few months ago, Cat would not have believed it possible that she would spend an evening in Brennan’s company. At the start of their acquaintance, she had disliked intensely both the fact that Brennan had dared to court her affections and the manner in which he had approached this impossible task. But she had dealt with that, and so had he, and she had come to respect his skill as a draughtsman, his reliability and his kindness to Mr Hakesby.
Brennan had come to Henrietta Street armed with a glowing letter of recommendation from Dr Wren, and time had justified the praise. Hakesby paid him a regular wage now, rather than using him as a piece worker. Someone, she suspected, was looking after him, perhaps the motherly young woman who worked in the pastry cook’s in Bedford Street.
On this evening, they supped later than usual, at nearer nine o’clock than eight. It was not a cold evening, but Cat was chilled to the bone. It was hard to concentrate on what the men were saying. The thought of her cousin Edward kept forcing itself into her mind. She wondered if she could ever be happy again.
At first, Hakesby and Brennan failed to notice her silence. Both of them were elated, partly from wine and partly because Hakesby had received an unexpected stage payment for the Clarendon House commission, which had allowed him to pay Brennan a bonus. Despite his political troubles, Lord Clarendon remained an influential client, the sort who led where others followed. Hakesby had been concerned about the work on the pavilion, as her ladyship, who had taken such a particular interest in it, had recently died. There was also the fact that his lordship was not only in disgrace at court but rumoured to be short of money. Nevertheless, the payment had been made. They probably had Mr Milcote to thank for that.
As the meal went on, however, Cat noticed that Hakesby was shooting worried glances at her. He was growing more and more dependent on her, she knew, and that could only increase as his ague worsened. Their marriage was fixed for the end of October; next month, they would start to call the bans. The marriage was to be a private affair in the new-built church in Covent Garden.
‘The building is a pure Inigo Jones design,’ Hakesby had said with satisfaction. ‘Not one of those crumbling medieval hotchpotches the Papists built.’
After supper, as they were going downstairs to the street, he touched Cat’s arm and said quietly, ‘Are you well? Are you sickening?’
‘No, sir. It is nothing, a woman’s matter.’
Hakesby shied away from her, turning to take Brennan’s arm. In the street, he said he would not take a chair back to his lodgings; he felt perfectly capable of walking. Brennan and Cat exchanged glances, silently accepting the necessity of accompanying him. The three of them walked slowly towards Three Cocks Yard off the Strand, where Hakesby lodged on the first floor of one of the new houses. Brennan took him into the yard and up to the house, while Cat herself lingered in the Strand.
Brennan was only gone for a moment or two. When he returned they walked back the way they had come. She would have been content to go by herself – in the past year, she had learned to cope with the streets. She always carried a knife, and was not afraid to show it. But it would make Hakesby unhappy if she walked alone after dark, so she accepted Brennan’s company. Walking back with her to Henrietta Street did not take him far out of his way.
‘What’s amiss?’ he said as they passed St Clement Danes. ‘You hardly said a word during supper.’
‘Nothing,’ she said automatically. Then she came to a sudden decision and changed her mind. ‘No. That’s not true. I – I have a difficulty. I need to go away for a while. And no one must know where I am. Even Mr Hakesby.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You can’t be so foolish,’ he said. ‘Is it something to do with that letter you had?’
She nodded. ‘It’s urgent. I must go, and the sooner the better.’
They walked past Somerset House. The Savoy, where Marwood lived, was not far away to the west and she pulled up her cloak to shield her face.
Brennan misinterpreted the action. ‘Do you think someone might be following you?’
‘Perhaps.’
A solitary woman always attracted attention, she thought, usually the wrong kind.
‘Would you – would you need comfort?’ Brennan said.
She stared at him, her anger flaring up. ‘What?’
‘If there were somewhere you could hide, I mean,’ he said hastily. ‘But somewhere the conditions were mean and poor, where they weren’t suitable for … you.’
‘Why?’
‘I know somewhere you could go for a week or two, longer maybe. It wouldn’t cost much.’
‘As long as I was safe, I wouldn’t need a featherbed. Or a maid to wait on me. If that’s what you mean.’
‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I have a notion that might help.’ He hesitated. ‘Though what I have in mind would hardly be fitting for one such as you. But no one would find you there. No one would even think to look there.’
‘Where is this?’
‘A few miles outside London. It’s a refugee camp, and it’s on my uncle’s land. He used to farm it, but everything’s gone to wrack and ruin since his son died.’
WHEN CAT AND I had gone our separate ways, I walked down the Strand to the Savoy. My house was here, in Infirmary Close, which lay deep in the warren of crumbling buildings that made up the former palace and its immediate surroundings. The Savoy was still owned by the Crown, though its precincts were given up to a variety of purposes. I was lucky to have even a small house to myself – lodgings of any sort were in short supply, especially since the destruction of so much of London in the Great Fire. My master Mr Williamson had spoken on my behalf to the clerk who handled these royal leases.
I was not in the best of tempers. When my manservant, Sam, let me into the house and took my cloak, I swore at him for his clumsiness, though in truth he was as graceful as a man with only one whole leg can be, and more nimble than many with two of them.
Margaret, his wife, brought me my supper. She lingered by the table as I began to eat. ‘Your pardon, sir, but is it the Gazette women that’s troubling you? My friend Dorcas says they’re all at sixes and sevens and she’s worked off her feet.’
I felt ashamed of my ill humour to the servants, who were hardly in a position to answer back if they wanted to keep their places. I said, in a gentler voice than before, ‘That and other things.’
‘It’s only that perhaps I could help. If you need someone to do a few rounds for a week or so, then I will, if you permit me. Or I could share Dorcas’s load. I’ve done it before.’
It was a kind offer. Margaret had been one of the newspaper’s distributors before she came to work for me, and she was still friendly with several of the women she had worked with. She knew the routine. I also knew that she had disliked the work intensely, for the younger, more comely women often attracted unwanted attentions.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But I need you here.’
I dismissed her. In a way it was useful that Margaret and Sam should think that I was out of sorts because of problems with the Gazette. Better that than the truth.
Afterwards I sat by the window, which looked out over roofs and walls. Slowly the daylight slipped away from the evening while I thought about Catherine Lovett and