by John Creasey
‘Oh, sir,’ she gasped, ‘I beg you, no.’
To her great relief, mingled with some strange awareness of regret, he released her.
‘Why are you not pouring out some tea?’ he asked, laughing.
In a gasping voice she said, ‘Mr. Richard likes to pour out his own, sir.’
‘I like mine poured by a pretty wench,’ declared Simon, ‘and you’ll pour it or I’ll know the reason why.’
She was giggling when at last she backed away, and when she was on the stairs she stopped and adjusted her bodice, placing her hand where his had been. Then the cook called her and she hurried down to fetch breakfast for Master Richard and this tawny-haired stranger who had so affected her.
Leaning back in the chair in which Richard had spent the night, Simon stretched out his long legs. He sipped tea slowly and had half a cup left when Richard came out of the closet, looking much fresher. Richard leaned against the foot of the bed and poured himself tea while Simon grinned up at him.
‘So you were in the wars, too, were you?’
‘I saw most of the fight from the top of a house,’ Richard answered. ‘I also saw—’ He broke off, and then asked, ‘How long have you been an expert swordsman?’
‘Since I was adopted by the House of Furnival,’ answered Simon. ‘Any man who spends much time on the river and in the City at night has to know how to defend himself. So you saw me employing my skills.’
‘I saw you stop that hanging, as I said.’
‘Ah. So I proved I am a law-abiding man. And so I am, so I am.’
‘You say you expected the attack last night?’
Simon nodded. ‘Yes. I have spies in many places, and several reports reached me - and in any case, only a fool would have been unprepared for trouble on such an occasion. I half expected the scoundrels to go to the river thinking that we would have taken most of our men away from there; had they done so they would have had as rude a shock there as they had at Great Furnival Square. Richard, if you’ve taught me anything it is that the only way to overcome criminals is by organisation. Only I’m afraid we have greatly postponed the day of a police force for London. The government will take heart, tell us what a magnificent job we have done, and command us to continue. But I have one good thing to tell you.’
Outside there was a rattling of knives on a tray, of pottery clinking. Richard moved towards the door to open it, saying, ‘I’m glad of that, anyhow. What is it?’
‘There will be a river police force within a month, and the government will sponsor it soon afterward. I talked to Patrick Colquhoun, who now has the ear of at least three Ministers. That man is a great worker! It was not until recently that I realised how much he does for charity as well as reform. Do they not call him the King of the Soup Kitchens for the Poor?’
Richard laughed as he opened the door and the maid came in, shooting one glance towards Simon, then hurrying with the laden tray and the wooden platters to a table beneath one of the windows. She set out steaks and sausages, eggs, butter, new bread, cheese and tankards of ale, then scurried out.
‘She is terrified of you,’ Richard chided.
‘Terrified? You are not used to the ways of wenches. There is nothing she would like more than a tumble with me, and she has you to blame for missing such a delight!’ Simon hitched his chair forward and went on musingly: ‘You don’t have to be a celibate in order to be a saint, Richard!’ He laughed at Richard’s expression and began to eat fastidiously, speaking from time to time. ‘I cannot imagine what you would think of me if we were to see more of each other. I suspect you would often be shocked! . . . I am told by Mr. Timothy that I have at least some of your grandfather’s half brother, Johnny! . . . Come, man, that was not meant to hurt. If all I hear of Johnny is true, he would have been a great man but for one twist in his character, and in many ways he was the most lovable of individuals. Do you know his son, Peter? I thought not. He is a good and able young man without a touch of brilliance or a touch of badness, likely to be the most worthy of servants of the House of Furnival. Will you understand me, not think me disloyal, if I say that as a family the Furnivals have not done well in their bloodline? I suspect that at some time several of them married the wrong women and lost the fire in the blood.’ He drank deeply from his tankard, and for the first time paused to concentrate on what he was saying instead of flinging out remarks with indifference to their effect. Looking very straight into Richard’s eyes, he asked, ‘Did you see Hermina Morgan last night?’
‘What man could fail to?’
‘No man worth calling a man! Now there is a woman with fire in the blood. I am determined to marry her, Richard.’
Richard eyed him with the same directness and asked dryly, ‘Is she aware of her good fortune?’
Nothing in his voice or expression betrayed the contraction of his heart and the pain which Simon’s announcement caused him. He had never known himself so affected by a woman as by Hermina. Had never dreamed of one, nor drawn her into his fantasies, as he did Hermina.
He had to make himself listen to his friend.
‘It would not surprise me if she had not already determined to marry me,’ Simon replied with a gust of laughter. ‘She is a woman so used to getting her own way that if she has, then I shall have to show a proper reluctance.’ The words hovered in the air until suddenly he brought his fist crashing down on the table, making everything on it jump, and in a taut voice he went on: ‘To hell with reluctance! I’ll not stoop to devious ways with her. But we’ll marry. And our children will put new blood into the line of the Furnivals. How is that for a grand jest, Richard?’
‘Is it not how all great English families have remained strong?’ asked Richard mildly. He was beginning to feel less acutely and realised that for a long time he had expected some such news as this.
Simon threw back his head and roared with laughter.
It was eight months before a Marine Police Force was set up for London’s river, sponsored by the merchants, on the plan drawn up by Patrick Colquhoun. James Marshall read the details of the force in The Daily Clarion immediately after its formation. There were to be sixty full-time officers, all paid enough to make sure they worked with ‘utmost zeal, vigilance, prudence, discretion and sobriety’. Within days a marked improvement became visible in the conditions on the river. Thieves and mudlarks no longer found it easy to raid ships and warehouses, pilferers found it more, difficult to get away with their loot, prostitutes, with whom most of the thieves worked as bullies, found themselves hounded from doorways and dark corners and kept away from ships. In months, the trade on London’s river was nearly free from the depredations which had been costing, some authorities declared, at least fifty thousand pounds a month. In less than a year the government began to prepare a bill to take over the force, and by the year 1800 the Thames River Police became a public body through an Act of Parliament which won the overwhelming support of the House of Commons and of the Lords. A new Police Office was opened at Wapping Steps, with three magistrates: a police force was actually in operation in London!
Yet one evening in September of that same year, when Richard was at the Chelsea house, where a room was now set aside for his special use, James was more angry than he had been for many years, and his voice was vibrant as he said, ‘It must now be only a matter of time before disaster strikes unless we have the police force the whole of London needs, Richard. Not simply the river. Everywhere. Oh, I know, progress has been remarkable in the past decade, but it is not enough. The present situation is an invitation to disaster—’
He broke off, coughing.
‘James,’ said Mary in a subdued voice, ‘you should not excite yourself.’
‘I am tired of not exciting myself,’ declared James crossly. ‘I cannot sit here and say and do nothing while I watch the situation deteriorate. I would like to go on the river now that it has been cleared of such a horde of criminals, and then I would like to go to those places in London where the paid criminals have r
epaired to. For the river police have not thrust them into the Thames and let them drown, I presume. They do still exist. They have to survive and they will feed off other sections of the populace. We need a police force for the City and the rest of the metropolis more desperately than ever. Make the authorities understand that. And I will try to make Timothy—’
He began to cough again, and Mary pushed her chair back and moved towards him, but James waved her back.
‘I will try to make Timothy use his influence, while you, Richard, exert yours on Simon,’ he went on. ‘I am told that Simon is a remarkable man, a giant among today’s Furnivals, more like my - my stepfather than anyone - anyone - anyone—’
Once again he began to cough, and this time he dropped back into his chair and began to breathe very heavily. Richard called one of the gardeners and together they carried him up to his room, where Mary and the housekeeper got him to bed, and a lad was sent to fetch a doctor.
‘He has caught a chill and is grievously ill with congestion of the lungs,’ the doctor diagnosed. ‘Only with constant surveillance can there be any hope for him. I judge the crisis will come in the early hours of the morning. I will send a reliable and experienced woman to help, while you, Mrs. Marshall, must rest, or you will also become ill.’
But Mary stayed up throughout the small hours while James fought for life. She was with him, and so was Richard, when he died as the first light of dawn spread from the other side of the river.
When it was certain that he was dead, Mary allowed herself to be led to another bedroom and took a spoonful of laudanum to help her rest. As the children and grandchildren came, too late to see James Marshall alive but hoping to console Mary, she slept, staying in the small bedroom overlooking the orchard for so long that when the doctor arrived to attend her the family was waiting anxiously for him.
Richard and the housekeeper went in with the doctor, who spent only a few minutes examining her, then straightened up and said, ‘She has been tired to a point of exhaustion for a long time. Now that her husband is dead she has no desire for life. It is doubtful even whether she will become conscious again.’
Mary did not regain consciousness, and on the third day the two people who had loved each other so dearly were buried in the same grave in a tiny churchyard in Chelsea. Among those who stood by the graveside on that chilly autumn morning were Timothy McCampbell-Furnival and Simon; and there was Benedict Sly, the oldest of them all, who had printed almost everything that James had said, and who had conveyed some degree of his passion in an obituary which took up more than half a page of The Daily Clarion. It was the last action Benedict carried out as editor of the newspaper; a week later he was taken ill with jaundice and at the year’s end he died also.
Within two weeks of Benedict Sly’s death, Richard sensed a change in the character of The Daily Clarion. Gone was the forthrightness and the fearless challenge to authority; in its place was a loud beating of drums, as it were, in praise of the manner in which London was managed and governed; the City of London, its Lord Mayor and aldermen, its leading citizens, wealthy bankers and merchants, could do no wrong. Now and again the editorials urged the government to some action, but there was no breath of the old reforming zeal. Troubled by this, for Benedict Sly’s newspaper had been of great value to all reform movements and an unceasing champion of the campaign for a police force, Richard went to the coffee house in Wine Court, where his grandfather and Benedict Sly had so often met and he himself had joined them; hoping to see Benedict’s surviving partner. He was not there, but a bearded man whose breath whistled through his nostrils and rattled through his chest joined him at a table which needed washing. The heavy crockery was cracked and unappetising; the place had obviously fallen on bad times.
‘You don’t recognise me,’ the bearded man said. ‘I am Neil, once of The Times, and a great admirer of your grandfather.’ The red-veined eyes held shrewdness. ‘Have you come hoping to find out what has happened to The Daily Clarion?’
‘That, and Benedict’s partner,’ Richard answered.
‘He inherited The Daily Clarion and also its debts,’ declared the ex-Times reporter. ‘Benedict had been running the newspaper at a loss for ten years because there had been too much competition. His partner was compelled to get what he could, which was not much, Mr. Marshall. A syndicate of City men and Members of Parliament bought the good will and changed the policy of the paper overnight. It is now little more than a scandal and gossip sheet, but the syndicate uses it as a political front, too, relying on its past reputation to mislead its readers.’
‘Do you know any members of the syndicate?’ asked Richard, more heavyhearted than ever.
‘I know them all, especially the chairman - Sir Douglas Rackham,’ Neil answered. ‘Any man who can escape with only a reprimand from the Solicitor General for what he did at Great Furnival Square must surely have the devil on his side.’
There was now no possible doubt; all support from The Daily Clarion had died with Benedict Sly, and the task of overcoming the opposition, both in Parliament and among the people, would become more difficult than ever.
And Simon was busy with the House of Furnival and his personal affairs.
36: THE ATTACKERS
Hermina Morgan watched Simon as he moved towards her. She felt her heart beating very fast, faster than it had ever beaten at the approach of a man. She was aware of the intensity of his gaze and knew that he felt raw, naked desire for her. She did not move.
She wondered, fleetingly and with only part of her mind, why she had allowed this meeting to come about. Why, with this man, she lost her inner composure. She had been taught and had come to believe that men were her servants and suitors, who always came a-begging for her favours, and so it had been throughout her years of maturing.
Now, as Simon came towards her, she felt for the first time in her life that she was not in control of her emotions.
They were in a cottage by the river at Putney, not far from the wooden bridge. A waterman sent by Simon had brought her to Westminster Steps on this warm autumn day in the first year of the new century, about a year after they had first dined together. Simon had behaved punctiliously but she had a sense of great power, even of danger, in him. On either side the old vineyards, now run wild, stretched down to grassy banks, the fields were dotted with tall beech and oak, hedges had sprung up since the Enclosure Act, and small farmhouses stood in a dozen places, each with its barns and outhouses, each with its cattle and free-running sheep, fowls and pigs, many with a path leading down to the river where dinghies and small boats were tied to rickety-looking jetties. A few people crossed the bridge, and children ran over it, making it swing and shake and causing nervous women to call out: ‘Don’t run, don’t run!’
But few heeded their pleas.
Simon had sent Hermina a dozen deep-red roses and inside the accompanying missive, a key; the note said that she would find a waterman waiting for her at Westminster Steps and that the man would wear the livery of the House of Furnival. She had told herself that she would not go, that nothing would make her.
The waterman had been waiting, ready to help her into the slender craft. At the jetty close to the cottage he had secured the boat and then had accompanied her part of the way. Was he accustomed to carrying out these preliminaries? she wondered. If this were so, he revealed it neither by word nor expression. He had left her when she reached a stile in a beech and hawthorn hedge, and she had walked in the seclusion of the garden to the weathered oak door, looking at the thatched roof and the leaded panes of glass and the pink and white ramblers still smothering the porch. The small fawn had been freshly scythed and the scent of flowers and newly cut grass went to her head like wine.
Before going inside she had fought a battle with herself. This must be the place where Simon Rattray-Furnival took his women, and by being here she was little better than a whore; she should not and need not stay.
She had felt hand and body quivering as she had opened
the door.
She had waited for no more than five minutes in the front room, with its dark oak rafters and heavy beams. All was beautifully kept. The furniture had the lustre of wood constantly polished over the long years, the brick floor had been newly painted, the grass of the fire irons in the inglenook fireplace gleamed brightly. A fire burned, low but welcome, for once out of the direct rays of the sun it was cool.
Now Simon approached. She had seen him rowing himself, not at speed but with calm assurance; he had moored alongside the other boat. For a few minutes he had been hidden from her by the hedge but now he was halfway up the flagged path leading to the front door. If he had any thought that she was at the window he gave not the slightest indication, and Hermina moved quickly back. Nothing she could do, however, could take the hot stinging flush out of her cheeks.
He opened the door and stepped inside, closed the door and deliberately shot the bolt. He turned and looked at her; it was as if he were stripping her naked with his eyes.
He smiled with swift, reckless gaiety and said, ‘You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.’
‘You are most gallant, sir,’ she managed to say.
He drew nearer, saying, ‘I have wanted you from the moment I first saw you.’ .
‘To add to your conquests?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘To marry and bear my children.’
She caught her breath as he stood in front of her. His eyes seemed to burn into hers and when he took her by the shoulders her flesh tingled beneath his fingers.
‘Do you understand me?’ he demanded.
‘I - I understand full well.’
‘Since you are a woman of spirit I little doubt that you will make your own decision whom you will marry, and that you will have no difficulty obtaining your father’s approval,’ Simon said. ‘You know that no matter how much wealth and how many possessions you have, I have more, so I cannot want you for your money.’ There was laughter in his voice but none in his eyes, and the pressure of his fingers became greater. ‘For your body and your childbearing - is that enough?’
