The Spider's Touch (36 page)

“Bad news, my lord?”

Lost in thought, Gideon had forgotten that Tom was waiting, but he was glad to find him near at hand.

“It appears that I cannot go with you this evening. An important matter has been brought to my attention, and I must see to it tonight.”

He could tell that Tom wanted to know more. He was anxious for his master, as usual, but Gideon was not going to share the contents of his letter. The one thing with which he could console himself was that Tom’s errand tonight would be neither dangerous nor illegal.

“I shouldn’t be late,” he said. “And I shall return here before going anywhere else.” He did not add that he might have to go to France. Not yet. “If you see Menzies, follow him, find out where he lodges, and tell me. I’ll decide what to do with him then.”

Tom accepted this command without any argument. He had his own axe to grind with Menzies, but Gideon was confident that Tom would never exceed his orders unless the situation demanded it. Tom went downstairs to eat the dinner that Katy had prepared before leaving again for town. Unlike his master, Tom had no reason to fear being spotted, so he could come and go without waiting for night.

It was hard for Gideon to wait until dark. This late in June, there were so few hours of night that the days seemed to stretch into eternity. Before becoming an outlaw, Gideon had relished these long summer days. But now everything was different. He had to skulk and hide like a thief.

But now, more than ever, he had to avoid being seen with Ormonde. And, if the Duke called for the rising, Gideon would have to decide whether he would throw his lot in with James or accept the losses he had suffered.

With these disturbing thoughts occupying his mind, he forgot all about eating, until Katy came upstairs to look for him. At the sound of her footsteps, he looked up and was surprised to see her, carrying a wooden tray, loaded with plate and China dishes full of food and drink.

She looked so proudly at the pretty dishes, he didn’t have the heart to tell her that he wasn’t hungry. He attempted a smile as she set the tray on his writing table.

“I hope yer hungry, Mr. Brown.”

Her lack of formality, as well as her cheer, converted his smile into one more genuine. He thanked her then noted the name she had used.

“Katy,” he said, “I’m afraid you will have to address me by a different name. If anyone asks, you are to say that you work for Mr. Mavors.”

She betrayed no surprise. “I guessed as much when Mr. Barnes gave the carriers that name. I just didn’t know which one you’d want me to use. But I’ll call you Mr. Mavors from now on.”

“Did Tom tell you why I use one name here, and a different one in Kent?”

“No.” She looked rather sad. “He doesn’t talk to me
...
unless he has to. To get his work done, I mean.”

“Not after living in the same house with you for three months?”

She shook her head, and he saw a battle between shame and pride fought out in her features. “I don’t think he wants nothing to do with a whore.”

“But you’re not a whore any longer, are you?”

She flushed, with an apparent mixture of joy and relief. “No, sir. Thanks to you, I’m not.”

“Then Tom will come around. I don’t know why he’s such a prude.” Then, seeing that she did not understand his fashionable expression, Gideon chuckled. He looked down at the meat on his plate and realized that he did have an appetite, after all. He picked up a knife and started cutting into a slice of ham.

 “I’m certainly glad I asked Tom to bring you along,” he said. “Where did you come by all this?”

She told him about the arrangements she had made to buy meat from a farmer a few miles down the Kennington Road, until they could raise their own pigs and chickens.

Gideon frowned. He had not realized how much work it would take to set up house, and now that he had, he saw that she looked as if she had not had much sleep. Tom could have helped her with some of her tasks, if Gideon hadn’t sent him looking for Menzies. But only Tom could do that, and he had the horses to tend, too. It had taken them a day to unload the furniture, even with carriers doing the hardest work.

“I want you to get someone to help you,” he said to Katy. “Find a girl or two as soon as you can. And if you need more than that, just tell me. Only be sure that you give my name as Mavors, and if they have any questions about me, you can tell them I’m a gentleman with a strange set of habits, but that I pay good wages and treat my servants well. If they ask you anything else, you can refer them to Tom.”

“Yessir. Thank you, Mr. Mavors.”

Katy left him then. She seemed cheered by the notion of help. Or, perhaps, he reflected, it was by the notion of company. For neither he nor Tom would be any company for her, and he could imagine how lonely she must feel.

He was grateful to her for distracting him from the thoughts that had killed his appetite.

* * * *

It was just past dark, when he arrived at Ormonde House, dressed once again in his Quaker’s garb. It would not have served to put on a different disguise when the Duke’s servants were in the habit of admitting him in this one.

The porter opened the door for him immediately. He pulled him through the door with a whispered, “Hurry, sir, in here!” and shut it on the back of Gideon’s heels.

Inside, Gideon saw that the whole household had been roused. Footmen were running upstairs and down with boxes, trunks, and valises, as if preparing for a journey. Following one of them upstairs and down the corridor, Gideon saw even more evidence that a trip was imminent. Maids hurried past him with gowns draped across their arms.

His first thought on seeing this was that his Grace had made up his mind to run to France. But, after reflection, he found it hard to believe that anyone would try to escape surrounded by so much fuss.

He found the Duke again inside his drawing room, staring down at a paper on his desk.

He looked up on Gideon’s entrance and said, “Leave us,” to the footman, with a military peremptoriness which the servant seemed to expect.

It was the most decisive that Gideon had ever seen Ormonde be. And now he could understand why men accepted his leadership, if he was often this firm.

Unfortunately, his air of command vanished the moment that his servant closed the door.

“Did anyone see you?” he asked, in a disturbed manner, then barely waited to hear Gideon’s denial, before coming to his feet to pace behind the ebony desk. “I was afraid you might come—”

While he walked, he rambled, wringing his hands. “—told my porter to be on the lookout for you. Had to tell you that you must never visit this house again.”

Not bothering to look up, he went on, “I don’t know what you have heard, but everything has become more urgent. Walpole has taken after me. The Whigs in the Commons seem only too happy to back him, and we don’t have enough members to overcome them. There will be a fight, but I can’t be certain that we will win.”

Ormonde did peer up then, and Gideon saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “Walpole has a nasty way of getting what he wants. And he obviously can’t abide me.”

“Where are you going?” Gideon managed to ask.

“To Richmond—to the Lodge. I can work from there. It’s time to count our forces. I have to be able to reach our men in the West— Landsdowne and the others—without our messengers being seen.”

It was time. Gideon’s throat went dry. In spite of his warning himself that this moment was inevitable, he still could not help feeling stunned. It would be up to him to notify James Stuart that the rising he had hoped and prayed for all his life was about to take place.

“I shall ride tomorrow to inform his Majesty of your decision.”

“No, not yet!” The Duke’s vehemence astonished him. “I am not at all certain that we are ready for his Majesty to risk himself.”

In response to Gideon’s look of confusion, he averted his gaze. “First, I must know the number of arms we have and how many men they’ve been able to raise. The plan is for James to land in the West Country, you see, and I must be absolutely certain that he will be safe.”

“Then, what should I do? My instructions were to put myself in your service. I can carry messages for you, if you like.”

Ormonde waved this offer away, in a manner which implied that he had all the messengers he needed and would only be bothered by another. “It would be better for you to stay out of sight. I have your direction and will send word when it’s time to send for his Majesty.

“And, now, I must ask you to leave. The horses will be ready soon, and I cannot afford to tarry.”

Gideon had been dismissed. He left, feeling dumbfounded and uneasy. The reasons Ormonde had given for waiting tonight were the very same that he had given before. Only now he had more than enough reason to hurry. No matter how many members of Parliament would argue to save him, the government was sure to win in the end. And it was always wise to be on the government’s side when charges of treason were made. Even the bravest peers and the Duke’s closest friends would eventually see that.

How much longer would it take Ormonde to determine if James had the men and arms to mount a rebellion? Anything longer than a few more days, and Gideon feared that the Duke would not be at liberty to lead it. And even if he called for a rising tomorrow, it could be months before James could make it safely onto England’s shores.

There was nothing he could do. But he pledged to himself that, if he had not heard from the Duke of Ormonde within a sennight, he would follow him down to Richmond Lodge and extract a decision from him, once and for all.

* * * *

Tom had taken a boat to Puddle Dock Stairs, where he had to hurry past the Dung Wharf, before winding his way beyond St. Paul’s Church to the narrow streets and cramped courts that surrounded Stationers’ Hall. Having spent the greater portion of his life in the Weald of Kent, he could not fathom why anyone would live trapped in this dark, filthy corner, wedged between Newgate and the Fleet. With all the extraordinary tasks he had been called upon to carry out in the service of his master this past few months, he began to think that searching for a man in the City of the London could be the worst.

Since he had never lived in the City before, it had taken him time to locate Stationers’ Hall. After that, finding a printer by the name of Blackwell had been easy. He would have avoided the Dung Wharf on this trip if he had not worried that he might lose his way from another set of stairs. Having mucked out stables every day since he’d been old enough to swing a pitchfork, he would never have expected to be so repulsed by a pile of dung. But never had he seen so much waste heaped in one spot either.

Intent on finding his way, he failed to notice the unrest in the streets, until he arrived near the bottom of Ludgate Hill where a gathering of shouting tradesmen and artisans caught his attention. A group of carpenters, plaisterers, painters, and masons, working on the new construction, which had been a constant feature of every London street since the Great Fire, had paused to argue outside St. Martin Ludgate Church. To his right, a fist-fight erupted at the bottom of Ave Mary Lane. It was only after Tom had been jostled by a boy running with his arms full of news-sheets that he began to suspect the source of their concern. He stopped the news-hawker, who was heading towards St. Paul’s Churchyard to meet up with merchants from the Exchange, and paid him a half-penny for his news.

The news-sheet was not one he had heard of before, which probably meant that what it contained was illegal. Tom tried to make out what all the hubbub was about, before folding the paper and tucking it into his shirt to take to St. Mars, but what he had seen was enough to convince him that the Jacobites had been roused.

The few merchants who had ventured this side of St. Paul’s seemed cautious as they rode past in their carriages. They must have been pleased to hear that the Whigs had charged the most prominent Tories with treason, but they would be wise not to let their elation show. With an unsettling feeling in his stomach, Tom wondered if it was this news that had taken St. Mars on his mysterious errand, leaving Tom to search for Menzies alone.

He would not get an answer to this question now, so he crossed into a dark, cool maze which began in Cock Alley, zigzagged past the stationers’ fine new livery hall—which had been rebuilt after the Great Fire—and led him out into Amen Corner.

Here, where many of the printers were housed, he found himself hedged in by the hasty comings and goings from their shops. Whispered conferences in doorways and furtive glances, which had not been evident that morning, made him feel uncomfortably conspicuous. His plan, which had been to watch Blackwell’s shop from a sheltered corner, was obviously not going to serve. Too many of the printers were on their guard. The Jacobites among them had no way of knowing whether a stranger in the street would prove to be a government spy, and Tom could tell by the suspicious looks he received that they had spotted him as a stranger.

He hesitated only the few seconds it took to arrive at this conclusion, before ambling off towards Paternaster Row, while he tried to think of a credible reason for lingering. Of all the areas of London, this had to be one of the worst for standing in the street. There were no inns or taverns, and only a few shops in which a man of his station could pretend an interest. Tom walked purposefully past the windows of booksellers’ shops, where no groom would be expected to enter, and the printers’ houses, where presses thumped away.

Finally, under the sign of the Three Black Lyons, he found a shop selling Turkey carpets and stopped to peer through the window. The proprietor spotted him and walked eagerly towards the door. Tom would have retreated in haste, even if the man had not got near enough to see his clothes, scowl, and wave to shoo him away.

There was nothing for it, but to return in the direction he had come.

He had not meant to stop here long in any case. Mr. Blackwell’s establishment was almost in the shadow of Stationers’ Hall, too far away to be seen from here. Tom had hoped for a few moments, though, in which to come up with a different plan, so he prayed that inspiration would come soon.