London

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Chancing to pass Mendoza’s with Meredith one day, Eugene saw a curious sight. The young fellow was on the short side but very compact. Stripped to the waist he had a boxing stance like a professional. He had a white flash in his hair and, for some reason, kept a red kerchief round his neck. He had just knocked down a broker and cheerfully asked if anyone else wanted a fight when Meredith hailed him.

  “Hello, George! What brings you here?”

  “Hello, Meredith!” He grinned. “Fight?”

  “No thanks. George, this is Eugene Penny.” He introduced them. “Penny, this is Mr George de Quette.” And Eugene realized that he was looking at the Earl of St James’s grandson.

  Everybody had heard of George de Quette. Taking after his sporting grandfather rather than the sour Lord Bocton, he was renowned as the wildest, and jolliest young buck in England. He could ride like a jockey, fight like a turkey-cock and took no account of social rank. As for women, his exploits were legendary. He had been away for two years, sent by his father on a tour of the Continent, from which he had returned quite unchanged. Pulling on a shirt now he stepped out of the ring and chatted with them very pleasantly for several minutes.

  It was typical of him that, seeing Penny in the street the following week, George remembered him at once and invited him into a coffee house. They had a delightful conversation, discussing the latest sporting events, but Penny discovered that the young aristocrat’s interests were wider than he had supposed. He had a considerable knowledge of France and Italy and had read quite widely. He even liked poetry.

  “Everyone reads Lord Byron, of course. It’s the fashion,” he declared. “But I like Keats as well. People laugh at him because he’s not a gentleman, but did you read his ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ last year? It’s beautiful.”

  He seemed interested in the bank too, and asked Eugene all about his life there. Eugene even told him about his own trading in futures.

  “I suppose banking’s like racing, really,” the young aristocrat remarked. “Study the form. Hedge your bets. I learned all I know from my grandfather. He’s a shrewd old devil, you know.” He smiled. “‘You’ve got to be ruthless.’ That’s what he’d tell me. ‘If something doesn’t work, get out, cut your losses, move on.’ That’s the art of all dealing, isn’t it?”

  He was right, of course, Eugene thought. But if Meredith’s Bank got into trouble, he asked himself, would his lordship cut his losses? Just how ruthless, he wondered, would the sporting old Earl of St James turn out to be?

  “I think,” said Lord Bocton to Silversleeves, towards the end of that year, “that my father shows promising signs.”

  “Of seeing reason, my lord?”

  “No, of madness. Indeed,” Lord Bocton continued, “he could go to prison.”

  “You would wish that?”

  “Certainly not. But we could save him from prison if you declared he was mad.”

  “Might not prison serve your purpose, though?”

  “Bedlam’s better,” Lord Bocton snapped.

  “What exactly,” Silversleeves enquired, “has he done?”

  It had disappointed Lord Bocton that his father had given him no great cause for complaint in the last two years. The development of villas in Regent’s Park had been slow and so Lord St James, who could not bear to be still, had instead purchased one of the stately, but far less ruinous terraced houses now lining the park’s eastern side. As for the earl’s dangerous politics, the situation had been calmer recently and with two forward-looking Tories, Canning and Robert Peel, joining the government, there was even a whisper that some modest reform might be desirable. If the earl was going mad, one had to admit that the present circumstances did not let it show to best advantage.

  Help had come from St Pancras. In 1822 the select and aristocratic vestry of St Pancras had decided to build a new church that would be truly worthy of them in a suitably fashionable quarter. It was in the Grecian style and the vestry were delighted with it – as well they should be since it was for themselves. “God will not be troubled,” Carpenter pointed out, “by any prayers from poor people in there.” Its cost ran into tens of thousands, so the vestry had to increase the parish taxes. “The ordinary people of St Pancras will pay three times the former rate,” Carpenter protested. And then the Earl of St James, declaring that the whole business was monstrous, had refused to pay.

  At first the vestry was embarrassed. They really didn’t want a scandal. But one or two members, who happened to be acquaintances of Lord Bocton, assured their brethren that they could not let this pass. “If he does it, hundreds will follow,” they warned. And three applications having been made to the earl, a warrant was now being considered for his arrest.

  “We’ll let them arrest him first,” Bocton said with satisfaction. “Then we’ll save him.”

  On a cold December morning Eugene looked up from his desk in some surprise to see a worried-looking George de Quette enter the counting-house and ask for Meredith. A few minutes later, he was summoned into Meredith’s parlour himself.

  “Lord St James has been arrested,” Meredith explained quickly. “He’s refused to pay the parish rates.”

  “I’d pay them myself,” young George explained, “but my allowance won’t run to it.”

  “Couldn’t Lord Bocton help?” Eugene ventured.

  The other two looked at each other. “I’m paying,” Meredith said swiftly. “God knows, George, I owe him everything.”

  “It has to be carefully done,” George explained. “If he ever found out we’d interfered. . . .”

  “We need someone not known. Someone discreet,” said Meredith.

  It turned out to be relatively easy. As soon as he made his offer it was clear to Eugene that the senior clerk in the vestry office was extremely relieved.

  “You say this money comes from. . . ?”

  “Well-wishers in the parish, sir.”

  “I did not catch your name.”

  “I act for unnamed parties, sir. As you will see, this entirely clears Lord St James’s obligation.”

  “Yes. It certainly does.”

  “In which event, surely, his arrest. . . .”

  “No longer necessary. Quite.”

  “But if he refuses to pay?” objected a junior clerk.

  “He can refuse to pay till Doomsday,” the senior clerk retorted with asperity, “but if he has paid, or someone has, we’ve no claim against him, have we? He can’t go to gaol,” he added with satisfaction, “even if he wants to.” He turned to Eugene again. “I’m much obliged to you, sir – to those you represent. Saved us a deal of embarrassment. All charges dropped. He’ll be out within the hour; I’ll see to it myself.”

  Eugene strolled towards Holborn, happy with the way his business had gone. But after he had walked a quarter of a mile, he was stopped by a cry of “Hey! Stop, sir!” followed by the sound of hurrying footsteps behind him, and he turned to see the tall, bottle-green person of Lord Bocton, advancing towards him, accompanied by a lugubrious man with a long nose.

  As it happened, Lord Bocton and Silversleeves had just called in at the vestry office to make sure their quarry had been safely trapped before they set about the rest of their plan. Now they caught up.

  “Were you in the vestry office back there?” demanded Lord Bocton.

  “I may have been,” Eugene replied. “But then again,” he added sweetly, “I may not. Might I ask what business it is of yours?”

  “Never mind that, sir! Are you trying to pervert the course of justice?”

  “No.” He wasn’t.

  “Do you want to be arrested?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “What is your name, sir?”

  Eugene allowed a look of delicious puzzlement to steal over his face. “My name?” he frowned. “Why, sir, that’s strange. I can’t remember.” And while they gazed in stupefaction he abruptly turned a corner and vanished into a side street.

  For several moments Lord Bocton and Silversle
eves stood staring at each other. Finally Silversleeves spoke. “He could not remember his own name, my lord. Now that is a sure sign of insanity.”

  “Oh damn your insanity!” cried Bocton, and furiously strode away.

  1824

  They had gone further than usual that day, since a kindly neighbour had offered them a ride in his cart.

  Lucy and Horatio were a well-known pair in their humble little street. The thin, pale five-year-old girl would take the toddler out with her every afternoon if he was well enough, because they told her it would make him stronger. And tiny Horatio, with his shock of white hair, would hold her hand and struggle along gamely beside her.

  Their neighbour, having business near the Strand, dropped the two children at Charing Cross and promised to return to pick them up in half an hour. It was a good place for the children to wander. The space before them, which would in due course be enlarged and laid out as Trafalgar Square, was gently sloping. On its southern side were the entrances to the stately streets of Whitehall and Pall Mall. Just visible to the right was the handsome classical façade of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and immediately before them stretched the buildings of the Royal Mews where the king’s horses and carriages were kept.

  The summer afternoon was hot and dusty, sweet with the smell of horse dung. Great brown clouds of flies rose with a huge buzz each time a passing cart disturbed them. In the middle of the open space some stall holders had set up a little market; and from the classical pediment of St Martin’s, pigeons and doves would swoop down to pick up scraps from around the stalls. Several street vendors moved about, crying their wares. As the two children wandered contentedly about their attention was caught by one young woman with a basket and the gentle cry – “Lavender! Buy my lavender!” – which somehow sounded to Lucy more haunting than the rest. The woman came over and offered them a sprig, and when Lucy explained that she hadn’t any money, she laughed and told her to take it all the same. The smell of it was wonderful and Lucy asked the girl where it came from.

  “Lavender Hill, of course,” the girl replied. “It’s out by Battersea Village,” she explained. “Between that and Clapham Common.” The market gardens on these slopes, which were less than three miles away, grew acres of lavender, she told her. It sounded a delightful place.

  “This your brother?” the girl asked. “Sickly, is he?”

  “He’s getting stronger.”

  “Does he know the Lavender song?”

  Lucy shook her head and the girl obligingly sang it to him.

  “Lavender blue, dilly dilly,

  Lavender green -

  When I am king, dilly dilly,

  You shall be queen.”

  “Only”, she remarked, “as it’s me singing it, I suppose it ought to be ‘when you are king,’ the other way round really. You should sing it to him,” she told Lucy cheerfully, and moved off.

  Lucy and Horatio were just about to start walking back to Charing Cross, when they saw their neighbour’s wife hurrying towards them from the Royal Mews. Her face was sweating; her red cotton dress was sticking to her body. Walking rapidly, she scattered a crowd of pigeons in her path in her anxiety to reach the children.

  “You better come along with me,” she said, taking Lucy’s hand.

  They had laid Will Dogget on the bed and he was still breathing, but as she held her little brother’s hand, Lucy knew it was death.

  That dusty summer afternoon Will had been passing by a scaffolding, where they were working on a line of elegant houses beside Regent’s Park. For no reason he had looked up – just in time to see the great hod of bricks come crashing down.

  Will was groaning a little. His breathing sounded strange, rasping. He did not seem to know that the clergyman was there, nor did he see Lucy or little Horatio. By six that evening he was dead.

  Lucy’s mother’s face was grey. It was a terrible thing to lose a husband. Because of death in childbirth, women’s mortality rate was high. But a man could marry again and the new wife would look after her children, whereas if a working man died, how was his widow to live?

  Will Dogget was buried the next day, in a common grave. There were only three mourners. Lucy had heard her father say that there were some other Doggets, aunts or uncles perhaps, but it seemed they lived far away and her mother did not know who they were. Only one other person turned up, a strange, stocky figure wearing a shapeless old black hat. He watched silently as the work was done, then came over and said a few gruff words before departing. He smelled of the river and he seemed to Lucy a sinister presence.

  “Who’s that?” she asked her mother.

  “That?” Her mother made a face. “That’s Silas. I don’t know how he discovered about your dad. I never asked him to come here.”

  “He said he will come again.”

  “I hope not.”

  “What does he do?” the girl asked curiously.

  “You don’t want to know,” her mother replied.

  So what was he worth? As Penny walked across from Meredith’s Bank that October afternoon, it had suddenly started to matter. It mattered because of a pair of wonderful brown eyes and a kindly voice with a soft Scottish brogue, belonging to the person of Miss Mary Forsyth. It mattered rather urgently because he was about to encounter her father for the first time.

  In the last eighteen months, Eugene had done rather well. He had managed to put a little money by and started to make some promising investments. A new level of confidence had been growing in the City during the previous two years, led by the swelling market for foreign loans. Meredith’s had already done very well out of Buenos Aires and Brazil and had just joined a huge syndicate for Mexico, though the bank had prudently declined opportunities to lend to Colombia and Peru. Encouraged by these vast and profitable shiploads of money passing through the City, the stockjobbers had been busy selling lesser bond issues and even joined stock companies like a flotilla in the great loans’ wake. A great bull market, in short, was gathering itself together and surging ahead. All investors, since all prices were rising, looked wise. And Eugene Penny, playing steadily as was his nature, had already made himself more than a thousand pounds. But would it, he wondered, as he entered the Royal Exchange, be enough to satisfy the redoubtable Hamish Forsyth?

  The Royal Exchange had always been a busy place, but nowadays it was full to bursting. Every few yards of the world trade emporium seemed to be dedicated to some special trade. There was the Jamaica Walk, the Spanish Walk, the Norway Walk, where gaggles of jobbers sold stocks to buyers from every land. Eugene passed through a group of Dutchmen, then some Armenians, before he passed from the noisy and colourful scene to the quieter regions of the mezzanine floor above. There, in a large and impressive hall, Mr Forsyth’s place of business was to be found.

  Lloyd’s of London was not to be taken lightly. The old business of Lloyd’s coffee shop had long since evolved into a carefully regulated partnership of the highest repute. Some of the smaller insurance brokers in town, Eugene knew, were little more than dressed-up barrow boys and card-sharps, but the men of Lloyd’s were of a very different stamp. In this solemn hall, which they leased from the Exchange, was kept the Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. Here, through syndicates rather like those used by banks for the greatest loans, the largest ships, no matter how valuable their cargo, were safely insured by the underwriters sitting at their desks. And of all the hundred or so underwriters, none was more solid or more awesomely principled than the dour figure who now, though he did not rise, granted Eugene a nod.

  It was said of Mr Hamish Forsyth that he looked like a Scottish judge who had just passed sentence. His Presbyterian ancestors had been bleak as granite. But, though as stern as they, Hamish had preferred to transfer those feelings from the Kirk of God to the London insurance market. His brow, crowned with a few strands of grey hair, was noble; his nose, beak-like. From time to time he took large pinches of snuff, so that his conversation was punctuated by a series of huge sniffs – which gave to h
is utterances an air of finality which suggested that no ship he had insured would ever dare to sink.

  “We’ll go across the street,” he said. Leading Penny out, he made his way to a coffee shop in Threadneedle Street where, with the air of one who confers a favour, he bought him a cup of coffee.

  “You’ve met my daughter,” he remarked. Penny agreed that he had. “You’d better answer for yourself, then,” Forsyth declared, taking a pinch of snuff.

  Penny felt rather as though he were a vessel being inspected to discover if it is seaworthy. Forsyth asked the questions. He answered. His family? He explained them. His religion? His ancestors were Huguenot. This drew a sniff, it seemed of approval. He himself, he admitted, was Church of England, but even this seemed to pass. “It’s respectable,” said Forsyth. His position? He explained he was a clerk at Meredith’s. Forsyth looked thoughtful, then, like the Presbyterian minister he might have been, announced: “A man who invests in Mexico may be saved. In Peru. . .” Sniff. “Never.”

  Required to declare his own fortune, Penny told all, truthfully and, asked to do so, related his dealings in detail. This elicited a sigh. “This market is over-heating, young man. Get out or you’ll be burned.”

  Eugene would have liked to argue, but was too wise. “When should I get out, sir?”

  Forsyth gazed at him as he might at a man hanging by his fingers over a cliff, before he decided whether to tread on the fingers or help him up. “By Easter,” he said definitively. And then, quite suddenly, as if he considered he had been much too kind: “You wear spectacles, Mr Penny. The truth, man. How bad are your eyes?”

  Eugene explained that his father and grandfather had been short-sighted too. “But it doesn’t seem to get any worse,” he added.

  Whether this satisfied Forsyth, Eugene could not tell, but he soon found himself asked a series of questions about banking and finance which warned him that the Scotsman’s mind was very sharp indeed. Most he knew how to answer, but the final question made him pause.