Pleasing Mr. Pepys

by Deborah Swift

  He had the grace to look a little discomfited.

  She tried again. ‘You know how I always used to say I have a sixth sense, that I can read the signs? Well, I know I’m being watched. I have a bad feeling about it. It’s always been me doing the watching. So I need those papers.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t risk Rachel knowing anything. It’s too dangerous. For her, I mean. You’ll have to travel alone.’

  ‘Alone? You know that would look suspicious – a woman on her own. And they will be looking for me.’

  ‘Why? What have you done?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  His eyes said he did not believe her. ‘No. I’m sorry, Abigail, but the answer’s “no”.’

  So that was the way. She must press him harder. She picked up her gloves and slid them on. ‘You disappoint me. Of course I could tell Piet of your plans. He would not be quite as desirous of your safe passage as I am.’

  Leo’s face lost its colour.

  ‘Think about it. You have until this time tomorrow night. If I don’t have your agreement by then, I’ll go to Piet.’

  His eyebrows lowered, and he crushed an oily rag in his fist. ‘I trusted you. Tell me I was right to trust you. Abigail? Please?’

  She turned her back on him.

  ‘So you’re like the rest after all.’ Leo’s voice was bitter. ‘But I tell you, if you have the gall to threaten me, what’s to stop me doing the same?’

  She whipped round. ‘That wouldn’t be wise. You have too much to lose. They might think Rachel is involved.’

  ‘Why would they think that? She’s never—’

  Abigail raised an eyebrow. ‘A word in the right ear …’

  ‘You two-faced … you would, wouldn’t you? Condemn her to save your own skin.’

  ‘Think about it, Leo. Only a few papers. Surely you can do that for an old friend.’

  The look he gave her was one of hatred and contempt. It hurt her but she masked the sting.

  ‘Dusk tomorrow,’ she said.

  After Abigail left Leo’s, she walked down to the Thames and stood a while watching the trade barges up and down the river. Her city. She had called it ‘home’ for so long, knew every inch of its byways and thoroughfares. But the fire had destroyed most of what she knew. And now the pox had destroyed the only thing keeping her here.

  Leo would do it, she was certain. Threats worked as long as you knew you were able to carry them out. In practice, she rarely had to. Her conviction alone was usually enough to persuade people. She liked Leo; he was a nice boy. But too nice, too easily persuaded. It made her despise him.

  A barge passed, its lights reflected in the murk of the water. She had travelled this water so often, but now she’d be leaving. She could not say farewell to B, or tell him anything, for fear it would bring him harm. How strange the paradox of the human heart, that it could attach itself to one soul and not to another. Apart from her fierce, uncompromising love for Joan, Lord B was the only person she had ever cared a whit for, perhaps because he was an intellectual, a man with no time to waste on foolish ideas, a man whose mind was as sharp as hers. In other circumstances, she mused, he would have been the perfect spy.

  He had sneaked his way into her heart over time, and the thought of leaving him was a pain she did not want to contemplate. But she must go now, and she must be traceless. Travel as one person, and then assume a new identity on the other side of the Strait of Dover. She had done it once before and she could do it again. But her timing would need to be impeccable; she could not risk Piet finding out before she got away.

  She picked up a pebble and threw it into the water. It sank without a ripple under the greasy grey tide of water. Deb Willet was too dangerous. Unlike Poole, who was illiterate and knew none of the details of Abigail’s invisible business, Deb knew about her meetings with Berenger, and Piet would soon trace Abigail through him.

  Deb would have to be silenced.

  Abigail felt a rush of something that could have been dread or could have been excitement. It was good to feel something at last. Since Joan’s death she had been numb. She had known all along that it must come to this, but now the time had really come. Her new life was so close. Carefully does it, she thought. No mistakes. Leave no traces.

  Chapter Forty-five

  April

  DEB CONTINUED TO MILK CRAWLEY for the information which she now knew went from Abigail to Piet. Piet had told her she must carry on just as before, so not to arouse Abigail’s suspicion, but that was easier said than done. She found Crawley repugnant, and it was harder and harder to keep his amorous advances at bay.

  During one of Piet’s uncomfortable, unannounced visits, he told her that some of Abigail’s contacts, particularly the printer, Berenger, were giving the Dutch cause for concern, and she must stay vigilant.

  ‘She came back from Lord Bruncker’s and put a new padlock on her door,’ Deb said to him, ‘so I can’t get access to her chamber like I used to.’

  ‘Ah yes. I remember. She has never shown you how to pick a lock.’ Piet strolled over to Abigail’s door, took out his batch of skeleton keys and juggled them in his fingers. ‘This one should do it.’

  He slid one of the prongs into the lock and twisted. After a moment of feeling with his fingers, the lock clicked. He locked it again, and gestured for her to try.

  After several attempts it was still immoveable.

  ‘No. Listen with your fingers,’ he said.

  After a few more minutes of jiggling and manoeuvring, she felt the ratchet of the mechanism give. He plucked off the padlock and told her to turn the handle.

  ‘Ah, better.’

  She paused on the threshold. ‘She put powder down last week, to see if I’d been in. Then, a few days later, the lock.’

  ‘That old trick. I hope you didn’t fall for it.’

  Deb shook her head.

  ‘Good girl.’

  Between them they searched the room, but there was nothing untoward. She did not like the look of Piet’s long pale fingers handling Abigail’s shifts and nightdresses, though he was very careful to replace everything exactly as it was.

  When they’d done, he slipped the pick from his key ring, passed it over. ‘Check it regularly,’ he said. ‘Copy anything you find to Mr Johnson.’

  Deb soon learnt the feel of the lock and checked Abigail’s room every day. A few weeks later, when Abigail was out at the theatre with Lord Bruncker, Deb opened the door to see a leather trunk, dragged out next to the bed. It was a large one and contained woollen undergarments and two of Abigail’s least fashionable dresses. Her heaviest fur-lined cloak lay on the bed, with a leather overcape and kidskin gloves.

  She was going somewhere.

  Deb searched the leather compartment in the lid of the trunk. She was surprised to find a bone rattle, of the sort that might belong to a baby, and a baby’s bonnet, both yellow with age. Abigail had never mentioned knowing any children. She pulled out travelling papers, a pass for safe passage, and a ticket to Boulogne. The papers claimed to be for a Mrs Taverner, travelling with Leo Berenger, a printer, and his wife Rachel. Leo Berenger, she knew, had already had correspondence with Abigail, and was the man Piet had mentioned.

  Deb slid everything back. Why was Abigail leaving? Should she tell Piet? If she said nothing then Abigail would be gone, out of her life. If she didn’t tell him and he found out she had hidden it from him, she did not know what he would do, but it would not be good, that much was certain.

  Even the thought of him made her prickle with unease. She could not afford an enemy like Abigail, but she could afford one like Piet even less.

  She left everything exactly as it was, relocked the door and wrote a brief note to ‘Mr Johnson’, signing herself as ‘Viola’, telling him that Abigail was planning to travel to France disguised as a ‘Mrs Taverner’. She gave it to a boy to take to Noon Street.

  Abigail did not return at the end of the play so she must have gone on to supper again with Lord B. A few hou
rs later a note came back with a messenger boy.

  “Gault’s coffee house, six o’clock.

  Johnson”

  It was dark when she got there, but Piet was already waiting in the shadows, away from the glare of the wall sconces. She slid into the seat next to him, from habit, so they could both face the door.

  ‘Did you find any coin in her belongings?’ he asked.

  ‘No, and I did look everywhere.’

  ‘So someone else must be financing her move. Certainly not us. I can’t think that she’s got business with the French, so it looks like she’s about to squeal and run. She’s probably planning on outing us to the King. That’s if she hasn’t already. She’ll have to go.’ He took out a long object in an ivory case and placed it onto Deb’s lap.

  She picked it up, but before she could look closely he pressed his hand down on hers. ‘Keep it out of sight. It’s a razor. Quickest and easiest.’

  Deb did not understand.

  His hand gripped hers tighter. ‘You’re the one who can get nearest to her. Poison is too unpredictable, and a pistol too noisy. Stand well back, come from behind, and aim here.’ He tilted his head and pressed on his throat just under the ear. ‘One deep cut should be enough.’

  ‘But I can’t—’

  ‘Or if you’re so squeamish, while she sleeps.’

  Deb could not take it in. But something about it must have registered because she could feel her breath coming quick and shallow. ‘It’s impossible. She’s gone to Lord Bruncker’s. She might not come back.’

  ‘She’ll come back for her trunk.’

  ‘She’s a light sleeper, she’d never—’

  ‘Know this: she will have plans for you.’ His words were sharp and incisive. ‘She will not want to leave you to testify against her. You’re a loose end, Miss Willet. Agents hate loose ends. You are not the only one with one of these.’ He picked it from her lap, slid it open to reveal the glint of the blade, and with a quick movement caught her by the wrist.

  The blade was a hair’s width from her skin. ‘If I were you,’ he spoke into her ear, his breath hot against her cheek, ‘I’d watch your back.’

  She wondered if she could run, get out of London.

  He seemed to read her thoughts. ‘I wouldn’t. Remember Harrington. As I said, agents hate—’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I understand.’

  He snapped the razor shut, closed her hand over it. ‘I’ll arrange for you to move on, to another safe house. Send word to Noon Street when it’s done and I’ll send someone to deal with the mess. Tonight. Quicker the better.’

  Chapter Forty-six

  JEM WAS FRUSTRATED. Easter was his busiest time of year, and it had taken two weeks of sleuthing, between his usual duties, to find any information at all about Dr Allbarn; nobody seemed to know him, and he had had to hand over a substantial bribe to one of the clerks at the post office to find the address, something that offended his conscience.

  Restless, and unable to resist, Jem had sent a boy with a message to Lizzie saying not to expect him again today, but that he hoped to have some good news for her and would come tomorrow. After he had skimped his duties – the palm crosses, the parishioners’ Easter feast – he was forced to walk to Whetstone Park because he could not find a decent hired horse, so it was late in the afternoon by the time he arrived at Dr Allbarn’s.

  The house was shoddy and down at heel, not at all what he was expecting from a man of physic. He knocked and waited, and a grubby-looking servant opened up, peering out of the crack in the door, her eyes suspicious. She looked up at him silently a moment before speaking.

  ‘The doctor’s out.’

  ‘It’s Miss Willet I’ve come to see.’

  ‘Wait there.’ The door shut in his face. Within, her iron-heeled clogs clumped upstairs. He took a step back to look at the house. A face appeared at the window, blurred, but he could just make out Deb’s features.

  He heard footsteps coming downstairs again. The maid opened the door. ‘She’s out.’

  ‘Please. I know Miss Willet is at home because I saw her at the window. Give her this note, won’t you.’ He scribbled a quick line with a stub of graphite.

  “News of your mother. Please come down.

  Jem.”

  Then he thrust a threepence at the maid along with the note. ‘She’ll see me if she reads this. I’ll wait.’

  Deb read the note and read it again. Was it true? Did Jem have news of her mother? She looked out of the window and he was still standing there. The sight of him gave her a wrenching sensation. Her feet began to move towards the door.

  ‘Will you go down, miss?’ Poole’s expression was disapproving.

  ‘I’ll just see what he wants.’

  ‘But Mistress Williams—’

  ‘That will do, Poole.’ Deb straightened her collar, smoothed the wrinkles from her bodice.

  When she opened the door he came forward to greet her eagerly. ‘Miss Willet! Deb, I mean … forgive my intrusion, but I had to come. I could not in all conscience keep it to myself. I think I know where your mother lives. I met a lady who says she has estranged daughters, a lady by the name of Lizzie Willet.’ When she did not immediately reply, he said, ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’

  She felt herself maintain a distance. ‘Nobody’s ever called her Lizzie. It must be someone else. My mother is Eliza Willet.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s her. She has a voice like yours, something of the West Country. And your eyes. Though she has lighter colouring than you. She’s a very charitable lady. Shall we go in and I’ll tell you all about it?’

  ‘No.’ She was too hasty. ‘That is, Dr Allbarn won’t allow it.’ Deb was still trying to take in what Jem had said. She could not accept it. An inner resistance prevented her, for she was in another world now, one where curates and a charitable lady would not fit.

  Jem kicked at a stone by his feet, disappointment etched into his features.

  ‘Where did you meet this woman, this Mrs Willet?’Deb asked, unable to help herself.

  ‘She runs a school. On the north bank, near Lukenor Lane. Children whose mothers have no prospects of better employment and no hope of escape. I’m helping there. She’s got so much patience. I wish I could be as good with the children. They’re fortunate to have her.’ He paused, concern in his eyes. ‘Are you all right? You look pale.’

  Deb knew she had lost weight, that there were dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. His scrutiny made her defensive. ‘It can’t be her. She would have a child with her, my half-brother.’

  The words did not seem to disconcert him in the least. ‘I’m sorry, but I think I’m right in saying the child died. Lizzie mentioned a bereavement. And sons, and another daughter named Hester.’ He paused, let the name sink in.

  Deb swallowed. A gaping chasm had opened inside her. ‘Coincidence, merely.’

  ‘Deb, it has to be her. She told me she was estranged from her family by her husband, that she’d give anything to see them again but he won’t let her near them. She doesn’t know where any of you are. He won’t tell her.’

  ‘It’s not her.’ Deb spoke with finality.

  ‘How do you know? You said—’

  ‘Begging your pardon, Jem, but this woman can’t be my mother. My mother went abroad.’ She heard her voice crack as she clutched at the dwindling straws. ‘She went to the Low Countries with my Uncle Jack. It must be someone else.’

  ‘But Deb, she’s desperate for news of you! Cannot I tell her something, give her some small hope that—’

  ‘It’s not her, I say. And please – do not mention me to this … this woman. Now leave me in peace.’

  She saw his confusion, his hurt eyes, and it twisted inside her. But she stepped away from him, shut the door, bolted it loudly from the inside before she could change her mind. Then she stood in the hall, propped against the panelling, tears coursing silently down her cheeks.

  Her mother was in London, not Antwerp. She had been here all along.
All the time she was at the Pepyses’. And now Deb was at Wheststone Park, she was even closer. Yet it might as well have been another country for all the difference it would make.

  Jem had spoken of her with affection. Good, and charitable, Jem had said.

  But Deb had known her as a ‘woman of sin’ for so long, she could not let herself believe it. So what, if she was good and kind? She’d left them, hadn’t she? Without even a goodbye.

  Deb was not ready to drop the image of her mother that allowed her anger. At the same time, she wanted to run to her there and then, bury her head against her skirts as she did when she was small. Instead, she tightened the grip on herself and hauled her leaden legs up the stairs, twitched back the curtain. Jem was still staring up at the house.

  When he saw the curtain shift he raised his arms, in a gesture of surrender. As he turned and walked slowly away up the street, she kept her eyes fixed on his back. Curse you, she thought. She could not help resenting how things for him were so straightforward, how he was bathed in an aura of goodness that only made her feel more black beside him.

  He was not for her, she told herself. She dropped the curtain over the window. She would never be able to repay him with anything but a soiled reputation. Her dream of building a respectable life for herself seemed laughable now. Here she was, a spy and a whore and a traitor. By comparison, her mother’s affair seemed mild. When Abigail returned, she was to murder her in cold blood. If she did not, her own life might be forfeit by one of Piet’s men. She would be the killer or the killed. Either way she was better to be completely alone in the world. She could not risk it, that she might bring Jem or her mother into danger.

  She took a kerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes. Crying would not keep her alive. Only tenacity and a sharp mind could do that. She picked up her skirts and took herself to the desk. She must stay calm. Forget about everything else but survival. And in case things did not go to plan, she needed to write to ask for Hester’s forgiveness.