Adah remembers the long dark strands of Catherine Creamer’s hair extending from beneath the cloak that covered her. All she ever saw of Catherine Creamer were those few strands of hair and one white, mud-streaked arm; and yet how her life has become entangled with the life of this dead woman whom she never knew. And now with the woman’s lost daughter …
They have left the child in the care of Stevens, contentedly arranging shells on the floor of Raphael’s study. The child’s speech is slowly returning, but only in single words, here and there. She loves to name colours, and sometimes surprises them with the range of her vocabulary – pointing, for example, to a tasselled velvet cap that appears in the corner of one of Raphael’s paintings and pronouncing, with startling accuracy, ‘vermillion.’
‘How much do you think we should tell her?’ asks Raphael suddenly, leaving Adah momentarily confused. But he is, of course, speaking of Mrs Fry.
Adah pauses, before replying hesitantly, ‘We must tell her that we have firm evidence contradicting Sarah Stone’s guilt. But perhaps it would be best not to say exactly what that evidence is …’
She has terrifying visions of armies of grey clad, soft spoken women descending upon them to bear the child away to some charitable institution. Logic tells her that this might be for the best – better, at least, than the ramshackle arrangements that she and Raphael have been making for her care. But the prospect of losing the child to the uncertain mercies of others, after all this, fills her with dread.
‘What puzzles me still,’ says Raphael, ‘is how a mother could mistake the face of her own child. That Catherine Creamer might be mistaken about the identity of the child-stealer is one matter. But that she could mistake another woman’s baby for her own? How can that be? Even if she imagined that the babe was sorely changed by neglect …’
‘I think she was desperate to believe it was her child,’ replies Adah softly. ‘I am not quite sure why. But there was a strange thing that her neighbour Lizzie Murray said to me. I wish I could remember her exact words. Something that Catherine Creamer said when Rosie disappeared: that it was a punishment for her sins. Almost as though she felt guilty that Molly had been stolen. I have thought about it, but can’t understand it. It was not as though the babe had been snatched while Catherine left it unattended. It is hard to see how she could have felt herself to be at fault, but somehow perhaps she did. Perhaps she felt that she should have protected her own child better, and that made her all the more frantic to find the infant she had lost.’
Adah had hoped that they would travel along the great loop of the river past Greenwich, so that she would be able see the grand buildings of the Royal Hospital there. She has heard that they are a splendid sight. But in fact they catch only a distant glimpse of the two tall towers of the Greenwich Hospital by the river’s edge, before the waterman steers them towards the narrow canal that forms a shortcut across the north of the Isle of Dogs. A shortcut in terms of distance, but perhaps not in terms of time, thinks Adah, as they drift idly at the entrance to the canal, waiting patiently for the blue flag to rise and the lock gates to open.
Once inside the lock, as the water swirls and gurgles beneath the hull of the skiff, she stares in wonder at the great row of stone warehouses which lines the boundary of the West India Dock, and at the tall sailing vessels, their sails lowered as they are towed through the straight and narrow shining road of water ahead of them. As each ship passes their wherry, they look up and see the immensity of its wooden sides looming over them. One ship has a rather crudely carved figurehead of a mermaid on its bow, and another, ornate carvings of dolphins on its stern. As this second vessel passes them, the mahogany-brown faces of a group of seamen appear above the rail, and the men wave their caps in the air and shout cheerfully at the passers-by in a language that Adah does not understand.
‘These docks are the place where I first arrived in London,’ says Raphael suddenly. ‘It seems like yesterday, though it must be … what – almost twenty-five years ago now. Hard to believe it. I can still feel the astonishment that I felt then as we sailed up the river, and I saw the city rising from the smoke and fog. Astonishment and fear,’ he adds, ‘and hope.’
He does not say whether the hope has been fulfilled.
Beyond the new canal they enter the immensity of the river again, with the great expanse of the Plaistow Levels stretching before them, a faint autumn mist rising from the marshlands. The taciturn waterman steers their wherry to a small wooden jetty just past the point where the River Lea flows into the Thames. On the shore nearby stands a fine new inn, with tables and benches set on a lawn looking out across the river.
The steps up to the jetty are wooden and slimy with weed, and Adah is grateful for Raphael’s steadying hand as she climbs onto dry land. When she has stretched her cramped legs, they take a seat outside the inn and eat a light meal of bread and cheese, which Raphael washes down with ale, though Adah drinks only water, not wanting to arrive at the house of the famously pious Mrs Fry with her breath smelling of beer. Before embarking on the last stage of their journey, they wander for a few minutes in companionable silence along the sunlit water’s edge, watching a couple of muddy-legged urchins fishing in the river with grubby strands of twine. The light gleams on the surface of the mud, which is patterned here and there with the footprints of seagulls.
How happy I am, thinks Adah absurdly.
Raphael has somehow managed to send ahead for a cabriolet, which is already waiting for them in the courtyard on the far side of the inn.
‘Have you ever been to this part of Essex before?’ he asks Adah, as their cab bowls along the dusty causeway across the marshes at an alarming speed.
Adah shakes her head. Compared to her companion, she has been to so very few places. Even the Essex marshlands seem exotic.
She watches the plump brown and white cows grazing on the rich grass of the higher ground that emerges here and there from the mire. One solitary crumbling farmhouse stands on a slight elevation in the marshes, the thatch of its roof rotting and sliding away in places, and a couple of willow trees by its doorway spilling their yellow leaves onto the still surface of the surrounding waters.
‘Look, Raphael!’ cries Adah softly, as three long legged birds – maybe herons – rise lazily from the marshes and vanish in the direction of the invisible sea.
The church bell in the squat stone tower at East Ham is just tolling two as they drive without halting down the main street, and on past a second cluster of cottages, grouped around a crossroads and a small village pond. From here, the country lane curves left through farm meadows to the grand stone-pillared gate of Plashet House.
Adah has been imagining something like the grounds of the big house in Fulham, but Plashet, as it turns out, is altogether on a grander scale. The long stone-paved driveway leads straight through an avenue of elms whose golden leaves lie in drifts on either side. Beyond, they can see wide lawns, smooth as velvet, dotted with flowerbeds which are past their summer best, but whose glory can still be imagined from glimpses of phlox and marigolds, and from ornamental archways adorned with the last few fading roses. The driveway ends at a circular space in front of a tall plain house built of sandstone, with mullioned windows. A woman, ascending the steps of the house with a basket of fruit over one arm, turns at the sound of the approaching carriage. Her grey dress and bonnet are so simple and severe that for a moment Adah is uncertain whether this is the mistress of the house or a rather superior servant, until the woman sets down the basket and comes forward to greet them.
‘Mr DaSilva! Mrs Flint! Thank you for coming all this way to visit me.’
‘Thank you for taking the time to see us, Mrs Fry,’ responds Raphael.
Mrs Fry’s open and friendly face, with its rather long nose but softly smiling mouth, is much as Adah expected, but she is startled to see the pronounced swelling of the belly beneath the grey gown. Although she must surely be about the same age as Adah, Elizabeth Fry is clearly soon to bear a
child.
Catching Adah’s glance, Mrs Fry smiles, her hand lightly touching her stomach.
‘Yes, another gift from heaven on the way,’ she says, ‘due within the month, God willing. This is why I am unable to go to town at present. Have you many children yourself, Mrs Flint?’
‘Six,’ replies Adah, with a slightly rueful smile. ‘The eldest are almost grown now, but Caroline, my youngest, is not yet three.’
‘Ah, such a trial and such a delight to us, are they not, Mrs Flint? You have come on a glorious day,’ continues Elizabeth Fry, ‘I thought we might take tea in the garden, if the breeze is not too cold for you. But perhaps you would like to rest indoors a little first, after your journey?’
To the left of the house, at the end of a long ride of mossy grass, is a small bower with a roof of thatch resting on rustic pillars made from the trunks of trees. The stems of rambling roses wind themselves around the pillars. In the centre, a table has been spread with a spotless linen cloth and set for tea.
Mrs Fry leads them to the bower, speaking softly all the while to Raphael about her brother-in-law Fowell Buxton and his family and their ‘recent tragedy’, about which Adah knows nothing, and feels she should not enquire. While they talk, she looks out at the view that stretches before them, over the wide lawns and the ornamental pond where ducks are splashing in the sunlight, over the golden autumnal woods of East Ham and the marshes to the distant line of the river.
‘You wish to ask for my help in finding a woman convict?’ says Mrs Fry finally, when they have seated themselves around the table and she has poured the tea.
‘Yes,’ replies Raphael, for Adah has decided to let him tell the story. ‘It is a very strange tale indeed, but one that I believe you may know of, concerning a woman named Sarah Stone, convicted some eight years back of stealing the infant of a pauper woman, Catherine Creamer. We believe that we have found clear evidence that Sarah Stone was wrongly convicted, though there are certain personal matters which make it difficult to divulge all the details of this evidence. We feel impelled to seek out Sarah Stone to give her a chance at least to clear her name. I know that your wonderful charitable work has brought you into contact with many of the female prisoners in London, and many of those awaiting transportation to the colonies. Sarah Stone was sentenced to seven years’ transportation, though we don’t know if this sentence was ever carried out. Is it possible that you may have met her during your visits to Newgate or the hulks, or that you may have heard news of her from other prisoners?’
But Mrs Fry, after a moment’s thought, slowly shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No. I do recall hearing of the case, and am sure that I would remember if I had encountered the unhappy woman convicted of that notorious crime. But no, I am afraid I have no news of her. If she had remained long in Newgate, I would have met her, so we may be certain that she is not there now. The law, alas, is a blunt and sometimes a brutal instrument. It is sad enough to see the state of those poor unfortunate women who have been rightly convicted of crimes, but so much worse to meet those whose conviction seems unjust. The wealthy can afford to pay for experts to defend them in court, but the poor are so often at the mercy of ill-trained judges and biased jurors and mercenary officers of the law.’ She pauses for a moment and then adds, with some embarrassment, ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Flint. I believe your late husband was a beadle, and am sure he was a most upright man, but alas, there are some that are careless or even corrupt.’
Adah smiles reassuringly. ‘Indeed, Mrs Fry. Indeed. As I know only too well.’
‘But this woman, Sarah Stone …’ Elizabeth Fry continues. ‘If my memory serves me correctly, the child she was convicted of stealing was one of a pair of twins?’
‘That’s correct,’ responds Raphael. ‘The victim, a poor woman by the name of Catherine Creamer, had twin babies, and other children besides. She was begging with her twins in her arms when the kidnapper lured her away with promises of money, and then snatched one of the twin girls from her.’
‘But surely, then, this Mrs Creamer – was that the name you said? – Mrs Creamer must have recognized the kidnapper, and known her own child when it was found? Have you been able to speak to the victim about your doubts?’
‘Alas no,’ says Raphael. ‘For she died not long ago.’
‘And the child who was stolen? Is she dead too? I believe it was a baby girl?’
‘Yes, there is the nub of the problem. The Lambeth-Street magistrates, who prosecuted the case, put out hand bills in an effort to find the culprit. We’ve spoken to one of the officers, who tells us that they received many responses to these bills. People from all over Lambeth and far beyond apparently came forward offering help and information, but most of it, he said, completely useless. There was one story, though, that the Lambeth-Street officers did believe: that story was given to them by the landlady of the house where Sarah Stone was living as the wife of a sailor. This landlady reported that Stone appeared to be big with child, and claimed to have given birth to a baby daughter on the very day when the Creamer child was stolen, but she mistrusted her tenant and suspected that the child was not Sarah Stone’s own, and had been stolen.’
‘Curious,’ remarks Mrs Fry. ‘Was any explanation given why Mrs Stone might have pretended to be with child, and then stolen another woman’s infant?’
‘None at all,’ replies Raphael. ‘And more curious still, both her common-law husband and her mother, who lived in the same house, were convinced that Sarah Stone was truly pregnant and that the child was her own. But the officers, it seems, were under great pressure to solve this notorious crime. The landlady and her father took their tale to the Lambeth-Street office, and informed the officers of Stone’s whereabouts, for by then she had gone, taking the baby, to join her sailor husband on his ship on the Thames. As soon as they received this information, the officers took Catherine Creamer out to the ship to find the supposed kidnapper, and the moment she heard the cry of the baby, the victim claimed to recognize this sound as the voice of her own child. Yet, when she saw the infant, Mrs Creamer also said that the child was much changed – the infant’s body was shrunken and wasted, and she seemed smaller than she had been when she was stolen six weeks earlier. A neighbour who gave evidence at the trial said exactly the same thing. They both seem to have assumed that this change had come about because Sarah Stone, having stolen the child, had no milk, and had failed to feed the infant properly.’
‘You think, then,’ says Mrs Fry, ‘that the mother herself may have mistaken another’s baby for her own?’
‘Yes,’ responds Raphael, leaning forward in his seat, ‘yes indeed. Improbable though it sounds, that seems the only explanation that makes sense of the facts.’
‘Improbable perhaps,’ says Mrs Fry thoughtfully, ‘though not, I think impossible. It puts me in mind of a true story I heard some years ago from Thomas Everett, who does such fine work for the Foundling Hospital. He told me once how a poor woman came to the hospital to leave her infant there, saying that her husband had abandoned her and she had no milk to feed the babe. Some weeks later, the same woman returned and asked to take the child home again. Her husband, she said, had come back with money in his pocket, and she was now confident that they could care for the child. But when the matron took her to see the child, they found it gone. It seems that just two days earlier, another, completely unrelated woman had come to the hospital to find and reclaim her child, and mistaking the infant’s face, and had taken the wrong child away …’
Their attention is suddenly diverted by a small rotund figure speeding towards them down the grassy ride with a stick in one hand, shrieking, ‘Mamma! Mamma!’ with all the force of his diminutive lungs. He is pursued by a stout nursemaid whose waddling stride is no match for her nurseling’s speed and energy.
‘Sam, Sam!’ cries Mrs Fry half laughing and half dismayed. ‘What is this racket? Did I not tell you to be quiet while I talk to my visitors?’
‘I’m so sorry for the in
terruption, madam,’ gasps the nursemaid, as she seizes the little boy, who is attempting to bury his curly head in his mother’s lap, and bears him away towards the house.
‘So Sarah Stone was arrested on the spot?’ asks Mrs Fry, when the wriggling and rebellious Sam has been removed, and calm is restored.
‘Yes, and the child was taken from her. As soon as Catherine Creamer saw the child and claimed it as her own, the poor infant was at once given to her, and died soon after. But other witnesses gave credible evidence that Sarah Stone had her own milk. The evidence presented at the trial suggests that Stone had indeed been big with child, but no-one at the trial attempted to explain what might have happened to the child that Sarah Stone was carrying. And now we have strong evidence that the child who was stolen, Molly Creamer, is not dead, but is indeed alive to this very day, though both her mother and her twin have since died. All this is surely proof that Sarah Stone was not guilty, but was the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice. This is why we feel we must try to find her.’
‘When was Sarah Stone convicted?’ asks Elizabeth Fry.
‘Early in 1814,’ replies Raphael.
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