Once I was settled, Mrs Bradshaw eased herself down into a chair by the door, resting her feet on a low footstool. A clever spot, where she could keep watch on her customers and still observe all the comings and goings on the stairwell. She took up a half-made quilted cap and began stitching with a neat, practised air, casting glances into the passage beyond whenever someone walked by. When Benjamin – Gilbert Hand’s boy – came by with paper and ink for my letter, she watched us sharply from beneath lowered lids, never missing a stitch.
I had just begun my letter to Charles when Kitty appeared with my coffee, slopping half of it upon the table. She mopped it up with her apron, cursing to herself. She was younger than I had first thought, eighteen at most, with a pale complexion and freckles all across her face and arms, as if God had flung them at her in a rage. I smiled at her and she responded with a complicated look, as if to say – what the devil have you to smile about?
I leaned back in my chair. Her ill-humour was intriguing, like the sharp tang of lemon in a syllabub. ‘Tell me. Are the rooms above us here for prisoners?’
‘This is the Oak ward.’ She shifted her weight to one leg; the familiar tilt of a girl humouring a man against her wishes. ‘This floor and the two above us. The women’s quarters are on the next landing.’
‘Indeed…’ Several delicious, indiscreet questions began to form in my mind. How many women were housed there? What were their ages? Their circumstances? How many were there to a bed? I shifted in my seat. ‘And why is it called the Oak?’
She met my gaze, green eyes steady and shrewd. ‘There’s thick oak doors off each corridor.’ She mimed the doors with her hands, fingertips touching in the middle. ‘The ladies close them when they don’t want visitors. But they’re spread wide open most of the time,’ she added, parting her hands. ‘And then a gentleman can enter as often as he likes. If he’s wanted.’
Behind me, men were coughing into their drinks again. ‘I see. Well, thank you, Miss Sparks, I’m obliged to you.’
She offered me a half-smile, pleased I’d taken her teasing well. ‘What you in for?’
The question caught me by surprise. The Marshalsea was a debtors’ prison, with only a handful of prisoners in for other crimes. ‘What do you think I’m in for?’
She shrugged. ‘How should I know? Sedition? Piracy? Sodomy-’
‘Debt. I’m in for debt.’
‘If you say so.’ She winked and headed back to the fire.
I finished my letter to Charles, explaining what had happened to me. What he could do to help I wasn’t sure; the money he’d lent me was now being spent somewhere in St Giles – and not in a way he would approve, I was sure. I asked if he might speak with his patron, though I doubted Sir Philip would feel inclined to help. Once I was done I called to Benjamin through the window and paid him a ha’penny to deliver the letter to St James’.
After that there was nothing I could do but wait for Gilbert Hand to return with news of my living quarters. As I waited the prison chaplain appeared at the door and greeted Mrs Bradshaw in a vague fashion before limping breathlessly to a seat by the fire. He was a large man with a goutish look about him that made it hard to guess his age, even more so as he wore a long wig in an old-fashioned style. Fifty, I decided. A large roll of fat wobbled over the edge of his white neckerchief, which had yellowed with age and sweat. His black waistcoat and jacket were badly faded and in need of a tailor’s needle – more through absent-mindedness than poverty, I guessed, as his hat and cane were both new and well-made. He reminded me of my old divinity tutor at school; he had the same kind but distracted air and – by the look of him – the same quiet devotion to port wine.
I was about to introduce myself when he pulled out a Bible of all things, settled a pair of glasses on his nose and began scribbling his thoughts down in a little notebook. A Bible in a coffeehouse? Very bad form. I frowned at his offence and returned to my coffee. After a little while Mrs Bradshaw put down her needlework and joined me in a fresh pot, squeezing her way between the tables to reach me. She might have been in debt but she certainly wasn’t starving. In fact she didn’t seem like a prisoner at all. She laughed when I told her this.
‘I’ve been here six years,’ she said, rolling the little vase of flowers on the table round and round in a wistful fashion. ‘Came in with a debt of fifty and I’ll leave in a box still owing it, no doubt.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s home to me now. I’m free to come and go as I please, as long as I’m back for lock-up. The Careys are the same, and the McDonnells. They run Titty Doll’s, the chophouse upstairs. Tell Mack you know Moll and he’ll give you the better cuts. Oh! I forgot!’ She magicked an envelope from her voluminous skirts and tipped a half-guinea into my palm. ‘She must like you, Mr Hawkins. I’ve never known Moll give money freely to anyone.’
I tucked the coin away. I doubted it was given freely – Moll would call in her debt sooner or later – but I was grateful for it all the same. I nodded at the envelope. ‘What does she say?’
Mrs Bradshaw held the letter out in front of her, leaning back and narrowing her eyes. ‘Please keep watch for a friend of mine, an honest gent fell on hard times,’ she read, mimicking Moll’s low, commanding tone. ‘He’s a tall, fine-looking boy with dark brows, blue eyes and good calves.’
We both studied my legs for a moment, then laughed together.
‘What do you make of that, madame?’ Mrs Bradshaw called out to a dusty old woman muttering to herself in a dim corner. She was dressed all in black and white like a living chessboard: white hair stabbed with black combs and tied up in a series of tiny black ribbons; face powdered bone-white, black velvet patches only half-covering old pox scars. Flecks of spittle clung to the corners of her thin grey lips.
She tilted her head, studying me with the cold black eyes of a raven about to tug a worm from the ground. And then she shuddered, flapping her black lace shawl tighter about her bony frame. ‘Pas beau,’ she sneered. ‘Il est trop pâle. Comme un fantôme.’
Well, that’s rich coming from you, you old baggage, I thought.
Mrs Bradshaw leaned back and raised her eyebrows at Kitty, who was sitting by the fire, bouncing the little boy violently on her knee while he squealed in a mixture of delight and alarm. To my surprise, she translated at once. ‘Too pale. Like a ghost.’
‘A ghost? Well, now… she would know, I suppose.’ Mrs Bradshaw glanced about anxiously, as if the air might be alive with spirits with nothing better to do than listen to her chatter. ‘Madame Migault is a fortune teller, Mr Hawkins. She’ll read your future if you like.’
‘No, thank you, madame,’ I said. I preferred to make my own future, not have it spat at me in riddles by a bony old witch. ‘I’m afraid I don’t hold with fortune telling.’
‘Well said, sir.’ The chaplain, still sitting by the fire, closed his Bible with a snap. ‘Only the Lord Himself knows our path through this world. The rest is devil’s work.’ He removed his spectacles and peered across the room – then gave a startled cry when he caught sight of me. ‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed, heaving himself up from his chair. The blood had drained from his face, turning it a sickly tallow colour. ‘Is it… are you…?’
‘Captain Roberts, returned from the dead? No, sir.’ I smiled, but this only served to heighten his alarm. I hurried to give him my name before the poor man expired from shock, explaining that I had arrived only this morning.