The Devil's Feast Read online

  He had assumed the shock would subdue Blake’s rebelliousness: he had made it clear that he would withdraw the claim if Blake accepted his commission. Collinson had, however, underestimated his adversary’s stubbornness. Blake had refused, choosing to remain in prison. They were at a standoff: Blake stuck in the noxious Marshalsea; Collinson gnashing his teeth and desperate to have Blake out and working.

  Collinson’s next move had been to write to me, knowing I would be horrified to hear of Blake’s situation and that I would rush from my home in Devon to try to have him freed. This was exactly what I had done. I had met with Collinson and was in no doubt of his intentions, but I had been unable to see any way of having Blake freed other than him agreeing to his patron’s terms. And of course he would not, and so this was my fourth visit. All to no avail.

  The only thing upon which the two men were agreed was that Blake’s situation should remain secret. And so, to my further frustration, I had to undertake not to speak of it. I had once before broken a promise to Blake; the consequences had been disastrous. He knew I would keep this one. However, while polite society knew nothing of Blake’s whereabouts, London’s criminal community had found out about it. A blackguard with a grudge against Blake had deputed a particularly unsavory inmate of the Marshalsea, who gloried in the name of Nathaniel Gore, to do him as much harm as he could. Thus the knife.

  Blake seemed remarkably sanguine about this. As the days passed, I, however, had grown increasingly desperate to free him. I was sure that there were more than a few wealthy men in the capital who owed him a good deal and would be happy to pay the debt, but he refused to countenance the thought, as well as flatly forbidding me to pay off the debt myself (not, I confess, that I would necessarily have been able to do so).

  “Lord, you are perverse!” I said. “When I depart, what then? You will stew here with no visitors, wasting away from boredom and sickness, until that demon Gore gets you! Collinson will let you rot here, you know, and your friends will know nothing of it.”

  Blake shrugged in his most annoying manner and ate a piece of orange. I almost stamped my foot. We did not speak for some minutes.

  “So you have made all your calls?” he said.

  “Just Matty left to see.”

  On my last visit to London a bare few months before, we had rescued Matty Horner from a life on the streets. Blake had found her and her brother, Pen, work in the kitchen of the Reform Club, which, under the direction of Alexis Soyer, was said to be the Eighth Wonder of the World. Soyer was the most famous chef in London—perhaps in the world; even I had heard of him. The Reform Club was a political club, an alliance of Whigs and radicals—or “liberals,” as some of them now called themselves—which had been founded to counter the Tory party. Opened for not quite a year in grand new premises in Pall Mall, it had quickly become the most desirable dining room in London.

  “As a Tory born and bred,” I said, “I won’t be entering the club itself, but Mr. Jerrold has arranged for me to visit the kitchens. Shall I send Monsieur Soyer your regards?”

  Blake snorted. He thought little of my political affiliations. “You keep me out of it.” Then he moved his head so his eyes were again in shadow and his expression unreadable.

  I could not resist further needling. “Why you should be so keen to keep your achievements a secret, I do not understand.” My voice was thick with sarcasm. “Why hide the fact that you have gone to such trouble to put yourself in the Marshalsea, resisting all efforts to release you, apparently determined to get yourself killed?”

  “Enough.” He suddenly looked utterly fatigued, and I was anxious again. “Truly, William, I am glad you came. I am. I just—I can’t do otherwise.”

  I gave a small, defeated nod.

  “Besides, I may not be here much longer.” He looked suddenly mischievous.

  “What do you mean?” I said, taken aback but hopeful.

  “The Marshalsea’s closing in a month or so. Likely they’ll move me to King’s Bench instead.”

  I scowled, my concern seesawing to infuriation, then back again to concern.

  “I saw Matty about a month ago,” he said. “She’s doing well. Kitchen’s impressive. Introduce yourself to Soyer. He’ll like you.”

  “Jeremiah, I hate to leave you in this place.”

  He looked pained.

  “Tell me you have a plan. That there is some rhyme and reason to this.”

  He looked away.

  I stood up abruptly. “I cannot help you, Blake, and I do not know when I shall see you next. I would ask you to take care of yourself, but it seems you are determined not to.”

  “Do not fret for me, William. Please.”

  He returned to his former pose, head propped upon his hand. I strode out of the room onto the walkway, scattering inmates in my wake.

  Chapter Two

  I thought the worst of the day was done when I met Henry Mayhew and Douglas Jerrold on the southwest corner of Trafalgar Square. How utterly wrong I was.

  Mayhew was his usual amiably disorderly self. His coat was misbuttoned and his fingers stained with ink; tufts of hair stood out from his head, and his satchel bulged alarmingly, as if it might at any moment explode, shooting numerous notes and scraps of paper into the air. He seemed to be a little drunk. His older companion, Douglas Jerrold, the journalist and playwright, cut no less of an odd figure. He was short and almost humpbacked, with straggling salt-and-pepper hair and bristling eyebrows, and wielding a walking stick, his features lent a certain dignity by a heroically hawk-like nose. I liked them both, almost more than anyone in London, though I found Jerrold’s acerbic tongue disconcerting.

  “My dear friends!” I said, with an enthusiasm I truly felt. “Henry, did you have a late night? You look jiggered.”

  “More like twenty late nights,” Jerrold muttered.

  Mayhew tugged at his hair and grinned anxiously. “I was a bit up to the knocker last night.”

  “Enough!” said Jerrold. “Now, we must congratulate you, Avery, on being a father! A healthy young son, I hear. And in flight from him, you have returned to London.”

  “I had a number of obligations, a great-uncle . . .” I mumbled unconvincingly.

  “Well,” said Jerrold, “I’m sure we’ll have the truth of it eventually. And news of Mr. Blake, about whom young Henry says you have been ostentatiously reticent.”

  Mayhew and I both looked stricken and spoke over each other:

  “Oh, Douglas!” Mayhew said—and I, lamely: “He has a habit of disappearing from time to time.”

  “Well, well, never mind that,” said Jerrold. “How is the son and heir?”

  “Oh! Naturally the most handsome, hairless little sporting fellow the world has ever seen!” I said.

  “Excellent! My only advice on the subject of fatherhood is not to take after Henry’s father, who had seventeen children and has disinherited them all.”

  “Not all,” said Henry, “and in his defense, I did almost get him arrested for negligence.”

  “And how are you, Mr. Jerrold?” I asked.

  “Oh, I stumble along. Punch, Henry’s paper, for which I am now writing, is, as usual, in dire financial straits, and we are both scratching about for pennies. I am at present writing a play. If I remember rightly, Henry, you are at present not engaged to my daughter?”

  Mayhew, wincing, shook his head.

  “Well, let us to the Reform,” said Jerrold. “I have arranged for you to visit the kitchens where young Matty works, which is no hardship, since they are quite remarkable and females are, of course, not permitted in the club itself. You may even have a sighting of the famous Monsieur Soyer.”

  “Along here,” said Jerrold, turning into a very wide thoroughfare on which all the buildings on the left-hand side appeared to be palaces. “Do you know Pall Mall?”

  I shook my head. “Barely.”r />
  “I shall instruct you.” He stretched out his arms theatrically. “Behold, the splendors and miseries of St. James’s. On our side, the right, a hotchpotch of battered, elderly buildings which one wouldn’t look at twice. On the left, however, we have a series of edifices that would not have disgraced the Roman Forum, temples to the interests and pursuits of the English gentleman. Of course, as the son of an actor, I am barely a gentleman, but the Reform takes pity upon me and my ilk. First”—he pointed to a massive square building, gray and austere—“we have the United Service Club. Full of majors and brigadiers, dull dogs indeed, who bought their commissions and are happy to pay the highest fees in London for the pleasure of each other’s company . . . If only you’d held on a little longer, Captain Avery, you might have secured yourself the right to be bored rigid by them.”

  “I was an East India Company man, Mr. Jerrold. I couldn’t afford a commission in the British Army.”

  “Avery’s a member of the Oriental, aren’t you, Avery?” said Mayhew. I was, in fact, an honorary member—I could not have afforded the fees else. It was where I stayed in London. They served a good curry.

  “The Athenaeum next,” said Jerrold. In form, this building was the twin of the first, but it was covered in gleaming white stucco with a handsome blue frieze. “The members like to give themselves intellectual and philosophical airs: the frieze was copied in its entirety from the Parthenon in Athens. The club is invariably full of slumbering bishops. Far less interesting than it thinks it is.

  “Now, we have the Travellers.” A smaller building this, an elegantly proportioned stone town house. “Members are supposed to have visited at least four foreign lands. The members are diplomats and would-be spies, or so I’m told. And here we are. The palace of the marriage of Whigs, liberals and radicals, united at last to fight the Tories.

  “The Reform Club is modeled on the Palazzo Farnese in Rome,” continued Jerrold with a flourish, “but given an admirable, if slightly gloomy, English accent—and a little bit of Greece in the frieze, copied from the top of the Acropolis.”

  It was much larger than the Travellers, built of pale gray stone and, to my mind, very severe. An elaborate balustrade ran the length of the front, behind which were three stories of heavy casement windows and a basement. The building was grand, imperious, very sure of itself.

  Jerrold lowered his voice theatrically. “It cost three times more than any other club on this street. No small part of that was the kitchen, whose fame has quite eclipsed the rest of it. It now provides the best dinner in London, so good that the members forget about politics in their fondness for lamb cutlets à la Reform. Obviously, it was worth every penny.” I could not tell if he was joking. “And see, dear Captain, just next door is the Carlton Club, home of the Tories, designed by the aptly named Mr. Smirke. Rather florid, in my opinion. Your natural habitat, I think? Let us hope none of them see you lurking over here. You may be run out of town.”

  I was a Tory by birth and by upbringing. Jerrold was insistently anti and liked to tease me, though in truth I had little involvement in politics and was hardly known in London. Even so, I was discomfited at the thought of being spotted by someone I knew. Almost involuntarily, I tucked my head into my collar and wedged my beaver hat down over my nose.

  “Here endeth the geography lesson,” announced Jerrold. He hobbled up the steep front steps to the tall, dark green, double-leafed doors, and a porter, solemn in a blue dress coat and buff waistcoat—the colors of the Whig party—opened it.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Jerrold,” he said.

  We stepped into a high lobby with a black-and-white marble floor and the porter’s cubbyhole on the right.

  “My friend Captain Avery has an appointment in the kitchen. I’ve arranged it. Mr. Mayhew and I shall take a restorative in the smoking room,” said Jerrold.

  “Very good, sir,” said the porter, and waved, whereupon a footman opened the glass-paneled door that led into the club. I caught a waft of warm air and a glimpse of marble and gilt.

  “Bon appétit,” said Jerrold, and they disappeared.

  “Take your coat, sir?” said the porter. “The kitchen can be very hot.”

  I was led through a small side door, and down an unadorned flight of stairs to a bare corridor and a pair of sturdy baize doors which swung open to reveal another set behind them, and through these we now went.

  I found myself at one end of a series of interconnecting chambers, one opening onto the next, all together the length of a large ballroom. My first sensation was of great noise—the loud and ceaseless sound of steam whistling, a gurgling and the crash of pans. It was exceedingly hot. The overwhelming impression—apart from the noise—was of great openness, whiteness and cleanliness. The ceilings were white barrel vaults, supported by tall, slim iron columns. Light was provided by dozens of white, gas-lit globes mounted on the walls. It was the brightest subterranean place I had ever seen. Through the wide doorways I could see glimpses of an array of cupboards and tables and shelves and rows of dishes and lines of hung birds, and spits and stoves and vast stew pans. All about, an army in starched white—many of them, I noted, women—moved purposefully, carrying boxes and plates, or buckets and mops, stirring the contents of pans, wiping tables, prodding meat, as if part of some remarkable, orderly dance. A kitchen boy ushered me through the first two chambers and, without a word of explanation, deposited me next to a man of middle height and in early middle age. He had a pleasant, competent look about him and was extremely well turned out, in a plain dark suit and waistcoat, his shirt and necktie perfectly pressed and snowy white.

  He turned to me with the slightly jaded look of the professional once the performance is over and the magic is done.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “I am here to visit one of your kitchen maids, Matty Horner. I believe I am expected?”

  I saw a hint of distaste in his eyes, that he attributed some grubby purpose to me.

  “My name is Captain William Avery. You may not know the girl—I believe she is a scullery maid. Monsieur Soyer took her and her brother in last year at the request of my associate, Jeremiah Blake, after they had been cruelly mistreated. I have not been in London since then and I am here to see how she does.”

  “Of course! Of course!” He shook his head apologetically and smoothed down his jacket. “Captain Avery. It had slipped my mind. Quite inexcusable.”

  “Not at all,” I said coolly.

  “Please forgive me! I am Mr. Percy, steward of the Reform Club. If I may say so, I am delighted to make your acquaintance. We have heard of your exploits with Mr. Blake and how you saved Matilda’s life. You are indeed expected. Follow me. I will inform Monsieur Soyer. He will certainly wish to meet you. Is Mr. Blake with you?” he added hopefully.

  “I am afraid not. He is . . . detained.”

  “Such a shame. I have never had the pleasure. He sounds like a most fascinating gentleman.”

  Not a gentleman, I thought.

  • • •

  MATTY WAS in the pastry kitchen, furiously beating cream with a birch whisk. When last I saw her, she had been clutching the shreds of her girlhood, pinched and underfed and passing for twelve years old. Now there was no mistaking that she was a young woman. In four months she seemed to have grown as many inches and, though there were dark smudges under her eyes, she had filled out. She wore a neat, close-fitting black dress with a high white collar and a white apron. Her hair was secured under a white cap. She was laughingly fending off the attentions of three young men who were addressing her in the most familiar terms.

  “Matilda! Your gentleman is here.”

  “Matilda, your gentleman is here,” one of the young men echoed mockingly.

  “Monsieur Blanche! If you have nothing better to do than chase the kitchen maids, you and your very small talent may return to the street. Vous avez été prévenu!”


  These words, pronounced in a thick French accent, issued from a slight man in the white uniform of the kitchen. He wore a tall, starched chef’s hat, crowned with a pouched cap. The young culprit instantly sprang back, reddened and mumbled a groveling apology; the other young men also jumped to attention and scattered.

  “Monsieur Morel,” said Percy to the slight man, “this is Captain Avery, who saved young Matilda’s life.” The cooks and kitchen maids glanced at me covertly. Percy went on: “Monsieur Soyer’s second-in-command, our sous-chef, Monsieur Morel.”

  “Enchanté,” said the chef, somewhat distractedly, and continued on his way.

  “Matilda, ask Herr Schmidt for his permission,” said Percy, “and you may take twenty minutes with your visitor.” Matty made a small bob and turned to an older man who was overseeing an elaborate confection behind her. He waved her away, barely looking up.