Blackberry and Wild Rose

by Sonia Velton

  In those idle moments before the judge entered, I let my eyes and my mind wander. I had grown strangely accustomed to the court, its rhythms and rituals over the days we had all sat there. Every morning, I saw the clerk shake out the judge’s velvet cushion and place it on his chair, smoothing the surface free of wrinkles. I knew that the juror who sat at the far left of the table did not care for lavender and preferred his place strewn with rosemary. I knew that the door to the passageway leading to Newgate opened at precisely nine o’clock every morning.

  That day, a woman in the crowd caught my eye. I knew that I had seen her somewhere before, but I could not place her. She was quite elderly, and others stood up respectfully as she made her way, along the row of people already seated, to an empty place at the far end. She settled herself and took off her shawl. There was precious little else to look at in those tedious minutes, so I kept watching her. And she was watching too, with bright black eyes, her hands neatly folded in her lap. Her gaze followed Sara as she was taken by the clerk to the witness box. Even when the whole court rose and fell with the entry of the judge, she kept watching Sara, a slight curve to her lips, something between a smile and a sneer.

  40

  Sara

  Everything looked bigger than it had before, as if magnified through glass. I could see the folds of skin of the judge’s face and the strands of horsehair in his wig. When the clerk approached me to adjust the mirror, I could see that he had had the pox and his face was pitted with scars. In the gallery, I had looked down at players on a stage, but this was real.

  The clerk handed me a Bible. It was the Old Testament, bound in aged leather and worn by the thumbs of a thousand witnesses. I took it gingerly, like the first time Madam had handed me my newborn. It felt heavy in my hands.

  “Have you learned your letters?” asked the clerk.

  I nodded, and he handed me a piece of parchment with the oath written across it. I could read better than most of the people in that courtroom, but I still stumbled over the words. Everything that had seemed simple from the gallery was like astronomy down there. There was the sound of a baby crying. I snapped round to look, conditioned to the noise, but it was someone else’s child. I could see Moll near the front of the gallery with Monsieur Finet, holding my own baby on her knee. The sooner this was over with, the sooner I could get back to my little girl.

  Mr. Thorel approached me with a smile that he must have intended to be reassuring. But masters do not smile like that at servants. Just say what he wants you to say, I told myself.

  The first few questions were easy, the answers falling out of my mouth with perfect sincerity.

  “So,” said Thorel, stepping nearer to me, “turning to the night of the riot.”

  I did not want to, but in that instant, I looked at Bisby Lambert, sitting in the dock. I had thought him quite handsome once, with his easy grace and gentle ways. But he was not that man now. He was empty somehow, as if Newgate had hollowed him out, then filled him back up with straw. It did the same to all of them.

  What price, my little girl?

  “Just a few questions, if I may?” Thorel’s voice was curt, as it had been in his withdrawing room. There was always the sense of something more to come with Thorel.

  “On the night in question you returned in the afternoon to Buttermilk Alley, did you not?”

  “I did, sir.”

  Then Bisby Lambert lifted his eyes to mine and gave me a faint smile. He was close enough that I could see the cracked skin on his lips. My gut already twisted with remorse and the deed was not yet done.

  “You had been turned out of your place of employment because your mistress had discovered your pregnancy, had you not?”

  “Well, sir, it was not quite like that.”

  Thorel gave me a hard stare. “Just simple answers, please, Miss Kemp. That is all I require.” He said each word precisely. Just listen carefully. Just do as I ask. It is all very simple.

  “You are unmarried, correct?” he stated.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “And you spent time at Buttermilk Alley, did you not?”

  “I ran errands there sometimes.”

  Mr. Thorel smiled. “Indeed, but you spent more time there than that. Alone. In the company of the journeymen who lived there.”

  One of the men on the jury shook his head and took up his quill to make a note on the paper in front of him. Whispered disapproval floated down from the gallery.

  “On occasion, you were even at Buttermilk Alley when the combination met there, weren’t you?”

  “I may have seen some other journeymen there from time to time. I don’t know about them being part of a combination or otherwise.”

  “Mr. Lambert led the combination, didn’t he?”

  Bisby Lambert tried to clear his throat and it brought on his racking cough. No one could speak until he had quietened. In those moments, while I watched him labor to breathe, I wondered what wrong can be done when life is taken from a man already dying. My baby’s whole life, in exchange for a few weeks of his.

  “He did, sir,” I said, and as I spoke those words I felt horrified and thrilled in equal measure. It was as if I were catapulting myself into a place I’d never been before. Somewhere I was wretched and beyond redemption. Somewhere I was free.

  Thorel smiled and nodded, encouraged by my response.

  “And, from what you observed that night at Buttermilk Alley, John Barnstaple is correct when he says that it was Lambert who spurred on the men to riot?”

  I could hardly speak, so I left the answer to creep into the silence.

  “Is that yes, Miss Kemp?”

  I nodded and whispered, “Yes,” a tiny movement as if even the air around me had become heavier than I could bear. And all the while he was looking at me with his sad, kind eyes.

  “And is the first defendant, Bisby Lambert, the father of your child?”

  “What is the purpose of asking?” I said. “Fathering a child is not the same as cutting silk.”

  Some of the journeymen sniggered. Thorel grew impatient. “It is plainly relevant to the moral character of the man.”

  The judge interrupted: “Miss Kemp, I understand that all this is difficult for you—a servant and a woman—to understand, but you must answer Mr. Thorel’s questions. It is Mr. Barnstaple’s contention that Mr. Lambert was dismissed because he was the father of your child, and that Mr. Lambert sought revenge for that dismissal by cutting Mr. Thorel’s silk. It is a question of motive. Do you understand?” The judge peered at me over his spectacles until I gave him the nod that he sought, then he sat back in his chair.

  “So,” insisted Thorel. “Who is the father of your child?”

  “I came back to Buttermilk Alley to find him—the father, I mean. I asked him to help me, but he wouldn’t, that much is true. I felt faint, so I went outside and when I fell it was him that caught me.”

  “You mean, Mr. Lambert?”

  How I wished it had not been. I remembered the hurt and disappointment I felt when I had come to my senses and seen Lambert kneeling beside me instead of Barnstaple.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And he followed you outside and caught you when you fainted because he is the father of your child, isn’t he?”

  I said nothing. Up in the gallery my baby had heard my voice and leaned down toward me, extending her arm as if she could somehow grab me from all the way up there. “Wah,” she cried, swiping toward me. If I did not say what he wanted, would they take her from me right now? Would Moll be asked to carry her from the court straight to the doorstep of the Foundling Hospital?

  Madam stared at me from the seats to my side, her face blank but her eyes infinitely sad. Then I saw a woman only a few seats down from Mrs. Thorel. Birdlike and watchful. She was wearing her special wig for the occasion, an elaborate thing stuck with ribbons and
combs. But underneath it, she was still the same person. The sight of her drained the blood from my head and brought it back to my face in a flush. She seemed to be enjoying my reaction and gave me a wide smile. She had lost a tooth since I had seen her last. Her watchful gaze was like a mirror held up in front of me. Was this the person I had become? Whore to liar?

  “You must answer the question.” Thorel was agitated: a muscle worked in his jaw.

  I looked Thorel full in the eye. “No, he is not.” A suitably simple answer. “John Barnstaple is.”

  Thorel looked as if he might explode. He strode back to his bench and grabbed a handful of his papers, staring at them as if what to do with me might be written down in them somewhere. He looked up at the judge. “I have no more questions for this witness,” he said.

  “And what is more,” I almost did not recognize my own voice, ringing clearly round the courtroom, “I take back what I have already said. It was not Lambert who led the combination, it was Barnstaple.”

  “I said I have no further questions,” spat Thorel.

  “And it was not Lambert who rallied the men to riot, it was Barnstaple. That is, if they were not riled up enough already by their hatred of Mr. Thorel.”

  For the first time in three days, the court was truly silent. Even my own child stared down at me, quiet and alert. I realized then that she would never even remember her own mother. But at least, at that precise moment, she looked down on an honest woman.

  Thorel approached the judge. “My lord, given the circumstances, I would like permission to call a further witness.”

  “Whom do you wish to call?”

  Thorel straightened and looked out across the court. “I call Mrs. Margaret Swann.”

  Esther

  Mrs. Swann, that’s who she was.

  She looked different with that ridiculous headpiece. The last time I had seen her she had been drenched with rain, her straggly gray hair plastered in strips down the sides of her face. But there was certainly a familiarity about her. Perhaps it was the smug smile with its cruel twist.

  Sara rose so that Mrs. Swann could take her place in the witness box. At one point the two women passed each other so close that Sara had to turn sideways to allow Mrs. Swann and her elaborate skirts to pass. When she did, I saw Sara’s face clearly. She looked as fearful as a rabbit with a fox coming near. Mrs. Swann merely nodded to her as if they were old acquaintances passing in the street.

  Mrs. Swann settled herself into the witness box. She had brought a fan with her and swiped it briefly back and forth in front of her face, then flicked it shut and took the Bible the clerk handed to her. She examined it with mild interest as if it was not something she was familiar with. I could well imagine that mine was the only Bible to have been in the Wig and Feathers. Once she had read the oath, she turned pleasantly to Elias. He approached her somewhat warily, as if she were a cat twisting around his legs, appearing friendly but capable of lashing out with hidden claws.

  “I have just a few questions for you, Mrs. Swann.”

  Mrs. Swann inclined her head, gracious as a queen.

  “You are the proprietress of the Wig and Feathers tavern, are you not?”

  “I am indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Swann, giving a gap-toothed grin. All over the court flurries of whispering went up. Mrs. Swann seemed not to mind. She might have announced that she ran the bakery on Quaker Street.

  Elias cleared his throat. “And tell me, is this woman known to you?” He rotated and pointed at Sara.

  Mrs. Swann followed his gesture with her eyes. For a moment Sara and Mrs. Swann stared at each other, until Mrs. Swann nodded slowly and said, “She certainly is, sir.”

  “What name do you know her by?”

  “Miss Sara Kemp, of course. Same name everyone knows her by.”

  “And how do you know her, Mrs. Swann?”

  “Why, she was one of my best girls, sir. When she behaved herself, which was not often, I can tell you.”

  The whispers became catcalls. Sara sat rigid in her seat, the vortex of the storm gathering around her.

  The judge frowned and addressed Mrs. Swann. “I’m afraid you must clarify exactly what you mean by one of your girls.”

  “She were a whore!” shouted someone from the gallery.

  Mrs. Swann gave a sad smile to the judge. “I’m afraid that’s true, my lord. Miss Kemp is a prostitute.”

  Behind us someone hissed and threw something at Sara. It hit the side of her face. I saw her body flinch, but she didn’t turn round. After a second, she slowly raised her hand and wiped away the smear that it had left across her cheek.

  Elias took a step closer to Mrs. Swann. It gave the impression of conspiracy between them, intimacy even. “Would it be fair, do you think, Mrs. Swann, to say that Miss Kemp is a woman almost completely lacking in morality? In basic decency?”

  “Well, I don’t know, sir.” Mrs. Swann shifted in her seat. “All my girls are decent. It’s just that some of them have had a hard life. They can’t be blamed for the hand they were dealt.”

  Elias shook his head. “There is no blame here, Mrs. Swann. It is the defendants, not Miss Kemp, who are on trial after all. My only question is, would she lie, do you think?”

  “Oh, she’d lie just as soon as turn a trick with a sailor, that one!”

  The journeymen burst into jeers and laughter. Barnstaple had blanched at Mrs. Swann’s revelation, but the color was returning to his cheeks. Anger, perhaps, or excitement. The relish men can feel at the humiliation of women. Only Bisby looked at Sara with compassion. She had tried to save him. She had gambled her own future against his and they had both lost. What now for either of them? A year ago, they had not even been part of my life, but now I could not bear the thought of losing them. Especially not him. Sara’s past was her own, whereas Bisby’s misfortune was the one to which I had led him. How do you say sorry from across a room?

  What use are fragile sentiments to a man who may hang? He shifted his gaze from Sara to me, drawn to meet my eye as if my desperation were a kind of vacuum. I searched his face for some indication that he understood, but I couldn’t read his expression.

  “Go on,” said Elias, when the court had settled.

  “There was a gentleman—esteemed within this parish and so you’ll forgive me for not mentioning him by name—who came to the Wig and Feathers one night. He came to see me after he had had to do with that girl there. His pocket watch was missing, he said. Then lo and behold, Miss Kemp has three pounds, eight shillings, and sixpence jingling in her pocket.”

  “Could there not have been a perfectly innocent explanation for that, Mrs. Swann?”

  “Might ’ave been, but she ran off quick as a wink before I could ask her.”

  “So Miss Kemp is a whore and, quite likely, a thief as well?” Elias turned to the jury and said, “This is a woman who came into my house and kept all this hidden from me. She sat at my table and ate my food. She took wages for a job she had absolutely no right to do.” His voice escalated with every point he made. By the end he was almost shouting.

  Just when Elias must have been thinking he had won, the judge leaned toward him and spoke, his voice loaded with quiet authority: “Why have you brought this woman into my court?”

  “My lord, I am trying to establish that the evidence of the previous witness cannot be relied upon.”

  “She was your own witness, Mr. Thorel.”

  Elias fidgeted in front of the judge. “Indeed, my lord, but when she gave untrue evidence, I felt that I had to make the court aware of her background. The simple fact is, the court cannot believe the word of a woman of such ill repute.”

  “But it can believe the word of her madam? The keeper of this disorderly house?”

  Elias floundered, searching for a reason why a caricature of womanhood like Mrs. Swann could be believed, but not one of her girl
s. The judge did not give him a chance to answer. I was beginning to warm to this reserved and austere man. He did not seem to be taken in by the posturing before him.

  “Mr. Thorel, I will give you one last opportunity to present evidence that might be of assistance to this court. Otherwise, I will consider your case to be concluded.” He nodded to his clerk, who rose and hastily ushered Mrs. Swann out of the witness box.

  Elias’ case was in disarray. No one had stuck to the same story. The only thing the jury could do was stack half-truths against each other and see which pile was highest. For the first time in all the days I had sat in court, I began to believe there was a chance that they would look at Bisby and see what I saw: an honorable working man brought low by the vicious retribution of his master. When I looked at Bisby the pallor of his face seemed to be lifted, as if the chance of freedom had flushed through him like a physic.

  41

  Sara

  I knew she would be waiting for me. Mrs. Swann had flounced straight out after her evidence and now loitered in the hallway outside the door to the courtroom, her fan swishing back and forth in front of her face. She snapped it closed when she saw me.

  “Once a whore, always a whore, eh?” she said, stepping toward me.

  I looked at the floor and tried to move past her toward the small staircase that would take me back to the gallery, but she grabbed my arm. The fingers that held me were as bony and insistent as they had been the day I had met her in Spitalfields market.

  “I’m just trying to get back to my baby,” I said, still staring at the floor.

  “That squalling bastard up there?” She grabbed my chin with her other hand and twisted my head up to look at her.

  Her fan dug into my cheek. It smelled of sweet musk and lye, the essence of the Wig and Feathers caught within its folds.