It Might Have Been: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot

by Emily Sarah Holt

Aubrey quitted the White Bear with the full intention of carrying out his grandmother’s behest. But not just now. He must do it, of course, before he saw her again. Lady Oxford might take it into her head to pay a visit to Lady Louvaine, in which case it would surely be discovered if the question had not been passed on. Of course it must be done: only, not just now. He might surely spend a few more pleasant evenings at Winter’s lodgings, before he set on foot those disagreeable inquiries which might end in his being deprived of the pleasure. Lady Oxford, therefore, was not troubled that evening,—nor the next, nor indeed for a goodly number to follow. But within a week of his visit to the White Bear, when the sharp edge of his grandmother’s words had been a little blunted by time, and the cares of other things had entered in, Aubrey again made his way to the lodgings occupied by Winter at the sign of the Duck, in the Strand, “hard by Temple Bar.”

There were various reasons for this action. In the first place, Aubrey was entirely convinced that the judgment of a man of twenty-one was to be preferred before that of a woman of seventy-seven. Secondly, he enjoyed Winter’s society. Thirdly, he liked Winter’s tobacco. Fourthly, he admired Betty, who usually let him in, and who, being even more foolish than himself, was not at all averse to a few empty compliments and a little frothy banter, which he was very ready to bestow. For Aubrey was not of that sterling metal of which his grandfather had been made, “who loved one only and who clave to her,” and to whom it would have been a moral impossibility to flirt with one woman while he was making serious love to another. Lastly, the society of his friends had acquired an added zest by the probability of its being a dangerous luxury. He loved dearly to poise himself on the edge of peril, though of course, like all who do so, he had not the slightest intention of falling in.

On the evening in question, Betty made no appearance, and Aubrey was let in by her mistress, a plain-featured middle-aged woman, on whom he had no temptation to waste his perfumes. He made his way up the stairs to Winter’s door, and his hand was on the latch when he heard Percy’s voice.

“Through by the seventh of February! You’ll be nothing of the sort.”

“I cry you mercy. I think we shall,” answered Catesby.

Aubrey lifted the latch, and entered.

Four gentlemen sat round the fire—Winter and Catesby; Percy, whom Aubrey knew, and in whose hand was the pipe; and a fourth, a tall, dark, and rather fine-looking man, with brown hair, auburn beard, and a moustache the ends of which curled upwards.

“Ha! Mr Louvaine? You are right welcome,” said Winter, rising to greet his young friend, while Percy took his pipe from his lips, and offered it to the latter. Nobody introduced the stranger, and Aubrey took but little notice of him, especially as thenceforth he sat in silence. He might have paid more if he could have known that after three hundred years had rolled by, and the names of all then known as eminent men should have faded from common knowledge, the name of that man should be fresh in the memory of every Englishman, and deeply interesting to every English boy. He was in the company of Guy Fawkes.

To appear as a nameless stranger, and indeed to appear at all as little as possible, was Fawkes’s policy at this moment. He was just about to present himself on the stage as John Johnson, “Mr Percy’s man,” and for any persons in London to know him by his own name would be a serious drawback, for it was to a great extent because he was unknown in Town that he had been selected to play this part. Yet matters were not quite ready for the assumption of his new character. He therefore sat silent, and was not introduced.

They smoked, sipped Rhenish wine, and chatted on indifferent subjects, for an hour or more; discussed the “sleeping preacher,” Richard Haydock, then just rising into notoriety—who professed to deliver his sermons in his sleep, and was afterwards discovered to be an imposter; the last benefaction in the parish church, for two poor Irish gentlewomen on their journey home, recommended by letters from the Council; the last new ballad.