Sea Change (13 page)

'Break them,' the King said suddenly, rousing himself from the reverie into which he had sunk while his two ministers bickered. 'Ja. That is what you must do.'

'With the greatest respect, sir,' said Townshend, 'the Commons are not to be broken. But they may be controlled. With young Mr Craggs so ill and his father and Mr Aislabie accused of serious lapses, it is as well for us all that Mr Walpole is there to defend your Government. And that, I assure you, he is doing tirelessly.' Sunderland sniffed derisively but, holding the King's eye, Townshend went on. 'There is only so much that Lord Sunderland and I can accomplish in the Lords, sir. This will be settled by the Commons. Mr Walpole is trying his very best to hold them in check. If anyone can do it, he is the man.'

'Walpole,' said the King musingly. 'Can we trust him?'

'I trust him,' Townshend replied.

'And it seems,' Sunderland put in, 'that the rest of us will have to.'

Walpole was in truth a harder man to trust than Townshend cared to admit. He was so warm, so amiable, so vastly confiding. Townshend had been to Eton and Cambridge with him, had married his sister, had dined and hunted and argued and caroused with him down the years; yet still did not know, most of the time, what was in his mind. Beyond Walpole's many confidences, there were always other purposes he was set upon serving.

One such had taken him from the House of Commons that night to the Tower of London, a journey of which Townshend knew, and was to know, nothing. Walpole had been confined there once himself and wished for no reminder of that nadir of his political fortunes. But Sir Theodore Janssen could hardly be summoned to Westminster. And Sir Theodore he had to see.

'This is a surprise,' the elderly financier admitted when his visitor was shown in. 'And an honour, I suppose.'

'We must talk, Janssen,' Walpole said brusquely. 'And we must do so to the point. If I want to thrust and parry, I shall hire a fencing master.'

'And what is the point, Mr Walpole?'

'You know Brodrick's committee reported to the Commons today?'

'Of course. A pretty scene, no doubt. And a distressing one, I should imagine, for several of your fellow ministers. The Governor will soon be running short of accommodation here.'

'I don't care about my fellow ministers, Janssen. I care about myself. I suppose you care about yourself.'

'Naturally.'

'This is no state for a gentleman of your age and distinction to find himself in.' Walpole glanced around the chamber. 'Now is it?'

'I'm forced to agree.'

'I want the Green Book.' Walpole smiled. 'And I have no time for shilly-shally.'

'So it would appear.'

'What do you want, Sir Theodore?'

'To live the years that remain to me in freedom and comfort.'

'Not likely, as things presently stand.'

'Alas no.'

'Where's your valet, by the by? I'm told he no longer visits. Who shaves you now I don't know, but, by the look of your chin, he's no barber.'

'The comings and goings of servants are surely beneath your concern.'

'Nothing is beneath my concern.' Walpole lowered his voice. 'Where is Jupe?'

'I wish I knew. As you're so kind to point out, I have need of him.'

'But I suspect he's serving those needs. Even if you don't know his whereabouts. I'll put it simply for you. Knight gave you the Green Book for safe-keeping. But you've lost it. And Jupe has gone in search of it.'

'That is the most—'

'Don't deny it. It would be a waste of your time as well as mine. Some weeks from now, the Commons will decide how to punish you for your part in this catastrophe. You'll need powerful friends then to escape imprisonment or penury or both. But you have none. They're all dead or fled or in the same boat as you. Your only hope is me. I can help you, Sir Theodore. And I will. If you help me.'

Several seconds of silence followed while the two men looked at each other. Then Sir Theodore said, 'What do you want?'

'I've told you. The Green Book.'

'I don't have it. Nor do I know where it is.'

'But that may change. If it should, I want to be the first to hear.'

'Very well. I agree.'

'You do?'

'What choice do I have?'

'You have the choice of thinking you may be able to deceive me. Knight gave you the book so that it could be removed to a place of safety and used to bargain for clemency. There can have been no other reason. You may suppose that can still be done. But you would be in error. I cannot be forced to help you. I can only be persuaded.'

'Then I must try to persuade you.'

'So you must.'

'Persuasion is a two-edged sword, though. I have opened the book. I know what it contains.'

'I felt sure you did.'

'Do you?'

'How could I?'

'How indeed? But there's the strangest thing. I have the impression, you see — the very distinct impression — that you know exactly what the book contains. If so, you'll also know that prevailing on the House of Commons to treat me leniently would be a trifling price to pay for keeping those contents secret.'

'Trifling to me, perhaps.' Walpole winked. 'But everything to you.'

'Everything may be exactly what's at stake.' Sir Theodore rubbed his ill-shaven chin. 'If the book should fall into… the wrong hands.'

'It's certainly a pity you didn't take better care of it.'

'A pity, you say?' Sir Theodore summoned a defiant smile. 'As to that, Mr Walpole, it's a pity a great many people — a great many grand people — didn't take better care.'

As one conversation was ending at the Tower of London, so another, bearing on the same subject, was beginning at the Goude Hooft inn in The Hague. Cloisterman had found Colonel Wagemaker waiting for him in a balconied booth above the cavernous tap-room and had instantly formed a less favourable impression of Lord Townshend's emissary than the one given him by Dalrymple: 'A straighter sort than Mcllwraith, but just as tough.' That was true as far as it went, but it did not capture the spine-shivering balefulness of the man. There was a flint-hard edge to him, but no spark of passion. Cloisterman was surprised to find himself thinking fondly of Mcllwraith as he falteringly met Wagemaker's icy gaze.

'You travel light, Mr Cloisterman,' Wagemaker said. 'That's good.'

'As a matter of fact, Colonel, I don't travel light. An overnight journey from Amsterdam to The Hague is scarcely the Grand Tour.'

'Nor's the journey we'll be undertaking. But it may last as long.'

'Mr Dalrymple said something of the kind. I should appreciate—'

'You know what this is all about?'

'Knight's ledger. Yes, I know.'

'And you're skilled in the consular arts, I'm told.'

'I like to think so.'

'I can't afford to be held up. I'm a soldier, not a politician. But I may need to be a politician to win through. That's when you'll earn your keep.'

'I've no wish to “earn my keep”, as you put it. I have duties in Amsterdam I'd be happy to return to.'

'You'll not see Amsterdam again in a hurry. We're heading south.'

'South?'

'That's where Zuyler and Mrs de Vries will have gone. I'm told you know Mrs de Vries by sight.'

'I've met her a few times in company with her late husb—'

'Good enough. You also know Spandrel.'

'Yes.'

'And Jupe.'

'Well, yes. Captain Mcllwraith, too, if it comes to—'

'I know Mcllwraith, Mr Cloisterman. Of old.' For the first time, there was a spark of some emotion in Wagemaker's eyes. And it was not friendship. 'You can leave him to me.'

'When you say south…'

'Zuyler and Mrs de Vries will try to sell the ledger to the Jacobites. It's obvious.'

'You mean they'll take it to the Pretender? In Rome?'

'They'll try. But we must overtake them before they reach their destination and retrieve the ledger. We must also overtake Mcllwraith and Jupe. They're all ahead of us. But not so far ahead that they can't be caught. Any of them.'

'This sounds distinctly… perilous.'

'There'll be difficulties. There may be dangers. That's to be expected.'

'Not by me. I have no experience of such endeavours. I am not a soldier, Colonel.'

'You don't need to tell me that.' Wagemaker ran a withering eve over him. 'But it seems you're the best I'll get.'

Cloisterman did not sleep well that night. Wagemaker meant to leave at dawn and, reluctant though he was, Cloisterman would be leaving with him. He cursed Dalrymple for volunteering his services, suspecting as he did that they were a handy substitute for Dalrymple's own. He cursed his luck as well. Amsterdam had turned out to be the right place at the wrong time. Hard riding and harsh dealing lay ahead and he was not sure which he was worse equipped for. Yet there was no way out, short of resigning his post and returning to England to face an uncertain and impecunious future. There was not much sign of a way through either. It was the very devil of a business. But it was the devil he was bound to serve.

The pace Mcllwraith set was predictably stiff. Spandrel, who had not ridden in over a year and had never done so regularly, was saddle-sore and weary before they left Dutch territory. He was sustained to that point by fear of recapture. Once they were on the winding high road of the Rhine Valley, however, he began to protest and plead for a day's rest. He was wasting his breath, of course. Mcllwraith's hopes of overhauling Zuyler and Estelle de Vries rested on the likelihood that they were not naturally fast travellers and had no particular reason to fear pursuit. They were not fools, though. The Green Book was a slowly wasting asset and a dangerous article to possess. The sooner they reached Rome and sold it the better.

At the Graue Gans, Cologne's principal coaching inn, Mcllwraith gleaned the first confirmation of their route. An English couple by the name of Kemp, the husband an excellent speaker of German, had stayed at the inn a week before. They had been travelling by chaise, but seemed embarked on a journey calling for a more robust vehicle. A wheelwright had been needed to replace some splintered spokes. And they had asked the landlord to recommend other inns on the road to Switzerland.

This discovery put Mcllwraith in high good humour. He drank more, and talked more, in the tap-room that evening than he had at any time since leaving Amsterdam. Spandrel drank his fill as well and was soon too fuddled to follow what was being said. He retained a vague memory of Mcllwraith reminiscing about the number of men he had killed in battle and an occasion on which, apparently, the Captain-General himself, the Duke of Marlborough, had sought his tactical advice. There was something too about secret missions behind enemy lines. But here Spandrel's memory grew vaguer still. As perhaps did Mcllwraith's reminiscences.

The captain showed no ill effects of his overindulgence next morning, rousing Spandrel before dawn and insisting on an early start. Spandrel, for his part, had a thick head that a few hours on horseback transformed into a ferociously aching one, the spot where Zuyler had hit him with the hammer throbbing to eye-watering effect. When he complained, Mcllwraith suggested he should treat it as a useful reminder of the Dutchman's treachery, which he now had the chance to avenge.

But vengeance was far from Spandrel's thoughts. The simple joy of freedom had given place to a nagging fear that he was simply wading deeper and deeper into a morass. If his experiences since leaving London had taught him anything, it was that humble folk should never meddle — nor even allow themselves to become remotely involved — in the affairs of the great. Yet, here he was, straying still further into them. Green Books and Jacobites could easily be the death of him. If they were, he would have no-one to blame but himself. And no-one else would care anyway. But what was he to do? Mcllwraith had him where he wanted him: by his side. And that was where he was bound to remain. Until…

When? That was the question. If the Kemps were Zuyler and Estelle de Vries, they were a week ahead of them. That could amount to three hundred miles.

Spandrel did not see how such a gap could be closed, however hard they rode. Much the likeliest outcome, it seemed to him, was that it would not be closed. They would reach Rome too late to prevent the sale of the book. In some ways, he hoped he was right. There would be nothing they could do, but he would have done what was required of him and might hope for some modest reward. In other ways, he knew that to be a fool's counsel. If they failed, there would be no reward for him, other than abandonment far from home.

It was better than imprisonment in Amsterdam, of course. Compared with what had seemed to lie in wait for him only a few days previously, this journey was a gift from the gods. It was just that with nothing but uncertainty waiting at the end of it and a cold head wind seeming to blow down the valley whenever a sleety drizzle did not descend from the mountains, a gift could soon feel like a curse.

'Don't look so long-faced, man,' Mcllwraith upbraided him over supper that night, which they spent at an inn near Coblenz where the Kemps had not been heard of. 'I feed and horse you. I even think for you. Ah…' He pointed at Spandrel with his fork, on which half a gravy-smeared potato was impaled. 'That's it, isn't it? You've been thinking on your own account. You don't want to get into that habit. It's not a bit of good for you.'

Good for him or not, though, Spandrel continued to think — and to worry. About what, would happen if and when they overtook their quarry. And about what would happen if they never did.

Spandrel might have been even more worried had he realized, as Mcllwraith certainly did, that they were also being pursued. Their surreptitious exit from Dutch territory had necessitated an indirect and time-consuming route as far as Cologne. Their original lead had thus been pared down to barely a day. Wagemaker and Cloisterman spent that night at the Grau Gans, where they too heard about the English couple in the chaise — and about the pair of travellers who had expressed an interest in them the previous night.

It had been a physically exhausting and mentally wearing two days on the road for Cloisterman since their departure from The Hague. Wagemaker was a taciturn and unsympathetic travelling companion, who seemed to think Cloisterman's command of German and his ability to recognize several of the people they were looking for compensated for his poor horsemanship and lack of stamina — but only just. Cloisterman resented this, but had been poorly placed to do much about it. Revived and emboldened by the Grau Gans's food and wine, however, he decided to hit back in the only way he could, by questioning Wagemaker's tactics.

'We may be close to Mcllwraith and Spandrel, Colonel, but we're all of us a long way behind the two people who actually have what we're trying to retrieve. I fail to understand how you hope to catch up with them.'

'I reckon we will.'

'And on what is your… reckoning… based?'

'It's based on the fact that when Zuyler and Mrs de Vries reach Switzerland, they'll have a hard choice to make. To cross the Alps? Or to take a boat down the Rhone to Marseilles, then look for a sea passage to Naples, say, and hope to travel up to Rome from there?'

'They can't go down the Rhone,' said Cloisterman, suddenly beginning to follow Wagemaker's reasoning.

'Why not?'

'Because of the outbreak of plague in Marseilles last summer. The port's still closed. There's no traffic on the Rhone. Most of Provence is reported to be in a state of chaos. Nobody in their right mind would try to go that way.'

'So I hear too. Which way will they go, then?'

'Over the Alps. They have to.'

'At this time of the year? I'd think twice about doing it alone. With a woman… it's asking for trouble.'

'What choice do they have?'

'They could wait for milder weather.'

'But that could mean waiting for a month or more.'

'So, they won't wait. But I don't think they're equal to it. I think they'll try the crossing and abandon the attempt when they realize how difficult and dangerous it is. And by then…' Wagemaker's right hand closed around an imaginary throat. 'They'll be within our reach.'

'And within Mcllwraith's.'

'Yes. Jupe's as well. But if it had been easy…' Wagemaker unclenched his hand and stared at his palm. 'They wouldn't have sent me.'

The death from smallpox at the age of thirty-five of Secretary of State James Craggs the younger did not distract the House of Commons for many moments from its pursuit of the ministers named in the Brodrick Committee report. Walpole's recommendation of impeachment before the Lords was ignored, though whether this displeased him or not was hard to tell. Instead, the Commons voted to hear the cases themselves, which happened to mean that Walpole would be able to play a full part in the trials and influence their outcomes… one way or the other.

'The taking in, or holding of stock, by the South Sea Company for the benefit of any member of either House of Parliament or person concerned in the Administration (during the time that the Company's Proposals or the Bill relating thereto were depending in Parliament) without giving valuable consideration paid,' the House resolved after several days' debate, 'were corrupt, infamous and dangerous practices, highly reflecting on the Honour and Justice of Parliament and destructive of the Interest of His Majesty's Government.'

The charge was laid. Now, those accused would have to answer to it.

The trial of the first of those accused, Charles Stanhope, was still pending when Mcllwraith and Spandrel crossed the Swiss border just outside Basle, one long and gruelling week after crossing the Dutch border nearly five hundred miles to the north. They had been detained at Heidelberg for the best part of a day by the need to obtain certificates of health from a hard-pressed doctor appointed by the local magistrate. Without them, Swiss customs officers were sure to turn them back on the grounds that they might be plague-carriers who had crept into the Palatinate from France. Another wrangle over certification had followed at Freiburg, where they had strayed into the Austrian enclave of Breisgau. Mcllwraith had raged against these delays and pressed ever harder on the road to compensate for them. Spandrel's memory was of bone-weary rides in seemingly permanent twilight along frozen tracks through the snow-hushed fringes of endless forest. Travel, he had learned, was not the exhilarating experience he had dreamed it might be when gazing at his father's maps as a child.

Of Zuyler and Estelle de Vries there had been intermittent news suggesting that they were now only a few days ahead. Spandrel consoled himself with the thought that they were unlikely to be enjoying the journey any more than he was. Of Jupe, however, there was no trace, which had prompted Spandrel to suggest he might have given up. But Mcllwraith had poured scorn on this idea. 'He's had the good sense to travel alone, man. That's all it is. I wish I'd followed his example, instead of hoppling myself with someone who rides like a nun on a donkey and never stops complaining.'

Despite the frequency of such insults, Spandrel had grown strangely fond of his companion. Mcllwraith seemed to be just about the only person he had met since leaving England to have told him the truth, uncomfortable though it sometimes was. It was not so much that Spandrel trusted him, as that he felt safe with him. There was a reassuring solidity of body and purpose to the man. He had driven Spandrel hard, but nothing like as hard as he had driven himself.

In Switzerland, it seemed clear, their journey would reach its crisis. With the Rhone closed, the only route to Italy lay over the Alps. And in late winter, the only pass worth considering was the Simplon. Mcllwraith expected the chase to end there. How it would end he did not say. Perhaps he did not know. Or perhaps, Spandrel reflected, he did not think it wise to disclose.

They left Basle early next morning and crossed the Jura ridge in fine, dry, cold weather. Spandrel had anticipated that the Alps would be craggier and perhaps snowier versions of the Black Forest peaks they had passed. When he first saw them massing on the horizon ahead, however, vast and white and forbidding, he realized just what kind of a barrier they represented and could hardly imagine that there was a way through them.

'They strike fear into your heart, don't they, Spandrel?' said Mcllwraith. 'But remember. They'll do the same for our soft-bred Dutchman and his lady love. We have them now. Like rats in a trap.'

They descended from the ridge into the Aare valley and followed its winding course south as far as Berne. The city occupied a steep-banked lobe of land jutting out into a deep eastward loop of the river. They arrived at dusk, entering by one of the gates in the defensive wall on the western side. It was, for Spandrel, just one more in a succession of tired, travel-stained, twilit arrivals. Berne appeared no different from anywhere else they had been. The gateman recommended an inn: the Drei Tassen. They made their weary way to it along ill-lit, cobbled streets. They took a room, stabled the horses and went to the tap-room in search of food and drink. It was a routine they had followed in half a dozen other cities.

After the meal, Mcllwraith lit his pipe and gazed broodily at the fire. This too was his custom. There had been no repetition of the drunken reminiscences he had permitted himself in Cologne. Spandrel was warm and replete now. Soon, he was having difficulty keeping his eyes open. He hauled his aching limbs out of the settle and announced he was off to bed. Mcllwraith nodded a goodnight to him and stayed where he was. Spandrel knew it could easily be another couple of hours before the captain turned in. But he would still be up again before dawn. Sleep was not something he seemed to need much of.

Spandrel, on the other hand, needed every hour he could snatch. He paused in the passage leading to the stairs, then turned and headed for the yard at the rear of the inn. Cold as it was outdoors, a visit to the jakes before he crawled between the sheets could not be avoided.

A few minutes later, he was on his way back across the yard, hugging himself for warmth. As he neared the inn door, a figure stepped into his path from the darkness beyond the reach of the lantern that burned above the lintel.

'Spandrel.'

The voice came as no more than a whisper. Even so, Spandrel knew at once that he recognized it. He could not put a name to the voice, however. Stopping just before he collided with the man, he squinted at him through the shadows cast by the lantern.

'What are you doing here, Spandrel?'

'Who's there?'