Devil Water (78 page)

Alec did not report much of his master’s condition to Jenny, and he devoutly hoped that it might be one of the good days when she saw him. The only hint he gave her was to suggest that Charles had aged. And when she was worrying for fear the warders might note her resemblance to her father, Alec shook his head.

“No fear, madam,” he said sighing. “Ye don’t look alike no more.”

On the Thursday at two-thirty Jenny met Alec in the market square. Beneath her cloak she was dressed in her working costume, one concocted by Mrs. Potts with an eye to business. The material was therefore of a cheerful red sprigged calico, the skirts very full, the black bodice laced, and the neck so low that it showed the rounded tops of her breasts. A fichu today, however, gave more modesty. Her white muslin cap, banded with fine green ribbon, was tied under her chin, and her hair fell in curls on her shoulders, an effect both youthful and alluring. In sort, Jenny was dressed as a barmaid, a rather theatrical one, and she pleased the King’s Head customers, as even Potts had come to agree. Her duties were to carry drinks, to encourage the consumption of punch, which was expensive, and to sing one song at each table. Mrs. Potts had a collection of songbooks from which Jenny refreshed her memory and learned new ones. She went through her duties mechanically, smiled at everyone, and took care to speak very little. She was a successful novelty, and something of a mystery to the upper-class customers, who recognized the quality of her speech and singing.

When questioned, Mrs. Potts replied that the inn’s new attraction had been a Colonial actress. This satisfied the King’s Head patrons, none of whom knew anything about the Colonies.

As Alec had foreseen, her dignity and genuine aloofness discouraged most amorous overtures, and when as last night a silk merchant had got out of hand, and started fumbling for her breasts, there was always Potts to rescue her. He kept a respectable house, and wouldn’t have hesitated to evict a duke if one should prove offensive.

Thursday was a dull, chilly day. Jenny shivered inside her old brown cloak and hood. It was about a mile from Spitalfields to the Tower. As Alec and Jenny hurried through the crowded lanes and alleys, she was struck again by the filth and noise of London, by the pallid ragged children swarming in the slums they traversed, and by the gin shops, one in every block, many sporting a sign tacked on the door: “Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for 2d.” The proofs of this claim were to be seen vomiting into the gutters, or snoring on the sidewalk where passersby stepped over, or on them, indifferently.

“How ugly London is,” Jenny said, shivering again. “I never used to think so.”

“Ye didn’t know
this
part,” said Alec. “And I wish ye didna have to now.” They were silent the rest of the way, as they went down the Minories, then past Tower Hill, where the scaffolds were sometimes erected. It was now an ordinary square filled with rumbling drays. They skirted the moat and crossed the first drawbridge to the Lion tower, which was named for the most popular inmates of the King’s menagerie nearby. At the Lion tower Jenny presented the pass Alec had procured for her through Hobson. They crossed the drawbridge over the stinking, slimy moat which was used for sewage. They paused at the Byward tower, where each visitor must give the password -- which changed daily, and enabled one to enter the Tower after three, and leave it again when the bell clanged for the night’s key ceremony and lockup. Alec had learned today’s password in the morning. It was “Daffodil,” which startled Jenny, and calmed her mounting panic. Such a word
must
be a good omen, especially as Alec said the words were picked at random from a dictionary. Fate then was perhaps sending encouragement with this reminder of spring, and the joy spring brought.

Having left the Byward tower, they entered the gloomy stone alley which was the outer yard, and walked as far as Traitor’s Watergate to the Thames. The actual entrance to the stronghold was opposite the Watergate, a narrow passage through the Bloody tower, beneath an iron portcullis where a sentry stood on guard. At last they were inside the great fortress, with its thirteen prison towers strung along the curtain wall. Ahead loomed the great whitish turreted stone keep, the original castle built by William the Conqueror. They turned left onto Tower Green, where there was some withered grass and a flock of agitated cawing ravens. Jenny did not like ravens; in the North they were considered harbingers of death. She held fast to the thought of daffodils. They reached the high semicircular Beauchamp tower, and Alec took his leave. The valet had already shaved and dressed his master in the morning, and was not permitted to see him again that day.

The downstairs warder expected Jenny and unlocked the door, staring at her curiously. She slowly mounted the winding stone stairs and found Hobson standing at the top, a burly figure in his Beefeater uniform.

“So there ye are, m’dear!” he greeted her pleasantly. “‘Is lordship’s dithering to see ye.” He unlocked the heavy barred door, and accompanied her into the chamber. Then he locked the door again and stood against it, as were his orders. Charles must see no visitor alone any more, not since his move to Beauchamp tower.

It was dim in the large vaulted stone room. The solitary window was heavily barred and set back deep in an embrasure; little of the gray October daylight penetrated. The cheap coals in the grate smoldered, a wall candle in an iron sconce flickered impotently over the damp stone walls and the dozens of inscriptions carved by other prisoners long ago.

Charles had been hunched over his table near the window. He turned when Jenny and Hobson entered. He struggled a moment, leaning heavily on the table before he could rise; it was the pains in his knees that hampered him. He was quite sober, had taken nothing but a little wine at dinner. He and Jenny confronted each other.

“Well, darling,” he said in the caressing, slightly mocking voice she so well remembered, “this is scarcely the way I expected us to meet again!”

For an instant Jenny could not move. His voice had not altered, but the rest! Alec had seen to it that he was bravely dressed in an embroidered yellow velvet suit, a gray French peruke on his head, an elegant lace handkerchief in his sleeve. Yet the suit could not disguise the bowing of his back, the paunchy thickness of his middle, nor could the lace jabot and stylish peruke conceal the down-dragging lines of his face -- like an old mastiff’s -- nor the puffiness around his eyes and the broken purplish veins in his cheeks; while his hands, which had been so slender -- like her own -- were swollen at the joints and mottled like an old man’s.

“Won’t you give me a kiss, Jenny?” he said, attempting to laugh. “Do you find me so distasteful?”

“No, no --” she whispered, and she ran to him throwing her arms around his neck as she had used to do, her heart brimming with pity. He hugged her convulsively and kissed her on the cheeks, the forehead, and the lips. “Thank God, you’ve come to me,” he murmured. “Thank God.”

At that she began to weep, as she had not wept in years.

The warder made a choked sound, and turning his back began to scrape at a fleck of rust on the padlock. True love, that’s what it was, he thought, and mighty rare in this miserable world. The prisoner, for all his woes, was lucky to have so pretty and faithful a mistress. Hobson wanted to leave them alone awhile, and he didn’t want to spy on them, but orders were orders. In thirty-two years of service at the Tower he’d never disobeyed an order.

Charles led Jenny to the bed, there was no other place where they could sit together, he pulled her head against his shoulder, while she sobbed uncontrollably, covering his yellow velvet coat with tearstains.

“Come, come, sweetheart,” Charles implored. “Do hush! You’ve no cause to weep like this!” Though his own eyes were wet.

He held her tight, he smoothed her shoulder and her hair, so silken-soft and clinging to his hand.
Capello d’or e capello d’amor,
he thought -- hair of gold is the hair of love. That was an Italian proverb, and when he had first heard it he had thought of her. It seemed to him now that through these many years he had always thought of her; that the dozens of other women had been phantasms, mistlike bodies which had never touched him and in whom he never found completion.

At last she quietened. She lifted her head and, groping, took his lace handkerchief from his cuff, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, Pa --” she began, and checked herself with a glance at the warder. “My lord,” she covered the break.

“You ‘re a silly child,” said Charles tenderly. “Once my trial’s over, I’ll be out of here, a free man. They can’t hold me.”

“I’m sure they can’t,” she said. “To be sure they can’t.”

“Let’s have a look at you,” said Charles, pulling away and examining her. “Lovely as ever, but what
possessed
you to dress up like a serving-wench!”

She widened her eyes in warning, indicating Hobson, knowing that Alec, while shaving Charles, had been able to whisper to his master the role in which she was to be presented here.

“I
am
a serving-wench,” said Jenny. “At the King’s Head in Spitalfields. ‘Tis a good situation.”

Charles gave an angry grunt. “Well, you won’t be there long. Once I’m free we’ll go abroad, to the south of France where there’s sunshine. There’s a villa near Marseilles you’d love, orange trees and jasmine and the deep blue water outside the windows, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, darling?” He spoke with buoyancy, believing it himself, yet a memory stirred, memory of a different cell in Newgate thirty years ago and of a redheaded woman to whom he had said much the same thing. Betty Lee, who had loved him, and was dead. No, of death one must never think. Not now, not with Jenny here, Jenny and the bright comfort that she brought.

“We must have some wine,” he said. “Drink a toast together! A toast to the future!” He rose from the bed and winced. “A touch of gout -- ‘tis the infernal dampness here, and then I’m not young any more.”

You’re only fifty-three, she wanted to say, and stopped herself in time. Charles Radcliffe’s age was known. Alec had told her that the fact that her father looked ten years older than he should was one of the points which hampered the identification.

Hobson fetched a bottle of claret from a stone alcove, and poured out two glasses for them, then resumed his place by the door.

“To King James!” cried Charles lifting his glass. “May he enjoy his own again!” He drank, and she did too.

“He will, you know,” said Charles exuberantly. “Either King James or Prince Charlie’ll be on the throne of England yet!” He turned to the warder. “And you can report
that
to Williamson, if you like!”

Hobson shrugged and said without rancor, “Your sentiments’re well known, m’lord. Ye’ve not scrupled to ‘ide ‘em.”

“And as a Frenchman why should I!” said Charles, with a quirk of his eyebrow. “To our happy future, Jenny!” He lifted his glass again. “We’ll have good times together -- soon. You’ll see!”

“Yes,” she said smiling at him as she drank. Deep within her something twisted and throbbed painfully, yet she wouldn’t heed it. The sagging heaviness had lifted in her father’s face, he bore himself straighter. The shock of meeting over, she saw him more as he had been, jaunty, hopeful, touched with gallantry.

“And until then,” said Charles pouring himself another glass, “you’ll come every day, darling -- won’t you? Take dinners with me! I’ve some funds again. Garvan, he’s my lawyer, forwarded them yesterday. Madame la Comtesse has bestirred herself to send them over from France.”

The warder listened more carefully, as he had been told to do, when the prisoner made any family allusions.

“How is she?” asked Jenny politely. She had earlier wondered why Lady Newburgh was not here in London helping her husband, as had the wives of all the Scottish lords, but now she understood that the lady would be recognized, and the whole defense depended on there being no proven link with Charles Radcliffe.

“She’s well, I believe,” said Charles. “Much occupied with the children.” He thought briefly of Charlotte and their five children: Jemmie, now safe again in France, the twins Clement and Barbara, little Charlotte and Maria. Frances Clifford too -- his spinster stepdaughter, a useful woman. They were a good, solid, devout brood, and Charlotte was absorbed in them, so much so that, to his relief, she had long ago lost her vehement passion for himself. They had settled into a formal, friendly relationship, far pleasanter than the stresses and jealousies of their earlier years. He would be glad to see his family again when this embarrassment was over. Yet the prospect had none of the poignancy and charm that was offered by the hope of a villa in the south of France with Jenny.

It never occurred to him to ask about her life in Virginia. The whole subject of her ignominous marriage was distasteful to him, and he assumed it was to her --since he was here. And he noted with satisfaction that she wore no wedding ring, only
his
ring on her right hand, with the crested seal prudently turned under.

“My love,” he said, putting his arm again around her. He was somewhat elated by the wine, and amused that the endearments he felt like giving her would seem quite natural -- not excessive -- to Hobson.

“My darling, I’d forgot you had that black mole on your cheek. A wicked little mole that would make any gallant’s heart throb to kiss it.” He leaned over and did so.

She hid a slight recoil, and answered in a bantering tone, “Fie, m’lord, you are most bold, and kisses should be stolen more discreetly.”

The warder was much entertained. A very pretty scene, he thought. And a treat to see a bit o’ love-making in this dismal place. Then he heard footsteps mounting the stairs and stiffened to attention. There was a sharp knock on the door, followed to his dismay, by Governor Williamson’s unmistakable rasp outside, “Open up there, Hobson!”

Charles and Jenny both arose, he stumbled and she put her hand instinctively under his arm, as the warder unlocked the door and opened it.

The Lieutenant-Governor of the Tower was disclosed in all his majesty of scarlet and blue uniform, medals, sword in jewel-encrusted scabbard, gold-laced hat, and his private guard of honor behind him -- two officers in full regimentals. Without them Williamson never visited prisoners.