Gibbous House 53

Naturally, consequent on earlier events, I was not disposed to sleep. Arabella Coble's entrance on the the stage of my life appeared equally naturally in my thoughts.

She was dressed appropriately for a spring day in London, although not in that particular year. It was not foolish to surmise that her apparel had spent several years in trunk in Simla or Shanghai. We were nearing the end of the decade, the woman disembarking appeared to be of my own age, or the age I purported to be. That is to say; seven and twenty. She lifted one hand to adjust a large white cap with a striped ribbon bow. Her other hand held that of a female child aged between babble and cogent conversation, and so of little interest to me or my business associate. Nonetheless, she cut a striking figure; unusually tall for a woman, she was not possessed of a fashionable silhouette for this decade, or many previous. From the dockside, I marked the usual encouraging signs of a suitable gull: head, and eyes presumably, moving to take in the full panorama of the quayside, searching for some or other expected welcome. This was ever more frequently interspersed with a heave of the shoulders indicative of great sighing. I wagered with myself that the woman would wait longer than the average time before stepping onto the dock. She did not disappoint. The bell from a nearby church had tolled two quarters before she did so.

I pondered the while how best to approach her. For older women of middle age I usually made a deep bow of greeting and presented a card. The card bore a name I no longer care to remember, I had stolen its original from a self-satisfied lawyer in Limehouse on the pretext of introducing him to a French whore. Such a fool to have followed a man he scarcely knew behind an East End tavern. Still, such lessons are hard learned, and if a fellow may not benefit from them in this life, he surely must in the next. An unscrupulous printer in the Fleet was happy enough to produce a couple of hundred examples of the card for half-a-crown - and a promise not to return to his family home.

Younger women were often less suspicious, but also inclined to mistrust over-elaborate manners. I clicked my heels like a commissioned hussar and made the briefest of inclinations for a bow:

'Captain Crawford, at your service, Ma'am. You were expecting me?'

She began a shake of her head, but stopped abruptly:

'I was expecting someone.'

She looked me up and down, seeming little impressed with my attire. I presumed that her time in the tropics had not enabled her to keep up with the latest male fashions. My wardrobe, at that time, was my greatest extravagance: I felt that I cut a fine figure that day in my red and black patterned waistcoat, russet trousers, lovat tailcoat and top hat. The acquisition of a modicum of good taste was one of the many things which I owed to my late wife.

What she said next quite took my breath away:

'However, you will have to do.'