by Rebecca King
Hetty listened in rapt silence, and stared at him in stunned disbelief for several moments once he had fallen quiet. It took a moment to absorb the full import of his words. She was flabbergasted at his quiet declaration. She glanced at Simon and Wally, and was unsurprised to find that they also looked completely stunned.
“Will you do it?” Charlie asked when nobody seemed inclined to speak.
“We will,” Wally assured him, a new note of respect in his voice. “Of course we will. I will get the letters off as soon as we leave here. If I send a rider with them, they should reach them the day after next.”
“Send someone from the next county. Don’t send them from Derby, in case Meldrew intercepts them. My boss can, and will, stop Meldrew in his tracks. You just need to inform him for me.”
“Good Lord, who -”
“Time’s up,” the jailer growled.
Hetty glared at him. “But we have only been here a couple of minutes,” she protested, only for the man to shrug unconcernedly.
“I have got work to do. I was told to let you meet with them,” the man grumbled as he rattled his keys pointedly. “You have met them. Now it’s time to go.”
It was a physical wrench to have to leave him but Hetty knew that she must. Especially now that she and Wally were the only ones who stood a chance of being able to get Charlie and Simon free.
“Keep safe,” she whispered.
Her eyes met and held his. A wealth of meaning swept between them and, in that moment, she felt closer to him than ever before.
“We will get this off to your boss as quickly as we can,” she promised.
Charlie nodded. “Make sure you choose a rider who can be trusted. Don’t mention it to anyone.”
Hetty nodded and watched Wally place a comforting hand on Simon’s shoulder.
“God, I hope your bosses can get you two out of this because I seriously cannot see how we can keep you off those gallows,” Wally sighed.
“One thing you need to know,” Charlie warned. His gaze hardened as he looked at Hetty before he turned a hard stare on Wally. “Meldrew wants Simon out of the way because he refused to pay the protection money, right?” He waited until Wally and Simon nodded. “Keep an eye on Hetty now, because he will focus his attention on you, Wally, until he gets what he wants.”
Charlie knew deep inside that he was right to issue the warning. For Meldrew to go to the extremes of having men arrested for a murder he knew they didn’t commit, just so he could assert his authority publically, made him either a deranged despot, or a desperate fool. Whichever, both of those kinds of people were incredibly dangerous, and now posed a risk to Hetty. Just the thought of her being subjected to Meldrew’s brand of ruthlessness made Charlie want to punch the wall.
“You stay at home after dark Hetty, and don’t answer the door or go outside if you know that man is anywhere near,” he cautioned.
Hetty nodded but, before Charlie got the chance to say anything else, the jailer began to tug on his chains, resolutely pulling him and Simon toward the door. Hetty followed, and couldn’t resist giving Charlie another hug.
“I will be alright,” he assured her but couldn’t keep his worry for her out of his eyes. “Just keep yourself safe, darling. There is so much I want to say to you, but can’t now.”
The regret in his voice brought tears to her eyes. She offered him a watery smile, and only just managed to give Simon another hug too before both men were dragged back to their cells.
“Wait!” Wally called, and hurried after them. He threw a look at a jailer who moved to stop him reaching the convicts, but Wally handed out a handful of money. “Make sure they are fed properly, and get whatever comforts they need.”
The jailer looked down at the money in his hand and then up at Wally, who added several more coins to the pile in the man’s palm. It was a veritable fortune, even by jailer’s standards, and enough for the jailer to quickly pocket the money and give him a brisk nod.
“Come on. Let’s get you back to your cells. I’ll pass word around that you get extra rations,” he assured them. He nodded to the door. “You need to go before Meldrew comes out of Gembleby’s office. He won’t be happy to find you still here. I will make sure they get what they need.”
“Thank you,” Wally murmured, and reluctantly escorted Hetty out of the jail.
When Hetty looked back into the corridor, the prisoners and jailers had gone.
“Where to first?” Hetty asked once she and Wally were back on the cart.
She wasn’t sure what to think. Her brother appeared to be just as nonplussed by the day’s events as she was. They sat side-by-side in silence, and stared blankly at the jail doors.
Wally eventually sighed. “I think that we have to find some parchment, a quill, and get that bloody letter sent off to that man in London; Sir Whatsit.”
“Sir Hugo Dunnicliffe,” Hetty replied.
“Yes, that’s the one. Sounds a bit grand doesn’t it?”
“I don’t care,” Hetty sighed. “As long as he can get them free. I don’t care what they call him. We need that pouch first though.”
“I know. I emptied my pockets in there, and have no money on me to send anything anywhere,” Wally growled as he picked up the reins and steered the horse around in a wide arch.
“Well, let’s go and get the pouch, then we can get that letter sent off. If I knew what I was doing I would bloody go and take it myself,” Hetty snapped.
“We need to send a proper rider. He will be quicker,” Wally declared as he clicked the horse into a walk and turned the cart away from the jail. “Once we have sent that letter off, we need to have a word with some of the villagers, and alert them to Meldrew’s latest scheme. If that blasted magistrate is this desperate to get people to pay him his ransom money, everyone he has been pressuring of late is in danger,” Wally said.
“We have to get them out, Wally,” Hetty murmured as they turned out of the jail’s courtyard, and made their way through the main street that ran straight through town.
Before they turned out of the main street, she glanced back at the dark building, and felt a deep sense of foreboding with her.
Two days later, Hetty shivered as a cold breeze swept up her back. She tugged her shawl tighter around her shoulder, and warned herself to remain calm. She wished now that she had thought to bring a cloak with her because she felt so very cold, on the inside as well as on the out.
The helplessness of the last few days had scarred her to her very soul, and she knew that she would never forget them, no matter what the outcome was.
The desperate situation the Jones family now faced was simply terrifying; not least because the man who had come to mean so much to her now faced a battle for survival. She quickly blocked out all thoughts of what could happen to Charlie and Simon, and turned her attention to Wally, who appeared to be just as anxious as she was.
“Do you think we are going to get in this time?” she asked him without taking her eyes off the jail door.
He merely looked at her and shrugged.
They had called by the jail each morning since their last visit a couple of days ago, but hadn’t even gotten through the gate. They had been told on each occasion that the prisoners weren’t available, but no explanation had been given as to why.
Yesterday, Wally had warned the jailer that he would fetch a solicitor; or a magistrate from another county, if they weren’t allowed in this morning. Whether his warning would gain them entrance today had yet to be seen.
She stood back while Wally knocked on the gates of Derby jail again and, together, they stood back to wait a little while longer.
Thankfully, someone answered. The small panel in the gate was slammed back, and a thin face appeared behind the bars. He looked at them for a moment, but didn’t speak. Moments later, he slammed the panel back into place before the gate began to rattle.
Wally and Hetty shared a look of relief, and waited while the gate was opened. Neither of them spoke w
hen the jailer motioned them to enter.
The look he gave them as they sidled through the narrow gap, warned them to remain quiet.
Hetty stepped into the inner courtyard. Her stomach dropped to her toes at the sight that greeted her. She froze. A wave of sickness swept through her and she wondered briefly if she was in the middle of a nightmare. But she knew that she wasn’t when the jailer moved to stand beside her.
The discordant rattle of his keys sounded loud in the silence of the yard, which was broken only by the rhythmic clank of picks and shovels hitting the dirt.
“Oh, good God,” she whispered.
Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of Charlie and Simon, along with two other men, lined up against the far wall. All of them were digging their graves.
“We want to talk to them,” Wally growled. His voice shook with suppressed emotion as he stared at the sight that no man wanted to see. He slid a hand around Hetty’s waist, but neither of them knew whether they were supporting each other, or themselves.
“How can they be condemned if they haven’t had a trial yet?” Hetty whispered as she levelled an accusatory glare on the jailer.
“They were tried yesterday,” the man replied with a frown. “Were you not told?”
Wally shared a look of horror with Hetty. “If we had been, we would have made damned sure that they had a fair trial,” he snarled. “How could they be tried so quickly?”
“Meldrew arranged it,” the jailer replied.
The look he gave Wally effectively said; ‘did you expect anything else from that man’.
Wally knew that what had happened wasn’t the jailer’s fault, but it was difficult not to consider that all of the people in supposed positions of ‘authority’ around the jail were guilty of being corrupt.
Before either of them could say anything else, the jailer hurried over to the prisoners.
Hetty and Wally looked at each other as they waited for the prisoners to be released from their duties and allowed to come over to them. Thankfully, because of their need to dig, none of the prisoners had chains on today, and Charlie and Simon were able to walk unhindered toward them.
Hetty fought a sob as she saw the changes two days in the jail had wrought upon both men. They were both a little thinner, considerably paler, and had not slept well from the look of the dark circles beneath their blood-shot eyes. They were both dirty, and clearly hadn’t been given anything other than the most basic of necessities with which to survive.
“Are you alright?” she whispered.
Rather than answer, Charlie walked straight up to her and drew her into a huge hug without even saying ‘hello’.
He buried his face in her neck, and drew in a deep breath that was quintessentially Hetty, and immediately felt everything within him began to settle into its rightful place. He knew then that if life had been kinder, and circumstances changed so that he had any chance of surviving this, he would have made her his wife.
The feel of her against him calmed his nerves, and he placed a tender kiss at the base of her neck while he savoured the precious moment of being able to hold her tightly. He had spent each night since his arrival in the jail on the cold, dank floor of the fetid cell thinking about the way the sunlight shone in her hair and the way her lips curved when she smiled. He had yearned to be able to see her again.
Now that she was before him, he just couldn’t bring himself to let go. After all, he knew now that he would probably never get a chance to hold her again.
“Hetty,” he growled.
He had gone over in his mind what he would say to her if he ever got to see her again. Now that she was here, words failed him. Emotion ran high, to the point that he struggled not to fall at her feet and beg her to marry him. It was only the soreness on his wrists, and the sounds of spades hitting dirt that reminded him that even innocent, he was still a condemned man, and Hetty deserved better.
“You were tried,” she whispered in horror.
“It was a bloody kangaroo court ruled by that bastard, Meldrew. He has set us up, so of course he found us bloody guilty,” Charlie sighed in disgust.
Hetty had to force herself to release him when Simon stepped forward for a hug.
“We sent the letters off within the hour of leaving here the other day,” she assured them. “We have been trying to get to see you again, but were given various reasons why we couldn’t. Wally threatened to fetch another magistrate from out of the county if we didn’t get in today.”
“Yes, we have been busy: going through that bloody farce of a trial,” Simon snarled. “We were tried, judged, and sentenced to execution within ten minutes. That’s all it bloody took; ten sodding minutes.”
Charlie stared down at his boots.
Hetty studied the reluctance on his face, and looked at Simon. There was something neither man was telling them. She looked over at the partly dug graves and felt her stomach drop to her knees.
“When is it scheduled to take place?” She asked, desperately hoping that neither man would tell her. Thankfully she hadn’t seen any sign of the gallows out front of the jail where the hangings usually took place, but she had no idea how long it would take for them to be built.
She watched Charlie share a look with Simon, who shifted uncomfortably.
“The day after tomorrow,” Simon whispered. “The scaffold is due to start to go up later today, and will be finished tomorrow night. There is to be a notice of the executions in the broadsheet tomorrow morning. The jailer told us.”
“What about them?” Wally growled, and nodded toward the other two prisoners.
“They are in the cell with us. They refused to pay Meldrew’s ransom too, and have been brought here on trumped up charges that none of them are guilty of,” Simon sighed.
Hetty stared at Charlie. Their eyes met and held. Tears stung her eyes but she refused to let them fall. They both knew that even though the letter had gone to London, it would have taken a couple of days to get there. It should arrive today at the earliest. Even if Sir Hugo read on the day it arrived, and left London straight away, he wouldn’t get to Derby in time to meet with Meldrew, or halt the executions.
“They are hanging us quickly so that we don’t get the chance to find someone to defend you properly,” Wally snapped. His voice trembled with the force of emotion that swept through him, and he shuddered in horror at the hopelessness of the situation.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
“We have got your things,” Wally said to Charlie, for want of anything else to say.
What was it that he could say? I hope that you are alright? Keep yourself safe? Goodbye and good luck? How can I get you out now? Nothing seemed appropriate. No words seemed good enough to offer any kind of solace in a hopeless situation like this, and everyone knew it.
“Time’s up,” the jailer called.
“Look, I want you to make sure that Hetty is looked after,” Charlie growled.
“I will do.”
“No,” Charlie growled. “Listen to me. If Meldrew is this desperate to convict people who block his path, there is nothing he won’t do. I don’t want Hetty going through this.”
“I will be fine, Charlie,” Hetty whispered.
A sense of urgency hung in the air. Time was short, and it was suddenly imperative that he do everything within his power to make sure that she was safe once he wasn’t there to protect her personally.
He was unlikely to be there to look after her personally, but he could damned well do what he could.
“All I can do is what I can do. We can make sure she doesn’t go out at night, but I have a business to run,” Wally growled. “What do you want me to do?”
“Let me marry her,” Charlie reasoned. He heard Hetty’s gasp but didn’t look at her. He shifted closer to Hetty’s brother. “Listen to me. I work with the War Office. If the hangings take place, then Hetty will be my next of kin. Not only will they make sure that she is provided for, but they will protect you and your business wh
ile they work to put Meldrew behind bars. I wouldn’t put anything past Meldrew; he is a determined man. If he has done this to Simon, he won’t stop with Hetty. If Hetty is my wife, my colleagues will make sure she is protected while they work on putting Meldrew behind bars.”
“Charlie?” Hetty whispered.
“I know you are going to be marrying a condemned man for now, but you will have the protection of my name. Your name will be attached to my real name; not the name Meldrew and Gembleby have. I just have to know you are protected. Do this for me Hetty?” Charlie growled.
He wished that he could do this in some better way, but he had been neatly boxed into a corner, and the only way out was through death by hanging.
“When Sir Hugo and my colleagues arrive, tell them that we are married. He will take matters from there. All we need to do is notify the vicar.” He stood back and looked at the jailer, who looked a little stunned.
“He is due here tomorrow,” the jailer muttered.
Hetty looked at Wally. She jerked to find him staring thoughtfully at her. Was he really contemplating it? She knew from the look in his eye that he was, and couldn’t make her mind up whether she was appalled or thrilled.
Marry Charlie? But she hardly knew him!
“There is no other way,” Wally sighed. “I need to run the mill, and can’t keep an eye on you. If his men come to stay with us while they investigate Meldrew, they will make sure you are protected. I can’t lose you too, Hetty.”
“Simon hasn’t been hung yet,” Hetty whispered. “It may not happen. What then?” She turned to look at Charlie. “What if your boss gets here first? You are going to be married to someone you don’t know.”
In spite of the gravity of the situation, Charlie smiled. “I am sure that we will grin and bear it.”
His eyes met and held Wally’s for several moments. Wally gave him one brisk nod.
It was enough.
Charlie looked at the jailer. “Can we marry?”
It was clear from the look on the jailer’s face, that he thought Charlie and Hetty had completely lost their minds. “You need to go and see Gembleby.”