The east wing lay abandoned on this floor, although I did stumble across a fellow mending the cornices in one room, so perhaps the Aislabies had plans for it. At the back of the house I found the library again, a little-used music room, and a larger room for billiards.
The west wing appeared to be the favoured aspect. There was a snug little withdrawing room, filled with tempting armchairs and more recent family portraits, and then the long dining room. Mr Aislabie’s study sat at the front of the house. He had retired there with Mr Sneaton after dinner, presumably to buy up the rest of the county.
It might appear as though I were drifting aimlessly about the place, and I admit that is one of my preferred occupations. In this case, however, I was drifting with intent. I needed to memorise the rooms while it was still light, so that I could search them more closely in darkness.
Five days ago, I had been tasked by the queen to find a certain green ledger and bring it safely to London. The book had disappeared shortly after the collapse of the South Sea Company. It contained a list of over a hundred illustrious names, and the private details of their stockjobbing – when they had sold their shares and at what price, the exact profit they had made from each transaction. Hundreds of thousands of pounds, all neatly recorded.
No scandal there – except that it proved that many of the shares had been given for free, as bribes. In exchange, every person listed in the ledger had supported the South Sea Scheme as it travelled through Parliament and into law. They had encouraged others to invest, inflating the price. And then, mysteriously, these lucky beneficiaries had sold their shares at the ideal moment, just before the bubble burst and the stock value plummeted.
Either they were the cleverest gamblers in history, or they had been passed privileged information – perhaps by Aislabie himself. Sell now – the entire damned scheme is about to collapse. Dukes and duchesses, bishops and lawyers, ministers of government, the old king and his mistresses. And the Prince and Princess of Wales – as they were in 1720. Now their Exalted Majesties King George II and Queen Caroline of Ansbach. All with their snouts in the trough.
The whole world knew that the scheme had been corrupted. But the whole world couldn’t prove it, not without the slim green accounts book and its list of names. Questions were asked in the Commons. Offices were ransacked. A government enquiry was set up. Aislabie and his staff were interrogated. Aislabie himself was thrown in the Tower, where he languished for months. The ledger was never found. Aislabie testified that he always destroyed his account books once they were balanced. His secretary burned them – it was all quite routine. The Commons, the Lords, the nation raged, but nothing could be done. The evidence was lost for ever.
The queen knew better. Mr Aislabie hadn’t burned the ledger. He’d smuggled it out of London to his country estate, days before his arrest. Aislabie was a politician – and a wily one at that. The book was his security. And now he was using it to demand help from the guilty.
We are all slaves to public opinion, even the King of England. His claim to the throne was tenuous, to say the least. How would his subjects react if they discovered he had helped plunge the nation into catastrophic debt in order to sate his own greed? Violently, I’d wager.
*
‘Have you ever visited Yorkshire, Mr Hawkins? . . . We have a friend, in need of assistance.’ That is what Queen Caroline had asked me just five days before in her private quarters. Aislabie was no friend. He was blackmailing her – demanding her help in exchange for his continued silence. This was insufferable. The ledger must be found.
I held my tongue, and waited.
The queen was standing by the fire, shifting her weight from foot to foot. A touch of gout, I thought. ‘How is your little trull, sir? Are you still wretchedly in love with her? Of course you are,’ she replied for me. ‘How charming.’
I lifted the glass of wine to my lips, trying to hide my alarm. The queen had sent for both Kitty and me, but on our arrival at St James’s Palace, Kitty had been ordered to wait in the carriage. She was sitting there on her own, furious, rain pattering down upon the roof of the chaise. I hadn’t understood why the queen would summon Kitty, only to refuse her an audience. Now I began to suspect the truth.
‘Tell me, Mr Hawkins. How does it feel to be in love with a murderess?’
I clutched the glass, and said nothing. Kitty had killed a man. He had been trying to kill me, out on Snows Fields in Southwark. She had shot him in the gut, to save my life. But then she had stood over him, tipped fresh powder into her pistol and shot him again – between the eyes at close range. He would have died from the first shot, eventually. One might even call the second shot an act of mercy. But it wasn’t. Kitty had fired in a cold, deliberate rage. I knew that, and so did the one other witness to the shooting. And slowly, inevitably, the story had reached the queen.
She faced me now, one hand gripping the mantelpiece for support. Her rings glinted in the candlelight. This was real power – to threaten without ever speaking the words. ‘I am sure you will do your very best,’ she said sweetly.
And I had agreed that I would, and returned to Kitty, sulking because she had been summoned by the queen and then abandoned in the carriage. The queen had never intended to see her. Kitty’s role was to be waiting for me now as I left the palace, beautiful and angry and perfect. See what you might lose, if you don’t do as I command. It was the first time she had used Kitty’s secret to get what she wanted. I feared it would not be the last.
I had promised Kitty that I would stop holding secrets – but I couldn’t tell her this. I had lived for weeks under sentence of death and I would not put her through the same torture. I couldn’t bear it. So she had complained all the way from London to Newport Pagnell about our ridiculous mission, and how dare the queen send me back into more trouble when I had only just survived a hanging, and why could we not simply refuse and sail for the Continent, as we’d agreed.
Then we’d pulled into the coaching inn and I had discovered Sam, hiding beneath our luggage like a beetle under a rock. Sam Fleet, raised to be a thief and worse, who could tiptoe through a house and never be heard, who could hide in the shadows and never be seen. Who better to find the ledger? I tried to explain this to Kitty, but she had thought it too risky. You can’t trust him, Tom. You know what he is. You know what he’s done.
I couldn’t admit to her why it was so vital we succeed, why I must bring Sam with us. So we had argued, and she had accused me of lying to her again, after all my promises to change. Chairs were kicked. The next morning she had refused to leave until I sent Sam back to London. More arguments and more delays. When she saw I would not be persuaded, she arranged a seat on the next coach home. ‘I know you love me, Tom – but you love gambling more. This is all another game to you, another chance to test your luck.’
‘That’s not true, Kitty.’
She took my hands and pulled me closer. ‘Then come home with me.’
‘I can’t. I have to go.’
She shoved me away. ‘You don’t have to do anything. Fuck the queen.’
An hour later I was on the road with Sam, heading north with a dark fear in my heart that I had made a terrible mistake. But what choice did I have? I had to find the ledger. I had to save Kitty.
*
And if by some miracle I succeeded, what then? I stood in the great stone-flagged entrance hall at Studley, my hands in my pockets. I had walked all the way around, only to find myself back at the start. How fitting.
I made my way down to the servants’ rooms on the lower floor, and found Mrs Mason in her kitchen, hanging a brace of rabbits on a hook. Like most cooks she was somewhat round from tasting her own dishes, and her hands had magical properties, having spent years kneading, pummelling, peeling, cleavering and being plunged into boiling water. She also had the most appealing face. Not that she was a great beauty – it was more that her temperament tended naturally towards laughter and generosity. This had settled happily upon her features after
forty years. To put it another way, on meeting her I felt myself to be a small boy again, and longed for a warm hug. Sadly decorum prevented me from asking.
She brewed up a pot of coffee and we talked while she prepared herbs for a stock. She asked me about my trial and hanging, rather as I might ask her the best way to dress a salmon. That is to say, I took no offence from her questions, and recognised a kindred, inquisitive spirit.
She confirmed that two bed sheets were missing: she had checked the laundry herself. Mrs Mason appeared to have an informal role as housekeeper, along with her duties in the kitchen. I suspected that – rather like Sneaton – she was considered part of the extended Aislabie family.
‘Must have been a sneaking little devil,’ she said. ‘There’s always someone out in the yard. A woman, I reckon. She could tuck them under her gown.’ She pushed a clove into a shallot, and then another.
‘Who do you think wrote the notes?’
‘The Gills, most likely.’
‘The poachers?’
‘You might call them that. There’s been Gills hunting out on Kirkby moors long as anyone can remember. But his honour bought the moor, so . . . now they’re poachers.’
‘Bad business with the deer.’
‘Died quickly, by the looks of it,’ she shrugged, unmoved. She was a cook, after all. ‘But now – here’s a thing made me wonder. I can’t see Jeb or Annie Gill wasting good venison like that. Not in their nature.’
This was a very good point. Surely a poacher would never squander such valuable meat, just for dramatic effect. ‘Are they capable of murder, d’you think? Is that in their nature? Would they burn the house down for revenge?’
Mrs Mason dropped her shallot in alarm. ‘Bloody hell, I hope not. Excuse my language, sir.’
I asked Mrs Mason for directions to my quarters. She insisted on calling Bagby, who’d been napping next door in the servants’ hall. He stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and grumbling loudly until he saw me sitting at the table, finishing my bowl of coffee. Hiding his scowl behind the thinnest screen of deference, he led me upstairs, back straight, mouth twisted shut. I paused upon the landing to admire the tapestry. In truth it was not a good piece, but it depicted a horse with a splendid mane, rearing up on its hind legs. Horses, I was beginning to understand, were granted an almost divine status at Studley. Even poorly stitched ones.
Bagby made an impatient little noise in the back of his throat. He didn’t like me. Why should he? He was not the first servant who resented his low position. Perhaps if I told him I had been tortured in a debtors’ prison? Beaten and robbed? Hanged at Tyburn? Ah, but above all that, I was a gentleman – nothing luckier than that.
We turned right on the landing and passed into the east wing, floorboards creaking under our feet. The main body of the house was in reasonable order but this side appeared to be listing, with great cracks in the plaster. There was a smell of damp, and the faded wallpaper was blistered and peeling away, as if the walls were suffering from some awkward rash.
We took a step up into a dark and oddly cramped corridor, scarce wide enough to scrape through in single file. The floor here was uneven, sloping sharply to the right. Low beams ran across the ceiling, as if designed to cause injury. A helpful servant would have said, ‘Mind your head, sir.’ Bagby remained silent, walking ahead with near-satirical dignity, as if he were escorting me through the Palace of Versailles.
We had reached the back of the house, though with all the twists and turns we’d performed, I did not realise this yet. My apartment was tucked away on a mezzanino below the attic rooms. Bagby opened the door with a flourish and gestured for me to enter. A glint in his eye made me pause on the threshold, foot hanging in mid-air. There were three steps down into the room. If I hadn’t paused I would have missed them, and stumbled head first to the floor.
I stepped down into the main bedchamber, fighting my disappointment. The bed itself looked inviting, with a scarlet canopy and matching counterpane. But the room had an oppressive feel, even with the fire flickering in the hearth and fresh candles in the sconces. The low ceilings were brought even lower by a series of dark beams, and the mahogany wall panels added to the intense gloom. There was at least a tall double window, but the latticed glass allowed through only a thin light, and was blocked further by a great oak tree growing directly outside.
If Kitty were here . . . If Kitty were here it would have felt warm and bright enough. She would have complained loudly about the tree, and the dark panelling, and the fusty smell. Then she would have kicked Bagby from the room and pulled me by my breeches to the bed. She would have kissed me, guided my hand under her gown, my fingers trailing up the heavenly silk of her thighs and—
‘Will that be all?’ Bagby asked.
I glanced at my luggage. I could insist that he unpack my belongings, but he was a sour addition to the room. The sooner he left the better. I waved him out, crossing to the window. Raindrops were snaking their way down the glass. I pressed my forehead to the pane. My head was pounding from the wine, and my journey, and something deeper.
Kitty. How could I have lost her, and so soon? If I wrote to her now, would she come?
I sighed my frustration out on to the glass. The letter would take at least three days to reach her. Even if she set out the next day, she was more than a week away. My luggage lay a few feet from where I stood, offering another choice. Call for the carriage and return home. Queen Caroline was clever, and manipulative, and excessively good at getting what she wanted. But she wasn’t wilfully cruel. Surely she was bluffing. Surely she would not send Kitty to her death.
For five days now, the same argument had circled my mind. And in the end, I would always reach the same conclusion. Surely wasn’t good enough. This was one gamble I dared not take.
I lifted my head from the glass. No point arguing with myself and dreaming of home.
I crossed to the fire, shovelling fresh coal upon the flames. There was a dark painting hanging above the fireplace – black clouds gathering over a ruined abbey. It was a large picture with a heavy frame, and looked as though it had been painted with a much grander room in mind. I scraped a smudge of coal soot from the plaque. Storm at Fountains Abbey. A great tower rose into the blackening sky, looming over the crumbling ruins. Roofs and walls had collapsed, pulled down by time and the violence of men. The fallen stones were scattered all around, covered in a tangle of weeds. The artist had painted the stones in shades of grey and black, their colour muted by the storm clouds. The grass was a steel grey.
I’m not sure how long I stood before that painting. Perhaps it was fatigue, or the trials of recent weeks, or merely the painter’s choice of colours – but I felt as though I were not looking at a ruined monastery, but at something more spectral. As if all the souls who had lived and died there were now trapped inside the picture, and were calling for me to join them.
I stepped back, shaking my head to clear it. Fancies and phantasms. I had not come here to indulge in such follies. I must discover the ledger. There was an end to it.
In the meantime I should put the hours of daylight to some use. Mr Aislabie and his family were under threat, and as his guest, my own life could be in peril. It was in my own interest to enquire into the matter more closely.
I perched on the window seat, spreading the four letters out upon the cushion. Who had written them? The more I considered them, the more convinced I became that they were the work of two different men. The first two wavered between bitter resentment and surprising deference, of the kind I’d witnessed from Mr Simpson. Aislabie was addressed several times as ‘Your honour’. There was an appeal to his obligations, to his sense of fairness. The accompanying threats of violence were unpleasant, but were swiftly followed by promises of gratitude and obedience, if only his honour would permit the moors to be opened up as common land once more. I would bet my last crown the same arguments had been put to the estate steward and to Mr Sneaton on numerous occasions, without effect.
These were notes written in anger and frustration, but with hope for a peaceful resolution.
In contrast, the next two made no demands, reasoned or otherwise. They were short, and cruel. Reading them again, I felt the hairs rise upon my skin.
Aislabie – your Crimes must be punnished. You have Ruined Good and Honest Familys with your Damn’d Greed. Our mallis is too great to bear we are resolved to burn down your House. We will watch as your flesh and bones burn and melt and your Ashes scatter in the Wind. Nothing will Remain. You have ’scaped Justice too long damn you.
Aislabie you Damned Traitor. This is but the beginning of Sorrows.We will burn you and your daughter in your beds. You are not alone by night or day. We will seek Revenge.
These were not threats, but judgements handed down to the accused. Aislabie was a Damned Traitor. And the punishment for treason was death by fire.
The scrape of a latch in the far corner of the room made me glance up from my reading. The door was set flush to the mahogany panels – I had noticed it upon entering and dismissed it as a closet space. In fact it opened on to a connecting room for a gentleman’s valet. Sam had taken it as his own, occupying it in absolute silence until he had deemed it the proper time to present himself. He stood barefoot in the doorway, his black curls loose about his face.
‘There you are,’ I said, because I knew it would infuriate him. Any statement of the obvious made him seethe with annoyance.
He stepped aside so that I might enter his domain. It was not much more than a closet after all – smaller than my cell at Newgate – with a narrow bed and two dingy portraits on the wall. It would suit Sam – he preferred cramped spaces. His home in St Giles was filled with noise and people at all times of the day and night, and he had become expert at tucking himself away in forgotten corners.
A Death at Fountains Abbey Page 7
