like a book same as you?”
I fought not to smile. “If he does, you may politely request more casual language. Does that meet with your approval?”
He worked his mouth thoughtfully from side to side. “I’ll let you know after I talk with the cove.”
“Fair enough.”
I rose. My leg, having remained too long in one position, made its customary grinding objection, and I leaned more heavily upon the stick than I cared to.
Will observed the movement without comment.
He had been watching the leg since our first meeting, I noticed, with the quiet concentration of a country boy studying a creature not yet identified.
“I shall send word to Mr. Wells. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning, if that suits.”
“Aye.”
“And once I have spoken with the tutor, I shall send for you.”
Will nodded.
I walked toward the door. Ajax, with the sigh of a dog whose retirement had been unfairly interrupted, made as though to follow me.
“Stay,” I told him.
He looked at me. Then at Will. Then lowered himself once more with his great head across the boy’s foot and closed his eyes.
I shut the door softly behind me and remained for a moment in the corridor.
The boy had outmaneuvered me at every stage of the engagement.
He had refused the tailor, rejected the clothes and manners alike, negotiated the matter of the tutor, and extracted from me both the loan of my dog and the promise of one of his own—all without raising his voice or losing his composure.
I ought, perhaps, to have been annoyed.
Instead, I found myself aware of an unfamiliar and faintly ridiculous sensation that took me several moments to identify.
Respect.
He was an Ashcombe. Whatever else he might be, he was that.
But he was also, I reflected as I descended the stairs, the only Ashcombe in three generations who had asked for a dog rather than something of worldly value.
There was hope for him.
And perhaps, though I scarcely knew what to make of the thought, there might still be some for me as well.