The whole house was silent; holding its secrets to itself.
A small sigh of frustration escaped my lips. I had mended several of their cuffs and yet I was no nearer to any of them. I turned back towards the stairs, ready to claim my coin and hunk of bread.
A woman’s voice drifted through the wall, not two steps from where I was. I stood rigid and listened.
‘I can’t. It’s too soon.’
As softly as I could, and without daring to breathe, I searched for a spy hole.
Finding one, I pressed my eye to it and saw the back of a black gown. It was Lady Hawbridge. She was in conversation with someone, but I couldn’t see who it was. She was standing in the way and right up against the wall. I willed her to move, but she did not.
There was a muffled response from a man. I couldn’t hear what he said. I couldn’t even hear who it was. The voice sounded low, serious. It must be Astley.
‘No.’ The woman’s voice was clearer. ‘It must wait. We must wait.’ There was a hint of desperation, pleading even, in her voice. ‘Nothing has changed. Nothing can change for now, you know that. Even his death makes it difficult, you must see that.’
There were further sounds from her companion. From the tone, he was ending their tête-à-tête.
‘Very well. Tomorrow,’ I heard her say. She began to step forward at last.
Behind me came the soft pad of footsteps. In a flash, I dropped to fiddle with my bootlace, setting the basket on the floor, as Mary came along the passageway carrying a bucket. She glared at me but said nothing. As soon as she was safely around the corner, I pressed my eye to the hole again.
Lady Hawbridge and her companion had gone.
* * *
I left the house with sixpence in my pocket. Mrs Kemp had been pleased with the sewing. Sixpence was far too generous for what I had completed, but I had the feeling that she was, as Hannah said, taking pity on me. Hannah had wrapped as much bread, cold meat and cheese as she could in a piece of cloth and sent me on my way with a warm embrace and the promise of her fervent prayers for my safety and good fortune. I was frustrated by my lack of progress – and hoped that Hannah’s friendship might afford me another opportunity to discover what was going on in Hawbridge House.
Although I left the house, as I had entered it – from the back door – I took the opportunity to spend time walking the square. I wasn’t dressed like a lady, but even in my dirty and dishevelled state, I could pretend to be one again. The houses, large and graceful, set around the pretty eight-sided garden in the middle of the square, were a world away from the cramped lodging houses of Drury Lane, packed into rancid courtyards, filthy inside as well as out. Even Berwick Street seemed grubby by comparison. My family was not noble, but it was significant and ancient enough to grant me admittance through any of these doors. The Vesseys had arrived in England with William the Conqueror; my great-grandfather had been made a baronet by Charles II. In another life, I might have come to this square for a ball or a party. I might have found a husband behind one of these windows; claimed this square as my abode.
I watched as a large carriage drove into the square, halting outside one of the more modest houses on the south side. A party of three young women emerged with an older woman following. They twittered and fluttered like exotic birds, full of life and promise, clad in soft silks of blue, pink and yellow. I could not take my eyes off them. They did not see me – just another drab on the streets and so far beneath their notice. The front door was opened for them, and then they disappeared from my sight.
I fingered the sixpence in my pocket. It was the first coin I had made by honest means since arriving in London. And the smallest by far.
I would not marry into a good family. My father had disowned me. I had to be back in Berwick Street soon, earning guineas not pennies, if I hoped to survive. I wanted a gown that did not stink.
I felt as disgusting as I’m sure I looked.
I had walked the whole square, and was considering walking around a second time, or circling the small lake in the centre of the garden, when I saw a man I knew.
He was standing, looking up at Hawbridge House with a keen expression.
It was William Simmot.
He did not take any notice of me. He would not have recognised me if he had.
He pulled some papers from the inside of his coat and read them over. Then he wandered towards the garden and sat down on the grass, cross-legged. He pulled from his pocket a tiny ink box and set it down in front of him, took out a pen, dipped it into the ink and began scribbling.
Garrick had said that he was nothing but a bad hack; a scandal-sheet writer. I watched him pause, mid-sentence, to find the right word or phrase and then scribble it down, looking over at the house. Was he, even now, getting ready to print salacious gossip about Lady Hawbridge or her late husband? I found it hard to believe that he had made his way to St James’s for any other purpose. There was a secret in that house, I was certain of it. Had he discovered more than I had managed?
There was little I could do if that was his intention, beyond sending a warning to Davenport. I set off for Drury Lane.
Chapter Twenty-eight
I could hear a clock chiming five when I returned to the theatre. It was a way off dusk, and I was pleased to have made it back in good time. I might almost relish meeting Joe Sugden to show him that I had returned, were it not for the memory of him pulling my hair.
Sugden was not in the theatre. Neither was Molly. I assumed they were together. Ketch was in the green room with his monkey. I raised a hand in greeting, and he waved back. Even with his gloomy eyes, his was the friendliest face in the room, so I sat with him.
‘How’s your day going?’ he asked, in his slow way.
‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘I went to church, made some new friends and did some sewing.’ All of that was true, of course. I did not say that I had also called at Bow Street magistrate’s office on the way back and left a message for Mr Davenport – who had been out. ‘You?’
‘Aye, not bad. We went out for a walk.’ He meant him and the monkey. ‘Got frightened by horses in St James’s Park but found a small place under the trees for a nap. It’s been a fine day to be out.’
I nodded in agreement. I had not seen much of the day, but the walk from St James’s Square to Drury Lane had been almost pleasant in the warm sun.
‘I’ve not seen Molly,’ I said. ‘Is she about?’
His eyes took on a darker look. ‘I’ve not seen her,’ he said. ‘I expect she’s with Mr Sugden.’
‘You don’t like him much, do you?’ It was an impertinent question, to which he gave a rueful smile.
‘Don’t matter what old Ketch thinks. I’ve known that girl for years, and she’s always done whatever her heart tells her.’ He scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘But I’ve nothing much against Joe Sugden, except that he’s too easily led astray.’
I had no opportunity to press him on this comment, because the pair appeared in the doorway. Molly was flushed, her eyes bright and her face pink with the sun and fresh air. Sugden was as sullen as ever, scowling as he surveyed the room. They had been arguing. Molly’s deliberately cheery approach told me that.
‘Lizzie, did you have a good day?’
I repeated my story, watching Sugden out of the corner of my eye. He wasn’t interested in where I’d been, this time. He seemed preoccupied. Molly asked about the new friends and I told her I’d met some servants in church and been invited back to their house for some food. I didn’t tell her whose house it was.
‘Have you had a pleasant day, miss? Ketch has spent most of it asleep under a tree, he says.’
Molly rolled her eyes. ‘Just like you, eh, Ketch? You old slug. Any excuse for a sleep.’ She batted his shoulder affectionately. ‘I’ve been out and about, and Joe has not been buying me a bowl of punch.’
Sugden shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘You get mouthy when you’re drunk, Moll, that’s all,’ he muttered, walking off.
‘Tigh
t-arsed bastard,’ she called after him. She rolled her eyes and began to pick at a fingernail.
‘Well, there’ll be work again tomorrow,’ said Ketch, encouraging her to sit down. ‘Best to have a clear head.’
‘Do you think the law men are any closer to finding out why William Simmot killed Lord Hawbridge?’ Molly asked Ketch. ‘They’ve had a whole day now. Lizzie here says they don’t think it’s him, but I bet it is.’ She bit the end off the troublesome nail and spat it on the floor.
‘I think that’s for them to decide,’ said Ketch in a soothing tone. ‘The likes of you and me are best out of it, I reckon.’
She shrugged, her finger still in her mouth. ‘Joe’s been jumping about it all day. Wants someone to be had for it. He’s been sending me mad.’
Sugden’s agitation added to the unease I felt about him.
‘He thinks it’s Simmot, of course,’ Molly was saying, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Same as all of us – anyone with sense thinks it’s Simmot. He wrote that play, after all, with the hanging.’
I said nothing. It was what most of the actors and stage hands assumed. It suited them that the pompous self-serving Simmot would be the murderer. He was not one of them. They would not believe that one of their own might have done it and would not dare to think that one of Hawbridge’s own associates would have done it. Simmot was an outsider.
‘Molly Bray, would you come and give us a hand? We’re still a man down in the trap room.’ Mr Dinsdale’s voice, commanding and loud, called across the green room. Tom Firmin was still unable to carry things up and down stairs. He stood, leaning heavily on his crutch, a pace or two behind Dinsdale, looking disconsolate.
‘Mr Garrick has put a new after-piece for tomorrow’s performance, and I want to bring the scenery up now, before they rehearse in the morning.’
Molly got up, wrinkling her nose. She had been hoping to rest, I think.
‘Do you fancy seeing hell, Lizzie?’ she said. ‘Now’s your chance. Come and see how all the little traps and boxes work.’
I did fancy seeing hell. It was possible that someone had hidden there on the night Lord Hawbridge was murdered and climbed out of a secret trap door. I wanted to see how it might be done.
Hell, it turned out, was a lot less exciting than I had imagined. I wasn’t allowed to wander about and examine the room. Instead, I was instructed to stand still in the middle of the room, and given a large torch to hold, while Molly and the stage hands retrieved the right scenery pieces from their store. Tom Firmin had discovered that this was my first visit to hell, so he hobbled down the stairs on his crutch and pointed out its features.
The scenery, he explained to me, was painted on heavy wooden boards. The theatre put on many different plays, and there were different sorts of boards to reflect the different locations of the scenes to be portrayed.
‘We’ve got castle walls and palace rooms, forests and cemeteries, gaol cells, city walls and gardens,’ Tom said. ‘Instead of painting new scenery for every play, the flats required are brought up to fit the play as best they can.’
‘Is that easily done?’ I said, watching Molly heave a large sack over her shoulder.
He laughed. ‘You add a few items of furniture, or props, as well as the actors’ costumes to enhance the sense of the scene. The audience imagination supplies the rest.’
He was right. I tried to remember the scenery from King Lear, but found that, mostly, what I could recall was the sense of tragedy and betrayal – but nothing particular about the painted boards at all.
Tom limped back upstairs, standing for so long was causing him pain. I stayed where I was, as I had been told, holding my torch high. This was helpful to the men, but it also meant that I could see more of the room. There were a couple of boxes, mechanical pulleys and hoists, located under traps, ready to send the more daring of the actors up through the stage floor. A man might, I mused, wait down here for several hours and, when the stage had been cleared, ease himself up through a hidden door. He could escape the same way too, after he had hanged an earl and cut his throat.
Hell was damp and chilly. Below the level of the street, away from any natural light or air, it reeked like an earthy, wet cavern. I shivered as a rat, nearly as large as a cat, scurried behind a set of castle walls, rocking a pile of stacked wooden planks as it went. There were a few bottles beside the castle scenery. There was a blanket too. I shone the light over to have a better look, wondering whether this was where Sugden kept his stolen spoils. I needed to come down alone and search the floor of this place unhindered.
‘Will you hold that bloody torch still?’
Joe Sugden was struggling with a large box. My arm had dropped a little and he could no longer see where he was walking. He was standing with an angry look on his face.
‘Sorry sir; my arm’s tired.’
‘My arms are tired too,’ he barked back. ‘Lift it up, would you? If you’re down here, you’d better be useful.’
I raised the light again, ignoring the ache in my shoulder, dropping it only when he had left the trap room.
When the men had finished, I was allowed to leave. Molly put an arm around my waist as we emerged into the green room in search of refreshment.
‘Pay no heed to Joe Sugden, Lizzie. He’s been in a temper all day. He’ll come out of it eventually.’
‘I’m more concerned he’ll come at me with his fists before the day’s over,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t like me.’
She shook her head, pouring a glass of wine. ‘It’s not you. He’s been fretting about something. Seeing the earl hanging, and all that blood, it’s made him afraid – but he don’t like to admit it, being a man.’ She rolled her eyes, handed me the glass, and grinned at me.
‘Aren’t you afraid?’ I asked, sipping at it. ‘I am, a little.’
‘Dead men can’t hurt you. It’s the living you have to watch out for,’ she said, pouring another glass for herself, the smile fading. ‘Joe’s mother was very religious, like I said. She filled his mind with stories about ghosts, dead people, you know. Jumping at everything, he is. And it makes him snappish.’ She shrugged and wandered to a chair. ‘Just keep out of his way for now. I’ll look after him.’
Chapter Twenty-nine
I did not have time to think about Joe Sugden. A new and more pressing problem had arisen. William Simmot had not, as I had feared, dreamed up a scandal about Lady Hawbridge, but he had instead chosen to act on his grudge against Davenport and the men of Bow Street in the light of the murder. He had written about them. Unable to get his malicious piece into a newspaper late on a Sunday, he had, with considerable determination, printed his own pamphlet. He was hawking it about himself in the Garden for a penny. I went to buy one, having heard the thin-nosed spare horse loudly sharing some of the contents with a male companion. I saved my coin – someone had dropped a pile of the pamphlets in the street. I had mine for free.
The writer, who had decided to pen his work, in time-honoured fashion, as ‘Anon.’, had made his own investigations. To my relief, he had not spoken with the servants at Hawbridge House, or, if he had, they had not passed on any information about the late earl, the countess or her friends. Instead, he had written about the elegant location of their home, giving a paean of praise to the octagonal garden of St James’s Square, and offered – for any that wanted to know – Lord Hawbridge’s full pedigree and brief comment about his estate in Gloucestershire. He wrote well, fluently even, if in a rather high and florid style.
Fielding’s men were a laughing stock. Some, the pamphlet claimed, were brutish, and barely more honest than the thieves they took, others, despite having an inflated opinion of themselves, were witless idiots. His description of Davenport as vain, arrogant and, essentially lacking intelligence, was particularly cruel. Finally, and with ill-concealed bad blood, he had laid the guilt of Hawbridge’s murder at the feet of Garrick himself. He had, wisely, stopped short of claiming that Garrick had strung up the earl and cut his throat, but the
reader was left in no doubt that whoever had killed him was, in the opinion of the author, to be found in Drury Lane theatre.
I stood in the piazza, reading by the light of a brazier as the sky darkened to night. Around me, the pavements began to get busier as people made their way to taverns or chop houses to find a bite to eat, a bowl to drink, and a friendly companion for the evening. I let them pass as they jostled, scanning the words as fast as I could, wondering what Davenport made of it. If he had read it yet.
The pamphlet was suddenly snatched out of my hands and thrown onto the fire.
‘Hey, I was reading that!’
‘You shouldn’t waste your time on scandal rags. They slow your wits.’
His face, in the red glow of the fire, was angry.
‘I thought I should know what he was saying, Mr Davenport. I was concerned for Lady Hawbridge especially.’
‘Mr Fielding is furious.’
He wasn’t the only one. I had never seen him so ugly.
‘Mr Fielding will recover,’ I said, trying to soothe as best I could.
Simmot’s words were unkind as well as untrue, but they reflected what many people said of Fielding’s men – that they weren’t worth what they were paid. If they failed to discover who had murdered an earl, only a street away from the magistrate’s house, how could they be trusted to clear the city of crime?
‘Mr Simmot has, I think, stopped handing out his sheets.’ I said, laying a hand on his arm.
He shook me off, bristling still.
‘He ran away when he saw Snowy and me. Dropped a pile of them and ran. He’s a coward as well as an evil little bastard.’
I wasn’t surprised he ran if Davenport and Snowy showed up, armed and raging.
‘And where did you go, after church?’ He snapped at me. ‘I wanted to speak with you, and you skipped off.’
It would do no good to remind him that I was not a servant at his beck and call – not when he was in such a savage mood.
‘I went to Hawbridge House with two of Lady Hawbridge’s maids.’
The Corpse Played Dead Page 17