"My lord, I don't think it was ever questioned that the battle between the two ships occurred on Christmas morning. The report was, that the Yankee vessel didn't go down till the following afternoon."
Sophia was watching me with oddly guarded eyes.
"She didn't, damn me!" the little lord broke out. "Sophia, was I under the table all that time? Pardon my levity, Mr. Blackburn, and let's get on with this queer business. Did the report say that the Yankee was leaking and finally foundered?"
"No, sir. She blew up."
He stiffened slightly, and I saw the white knuckles of his hand holding the cane.
"Now what kind of a Yankee lie is that?"
"It came from Canada, sir, if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps it was a letter from an old friend. I'd have to look it up and see. It's still in my possession."
He hesitated, then spoke against his will.
"After all these years?"
"It was among a few trifles I took with me when I ran away from the workhouse. I saved it because—well, somehow I had gotten the idea it was important. My father spoke several times of publishing it, but I think was afraid to do so. Actually, I can't recall reading it after reaching the age to understand it. But if you are interested in it, in the way of a side light on the battle, however mistaken, I'll gladly look it up."
"Pray don't trouble yourself. I won't indulge idle curiosity that far."
"It would be no trouble, my lord. I myself would be entertained, perusing the old document."
"I'll give you better sport than that, before long, with the dice.*
"Sir, wasn't the battle fought in an east wind?"
"Why, yes!"
"Off the coast of Grindstone, a Canadian island. I remember that much. Also that the vessel went down off Saint Paul Island, one hundred miles eastward."
"As my daughter suggested a while ago, let's change the subject." With great elegance Lord Tarlton took snuff.
"Your pardon for carrying it farther than you wished. No doubt I dwell too much on ships going down, having sailed on one that went down. Mrs. Alford, the dances I knew before I went into exile are out of fashion, and I may not partake of the waltzing, but I hear it's a pretty dance to watch, and if Lord Tarlton will excuse you, I request your company, a little while, in the ballroom."
"I accept with pleasure." She rose with a kind of spring that I remembered.
"I've not excused you yet," the little lord said gravely. "Mr. Blackburn's manners are better than yours. By God, they're better than I'd expect of a rough-and-ready miner; I'll praise 'em along with his language. But I will excuse you, for I've some things to think about, at comfort and leisure."
The wintry rattle had come back into his voice, and his eyes were blue ice.
"Among others, pray consider coming to Elveshurst on Tuesday to stay until Saturday, bringing as many of your family as can come," I said.
"Thank 'ee kindly. I'm fond of sport when it's that and no more, and I'll answer you soon."
I gave Sophia my arm. As we walked across the brilliant chamber into the ballroom, her other walkings at my side rose up from the dim dark past, and I could hardly believe they did not haunt her, too. Once we had walked hand in hand up a long beach. Once we had followed a clifftop path toward a witch's cave. Once we had climbed steps to a minister's house with a little parlor and an organ and a picture of the king; and there came a bleakness on my soul and sorrow past any healing in my heart. Why do I think of you now, Ezra Owens? Do I wish Sparrow and Jim and I had played the game you proposed, and which, at my stern refusal, you played alone? If I had, I would have never found Isabel Gazelle. I would have never ridden with the Beni Kabir and found fellowship among the Tuareg. But what did you find, Sparrow, except agony and death?
Yet you died proud, as did all the Vindictive men who died, and the debt is on me, and I'll pay it.
I led Sophia to a high-backed sofa out of hearing of anyone. For a moment or two we watched the dancing—lovely at its best, only a little pitiful at its worst, the posturings of the fops and the ladies of fashion made up for by the innocence of a few yet young who had somehow been included in the rout—tall, gangling boys and pretty wistful girls; and the German music was romantic and yearning.
"Do you enjoy dancing?" I asked Sophia, whose eyes had misted with tears.
"I've never done much of it. Papa told the truth when he said I was raised on the moors. The old house is near Bodmin. Perhaps you know that's not very far from Tavistock, which Papa mentioned as your home."
"I've been near Bodmin." It was true—long ago I had told Sophia of our putting in at Boscastle and seeing Bodmin moor. Holgar also had visited the region. As an urchin, he had seen Celtburrow and Sophia's grandmother. He had told me so in prison.
"I'm wondering if you could have been the boy who stole flowers from our garden when I was a little girl. You know how impressionable children are—how they remember little things. One of the gardeners caught him and was going to flog him, but my grandmother rescued him. When she asked why he had done it, he said he couldn't help doing it."
"An irresistible impulse," I remarked.
"Grandma said he was from near Tavistock and his name was— Holgar."
"I was the one."
"Good heavens. But I only saw you through a window—you couldn't have been more than ten. That couldn't account for my feeling I'd met you before."
"Not very logically. Do you still have the feeling?"
"No. . . .Yes, I do."
"That's a queer answer."
"I've been trying to deny it—why, I don't know. What queer things go on in our minds! They play tricks on us, don't they? Well, I have an irresistible impulse—as you put it—to tell you something. I heard what happened at Almack's. Papa told me, and my husband, Harvey, told me, too, as he heard it from a friend. It's very unusual for Papa to lose, and he took it especially hard. I mean, it jarred him more than you would expect—more than I can quite account for. Perhaps your giving the money back to the poor oaf—and suggesting he wasn't in condition to play—made it worse. I hate to go to social affairs without Harvey—I lean on him much more than I should—and he was engaged tonight—but I asked Papa to bring me, and the real reason was, I wanted to speak to you."
"What made you think I would be here?"
"Well, you'd attracted attention, which is never lost on Lydia White."
"Did you think your father had asked her to invite me?"
Sophia's eyes darted to mine. "You are very—perspicacious. Yet your guessing that makes it easier for me to tell you what I wanted to tell you. It was to advise you not to play with Papa any more. I suppose you think that's very odd behavior in a daughter—to a stranger."
"No, I can't say that I do."
"I say it. I can't offer any explanation except you gave the money back—and Harvey said it saved the man from ruin—so I'm on your side in this affair, instead of Papa's. I was sure he was going to entice you into a game—whist, most likely, at which he's deadly. He knows how to goad his opponents into rash play. Once he took ten thousand guineas from a man to whom he'd lost only one hundred-it took that much to balm his hurt pride. I'll try to be honest—I don't think hint pride is the right term, but I don't know what to call it. Papa is a very complex man. I shouldn't say he's vindictive—"
"Vindictive?"
"It's a rather hard word to use."
"Its root is vindicate, to claim or to defend or justify. In olden times it meant to set free. The old meaning of vindictive was only punitive, not revengeful."
She sat very still, her lips parted, her eyes fixed on my face. Then she came to herself with a start.
"Pardon me. Someone told me that—something very like it—a long time ago. It was an American sailor—his ship was named the Vindictive. How strange that I'd remember."