Sovay (13 page)

The building was old. He liked that about it. Part of a narrow crowded row that made up one side of the dank courtyard, the steeply pitched roofs showing against the sky like a row of uneven teeth. Cracked and crooked wooden beams showed between small bricks which were blackened by smoke and scorch marks. Somehow, these buildings had survived the Great Fire while all around others had been rendered to ashes.

Gribbon sat in the outer office, his tall, thin frame hunched over his desk. He wore black, like his master, but there was a rusted quality to his clothing and his head craned forward on his scrawny neck. He reminded Dysart of a heron, as though the words on the pages in front of him were fish that he was about to spear.

‘I trust your visit was satisfactory, sir.’

‘I believe so, Gribbon. I believe so.’

‘Is there anything you want doing, sir?’

‘I don’t think so. Not at the moment. Oh.’ Dysart stopped, recollecting something that he had thought of on his way back to his office. ‘Recall Digby Clayton. I may have need of his special talents.’

Gribbon nodded. Clayton was the best peepsman they had in their employ. He reached for a file that would inform him as to his whereabouts.

Dysart left the outer office and went into his room. The only natural light came in through a narrow window that gave onto a small yard which was surrounded on all sides by buildings, the dark paving clotted with moss and dusted with green mould. Dysart liked its air of desolate neglect: the way weeds and straggling trees grew up and died back again, struggling towards light that they could never attain.

He removed his wig and put it on its stand. He did not like to wear it when he was alone. He brushed a hand over his own cropped iron-grey hair and stared at the chart pinned to the panelling. His campaign map. Small symbols were scattered across it: from East to West, North to South. The largest number was clustered around the capital, but there were strong concentrations around other centres of population: Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester as well as Norwich, Nottingham and the county towns. The map was marked up in a complicated system devised by Gribbon and showed different kinds of agents, as well as the groups and individuals who were being watched. Gribbon was a genius at this kind of thing. Gribbon was meticulous in his deviousness; a genius at every underhand thing. He’d introduced the pigeon post. Dysart was sceptical at first, but he had to admit that the system had much to recommend it, being both speedy and secret. There was not much Dysart kept from him. When the time came, he would receive the prominence he deserved. The time was not yet, but it was near.

Gribbon had added more symbols to the map, Girl, Hayseed, Lawyer, Highwayman. In time, there would be a spider’s web of lines tracking their movements. He had thought for a while that the highwayman might be useful to him, having no personal loyalty to the others, as far a Dysart could see. Unfortunately, he knew from experience that highwaymen were a difficult group to penetrate. They could not be relied upon in any significant way. They
were
open to bribery. Everyone had their price and release from Newgate and the threat of the hangman’s noose was a considerable incentive, but to hold them to the bargain was another matter. They operated alone, were loyal to no one and believed in nothing but themselves. The rogue in question, this
Captain
Jake Greenwood, seemed more capricious than most, but living outside the law made him the most vulnerable of those whom Dysart now saw as conspirators.

The theft of the wallet could not be allowed to disrupt Dysart’s plans. The wallet had been returned, but that act in itself was suspicious. It had the whiff of conspiracy about it and Dysart did not like conspiracies, unless they were initiated by himself. This girl, this Sovay Middleton, had taken to the road disguised as a highwayman, behaviour that brought her under suspicion. Their recent meeting had only served to make her more suspect. She was not what she appeared to be and was obviously a skilled dissembler, but above that, she was a rogue card and he did not like rogue cards. If he was to succeed in this enterprise, nothing could be left to chance. Everyone involved in the theft of the wallet, everyone who knew anything about it, would be brought to Thursley for him to deal with at his leisure. To pick them off beforehand would attract attention. And afterwards? He would be in a position to do as he liked.

Thursley was his own domain. The vast building was situated a little way out of London and had been built on the site of an ancient abbey destroyed at the Reformation. He had incorporated the ruined remains into one of the wings. The rest had been built to reproduce the original, or rather, Sir Robert’s idea of what that original should have been, complete with flying buttresses, tall arched windows filled with stained glass and tracery, and soaring towers bristling with pinnacles and gargoyles. The River Thames marked the southern boundary and a stone wall, nine foot high and six miles long, surrounded the rest of the estate.

An army could be secreted in the numerous wings and towers and the extensive undercroft provided secure accommodation for unwilling guests. The crypt was especially equipped for Sir Robert’s purposes with ancient instruments of torture which he had collected from all over Europe. It was truly a joy to see those old pieces put to work again. Such fine workmanship. Some of them were centuries old, but so well built that they could be new. Seeing them in operation was like seeing times long past come back to life. A fascinating and most illuminating process.

Recently, he’d introduced something new to his collection: a guillotine, a scale model of the one used in Paris. He’d had a special well put in under the central stairs to obtain a sufficient drop so that the blade would efficiently sever the head from the neck. Sir Robert now used this to dispatch the bloody, broken bodies of his victims: informants who thought to double cross him, agents who fell down on the job or who were not up to the mark. That fat runner had already paid the price for his stupidity. The thickness of his neck had necessitated two drops of the blade. It was all scientific, he had explained to Gribbon. All to do with height, weight and momentum. Sir Robert had conducted his own experiments, if the height was not sufficient, if the blade was too light, then it was impossible to obtain clean severance.

The French had introduced Dr Guillotin’s invention for reasons of equality, the blade having been for so long the preserve of the aristocracy, although they seemed to be the ones beneath it now, more often than not. Equality in death, as in everything else. Whatever their reason, it was an excellent form of execution, especially when large numbers were involved. Far preferable to hanging. He had recently had a quicklime pit constructed deep in Thursley’s well-wooded grounds to dispose of the headless corpses.

Reluctantly, he recollected himself from his pleasant reverie and looked at the chart before him: Girl, Hayseed, Lawyer, Highwayman, all under suspicion. And one other. He was interested to note that Gribbon had recently added a miniature Stars and Stripes.

CHAPTER
1
3

S
ir Robert was true to his word. The next day found Lady Bingham settling her silks upon the sofa and patting Sovay’s hand.

First, she enquired after ‘poor, dear Harriet’. Then, before Sovay could answer, she went on to exclaim it all to be ‘
Such
a shame! With my darling Harriet so incommoded and your poor, poor mama . . .’ She let the sentence trail into sadness, but almost immediately rallied. ‘You lack a woman’s guidance.’ She cast a large, pale blue eye over Sovay. ‘That is sure. How old are you, my dear?’

‘Seventeen,’ Sovay replied.

‘Seventeen! Why! These days, that is practically an old maid! What is your father thinking? Keeping you buried down there in the country?’ She eyed the book Sovay had been holding. ‘You need to be taken out into society, and I believe I am the very woman to do it. Now, my dear, I have a list here . . .’

She went on to rattle through a litany of appropriate engagements that would keep Sovay busy from now until midsummer. Dinner parties, supper parties, soirées and tea parties at addresses in every fashionable part of London to be held by a dizzying array of society hostesses, all Lady Bingham’s ‘dear, dear friends’.

Sovay kept her eyes downcast and considered. She had been expecting a visit, certainly, but she had not expected to have her life taken over.

‘Lady Bingham,’ she began. ‘You are very kind . . .’

‘That’s settled then!’ Her visitor beamed. ‘Now,’ she regarded Sovay with a freshly critical eye, ‘what about your clothes?’

‘I have gowns enough,’ Sovay countered.

‘They will be last
season
,’ she explained as if talking to a halfwit. ‘And this is London! Provincial dressmakers –’ She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if the idea was too terrible to contemplate. ‘I will send my dressmaker round tomorrow. She’s a French seamstress, absolutely marvellous. She’s served all the leading French families, including the Queen herself. Now, let me see. What would you need?’ She began counting items of dress off on the fingers of her hand. ‘Day dresses, certainly. Evening attire suitable for several different occasions. It doesn’t do to be seen wearing the same thing. Then hats, gloves . . . but that will take weeks!’ Lady Bingham exclaimed. ‘What am I thinking? Stand up, child,’ she ordered. ‘Let me look at you. You could be quite a beauty, given the right attention. No point in hiding it.’ She turned Sovay this way and that. ‘You are similar in height to my Charlotte. And she is slender. As like as two peas, I shouldn’t wonder, and she has more dresses than she could wear in a year.’

‘Oh, no!’ Sovay’s provincial wardrobe might be wanting, but this was too much. ‘I couldn’t wear another’s cast-offs. Papa wouldn’t like it.’

‘Then he should equip his daughter better,’ Lady Bingham said crisply. ‘That is settled. Don’t you worry.’ The grip on Sovay’s arm tightened. ‘Madame Chantal can do wonders! And, of course,’ Lady Bingham added, ‘there is your visit to Thursley. Apart from your other engagements, you will want to look well for that, won’t you?’

She had saved the real reason for her visit until the last.

‘Of course, Lady Bingham,’ Sovay replied. ‘I’m very much looking forward to it. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

‘That’s just as well, my dear. It is an occasion that cannot be missed.’

Her visitor’s perpetual smile never slipped, but for a moment it seemed to set into something like gloating cruelty and the blue eyes were as cold and hard as chips of glass in that long, sallow face.

Sovay scarcely had time to gather her wits when Lydia came in to announce the arrival of Virgil Barrett.

‘It’s one after another!’ she exclaimed, her green eyes sparking with excitement. ‘Not like Compton. Hardly time to catch your breath!’

Gabriel was with the American, which went some way to account for the light in Lydia’s eye.

Once Lydia had gone, Sovay did not waste time on pleasantries. She was only too aware of their interrupted conversation of the day before and wanted to be told exactly what Mr Barrett knew about her father, but he could add little more to what he had told her already.

‘So my father will be safe with Henry Fitzwilliam?’

‘Well, not safe exactly,’ Virgil Barrett replied, trying to choose his words. He did not want to alarm her but he was well aware that she was a young woman with unusual qualities, not least of which was honesty. She deserved no less from other people. ‘Up until now, Fitzwilliam would have been a guarantee of safety. The French are interested in fermenting rebellion in Ireland, and he has been happy to help them, but just lately events in France have taken a considerable turn for the worse and it appears that no one is safe there. Arrests and executions increase day by day,’ he paused, and took a moment to collect himself. ‘Excuse me,’ he cleared his throat. ‘I did not mean to allow emotion to get the better of me. It’s just that so many of us had such very high hopes. Now it appears that liberty is dead and the Revolution is turning to a tyranny of the few over the many.’ He turned to Sovay, his light, grey-blue eyes magnified by sudden tears. ‘I cannot give you comfort, or tell you not to worry, but I will do all I can to find out what has happened to your father, and to Hugh, you have my word upon it.’

‘Thank you, Mr Barrett.’ Sovay looked up at him, moved by the intensity of his feeling. ‘I will take what consolation I can from that. I’m glad you are here. You, too, Gabriel.’ She took Dysart’s invitation from the mantelpiece. ‘I have had a visitor and would welcome your advice on what I should do about this. I have been invited to Thursley Abbey.’

She gave them the card to examine.

‘Well,’ the American turned the invitation over and back again, ‘I call this strange.’

‘It is addressed to Sir John,’ Gabriel observed.

‘But he knows your father is in Paris.’

‘Can you be certain?’ Gabriel asked the American.

‘He must do,’ Virgil replied. ‘He knows everything.’

‘He does,’ Sovay confirmed, ‘or, at least, he implied as much to me in the course of our conversation.’

‘If he knows that, why did he invite Sovay?’ Gabriel looked at the American, his face full of worry.

‘I have no idea,’ Virgil shrugged, ‘but it won’t be good.’ He turned to Sovay. ‘You disrupted his plans and he won’t take kindly to that. Moreover, you might have forced him to move before he is ready. This meeting was planned for midsummer and it is well short of that.’

Sovay frowned. ‘How do you know that?’

Barrett smiled and suddenly he looked like a mischievous boy. ‘Because I’m a spy, Miss Sovay. Didn’t you guess?’ The levity left his face and he began to pace before the fire. ‘It would be good to know what he plans, what he intends to do next . . .’

‘Are you suggesting that I should go to Thursley?’

‘Forgive me, no!’ Barrett returned to her side. ‘Nothing could be further from my mind. It would be
far
too dangerous.’

Sovay looked over to Gabriel. ‘What would Father do? Or Hugh?’

‘They would go, but . . .’

‘They are men.’ Sovay finished his sentence. ‘If they would see it as their duty, then I see it as mine. Besides, I’ve already accepted.’

‘Let’s not decide hastily,’ Virgil said to her. ‘Things in London are moving quickly. Arrests here are accelerating, suspects being taken for questioning. Habeas corpus has been suspended. There is to be a meeting of protest at the Golden Globe in Cheapside, tomorrow at seven o’clock. We will see what happens there.’ He took out his watch, the same one she had returned to him at Compton. ‘I am meeting some of the organising committee and fear I’m late. I must leave, I’m afraid. Good afternoon, Miss Sovay.’

With that, he left. It was clear from further conversation with Gabriel that he was going to attend the meeting.

‘In that case,’ Sovay said. ‘I will go with you.’

‘You cannot,’ Gabriel began, but Sovay stopped him.

‘I can,’ Sovay said quietly, ‘and I will. Hugh would go in the blink of an eye, so would my father. At this very moment, they are braving who knows what horrors for what they believe. Do you think that it is just men who love liberty? Whatever they are prepared to do, so am I.’