by Julia Stuart
“I’m sorry to hear about your wife,” said Oswin Fielding.
Balthazar Jones stared at him. “How did you hear about that?” he asked.
“It was mentioned. You have my sympathies. My wife left me several years ago. You never get over it.”
Both men stared at their glasses.
“Anyway,” said the courtier eventually. “Back to the matters at hand. All set for the opening?”
“Yes,” replied the Beefeater. “Any news about the penguins?”
“Unfortunately not. Thankfully the Argentine Embassy hasn’t been in touch, so it seems they’re none the wiser. Let’s hope they remain that way. We have, however, heard from someone in the Brazilian President’s office. It was he who gave the Queen the Geoffroy’s marmosets, if you remember. The chap wanted to know why they were flashing their private parts in those photographs taken with you, which, as he pointed out, were used all around the world.”
The Beefeater glanced away. “Apparently it’s something they do when they sense danger,” he muttered.
The equerry frowned. “Really?” he asked. “I wasn’t entirely sure, so I told them it must have been your uniform.”
“My uniform? What did he say to that?”
“He said that he found it hard to imagine why monkeys would find the sight of a Beefeater in any way sexually alluring. I tried to explain that the Tower of London attracts more than two million visitors a year from all around the world, and they weren’t just coming to see the Crown Jewels. ‘History’s a big turn-on,’ I said.”
“What did he say to that?”
The equerry reached for his glass. “I’m not entirely sure,” he said. “It was in Portuguese. Then he hung up.”
WHEN THE TIME CAME to open the royal menagerie to the public, Balthazar Jones unlocked the gate that led to the moat. A line of visitors who had been queuing for several hours immediately surged through. The Beefeater followed them in case there were any questions, despite his fear that he would be unable to answer them. They stopped at the empty penguin enclosure and read the information panel that he had had erected, stating that the birds were not only amongst the smallest breeds of penguin in the world, but also the most opportunistic. The tourists happily accepted the Beefeater’s explanation that they were at the vet’s, and then clattered their way along the boardwalk to inspect the President of Russia’s gift. Stopping at a sign that said: “Please Feed Me,” they stood and stared at the small bear-like creature with yellow stripes running down its brown fur. After the recumbent glutton emitted an undignified belch, a young girl asked Balthazar Jones how much the creature ate. “Even more than the Yeoman Gaoler,” he replied.
As the group headed towards the giraffes, the Beefeater immediately suggested that they go to see the Duchess of York before there was a queue. There was an instant murmur of agreement, and he led them into the fortress to the Devereux Tower. Once the tourists had gotten over their disappointment that they were not actually in the presence of Princess Diana’s former sister-in-law, but rather a blue-faced, snub-nosed monkey with titian hair, they got out their cameras declaring that the resemblance was nevertheless remarkable. The Beefeater offered to take them to see the birds next, but they were unable to move because of the crowds flocking up the stairs to see the Geoffroy’s marmosets in all their glory.
IRRITATED BY THE SUDDEN INCREASE in tourists, the Yeoman Gaoler crossed Tower Green, stopping to point one of them in the direction of the Tower Café. After wishing her good luck, he continued on to the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula, wondering whether he would ever sleep through the night again. He had been woken in the early hours by the sound of leather boots striding back and forth across the dining room below. Instead of profanities about the Spanish, the house had been filled with poetic entreaties to a woman by the name of Cynthia. It hadn’t been long before the stench of tobacco started to seep underneath his bedroom door, increasing his yearning for a cigarette. He remained in bed, his sheets drawn up to his chin, fearing not only for his potatoes, but for the life of Her Majesty’s highly strung shrew.
When he and his wife first arrived at the Tower, it had struck them as odd that such a large house was vacant. On learning that its previous tenants had moved to one of the smaller terrace cottages along Mint Lane, they assumed the family had been put off by the windows that were nailed shut, the blocked-up fireplaces, and the numerous locks on the doors. They prised out the nails, opened up the fireplaces, and only drew one bolt at night. Hand in hand they chose some new wallpaper, and started to scrape at the nicotine-stained walls, listening to records on the gramophone that had been a wedding present all those years ago. It wasn’t long before they discovered the ominous warnings the children of the previous inhabitants had scrawled on the walls. Dismissing them as youthful fantasy, they continued redecorating as they swayed their middle-aged hips to the music they had danced to during their courtship.
Their happiness started to drift when the Yeoman Gaoler’s wife accused her husband of having taken up smoking again, which he categorically denied. Each refusal to admit to having succumbed once more to the cursed habit only increased her fury. She named each relative whose life had been dramatically shortened by the vice, but still the smell of tobacco flooded the house each night. Convinced that her husband was going to meet a gruesome early death, she left the Tower in search of a new one, a task that didn’t take long on account of her considerable charms.
Unable to bear his empty home, where the sight of the gramophone reduced him to tears, the Yeoman Gaoler spent his evenings in the Rack & Ruin. In between recounting their heroics while serving in the armed forces, the other Beefeaters would boast of their ghostly encounters in the Tower with even greater bravado. A number claimed to have heard the screeches of Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury, who had been chased by a hacking axeman after his first blow failed to remove her head. Several insisted they had seen the white form of Sir Thomas More sitting on one of the chapel’s chairs. And all of them were adamant that they had seen the terrifying vision of the Protestant martyr Anne Askew, the only woman ever to have been racked. The Yeoman Gaoler would listen intently, but never once did he reveal that the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh had taken up residence in his home, something that terrified him more than anything he had witnessed on the battlefield.
The spirit had returned to the Tower to write the second installment of his History of the World. The first, written while serving his thirteen-year sentence, had been an instant hit, outselling William Shakespeare’s collected works. He had assumed that the sequel would come to him with the ease of the first. But when he sat down at his old desk in the Bloody Tower, surrounded by globes and rolled-up maps, he was seized by the torment of second-volume syndrome. As he nibbled the end of his quill with tar-stained teeth, desperately seeking the words that evaded him, he became convinced that the success of the first was simply the result of nostalgia for the man who had introduced to England the mighty potato. And not even the ale brought to him by the equally ghostly form of Owen the waterman could help him.
Pushing down the cold handle, the Yeoman Gaoler opened the chapel door and stepped inside. He found Rev. Septimus Drew bent double, trying to remove chewing gum from the bottom of a chair with furious pinches of his pink rubber gloves.
“I need your help,” the Yeoman Gaoler announced as he walked up the aisle.
The clergyman straightened, and rested his pink wrists on his hips.
“Birth, marriage, or death?” he asked.
“Exorcism.”
WHEN HEBE JONES RETURNED from her wasted visit to Mrs. Perkins, she stood in silence, unbuttoning her turquoise coat next to the drawer containing one hundred and fifty-seven pairs of false teeth.
“Any joy?” Valerie Jennings asked.
“It was the wrong person,” she replied, taking the urn out of her handbag and returning it to her desk.
There was a moment of silence.
“Going anywhere nice?” V
alerie Jennings asked.
“No. Why?”
“The suitcase under your desk.”
It didn’t take long for the tears to come. Hebe Jones cried for her husband, whom, up until the tragedy, she had still looked forward to seeing each day after three decades of marriage. She cried for Milo all alone in heaven, whom she couldn’t wait to join. And just when she thought she had finished, she cried for the stranger who had lost the remains of Clementine Perkins, whom she wasn’t able to find. It wasn’t until over an hour later, when Valerie Jennings had installed her in the armchair with the pop-up leg rest and carried her suitcase to the spare room, that her tears finally stopped.
CHAPTER TWELVE
REV. SEPTIMUS DREW STRODE across Tower Green, leaving large, dark footprints on the stiff, frosted grass. Much of the night had been spent agonising over Ruby Dore’s affection for the creature not worthy of a mention in the Bible, and lamenting his failure to seduce her with his mother’s treacle cake. By the time he woke, there had not even been time for the delights of Fortnum & Mason’s thick-cut marmalade. He left the fortress as fast as his excessively long legs could carry him, ignoring the Yeoman Gaoler, who was calling his name from a bedroom window. As he sat on the Tube carriage, heading for the shelter for retired prostitutes, his fingers worked their way into the cake tin on his lap, and he broke off a small piece of biscuit from the batch he had baked for them. Each had been shaped into the form of a disciple, their distinguishing features meticulously piped with white icing. As he nibbled, he hoped that none of the ladies would notice that Judas Iscariot’s legs were missing.
By the time he arrived, the matron had already shown the new resident to her room with its single bed surmounted by a wooden cross. Sitting opposite her in the communal living room, the chaplain explained that she would be given free board and lodging for six months, during which time she would be helped to find alternative employment. In the meantime, she could, if she wished, assist the other women in the vegetable garden, which had become a labour of love. For, he explained, apart from prayer, there was nothing more restorative for the soul than growing something in God’s good earth. He offered the woman the tin of biscuits, and she helped herself with painted fingernails. After brushing the crumbs from her red lips, she congratulated the clergyman on his talent for baking, and then politely enquired whether Judas Iscariot had really been disabled.
When the chaplain had returned to the Tower, and stood at his blue front door searching in his pocket for the key, a tourist approached and asked whether he knew where the zorilla was kept. “Down there, on the right,” the clergyman replied pointing. “Follow your nose.” Once inside, he locked the door behind him and headed up the battered wooden stairs to his study. Arming himself with his fountain pen, he started to compose a sermon of sufficient intrigue to keep the Beefeaters from sleeping, slumped against the radiators.
The clergyman was so engrossed in his work that he failed to hear the first knock at the front door. He ignored the second one, fearing it was the chairwoman of the Richard III Appreciation Society. He had spotted her sitting on a bench by the White Tower on his return, and instantly recognised a woman burning with desire to impart the society’s latest evidence that the maligned monarch had the most waterproof of alibis.
On the third knock, Rev. Septimus put down his pen with irritation, and stood with his forehead against the cold window as he peered down to see who was beating at his door. His heart tightened the moment he saw Ruby Dore blowing onto her hands and stamping her feet in the cold. He descended with such a commotion that when he opened the door the landlady enquired whether he had fallen down the stairs.
Panicked and delighted in equal measures at the surprise visit, the clergyman stood back to let her in. He indicated the way to the kitchen, not wanting her to see his melancholic bachelor’s sitting room, particularly with its biography of Queen Victoria’s rat-catcher on the armchair. But as he offered her a seat at the scrubbed-top table, he wondered whether he had made the right decision after all. There, on the counter, was the mournful teapot for one, with its matching single cup; sitting in the vegetable rack was a solitary carrot sprouting roots; and propped up on the windowsill was an excessively thumbed edition of Solo Suppers. He busied himself filling the kettle to hide his unease, and eventually turned to face her again holding two mugs out in front of him.
“Tea or coffee?” he asked.
“Coffee, please,” she replied, taking off the lavender scarf she had knitted and resting it on the table.
Once they were sitting opposite each other Ruby Dore covered her face with both hands and muttered through her fingers: “I’ve got something to confess.”
The chaplain was about to explain that he didn’t do confessions, and she’d be better off with the Catholics down the road, but the landlady continued. She had intended to return the cake that he had left behind in the pub, she insisted. But when she opened the lid and smelt it, she couldn’t resist having a slice. She then had a second just to confirm that it was as good as she had thought. Deciding that she couldn’t return a partially eaten cake, she promptly finished it. “I had thought about blaming the canary, but I didn’t think you’d buy that,” she admitted.
Rev. Septimus Drew dismissed the apology with a bat of a hand, insisting that her lack of resistance was a compliment to his mother, whose recipe it was. The landlady immediately asked for a copy, and he wrote it down with the flamboyant penmanship of a victim of love. As they drank their coffee, Ruby Dore told him of the latest object she had acquired for her collection of Tower artefacts: a pot of rouge said to have been used by Lord Nithsdale for his escape from the Tower in 1716 dressed as a woman. The clergyman replied that out of all the escapes, this was his favourite, and that he hoped one day to visit Traquair House in the Scottish Borders, where the woman’s cloak worn by the bearded Jacobite was on display.
As the landlady got up to leave, Rev. Septimus Drew suddenly felt the bruise of loneliness. “Do you fancy going to see the museum in Westminster Abbey this morning?” he suddenly found himself asking. “The exhibits include what is probably the oldest stuffed parrot in the world.”
Once Ruby Dore had left to find someone to take her place behind the bar, the chaplain fled upstairs. He took off his cassock, combed his hair hard, and returned to his place at the kitchen table hoping that she would be in luck. It wasn’t long before she reappeared, having bribed a Beefeater’s wife with a bottle of wine to stand in for her.
They squeezed their way out of the Tower through the tourists, and were equally taken aback by the length of the queue waiting to get in. Sitting opposite each other on the Tube, they discussed the extraordinary popularity of the royal menagerie, which had taken everyone by surprise. It wasn’t until the chaplain had finished telling her of his affection for the Jesus Christ lizards that he noticed that he had forgotten to put on his socks before leaving.
When they arrived at the Abbey, Ruby Dore asked whether he minded if they had a quick look at the monument to Sir Isaac Newton, who had been Master of the Royal Mint, based at the Tower, for twenty-eight years. They stood side by side looking at the relief panel on the sarcophagus showing naked boys holding up a gold ingot and containers of coins, and firing up a kiln. Much to her delight, the chaplain then took her to Poets’ Corner to show her the grey Purbeck marble monument to Geoffrey Chaucer, who had been Clerk of Works at the fortress from 1389 to 1391.
Stopping briefly to point out Britain’s oldest door, thought to have been built in the 1050s, Rev. Septimus Drew led the way to the museum in the eleventh-century vaulted undercroft of St. Peter. Ruby Dore gazed in wonderment at the collection of life-size effigies of kings, queens, and society figures, most of them dressed in their own clothes, and all, except Lord Nelson, buried in the Abbey.
The clergyman explained that at one time the bodies of dead monarchs were embalmed and put on display for the funeral procession and service. Later, effigies were used instead due to the length of t
ime it took to prepare for the ceremony. After 1660, effigies no longer formed part of the funeral procession, replaced by a gold crown on a purple cushion, but were used to mark the place of burial.
He showed her the cabinet bearing the oldest: Edward III made from a hollowed-out piece of walnut wood. The fourteenth-century curiosity had been analysed by an expert from the Metropolitan Police Laboratory. “Its few surviving eyebrow hairs were found to be those of a small dog,” he added.
As they moved on to Henry VII, the clergyman pointed out that his face, with its lop-sided mouth, hollow cheeks, and tightly set jaw, was based on his death mask.
Ruby Dore wandered over to Nelson, bought in 1806 to attract people visiting his tomb in St. Paul’s Cathedral back into the fee-charging Abbey. Joining her, Rev. Septimus Drew pointed out: “His left eye appears to be blind, instead of his right.”
Finally, the couple approached the Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, dressed in the robes she wore for the Coronation of Queen Anne in 1702. Ruby Dore immediately bent down to take a closer look at the historic stuffed parrot perched on a stand next to the effigy, which for centuries had attracted a pilgrimage of myopic taxidermists from around the world, who knelt in reverence in front of the holy specimen.
As she contemplated the bird, Rev. Septimus Drew, whose fascinating insights into the collection had earned him a number of eavesdroppers, recounted the tale of the parrot and the Duchess. When Frances Stuart was appointed maid of honour to Charles II’s wife, such was the teenager’s beauty, the King immediately fell for her. But he was not the only one to have noticed the considerable virtues of the girl, later used as a model for Britannia on medals. In an attempt to seduce her, an infatuated courtier gave her a young parrot as a love token, acquired from a Portuguese sailor who had been blown off course. The bird spoke nothing but Portuguese profanities, and Frances Stuart devoted so much time trying to coax out of it the simplest of English niceties that the King, jealous of the attention she gave the creature, attempted all manner of subterfuge to kill it. But the wily bird picked out the poisoned nuts from its bowl, instantly spotted the toes of the servants hiding behind the tapestries with nets, and immediately sensed when a hand approached not to tickle its throat, but to throttle it.