“To be honest with you,” he says in a squeaking accent that sets my teeth on edge, “I have no information about the Prince. But wait!” He’s seen me begin to gather up my belongings and leave the table. “Please. I have other information for you. I have been asked to contact you.” He stretches across the table, actually laying hands on my coat to prevent me from leaving.
“There is someone who wishes to help you. With Titus Oates.”
As soon as he mentions Oates, I have to listen. Good or bad, I want to hear what he has to say.
“There is a man who wants to see you,” says Choquette. “A patient of mine. He’s a prisoner in Newgate. He is unwell but determined that an interview with you will ease him.”
“Who is he?”
“Simpson Tonge.”
The name is not new to me. Simpson is the son of Israel Tonge, that half-crazed sponsor of Oates who had first approached the King and, with Oates, lodged the details of the plot with Sir Edmund Godfrey.
I don’t like the look of this Frenchman. My instincts tell me to walk away, but the idea of finding more evidence against Oates is seductive. I tell Choquette I’ll think about Simpson’s request, promising to reply by the end of the day.
I’m sickened by the whole thing in some ways. Tonge, I imagine, will be just another Bedloe, or Miles Prance: some lesser version of Oates, ready to exploit what he knows or pretends to know, without any regard to others or for the truth. I can set little store by anything he’ll tell me. But what if he knows something? I can’t afford not to find out.
***
Truly this is a hell-hole. A prisoner’s life in Newgate is one that no sane person can bear, unless well-equipped with friends and funds to make things even remotely tolerable. First, the stink of unwashed flesh, of piss and shit, of tobacco smoke and misery. Then, the noise. Every time I have the misfortune to come here, I’m appalled by the barrage of noise. It’s the clamour of women wailing, of men disputing, of gaolers roaring, and, under all, the rasp and rumble of chains crashing against stone – surely one of the worst sounds in the world. Men like Matthew Medbourne, men with money, can buy themselves private rooms and avoid the miserable sluts and penniless fools, but no-one can escape Newgate’s unhappy song.
I’m profoundly thankful that Tonge is not inhabiting the Common side, where lice and cockroaches riot over the huddled and hunched; where typhoid threatens the inmates as much as any sentence passed over their filthy heads. I follow Choquette through the prison, and on all sides, through boards and grills, catch glimpses of squalor and faces written with misery and disease. I breathe steadily through my mouth, trying to preserve my poor nose and keep my stomach even. The Keeper, an ugly giant of a man whose lips fire spittle with every word, takes me to a small windowless cell. Chocquette hands over five shillings and they bring the prisoner up.
Tonge is a slight, inconsequential-looking fellow, with dirty yellow hair and thick lips. He has a nasty boil suppurating on his left cheek. I try not to stare. His eyes are red-rimmed, and the skin below looks bruised. He shuffles into the room like a man of seventy, not twenty-five, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat.
“You asked to see me?”
“Yes,” he nods slowly. “I want to tell you about my father and Titus Oates. But I need your help.”
I should never have come. I knew he would be after something in exchange for his information, but I’d hoped for rather more finesse in the negotiation, to be a little more engaged before payment was demanded.
“Let me hear something from you that will make me want to help you,” I say.
He must hear my impatience because he doesn’t argue the point. He swallows twice, smiles nervously, and then begins to talk.
“My father has known Titus for several years,” Tonge says. “When my mother passed away in ’75, Father moved for a time into the household of Sir Richard Barker, near the Barbican. I was away studying at the time, so I know little of how he went on there, but he was often in the company of the Reverend Samuel Oates, a Baptist preacher.”
I nod. Barker is vehemently anti-Catholic. He would take an ape into his house and give it dinner so long as it could prove it wasn’t of Catholic birth.
“My father first met Samuel’s son at Barker’s house,” he continues, “but I did not know him until two years later. I arrived back from university to find Titus living in my home. Father said that Titus was in a bad way: that he was a young Jesuit, but highly disturbed by what he had found in that faith. He had come to my father half starving and in need of shelter some weeks before my arrival. Father was a lonely man and I was suspicious at first, but Titus appeared genuinely interested in his talk.
“To be honest, I couldn’t stand Father’s ranting, and soon saw that having someone’s ear take the strain was very much to my advantage. Although we were the closer in age, it was my father’s company that Titus always sought, and while they amused each other I enjoyed the freedom to come and go at will. After a few months, he left. My father and Titus had agreed that something could and should be made of his Catholicism and Jesuit connections. He went to St Omer’s College in Flanders, to be, my father said, his eyes and ears in the devil’s nest.”
All this while, Simpson’s been looking down at his hands, but now he glances up and locks eyes with me. I try to look interested.
“In the summer of ’78, he came back. Titus had a lodging in Cockpit Alley, off Drury Lane, and he regularly visited my father at the Barbican. They also met at the Flying Horse in King Street and at Titus’s father’s rooms in York buildings. About this time, Father began to appear excited. He’s always been nervous and on edge, but it became more marked. There was an energy about him. I was happy for him.” Tonge stops and rubs at his brow, as if trying to order his thoughts and reflections.
“One day, I came across him hunched at his desk as usual, squinting in the candlelight, and poring over some writing with his own pen hovering as though he was making annotations on some text. When I asked him what he was working on, he snapped at me.
“Normally, he’s the gentlest of men, but he was frantic. He scooped his papers up into a bundle and told me it was none of my business.”
“And you didn’t like that?” I ask.
“Would you? I didn’t like the way he protected his precious scribbling from me. Whatever it was, I knew he was prepared to share with Oates. Why not me? But I saw them less and less. They had found some house over in Vauxhall. One of the servants said that my father repaired there every morning and often did not return until after dark.
“I didn’t even know that Father had been to see the King until weeks after it had happened. I wanted to get closer to him again. I was running up expenses in the city that I could barely afford, and I knew I would need his assistance soon.”
For a fraction of a second, Simpson pauses. Perhaps his mind has snagged on his own words, and in this moment he sees himself as I do: worthless, lazy, and undeserving. Or perhaps not. He ploughs on with his tale.
“Despite the coolness between us, I determined to try again. Catching him at home one evening, I began with talk of my mother. That always softens him. After only a few words reminiscing about her sweet temper and staunch love of us both, he opened up to me. He told me that he and Titus Oates had discovered a great plot. He had no doubts. He was adamant that the plot was real. But although all had gone well at first, there were those who doubted them. He fretted that the King was not convinced. He said he was at a crisis point. There was something they could do to take things forward, but he was concerned. He rambled on about the greater good, about means and ends, and much more in the same vein. I said very little; indeed, I’m not sure that he really knew I was there.”
Tonge pauses. He looks across the table at me and our eyes meet. That’s when I know him for a liar. If a man lies, he speaks words with his mouth, but his eyes hold the thoughts he does not voice. To speak the truth is but one act: thought and word are in harmony. But to lie, a man must ho
ld the truth in his mind, yet voice a different set of thoughts at the same moment. More, he wonders how his lies are being received. The light of speculation is in Tonge’s blue eyes. He can barely wait to finish and learn if I believe him or not.
“My father said that he and Titus needed evidence of their plot to make the authorities take action,” says Tonge. “They were frustrated and desperate. They wanted their secrets out, for the good of the nation and the safety of the King. So, they were contemplating an act of deception. A forgery. They’d been arguing about it all that day, he said.”
“And did they do it?” I ask him.
“I can prove that they did, Mr. Thompson. But I need to know that I count on your help, before I tell you more.”
Tonge licks his lips. He has brought me to the sticking place.
“Well, Tonge,” I say. “I am a cautious man, but not an unkind one. I’ll give you something for what you have told me,” I dig in my purse for a few coins – not many, but enough to make a few days in Newgate a little less uncomfortable – “and I will think on things.” I stand up and look down at him clutching the silver in his dirty fingers. “If I wish to hear more, I will be in touch through Choquette.”
Tonge also rises. “You will not regret it, sir,” he says, somewhat sadly. “And I thank you for your goodness. But don’t you want to hear of what my father and Titus did?”
I smile. I already know the story he wanted to tell me.
“As I say, I will be in touch.”
***
“But I have no intention of going anywhere near the fellow, or that damn prison, ever again,” I tell William an hour or two later, over a dish of coffee.
“Whyever not?”
“Because I’m familiar with the story already. Robert Southwell explained it. Simpson’s father, Israel, together with Titus Oates, forged a series of letters between those poor priests and Thomas Bedingfield, the Duke of York’s confessor. Oates showed them to the Privy Council way back in September when he was first examined. He swore that the priests had disguised their handwriting, but that he knew which was which. Southwell himself was at the meeting, and he personally showed each letter to Oates, folded so that he couldn’t see the name signed at the bottom. He correctly identified each one.”
“So, they weren’t forgeries?”
“Of course they were!”
“But…”
“It will be one man’s word against the others. Oates has the support of so many, and Simpson Tonge is simply not reliable. He’s already been before the King and changed his evidence at least once.”
“I see.”
“I wasn’t convinced, and I don’t trust him. I won’t be troubling Simpson any further. In fact, I rather wish I hadn’t bothered going to see him in the first place.”
Chapter Fifteen
Anne
“Nat. Can you send for Sarah?”
I’m calling from upstairs. He has just walked through the door, but when he catches my tone he drops everything and takes the stairs two at a time. I’m standing in the bedroom doorway, far calmer, now the moment is here, than I anticipated.
“Is it time?”
“Yes. I want my sister.”
“What about the midwife? Shall I get her on the way? Shouldn’t you sit down?”
“I don’t want to. My back aches.”
He takes me in his arms. A hot thrust of pain makes me cry out.
“Nat,” I whisper. “Go and get Sarah.”
Chapter Sixteen
Nat
Her sister comes. They confer upstairs. I’m sent to call the midwife and Anne’s mother, who arrives but will not even catch my eye. Women flow in and out, upstairs and down, while I stand in the dining room listening to their footsteps overhead but without any way of knowing how things are progressing either for good or for bad. I hang around the bottom of the stairs, straining my ears, for what? A child’s cry? Anne’s cry? I hardly know what I want to happen, except for this thing to be over. Eventually, Sarah comes down.
“Go out, Nat.”
“What? Why? Shouldn’t I stay? Do something?”
She shakes her head and gives me a withering look. “It will be a while. The first always is.”
“But what if something happens?”
“Nat. She will be fine. God willing, they will both be fine. Go to Sam’s Coffee House. I will send a boy if there is any change. Trust me.”
“I…” What do I want to say? That I love my wife. That I might lose her. Or the child. Or both.
Sarah puts her hand to my cheek. “Go. But drink coffee. No ale and no wine. It will be hours Nat. When she needs you, I will have you fetched.”
***
Sam’s Coffee House has its usual midday mix of tradesmen, the odd lawyer, a few fellow scribblers I know. I avoid meeting anyone’s eye and sit down on an empty bench with a copy of the Gazette. The coffee-boy brings me a dish and pours my drink, slipping my penny in the pocket of his long apron. At any other time, the familiar mix of roasting berries and tobacco, the loud exchanges, even the touch of the tables and the smooth glaze of the coffee cup, would ease my mind. Not today. I stare at the Gazette but read nothing. Instead, I conjure up disasters.
Anne will die. I’m suspicious of the midwife. She’s a Quaker, which is, Anne has assured me, a good thing. But is she clean? Does she know her work? I chew on my cheek, thinking I should have been more involved in choosing this woman. After all, horror stories about midwives abound. If a child dies before being born, they often cut off limbs to facilitate removing the poor thing from the mother’s body. I imagine blood: Anne’s; the baby’s. A few years ago, a woman and her child died out in the street, slap in the middle of Threadneedle Street, after one so-called midwife held the woman by the shoulders while another witch ripped the child out of her body, killing them both. Images of Anne fighting for her life have me almost on my feet ready to run back home, but the thought of Sarah’s sensible face stops me.
To divert my mind, I brood on Anne’s family. That Anne threw herself away by marrying me is an accepted fact. My line of work, even when I was the Licenser, is viewed with derision. My haunting of coffee shops, as I believe her mother terms it, shows a tendency to gossip and idleness that they find particularly disappointing. Perhaps if I was haunting Will’s Coffee Shop, rather than Sam’s; perhaps if I was a proper writer, like Mr. Dryden, they might think differently. Dryden, famous, popular, and wealthy, keeps his own chair at Will’s, surrounded by literary wits. That’s Anne’s family’s idea of what a writer should be. Not the rather grubby news-gatherers, lampoonists, and sharp-tongued opportunists I consort with. Only my loyalty to the Crown brings me any measure of approval. Sarah’s husband supposedly reads all my pamphlets, and Anne hopes that one day her younger brother and I might meet and get along. But even when the child is born, I don’t expect to be invited to dinner. A thoroughly bad mood settles on me, as thickly persistent as the coffee sticking to my teeth. Time crawls. It’s the longest day of my life.
I order more coffee, pick up the Gazette again. What is happening to Anne now? Every time the door opens I twist round expecting it to be a messenger for me, yet hours pass and none arrives. Other customers come and go. As space opens up on the long table, I slide further along the bench, away from the fire heating the coffee water and nearer the door so I can keep up my vigil for a messenger. Men, in small groups or alone like me, sit for a while and then leave again. Some nod, some ask me for the news, or to pass a pamphlet their way. Others are as silent and self-contained as I am. Snatches of conversation float my way, but I only really listen when a group of three men sitting on the bench behind me begin talking animatedly of some news they’ve heard: about, of all things, a midwife. There’s a mild buzzing in my head, a coffee-induced fog descending, but I shift back far enough to be able to take in their conversation. Anything to be out of my own head.
“And this woman is a midwife?”
“Apparently. Up to her elbows in Catholic cun
ny, but with time enough to forge papers describing a Whig plot against the King.”
Irresistible gossip. I turn and clap one of the men on the shoulder. He’s a broad fellow with the smell of the tanneries on him. My mother-in-law would not like his looks or his language, but to me he’s a fellow with a story I want to hear.
“News of another plot?” I ask. The three men shuffle along their bench and make space for me to join them. They know who I am.
“Aye, Mr. Thompson. But is there a tale we know and you do not? Now, there’s a turn-up,” says one fellow.
“Surprising, but it happens more than you’d think. Tell me about it. You were talking about a midwife? A Catholic midwife?”
“Well,” the tanner says, “this woman – her name is Elizabeth Cellier—” He breaks off and glances over, but the name means nothing to me. “She’s a right busybody, by all accounts, always doing good works and talking about loving thy neighbour.”
“How did you hear this?”
“My sister lives two doors along from her. Says she’s forever thrusting her way into other people’s houses and telling them how to manage better. Mistress Cellier has busied herself interfering with the neighbours and with visiting fellow papists in Newgate. Made no secret of it, neither.”
“And?”
“And so in Newgate, she says, she found out about a plot. A Protestant plot.” The large man raises his eyebrows and nods sagely. “Interesting, no? Very handy even. Why, if I was a Protestant plotter would the first person I’d confide in be a fat old chatter of a Catholic? Of course not.”
“So, the woman claimed to have uncovered a plot. She made a report?”
“No idea. I was told she claimed that Lord Shaftesbury was plotting to bring down the King and have Parliament run the country again. But her informant changed his song and said instead that she had paid him to make up a plot to disgrace the Whigs, so it was another Catholic plot after all. My sister saw the guards enter the midwife’s house. She’s been thrown into Newgate, and the whisper is that papers were found in the silly woman’s meal tub in her cellar, describing the whole thing. She’ll hang for it, I wouldn’t wonder.”
The Road to Newgate Page 11