第5章 The Circus

The Hertfordshire countryside in late November was a study in muted colours—brown fields, grey skies, the dark skeletal branches of leafless trees standing against a horizon that seemed to recede endlessly into mist. Thomas travelled by coach to Ware, a market town on the River Lea, and from there hired a gig to follow the roads that wound through the flat, water-meadowed landscape of the Lea Valley. He had spent two days in research before leaving London. The Harrington Traveling Show was not difficult to trace for a man who knew where to look. Trade directories listed the show's proprietor—a one James Harrington, proprietor of equestrian entertainments and menagerial exhibitions—at various addresses over the past two decades. Fairground licence records at the Hertfordshire quarter sessions showed that the show had held licences in Ware, Hertford, and St. Albans at various times. Most recently, a licence had been issued in the name of Harrington's Amalgamated Shows for a winter encampment on common land near the village of Bayford, some three miles north of Ware. Thomas found the encampment on a Wednesday afternoon, having followed a lane that ran through waterlogged fields and past a row of labourers' cottages with smoke curling from their chimneys. The show's winter quarters were not what he had expected. He had imagined canvas tents and wagons, the romantic paraphernalia of the traveling life. What he found instead was a collection of wooden huts and converted barns arranged around a muddy yard, with a large covered ring at the centre and a menagerie of horses, dogs, and—somewhat to his surprise—a pair of bears chained to a post at the far end of the yard. The place was quiet. The performing season was over, and the company was in its winter quarters, repairing equipment, training new animals, and preparing for the spring campaign. A few people moved about the yard—a man leading a horse to the water trough, a woman hanging laundry on a line strung between two huts, a child chasing a dog through the mud. They looked at Thomas with the wary curiosity of people unaccustomed to visitors. He found James Harrington in the largest of the huts, a structure that served as both office and living quarters. Harrington was a large man of sixty or more, with a florid face, a magnificent white moustache, and the bearing of a man who had spent his life commanding the attention of audiences. He was sitting at a desk covered with papers and account books, and he looked up when Thomas entered with an expression that combined suspicion with professional hospitality. Good afternoon, sir. I am James Harrington, proprietor of Harrington's Amalgamated Shows. To what do I owe the pleasure? Thomas introduced himself and explained, as carefully as he could, that he was a solicitor acting in a matter of inheritance and that he was seeking information about a woman who had been associated with the show some thirty years ago. He used the word solicitor rather than barrister because he suspected that the former carried more practical weight in this context. Harrington listened with an expression that grew increasingly guarded. When Thomas had finished, the showman leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. Marie, he said. You are asking about Marie. I am. You knew her? I knew her. She was my niece—my sister's daughter. A fine rider, one of the best I ever trained. She left the show some thirty years ago, went off with a gentleman—a gentleman of quality, though she never told me his name. I did not see her again for perhaps five years, and then she wrote to me from France. She was well, she said. She had a boy. But she did not come back. And the boy? Leonardo? Harrington's expression shifted. You know the boy's name. I have reason to believe that the boy is connected to a matter I am investigating. A matter of considerable importance. The showman studied Thomas for a long moment, his dark eyes assessing, calculating. Then he stood and walked to the door of the hut. Come, he said. There is someone you should meet. He led Thomas across the yard to the covered ring, a large circular structure with a sawdust floor and wooden benches arranged around the perimeter. In the centre of the ring, a young man was practising. He was performing on a tightrope—a rope stretched between two posts at a height of perhaps fifteen feet. He moved along the rope with a grace that was almost supernatural, his body balanced with a precision that defied the laws of physics. He carried a long balancing pole, and as he walked, he performed a series of turns and leaps that would have made Thomas's heart stop if he had been inclined to such things. But Thomas was not inclined to such things. He was watching the young man with the analytical eye of a man who was looking for something specific. What he saw was this: the young man was perhaps thirty years of age, tall and lean, with dark hair that fell to his shoulders and a face that was striking without being conventionally handsome. His features were strong—high cheekbones, a firm jaw, a mouth that was set in an expression of intense concentration. His eyes were grey. Grey, like the Pemberton family. His build was athletic but elegant, the build of a man who had spent his life in physical training. And there was something about the way he moved—a certain economy of gesture, a natural authority—that spoke of breeding, even in a man who had been raised in a circus. The young man completed his traverse of the rope, leapt to the ground with the lightness of a cat, and turned to face them. He saw Harrington and nodded, then his eyes fell on Thomas, and something flickered across his face—curiosity, wariness, and something else that Thomas could not name. Leo, Harrington said, this is a gentleman from London. He has questions about your mother. The young man's expression hardened. My mother is dead. She died twelve years ago, in France. I am sorry to hear it. But I am not here to trouble you about the past. I am here because I believe your mother's history is connected to a matter of considerable legal importance. Leo—Leonardo—crossed his arms and regarded Thomas with the direct, unflinching gaze of a man who had learned to read intentions the way other men read books. What kind of legal importance? Thomas hesitated. He had rehearsed this moment in his mind a dozen times during the journey from London, but now that it was here, he found himself uncertain. The truth was extraordinary—so extraordinary that it might sound like a fabrication, a cruel deception, a trick. But Thomas had learned, in his years at the Bar, that the truth was often extraordinary, and that the only way to deal with it was directly. I believe, he said, that your mother was the companion of Arthur Pemberton, the late Earl of Pemberton. And I believe that you may be his son. The silence that followed was absolute. The horses in the menagerie shifted in their stalls. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. Leo stood motionless, his arms still crossed, his face unreadable. Then he laughed. It was a short, bitter sound. The Earl of Pemberton. My mother told me many things, sir, but she never told me that my father was an earl. Your mother may have had reasons for keeping that information from you. My mother kept many things from me. But she told me my father was a gentleman who could not stay. That is all I know, and all I care to know. Thomas nodded. He had expected this reaction—denial, anger, dismissal. It was the natural response of a man who had built his life on a certain understanding of his origins and was now being asked to reconsider everything. I understand your scepticism, Thomas said. But I ask you to consider the possibility that I am telling the truth. If you are the son of the late earl, you have a claim—potentially—to his title and his estate. A claim that is currently being contested by a man who may not be the rightful heir. Leo's eyes narrowed. And what do you gain from this? Why are you here, telling me these things? I gain nothing. I am a barrister, engaged by the executor of the estate to investigate the truth. I have found evidence—letters, a ring, a baptismal record—that suggests a connection between your mother and the earl. I am here to determine whether that connection is real. And if it is? Then we must prove it. In a court of law, if necessary. Leo stared at him for a long moment. Then he turned to Harrington, who had been watching the exchange with an expression of profound unease. Uncle, Leo said quietly, is this man telling the truth? Harrington sighed. I believe he is, lad. Or at least, he believes it himself. Your mother—she never told me the man's name. But she told me he was a gentleman of quality. And she kept his letters, even after she burned everything else. Leo turned back to Thomas. His face was composed, but his hands were clenched at his sides, and Thomas could see the tension in his jaw. You say you have evidence. Show me. Thomas opened his portfolio and produced the letter from Marie, the receipt from the silversmiths, and the scrap of the baptismal certificate. Leo took them with hands that trembled slightly, and he read them in silence. When he looked up, his eyes were bright with something that might have been tears, though no tears fell. I need time, he said. Of course. But I must warn you—time is not something we have in abundance. Sir Julian Pemberton is already consolidating his position. If we do not act soon, he will make the matter irreversible. Leo nodded slowly. He looked at the letter in his hands—the last surviving words of a woman who had been his mother, who had loved a man she could not keep, who had raised a child in the sawdust rings and canvas tents of a traveling show. When do we leave? he asked. ---