The Ashes of London

by Andrew Taylor

  For a moment, neither of us spoke. In repose, her oval face looked almost sullen. The brown eyes were hooded with heavy lids. How old was she? Thirty? Thirty-five?

  She gave a sigh, as if something were troubling her, and stirred in her chair. ‘First,’ she said, ‘is there new intelligence about the murders? Now we have two of them, I understand.’ She noticed my puzzled look. ‘Master Williamson told my husband about the second man, when they met at Whitehall yesterday.’

  ‘I’ve heard nothing more, madam.’

  Her long fingers toyed with a tassel on the arm of the chair. ‘My second question is this: may I put a private proposition before you? And, whatever your answer, may I depend on your discretion?’

  Did she know, I wondered, that I would find it hard to deny her anything, especially if she asked in that confiding tone?

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Mistress Alderley looked searchingly at me. ‘Will you help me find my husband’s niece?’

  I stared at her in surprise. ‘But isn’t she in the country? You told me she was staying with friends because of her health.’

  ‘I told you an untruth. Well? Will you help me?’

  I tried to retain at least a little caution. ‘As far as I can, madam. But Master Williamson must—’

  ‘You need not trouble yourself about Master Williamson. But remember this: he does not know what I wish you to do, or why. And he must not, unless I decide otherwise.’

  ‘And Master Alderley?’

  ‘He does not know of this, and at present I wish him to remain in ignorance.’

  ‘But, madam,’ I said, ‘I must know more of this before I can decide how to proceed.’

  Her mouth tightened. But she nodded. ‘Very well.’ Then she smiled, the merest twitch of the lips. ‘First, how did you like the lodgings you saw today?’

  ‘In the Savoy?’ Yet again she had taken me unawares. ‘Very well, madam. I have taken them.’

  ‘Your father will find the business of the place reassuring, I dare say,’ she said. ‘As a printer, I mean. And of course you needed to find somewhere quickly. Lodgings are hard to come by since the Fire, especially for men like your father. How fortunate for you.’

  ‘You – you knew?’

  ‘Yes. You might even say I played the part of providence.’

  I found I was on my feet, full of rage and fear for my father, and for myself. ‘Why, madam?’ I demanded. ‘Why?’

  ‘Sit down and I shall tell you.’

  I sat down again. As I did so, I heard, quite distinctly, a board creaking nearby. The sound came from behind the screen in the corner of the room.

  Mistress Alderley cleared her throat, perhaps in an attempt to mask the sound. ‘I made enquiries. And I thought I would do you a service beforehand, so you would understand that you will not be the loser by helping me.’

  I understood more than that. She knew who my father was, and how precarious our circumstances were. If she had the power to help us, she also had the power to harm us.

  I heard the scrape of a chair behind the screen and then heavy footsteps. I leapt to my feet. A gentleman appeared. He was middle-aged and well-fleshed. His clothes were sober, though his face had the flush of good living and there was nothing of the Puritan of him. There was a wart on his chin.

  ‘I am Master Chiffinch,’ he said.

  I bowed low to him, hoping my fear did not show. One mystery was solved, the identity of the man I had seen visiting Master Williamson. I knew Chiffinch by reputation, if not by face, as did most people who worked at Whitehall. He was the Clerk of the King’s Closet, like his brother before him – the man who controlled the private access to the King.

  ‘We want you to go to Coldridge,’ he said.

  ‘Coldridge, sir? But where is he?’

  ‘It’s a place, not a man.’

  I gaped at him. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It is simple enough. We want to find Catherine Lovett, Mistress Alderley’s niece, and restore her to her friends. It must be done discreetly, for the young lady is about to be married, and we must safeguard her reputation from slander.’

  I bowed again.

  ‘Coldridge is a property in Suffolk,’ Chiffinch continued briskly. ‘Mistress Lovett owns it now, and it’s where she passed some of her childhood. It lies not far from the village of Champney Crucis.’

  ‘We cannot be sure that she’s there,’ Mistress Alderley said. ‘But she may have fled there as … as a sort of refuge.’

  ‘A refuge from what?’ I said.

  ‘She has maidenly doubts about her fitness for the married state, as so many girls do. I need hardly say that this alliance with Sir Denzil is entirely suitable. Her family wish it, and her betrothed could not be kinder or more attentive to her. But it is this childish scruple that must have temporarily disordered her wits.’

  ‘It is natural that a girl should seek refuge in the place where she was happy as a child,’ Chiffinch interrupted. ‘And you found evidence of it too, did you not, madam?’

  ‘Master Marwood did, sir, not I.’

  ‘The paper,’ I said. ‘In Layne’s box: “Coldridge PW”.’

  She nodded. ‘In the other servant’s hand. That villain, Jem. You were right about that. Layne must have broken into the box and taken it.’

  ‘Six guineas with it,’ I reminded her.

  ‘Blackmail,’ Chiffinch said. ‘Layne probably got wind of her intended escape and tried to extort money for his silence. Mistress Lovett bribed him to keep his mouth shut. But Jem decided to make sure of his silence and lured him to St Paul’s instead. In all the confusion that night it can’t have been difficult to conceal a murder there. All it took was one thrust of a dagger.’

  ‘But to kill a man for so small a reason—’

  Chiffinch waved me to silence. ‘The rogue was possessed by a devil. If we accept that Jem killed Layne, it explains a great deal, I think, including the attack on your stepson. Jem was vicious by nature, and fanatical in his attachment to Mistress Lovett.’

  ‘Of course my niece knew nothing of it,’ Mistress Alderley said.

  I kept silent. Chiffinch regarded me with large, moist eyes. I thought of the ragged little man I had seen flogged to death at Barnabas Place. He had not seemed vicious then, but perhaps no man did when he was under the whip.

  ‘There you have it, Marwood,’ he said, speaking more slowly than before as if in emphasis. ‘There you have the whole story.’

  ‘You must go to Coldridge and see if Catherine is there, Master Marwood,’ Mistress Alderley said, looking earnestly at me. ‘The estate has been leased, I believe, but perhaps she is lodging in seclusion with a childhood acquaintance, or an old servant. Tell her I sent you, and all is forgiven. Bring her home. Reason with her, but if necessary compel her. You may hire a woman to attend her on the journey. Master Chiffinch will arrange money and letters of authority for you.’

  ‘There is a complication,’ Chiffinch said. ‘It is just possible that if you search for her, you may also find her father.’ He stared at me and he must have seen the bewilderment on my face. ‘Thomas Lovett,’ he went on. ‘The Regicide. In which case you are to forget the girl for the moment. You must go at once to the nearest justice and have Lovett seized.’

  Chiffinch had business elsewhere and left me alone with Mistress Alderley. We sat in silence, wrapped in our own thoughts.

  ‘Catherine is a strange girl, Master Marwood,’ she said after a moment or two. ‘Small in stature, and in many ways more like a child than a woman. Her father has left his mark on her.’

  ‘She’s of the Fifth Monarchy persuasion too?’

  ‘Nothing like that. What they share is very different. Thomas Lovett was a master mason, like his father before him. His work was much valued in the old King’s time. He had travelled on the Continent as a young man and he knew the latest styles of the Continent. Master Inigo Jones himself thought highly of him. I believe that’s what she thinks of most, in her heart of hear
ts. This vulgar, mechanical work of building.’

  ‘A woman can’t wield a chisel,’ I pointed out. ‘She can’t be a mason like her father. The very idea is absurd.’

  ‘I suppose a woman could wield a chisel as well as anyone,’ Mistress Alderley said, to my surprise. ‘Should she wish to engage in such a low, dirty business. But it isn’t that I mean. At Barnabas Place, Catherine was forever scribbling plans and designs for buildings. Not in public, of course – only when she was alone. I caught her at it once. And my maid brought me discarded sheets that she had thrown away. I think her aunt in Coldridge had encouraged her to take an interest in such things. Mere castles in the air, but harmless enough, though I doubt Sir Denzil would approve. Such a strange, unwomanly taste … She looks like a child and thinks like a man. Indeed, I think she would have been happier if she had been born a boy.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‘YOU WERE AT Cradle Alley yesterday, I hear,’ Master Williamson said. ‘Master Chiffinch told me.’

  There was a strange intonation in his voice. His face gave nothing away – it rarely did – but I realized that something between us had changed.

  ‘I’m told it’s a charming house,’ Williamson said. ‘And mercifully spared from the Fire. Are – are the new rooms very fine?’

  ‘Yes, sir. From the street, the house is nothing out of the ordinary, but it is quite different inside. One might almost be here at Whitehall.’

  ‘That’s not so very surprising.’ His eyebrows drew together. ‘Bearing in mind Mistress Alderley’s tenant.’ He saw from my face that I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Why, it is Master Chiffinch himself. Did you not know?’

  It was not only the words that told me his meaning but the prim little smile that accompanied them. It was unlikely that Master Chiffinch himself would have need of a lavishly appointed house in the City. But his royal master was another matter.

  ‘Mistress Alderley,’ Williamson went on, ‘has court connections. Her first husband, Sir William Quincy, joined the King in exile.’ Another prim little smile. ‘And Lady Quincy herself, as she was then. But Sir William died just before the Restoration. The King did not forget the young widow of his loyal friend.’

  The words were perfectly proper, but there was a wealth of possible meaning to be glimpsed in the murky depths beneath them. How far had Lady Quincy’s loyalty to the monarch allowed her to go when the King was in exile? I knew well enough she was an attractive woman, and the King was certainly a man who loved women. When her first husband died, perhaps the King had encouraged a complacent and conveniently rich husband to court her, in the shape of Master Alderley? As for the house in Cradle Alley, it was not hard to guess the uses that the King and Master Chiffinch might find for a discreetly luxurious residence in the City, away from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of Whitehall.

  ‘Master Chiffinch has requested that I give you leave to go down to Suffolk for a few days,’ Master Williamson said. ‘He has explained the nature of the errand.’

  ‘My father—’

  ‘You leave tomorrow morning. As early as possible. You are to travel as a supernumerary clerk of the Office of Works, carrying a letter from the Surveyor General to the Harbour Master at Harwich, which I understand is conveniently close to Champney. The Office of Works will provide you with the loan of a horse. You will so arrange your journey that you visit Champney, and make your enquiries there.’ He waved a hand. ‘There’s a brick-making works nearby, and if anyone questions you, you are examining the clay in the neighbourhood. If we know nothing else about what will happen to London, we can be sure we need bricks to rebuild it. As for the rest’ – he left a pregnant pause – ‘Master Chiffinch has already explained everything you need to know.’

  I sensed his frustration. Williamson did not like to be kept in the dark, and he hated the idea that I knew more about something than he did.

  ‘The only difficulty is my father, sir. I must move him and our effects to the Savoy as soon as possible.’

  ‘Oh yes. That. The Office of Works will loan you a small wagon for a few hours. You shall have this afternoon off. That should give you ample time to change your lodgings. Come to me if you need anything.’

  For the first time in my life, I felt the beneficial effects of proximity to power. Yesterday all these things had been impossible. Now they were mine at the stroke of someone else’s pen.

  The following morning I rose early in our new lodgings in the Savoy and rode east and north. I left my father at breakfast with a small child perched on either knee, for Mistress Newcomb had decided to make him useful; both he and the little Newcombs seemed happy with this arrangement, at least for the time being.

  The day was cloudy but dry. At first my way took me through the ruins of the City to Leadenhall Street, a quarter that had escaped the Fire. My spirits lightened once I had passed through the City walls at Aldgate, and they continued to rise as gradually the houses dropped away.

  Gardens, orchards and paddocks appeared, even at the roadside, and at last the road ran through open farmland. The air changed, too, as the smog of the city thinned and then disappeared. Colours grew brighter. The green of grass, trees and bushes was almost unbearably vivid. I had not realized that the colours of London, Whitehall, Westminster and even Chelsea had become so tinged with ashy grey, for my eyes had adjusted to it.

  The hours passed. The roads were in better condition than I had expected, despite the autumn rains, for the heat of the summer had baked them hard. I felt increasingly cheerful, as if I had been granted a holiday. If my father had a fit or wandered away, I would not even know of it. If Master Williamson needed someone to take his dictation long into the evening, I would not be there to sit at his elbow, my quill at the ready. Indeed, on that first day away from London, I should have been entirely happy if it had not been for my aching calves and the chafing of the saddle on my thighs.

  At Harwich, the Harbour Master gave me a lavish supper and offered to make arrangements for the morrow. I lay that night at an inn near the quayside, where the bed was good. I slept like the dead and woke to find myself bitten by bugs, and my muscles so painful that I could barely stand.

  After breakfast, I was ferried over the estuary of the Stour. The Harbour Master had arranged for a guide and a hired horse to be waiting on the other side.

  The country was flat and bleak, ravaged by the winds from the sea. The guide and I rode steadily – and in my case most uncomfortably – through a network of muddy lanes in a roughly westerly direction.

  The tower of Champney Crucis church was visible from miles away. We reached the village by midday. I ordered dinner and arranged for the extravagance of a bedchamber to myself, as I had the previous night; for Master Williamson had provided me with a purse for expenses and I did not wish to share a bed with strangers.

  The village was not large, and I was not surprised to find myself an object of mild curiosity. As I was waiting for my dinner, I allowed the landlord to extract the alleged reason for my visit from me.

  ‘Brick-making, sir?’ he said. ‘There are several brickworks between here and Ipswich. We have no native stone, you see. In our neighbourhood, we are obliged either to make our own bricks, or import them from the Low Countries.’

  ‘The King will need to do both,’ I said. ‘There is so much that needs rebuilding, and they will want to do it in brick and stone now, to lessen the risk of another great fire.’

  ‘Is London such a very great city?’ the landlord asked, with a wistful note in his voice. ‘I have never been there.’

  ‘Enormous. And at present most of it is a great heap of ash. Do you know of any clay pits in the parish?’

  ‘None that I know of.’

  ‘I shall make enquiries. What are the principal houses of the parish?’

  ‘There’s only one of any size, sir. Coldridge.’

  ‘Who lives there?’

  ‘Master Howgego – a most pious gentleman, and open-handed to the poor.
Now he’s bought the place, he plans to rebuild the house. So I dare say he may know—’

  ‘He owns Coldridge? He doesn’t hold it on a lease?’

  The landlord looked puzzled by my surprise. ‘He bought the freehold in the spring. The family that had it had quite died out, apart from a niece in London who has not been here for years. In any case, she’s hardly more than a child, and we haven’t seen her down here since her aunt died.’

  ‘I shall call on Master Howgego this afternoon,’ I said.

  ‘Do so, and he will thank you.’ The landlord waved the maidservant over to serve the food. ‘For the pleasure of your society, sir, as much as anything else. I scarce think we’ve seen a stranger for months. Not since Master Alderley came down about the sale.’

  ‘The trustee you mentioned?’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, sir. He’s a London goldsmith, a man of extraordinary wealth. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I WALKED UP to Coldridge, glad to be on foot rather than on a horse. I needed time to think. Something was clearly amiss, for Mistress Alderley had been under the impression that the estate still belonged to Catherine Lovett, and that it would go with her as her dowry when she married Sir Denzil.

  Besides, it had been a terrible dinner, with a chicken that must have been older than Methuselah, and exercise would help me digest it more quickly.

  The house stood in a small deer park on the edge of a low, north-facing hill; there were few hills in this part of the world and it must have been the highest point for miles around. To the front was a low range built of brick, from which tall chimneys sprouted into fantastical shapes. As I drew closer, a huddle of older buildings appeared behind it, with a farmyard butting against them.

  It was a more modest establishment than I had expected. I had thought that Alderley’s niece would own a grander house, something more in keeping with Sir Denzil and his pretensions. But perhaps Mistress Lovett’s fortune had been in her acreage, and she had no need of a mansion.