by Robin Blake
Waiting in Church Gate for the Friar Gate column to start were the camp followers, a livelier, less disciplined mob of old men and women of all ages, trying as ever to make last-minute sales – Charles Edward’s portrait prints, little wooden soldiers whittled for children, trinkets and tawdry objects they’d stolen or looted along the way. Among this throng were the baggage vehicles and three or four coaches, the nearest of which I recognized as Lady Ogilvy’s. I approached and, rising to the step, looked in.
‘Is Madame Lachatte with you?’ I asked.
There were only two women inside: Lady Ogilvy, I presumed, and the younger and more beautiful Mrs Murray of Broughton. A third seat was occupied by a fat middle-aged civilian with one of his feet bandaged and resting on the empty seat opposite – a victim of gout, obviously.
‘We have not seen her,’ he told me. ‘She will be in one of the other coaches.’
Without a word, he reached out and abruptly pulled down the blind.
I walked down the street until I reached the next coach waiting amidst the seething throng, its horses snorting and stamping the cobbles. Here I enquired again. Madame Lachatte was not there, and nor was she in the next coach. While standing on the step of this last, I could see one more coach thirty yards further down.
‘Who is in that other coach?’ I asked the driver, a slovenly fellow wearing a dirty cauliflower wig. ‘The one coming after you, I mean.’
‘That coach is special for His Highness’s lady friends,’ said the coachman. ‘Miss Jenny Cameron, and the rest of ’em.’
I stepped down and, thinking she could not be in that one, began walking home. I felt sure that Madame Lachatte must have plans to rejoin the coach of Lady Ogilvy later on, though what she was doing in the meantime I could not imagine. Then I passed the window of Sweeting’s shop, with its packed array of tempting volumes. I remembered the book that Madame Lachatte had bought there in my company only two weeks before, and took it out of my pocket. I flipped the cover back idly to expose the title page and immediately saw, above the words The Fortunate Mistress, a line written by hand: page 94 if you please, Mr C!
The book had been new when she’d bought it, so the author of this message must be the lady herself. And ‘Mr C’? Myself, presumably. I hurriedly turned to the page referred to. At first nothing in particular appeared but, looking more closely, I saw some lines had been marked by a few very light ink-dots down the margin. They read as follows:
To be courted by a prince, and by a prince who was first a benefactor, then an admirer; to be called handsome, the finest woman in France, and to be treated as a woman fit for the bed of a prince – these are things a woman must have no vanity in her, nay, no corruption in her, that is not overcome by it.
Good God! The message she was sending me could not have been clearer. Somewhere on the road between Preston and Derby she had found herself in the Pretender’s company. He was dazzled. He flattered her, courted her and, finally, seduced her. She had no need now for the faithless d’Éguilles. The career that had begun among the milk cows of Cork was now on the march to greater and greater things as she sat with Miss Cameron in the coach ‘special for His Highness’s lady friends’. Madame Lachatte had become a royal mistress.
I felt immensely glad about this. The fatuous Marquis, with his criminal roving eye and false religiosity, would never be of good use to such a fine and intelligent woman – even less so now that he was, thanks to Elizabeth, frankly a eunuch. I returned the book to my pocket, thinking that although it was not the sort of title I normally keep, I would award it a permanent place in my library shelves as a memento of a remarkable woman – and one who may, if fortune continued in her favour, become even more remarkable still.
By midday the soldiers, drummers and pipers, the hawkers and harlots and cannons and carriages, and all the bluster and swell of the army, had gone from our streets. Preston was quiet, suspended as if between two storms. How far away is the Duke of Cumberland? was the question in the Mitre and the Turk’s Head. A day away was the answer most commonly heard. Twenty-four hours and he’d be here.
We went about our business, but we couldn’t concentrate. I picked through some papers concerning a disputed will and soon laid them down. Then I saw the draft of my letter to the Widow Limmington in Macclesfield. I wondered if I would be hearing more from Mrs Bigelow, now that her son’s bag of ill-gotten money was sitting in my safe cupboard. Finally, my thoughts turned to my own son. It had been too long since I had seen Hector. I decided that, as business was impossible for me, I must go out to Broughton that very afternoon.
The cloud-fast snow had still not descended, but the wind blew in icy blasts. Old Jones, in no more of a hurry than usual, carried me across the Moor at an amble. We soon began to come across a few remnant followers of the rebel army, over-burdened walkers or crippled stragglers who had already found it impossible to keep up with the soldiers’ pace.
We came to a place where the Moor dipped and began to rise again, and here a ghastly sight reared up on the skyline. It was a single stout wooden post, thick as a young tree, and set in the ground in such a way as to be visible from every direction. This post was topped with a crossbeam, and from each end of this dangled a human shape, suspended by his neck and swinging to and fro in the wind.
Reaching this grim gibbet – which immediately recalled the gibbet of Nixon that I had seen in my dream – I dismounted to take a closer look. Neither of the victims would be recognizable in themselves. The faces were grotesquely swollen above the tightened nooses, and they wore no distinguishable clothing, being both dressed in nothing but a dirty shift. But handwritten papers were nailed to the post, one on each side, presumably placed there by the disgraced men’s executioners. I put on my spectacles.
John Bellasis, said one, declared enemy of the true King and shouter of damned lies about the same. By military order done to death this day 13th December 1745.
Bellasis. I remembered him – my fellow prisoner in the cart between Preston and Wigan. No doubt he had driven his captors mad with his unceasing reckless scurrility against them, until they reached breaking point and hanged him. Well, he had asked for this, if that is how he behaved. I moved around to the other side of the post.
James Barrowclough, it read, who murdered William Sinclair and did then mutilate the same by beheading after his death and also the beheader of John MacNab, two faithful souls who met their deaths violently while serving the True King. Hanged by military order this day 13th December 1745.
I remounted Jones and rode away from the dismal scene, trying to regulate my thoughts about the end of James Barrowclough. His father had betrayed him; that was the most horrible thing about the matter. Nothing, no earthly persuasion or unearthly terror, would ever allow me to do the same to Hector. I felt my love for him to be iron-bound in faithfulness, and though I did not think that, even as he grew to be a man, we would or could ever disagree as the Barrowcloughs had done, I would nevertheless stand by him even though we were in mortal dispute. It is a law that though a son do sin, a father does not sin against his son. How old Sir John could break that law of fatherhood I would never comprehend. These reflections occupied some of the forty minutes it took us to reach the house of my parents-in-law, the Georges. When I finally arrived, and walked into their cottage, I found the place in uproar.
There was a strong smell of burned food, the source of which was a tray of potatoes charred black and another equally blackened pudding. Mrs George was on one side of the range shrieking and sobbing alternately. Mr George sat across from her, obviously in a state of bewilderment. He was casting his eyes this way and that, as if looking for help from somewhere, anywhere. Help there was, of a kind, for at least three sets of neighbours were with them, including the constable of Broughton, Simon Rackshaw, a kindly soul and in my estimation not a fool. He had his arm around old George’s shoulders and was bent down to his ear shouting questions, which he had to do to defeat the old man’s deafness.
‘Did you know them? Tell me about them. Can you describe them?’
Two women posted on each side of Elizabeth’s mother were holding her hands and attempting in high-pitched tones to reassure her, though she took no notice. Her apron was thrown up over her head, and she was crying and keening and calling on Jesus and his mother and all the saints to come to her aid. Whatever had occurred, I had evidently arrived too late to prevent it.
I clapped as loudly as I could. I banged my fist on the table. In the end, I simply bracketed my mouth with my hands and bellowed.
‘WILL ONE OF YOU TELL ME WHAT THIS IS ABOUT?’
It had the effect I wanted. Rackshaw stood up straight. The two female neighbours looked around. They all stopped talking.
‘Mr Cragg!’ said Rackshaw, after a moment. ‘Am I pleased to see you! What a good chance.’
‘What on earth’s happened, Rackshaw? Why all this caterwauling?’
He came forward and took my hand, as in a handshake, but there was something else about his touch, something of pity and condolence that all at once made me shiver and grow cold. An appalling thought gripped my heart.
‘Hector,’ I said simply. ‘Where is he, Rackshaw? Where is Hector?’
‘That’s just the thing, Mr Cragg,’ said Rackshaw. ‘We don’t know where he is.’
My first act was to tear through the house looking in the rooms, behind the doors, under the beds, in the blanket chests and every other possible hiding place. I went outside and ran around the house, first clockwise and then the other way, calling my son’s name. I searched the chicken coop and the goat house. I searched the midden and the privy. Hector was not there. He was not anywhere to be found.
I stood outside the cottage front door for a moment and stilled myself, drawing deep breaths of air. Then I went back inside and guided Rackshaw into the parlour, a small room used for particular gatherings only. If any gathering was particular, it was this one. I took some more deep breaths to calm myself. It was no time to give way to panic. It was a time for rational thought and rational action.
‘Tell me what happened, Rackshaw. Everything you know, and everything you suspect.’
‘From what I can gather, Mr Cragg, men came. Carrying pistols, they were, and had cloths like kerchiefs tied over their faces. Under their hats, only their eyes showed.’
‘Who was here?’
‘Just Mr and Mrs George and the little man himself.’
‘Did the intruders say who they were?’
‘Mrs George keeps saying it were Jack Fingers, Jack Fingers, over and over. I can’t make out if she’s just convinced herself of this, or if one of them admitted he was Fingers.’
‘Well, I have some reason to think it may very well be him. What happened next?’
‘The two old folk were tied up. They were found trussed up to their chairs and gagged with leather belts.’
‘When was this?’
‘Half an hour ago they were found. The neighbour Mary Crutchley came in for some reason and that was what she saw.’
‘But do we know when the men came? What time it was?’
‘No. We don’t know how long the Georges sat there tied up. But the room smelled strongly of smoke from their burned dinner.’
‘So it was before dinner-time. And did Mrs Crutchley send for you?’
‘Yes, right away.’
‘And you looked for my son?’
‘Yes. He was not to be found. Not in the house, and not in the yard, as you’ve seen for yourself. He was taken, sir. I wish I did not have to tell you this, but he was kidnapped. It’s the only explanation.’
I went back into the main room. Mrs George’s storm of emotion had subsided.
‘Mother-in-law,’ I said. ‘There is no use in unreasoned grief. You must know we may quite reasonably expect Hector is well looked after. I am sure these men who took him do not want to harm him, but to exchange him unharmed. So I must know exactly what happened here today.’
She nodded her head, seeming to take this in.
‘I am glad you are here, son.’ She was speaking now in a hoarse whisper. ‘The leader, he said he was Jack Fingers the highwayman and he’d come for the son of Titus Cragg.’
‘What time was it when he came?’
‘Almost dinner-time. Happen twelve o’clock. The food was still in the oven. We never got it out till now.’
She gestured at the ruined food on the floor beside the range.
‘Did the men come on horseback?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was there anything about the way the leader spoke?’
‘He spoke roughly. But there was a bit of the gentleman about his way of speech too. Just a bit.’
‘And did he say why he wanted to take Hector? Did he leave any writing, any letter, explaining himself?’
‘No. He just told us we’d be hearing from him. We were to wait to hear from him, he said.’
‘My guess is that it will be me who hears from him,’ I said, ‘and not here, but in Preston. Therefore, I must go back there at once. Jack Fingers might already have sent me his demands. Elizabeth may have opened them. I hope not, but if she has, I must go home at once to reassure her and get started on the business of bringing Hector home again.’
I turned to Simon Rackshaw.
‘Will you go around and find anyone who saw these men? If you can get any description at all, I would be very obliged. You must write to me as soon as you have any intelligence.’
‘I will that, Mr Cragg,’ said Rackshaw, ‘even if we’re all night looking.’
I went out and mounted Jones.
‘You must run like a horse ten years younger,’ I told him. ‘We have little time.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Jones did his best, but by the time we reached Cheap Side, it was dark and the long-threatened snow was already falling. I went in by way of the office and found that Furzey had not yet left work. I asked if any letter had been received. None had.
‘You may go home now, but I’d be glad if you would call on your way at Scrafton’s Roost and ask Doctor Fidelis to come as a matter of urgency.’
Furzey looked at me with that ironic pity that he often assumed to assert his independence of me, and of the business of the office.
‘What’s happened? You are not yourself.’
‘Why would I be myself, man? My son has been abducted.’
I hurried through to the house, where I found Elizabeth in the parlour. She put down her sewing and shook a paper at me.
‘This letter has come. What does it mean? Something about someone’s money and you have it.’
I took the paper from her. It was very much as I expected.
I have him. And you have my money. I will take it back in return for him. You will receive your instructions tomorrow.
Tomorrow! I couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
‘When did this come?’ I said.
‘A quarter of an hour ago. It was pushed under the door.’
‘Only fifteen minutes? My God, if Jones had been ten years younger, I might have caught him!’
‘Caught who, Titus? And who is “him” the letter talks about?’
‘Matty!’ I shouted at the door. ‘Run out and get Pip Simpson. I want him immediately.’
I headed back towards the door connecting the house with the office. Elizabeth called after me.
‘Titus, you are beginning to frighten me. Tell me what this is about.’
‘Hector. It’s about Hector,’ I said, opening the door.
She followed me through as I went to the safe cupboard.
‘But Hector’s with my parents. Haven’t you just seen him this afternoon?’
‘No, I haven’t. I found the house had been attacked. Your mother and father were tied up and gagged, and Hector was not there.’
Elizabeth clapped her hands to her cheeks, eyes wide.
‘You can’t mean that he … what the letter is about … that Hector has been …’
‘Yes. The letter
is a ransom demand. A man went to Broughton at dinner-time today and took our son away.’
‘Dear God in heaven! Who, Titus?’
‘The highwayman, O’Higgins.’
‘O’Higgins, who was here last night, whose pistol I shot?’
‘The same.’
‘And you have this money that he wants?’
I pulled the safe cupboard open and took out the leather bag. I held it up in front of her eyes.
‘Yes.’
‘Then you must give it to him!’
‘Of course I must. I wish I could do it tonight. But I don’t know where O’Higgins is.’
We returned with the bag of money to our living quarters, where I placed it square on the mantel in the parlour, ready to ransom Hector.
‘I thought I had convinced O’Higgins to give this up. Damn him! I should have known he was lying. “Show me a thief and I’ll show you a liar”! Damn him to hell!’
Pip came in with Matty.
‘Will you find Barty?’ I said. ‘I need him as soon as possible.’
Barty was the orphan boy who used to do the jobs that Pip now did, running messages for me around town and gathering information when I needed it. Now a big sixteen-year-old, he was no longer the urchin sleeping in the hay barn at Lawson’s Livery, but he still refused all regular employment and remained closer to the lowlife of the town than anyone else I knew.
Pip said he reckoned he could find him, and off he ran.
‘What are you going to do, Titus?’
‘Find this ruffian and rescue Hector. But first I mean to muster our forces.’
Forty minutes later most of these forces had come together, and we formed a committee around the dining table: myself, Elizabeth, Matty (her eyes overflowing with tears), Luke Fidelis and Robert Furzey who, to my surprise and pleasure, had returned with the doctor – ‘returned to duty’, as he put it. Pip had still not reappeared. I took the head of the table.