Bruce Alexander - An Experiment in Treason

“Is that how Lord Hillsborough put it to you?”

“Yes, dammit, but he’s right. Tell too many and you’ll hear all of London buzzing about it like so many bees round the honeycomb. Look here, Sir John, I’ve persuaded him to talk to you about this, and he has promised to be more forthcoming than before.”

“Does that mean he’ll tell me what’s missing?”

“I don’t know — probably it does, but you’ll have to work all that out with him. There are, so I understand, certain restrictions.”

“And what are they?”

“Again, I’m unsure of that. They are of the kind that anyone might use in handling secret matters of state.”

“A state secret, is it? Well, this should be interesting.”

“Interesting or no, Lord Hillsborough has agreed to meet with you … let’s see …” from his waistcoat pocket he drew a round, fat timepiece, sprang it open, and studied its face somewhat myopi-cally, “in approximately half an hour. You’ll have no difficulty getting there, will you? If you like, I can send you in my coach.”

“No,” said Sir John, levering himself out of his chair. “It would not do to arrive early, and a bit of a walk might help me to recover from this dreadfully early rising hour.” He turned toward me. “Jeremy? Shall we go?” He groped for my arm and found it. Together we started for the door.

“Oh, Sir John,” the Lord Chief Justice called after us, “there is one more thing.”

“And what is that?”

“That Frenchwoman.”

Sir John’s face seemed to darken as he turned back. “What about her?” His jaw set as he awaited the answer to his question.

“I shall try her on Friday, so you had best bind her over soon — though you may put it off till the next Thursday, if you Hke.”

It took Sir John a few moments to respond. “I believe I shall put if off till then,” said he at last.

“Your choice, of course. Good-bye then.”

Sir John said no good-bye and wished no farewell. He simply urged me on. We raced the butler for the door. He barely managed to get it open before we arrived at it. We passed through without a word.

For more than half of our journey southward, I waited, trying to suppose what might be going on within that mighty brain of his. And though he gave no outward sign, I was fair certain that it was Marie-Helene’s day in court which had so sobered him; he was now in the state we had seen him last night at evening’s end. He must, I told myself, feel a great sense of powerlessness. What a burden it is for a man to carry when friendship does contend with duty. What could Mr. Bilbo have said to Sir John? What could he have asked? Did Lord Mansfield not know of the sense of loyalty and liking that the two men felt one for the other? Did he even care?

Then, as if reading my thoughts, Sir John spoke up as one might in offering excuses for another.

“Think not too badly of the Lord Chief Justice, ” said he, “for, after all, he saved Marie-Helene from the Maritime Court.”

“Oh? How was that?” I asked.

“They wished to try her.”

“On what charge?”

“Piracy. She would have been found guilty and hanged.”

“A woman hanged for piracy? Has that ever happened before?”

“I believe so — sometime in the last century.”

“Yet what proof was there of it?”

“Piracy has been defined as illicit trade — and that, they said, was what she was engaged in.”

“But … but smuggling isn’t piracy.”

“Of course not. What vexed them so was her barrage upon English soil — or English sand, as it happened. That was all the proof of piracy they needed.”

“Yet Lord Mansfield kept her from them?”

“He did, yes. And he’s to be praised for it. But Mr. Bilbo would give him no credit whatever. The man is impossible to argue with. He kept saying over and over again, ‘She shouldn’t be tried at all. A woman ain’t got guilt the same as a man!’ I know what he means, and I must say that in some ways he’s right. Women, in this society — perhaps in all societies — have what you might call ‘diminished capacity.

“We shall talk about that sometime,” I urged.

“Oh, I’m sure we shall,” said he, and then he fell silent once again.

By that time we were in St. Martin’s Lane, just past the notorious Seven Dials, home to half the cutpurses and pickpockets of London. Sir John walked safely there as few could, and I walked safely beside him; his reputation saved us both.

Yet I was curious still regarding the coming trial. I put a few questions to him. He answered them direct. Somehow that seemed to steady him.

“On what charge will she be tried?”

“On whatever charge I put to her.”

“Have you given some consideration to that?”

“Some. Perhaps not yet enough. But I suppose the charge will be contrabanding, the same as her husband. That’s what Lord Mansfield expects.”

“There were no victims, of course.”

“Victims of that notorious cannonade, you mean? No, she did naught with it but kick up some sand — thank God.”

Again, silence. I had no more questions, and there seemed little point to put to him frivolous interrogatives of the sort that are used at dinner parties to keep conversation flowing. And so we simply walked on, he grasping my arm at the elbow with one hand, and with the other, exploring the territory ahead with wild swings of his walking stick. Those along the way made room for him, as they had to do. Still, he had something more to say on the matter.

“You must know the worst of it,” said he to me.

“And what is that, sir?”

“The worst of it is that Mr. Bilbo will probably be called as a witness for the prosecution.”

“Against Marie-Helene?”

“Yes, of course. I told him this last night, and the man simply went wild. Said he, ‘You expect me to bear witness against the woman I love?’ And I said nothing. Indeed, what could I say? The answer to his question is no, I don’t expect him to bear witness against the woman he loves. Yet if he fails to appear, or even if he appears and refuses to answer certain questions, then he will be in contempt of court. What then? What other course might he follow? I tremble even to guess.” We walked on. Sir John let forth a great sigh. Then, did he remark: “Who would have thought that within the breast of that old pirate, Jack Bilbo, beats the heart of a romantic?”

In this manner, we came to the residence of Lord Hillsborough. I had not viewed it before, yet there was no difficulty in finding the place, for it was the only house within Craig’s Court. To the north was Charing Cross Road and to the south was Whitehall, that collection of grand buildings which housed the offices of the nation’s government. I took us to the door, and thereon did I beat a sharp tattoo. A butler appeared, one who could have been brother — or at least cousin — to Lord Mansfield’s gatekeeper: the same suspicious eyes, the same downturned mouth. I announced to him that Sir John Fielding of the Bow Street Court had arrived to fulfill an appointment made for him by the Lord Chief Justice.

“Of course, ” said he, stepping aside and opening the door to us. “I recognize Sir John from the unfortunate events of two nights past. If you will come this way, please.” And then did he actually smile.

(All right, perhaps I had misjudged him. It sometimes happened that my dislike of a certain class of people — butlers being the best example — blinded me to the virtues of individuals within that class.)

He bowed politely at the door to a room which had the appearance of a study. There were books lining shelves that filled two of the room’s walls, and there was a desk of large proportions — the same desk perhaps whose contents were spilled across the floor night before last. The man who sat behind it I took to be Lord Hillsborough; he had a long, narrow face which wore an expression of the sort that seemed to say he had just detected an unpleasant odor. Yet once inside, I was surprised to see another, younger man sitting to the left of the desk; he, it seemed, was more relaxed, more confident than the man behind the desk, in spite of his youth.