London - Edward Rutherfurd [407]
Finally in the spring of 1660, Julius heard with almost inexpressible joy the cry: “The king is coming. King Charles II reigns. Long live the king!”
LONDON’S FIRE
1665
Ned was a good dog: medium size with a smooth, brown and white coat, bright eyes, and devoted to his cheerful master. He could catch any ball his master threw in the air; he could roll over and play dead. Sometimes, if his master was not looking, he would chase a cat for fun. But above all, he was a good ratter. There was not a single rat in his master’s house. He had killed them all long ago.
It was a hot summer’s day. His master had gone out early, so he was guarding the house in Watling Street. He hoped his master would return soon. There were a number of people about, as usual; but there was one stranger Ned did not like. He had been standing in front of the door of a house further down the street. When Ned had gone to investigate him, the stranger had tried to hit him with the long pike he carried. Ned had yelped, and kept away after that. A woman had come to the house about an hour ago. He caught a smell from her as she went past. He did not know what the smell was, but it was something bad. A little while ago, from the same house, he had heard the sound of weeping. There was no doubt, people were behaving oddly.
It was just then that he saw the monster.
The Ducket family was ready. Two coaches, as well as a cart, awaited them at the gate and Sir Julius surveyed them with satisfaction: his wife, his son and heir, his son’s wife, two children. A manservant and two female servants were also to accompany them, together with the chest of clothes and other items in the cart. “But we’ve room for one more,” he said. “And I am determined not to leave him behind.” For the third time that morning, he went out into the street. Where the devil was the fellow?
Sir Julius Ducket was, in his sixty-third year, a very contented man. Now he was prosperous and honoured, friend of the king. And it was a delightful thing to be a friend of King Charles II. Tall, where his father had been short; informal where Charles I had been reserved; bursting with humour – his father was rather serious; and, most remembered of all, a huge and cheerfully open womanizer where his father, whatever his faults, had been very chaste. King Charles II knew everything there was to know about life’s gutter. He would do whatever necessary to keep his throne because, as he assured everybody: “I have no wish to go on my travels again.”
King Charles’s court at Whitehall was the jolliest place. The Banqueting Hall, scene of his father’s execution, was in regular use and his subjects could come to watch him dine there. Just west of Whitehall, he laid out the wooded open space into a new St James’s Park where he could often be seen walking the pretty little spaniels he so delighted in, or, with his cavalier courtiers in the long tree-lined alleyway on the park’s northern side, playing at pall mall – a curious game, halfway between croquet and a primitive form of golf – at which he was adept. All London enjoyed this lighter mood also. Sports were played; the maypole came out again. Theatres were opening, including a new one near the Aldwych, at Drury Lane, where the king’s own company of players was performing and a buxom young actress called Nell Gwynne had just made her début. If His Majesty’s somewhat puritan subjects were shocked by the genial immorality and extravagance of his court, no one wanted to return to the miseries of the Commonwealth.
Above all, this Charles had no illusions. He knew he was there, not by Divine Right, but because the English Parliament had decided he should be. “Parliament and I need each other,” he remarked to Julius one day. Common and Lords were back, just as they had been half a century before; and Charles would get as much as he could from them. But he never pushed