‘And after that? What shall I do on Monday, Moll?’
‘Monday?’ She rubbed harder at the dried blood, making me gasp with pain. ‘Since when have you planned that far ahead?’ Then she stopped, and pressed her lips to my ear. ‘My offer’s still open, Tom. Come and work for me. I could use a boy of your talents…’ And she set off upon a story about a new venture she had in mind, involving a trip to France. I can’t remember the details now and could barely understand them then. My head was throbbing and it was hard to follow her. I remember it sounded dangerous and reckless. And tempting.
I considered my choices while Moll rinsed my blood from the cloth, wringing the water into the bowl with a sharp twist. I could stand and face my fate with honour, like a gentleman, and meet some squalid end in gaol. Or I could escape to the Mint and be lost from good society for ever. It was easy enough for Moll to advise the latter course. She was born in the stews and had spent most of her life working the streets for profit, one way or another. She knew when to run and where to go. She had escaped prison and transportation, been called a whore and a thief and worse. Somehow she always came back, brighter and braver than before.
It was not the same for me. As the eldest son of a Suffolk gentleman, my life had been set along an old, straight track from birth: I would join the clergy like my father, and – in time – inherit his position. Three years ago – following an unfortunate incident in an Oxford brothel – I had abandoned that path. Now here I was, five and twenty, with no family, no prospects and no money. True, I had Greek and Latin and could dance a passable gavotte, but a man cannot survive on such things, even in London.
I glanced through a copy of the Daily Courant that had been left upon the table, hoping for some clue to what I should do. Amidst the advertisements for horses, houses and an ‘infallible cure for scurvy’, I noticed that the South Sea Company had announced a three-month extension on borrowing. When the stocks collapsed seven years ago some investors had arranged to pay their debts in instalments – with interest, naturally. Perhaps Mr Fletcher might consider a similar scheme.
Betty appeared with a clean change of clothes and a bowl of hot punch, God bless her. My waistcoat could be cleaned and mended, but my breeches and stockings were torn beyond repair. I stripped by the warmth of the fire, wincing from the bruises along my ribs. I pulled on the fresh stockings and a pair of old, snuff-coloured breeches, then eased myself into a matching waistcoat and jacket. Clean and dressed, I felt more myself again – but when I glanced in the tarnished mirror above the fireplace, I was startled by my reflection. I didn’t look like a man of honour – if I ever had. I looked like a man who would run.
I shivered. So – this was my choice now. Gaol or a life of crime. A life that would most likely end with a rope around my neck. I touched my hand to my throat.
‘Mr Hawkins.’ A soft, low voice behind me. Betty’s reflection joined mine in the mirror, my ruined clothes gathered in her arms. She stole a glance towards the front door, where Moll was slopping out the blood and water into the piazza. ‘There is another way,’ she whispered.
I turned, hope rising in my chest. ‘Tell me.’
She smiled, gently. ‘You could go home, sir. Go home and ask your father for help.’
My shoulders sagged. I poured myself a glass of punch and knocked it back. ‘I’d sooner ask the devil.’
‘What’s this?’ Moll asked sharply as she returned, but Betty had slipped away with my clothes and we were alone.
‘There’s the scoundrel! Arrest him!’
Benjamin Fletcher, my landlord, stood in the doorway, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. He must have run all the way from Greek Street. As he limped forward he was followed by a warrant officer, a huge ox of a man, carrying a large wooden club in his fist. His nose had been squashed about his face a few times and a large white scar ran through one brow. A long loop of chains hung over his shoulder like a sash. Our eyes met and he smiled, quite cheerful, as if he had come to escort me to the theatre, not prison. His gaze dropped to the blood-soaked cloth in Moll’s hand. ‘Run into some trouble, sir?’ he asked, in the slow, steady voice of a man with very quick fists.
‘Seize him, Mr Jakes!’ Fletcher wheezed, tearing the hat from his head and fanning his sweaty face.
‘Mr Fletcher,’ I said, holding my hands out wide in apology. ‘I swear to you I had the money…’
‘No more lies, Mr Hawkins,’ he cried. He pulled a note from his waistcoat and thrust it at me, his hands shaking. ‘You have played me for a fool, sir.’
The note was short, and written in a neat script that reminded me of my own. A gentleman’s hand.
Sir.
As a good Christian it is my Duty to report that yr Tenant that vile Dog Hawkins is engaged in relations of the most sordid Nature with your Wife and that the whole World speaks of their Infamy. Your kind Patience and Tolerance of his Debts to You, sir, he repays in this monstrous Manner to his own Shame and your Wife’s Ruin.
A Friend.
Beneath it was a crude drawing of a man sprouting horns from his brow – the unmistakeable sign of a cuckold.
I frowned at the note, quite confounded. Mrs Fletcher was a pinched, mean-spirited woman with a shrill temper and the look of a shaved ferret. The very notion we were ‘engaged in relations’ was beyond contempt, but Fletcher believed it. This was calamitous. As my chief creditor, he alone could show mercy and grant me more time to pay my debt. He was not a cruel man; in truth he had been more patient than I deserved. But above all other things, he doted upon his wretched wife. His anonymous ‘friend’ had played a clever game upon us both. I must answer this with great care.
‘Mr Fletcher, sir. We are men of reason, are we not?’ I waved the note limply. ‘You must see that this is no more than malicious gossip? I mean no dishonour to your good wife, but…’
Behind me, Moll gave a little cough. ‘But he’d rather fuck his own sister.’
The chains lay heavy across my chest as Jakes led me through Covent Garden towards the river. I walked with my gaze upon the ground, the manacles tight about my wrists, hands clasped together as if in prayer. Too late for that, now. I doubt I was much of a spectacle. I had seen dozens of men led through Soho on their way to the Fleet or the Marshalsea or some other rotten lock-up, and given them little more than a moment’s thought. At least I didn’t have a wife or children trailing at my heels, lamenting their sorry fate. And that, I realised, was the best I could say for myself in that moment.
We pushed our way through the busy market, past stalls laden with bright bunches of flowers and ripe fruit fresh in from the suburbs. I breathed in the sweet scent of herbs and the dusty rich tang of spices and wished I could linger, disappear into the bustling confusion of the crowds – traders shouting their wares; young maids selling nosegays, handkerchiefs, anything to keep them from the brothel; livestock bleating and lowing and snorting and stinking to the heavens; actors and tumblers, footmen and chairmen; gossiping madams and rock-faced bullies – just let me join you all, let me slip into this mass of bodies and disappear…
Jakes kept pace beside me, one hand firm upon my shoulder, steering me down Southampton Street to the Thames. ‘Nice day,’ he observed, squeezing my shoulder in a friendly manner that almost buckled me to the floor. ‘Shame.’
When we reached the river a crowd of watermen all dressed in doublets of red or green clamoured for our business at the Worcester stairs shouting ‘oars! oars!’ and ‘scullers!’, their boats knocking hard against each other as they fought to claim us. Jakes pointed to one dressed in green with the Lord Mayor’s arms picked out in silver. He rowed towards us while the rest jeered and cursed his good luck. When he reached the steps he glanced up at my chains. ‘The Borough?’