Page 151 of Faceless

He had been four and a half days at sea and had slept perhaps five of those hours, none of them continuously. The cabin had been locked. The water had been rough off the Northumberland coast. He had been brought up on deck once, briefly, in a wind that had no opinion on his case, and put below again. He had not been told where he was bound until the cutter rounded into the Pool and he saw, through the small port of the cabin, the river-front wall and the line of guns and the corner of the White Tower against the grey sky, and then he had not needed to be told.

The escort took him up the water stair. There were five of them, with a lieutenant at the head and four behind, and they walked him through a small postern and along a corridor and across a yard and through another door into a stone-flagged passage that smelt of wet boots and tallow.

The Gentleman Gaoler received him in a low room with a coal fire and a desk and an iron lamp upon it. The man was perhaps fifty, dressed in plain black, with a face that had practised, over the course of a long career, a neutrality proper to the disposition of other men’s lives.

“Mr Darcy.”

“Sir.”

“You have understood, I take it, the nature of the charge under which you are committed.”

“I have.”

The Gaoler took up the warrant from the lieutenant who had brought him and unfolded it with care. He read it aloud in a flat administrative voice; he had read a thousand such warrants and meant to read a thousand more. “Fitzwilliam Darcy, of Pemberley in the County of Derby, gentleman, charged on the King’s information with the crime of high treason against His Majesty’s Crown and dignity, to be held in close custody within His Majesty’s Tower of London pending trial before commissioners of oyer and terminer at such time as His Majesty’s pleasure shall direct.”

The Gaoler folded the warrant again. He looked up. “Do you confirm your identity as the person named within?”

Darcy had been turning this question over since Aberdeen. He had not arrived at an answer that was both safe and honest. He settled instead for the answer that was merely honest.

“I do.”

“Thank you. The clerk will record it.”

The clerk, who had not been visible until that moment, wrote in a ledger at the side of the desk. Darcy did not see what he wrote. A small portion of himself closed behind the confirmation — the last useful possession he had under that name, surrendered into the record.

“Your effects, Mr Darcy.”

He produced what he had on his person, which was little. A purse with the remainder of the coin he had not given Richard. A pocket-watch that had been his father’s. A handkerchief, folded small, marked with a device he had no wish to explain to the Gaoler and which the Gaoler did not ask him to explain. He held it in his palm a moment, the marked corner up, the small, careful needlework his wife had been carrying since November and which he had taken from her that night at the inn when Richard awakened him, for no better reason than that he had wanted something of hers to keep. He turned it once between his fingers and put it back.

The Gaoler watched him hesitate. He did not press for it. Handkerchiefs were hardly forbidden.

“Anything further, Mr Darcy?”

“Nothing further.”

“Very well.” The Gaoler made a small mark in the ledger. “Your accommodation has been determined. You will be lodged in the Bell Tower, in a single room on the upper floor. The room has a fireplace, a chair, a table, a narrow bed, and a window of which the bars permit a view of the inner ward but not of the river. You will be permitted, on payment of the customary fees, to receive your meals from a private source, to have candles, fuel, books, and writing materials, and to instruct a servant to attend upon you within the bounds of the Tower. The fees are listed and may be settled by your solicitor or by such person as you may designate. You will not be permitted to receive visitors except at my discretion. Have you any questions?”

“My family have been informed?”

“They will be. The Earl of Matlock shall be advised directly. Once his lordship’s solicitor has left his card, he shall be admitted at my convenience.”

“Thank you.”

“You may also, if you wish, send out a single line by the next post acknowledging your safe arrival. The communication will be read.”

“I shall send it.”

“Very well.” The Gaoler stood. “Mr Darcy. You will forgive me for saying so, but I have had men of your standing in this office before, and the manner in which a gentleman conducts himself in the first hour of his confinement is generally a sound predictor of the manner in which he conducts himself in the months that follow. You have conducted yourself well. I shall hope to have no occasion to think otherwise of you.”

Darcy only inclined his head.

“This way, Mr Darcy.”

They took him up the stairs to the Bell Tower in the grey dawn light. The room was as the Gaoler had described it. A fire had been laid in the grate but not lit. The chair was at the table, and the table was beneath the window. The bed was narrow, and the blanket on it was clean. The door closed behind him. The lock turned.

He stood for some seconds in the middle of the room without moving. Then he sat down on the bed, because there was no longer any reason to stand. He put his face in his hands.

He had left her asleep. That was the part that would not leave him. He had eased himself out from under her arm and not woken her, because to wake her would have been to give her the chance to follow him down the stair, and he could not afford to have her at his elbow when the soldiers came through the door. He had stood up in the dark, found his coat by feel, kissed her temple once without pressure, and gone out. The door had not quite caught behind him. He had heard it not catch and chosen not to go back.