by Robin Adair
‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘he admired the industry, tenacity and organisation of those insects. And I can tell you another seemingly soft side to him: he loved flowers, in particular violets, which recalled him to his childhood in Corsica, where apparently they abound.
‘You know, Josephine wore them when they married, and he always sent her violets on birthdays and anniversaries. His admirers put these two things together and there was a toast among Bonapartists – “To Corporal Violet!”
‘There was another connection too.’ She took the Patterer’s arm, ignoring the restlessness of Grenville, who was pointedly looking at his watch. ‘As the Emperor left for exile on Elba, he told his supporters he would return in spring, as with the shooting of the new violets.
‘He did, of course, and his serious followers had a secret identi fication system. Each would carry and produce a particular portion of a napoleon coin. A double-check was for one to ask, “Do you like violets?”
‘ “Oui,” was the wrong answer. “Eh, bien” – “well enough” – marked an adherent. He told me all this on St Helena, you know.’ She looked wistful.
‘I think we must go now, madam,’ insisted Grenville and, after tipping his hat to Dunne, he steered her away.
The Patterer walked and talked on his rounds, his mind filled with what he had just heard. Coincidentally, one item he read was the news that the drought gripping the colony had wiped out most hives of honey bees; Bonaparte would not be pleased! Seriously, a hive that once could produce 220 pounds of honey a year was silent. A hive of the hardier native stingless bees could survive, but could only offer four and a half pounds of honey a year. Even the demands of Aboriginals, who gathered wild bush honey, called sugarbag, could not be satisfied.
A safe distance from the town, another story told, sustenance was being given to the convicts and crew of the transport Three Bees. All were in quarantine, some on board, others at North Head or on Garden Island: ‘The colony awaits their good recovery,’ the report read.
Among his other recitations, there was a decided oddity: an advertisement by, certainly about, his manure-carrying Asiatic adversary John Shan. It announced that to celebrate in February the traditional Chinese New Year – this time the Year of the Dragon – Mr Shan was holding 200 examples of the mythic beast. They could be found at his Lachlan Swamps garden. That, decided Dunne, was a lot of dragons for the handful of Celestials in Sydney.
But he recited the advertisement for dragons, the honey story and the other tales with little heart.
More importantly, he felt he now knew why someone wanted worthless coins that each come in two parts; and why a mysterious figure at the hospital had misunderstood his wearing of a lavender hat band and asked him, ‘Do you like violets?’ Two thousand coins more than just hinted at a lot of plotters.
In Pitt Street, two factors came together and concentrated the Patterer’s mind: the reek of rum and hops told him, first, that he was near the pub where the castrato had been killed, and second, that he had fallen in step with Brian O’Bannion.
The landlord Sam Terry’s odd behaviour – running upstairs at the time of the crime’s discovery – still grated, and Dunne now saw a way to satisfy his curiosity, through the Irishman – who was an accomplished housebreaker and cracksman, able to open windows and doors and pick locks with as much ease as his silvered tongue and hot hands could find the keys to female hearts and unlock stays.
‘Brian,’ he said. ‘I would like to know what is in Mr Terry’s attic that is so valuable that it is worth braving an inferno to save it. It’s a job for you.’
O’Bannion, who once had not hesitated to break into the Police Chief’s office, shook his head. ‘You won’t get into that room. Even to approach it sets off the nightingale floor.’
‘The what?’
‘The nightingale floor; it’s an idea Sam Terry apparently got from the Chinese. He read it – no, heard it – somewhere. The boards in that corridor’s floor are tensioned so that they creak loudly – sing, people claim – under any human pressure.’
‘Well,’ said the Patterer, ‘there’s an answer to that problem.’
‘What, pray?’
‘Why, we’ll pit against it our nightingale!’
O’Bannion looked blank.
Chapter Thirty-one
A good plot, good friends, and full of expectation;
an excellent plot…
– William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1 (1597)
The Patterer, Brian O’Bannion and Miss Susannah Hathaway paused on the doorstep of Sam Terry’s Angel Inn in Mort’s Passage. Dunne and the Irishman wore normal work clothes that would pass muster; the singer had put on a drab dustcoat and pulled her hair back under a mob-cap. She had scrubbed off any maquillage.
‘So, we’re clear now on what’s going to happen?’ said Nicodemus Dunne. ‘Susannah will perform and hopefully get the drinkers to sing along with her, I’ll join in and, if necessary, gammon Mr Terry and keep him distracted. You, O’Bannion, you’re the man who at a suitable time goes upstairs and uses his flash skills with locks to get into the attic. I just want to know what’s there. Our noise will mask the betrayal by the nightingale floor.’
The taproom they entered was spare, but clean and well lit. The Angel was no shebeen, a low drinking den named after the small drinking cup the Irish called a sibin. It served patrons in glasses – a good sign in a pub. Some offered only tin mugs, not only for economy’s sake but also as a not-so-subtle warning that fights with broken containers, called ‘glassings’, had happened there – and could again were glasses allowed. This room was crowded, mainly with soldiers from the barracks. Some of the men (there were few women) had formed a ring and were betting against a man ‘flying the mags’, a game in which he was tossing two halfpennies.
‘I’ve never performed so close to my audience,’ whispered Miss Hathaway. ‘I trust I’m decently attired, not too provocative.’
The Patterer smiled. ‘Be thankful you’re not a Parisian showgirl in 1812.’ As she frowned, he continued. ‘To steer the crowds from brooding over his disastrous assault in Russia, Bonaparte decreed that the girls dance with no under-drawers. Fear not, they refused.’
There was already some singing and, after a time Miss Hathaway joined in, then took over. She first essayed the love lament that had entranced the theatre crowd. She was received politely, but the general noise level remained low. She offered some tunes from Mr Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, with more success. Even Mr Terry appeared and stayed to listen. The applause was loud as she finished:
…if with me you’d stray.
Over the hills and far away.
But there was still not enough racket to suit the Patterer, so he took a hand in proceedings. He suddenly yelled ‘God save the King’, and began to sing. Some soldiers joined in lustily.
Now, these garrison regiments were nominally English – the 57th from depots in Middlesex and the 39th from Dorset. But many of these redcoats were recruits from Ireland, refugees from poverty, religious or political oppression or just adventure-seekers. As always, their Irishness shone through, particularly whenever it was polished by rum. They would fight fiercely for their regiment, but other old wounds festered.
‘Bugger yer King! Bad cess to ’im!’ shouted a large private.
Miss Hathaway stirred the melting pot as she began to pour out, accent and all, ‘The Wearin’ o’ the Green’, a ballad from 1795:
‘I met wid Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
And he said, ‘How’s poor ould Ireland, how the divil does she stand?
She’s the most distressful country that iver yet was seen,
For they’re hangin’ men and women for the wearin’ o’ the Green.’
‘Stop!’ yelled Mr Terry, ‘I’ll have no “treason songs” here!’
‘Treason, is it?’ shouted a redcoat, and he punched a comrade whose singing had betrayed royal leanings. An all-in brawl soon staggered through the bar, enveloping
even Mr Terry, who disappeared under a scrum.
Not particularly wanting to discuss in detail with an angry corporal the Pope’s parentage, the Patterer dragged his nightingale along the wall, skirting the fighting, and out into the cool safety of Mort’s Passage.
They received a parting shot from a bleeding face that appeared at the door and then disappeared back inside.
‘What did he say, I wonder?’ said the Patterer. ‘It sounded like “san van voght”.’
Miss Hathaway did not hesitate. ‘Almost right. He actually said, “An t-sean bhean bhoct.” “The poor old woman.” He means, of course, Ireland.’
Dunne gaped. ‘How the devil do you know that? And, for that matter, how did a treason song come so trippingly to your lips?’
Miss Hathaway smiled, then was serious. ‘When you live in Boston and mix closely with families called Kennedy and Fitzgerald, you learnt a lot like that. But enough of that for now. More to the point, how is our “poor young man”, our Irish burglar?’
As if on cue, Brian O’Bannion stepped out of the bar onto the street, flexing skinned knuckles and whistling a merry jig.
‘Top o’ the evenin’ to yer’,’ he said in a stage parody of his compatriots.
‘Well,’ said the Patterer, as they walked back along Pitt Street to the Hope and Anchor. ‘What did you find?’
‘It was like taking a titty-bottle from a babe,’ boasted O’Bannion. ‘The nightingale floor squealed like a virgin – beggin’ your pardon, miss. Nobody heard or cared, though you’ll be none too pleased with the result, I fear.’
‘What’s there?’ prodded the Patterer impatiently.
‘Just a table – more a bench, I suppose – a set of small scales, a watchmaker’s magnifying glass – a loupe, no? There was a small keg of fine, very fine sand. For blotting, like. Though it’s funny, there was no pen or ink on the table. No paper, either.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. Oh, a lot of books.’
‘Books. What sort? Account books?’
‘Aye, I guess so. I had to look quickly and it was dark. I didn’t know if the fuss below was the hue and cry for me! But yes, several books’ names started with “a” double “c” – accounts, I imagined.’
A germ of an idea entered the Patterer’s brain. ‘Anything else?’
‘Well, his missus must have books on food there, too. One on “epicures” – what’s that, a fancy name for “greedy guts”, no? And two on “bacon” – how many more bloody ways can you eat it?
‘And you know what? The old bugger is a sporting feller. He must follow the gee-gees. A pile of books were labelled RACING – in capital letters.’
Nicodemus Dunne smiled. He bought a round of drinks and toasted his accomplices. Well may they say ‘God save the King’ or ‘God save Ireland’. For nothing could save Sam Terry’s secret from coming out.
Chapter Thirty-two
I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them …
had minded what they were about when they begot me.
– Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1759–67)
Nicodemus Dunne walked Susannah Hathaway back to her lodgings. As they parted at the front door, she hesitated. ‘Do you know the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders?’ she asked.
‘Vaguely,’ the Patterer replied. ‘Isn’t it about a girl who was wrongly accused of immorality?’
‘Yes, indeed. Two elders – dirty old men – sought her favours and when she rebuffed them they swore they’d take revenge. They publicly accused her of lying under a tree with a man. Everyone knew what they meant by “lying”. She was sentenced to death. But, in answer to a prayer, God sent to her the young Daniel – you know, the one of “in the lion’s den” fame? – and he separately examined the elders’ evidence. He tripped them up – each one described a different tree! She was freed and they were condemned.’
‘Good for her,’ said Dunne. ‘But why do I need to know this?’
‘Ah,’ Miss Hathaway was serious. ‘I had an experience similar to our Bible belle’s. We’re “sisters”, even though I have an added “h” to my name. You see, I associated in Boston with some young people named Fitzgerald and Kennedy. They were of immigrant stock – you can guess from where – and people ambitious for fortune and fame, a hard road for them. But one, Mr John P. Kennedy, was already successful as a novelist. He, by the by, had helped our young Mr Edgar Allan Poe publish his first book, Tamerlane. Anyway, a problem emerged – they were Catholics.
‘Some elders of my family’s church warned me to give them up and when I defied them they told lies about me and John, Robert and Edward. Two elders offered to overlook the matter if I accepted their advances. One of them was a nasty German.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Unfortunately, I had no Daniel. I said to the German, “Frankly, mein Herr, I don’t give a damn.” And I packed my bags and was gone with the wind. Here.’
She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that the other errant elder was an uncle.
Dunne felt emboldened to relate to her the details of how he had been a Bow Street Runner transported for intervening in the assault by an army officer of a young child embroiled in a riot. He also managed to tell her how he had always regarded himself as an orphan in the foster care of an ordinary, decent couple – until Captain Rossi had felt forced to reveal that he was the bastard of one of the King’s brothers, the Duke of Cumberland.
‘Maybe that protects me from the Governor’s displeasure,’ he said ruefully. ‘Just as being rumoured to be the base son of the previous king has helped Mr Balcombe, the Colonial Treasurer, out of some problems – though not his current financial ones, I fear.’
They both fell silent. One thing he could not reveal to her was the identity of his mother, a fact too terrible to contemplate, although he had put together certain evidence and often imagined his origins…
Chapter Thirty-three
London, England – 1799
The Walls are thick but the Family’s thin,
The Gods are without and the Devil within.
– Graffito on Buckingham House, London (c. 1703)
‘I should not have come here.’
He vaguely heard the girl’s words, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He was thinking.
Thinking that he had done it before. And boys were, he reflected idly, often more trouble than women. So, yes, if he had to, he would do it again.
He was considering that he had always been clear in his mind on the matter: if she did not enthusiastically and graciously permit him to take his pleasure with her, join him joyously in the Venus sport?
Why, then, he would be obliged to rape her…
‘I should not have come here.’
The soft glow cast from a silver candelabrum sought to invade the shadows of the huge room, but only picked out the huge bed and its surrounds. One heavy side curtain was partly open, framing the couple.
The man, well-nourished and of perhaps thirty or so years, sprawled on the tangle of sheets and pillows, en négligé in an Indian silk dressinggown loosely belted. He had kicked off scarlet Turkey slippers.
The girl, fair-haired and in her early twenties, sat uncomfortably on the side of the bed. Her face was pinched and pale as she stared nervously at her companion. She wore what seemed, in that light, a dress of silky persian, even mesh barège, perhaps muslin, certainly some flimsy fabric. Its high waist and décolletage forced her small breasts into view, and the semitransparent clinging gown shaped her body and legs, revealing glimpses of pink pantaloons beneath. ‘The dress of a drab,’ her father had mumbled.
She had forgiven him because he was ill, but thought him a very Janus: preaching now but at another time chasing his daughter-in-law over sofas – and even making advances to her.
She had written it down: ‘He is all affection and kindness to me, but sometimes it is an over-kindness, if you understand that, which greatly alarms me.’
Now, in t
his darkened room, she was alarmed again.
The man, on the other hand, seemed relaxed, even bored. He picked up a knife from a fruit tray on a bedside table. It was no ordinary table knife, rather a single-bladed dagger, richly chased and keen as a razor. He cleaned his nails with the needle point. Then, almost as if recalling his prime duty, he put down the blade and turned his attention to the girl.
‘We must not taste forbidden fruit,’ she said suddenly, trying to push away the fingers that touched her thigh. ‘We are like the mulberry garden.’
‘What?’ The man paused in his exploration.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Long before this was the Queen’s House, even before it was Buckingham’s House, it was the Mulberry Garden.’ She tailed off.
‘So?’ the man grunted and tried to squeeze her breast. ‘I know there was a silk farm. Old James had a grand, if foolish plan.’
She nodded and pressed back a tear. ‘So, we are like the mulberry trees and the caterpillars. There are two kinds of mulberry tree and the silkworms favour one leaf above the other. The garden here failed because the King’s gardeners planted the wrong trees.’
‘God’s bones! What does that mean?’
She burst into tears. ‘It means that what you want us to do here is wrong, a sin! … We are like the silkworms – eating the wrong fruit, and ours would be forbidden fruit and no good could come of it.’
His face darkened. ‘Rubbish! Your Mulberry Garden became a pleasure ground, a very Temple of Hymen, a great bawdy house! And this pile – and the others here before it – why, they’ve seen more whoring in them than would a soldiers’ slut in Seven Dials.
‘They even pimped for a king here. They kept an apartment for Charles to entertain his tarts. It served as his nuptial chamber when he took Louise de Keroualle as his bogus bride in a randy masque.