Some of the tension went out of Lawrence and he returned his tankard to the table with a cautious smile. ‘What?’
‘You’re just like my father,’ she breathed.
He almost dropped his ale. ‘Me? Like . . .’ He remembered in time to lower his voice to a near whisper. ‘Me? Like Seeker? How?’
‘I think you don’t trust anyone you don’t know. Especially if they make the mistake of trying to be friendly.’
Lawrence wiped the back of his hand across his lips and gave this some consideration, then nodded, not displeased. ‘Well, perhaps he does right not to. Mind you, he doesn’t trust anyone he does know either, apart from you, and Dorcas.’
‘And you.’
‘Me?’ he said, forgetting this time to lower his voice, such was his surprise. He shook his head. ‘The captain doesn’t trust me.’
‘Oh, I think he does.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘He is at his ease with you, for all he pretends otherwise. I saw it that first day, up on the moors. You’re the only person I’ve ever seen him at ease with, aside from Dorcas. You must know he just has his gruff way. I don’t know why you would think he doesn’t trust you.’
He gave a small, awkward laugh, looking away from her and back again. ‘Oh, just because I think he knows me.’
‘Then he will like you,’ she said quietly.
Lawrence found himself suddenly incapable of making any response, and was relieved to see Dorcas come towards them. ‘Now, Manon, you must let your brother finish his dinner. No doubt he’s in a hurry to return to his studies, and we don’t want to be getting a bad name from the masters of Clifford’s Inn for keeping their young gentlemen from their books.’ She looked across the parlour and Lawrence saw her eye alight on the man in the green felt hat. ‘Besides, you’ve tables to clear and customers ready to die of thirst. Lawrence’ll be back up here amongst us soon enough, I don’t doubt.’
Manon stood up quickly. ‘Oh, of course. I’m sorry, Aunt.’
Dorcas clearly regretted her chiding. She touched a hand to Manon’s shoulder. ‘We shall have Lawrence up to supper another night soon, just family, but I expect Captain Seeker’s arrival at any minute, and you know, the captain doesn’t like to see young men idle.’ She gave Lawrence a meaningful look. ‘Especially those that would be lawyers. Lawyers he keeps an especial eye on.’
Lawrence needed no further encouragement. ‘He does that, Aunt.’ He lost no time in rising from his bench and putting on his cap.
*
Cecil gave it a minute, but no more, before he too got up, having left a generous pile of coin to cover his food and drink. Back out on Broad Street, it didn’t take him long to catch sight of the brown woollen knight threading his way through the passers-by who were going in the other direction. Cecil knew the side alleys and shortcuts of London well, and had done from childhood. He could be standing in his quarry’s path in less than five minutes, and any who’d seen him leave the Black Fox just now ready to swear he had made off in the other direction. Up the road, into Austen Friars and down through the churchyard of Peter the Poor and he’d be out in front of him at the top of Throgmorton Street. Then, passing amongst the throng, a knife through the back, right into the kidneys – that brown woollen cloth was so giving – and drifting away again in the flow of people, away down through the lanes of the city, long before any noticed the flailing, dying man.
Cecil’s feet were moving as fast as his mind was working, and he already had a hand slipped beneath his cloak to check for the dagger, the Yorkshireman still in view, when further down Broad Street, into his line of vision, loomed Damian Seeker.
The young fellow had evidently spied Seeker too, and tried to slip into a doorway, but not quickly enough to evade Seeker, or the huge hound who bounded away from the captain’s side and through the crowd to sniff out and greet him as he lurked in the doorway. So they did know each other, Thurloe’s henchman and this young lawyer. Any doubts Cecil might have had – and they had been fleeting – about how he should proceed now, vanished. He turned casually and strolled off in the other direction, and through the gates of Gresham College. The deed could not be done this afternoon, but it would be done before morning. He had this Yorkshireman’s name, this ‘Lawrence’, as the mistress of the Black Fox and her niece had so unwittingly made clear. And they had been kind enough to inform him too, although they didn’t know it, that he should make his way to Clifford’s Inn tonight, to get his business done. Cecil began to whistle, a jaunty tune that was a favourite of his: it had, after all, been a remarkably good dinner.
Fifteen
An Evening at Lady Ranelagh’s
‘Fetching, I must say. Have to keep your wits about you though, wearing those red ones, especially down around Bankside.’
Lawrence stepped back from his intense examination of the side panel of the haberdasher’s window, himself crimson with embarrassment at being caught lurking in the doorway, apparently fixated by the pair of red women’s drawers on display. He wasn’t able to step back very far, for the excited proximity of Seeker’s dog made it almost impossible for him to move. Lawrence flicked his hair to the side and pushed back his shoulders in an attempt to recover his dignity. ‘I, eh, was just . . .’
But Seeker was enjoying himself far too much to let him wriggle out of his mortification just yet. ‘Of course, you’d need to be careful about the stays, that you got a set to match. Very fetching, all the same.’
‘All right,’ said Lawrence, conceding defeat. ‘You were looking for me, I take it?’
‘No,’ said Seeker, casting the lurid drawers a last glance of distaste, and making a note to have a word with the constable of the ward. ‘But you’ll do for now. Come on.’
The dog loped on ahead of them, turning at Seeker’s whistle down an alley that led to a small abandoned garden at Austen Friars.
‘It’s a wonder they haven’t built on this,’ said Lawrence, casting his eye around the precious patch of open space, half-enclosed by crumbling walls, that had slowly been encroached upon by nature.
‘They’ll try, I’ve no doubt. Anyway, tell me about your trip south of the river.’
Lawrence settled more comfortably on the large slab he’d sat down on, and leaned back against what remained of the wall behind it. ‘Right. You’ve seen the dog? The one Sir Thomas and I brought back.’
‘Oh, I’ve seen it, all right. Nearly had the arm of the kennel master’s boy up at the Mews. It’ll be a good long time before that thing’s allowed anywhere near Oliver.’
Lawrence’s eyes took on a misty look Seeker had seldom seen there. ‘Oh, but it’s a beauty,’ he said. ‘Just needs proper handling and it’ll be fit for a king.’
‘Only if the brute’s having him for supper,’ said Seeker. ‘That’s the only use we have for kings nowadays.’
Lawrence swallowed and carried on. ‘Aye, well. It’s a good dog, but it was bred and being kept for baiting, and for people prepared to pay high prices to see it. The sort of people that wouldn’t like it noised about, how they really spend their leisure hours. All the same, the dealer did look surprised, when he finally understood what we were really asking about. But the more Sir Thomas got me to wave his purse at him, the less surprised he got.’
‘And you’re convinced this dealer’s telling the truth?’
Lawrence nodded. ‘I’ve dealt with a trickster or two in my time on the Pullans’ business, but that man was definitely telling the truth. He knows where there’s a bear to be found; I’m just not entirely sure yet that he knows exactly how he’s going to lay hands on it, that’s all.’
‘Did you get the sense he knew anything about the death of the old man?’
‘Joseph Grindle?’ Lawrence shook his head. ‘Not specially. He knew our business was murky, but nothing he asked suggested he had any idea we were there about that. He believ
ed our story, I’m sure of it. Sir Thomas is no mean actor, you know. Must be all those plays and masques the Stuarts spend their time on to keep themselves from being bored. That dealer believed him. What’s more, he believed your money.’ Lawrence tapped the place where he kept the remains of the purse Seeker had given them.
Seeker reached out a hand, and with an exaggerated sigh Lawrence handed it over.
‘And this place on the marshes, Sir Thomas had never been there before?’
Instead of saying, ‘Why do you ask?’ as most people would have done, Lawrence took a minute to consider. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think he could have found his way there himself, or that he and the dealer knew each other, nor he and the old fellow who guided us there. But . . .’
‘But what?’ said Seeker.
Lawrence shook his head briefly as if he were trying to dislodge an irritating fly.
Seeker waited until he saw he had it. ‘What?’ he repeated.
‘Just after we left the compound, a few minutes after the kennel master had seen us out, a cart came trundling out of the darkness, from further out on the marsh. It was headed for the breeder’s compound, but the breeder met him at the main gate, and turned him away. The light caught the carter’s face just as he was looking over in our direction. Sir Thomas recognised him. Said his name was Mulberry or something.’
‘All right,’ said Seeker. ‘Description of this man you saw driving away?’
Lawrence gave him what he could: hunched beneath a woollen cloak, hood up, sixty or so maybe, hook nose.
The light was starting to fade, and Seeker had other places to be. ‘When you or Faithly hear again from this dealer, you get word to me immediately. And wherever this fellow tells you he wants you to go to, you don’t go there until you have my say-so. Understand?’ Lawrence nodded. ‘Right. You get yourself back down to Clifford’s Inn. No more stopping to look at women’s drawers and petticoats and the like, and don’t stop to talk to anyone.’
‘Why?’ said Lawrence.
Seeker leaned down towards him. ‘Because this isn’t Yorkshire, and that mouth of yours is more likely to get you into trouble here than out of it. Some folk might be a bit less impressed with a cocksure so-and-so down here than you’d like.’
Lawrence lost the cocksure demeanour and gave Seeker a penetrating look. ‘Who, for instance?’
‘The men you saw in that Hammersmith tavern, that were all set up to kill the Lord Protector. They’ll not be happy if they get wind it was you who told me their plans . . .’
‘But I didn’t . . .’ Lawrence began to protest.
Seeker shrugged. ‘Good as. Just keep your eyes open and your wits about you. If you see either of them again—’
‘I know, I know,’ interrupted Lawrence. ‘I let you know.’
‘That’s right,’ said Seeker. ‘Once you’re back at Clifford’s tonight, and you’ve had your supper, you get into your chamber, you lock the door and you stay there.’
Lawrence nodded and started to make his way through the stone archway that led to the lane and out on to Broad Street again. ‘I’ve already had a good dinner though,’ he said, obviously trying to lighten the mood, then instantly regretting it.
Here it was; this was why Ingolby had been trying to avoid him. Seeker had suspected as much anyway. ‘At the Black Fox, I take it?’
Lawrence’s response, an affirmative, was scarcely audible.
The bell tolled the half-hour and Seeker looked again at the falling shadows. ‘You just get down to Clifford’s. And remember what I said.’
‘About what?’ asked Lawrence.
‘Everything,’ said Seeker, his voice very deliberate. ‘You remember what I said about everything.’
*
Andrew Marvell saw to it that Secretary Milton was comfortably seated in the chair Lady Ranelagh had appointed for him and took up his position at the great man’s shoulder, ready to assist with anything that Milton might require. He wondered how it must be for Milton to have the sparkling beauty of such surroundings as Lady Ranelagh’s reception room reduced to nothing but flickering impressions of warmth and light. Milton, though, he reminded himself, saw far beyond what other mortals could.
Once the old Latin Secretary was settled amongst congenial company, there was a familiar squeeze of Marvell’s fingers, the understood sign between the old poet and the young that the latter might be released from his duties. Marvell made his bow to the company surrounding John Milton and receded into the throng.
Marvell surveyed the gathering from a pillar that separated the reception room from a balcony overlooking the garden. When he and Milton had arrived, there had been a hiatus in the suppressed excitement of perhaps forty voices as all turned to look to the entrance hall. Faces had fallen and an audible sigh of disappointment escaped the crowd when Milton had made the austere announcement that His Royal Highness, the Lord Protector, would not in fact be coming tonight. But that initial disappointment, once expressed, had not been long in floating away to nothing, to be replaced by a relaxed chatter. Marvell allowed himself to drift around the edges of the gathering, listening for any who might become too relaxed at the unexpected absence of the Protector, who might let slip something that would be of interest to Damian Seeker.
He had been occupying himself in this way for several minutes when his ear picked up a conversation going on in French. So accustomed had he become to the tongue during his recent sojourn with his pupil in Saumur, that it took Marvell a moment to realise he was not following the conversation in English.
‘So, we are to be deprived of our sighting of his elegant personage.’ The slight sneer, and the slighter trace of an English accent alerted Marvell to the proximity of John Evelyn. Although Evelyn’s disdain for the Protector was well known at Whitehall, it was also considered that he liked the comforts of his life too well to risk setting his own head above the parapet these days in support of the Stuarts. Marvell considered it unlikely he would hear anything of interest here and was about to move on past Evelyn’s group when his eye was caught by the movement very close to him of the most striking woman. It was as if one of the marbles, some Roman goddess from Arundel House, had come to life and walked from the Strand to Pall Mall and Lady Ranelagh’s gathering. Athena, perhaps, or Judith. Before Marvell knew what he was doing he found himself offering the so-gracefully-moving statue his deepest bow. The lady turned her extraordinary stone-grey eyes on him and then, glancing towards her companion, whom Marvell recognised as John Evelyn’s wife, very slightly inclined her head in return. Marvell was in the middle of paying his compliments to Mary Evelyn when he became aware of having drawn the attention of the man who had been standing with his back to her, talking to someone else. Marvell had already noticed the particular blue of his velvet suit, and the soft folds of the fine Flemish bobbin lace at his cuffs. From Seeker’s description, he knew even before the man had fully turned around that this was Sir Thomas Faithly.
Faithly’s eyes found his instantly, and the handsome mouth broke into a broad grin. ‘My, but it does my ear good to hear a Yorkshire voice, even in French!’ He thrust an elegant though not unscarred hand towards Marvell. ‘Thomas Faithly, of the North Riding.’
‘Andrew Marvell,’ Marvell replied, and then, ‘of Hull.’
‘Or Kingston upon Hull?’ Faithly suggested with a wicked grin, slinging an arm around Marvell’s shoulder. ‘Now, Clémence, if you will excuse us, I have found a fellow-countryman, and I would quiz him for news of home.’
The striking woman who had first taken Marvell’s attention dipped them a curtsy, accompanied by what Marvell considered a most becoming smile. ‘You are indeed excused, Sir Thomas. I have heard more from you of this Yorkshire than would do me many lifetimes, but no doubt Mr Marvell is better prepared against such wonders.’
She moved softly away, and Marvell found himself rooted to the spot, like a well-tra
ined puppy whose master has left it for other more pressing business. Beside him, Thomas Faithly sighed, and reverted to English. ‘She is of a different order of woman, is she not, my friend? But come, let us find the punchbowl and you can tell me all the news from the north.’
A comfortable bench near the balcony and Lady Ranelagh’s orangery, and the engagement of a biddable footman who knew the shortest way to the punchbowl, ensured that within the half-hour, Thomas Faithly and Andrew Marvell were the best of old friends. Marvell found his tongue loosened to an eloquence usually reserved for his pen, and discovered his new acquaintance to be an excellent conversationalist. Their continental travels had taken them to many of the same places, and the Royalist sympathies Marvell had held to in the early years of the war meant they had several acquaintances in common. Inevitably, their talk fell to others they had met from home, bringing Thomas Faithly to a sombre pause.
‘Marvell, I fear I must broach an unpleasant subject.’
Marvell felt their political differences were about to drive a stake through their new-found friendship. He prepared himself.
‘Damian Seeker,’ Faithly said at last.
‘Seeker?’
‘The same,’ said Sir Thomas, as if there was nothing further to be said.
And, in fact, Marvell could not quite think what further there was to say. Eventually, the silence became too much for him. ‘Ah, yes. Seeker,’ he said.
‘Exactly,’ said Sir Thomas, with some emphasis. ‘You know him, our fellow Yorkshireman. Who doesn’t? But how is a man to make his way in this town without his every step is dogged by Damian Seeker?’
Marvell gave thought to the question. ‘In all,’ he said at last, ‘I think it is better not to try. It only annoys him, and to be quite frank with you, Sir Thomas, cooperation saves a tremendous amount of time.’
Thomas’s face became even more sombre. ‘I feared as much. But does the man never sleep? Is he never distracted by the pleasures of life?’
Marvell felt his eyes widen. ‘Pleasures?’
The Bear Pit Page 17