Smith

by Leon Garfield

  Next day, at about ten o’clock in the morning, Smith had visitors: Miss Bridget and Miss Fanny. He was both pleased and surprised. How had they learned so soon! Miss Bridget sighed bitterly, and remarked that bad news travels quick; while it took three weeks to learn that Smith was going up in the world, it took but the same number of hours to discover he was come down.

  “And a common jailer had to tell us! Oh! The shame of it! The degradation!”

  Dismally, Smith picked at his brass buttons and neat coat.

  “Fine clothes and a clean face are but the trappings of shame,” went on Miss Bridget, with furious sorrow, “when the child what has them is so degradingly jugged. Oh!”

  “I never done it!” said Smith. “You know I never done it.”

  “You’re here, ain’t you?” said Miss Bridget unhappily. “That speaks volumes, don’t it? You done something!”

  “I was wrongly accused! Victimized!”

  Said Miss Fanny: “Innocence is no excuse in the eyes of the Law, Smut dear. That much your sisters know!”

  They stared at him angrily and tragically, while he looked back with as much of defiance as he could manage; then Miss Fanny, as was her nature, thought of a brighter side. She sighed and poked at her remarkable hat (for whenever the sisters came out of their cellar, they dressed very grandly indeed—as an advertisement of their taste and skill).

  “Leastways, ’tis lucky you picked on such a time to get nabbed, sweet. For with dear Dick Mulrone in residence the tone goes up, don’t it! My, but there’s fashion and elegance coming and going. Don’t you think, Brid, ’twill do our Smut good to be mixing with such gentility? As I always said, ’tis an ill wind that don’t blow the silver lining out of the dreariest cloud!”

  She sipped genteelly at her gin—they were in the taproom— and made a face. Miss Bridget, who was drinking ale, put down her pot and looked at her sister scornfully.

  “Much good his gentility will do him when that disgusting Mister Jones has done with him! It’s his clothes that’ll be coming down our steps with no boy inside of them, Fanny. And have you thought, sister, what it’ll cost to have possession of him for to bury him proper and decent? Or would you have him be took off to Surgeons’ Hall to be bottled for all the world to jeer at?”

  Miss Fanny shivered and shook her head; then she murmured: “Oh, Smut, dear—if only you’d given up the dockiment when Lord Tom asked, then there’d be no Surgeons’ Hall, nor Mister Jones—nor even them two fierce gents in brown—”

  “Did they come back, then?” muttered Smith, coming out of his pint pot of ale, where he’d been hiding his face while his sisters disposed of his remains.

  Yes, they’d come back . . . and back again. They’d haunted the Red Lion for several days. A terrible pair with eyes like burning coals . . . though the taller of them (said Miss Fanny) might have been more presentable if he’d been on the snaffling lay instead of on the sneaking, throat-slitting budge . . .

  Here, Miss Bridget remarked that Miss Fanny’s language was as bad as her low-class friend’s. To which Miss Fanny said gently that she liked to find good in everyone and that, had it not been for dear Lord Tom, the villains in brown might still have been there.

  “He took them on one side, Smut, and spoke to them so fierce, that they’ve never been back since that moment!”

  Then Miss Fanny went off into a melancholy memory of how cheered they’d been to get the good news. Which had the effect of disheartening Smith into miserable tears.

  Round about them the dregs of the Town ebbed and shuffled and flowed in ever-changing groups and pairs, sometimes eyeing Smith and his visitors with sneering curiosity, but more often discussing the latest news of doomed Mulrone.

  Smith’s fireplace companion alone seemed to keep his interest; he crouched but two yards off, with his head on one side and his old, bleared eyes quite sharp—like an ancient parrot. Contrary to her usual habit, Miss Fanny saw no good in him at all, but shuddered to the depths of her soul whenever his old, old eyes caught hers.

  At length, to Smith’s great pleasure and pride, Lord Tom joined them. He’d come from paying his respects to his old comrade-in-arms, Dick Mulrone. He wore a melancholy, romantic air like a new green cloak and seemed to swirl it from the tips of his ragged eyelashes to the ends of his powder-stained fingers.

  “Well, Smut, me lad! Alas, it seems you’ve forestalled me! Not lost, but gone before, eh?” He sighed, “Oh, me boy! You go in good company: the best i’ the world. For, though I’m a Finchley Common man and poor Dick’s a Hounslow Heath boy, I give him best! The grandest of the roisterers! The gayest, dashingest, noblest of us all! He’s in good spirits, lad. Ha-ha! The best! For he’s drunk as a lord!”

  “Disgusting!” muttered Miss Bridget and drew her discreet finery as close to her person as her hoops allowed. Lord Tom sat back with a toby-sized sigh and his glittering eyes roamed the stinking, shadowy, shuffling room with a touch of compassion—or was it only dread?

  Smith looked very piteously from his sisters to his grand friend, and the world seemed—even in the Stone Hall—too fair a place to be leaving after so few years in it. Suddenly, Lord Tom’s eyes flickered—as if some distant shade had provoked a thought. He bent forward to his small friend.

  “But we’ll see, me fine lad! Yes, we’ll see! While there’s life, there’s hope—as we say on the lay. Maybe Mister Jones won’t have you yet awhile? Maybe Lord Tom can help?”

  Smith, though not convinced, was sensible of Lord Tom’s aim to be cheerful. He looked up with a mournful smile.

  “How, Lord Tom?”

  “That document, young fellow! D’you have it still?”

  “N-not with me, Lord Tom.”

  The highwayman looked doubtful—then brightened again.

  “But d’you know where it lies?”

  “That I do, Lord Tom!”

  “And, given certain circumstances—such as you might know best—could you lay your hands on the aforementioned property?”

  “That I could, Lord Tom!”

  “And would you, me boy?”

  “That I would, Lord Tom! With all me heart!”

  “Then we’ll see, me bright young heart. Dark though these matters be, while Lord Tom’s about there’s yet a ray of light.”

  Lord Tom spread out his strong arms to escort Miss Fanny and Miss Bridget away. One arm was took but the other was left like an empty bracket: Miss Bridget had no need of support. She fidgeted with her hands and then, with a strange timidity, stretched out and fleetingly touched Smith’s sunken head.

  “Be back tomorrow, you—you felonious child! Just remember . . . though you be . . . not so good as you ought . . . you ain’t forgot, dear. Fan and me’ll be back!”

  When Smith raised his head they were gone, but on the table beside his empty pot was a guinea. Which one had left it? Smith scratched his head—and looked to the old man who seemed to have gone off into a dozy brood. The old man yawned and his eyes flickered.

  “Ah! Me sparrow. That would be telling, wouldn’t it? Which one cares a guinea’s worth? The pigeon? The starling? Or that seedy hawk? He-he! It’s worse than not knowing who’s done you an injury—not knowing who’s done you a kindness. It’s horrible not knowing who to thank!”

  But before Smith could abuse the old man, another visitor came quickly towards him. He and Smith’s earlier visitors must have crossed paths without knowing it. It was Mr. Billing.

  He wore black, which gave his complexion an oddly high, artificial air. The old man looked at him uneasily and then clanked farther off—as if anticipating the attorney’s wish. He turned his bony head and seemed to absorb himself in a corner.

  “Well, lad,” murmured Mr. Billing, sitting down and fingering the guinea idly. “As you see, I’ve not forgot you.”

  “No, Mister Billing,” muttered Smith, watching his money being scratched at by a neatly polished claw, “I don’t suppose you ’ave. And I’ve not forgot you, Mister lying Billing—Mister
murdering Billing. Not till Mister Jones turns me off up the road will I forget you! And if there’s sich a thing as ghosts, Mister conniving Billing, there’ll be a screaming, shrieking ghost awaiting you for every night of your life when you goes to bed!”

  The attorney looked momentarily taken aback by the force of Smith’s gloomy hate. Was it possible he hadn’t expected it?

  “I—I’m not a bad lot, y’know. I live in the world, so to speak . . . and can’t help being of it. Take me all in all, I’m no worse than anyone else. Believe me, young man, you’ll come to see that! Life’s a race for rats . . . and it’s Devil take the hindmost, the foremost— and the one in the middle. We’re all rats, Smith—and it’s eat or be eaten. Blame nature, if you like—but don’t blame me!”

  Having delivered himself of this, Mr. Billing contrived to look oddly wistful—as if he wished the world were constituted otherwise and he might then be as honorable a man as could be met with in a month of Sundays.

  Smith looked up at him dubiously—but couldn’t help observing that, no matter what melancholy sincerity there was in the attorney’s face, his fingers continued to play with the guinea like a cat with a fledgling bird.

  “All right, then,” sighed Mr. Billing at length, administering a final tap to the coin and blinking his stony eyes. “Don’t trust me. I don’t blame you. No! If I was in your situation, I suppose I’d be just as suspicious. Good God! It’s human nature! But I’ll tell you here and now, my friend (and I do think of you as my friend, Smith . . . I like you, you know), I’ll have you know I’ve saved your life!”

  “By having me nubbed?” asked Smith, much bewildered by the talkative attorney. Mr. Billing smiled playfully and shook his head.

  “They knew you were in Vine Street, Smith.”

  “Who did?”

  “The two men in brown. And they’d have come to murder you if I’d done nothing and left you there.”

  “Ain’t they your friends, then, Mister Billing?”

  The attorney looked about him quickly—then bent forward so’s his red lips were close to Smith’s dusty ear and his sharp moustache pricked and scraped almost painfully.

  “Listen, friend,” he whispered. “I’ll lay my cards on the table. Open and aboveboard. I’ll not lie to you—for I like you. We’re two of a kind, Smith, you and me. Men who know what’s what in the world. Eyes open, chins up—and outface the Devil!”

  Despite himself, Smith felt flattered, for he was but twelve and small, while Mr. Billing was a grown man . . . He began to think less harshly of Mr. Billing. A rogue he might be, but at least he was being an open one. He did indeed lay his cards on the table— and a very grubby pack they were! Though, as Mr. Billing himself pointed out with a wry laugh, all cards get soiled when you play with ’em!

  Yes, indeed, Mr. Billing and the two men in brown had once been concerned with each other . . .

  “Did they ’ave to kill the old man?” muttered Smith dismally. “Were it necessary?”

  The attorney shrugged his shoulders.

  “Ask Mister Black, my friend.”

  Smith shivered, and once more his blood was uncannily chilled.

  “W-was he the other one? The one I heard? The one with the limp?”

  “More than a limp, Smith. A wooden leg. Very soft-spoken man. Very devilish. I don’t think I’d like to meet with Mister Black on a dark night!”

  The attorney paused and looked uneasily about him, as if he expected soft-spoken Mr. Black to limp out of a shadow and knife him where he sat.

  “Right, my lad! I’ll lay my cards on the table . . .” (Here, Smith wondered, bemusedly, whether this was the same pack or a second one.)

  “That document’s worth money. A vast deal of money. Enough for you and me and the chimney-sweep down the road! I mean our friend, Mister Black. For I tell you, young man, I see no way of keeping him out of it. None! He’s got the pair of us, Smith! We’re the little running rats—and he’s the gobbling Devil! If only, Smith—ah, if only—”

  “If only what, Mister Billing?”

  “You and me . . . just you and me . . . Where did you leave the document?”

  “In—” began Smith; then something distracted him. The fettered old man. Was he having a fit? He was banging his chained wrists down on the floor.

  “Where, Smith? Where?”

  But Smith had suddenly thought more deeply.

  “Lorst me memory, Mister Billing.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Strain of waiting to be nubbed, Mister Billing. Can’t remember a thing. Leastways, not while I’m ’ere.”

  “Don’t you trust me, friend?”

  Smith stared into the attorney’s reproachful face and slowly shook his head.

  “No, Mister Billing. I’ve had enough of trust to last the rest of me life.”

  A dreadful bitterness had come back into Smith’s small pointed face, making it seem as old as the hills. Mr. Billing’s smooth cheeks seemed to pale somewhat. He murmured something about Smith “sleeping on it” and that he’d see him tomorrow. Then he stood up and began to move away, trying to hold Smith’s eyes till the shuffling ragbag of Newgate inhabitants got between him and his prey.

  For long minutes Smith stared after him, not moving till he was taken up with the sounds of a commotion that seemed to be flowing through the prison’s veins. A rumor: Dick Mulrone had been pardoned! But, even before that rumor had gone its rounds, its contradiction was already at its heels. No pardon. Poor Dick Mulrone’s prospects were like a wave in the sea—forever followed by its trough. Twelve more days remained to him and Mr. Jones, being Welsh and tuneful and fanciful, had already begun his Tyburn Carol:

  “On the first day of counting

  My true love sent to me,

  A felon in an elm tree.”

  “That’s my boy!” wheezed the old man, recovered from his fit. “Voice like a blooming nightingale!”

  11

  THEY SAY THE DEVIL is a bald man with spectacles, but Smith thought of him as being rosy-cheeked, with a prosperous moustache and a shrewd sense of a bargain when he saw one.

  In his first nights in Newgate Smith dreamed many times of the Devil and what terms he might get for his soul. He had long conversations with him in which the Devil offered him escape, vengeance on the Mansfields, and enough money for himself, Mr. Billing and the chimney-sweep down the road—and all for a little future frying.

  “I like you, Smith,” the Devil murmured. “We’re both men of the world, and I’m partial to you. Particularly fried.”

  Which prospect didn’t seem as horrible as it might have done, for nights in the Stone Hall were that dismal and cold that the thought of any fire—even Hell’s—was agreeable. Also, these nights were unnaturally long and hard to sleep in. There were continual mutterings and mumblings and sudden cryings out. There was the clinking of leg-irons which sounded—when it was regular—like an endless chain being winched into some deep pit. While from far off—from that part of the jail that was called The Castle, where wealthy felons and prisoners of State paid high money for their lodging—came the faint sounds of singing and good cheer as Dick Mulrone was swigged and swilled on his way to his end.

  “On the fourth day of counting

  My true love sent to me—

  Four sextons digging,

  Three parsons praying,

  Two horses drawing,

  And a felon in an elm tree.”

  On which, Smith’s ancient fireplace companion would moan and wheeze and finally wake up with a “That’s my boy!” and jingle into a sitting position from which he’d watch Smith with deceiving bright eyes.

  “Looking for the Newgate star?” he’d begin, for Smith usually lay with his eyes wide open and fixed on the ragged black hole above.

  Then the old man would mumble and mutter about Smith’s visitors and what they’d had to say. He missed nothing and it seemed, at times, as if pecking up scraps of other folks’ business was the only thing that kept him
alive.

  Of all Smith’s visitors he was most inquisitive about Mr. Billing, whom he regarded as a “real caution of a gent,” and “one to be handled with the tongs.”

  Mr. Billing had come to see Smith each day, sometimes only for minutes, but at other times for an hour or more. Once he met Miss Bridget and Miss Fanny and exchanged the briefest of courtesies with them, then left almost directly, saying he’d be out of place in family discussions. Miss Fanny was much impressed by him and even Miss Bridget had to admit he was “quite gentlemanly to the look.” All of which gave Smith a certain gloomy pride—though he never admitted to more than “legal business” between himself and the visiting attorney and so left his sisters most respectfully puzzled. But no matter whether Mr. Billing stayed long or short, he contrived to strengthen his acquaintance with Smith by unexpected touches of humor and warmth.

  He scarce ever referred to the document again for it was as plain as a pikestaff there’d be no escape without it. Once or twice he spoke of Mr. Black, but it was only to say that, thank God, that evil man had not shown himself. Also, he begged Smith to be on his guard against such a visitor, though he doubted if Mr. Black would dare to show his face in Newgate. He hinted also of “a departure from this place to pastures new . . . which was being thought of, never fear! Was the other matter, likewise in hand?” To which Smith had nodded very gloomily indeed.

  This sadness of his had been carefully observed by the ancient eavesdropper who taxed Smith with it that night.

  “You ain’t got it, have you!” he said triumphantly.

  “Got what?”

  “What he wants. So you’ll have to stay!” He looked pleased as Punch at the thought of Smith being his companion forever.

  “You mind yer own business!” muttered Smith savagely, and glared the old man’s beam off his face.

  “Ain’t got none to mind,” said the old man forlornly, and Smith relented somewhat and explained dismally: “If I stays, they’ll nub me!”

  But the old man seemed not to have heard him for he stared vacantly into the air for several minutes, then slowly closed up his eyes and went to sleep still sitting, and leaving Smith to worry himself into a state of sick desperation.