The Last Protector Read online

  At the Restoration, Reeves had fallen on hard times. Royalists had been appointed to the principal positions of the palace. They had brought in their own subordinates, and favoured their own people over those who had served the Cromwells. The changes had filtered down through the various levels of the hierarchies of servants who depended on Whitehall for the bread they ate and the very clothes on their back. Reeves had seen a younger man appointed over his head to the post of foreman.

  ‘Turned out like an old dog,’ he said, still pawing at Hakesby’s arm. ‘After all those years of service. Ain’t right.’

  ‘Indeed, it’s not right,’ Hakesby said.

  ‘A sewer is a most delicate thing,’ Reeves said. ‘If it’s to give you its best, it needs to be handled like a woman. Firmly. To understand it truly, you must know its particularities, sir. Somewhere like Whitehall, the buildings have changed so much over the years. So have the sewers. Why, a man could study them for a lifetime and they would not give up half their secrets. I tell you, sir, to see these fools and blockheads at work on my sewers makes me weep. And to have them giving me orders rubs salt in the wound.’

  He was fortunate, Reeves said bitterly, to be allowed to work at Whitehall still, albeit at the beck and call of a foreman twenty years his junior. And the work itself had become harder than it had been: an old man of fifty lacks the vigour and suppleness of a young man of twenty.

  ‘Any man,’ Hakesby said, motioning Cat to refill Reeves’ mug, ‘can dig out night soil or clear a blockage. Any young fool.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘But what they lack is this. The experience you have. The knowledge. That’s what interests me.’

  Reeves set down his mug on the table with the elaborate care of the slightly drunk. His head swayed. ‘And which particular knowledge would that be, sir?’

  ‘The Cockpit lodging.’

  Reeves pursed his lips in a silent whistle. ‘You don’t make it easy, do you?’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘It’s a jumble underneath there, sir. Not the Cockpit itself, that’s not too bad since they converted it to a theatre. It’s the rest of the place, the lodgings and the tennis courts. Worse than anywhere at Whitehall, except maybe the old royal apartments.’ His voice acquired a whine as it fell into the rhythm of a familiar complaint. ‘First the Cromwells, then the Duke of Albemarle. Change this, change that, rebuild here, extend there. No rhyme or reason to it. No one gives a thought to what’s underneath, where the waste goes. And when it all goes wrong, and when the neighbours complain, and when even the King notices the stink’s got worse than ever – who do they turn round and blame?’ He thumped his chest with the hand that wasn’t holding his almost empty mug of ale. ‘Us mazer scourers, that’s who. Pox on them all, that’s what I say.’

  ‘But you’re the ones who solve their problems, too. Without you, where would they be?’

  ‘Up to their ears in their own shit, sir, that’s where.’

  Hakesby took a roll of paper from his coat and smoothed it out on the table. ‘As it happens, I’ve a little problem of my own. Unlike them, I shall be properly grateful to you when you solve it.’

  His hand began to tremble, and Cat finished the job for him, weighting one side of the paper with the jug. It was a copy she had made of his original sketch of the Cockpit lodgings before the Cromwells’ alterations in the 1650s. He nodded to her, a signal for her to speak.

  She angled the plan towards Reeves. ‘There.’ She traced the line with her finger. ‘King Street. Here’s the Cockpit, with the main buildings of the old lodgings to the south, with its garden.’

  Frowning, Reeves leaned over the table to study the plan, bringing with him his smell. ‘Phoo,’ he said, addressing Hakesby and ignoring Cat. ‘You wouldn’t recognize it now, sir, indeed you wouldn’t. They’ve put up a whole range on that side, into the Park. And the garden’s smaller because they’ve built over the south of it.’

  Hakesby pointed at the line showing the boundary of the kitchen garden. His finger was shaking so badly that it was impossible to tell what he was indicating.

  Reeves looked askance at him. ‘Faith, sir, what’s wrong? The trembling?’

  Hakesby drew back his hand. ‘An ague,’ he snapped. ‘This cold damp weather brings it on. It’s nothing.’

  Cat said, ‘This enclosure here.’ Her own finger tapped the area enclosed by the line. ‘Do you mark it, Mr Reeves? It used to be a kitchen garden in the old days.’

  ‘Ah – yes. Mainly service buildings down there now.’

  Hakesby had moved his treacherous hands under the table. ‘The dotted line,’ he said. ‘That was the run of the sewer. A stream ran through it.’

  ‘No stream now, sir, or not above once or twice a year when the rain’s bad.’

  ‘It’s still in use?’

  ‘Yes. But there’s another one now, much bigger. The new one runs south, too, but over towards the Tennis Court passage. It’s wider than the old one.’

  ‘Tell me about the old one.’

  Reeves turned his head and spat on the floor. ‘Not in good shape, last time I saw it. That old brickwork crumbles soon as look at it. Ventilation’s bad, and it backs up in bad weather. We’ve had a couple of roof falls, too. What do they expect? It hasn’t been looked after. I told you, a sewer’s like a woman, sir. Gives you good service if it has a little attention from time to time, and regular rodding.’

  Cat cleared her throat. Reeves met her eye. She scowled at him. He looked away.

  Hakesby said, ‘How do you get into the old one when it needs cleaning? There used to be a shaft in the kitchen garden.’

  ‘Still there. It’s in the cellars.’ Reeves tapped the plan with a horny fingernail. ‘But it’s tricky even to get down there, because it’s so narrow.’

  ‘What are the cellars used for?’

  Reeves peered into the empty jug. ‘Thirsty work, sir, this talking. And before we go on, maybe you could tell me why you’re so curious. I mean no impertinence, but a man has to watch out for himself. And you says you’d show your gratitude, but a token of that beforehand would have a mighty convincing effect.’

  There was a delay while another jug of ale was ordered. Hakesby fumbled in his purse and drew out a handful of change. The coins slipped through his fingers and skittered across the table. Reeves swept them into his hand. Cat was quietly furious that Hakesby was willing to use their own money for the benefit of the Cromwells.

  ‘Thank you kindly, master,’ Reeves said, as he pocketed the money. ‘These cellars. His Grace’s servants keep a deal of stuff down there. A lot of it came out of the Cockpit when it was refurbished. Rubbish they used in the theatre. Old costumes in boxes. Painted boards.’

  ‘Suppose someone wanted to have a look at the old sewer privately,’ Hakesby said. ‘To study its construction, say.’

  Reeves snorted. ‘Someone who wasn’t wanting to disturb the people of the house unnecessarily? That sort of study, sir?’

  Hakesby compressed his lips, biting back a reproof. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be easy. You’d have to get into the Cockpit to begin with. Even when the Duke’s not in residence, there’ll be servants around.’

  ‘Of course,’ Hakesby said. ‘But we might gain admittance as your friends, as country folk in town on a holiday, with a desire to see how the great people live at Whitehall?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to see the sewers, though, would you?’

  ‘Suppose,’ Cat said, interested despite herself, ‘suppose someone went in there as a mazer scourer?’

  ‘To clear a reported blockage?’ Reeves tilted his head to one shoulder and stared at Cat with bright little eyes. ‘Aye, mistress, that might answer. You’d need a warrant for that, and the tools of the trade. And it’d be risky.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Which means expensive.’

  ‘When the Duke’s not in residence,’ Hakesby said slowly, ‘there must be fewer servants about.’

  ‘Over Easter,’ Reeves said. ‘If His Grace ain
’t there, the place will be half empty.’

  ‘Easter Monday then,’ Cat said. ‘If the Duke is away, that would be the time to choose. It’s a holiday, so most of the servants wouldn’t be there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Hakesby said. ‘That would answer.’

  Reeves looked at Cat, frowning. His hand lifted his mug and his eyes moved back to Hakesby. Cat could read his thoughts as if he had spoken them aloud: How could an old fool in your condition play the part of a mazer scourer? How could you even get down a sewer?

  ‘We’ll need help in the sewer,’ she said after a pause, since this point seemed not to have occurred to Hakesby. He was nodding to himself and staring into his ale with a vacant expression on his face. ‘Would you go down with us?’

  ‘Better not me,’ he said.

  ‘Then how will we know where to go?’

  ‘Don’t fret about that, mistress. If you’re willing to pay, I’ll let you have Ferrus.’

  ‘Ferrus?’ said Hakesby, suddenly alert again. He cupped his hand over his ear. ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll need me too, obviously,’ Reeves said, his eyes still on Cat. ‘Ferrus is no use at all without me. He’s like a dog, you might say. No good to man or beast without his master to tell him what to do.’

  ‘Who is Ferrus?’ Hakesby demanded.

  ‘Look out the window, sir. See the corner by the necessary house? That’s Ferrus.’

  The diamond-shaped panes of glass were thick and distorted. A layer of grime and candle grease obscured them still further. Cat rubbed at a lozenge with her fingertip, clearing a spyhole. The glass was green. It gave a murky tinge to the wavering world outside.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about him blabbing, either. He won’t say a word, I warrant you that. He don’t say any words.’

  The rain was falling steadily. The overhang of the roof of the privy extended a few feet into the yard. Two leather buckets were hanging underneath, a standard requirement for all houses in London to meet the danger of future fires.

  A solitary figure crouched on his haunches between the buckets. Perhaps it was the distortion in the glass, but he looked unnaturally thin. He turned his head towards Cat, as if sensing her gaze. His face was narrow, with the eyes seemingly quite separate from each other, like a fish’s. He had a low, sloping forehead and a large, broad nose.

  ‘There’s Ferrus,’ Reeves repeated with a certain pride in his voice. ‘Faith, sir, you’ve never seen anything like him. I could show him at Bartholomew Fair if I had a mind to it. Why, I believe he’d squeeze himself through a keyhole if I told him to.’

  One of the worse things about this business with the Cromwells was that nothing happened quickly. It dragged on, Cat thought, until it became woven into the fabric of everyday life. It gave her a constant sense of foreboding. It was like always being hungry or never being quite warm enough or having a toothache.

  After the meeting with Reeves, Hakesby wrote to Richard Cromwell, under his assumed name of Cranmore. Or rather he dictated the letter to Cat. Not trusting the Post Office, whose clerks were rumoured to examine the contents of every letter that passed through their hands, he ordered the porter’s boy to take it to Mistress Dalton’s house.

  Despite this precaution, Hakesby was guarded in what he said. He had made enquiries, he told Mr Cromwell, and he had learned that Easter Monday (despite its being a holiday) might be a convenient time to explore the matter further. However, he added, there were preliminaries to be settled first, and conditions to be met, and he begged the favour of a meeting with Mr Cranmore at his earliest convenience.

  To Cat’s surprise, her husband derived a childlike enjoyment from dictating this carefully phrased letter; the secrecy of the matter charmed him for its own sake, quite apart from the pleasure and the excitement he derived from his acquaintance with the former Lord Protector and his daughter.

  In return, Mr Hakesby received a quick, uninformative reply, which did little more than acknowledge with thanks the receipt of his letter and say that Mr Cranmore would write more fully as soon as he was able. This left the matter in limbo, and Hakesby and Cat with it. As the days passed without a second letter, the more her husband’s disappointment grew. He betrayed it by his increasing irritation with Cat, and even with Brennan.

  Hakesby still seemed to have given no thought to the risks that this connection with Cromwell involved, nor to the practicalities of retrieving whatever the late Lady Protectoress had concealed in the Cockpit. When Cat tried to raise such matters, he brushed the questions aside, flapping his hands as if pushing them physically away from him.

  Hakesby’s temper was always worse at night, when they retired to bed. When the fit was upon him, he cursed her for an interfering clumsy fool, a witch who had stolen away his manhood. Sometimes he lashed out at her with his fist as well, though he was too weak to do much harm.

  She did not strike him back. Instead she retreated, sometimes locking herself in the closet and ignoring his shouting and banging. Once or twice she slept there, wrapped in two cloaks and lying on bare boards that smelled faintly of the lemon juice and vinegar that she and the maid had used to scrub them.

  Neither Brennan nor the Hakesbys’ maid seemed to notice anything amiss. Marriage was a private place. No one was fully aware of what went on within it except the parties involved.

  In the house by Hatton Garden, there was a knocking on the gate, and the porter admitted the all too familiar figure of the Reverend Mr Veal.

  Mistress Dalton summoned Mr Cromwell to the window to watch the thin figure striding across the courtyard. Veal’s long, dun-coloured coat made him look even taller than he was. He paused to say something to Thomas, the manservant, who had come out to greet him.

  ‘I wish he wouldn’t come.’ Mistress Dalton plucked a loose thread from her skirt. ‘He’s always here. It’s every day now. Turning up again and again, like a bad penny.’

  Cromwell smiled at her, trying to suppress his own unease. ‘I’m surprised at you, mistress. Mr Veal’s but a poor clergyman when all is said and done. I don’t know what would have become of him if the Duke hadn’t taken him in.’

  The smile felt false, but he could hardly tell her the complete truth. Even Elizabeth didn’t know that.

  ‘That may be so,’ his hostess said tartly. ‘But I wish he didn’t come to my house. He hovers so strangely about the place, like a great brown bird looking for something to peck. And he never says anything, or not to me.’

  ‘It’s true that Mr Veal is a man of few words. And you are most gracious to allow him to call on me in your own house.’

  ‘But why does he come here so often?’

  ‘The Duke and I have business to discuss; nothing that need trouble you, I promise. He may be able to help me with some of my difficulties. Mr Veal is his emissary.’

  There were footsteps outside, and the servant showed Veal into the parlour. He bowed silently to Mistress Dalton, and then to Cromwell.

  ‘I’ll leave you to your conversation, sirs,’ she said with a sour look.

  After she had gone, Veal made sure that the door was latched. He turned back to Cromwell. ‘His Grace commanded me to give you this, sir.’ He took a small purse of kid leather from his pocket and placed it in Cromwell’s palm, where it lay, soft and heavy. ‘There will be more, of course,’ he went on. ‘Much more, when all’s done.’

  ‘At our last meeting, I gave you the schedule of my debts – my English debts, that is.’

  Veal inclined his head. ‘His Grace has seen it.’

  ‘His Grace is most generous. Has he indicated whether he will be able to lend me something towards meeting them? This’ – he glanced down at the purse in his hand, weighing it – ‘is very obliging, but it’s no more than a drop in a bucket.’

  Cromwell hated the wheedling tone in his voice. Poverty diminished a gentleman in his own eyes, as well as in the eyes of others.

  ‘There will be no difficulty, sir. All in good time.’ Veal lowered his voice. ‘In return,
though, His Grace asks for a small service from you. Not for his own sake, but for this unhappy kingdom’s.’

  ‘With all my heart, sir. What service?’

  ‘To meet a few gentlemen. In private, naturally. But not incognito as you were last month at Wallingford House. The Duke says that it’s time for you to appear in your proper character as the former Lord Protector and the son of the great Oliver.’

  ‘That would be dangerous for both of us. Indeed, it would be folly.’

  ‘You need not worry, sir. His Grace would choose the company with care. He desires to show himself a friend to reconciliation and true religion. You saw the proof of that last month, when Dr Owen preached so affectingly at Wallingford House. He wants to show by his actions that old quarrels can be forgotten.’

  Cromwell sat down. He rubbed the arm of his chair with his thumb, avoiding Veal’s eyes. ‘I can’t let it be known that I’m in England. It would be disastrous for me. It would not look well for the Duke, either, if he were seen consorting with me.’

  ‘That depends on who was looking, sir. As I said, he would choose the company with care.’ Veal drew closer. The light from the window fell on his face. The skin on his high, bony forehead was flaking. Abruptly he changed the subject: ‘In ten days’ time, it will be Easter Monday.’

  ‘Easter Monday? That’s not quite convenient to—’

  ‘His Grace has something in mind, and he wishes to have your company then.’

  Veal paused. Cromwell smiled, as he always did when he felt uneasy, and continued to rub the arm of his chair.

  ‘He will arrange everything,’ Veal went on. ‘You need not disturb yourself in the least. But you will be here at Easter, won’t you?’

  Cromwell moistened his lips. ‘I’m anxious to oblige the Duke in every way I can. But I cannot be absolutely certain that Providence won’t take a hand in some way, and—’

  ‘You need have no fear as long as you stay here,’ Veal interrupted. ‘At Mistress Dalton’s.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Precautions have been taken to ensure your safety, sir. My master told me only this morning that he would never forgive himself if any harm came to you. But if you leave this house, it becomes harder to protect you.’