The Masters of Bow Street (10 page)

Muddy water splashed as carriages and wagons went too fast through deep ruts; the walkers moved as far away from them as they could but few could avoid being spattered. Ruth was within ten yards of the lane where she would turn when a carriage-and-two went dashing by and mud splashed her from foot to waist. Two prostitutes standing against the open door of Charlie Wylie’s brothel, dresses tight at neck and obviously going shopping, roared with laughter.

Ruth turned into the lane, then into the open door of Hewson’s, as a woman of much elegance was assisted into a bright-red sedan chair; the chairboys nearly scraped the chair against Ruth as she pressed against the wall. Mrs. Hewson, tall and high-cheeked, looked down her nose as Ruth bobbed.

‘Good morning, ma’am.’

‘Don’t you know better than to come in here with that filth on your clothes?’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but I was splashed just before I came in.’

‘Do you think I’m blind?’ Mrs. Hewson demanded. ‘I hope Madame Tover did not know you were coming here or she would be shocked. You can’t be allowed in the sewing room like that. Go to Mrs. Hay, and if there is any work to take home, she will give it to you.’

There was only a little, some petticoats for the children of a merchant, but she would earn enough at least to keep the family for two days.

Ruth took the bundle wrapped in coarse cloth and hoisted it beneath her arm, grateful for what she had but stirred nearly to anger by Mrs. Hewson’s manner. She went this time towards Whitehall because if she walked along St. Martin’s Lane she might find some scraps of beef and some bones. Hennessy’s, the butcher’s, had been raided by robbers two years ago and the old man and the two sons who owned the business had been badly injured and robbed of three hundred pounds. Within a few days Richard had caught the thieves; within three weeks both had been hanged. For a few months Richard had arrived home on Fridays with a joint of beef, or a leg of mutton, a gift from the grateful Hennessys. Now at least they would save scraps for her and, she believed, sometimes ‘scraps’ they made up for her. It was her turn to be grateful whether she liked to beg or not.

As she waited at a corner for traffic to slacken she saw a woman inside a brougham with a handsome man at her side. The woman glanced sideways but did not appear to notice her. Richard had pointed her out to Ruth one Sunday two years ago. It had been near here when they had been walking through St. Martin’s Fields and admiring the magnificence of the new church.

‘There she is, my love, the famous or the notorious Mrs. Braidley, take your choice. They say she is the highest paid whore in London.’

‘Richard! You should hot say such things!’

‘You speak more true than you realise,’ Richard had replied, still laughing. ‘If the great John Furnival were to hear me he’d throw me out of his service, and then where would we be?’

‘You mean he goes to her?’

‘No, m’dear. He is one of the favoured few; they do say there are only three left. She goes to him.’

‘Have you actually seen her, close to?’

‘I’ve even held the lady’s cloak and been bewitched by her dazzling smile,’ Richard had boasted, eyes laughing at Ruth. ‘Haven’t you noticed the time when I’ve come home, walking on air?’ A few minutes later, very soberly, he had gone on to say, ‘Mr. Furnival and Mrs. Braidley are good friends, Ruth. She doesn’t go to him simply a- whoring. I’ve heard him laugh with her more than with any woman - or any man, for that matter. She’s good for him, and a man who works as hard as he does needs to relax.’

‘And how hard do you work, sir?’

‘I do my relaxing at home with my wife!’

They had laughed together and had soon forgotten.

Now, she remembered. She asked herself what Richard would have her do, and unexpectedly smiled; the notion was so absurd. For a few moments she caught some of the light-heartedness she had so often known with Richard and it did not go immediately when she went into Hennessy’s tiny shop and saw the two brothers whispering, one small and one big, each in blue-and-white apron with cross stripes, the white stained with blood. The larger of the two greeted her heartily while the small one vanished into the storeroom.

‘Well, what a sight for my poor eyes!’ the Irishman boomed. ‘And ‘tis the truth I’m telling ye when I say ye look a prettier woman than I’ve ever seen before in all me natural. How are ye keeping, Mrs. Marshall? And that bonny broth of a boy, a strapping boy if ever I saw one. How is he?’ There was a momentary pause before he asked, ‘What can I be doing for ye this morning, Mrs. Marshall, sweetheart?’

‘If you have two pennyworth of scrag and bones I would like them.’

Almost at once the door behind him opened and the small brother came through with a package wrapped in thin mutton cloth, stained pink from the meat inside. He handed it across the wooden bench, which was roughened with marks of choppers, and gave her a timorous smile.

‘Take these with our blessing and may the Holy Mother look after ye and yours,’ the big brother said, but his words and the accompanying smile were forced and he lowered his tone as he went on. ‘The word is out that we’re riot to serve, ye, Mrs. Marshall. Friends of Fired Jackson came to us yesterday and warned us, that they did. The next time must be the last time, they said, as true as I’m standing here. From the bottom of me heart I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ve me own safety and the safety of me family to consider.’

‘And mine, remember,’ the little man said. ‘And mine, Michael.’

‘And me brother’s, too,’ boomed Michael Hennessy. Ruth wanted to throw the package into his face, and gripped it so tightly that the blood oozed through the wrapping and onto her fingers. She stared at the big man, who looked thoroughly ashamed, and made herself speak.

‘Have you sent for the peace officers, Mr. Hennessy?’

‘Now, ma’am, what good would a peace officer be to me if he came and found me with me throat cut? Not even John Furnival himself could guard the shop and me home all the time.’

‘Or mine, Michael, or mine!’ came the echo.

‘All day and all night they would need protecting, and how could a poor tradesman like me afford watchmen on his own? The streets are so full of villains, why, I heard that Mr. Walpole was attacked in Piccadilly only last week! ’Tis sorry I am, Mrs. Marshall, but ‘tis the truth I’m telling ye.’

She continued to look at him until both he and his brother grew uneasy under the scrutiny of this young and comely woman, with her chestnut-brown hair showing beneath her small bonnet with its lace fringe, and the clear blue eyes and the full mouth and skin almost without a blemish. They could not be expected to understand that she was no longer thinking of them but only of what they had told her and what it meant to her.

If the friends of Frederick Jackson had put the finger of fear upon those prepared to help her, whom could she count as friends? If she had no friends, how could she live?

‘Mrs. Marshall, ’tis nothing personal I’d have ye understand, ’tis—’

‘Fear of Jackson striking you from his grave,’ she interrupted. ‘I know, Mr. Hennessy. And how do you think people will ever become free from fear if men like you cringe at a threat and will do nothing in defiance?’

Before either man could answer, she turned away; and she was a hundred yards along Long Acre before she realised that the package was dripping onto the coarse wrapping cloth of the work for Mrs. Hewson. She stood still for a moment, outside a saddler’s shop, then gingerly placed the package into her basket and walked on. Deliberately, she went out of her way to Covent Garden piazza and the still-magnificent though dilapidated houses and walked along the path towards the south side so that in a few moments she could pass Mr. Morgan’s shop and perhaps catch a glimpse of James opposite the establishments with their small windows set in weathered boards stained with pitch and topped by big fascia boards on which the names of the merchants were beautifully and elaborately inscribed. A new market building was going up and dozens of labourers were moving piles of red bricks and stacks of wooden scaffolding, others carrying iron-cast guttering and pipes, others digging a huge ditch to carry away the waste; already an offensive stink rose from the ditch. Hammering, banging and shouting combined to make a deafening noise and she almost wished she hadn’t come.

There was James! She had never seen him so loaded. From each arm of the yoke hung three baskets at different levels so that as they swung to his walk they would not bang into one another. Three round baskets were balanced on his head, and he pushed the laden cart out of the shop.

‘Hurry, James,’ Mr. Morgan called. ‘I want you back by noon and not a minute later.’

‘Yes, sir,’ James replied and he turned hurriedly in the opposite direction from his mother.

As he worked seven days a week it had been a long time since she had seen him in morning light, and this was a bright crisp morning when it should have been good to be alive. He looked tired out already, yet he began to move forward at a slow jog, watched by Morgan from the door. A black-haired man, Morgan wore a clean white apron from neck to knees, and his fat calves were covered in black stockings rucked up over highly polished black shoes. Heavy-bearded except at the chin, itself clean-shaven, he glanced in her direction as he went back into the shop but did not recognise her, and she did not make herself known.

That was the moment when she made up her mind to accept John Furnival’s proposal.

That was the moment, also, when Eve Milharvey woke for the second morning of her ‘widowhood’ in the apartment to which Frederick Jackson had first brought her, so long ago. There was heaviness in her breast, a sense of loss and of grief, and she lay alone and looked at a bright patch of sky. She heard the old woman whom she had met on that first day moving about in another room and scolding a chambermaid for dallying at the window. Easing herself up on her pillows, she pushed back the bedclothes, but as she swung herself over the side of the bed she felt the onslaught of nausea. When she stood up she could only keep steady by gripping one of the fluted oak posts of the bed. She lowered herself again and belched, but hardly eased the nausea. She placed her well-shaped, well-kept hands on her belly, feeling the softness of the silk Fred had liked her to wear; it was the nearest cloth to feel like the smoothness of her skin. ‘I can’t be,’ she said aloud. ‘It isn’t possible!’

But of course it was possible. She had been to see him in Newgate, where he had the use of a private room; not once, not twice, but a dozen times she had helped him to forget his danger.

And if she had a child it could only be Fred’s.

Ruth Marshall heard the footsteps on the stairs and moved towards the door. She was quite calm, and indeed had been much calmer since reaching her decision than she had expected to be. She opened the door to find Furnival at the head of the stairs. He took off his hat but still had to stoop to get through the doorway. It was daylight and yet gloomy in this room, and the sound of the children shrieking in the yard travelled clearly. So did the stomping of a horse’s hooves. She realised he had come on horseback, consequently alone; and that in its way was a great compliment to her. She closed the door as he tossed his cloak back over his shoulders; she noticed that he was breathing hard, as if the ride had been furious or the climb up to this room had been exhausting. He took a folded paper from his pocket and she recognised the note she had sent him yesterday, the day following her decision. James had delivered this to the offices in Bow Street only last night. She had written:

If it still pleases you I would be proud to enter your service in the manner of our discussion.

She studied the strong face and the massive body of this ‘great bull of a man’ and was aware of the appraisal in his tawny eyes. His lips were unexpectedly shapely when he began to smile as he asked, ‘Who taught you to write, Ruth Marshall?’

‘My father, sir.’

‘And what was your father, pray? A teacher? A parson?’

‘He was a preacher, sir, and in his spare time a carpenter and wagonmaker.’

‘And could read and write well enough to teach his children. You were fortunate in your father.’

‘I have long been aware of it, sir.’

‘No doubt he had a ready tongue, also,’ said Furnival dryly. ‘What made you make up your mind so quickly?’

‘A variety of reasons, sir,’ she answered, ‘and the most telling was that I did not want my children to go hungry or my son to miss the chance of going to school.’

He nodded slowly and then added in a quieter voice, ‘By your leave I will sit down.’

She was angry with herself for not offering him a chair and pushed forward the armchair in which Tom Harris had sat two nights ago. The arms were carved, and polished with age, and he rubbed them with each hand as he went on.

‘What other reasons, Ruth? I want to know them all.’

She stood in front of him and words like ‘out of respect’ and even ‘out of affection’ came to her mind but she could not utter them. He waited, watching. She remembered Richard telling her, ‘He can smell when a witness is lying or telling half the truth. I’ve seen him on the bench make a man confess to a horrid crime simply by staring at him and saying: “I want the truth, only the truth.”’

And she could understand that as John Furnival stared at her now until she was driven to say, ‘It would be false to pretend deep affection for you, sir.’

He started. ‘Affection? For me? You may have to wait months before you can even tolerate me!’ He actually laughed, and she had never liked him more. ‘But there was another reason for such haste. Speak frankly, Ruth, and fairly.’

‘There was,’ she admitted.

‘What was it, pray?’

She told him, faltering at first, about her visit to the Hennessy brothers’ shop, and what had transpired there, and his laughter and the softness of his expression faded. He was silent when she finished, as if he expected more from her. So she said in a husky voice, ‘Life would be difficult enough on my own without Frederick Jackson’s friends conspiring against me. There are so many harmful things they could do. They might - they might try to turn James against me, sir, or lure him to drink or to crime. They might—’