The Masters of Bow Street (22 page)

Montmorency had a plummy voice, a countryman’s voice upon which a London or Westminster accent had been imposed, but he spoke to the point. ‘I have to agree with John about the shameful conditions among some classes and parts of London. I have to agree with him that much needs doing. But I strongly oppose the concept of a peace force as un-English - un-British, I will say. I concede that it might be practicable for those of us who employ private guards - I can only say might; it is a situation which should be explored - to find a way to work together so that in wards and parishes we might spread our canopy of security over the less fortunate. I will myself recommend such an investigation. But a peace force paid by the government - no, sir, never. Over my dead body—’

‘And well it might be,’ Furnival said roughly.

‘You exaggerate, John, and I am sure I may use a colourful figure of speech!’

‘If I may interpose—’ This time it was Jeremy Siddle who stood up, several places away. Gracefully, Montmorency lowered himself snugly into a chair, and had Furnival needed confirmation of the ‘opposition plot’ he had it now. ‘There are aspects of the situation in our fair city which you overlook, John. There is much that is good here, if also much that needs doing. One thing, as my colleague Robert Yeoman said, is to teach the people the benefits of honest toil. Another is to improve living conditions. You talk of the sewers, of the living conditions of the House of Furnival, as if they were bad because they do not improve the condition of others as fast as you would like them to. But they are an example to others and an example to the government. Here is a way in which we could, and I truly believe should, try to improve our beloved London. We can work ceaselessly in Parliament and in the City of London until great public works, not only of new sewers - we are not rats, John - but of new highways and improved roads, and a water supply purified and brought closer to the houses of the people so that they do not need to carry it so far, are undertaken.

‘And we need not one but two, even three, new bridges across the Thames. It is a disastrous situation when -London is the only bridge on which to cross, crowding the river dangerously with small row-boats and with ferryboats, a great danger to shipping. There is more, much more. London has become the greatest port in the world, as well as in all Britain: more than three-quarters of our trade with the Empire and with nations overseas goes through the Port of London, but it is now so crowded that there is too little space to load and unload in a reasonable time. We need twice as much dock space as we have.

‘No, John Furnival. We do not want to restrict the rights of the people.

‘The House of Furnival has more vital work to do: to use its influence in Parliament to get great projects into being and to help to finance such undertakings as will give more employment while making our magnificent city the greatest in the world.’

Siddle bowed in all directions and sat down to a loud and prolonged burst of applause which was certainly spontaneous. Furnival, who had taken in everything Siddle had said, and even admired its cleverness and the indisputable truth of much of it, was at first angry, then quite calm. There was no hope at all for support for his proposals and it would be useless to try to find it; wise only to accept defeat without worsening the situation between himself and the rest of the family. Was Anne pleading again? Was Cleo deliberately avoiding his eyes and Sarah only pretending that her nose tickled?

He did not know what made him glance up but for the first time he saw four or five of the younger members, nieces and nephews, sitting in the gallery above the doorway. He smiled at them as he rose to an uneasy silence and his smile seemed to ease the tension.

‘Not in my lifetime, not in the lifetime of all these unimaginative old fogies down here - I mean really old people, like your uncles, Timothy!’ This brought a chuckle from many and delighted the youths and made Sarah, mother of Timothy, stop worrying her nose with a tiny lace handkerchief. ‘But in your time, the life of all of you in the gallery, there will be a peace force here in the metropolis of London. It will not be an army, it may not even be armed, but’ - John looked down from the gallery and to the assembly, now happy because obviously there was going to be no storm of temper, no bitter recriminations - ‘between now and the day when it comes, much unnecessary harm will have befallen London and the whole of England because we have no organised peace-keeping force to see that the law is carried out.’

He paused, then gave a great bellow of a laugh before going on: ‘Nothing is going to force me into the House of Furnival, either, but if you don’t do all those fine things Jerry Siddle has promised in your names, I’ll haunt you with ghosts of the thousands who will die and the tens of thousands who will be driven to crime because of your failure.’

And he sat down. He did not know what caused them but the pressures at his chest and beneath his jaw came upon him suddenly, and for a few minutes he could only sit there un-moving. Mercifully, no one approached until the pain began to ease.

‘We would still like you back,’ William said when the men were alone in the dining room after dinner, the great room a blue-grey haze of tobacco smoke, as port, sack and cognac were being passed around. ‘We really want the same thing, John.’

‘There can be no doubt of that,’ said Francis. ‘Come back, John.’

‘No,’ replied Furnival quietly. ‘We should forever be in conflict over priorities and I would be forever convinced that I should be working for one thing and one thing only. Profit. I can’t get help from you, but there must be others who think as I do.’

‘I can tell you one such.’ Robert Yeoman, close enough to overhear, joined them.

‘And who is he?’ asked Furnival, surprised.

‘Henry Fielding,’ answered Yeoman. ‘Yes, the playwright who lost his Little Theatre in the Haymarket for his lampooning of our distinguished Minister of State and members of his Cabinet. There is little doubt that the closing down of all theatres except those licensed by the Lord Chamberlain was really to crush him.’

‘Surely with success,’ remarked Furnival, remembering what Gentian had said in the coffee house. ‘Didn’t Fielding dismiss his company and give up without a fight?’

‘He’s no coward,’ Yeoman declared, ‘but you can’t defeat King and Parliament. He has studied for the bar. He may make a good lawyer, and he certainly has no time for trading justices—’

‘I saw his Debauchees and his Justice Squeezum,’ Furnival interrupted. ‘I will keep an eye open for him.’

‘You may find him at your court, John! As for your present notion, I doubt if any Member of Parliament will support you. But as London grows larger and the problem of population grows greater, then one day something may have to be done about it. You’re ahead of your time, that’s the truth of it.’

Furnival gave a throaty laugh.

‘And I’m two hundred years behind the need,’ he retorted. ‘At all events, thank you for the information about Fielding. I’ll be grateful for any other names of people who may take a sympathetic view.’

‘That we can prepare,’ William promised. ‘And we will.’

Rising from the table, they went out into the garden and relieved themselves in a long covered shed which had a porcelain barrier to prevent them from splashing their shoes and stockings with a mixture of mud and urine; the waste was washed into the sewer from here by men tossing buckets of water at one end. They strolled about the grounds for a while afterwards to drive the smell of smoke out of their clothes and hair, and were sprayed by footmen with eau de cologne so that when they went back to the salon to join the ladies there was hardly a whiff of tobacco and little of the male sweat some men always carried. Furnival was anxious to leave, now; but to have gone before dinner would have been churlish, and both William and Yeoman had shown that at least he had moved them to gestures if nothing more. The need he saw was so glaringly obvious that he could not believe that intelligent men would hold out indefinitely. They must eventually realise that unless the city was safe for all, the time would come when it would not be safe for them without a strong guard.

Three of the children were playing a Bach concerto on a harpsichord and violins, a piece which was the rage since it had come to England from Leipzig only a year before. They were much more proficient than Furnival would have expected. He heard this out and joined in the clapping, then sought out his sisters and sisters-in-law to bid his adieus. He could not find Anne, and was sorry, feeling that she understood what drove him more than any of the others. William went with him to the front door.

‘Will, tell me this,’ he said slowly. ‘Were the defenders prepared so well because they knew in advance that I was going to ask for their help in creating a peace force?’

‘They knew it would be something to do with law officers or Bow Street, and Siddle has Walpole’s ear. Walpole told him you had petitioned for peace officers to be employed by Bow Street and paid by the court, and the newspapers talked of your endeavour recently. So adding two and two together wasn’t difficult.’

‘No,’ agreed Furnival, in a voice edged with bitterness. ‘I was defeated before I began to speak.’

‘John,’ William said as they stood on the porch and looked into the square, which was bathed in a pink-and-mauve afterglow of quite rare beauty, ‘if we had agreed to help we would have got nowhere, and we would have damaged what influence we have. We have a lot, you know.’ If we put money into a bridge or new docks or a new water supply from the country, not out of the Thames, other money soon flows. On at least three occasions we have led the way and the directors of the Bank of England have followed. If we espouse the wrong cause we can do much harm to other causes which are equally worthy.’

‘I suppose so, I suppose so,’ Furnival said, a touch of despondency in his voice. ‘What no one seems to understand is that it won’t serve London if a bridge is put over the Thames at Westminster and thieves can escape more easily with their loot. It won’t help trade if you build more new docks and the dock workers and the dock owners vie with each other to cheat and steal. It won’t - but no matter, Will. I meant what I said to young Timothy!’

He shook his brother’s hand and strode down to his coach, already waiting, with a footman at the door and the young coachman in his seat, the two bays tossing their heads. As he put a foot on the step and gripped one side to haul himself in, he was aware of a woman sitting in a corner, and she uttered a low-pitched ‘Husssh.’ So he did not cry out or back down, and as he sat, his heart lifted as he recognised Anne.

‘Forgive me,’ Anne said, ‘but I wanted to talk to you without the others and there was no way at the house.’

Furnival sat by her side and took her gloved hand.

‘You make me feel like an eloping lover,’ he declared. ‘And damme if I don’t wish I were!’ He kissed her cheek, and there was enough light for him to see her flush of pleasure. ‘Do you want us to start?’ At her affirmative nod, he pressed the horn for the coachman to hear and immediately the horses began to move. ‘What is so secret, Anne?’

‘The others don’t want you to know this because they think it might excite you and make you talk about it. They don’t realise that not all Furnivals are fools!’ She covered his hand with hers, and he could see and was touched by the brightness of her eyes. ‘John, you have more sympathisers than you think. Walpole is adamant but he won’t always be First Minister, and the King, who doesn’t dislike the idea of an army of peace officers in the way Walpole does, might have more power over his next! I know it will take time and you are desperately impatient, but there are things you can do to quicken the pace. I shall prepare, with Will, a list of influential people to whom you should write, inviting their interest, and, if it suits you, you could send your missive together with a printed copy of your speech today, and what followed.’

‘There is no such copy!’ Furnival objected.

‘There will be if you will be so good as to read it and make the corrections you wish,’ Anne told him. ‘Behind you in the gallery was a Mr. Letchworth, who has developed a new form of quick writing in which he puts down the essential words of a sentence and links them with strange symbols I do not understand. He will prepare a complete rendering, he promises me, in three days.’ Before Furnival could interrupt and while the radiance was still on his face, she went on: ‘You made a wonderful case, and if you insert some more facts and figures it will be brilliantly convincing. The presentations of what the others said will show exactly what kind of opposition you are facing. Tell me this is a great help, John.’

‘I declare it to be more help than I have ever received from another human being,’ John Furnival said huskily. ‘And I include those who have died trying to do what I have told them and they believed to be right.’

He held her tightly, then sat back, gripping her hand. He could not really believe it but tears squeezed themselves beneath his eyelids; he could not remember the time when he had last cried.

‘Will you come in, Anne?’ asked Furnival as the carriage turned into Bow Street.

‘No, John, I must be back before I am missed. Come and see me, soon. Please.’

‘Anne, I would be greatly honoured if you would bring me this exposition in person,’ said Furnival. ‘And if it is good I would like to meet this Mr. Letchworth. He might be of great service in proving how often a man perjures himself in contradiction in my court.’ He backed out as the door was opened by Godden, kissed Anne’s hand and stood to watch her go.

It was a woman, Ruth told herself, I know it was a woman. Then aloud and angrily: ‘And why not, pray? Do you expect him to change his whole way of living for an innocent like me? He can have as many women and as many mistresses as he wishes, from Lisa Braidley down to—’

She could not bring herself to say ‘me’.

She was in the big room upstairs where she had been stoking the fire in case he chose to sit there rather than in the room below, and had heard the carriage out of the window. All she had seen was the way he had bent low over a hand - and whose hand would it be but a woman’s?