Black Wreath (12 page)

‘Did you think I was joking when I said the money was due today? Do you think you can stay here for nothing?’

Eventually he tired of beating the man. He rolled his sleeves down and the gaoler helped him put his coat back on.

‘Get him out of here. Let him taste the comforts of the Felons’ Room.’

The two gaolers who had been holding up the prisoner dragged him, feet first, out of the room and down the corridor.

Bullard now turned his attention to James. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

‘I am here to see Mr Darcy, sir.’

‘
Mister
Darcy? I don’t think we have a
Mister
Darcy here. Anyone know of a
Mister
Darcy?’ He addressed the question to the room; no one dared to answer.

Darcy remained sitting impassively where he was.

‘Might you perhaps mean the thieving scum Jack Darcy?’ Bullard asked him.

‘Yes,’ James said. ‘Jack Darcy, sir.’

‘Well then say it, boy, if you’re not another deaf one. Who are you here to see?’

‘The thieving scum Jack Darcy, sir.’

Bullard looked at him, as if trying to decide whether James was being insolent or properly deferential.

‘Have you got his fees?’

James took the purse Kelly had given him from his pocket and counted out the week’s rent, then added a shilling and fourpence for the penny pot, the alcohol ration which the gaolers doled out at great profit. Bullard took the money and pocketed it.

‘Might I speak with him, sir?’ James asked, the purse still in his hand. Bullard eyed the purse. James loosened another few coins from it and slipped them to him.

‘Five minutes,’ Bullard said, and left with the gaoler.

Darcy jumped up immediately and beckoned James over. There were no niceties or greetings.

‘I have a lot to say,’ he began in a low voice, ‘and I want you to listen very carefully and miss nothing.’ When he had finished, he made James whisper everything back to him directly into his
ear, and when he was satisfied that James had retained all the information he’d given him, he told him to go.

‘And don’t forget to give Hawkins his due’ were his last words.

The door swung open long before five minutes were up and the gaoler ushered James out. He had barely turned into the corridor when he met Hawkins, who had evidently been waiting for him.

Where Bullard was short and fat, Hawkins was tall and rangy. He was neatly dressed, and he put James in mind of a doctor or a lawyer from the Four Courts. He had none of the gruffness or obvious brutality of the under-keeper.

‘So this is the young visitor?’ He examined James closely. ‘What do they call you?’

‘James Brown, sir, and, if it please you, I have a message for you.’

Hawkins seemed not to have the slightest interest in what message James might have for him. He continued to peer intensely at James.

James could feel his cheeks flush under the pressure of the gaze.

‘You’re very well spoken for a thief, James Brown.’ Like Darcy, Hawkins pronounced the surname as if he didn’t believe it.

‘I’m not a thief, sir.’ James should probably have kept quiet. Had he not taken part in robberies? Had he not crept around houses in the city, putting silverware into a sack? I did not choose this life, he thought, but it seemed like a thin argument, and not one he could easily put to the keeper of Newgate.

‘No, of course you’re not,’ Hawkins replied evenly. ‘And everyone here is innocent; it is a house of saints, a holy sanctuary. And when your friend is hanged, it will a terrible injustice. The thought of it makes me want to weep.’

James said nothing. He took the purse from his pocket as casually as he could.

Without taking his eyes off James, Hawkins scooped the purse from James’s hand and deposited it in his pocket.

‘Yes,’ he said, as if nothing had happened, ‘it makes me want to weep my poor sentimental heart away.’ And he turned on his heel and marched off.

The gaoler led James out the way he had come in and he found himself blinking in the sunlight of Cornmarket, like someone just woken from an unpleasant dream.

Eighteen

The Trial

T
he courtroom was crowded. Most of the crowd was made up of friends and relatives of the accused, as well as a few who seemed to be there out of simple curiosity. A good many of them were friends of Jack. Well, maybe friends was too strong a word. James recognised many of them from Red Molly’s, including some who were rather better dressed than they usually were. That was part of the plan, of course. James had to admit it was a good plan, even an ingenious one, but he knew that even elaborate and beautiful plans can go wrong, often.

At least he had done his part. Once he was released into the light again he had rushed down the street and didn’t stop running until he came to Red Molly’s. Molly herself admitted him and he immediately began to babble out Darcy’s instructions.

‘Calm down, boy,’ she laughed, ‘if it’s urgent business, you must tell it to me calmly.’

She was different during the day, James noticed, despite his agitation; less excitable, gentler even. She took him into a small room off the kitchen and sat him down, then poured him a glass of port and insisted he drink it before speaking. James felt himself warm towards this woman as he drank. His eyes moistened, as they always did when anyone showed him kindness, but he blinked rapidly to shoo the tears away.

‘Now tell me about it, nice and slowly, and we’ll see what must be done,’ she said.

She knew that Darcy had been taken, and had been expecting James. ‘I knew he’d send the only one of his crew with something between his ears.’

James blushed, as he always did when someone praised him.

Molly smiled. ‘How does a boy like you get mixed up with Jack Darcy?’

Maybe someday James might be able to explain. But the question went unanswered for now, and he just shrugged his shoulders before telling her everything that Darcy had told him. When he’d finished, she was silent for a while.

Then she was all bustle. ‘Alright, we’d better get to it. A doctor, an apothecary, and the apothecary’s assistant. Are you sure no one saw you that night?’

‘Pretty sure. I stood back, and it was pitch dark there.’

Darcy’s plan was to deny the charge and insist it was a case of mistaken identity. He had been ill on the night in question, and he had the witnesses to prove it. It seemed a risky strategy to James, but then what choice did Darcy have? Molly took it all in her stride, part of a day’s work. She seemed to like Jack
Darcy, but there was no shortage of Jack Darcys in the city, and if one were undone, another would immediately step up to take his place. And there is probably a plentiful supply of James Lovetts too, James thought; boys down on their luck, cast out from their families and fending for themselves in the dark alleys of the city.

The gaolers brought in the morning’s prisoners, two men, a young woman, a boy not much older than James, and lastly Darcy, more expressionless than James had ever seen him and looking, in that group, like just one more prisoner.

James remembered the boy and the woman from the Felons’ Room in Newgate. All four of them looked wretched and bore the signs of their time in prison. The woman smiled weakly at the public gallery, where there were some who knew her. The men and the boy stared out from the dock at the empty bench where the judge would sit, as if already anticipating the judgement that would be passed on them, and avoided the eyes of the witnesses gathered in the witness box, where James sat, and the jury on its bench.

James knew enough of Chief Justice Norwood’s reputation to know that the gloomy aspect of the prisoners was probably very well justified. He wondered what was going through Darcy’s mind as he stood with the other prisoners.

As the time drew near for the start of the session, James could feel the tension sweeping across the room. All eyes were
fixed on the clerk, who now called out, ‘All rise!’

A great shifting and shuffling filled the room, accompanied by the sound of a door opening and closing, as the solemn figure of Lord Norwood approached the bench preceded by his tipstaff. There was a collective intake of breath at his approach, as if just the sight of him was powerful enough to fill the room with apprehension. He was a large and powerful man, swathed in red and with a full, luxurious wig. His face was broad and, strangely enough, not unkind. There was nothing evil or twisted about the features, nothing demonic. It looked like the face of a kindly uncle, full of humour and fun.

Is this really him? James wondered. Maybe people were mistaken about him.

His thoughts were interrupted by the clerk reading out the first charge against one of the men, who answered ‘Not guilty’. His prosecutor was a tavern-keeper, and he told the court how two gentleman had come to his house for a glass of claret and thrown down their coats on a table by the window. Later that night, as the tavern-keeper was filling their glasses, he saw the coats suddenly moving out through the curtained window. He ran outside, where he saw the accused run up the alley bearing the coats. He cried ‘Stop thief!’ and the man was apprehended by a neighbour, who happened to be passing.

The judge asked the neighbour to verify the story, which he did.

The accused denied all knowledge of the events, and swore that he had never been in Swan Alley in his life.

The judge asked the jury for their verdict.

They huddled together for no more than a minute before their foreman turned to the judge. ‘Guilty, my lord,’ he announced.

The gentlemen whose coats had been stolen clapped enthusiastically until the judge silenced them.

The second case was disposed of equally swiftly. This time it was a burglary, and the man had been caught red-handed with a sack full of goods. James began to tremble as he watched him, remembering his own near-capture. The jury found him guilty.

Then it was the boy’s turn. Stealing a gold watch, which he then pawned. Verified by Mr Smith the pawnbroker. Guilty.

The girl was accused of stealing a crêpe hatband, value of sixpence, the goods of Thomas Clarke, here present. Thomas Clarke was not very convincing. There seemed to be some personal animus motivating his charge. He fumed and spluttered and introduced further charges, which the judge impatiently ruled out of order.

‘If you waste my time any further I’ll have you clapped in irons in the Black Dog,’ he barked.

The jury hardly needed to huddle before finding her not guilty.

At last, it was Darcy’s turn, but the judge was showing signs of impatience. ‘Is this likely to take long?’ he asked the clerk.

‘I believe there are a number of witnesses who contest the prosecutor’s case, my lord.’

‘No, that won’t do,’ Norwood said emphatically. ‘There are three guilty men here who want sentencing. I’ll sentence them now.’

James wasn’t sure whether his haste came from compassion or some darker motive, but he could feel a sudden stiffening in the room as the judge placed a small black cap on his head and turned to the first of the defendants.

‘Joseph Tomelty, you have been found guilty in the matter of grand larceny, and I mean to show you that you trifle with the property of others at your peril. Are we to fear for our very clothes now? May we not take refuge in an inn or a coffee house without fear of attack? The sentence of this court is that you be returned to the prison whence you came and from there be taken to a place of execution and hanged by the neck until you are dead.’

The crowd gasped. They had not expected Joseph Tomelty would have to pay the full price for the failed theft of two coats. The men whose coats were at issue didn’t clap or cheer this time.

Joseph lurched forward and leant on the rail of the dock. He looked as if he might collapse. ‘Please, my lord,’ he began, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘Have mercy on a poor man.’

‘Take him down,’ Norwood commanded, and the gaolers came at once to remove him.

The burglar was the next to receive the full glare of the judge’s attention. James found himself transfixed by the piercing blue eyes that bored into the man. It was more than a look; those eyes were like knives reaching in to the bone, and anyone who suffered them could be in little doubt about his fate.

If the judge had been angry at the theft of the coats, the
full vent of his fury was reserved for the crime of entering a property with intent to plunder it.

‘What does it mean, to break a window or force a door and slip into a house to remove a few pieces of silver or gold? Is it so very important? Is it any worse than grabbing a coat or a hatband or a watch or a bundle of linen?’

He said this in a way that the tension in the room softened, and something like relief swept through it, as if maybe the deed wasn’t so bad after all. The judge waited for the tension to reach its lowest point before resuming.

‘I’ll tell you what it means,’ he began. ‘It is nothing less than an attack of the very basest kind on the entire fabric of our city. It is not just a crime against the owner or the keeper of the house, though it is most certainly that, and a grave injury to that party. But have we set out the streets of this city and laboured to build its houses so that vermin …’ Here he raised his hand and pointed at the prisoner with such contempt it seemed his hand could hardly bear to perform the action. ‘So that vermin like this can scuttle in and commit their filth there, and shit over everything we have built, everything we stand for?’

The tension was now stretched so taut again it seemed something would rupture, or that the prisoner would simply evaporate under the hot fury of the judge.

‘Hanging is too good for you,’ he continued. ‘Though it is all the law prescribes. But your miserable body will be anatomised by the city’s surgeons after your death, and thus you may return some benefit to the place you desecrated.’

The burglar remained impassive, and did not plea for mercy. His fate must have been clear to him the moment he was caught, for no burglar had ever been spared.

When it came to the boy, the judge had regained his composure. He treated him with indifference, and then, almost as an afterthought, sentenced him to hang. When all three had been taken down, he removed the black cap, but set it down in front of him on the desk, in the knowledge that he would soon need it again, an action not lost on his audience. James felt his stomach tighten with fear as he thought about the part he had to play.

The clerk read out the charge against Darcy and asked him how he pleaded.

‘Not guilty,’ Darcy replied. His voice was clear and strong.

Lord Norwood snorted. ‘Where is the prosecutor?’ he demanded.

The prosecutor made himself known.

James flinched when he saw the man. His face was deeply scarred where Kitty’s blade had scored him.

‘Do you see the man who did that to your face?’ the judge asked him.

‘I do not,’ he said, ‘but this man was with him.’ He indicated Jack.

‘Somebody is lying,’ the judge said. ‘And my money is on you, Darcy.’

‘My lord, I do not pretend to be a good man, and God knows I have made many mistakes in my life, but I like to think that if I am indicted for a crime I have committed, I will
not be loathe to confess it. I like to think that I am a man of honour, my lord.’

His declaration seemed only to have the effect of irritating the judge.

‘I’m not very interested in your honour. The truth is what interests me, and nothing else.’

‘But that’s just it,’ Darcy continued in the same reasonable tone. ‘The truth of it is that on the night in question I could not have assaulted anyone, even if I were so inclined, because I was gravely ill all of that night and the next day. I had the gripe, my lord. I’m a martyr to it, if the truth be known …’

‘Maybe a warmer employment is what you need. I’ve heard the gripe is very common among footpads and highwaymen.’

The judge was beginning to enjoy himself. James didn’t like the sound of it. He was like a cat playing with a mouse, which he would, when he tired of the game, casually destroy.

Darcy persisted in his mild and reasonable manner, until Norwood leant forward. ‘Is there anyone in this room who can verify this nonsense?’