The Emperor's Gold

by Robert Wilton

  The ‘I too’, rather than ‘me too’, was jarringly foreign, and then Roscarrock reflected that there was considerably more chance of the Frenchman being right than him. ‘Indeed,’ he said with polite warmth, and introduced himself.

  Monsieur Maréchal was a merchant. Roscarrock explained that his own business was in building ships rather than running them; he regretted having agreed to that version of the lie – he’d have found it easier to bluff on sea-borne trade than he was going to on the shipbuilding industry.

  ‘May I ask where you build?’

  ‘Of course. In the south-west, principally.’

  ‘Ah, but of course. Such excellent natural harbours.’ A little smile. ‘I am always amused at the differences in manners on such occasions. A Frenchman – and certainly an Italian – would have answered me with the size of his fortune and the names of his greatest ships. An Englishman preserves the veil of discretion over such gross details, and in so doing allows me to infer the scope of his enterprise.’

  ‘I fear we use a reputation for discretion to justify rudeness.’

  Monsieur Maréchal was shocked at the suggestion. In an essentially rude age, discretion stood out the more clearly. They discussed the health of the shipbuilding industry, the attitudes of the craftsmen. Mr Grey asked about trade. Monsieur Maréchal demonstrated his own talent for discretion; obviously it was not legally possible to trade with France, but if a man had contacts, and intermediaries, and prudence… He was hoping to expand into the Baltic. His enforced stay in London had brought him to appreciate the virtues of the colder-blooded northern Europeans. Enforced stay? Monsieur Maréchal shrugged delicately. Alas, Napoleon Bonaparte was not a businessman.

  ‘And you, Monsieur Grey, do you come here to talk of ships, or’ – the shrug – ‘perhaps a little politics?’

  Roscarrock alarmed himself by producing a shrug in unconscious mimicry of the Frenchman. ‘Napoleon may not be a businessman, Monsieur, but he is driving politics in the most interesting direction.’

  To which Maréchal gave a discreet, unvoiced ‘Ah’.

  They might have gone on shrugging at each other for the rest of the evening, but mercifully a third man interrupted. Simple practical clothes expensively made, bearing and approach unavoidably English. Thomas Tuff was an insurance broker from Manchester. He had an interest in the details of southern England’s shipyards that tested Roscarrock’s inspiration to the limit, and an enthusiasm for the technicalities of modern developments in shipbuilding that was bewildering. Roscarrock was considerably more comfortable when they moved onto the winds in the Solent, but bored of the conversation and unable to think of a single useful question to ask about insurance. He politely steered Thomas Tuff’s interest towards trends in European trade with the major British ports, and then pretended to spot an old acquaintance just over Maréchal’s shoulder and left them to it.

  A man with dark curls was watching with unease as a pretty woman in the bluest and most fashionable of dresses addressed a group on his behalf. ‘The attempt to bar Sir Francis from Parliament is simply wrong. It is the greatest indictment of our constitution. We must all, I’m sure, do all we can to bring pressure to bear to have him reinstated.’

  ‘The support of Lady Charlotte is worth a petition of millions.’ Sir Francis was clearly happier talking for himself. ‘But the stupidities of the system merely draw attention to its obsolescence.’

  Lady Charlotte Pelham was not done. ‘We must do something. You, sir’ – she was gazing at Roscarrock as if he might be bringing news of Napoleon’s joyous arrival at Greenwich – ‘can you help us?’ Roscarrock’s hesitation was clearly a disappointment. ‘Do you know Sir Francis Burdett? I am honoured to introduce you.’ Roscarrock introduced himself, and said that it was his honour both to meet Sir Francis and to do so in the presence of Lady Charlotte. Burdett accepted the introduction politely, and Lady Charlotte continued to chatter earnestly over the discomfort of the men.

  The evening was a revelation to Roscarrock – ideas that would have got a London apprentice flogged were thrown around like toys by the aristocrats. But he would learn nothing new from these little public performances. He drifted on around the room. Two radical barristers: ‘What was it Whitbread said? Conditions of the British working class are worse than for the slaves going to the Americas.’ A journalist scoffing at the King’s sickness, ineptness and German-ness; another journalist replying that a healthy shrewd Englishman would not redeem the institution of kingship, which was itself an offence. A French voice: ‘Metz? The old General is a fantasy – an illusion. The idea that one ancient Royalist hero could inspire France against the Emperor is absurd.’ A parson – two parsons – talking of natural philosophy. From somewhere off Roscarrock’s shoulder the phrase ‘the purifying effect of a single act of great violence’. Impossible to tell who had said the words. They might have come from a Frenchman who was standing there, but he was alone.

  They swapped names. The ease with which Roscarrock was distributing a name he knew to be a fiction, and the ease with which he accepted names that might as well have been, was dusting the evening with new unreality. Monsieur Delacroix was a writer recently arrived from Paris, and apparently free to travel back and forth. He was interested in what Roscarrock could tell him of the condition of the poor, the state of the harvest, and the health of industry. He was surely too obvious to be an agent of Napoleon’s police. But then Roscarrock was making up his answers in any case.

  He asked similar questions of the Frenchman, trying to suggest a vaguely maritime or manufacturing interest while doing what he could to gather how and how often Delacroix travelled. Polite interest in Delacroix’s writing.

  On reflection, wasn’t it obvious that, once a man was moving between London and Paris, it was irrelevant whether you labelled him a police agent or not? What was it the Reverend Forster had said? There were no lines to be drawn.

  Another man joined them: perhaps thirty years old, the big, clear eyes of a child dragged down by a heavy jaw. This, said the Frenchman, was Mr Hodge. Presumably Mr Grey had had the opportunity to hear him speak. Unfortunately not – the tiresome pressures of business. But Mr Henry Hodge was the most highly regarded of political speakers; Mr Grey should abandon business completely if he had the chance to hear such rhetoric.

  Mr Hodge was pleasantly untroubled by Mr Grey’s ignorance. He gulped a large mouthful of wine, brushed a crumb from a bulky shirt front, and explained that he tended to speak in rather out of the way places. No doubt Mr Grey would understand that advertising his activities could bring the wrong sort of attention. The three of them laughed pleasantly. Roscarrock watched the solid young man: if he was a radical orator, he ran significant risks; but Hodge seemed to have less caution, less conspiratorial reserve, than most of the others in the shimmering drawing room. Obviously delighted to see Mr Grey sometime – but no doubt a conversation would do as well – man of Mr Grey’s experience would hardly be surprised by much that he could say – but it might do Mr Grey good to see the passion of the crowd.

  It might indeed, but Lady Charlotte Pelham had other plans. Here was Mr Grey at last; she’d been looking for him; he must meet Mr Harris – Mr Rokeby Harris; she was sure they would have much in common.

  Roscarrock thanked Lady Charlotte politely, and watched her a moment longer. Her effect was foolish, but the attractive face was honest and earnest. Reform might only be a fashion to her, but she took her fashions seriously. Her social mediation, meanwhile, this constant chivvying of stolid men, had more chance of bringing together the critical elements of a revolution than any number of public meetings. She gazed back at Roscarrock with simple interest, fingered the pearls that rolled down towards her discreetly swelling cleavage, and smiled uneasily.

  But the eyes couldn’t stay still for long, and she caught sight of another section of the room that needed inspiration, and was gone. Across the room Roscarrock could see Jessel locked in earnest conversation with the two journalists who’d b
een discussing the King. He turned back to the other man, Harris. ‘I suppose there’s a chance that we might actually find something in common.’

  Harris smiled, a careful, measured action between trimmed side-whiskers. ‘I think we owe it to Lady Charlotte to try.’ The voice was dry and discreet, with the swallowed, rumbling vowels of the north country. ‘Ships, I gather.’

  Roscarrock nodded. ‘And you?’

  Rokeby Harris’s face was tired, a face eroded by time and experience; but the eyes were clear and earnest. ‘I’m retired, Mr Grey. I invest a little. Advise.’ The face, the simple quality of the clothes, the quiet measured speech, spoke honesty. Somehow it made Roscarrock wary, and a part of him winced in sadness at his own cynicism.

  ‘And before…’ At last his brain caught up. ‘Wait – Rokeby Harris?’ The Reverend Henry Forster’s contact. The faintest of frowns flickered among the lines of the old face. ‘A friend of mine said I should look out for you – that you were a man worth talking to.’

  As soon as he said it, he knew it was the wrong tack. Harris just stood waiting, watching him. Everything about Henry Forster and Rokeby Harris meant restraint, and he had shown none. Harris would have no trust in such a crass approach.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘But,’ Harris said quietly, ‘in that case it would sound as though all three of us had been wanting in a little discretion.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Roscarrock said. ‘Perhaps I was mistaken.’ He excused himself and moved away.

  The news of the unexplained killing of the dragoon in Tiverton reached London with no fanfare. Another dusty and exhausted man clattered down Whitehall and into the cobbled courtyard of army headquarters in the Horse Guards building, slipped down from a sweating horse and walked stiffly to the adjutant’s office. Another satchel was opened, another sheaf of paper thrown into a tray, and the rider let go one deep breath at a job completed before creeping back into the evening with conflicting thoughts of bed and beer in his head.

  A quick glance at the tops of the sheets of paper, and the Lieutenant on duty picked out a couple for more urgent attention. The report from Tiverton stayed in the tray.

  An hour and a glass of wine later, the Lieutenant began to work through the pile. Some reports were placed in new trays; those where the paper could be re-used dropped into a basket beside him; the unneeded but sensitive he screwed up and threw, with great concentration, towards the collection of paper balls in and around the fireplace.

  This time, the report from Tiverton got a frown, and the word ‘priority’ scribbled across the top of it in rough pencil. It went into one tray separate from the others, and began its slow tour through five different offices in the building.

  Two hands reaching for an ice at the same moment, and an elegant lace wrist gesturing airily to Roscarrock to go first.

  ‘Thank you. Mr…?’

  ‘De Boeldieu.’ The brown-haired man – was he wearing face powder? – misinterpreted Roscarrock’s look and repeated the name.

  ‘Yes. Then thank you, Monsieur. Grey – Thomas Grey.’

  ‘It must be so tiresome for you English. You get yourself in a nice tidy war with France, but still your London is full of Frenchmen.’ There was boredom in the voice, but interest in the face.

  ‘I’m surprised a refugee from France would find the conversation pleasant in this company.’

  Another languid wave of the hand, matching the tone of the voice. ‘Oh, a man will put up with much bad conversation if there is good wine. Besides, Mr Grey, you must not think that all the Frenchmen in London are revengeful and hunted Royalists.’

  ‘Don’t you find it tiresome that London is full of Englishmen?’

  The Frenchman laughed – a deep laugh, in the throat, and its honesty and lack of restraint seemed out of place with the affected voice. ‘I care little one way or the other, for the Revolution or the Royalists. But France of today is too… hard, too military a place for me. There is better French food, better French language, better French civilization to be found in London. I can amuse myself with the ideas of reform without the discomforts of revolution.’

  The opinion was too carefully neutral. ‘Don’t you worry that London too will soon be a French military place?’

  De Boeldieu stopped his glass halfway to his lips and touched Roscarrock on the arm. ‘Oh, as to that, Mr Grey, London is a place of the business and of the fashion, not a place of the politics. It will remain a place of the business and of the fashion regardless of whether Napoleon or King George is on the coins and the buttons.’

  ‘That could be a violent change.’

  ‘I think not. The war is good for the business, but the violence is bad for the business. Your men of business would not allow violence to interrupt their affairs.’

  Sir Joseph Plummer was drifting near. Roscarrock deliberately avoided looking at him, not wanting him drawn in. He smiled politely at the Frenchman. ‘You don’t think that Napoleon might have a stronger opinion?’

  De Boeldieu seemed genuinely surprised at the idea. ‘Mr Grey, the very last thing Napoleon will do is antagonize your men of business.’

  ‘You have an optimistic view of him.’

  ‘Mr Grey, Napoleon does not want England for your damp climate, or your peculiar manners, or your indifferent wine. He wants to neutralize and thus acquire your Empire.’ De Boeldieu was enjoying himself. ‘And this Empire, it is not built on the climate, or the manners, or the wine. It is built on trade, on the wealth of London. Napoleon is a most clever man, and he will not threaten the thing he covets most, I can assure you. Your men of business will enjoy the benefits of the war and refuse to accept the violence, and Napoleon will oblige them.’

  ‘Benefits?’

  The Frenchman’s face opened wide in emphasis. ‘Of course! You, Mr Grey, what is your business?’ The brown eyes were suddenly watchful.

  ‘Ships.’

  ‘There! Has there been a greater age for shipbuilding? Could there be a better time to be a shipbuilding man?’

  Roscarrock was intrigued by the conversation but wary of its fluency. The Frenchman was plausible, but indifferent to his own words. The combination of superficial glibness and underlying scrutiny was unsettling. It was the mirror of his own.

  ‘And aren’t you worried, Monsieur, that you will find yourself trapped between the interests of Napoleon and these cynical men of business? You say you’re indifferent. But you’re still a Frenchman who fled Napoleon’s France.’

  The airiness returned to the lace cuff. ‘I did not flee. I travelled from Napoleon’s France because my pleasures may temporarily be pursued here. I may return if it pleases me.’ He touched Roscarrock’s arm again. ‘It’s kind of you to worry about me, Mr Grey. But I am harmless, and do not intend to put myself in the way of trouble.’

  ‘I wish you luck.’

  ‘But you, Mr Grey, you put yourself in the way of trouble, with this interest in reform?’

  ‘Trouble no. Progress yes, I hope.’

  ‘Ah, you must defer to a Frenchman on the link between those two. Do you meet these truly radical men sometimes?’

  Roscarrock was fighting to remember who he was supposed to be. ‘I – yes – I can say in this company that I have met some.’

  ‘And how do you meet them? I confess myself fascinated by the idea. Where does one meet?’

  ‘The right inns at the right time. In the right company.’

  ‘So interesting.’ Again the fingers reached intimately for Roscarrock’s sleeve. ‘We must talk a little more reform, Mr Grey. I have much to learn from you.’

  ‘I—’ Already uneasy in the conversation, Roscarrock suddenly felt his other arm delicately touched as well, himself now bizarrely gripped between the Frenchman and Lady Charlotte Pelham.

  ‘Philippe, are you keeping Mr – ah – to yourself?’

  ‘Grey, Madam. I’m afraid I was keeping Monsieur Philippe.’

  ‘Philippe is such a disappointment to us, Mr Grey. What can one do w
ith a Frenchman who is neither a Royalist icon nor a radical activist?’

  ‘With your permission, I’ll leave you to try to convert him one way or the other.’ A short distance away, Rokeby Harris was alone, and Roscarrock stepped to one of the great windows near him.

  He took a breath. ‘Do you play chess, Mr Harris?’

  The old, neat head turned slowly. It was closest Rokeby Harris would come to betraying surprise. A reluctant smile shadowed the mouth. ‘Occasionally. Do you, sir?’

  ‘I’m just learning.’

  The smile had faded into the lines of age. ‘It takes a lifetime.’

  ‘The first step is to find the right person to learn from.’

  Harris nodded slightly. ‘Mr Grey, isn’t it?’ The ghost of a businesslike smile on the contained face. ‘A name for anonymity.’

  ‘A Frenchman has just told me that Napoleon wants to protect British business.’

  ‘I’d be wary of such a man, Mr Grey. He’s either a liar or a fool.’

  Roscarrock nodded. ‘I assumed he was the former, but not on this point.’

  ‘Mm. Napoleon covets our financial dominance, Grey, and our money, but not our selves; a man of business will hang as well as a soldier. The men of business may find Napoleon’s rule rather restrictive. Why do you think so many French financiers are practising their English in drawing rooms like this one?’ He paused. Roscarrock waited. ‘But your friend is right. Good business will outlast a bad war. Fifty years ago we were in another war with the French, and Lloyds of London had French ships insured with them. Boulton and Watt sent their first steam engine to France. Good business. The biggest investors of today have interests across Europe. They’re hedging their bets, and why shouldn’t they? Would you bet on Britain?’