Chapter 8 #2
“Think of that,” Julia said. “Worshipers on a Christmas six hundred years ago. Workers fitting the wall stones a thousand years before that. And here we are, on the same spot.”
“A blink in time’s eye.” He squeezed Julia’s arm. “A reminder that it’s fleeting, my dear.”
“Yes,” Julia said. She took a last look at the church tower as it disappeared behind a stand of trees.
“Pity Richard isn’t joining us for dinner,” her grandfather said. “Christmas in Kent. He must be fond of the place. And of Hannah, his housekeeper.”
“She’s something of a substitute mother, I think. Aunt Caroline told me his real one was less than maternal. Perhaps that explains his reserve.”
“He just needs someone to bring him out of himself.”
“Aunt Caroline proposes me for that role. I see she’s recruited you in her campaign.”
Her grandfather chuckled. “Well, we’re both fond of the chap. Your aunt believes you are, too. If only you’d make up your mind to it.”
“She tells me so. Often.”
They’d reached Bloomfield Street. At the corner, Dr. Lewis pointed his walking stick at a rough, triangular remnant of the ancient wall. “Those old Romans … they had a saying for every occasion, my dear. Carpe diem.”
“I’ll match your ‘seize the day’ with caveat emptor, Grandfather. ‘Let the buyer beware.’”
He took her elbow. “Have it your way.”
When they turned onto East Street, Julia spotted Kate exiting the side door of St. Mary’s Chapel, one of the few Roman Catholic churches in central London. The maid looked right and left and then hurried across the road to the servants’ entrance of their town house.
“Kate looks almost furtive, Grandfather. As if she’d done something wrong by attending Mass on Christmas Day.” Julia shook her head. “It’s a little heartbreaking.”
“It’s not an easy time to be Irish and Roman Catholic,” he said.
“These old hatreds … They endure like pieces of the ancient wall. It’s a depressing thought.”
“The other day, an old fossil at my club said there was ‘something un-English’ about being Roman Catholic.”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, I agreed with him. As un-English as every king from William the Conqueror to Henry VII.”
Julia squeezed his arm. “Good for you, Grandfather.”
On the Isle of Wight, the third time between Christmas and New Year was not the charm. Nor was the queen amused. Susan Styles hid her smiles and feigned sympathy.
For a third night, shouts and flares at Osborne House disturbed Her Majesty.
On two earlier occasions, it woke her from her sleep.
Victoria was a great believer in the health-promoting properties of leaving windows open a crack, no matter the weather.
Hadn’t Miss Nightingale proved the case for fresh air in the hospital wards of the Crimea?
So, there was no muting the Fenian false alarms that erupted on three nights.
John Brown was the culprit in the first instance.
He had consumed a “wee dram” more than he could hold of his favorite Highland blend.
Around midnight, he staggered across the terrace beneath the queen’s bedroom windows.
Then he tumbled into the bushes, roaring and swearing as he tried to disentangle himself.
Four Scots Fusiliers ran with guns pointed and torches blazing.
They led Brown away, cursing colorfully in a broad Highland dialect.
In the morning, the queen’s assistant dresser, a Scotswoman, giggled when she related the story to Susan.
“The queen watched from her window,” the dresser said, “but she didn’t understand a word, thank goodness.”
Two nights later, a pair of roe deer invaded the estate grounds.
They emerged from the woodlands after dark, looking for food and water.
Osborne’s terraced gardens and fountains provided ample supplies of both.
The queen woke at the crack of a gunshot and struggled from her bed.
She parted her window curtains to see a pair of kilted soldiers holding torches over a dead deer rather than an Irish intruder.
A third incident proved to be the last straw.
That evening, the queen and her household ladies had lingered unusually late in the drawing room.
Prince Bertie played billiards in the adjacent games room, growing jittery and impatient for a smoke.
Victoria loathed the habit and forbade it in the house, a rule ignored as soon as Her Majesty retired to her bed.
Frustrated by the delay, the prince slipped out a side door while his companions continued with the game.
It mattered not that it was late December.
The drawing room windows stood open an inch, and Susan shivered at the piano, partway through the first set of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words.
Shouts interrupted. A red-faced young officer, mistaking the prince for an intruder, appeared with Bertie, his cigar extinguished.
The queen had had enough. Crimson, furious, and perspiring, she fanned herself at hummingbird speed and delivered a decree: they would stay one more night and be gone.
Victoria would leave for Windsor Castle on New Year’s Day; the prince and princess would return to Marlborough House a week earlier than planned.
Susan started packing.
On New Year’s Eve, Julia stopped at a vendor by the cabstand on Whitechapel Road for the most recent copy of Punch, her grandfather’s favorite illustrated magazine.
She’d left the clinic early, so she was home, dressed for dinner, and in the library before her grandfather came downstairs.
And for once, she’d arrived before her aunt.
Lady Aldridge would stay the night with them, ringing in the first day of January.
They kept the celebration small. Each December 31, they raised a glass to the dawn of another year and to Julia’s grandmother.
She died on New Year’s Eve while Julia was in Philadelphia attending medical school.
Julia had time to spare, so she poured herself a sherry and paged through Punch. She had the magazine open on her lap when her grandfather entered the library with an envelope.
“This came for you in the afternoon post … my dear, what’s wrong?”
Julia held up a page. “This cartoon. Despicable.”
She exchanged Punch for her letter. An article on the Clerken well bombing included a caricature of an Irishman.
He sat on a barrel of gunpowder with a lighted torch in his hand, looking like a cross between a leprechaun and an ape.
A woman and a group of angelic children gathered at the foot of the keg.
Dr. Lewis read the caption, “‘The Irish Guy Fawkes.’” He shook his head. “Guy Fawkes. We remember the Catholic who tried to blow up the king in Parliament two centuries ago, forgetting the thousands of Irish Catholics who fought beside Wellington at Waterloo.”
“Put it away, Grandfather. Somewhere Kate won’t find it.”
Dr. Lewis tore out the page, crumpled it, and dropped it in the fire. Then he fished his penknife from his pocket, opened it, and passed it to Julia. “Royal correspondence from Osborne House must be read at once.”
Julia sliced and extracted the letter. “I wrote to Lady Styles about a line of inquiry …” She scanned the note and said, “The lady agrees with me. Lizzie, a country girl from Kildare, was an oddity among the queen’s servants.”
“Does she explain the circumstances of the girl’s employment?”
“No, but she promises to make some inquiries.”
“Did Richard ask you to look into this?”
“No … not yet. But I’m sure he will.” She smiled and passed the letter to her grandfather. “Once it occurs to him.”
Early on Friday morning of the new year, a man slowed and stopped his milk wagon at the top of the road.
He’d spotted a policeman passing the mason’s yard halfway down Duke Street, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace.
The driver waited. A feral cat screeched from behind a collection of bins, upsetting a lid that clanged on the cobbles.
A triangle of light from a bull’s-eye lantern caught and froze the creature before it darted into the darkness.
Then the beam swung around, and the constable and his light moved on.
The driver grinned, picturing the man who waited in the 4:00 a.m. cold, cowering amid the mason’s broken stones.
And crapping himself over that copper. He flicked the reins and then slowed the horse to a stop at the stonemason’s gate.
A gas lamp illuminated his cart’s painted sign: DOWNEY AND SON. MILK AND CREAM.
“Hisst … Danny,” he called in a hoarse whisper. “You there?”
Someone moved out of the yard’s shadows. “Thought you’d changed your bleedin’ mind,” the man said. “Been freezing my arse off.”
“Patience, Danny boy. Patience is the key.” The driver in a dairyman cap patted the bench. “Climb aboard.”
Danny hauled himself up. He twisted and looked back at the cart. “What’s this milk lark about?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
The driver had pulled the peaked cap low over his pale blue eyes. A gray muffler circled his neck, covering his chin. The only thing that showed in the space between his hat and scarf was the luxuriant thatch sprouting under his nose.
“When did you have time to grow that bush on your face?”
“You don’t like it?” The driver unhooked one side of the walrus mustache and grinned.
Danny jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Odd way to travel to a meeting.”
“Change of plan, old son. I’ll explain on the way.” He reached under the bench and pulled out a second smock. “Meanwhile, put this on.”
“Thing’s as stiff as a board,” Danny said, shrugging into the rough cotton jacket.
“It soaked up some of the wares.” The driver chuckled. “But there’s no use crying over spilled milk, right?” Then he snapped the reins, and the horse clopped off, heading south toward Marlborough Road.
“So, what’s this meeting about?”
“No meeting, Danny. We’ve a job to do.”
“News to me.”
“The chief kept it quiet.” He tapped the side of his nose and winked. “Just his trusted lieutenants on this one. You and me.”
“You and me what?”
“We’re giving the heir to the throne a warm welcome home from the Isle of Wight.”
“Meaning?”
“Instead of leaving Downey and Son’s milk at the side door, we’re spilling five-gallon cans of paraffin and setting it alight.”
“Sweet suffering Jesus.”
The pale-eyed man chuckled. “Hope the royal couple prayed to him before bedtime. They sleep on the same side of the house.”
Danny said, “But I thought the queen was our—”
“The Osborne plot came to nothing.” He shrugged. “Still, Victoria has nine children. Lots of tempting sport.”
Danny’s knee jumped like a piston. He drummed his boot heel against the oak platform, shifted in his seat, and scanned the pavements, side to side.
The driver shot him a look. “You’re nervous as a cat, boy-o.” He turned left onto Marlborough Road, pulled on the reins, and stopped the cart in the dark expanse between two pools of lamplight.
Danny looked around. “Why have we stopped?”
He cocked his thumb. “Time to slip into the back. The soldiers at the side gate expect one deliveryman, not two.”
“What if one of them searches the cabin and finds me?”
“No worries, mate.” He slid out a knife and returned it to the sheath hidden in his boot. “Let’s go.”
The driver led Danny to the wagon’s rear door and unlatched it. A mustachioed man’s dead eyes stared back at them.
“The unfortunate ‘son’ of Downey and Son,” the driver said.
“Let’s move him aside, shall we? Make a little room for you.
” He shoved the body back a foot. “Careful of the four cans on the right. Mustn’t spill the paraffin yet.
” He bolted the door behind his passenger and returned to the driver’s seat.
The wagon jolted forward and then rattled to a stop at the gate.
The driver let loose a rheumy, rattling cough. “Morning,” he wheezed to the guardsman on duty.
“You need a hot toddy, mate,” the soldier said, stepping back a pace. “You sound like death warmed over.”
“Funny you should say that.” The driver turned his face away, hacking. Then he jerked the reins and drove on. Another turn and the wagon rolled to a stop. The pale-eyed man’s boots crunched on the gravel as he rounded the wagon to open the cart’s back door.
“Right, Danny boy. Now, move two of those cans to where I can reach them.”
Danny shifted the galvanized containers to the door, and they each hauled a can down the path and up the steps to the side door of the mansion.
“Dump it so the stream runs over the doorjamb and inside the house,” the driver whispered. “But be careful. Don’t get any on your boots.”
Danny removed the bunghole stopper, tipped the container, and stepped back. He repeated the process with the second can.
“Two more to go,” the driver said, inches from his companion’s ear.
Danny unloaded the last two containers from the back of the wagon.
“Stop here a minute,” the driver said, halting halfway to the door.
Danny set his can down and swiped his forehead with the stiff fabric of his sleeve.
“Funny thing about that plot against the queen.” The driver took off his milkman’s cap and clapped on his bowler. “There never was one.” A match illuminated his pale blue eyes as he applied the flame to a cloth-wrapped stick. “The chief peddled that fairy story to one person only. You.”
Danny turned to run. When the driver tossed the flaming stick, Danny’s paraffin-soaked smock ignited, and he lit up like a dried-out Christmas tree.
The driver tipped the last can with the toe of his boot, and the stream fed the flames.
Then he tossed his milkman’s cap and mustache into the fire and scrambled for cover.
Ghastly shrieks brought the guardsmen running from Marlborough’s gates.
The driver slipped behind bushes surrounding the garden maze.
The rail-thin man ripped off his jacket, exchanging his white outer smock with the overcoat he wore underneath.
He made his way silently along the inner brick wall.
He waited in the shadows at the side gate, listening for the coppers on the Marlborough House beat.
A minute later, he heard the crunch and spray of flying gravel as they dashed through the entrance and along the carriageway.
He adjusted his bowler, slipped through the gate, and turned right on Marlborough Road. No worries about being spotted, he thought, walking away at an easy clip.
The sentries only had eyes for the human torch writhing in agony.