Death at St. James's Palace (10 page)

The crush in Pall Mall, even though there was still some time before the levee proper was due to begin, was considerable. Carriages moving at a snail’s pace were edging forward to join the queue which had formed at the gates leading to the walkway. Postillions were leaping about, pulling down steps to allow passengers, all dressed to the zenith, to alight onto the specially swept cobbles. Huge feathered headdresses, quite the latest thing in high fashion, bobbed dangerously as ladies in mighty gowns minced forward on tottering heels. Gentlemen from the professional classes, looking uncomfortable in stiff new clothes, attempted to strike a note of decorum. Whereas the bucks and the blades vyed with each other as to the amount of gems stitched upon their waistcoats, the number of curls flouncing on their wigs and who could have the most fantastical shape of patch worn upon his face. One demi-rip, alighting with a look of disdain from his carriage, boasted a galleon, a coach and horses and a cupid upon one cheek, a sickle moon, several stars and an arrow on the other.

“Look at ‘im,” shouted an urchin in the crowd, at which the young man waved his beribboned great stick at the miscreant, tripped over the cobbles and nearly fell over, much to the delight of the onlookers.

A plain coach that John recognised drew to a halt, having finally reached the top of the queue, and Joe Jago, garbed to wonderment, jumped out and pulled down the steps. He was followed by Mary Ann, daintily shod and dressed like the little beauty she was, her dark hair not powdered but adorned with the brightest and cheekiest feathers that the Apothecary could remember seeing. And then, resplendent in a flowing cloak and truly mighty wig topped by a tricorne with flashing buckle fixed to the left cock, there stepped out John Fielding himself. Joe Jago guided him downwards, then offered his arm.

A cheer went up, for the onlookers knew who he was and that he delivered rough but fair justice, and there was a cry of, “There’s the Blind Beak.” In response, the Magistrate doffed his magnificent hat towards the crowd, and there was another cry of “Good fellow.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to watch from the coach after all,” said Emilia. “They’re all being directed onwards to make way.”

“Well I don’t want you on your own in the crowd.”

“I’ll be with Nicholas and the servants. Anyway, there’s Samuel, look!”

And she pointed to where John’s old friend, head and shoulders above the throng, was making his way towards the gates, cheering as he went.

Another coach, very fine indeed, drew to the head of theline and Miss Chudleigh, fashionable from frills to feet, emerged, sauntering into the palace as if it were her rightful abode. Then eventually, after several more parties had made their way within, it was the Apothecary’s turn. Nicholas, who had travelled with his master, jumped out and pulled down the steps personally, then made a low bow. John, very deeply honoured, stepped into the street and for the first time in his life felt something of what it must be like to be truly rich and famous, attending palaces and great functions, gaped at by a staring multitude. He turned back to look at Emilia who was waving to him out of the window. John raised his hat to her, then proceeded at a measured pace down the walkway to the entrance.

A pageboy stepped forward. “Your card, Sir.”

“I do not have one. I am with Mr. John Fielding’s party. He is just there ahead of me.”

The boy bowed. “If you will wait a moment, Sir, I will go and check.”

“Very well.”

The page looked solemn and added apologetically, “We are instructed to monitor all visitors, Sir.”

He was a very strange little chap, John thought, thin to the point of emaciation, with a hollow haggard face and listless eyes, not at all suitable for a child of his age. In fact there was something so haunting about the boy that John found himself studying him with more attention than he would normally have paid such a creature.

Walking rather slowly, the page made his way into the palace, into a long reception hall, lined on both sides with sofas on which several people had already taken seats. He obviously was not certain who John Fielding was, for the Apothecary observed him pluck at the sleeve of another boy and whisper something into his ear. The other page, dressed in livery and with a white wig, as were they all, glanced over. A fleeting impression that he had seen the larger, older boy before came over John strongly, but a second later whenhe looked again, both children had vanished into the throng.

The wizened little page finally reappeared. “Are you Mr. Rawlings, Sir?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Fielding is expecting you. I am so sorry for the inconvenience. Please to come in.”

Handing him his cloak and hat, John entered St. James’s Palace.

The reception hall, even though thronging with people, could be seen to have the most elegant lines, running as it did along the side of one of the old Tudor courts. John gazed with approval at mirrors and candlesticks and splendid furnishings as he made his way to where the Blind Beak sat on a sofa, waiting the moment when the levee would begin and they would be called upon to climb the stairs to the state apartments.

Joe Jago, standing guard over the Magistrate and keeping up a running commentary as to who was present while Mary Ann burbled on about the cutting fashions of the
beau monde,
turned at the Apothecary’s approach.

“You look very splendid, Sir.”

“As do you, Joe. I have never seen you in such a becoming rig-out. Did your tailor work all night?”

“No, Sir, only till eleven.”

John bowed before Mr. Fielding. “I have arrived, Sir.”

“Delighted to hear it. Tell me, Mr. Rawlings, do I look a fool in all this finery?”

“No, Sir. You look magnificent. You all do. The Public Office can be proud of its representatives this day.”

Joe’s eyes, a shade lighter than his suit, filled with tears, though none spilled on to his rugged cheek. “It is the finest hour in the Office’s history, Sir. The Beak rewarded at long last for all his efforts.”

“I saw Miss Chudleigh come in earlier. Is she here to honour you, Sir?”

“In part, perhaps. Though, of course, as maid-of-honour to the King’s mother, she has the right of entree to all the royal palaces.”

John stared about him. “Who are all these little pageboys? Are they royal servants?”

Mr. Fielding rumbled a chuckle. “Far from it. They are either peers of the realm in their own right or the sons of peers. However, they are on call for all state occasions.”

“A funny little monkey-faced lad saw me in. He hardly had the strength to get about it seemed to me.”

“We had a very handsome one,” Mary Ann answered. “Pupils the colour of mauve flowers. I wonder if he has a peerage already.”

“You are incorrigible,” stated her uncle firmly. “You are to behave yourself. Miss.”

“Oh, Papa,” she cooed in response. “When do I not?”

John and Joe exchanged a glance and rolled their eyes but said not a word.

The reception room was now nearly packed to capacity and there had been no new arrivals for several minutes. Therefore it surprised no one when there came a stirring and a call for silence from the far end of the room.

“My lords, ladies and gentlemen,” announced a major domo, “the levee will shortly begin. Will you make your way to the left hand staircase in the order that I call out. If you will then proceed through the state apartments and assemble in the Queen Anne room. Footmen and pages will be on hand to assist you.”

“So,” said Mr. Fielding, rising, “this is the moment, is it?”

John, looking the length of the great room, saw that everyone was now standing in expectancy, including, at some distance from them, the sandy-faced George Goward and his abundant wife, still tightly corseted despite the Apothecary’s warning.

“I think it is, Sir,” he answered.

“Take my arm. Beak,” said Joe, using the word as a term of endearment. “Mr. Rawlings, you latch on to the other side.” He was starting to use cant phrases in his excitement.

“So do I walk behind?” asked Mary Ann petulantly.

“Yes you do,” Joe answered firmly. “You’ll mind your manners today. Miss Whittingham.”

She looked at him, ready for confrontation, but withdrew at the steely look in the clerk’s eye. “Oh, very well.”

“Mr. Anthony Fifield and party,” called the major domo, and the first three people, clearly a recipient and his guests, moved towards the staircase.

John, looking ahead, saw that the pageboys had formed a guard of honour on either side of the stairs, a footman on every other step between them He gazed in wonderment, thinking that he had never seen quite so many servants gathered together in his entire life. Then he remembered that these boys were not servants at all, but young members of the nobility. Astonished that so many could be present at one time, he counted them, and was surprised to see that there were thirteen boys on the staircase an unlucky number for any occasion, he would have thought.

But it was time to move. As the name, “Mr. John Fielding,” was called, Joe, John and the Magistrate stepped forward, and somewhat awestruck by the grandeur of it all, the two sighted men guided the blind one towards the great staircase.

Chapter 6

It must have been how salmon felt when swimming to the spawn, John thought as he made his way, right arm linked through Mr. Fielding’s left, up the staircase leading towards the state apartments. For on every side were people thronging happily upwards, the majority gazing about, quizzing glasses raised, to see the magnificence that surrounded them on every side. Moving more slowly as the Magistrate negotiated the stairs, John had a greater opportunity than most to study his surroundings.

There were in fact two staircases, connected by a long balustraded balcony, the right hand one leading to private apartments, the left to the state. These stairways, though both made of marble, were, however, different in shape. Whereas the left had a small landing in the middle, dividing the two
•
flights, the right was steep and straight, not something to hurry down in the teetering heels of high fashion, John reckoned. From the staircase, he could see as he ascended, a great chamber lead off to the left, obviously the King’s private place, but ahead lay the most ancient and historic suite of rooms in the entire building. With his heart pounding at the sheer excitement of it all, the Apothecary stared, trying to commit every detail to his pictorial memory.

The peacock crowd slowed as it entered the first room, gazing at the Tudor woodwork, somewhat hushed by the sense of the past, thinking, perhaps, as the Apothecary did, that the great hulk that was Henry VIII had once stalked his way through this very place. And there was further evidence of him in the next apartment. Over the Tudor fireplace, clearly visible on the left hand side, was the H & A monogram of that monarch and the woman for whom he had severed his connections with the Church of Rome, Anne Boleyn herself.

The skinny pageboy reappeared at John’s side. “This is the Tapestry Room, Sir.”

“But there’s no tapestry,” the Apothecary answered, somewhat amused.

“It was sold by Oliver Cromwell. He wasn’t fond of beautiful things.”

“No he wasn’t, was he,” John replied, thinking of the van- dalistic destruction of graceful buildings, the closure of theatres, and the general darkening down of any aspect of life that was light-hearted and pleasure-giving.

“Some people are like that,” said the boy and vanished into the throng once more.

“What was all that?” asked Mr. Fielding.

“A page was saying that there are no tapestries in the Tapestry Room.”

The Blind Beak stopped dead in his tracks. “Is that where we are?”

“We certainly are, Sir,” Joe Jago answered.

“Then we are indeed touching history,” the Magistrate stated solemnly. “For it was from this room that Queen Elizabeth and her advisers received news of the Spanish Armada and planned the response.”

“I can just imagine her,” chimed in Mary Ann, “all orange hair and chalky face and a great ruff sticking round her neck.”

“An unattractive word picture,” answered her uncle, and laughed.

A voice spoke at the party’s side. “Mr. Fielding, Sir, we meet again.”

It was George Goward not looking unalike Mary Ann’s description of the Tudor queen, though minus the neckpiece.

“La, but the press of people is intense,” said his wife breathlessly. She was very flushed, the Apothecary noticed, and gasping as she walked. Indeed today she looked even sillier than she had when he first met her and her little-girl voice seemed more out of place than ever.

“I hope you don’t feel faint, Madam,” John stated cautiously.

“I feel as if I could pass clean away at any moment. I think I’ll stay close to you, Mr. Rawlings.”

“Oh brace up, Mary, do,” said George, as the Apothecary wildly searched for an excuse to get away from her. He found one.

“Alas, Madam, today I walk with Mr. Fielding as his assistant. My first duty lies with him. I pray you seek another should ill befall.”

“Indeed so,” said Miss Chudleigh, joining them. “May I be your guide, my dear?” She spoke to the Magistrate but the effect on Joe Jago was astonishing. His ragged cheeks filled with colour and he even went so far as to let go of Mr. Fielding’s arm as he bowed his very best bow. Observing, John felt quite certain that the clerk had a passion for her.