The Ashes of London (40 page)

She leaned against the wall and pushed away the arm he offered for support. She had left that cloak in a hedge on Primrose Hill, a few yards away from the body of Sir Denzil Croughton.

Her head whirled. This nameless man had given her the cloak on the night St Paul’s burned down. He had tried to take it back from the shed in Convocation House Yard, but Master Hakesby had stopped him. He had followed John from Barnabas Place to Three Cocks Yard. And now he had found his own grey cloak on Primrose Hill and come to Mistress Noxon’s house with it. Had he also seen her with Sir Denzil Croughton? The man appeared to know everything about her, yet his actions were like those of a figure in a nightmare: devoid of purpose, unpredictable, but always malign.

She found her voice again. ‘He brought the cloak to the house? To give it back to me? Are you sure?’

John nodded. ‘But he wouldn’t leave it with Master Hakesby when he found you weren’t there. He just walked out, though Master Hakesby called him back. And then, on the way out, Margery said you’d gone to the coffee house, and you wouldn’t be coming back to Mistress Noxon’s, ever. And I said … I said …’

‘What did you say?’

The colour on John’s face darkened still further. ‘I asked him to remember me to you, Jane. That’s all.’

‘He didn’t find me. I’d left the coffee house already.’

‘I know. Master Hakesby sent me to find you, but the people there said you’d already left, on Saturday. They said Master Hakesby had come for you, to take you to your new lodging. But this man wasn’t Master Hakesby. Because Master Hakesby was ill in his own bed on Saturday.’

There was little more to be learned from John, apart from the information that Mistress Noxon had dissuaded Master Hakesby from alerting the authorities to Cat’s disappearance on the grounds that Cat wouldn’t thank him if he did.

Several clocks were striking five.

‘I must go soon,’ John said. ‘You know what the mistress is like.’

‘Where’s Master Hakesby? Is he in bed still?’

‘No. He’s well enough now. You know what he’s like. The ague comes and goes.’

She said, ‘Tell him you’ve seen me. Ask him to come to me here.’

‘You can’t wait in the street. Not alone. Anyway, Master Hakesby’s not at the house today. He’s at St Paul’s. Shall I take you to him? I go so often to him there that they let me pass to and fro in the yard without question.’

‘The mistress will punish you if you’re late.’

He shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Then let her.’ Suddenly he was sure of himself, and of what he should do. His hesitation dropped away. ‘Come, Jane,’ he said. ‘It will be better if you take my arm in the street.’

John held out his arm. For a moment, she looked up at his face, searching for a hint that might tell her whether there would be a price to pay for his protection. But she had no choice but to trust him. She wouldn’t be able to get into Convocation House Yard without him, because she didn’t have a pass. Besides, what had he ever done to make her doubt him?

‘I’m sorry I stabbed you,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t have tried to kiss me, but I shouldn’t have done that.’

Cat watched his face light up for a second time. She took his arm, keeping well away from him, and they walked in silence across the Fleet Bridge and up the hill to Ludgate. His bulk shielded her.

The street was still busy enough at this hour. On either side of the road were ruins and ash heaps, dotted with fires that glowed in the gathering dusk. The cathedral was a black shadow before them. In this light it looked almost undamaged, as if the Fire and everything that had happened since were no more than an unpleasant dream.

In Convocation House Yard, the last of the sightseers were leaving. One of the watchmen was covering Bishop Braybrooke and the other bodies for the night. The second watchman was near the gate, but he was sitting in his shed, huddled over the brazier. He opened his shutter when he heard John’s knock. When he saw John’s familiar face, he grunted, waved him through and slammed the shutter closed again. Cat slipped unseen into the yard, sheltered by John.

At this time of day, there was no one at all on guard at the gate to the inner enclosure, where the Chapter Clerk, Master Frewin, had caused the shed for the builders and surveyors to be built against the wall of the cloister. The labourers had already gone home but there were lights in the windows of the shed itself.

Cat hung back as John pushed open the door, seized by a fear that she would find Dr Wren and Uncle Alderley inside. But the shed was almost empty. Two clerks were standing at their high desks and working over what looked like columns of figures. Master Hakesby was still hunched over his draughtsman’s slope. He did not look up as they came in.

John led the way towards him, with Cat trailing behind, suddenly uncertain of her welcome. Hakesby looked up at the sound of their footsteps. He was wearing mittens and a fur hat against the cold, and his cloak had a fur-lined collar.

‘John?’ He peered through the gloom. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes, master.’

‘Why are you here? And who’s this?’

Cat came out from behind John and advanced into the pool of candlelight around the table.

‘God have mercy!’ Hakesby said. ‘What the—?’

‘Hush, sir, I beg you,’ she whispered.

‘Where have you been, Jane?’ His face looked even more gaunt than usual. ‘What do you want?’

‘Refuge, sir. And to work for you.’

‘Who took you away? The man who claimed to be me.’

‘I can’t say, sir. But I had no choice in the matter.’

He lowered his voice. ‘Have you committed some crime?’

Beside her, John shifted his weight from foot to foot. ‘She’s as honest as the day is long, sir. Take my oath on it.’

She did not deserve this loyalty.

Hakesby glanced at him. ‘That’s not what I asked. Well, Jane?’

‘I have done nothing wrong.’ She hesitated. ‘Only what I had to.’

He stooped, bringing his head within inches of hers. ‘I know that laws change over time. I myself have found it possible to fall foul of a change in the laws of men, and yet keep a clear conscience in the sight of God.’

She remembered then that Master Hakesby had served Oliver in the old days, and perhaps would have risen higher if the King had not returned.

‘My conscience is clear, sir,’ she whispered. But only honesty would do now. She remembered how careless she had been of poor Jem’s devotion, how she had bitten the hand of the thin man who had tried to help her when St Paul’s burned down, and how she had been cruel to John, who had given her nothing but devotion. ‘Or rather, my conscience is clear in regard to the law. But sometimes I have been unkind to those who wish me well.’

‘Very well. Stay here a moment.’

Hakesby left her with John and went across the shed to speak to the clerks. She glanced down at the plan he had been at work on. Not a church or a public building, she thought, her attention sharpening, but a great house in the shape of a stunted capital H, with flights of steps swooping up to the front door. Hakesby had been working freehand and in pencil, and the lines wavered wildly, but there was a grace and a propriety about the design.

If she were rich, Cat thought, and if Coldridge were still hers, she would pull down the old house and have Master Hakesby build this one for her. If he permitted her to assist him in his drawing office, she would make the design as neat and elegant as the house itself would be. Perhaps the design would be even better, because it would be perfect in a way that a house of brick and wood and stone could never be.

The clerks were putting on their cloaks and leaving. The door to the yard closed with a bang and the candle flames swayed in the draught.

Hakesby returned and drew her aside. ‘Very well. I will help you. But we must be careful because someone knows there’s a connection between us.’

‘The thin man who came to the house with my cloak?’

‘Yes. He has also been here, remember, weeks ago. At the time he said my Lord Arlington sent him from Whitehall, but I think that must have been a lie. I did not have a sight of his warrant. Do you know who he is?’

She shook her head. ‘Only that he haunts me.’

He grunted, and the creases in his forehead deepened. ‘You cannot come back to Three Cocks Yard. It’s the first place they will look, and besides, Mistress Noxon wouldn’t permit it. I shall sign the lease on the drawing office on Monday, but until then I have nowhere you can go. If we find you lodgings for five nights, perhaps a week, there will be questions we do not want to answer. And I can do nothing to protect you if they trace you.’

‘I will go anywhere you say, sir.’

‘Will you? Truly? Are you afraid of ghosts?’

Startled, she said loudly, ‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘Hush. What if I found you somewhere here?’

‘At St Paul’s?’

‘I warn you, you would be quite alone. And at night this is not a place for those who are afraid of ghosts.’

B
ETTER NOT RISK
an unshielded light, Master Hakesby said, though there would be no one there to see it, because the cloister and the cathedral itself were sealed off at nightfall. They were quite alone. Master Hakesby had sent John home.

The Chapter Clerk’s room was about twelve feet square. It was on the first floor at the north-west corner of the cloister walk. It had a groined ceiling, two doors and a window with a shutter but no glass. The air was still and chilly, trapped in old stones, and it smelled of burning.

They entered by a door set high in the wall at the back of the shed, accessible by a steep staircase behind the desk where Master Frewin worked when he was down with the clerks and Master Hakesby. The second door was in the chamber’s opposite wall. It was barred on the other side and opened into a gallery above the north wall of the cloister. The roof of the gallery had been destroyed under the Commonwealth, Hakesby said, and the rest of it was ruinous.

When the shutters were open, the window beside this second door overlooked what had once been the cloister garth, with the remains of the Chapter House in the middle. By day, Master Hakesby told Cat, you saw nothing but ashes and heaps of stone out there. At night, you saw only darkness.

‘You won’t be disturbed,’ he said. ‘Master Frewin is away at his mother’s, and he won’t be back for a day or two. Even so, I’ll lock you in, to be on the safe side. But no one comes here at night.’

Besides, he went on, the common people were convinced that the ruins were populated with the ghosts of the dead who had been buried here, thousands of them crawling by night like ants over an anthill.

As for the watchmen, they rarely ventured far from the stove in their hut. They were usually drunk or asleep or both. Even if they did go into the ruins, or the yard, they did not have keys for the shed or for Master Frewin’s private chamber.

Master Hakesby left her with a closed lantern, a spare candle and a tinderbox. For drink, there was half a jug of small beer, left over from his dinner. He had no food for her, so she would have to fast until the morning. But at least Master Frewin kept a pot for pissing in behind the screen.

He opened a wall cupboard beside the empty fireplace. The light shone on cassocks and surplices hanging on hooks and bundled in a heap on the floor. The Fire had spared this part of the cloister from serious damage.

‘Will you be all right?’ he said, peering at her through the gloom.

‘Yes, sir.’ After the Davys’ house, solitude had its attractions. ‘When will you come back?’

‘About eight of the clock. If I come earlier, people will notice. I’ll bring you food.’

‘How long must I stay here?’

‘I don’t know, Jane. Let me turn it over in my mind.’

He went to the door and raised the latch.

She was suddenly desperate to make him stay. ‘Sir?’

He stopped. ‘What?’

‘Why are you doing this for me? You are … so kind.’

Master Hakesby’s face was reduced to a murky outline. ‘Because … because sometimes it’s as easy to be kind as to be cruel. Or perhaps – no, that’s enough, child. Don’t ask me questions without answers.’

Cat knew that his hands were shaking by the way the light from his lantern trembled. He wished her goodnight and left the room. She heard the key turning in the lock and wondered if he would be well enough to return in the morning. The door was thick and she could not hear his footsteps descending the stairs.

Silence crept over her like a mist, cold and clammy. Taking up the lantern, she explored the chamber as best she could. Besides the wall cupboard, there were two chairs, a table and a press, all made of blackened oak, with heavy, bulbous legs. The press was unlocked. When she opened it, the hinges screeched, and she nearly let the lid fall with the shock. Stacked inside were ledgers with heavy bindings, scrolls and bundles of papers. They smelled of must, of things too long undisturbed. The mice had been there, and left traces of their slow depredations.

Cat lowered the lid. She drank a little beer and used Master Frewin’s pot. She dragged the cassocks and surplices from the wall cupboard, disturbing small creatures that pattered away into the dark, and shook out the folds of stiff, cold cloth, one by one. She arranged a makeshift bed in the corner of the chamber furthest from the doors, the fireplace and the window.

Then there was nothing left to do. It was still early, five or six o’clock. She was hungry and weary.

She lay down, wrapped in her cloak, and covered herself as best she could with the makeshift bedclothes. She blew out the candle in the lantern and lost both its light and the tiny warmth it gave the atmosphere. She pushed her hands into the folds of her skirt for warmth, her fingers touching the familiar shapes of the knife and Hepzibah the doll in her pocket.

Despite her precautions she could feel draughts on the skin of her face. She closed her eyes, but her mind refused to drift towards unconsciousness. Instead she worried about herself, her father and the intractable problem of the future. Her thoughts followed a circular track that brought her always back here, to this chilly room at St Paul’s.