Betrayal at Lisson Grove (43 page)

‘Please hold on to it as if it were highly valuable to you,’ Vespasia said very quietly. ‘You will need it. That man is no more a gardener than you are. He doesn’t know a weed from a flower. Don’t look at him, or he will become alarmed. Doctors called out to the Queen are not concerned with men hoeing the heads off petunias.’

Charlotte felt the sun burn in her eyes. The huge house in front of them seemed to blur and go fuzzy in her vision. Ahead of her, Vespasia’s back was ruler-straight. Her head, with its fashionable hat, was as high and level as if she were sailing into a garden party as an honoured guest.

They were met at the door by a butler whose white hair was scraped back from the high dome of his forehead as if he had run his hands through it almost hard enough to pull it out. He recognised Vespasia immediately.

‘Good afternoon, Lady Vespasia,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘I am afraid Her Majesty is a little unwell today, and is not receiving any callers whatever. I’m so sorry we didn’t know in time to advise you. I would invite you in, but one of our housemaids has a fever, which we would not wish anyone else to catch. I’m so sorry.’

‘Most unpleasant for the poor girl,’ Vespasia sympathised. ‘And for all the rest of you also. You are quite correct to take it seriously, of course. Fortunately I have brought Dr Narraway with me and I’m sure he would be happy to see the girl and do whatever can be done for her. Sometimes a little tincture of quinine helps greatly. It might be wise for Her Majesty’s sake as well. It would be dreadful if she were to catch such a thing.’

The butler was lost for words. He drew in his breath, started to speak and stopped again. The sweat stood out on his brow and his eyes blinked rapidly.

‘I can see that you are distressed for her.’ Vespasia spoke as assuringly as she could, although her voice wavered a trifle also. ‘Perhaps in humanity, as well as wisdom, we should have Dr Narraway look at her. If all your staff became infected you will be in a serious and most unpleasant situation.’

‘Lady Vespasia, I cannot—’

Before he could finish another younger man appeared, also dressed as a servant. He was dark-haired, perhaps in his mid-thirties, and heavier set.

‘Sir,’ he said to the butler. ‘I think perhaps the lady is right. I just had word poor Mollie is getting worse. You’d better accept their offer and have them in.’

The butler looked at the man with loathing, but after one desperate glance at Vespasia, he surrendered.

‘Thank you.’ Vespasia stepped across the threshold; Charlotte and Narraway followed her.

The moment they were inside and the front door closed, it was apparent that they were prisoners. There were other men at the foot of the sweeping staircase and at the entrance to the kitchens and servants’ quarters.

‘You didn’t have to do that!’ the butler accused the other man.

‘Oh, decidedly, we did,’ the other contradicted him. ‘They’d ’ave gone away knowing there was something wrong. Best we keep all this quiet. Don’t want the old lady upset.’

‘No you don’t,’ Vespasia agreed tartly. ‘If she has an attack and dies, you will be guilty not only of murder but of regicide. Do you imagine there is anywhere in the world that you could hide from that? Not that you would escape. We may have many ideas about the liberty or equality that we aspire to, even fight for, but no one will countenance the murder of the Queen who has been on our throne longer than the lifetime of most of her subjects around the face of the earth. You would be torn apart, although I dare say that matters less to you than the complete discrediting of all your ideas.’

‘Lady, keep a still tongue in yer head, or I’ll still it for yer. Whatever people feel about the Queen, no one cares a jot if yer survive this or not,’ the man said sharply. ‘Yer pushed yer way in here. Yer’ve no one but yerself to blame if it turns bad for yer.’

‘This is—’ the butler began. Then, realising he was only offering another hostage to fate, he bit off his words.

‘Is anyone sick?’ Vespasia enquired of no one in particular.

‘No,’ the butler admitted. ‘It’s what they told us to say.’

‘Good. Then will you please conduct us to Her Majesty? If she is being held with the same courtesy that you are offering us, it might still be as well for Dr Narraway to be close to her.You don’t want her to suffer any unnecessary ill effects. If she is not alive and well I imagine she will be of little use to you as a hostage.’

‘How do I know ye’re a doctor?’ the man said suspiciously, looking at Narraway.

‘You don’t,’ Narraway replied. ‘But what have you to lose? Do you think I mean her any harm?’

‘What?’

‘Do you think I mean her any harm?’ Narraway repeated impatiently.

‘Of course not! What kind of a stupid question is that?’

‘The only kind that needs an answer. If I mean her no harm then it would be of less trouble to you to keep us all in the same room rather than use several. This is not so very large a house, for all its importance. I will at least keep her calm. Is that not in your interest?’

‘What’s in that bag? Yer could have knives, even gas, for all I know.’

‘I am a physician, not a surgeon,’ Narraway said tartly.

‘Who’s she?’ the man glanced at Charlotte.

‘My nurse. Do you imagine I attend female patients without a chaperone?’

The man took the Gladstone bag from Narraway and opened it up. He saw only the few powders and potions they had bought from the apothecary in Southampton, all labelled. They had been careful, for precisely this reason, not to purchase anything that was an obvious weapon, not even small scissors for the cutting of bandages. Everything was exactly what it purported to be.

The man shut the bag again and turned towards his ally at the foot of the stairs. ‘Yer might as well take ’em up. We don’t want the old lady passing out on us.’

‘Not yet, anyway,’ the other man agreed. He jerked his hand towards the flight of stairs. ‘Come on, then. Yer wanted to meet Her Majesty – this is yer lucky day.’

It was the butler who conducted them up and then across the landing and knocked on the upstairs sitting-room door. At the order from inside, he opened it and went in. A moment later he came out again. ‘Her Majesty will receive you, Lady Vespasia. You may go in.’

‘Thank you,’ Vespasia accepted, leading the way while Narraway and Charlotte followed a couple of steps behind her.

Victoria was seated in one of the comfortable, homely chairs in the well-used, very domestic living room. Only the height and ornate decoration of the ceiling reminded one that this was the home of the Queen. She herself was a small, rather fat, elderly woman with a beaky nose and a very round face. Her hair was screwed back in an unflatteringly severe style. Her large eyes were pale and she was dressed entirely in black, which drained every shred of colour from her skin. When she saw Vespasia for a second she blinked, and then she smiled.

‘Vespasia. How very agreeable to see you. Come here!’

Vespasia went forward and dropped a graceful curtsy, her head slightly bowed, her back perfectly straight. ‘Your Majesty.’

‘Who are these?’ Victoria enquired, looking beyond Vespasia to Narraway and Charlotte. She lowered her voice only slightly. ‘Your maid, presumably. The man looks like a doctor. I didn’t send for a doctor. There’s nothing the matter with me. Every fool in this household is treating me as if I’m ill. I want to go for a walk in the garden, and I am being prevented. I am Empress of a quarter of the world, and my own household won’t let me go for a walk in the garden!’ Her voice was petulant. ‘Vespasia, come for a walk with me.’ She made to rise to her feet, but she was too far back in the chair to do so without assistance, and rather too fat to do it with any grace.

‘Ma’am, it would be better if you were to remain seated,’ Vespasia said gently. ‘I am afraid I have some very harsh news to tell you—’

‘Lady Vespasia!’ Narraway warned.

‘Be quiet, Victor,’ Vespasia told him without turning her eyes away from the Queen. ‘Her Majesty deserves to know the truth.’

‘I demand to know it!’Victoria snapped. ‘What is going on?’

Narraway stepped back, surrendering with as much dignity as possible.

‘I regret to say, ma’am,’ Vespasia said frankly, ‘that Osborne House has been surrounded by armed men. Of what number I do not know, but several of them are inside and have taken your household prisoner.’

Victoria stared at her, then glanced past her at Narraway. ‘And who are you? One of those . . . traitors?’

‘No, ma’am. Until very recently I was head of your Special Branch,’ he replied gravely.

‘Why are you not still so? Why did you leave your post?’

‘I was dismissed, ma’am, by traitors within. But I have come now to be of whatever service I may until help arrives, as it will do. We have seen to it.’

‘When?’

‘I hope by nightfall, or shortly after,’ Narraway replied. ‘First the new head of the Branch must be absolutely certain whom he can trust.’

The Queen sat very still for several moments. The ticking of the longcase clock seemed to fill the room.

‘Then we had best wait with some composure,’Victoria said at last. ‘We will fight if necessary.’

‘Before that we may have some chance to attempt escape—’ Narraway began.

Victoria glared at him again. ‘I am Queen of England and the British Empire, young man. In my reign we have stood our ground and won wars in every corner of the earth. Am I to run away from a group of hooligans in my own house? In Osborne?’

Narraway stood a little more uprightly.

Vespasia held her head high.

Charlotte found her own back ramrod straight.

‘I should think so!’ Victoria said, regarding them with a very slight approval. ‘To quote one of my greatest soldiers, Sir Colin Campbell, who said at the Battle of Balaclava, “Here we stand, and here we die.”’ She smiled very slightly. ‘But since it may be some time, you may sit, if you wish.’

Pitt returned to Lisson Grove knowing that he had no allies there except probably Stoker, and that the safety of the Queen, perhaps of the whole royal House, depended upon him. He was surprised, as he walked up the steps and in through the doorway, how intensely he felt about it. There was a fierce loyalty in him, but not towards an old woman sitting in lonely widowhood in a house on the Isle of Wight, nursing the memories of the husband she had adored. Millions of people were lonely; many had always been so. Most of them were also poor, often sick, and bore with it with both grace and fortitude.

It was the leadership he cared about, the embodiment of what Britain had been all his life. It was the whole idea of unity greater than all the differences in race, creed and circumstance that bound together a quarter of the earth. The worst of society was greedy, arrogant and selfserving, but the best of it was supremely brave, generous and, above all, loyal. What was anybody worth if they had no concept of a purpose greater than themselves?

This was very little to do with Victoria herself, and most certainly nothing to do with the Prince of Wales. The murder at Buckingham Palace was very recent in Pitt’s mind. The selfishness of the Prince, his unthinking arrogance, and the look of hatred he had directed at Pitt, could not be forgotten. They should not. Soon the Prince would be King Edward VII, and Pitt’s career as a servant of the Crown would rest at least to some degree in his hands. Pitt would have wished him a better man, but his own loyalty to the Throne was something apart from any personal disillusionment.

All his concentration now was bent on controlling Austwick. Whom dare he trust? He could not do this alone, and he must force himself not to think of Charlotte or Vespasia, or even of Narraway, except insofar as they were allies. Their danger he must force from all his conscious thoughts. One of the burdens at the core of leadership was that you must set aside personal loyalties and act in the good of all. He made himself think of how he would feel if others in command were to save their own families at the cost of his, if Charlotte were sacrificed because another leader put his wife’s safety ahead of his duty. Only then could he dismiss all questions from his mind.

As he passed along the familiar corridors he had to remind himself again not to go to his old office, which was now occupied by someone else, but back to the one that used to be Narraway’s, and would be again as soon as this crisis was past. As he closed the door and sat at the desk, he was profoundly glad that he had retrieved Narraway’s belongings, and never for a moment behaved as if he believed this was permanent. The drawings of trees were back on the walls, and the tower by the sea, even the photograph of Narraway’s mother, dark and slender as he was, but more delicate, the intelligence blazing out of her eyes.

Pitt smiled for a moment, then turned his attention to the new reports on his desk. There were very few of them, just pedestrian comments on things that for the most part he already knew. There was no information that changed the circumstances.