He led me down the hall and into a small and windowless closet, where a young man sat at a desk poring over a stack of papers and making notations in a complicated ledger. He was only in his early twenties, but he looked studious and dedicated, and his brow wrinkled with bookish labors. He was also, I noticed, rather slight in build, with drooping shoulders and remarkably thin wrists. His eyes were filigreed with red and the bags underneath were of a bluish black complexion.
“The very first thing I must do is introduce you to Mr. Blackburn,” Ellershaw said, “lest he hear of you on his own and come demanding explanations. I want you to have no surprises, Mr. Blackburn.”
The young man studied me. He had a more severe face than I had at first realized, possessed of something of a predatory nature, an impression augmented by a large beakish nose that hooked sharply. I wondered at what personal cost he labored, for he possessed a beleaguered expression one is more like to see in a man twice his age. “Surprises lead to three things,” he said, holding up three fingers. “First, inefficiency. Second, disorder. Finally, diminished returns.” With each of these, he clutched the finger of his right hand between the thumb and forefinger of his left. “I do not love surprises.”
“I know it, and so I have done what I could to keep you informed. This is Mr. Weaver. He will be working for me, overseeing the watchmen on the premises.”
Blackburn reddened a little. At first I thought this was some inexplicable embarrassment, but I soon realized it was anger. “Working for you?” he demanded. “Now? How can you have someone new come to work for you now? The Court of Proprietors has not approved any such post, and no posts can be funded without their approval. I don’t understand this, sir. ’Tis most irregular, and I cannot think how I am to account for it in the employment ledger.”
“Irregular, to be sure,” Ellershaw agreed, his voice all soothing tones, “and because the Proprietors have not discussed it, Mr. Weaver will, until further notice, receive his pay directly from me.”
“Payment from
“I had thought,” Ellershaw said, “to leave Mr. Weaver unmentioned in the books altogether.” It struck me that Ellershaw kept his voice remarkably even. To my surprise, though Blackburn was evidently the subordinate, he was the one demanding explanations.
Blackburn shook his head and held up two fingers. “Two things, sir. First, no one is unmentioned in the books.” He tapped one of the folio-size volumes, bound in a very grave sort of black leather. “Everyone is in the books. Second, if we begin to make exceptions, write rules as the notion takes us, then these books are for nothing, and my work is for nothing.”
“Mr. Blackburn, you may either take the time to integrate Mr. Weaver’s unique position, really as a servant to me, into your existing scheme, or you can accept that he is outside of your purview, not your responsibility at all. That being the case, you can safely ignore him altogether, as you would my footman or my pastry cook. Which would you like?”
This pointed argument appeared to gain some sway with the clerk. “Your servant, you say? Like a pastry cook?”
“Precisely. He helps me do my work more efficiently, and so it is my choice to take him on, and it is my wish to pay him out of my own monies. You need not account for him at all.”
Blackburn gave Ellershaw a curt nod. “I accept your proposal,” he said, though, as far as I knew, nothing had been offered.
“A fine plan, Blackburn. Very fine. But one more thing. I would rather you not discuss this matter with anyone. If anyone asks you, say only that everything is in order. I don’t believe most men would pry more, lest they hear about facts and figures and tables in which they have no interest. Can you keep this to yourself?”
“Of course,” Blackburn said. “I have no desire to advertise this irregularity. You see, Mr. Weaver, you are something disorderly, and I hate disorder. I like things to be regular and predictable and easily accounted. I certainly hope you won’t bring disorder with you.”
“I had thought to,” I said, “but upon your request, I shall refrain.”
When we left Mr. Blackburn’s office, we nearly collided with a tall gentleman of fine form who appeared to hover in the hall awaiting our arrival.
“Ah, Forester, well met,” Ellershaw said. He put a hand upon the man’s arm. “I want you to meet Weaver. He’ll be aiding my work on the warehouse subcommittee.”
Forester’s dull blue eyes grazed Ellershaw’s hand on his arm before settling upon me. It could not have been plainer that he cared little for Ellershaw, but my new patron’s monkey grin told me he observed none of this animosity.
Forester nodded. “Good. Things in the warehouses would benefit from more attention.”
“Yes, yes. If you see Weaver around, think nothing of it. He is my fellow, you know. All is just as it should be.”
For some reason, this prompted Forester to study me more closely. “Your fellow?”
“Yes, yes. You needn’t worry.” Then to me, he said, “Mr. Forester is serving his first term upon the Court of Committees. Very new to everything, you see. But his father—ah, Hugh Forester. Now, there was a great servant to the Honorable Company. A great man both in the Indies and in London. The younger Forester has much to live up to, I think.” And here he offered me a wink.
Forester walked off and Ellershaw remained still, his face frozen in a foolish smile, like a young man who has exchanged charming pleasantries with the lady of his fancy. “I like that young man,” Ellershaw told me. “I like him enormous. I believe he shall go far with my help.”
I found this approbation astonishing. Forester’s disposition, which might flatteringly be called indifferent, had been unmistakable. How could Ellershaw not see the contempt with which this admirable young man regarded him?
For want of anything more decisive to say, I merely remarked that he must know best the character of the men with whom he worked.
“Indeed, I do. I love to spend my time with the Company men, inside Craven House and without. As it happens, I am to have some guests at my home four nights hence. I wonder if you would be so good as to join us.”
I could not have been more astonished. I was Ellershaw’s underling, his plaything even, little more than a toy. The vast difference in our stations made this invitation both strange and unexpected, and I could not but doubt that I was invited to attend in the role of a curiosity, something at which his guests might marvel. Still, in light of my directions from Mr. Cobb, I could hardly justify excusing myself. There was more, however, to it. I was beginning to find Ellershaw more than an interesting specimen of unlikable man, I was beginning to find him fascinating in his obliviousness, and much as he surely planned to hold me up as an object of fascination, I wished to do the same with him.
“You do me too much honor,” I told him.
“Nonsense. You’ll come?”
I bowed and said I should be delighted, and in doing so I set into motion one of the most important phases of this history.
ELLERSHAW NEXT LED ME down the stairs and out the back door, which I had previously entered on my covert first foray into Craven House. The grounds, in the light of day, seemed almost a small city, or perhaps even like one of the Company’s encampments in the Indies. Three or four large houses—converted homes, as I understood it—hulked about the grounds, but while the outer structures had surely not changed since the Company acquired them, they had lost all air of anything domestic. On the lower floors, windows had been boarded up, no doubt as much to save on the window tax as to provide security, and the bricks all had a dull gray cast to them.
Except they teemed with life. Scores of men and wagons, like monstrous insects of the Indies themselves, filed in and out of the compound, bringing goods to and from the East India docks at the river. The air was full of grunts and cries and orders shouted, the squeak of wheels, the creaking of wagon wood. Smoke puffed out of the warehouses’ chimneys, and from not too far away I heard the clang of a blacksmith, at work, no doubt, on some
