If only he could make his family understand that Parliament was their dung heap and Mrs. White needed to work with him to ensure they could roll it and mold it into a perfect circle to benefit them.
And their daughters, well, what an impossible pair of harpies they were turning out to be. And not even in their twentieth years yet, either of them, every day resembling their mother more and more. Just constant carping about the decisions he was making for their own good.
And did Darcey think he was blind to her constant escapes and lies about attending to her great-aunt Lydia? A man like Julian White did not manage to enter Parliament without having a modicum of wits about him. Darcey’s long fabrication about spending a few weeks with her aunt so she could sit by the old woman’s bedside and read to her was a bigger ball of excrement than any beetle could ever hope to roll up. The girl had been running wild for months and reeking of pub fumes, but he had little energy to spare for wondering about it, much less chasing her down and disciplining her.
And here she was, confessing her own sins with her ridiculous story that one of the conspirators was misled into his role by his sister and a cabinetmaker in Shoreditch. What the hell was she talking about?
Yes, Darcey complained bitterly that she was a caged bird, but she was more like a wild raven, dark eyes flashing amid her squawking and screeching. He could practically see her wings flapping as she spoke now.
“They conspired, Father, to force Wesley—I mean, Mr. Stirling—into participating with that Mr. Thistlewood. He was duped into thinking he was doing something noble for Parliament, no, for the king. He is innocent of his charges. You must help him, Father. Do something before he’s sent to trial and convicted. They’ll hang him!”
“Darcey, you’re raving. George Edwards was the informant inside that group. He kept Parliament well aware in advance of how the conspiracy was formed, and there was no cabinetmaker or lady draper involved. Besides, Thistlewood has acknowledged everything. You’re babbling nonsense. And what’s your interest in this Stirling fellow, anyway?”
“I met him ... a few times ... at the hospital, when I took Aunt Lydia for cures. Mr. Stirling was ... a gentleman who ... who was there caring for his dying wife. She had a wasting illness and was bedded next to Aunt Lydia. And he told me ... he told me that his sister, Annabelle Stirling, had practically blackmailed him into helping her and her ... her paramour, Mr. Putnam Boyce, into serving the conspiracy against Parliament.”
“Blackmailed him how, exactly?”
“They told him that ... that ... they would invent a story about his ... honestly, Father, I can’t quite remember what they threatened him with, but it was perfectly awful. As a member, you have the power to help him, don’t you? Speak to Mr. Abbot or Lord Liverpool, can’t you? He was innocent in the whole affair.”
Darcey clutched her hands tightly before her as she glanced nervously around the room. She was sweating, as well. What was the matter with the girl? Had she gone completely off her nut?
“It’s becoming clear to me, Daughter, that I should have married you off to Mr. Fretwell’s son when he proposed a match between our families, rather than letting you pout and sulk your way out of it, for if I’d done so, I’d not be listening to this gibberish right now. Instead, you’d be bound to your husband and unleashing your vitriol on him. The biggest mistake I ever made was not seeing you into that marriage. Who knows when a willing soul will come along again?”
A willing soul who wouldn’t send her packing back to her father after her first shrewish rant.
“Darcey, I always thought that between you and your sister, you were the one with sense, but I can see now how utterly incorrect I was in this assumption. You have no understanding of the events of Cato Street. I have no idea why you’re defending some random conspirator, but I’ll have no more of this. Here.” He fished around inside a bowl on his collection table and pulled out several coins. “Go purchase a pair of gloves or something. Forget about all of this fee-faw-fum.”
She shook her head. “Really, Father? Well, if you won’t act on the information I’m giving you, I can see I’ll have to do something myself.”
Darcey stamped her silk-encased foot once again and fled to her room to hide her tearstained face, but not before reaching out to grab the money her father had dropped on the table.
“Humph,” Mr. White said, sitting down to resume admiration of his scarab collection.
Lord Liverpool had never actually been to Lord Harrowby’s home in Grosvenor Square before, despite all of the planning and secret meetings that had occurred to secure the surprise capture of the Cato Street conspirators based on the supposed dinner scheduled at this address.
But this evening the two men sat together in Harrowby’s study, smoking cigars to congratulate themselves on their successful infiltration of the plot.
Liverpool leaned back in the leather chair to enjoy the aroma. “Excellent, Harrowby. Quite smooth.”
“Glad you like it. I imported a box from Jamaica. Lady Harrowby hates the smell, so undoubtedly the room will be subjected to an army of servants airing and beating and scrubbing the soul out of it tomorrow.”
Liverpool laughed politely. “It’s proving to be a good year thus far, isn’t it? We’ve got the Peterloo conspirator trials under way in York, and next month the Cato Street boys will experience English justice.”
“What were the conspirators at Peterloo eventually charged with?” Harrowby asked.
“I believe it was ‘assembling with unlawful banners at an unlawful meeting for the purpose of exciting discontent.’ Doesn’t get more unlawful than that.”
“Ha! True. I imagine, though, that they’ll get light sentences. At least, I hope so. Too many women were killed for the government to take too hard a stand against them. And there’s no real proof that they intended treason, much as I hate their radical agitating. Unlike with our Cato Street situation, where it’s obvious to even the most dull-witted street urchin that they planned the overthrow of the government.”
“Well, the passage of the Six Acts back in December will seal the Peterloo rioters’ fates, and was fortuitous in helping our own cause with the Cato Street conspirators, eh?”
Harrowby spat away a bit of cigar leaf that was stuck on his lower lip. “Indeed. Although I’m worried that the specific measure prohibiting public meetings of more than fifty people without permission may work against us. After all, there were only about a dozen of them, meaning their meetings were not illegal, per se.”
Liverpool shook his head. “Not to worry. The Cato Street brutes will certainly be found guilty of gathering for the purpose of training for a radical act. I just wish we’d been able to make that punishable by death instead of just seven years’ transportation. Although the government will present such a terrifying case of what the no-good knaves were up to that there won’t be any doubt as to the trial’s outcome.”
“So, your prediction is ... ?”
“My prediction is that the scaffoldmaker will be a very busy man next month. Which reminds me, I had a visit from one of the conspirators’ family members, a young woman, begging for the life of her brother. Sad, really. She’d been to see the king, who of course paid her no attention. I sent her on her way, too. I see no reason to show a traitor mercy just because he has a beautiful sister, do you?”
Harrowby sat up straight in his chair. “Was her name Annabelle Stirling, by chance?”
Liverpool frowned. “Why yes, I think it was.”
“Do you know the woman visited me, as well? She must be making the rounds on Parliament, trying to find a sympathetic member. A fruitless effort, poor girl. Although I wouldn’t use the word ‘beg’ to describe her visit. Miss Stirling was quite ferocious about her brother’s release. Said he was her only family left in the world. I had to explain to her that justice doesn’t make decisions by counting siblings. Honestly, I had a moment where I thought the woman planned to tear out my eyes. I’d hate to be married to such a she-wolf.”
“Why? For fear she would make you give up cigar smoking altogether?”
“Ah, you’re a scoundrel, Liverpool. But that reminds me, I need to dash off a note to my valet to send off for another box of Jamaicans. The Spaniards produce some decent cigars, too, and I hear that veterans of the wars are trying their hand at growing tobacco. I doubt anything will beat my Jamaicans, though.”
Lord Harrowby opened the slant front of his new secretary, and pulled up a chair in front of it. “You know this is the desk they sent over in their obvious attempt to get the layout of my home?”
“Is it? Exquisite work. You profited handsomely by allowing them into your home.”
Harrowby smiled. “I deserved no less. Imagine the risk I ran of the constables not breaking them up when they did, and instead having criminals arrive on my doorstep with torches and pitchforks.”
“Yes, the gossip would have been unbearable, I’m sure. It seems a heavy expense for the group, don’t you think? It must have cost them easily quite a few quid.”
“Perhaps they had a wealthy financier. Or Thistlewood had a rich widow in the background.”
“Possibly. Still, it strikes me as an odd ‘gift’ to present you just to gain access to the home. Surely they could have found something more reasonably sized. What did you find inside it?”
“Nothing. It was brand-new. Still smelled of staining oils.”
“Then why—just a minute!” Liverpool jumped up from his chair. “Aren’t these things sometimes made with secret drawers and hidden nooks and such?”
“I suppose. But why would they want to give me a desk with secret compartments?”
“I don’t know. Why would they want to kill everyone in Parliament? Move aside, Harrowby, let’s have a look.”
Lord Liverpool pushed the slant front closed, and pulled out the drawers that lay beneath it, handing them to Harrowby, who looked over each one for false bottoms before setting it on the floor. Liverpool dropped to his knees and felt around inside the carcass of the desk, seeking springs, knobs, or anything else that might suggest a hiding place.
Nothing.
He stood and opened the two doors on the top of the desk, admiring the fine marquetry that displayed a scene of female Greek statues swathed in gently draped fabrics. He could find nothing inside here, either. Perhaps it was just a foolish notion on his part.
“Harrowby, do you mind if I look in the slant-front section, as well? Anything personal of yours in it?”
“Go ahead. I’ve hardly used the desk at all yet. I’m interested now myself in what you might find.”
So Lord Liverpool pulled the heavy wood front down again, and started anew the process of pulling out the myriad of drawers, this time miniature in size. One drawer rattled.
“What’s this? A pin. It must have a use. I seriously doubt the craftsman who made this piece would have been careless enough to leave a pin in it.”
Liverpool probed the slots and drawer openings with his fingers and the pin. He was about to admit defeat and apologize for tearing the secretary apart when he felt a tiny click as he ran the pin along a drawer wall. He repeated the action slowly. There. The pin connected with a small depression in the wood. He pressed harder against the indentation, and a decorative column popped away from the front of the interior, revealing a long slot behind it.
“Well, what do we have here? A secret compartment, stuffed full of papers.” Liverpool turned it over, scattering its contents on the desk. “Receipts, bills, a map of Grosvenor Square. Harrowby, I do believe we’ve found documents of utmost interest to the Cato Street trial. God has smiled upon us tonight, my friend. I’ll carry them to court myself first thing in the morning.”
“Wait a minute. Something is coming to me. I recall someone—a fellow member?—mentioning a cabinetmaker. Something about the fellow being falsely associated with the conspiracy. Or was he a conspirator who got lost in the melee? Hmm. Wonder if it deserves an investigation.”
Liverpool clapped him on the shoulder. “Up to you, although if it was a false accusation, it might make fragments of the pie, eh? Perhaps it’s best to stick with the ingredients we know won’t crumble our case.”
“You’re right. I just wish I could remember what it was I heard, and from whom. It nags at the back of my mind.”
“Harrowby, you are your own worst nag. How about breaking open that bottle of port I see on the sideboard? Damned selfish of you to taunt me with it all evening.”
And so the two men celebrated victory for a second time that evening.
13
Forgiveness spares the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.
—Hannah More, English writer, 1745–1833
April 1820
Belle sat in the gallery of the courtroom, watching in dread as the inevitable played out before her. Her brother was shuffled in each day with the rest of the conspirators, chained and unwashed, as evidence was presented and arguments made.
The court was startled by last-minute evidence provided by Lord Liverpool in the form of documents seized from Lord Harrowby’s home. The documents were discovered inside a secretary that the conspirators had given the earl as a supposed anniversary gift in order to have a look inside his home.
A secretary! Belle spun her head to look at Wesley, who, for the first time, looked nervous instead of expressionless. He fidgeted in his chains while the contents found in the desk were enumerated, but visibly settled down when the itemization was complete.
Why? Did Wesley know about the documents stored in the desk? Was there something specific he thought troubling?
Would she not ever understand her brother?
Her subsequent visits to Wesley since trying to find a sympathetic ear to his plight had been less than successful. His body was more emaciated, and his eyes more vacant. He took little interest in the food offerings she brought him, nor in any of the shop gossip about some of his favorite patrons.
He was fading away, dying in a surer way than any hangman could impose.
A woman seated next to her leaned over and whispered, “Looks like they’s just presented the length of rope, hasn’t they? There hasn’t been a public hanging in London in some time. It’ll be a lesson to other radicals, won’t it?”
Belle stared straight ahead without replying, willing herself not to cry. Or slap the woman.
The trial had thus far revealed the infiltration of a George Edwards into the Thistlewood group. Edwards helped the conspirators form the plan to invade Lord Harrowby’s home and kill as many members of Parliament as possible.
Edwards revealed that the conspirators’ most brutal act would be to cut off the heads of at least two members and spirit them off to Westminster Bridge, putting them on pikes as a broad announcement of their accomplishment and as a warning to others.
Belle was even more aghast to learn that the conspirators intended to fire a rocket from Lord Harrowby’s home to signal to other Spenceans in the city that the deed was done, followed by setting fire to a nearby oil shop to add to the confusion and attract a mob. They then planned to attack a bank and throw open the gates of Newgate to thoroughly paralyze the city and enable their escape.
Although the conspirators had posted a couple of watchers outside Harrowby’s residence the day of the supposed dinner party to ensure all was going as planned, they were duped by a real dinner party being hosted by the Archbishop of York, who lived next door. So the parade of carriages lining the street assured them that all was well, and they reported it as such to Thistlewood. Hence the Bow Street Runners were able to intercept the conspirators before they ever left their secret meeting place.
One of the runners provided damning testimony about their watch on the Cato Street hayloft from the upper story of the Horse and Groom. From their perch, they were able to witness far more about the proceedings than Belle, and offered significant detail as to how the conspirators were heavily arming themselves inside the hayloft. The constable also gave
gruesome details of Thistlewood’s murder of the Bow Street leader, a man named Smithers, who was one of the first to climb up into the hayloft.
After Thistlewood’s drop from the window, he made a temporary escape to a house in Little Moorfields, but was apprehended the next morning, wearing a military sash and breeches full of pistol cartridges. His flight only added to the list of that man’s crimes.
Thistlewood made a long, rambling speech, primarily slandering the informer, George Edwards, who he suggested was the greatest villain of them all for having joined “the reformers” under false pretenses and continued to encourage them in their vital work without confessing to his immoral workings against the group.
Other conspirators attempted the same line of attack, only to be greeted with scorn. Wesley remained silent throughout the proceedings.
The mulatto William Davidson presented his own eloquent defense, telling the jury, “You may suppose that because I am a man of color I am without any understanding or feeling and would act the brute. I am not one of that sort. When not employed in my business in Birmingham, I have employed myself wisely and conscientiously as a teacher of a Sunday school. “
But the presiding judge responded, “You may rest most perfectly assured that with respect to the color of your countenance, no prejudice either has or will exist in any part of this court against you. A man of color is entitled to British justice as much as the fairest British subject.”
Belle had hoped British justice would mean mercy for her brother, but her hope was fading like the embers of a kitchen hearth, long after the family meal has been cooked and eaten, nor did anyone much care whether her hope flickered out.
The court recessed for the day, and she hurried home to pack a basket of foodstuffs to take to her brother. She dreaded having to trudge back to court again tomorrow, after enduring yet another sleepless night, to hear verdicts.
Shame on you, Belle Stirling. How sleepless do you think it will be for Wesley?
By the King's Design Page 28
