Devil Water (77 page)

She left Alec in the hackney this time and went inside herself, spurred by memory and intuition. The inn was very old and built around a courtyard. She went past the taproom, where two men were drinking. She heard from another room upstairs the tinkle of a harpsichord, the squeak of a fiddle. She had some trouble finding the landlord and his wife, until, directed by a chambermaid, she knocked upon the door of their private parlor.

The landlord was called John Potts. He was stout, ruddy, and had a wary eye. The landlady was also stout and ruddy and decisive. She had iron-gray hair under a mob-cap trimmed with mauve bows; her eyes were black, and shrewd like her husband’s. They were both in their mid-fifties. He had his feet on the hob and was smoking a pipe and reading the
Gazette.
Mrs. Potts was knitting, having finished a pint of bitters, and the hour being a slack one in the King’s Head.

They both turned in some annoyance as Jenny entered and dropped a curtsey.

“Well, wot d’ye want?” said Potts, who didn’t like his privacy disturbed. He took another look at Jenny, and sketching a rise to his feet, added “madam” uncertainly.

“Please to forgi’e me, sir,” said Jenny softly. “I’m looking fur wark, and wondered would ye have some? I can sairve bar or tables, I can sing a bit.”

Both Pottses contemplated her suspiciously. The landlady noted the good stuff, though worn, in the out-of-date clothes, and she noted in the voice a fluctuating and familiar accent. The landlord saw a pretty woman, with an air about her which might please his Friday night musical customers, who were mostly quality.

“Wot can ye sing?” he said. “Let’s ‘ear!”

Jenny cleared her throat, and after a quavering start sang a verse of “Begone Dull Care.” As neither of her listeners said anything, she sang “My Lodging’s on the Cold Ground” with a plaintive charm which would not have disgraced her great-grandmother, Moll Davis.

“Not so bad,” said Potts grudgingly. “Though very old-fashioned!”

“I could ler-rn new ones,” said Jenny eagerly. She turned and looked pleadingly at the silent landlady. “I beg ye, ma’am, ter gi’e me a chance. I’m in gr-reat need o’ board and keep.”

The landlady pursed her lips, a faint twinkle appeared in the small black eyes. “I’m a-wonder-ring,” said Mrs. Potts meditatively, “why ye
speak
a bit like a Northumbr-rian, and
sing
like Southron gentry.”

At the lilt in the questioning voice, Jenny was sure. Her dim memory had been correct. It was during the last month of her school days that Byrd had taken the girls here, and said, “The landlady comes from the uncivilized North somewhere near the Border, and I’ve heard is even a Jack, but we’ll overlook that in favor of a pork pie, and a ballad or two.”

“I’ve ler-r-ned m’speech in different places,” said Jenny, giving a brilliant smile to Mrs. Potts.

“She sounds like a Scot ter me!” interposed Potts with renewed suspicion. “I don’t want no Scots ‘ere!”

“John, you booby,” said his wife impatiently. “Can’t ye
iver-r
tell the difference? Whate’er she may be, she’s na Scotch.”

The landlord grunted. Mrs. Potts continued to knit. Jenny decided on a bold move.

“Isna that dried heather, ma’am?” said Jenny pointing to a jug which stood on the mantel. “I’m a lover-r o’ heather-r, especially white, though I’ve found none masel’, an’ I’m a lover-r o’ white roses -- though ‘tis too late i’ the season for them.”

“Faw!” said Potts, knocking his pipe out against his boot, and lumbering up from his chair. “Wot crazy talk. Belike the woman’s drunk. Get rid o’ ‘er, Bella. I’m off to the cellars, to fetch up the port.” The door slammed behind him.

Mrs. Potts continued to contemplate Jenny steadily. “Would ye knaw a
song
about white r-roses?” she asked quietly.

“I could hum one,” said Jenny, and she hummed the tune of “When the King Shall Enjoy His Own Again.”

Mrs. Potts’s eyelids flickered, the color deepened in her apple-red cheeks. “Are ye truly Northumbr-rian?” she said.

“Aye,” said Jenny with a sigh. “And so are you, ma’am. I beg o’ you to help me.”

“What is it?” said Bella Potts after a moment. “You’re no sairving maid, an’ shouldna want to be.”

Jenny bit her lips, then spoke in a desperate rush. “I’ve come to London to -- to be near someone who’s in prison. He was captured in the Rising. I fear greatly for him. I’ve no money, and must find work.”

“Your husband?” said Mrs. Potts.

Jenny shook her head, afraid to say too much, uncertain what clues might lead to the identification of her father. “Your sweetheart then?”

Jenny implied assent, she put her right hand to her hair, and pushed a lock back nervously.

Mrs. Potts started. She got up and came towards Jenny so quickly that Jenny had no time to move. Mrs. Potts grabbed Jenny’s hand in a vicelike grip, and peered down at the ring. “What’re ye doing wi’
this!”
she cried. “Did ye steal it?”

“No,” Jenny cried turning white. “ ‘Twas given to me! And, and what’s it to
you!”
She snatched her hand away and put it defiantly behind her back.

Mrs. Potts gave a small bitter laugh. “D’ye think a body bor-rn in Cor-rbridge wouldna knaw the Radcliffe crest?”

Jenny did not move, there was a roaring in her ears, her heart beat in sickening thumps. What a fool to come here! What a wicked fool to forget to turn the ring under as she had meant to!

The landlady suddenly sat down, and motioned Jenny to the chair Potts had vacated. “Divven’t gawp at me like that!” she said in a softer tone. “But ye better speak the truth, lass. Ye needna fear me. M’first husband was out i’ the ‘Fifteen wi’ the Erringtons under James, the Earl o’ Darntwatter. M’man was hanged at Lancaster. I’ve had no traffic wi’ the rebels since, an’ I
want
none, yet I’ll not betray one neither, especial if they’re from the North.”

Jenny collapsed in the landlord’s chair. Different possible stories sped through her mind, denials -- some lord had given her the ring, she hadn’t known what it was -- she was going to sell it for benefit of the sweetheart in -- in Newgate. Careful! she thought. Already she had made a bad mistake.

Mrs. Potts put down her knitting. “Lyeuk here, lass,” she said briskly. “Ye needna tr-rouble yoursel’ fadging up a tale fur me. Time an’ time agyen I’ve seen Charles Radcliffe i’ the Angel’s taproom at Cor-rbridge, thirty years agone it was, yet a blind mole c’ld see ye’re his kin. An’ if ye want a job here, ye’ll be honest!”

“Oh-h,” Jenny whispered. She bowed her head a moment, then lifted it and said, “Very well.”

In hesitant, broken sentences she told Mrs. Potts most of the truth. She did not mention her marriage, she said only that she’d been out of the country, and her father had sent for her.

“But, ma’am,” she cried, “they can’t prove that the man in the Tower is Charles Radcliffe, for he denies it. Do you understand me, ma’am?”

“Aye,” said Mrs. Potts after a moment. “And I want naught ter do wi’ the situation, one way or t’other. I’ve suffered enow through Radcliffes in me day, an’ Potts he hates the rebels. But I’ll help a fellow Northman this far. I’ll gi’e ye board’n lodging wi’ four shilling a week, sae lang as ye’ wark well, hours from six ‘til we shut o’ nights. Days ye may ha’ to yourself -- fur any skulduggery ye’ve a mind to. But
mark ye”
said Mrs. Potts sternly, “ye’ll not go about prattling o’ white roses, nor mentioning this subject ter me, or anybody agyen.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Potts,” said Jenny faintly. “I’ll remember.” Here was not the ally she had hoped for, and yet one must be grateful that the first problem of her return to London was solved.

TWENTY

Several days passed after Jenny landed in London before, on October 9, she was able to get into the Tower and see her father.

On each of those intervening days Alec reported to Jenny, though not at the King’s Head. Jenny scrupulously observed her promise to Mrs. Potts that no private business should be transacted there. In the market square adjacent, among stalls and bins of vegetables -- mostly potatoes -- and amid the twitters of singing birds for sale in cages, Jenny had no trouble meeting Alec casually. He was cautiously laying the groundwork for her introduction to the Tower.

In August, Charles had been moved from his suite in the Lieutenant’s Lodging to make room for Lord Traquair, another captured Scot. The Lieutenant-Governor of the Tower was General Adam Williamson, a small-minded and vindictive old man, who disliked all his Jacobite prisoners and treated them as badly as he dared. In fact Lord Balmerino just before his execution announced that had he not just taken the sacrament he would be glad “to knock down the Lieutenant of the Tower for his ill-usage.”

Williamson particularly detested Charles, who was a Papist, who drank King James’s health openly, and who wrote justifiable letters of complaint to the Secretary of State, the Duke of Newcastle -- thus going over Williamson’s head. On the theory that it might cause Charles the maximum mental anguish, and also induce the admission of his identity, Williamson, in August, transferred his prisoner to the Beauchamp tower, to the very chamber where James, the Earl of Derwentwater, had spent his last days. The chamber, long disused, was dank and bare, inhabited by spiders and rats. Charles disappointed Williamson by complete silence when the latter took pains to inform him who had been imprisoned there.

As it happened, said Alec, in explaining all this to Jenny, his poor lordship had had a bit of luck in the move, by acquiring new warders. There were two yeoman warders, or Beefeaters, responsible for Charles’s security. One of them, called Cox, was the Governor’s tool, sly, greedy, and insolent. However, Hobson, the other warder, was a brawny middle-aged man who happened by great good fortune to have been one of James’s guards here thirty years ago. He had conceived an admiration for the Earl, and was inclined to be sympathetic towards his brother.

“But Alec!” Jenny protested. “Nobody
knows
that!”

“They suspect, madam. It’s clear Hobson does, yet so far they can’t prove it unless his lordship’s trapped into admitting it. ‘Tis a legal quibble, yet may save him when he comes to trial.”

“When will that be?” she asked steadily.

“Next month, his lordship thinks. That brute Williamson won’t tell him much, and what he does -- my master don’t always remember.” Alec flushed and looked down at the miry marketplace.

Alec had been grieved by his first sight of Charles, after the valet had had his credentials reattested and been allowed the privilege of daily attendance in the Beauchamp tower. State prisoners of rank, before they came to trial, were always permitted a personal servant to come in and shave them, take away their laundry, and bring sundries to augment the prison fare. The prisoners were also allowed certain other visitors, at the discretion of the Governor, and an airing on the battlements if a warder were in charge.

Williamson constantly tried to curtail these privileges, even to excluding Charles’s lawyer, and flatly refusing to admit a priest. Charles therefore wrote angry and pleading letters to the Duke of Newcastle, scrawling them in pencil since he was not permitted pen and ink. The Duke usually ignored these pleas, if indeed he received them. And that the letters might not always be coherent Alec was now unhappily aware.

Charles had been like a trapped, snarling old badger when Alec finally saw him on the morning after the return to London. It was several moments before his master recognized him, once the warder had let Alec into the dark bare dingy cell which was only furnished with a table, chair, and rickety wooden bedstead. Wind whistled down the great, old fireplace, for which a porter furnished coals, if he were well enough paid.

“Where’ve you been, you faithless villain!” Charles cried furiously, after Alec succeeded in rousing him from a semidrunken stupor. “You’ve been skulking off to France to save your hide like all the rest of ‘em, I suppose!”

“My lord -- my lord--” said Alec. “I’ve been a journey, ‘tis true -- but ye sent me on it -- and ‘twas not to France, don’t ye remember?”

Charles’s bloodshot eyes focused slowly, some light came into them. “You went for Jenny,” he said. “I had forgot you went for Jenny. There’s been no one of my own to see me since you left, and I live with beasts in shadow. Beasts in shadow -- ” he repeated thickly. He picked up a mug from the table and took a long draught. The mug contained gin which the warders could supply much cheaper than wine.

“My lord,” said Alec, with a glance at Hobson, who stood impassively by the door, in his flat Tudor hat, his starched white ruff and embroidered flaring crimson tunic, his halberd held out at arm’s length. “My lord, I’ve brought -- uh -- the young woman you sent for. She -- she loves you dear.”

“Ah -- my Jenny,” said Charles in a dreaming voice. “Has she indeed come to me? When can I see her? She’ll fight the beasts in shadow, won’t she? Like a sunbeam is my Jenny.
‘Aupres de ma blonde, qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon, Aupres de ma blonde, qu’il fait bon dormer!’ “

Charles’s chin sank forward on his chest, his breathing grew sterterous. Alec looked sadly at the warder. “Is he often like this now?”

“Often enough,” said Hobson. “Ye know I feel sorry for ‘im. Don’t ‘e ‘ave a wife, nor friends nor nobody? ‘Is brother when ‘e was ‘ere, in this very cell, I mind ‘ow ‘is poor wife used ter come often, an’ they took comfort in each other. Touching it was.”

“The Count had no brother in the Tower!” said Alec sharply.

The warder shrugged. “ ‘Ave it
your
way, mate! ‘Oo’s this Jenny -- some light o’ love?”

That gave Alec an idea. He explained Jenny as an actress who had been on an extended tour, and who was devoted to the prisoner. “A matter o’ many years,” said Alec with truth. He mentioned her present work as a singing barmaid in a tavern, and the heartbreak she felt at learning of her lover’s capture.

He made a moving story of that, and Hobson, who had sensibilities despite his grim job, said, “She might come Thursday at three, when I’m on duty. I’ll tell the warder below to let her in -- needn’t bother the Gov’nor abaht a visitor of no himportance, an’ I must admit ‘is Excellency’s a tough one, makes it ‘ard for the rebel lords. ‘E don’t want no escapes like there was after the ‘Fifteen. Lords Winton and Nithsdale, they both got outa ‘ere. Lax we was then, I suppose. But we ain’t
now,
mate!” Hobson grinned at Alec, who had not been able to hide a thoughtful widening of the eyes. “So no use getting notions in your ‘ead.”