Golden Hill

by Francis Spufford

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I thought I was a meek and patient pilgrim?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The character you fixed on for me, in your St Nicholas-verse, which you pulled from the sack. My character for virtue.’ There was a kind of self-gnawing pleasure in saying this; in having got a good mouthful of his own arm, and biting well in.

  ‘Oh: no. That line is quite exploded. Not of further use.’

  ‘But is there not a contradiction? Can you bruit out one idea of me, one week, and a different one the next? And be believed?’

  ‘Easily,’ said the lawyer, with a slight testiness, for he had reached his peroration, and he was as fond as any man of gaining an effect he’d planned, for all that he laid out his words in as grudging a row as if each cost him a ha’penny. ‘Easily, because in law you may shift your ground without prejudice. You may say in succession: I was not there. If I was there, I did not strike him. If I did strike him, it was not fatal. If it was fatal, it was done without malice. You see? And in any case, we’ll keep, as it were, a little moral nugget from St Nick’s Night. For all we need, to colour your fury to perfection, is to make it righteous. And lo and behold, what comes in now very happy, but Oakeshott’s own character?’

  ‘Scrupulous. Generous. Kind.’

  ‘A tool of power. A notorious spy. A—’

  ‘No,’ said Smith.

  ‘You don’t know what I’m going to say.’

  ‘Yes I do. And I’ll not insult him.’

  ‘Insult him?’ cried the lawyer, grinning. ‘You cannot insult him, boy. He’s dead. You skewered him, remember. ’Tis too late to hurt his feelings.’

  ‘I can refrain from pissing on his corpse.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Very cold in here, boy,’ said the lawyer, ‘and I’ve no mind to linger, much, for there’s a warm room waiting upstairs for me, with a brazier burning. You’ve a night in here, whatever; and then you’ve a short walk home, or a long drop. There’s your choice. There’s the only choice to work your mind upon. You may take the help you’re offered, or refuse it; but you shan’t pick how you’re helped, for you ain’t paying the piper. You may live, or you may die. An’ you choose to live, you’ll help us paint Oakeshott in whatever insect shade is convenable. You’ll say, yes, the creature offered to put his hands on you; yes, he said he’d let you live, on the Terpie matter, if you gratified his nasty appetites; yes, you was driven to a righteous disgust by the foulness of the bargain. And struck back. And in a lucky stroke, slew him bravely, as he deserved. Sic semper tyrannis. And sodomites too.’

  ‘No.’

  Another silence.

  ‘Don’t ye have a preference for breathing? Things to do? Matters to attend to, for which you crossed the ocean? Plans; a thousand pounds to spend?’

  Prodded out with a stick by the lawyer from the hole where wretchedness had consigned every consideration but guilt, there came to Smith the thought of his responsibilities. The errand he needed to be alive to fulfil. The promise he had made Septimus: which he needed to be alive to fulfil. These were, were they not, other real oughts to set in the balance, against the ought of guilt? Quickly, greedily, the preference for breathing which by nature he of course possessed, seized on these; urged them on him; tried to scuttle inside them like that species of soft crab which must borrow harder shells for its house—

  ‘Ah! Aha!’ burst out Smith, triumphantly. ‘I cannot, can I? Even if I told this sick tale to perfection, what would they think it was but a ploy to save my neck? There is no-one to testify to it, but me. No way it can be witnessed, for it never happened. It is a useless stratagem, as well as a monstrous one. There!’

  ‘Well, as it happens, a witness has come forward,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘What?’ said Smith,

  The lawyer called for the gaoler, and very shortly, a horribly familiar apparition was standing at the door of the cell, transmitting even through the gelid air a reek of piss and dirt.

  ‘No,’ moaned Smith.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the apparition, grinning. ‘Don’t you want the Capting’s help?’

  *

  In those days, it was not yet common for a prisoner in a criminal trial to be represented by counsel. The common wisdom was, that any innocent man should be able to quit themselves shortly of a false accusation, by their own efforts. Yet after the conversation in the dungeon, William Smith did not feel it quite safe to let this prisoner direct his own defence, cross-examine on his own account, et cetera; so when, at eleven o’clock on the morning of the 19th December, the clerk of the Court of Judicature announced Rex v Smith as the next case, the lawyer was beside Smith as he came sneezing and streaming to the bar. He had been permitted to warm himself for half an hour in the gaoler’s room on the ground floor, and given a basin of snow to scrub his face with, and a clean shirt had been brought from the Black Horse for him; but little fever-squalls of shivering ran over his skin, plucked and pinched at it, and his nose was red, and he made frequent trumpeting use of a handkerchief, and altogether was a predominantly crumpled and pitiable sight.

  The room in which the court sat was the great chamber of City Hall’s upstairs floor, in the centre range of the building, with the bar running across the middle of the floor, the seats for grand and petty juries ranged to left and right, and the judge sitting in splendour before the lion and unicorn, facing outward to the tall windows and the balcony onto Wall Street, from which flowed back in today a bright white snow-glare. It was the room next door to the one where Smith had celebrated the King’s birthday and played at piquet with the judge, and it was just as crowded. But with this difference: that today, from the jurors craning round with their brows beetling to get a first look at him, to the judge in scarlet and gold and a wide-bottomed enormity of a wig, to the fascinated crush of citizens and slaves just behind him, every single one of the spectators was male. Smith had dreaded the gaze of Terpie, dreaded and hoped for the sharp perceiving face of Tabitha. This sudden wholesale absence of the entire sex seemed to him to bring to the room a kind of alarming single-mindedness, like the rough company gathered for a prize-fight or a bear-baiting.

  ‘Where are all the wibbid?’ he whispered.

  ‘Persistent sort of dog, ain’t ye?’ the lawyer replied, out of the side of his mouth. ‘You must just button your breeches. Win or lose, you ain’t a fit subject for decent company, any more.’

  ‘I didn’t—’ began Smith but, sneezing, gave up.

  ‘Rex versus Smith, on the charge of murder,’ called the clerk again, and the chatter stilled. ‘Silence in court. Prosecuting for the plaintiff, which is to say His Majesty, Mr Colden. Counsel appearing for the prisoner, Mr Smith. – Mr William Smith, that is.’

  Colden, touching the bar with two bony forefingers a few feet to the left, was the irritable Scotsman the lawyer had jousted with at the King’s dinner: clearly the two of them were in the nature of an inevitable pairing, an opposition almost ordained by nature.

  ‘What a surfeit of advocates, when usually we manage so well with none,’ remarked De Lancey. ‘It would have been politer of the Governor, I think, and shown more respect to the independency of the court, if he had been content to leave the prosecution to me. But, very well. I remind both you gentlemen, that the depositions of the witnesses are not to be interrupted. Examination may have its time, but will not be allowed to exceed it. And I do hope I may be allowed to get in an occasional word, in my own court.’ His voice was as regal as Smith imagined it would be, restored to the proper setting for its majesty: grand, and with the seal set upon its grandeur by a faintest trace of amusement, in which absolutely no other party whatever was invited to participate.

  ‘I am sure no-one imagines we could stop you, my lord,’ said Colden, indifferent whether he was invited or not. He turned, and pointed one of the two fingers and his long nose as well at Smith. ‘We char-r-ge, that on the eighteenth day of December the prisoner did most bloodily and maliciously, upon the Common of the c
ity of New Yor-r-k, by means of a sword str-r-oke, deprive of life Mr Septimus Oakeshott, late Secretary to His Excellency, the Governor of the Colony of New-York.’

  ‘Prisoner, how do you plead?’ asked De Lancey.

  ‘Nod guilty,’ said Smith after only the minutest pause. De Lancey nodded, the clerk wrote, and the rapid settlement of all the prisoner’s worldly affairs, and Septimus’, swung into its course.

  Colden first called the coroner of the Out Ward, who attested that he had sat one hour ago upon the inquest into the death of Septimus Oakeshott; that the cause of the death had been exsanguination, from a wound to the upper leg of one inch long and three inches deep, which had severed the femoral artery; that the wound had been dealt by a sword’s-tip; that the manner of the death was therefore certainly by violence.

  ‘Prisoner, m’lud,’ said William Smith, whose forensic style proved no more roomy than his private one, ‘wishful to save time, happy to agree, manner of death. Further to state, he caused it. Only, in self-defence. One question: any other marks found on body?’

  ‘Of what kind?’ asked the coroner.

  ‘Of misuse. Of habitual vice.’

  ‘No, none.’

  ‘Hmph. Yet, seem to remember, heard lately, on the stage: “I must dissemble, and speak a language foreign to my heart.” Who was that? Ah: Oakeshott.’ The lawyer’s version of Septimus playing Sempronius was a miniature of hissing wickedness.

  ‘I trust,’ said Colden, ‘that counsel for the prisoner is awar-r-re of the difference between drama and reality?’

  ‘You’re not planning to arraign poor Mr Oakeshott for overthrowing the Roman Republic, are you, William?’ asked De Lancey. Laughter in the court. ‘No? Good. But time presses: move along.’

  Colden called Quentin, the waiter of the Merchants’ Coffee-House, who testified that he had seen Oakeshott and the prisoner quarrel, and Oakeshott strike the prisoner in the face. He could not witness to the nature of the quarrel, the room being noisy, but the prisoner had seemed surprised, on being struck; had been to all appearances pleased, on Oakeshott’s first arrival, and much taken aback, by the development of events.

  ‘So, you would not say, equal anger on both sides, your opinion?’ – counsel for the prisoner, cross-examining.

  ‘No, sir. Mr Oakeshott was the angry one.’

  ‘Did the prisoner hit back, when he was struck?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Colden to Quentin, on rebuttal: ‘Might not the behaviour of the prisoner be very naturally accounted for, as the confusion of a wrong-doer, who till that moment had believed himself secret?’

  ‘It might, sir.’

  Colden then called Lieutenant Lennox, whom he described as having ‘come upon’ Smith and Septimus fighting on the Common. (Smith’s own second had secured his non-involvement in the trial by quitting the city at speed the day before.) Lennox said, he could certainly give the reason for the quarrel, Secretary Oakeshott having expressed to him – which was by the by the general judgement of the Fort – a very reasonable moral horror, at the behaviour of the prisoner, who was a contemptible little rake, in dishonouring a brother-officer’s wife. No doubt it was this ungentlemanly action by Smith, in betrayal of every obligation of honour and friendship, that had led to the sword-fight. He had not endeavoured to stop the fight, because it was plainly impossible to, the prisoner having disdained to apologise, and Mr Oakeshott being understandably set on getting some satisfaction for so gross an abuse. When Oakeshott was injured, by a chancy cut to the groin, he offered what aid he could, but the blood was letting at too great a rate. It was a dreadful scene; and a dreadful consequence to the prisoner’s indulgence of a low appetite.

  ‘Severe words, hey?’ said William Smith. ‘Harsh terms, an actor dallying with an actress? Young blood, running high; stage, known for it; lady, that matter, known as—’

  ‘The lady is an officer’s wife,’ rumbled Lennox.

  ‘You must not interrupt the questions put you, Lieutenant,’ said De Lancey. ‘But you are quite right; there is no need for this proceeding to blacken further reputations.’

  ‘Apologise, m’lud,’ said William Smith. ‘Lieutenant – this fighting, “to satisfaction”? Usual term? Familiar term, in fighting, your experience?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Aha. Un-usual, then. In-ordinate. Out of proportion. Cruel streak, maybe, in Oakeshott?’

  ‘I never saw a sign of one.’

  ‘Was he not known for a mocking tongue?’

  ‘He only mocked the King’s enemies.’

  ‘The King’s enemies. The King’s enemies,’ repeated William Smith, relishing the phrase. ‘Not the Governor’s, hey, but the King’s. Very fair. Tell me, Lieutenant: do you see anyone here Oakeshott would include, under that head?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Lennox with a struggle, gazing all the while with helpless honesty at the Chief Justice. Laughter.

  Colden to Lennox: ‘Had Oakeshott injured the prisoner at all, by the time the fight ended?’

  ‘He had not, despite many opportunities, the prisoner being a poor fencer. – He had just laid his blade on him for the first time, to cut through the band of the prisoner’s breeches, when the fatal blow was struck by the prisoner.’

  ‘To cut through the band of his br-r-eeches? Might Mr Oakeshott have been intending to visit on the prisoner, not bloodshed, but some salutary lesson?’

  ‘He might, sir.’

  Lennox was dismissed, and Colden called Corporal Prothero of the ––—th Foot, the soldier from the sentry-booth. Who quickly declared, that he had observed the fight in its early stages from a distance, but had closed to no more than a few yards by its end; that he had recognised the prisoner’s cut to the groin immediately as a killing stroke, and had secured him, so he might not run off.

  ‘Seen much sword-work, have ye?’ asked William Smith, on cross.

  ‘Yessir, a fair bit.’

  ‘Was they even-matched, your opinion, the two going at it?’

  ‘Nossir. The gentleman in the grey trews, he was considerable the better.’

  ‘Meaning, Oakeshott. And the prisoner here?’

  ‘Flailing like a novice, sir. ’Twas a wonder he weren’t cut up already.’

  ‘Why wasn’t he, d’you think?’

  ‘I thought he was playing with him, like.’

  ‘Playing with him: hmm. Cat and mouse. And the blow to the groin that ended it: a lucky stroke?’

  ‘Yessir, most probably.’

  ‘A desperate stroke?’

  ‘Mebbe, sir.’

  Colden, rebutting: ‘And when Oakeshott was lying bleeding to his death, did the prisoner try to render him any help?’

  ‘Not as I saw, sir.’

  ‘Did he express any rr-r-emorse? Contrition? Did he say, oh no, what have I done?’

  ‘Nossir. He just stood there, mazed.’

  After which, Colden called on the prisoner.

  It would be a great exaggeration to say that Mr Smith had been at ease up to this point, but the trial had been running along its horrid course without his help, and he had gripped the polished wood of the bar with his cold fingers, and let the words echo in the high room, and slide by him while he waited, passive and even a little lulled. Now the attention of the courtroom was suddenly and entirely concentred upon him, as if a piece of folded white paper, lit bright as snow, had abruptly opened up to reveal him standing tiny at its middle point. (He was perhaps by this time already running a fever.) They were all staring at him, curious, grave, eager, hungry: a mass of mouths and eyes. He had, of course, thought through what he was going to say – what he was willing to say – and had endeavoured to persuade himself, that this might be a performance in which he spoke what the script required, while reserving a portion of himself still honest, free in its guilt. Yet he found, as he began his deposition, that this was not the way of it, at all. To remake himself as Septimus’ victim, he discovered, was not a single decision to lie, once taken and then behind
him, but a resolution to be taken again and again, a bolus to be constantly re-swallowed, a staircase of many steps, down each of which he must push himself separately. Other descents to Avernus might be easy: not this one, apparently. He had thought he should aim for insouciance – the Fop at Bay – or at least as much insouciance as a man can show who must blow his nose periodically; but what came out was a sort of hoarse, hangdog defiance.

  ‘I was sitting in the coffee-house when Oakeshott came in and hit me’ – honk – ‘right across the chops. Without any warning. I was considerably surprised. It seemed he objected to a recent’ – honk – ‘adventure of mine, which I certainly didn’t mean anyone to know of, or be upset by. I always heard it wasn’t a gentleman’s part to tell. It seemed a private matter to me. I don’t know why he took on so; I am a stranger here. It made me angry. I am a student of the passions’ – laughter – ‘I mean on the stage; and I suppose I have as much choler in my temper as any man, but I have never had any trouble with the law. I met Oakeshott again the next day on the Common, early, and I confess that when he proved still offensive and unreasonable, we quickly had swords out, for my blood was up, and his must have been too, or he would not have pressed me so. But I regretted it very soon, I can tell you; it was an impulse I wished to take straight back again. For’ – honk – ‘he proved far deadlier a swordsman than me, and he was in earnest. He wanted more than just to give me a scratch. He would not be satisfied, till I was gravely injured. It was the most I could do, to defend my life. I am no Juba, off the stage, I promise you,’ said Smith to the jury, who to his disgust nodded in return, several of them. ‘He pressed me back and back; I believed myself at his mercy, and was indeed reduced to desperate strokes by the end, little more’ – honk – ‘than slashing and stabbing and hoping for the best. I was astonished when my last lunge reached him. I did not know the location of the femoral artery, for I never heard of it till today, not being an anatomist.’ Laughter. ‘If I had known, I could not have pierced it a-purpose, not being at all sufficient a fencer. I did not mean to kill him, but only to preserve myself. I did not mean to kill him.’