by Angus Donald
*
Holcroft sat on the hard stone bench in the Privy Garden and contemplated the sundial. He had a thick slice of bread and a piece of cheese in his hand in lieu of dinner – he had fled the more substantial cooked dinner laid out in the clerks’ hall, pleading an engagement, and begged the kitchens for this simple meal instead – and he chewed slowly as he admired the spheres of coloured glass gleaming in the sunlight on their moveable arms. The gilt-work on the dials themselves was particularly brilliant today and he knew that it was almost exactly two of the clock even before the church bells of St Martin’s confirmed his knowledge. Yet today, for once, the sundial was failing in its duty to soothe his soul.
The sundial represented the natural order of things in the heavens and on earth: the sun at the centre of things, like the King, and the planets in motion around the sun, like the King’s ministers and all the great men of England. There was a natural hierarchy in the affairs of men, at least to Holcroft’s mind. The King was served by his lords, the lords were served by their attendants, who in turn also had their own servants. England had been governed like this for a thousand years – save for the dozen years after the last King had been executed and replaced by the lord protector, who was merely a King by another name. Each man owed loyalty up the chain to the very top, where the King owed his own loyalty to God, who had anointed him sovereign. Loyalty flowed up the chain, and justice flowed down from the powerful to those who served them. And yet what happened if those with power were unjust? What happened when those in authority did not keep their word, when they promised rewards for service but did not honour those promises? Was it right for the servant to withhold his loyalty if he did not receive justice?
Holcroft knew what his father would have said. Blood had often argued that his chains of loyal service had been broken, that the age-old agreement between master and man was voided if injustice were done – as was the case when they lost their lands at Sarney – and moreover that it was a man’s right under God to take suitable recompense from those who wronged him.
Holcroft was not so sure. He wanted to serve the duke with all his heart and to be compensated fairly for that loyal service. But Buckingham had made him betray his friend Jack – between the promise of money and the threat of dismissal, His Grace had forced Holcroft into soiling the bond of loyalty between friends. And when he had refused Holcroft his promised reward he had shown himself to be unjust. If the duke was unjust, did that mean that Holcroft had no further obligation to be loyal to him?
Holcroft looked at the sundial anew. He saw that some of the gilt was peeling from the steel arms; several of the glass spheres were clouding on the inside. The enamel plaques that depicted the King and Queen were speckled with bird excrement. The sundial was imperfect. It was designed, he now saw, to show how the universe ought to be, not as it truly was.
Holcroft made up his mind. He got up from the stone seat, stretched his arms to the sky, turned his back on the sundial and started walking towards the Cockpit. He would meet Aphra Behn again. She was a good woman; he could sense it. She was a friend. He would do whatever she asked of him.
The chain of his loyalty to the duke was broken.
Tuesday 25 April, 1671
At a little after noon, Parson Ayliffe, once more in his black coat, white collar and golden spectacles, knocked at the cheerful blue door at the top of the steps leading up to the Irish Tower. It was about the time a well-to-do gentleman might be sitting down to his dinner, as Ayliffe well knew. The door swung open and Elizabeth Edwards stood on the threshold, drying her wet, red hands on a pinafore, blushing and curtseying all at the same time, and finally ushering the tall, handsome man of the cloth into her home.
Ayliffe had a parcel in his hand, a bulky item wrapped in brown paper and tied neatly with a piece of string. He bore his parcel up the stairs and into the parlour where he shook hands cordially with the assistant keeper and enthusiastically accepted his grudging offer of a small glass of brandy.
It must be noted that Edwards had a reserved tone in his voice as he greeted Ayliffe – he had not expected to see the parson again, assuming that in the six days which had passed since his last visit he had returned to whatever that village-by-the-sea in Essex was called, perhaps never to be seen again. It could not be said that he was glad to see this man of God – the last visit had been somewhat alarming. He had fretted afterwards about the sudden illness that Ayliffe’s lovely wife seemed to have contracted in the Jewel House and, while he was fairly sure it was not the plague, one could not be too careful. It might very well be some other kind of pestilence. The last thing he needed was paying guests who came to view the jewels dying of a mysterious malaise shortly afterwards. So Edwards looked carefully at Ayliffe, trying to detect any signs of ill health.
It was also nearly time for his dinner and he had had acquaintances in the past who showed up at his door a few minutes before the time for the meal in the expectation of being invited to join in the repast. So his greeting for Ayliffe was more warily cordial than genuinely joyful.
The tall parson seemed not to notice the chilliness of his welcome. He spoke happily and at some length about his previous visit, praising Edwards’s knowledge about the jewels and regalia and marvelling at his command of their history. When he finally allowed himself to notice that Edwards was becoming restive, glancing at the door that led into his dining room more and more frequently, he said, ‘But I must not prattle away all day, sir. You will be wanting your dinner soon, I am sure, and I do not wish to intrude. So let me tell you that I am come to you merely to express my sincere gratitude at the help that you and your lady wife were able to afford my Jennifer – she is quite recovered, I’m sure you will be glad to know – and to give you this small token of my esteem; to wit, a small gift for Mistress Edwards from two grateful gentlefolk. We feel that you and your good lady preserved Jennifer’s life and we are both deeply thankful.’
Edwards mumbled his own thanks and said there was really no need, no need at all, while he fumbled with the knotted string. When he eventually opened the brown paper parcel, he was genuinely lost for words – for inside were four pairs of beautiful white kidskin ladies’ gloves, with tiny seed pearl buttons and delicate gold edging.
‘Sarah, Sarah, come and see this. What an extraordinary coincidence. I was looking at some pairs just like this only a couple of weeks ago. Sir, you are most kind. Most kind!’
As his wife came into the room, he showed her the gloves and as she admired them, making little coos of delight, Ayliffe said: ‘Well, I really must be about my business. My thanks to you and your good lady once more. But might I ask a final boon, one last favour? Could you direct me to a nearby chophouse, not too expensive, somewhere clean and God-fearing. It has been a vexing morning and I feel badly in need of some refreshment.
‘A chophouse, oh no! No, no, no!’ cried Mistress Edwards. ‘You must dine with us, if only to allow us to thank you for your most generous gift. Elizabeth, go tell the maid to lay another place at the table. The Reverend Ayliffe will be joining us for dinner.’
‘Such honest Christian kindness,’ said Ayliffe. ‘It fair touches my heart. Perhaps I might be allowed to say grace?’
*
Holcroft and Aphra Behn met at Pettigrew’s chophouse on the Strand, which was convenient for both of them being about equal distance from White Hall and Aphra’s lodgings in St Thomas Street. Aphra’s draughty garret was at the top of a narrow, decrepit house just off Drury Lane and perilously close to the slums of St Giles – a collection of nameless alleys and slumped, sullen hovels, which housed some of the poorest inhabitants of London. St Giles was a lawless place of poverty and despair, of casual murder, rape and thievery; a place that no respectable person would dream of entering and few would even dare to live on its doorstep unless, like Aphra, they were driven there by a lack of money and the necessity to be close to the playhouse in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, half a mile to the east.
It was the second ti
me they had met at this venue since their walk in the tulip garden of the Cockpit six days ago. This time Aphra had left Betterton and his troupe rehearsing Twelfth Night; Holcroft was making his usual daily delivery of the duke’s letters to the General Letter Office in the City, where he also collected any incoming mail addressed to His Grace.
The Duke of Buckingham was perfectly happy to send his everyday, common-or-garden correspondence through the offices of the Royal Mail – but anything confidential, which was usually written in his personal code anyway, he had his own well-mounted private couriers deliver. He knew that the postmaster general, Lord Arlington, perhaps his nearest rival for power after the Duke of Ormonde, had his post office clerks open and read his correspondence and he made sure that he often included snippets of information that would seriously mislead or just plain baffle them.
Holcroft arrived later than the appointed hour, slightly breathless as he had run all the way from the City, but Aphra was sanguine about his tardiness. She had been regaling herself with mutton chops and mint sauce, buttered parsnips and a jug of claret while she waited. She was just finishing her meal when Holcroft sat down and, after dabbing the mutton grease from her lips with a napkin, she smiled prettily and asked him politely how he did.
Holcroft had no time for pleasantries. He was expected back at the Cockpit within the hour and he ignored her question and said: ‘I’ve found the man who will serve as our letter seller – as you asked me to. Someone in the Duke of Ormonde’s circle, you said. I still don’t understand why. But I can arrange for him to deliver a note to me at the Cockpit, and to be seen doing so. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. That’s perfect,’ said Aphra, pouring Holcroft a glass of wine. ‘And who is this helpful fellow, may I ask?’
‘He’s called James Pratt. He is Ormonde’s senior page and he owes me a sum that he cannot pay. It is four pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence. He lost it to me at Trump yesterday evening.’
‘Very good – he can bring the note to you but that should be the extent of his involvement, I think. Tell him if he delivers the note, his debt is cleared but do not tell him any more than that. From then on we shall say to Buckingham that Pratt insists that he will deal only with you. Agreed?’
‘Yes.’ Holcroft took a sip of his wine. His stomach growled at the wafting scents of cooked meat that filled the dim, wood-panelled room.
‘Do you have time for a plate of chops?’
‘No.’ He took a piece of dry bread from the basket on the table and began to chew it.
Aphra watched him eat for a moment then said, ‘Tell me, Holly, have you had time to read the copy of The Amorous Prince that I left with you?’
‘I read it.’
‘And did you like it?’
‘Not much. It is filled with the same preposterous goings-on as the last one. If anything, it is worse.’
Aphra laughed, again it was a genuine eruption of amusement. ‘That is a relief. Much as it wounds me to hear you say it, I’m glad you did not care for it. If you’d said that you liked it, if you’d tried to please me, to flatter me, I’d have known you were playing me false. Now I know I can trust you.’
‘Did you not trust me before?’
‘I hope you will forgive me. But my former occupation has made me distrustful of nearly everyone, even my friends.’
Holcroft said nothing for a while. Then his strange mind, as it often did, made one of those long bounds of intuition.
‘You were the Duke of Buckingham’s spy in Versailles. You are the confidential agent who signs herself Astraea.’
‘Well done. I wondered if you would make the link. But I am no longer Astraea. His Grace dispensed with my services – remember? He was dissatisfied with my work, he said. My erstwhile assistant, a most unsavoury fellow called Jupon, now has that dubious honour. I am certain that he will do a far better job than I ever did.’
‘The duke wanted you to identify two Englishmen who paid a visit to someone called Madame this time last year,’ said Holcroft, very pleased with himself for making the Versailles connection. ‘I wrote those messages to you myself.’
‘Did you now? Then you might like to know that I did identify the two men for our master: they were Lord Arlington and Sir Thomas Clifford. I was dismissed because I could not discover exactly why they had so many secret meetings with Madame – who you should know was the King’s sister Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans. She died last summer. Some say she was poisoned. I do not believe that was the case. Her stomach had troubled her for many months. But I still don’t know why they met with her.’
‘It has something to do with the Treaty of Dover and our promise to go to war with the Dutch in exchange for a vast sum from King Louis.’
‘Undoubtedly. And that brings me to the point I wish to discuss with you concerning our own scheme to extract our due from Buckingham.’
Holcroft looked attentively at Aphra.
‘The Duke of Ormonde is out of favour because he backed the wrong horse,’ she told him. ‘He tried to influence the King to abide by the previous treaty with the Protestant Dutch and the Swedes and ally against the French. He lost – and Buckingham and the French camp won. And, as far as we know, all of Ormonde’s dealings with the Dutch, with young Prince William of Orange and the Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt have been regular and honest, no hint of treason, no skulduggery, he was just loyally exploring different avenues of policy for his King.’
‘What is a grand pensionary? He sounds like a very ancient gentleman.’
‘It means the most important official of the Dutch Republic, the chief minister of its government, if you like. The equivalent of our Buckingham, or perhaps the Duke of Ormonde, in England.’
Holcroft took another piece of bread and nodded to indicate that she should resume. Aphra looked around the semi-empty room and lowered her voice to a whisper: ‘Ostensibly, Ormonde did nothing wrong in his dealings with the Dutch. But what if we were to suggest that he did do something very bad, something secret, something treasonous, and that your friend James Pratt, his senior but very much indebted page, had the letter to prove it? Do you not think that His Grace the Duke of Buckingham would wish to possess that letter, spend a few hundred pounds, a thousand even, to have in his hands the means to destroy his greatest rival?’
*
Parson Ayliffe had just finished enjoying a lavish dinner at the table of Talbot Edwards and his family in the Irish Tower. A soup of wild grouse and one of leeks and cream had been served and then removed and replaced with a fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a small barrel of oysters, a cold ox tongue and a dish of roasted pigeons and one of boiled lobsters. Finally they had eaten an apple tart, a gooseberry tart and a big round yellow cheese. They had drunk ale, sack and claret and now, comfortably full, but without the company of Mistress Edwards and the ill-favoured Elizabeth, who had withdrawn to the other room, Ayliffe was sipping a glass of port conversing amiably with Edwards on subjects of mutual interest and concern.
They had discussed the extraordinary rise of the value of the stock of the East India Company, but both agreed that it was bound to come thumping down any day now. The future, they felt, lay with those bold adventurers of the Royal African Company: such enormous profits to be made in slaves, and a seemingly endless demand from the plantations in the Americas! With a certain frisson of illicit excitement they discussed rumours of secret Catholics in high places – Edwards suggesting, somewhat disloyally, there were men of evil design and Popish persuasion very near the King himself, even in his own family. But he drew back from naming names. Then they spent a happy half-hour disparaging the morals and habits of the young: something close to Edward’s heart – although he did make an exception of his son Wythe, who was a good and dutiful fellow and a fine brave soldier.
‘I wish the young men of my own family were such noble paragons,’ said Ayliffe, drawing on his pipe and releasing a cloud of fragrant smoke. ‘My nephew, Thomas, for instance, is a v
ery sad example of that generation. He cannot stick to anything at all. No bottom – that is his problem; although he is a very engaging and amiable soul and an honest Christian. He is a great one for his books, loves to read more than any fellow I ever met. However, when I arranged a position for him as a clerk in William Scott’s emporium in Charing Cross Road, he left after a week saying that reading the columns of figures all day made his head ache. Next, and at considerable outlay of emoluments and so forth, I arranged a place for him with the Duke of Buckingham as a confidential clerk – but he did not find that quite congenial either. I do not know what to do with him. I am quite at my wits’ end.’
‘Could you not do something for him in the Church? I should have thought that, his being so clever and bookish, he might make a scholar at one of the universities and that might lead to ordination and a parish of his own, perhaps.’
‘It might, if I could induce him to attend the university and submit to their laws and practices. He can be a lazy devil. If neither my wife nor I rouse him, we have sometimes found him still abed at noon. The problem is that his late father, my brother Edwin, God rest his soul, left him a decent sum of money in his will, which yields him an income of two or even three hundred a year. This is under my guardianship for now, and that of two of his father’s friends, and I give him only a small allowance at present. But he knows well that when he turns twenty-five the whole sum will be his unequivocally, and that if he can wait out a few years he need never toil for his living again. I understand his point of view. He was born to a gentleman’s estate and there is no use my trying to force him to undertake some enterprise if he does not choose to do so. But I do wish he would choose to do something. Anything. I worry so about him. Jennifer says that he should find a nice young gentlewoman and get married. And, on the whole, I concur with her views. Marriage can have such a salutary effect on a young person, don’t you agree, Edwards?’
