Another Small Kingdom (7 page)

Chapter Twelve

I
n a government building in London there was another man who, like the General in Washington, kept late hours reading reports by lamplight.He too had an assistant sitting at a desk in an adjacent office. The man reading the reports was a thick-set, rather ugly man in his thirties with short, grizzled hair. His manner of dress was careless, chosen for comfort rather than fashion. His coat could only be described as an unfortunate accident, being too black, too long and too loose, and on his feet, in what must have been a deliberate affront to fashionable sensibilities, were buckled shoes rather than polished riding boots.

His assistant differed from his superior in a variety of ways. Firstly, he was most definitely a man of fashion. Everything, from his high neck-cloth down to his skin-tight breeches tucked into glossy, riding boots spoke of up to the minute elegance. Next, he was young and handsome, although with a fullness of face and figure which spoke of easy living. And finally, his desk was bare and the young man was lounging back in his chair gazing at the ceiling. All ceilings, however, even the best of them, cannot grip the mind indefinitely and the young man, having lost interest in his particular ceiling, sat up, took a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and looked at the time. He put the watch away in an annoyed manner, thought for a moment then stood up and went to the door between the two offices which he pushed fully open.

‘God's teeth, Trent, do you know what the time is?' The man at the desk ignored him and kept on reading. ‘Trent, it's damn well past eleven. You've no right to keep me here at this hour of the evening. I'm not some lackey to hang about on a whim of yours.'

The man put down the report and frowned at his young assistant in the doorway. His coarse features were further marred by a nose which at some point in his career had been badly broken. His small, dark eyes, set in such an unattractive setting, were unnerving and before their steady gaze the young man's temper wilted, but survived sufficiently to carry him into the office where he continued petulantly.

‘What is it you want of me, anyway? I've nothing to do except sit out there. Dammit, Trent, if there's nothing for me to do why keep me?'

The man at the desk suddenly brightened as if he had been given a novel idea to consider.

‘What a good question, Melford, why indeed should I keep you?'

Then he sat back, folded his arms and looked at his assistant with a smile on his face. The smile was not pleasant and his young assistant became nervous and, when nervous, he did what he always did, he blustered.

‘Blast you, Trent, give me a civil answer or none at all. Why should I sit out there at this time of night waiting on your beck and call?' Finding himself not checked in his outburst he continued. ‘What are you after all? You're nothing but a common thief-taker who's pushed his way up to being a glorified government clerk, but you're still a damn nobody. Why, you wouldn't get past the door of any decent house in London. Who do you know, and who knows you?'

The man sat, as if reflecting on what had just been said.

‘Whom surely?'

The young man blinked at the unexpected question.

Hume? The name meant nothing to him.

‘Who the hell is Hume?'

‘Well there's John Hume, the Edinburgh philosopher, but I don't see …' and he paused for a second as Melford's confusion obviously increased. ‘Ah, I think I see our error. I said whom not Hume. I was pointing out that you should have said,
whom
do you know? Not, who do you know? How very amusing.'

Trent's laugh was as loud as it was false and Melford's face whitened with anger.

‘Are you trying to be funny at my expense, Trent?'

The man answered very slowly.

‘My word, Melford, what a night it is for questions, but as you can see I'm rather busy. So many reports.' And he indicated the papers across his desk. The tone unsettled the young man and he remained silent. When the man spoke again his manner and tone were calm and businesslike. ‘However, concerning the lateness of the hour which originally brought you in here, if you want to leave before I dismiss you then by all means do so.' He picked up the report and resumed his reading then added as if an afterthought. ‘But if you do, just pen a brief letter of resignation before you leave, would you?'

This simple request totally defeated the young man and his manner at once changed.

‘Good lord, Trent,' he said trying his best to put a friendly smile on his face and into his voice, ‘there's no need to take on so. I only meant it's damned irksome sitting out there with nothing to do. No need to cut up rough just because I got a little carried away. It's only the boredom getting to me. Isn't there anything I can do?'

‘Another good question,' said the man as he picked up his pen, dipped it, and made a brief note in the margin of the page he was reading. Then he looked up at the young man, put the pen down again and sat back and put his finger tips together, assuming the air of someone faced with a more than usually difficult question.

‘Is there anything you can do? And from that one might ask, are you capable of doing anything even half way well? Which leads one, of course, to the question of whether you have even the smallest of talents?' Suddenly the man leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk and looked at his assistant over his clasped hands. ‘All good questions, Melford, very good questions. But before I answer those questions, may I share something with you? You labour under the illusion that your father, the Earl of Glentrool, made me take you on as my assistant so you wouldn't have to join the army and go to war as your elder brother has done. You're wrong, he didn't. He tried to, but, powerful though your father is, he hasn't the power to coerce me, and certainly not while we're at war. I took you on as my assistant because, when they shoved you in front of me and we spoke, I saw that you do indeed have talent.'

Trent relaxed back into his chair and the young man looked puzzled but pleased.

‘Talent? Well, it's damn good of you to say so, Trent.'

‘Although when I say talent I should of course say one single but very valuable talent. Being thoroughly false yourself you seem to have developed an almost uncanny ability to recognise falseness in others.' Seeing that his assistant took this badly and was about to speak, the man went on in a voice in which authority and anger were nicely blended. ‘Understand this, Melford, if you can't understand anything else. I'm good at what I do, very good, and one of the things that makes me so good is recognising talent in others, especially in the people I choose to use. I knew you almost at once for the thoroughly false man you are, and when I knew that, I knew that I could use you. You won't be killed or maimed in this war, not because of your father's influence, but because I can make use of you.'

Lord Melford, younger son of the Earl of Glentrool, thought for a moment as Trent sat silently reading.

He was a young man who was vain about his looks, naturally idle, totally selfish and thoroughly arrogant. All of which he considered the natural and correct attitudes of a gentleman. He also knew that Jasper Trent's assessment of him was, regrettably, dead on the mark. He was quite without honour and he recognised that any man of good breeding who was without honour, whatever else his many merits, was indeed thoroughly and irretrievably false. He smiled a little smugly.

‘Well, I dare say you're right, Trent. But as you think it's a useful talent in the work I do for you, and as your work is thought of as so dashed important, I don't think I need to be ashamed to own up to it. In war it is surely the first duty of a gentleman to look to his best parts when he chooses how to serve his country and you'd be the first to admit I'm not cut out for soldiering. As to my father's wanting me away from shot and sabre, well, if brother Hector dies my father will want one son left to be his heir and as there's only the two of us born on the right side of the blanket that he'll acknowledge, I call it damnably sensible of him to try and find me a safe haven.'

Trent looked up, smiled and put a question in an innocent and enquiring voice.

‘You wouldn't say, then, that you're a coward?'

‘God's blood, sir, I'd damn well call out any man who dared to say that of me.'

‘Well, I rather think that I just did, didn't I?'

Lord Melford turned a rather bright shade of pink but said nothing. He had no intention of jeopardising his safe place in any way at all, and certainly not by calling out Jasper Trent. There was a brief pause then the manner of the man at the desk changed to one of brisk business. ‘No matter, coward or hero means nothing so long as you're not a fool and can be useful to me. I have kept you here tonight because I think I have a use for that talent of yours. This report has come in from Jamaica and it's causing me some concern. In whose camp would you say Cardinal Henry Stuart was at the moment?'

‘What's the Cardinal got to do with that part of the world?'

‘My point exactly. Why should the Cardinal's name crop up in a section of the report on New Orleans? So, once again, who, if anyone, has the Cardinal's current loyalty?'

‘He's ours of course.'

‘Why so?'

‘Because he's been taking a royal pension from us for over a year now, ever since the affair of the Papal Conclave in Venice.'

‘True, he accepts our money.'

‘More than accepts I'd say. Ambassador Minto bought and paid for him. If he's taking a pension from King George he's got to be ours.'

‘Perhaps, perhaps not. But what concerns me is the visit those two Boston men made to our royal and religious friend. When they met with the Cardinal in Rome last year I'm sure they came to some sort of arrangement with him. But what, I ask myself, could the Americans have wanted with a Cardinal Bishop, even one whose name is Henry Stuart.'

‘I suppose they knew he'd lost all his French benefices and had to give what little money he had left to the Pope to buy off Napoleon.A man like that, suddenly without money, would be in a particularly receptive frame of mind if somebody turned up with an offer.'

‘Quite so. But an offer to do what?'

‘Does it matter? Those Americans were so damned obvious, making a grand tour of Europe during a war for God's sake. And when they'd finished in Rome tried to arrange fast travel to Paris even though it meant passing through the middle of Suvorov's Austrians. Who in their right mind does that sort of thing? What else could they be but agents? And agents as obvious as that surely don't …'

‘Maybe we were meant to notice them. As you say, they certainly drew attention to themselves. Don't underestimate the Americans, Melford. In fact never underestimate anyone. Our obvious Americans could have been acting on their own or they could as easily have been part of some scheme of Fouché's.'

‘Yes, I remember you said that at the time. Though why Fouché would have felt it worth putting a Papist prelate in his pocket defeats me. The Jacobite cause is dead and buried and a Cardinal calling himself King Henry IX won't change that. He can mint all the medals he wants and make his high-flown declarations, but his feet will never touch English soil, never mind get his backside on a throne.'

‘That was the thing that concerned me then and concerns me now. If Fouché wanted to hatch something with Henry Stuart, self-declared successor to his brother the Bonnie Prince, it wouldn't be to revive the Jacobite claim. But what else is our Cardinal good for and why would America get involved?'

‘Perhaps Fouché used them as errand boys because they were neutral. Anyway, does it matter? We offered him a handsome pension which he accepted so, as I say, that puts him squarely in our camp doesn't it?'

‘Do you think so, Melford? Our Cardinal is a clever man, he never formally relinquished his claim you know?'

‘But surely, accepting a royal pension from King George means he acknowledges George as rightful King?'

‘I'm afraid not. He's got an answer to that. He now claims the money is simply England repaying the dowry of his grandmother, Mary of Modena, which the government promised but, sadly, never quite got round to actually doing.'

‘Is he? Then he's a confounded cunning devil. He takes the money, still claims the crown, and can play all ends of this damn game against each other.'

‘Yes, a clever man. Offer him money and he'll surely take it. But never believe you've bought him up. He'll find a way out if way out there is, and he's found one out of our royal pension.'

‘Why not just kill the Popish bastard? That way he's out of any game for good.'

‘What a violent young man you are, Melford, and just a moment ago you were saying how you weren't cut out for soldiering. Thank you for the suggestion but, no, I think I want Henry Stuart alive. Alive he can tell us things, whether he means to or not. It was through watching him, remember, that we caught the Americans' visit and that eventually gave us some sort of start on all of this. No, we certainly won't kill him, not yet at any rate. What you will do for me, however, is go to Italy.'

‘Italy?'

‘Rome. I want some reports collected and I want some letters delivered by safe hand, your safe hand. And while you're there you can see to it that we become a bit more organised. Look around and find me a man who can become our eyes and ears in Rome.'

‘What sort of man?'

‘Ah, what sort indeed? If Fouché were to want such a man here in London what sort would he look for?'

Melford bent his mind to the question.

‘A man who was already well placed.'

‘Good, go on.'

Encouraged, Melford warmed to the task.

‘A man of position, with connections and access, but a man who could be bribed, bought or blackmailed. A man who could be persuaded to treason, clever enough to do the job well but weak enough to be controlled.'