by Jo Macauley
His voice died away as he saw his family gathered round the table, looking up at him with darkened eyes and pinched-looking faces. Nobody had the energy to celebrate his good news. His mother came over to him urgently. “John?” she croaked. “You’ve brought money?”
“I ... I paid the rent,” he repeated helplessly. How could they have fallen so far? He’d only been away for a few days. At the back of the room, his father lay in his bed. They must have brought it downstairs. The bandages on his hand were filthy now, matted through with stains that made John feel sick just to look at. The infection must have worsened.
John held out the single penny that he had. His mother snatched it out of his hand and rushed out, calling, “I-I’ll bring food.”
“There’s been nothing to eat,” Nick explained. “Not for days.”
“But hasn’t anyone helped?” John said incredulously. “The neighbours ... the vicar?”
Nick shook his head. “Everyone’s got troubles of their own, is what they’re saying.”
John sat at the table and buried his face in his hands. This was all wrong. He should have taken all the money home right away, instead of going to pay the rent. The landlord could have waited another week for his money, couldn’t he? What was the use of a place to live if you didn’t even have food?
The door banged open and his mother came rushing back in carrying a tiny loaf of bread. A penny loaf, they called them, not much bigger than a bun, but she was clutching it like a new-born baby. Chairs scraped and the children stood up, and his mother carefully broke off pieces to give to each of them, and to his father. In seconds the loaf was gone, and his mother stood desperately licking the crumbs from her fingers. She saw John’s look of dismay and instantly dissolved into tears.
“What are we going to do?” she sobbed.
John gently put his arm round her, and he could feel her shoulder blades protruding under her thin skin.
“I’ll work all the hours God sends,” he said. “Whatever it takes, Mother.”
“Bless you,” she said. “I know you’re trying your best, love. But there just aren’t enough hours in the day.”
It was true. John couldn’t hope to make up for his father’s lost wages, even if he took every spying mission Strange offered. As he watched Polly hobbling across the room on her crutches to give his father his medicine, a terrible thought came to him. With Vale gone, would there even be any more spying missions? That decided him. He had to take drastic action.
“I’ll be back soon,” he promised, and headed out of the house.
He set off, walking resolutely towards the open vegetable market. His family needed food, fast. And he was going to get it. He just needed to figure out how. What did other people do when their families were desperately hungry? Some of them stole, of course. London was riddled with thieves, but he wasn’t going to take that path. “I’d sooner hang,” he muttered. Begging? That wasn’t much better than stealing, in John’s book. Plenty of people begged because they had no other choice: the diseased, the blind, the wounded veterans of England’s many wars ... No. Begging wasn’t an option either. For one thing, John thought bitterly, he was able-bodied. People would just tell him to get a job, and walk on by.
The only thing for it was to scavenge what he could. He’d often noticed fruit and vegetables rolling away while the traders set up their stands. The traders never bothered to chase after them, it wasn’t worth their while. Maybe, if nobody else had already snatched them up, he could find a fallen potato or even a cabbage. The thought of his family eating food from the dirty floor made him grimace, but he couldn’t see what other choice they had.
The market stalls were bustling, and the traders could hardly keep up with the number of people shouting and waving money. John moved up alongside an apple-seller. The fruit lay crimson and gold on the trays, looking tempting and delicious. It would be so easy to grab one, just one, but John shook his head. Never.
He squeezed past the row of stalls into the blind alley beyond, where refuse had been piled up. Nobody seemed to mind him being there – they all had paying customers to think about. Trying not to make it too obvious, he wandered up and down, glancing at the pavement. Straight away, he saw a flash of yellow at his feet – a dropped apple! He picked it up, delighted with his find. There was a brown bruise on one side and it was smeared with roadside mud, but that didn’t matter. He could rinse it off. He slipped it into his pocket, whistling a merry jig. Sometimes, he thought to himself, you have to make your own luck. A few more minutes of hunting netted him half a potato and some cabbage leaves that would be wholesome enough once the bad bits were cut off.
But down beside the cabbage, he noticed something grey and smooth. He frowned. Perhaps it was a mushroom? But when he picked it up, he saw it was a length of dangling silk. A handkerchief attached to a button, and a very fine quality one. Perhaps one of the traders had dropped it. He looked around, but instantly dismissed that idea. The traders were all working people, with no use for anything so fancy. He had a better look at it. It was clean, so it must have been dropped very recently. Thinking of Vale’s monogrammed kerchiefs, he turned it around in his hands, looking for similar initials, but there weren’t any.
“This could be the windfall to end all windfalls,” he whispered to himself. There was a tailor not far from here who’d pay good money for this. And he hadn’t stolen it – he’d just found it lying there. So why not sell it? Anyone else would, without a second thought, and the money could keep his family fed for a week. But it isn’t mine to sell, he thought.
Surely the owner must still be nearby. He took another look at the crowds surrounding the fruit stalls, but they all seemed to be local people who were buying for themselves, or maids out buying for the families they served. A handkerchief like this must belong to a gentleman, and gentlemen didn’t buy their own groceries. So ... perhaps someone had pickpocketed it elsewhere and then dropped it? John decided to take it to the local Watch, who could look out for its owner, and tucked it into his pocket along with the apple, potato and cabbage leaves. He smiled as he thought of the owner going to talk to the Watch, of his flustered expression changing to joy, of the reward he might receive...
“Hey!” came a shout from behind him. “You there!”
“Hmm?” John turned round. An officious-looking man came running up to him and grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Ow!” John said, struggling. “What do you think you’re—”
“I,” panted the red-faced man, “am the beadle of this market! And I have reason to believe,” he paused for breath, “that there is something in your pocket that doesn’t belong to you!”
Chapter Eleven - Taken
In her dreams, Beth was in the wooden chest again. This time, John and Ralph couldn’t get it open, and water was flooding into her lungs. She struggled, growing weaker and weaker, as Ralph banged desperately at the lock. She groaned and rolled over opening her eyes.
Suddenly she was wide-awake. The bedclothes were tangled around her, but the frantic banging was still going on. Beth sat up. Someone was hammering at the door of their lodgings. Across the room, Maisie was sitting up too, rubbing her eyes.
“Who is it?”
Beth didn’t say what she was thinking. There was only one person who had reason to visit her like this, with no regard for the time of night. Only one person who could be angry enough with her to hammer on her door as if he meant to break it down. She’d known this was coming ever since they’d let Vale get away, but she was not going to expose Maisie to Strange’s anger. The girl wasn’t a part of her life as a spy and Beth wasn’t about to let that change.
“Stay there,” she warned Maisie. She lit a candle with a taper from the embers of the fire and went to open the door.
But it wasn’t Strange.
It was some lunatic off the streets, with tousled hair and urgent, staring eyes. He rushed into the room, grabbing Beth by the shoulders. Beth yelled in surprise and nearly dropped the c
andle. Then, as she held it steady, she recognized the youth for the first time.
“Ralph!”
“I need to talk to you,” he said, in a voice like cold iron. “On your own, right now.”
“It’s all right!” Beth said to Maisie, who was peering fearfully down the stairs, and Big Moll, the inn’s owner, who was looking more angry at being woken. “I know him. Go back to bed. Everything’s fine.” They turned away, with Moll muttering to herself. Beth turned back to Ralph. “Sit down by the fire. You must be freezing.”
“There’s no time,” Ralph said. He strode back and forth angrily. “My contacts had bad news for me tonight. It’s John. He’s been taken.”
Beth’s heart skipped a beat. “Taken? By whom? Vale’s men?”
“No. The Watch! He’s been arrested on suspicion of stealing,” Ralph said, spitting out the words as if they were poisoned. “They’re holding him in a cell.”
“Where?” asked Beth firmly.
“Bridewell.” Ralph looked at Beth to see if she knew what that word meant. Her look of horror surely told him she knew only too well. Bridewell. That word sent chills through Beth. As prisons went, it was downright medieval. What with the filth, the rats and the disease, not to mention the brutality of the inmates toward one another, it was almost a death sentence in itself.
“We need to go and see him right away,” she said. “There must be something we can do. Have you told Strange?”
“No. Not yet. I came straight to you.”
Beth ran upstairs and hurriedly pulled her street clothes on. The charge had to be false, she thought hopefully. It’s all a misunderstanding and they’d let him off. John wouldn’t steal.
She said a quick goodbye to Maisie, saying everything would be fine, and together she and Ralph rushed out into the night. It wasn’t far to Bridewell Prison. As it loomed into view, Beth wondered how such a gloomy, hateful building could ever have been a royal palace. That had been long ago, back in the days of Henry VIII. Now it was an asylum for the insane, a workhouse and a prison, all in one.
To Beth’s dismay, the keeper demanded a fee to let her in. “Everything costs,” he said with a sneer. “If he’s that important to you, you’ll find the money.”
Beth silently handed over the shilling. “Take us to see him now,” she said, barely containing her anger.
“No hurry,” the keeper chuckled. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s still got his chains on.” He held up a hand to Ralph’s chest. “Just the girl.” Ralph scowled, but let Beth go on ahead.
John was one of seven tattered, grimy figures in the cell they eventually reached. Some of his cellmates smirked to see him rush forward. “Who is it, Turner?” one of them mocked. “Your mother come to see you again so soon?” But their smiles turned to scowls of jealousy when Beth pulled her hood back and showed her face.
“John! Why are you still manacled?” Beth said in a low voice. “It’s inhumane. I’ll fetch a guard and have you released.”
“You have to pay to have your chains removed,” John said. “You have to pay for everything in here.”
“Being a keeper’s good money, miss,” sneered one of the prisoners.
Beth simply ignored him. “Tell me what happened, John.”
John explained how he had found the handkerchief while hunting for food. His cellmates looked on, obviously amused by the tale.
“I told them I hadn’t stolen it,” he said. “I said I was taking it to the Watch so the owner could come and get it. But the more I said, the less they believed me. They called me a pickpocket!”
“And the owner never came forward?”
“No,” John said. “It was like they wanted me to be a thief. ‘Caught one of you at last,’ they said. ‘We’ll make an example of you.’”
That made sense, Beth thought. She’d read angry headlines in the London Gazette about thievery in the city, especially in the markets. The cry had been going up for weeks now for the government to get tough on crime, and Beth had the uneasy feeling that even an innocent victim would still send a message.
“They won’t find you guilty,” she said. “This is a civilized country. We have courts, not mob rule!”
A chorus of laughter came from the prisoners then, all except John. Beth glared at them.
“I hope you’re right,” John said, leaning close so he could speak softly. “Because stealing is a capital offence. If they do find me guilty, they’ll likely hang me...”
It will be all right, she wanted to tell him. I’ll get Strange to help. But, of course, she couldn’t say anything like that, not here.
Within moments it was time to leave, and as she reached the top of the stairs, Beth looked back and saw John’s gaunt face. His jaw was set, but his eyes were those of a man whose world is crumbling into ruin around him.
“I will do everything in my power to help you,” she promised. Right now, no price is too high to save my friend, she thought.
* * *
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
Beth waited by the chair opposite Strange in Peake’s Coffee House. As yet, despite the new trend for coffee-drinking, London society had yet to declare this place “fashionable”, so it was discreet enough to serve as a meeting place. All the tables were taken up by middle-aged men in large wigs, discussing serious matters with bowed heads or playing games of chess. The thick aroma of ground coffee filled the air, and nobody spoke louder than a soft murmur. It was like the reading room of a library, or some strange chapel where tobacco smoke hung in clouds instead of incense.
Beth stood, trembling, waiting for Strange to meet her eye, but he just gestured for her to sit.
“You understand I do not hold you responsible for his escape, but we need to reconsider our plans, now that Vale has fled.”
“Yes, sir. We really did do everything in our power to stop him.”
“I know.” Strange sipped from a gigantic bowl of black coffee. “And I still believe that you, Ralph Chandler and John Turner make a good team, one that I would like to employ again—”
“Then you haven’t heard? John’s in prison!” Beth burst out. “They’re holding him for the theft of a silk handkerchief, but he didn’t steal it, he just found it!” she began, feeling that she was babbling but unable to stop herself.
“Prison,” said Strange, pressing his knuckles to his forehead. “I had, of course, heard report of this, but I hoped it mere rumour. That’s exceedingly inconvenient, but it could play to our advantage...”
Taken aback by his tone, Beth said, “So ... is there anything you can do?”
Strange looked at her. “It may be better for now to do nothing at all.”
“What? Sir, forgive me, but ... but we need to save him! Surely you won’t let a valuable spy be kept in prison, or ... or worse!” Beth exclaimed. “Don’t you understand? He ... he might be executed!”
“Lower your voice, Miss Johnson,” Strange said in a warning tone. “Listen. Time is limited and there are plans in motion that you know nothing about. Trust me. I will help, even if I seem to be doing nothing.”
There was a moment of cold silence between them then. My mistake, Beth thought. For a second there I confused you with a human being. It won’t happen again.
“I had something specific to discuss with you,” Strange eventually said. “In the light of Vale’s flight from the country, I have given serious thought to your future as an operative under my supervision.”
Beth braced herself for what was coming next. Strange took another long sip of coffee before continuing.
“It’s extremely unlikely that Vale leaving the country means his anti-royal days are over,” Strange said. “He has organized plots from abroad before, for example when he was in Germany, as you know.”
Beth nodded, remembering Vale’s pawn Lady Lucy Joseph. Or Luzi Bayer, which had been her real name...
“Vale is far too dangerous to leave unobserved. He plays a long game, setting up power bases long before he moves to a
new centre of operations. We need to move with him if we are to thwart him.”
This wasn’t what Beth had expected to hear at all. “Move with him? Do you have a spy network in America?”
“No,” Strange said, mopping at his mouth with a pure white napkin. “And that’s the point. We need one. I need people in America I can count on to watch Vale and report back to me regularly. There are people there now, of course, but they aren’t the right people.”
Beth suddenly wasn’t sure if she felt like a hunted animal in the sights of a crossbow, or a young hopeful about to be called up to a starring role. “Do you mean...?”
“I’ve been looking for the right person to head up a spy network for some time,” Strange said. His eyes were eager and bright now. He began to count off on his fingers. “Someone young, who isn’t set in their ways, someone who can learn, but has proven themselves as uniquely adept in this field. They’d be based in America for months, possibly even years, so they can’t have important family or career ties here in England. Does this sound like anyone you know?”
Only her training as an actor allowed Beth to answer him calmly. Inside, she was shaking like a fever victim. “You have me in mind? I have to admit I’m surprised you’d trust such an enterprise to a young woman.” She raised an eyebrow, a smile playing at the edge of her lips.
Strange sat back in his chair and interlaced his fingers. “As I say, you’re uniquely suited. And nobody would suspect you of being a spy. I’ll put it to you straight. How would you feel about going to America as the first ever head of my operations in the New World?”
“Uh ... I’ll need more information first,” Beth said after a pause. That got a smile of approval from Strange. Beth didn’t say what she’d been thinking: I thought you’d summoned me here to fire me, not promote me!
“You would still be acting under my instruction, of course,” he said. “You’d be travelling undercover, playing the role of a lady of means. However, all other arrangements – recruiting spies, establishing safe houses and so on – would be entirely at your discretion. You would have a great deal of freedom, and the salary is extremely generous.”