Bruce Alexander - An Experiment in Treason

With a sigh, I stepped over the threshold and into the great hall. Bunkins eased the door to St. James Street shut behind him. He gave me a long look. It seemed that he, who was always quite loquacious, knew not what to say.

“I can’t talk,” said I. “I must deliver the message to Mr. Bilbo, and to no other. Is he here?”

“He’s here, right enough, and I’ll take you to him, but just say how many days we got. Or don’t even tell me. Just hold up your crooks, and I’ll count em.”

I considered his request. That would not be telling, would it? As, for instance, if Sir John were to ask me, had I told anyone but Mr. Bilbo, I could honestly say, no, I hadn’t.

“You won’t tell anyone? “

He shook his head in a negative response.

I held up four fingers.

He gave a long, low whistle. “Only that?”

I nodded. “Keep your dubber mum’d,” said I.

“Well, come along,” said he. “I’ll take you to the cove.”

We walked together down the long hall. The house seemed strangely empty. It was the ordinary thing to hear voices from upstairs or down, doors opening or closing, all the little, insignificant noises that make a home of a house. I thought that strange, but stranger still was it to find Bunkins idle at this time of day. He should be at his studies with his tutor.

“Where’s Mr. Burnham?” I asked.

“Ah, well, he’s movin’ on. That’s as he puts it.”

“Oh? He’s pronounced you ‘educated,’ has he?”

Bunkins chuckled at that. “No, that ain’t his way, as you well know. He says you can always learn more, and he trusts I will keep right on a-tryin’ to do so. But he says it’s time he ventured out into the world. The short of it is, Samuel Johnson put in a word for Mr.

Burnham and got him a job teaching at a school run by Monsieur Desmouhns — that’s the one Johnson’s man Frank Barber went to. It’s somewhat out of London, so that’s where he’s gone off to.”

By then we had reached the last door on the left, where I had expected to find Mr. Bilbo. Bunkins confirmed he was inside.

“Let me go and tell him you’re here with a message — get him ready for the news.”

Naturally, I gave my assent. He knocked softly upon the door and waited for the invitation to enter. When it came, he signaled that I was to remain.

“I’ll tell him it’s you with a message from the Beak,” he whispered to me. Then did he slip into the room, closing the door after him.

Not only were things quieter here in this grand house, they were also altogether more formal. Or was it precisely that? Perhaps not. It may have been that a pall of secrecy had fallen over the house. It was as if, unknowingly, I had entered an area of signs and countersigns, passwords and paroles. It seemed I hardly knew this place I had once known so well. I wondered if Bunkins had divulged the content of my message.

But when he reappeared, I felt assured he had not. He held the door for me, and just as I entered the room, he whispered to me: “I got to watch the door. I’ll see you when you leave.”

Was he butler or guard?

When I spied Mr. Bilbo, so surprised was I that I halted for a moment, unable quite to believe what I saw before me. It was not that he had changed; his appearance was what it had always been — black beard, sharp eyes, balding head. No, it was not how he looked, but what he was about that took my attention.

He sat at the great desk amid many piles of banknotes and gold sovereigns. There were thousands of pounds piled upon the desktop — tens of thousands, perhaps more than a hundred thousand. And there, among the stacks, half-hidden from sight, were those big-bored pistols which he ordinarily kept sequestered in his desk. He was counting his fortune, which was considerable, all of it laid out before him. When I approached and may have looked as if I were about to speak, he held me off by raising a finger and continued his silent counting.

As I waited, my eyes roamed round the room and stopped suddenly when they met those of Marie-Helene. She stood at one of the windows which looked out upon the rear garden — yet she stared at me. She was beautifully dressed in a frock of French design, her hair perfectly set and combed. Having caught my eye, she nodded solemnly at me. It was a gesture, so it seemed to me, of great dignity. Then did she turn away and fix her gaze at the window. And so she remained through my brief interview with Mr. Bilbo, right up to the moment of my departure.

“Bunkins says you’ve a message for me. From Sir John,” said Black Jack.

“Yes, I have, sir.”

He looked me up and down, almost — but not quite — coldly. “Well then, Jeremy,” said he, “let’s have it.”

I had thought it out beforehand, and so I managed to present it in good order — or so I supposed.

“Sir John was summoned by the Lord Chief Justice this morning, and among the matters they discussed was the trial date for Marie-Helene, Lady Grenville. The Lord Chief Justice has fixed it for Friday, the sixteenth of this month.”

“Next Friday? We have but five days.”

“Well no, not precisely.”

“Say what you mean.”

“There must take place beforehand an action in magistrate’s court whereby she is bound over for the trial in criminal court. Sir John has fixed that for the day before the trial at Old Bailey.”

“And so four days it is.”

“Four days, yes sir.” Then I remembered that I was to offer apologies and excuses. “Sir John wished to deliver this information to you in his own person, but he had to preside at his court. Because he did not wish to delay the news, he sent me in his stead.”

Mr. Bilbo stared and nodded but said nothing.

I wanted to add something, something more personal. “Mr. Bilbo, sir, and Lady Grenville, I want you to know how sad I am to be the bearer of such tidings as these I have delivered.”

“I know that, Jeremy,” said Black Jack. “We blame none of you there in Bow Street.”

Marie-Helene, who through all of this had stared steadfastly through the window at the brown and faded autumn garden, did turn to me at last, fixed me with her dark, glistening eyes, and spoke to me thus:

“Jeremy, will you bring here your friend Clarissa? I wish to see her before I go away. I feel she is my friend, too. Can you do this? “

“I can try. When do you wish to see her? It would have to be in the evening.”

“Would tomorrow be possible?”

“I can send the coach for you,” said Mr. Bilbo. “Say, tomorrow at eight.”

“I’ll see what can be done,” said I. Then, with a bow to them both, I departed the room.

Bunkins awaited me halfway down the hall. He clapped me on the shoulder, turned, and accompanied me in silence to the door. Only there did we speak.

“How did they take it?” he asked.

“Well enough,” said I. “Marie-Helene asked me to bring Clarissa here tomorrow evening. Black Jack offered to send the coach for us.”

“That’s good. So I’ll see you again soon, won’t I?”

“Surest thing ever.”

“Good. I got some things I want to say to you, and now don’t seem quite the right time.”

Hearing that, I wondered what those things might be, yet I asked not and went upon my way. That house I thought I knew so well had changed. Those within it shared a secret. Though I suspected well what it might be, I thought it best to say nothing, for fear the whole truth might be told me, and like it or not, I should become part of their plan.

After dinner, with evening going swiftly to night, I sat with Sir John in the little room below my own, which he called his study. He reviewed the meeting with Lord Mansfield and our disappointing visit to the residence of Lord Hillsborough. And then, most surprisingly, he put a question to me.