Most Secret (11 page)

The room into which they tiptoed was not quite as dark as the passage, though it swam in dimness. On its two windows in the tavern’s rear wall, facing the door by which they entered, the shutters were still closed from the night before. Thin little spears of light, through tiny round holes in the shutters, slanted down dustily to a solid floor which did not creak.

And the room had been used for a carouse the night before, nor had anyone troubled to clean it. From a square wooden table in the middle, on which stood a big glass punch bowl filmed over inside with what had been drunk, four chairs were pushed back and one overturned. Round the bowl, amid squat glass goblets, lay scattered playing cards and the fragments of broken pipes. The whole place had a dreary, sticky look; it reeked of stale punch fumes and tobacco smoke. On the right-hand wall was pasted a copy of the king’s proclamation against the drinking of healths.

From the left-hand wall, which was also the wall of the Cupid Room next door, had been built out a cobblestone fireplace with a brick flue. Bygones, finger to lip, gestured in that direction.

Also from this wall, a little distance to the left of the chimney-piece, was built out a wooden cupboard whose door stood open. With hooks inside for the convenience of hanging up cloaks or coats, the cupboard was large enough to hold at full length any insensible toper who might see daylight through a knothole below the line of hooks, and they heard a murmur of voices.

Two seconds later they were both inside the cupboard. Bygones, after bending down and peering through that large knothole straightened up and motioned Kinsmere to look in his turn.

“Eat?” said a girl’s voice. It was a beautiful voice, which might ordinarily have been warm and caressing, though it held little of either quality now. “But I can’t eat, Pem! I vow I have no hunger at all.”

And then he saw her.

Dolly Landis—little Dolly, if not so extremely little at that—sat at one side of the table, her back to the two windows. She had pushed aside a heaped platter, together with knife and two-pronged fork. Nearby stood an untasted glass of the wine called champagne, which had been imported from France only since the Restoration a decade ago.

Dolly put both elbows on the table. She had thrown back the cowl to a grey cloak; the ringlets of dark-brown hair were a little disarranged. Underneath the cloak she wore a blue-and-orange taffeta gown, much frilled with lace and cut low at the bodice. Kinsmere thought he had never seen a prettier face, or a better figure than the one compressed into the blue-and-orange gown.

Ah, Dolly!

She had a pink mouth, with very little lip salve. Her brown eyes—long-lashed, intense, luminous about the whites—were fixed steadily on her companion.

“No hunger?” said Pembroke Harker. “Or thirst either, it would seem.”

“No, nor thirst either!”

“Well, madam—!”

Captain Harker, opposite her, sat back at ease in his long red coat. Hat and sword baldric were laid across a chair. His gloves protruded from his pocket. He had done himself well with a dish of roast mutton and potatoes, and finished several goblets of wine.

“Well, madam!” he said. He sat up straight; then rose to his feet and looked down at her. “Well, madam! If you won’t eat or drink, let it be so. Therein you must please yourself. It is no concern of mine.”

“Have you
any
concern for me, pray?”

Harker lifted one shoulder.

“You will do as you are bid, Dolly, in whatever way may prove useful. You will obey my commands instantly, unhesitatingly, with as little cavil or ill humour as may be. That is my concern; it is all you need to know.”

“Then my welfare or happiness …?”

“Your welfare?” echoed Harker, and addressed the ceiling. “Oh God save us,
your
welfare or happiness! As though
you
mattered two straws in this world, to me or to anyone else.”

“I am of no consequence, know. Yet I might wish I did matter to somebody.”

“Madam, madam, what a poor wretch you are!”

“Yes, I—I daresay.” Dolly regarded him strangely. “Do you complain of me, Pem?”

The indomitable Harker stared back, forcing her to drop her eyes.

“Complain?” he said, as though wishing to be fair. “Do I indeed complain of you? Come! Let me think on this, and consider it well!”

He left the table and strolled towards the windows, whose shutters were folded back open. There, a few yards behind Dolly’s chair, he turned round. Poised, utterly indifferent, he stood with his black periwig outlined against a window and a tangle of rooftops beyond. Then he took a few steps back and stopped. To see his face, as evidently she wished to do, Dolly was compelled to twist sideways in the chair and look up at him over her right shoulder.

“Hear my verdict, dear madam. On the whole, it must be confessed, I have no great cause for complaint. I might wish, perhaps, you showed greater relish for my company …”

“Do you show relish for
my
company?”

“I show relish for nobody’s,” Harker informed her. “Herein I could read you a lesson, little one, save that in your weak good-nature you’d not heed it. If you would learn how to triumph on this earth, let all men see the utter contempt in which you hold them. Spit on them, elbow them, jostle them, kick them aside as you would kick a mongrel cur into the kennel, and they’ll fawn on you as mongrel curs ever do.”

It was plain that tears had risen to Dolly’s eyes. But she did not speak.

“I could also wish,” Harker pursued, “that in our more ultimate moments you showed greater transport of joy. I could wish you did not lie so like to a dead woman, betraying no sign of pleasure or even of life.”

“Oh, fie! Am I a strumpet too, that I should counterfeit what I don’t feel?”

“Yes, madam, you are a strumpet. What other word describes you?”

Dolly, near sobbing, seized both arms of the chair.

It had grown warm and stifling in the dark cupboard on the other side of the wall. Bygones Abraham glared at Kinsmere, who had lifted both fists, and Bygones enjoined silence by gripping his right arm.

“Let us have none of this huffing, little one!” said Harker. “Your feelings count for nothing, as you must be aware. You serve your purpose, whether you lie quiescent or writhe in transports like Barbara Castlemaine herself; you’ll serve me in still another way ere this day be finished. Yes! You serve your purpose, and I would not be unkind. I don’t in the least dislike you, Dolly. Indeed, in my own fashion, I may tell you I feel a certain indulgence towards these vapours …”

“How
kind
of you!” Dolly burst out. “Oh, God and damnation, how wonderfully
kind!
”

“No huffing, I said. And none of your Coal Yard insolence, lest I be obliged to chasten it.”

(“Let’s strangle him. Let’s
…
”)

(“Sh-h-h!”)

“And therefore,” continued Harker, “I will use you with all indulgence. Come, then!”

He returned to the other side of the table. He sat down. Picking up a knife, he tapped its edge lightly against his empty goblet.

“Come, then! Be open with me, Dolly, and you’ll find me understanding enough for any purpose within your comprehension. What’s amiss?”

“Amiss?”

Dolly’s fine shoulders were bent forward, elbows again on the table. The pink mouth trembled. Her face, hitherto a little flushed either from the heat or from some other cause, had grown rather pale.

“Amiss?” she repeated, squirming in the chair.

“What quells your peasant’s appetite, madam, and dries your usual thirst for strong drink? Why did you mutter to yourself, and all but refuse to accompany me here? In fine, where’s the trouble?”

“ ’Tis because I am affrighted, Pem. Oh, Christ ha’ mercy, I am all but frightened from my wits!”

“And wherefore frightened?”

“I am a play-actress, Pem. Folk speak us fair and freely: ‘What does’t matter? She’s but an actress-harlot of the King’s House or the Duke’s House.’ We hear much of report and rumour, though sometimes ’tis hard to remember whence it came. Oh, Pem—bold, sweet Pem—what is this report of a design you’ve set your hand to?”

“Design?”

“A design,” Dolly bent farther forward, “against the king, against the ‘body politic,’ whatever that may mean. There’s report of vast subtlety (so ’tis named) of a plot here, of great and secret workings in the dark, of much I can’t fathom or let pierce my head at all. And that you have set your hand to this for gain, for coin or money or the rhino, since what else moves your heart or hath ever moved it in any fashion?”

“Do
you
scorn money, Madam Landis?
You
, of all on this earth?”

“Nay, I have never scorned it! But—”

“‘Design.’ ‘Plot.’ ‘Against the king.’ ‘Against the body politic.’ These things be formless and shapeless, madam: as formless and shapeless as the reason in your own muddled skull. Can’t you speak plainer than such hazy maunderings? Can’t you put it into a word?”

“If it were put in a word,” answered Dolly, “then I think the word would be ‘treason.’”

“Treason!” said Harker, and struck the knife sharply against a glass.

But he was not stirred or taken aback. He merely surveyed her.

“In plays on the stage,” said Dolly, “we talk much of this. We spout of it; we rant of it; we make fine speeches and lift our arms thus. But I never thought of it as real or true. In our own country, among our own people, that any man should so think and so behave—foh, it’s not possible!”

“Possible or not, Dolly, where heard you this rumour? From whom?”

“I can’t remember!”

“You had better remember.” With his left hand he reached across the table to touch her shoulder, and she flinched back. “While you endeavour to do so, I will assist you with a hint. Does the word ‘Puritan’ convey meaning to your mind?”

“Puritan?”

“In the tiring room, where you dress or undress yourself for the play …?”

“Stay, Pem! A canting sanctimonious fellow, crying out all manner of pious utterance, but most lewd with his hands when he can put a woman into a corner.”

“Was he called Gaines? Was he called Salvation Gaines?”

“Truly I think so! Yet—”

“Mr. Salvation Gaines, who is by way of being a gentleman, hath employment as a scrivener at court. It is not surprising, madam, you should have heard of this design from Gaines. I told him to let fall a hint.”

“You
told
him?”

“And wherefore not? I have need of your service this day.
You’ll
not betray me; have no fear of that; and outside our circle there is no other person who knows or suspects.”

“Our circle? Oh, in the name of all pity and decency, what is this gabble of ‘our circle’? What …?”

Dolly Landis sprang to her feet. She flung her cloak back over the chair. She would have run from the Cupid Room, the watchers felt, if Harker, putting down the knife, had not also risen and taken her by the shoulders.

“Madam, sit down.”

Harker did not debate or argue. With icy indifference he threw her away from him. She stumbled, groped, and then huddled back into the chair.

“For traitors, sweet strumpet, they provide a public gallows and a disembowelling knife and a quartering block. Here, I must take it, is the cause of this sore affright. Not for me or my safety, as would befit the loving friend you are not, but lest their lawyers and judges think you yourself concerned.”

“ ’Tis a horrid thing, surely?”

“I could wish you a pleasanter end. And yet you need not fear it.”

“Oh, God ha’ mercy!”

“No, Dolly, let
me
have mercy.” Once more Harker picked up the knife. “
I
am the one you need fear, and the only one. Now, my unskillful drab! Now, my dead-woman bedfellow! Let’s look a little at the design. As for Salvation Gaines and
his
part in this affair—”

“Salvation Gaines!” Dolly, in tears and breast heaving, almost spat out the words. “By all that’s hyprocritical and clammy, Salvation Gaines! Is he so near a friend of yours?”

“He is an underling of mine. D’you mark me well, woman?”

“If I must!”

“So be it, then!” said Harker, and continued to tap knife against glass. “Certain men at court—notably the head of the group, who commands us by virtue of his position are not content either with Charles Stuart or with Charles Stuart’s managing of public business.”

“And you, dear Pem, are one of those not content with an ill king?”

“Now, what a pox is this?” Harker demanded. “Shall I concern my feelings, one way or t’other, so long as I be well rewarded for what I do? Let me tell you something of myself, little one. Not much; you are faint of heart and deserve little knowledge; but enough so that you may assist me without undue risk. Already you are acquainted with me as a man well-liked and well-received at court, having the ear of all and the indulgence of most. Do you know what else I am?”

On the other side of the wall there was a kind of silent commotion.

(“Now there,” Kinsmere said to himself, “now there, by crowns and continents, is a question should be answered in a loud, clear voice. Do we know what else you are, Captain Pembroke Harker?”)

But Bygones Abraham had seized his arm in a wrestling grip. Bygones bent down himself to peer through the knothole and then, at Harker’s next words, urged Kinsmere back to it.

“I am a King’s Messenger for foreign service,” Harker said. “Enough of vapours, madam; I’ll bear no more. Dry your tears and observe this ring.”

From his waistcoat pocket he had drawn what was unquestionably a duplicate of the other two sapphire rings. After holding it out for Dolly’s inspection—she was too blinded to see—he returned it to his pocket.

Tap
went the knife against a glass goblet.
Tap, tap …

“Up to this morning I had believed there were but two of us. And I still hold the same opinion. A small complication of accident arose in the Great Court at Whitehall. But have no fear; I’ll resolve it! It will be all one to our plans, madam, and all one to you and me.”

“Our plans? You and me?” Dolly burst out. “Lord, Lord, must I be drawn into your schemes as well as your bed? Is there no end to this business of you and me’?”