“And just to make sure I understand completely, your reaction in the alley was a yes to my proposal?”
She hesitated. “It wasn’t a no.” She dropped her voice to a whisper so no one but he could hear her. “I want to be with you as often as possible. I crave your company. But I’m not sure I’m ready to be the center of a scandal. And accepting your proposal now, on the heels of Sheldrake’s rejection and death, that’s exactly where I’ll be. But if you’re happy to do it, I would like you to climb up to my bedroom as often as you can.” The thought of them together, with no watchful eyes on them, completely free to do as they liked, made her heart leap into her throat.
She was twenty-four years old and she had felt something extremely important was missing from her life for at least the last four. She had the sense Wittaker would show her exactly what that important thing was.
“I’ll see you later, then.” His hand shook a little as he reached for the carriage door.
“You’re thinking of walls again?” she asked suddenly.
For a moment, he looked absolutely shocked.
“You plan to climb up to my bedroom? Or will you come in the front door?” She suddenly felt uncertain, as if she’d misunderstood him.
He smiled. A long, wicked smile that made her heart beat faster.
“It depends how late I am. But you’re quite right, I was thinking of walls.”
* * *
It was a struggle to get his head straight as he walked the ten minutes it took to Newgate Prison. The rain had eased off, but his shirt and jacket still stuck to his skin uncomfortably, and he was almost glad of the distraction.
As the shadow of Newgate fell over him, though, and the insidious stink of human waste and despair blew at him on the cold wind, he managed to push thoughts of having Phoebe alone with no possibility of an interruption to the back of his mind.
Newman, Bellingham’s jailer, leapt to his feet with alacrity when he saw him, no doubt remembering the generous tip James had given him for information last time.
“He just has a visitor in there at the moment, Your Grace, although I can turn her out, if it’s urgent?” Newman bobbed like a grey-feathered robin.
“Her?” James frowned. “Who’s in there?”
“Miss Mary Stevens, Your Grace. Seems she lives with Bellingham and his wife in Liverpool. Bellingham’s wife and Miss Stevens run a dressmaking shop or some such.” Newman fiddled with the buttons on his jacket. “Thought there could be no ’arm in letting her talk to him. Letting him give her a message to take back to his wife, given tomorrow…”
James gave a nod. “I would be most grateful if you would ask her to wait for me when I go in to speak to him. I’d like to see her for a moment. I won’t be long with Bellingham.”
Newman gave a nod, and then disappeared into the small passage near his desk. When he came out, a young woman was with him. In her late twenties, he would guess. She had dark hair and was neatly dressed, although the clothes she had on were worn, and her face held a tight, worried look.
She curtseyed awkwardly. “You wish to speak with me, Your Grace?”
“If you don’t mind waiting, Miss Stevens. I won’t be long, and I won’t keep you.”
She gave a reluctant nod, and James made his way to Bellingham’s cell.
The man was standing, watching the door, and he smiled when James was let in by the guard. “Good afternoon again, sir. Did you find my papers?”
“Not yet, Mr. Bellingham.” James had forgotten all about the blasted papers, and wondered if Harmer was looking for them. “At the very least, they will be presented at your trial, and you can ask for them, then.”
Bellingham gave a sigh, as if this failure was one he was used to dealing with.
“You told me the other day that no one helped you, but that isn’t true, is it?” James leaned back against the bars. There would be no sitting as if visiting a friend today.
Bellingham did not look concerned. He shook his head. “No one helped me. Not a single soul.”
“Margie did. And her brother, through her.” He would not tell Bellingham the brother didn’t exist yet.
Bellingham looked up, the movement like an animal suddenly sensing danger. “All Margie did was tell me stories of her brother’s employers. That wasn’t help.”
“What about the list you gave her for him to look at. That wasn’t help?”
Bellingham looked at him through wide eyes. “You have the list?”
James shook his head. He wasn’t going to lie to Bellingham, he was here to help him, not terrify him. “It has been destroyed.”
Bellingham sagged, half-falling into his chair. “I knew that was a mistake, but…” He ran shaking fingers through his dark hair. “Destroyed, you say?”
James nodded. “And the money you were getting from Mr. Wilson? That wasn’t help? What about the help in finding the gunsmith?”
Bellingham blinked and shook his head. “I haven’t had any help. I’ve answered that question enough times. The money…well, if Mr. Wilson said I was owed the money by one of his clients, I was owed the money. It didn’t surprise me at all that someone had forgotten to pay me during the time I was in jail. He’s a businessman, he doesn’t give money out unless it’s owed.”
“Why didn’t you use it to help your wife and family, instead of printing pamphlets and buying guns? That money could have kept your family for a year or more.”
For the first time, Bellingham became truly agitated. He wrung his hands and lifted out of his chair to pace. “It was my last chance to get a settlement. I need to provide for my family. Not just get them through the year, but have enough for a good future for them. I had that before, and then injustice took it away from me. The money Mr. Wilson gave me meant I could finally do everything I needed to to have the matter resolved.”
He finally caught James’s eye and James could see the determination and the self-pity there. A strange mix.
“I will tell you as often as you like to hear it. I have been trying to solve this since I returned from Russia many years ago. I didn’t have help from anyone. And I’ve finally had to help myself. I’ve taken matters into my own hands and crafted justice for myself, and no one tomorrow will deny me my rights. How can they?”
James gave a reluctant nod. Bellingham was determined not to see the hands that helped him, and to be fair, they had intended that to be the case. Gascoyne was only known to him as his Member of Parliament; Sheldrake, not at all. There would be no recanting of his story.
He waved to the guard to let him out and took his leave of Bellingham.
The roof seemed to be lowering down on him by the time he stepped into Newman’s office and he couldn’t bear to stay here another moment.
“Would you like to walk out with me while we talk, Miss Stevens?” he asked the woman waiting for him.
She gave a relieved nod, and James slipped Newman another coin as they let themselves out.
“Do you mind my asking the financial situation Mr. Bellingham and his family are in?” It was a little late for this question, given he knew Gascoyne had been behind Bellingham’s payments, but as someone who lived with them, Miss Stevens would surely know the truth.
She gave a bitter laugh. “They are so poor, Mrs. Bellingham had to take their son out of school, because they couldn’t afford the fees, just after Christmas. But there is a hundred pounds in Mr. Bellingham’s box in his cell. I just saw it now, while he was looking for something in there while I was visiting.”
“He wasn’t doing any work that could earn him that kind of money?”
She shook her head. “He was doing the books for our business. That was the sum of his life since he returned from Russia, until he came down to London. He told us he was coming to sort out a mix-up one of our suppliers made, sending us too much ribbon, and that he had a small part in an iron sale, where he’d earn a little money. Then he didn’t come back. Mrs. Bellingham wept when he finally wrote and admitted he was caught up in
the madness of that Russian business again. Wept as if her heart would break.”
She was silent until they had descended the stairs of the prison and stood on Newgate Street. “What happened to them in Russia has haunted their lives. And Bellingham won’t let it go, even though he promised her he would. It eats at him like a sickness, and when he’s in its grip, it’s like a fever comes down on him, and he’s insensible to everything.”
“You think he’s mad?”
Miss Stevens looked up at him, and then nodded. “When it comes to this one thing, yes. He’s a good father, I would swear to that, and when he’s busy working as our bookkeeper, he is a good accountant and husband, too. But mention Russian, mention his time in jail, and he cannot be reasonable. He simply cannot.”
“Will I see you tomorrow at the trial?” James lifted a hand to call her a hansom.
She shook her head. “I’m going back to Liverpool tonight. I stayed on an extra few days when I heard what he’d done… But I cannot leave the shop so long.”
“Did he give you a letter to his wife?” James hadn’t seen anything in her hand when she’d left Bellingham’s cell, and wondered at that, now.
She shook her head, and then gave a sad smile. “No. He says he will be able to tell her of his success himself. That he simply cannot be found guilty, and they will at last be compensated. That justice will finally be served.”
There was nothing to say to that.
“I saw him on Sunday afternoon, you know. The day before he…” She rubbed her forehead. “He took me and the friend I’m staying with on an outing, and he told me he had been putting something off, avoiding it, but that he would finally put it to rest on Monday, and be home shortly.” She shook her head. “I was just glad he would be coming back soon. I had no idea…”
A hansom pulled up, the horses dancing beneath their reins.
“Have a good journey, Miss Stevens.” James helped her up to the cab, and then paid the driver her fare.
“It’s all such a waste,” Mary Stevens said, as she settled herself in her seat.
James looked back at Newgate, dark and forbidding, and as the hansom disappeared down the street, thought the same.
Chapter Thirty-eight
James’s club was quiet.
It was a good hour before dinner, and only a few stalwarts occupied the deep armchairs scattered around the main room.
Dervish was in his usual place, and James saw he had called in Durnham and Aldridge as well.
He took a seat, and there was silence for a beat, while the murmur of voices and the clink of crystal glasses lulled them all.
“You have something?” Dervish asked at last.
He looked exhausted, and James guessed he had had almost no sleep since Perceval was murdered. He would have been getting as much intelligence as he could about how close England was to revolution.
James gave a nod. “You will not like it.”
Dervish closed his eyes and leaned back his head. “I’ve understood that since the moment I heard of the assassination.”
“Much as Henry II’s advisors would have felt, when they heard of the assassination of Thomas Becket, I imagine.”
There was absolute silence now. None of the men sitting in the small, private alcove so much as moved.
Dervish’s eyes had snapped open, and he was looking at James with such horror, James might as well have told him he’d murdered his mother.
“If it helps,” he said, “there is no way to prove it definitively. Harmer won’t be able to find anything to use in the trial tomorrow.”
“My God.” Dervish exploded from his seat, turned to the door, and took a few steps towards it. Then he stopped, turned back and sat again, hands gripping the arms of his chair. “Tell me.”
James looked at each man in turn, and saw he had their undivided attention. “A horrible coincidence happened sometime in February. The Prince Regent received a petition from John Bellingham, a seemingly ridiculous petition, and mentioned it to his friends. One of those friends happened to be General Gascoyne, who, as the Member of Parliament for Liverpool, where Bellingham lived, had received a personal visit from Bellingham around the same time. Something about Bellingham made him think the man was close to a very fine edge.
“This would have been just after Perceval had publicly humiliated the Prince Regent when he tried to remove Perceval from power. Words were most likely spoken in the Prince Regent’s private chambers, threats of violence against Perceval made. And suddenly, Gascoyne and a few of the Prince’s friends, including Sheldrake, Halliford and Bartlett, decided to help their friend be rid of the man who had been nothing but a thorn in the Prince’s side since he came into government.”
“And it didn’t hurt that it would be in their own interests, as well,” Durnham said. “Especially Gascoyne’s. Getting rid of Perceval would be a good way to get rid of the Orders in Council. The very thing that is ruining trade in Liverpool.”
“You say it will be hard to prove?” Durnham spoke as if his voice was rusty.
“Gascoyne admits to giving Bellingham money through an iron merchant who often acted as an informal bank, but pretends it was a charitable act, not a calculated move to make it possible for Bellingham to continue to stay in London. And I think Wilson, the iron merchant, will be long gone by now. Also, Sheldrake used one of his maids to befriend Bellingham, and pass him ridiculous legal advice that made it seem as if the law would be on his side if he took justice into his own hands. Sheldrake also hired a man to befriend Bellingham and encourage him.
“But in the end, it’s the maid’s word against a dead peer of the realm. Gascoyne won’t give himself away. He’s frightened, but he won’t lose his nerve, I don’t think.
“The only evidence we have is the original petition, which the Prince Regent must have left in his rooms after he’d laughed over it with his friends, and which Sheldrake must have stolen, just in case things didn’t go as planned. There was also a written list on how best to kill Perceval, but that was written by Bellingham himself and will only make the case against him stronger, if it existed, which it no longer does. Sheldrake burned it before he ran for the coast.”
“We’re forgetting the trial,” Aldridge spoke softly. “There is something wrong there, too.”
“Sir Vicary used to be the Prince Regent’s legal council, before he was made Attorney-General.” James steepled his fingers. “Someone has pressured him into getting this matter settled as fast as possible. Whether he thinks it’s to secure national peace, and get the threat of a radical revolution off the cards, or whether he thinks he’s shielding the Prince Regent from even a whiff of suspicion, is anyone’s guess.”
“No matter what the reason, he’s an accomplished enough lawyer to know he’s committing a travesty of justice.” Dervish’s voice was grim.
“And Bellingham is going to sail into that courtroom tomorrow, convinced he’s going to not only be found not guilty, but finally receive the compensation he’s been after since he returned from Russia.”
“You’ve spoken to him?” Durnham stretched out his legs, but he didn’t look relaxed, he looked furious.
James nodded. “I couldn’t question him too openly about what he knew with a guard right there, but he is in a delusional world when it comes to this. He sees everything that happened to him to keep him here in London as from his own efforts or luck. He is convinced he did this on his own.”
“And the Prince Regent?” Dervish looked like he wanted to leap out of his chair again, but managed to control the impulse. “How much of this does he know about, do you think?”
“He knows something. Enough that he’s nervous. Probably not the details, is my guess, but the general gist of it? Yes.”
“And he’s most likely nervous because it didn’t go the way they planned. They hoped the crowds would be pleased Perceval was gone, but the crowds didn’t stop there. They called for the Prince Regent to be next. It’s brought the whole country very close to
revolution.” Aldridge’s smile was savagely satisfied.
James nodded. “He honestly didn’t realize how unpopular he was.”
“He can have no illusions about it, now.” Dervish finally stood, but carefully. “I’m going home.”
They all rose from their chairs.
“I’m sorry there isn’t anything more substantial to bring you.” James said.
Dervish gave a bitter laugh. “I’m not. What would I do with it?” He rubbed a hand over his head, so his hair was sticking up at all angles when he was done. “And even if you did, no matter that they manipulated a man obsessed, he did pull the trigger himself.”
James inclined his head in silence. He felt he had let Bellingham down. “He wouldn’t have done it, you know, if they hadn’t given him money, given him terms like ‘without malice aforethought’ and encouraged him. From what witnesses said of his behavior after the event, he was in shock, and he dragged his heels over the deed, putting it off time and again. Sheldrake panicked because he thought he wouldn’t do it, but would start talking of it, and implicate them all. If it weren’t for them, Bellingham would have gone home.”
They were all quiet for a moment.
“Well then, when I’ve gotten some rest, and my temper under more control, I think I’ll just mention some of this to the Prince Regent.” Dervish’s eyes were as cold as his voice.
He bowed to them all and left, and James felt a small measure of satisfaction. Dervish would use this to rein the Prince Regent in a little.
It was better than nothing.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Friday, 15 May, 1812
Phoebe woke slowly, as the light of dawn spilled through the one uncovered window in her room. She lay staring across at it, wondering why the sound of the birds calling in her garden below was so much louder than usual, and then remembered she had left the window open.
She sat up abruptly.
She was still on top of the covers, just as she’d been when she’d lain down after dinner last night to wait for Wittaker. She was in her night shift and a gown, but someone had pulled a blanket over her.
A Dangerous Madness Page 22