Ruler of the Night, Page 2

  Harcourt knew the practical reasons for this arrangement, but his face was nonetheless covered with perspiration, since he didn’t think of this as a train compartment. With its barred windows and locked doors, it felt like a prison cell.

  The man who shared the narrow enclosure stood. He shifted past the armrests and sat opposite Harcourt, their knees almost touching.

  What unmitigated rudeness, Harcourt thought. Is he a speculator? Does he hope to sell me something?

  Peering resolutely toward the darkness beyond the window, Harcourt ignored the man.

  “Good evening, Mr. Harcourt.”

  How the deuce does he know my name? Unable to resist, Harcourt turned his gaze in the stranger’s direction.

  The stranger had kept his head down when he’d entered the compartment. But now he raised it and looked into Harcourt’s eyes.

  “You!” Harcourt exclaimed.

  As the man lunged, Harcourt grabbed his umbrella, hoping to defend himself. But the man yanked it from his grasp and threw it onto the floor. Squeezing Harcourt’s throat with one hand, he drove a knife toward Harcourt’s chest with the other.

  The knife struck something solid and slid off.

  The attacker cursed. Harcourt gasped, struggling to push away the hand that choked him.

  Hell began.

  From the Journal of Emily De Quincey

  After our three-month stay in London, I did not expect that the respite Father and I enjoyed from our infinite bill collectors would end so abruptly. In the weeks since the threat against Queen Victoria had been eliminated, I took advantage of my twenty-second birthday to appeal to Father’s sentiments and compel him to admit that his decades-long reliance on opium could not continue without lethal consequences. Two days of remaining awake were followed by twenty-four hours of twitching sleep in which all of history’s armies marched through his nightmares and the ghosts of his sisters and my mother spoke to him. He could eat almost nothing except bread soaked in warm milk. He confessed to consuming as much as sixteen ounces of laudanum—a concoction of powdered opium dissolved in brandy—each day. That amount of spirits would have been destructive enough even without the addition of an opiate.

  Under Dr. Snow’s guidance, Father reduced his intake by half an ounce for three days and then another half an ounce for three days and so on. At the slightest sign that his body was rebelling, Father was instructed to add a quarter ounce to the level he had reached and remain there until the headaches and tremors abated. Then Father was to continue attempting to reduce his intake in half-ounce stages.

  This method not only made sense but also appeared to be effective. Father managed to reach a level of eight ounces per day. It remained an enormous amount, considering that people who weren’t accustomed to opium might die if they swallowed a full tablespoon, but Father had accumulated more than four decades of tolerance for it.

  His blue eyes became clearer. He ate broth and eventually dumplings. He began writing again, adding new material to the volumes of his collected works that his Scottish publisher was preparing. Having received new pages, Father’s publisher actually sent us ten pounds, an unexpected kindness given that Father had long since spent the money that his publisher was obligated to pay him.

  Our dear new friends Sean and Joseph (I refer, of course, to Detective Inspector Ryan and Detective Sergeant Becker) were delighted by Father’s progress and gave him every encouragement, as did I. But they did not know Father the way I did, and all the while he reduced his intake, I couldn’t help remembering the several times in which I had made this journey with him. In particular, it troubled me that one of Father’s writing projects was a new version of his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater—not merely a revision but an enlargement. Just when I’d hoped that he could free himself from the drug, he was revisiting the tormented text he’d written a lifetime ago, once more describing the harrowing events that had contributed to his need for opium. Again he wrote about having nearly starved to death as a seventeen-year-old beggar in the wintry streets of London. Again he wrote about tragic Ann, his first love, a fifteen-year-old girl of the streets who’d saved his life when he collapsed from hunger but who had then disappeared forever.

  I did my best to distract him. On that Thursday evening, to celebrate the halfway point in Father’s opium reduction, Sean and Joseph accompanied us to a much-talked-about newly opened chophouse in Soho. Sean’s abdominal wound had healed properly this time, and Joseph no longer suffered the double vision that the blow to his head had caused. All in all, our improved conditions were reasons for celebration. Father even offered to use part of our recently acquired ten pounds to pay for our feast.

  “No need, sir. We forgot to tell you that Joseph and I are now rich,” Sean reported.

  “Rich?” Father asked, looking puzzled.

  “Indeed. Because of our injuries, we each received a bonus of five pounds from Scotland Yard’s special fund. We can’t think of a better way to spend some of our vast wealth than by treating you and your daughter to a meal.”

  The chophouse’s floral-patterned ceiling was a wonder to behold, as were the brightly colored segments of glass in the overhead lamps and the elaborately framed mirror above the fireplace. Everything was so pleasant that in the hubbub of conversations, no one paid attention to my bloomer skirt or the scar on Joseph’s chin or Sean’s Irish red hair when he took off his cap. Customers didn’t even seem to notice how short Father was.

  But no sooner did we all sit at our table than my smile died, as I saw a change—much too familiar—come over him. It always began with his eyes. Their blue acquired the brittle look of ancient porcelain. Then his face became pale and glistened with sudden sweat. His cheeks seemed to shrink and develop more lines. He clutched his stomach.

  “Rats,” he said, trembling.

  A man at the next table dropped his fork. “Rats? Where?”

  “They gnaw at my stomach.” Father moaned.

  “The chophouse served you rats?”

  “My father is ill,” I told the man. “I’m sorry we disturbed you.”

  “Rats in his stomach? Then he needs a cat in his stomach.”

  As Father groaned, Sean and Joseph helped him outside. A rain earlier in the evening had given London a rare sweet scent. I hoped that it and the cold mist enveloping us would brace him and moderate his torment.

  “Emily, should we take him to Dr. Snow?” Sean asked.

  “I don’t believe it would help. I’ve seen this happen before. There’s always a level of opium below which Father can’t descend.”

  Obeying the doctor’s instructions, I removed a laudanum bottle and a teaspoon from my pocket.

  “Here, Father.”

  From painful experience, I knew there was no other way. The teaspoon of the ruby liquid did its work. Father’s breathing became less agitated. Gradually he stopped trembling.

  “Mr. De Quincey, you had only a slight relapse,” Joseph said. “Tomorrow, you’ll be on track again.”

  “Yes, only a slight relapse,” Father murmured.

  In the faint light from the streetlamp, I saw tears in his eyes.

  Father normally walks briskly, reacting to opium as if it were a stimulant, not a sedative. But that night, his steps were slow with discouragement as we returned along Piccadilly to Lord Palmerston’s house across from Green Park.

  The immense house is among the few in Piccadilly that are set back from the street. It has two gates, one for arriving and another for departing traffic. Beyond them, a curved driveway leads up to the majestic entrance through which Queen Victoria had often passed when her cousin the Duke of Cambridge owned the structure, which is still known as Cambridge House.

  A porter—looking none too happy to be outside in the cold mist—opened a gate for us.

  “Lord Palmerston’s been waiting for you,” he said. “There’s been a telegram.”

  “For me?” Sean’s tone suggested that he feared another terrible crime had been committed.<
br />
  “For Mr. De Quincey.”

  Father raised his head in confusion. “What? Who on earth would…”

  “Your publisher, perhaps,” Joseph offered.

  Father regained some of his energy as a footman opened the large door. We entered the vast hallway, which was brightly illuminated by a chandelier and gleaming crystal lamps along the walls. The Greek statues, the Oriental vases, and the huge portraits of Lord Palmerston’s noble family never failed to impress me. Given the various cramped, leaking accommodations where Father and I had lived, I had never in my dreams expected to reside in what I considered a palace, although Lord Palmerston always referred to it as a house.

  His Lordship instantly appeared at the top of the immense staircase, making me suspect that he’d been listening for our return.

  “I have something for you!” he announced.

  Holding an opened telegram, he hastily descended. It was the swiftest that I had seen His Lordship move since he’d become prime minister in early February, so heavily did his new responsibilities weigh on him. His chest and shoulders still exuded power, but the burden of the war against the Russians had created extra lines in his once-handsome features, and the brown dye in his thick long sideburns no longer disguised his seventy years.

  Quickly reaching the bottom of the staircase, Lord Palmerston handed Father the telegram. “It appears that the nation’s prime minister has become your social secretary. I opened this before I realized it was for you.”

  Although Father and I were grateful for His Lordship’s three months of hospitality, I continued to feel that he gave us shelter not to indicate his appreciation for the help we’d provided during the recent emergencies but rather to keep us near him so that he could sense if we learned anything about him that might be compromising. “Keep your enemies closer than your friends,” I had once heard him say to a cabinet minister about a member of the opposition, and I was certain that he felt the adage could also be applied to us. But after so much time, he was clearly sick of us, especially of Father’s noisy pacing along corridors in the middle of the night. If not for the fondness that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had for us, he would no doubt have long since asked us to leave.

  “It appears that you’ve been summoned,” Lord Palmerston said.

  What little color there was in Father’s complexion drained as he read the telegram and moaned in despair.

  “Father, is everything all right?” I asked.

  “It’s a catastrophe! As bad as the burning of the Alexandrian library!”

  “The burning of what?” Sean asked.

  “The Pope! The Dryden! It has to be stopped! A Bradshaw! Get me a Bradshaw!”

  No matter how baffling Father’s outburst was, at least one reference was clear. Father was demanding to see a copy of Bradshaw’s Railway Timetables.

  “You heard the man,” Lord Palmerston told his footman. “Bring him my Bradshaw.”

  The footman scurried away, although he seemed eager to remain in the hopes that the mystery of Father’s behavior would be revealed.

  “The Shakespeare. The Spenser. No!” Father moaned.

  I took the telegram from Father and read it to the group. “‘Patience ended. Books to be auctioned noon Friday.’”

  “I told him he’d receive his blasted money!” Father insisted.

  “But that was six months ago, and you didn’t send it,” I reminded him gently.

  “I explained to him that I just needed a little more time! Why won’t he listen?”

  “Explained to who, Emily?” Joseph asked.

  “A landlord,” I replied.

  “In Edinburgh? I thought your landlord knew that for now you’re living in London and he should rent out your lodgings.”

  “In Grasmere. The Lake District,” I told the group. “Where Father lived for many years. One reason we’re in debt is that he collects books.”

  They seemed perplexed.

  “Many, many books,” I continued reluctantly. “Wherever Father lives, he fills room after room with books until there is barely space in which to move. He finally locks the door and rents another dwelling.”

  “How many places filled with books are you talking about?” Sean asked.

  “Three. There used to be others.”

  “Three? But how in creation does your father pay the rent?”

  “He can’t. He keeps promising, and occasionally he sends payment for a month or two, leading the landlords to expect that additional money will arrive. Eventually some of them lose patience.”

  “Perhaps if he sold a portion of the books, he could pay the landlord and retain the others,” Joseph offered.

  “Sell my books?” Father sounded horrified.

  As Lord Palmerston stepped forward, I had the impression that he concealed his delight. “You asked for a Bradshaw. Does that mean you contemplate a journey? Perhaps to the Lake District? Perhaps to Grasmere?”

  “The books will be auctioned at noon tomorrow! I must leave at once!” Father said.

  “Yes, absolutely at once,” Lord Palmerston agreed.

  When the footman rushed back with a copy of Bradshaw’s Railway Timetables, Lord Palmerston searched eagerly through the thick volume.

  “Aha. A train leaves at nine o’clock tonight from Euston Station. It stops at Manchester. Tomorrow morning at six, a train leaves Manchester for Windermere, arriving at ten. A swift carriage ought to get you to Grasmere by noon. You can save your books. Quickly. There’s not a moment to spare.”

  “But it’s already after eight.” I pointed toward the great clock in a corner of the entrance area. “There’s no time to pack.”

  “Easily taken care of,” Lord Palmerston assured me. “I’ll instruct the servants to gather your things and send them to Grasmere. You’ll have them by tomorrow evening.” He turned to the footman. “Summon a cab,” he ordered. He told another servant, “Bring my overcoat, hat, and gloves.”

  “You’re coming with us, my lord?” Father asked. “Aren’t you needed at Parliament tonight?”

  “I wish to give you a proper good-bye.”

  Thus it happened that the five of us were crammed into a hackney cab that was meant to hold only four. A woman with a hooped dress could not have fit into the crowded vehicle, but my bloomer skirt allowed me to share the close space between Sean and Joseph, feeling them on either side of me.

  I’d gone to the chophouse in high spirits. Now those spirits plummeted as we rushed through the misty streets, arriving at Euston Station with only five minutes to spare. In the cab, in the presence of Lord Palmerston, I wasn’t able to tell Sean and Joseph how much I didn’t want to leave them. “I shall miss you” was all I could manage as we crossed the station’s Great Hall.

  “But you’ll come back soon, I hope,” Joseph said quickly.

  Before I could tell them I would try with all my heart, Lord Palmerston thrust two tickets into my hand. “First class. Nothing’s too good for you and your father. Here are five sovereigns to help you along the way. Now hurry or you’ll miss your train.”

  His Lordship looked shocked when I kissed first Sean and then Joseph on the cheek.

  But he didn’t allow my show of affection to distract him. He urged us through a passageway onto the gloomy glass-and-iron-roofed platform, where a guard examined our tickets.

  Hurrying toward the hiss of the train, I looked back and waved to Sean and Joseph at the gate. Their faces were bleak. In contrast, Lord Palmerston smiled brightly and returned my wave, happy to be rid of us in a way that wouldn’t antagonize Queen Victoria. I imagined him telling the queen, What else could I do, Your Majesty? It was their idea.

  We found an empty first-class compartment, where I told Father, “We ought to sit against the far window.” He looked so distracted, clenching and unclenching his hands, moving his feet up and down even after he sat, that I wanted us to keep a distance from anyone else who entered. As it was, a hurried man peered through the open door, saw us, obviously di
dn’t approve, and rushed on.

  The guard locked our door. Although I disliked being trapped in the prisonlike compartment, at least we wouldn’t have the awkwardness of sharing the limited area with strangers who would judge us.

  The train jolted into motion. Outside the terminal, the mist cleared. We passed the gaslights of factories, then the lesser lights of decayed buildings in slums. Finally there were only trees and pastures revealed by starlight and a half-moon.

  The compartment was cold. The single lamp on the wall against which I sat did little to dispel shadows. The train swayed as it accelerated, and the clatter of its wheels intensified.

  “Emily, will you allow me to open the window?” Father asked. “I think a sharp breeze might help to calm me.”

  He slid the window up.

  “Perhaps another teaspoon of laudanum would help also,” he suggested.

  “Not yet, Father.”

  “No, alas, not yet.”

  With a sigh, he leaned back against a cushion. My position across from him, with my back toward the engine, was such that the wind created by the train rushed in toward Father but not me. A cinder flew through the open window and stopped glowing a moment before it landed on him.

  “Watch for sparks, Father.”

  He brushed at his coat.

  The train moved faster.

  “In the days of the horse-driven mail coach,” Father said, “especially when I rode on top, I could readily see what lay along the road and what stretched ahead. But in here, we might as well be blind.”

  I felt a thump behind me.

  “What was that?” I wondered.

  “What was what?” Father asked.

  Again something thumped behind me, this time with greater force.