Bernard Cornwell – 1807 09 Sharpe’s Prey

Mister Brown stared at the closed door. “‘pon my soul,” he said softly, “`pon my soul!” Here was something to tell Amelia when he got home! A scandal in the office! It had been whispered throughout London how the Lady Grace Hale, widow to a prominent man, had moved into a house with a common soldier. True, the common soldier was an officer, but not a proper officer. Not a man who had purchased his commission, but rather a sergeant who had earned a battlefield promotion, which was, in its way, entirely admirable, but even so! Lady Grace Hale, daughter of the Earl of Selby, living with a common soldier? And not just living with him, but having his baby! Or so the gossip said. The Hale family claimed the dead husband had been the child’s father and the date of the baby’s birth was conveniently within nine months of Lord William’s death, but few believed it. “I thought the name was somehow familiar,” Brown said.

“I scarcely credited it myself,” Mister Belling admitted. “Can you imagine her ladyship enduring such a man? He’s scarce more than a savage!”

“Did you note the scar on his face?”

“And when did he last shave?” Belling shuddered. “I fear he is not long for the army, Mister Brown. A curtailed career, would you not say?”

“Truncated, Mister Belling.”

“Penniless, no doubt!”

“No doubt!” Brown said. “And he carried his own pack and greatcoat! An officer doesn’t carry a pack! Never seen such a thing in all my years. And he was reeking of gin.”

“He was?”

“Reeking!” Brown said. “Well, I never! So that’s the fellow, is it? What was the Lady Grace thinking of? She must have been quite mad!” He jumped, startled because the door had been suddenly thrown open. “Mister Sharpe?” he said faintly, wondering if the tall rifleman had returned to exact vengeance for their unhelpfulness. “You forgot something, perhaps?”

Sharpe shook his head. “Today’s Friday, isn’t it?” he asked.

Mister Belling blinked. “It is, Mister Sharpe,” he said feebly, “it is.”

“Friday,” Mister Brown confirmed, “the very last day of July.”

Sharpe, dark-eyed, tall and hard-faced, stared suspiciously at each of the two men in turn, then nodded reluctantly. “I thought it was,” he said, then left again.

This time it was Brown who let out a sigh of relief as the door closed. “I cannot think,” he said, “that promoting men from the ranks is a wise idea.”

“It never lasts,” Belling said consolingly, “they ain’t suited to rank, Mister Brown, and they take to liquor and so run out of cash. There is no prudence in the lower sort of men. He’ll be on the streets within the month, rely upon it, within the month.”

“Poor fellow,” Mister Brown said and shot the door’s bolt. It was only five o’clock in the evening, and the office was supposed to remain open until six, but somehow it seemed prudent to shut up early. Just in case Sharpe came back. Just in case.

Grace, Sharpe thought, Grace. God help me, Grace. God help me. Three shillings, three pence and a bloody halfpenny, all the money he had left in the world. What do I do now, Grace? He often talked to her. She was not there to listen, not now, but he still talked to her. She had taught him so much, she had encouraged him to read and tried to make him think, but nothing lasts. Nothing. “Bloody hell, Grace,” he said aloud and men on the street gave him room, thinking him either mad or drunk. “Bloody hell.” The anger was welling inside him, thick and dark, a fury that wanted to explode in violence or else drown itself in drink. Three shillings and threepence bloody halfpenny. He could get well drunk on that, but the ale and gin he had taken at midday was already sour in his belly. What he wanted was to hurt someone, anyone. Just a blind, desperate anger.

He had not planned it this way. He thought he would come to London, borrow an advance from an army agent, and then go away. Back to India, he had thought. Other men went there poor and came back rich. Sharpe the nabob and why not? Because he could not sell his rank, that was why not. Some snotty child with a rich father could buy and sell his rank, but a real soldier who had fought his way up the ladder could not. Bugger them all. So what now? Ebenezer Fairley, the merchant who had sailed with Sharpe from India, had offered him a job, and Sharpe supposed he could walk to Cheshire and beg from the man, but he had no urge to start that journey now. He just wanted to vent his anger and so, reassured that it was indeed Friday, he walked toward the Tower. The street stank of the river, coal smoke and horse dung. There was wealth in this part of London that lay so close to the docks and to the Custom House and to the big warehouses crammed with spices, tea and silks. This was a district of counting houses, bankers and merchants, a conduit for the world’s wealth, but the money was not displayed. A few clerks hurried from one office to another, but there were no crossing sweepers and none of the signs of luxury that filled the elegant streets to the city’s west. The buildings here were tall, dark and secret, and it was impossible to tell whether the gray-haired man scuttling with a ledger under his arm was a merchant prince or a worn-out clerk.

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