Theft of Life

by Imogen Robertson

  Eustache could not speak. He could only think of Graves, his weary kindness. His rage began to turn inwards and eat at his bones.

  ‘Or,’ Fischer’s voice became kinder, ‘or everyone could make Graves’s life a little easier. His unfortunate decisions of the past will be forgotten. The family will be praised, loved, invited everywhere. Even Mrs Westerman will be spoken of admiringly in society. Should her son wish to join the Navy, he will find a thousand friends there. You are a clever boy. Perhaps you will go into the Church. You may pick your appointments. Imagine how having good friends in every banking house, every newspaper, in every corner of government, will make your lives so much easier. Then Graves will find all his kindness and sacrifice rewarded at last. All you have to do is give me that manuscript – those ravings of a madman about the fate of some poor ignorant slaves you have never met. Give it to me and earn the love that has been wasted on you so long.’

  Dr Fischer released his grip on Eustache’s wrist and smiled. ‘Bring the manuscript to me tomorrow morning, Eustache, there’s a good lad.’ Then he simply walked away and left the boy staring after him.

  Joshua was very surprised to find Fischer gone when he returned a few minutes later. He offered to share the pie with Eustache, but he was not hungry so Joshua ate it himself and enjoyed the novelty of feeling too full to eat another bite. He wiped the grease off his fingers very carefully before touching any of the papers again.

  The supper Dauda returned with on a tray was delicious. The dogs ate chicken breast from china bowls and fell happily asleep on the luxurious carpet in front of the fire. Francis was careful not to eat too much. He would not sleep until Penny was safe.

  ‘She is still unwell,’ Dauda said, patting his lips with a napkin. ‘She has woken once or twice, enough for us to give her water, but mostly she sleeps.’

  ‘Where does she think she is?’

  ‘Heaven. At least, she asked if she were in Heaven when she woke last.’

  Francis felt only a soft wave of sorrow. Penny had been snatched back from death; Eliza had not.

  ‘This woman whom you loved, this Mrs Smith,’ Dauda went on. ‘Was she a white woman?’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘Tell me how you knew her.’ But Francis felt his throat close up and said nothing. ‘We have the time, Mr Glass. Indulge me, and who knows, perhaps we will be friends. I have never had a friend – it would be interesting for me.’

  The fading light that still lit the room made Dauda’s face look as if it were cast from bronze. Francis found himself thinking it would be like confessing to an idol.

  ‘When I came to England first, my master lodged with her family in Norfolk Street. That was in ’sixty-six and I was ten years old, two years a slave and very frightened. I could speak little English. My master, Allear, was a trader in Bridgetown and I was one of his warehouse brats, though he would sell my labour to whomever was willing to pay.’ The window was open slightly so the evening air could stir through the sickroom from time to time, and the plain little English birds were singing out the last of the light. ‘I think he meant to give me to someone as a present when we came to England, but found that the rich women whom he sought to be his patrons wanted blacks who could sing or recite, not just some weakling child who could hardly speak. Eliza and her brother made a friend of me and tried to teach me English. When I did well, they would reward me with slices of their mother’s apple pie.’

  ‘And so won your loyalty forever,’ Dauda said gently.

  Francis nodded. ‘Their kindness was the first I’d met with since I was taken. And the pie was delicious.’ Dauda’s musical laugh rippled among shadows. ‘I was sold to another man and taken back to Jamaica, though I learned to read a little on the journey. Then I was sold again and brought back to London by another man some months later.’

  ‘Why did no one wish to keep you, Francis?’

  ‘I cannot say. But I was a gangling child with no strength and the appetite of a grenadier.’

  Dauda laughed again. ‘Poor Francis. Was your last master a better man?’

  ‘No better or worse than the one before, but my English had improved by then and I had taught myself to read well, and to write a little so I was more use to him. Still, he whipped me every day and I was so frightened of him I began to piss my bed. Then he would whip me more. Once I woke up in the night with the sheets damp and I was so frightened I ran away. I found Norfolk Street, broke in through the kitchen window and stole an apple pie.’

  ‘You did not! Why, Mr Glass, you poor miserable infant. You come in here with your mud and your dogs and your threats, and now I fear you will break my heart. Did they know it was you?’

  ‘They guessed. I went up for theft in front of the Old Bailey, sure they would hang me, but Mr Smith, Eliza’s father, told the judge how I had not stolen the silver spoons from the larder and that he forgave me the pie. I was found not guilty and released. I was sure I was dead, but the man I had stolen from put his hand on my shoulder and called me his friend. I would have crossed the earth for him after that.’

  ‘That does not surprise me, Mr Glass. Now tell me the rest. What happened between your release at the Old Bailey and the hour you appeared on my doorstep with your silly dogs?’

  So Francis told him, as the light continued to fade and the dogs chased rabbits in their sleep, how Mr Smith had bought him, and told him he was free the same day. How he was christened and Mr Smith stood his godfather, how he had fed his love of books and learning, and had eventually got him work with his old friend Mr Hinckley. How one of the proudest days of his life had been when he had paid back his purchase price to Mr Smith from his wages; Mr Smith had held a party to celebrate and they had cleared the front parlour of the house in Norfolk Street so that they could dance, and dance they had.

  At some point in the story Dauda had rung for the candles to be lit and Mrs Rogers had come upstairs with a taper in her hand. The dogs were woken and taken to sleep outside. Now Dauda listened to the story of Francis’s work, his constant love for Eliza, and her death – the hopes taken from him.

  ‘Tell me who did this, Dauda. I must learn some time. Why should I not hear it from you? Why protect him?’

  ‘I cannot tell you, Francis. I simply cannot. I wish I had been loved, as you have been loved, but only my mother cared for me that way. After she was gone I had to take what forms of love I could find, and imperfect as they are, I still must honour them tonight.’

  Dauda smiled at him then stood and turned his back. Before Francis understood what he was doing, he had taken off his beautiful coat and waistcoat and lifted his undershirt so Francis could see his naked back. The light drifted over his skin as if it wanted to caress it. He was perfect, unmarked. He let the shirt fall again and sat down. ‘I have always been too beautiful for the whip. It has been a blessing and a curse.’ He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles, and rested his chin in his hand.

  ‘I shall tell you what I can, Francis dear. I was born in Jamaica. My mother was the favourite slave of an overseer on a good plantation. After his wife died she lived in the house like a white woman and ate with him when there were no visitors. I was brought up there and treated like a little pet by the household. Only my father’s white daughter ever beat me. Slapping and pinching and delighting that the bruises hardly showed on my skin. Then sometimes she would hold me and tell me stories, and I would love her so much for those moments.’ Francis remembered the devotion George and Eliza had inspired when he had learned he need not fear them. ‘I think my mother believed she and the overseer were married, that I was safe as a pure white boy. Then when I was thirteen a man offered a great deal of money to buy me, and my father accepted. My mother begged him not to, but it did no good.’

  ‘What happened?’ Francis said, and the candles flickered a little in the night breeze.

  ‘The day I was taken away, my mother killed herself. It was not done out of despair, not out of misery. It was punishment to my father
for selling me, her jewel, made out of all her suffering. She knew he loved her above all things, so she drank poison just so he was forced to watch her die.’

  VI.5

  AS NIGHT THICKENED IN London, Harriet and Crowther were sitting in a tiny room overlooking a court near Smithfield Market. They had met under the great medieval mass of St John’s Gate, in between the shadows cast by the smoking lamps. Molloy gathered them away with him at once. It was a corner of London where you might expect a gentleman to exercise a little caution whilst walking the dirt ways between the sagging and slipping wrecks of houses, and where a lady would never dare to venture. Every third building held a cellar where the gin was cheap and the voices loud. An occasional fiddler could be heard, screeching out folk tunes in the bowels. Crowther was not nervous, however, partly because he had faith in his ability to scare off most rogues who might make a try for his purse, or for Mrs Westerman’s, and partly because he walked alongside the familiar silhouette of Molloy – and no one would dare trouble him. Any number of legends clustered about him and hung in the folds of his long black and slightly greasy cloak. It may have been that most were lies, but he denied nothing, explained nothing, and so was immortal.

  The air stank of blood from the meat market. The room’s usual occupants had been paid to find somewhere else to spend their evening, and all Harriet could know about them was what they left behind. It seemed the room was home to a family. One side was flagged with washing hung out to dry. Two shirts, much darned, stockings and half a dozen items of baby clothing dripped quietly onto the wooden floors. Harriet’s walking dress had never felt so magnificent. The room was cleanly swept and neatly arranged. She did not know what fee Molloy had promised to give the inhabitants for use of the place, but she knew he was proud of his reputation as a hard bargainer. Pulling a guinea from her purse, she hid it under a battered pint pot that sat next to her elbow. She tried to do it without Molloy noticing, but suspected she failed. The day of inactivity had weighed heavily on her.

  ‘Their names are Bounder and Creech, Mrs W.,’ he said.

  ‘How did you find them, Molloy?’

  The old man was wrapped in his usual dark cloak and hunched over his pipe with his back to the wall. ‘Once I got the names from Mother Brown, it was that boy Guadeloupe. He’s only been in the country five minutes, but he’s found his way round most of the rat-holes of London.’ He sounded impressed.

  ‘You like him?’ Harriet said, faintly amused by the idea of Molloy liking anyone very much.

  ‘He knows how to shut up and listen. People think he’s simple or can’t talk English, him not being much of a conversationalist. He circled in on these two here while I slept, then sent me word he was close.’

  ‘He did not want to be here when we confronted them?’ she asked.

  ‘No. He wanted his coin, which was well earned, and then the leisure to spend it. Then I came here and picked up a rock, saw them foundering below it and sent you my little note.’

  Crowther smiled. ‘You are sure they have not been warned we are here?’

  Molloy went so far as to look up at Crowther from under the brim of his black hat. ‘You think anyone here would carry a tale I don’t want telling? Sorry indeed I’d be if my charm and kindness were so abused.’

  ‘You have our thanks. I think you are grown too rich to want any more of our gold.’

  Molloy grinned and even in the semi-darkness Crowther could see the deep lines in his face rearranging themselves. ‘I’ll take it, Mr Crowther, don’t you worry about that. What do you reckon they’ll do on seeing you?’

  ‘They set on a man like Trimnell and then myself in the dark. One holds while the other punches. I think that they’ll run away,’ Crowther said after a pause.

  Molloy gave a low and smoke-cracked laugh. ‘Their room’s off the yard and only one door to it. I’ll take your words into consideration.’ He removed his pipe and spat on the ground.

  ‘What is your opinion on slavery, Molloy?’ Harriet asked, after staring into the darkness a few minutes more.

  He looked at her sideways. ‘Who says I have one, Mrs?’

  Harriet realised she had amused him. ‘Everyone must.’

  ‘Oh, must they? Law is it now?’ He got his pipe glowing again and sent a great cloud into the air. ‘Wouldn’t want to be one of those darkies in their hands. Might go so far as to lend a fellow my knife if he wants to fight his way out. What’s your opinion on kiddies selling themselves for pennies? On men trying to feed their little ones on grass? Misery enough on these shores to occupy most.’

  Harriet was silent for a moment. ‘We have built some almshouses in Hartswood,’ she said at last and Molloy laughed again. He laughed like old buildings would laugh.

  Then: ‘Hold hard, gentry. I think our birds are come home. Bounder and Creech, it is.’ They looked out of the window where two shadows were making their way across the yard, one tall and narrow, the other rounded as a ball. ‘Let ’em settle,’ murmured Molloy, ‘then we shall pay those gentlemen a visit.’

  Crowther and Harriet followed Molloy downstairs and into the shadows. It was a narrow yard, containing a rubbish pile and necessary house, and the stench made even the yards off Covent Garden smell like country air. Molloy pointed to a door and Crowther knocked on it, then pushed it open, revealing a bare room hardly larger than a shed. There was a fire going though, and by its light huddled the two men. The fat one was holding a pan in the coals with some grey mess in it. The thin one was watching it and him intently, like a dog watches his master cooking bacon.

  They turned as the door opened, and on the instant the fat man leaped to his feet, almost spilling his pottage in his haste and tried to run, barging past Crowther’s thin shadow in the doorway. He ran straight into Molloy’s fist, however, and fell backwards into the room, ending up flat on his back on the dirt floor.

  The other man stood up too. He was at least six feet and hardly had room to straighten. ‘You’ve killed Bounder!’ he said in a wail. The fat man on the ground groaned and the giant’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘Ah, no, you didn’t.’ Reassured on that point, he crouched back down again and tenderly lifted the pot off the fire. ‘Bounder?’ he said. ‘I think it’s done now.’

  The fat man slowly pulled himself up on his elbows. ‘Then eat it.’ He looked steadily from Crowther to Molloy. Then, rubbing his jaw, he snapped at Harriet: ‘What?’

  It was Molloy, rubbing his knuckles, who replied. ‘You pawned Trimnell’s coat and shoes to an old acquaintance of mine.’

  Harriet was frowning. ‘Bounder … Sanden mentioned you. You are a waiter at the Jamaica Coffee House – you threw Trimnell out of there when he tried to preach Abolition.’

  Bounder’s heavy face assumed an expression of studied blankness. ‘I was and I did. What of it? I know nothing of anyone’s coat.’ He said it with all the huffing dignity available to a man laid out on a dirty floor with a bruise blossoming on his jaw.

  Crowther crouched down, resting his weight on his silver-headed cane and looked him in the eye. ‘Now then, Bounder, you’re stupid, but you are not as stupid as that. You didn’t mean to kill Trimnell. He was a sick man. You assaulted him, and you may be fined some shillings for it. If you tell the truth, then so shall I, and explain that to the court.’

  ‘It would be a different matter if it came out that you had taken his coat with you and pawned it, however,’ Harriet said, her clear voice like a bell in the squalor. ‘That would be Highway Robbery with Violence – and for that you would hang.’

  Bounder began to look distinctly upset.

  Creech had settled himself on a low stool by the fire; his long legs were bent almost double. He was eating whatever was in the pot with a wooden spoon and apparent relish. He spoke with his mouth full and his lips smacking. ‘He just fell down. Thought he’d fainted but he was that floppy when I put the ropes on him. “Bounder,” I said, “this bloke’s only gone and died.”’

  Crowther stayed gazing at Bounder.
The fat man sighed deeply and lay back down on the floor. ‘Creech …’ he said wearily.

  ‘What? They know it all already. And I don’t want my neck stretched.’

  ‘Who paid you?’ Crowther said.

  Bounder sighed again. ‘No one, in the end.’

  ‘We did run off, Bounder,’ Creech said gently. ‘Trimnell bloke was supposed to get a whipping. When he died that meant trouble and no money for us.’ He pointed his spoon at Crowther. ‘We got paid when we gave that man there a beating and did it right. Mr Sawbridge was fair then.’

  Creech pouted a little. ‘My nose still hurts, you know.’

  The father, then, not the lover. Crowther stood up. It took an effort not to kick Bounder where he lay and pay him back for the vicious blows received. He glanced at Creech as he bent over the fire and was glad to see the bruising round his eyes and the swelling on his long nose. The fat man made no attempt to move from the ground.

  ‘Tell us exactly what happened, Bounder,’ Harriet said.

  The man crossed his ankles and folded his hands together on his chest. ‘Sawbridge came to see me Friday morning. Asked if I had a friend would help me deliver a lesson to a dog that deserved it and was shaming his daughter. I thought he meant young Jennings for a moment, but it seems it was Mr Trimnell, his own son-in-law, he had in mind so I said yes and went and found Creech. Sawbridge was the colour of raw meat, that angry he was.’

  ‘I like meat,’ Creech said, staring sadly into his pot.

  Bounder went on as if he had not heard.

  ‘The staking out and the whipping was Sawbridge’s plan. He gathered the necessary gear and gave it to us with a word on where to wait for him. He promised to give us a whole guinea because of the elaboration.’

  ‘We never got the guinea.’ Creech’s voice was almost tearful. ‘And I hurt my hand.’