The Ashes of London (48 page)

He sneezed violently. ‘Do you know the Board of Red Cloth?’

‘No, sir.’

‘It comes under the Lord Chamberlain. It does very little these days – and never has, as far as I know. But it carries on, as these things do. The members meet every quarter to assess their requirements of the next three months. They have a vacancy for a clerk to record what is decided at these meetings, and I have put forward your name to his lordship.’ He held up his hand when I tried to thank him. ‘Master Williamson will give you leave to attend to business there on the days when they meet. As there are only four meetings a year, I doubt it will inconvenience him overmuch. It pays about fifty pounds a year, I believe.’ He took up his handkerchief and blew his nose very loudly, which turned him pinker than ever. ‘I sit on the board myself, as it happens, and I may occasionally call on you to undertake other duties as well.’

I thanked him as effusively as I knew how for his kindness and his condescension, wondering what those other duties might be but deciding it would be unwise to ask.

‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘You’re to call at Cradle Alley on Sunday. Three o’clock sharp. Don’t be late.’

St Lucy’s Day, the thirteenth of December, had fallen on Thursday. I had three long days to wait until Sunday.

In the meantime, I was pleased with myself to the point of smugness. It was not every day, I told myself, that a man was given a position at Whitehall, let alone two of them. I discovered that the news of my advancement had reached the office – my fellow clerks treated me with more respect, and even Master Williamson condescended to nod affably when I greeted him on Friday morning with my usual bow.

I told my father that I had had a piece of good fortune, and that we could, if we wished, move ourselves to a more convenient set of lodgings. But he grew agitated at the idea and begged me to let us stay. He liked the smell of ink and paper, I believed, and the familiar sounds of the press. He even liked Mistress Newcomb, who was firm with him to the point of ruthlessness, but also consistent and never unkind for the sake of it. He knew where he was with her, and after his imprisonment that was luxury indeed.

The Newcombs heard that I was to be promoted, and they made much of me. I promised them a celebratory dinner in the New Year. I put in a good word for Margaret, too, arranging for her to spend several hours a day with my father. At my expense, she was to clean our part of the lodgings, look after our clothes and take him out for air if the weather and his health permitted.

I had another scheme for Margaret and Sam as well: that of bringing them both to live within the Savoy. Like Alsatia, the Savoy and its surroundings were a liberty, a legal sanctuary, in this case under the Duchy of Lancaster. A man might owe a fortune in London or Westminster, but his creditors could not pursue him here. The Savoy was far safer than Alsatia, and there would be a convenience in the arrangement for my father and me.

But there was a worm in my apple, gnawing away at my smugness. A month earlier, four people had gone up the tower at St Paul’s, and only two of us had come down alive. I knew the truth of that, and sometimes I relived it in my dreams, even though I tried so hard to forget what had happened.

I wished I could talk to Mistress Lovett about what had happened that night, and about the letter. But I did not enquire after her, though it would have been easy enough to seek out Master Hakesby.

Part of me wanted to burn the letter, as I had the rest of the papers in Lovett’s portfolio. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was not my secret to destroy. Perhaps, I thought, if I ever saw Mistress Lovett again, I would decide that she should know the truth.

A child deserved to know what her father had been, after his death if not in his life. Suddenly it struck me that, by a similar argument, the King deserved to know how his father had died, and by whose hand.

I didn’t know what to do.

‘H
ER LADYSHIP GAVE
orders to admit you.’

The porter stared down from his great height, giving the impression that, in her ladyship’s place, he would have kept the door barred against me. He was a different, haughtier porter from the man who had admitted me on my previous visits.

‘Her ladyship?’ I said.

‘My Lady Quincy,’ he said, his air of disapproval increasing. He stood back to allow me to enter.

A sign of changing times: Mistress Alderley had reverted to her old name, the name that belonged to her first marriage. I went into the hall. The light was already fading. There were shadowy figures beyond the staircase whose faces I could not see. The house seemed busier than before, full of secret life. I hadn’t seen the manservant who took my cloak before, either.

The shutters were up in the drawing room. The glare of candlelight filled the chamber and brought a smoky warmth to the air. The old screen was still across the corner, and Lady Quincy was in her usual chair. She acknowledged my bow with a gracious inclination of her head and told me to sit.

She was in mourning, as far as her clothes were concerned, but there was nothing sorrowful about her face or her manner. She looked in remarkably fine spirits. As for her dress, black did not suit everyone, but it agreed well enough with her. I began to mutter something about the loss she must have suffered by her husband’s death. She cut me off with a wave of her hand.

‘There’s no need to talk of that now, sir,’ she said. ‘Let me be blunt, it will save time. Do you know what’s become of my niece? Did you find her?’

I hesitated. I had no way of knowing her reason for asking. I had to trust my instinct. ‘Yes, madam.’

‘Where is she?’

‘With friends.’

‘Friends whose beliefs are like her father’s?’

‘No,’ I said, trying not to stare at the flame-tinted richness of her skin. ‘Loyal subjects of the King.’

‘Is she content with her lot?’

‘I believe so, madam.’

‘That’s as well.’ Lady Quincy – the name seemed more naturally hers than Mistress Alderley had ever done – took up a fan and toyed with it. ‘You see, I can offer her nothing but charity, and not much of that. It turns out that her uncle’s estate is much embarrassed.’

I frowned. ‘I thought he was rich. One of the richest men in—’

‘So did everyone. But he was more than a goldsmith, you understand. His clients deposited their gold and their plate with him for security, on the understanding that he would allow them to withdraw it whenever they wished to have it. In return, Master Alderley lent out the money, and charged interest, or sometimes invested it in a venture, and so made a profit on the transaction.’

So, I thought. A man who makes other people’s money breed for him, first cousin to a usurer. It was a strange way to make a living, let alone to become rich.

She seemed to read my mind. ‘But he was not a moneylender in the old, avaricious way that we must all condemn. He used to cite the parable of the talents in the Gospel, in which Jesus praised the man who used the money entrusted to him to make more money rather than let it moulder unprofitably in the ground. He told me that everybody gained by this – the depositor, the lender and the borrower. Even England itself, he used to say, from the King downwards – for money must flow safely and easily if a country is to prosper and the government is to have its revenues. Gold is the lifeblood of nations.’ She paused. ‘At least – that was the theory of it.’

She fell silent, staring down at the fan.

‘But perhaps practice does not always follow where theory leads?’ I suggested.

‘Just so.’ She looked up. ‘There was a flaw in the logic, it seemed to me, though of course I’m only a woman and cannot understand the matter as a man does.’ She glanced at me, and I could have sworn that I saw mockery in her eyes. The woman was like quicksilver; I could never pin her down. ‘What if everyone wants his money at the same time? If the depositor wishes to withdraw his gold, and the borrower demands more, while the lender finds that his investments have gone bad and his debtors will not pay him what they owe. All that money is flown away, leaving the man in the centre with nothing. With worse than nothing, if the truth be known, for he still owes his depositors the value of their original deposits.’

‘So Master Alderley left nothing but debts?’

There was no mockery in her face now. I thought of another man who was a bankrupt – Samuel Witherdine, crippled in his country’s service and denied the pay he was owed. I knew who the better man was.

‘It’s worse than that,’ Lady Quincy said slowly, as if drawing each word painfully from her mouth. ‘A little before he died – in order to balance his books … my husband was tempted to … to use money that was not his to use.’

It seemed to me that, strictly speaking, most of Master Alderley’s money had not been his to use, that his wealth had been nothing but a bubble.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘So he sold Coldridge, which belonged to his niece, and pocketed the proceeds.’

Lady Quincy had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Truly, there is nothing left. Worse than nothing. My late husband’s creditors will have every last penny from his estate, and still they won’t be even half satisfied. The jointure I brought him on my marriage is safe from them, and so is this house, but I have only a life interest, and on my death they must go to the heirs of Sir William, my first husband. The only persons who have gained by his death are some of Master Alderley’s debtors. The ones who gave him no security for the loans he made them, whose word he trusted.’

I remembered Master Chiffinch’s words when I had told him that Alderley was dead:
Well, Marwood, I always say it’s an ill wind that blows no man good.
‘I wonder, madam, was Master Chiffinch among these debtors?’

It was a question I had no right to ask. Lady Quincy didn’t answer. In the silence that followed, I heard, quite distinctly, a floorboard creak nearby. I could have kicked myself. Chiffinch was probably behind the screen again, listening to every word I said. I would not last long in Whitehall now.

I rushed on, desperate to move the subject to safer ground. ‘And Edward Alderley? Is he penniless too?’

She shook her head. ‘Before he died, his father transferred the ownership of several freeholds to Edward, including Barnabas Place. The creditors can’t touch that either. But Edward has no love for his cousin. I fear he does not accept that she has a claim on him. He thinks she must be dead, or fled abroad to be with her father’s friends.’

‘I don’t understand why you are telling me this, madam.’

She flared up at me. ‘Then you are more foolish than I took you to be, Master Marwood. I had a duty towards my niece, and I did not discharge it as I should have done when she was living in my household. I wish to make some small amends, if that’s possible. To help her. Is that plain enough?’

‘How can you help her?’

‘I can give her a little money, if she will take it from me. I cannot have her here to live with me. She’s the daughter of a Regicide. And worse. Also, there is the question of Sir Denzil’s murder. Edward has made certain allegations. Only in private, so far, but if she appears in public again, or makes a claim on him, it will be a different matter. If that happens, I cannot protect her.’

‘The mastiffs,’ I said.

‘Yes.’ Lady Quincy intoned their names like a charm: ‘Thunder, Lion, Greedy and Bare-Arse. Especially Bare-Arse, who stood by while Sir Denzil was murdered and did nothing.’

‘Her cousin couldn’t prove anything, madam.’

‘You think not? Edward will think nothing of perjuring himself if he needs to. He says he has found a servant who will swear that she saw that grey cloak in Catherine’s chamber on the day before she fled from Barnabas Place. The cloak they found on Primrose Hill. He may be lying, but it’s a dangerous lie. And no jury will show favour to the daughter of the Regicide.’

I took a deep breath and jumped into the unknown. ‘They say the King himself and his brother borrowed large sums of money from Master Alderley.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Do they indeed? Well, that’s no concern of yours or mine. I think we have finished our business, Master Marwood. I understand you have been rewarded handsomely for your pains. But bear in mind that what the King gives, the King can also take away.’

I stood up. ‘Master Alderley committed treason of the worst kind. The King need not repay a debt to a traitor, even in death.’

‘What nonsense is this?’

‘I’m persuaded that when the King knows all, he will look mercifully on Mistress Lovett and suffer her to live quietly and unmolested, free from any fear of prosecution. He will not visit the sins of the father on the child.’

‘The King will do as he pleases. Now, will you—’

I spoke over her. ‘Henry Alderley was a traitor and hypocrite. Nearly twenty years ago, he—’

‘Pooh!’ she interrupted. ‘As you well know, many were foolish in those days, and forgot their allegiance to their king. The Act of Indemnity draws a line under that.’

‘The Act would not cover this, my lady.’ I took out the letter I had found among Thomas Lovett’s papers. ‘And the King would not wish it to.’ I unfolded the letter and said in a voice I tried to keep level, ‘Madam, the second executioner of the late King was not Thomas Lovett. Lovett was ill that day. It was Henry Alderley who kept up Brandon’s nerve and who held up the King’s head to the crowd. I saw him do it myself, with my own eyes, though I did not know it. That’s why Alderley prospered under the Commonwealth. Cromwell favoured him.’

Ashes and blood.

The warmth and the colour faded from her face. ‘You cannot prove this.’

‘This letter does. It’s in Cromwell’s own hand.’

Another creak from a floorboard. Then another. The candle flames flickered. A tall man appeared from behind the screen.

I flung myself on my knees. Lady Quincy rose and curtsied.

‘Give me that letter,’ the King said.

The King turned aside to read it. I stood in silence. Lady Quincy sat down again. Time stretched out. My legs ached. The coal shifted in the grate. One of the candles guttered and died. How long could it take to read one short letter and digest its contents?