‘But you won’t know the result of the appeal,’ Maddy protested.
‘You could send us a letter, they say ’tis only a penny,’ pointed out Lew. ‘Think on it! Us getting a letter!’ His brief attempt at cheeriness faded as he said seriously, ‘And if you needs us in a hurry, maid, us can get back in a day. There’d be no need for us to spend a night on the road, not now us knows our way better.’
It was a sensible suggestion, and everyone agreed to it.
Maddy felt a wrench, watching her brothers heading off homeward in the cold darkness of morning. Part of her longed to be going with them, to the peaceful familiarity of Duncannon.
* * *
It seemed an age since she was last there. She longed to be with Patrick again, too. Just to see him, to enjoy that smile of his, to feel his arms about her; but she could not go to him yet. To desert Davie was out of the question.
The hours until they were allowed entry to the prison dragged for both father and daughter. How Jack filled in his time Maddy could only guess. Usually she passed the time wandering about the city exploring the streets and gazing into the windows of the grand shops. On this particular morning, for a change, she decided to watch the comings and goings at St David’s Station. She had seen trains before at both Totnes and Paignton, but they were insignificant compared to the busy Exeter lines. The station had the added advantage of offering shelter, very welcome on such a raw morning.
She was crossing the wide courtyard in front of the station when she heard someone calling her name. Turning round she saw Cal Whitcomb hurrying towards her.
‘Miss Shillabeer! I thought it was you ahead of me but I couldn’t be sure. You go at a rare pace, I was hard put to it to catch you up.’ He had about him the fresh ruddy glow of a man who had been hurrying.
Maddy regarded him, smart as any Exeter gentleman in his Inverness cape of heavy woollen tweed and his top hat, and was not sure she had anything to say to him. But he did not give her an opportunity to speak.
‘Miss Shillabeer – Maddy,’ he said, ‘you are the last person I expected to see this morning but I am very glad I have. I’m not sure how to put this into words… What I want to say is how horrified and outraged I am at the verdict against your brother. I am all the more distressed that I was in part responsible as a witness for the prosecution. Had I realised the outcome, the devious way the prosecuting counsel had in twisting words, I would have been more on my guard.’
‘It’s not much good having these thoughts now!’ she exclaimed, suddenly glad to have someone to rail against. ‘You should have thought of them earlier. All the regrets in the land won’t help my brother now. Did you have to paint him so black? Did you have to bring up every incident and insult that’s ever passed between you? It was a boy’s life you were dealing with, you know – not that it really matters to you. It’ll be one less Shillabeer to trouble you. I suppose that’s what counts most.’
‘No!’ he protested. ‘Never that. I was angry with him, I’ll admit. It was a terrible thing that happened as a result of his stupidity, but never for a minute did I think it was deliberate. I certainly never considered such a verdict. Manslaughter, yes, but not murder. The last thing I intended was to portray him as a black villain.’
Glaring up into his face Maddy saw that his distress was genuine. He was truly upset about Davie; but she could not relent and forgive him his testimony.
‘I hope that you will be suitably contrite when they hang my Davie,’ she hissed at him.
She realised that he was grasping her hand. When he had taken hold of it she had no idea, but it was not his touch that distressed her. It was the fact that she had put her deepest fears into words. When they hang my Davie. That was what she had said. Wrenching her hand free she turned and ran away from him, from the station, from the dirt and pungent steam of the trains. The only thing she could not run away from was the terror her own words had aroused in her.
By the time she met up with Jack outside the prison she must have managed to compose herself again for he did not seem to notice anything amiss.
‘’Tis funny without the others,’ remarked Davie when only his father and sister entered his cell. ‘You idn’t going to have to leave, though, be you?’ Desperation was in his voice, despite his attempts to control it.
‘No, we won’t leave,’ Maddy promised. ‘I’m getting on fine with my job at the inn, and that’s my bed and board pretty well seen to. And as for Father…’
‘As for me, I can bed down with the horses if needs be, I won’t hurt none,’ said Jack cheerily.
Davie managed a bleak smile, obviously heartened by their reassurances. Maddy looked at him and felt her heart lurch with pity and love. It was usually claimed that adversity aged a person, but on Davie it had had the opposite effect. His increased pallor along with loss of weight contrived to make him seem younger and more vulnerable each time she saw him.
‘You’ll never guess what I’m going to do,’ she said, forcing herself to sound cheerful. ‘I’m going to write to the boys to let them know how you’re getting on. Imagine them getting a letter! Annie’ll have a fit when she sees the postman calling.’
‘I wish I could see her face.’ Davie’s own face lit up with something of his old liveliness, then quickly grew serious again. ‘You can tell them about my appeal.’
‘That I will, and won’t they celebrate when they hear it’s been successful.’
‘If it be successful!’ Davie was too sharp to be taken in by her false optimism.
‘Of course it will be successful,’ declared Maddy.
‘I idn’t so sure. I reckon the size of the stone be against me. I said as it were too big. I wish I’d used the tiddy pebble I wanted first, but then what be the point of wishing? It don’t do no good. If it did, I’d wish I habn’t never joined in the whole daft eaper in the first place.’
Maddy stiffened. ‘What do you mean, joined in?’ she demanded.
Davie looked suddenly wary. ‘Well, thunk it up,’ he said.
‘Then why didn’t you say thought it up? Why did you say joined in? Was there someone else with you?’
‘Of course there wadn’t.’ His reply was a little too prompt and a little too indignant. ‘As for what I said, joined in or thunk up, what be the difference? I idn’t one for book-reading like you.’
‘Yer, our Maddy, you leave the boy alone,’ said Jack sharply. ‘Habn’t he enough to contend with without you starting to sound like that there Linton?’
Reluctantly Maddy let the matter drop, but she was deeply disturbed. Her father had failed to realise the significance of Davie’s slip. No matter how much her brother denied it, his words implied he was not alone in the prank. And had he not said something else when referring to the stone? Something like ‘I said it were too big? Had she heard him properly? She was not sure now, but as she left the prison she felt most uneasy. The more she thought of it, the more troubled she became – and the less she felt that the whole escapade had been Davie’s idea. It had too much of careful, patient planning about it for her impetuous younger brother. But it was exactly the sort of scheme he could be persuaded to participate in, especially by someone with a stronger will.
When she put her suspicions to Jack he thought them unimportant.
‘No one habn’t mentioned no second person,’ he pointed out. ‘Not even that man of Farmer Churchward’s, what were quick on the scene by all accounts. He didn’t say naught about seeing no one else, did he? And Davie have denied un, so I don’t know what you’m fussing about.’
Perhaps he was right. Maddy tried to put the suspicion from her, but it lurked tenaciously at the back of her mind.
* * *
She had more than one reason for being grateful for her job at the inn. The chance to earn herself lodgings was marvellous, but being kept occupied in the evenings was equally welcome. During the day she could fill in time walking about the city, but the hours of darkness had grown intolerable. Now she cooked and cleaned, serv
ed ale, and swept floors like a thing possessed.
‘My regulars idn’t going to know the place soon,’ remarked Mrs Polsoe after closing time, as Maddy scrubbed energetically. ‘I didn’t know they tables was that colour. Come up real vitty they have.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘I tell you what, maid, I’d as soon be wielding a brush as doing this lot.’ She thumped a stubby forefinger on the papers in front of her.
‘What’s the trouble?’ Maddy asked, wiping her hands on her apron.
‘The figures be at sixes and sevens. I’d leave un until tomorrow, when my head’d be clear, but the brewery man’s due in the morning and he’ll expect paying. This be the bill he left me but it seems terrible dear to me. I’ve reckoned it up this way and that but I can’t make it no less, yet something’s wrong somewhere.’
‘Here, let me have a look.’ Maddy pulled the oil lamp closer. ‘That’s the draught bitter per barrel, I presume, and that the mild. What’s this entry?’
‘That be the bottled beer. I usually has a dozen crates from time to time – folk round here don’t usually run to such fancy tastes but as ’tis Christmas I thought I’d double the order. But I didn’t expect un to cost this much!’
‘That’s because he’s charging you for two scores of crates, not two dozen,’ said Maddy. The writing’s not too clear, it seems as if it’s been altered. But if you add it up, the cost is for forty crates not twenty-four.’
Mrs Polsoe made some calculations with her blunt pencil. ‘So ’tis,’ she declared. ‘And me only taking delivery of two dozen! Us can guess where the extra money’d have gone, can’t us? And who’d have altered it very carefully again before it got back to the office! Of all the cheating, conniving… I never did trust that fellow! His tailoring be far too natty for just a brewery tally man!’ She paused in her ranting to beam at Maddy. ‘That were sharp of you to spot it. There was a time when that cheating toad’d never have dared try something like that on me, but I idn’t the woman I was.’
‘There, I think you’ll find that’s more like it.’ Maddy pushed the amended bill towards her. ‘Couldn’t you find someone trustworthy to do your books for you?’
‘There idn’t that many as I’d trust,’ said Mrs Polsoe, ‘but the job be youm if you want it.’
‘Oh, but I didn’t… I wasn’t hinting.’
‘I knows you wadn’t, maid, else I’d not have offered. But I idn’t been in this trade for donkey’s years without learning to judge character, that’s why I be offering you the job.’
‘That’s kind of you, but I don’t expect we’ll be in Exeter for much longer.’
‘Only until the appeal, I suppose.’
‘How – how did you know?’ gasped Maddy.
‘I idn’t deaf nor blind, girl.’
‘And you’d offer me a job of trust, although my brother’s in prison?’
‘Tis he’m as in prison, not you. And a crying shame he be there, according to the gossip. But then if that idn’t Judge Stroud all over. He’m got a terrible name. And to answer your question, yes, I still be offering you the job.’
Maddy knew she could not turn down such an offer. ‘Very well, while I’m here I’ll do your books for you.’
‘Good. That be a load off my mind. Maybe you’d take on my six-monthly accounts up to the year’s end, too, or near enough? I expect you’m going to be dashing home when the appeal’s been heard. You bain’t be wanting to hang about round here over Christmas, be you? But if you do, I can certainly make use of you until then.’
Mrs Polsoe was right. Maddy had given no thought at all to Christmas; of course she wanted to be home for then. And no doubt Davie could not wait to get back to the cottage and the river. The landlady would be loath to lose an extra pair of hands over such a busy period, but it could not be helped.
‘Naturally I means to pay you for your bookwork,’ Mrs Polsoe said. ‘How shall it be? I can pay you in coin or else your father bides yer free, and you can both take all your meals here. Which’d you prefer?’
Maddy bit back a smile. Grateful as she was to the old woman, she knew how much Mrs Polsoe hated parting with money. The offer of meals was a good one, for although the food at the inn was plain, it was good and filling. To have bought the equivalent meals elsewhere would have cost at least a shilling for both her father and her. She also knew that a couple of extra dinners each day would never be missed from the busy kitchen. And as for her father’s lodgings, his cot in a room shared with several others would have cost Mrs Polsoe practically nothing.
‘I’ll have the meals and Father’s lodgings, thank you,’ she said, straightfaced.
Mrs Polsoe beamed, well satisfied with the arrangement.
The day of the appeal seemed a long time in coming, but at last it arrived. Maddy and her father were at the prison with Davie, waiting for Mr Attwill to arrive. When they heard the key turn in the lock, the three of them leapt to their feet. Without his wig and gown the lawyer looked younger and more boyish, which only served to emphasise the solemn expression on his face. Jack took one look at him and appeared to age ten years. For a horrible moment Maddy feared she was going to be violently sick. It took a superhuman effort to control herself and put a comforting arm about Davie.
‘You’d better give us the verdict, Mr Attwill,’ she said quietly.
The lawyer also seemed to be struggling with his emotions. ‘I am sorry… so very sorry…’
‘What – what reasons did they give for turning down the appeal?’ she asked, astonished at her own apparent calm when inside she was in turmoil.
‘Simply that, there being no new evidence brought before their Lordships, they saw no reason to overturn the existing judgment.’
No new evidence! Had there been someone else with Davie that day? That would have been new evidence.
Davie’s already white face had drained to an even deeper pallor and his eyes burned with horrified bewilderment.
‘What does it mean?’ he asked.
‘It means that the Court of Appeal has refused to change the verdict,’ explained Mr Attwill.
‘But it wadn’t murder. I didn’t mean to hurt no one. No, the verdict must be manslaughter.’ Davie’s mind steadfastly refused to accept the awful truth.
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Maddy unsteadily.
‘It must be!’ Davie’s voice rose in panic. ‘If it be murder they’ll hang me. They’ll put a rope about my neck and choke the life out of me. Maddy, don’t let them do un. Please don’t let them do un to me!’
Sobbing bitterly, Maddy enfolded him in her arms, anguished beyond bearing that she had no comfort to give. Hopelessness and the sense of her own helplessness seemed to drag her down into a bottomless pit.
It was left to Jack to ask the dread question. ‘When?’
‘In three days. The day after Boxing Day,’ said Mr Attwill.
With a shock Maddy realised the date. ‘It’s Christmas Eve today!’ she exclaimed, grasping at one small spark. ‘The season of goodwill. Maybe …?’
Mr Attwill shook his head regretfully. ‘I did put forward to their Lordships that at this celebration of our Saviour’s birth it might be appropriate to show leniency, but my plea was turned down.’
There was no hope. They had to accept it.
Taking their leave of Davie was the most terrible thing Maddy had ever experienced. He wept and clung to both her and Jack so tenaciously that in the end two warders had to restrain him.
‘We’ll be back tomorrow,’ we promise,’ wept Maddy, knowing full well there would be few tomorrows. ‘We’ll be back.’
They could still hear his cries as they hurried away.
Back at the inn Maddy longed to be able to give way to her grief but she knew that would have to wait. First she must write to Bart, Lew and Charlie telling them the awful news and begging them to come quickly. Were letters delivered on Christmas Day? Would they get the message in time?
Maddy had never anticipated that writing a letter would prove so difficult. How cold t
he words looked, the pencilled lines austere and impersonal on the cheap paper. She wished she could convey some comfort to her brothers, but there was none to give them either.
As she returned from the post office, her thoughts went back to Mr Attwill’s comments on the appeal. It had been turned down because of lack of new evidence. But she had new evidence, or at least the prospect of some. Upon impulse, she hurried towards Mr Attwill’s chambers in Bedford Circus.
‘I presume you have questioned your brother about this other person. What does he say?’ asked the lawyer after listening to her sympathetically.
‘He denies it. He says he was alone.’
‘Then I regret there is no more to be said.’
‘But if we got a stay of execution while Constable Vallance made more enquiries? He’d find out who the other person was, I’m sure.’
‘If there was another person,’ prompted Mr Attwill gently. ‘And if the constable found the identity of the culprit, what then? There would simply be a second trial with probably the same tragic outcome. It would not alter your brother’s case. Do not torture yourself, my dear Miss Shillabeer. Everything possible has been done to aid your brother. I fear all that is left is to be at his side to comfort him, and to help him make his peace with God.’
Mr Attwill spoke with great kindness but there was a finality in his voice that angered Maddy. What did he care? It was not his brother who was to be hanged.
Because it was Christmas Day, Maddy and Jack were allowed to spend longer with Davie than usual. The joyous clamour of the cathedral bells only served to increase the bleakness of the prison cell and the misery of its three occupants. Even the special fare that Mrs Polsoe had packed for them – some slices of roast goose, mince pies, and a bag of nuts and raisins – tasted like ashes in their mouths. Jack had brought a draughtboard he had spent some time improvising, and he tried to interest Davie in a game. But it soon became evident that the boy could not concentrate. Finding a subject of conversation proved well-nigh impossible, for eventually everything seemed to remind them of how little time they had together. In the end they lapsed into a silence broken only by the hissing of the gas lamp and occasional echo of footsteps in the corridors outside.
Daughter of the River Page 22