In an effort to stand out from her other devotees, I applied myself fully to the Wild cause, committing a series of fearless robberies; taking a full shipment of sugar while at water, the entire plated contents of an antiques cabinet at the Gate of Queen Anne and hundreds of silky yards from William Field’s drapery in Lewkenors Lane. Each was thoroughly planned, soberly executed and untraceable. Details of these bold-faced crimes were spread quickly, cried at corners and printed in pamphlets as far east as Barking. The St Martin’s Fire Insurance Mutual began offering a theft policy, the Lord Mayor introduced another thirty-four crimes punishable by death, and by happy coincidence, Jonathan Wild’s rewards were increased by twenty per cent. Sending his own men to death was now more lucrative than whatever plunder they could filch.
But my devotion was rarely enough to get Miss Lyon alone. I’d been duped; I was of no more consequence to Bessie than the profits I could produce. One evening at Belgrave’s theatre, when I was drunk enough to clarify my disenchantment, she allowed me a private conference. We went into the shadows of Turnagain Lane and she pressed my face into the earthy cleft of her bosom. It was a paradox of time; infinite, infinitely concise.
‘We must hurry back,’ she said, attempting to pull me back into Farringdon.
‘Don’t evad-d-d-de me,’ I begged of her, unbudging.
‘If Wild discovers our liaisons, we’re finished.’
‘But he knows I’m ena-m-m-m–’
‘Everyone is enamoured of me. He outwardly permits, but secretly envies. Trust me, dear Jack, trust me. There will come the time.’
By way of consolation, she lifted out her left bosom with the opposing hand so I might press my lips upon her aureole and suck at her quickly hardening nipple. It drove me mad with lust.
‘I cannot take a minute more,’ I said, drawing her hips towards me.
‘Jack,’ she said, returning her bosom to its cage. ‘Lad. Let us wait until we can enjoy the moment fully. I’ve turned enough tricks in back lanes. Not with you.’
With a forefinger, she angled my jaw towards her own, and kissed me with slowness.
‘Do you understand?’ she asked in a throaty whisper. ‘You are dear to me in a different way.’
The best manipulators can turn a part-truth into a whole one, and to this day I cannot decipher what sort she was speaking. Either way, in the penumbra of Turnagain Lane, with the tannins of the red wine she’d been drinking now bitterly in my own mouth, I was on the hook once again.
I soon became a most trusted member of Wild’s inner circle. There was Bessie, who for all intents was Wild’s equal; Blueskin Blake, a fearsome giant of a man who was once Wild’s sworn enemy; Sykes, or Hell-and-Fury, who ran like a rabbit, and the fiery-haired Tho. Wingham or Quilt as we called him, for his skills at fleecing. To assist with his growing enterprise Wild employed a lawyer named Silver and a calculator named Carrot, both at their desks night and day, concerning themselves solely with words and numbers, files growing week by week, with his office more like a library than what it actually was viz. a great bloodthirsty criminal enterprise, the likes of which I challenge a man to find similar in all history.
It didn’t take long to notice that secret ledger of his, written in some indecipherable code, where he recorded a series of values – which I soon learned to be names – and applied either a single or double cross. It was often in a temper, after a difficult meeting or the receipt of some unwanted news, that he would take out the well-worn book and inscribe a second cross. Other times it was a calculated decision, running his quill down the list, pausing at a certain dispensable one, hesitating, then inscribing the dreaded double cross. It meant End. Demise. Death. And forty pound in coin once the rope went twang. The scratch of his quill in that ledger was the sound of a soul going pop.
Women are assumed the creatures most likely to succumb in all irrational directions – compassion, ire, indifference – though I would posit otherwise and have no better example than comparing Jonathan Wild to his accomplice Bessie. Despite being younger and of the inferior gender she was the keystone keeping the whole edifice upright. She was the one who maintained their army – numbering into the hundreds – of London’s most wretched. It must have been her kinship with cats; she knew what it was for someone to require their own terms and time, to be proud and desperate in one. She spent her days traipsing from one terrace to another, speaking to grievances, resolving disputes, mollifying angers.
It was Wild, mercurial and paranoid, who jabbed at the hastily stacked enterprise from all angles. He was like a crazed cuckold, but it wasn’t a wife going behind his back, but the whole damn’d world.
WILD
I choke on cake, follow a man, and ponder the whereabouts of Orkney
November 1723
As was now my custom since the beginning of 1723, Patience Featherspoon, a recently appointed housemaid, brought me tea and tartlet – today’s was pear and custard, dusted in sugar and a crunchy layer of macerated pecan at the base – at two of the afternoon, the tray of sweet confection rattling with her entrance-curtsy and then again when she sat it askew at the corner of my desk. I was halfway through the word malefaction and miffed I had to lift my quill, eyeing the silverware as she steadied it. She had purposefully made the clatter for my attention.
‘Your tea, Master Wild,’ said she, by way of exit, again curtsying. ‘And cake.’
‘Yes,’ replied I, without meeting her thirsty gaze.
From behind the closed door, I heard a single, poorly repressed sob and hurried footsteps to the scullery. For Christ’s sake!
Now perturbed, without finishing the word, I laid down the quill. I portioned off a wedge of tartlet with the side of my fork, pressing the pad of my forefinger against the fallen crumbs so the plate was clean again, then looked over the piece that sat upon my fork. My mouth watered at the layers of its sugary construction, the little undulations of the pastry-tin baked into solidity, the moist fruit encrusted within. I paused, placing the piece back upon the plate, and set to milking and sugaring my tea so that it would be ready to emulsify the cake inside my mouth. I stirred, tapped the spoon twice upon the porcelain rim, then sat back, waiting for the St Sepulchre bells to ring their afternoon chime. It wouldn’t be much longer; I could hold the few minutes until the two o’clock bells announced my official teatime. There was a time to eat cake and that time was two of the clock. Not before.
I busied myself with the October accounts, looking over the fastidious and sinewy hand of Hamilton Carrot, my accountant and clerk, whose numbers ran up and down the ruled page. It had been the strongest month of revenue, no doubt helped by our record capital convictions. Five were to be executed, and owing to pressures from the Lord Mayor Peter Delmé, another of my men would receive his double cross. I turned the page to see about my outgoings, which were considerable, including a set of handsome gold-gilded privy jugs, a new two-toned chaise with cushioned seats, interior lighting and galvanised steps, and further payments towards the construction of my new abode at The Mayfair.
All in all, my accounts were exactly as I expected them, especially considering I’d already revised them twice that day. Yet the two o’clock bells still hadn’t rung. The tartlet waited. I closed the ledger, sending out concentric ripples in my tea, and stood at my door.
‘Silver,’ called I to my attorney. ‘Have the Sessions been announced?’
He came to the doorway with a single page in one hand and a monocle in the other.
‘Mr Wild,’ said he, his shoulders dropping in exasperation. ‘Do you expect the answer to be different from a half-hour ago?’
‘We must act with urgency,’ announced I, closing my door, then opening it again. Langton Silver was still standing there. His assistant, Nicholas Wainwright, now appeared too.
‘Have the two o’clock bells rung?’ asked I.
Both sets of eyes pondered the question.
Silver shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Wainwright?’
‘Mr Wild,’ spoke Wainwright, bowing histrionically. ‘It would be my honour to assist, however at present I’m unable to provide –’
‘Ugh. Blueskin!’
Blueskin entered the vestibule chewing on a string of dried meat. He ripped a chunk with his molars, gnawing, then inspected the remaining glistening length.
‘Blueskin,’ I repeated.
‘Migheey sol’eey,’ said Blueskin, referring to the spice of it.
‘I see. Have the two o’clock bells been struck?’
He looked around the room, shrugging.
‘And Bessie, where is she?’
Blueskin shrugged again, rubbing the meat up and down his gums like some sort of oral hygiene device.
‘Does nobody listen for the bells?’ I exclaimed, slamming my door and marching to my desk, where I picked up the tartlet, ignoring the smaller portion readied on the fork, and shoved the whole thing in my mouth. Crumbs sprayed outwards; a slice of candied pear slipped from my mouth like a wet fish from a dry hand. I flicked the fruit off my shirt, and continued chewing, which was quite difficult because there was so much in my mouth. Picking up my teacup, I slowly brought the fine porcelain towards my mouth. This was always the denouement, mingling the hot liquid with the sweet cake, an internal alchemy of warmth and sweetness. With the rim poised against my bottom lip I slurped, drawing air over the surface. But it really wasn’t my day … I had, disastrously, inhaled a crumb. A violent paroxysm quickly built in my chest and, unable to suppress it, I expectorated the full contents of my mouth. I coughed violently, doubled over, my eyes streaming. I retched and gagged. Wet nuggets of masticated cake dribbled out of my mouth and formed a pyramid. The door opened and several members of the office appeared.
Unable to speak, I flapped my hands at them to get back to work, but they continued to goggle. Blueskin’s head was at the summit of four others, chewing indifferently upon his salty meat. Patience Featherspoon now appeared too, taking the brave step of walking right into my office and pouring me water from one of my new gold jugs.
My coughing subsided, and I looked to this brimming mug of water, to her quivering hands outstretched in their infuriating supplication. The small polite portion of tartlet still sat uneaten upon the fork. The vomited clump on my rug. Five of my associates continued to watch in curious silence. I sensed that some important matter was being determined in the moment and I had no idea what it was.
With the mug of water still not touched, I stepped past her, pulling a cane from the stand. The collection of spectators stepped back against the hall, making way. I strode past them, wiping my mouth. There was an accusatory silence behind me, first broken with Blueskin ripping at more of his meat, then, right as I stepped onto the street, by the trembling resonance of the two o’clock bells.
I stormed from my offices and walked halfway across the city. I was growing tired of my duties. They now seemed to be solely occupied with perplexing earfuls from Langton Silver or Hamilton Carrot about the middle ground. I tried to walk it out of me, step after step, but my mind raced ahead in its usual plotting loop of new possessions to acquire and loyalties turned questionable (Bessie had grown distracted by the stuttering carpenter). By the time I reached St James’s Park I was no less vexed than when I had departed.
My eyes were taken with a young gentleman, interlocked at the elbow with a lady – presumably his wife – as they ambled through the leaf-littered grounds. He placed his high cane delicately here, then there, and now held it outstretched, pointing to the columnated courtyard of the Duke of Buckingham’s recently built home.
Lord Uxbridge had it all wrong. Why had I emulated him? Work was not apt a gentleman. Here was a gentleman. A tartan, military sash across his ample chest, campaign wig, one arm behind his back and a temperament similar to the nearby cow, which presently ripped a tuft from the base of a tree.
The young man lightly kissed his lady’s gloved knuckles. She watched him saunter off, her hands anxiously clasped at her waist. He went about fifty yards, then paused. The lady was thrilled; she immediately began waving both hands, beaming. But alas, he had stopped to remove a snagged leaf from the buckle of his left shoe. He scraped it with his cane and continued on, without looking back. The lady undertook to conceal her unrequited wave, by stretching and yawning like it was time for bed.
I followed at a distance. The young gentleman, resting the cane upon his shoulder like a rifle, veered into Arlington, then Bennet, and disappeared inside a genteel alehouse, that I quickly recognised as the very same premises I had stopped outside many years past viz. the Duck & Duck & Goose.
At the first click of my boots on the flagstone, faces and conversation paused, drinks mid-journey to mouths. The young man I had followed stood with his back to the bar, a conical goblet of sherry pinced between his thumb and forefinger.
‘Cloudesley Shovell Fairbrother,’ a bearded man said to me, resting his ale upon a barrel.
‘I see.’
‘Cloudesley Shovell Fairbrother,’ he said again, extending a hand.
‘Yes, the weather’s cleared up.’
A nearby concavity of three men chuckled.
‘’Tis my name,’ he clarified.
‘Jonathan Wild is my own,’ said I, resting my hands upon my pistols.
Much nodding and confirmation about the tables.
‘Is it true they are always cocked?’ Fairbrother asked, eyeing the weapons.
‘Aye,’ replied I. It was a rumour that I hadn’t yet heard, and rather liked. ‘Speed is an asset in my game.’
‘Pardon my plainness,’ said Fairbrother.
‘Aye?’
‘Is it true, that you’ve licence to execute?’
‘Of course not,’ I spat, feigning offence. ‘We are all dispensed according to the law.’
Men now moved about me, their perfumes crowding.
‘Can you truly lift two men?’ piped in another. ‘One in each hand?’
‘I’m here for some quality ale,’ I now demurred. ‘As I’ve heard it’s to be had, nothing more.’
The young gentleman, who until this point had ignored the commotion, now approached and hit his high cane twice upon the boards for attention.
‘Give the Thief-Taker some peace,’ said he. His young voice was commanding well beyond his years.
The crowd grumbled, assented.
‘A Leith ale for Mr Wild,’ he called to the bartender, then turned to me. ‘’Tis the best Edinburgh ale, in my opinion.’
‘I’m obliged for the recommendation.’
‘Astley. A pleasure.’
His heels joined as he took my hand, his smile mirthless and delivered with precision.
‘My thanks. ’Tis true I’m here for respite.’
‘After I returned from Sicily, I was molested, continually, by these men,’ said Astley, conspiratorially. ‘They wanted every grubby detail. On the victory in Cape Passaro, the treasures we took, the artillery we fired, the might of our vessels, the quality of our rations, the native women. Makes for quality entertainment, see.’
‘War is no entertainment,’ said I, with a laconic nod.
‘As you would understand,’ replied Astley. ‘Fighting our domestic battles.’
‘I’m regretful to admit that after twelve years as Thief-Taker General, the disease continues to spread,’ said I, adding weight to my pause with a raised forefinger. ‘Bloomsbury is no longer safe. I wouldn’t take a lady to Holborn either. No, no.’
‘Unfortunate,’ said Astley. ‘Damn unfortunate.’
‘I’m quite sure I saw you strolling with a lady in St James’s, this afternoon?’
‘’Twas me, yes. And my fiancée, Bertie.’
‘You strike a fine pair. My congratulations.’
Astley sighed, then drank. ‘Look at these men,’ said he, nodding to a booth of three men. ‘Diversion. All they’re after is diversion. Any form of succulent, juicy diversion from their mind-numbing lives.’ Astley, scowling, now downed his sherry and
hailed another.
‘You know them?’ confirmed I.
‘The cross-eyed one is Sir Stephen Lemon, Baronet of Orkney. Next to him, in the red, is Heneage Finch, Earl of Aylesbury, and his son, Bob. Those three, in particular, are itching, are desperate, for diversion. A story from the Thief-Taker General would be recounted for weeks. At dinners, at cards, about the grounds.’
Astley shook his head. This was all very serious.
‘Oh, Orkney,’ said I, having never heard of such a land. ‘Tartan hat with the pompom?’
Astley nodded.
‘Looks like a buffoon,’ added I, trying to lighten our discussion.
‘He certainly is. He’s also my father.’
‘I’m –’
‘Don’t apologise,’ he countered quickly, grinning. ‘When I was at sea near Sicily, our vessel almost sunk from twelve-pound fire. With my friends dead around me, I was still relieved to be gone from his bumbling, inane –’
Astley was interrupted by a thigh-slapping guffaw, followed by a sloshing toast between the three men.
‘Astley, dear boy,’ his father’s friend called. The Baronet was red-faced, waving us over; every part of him bobbling, the pompom, the jowls, one eye.
‘Anyhow,’ concluded Astley, entirely ignoring his father, looking at his reflective boots.
‘Anyhow,’ agreed I.
The drawing room of the Lemons’ London estate (named Warbleton) had its candles lit in readiness for the arrival of Sir Stephen’s coterie, which often accompanied him in the afternoons following ale at the Duck & Duck & Goose. Slowly made drunk at the generous cheer of the Baronet, I was walloped on my back and told that no excuse could pardon my absentia from cards and sherry. Astley sat beside me in silent, glum endurance of his privilege, examining his nails. A boy will either embrace his father’s nature as unavoidably his own, or will devote the whole of his life to becoming the exact opposite, which, in the case of Astley, meant taking everything seriously.
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