The Ashes of London (21 page)

Chiffinch had business elsewhere and left me alone with Mistress Alderley. We sat in silence, wrapped in our own thoughts.

‘Catherine is a strange girl, Master Marwood,’ she said after a moment or two. ‘Small in stature, and in many ways more like a child than a woman. Her father has left his mark on her.’

‘She’s of the Fifth Monarchy persuasion too?’

‘Nothing like that. What they share is very different. Thomas Lovett was a master mason, like his father before him. His work was much valued in the old King’s time. He had travelled on the Continent as a young man and he knew the latest styles of the Continent. Master Inigo Jones himself thought highly of him. I believe that’s what she thinks of most, in her heart of hearts. This vulgar, mechanical work of building.’

‘A woman can’t wield a chisel,’ I pointed out. ‘She can’t be a mason like her father. The very idea is absurd.’

‘I suppose a woman could wield a chisel as well as anyone,’ Mistress Alderley said, to my surprise. ‘Should she wish to engage in such a low, dirty business. But it isn’t that I mean. At Barnabas Place, Catherine was forever scribbling plans and designs for buildings. Not in public, of course – only when she was alone. I caught her at it once. And my maid brought me discarded sheets that she had thrown away. I think her aunt in Coldridge had encouraged her to take an interest in such things. Mere castles in the air, but harmless enough, though I doubt Sir Denzil would approve. Such a strange, unwomanly taste … She looks like a child and thinks like a man. Indeed, I think she would have been happier if she had been born a boy.’

‘Y
OU WERE AT
Cradle Alley yesterday, I hear,’ Master Williamson said. ‘Master Chiffinch told me.’

There was a strange intonation in his voice. His face gave nothing away – it rarely did – but I realized that something between us had changed.

‘I’m told it’s a charming house,’ Williamson said. ‘And mercifully spared from the Fire. Are – are the new rooms very fine?’

‘Yes, sir. From the street, the house is nothing out of the ordinary, but it is quite different inside. One might almost be here at Whitehall.’

‘That’s not so very surprising.’ His eyebrows drew together. ‘Bearing in mind Mistress Alderley’s tenant.’ He saw from my face that I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Why, it is Master Chiffinch himself. Did you not know?’

It was not only the words that told me his meaning but the prim little smile that accompanied them. It was unlikely that Master Chiffinch himself would have need of a lavishly appointed house in the City. But his royal master was another matter.

‘Mistress Alderley,’ Williamson went on, ‘has court connections. Her first husband, Sir William Quincy, joined the King in exile.’ Another prim little smile. ‘And Lady Quincy herself, as she was then. But Sir William died just before the Restoration. The King did not forget the young widow of his loyal friend.’

The words were perfectly proper, but there was a wealth of possible meaning to be glimpsed in the murky depths beneath them. How far had Lady Quincy’s loyalty to the monarch allowed her to go when the King was in exile? I knew well enough she was an attractive woman, and the King was certainly a man who loved women. When her first husband died, perhaps the King had encouraged a complacent and conveniently rich husband to court her, in the shape of Master Alderley? As for the house in Cradle Alley, it was not hard to guess the uses that the King and Master Chiffinch might find for a discreetly luxurious residence in the City, away from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of Whitehall.

‘Master Chiffinch has requested that I give you leave to go down to Suffolk for a few days,’ Master Williamson said. ‘He has explained the nature of the errand.’

‘My father—’

‘You leave tomorrow morning. As early as possible. You are to travel as a supernumerary clerk of the Office of Works, carrying a letter from the Surveyor General to the Harbour Master at Harwich, which I understand is conveniently close to Champney. The Office of Works will provide you with the loan of a horse. You will so arrange your journey that you visit Champney, and make your enquiries there.’ He waved a hand. ‘There’s a brick-making works nearby, and if anyone questions you, you are examining the clay in the neighbourhood. If we know nothing else about what will happen to London, we can be sure we need bricks to rebuild it. As for the rest’ – he left a pregnant pause – ‘Master Chiffinch has already explained everything you need to know.’

I sensed his frustration. Williamson did not like to be kept in the dark, and he hated the idea that I knew more about something than he did.

‘The only difficulty is my father, sir. I must move him and our effects to the Savoy as soon as possible.’

‘Oh yes. That. The Office of Works will loan you a small wagon for a few hours. You shall have this afternoon off. That should give you ample time to change your lodgings. Come to me if you need anything.’

For the first time in my life, I felt the beneficial effects of proximity to power. Yesterday all these things had been impossible. Now they were mine at the stroke of someone else’s pen.

The following morning I rose early in our new lodgings in the Savoy and rode east and north. I left my father at breakfast with a small child perched on either knee, for Mistress Newcomb had decided to make him useful; both he and the little Newcombs seemed happy with this arrangement, at least for the time being.

The day was cloudy but dry. At first my way took me through the ruins of the City to Leadenhall Street, a quarter that had escaped the Fire. My spirits lightened once I had passed through the City walls at Aldgate, and they continued to rise as gradually the houses dropped away.

Gardens, orchards and paddocks appeared, even at the roadside, and at last the road ran through open farmland. The air changed, too, as the smog of the city thinned and then disappeared. Colours grew brighter. The green of grass, trees and bushes was almost unbearably vivid. I had not realized that the colours of London, Whitehall, Westminster and even Chelsea had become so tinged with ashy grey, for my eyes had adjusted to it.

The hours passed. The roads were in better condition than I had expected, despite the autumn rains, for the heat of the summer had baked them hard. I felt increasingly cheerful, as if I had been granted a holiday. If my father had a fit or wandered away, I would not even know of it. If Master Williamson needed someone to take his dictation long into the evening, I would not be there to sit at his elbow, my quill at the ready. Indeed, on that first day away from London, I should have been entirely happy if it had not been for my aching calves and the chafing of the saddle on my thighs.

At Harwich, the Harbour Master gave me a lavish supper and offered to make arrangements for the morrow. I lay that night at an inn near the quayside, where the bed was good. I slept like the dead and woke to find myself bitten by bugs, and my muscles so painful that I could barely stand.

After breakfast, I was ferried over the estuary of the Stour. The Harbour Master had arranged for a guide and a hired horse to be waiting on the other side.

The country was flat and bleak, ravaged by the winds from the sea. The guide and I rode steadily – and in my case most uncomfortably – through a network of muddy lanes in a roughly westerly direction.

The tower of Champney Crucis church was visible from miles away. We reached the village by midday. I ordered dinner and arranged for the extravagance of a bedchamber to myself, as I had the previous night; for Master Williamson had provided me with a purse for expenses and I did not wish to share a bed with strangers.

The village was not large, and I was not surprised to find myself an object of mild curiosity. As I was waiting for my dinner, I allowed the landlord to extract the alleged reason for my visit from me.

‘Brick-making, sir?’ he said. ‘There are several brickworks between here and Ipswich. We have no native stone, you see. In our neighbourhood, we are obliged either to make our own bricks, or import them from the Low Countries.’

‘The King will need to do both,’ I said. ‘There is so much that needs rebuilding, and they will want to do it in brick and stone now, to lessen the risk of another great fire.’

‘Is London such a very great city?’ the landlord asked, with a wistful note in his voice. ‘I have never been there.’

‘Enormous. And at present most of it is a great heap of ash. Do you know of any clay pits in the parish?’

‘None that I know of.’

‘I shall make enquiries. What are the principal houses of the parish?’

‘There’s only one of any size, sir. Coldridge.’

‘Who lives there?’

‘Master Howgego – a most pious gentleman, and open-handed to the poor. Now he’s bought the place, he plans to rebuild the house. So I dare say he may know—’

‘He owns Coldridge? He doesn’t hold it on a lease?’

The landlord looked puzzled by my surprise. ‘He bought the freehold in the spring. The family that had it had quite died out, apart from a niece in London who has not been here for years. In any case, she’s hardly more than a child, and we haven’t seen her down here since her aunt died.’

‘I shall call on Master Howgego this afternoon,’ I said.

‘Do so, and he will thank you.’ The landlord waved the maidservant over to serve the food. ‘For the pleasure of your society, sir, as much as anything else. I scarce think we’ve seen a stranger for months. Not since Master Alderley came down about the sale.’

‘The trustee you mentioned?’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Yes, sir. He’s a London goldsmith, a man of extraordinary wealth. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?’

I
WALKED UP
to Coldridge, glad to be on foot rather than on a horse. I needed time to think. Something was clearly amiss, for Mistress Alderley had been under the impression that the estate still belonged to Catherine Lovett, and that it would go with her as her dowry when she married Sir Denzil.

Besides, it had been a terrible dinner, with a chicken that must have been older than Methuselah, and exercise would help me digest it more quickly.

The house stood in a small deer park on the edge of a low, north-facing hill; there were few hills in this part of the world and it must have been the highest point for miles around. To the front was a low range built of brick, from which tall chimneys sprouted into fantastical shapes. As I drew closer, a huddle of older buildings appeared behind it, with a farmyard butting against them.

It was a more modest establishment than I had expected. I had thought that Alderley’s niece would own a grander house, something more in keeping with Sir Denzil and his pretensions. But perhaps Mistress Lovett’s fortune had been in her acreage, and she had no need of a mansion.

In the paved court in front of the house I encountered a groom leading a horse round to the stables. His master had just returned, he said in an accent I found difficult to understand, and he was now talking to one of the gardeners in the lower garden.

I went where his finger pointed and found Master Howgego himself at the entrance to an overgrown maze, in conference with a man dressed in rusty black and clutching a scythe.

‘It must all go,’ Master Howgego was saying. ‘Grub the damned thing up, root and branch. I will have a fountain here within a twelve-month.’

He turned as he heard my footsteps. He was a fresh-faced old man with blunt, amiable features under a periwig that had not seen a comb for some time. I bowed and introduced myself. He read through my letter of introduction, raising bushy eyebrows when he came to Lord Arlington’s signature.

‘Clay pits, eh? Not on my land. By God, that would be a fine thing to have here – a pretty source of income, eh? And convenient, too – I mean to extend my house.’

‘Then perhaps the family who were here before might know of any clay pits. Do they live in the neighbourhood still?’

Howgego shook his head. He turned to the gardener. ‘Did you ever hear of clay pits nearby? Or clay that might be capable of being fired?’

The gardener said he hadn’t and added something in an accent so thick that he might have been speaking in Low Dutch for all I knew.

‘What?’ Howgego said, raising his voice. ‘Who?’

The gardener said something else.

Howgego turned to me. ‘He says Mother Grimes would know if anyone did. Her husband was the bailiff here, years ago, long before the war.’

‘Where can I find her, sir?’

‘She lives in a cottage over in Baynam’s Wood.’

The gardener sucked in his breath. He crossed two fingers, one over the other, making the sign to avert evil that needed no translation.

Howgego scowled at him and said to me, ‘We could walk over there now, if you like.’

The gardener muttered something.

‘I shall do as I please, damn you,’ Howgego roared. ‘Now back to your work.’

We left the fellow leaning on his scythe and contemplating the condemned maze. Master Howgego took me down the slope to a small lake.

‘I’ve met Mother Grimes only once,’ he said. ‘And that was when we considered coppicing the wood last year. It hasn’t been done since long before Cromwell’s time, so it’s in a sad state. We decided to leave it. The wood’s said to be haunted and the villagers won’t go there.’ He shot me a glance, probing and wary. ‘They think she’s a witch, of course.’

I didn’t say anything, for witchcraft was one of those subjects like religion and politics where the less said the better, unless you knew who you were talking to. We passed through a gate in a paling and went into a meadow that sloped down to a brook fringed with alders and willows. The wood was on the far side, reached by a footbridge. It was bigger than I had expected and must have covered at least ten or fifteen acres.

Even I could see that the place was a sad tangle of branches and bushes and fallen trees. The air smelled of rotting vegetation. The path we followed was muddy underfoot, and slippery with dead leaves. It looked as if deer and foxes used it far more than humans.