They strode away from the churchyard, leaving the dead behind and returning, for now, to the world of the living.
Another dispatch from the lion’s den.
My second day at Love, Love, Love and Love has proved almost exactly like my first. Eight hours of clerical drudgery, a meager half-hour for lunch and the evening spent underground in this ghastly communal recreation room, praying, listening to the poetry recitals of my colleagues and reluctantly making up a hand of whist. In order to write these words I have had to slip away to my shared bedroom. My friend — Love 893 — has agreed (if asked) to make up some story about my being ill. There is only a finite amount of these people’s piety I can stand.
I am astonished that Mr. Skimpole was able to secure employment for me here at all. Everyone else has been working at Love for months, many for years. As the newest recruit, I can sense a certain coolness directed toward me. Clearly there is a great deal I have yet to discover and none of them seem at all keen to tell me. Even 893, when I question her on Love’s financial intricacies, becomes taciturn and close-lipped. Not, I should add, that I have shown much overt curiosity so far. As promised, I have done my utmost to appear as inconspicuous as possible and I doubt I am thought of as anything more than an unremarkable clerical assistant. Perhaps I have been less inquisitive than I ought. Perhaps my apparent lack of curiosity is in itself suspicious. Maybe I should pry a little more.
I saw Speight again today, striding along the corridor, coattails flapping self-importantly, a cloud of lackeys in his wake. The transformation is so remarkable that I fancy you would barely recognize him now — he seems half- naked without his placard. I wonder how it was that these people brought about so complete a metamorphosis. More to the point, I wonder
Even he is not the most bizarre of Love’s employees. I saw the most extraordinary thing this morning: a bearded woman busying herself with books and ledgers, a freak attracting no stares of curiosity or muffled guffaws. Her natural milieu is surely the circus tent, but here she is accepted as one of us. For all its eccentricity, Love is a broad church. Although a relatively recent recruit, Love 986, I believe) she seems to be held in high regard, as a rising star, someone of whom great things are expected.
Now for my news. Toward the end of my shift I was approached by my immediate superior, a plump, hairless man named Love 487. After some small talk about how well I was settling in, he told me that I have been selected to meet, in person, the Chairman of the Board. Apparently this is considered a great honor and I was the subject of many an envious stare at dinner tonight.
It seems that the Chairman (or Love I as he is known to my superiors) is something of a recluse. Few of my colleagues have ever met the man (it
Once again, I am sending this letter with 893. She has been nothing but kind and generous to me, though I cannot help but wonder how deeply mired in it all she is. Edward, I think she may have known the unfortunate Mr. Honeyman. Last night, in her sleep, I heard her murmur some lines of Shakespeare. Paris — from
I have been promised that I shall be able to leave the building at the end of the week, so perhaps I will post my next message to you then.
The atmosphere seems more intense than ever. These people are waiting for something, and whatever it is, I am starting to suspect that only Love themselves will welcome its arrival.
I will write again as soon as I am able. My cordial regards to the Somnambulist.
Mr. Skimpole limped forlornly into the offices of the Directorate, already in a filthy temper thanks to the elevator’s stubborn refusal to work and the subsequent necessity of taking the stairs. Despite his best efforts to disguise them, his symptoms were acute, inexorable, irreversible. Husky, permanently short of breath and unsteady on his feet, he was forced, like some old lush, to apply all his powers of concentration just in order to walk in a straight line. Some might find it ironic that a man whose life had been dedicated to temperance and moderation should end it so closely resembling a chronic drinker. Needless to say, I’d stop well short of making so crass and callous an observation.
Whilst dressing that morning, Skimpole had discovered the presence of five or six fresh and angry red lesions which had scattered themselves about the lower half of his body, speckling his genitals with an itchy, flaking rash. Worse, the attacks had become more frequent and he often found himself having to leave the room whenever he felt their onset, before their pincers of pain began to rummage mercilessly about in his guts.
But he did not walk into the Directorate alone that morning. His son was with him, the boy’s crutches click- clacking like ancient joints as he hobbled down the stairs and across the room to the round table. Together they cut a pitiful pair, refugees from a home for cripples, rejects from some unusually cruel workhouse.
Dedlock was already there, waiting in his usual place, but sitting beside him was a stranger — a tall, smartly dressed, smooth-featured man, emanating discretion and good taste. Set against these, Skimpole felt more spindly and puny than ever. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his forehead dry and breathed in deeply, determined not to appear weak. In the event, he just about managed a “good morning” before he lapsed into helpless spluttering.
Dedlock was staring in disbelief at the boy. “Who is this?”
Skimpole attempted a smile, only for it to fade half-formed from his lips when he saw the granite expressions of the others. “Have you met my son?” he asked as lightly as he could. The Skimpole boy tried to say something in greeting but could only produce a wretched, wheezing cough.
“Your son?” the stranger asked, sounding as though this were the first time he had ever heard the word. “Your
“I’m sorry,” Skimpole stuttered. “I just wanted to be with him.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to send him home,” Dedlock said, his tone gentler and less aggressive than the stranger’s.
Skimpole fought back tears. “I can’t. I need him with me. He mustn’t go home alone. I’m sure we were followed on our way here. Oh, we shook them off, but this isn’t the first time. Not by a long shot.” Frantic, he turned to Dedlock. “Don’t you agree? Whoever they are, they’ve set the dogs on us.”
“Send the child home. Or I’ll have him removed.” The smooth-featured man clicked his fingers and four fake Chinamen materialized obediently at the back of the room.
Dedlock tried to defuse the tension. He gestured toward the stranger. “This is Mr. Trotman.”
“I’m from the Ministry,” the man said darkly, as though that explained it all.
Skimpole seemed uncharacteristically cowed. “I see. How can we help?”
“The Directorate has recently come under my purview…” He tailed off delicately. “There will be changes.”
“Changes?”
“Remove the boy,” Trotman demanded. “Then we can talk.”
Skimpole bent down and whispered in his son’s ear: “Go upstairs. Wait for me there.”
The lad nodded and lurched uncertainly away, manfully tackling the mountainous staircase alone and unaided. Throughout his son’s short life, Skimpole had never ceased to marvel at his courage.
“Take a seat,” Trotman said once the child had left. “This won’t take long.”
Meekly, Skimpole did as he was told.
“I shan’t be coy,” Trotman said. “I’m a plain man. (Judging from the expensive cut of his clothes and general air of affluence, this was transparently untrue.) “I expect frankness from my subordinates and I intend to grant you that same courtesy.”
Dedlock and Skimpole nodded, mock-appreciative.
“The Directorate has become a liability. Your methods are unorthodox, your agents unaccountable, your security laughably easy to penetrate. Slattery never should have got within spitting distance of this room.”
Dedlock began to protest but Trotman motioned for him to be silent. “Let me finish. You’ll have your say in
