Blackberry and Wild Rose

by Sonia Velton

  “May the Lord have mercy upon your soul.”

  * * *

  My husband leaned back in his chair. He took the glass of malmsey wine I handed him without remark, or even looking at me. He was staring into the empty grate as if it were a miniature theater. I tried to slip from the room.

  “Do you know what the best part of all this is?” he said, just as my hand was closing over the door handle. I stood there silently: he did not want an answer. “It is that he will be hanged outside the Salmon and Ball. Not at Tyburn, but here in Bethnal Green, where everyone we know will be there to see it.” He twisted in his seat to look at me. His eyes were strangely incandescent. “Where you will be there to see it.”

  He took a swig from his fourth glass of wine. “Why did you bring a whore into my house?” My hand tightened on the door handle. “Do you think I am stupid, Mrs. Thorel? Did you think I would not find out that there was another whore in my house?”

  “I am not a whore.”

  “Whore, daughter of a whore, what’s the difference? If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

  “I wanted to give her a chance to lead a better life,” I said.

  “Then you are a fool,” he said, swilling the wine round the glass. “Whores never change. Draw near seed of the adulterer and the whore. Against whom make ye a wide mouth and draw out the tongue? Are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood?”

  “You quote the Bible, yet there is nothing Christian about you or your actions. You, too, have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

  “Me?” He hung his arm over the back of his chair so that he could move further round to face me. “What have I done but make sure that justice was served? You call me a sinner, but the other master weavers are calling me a hero. They are saying I have saved Spitalfields. Think of the riots that will never happen because of what I have done. The property that will not be destroyed and the silk that will never be cut. Why, I have probably even saved someone’s life, just by calling those weavers to account and making an example of Bisby Lambert.”

  “Have you finished, husband?” His face darkened. I walked back round to stand in front of him and bent over his chair. “With the wine? Shall I take it away?” I picked up the half-empty bottle by his chair and held it up to him.

  He laughed and swiped it from my hand. “Indeed I have not, Mrs. Thorel. I am celebrating, and you will sit there to celebrate with me.”

  “No, I will not. I have nothing to celebrate with you.” I remained standing in front of him.

  He poured a glass of wine, which he held out to me. When I didn’t take it, he returned it to the table. “As you wish. You see,” he said, “people like you and Lambert always think you are doing good turns, but you’d be better off leaving well alone. I can’t imagine Lambert’s best pleased he helped you now, is he? And soon you’ll be thinking the same about that Kemp girl.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He took a sip of wine, able to take his time now he held my interest. “Did you think I would let her get away with humiliating me any more than Lambert got away with it? I allowed her and that bastard to stay here and she repaid me by making me look a fool. Of course, I knew it might happen. That was why I made sure I found out all about her. Now she’ll pay for what she’s done.”

  Did he mean that Mrs. Swann was coming for Sara?

  “She will suffer enough when the child goes to the Foundling Hospital.”

  “No,” he shook his head, “the bastards of loose women don’t go to the Foundling Hospital. Now that everyone knows what she is, the place has been withdrawn.”

  “I don’t believe you! Why would you do that to a child?”

  “It is not my doing, it’s hers. Anyway, Bridewell will be good for her. She’ll be a new woman after a year spent beating hemp and having some morals whipped into her.”

  I felt disgusted by him. When he looked at me for a response, I had only one to give. “Remember, husband, the harlots will go into the Kingdom of God before you.”

  43

  Sara

  “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged nonchalantly, tossing shirts and breeches into a cloth bag. Outside the window the milkmaids sang on the street corner to the sound of their clanking pails, calling the town to buy their morning buttermilk. I barely noticed them now. Their melodic chatter had become as unremarkable to me as the pulse of Bisby Lambert’s loom at Spital Square. John Barnstaple straightened up. “There’s nothing left here for me now. Better I go back to Bermondsey.”

  “I didn’t know you were from Bermondsey.”

  “And I didn’t know you were a strumpet.” Barnstaple sighed and folded a waistcoat over his arm. “Anyway, I’m not. My wife is.”

  “Your wife?” He might as well have told me he was off to join the navy. “You’re married?”

  Barnstaple smiled grimly. “I’m afraid I am. It seems there is much we didn’t know about each other.”

  He searched my face, hoping for a reaction, but my emotions had been stripped away by each falsehood I had heard him tell. Lying on his pallet, our baby tugged one of his shirts out of the bag and stuffed the end of it into her mouth.

  “You are leaving because you fear the other journeymen weavers,” I told him. Among all the lies, I wanted there to be one moment of truth, when he would know the man he was and know that I knew it too. “You are a liar and a coward. The journeymen know better than anyone the lies you told! They know you made Lambert into your whipping boy.”

  Barnstaple’s face was set hard, eyes narrowed. He turned and shoved the waistcoat into his bag, then pulled his shirt away from the baby. She started in surprise, tiny arms flailing.

  “The mob will watch Lambert hang and then they’ll come for you,” I went on, not wanting to stop, “and when they do, you’ll be begging them to take you to Tyburn instead. And I’ll be there, watching them do it.”

  “Will you?” He took a step toward me. It was the closest I had been to him in months. Close enough to see the texture of his skin and the stubs of hair around his jaw. “What are you doing here, then? If you find me so despicable, why do you keep turning up, like a bad penny, just like you’ve always done?” He looked at me with that same gloomy intensity and for a moment I didn’t know if he might strike or kiss me. Then he bent toward me. “You still want me, don’t you?”

  “No,” I whispered. “I want my Bastardy Bond.”

  He jerked back, mouth curling in distaste. “Of course you do. I’ve had my fun and now I need to pay for it!” He picked up his bag and swung it over his shoulder. “They’ll never make me pay a Bastardy Bond when you’ve lain with near every man in the parish,” he said. “Still, I’m happy to pay my fair share.” He dug into his pocket, then tossed a ha’penny onto the mattress.

  I picked my baby up from the pallet, not wanting her to be anywhere near where that man had been. Then I left him standing in the garret, taking a last look around, his eyes lingering on the loom standing silent by the window.

  I remember his last words to me, called out from the attic as I stepped carefully down the stairs with our child in my arms: “If you really loved her, you would let her go.”

  * * *

  It was lying on Madam’s dressing table when I got back to Spital Square. Wrapped in tissue and tied neatly with string. Without Moll’s meddling, I might have thought it some new lace sleeves for one of Madam’s gowns, but I knew what it meant. They must be coming for my daughter today. I turned and fled up the stairs to my room, half expecting the cot to be standing empty, even though I knew I had only just put her down. When I saw that she was still there, I fell to my knees and covered her sleeping body with my own, my tears dampening her downy hair. I had tried everything I could to keep her and now they were coming for her. I had no idea what kind of life I could give her. All I knew was that I w
ould rather die than be parted from her.

  From far below there was the rumble of carriage wheels over cobblestones. I went over to my little window and watched as the Arnauds’ carriage drew into Spital Square.

  Esther

  Elias was upstairs lying down, feeling the effects of the bottle of malmsey wine he had drunk the night before. I’d been watching for Mr. Arnaud’s carriage, and when he stepped through the door of the workshop, I was waiting for him.

  “Mrs. Thorel,” he said, surprised.

  “Mr. Thorel is unwell, I’m afraid.”

  “No matter,” he said. “I have other errands to run.” He made as if to return to his carriage.

  “Before you go, Mr. Arnaud, I was wondering if I could ask you what you thought of this?”

  I lifted the bolt of cloth and placed it on the wooden counter. Mr. Arnaud came over and watched as I held the end of the silk in place and rolled Blackberry and Wild Rose over the full length of the counter.

  He stared at it for a while, then nodded slowly. “It’s very fine,” he acknowledged. “But an unusual design. I’ve not seen such natural-looking flowers before. Who is the dessinateur?”

  “Dessinatrice, Mr. Arnaud. I drew the pattern for this silk.”

  Mr. Arnaud smiled politely. “But you jest, Mrs. Thorel.”

  “No, sir, I do not. This is a silk of my own design and I am offering to sell it to you. Of course, if it doesn’t interest you …”

  I began to roll up the silk, but he placed a hand on my arm. “No, please. It is quite beautiful, and the quality of the weaving is superb. I’ll give you eighteen shillings a yard for it, my best price.”

  “But it’s worth more.”

  He shrugged.

  “I will accept your price, Mr. Arnaud, but on one condition.”

  “Go on.”

  “I want you to take this silk to the Worshipful Company of Weavers. I want you to tell them that it was made by the finest weaver in Spitalfields. Then I want you to pay them the fee to admit Bisby Lambert as a master weaver.”

  He let out a breath, a sigh that was almost a laugh. “You can’t be serious, Mrs. Thorel.”

  “I am perfectly serious.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I won’t do it.”

  I nodded and began to roll up the silk. “You will have heard of my unfortunate lady’s maid, Sara Kemp, I’m sure.”

  “Everyone in Spitalfields has heard about your maid, Mrs. Thorel,” he said grimly.

  “Such scandal! The Wig and Feathers indeed!”

  He took out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “I beg your pardon, madam, but my other errands …”

  “You would not believe the stories she told me about it. Why, there was this one particular man, I blush even to mention it to you, but she told me that he liked to—what is the phrase those girls use?—bake his bread in a cold oven.”

  He stood perfectly still, his hand tight around his shiny gold pocket watch. “I really wouldn’t know what goes on in such places,” he said.

  “Indeed not, sir! Nonetheless, I would like you to go to the Weavers’ Company and ensure that Bisby Lambert is admitted as a master weaver. In fact, I might say that I insist upon it.”

  He set his jaw and dropped his watch back into his pocket. Then he gave a curt nod. “I’ll send my footman for the silk.”

  44

  Sara

  I heard a light tread upon the stairs. Was she coming up herself, or had she sent Moll to take my baby from me? I picked up my sleeping daughter and held her so close that she snuffled and hiccuped into my shoulder. I walked over to the window and looked down into the street. The Arnauds’ carriage was still waiting outside the house, the signature mulberry tree carved into its door. The sudden silence made my head snap round. She must be just outside my door. “Rock-a-bye, baby …” I started to sing.

  The door creaked open slowly, almost respectfully. I was relieved to see that it was Madam. My grief was enough, without Moll there to enjoy it. I turned away from her toward the window, shielding my baby, still murmuring that song into her ear. Madam stood there for a moment, then started walking toward me. I huddled so close to the window that the baby’s head was almost touching it. My breath misted the glass as I sang the last words of the song.

  “Sara?” Madam was right behind me now. She brought up her hand and rested it lightly on my shoulder. I flinched as if it were hot as burning coal. The baby opened her sleepy eyes and blinked in the unexpected light from the window.

  “Sara,” said Madam again, more urgently than before.

  I was shaking my head. “No, no,” I said, over and over again. Madam gave her characteristic sigh. The one she used when I had knocked over one of her powder pots, or when the bath water wasn’t hot enough. She reached across me to take hold of my other shoulder and twisted me round to face her. “I am going to help you,” she said.

  Madam was looking at me intently, searching my face with her eyes. Below the window I heard the front door slam shut and a coachman call out to his horses. Then there was the clatter of hooves over cobblestones. I glanced down into the empty street.

  “It’s just Mr. Arnaud,” Madam said. The light from the window was shining full into her face. I could see the flecks of green and blue in her eyes and the fringe of pale lashes.

  “I thought it was Mrs. Arnaud come to take my baby to the Foundling Hospital.”

  “She will not be coming.”

  “I don’t understand. What about the baby’s place there?”

  Madam looked grave. “She has none. Mr. Thorel has seen to that. Sara, he’s going to send you both to Bridewell. You cannot stay here. You must leave as soon as you can.”

  “Leave?” I almost laughed, I was becoming quite hysterical. “Where could I go? To the poorhouse to await Mrs. Swann and the constable banging on the door? I’d be better off in Bridewell! If I had somewhere to go, do you not think I would have gone there already? Who will have me with a baby? What work could I get? How will I feed and clothe us?” Madam reached out and pressed her fingertips against my lips. It was such an intimate gesture that I fell mute with surprise.

  “Shush,” she said. Then she reached into her skirts and drew out her purse. “This is for you.” When she held out her palm to me, there were gold coins on it.

  “Two guineas! Madam, I couldn’t take that.”

  “You can,” she said lightly. “Consider it a gift … from Mr. Arnaud.”

  “Why did he give you money?”

  “I sold him my silk.”

  “But my debt?”

  She took my hand and pressed the coins into it. “You have more than repaid your debt.”

  “You are too kind, madam.” She had always been kinder to me than I deserved. But she just smiled and gently squeezed my hand before she let it go. I must say that it felt good to hold Mr. Arnaud’s money.

  Madam’s expression darkened so quickly that I thought she must have changed her mind. Then she said, “They will hang him next week.” She looked stricken, as if just saying the words out loud would make it happen.

  I nodded slowly. I had not been at court when Bisby was sentenced, but I had heard Moll and Monsieur Finet picking over the news as if it were a chicken carcass.

  She looked at me urgently. “That is when you must go,” she said. “The Justice of the Peace will not come for you until after Elias has made you watch Bisby Lambert hang. Everyone in Spitalfields will be outside the Salmon and Ball that day. We will say you are too ill to go and then you must be gone before we get back.”

  I was nodding at her, but I hardly knew what I was agreeing to. All I was aware of was the warm weight of my baby, squirming in my arms.

  Esther

  The close of a day. There should be no grief at the setting of the sun when you are confident in its eventual rise. But what if the waning
light marks the end of your last day? What if the dawn will bring your death? I would have snuffed out each star that appeared that night, if I could have, and demanded that the sun return.

  They let me see him. Even the keeper, for all his arrogant greed, just gave a curt nod and allowed me through the huge door as if he could not bring himself to meet the eye of loss. There was no sickening melee to fight through. Bisby had his own room and proper food. A paltry trade for a life taken.

  He was opposite me. I had brought my chair up close to his so that we sat, almost touching, in front of a simple hearth surrounded by a plain wooden mantel. Above him a small circular window was set high in the wall. The lowering sun shone directly through it, sending shafts of light down onto a threadbare rug at our feet. It caught the top of his hair, brightening the sandy color to gold. His face was in shade. A blessing. It made it harder to determine the sallow tone of his skin and I could imagine that the shadows on his face were just some quirk of the light. But I could not ignore the bloodstained handkerchief gripped tightly in his hand.

  There are no words for a man who is about to be hanged. I knew this, yet still I searched for something to say to him, started sentences that I could not finish. Eventually Bisby held up his hand in a plea for me to stop. We sat in silence for a moment, Bisby looking at the floor, while I watched dust motes drift through the shafts of light. Beside us, the pie that I had brought him sat wrapped in muslin, turning the air wholesome and meaty. It smelled of comfort and well-being, of security and home. I wished I had not brought it. In this place, it seemed only to mock us.

  I did not need to ask him what he had done that day. I already knew that, like all the condemned, he had attended the chapel at Newgate. They would have made him sit next to a black coffin to hear the ordinary of Newgate preach. Then the ordinary would have taken down the history of his life and his descent into crime. From this, he would write his account. He would include his own sermon and, later, the details of Bisby’s behavior and last dying words at the place of execution. This pamphlet, sold for sixpence after his death, would be all he left behind. I bit down on my own teeth, making my face rigid. The thought was more than I could bear.