Jack Maggs (28 page)

65

Dear Henry,

I write this with the borrowed quill of Tobias Oates, the author of Captain Crumley. The paper inside the yellow envelope
contains facts most damaging to that individual.

Henry, even if you presently abominate me, remember what
you had from me, and in honour of my generosity, do the following: If I am arrested and charged on that man’s Information, make a copy of the paper and take it to his wife at Lamb’s
Conduit Street which is just north of the Inns of Court. I don’t
know where his Pater lives, but believe he goes by the moniker
of the Fighting Bantam and John the Cock. Find him too, and
whatever members of his family or associates you can learn of.
Then go to Fleet Street, go to whichever Tap Room is preferred
by those Gentlemen of the Pen. Buy these gents whatever takes
their fancy and Mr John Plasse at the Temple will make up
your expense one thousand-fold.

If I am not arrested, let Justice prevail—burn the letter.

Me and this Oates are on our way to Gloucester, but where
we are at this moment, I do not know. It is a case of Jack-be-nimble, for the night is dark, the coach hard as a rough dray
and my dreams are troubled by a Phantom who stares at me
and makes threats against me. This creature has been recently
introduced into my sleep by Magical Arts. Perhaps you, with
your education, will know how he can be drawn out again.

We are promised Gloucester by dawn. There we seek the famous Thief-taker who can find any man between London and
Cardiff—all this on your account. I blame myself for the way
I withheld my true history from you. I left a blank map for you
and you have doubtless filled it with your worst imaginings.

This letter I will entrust the Thief-taker, and in it you
will find the end of the tale regarding myself and Sophina.
Much relief I hope you may find in the truth. Then you may
lay these pages aside and say—Ah, is this the monster I was so
afraid of?

I previously related how Sophina and I did fall asleep and
were discovered by the Ma, and although a great deal were
made of the five months etc., I had no idea that she was with
child. I wrote this? I think so.

Sophina and I were hurried from the house as if in close arrest, and Tom felt himself obliged to carry the great hessian bag
of silver plate upon his back. The Ma told him to give it up,
but he was a good son and a foolish thief, and struggled with it
through the dark streets until, by Piccadilly, we managed to
wake up the driver of a lonely cab. Once we were, all four of
us, squashed in together with the stolen goods, all of the Ma’s
poison was turned on me.

She told me that I was to be punished and was kind enough
to describe my treatment in advance of its execution. It was a
new punishment, and now she drew the picture exactly: Tom
was to pull my arms through a ladder and keep me pinned
there so she could wield the strop.

It was an hour before dawn when we arrived back in Islington. The sky was still dark but I could hear the cocks crowing, as they will, before there was any need to do so.

Ma had me carry Silas’s heavy ladder upstairs from the hallway. Then Tom helped me lay it on a slant against my bedroom
wall, and then Ma made me lie against it while great hulking
Tom—having sat himself obligingly on the floor beneath the
ladder—pulled down on my arms so hard I feared they would
be wrenched from my shoulders. I imagined I was being punished for being a filthy swine, but no one told me that I was to
be assaulted for being the father of an unborn babe.

Ma, as I see now, was more concerned with business
than our morals. She did not wish to lose her little girl-thief
to motherhood, or me to Sophina. She needed both as servants to her cause. Thus she dealt with me in a manner very
fierce.

Once she had me on the ladder, she hitched her skirts up in
a style that revealed her white and muscled calves. She then retreated into the kitchen from whence she presently came running, and laid the strop down hard on me with an ugly grunt.
Twenty times she did this, and though she were huffing and
puffing at the end of it, there was not a stroke where she did
not admonish Sophina to keep her eyes upon my humiliation,
or to take her hands off her ears so she might hear my cowardly
cries.

Then it was done, and Tom let go my arms. So caught up
was I with my own shame that I did not notice Ma take
Sophina from my room, had no inkling of what fate there was
for her, but the moment I heard her cry to me—Jack, Jack—I
sprang up from my rack with the intention of coming to her
aid.

I have gone over this moment all my life, and in my waking
dreams I have oft seen myself reach my beloved on the stair,
and there I have imagined myself to punch the Ma—yes, by
God, I did say punch, and sometimes stab and sometimes slash
with that great sword. I have dreamed, over and over, the happiness of saving Sophina, of running out into the dawn
street—our babe alive—into our fresh young lives.

In the half-light before that dreary dawn, I got only part way
across the kitchen before Tom settled me. He came down on
top of me with all his might and held me hard against the floor
with my arm jerked up behind my back. I was a big boy, fifteen
years old, but he was all of twenty and he sat atop my bleeding
bum heedless of whatever pain he caused me.

—You dirty little scrub, he said to me. You rag-tag, etcetera.
He pushed my head down against the boards and I can, to this
day, feel that splintered surface against my cheek, hear
Sophina’s tearful voice in the hateful little room below. Much
of the Ma’s speech I did not hear exactly, but the following I
did.

You want me to fetch Tom so he can hold you still?

Now I am going to tell you something which you may think
unlikely—I imagined Sophina being beaten much as I had
been.

You want Tom to come and look at you like this?

I did not see my beloved until the bright light of day came
to the kitchen, and then she appeared, standing at the open
door, and I—recently released by Tom and now sitting at the
table drinking tea—looked up at her.

Her face was wan. Her hand was resting on her pinny.
When she caught my eyes, she turned away and walked into
our room.

I leaped up but Tom laid his hand on my shoulder.

—Now leave her be, you dirty little swine.

Still I would have gone to her, but he took me by the arm
and, by virtue of his superior strength, was able to detain me at
his pleasure.

—You come with me, Mr Mutt-sucker, said Tom, and thereupon did take me down through the house, down through the
horrid little plain room, out towards the privy and the thistles
to the brick wall, then along the little dirt track beside the
wall, up and over a collapsing drain, and round the end of the
wall. And here the smell was very bad—all kinds of excrement
and rottenness.

Here Tom forced me to stoop and kneel beside the little
drain as it pushed its way under the cheese shop. He kept me
pinned, jerking my arm back a little now and then to remind
me of the pain, and all the while he poked into the filth with
a stick.

—Look here, he said.

I feared he meant to push me into the cess pit, and so was
undefended against the real assault.

Thus, I looked.

—See, said Tom, it looks like a toad.

There lay our son—the poor dead mite was such a tiny
thing. I could have held him in my hand. And on his queerly
familiar little face, a cruel and dreadful cut.

Cannot write more at this time.

P.S. Went to sleep and woke to find Oates with hand familiarly
on my knee. Says he, were you dreaming, Jack Maggs?

I told him, no, I weren’t.

That were a lie—the Phantom above-mentioned had appeared to me. I saw
It
sitting opposite me in the coach. Yellow
hair, long side whiskers, blue frock coat with gold buttons.

I said to
It,
is it you?

It
replied, yes it was. Then
It
laid its hand upon my head
and the hand so cold it burned me. I cried out, and woke to
find the coach filled with strangers.

We gallop through the endless night, eleven miles the hour
and candles sputtering.

66

IT WAS BARELY SUN-UP when they came to the crown of Burlip Hill, and all of Gloucester could be seen rising above a light low mist in the great dish of the Vale. The coach stopped, and the guard and driver entered into earnest consultation, at the conclusion of which it was suggested that the ladies and gentlemen might like to view the road ahead. If you yourself have viewed Burlip Hill, you will understand why, at half past five of a spring morning, Jack and Tobias and their fellow passengers decided to abandon the comfort of the coach and walk in ankle-deep mud down the road while the
True Briton
descended with all its locked brakes screaming against the wheels.

The slippery surface of Burlip Hill muddied the backside of more than one passenger, but Maggs impatiently galloped the slope towards his promised Thief-taker. It was, he observed, as pretty a scene as you would see in all of England—the land divided by hedges into fields and orchards, and the whole picture, with the Cathedral in the middle and the Morvan Hills of Wales in the distance, “was worth the price of twice the mud.”

Of course, the ruffian was excited. His eyes were bright and everywhere about him. Twice he sneezed, loudly, and blew his nose like a trumpet at the dawn. Even as he loped down the hill he carried his three wrapped parcels—mirror, lemons, paper—as though the Thief-taker were ready to receive him at the bottom of the hill.

The writer, now contemplating his imminent disgrace, was in a darker mood entirely. He had in truth never met this Thief-taker. He had no address for him, only Dr Eliotson’s assurance that messages left at the Bull would reach him. Eliotson, although perfectly respectable, was also given to both vagueness and naivety. It was a foolish and dangerous position he had placed himself in.

When the coach arrived in Southgate Street, it was Jack who found out where the Bull Inn was. He set off towards the Cross, carrying his parcels before him. Tobias—known for his brisk and energetic walk—was forced to skip to keep the pace.

Maggs’s unbuttoned oil-skin, that garment he referred to as his Great Joseph, floated behind him like a cape as he strode the streets of Gloucester, past Mercer’s Entry, and down into Bull Lane where they found a very decent-looking little inn with a sign proclaiming ENTERTAINMENT FOR HORSE AND MAN. It being so early in the morning, the tap room was empty, and there were chairs on tables, and the smell of soap fighting with the stale odours of the pipe and brandy bottle. The sound of pouring liquid, however, gave away the whereabouts of the landlord who was down behind the bar, seated on a three-legged stool, filling a line of bottles from a cask.

He was a narrow man of less than middle age, with a long hard face and a little slit of a mouth that was not hidden by his beard. He had the poached-egg eyes of a man who enjoyed the stuff he sold, and these eyes, blood-shot and a little yellow in the whites, considered Jack Maggs with some considerable astonishment.

“Jod’s blood,” said he.

“Now ain’t this a treat!” said Maggs in a tone that seemed very jovial.

“I don’t owe you nothing, Jack.”

“I never said you did, George Conklin.”

George Conklin looked sharply and briefly at Tobias, and returned his attention to Jack Maggs. “I’m Herbert Holt.” He hesitated. “We are settled on that business. I don’t owe you nothing.”

“Aye, we’re square, mate,” said Maggs who now turned to survey the tap room: and a very neat and prosperous tap room it was, decorated with all manner of brass gew-gaws, and Toby jugs. It was the sort of house, Tobias felt, in which one would see solicitors and merchants gather to discuss their affairs, where you might expect to see a judge, still gowned and wigged, come to sit by the fire with his cheese and claret.

“If we’re square, why’re you looking for me?”

“I ain’t.”

The landlord, having accepted this with obvious scepticism, now transferred his attention to Jack’s three parcels. “If you been talking to the silver again, I retired. I’m sorry, Jack. Don’t take it personal. I sell nothing here but what is up and up.”

“We’re both gentlemen then, George.”

“Herbert,” he corrected.

There was then a longish period of silence while the landlord frankly appraised his visitor’s attire. “I wouldn’t wear a red waistcoat, Jack,” he said at last. “Not in your position. A red waistcoat is going to catch the eye. It is like a rule of nature, that it is the poisonous things that got the stripe of red upon them.”

“Bullshit, George.”

“Herbert.”

“Herbert, do you know a cove named Partridge?”

The long-faced man’s mouth contracted. Silence.

“You know him?”

“Aye. Wilf Partridge. He who found the missing Duke. I knew him when he were a hedge creeper in Kent.”

“They say he can find any cove in England once he sets his mind to it.”

“They?” The landlord shrugged. “They say also he is a witch, or at least is married one.”

“But you know him?” asked Tobias. “He is nearby?”

Herbert Holt glanced at Tobias Oates and then looked away. He bent and collected half a dozen bottles of spirits and silently stoppered them. “I’ll get you the Private Room, Jack,” he said at last. “But you’ll not be staying in the house, and you’ll use the back door when you leave. No, no need to pay me.”

“Very generous, Herbert.”

“Now you and your mate, listen to me,” said Herbert. “This Private Room was given for a meeting of the Wanderers’ Society, and that won’t matter for the morning, but if you’re still there at noon time they’ll be none too happy. They wouldn’t be happy to know I gave their room to a fellow in a red waistcoat. So it’s best you lock the door from the inside, and don’t let them in. If Partridge comes, I’ll give him a key.”

“No one’s going to recognize me, Herbert.”

“I recognized you, Jack. Very nice too, very nice to see you, but that’s enough. You stay in there and don’t come out for nothing. I’ll send the boy to put the word around for Partridge, and you can pray he ain’t in Bristol again, for if he’s not here by evening, you shan’t stay here, Jack, and no knife is going to help you. It isn’t personal.”

“Where there’s no cheating, Herbert, there’s no knife.”

“I’ve got mates here, in the lane.”

“You wouldn’t shop me, George?”

“I couldn’t be that civilized, Jack, if you take my meaning. I couldn’t risk the association, like.”

And with that the stringy landlord shepherded his unwanted guests through the tap room, down a half-set of stairs and along a corridor to a room which was, in spite of the gold-leaf letters on the door, a charmless hole. The windows were small and uncurtained; it had bare distempered walls, and furnishings consisting of nothing more than a long table and two mucky benches that appeared to have just been brought in from some barn where they had long been banished.

Tobias loathed the room, but he sat at the wobbling bench and slowly picked the dried mud from his boots and trousers. Jack Maggs stayed at the window, peering out into the dismal yard where, presumably, the horses found their entertainment.

Time passed slowly. It began to rain. The writer opened up his attaché case but his fingers were unpleasantly dry with the mud of Burlip Hill, and he could not bring himself to unscrew the ink bottle. Out of the window he saw an old man chop the head off a rooster, and the old man and a hostler stood and laughed while the headless bird ran flapping round the yard. The convict noticed the same event and his broad and powerful figure soon occupied the embrasure of the window, thus blocking out the light. The symbolism of this was not lost on Tobias. How deep had he sunk into the slough. One sin had led him to the next. Each danger spawned a bigger danger and now he was cast down into a room with a man whom he had cheated. He closed his attaché case and locked it. He had come a long way from his God.

At noon there was a rattling on the door knob, and both men looked up expectantly.

“Oh drat.” They heard a woman’s voice. “This is very very poor, you know. Very poor indeed.”

Thus, in the space of an hour, the two men suffered the raising and dashing of their hopes by ten different visitors. The door was tried, rattled, but no one came in, not even a servant with the vittles Jack was convinced his “previous acquaintance” would send to them. They sat with their stomachs rumbling loudly, and when the key finally entered the lock it was hard to say what Tobias wished for more: the Thief-taker or his luncheon.

In either case he was disappointed. The door opened to reveal a clergyman, a black-clad fellow, with bushy brows sitting low upon his eyes.

“I beg your pardon,” said Tobias, rising. “The room is taken.”

Yet so confident was the visitor of his rights that he shut the door behind him. He carried a big calico parcel tied under one arm and a black and knobbly walking stick under the other.

“Wrong room,” said Jack, hurrying forward so violently that Tobias was reminded it was a fight about a private room that had his father in jail for murder. He put his hand on Jack’s shoulder to restrain him.

“This room is ours,” cried Jack. He flung Toby’s hand away and took the intruder by the elbow.

To this assault, the clergyman raised an eyebrow.

“Mr Maggs?”

“Who says so?” demanded Jack.

“You say so, Sir,” said the clergyman, and shook himself free. “If you were not Mr Maggs, you would say
, ‘
I am not Mr Maggs,’ and that would be that. If you say, ‘Who wants to know?’ you have admitted it. Q.E.D.”

Toby saw the tic quiver on the convict’s cheek.

“Are you perchance a Wanderer, Sir?” Tobias asked.

He was answered by one more invader, a woman, who promptly took a seat at the table.

“Not us,” said she.