The Newgate Jig

by Ann Featherstone

  I do not expect to see them again. I think they are probably dead. Killed for spite rather than profit. I hope they were not put into the ring.

  When I am in my room in Portland-road, I lock the door and lie in bed, afraid to sleep these days, except when I have had a few glasses at the Two Tuns. Then I sleep like the dead. I am not a drinking man, but I found that gin and company help to chase wakefulness, and have kept up the habit. There is little left of my savings and all thoughts of the horse and cart and Strong's Gardens have receded. Besides, I was foolish and one day hired a man to search for my dogs. I was low and desperate, and when he pushed a notice under my door, saying that he had heard of my difficulties and offered to make a search 'for ready rhino', I gave it only a moment's thought. He took two guineas and I never saw him again. Will and Trim, seeing the notice and learning that I had been duped, went out three days on the trot to find him, threatening violence if they ever did, but of course he was long gone. Mr Carrier sent me a note by Will, assuring me that my place in the Pavilion company was still secure, and also that of my boys 'when they are found, which they assuredly will be', and that Chapman's Sagacious Canines still had their place in Elenore the Female Pirate and the programme. But I did discover that he had made enquiries of my rival, Mr John Matthews and 'Devilshoof,' and had asked Trim to work in some single-dog business.

  The Princess was kind, and sent a fairy note every day. And Herr Swann and Moses Dann. Conn sent me a bottle and a message of 'good cheer' with Barney and, indeed, Barney it was who kept me from madness. One morning in the early days of Brutus and Nero's disappearance, when I was searching the streets around Fish-lane, he found me and said he would help. Though I was terribly occupied with my task, I could not but notice his shabby clothes and wasted cheeks, and when Will saw him, and questioned him over a plate of bread and cheese, he discovered that Barney was street- tumbling with another lad, and that both were sleeping where they could. A word with Princess Tiny and, of course, that was soon put right - Moses Dann, the Boneless Man, now had company in the cellar and someone to talk to in the night when his joints pained him. But when he wasn't street- tumbling or sweeping the Aquarium yard, Barney was at my side, interrogating boys like himself and charming maids and milliners. He was my voice, and untiring in his labours. I could not afford to pay him, but our companionship and daily treks through the neighbourhood and beyond seemed reward enough.

  I have kept in work. Mr Abrahams, who daily shed tears over Brutus and Nero and called me his 'son in tragedy', gave me employment at the Aquarium. I sweep and dust and rearrange the exhibits, and one day he stopped me in the hall, where I was hard at work with broom and mop, to say that he had devised some plans for me to make a list of the Aquarium's collection.

  'Dear Bob,' he said, with much shaking of his head. 'It will be a labour of love. Before she died, my Mimi said to me, Abby, you must make a list of the whole Aquarium, from the Alabaster Priapus to Wyld's Monstre Globe - we had no x, y and zs at the time, Bob, though now we could accommodate the whole alphabet!' He beamed happily. 'We shall do it, and make books of your list to sell. Pikemartin shall sell them.'

  Pikemartin was silent in his box. Perhaps he thought he had enough to do.

  He was certainly busy with the visitors who flocked to the Aquarium in their hundreds. Mr Abrahams, being an able showman, changed the exhibits every week, bringing out new wonders (though old acquisitions) from the cellar or the cupboards on the landing. And it was one of Pikemartin's duties to fetch them from storage and install them according to Mr Abrahams' instructions. Today there was a packing case awaiting his attention in the hall, transported early from Jamrack's Emporium by the river. Mr Jamrack is more usually associated with the menagerie trade, but occasionally acquired curiosities from sailors short of chink and willing to part with objects they have acquired on their travels. Mr Abrahams hovered over the box, rubbing his hands in excited anticipation.

  'It is an Eternal Flame,' he said in hushed tones. 'Perhaps the Eternal Flame. Mr Jamrack purchased it from a Chinese captain who had bought it in Egypt. Or was it Greece? I don't remember. But it is a remarkable thing.'

  Remarkable - and very heavy! It took Pikemartin and me much effort and the best part of an hour to unpack and carry it up the stairs to the second-floor salon, with Mr Abrahams flapping his arms and urging us to keep it upright 'lest the oil slops about and the flame goes out!' Then we had to mount it upon a sturdy table - strong enough to bear its weight (and wobbling only a little) - and then be on hand as our employer arranged a display of ceremonial swords and daggers about it, secure them with bolts and pins and admire the effect. True, the lamp was a pretty thing of brass and ivory, and the flame burned blue and pink, depending upon where you stood. But Pikemartin was unimpressed, I think, and returned to his box without a word to anyone.

  Never a jovial companion, of course, and devoted to drink, these days he was more morose than I had ever known him. He seemed deep in misery and would sit for hours at a time without saying a word, contemplating the walls of his box. Perhaps his misery was on account of Mrs Gifford's harrying of him, which she did for any small thing, and he seemed to be constantly at the end of her tongue-lashing and door- slamming. She always had something for him to do and, whether or not he was already occupied, would not tolerate my assistance at any price.

  'Come here, Pikemartin and see the state of the windows in the front salon,' she roared, even before she had peeled off her gloves and unpinned her feather bonnet.

  'Do you want to keep your position, Pikemartin? Shall I keep silent about the filthy floors in the waxwork room or will you fetch your mop now?' she squawked over her shoulder and, leaving me in his cubbyhole to deal with tickets and visitors, he crept after her, as meek as a kitten.

  But it was curious. Although she was incessantly at his throat and seemed to dislike him almost as much as me, I saw them talking on the landing by the wax eyes and even outside, on the street corner. Barney remarked upon it too, and thought there was 'something rum about it', but he didn't know what.

  It was one of the things Barney often talked about when we were on our expeditions, and he amused me by conjuring up all kinds of strange stories about Gifford and Pikemartin - that they were French spies, or coiners, or planning to rob the Bank of England. His stories were always fantastic, guaranteed to make me smile, but their essence - that those two were 'up to something' - never varied, and this was rooted in reality for it was clear that, whatever they were 'up to' caused them both no little anxiety and effort. Gifford had always been bad-tempered, but these days she was out on errands at least once a day and returned flustered and pale. Pikemartin was like a man with more worries than a rat in a dog-kennel, but even that did not explain his behaviour when I accidentally shouldered him in the street. Naturally, I would have taken a side step to avoid him as I turned the corner by the Aquarium, but I did not see him and knocked Pikemartin with such force that I was driven back and even caught poor Barney a glancer.

  'Look where you're going,' Pikemartin cried, pushing me hard. 'Have you no eyes in yer head to go with yer ignorance, ye dummy!'

  The shock of his anger - and his insult - was like a blow.

  'Keep out of my way or, by God, I'll knock your face into the wall. And that young gallows-bait with you!'

  He was pale-faced and white-lipped and stank of drink and ill-use. There was a trace of vomit on his coat, and his hands were cut and dirty. I had often seen him maudlin and miserable, tetchy even, but never in such a state as this. Even so, I was not about to retaliate. I laid my hand upon his arm and smiled in friendship, for he had been good to me recently, giving me a place in his box and occasionally sharing his bottle. But now he behaved as if all that had never happened. He lunged out, striking my hand away with a limp fist, and then he turned upon Barney. The boy dodged behind me, frightened, but Pikemartin came for us both again, swinging wide with arms and fists and roaring curses. They were a drunkard's swipes, easy to avoid, but his
curses were a different matter.

  'You don't know what I have to do, damnation take the both of you!' he cried. 'What I'm made to do! You and your father's filthy business!'

  Barney retaliated; he would never hear a word said against his Pa. 'You don't know anything about my Pa! He was fitted up, everyone knows that!'

  Pikemartin wiped his hand across his mouth and swayed.

  'Aye, but does everyone know about his pictures! Eh? What was done to them little girls? Eh? What I have to see every time I'm summoned to that place! It's your father what started it! Curse you, George Kevill! I hope you're roasting in hell!'

  Alf Pikemartin's face was pale, his eyes red. Spittle flecked the corners of his mouth and, struggling against drink and despair, he staggered, which was when our eyes met and everything slowed down in that cold street. If he had come and hit me then, a good sharp cut on the jaw, I would not have felt it more keenly than that moment's understanding. And if he had told me, in simple words, clearly, over and over, until I understood, I would have been just as wise as I was in that instant. For I knew then that he was the man in the stable. The one who made the pictures. The one who wrapped the dead child in a rug and put it under the floor, and then took it to the tunnel where the cazzelties found it. He inherited the job from George Kevill and it was driving him mad.

  He swayed and wiped his mouth again.

  'Ay, mash that, Bob Chapman! You think it's the world's end because he's taken your dogs? Look at me! He has my soul! He wants my daughter!'

  That was how the Nasty Man worked! He threatened George Kevill with - what? Corrupting his son? Murdering him? If he didn't make the pictures and get rid of the children. And, because George tried to fight back, wrote a letter or told someone, he was strung up, dancing the Newgate jig. And now there were pictures - lost? destroyed? - and the Nasty Man would use any means to recover them. Even wrecking a man's life, beating him, taking his livelihood, stealing his dogs. Terrifying young Barney. And now Pikemartin was damned in the same way. Threats, blackmail, who knows what he suffered to protect himself and Em.

  We might have stood in that street until the city fell about our ears if Mrs Gifford had not come hurrying around the corner. Busy as ever, rushing between this place and that, on this errand and that, she all but fell into us, and stopped herself just in time. We had gathered quite a little crowd about us by now, for Pikemartin looked set to hit someone and London folk are always up to watch a fight. But Mrs Gifford would have none of that and, against all advice, took Pikemartin by the elbow.

  He was beyond reason. He pushed Gifford roughly out of the way, staggered backwards half a dozen paces and then, setting his eye upon Barney and me once again, lurched towards us with a terrible roar, and he would, I am sure, have felled us both if a burly lumper had not strode across, begged our pardon and caught Pikemartin a blow upon the jaw that sent him crashing to the ground.

  'This is no sight for ladies, or young 'uns. He's the box-man at the Aquarium, isn't he?'

  He threw the unconscious man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and set off down the road.

  Mrs Gifford, her mouth straight as a puritan's eye, followed in his wake, but anyone could see that she was ruffled, and when Barney and I arrived at the Aquarium ourselves, he was nowhere to be seen and she was in his box - a thing never before seen in my time! - taking money and handing out tickets. But she called me over, and with an authority to which she had no right but which she assumed anyway, she instructed me to 'look after the box and make sure you're not short-changed' and directed Barney to the menagerie.

  I took over his box sometimes whilst he was out on errands, or taking objects here and there in the Aquarium, and though it was a cramped and airless place and the smell of him lingered long after he had shuffled out of the door, even so, I envied Alf Pikemartin. For not only did he see his beautiful daughter, Em, night and morning, but he had a portrait photograph of her in his box to look at during the day. It was propped up against the wall on the bench and I admired it long and long during the weary hours I sat there. It was Em to the life, and if she looked over my shoulder as people in portraits do, I could still persuade myself that she might be thinking about me. And I developed a fancy that if I could only gaze directly into her face, her eyes would look directly into mine. I longed to have the photograph in my hand to test this out, but it seemed a liberty to remove it from where Pikemartin had placed it, and so Em continued to stare serenely at the wall behind me. So I contemplated her gentle features and thought how dreadful the hours must have been for him in this place, waiting for the summons to Fish-lane, and then, once there, knowing that he must come here and betray nothing of what he had seen. No one must know what he did. The image of Em was a constant reminder of that.

  Suddenly, the front door opened and a flurry of milliners blew in and they, knowing no better, I suppose, let it slam, sending a veritable hurricane through the hall and up the stairs, rattling the windows and blowing about the tapestries. They giggled and shrieked (and never an apology to be had), and bought their tickets with winks and kisses (not real). But when I returned to Pikemartin's box, I realized that Em's photograph was not in its usual place. It must have fallen to the floor in the blast and I scrabbled around, under the bench, pulling out the bucket and the spidery pots and trays to find it, but to no avail. The only other place it could be was behind Pikemartin's cupboard, a rough, knee-high thing which stood on the floor and in which he locked his bottle of Old Tom, his tobacco and anything he found whilst he was sweeping up. (He told me that he found a diamond brooch once, and a ruby bracelet, and that if I found anything I should show him, since I was doing his job and he should claim a share. But I have only ever found a ticket for the Haymarket Theatre and a glass eye and kept those myself.)

  I dragged the cupboard out far enough to push my hand behind it, and I found Em's photograph immediately. It had suffered no ill-effects, or none that a quick dusting off with my sleeve could not put right, and I swiftly replaced it and shoved the cupboard back. But I pushed it too far back. A dusty line revealed where I had been exploring, so I tried to set it to rights, shoving and pushing it about, too far and then not far enough. There was something underneath that kept catching on the bottom, and it was when I tipped the cupboard back that I saw the key.

  There were probably two bottles of Old Tom in the cupboard, for I heard them clink together and I suddenly felt a keen thirst for a glass. Pikemartin would count me as a friend when he was sober, I thought, and anyway would not notice, so I unlocked the cupboard and found the bottles and a cup, as well as an old briar pipe and a little tin of tobacco. I had a small taster, and then another as the warmth started to chase about my arms and legs. But I am not a drinking man and it was only like medicine to me, so I made myself comfortable on the floor and looked about me, and noticed inside the cupboard three packets, carefully wrapped in thick brown paper, tied up with string. When I took them out, I saw that each one was labelled To Collect', and then 'Farringdon', 'York', 'Purdoe', in a shaky hand. Inky spiders spreading across the brown paper. I opened one.

  I wished my boys were with me, Brutus and Nero sitting by my side as I squatted on the floor. They would have been company and reassurance, would have sniffed the packets and inspected the contents and licked my face when I covered my eyes. They would not have flinched when I pushed the vile images from me, and Brutus would have sat close, and put his golden head upon my knee until I stopped shaking.

  And Nero would have let me know that Alf Pikemartin was standing in the doorway.

  Pikemartin Again — Pilgrim's Shop in the Dark

  In one of Trim's stirring Pavilion dramas, Pikemartin would have threatened me/broken my jaw/turned the air blue and black. Or, at least, demanded to know why I was sitting in his box with his cupboard open and his bottle of Old Tom half drained and his own property strewn across the floor. And the audience of the Pavilion Theatre would have jumped to their feet and roared, whilst he, the villain of
the piece - often played by Mr Penrose, especially engaged for the part - would roar and shake his fist in reply.

  At least they knew who the villain was.

  Whereas I, unable to roar and very unsteady upon my pins (on account of the three cups of Old Tom), could only sit on the floor of Pikemartin's box. When he, after some moments, snatched up the packets and, saying nothing, sat wearily upon the bottom step of the great staircase, I was as calm as a dog in the sun.

  He turned them over, and pushed his hand through his wild hair. He was still very drunk, but some of the madness had left him.

  These are for collection. Or for her to deliver to the . . . gentlemen.'

  He spat out the words.

  I wanted to ask him if he meant Mrs Gifford. I wanted to know if she found the children outside the Pavilion Theatre where I had seen her and took them to the gaff. I wanted to know who these gentlemen were. I wanted to know where he made the pictures, actually made them. I wanted to know if it was just the Nasty Man, or whether there was some other involved.

  But I already knew. And now it didn't matter.

  'I'm sorry about your animals, Chapman. No one should lose what's so precious to them.'

  I saw his eyes flicker to the picture of Em and his lips tighten. He folded the thick paper around the little bundle of pictures and re-tied the string.

  'Have you got the pictures what George Kevill left?'

  I shook my head.

  'And the letter what he wrote?'

  No.

  'He hid them somewhere, when he knew the Nasty Man was onto him. Couldn't be trusted, you see. George said that he would write it all down - for he was something of a scholar - and made sure that the Queen and parliament knew what was going on. I know he kept back some pictures. To show what they were up to. Bishops and dukes and do-gooders and—'