Read Online Keeping Bad Company by Caro Peacock - Free Book Online Page B

compensation for his opium.’
    We walked alongside the river for a while, watching boats going up and down. The tide was out and even this early in the summer the smell was so bad that we walked back to St James’s Park. In the sweeter air by the lake he relaxed a little and sighed.
    â€˜At least it’s over now.’
    I didn’t like having to tell him about the scene between McPherson and Mr Griffiths, but it would be worse if he heard it from anyone else. I tried to play it down as much as I could, but it depressed his spirits all over again.
    â€˜It won’t help him,’ Tom said. ‘Griffiths himself has to appear before the committee on Monday. After the poison McPherson and his cronies had been spreading, what I had to tell them and now this, they’ll tear him apart.’
    â€˜I don’t think he’s so easy to tear,’ I said.
    But Tom wouldn’t be comforted. We stood for a while, watching ducks upend themselves in the water.
    â€˜So what happens to you, now you’ve given your evidence,’ I said.
    He shrugged.
    â€˜Another few weeks here, I suppose, then back to Bombay.’
    My heart lurched. Having found Tom again, I dreaded losing him.
    â€˜Only a few weeks?’
    â€˜A month perhaps. Now the other men have come all the way to England they’re in no great hurry to go back, and I suppose they’ll send me on the same ship.’
    With men he thoroughly disliked, to a career he’d probably blighted by being on Griffiths’s side.
    â€˜Must you go back? I’m sure we could find work for you here.’
    I had a few influential friends, but not many. I’d struck the wrong note and Tom frowned.
    â€˜Using my sister’s kind influence to get me a job on a clerk’s stool? No thank you. Liberty, I want to talk to you seriously.’
    I’d known this was coming, though I’d hoped it wouldn’t be today.
    â€˜Well?’
    â€˜I’ve done what you wanted. I’ve talked to Daniel Suter and Legge. I know the life you’ve been leading while I’ve been away.’
    â€˜Quite an eventful one,’ I said.
    His grave manner was sparking off the spirit of contradiction in me again, even though I felt sorry for him.
    â€˜I can see that in some cases you had no choice . . .’
    â€˜And in others I made a choice.’
    â€˜. . . and your motives have been honourable on the whole . . .’
    â€˜On the whole! I’ve never done anything that’s dishonourable.’
    â€˜I’ll accept that. But setting up to earn your living as . . . as . . .’
    He was almost choking on it.
    â€˜As a private inquiry agent,’ I said. ‘It’s more interesting than giving music lessons, though not much more profitable on the whole. Still, we live.’
    â€˜It’s got to stop, Liberty.’
    We walked on in silence for a while, and his next words were in a lower voice.
    â€˜So is there somebody in this country, Libby?’
    What could I tell him that was true? Yes, I’d thought there was somebody, only he wasn’t in this country now, probably in Athens already or beyond that for all I knew. He’d offered to marry me, only I’d thought he wasn’t sure of his own feelings and had sent him travelling. Still no letters. It was a big world, full of women, and Robert was a romantic at heart. In other circumstances I might have confided my loss, and possibly my foolishness, to Tom.
    â€˜No, not really.’
    â€˜I hoped Griffiths might have convinced you by now.’
    Naturally, I wasn’t going to tell him about his friend’s treason in this respect. I asked him if he intended to call on Mr Griffiths.
    â€˜Yes, tomorrow afternoon or Sunday. He’ll need to know what line the committee’s taking.’
    We didn’t say much more as we walked through the park and across Piccadilly to Abel Yard. We parted at the bottom of the stairs. I watched