Page 11 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)
S ebastian traced the French priest to Deadman’s Place, a miserable, grimy lane of wretched shops and crumbling tenements that curved away from the river to the east of London Bridge. Lying on the south bank of the Thames, the part of London known as Southwark had long ago acquired a well-deserved reputation as a refuge for debtors, thieves, prostitutes, immigrants, and the desperately poor.
He found the street thronged with rattling carts and drays, ragged street sellers, and muddy, underfed children. The smell of fermenting beer from a nearby brewery hung heavily in the air, mixing with the stench of rotting garbage, effluent, and damp decay. Following directions elicited from a stooped, toothless old woman in a ratty shawl who was selling potatoes near one of the brewery’s soot-stained brick walls, Sebastian ducked down a dark, foul-smelling passage that led to a small, irregularly shaped stone-and-brick-walled court that looked as if it might once have been part of some ancient, long-forgotten monastic establishment. What had been an elegant oriel window was now bricked up, and an intricately carved sandstone cornice over the recessed arched doorway in the far corner was crumbling and blackened with centuries of soot. But the worn cobbles underfoot were well swept, and in a row of earth-filled old stone horse troughs lined up against one wall, a carefully tended assortment of herbs and vegetables struggled to survive in a slice of pale slanting light.
Hunkered down beside the stone troughs, a trowel still held loosely in one hand as if he’d been tending his herbs, was an aged man in a threadbare black cassock, with shaggy dark gray hair and a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. He was deep in earnest conversation with a thin, dark-haired girl in rags who looked to be perhaps five or six. She had her head bowed, her gaze fixed firmly on the cobbles at her bare feet, and as Sebastian entered the courtyard he heard the priest say softly, “ Alors . Now, don’t worry about it anymore, you hear, Mary?”
The little girl nodded solemnly.
“Go on, then, my child,” said the priest, pushing awkwardly to his feet. “And remember what I said!”
The little girl took off at a run, swerving around Sebastian on her way to the passage. The priest watched her go, then turned his gaze to the gentleman in the caped driving coat, top hat, and gleaming Hessians who now stood before him. “You’re looking decidedly out of place, young man. Do I take it you’re searching for someone?”
“You’re Father Ambrose?”
“Oui, je suis lui,” said the priest, pivoting to thrust his trowel into the dirt of the trough before wiping his hands on the skirts of his cassock. He was a solidly built man of above-average height, with a weathered, craggy face, heavy gray brows, and deeply etched smile lines that radiated out from lively brown eyes. “How may I help you?”
“My name is Devlin.”
The priest nodded. “I have heard of you, monsieur . But I must confess I can’t begin to imagine what the son and heir of the grand Earl of Hendon would be wanting with a simple old French priest.”
“I’m told you were seen speaking to Lord Preston Farnsworth last Saturday, in the Strand.”
“Ah.” The lines beside the old priest’s eyes deepened as he tilted his head and brought up a sturdy, blunt-fingered hand to pull at one earlobe. “Well, to be honest, I don’t know if I’d say we were exactly ‘speaking.’ ‘Having a shouting match’ might be a better description of our brief encounter.”
“I hadn’t heard that part.”
The priest gave a soft chuckle. “No? Then forget I mentioned it.”
Sebastian had to stop himself from smiling back. “What was the shouting about?”
The priest turned to his plants, his work-worn fingers plucking the yellowing leaves from a bunch of parsley. “I assume you know Lord Preston was an enthusiastic member of the Society for the Suppression of Vice?”
“No, I didn’t know. But I can’t say it surprises me.” The Society for the Suppression of Vice was a collection of self-righteous busybodies dedicated to an aggressive crusade against what they saw as the dangerous national slide into sin and degradation. They pursued their vendetta against wickedness by coercing those of the “lower orders” they considered “morally deficient” into behaving, and one of the best ways they’d found to do that was by using archaic, half-forgotten laws to go after any and all transgressions against what they considered proper conduct. To this end they eagerly pursued prosecutions for everything from street brawling to swearing, “profaning” the Lord’s Day, publishing radical pamphlets, and selling what they considered “licentious” books.
“Three weeks ago,” the priest was saying, his attention seemingly all for the task of tidying his herbs, “a boy was caught trying to steal a ham. His name was Cian; Cian Donahue. He was just ten years old, small for his age and frail, and the constable who nabbed him wanted the shopkeeper to let the lad go with just a warning. But the Society—well, Lord Preston Farnsworth, to be specific—pressed the shopkeeper to prosecute. They do that, you know: help fund prosecutions and secure rewards for successful suits.”
Sebastian nodded. It was one of the peculiarities of English common law that except in cases such as murder, manslaughter, treason, and uttering, the Crown itself did not prosecute lawbreakers. It was up to the victims of everything from theft to rape and assault to bring charges and prosecute their cases in a court of law. If the victim declined to prosecute—which was a costly exercise—then the thief or assailant went free. But if the prosecutor was successful, the Crown granted him a hefty reward of forty pounds—a practice that inevitably led to some serious miscarriages of justice. “And were Lord Preston and this shopkeeper successful?”
“They succeeded in having Cian remanded into custody to await trial. But they’ve had jail fever in Newgate, you know. When I went to visit the boy last Saturday, I was told he’d died during the night. It was right after that I chanced to run into Farnsworth and…well, I suppose you could say I lost my temper.”
“And shouted at him?”
“Yes. Rather vociferously, I’m afraid.”
“How did you come to know him?”
“Lord Preston?” Father Ambrose’s lips tightened. “I do my best to teach the poor boys and girls around here to read and write, and it seems as if one or the other of them is always falling afoul of that damnable Society—either the children, or their siblings, or one or the other of their parents…particularly their mothers, if they’ve been widowed or abandoned.”
“You know this Cian’s parents?”
“I did. They’re both dead now—which is why Cian was stealing hams.” The priest moved on to an unhappy-looking basil. “I’ll never understand how the Lord Prestons of this world think London’s orphans are supposed to keep themselves from starving to death. It isn’t as if they can go into a workhouse—not unless they were born in one of the local parishes. And to be honest, most of them think they have a better chance of surviving on the streets. And they’re probably right.”
Sebastian wasn’t about to argue with that. “And that’s all you spoke of? The dead boy?”
The priest nodded. “I was still raging on about it when Farnsworth simply turned and walked off.”
“Did you happen to see where he went when he left you?”
“I assume he kept going, toward Temple Bar. But to be honest, it isn’t as if I were paying attention.” He threw a thoughtful glance at Sebastian over his shoulder, then said, “Why do you ask? When do you think he was killed?”
“Probably sometime that evening.”
“Ah. The papers didn’t say that. Any idea as to who killed him?”
“Not at this point, no.”
Father Ambrose was quiet for a moment, his gaze on the lavender he was now tidying. When he did speak, the words came out slowly, as if he were choosing them with care. “The part Farnsworth played in helping bring about the end of the slave trade was unquestionably admirable, and I will forever respect him for that. But he was an arrogant, bigoted man, self-righteous and inflexible to the point of being merciless and cruel. A man like that can make any number of enemies.”
“Are you thinking of anyone in particular?”
“Me? No.” The priest dropped the handful of dead leaves he’d been collecting into an old market basket at his feet. Then he hesitated, his eyes narrowing as he studied Sebastian and said, “You aren’t by chance related to the McClellans, are you?”
Sebastian felt his breath catch, but he was careful to keep all trace of emotion off his face. “I believe there is some connection. Why do you ask?”
“I knew Maréchal Alexandre McClellan. It was long ago, of course, before I left France, so he wasn’t even a general then. In fact, he was about the age you are now. And the thing is, you look startlingly like him.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Father Ambrose bent to pick up his basket. “You’ve heard the Bourbons are trying to kill him?”
“McClellan?” Sebastian’s voice sounded leaden, even to his own ears. “No; I hadn’t heard.”
The priest nodded. “Any general who served under Napoléon and hasn’t rushed to fawn over the Bourbons is basically fair game.”
“Except that McClellan didn’t rally to Napoléon during the Hundred Days; he stayed in Vienna.”
“He did. But since when did the Bourbons allow technicalities to stop them? McClellan’s name might not be on the list of those to be prosecuted, but he isn’t the only such one they’ve targeted in secret.”
Sebastian had heard whispers about the vicious wave of revenge sweeping France ever since Waterloo: about the countless hundreds of Bonapartists, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims who’d been slaughtered; the villages looted and burned; the women stripped naked, whipped, raped, and tortured. But details were hard to come by. And the British government and their army of occupation were resolutely turning a blind eye to the activities of the monarchy they themselves had put back in place by force. Twice. “How many of Napoléon’s generals have been killed?”
“So far? Well, let’s see. Besides Marshal Ney, they’ve now officially executed at least four generals: Chartrand, the twins César and Constantin Faucher, and the comte de la Bédoyère. Marshal Guillaume Brune they simply murdered—as they did General Jean-Pierre Ramel. And Ramel wasn’t even a Bonapartist.”
“This attack on McClellan—when did it occur?”
“I’m told the last known attempt was something like a month ago, but he hasn’t been seen since. No one knows if they’ve succeeded in killing him or if he’s simply lying low—or has gone elsewhere.”
Sebastian found himself studying the old priest’s weathered, inscrutable features. “You seem remarkably well-informed.”
If he expected the man to be discomfited, he was not. “For a simple priest living in exile in some wretched Southwark rookery, you mean?” Father Ambrose shrugged. “It’s worrisome, what’s happening in France. Violence begets violence, and atrocities committed in revenge for past atrocities lay the seeds for future acts of vengeance. I don’t see this chaos ending anytime soon, and that hurts my heart.”
“Do you have family left in France?”
“Some, but not much. Truth be told, I don’t have much family left, period.”
Sebastian nodded and touched his hand to his hat. “Thank you for your time.”
“Of course,” said the priest, still holding his basket of dead leaves. “I hope I have been of some help.”
It wasn’t until Sebastian had reached Deadman’s Place and was turning toward his waiting curricle that he realized the priest had never actually explained how he came to know so much about what was happening across the Channel.
?Jamie Gallagher waited until he heard the Viscount’s footsteps retreating back down the passage. Then he made himself keep waiting, counting slowly to one hundred before he crept from behind the worn old arched door.
“You didn’t tell him,” said the boy, going to where the priest still stood in the center of the courtyard, his gaze on the now empty passage. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
Father Ambrose shook his head. “The timing wasn’t right. I think it’s best he discovers a few things for himself first.”
“But what if he doesn’t?”
Father smiled and turned back to his small garden. “Don’t worry. He will.”