Chapter 08: The Cup and Eagle
Mrs. Featherwink thrust her fat fingers into the empty space beneath the floorboards and felt around in the hope that it wasn't gone. Her fortune. Her future. Dried mouse droppings rolled in the dust as she scrabbled at the empty space. She pushed her hand farther and touched nothing but shit and wood. If it had not been for the extravaganza at the Ganymede Club, she would never have discovered the theft, not that soon at least. Most of last night's gains lay warm and safe in her bodice the rest in her locked desk in the red room.
Mrs. Featherwink crawled from under her bed draped in pink silk and sat on the floor, her plump legs and tiny feet, her pride, extended before her. She wiped her fingers on a lace-edged hanky and fought to slow her breathing. Reflect and plan. She scanned the room from her place on the floor looking for further signs of disturbance. Everything in its place as it was when she came to her room to hide the night's proceeds. She rolled onto her knees and pulled herself up, using the bed to aid her. Her knees hurt. Her corset too tight with bills and coin. The small box that held her few pieces of jewelry rested closed on the dresser. She opened it. The gold-washed and paste ornaments lay as she had left them. The music box that lay in the bottom played "I Dream of Jeanie." She'd paid a bit more for the American song. She slammed the lid. Whoever took her money knew where it was and touched nothing else. They didn't waste their time with trinkets. She snatched up the doll that sat on the corner of her padded rocker. The silent china face, apple cheeks and blue eyes. She lifted the dress and unbuttoned the body. Still stuffed with bank notes. That much still safe. The bulk of her money, her treasure, was somewhere with someone. Find that person and find the money. She compiled a list of suspects: Halden, March, Miss Liz, and that sneak Rupert, her great-nephew. All knew or thought they knew about her fortune. None of them knew where she hid it. There was Crippled Doris, too. She cleaned the rooms and emptied the night soil. She was pretty and fresh once until Lord Burnduffe. He cut her down low, a wine bottle broken inside her. Now she walked with pronounced limp, and her cunt useless. But Doris knew when to slide into a room and grease up her middle finger to help a client finish with a gasp and yowl , her finger found the golden spot faster than any other. A few firm rotations and thrusts then on to the next gent. Everyone happy.
Mrs. Featherwink examined her reflection in the silver hand mirror. She smoothed her hair. She touched her bosom, pushed so high it almost touched her double chin. A little powder took care of the perspiration on her upper lip. She removed a cameo from the jewelry box and hid it in her pocket. She descended the worn back stairs, holding on to the banister to steady her on tiny feet. The stairs listed to the left.
They all sat around the worn table talking in quiet voices and eating breakfast before settling in for a good sleep. March chewed carefully on the left side because of the teeth he'd lost to Halden. Four months and his mouth still tender. Miss Liz lifted her tea cup and smiled at Mrs. Featherwink. Rupert's chair stood empty and Crippled Doris was missing. Mrs. Featherwink looked at the faces around the table to see if she could discern the thief. Nothing.
She touched the cameo in her pocket. "Did any of you see spy anyone near my room last night?" The eyes around the table met hers. "My small cameo is gone." Distress bubbled up in her voice. She passed her hanky over her face and dabbed at her eyes. "It's the one my own granny gave me." She looked from face to face.
Miss Liz looked startled. Halden made a fist, "Alls else untouched?"
"Just the cameo gone."
Halden looked at March. "I'll turn the rooms to see if your cameo's hidden someswhere."
March glared at his plate.
"Thank you, my darling." She patted Halden's hand. "Where's that disappointment of a nephew of mine?"
Miss Liz smiled. "He's soaking his bum. Doris is taking him more hot water and some goose grease."
"Should have used that grease last night." Halden laughed and plopped an entire sausage in his mouth and shoved it to the side with his tongue. "That or gotten the mettle out o' the man with his mouth and saved his blind eye." He chewed.
Mrs. Featherwink settled at the table and extended her hand to Halden. He dropped a few coins in her palm, chewed the sausage. "As always, Abbess, I collected the difference."
Mrs. Featherwink pushed the coins between her breasts and smiled. Count on Halden. Always count on Halden.
Doris dipped into the room and sat down next to March. "Get away ya crip." He gave her a shove and rose to his feet. "Ya stink of piss. Always piss and marshy madge." March went to stand by the kitchen door.
"How's my nephew, Doris?"
"He'll live, but he swears he ain't been that sore since Lord D. used him."
"Then he'll survive."
Miss Liz sighed and rested her elbows on the table. "Times I think on him."
"We don't think about them like Lord D." Mrs. Featherwink frowned.
"No, Prize. Something 'bout him."
Mrs.Featherwink nodded.
Halden elbowed Liz in the ribs, "You were sweet on him." He looked over at March. "And not the only one."
Halden turned in his seat to watch March leave, that face like a rotten plum falling in on itself. He was glad he'd kicked in his teeth. "Maybe you'll see him at Ganymede, Liz." He looked at Mrs. Featherwink. "Any of the girls go out today I'll check 'em for your brooch.
March went out the door to stand in the alley and laughter followed him. "Fuck that Prize and fuck him I will," he told the brick wall and touched his destroyed mouth. "I'll fuck 'em all."
Always count on Halden. Let him look for a missing brooch and find a treasure.
***
When the packets of powders were exhausted, George grew anxious. He spent a sleepless night and by morning his muscles ached and his nose ran. The matron told him to stay in bed and informed Headmaster Bartleby that the boy was ailing. He visited George in his narrow bed. He placed an ink-stained hand on his brow. George looked up at the headmaster. "May I have my powders?"
"They're gone, George."
Gordy turned his head and rubbed his tearing eyes. The thought of the nights without his powders put ice water in his veins. He shuddered. "Are you sure?"
"Rest here. You're suffering from an ague."
But he wasn't. The shivers increased. The cramping in his muscles moved to his stomach and he vomited. His guts contracted. The diarrhea began. Headmaster Bartleby instructed the matron to move George to the farthest building, the one where the incorrigibles were interred behind locked doors and small windows. They placed George in a room with a high window facing the brown wall, a wall the sun never reached. If George spread his disease, it would be to those whose lives were already over. Easier to write a letter of condolence to a family that had no hope and give them peace than invite an inquiry from a well-paying family that expected a reformed son returned to them.
George vomited on his bedclothes. He shook. His bowels emptied. He called to the woman who sat outside his door to bring him his powders. She was a dour woman hired in Glasgow and brought to Sedgefall because she was steadfast and inexpensive. The sweat ran off his body. She poured water past his lips. It hit his stomach and he brought it back up. She changed his sheets. He curled into a ball. He stared at her in anguish, his pupils so dilated that his light-brown eyes appeared black. None of the other students contracted the disease. Not the boy in the room on the second floor who only knew two words, shit and mother. Not the young man in the room to the left who at sixteen started talking to St. George and St. George to him. He came to Sedgefall after he started killing dragons. One of his dragons was a little girl from the village. He slit her open hunting for dragon gold. None of the inmates of the farthest building became ill. What George suffered was his alone. He screamed for his powders. His face was bathed by the impassive nurse. He called the woman bitch, whore, cunt. And she collected her salary and dutifully sent it home to her aging parents. He saw Anthony at the foot of his bed naked and blue, dirt in his hair, the iron brace pressed into oozing flesh. At last he slept only to wake to more pain. Headmaster Bartleby wrote a draft of the condolence letter he was sure he'd send soon to Lord Downcliff. He wrote to Dr. Fellows. He didn't reply.
And when they were all sure the boy teetered on the brink of death and sure to succumb, he started to recover. Two weeks later he walked back to the dormitory and his bed by the window. The woman from Glasgow sighed in relief. The older boys left him alone, afraid of his illness. They left him alone for almost nine days, and Gordy grew strong. His color returned he put on weight. When they returned to his bed expecting the pliant boy who bent and knelt and called for his dead brother, they found him waiting with a rock hidden in the toe of his grey sock, a smooth rock he'd picked up from the yard. He was David with his sling. The boys fell back. The oldest tried to duck in under the arc of the sock and it struck with accuracy on the side of his head. He staggered and dropped to his knees. Gordy threw himself on the boy's back. He pushed his face into the floor. He hit him again and again and pulled up his nightshirt. He laughed. He stood on the balls of his feet and pushed. He made him bleed. He learned his lessons and avoided the birch switch and attended the switchings of his tormentors. He watched their buttocks redden. Nine months later Gordy returned home, strangely calm and changed, his head full of Latin. Amo, amas, amat. The relieved Lord Downcliff sent a note of thanks to Dr. Fellows and Headmaster Bartleby along with a case of wine from his cellar. He had an heir. George's mother stayed in Italy and took a Russian nobleman as her lover. Tom met Gordy by the stream beneath the drooping branches of a willow.
***
What would he do with Prize? If Nanny Grey had asked that question before Prize laid his hand on him in the warm bed, the answer would have come easily, Ganymede. The envelope with the cup and eagle on the wax seal of ox-blood red lay on the writing desk.
The club had no permanent address. It met at country estates and quiet rented houses in London away from decent society and morays. Procurers of discrete resources such as Mrs. Featherwink supplied the entertainments and location. Men of wealth and certain needs attended to enjoy delights of the most exotic and specialized variety. Connoisseurs of a certain class attended to display their acquisitions, trade, and experience new delights.
But not now, he wouldn't take his Prize to show and share. He wouldn't trade him for another or for coin. He turned to his nanny. "He'll stay here." She gave him a disapproving look. "What else is there to do? Should I put him out with some money on a country road? Is there an alley in London where I should leave him? He'll end up starved or in the stews."
