Foxe and the Path into Darkness

by William Savage

  Bart must have thought Foxe had been killed. He let out a cry of hatred and anguish and threw himself across the room at Belton, who was struggling to cock a second pistol which he had placed on the dressing table beside him. He lifted it to try to shoot Bart as well but the huge fellow struck his arm upwards with such force that the pistol flew out of his hand into the air and discharged there, sending the ball out through the window and shattering the glass in the bottom pane, causing it to fall in a dense shower into the yard below.

  Bart wasted no time in trying to grapple with Belton and aimed a blow at his face which carried all his anger and grief with it. One blow from Bart’s massive fists was usually sufficient to stretch any man out on the ground unconscious. This one, fuelled by overwhelming fury as it was, threw Belton off his feet and sent him reeling backwards so that he came up against what should have been the window, but was now a gaping hole edged with fragments of shattered glass. As his knees buckled, the errant mayor plunged backwards out of the window to fall to the stone flags of the yard below with a sickening thud.

  Bart wasted no more time on him but turned back to where Henry was now crouched down over his master, rope flung aside, vainly trying to stem the flow of blood from his side.

  ‘He’s alive,’ Henry said, ‘though unconscious and sorely wounded, I think.’

  ‘Carriage. Miss Tabby,’ Bart said, and Henry darted off down the stairs as fast as he was able to run down the street and bring up the carriage he had left there. Meanwhile, Bart picked up Foxe and cradled him in his arms, descending the stairs with great care to avoid any jolts or stumbles. By the time he reached the foot of the stairs, the constables, who had heard the shots, were already inside. They stepped back when they saw Bart’s burden.

  ‘Foxe shot,’ Bart said. ‘Upstairs,’ and continued on his way to the open front door, while the constables hurried up the stairs to the door through which they could see smoke drifting out of a room to the left.

  Moments later, Henry arrived with the carriage. As soon as he brought it to a halt, he jumped down to open the door so that Bart could lie Foxe along the seat, then climbed in himself to steady the unconscious man against the inevitable jolts and bumps of their journey to Tabby’s house.

  What followed was a nightmare drive through the streets of Norwich, scattering terrified pedestrians right and left, skimming around carts and carriages with scarcely a fraction of an inch of space and taking several corners on two wheels; all accompanied by a rising cacophony of curses from those left spattered with the mud and filth their headlong passage threw up on both sides. By the time they reached Mistress Tabby’s house, with the sound of a hundred or more furious people still resounding behind them, the poor horse was flecked with foam and trembling with fear. Henry got down and went to calm the beast while Bart lifted Foxe out of the carriage and made his way up the path towards Tabby’s front door. He was about to shout to call her when the door opened and there she stood, fully dressed and seemingly ready for him. Maybe she had had a premonition. Maybe she had heard them arriving in a wild clatter of hooves. She never said. She simply told Bart to take Foxe and lay him gently on the bed in their only guest room, then take one of the sheets he would find in the chest at the foot of the bed and tear it into strips for bandages. She already had water heating over the fire to cleanse Foxe’s wounds.

  Together, she and Bart removed Foxe’s jacket and stripped his blood-drenched shirt away, until Tabby could see the deep, livid gashes in his side and under his arm, still oozing blood.

  ‘Fetch honey,’ she said to Bart, ‘with a large bowl of warm water and the clean cloth you will find on the kitchen table.’

  As he hurried off to bring what she asked for, Tabby inspected Foxe carefully to satisfy herself that no vital parts of his body had been hit. What worried her most was the possibility of a fever setting in, since he was already weak from loss of blood.

  The moment Bart returned, she gently bathed each wound, stripping away any residue of black powder that might have been clinging to the pistol ball. Next, she folded one of the strips Bart had torn from the sheet into a thick pad, smeared both sides liberally with honey, and placed it between the wound in Foxe’s inner arm and the one in his side, holding all in place with bandages wrapped tight around his body, thus trapping his right arm against his ribs.

  After that, she and Bart removed the remainder of Foxe’s clothes, dressed him in one of Bart’s nightgowns and made him as comfortable as they could in the bed. Poor Foxe was totally swamped by the nightgown. That, coupled with the extreme pallor of his face, made him look rather like a sick child wrapped in one of his father’s shirts.

  Tabby whispered to Bart that they should now leave him to sleep. Bart went to gather up the blood-soaked clothes and take them outside to soak in a bucket of cold water from the well. Tabby hurried to instruct Henry to return to Foxe’s house, tell them what had happened and bring back several of Foxe’s clean nightshirts. Once she had done all that, she called to one of the street children, who had by now gathered in an anxious group outside her gate, telling him to take some of the others and run down to the river. There they were to gather a good bundle of fresh osier willow wands and bring them back to her as quickly as they could.

  With the willow wands in her hands, she chose the thickest and healthiest and carefully stripped as much bark from them as possible. Each strip of bark she put into a pot of boiling water over the fire. These she would allow to seethe for at least an hour, before allowing them to cool and straining away any residue of bark and dirt. After that process was complete, she would have made a strong tincture of willow bark, sovereign for reducing pain and lowering the chances of a fever from badly inflamed wounds.

  From time to time she had looked in on Foxe, but each time she found him motionless and deeply unconscious. It was not until well into the afternoon that he showed the first signs of rousing from his sleep, trying to turn and raise his right hand and crying out with the pain each time he did it.

  Several times he called for Lucy and once for Tabby herself, though it was clear he was still either delirious or trapped in some strange state between sleep and wakefulness. Not until after Tabby had heard the clock in her hallway strike half-past four, did Foxe’s eyes open wide as he returned to full consciousness.

  ‘Belton shot me!’ Foxe said, his tone full of indignation. ‘But who brought me here and why can’t I move my right arm?’

  ‘Bart brought you, of course,’ Tabby replied. ‘Henry drove the carriage like a madman, Bart told me, while he crouched inside and tried to stop you rolling onto the floor. You can’t move your arm because I’ve bound it tight to your chest with bandages. The pistol ball has left nasty wounds on your side and your inner arm. If you could move it, I assure you you’d soon wish you hadn’t.’

  ‘Does Lucy know?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry about Miss Lucy. Alderman Halloran sent a footman here more than two hours ago to enquire after you. I sent him back with the message that you have been badly hurt but, being young and hearty, I have every hope you will make a full recovery in time. Apart from the scars, of course. I can do nothing about those. Now, do you wish to use the chamber pot?’

  Foxe admitted that he did, and Tabby said she would fetch Bart to help him get out of bed to do so. Foxe naturally protested that he needed no help but his efforts to rise soon convinced him otherwise.

  ‘I’m as weak as a new-born kitten,’ he said to Tabby in wonder.

  ‘Of course you are,’ she replied. ‘You’ve lost a great deal of blood. Now drink this down and I’ll call Bart.’

  Slowly, and with a great deal of fuss and whining, Foxe was persuaded to swallow the cup of willow-bark tea that Tabby had prepared. Then Bart came, as requested, and lifted him into a standing position, supporting him so that he didn’t at once fall down again. Once he had used the chamber pot provided, Tabby changed his dressing and bandages. It took a little time but he was finally allowed to lie down again, breathi
ng heavily and now fully convinced that he was totally unable to fend for himself.

  While he was being helped by Bart, Tabby had prepared some warm beef broth for him to drink. Naturally, he first assumed it was another cup of the willow-bark tea and began to protest again.

  ‘Don’t be such a baby, Ashmole,’ she said to him sternly. ‘That tea simply tastes bitter. I know that, but it may well also save your life, so let us hear no more complaints about it. Anyway, this is only good beef broth to give you back some strength.’

  ‘When will Lucy come to see me?’ Foxe asked. ‘I thought she might be here already.’

  ‘She isn’t here because I forbade it,’ Tabby said. ‘Strictly no visitors until I am convinced the worst is passed. However, if you are good and drink all your willow tea with no more complaints, I may send Bart to bring her here for a brief visit tomorrow morning. No promises, you understand, but you seem rather brighter than I had expected. Meanwhile, what you need most of all is rest and sleep. There are no finer remedies for allowing a wounded body to heal itself. Lie back, rest and I will return in an hour or so to see how you are.’

  ‘Will Lucy come?’ Foxe asked plaintively, as sleep began to take hold of him.

  ‘From what Bart tells me, wild horses could not keep her away. Be at ease, dear Ashmole. Lucy will come the moment I allow it, have no fear that she will not.’

  So, for the rest of that day and night, Foxe slept, woke to drink more willow-bark tea with many grimaces but no actual complaints, was helped to relieve himself, then given more broth. Mistress Tabby and Bart took turns to watch over him while the other snatched an hour or so of sleep. Tabby touched his forehead many times watchful for any signs of fever, but none came.

  What dreams troubled Foxe’s rest no one could say, and he remembered none the next morning. However, many times throughout the night he moaned in his sleep, muttered incomprehensible phrases and tossed and turned as much as Mistress Tabby’s bandaging would allow. When he did wake at one point, he found himself puzzling over Belton’s actions in that bedroom in Pottergate. Why had he fired the pistol instantly, without saying a word and without pausing to find who it was or what might happen? He must have known killing another person could do no good. All escape was blocked. Adding a second murder to the first would not have altered the sentence he must have known he faced if he came to trial. Perhaps it was a final act of bravado. Perhaps he despised the idea of surrender, seeing it as another failure to add to all the rest. Perhaps he truly was mad, for it was certainly the act of a madman.

  Foxe tried to make sense of it all but his mind was still muzzy with a mixture of sleep and weakness and he soon slipped back into unconsciousness.

  In her bed in Colegate, Lucy tossed and turned, cursing herself time and time again for being a blind fool. She too slipped in and out of dreams and nightmares, sometimes fearful that Foxe was indeed dead, at others convinced his regard for her must have been irreparably damaged by her coldness towards him. This was a man whom, her aunt had told her, every mother of an eligible daughter in Norwich sought as a son-in-law. A man who could attract women without effort. Why should he even bother with someone who didn’t know her own mind until it was almost too late? Why, oh why, had she felt afraid? He had never shown anything but kindness towards her. He even went out of his way to take pity on those half-starved street urchins and tried his best to prevent others being hurt by the crimes he investigated. Her aunt thought him the best of men, save only for her own husband. Of course he’d never hurt her. She had been nothing but a deluded fool to imagine his forthright passion for her was something she should turn aside. She knew she felt something of the same for him, although she had tried for far too long to deny it even to herself. What if her desires and passions were indeed fully awake and eager to get free of the constraints she had set on them? Surely Mr Foxe, of all people, could deal with those as well as his own?

  Thus, she slept and woke, dreamed and fretted, until dawn arrived, and she could rise to try to make good the damage to her face and hair the night had done.

  24

  Despite Foxe’s impatience, and his exemplary behaviour in swallowing the bitter draughts of willow-bark tea without protest, Bart was not sent to fetch Lucy until after noon the next day. Foxe had finally slipped into a deep sleep from which Mistress Tabby was hesitant to wake him. When he did awake at last, when the hall clock had just chimed ten in the morning, he had been taken to the kitchen to wash. He also had his dressing and bandages changed and the single pad between his arm and chest changed for two pads, so that he could move his right arm at last. Not that he wanted to. Whenever he did, the pain was so sharp he could barely stop himself from shouting aloud.

  Returned to bed and dressed in a clean nightshirt of his own, Foxe ate a light breakfast of bread and jam and drank several more cups of beef broth. Finally, Bart shaved him. ‘To make you look more presentable,’ Tabby told him. The sight of his own cut-throat razor, brought over by Henry, in Bart’s huge fist made him feel extremely nervous at first. However, he found Bart both gentle and dexterous. So much so that he emerged cleanly shaven and without a single nick in his skin, a feat he only achieved himself on roughly three-quarters of the occasions when he took up his razor.

  Finally, he was propped up slightly higher on his pillows and told, very firmly, that he was on no account to move more than was absolutely necessary.

  ‘The bleeding has stopped at last,’ Tabby told him, ‘so I do not wish you to start it up again. Miss Lucy will be here soon but has been told she can spend no more than ten minutes with you. She will also be warned not to upset or excite you in any way. So far, you have avoided any fever, but you are not out of the woods yet; not until those wounds begin to form proper scabs. Even then, it will be many days before you can move your right arm normally. Left to myself, I would not allow any visitors for at least another day, but the two of you have made such a fuss about seeing one another I have given in. Ten minutes, Ash. Then you must rest and sleep again.’

  In fact, Foxe had almost fallen asleep by the time Lucy arrived and was still somewhat groggy when she slipped into the room, dressed in her workaday jacket and skirt and looking almost as pale as he did.

  Seeing him lying there, looking helpless and exhausted, she forgot all Tabby had told her when she arrived and threw herself on her knees beside the bed, giving way to floods of tears.

  ‘Oh, Ash, Ash! My dearest, dearest Ash!’ Lucy cried. ‘What a blind, stubborn, stiff-necked fool I’ve been! Whatever possessed me to treat you so cruelly? Can you ever forgive me, Ash? I love you! There, I’ve admitted it at last. I love you. Please say you still like me a little bit.’

  ‘Hush, hush,’ Foxe said, in the tone you might use to calm a crying child. He reached over with his left hand and began to stroke her shoulder. ‘There is nothing to forgive. Of course I love you, dearest Lucy. I love you more than I thought I could ever love anyone. I knew it the moment I saw you that day when you had just returned from France. I would have told you sooner, but you would not permit it. If anyone stands in need of forgiveness, I am that man. How could I have been so neglectful—’

  He stopped there, for Lucy had stretched out her hand to place a finger on his lips, silencing him.

  ‘Enough, Ash,’ she said firmly. ‘Let us have no more of this silly quarrel. If we love each other, there is a simple way to leave our foolishness in the past and start again. You ask me to marry you and I say “yes”.’

  ‘But Lucy ... dearest Lucy ... could you ... would you?’ Foxe stammered. ‘I am so much older than you are.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ Lucy said at once. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Nearly thirty-one.’

  ‘I am nearly eighteen. That’s a gap of but thirteen years. Uncle Benjamin is over fifteen years older than Aunt Isobel, and you could not ask for a more devoted and loving couple. Think no more of ages, Ash. All you need to do is ask ... If you want to, that is.’

  ‘Of course I wa
nt to,’ Ash protested. ‘How could you ever think I might not? Lucy Halloran, dearest Lucy Halloran, will you consent to be my wife? Will you marry me?’

  ‘I will, Ashmole Foxe, and right gladly. Now, you must get well so we can be married very soon, for I can hardly bear to wait a single day more to be your wife.’

  At that point, she stretched forward and placed her lips on Foxe’s in a lengthy and passionate kiss. That was how they were, with Foxe doing his best to respond fully without raising his head, when Mistress Tabby came back into the room.

  ‘Miss Lucy Halloran!’ she said loudly. ‘What did I tell you when I allowed you in to see my patient? Did I not say you were not, on any account, to upset or excite him? So, what are you doing now, if not flouting my explicit instructions, as well as acting in the most brazen manner? Shame on you!’

  ‘Do not scold, Mistress Tabby,’ Lucy replied meekly. ‘I could not stop myself. Ash has asked me to marry him, and I have accepted his proposal.’

  ‘So, you have both seen sense at last,’ Tabby replied, softening her tone. ‘I suppose those are exceptional circumstances. Just don’t do it again, Miss. I am very happy for you both. Ash knows that, although people call me a Wise Woman, I never attempt to foresee the future. However, I do have the strongest feeling inside me that the two of you will enjoy a long and happy marriage. But your time is up, Miss Lucy. It is time to go and leave Ash to rest again. If you want him to be well enough to take you on as his wife, you must let him recover his strength. He’s going to need every ounce of it by the way you have just been acting.’