“I don’t know, really,” he confessed. “Always could.”
“Were you on the river as a child?”
He nodded.
“And your father?”
“Waterman. Whole family on the river. Except my sister,” he added thoughtfully. “She hated it.”
Lucy’s heart missed a beat. He had a sister. He did not seem to have noticed her surprise. He was gazing into the fog, his mind apparently elsewhere.
“She didn’t stay then?” Lucy asked softly.
“Sarah? No. Married a coachman in Clapham,” he mused. “They set up a shop there.” And then, suddenly realizing that he had given away a piece of information he had never before divulged, he hastily added: “Dead now of course. Long since. Both of them. No children neither.”
And she knew, she positively knew, that he was lying. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.” But her mind was beginning to race.
By October 1831 Zachary Carpenter could truly feel for the first time in his life that all was right with the world. The September fogs had lifted; the weather was fine. Two weeks ago, as expected, the Whig Reform Bill had passed easily through the House of Commons. Lord Bocton and his son George had passed through the lobby together. So the measure has even brought unity to that family, he thought. Today the bill was going through the House of Lords. After that the king would sign it and the thing would be law.
Yet, for all the huge importance of the Reform Bill, another much smaller measure recently passed through Parliament had given him even greater delight. For in 1831, Parliament had calmly made the closed vestry of the parish of St Pancras illegal.
It therefore came as a great shock to Carpenter, late that evening, to receive a message from Bocton, which caused him to pull on his coat, permit himself two or three full-blooded oaths, and storm off towards the house by Regent’s Park where the old Earl of St James now lived.
Never in all his life had Zachary Carpenter been more angry than he was now, as he faced the earl. St James was wearing, over his shirt and stockings, a gorgeous silken dressing gown which, Carpenter calculated irritably, could not possibly have cost less than fifty pounds. It was as if for the first time he had seen behind the sporting, reformist mask to the rich, capricious, selfish old soul who, all the time, had been lurking there behind it. He did not trouble to mince his words.
“What the devil were you doing, you old humbug?” he cried.
The House of Lords, by a narrow majority, had just thrown out the Reform Bill. And the Earl of St James had been one of the peers who voted against it.
Carpenter did not know what response he expected to this outburst, and he did not care. Knowing St James, he imagined it would be something sharp. He was surprised, therefore, when the old man seemed to hesitate. He frowned, looking a little confused. Then fumbling with the cuff of his silk dressing gown, as if he thought he had discovered a fly there, he mumbled. “They were going to take away George’s seat.”
“Of course they were! It’s a rotten borough,” Carpenter cried impatiently; but St James only frowned again, as if he had forgotten something.
“I couldn’t let them take away George’s seat,” he said. Carpenter was so blinded by the earl’s behaviour that he failed to observe what should have been plain enough. The Earl of St James was not in full possession of his faculties. He was eighty-eight years old; and he was confused.
“You old fool!” shouted Carpenter. “You evil old aristocrat! You’re the same as all the rest of them. Ordinary men are just a game to you. They’re just something to bet on. Nothing ever touches you, does it? Tell me this, my so-called noble lord, who do you think you are? Who –” he was bellowing right into the old man’s face now “– do you really think you are?” He turned on his heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. So that he never saw the Earl of St James staring after him in genuine puzzlement.
“Who am I?” he asked the empty room.
It was just after dawn at Southwark. Lucy knew she had no time to lose. The day after the fog, Horatio had started coughing. By the end of September the fever had returned and he seemed to be burning up before her eyes. She had fetched a doctor, using one of Horatio’s sovereigns; but after a careful look at him the doctor had only shaken his head sadly and advised them to wrap damp towels round him to try at least to bring his fever down.
Would he be better off out of the city, in a more dry and airy place, Lucy had asked? Perhaps, the doctor had told her with a shrug. Then he had given her the sovereign back.
On 6 October, Horatio had coughed up blood. She could see the little boy was getting weaker. He’ll never get through the winter like this, she thought.
Lavender Hill. In the chilly days of early October, the vision of that glorious blue haze haunted her. If she could only get him up there. And now she knew she had a cousin there, at Clapham. A cousin with a shop, up on the high ground to the south-west. Only the very worst of the pea-soupers made it out there. Within days she had formed a picture of her cousin: a warm, kindly, motherly sort. A person who would welcome the little boy in, and care for him and, perhaps, save his life. There could not, she supposed, be that many shops in the village of Clapham. A few enquiries and her cousin would surely be found. She had hoped to go out and search for the shop herself, but there had been no time and suddenly now, seeing the little boy coughing blood, she was overcome by a blind desire to get him out at once.
She had told no one. She knew Silas would not help her. She was not sure about her mother, but dared not take the chance. The day before, she had found a carter who agreed for a shilling to take them down to London Bridge at dawn. Leaving Horatio, wrapped up in a coat and scarf, by some river steps she went across to Southwark to get the boat.
“What will we do when we get to Lavender Hill?” he asked weakly. “I do not think I can walk about while you look for our cousin.”
“But we can go to the house of the kind lady who took us in the pony trap,” she reassured him. “We know where she lives.”
“I should like that,” he agreed.
The light was just lifting along the river when Lucy brought the boat to the steps and carried Horatio down into it. His teeth were chattering, but he did not complain. Minutes later, the boat was moving slowly upstream.
Another figure was also moving through the early light that morning. He was wearing a greatcoat and he had crammed an old three-cornered hat on his head so that, at first glance, it seemed as if he were some old watchman or lamplighter left over from the previous century. But under the greatcoat there was a brightly coloured silk dressing gown, and on his feet, instead of rough boots, a pair of highly polished court shoes. He was followed, nervously and at a distance, by a footman.
About the same time as Lucy and Horatio were passing under Westminster Bridge, the Earl of St James reached Seven Dials.
There were people about. Nearby, in Covent Garden market, business was already starting. From somewhere there came the smell of baking bread. Overhead, the sky was overcast with high, grey cloud, but the day felt as if it might get tolerably warm. When he got to the little monument of Seven Dials the earl paused for a moment, as though looking for someone. Then he made a little tour of the place, coming back to the railings round the monument. And there, still watched by the footman, he remained for a while until, by chance, he noticed a costermonger approaching with a barrow. The costermonger, who was a friendly fellow, and who soon figured that the old gentleman might not be quite right in the head, talked to him gently enough. Only one thing puzzled him. The old gentleman was talking in broad cockney.
“’Ave you seen me dad?”
“Who might that be, sir?”
“Harry Dogget, the costermonger. I’m lookin’ for me dad.”
“I should think, old fella, that your dad’s been gone this many a year.”
The Earl of St James frowned. “You never heard of Harry Dogget?”
The costermonger considered. The name, now he thought of it, was
vaguely familiar. He thought he had heard of the Dogget family once, when he was a boy. But that was forty years ago.
A woman with a basket of oysters joined them now, sensing that there was some amusement to be had. “Who’s he?” she asked.
“Looking for ’is dad,” the costermonger said.
“Oh.” She laughed. “What about your mum then, dear?”
“Nah.” St James shook his head. “She won’t do me no good.”
“Why’s that?”
“Needle and pin, that’s why,” he said sadly. Then, “I gotta find Sep,” he went on.
“Sep? Who’s that now? And why’s that?”
“Should’ve been ’im up the chimney, not me,” his lordship said.
“He’s really gone in the ’ead, he has,” the woman said.
“Where’s Sep?” St James cried out with sudden urgency. “I gotta find Sep!”
Just then a carriage drew up a few yards away, out of which stepped Lord Bocton, accompanied by Mr Cornelius Silversleeves.
The journey had been very slow. The boat was heavy and Lucy was rowing against the current. By the time they passed under Vauxhall Bridge Horatio, having shivered continuously, had fallen strangely still. As they approached Chelsea, his head sank forward on to his chest and she could see beads of sweat on his pale brow. He had begun to make a rasping sound as he breathed.
The place for which she was heading lay just past the long reach beside Chelsea. At the end, a curious, rather ramshackle old wooden bridge crossed the river which, immediately afterwards, curved sharply left. A little way along this next, southward stretch, a stream came down to the river by the ancient village of Battersea, and from here it was only a short walk up to the slopes of Lavender Hill and the pleasant plateau of Clapham Common.
It was mid-morning when she pulled into the bank. The spot she selected was a little jetty just by the village church. It was an old church, people said, from the days when the Conqueror came.
Horatio was so limp when she tried to get him out of the boat that she had to carry him. “Look Horatio, we have arrived,” she told him, but he hardly seemed to hear. With some difficulty she got him out on to the bank and wondered what she should do. Looking about, she noticed that in the little churchyard there was an old family tomb with a broad ledge round it, so picking him up, she carried him there and, sitting with her back to the tomb, rested his head against her chest and rocked him gently.
The churchyard was quiet. It seemed that few people came by the place at that hour of the morning. Some sparrows were chirping in the trees; river birds scudded along the bank now and then with shrill cries. For a few minutes the sun even broke through the film of grey cloud and she turned his face towards it, hoping its rays might revive him. Eventually his eyes opened and he gazed up at her, blankly.
“We’re here,” she said. “Look!” And she pointed to the slopes not far away. “You can see Lavender Hill.”
It took him a little time, but he managed to smile.
“We’ll just go up there,” she promised, “and you’ll feel better.”
He nodded slowly. “I think,” he said softly after a pause, “we should stay here a little longer.”
“All right,” she said.
He was silent for a time, though she could see he was staring up at Lavender Hill. Then his eyes took in the churchyard. “God lives in churches, doesn’t He?”
“Of course He does.”
Then he said, “Lavender Hill”, and closed his eyes for a time before coughing. It was a deep, thick cough that she had never heard before as though his lungs were full of liquid. She held him gently and stroked his brow.
Very quietly, he said: “Lucy?”
“Yes?”
“Am I dying?”
“Of course not.”
He tried to shake his head, but the effort was too great. “I think I am.”
She felt his body shudder a little, before he gave a shallow sigh.
“If I could live,” he said faintly, “I should like to live with you, at Lavender Hill.” He was silent for a moment. “I am glad you brought me here,” he murmured.
“Don’t leave me,” she begged. “You must fight!”
He did not answer. Then coughed again. “Lucy,” he whispered finally.
“Yes, my love?”
“Sing me the lavender song.”
So she did, very softly, cradling him in her arms as she sang.
“Lavender Blue, dilly dilly
Lavender Green,
When you are king, dilly dilly
I shall be queen.”
He sighed, and smiled. “Again.”
So again she sang the little song as though, by some magic, it could make him well. And yet again, keeping her voice as steady as she could, although she thought her heart would break. Whether it was the fifth or sixth time she could not afterwards remember, but it was just as she reached the words “When you are king, dilly dilly”, that she felt his frail little body quiver, and then go limp, so that, though she went on singing to the end of the verse, she knew that he was gone.
“It is a most remarkable case,” said Silversleeves. “A complete transference of personality. Notice the change of voice. He even seems to suppose he has another family.”
“So is he mad?” Bocton asked.
“Oh, entirely.”
“You can lock him up?”
“Certainly.”
“When?”
“Now, if you like.”
“That,” Bocton replied, “would suit me admirably. It will even help the political process.”
So great was the general public fury at the action of the Lords the night before that by mid-morning Sir Robert Peel’s new police, and the mayor’s police in the City, were preparing for riots. Within an hour of the vote in Westminster, members were saying that the king would be obliged to create more Whig peers to get reform through.
“The absence of my father,” Bocton remarked drily, “will reduce that necessity by one.”
At eleven-thirty in the morning a closed carriage entered the gates of the great hospital of Bedlam in Lambeth and from it the Earl of St James, looking frail and confused, was led into its splendid entrance hall.
He was not destined, however, to remain there very long.
It was the practice of the Bedlam, as long as you were a respectable person and purchased a ticket, to allow members of the general public to visit. Thanks to this liberal-minded policy, the curious could enter and observe all the persons whom either the criminal courts or Silversleeves and his friends had declared to be mad. Some, harmless enough, could be talked to. Several gentlemen believed they were Napoleon and would strike splendid, brooding attitudes. Others would laugh or gibber. Yet others were chained to beds and would sit there sullenly staring or perhaps might take their clothes off and perform acts of strange lewdness. It was really, most people agreed, quite amusing. One old man, half an hour after admission, said he was the Earl of St James.
It was not long after noon that Meredith arrived. Young George, as soon as he discovered what had happened to his grandfather, had gone to him for advice.
The Meredith Bank had prospered considerably in the years since the near-crash of 1825, and Meredith was tolerably rich now. The greying of his temples had lent his tall figure a look of patrician distinction. His advice to George had been quite bleak. “I think your father will almost certainly succeed, with Silversleeves’s help, in getting your grandfather declared incapable. What we must do is get him out of Bedlam. You probably can’t because Bocton will have warned them to expect you. But I might.”
“And then?”
“I’ll have to find somewhere to keep him in tolerable conditions. I dare say something can be done.” He smiled. “I still owe him my bank, remember.”
“But they’ll come and demand him back.”
“They’ll have to find him first.”
“But that’s kidnap, Meredith!”
“That’s right.�
��
“You’ll have to hide him somewhere straight away though,” George pointed out.
“I can think of a place,” Meredith said.
His approach to Bedlam was cunning. Sending a boy ahead to ask for Silversleeves, the boy ascertained that he had departed with Bocton for an hour or two. No sooner had this information been brought back than Meredith’s carriage swept into the courtyard, and stalking into the building, he told the doormen to fetch Silversleeves and bring him to him immediately. Ignoring their assurances that he was not there, he strode down the hall demanding to see St James. The moment he found him, he took him firmly by the arm and led him back to the entrance.
“Where the devil is Silversleeves?” he repeated irritably. “I have orders to escort this patient to another place at once.”
“But Mr Silversleeves and Lord Bocton said –” the head doorman began, only to be cut off instantly.
“You do not understand. I am the personal physician of His Majesty the King.” Meredith gave the name of the distinguished doctor in question. “My instructions are from the king himself. You know, I suppose, that the earl is his personal friend?” He was not the grandson of dashing Captain Jack Meredith for nothing. The combination of his tall, commanding presence and this awesome list of names overcame them entirely.
“Tell Silversleeves,” he called, as he led the old earl out, “to report to my house immediately.”
Moments later, his carriage had rattled off, apparently towards Westminster. Once out of sight, it made a little detour and headed away in another direction entirely. And so it was that it was not little Horatio Dogget but the rich old Earl of St James who found himself, that day, in the sanctuary of kindly Mrs Penny’s house on Clapham Common, by Lavender Hill.
“Damn!” said Lord Bocton, when he heard his father had escaped. “We should have chained him up.”
The Great Reform Bill finally passed into law in the summer of 1832. Apart from giving members of Parliament to the new towns and abolishing the rotten boroughs, it gave the vote to a fair spread of the middle class. Women, regardless of their status, of course, still could not vote.
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