Page 62 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
The result was that when Lawrence finally emerged from the carriage and climbed the steps to this narrow, unassuming house, he was freshly washed and shaved, his hair neatly combed into a queue. Somebody had even bathed Barnabus, which was just as well, since Lawrence wasn’t going anywhere without the dog. All this strangeness was bad enough, even with the dog’s companionship.
He assumed an expression that he hoped approximated good cheer and waved to Simon, who was happily sitting on the box beside the coachman as the carriage drove away. Before lifting the brass knocker, he bent to scratch Barnabus’s furry neck. A moment passed and still nobody came to the door. He felt exposed, vulnerable, standing on this strange doorstep on an unfamiliar street in a city he didn’t want to be in. Lawrence had gotten this address from Halliday; in this house lived the man Halliday had written about investigating Lawrence’s mental state. He lifted the knocker again and let it fall, and the unpleasant clank of metal against metal jolted unpleasantly through his body. London was a noisy, chaotic place, and every sound chipped away at the veneer of calm he had tried to assume.
After another interminable moment, Lawrence heard footsteps, and then the door was opened. It was not a servant who stood in the doorway, but a gentleman. He was close to Lawrence’s own height and leaned heavily on a walking stick, which was perhaps why it had taken him so long to answer the door.
“How can I help you?” the gentleman asked, with a wary glance at Barnabus.
“I’m Radnor,” Lawrence said simply, watching as the gentleman’s eyes went wide. He looked like he wanted to take a step back, but then his manners won out over prudence. “I’m looking for Oliver Rivington.”
“Of course. I’m Rivington.” He gestured for Lawrence to come inside. “And you’re Halliday’s earl. Not a recluse after all, I see. Georgie must have been—” He stopped.
“Right,” Lawrence said. “About Georgie. Where is he?”
“Georgie?” The man’s astonishment could not have been feigned. “He’s supposed to be with you.” His lips went tight with concern, then he gestured for Lawrence to enter. “Come in, come in. There’s nothing to do but wait for Jack.”
Rivington led the way to a small sitting room that smelled of lemon oil and brandy. “I went to school with Halliday,” the gentleman said. “And he wrote me a kind letter when I was recuperating from my injury.” He gestured at his leg. “When he mentioned in passing that his patron’s, ah, mental state had been called into question and that he was in danger of being plunged into some kind of legal proceedings, I offered to help.”
Barnabus must have sensed Lawrence’s disquiet, because he pressed his body close to his master’s leg and kept his ears pricked up. At that moment, the front door opened and slammed shut.
“My fuckwit of a brother is in prison,” called a voice from the vestibule. There was the sound of a coat being shrugged off, keys dropped on a table. “Some or another noble-minded shite.”
The new arrival appeared in the doorway to the sitting room. “Lord Radnor,” Mr. Rivington said pointedly, “allow me to present Jack Turner, Georgie’s brother.”
Lawrence drew in a sharp breath. Georgie’s brother. Which meant Georgie was in prison.
“So you’re Georgie’s fancy man.” The man was a larger, rougher version of Georgie. Where Georgie looked carved by hand in ivory, this man was roughhewn from stone. And evidently he lived here, in this respectable little house, along with the handsome gentleman with the bad leg.
“Don’t torture him,” Rivington chided. “He’s as worried as you are.”
Barnabus let out a low growl. “I came to see that he was safe,” Lawrence said.
“Well, he isn’t,” Jack spat. “I’m trying to see that he isn’t hanged, but once a man is in Newgate, there isn’t much I can do.”
But there might be something that Lawrence could do.
Lawrence declined Rivington’s offer to drive him, instead asking for instructions on how to reach his destination by foot. He needed to burn off some of the anxious energy that was stopping him from thinking clearly. In the absence of wood to chop or water to swim in, that left walking.
So with little more than a vague sense of where he was heading, he and Barnabus kept up a brisk pace as they strode along the pavements. He didn’t know whether it was the sight of Barnabus or his own thunderous expression that caused people to keep their distance, but Lawrence was given a wide berth, even when he skirted the edge of a rookery.
This squalid warren of dilapidated buildings and dirty streets could have been the slum where Georgie was born. Barefoot children loitered in doorways, wearing little more than rags. Women leaned out of windows, and skinny dogs roamed the streets. The smell of filth and gin hung in the air despite the chill. When a pair of boys Simon’s age briefly ventured too close, Barnabus let out a low growl. Lawrence suspected that these urchins were a team of pickpockets. Might as well spare them the trouble. He dug a couple of pennies out of his pocket and tossed two coins to each of the boys.
When he emerged into a solidly respectable neighborhood, he looked over his shoulder at the rookery, glad to be out of it. He could only imagine how desperately Georgie must have yearned to do the same, to get as far away from that place as possible. However little Lawrence liked the idea of Georgie defrauding innocent people, he had never really doubted that Georgie had every reason to take his fate into his own hands. Still, seeing the alternative with his own eyes made Lawrence understand just how much a man would do to escape a place like this.
He arrived at his destination, took a reassuring look at Barnabus, and crossed the wide courtyard of the Admiralty.
A uniformed sailor stationed by the door moved to block his entry. “Can I help you, sir?”
“I’m Radnor.” Lawrence didn’t break stride, and the sailor stepped aside to make way for the brutish lord and his enormous dog. “I’m here to see Admiral Haversham.” Haversham was one of the fellows who assisted the Lord High Admiral. More importantly, he had written to Lawrence about the telegraph.
“If you’ll take a seat, sir, I can see if his lordship—”
“Most unnecessary,” he said as he walked up the stairs, Barnabus trotting beside. “I’ll find him myself.”
As he had hoped, the prospect of a peer of the realm—one of the historically deranged Earls of Radnor, no less—barging into the chambers of the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty, accompanied by an eight-stone mongrel who snarled at anyone who approached his master, was enough to send the young man skittering ahead to lead the way into the proper set of rooms.
Lawrence had never been in a building like this: wide marble corridors hung with portraits of men long since dead, people who must all know one another bustling purposefully about, a vaguely efficient and martial air. Perhaps boys who went to school or men who joined the army or navy could get used to the sensation of being a bee in such a grand hive. But Lawrence felt sorely out of place; he belonged among the crumbled stones and rotten wood of Penkellis, not here. If it weren’t for Georgie, he’d turn on his heel and leave, never stopping until he reached home.
Instead, he tried to swallow his fear. He reminded himself that this would soon be over, no matter how terrible it was. Besides, he knew that he looked every inch the earl. He was wearing the clothes Georgie had bought, and he was freshly shaved. Nobody needed to know how uneasy he was, nobody but he could hear the blood rushing in his ears or feel the heart pounding in his chest.
