‘But, sir, he’s innocent, I swear it.’ She leaned forward to grip the edge of the desk, brought reason to her voice. ‘The letters you found are mine. The ones in the leather bag. And I was the one who took the documents from Lord Bruncker and Mr Pepys. Mr Wells knows nothing about it.’
The magistrate looked right and left at his companions and they suppressed smiles.
‘Lord Bruncker swore under oath that he saw Mr Wells snooping in his office, perusing the papers on his desk,’ Justice Pembroke said. ‘How do you answer that?’
‘He must be mistaken. If you’d just listen a moment, I’d be able to tell you all the papers in the bag are—’
‘No, Miss Willet, Lord Bruncker was quite definite. You waste your breath. It’s all water under the bridge now. I know you think you are helping him, but we have this same little play every week, sweethearts claiming that they are at fault. I don’t know why they do it, never does anyone any good – never has once, in all my days in the law.’ He coughed wheezily, poured himself a cup of water. ‘The papers were things a maid would know nothing about.’
‘But I do,’ she said eagerly. ‘I know about the code.’ At last, they might listen. ‘The papers dated March, from the Treasury, that’s Shelton’s method. And I know how every single one of them—’
But her words were stopped as one arm was seized from behind. She strained against it. ‘No! Hear me out.’ The magistrate’s face was impassive. He bent to pick up a quill, began to write.
Deb held tight to the table as if it were a raft. ‘Please, he really is innocent, I can prove it, just bring me the bag, and I’ll—’
A hand seized her free arm and hauled her backwards, the table leg scraped, and water slopped from the cup. A curse of annoyance from the magistrate, before her fingers let go and a hand that smelled of salt sweat came over her mouth. An animal rage seized her so she cried out as they pulled her, kicking, from the room and tumbled her into the street.
‘Don’t hurt her!’Lizzie cried. Deb landed heavily on the ground with a crack to her elbow that made her dizzy.
She struggled to sit up. They had to believe her. She must go back. But this time Lizzie restrained her. The two men had barred the door and had their pistols cocked at the ready.
‘Thank God,’ Lizzie said, trying to fold her arms around her to comfort her. ‘I thought you’d not come out of there.’
‘They won’t listen.’ Deb could scarce believe it. ‘I tried to tell them but they just laughed.’ A sob burst through. ‘What am I to do? They say he’ll hang tomorrow.’
Lizzie knelt next to her, grasped Deb by the shoulders. ‘Hush. Don’t take on so. We’ll get Jem out somehow. There’s got to be a way.’
‘What will I do? They won’t hear the truth even when it’s right there in front of them. How will I live with it if they hang him?’
‘Here, dry your eyes.’ Lizzie handed Deb a kerchief already damp with her own tears. ‘We need to think calmly. Let’s walk.’ She helped her down the street, holding Deb’s shaking body upright, her arm tight in hers. ‘You need someone with influence. What about Mr Pepys? Can’t you talk to him?’
‘I’m too embarrassed, he offered me money and I—’ Deb stopped dead.
‘What is it?’
‘Wait a minute. I have to think.’ There was a glimmer of a possibility, like a light through a crack in the door. ‘The pages from his diary.’
‘What? Jem kept a diary?’
‘No. Mr Pepys. It’s too long to explain … I stole Pepys’ diary. He complains about the King, writes down his frauds, his mistresses … I could tell Pepys I’ll print them.’
Lizzie’s reply was instantaneous. ‘No. He’ll report you for theft of his papers, and theft from your employer is still a capital offence. Think, Deborah. There’ll be no chance of leniency with a man like him—’
‘Don’t you understand? This is my fault. If I hang, then it’s only what I deserve. I killed someone, Mama. Or as good as … but Jem, he’s done nothing, knows nothing of any of it. Without the evidence from my bag, maybe they would have let him go.’
‘But Pepys’ll be incensed that you spied on him. What man wants to be made to look a fool by a woman, especially his maid? He’ll have to see punishment done, to keep his face.’
‘I think Mr Pepys will listen to me, at least if I can get him to meet me. He’s got a soft feeling for me, and you’re right – he’s a man of influence, with Bruncker and with the courts. I don’t care for myself. I’ll take the risk. Don’t you see?’ She grabbed hold of Lizzie’s shoulders. ‘It could be Jem’s salvation. I can’t bear the idea of him waiting there, unable to understand, wondering why no one speaks up for him.’
‘If you think … I see your heart’s set on it, though it grieves me. I’ll come with you.’
‘No, if I’m to try it, it’s better that I go alone. But you can deliver the message.’
Deb took out a stub of graphite from her purse and a scrap of paper and scribbled an urgent note asking Mr Pepys to meet her in an hour at the tavern where they’d last met.
‘Please, Mama, hurry,’ she said. ‘Take a hackney. Fast as you can – take this to his office at Seething Lane, tell him it’s urgent. I’ll be waiting.’
Chapter Fifty-four
DEB PACED UP AND DOWN the main thoroughfare, scanning the passing faces. The clocks had already chimed four but there was still no sign of Pepys. Please God, make him come, she thought. She could not bear to be still, but turned about and about, hearing the ring of the metal tips of her shoes on the cobbles. The sun was getting lower in the sky, her shadow lengthening into a dark needle. The sight filled her with despair. There were only hours left; soon, night would fall and it would be too late.
But at the end of the alley a familiar figure was hurrying towards her, his face anxious instead of beaming with his usual genial good humour. Deb sagged with relief.
‘What’s the matter? Has Elisabeth found out about our meeting?’ Mr Pepys’ usually red face was pale as dough.
‘Is there somewhere private we can go?’ she asked.
‘This way,’ he said, ‘in the tavern. They have chambers to let. I’ll get a key.’ He was almost hopping from foot to foot. ‘Follow me.’
The landlord asked no questions, and Deb got the impression Pepys had taken a private chamber before.
He unlocked the door and stood aside for her to go through. The ‘chamber’ was more like a closet, poky, and empty except for a lopsided bed which keeled to one side and was obviously broken. Pepys produced a taper and struck a flint; lit a rushlight which struggled to give off as much light as it did smoke.
‘Sorry about the place,’ he said, ‘but at least we’ll be out of view. What’s amiss? Has Elisabeth—’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Elisabeth knows nothing. I sent that message just to bring you.’
He exhaled, smiled knowingly and reached out towards her. ‘That’s the way, is it? You naughty—’
She stepped away. ‘I’ve not come for that,’ she said, and unhooked the shutter on the window to flood the room with evening light.
‘Then what?’ He frowned. ‘I’ve had to get a hackney over here, and it was a mighty fuss. I can pay,’ he said hopefully. ‘Sixpence a kiss, was it?’ He smiled and began to fumble in his pockets.
‘Give me the key to this place,’ she said. She would need to be sure she could buy time to get away, if she needed to. Once he knew about the diary, she could not risk being held there, for Jem’s sake. She would lock Pepys in, if necessary.
‘Oh, that little game! Delightful! Here it is.’ He held it out on his palm but when she reached for it, he closed his fist.
Frustrated, she put a boot on the bed, hitched up her skirt, and brought out one of the sheets she’d copied from his diary. She shook it before him. ‘Do you know what this is?’
He was still smiling as he tried to see.
‘It’s a sheet transcribed word for word from your diary. Give me t
he key and you can have it back. Otherwise, I will send it to a printer I know.’
His mouth fell open. ‘What’s this?’ He moved closer to see the sheet. ‘Are you jesting? It’s not mine,’ he bluffed. ‘You’re making it up.’
‘Look closer,’ she said, holding the paper tight in her hands.
He tried to take it from her but she held on, began to read aloud from the entry before her.
“He tells me that my Lady Castlemaine, however, is a mortal enemy to the Duke of Buckingham, which I understand not; but, it seems, she is disgusted with his greatness, and his ill-usage of her. That the King was drunk at Saxam with Sedley, Buckhurst and company, the night that Lord Arlington arrived, and would not give him audience, or could not which is true, for it was the night that I was there, and saw the King go up to his chamber, and was told that the King had been drinking—”
‘I never wrote that. You can’t say I did.’ His eyes bulged with indignation, his neck suffusing red.
‘You know you did. Twenty-third of October last year. And fortunately for me, the public are only too willing to believe a story like mine.’
‘Did you do this … this copying at my house?’ His voice was smaller now.
‘The key,’ she demanded, standing her ground.
Without a word he thrust her the key, and she gave him the paper. He squinted down at it, then brought it up close to his vision. ‘Damned eyes,’ he said. But when he looked up, his face had drained of colour. ‘You stupid girl! You could have ruined me. If anyone at the Treasury got a-hold of this it could have been the end of my career. You have no idea what you are playing with … it, it—’
‘Oh, but I do,’ she said calmly. ‘That’s why I have copies of the rest.’
‘But it’s not important,’ he said, desperately. ‘Surely you didn’t think it true? It was just a little entertainment, a fiction, something I write for my own pleasure …’
‘Your truth is the most dangerous sort – the one laced with seams of falsehood. But I don’t suppose the King will care which parts are true and which false.’
Mr Pepys put his hand to his forehead and sat down gingerly on the broken bed, which cracked ominously under his weight. ‘What do you want?’ he asked bitterly. ‘I see you want something. I’ll set you up somewhere, if that’s what you’re after.’
She almost laughed. ‘No, a favour, that’s all. I have your papers safe and you will get them back if you will help me.’
‘How do I know you have them?’
‘Do you really want me to publish your underhand dealings over the prize ships, your opinions on Clarendon, your liaisons with Doll Powell and Betty Martin?’
‘You’ve read them all?’ His hand came to his mouth.
‘Of course. You left them where anyone with an ounce of wit could find them.’
‘I didn’t think you could read shorthand.’ He seemed amazed. ‘Fancy that, my little Deb able to read shorthand.’
‘You showed me how to read it yourself, surely you remember? Tell, till, toll—’
‘Yes, but I didn’t think you’d be able to—’
‘You thought me too stupid to decipher it, I daresay.’ She laughed, shook her head sadly. ‘You only see what you want to see. You’re blind, but it’s not your eyes that are the trouble. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Mr Pepys. A lot you don’t know because you never asked.’
He got to his feet, squared his shoulders. For the first time he addressed her as an equal. ‘You’ve betrayed me. I want those papers. Every last one. How much?’
‘No, not money. You can’t buy everything and everyone, Mr Pepys.’ She told him succinctly about the charges against Jem Wells and where he was being held. ‘You must get him out. There’s no time to lose. If he hangs, then so will you, I swear. Here’s what you must do – you must say you sent him to Chatham on an errand for you, with papers from your office.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘That is my business. But I know Jeremiah Wells is a good man, and knows nothing of these crimes. Tell them that the leather bag used in the evidence, and the documents within, are yours.’ Which was true, she thought. Some of them were his.
‘You want me to perjure myself for a traitor? But I don’t know about these papers, what they are, what I’m agreeing to.’ He was flustered, unable to be still.
‘Do you want the copies of your diary back, Mr Pepys? It’s your choice.’
‘Wait. This Jeremiah Wells, his name’s devilish familiar.’ He put a finger to his mouth before exclaiming, ‘I remember him! Came about those damned sailors and their pay. What’s he to you?’
‘He’s innocent of the charges, Mr Pepys, but I cannot convince them. Women have no influence, as you well know. Only a man of standing can sway their opinion. Someone well respected, like you.’ The flattery seemed to mollify him. He stood up, turned his puppy-dog eyes on her again.
‘Will you marry him?’
‘Perhaps. If he asks.’
‘I can’t believe it – my little Deb.’ He shook his head mournfully.
‘If we are to do business, it can be Miss Willet from now on. What is it to be? Will you go now and tell them, or shall I find myself a good printer?’
‘I gave you my heart,’ he said.
‘I never asked for it.’ She hardened herself. ‘Your decision, Mr Pepys.’
With a sudden movement he turned back, shook the paper at her in a temper. ‘God alive! You know which it’s to be. You know a damned sight too much. If I do as you ask, when can I have the papers back?’
‘As soon as I see for myself that Jem Wells has gone free and that he has the bag of documents from his lodgings in his hands. I will leave the shorthand copies then in a parcel for you at Lord Bruncker’s office.’
‘Lord Bruncker? What has he to do with this?’ His eyes flared with fear.
‘Nothing. Do as I say and all will be well.’ She gave him precise instructions, checked he understood. She felt her own power then – the power of her own intelligence commanding his respect. ‘I suppose I need not tell you that writing anything of this matter in your diary is inadvisable. In fact, I’d weigh up the consequences of keeping such a diary altogether. What if Elisabeth were to read it?’
He paced the small room, still reluctant to go. ‘You know, I could report you to the magistrate for trying to pervert the course of justice.’ It was a feeble attempt, and she could see from his plaintive eyes that he knew it.
‘You won’t. Not if you want your business to stay off the broadsheets. You condemned yourself in your own words, Mr Pepys, not mine. Go now, unless you would like me to lock you in while you think about it.’
‘Not even one kiss?’
He was incorrigible. Would he never give up? She frowned.
‘I suppose not.’ He shrugged. She watched him stuff his paper into his pocket and hurry from the room. Deb’s knees buckled and she let herself sag to the floor, pressing her hands together in wordless payer. Had she done enough, or would he send the King’s men after her to arrest her and forcibly take back his papers?
‘Please, God, let him do it,’ she said.
Chapter Fifty-five
THE MORNING OF THE HANGING, Jem was ready. They had given him a Bible, and though he could not see in the gloom to read it, just the feeling of its thick leather spine in his hands bolstered his strength. He prayed for Bart and for his mother and hoped for a wet day, a day which would keep the crowds away. Thoughts of Deborah Willet made him hug his own thin chest. She’d been lucky. Perhaps it had been for the best that she’d chosen Hal Crawley and not him. At least Crawley would be alive. She’d be a widow to a traitor if she’d chosen him, and who could live with that kind of shame?
The noise of chains rattling and the key in the padlock rippled a shudder through him. He made a last-minute wordless prayer for salvation, over the ring of the gaoler hammering off the shackles.
‘Come on, Padre, out you go.’ The gaoler beckoned him towards t
he door, holding it wide.
‘Are there many gathered?’ he asked.
‘It’s your lucky day. You must have friends in high places. Being a curate and all!’ He laughed. ‘It’s been called off, hasn’t it? You’re free to go.’ He thrust his coat towards him.
‘What?’
‘You can go. Never happened afore, not in all my born days. It’s on account of Mr Pepys. Told the magistrate you had nothing to do with it, didn’t he? It’s all been hushed up. Gave me a sovereign too, to keep dumb.’
‘Mr Pepys?’
‘Samuel Pepys –from the Navy Treasury. Says he sent you to the docks. Like you said, you were trying to stop the rebels, weren’t you? Pepys said the bag was his, not yours at all.’
‘What bag?’
‘This one.’ The man thrust the bag into his hands.
It was Deb’s bag, the one he’d meant to return. Jem could make no sense of it. Last time he’d seen the thing, it was on his table at home. He looked at it in astonishment. ‘But I’ve never seen Mr Pepys, I mean …’ He could not fathom what was going on, but realised if he wanted to get out alive, it was best to keep his mouth shut.
The gaoler was still holding the door. Jem did not need more encouragement. He thrust his arms into his coat sleeves and, clutching the bag, reeled down the stone corridor and out into the fresh air. He’d imagined the day to be grey and wet, but it was brilliant with sunshine, the sky the perfect pale blue of a blackbird’s egg.
He almost ran across the street, his eyes watering with the brightness and with relief. He felt in his jacket pocket and his hands closed around his door keys. Then he really did believe it.
He crunched down on his knees and kissed the pavement. ‘Thanks be to God!’ he yelled.
Several passers-by smiled in an amused kind of way, obviously thinking he was touched by bedlam with his filthy unshaven face and wild eyes.
He jumped onto a ferry, and fortunately the ferryman was an acquaintance and after looking at him askance, let him owe the fare. Jem slapped him on the shoulder so hard that the poor man almost toppled overboard. Jem inhaled the greasy stink of the river with relish. A quarter hour later and he bounced down the street and let himself in at home, feeling the beautiful familiar smoothness of his door handle, the glorious tufty bristles of the doormat under his boots. There were letters addressed to him that had been pushed under the door. Time enough for those later. He picked them up and carried them into his chamber.
Pleasing Mr. Pepys Page 37
