Dark Matter

club was lit up like a lantern and already noisy, so that I saw the wisdom of the club being here instead of in the City, for some of the younger members had a rakehellish reputation, and bonfires in Heath Street where the Pope was burnt in effigy were not uncommon.

For the quarter of an hour my master and I sat in the coach awaiting the arrival of the vile Titus Oates, and I began to worry that he would not come.

“Perhaps he suspects something is wrong,” said I.

“Why should he?” asked Newton, who looked most threatening with an eye patch. “For all of the conspirators believe that their cipher remains inviolate. He will come. I am certain of it.”

Even as he spoke, Mister Hall, who was acting as our postillion, saw a tall figure arriving up the hill and alerted us that our man was coming, so that we had but a little time to prepare ourselves for the dog’s arrival.

“Remember,” said Newton, “you are a Member of Parliament and the future Earl of Shaftesbury. You need never explain yourself. Much of the time your conversation will have to improve upon what he himself tells you. I shall assist you if I can, but I cannot presume too much or it will look suspicious. We must be exceedingly subtile with this fellow.”

When Oates came alongside the coach, Hall stepped down and opened the door, whereupon Oates, recovering his breath, for it was quite a walk from Axe Yard, bowed gravely.

“Have I the honour to address Lord Ashley?” he asked in his pompous, ringing voice, which reminded me of my choirmaster at school.

“This is His Lordship,” said Newton. “If you are Doctor Oates, come up, sir.”

At this, Oates appeared taken aback, and then looked at Doctor Newton for a moment, so that he seemed upon the point of going away again.

“Is there something wrong, Doctor Oates?” asked Newton.

“Only that I do not go by that name anymore, sir,” said Oates. “At His Lordship’s own suggestion.”

“If you prefer, we shall call you Doctor Davies,” suggested Newton. “But you need not concern yourself on this matter. I enjoy His Lordship’s complete confidence in this matter. As in all others.”

Oates nodded and, climbing aboard, sat down heavily and with evident relief. Hall closed the door behind him, and immediately I noticed how a strange, cloying smell did attach to the person of Oates; and after a short pause to allow Hall to climb up again, I rapped on the roof with my cane so that we should drive back to London. Outside I heard the coachman crack his whip and we started south, down Heath Street, toward the City.

“This is indeed an honour, milord,” said Oates, most unctuously. “I never met your grandfather, but from what I knew of him, he was a very great man.”

I yawned ostentatiously and dabbed at my mouth with my mouchoir as I had once seen Lord Halifax do when we were at the Treasury.

“And I am happy to be of service to you, as I was to him,” continued Oates. “Nay, not happy. Delighted and greatly honoured, too.”

“Facon, facon,” I said with a foppish show of impatience. “Do let us get on. And pray do not call it my service, Doctor Oates, for this matter is too desperate to be done only on my account. In truth, you see me quite unnerved by the gravity of our design. So much so that I came up to Hampstead to take the waters. But now I desire that you might put my mind at rest that everything is made ready. It’s not scruple of my conscience that made me write to you, sir, but want of confidence in our enterprise. I do swear I wish every Roman Catholic to the infernals, yet, mal peste, it’s a beastly nuisance, for I still fret that something will go awry. But you have been through this all before, Doctor Oates. You are our Achilles in this endeavour, and because I am so chagrin and disquieted these past few days, I would have your counsel. That is why I wrote to you and summoned you, sir.”

“Then be assured, milord,” said Oates, “everything is just as it should be. Mister Defoe’s pamphlet that will help to incite to anger all good Protestants is already printed and only awaits the proper occasion for its distribution.”

“I should like to read that pamphlet,” said I. And then to Newton: “Why have I not seen it, John?”

“You have not seen it, milord?” asked Oates. “I was informed that Lord Lucas had shown it to you.”

I shook my head. “Perhaps he did show me something,” I admitted. “But I’m afraid that I lost it.”

“I have some more at my lodgings,” said Oates. “I could show you one now if you wished.”

“Yes, indeed you shall,” said I. “We will take the coach to your lodgings, Doctor Oates, and you shall fetch me one of these pamphlets of yours.”

Newton leaned out of the coach window and instructed the coachman that when we reached London we should drive to Axe Yard.

“And yet I am more concerned to know the mettle of our confederates, Doctor Oates,” I told him. “Lord Lucas will vapour most hotly about the men of the Ordnance and how they are loyal to him. But after all, a lot of these are Frenchies. What of good Englishmen? And when last I saw him I said to him a d’autre, a d’autre. Tell it to the others, my lord, but not to me. For I thought him all bluster and grimace, and his explanations did not convince me. But I have heard you are a man of much subtlety, Doctor Oates. My grandfather always said as much. Which is why I have met you a la derobee, which is to say secretly. That is to say, Lord Lucas does not know that I am speaking to you. Nor does anyone else for that matter, and I would prefer if it were kept that way.”

“Your Lordship does me great honour,” said Oates, bowing his head and trying to stop the self-satisfied smile that did appear upon his enormous chin, which was quite as big as the rest of his face.

“Subtlety and integrity, Doctor Oates. You are a man to call a spade a spade.”

“Your Lordship is too kind,” smirked Oates.

“So I would know how many we really are, and not what Lord Lucas sees fit to tell me. And what are our chances of success.”

“We are not so many,” said Oates. “But we are enough.”

“Ods my life, Doctor, now you sound like Lucas. Not so coy, I pray you, or else I shall believe that this plot is mere fancy. The wise man builds his house not on sand but on a rock. So I would know who we may rely on, for I trust not men who have no names.”

Oates’s eyes narrowed and he stared out of the window for a moment as Hampstead became the manor of Tyburn, with its many dairy farms that supplied London’s milk and cheese, so that I almost believed he suspected something was amiss, and I placed my hand on the loaded pistol concealed inside the fur muff that lay on my lap like a dead spaniel. Instead he nodded with much thoughtfulness.

“Milord,” he said, most pleadingly, “it’s safer that you do not know. And yet I wonder why Lord Lucas should not have kept you better informed. ’Tis most strange.”

“Lucas is not a considerate man,” said I. “Indeed I may tell you in secret that I do not like him.”

“He is most impatient, and intemperate, it’s true,” agreed Titus Oates. “Why then, I will tell you as much as I know myself. Inside the Tower there’s him, Captain Lacoste, Captain Martin, Sergeant Rohan, and several men of the garrison: Cousin, Durel, Lasco, Devoe, Harald. Then, in the Mint there’s Mister Fauquier, the Deputy Master; Mister Collins, one of the assay masters, who did descend from Coligny, the great Huguenot admiral who was butchered by the French Catholics upon Saint Bartholomew’s; Valliere, who works the melt, Mister Silvester, the smith, and Peter Bayle, the victualler. That’s thirteen all told in the castle itself.

“Outside the Tower there are almost a hundred Englishmen in the barracks at Whitehall and at Somerset House; and among them several more Huguenots: Colonel Quesnal, Major Laurent, Major Sarrazin, Captain Hesse, Captain Popart, Lieutenant Delafons, and Sergeant Barre.

“Among the civilians there are perhaps a hundred more, including myself; Sir John Houblon at the Bank; Sir John Peyton; Monsieur Piozet, who’s pastor at the Savoy; Monsieurs Primerose, La Mothe, Chardin, and Moreau, who are on the grande comite francais. In Soho there is Monsieur Guisard, whose father was burned for heresy, and Monsieur Peyferie, as well as several dozen hatmakers, buttoners, silk-weavers, drapers, chandlers, apothecaries and wigmakers in the City that do number at least six or seven dozen.

“Last of all, there’s Mister Defoe the pamphleteer, Mister Woodward the publisher, and Mister Downing, his printer; not to mention the several incendiaries who will help me to set the blaze at Whitehall, including young Mister Tonge, who knows much about raising fires.

“They are all good Protestants, milord,” declared Oates. “Therefore be assured that our chances of success are high.”