The evening was cool, but dry, a stiff breeze blowing off the Thames and carrying the smell of wet mud and a tang of fish. A distant splash of oars could be heard as someone made a late-night crossing to Southwark, the cheerful greeting of the ferryman clearly audible in the silence as he called out to an oncoming boat. Every sound carried on the wind, the night alive around the two men as they hurried along, their heads bowed, hands in their pockets. Hugo squeezed a leather pouch full of coin to keep it from jangling as he walked, moving stealthily behind Archie, close enough to the walls to become virtually invisible.
It took them nearly half an hour to reach their destination. Archie looked around, then fished a large iron key out of his pocket and unlocked the shed, speaking softly to the old mare that was munching on hay and gazing about without any interest. Archie took out an apple and fed it to the horse while Hugo checked the bed of the wagon to make sure they had everything they needed. Two shovels, a wooden ladder, and a length of rope were there, as was a lantern and an old blanket. A blunderbuss, carefully wrapped in some old rags was hidden under the bench of the wagon in case of emergency.
Archie hitched the horse to the wagon and led it quietly out of the shed, locking it behind him. The two men climbed onto the bench and drove in silence down the empty streets. Most Londoners were already abed, so there was no light spilling from windows; the streets shrouded in nearly impenetrable darkness, making their progress slower than Hugo would have liked. A few taverns were still open, and there was an occasional burst of light and sound as a door opened and disgorged a few patrons, mostly drunk and ready for their beds, but otherwise all was quiet. Archie held the reins, leaving Hugo to his own thoughts. Hugo muttered a heartfelt prayer. He’d lost count of how many prayers he’d sent up to the Lord, begging for Neve to be all right and for their plan to work, but the Lord was quiet, indifferent as usual.
They finally reached the church, and Archie hobbled the horse just around the corner, hoping it was sufficiently out of sight so as not to arouse anyone’s suspicions. Hugo wasn’t even sure which church this was, but it didn’t matter. Archie had spent the last few days searching for what they needed, and found it here. Hugo didn’t bother to ask, just jumped off the bench, reached into the back for the equipment and followed Archie through the gate, casting one last look at the horse who’d found some clumps of grass to chew on and seemed happy enough.
Thankfully, there was a full moon, but thick clouds floated lazily by, obscuring the shining orb for several minutes at a time and throwing the graveyard into almost complete darkness. Wind moved through the ancient trees, the leaves rustling ominously and blocking out the moonlight beneath them. Lighting a lantern was too dangerous, so they moved slowly, tripping over headstones which had nearly sunk into the ground, and cursing quietly as they made their way toward the southern wall where the grave was. It had no gravestone, having been dug only a week ago, but the mound of earth was fresh and still wet from last night’s rain.
Archie squinted at the wooden cross driven into the ground at the head of the grave, but wasn’t able to make out the name until the clouds parted and the moon cast a beam of light onto the scene. “Mary Baxter,” Archie read and nodded. “That’s the one.”
Hugo set the unlit lantern on the neighboring grave, threw down the rope and the ladder and drove his shovel into the earth. The ground had been soaked the night before, making the damp earth heavy and slippery. It would have been much easier to dig had it been dry, but they had no choice. Archie removed his hat and hung it on the cross, then rolled up his sleeves. He’d tied a dark kerchief around his head, partly to cover up his bright hair, and partly to absorb the sweat that was freely running down his face after only a few minutes of digging.
Hugo took off his coat, but kept the hat on to hide his blond hair. He should have gotten a kerchief too, but he hadn’t thought of it. Sweat coursed down his face as he threw shovelful after shovelful of dirt on the mound growing by the side of the grave. His shirt was soaked with sweat, his arms burning with the effort, but they weren’t even a foot in. Five more feet of earth to dig. Hugo had often helped out during the harvest and with the haymaking, but he wasn’t used to this type of work. His arms were shaking with the effort; the muscles crying out in protest at the forced exercise. Hugo ignored the discomfort and continued to dig; his face set in grim lines as he tried to dig faster.
Archie wiped his face with his sleeve, grunting with effort as he raised the shovel higher and higher to toss the earth out of the deepening grave. They were both filthy, sweaty, and covered with wet mud. The handle of the shovel slid in Hugo’s hands, so he put on a pair of coarse gloves and continued to dig. He tried not to think about what they were doing. Under normal circumstances, he’d never desecrate a grave. Someone’s final resting place was sacred, and this was consecrated ground — a holy place. Hugo mentally asked the young woman for forgiveness, hoping that she would understand his need had she been able to hear him. This was an act of desperation, one he couldn’t afford to get too philosophical about. It was the only way, so he forced thoughts of Mary Baxter from his exhausted brain and continued to dig mindlessly, intentionally clearing his brain.
Archie began to hum a song and Hugo joined in, finding that the rhythm helped with the digging. They were now about halfway down, so Archie jumped out and brought down the ladder to make getting in and out easier. The ladder sank right into the earth, but after they were finished, they could set it on the lid of the coffin to keep it from sinking further when they climbed out. It was also safe to light the lantern, since no one would see the feeble light coming from beneath the earth even if they passed by the cemetery at this late hour. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds about a half hour since and failed to reappear, making the lantern necessary. They continued to dig, painfully conscious of how much longer this was taking than originally anticipated. Hugo had allotted two hours, but they still had a ways to go, not counting filling the grave back in once they were done.
Hugo breathed a sigh of relief as his shovel finally hit the wooden lid of the coffin. He was trembling with fatigue, his arms on fire from digging through six feet of packed earth.
Archie pried open the black-painted lid of the oak coffin with a crowbar and stood back. They stared in silence at the corpse wrapped in a linen shroud. Hugo crossed himself as Archie unwrapped the fabric around the face and held up the lantern to take a look at the girl. She was no older than twenty, her face pale and round, her lashes dark against her cheeks. Mary’s hair had been carefully brushed and plaited, the end of the braid tied with a blue ribbon. She was wearing what must have been her best dress, but it was obvious that this girl had come from a poor family, the dress a prickly brown homespun.
Hugo briefly wondered what Mary had died of since her face showed no signs of illness, but Archie poked him in the ribs, and he set to work. Archie tested the ladder to make sure it was set securely in the ground and went up a few rungs before reaching for the girl. Hugo carefully lifted her out of the coffin and passed her to Archie, who climbed out and set her on top of the stone slab of the nearest grave. Hugo replaced the lid of the coffin, climbed out of the grave, and went to work hastily refilling the yawning hole. They had to hurry. The church clock showed 2:20 a.m., so they didn’t have much time.
Filling in the grave was much easier than emptying it, so by 3 a.m. the site looked much as it had before it’d been desecrated. Hugo and Archie grabbed their tools and lifted the corpse. The clouds had dissipated somewhat, making it easier to see as they carried the girl through the graveyard toward the gate. Hugo hoped the horse and wagon were still there, and thankfully they were. The horse shied away as it smelled the corpse, which mercifully was in the very early stages of decomposition. The horse neighed in protest, but Archie gave it another apple and it quieted down and stood still, allowing them to lay Mary on the bed of the wagon.
Archie grabbed the reins, and Hugo jumped up onto the bench next to him. His hands were callo
used and bleeding in some spots; the skin caked with dirt, as was pretty much the rest of him. His clothes were filthy, his hair damp with perspiration, and his face streaked with dirt. Archie looked no cleaner and smiled at Hugo as he noticed his gaze.
“We really look the part of grave-robbers, don’t we?” he said as he maneuvered the horse around the corner. “I do feel sorry for what we’ve done. Feels wrong, but not much choice in the matter. I’m sure she would understand.”
“I don’t know about that,” Hugo replied warily. “We disturbed her resting place and took her out of hallowed ground. Whoever loved her would not understand if they knew. I wish there had been another way.”
“So do I. I’d seen her funeral. There were just her parents and brothers, but they were broken up with grief. I’d say Mary was much loved in life, and she will be missed in death.” Both Hugo and Archie grew quiet, contemplating the young woman who bounced along in the bed of the wagon, going on a journey she never expected.
Grave-robbing would not go unnoticed, and Hugo prayed they wouldn’t have to do it again. It took Archie several days to find a grave of a young woman who’d been very recently buried. He’d been lucky to stumble onto the funeral of Mary and note the location of the grave. A lot of graves had no age marked on them nor the date of death, so it was risky to just dig one up and find a woman who’d been seventy or been buried long enough to decompose. They’d needed a woman under thirty; one who was still fresh enough to pass for someone who’d just died.
The dark bulk of Newgate Prison finally came into view, making Hugo’s heart beat faster. There were no lights in the few windows, only a torch burning at every exit. The building was low and squat, the walls made of solid stone, reminiscent of a tomb. For some it was. Most people who entered the prison left either to be buried or to be executed. Few were pardoned or exonerated. It was a place of fear and death, a place of the worst kind of human misery, and Neve was inside. Hugo had never been inside Newgate, but he could imagine what it was like.
Archie counted the doors until he found the one he was looking for and walked the horse over with his hand on the bridle. He knocked softly. A fat, youthful gaoler with very bad skin unlocked the door, his eyes round with apprehension.
“I thought ye wasn’t comin’,” he whispered urgently. “I’d been waitin’ for hours; me shift’s nearly over,” he hissed. “Where’s me money?”
Archie held the fat leather purse in his hand and let it dangle in front of the guard for a few moments as if he were trying to hypnotize him. The guard smiled, revealing a mouth that had only five teeth. He reached for the purse, but Archie snatched it away, giving the man a look of reproach. “Not till the deed is done,” he said.
“Fine, but be quick about it. I don’t want no trouble. ‘Tis the last cell on yer left. The door’s unlocked.”
“Watch the horse and wagon,” Archie ordered the guard, beckoning to Hugo, who’d remained silent. His educated accent would have given him away, so he had to remain mute. Archie took one look at Hugo and whispered urgently. “Stay here; I’ll do the rest. You look done in. Believe me when I tell you that you don’t need to see how things are on the inside. You have enough fodder for your nightmares.”
“I’m coming with you,” Hugo said quietly. Archie didn’t argue.
“Help me get her off the wagon then.”
They grabbed Mary under the arms and by the ankles. Rigor mortis had set in, making her heavy, stiff, and difficult to maneuver through the narrow corridors. Hugo gasped at the horrible stench inside the walls, but didn’t say a word. His boots stuck to the stone floor, making weird sucking and squelching noises as he moved his feet. The walls were weeping damp; the smell of mildew mixing with all the other odors swirling in the cavernous space.
The prison had absolutely no sanitation of any kind. The prisoners pissed, shat, ejaculated, and menstruated right where they sat, ate, and slept. No one ever cleaned the cells or allowed the prisoners to wash. The place was infested with fleas, lice, and rats, and was a cesspool of waste and infection. Most of the prisoners they passed seemed to be asleep, but a few just sat there, staring at nothing, mumbling to themselves, or moaning in their sleep.
Hugo could feel the desperation of the prison envelop him, and wondered how God could permit such horrors to be inflicted on human beings, even if they were guilty of a crime. Not for the first time he compared his own time to the future he’d visited, and wished that there could have been a way for him and Neve to remain in the twenty-first century. She’d made a tremendous sacrifice by coming back with him, and this was her reward.
“That’s the cell,” Archie whispered as he pulled open the door and maneuvered the corpse inside. Hugo lowered Mary’s ankles and sank down next to the immobile woman on the floor. He pushed aside the filthy hair and stared at the face. His hands shook, and his vision blurred as he looked at Neve. She was barely recognizable, her cheeks sunken and her flesh so gray as to appear almost dead. Hugo lowered his head and listened to her chest. The heartbeat was faint and the breathing shallow, but thankfully she was still alive.
“The corpse is too clean,” Archie whispered as he looked at Neve. “Look at the state of her. They’ll know right away something is amiss.”
“What do you propose?” Hugo asked. He hated the idea of desecrating Mary’s corpse, but they had no choice. She had to appear like someone who’d been in prison for some time: filthy, smelly, and barely human. Archie unrolled the shroud and passed it to Hugo who wrapped it carefully around Neve.
Hugo turned away as Archie unplaited the girl’s hair and rubbed some excrement into it as well as onto her face. He unlaced his breeches and urinated onto the girl, soaking her clean homespun in a stream of urine. Hugo felt the bile rise in his throat, but he knew this was absolutely necessary. Archie rolled the corpse around the cell, getting her as filthy and ragged as possible before propping her up in the corner.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” he said. Hugo could hear a hint of tears in Archie’s voice, but this was no time for remorse; that would come later.
“Let’s go.” Hugo lifted Neve into his arms as Archie held open the door for him to pass. She was so much lighter than before, her body weight depleted by the starvation rations of the prison. Compared to Mary’s corpse, Neve was feather-light and terribly fragile. The two men hurried through the dim corridors and out of the prison before someone noticed what they were about and tried to stop them. Hugo brought some extra coin in case they needed to bribe another guard to let them leave, but thankfully, there was no one awake or sober enough to care. Hugo and Archie gulped fresh air as they exited the prison. The autumn night never smelled so good. Hugo gently laid Neve on the bed of the wagon as Archie paid off the impatient guard.
“Did ye leave everything as ye found it?” he asked, already closing the door.
“Aye, we did,” Archie replied as he jumped up on the bench and took up the reins.
Hugo opened the shroud around Neve’s face to give her some fresh air. Her lashes were stuck together as if from crying, and he could see tear tracks on her dirty face as the moon illuminated her sallow skin. Neve’s lips were bloodless and cracked, her hair so dark with grime that it was a completely different color. Hugo wanted to howl with despair as he looked at her, but he couldn’t afford to give vent to his emotions. They’d gotten her out, and just in time by the looks of it, and now it was imperative to get her back to Brad’s house unnoticed to be nursed back to health.
They drove away from Newgate at a stately pace so as not to draw attention to themselves. The clip-clop of the horse’s hooves seemed unbearably loud to Hugo, the rattle of wheels deafening in the impenetrable silence of the night. In about an hour, the streets would start to fill up with produce and dairy wagons, farmers bringing goods to market and to the kitchens of the wealthy, but for now, the streets were eerily empty. Once they were sufficiently far away from the prison, Archie accelerated to a trot, taking them directly to Brad’s house, which looked un
inhabited from the outside. All the windows were shuttered with not a chink of light showing through the cracks, and only a thin spiral of smoke curling from one of the chimneys into the inky sky.
Hugo lifted Neve out of the wagon and entered by the back way, leaving Archie to see to the horse and wagon. There could be no evidence of tonight’s activities, so the wagon would have to be disposed of immediately. The horse would be sold off tomorrow, but for tonight, it would stay in Brad’s stable after pulling the wagon to some remote spot where it would be left for someone to find.
“Oh, thank God, Hugo,” Brad breathed as he met Hugo with a single candle. “Is she all right?”
“Far from it,” Hugo replied, carrying Neve carefully up the stairs to a room at the back of the house, where a merry fire was crackling and buckets of water stood at the ready near a copper tub.
“The water has cooled. I was expecting you over an hour ago. Was it difficult?” he asked as he took a cauldron of boiling water off the flames and poured some into the tub to warm up the lukewarm water.
“It was,” Hugo replied, not wishing to dwell on the details, particularly the disrespect they showed to Mary’s body. He felt terrible about that, but it couldn’t be helped. The needs of the living came before those of the dead.
“Did you bring what I asked for?” Hugo asked, looking around.
“There’s a cake of soap, a jug of vinegar, honey, whiskey, towels, and a clean shift. Do you want my help?” he asked, but Hugo just shook his head and cut his eyes at the door.
Brad closed the door softly behind him just as Hugo pulled out his dagger and sliced off every stitch of Neve’s clothing, throwing everything on the fire. His insides quivered as he took in her emaciated form. How was it possible for a person to change this much in ten days? Neve’s face was gray, her mouth slack, and deep purple shadows formed half-moons beneath her eyes, but it was her body Hugo needed to examine. He forced himself to look down for signs of abuse. There were bites on her arms and ankles, but no other bruising. Hugo took a deep breath as he carefully pushed her legs apart, and nearly cried with relief when he saw no blood. She hadn’t been raped or suffered a miscarriage, which was a blessing. Hugo’s stomach unclenched a fraction as he went to work.
Wonderland (Wonderland Series: Book 2) Page 9