The Last Protector Page 17

The day was dry, with bursts of sunshine bringing a foretaste of spring. If Buckingham’s people were still watching Arundel House, I saw no sign of them. The porter admitted me. I crossed the court to the doorway of my lord’s apartments, where I sent up my name, together with Mr Williamson’s compliments to my lord.

  Usually this would bring down a servant with a note. This time, however, Mr Weld appeared, the gentleman I had met here once or twice before. Like his patron the Earl, he was a papist. For all that, I found him a man with a cultivated mind and a dry, straight-faced wit that was much to my taste.

  ‘God save you, Mr Marwood,’ he said, bowing. ‘Have you come to inspect the invalid?’

  ‘He continues to improve, I hope?’

  ‘You shall see for yourself, sir.’

  He led me to the nearest window that looked over that part of the garden between the house and the river. Three men were walking slowly abreast along one of the gravel walks. As I watched, they paused to examine one of old Lord Arundel’s Roman statues that were such a feature of the place. I recognized the slight, stooping figure in the middle of the three.

  ‘That’s my lord, isn’t it?’ I said, surprised.

  ‘It is indeed.’

  Shrewsbury was leaning on the arm of a manservant. He wore a heavily furred gown and a beaver hat, but no periwig. The third man was dressed in a physician’s robes. Shrewsbury turned his head to speak to him, and I glimpsed my lord’s sharp-featured face. He looked clean-shaven and much as I had seen him before, at Barn Elms before the duel.

  ‘He is so much improved.’

  ‘He grows stronger every day. Against all expectation, they must have worked.’

  I groped for an instant, and then took his meaning: ‘Ah. The pigeons.’

  ‘Precisely.’ Weld’s face was as grave as ever, but something in his tone – the merest inflection – suggested that he had come as near to a smile as he was ever likely to. ‘Freshly killed, cut open and applied to my lord’s feet and also, just in case, to the wound in his side itself.’

  ‘A tribute to the skill of our doctors, sir. And perhaps to my lord’s constitution.’

  Weld nodded. ‘His improvement has been slow, though. But he and his physicians are quite convinced that it dates from when the pigeons were applied. I believe there is talk of a paper for the Royal Society.’

  ‘Ah – it will be interesting to discover the physiological mechanisms involved.’

  ‘I understand there’s still some uncertainty as to their precise nature.’

  ‘Are pigeons essential to the healing art?’ I asked, a bubble of mirth threatening to erupt. ‘Or would any bird be equally efficacious? A sparrow, perhaps?’

  ‘No doubt the natural philosophers will soon enlighten us.’ Weld shrugged and then added, ‘In truth, I thought we would lose my lord, that day you saw him. He was so sorely wounded, and his fever ran so high.’

  His words took me back to my first visit to Arundel House, the only time that I had had the opportunity to talk to the Earl. I said, ‘He was rambling, poor man.’ I hesitated, only for a fraction. Weld glanced at me, narrowing his eyes slightly. I went on: ‘He talked a great deal about the dog and the bitch. Dog and bitch. Over and over again.’

  ‘We know what that means.’ Weld’s lips compressed themselves into a line. ‘My lady and her gallant lover.’

  ‘I wonder.’ I remembered my eavesdropping at the duel, and the King’s words to the Duke when I had seen him at Whitehall that evening. The dog and the bitch. I remember it well, pox on it.

  Weld shrugged. ‘What else could he have meant? Dog and Bitch Yard? I hardly think so.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Somewhere off Drury Lane, I believe. The bawdy house.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ I said, adding hastily, ‘I know it only by repute.’

  ‘I’ve never been there myself,’ Weld said, ‘naturally.’ I sensed his distaste for the subject; some of these papists are as prim as a Puritan on Sunday. ‘And,’ he went on, ‘I wager my lord has never gone there either.’ He looked down his long, well-bred nose at me. ‘But a man like Buckingham probably knows every last hole and corner of the place.’

  Dog and Bitch Yard. Knowing Buckingham’s habits, I should have thought of this possibility long before. I suppose it was a tribute to my innocence that I had not.

  After I had said goodbye to Mr Weld and left Arundel House, I crossed the Strand and turned up Drury Lane. It was approaching midday, and the air was full of cooking smells. People were walking briskly into Bear Yard with dinner on their mind. Why, I wondered, in those desperate moments immediately after the duel, had Buckingham mentioned dog and bitch to Veal? Had he meant Dog and Bitch Yard? At that point in the afternoon, with one man dead and another perhaps dying, even the Duke would hardly have desired the services of a whore.

  Outside the King’s Theatre, I paused, pretending to examine a playbill fixed to a post. It was said that on occasion the King himself visited London’s bawdy houses incognito. I had never entered one of these stews, though God knew that my imagination had sometimes roved in that direction. In my younger days, the cost deterred me. Fear of catching the pox was now the stronger argument, regularly reinforced by the sight of those poor, broken-down drabs whose looks were gone; once pox-ridden, they were reduced to fumbling in dark doorways for sixpence a time, or less if their customers were prepared to haggle.

  In some part of me there also lingered the effects of my upbringing; for our parents never leave us entirely, whether we wish it or not; and my poor father had beaten a sense of shame into me that I could never quite root out. ‘We are all sinners,’ he would say, and then grunt as he brought down his stick on my back.

  I walked on. Cat was only a few hundred yards away on the other side of Covent Garden. I wished I could lay this affair before her and enquire her opinion. She had a way of cutting through to whatever was essential in a matter.

  Though I knew that the Dog and Bitch Yard was off Drury Lane, I did not know its precise location. In the end I was forced to ask one of the cookboys hurrying past with someone’s dinner on a tray.

  ‘Up there, master,’ he said with a toss of his head up the street. ‘Just before Long Acre.’

  A beggar nearby burst into lewd laughter and rubbed his privates. ‘Get it out, your worship! Stick it in!’ He was drawing unwanted attention to me, so rather than give him a blow with my stick, I walked quickly on.

  Despite the boy’s directions, it took me several minutes to find the entry that led into the yard. The alley was straight, and wide enough for a horse. I hurried along it into the yard beyond. It was less squalid than I had expected, being properly paved. The houses on either side were old, built before the Fire, but they looked sound enough. The one at the back of the court was larger, with a modern frontage built of brick, though the house behind was older. The woodwork of the doors and window frames had been freshly painted. For all the world, the place looked as if a respectable citizen lived there.

  The oddest feature of all was that Dog and Bitch Yard was empty. It seemed to be holding its breath and waiting for something to happen. There was no sign of life whatsoever, even a cat. I stared up at the windows, wondering if someone was watching me. It was not a warm day but I was sweating.

  A sense of my own folly swept over me. What had I expected to find here? A clue that would unravel the mystery of the name’s significance? But what if there were no significance to unravel? Perhaps I had misheard what Buckingham said after the duel; perhaps the feverish Shrewsbury had meant his bitch of a wife; and perhaps the King had been merely invoking the memory of some past debauch that he and the Duke had shared in one of these prim-looking houses.

  I turned to go. And at once I stopped. It felt as though my heart had stopped too. The alley stretched ahead of me to the street beyond. At its far end was Roger Durrell.

  His reactions were faster than mine. He tugged out his sword and advanced down the alley. As I had noticed after the duel, he wa
s surprisingly nimble for a man of his size.

  Blind panic took me over. I ran to the back of the court. The brick house had a single door, at the top of a short flight of steps. But there was also a small gate at the left-hand side. I lifted the latch and pushed. By the grace of God the gate wasn’t barred.

  Another, narrower alley lay beyond, winding between this house and its less substantial neighbour. It was much gloomier than the yard. The upper storeys of both buildings were jettied out until they nearly met each other, making a tunnel of the passageway. The jagged rooflines admitted only a ribbon of sky.

  I slammed the gate behind me, glancing wildly at the back of it in the hope of finding a bolt or bar. But there was no time: Durrell’s footsteps sounded very close. I fled down the alley.

  Behind me, the latch rattled and the gate clattered against the wall. Durrell’s footsteps were louder, amplified by the walls on either side. I turned another corner. There was the exit from the passage not twenty yards away. But it was completely blocked by a cart carrying a load of hay.

  In a moment I would be trapped. A couple of paces ahead, there was a doorway recessed into the wall of the house on the right. I backed into it, raising my stick. I had no choice but to fight. With luck I would have at least an element of surprise.

  My shoulders nudged against the door behind me. It opened suddenly. I almost fell backwards into the house.

  ‘God save you, master, you’re in a hurry,’ a man said behind me.

  I felt a hand drawing me inside. The porter bolted the door and scowled at me. He was a large man with a flattened nose and pockmarked face.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, panting.

  ‘Shouldn’t have been left open,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll flay the damned boy alive when I find him.’

  ‘Here,’ I said, finding a shilling in my purse. ‘I – I’m much obliged to you.’

  The shilling improved his mood, if only by a fraction. ‘You should come in by the front door, sir, not this one. That’s the one for the gentlemen. Anyway, we’re not receiving callers yet.’

  I adjusted my hat and peruke. ‘Yes.’ I took a deep breath, trying to steady my breathing. ‘I must have mistook the hour.’

  ‘You’ll have to come back later.’

  ‘Or perhaps wait?’ I suggested, mindful of who was on the other side of the door.

  The shilling was doing its work. ‘You’re desperate for it, sir, I can see that. Tell you what, come with me, and I’ll see what I can do. No promises, mind.’

  I gave him another shilling to ram home the good work of the first. He led me into a broad hall at the front of the house. There was a flight of stairs at the back of it. As we reached it, a woman’s voice floated down from above our heads.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Gentleman, madam.’

  ‘Why did you let him in?’

  ‘I didn’t. Tom left the side door unbarred. But he seems a very open-handed gentleman, madam, and willing to be generous. Shall I tell him to wait?’

  There was no answer. I heard her footsteps pattering away.

  The porter nodded familiarly to me. ‘You’re in with a chance, I’d say. She trusts my judgement, you see.’

  Shortly afterwards, another man in livery came downstairs. But there was nothing of the servant in his manner. His movements were catlike, with a calculating grace about them. He carried a staff which had an iron ball at its head, and an iron spike at its foot.

  He ran his eyes over me as he approached. ‘Madam says you can come up, even though you’re early,’ he said. ‘As long as you look the right sort. Madam is most particular.’

  It cost me yet another shilling to look the right sort. He led me upstairs and opened a door. He stood aside to allow me to enter a large, high-ceilinged drawing room. The door closed behind me.

  I was alone. Though it was the middle of the day, the curtains were partly closed. The air smelled of perfume, tallow and yesterday’s tobacco. Paintings of naked and almost life-size figures, mainly female and billowing with pink flesh, adorned the walls. There were several sofas, which were piled high with cushions and arranged against the walls and before the fireplace.

  I moved towards the window, hoping that it might be a means of escape. A table for writing stood before it. A broad stripe of sunlight ran over a disorderly pile of papers, with an inkpot and pen discarded beside it. The window looked out into Dog and Bitch Yard, which was no longer empty. Two gentlemen were down there, staring up at the house, one of them pointing it out to the other with his stick.

  The sunlit papers on the desk caught my eye as I drew back into the room. The top sheet had only two words on it, scrawled in large capital letters a third of the way down the paper, and centrally placed, like a title: THE REHEARSAL. It was marked by the ring of a wine glass, and a few drops of candlewax.

  I pushed the page aside. Beneath it was another, partly filled by a passage written in a fluent scrawl. My eyes skimmed over the heading:

  Petition to the most Splendid, Illustrious, Lady of Pleasure, the Countess of Castlemayne &c: The Humble Petition of the Undone Company of poore distressed Whores, Bawds, Pimps, and Panders …

  And at the foot of the page:

  Signed by us, Madam Cresswell and Damaris Page, in the behalf of our Fellow-Sufferers in Dog and Bitch Yard, Lukenor’s Lane, Saffron Hill, Moorfields, Chiswell Street, Rosemary Lane, Nightingale Lane, Ratcliffe Highway, Well Close, East Smithfield …

  A hinge creaked.

  ‘Well, sir, fortune smiles on you today.’

  It was her voice I had heard earlier. I spun round. There was a second doorway in the room, partly concealed by a painted screen. A small woman was standing by the end of the screen. She was in her forties or even fifties, but the remains of beauty clung to her face. She was well dressed, but in a quiet, genteel way; she might have been the wife of a prosperous merchant welcoming a guest to her house.

  ‘Madam,’ I said, bowing, ‘I’m so very much obliged to you, I’m sure.’

  ‘We open at three o’clock in the afternoon. But, since you have somehow found yourself here, I suppose we must quench your ardour.’

  I bowed again. ‘You are kindness itself.’

  She came towards me. Her movements were graceful, and her carriage could have been a court lady’s. ‘Let us have a little more light.’

  She stopped by the window and pulled the curtains open. She tidied the notes on the desk into a pile and placed the inkpot on top to act as a paperweight.

  ‘I think one or two of our misses may be ready to receive a gentlemen visitor. Indeed, they are so fond of the society of gentlemen that they are always beforehand in preparing themselves. But I fear that you are so early that some of them may still be in their shifts.’

  I could think of nothing to say, so I bowed again.

  ‘But first a glass of wine to sharpen your appetite and deepen the pleasure to come. You mustn’t be bashful, sir – the young ladies like a man with fire in his belly. Would you ring the bell? The rope’s by the fireplace.’

  No sooner did I ring than the catlike manservant reappeared with a tray containing wine and biscuits.

  ‘It’s the custom of the house for a visiting gentleman to pay for a bottle of wine. Shall we say a pound? Pray give it to Merton.’

  There was no help for it. I took out my purse and placed a little heap of silver on the tray that Merton held out to me.

  ‘Let us sit and be cosy together,’ Madam Cresswell said, waving me to one of the sofas. ‘Have you visited one of my houses before?’

  ‘No, madam. I – I haven’t had the pleasure.’

  She sat near me but on another sofa. I took a mouthful of wine. All the while, I was listening for sounds downstairs.

  ‘What’s your pleasure?’ she asked. ‘Are you a man of valour who likes to make a direct assault on the main gate of the citadel, and carry all before you with the impetus of your gallant charge? Or are you a subtler warrior, a cunning Odysseus perhaps, who slips i
n by the postern gate at the rear?’

  ‘I-I scarcely know, madam.’

  She smiled at me, chidingly, like a mother amused by her child’s bashfulness. ‘Or do you like to chastise a pretty rogue in order to urge her towards the path of virtue? No? Perhaps you yourself are more of a scholar? You prefer to go to school and be taught. And sometimes birched if you do not learn your letters fast enough?’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I believe I have been schooled enough.’

  ‘At the school of love, sir, there is always something new to learn. What of the language of love? Some of my gentlemen like their miss to talk bawdy to them. For my most discerning visitors, I recommend the indescribably sweet company of a pair of fricatrices. That indeed is a rare pleasure, both to behold and to partake in. Sometimes they need a gentleman’s rod to help them in their naughty play and to chastise them when they grow overbold.’

  I finished my glass of wine. Merton was still hovering.

  I cleared my throat. ‘I’m a plain fellow, madam.’

  ‘I understand. Like a wise man, no doubt, you prefer to see the goods before you buy. And so you shall.’ She glanced at the servant. ‘The bell.’

  Merton tugged the rope twice. Less than a minute later, three young women filed into the room. They lined up in front of me.

  ‘My dears,’ said Madam Cresswell, ‘allow me to present you to this gentleman. First, sir, from the left, we have Amaryllis. Turn round, you pretty little thing, and don’t be shy. Let our guest admire your charms.’

  Amaryllis was a plump, dark-haired girl with a snub nose. She wore a shift that was loose at the neck. As she rotated for my pleasure, she encouraged her breasts to swing before my eyes, giving me a glimpse of nipples along with a whiff of perfume and sweat. She was followed by Dorinda, a thin girl with a frightened face and blue eyes; she looked no more than twelve years old, and her forearms were smudged with bruises fading from purple to a delicate blue.

  Finally, there came Chloris in a bedgown of silk trimmed with fur at the neck and cuffs. She stared directly at me, with no attempt at coquetry. God help me, she reminded me of Cat, though the latter’s complexion was fairer, in both senses of the word. She let the gown fall open. Underneath she was naked. Without haste, she drew the gown tightly around her.