Gideon the Cutpurse (32 page)

* * *

Kate and Peter waited in Sir Richard's carriage outside St. Sepulchre's Church while Dr. Dyer, Sir Richard, Parson Ledbury, and the lawyer, Mr. Leche, went to visit Gideon. A quarter of an hour later the four men appeared at the iron gates. Mr. Leche, a sallow-faced man in a tightly curled wig, shook hands with Sir Richard and, with a slight bow to the others, strode away at a furious pace in the direction of the Old Bailey. He did not look pleased. Neither did the others. They stood at the gate talking to each other urgently with angry expressions on their faces.
"Something's wrong," said Peter. "What's Sir Richard doing?"
Sir Richard was waving down a hackney coach. He climbed in and was followed by the parson. Dr. Dyer watched as the driver turned the carriage through a hundred and eighty degrees and set off at a great speed toward Holborn and the west.
"What's happening?" cried Kate as her father climbed in next to them. He called up to the driver to take them back to Lincoln's Inn Fields.
"I've got bad news to give you, I'm afraid. Gideon's case was heard at the Old Bailey yesterday afternoon."
"But he was only arrested the day before yesterday!"
"I know. Lord Luxon clearly knows whose strings he can pull.... Gideon was convicted of seven instances of theft--all valuable items and all the property of Lord Luxon."
"But he's innocent! How could they find him guilty with no proof?"
Dr. Dyer called up to the driver to stop for a moment. They had just passed in front of the Old Bailey. Dr. Dyer peered through the window.
"What is it?" asked Kate.
"Look," he said. "Sir Richard was telling me about them. Can you see that group of men standing in front of the law courts? Look at their shoes."
"They've got something sticking out of them," said Peter.
"It's straw. They call them the straw men. They'll go into court and swear anything you like under oath--for the right price. That's how they got Gideon."
"We've got to do something!" cried Peter. "Pay some other straw men to say something different. Ask for a retrial! There must be something we can do!"
"Mr. Leche says it's too late."
"But why? How long must Gideon stay in that awful place?"
"Gideon wasn't sentenced to imprisonment. He is to be hanged at Tyburn on the next hanging day--which is on the first of August, in five days' time. The Recorder of London has already delivered the names of the condemned to the King."
Kate cried out in horror. "No!" she exclaimed "No, it can't be!"
Peter was so shocked that he could not say a word. He had been so sure that Gideon would have been out of Newgate today, or tomorrow at the worst. Now he felt weak with the shock of it, winded as if someone had punched him in the stomach.
"It can't be true!" he murmured.
"I'm afraid that it is true. Gideon had already been moved to the condemned hold, so we could not even speak to him. Although the turnkey told us that he was not in despair."
"Then we must go to Buckingham House and explain what has happened!" said Peter. "Queen Charlotte will help us--she said she would."
Peter was shaking with emotion. Dr. Dyer assured him that Sir Richard and Parson Ledbury were doing all they could. They were going at this very minute to the Court of St. James to prepare a petition to send to King George. Hopefully, as long as he got it in time, the King would pardon Gideon if Sir Richard could present a convincing enough case.
"What do you mean, as long as he gets it in time?" asked Peter.
"Unfortunately," said Kate's father, "the King and Queen have already left London for the country. To make matters worse, Sir Richard heard that King George has plans to visit the Earl of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle on the Northumberland coast."
"Oh, no!" said Kate. "That's hundreds of miles away!"
"Yes, Parson Ledbury said that it would take between two to three days to reach Northumberland, even if you changed horses frequently."
This last news was too much for Peter. "He's going to die!" he wept. "Gideon is going to die because of us. And there's nothing we can do about it! We shouldn't have let him ride in that race!"
Kate put her arms around Peter and held him tight. She did not contradict him. After all, she thought sadly, if it weren't for Gideon helping them, he would probably be back in Derbyshire by now, settled in Hawthorn Cottage and about to start a new life as the Honorable Mrs. Byng's new estate manager.
"You found a true friend in Gideon, didn't you?" asked Dr. Dyer.
Peter could only nod his head.

* * *

Sir Richard and Parson Ledbury worked tirelessly on Gideon's behalf. They tried to see Lord Luxon at his London residence in Bird Cage Walk and were told that he had returned to Tempest House. So they rode on horseback to Surrey and presented their cards at the door. Lord Luxon refused to see them, and when they tried to force their way in he had them thrown out. As they galloped away from Tempest House, Sir Richard turned around and saw Lord Luxon observing their departure from the topmost balcony.
"Murderer!" Sir Richard roared at him. "I knew your father--he would be ashamed! You condemn Gideon for being a better man than you!"
Lord Luxon turned his back on them and retreated into his mansion.
By nightfall Sir Richard and Mr. Leche had put together a document that they hoped would prove Gideon's innocence or at least put into doubt the court's verdict. A messenger was sent with all speed after the King and Queen, with the instruction to go on to Alnwick Castle if King George had already left for Northumberland.
Now all they could do was wait. The following day was a Sunday, and they heard that Gideon had attended a special service for the condemned in Newgate Chapel. The Ordinary, as the Newgate clergyman was called, preached a sermon while those who were shortly to die sat around a black coffin placed in the center of the chapel. Gideon was not allowed visitors but Sir Richard sent food and wine to the prison twice a day and paid a turnkey handsomely to ensure that it was Gideon who got it.

* * *

When Dr. Dyer saw how hard the children had taken the news about Gideon, particularly Peter, he was keen to distract them. The three of them went on long walks to explore the city. He bought a small leather-bound book in Fleet Street in which he made copious notes, and bemoaned his lack of a digital camera several times a day. He took enormous delight in the language and the food and the customs of the age. He liked to imitate the parson: "Gadzooks, sir!" he would say at every opportunity and, "Upon my word!" and, to a waitress in a chop house recommended by Sir Richard, "Confound your Beef Tremblante, madam. I'm for plain eating. Bring me a pork pie and a tiff-taffety cream!" which made even Peter laugh out loud. They sat in coffeehouses and listened to wags and dandies exchanging witticisms, and men of letters engaging in serious debate; they watched gentlemen take snuff and gesticulate with foamy, lace handkerchiefs, and saw ladies throwing seductive glances to their beaux over fluttering painted fans. They admired the extravagant costumes of the day and noted the stink of the people wearing them.... They witnessed the life of the street from hackney coaches and once, thrillingly, from sedan chairs.
One evening, walking through the maze of narrow streets beyond St. Paul's Cathedral, they looked up, trying to get their bearings. Dr. Dyer remarked on how many churches they could see.
"All these spires rising toward the heavens. It's all banks and insurance companies in our time. Thank goodness St. Paul's survived the Second World War."
"I'm beginning to hate knowing what is going to happen," said Peter. "We did tell Parson Ledbury that America is going to be a superpower--it was worth it just to see his face!--and Kate let on to Erasmus Darwin that his grandson was going to go down in history.... But thinking about the First World War and the Second and the Holocaust and Hiroshima...I really wish I didn't know. And it makes you wonder if there's any way you could stop it."
"Dad," said Kate, "do you think our time will be affected because we have come here?"
"I don't know. I guess we'll find out when we get back. And there's something that's been really bothering me. You know how the poacher got transported to the twenty-first century on the day of the race, on July twenty-sixth?"
"Yes. And...?"
"Well, I arrived with the poacher on the twenty-first, and what's bugging me is this: How many poachers and antigravity machines were there between the twenty-first and the twenty-sixth? Think about it."
Kate and Peter stopped walking and looked at each other, frowning.
"But that's not possible. I mean, how could that be?" asked Peter.
"It makes my head hurt," said Kate. "Surely it must be against the laws of nature or physics or something."
"Well, I can only think of two explanations, neither of which makes me feel any better. The first possibility is that for five days there were duplicate poachers and antigravity machines. The second possibility relies on the parallel worlds hypothesis. Put simply, to avoid a time anomaly like this one, the universe splits at the point of conflict. In other words, by coming back in time with the poacher, I am responsible for the creation of a duplicate universe."
"You mean there's one universe where Peter and I are still alone in 1763 without any hope of getting back and there's this one where you're here with the antigravity machine?"
"Exactly."
"Then the same would be true of when we arrived!" exclaimed Peter. "There'd be one universe where Kate and I left your laboratory and went back for lunch and another one when we were sent back in time."
"I know," said Dr. Dyer. "But take your pick--duplicate poachers or duplicate universes. Although no doubt there's an entirely different explanation we haven't thought of."
"...and I woke up and it was all a dream," said Kate.
"I wish!" said Dr. Dyer.

* * *

Peter liked Dr. Dyer very much but he did not feel as easy being in this threesome as he did when it was just him and Kate. And, of course, the presence of Kate's father highlighted for him the absence of his own. Although they kept busy, for Peter the hours passed slowly, as if in a dream. There was always a part of him that was thinking of Gideon and hoping for the arrival of a messenger from the King, always a lingering feeling of guilt that somehow this was all his fault. Meanwhile Molly stuck to Kate like a limpet, never letting her mistress out of her sight, just in case she disappeared again.

* * *

It was during these long days of waiting that they decided to tell Sidney and Hannah the truth about who they were. They also told Jack, but he did not really understand and soon went back to playing with the skittles his uncle had bought him. At first Hannah seemed to take the news in her stride; then, after half an hour, she became hysterical. However, a glass of Sir Richard's best Madeira wine calmed her down, and she admitted that she always found Peter's and Kate's manners a little peculiar and, having seen both children's sneakers, said that she was disappointed that shoes in the future were quite so unsightly.
It took a long time to convince Sidney that they were telling the truth, for he suspected that Peter was trying to make a fool out of him. Kate had to ask Sir Richard to confirm their story, and when he did, Sidney threw himself into a rage because he had not been told earlier.
"Could I not have been entrusted with this secret? You have been toying with me, Mistress Kate! It cannot have escaped your attention that my affection for your person has been growing with every day. Why could you not have found it in your heart to tell me that I was scattering my hopes on barren ground!"
"But I didn't...," protested Kate, taken aback by Sidney's outburst. She watched him traipse tearfully off to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he sat alone on a bench.
"Oh dear, poor, poor Sidney," said Kate, looking at him from the drawing room window. "I didn't realize..."
Peter stood at her shoulder. "He'll get over it," he said, a tad unsympathetically.
Dr. Dyer looked over at Kate and Peter and smiled to himself.
When, eventually, Sidney returned to the house, Sir Richard had a quiet word with him in his study. When Sidney came out, he found Kate and apologized to her for his hasty words. He offered to do anything he could to ensure her safe return home.
"Sidney's not bad once you get to know him, is he?" commented Kate to Peter once Sidney was out of earshot.
"I suppose not," he replied.

* * *

On the evening of July thirty-first everyone gathered in the drawing room of Sir Richard's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. They had to make a decision. Would they go to Tyburn to witness the hanging of Mr. Gideon Seymour the following day?
They talked late into the night. If the King had decided to pardon Gideon, the messenger might well arrive too late. Everyone was of the same mind: They could not, they agreed, permit Gideon to die alone. They would not abandon him. They would all go to Tyburn, from the eldest to the youngest.

TWENTY - TWO
Tyburn
In which the party gathers at Tyburn, the Tar Man makes an unexpected appearance, and this story comes to an end

The day was too sunny for a hanging day, thought Kate as they set out for Tyburn in two carriages. Sir Richard rode on horseback behind them. In the distance the bells of St. Sepulchre tolled for the condemned. The streets were thronged with people going to see the executions. It was a public holiday and the crowds were relaxed and loud and cheerful. There was much laughter and singing, and street hawkers sold their oysters and puddings and gray peas while people with tankards of ale gathered outside the numerous taverns that lined the route between Newgate and Tyburn. Suddenly, as the party was approaching the Oxford Road, the crowd started to roar behind them, and the shouts reached their carriage like a tidal wave. The procession of carts that carried the condemned from Newgate to their place of execution--the day's entertainment--was on its way. Sir Richard rode up to the carriage window that Peter, Kate, and her father shared with Parson Ledbury and told them that he was going to ride back up High Holborn to meet the carts. He wanted to know if Peter would like to come with him. Peter did not need to be asked twice. He opened the door and clambered onto Sir Richard's horse.
Before departing, Sir Richard rode alongside the carriage for a moment and addressed its occupants: "This will be an ordeal for us all. Hope for the best outcome but prepare yourselves for the worst."
Sir Richard then rode on to speak to Sidney, Hannah, and Jack.
"We will meet again at Tyburn!" he shouted. "May God be with us all this day!"
Then he turned his horse around, and he and Peter set off in pursuit of Gideon, cutting a passage through the heaving mass of Londoners.