by Roy Lewis
So there I was in the late 1840s, still a junior member of the bar, but making more than five thousand a year. I was asking a hundred guineas as a brief fee, and when I attended the assizes at York or Newcastle I called for a further hundred as a retainer. My clerk, Villiers, was kept busy bringing the money in.
Trouble was, I didn’t seem to be seeing much of it.
The fact is, it’s a great thing to dine with high society, but it’s also an expensive business. To become a social lion is grand, but it’s also costly: clothes, carriages, the need to visit casinos, gambling clubs, demonstrate bravery in placing a bet and careless indifference when losing badly. But I sailed along happily on a sea of witticisms, bon mots, anecdotes from the courts and gay expenditure at the tables.
Which was where my next, unexpected stroke of luck came forth. Unfortunately, once again, from the hands of Lewis Goodman.
After the Derby fiasco I had not seen him for some time: I made certain payments to him when my debts grew embarrassingly high but that meant no personal appearance before him. That was the way I preferred things. So when I saw Porky Clark making his way towards me across the crowded floor of the casino that particular evening, I groaned: I guessed it could mean an unpleasant interview. In fact, there was no sign of Goodman himself, and Porky contented himself by handing me a slip of paper.
It was a succinct note.
‘My Dear James,
I would consider it a favour if you were able to assist me in looking after one of our clients this evening. He is winning considerably at rouge et noir, but is somewhat affected by wine. If anything should happen to him, scandal could affect the club. Can you arrange to accompany him to his carriage as early as possible? I note that you have a bill due for payment on Monday. In return for this assistance, I would deem it paid.
Sincerely,
Lewis Goodman’
A shiver of anticipation ran down my back. The night house owner would not enjoy the run of luck his client was having but I knew what was really bothering Goodman: he owned a range of night houses in the West End and he could suffer badly if a scandal involving a young aristocrat emerged.
I glanced across the room. Porky Clark, standing beside me, touched my arm and gestured towards a particular table. It was surrounded by a group of men, watching the obviously extraordinary run of success being enjoyed by a tousle-haired young buck. He was seated at the tables now, flushed, excited, and clearly on an extended winning run. His dark, curly hair was damp, his eyes sparkling with drink and his hands trembled with inebriated excitement as he gathered in his chips. It would not be easy to winch him away from the scene of his continuing success but as I moved closer towards the table I realized why Goodman was particularly concerned. It wasn’t just the money. I looked at Porky Clark, and nodded. Saving this young man from making a fool of himself had two advantages: it would cancel one of my debts to Goodman, but even more important, it would perhaps place me in the good books of his father, whom I had met only twice in the Reform Club. Nodding terms only. Perhaps that situation could improve.
For the young man playing recklessly at rouge et noir was the son of the Attorney General of England.
I did not know young Jervis well, though I had met him on a few occasions at Westminster Hall, and he was a member of my own Inn, the Inner Temple. Now, I walked casually across the room and edged my way into the gathering, until I stood behind the Attorney General’s son. He was playing wildly, and yet his recklessness was paying off and he was well ahead of the table. He was also drunk. I leaned over him and offered my advice. He turned his head and grinned at me.
‘Stop while I’m ahead?’ he laughed. ‘It’s my lucky night!’
I wasn’t quite sure that he recognized me and there was little I could do to dissuade him on his current successful play. So I stepped back and waited. He soon began to find that his luck was changing: he still won occasionally, but there were losses too. He was nevertheless well ahead up to the point that the dealer was changed. I watched the changeover: it had significance, I was certain. Goodman would have ordered the replacement: the new dealer, a lean, dark-eyed, cold-featured man with long, predatory fingers would have more control over events. There would now be discreet cheating in the wind.
‘Time to leave now,’ I whispered in Jervis’s ear. ‘I know this new man. You’ll see a change in your luck, believe me.’
The young barrister leaned back in his seat. Some of the sense behind what I was saying filtered through his drink-sodden mind. With more control than I had ever managed to achieve myself when at the tables, he contemplated the green baize before him in silence, glowered, then almost dazedly collected his chips. He rose to his feet, staggering slightly. He stared at me, and recognition now glimmered in his eyes. ‘James.…’
‘Come. I’ll give you a hand, see you to a cab,’ I offered.
I collected our capes and canes and assisted young Jervis towards the doors.
The night house owned by Goodman lay in a side lane just off the Strand. When we lurched out into the shuttered street outside all was dark except for occasional gleams of light filtering from closed casement windows in the mean houses nearby. Wisps of cold fog drifted at head height, blurring the eyes with a sharp pungency, a real London Particular if you know what I mean. At two in the morning the cold had a cutting edge to it, seeming to slice into the bones. Young Jervis was now leaning heavily on my arm as I looked around for a waiting hansom cab. He was very drunk and the cold night air seemed to have hit him almost like a blow to the skull.
The doors to the night house closed behind us with a solid thud and we found ourselves isolated in the darkened street.
Unusually, there was no cabman plying for hire to be seen on the dimly lit cobbles. But I guessed if we made our way along the greasy stones towards the main thoroughfare that dimly beckoned to us some fifty yards distant we would soon find a conveyance to take us to my chambers, or those of my companion, whom I recalled vaguely as being lodged near to the Inner Temple.
We staggered forward, Jervis’s arm firmly lodged in mine, and I cursed Lewis Goodman roundly under my breath: this was not the manner in which I was accustomed to ending my nights on the town. Additionally, this evening there was a certain complaisant lady, neglected wife of a laudanum-addicted baronet, waiting expectantly in St John’s Wood … but she would have to wait. At least looking after Jervis would serve to cancel a pecuniary transaction with the night club owner.…
We were some twenty yards from the corner that debouched into the main thoroughfare of the Strand when they materialized out of the haziness of the fog. There were three of them, broad-shouldered, flat-capped, hulking apparitions, armed with cudgels. They emerged from a side alley and were making their way directly towards us but their approach was neither hesitant nor indeterminate: I instantly realized that we were targets. Whether they had been lying in wait for specific individuals emerging from the night house, or we simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time I had no opportunity to determine.
You, my boy, as a man of the sea, you will have knowledge of dockside brawls, no doubt, and your mother has often told me you do not lack bravery. But as for me, well, I have no hesitation in confirming that I had never been over-endowed with physical courage, and I must admit that my first inclination at a possible confrontation was always to turn and run, but my companion’s arm was still linked with mine and he chose this inopportune moment to gently slide towards the cobbles, sighing deeply, clearly dizzy, finally overcome by the night air, and befuddled with drink. As the thugs advanced on us I tried desperately to drag Jervis to his feet, turn with me and run back to hammer at the closed doors of the night house we had just left but he complained drunkenly and incoherently, clinging to my arm like a dead weight as the three villains grew closer. I caught a glimpse of raised cudgels and knew we were done for: the area was well known for being haunted by garrotters and I feared the worst. I struggled to release myself from young Jervis’s gri
p so I could take to my heels and leave him to his fate but he hung on tightly in his drunken stubbornness and his weight brought me down with him so that I myself stumbled to my knees. In panic I raised my free arm instinctively to protect my head. There was a swishing sound, and I felt a sharp pain on my forearm, but it was a glancing blow, merely. There would be further blows, I knew, and more crushing. I was on my knees, and John Jervis was huddled against me, helplessly, grunting out the garbled words of some obscene drinking song. There was a stamping of feet, a whirling of bodies, and I heard the clashing of cudgels but amazingly I felt no more blows raining down upon me.
Scraping and stamping and shouting and swearing, heavy breathing, hobnailed boots striking sparks on the cobbled road: I felt I was in the middle of some crazed whirligig and a heavy body suddenly thudded into me, knocked me sideways and then rolled beside me on the cobbles before rising hurriedly again, scrambling back into the darkness behind him. A confused shouting still whirled around me; there was the stink of sweat in my nostrils and I lowered my protective arm, looked fearfully about me to make out bodies closely locked, struggling in some kind of stamping, macabre dance in the drifting fog. A further clashing of cudgels, and a stray heavy boot thudded into my ribs, but I got the impression it was a wayward blow, not even directed towards me. But it slammed the breath out of my lungs and I sank down again, winded. I still feared the worst. But there were no more blows, I heard the clattering of running feet, caught a glimpse of vague outlines fading into the wisps of fog and then a sudden silence, broken only by the harsh breathing of a single individual, half-seen, wide-shouldered, shaven-headed, heavy and almost ungainly, looming over me in the darkness.
‘Mr James … are you all right?’
Thick gnarled fingers closed on my arm, hauling me to my staggering feet until I was clasped to a broad chest. The heavy features of my rescuer were thrust into mine and I smelled onions and beer on his breath. Satisfied that I was not seriously hurt, my rescuer turned away and hauled to his legs the muttering drunkard at my feet. When he leaned young Jervis into my grasp, it was only then that I recognized our saviour. It was the pugilist, well known as Lewis Goodman’s fixer: Porky Clark.
The scarred, battered features were thrust close into mine again, as though he was reassuring himself I was not badly hurt. He began to brush me down, removing dirt from my shoulders and chest, then, after a moment, he nodded satisfaction and let out a gusty, beer-and-pie flavoured breath. ‘Mr Goodman don’t like trouble so close to his place,’ he muttered.
‘Where … where did they come from?’ I asked shakily.
‘Them pack rats? There’s an alley back of the night house,’ Porky replied, nodding in the general direction of Goodman’s premises. ‘It’s happened afore. The villains will’ve been watching for gennlemen like yous coming out with full pockets.’
‘And where did you come from?’ I wondered.
He hesitated. The question seemed to bewilder him for a few moments. He scratched his stubbly chin, picked up the battered billycock hat he seemed to have mislaid during the scrimmage with the three thugs and ran a hand over his shaven head. ‘Came out afore you, Mr James. Just to take a look around, like.’
There was something unconvincing in his brief explanation, but I thrust the thought aside. I took a deep breath, caressed my injured rib with a gentle hand and swore. ‘It’s as well you came out too, Porky, or we’d have been well and truly turned over.’
‘They was just amatoors,’ he opined, grandly boastful. ‘They was ’specting easy targets. I put the boot into them. Come on, Mr James, let’s get you and Mr Jervis to the Strand. There’ll be hansoms there. We’ll get you and the young ’onnerble home straightaway.’
He was right. As soon as we emerged stumbling from the dark side street we saw a cab standing there, almost as if it had been waiting for us. Porky Clark raised a hand to the driver, then half-lifted young Jervis inside where he collapsed on the horse-hair seat like a bundle of old clothes. Porky stepped back as I ascended, clutching my sore rib.
‘Best not tell Mr Goodman about this,’ he muttered. ‘He don’t like his gennlemen bein’ took after they leave the house.’
It would have been the reason Porky had come out into the street before we emerged, I had no doubt. He would be well aware of the dangers that the streets outside the night house might offer to the unwary. He closed the door behind me, and instructed the driver. ‘Inner Temple.’
There was the crack of a whip, the cab lurched on its way and Porky Clark was lost once more in the enveloping darkness of the side street.
Beside me, young Jervis was leaning his curly-locked head on my shoulder, and he had begun to snore. I guessed that later that morning he would have little recollection, if any, of the encounter in the alley. He would certainly not be aware that Porky Clark had come to our rescue. I slipped my hand into the pocket of his coat: his purse was still stowed safely there, and it felt comfortably swollen with the night’s winnings. I found my fingers itching with a momentary temptation: by extracting a few notes I could make up for some of my own losses that evening, and I had, after all, provided a service to the young rascal. But I resisted the temptation.
It would hardly be wise to relieve the son of the Attorney General of some of his winnings at rouge et noir. There was a line that had to be drawn.…
So we rattled through the darkened streets to the Inner Temple, and after depositing him at his lodgings I made my way by cab to my assignation in St John’s Wood. The lady in question squealed at my dishevelled state and caressed my sore rib tenderly after I explained my heroics of the evening. She was also tenderly acquiescent when I identified other areas of my anatomy that urgently required her soothing attention.…
I felt appreciated and not a little proud of my bold activities of the evening.
3
As I’ve already explained, my adventures in the courtrooms had given me a certain notoriety that was awarded by social lionizing. At that particular time I had been the subject of numerous dinner invitations by notable members of society. A week or so after the incident at Goodman’s night house in the Strand I received an invitation to a Friday to Monday occasion at the seat of the Earl of Yarborough, in Norfolk. I was delighted to receive the invitation, though not surprised, because I had recently had occasion to act for him in a rather unpleasant forgery case: he had been pleased with the result and when I met him later by chance, at The Casino, when he was somewhat in his cups, he had issued the invitation. It meant a certain amount of expense for me: a hired carriage to convey me into Norfolk, new clothes, an attendant temporary servant, but it was too important an invitation to back away from. Such invitations from people in High Society could be as rare as bustards in Norfolk for someone who was just reaching the lower rungs of the social scene, as I was at that time.
And the company was certainly glittering that evening: Lady Beauvale, Attorney General Sir John Jervis, Lady Clanricarde, Viscount Palmerston, Sir Charles Greville (along for the gossip, I had no doubt), Captain Gronow, Lord Esher, my learned friend Alexander Cockburn and others whose names have faded in my memory. Oh, yes, I was in exalted company.
It was before dinner on the first evening that Sir John Jervis caught my eye, and motioned to me to stand aside with him near the windows. We stood side by side, each with a glass of Marsala in hand, and admired the view of the sloping lawns in the fading light. But the Attorney General clearly had something on his mind and after very little prevarication Sir John turned to me and smiled. ‘Certain rumours have been rippling around the Temple.’
‘When have there not, Sir John?’ I queried, shrugging.
‘This particular rumour concerns a member of my family,’ the Attorney General observed. ‘It seems there was some kind of fracas in which he became involved … after an evening at the card tables. My son has no great recollection of the details, it seems, but I have it on good authority that he escaped a beating, and robbery, as a result of your personal interve
ntion. I am told that you yourself have made no reference to this event, but nevertheless the story has got out. Three thugs set upon you, I am told … and there was some injury to yourself.’
I touched my rib, which was still sore and shook my head, pouting slightly in a deprecating fashion. Whoever had been telling the tale seemed to have made no reference to the part played by Porky Clark.
Sir John Jervis regarded me keenly for a few moments. ‘I have not yet had the occasion to thank you personally for the assistance you rendered my son John on that evening.’
‘It was a matter of chance,’ I protested, though as you can imagine, not too vehemently.
‘Nevertheless, if you had not been in the vicinity there could have been serious consequences.’
He was silent for a few moments. Sir John Jervis had a somewhat gentle demeanour for a lawyer and successful Parliamentarian. He had a high, pale forehead, dark greying hair receding towards the crown. His eyes were brown, and warm. His face was long, his features regular and he seemed to exude an air of quiet friendliness. He was highly regarded in Government for his sincerity and straight dealing. He had a reputation for honesty. On the other hand he never seemed to be entirely in good health: he suffered much from asthma, you know. It killed him in the end, at a relatively young age, too. But as we stood by the window looking out over the rolling Yarborough estates he was observing me sideways with a kindly glance. ‘I hear that your practice grows apace.’