‘Lord Powerscourt, sir? This way, if you please.’
A solemn porter broke Powerscourt’s reverie and led him through the labyrinth to his destination. Powerscourt doubted if he could have found his way out unaided. They climbed staircases with yet more paintings of the age of sail. They went past entire departments labelled Navigation, Gunnery, Engines. At last, at the end of a dark corridor lit by a single skylight, they found the door called Archive.
‘Come in, come in. Who are you?’
Everything about the naval archivist was thin. His frame was thin and looked very old, his nose was thin, his long bony fingers were thin. His voice was a thin whine. Even his room was long and thin, like a naval galley; it stretched back for nearly a hundred feet in the gloomy light, files rising towards the roof like midshipmen climbing the top-gallants.
‘Mr Simkins, how kind of you to see me. My name is Powerscourt. I believe you are expecting me.’
‘Are you writing a book? Most of the people who come here are writing books.’ Simkins peered at Powerscourt over his thin spectacles.
‘No, I am not writing a book.’
‘Biography then. You must be one of these biographers.’
‘I’m afraid I am neither of those. I believe you have had a letter about my visit.’
‘An article for one of the naval societies perhaps? The history of a particular ship? I don’t recall an HMS Powerscourt ever gracing the waves, but I could be wrong.’
Powerscourt suspected that Simkins was deaf. The dust had gathered in layers round the edges of his great desk, almost invisible between papers and files from long ago.
‘Can’t believe they’ve sent somebody to see me who isn’t a historian. First time in thirty years apart from some rum manufacturer from the West Indies who got sent up here by mistake. Letter, did you say? Letter from where? Letter from whom?’
‘It’s a letter from the Prime Minister’s office.’
‘Who is the Prime Minister now? I seem to have forgotten.’
Powerscourt wondered if Simkins ever left this office. Maybe he sleeps here as well, he thought, guarding the secrets of the naval past with his bony frame and his peaceful spectacles.
‘It’s Lord Salisbury, Mr Simkins. Lord Salisbury.’
‘I heard you the first time. There’s no need to shout.’ Like many deaf people Simkins had sudden, unexpected bursts of perfect hearing, like the calm in the eye of the storm. ‘Salisbury, you say. Not a naval man, I think. Is he one of those Hatfield Salisburys? Cecils, all that sort of thing?’
It seemed to be easier for the archivist to place the Prime Minister in the sixteenth century rather than the nineteenth.
‘The same,’ said Powerscourt.
‘Here we are. Why didn’t you say what you were about at the beginning? Now then. I see what you are after.’ Simkins peered over his spectacles once again. ‘You are a historian after all. You want to know the names of the officers commanding HMS Britannia, naval training ship, in 1878, 1879, and the captain and officers of the vessel Bacchante which took the two young Princes round the world. Damned strange name for a ship, the Bacchante, don’t you think, Lord Powerscourt? Weren’t the original Bacchantes lusty maidens with very few clothes on who danced about in the Greek islands getting drunk and worse?’
‘I believe they were. Maybe it referred to the elegant way the ship danced across the water,’ said Powerscourt feebly.
‘I knew it. I knew it.’ Simkins had risen from his chair and looked round the room.
‘Other people lose their spectacles all the time. I keep losing my steps. My steps to get up there to the top row of my files. Now where can they have got to?’
‘There is a pair of steps leaning behind that revolving bookcase,’ Powerscourt suggested hesitantly, unsure how many pairs of steps might be in play.
‘No good. Too short. Couldn’t reach.’
Powerscourt wondered if his mission was about to fail for want of a tall pair of steps. He looked about more keenly. ‘I think that might be a pair over there in the corner.’
‘Which corner?’ Simkins turned round quickly. ‘Ah, this corner. Now we are in business, Lord Powerscourt.’
Simkins placed the rickety steps against a wall and began to climb. ‘My filing system has become more confusing as the years pass. More confusing to me, I mean. I began filing everything under the name of the ship many years ago. By the time I got to F for Fearless I realised that wasn’t going to work. Tried filing it all alphabetically after that. No good, that only got as far as D for Denmark. Then I tried filing under the name of the First Sea Lord, but that didn’t seem to work either. Are you any good at filing, Lord Powerscourt?’
‘Hopeless Mr Simkins, absolutely hopeless.’
‘Here we are.’ Simkins tottered uncertainly down his steps. ‘We’re fortunate that both Bacchante and Britannia begin with B. If they’d begun with T or V you might have had to come back next month. Now then.’ Simkins filleted the first file expertly. ‘Britannia. 1876–1879. Captain Williams. He didn’t last very long – most of them stay there for years and years. . . My goodness me. My goodness me.’
Simkins looked up at Powerscourt with new respect. ‘You might be on to something here. For your book, I mean. Every single officer on board left at the same time as Captain Williams. Every single last one of them.’
‘What does that suggest to your expert eye, Mr Simkins?’
‘Clear-out. I’ve never seen anything like it. There wasn’t a war on in 1879, was there?’
Powerscourt remembered that W for War had never featured in the Simkins filing system. He wondered if entire conflicts could go unnoticed up here. What would happen to a war in Zululand? Or Zanzibar?
‘I don’t believe there was.’
‘Don’t like the look of it. Don’t like the look of it at all. Could have been a court martial. Could have been a scandal. But the whole thing was kept very quiet. One day they were all there. Next day they were all gone. That’ll be a good chapter for your book.’
Simkins handed Powerscourt a single sheet of paper. ‘There’s the names of all the officers and the last addresses we have for them. It should be up to date. And here are the names of the officers on the Bacchante. Hello, hello. You do seem to pick them, Lord Powerscourt. This file has four stars on it.’
‘Four stars? What on earth does that mean?’
‘I’m trying to remember. I invented this star system over thirty years ago.’ The archivist looked hopelessly around his long thin room, as though he might have written the key to the stars in the surrounding dust. ‘Got it. Knew I wouldn’t forget. Memory goes on the blink every now and then, rather like these new steam engines on the ships if you ask me, then it comes back. Where was I?’
‘Four stars?’ Powerscourt prompted gently.
‘Four stars? Four stars? Of course. That means two things. It means refer to the Prime Minister’s office before release. And that further files are held in other Government Departments.’
Powerscourt’s heart sank as he contemplated a guided tour of the archivists of Whitehall, each one possibly more eccentric than the one before.
‘That means you can’t have those names. The ones from the Bacchante.’
‘But my letter comes from the Prime Minister’s office in the first place.’
‘What letter? Did you say you had a letter? Who did you say the Prime Minister was? I’ve forgotten it again.’
‘My letter comes from the office of Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister.’
‘The Hatfield person?’
‘Correct.’
‘Why didn’t you say so? Of course you must have these names. Forgive me the things I have forgotten.’
‘Not at all, Mr Simkins. I am most grateful to you.’
As he left, Powerscourt was sent away with best wishes for the success of his book. Further messages followed him down the narrow passageway. The archivist’s parting remark pursued him down the stairs: ‘Make sure you get yourse
lf a good filing system for your book. Never quite managed it myself.’
The strange fact only struck Powerscourt when he was underground. He reckoned his train was only a couple of hundred yards from Sloane Square when it shuddered to a halt. He took out the list of officers from HMS Britannia and gazed with dismay at Simkins’ handwriting. It was extremely small, written with a very thin nib.
Captain John Williams, Station Road, Amble, Northumberland. Amble. Amble. Where the hell was Amble? Then it came to him. A castle. A castle by the sea, a Percy castle, a Hotspur castle and the River Coquet twisting its way to the sea and a small fishing village called Amble. Bloody miles from anywhere.
Lieutenant James Forrest, Sea View, Greystones, Co. Dublin. Other side of the Irish Sea.
Lieutenant Jack Dunston, Borth Road, Aberystwyth. Other side of the Welsh Mountains.
Lieutenant Albert Squires, The Scores, St Andrews. Other side of the Scottish border. Christ, it’s going to be like a tour of the extremities of Britain, Powerscourt thought bitterly, if I have to go and see all this lot. And they’re all by the sea, he noticed, for yachts and boats and memories of the Navy.
And then it struck him. Surely, if they had been working in Dartmouth, Devon, they would have lived near Dartmouth. That’s what most people would have done. You would have thought that one, or maybe two of them, would have stayed down there. After all, most naval people lived in a long sweep from Hampshire to Cornwall to be near the great ports and naval establishments on the south coast. But they’d all gone. Every single one of them. It was as if they had fled. Or been told to flee. In disgrace? In shame? In exile? They’d fled to places as far away from Dartmouth as they could possibly get.
The train resumed its fitful journey into Sloane Square. Powerscourt clutched his small parcel and set off for Markham Square, home, at No. 25, to Lady Lucy Hamilton.
‘Lady Lucy, I’m so sorry I’m late. The trains, the trains . . .’ He held out his hands in supplication and excuse.
Lady Lucy smiled, a secret sort of smile for Powerscourt. ‘You’d better have some tea,’ she said, pointing to a great tray laden with sandwiches on the table in her upstairs drawing-room. Powerscourt thought he had never seen so many sandwiches for two people. There were brown ones, white ones, sandwiches with crusts, sandwiches without, ones with little sprigs of greenery on the top. Did she think he was a giant or something, with a giant’s appetite? Were they to embark on some sandwich eating competition, all proceeds to the poor and needy?
‘I thought,’ she said defensively, ‘that Robert should join us. He was going to bring a friend but his friend isn’t allowed out at the moment.’
‘Is he ill – the friend, I mean?’
‘Not exactly, no. Something to do with broken windows, I think.’
‘Ah,’ said Powerscourt solemnly, ‘so he’s temporarily confined to barracks. Good behaviour ensures parole at a later stage.’
‘Exactly so.’ Lady Lucy smiled her smile again. ‘But even at seven years old they can eat an incredible number of sandwiches. Robert will just have to manage as best as he can on his own.’
A small face peeped nervously round the door. The face had a small nose, blue eyes like his mother and a shock of fair hair. The hair looked as though Robert had been attempting, without success, to get it into some sort of order before grown-up tea.
‘Robert, darling, come and meet Lord Francis Powerscourt. Robert, Lord Francis, Lord Francis, Robert.’
Lady Lucy’s two males shook hands solemnly like Wellington and Blucher meeting at the end of Waterloo.
‘Sandwich, Robert? Sandwich, Lord Francis? Let me pour some tea.’
It was true, Powerscourt thought, about the sandwiches. The great piles began to dissolve rapidly.
‘I’ve brought you a sort of present, Robert,’ said Powerscourt between mouthfuls. ‘I don’t know if it’ll be all right.’ Lady Lucy suddenly remembered that Powerscourt was well supplied with a cricket team of nephews of his own. She felt sure that he would have a reasonable idea of what a Robert might like. Some men were completely hopeless. A friend of her father’s had presented him recently with the complete works of Ovid. Ovid!
‘It’s a sort of boat thing,’ said Powerscourt, struggling with the wrapping. He had bought it in the shop of temptation, as he referred to the place where he had spent so much money on the Voltigeurs and the Imperial Guard for his nephews.
It was a small yacht, with two sails, perfect rigging so you could adjust everything, a tiny rudder, polished wooden decks.
‘Wow! Wow!’ said its new owner, taking delivery of the vessel into his own hands. ‘Thank you very much. Thank you so much.’
His mother breathed a small sigh of relief. Forgotten thank yous, she knew, were sometimes hard to forgive.
‘Does it sort of go? Does it move?’ Robert was turning it over in his hands with great care.
‘It does. The man in the shop promised me it sails very well. Maybe you could try it out in the bath?’
‘But there isn’t any wind in the bath. Not in my bath anyway.’ Robert looked solemnly at Powerscourt as if he might be the secret owner of force five sou’westerlies blowing through his bathroom.
‘Maybe you could try bellows,’ said Powerscourt, looking at a very ornate pair in Lady Lucy’s grate.
‘Wouldn’t that make a lot of mess? The soot might get all over the sails,’ said Robert doubtfully. ‘And I’m not sure Mama would like that. Would you, Mama?’ Robert looked as if he thought bellows in the bath might produce the same result as his friend’s broken windows. Not allowed out, confined to barracks.
‘The Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. That’s where the man in the shop said it would do very well.’ Powerscourt was trying to extricate himself from bellows and soot.
Lady Lucy had a vision, of the three of them going every Sunday afternoon to the Round Pond, Robert racing away through the trees, herself and Powerscourt – were they arm in arm, she wondered? – the boat sailing proudly across the waters.
‘My only worry about that,’ said her consort, unaware of this weekly pilgrimage, ‘is that the boat might get lost. It might get stuck, I mean.’
‘What do you mean, stuck?’ said Robert anxiously.
‘Well, I mean, it might sail out as far as the middle, and not come back again. Somebody would have to wade out and get it.’
‘Lord Francis, Lord Francis, are you hopelessly impractical or what?’ said Lady Lucy, fresh from her walk with her males.
‘Well, I am as it happens. Hopelessly impractical I mean. Am I wrong about the boat?’
‘Don’t you see, if there is enough wind to take it to the middle, the wind will keep it going to the other side. Isn’t that right, Robert?’
‘Because it’s round, you mean.’ Robert was thinking hard. ‘You just have to walk round to the other side. It wouldn’t get lost at all. Or I don’t think it would.’
‘Anyway, Lord Francis, you must come and see us one weekend and we can make an expedition to the Round Pond. I quite like Kensington Gardens anyway.’
Powerscourt smiled. ‘That would be delightful. But, Robert, before your ship makes its maiden voyage you will have to give it a name. What are you going to call it?’
‘I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about it. Can I take the ship up to my room now, Mama? I need to work out where to put it.’
‘Of course, Robert, off you go.’
‘What a charming son, you have, Lady Lucy.’ Powerscourt had finished his tea and was looking with awe at the depleted sandwiches.
Lady Lucy blushed a fetching shade of pink. ‘Thank you, Lord Francis, thank you so much. But come, some more tea?’
‘Lady Lucy, please forgive me. I arrive late. I must leave early. It has nothing, I assure you, to do with the company. I could happily sit here for the rest of the evening. But I have another appointment I cannot break.’
‘Not more tea?’ Lady Lucy had a sudden vision of another, different, Lady Lucy pourin
g out cups of Earl Grey and affection for Lord Francis Powerscourt.
Powerscourt laughed. ‘No, not more tea. I have to see the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.’
‘Lord Francis, you’re not in trouble, are you?’
‘My dear Lady Lucy, of course I’m not in trouble. It’s just something I am working on at the moment.’
‘Will you tell me about your work, one day? If you can, that is.’
‘Of course I will. But, if I don’t go now, I shall be late and then they probably will arrest me.’
Powerscourt climbed into his coat and paused by the front door to say goodbye. Lady Lucy stood beside him.
‘Thank you so much for tea, Lady Lucy. I shall write to you about our next meeting.’
‘I hope it will be soon, Lord Francis.’ She leaned forward and brushed a speck of dust from his collar. Well, she thought there had been a speck of dust there.
‘Goodbye.’ Powerscourt stepped reluctantly into the night.
‘Goodbye.’ Lady Lucy watched him go. What was that he had said? ‘I could happily sit here for the rest of the evening.’ She smiled and closed the door.
As he climbed into his cab Powerscourt thought that Lady Lucy would be a good name for the boat. Lovely lines. Graceful. Elegant.
He leant forward to give the driver his destination. ‘Could you take me to Scotland Yard? Thank you so much.’
‘My dear Lord Powerscourt, how very nice to see you again!’
The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was tall and thin, with the upright bearing of the former Guardsman. He must be nearing retirement age by now, thought Powerscourt, he’s been in this impossible job for years and years.
‘Sir John, it is a pleasure to meet you again.’
‘How long since our last encounter?’ Sir John was counting the years off on his fingers. ‘Five, or is it six?’
‘I fear it is seven now. None of us is getting any younger.’
In 1885 Powerscourt had been working on a particularly unpleasant case and had to call on the assistance of the Metropolitan Police Force. Powerscourt had treated them with great courtesy, with tact and, he hoped, with charm. They in their turn had done everything in their power to help him. And at the end of the case, over a very fine dinner in his club, the Commissioner had promised Powerscourt that if ever he needed help in the future, all he had to do was to ask.
Goodnight Sweet Prince Page 14
