The Last Protector

by Andrew Taylor

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Wallingford House.’

  Halfway across the room, she stopped. ‘Does the Duke of Buckingham know my husband’s under his roof?’

  ‘Most unlikely, I should think. Though I’m sure he would have no objection in the world. He has a generous heart. But pray make haste, mistress.’

  Suspicions crowded into her mind. But if Hakesby was ill, she couldn’t abandon him, wherever he was. She allowed herself to be hurried downstairs. Pheebs was in the hall.

  ‘Mr Hakesby has been taken ill,’ she said, glad to tell someone where she was going.

  The porter bowed and said he was sorry to hear it. ‘God send him good health, mistress.’

  ‘He lies at Wallingford House, and this gentleman’s taking me there. Tell Mr Brennan when he comes, if I’m not back. I’ll send word when I know more.’

  ‘Very sensible,’ said Mr Veal as they went down the steps to the street. ‘One can’t tell how long this will take.’ He took her arm and urged her down the road. ‘Everywhere’s so busy, madam, it will be quicker for us to walk, if you don’t object.’

  They turned into St Martin’s Lane. ‘But why didn’t you bring him back to Henrietta Street?’ she asked.

  Veal glanced at her. ‘For the same reason as we are walking now: the crowds. It would have taken an age to get a coach through from the Park, even if I could have found one. Besides, Wallingford House was so much nearer. We could go there directly, by the Park gate into the Duke’s garden.’

  ‘But what about his servants. Will they—?’

  ‘They know me well there,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t concern yourself. His Grace is my patron. I assure you that his servants will give Mr Hakesby every attention.’

  They walked on in silence. It was much noisier than before. There were many more drunks about, and London seemed to seethe with excitement. Cat was glad of Veal by her side. His tall, forbidding figure, and the sword he wore, protected her from unwanted attentions.

  ‘A seizure?’ she said, raising her voice to make herself heard. ‘Did he fall?’

  ‘No, but he grew faint. He would have collapsed, I think, if Reeves and I had not supported him.’

  ‘Have you called a doctor?’

  ‘Not yet. I thought he seemed a little better when I left to fetch you.’

  ‘Can he speak?’

  ‘Oh yes – he was asking for you.’

  She looked away, fearing her face might betray what she was feeling. She had spent too much time lately being irritated beyond measure by her husband. She had forgotten his kindness to her.

  ‘Have you heard?’ Veal said. ‘There’s rioting in Moorfields. The apprentices are attacking the bawdy houses. Once that sort of thing starts, it spreads like the plague. That’s why the streets are so busy.’

  They passed St Martin’s in the Fields and came down to the Royal Mews and Charing Cross. Wallingford House lay before them in all its old-fashioned grandeur, with the lights and smoking chimneys of Whitehall beyond. Mr Veal took her to the Spring Gardens side of the mansion, where there was a gate in the wall surrounding the grounds. It was closed, but he knocked on the wicket and spoke in an undertone to the man who slid back the shutter.

  They were admitted to a spacious service courtyard, lit by lanterns above the doors of the offices around it. Despite the hour, there were lights in most of the windows, and servants were milling about.

  ‘Is the Duke entertaining?’ Cat asked.

  ‘The Duke is always entertaining,’ Veal said. ‘He conceives it to be his duty as a nobleman to be hospitable to those less fortunate than he.’

  Something in Veal’s air of calm certainty reminded Cat of her father and his friends. Perhaps, like them, he lived in a world of absolutes which he could not understand that others did not share. He led her through a door to a lobby. A footman was sitting on a chair at the foot of the stairs. He sprang to his feet when he saw them.

  ‘Light this lady to the White Parlour,’ Veal told him. He turned back to Cat. ‘Mr Hakesby is there. I’ll join you presently.’

  Taken by surprise, Cat could only nod. Veal opened a door and disappeared.

  The footman bowed to her and took up a candle. ‘Pray follow me, madam.’

  He led her up to the first floor, opened a door and stood back for her to enter. There was a burst of laughter. Cat paused on the threshold, disconcerted by the laughter and blinking in the light of many candles.

  She was in a large, square room that glittered in white and gold, with a carpet of deep reds and blues on the floor. Her husband was sitting in an armchair by the fire, a glass at his elbow. Richard Cromwell stood before him, and Elizabeth was on a sofa beside him, facing Mr Hakesby. The remains of a substantial supper were on a table by the window.

  The three of them turned their heads to stare at Cat, the smiles fading from their faces. She had the disagreeable sense that her arrival had broken up a pleasant party.

  ‘My dear,’ said her husband, beaming foolishly. ‘Come and warm yourself by the fire.’

  ‘But sir,’ she said, advancing into the room, ‘Mr Veal told me you had been taken faint in the Park.’

  ‘Faint with hunger, perhaps,’ he said. ‘You must have misunderstood him. No, he said Mr Cromwell was here, and had a particular desire to see me, to have news of our expedition. Naturally I was glad to oblige him.’

  Cromwell himself came forward and bowed to her. ‘Indeed, I’m sorry it’s been such a fruitless business for all of us, but I’m more glad than I can say to see you safe and well. Mr Hakesby told me that you were nearly discovered in the Cockpit, he was forced to leave without you.’

  ‘Oh Catty!’ Elizabeth stretched out her hands. ‘I must ask. Did you find it?’

  Cat ignored her. She went up to her husband and stood over him. ‘Mr Veal told me you were ill. Why would he do that?’

  For a moment he cowered from her anger. Then: ‘My dear, calm yourself. We are not alone.’

  ‘He should not have lied.’

  ‘Hush. That’s unbecoming. No doubt Mr Veal wished to be discreet.’ His eyes indicated Mr Cromwell. ‘He wouldn’t wish to risk mentioning certain names in public.’

  Cromwell cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me, madam. You must blame me. The truth of the matter is, I shouldn’t have involved you and Mr Hakesby in my private concerns.’

  ‘But you don’t mind helping us, do you, Catty?’ Elizabeth rose to her feet. ‘Come, let us all kiss and make up.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Cat said, pushing Elizabeth away. ‘A few hours ago, the only thing you wanted was whatever Mistress Cromwell hid in the Cockpit. And you distrusted the Duke of Buckingham, and you feared what he might drag you into. But now you’re having a supper party in his house. You don’t seem at all cast down that you haven’t found what you’ve been looking for.’

  ‘Catherine!’ said Hakesby. ‘This is unseemly behaviour. Do you put your judgement above mine? Above Mr Cromwell’s?’

  She ignored him. ‘The Duke’s put a spell on you all.’

  ‘I understand your confusion,’ Cromwell said, his voice as sweet and meretricious as medlar jelly. ‘It’s most natural.’

  She turned, ready to snap at him too.

  ‘Let me explain. I still hope to retrieve my mother’s legacy, but it’s less urgent now than it was.’ He smiled at her, and she saw relief in his face. ‘The Duke has very kindly given me a substantial loan, very substantial indeed – he calls it a present but I cannot accept it as such – which relieves my immediate wants. And he’s also undertaken to intercede on my behalf with the King.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Partly in gratitude for my services to him many years ago, such as they were. And partly for my support today, and in future. Though why he should think I’m of much use to—’

  ‘Oh sir,’ Elizabeth interrupted. ‘You must not undervalue yourself. The gentlemen you met this afternoon made much of you, did they not, and so did the Duke. Your value to
their cause is inestimable. And the very fact they trust Buckingham’s good faith is all the more reason for you to do so as well.’

  Cat stared from one to other – Elizabeth, Cromwell and her own husband. They were all smiling at her, willing her to share their good cheer. Why, she thought, do people so easily believe what they want to believe? Whatever was happening in this house was dangerously close to treason, and Buckingham was no more trustworthy than the weather.

  ‘There you have it,’ Cromwell was saying, smiling at her. ‘Pray let me help you to a glass of wine. Are you hungry?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and immediately realized that was not true. She glanced at Hakesby, who was draining his glass. ‘My husband and I must go home now.’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ he said, stretching out his legs towards the fire. ‘None in the world.’

  That was when a footman flung open the door, and the Duke entered the room. He was splendidly dressed, as if for a ball, and he glittered in the reflected light of the candles.

  ‘What a delightful party!’ he said. ‘And I’m so pleased that Mistress Hakesby has joined us.’

  He bowed low to her as if she were a great lady. She curtsied automatically in return.

  ‘There are some gentlemen waiting to meet you nearby. I’m sure you will recognize some of them from your childhood.’ He smiled at her. ‘Friends of your father’s, anxious to renew their acquaintance with you.’

  ‘No,’ Cat said, looking up at the Duke’s florid face. ‘I have already told you, sir: I will not.’

  ‘That was last Thursday. This is now. Circumstances alter. Now the time has come. And now you have no choice in the matter.’

  ‘My dear …’ quavered Mr Hakesby behind her. ‘Such a small thing to oblige His Grace, so harmless. And he will stand our friend, Mr Veal assures me, in the matter of future commissions. Just … just think of where it might lead. There’s talk of a mansion in Yorkshire, another Cliveden.’

  Cat was still looking at Buckingham. His lips were fleshy and petulant, she decided, taking refuge in cold observation to reduce this great man to manageable size; he had the air of an ill-schooled infant, unused to contradiction and liable to throw tantrums if thwarted.

  ‘No,’ she said again, this time more loudly. ‘I’m sorry, but I hate my father’s memory and I despise what he stood for.’

  The room fell silent. Buckingham cocked his head, still staring at her. He bent down, bringing himself within a few inches of her. She forced herself not to recoil.

  ‘In that case, my little one – and much against my will – you leave me no choice,’ he murmured in a voice that only she could hear. His eyes were large and slightly bloodshot. His face seemed to pulsate with anger. ‘If you don’t do as I wish, I shall have to give your husband to Durrell. He will take the old man down the cellars and set to work on him. Until you change your mind.’

  ‘That is barbarous, sir.’

  ‘You may watch, if you wish,’ he went on as if she had not spoken. ‘But if you can’t stomach witnessing the consequences of what you’ve done, I’ll have someone bring you word of how he does. Meanwhile, Durrell will continue in his work of persuasion until you find it possible to oblige me.’

  With two footmen lighting their way, a middle-aged maid conducted Cat and Elizabeth to a bedchamber on the second floor. The footmen were guards as well. They took up their station on the broad landing outside the chamber door.

  Inside, a maid curtsied to the space between the two young women. She had a flat face and dark, deep-set eyes like chips of obsidian.

  ‘There’s hot water in the jugs, my ladies. I can dress your hair if you wish, tidy your clothes. Cosmetics, too, on the dressing table. A touch of Venetian ceruse, perhaps?’ She glanced at Cat, whose skin, even in this light, lacked the fashionable pallor of a well-bred lady and was in need of whitening. ‘And there are clothes, too, in the closet. Perhaps I could find something more suitable for you to wear, mistress?’

  ‘I shall do perfectly well as I am,’ Cat said.

  The maid shied away. Cat was still wearing the clothes she changed into at Henrietta Street a few hours earlier. In truth, she looked little better than a servant herself. What did that matter? She wasn’t prepared to wear finery borrowed from Buckingham. She would not give him that satisfaction.

  If she could safely have killed the Duke at that moment, she would have done so without a qualm. The threat he had made against Hakesby had been so crudely violent, the sort of tactic that a swaggering ruffian from Alsatia might use, that it had put him outside the pale. For all his wit, his court civility and his wealth, the great nobleman was nothing but a bully underneath. Perhaps they all were, these noblemen, bankrupting their hapless creditors, stealing other men’s wives and settling their disputes with the violence of cold steel. They felt themselves by birth and breeding to be above the law, both God’s and man’s.

  Elizabeth submitted herself happily to the maid’s attentions, even agreeing to accept the loan of a discreet gold necklace with a sapphire pendant set in a frame of small diamonds. ‘Nothing too ostentatious, though,’ she said, staring approvingly at her reflection. ‘I would not want His Grace’s friends to take me for a court bawd.’

  Cat allowed the maid to brush the mud from her clothes and dress her hair, but accepted nothing else.

  When they were done, the maid went to the door and held a whispered conference with the servants on the landing. She turned back to Elizabeth and Cat.

  ‘His Grace is ready for you. I’m to take you down to the Great Chamber.’

  Again the little procession formed: the two footmen and the maid escorting Elizabeth and Cat. The five of them descended the broad staircase, with the maid in advance and the menservants behind.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Cat said in a whisper.

  Elizabeth glanced at her. But as she was opening her mouth, Cat went on in an even softer voice than before:

  ‘Look ahead and say nothing.’

  They went down a step, then a second, then a third.

  ‘I’ve something in my house that may belong to your father.’

  Elizabeth stumbled. She would have fallen if Cat hadn’t steadied her. She smiled her thanks, and they continued their descent of the stairs.

  Two more footmen stood sentry outside the Great Chamber. There was a rumble of voices inside. The footmen flung open the doors.

  Cat and Elizabeth paused on the threshold. The voices faltered, and diminished into silence. The high, wide chamber stretched down to two windows, curtained against the dark. Dark, distorted reflections swam in the tall mirrors. The walls and ceiling shimmered with a faint, golden glitter, for every possible surface, it seemed to Cat, had been gilded.

  The splendour diminished the room’s inhabitants. There were about a score of them, all men, mostly in sober clothes, many in black, and they were unfitted for the magnificence that surrounded them. The one exception was the Duke himself, who came hurrying down the room towards the two women like a gorgeous golden bee towards two particularly tempting flowers.

  ‘Such an honour,’ he murmured as he bowed to Elizabeth, who blushed becomingly and fluttered her eyelashes. To Cat, his words were: ‘If only your dear father could be with us, madam. He would indeed be proud of you.’

  Buckingham offered his right hand to Elizabeth and his left to Cat. Holding their hands high as if they were his partners in a stately dance, he led them down the room, introducing them to each man as they passed.

  ‘Mistress Elizabeth Cromwell – yes indeed, the late Protector’s eldest daughter, but the whole family joins us here in spirit, sir – yes, and here is Mistress Hakesby – you knew her father, Thomas Lovett well, I know, and he was great Oliver’s confidential friend; what a loss to our cause his death has been – but at least she and her husband are with us today, and his memory will inspire us.’

  Some of the faces Cat recognized from her childhood; others had a teasing, dreamlike familiarity. But how elderly they looked,
how ineffectual. In memory they had been austere, remote figures endowed with extraordinary powers: now most of them were old men like her husband, faded and infirm.

  ‘United,’ the Duke was saying to one of them in a carrying voice designed to be overheard, ‘we are stronger than we know. Men and women, rich and poor, we serve God first, and the country second – but all within the law, sir, and under the King.’

  It was in its way an impressive performance, Cat thought, carefully staged and designed to dazzle. Buckingham had the courtier’s skill of moving effortlessly from man to man, from group to group, with a confidential word here and a touch of the arm there. All the while, he displayed Elizabeth and Cat to his guests like the trophies they were. Unlike Elizabeth, Cat refused to be drawn into conversation, keeping her eyes downcast.

  ‘Very good, madam,’ the Duke murmured to her. ‘Very demure. They like that in a woman, you know. Personally I prefer a little more fire but one must not be selfish when one’s doing God’s work.’

  They came at last to the fireplace, where Dr Owen, the clergyman, was talking with Richard Cromwell. The latter, perhaps hoping for relief, looked up as Buckingham appeared with his captives in tow. But Owen merely seized the opportunity to expand his audience.

  ‘I was informing Mr Cromwell how admired he is, throughout the country.’ Owen’s voice, which had something of the quality of a saw, was increasing steadily in volume and acquiring a preacher’s rhythms. ‘Consider, I say to members of my congregation, and consider this well: here is Richard Cromwell. Once he held supreme authority in this country. He did not seek it. He accepted it for the common good, and he relinquished it for the same reason, with his honour unstained. Does not his life show that he walks the paths of righteousness in private and in public, unlike some rulers I might mention?’

  ‘You’re too good, sir,’ Cromwell said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and clearly embarrassed by the encomium.

  ‘Dr Owen speaks only the truth, sir,’ Buckingham said. ‘Now and always. By the way, is Mr Hakesby with you?’

  ‘He felt weary and retired to lie down.’ Cromwell turned to Cat. ‘No need for concern, madam.’