Sea Change (28 page)

'Mr Spandrel, as I live and breathe.' Sam was already pink-gilled and grinning when Spandrel found him. He had enjoyed a profitable afternoon at the cock-fights, so he explained, and was celebrating. But an excess of ale did not quite swamp his surprise. 'I had you down as dead — or in the clink.'

'You were nearly right on both counts.'

'Instead of which, here you are, looking the real gent.'

'That's because I am one.'

'If you say so, Mr Spandrel.'

'I do.'

'What brings you out this way?'

'Can't you guess?'

'Oh, that's it, is it?' Sam put down his mug and wiped his mouth. 'You're still set on Miss Maria.'

'I might be.'

'I'm sorry, Mr Spandrel.' To his credit, Sam actually looked as if he was. 'You're too late.'

'She's married?'

'All but. She'll be Mrs Surtees come July.'

Spandrel sighed. 'I suppose I should have—' Then he stopped and looked at Sam intently. 'Did you say Surtees?'

'I did.'

'Not… Dick Surtees?'

'Well, he calls himself Richard, but…' Sam frowned. 'Do you know him, then?'

As apprentices, William Spandrel and his then very good friend Dick Surtees had often marked the close of the working day by adjourning to the Hood Inn near Smithfield. Spandrel had nominated it as a rendezvous in the note he had persuaded Sam to deliver for the highly practical reasons that he could be sure it would be open on a Sunday and that Dick knew where it was. Waiting there the following afternoon, however, the choice of venue began to prey on his mind, weighed down as it was by memories of the things he had lost in the years since they had been regular customers there, Dick's friendship not least among the losses.

Spandrel had been prepared to hear that Maria was married, or engaged to be so. He had almost expected it. But that her betrothed should be none other than Dick Surtees, failed mapmaker and aspiring man of the world, was a shock he had still not recovered from. He could have no fundamental complaint. Dick owed him nothing. Except an explanation. Yes, on that point Spandrel was clear. He was owed an explanation.

It seemed that Surtees agreed with him, for it was only a few minutes past the time Spandrel had specified in the note when a familiar figure threaded through the smoke-wreathed ruck to join him. The slim, slope-shouldered physique was the same, as were the dark, evasive eyes. But Suttees' appearance had nonetheless been transformed. There were braided buttonholes and deep, embroidered cuffs on his coat, and the cream cravat and grey-black wig beneath the fancily brimmed hat singled him out not just as a gentleman but as a well-heeled student of fashion.

'Billy, I can't tell you how good it is to see you,' he said, clapping Spandrel on the shoulder and sitting down beside him. 'How long has it been?'

'Seven years.'

'Seven years that have treated you well, by the look of you. New suit?'

'Not as new as yours.'

'This?' Surtees flexed his cuffs. 'Well, you have to put on a show, don't you?'

'Not for old friends.'

'No. I suppose not.' For a moment, Surtees looked almost sheepish. 'I had your note.'

'I was surprised when Sam told me of your engagement.'

'Ah, that. Yes. Well, you would be.'

'How did it happen?'

'I sometimes wonder myself.' Surtees grabbed the sleeve of a waiter as he wandered by and ordered some brandy. 'Yes, I sometimes do.'

'My father died.'

'I know. I was sorry to hear of it.'

'How did you hear of it?'

'When I came back to London last autumn, I thought I'd look you up. For old times' sake. Reports had it your father had got into debt and then into the Fleet Prison and then…' Surtees shrugged. 'Sorry.'

'Did these… reports… mention me?'

'Oh yes. They said you'd fled abroad.'

'I didn't flee.'

'You don't have to explain yourself to me, Billy.'

'I'd be happy to. If you explained yourself to me.'

'Me? I made good. Simple as that.'

'Abroad?'

'Yes. Paris. You've heard of the, er…' Surtees lowered his voice. 'Mississippi Company?'

'I thought it crashed, like the South Sea.'

'Oh, it did. But I sold just at the right time. Acheter la fumee; vendre la fumee. It's a game. You have to know the rules.'

'A game of buying and selling smoke.'

'You, er, parlez le francais, Billy?' Surtees looked quite taken aback.

'I spent some time there myself.'

'In Paris?'

'No. Rennes. Where I made good as well, out of something more substantial than smoke. And I came home, hoping I might still be able to…'

'Capture Maria's heart.'

'Yes, Dick. Exactly.'

Surtees' brandy arrived. He poured them a glass each. 'Sorry,' he said, by way of apologetic toast.

'But I find you've captured her heart.'

'Yes. Well, she's a lovely girl. You know that.'

'Yes. I do.'

'I'll, er, make her happy. You have my word.'

'How did you meet her?'

'That was… thanks to you, actually.'

'Me?'

'I remembered you'd said what a treasure she was. Even when she was no more than fifteen. So, when I heard you'd left London, I, er, decided to try my luck.'

'You seem to have had a lot of that — luck.'

'More than my fair share, probably. The father and the daughter have taken to me.'

'The mother too, I expect.'

'Since you mention it…' Surtees grinned nervously. 'Yes.'

'And you're to be married in the summer.'

'The thirtieth of June.'

'Perhaps I should congratulate you.'

'No need to be sarcastical. It couldn't be helped.'

'Couldn't it?'

'No-one had seen hide or hair of you in months and no-one expected to. I thought you'd forgotten all about her. So did she.'

'Encouraged by you, no doubt.'

'Be reasonable, Billy. How was I to know you'd turn up like this?'

Spandrel looked at his former friend long and hard before admitting, 'You weren't, I suppose.'

'It's damned unfortunate, but…' Surtees grimaced. 'There it is.'

'Be sure you do make her happy.'

'I will. You can rely on it. You could even, er, help me to.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'You've left her life, Billy. No sense trying to come back into it.'

'Are you warning me off?'

'Good God, of course I'm not. I'm just…'

'Asking me to give you a clear run.'

'Well, I, er, wouldn't put it quite like that, but…' Surtees shaped a smile that somehow suggested he was both grateful for not having to express the sentiment himself and a little ashamed of letting Spandrel do it for him. 'Yes. That's what I'm asking you to do. Leave well alone. For Maria's sake.'

Spandrel made his way back to Cat and. Dog Yard as the sunny afternoon gave way to a pigeon-grey evening. Dick Surtees was right, of course. Spandrel would achieve nothing by trying to come between Maria and her intended, unless it was to make a fool of himself. He had had his chance and it had slipped through his fingers. Now, the only sensible course was to seize the other chances that had come his way. As Maria had forgotten him, so he would have to forget her.

'William Spandrel?'

The voice echoed like a muffled bell in the cramped passage as Spandrel entered from the yard. A tall, broadly built man in dark clothes loomed in front of him and the shadow of another man fell across him from behind. He was suddenly surrounded.

'William Spandrel?' came the question once more.

'Yes. I…'

'Come with us, please.'

Powerful hands closed around Spandrel's elbows and shoulders. He was marched back out into the yard almost without being aware of it. 'What… Who are you?' An absurd thought came into his mind. 'I've paid my debts.' Then he remembered: it was Sunday. 'You can't be bailiffs.'

'We don't collect debts, Spandrel. We collect people.'

'What?'

'You're wanted.'

'Who by?'

'You'll find out soon enough. There's a carriage waiting. Do you want to go quietly?' The cold head of a cudgel pressed against Spandrel's cheekbone. 'Or very quietly?'

The carriage was shuttered and Spandrel was held fast by his captors, who remained as reticent as they were threatening. He could see no more than twilit shards of street corners through the gap between the shutters. But he had not mapped every alley and highway of London for nothing. He tracked their route in his mind, judging every turn and every sound. Fleet Street and the Strand to Charing Cross; down Whitehall to Westminster Abbey, where the bells were summoning the faithful to evensong; round the southern side of St James's Park to Buckingham House, then out along the King's Road, through the darkening fields to Chelsea.

Why Chelsea? He could think of only one reason. And he did not want to believe it. But when they reached the Royal Hospital and drew to a halt in a courtyard to the rear of Orford House, residence, as all Londoners knew, of Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer… he had to believe it.

The room was high-ceilinged and ill-lit, the windows overlooking some inner courtyard engulfed in shadow. Shadow, indeed, seemed to fill the room, despite, or perhaps because of, a roaring fire, whose flames cast flickering ghosts of themselves across the walls and the gold-worked tapestries that covered them.

For a moment, Spandrel thought he was alone. Then he saw a figure stir on the vast day-bed that covered half the length of the far wall — a big, swag-bellied, red-faced man of middle years, in plain waistcoat and breeches, scratching under his wig as he hauled himself upright. He hawked thickly as he crossed the room, spat into the fire, then turned to face Spandrel, who had, with as much reluctance as incredulity, come by now to realize that this was the master of Orford House — Robert Walpole.

'Colic does not put me or any man in the best of tempers,' Walpole said in a gravelly voice. 'Try me, sir, and you'll regret it.'

'I have no wish to try anyone, sir,' said Spandrel.

'Nor to be tried, I dare say.' Walpole moved closer. 'Though the Dutch authorities would like to try you, I'm told, for the murder last year of one of their more eminent citizens.'

'I didn't—'

'Save your denials for your Maker, sir. I'll not hear them. You are William Spandrel?'

'Yes, sir.'

'The same William Spandrel who escaped from custody in Amsterdam in February of last year and still stands accused in that city of murder?'

'Well, I…' Something in Walpole's gaze told him prevarication was worse than futile. 'Yes, sir.'

'The United Provinces are a friendly nation. Surrendering a fugitive to them would be a common courtesy.'

'I am innocent, sir.'

'That's for them to say. However—' Walpole flapped his hand. 'I didn't have you brought here for the pleasure, if it would be one, of loading you aboard a ship bound for Amsterdam.'

'No, sir?'

'But I want you to understand that it can be done. It will be done.' Walpole snapped his fingers so sharply and suddenly that Spandrel jumped. 'Unless…'

The pause grew into a silence that Spandrel felt obliged to break. 'Is there something… I can do for you, sir?'

'There is.' Walpole moved to a circular table in the middle of the room and lit the lamp that stood on it. Then he unlocked one of the shallow drawers beneath the table, opened it and pulled out a book, which he let fall with a crash next to the lamp.

Spandrel flinched at his first sight of the book. It was a plain, green-covered ledger, with leather spine and marbled page edges.

'I see you recognize it.'

'I'm not sure. I—'

'I know everything, Spandrel. The whole squalid tale of scheming and double-dealing. Including your part in it. You do recognize this book, don't you?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And you're familiar with the contents?'

'I…' Spandrel strained to decide what it was best to say. Walpole's own name was to be found listed within those green covers. If Spandrel admitted he knew how big a bribe Walpole had taken, he was surely a dead man. But if Walpole already knew he knew… 'The contents made no sense to me, sir. I have no head for figures.'

'No head for figures? A bold try, sir. Yes, I compliment you on that. What about Dutch widows? Do you have a head for their figures?'

'I… don't understand, sir.'

'When I said I knew everything, that is exactly what I meant. Everything.''

Spandrel gulped. 'I…'

'Do you still not understand?'

'I do understand, sir. Yes.'

'Good. The book was delivered to me a year ago by an acquaintance of yours, Mr Cloisterman, of whose safe return from Rome you'll doubtless be glad to learn. Mr Cloisterman, incidentally, is now His Majesty's Ambassador to the Sublime Porte.' Catching Spandrel's blank look, he smiled and added, 'The Ottoman Empire.'

'Mr Cloisterman's an ambassador?'

'Thus is assiduous service rewarded. Yes indeed. Cloisterman is sampling the pleasures of Constantinople, which are many and varied, so I'm told. I've never been abroad myself. You know that? You, sir, are a better travelled man than me. But not a better informed one. Before he left, Cloisterman made known to me every detail of the Green Book's journey from London to Rome and back again. So, whatever lies you are tempted to tell, save your breath. I don't care how you managed your own exit from Rome. It matters not to me. Here you are, though, home again. Like the Green Book.' Walpole patted its cover, almost affectionately. 'And ready to do my bidding, I rather think.'

'How did you know … I'd come home?'

'Sir Theodore Janssen alerted me to the repayment of your debt to him, which could only mean you planned to return, wrongly supposing you were no longer of interest to the likes of me.'

'I did suppose that, sir, yes.'

'An expensive mistake, as it turns out. You passed Westminster Abbey on your way here?'

'I… think so, sir, yes.'

'You think so. You know so. Don't play the fool with me.'

'We did pass the Abbey, sir. Yes.'

'Are you acquainted with the Dean of Westminster?'

'No, sir.'

'The Right Reverend Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.'

'I, er… have heard of him.'

'As what?'

'As, er…'

'As a stiff-necked, silver-tongued Tory who was all for proclaiming the Pretender King when Queen Anne died. The Right Reverend Atterbury is a right renegade Jacobite.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And a plotting one to boot.'

'I know nothing of such things.'

'High time you learned, then. Certain papers have come into my possession following the recent death of the Earl of Sunderland. You knew his lordship had breathed his last? It's been the talk of the town, doubtless even your neck of it.'

The copy of the London Journal Spandrel had bought the previous day had been much given over to Sunderland's sudden death. Spandrel had not bothered to read the reports, wrongly supposing that the deaths along with the doings of such men were none of his concern. 'I heard, sir, yes.'

'Those papers leave no room for doubting Lord Sunderland's complicity in Atterbury's plotting.'

'Lord Sunderland?'

'Yes. Lord Sunderland. Don't look so surprised, man. Your perusal of the Green Book can hardly have left you with a glowing impression of your political masters' capacity for loyalty.'

'You're very frank, sir.' Walpole was being, in truth, disturbingly frank. Spandrel had felt safer being hectored than confided in.

'I'm frank when I need to be. Your value to me lies in your attested knowledge of the Green Book. Tomorrow is St George's Day. We can rely on Dean Atterbury presiding at evensong in the Abbey in order to lavish some patriotic prayers on the congregation. That'll be his brand of patriotism, of course, not mine. You will attend the service and afterwards bring yourself to the Bishop's attention. How you manage that is up to you, but manage it you must. Tell him you have something of inestimable value to the cause which you wish to discuss with him, something entrusted to you by the Earl of Sunderland.'

'But—'

'But nothing. He will rise to the bait. Sunderland's death has him all a-quiver, fearful about what it means and what it portends. He will agree to see you in private. You will ensure he does. At that meeting, you will tell him about the Green Book.'

'But—'

'Save your buts for a hogshead of ale!' roared Walpole, suddenly reddening. 'What do you mean by them, sir?'

'It's just that…'

'What?'

'If the Bishop is in secret communication with the Pretender…'

'As he is.'

'Then he'll know of my attempt to sell the book in Rome — and how it ended.'

'So?'

'I, er, got myself off the hook by telling the Pretender I'd made up the story. I said the Green Book was seized and sent to London when Mr Knight was arrested. I said I was a South Sea Company clerk trying to swindle him.'

'He believed you?'

'He seemed to.'

'Well, it's reassuring to know he's as big a fool as we'd always hoped. I suggest you make Atterbury believe that you were lying. Not difficult, since you were. Say Cloisterman made off with the book, leaving you to talk your way out of it as best you could. When you returned to London this spring, you were picked up by the Secret Service and taken before Sunderland. Sunderland had charge of the Secret Service, damn his memory, until the day he died, so that'll seem likely enough. Here's the wrinkle. Cloisterman was acting for Sunderland, not me. It was to Sunderland that he delivered the book and through Sunderland's influence, not mine, that he secured the Turkish posting. Well, Atterbury can hardly write to Cloisterman and ask him, can he? He'll swallow it. You'll say Sunderland seemed nervous, frightened almost, and threatened to have you sent to Amsterdam in irons unless you agreed to deliver the Green Book into Atterbury's hands. The nervousness is a nice touch. It'll play on the crazy suspicion that seems to have got about that I had Sunderland poisoned. His little son died last night, which only seems to have added to the rumours. You'll explain that you weren't supposed to reveal the source of the book, but, now Sutherland's dead, there seems little point in keeping his name out of it. You'll also explain that, now he is dead, you're free to impose your own terms. How much did you ask the Pretender for? A hundred thousand, wasn't it?'

'How did—' Spandrel bit his lip. 'Yes. It was.'

'You've learned from your mistake. Your price now is twenty thousand.'

'You want me to… try to sell it?'

'I want you to persuade Atterbury that it can be bought. The price is neither here nor there. I want him to believe this… bookful of gunpowder… is within his grasp. Then…' Walpole smiled. 'A letter to Rome, asking for instructions, or boasting of what the book will do for the Pretender's standing here — its publication as a prelude to a rising. It doesn't matter. But something, anything, to incriminate him. That's what I want. And that's what I mean to have.'

'I…' Spandrel's heart sank. There was no way out. He would have to do this. And that was not all. He was a pawn. And pawns tended to be sacrificed in quest of a bishop, especially pawns who knew too much. Perhaps Atterbury's involvement in his murder was just the kind of incrimination Walpole had in mind. 'I'm not sure I…'

'Do you want to be hanged as a murderer?'

'No, sir. Of course not.'

'Well then?'

'I, er…' Spandrel tried to look as if he meant what he was about to say. 'I'll do my best.'

'So you will.' Walpole slipped the Green Book back into the drawer, locked it and dropped the key into his waistcoat pocket. 'And you'd better pray your best is good enough.'

'Yes, sir.'

'No-one else knows where the book really is, of course, apart from Cloisterman, far away in Constantinople. No-one but you and me. We make a strange pair to share such a secret, don't we? Of course…' He fixed Spandrel with his gaze. 'Should anyone else find out, I'll know who must have told them, won't I? That's the beauty of it.'

'I won't tell a soul, sir.'

'Be sure you don't.'

'And, er, when I've, er… accomplished the task?'

'How can you be sure I won't hand you over to the Dutch authorities anyway? Is that what's worrying you?'

'Well, no. I mean, not exactly.'

'I rather think it is. And, if it isn't, it should be. But the answer's very simple. You have my word. As a gentleman and a statesman.' Walpole treated Spandrel to a broad but fleeting grin. 'I can't say handsomer than that, now can I?'

Spandrel was left to make his own way back to London. Night had fallen and, as the lights of the Royal Hospital fell away behind him, darkness closed in on every side. Only his own footfalls and the mournful hoots of an owl somewhere to the north kept him company. He could not recall feeling so miserably desperate since his escape from Amsterdam. He should have left his debts unpaid and his mother unaware that he was still alive. Perhaps that was still the answer: to flee while he had the chance. But he could not abandon his mother so soon after re-entering her life and promising to transform it. There had to be another way out of this. There had to be. For if not…

He pulled up his collar against the deepening chill of the night and pressed on towards the city; and towards the task that awaited him there.