Watery Grave

by Bruce Alexander

  “The fact is, I’d see you whether you bought from me or not. You’re a good, plucky boy, Jeremy. Remember that day we chased them black-suited devils away?”

  “Oh, I do, sir,” said I, most enthusiastic.

  “We showed them, didn’t we? ” He shook his head in thought, giving a most queer smile as if the memory he had called up gave him both pleasure and pain.” Remember me to your mistress. Next?”

  And I was pushed aside by a cook in a great hurry. The package of meat under my arm, and my other purchases filling my hands, I started back to Bow Street. I knew not altogether why, but I felt quite filled with emotion by the encounter. Could we, when young, but understand as well as we feel, how wise we would be.

  Arriving home, I found a stranger in our kitchen giving his attention to Sir John. He was a small man oi no particular distinction, perhaps the keeper oFa little shop, or a clerk. He held his tricorn tight in his two hands before him and gave me a quick, nervous smile as I went silently to the kitchen table and unloaded my packages. iMrs. Gredge was seated there, Fully dressed, in an attitude of waiting, looking no better nor worse than she had the day before. She threw me a glance, no more, then lowered her eyes as she continued to listen to Sir John.

  “… and since, in regard to her many long years of service in my household, I feel an obligation —nay, a duty —to provide for her in her declining years, I have decided to settle upon her an amount of one pound a month.”

  “Oh, but that is most generous, sir,” said the small man. He squeezed his tricorn even tighter. I feared he might crush it altogether.

  “You are married, are you not?”

  “I am, yes sir.”

  “And you have children?”

  “We been blessed with three.”

  “And a noisier trio of rascals you never heard,” squawked Mrs. Gredge in her inimitable jackdaw manner. Her tongue still seemed a bit large for her mouth.

  “Aw Mama,” protested the small man, quite evidently her son, “you ain’t been by for a couple of years. They ain’t like that now.”

  “That’s as may be, ” said Sir John, “yet the question is, how large are your lodgings?”

  “Two rooms, sir.”

  “That being the case, this added pound per month will enable you to move to a larger place, one in which our mother may have a room of her own, a privilege she has always enjoyed with us. I shall depend upon you to do that. Is that understood, Mr. Gredge?”

  “Oh, aye, sir, quite well understood —and agreed! And when Will Gredge gives his word, sir, he keeps it. I’m well known for that in the tailoring trade, sir.”

  “Ver)‘good, “said Sir John.” Andyou may use the remainder to raise your general situation. She will benefit from that, of course, but you and your family deserve something for keeping her, as well.”

  “I likes my sweets’.” crowed Mrs. Gredge with sudden vehemence.

  At that Sir John chuckled most heartily.” Indeed she does,” said he, “perhaps too well. See that she gets them from time to time. Far more important, however, that she get her meat and vegetables. You’ll see to that?”

  “Oh, I will, sir.”

  “Good then. All that understood and agreed, here is the first payment on my debt to your mother for her service to us.”

  And with that, he presented him with the one-pound banknote he had held throughout their conversation palmed in his right hand. Mr. Gredge took it eagerly, near too eagerly it seemed to me, and pocketed it. Yet he sounded most sincere in his response.

  “I’ll not let you down, sir.” Then, to Mrs. Gredge: “Nor you, either, Mama. I’ll take good care of you.”

  She rose from the chair whereon she sat, struggling a bit to make it to her feet. But she won the struggle and was encouraged by her victor) to limp over a few steps to Sir John. She took his hand.

  “You’ve been a good master. Sir John Fielding, ” said she.” None could want better. And you’ve provided for me well. My only sorrow is that my old body failed me, and I could not go on serving you the rest of my days.”

  Sir John groped a bit but found her shoulder with his left hand and drew her to him in an embrace.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Gredge. And from the bottom of my heart I thank you for my poor, dear dead Kitty. You were the best and gentlest nurse that ever she could have had. None could have treated her as well as you treated her. I shall always remember you for it.”

  With that, she pulled away, tears streaming down her old, slack cheeks.

  “I’m ready. Will,” she announced.” Take my chest down.”

  “When …” Sir John began, then cleared his throat and began again: “When the first of the month comes, another one-pound payment will be delivered to you. Will Gredge. I hope by that time you will have settled in larger quarters. Be sure to communicate the location of your new place to us.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do that, sir. Thankyou, sir ” — bowing and scraping a bit.

  “Jeremy,” said Sir John, knowing full well that I was also present, “help Mrs. Gredge down the stairs. Her son will have his hands full. Then get them a hackney carriage.” He gave a great nod to us then.” Goodbye to you all.” He turned and made his departure across the kitchen he knew so well and started up the stairs.

  Will Gredge lifted the chest filled with his mother’s belongings, which in truth was not so heavy but bulky and clumsy and difficult to carry.” Come on, Mama.”

  He went down the stairs with it. Mrs. Gredge and I followed, she

  leaning upon me so that we went quite slowly, one step at a time. By the time we arrived at the bottom, Mr. Fuller, the day constable, had come to help Will with the chest. Between them, it was no job at all to move it out and through the door to Bow Street.

  “Jeremy,” said she to me as we made our way together, “I have to say that Sir John was righter about you than I was. I admit I had my doubts, butyou turned out better than I ever thought you would. I want you to take care of him, boy. Take care of him, obey him in all things, and love him as you would your own father if he was alive.”

  “I will do it as you say, Mrs. Gredge.”

  “He has great faith in you, Jeremy, and high expectations.”

  We had reached the door to Bow Street. I helped her through and saw that Mr. Fuller had already brought a hackney to us. As he and Will handed up the chest to the driver, Mrs. Gredge kissed me on the cheek.

  “Goodbye, Jeremy. Take care now.”

  “Goodbye, ma’am. I’ll seeou again soon.”

  “God willing.”

  I helped her up to the door of the carriage, and Will, who was already inside, pulled her through. It was done awkward between us, and she tripped once going in; but in she was, and the carriage door shut after her. The driver stirred his horses to life, and the hackney pulled away.

  Alone I stood on the walk, for NW. Fuller had left us as soon as the chest was loaded. I thought that just as well, for tears had welled in my eyes and begun to course down my cheeks. I wiped at them, of a sudden quite embarrassed that those walking by might see me so. In my own mind, it seemed to me I was far too old to weep.

  This bleak farewell had brought me so low that when I returned to the kitchen, all I was able to do was sit and mope at the table. I know not how long I sat thus, but when ascending steps came on the stairway below, I roused myself at last from my lethargy and stood to my task, unpacking the things I had brought in from Covent Garden some time before.

  In the first moment of his appearance, I did not recognize Tom Durham, even though he entered the room with his mother, and sense dictated it could be none but he. He looked that glorious in his new apparel. Yet it changed him in ways I could not have foreseen. He looked distinctly older, more settled and capable. The serious expression he wore, I later discovered, was due to his discomfort in this new costume. Even so, it added to the impression of maturity, giving him the look of a young gentleman of affairs. I had seen such on their way hither and thither in the City of London.


  “Does he not look elegant?” asked Lady Fielding.

  “Oh, indeed he does!”

  “Quite lubberly is how I look,” said Tom stubbornly.” I know that full well, for I’ve spent a good long time before the looking glass this day.”

  “We were mojt fortunate,” said she, quite aflutter with excitement.” The breeches are ready-made and of quite good stuff. They look well on him, don’t you think so, Jeremy?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Ah, but the coat — the coat/ True enough, it was owned before, but barely worn at all—you can tell. Just look at the trim on it, the good work on the buttonholes,/d’/the stuff of it. And it fits quite perfect just as you see it.”

  Obediently, I grasped where she directed me. Tom seemed to fight an impulse to jerk away. In a way I pitied him being tugged and tucked at all morning, but much more did I envy him. The fabric seemed both soft and strong. It was indeed an elegant coat.

  “I should like to get into my old duds, Mother,” said Tom, hefting the package he carried, which contained them.

  “Not until I show you to Jack!”

  “But he cannot see me.”

  “I can describe you to him exact, and he can form a picture in his mind. He is quite good at that, Tom. Sometimes I think he can see more than we do —quite uncanny, really. Do you not have that feeling at times, Jeremy?”

  “More often than you know, my lady.”

  “Is he about?”

  “Upstairs —in his study, perhaps.”

  “We shall look for him there. Come along, Tom.”

  She led the way. As Tom left me, he rolled his eyes most expressive, as if to marvel what a fellow had to put up with.

  Thus the rest of the day passed in preparation for the visit of Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Redmond. When at last Lady Fielding returned from above, she inspected my purchases and approved them, though she registered surprise that I had taken it upon myself to add a leg of lamb to the side of lamb she had asked me to buy.

  “That was given gratis by Mr. ToUiver,” said I, “to tempt us back to his stall.”

  She smiled then a smile that was near as odd as the one I had seen on the butcher’s face.

  “That was dear of him, was it not? Perhaps we have been neglecting him. Henceforth, Jeremy, you may go always to Mr. Tolliver unless I specifically tell you to go elsewhere.”

  “His meat’s as good as any at Smithfield Market,” said I.” So he says, and I believe it to be true.”

  “Well and good. We’ll try him again, shall we? But now, I must run off to the Home. I have much to attend to there before I return with Annie, and we get properly under way. So goodbye to you.”

  She started for the door, then stopped to turn and exclaim: “This is all so exciting! Imagine Tom a midshipman —an officer!”

  Then she disappeared down the stairs. For all concerned, I hoped it happened just as she supposed.

  Sir John’s departure was much quieter and less hurried. He made his way at the usual time downstairs across the kitchen on his familiar journey to his courtroom.

  “I take it Tom’s new clothes met your approval, Jeremy?”

  “Oh, yes, he will present a fine figure to the admiral.”

  “That’s as we would like it.”

  And then he strode on, tapping the door to the stairs to determine whether it was open or shut, then opening it to descend.

  Since Tom had remained above, I took it he was in the attic room we shared, perhaps pouting at the indignities that had been forced upon him by his mother; perhaps reading Lord Anson’s A Voyage Round the World; perhaps both. In a.ny case, I thought it best to leave him alone. Left to my own devices, it was not long until I myself found my way down to Sir John’s courtroom.

  It seemed to me that I had neglected it of late. With the shopping and the cleaning and the general hurly-burly that preceded Tom’s homecoming, there seemed little time or opportunity to attend to those things I like best. And best of all did I like those hours I spent in the Magistrate’s Court on Bow Street.

  As a magistrate. Sir John Fielding had power to try lesser crimes, adjudicate lesser suits, and bind over for trial at Old Bailey capital crimes, of which there were then a great number and are still far too many. It was in that last capacity that his famous powers of investigation and interrogation came to the fore. I had seen him, on a number of occasions, turn a witness quite inside out, forcing him to admit that he had not actually seen what he claimed to have seen—only heard it, heard about it, or supposed from other factors that it had taken place. It seemed one of life’s ironies that he, a blind man, should give such paramount importance to the evidence of the eyes. (You may thus imagine, reader, the frustration felt by the magistrate at the end of his questioning of the acting captain of the Adventure.)

  Having said all this, I must now disappoint by informing you that during the court session I visited on that day, Sir John performed no great feats of interrogation, turned none inside out, nor taught any to say what he had seen—and that, only. It was, as days go in Sir John’s courtroom, a rather humdrum session. There was a dispute between a blacksmith and the driver of a hackney carriage over the shoeing of a horse and repairs of the conveyance, which involved the payment of a sum of two pounds; Sir John settled it amicably by persuading the blacksmith to accept three-quarters the amount, which the blacksmith agreed was a bit high, and taking it in two installments. There were two men who appeared before Sir John, one charging the other with assault; yet he who made the charge was much the larger of the two, and the smaller looked as if he had got much the worst of it. Since, according to Constable Baker, who had come upon the scene and taken down the accusation, no weapons were involved but bare fists, Sir John called it a matter of mutual combat and dismissed the charge; he warned them, however, that if they appeared before him again, he would find them both guilty of assault and fme them equally.

  And so, you see, even on quiet days in court there was much to interest a lad of my years. To see Sir John thus in action day after day gave me a growing understanding of the workings of his remarkable mind, an understanding which benefited me greatly afterward in the pursuit of my own career in the law.

  The last case of the day’s light docket was one of public drunkenness, and it proved to be of interest not just to me but also to Sir John.

  The two men so charged shuffled up before Sir John in a state of embarrassment and proper chagrin. Mr. Marsden, the court clerk, read the complaint against them, naming them as Isaac Banneker and George Stonesifer, both seamen in the Royal Navy. The arresting constable. Constable Cowley, was called forward, and he gave a brief account of his apprehension of the two past midnight in Bloomsbury Square, wherein they had made “a remarkable lot of noise, sir.”

  “Were they fighting, loudly quarrelsome? ” asked Sir John.

  “Oh, no sir, ” said Constable Cowley.” Quite the opposite. They was happy and singing loudly, serenading the entire square, as you might say but there was complaints. In fact, sir, I was summoned by a footman of Lord Mansfield’s household to the scene.”

  “On Lx5rd Mansfield’s order?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh, well,” said Sir John, “I suppose the Lord Chief Justice needs his sleep as we all do. Did these two happy serenaders give you any trouble when you invited them to Bow Street?”

  “None at all, sir. They had finished their bottle of gin. Their only problem was walking the street. They was a bit weak in the legs, sir, found it difficult walking a straight line, they did.”

  “It sometimes happens so, ‘ said Sir John — then to Banneker and Stonesifer: “What have you two to say for yourselves? ‘

  “M’lord,” said the first, “we can’t make no dispute with the constable, sir —”

  “Who is this now who speaks?”

  “Isaac Banneker, m’lord. ‘

  “Continue.”

  “As I say, we got no quarrel with the constable. He treated us right. It was p
robably just as he said. The truth is, George and I don’t remember much about it. We came ashore from our ship, was paid, and given our leave tickets. By then, ‘twas right late. And we thought to save our money by buying a bottle and staying out of the grog shops. Which we done and walked till we found us a nice, quiet place to drink it. Well, we drink a bit of gin, and we were feeling ever so good, and George says to me, ‘Isaac, do you know this one?’ And he sings to me the ballad of’Molly on the Shore,’ and then —”

  “That will be all for the moment. I should like to hear from your companion. Is this as you remember it, Mr. Stonesifer?”

  “Just so, sir. I sung it to him and he sings me another. I don’t rightly recall which, for we sung so many that night. It was grand while it lasted, but then the constable come and took us away.”

  “So you plead guilty as charged.”

  The two men looked at one another, shrugged, and responded, “Yes, m’lord, ” and, “Yes, sir,” in ragged chorus.

  “Before we go further,” said Sir John, “I wonder if you two gentlemen would satisfy me on a point. You are both seamen in the Royal Navy, are you not? Tell me please, what is your ship?”

  “Same as you were on yesterday, m’lord, the Acfventure,” said Isaac Banneker.” You did a right job on Mr. Hartsell, you did. All us in the crew were for you, be sure of it.”

  Sir John, slightly taken aback by the response, gave a tardy wave of his hand to silence Mr. Banneker.

  “Please, Mr. Banneker,” said he, “what I may have done yesterday or any other day on the Adventure is not a proper matter for this court. I am but curious on the matter of the leave you were given. You said, I believe, that it came lateyesterevening?”

  “Well, our turn did, m’lord. See, they started running the boat back and forth between the dock and the A()i’enture not all that long after you left, m’lord, and took the whole crew off. We was all quite surprised, for they was to do the usual and let us off fifteen at a time, that party come back, and another fifteen go on leave. We was all surprised when they emptied the ship, for they’d let ladies aboard and booze, as well, just to keep us happy. But no, they sent us all off the Acfventiire. I ain’t sure how many they will get back, in truth, sir. George and I were the last boatload but one.”