by Celia Rees
Sovay heard the scrape and turn of a key in a lock.This must be where Toby and Jack and the others taken from the streets were being kept. For what purpose Sovay only had the haziest idea but it made her shake with disgust and rage. Some of them in there would be little more than children, to be bought and sold for the profit of Mrs Pierce and to gratify these gentlemen’s lust and pleasure. Sovay would prevent it if she possibly could.
Mother Pierce did not stay long. The door was locked behind her and after some more banter with the guards she came back down the stairs and hurried off down the vaulted corridor. When the door closed at the other end, Sovay emerged from her hiding place. She went back to her room and was glad to find no sign of Lydia. She changed into her plainest dress and found her grey woollen shawl. She rang for a servant and ordered a bottle of wine.
At the bottom of the tower stairs, she pulled the shawl up over her hair. She stooped her shoulders and stared down at the ground as she approached the men on either side of the door.
‘Mother Pierce sent me,’ she muttered to the larger man’s boots. She showed him the neck of the bottle.
‘Did she now?’ the big man said.
‘Yes,’ Sovay replied. ‘Told me to bring up another bottle.’
‘Where’s she been keeping you, then?’ he asked, making no move to unlock the door. ‘Keeping the prettiest somewhere else, eh? Sly old mare.’
He stood up and came towards her. Sovay tightened her grip on the bottle. She had to get to Toby and the others and she must not be discovered, but she did not know what she would do if this loathsome creature started pawing her.
‘Now, now, Billy boy.’ The other guard laughed and took hold of his arm. ‘No sampling the goods.’
‘I suppose.’ The fat guard reluctantly fished up a bunch of keys hanging from a chain at his belt.
Sovay dodged his groping hand and stood as far away as she could as he opened the door.
‘Hard to get, eh?’ The guard held the door. He came close enough for her to smell the sweet stench of gin on his breath. His body pushed against her as she squeezed past him.
Finally, he let her into the room. Sovay set down the bottle, her eyes wide. She had discovered another of Thursley’s surprises. Along with the architecture, fine rooms and furniture, Thursley boasted its own bordello and although her experience of such things was rather limited, she judged it to be a very fine one. Themed like every other room, this seemed to be in the style of a Turkish harem, or how Sovay imagined one to be: furnished with low couches and sofas covered in the most luxurious materials, the floor strewn with cushions, the ceilings hung with silk curtains and brocade awnings, drifting loose or held back by tasselled swags. A group of boys were sitting on the floor playing cards. One of them was Jack, the Irish boy from Ma Pierce’s, Toby’s friend. He looked up as she came into the room, as surprised to see her as she was to be here herself.
‘Miss Sovay,’ he said coming towards her. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I saw Mrs Pierce and wondered what she was up to so I followed her. Where’s Toby?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jack shrugged. ‘He tried to escape and they took him away. That’s why those two clowns are out there now.’
‘Not here?’ Sovay was stricken. How was she supposed to find him now? ‘What happened?’
‘Got caught and brought back here, so Ma Pierce could teach us all a lesson. Then they took him off somewhere.’
‘Took him where?’
Jack shook his head. ‘I dunno. I heard Ma say summat about “down below”. That’s all I know.’
‘This place . . .’
‘Ain’t it something? There’s more rooms through there. Upstairs, too. A regular warren. Thought of everything. There’s even opium.’ He nodded to a silver-inlaid rosewood cabinet, various elaborate smoking devices and a rack of long pipes. ‘We ain’t allowed to touch that, though. That’s there for the nobs.’ He dropped his voice and looked round warily. ‘Most of the others are as happy as pigs in you know what. They believe whatever fairytale Ma’s spinning ’em, but I don’t like it. Nor did Toby. That’s why he decided to go look see.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s too good to be true. All my life, no one showed me no kindness, nor never give me nothing, especially not her, and suddenly it’s all little white loaves and delicacies.’ He indicated crumbs left on a brass plate on the floor. ‘It’s like in one of them stories, like we’re being fattened up before the kill.’
‘I’ll get you out of here, I promise,’ Sovay said, although she had no idea how she would do it. ‘But first I have to find Toby.’
‘We’ll be ready. It ain’t just Tobe and me, some of the others don’t like the smell of it, neither. When you find old Tobe, give him these.’ Jack held out a bunch of thin keys, ranging in size from very small to very large. ‘Them’s his picklocks and he might be needing them. He managed to slip ’em into the guard’s pocket while he was being searched. I filched them out again, sweet as you like.’ He grinned at her. ‘The old one-two. Then they dragged him off.’
A girl reeled in from an adjoining chamber. ‘Old bitch brought the gin yet?’ She looked around and her uncertain focus centred on Sovay. ‘Who’s yer new friend, Jacky boy?’ She came weaving towards them. ‘What’s your name, then? Ain’t seen you before. Ain’t you going to say hello? Or you too good for us? Is that it? What you looking at?’ She lurched towards Sovay, fists curling. ‘Give over eyeing me like that, you stuck up bitch!’
‘Now, now, Rosie.’ Jack moved to intercept her. ‘It’s just the gin talking. No need to get riled. I reckon you’d best go,’ he whispered to Sovay. ‘Good luck, miss.’
‘Thanks, Jack.’ Sovay was already moving towards the door. ‘Good luck to you, too.’
Down below, that was the only clue Sovay had as to where Toby might be. There were many stairways in the abbey, and the cellars were no doubt extensive, running under each part of the building. She paused when she reached the level of the upper gallery. The stairs carried on downward. They were unlikely to drag Toby kicking and struggling to some other part of the building. She could do no worse than start here.
She took one flight and then another, determined not to stop until the stairs gave out. The cold smell of earth and stone told her that she was underground, but still the steps led down. Sovay had to feel her way as the light from above began to recede. She cursed herself for not thinking to bring a candle and was about to turn back when she saw a faint glimmer coming up from below. Finally, the stairway finished under a brick archway. Sovay looked out cautiously into a wide stone passage lit by torches held in stanchions on the walls. Rooms gave off to left and right, the wide entrances curved, like the mouths of caves. The stone was worked in massive blocks, the marks of the masons’ tools clear upon them, and it was grey, like the remnants of the ruin left above ground. If the abbey had all but disappeared up there, it still existed below the ground.
Sovay stepped out, ducking her head under the low ceiling, and took a torch down to light her way. Her heart sank inside her. The rooms to left and right appeared to be wine cellars full of racks of dusty bottles, the entrances barred and locked. These could go on for miles. What if the cellars were only used for their most obvious purpose, that of storage? Toby could be anywhere and she might never find him. She carried on until the passage branched. As she stood, trying to decide which way to take, she heard rough voices and raucous laughter coming from the right. Sovay moved with great care, extinguishing the torch she held and edging along the wall. She had no desire to be discovered down here by men like the two that she had encountered upstairs.
About halfway along the passage a door stood open. Sovay hesitated, listening to the deep rumble of male voices and wondering how to get past without being seen. She need not have worried. The four men inside were intent on the cards in front of them. A bottle stood at each elbow. They drank from small pewter cups and coins chinked and rolled into the pile at the centre of the table. The cards slapped down. O
ne man laughed as he claimed his winnings and another objected. She waited for the shouting and laughter to build to a crescendo and flitted past.
There were no wine cellars along this passage. The wide-mouthed entrances were bricked up and small doorways of stout wood were set into the middle of each one. Along with every other convenience, Dysart had his own prison. Sovay peered through the small, barred grating at the top of each door and her heart beat faster. If Toby was anywhere, he was likely to be here.
Sovay came to the end of the row, hardly able to contain her disappointment. The cells were empty, apart from a few rats and mice running about in the dirty straw, and showed no signs of recent occupation. If he wasn’t here, where could he be?
She went on round the next corner, wondering if there were more cells and, if they were empty, what other thing they could have done with Toby. The passage widened out into a square inner court. Sovay stopped short, unable to take in what she was seeing. She shrank back against the wall, her fingers gripping into the soft, decaying stone.
At the centre of the underground yard stood a machine. She instantly recognised the tall, oblong frame and huge slanted blade. Although she had never seen one in her life, it was as familiar by now as the gallows. A guillotine. A wide gutter led from a point underneath the circular collar to a square drain sunk into the floor. Dysart’s voice, talking of corpses still warm on the dissecting table, came back to her. She swallowed, nausea threatening to overwhelm her. Was there no limit to this man’s wickedness? Then she made herself step forward. Was there fresh blood on the blade? She had to see.
Something hit her on the arm and she almost screamed. She looked down and a stone plinked to the floor by her feet.
‘Over here! Sovay! Don’t scream whatever you do!’
She had been so transfixed by Dysart’s personal instrument of death that she had completely failed to notice the cell that had been constructed opposite to it. The condemned cell was made differently from the others with open bars from floor to ceiling, so nothing could come between the prisoner caged within and contemplation of the fate that awaited him. A man was sitting on a chair bolted to the ground, his wrists circled with manacles, his legs in irons, chained to rings set into the floor. His shirt was torn, one eye was closed and his face was bruised and crusted with dried blood. Captain Greenwood might have lost some of his dash and élan, but the look in his eyes suggested that his spirit remained undaunted.
‘Why, Miss Middleton! We do meet in the most unexpected places!’ He managed a lop-sided smile. ‘Forgive me for not rising.’ He held up his chains. ‘How did you find me? How did you even know I was here?’
‘I didn’t. I was looking for Toby.’
‘They took him down there.’ Greenwood pointed to a dark, brick-floored passageway.
‘How did you get here? What happened to you?’
‘I allowed Dysart to take me,’ he looked down at the chains binding him, ‘but I must confess my ruse did not quite go according to plan. He seems to think I’m part of some kind of conspiracy against him.’ He touched his split cheek and bruised jaw. ‘I can’t tell him what I don’t know, but he doesn’t believe me. That’s why Madame Guillotine and I are as yet unacquainted. Sovay? Where are you going?’ Greenwood made to stand up but the chains pulled him down again. ‘Don’t leave me! I expected just a little sympathy!’
‘I must find Toby,’ Sovay said over her shoulder. ‘He might be able to get you out of here. Better than I can, anyway.’
‘I don’t see how.’ The highwayman grasped his chains and shook them.
‘You’ll just have to trust me.’
Sovay took a torch from the wall, ducking her head as she went down a dark, low passage, little higher than a tunnel. She peered through the grilles of cells left and right, calling Toby’s name in a low voice. There was no response, and she was about to turn back, when she heard a hoarse whisper.
‘Over here.’
The whisper came from a cell at the very end of the passage where fingers of green slime plaited the walls and moisture seeped from the brickwork to form stagnant pools on the uneven floor.
Toby’s cell was narrow, dank and dismal, with a low stone platform to sleep on and a bucket in the far corner. He had clearly been hurt in some way and found it hard to rise from the sleeping shelf and drag himself to the door. Like the Captain’s, his face was bruised and bleeding and he cradled his right arm close to his body in the way an animal might protect a wounded paw.
‘What have they done to you?’ Sovay put her fingers through the close knit of the bars as if this would bring her nearer to him.
Toby winced as he tried to smile and brought his hand to his face. ‘Old Ma didn’t take too well to me trying to run away.’
‘What did they do to your hand?’ His fist was blackened, oozing and swollen. The fingers curled under, twisted and bent. She fumbled in her pocket and held up the bunch of keys where he could see them. ‘Jack gave me these but I fear you will have no use for them.’
She bit her lip, near to tears with anger at the way they had used him and frustration that everything she did seemed to come to nothing.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I can try.’
‘How? Your hand is crippled.’
‘Me right is, but I’m mauldy-handed.’ He held up his left, uninjured. ‘Didn’t know that, did they? Give ’em to me.’
Hope flared within her, only to be dashed. The bunch of keys was too big to pass through the mesh of the grille.
‘They won’t go through!’
‘I only need one, don’t I? Hold ’em up so I can see. That long thin ’un will do. Take it off the ring and feed it through. Leave the rest outside, I’ll pick ’em up after.’
The key went in after some manoeuvring and clinked on the stone floor inside.
Then, from down the corridor, came the sound of a man singing:
‘Fill every glass, for wine inspires us,
And fires us
With courage, love and joy.’
The singing became more sonorous, the words fairly bellowed:
‘Women and wine should life employ.
Is there aught else on earth desirous?’
The chorus followed, louder yet and more frantic:
‘Fill every glass . . .’
‘It’s the Captain! He’s giving us a warning,’ Toby whispered. ‘The guards are on their rounds.’
‘Shut that caterwauling,’ a rough voice roared. ‘Or I’ll shut it for you!’
Iron bars clanged down the passageway and the song faded to one or two words drowned out by angry swearing, and replaced by grunts and yelps of pain.
Sovay doused her torch and tried to quell a mounting sense of panic. They could come at any moment and there was no way out of the passage. She was in a dead end.
CHAPTER 25
She dodged into an empty cell and flattened herself against the slimy wall, trying to control her breathing, praying that they would not hear her or sense her presence; but after they had checked on Toby, the sound of their voices receded and she judged it safe to come out.
‘They’ll go back to their drinking,’ Toby hissed through the grille of his cell. ‘You should be able to get away. Good luck, Miss Sovay.’
‘Good luck to you, too, Toby.’
She crossed the passage and touched fingers with him through the bars before creeping cautiously along to the Captain.
‘Toby has his keys.’
‘Then we are as good as free.’ Fresh blood oozed from his mouth as he gave her a crooked smile. ‘Go carefully, Sovay,’ he added, his voice suddenly serious.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘I’ll be quite safe. Look to help Toby and his friends. Gabriel will be back later with the coach and –’
Before she could tell him more, there was a shout from the guardroom.
‘I’ll find him. Now go, before they catch you.’ He raised his manacled hand in farewell. ‘Until we meet again.’
When the
guards were again intent on their cards, Sovay sneaked past. By the time she reached the upper levels, it was well past noon. She met no one and regained the sanctuary of her room without having to use the story about getting lost in the grounds and grappling with thickets to explain her absence and dishevelled state.
She scarcely had time to change her clothes and make herself respectable when there was a knock on her door.
‘Sovay! Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’ Lady Bingham entered without a by-your-leave and looked around with some interest. Sovay was glad that she had secreted her soiled dress in the closet and had thought to rumple the bedclothes.
‘I fell asleep.’ She indicated the creased coverlet. ‘I was rather fatigued after a walk in the grounds.’
‘They are wonderful, aren’t they?’ Lady Bingham was easily diverted into praising their host’s feats of horticulture, rather than wondering further about what else Sovay might have been doing. ‘He has spared no expense there, as everywhere. Not to be equalled the length and breadth of England, I truly do believe. The rhododendrons and azaleas are over their best, I fear, but the roses are coming into their own. Did you see the Orangery?’
‘No.’ Sovay shook her head. ‘But what I did see was magnificent. I have already gained many ideas for Compton.’
‘You must get him to show you the Orangery. Superb collection: lilies and camellias, figs, peaches, pineapples, and I don’t know what. It is quite a wonder, my dear. Quite a wonder.’
‘And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’ Sovay asked her, sure she had not come to discuss exotic fruit.
‘I am here to welcome you to Thursley. Since Sir Robert is not married, it falls upon me to act as his hostess. But I understand you and Hugh arrived yesterday evening? Sir Robert sends his apologies. He was called away suddenly and could not welcome you in person. I hope all was satisfactory.’
‘Yes, thank you, Lady Bingham. Everything was perfect.’
‘I have another purpose.’ Lady Bingham’s large blue eyes took on a conspiratorial gleam. ‘Surely you have not forgotten?’