The streets were dim and almost deserted. The occasional person would suddenly materialise out of the fog – tall, dark strangers in black cloaks. The fog muffled all sounds, so there was no warning of someone approaching. They would loom before her, and then pass silently by.
Where would she find a pawnbroker? Hannah had no idea where to look. She turned down a side street, and then another, trying to move quickly to stay warm. Down another narrow street, and Hannah found herself in a small square. Dirty children played at hussle-cap in the grey snow, shouting and squealing like skinny brown pigs. One of them looked up and saw her.
‘Oi! Missus!’ he called. ‘Give us a shilling! Me little sister’s catched the cold and me mam is laid up with the clap.’
Hannah hurried on, until their cries were swallowed up in the fog.
She was in a part of London where she had never been before. The elegant brick and stone houses had been replaced with wooden ones, which jostled against one another as if clamouring to reach the light. Few windows were paned with glass; instead they were stuffed with rags and brown paper. A rat scurried across the street and Hannah bit back a scream. A man staggered out of the fog and crashed into her. She clutched her reticule tight to her chest. The man had a red face, and wore a shabby brown coat and ancient breeches. His face was ruddy and his eyes unfocussed.
‘Beggin’ yer pardon, miss,’ he said, belching, and reeled away into the shadows.
She turned another corner, and saw a man pressing a woman up against a wall. The man’s breeches were unbuttoned, the woman’s legs wrapped around his hips. Hannah felt cold and sick all of a sudden. The man’s face was red. The woman saw Hannah watching, and met her gaze with a uninterested stare. Hannah blushed, confused, and hurried on.
A loose paving stone wobbled under her foot, shooting a jet of freezing, filthy water up her skirt. She broke into a run. A dog barked. She whirled around a corner, and found herself in a dead end. Tiny, rotting wooden houses leaned on each other for support.
A woman sat in the snow. She wore only a dirty petticoat and old-fashioned stays. A bottle lay on its side next to her, its contents spilled out into the snow. It smelled bitter and sweet at the same time. The woman stared fixedly at the ground in front of her.
‘Excuse me,’ said Hannah, her voice shaking. ‘I appear to be lost.’
The woman didn’t reply. She didn’t even move. Hannah leaned forward to get the woman’s attention. She brushed the woman’s cheek. She was as cold as snow. Hannah turned and ran back down the street, down cluttered alleyways overflowing with rubbish and vermin, trying to make out a familiar landmark.
Hannah couldn’t see the street signs for the fog. Her head was light from hunger and cold, and she was not sure how far she had walked.
What little light there was had faded, and the fog drew in, close and suffocating. Hannah peered to either side of her, but could discern no buildings at all. She felt the crunch of wild bracken and frozen earth under her feet, and panic rose in her throat. She couldn’t even see her hand stretched out in front of her. Where was she?
A low cry sounded through the fog. Hannah ran again, blindly. Finally, her feet found solid earth once more – not a paved street, but some kind of dirt road. She reached out in front of her, and her hands met something hard and rough. Wood. Some kind of tree. She leaned against it and tried to catch her breath. The pounding of her heart seemed to beat in the air around her. Hannah dug her hand into her pocket and felt the comforting folds of Thomas’s handkerchief. She heard the mournful cry again, but it was further away this time. She slumped in relief.
A breath of wind lifted the fog for a moment, and Hannah peered around her. She laughed nervously. She had become completely turned around. Behind her was the long stretch of Tyburn Road. Hyde Park lay to her left, and to her right, fields and farmland. That was the strange land she had wandered into, just the fields to the north of Tyburn Road. The strange cries she had heard had been nothing more than cows lowing. Hannah’s heart calmed somewhat, and she felt rather embarrassed at having been so frightened.
She turned to examine the tree that had provided her with support. It was no ordinary tree. Its trunk was smooth and straight. It was a gallows.
She thought of Thomas, surrounded by swirls of fog. There is a bounty on your father’s head. If he returns to London he will hang.
She began to shake uncontrollably. What if Papa never came back? Had he really abandoned her? Surely he would write, or send money, or something. What would she do? She had no aunts or uncles to go and live with. She was sure Mr Harris would have nothing to do with her now.
She leaned against the gallows, her breath coming in short, gulping sobs. She tried to be sensible, to think of a plan. But her mind was in a panicking whirl. She closed her eyes.
She thought of her bedroom, with the satin quilt and cheery fire. That was what she needed. Comfort. Normality. She ached to be in her bedroom, to climb into the four-poster bed and bury her head under the goose-down pillows.
The pawnbroker could wait until tomorrow. She took a faltering step away from the gallows, then another. She walked, still trembling, back down Tyburn Road, and turned right down New Bond Street, and Brook Street, until she finally found herself turning the familiar corner of her own street. A heavily-loaded wagon rumbled past, splashing freezing slush onto her dress, but Hannah didn’t care. She was home. She ran to her house, and stopped short at the bottom of the steps.
The front door was open.
***
The turnkey rattled the cell door open. Hannah got quickly to her feet, and her head swam for a moment. She reached out to steady herself on the damp stone wall. The turnkey read out twelve names from a list, and Hannah and ten others stepped forward. The twelfth name belonged to the dead man.
In the corridor outside the cell, the turnkey fastened leg-irons to all the prisoners, and linked them together with a length of chain passed through the irons. Hannah tried to step forward, and nearly fell. The irons were heavy. With each step she felt like she was wading through thick sand. Her calves ached from the effort after only a few steps. She took small, clanking, shuffling steps down the corridor, past other cells full of wasted creatures with huge empty eyes. At the end of the corridor was a steep flight of stone stairs, leading downwards. The turnkey told them with satisfaction that this was Dead Man’s Walk.
They stumbled down the stairs, into a dimly-lit underground passage. The rich smell of damp earth and stone seemed like the sweetest thing Hannah had ever experienced, after the fetid air of the cell. She breathed deeply, and the trembling in her hands lessened.
‘Gentlemen of the court,’ she whispered, rubbing Thomas’s handkerchief with her thumb. ‘…at your mercy.’
When they came to the foot of the steps that led upwards into the Old Bailey, the turnkey stopped them, and unchained the first prisoner, leading him up the steps and out of sight.
The prisoners huddled together in the passageway. Hannah was third in line. A candlestick, a Bible and a prayer book were chained to the wall. Hannah kept her eyes firmly on the flight of stone steps, waiting for the turnkey to return, and rehearsing her speech over and over.
She would tell them about her father, and everything else that had happened. They would nod understandingly, and take her to a hotel where she would be given hot soup and fresh bread, and a steaming mug of chocolate. And a four-poster bed with goose-down pillows … And then Papa would come back from France, and everything would be fine. She would see Thomas again and they would forget about the awkwardness and the arguments…
***
Had Hannah left the front door open? She didn’t think so.
A flicker inside her hoped that it was her father, home at last, but it was only a weak spark, extinguished quickly in the cold evening air.
The grandfather clock was gone. The hats on the hatstand were gone. The umbrella stand was gone. The rug on the floor was gone. There were muddy footprints on the bare floorboards.
Hannah pushed open the door to the sitting room. It was empty. Even the Turkish rug that she and Thomas Behr had made stories about was gone. Hannah ran to the dining room. It too was empty. She ran up the stairs, only to be greeted by creaking floorboards, with clean squares where carpets had lain, and dusty ones where furniture had sat.
A great weariness came over her. She went into the room that had so recently been her bedroom. She felt like her heart was breaking. There was no four-poster bed. No satin quilt. No goose-down pillows. Her clothes were all gone. Her jewellery. She felt dizzy from hunger and fear and cold. All she had were the clothes she had on, her sapphire earrings, the topaz necklace in her reticule, and Thomas Behr’s handkerchief.
She lay down on the wooden boards where her bed had once been, resting her cheek against the dusty floor, and closed her eyes.
***
‘We ain’t got all day, missy.’
Hannah jumped. The turnkey was standing in front of her, staring down at her with a look of contempt on his face. He had unchained Hannah from the rest of the prisoners, and was waiting to escort her up to the courtroom. Hannah blinked. Could she have fallen asleep? She shook her head to clear it, but it only made her dizzy. Putting one hand out to steady herself on the damp earthy wall, she made her way slowly up the steps, the leg-irons tearing her stockings to shreds, and carving out red marks on her skin.
seven
Scatterheart lifted the latch of the little door. On the other side was a garden made of ice. White leaves tinkled overhead. In the centre of the garden, an ancient ice-tree spread twisted branches towards the sky. A single, blue fruit hung from one of its branches. Scatterheart plucked it from its branch. It was cold to touch.
***
The turnkey opened a door at the top of the steps, and pushed Hannah through. She was assaulted by a blast of icy air, followed by an overpowering smell of burning herbs and vinegar. The floor was wet, and the small cuts and grazes on her feet stang. The floor was red, like it had been washed with wine. Her eyes watered.
She was marched by two men in uniform to a barricaded wooden stand, where she would stand during the trial. The Old Bailey courtroom was packed with spectators, who covered their mouths with handkerchiefs as Hannah passed. She felt a hot mixture of shame and indignation. What were all these people doing here? It was vulgar.
The room was elegant, with a high ceiling and an elevated gallery where the public jostled for a view. The large windows and doors were all flung open to the raging gale outside, and the black velvet curtains were soaking wet from the freezing sleet which was driving diagonally in through the windows. Large, open braziers burned in every available space, pouring forth a noxious smoke which made Hannah’s head swim.
She looked across the room to the jury and the judges. An enormous sword hung on the wall above the Lord Mayor’s chair of office, larger than a man. Above it, a lion and a unicorn grasped a crown.
The Lord Mayor sat in his chair, wearing his black robe and golden chain of office. He looked stern. In front of him, the jury sat penned in a wooden enclosure, as did the witnesses and the defendant. The smoke made Hannah’s eyes sting. She leaned heavily on the bench in front of her.
A clerk came up to Hannah, and held out a Bible. She put her hand out and touched the leather cover of the book. Her fingers were slippery with sweat.
‘How will you be tried?’ asked the clerk, chewing hard on a strange black and orange mass. His breath reeked of orange peel, caraway and garlic. Hannah felt sick, but she had already been told what to say.
‘By God and my country,’ she replied, in a quavering voice.
The clerk turned to the Lord Mayor and announced in a loud voice, ‘Hannah Cheshire is accused with feloniously stealing a pair of sapphire earrings, value forty-one shillings.’
A murmur went around the assembled spectators when Hannah’s name was announced. Hannah thought of the knowing smile on Long Meg’s face when she had mentioned Arthur Cheshire, and the way the turnkey had shook her hand from his arm. She felt hot and prickly, despite the freezing room.
A man stood up and swore on the Bible. Hannah recognised him by his curly ginger whiskers.
‘My name is Samuel Smith,’ he said. ‘I own a shop on Monmouth Street. The prisoner came into my shop some weeks ago and pawned a golden necklace. While she was there, she stole a pair of sapphire earrings that were on display.’
***
Hunger drove Hannah from the house the next morning.
It was difficult to tell what time of day it was, or even if it was daytime at all. Shops were dimly lit, their windows covered in frost. John Wheeley, Scale-maker. Jack Picard’s Paper Hanging Warehouse. Goodman & Flude, Purveyors of Tobacco & Snuffs.
The smell of baking bread wafted from someone’s kitchen and made Hannah’s stomach growl. She licked her lips, and hurried on, until she found Samuel Smith, Pawnbroker & Silversmith. She peered in through the window, and saw jewellery, watches, fine china, silver cutlery and candlesticks, shoes, hats, coats and stays. A sign above the door read Unredeemed goods fold Wholefale & Retail. Money lent.
Hannah opened the door.
The man behind the counter looked up at her. He had ginger whiskers and close-cropped, curly hair. There were gravy spots on his shirt and something white and crumbly in the corners of his mouth.
‘You lost?’ His eyes were narrowed.
Hannah tried to look businesslike. ‘I need some money. I have this necklace.’ She opened her reticule, and deposited the necklace on the counter. It was gold, with topaz stones set along the front. The man – Hannah presumed he must be Mr Smith – reached out for an eyeglass and peered at the necklace. Hannah could hear him breathing, a wet, rasping sound.
‘Where’d you get this?’ he asked.
Hannah felt a hot burst of shame. She shook it away, angrily. She had nothing to be ashamed of. ‘My father bought it for me,’ she said.
Mr Smith licked his lips. ‘Your father bought it for you, eh?’
Hannah gritted her teeth. ‘His name is Arthur Cheshire. He is currently away on business in Paris. He will be back any day now, but I need a little something for my expenses. He will redeem the necklace the moment he returns to London.’
At the mention of her father’s name, Mr Smith looked up from the necklace and leaned over the counter towards her. Hannah took a step back. His breath stank.
Mr Smith’s eyes roamed all over her body, and settled on her ears. Hannah put up a hand and felt the sapphire earrings.
‘I’d rather take them pretty blue earrings,’ he said.
Hannah swallowed. ‘No,’ she said, trying to keep her voice firm. ‘Only the necklace.’
‘Quite a famous design,’ said Mr Smith, not taking his eyes from the earrings. ‘They’d fetch a fine price.’
‘Thank you, but no,’ said Hannah. ‘I think I’ll keep them.’
‘Are you sure they’re yours to keep?’ he said.
Hannah suddenly remembered Mr Behr standing on the front step. He nearly killed the man, and took … money and valuables from his person. The next day he fled the country.
She thought about how her father had given her the earrings wrapped in a stained handkerchief. Why hadn’t she wondered at the time why they hadn’t come boxed, with a ribbon and tissue paper?
Hannah’s clenched her fists to stop her hands shaking. Her fingernails bit into her palms. The pawnbroker grunted, and looked back down at the topaz necklace.
‘Five shillings,’ he said.
Hannah didn’t know whether that was the right amount of money for her necklace, but she took the money and fled.
***
Hannah thought she saw the lion’s tail twitch above the Lord Mayor’s chair, but when she looked up, she saw only white plaster. Her eyes stung and she squeezed them shut.
‘Hold up your head, young woman,’ hissed the clerk. ‘And look at his lordship.’
Hannah opened her eyes, and the room seemed to swim bef
ore her.
‘My eyes–’ she stammered.
The clerk ignored her. Another man stood up, and swore on the Bible. Hannah thought she had seen him before, but could not remember where. He wore a large ring on his finger, gleaming like new. She coughed again, her throat swollen and raw. The leg-irons seemed to burn into her skin.
‘My name is John Huggins. Three weeks ago, I was selling tickets to an attraction at the Frost Fair, when the prisoner, along with other ruffians, pushed me down onto the ice, and scrambled into my theatre without paying.’
***
Hannah stepped out of the pawnbroker’s, and felt like she was stepping into another world. The fog was lifting, and a faint glow of sunshine could be made out in an increasingly blue sky.
Where the streets had been empty yesterday, they were now occupied by a large group of young people. They were cits, not people of Quality, but they spoke well enough. They all seemed to be dressed in their best clothes, and for a moment Hannah thought that she must have missed two whole days and it was now Sunday. They were heading east down Oxford Street towards the city, all laughing and talking.
One young man was waving a scrap of newspaper around.
‘Hurry!’ he said to his friends. ‘Before the Frost Fair melts!’ He tossed the paper into the air.
As the young man and his friends moved off, Hannah picked up the scrap of paper. It was a page torn from the Public Advertiser. The writing showed through from the other side, making it difficult to read, but Hannah could make out some of it.
This booth to let, the present possessor of the premises is Mr Frost. His affairs, however, not being on a permanent footing, a dissolution or bankruptcy may soon be expected and a final settlement of the whole entrusted to Mr Thaw.
Hannah had no idea what to make of this, but she found herself following their footprints in the snow.
They went down Oxford Street, past where it turned into High Holborn Road, and then turned right into Farringdon Street. Soon, the young people were joined by more people, commoners and cits and people of Quality, all flocking down towards Blackfriar’s Bridge, laughing like it was a holiday.
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