Page 44 of Enticing Odds
The porter produced a visitors’ book and opened it to the current page without so much as a glance.
“Sign your name here, if you would.”
Matthew resisted the urge to let his eye wander to the lines of handwriting above the blank space where he wrote. He’d scarcely lifted the pen from the last letter of his name when the porter pulled the book away and snapped it shut.
“Excellent, sir. Truscott will see you to the strangers’ reception room.”
The porter nodded to Matthew’s left, where another expressionless man, nondescript in his hair, face, and dress, had materialized. Matthew did his best not to startle.
“Right this way, sir.”
He followed in silence, his thoughts careening about, wondering what might be on the other side of the walls of the hall they walked down. Dining rooms? Dressing rooms? The library? He knew, as a guest to the club—a ‘stranger’ in club parlance—he would not be allowed admittance to the club rooms proper, only the strangers’ rooms, but he could not help but dream. Just to be anywhere within, to be this close to the storiedlibrary, to have one’s name written in the visitors’ book… well, that was something special indeed.
Truscott deposited him in a sparsely furnished room and instructed him to be at his leisure while he waited. How he should do that, though, was a mystery, for besides a pair of utilitarian wooden chairs and a matching table, the only contents of the room were a weighing machine and an empty cast-iron umbrella stand, bereft of purpose.
Matthew sat and studied the umbrella stand. It was in the form of a frog, sitting atop a drip-pan fashioned as a lily pad. He thought he’d seen a similar one somewhere once. Perhaps at his tailor’s?
All in all, the room would not be out of place at his own club, but Matthew did not care. It only whetted his appetite; how delightful the restricted areas of the club must be, in contrast to this humdrum interior.
The door opened. Truscott again.
He led Matthew back out to the hall, then into another room not far from the first. In one corner a mop leaned against the wall, its bucket turned upside down alongside it. The furnishings here were just as spartan as those in the previous room, if slightly more numerous, with the primary difference being one table in particular, upon which a lunch was laid and a well-dressed gentleman sat, already starting on his soup.
The man appeared as gray and somber as his fine-quality suit; a man unimpressed with everything and disinclined to seek out anything other than more of the same. For a moment Matthew hesitated, thinking there could not possibly be a world in which this person was a relation of the vivacious and charismatic Lady Caplin, but then Truscott led him to the table and pulled out the chair opposite the soup-eating man.
“Sir Frederick Catton?” Matthew asked, still wondering at the lack of resemblance.
“Ah, Dr. Collier. Well met.” Sir Frederick glanced up from his soup for a moment, nodding his head in acknowledgment.
Matthew sat.
“This is my first time in the strangers’ rooms,” said Sir Frederick. “Never needed to receive visitors here. Fantastic, isn’t it? A club is a man’s home, and yet there are corridors and quarters completely unfamiliar to him. How positively odd.”
“Surely if you asked, you’d be admitted?” Matthew couldn’t fathom that there would be any place members would be barred from, save personal quarters. Plenty of bachelors rented rooms at their London clubs; it was a fabulous bargain if one could nab it.
“What, and see the club kitchen?” Sir Frederick guffawed. “No, I’d prefer to leave it an enigma. Far more interesting that way, don’t you think?”
Matthew nodded as if he understood. He didn’t. And he felt very unsophisticated for it.
A bowl of soup of his own appeared before him.
“I have to say I was shocked when Lady Caplin requested—nay,demanded—I set a lunch date with you. Said you’re keen on membership. Why, she even suggested she’d secretly pay the entrance and annual fees, were you to be admitted.”
The man sounded bored, but incredulity was plain on his long, narrow face. He pinned Matthew with a withering stare.
“A rather handsome gift to make, don’t you think?”
Matthew could feel the heat on the back of his neck. Footing the costs? He could barely endure her flirtations; how was he to accept her financial backing? The idea humbled Matthew to his core. He picked up his spoon.
“It would be, yes.”
He prayed that would be the end of it, but he could feel the man’s eyes on him as he brought the soup to his mouth.
Oh. Thatwasgood. And it mere soup! Matthew’s mouth watered. This put the mean fare of the Transom Club decisively to shame.
“My sister mentioned you’d done her a good turn. I wonder what deed, then, is deserving of such a gift?”
Matthew halted, holding another spoonful of soup just over the bowl. So Lady Caplin hadn’t explained the nature of their association? He’d better follow her lead, then. He wouldn’t wish to divulge more than she would want her brother to know. He would sooner flagellate himself than defy her and risk her scorn. But then what? Matthew loathed lying, not to mention that he was terrible at it. Still, Sir Frederick raised his brows as if to say, “Well?”
