The Cheapside Corpse (15 page)

‘Debts,’ said Hannah, not looking at him. ‘But his were far greater than ours, and he decided that he could never repay what he had borrowed, so he put a rope around his neck and jumped off the Holbein Gate. You will not consider such a solution, will you, Tom? It is quite unnecessary – we will manage, even if we have to sell everything we own.’

‘Did he owe money to Taylor?’ asked Chaloner, wondering if the hapless Newton had not killed himself at all, but had been dispatched by the banker’s henchmen as a warning to others.

‘Yes, and to Vyner and Hinton, although Hinton is ruined now, so he is irrelevant. Poor Newton even gave up the emeralds he inherited from his grandmother.’

‘Did you write references for the servants?’ asked Chaloner, supposing they should discuss their own situation rather than pawing over someone else’s. ‘And look for a smaller house?’

‘The number of insolvent courtiers increases by the day,’ Hannah chattered on, ignoring his questions. ‘Lady Castlemaine is in the greatest trouble, because she likes to play cards. She is easily distracted by anyone who flirts with her, so she forgets to concentrate and loses a lot.’

With a pang, Chaloner wondered if it had been kind to encourage the Lady’s steward to buy goods from Baron, who was unlikely to be very patient with outstanding bills. Then he reminded himself that the King’s sharp-tongued mistress had done his Earl a great deal of cruel and unnecessary harm. A run-in with Baron might teach her the importance of compassion.

‘The poor Duke has had some of his debts recalled, too,’ Hannah went on. She referred to Buckingham, for whom she had formed a rather unfathomable attachment. ‘That is why he was so keen to discover the Philosopher’s Stone earlier in the year – to save himself by turning lead into gold. It is a pity you ruined his experiments. Did you hear about the Howards, by the way?’

‘The Earl of Carlisle’s family?’

‘No, silly! The milliners from Bearbinder Lane. You must know them, as no one at Court would wear hats made by anyone else. Well, their house was shut up yesterday. Parents, children, elderly relatives and servants, all locked in with a sick maid. It makes me cold to think of it.’

‘I saw it being—’

‘It is Backwell’s fault,’ blurted Hannah. ‘The situation with my debt, I mean. Everything worked perfectly until he sold it. I would
never
have borrowed money if I had known that he would sell my loan to Taylor. Taylor is a pig, who has even made things difficult for George Morley, and
he
is a bishop!’

‘The servants,’ prompted Chaloner, feeling they had skirted the matter quite long enough. ‘I assume you have told them that they must look for other positions?’

Hannah looked away. ‘I could not bring myself to do it. I was hoping that perhaps you…’

When Chaloner entered his dressing room, it was to find smart clothes laid out for him, beautifully pressed and starched. The shirt smelled of lavender and sage, herbs used not only to give laundry a pleasant aroma, but to repel moths, lice and fleas. There was also hot water and equipment put ready for shaving. As the servants did not usually bother to pamper him, he could only assume they were trying – belatedly, as far as he was concerned – to make themselves agreeable.

He washed and shaved quickly, noting as he did so that his travel-stained clothes had been laundered and his boots buffed to an impressive shine. Someone had even polished his sword, which now gleamed rather artificially. He walked down the stairs, and was surprised to be intercepted by Nan the cook-maid, who was evidently in charge now that the housekeeper had decanted to the country to regain her health.

‘Would you like some breakfast, sir?’ she asked with a bobbing curtsy. ‘There is smoked pork and eggs, and I rose very early to bake you an eel pie with oysters. I followed one of Mrs Cromwell’s recipes, because I know you are partial to Parliamentarian food.’

Chaloner did not particularly like eels or oysters, and the combination sounded unappealing. Moreover, such elaborate fare was more likely to be popular with the hedonists at White Hall than the Commonwealth’s abstemious Puritans.

‘You have read
The
Court & Kitchin
?’ he asked.

Anxiety flashed across Nan’s face. ‘Only the recipes, sir, as I thought I could make them for you. I did not read the preliminary remarks.’

Chaloner imagined she had. He wondered if he should let her fête him with a sumptuous breakfast and then tell her that she and her cronies were dismissed, but decency won out. ‘I need to talk to all the servants as soon as possible.’

‘It is not convenient,’ said Nan, in a transparent attempt to postpone the inevitable. ‘Everyone is busy with the many tasks necessary for running a household of this size.’

‘I am sure.’ Chaloner took a step towards the kitchen, but she grabbed his arm.

‘You cannot oust us just because you are in debt,’ she hissed, unctuous servility evaporating. ‘It would not be fair, and the mistress swore that we would not suffer.’

‘It was not in her power to make such a promise,’ said Chaloner, wishing Hannah had not seen fit to hire them in the first place. ‘And we have no choice.’

‘Yes, you do.’ Nan turned tearful, and Chaloner wondered why he felt guilty. It was not his extravagance that had brought them to this pass, and Nan, surly, rude and disagreeable, had never made the slightest effort to win his good graces. ‘You could keep us if you wanted.’

He pulled away from her and strode towards the kitchen, flinging open the door before she could stop him. The servants were not busy at all. Jacob the footman was by the fire drinking ale, the scullion was fast asleep in the corner, while Gram the page was cleaning his nails with one of the dinner knives. The aforementioned pie was stamped with the name of the cook-shop from which it had been bought, and most had already been eaten.

‘We are resting briefly after working frantically since first light,’ declared Jacob, leaping to his feet. Gram shoved the dinner knife out of sight, and the scullion slipped under the table, where she pretended to be scrubbing the floor. ‘We have been—’

‘Stop,’ commanded Chaloner. ‘I appreciate that you are reluctant to abandon such a comfortable existence, but I am afraid we can keep you no longer.’

‘You cannot get rid of us,’ said Jacob defiantly. ‘We know things about you and your wife, and you do not want us gossiping. We are staying on, and nothing will change.’

‘That’s right,’ averred Nan. ‘Jacob and Gram hail from Cheapside and have friends in Baron’s trainband. Even you must have heard what
they
do to folk who annoy them. If you dismiss us, they will come here and…’

She faltered when Chaloner whipped around to glare at her, not about to stand meekly while she threatened him in his own house. He controlled his temper with difficulty.

‘Hannah will try to find you posts elsewhere. You may stay here until they start.’

It was more consideration than most employers would show, and while he felt they did not deserve it, he did not want to toss them out if they had nowhere to go. He had been poor too often himself to inflict that sort of misery on anyone else.

‘Discharge us, and we will tell everyone about your debts,’ warned the scullion, her small face full of spite as she emerged from under the table to stand with her fellows. Only Gram held back. ‘And we shall inform all London that your uncle was a king-killer and that you were once a Roundhead spy.’

Chaloner shrugged. ‘Go ahead. Those are not secrets.’

‘Then we will say that Hannah is the Duke of Buckingham’s whore,’ declared Nan, eyes flashing. ‘And that he visited her here every night when you were away.’

Had Nan been a man, Chaloner would have punched her. ‘You can try,’ he said, ice in his voice. ‘But bear in mind that no one will hire you ever again if you reveal yourselves to be the sort of people who slander former employers.’

‘We are not going,’ snarled Jacob, fists clenching at his side. ‘My cousin is married to Doe’s niece, and Doe is Baron’s favourite captain. Moreover, Gram taught Doe how to…’

He trailed off, and from Gram’s agonised expression, Chaloner judged that whatever skill had been passed on was either illegal, unethical or unpleasant, and definitely something the elderly page would have preferred kept quiet. Jacob’s obvious irritation at the slip suggested that he also knew the claim was unlikely to strengthen their argument.

‘I know this is inconvenient,’ said Chaloner. ‘And we are sorry, but—’

‘Do not bother to find us other posts,’ interrupted Jacob coldly. ‘I have no intention of working my fingers to the bone in another household. I shall go back to Cheapside, where Baron will find a use for my talents. Indeed, I shall go today, and you can do your own chores.’

He turned and stalked towards his bedchamber to pack, leaving Chaloner wryly amused that the footman should baulk at the prospect of a job where he might actually have to do what he was being paid for. All injured indignation, the two women followed his example, and began tossing their belongings into bags. Chaloner stopped the scullion from including one of his coats and Hannah’s silver ladle, but was disinclined to do battle for two pots, a set of brushes and a milk jug.

‘You will regret this,’ vowed Nan, shouldering past him roughly enough to make him stagger. ‘I swear it on my life.’

Jacob looked as though he would like to jostle Chaloner, too, but changed his mind at the last minute. It was a wise decision: the spy might overlook an assault by a cook-maid, but a footman was another matter altogether. The scullion was next through the door, although not before she had shoved a brass poker up her sleeve. She turned to spit at Chaloner when she was sure she was far enough away not to be caught in the event of a chase.

‘That went well,’ remarked Hannah, emerging from the shadows. Chaloner felt a flash of irritation that she should have been watching but had not come to support him. ‘Who is this terrifying Baron they kept mentioning? He is not the linen-draper who is going to supply Lady Castlemaine’s new curtains, is he?’

‘Please,’ came a quiet voice before Chaloner could answer, and they saw that Gram had not followed the others. ‘Jacob has family on Cheapside, while the girls will get work in Mr Starkey’s new bakery. But I have nowhere else to go.’

‘Tom is going to secure you a post in Hercules’ Pillars Alley,’ said Hannah. ‘You can stay here until it is all arranged, but I am afraid we cannot pay you.’

‘You have not paid me in weeks anyway,’ shrugged Gram. ‘So what is different?’

The house where Chaloner rented an attic was in the middle of Long Acre. It was a nondescript building, neither overly shabby nor particularly smart, and he was sorry he could no longer afford it. It had been a useful refuge in the past, and he would miss having a place where no one minded his viol. Landlord Lamb nodded glumly when Chaloner informed him that he was moving out.

‘You are the second this week. Is it because you fear the plague?’

‘No,’ replied Chaloner. ‘It is because of—’

‘That damn DuPont,’ Lamb went on bitterly. ‘Why could he not have died quietly, instead of attracting attention by trailing across half the city?’

‘That is a good question.’

‘Poor Mr Grey is ruined,’ Lamb went on. ‘He owns the house where DuPont became sick, and all his tenants have vanished lest the authorities order the place shut up with them inside. I do not blame them. Who can afford to be locked away for forty days? They would starve!’

‘The parish will provide food.’

‘Bread, cheese and herrings,’ spat Lamb in disdain. ‘But who can live without beer and sausages? And what about a fellow’s livelihood? Being kept from business for the best part of seven weeks will kill it dead. Of course, most of Grey’s residents were thieves, so I suppose we would not miss
them
plying their trade.’

‘DuPont was a criminal?’ Here was something new.

‘Well, put it this way, Grey does not rent to angels. You should ask him about DuPont. I imagine he will have stories to tell.’

‘I have heard that DuPont was a spy. Could it be true?’

‘DuPont?’ asked Lamb, startled. ‘I would not have thought so. He had friends in St Giles.’

Chaloner raised his eyebrows. ‘And that precludes him from being an intelligencer?’

‘Of course! What spymaster would hire someone who chooses to loiter in that sort of place?’

Chaloner climbed the stairs to his attic for the last time, but it contained very little that belonged to him. The furniture was Lamb’s, and the only thing of value was his viol – a better instrument than the one that lived in the cupboard under the stairs in Tothill Street. He pulled off the cover and ran his fingers over its silky wood. Then, because he felt like it, he began to play.

His skill with and love of the viol had once led him to dream of becoming a professional musician, but his family had considered it an unworthy occupation for a gentleman. They had not been particularly impressed by espionage either, and would have prevented it had Thurloe not convinced them that it was an honourable way to serve his country. Chaloner winced as he imagined his parents’ dismay if they could see him now – chasing undelivered curtains and investigating murders.

His gloomy mood caused him to bow sad, tragic airs by Lawes and Dowland, but gradually his spirits lifted, and he launched into lighter pieces by Ferrabosco. As always, he became lost in the music, so it was a shock when he glanced out of the window to see that it was nearing noon. He packed his remaining belongings and set them ready to be sent to Tothill Street. He paid the outstanding rent from his rapidly dwindling supply of money, and thanked Lamb for his kindness.

‘I shall miss that viol,’ sighed Lamb. ‘So will the coach-spring maker next door, and he could do with something to cheer him up. He borrowed heavily to expand his business, but few folk want carriages in the present financial climate, and he cannot repay his loan. He spends all his time hiding from his bankers – damned leeches!’

Chaloner walked to the grubby tenement where DuPont had lived, and this time the landlord was home. Grey was a man who matched his name. He was drab in every respect, from his pewter-coloured hair and watery eyes to his dirty clothes and pallid skin. He sniffed mournfully when Chaloner asked about DuPont, and indicated that the spy was to enter his lair. The inside of the house was worse than the outside, and reeked of burned cabbage and dirty feet.