by S K Rizzolo
Wallace-Crag beamed at her. “Brava, ma’am. Now, shall we have a look? We’ll never have a like opportunity. They’ll break it to pieces when they take it up, you mark my words.”
He turned away without further ado to busy himself on his hands and knees. Penelope noticed that he first spread a wide handkerchief on which to kneel so that he wouldn’t soil his trousers. Amused, she noticed too that he spared no thought for how she would manage, for he was mysteriously unafflicted by the inborn gallantry of the gentleman. He ignored her, in fact.
She lowered herself to an awkward crouch, lifting her dress with one hand. And immediately the sense of being enclosed intensified as she gazed up dirt walls stretching toward a sky that seemed a long way off. They were in a large space, perhaps thirteen or fourteen feet square, below the carriageway. The traffic from Leadenhall Street murmured softly as if the bustle of people about their business had no place down here. The hole was bitterly cold and damp. Penelope huddled closer into her pelisse.
“Quite, quite wonderful.” He glanced toward her with another brilliant smile. “Come here, Mrs. Wolfe.”
She straightened and moved nearer to him. They were looking at a large piece of Roman tessellated pavement that workmen had discovered in digging for a sewer opposite the East India House portico. And her companion was correct: the mosaic was awe-inspiring.
Inside the design’s central circle an exquisitely rendered figure of Bacchus reposed on a tiger’s back. He wore a wreath of vine leaves on his head and a mantle of purple and green over his shoulder. From one hand dangled a drinking cup; the other gripped his thyrsus, a wand tipped with a pine cone.
“How did the artist achieve the coloring, sir?”
“By the use of about twenty different tints. Most of the mosaic is composed of baked earths, but the more vivid colors, such as those in Bacchus’ mantle, are glass.”
Wallace-Crag took Penelope’s fingers in a quick, impersonal grip and brushed them lightly across the surface. “See how noble his bearing, how serene his countenance,” he went on in the same exultant tone, his ruddy complexion more flushed than usual. “Bacchus has displayed that precise expression for over fifteen hundred years whether there was anyone to look upon him or no. He cares nothing for our paltry response to his magnificence.”
“No more he should,” replied Penelope softly. “But one does not usually associate serenity with Bacchus. Was he not a rather riotous god who encouraged free indulgence in wine?”
“And in other things. Yet he also has a more serious aspect. As Dionysus he is associated with the goat ritually torn asunder to ensure the land’s fertility. The people used hazel twigs to bind the vines sacred to Bacchus to stakes. Any goats found feeding on the god’s vines were to be captured and sacrificed.”
“These people must have had a profound belief in the efficacy of their ritual.”
“Oh, they did, Mrs. Wolfe. You are wise to view it in that light. Most today shun the very thought of religious ecstasy, at least in England. When my wife died, I recall being struck by the aridness of the pastor’s eulogy. Our clergymen never dare to ride the tiger—” He broke off as if he’d said more than he intended.
“I understand completely,” said Penelope with warm sympathy. “When my mother died in Sicily, her memorial was conducted by a Catholic priest. My father said it was a far more moving and fitting occasion than would have been usual here.” She hesitated. “How unfortunate to lose your wife so young. I am sorry, Sir Roger.”
He ran an absent hand through his short, graying hair. He was still an attractive man, Penelope thought, his features smooth and appealing, his eyes radiating an intelligence that was fluid and flexible, yet also detached.
“Every man has a time in his life when the darkness is absolute, and that was mine. I had such hopes of an heir.”
She looked at him curiously. What of the woman herself, she thought. Had he mourned her loss? “How dreadful. Have you never considered marrying again, sir?”
“No, for you see, I have my books and my work to occupy me, and I suppose I have grown accustomed to my own company. It was all a very long time ago, even if not quite so distant in time as the creation of this lovely treasure.” His voice dropped. “I had hoped Julia would give me a fine grandson of my own blood, but perhaps…”
Shaking his head as if to rid himself of unpleasant thoughts, he turned back to his examinations. Penelope said, “Sir Roger, to speak of a treasure, I’ve been meaning to ask you about your little Celtic knife. I noticed you’ve been using a different letter opener. Have you lost the knife?” She was aware of how odd and abrupt the question sounded.
“I must have misplaced it.”
“We should consider the possibility that whoever murdered poor Dick may have taken your knife to use as a weapon. If that is so, this villain must have had access to the house.” Glancing at him from under her lashes, she surprised a flicker of dismay followed by a mask of determined nonchalance.
He said lightly, “I believe, ma’am, you would do well to confine your curiosity to the past and its glorious secrets. I would not wish you to alarm Julia.”
“Did you note any other signs of disturbance, sir? Perhaps Mr. Chase observed something?”
“I did not tell him about the knife. Mrs. Wolfe, I ask you again to leave it alone.”
“Today, Lady Ashe and I attended a waltzing party in the company of Mr. Edward Buckler. He has interested himself in the matter of Ransom’s death and has hit upon the theory that the woman who trespassed in your garden is one Rebecca Barnwell, a female prophetess. It seems—”
“You don’t understand, or you would do as I ask at once. There are reasons, my dear, that I won’t trouble you with just now. Look here, there are details in the pavement you simply must not miss.”
Unwillingly, Penelope allowed herself to be guided through an examination of one of the borders around the central circle that exhibited a sinuous serpent, black with a white belly. Sir Roger removed a diary and pencil from his pocket and began to make notes and a rough sketch as if their conversation had never occurred. And yet she had been watching his face as she spoke and knew she had not imagined the apprehension that had overcome him at the mention of Miss Barnwell.
After a moment, he spoke. “Since I leave for the country in a few days, I shall commission Finch to come back here and make another drawing for the engraver.”
“You truly think the mosaic will be destroyed?”
He shrugged. “I am told the Company intends to place it in its library. Let us hope the extraction is handled with delicacy.”
A few minutes later they stood above ground. Clerks swarmed in and out of the enormous sprawl of East India House. A man walked by with a bag of game purchased at nearby Leadenhall Market. Several Jews in long, black coats and wide-brimmed fur hats passed on their way to the synagogue down the street. Penelope drew in great lungfuls of air, finding herself glad to be up in the world again.
Sir Roger offered his arm. “Would you care to view an altogether different sort of tiger?” he inquired with a mischievous grin.
“That must depend on the sort you mean and its relative proximity.”
Chuckling, he led her toward the entrance to East India House. “Since we’re here, it would seem a shame for you to miss the Oriental Repository. It contains artifacts the Company has collected in India over the years such as weapons, musical instruments, a silver howdah, and, of course, its chief attraction, the Man-Tiger-Organ.”
“That sounds distinctly ominous. No doubt it will give me nightmares.”
His keen eyes swept her face. “I shouldn’t think so. You seem to be made of more resilient fiber than that. The Man-Tiger Organ is a mechanism created by an Indian called Tippoo Sahib, who was killed during the capture of Seringapatam. He abhorred the British.”
“I suppose the tiger jumps out at one or something similarly horrid?”
“No. The mechanism presents the sounds and sights of a tiger making minc
emeat of a red-coated Englishman. From the Indian perspective, that is highly appropriate, even profound. Here, however, it degenerates to absurdity. Which, of course, is why we’re going to see it.”
Penelope lifted her brows in question. “After admiring an ancient Roman mosaic, you feel the need for tomfoolery?”
He nodded, his eyes suddenly serious. “Ah, but that is just the point. A wise man always follows the sublime with farce.”
***
Penelope found Timberlake in the butler’s pantry, a narrow stone-flagged chamber furnished with an enormous press that housed the establishment’s collection of plate, glassware, and silver.
After a stiff exchange of greetings, she said, “Did you know that Sir Roger’s letter knife has gone missing?”
The silence lengthened as he stared down his nose at her, his nostril hairs fluttering as he exhaled. She wanted to shake him. Penelope got on better with Timberlake than with Mrs. Sterling, but it irked her when he hid behind his stately exterior. The closest she had ever seen him come to a purely human response was in the aftermath of Dick’s murder.
“May I inquire why you should concern yourself with such matters, Mrs. Wolfe?”
“I must say I feel uneasy at the thought of a murderer in the house. ’Twas bad enough that whoever it was attacked poor Dick in the garden outside my window. I still have nightmares about it.”
“Not to worry,” he replied, seeming to appreciate this show of feminine sensibility. “I have added new bolts to the doors and many of the windows. Not that there’s any reason to fear further disturbance, but it pays to be careful. You may rest easily, ma’am.”
She opened her eyes wide, fixing them on his face. “But what if the villain is someone yet within these walls?”
“Stuff and nonsense, ma’am. Who do you imagine it can be? It’s plain as day that Ransom had taken up with ill company. He and his cohorts planned a robbery, and you see how the scoundrels repaid him. They would not dare to return.”
“What of the knife, Mr. Timberlake? Nothing but that was missing.”
He held up a silver ladle to the waning light. “You have no proof the letter opener was stolen, ma’am. You know how forgetful Sir Roger is. Perhaps he has merely misplaced it.”
Penelope considered, then rejected, the notion of telling the butler about the incident at Covent Garden Market. Instead, she said, “Why should Sir Roger keep silent about the loss of his property? When I inquired, he seemed…reluctant to speak of the matter, especially after I mentioned the woman apprehended in the garden.”
From the doorway, Mrs. Sterling suddenly spoke. “No doubt he has his reasons.”
Starting violently, Penelope wondered how long the woman had been standing there. Her little cat feet went everywhere in this house as she delighted in terrorizing the maids. Penelope had to force herself to nod pleasantly. “Good afternoon, ma’am.”
The housekeeper approached with a rustle of her black bombazine skirts. “You refer to Sir Roger’s little Celtic letter blade? Well, that is interesting. But he is a gentleman, after all, Mrs. Wolfe, and a true gentleman always keeps mum when it comes to protecting a female in his charge. ’Tis a trait bred in them from birth.”
Timberlake cleared his throat. “You will excuse me, Mrs. Wolfe? I have much to do to prepare for dinner this evening, and I am sure Mrs. Sterling likewise has duties that await her.”
“Indeed I do. You are quite right, Mr. Timberlake.” She glanced around as if seeking some excuse for having entered the room and, finding none, took a step toward the door.
“Mrs. Sterling,” said Penelope. “I must beg you to speak your mind plainly. It has long been evident to me that you are no friend to Lady Ashe, but this sort of innuendo is the outside of enough.”
The older woman swung back to face Penelope, the strings of her cap a-quiver with indignation, her cheeks reddening. “How dare you speak to me thus. You are no better than she, and the good Lord knows that is bad enough. Don’t you play off your fine lady airs on me, ma’am.” She glanced at the butler, who was shaking his head. “No, Mr. Timberlake, I won’t be gainsaid. There’s wickedness afoot in this house, and I won’t be a party to it, not even if it costs me my place.”
“You believe that Sir Roger is protecting his daughter?” said Penelope slowly. “What is it you imagine she’s done?”
“Imagine? I imagine nothing. Ask her ladyship’s abigail. She’ll tell you. Lady Ashe was not safe tucked up in her bed that night or many other a night either. You ask Miss Poole about the cloak she found stuffed under the counterpane where it had no business to be. Damp it was. You ask her how the mistress cried herself to sleep for days after that low footman died. Don’t tell me I imagine that, Mrs. Wolfe.”
For a moment Penelope was too appalled to respond. The virulence of this woman’s spite was something altogether beyond her experience, yet Penelope could not help but believe the housekeeper spoke the truth as she saw it. She was ignorant and hateful, but not false. And what she said made a horrible kind of sense.
Penelope groped for words. “What precisely are you saying, Mrs. Sterling—that Lady Ashe went out that night to meet Dick?”
She gave an angry shrug. “How should I know? But he was trouble long before he turned up dead. Oh, he played the servant well enough, but he got above himself. If you ask me, he seemed a deal too curious about his betters, always asking questions about the family.”
Penelope would have liked to press further, but Timberlake looked like he was about to have an apoplexy. Quietly, she said, “You need not fear I will convey your accusations to Lady Ashe. Your place is safe, so far as I am concerned. But I must ask you not to repeat your charges to anyone else, ma’am. You take your bread of this family, and I’m sure you would not wish to be unjust.”
At that, Penelope hurried from the room and went upstairs to fetch her wrap. Though there would be little daylight left, she suddenly felt she would go mad if she did not escape. Once outside in the shrubbery, she marched up and down, moving briskly to keep warm. Could it be true? Had Julia and Ransom been lovers? Had she slipped from her chamber to meet him that night, perhaps here where the candle grease had been found? Then who had murdered Dick? Surely the culprit could not be Julia, who seemed to mourn him truly. But then Penelope recalled the look in Lord Ashe’s eyes as he stroked his wife’s cheek and shivered.
Finding after a while that her thoughts gave her no peace, she hurried through the shadowy garden and in the side door. She would go up the servants’ stairs to avoid encountering any of the family and play a while with Sarah before dressing for dinner, though how she was to sit at table with these people without revealing her doubts and fears, Penelope had no notion.
In the corridor outside her room, she met Sarah accompanied by the nursemaid. “There you are ma’am,” she said cheerfully. “Miss Sarah and I have been down to the kitchen for a bit of gingerbread and a chat with Cook. She fair dotes on the child.”
“Thank you, Mary. I’ll take her now.”
Sarah had bounded inside to be met by a glow of warmth. Apparently, the upstairs maid had already been by to tend the fire, which was not enough, however, to banish the gloom. Penelope lit some candles, then carried the candelabra over to the table to light several more.
Dancing over to the bed, Sarah exclaimed, “The maid has laid out your dress for you, Mama. Oh, it’s your pretty one. Oh no, Mama. Look!”
Penelope moved swiftly to her side. “What is it, darling?”
One glance told her the tale, for someone had taken scissors or a knife to the green sarsenet, slashing in long, uneven strokes down the front of the skirt. The beautiful lace bodice, too, was cut to pieces.
Chapter XII
One of Wren’s churches rebuilt after the Great Fire, St. Matthew’s was a plain structure of modest proportions on Friday Street near St. Paul’s Cathedral. In the west a low brick tower nestled against the skyline; the east end fronted the street where John Chase stood. He saw that
the bookseller’s stall still sat near the church, not far from the more prosperous establishments that congregated in St. Paul’s churchyard.
The proprietor watched Chase approach. About Chase’s own age, he was a harsh-featured mulatto, a stocky figure in nankeen trousers, a blue coat with anchor buttons, and an old leather hat. In addition to the seditious tracts, broadsheets, and bawdy prints spread over his table, he offered a pile of old clothes. A small sign advertised his services “however trifling” to any passerby in need of a patch or a darn.
The son of a Jamaican sugar plantation owner and an African-born house slave, Abel Purcell had served under Chase in the West Indies. Afterwards, Purcell had joined the ranks of other former sailors scrambling, often unsuccessfully, for a living. As to what had reduced him to street peddling, Chase had no clue, but he was hopeful that someone of Purcell’s much vaunted political views might be of help to him now.
“Good day, Purcell. You will remember me, I believe.”
Purcell’s gloom did not lighten. “I do at that, Mr. Chase of Bow Street, though it’s been some years since you happened by. One does not forget an old navy man, however. Your injury, sir? Seems that leg is yet a mite stiff.”
Chase shrugged. “I get on. And you?”
“Well enough for the present.” He had been leaning against the wall. Now he straightened, and Chase glimpsed for the first time a chalking on the church wall behind him: No Orders in Council, No King, No Parliament. Bread or Blood. And under that, in another hand, was scrawled: Prince Regent damd Raskel We have his life before long.
“Your work?” said Chase sternly.
The ubiquitous wall chalkings around the city incensed the Home Office, but there was no real way to combat them. In the past few months, Chase had seen many such protests directed at the roundly despised Orders in Council, a set of trade restrictions intended to combat Napoleon’s blockade. These same Orders in Council seemed likely to provoke the Americans into outright war. The people’s anger did not surprise Chase, nor did their contempt for the dissolute Prince Regent, who was vastly unpopular with his subjects.