Chapter 7

Jules and the two Americans got along extraordinarily well. "We shared dinner together and went to the new museum of natural science to see exhibits," he reported to Rebecca when he returned to Phileas's home. "The brothers were as fascinated with it all as I was. We spent the day discussing the samples, debating the conclusions made by the original naturalists until closing time. They knew a lot about the bird exhibits. They claimed to have done some feather hunting before the recent war. Matt brought a mislabeled exhibit to the attention of a curator. I am to meet them later this afternoon."

Jules met the brothers at their hotel for supper. The food was good, but the neighborhood's atmosphere had been unmistakably lowbrow. Verne's friends in Paris had given him the grand tour of the pleasure districts several times when he had first come to Paris. Jules considered Vauxhall Gardens an English version of the same. He could tell it had once been upscale, but now the garden area was for meeting and coupling, if one was bold enough. Gaming houses and brothels were everywhere.

They lead him to a gambling establishment down the street. On the outside it was nothing to look at, but inside, Jules found it nearly as opulent as the exclusive clubs Fogg had taken him to in Monte Carlo. The décor was tasteful, if a bit worn, but the wine flowed freely. Bejeweled, finely gowned women gave the place glitter. The ladies greeted guests, led them to tables, and escorted men up and down the grand staircase.

Matt headed to a room set aside for cards. He looked behind him, seeing Jules lagging in their wake. "You like poker?"

Jules looked at the tables. "I know of the game but have never played."

"Oh, sorry about that," Matt said. "We should have asked before bringing you in here. Would you like to learn?"

When Jules agreed, Matt led the way to an unoccupied table where a lady dealer, dressed in red and rubies, was sitting alone, shuffling cards. "Your pardon, we want to teach our friend how to play."

The lady accepted a small stack of pound notes for her time and the lessons began.

The Ridgemont's explained the game and played four hands, facing up, until Jules could tell a winning hand from a losing one. Then they played several hands, with Matt giving him advice. After an hour, Matt added money to the mix. By midnight, Jules found his feet and was winning handily.

You're faking us, aren't you? Mark said. "Are you sure you are just learning to play?"

Matt laughed when Jules sputtered a defense. "Beginner's luck is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't last. Watch how much you play. If you catch on this fast at other games, I may make you my partner."

"Partner?"

"Other games are played in pairs," Matt said. "When we settle at Cambridge, I was planning on looking up the whist club."

Mark folded his hand and watched as his brother and Jules played. "Matt is the family card shark. He perfected his skills under his namesake's lessons. Uncle Matt never had the pious outlook our father did. He runs a steamship around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. We worked with him summers since we were old enough to be cabin boys. During the war, we ran cotton with him back and forth from Galveston."

"And a more miserable kind of work you have never seen," Matt said, sourly frowning. "Working as a deckhand is no fun to begin with, but during the war, we sailed in the most godforsaken weather that came along. Thick fog banks, rain, thunderstorms…"

"If we hadn't, we would have been shot out of the water," Mark reminded his brother.

"True, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with," Matt said. "I was swept over the side more times than I care to count."

Matt ended Jules's winning streak, taking a hand. "That hurricane Uncle Matt insisted on riding still makes me shudder."

Mark didn't attempt to justify that. He shuddered inside at the memory, too.

Matt accepted his next hand. "Once we get home again, I'm going to put a ship's oar in a wagon and head inland. I won't stop until somebody asks me what it is. I don't want to see a body of water I can't see the other side of ever again."

"That won't make Uncle Matt happy," Mark had said, grinning at the thought. "I think he plans to make you his heir."

"I know he does," Matt said. "He can if he wants to, but I won't ship out. He is better off handing it over to you. You at least enjoy island hopping."

"Me?" Mark looked up, surprised, grinning more at the nearly full house in Jules's hand. "I am not his namesake, and I have no head for ledgers. There is too much bookwork in shipping for me. Smuggling and prowling the Caribbean during the war was fun for a while, but I don't want any part of being a cargo ferry."

"What do you plan to do, then?" Jules said.

Twin brown eyes wearing similar expressions met across the table. Their mother had made an education their pay for working with their uncle during the war. That obligated them to four years of study in England. After that, who knew what might wait for them in America? Four years of lectures traded for four years of backbreaking work on a steamship did not quite seem a fair exchange, but their opinions hadn't been asked for.

"Mother wants us to be preachers," Mark said. "Uncle Matt wants at least one of us to take over his ship. I don't really know what I want, but it isn't the sea or the pulpit."

Matt folded his hand. "All I want is a chance to talk to that redhead over there who's been eyeing me for the last two hands. Time to introduce myself."

Matt stood, walking to the young hostess with bright copper hair wearing a dark green gown and sparkling emeralds.

Mark watched Jules rake in his winnings. They peeped at Matt's hand.

Jules winced. "My winning streak is over." He yawned. "I should leave. It's late."

"Where are you staying?" Mark asked.

"With a friend in the city," Jules said. "He has a townhouse on Savile Row. Could we get together again another day?"

"I would like that," Mark scooping up his own winnings, leading Jules to the cashier's desk. "There is a lot of this old city to see. Good company is always welcome. We have to go see a business friend of our uncle's tomorrow. Could you meet us at the entrance of the city library tomorrow, around one o'clock?"

"I will be there," Jules said.

Jules left, intending to walk back to Fogg's house. The streets around the hotel were still full. Jules negotiated his way around the crowds in the general direction of the district's edge. Not a block away, a carriage pulled up beside him. The door opened, and Jules, always wary of the sudden appearance of carriages, stiffened.

"On your way home, Jules?"

Jules relaxed at the sound of Fogg's voice. He let out his held breath and jumped in. "I hope you have not been waiting for me."

"Not exactly," Fogg said. "No, I was at the Reform Club until half an hour ago. Rebecca told me where you and your new friends were. I came expecting you to be heading back. How was your day?"

"It went well for a babysitting job," Verne said of it. "Those two are about my brother Paul's age. They go for the same sort of entertainment he does when not with the French Navy. If it is of any use to you, they are meeting with a business partner of their uncle's tomorrow, before one o'clock. Their uncle runs a steamship involved in blockade running during the war. This meeting might be what Rebecca is waiting for."

"It might indeed," Fogg said. "They told you about this uncle's war trade?"

"A little," Jules said. "They worked with him on the ship the whole time. Matt is his uncle's namesake. They mentioned running cotton past the blockades, told me about sailing through storms."

"I worked on an uncle's ship before university," Jules said with another yawn. "Not an easy way to make a living. It cured me of any romantic ideas I had of running off to the sea. I can't imagine sailing under the conditions they spoke of."

"I have read of it, yes," Phileas said. "Before leaving the service, the arms trade to America interested me. The blockade-runners, like pirates and privateers, sailed under the worst weather possible to escape detection. And made handsome profits."

They stopped talking after a while, each tired, dosing.

Phileas slouched in his seat. He had closed his eyes. He mused about his own romantic notions about the sea when young. I never had the leisure to indulge it beyond learning how to navigate a small yacht. Having sailed as a passenger across the Mediterranean several times and around the horn to India and China in Her Majesty's service, He had experienced storms that were enough to cure him as well.

Jules roused himself a few blocks from the house. "Oh, they said they are expected to return to America after school and either become ministers for their mother or to take over their uncle's ship. Matt and Mark like neither idea, but do not have any other preferences."

"The way of all sons," Fogg said, drifting into unwelcome thoughts. His family had been in the crown's service for generations. Unofficially, he still was. Phileas's one act of defiance against expectations had been to study engineering instead of law. Yet, he had become an agent despite it. Even after turning his back on his father's world, his legacy hounded him. "They offered me father's office upon his death. The Prime Minister himself, as if it were a bequeath." He said, more to himself than Jules.

Jules heard what he said, also lost in troubling thoughts. The Ridgemont's situation mirrored his, trapped in expectations just as they were. His father intended him to be a lawyer, as he was, and his father and his father had been. Jules wondered occasionally if he were really a Verne for how little the law interested him.

"The way of all sons," Fogg had said.

What a depressing thought.

Jules settled into his side of the carriage, waiting for it to stop, keeping his mind as far from that unfriendly thought as possible.