As Spike turned her head to look at the great building that she hated ever going near, Spike noticed a thin, scholarly man hurrying from the stables, towards the dovecot beyond.
The ever strict tutor, Robert Penhaligon, had been appointed to teach those Frenchie children, Juliette and Armande St Honory, who were always looking down their noses at Spike and her family, or so she thought. Nellie didn’t like Armande Count-Thingamy especially.
As she saw the tutor reach the dove house she suddenly wished they could have a bird at home, a pretty little yellow canary, in a golden cage. Or a rabbit, or a dog or cat. But their house was too small in London and their mother did not like pets, especially in her condition now.
Nellie suddenly noticed a sharp metallic glint from inside her brother’s shirt though.
“What’s that, Hal?”
Now Henry looked rather protective, but he reached inside his shirt slowly and pulled out a shiny round metal object, dangling on a fine silver chain. Henry Bonespair held up a silver disc, with the purest of white faces, covered in glinting glass, and cupped it carefully in his palm.
“WOW” gasped Spike, in wonder, “What’s THAT, Hal?”
Her brother was staring lovingly at the delicate porcelain face, with its two fine black hands and its expertly etched roman numerals. All my own, he was thinking.
He ran his thumb across the wrought guilt symbols, running around its edge, that looked like runes from some wizard’s spell book.
There was a Sun and Moon, an old ship, a cloud, an anchor, an ear, a chest, a nose, a flame, a door, an eye and what looked like a glove too. There were twelve beautifully etched symbols, in all. It was very fine workmanship indeed.
“A Chronometer, Spike,” her brother answered, “Mr Wickham gave it to me this morning, for my birthday. A very special present.”
The strange thing was rather large and quite thick too. It felt oddly tingly and warm now, as Henry wondered if the sunlight had heated it up.
His dark eyes fell on one symbol in particular though, at the right of the dial - the glove - and inside that great house the spying grown-up span the globe again.
The secret agent was thinking of his failed journey once more, and a dead French King too, as he stared at those innocent children, Henry Bonespair holding his very own watch, then thought of poor Queen Marie Antoinette, still held in prison in France, under the threat of execution too.
William Wickham stepped back behind the curtain, as Spike turned her head sharply and his thoughts were suddenly burning, as he began to contemplate his ever pressing problem.
The English spy’s clever plans had all failed, and his master’s network of clever secret agents were constantly being harassed or arrested now, no matter what brilliant disguises they used, especially by that beady eyed Frenchman, Charles Couchonet, waiting and watching all the time in the all important French entry port of Calais..
With Couchonet behind it, the cry on the borders was usually the same now though: “Stop there, Citizen! Show your papers, Citizen! Praise the French Republic, Citizen! Pity your English neck, Citizen Traitor!”
It was certain death to be caught on French soil now, especially as a spy, yet Wickham’s Master back in London had just issued special instructions for Wickham to get an agent to Paris urgently, and with a desperate purpose too.
The spy frowned darkly, thinking with hatred of what his bitterest enemy in Calais had done, that day the poor French King had died.
Then William Wickham span the Globe even faster and looked harder at Henry Bonespair. The bluff Yorkshire man had little time for children, but the spy almost liked the strange, large nosed lad. Certainly more than the boys who had bullied him so mercilessly at Harrow school.
Simon Bonespair’s son was usually polite, but full of spirit too, if his theatres were anything to go by, because Robert Penhaligon had told Mr Wickham all about the children’s favourite new game – “The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel”.
The spy snorted and bit his lip.
Pimpernel! How did that silly verse about this Scarlet Pimpernel go, thought the English secret agent angrily, and almost turning scarlet himself?
“They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere - Is he in Heaven, or is he in Hell, that Demmed Illusive Pimpernel?”
That was it. He was supposedly a dashing English hero then, to the gullible and innocent, at least. For cunning William Wickham had no doubt that a Scarlet Pimpernel, named after a silly little pimpernel flower, was a total fiction, dreamt up in London’s smoking rooms, to raise War moral and poke fun at the ancient French enemy.
If such a preposterous figure really did exist, then William Wickham would certainly have known about it, he always told himself, because the cunning spy knew everything important that went on in England now, or at least his Master did.
William Wickham felt almost jealous too, at the children’s clear admiration for the mythical hero, since Wickham could never reveal his own identity.
But then the Pimpernel’s very legend was a menace too, since it only showed up Wickham’s own blunders and constant mistakes. Like the mistake that had cost a King his head.
The blunders were getting worse too now. The massacres in France last September had ushered in the true horrors in France and with them France’s two great Revolutionary Committees, the Committees of Public Safety and Public Security.
Now though the spy thought hopefully of the gift that he had just given Henry Bonespair. It was why Wickham had been so ready to help his Land Agent’s dangerous journey into France tomorrow too.
Wickham had been as amazed as anyone else at Madame Geraldine’s strange request to see the youngsters in Paris, on the very eve of a war, and in the middle of a bloody Revolution.
He naturally suspected the real reason that Simon was so willing to take his children into such terrible danger though – which experience had long taught him really motivated men: Money. It had caused a Revolution, after all.
The rumour was that Madame Geraldine de Bonespair had a great deal of it, as the last in a long line of prosperous Huguenot lace makers, yet learning to hide their business profits abroad, before she had returned to Paris one sudden day, to marry again and settle there for good, or bad.
The marriage itself, though now her second husband had suddenly passed away, had been the reason for Simon Bonespair’s estrangement from his own mother, and it had threatened any hope of inheritance.
Now though it was time to repair the damage, so maybe a real fortune lay at the end of this very unusual little journey - a vast pile of Huguenot gold.
Yet as soon as William Wickham had heard of the perilous voyage, and with his own secret plans afoot too, the English diplomat had very readily helped the Bonespairs secure the necessary passes from the French Embassy in London.
He had even offered Simon Bonespair one of his own carriages, to take them all the way to Dover, while Mr Wickham was making his own tracks abroad, that very same day, to prepare for his new Diplomatic posting to Switzerland, the following year.
It was almost total madness, thought Wickham, as he watched Henry and his little sister by the old well, with the French Revolution poised on a knife edge now.
“Mr Wickham gave it to you!” gasped Spike outside, although she didn’t like her father’s employer either, “blimey, Hal, you lucky thing. Wot is it though? A Crow… No.”
“Chronometer, Spikey. It’s a sort of watch. A brand new Time piece, for telling the Time more accurately than ever before. Mr Wickham said it was made by Isaac Harrison himself.”
“Oh” said Spike, none the wiser.
“And we’ll all need clever things like this in the coming fight, Mr Wickham says,” said Henry hotly, “The genius of England, in our war with France.”
Eleanor didn’t know what a war really was, let alone a Revolution, although she knew that her brother and the boys in London were often fighting each other. Boys just did.
“Hal,
” she said suddenly though, “Can I carry it tomorrow? Pleeease, Hal. No one ever gives me presents like that. I won’t lose it. Promise.”
“No, Spike. You’re just a girl and there’s a war on now.”
“Not for you, Ninnee,” said Spike sourly, “not if you’re to be apprenticed.”
Henry Bonespair scowled and that feeling of glorious freedom suddenly vanished.
An apprenticeship had long been hanging over Hal Bonespairs’s poor head, marked out as he was to learn a trade with a French cousin of the family’s, named Monsieur Roubechon, a wine merchant in Paris - a vintner.
Of course the wicked Revolution had thrown the prospect into doubt, thankfully, but somehow hearing of Henry’s visit, this Roubechon had asked to see the boy too, and sent his father his Paris address.
So Simon Bonespair had decided they might kill two birds with one stone, since Mr Roubechon had partners in London too.
The Land Agent wanted to establish if his boy was really suited to the wine trade, so might be found some humble position in London first, and afterwards in Paris too, when the looming War was over, of course, and won by England.
Hal Bonespair suddenly wondered how long a war took, but he didn’t want to be a stupid vintner, and grow fat and old and red cheeked. What did the Frenchies call such silly people? Bourgeois.
Henry Bonespair wanted to join the army, or go to sea as a bold young Midshipman, or travel the world and have great and daring adventures. If truth be told, Henry Bonespair wanted to be so many things that he changed his mind every single day.
“Besides,” said Henry, “Mr Wickham only gave it to me on three conditions, Spike. That I wear it on all my journeys, that I remember to wind it, and that I conceal it at all times from the damned Frenchies too. He made me swear that especially, Spike, on my life. Oh, I wish we were leaving today.”
Hal suddenly wondered why hiding it from the Frenchies was so important, but he started flicking a little silver catch to the left of the strange watch, like a tiny metal tongue.
“What’s that do, H?” asked Spike.
“Dunno, Spike. Doesn’t seem to work. Not like this gold winding key on top. But look, these pictures around the dial move.”
Henry was even more delighted with Spike’s enormous, goggling green eyes now, as he twisted the thing and the symbols on an outer ring started to turn, in an arc, until that glove almost lined up with The Roman numerals XII, larger than the others and slightly raised on the surface: Twelve O’Clock. Midnight. The Witching Hour.
The sunlight made the porcelain flash suddenly, hurting their young eyes and there seemed to be a strange glow around the children.
“Hal,” whispered Spike, “The Nometer’s magic, I know it is.”
“Oh, don’t be so daft, Spike,” said her elder brother, “this is modern, just like us, and that Frenchie guillotine too. Scientific, F would call it. It’s just a watch.”
Just then a dove burst from the dovecot beyond, shooting across the bright blue heavens like a white arrow and with that the most bizarre thing happened. Suddenly the bucket slipped from the wall, plunging into the depths and Henry Bonespair thought he heard a muffled ‘Ouch’ from below.
Then Henry was sure he heard a man’s voice too, although it was impossible, whispering from somewhere inside the well itself, in an accent like Italian, which Hal had heard once in London.
It was like a hollow echo, caught up with the sound of those beating wings above.
“IS TIME BONESPAIR,” it seemed to say, “TIME.”
Hal jolted and thought of ghosts and tunnels and a haunted estate. Time for what? Henry and his sister leant in, peering down into the old well, to see nothing but the yawning drop and the water rippling far below them in the darkness.
Spike, who also loved hiding in small spaces and surprising people, suddenly wondered what it would be like to live down there, like a frog.
“See, Hal,” she whispered, “It’s magic. The bucket fell on its own. ”
“Oh come on, Spike,” said Henry irritably, “we’ve got to pack for France. I wish we were going right now. This waiting’s the worst. I’ll be dead before I ever have a real adventure.”
The two children turned away together and inside the great house William Wickham’s thoughts were turning even darker.
War with France had been declared now, and even in England suspicion and assassination were everywhere. Just as the French Revolutionaries themselves had overplayed the evils of the infamous Bastille though, where only eight prisoners had been living when it was stormed, so far the Royalist English newspapers had eagerly spiced up the horror in France too.
It was a story that sold papers daily.
Yet the English spy had no doubt that what was really coming would be every bit as terrible as the lurid news reports, especially if that French fanatic Maximillian Robespierre, or his closest allies, like Danton and Marat, ever managed to take power in France.
The French Revolution was about to enter its deadliest phase too – the blood soaked ‘Reign of Terror’ – which would coin a new word in the growing dictionary of human horror – TERRORISM.
The English spy stared at Henry Bonespair more intently, as the Bonespair children trotted off, and thought of that special watch, with something close to anguish now. His own father, a diplomat just like him, had given it to William Wickham, after the end of American Wars, and he had loved the thing as a boy himself.
Yet the secret agent would have it back again, he thought greedily now, just as Henry Bonespair’s temporary Birthday present must be swiftly removed, as soon as he arrived in Paris. What better way to fight Evil though, thought the spy, than with Innocence itself?
Wickham’s little plan was a gambol, because if that very special watch, and most especially what was hidden inside its strange mechanism now, ever fell into the hands of the terrible Committee of Public Security, then English spies would become a laughing stock abroad.
When people laughed nowadays though, others started to die.
Somehow its desperate secret must get through, thought the secret agent, because his Master’s identity, and the plan to strike at the very heart of the French Revolution, depended on it.
“Mr Wickham, Sir,” said a piping voice suddenly.
“Jesu man,” cried Wickham angrily, jolting like Henry Bonespair had and turning to see the tutor Robert Penhaligon suddenly standing in the doorway.
“I’m sorry Sir,” said the stiff tutor, with a thin, ironic smile, “I didn’t mean to fright you, Sir.”
“Fright me, man? Well, we’re all wound up now,” grunted Wickham, blushing and trying to hide his embarrassment, “but I must be leaving before dark Robert, via London, for Switzerland. The work of the Diplomatic service waits for no man.”
Wickham’s eyes narrowed significantly.
“No indeed, Sir,” answered Penhaligon softly. “And at my back I always hear, time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”
Wickham frowned at the famous quotation. It was considered ungentlemanly to quote things, but the tutor had just noticed a headline in that yellowed Newspaper too: Isaac Newton honoured posthumously by Royal Society.
“And ye must help Simon Bonespair and his son on their journey tomorrow, man,” said Wickham, “I’ve offered them me own carriage. Me second best.”
“Indeed Sir. Holmwood’s greasing it right now, Sir, and yours is ready too.”
“Good, Robert, good,” said the Yorkshire man, somewhat mollified, “You’re in charge when I’m gone and I want ye to keep a note of everything, and an eye on our Frenchie guests too. I fear for them, Robert, with their name, and French spies aboard.”
Penhaligon nodded.
“But first I want you to send out another little message, Robert, to tell our friends abroad to be especially vigilant now. The plan’s just getting underway.”
Again William Wickham thought of Hal with his special Chronometer and what else was at stake too: the honour of England’s most impo
rtant and mysterious spy network - The League of the Gloved Hand.
“Yes, Sir. Ever vigilant, Sir. Just as I always know my limitations.”
It was Robert Penhaligon’s his favourite phrase and the expression on his face was suddenly especially smug.
As the Bonespair children walked on down towards the lodge, at the bottom of the long drive, with its homely plume of smoke rising from a little stone chimney, from the big house not even the vigilant English secret agents noticed a shadowy figure beginning to follow them through the long avenue of trees.
The stranger was in an austere black coat, and he had arrived in England just a day earlier, on the express orders of the terrible Committee of Public Security.
“Peurette,” hissed another Frenchman, stepping up too, and also dressed in a long frock coat and tight black leather gloves: Frenchie gloves.
The first stranger squeezed his left wrist with his right hand, as if strangling something.
“Yes Deforlage,” he acknowledged, with a sinister smile.
“You think it’s them, Peurette - the children?
TWO – THE NEW CLUB FORMS
“In which we learn of an Itinerary, false starts, a kidnapping and the Club forms.”
The great morning was here at last and now the excitement in leafy Peckham was unbearable for the Rat Catchers.
Nellie and Henry Bonespair had hardly got any sleep at all, dreaming of their great adventure, of guillotines, revolutionaries and terrible Paris, giving Eleanor a horrible nightmare but making Henry’s ache to get going even more painful.
Now their mother Charlotte Bonespair was ringing her hands desperately in the little lodge house kitchen.
The woman was in her mid thirties, with soft green eyes and a kindly smile. Her tummy was very big indeed, nearing the end of her new pregnancy, which made Spike look at her a little nervously, sitting at the kitchen table now, kicking her heels.
She was dressed in a neat little floral dress that the tom-boy loathed. Spike suddenly wanted to dive under the table and hide. Her brother sat opposite Eleanor, the Chronometer strung proudly around his neck.