Page 44 of Miss Delightful
“Former infantry?” Alasdhair asked. The majority of Dylan’s old soldiers were former infantry. The cavalry had been mostly from the wealthier ranks of Society, and the artillery had been the smallest division of Wellington’s army.
“Scotty was artillery, though his hearing seems to have escaped unscathed. His brother is nearly deaf. They work occasionally for the night-soil men.”
“Hence Scotty’s obsession with keeping his hands clean. What of the brother?”
“Bertrand likes the quiet of the night. He can hear some, but manages more easily when sounds are isolated rather than charging at him en masse. His favorite thing to do is to listen to organists practicing in the evening. Says he can feel the music even when he can’t hear it.”
Powell was devoted to his former soldiers—even to knowing such an odd detail about a part-time night-soil man—though Alasdhair could not see that they much appreciated Powell’s concern. But then, that wasn’t the point. The point was that Alasdhair, Powell, Goddard… anybody fighting on the Peninsula could have come home without an eye or an arm, his family scattered to the winds by misfortune he’d not been on hand to weather with them.
“What exactly did Scotty see?” Alasdhair asked.
“I don’t know. I put out the word that you were looking for information relating to Miss Fairchild’s disappearance from the vicinity of the Strand Bridge. Scotty and Bertrand were abroad that night, and they allowed as how they would like to discuss the situation with you. You have something of a reputation in low places.”
That was not good news to a man recently embarked on a courtship—or a something-ship—with a prominent preacher’s daughter. “What sort of reputation?”
Powell paused at a street corner to let a wagon full of steaming manure pass. As the sun set over London, the nature of both foot traffic and wheeled conveyances changed. The open curricles and phaetons of the fashionable disappeared, replaced by stout closed coaches and utilitarian wagons.
As dawn approached, the farm carts and fish wagons bound for the markets would increase in number, unloading edible produce to take on the sort of cargo perfuming the night air so pungently.
“You have a reputation for gallantry, of all things,” Powell said. “You ran off some drunken tulip who was pestering the game girls by Covent Garden around Yuletide. You are known to provide coach fare back to the village for any of the streetwalkers who ask you for it. You brought the midwife to some female in extremis and helped see the child safely into the world. That you never sample the wares on offer makes you fascinating to the ladies, and what fascinates them must be discussed.”
“The tulip was a prancing arsewipe with a bad temper and no honor. The women were afraid of him, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.” The tulip, doubtless already conversant with the languages of the fan, parasol, and glove, had been a very quick study with the language of the fist too. Since Alasdhair had treated him to a short demonstration of Scottish pugilism, the tulip had found someplace else to bloom.
“Liked to beat them, did he?”
“He liked to lock them in and terrorize them. Bad enough we consign streetwalkers to starvation, the elements, and disease. They should not have to put up with outright brutality.”
“I hate London.” Powell, who was for the most part obnoxiously even-tempered, sounded uncharacteristically despairing. “The whole place is a swamp of misery, but for the lucky and the few. We have poverty in Wales, dire, desperate poverty, but we don’t regard it as anything other than bad fortune, a situation to be endured and pitied. Here… bad luck is God’s way of saying everybody else can piss on you while pretending to pray for you.”
“Go back to Wales. I can stand this place in part because I spend much of the year at home.”
“You’d miss me,” Powell said, smacking Alasdhair on the arm as they approached a seedy little tavern doing business as the Cat Among the Pigeons.
“I would, actually. With Goddard lost to wedded bliss, we see less of him.”
“Drop ’round The Coventry Club,” Powell said, leading the way into the dim common of the tavern. “Goddard is in his element taking that place in hand, and the buffet Ann puts out will make you swoon.”
“Persistent hunger makes me swoon.”
Powell nodded to a pair of old men playing chess in the snug. “Have you eaten lately?”
“A substantial snack before going out.” Had Powell asked his question even a fortnight ago, Alasdhair would have fashioned a reply intended to insult in the same superficial manner the question itself did, except that Powell meant no insult. He meant to keep Alasdhair on his feet, as he had done many a time in Spain.
Two weeks ago, Alasdhair would not have suggested that Powell go back to Wales, would not have suggested that Powell muster out and return to his peacetime haunts.
Two weeks ago, Alasdhair had not kissed Dorcas Delancey, nor put into her hands the whole of his sad and sorry past, only to hear that she respected his efforts to atone for a tragic wrong.
Powell ambled over to a pair of older fellows sitting side by side on a settle against the wall. The table before them also had two chairs, though the occupants of those chairs would have to sit with their backs to the common. Powell extended a hand.
“Scotty, Bertie. I believe you know MacKay.”
They went through the usual greeting ritual of soldiers: who had served with what regiments and under which commanders and seen action in which battles. Powell ordered another round of winter ale and some sustenance.
The food—a cold collation of ham and cheese served with a loaf of warm bread and a pot of mustard—was half gone before Scotty exchanged a look with his brother. They were a good-sized pair, prematurely stooped, their lank hair going salt-and-pepper, though they might well be a few years shy of forty. Their attire was on the shabby side of serviceable, and their features were weathered. Bertie’s expression had a sweetness Scotty’s visage lacked.
“Nights are quieter than days in t’ Auld Smoke,” Scotty said, his Yorkshire accent thickening. “But there’s plenty mischief afoot after dark. We were down by t’ Strand Bridge at a place called t’ Dove’s Nest, and Scotty had to step into t’ ginnel for a piss, as the boghouse were unavailable-like.”
Ginnel—a northern word for the narrow channel between two buildings. A dark and usually foul place.
