A Nest of Vipers (7 page)

Cato was opening the bundle of clothes. There were the dresses for Bella in the Russian style, edged with fur and heavy with gold thread, and a smaller bundle of servants’ clothes . . . girls’ clothes – the stays looked too small for Bella.

‘An atlas!’ Cato had passed the morning in the bookseller’s in St Paul’s Churchyard. He’d spent hours poring over engravings of men with heads in their chests and women with tails like fish instead of legs. There were some truly excellent ‘Dying Words’ ballads, one by a pirate who’d sailed out of Port Royal, another by Claude Duvall, the gentleman highwayman, and he’d read a whole volume of poems by an author he’d never heard of before being thrown out for reading the goods and not buying. But he’d managed to forget the atlas.

Mother Hopkins dolloped the melted wax on the edge of the letter. ‘Addeline, the Salters’ seal please.’

Addy scrabbled in the dresser drawer amongst a variety of the best (and worst) London families’ seals, stolen or recreated over the years.

Cato tried to remember the maps. He’d looked at one or two but they weren’t half as interesting as the prints of giants who dwell in the deserts of Africa.

‘Maybe I could talk to the Russian downstairs, get an idea of the country and the principal towns from him?’ Cato suggested.

‘You didn’t look, did you, Cato?’ Addy said smugly. ‘I’ll bet he was head down in some ballad mongers reading cod poetry!’

Mother Hopkins pressed the seal hard into the melted wax. ‘This is a most important enterprise, Cato,’ she said. ‘I would have thought you understood that.’

‘Honestly, Mother, I do.’ Cato felt himself flush.

‘Even though your part in this lay will be behind the scenes, you have to know that Bella’s deception must be entirely plausible.’ Mother Hopkins sucked hard on her pipe. ‘Addeline, run down and tell Bella to question her Russian on his home town.’

Addy was about to go when she saw the stays and servants’ clothes. ‘Who are they for?’ She curled her lip as she picked out the dark flannel stays and skirts.

‘Well, we need someone inside the Stapletons’ household.’ Mother Hopkins didn’t look up.

Cato and Addy looked at each other. Cato couldn’t imagine Addy in that get-up.

‘Can’t he go?’ Addy pointed at Cato.

‘They might rumble him,’ said Mother. ‘It’s too much of a risk. And he’s playing fiddle at the party on Friday – it’s an African orchestra, the latest fashion apparently.’ She smiled.

Cato tried not to look anxious; he had neglected his playing since Bella’s ‘wedding’.

‘Will we rehearse, Mother?’ he asked. ‘What if I can’t—?’

‘There’s never any
can’t
, Cato. If you don’t know the tunes, play along quietly and smile.’

Addy folded her arms. ‘He gets to play music while I sweep up ashes! I’ll not do it. A housemaid!’

‘Cato.’ Mother Hopkins ignored Addy and handed Cato the envelope. ‘Here is the letter for the Stapletons recommending Addeline Hammond as maid of all work. Listen well, Addy, for Hammond is your name until our lay is done. According to this, you have worked for the Salters of Highgate for these two summers past.’ Addy made to speak but Mother Hopkins shushed her. ‘Sam has sweet-talked the Stapletons’ current kitchen maid and has already promised her a better position with Mendes in Cheapside. And, Sam told me not an hour
since
, she has packed her things already. We must be sure it is Addeline who fills the post, so, Cato, give the letter to Jack and Sam to take to St James’s tonight. Quick now, before dark! And, Addy, get yourself down to The Vipers to sound out the Russian.’

Mother Hopkins looked from one to the other. ‘I’ll have no dissent, chickens. We depend on each other utterly! And if you don’t know that by now . . .’

That Friday found Addeline squirming and uncomfortable in her new woollen maid’s uniform. Cato walked alongside her – he’d promised to go with her as far as Leicester Fields. It was a done deal: Addy was to start as the Stapletons’ kitchen maid at noon and she could no more wriggle out of the job than she could wriggle out of her newly laced stays.

‘Stays!’ she spat. ‘They are the devil’s own work!’

Cato couldn’t keep a straight face.

‘And you’ – she poked him hard under the ribs – ‘can stop with your smug face! I hope the strings of your fiddle cause your fingers one quarter of the pain I am in on account of this infernal corsetry.’

‘You must not fidget so, Addy, or your new employers will assume you are ridden with fleas,’ Cato teased her.

‘I would rather be home to a thousand thousand fleas than wear these hateful instruments of torture all day,’ Addy protested.

‘You will soon be used to them. Think of the number of times I had to wear one of those damnable metal collars. And once – somewhere uncivilized up north, it was – they chained me up in their kitchen like a dog! All you have to do is wear what other women manage without complaint. I have only ever heard Bella ask for her stays to be laced tighter!’

‘What do you know of women? What you read in your poems? And Bella doesn’t have to fetch and carry and scrub and clean. And she gets the fancy threads and a purse stuffed so full of fake rhino she can hardly carry it!’

‘True.’ Cato nodded. ‘Bella always gets the good parts.’

‘What I wouldn’t give to be a duchess!’ Addy sighed.

‘Bella’s not a duchess, she’s a countess, from Pskoff,’ Cato said.

‘The town that sounds like a fart! I hope her Ivan didn’t make the place up out of air.’

‘I looked it up. It does exist. And she’s to play a wealthy young widow,’ Cato added.

‘
I
could be wealthy,’ said Addy.

‘You wouldn’t carry the clothes. You’d twitch and complain about the weight of silks and you’d never sit long enough for the quality.’

Addeline humphed.

‘I must go, Addy. Mother says you are to St James’s
straightway
and no stopping. I have one hundred new dance tunes to practise before tonight. What if these musicians are no better than me and I have to carry the tune? It doesn’t bear thinking on!’

Addeline’s face was still a mask of sulkiness.

‘Your things.’ Cato held out the bundle he had carried for her. ‘And smile! You make the sourest housemaid in London.’

Addy smiled a fixed smile back at him.

‘Your cards are in there,’ said Cato. ‘I hid them – they’re wrapped in that ballad I bought for you. The one about the pirate; you liked that.’

‘That was different, that was a story. And thank you, Cato, for the cards. I am grateful for these old friends.’

‘Keep them hidden!’ Cato warned her. ‘Mother will flay us both if they’re discovered.’

Addeline smiled properly and took the bundle. For a moment he thought she would hug him, but she just sighed. ‘I hope this damnable lay is over quick,’ she said.

‘You will be a most excellent maid, Addy. I know it.’

Addy held out her skirts. ‘Sometimes I am sure I would have preferred to be a boy.’

‘You make a fine girl, Addy,’ Cato said, and turned away so she would not see him blushing. ‘Take care. Keep your eyes and ears open.’

‘I’ll miss you, Cato!’ she called.

Cato watched until she’d turned the corner. Three weeks. He couldn’t remember a time when they’d been apart for so long.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

A Merry Dance

‘MUSICIANS! MUSICIANS ATTEND
here at once!’ The large man with rather tightly cut breeches and new wig waved a silk handkerchief above his head. Cato was standing in the ballroom of a fine house in Hanover Square in the West End. Armies of servants were busy pinning up garlands of ivy and rosemary on the walls and sweeping the polished wooden floor. There were mirrors as big as the walls at The Vipers, and a thousand candles and their reflections fluttered and danced all around.

‘Attention please!’ The man clapped his hands together. ‘I am Master Cowell, responsible for the auditory entertainment this evening, and it is down to my contrivance that you have been selected . . .’ He paused and looked around. Cato followed his gaze. The other musicians were two elderly African men with grey beards and only enough teeth between them to suck
gruel
; a young lad with a kind face and the most elaborate silver collar Cato had seen for some time; a fair-skinned Negro, almost yellow, holding a bass viol; and a tall and haughty dark-skinned young man with patterns of spirals in tiny raised scars on his cheeks. Not the pox – Cato could see that these were deliberate whorls snaking over his cheekbones.

Master Cowell pointed at them in turn, counting.

‘There are only six? I asked for eight! Eight, I said. Where are my drummers? The Gold Coast Gordons?’ He looked at the youth with the scars. ‘Do you know of them? I was told they were the best African-styled drummers in London.’

The young man smiled and spoke. He had the most elegant voice Cato had ever heard. Indeed, if his eyes had been closed, he would have said he was listening to a gentleman, and one with money.

‘They are not known to me, sir. And I can honestly say that the name is about as African as a Yorkshire pudding.’

The greybeards sniggered.

‘Good, good,’ Master Cowell said, obviously not listening. ‘And, you two!’ He pointed at the greybeards. ‘For God’s own sakes look to your mouths and keep them shut! Your few teeth shame both yourselves and our orchestra.’

The scarred youth raised one eyebrow. ‘This is
unlike
any orchestra I have ever seen in my life, sir.’

Master Cowell laughed. ‘You are just a black! What know you of orchestras? This is a completely novel experiment. The African Orchestra! Utterly of my own devising!’

‘I am much more than just a black, sir! I am Prince Quarmy of Bonny. It is only your ignorance that cannot see that. In my father’s court we have the best musicians from the Bight of Benin to the Bight of Bonny. The Assante court musicians are legendary!’

One of the old men tugged at the youth’s sleeve and whispered: ‘Careful with your words, young man. Prince or not, you’ll get us all put out on the street without even the sweet sound of a few coins rattling in our pockets.’

Master Cowell stared. ‘Listen, boy. I do not care if you are the Holy Roman Emperor! Tonight you are my orchestra and you will play your damnedest or you shall not see my money.’ He clapped his hands again. ‘You must dress yourselves in the costumes you will find downstairs, quick sharp! Then up here to strike up an African sarabande – it is my own composition. Costumes now!’ The music master ushered them downstairs to a room next to the kitchens.

‘They expect us to wear this?’ Quarmy held up a scrap of what looked like black and white pony-skin, and from the curl of his lip Cato imagined he had at least served princes if he was not one himself. ‘We will freeze!
Outside
snow lies in the streets and we are expected to wear nothing! This is so much foolishness!’

Cato had to stop himself laughing, but his mood changed when he saw one of the old men’s backs, a mass of weals from a whipping long ago.

‘You reading my back, young man?’ he said when he saw Cato looking. ‘The Good Fortune Estate, east out of Spanish Town, Jamaica, fifteen years ago, I reckon.’

The others all looked too. ‘I tried to stop the buckra – overseer to you – selling my baby boy far away. I didn’t sleep on my back for near enough three months.’

The youth with the collar took off his shirt and turned round. ‘I got mine in Richmond just one month past. I can no more play any tune than fly.’ He lowered his voice. ‘My name is Rowlands. I’m off into London as soon as I can loose this collar around my neck and slip away into the city.’

The old men nodded but Quarmy looked at Rowlands as if he was a speck of dirt.

Rowlands bridled, and Cato worried that he’d knock the Prince of Bonny down in an instant.

Cato leaned close. ‘I can help you with that collar. If you let me, I can spring the lock in two seconds. I’ve been able to pick those collars since I could walk!’

Rowlands nodded, his face flushed with relief.

Quarmy dropped the pony-skin back onto the floor.
‘Well, I for one am not having it. These costumes are an affront!’

Suddenly two white men – one short and dark haired, the other tall and fiercely red-headed – came and stood in the kitchen doorway, watching them change.

‘This is no sideshow, gentlemen.’ Quarmy moved to shut the door. ‘And tell Master Cowell we will not humiliate ourselves in these scraps!’

‘No, um . . .’ one said.

‘Too right,’ said the other, holding out a hand. ‘We’re the Gordons. Balls, masques and revels.’

‘Drumming and percussion.’ The short one held up a hand drum. ‘The latest African styles. Of the highest quality. We’ve played for the crowned heads of Europe.’

‘Well, some of them,’ said the tall one.

‘There’s none better!’

The room went quiet.

The tall red-head looked sheepish. ‘Even if we’re not actually blood brothers. Or, as you may have noticed, Africans.’

The smaller one lifted up a scrap of pony-skin. ‘And we are most definitely in agreement with you about the outfits!’

The oldest greybeard burst out laughing.

While the drummers introduced themselves, Cato took a small pick out of his waistcoat pocket, leaned over to Rowlands and slipped the lock in two seconds.

‘My God! ’Tis done.’ Rowlands smiled and hid the collar deep under the pile of pony-skins. ‘As if the metal was butter!’

‘Anything is easy,’ Cato said, ‘if you know how to do it.’

When Master Cowell returned to chivvy them up to the ballroom, he was furious. ‘You are an African orchestra! I am spending good money on authentic African musicians.’

The Gordons moved to leave but Master Cowell was so desperate he shut the door. ‘Oh, you’ll all stay. But you would look so much more authentic in the skins!’ He shook his head. ‘From what I have heard, these blacks are all as strong as oxes and a bit of cold wouldn’t hurt!’

Quarmy stepped forward. His voice was low and soft but so full of authority that any trace of doubt Cato might have had about his heritage was wiped away. ‘We will not wear them. If you want music, we will play in our own clothes, like gentlemen.’