The Devlin Diary (22 page)

“So I see. As you have comported yourself in a gentlemanly manner ever since, I see no reason not to forgive you.” She adds a smile to soften her words.

“I hope it will not surprise you to learn that I am a gentleman’s son,” Maitland says.

“Now that I consider it, no, I’m not surprised. But how did you come to be in Lord Arlington’s service?”

“My father, like many Royalists, was ruined in the Civil War. He never overcame the blow, and he died when I was very young. I was fortunate to have patrons such as Mr. Montagu and Lord Arlington. They paid for my education, and so now I serve as their man-of-all-bidding. But it is only the beginning. They promise to sponsor my rise at court so that I may one day return my family to the high rank it once enjoyed.”

“You have long been associated with Mr. Montagu?”

“All my life. He was a friend of my father’s.”

“And what is your opinion of him?”

He glances slyly at her. “I believe he has a high regard for you.”

“You did not answer my question,” Hannah replies, laughing at her vain attempt to pry information from him. “I see you can be discreet when it suits you.”

“When it suits Mr. Montagu, more like,” Maitland replies. “Yes, ma’am, I am aware that it does not serve to bite the hand that feeds. Especially when there are so many others that need biting,” he adds with a wicked grin.

“You remain bold in your thoughts, Mr. Maitland, if not in your
actions. If you continue in such a way, you will become as much of a rake as the others here.”

“Do you speak with approbation or with admiration, Mrs. Devlin?”

“A little of both, I suppose, for men enjoy freedoms that women may never share, but only men are capable of causing such great harm as they do.” She stops before they turn into the stone gallery and looks for Jane Constable, but the girl is nowhere to be seen.

“I
’VE COME TO
talk with the comptroller,” Ravenscroft says. “Is Sir Hugh in his chambers?”

“Yes, but he is sitting with others presently,” the clerk replies.

Ravenscroft offers his letter of introduction. “I come directly from Sir Robert Moray.”

The clerk quickly reads the letter’s few scrawled lines and, with a perturbed sigh, rises from his chair. Though young, he has an acerbic look about him, as if his only pleasure comes from exercising what small power he has. “Wait here,” he says, nodding at a pewlike bench along one wall.

Ravenscroft sits as the clerk crosses the antechamber to Sir Hugh May’s door. As comptroller, Sir Hugh holds the purse strings to the King’s Works, the branch of His Majesty’s government that oversees building projects in and around Whitehall and the City. As he waits, the injurious effects of only a few hours’ sleep begin to settle in his bones. Last night he rushed home from the Royal Society meeting, his mind frantic, as if his inspiration was something fragile that would break if he did not bring it immediately to life. He ignored young Thomas’s greeting and Nell’s offer of supper, and shut himself up in his study, making
sketch after sketch until he completed a practicable set of plans. After a nap in the early morning, he awoke feeling happy and benevolent, as if he had drunk the nectar and dreamt the dreams of gods—for inspiration surely must have a divine source. He decided that he would go at once to Sir Robert, his influential Royal Society colleague. He washed with heated lavender water and donned his best coat, his finest periwig, and a lace cravat he had been saving for just such an occasion. Then, with an easel and his drawings under his arm, he set out from the Old Swan stairs on a wherry to Whitehall.

Where he was shunted about from clerk to clerk, each one more officious than the last, before sitting briefly with Sir Robert and being sent to Sir Hugh. The part of the palace near the Scotland Yard that houses the King’s Works has changed little since King Henry’s time, except that the rooms have been partitioned to accommodate the additional secretaries and copyists made necessary by the Fire. It is a warren of tiny nests, each one filled with a scribbling clerk. As he leans his head back against the wall he can hear them scratching and scrabbling like mice. The rooms are dismal and cold, with wood-paneled walls and leaded-glass windows placed very high up. In clement weather the windows do little to dispel the gloom, and on cloudy days such as this one they admit almost no light at all. Even though each has a shilling’s worth of tapers on his desk, to a man the clerks sit with crooked backs, squinting at barely legible documents only inches away.

The close air and the tallow smoke make him drowsy. When the clerk finally grants him an audience with the comptroller, he feels slightly dazed, like a grateful supplicant ushered into the light. Sir Hugh has beaten back the darkness of his chambers by placing candles all about: it’s as bright as a chapel.

“Mr. Ravenscroft, pleased to make your acquaintance,” he says with a vigorous handshake and a smile. The comptroller is hale and hearty, about fifty, with a sanguine complexion and a jovial, informal air, but like all successful courtiers he wears expensive rags and a scent stronger and more complex than simple lavender water. Ravenscroft suspects that Sir Hugh’s warm welcome has little to do with his unassuming self and much to do with the comptroller’s wish to supplant Christopher
Wren as surveyor-general. It did not go over well with the older architect when the king appointed the young Mr. Wren above him.

“This is my under-clerk, Mr. Urquhart, and my cousin Sir Richard Davies,” says Sir Hugh. Mr. Urquhart is a man of about thirty with a round face and a reticent manner. Sir Richard is an old, vainglorious fellow covered in lace and brocade, with shoes so tall he teeters on them. His periwig is shaded a youthful dark brunette, even though his face and neck are more wrinkled than a basset hound’s. “Sir Richard has come to us for help with plans for his new house on Pall Mall.”

“Adjacent to the residences of Sir Philbert Whigby and the Duke of Albemarle,” Sir Richard says, chin rising with conceit.

“It is my pleasure to make both your acquaintances, I’m sure”—actually, Ravenscroft is not sure of this particular pleasure at all—“but I had rather thought that this would be a private sitting, Sir Hugh.” He indicates the roll of papers under his arm. He has not presented his designs to the Society yet; anyone could embezzle his plan and call it his own.

“Of course, Mr. Ravenscroft.” Sir Hugh explains for the others. “Sir Robert tells me that Mr. Ravenscroft has a unique new scheme for the Fleet. As a philosopher and a member of the Royal Society, he is ever watchful that his ideas do not fall into a competitor’s hands.”

“I have heard of this Society,” says Sir Richard, his powdered jowls and turkey’s neck wobbling. “You’re one of those fellows who weighs air, and enjoys dropping things from very great heights.” He chuckles and looks to the two others as if he has just said something clever.

“That is the opinion of those who are ignorant,” Ravenscroft curtly informs him. “Experimental philosophy involves the careful study of nature, for the purpose of comprehending its true laws and processes. Only in this fashion is it possible to discover the truth. Those who trivialize our work are generally found to have no understanding of it.”

Sir Richard’s jaw drops. Sir Hugh quickly steps in to heal the breach. “Mr. Ravenscroft, I can assure you that we have the utmost respect for your pursuit of philosophy, and that no one here will appropriate for themselves that which is not theirs. Sir Richard meant nothing by his banter,” he says with a pointed look at his cousin. “Now, if you would
be so kind as to begin your discourse.” Sir Hugh and Sir Richard recline in the chamber’s two upholstered chairs, and Mr. Urquhart perches on a stool next to a secretary’s desk in the corner.

Ravenscroft sets up his easel and attaches his diagrams, unrolling the first of the series and pinning it flat. “Gentlemen, you see before you my rendering of the Fleet Ditch, one of the most unwholesome scars on the face of London. Its very name conjures up pestilence and filth; yet the king has decreed that it be made into a navigable canal. To date, even our finest architects and planners”—he respectfully does not name Mr. Wren—“have not been able to make progress. I have devised a means for clearing the Fleet of its waste and sewage, which will enable the king’s desire to be made manifest.” He unfurls his second drawing.

At first, as he begins to describe his system of filters, pumps, and barges, he can see that Sir Hugh and the others take little interest in his designs. But he is more than usually articulate this day. His plan for the Fleet is nothing less than a prophetic vision, and elucidations cascade from his tongue with elegance and conviction. After a while he notices with no small degree of satisfaction that his audience is eagerly listening. Even Sir Richard seems to be caught up in his fervor.

“And how would these filters, as you call them, be made secure in the riverbed?” Sir Hugh asks.

Ravenscroft flips through the drawings on his easel. He moves one of the candlesticks closer so they will be able to see the details more easily. The air in the comptroller’s chamber is very warm, he thinks, as he tugs at his too-tight cravat and brushes the long locks of his wig away from his shoulders. He turns back to Sir Hugh and points to the relevant area of the diagram. “The filters would be secured in much the same manner as the footings of a bridge, but with additional support extending from the sides, into the riverbank. See here, at Figure D, the cantilever posts are fortified by iron—” He hears a strange crackling noise behind him, a sound like paper being crumpled into a ball. He turns round to look but there is nothing to be seen, only an odd smell of sulfur in the air. His three-person audience utters a collective gasp. Perplexed, he faces them once more, to find an expression of alarm and amusement on Sir Hugh’s face, astonishment on the two others.

“Your wig!” Sir Hugh shouts. “It’s on fire!”

Ravenscroft’s initial reaction is sheer panic, his next self-preservation. He snatches the flaming, smoking hairpiece from his head and throws it on the floor, then tears off his coat and flails at the wig as one might flog a disobedient dog. By this time, now that it’s apparent that he’s not in any real danger, Sir Hugh, Sir Richard, and even the subdued Mr. Urquhart are hooting with laughter. They double over, unable to speak, making sounds that are better suited to a barnyard than a Whitehall chamber. Ravenscroft extinguishes the fire and waits silently, face reddening, his wispy, pathetic tufts of gray hair only partially concealing his naked scalp. The three men catch their breath, and for a moment it appears that his humiliation is at an end. Then Sir Hugh looks at him once more and roars. The two others quickly follow his lead.

At long last, Sir Hugh wipes tears from his eyes and rises from his chair. “Good show, Mr. Ravenscroft. I do not believe I have ever laughed so hard without so much as one drop of drink.”

“But what do you think of my plan for the Fleet?”

“I believe Mr. Wren has it well in hand already. Surely you do not need to trouble yourself.”

Trouble? “But it is no trouble. Indeed, it is what I most desire. It could be the pinnacle of my life’s work. My destiny, if you will.”

“The Fleet Ditch? Your destiny?” Sir Hugh’s face appears to be locked in an odd grimace, as if he is holding back another flood of mirthful tears.

Ravenscroft searches the architect’s face for some evidence of his empathy, if not for himself then for his intended plan, but he finds none. Could it be that Sir Hugh has completely missed the point of his discourse? Surely the comptroller is not going to reject a rebuilding scheme so worthy of implementation. Ravenscroft cannot resist one last attempt. “Do you not think the king will be interested in my invention?”

“I cannot say, Mr. Ravenscroft. But perhaps,” Sir Hugh says as he turns to the two others, his eyes shining, “you should inquire if he is in need of a new jester. I’ve heard that Mr. Killigrew no longer suits.”

The three men hoot and haw and hold their sides. Ravenscroft pulls on his battered coat, places his stinking wig back upon his head, and rolls up his drawings. “Good day, gentlemen,” he says as he departs, but they do not hear him, they are too busy laughing.

It is over, he decides. All of it. The trials and the experiments and the days and months and years of conscientious study. If he can accomplish no more than being made sport of by ignorant asses, he wants nothing more to do with philosophy. He trudges through the palace with his chin on his chest, taking little notice of where he goes or what he passes. After he walks through the main gate and out onto Whitehall Street he stops, overcome with fatigue and bewilderment. Where is he and where is he going? Home, he supposes, but why? What point is there in continuing to tread upon the path of his life? It has only led him here, to his mortification and disgrace.

Not far from the gate he eases himself down to the ground, propping his back against the palace’s exterior stone wall, not caring that his best coat and breeches will be stained with mud. His mind is occupied with something much more important than his attire: what to do with the remainder of his life. Perhaps it’s time for something new. He could take a wife; but even in the depths of his despair Ravenscroft is cognizant of how little chance he has of a wife taking him. He could spend the rest of his days traveling in foreign countries. Or drinking in taverns. Better yet, he could spend the rest of his days drinking in foreign taverns. Or he could simply throw himself in the Fleet and be done with it.

“Am I addressing Mr. Ravenscroft?”

He looks up to see one of the King’s Guards staring down at him. “What do you want?” he asks crossly.

“I am instructed to bring you back to court, sir.”

Ravenscroft snorts. “Surely you jest.”

“Not at all, sir.” The guard is so young that he hasn’t got a beard. A flicker of worry passes over his countenance: he hadn’t expected any difficulty.

“I won’t go.” Sir Hugh can find another philosopher to humiliate.

The guard nervously shifts his weight from foot to foot. “But you must.”

“Says who?”

“I don’t know, sir. I only know of my orders. You must come with me, or—or I’ll have to summon my captain.”

Damn, he would swear that he saw the boy’s chin quivering. “Odd’s Fish, you aren’t going to start blubbering, are you?” Ravenscroft stands up and makes a halfhearted attempt to brush himself off. He realizes the instant his hand sweeps across his backside that he has sat in something more elemental than mud, probably horse manure. He sniffs his hand—definitely horse manure—then wipes it on the front of his breeches. Well, Sir Hugh would have to take him as he is.

“Get a grip, son,” he says to the sniveling guard, then motions for him to lead on. He follows the boy back through the gate, back through the crowds in the palace courtyard, back through the covered gallery, then along the stone gallery, past the questioning eyes of envious courtiers, who watch as Ravenscroft is whisked past the curtains at the end of the hall. The guard leads him through a luxurious bedchamber and into a small room full of clocks. There are scores of them, too many to take in all at once, timepieces mounted on the walls, displayed in glass cabinets, or simply set out on top of tables. They make a fantastic noise, each one ticking, tocking, chiming, or clicking: a room full of mechanical birds and insects.

In the center of this cacophony stands King Charles himself. He is a magnificent figure, so tall that Ravenscroft comes up no higher than the middle of his chest. He is the most extravagantly dressed person the philosopher has ever seen, sporting a glossy black wig that reaches to his waist, a jacket of lush scarlet brocade embroidered with gold, cascades of lace at his throat and wrists. His scarlet velvet shoes are adorned with gold bows; gold garters studded with jewels encircle the white silk stockings that sheath his well-defined legs. Strangely, though, the king does not appear foppish at all, but assuredly regal.