He gave me a concerned look. ‘What is it, sir?’
‘Sam?’ Ellie called. ‘Is he still there?’
Ellie’s voice pulled me back to my senses. I muttered something and hurried through into the living room. That scrap of rye bread brought back the memories of gnawing hunger, of trying to stave it by almost breaking my teeth on those indigestible, black husks. As he showed me to the door I wrestled to find a way to help him. I could hardly order a laboratory of glass to be delivered to Queen Street. I could not offer him money. He was too proud and Ellie would be suspicious. Then I saw it and had the idea. It came fully formed, all in that moment.
The one piece of furniture that had survived from more prosperous days was an old oak dresser. In the centre of it was a glass goblet, standing out against the dark wood.
‘Did you make that?’
He dismissed it as a poor piece that was not worth selling. Once I picked it up I could see the flaws. The glass was misty and the base chipped. But the curved line was beautiful and a delicate design was engraved round the rim. I knew little about glass, but Anne did. For Highpoint she bought ruinously expensive Venetian glass as clear and sharp as this was dull. The Venetians kept the secret of the clarity of their glass as closely guarded as a miser keeps gold. Sam told me the goblet was one of a number of experiments from which he hoped to find the secret and break the Italian monopoly.
‘What is going on down there?’ Ellie cried. ‘Help me up …’ she muttered. There followed a series of creaks and sighs, then a heavy thump came from the ceiling above.
‘Make me a goblet,’ I said to Sam.
He blinked at me, then shook his head. ‘I cannot. I will not sell such poor workmanship.’
‘That is to your credit but you don’t understand. I want you to experiment.’
‘Experiment?’
‘Isn’t that what you believe in? Make me a goblet as clear as Venetian glass. Discover the secret.’
Sam seemed determined to be his own worst enemy. ‘B-but if I fail?’
‘You won’t fail. I believe in you. I will make the investment.’
‘Investment?’
He gave me a bewildered stare as if he had never heard of the word. There was the rasp of a door opening upstairs. Through the partly open door at the bottom of the stairs I glimpsed the wavering edge of a nightdress, the ferrule of a stick. Sam continued stubbornly to stare at me. The idea began to feel hopeless and risky. He was too ill-educated to understand it. Or was his look that of someone who knows there is something wrong somewhere, but can’t quite put a finger on it?
‘If you succeed I will take a share of the profits,’ I said.
His face cleared. He understood that all right. His lips pursed and his expression became unexpectedly shrewd. There was a touch of the street child he was when I first met him, working in his mother’s brothel. ‘One th-third to you, t-two thirds to me.’
We were like two men betting at a cock pit. His face was flushed, his eyes standing out by his hooked nose. ‘Sixty–forty,’ I said. ‘The majority to you.’
‘Done.’
I clapped him on the back and drew out two sovereigns. ‘My initial investment. There will be more when the contract is drawn up.’
He gaped at the coins, turning them over in his hands as if he could not believe they were real, dropping one and scurrying after it. I hurried away as I heard the steady thump of the stick on the stairs, followed by an expelled gasp of air as Ellie made her tortuous way downstairs.
‘Wait! I do not know your name, sir.’
‘Black. My solicitor at Lincoln’s Inn will contact you.’
From the beginning, as soon as I recovered my senses in Queen Street, it seemed a hopeless project. The Venetians guarded their secrets well. I wrote to one of my spies in Venice, offering a reward for information on the process. For the first time the flow of money from Queen Street to Highpoint was reversed. I starved it of the income from the estate’s London properties which were now substantial. After a fire at Half Moon Court and complaints from neighbours, I invested in a new kiln and laboratory in Clerkenwell.
There I could visit him without any risk of seeing Ellie. He was kept busy making flasks and bottles where the quality of the glass did not matter.
He made no progress at all that I could see on the project I had invested in. At first I did not care. I loved his eagerness, his hope, his despair, his determination, his belief. He was the return on my investment, not the project for a brilliantly clear glass which seemed like the search for the philosopher’s stone.
Nevertheless, the more each firing failed, the more I was drawn into it. He tried different sands, different coals, higher and higher temperatures. Some days I got as excited as he did, sweating before the blistering heat of the kiln, waiting for the glass to form, spellbound as he blew and twirled the white-hot bubble, pacing up and down while waiting for it to cool. I was more optimistic than he was. It was better, I told him. I was sure it was clearer.
‘Look!’ I said.
‘Compare,’ he replied gloomily.
Compare it with the previous firings. Crucially, with the piece of Venetian glass he kept as a standard. I had to admit it was as foggy as ever.
‘You see like a politician, sir,’ he said sourly.
I reacted with some severity to his insolence, which he immediately apologised for; but I was secretly proud of him. Inside all that deference he was his own man. I had no inclination to acknowledge him as my son. It was too complicated. It might harm or even destroy our relationship; from birth I had had nothing but bitter experiences, both as son and as father. I enjoyed the secrecy. I had forgotten the pleasure of real work; of getting my hands dirty. I donned a smock in Clerkenwell and became Tom Neave; I hung it up, put on my cloak and rode back to Queen Street as Sir Thomas. My humours were perfectly in balance again.
I was affected in other ways. Living behind my desk or in meetings had removed me from the world where I had been brought up. Clerkenwell brought me back in touch with it. When the case came against the Quaker, Stephen Butcher, I went to see him in Newgate. I found that his main ambition was not to sing here, but in the New World. As a sailor, he was in a position to organise it. I withdrew my case against him and, with Highpoint money, funded his expedition, on the premise that it was both a more Christian and more effective way to clear the streets.
Mr Pepys not only bought me a large chop and a bottle of the best claret to thank me for Lord Montague vegetating in the country and not in the Tower. Knowing my inclinations, he offered to introduce me to a very pretty widow in straitened circumstances. To his surprise, and in a certain degree to mine, I refused, on the grounds that I was far too busy.
‘I thought you were out of office, sir.’
‘I have various projects.’ I waved an airy hand, as if they were affairs of state.
‘Are you, er … already accommodated?’
I shook my head and concentrated on my chop. He picked a shred of meat from his teeth, staring at me thoughtfully. ‘I do believe you are in love, sir.’
I laughed, spluttering wine and almost choking on my chop. ‘What absolute nonsense, Pepys!’
Obsession was the word I would have chosen. It was the third and most important of my projects. I wanted no diversion from the task in hand. I was determined to have Anne, and on my own terms. I made no more approaches. I was assiduous to her at supper. I took no more correspondence to table. I even took an interest in Luke’s clothes,