Free The Gunpowder Plot by Ann Turnbull Page B

hands.
    â€œCoal dust,” said Lucy.
    â€œAt least we
have
a coal store now, and don’t have to rent it,” Mistress Rowley said, turning back to her pastry-making. “There’s Mistress Bright across the way complaining that she’s lost hers since Master Whynniard let the big cellar to some gentleman or other. Though why any gentleman would need a cellar that size all to himself, goodness knows. Goes all the way under the House of Lords, that one does. There’s a door in our storeroom that used to connect to it. Well, now, young mistresses, I have work to do.”
    She shooed them out.
    Eliza and Lucy were not much interested in who rented the big cellar or where the entrances were – though back upstairs they made notes, as any good spy would. But then Eliza looked out of the window and said, “It’s stopped raining. We can go out this afternoon.”

   3   
    A Stranger
    â€œI must make a visit to the haberdasher’s and buy some sewing silks,” said Mistress Perks. “You girls can accompany me.”
    Eliza wished she and Lucy could go out alone, but that would never be allowed. As young gentlewomen they were always accompanied and supervised.
    The governess led them out through the cloisters to the open area of shops and market stalls. Here, all was noise and bustle. They saw squawking chickens hung up by their feet, a dairymaid leading a cow, women selling bread and fragrant herbs, an apothecary’s shop, and a milliner’s.
    Eliza watched her cousin looking about, interested in everything.
    â€œThere are so many little shops!” Lucy exclaimed. “You are lucky to have them so close to home, Eliza.”
    Some of the shops and houses were tiny, squeezed into corners. All the old buildings seemed to be joined at some point, with floors on different levels, and extra rooms and windows added bit by bit over hundreds of years.
    â€œThat hall up there is called the Prince’s Chamber,” Eliza told her cousin. “Father says they use it as a robing room for the Lords when they assemble.”
    Beneath the Prince’s Chamber was a row of houses and shops.
    As they turned to enter the haberdasher’s, a man came out of the house next door. His doublet was dirty, and he wore a battered high-crowned hat with the brim tilted to shade his face, but Eliza noticed his red-brown hair and beard and his bold gaze, and the way he held himself – straight and tall, like a soldier.
    He is dressed as a working man,
she thought,
and yet he has the bearing of a gentleman.
    The man saw Eliza looking at him and glared at her. He turned away swiftly, disappearing around the corner into Parliament Place.

    Mistress Perks drew the girls with her into the shop.
    As the governess hesitated over different coloured threads, Eliza whispered to Lucy, “Did you see that man?”
    â€œYes. Do you know him?”
    Eliza shook her head.
    â€œHe looks like an enemy,” said Lucy.
    * * *
    â€œI can tell you who that is,” said Walter Bennett.
    The girls had gone down to the kitchen in the hope of discovering more and had found Walter the handyman there, fixing a broken window catch.
    â€œHis name’s John Johnson,” Walter said, “and he’s a servant of Sir Thomas Percy that lives in Gray’s Inn Road. Johnson’s the new tenant at Master Whynniard’s house – moved there in the spring, so I heard.”
    Eliza looked at Lucy who frowned, and riffled through the notes they had made after listening to Mistress Rowley. “Sir Thomas Percy? Is he the gentleman who is renting the big cellar?”
    Walter Bennett looked at her in surprise. “Yes, that’ll be him! Seems you know as much as I do, almost. I heard this John Johnson is guarding a stock of fuel there for the gentleman. I saw him moving some firewood in a while ago.”
    â€œDoesn’t Sir Thomas Percy have his own cellar at