Alms for Oblivion

by Philip Gooden

  On the one hand, the cell wasn’t so much worse than my Dead Man’s Place crib, although smaller. On the other hand, I was paying much more to the turnkey for a single night here than I had to my landlord Benwell for a whole week. It was an abuse. The turnkey Wagman should be locked up. In fact, the whole crew of gaolers looked – and behaved – as though they should have been locked up. I believe many of them had been once, including Gog and Magog. Well, this cobwebbed, filthy chamber was my lodging until my money ran out – which it would do in about three days’ time or even sooner (since I had to feed myself out of those three remaining half-crowns as well).

  Shivering, I lay down to sleep on the thin pallet. I tried to put an end to this day. This terrible day which had begun with Bartholomew Ridd berating me over the missing sleeve from a costume doublet and had ended with the discovery of the fatal purpose to which that sleeve had been put. In between, I had almost come to blows with a boatman, nearly been crippled or even killed by a runaway cart, and witnessed a bookshop deliberately destroyed by fire. In the silence of Paul’s church by Duke Humphrey’s tomb I’d attempted to link these events together and believed that I’d found the thread in the shape of those noble siblings, Robert and Virginia Venner. But I could not fit the latest and most terrible turn of events, the murder of Nell, into any pattern at all.

  Nothing made sense. Or did not make sense in my present state. I simply wanted to draw a curtain between myself and consciousness. But, even though it was night by the clock, the day refused to crawl into a corner and die. I slept very fitfully. In the morning I woke to consider my situation. It didn’t take much consideration. My situation was bad. In fact, it could hardly have been worse.

  These prisons are like the world beyond the walls. That is, they are divided and subdivided into petty sections where the few lord it over the many. The few are the sergeants, turnkeys and tipstaffs. The many are the miserable occupants. The former strut. The latter suffer, and try to make the time pass faster or slower, depending on whether they are comfortable or in pain. Mostly they are in pain. Money counts even more on the inside than it does on the outside. Without the garnish you get banished to the Hole. Underground in the old church crypt huddled those wretches whose purses were empty or never full in the first place or whose friends were penniless and unable to buy them their daily requisites. These, literally the lowest of the low, were condemned to a perpetual twilight where they slept unblanketed on a bare floor and fed off charity scraps. The Southwark Counter wasn’t the worst for neglect and cruelty – I believe that the palm goes to Newgate or the Fleet – but it was no laggard in this respect either. During the first night I slept very little, as I’ve said, partly because of my miserable state of mind and partly because of the wails and moans coming up from beneath the ground, like the sounds of the damned in hell. For some reason the noise diminished during the day. By the second night I’d almost got used to the din.

  In any case I had my own troubles to attend to. There was not only my imminent danger, for it was obvious that I was going to be held to account for the murder of Nell, but also my great grief at her death, and at the violent manner of it. All the little irritations and jealousies of our friendship subsided, and I remembered – or chose to remember – only the golden times we’d enjoyed together. I thought not just of her body and its sweets, but of her self. Her good nature and her cheerful spirits. Her laughter and her quick wits. More than once, one of us had tumbled out of bed, the narrow beds in my various lodgings or the wider one in her crib, convulsed with laughter at something the other had said or done. I recalled the time she’d tipped a loaded chamber-pot out of the window straight on to the head of my landlady, Mistress Ransom. I’d forfeited my lodgings as a result but could not hold it against her. No more than she had held against me my brief amour with the wife of a fellow member of the Chamberlain’s. She hadn’t held it against me when all was said and done. When all was sad and done . . .

  Nell was an expert in what she called the sacking law and full of tales about it – for all that she’d only been at the game for three years or so. I couldn’t vouch for her earlier time in the country though. In fact I had my suspicions of her activities before she arrived in London and we’d met. She’d told me once of how a penance had been imposed on some country whore which required the said whore to stand at the church door, bare-legged and barefoot, wearing a white sheet and with a candle in her hand. Well, of course, she’d said, it just offered the naughty woman a better chance to show off her wares. Plenty of men came by to ensure that she was keeping her penance and to get a good ogle. That was you, was it? I asked. She would not answer except teasingly, but the story provided us with enough diversion for that day and, thinking of it again now in my little prison room, I laughed once more and then began to weep.

  The tears – a drop in the bucket of misery in this church turned prison – were for myself as well as for her. Nell and I had arrived in this great city more or less at the same time and now it seemed as though both of us had reached our term together. She, though, had died like the innocent she was while I would die a despised death on the scaffold. Blameworthy in the eyes of the world (and this was before I had been interviewed for the second time by Coroner Talbot), I was to blame in my own eyes too. Guilt is contagious, spreading quickly from accuser to accused. And who could deny that I carried the plague? All who knew me were bound to die, and die suddenly, by violent murder. Peter Agate, Richard Milford, and now Nell. It was just as well that Revill had been taken off the streets and would shortly be hoist on to a scaffold, there to end his wretched existence before he could do more harm to innocent people.

  I tried to console myself. First, with the knowledge of my own innocence. In this I had only a limited success for the reason I’ve already suggested. Second, I told myself that being in prison was no great disgrace. Why, the playwright Ben Jonson had been incarcerated on a capital charge (but he had killed a man honourably in a duel). Others that I knew had been clapped up for debt, for assault, for slander. Any man may swear out a warrant against another and, if he has the cash to secure a couple of arresting sergeants, will see his opponent brought behind bars for a time. None of the Chamberlain’s Company would have thought the worse of me for being in clink if I’d been involved in a tavern brawl or defaulted on a debt. It was almost seen as a badge of honour to fall foul of the law at least once. But to be accused of three killings . . . there was no way to wash this off.

  So, when my friend Jack Wilson came to visit me not long after my interview with Talbot, I almost cried with gratitude. He’d had to pay to get in. This is the truth about prisons: you pay to get in, you pay to stay in, you pay to get out. But the chief turnkey, the portly Wagman, had extorted only threepence from Jack, a little more than the groundlings paid at the Globe although for an infinitely less cheerful spectacle.

  “Oh Jack,” I said. “You don’t know how good it is to see a friendly face in this place.”

  We were walking like sentries up and down a wide passage, which must have been the church aisle in earlier days, holy days. On either side were the coffin-sized rooms. A watery light filtered in from the plain high windows at both ends. At the top end of the ‘aisle’ was a larger area – it was probably where the altar had once stood – in which those who could afford to purchase food were permitted to sit at a table and consume whatever their purses stretched to. So far I had maintained my place at the table, eating and conversing fitfully with my fellow prisoners. But my money was about to run out. Then, unless I could obtain credit, it would be down into the Hole, the hard floor and charity scraps.

  This aisle was a place of communal activity, particularly during the reception of visitors. Urgent conversations, desperate bouts of laughter, whispered asides, elaborate negotiations, occasional scuffles, all were staged on this little strip of flagged ground. From beneath our feet came the continual susurration of the people imprisoned in the crypt. Cellar rats.

  “I am sorry to see yo
u here, Nick, in this foul place.”

  I noticed Jack surreptitiously pinching his nose from time to time. I’d already accustomed myself to the stench.

  “How is our Company?” I said.

  “Oh, we carry on, you know. We are preparing for two fresh pieces next week.”

  “I remember. I was due to appear in both of them.”

  “I am taking your part in one.”

  “That’s Fortune’s Eyes?”

  “Yes. Forgive me.”

  For answer, I clapped him on the shoulder.

  “While Michael Donegrace is taking your part in the other, in The Law’s Delay.”

  “A wonderful title,” I said.

  I couldn’t prevent the bitterness, the irony, entering into my voice. In this new play I’d been due to play the part of an advocate, a corrupt and eloquent pleader who may be bought by the highest bidder. How apt that I now found myself subject to the law’s delay in reality – although I feared that all too soon I would be subjected to the law’s rigour.

  “Dick Burbage says though that you may resume the part – if – ”

  “I am not going to be released in time, Jack.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “I am not going to be released at all.”

  “And Master Shakespeare asked me to convey his greetings – and condolences on – on the death of your friend.”

  This affected me more than anything that Jack had said so far. Without troubling to conceal it, I brushed away the water from my eyes. Slowly we threaded our way past the other knots of people in the aisle. Turned round, marched back again like sad sentries. Two individuals were squatting on the floor playing draughts. There was an animated trio of merchants, in here for their own protection and waiting to come to composition with their creditors (so they’d told me, quite proudly). A well-dressed man, more of a gallant than a tradesman, was in close consultation with the chief turnkey, fat Wagman. A red-faced woman and a couple of small children were visiting a man who habitually wore a long, mournful face. His expression hadn’t changed. He did not look pleased to see her or the children and stood there, stroking his face. The urgent conversations, the whispered asides.

  “I didn’t do it,” I said.

  “I know,” said my friend. “All those who know Nicholas Revill know that.”

  “Not quite all. Coroner Talbot is determined to find me guilty.”

  “He is a hard man, he has that reputation.”

  “He says that justice must be done.”

  “I have brought you some money,” said Jack Wilson. “Is it safe to hand it over?”

  “Do you think this place is full of thieves?”

  Jack laughed.

  “There is a kind of twisted honour among these people,” I said. “I mean among the gaolers. They will sell anything but they will not take money by force, except as a last resort. They can get more by extortion.”

  Glancing round, Jack handed me a purse. I did not forget myself so far as to examine its contents like a hungry creditor but it felt weighty enough. It was just as well that Jack went on to speak because I was suddenly too full to say anything. Anyway he guessed my question.

  “No, it’s not mine, though I’ve added my share. This is the gift of the Company, Nick. It is bad enough being in a place like this without having to go through the additional misery of being deprived of food or drink or a bed. I once had to endure a few days in the Clink.”

  “Did you? Why?”

  I was inexplicably pleased to hear this.

  “A small misunderstanding over an affray in my younger, wilder days. So I know a little of what it’s like.”

  “That group are clapped up for debt,” I whispered as we skirted the trio of merchants. I was eager to move the conversation away from my own woes.

  “They don’t look too unhappy about it.”

  “It’s an odd fact that some of the inhabitants of this place are here by choice. Those merchants are waiting until their creditors get desperate enough to settle on any terms. They will still come out at a profit.”

  “I would rather be free and poor,” said Jack.

  “But it’s that gentleman over there, the well-dressed one talking to Wagman, who has pulled the neatest trick when it comes to a debt. He’s made a profession of it.”

  “How so?”

  “This is the third or fourth time he’s been inside. He has boasted to me of how he gets himself arrested on a trumped-up charge of owing a few pounds, and waits for his friends to get the money together to free him. Then he gives Wagman his commission and walks out whistling, a free man. It gives him enough to live well on for a month, he says.”

  “What about his generous friends?”

  “Oh, they can go whistle too while they’re waiting for their cash.”

  “One day they will run out of cash or patience,” said Jack. “And he will run out of friends.”

  “I rather think that day might have come,” I said, looking at the earnestness of the dialogue between Wagman and the gallant.

  “And what crime has that individual committed, the one who is being pawed by that woman?”

  “He is called Topcourt and an unhappy man. He’s mild and soft-spoken, and guilty of already having a wife.”

  “That woman?”

  “That woman might be the wife. On the other hand, she might be the other woman, if you see what I mean.”

  Even as I said this, the red-faced woman’s pawing turned to blows. Topcourt stood there, long-nosed and passive as a donkey, while the woman’s fists thudded into him. She varied this with a few open-handed slaps to his face. Following their mother’s lead, the children also started to flail at him. Fortunately he was well protected by a thick woollen coat. This domestic tussle was hardly remarked on by anyone else in the aisle. The other prisoners were apparently used to seeing Topcourt beaten up. It wasn’t even amusing.

  “In fact, he may already have a couple of wives apart from her,” I said. “I think he cannot say no. He would agree to anything.”

  “I can see why he’s unhappy.”

  “Not for the obvious reason. He’s says he’s unhappy because he’s being released tomorrow. His women have clubbed together to pay for his release.”

  “Why do they want him out and free if he’s deceived them by marrying several times?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps they think that prison is not a sufficient punishment. They can do better themselves.”

  “And perhaps he’d rather stay here in the Counter than face the wives outside.”

  “You have probably hit it.”

  “No, I think she is hitting it,” said Jack as the rain of blows continued. We watched. It was as good as a play. Then, abruptly the woman turned on her heel and left, with her children clinging to her skirts. Topcourt still stood there, stroking his face, as patient and silly-looking as a donkey.

  “You have made friends quickly in this place, Nick. Or got their confidences at any rate.”

  “Much of the table-talk is about crime. A few of us deny everything but the majority are pleased to boast about what they’ve done.”

  “So what have you said?”

  “That I’m in here for debt, like most of the rest of them. I don’t want to lay claim to three murders.”

  “You could say you were innocent.”

  “No one would believe it if I did. Strange. You can claim the most gross crimes in here and everyone believes you. But innocence is the one thing that nobody credits.”

  “Then it is a little world in here, like the stage-play world.”

  “It’s one I’d just as soon not be a part of.”

  “All experience is useful.”

  “I used to think so, but am revising that opinion.”

  “Well,” said Jack, “don’t become like your other friends over there and make a practice out of going to gaol. We could not afford another subscription.”

  “I will save you the trouble,” I said. “A noose comes
cheap. If we were doing Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy now I could actually be hanged up on the stage. Do you think Burbage would approve?”

  “No.”

  “Just think of the audience we’d get. You could double the prices at the door.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Nick.”

  “I promise to make a good end. I will kick and struggle with the best of them.”

  My tongue was running away with me and I could not entirely control my voice. For a moment I took the idea seriously. After all, in Thomas Kyd’s Tragedy there’s a villain who goes to the scaffold convinced that it’s all in play and that he will be pardoned at the last moment. He isn’t. He dies, his laughter choked off. Well, why should not Revill be truly hanged for the delectation of our audiences? It was only a play, wasn’t it? The audience would all go home afterwards.

  “I will give my last performance gratis,” I added.

  Jack stopped in our pacing up and down the church aisle. He turned about and put his hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye.

  “Nick, you shall not talk so. Do not abandon hope. Do not sink to the level of this place.”

  “I thought it was a good joke,” I said.

  “It was. But there are some jokes that are worse than despair. And, believe me, if you were really about to be turned off you would not be convincing in the part.”

  This was reminiscent of the little discussion which Coroner Talbot and I had had about playing the drunkard. I brought myself to a smile.