The Confusion

Eliza had only just returned to the carriage and was still smoothing her skirts down. She’d been in there for an hour and twelve minutes. Ten minutes’ waiting would have made Ravenscar impatient; twenty, apoplectic. Seventy-two had put him through the full gamut of emotional states known to mortal man, as well as a few normally reserved for angels and devils. Now, he was spent, drained. Though perhaps just a bit apprehensive that she would want to go on some other errand next.

“Yes, my lord?”

“The fellow had-well, I don’t know, a bit of a startled look about him. Perhaps ’twas just my imagination.”

“Mind your toes!” This warning came simultaneously from Eliza, and from one of Ravenscar’s footmen, who had carried a box up the wee stairs behind Eliza and thrust it inside; its weight overbore his strength, and it crashed onto the floor, making the carriage rock and bounce up and down for a while on its springs. One of the horses whinnied in protest. “Where shall I place the others, madame?” he inquired.

“There are more!?” exclaimed Ravenscar.

“Ten more, yes.”

“What are we-pardon me, you-going to do with so much, er…did you say ten? Please tell me it is copper.”

Eliza flipped the lid open with her toe to reveal more freshly minted silver pennies than the Marquis of Ravenscar had seen in one place in years. He responded in the only way fitting: with absolute silence. Meanwhile his driver answered the question for him.

“Not load it on this coach, guv’nor, the suspension won’t hold.” The driver was struggling to settle the exhausted horses, who had sensed that the carriage was rapidly getting heavier. Another crash sounded from the shelf in the back, causing the vehicle to pitch nose up, and then another on the roof, which began to bulge downward and emit ominous ticks.

“Summon a hackney!” commanded the Marquis, and then swiveled his eyes back to Eliza, imploring her to answer his question.

“What am I going to do with it?”

“Yes.”

“Sell it, I suppose, at the same time as you are selling yours. It is rather more pocket-money than I shall be requiring during my stay in your city. Though I should very much like to go to the West End later, and go-what is the word they use for it now?”

“I believe the word you are looking for is ‘shopping,’ madame.”

“Yes, shopping. The money, of course, belongs to the King of France. But, gentleman that he is, he would never begrudge me the loan of a few pounds sterling so that I might change into a new dress.”

“Nor would I, madame,” said Ravenscar, “if it came to that-but le Roi, it goes without saying, has precedence.” Ravenscar swallowed. “It is a remarkable coincidence.”

“What coincidence, my lord?”

More jingling crashes came to their ears from just behind, where a hackney had pulled up, and was being laden with more strong-boxes. The sound was enormously distracting to Ravenscar, who struggled to keep stringing words together. “Our route to the lovely shops of the West End shall take us past Apthorp’s, where-”

“Oh, that’s right. You wish to put your silver on the market. Not yet.”

“Not yet!?”

“Think of a ship’s captain, sailing into battle, guns charged and ready to let go a broadside. If he loses his nerve, and fires too soon, the balls fall short of their target, and splash into the water, and he looks a fool. Worse, he is not afforded the opportunity to re-load. It is like that now.”

Ravenscar did not seem convinced.

“After our epistolary flirtation, which I did enjoy so much,” Eliza tried, “I should be crestfallen if I journeyed all the way to London only to find that you were a premature ejaculator.”

“Really! Madame! I do not know how the ladies discourse in France, but here in England-”

“Oh, stop it. ’Twas a figure of speech, nothing more.”

“And not a very accurate one, by your leave; for more is at stake here than you seem to know!”

“I know precisely what’s at stake, my lord.” Here Eliza was distracted by some activity without. A man had emerged from the door of the House of Hacklheber, dressed as if about to embark on a voyage, and was signalling for a hackney. There was no lack of these, as word seemed to have spread that coins were falling from the sky hereabouts. Within moments the fellow was on his way.

“Was that one of the shouting Germans?” Ravenscar inquired.

Eliza met his eye. “You could hear them all the way out here?” Then she tilted her head out the window to watch.

“Madame, I could have heard them from Wales. What were they on about?”

Eliza was crooking her finger at someone outside, then nodding as if to say, yes, I mean you, sirrah! Presently a face appeared in the window: a hackney-driver, hat in hands. “Follow yonder German until he gets on a boat. Watch the boat until you can’t see it any more. Go to-what did you call your Den of Iniquity, my lord?”

“The Nag’s Head.”

“Go to the Nag’s Head and leave word for the Marquis that his ship has come in. Someone there will then give you more of these.” Eliza blindly scooped some coins out of her strong-box and slapped them into the driver’s hat.