The Devlin Diary (24 page)

Fourth week of Michaelmas term

“B
OTH OF YOU,
but especially you, Hoddy, should know better,” Andrew Kent said angrily. “What the hell did you think you would do in here, anyway?” They stood in the main room of Derek Goodman’s set. When Hoddy and Claire had seen who had come in the door, they’d emerged from the bedroom to greet him, even though they’d both known they’d get a dressing down.

“We’re looking for the diary Claire discovered. It’s all my fault, Andy. I’m the one who suggested coming here.”

“Why aren’t you looking for it in the Wren Library?”

“We did,” Claire said. “It not there.”

“And what are you doing here?” Hoddy asked Andrew.

Andrew took a folded sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket. Claire saw that it was the same one that Portia had given him the day before: a photocopy of the diary page with Derek Goodman’s handwriting at the bottom. “I’m looking for the diary too.”

“Why didn’t you go to the library?” Hoddy asked.

“I’m familiar with Derek’s habits. I rather suspect it’s here somewhere. Don’t you?”

Claire and Hoddy nodded. “We were just about to look through the boxes of materials near his desk,” Claire said.

“We could use some help,” Hoddy added.

Andrew reluctantly nodded his agreement. They cleared off the dining room table, then brought in boxes from the office. They placed them on the floor near their feet and began taking things from them and spreading them out on the table.

An odd collection it was, with books, papers, dissertations, and journals all jumbled together. A copy of the
Historical Journal,
1998, vol. 3.
The Tyburn Hanged
. Minutes of a Royal Society meeting from 1672.
Old and New London
. A drawing for a water pump from around the same time with a letter to the Royal Society from the inventor requesting a patent. A dissertation on the Opium Wars of the early nineteenth century written in the 1930s.
The Cabal,
a book about the five ministers who advised Charles II in the late 1660s to early 1670s, after the ouster of Lord Clarendon. A few reports from the College of Physicians. A dusty copy of the London
Pharmacopoeia
. Robert Hooke’s
Micrographia
. Claire tried to arrange them in some sort of order, wondering what could possibly connect all these incongruent materials together. Andrew and Hoddy, busy at the same task, didn’t seem to have any clearer idea than she did.

A knock sounded on the door and they all looked up, startled and wary. What would the police say if they found them here, going through Derek Goodman’s stuff? What would the master say? Strange, but Claire could have sworn she’d seen a guilty look in Andrew’s eyes, the same sneaking guilt she felt herself. Was it because it was a little too easy to forget why they were here and simply enjoy the deeply satisfying act of rummaging around in old books and papers? Or was it because there was something immensely pleasurable about the quiet presence of each other’s company? Whatever it was, she was not to know, as the person outside knocked more insistently, and Andrew got up to answer the door.

“Dr. Kent.” The young man was obviously surprised to see him. He was also obviously a student, dressed in typical garb of sneakers,
jeans, and a rumpled corduroy jacket of a dark and indeterminate hue. A bulky neon orange canvas backpack hung from one shoulder.

“Robbie, come in,” Andrew said, opening the door wider and stepping aside. “You know Dr. Humphries-Todd. This is Dr. Donovan, a new lecturer who’s filling in for Dr. Scott. Dr. Donovan, Robbie Macintosh, one of Dr. Goodman’s MPhil students.” A graduate student, Claire deciphered, working on his master’s degree under Derek Goodman’s tutelage.

Robbie entered and looked around uneasily. He looked like he suffered from the usual graduate-student afflictions of too much coffee, not enough sunshine, not enough sleep. “Where’s Dr. Goodman?” he asked.

“Dr. Goodman?” Andrew repeated. He exchanged a worried glance with the two others. “Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Oh, dear,” Hoddy said.

“What’s happened?” Robbie asked anxiously.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Robbie,” Andrew said. “But Dr. Goodman, he…had an accident.” Andrew shot a meaningful look at the two others: this was the story they were going to stick to for now. “He’s dead.”

“Dead?” Robbie’s head swiveled from Andrew to Hoddy to Claire and back again. “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m sorry, but I’m not. Dr. Goodman was walking on the Backs, fell, and hit his head. It happened just yesterday morning. Weren’t you here?”

“My dad was in the hospital, and I had to go home for a few days. I just got back.” He raked his hand through his hair and looked around the room as though lost. “Christ.”

“Would you like to sit down?” Andrew asked.

Robbie looked at the untidy room, then at Andrew as though he were crazy. “Where?”

“Take my chair.”

Robbie let his pack fall to the floor and slumped into the empty chair across the table from Claire. He swept his hand through his hair
again. Claire didn’t think he seemed particularly sad; more like he was about to panic and was doing his utmost to keep his feelings under control. But perhaps she wasn’t being fair. Wouldn’t anyone feel overwhelmed with school starting, a sick dad, a dead supervisor? More than enough stress for one person, certainly.

Andrew leaned against the table next to him. “I’m terribly sorry, Robbie. I know it must be very upsetting to lose your supervisor. You’ll be assigned to someone else right away, of course.”

Robbie didn’t answer, but Claire had the strong impression that he was upset about something more than Derek Goodman’s death.

“Tell me something,” Andrew asked, “did you always meet him for supervisions here?”

Robbie nodded. “Sure.”

“Do you have any idea what he was working on?”

Robbie shrugged. “How would I know?”

“I just thought he might have mentioned why he had so many books in here.”

“He was always working on more than one thing at a time.” Robbie sighed and seemed to calm down a bit, even offered up a tremulous smile. “The weird thing is, he knew where everything was.”

“How so?”

“He had total recall, you know.”

“So he told me,” Andrew replied dryly. “Many times.”

“It was true, though. He used to make a game of it. He’d turn around, close his eyes, ask me to go to a bookshelf or to one of the stacks, pick something at random, and then tell him where I’d found it—say, third bookcase, fourth shelf from the top, and he would tell me what it was. For instance,
‘The Letters of Disraeli,
published 1939, very poorly edited,’ or, ‘So-and-so’s dissertation from 1953, wrong from top to bottom, he should’ve been shot.’ That sort of thing.”

“Very impressive.”

“Bloody annoying.”

“Do you know anything about a diary from 1672?” Hoddy asked.

Claire saw a gleam of panic in Robbie’s eyes. What was he so anxious about? The graduate student scanned the books and documents
that covered the tabletop. “What’s going on? Are you looking for something?”

“We’re looking for this diary,” Andrew said. “Did he ever mention it to you? A diary written in code?”

Robbie shrugged. “Once or twice, maybe.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Not much. That it was written by a woman doctor who treated the king’s mistress for, uh”—he glanced sidelong at Claire—“a malady.”

“The mistress of Charles II?”

“Yes.”

“Which mistress?”

“He had more than one?”

“Considerably.”

Robbie shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

“Why was Dr. Goodman interested in it?” Claire asked.

“I think he was writing an article on codes and speed writing.” He stood up and picked up his pack. “Look, I’ve really got to go. I’m supposed to meet my girlfriend.”

“Hold on a minute.” Andrew took a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket—the photocopy of the diary page. He handed it to Robbie. “Do you know what this is about?”

Robbie quickly perused the page, his eyes lingering on his supervisor’s scrawled note at the bottom:
I told you so—now PAY UP!
“Isn’t this Dr. Goodman’s handwriting?”

“Yes.”

Robbie shook his head. “Sorry, I haven’t a clue.” He shifted his backpack nervously. “I’ve really got to—”

“Is there anything else you can think of?” Andrew pressed him.

Robbie sighed, realizing he wasn’t going to get away so easily. “He was kind of secretive about his research. But one night we had a few beers and he told me that the diary was the key to solving a murder.”

“Which murder?”

“Let’s see…” He looked down at the floor, trying to recall. “Osburn? Or Osborne, maybe?”

“Roger Osborne?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

Andrew appeared stunned. “Derek Goodman said he was going to solve the murder of Roger Osborne?” he asked with greater insistence.

“I’m pretty sure that’s what he said. I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. I don’t know much about the Restoration. My thesis is on minorities in eighteenth-century England. Honestly, I just thought he was batty, or drunk.”

“Bastard,” Andrew said under his breath.

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind. Where’s the diary?”

“It’s in the Wren Library.”

“You sure it’s not here?”

“No way. Pilford would never let him take it out.” Robbie backed toward the door. “Now, really, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to get going.”

After Robbie’s exit, Andrew locked the door and resumed his place at the table.

“What was that all about?” Claire asked.

“I spent five years researching the reign of Charles the Second and I was never able to discover the truth.”

“About what?” Hoddy asked.

“The murder of Roger Osborne.” He could see that Claire and Hoddy required further elucidation. “Osborne was a City merchant who took Cromwell’s side against Charles the First, then found it highly convenient to become a Royalist when Charles the Second was restored to the throne. A man not untypical of his time. Osborne loaned money to Charles II and was absolved of his Parliamentarian past. He was present at Charles’s reunion with his sister Henriette-Anne at Dover and then at her death in Paris not long after. Some sources state that the princess entrusted him with a secret, and that he worked for the Crown. Others say he was a spy.”

“For France?” Claire asked.

“No, for the anti-Royalist faction in England. Some suspected that he never changed his politics, just pretended to. In late 1672, his body was found”—Andrew stood up and looked over the books and papers spread on the table—“in the Fleet Ditch,” he concluded with grow
ing enthusiasm. “Look at this:
Springs, Streams & Spas of London,
published 1910;
Old and New London,
an old chestnut from 1881, but with an entire chapter on the Fleet. And here—” He reached down into the box near his feet and brought up another book. “
The Fleet,
published in 1938.”

“There are two seventeenth-century maps of London in the bedroom with red stickers on them—,” Hoddy began.

“Three near the Fleet,” Claire added.

“He was on to something,” Andrew said. “How a physician’s diary could shed any light on Dover, Henriette-Anne, and Roger Osborne is beyond me, but I’m dying to find out.”

“What if Derek Goodman died because he found out?” Claire inquired.

Andrew guffawed. “You think someone killed him because he solved a three-hundred-year-old murder?”

“When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound very likely.”

“I think not. Academics may be cutthroat, but that’s taking it a bit far.” Andrew pulled on his jacket.

“Where are you going?” Claire asked.

“To the Pepys Library to see if I can get this letter transcribed right away. Why don’t you come with me? You’re the one who found the diary, after all.”

Claire smiled. “Sure.” She turned to Hoddy. “Do you want to come with us?”

“Count me out this time.” He held up a book that looked to be about three hundred years old. “‘
Advice Given to the Republic of Venice. How they ought to Govern themselves at home and abroad, to have perpetual Dominion,’
” he read from the title. “I’ve been looking for this for two years. It’s a real page-turner. Thank you for the offer, but I think I’ll go back to my set and read.”

Claire donned her coat. “You’re going to have to explain a few things,” she told Andrew.

“Like what?”

“Dover and Henriette-Anne, for starters. As you may recall, I’ve spent the past few years studying Venice.”

27 November 1672

L
UCY RUSHES INTO
the kitchen, her cheeks bright with cold and anticipation. “A letter’s come for you, ma’am,” she says. Mrs. Wills turns from the stove, and Hester looks up from sorting a basket of rose hips. As Hannah takes the letter, she notices that the maidservant’s hands are nearly frozen. The frosty outside air that shrouds her is faintly redolent of tart apples and dried leaves, a fresh breath of winter in the smoky kitchen.

“How long have you been outdoors?”

“Only a few minutes, ma’am—that’s all it seemed, anyway.” Lucy looks at Hannah and the letter with impatience. “Aren’t you going to open it? It’s from that gentleman who’s been bringing you home in his carriage.”

Hannah breaks the seal and turns away to read in privacy.

Hannah looks up to find all three pairs of eyes fixed on her. “Mr. Montagu tells me that the king is to have a dance,” she says calmly. She folds the letter and slips it into her pocket, trying to hide the smile stealing over her lips.

“Is that all he writes?” asks Lucy, perplexed. Even Hester looks intensely concerned with Hannah’s answer.

She decides she won’t make them suffer long. “In fact,” Hannah says, “Mr. Montagu asks if I would like to go. Do you think I should?”

“Of course!” Lucy blurts out. Hester nods her head. Mrs. Wills looks doubtful, but that’s to be expected.

“He also asks if the two of you would care to attend.”

Lucy gasps and looks at Hester. “Us? At court?”

“Yes, you.”

Lucy rushes to Hannah’s side, overcome with excitement. “Ma’am, please, you will say yes, won’t you? Hester, say something! You do want to go, don’t you?”

“Well, Hester?”

Hester looks back at Hannah, round-eyed, a heightened color in her cheeks. “Yes, ma’am, very much, ma’am.”

“Then I shall reply that we will be delighted to attend.”

Lucy can barely contain her joy. She throws her arms around Hannah, then goes to Hester and takes her by the hands. “We’re going to a court dance!” she squeals. “We might even meet the king!”

Hester looks overwhelmed at the thought. “But ma’am,” she says solemnly, “we’ve nothing proper to wear.”

Lucy sits down next to Hester. “Oh, no,” she cries, suddenly deflated. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“It’s all right,” Hannah reassures them. “Of course you’ll need something new. And I can’t go to a dance in one of these old work dresses, can I?” She smoothes her ruched skirt over her cotton damask petticoat. “I’ve been told that gray wool worsted is not the height of fashion
this season,” she adds in a light, mocking tone. “Why don’t you both go over to Mrs. Delacroix’s and ask if she can take us for a fitting later.”

The girls race from the kitchen in search of cloaks and mittens, and in less than a minute Hannah and Mrs. Wills hear the front door slam.

“I don’t think it’s wise to take them to court,” says Mrs. Wills, slicing an onion with unusual vigor. “It’s a wicked place. Meet the king, indeed. Don’t you dare let those girls near him.”

Hannah smiles. “They’ll be perfectly safe, I promise you. It’s only for one night. And it’s the first time in weeks I’ve seen Hester look happy.”

“It’s been even longer since I’ve seen a smile on your face,” Mrs. Wills remarks with a sidelong glance.

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I haven’t been very good company lately.”

“I wasn’t complaining, just saying that you work yourself too hard. Taking care of your patients, your mother, the girls, putting food on this table and coal in the grate—it’s too much to be both man and mistress of a house.”

“But I’m not, really. I have you. I couldn’t do it without you.”

Without answering, Mrs. Wills continues her assault on the onions.

“Am I doing such a bad job?” Hannah presses.

Mrs. Wills puts the knife down and turns to her. “Don’t you think I hear you upstairs in the middle of the night, pacing about and scribbling in your books until all hours? You come down in the morning looking like death.”

“I’ve had trouble sleeping.”

“Is that all?”

Hannah sits down at the kitchen table. She sighs and massages her temples. “I have been suffering terrible pains in my head. I suppose I should have told you, but I thought it would go away.”

“For how long?”

“For months now. Since Father died.”

Mrs. Wills studies her carefully. “Your father had headaches.”

Hannah looks up, surprised. She and her father had always been so open with each other. “He never told me.”

“He never told anyone. But your mother knew, at least she did back
when she was well. She could sense it, I think. She’d make a special decoction for him. Nettles and willow bark, as I recall.”

“Did it help?”

“I don’t know. Your father was a stubborn old mule. He’d never admit he felt poorly in the first place. You’re just like him.”

“Is that so terrible?”

“Hannah…” Mrs. Wills regards her with concern. “I’ve watched you grow up, seen everything you’ve been through. Life would be easier for you if you married again. Surely enough time has passed. Nathaniel loved you, he wouldn’t want you to be alone forever. You’re still a young woman.”

“Am I?” If only she felt so herself. “I don’t know what Nathaniel would have wanted. But I can’t discuss this right now, I—I must make ready to go out.” She leaves the kitchen with the goodwife’s gaze weighing heavily upon her.

French ambassador Colbert de Croissy has an odd habit of examining his fingertips while in conversation, as if he’s more intrigued by his perfectly manicured nails than the person with whom he’s speaking. A delaying tactic, Montagu reasons, along with a good bit of snobbery. In de Croissy’s company one is never allowed to forget that The Most Christian King Louis XIV is the richest and most powerful monarch in Europe, and Charles Stuart little more than a poor country cousin reigning over a backwater court. It’s an attitude Montagu would find less galling if it weren’t so close to the truth.

“My king has expressed some doubt about the veracity of your claim,” de Croissy sniffs. “You must admit, it’s hard to believe you don’t know the whereabouts of your own courier.”

Despite the ambassador’s disdain, Montagu knows that de Croissy spends all of his time spying on Charles’s court and doing his utmost to bend England’s will to French interests. The futility of his work makes it slightly more difficult to dislike him. The two men sit in the ambassador’s private chambers on high-backed chairs made from ornately carved Spanish wood. Montagu finds them uncomfortable, even inquisitorial, at least in comparison to the sensual opulence generally
exhibited within the French embassy. De Croissy’s London mansion is a smaller-scale Louvre, with palatial rooms and galleries that dwarf a man. The ambassador employs a virtual army of domestic servants, footmen, cooks, chambermaids, and coachmen, but the rooms always feel empty—of inhabitants, at any rate. Moving de Croissy’s collection of paintings, tapestries, carpets, and furniture from France to England required two ships.

“Did you really think we would fall for such a simpleminded story—missing courier, lost gold?” the ambassador continues. “It sounds more like a brash attempt at extortion.” He stares down his long nose in a manner Montagu regards as particularly French. As the brother of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s financial minister, Colbert de Croissy is about as wealthy and powerful as it’s possible to be without being king. He is accustomed to nothing less than the best, from the soles of his shoes—made of the finest leather imported from Italy by his personal cobbler, also imported from Italy—to the Venetian lace at his throat. Everything he wears, drinks, eats, and breathes (a perfumer and a tobacconist are on his permanent staff) has its expensive origins in some other, finer place. He is the kind of man who complains about the cost of things most people cannot possibly afford, such as how he must host sixty-five people at his table every day, or the high price of gilding a carriage. It’s a trait Montagu finds particularly irritating, although if he could himself afford such things he would find it less so. He was eager to take on this chore of extracting funds from the tight-fisted French; when money changes hands, some of it is sure to fall into his own. He only needs to convince de Croissy of His Majesty’s need for lucre, and that he is the man meant for the task of transporting it from France.

“On His Majesty’s behalf I regret King Louis’ misapprehension.” Montagu is no longer an ambassador, but the language of diplomacy returns easily to him. “You should know that the relation between our countries is such that we would not invent something so divisive. Roger Osborne is missing, and so is the gold he was carrying. We know not if he absconded with it or if he met with foul play. I can only assure you, as my Lord Arlington assured His Majesty, that everything is being done to discover what is behind this. In the meantime, however—”

“Your king needs money.”

“As always.”

Colbert leans back, lazily picking up his glass of wine as if he’s not certain he’s going to drink it; as if it’s not a fifteen-year-old burgundy with a heavenly aroma that melts like honey on the tongue. “Why doesn’t he reconvene Parliament and ask them for it?”

“Because he is afraid of what they will demand in return—the retraction of the Declaration of Indulgence.”

The ambassador swirls the wine in his glass, peering at it as if he can see the future within its rubicund depths. “This godless country seems to enjoy nothing better than persecuting people of the True Faith.”

“His Majesty has done what he can to ensure freedom of worship.”

“It isn’t enough. My king requires more proof of His Majesty’s good faith.”

“What more can he do? He’s passed the Declaration, he’s declared war on Holland—”

De Croissy silences him with a skeptical look. “You know very well that he has not fulfilled all of his promises.” Even here, away from court, the ambassador dares not speak openly of the agreement, but he won’t accept any disingenuousness.

“His Majesty says the time is not right,” Montagu says. “English Catholics are too weak in number.”

“That will always be true unless he himself takes steps to change it.”

“And he will.” Montagu seizes the opportunity to steer the conversation in the necessary direction. “He just needs more encouragement. The best way to influence His Majesty,” he suggests, “is to influence those closest to him.”

“So I’ve been told for six long years, to the detriment of my purse and my good nature!” The ambassador shifts unhappily in his chair. At last, de Croissy’s impassive veneer reveals a few fractures. That they’re caused by the king’s women doesn’t surprise Montagu in the least.

“I’ve spent thousands—tens of thousands—bribing the king’s mistresses and I’ve little to show for it,” the ambassador says testily. “I’m sick of this petticoat diplomacy. Only two weeks ago I gave a jeweled
bracelet to the Countess of Castlemaine, and in return she’s done nothing but laugh in my face.”

“The countess no longer has the king’s…ear.”

“How is one to get anything accomplished here,” de Croissy continues, “when your king is incapable of constancy? In France, King Louis has one
maitresse en titre,
and she rules all. It is simple; if one wishes the king to take action on a matter of state, one appeals to either his brother or his mistress—a clear and sensible system of government. After Mademoiselle de Keroualle’s recent indisposition, His Majesty is certain to be casting about for someone new. Knowing Charles Stuart, it could be anybody: another actress or a seamstress or some wench who brings him a dish of chocolate. Why should we be expected to deal with women of such low birth?”

“That’s exactly why it’s so important to continue to support Mademoiselle de Keroualle as head mistress,” Montagu says. “She is a lady of quality and His Majesty continues to show her great consideration. Everyone is convinced that he is more in love with her than ever before.”

“But she should remember who her friends are! She does not do as King Louis wishes. The mademoiselle will sorely regret ignoring her own king’s instruction when Charles loses his regard for her. She will be friendless then.”

“I agree, the mademoiselle is not as malleable as we originally thought she would be. She has a great friend in Madame Severin, who sharpened her teeth at the French court and bares them here. As long as she is at the mademoiselle’s side, the girl will not be easily managed. But I happen to know of something the mademoiselle desires—something only the French king can give to her.”

“And what is that?”

“A tabouret, to enable her to sit in the presence of the French queen.”

The ambassador snorts derisively. “For that she’d have to be a countess, not a commoner.”

“Exactly.”

De Croissy shakes his head. “God save us. I can imagine what the
king will say. He has passionate feelings about retaining the purity of the aristocracy.”

“Surely the True Faith is worth more than a title or two. And consider this: once she is ennobled, she will have even more influence than before. His Majesty will have more reason to listen when she whispers into his ear the words your king wants him to hear. The mademoiselle still sees herself as Princess Henriette-Anne’s maid, and she believes she carries on the princess’s good work for the betterment of England and France.” Montagu isn’t certain this is true; Mademoiselle de Keroualle is disinclined to do anything that doesn’t directly benefit her. But it sounds convincing, and Montagu knows that the French ambassador will not approve the transfer of the gold unless he can tell his king that their cause is going forward.

De Croissy sighs. It’s almost an admission that Montagu’s gained the advantage; all that’s left to discuss is how much and when. “So you’re to be the new courier?”