The Ashes of London (27 page)

Cat found it hard to breathe, as if the air had suddenly been sucked from the room. ‘Will you yourself move there, sir?’

‘No. It is to be a place of business, nothing more. Besides, I am quite comfortable here. When the servants are not at loggerheads with each other.’

She looked up. Master Hakesby had spoken in the same dry tone as before but there had been a hint of amusement in his voice.

‘We are considering taking a lease on the attics of the house,’ he went on. ‘They were used by a weaver for his workshop, and they are already boarded over and admirably well-lit with skylights. There is ample room for as many as four or five draughtsmen if we need them. Dr Wren and I can furnish it with what is wanted.’

Cat said, ‘Is there – would there be—’

‘A place for you? Perhaps. We will need someone to keep the place clean and to run errands. It is possible that you could sleep there too. It does not do to leave somewhere empty at night in these troubled times.’

She felt a pang of disappointment. She had hoped for more.

Again, it was as if he sensed her thoughts. ‘And,’ he said, ‘there is one other thing. I am occasionally in want of an assistant. I may call on you for that.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then he said, ‘You puzzle me.’ He left the words hanging between them, waiting for her to respond. When she said nothing, he went on: ‘You may have noticed that I’m sometimes afflicted by a slight tremor. My physician says it is a palsy.’ He scratched his scalp with his long, bony fingers. ‘It is of no importance in itself. But when it inconveniences me, I shall sometimes require you to work under my direction at the mechanical part of a design – as you’ve already done, once or twice. I noted then that you are accurate in measurement and deft with a pen.’

‘Sir,’ she said. ‘I have a favour.’

He frowned and shifted in his chair. ‘Is it your place to ask favours?’

‘Forgive me, sir, but would you teach me?’ She waved her hand about the room, and the gesture took in the drawing board on its slope, the large chest where plans lay flat in shallow drawers, and the delicately built wooden models on the shelves above. ‘I want to learn what I can of all this.’

‘Well, I suppose there can be no harm in that.’ Master Hakesby’s face was in shadow but Cat could tell by his voice that he was amused. ‘The more you know, the more you will be able to help me.’

‘When will you know about the drawing office, sir?’

‘Soon.’

‘Mistress Noxon says I must go from here tomorrow evening.’

‘As you are such a troublemaker?’ Again, there was a touch of amusement in his voice. ‘You see your reputation has come before you.’ He was silent for a moment. His fingers trembled in his lap. ‘I’m tired. Go away now, and I will talk to Mistress Noxon in the morning. And to you. But only if you are not troublesome to anyone in the meantime.’

When Cat reached the attic, the room was in darkness and rain was pattering on the glass of the window. Margery was asleep, or at least pretending to be. Her breathing was heavy and regular. Occasionally she gave a little snore.

Cat blew out her candle and quickly undressed. As she slid under her covers, her hand touched something on the pillow.

Instantly wary, she investigated by touch, feeling the outlines of a sheet of paper, folded over and over again, with something hard inside it. She paused, listening. Margery’s breathing had changed. It had become quieter, slower.

Cat unfolded the paper. It contained two coins. Her fingertips explored them. Newly minted half crowns. Margery had paid compensation for what she had done, as well as she could. It was better than nothing.

Time and the night drifted towards dawn. Margery’s breathing became heavy and regular, ebbing and flowing in the darkness.

T
HAT NIGHT
,
HER
last at Three Cocks Yard, Cat dreamed again of Cousin Edward. At first she could not see him, for the place they were in was dark. Then she smelled the stench of him, stale sweat and sour wine. Next she heard his breathing, ragged and urgent, growing louder, and the creaking of boards beneath his slippered feet, coming nearer.

The weight of him was upon her, his hand on her mouth and partly over her nose, smothering her. She thrashed beneath him, trying to squirm away but knowing the effort was pointless: he was too strong, too heavy, too determined. In a moment she would feel again the worst pain in the world, stabbing into the heart of her.

She wrenched her mouth from his grip. She sucked in air but the scream inside her would not emerge.

Then – without warning, without transition – she was fully awake and in her bed, pinned down by the covers and soaked in sweat. A shadow thrown by a candle was moving closer. Somewhere behind it was the sound of laboured breathing.

He was here. This was no dream.

A crack like a pistol shot jolted her fully awake. She cried out.

The attic door creaked as it opened, as it always did. The candlelight outlined the doorway, with the small, hunched shadow framed within it.

Margery. Going downstairs to light the kitchen fire, to set water to boil.

Cat lay back in her bed. Gradually her breathing quietened. The sweat cooled on her skin. Her nightshift was damp. The dream did not fade. She was helpless, the victim of her own fear as well as the victim of Cousin Edward.

Tears pricked her eyelids. She could not bear the thought that this would be her condition for the rest of her life: to be the victim of her fear, the victim of Edward.

And if thine eye offend thee, her father used to say, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

If your cousin rapes you, pluck him out of his life and yours. If hell fire exists, pray he will be cast into it.

The next day, Wednesday, Cat left Three Cocks Yard after dinner. John followed, trundling her almost empty box on the barrow. He said nothing but she was conscious of his eyes on her.

At Master Hakesby’s request, Mistress Noxon had arranged for Cat to lodge for a few days above a coffee house near Charing Cross, where the proprietor’s wife was known to her from church. Cat was to pay for the privilege, partly with the help of Margery’s five shillings, and partly by making herself useful.

Master Hakesby had promised to let her know when the lease had been signed on the drawing office in Covent Garden. ‘A matter of days, I think. Dr Wren is most determined in the matter, and he generally contrives to get his way one way or another.’

The five shillings ensured that she was on a slightly different footing from the other servants at the coffee house, somewhere between paying guest and unpaid apprentice. For two or three hours on Thursday morning, she cleaned, swept and scrubbed. At ten o’clock, however, the mistress of the house said that Cat was free to please herself until five o’clock. It was not worth training up Cat to serve the gentlemen, let alone to prepare such an expensive and delicate drink as coffee.

‘Go away,’ she said, flapping her apron as if Cat were an impertinent mouse or cruising fly. ‘You’ll only get under our feet.’

The absence of work and the gift of time should have made these hours a holiday. Instead, the period of enforced leisure unsettled her. It was strange to be neither a servant nor a niece nor a daughter. For the first time in her life, she lacked a place in the world. She was adrift in London.

She walked westwards to Whitehall and then Westminster, relieved to put the ashes and ruins behind her. At first she was cautious, but her fear of being recognized gradually diminished. It was now two months since she had fled by night from Barnabas Place. Her clothes were those of a servant. Not just that: her bearing was different, and she had learned how a servant should respond to her betters. People saw what they expected to see.

That first day gave her confidence. It also gave her time, as she walked, to think about the dream, to think about Cousin Edward.

It was possible that, in a few days’ time, she would begin a new life working for Master Hakesby. She would have the chance to be free of her old self and in a position to invent herself anew. She would have a chance to escape the awkward memory of her father, and the duty he thought she owed to him and his God. Even Coldridge would mean nothing any more – but that would be a price worth paying.

But none of this would be worth anything at all if she were obliged to live with that dream, to live with the knowledge that Edward Alderley was still alive, waiting for her.

The following day, Friday, the mistress of the coffee house sent Cat away a little earlier in the morning. She slipped through the streets with a basket over her left arm, as if her mistress had sent her out on an errand. She kept her right hand in her pocket, her fingers wrapped around the haft of the knife.

She trudged through the crowds, pausing occasionally to look at the wares displayed in the shops and booths along the route. The roar and clatter of Holborn reached her long before she came to the street itself. She was west of the Bars, outside the City Liberties, at a safe distance from the comings and goings at Barnabas Place.

A stall was selling oysters, and she joined the crowd waiting to be served. A servant threaded his way through the crowd, towed by a muzzled mastiff. The dog lunged at Cat, and she recoiled. The servant laughed and hauled the dog away.

Cat stared after them. For the first time in weeks, she thought about the mastiffs of Barnabas Place: Thunder, Lion, Greedy and Bare-Arse. Their names repeated themselves like a benign incantation in her mind. She wished she could see them, and feel their hot breath and moist tongues on her hands. Thunder, Lion, Greedy and Bare-Arse.

Especially Bare-Arse.

Mastiffs needed exercise if they were not to grow fat and slothful. At Barnabas Place, a servant walked them a mile or two each morning. Cat had seen them with him once: gripping four leashes, two to each hand, a whip passed through his belt in case of emergencies, his face red with the exertion of holding them. The passers-by had parted before them like the Red Sea to let them through.

Once a week, however, on Saturday mornings, Edward rode out with the dogs and, accompanied by the servant, took them further afield. Usually they went to Primrose Hill.

Primrose Hill, Cat thought, her mind adrift between memories and desires. Thunder, Lion, Greedy and Bare-Arse.

A man shouldered against her. ‘You’re blocking the way, wench.’

She stepped back, almost falling into the gutter behind her. She steadied herself. The man stared at her with a frown on his face. He was dressed plainly, a servant probably.

‘Don’t I know you?’ he said.

‘No, sir.’

They stared at each other. He wrinkled his forehead, struggling to place her. She didn’t recognize him. But that meant nothing. In her old life, she had not much noticed servants, the Alderleys’ or other people’s, unless they impinged directly on her. But servants always took note of their betters.

‘I know you,’ he said harshly. ‘I’m sure of it.’

It was the voice she knew, not the face. She had heard him through the open window of the parlour, talking to Ann in the garden at Barnabas Place; the fool had been trying to wheedle a kiss from her. It was a grating voice but it had another sound to it, a soft, fluctuating whistle, perhaps caused by missing teeth or a malformed palate.

‘You’re mistaken, sir.’

Cat ducked away and fled through the crowd.

M
Y MASTERS
,
OLD
and new, left me in limbo.

Nor did Mistress Alderley make any attempt to contact me. I should have been relieved, for nothing good could come from another meeting with her. Instead I was disappointed. Desire was like an itch, it seemed to me, for whether you tried to ignore it or you scratched it, it brought you nothing but irritation.

In the meantime, I settled back into my routine with Master Williamson. I assisted him in his correspondence. I took his dictation and I checked his proofs. I dealt on his behalf with Master Newcomb about the printing of the
Gazette
, and I also ran the network of casual workers, mainly women, whom we employed to distribute the news-sheet throughout London.

Despite my failure to find Lovett or his daughter in Suffolk, I think my masters were not displeased with me. Williamson announced out of the blue that I should have an extra ten shillings a week. He also gave me a pound and ordered me to find myself a coat that would not shame him and my fellow clerks. He gave me the impression that I had him to thank for these generous gestures, but I suspected that William Chiffinch was behind them.

Two days after my return, I came within three yards of Chiffinch in the Pebble Court when I was on my way to Scotland Yard. I made a hasty bow. He swept past me, his nose in the air, and showed no sign of being aware of my presence.

There was always some difficulty with the
Gazette
’s casual workers. We did not pay them much, and only for a few hours a week. But we needed their services as much as they needed our money, so they occasionally exerted more influence than their lowly position warranted.

Just after my return from Suffolk, there was evidence that one or two of them were not fulfilling the terms of employment, and that copies of the
Gazette
were not reaching certain taverns, coffee houses and private subscribers when they should.

This infuriated Williamson, who attended to the detail of the
Gazette
’s distribution as he did to the detail of all his affairs; it was both his strength and his weakness. He ordered me to monitor individually and secretly each of the women whose work had attracted complaints.

It was unpleasant work, unrewarding by its very nature. But, in a day or two, the mysteries solved themselves. One woman was a drinker, who visited every alehouse on her route and ended each day in a stupor. Another had four children, all under six years of age and one of them a baby, and she could not leave them alone all day.