The Stuart Sapphire (10 page)

Much to his surprise, perhaps assisted by the remaining contents of the jug of wine by his bedside, Tam slept soundly, untroubled by either his multiple bruises sustained in the carriage accident or the future of his
time-quest
. In particular, how he was to return to his own time by the exact same spot at which he had entered the world of Regency Brighton.

He was awakened by the curtains being drawn, the bright sun of another pleasant summer morning, with birds singing lustily in the garden and the silent footman bearing breakfast on a tray. In his train was a servant carrying the cleaned, repaired and generally restored clothes Tam had been wearing as he leapt out of the carriage hurtling down the embankment on the Lewes Road.

Realising that he would have been as helpless to deal with shaving via an open razor as an old-fashioned sword, with results no doubt equally catastrophic, he was greatly relieved by the appearance of a valet bearing warm towels who, bowing, indicated that this task would be his to perform.

Tam accepted gladly and, admiring the man’s dexterity, he was soon shaved and dressed, giving some thought meanwhile to where he should begin his investigations into the missing Stuart Sapphire. Weighing the light contents of the purse he had received from the Prince Regent, about two guineas in coin, he calculated that it was enough to provide food and so forth around Brighton for a few days, but certainly quite inadequate to continue that mythical journey into London he had invented. Or, more important, to get him back along the coast to where the dreaded hulks were moored.

This meagre recompense for his services suggested a shrewd assurance that he was neatly trapped or detained during His Royal Highness’s pleasure, a sinister overtone. However, it did not take much imagination to realise that the Stuart Sapphire would no longer be in the Pavilion precincts. Whoever had killed the marchioness to obtain it would have decided it prudent not to linger, and at this moment the jewel might be changing hands in London and lost forever to its royal owner.

Remembering his conversation with Beau Brummell, it occurred to Tam that the thief might have in mind a purchaser close to the royal circle, someone who knew its value in the thriving underworld that had grown around the Marine Pavilion.

Having had it described by the prince in some detail as a large, dark blue stone, oval in shape, one inch wide by one and a half inches long, in a thin gold frame, he saw that it was striking enough for immediate recognition and, as a gemstone only, it was certainly of less monetary value than the precious gems overlooked by the thief. Its value must lie in its ancient royal associations with the Crown, which would therefore limit the kind of purchaser set on acquiring it.

The more Tam thought, the more certain he became that the known facts indicated that this was no ordinary theft. The dead marchioness, he did not doubt, had had a role to play but was now silenced forever.

The next step was how to get an introduction to the criminal fraternity. That presented a problem. His clothes were modest enough for an upper servant and, looking out of the window, he noticed gardeners at work. A rather unkempt fellow was busy with the roses. His appearance suggested that he might have some knowledge of the less affluent side of Brighton life.

Tam hurried along the royal apartment’s corridors, past the ante-rooms, wardrobe and library, where the prince received ministers and conducted official business. Down the grand staircase and across the hall with its continuation of the Pavilion’s elegant Chinese theme of wallpaper and decoration, in particular a quantity of large vases from the Ming dynasty. Without being challenged by the inscrutable line of guards, he emerged at the front door and circumnavigated the building until he found his way back to the rose garden.

Opening the conversation with the unkempt gardener with a cheerful ‘good day’ and adding favourable comments about rose-growing, about which he knew absolutely nothing, he said:

‘Ah yes, the very jewels of the garden, are they not? Which reminds me, I am a stranger here and eager to purchase a trinket for a lady. A bargain you know, not too costly,’ he added with a knowing wink.

The man barely looked up from his pruning knife. ‘A trinket sir, what would that be?’

Tam muttered something about earrings while the man now regarded him, frowning suspiciously. ‘I know nothing
about such bargains,’ he said sharply, ‘but there are plenty of shops over yonder—’ pointing in the direction of North Street and the Steine. ‘Some of them might be able to help you,’ he added and turning his back on Tam he returned briskly to his pruning task.

Taking the hint, Tam headed in the direction the gardener had indicated and, after getting thoroughly lost and confused in a maze of twisting lanes, to his enormous relief he found himself outside the Old Ship Inn, which he had visited earlier with Mr Brummell.

He paused to read a plaque proudly informing visitors that in 1651 a former landlord, Nicholas Tettersell, had been instrumental in arranging the escape of Charles II to France on his coal brig
Surprise
, which twenty years later, at the Restoration, was renamed the
Royal Escape.

Presuming the present landlord shared royalist sympathies, Tam stepped into the gloomy interior from the brightness outside to be confronted by a young lad with short curls. A countenance familiar and one he would long remember.

‘Jem! Is it you?’ he gasped, delighted at this encounter. ‘I have been so worried about you – how did you escape?’

There was no response, only a quick glance, a look of astonishment and terror as the boy slipped past him and darted out into the street.

‘Jem! Wait!’ Tam yelled and rushed after him. But the boy was even faster moving than he was. The street was deserted and he had vanished into a maze of lanes. Jem, the only link with his arrival in Brighton. And he had lost sight of him.

Tam stood there helpless and stamped his foot angrily. ‘Of all the thankless little wretches! I saved his life. Damn him!’ Not even a whisper of acknowledgement or gratitude
for having saved him from the hulks and from drowning. And what about an explanation for those mysterious smugglers, so keen to rescue the lad that they had thrown Tam back into the sea to drown, after hitting him over the head just to make sure.

While he stood at the door of the inn, frustrated and fuming, he was aware of a shadow at his side. The genial landlord, flicking a duster idly and regarding him with considerable curiosity.

‘Something I can do for you, sir?’

Tam swung round to face him. ‘That lad who has just rushed out. He works for you? When did you engage him?’

The landlord smiled slyly and regarded him stolidly. ‘He came to us through friends. A little young perhaps but recommended as being honest.’

Honest? So he knew nothing of Jem’s thieving activities which had landed him on the convict ship with a sentence of transportation to the Colonies.

The landlord gave him a sideways glance, a sigh. ‘I doubt that he will be staying long with us. He will soon move on.’ A grin. ‘To better things, if you get my drift.’

Tam continued to stare at him and he shrugged. ‘Too refined, by far. However, sir, if your tastes lie in that direction, there are many more available in the area. Maybe not so pretty or so well-spoken as young Jem.’

And Tam did indeed get the landlord’s drift. Perhaps by association with Beau Brummell, whose sexual proclivities seemed doubtful, he was being offered Jem as a male child prostitute.

Speechless for a moment, he turned on his heel and stamped out of the door, overwhelmed by fury with Jem and disgust with the landlord’s preposterous
assumptions
, obliterating even the purpose of his visit –
information that might lead to the recovery of the Stuart Sapphire.

‘Damn him, damn him and damn the Old Ship too,’ he muttered under his breath as, head down, he walked through a tangle of lanes regardless of direction. Tam was trying to sort out how it was that young Jem had managed in the two days since the smugglers took him aboard to find employment in the inn. A remarkable child indeed, this worldly little thief.

He was walking fast, too fast for leisurely Brighton’s shadowy lanes, and he cannoned straight into a
middle-aged
lady emerging from a haberdasher’s shop. A scream and her bundles flew in all directions, including her parasol. Her hat flew off and was rescued just in time by the maid at her heels, who shouted indignantly at Tam.

He apologised, and helped gather together the packages which the maid snatched from him angrily.

Bowing low, again those apologies and, as the lane was too narrow for a carriage, he said weakly: ‘May I be permitted to see you both safe home, ma’am?’

The lady was stout but undoubtedly comely, and despite a bosom that was more than ample, she was not unattractive. Expecting an indignant refusal, a tirade of abuse, to his surprise the lady, her balance restored, her gown and hat set to rights, rewarded him with a radiant smile.

‘We would be grateful, young sir. It is only a step away – Steine House.’

She continued to regard him as if pleased – which she was – by the sudden apparition on a rather dull shopping occasion of an extremely presentable young man. The kind of young man she had never encountered before. Someone
strange, new and interesting, quite out of place in the Brighton she knew so well. There was an air about him she longed to explore.

Tam looked at her quickly. There was something familiar about her too. He had seen a painting, quite famous. Equally entranced, he wanted to know more.

‘As there is no one to introduce us,’ she held out a firm but dainty small hand, ‘and as I am quite old enough to be your mother, there is no indelicacy involved.’ She added sternly: ‘I am Mrs Maria Fitzherbert.’

Tam bowed, murmured his name. So this was the Prince Regent’s legal wife, a twice-widowed commoner and a Roman Catholic, whom all the trouble had been about in 1785. Quite suddenly, he understood perfectly what the history books had missed. It was there before him. Maria Fitzherbert had a rare, indefinable, sexual allure, ageless, untouched by time.

He guessed she was past fifty but, well-treated with respect and a measure of happiness, she would still be devastating at seventy. For this strange enchantment had nothing at all to do with youth and physical beauty. Quite plain women often had it, to the envy of others who had whispered down the ages: ‘Can’t see what he sees in her. She’s quite old really and so ordinary-looking.’

The short distance traversed along narrow lanes behind a scowling maid protecting her mistress made conversation impossible, but Tam realised delightedly that he was to have his chance of further acquaintance.

At the steps of Steine House, where he expected to be politely dismissed, Mrs Fitzherbert turned with that radiant smile and said: ‘Thank you for escorting me, Mr Eildor.’ Then, head on side: ‘You are from Scotland, are
you not? At least, you sound like a Scotchman.’

Tam bowed and she nodded: ‘His Royal Highness speaks highly of you.’

Tam was somewhat taken aback by this considering that he had only arrived two days ago, when, as if correctly guessing his thoughts, she continued: ‘I must confess that news runs like wildfire through Brighton, every piece of gossip takes wings and flies through the air.’

Pausing, she wagged a finger at him: ‘And you, sir, are in danger of becoming a local celebrity already. Snatched from the sea, the only survivor of a sinking ship. What a drama!’

Smiling, she waited for comment, but Tam could think of none.

‘Perhaps you would care to have a dish of tea with me, if you are not already engaged.’

Tam bowed. ‘I would be honoured, madam.’

Following her into the house, all his anger and frustration at being ignored by the wretched boy whose life he had saved at almost the cost of his own, vanished. And so did the urgent reason for his visit to the town: to track down the thief of the sapphire and the murderer of the Marchioness of Creeve.

He was enjoying a delicious moment of being shown into the salon, a large sunny room with three handsome windows overlooking the sea. Its walls were adorned by charming silhouettes of Mrs Fitzherbert’s many friends, side tables here and there were stacked with fine ornaments, while a splendidly ornate French clock bearing a Greek god perched precariously on horseback added a melodious chime to the delightful room.

Surrounded by a wealth of precious objects on every side, Tam took a seat on a handsome sofa, while he
waited for her to return from removing her cloak. That did not take long, and she took a seat alongside him, while her maid attended to the ritual of tea and dainty biscuits.

‘His Royal Highness tells me that you are from Edinburgh, Mr Eildor. He is devoted to all things Scottish, particularly to the lives of the Stuart kings. As he did not inherit the throne from them, but in rather less than happy circumstances, I must confess I am somewhat taken aback by this obsession.’

Pausing, she smiled fondly as if referring to a small boy, then, suddenly endearingly informal, she added wistfully: ‘You know he takes great fancies to people and causes and is utterly ruled by them, can talk of nothing else. Indeed, every conversation is diverted to include what is for him a new discovery.’ She stretched out a hand and patted Tam’s knee. ‘Like yourself, Mr Eildor – you are the latest in a long line.’

Then, sadly, she sighed, narrowing her eyes and gazing out at the sea’s far horizon as if it might have an answer. A shrug, almost a whisper: ‘And a short while later, alas, all are forgotten. Just as if they never existed. Discarded like a child’s toy.’

Yet she herself had survived after a period of being discarded. The prince would – Tam guessed, seeing the kind of woman she was – return to this his first real love, who had swept her magic over him and was now his dearest friend.

Turning to Tam, she smiled again. Did that little speech contain a warning that the Prince Regent was not entirely to be trusted, he thought, as with a rapid change of subject she talked of the Pavilion.