The Fire Court

by Andrew Taylor

  ‘Anything.’ Hakesby spread out his trembling fingers. ‘Anything within reason.’

  ‘Reason? There’s nothing reasonable about this business with my niece.’ Poulton shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘My favour is this: Mistress Lee is not as strong as she was, and she asks if you will allow your cousin to accompany her to my niece’s lodgings this afternoon.’ He glanced at Cat, who was pretending to busy herself with her work. ‘She’s taken a fancy to the girl, and it is good that she should have company at such a time.’ His face looked gaunter than ever. ‘I do not wish to go myself.’

  Mistress Lee said barely a word in the coach that carried them to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. They drew up outside the house where Celia Hampney had taken lodgings. The coachman jumped down to talk to the porter, a heavy fellow shaped like an egg and dressed in faded brown and silver livery.

  ‘I didn’t want our friends to see this place,’ Mistress Lee said, turning to Cat. ‘Or our servants. It would lower Celia even further in their estimation, and give them more to prattle about.’

  ‘Why, mistress?’

  ‘Mr Poulton does not care for Mistress Grove – the woman who lets out the apartments. He does not think she is quite … He and poor Celia had words about it, but he had no control over what she did. No one had, once she was a widow, with her own property. That’s why I thought it better that he did not come with us. It would only distress him needlessly.’ Mistress Lee looked older than she had the previous day, and more frail. ‘I would manage everything myself, but these days I lack the strength. So I asked for you. I hope you’re not shocked.’

  ‘No,’ Cat said. I am a nobody, she thought, but a nobody she thinks she can rely on because of Mr Hakesby and the commission. On the whole, Cat liked being nobody. It was safer than being someone.

  ‘Celia has a maid. Had, that is. Tabitha. A sly creature. I shall pay her what’s due to her and send her away.’

  The coachman let down the steps. The house was newly built and well-proportioned, with a façade of brick. The porter showed Cat and Mistress Lee into the hall. He summoned a servant and sent word of their arrival upstairs. While they waited, he watched the two women as if he suspected they might pilfer something.

  When the servant eventually returned, he led them to a lofty parlour overlooking the Fields themselves. They waited in silence, examining their surroundings. The curtains and the furniture were new but there was dust on the floorboards and cobwebs on the cornice.

  The door opened, and a stout, middle-aged woman entered the room. She greeted the visitors with a stately lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘Mistress Hampney murdered,’ she said, rising from a token curtsy. She patted her formidable bosom somewhere in the region of her heart. ‘I was never so shocked in my life. Effroyable!’

  Her voice was modelled on the leisurely tones of the court, but her vowels belonged further east.

  ‘I could hardly close my eyes last night for fear of being attacked in my own house,’ Mistress Grove went on, with all the excitement of a person describing the location of the necessary house. ‘If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d never have let the apartments to her.’

  Mistress Lee, formidable in black despite her short plump figure, drew herself up to her full height. ‘And if Mistress Hampney herself had known what would become of her, no doubt she would have made other plans as well.’

  Mistress Grove’s pink features were too large for her face. Her eyes and lips had a sheen to them, as if varnished. ‘I’m told that when she was found, she was dressed like a whore. She was gone for nearly a week … where was she? Her maid says she knows nothing, but you can’t believe a word Tabitha says … Was there a lover? Was it he who—’

  ‘Have you had Mr Poulton’s letter?’ Mistress Lee interrupted.

  ‘Ah, poor Mr Poulton.’ The bulging eyes stared into Mistress Lee’s face. ‘The shame of it. He must be so distressed.’

  ‘You need not trouble yourself about Mr Poulton.’

  ‘If only she had taken another husband, this would never have happened. Do you know what she said to me?’ Mistress Grove arched her eyebrows in a parody of surprise. ‘She said she wouldn’t marry again for all the money in the world. She would rather live and die a merry widow than be at the beck and call of a man. Her very words!’ Her lips pouted in horror. ‘I fancy she would change her mind now.’

  ‘We have come to make arrangements about Mistress Hampney’s possessions,’ Mistress Lee said in a voice as thin as a knife blade. ‘If it would be convenient, we shall pack up what we can now and take it away. Mr Poulton will send a cart for the rest in the morning.’

  ‘A cart? You’ll need a wagon.’

  ‘By the way, Mr Poulton has an inventory of his niece’s possessions. It was made after the death of her husband.’

  There was a momentary silence. Cat found that she was holding her breath. In her quiet way, Mistress Lee had told their hostess that she doubted her honesty.

  ‘Mr Poulton must understand that I cannot repay the balance of the lease,’ Mistress Grove said, returning to the offensive. ‘It’s true that our arrangement runs until Michaelmas, but I shall find it very hard to let the apartments after what has happened. Every kitchen maid in town is gossiping about this dreadful business.’

  She conducted them upstairs to the apartments on the second floor where Celia Hampney had lodged.

  ‘The whole house is newly furnished,’ she told them on the stairs. ‘Why, Sir Charles said to me only the other day, that he wished he had such things in his own house. Sir Charles Sedley? You know him? A great friend. He dined here only last month.’

  Mistress Lee screwed up her lips as if to keep words from bursting out of her. She was climbing the stairs slowly, clinging to the rail and refusing to take Cat’s arm. The whole world knew that Sir Charles Sedley was one of the most dissolute men at Court. He was not a man that a respectable woman would wish to see at her table, or indeed to have anything to do with.

  ‘I suggested he bring his friend my Lord Rochester,’ Mistress Grove was saying, ‘but alas he was engaged. A most ingenious young man, don’t you think? With quite a French twist to his wit as well. It’s something I appreciate well – I lived in Paris for several years.’

  Mistress Lee said she was not acquainted with his lordship, nor was she likely to be, so she was not in a position to judge his wit or its nationality.

  Mistress Grove opened a door and led the way into an apartment at the front of the house. Cat’s first impression was of colour – too much of it; a deluge that drenched her eyes. She and Mistress Lee took a step into the room and stopped.

  There were carpets, cushions, curtains and paintings, as well as a profusion of gilding on every surface that would take it. There was an empty wine glass on the table. There was also a smell in the air, a sour blend of perfume and spoiled food.

  ‘Why hasn’t Tabitha aired the room?’ Mistress Lee said.

  Mistress Grove shrugged her ample shoulders. ‘I’m sure I can’t tell, madam. I was in the country last week. My servants tell me that Mistress Hampney had an entertainment on Wednesday evening. Gentlemen were present, and there was a fiddler and dancing. They were at it until two or three of the morning.’

  ‘Pray let us have some air in here.’

  Mistress Grove did not move. Cat crossed the room and flung open the window.

  ‘I do not like to speak ill of the dead,’ Mistress Grove said, turning like a man of war to bring her majestic bosom broadside on to Mistress Lee, ‘but she had proved a sad disappointment to me. There was a wildness about her that I could not approve. I had already made up my mind not to renew my arrangement with her.’

  ‘Would you send her maid to me?’

  ‘Willingly, madam. Pray remove Mistress Hampney’s possessions as soon as possible. And then I must insist that the apartments are returned to the state in which they were when she took possession. I shall send my account for sundries to her uncle.’


  Mistress Lee made no answer. She turned away as if struck by the prospect from the window. Mistress Grove sniffed audibly and left the room. Cat closed the door behind her.

  Mistress Lee turned to face Cat. ‘That dreadful woman.’ She paused. ‘I hardly know you. But may I trust you not to speak of this? It would wound Mr Poulton so deeply if he knew how his niece lived in this house.’ She made as if to take out her purse but, seeing Cat’s face, stopped. ‘You are a good girl.’

  She ran her finger over the table and frowned at the thin layer of dust on it. They set to work. The bedchamber was in a worse state than the sitting room. The dressing table was strewn with cosmetics. Mistress Lee put aside the jewel box to take away with her. She told Cat to bring her any papers that she found.

  ‘Pray God we do not find a later will,’ she said. ‘But if there is, we must obey its provisions. Mr Poulton will insist on that.’

  There was a tap on the door, and the maid entered. Tabitha was a slender young woman with bony shoulders. She wore a dress that was too large for her. She curtsied to Mistress Lee and glanced at Cat.

  ‘The floorboards are sticky,’ said Mistress Lee in a querulous voice. ‘What is it? Honey? Punch? What is the meaning of this?’

  ‘Mistress had a party the night before she went. You should have seen it after that. I’ve done what I can.’

  ‘Nonsense. When did you last see your mistress?’

  Tabitha’s eyes were small and narrow, and they grew smaller and narrower still. ‘The day before she went away. At dinner.’

  ‘Why not later?’

  ‘She said I could go and see my mother, and stay the night there. And I needn’t come back till evening the next day. And when I did she wasn’t there.’

  ‘But why did she send you away? Because of her party?’

  The maid shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  Mistress Lee’s lips tightened. ‘Did gentlemen call to see her?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘One in particular, perhaps?’

  Tabitha’s eyes opened wide. ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know, mistress. Besides, she often went out without me.’

  ‘You are concealing something,’ Mistress Lee said. ‘You will find it’s in your interest to be frank with me.’

  The maid stared at the old woman and said nothing.

  ‘Your mistress is dead. You’ll leave this house within the hour. Do you hear me?’

  Tabitha curtsied, twisting her face into the mockery of a smile. She threw another glance at Cat, who was standing silently by the dressing table.

  ‘Go and pack your box.’ Mistress Lee was trembling. ‘And I shall tell Mr Poulton how you have behaved.’

  ‘It’s already packed. And I don’t care what you tell the old miser. That’s what she used to call him, you know. The old miser.’

  ‘You hussy. I shall have you whipped for your insolence.’

  ‘You can’t, and I’ll rouse the house if you try. You’re not my mistress.’

  Without waiting to be dismissed, Tabitha flounced from the bedroom. They heard her slamming the sitting room door.

  ‘Call the servants,’ Mistress Lee said, white-faced. ‘I shall have that girl taken before a justice, I shall—’

  Cat said softly, ‘Madam Grove’s servants won’t obey you. And if you have Tabitha taken up, who knows what she’ll tell the justice.’

  The old woman sat down on the edge of the bed. After a moment she said in a calmer voice, ‘But her insolence … How dare she?’

  Cat held her peace. She would have liked the answer to a different question. Tabitha hadn’t demanded her wages. Something or someone had changed her, had emboldened the girl to discard not only the respect she should show to her betters but also a servant’s common prudence.

  What? Or who?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  My other master sent for me on Friday evening:

  William Chiffinch, the Keeper of the King’s Private Closet. There was something about him that made it difficult to be comfortable in his company: perhaps it was the cheerful air of good living that failed to correspond to the watery gaze of his cold eyes; or his reputation for infinite corruptibility; or perhaps merely the unsettling knowledge that this man had the ear of the King in his most private moments and could whisper whatever he wished to his master.

  The servant brought me through a maze of apartments, passages and staircases to a small, dark chamber near the Privy Stairs. The room was empty, and he left me to wait.

  The barred window looked out on the river. The tide was low, exposing the foreshore, an expanse of dank mud stained with the outflow from the palace privies and dotted with the sort of refuse that even the scavengers disdained. The slimy supports of the Privy Stairs marched down to the water’s edge, where a four-oared skiff was pulling alongside the steps on the downstream side.

  It was a dreary scene, and it matched my mood. My eyes were sore from copying, and my fingers ached from holding a pen for so long. The drudgery had filled the forefront of my mind all day. But now I wanted to be at my house, and at my ease. I needed time to mourn. To think.

  The death of someone you love is bad enough. It creates an absence in your life, and your awareness of it rises and falls; its peaks and troughs are as unpredictable and as dangerous as the waves of the sea, whose rhythms work beneath the surface according to their own mysterious logic.

  But my father’s death came with a host of unanswered questions, and now with another body. Was his death somehow connected with the murdered woman half-buried in the rubble between Fetter Lane and Shoe Lane? Had he seen her lying dead in Clifford’s Inn the day before he died? And what had all this to do with the Fire Court and Dragon Yard?

  A movement caught my eye. Two men were descending the steps, deep in conversation. One of them, a tall, dark man I didn’t recognize, scrambled nimbly into the skiff, where he sat in the stern, under the awning, and settled his black cloak around him. The other man raised a hand in farewell as the boat pulled away. He tilted his head up and I glimpsed the familiar profile beneath the hat. It was Chiffinch.

  Ten minutes or so later, the door opened. My master entered.

  ‘Marwood,’ he said without any preamble. ‘Your duties as Clerk to the Board of Red Cloth have not been onerous, have they?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Chiffinch and I both knew that the Board of Red Cloth had no duties worth speaking of. Perhaps there had been duties when it had been instituted in the reign of Henry VIII. But now, more than a century later, it existed mainly to provide its commissioners, including Chiffinch, with generous salaries and its clerk with a much smaller one. The clerkship paid me about fifty pounds a year, and brought useful perquisites at Whitehall as well. I didn’t want to lose it.

  ‘Sometimes the Board requires its clerk to undertake commissions over and above his usual duties. Which is the case now.’ He ran his eyes over me, from my feet to my head; it was an oddly humiliating inspection that made me feel I was of no more significance to him than a hog or a pony. ‘I see you’re in mourning. Perhaps a change of scene will be a distraction from your grief.’

  ‘What do you wish me to do, sir?’

  ‘The King has commanded me to send a letter privately by a trusted bearer. You will carry it to the gentleman, and wait for his answer. Though there’s no great hurry about it, discretion is essential. But that, of course, is always essential for those of us employed about the King’s business. Wherever we are, whomsoever we consort with, we must never forget the need to be discreet.’ He paused. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Marwood?’

  ‘Yes, sir. When should I go?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. Wait on me at nine o’clock, and I’ll have the letter for you and a warrant for the necessary funds.’

  ‘And where does the gentleman live?’

  ‘About twelve miles east of Inverness. You should take the road to Nairn.’

  For a moment I was too surprised to speak. Scotland? Everyone knew that Scotland was
a land of mountains and barbarians, where the men did not wear breeches and acquired the rudiments of witchcraft with their mothers’ milk. The further north one went, they said, the more savage the Scotch became.

  ‘But, sir, Inverness must be nigh on six hundred miles.’

  ‘At least that, I should think,’ Chiffinch agreed. ‘You will travel on public coaches, by the way. We must economize. Though that may not be easy once you reach the Highlands – I’m not sure there are public coaches up there. But there will be carriers’ wagons, I’m sure, or ponies, or something of that nature.’

  ‘It will take weeks. Wouldn’t it be faster to go by sea?’

  ‘Indeed. But, as I said, discretion is important in this matter, not speed. Besides, there will be letters for you to deliver on the way as well – did I mention that? – so going by sea would be impractical.’

  ‘But Mr Williamson—’

  Chiffinch dismissed Williamson with a wave of his hand. ‘You needn’t concern yourself with that. I will speak to him. Call at my lodgings in the morning, and my clerk will give you the letters and your warrant.’

  He paused and looked at me, expecting me to acknowledge his instructions. I said nothing.

  ‘I wish you a safe journey. I’ll send someone to show you out.’ He turned to go, but stopped with his hand on the door. ‘Don’t disappoint me in this, Marwood. Discretion, eh? Discretion and obedience. Those are the virtues you should cultivate.’

  I was full of rage.

  First Williamson, now Chiffinch.

  Astrologers find significance in the conjunctions of the stars. Those of us who work at Whitehall discover meanings in the conjunctions of great men. (And sometimes, in these changed times since the King’s Restoration, the conjunctions of great women.)

  Yesterday, I had seen Williamson and Chiffinch walking arm in arm in the Matted Gallery. That was unusual in itself. Then Williamson had questioned me at length about the dead woman: his curiosity had been unusual too, and so had been his desire that the murder should be viewed merely as the accidental consequence of a robbery, and also his decision that the matter required no enquiry on the Government’s behalf. Which made it all the stranger that he had been concerned to stamp out any undue publicity about the crime.