almost entirely distracted. While I watched one scene of Elias’s comedy rehearsed perhaps fifteen times until I felt I could have played each part myself, I found it witty and cleverly acted. Elias strutted about the stage as though he were the theatre manager himself, suggesting to the players different poses and different deliveries. When I was leaving, he gave me a copy of the play, which I later read and found strangely delightful.
I spent that afternoon with my Aunt Sophia, attending her on her social calls and meeting other prominent Iberian Jewesses of Dukes Place. Some of these women were quite young and quite unmarried, and as I spent these stressful hours attempting to make myself understood in Portuguese, I could not but wonder if my aunt was trying to settle me in marriage.
In an effort not to let my investigation run cold in this period of waiting, I visited Perceval Bloathwait’s town house on several occasions, but each time his servant denied me. I left several messages for the Bank of England director, but I received no replies. I greatly wished to know more of this message that Mendes had told me my father had sent to his old adversary, but Bloathwait, it would seem, had decided to have no more to do with me.
I ruminated on how to remedy that situation while I kept myself busy in more mundane tasks: news of my move to Dukes Place had circulated, and a few men made their way to my new home to ask for my help. So I distracted myself by finding a few debtors while I awaited what I hoped, and hoped correctly, would be a fruitful return of our advertisement.
My relations with Miriam had continued to be cool, especially after her inexplicable accusation at the masquerade. I attempted on several occasions to speak with her, but she always assiduously avoided me. One day, after a silent breakfast with her and my aunt, I followed her from the table and into the parlor.
“Miriam,” I began, “tell me why you are angry with me. I do not understand how I have betrayed you.” The only explanation I had summoned was that she was angry that I had discovered her relationship with Deloney, but as I had not circulated the information or used it to harm her, that knowledge could hardly stand as a betrayal.
“I have nothing to say to you,” she announced, and began to depart.
I grabbed her by the wrist—as gently as I could. “You must speak to me. I have searched my memories for something I did that may have hurt you, but I can think of nothing.”
“Do not attempt to deceive me.” She tore her arm from me, but did not move away. “I know why you are here in this house, and I know the nature of your inquiry. Are a few guineas from your uncle—or is it perhaps Mr. Adelman?—worth having established a false intimacy with me? I thought you had returned to your family for some greater purpose than to expose it.”
She ran out of the room; I might perhaps have followed her if I had been able to formulate some idea of what to say. I could think of no reasons or explanations, and I wondered if I should ever understand. I could not have known then that my next conversation with Miriam would clarify far more than the reasons for her anger with me.
AT LAST THURSDAY was upon me. The weather had turned significantly cooler, and in the crisp morning air that smelled of impending snow, I made my way to Kent’s Coffeehouse. I arrived an hour earlier than the advertisement indicated that I might establish myself before anyone came to call. I let the servants know who I was, and I sat down with the papers to busy myself until I should be called for, but I found myself too distracted to read with any absorption. I must say that the events at the masquerade had left me apprehensive, for I saw that there was nothing these villains would not do to protect themselves, and there was certainly something reckless about my publishing my defiance of them in the
Every few minutes I looked up to see if someone sought me out, and on one of those occasions I noticed a grim gentleman at another table. He held a paper before him, but it was obvious that he did not read it. Although this man dressed neatly, there was something about the way he wore his wig, the way his coat hung upon his shoulders, and, most strikingly, the fact that he wore thick leather gloves inside the coffeehouse, that made him conspicuous and strange. I felt certain that if I were to remove his wig and look square into his face, I would see someone I had encountered before.
Feeling bold, and perhaps overly animated by a bit too much of Mr. Kent’s coffee, I approached the table and sat down, and as I did so, I knew the man at once. I recognized the hard, cruel, stupid look, as well as the left eye that sat useless in a sea of yellowish rot. For his part, he knew not how to respond to my direct assault and pretended to continue with his reading.
“How is your hand, Mr. Arnold?” I asked. He no longer appeared the same ruffian from whom I had so violently retrieved Sir Owen’s amorous letters. He had cleaned himself up considerably, but the mark of villainy still stained him thoroughly. I was certain he felt no small amount of fear of me, and his fear was not misplaced. We both knew that the violence I had once visited upon him I would not hesitate to repeat.
I sought in my mind to recall if it had been the right or the left hand I had stabbed, for that was the hand I wished to grab. Arnold, however, took advantage of my moment of contemplation, leapt to his feet, tossed a chair at me to slow me down, and ran out the front door. I followed, only a few seconds behind him, but those few seconds were sufficient for him to take the advantage. When I emerged onto the street he was nowhere in sight. With little to lose, I picked a direction and ran, hoping that fortune would favor my search, but such was not the case, and after a quarter of an hour of fruitless searching I abandoned the cause and returned to the coffeehouse.
It was well that I had engaged in that frustrating encounter with Mr. Arnold, for when I returned, winded and looking all askew, I saw the coffee girl in conversation with a young lady, and I overheard her conversation just enough to learn that she was describing my appearance. Had this young lady entered the coffeehouse and seen me in waiting, she would certainly have departed before I knew she had been there, but now I stood, breathing deeply, absently dusting off my coat, while our eyes made contact.
Miriam had come in response to my advertisement.
TWENTY-EIGHT
IN A STRANGE mirroring of my motions, Miriam began to wipe her hands upon the hoops of her gown. She looked at me. She looked at the door. She could hardly hope to escape, but the thought, as absurd thoughts do in moments of confusion, surely crossed her mind.
I asked the girl for a private room and a bottle of wine, and we retired into a small and neat closet that offered little more than a few oldish chairs scattered around a table. It was a room of business, and I appreciated that. From the wall, crudely rendered portraits of Queen Anne and Charles II stared at us; there was no mistaking Mr. Kent’s Tory politics.
Miriam sat stiffly in her chair. I poured a glass of wine and set it in front of her. She wrapped her delicate hands around the glass but neither lifted it nor tasted the wine. “I did not expect to see you here, Cousin,” she said quietly, not meeting my eye.
I proved myself less shy than Miriam about the drinking of wine. After taking a long sip, I sat down and tried to decide if it was more comfortable to look at her or away from her. “What is your connection to Rochester?” I said at last. I had hoped to moderate my tone, to sound relaxed, concerned, simply curious. It came out as an accusation.
She let go of her glass and met my gaze. She had the frightened and outraged look of a parish beggar. “What business have you speaking to me thus? I have responded to your notice in the paper. I do not believe that to be a crime.”
“But I assure you murder is a crime, and a very serious one, and it is in connection to murder that I seek Mr. Rochester.”
She gasped. She moved to stand up, but then sat again. Her eyes darted about the room in search of something that would comfort her, but she could find nothing. “Murder?” she breathed at last. “What can you mean?”
“I shall withhold nothing from you, Miriam, but you must tell me what you know of Rochester.”
She shook her head slowly, and I watched her spotted green bonnet sway with her movements. “I know so little of him. I bought—that is to say, I had some funds bought through him. That’s all.” She now drank of her wine, and drank vigorously, too.
