Antonia Hodgson - A Death at Fountains Abbey

No scandal there – except that it proved that many of the shares had been given for free, as bribes. In exchange, every person listed in the ledger had supported the South Sea Scheme as it travelled through Parliament and into law. They had encouraged others to invest, inflating the price. And then, mysteriously , these lucky beneficiaries had sold their shares at the ideal moment, just before the bubble burst and the stock value plummeted.

Either they were the cleverest gamblers in history, or they had been passed privileged information – perhaps by Aislabie himself. Sell now – the entire damned scheme is about to collapse. Dukes and duchesses, bishops and lawyers, ministers of government, the old king and his mistresses. And the Prince and Princess of Wales – as they were in 1720. Now their Exalted Majesties King George II and Queen Caroline of Ansbach. All with their snouts in the trough.

The whole world knew that the scheme had been corrupted. But the whole world couldn’t prove it, not without the slim green accounts book and its list of names. Questions were asked in the Commons. Offices were ransacked. A government enquiry was set up. Aislabie and his staff were interrogated. Aislabie himself was thrown in the Tower, where he languished for months. The ledger was never found. Aislabie testified that he always destroyed his account books once they were balanced. His secretary burned them – it was all quite routine. The Commons, the Lords, the nation raged, but nothing could be done. The evidence was lost for ever.

The queen knew better. Mr Aislabie hadn’t burned the ledger. He’d smuggled it out of London to his country estate, days before his arrest. Aislabie was a politician – and a wily one at that. The book was his security. And now he was using it to demand help from the guilty.

We are all slaves to public opinion, even the King of England. His claim to the throne was tenuous, to say the least. How would his subjects react if they discovered he had helped plunge the nation into catastrophic debt in order to sate his own greed? Violently, I’d wager.

‘ Have you ever visited Yorkshire, Mr Hawkins?… We have a friend, in need of assistance. ’ That is what Queen Caroline had asked me just five days before in her private quarters. Aislabie was no friend. He was blackmailing her – demanding her help in exchange for his continued silence. This was insufferable. The ledger must be found.

I held my tongue, and waited.

The queen was standing by the fire, shifting her weight from foot to foot. A touch of gout, I thought. ‘How is your little trull , sir? Are you still wretchedly in love with her? Of course you are,’ she replied for me. ‘How charming.’

I lifted the glass of wine to my lips, trying to hide my alarm. The queen had sent for both Kitty and me, but on our arrival at St James’s Palace, Kitty had been ordered to wait in the carriage. She was sitting there on her own, furious, rain pattering down upon the roof of the chaise. I hadn’t understood why the queen would summon Kitty, only to refuse her an audience. Now I began to suspect the truth.

‘Tell me, Mr Hawkins. How does it feel to be in love with a murderess?’

I clutched the glass, and said nothing. Kitty had killed a man. He had been trying to kill me, out on Snows Fields in Southwark. She had shot him in the gut, to save my life. But then she had stood over him, tipped fresh powder into her pistol and shot him again – between the eyes at close range. He would have died from the first shot, eventually. One might even call the second shot an act of mercy. But it wasn’t. Kitty had fired in a cold, deliberate rage. I knew that, and so did the one other witness to the shooting. And slowly, inevitably, the story had reached the queen.

She faced me now, one hand gripping the mantelpiece for support. Her rings glinted in the candlelight. This was real power – to threaten without ever speaking the words. ‘I am sure you will do your very best,’ she said sweetly.

And I had agreed that I would, and returned to Kitty, sulking because she had been summoned by the queen and then abandoned in the carriage. The queen had never intended to see her. Kitty’s role was to be waiting for me now as I left the palace, beautiful and angry and perfect. See what you might lose, if you don’t do as I command . It was the first time she had used Kitty’s secret to get what she wanted. I feared it would not be the last.

I had promised Kitty that I would stop holding secrets – but I couldn’t tell her this. I had lived for weeks under sentence of death and I would not put her through the same torture. I couldn’t bear it. So she had complained all the way from London to Newport Pagnell about our ridiculous mission, and how dare the queen send me back into more trouble when I had only just survived a hanging, and why could we not simply refuse and sail for the Continent, as we’d agreed.

Then we’d pulled into the coaching inn and I had discovered Sam, hiding beneath our luggage like a beetle under a rock. Sam Fleet, raised to be a thief and worse, who could tiptoe through a house and never be heard, who could hide in the shadows and never be seen. Who better to find the ledger? I tried to explain this to Kitty, but she had thought it too risky. You can’t trust him, Tom. You know what he is. You know what he’s done.

I couldn’t admit to her why it was so vital we succeed, why I must bring Sam with us. So we had argued, and she had accused me of lying to her again, after all my promises to change.Chairs were kicked. The next morning she had refused to leave until I sent Sam back to London. More arguments and more delays. When she saw I would not be persuaded, she arranged a seat on the next coach home. ‘I know you love me, Tom – but you love gambling more. This is all another game to you, another chance to test your luck.’

‘That’s not true, Kitty.’

She took my hands and pulled me closer. ‘Then come home with me.’

‘I can’t. I have to go.’

She shoved me away. ‘You don’t have to do anything. Fuck the queen.’

An hour later I was on the road with Sam, heading north with a dark fear in my heart that I had made a terrible mistake. But what choice did I have? I had to find the ledger. I had to save Kitty.

And if by some miracle I succeeded, what then? I stood in the great stone-flagged entrance hall at Studley, my hands in my pockets. I had walked all the way around, only to find myself back at the start. How fitting.

I made my way down to the servants’ rooms on the lower floor, and found Mrs Mason in her kitchen, hanging a brace of rabbits on a hook. Like most cooks she was somewhat round from tasting her own dishes, and her hands had magical properties, having spent years kneading, pummelling, peeling, cleavering and being plunged into boiling water. She also had the most appealing face. Not that she was a great beauty – it was more that her temperament tended naturally towards laughter and generosity. This had settled happily upon her features after forty years. To put it another way, on meeting her I felt myself to be a small boy again, and longed for a warm hug. Sadly decorum prevented me from asking.

She brewed up a pot of coffee and we talked while she prepared herbs for a stock. She asked me about my trial and hanging, rather as I might ask her the best way to dress a salmon. That is to say, I took no offence from her questions, and recognised a kindred, inquisitive spirit.

She confirmed that two bed sheets were missing: she had checked the laundry herself. Mrs Mason appeared to have an informal role as housekeeper, along with her duties in the kitchen. I suspected that – rather like Sneaton – she was considered part of the extended Aislabie family.