by Mary Hooper
‘Does he really?’
‘Oh, yes, it’s the Countess of this, the Duchess of that. He’s not nearly so generous with his boys.’
‘Doctor Deane said you were having a boy,’ Eliza reminded her.
Nell frowned. ‘But he’s not always right.’
‘No, I’m sure he’s not,’ Eliza said. He couldn’t have been right, for instance, when he’d told her that she was high-born. She knew that. It had just been a playact on the astrologer’s part to cause a stir and a sensation.
The attention of both Eliza and Nell was caught by a pretty scene outside the window, for the queen and several ladies-in-waiting had come into the garden and were playing with a ball, picking up their full skirts and running backwards and forwards to catch it across the cobbles.
‘The queen is a goodly sort,’ Nell said as they watched, ‘for she’s heard that I’m with child and sent me a cordial for morning sickness. Not that I’ve ever been sick,’ she added.
Eliza shook her head wonderingly; she’d never understand how the queen dealt so equably with the pregnancies of her husband’s mistresses. Staring at them now in the garden, she noticed two ladies-in-waiting she’d never seen before; girls who stood out from the others because they were dark-haired when everyone apart from the queen was a more-fashionable blonde.
‘Who are those two girls – the dark-haired beauties?’ she asked Nell.
Nell looked. ‘Henry Monteagle’s sisters,’ she said. ‘Recently come to court to try and find suitable husbands.’
‘Monteagle!’ Eliza said, rather shocked, for they looked much too agreeable to be anything to do with him.
‘Coming to live at court is a good road to marriage,’ Nell said. ‘Girls put themselves on display for a year or two and nearly always find someone to wed.’
Eliza stared down at the two girls. ‘But they don’t look anything like him,’ she said. ‘He’s broad of hip while they’re narrow, and their colouring is very different – they’re dark-haired and of a pale complexion, and he’s fair-haired and florid.’
‘What you mean is, he is vile and they look perfectly nice!’ finished Nell.
‘Indeed!’ For certainly the girls looked sweet of expression and appeared good-tempered. ‘What are their names?’
Nell shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘And how is it that someone as beastly as he could have such nice sisters?’
‘We can’t help our relations,’ Nell said and, as she raised her eyes to heaven, Eliza knew just who she was thinking of. ‘Besides, they may have had a different father.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Eliza said. She went on looking at the two girls, though she couldn’t have said why.
Eliza didn’t get a chance to speak to Valentine Howard until a week later when Nell, her dining room now furnished with silver plate and candelabra, her larders filled with game and her cellars replete with fine wines, decided to hold a small house-warming dinner for the king and a few favoured guests. In the normal way Eliza wouldn’t have expected to attend such an occasion, but a musician was playing the harpsichord during supper and Nell had asked Eliza to go in and accompany him with a couple of songs after they’d eaten.
In the meantime, Eliza had had some of her money advanced and commissioned a goldsmith to make the king’s emerald into a pendant, which had been achieved simply by winding fine gold wire around the stone so that it looked as if it were covered by an elegant golden cage. Hanging from a green velvet ribbon and worn for the dinner party with Nell’s moss-green satin gown, it looked very fine.
On entering Nell’s dining room after the sweetmeats had been served, Eliza’s first fervent hope was that Henry Monteagle was not among the guests. Her second was that Valentine Howard was.
Rising from a deep curtsy towards the king, she was happy to find that both wishes had been fulfilled, for scanning quickly around she saw that Valentine Howard was there, also Monmouth, Rochester and several others of the gang of wits – but of Henry Monteagle there was no sign.
Eliza couldn’t follow sheet music nor knew the tunes of any of the newer ballads, so had already arranged with the harpsichord player that she’d sing two traditional airs. These were received with slightly drunken praise by the assembled guests and a request from the king that she should repeat them.
She did so and then curtsied again before making her exit. The men, she noticed, resumed their drinking and carousing before she’d even left the room.
After going downstairs and begging some supper from Mrs Pearce – for she’d been much too nervous about her singing to eat beforehand – Eliza was making her way back to her room with some slices of cold roast goose when she met several of the party moving from the dining to the snooker room. One of these was Valentine Howard.
He stopped on seeing her and gave a short bow.
‘Are you well, madam?’ he asked.
‘I am, thank you, sire.’ Eliza bobbed him a curtsy, endeavouring to keep the roast goose on the plate.
‘And are you going to join us?’
‘Mais non.’ She coughed nervously. She was anxious to use French expressions, as did the aristocracy, but was not always sure of their correct pronunciation. ‘Though I hoped to see you in order to thank you for your kindness to me the other evening.’
‘Oh, it was nothing.’
Eliza nibbled at her lip. She thought that he spoke a little too carelessly, almost as if her ordeal had been of no consequence.
‘Indeed it was, sire, for I found myself in danger, and who knows what would have happened if you hadn’t come along when you had.’
He frowned at her. His brows met in the middle in the most devilishly intriguing way, Eliza thought, and his eyes were the brightest blue she’d ever seen, his eyelashes very long and thick.
‘But if you think such situations so dangerous,’ he asked, ‘why do you persist in getting yourself into them? If you have assignations with fellows like Monteagle, you must perceive, surely, the inherent danger?’
Eliza stared at him, almost too taken-aback to speak. ‘I did not … I do not …’
He nodded to the emerald. ‘Oh, and I suppose that pretty bauble around your neck was obtained by being a mere lady’s maid, was it?’
‘No, it was not!’ Eliza said. ‘This pretty bauble, as you call it, was from the king.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘His Majesty seems to be a very busy man these days …’
Eliza was about to protest that she’d been given it for saving his life, but something stopped her. No, if he believed the worst of her, then so be it. She wouldn’t be the one to put him right. She was filled with a childish desire to stick out her tongue at him, but managed not to. Instead she pushed her nose into the air, said, ‘Your servant, sire!’ in as disdainful a manner as possible and, picking up her skirts with her free hand, ran up the stairs and away.
How dare he! What an infuriating fellow! What an infuriating, maddening, opinionated … and devastatingly attractive fellow.
The following evening Eliza was downstairs in the little room which Nell called her closet, sewing new buttons on to the scarlet dress. The bodice being lined with calico, however, it was difficult to insert the needle, and she had also lost her thimble, so more often than not it would stick halfway and then Eliza would have to drive it in with the tip of her finger, sometimes piercing the flesh as she did so. Each time this happened she’d curse Henry Monteagle – and then curse Valentine Howard. How could he? How could he think her a common whore? She’d never given him any cause to believe that!
But then, the last of the buttons sewn, she thought about it a little more: Valentine Howard had seen her in Clink, he’d viewed her as a half-naked mermaid at the fair, he’d spoken to her when she’d been an orange girl and now she was Nell’s friend and companion. What would any man think? Maybe she had been too harsh on him …
Eliza did not see her friend until near eight o’clock that evening, for Nell had had a day which included shopping, a si
tting with Lely, gown fittings, a play reading, a tea party and an appointment with a lace-maker who was to fashion her a sumptuous lying-in gown. When she eventually came in accompanied by a parcel-laden lackey, she was full of news.
‘Well, whatever do you think?!’ she said as she flung her cloak and feathered hat on to the settle and indicated that the parcels were to be dropped there, too.
Eliza, laughing, said she hadn’t the slightest idea.
She dismissed the lackey with a wave. ‘Well, why do you think it was that Monteagle wasn’t at my soirée last night?’
Eliza shrugged. She knew it wasn’t merely that Nell had been solicitous enough of her feelings not to have included him, because if the king had wished to bring Monteagle along then he certainly would have done.
‘He’s away? He has a new woman – a new amour?’ Eliza said a little self-consciously.
‘No! He’s been banned from court!’
Eliza gasped. ‘Such good news! But why?’
‘Because he’s challenged someone to a duel – and you know the king has banned duels.’
‘Who is it he’s challenged?’
‘Someone named Major Whitfield. Monteagle said he was insulted by him and so called him out. The king has told him to withdraw the challenge, or stay away from court – which is exactly what he’s doing. They think he means to go through with the duel, though.’ Nell flung herself down on the settle. ‘’Twill be pistols at dawn within the next few days, they say – and Val Howard is to be his second.’
‘Oh,’ Eliza said anxiously. ‘Is there any danger for a second?’
‘I think not.’ Nell gave Eliza a little sideways look and laughed. ‘I’m sure your Valentine will be quite safe.’
Eliza contemplated the happy thought of Monteagle being away from court for ever. ‘But what of his sisters?’ she asked suddenly. ‘How horrid for them to arrive at court just in time to hear that their brother is to fight a duel.’
Nell looked at her. ‘Well, why ever should you think of them?’
Eliza paused, thought about it again, and shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ She smiled and pointed to the packages strewn across the floor. ‘But what are all those interesting-looking parcels?’
Nell began counting them out, squeezing or sniffing them to try and detect their contents. ‘Twelve pairs of scented gloves,’ she said, ‘two pairs of silver leather slippers, some hair jewellery, two black bodices embroidered in red silk, three painted fans, a nightgown and wrapper of gold-spangled lace and some red and white striped silk undersmocks.’ She lifted the last brown-paper package. ‘And the most heavenly ribbons in silver-blue to trim the rocking cot I’m having made.’
‘Blue?’ Eliza questioned. ‘So you do think it’ll be a boy?’
‘I’ll send to Doctor Deane to make quite sure. Which reminds me that I’ve found out Squintabella’s date of birth and want the doctor to cast her chart.’ Nell went cross-eyed, making Eliza laugh. ‘I want to know how long she’ll be at court.’
‘I’ll go tomorrow,’ Eliza promised, and she was about to gather her things together and wish Nell goodnight when they heard the bellman outside.
‘Eight of the clock!’ he called. ‘Highwayman taken in Tavern!’
The girls looked at each other.
‘I wonder which highwayman?’ Nell mused. ‘Not my sister’s husband, I hope, for I know she’d straight away move in here.’
‘And not …’ Eliza’s voice faltered and she put down her sewing. ‘Shall I run down and ask?’ she said. ‘I could catch him on the corner and find out more.’
‘Do that. Highwaymen are as common as crows and it’s probably someone we’ve never heard of, but ’twould set our minds at rest.’
Eliza flung a shawl around her shoulders, ran downstairs and out of the front door, catching up with the bellman at the top of Thames steps.
‘Can you tell me more about the highwayman arrested?’ she asked, panting.
‘Oh, aye, young missy,’ he said. ‘They took him in a tavern. They said he was drunk as a lord, for he’d had a mighty good day’s thieving and was enjoying a celebration.’
‘But who was he?’
‘Why, none other than Claude Duval himself.’ The bellman winked at Eliza. ‘And they say he’s to be hanged good and quick before he can get away again!’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The next morning Eliza, after rising early, went to the stationers at St Paul’s to buy a special edition of the London Newes. Going upstairs to Nell’s room and sitting amid the ruffled silk, lace pillows and beribboned hangings of her sumptuous new bed, she read the details of Claude Duval’s arrest to her.
‘It says they took him at Mother Mabberley’s tavern, the Hole in the Wall in Chandos Street. A member of the watch apprehended him when he was talking about a robbery he’d committed earlier on Turnham Green, where he stole a wooden chest containing precious jewels and gold. He was drunk, they say, and off his guard.’
Nell sighed. ‘How like a man to be boasting of his success! A chest of jewels, though. No wonder he was full of it.’
‘He was taken straight to Newgate and will be tried by Sir William Morton the day after tomorrow.’
‘So quickly! That’s to make sure he’s not sprung.’
Eliza looked further down the paper. ‘There follows a list of some of the robberies he’s accused of and notable people that he’s stolen from over the years.’
Nell waved her hand dismissively. ‘But he never used violence,’ she said, ‘and most of the people he robbed could well afford it.’
‘What will happen to him?’
Nell shook her head and shivered, though a large fire had already been lit in the room. ‘He’ll be sentenced to be hanged for sure.’
Eliza felt her eyes fill with tears.
‘Unless,’ Nell went on, ‘we can appeal to the king to reprieve him.’
‘We appeal?’
‘Well, you and I know that Claude Duval has saved the king’s life, so perhaps some sort of bargain can be struck.’
Eliza read further from the Newes, and then gave a sudden little cry. ‘It says here that they’re seeking his accomplices, and that if anyone wants to turn king’s evidence, they’ll be given a Tyburn ticket.’ She looked at Nell. ‘What’s that?’
‘’Tis a token against being hanged. If you give evidence against a highwayman, you’re allowed to go free even though you may have committed the same crime yourself.’
‘They’re also giving rewards for the capture of his partners in crime and those who have assisted him over the years.’ Eliza suddenly put down the newspaper. ‘They are seeking me!’ she said in a fright.
‘But no one saw you that night!’
‘’Tis possible that Monmouth did,’ Eliza said shakily. ‘And there are those who saw me with Claude in the coffee house beforehand, too. It could be said that we were in there plotting together.’
‘But who would have seen you?’
‘Anyone! Don’t you always say that there are spies everywhere?’
‘I do, but … No, we mustn’t think of this! We must seek out His Majesty and beg for Claude to be treated leniently because he’s saved the king’s life and has never used violence on anyone. And in the meantime I’ll send a messenger to Newgate to see if there’s anything that Claude needs while he’s in there.’ Nell shuddered. ‘’Tis grim there – but at least at this time of the year there’s little prison fever about.’
Much to her relief, for she hated going anywhere near prisons, Nell didn’t ask Eliza to go to Newgate. Instead she was instructed to go to Doctor Deane’s with a slip of paper giving details of Louise de Keroualle.
‘And please ask him about my confinement again, and whether he’s perfectly sure that I’m having a boy,’ Nell had added.
Eliza usually loved walking through the teeming streets of the City, but the news about Duval had unnerved her. Everyone was talking about the arrest; ballad sheets had already been printed with tales
of Duval’s exploits and posters engraved with wishes for his safe return to the ‘fine and ancient business of highway robbery’. Eliza also saw some official bills, however, offering a reward for the handing over of anyone who’d helped him, and after reading these couldn’t help but suspect everyone. Was that boy really sweeping the gutters, or was he watching her? Was the street trader selling trinkets from his tray, or had he been placed there to snoop? Why did the green man with his barrow of herbs seem to be following her? She contemplated buying a mask and holding it to her face, but decided that this would make her look more suspicious. Nevertheless, she pulled the hood of her cloak well over her head before going through the City gates.
She passed St Columbus Church, where she’d last seen the man she’d thought was her father, and wondered if he was still working there. The church building seemed to be complete now, so perhaps he’d gone to Somersetshire, back home to her brothers and sisters. Who were, of course, no longer her brothers and sisters. But telling herself not to ponder on that and become downcast, she walked swiftly on towards London Bridge and the consulting rooms of Doctor Deane.
On stating her business, the maid disappeared for a moment and came back with the doctor close behind her. He bowed to Eliza and she returned a curtsy, then handed over the slip of paper.
‘This is the date and place of birth of a friend of Mistress Gwyn,’ she said. She spoke quickly, for the unpleasant smell in the rooms was making her eyes smart and she wanted to get away as soon as she could. ‘She wants you to cast a chart for this lady.’
‘And are there any questions in particular that she seeks answers for?’ the astrologer asked.
Eliza answered as Nell had instructed. ‘She wishes to know how long she’ll be at court.’
The astrologer glanced at the paper. ‘Ah. Born in Deauville. This is the birth date of Louise de Keroualle, no doubt.’
Eliza marvelled at this rather, but didn’t answer.
‘Mistress Rose,’ Doctor Deane said as she turned to go, ‘you may be interested in a strange incident which happened last week.’
Eliza looked at him and shivered. There was something sinister about him, she thought, and something disturbing about the aspect of his rooms: the gloom, the choking smell, the clammy feel of them. What did this man know? Could he tell that she’d assisted Claude Duval? Was this what he was going to say?
