Blood Royal

by Blood Royal (retail) (epub)

  She opened her eyes to find she was holding the letter to her cheek. The Scotsman was watching her with what she divined to be pity. She covered up with rudeness: ‘The seal’s broken. Have you read it?’

  ‘I have not.’ His thin lips thinned tighter. ‘Yon’s been lying on a shelf in the General Post Office for three months since no body kenned where ye were. I have been conducting a case for the laddie in charge at Lombard Street, who told me of it. I undertook to become your postboy. And here it is.’ He looked around at the uproarious drinkers. ‘Haste away now and read it.’

  Haste, haste. She snatched up a candle from one of the tables and was unfolding the letter as she went upstairs, turning to the last leaf. Such a vile hand, bless him, oh, bless him. She stopped her rush on the landing to let the flame burn still so that she could decipher the signature.

  It wasn’t his.

  It was Sophie’s. ‘Sophia C,’ it ran.

  She went into her bedroom, put the candle down on a table, blew it out and sat on the bed in darkness. It wasn’t from him, Lady Cecily, Lady Cecily. It never would be. He was dead. Years gone, in chains, in the transport ship. Or dead in whatever colonial spew-hole they’d landed him at. Or dead under the slavery he’d endured there.

  Had he been alive he’d have clawed his way back to her, as she would have clawed her way to him, had she been able.

  But to what purpose? She tried to rationalize the unendurable. For one gaze at each other before she told him she was married?

  But you were forced to it, Lady Cecily, Lady Cecily.

  Indeed, my dear love, but you and I are not such as to indulge in adultery. We are not shabby, like common clay. We have honour.

  One kiss before we part, Lady Cecily, Lady Cecily…

  Goddam, but Sophie’s letter was from France. In an escape, he would make for France: it was death for him if he came to Britain.

  Nor would he endanger Lady C., Lady C., by sending her a letter from a rebel. He was writing through Sophie. Or Sophie had news of him. Bugger it, why’d she blown out the fucking candle? She groped for it, felt her way down to the kitchen to relight it, and came back.

  ‘Deerest cosin Cecily never wood I have left you even to marry my deer earl had I nown the trubble that would come to you which belattedly I have news of that it has got wors.’

  The misspellings brought Sophie into the room, breathless and unstoppable.

  She’d written the letter in April this year at Paris. It was now August. She and her husband had been travelling Europe before settling in Bohemia where the young earl had relatives… ‘yet are now maiking homeward for an occasion that wood pleez deer Anne who was ever matternal. We were with that deer sole but yestereen.’

  Skimming though she was, Cecily paused to smile. Sophie was pregnant. The baby was having a baby. And she’d found Anne. Dear Sophie.

  ‘Wurd is you are without meens. Pleez deer cuz if it be of use take the small gift I offer whereof you wood have done as mutch for me and in any caze if you mislike it it bee too late for the layers are charged to it…’

  Layers? Lawyers.

  ‘…that you have the house ware we plaid when I was 12 for your own. Littel enuff, but a place wich my deer earl and I maike for to be ther by Mickelmas before we proceed on to my lying-in and have with us a purson you will be pleezed to see. Light the lantern for our dimming in. Ever your loveing Sophia C.’

  He had found her, the purson she would be pleezed to see.

  Sophie, dearest dear Sophie, care-less, youngest and certainly most illiterate friend of her past, the only one to charge to the rescue.

  Wise Sophie now, careful not to name the proposed meeting place – a necessary caution if she was bringing with her Guillaume Fraser. Guillaume had contacted Anne and, through her, Sophie.

  And the house ware they had plaid when Sophie was 12 was Hempens. Sophie had bought Hempens, her fenland bolt-hole, and given it back to her. Cecily laid the letter down to sob. Oh, Sophie.

  After a while, she dried her eyes. As a place to lodge an attainted traitor to the Crown, the island couldn’t be bettered, hidden as it was deep into the fens yet available to the sea by the Windle river as long as the Lantern, its lighthouse, was lit to guide a boat through treacherous sandbanks. She had it back, she was once again a Fitzhenry of Hempens. And in September, at Michaelmas, she would go there. In joy.

  She went to sleep with the letter in her hand.

  And woke to screams.

  Running from her room into the corridor, she encountered Archibald Cameron. He put out a hand to stop her heading for Dolly’s room. ‘Let it be.’

  ‘It’s Dolly.’

  ‘Aye. Let her be.’

  ‘Go to Lemuel. He’ll be frightened.’ She broke away and ran to where the screams were becoming rhythmic and rising in pitch. She threw open Dolly’s door, shouting to scare off the attacker. ‘Leave her alone. Leave her alone.’

  There were two people struggling on Dolly’s bed in the dark. The moonlight from the dormer window reflected itself in the rise and fall of something white. An arse. A man’s arse. ‘Get off her, you pig.’

  As she reached the bed to haul off the rapist, she saw Dolly’s face, blind, turned towards her, mouth open in a last, drawn-out, throbbing howl.

  Cecily backed out and closed the door. Further away, Cameron was just leaving Lemuel’s room: ‘He’s asleep.’ He cocked an eye at her in interrogation, his mouth pursed. A man trying not to laugh.

  She stalked past him to her room and closed its door behind her.

  ‘How could you? How could you?’ she demanded next morning.

  Dolly’s head was up: ‘And why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Why not? Because it’s… disgusting. Tinker Packer.’

  ‘A good lusty man, Tinker. Nothing wrong with Tinker.’

  ‘He’s married for one thing,’ Cecily said. ‘Not to mention—’

  ‘Ain’t, then. He’s living in sin with. He’s getting rid of her, anyways.’ Dolly poked her forefinger into Cecily’s sternum. ‘An’ just because you ain’t getting any, Miss Don’t-Touch-Me, it don’t mean I got to do without my bit of loving.’

  ‘Then do it somewhere else, not in my inn, you, you… screamer.’

  Part of Cecily’s anger was because she had looked ridiculous – again – in front of the Scotsman.

  Dolly knelt, dragged her box from under her bed and began packing.

  For the rest of her life Cecily was to ask herself whether she would have made up with her sister-in-law and stopped her going if she’d had time in which to consider; even at that moment she was aghast that Dolly was taking her at her word.

  But there was no time in which to consider. Last night’s letter – Haste. Haste – set the tempo of the following twenty-four hours; a day of events, each needing a period of reflection but which, instead, coming full pelt one after another, hurried far-reaching decisions.

  She was called from Dolly’s room by Marjorie Packer: ‘You want to come down and see what’s in the yard.’

  Most of the staff was in it, so was Archibald Cameron, as well as some passers-by, encircling something Cecily couldn’t see but which clanked. She forced her way through the crowd.

  In its centre knelt a Negro, his wrists manacled to an iron collar round his neck. The clanking was caused by Ned, who’d propped a log under the locked flanges on one side of the collar, inserted a chisel upright between them and was slamming his farrier’s hammer on it. The Negro’s head was turned sideways towards Cecily, his eyes staring; they didn’t blink at the blows of the hammer which, mis-hit, would crack open his skull.

  She heard a whimper behind her. Lemuel was shaking. ‘Take… take…’

  She went to him and led him indoors. ‘No, my dear, they’re not going to take you back.’ As his speech haltingly returned, he was able to enunciate his nightmares. His mind, like Cecily’s, had been transported back to the Fleet and Bartholomew Fair. She sat him in a settle, drew him a tankard and returned to the
yard. ‘Where did he come from?’

  ‘Fell off the back of a stage, we reckon,’ Warty Packer told her. ‘Half-seven from St Albans, could be. These lads,’ he indicated two goggling carters, ‘they come north and south and they in’t seen un.’

  ‘In my opinion,’ Cameron said to Cecily, ‘the laddie jumped.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  Cecily looked at the stable clock. If the Negro had jumped from the St Albans coach, his loss might not be discovered until Buckhill, the next stage. ‘Presumably somebody will be coming back to collect him.’

  ‘That’ll take a bit o’ doing,’ said Stabber.

  True. Whether the slave had jumped, fallen or been pushed, his owner would be hard pressed to discover the particular landing point in the miles between Buckhill and St Albans.

  A sharp crack announced that Ned had severed the collar’s lock. Taking the thing off was difficult: the hinges gave little clearance for the neck, which was bleeding by the time it was freed. The trickling blood resembled strawberry liquor oozing from chocolate and brought a murmur of surprise from those who’d expected it to be as black as the skin. One or two of the men gallantly pushed their womenfolk behind them in case the Negro showed a tendency to ravage.

  He crouched where he was, the top of his crinkled hair brushing the yard cobbles like a Mohammedan’s on his prayer rug.

  Ned handed the collar to Cameron. The lawyer turned it in his hands: ‘Aye, punishment collar, right enough. Or maybe for whilst the man was travelling. So he couldnae escape.’

  ‘Should have used leg irons.’ Cecily became brisk. Time was being wasted, her time. ‘Back to work all of you. Ned, give him a drink from the pump, clean him up and bring him to my office.’

  Walking indoors with Cameron, she said: ‘I had one once. Queen Anne gave him to me when I was five. He used to stand behind my chair.’ She’d never forgotten the thrill inspired by the jewelled turban, emerald jacket and striped silk pantaloons. His collar had been silver. He’d marched to her orders, like an outsize piece of clockwork; she remembered being disappointed that his innards didn’t play a tune when he moved.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘I don’t remember. You know how things disappear when you’re moving from place to place.’

  ‘Should’ve used leg irons,’ said Cameron.

  Cecily was irritated. Cameron had ordered Ned to remove the collar, for it was to him that Ned had handed it. He was taking a lot on himself. It wasn’t his inn, even if he had bought it.

  ‘Well, I suppose we must advertise so that the owner can claim him back. That’s the law, isn’t it?’

  ‘I know of nae law that renders a man on British soil into a chattel.’

  ‘Indeed? I wonder if I should keep him.’ If she and Tyler brought off the coup they planned that very night, to bring coach trade to the Belle, the Negro could prove useful as long as he was house-trained and not dangerous. A talking point.

  Most big houses boasted of one or more, but no inns that she could remember. They were usually very loyal if treated well. Which, presumably, he hadn’t been.

  The black man was brought in, hair and face dripping. ‘Scrubbed un,’ said Ned. ‘The colour don’t come off.’

  ‘Thank you, Ned. You may go.’

  ‘Brushed him and all. That’s velvet, that jacket.’

  ‘Thank you, Ned. Now, my man, what’s your name?’

  ‘Them buckles is silver.’ Astonishment had made Ned voluble.

  ‘Ned. You may go.’

  With the dust curried off him, the black man proved well dressed, as Ned had said. It was difficult to judge their ages, though a frosting of grey in the black sheepskin cap of hair suggested this one to be fiftyish. Well muscled, short-backed and a good, straight, brown eye. Slow, though… ‘Your name, my man.’ They were usually Sambo or something biblical.

  ‘Bell.’

  ‘No, this is the Belle. Your name.’

  ‘Bell.’

  Why did she have the impression he’d plucked it off her signboard? Well, it would do.

  ‘Bell, madam,’ she said. ‘How do you come to be here, Bell?’

  She and Cameron waited until it was obvious they wouldn’t get an answer. There was silence, too, when Cecily asked who was his master.

  Cameron said, at last: ‘Can ye no tell us where you hail from?’

  Another pause, as if the question were being examined for traps. ‘Barbados, master.’ The voice was resonant bass, comprehendable but with a placing of emphasis that was new to Cecily.

  ‘And what skills have ye, always supposing Mistress Henry here wishes to employ ye?’

  For the first time the black man showed animation, but the reply was still slow in coming. ‘Command me, master, and I can do it.’

  ‘For instance, can ye cook?’

  Cecily gave Cameron one of her looks. He was always urging her to find a more adventurous cook than Dolly, saying the Belle would never achieve a good reputation merely on boiled mutton.

  A black cook? The genus was unknown to her. However, she waited while the Negro thought the question over.

  The reply was momentous. ‘Viandes, poissons, les sauces, consommé, potages, légumes, tartes de fromage, de poires, pâté, pâtisserie, confiserie…’

  ‘French?’ Cameron’s voice went high, as if on the point of tears.

  ‘An’ Bajan, master.’ A slow, gleaming smile stretched the thick lips. ‘I make a rum punch’ll make you think you just christened.’

  ‘Stay here,’ said Cecily, and led the whimpering Scotsman outside.

  ‘Employ the man,’ he was saying. ‘I beg ye, employ the man.’

  ‘This is my inn,’ she reminded him. ‘I’ll employ whom I chose. Anyway, you’ve always condemned everything French as popish.’

  ‘Except their provender. Employ the man. I’ll even pay his wages.’

  From one who guarded his purse as carefully as did Archibald Cameron, this concession surprised Cecily in more ways than one. She hadn’t thought of paying the Negro wages at all: if he was a runaway, he’d be grateful for just his keep. ‘Are you sure slavery doesn’t apply in England?’

  ‘It’s a legal point yet to be tested.’

  Cecily was harassed: there was a great deal to be done that day and she had already lost much time in which to do it. The weight of what she and Tyler would be venturing when dark fell pressed on her. She made up her mind. ‘Very well. He can have a month’s trial, though what Dolly will say to a black man in her kitchen…’

  But when Cecily went to broach the subject with her sister-in-law, it was to find that Dolly had already left the inn to take up residence in the forest with Tinker Packer.

  Whether the Negro’s true name was Bell or not was irrelevant: by noon the intrigued staff of the Belle had given him another.

  Cecily found Marjorie Packer, who’d inquired of the man with genuine interest if his colour came from eating liquorice, apparently frozen to her broom in the act of sweeping the floor as she awaited the reply. When, up in the bedrooms, she overheard another question concerning a part of his anatomy put to him by Cole and Warty Packer and the following pause, Cecily hurried downstairs to put an end to a conversation that promised to be indelicate and discovered the brothers slumped over the kitchen window-sill in the attitude of death.

  Cecily snapped her key chain at their rumps. Cole turned glazed eyes on her. ‘Quick, in’t he?’

  ‘Quick’ was what the black man came to be called.

  ‘Aye, well,’ said Cameron, ‘mebbe if you’ve been raised in slavery ye’re gey careful wi’ your words.’

  Cecily was dismayed to find the Scotsman still in residence. ‘I thought you were going back to London.’

  ‘I was thinking I’d mebbe stay for dinner.’

  ‘It will be crowded. Colonel Grandison’s having an electoral meeting in the Green Room. You hate Tories en masse.’

  ‘I’ll put up wi’ ‘em. I want to sa
mple our laddie’s cooking.’

  ‘Then you can damn well help him cook it,’ she said bad-temperedly. ‘We’re short-handed without Dolly, blast her.’

  Whatever Quick’s shortcomings, or long-comings, as a conversationalist, he was a deft cook. The smells wafting from the kitchen that afternoon suggested he was also living up to Cameron’s expectations. Marjorie reported that the Scotsman had donned an apron and was assisting the Negro with the reverence of an altar boy.

  “That’s all furrin dishes he’s doing, though,’ she said. ‘Tories’ll puke. They’re for beef and dumplings.’

  ‘They’ll get what they’re given. Did you tell him to make extra?’

  Marjorie nodded, helping Cecily to make up yet another bed. ‘We expecting extra?’

  ‘Some of the Tories might stay the night,’ said Cecily vaguely.

  Marjorie raised an eyebrow but said no more.

  The dinner was a triumph of culinary art and Cecily received undeserved applause from Colonel Grandison and his fellow diners. Asked to produce the author of the feast, she refused: she didn’t want word that her cook was black to spread too far too soon in case his owner heard it and came to reclaim him.

  She stayed until sounds of Toryism rampant and incoherent came from the Green Room before slipping away.

  To Cole she said: ‘If anyone enquires for me, especially Master Archie, say I’ve gone to bed exhausted and mustn’t be disturbed. Don’t let Squire Leggatt try his sword-swallowing again and stop them dancing on the sideboard.’

  ‘You leave it to me, mum.’ She’d never managed to persuade the Packers to call her ‘madam’. He patted her back as she went off towards the stables where Tyler was waiting for her.

  She was tired: she wanted nothing better than to retire to bed. The thought of going on the pad again wearied and scared her so much that she greeted Tyler with: ‘Let’s not do this.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  She was unprepared for his acquiescence but continued with her reasons: ‘The Belle’s making do. We’re paying back the loan, we manage the wages, we can making a living. Just about.’