Hampstead, like Islington in the early days, had developed over the years as the seat of weekend "country" get-away cottages, manses, and villas… though, Hampstead catered to a much richer, and select, part-time population than Islington's artisan-tradesman clientele. He could espy, here and there, stone or brick gate-pillars announcing the presence of a grand-ish house up a gravelled and tree-lined lane, set well back, and landscaped into well-ordered semblances of "bucolic" or gloomily "romantic," in that fallen-castle, overgrown-bower, mossy-old-but-still-inhabited style that had grown so Gothically popular, of late, and damn all moody poets and scribblers responsible for it, and what it cost to be created by gimlet-eyed landscapers!
It was not, for a bloody wonder, raining, that mid-day. Lewrie was not soaked to the skin, cocooned in a frousty fug of wet wool and chafing canvas. As it was England, though, it had rained, recently, thus turning the roadway into a gravel-and-mud pudding, and his snow-white uniform breeches might never be the same, and every approaching dray or waggon, and its mud-slinging wheels, was a "shoal" to be avoided like the very Plague!
His fearful errand was so completely off-putting that Capt. Alan Lewrie, never a stranger to the charms of young, nubile, and fetching farm girls, barely gave them a passing glance, and rarely lifted his hat in salute to a shy smile of approbation, in fact; and must here be noted, if only as a clue to his present state of mind.
Here an "humble" cottage, there an "humble" cottage; a Bide-A-We to the left, a Rook's Nook to the right, or so the signboards said to announce the existence of a destination up those lanes leading off the Hampstead Road. Lark's Nest, a Belle Reve, a rather imposing new two-storey Palladian mansion set back in at least ten acres of woodsy parkland named Villa Pauvre… which proved to Lewrie that the rich could afford a sense of irony.
At last, Lewrie topped a long, gradual rise, atop which stood a pair of granite, lion-topped pillars flanked by a long-established and nigh-impenetrable hedge to either side. Here, he drew rein and gawped at the house, which lay about two cables off on the right-hand side of the road, up another gradual rise so that the house sat atop the crown of a slightly taller hill that sloped gently down on all four sides… and the signboard read "Spyglass Bungalow"!
Very apt, for atop the villa was a squat, blocky tower of stone, open to all four prime compass points, very much like the bell towers seen in a Venetian campus, or town square, right down to the wide-arch form of the openings. Or, a hellish-fancy block-house atop a fortress's gate or corner, Lewrie decided with a gulp of dread. He gazed about, in search of a further signage that might-well have read "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here," but couldn't find it. He gazed fearfully at the house… villa… bungalow, whatever, and blinked a time or two in confusion.
For the house was light, airy, and its stuccoed exterior painted the palest cream, set off with white stone, its roof made of those sorts of overlapping red-clay tiles more often seen in the Mediterranean, or Spanish possessions. There was a massy, circular flower bed before the house, encircled by a well-gravelled carriage drive, which led under a wide and deep portico over the main entrance. Very much like his father's, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby 's, Hindoo-inspired house near Anglesgreen, which stood on the ruins of an ancient Roman watch-tower and villa, that he'd named Dun Roman. Two storeys, and no full basement, but perhaps a hint of a cellar, so the front door and a gallery-porch were sheltered by the over-wide portico, only four or five stone risers to the short flight of steps leading from the stoop to the ground. It was altogether such a pleasant prospect that Lewrie had to shake his head a time or two, as well as blink a deal more, to realise that this "Spyglass Bungalow" could actually be the residence of a soul-less, calculating, murderous, and callous son of a bitch like Zachariah Twigg!
He clucked his tongue, shook the reins, and heeled his mount to motion, once more, up that welcoming gravelled drive, between the bare-limbed trees that would in summer shade the wide lane with fresh green leaves. There were dozens of abandoned nests in those limbs that told him that a springtime arrival would be greeted by the singing of hundreds of birds. Nice birds, who hadn't a clue how dangerous the master of those trees could be, poor things.
Set downhill on all sides round the house (Indian bungalow) was an inner wall of about six feet height, topped with round-cut stone… atop which Lewrie could espy the glint of broken glass!
That's more like it, he cynically thought; Aha!
Inside the inner wall (fortification?) lay a lawn, unbroken by any trees or shrubs where an interloper might shelter. Lewrie knew a fort's killing-ground when he saw one, and began to hunt for a hidden ditch or moat, a masking glacis, a redan or ravenel or two where the sharpshooters, or the grapeshot-loaded small cannon, might be placed at time of siege. Off to the left of the villa-bungalow was a coach-house of a matching stucco-and-stone, though with an "humble" thatched roof, that led back into the inner enclosure; up against the wall, as if the hayloft above the stalls and tack rooms held loopholes for marksmen! It was only in the immediate vicinity of the house that greenery was allowed. Lewrie took note that a handsome coach stood outside the stable doors, a groom or coachee swabbing the road's mud off it, and a servant tending to a team of four matched roans. Getting even closer, Lewrie could make out a large, enclosed equipage, a lighter convertible-topped coach for good weather and short jaunts, and a sporty two-horse chariot inside the building, as well.
Come at a bad time? he asked himself; Does Twigg have company? A guest's coach, its team led out for oats and water, gave him a small shiver of new dread, for said equipage could belong to an official from a King's Court, and Twigg's imperious letter the excuse for him to be lured into a trap! He wouldn't put such past him, for Twigg had always played people false, whether friend or foe!
"Ha ha, go it, girl! Heels down, that's the way!" came a voice from behind the house, and, down the cobbled stableyard from behind the house came the clatter of hooves, the shrill "Yoicks!" and imitations of a foxhorn's "tara-tara!," as a pair of ponies appeared, both loping (but no faster!) no matter the urgings of their riders… a small lad and a girl child, the boy appearing no more than ten, and the girl not yet a gangly teen. They whooped their way out of the stableyard, onto the gravelled drive, under the portico to cross Lewrie's "hawse," then headed off 'cross the lawn for another exhilarating circuit of the inner wall, about the house!
Behind them, afoot, came a brace of adults; a rather handsome woman in a dark riding ensemble, and a much older, spindlier, man in a drab brown suit of "ditto," white shirt and stock, and brown-topped black riding boots, and waving a crop over his head. Smiling, beaming with enjoyment and pleasure.
Twigg? Lewrie gawped to himself, gape-jawed for true; he never smiled, not a day in his mis'rable life!
But it was him, to the life, the spitting image of that coldly calculating "chief spider" behind a myriad of bloody-handed schemes on the King's enemies. And, at that moment, as he shaded his eyes with a hand to his brow-the one holding the whip, o' course!-Mr. Zachariah Twigg could be mistaken for the nicest sort of genial, and wealthy, country squire who couldn't swat a wasp without regrets.
"Aha!" Zachariah Twigg called out, sounding so welcoming that Lewrie, for an instant, thought himself the victim of a sorry supper and a bilious dream. Or, wishing that he was! "Captain Lewrie, you have arrived, ha ha! Alight, and let me look at you, me lad!"
Spur away! Lewrie warned himself; Spur away, now, and ride like Blades! Though he was so taken aback that he meekly let his horse go onwards at a sedate plod to the cobblings of the stableyard, drew rein, and swung down as a groom came up to accept the reins and tend to his rented horse.
"Honoria, pray allow me to name to you one of my young acquaintances from the Far East, and the Mediterranean, Captain Alan Lewrie of the Proteus frigate… Captain Lewrie, my daughter, Mistress Honoria Staples. I'd introduce you to my grandchildren, Thomas and Susannah, but I fear they're having too much fun with their new ponies, ha ha! A stout fellow, ful
l of pluck and daring, is Captain Lewrie, my dear, an energetic and clever champion of our fair land, and a perfect terror to Britain 's foes, from our first encounter to the present!"
"Your servant, ma'am," Lewrie managed to respond, at last, with a gulp and bob of his head as he doffed his hat to her and gave her a jerky bow, feeling so deliriously put-off that he nearly blushed to be so gawkish and clumsy, like a farm labourer introduced to a princess, all but shuffling muddy shoes and tugging his forelock.
Clever, daring… plucky? Lewrie felt like goggling to hear an introduction such as that from Twigg, of all people; God above… me?
"A comrade of old, of course," Mrs. Staples replied, bowing her head gracefully, and beaming in seeming understanding. "Your servant, Captain Lewrie, and delighted to make your acquaintance. And… you have old times to take stock of, I'm bound, Father? The children and I should be going, then… may I get them off their new ponies," she stated with a merry twinkle, "though you and Johnathon… my husband, Captain Lewrie… a man as fond of springing surprises on people as Father… spent far too much on them."
"You'll not dine here, my pet?" Twigg cooed, looking devilish-disappointed that they would not. Damn his blood, but he was almost… wheedling] Or doing a damn' good sham of it.
"I told cook we'd be back by one, and there's just time for us to get home before everything goes cold," his daughter chuckled, holding up a lace-gloved hand to her children as they completed their lap of the grounds. "Rein in, children, and alight! You've shewn Grandfather your presents, and we must go. I mean it! No, you mayn't ride them back; they're too fractious, yet. It will rest them to be led at the coach's boot, unsaddled."
"Brush and curry, then stable them proper, once you're home, as well, my dears," Zachariah Twigg fondly cautioned. "See to your beasts first. You look after them, and they'll look after you. Remember, you are English, not cruel Dons or Frenchmen."
"Yes, Grandfather," the children chorused, though unhappy about leaving, or dismounting. Quick as a wink, the team of roans was back in harness and the handsome closed coach led out into the drive, ready for departure.
"See you all on Sunday, my dears," Twigg promised as he hoisted the children in, then handed in his daughter, giving her a peck on the cheek like the doting-est "granther" in all Creation. "Church, dinner, then we'll all go for a long ride together, after."
Twigg, in church, hmm… Lewrie silently pondered, wondering if even the most enthusiastic missionaries, desperate for congregants, in the worst stews of Wapping or Seven Dials, would dare have him.
"Delighted to meet you, ma'am," Lewrie offered, again. "And you, sir," she replied, though distracted by keeping both her rambunctious, chatter-box offspring in check. Then, off the coach clattered at a sedate pace, with the ponies trotting in-trail.
"Well, that was… s'prisin'," Lewrie said with a droll leer, once the coach was out of earshot.
"Think I spent all my life lurking in the world's dark corners, 'thout a private life outside of service to King and Country?" Twigg snapped. "Frankly… yes," Lewrie baldly stated, lifting one eyebrow. "But not a patch on yours, Lewrie," Twigg shot back, purring in his old, supercilious fashion, looking down his long nose. "You have spread your 'presence' so widely, and indiscriminately, about the earth, 'tis a wonder you had time for a public life, haw haw."
All Lewrie could do was remind himself that he'd come to beg at his superior's table and beggars had to suffer abuse in silence; that, and grind his teeth. "Well now, you are come, at last," Twigg said, seeming to relent. "Let us go into the house, where we may discover what may save you from a well-deserved hanging."
CHAPTER FIVE
The interior of Zachariah Twigg's "humble" abode was just about as disconcertingly out-of-character to the man he'd known as the stucco outer facade. Once they were past the requisite tiling of the entry hall, done in red-veined Italian marble, the floors of the central passageway were shiny contrasting parquetry, laid out in a complex geometric pattern.
"Teak and holly," Twigg tersely allowed, "the teak brought from India."
"Indeed," Lewrie said, as a servant came for his cloak, hat, and sword. The servant was a Hindoo, a short, wizened little fellow, with a bristling grey-white mustachio that stuck out almost to his ears, as stiff as a ship's anchor-bearing cat-heads, above a thick, round white beard. He wore a tan silk turban above a European's white shirt and neck-stock, a glossy yellow silk waist-coat, and a voluminous pair of native pyjammy breeches, his suiting completed by thick white cotton stockings, in deference to the weather perhaps, but with stout leather elephant or bullock hide sandals on his feet.
"Namaste, El-Looy sahib," he said, with a faint attempt at a smile.
"Aha!" Lewrie barked back in further surprise. "Ajit Roy, is it you? Namaste t'you, too," he said, placing his hands together before his chin and sketching out a brief bow. "Haven't heard myself called that in fifteen years!"
"Yayss," Twigg drawled in his superior, amused manner of old. "There's a thousand other things you've been called, since, hmm?"
"Now, damme…" Lewrie began to bristle, before recalling what peril he was in, and why he'd come. Grovel; fawn! He warned himself.
"The kutch bohjan kamraa, Ajit," Twigg ordered. "No need to use the formal dining room… 'mongst old companions," he could not help adding with a faintly amused sneer. "Laanaa hamen sherry, first, Ajit."
"Je haan, sahib, "Twigg's old servant replied, bowing and smiling. "This way, Lewrie," Twigg commanded, stalking off on his long legs, hands tucked under the tails of his coat, and leaving Lewrie no choice but to follow.
The well-plastered walls were tawny yellow, set off nicely with heavy crown mouldings, wainscottings, and baseboards, false-columned at intervals, with lighter mouldings to frame gilt-framed portraits, and exotic foreign scenes. Clive of India still led his small army versus native rajahs' hordes, and grimly-smug relatives peered down with familial asperity. All the floors were teak planking, though strewn with wool or goat-hair carpets, all light, subtle Chinee or colourful Hindi, with not an Axminster or Turkey carpet in sight.
Far East shawls, saris, or vivid princes' surcoats did service as wall hangings, next to tapestries painted by native artists of parades, tiger hunts, leopard hunts, or court scenes, with gayly-decorated elephants bearing lords and ladies in howdahs. Some walls bore gaudy, silk mandarins' coats, stiff-armed with a dowel through the arm-holes, next to the little pillbox hats Lewrie had seen at Canton, with the pheasant tail-feathers and coral buttons on the top that denoted rank and importance.
It would seem that at one time Twigg had been a mighty hunter, himself, for there were boars' heads, leopards' heads, even a bear, its lips still curved back in his final fury. On a jungle-green wood platform there was a huge stuffed Bengali tiger-looking a little worse for wear, though, where someone's grandchildren had used it as a hobby-horse.
And, there were weapons galore: cirles of wavy-bladed krees daggers and knives about a crossed pair of parangs; assorted Hindoo edged weapons about a brace of bejewelled tulwars; lance-heads, javelins and pike-heads, billhooks, and other pole-arm "nasties" that were favoured East of Cape Good Hope.
Behind locked glass cabinets were racks of firearms, from clumsy match-lock muskets and hand-cannon to long, slim, and elegantly-chased and intricately-engraved Indian or Malay jazzails, some so bejewelled that they'd fetch thousands; even humble flint-lock Tower muskets, St. Etienne or Charleville French muskets given or sold to native princes' troops had been turned into priceless works of art by Hindoo artisans. There were even wheel-lock pieces, musketoons, and pairs of pistols as long as Lewrie's forearms that the Czar of All the Russias might covet.
Armour? Take your pick: fanciful cuirasses, back-and-breasts and helmets, gilt or silver chain-mail suits, brass fish-scale armour over thick ox-hide; Tatar, Chinese, Mongol, Bengali, Moghul…
"Nippon, there," Twigg commented, pointing to a stand that held a wide-skirted, glossily-lacquered set, seemingly made of bamboo,
tied together with bright orange and red wool cords; there was a horned helmet with neck pieces and side flanges so wide and deep that the wearer could shelter from a hard rain under it, with a fierce, wild-eyed, and mustachioed face-mask bound to it. "Them, too," Twigg further stated, indicating a horizontal stand that held a long dagger, a short sword, and a very long sword, all of a piece, bright-corded, and their scabbards so ornately carved they resembled the jade or ivory "boats" with incredibly tiny figures of oarsmen and passengers, all whittled from a single tusk or block of soft stone.
" Nippon?" Lewrie gawped. "You mean Japan?"
"No White man has gone there, and returned to tell the tale, in three hundred years, Lewrie," Twigg proudly said. "Though, some of the hereditary warriors, the samurai, now and then lose their feudal lord, or… blot their copy-books," Twigg added with a taunting leer at his guest, "and become outcasts… ronin, I recall, is the term… some of whom leave their forbidden isles, entire, and take service overseas. Portuguese Macao is a port where bands of them may be hired on. Quite fierce; quite honourable if you pay 'em regular. This fellow, here… well, let us say he proved a disappointment, and committed ritual suicide to atone. Willed me his armour and swords."
"Did you ever manage to land in Nippon?" Lewrie just had to ask.
"Of course not, sir!" Twigg hooted. "I was bold in my younger days, but never that rash. Unlike some I know, hmmm?"
Swallow it, swallow it! Lewrie chid himself.
Another great room to pace through, this one filled with porcelain, niello brass, gilt and silver pieces, the most delicate ceramics, ginger jars, wine jars, tea sets, and eggshell-thin vases, from every ancient dynasty from Bombay to fabled Peking.
"Didn't know you'd always wanted t'open a museum," Lewrie said. As they attained a smaller, plainer dining room that overlooked a back garden, barns, coops and pens, and a block of servants' quarters. It was where the house's owners would break their fast en famille, in casual surroundings and casual clothes, before they had to don their public duds and public faces to deal with the rest of their day.
A King`s Trade l-13 Page 5
