London - Edward Rutherfurd [435]
The main problem had been how to smuggle Eugene and his little family aboard. The merchant had been confident, though. “Five barrels among a hundred. You’ll be stacked towards the centre.” Tiny air holes had been drilled in the top of each cask. “I hope the captain will be able to let you out once you’re safely at sea,” he had continued. “But just in case . . .” His wife had provided each occupant with a flagon of water and two loaves of bread. “Remember, you may have to stay in there a long time,” he had carefully warned them all. “So you must eat and drink as little as possible.”
By mid-morning, the carts carrying the casks of wine were rumbling along the quay to where the English vessel was waiting. There was nothing in the least unusual about the sight. The shipper’s men and the English sailors began to load them, but in quite a leisurely fashion. The young officer in charge of the troops came over to watch carefully, placing himself near the merchant, whom he eyed from time to time, suspiciously. Suddenly he noticed that the men carrying one of the barrels seemed to be slightly off balance. He strolled over, drew his sword, and ordering the men to put their load down, drove it through the top of the barrel.
1688
How massively, how graciously it rose upon its western hill. Already the walls were up and the roofing had begun. The huge Roman temple of St Paul’s stared down upon Ludgate as if it had been there first. And though over the cathedral’s central crossing there was as yet nothing but a great, gaping cavity, open to the sky, it was entirely clear from the arrangement of the supporting pillars what was to come. King James had thrown his full weight behind the project. Extra taxes for the building had been raised, and even if nobody had seen any drawings yet, everyone knew that Wren’s great cathedral would soon be surmounted by a mighty, popish dome. Though it was somewhat modified, O Be Joyful had no doubt that he was looking, essentially, at the great wooden model he had helped to make a dozen years ago. And with a Catholic king now on the throne, he knew that the conspiracy was complete.
Although, to his shame, he had continued to follow Grinling Gibbons’s orders, O Be Joyful had always tried when he could to avoid projects that seemed too papist. His work some years before in the rebuilt Mercers’ Hall in Cheapside had given him special pleasure, while two years ago he had managed to escape working on the frieze for a statue of the new Catholic king. At present he was working in the little palace of St James, and this too his conscience could allow him to enjoy.
But now on this bright morning of 9 June 1688, O Be Joyful Carpenter paused by St Paul’s and wondered if he had been right in the advice he had given last night to his friend Penny, recently arrived from Bristol. Certainly the Huguenot had seemed astonished.
“You, O Be Joyful, now support a papist king?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” He supported King James. After what had happened recently, it had seemed to O Be Joyful that he must. But as he thought of the Huguenot’s urgent voice and his worried face he wondered: was this all a trap?
It was twelve o’clock that morning when Eugene Penny caught up with Meredith. He had gone first to St Bride’s where the clergyman’s housekeeper had told him he was out, but suggested one or two places where he might have gone. Since then he had tried Child’s in St Paul’s, the Grecian near the Temple, Will’s by Covent Garden, Man’s at Charing Cross, three others in Pall Mall and St James’s, but at last it was in Lloyd’s, that the Huguenot found the clergyman sitting comfortably at a corner table and smoking a pipe. Surprised but delighted to see him after all these years, Meredith motioned him to sit down.
“My dear Mr Penny! Will you take coffee?” Of all the many conveniences of the new city since the fire, none had pleased Meredith more than the institution of the coffee house. There seemed to be a new one every month. Open all day, serving hot chocolate and