by Sarah Zettel
The day was growing chill, and a breeze that smelled of London and lowering winter whipped through the carriage, yet I was scarcely aware of it. All I felt was that a moment passed, and another, and another, and Matthew still did not come out. Another five long moments passed. Another ten. The church bells rang the hour, and Matthew did not come out. The hawkers and the porters and secondhand clothes men with their wares held high on poles came and went past our coach, and Matthew did not come out. Olivia tried several times to engage me in conversation or speculation. I didn’t bother to answer her. My world had narrowed to the dark doorway of the House of Pierpont.
I pushed my mask up and knuckled my eyes. Not only did they ache from staring, but my legs were beginning to cramp from stillness and cold. The foot warmers with which Libby had supplied us had gone stone cold long since.
But then something happened that made me sit up, and lean forward, and dare to ease the curtain open another fraction of an inch. A great black carriage loaded down with hairy, ragged ruffians and their armaments creaked slowly up the street. This unmistakable conveyance stopped directly in front of the House of Pierpont.
“Again?” I murmured.
“What is it?” Olivia peeked out from her side, and together we watched as, once again, the withered man climbed out of the coach, and the ruffians ranged themselves about it. Again, the fellow with the pistol in his belt stayed up top. He must have been freezing, but he waited without visible uneasiness, his hat pulled low over his brow.
“This is just what happened before, isn’t it?” asked Olivia eagerly.
“But what is it?” I asked, speaking more to myself than to her.
Just then, the driver atop the coach turned his head slowly. I ducked back from the window, dragging Olivia with me. The man looked lazily up the street, and down again, seeming to scan the passing crowds like one who is idle and bored, but my scalp had begun prickling with goose pimples.
“We have to move,” I croaked.
“We can’t move. Matthew’s still in there!”
“You think I don’t know that?” I demanded hoarsely. “But we’ve been seen, Olivia. We have to move!”
I have hated myself for many things, but never was that self-loathing so complete as the moment when I thumped on the ceiling of the coach, the signal to drive on and leave Matthew alone in my uncle’s banking house. And our driver did.
“Where to?” he hollered down.
“Around the corner, and stop there!” I gripped Olivia’s hand. I will be eternally grateful that she chose this moment to be sensible.
“It’s all right,” she told me. “Matthew’s steady. If we’re not there when he comes out, he’ll just start back for the academy. That’s all there is to it.”
“Of course,” I said. “Of course.”
But I couldn’t make myself believe it. I did not like that black coach, or its withered owner. I most especially did not like its driver, with his pistol and his searching eyes. Visions of press gangs and worse rose up before me. Matthew might be locked inside the bank with that coach come to take him away, and I was not there. I was lurking around the corner, like a coward and a fool.
I was going to begin crying any moment. I was going to burst from the carriage and run screaming up the steps of the House of Pierpont demanding to know what they’d done with Matthew Reade. I was going to beat Olivia to death with my fan if she didn’t stop that idiotic scribbling and help me work out how we were going to storm the transport jails, where Matthew had surely been taken.
The carriage rocked. I screamed and grabbed at my straight pin as the door on the far side was snatched open. A dark figure scrambled in, losing its hat and wig in the process.
“Stand back, brigand!” cried my cousin, waving the tiny scissors from her work basket.
“Hello, Olivia.” Matthew plumped himself down on the seat beside me. “Hello, Peggy. I’m back. Let’s go.”
I screeched again and threw my arms about him, only to recoil instantly.
“Where have you been? You smell like a tavern!”
“So now you know where I’ve been.” He coughed hard, and the sickly sweet smell of beer that hung so heavily about him grew that much stronger. “Olivia, your father’s clerk smokes like a chimney. Lord knows how he can stomach the stuff. I thought I was going to be sick!”
“I’ve been going mad here waiting for you!” I informed him, in quite a reasonable fashion, I do assure my reader.
“And it looks very well on you. Or it would if it weren’t for that silly mask.” With a grin, Matthew reached out and pulled it off. “Much better. Have you a kiss for your hero?”
I swatted him and turned my face away. Matthew after too much beer and tobacco was clearly not someone I wanted to know.
He fell back against the seat, breathing rather heavily.
“I think we’d better get back to the academy. I’m not sure I haven’t had too much smoke.” He burped. “An’ drink.”
With that pleasing and gentlemanly statement, so in keeping with the elevated character of my gallant swain, I hollered up to the driver to return us all to Great Queen Street.
The sight of Matthew Reade walking through the academy accompanied by not one, but two, masked women was the cause of much comment among the other students, not to mention applause and whistles. Especially as Matthew kept waving and doffing his cap, and was clearly not walking very steadily.
I managed to catch Mr. Torrent by the ear and order him to find us some strong coffee and a basin of plain water.
“What are those for?” inquired Matthew as I deposited both on the library table.
“You are to drink one and soak your head in the other. I do not care which,” I informed him.
“Now, Peggy, you are not being fair,” said Olivia. “Matthew has done us a great good service. It is not his fault there was nothing to find.”
“He left us sitting in that freezing coach and went carousing!” I shouted. “I thought he’d been taken away! I thought I’d condemned him to the gallows! I thought . . .” I couldn’t finish.
Matthew was staring at me, as was Olivia. I plumped myself down on the nearest stool, folded my arms, and turned away. Behind me, I heard splashing, and then the hesitant sort of gulping that comes when a person tries to drink a hot liquid too quickly.
Matthew walked into my field of vision. His face was red, and his damp hair was slicked back from his forehead. “I’m sorry, Peggy. I had too much to drink. I’m better now.”
I glowered up at him. Olivia came to join him. So that things would be fair, I glowered at her as well. “Is she right?” I growled. “Was all this for nothing?”
“As a matter of fact, I did learn something very interesting.” I had the satisfaction of watching Olivia’s face fall at this. “And the tavern turned out to have a part in it.” Matthew pulled up a stool and perched on it, much more steadily than he had walked down the hall.
Olivia, reluctantly, also found a seat.
“On the other side of that bank door is a lobby,” he said. “Very well set up, with tiles on the floor, candle sconces on the walls, the main office on one side, and a waiting room on the other. There’s a high desk guarding the entrance to the office. A sort of chief clerk sits on duty there, with a great ring of keys at his waist. Behind him are the apprentices at their desks, doing what I suppose is the copying and ciphering.” Matthew frowned, concentrating on his inner vision to make sure he’d gotten all the details right.
“As I was going in, I was trying to decide who would be most likely to talk to me,” he said. “Not that I’ve much experience with banks, you understand, but I do know about being a ’prentice. The newest always has the worst time of it, because he hasn’t just got his master’s work to do. Usually, he ends up carrying half the load for the others as well. So as I gave my name and story to the senior clerk fellow at the front, I kept an eye on that line of copy desks behind him, until I was sure I had picked out the youngest man there.
“I told the senior fellow—his name was Kerridge—that my gentleman had a great deal of business overseas, particularly in Paris and Amsterdam. It was not just any house that could manage these sorts of affairs. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘you may assure your gentleman that Pierpont’s routinely handles letters of credit and bills of exchange from France, the Germanys, and the Netherlands.’ I hemmed and hawed some more, and the fellow starts naming names. I start taking notes”—he indicated his book on the table—“and wondering what on earth I was going to do next. Then I had a stroke of luck. You won’t believe it, but in walks—”
“A foreign-looking parson sort in a wig about ten years out of fashion?” said Olivia.
“That’s what I thought. But Senior Clerk Kerridge tells me the apparent parson’s name is Herr Pietersen. He’s a banker from Sweden, and he’s doing business on behalf of the Swedish ambassador. Someone with an odd long name, sounded like Gillyflower, but wasn’t.”
“Gyllenborg,” I said, and they both stared at me. I shrugged. “He came to a drawing room. He didn’t drink, at all. It made him memorable.”
“That was lucky,” admitted Olivia.
“Ah!” Matthew held up his hand significantly. “But it wasn’t all luck.”
My annoyance, which had begun to ebb, returned in its full force and compass. “I swear, Olivia, I’m not letting you near him anymore. You’ve infected him with the Madness Dramatic.”
Matthew, sensing perhaps an unwanted diversion of our previously rapt attention, went on. “Well, because this Herr Pietersen works for His Excellency the Swedish Ambassador Gyllenborg, Herr Pietersen is important. Kerridge has to conduct him up to the partners’ offices right away. He asks me to step into the sitting room, and he’ll have someone bring me coffee. And sure enough, the fellow who gets this unenviable job is the same fellow I picked out as being the youngest apprentice.
“So, while this new fellow’s setting out the coffee, I start making friendly conversation. You know the sort of thing—must be nice for thems as can do as they please and hobnob all day drinking brandy while the likes of us freeze in the basement because they can’t be bothered to pay for coals. He’s chuckling and agreeing, and pretty soon I’m saying how this coffee’s all very well, but I’d rather nick out for some honest English beer instead of waiting around here for the mucky-mucks to finish up, and the ’prentice asks am I buying? And I say I am, and he shows me out the back door and across the alley, where there’s a public house. There, I stand him to a jug of beer and a pipe of tobacco. Or three.” Matthew rubbed the corner of his mouth.
“But what did you learn?” demanded Olivia.
“I learned that his name’s Weeks. I also learned that with Mr. Weeks, Sir Oliver has taken to ’prentice one of the most foulmouthed men I’ve ever met. First came the complaints about the work, how it’s run, run, run all day, fetching this and carrying that, and finding oatmeal—”
“Oatmeal?” cried Olivia, and I repressed the urge to slap my hand over her mouth so Matthew might be able to finish his story. “Is Father banking for horses?”
“That I don’t know. I asked, and Weeks shrugs and says, ‘His . . . nibs is paid to find seven thousand barrels of oatmeal, so we finds him seven thousand, it’s all the same to me.’”
“Seven thousand barrels of oatmeal?” I exclaimed. “Is that sort of thing normal for a bank? I thought they just handled gold. Coin. Made drafts and letters of exchange.”
Matthew shrugged. “Apparently the House of Pierpont has been branching out into other businesses.”
“But oatmeal?” The face Olivia pulled would have had her mother in fits. “It’s so dull!”
Now it was my turn to smirk, and I did so. “What came after the complaints and the oatmeal?” I asked Matthew.
“The bragging about the ladies, naturally. It seems the House of Pierpont holds the jewels and plate for some of the most high and mighty of the realm, many of whom Mr. Weeks believes are giving him the eye and he could swive any time by crooking his little finger . . .”
“I don’t think that’s how swiving is accomplished,” said my cousin sweetly.
“Olivia.” I tried the glower again. Olivia shrugged. Matthew was grinning, and I paused to spare him a glower as well. It had no more effect on him than it did on Olivia. I made a note to myself to apply to Monsieur Janvier for lessons in the more advanced forms of glowering. Clearly, my skills needed to be sharpened.
“Did you see anything of an old man who arrived in a great black coach?” I asked Matthew. “Possibly accompanied by a pack of ruffians with staffs and pistols?”
“No,” said Matthew. “And I’m glad of it. So will you be, once you hear the rest. While Mr. Weeks is warming to his theme of willing women, I’m considering how to get myself out of there. Just then, a new fellow walks in. He has a bright blue jacket on his back and blue hat on his head. He calls for a barrel of wine and one of water.”
“A barrel of water?” I frowned, and Matthew nodded. “He himself taps the wine cask and serves out the wine to the other patrons, making sure all the glasses are handed across over the top of the water barrel.” He waited, clearly expecting me to understand why on earth a man would do such an extraordinary thing. Olivia clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Then he invited us all to toast the king,” said Matthew. “And everybody did, loudly and repeatedly.”
“Don’t you see, Peggy?” said Olivia. “The glasses passed over the water.”
I did see, and I blushed for having been so slow. “It was a Jacobite tavern?” I said incredulously. “My uncle has a Jacobite in his employ?” Mr. Walpole had said there were “stirrings.” It was beginning to look as if he was right.
“And a noisy one, too,” said Matthew. “The wine had them all up making speeches about how this time they’d show German Georgie his place and how the new Regent of France would honor the old king’s promises, and the silver would soon be flowing up north for guns and men.” He paused. “That’s why I drank so much, Peggy. I didn’t dare stop while they were talking and toasting.”
Of course. They’d have set on him in a mob if it had looked like he wasn’t keeping up with the rest. Revolution was like a court masque. Nothing truly innovative could happen if the participants stayed sober.
“I see that, and I’m sorry,” I told him. “Were they serious, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” said Matthew. “Drunken men in taverns say all kinds of things. In fact, in the middle of all this speech making, Mr. Weeks is back on about the ladies, and wouldn’t the German princeling love it if he knew some of his wife’s associates were taking such fine care of their persons and their property as some he could name.”
“Did he name any?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. He went on, and at length, about one masked individual in particular who had just hired out a box in the strong room for her most precious jewels. You can imagine where he went with that—”
Olivia waved this away. “Out with it! Who is she?”
“Sophy Howe.”
TWENTY
IN WHICH OUR HEROINE SUFFERS AN INFURIATING DELAY.
Shortly after Olivia and I left the academy, I formed a plan of how I should deal with all of Matthew’s news. It was a good plan, subtle yet practical and effective. It had every chance of succeeding in all its aims, I’m certain of it.
Unfortunately, I cannot remember one single bit of it, because by the time the coach pulled up in front of the gatehouse at St. James’s Palace, my head was aching, and I fell prey to a fit of violent sneezes.
I had, in short, caught cold.
It was a horrid and complete cold, accompanied by fever and chills, a nose that dripped constantly, and a head that felt like a swollen bladder on a stick. Libby dosed me with rhubarb and brandy and made me sit with my feet in a hot mustard bath. I lay in bed for nine days, wretched to the bone. I was by turns frantic to be up and doing, and bored beyond endurance. The physician prescribed regular bleeding
and a black purge. I must have been delirious with fever and rhubarb at that point, because I believe I told that learned gentleman to go stuff his purge somewhere most unsuitable.
Matthew sent me a dreadful-smelling concoction to rub on my chest. This, he said, was an infallible remedy from his father the apothecary. He also promised he’d sneak in on the public dining day, when everyone would be busy and no one would notice a gentleman entering my rooms.
To add to all these diverting pleasantries, I received another letter from Mr. Tinderflint. I had been writing him regularly with my news, and the inquiry from the princess about the growing rumors of King George staying permanently in Hanover. This was the first reply I’d received, however, and it was filled with his usual level of clear reasoning and steady reassurance.
My Dear,
As much as I miss London, I will admit there are many fine advantages to be had here and I am certain to be quite comfortable for the duration of my stay. I have a most excellent cook and can assure you I am well looked after and entertained.
I read your last letter with great attention. I cannot understand how the news that the elder Mr. G was remaining at his country house came to you. I know of no such plans on his part. Indeed, his business there being successfully concluded and the hunting finished for the season, I expect him to be returning to London shortly after the new year.
As to that other business which I was sent here to pursue, I have not been idle. Early inquiries have produced definite results. Alas! They were not the results I hoped for. I had hoped to find that particular jewel we seek in this city, or at the very least nearby. But from what my friends now tell me, its ownership has been transferred, and I must seek its likeness in a much different location from the one I expected. I understand this will be disappointing news for you, but please believe I am pursuing every line of investigation open to me. I hope to have more news by next week at the latest.