A Conspiracy of Paper

“South Sea funds,” I said.

She nodded.

“How did you buy these funds? It is very important you tell me everything. Did you meet him, correspond with him, talk with a servant of his? I must know.”

“There’s so little,” she said. Her fingernails gently scratched on the roughhewn surface of the table. “I—I had no contact with him myself. I had someone who dealt with him for me.”

“Philip Deloney.”

“Yes, it’s been clear to me for some time that you know we . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“That you are lovers, yes. And that he is some kind of petty gamester and jobber.”

“He has bought and sold at Jonathan’s for me,” she explained quietly. “I have so little money, and I needed to try to secure more that I might afford to establish a household of my own.”

I could not but laugh. Elias should have been delighted to hear about this odd commingling of hearts and money, of romance being bought and sold upon the ’Change. Miriam looked at me in puzzlement, and I shook off my mirth, for it was a kind of panicked laughter.

“What is the nature of Deloney’s relationship with Rochester?”

“I know that it is a distant one. Philip has been searching for him and unable to find him.”

“And why has he been searching? Indeed, why are you looking here today?”

“Philip arranged to have Rochester buy South Sea stock in my name. In his name as well.”

“But why? You have a connection, albeit a strange one, with Adelman. Surely you did not need a third party to secure you stock.”

“Mr. Deloney told me that Rochester could get stock at a discount—fifteen, even twenty points below market. I know from Mr. Adelman that the stock is soon to rise, so with the discount, I thought I could secure enough money to move from your uncle’s house. But Philip grew tired of waiting, and needed to convert his stock to ready cash. The agreement was that we were not to attempt to convert the stock for a year from the time of purchase— something having to do with the way in which we received the discount—but Philip wanted silver. He tried seeking out Rochester to find out how he might go about the conversion, and I know not the nature of the correspondence, but I do know that it agitated him severely. He would hardly speak to me of it, only to say that the stock was now but dross. So when I saw the advertisement in the paper, I thought I might learn more.”

“Do you own—that is to say—possess your South Sea stock?”

Miriam nodded. “Certainly.”

I pressed my hands together. “I have hardly heard such good news.”

“Good news? Why should my stock prove good news for you?”

“Take me to the stock, and I’ll show you.”

We left the coffeehouse in a hurry, after telling the girl there to collect the names of anyone else who came in search of me. We returned to the house at Broad Court, and Miriam invited me into her dressing room, where she removed a gold filigree box containing a large pile of thick parchment paper. I first looked at the thinner documents—projecting shares, mainly for the construction of two new bridges across the Thames. I had seen Elias deceived with his projects often enough to recognize mere stuff when I saw it.

“I believe Mr. Deloney has fooled you with these. They are but empty promises.”

“Fooled me?” Miriam stared at them. “Then where has the money gone?”

“To the hazard table, I presume.” I found myself asking the question that I had not thought to articulate. “Is it for this thief that you wished to borrow twenty-five pounds of me?”

“I had given him all I had of my remittance, and I had promised him future remittances,” she said quietly. “I was worth less than nothing after purchasing these.” Miriam’s hand trembled as she then produced the South Sea issues. These were an impressive set of documents, written on the finest parchment in the finest hand. They bespoke their authenticity to all who would but take a moment to glance in their direction.

Nevertheless, I was entirely convinced that they were false.

I knew that Rochester sold false stock, and I knew that Deloney had dealings with Rochester. The inexplicable discount that Miriam received only confirmed my suspicion.

From what little I knew of the price of shares, I could see why Miriam was so short of ready money. She had spent five or six hundred pounds on issues not worth five or six farthings. It pained me to tell her that she had destroyed her savings. “I believe these stocks are but forgeries,” I said softly.

She took them from me and stared at them. I could see her thoughts. They looked so very real. She had been a fool to believe those project shares, but these—these looked official, embossed, approved. “You are mistaken,” she said at last. “If they were forgeries, I would not have received a dividend payment, as I did last quarter.”

I felt a kind of cold terror. I slowly lowered myself onto Miriam’s divan and attempted to understand what I had heard. A dividend payment! Then the stocks were not false, and if she had bought them of Rochester, then perhaps Rochester sold only true stock. After all, Virgil Cowper, the South Sea clerk, had told me he had seen Miriam’s name in the South Sea records. I clenched my fists and attempted to understand what Miriam’s dividend payment might mean—and how it might not mean what I most feared: that Rochester was no villain and that I had been mistaken all along.

I reached out and took the papers back from Miriam. My eyes wandered all about the parchment, looking for something I knew not what, some kind of evidence of their falseness, as though I would recognize such a thing were it right before my eyes. I feared my ignorance had led me to this moment—to this revelation of my foolishness. Elias’s probability had yielded nothing but failure.

Miriam took the issues from me again and replaced them in her box. “How can they be false?” she asked, unaware that her information had devastated me. “I would think that if they were forgeries should not a stock- jobber such as your father have seen their falseness at once?”

I pulled myself out of my misery. “My father? He saw these?”

“Yes. He happened to pass by one afternoon when I had them out of the box. I suppose I was daydreaming, thinking about the house I might rent when I sold them. He asked to look at them, and I dared not refuse. I asked him to tell no one, that I wished to keep my speculation a secret, and I hoped he would understand.”

“What did he say?”

“He was very strange. He gave me a kind of knowing look, as though we shared a secret, and said that I might depend upon his silence. I will admit he surprised me because I feared he should tell your uncle about the secret just for the pleasure of doing so.” She lowered her eyes, feeling some sudden shame at having insulted my father. “I’m sorry,” she said.

I would have none of it. Had she told me my father had revealed himself a secret Mohammedan I should hardly have cared. Instead I grabbed her hand and smothered it with kisses. In the hours to come I would think back and laugh at myself, for in that moment I hardly thought of Miriam as a beautiful woman, but as a beautiful bearer of news. My father had seen the stocks. And if I had not studied his pamphlet, if I had not read enough of it to even remember it well, I had read enough to understand the nature of Miriam’s stock, and how it was that she had received dividends.

More to the point, I understood now that I had not been a fool and that Elias’s philosophy had served me well—better than I could have imagined.

Miriam pulled her hand from me, but she only just managed to stifle a burst of genuine amusement. “You are either mad or the most changeable man in the world. Regardless, I should thank you to cease drooling upon my hand.”

“I beg your pardon, madam,” I almost shouted. “But you have given me the very news I needed, and I am most grateful.”

“But what is it? Can there be some connection between this stock and your father? What could he have—” She stopped. The blood drained from her face and her mouth slowly slid open into an expression of understanding and horror. “Your search for Mr. Rochester. It’s about your father, isn’t it? Mr. Sarmento was wrong.”

It only then occurred to me that she did not know. I had been so deep within my own inquiry that I thought its nature obvious to all. But Miriam had not known—and she had wondered what my uncle and I spoke about in his study, and she had wondered why I had moved into the house.

I nodded, for I now understood Miriam’s odd behavior had been based upon groundless speculation—her own failed exercise in probability. “Aye. You thought I inquired into a different matter, didn’t you? Sarmento told you something. That is why you were angry. You thought I inquired into you—your money, your intimacy with