Pleasing Mr. Pepys

by Deborah Swift

  ‘Deb, you could go and purchase refreshment. Mon Dieu! I’m almost melting in this heat.’ Elisabeth drew her hand across her brow.

  Armed with a few coins, and warnings to watch her purse, Deb set off to find lemonade. When she returned, Elisabeth was inside the tent, and Mr Pelling was impressing Mary with the gypsy’s predictions of how prosperous he was to become, and that he was certain to be made chairman of the Apothecaries Guild.

  Unable to be so impolite as to interrupt him, Mary was anxiously waiting, almost simmering over with excitement, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.

  Deb uncorked a bottle and offered it to Mary, but she waved her away as Elisabeth burst out of the tent, flapping her lace-cuffed hands in agitation. ‘You’ll never guess! I’m to become well known at court, she says; do you know, she was uncanny.’

  Deb stifled a smile. The gypsy probably told everybody that.

  But Elisabeth was still gushing it all out, breathlessly, hands waving, face pink with pleasure. ‘She had two decks of cards and she spread out the both of them, and you’ll never believe this, but she knew all about Sam. She said I was married to a good man, but that I had no children, nor would I have any, but she said, too, he would be famous one day for his words, but I can’t believe that, he’s far too busy, he—’

  She paused to take a breath, and Mary, unable to wait any longer, grabbed her moment. ‘I’m to meet a dark stranger, the cards said. The knave of clubs. And I’m to marry within the year!’

  This news was met with silence.

  ‘Impossible.’ Elisabeth looked affronted that Mary had been given such good news. ‘But who? Did she say who?’

  ‘No,’ Mary said. ‘Fancy! I’m to be married after all. What a pity she couldn’t get a name. Just that he was dark and tall. Can you think of anyone, Elisabeth? Oh! It couldn’t be Simpson’s boy, could it? He hardly says a word. If it’s him, my mother will be thrilled, and she said—’

  But Deb did not wait to hear more. She put the two bottles down on the ground, took her chance and lifted the curtain. The tented booth was airless, with a pinkish light from the red paint on the outside and a fire smoking in an earth pit despite the August heat.

  ‘Come along in, then, if you’re coming,’ a voice said, through the smoke and gloom.

  Deb approached the table, expecting to see a swarthy gypsy with a tremendous hooked nose and perhaps a necklace fashioned from coins, or a shawl covered in stars. But no, this woman was singularly unprepossessing, somewhere in saggy middle age, her hair grey and thinning. Her plain homespun bodice was dark with perspiration, and she was wiping her lined face with a scrap of linen.

  Deb sat down where the woman gestured she should.

  ‘Yes, pay me now, get it done with. A silver farthing.’

  Deb fumbled in her almost empty purse. This was the last of her monthly wage. She’d been saving these few coins to help pay off Jack’s debt, but recklessly she pushed the coin across the table. The woman’s hand shot out and took it.

  ‘What do you want to know? Love is it? Or fortune?’

  ‘I don’t know. Both.’

  The gypsy sighed, pushed her damp hair off her forehead. ‘Cards or palm?’

  ‘Cards, please. I’ve always liked the look of them.’

  The woman shuffled the cards with a practised hand, but then paused, blew air over her upper lip to cool herself. Moments later, she slapped the deck on the table and pushed the farthing back. ‘Look, maid. I’m going to give you your money back. I can’t stand it in here another minute. It’s the heat.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘I’ve been here since ten this morning and told the same old story twenty times over. Nobody really listens. They grab onto my words, all the time thinking it can’t be true. I’ll do you a favour. Don’t ask me what your fortune is, because none of us know. Only the Almighty, and he’s not telling.’ She pushed her stool back, and stood, stretched her back.

  Deb stood too, ‘Please wait. I need to know something. That’s why I came. And Mrs Pelling said you were the best.’

  ‘Did she? She’s not the lady that just came in, is she?’

  ‘No, Mrs Pelling’s no longer with us. That was my employer, Mrs Pepys.’

  The woman reached out for Deb’s hand, turned it palm up in her bony grasp. ‘Not for long,’ she said.

  Did she mean Mrs Pelling or Elisabeth? Deb was confused. ‘Are you going to read my palm? I thought you said cards,’ Deb said.

  ‘Your face told me I need to look at your hand.’

  Deb squirmed to pull away, but the gypsy caught her by the wrist. ‘Hold still. If you want to know answers, I’ll give you them. But listen, mind.’ The woman sat again, dragging Deb down with her so she had no option but to sit, too.

  The woman brought her face close to Deb’s palm and began to speak in a monotone, as though reciting a liturgy. ‘You’ve lost family, people close to you, and you’ll lose more.’

  A shiver ran through Deb’s body; the gypsy had hooked her attention in an instant. She pressed her calloused thumb hard into Deb’s palm. ‘That lady who came in before you, is she a relation?’

  ‘No.’ Deb was disconcerted. ‘I told you. She’s my employer. And what did you mean when you said not for long? Why? Will she not be keeping me?’

  The woman held her hand tighter, looked over Deb’s shoulder into the distance. ‘There’s a shadow over her. Your life together will soon be over.’ She laughed. ‘Sounds good, doesn’t it, the shadow? Like what you’re expecting?’

  ‘Are you jesting with me?’

  ‘Aye. And no. Does it feel true to you? It’s you who has to find the truth in my words.’

  ‘Sometimes I think Elisabeth doesn’t like me very much. And her husband, my master—’

  ‘If you care for her, tell her … tell her not to go abroad. Of course, she won’t listen. But tell her, won’t you?’

  Deb was perspiring now. The woman was right, it was far too hot in there. She felt queasy, like seasickness. Guiltily, she thought of Elisabeth’s happy face. If the woman spoke true and she was to leave Mrs Pepys, it could only be because Mr Pepys had found out she had copied his diaries and betrayed him. Elisabeth would be devastated. She tried to withdraw her hand, but the gypsy gripped it tight, turned it over.

  Deb took a gasp of air. She had been holding her breath. It brought her to her senses. She would not believe any of this woman’s nonsense. Gypsies were renowned charlatans. She fought for self-control. ‘My mistress is waiting. I haven’t the time to—’

  ‘Look inside yourself,’ the woman said. She ran a nail down the palm of Deb’s hand. The gesture was at once threatening and intimate. It produced an involuntary frisson up Deb’s spine. ‘Your lifeline is split, one side to the dark, one to the light. You must be careful. Dark forces will always be with you, tempting you.’ She looked up at Deb with complicity in her eyes.

  Was she mocking her? Deb pulled at her hand again but the woman was wiry and kept hold.

  ‘You’ve paid me, my love,’ the old woman said, ‘so you might as well listen to what I have to say.’

  The old woman’s eyes nailed her, as a pin fixes a butterfly. The gypsy’s face wavered, blurred, lost its outline. The features shifted, melted, bloomed into a newborn baby; moments later it became sharp, snouted like a fox, flowered into a beautiful soulful young woman. Face gave way to face, all of human life, shifting and dissolving, looking out at her through those gypsy eyes.

  Deb let her hand flop. Her head swam.

  The words came as if from a great distance. ‘You will bring a deep hurt to someone you care for. There are papers, a writ. There will be some dealings with a prison; I can see bars. And ink. No wait, not ink. I see—’

  Deb leapt up, disorientated, jerking on her arm. ‘Stop it. I don’t believe you. You’re frightening me on purpose.’

  The gypsy clung on a moment more with surprising strength. Then suddenly she released her. ‘Have it your own way. Got more than
you bargained for, did you? Ha!’ She laughed. ‘You saw something though, I can feel it. Saw who you really are.’

  ‘You’re nothing but a fraud. You said so yourself—’

  ‘Your choice. You can choose to believe, or not.’ The gypsy pulled the silken tablecloth from the table and shook it out in a great draught. ‘I’m closed,’ she shouted. ‘Tell that to the queue – if there is one.’

  Deb stumbled backwards, hitched up her skirts and ran. But the way out was not easy to see and she blundered round the edge, frantically searching for air. Finally, she found the flap and burst outside. The sudden sun made her blink, cover her eyes.

  Elisabeth’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What did she say? You’re as pale as a ghost.’

  ‘Nothing. She said I’ll have five children.’ It was the first thing Deb could think of.

  ‘Five! And with no husband on the horizon yet either,’ Mary said, tutting.

  ‘Well I hope that doesn’t mean you’ll be leaving us, Deb,’ Elisabeth said. ‘I’ve only just got you trained to my liking.’

  Deb did not dare say a word. She wanted to discount the gypsy’s words, but all the way back home in the carriage they ran round and round her head. Her conscience told her that something about her work for Abigail Williams was wrong, but she had fallen in too deep before she realised.

  Oh, what was she to do? She needed her employment; she did not want to risk losing her position with the Pepyses, despite Mr Pepys. How would she pay Hester’s school fees? And the gypsy said she’d seen a prison. A small voice inside her whispered, what if it was true? She could not condemn Mr Pepys to that. Or what if the prison were her own?

  That night, as she sat writing to Hester again, she tussled with it in her mind. Hester had told her she was to stay with Lavinia’s family for the summer holiday. She had just found herself telling Hester to be ‘good and obedient’. Deb put the nib down, shook her head at herself, a stab of guilt and hypocrisy stopping her mid-sentence. The gypsy’s strange, shifting eyes came back to her.

  She re-read her letter. Naturally it mentioned nothing about her spying for the King, or Mr Pepys’ unhealthy obsession with her. Nor did it mention Mr Constantine, Uncle Jack, or the debt she still had not yet paid. Maybe she could tell Hester about the gypsy. She would tell it entertainingly and dismiss it all as nonsense. But still she hesitated, quill poised, because there was something about the encounter that prickled her.

  With a spurt of determination she described Elisabeth’s new gown and the play at the Duke’s. There. It was done. She signed off quickly with endearments and blew on the inky marks to dry them. But her shoulders sagged. It was a fiction, the life she was describing to her sister.

  Her body was restless, as if things around her wanted to shift and move. Deb paced and paced, hearing the creak of the cold floorboards under her bare feet as she went. She was afraid, she realised. The gypsy had painted a future she did not want to own, and she dare not continue the way she was: living all these lies.

  All the next day and night she went through her duties by rote, with no appetite for anything, lying awake, fretting in the heat of the night. Becoming involved with Abigail Williams had been a mistake. She would have to extricate herself, beg Abigail to find someone else. It was a gamble – what if she were to denounce Deb as a thief, or worse, a traitor to the King?

  Chapter Thirty-one

  WHEN SHE KNOCKED ON ABIGAIL’S DOOR, Deb was hot with trepidation. She was supposed to be out buying fish – Elisabeth hated the pungent smell of the fish market in summer and always sent Deb. She had left Elisabeth wrestling with the flageolet with her music teacher, Mr Locke, and the piercing squeaking sound had left Deb even more on edge.

  Abigail was out.

  Poole, the maid, was used to Deb coming to Whetstone Park twice a week with the papers, so she invited her in to wait and showed her in to the drawing room. Without Abigail the room was echoing and bare. A vase of drooping roses had dropped most of its dead petals in front of the fireplace. The sun slid in through half-closed curtains, striping the floorboards, filling the room with the fusty smell of hot drapes.

  Poole brought Deb a cold mint tea and she took a sip, but she was too apprehensive to drink much. She put the glass down; it was slippery with her perspiration.

  She went over to the little desk and paused with her fingers on the brass handle of the drawer, curious to see what Abigail would have asked her to copy next. She opened the drawer for a peek. Another vellum of ciphers lay there, on top of some other papers. Unable to resist a puzzle, she lifted it out for a closer look. The paper was similar to the last one she had copied – impenetrable. Frustrating.

  She tilted it this way and that, counting the repetitions of numbers that could be ‘e’s or ‘t’s, but there were not enough for it to be a straightforward translation, so, impatient, she went to put it back. Why waste her time? She would not be doing this again anyway.

  A folded square of parchment on the top of the remaining pile caught her eye. It was a letter addressed to a Dr Allbarn. She took it out, to see there were several more, all opened. Who was Dr Allbarn? Abigail had never mentioned him. The rest of the papers seemed to be in a foreign language. Dutch?

  As she stood puzzling, raised voices reached her from below. It was Abigail, shouting at her maid that she should not have let Deb in. She froze with the letter in her hand.

  Abigail’s footsteps approached along the hall. Deb tried to push the papers back in and shut the drawer.

  The door flew open and Deb took a step back.

  Abigail surveyed the scene in one glance: the open drawer. ‘What are you doing? That’s my correspondence.’

  ‘I was looking to see what my next assignment would have been.’

  ‘You had no business to look in there. My desk is private.’ Her tone was icy.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, because I have decided not to work for you again.’

  ‘And why is that?’ Abigail came nearer, her manner threatening.

  ‘It feels dishonest. And I don’t want to get Mr Pepys into trouble.’

  ‘So soft now, Deb? What has brought this on? Neither of them gives a jot for you. I’ve heard Mr Pepys say so.’

  ‘That’s not true! Mr Pepys … he …’ She couldn’t say it. ‘Mrs Pepys was right all along. She told me you had no scruples, and not to have anything to do with you.’

  ‘She said that, did she?’ Abigail’s expression hardened.

  ‘You deceived me, tricking me into doing the King’s spying for you. You twist the truth, so I never know what’s right. I thought you were my friend, but you’ve just used me. I shan’t be coming here again, and I will do no more of your … work.’

  Abigail’s mouth quivered a little, as if she might speak, but she let the silence hang. She strolled over towards the desk, shut the drawer softly. She turned. ‘Oh yes you will.’ Her voice was quiet, but definite.

  ‘No. I’m resigning. I mean it; I’m not coming back.’

  Abigail moved swiftly in front of the double doors. Deb made as if to pass her, but Abigail put out an arm to prevent her. Her body had become as rigid as stone. ‘Do you think I’ve trained you all these months for nothing?’

  ‘Trained me?’ Deb shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Oh come now. You are not a fool. You’ve known all along that the copying is not just that, haven’t you?’

  Deb took a step back, swallowed, thoughts crowding in on her. Was she right? She had not wanted to acknowledge those fears even to herself. She held the basket in front of her chest like a shield.

  ‘You cannot stop now, Deb dear. You know too much. The papers you copy go from me to another agent. To someone who takes them on board the ships bound for Holland. And from him to the Dutch court.’

  ‘The Dutch?’ Deb faltered. ‘But you said … surely the papers are for the King?’ Abigail said nothing, just watched as the facts filtered into Deb’s realisation. ‘But then …’ Deb’s voice dropped t
o a whisper, ‘it’s treason.’

  ‘You did not think to question it, a girl of your education?’ Abigail’s voice held the trace of a sneer.

  ‘I trusted you, I thought …’ She shook her head, unable to take it in. ‘How do I know you’re telling the truth now?’

  ‘You know because if you can break a cipher you are intelligent enough to know the difference between truth and lies.’

  The words hung a moment. Deb summoned her resolve. ‘I won’t do it any more. Whether it’s for the King or the Dutch. We’re finished. Let me pass.’

  ‘If you wish. But let me warn you that, with a word from me, the Dutch spymaster will soon locate you. The stab in the night, the powder-shot in the back, the sudden push on the bank of the Thames. All easily arranged. You know too much about me, about what we do. You had your fingers in my drawer, did you not?’

  Deb’s stomach seemed to drop five fathoms. She retreated back into the room; she needed to think. But the thoughts ran round like rats in a trap. She’d been duped. And yet somehow she was not surprised. She cursed that she had foolishly ignored her own instincts.

  The stab in the dark. She imagined Hester alone, with no one to encourage her, no one to look up to. A life without love. She sat down, put her head in her hands.

  She raised her eyes to find Abigail watching her with a look almost of pity.

  ‘That’s better,’ Abigail said. ‘You’ve seen what it means. I knew you’d see it my way in the end.’

  Chapter Thirty-two

  FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS it was as if it had all been a bad dream. Life went on as usual: the making of beds; the answering of the door to callers; endless shopping at Unthank’s. Deb made no deliveries of Pepys’ journal to Abigail, for she could not bring herself to get the key to Pepys’ office. She pretended the whole business with Abigail was a bad dream, procrastinating, telling herself she was too busy to go to Whetstone Park. And she kept well away from Mr Pepys and hurried into another room if he appeared.