“So, Fetherby, how do you?” I said, replenishing his tankard from the quart jug I’d ordered.
He nodded curtly, grumbling that the competition was a fix if ever he saw one, and gulped his drink as if afraid I might think the better of my generosity. “Not too well, Mr. Hopson. There’s too few who fill my mug. Too many like them willing to empty it from under my nose.” He grimaced in the direction of the rival arm wrestlers, who now appeared the best of friends.
I nodded my head at the nearly drained mug. “There’s more where that came from. And sixpence for your dinner if you can recall something for me.”
Fetherby set down his mug and gave me his undivided attention.
“What then?” he hissed. “Something concerning Miss Goodchild?”
“Why no,” I said sharply. “It’s news of Partridge that troubles me.”
“Who?”
“The journeyman. The one who’s departed from Chippendale’s.”
“I know nothing of that matter.”
“Perhaps you know more than you comprehend.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Some days ago were you summoned by Mr. Chippendale to move a craftsman’s tool chest?”
“Tool chest?” Fetherby poked at his wispy ear with his forefinger. “My memory’s not all it used to be, Mr. Hopson.”
“Then think harder, damn you. It would have been a large heavy chest, painted black. Can’t be so difficult to recall.”
“Rope handles?”
“Yes, I daresay—You do remember then?”
“Nearly cut my hand to the bone on account of ’em…’ad to get a lad to help me on the cart with it, and that weren’t easy. He insisted I came after eight…”
“He?”
Fetherby rolled his eyes at my stupidity. “Your master—Mr. Chippendale. Said I must come late when workshop was empty—so’s to cause no obstruction.”
“Anything else?”
“That the chest must be taken away ’cause the man ’ad gone. Tell no one where I took it.” He grinned, revealing his gum, in which only three stained, broken teeth sprouted.
“Where did you transport it?”
“Didn’t I just tell you? He said I mustn’t speak on it.”
I slid a sixpence over the table. “It will go no further if you do.”
The temptation was too much. Fetherby bit the coin before secreting it in his pocket.
“That was the worst. Gave me the address of some lodgings at a court near the Fleet. Insisted I take it that night. That instant. Or I’d not be paid, nor get more work from ’im.”
“Did he say why?”
“Didn’t question him.”
“And did you take it?”
“D’you reckon I might have turned him down after all ’is threats?” He shook his head again at my crassness. “Terrible place to get to. Obliged to carry it on my back the last part.”
“Might you find your way there again?”
“Didn’t you hear me? I’m forbidden. I’m not going there again, any rate. Place is crawling with those as’d cut your throat for the clothes off your back soon as say good day to you. I escaped with my life last time, I’ll not put it to the test again.”
“Fetherby, it is imperative I go there. I’ll pay you a shilling to take me.”
His face was mulish.
“Two shillings. My last offer.”
Another long silence, before he sighed heavily and, grasping the handle of the now empty tankard, gazed thirstily into it. “Two shillings and a bite first?”
“Done. But I must speak to Miss Goodchild beforehand. Here’s threepence for your food. Meet me at the yard within an hour.” I left him gnawing on bread and a wedge of greasy mutton.
I don’t know what sudden impulse had made me decide to call on Alice. She had made her dissatisfaction abundantly clear the previous afternoon, and I had no reason to suppose her feelings had changed. But her angry words continued to echo in my head. I felt an overwhelming urge to try to mend the rift between us, to explain myself, to apprise her of all that had happened since our last unhappy encounter. But what made me think she’d see me at all? Why, when she’d shown me how flighty and unreasonable she could be, did I value her opinion so highly? I thought of the warm and uncomplicated Molly Bullock, who last night had offered me a place in her bed. I’d refused, saying my head was sore from the fall I’d taken, not daring to tell her the reason my senses were in a spin was not the knock I’d received but a scolding from Alice Goodchild.
So it was that I strode briskly down the Strand and plunged into the narrow alley leading to her cottage. When I came to the door, I saw a stain of yellow candlelight flicker at the parlor window. I knocked boldly, trying to hold my gaze ahead—trying not to stare through the window at the shadowy forms that moved in response to my knock. Was she there? Would she answer? Through mottled panes I glimpsed what seemed a female form. I heard steps in the hall, a voice—her voice—call out.
“Who’s there?”
“Nathaniel Hopson.”
There was a long pause—an eternity, it seemed. The door opened a fraction, and I caught sight of a sliver of her face. She opened it a trifle wider. When she saw it was indeed I, she raised her chin and drew herself up, like a snake about to strike. “Did you not comprehend me yesterday when I said that I did not wish to see you on personal matters?” The tone of her voice was so disdainful it would have crushed bolder men than I, but I was determined to persist.
“I heard you, Miss Goodchild—but I feel honor bound to reason with you. I comprehend the reasons for your actions, nevertheless your judgment is unfounded. And since I regret this disagreement and wish most heartily to resolve our misunderstanding, I have come to implore you to give me leave to explain. Besides, I value your opinion and there’s much to tell.”
There was a long pause, during which I shuffled uncomfortably on the threshold, my fate in the balance, wondering which way she’d go.
“What makes you assume I wish to hear it?”
“Trust in your kindness…intelligence…curiosity…”
She blinked and bit the side of her cheek. Suddenly she seemed less sure of herself. “If I do consent to let you in, it will not be because I am less determined to keep my distance from you. On the contrary, it will be only because there’s something I must tell you, that slipped my mind yesterday. And it will be on my terms.”
“Name them.”
“You will explain what you were about yesterday. Although it is no concern of mine, and I confess I don’t know why I ask it. For, as I told you, I have determined to keep my distance.”
A small hope grew in my breast that her anger might be an indication that she cared for me a little. Or was I deluding myself?
“Have I not said I intend to do so? All I ask is that you listen to me. I assure you when you hear the truth of the matter you will laugh wholeheartedly about it—as will I.”
Warily, she opened the door and bade me enter. Now I could see her more clearly I thought she seemed paler and more nervous than usual, but whether this was due to our rift or some other cause I had no means of telling.
The parlor was once again in a state of complete disarray, with papers and dishes and mugs strewn across the table and floor. Her brother, Richard, was there. He nodded a brief greeting and, perhaps sensing our need for privacy, departed to the kitchen, where he started clattering pots and pans.
“Well?” she began abruptly, the minute the door closed behind him.
“Well,” I said, trying to keep my voice steadier than I felt. “May I sit to explain myself?”
She furrowed her brow. “I suppose you may. But don’t presume to make yourself comfortable until I’ve heard what you wish to say.”
I outlined the gist of my visit to Madame Trenti, how I was run down by some madman in a carriage, how Trenti had told me Partridge was her child. Alice heard me out but remained skeptical. “Ruffians and a runaway coach…it all sounds even more far-fetched
than a storybook,” she said scornfully.
I felt rather foolish. “There’s more to corroborate Madame Trenti’s account,” I persisted. “This morning Foley came to call and gave me a letter written by Partridge.” I handed the paper to her and shifted awkwardly by the fire, watching while she read. When she came to the part where Partridge described his agonies and Chippendale’s callousness, I heard her gasp and whisper, “This is indeed shocking.”
At length she looked up. “And so Partridge died because Trenti wished to exact revenge on Montfort for a crime committed two decades ago—and sent her son in her stead?” Here, it seemed, was the calm after the tempest. Her fury with me had vanished as swiftly as it had been stirred. I now detected only straightforward curiosity in her voice.
I nodded. “So it appears.”
“What will you do next?”
“I intend to go to Fleet.”
“Why there? ’Tis a most foul and dangerous place, full of warrens and alleys and lanes where all manner of vagabonds and wretches conceal themselves.”
“Fetherby took Partridge’s belongings to a lodging house there in the days after he disappeared—or rather was banished by Chippendale. Perhaps he left something in his room to shed light on this matter.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You cannot. It’s a menacing environ, as you said yourself. A young lady such as you would be in dire peril.”
She tossed the papers towards me and rose abruptly. “If you do not wish to rile me again, Mr. Hopson, you will stop treating me as a half-wit. Two days ago you involved me in your intrigue because you needed my assistance. A moment ago you said you valued my opinion, yet now you no longer need my help, in case I would be placing myself in dire peril. Don’t confuse the matter by citing my sex. I’m capable of running a business, and I’m certainly able to accompany you to Fleet.”
The set of her mouth warned me to tread carefully. Nonetheless I might have braved her anger and protested more, but at that moment Fetherby’s wagon creaked into the yard. She heard it as quickly as I, and before I could utter another word, she had fastened her cloak and clambered onto the wagon seat, from where she smiled defiantly down at me. “Are you coming, Mr. Hopson? D’you require assistance? Or shall I go with Fetherby alone?”
I got up beside her—what choice did I have? But I was damned if I’d let the matter go without a few words of warning. “I doubt you understand the danger you are putting yourself in, Miss Goodchild,” I said solemnly. “If you must come, for God’s sake stay close to me at all times.”
She looked sideways at me. “If I believe your reputation, it is you I should fear, Mr. Hopson,” she said slyly, “not the shadows of Fleet.”
Observing this charade from his platform, Fetherby cackled. “She knows her own mind. There are few like her, Mr. Hopson, and she’s saucy enough to be a match for you.”
“Shall we leave before our blood freezes, Fetherby?” I said pointedly. “Or have you further wisdom to bestow?”
We rumbled ponderously along Fleet Street and across the bridge to Ludgate Hill. Here we left the main thoroughfare and wound our way past the butchers’ stalls and slaughterhouses of Smithfield, into the labyrinthine alleys and courts within courts that mark the meanest London streets. Anyone familiar with our city will know the Fleet is famed in our time for its dreadful debtors’ prison, and that the inhabitants of that place have become so numerous as to spill over into the surrounding streets. Thus the reek of poverty was all around us, a stench of dung and blood and entrails unwashed from the gutter. The unlit streets were lined with gin shops, bawdy houses, pawnbrokers, and stalls, within which I imagined all manner of harlots, thieves, and beggars to reside. Sometimes the mud through which we rolled was so deep it seemed we meandered through a sea of tar. Sometimes the lanes were so narrow the wheels brushed the sides of the hovels and shacks that lined them. Whenever we spied pedestrians in the gloom ahead, we called out for them to flatten themselves or be crushed by the wheels. Through all this Alice showed no obvious sign of fear. She sat upright, silent, although when the cart jolted her cloak apart I caught sight of her hands clenched so tight that the nails must have bitten into her skin. Taking this as a sign she might be more fearful than she showed, I endeavored to distract her.
“You never told me what it was you wanted to say.”
“What?” She started, as if she’d almost forgotten I was there.
“When you let me in you said it was because there was something you wished to tell me.”
“So I did,” she replied. “It is curious, and I meant to tell you of it yesterday, only I believe my anger made it slip my mind.”
But I never discovered what it was, for at that moment Fetherby drew the wagon to an abrupt halt. “I can take you no further. You’ll have to go on by foot,” he announced, spitting a large globule of phlegm to the ground.
“But which way is it now? You must give us directions,” I said.
Fetherby swiveled round in his seat and sucked noisily on his gums. “Well now, let me consider. As I recall you take this lane till Foubert’s Court. Go through to the far end. There’s a yard, turn to your left. Across from the entrance to Mitre Court is an alehouse—Blue Boar, it’s called. Go in. Ask for Grace Webb—landlord’s wife, lets out rooms in her garret and cellar. That’s where I took the chest.”
Before I could hand Alice down she’d descended into the mire, lifting her skirts in one hand and holding the lantern aloft in the other to make it easier for me to avoid the potholes. I jumped down beside her, misjudged my step, and the mud oozed into the crevices of my shoes. I fancied I saw the corners of her mouth twitch, but she turned immediately to lead the way as Fetherby had directed.
We passed through a honeycomb of beggars’ lodging houses, brothels, rookeries, garrets, and night cellars. Most resembled heaps of rubbish rather than dwelling places, with wood or paper substituted for broken panes of glass, and holes in the walls stuffed by rags.
“What could have possessed him to choose such a vile place?”
“The answer is surely that no one would reside here from choice,” replied Alice. “He came, like everyone else here, because he had no choice.”
“Not necessarily. He might have wished himself untraceable—to lose himself in this maze. Was that what Chippendale forced him to?”
“It wasn’t essential to endure such squalor to lose himself. He could have left London, gone to the country.”
“But London was all he knew.”
By now we’d arrived at the threshold of the Blue Boar Alehouse, a miserable tumbledown mound of rotten beams and damp walls blackened by the surrounding filth. How Alice must have regretted her decision to accompany me as we turned the rusty handle in the door and entered. I thank God never to have entered such a hole of a place before or since and even now can barely dare to contemplate what she made of it all. The walls were as dark and putrid as those outside; in places great slabs of render had fallen from them, leaving the bricks and beams beneath leprously exposed. Spanning one wall was a crude counter hung with numerous tarnished tankards, bowls, jugs, cups, and flagons made of pewter, iron, and leather. Behind it a couple of harassed pot boys were busy filling these various receptacles from vast barrels and kegs, while an older man, a cutthroat rascal whom I presumed to be the landlord, leaned on the counter smoking a pipe. The whole room was in an uproar for, in the far corner, I now became aware, a couple of she-devils were engaged in combat. Their scratching and biting and hitting engagement had bloodied and bruised their faces and shredded their clothes so that their bare bosoms were exposed to view, much to the delight of the cheering crowd of men surrounding them.
At our inquiry the landlord crossly tore himself away from the spectacle and shouted at one of the pot boys to call his wife, who was presently occupied in the kitchens. Grace Webb, a small stout woman with a vast globular bosom suspended over a corpulent torso, appeared some minutes later. Her generous proportions did not reflect an
amiable temperament. She emerged from her kitchen scowling furiously, sausage fingers braced upon fleshy hips.
“What the devil is this about? I’m up to my elbows in suet and tripe and you summon me?”
“I do beg your pardon, my dearest,” said the landlord with mock gentility. “There’s two fine people who wish to speak with you.”
She snorted with disdain. “Why should I be interested in their questions, pray?”
“It’s this lady and gentleman here.” He winked and added in an undertone, “I’ve a feeling they’ll be generous with those that help them. ’Tis the gentleman with the chest they’re after. The one who’s not paid his dues for two weeks.”
She reconstructed her expression from fury to shifty curiosity.
“What is it then?” she demanded.
“Madam,” I replied, bowing slightly and pressing a shilling in her hand, “I believe you recently gave lodgings to a man by the name of John Partridge, and that his work chest was delivered here a fortnight ago?”
She looked at the shiny coin and then back at me. “And what of it?”
“John Partridge was an acquaintance of mine. I would like to see his things—and make arrangements to remove them.”
“Was?”
“He died recently, in tragic circumstances.”
“Damnation if you will! How dare he die without paying my rent. I should’ve known better than to take him in the first place. There’s four shillings due and you’ll not touch anything till it’s paid. I’ll ’ave to sell his things to cover my costs.”
The Grenadillo Box: A Novel Page 18