London - Edward Rutherfurd [433]
“And how long,” he now asked the officer, “will you and your dragoons occupy my house?”
“Who knows?” the officer replied. “A year? Two years?”
“And if I became a Catholic?”
“Why, Monsieur. We could be gone tomorrow.”
But if the officer thought this short-sighted, bespectacled watchmaker with his little girls was going to be frightened into capitulation he was entirely wrong.
“Welcome to my house then, Monsieur le Capitaine,” he said with quiet irony. “I hope your stay will be a pleasant one.”
He made no complaint during the next two months while the family slept in the barn and the soldiers occupied the house. Once, it seemed to him, the officer meeting him one morning had even looked embarrassed. “We shall still be here when they have gone,” he told his children. “Be patient.” Things continued as they were until one afternoon when the officer, looking quite grave for once, clattered into the yard.
“I have news for you which will change the situation here entirely,” he announced. “The Edict of Nantes has been revoked. Toleration is ended.” After an appalled silence he continued. “All Huguenot pastors are banished; any caught will be executed. All Huguenots like yourselves will remain; none may leave. Your children will all become Catholic. That is the new law.”
They retired to the barn in silence. That night, at nearly midnight, Eugene quietly woke his children. “Wrap up as warm as you can and put on your boots,” he told them. “We’re leaving.”
As a man of God, Meredith knew he should not have done it, but as he came up the hill from London Bridge towards Eastcheap and caught sight of O Be Joyful’s woeful face heading directly towards him, he looked for cover. Thanking God for His providence, he stood in the shadow of a doorway waiting for the danger to pass.
With horror, therefore, after a brief pause, he heard a shuffling of feet, then a sigh, and saw not six feet away the familiar back of the craftsman as he sat down on the step right in front of him. Damn it, thought Meredith, now I’m trapped. There was only one choice. He must go up the stairs behind him. And five minutes later he was gazing out from the top of the Monument of London.
There were few more striking sights in London than the Monument. Designed by Wren as a single, simple Doric column to commemorate the Great Fire, it had been erected close by the spot in Pudding Lane where the huge conflagration had started. Constructed in Portland stone, it stood two hundred and two feet high and over its summit, made of gilt bronze, was a flaming urn that glowed and flashed when it caught the sun. The endless spiral staircase gave on to a balcony just below the urn, from which the drop was so sheer that it made many people dizzy. Having enjoyed the view – one could see up and down the Thames for miles – Meredith peeped over the edge to see if it was safe to descend. It was not: O Be Joyful was still there.
It would not be surprising if the woodcarver had things on his mind; it had certainly been an eventful year. In February, quite unexpectedly, without any sign that he was even unwell, King Charles had suddenly died. His Catholic brother James had therefore become King James II and all England had waited to see what would happen. To general relief, he had scrupulously observed the Anglican rite at his coronation in the spring; but there were hints that he hoped for more toleration for his Catholic subjects and clear signs that he would not have them abused. That summer, Titus Oates, finally exposed as a complete fraud, had been tied to a cart tail and whipped through the streets from Aldgate to Newgate. Personally, since he had no doubt that Oates was a rogue and a fraud, Meredith hadn’t the least objection to the sentence. More dangerous had been the Protestant rising that young Monmouth, foolishly thinking his popularity a much more powerful thing than it was, had tried to start down in the West Country. The regular troops, under the capable command of John Churchill, had easily crushed the rebels and poor Monmouth