Lady Rogue (11 page)

Chapter Twelve

The great scarred doors of Newgate prison clanged shut behind Garrick.  Uppermost in his mind was anger that such a place was necessary, but his anger was tempered by a twinge of sympathy for those who dwelled within.
What a horrible place
, he thought, eyeing the rough, heavy walls, the massive doors plaited with irons and mounted with spikes.  Starkly impressive in a sinister way, but a good place to avoid. 

"I got two of them for you.  I think you'll be pleased."   Charles Townsend held up his head and thrust up his chin proudly.  "Just come along with me and identify them and they'll be on their way to
the judge and the hangman."

"Lead the way."  The stale odor of rotting straw and other unpleasantries assailed Garrick's nostrils
, and he flinched. Had there been any other way he would never have condemned another man to this.  He grumbled against the Bow Street Runner's cheerfulness.  He found no joy in this matter, only a sense of duty.

"Oh, this  smell is terrible!"  Ollie coughed and stiffled a sneeze with his linen handkerchief. "I said I'd come with you, old boy, but let's identify your blackguard and be quick about it.  I dare say the stench in here is
enough to gag a swineherd!" 

"I'm as anxious to be away from here as you, of that I assure you," Townsent shot back with a wry smile, "but once set into motion these things must be completed. It must be on record that there was postive identification.
And you must agree to be called as a witness."

"Then lets be
about it,"  Garrick said brusquely.  He wanted to put this matter behind him and get on with his life. The rogue had set upon him, robbed him and thought to have him killed.  Now he must pay his dues to society.

"Come, come!"

Garrick and Ollie followed after the swaggering runner into the depths of the prison. The nauseating reek of Newgate assaulted them all the more the farther they went and pressed upon them like an enveloping cloak.

"What is that horrible odor?"  Ollie covered hi
s nose with his handkerchief.

"The smell of death," Townsend answered over his s
houlder.  "The inmates call it ‘Newgate perfume’.  The hangman leaves his ‘gibbet fruit’ swinging all week before he cuts them down, as a special lesson to those inside here.  A way of frightening them into abandoning their life of crime, ye might say."

"Dear God!"  Garrick exclaimed.  It seem
ed a most hideous thing to do.

"Does....does it...it work?"  Ollie looked over his shoulder as if fearing something or someone might suddenly pop out at
him.  An angry ghost perhaps.

"I suppose it does. Sometimes
. The Chaplain of Newgate, the ‘Ordinary’, as we in the business call him,  seems to think so.  In addition, he preaches a traditional sermon to those who are under sentence of death, as if that would do any good."  Townsend chuckled.  "Oh, they group around a coffin as he rants and raves and some of them goes into fits of trembling.  Serves as a warning to their fellow prisonsers, at least."

"I dare say!"  Ollie touched his neck,
loosening his cravat.  "I...I never really realized."  He stayed close to Garrick as they moved along.                           

"Though you'd be surprised at the bravado some of these lads express.  Masking their despair behind a show of courage
, I might suppose.  They laughingly speak of "dying dunghill", expressing contempt for authority as if that would do them any good."  Townsend clucked his tongue.  "Make what you will of it."

Garrick had thought himself prepared for what he'd find behind the prison bars
, but he was wrong.  The noisy, clamorous, pathetic creatures who shuffled along with a length of chain between their ankles, or hovered behind the grating, striking at the iron bars with spoons, made his stomach lurch.  It was like glimpsing  purgatory.  There was a look of hoplessness in the staring eyes that touched his soul.  For the first time since he'd visited the Bow Street Office he felt a flicker of remorse, a sentiment that vanished the instant he entered the the huge stone cubicle that held the glaring, black-bearded ogre.

"Argh.....!"  Clutching at the bars
, the man hurled vile epitaphs at the guards, threatening them with retribution.  "I 'ave friends in 'igh plaices.  They'll see that I get out of 'ere.  And when I do I'll cut off yer ears and boil 'em in oil!  I'll geld yer....I'll......"  Catching sight of Garrick he ceased his tirade and stiffened.  "You....!"

"Yes, me...!" Seeing him again
,  Garrick felt a storm of anger, yet he managed to keep it cooly under control. "That's him!" he said icily.

"So, yer ain't dead!"  The beady eyes
that appraised him reflected the dozens of devious thoughts whirling through that shaggy-haired head.

"No, I'm among the living as you
can see.  No thanks to you."

"Yer was supposed to be  d.......I was told that.......    Argh....!"  In a frenzy of anger the bearded robber leader pulled at  t
he bars that held him captive.

"You were told....."   Garrick misunderstood, thinking the man to be talking about the young prostitute. So she
had
been sent to kill him  The murderous little trollop.  "Your little doxy must have gotten cold feet.  Oh, she came back all right, knife in hand, but she slit my bonds instead of my throat." 

“
Oh she did, did she?”
  The flesh that showed around the beard turned bright red.  The man's  eyes nearly popped out of his head as he barred his teeth.  He reminded Garrick of a snarling animal. His anger was a terrible thing to see.  "She put me 'ere!  Well, I'll repaiy 'er, I will.  She'll wish she was never born!"

"You won't be enacting revenge on anyone.  Not where you're going, which no doubt wil
l be straight to hell after you’re hanged!"  Charles Townsend nudged the mumbling man  back from the bars with the tip of his quizzing glass, a monocle with a handle attached, such as the young dandies often sported.  "And hang ya will.  Now get back!"

"No.  I don't want him hanged
!"  Garrick was emphatic on that fact.  He'd not have another man's life on his conscience, no matter the reason.  Besides, in some ways being imprisoned was worse than hanging.  It gave a man time to think about his past sins.

"What?"  Townsend stared at Garrick as if he were an odd
ity.  "Don't want him hanged?"

"That's what I said."  Garrick explained solemnly. "If I am the cause of his death I will be no better a man than he."  He shook his head.  "No, I will not be responsible for another man's demise.  Hanging is a barbaric custom which clearly reveals us to be uncivilized."  Garrick remembered the times he'd witnessed such punishment aboard ship, that and the just as savage discipline of keelhauling, dragging a man beneath the ocean the length of the ship.  It had made his blood run cold.  Life was too precio
us a gift for any man to take.

"You must be daft!
” Oliver gasped.  “This man is a thief and mayhap worse.  He tried to kill you, Garrick.  What can you be thinking?”

Townsend eyed Garrick up and down through his spectacle. "Don't be fooled into thinking
he
would do ye like turn.  He has the look of a killer.  Believe me, I'm an authority on such things."  Folding his arms across his massive girth, Townsend was steadfast.  "I say he deserves a hanging. Besides, it won’t be up to you but to the judge."

“Then I’ll tell him my views on the subject aswell,” Garrick retorted, determined to have his way.

Townsend snorted his disdain again. “Bloody hell you will! Never mind. Your views won’t be worth a tinker’s damn. This one should and will hang.”

“No, I won’t. I’ll escape the noose somehow. Meanwhile, I’ll wring yer neck if yer don’t shut up, yer little pig!” Black John growled. Throwing himself at the bars as if hoping to break through, he swore a multitude of oaths.

“I repeat, I want it set down for the record that I don’t want him hanged.” Turning his back on Townsend, Garrick was firm on the matter. “Keep him here or transport him, I care little which.”

“It’s not for you to say!” Townsend started to argue then threw up his hands. “I’ll talk to the judge and see what I can do, but it’s against my better judgement.” Mumbling beneath his breath, he led them o to another cell. “Here’s the other one.”

Garrick peered into the gloom at the figure huddled on the straw.  Just a boy really. The young man was sobbing, his shoulders quaking.   The very sight of the pathetically frightened youth touched something deep within Garrick desolving his prior anger.  "Son......"  he said gently.   The young man turned his head, peering at Garrick from tear-reddened eyes.  Something about the young man seemed all wrong.  "I don't believe that's the one."  Garrick gazed intently at the frightened youth, determined not to make a mistake.   "Bring him into the light so I can be certain." 

"You heard him.  Bring the lad up to the bars."  A turnkey obeyed Charles Townsend's command, unlocking the door and pu
shing the young man forward. 

Studying every angle and line of the prisoner's face Garrick said at last, "it's
not
the one!"

"Are you certain?"

"Very."  The image of that young thief was emblazoned in his mind.  "I remember the lad who accosted me. His hair was darker."  At Townsend's doubtful expression he reiterated,   "Believe me, I remember the  scoundrel."

"But he was with......"

"I don't care!  He's not the one who picked my pocket."  Garrick was secretly pleased with the youth's innocence in the matter.  Now he could see that the boy was sent scurrying from this dreadful place.  "Set him free."

"Set him free?  But he was w
ith that black-bearded giant."

Cocking one brow
, Garrick looked down his lofty height at the runner.  "My dear sir, if we were all judged by the company we’ve kept we'd all be behind bars. I know I've made a mistake now and again.  Can you say that you have not?"

"No, but...but...well I have it
in mind to catch them all!"  Townsend jabbed his finger towards the cell where the robber leader was secured.  "I've had my eye on nabbing that one and his den for a long time.  Before you came along."  For just a moment he seemed to be talking more to himself than to Garrick.  '”There are so many thieves in London.  Thousands in fact and I want my reputation to say that I have been instrumental in ridding the city of their evil."

"Did the yo
ung man do anything unseemly?"

"No!"  He knew the law to be
imperfect. Even when someone was known to have a criminal past it was difficult to make a verdict stick without either evidence or an eyewitness to the deed.  "All right!" Grumbling, Charles Townsend gave the order.

"Thank you, Sir!  Thank you!"  As the turnkey opened the door
, Murdock knelt and took Garrick's hand.  "I'll do yer a like turn some daiy, I will!"  As he was hustled off he looked over his shoulder and his eyes shown with sincere gratitude.

"Well......  So much for that!"   Townsend was clearly perturbed but he bowed his head politely.  "I have done what you paid me to do.  My part is finished, at least for the moment."  He held out his hand for the remainder of his fee
.

"Come on, Gar.  Let's get out of here."  Oliver was understandably in a hurry to leave and showed his impatience b
y tugging on Garrick's sleeve.

Watching until the young thief had vanished down the corridor, Garrick at last turned towards Oliver.  "All right, w
e're finished here."  Actually Garrick was disgusted with the entire matter and anxious to put it all behind him. The young man's plight only reminded him how helpless he was to right all of the wrongs in the world.  In his youth he had tried, only to know the taste of defeat and disillusionment.  "We've got drawings to do."  As he'd said to Ollie, at least he could help to make it a beautiful  city, if not a truly just one.   "I haven't lost hope that your merchant will give us a second chance ."

"That old tightwad?  He'll make me get down on my knees, but I'll do it."  He prodded Garrick down the hallway.  "He's threatened to deduct money from us for the time he wasted  waiting on the dock.  Sh
all I allow him such liberty?"

"Most definitely not!  Had he been on time in the first place I might never have suffered
this knob on my  noggin.”  Garrick ran his fingers through his hair, touching that still sensitive spot, wincing from the memories it still brought forth. Well, at least one of the villains had been apprehended. Now that he knew for certain that the young doxy had meant to be his executioner, he'd see that she was found as well. "But come along, we'll discuss this more thoroughly when we get back to the office."
              Garrick and Oliver left the walls of Newgate, thankful that they were free to leave its doleful memory behind.
             

Chapter Thirteen

Through the tiny window of the room she shared with Taddie, Dawn could hear the sounds of
Soho: the clatter of the carts, the barking of the hounds, the din of pedestrians as they wound their way past  shops, the voices of peddlers hustling their wares in a strange, chattering tongue.   Soho was a bustling district of narrow dowdy streets.  The principal foreign quarter of London where thousands of French Protestant refugees had once fled to avoid persecution.  Now other peoples were represented as well.  It was here, where Soho and Bloomsbury merged, that Robbie and his band had sought shelter.

The group had  l
odgings in the "front one pair"- the front rooms up one flight of stairs.   A group of 
jobbers
lived in the back:  carpet beaters, chimney sweeps, dustmen, who seemed content to mind their own business as they should. Recently gas lighting had been installed on a few of the streets in Soho.  To deter crime, Robbie had said,  annoyed and apprehensive lest it become a trend.  He abhored the lamps which interfered with his "profession", though  as he said, the cleverest of thieves could always find a way to lure their victims into the shadows.

Soho
was an interesting area. Many of the local brigands pretended to be foreign or actually had come from distant shores.  Robbie advised Dawn to watch them closely. They were well trained to leave no traces in avoiding arrest.

Smoke
stacks from factories, church spires, and steeply pitched roofs rose in a hodgepodge against the sky. A dark cloud hung over Soho as smoke from hundreds of chimneys, forges and furnaces mingled in a thick suffocating fog. Clouds of sulphur, full of stink and darkness,  often left clothing covered with soot. But Dawn ignored the smoke as she leaned over the sill. There was a lining to every cloud if one just looked hard enough and today promised to be a bright, sunny day.

She basked in her contentment.   Now that Robbie was leade
r of their small band, life was more peaceful. Whereas before she'd been forced to share a sleeping room with several of her gang, now she relished her semi-privacy.  Though the glass windowpanes of the building were broken and patched with rags, the walls chipped and peeling,  the floor boards cracked beyond repair, she hardly seemed to notice.                           

And
Murdock had returned, espousing his tale of the brown haired, elegant toff who had been instrumental in setting him free.  It softened Dawn's heart to know that he had shown the lad some measure of kindness. Perhaps his heart was not as hard as she had supposed. 

"Gor
,  wot a fine one 'e was!  Ordering the turnkey to let me out.  I'd loike ter be jus' loike 'im somedaiy."  Murdock had said upon his return.

"A gentlemon?"  The other thieves had roared with laughter
, but Dawn had staunchly come to Murdock's defense.

"And why not?" she had asked peevishly.  "Everyone needs 'is dream.  Is it really so far fetch
ed that any one o' us could be ‘quality’ if we tried?"  With her nose stuck haughtily in the air she had affected the strut of those aristocrats they often saw strolling the markets and gardens.  "Wot seperates us from them, eh?  Money, 'ats wot.  And circumstances."

"Luck, sheer luck, 'ats wot," Jamie countered.  "Some o' 'em was born into their fortunes, though they don't do a lick o' work.  Any more than we do..."   He guffawed loudly
, striking Farley on the back.

"They talk differently, dress differently and turn their noses up at us,"  Taddie exclaimed.  "As if we was jus' lit
tle worms crawlin' underfoot."

"Aye, but underneath their skin they bleed jus' the same as us," Farley grumbled.  "They breath the saime air, walk the saime str
eets and the loike."

"There ain't a one o' us who isn't just as good as any o' them.  I truly believes that, I do.  If Murdock wanted to become a gentlemon, I think 'e could, just as I could become a laidy if I set me mind to it."  Dawn punctuated her sentences
with a toss of her dark curls.

"Oooooooh.  Laidy Rogue!"  The men all bowed mockingly in unison, except Murdock who had a thoughtful expression.

"Laidy
? They'd squash yer loike a bug if yer was to even try," Jamie said earnestly.   "They want ter keep us roight where we are, Dawnie me dear.  They loikes ter look down on us.  Our poverty and grime maikes 'em feel lofty."

"Aye, they don't care if we starves.  They don't see us as human.  Oh, I tried to plaiy it straight, I did.  Tried to get me a job once,"  Farley crinkled his brow as he remembered.  "Twelve hours a daiy I toiled at that factory, and for what.  I barely made enough to strike two coins tog
ether.  I maike far more now."

"They'd never accept ye into their social circles."  Jamie was protectively adament. 
“All ye'd get fer yer efforts is a broken 'eart!  Better to make due wi' yer life 'ere, as dismal as it is at toimes." 

Dawn's optimism was overruled by the others in a cacophony of voices, but still she held steadfastly to her dream.  Why was her notion foolish?  Once she and Robbie had been on the opposite side of the social scale, living in a fine house, wearing finery, even talking differently than they did now.  If not for ill fortu
ne they might still be there. Why couldn't she cross back over if she tried?  Why should she shrug off the idea as impossible?

Dawn couldn't push away her dreams
. Now that Black John was no longer there to goad her on, Dawn had lost her incentive for thievary.  She hated it!  As the days wore on she pilfered fewer and fewer hankies. Her thoughts soared beyond her sordid surroundings, and she found herself fantasizing more and more that she was a great lady, the toast of London.  At the center of every dream was her handsome gentleman.  Oh, how she longed to become a lady!

Despite the danger of
lurking  runners, she visited the old quarters every other day to feed her cat.  She'd brought Shadow home to Soho but  the puss had a mind of its own and kept returning to its old haunts.  Dawn vowed she would not interfere with the cat's freedom.  Independence was a precious thing.  Shadow was a skilled mouser and had managed to get along quite well before she had adopted her.  A visit now and then to scratch the cat's chin and keep her company was all she would ask.  Just like Shadow, she wished for her own independence.

"If only I 'ad a means of saving me shillings, I could use them to further meself.  Learn how to talk like me mum used to.  But how.....?"  The very thought made her f
eel guilty, for just as it had been in Seven Dials,  the rule here was to look after your own.  Thieves had a code of honor that spoke of caring about each other.  Dawn's dreams seemed somehow disloyal to the others, and yet she couldn't get the thought out of her head.  If she made a good living honestly, the next time she came in contact with her gentleman she could hold up  her head proudly.

Black John had stashed away his profits, that she knew, and she sensed that it was hidden somewhere in that old, dingy, dirty room he had called his own.  It was Dawn's hope that
somehow she might stumble upon his treasure, that she and Robbie and the others would benefit.  Oh, how lovely it would be if she could be instrumental in bringing them all out of poverty.             

"Dawnie?  Wot ails yer?"  Taddie came up behind Dawn, her voice startling he out of her daydream
s.  "Yer keep wiping at that  saime spot on the window sill.  It must be clean by now."

"Clean?"  Dawn laughed as she turned around.  "As clean as it could possibly be."  Seeing a concoction of flowers on Taddie's head
, she moved closer for a second look.

"Ooooooh, I knows it's frivolous, me buying this 'at wi' me hard-earned shillings and all, but it maikes me feel pretty, it does.  I don't think there's a woman alive 'oo don't l
oike a new 'at."

"An 'at!"  A seemingly preposterous idea was taking form in Dawn's mind.  Hadn't
Petticoat Lane become a thriving  business, selling used dresses, handkerchiefs and other wearing apparel.  What if she was to do the same thing, only specializing in hats? 

When she was a little girl her father had always told her she was good with her hands.  How disappointed he would have been had he known to what use she would put them.  But
remaking old hats intofashionable creations might be an answer. And it was honest work.

"I could saive me shillings and
use them to further meself." 

"Do wot?"

"Never mind....."

It was an intriguing idea.
Pulling her mob cap over her hair, Dawn hurried from the room.  "I'm going out!" She'd go to the toff's area of town, look in the windows and get some ideas for her own creations.