The baby’s eyes were closing now, lulled by the rocking motion of Sarah’s arm and the warmth of the room, fragranced with the scent of cloves and nutmeg. She popped the baby in her cot, and went back into her living room, leaving the bedroom door ajar so she could hear if Mary started grizzling. She picked up the bucket in which she put her slops; hair clippings, dirty water, vegetable peelings, and opening the back door, which led on to a dark alley, threw the contents out to join the other refuse which covered the ground.
It was while she was shaking the bucket, trying to dislodge some cabbage leaves which had stuck to the bottom that she heard her name called, and instinctively looked up the alley in the direction from which the voice had come.
About twenty yards or so away could be seen the figure of a man who was making his way toward her, and who appeared to be limping. It was too dark and he was too far away for her to see his face, but she wasn’t about to wait for him to get any closer. As quick as lightning she jumped back into the room, shut the door, turned the key in the lock, shot the bolts at top and bottom, then stood with her back to it, her heart thumping in her chest.
She didn’t know any men. Well, of course that wasn’t true. She did know some men; she had exchanged words with several of her clients’ husbands, and with tradesmen. But she didn’t know any men who would approach her by way of a filthy back alley, unless they were hoping to rob her or worse. Her pistol was in the shop under the counter, but she was confident that the locks would hold if he attempted to break in. It was a sturdy door. She started to relax a little.
There came a knock right behind her head, and she gave an involuntary scream then stepped back, away from the door. She went and quietly closed the door to the bedroom so as not to wake the baby, then returned.
“What do you want?” she said in a clear, firm voice.
“Sarah? Sarah Browne?” the voice answered.
“Go away,” she replied, “or I’ll call the watch.”
“You were Beth’s kitchen maid in Didsbury? Beth Cunningham?”
What the hell? Although it was known to many that she had been Beth’s maid in London, and that she had accompanied her from Manchester, nobody, apart from Beth’s servants in Didsbury knew that she had started her career as a kitchen maid. Except Richard. But this man, whoever he was, was not Richard.
“Who are you?” she asked, intrigued in spite of herself.
The silence that followed this question went on for so long that Sarah thought the man had given up and gone away. She was just about to return to her pie when the voice came again, this time from the keyhole, and much softer.
“It’s John,” he said. “John Betts. The stable boy.”
Sarah’s first instinct was to open the door. Although she had hardly known John, Beth had always spoken highly of him. He had defended her against Richard, and had had to leave. But what was he doing here, and how did he know where she lived? It was a ruse of some sort.
“Why have you come here?” she asked.
“I need help. I didn’t know where else to go,” he said. “Please, let me in. I’ll explain everything.”
She thought, rapidly.
“Tell me some things about Didsbury. Things other people wouldn’t know,” she said.
Another silence, then a torrent of low-voiced words, spoken with some desperation, came from the other side of the door.
“I didn’t know you for long. Richard brought you to replace Martha and spy on Beth for him. We all hated you. Graeme was the gardener, Thomas and Jane were the steward and cook, Grace was Beth’s maid, Mary and Ben were the scullery maid and odd job boy. Beth told me that you turned out to be one of her best friends. You saved her when Lord Damien tried to make her marry him.”
“Daniel,” Sarah corrected automatically, then cursed herself. She came to a decision.
“Wait there a minute,” she said.
She ran into the shop, retrieved the pistol from under the counter, checked it was primed and cocked and ready to fire, and then went back to the door. She undid the bolts, turned the key in the lock, and then stood back.
“Come in,” she said, “slowly.”
The door opened very slowly, to reveal the filthiest individual she had ever seen in her life. He made to step in the room, but then saw the pistol levelled at his head and stopped, his eyes widening. He raised both his hands in the air and swallowed audibly. The sleeves of the torn and ragged shirt he wore slid up his arms, revealing wrists that were a mass of sores, writhing with maggots. His ankles were in the same state, which explained why he had limped down the alley. The smell emanating from him was worse than that in the alley had ever been, even in the height of summer. Apart from his height, there was nothing left of the handsome youth she’d last seen mucking out the stables in Didsbury. The emaciated wreck standing in front of her now could have been fifty.
“Dear God,” she said, lowering the pistol and involuntarily retching at the stench. “What happened to you?”
He kept his hands up, but glanced behind him at the open door. She got the message and motioned him further into the room, then walked behind him, shut the door and locked it. Then she looked at him again, assessing him. His eyes were wild as he watched her warily, his chest heaving as though he’d been running, although he’d been standing outside her door for a good few minutes. He was certainly capable of violence, she realised, but only in the way of a cornered animal that must fight or die.
“It’s alright,” she said. “I won’t shoot you unless you try to hurt me. But if you do, I will.”
He nodded.
“What happened to you?” she asked again.
“I escaped from Newgate,” he said. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and if I stay like this, they’ll catch me. I’m sorry.”
“Why were you in prison? Tell me the truth.”
“I was taken prisoner when Carlisle fell. I was in the Manchester Regiment, fighting for Prince Charles.”
“I thought you’d joined the militia,” Sarah said, wary again. “How did you end up as a rebel?”
John smiled, displaying a set of teeth white enough to show he was a lot younger than he appeared.
“I thought joining the militia was the quickest way to learn to use a sword. I wanted to kill Richard. From what I’ve learned about him since, I wish I had,” he said.
Sarah warmed to him instantly.
“How did you know I’d saved Beth from Lord Daniel?” she asked.
“I met her when…” His voice trailed off. “Are you going to call the watch?” he asked.
The fact that he’d been about to reveal incriminating evidence about Beth and had stopped in case she betrayed him, and in doing so betrayed Beth, committed Sarah to a course of action that the sensible part of her had already dismissed as insane.
“No,” she said. “I’m going to get you clean enough so that we can talk without me wanting to be sick. Come through to the shop. I’ve not long closed, so the water will still be warm.”
She led him through the room and to a corner of the shop, where there was a brazier and on top of it a large pot, half-full of water. She handed him a bar of rose-scented soap, a comb and a cloth to dry himself, then went and got a blanket from the chest at the foot of her bed.
“I’ll leave you to wash,” she said. “When you’re clean, wrap yourself in the blanket for now. I’ll get you some clothes tomorrow.”
He looked at her, shocked.
“I don’t expect you to let me stay here,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. I’ll just wash these clothes as best I can, and if you can lend me a little money, I’ll find somewhere to stay until I can get a coach out of London.”
“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?” she asked. “Did anyone see you come into the alley?”
He shook his head.
“Well, then. Wash yourself, then have something to eat, and I’ll get something to dress your wounds.”
For a moment he seemed not to know what she
was talking about, then he followed her gaze down to his wrists.
“I’m not wounded,” he said. “It’s just –”
“A mess,” she interrupted. “Come back in when you’ve finished.”
It was nearly half an hour before he returned to the cosy living room. In his absence Sarah had been busy. She’d opened the door for a few minutes to let the smell out, and then had sprinkled rosewater around the room. On the table was a jug of warm spiced ale, a large slice of the chicken pie, and an assortment of bottles of varying sizes.
She looked up at him as he came in, and whistled softly through her teeth. He was a lot thinner than when she had last seen him, his hair, light brown again now it was clean, was longer, and he had a thick beard, but nevertheless she now recognised the youth she had known briefly in Didsbury.
“Sit down,” she said, and motioned to the pie.
He needed no second invitation and fell on the pie like a starving animal, which, she supposed, he was.
Afterwards, while he told her his story, she combed powder of staves-acre through his hair to kill the lice, and then went to work on his wrists and ankles, picking off the maggots with tweezers and throwing them in the fire, her nose wrinkling with disgust.
“When the prince went back into Scotland,” John said, “he asked the Manchester Regiment to hold Carlisle Castle for him, for when he came back. Most of us stayed. Graeme went with the others on to Scotland though. I wish I had too, now.”
“Graeme?” Sarah said. “The gardener? But he’s an old man!”
John laughed.
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” he said. “He joined the army when Charles came to Manchester. That’s where we met Beth. I threw a knife at her.”
Sarah stopped what she was doing, abruptly.
“I’d been learning to throw knives,” he continued hurriedly, realising how his last sentence had sounded. “I wanted to be as good as her. I never was, but I was pretty good all the same. I was showing off, and threw a knife at the door she was sitting against. Anyway, then we stayed together down to Derby, then all the way back to Carlisle. When Cumberland took the castle, we were all arrested and we’ve been in prison ever since. The officers were brought to London, and we were tried two days ago and sentenced to the traitor’s death.”
“Hanging, drawing and quartering,” Sarah said, shuddering. “Some of my clients told me about the crowds outside the New Gaol. You were marched there through the streets. Is that how you escaped?”
“No. After the trial they took us back to Newgate. Three of us were in a tiny cell, and we were just left there for two days with no food or water. No one came to look at us; I think they’d forgotten about us, to be honest. Which gave us time to find a loose brick and to work all the mortar away from round it.” He held up his hands; the nails and ends of his fingers were ragged and bloody.
“It was really damp in there,” he continued. “The water was running down the walls, so the mortar was very soft, and we all had long nails by then so we took turns to scrape it out. Then Jack found a rusty bit of metal in the corner of the room, and we used that, too. Anyway, once we’d pulled out the brick I had a look through to see what was on the other side, thinking it would probably be another cell, but we couldn’t believe our luck because it led straight out onto the street. We’d been kept in irons until our trial, and they chafe a bit,” he said with spectacular understatement, “but the wardens didn’t bother to put them back on again afterwards. Newgate’s full to bursting with rebel prisoners, so the guards are run off their feet. There was only one tiny window high up in the wall of our cell, so I suppose they didn’t think there was any danger of us escaping. All three of us got away, me, Jack Holker and Peter Moss, although Peter and me had to pull Jack through the hole, because he had been a portly fellow, and still had a bit of weight on him. Then we all split up, because we thought we’d have a better chance separately. Jack said he was heading for the coast to try to find a ship for France. I don’t know what Peter’s going to do. And I thought I’d come here and see if you’d lend me the money to get back to Manchester. Thomas and Jane’ll look after me until I can find somewhere safer. Graeme might even be there, if he lives,” John mused.
The maggots gone, Sarah opened a pot and rubbed salve all over the festering wounds. Then she poured some more ale for them both.
She’d just sat down, when a thin wail came from the adjoining room. John looked round in surprise.
“You have a baby?” he asked.
“She’s my sister’s child,” Sarah explained. “She died in childbirth, and there was no father so I took her.” She went through to the other room, returning a few minutes later.
“You said you were with Beth. How is she?” Sarah asked. “I was so worried about her when her and Sir Anthony vanished.”
John’s brow furrowed.
“Sir Anthony?” he said. “Oh! You mean A –”
“NO!” Sarah shouted, making John jump so violently that he spilled some of the ale he was about to drink on the blanket he was wearing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, but if you were about to tell me Sir Anthony’s real name, I don’t want to know. I’ve already been interviewed by the Duke of Newcastle. Sir Anthony’s one of the most wanted men in Britain. I don’t know whether I’ll be interviewed again, but the less I know, the better.”
John nodded.
“They won’t interview me about him, because no one knows I had any connection to Beth or…him. She was well the last time I saw her, at Carlisle. She tried to stay there, with Graeme and me because she’d had an argument with…er…”
“Just call him Sir Anthony. That’s what I knew him as,” Sarah said.
“She’d had an argument with Sir Anthony, then. I don’t know what it was about, but it must have been serious, because I never saw two people so much in love with each other. But he just stopped talking to her completely, wouldn’t even look at her. She was very unhappy, and when Prince Charles asked us to stay in Carlisle she decided to stay as well. But Sir Anthony wouldn’t let her. He sent An…another man to make her go on with them to Scotland. So Graeme went too, to keep an eye on her. I hope they made up,” he finished wistfully. Suddenly realising that the blanket had slipped while he’d been talking, exposing his nakedness, he pulled it tighter round himself before casting an embarrassed glance at Sarah.
She hadn’t noticed. She was staring at a point somewhere over his left shoulder, but the misty expression in her eyes told him that she was far, far away from this room. He waited for a while, then for a while more. And then he coughed softly.
Her eyes cleared, and her focus shot back to him.
“Sir Anthony had two servants,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically hesitant. “I knew them as Jim and Murdo, and I don’t want to know their real names either. But one was tall and fair-haired, and the other was a bit smaller, with dark hair and grey eyes.”
John smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “I know who you’re talking about.”
She leaned forward eagerly, then checked herself and sat back again.
“Were they well, when you last saw them?” she asked.
“Yes. Both of them were in excellent health when I last saw them. But that was in December,” he added softly. Clearly one of these men meant something to her, but he didn’t want to raise her hopes. “A lot has happened since then.”
Sarah looked at him, and tears sparkled on her lashes.
“I know,” she replied. “You’re right.” She brushed her hand across her face, and stood. “You can sleep in here. It’ll have to be on the floor, I’m afraid, but there’s a bit of carpet, and I’ll get another blanket for you. I’ll go out in the morning and get you some clothes. I’ll go where no one knows me,” she added.
“I really appreciate this, Sarah,” John said. “After all, you didn’t really know me, and when you did I made it very clear that I hated you.”
She laughed.
“You were right to, then,” she said. “I was a bitch. I still can be. But you say Beth spoke highly of me. Well, she spoke highly of you too, and that’s enough for me. Here,” she said, handing him the pistol. “Keep that with you tonight. Just in case anyone did see you coming into the alley.”
“They didn’t,” John said, checking it was all in order and ready to fire if necessary. “I was very careful. I don’t really know London, though. Is this a dangerous part of town, then?”
“No,” Sarah replied. “I bought that and learned how to use it, so that if Richard ever comes to see me again, I can blow his fucking brains out.”
And with that she went to bed, leaving John not knowing whether to be more shocked by the expletive she had just uttered, or by her tone of voice, which left him in no doubt that if Richard Cunningham was at any time to enter her premises, it would be the last thing he ever did.
* * *
When Sarah got back from the market the next day, carrying a parcel of clothes, the baby carefully swaddled against her chest by means of a cleverly-tied shawl, John had cleaned the small room and got a fire going, and two pots of water were boiling over it. He looked up as she came through the door from the shop and smiled at her. He was still wearing the blanket from yesterday, as whilst he had been washing the previous evening she had unceremoniously burnt all his vermin-infested clothes. However, with the aid of a piece of rope, he had now tied the blanket around him in an interesting fashion, which left the lower part of his legs bare, but which covered the upper part and most of his torso.
Sarah placed the parcel of clothes on one chair, then untied the shawl from round her waist. An ominous smell came from the baby, which competed with the spicy smell from the remains of yesterday’s pie, which was reheating in the Dutch oven. She placed the baby on the chair and massaged the small of her back with her hands.
“She doesn’t seem to weigh much, until you’ve been carrying her round all day,” Sarah said. She looked around the sparkling room. “You’ve been busy. You didn’t have to do this, you know.”
Pursuit of Princes (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 5) Page 15