London (134 page)

Dear God, she thought, he thinks if he is masterful that I shall like him better. And she thought of Jack, who did not need to be masterful and, fairly or not, despised the man before her.

Lord St James was unbuttoning his long waistcoat.

“No!” She could not help herself. “Not now, my lord. I beg you, not now.” Why, after years of artifice, didn’t she either find a way out, or give in gracefully? It was all she had to do. Lady St James hardly knew herself. Perhaps it was the combination of events – the shock over Meredith’s failure to appear, together with her husband’s self-satisfied smirk – but for once she was not in control of the situation. She simply could not face it.

He took no notice.

“My lord,” her voice, though it had an edge of fright, was also icy. “I do not desire you now. Please leave.”

He took off his waistcoat and coolly laid it on top of his coat.

She flushed as she lied: “My monthly curse is come.”

“Really? We shall see.”

“You are not a gentleman,” she cried.

“I am an earl.” He turned and took her by the wrist. “And you belong to me.”

She tried to snatch her hand away, but he held her easily. She pulled again, violently, with all her force. His grip only increased. His free hand now caught her other wrist and, holding each he calmly drew them wide apart until her breasts were forced to brush against his chest. She found to her surprise that she could do absolutely nothing. She had never realized before how much physically stronger he was than she. Suddenly humiliated, she forgot even her own elegance, and jerked her knee sharply up to catch him in the groin.

It was a mistake. He swivelled just in time; her knee only hit his thigh; but she felt a spasm, then a great welling of rage suffuse his body, and knew, as though a red light had suddenly ignited in the back of her brain reminding her of ancient, more primitive human times, that he had the power to kill her with a single mighty blow.

He did not kill her. Letting go of one wrist, he slapped her hard in the face so that her head jerked back. Then, seizing her and lifting her bodily, he strode across and flung her on to the bed. A moment later, he was over her, holding her pinned.

“Now I will show you,” he breathed, “who is master.”

In the minutes that followed, despite the pain, it was his face that she chiefly remembered. Emerging through the bland mask he always wore, she saw features she had never seen before. Broad, hard, unyielding, it was the face of the ancient Bulls – yet, where theirs had been terrible when roused, in this face there was something petulant, spoilt, and therefore hateful.

Lord St James did not rape the countess – for the simple reason that law and custom both declared that such a word could not be applied when the victim was his wife. With a savage suddenness, he ripped her gown open and tore it off. Then, pausing only enough to loosen the flap of his breeches, he rammed himself into her viciously so that she cried out; and thrust with all his force, again and again, and again.

She was being hurt, badly. Her face was throbbing, too, from the blow he had given her. She could taste blood in her mouth. As much as the pain, the sense of being violated, humiliated, was terrible. She nearly screamed to the servants for help. Surely one of the footmen would hear. But what could they do? Challenge her husband and be dismissed? In any case, she was too proud to let them see this. Instead, summoning up all her remaining strength, she fought.

She had never had to fight before, but she did so now, like a wild cat. She tried to scratch, to kick, to bite, but found it was no use. The large, heavy man on top of her had her completely in his power. He was out to prove he was master. He was the earl, she was his wife. Her title, her house, her spending money and now, he was proving to her, her body, all belonged to him. And because God had made him a man, and her a woman, he had, in the end, the physical strength to dominate her and brutalize her as well.

“You will be mine, from now on, when I say, and as I please,” he said coldly, at last, when he had finished. Then he left the room.

Captain Jack Meredith sat on the little wooden bench and shivered. It was cold. The cell was small. Almost every crevice in the old stone walls could be seen by the light of the gnarled remains of a candle that guttered on the wooden table. For the last two hours he had pondered his situation, and always come back to the same conclusion. There was no way out.

He was in the Clink.

There were several prisons for debtors in Georgian London. The largest were the Fleet, outside Ludgate, and the Marshalsea in Southwark. But, as often happened, both were full that day and so he’d been sent to the nearest lockup with a vacancy, which happened to be the Clink. The little medieval prison of the bishops of Winchester had never been much of a place. Even in feudal days, when bishops ruled over the Liberty of the Clink and the brothels of Bankside, there had only been a few cells. Since the days of the Tudors and Stuarts, a few religious dissenters and suspected traitors had found their way there, but mostly it was used for debtors.

It was no joke to be a debtor in Georgian London. If your creditors obtained a judgment against you – as several of Meredith’s had done – you could be seized without further warning and put in gaol. There, until your debt was discharged, you remained. It could be for ever. And what sort of life could you expect in gaol? It was just this question that was occupying the mind of Jack Meredith when he heard the sound of a large key turning in the lock, and, a moment later, became aware that the door of his cell was starting, slowly, to open. Whoever was coming, it seemed, possessed a lantern. He also, clearly, believed in taking his time.

First came the tip of his nose.

The nose, whoever it belonged to, was clearly no ordinary affair. The dimensions even of the tip suggested that this was a nose of consequence, and not to be taken lightly. By the time it was halfway through the door, the daunting scale of the thing was becoming apparent. But when, at last, the whole, huge protuberance came into view, one could only gaze and surmise that there was none other like it, under the sun.

Behind it, as though in procession, followed two mournful eyes. Then a wig so dingy that it looked as if it had been used to clean the floor. And finally the whole, stooping person stood before the captain and addressed him thus:

“Ebenezer Silversleeves, sir, at your service. I am the keeper of the Clink.”

It was, like many such positions, an inherited post. Before Ebenezer, his father, and his father before him, had exercised their shabby authority over the little prison. You might almost say it was in their blood, since even before then, when the family were still in Rochester, they had been petty clerks or gaolers, ever since the days when Geoffrey Chaucer had encountered Silversleeves at the assizes four centuries before. Yet, prison-keeper though he was, when Ebenezer Silversleeves said he was at Meredith’s service, he meant it, every word. Captain Meredith was just the kind of prisoner he liked.

The rules of the Clink, like those of most prisons, were very simple. If you wanted bread and water, it was yours for the asking. If you wanted anything else, you paid Ebenezer.

“Oh dear, sir,” his opening gambit always began. “A gentleman like you shouldn’t be in here.” He would indicate the dark little cell with disgust. He had a quite commodious chamber next door, he would then explain, in the remains of the old bishop’s palace, that was much more suitable and could be had for – depending on his guess at the gentleman’s means – a shilling or two a day. Naturally the gentleman would be wanting a decent dinner, a bottle of wine. Why in a day or two he could probably be almost as comfortable as if he were at home. For a price, of course.

And how was a gentleman in debt to pay for such things? It was amazing what Silversleeves could arrange. No matter how disastrous their finances, fine gentlemen nearly always had items of value upon them. A gold watch, a ring – he’d sell it for you and bring you most of the money in no time. Better yet, he could send a fellow discreetly to your house to remove small items of value from under your creditors’ noses. Gentlemen had friends, too. They might not pay the debt, but would often keep the gentleman in modest comfort during his incarceration. When you had got through all this, Silversleeves could still be of service. Your fine coat could be sold and another, serviceable enough, would replace it while you lived a few weeks more on the proceeds. He’d even get a price for your wig. And when even the clothes on your back had been sold and all your friends had quietly departed – why there was always the dark cell, snug enough for a beggar in your condition, and a nourishing diet of bread and water to sustain you for as long as you were able to live.

“Give me a gentleman whom his creditors have fleeced,” he would tell his children, “and I’ll show you how to skin him.”

So when Captain Meredith informed him that he had no money at present, serviceable Ebenezer was not put off at all; Meredith had no sooner turned out his pockets than the helpful keeper spied a metal disc. A theatre token, allowing the bearer access to the Covent Garden theatre for the rest of the season. “Why I could get a few pounds for that, sir,” he declared, “and you’ll hardly be needing it now.” And he took it in a trice.

Would the gentleman, he asked, be wishing to communicate with his friends?

Jack Meredith sighed. He had been wrestling with that problem for the last hour. As soon as he did so, all London would know. His humiliation would be public. His chance of a game of cards would vanish over the horizon. Soon, he supposed, people would know anyway; but he’d like another day to collect his thoughts.

One letter however, in common courtesy, was due. He must at least explain his failure to appear to the Countess of St James. The question was, how much should he tell her? Could he trust her? He was not sure.

“Can you arrange,” he demanded at last, “for a letter to be delivered with discretion?”

Eleven o’clock had just struck when the man, who had been waiting for Lord St James to go out, approached the door of number seventeen, Hanover Square and, shortly afterwards, was admitted to the chamber of her ladyship to whom he now handed the letter. Respectfully he waited to know if there was a reply. He noticed that her ladyship looked pale.

Lady St James was sitting on the chaise. She had propped herself up with a pillow behind her. Spread over her legs was a shawl. There were great, dark rings under her eyes. She had not slept.

When her husband had left her the previous night, and she had risen, shakily from her bed, she had not called her maid. All alone, she had filled a basin of water from the pitcher on the night stand and, as best she could, straddled over the basin, and tried to wash all trace of her husband away. Then she had sat down on the chaise, covered herself, and remained there for the rest of the night.

Once, very quietly, she had wept. Several times she had suffered little fits of shaking. She was aching. She felt bruised in body and in mind. For hours she just sat, staring ahead of her. But gradually, before dawn broke, she began to recover herself.

If her husband thought she would submit, she would not. She had managed to have her own way so far and she would do so again. Tonight, he had merely made himself repulsive, untouchable, for ever. But what could she do? Run away and leave him? She’d have almost no money. Find a rich protector, a lover presumably? Easier said than done even for a society beauty. I should probably have to go abroad, she thought. Would Captain Meredith flee with her? She supposed he could afford to, but was not sure he would. Whatever the solution, she knew one thing: she refused to be helpless. Her shivers subsided and ceased. Her shock and hurt were slowly converted to a silent, burning rage. If Lord St James thought she was weak, and that she could be humiliated, he would learn better. A serpent, too, may be stamped upon, she thought. But take care when the serpent slips away and then rises. By the light of the morning, her anger was controlled, hard, and deadly.

“I will strike him,” she vowed, “like a snake.” And she wondered, hour after hour, how she would do it.

Now the letter from Captain Jack Meredith gave her an idea.

“Tell him,” she told the messenger from the Clink, “to be patient a few hours. I may be able to help him in his troubles.”

Sam Dogget also had an idea.

The start of May was a jolly time. On the May Day holiday, the maypoles were erected. Apprentices dressed in their best clothes, milkmaids wore garlands, and pipes, drums and hurdy-gurdies were heard in the streets. Since time out of mind, a big fair had been held in the area north of St James so that even now, when the elegant streets and squares above Piccadilly were filling up the area, it still kept the old name of Mayfair.

And – a more modern but charming touch – the chimney-sweeps, of whom, thanks to all the fine new houses, there was now a veritable tribe, had their own procession through the streets.

Sam and Sep were standing in Grosvenor Square watching the sweeps go by, when Sam thought of it.

The sweeps were a cheerful enough crowd: grimy and soot-covered on working days, they were scrubbed clean and dressed in sparkling white shirts and breeches for May Day. But what really caught Sam’s attention were their assistants. Each sweep had one or two of these – small boys, some as young as five or six. These were the little sweeps who were sent up the chimney itself when the long-handled brush could not negotiate a corner. Their job was filthy: half-choked with soot, they might have to climb thirty feet up the blackened tunnel. And their lot was often very hard. If the sweep was their father, they were probably all right; but if they were orphans, or sent out to work by their poor family, their treatment might be harsh. It was quite common, however, for a householder, or even one of the servants, to take pity on these little fellows and slip them some money or a present of food. If you were clever, Sam had heard, you could make some money. Something else had occurred to him, too.

These sweeps got into the grand Mayfair houses. They visited every room. His face broke into a grin.