The Almanack

by Martine Bailey

  Sighing, Tabitha explained. ‘There was a girl in the next chamber to me. Poll, she was called, as shining bright as a new penny. She cultivated one of her beaux – a grizzled soldier, ugly but tender-hearted, and begged him to help her get away, and made a thousand promises to keep him sweet. For months she hid away his money without the bawdy-house keeper’s knowledge. And she took me with her when she fled.’ She smiled into the distance, remembering. ‘“Toujours pret, Madame!” was Poll’s motto. “Always ready!” And so we were. Vauxhall Gardens had never seen the like of us.’

  ‘You still have a gentleman friend in London?’

  ‘Is that what my mother called him? I did have. Robert, yes.’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  Tabitha stifled a yawn. Truly, the girl was obsessed with that emotion. ‘I should have met him here last week but I did not attend our rendezvous. So it would appear not.’

  ‘Have you always been so—’

  She never did learn what Jennet was about to say. Hard-hearted? Callous? Or worse – bitter, a second-rate beauty, a bold-shammer? Before she could conclude, Tabitha pinched her leg privately beneath the table. ‘Do not look up,’ she whispered, looking hard into Jennet’s wide eyes. ‘There is a man by the bar in a green braided coat. I stole something of great value from him. He may have me arrested if he claps eyes on me again.’

  Jennet gave a tiny nod of comprehension.

  ‘When I squeeze your hand, I want you to go to the door without looking backwards; I will follow behind.’

  Jennet did as she was told. Then Tabitha followed, poker-stiff with fear. Skirting the Irishman’s table, she saw that a set of coaching timetables was laid out before him, and that he was tracing across a line of departure times with his fingertip.

  At any moment, she expected that hairy-backed hand to grip her shoulder, that husky brogue to whisper, ‘Got you now, you prigging whore. So where’s my damned timepiece?’ But, unharmed, she reached the door, and breathed free air as she hustled Jennet out into the street.

  ‘It’s best we get back to the castle,’ she said, setting a swift pace. ‘Your father may have news.’

  Joshua had no news; but before he sent them home to Netherlea, he pulled Tabitha aside. ‘Where has that fellow Starling gone?’

  She told him what she knew: that he must by now be a good hour down the road to London. His expression reminded her of a bear she had once seen baited at the Market Cross; the poor, baffled creature, striking out at its tormentors too slowly and too late.

  ‘He has fled?’

  ‘Fled?’ she scoffed. ‘He has gone to London on business.’

  ‘He was directly next to that lead horse when it bolted. And now he has absconded.’

  ‘Joshua, that is not true. He’ll be back in a fortnight at the latest.’

  ‘And his address in London?’

  She frowned, having no notion. ‘He said he would write to me.’

  The worst of it was that, like that poor chained bear, Joshua’s anger and pain was clear behind his eyes. ‘I’ll keep a lookout for his letters. I’d lay odds they’ll make most interesting reading.’

  When they got back to Netherlea, Nell Dainty and Bess were not at the cottage, nor were they at the doctor’s house. Cutting through the grounds of Bold Hall to enquire at the stillroom, Tabitha stopped dead to listen. Was that the little chit’s babbling voice, reaching her from the gloom of Lady Daphne’s dairy? Inside were tables of marble, Delft tiles and churns, all of the most modern style. And there she found Nell Dainty watching her daughter, Zusanna, feed Bess from a bowl of curds and sugar.

  ‘Here you are! I have looked everywhere,’ Tabitha reproached the child, wishing she was not quite so hot and flustered.

  ‘You said you was staying out for the night,’ Nell complained, scowling. ‘We was just talking about you. Where shall this little maid go when you traipse back to London, and start carrying on your old business?’

  Zusanna chimed in. ‘We heard you was looking to leave her with anyone as would have her.’

  ‘I’ll take her now,’ Tabitha said, trying to hide the fury in her voice – but, as if deaf, Zusanna loaded another spoon, and nudged Bess’s rosebud mouth.

  ‘Me and my ma wouldn’t want to see her sent down to the poorhouse. Only that’s where most of the ill-gotten babes end up.’

  Bess’s huge eyes blinked in innocent pleasure as she swallowed another mouthful.

  ‘No!’ Tabitha swept the spoon from Zusanna’s hand and pulled Bess into her arms. ‘I don’t care if you are as barren as the desert – you are not having her!’

  All the way back to the cottage, Bess bawled so noisily that Tabitha wondered why in Hell’s name she had bothered. Let them have the tiresome child. Her true life was in London, and that was no life for a child – especially a cherubic girl child. It was true that, once back in London, she hoped to continue her friendship with Nat Starling; and, like her, he had no settled income or position to support a child, however charming. Charming? Bess cried on and on, at a tooth-wincingly high pitch.

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ She set Bess down on the ground. The child pulled herself upright, stamped her tiny feet and glared at her through teary eyes.

  ‘Oh, mademoiselle is annoyed, is she?’ Tabitha taunted. ‘I can also stamp my feet.’ She proceeded to do so, knowing herself to be quite ridiculous. Then she sank to her knees on the grass beside the little girl and placed a great smacking kiss on her mouth. ‘Help me, Bess. What am I to do with you?’

  To her surprise, Bess pushed her little lips against her mouth and kissed her in return.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  A Riddle

  I am jet-black, as you may see,

  The son of pitch, and gloomy night;

  Yet all that know me will agree,

  I’m dead except I live in light.

  My blood this day is very sweet,

  Tomorrow of a bitter juice,

  Like milk ’tis cried about the street,

  And so applied to different use.

  Most wondrous is my magic power;

  For with one colour I can paint;

  I’ll make the devil a saint this hour,

  Next make a devil of a saint.

  The 1st to the 6th day of October 1752

  Luminary: Last Quarter of the Moon.

  Observation: Opposition of Saturn and Mars.

  Prognostication: Dissension between notions of Differing Principles.

  A day later Nat arrived in the city, hailing the pall of coal smoke and the jangle of the crowds with joy. It had been a troubled journey; the drama of Darius’s escape blazed in his head so fiercely that he was bursting to transform it into fresh-inked news. Yet whenever he dozed, frissons of fear unnerved him: he had the disturbing notion that the coach was in actuality travelling backwards away from London, in ominous alignment with the new calendar.

  He had been relieved to wake from such nightmares, recalling, instead, the kiss he had given to Tabitha. Oh, Tabitha! When he reached his old haunts he would drink deep to her, the sharp-eyed possessor of his heart.

  At the printing house in Chandos Lane, he shook the plump hand of Quare himself. The printer, a blubbery fellow with ginger-lashed, piggish eyes, honoured him by rising from his desk. An advance of payment was presented, and Nat agreed to every term, signing a contract to write a pamphlet elaborating every detail of the case, and all to be completed within the week. An hour later, he had tracked down his fellow pen-smith Toby in a private club on the piazza. Soon the witchery of French brandy was upon Nat; as they raised toasts to women, to fortune and fame, his every sinew sang with the pleasure of strong wine. A future as a man of letters glowed before him like an answered prayer.

  He took Toby into his confidence about the arrangement with Quare and saw with exultation the shadow of envy that crossed his face. His friend laid his arm lazily across the back of the gilded sofa. ‘But what will your rustic friends in the north make of your pamphlet?’

 
It was the first time Nat had considered his opus might be read by the villagers. Truly, it was not a pleasing prospect.

  ‘Whatever Quare has given you, he will squeeze out ten times its value,’ Toby added spitefully. ‘He always pleads poverty; but remember, he has a house in the West End and keeps a coach and six.’

  By midnight he wasn’t too disappointed when Toby said he had a girl waiting for him down Nag’s Head Court. ‘The theatre trade will have finished now. She’s a clean girl, not long from the country. She’ll suffice – until she gets wise to London tricks.’

  Once he was alone, Nat ordered a fresh bumper; then, tired of summoning the waiter, threw down a gold coin and seized the bottle itself.

  Some unknowable amount of time had passed when he recovered his senses. He was sodden with drink, and stilettoes of pain skewered his skull. Out in the street he heard a watchman calling eleven of the morning. Only his parched desire to drink from the jug he glimpsed on the washstand forced him to stagger upright. At some time after his boozing spree, he had been carried by a set of rough hands; then he must have been transported to this fusty chamber, though he had no recollection of the journey. He pulled the window shutter back a half-inch, wincing, and saw that he was back at the printers on Chandos Lane, up near the roof in some kind of garret. And there, laid out upon the writing desk, were ink pot, quills, paper and sand.

  Beside them stood a note in Quare’s hand: Drunken nights have always tomorrows. And one week today, good fellow, the press awaits your words.

  Nat generally excused himself from any labours when in such a painful state, but by the time Quare later paid him a visit, he had filled a page or two.

  ‘Are you pursuing developments?’ Quare wheezed. ‘You do have a correspondent back in the north to keep you appraised?’

  ‘Yes,’ he mumbled, though the notion that Tabitha stood as such to him would have appalled her. She was pursuing De Angelo for motives far nobler than his.

  ‘Scratch a line to him, then, and I’ll drop it at the post office.’

  ‘I shall take it myself,’ Nat said.

  ‘Nay, I fear you have shown your true colours. You must remain here until you have fulfilled your contract.’

  Nat did not have the stamina to argue. Instead, he scribbled a few terse lines to Tabitha, asking for news of Darius, and only at the last moment remembering to enquire after her own health.

  ‘And the – what is their name? The De Vallorys? My man Blunkett is searching out a likeness of the father for your pamphlet. But any further dirt you can expose …’

  ‘Is that necessary?’ Nat was feeling sick now, for more reasons than the surfeit of brandy.

  Quare sidled his fat carcass towards him.

  ‘It is a fair story, but it is for you to make it irresistible. It could be up there, lad, with Captain Maclean the Gentleman Highwayman, Jonathan Wild Gaol-Breaker, or Captain Morgan, Pirate. What shall we name it? “The Bloody Harvest of a Northern Lord”? Or “A Noble House Cursed by a Curious Almanack”?’

  ‘These people are of my acquaintance. I believe a sensitive portrayal—’

  ‘Poppycock! This searcher is female – a handsome piece, is she? Worth getting her portrait made? You hinted she has an interesting past.’

  Hot bile was rising in Nat’s throat. ‘Pardon me,’ he muttered, and ran to the closet where he vomited into the chamber pot, sweating and shaking. What, in his stupid pursuit of vainglory, had he unleashed?

  As Nat’s fuddlement eased, he gradually let more light in at the shutters. The garret was a decrepit repository of Quare’s lurid business, the sloping walls hung with broadsheets that paraded anatomized corpses and scenes from Tyburn. Quare prided himself on his low beginnings, as a boy hawker of Last Dying Confessions at Newgate. It was rumoured he had then worked for a print-shop with a line in flagellation literature, just by the pit door at Drury Lane. After making a fortune stealing prints from gentlemen’s houses, he bought out his master and struck out on his own.

  Above Nat’s desk hung a picture of Jack Sheppard the boy gaol-breaker, a puny youth with legs held in gigantic chains. Quare intended to use that very same copper-plate for Nat’s own pamphlet, scratching out Sheppard’s face and inserting a crude approximation of Darius’s visage.

  Slowly Nat grasped that it was he, Nat, who was prisoner here – sentenced to use his talents to slake the appetites of apprentices and hobbledehoys, and to titillate the seekers of penny sensations. His Dramatis Personae had shrunk to stock characters from Commedia del Arte: the foppish heir, the bombastic father, the plucky, beautiful village girl.

  Yet, nonetheless, the more he wrote, the more he found the maw of Quare’s printing press irresistible. It was refreshing to construct a publication of at least twelve pages; he gave an account of the murder, devised a map of the village, and rendered conversations as close to verbatim as he could recall. He described the finding of Francis’s butchered body, the opinions of those at the inn; he outlined the funeral oration, described Chester Castle and the daring escape. To his surprise, he found the exercise made his veins run with thrilling ichor.

  ‘The trouble with you, Nat,’ Quare announced, not unkindly, ‘is that you were never whipped sufficiently hard.’

  Nat bridled at first at the print-seller’s words, but soon came to understand the truth of them. He had never worked so hard as now, when schoolroom discipline was imposed on his wayward habits. And, when his hands were too cramped from writing, he was free to clamber down through the roofspace to look through Quare’s archives. There he found old copies of The Newgate Calendar, registries of past London, pamphlets recording Old Bailey trials. He felt like a hound on the scent, for Nat could not resist digging deeper into the story. He discovered that Parson Dilks had been dismissed from his post as chaplain to a Cambridge college; puzzling over how he might have overcome this impediment, he recalled that he was related to Lady Daphne. He now began to keep separate, secret notes from those he showed to Quare, and determined to visit his mother in Cambridgeshire, too, before he returned to Netherlea.

  As the days passed, he began to feel towards Quare a loathing that stirred fantasies of violence. The uneducated, ill-bred Hackney print-seller had the temerity to alter Nat’s work, adding florid descriptions of place, scandalous characters and inelegant hyperbole; he was a mercenary street peddler, squeezing every drop of blood from the drama. And somehow, where a thousand airy muses would have failed, Quare had succeeded – gutter trash though it was, Nat’s pamphlet was rather good.

  Nat showed Quare his copy of De Angelo’s almanack and the print-seller regaled him with the story of the almanack’s origins: the ancient desire to follow the movements of the sun and moon, first etched in notches on sticks and stones. His brain was as full of facts as a rat of fleas; he recalled the political prophecies of the Civil War, and the prediction of Cromwell’s fall. Now, he told Nat, it was the Worshipful Company of Stationers who held the monopoly – though that was but the official view. Almanacks were the largest and most valuable commodity in the print world, for as many as one in a half-dozen Britons laid out their pennies every year. Grudgingly, Nat recognized that Quare was indeed a man of that encyclopaedic age; the Diderot of the vulgar.

  As he dipped his pen he thought of Tabitha, venerating her like a private saint. She was no longer merely the alluring fast piece he had fallen for at the Haymarket; she was rather a vision of movement in the summer sunshine, miraculously living at just the same time as he had been granted life. Though he often recalled the softness of her hand, it was her vivacity he remembered best, the brightness she wore like a taffeta cloak. Half-mad with overwork, he kissed her letters and slid their coolness against the sweat that dampened his breast.

  Only two letters had arrived from her. The first confirmed Darius’s continued evasion and gave a warning, too: The constable is (rather stupidly, in my opinion) claiming that your departure is a sign of guilt.

  His eyes scrabbled hastily over the paper; Saxton
, the buffoon, believed that he had aided Darius and then absconded with him, having no notion yet of the fugitive’s whereabouts.

  Her second letter urged him again to investigate Dilks, and confirmed that Jennet had not, so far as she could tell, resumed communications with Darius. He was heartened to read that she was counting the days till his return.

  The day the press was set to print, Nat knew not if he was playing a part in a triumph or a tragedy. There was an unstoppable appetite for the story, Quare had told him, and the pamphlet had been expanded to a whole sixteen pages, complete with illustrations. He had insisted that Quare must not use his own name, and the Latin term for scribe, Demogrammateus, had instead been substituted. But, like the ink stains on his shirt, he was unable to scrub away his unease.

  He watched two printers working like automatons, inking and sliding and loading up paper, and producing an uncanny two hundred sheets per hour. Hawkers thronged at the door, snatching up corded stacks of pamphlets – sixpence for black and white, a shilling for coloured.

  ‘We’ll keep the press working through the night,’ he heard Quare say, ‘and get a third or fourth edition out by tomorrow.’

  Next morning, the door to his garret was left unlocked. Nat stumbled down the stairs, his hands tarry black, his suit filthy and his hair tangled to his shoulders, feeling like a madman escaped from a peculiarly industrious asylum.

  ‘Be off then, lad,’ Quare called; then, seeing the parlous state of him, added, ‘There’s a bagnio across the road where you can tidy yourself.’

  Taking his travelling box under his arm, he followed the print-seller’s advice, and was shaved, bathed and dressed in a clean suit of clothes by noon. For Tabitha’s sake, he declined the bouncing girl in a shift who offered him yet more attentive favours for a shilling. Then, with his fee from Quare and a barely dry copy of the pamphlet safe inside his coat, he headed out, still dazed, to find the Cambridge coach.

  TWENTY-FIVE