When the Devil Drives (31 page)

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Authors: Caro Peacock

BOOK: When the Devil Drives
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‘I've taken no money from them, so I don't owe them anything. We'll get you on the stage, then I'll take the mare back and see the lass is all right.'
At an inn yard, he found a man he knew and organized a place for me in the London stage. Once he'd seen me into my seat, he gave a wave of his hand and swung himself up onto the mare's back. A lesser man might have hesitated at riding across Windsor Great Park side-saddle, but anything with horses came naturally to Amos. He waved to me as the stage coach wheeled out of the yard. I'd have liked to take him with me, but back in London I'd be in places where even Amos's writ did not run.
COURT CIRCULAR
Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg, Sir H. Seymour, and the Hon. C. A. Murray, enjoyed the sport of shooting this morning. Prince Ernest was too unwell to leave the Castle.
Prince Ernest is officially unwell.
The Times
31 October 1839.
TWENTY
T
wo letters were waiting for me back at Abel Yard, one from Paris and the other from Ireland. I took them upstairs unopened and, without even taking off my bedraggled bonnet and cape, found Mrs Martley's cherished Little Vicky scrapbook in its place on the shelf. The cover was grimed with soot, but the cuttings from newspapers and magazines inside as good as new. Luckily, she'd recorded every detail of the visit of the two Saxe Coburg princes, every entry in the court circular pasted in proper order. Her Majesty and Their Highnesses rode and dined and listened to the band, rode and walked on the terrace and dined again through what looked like three weeks of regal tedium.
I read through it twice over in the failing light, then lit the lamp and made notes. It fitted all too well. I went upstairs and through the connecting door into my own room, washed and changed into clean petticoat and stockings and a woollen dress that had escaped the worst of the smoke and walked to the Talbots' house in Belgrave Square. Several times in the walk, shrieking urchins jumped out at me with turnip lanterns on poles demanding pennies: a waste of their time because I was beyond being scared by Halloween tricks. Carriage wheels grinding behind me didn't even make me turn my head. I knew the devil's chariot wasn't here in Belgravia.
Beatrice Talbot came downstairs as soon as she heard my voice at the door. Her butler had been looking down his nose at my undistinguished appearance in the lamplight and asking if I were expected, in a voice that doubted it. She stepped past him and took my hand.
‘Liberty, my dear. Is something wrong?'
‘Yes. No . . . that is, there's something I'd like you to do for me.'
She was already changed for dinner, in rose velvet and ivory lace. Clearly, company were expected. Without hesitation, she led me through to the drawing room. The children were there, the younger ones sleepy-eyed, a board game spread out on the carpet. I'd interrupted the precious hour with them before guests arrived.
‘I'm sorry, I'll come back after dinner,' I said. ‘I don't suppose you could do it before tomorrow in any case, only . . .'
Something seemed to have gone wrong with the connection between my brain and my tongue. The concern on Beattie's face told me that I was looking strange as well. She undid my cape, threw it over a chair and made me sit down on a sofa. Sinking against the cushions felt like falling through clouds, down and down.
‘My dear, you're ill. I'm going to send out for the doctor.'
‘No. Please no.'
‘What, then?'
‘I need to speak to the young man who was at the opera with us, Mr Calloway. Early tomorrow, if possible, before he goes in to the office.'
She looked startled, fingertips flying to her lips to check a gasp. I could read what she was thinking. Poor Liberty, struck unexpectedly with love, struggling against it, surrendering at last and rushing to her friends' house in the dark like a madwoman, pleading for a meeting with the object of her passion. I laughed, a jagged sound that brought an alarmed look from the children.
‘It's not what you're thinking, I promise you. But I do need to speak to him urgently on a matter of business.'
‘Your . . . your profession?' It had always puzzled Beattie, though she tried loyally to understand.
‘Yes. I have a problem and I hope Mr Calloway may be able to advise me.'
‘Then I shall get George to send him round a note. He's in the dining room, seeing the wine's properly decanted. Keep an eye on the children for me.'
I slumped on the sofa. The children watched me and whispered among themselves. They knew me from many music lessons, but not in this mood. I was sorry, in a cloudy way. I'd have played with them if I could. Beatrice was back in a few minutes.
‘George is writing a note now and he'll tell the boy he's to wait for a reply. Now, will you join us for dinner?'
That was downright heroic. No other hostess in London would have countenanced a semi-articulate scarecrow.
‘Thank you, but no. I must get back.'
‘You'll do nothing of the kind. The guest room's made up, and if you prefer not to sit down with us I shall have a tray sent up to you.'
I hardly tried to argue. Beatrice clinched the matter by saying that George's note would ask Mr Calloway to come here as soon as possible in the morning. Within minutes I was upstairs in one of their beautifully furnished bedrooms. Soon afterwards a lad appeared carrying a folding table, followed by a maid with a tureen of soup, cutlets, a glass of wine. I ate hungrily and finished the wine to the last drop. The lad took the table away and the maid returned, bringing warm water, soap, soft towels, a nightdress. I got into bed and dozed, to the sound in the background of guests arriving and being greeted downstairs. At some time in the evening, Beatrice knocked gently on the door and put her head round.
‘George has had an answer already. Mr Calloway will be calling at half past eight in the morning.'
I slept, deeply and dreamlessly for half the night at least, then watched the light come back and went over everything again in my head. I knew I was right. The question was whether anybody would believe me.
Mr Calloway arrived five minutes before half-past eight, bright-eyed, neatly dressed and looking as if an inexplicable summons by an acquaintance, at an hour that scarcely existed by the normal standards of the diplomatic corps, were an invitation he'd desired above all things. In spite of that, my heart sank on seeing his cheerful face as he was shown into the drawing room. He looked so much younger and newly fledged than when I'd seen him in evening dress that I doubted if he'd be able to do what I needed. George Talbot had decided to sit in on our meeting, possibly for the sake of my reputation but more probably from curiosity. I could hardly blame him in either case. Once coffee had been offered and accepted, I launched into business.
‘I need to speak to somebody in the Foreign Office about a serious matter concerning relations between Britain and Saxe Coburg. It's so delicate that I must ask you to forgive me for not going into more details, even to you. It's so urgent that the meeting should take place in the next few hours. I don't suppose my name will mean anything to your office. All I can say is that Mr and Mrs Talbot can assure them that I am not mad. If Mr Disraeli were back in the country, I believe he would vouch for me. Apart from that, I can only rely on your judgement.'
Mr Calloway heard me out, with very little change of expression. His shapely eyebrows lifted just a fraction at the reference to Disraeli. He was more influential than most backbench MPs, but so unpredictable that the Foreign Office would probably sniff sulphur around him. Still, it was the best I could do. For a second or two after I'd finished speaking, Mr Calloway considered. One of the Talbot children shouted in the corridor outside and was shushed by her nursemaid.
‘Is there anything else at all you can tell me?' Mr Calloway said. The voice and the question were both reasonable.
‘One thing. Whoever you speak to, please tell him that it concerns the maze and the Minotaur. If I'm right, he'll understand.'
‘That's all?'
‘Yes, I'm afraid that's all.'
‘Very well, I'll try to do what you ask. Where may we find you?'
‘Miss Lane will be staying with us,' George Talbot said.
‘Thank you. I'm truly grateful for what you've done, but I must go home,' I said to him. Then, to Mr Calloway: ‘I live at Abel Yard, off Adam's Mews. I shall wait there until somebody comes to me, but please ask them to make it soon.'
He nodded, looking more serious than when he'd arrived. When George came back from showing him out, I promised to let him know what was happening as soon as I could.
‘You'll say goodbye to Beattie at least?'
She was in the kitchen, discussing the day's menu with their cook. When she saw me, she ran to me and took my hand.
‘George says you won't stay.'
‘I wish I could.'
With all my heart. Their kind, well-ordered life had never looked more enticing. Beatrice wanted to call the carriage out to take me home, but I said the walk across the park would clear my head.
Under a grey sky, I walked to Grosvenor Square and knocked on the contessa's door. After a long wait, it was answered by a maid I hadn't seen before, in a rusty black dress with her hair tied up in a scarf.
‘They've all gone away. The landlord's sent me in to clean.'
I asked if I might go up to look. She wasn't sure, but two shillings settled the question. She showed me upstairs into what had been the contessa's salon. Bare chairs and tables awaited the next tenant in a room blank as a stubble field. The contessa's soft rainbow of shawls and cushions, the servants in their blue and silver liveries, had vanished as if the backcloth of a pantomime had been rolled away. I thought that the people responsible for it must have spent thousands on the contessa's household alone, probably multiplied ten times over by other parts of the same network. There'd have been the simple bribes to hack journalists like Codling, more complicated ones to gentlemen and ladies primed to whisper gossip at society dinner tables. Considering the stakes, tens of thousands were probably small change to them. I'd been small change too.
Back at Abel Yard, I found Mr Colley's idle son-in-law and gave him a shilling to stand at the bottom of my staircase and shout up if any gentleman arrived. The parlour still smelled of soot and felt cold and empty. I wondered whether to make up the fire to boil a kettle for tea, but couldn't summon the energy. After a while I remembered the bottle of port wine that Mrs Martley kept in the cupboard because she said it was good for her blood and drank two glasses of it straight off. That made me feel well enough to open my two letters. The cover of the thinner one, from Paris, was addressed in Disraeli's handwriting.
Dear Miss Lane,
A propos of the gentleman you mention, I cannot recall meeting anybody of that description in Stuttgart, in fact I am positively sure I did not. It is one of the perils of being a man in the public eye that half the rogues in the world will claim acquaintanceship – a category to which I suspect your Mr Clyde may belong. We shall return to London shortly, when I look forward to hearing if my suspicions were correct.
Yours in haste, Benjamin Disraeli.
It was only what I'd expected, but I was angry with the man for lingering so long on the Continent and being out of London when I needed him. I hesitated before opening the other, much fatter letter from Robert Carmichael. I wanted so much to hear his kind, clever voice – even if only in my imagination as I read. But so much had happened in the short time he'd been away that I was scared it would make a gulf between us. I walked up and down the room, listening all the time for a call from the yard to let me know I had a visitor. After a while I sat down, opened the packet and started reading.
My dear Liberty,
How I wish you were here with me. With six days to go to the wedding, and the castle filling up, cousins two or three times removed are being stowed even in the semi-ruinous parts of it. The womenfolk are entirely involved with the forthcoming festivities. The sisters (it is three by the way) are all to be bridesmaids and much of our evenings here after dinner are devoted to the quizzing and teasing of them as to which one is to be next married. All of the bachelors are considered fair game. As a man mostly unknown, I am considered as a suitable stalking horse for a young lady with somebody else in her sights. As a sample:
Sister Two: Is not my sister Alice a beauty?
Self: (knowing the rules by now) To be sure, you are a family of beauties.
Sister Two: But some more beautiful than others?
Sister Three: (hitting Sister Two's arm with fan) Vanny, you're fishing. Stop it.
Sister Two: (hand fluttering to the sleeve of my jacket and away again) I am not, so. Besides, it's Sarah he really likes, isn't it? Confess it now.
And all the while, the men they want to notice them watch, listen and wonder whether to quarrel with me.
While I was reading, I'd even forgotten to listen for a shout from the yard. I opened the window and looked down. Nobody. The next pages in Robert's packet were written in a darker ink with a better pen nib.
If the truth be told, we men are feeling a little bored. We fish in the lake. We ride over the tussocky moorland around the castle on some remarkably good horses. We shoot snipe in the marshy area around the lake. Or some of us do. The fact is, I have disgraced myself. You know the snipe? What a ridiculous bird, with its round body, long bill and complacent look as it roots in the mud for its food. This morning, there I was with my boots up to the ankles in mud, my borrowed gun ready, and up go the snipe, crying chicka chicka chick. I'm about to squeeze the trigger and other men's guns are popping all round me, when the contrast strikes me of all our powder and gunnery against such a silly bird and I laugh out loud. A quotation from Shakespeare comes into my head: ‘O! It is excellent/To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous/To use it like a giant.' The surprising thing is, it comes to me in your voice, my dear, although I'm sure you never in reality spoke it to me. So I put my gun down and the snipe that should have fallen to it fly free.
‘So you're not much of a shot then,' says Rosa's brother Michael to me.
He can't make out what manner of man I am. I'd help him, if I could, but I'm not sure myself.

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