London - Edward Rutherfurd [395]
“Sir Julius,” he was told, “you may go free; but there is a price to be paid.”
“How much?”
“Twenty thousand pounds,” they coolly informed him.
“Twenty? I’d be ruined,” he protested, “Leave me in jail.”
“We could fine you anyway,” one of them remarked.
And so, early in 1644, Sir Julius Ducket had returned sadly to his house behind St Mary-le-Bow, to try to begin his life again.
But how were they to live? The fine had consumed almost all his assets. His wife had some jewellery. There was the big house itself, but to sell, even if he had wanted to, would have been very difficult while London was still like a city under siege. He looked about for some business to engage in, but trade was almost at a standstill. Three gloomy weeks passed during which he cautioned his family: “We shall have to be careful not to spend too much.” As for the future, he could not see what he was going to do.
It was quite by chance, one March day, that he suddenly remembered the pirate’s treasure.
The cellar was dark and smelled musty as he went down, carrying a lamp. He realized it was thirty years since he had last seen the old chest. A mass of domestic objects had piled up in front of the place where it used to lie since then and he wondered if it was even there any more. But after a few minutes he gave a grunt of satisfaction. There it was: covered with dust but still the same, dark and mysterious as ever.
For a moment he hesitated. What was it his father had told him all those years ago? That he would guard his chest with his life. And why? Because he had given his word. His sacred word. But then again, that had been thirty years ago. The pirate had never returned. There wasn’t a chance, by now, that the fellow was even alive. Nor was there likely to be any family to claim the chest. Hadn’t he been a rover of the seas? The sea chest belonged to nobody. What was in there, he wondered. Money? Stolen silver? A map, even – he smiled to himself – of some distant island where treasure was buried? Taking a hammer and chisel, he set to work. The chest was strong; the old padlocks were solid; but at last, with three great cracks, he managed to break them open. Slowly he lifted the creaking old lid.
He gasped. It was bursting with coins. Coins of every kind – gold and silver, English shillings, Spanish doubloons, heavy dollars from the Low Countries. Many were fifty or sixty years old, from the days of the Spanish Armada and good Queen Bess, but good gold and silver nonetheless. God knows what the treasure was worth. Many thousands of pounds. A fortune. He was saved.
From this moment, the slow recovery of Sir Julius Ducket had begun. He was very careful: after splitting the money up into twenty different bags, he secreted each one in a place where it would not be found. He said nothing, even to his children, about the treasure, but remarking that he had found a little cash, he was able to do some modest buying and selling of merchandise, supplementing the small profits with a little extra from the hoard so that, without drawing attention to themselves, the family were able to live quietly. If he produced one of the antique coins, he would remark casually, “I had this from my father,” and the word in London was: “Poor Ducket’s broken. He’s scraping by on any old coins he can find around his house.”
He still had to be careful. Though there were a number of known Royalists like himself in the city, he was also well aware that they were also watched. Gideon, he suspected, knew of every move he made. He would often stand in Cheapside by the stalls, to see if anyone was going down the lane to his house.