“While you are here,” Cobb said, “have you any news to report? Any progress?”
“Do not tempt me, sir,” I said, taking my leave at once.
AT CRAVEN HOUSE, the men with whom I worked, including Mr. Ellershaw, were polite and deferential upon first seeing me, but, as is the way with such places, they soon forgot my grief, and matters had returned much to their usual courses by the end of the day. I had occasion to pass Aadil several times, and he grunted his usual sullen comments at me, and I responded much as I always did. He had cause to believe I did not suspect him in the theft of my notes, and I saw no need to yield the one advantage I might have over him. Indeed, before long, I found myself settling into my usual suspicion of him, thinking of him not too differently than I did before the phaeton race.
Yet there was a difference, for he remained for me a constant reminder of the many difficulties I faced and the burdens under which I labored, and this spurred me from my malaise and toward action. I might lament my uncle’s passing in private moments, but I had much work to do in the service of the living, and the recollection of my aunt’s fortitude and determination drove me onward.
Toward the end of the day, I contrived an excuse to pay a visit to Mr. Blackburn’s office. I was curious as to what, if anything, he would recall of the intelligence he had given me, and if he believed he had cause to resent my usage. To my great surprise, I found him not at work but rather collecting his private effects and ordering his space.
“Mr. Blackburn,” I said, getting his attention, “what happens here?”
“What happens,” he said, in an uneven voice, “is that I have been dismissed. After my many years of faithful service, they have chosen to send me on my way.”
“But whatever for?”
“They claim, sir, that my services are not equal to the payment I have been used to receiving. That I must leave, for they would not have a man who believes himself worth more than he is earning, nor should they pay him more than he is worth. And with that, I am gone by day’s end.”
“I am full of regret for you,” I said. “I know how much you value your place.”
He approached now, keeping his eyes and his voice low. “You have not said anything of our conversation? You told no one we spoke?”
“I have not. I would not betray you in that way.”
“It is no matter. I believe we were watched. I believe they saw us together at the tavern, so I am to be set upon my way.”
“I am very sorry.”
“I am sorry for it too. I ought not to have been seen with you,” he said, though utterly without resentment. He did not seem to blame me but rather to regard the mistake as his own, as though he had taken a foolish jump upon a horse and hurt himself accordingly.
“I regret being the cause of mischief for you,” I said. It was true enough, though I refrained to add that he ought to count himself lucky that he was only deprived of his place and not his life, like the other unfortunates who had come to harm through my efforts to learn from them.
He shook his head. “Yes, I regret it. I regret that the Company shall come to ruin without me. Where, sir, shall they find a man of my talents? Where?”
I had no answer, and neither did Mr. Blackburn, who had begun to shed tears of grief.
“If there is anything I can do to aid you, sir,” I said, “do not hesitate to call upon me.”
“No one can aid me now,” he lamented. “I am a clerk without a position. I am like a ghost, sir. A living ghost, left to wander the earth without purpose or pleasure.”
I had no response to this so I left him, struggling to replace my feelings of guilt with feelings of rage. I will not blame myself, I vowed, but Cobb. Cobb will answer.
AT MY HOME THAT NIGHT I found that Devout Hale had returned my messages, and I could think of no better way to occupy my time in the service of making Cobb answer than to pay Hale a visit. He had informed me I might find him that very night at one of the Spitalfields coffeehouses, and so, after a brief visit to my aunt, I took myself thither. I arrived on time, and Hale put his arm around me and took me to a secluded spot. “So, what is so urgent, then?” he asked. He looked more wretched than the last time I saw him, as though his scrofula had progressed with my own troubles at Craven House. He folded his reddened hands one on the other and stared at me with veined and deep-set eyes. “You left messages everywhere, and you have the appearance of alarm upon you. Have you some news about the king?”
“I have been unable to make progress on that score,” I said. “I am sorry, Devout, but I told you I am not so well affixed as you think and I have been consumed with my East India troubles.”
“As have we all. Well, for the moment I will only ask you to keep your promise in your mind. Now, tell me what you need of me.”
“I must ask you about someone. Have you ever heard the name Absalom Pepper?”
“Course I have.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair, and an alarming cluster of it came out on his fingers. “He was one of my men. He worked the loom.”
I paused to consider this confirmation. “Did he have, to the best of your recollection, any dealings with the East India Company?”
“Him? Hardly. He wasn’t built for it, you know. He was a slight fellow, small and pale, more of a girl than a man to my mind. Pretty as a girl, too. Now, women of a certain type like a man with feminine beauty, but I’m always a bit suspicious of the type, if you take my meaning. As to your question, he wasn’t one for Craven House dealings. The rest of us would go to tear up the evil place, and he’d send us his good wishes but no more than that. Still, he was quick with the loom, that one, and very clever. The most clever of us all, I thought, though you’d hardly know. He kept his own council, and in his free time he’d always be writing this or that in his little book. Most of the boys here, you know, can’t read or write, so they just looked at him like he was the very devil himself, and he would sniff right back at them with the devil’s own contempt.”
“What was he writing in this book of his?” I asked.
Hale shook his head. “He never told me and I never cared enough to ask, to tell you the truth of it. He wasn’t my friend, and I wasn’t his. Not enemies, mind you, but not friends either. He did his work and was more than worth the space he took, but I didn’t much care for the airs he put on. That’s fine for a worker, but it don’t answer in a friend.”
“And when he died, did you offer any compensation to his widow?”
“Compensation? Ha! That’s a mighty good one. Sometimes when a fellow dies, there will be a contribution of some sort, but that’s usually when a fellow perishes in some accident related to the work. Or, at the very least, when it’s a fellow the boys like. But Pepper—I heard he got drunk and drowned in the river one night. Just as like made to fall, I would think, with his lordly disposition and all. He might have pushed some rough too hard, and—well, that rough pushed back, so to speak.”
“So, there is no way that you and your combination pay an annuity to his widow?”
“An annuity? That’s a right fine joke. You know full well we can barely pay the baker. An annuity indeed. Like I said, we take care of our own. Last year, when Jeremiah Carter died of the rot after an accident that took his fingers, we collected more than two pounds for his widow, but Jeremiah was always very popular, and his wife was left with three little ones.”
I made no comment on that sum and the small fortune provided by the Company for Pepper’s childless widow.
“So, I’ve been forthcoming, and I reckon it’s your turn, Weaver. What’s this about?”
The truth was, I did not know. “It is too soon to say.” I formed my words slowly, still attempting to decide how much information I could safely pass along. The great danger that loomed above me and my friends made me reluctant to speak at all, but I also knew that Hale had been kind to me and trustworthy—and, perhaps more important, there might be more information unearthed by informing him of what little I knew. I therefore swore him to secrecy and proceeded to tell him what I thought safe.