Marley Read online

  “I have my own people,” Marley says.

  “And are they known to me?”

  “You’ve surely heard of them, but doing business with them is beyond your reach. Without my assistance, that is.”

  Monteverdi sniffs. “I know everyone in the Americas. Everyone up to Mr. Washington himself, and he is president.”

  “Jefferson is president now.”

  “I likewise know him well.” His eye drifts toward the wine bottle.

  “That’s all very fine, but Jefferson isn’t your man. He has other things on his mind. The people I’m talking about, my people, stand ready to help you.”

  “And the names of your people?”

  Marley has been anticipating this question, and in inventing their names he has gone for the biblical. “Bildad and Peleg,” he says.

  “Ah,” says Monteverdi. “I have heard reports of them, and yet I have somehow not made their acquaintance.”

  Marley nods. “And the reports that you’ve heard?”

  “Sir, they are without flaw!”

  “As I’d imagined. Their reputations are pure sterling. Untarnished.”

  Monteverdi nods, as proud of the fictional Bildad and Peleg as if he’d invented them himself. “Tell me, are these men located in Fort Albany?”

  “Never,” says Marley. “They aren’t some newly arrived northern opportunists. They’re staunch colonial gentlemen of the Quaker faith, believers in God and champions of fair commerce, and their base of operations is within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Upon the island of Nantucket, to be precise.”

  Monteverdi gawps. “The Nantucket Quakers are very brave men. They hunt the sperm whale, no?”

  “Indeed they do. And many of them work aboard ships that are owned and run by that selfsame Bildad and Peleg. My men. Our men. Your men.”

  Monteverdi beams. “Have you perhaps a corkscrew at the ready?”

  Eight

  Taking full advantage of Sr. Monteverdi will require a network of greater complexity and scale than any that Marley has previously constructed. He could go through the old channels, of course—the shadow companies he’s already established, the various flesh-and-blood customs agents and harbormasters and maritime insurers he’s co-opted in both London and Liverpool. But this is to be an international operation, expansive in reach and impenetrable in nature, and it demands the very best of him. He warms to its possibilities.

  He does wish, though, that he could involve Scrooge from the start. The man would be a great help in this sort of work, had he an ounce of imagination. Old Scrooge could surely tie arithmetical knots that no one—be he auditor or deckhand—could ever untangle, if only he weren’t so damned practical about everything. But each man has his limitations, and confinement by the facts—whether real or manufactured—is chief among Scrooge’s. It will be best for Marley to concoct the whole affair as usual, to map out the entire labyrinth, and then turn it over to Scrooge once the money starts to come in.

  Those phantom Quakers, Bildad and Peleg, will be the key to everything. He leases them one of the larger offices at his disposal, purchasing a new suite of ruined furnishings from Wegg and lettering the details upon the door:

  BILDAD & PELEG

  NANTUCKET, MASS

  INT’L CONVEYANCE & MARITIME MGMT

  LONDON OFFICE

  Soon enough the firm is equipped with bank accounts and legal representation and a full complement of the required licenses. Some of the banks and law firms involved are actual London establishments where Marley and his fictive companies have done business before, whether or not the institutions retain any record of it. The rest are entirely new inventions, purpose-built in support of the sham known as Bildad & Peleg. If Monteverdi could witness the labor required to establish an operation of this scope and complexity, he might sympathize and make Marley the silent partner that he will make himself before long.

  As the days turn into weeks and the edifice of misdirection takes shape, Marley asks himself why he has not previously considered using companies based on foreign soil. They provide a freedom that he has never known before. The barrier of time between England and America alone is a godsend. Anything can happen—anything at all—in the six or eight weeks it takes for information to make the crossing. Cargoes can disappear, inventories can be altered, entire legal entities can come and go. Nonetheless, international trade does impose certain unavoidable realities. There are friends to be made on the ground in the United States, allies to be enlisted, officials to be bribed. And so he resolves to undertake a voyage there himself. He does not consult Monteverdi. On the contrary, his goals require that he slip away without the Italian’s knowledge, leaving behind a series of elaborate alibis that Scrooge may employ to account for his long absence.

  Fan, however, is another matter. “Take me with you,” she says right off. “It will be an adventure.”

  “Alas,” says Marley, “I shall have no time for adventures.”

  “Then I shall be your secretary.”

  “I do not require one.” For the fewer explanations he must give, the better.

  “In that case,” she says with a smoky gleam in her eye, “I shall simply be your traveling companion.”

  The idea tempts Marley and very nearly sways him until he remembers the many kinds of female companions with whom he may arrange to associate in the months ahead. French women and English women and American women, seagoing adventuresses of flexible morality, grieving widows in desperate need of consolation, unattached heiresses green in judgment, dark Indian maidens fresh from the tipi and smelling of earth, woodsmoke, and animal musk.

  “Perhaps,” he says, catching his breath, “rather than rushing into some ill-conceived ocean voyage together, we should take a longer view. I shall be returning home in May, and at that time I believe we ought to begin planning our lives together.” He does not even know himself if he means this—there is so much time between now and then, and so much distance between here and there, and so much possibility roundabout—but it has the desired effect of shocking her out of her momentary insistence.

  “Are you—are you proposing marriage?”

  Marley conjures a mysterious smile. “I am proposing that we consider whether I ought to propose marriage.”

  “You make things far too complex.”

  “All of life is complex.”

  “Besides,” she says, beaming, “I already know the answer.”

  “Don’t rush,” he teases.

  “Oh, Jacob.” She stands on her toes and leans toward him with her eyes closed and her lips parted for a kiss, but he stops her with the touch of a finger.

  “You have until May to make up your mind.”

  “May.”

  “May. Let us say nothing more of it until then, not to anyone, for I would sooner die than undertake an ocean voyage without my betrothed.”

  Thus he leaves her both uncommitted and entirely content.

  Thus he will he be free over the next few months to acquaint himself with the world beyond London and Liverpool. By the time he arrives home, the broad Atlantic will have become to him nothing but a great washtub, within which every kind of sin may be cleansed forever from the record.

  Nine

  Fort Albany

  Hudson’s Bay

  Canada

  March 18, 1806

  My dearest Scrooge:

  Greetings from the New World!

  Our work here proceeds on Schedule and to encouraging Effect. Although Trade in this locale is dominated by the Hudson’s Bay Company, I can assure you that there remain many Opportunities for the smaller Enterprise to Profit—a Circumstance that has no doubt been capitalized upon by our Sr. Monteverdi.

  He is a bit secretive in his affairs, no question of that, a Tendency which surely goes with operating a profitable Business in the shadow of a Competitor of enormous Size and Influence. Under these Conditions it is wise to maintain but a modest Presence upon the Field of Battle. All in all he is widely if
not well known to men in these parts, who consider him Honest if a bit “Sharp” in his dealings. Some have found him too “Sharp” indeed, and have indicated by small Signs that they may be induced to conspire against the Italian so as to recover some of their losses. I have learned from these Gentlemen, and have devised ways to Capitalize upon all matters as fully as possible.

  So as to doubly Insulate the firm of Scrooge & Marley from any potential Loss or Legal Action, I have been traveling and conducting Business under the identity of Mr. Wilkins Micawber of Boston, legal representative of a certain Mr. Elijah Peleg of Nantucket. It is to this Micawber—care of the Bank named upon the reverse—that I request you to send an additional £15,000 in notes upon the next reliable ship to make the Crossing. These funds shall go toward unexpected Investment Opportunities as well as the necessary Lubrication of certain Individuals so as to ensure their support of our Interests. Have no Fear: I am keeping careful Records and will provide a full and accurate Accounting upon my return.

  You will find a portion of the Resources secured within a Lockbox concealed in the lower drawer of the small desk in the Office of Squeers & Trotter, second floor, number 3. The remainder may be found within the sliding panel just behind the cabinet in the Office of Mr. Pecksniff, third floor, number 5. The keys are located in their usual Spot.

  With kind personal Regards, I remain,

  Yours truly,

  Jacob S. Marley

  Ten

  Scrooge has his hands full in Marley’s absence. In addition to his bookkeeping duties, he must each day follow a highly detailed set of instructions inscribed by his partner’s hand in a stack of coded notebooks that positively bristle with arcana: currency conversion tables, addresses and transactions both real and fabricated, names and aliases of a sprawling universe of contacts, floor plans of buildings actual and imaginary, timetables of ships’ arrivals and departures, maps as inscrutable as the furtive handiwork of any treasure-hoarding pirate. Certain of the most sensitive data is written in a disappearing ink of Marley’s own making, highly flammable yet visible only by the brief but close application of a candle flame. Portions of his March 18 letter have been inscribed in just such ink, and Scrooge barely has time to read them before the entire page goes up, very nearly taking the warehouse with it.

  He wishes that he could hire an assistant, some clerk who could take over at least a portion of the record-keeping. But how would he ever explain the twists and turns of the systems upon which Scrooge & Marley’s books depend? More to the point, how would he explain the need for any of it? There will, no doubt, come a time for such things—of this he is certain. He may be full of vigor and sound of memory now, but one day his energy and his mind will begin to falter. Inspired by that notion, he begins in his few idle moments to concoct a means by which he might separate some of the simplest bookkeeping from the most sensitive information. One day, he thinks—one day I shall have a clerk.

  In the meantime, he carries on. Belle sees precious little of him, and when they do meet he is distracted, weary, even snappish. “It’s unfair of Jacob to burden you so,” she says as she unpacks a picnic hamper upon a cloth spread out upon Marley’s desk. If she cannot get Scrooge out into the open air, this will have to do.

  Scrooge is still scribbling away at his desk in the other room. “It’s all for the good of the partnership,” he says.

  “Marley gets to enjoy a voyage to America, and you get to take on his work.” She comes and stands in the doorway, arms crossed and hip cocked. “To my way of thinking, that’s good for only one-half of the partnership.”

  “Now, now, Belle. It’s for a short while only.”

  There is consolation in his voice, but when he looks up she can see upon his face the markings of his toil. His brow is seamed, his eyes are sunken, and his hair—drawn back into his customary pigtail—has begun a long retreat from his forehead. He looks to her like the very ghost of himself, come back from the future to provide her with a warning.

  She goes to him and softly takes the pen from his hand. “Oh, Ebenezer,” she says, laying it aside and placing a hand upon his. “There is more to life than bookkeeping.”

  He harrumphs, that irritable old haunt, armed with his own counsel about what might lie ahead.

  “There is, in fact, more to life than Scrooge & Marley.”

  He draws his lips into a deep frown. “Scrooge & Marley is a bulwark against the workhouse.”

  She tightens her grasp upon his hand and draws it toward her, taking a single tentative step back to remind him of the picnic lunch waiting in Marley’s office. “Come,” she says.

  He shakes his head like an old horse. “I have no time.”

  “Jacob has time to go to America. You have time to eat.”

  “I dare not let a moment slip past unaccounted for. I certainly have no time for pleasures.” He reaches for his pen once more.

  “You sound like a Calvinist.”

  “I am not a religious man.”

  “I know. You’ve been absent enough from the choir.”

  “My apologies to Mr. Carstone and Mr. Gradgrind.”

  She draws his hand nearer her breast and fastens her eyes upon his. “Also to me, I should hope.”

  Something within him awakens. His free hand leaves off in its search for the pen and falls abruptly to his side. He rises to his feet. “I am sorry,” he says.

  “For missing choir practice?”

  “For everything.”

  “That’s better. But perhaps you could be more specific.”

  “I—”

  “You’re a bookkeeper,” she says, a playful glow breaking over her face and illuminating it. “A full enumeration might be in order.”

  “An enumeration of my sins, you mean.”

  “Of your regrets. We don’t have all day, after all.”

  They step into Marley’s office, where she has laid out a luncheon of cold roast beef and boiled potatoes and pickled beets, with two slices of apple pie for dessert and hot tea to wash it all down.

  He halts, stricken as a lost woodsman stumbling into the banquet hall of some monstrous king. “You are altogether too kind to me,” he says.

  “Is that one of your regrets?”

  His eyes brim. “That you are so kind? Not at all. That I have failed to notice it until now? Yes.”

  “Wonderful,” she says. “You’ve made a fine start.” She reaches to pick up a plate but notices as he hesitates, lost in thought and bending back a finger, apparently having come up with another personal shortcoming to add to the list. She laughs and reaches out and enfolds his hand in hers. “That’s enough for now, Ebenezer.”

  And he looks at her, and he sees that it is.

  * * *

  The very next day he visits Belle’s father with the aim of requesting her hand in marriage. He is not rebuffed, but neither is he welcomed without hesitation.

  “Belle speaks of you often,” says old Mr. Fairchild, ensconced in a deep armchair with his pipe going.

  “She does,” echoes Mrs. Fairchild from the depths of the adjoining parlor. “She surely does.”

  “Mother,” says Fairchild with a cough, “Mr. Scrooge has come to speak with me.”

  “Of course. Don’t let me interrupt,” she says.

  Fairchild sucks at his pipe. “Go on, then, Mr. Scrooge. Finish your thought.”

  “Oh, I was quite finished,” says Scrooge. “In fact, I believe you were saying…”

  “Was I saying something? I’m afraid I don’t recall.”

  “What you were saying”—from the parlor—“is that Belle speaks of Mr. Scrooge quite often.”

  “Ah, yes. She does. Often.”

  Scrooge clears his throat. “I hope that she speaks of me in good terms.”

  “As good terms as possible, I would say.” His pipe has failed, and he draws hard upon the stem.

  Scrooge waits for clarification. He knows Fairchild’s opinion as to the decency of his investments, but he would like to he
ar it from the man himself.

  Fairchild withdraws a tool from his pocket and begins burrowing in the pipe bowl, hot embers showering down onto his upholstered chair.

  Scrooge watches, his nose atwitch, awaiting either a sudden catastrophic fire or some further clarification from Fairchild. When neither proves forthcoming and Fairchild’s pipe is back in business at last, he finds that he can wait no longer. “You say she speaks of me in terms ‘as good as possible.’ Has she reservations?”

  “Belle? No.”

  “Have you?”

  “Perhaps. I am older than she is, of course. Wiser, and more experienced. And I have her best interests at heart.”

  “Do you doubt my ability to support her?”

  Fairchild scoffs. “You are wealthy enough and getting wealthier, by all accounts.”

  “I could provide references, if you like. Accounts, holdings, histories…”

  “You need not. You seem to have heaped up sufficient treasure of the earthly variety, if not the heavenly.”

  Scrooge pulls at his lip. “Then do you judge my character to be of insufficient quality?”

  Fairchild sniffs and waves his pipe in a circuit that takes in his family’s rooms, the stables below, the entire doomed arrangement. “A gentleman in my circumstances can make few claims or demands as to quality. I should be fortunate if my daughters can keep a roof over their heads after I have gone to my grave.”

  “Then it must be the source of my funds to which you object.”

  Fairchild nods.

  “The source of a portion of my funds, to be precise.”

  “Let us not quibble.”

  Scrooge keeps on. “I have heard,” he says, “that you disapprove of certain cargo.”

  “Ceasing to call men ‘cargo’ would be a fine start toward repairing your reputation, Mr. Scrooge.”

  “I have a reputation for rectitude and probity.”