a man pretending to be making a delivery of wallpaper samples.
'Good — fine. You-all come right along, then. I have a hack waiting to whisk us over to Mrs. Donley's in Oxford Street. Temporary quarters only — I know you'll want something larger and more suitable.'
Turning slightly, he directed the remark to Judith. As Bulloch smiled at her, Cooper noticed his eyes. They moved constantly, scanning faces, compartment windows, trash-strewn corners of the great arched shed. This was no lark.
'You might like the Crosby area,' Bulloch continued as he led the family and the porter outside. He flourished his gold-knobbed cane to discourage three sad-faced urchins with trays of old, damaged fruit. The Mains piled into the hack while Bulloch remained on the curb, studying the crowds. Finally he hopped in, rapped the ceiling with his cane, and they were off.
'There's plenty to be done here, Main, but I don't want to rush you. I know you need to settle in —'
Cooper shook his head. 'The waiting in London was worse than overwork. I'm eager to get started.'
'Good for you. The first man you'll meet is Prioleau. He runs Fraser, Trenholm, on Rumford Place. I also want to introduce you to John Laird and his brother. Got to be careful about that meeting, though. Mrs. Main, you understand the problems we contend with here, don't you?'
'I think so, Captain. The neutrality laws don't permit war vessels to be built and armed in British yards if the vessels will go into the service of any power with whom Britain is at peace.'
'By Jove, that's it exactly. Clever wife you have, old chap.' Cooper smiled; Bulloch was adapting rapidly. He continued energetically. 'The laws cut both ways, of course. The Yankees can't build any warships either — but then, they don't need to, and we do. The trick is to construct and arm a vessel without detection or government interference. Fortunately, there's a gap in the laws — one we can sail right through if we have nerve. A solicitor I hired locally pointed it out. I'll explain it in due course.'
'Will the local shipbuilders violate the laws on neutrality?' Judith asked him.
'Britons are also human beings, Mrs. Main. Some of them will if there's profit in it. Fact is, they've more offers of contracts than they can handle. There are gentlemen in town who have nothing to do with our Navy but who still want ships built or refitted.'
'Ships to run the blockade?' said Cooper.
'Yes. By the way, have you met the man we work for?'
'Secretary Mallory? Not yet. Everything's been done by letter.'
'Smart fellow, Mallory. Something of a submissionist, though.'
Cooper's nature wouldn't permit deception on such an important point. 'So was I, Captain.'
For the first time, Bulloch frowned. 'You mean to say you'd like to see the old Union patched together again?'
'I said was, Captain. Still, since we're going to work closely, I must be straightforward —' He put an arm around his wriggling daughter to settle her. The hack swayed. 'I detest this war. I especially detest the fools on both sides who caused it. But I made my decision to stay with the South. My personal beliefs won't interfere with my duties, that I promise.'
Bulloch cleared his throat. His frown faded. 'Can't ask for better than that.' But he clearly wanted to leave this boggy ground. He complimented the parents on their handsome children, then proudly showed a small, cardboard-framed photograph of his infant nephew Theodore. The boy's mother, Bulloch's sister, had married into an old-line New York family named Roosevelt.
'Expect she has cause to regret it now,' he added. 'Ah, here's Mrs. Donley's.'
He turned away from the oval window as the hack stopped. Bulloch got out first to fold the step down. Cooper assisted Judith and the children while the driver began to unload the trunks and portmanteaus lashed to the roof. They had pulled up in front of Number 6 in a row of brick residences attached to one another and all alike. Suddenly, a decrepit figure in a filthy skirt and patched sweater lurched into sight from the far side of the hack.
Hair that resembled gray broomstraw stuck out from beneath a bandanna. The woman clutched the neck of a smelly rag bag carried over her shoulder and peered at Cooper with an intensity as peculiar as her unlined face.
'Parnmeguvnor,' she said, bumping him as she hurried by. Bulloch whipped up his cane and with his other hand seized the ragpicker's hair. The move was so abrupt that Marie-Louise yelped and jumped to her mother's side. Bulloch yanked; gray hair and bandanna came off, revealing cropped yellow curls.
'The hair gave you away, Betsy. Tell Dudley not to buy such a cheap wig next time. Now off with you!'
He waved his cane in a threatening way. The young woman backed up, spitting invective — in English, Cooper supposed, though he couldn't understand a word. Bulloch stepped forward. The woman picked up her skirts, dashed to the corner, and disappeared.
'Who the devil was that?' Cooper exclaimed.
'Betsy Cockburn, a slut, er, woman who hangs out in a pub near Rumford Place. Thought I recognized her. She's one of Tom Dudley's spies, I think.'
'Who's Dudley?'
'The Yankee consul in Liverpool.'
'What was that gibberish she spouted at us?' Judith wanted to know.
'Scouse. The Liverpudlian equivalent of Cockney. I hope none of you understood her.' Another throat clearing indicated his concern for delicate sensibilities.
'Not a syllable,' Judith assured him. 'But I can hardly believe that wretched creature is a spy.'
'Dudley hires what he can get. Dock scum chiefly. They are not recruited for their intelligence.' Brushing dust from his sleeve, he said to Cooper, 'It doesn't matter that we saw through her ridiculous disguise. Its only purpose was to help her get close enough for a good look at your face. Dudley got wind of your arrival somehow. One of my informants told me so yesterday. But I didn't anticipate your becoming a marked man quite this soon —'
The sentence trailed into a disappointed sigh. Then: 'Well, it's a lesson in how things operate in Liverpool. Dudley is not a foe to be taken lightly. That drab's harmless, but some of his other hirelings are not.'
Judith cast an anxious look at her husband, whose mouth had grown inexplicably dry. How chilly the summer noonday felt. 'Don't you think we should go inside and see our quarters?' Judah at his side, he walked to the stoop. He was smiling, but he surveyed each end of the block in turn.
13
Starkwether's burial took place in Washington that same afternoon, in the rain. The location was a small private cemetery in the suburb of Georgetown, beyond Rock Creek and well away from the place seekers and other political canaille.
Water dripped from Elkanah Bent's hat brim and dampened his black-frogged coat of dark blue. He usually enjoyed wearing the coat, with its attached short cloak, adopted in 1851 from a French design; he believed it minimized his fatness and lent him dash. But pleasure was absent this dark, depressing day.
A canvas pavilion protected the open grave and surrounding lawn. Some fifty mourners had gathered. Bent was too far away to identify many of them — he'd tied his horse a quarter of a mile back and walked to his spot behind a great marble cross — but the few he did recognize testified to his father's importance. Ben Wade, Ohio's powerful Republican senator, had come. Scott had sent a senior staff officer, and nigger-loving Chase his pretty daughter. The President's representative was Lamon, the longhaired, mustachioed White House crony.
Bent's mood was one of resentment rather than grief. Even in death, his father prevented closeness. He wanted to stand with the other mourners but didn't dare.
Laborers waited at the head and foot of the heavily ornamented coffin, ready to lift and lower it. The minister was speaking, but Bent couldn't hear him because of the splatter of rain on summer leaves. The cemetery was heavily wooded; dark as a grotto. Dark as he felt.
Late in the morning, so the papers said, his father had been memorialized at a church service in downtown Washington. Bent couldn't go to that either. All arrangements had undoubtedly been handled by Dills, the little old
