"Welcome to Nag's Head Court, my lady," said Roger Comstock, the Marquis of Ravenscar, emerging from the door, and bowing as deeply as a man of his maturity and dignity could without peeling a hamstring or lobbing his wig into the gutter. Eliza by now had thrust her head and shoulders out the door (about all she wanted to reveal, given that she had lost contact with her wardrobe some days ago). She ought to have given her undivided attention to Ravenscar; but she could not restrain the urge to look this way and that up the length of Nag's Head Court.
"No, madame, your senses have not misled you, it is just as mean, narrow, and squalid as you feared, and no apology from me shall balance the offense I have done you, by bringing you to it; but it was a suitable place for me to wait, and behold, it is nigh to the mysteries and delights of the 'Change."
Eliza followed his gaze down the alley. It rambled on in the same vein for a stone's throw and discharged into a proper street, which seemed to be crowded with an inordinate number of well-to-do-chaps who were all in a frightful hurry. She knew what it was just that quickly. If she had been wearing Versailles court-makeup, it would have cracked and fallen to the ground like ice from a warming roof. For her face had done something she never allowed it to do at Versailles, namely, opened up into a broad grin. She directed this at Ravenscar, who all but swooned. "On the contrary, my lord, in all London there's no place I'd rather be than the 'Change, and there is no place I am so well suited for, in my present state, than a dark doorway in Nag's Head Court—so—"
Ravenscar was aghast, and quick-stepped to the base of the wee Barock staircase that the footmen had arranged beneath the carriage-door. This was to help her down, if she insisted; but really he was throwing his body across her path as a barrier. "I would not dream of escorting a Duchess into that place! I had hoped that the lady might suffer me to join her in the carriage while we proceeded to some destination worthy to be graced by one of her dignity."
"It is, after all, your carriage, monsieur—"
"Nay, madame, yours, for as long as you choose to remain on our Isle, and I, your servant."
"Get in the damned carriage, then. And pray lower the shades, for I am not fit to stop light."
Ravenscar did as he was told. The carriage began to move. "Obviously, my driver was able to find you in Portsmouth—?"
"We found him. The skipper of our boat would not go to Portsmouth, or any other proper port-town, but only to certain coves he knew of. Thence we hired a waggon."
Ravenscar was looking curiously about the interior of the carriage, as if someone were missing. "We?"
"I was with an Englishman."
"A Person of Quality, or—"
"A Person of Usefulness. But somewhat bull-headed. He had set his mind to looking up his whilom Captain. When we reached Portsmouth he began to make inquiries about the fellow—name of Churchill."
Ravenscar winced. "Eeeyuh, the Earl of Marlborough has been clapped in the Tower of London!"
"So you tell me now, but, isolated as I'd been, I'd not heard that news. Otherwise I'd have warned my companion not to mention the name."
"They put your man in irons, did they?"
"They did. For I gather that the charge on which Marlborough is being held is that of being a Jacobite spy—?"
"It is so ludicrous that I am too embarrassed even to repeat it to you. But a moiety of the English race are the more inclined to credit an accusation, the more fanciful it becomes; and whoever it was that arrested your man in Portsmouth—"
"Was of that sort, and, seeing a man just off a boat from Cherbourg, asking the whereabouts of Marlborough, assumed the worst."
"Have they hanged him yet?"
"No, nor will they soon, for haply your carriage came along. I, to them, was just a wench in a wet dress; but when this fine vehicle made the scene, with your arms on the door, and your driver started in with ‘la duchesse' this and ‘the Duchess' that—"
"Matters changed."
"Matters changed, and I was able to let those in charge know that hanging my companion would not be in their best interests. But now that I'm here, I would visit Marlborough."
"Many would, my lady. The queue of carriages at the Tower is long. You rank most of them, and should be able to go directly to its head. But if I might, first—?"
"Yes?"
They had been driving around a triangular circuit of Cornhill, Threadneedle, and Bishopsgate, enclosing some twenty acres of ground that contained more money than the rest of the British Isles. It was remarkable that they had been able to converse for even this long without the topic having arisen.
"It is frightfully indecent of me to mention this, I know," said Ravenscar, "but I am, at present, the owner of rather a lot of silver. Rather a lot. They tell me 'tis worth ever so much more now than 'twas three weeks ago, when I bought it; but if news were to arrive, say from Portsmouth, that the French invasion had miscarried—"
"It would suddenly be worth ever so much less. Yes, I know. Well, the invasion has failed."
Ravenscar's pelvis actually rose off the bench as if someone had shoved a dagger into his kidney. His voice vaulted to a higher register: "If we could, then, pay a brief call upon a certain gentleman, now, before you go spreading the news about—"
"I've no intention of doing that, as the news shall get here soon enough on its own," said Eliza, which little comforted Ravenscar. "But before you spread the news, by selling all of your silver, I have a small transaction that I must conduct at the House of Hacklheber—do you know it?"
"That? It is a hole in the wall, a niche, a dovecote—if you require pocket money in London, madame, I can convey you to the banca of Sir Richard Apthorp himself, who will be pleased to extend you credit—"
"That is most courteous of you," said Eliza, rummaging in her pathetic bag, and drawing out a slimy bundle of skins, "but I prefer to get my pocket-money from my own banker, and that is the House of Hacklheber."
"Very well," said the Marquis of Ravenscar, and boomed on the ceiling with the head of his walking-stick. "To the Golden Mercury in 'Change Alley!"
"I CONFESS THAT I was observing through the window—and only out of a gentlemanly concern for your safety," said the Marquis of Ravenscar, "and only after some half an hour had elapsed—for it struck me as rather a lengthy transaction."
Eliza had only just returned to the carriage and was still smoothing her skirts down. She'd been in there for an hour and twelve minutes. Ten minutes' waiting would have made Ravenscar impatient; twenty, apoplectic. Seventy-two had put him through the full gamut of emotional states known to mortal man, as well as a few normally reserved for angels and devils. Now, he was spent, drained. Though perhaps just a bit apprehensive that she would want to go on some other errand next.
"Yes, my lord?"
"The fellow had—well, I don't know, a bit of a startled look about him. Perhaps 'twas just my imagination."
"Mind your toes!" This warning came simultaneously from Eliza, and from one of Ravenscar's footmen, who had carried a box up the wee stairs behind Eliza and thrust it inside; its weight overbore his strength, and it crashed onto the floor, making the carriage rock and bounce up and down for a while on its springs. One of the horses whinnied in protest. "Where shall I place the others, madame?" he inquired.