‘It is, My Lord, and it can be shortly told. You remember Jenny Bowles mentioned that she had a sweetheart – a gardening boy at Alderman Wood’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘He accosted me after the performance last night. He knew Jenny was concealed at the Queen’s – they had met and talked since she went there. He saw us removing the body without understanding the significance of what he saw, and he is desperately anxious to know what has happened to Jenny.’
‘Why should he assume anything has happened to the girl?’
‘Because they had signs to each other, in the window. He knows she is no longer there.’
There was a silence lasting several seconds. The steward and his master looked at each other, then ahead in thought. At last Lord Hertford said:
‘He must be dealt with.’
The blood rushed to my head, and I lost all the circumspection one must show in dealing with an English nobleman. I began spluttering in my outrage:
‘My Lord, I couldn’t possibly countenance … I am already in this much further than I would have wanted to be …The suggestion is outrageous … If anything were to happen to the young man I should be forced to …’
There was a second silence, almost as long as the first. Then Lord Hertford spoke with a silky suaveness.
‘Mr Mozart, whatever do you imagine I was suggesting? That I was contemplating hiring ruffians to kill or incapacitate the young man? I assure you on the word of an English gentleman such a course never crossed my mind. My suggestion was and is that the young man be approached and his silence purchased.’
I was forced by the two rigid, disapproving faces before me to stammer apologies.
‘My Lord, I do beg your pardon. I was too hasty, confused by all that has happened. But I do not believe the young man can be bought. Remember his sweetheart has been killed.’
‘But not by us. Not by us.’
‘Will he believe it?’
‘He must believe it. It is clear the poor wench was killed by some enemy of the King who had at any price to prevent the Queen’s degraded passions becoming public knowledge. Some Whig sympathiser it must have been.’
So that was to be the story. As a story it was perfectly plausible. But it was no use in the present crisis. I shook my head.
‘My Lord, Whig and Tory mean nothing to such as Davy House. The people who cheer the Queen, the people who stoned this very house, are not Whigs, or radicals, or republicans. They cheer from human feeling, from a sort of deep down anger inside them – right or wrong – that a woman and a queen should be exposed as the Queen has been exposed. The political and constitutional subtleties are quite beyond them. All Davy House will understand is that you had his sweetheart concealed at the theatre for political reasons he cannot fathom, and that she was killed there. He will be grief-stricken and angry, and I would not trust too much to his reason.’
My long speech impressed My Lord and his steward. Lord Hertford unbent in his usual manner, and became almost genial.
‘Let us sit down and discuss this. Another glass of ratafia, Mr Mozart? Put the biscuits beside him, Mr de Fries. They are delightful, are they not? Now, tell us precisely what the boy told you.’
I went through my talk with Davy in detail. Every word was etched on my mind. I told them not just everything of importance, but everything, and they listened intently. When I had finished Lord Hertford pondered.
‘Let me make sure I entirely understand. The boy knew his sweetheart was at the Queen’s, knew she was involved in something of moment. Did he know you were involved, Mr Mozart?’
I ground my teeth silently. How, why, was I involved?
‘He gave no sign of it, My Lord.’
‘Right. Now, he had talked to Jenny only once. He saw us on the night of Jenny’s death. That was a damnable mistake. I should never have gone with you.’ He should not have gone with us! ‘Curse my coachman for a bungler!’
‘He was looking for passers-by, My Lord,’ I pointed out.
‘Not for anyone concealed.’
‘True enough. So the boy saw us, but did not understand what we were doing. And you have suggested that Jenny may be working at one of Mr Popper’s other theatres?’
‘It was all I could come up with on the spur of the moment.’
Lord Hertford shook his head. ‘It was most resourceful. I shall not forget how much we owe you, still, in all this, Mr Mozart. Now, the question is, do you believe him? I mean generally.’
It was my turn to ponder.
‘He has the ring of truth about him, My Lord,’ I said finally.
‘And yet … He claims that they met and talked only once. Does that seem natural? If Jenny – as she must have – had identified and used the key to the stage door, would she not have used it more than once if she knew that her lover was waiting outside?’
There is no doubting Lord Hertford’s brain. Only his heart.
‘It does seem likely, My Lord,’ I admitted. ‘But in what way is it material?’
‘The more they talked the more the boy knew. On the other hand the more he can be shown to be a liar the easier it will be to bully him into silence. Is he still working at Alderman Woods?’
‘Yes, he is. He says the pay is good.’
‘Those damned radicals buy their popularity. So, he would not be easy to approach there. But you say you are meeting him again tonight?’
‘That’s right, My Lord. In the Haymarket.’
‘Then we must use you, Mr Mozart. Tell him – let me see – tell him his young friend is indeed working at another theatre. And tell him he must come here and speak to Mr de Fries, who will supply him with all the details.’
‘But what will he tell him, My Lord?’
‘As little as possible. And he will attempt to buy his silence. That is not pretty, but it is the best we can do. The boy is poor, so he should be purchasable.’ The feeling smote me that he could be talking about me. ‘If he is exceptionally co-operative it might also mean that we have a spy in the Queen’s camp.’
I refrained from pointing out that the usefulness of a gardener’s boy as a spy would be limited. Lord Hertford now returned to his pressing business and Mr de Fries summoned an under-footman to escort me to my banker’s or to my house. He was a dour young man, and I did not bother to explain to him that people who live from day to day have no use for bankers. He put the hefty chamois bundle into a battered leather bag and we walked in the direction of Covent Garden. I had enough to think about without making conversation. As we neared my apartment I decided to make a brief detour in the direction of the Strand and Mr Benbow’s Chop House. That gentleman was just bustling up to refuse me further credit when I gestured towards his back room. That was where long-standing bills were settled, or reduced. There the under-footman opened the homely bag, I rummaged in the more luxurious one and handed to Mr Benbow five golden guineas. It was a satisfying moment, and would have been still more so if Mr Benbow’s face had expressed gratification instead of surprise. Then we went on to Henrietta Street and I dismissed the man with a florin which I had taken with me for that purpose. Then, having extracted three guineas for my immediate use I locked the bag away in the top of the closet I usually use for any substantial windfalls.
What I was to do next I had thought about on the walk home, but I nevertheless poured myself a glass of Madeira and thought it over again. Even on further consideration it seemed the right thing to do. I went to my desk, made space amid the multifarious piles of music paper, and wrote the following in clear capitals:
TO DAVY HOUSE: DANGER. DO NOT COME TO HAYMARKET TONIGHT. SUGGEST YOU EITHER STAY WITHIN ALDERMAN WOOD’S HOUSE AND GROUNDS OR DISAPPEAR TO SOMEWHERE WHERE YOU ARE NOT KNOWN FOR THE NEXT WEEK OR TWO.
W.G. MOZART
It read very melodramatically I know, but it had to be put simply for Davy’s comprehension. Simplification is the essence of melodrama. I went in search of Jo, my bright urchin in the Strand, impressed the message on him verbally in ca
se Davy could not read at all (as my urchin assuredly could not), then expended another florin to impress upon him the importance of getting the message to Davy. Knowing my usual scale of rewards the urchin first looked at me as if I had gone as mad as the late King, then hallooed with delight and sped off as if he had the heels of Mercury.
How to fill the hours until night? I was too disturbed in my mind to return to my Wind Serenade or to put the finishing touches to the last act of Le Comari di Windsor. I first wrote to Lady Hertford at Royal Lodge, Windsor Castle, detailing the amount which, according to Mr de Fries, her Lord had so far committed to the opera season. I am not proud of the letter, which was both disloyal and against my own greater interests, so I shall not reproduce it. To get the taste out of my mouth I went to dine at Mallory’s in Holborn, where the game is peerless. A brace of pheasants and a pint of claret put me in much better humour, and it was pleasant once in a way to pay in coin of the realm. There was still time to be filled in before I went to meet – or rather, as I hoped, not to meet – Davy House.
There was an unusually large crowd outside Covent Garden as I returned home. Their audiences are usually gratifyingly meagre because their prices are high and their standards low. Looking at the placards I saw that the piece to be played was Boieldieu’s Jean de Paris, which the transcendent genius of Mr Bishop had adapted to English taste. Not a new piece or a particularly popular one. I frowned in mystification.
‘They say the King is coming,’ said a man beside me, seeing my puzzlement. ‘That’s what they’re waiting to see.’
I nodded, and probably gained the reputation with him of a toady by immediately going in and paying for a good seat. I did not have long to wait for the entertainment to start. First of all noises penetrated to the Circle that were not the sounds of cheering. Five minutes later the door to the royal box was opened by the tallest flunkies in the house and Prinny walked in at a stately pace. The house seemed to erupt in a chorus of boos and catcalls, through which could be discerned various jeering sobriquets.
‘Mr Hertford.’
‘Mr Conyngham.’
‘Mr Fitzherbert.’
The vilification came mainly from the cheaper seats, but some boos came from all parts of the theatre. Prinny was horribly discomposed. I was reminded of ‘The Rake Punished’, the other title of my Don Giovanni (on which subject my Lord Byron is presently publishing a disgraceful poem which I decline to read). As the members of the royal party filed, disconcerted, into the box some of the people in the better parts of the house began applauding the King with simulated enthusiasm. I myself joined in, and the King regained some of that sunny grace and equanimity which he displayed in private. He bowed to the applauding parts of the house with an air which seemed to single out each one of us, including myself, for dignified royal acknowledgement. Our actions, of course, stimulated the barrackers, and they brought out new nicknames for him, including ‘Fatty’ and ‘The Prince of Whales’. You do not need to be clever or original to wound. It was many minutes (and Mr Bishop had long been in front of his players with his silly conducting stick) before the house subsided into something like silence.
I stuck two acts of the piece. If I must listen to mellifluous twaddle I would prefer it to be my own. I can do no better in characterising Boieldieu’s piece than say that I couldn’t tell where his music ended and young (or youngish) Bishop’s began. But before I left the theatre I saw something that intrigued and surprised me. I am not one of those who gape at royal personages, and once the piece started I averted my eyes from the royal box. However as the party filed back at the end of the first intermission I thought I discerned a face I knew. Seated among the less important (because untitled) personages at the back of the box was – surely my eyes did not deceive me? – the divine Therese Hubermann-Cortino and her gorilla of a husband.
Thought and speculation about the significance of her presence there occupied my mind satisfactorily during the second helping of musical gruel. Shortly after I left the theatre and was walking through Seven Dials I realised that the King had taken the same decision as I had: derisory catcalls from the direction of Covent Garden told me he was leaving the theatre.
I had half a pint of Amontillado in a Soho tavern notable, even among such establishments, for its dirt and the rudeness of its keeper. Then I repaired to the Haymarket and walked up and down for an hour and more waiting for Davy House who did not (I was pleased and relieved to find) turn up. I had a distinct impression, though, that someone else was there, and watching me. A spy from Lord Hertford, I had no doubt, set on by him or his steward to make sure I did what I had been told to do.
Then I went to home and bed, where I dreamed of a splendid Mass in C Minor. I always dream music, but I can seldom write any of it down when I wake up. On the morrow I wrote to Lord Hertford to acquaint him (unnecessarily, I was quite sure) with the fact that Davy had not turned up. Two hours later I received a note ordering me (or rather asking me in an aristocratic kind of way) to wait for him again that night, and if he did not appear bidding me to a conference at Hertford House the day after. My involvement with my betters was not over. How I wished it were!
11. I’ll Play the Tune
And so I spent another hour or two the next night, after the third performance of A Call to Arms, pacing up and down the Haymarket, cursing in my mind my involvement with Lord Hertford and his schemes. It wasn’t as though he was even particularly generous, considering the legal danger he was getting me into. Someone like Lord Egremere would have been much more open-handed – Whig peers usually are, probably because they have been out of office for so long that they have to be.
The thought of Lord Egremere brought back to my mind the question of who had killed poor Jenny Bowles. If that was a political crime then it must have been done by a Whig or a radical, an opponent of the King who knew what Jenny had overheard but didn’t know of the plan to have a substitute Jenny appear before the Lords. There must have been any number of Whigs and radicals in the audience that evening. Members of the audience do quite frequently penetrate backstage: the morals of singers and actors are not, alas, of the most spotless. Members of the aristocracy and the royal family are particularly attracted by the freedoms of theatre people. But I had to remember that any member of the Queen’s troupe, actor, singer, musician or menial, could be an opponent of the King. Probably most of them were. And any of them who wasn’t could probably have been bought – though perhaps few could have been bought to commit such a deed as a killing. The question one kept coming back to was: who knew about Jenny? It was a question that could have dreadful implications for Betty Ackroyd, if the charade before the House of Lords was persisted in.
Anyway, the next day a conference assembled in a small sitting-room on the first floor of Hertford House. We made an ill-assorted group in all that rather stuffy grandeur. There was Mr Popper shuffling uneasily and looking as if he wished he were a thousand miles away. An opera manager would not normally see the living quarters of a great house. At best he would be granted an interview in the offices. Then there was Betty Ackroyd, much more confident and at home, or pretending to be, myself, Mr de Fries, and finally Lord Hertford himself. Coffee was served, and then the footman and maid were ordered to withdraw. People surrounded by armies of servants are people surrounded by armies of spies.
‘So here we are,’ said Lord Hertford. ‘All those who knew of poor Jenny Bowles and her story.’
I looked straight ahead of me, and I imagine Betty Ackroyd did the same. We both knew of at least one more person who knew: Bradley Hartshead. I went over in my own mind other possibles who knew: Davy House perhaps had some dim inkling, perhaps something more concrete. Lady Hertford? The King? The Prime Minister? Surely Lord Hertford had not decided on his plan without consultation with anyone more important than his own steward? I felt sure in my mind that the King had been told: I believed the whole thing (whether Jenny’s story was true or not) was a plan to regain the favour of the King and the inf
luence the Hertfords had formerly had with him – influence which was slipping away as Lady Hertford was being replaced as principal mistress by Lady Conyngham. It was a cold plot designed to keep the spoils of office, the office being the age-old one of first whore.
‘Now,’ said Lord Hertford, ‘let’s get down to business. On the surface of things the death of Bowles does not make any difference to our plans.’ He cleared his throat, looked at me, then looked at Mr Popper. ‘This will be news to some of you, but we had already decided that putting Bowles in front of the assembled House of Lords was simply not feasible. Miss Ackroyd is a brilliant mimic, and we were planning that she should impersonate her before the House of Lords, so that her story could be properly told.’
He looked around again, and I put on the expected expression of surprise.
‘Brilliant, My Lord,’ I said.
‘A cunning notion, I thought,’ he said with a cold little smile of self-congratulation. ‘I have no doubt it would have been successful. And it still may be. Miss Ackroyd could go, give her testimony, be spirited away afterwards and – and then disappear.’
We all went through the motions of thinking this over.
‘Would her – my – disappearance not lessen the value of the testimony?’ asked Betty Ackroyd.
‘I think not. With the passions of the mob at the pitch they are now, Jenny herself would have had to be whisked away and hidden. No, if the testimony is made before the Lords it will have a stunning effect. It will destroy the Queen’s case.’
He was a great deal too complacent. I had no doubt that he was leading us – and particularly Betty – into dangers we had hardly grasped. I had no doubt, either, that he would not be in there sharing the dangers with us. Aristocrats and politicians never are. I had to demolish the plan, but I had to proceed with the utmost cunning. I have to admit I am rather good (I have had to be) at the art of scheming. I may occasionally be wrong about people, but in the art of plotting to get my own way I have few equals. In this case it was not my own pecuniary advantage that was the goal in view, but the safety of Betty Ackroyd.
Dead, Mr Mozart Page 11