And thirty pounds, in both their minds but left unsaid. Dennett tried harder at the knotted cord.
"Indeed you do!" Said heartily. "Nay, it is not so easy, but ... never say ... die."
The knot parted, and he hid his face by getting closer. Say die, indeed. Christ, had he gone mad?
"You said this maiden's teeth were not so good," said Wimbarton. "That's why you chose the other one's for my wife. I do not believe that, Mr. Mountebank. I believe you saved her for her beauty, for the profit you might get from that. I believe you cheated me."
Poor Dennett's face was like a rigid mask of ease and humour. He scrabbled at the cloak, to pull it open and away.
"She's not so beautiful," he said miserably. "Indeed, sir, she looks a very fright."
He had one breast out of the shift, held like an orange or a pomegranate, carelessly. The skin was soft, translucent, but he was gripped by fear, his stomach tense and knotted. Wimbarton's eyes were blank.
"You lie about this operation also," he said. "My wife's gums are black and foul, her breath is like a butcher's cesspit. Drag this maid's teeth out all you like, they will not take. You know it, I know it, the blindest half wit knows it."
"No!" cried Dennett. "On my mother's grave, that is a lie! The thin girl's teeth I thought were best but they were too too narrow, possibly. Now this maid's teeth "
He stepped back smartly at this point, pulling the shift and ripping it, exposing Deborah from the neck to the thighs, all perfection save some bruises and her bloody head. He was sure he knew the man's intention, he would stake his all on it. What all he would have left if this evening's business went wrong, he thought ruefully.
Outside there was a noise on the stair, then a loud cough. The catch lifted as Jeremiah's voice said urgently: "Master, it is I! Milady comes, they cannot deny her!"
"Stay!" shouted the magistrate, but it was too late. Jeremiah stood in the doorway, and his eyes were fixed. As Wimbarton came towards him he moved backwards in caution, but his eyes were merry.
"You operate, I see!" he said to Dennett, who was scrambling to cover the naked woman. And, more quietly, "How well he knows the master."
There was hysteria in Dennett's movements, and hysteria clattering up the wooden stairs, Mistress Wimbarton and Dorothy and Joan. Jeremiah tried not over-hard to keep the door against them and was barged aside, while Wimbarton, having first moved to the bed, dropped back towards the wall a fair good distance, and watched as coolly as could be, his dark, thin face saturnine. Milady was majestic, eyes blazing above her veil, wafting in a heady mix of spices and corruption. Deborah was covered, just, but Joan, like a little country thing, let out a squeak.
Mistress Wimbarton, if she had had the power, would have shouted. Instead her voice came throaty-hoarse, not much above a whisper.
"Operate? Do you need her naked, then? What operate?"
She moved towards the bed like an attacker, staring at the girl. Dennett had a hand upon the cloth, but he let go, moving carefully away.
"My dear," said Wimbarton. "Dennett is checking her condition, as there is urgency involved. The news is bad."
"What news? She has still teeth! I see them! What news?"
She leaned across the bed and pulled at Deborah's mouth, brutally.
"See?" she said. "My teeth. You have paid for them."
"She would die," said Wimbarton. "She has been bleeding, she is weakened, we must "
"No!" The sound she made was horrible, halfway between screech and croak. Above the veil her eyes were bright and furious.
"My dear "
"So if she dies, what difference? What care I, or you? Yes, husband. What care you?"
The steward, Jeremiah, had seen the signs and eased out from the room, not waiting for an order or an onslaught. He plucked Joan's sleeve and she followed, reluctantly. Dennett, who had nowhere to go, decreased in size, sought invisibility.
But Wimbarton only shrugged, then moved towards his wife with open palms, exuding gentleness and sympathy.
"You are right, my love," he said. "It is only it would be embarrassment, and me a justice of the peace, if we were to end up with the body of a whore about the place. Dennett says we ought to wait a day, when everything will be safer. The teeth are healthy, he has confirmed it. Everything will proceed to satisfaction."
Dennett's face had cleared, till Mistress Wimbarton, with her great directness, tore aside her veil. He saw her lips were tinged with black and yellow, her eyes alive with terror.
"But will it be too late for me?" she croaked, and the breath of mortality took him fully in the face. "Doctor. Look at me."
Doctor! The mountebank moved up to her, and eased aside the dying lips to see inside the putrefying mouth, hoping the miasma she was exhaling did not bear the plague or bloody flux. Instead of gums with sockets she had .. . well, he could not see.
Marcus Dennett coughed.
"Nay, excellent," he said. His eyes, above her head, met those of her husband, who was faintly smiling. "Tomorrow will be excellent to do the deed."
Ye gods, he told himself, and was ashamed. Ye gods.
Sir Peter Maybold, the Surveyor General, had done his duty by Sir Arthur Fisher only the day before Holt and Bentley rode up the long drive to Langham Lodge. They arrived well after breakfast time, but Sir A still had not emerged. Mrs. Houghton had taken breakfast to him in his bedroom, and stayed to watch in silence as he picked at it. She was the only person in the house to whom he had told the awful news. Warren had been discovered, abused and dead, his nephew Charles Yorke was missing still. Sir Arthur, who had grown old and frail with the passing days, had grown frailer before her anxious eyes.
The two Navy men were greeted at the stable door by Tony, who marvelled at their villainous appearances, but buttoned his lips on any comment. He had watched the fat man turn up in his official coach the afternoon before, and seen him depart, all powdered wig and sombreness. He had his own ideas as to what the visit meant, and noted afterwards the continued absence of the master. Rumour did the rounds, unhelped by him, and the arrival of these two -and fairly well unkempt could hardly be coincidence, he guessed. Indeed the younger, blond one, was pretty agitated.
Few words were passed though, save for greetings, and they went to a side door Tony indicated, where an underling of Mrs. Houghton sat them down and went to find her out. Two minutes later the housekeeper arrived, scolded the women for not preparing coffee, and said the master would see them in his parlour on the instant. Something in her manner jarred with Samuel, and he asked outright if anything were wrong. Mrs. Houghton eyed him, unsmiling.
"Aye," she said. "I fear there is. But wait a moment and Sir A will tell. It is not appropriate that I should."
So early in the morning, but there was a fire blazing in the grate. The great windows had not been opened, and after the fresh outdoors they did not relish the building fug. They sat, declined a drink or breakfast yet, and waited silent for a while. Will's mind was full of Deborah, and the time he felt as draining rapidly away. Sam's disquiet was growing by the moment, and he arose convulsively when they heard a tread outside.
Sir A stood in the doorway, for the moment like a shadow of the man he'd been. His face was sallow, his collar awry, and he had no wig upon his thin and grizzled hair. He glanced at Will, turned his eyes to Sam, and almost stumbled as he moved towards him. To Will's surprise the men embraced, and the clasp seemed set to last for ever. It was not embarrassing, precisely, but he had a vague sense of loss that was discomfiting. And overlaid with a horrified awareness that the search for Deborah was being overtaken by events they'd find far weightier.