“To converse, you say?”
“To talk. I want to talk to my wife.”
The warder stroked his beard, then placed his hands upon the amplitude of his stomach. It was like a natural shelf. “I suppose you can go to chapel as you please,” he said. The warder was obviously not yet recovered from his disappointment at Matthew’s damp amorousness, nor yet had he come to Matthew’s motive for wanting to go to chapel. Religion was all very strange to him, and those who took it seriously were even stranger. The warder continued: “But you may not sit by her, that’s a fact. Such is the rule here and a very good rule it is.”
To appease the warder, Matthew agreed that the separation of the sexes was a very good rule, but what a piece of hypocrisy was there. Anyone who knew anything of Newgate knew that it was easy to catch the pox there as in any Bankside brothel. The wardsman’s pimping made that clear enough. Matthew decided at that very moment that if circumstances allowed him within twenty feet of his wife he’d warn her of her present danger or die in the attempt. This sudden resolve emboldened him, even while he recognized its elusiveness. He was not a violent man; what did he expect to do, burst through the crowd of pris—
I oners to his wife’s side?
Seeing that the warder still had some notices tucked beneath his arm, Matthew asked: “Where are you bound with the rest of those notices?”
The warder said he was going to put them up in the other wards. That was his job. The notices always conveyed the same information, but because the prisoners defaced them they had to be replaced once a fortnight. The warder didn’t blame the prisoners for their scrawling. Were he an inmate, he would do likewise. He assured Matthew he knew a word or two that he would gladly see published i in that manner.
“Will you be going to Waterman’s Hall?”
“Anon.” Bushy-beard hesitated, looking at Matthew expectantly. Their conversation had drawn the attention of other inmates who had formed a circle about them. As inconspicuously as possible, Matthew felt for a coin within his shirt and pressed it into the hand of the warder. This action, rather than attracting attention to the conversation between Matthew and the warder, now seemed for his audience to resolve the question of its subject, and the curious inmates resumed their previous business.
“This is yours if you’ll bear a message to my wife who lies in Waterman’s Hall.”
The warder took the coin. Of course he would convey the message. Who was his wife and what words did Matthew wish to convey?
“Joan Stock of Chelmsford. Tell her to attend service in the prison chapel tomorrow. Tell her that her husband will do likewise and that it is he who has conveyed this message to you.”
The warder repeated the name. “You can trust me to convey your message, sir,” he said.
Bushy-beard removed a dirty cloth from his jerkin and wiped his brow, thrust it into his jerkin again, and then tucked the mallet into his belt. Matthew watched him stride off, whistling happily as he went, and wondered if he had spent his coin worthlessly. There was no reason for him to trust the warder. That he was a prison official meant absolutely nothing, and die man didn’t even have an honest face to recommend him. But what was Matthew to do? Here he had no friends; one man was as trustworthy as the next, or as faithless. Perhaps Joan would receive his message, perhaps not. Yet Matthew recalled with what profound satisfaction the warder had received the coin. Certainly it was not the message that had inspired that satisfaction. It was the employment. Perhaps, Matthew concluded, the promise of further reward would make the man honest.
The warder had no sooner disappeared from Matthew’s view than he saw Abraham come into the room.
“Matthew Stock, upon my life,” he cried. “What, now, come again to visit those whom God has forsaken? You did get my message about poor Ralph? He’d dead, you know, stone cold.”
Matthew answered: ‘‘Yes, I heard that, worse luck. I’m one of you now, though not, I trust, godforsaken as you deem yourself. My wife and I have been falsely charged.” Abraham made a keening sound from somewhere in his throat and looked up at Matthew from beneath his scraggly reddish hair with moist sympathetic eyes. He took both of Matthew’s hands and held them; the little Jew’s fingers were bony and cold and they trembled as he spoke. ‘‘Has it come to this, then? It will be no time at all before all good men are here and the malefactors on the outside.” His eyes closed in pain. He continued: ‘‘Tell me your tale, Mr. Stock, by what misfortune have you come here?” Briefly Matthew recounted the circumstances of their arrest, describing at the same time Starkey’s attempt on his life and Matthew’s fear that a second effort would be made now that both he and Joan had been imprisoned. Of Cecil and of Castell’s plot he said nothing, not merely for secrecy’s sake but because he thought it would only make his long narrative hopelessly complicated. To all of this, Abraham gave rapt attention. His bony hands grew warmer in Matthew’s; his face was drawn into a mask of infinite pity and concern. Then Matthew told him about his plan to contact Joan at the chapel service.
Abraham nodded his head sagely. “A wise plan—a practical plan,” he said. ‘‘It’s true the women are separated from the men but they file in two lines with no more than a span betwixt them. You may well have time for a word or two before they sit you down. But take care the warders don’t see you conversing. If they discern it’s your wife you’re chatting with they’ll want to charge you for the privilege, take my word upon it.”
Everything Matthew had seen in Newgate confirmed Abraham’s opinion. At the present rate of extraction his little supply of coin would be exhausted in a few days. He thanked Abraham for his advice.
‘‘But now you can do me another favor,” said Matthew,
drawing close. “I must get word of our imprisonment to certain friends, high friends. Can you do that for me?” Abraham said that he would try. He wanted to know to whom the message was to be conveyed.
“Sir Robert Cecil, First Secretary to the Queen.” Abraham’s eyes opened in amazement. “Cecil, you say.” He shook his head dubiously. “It is one thing to get a message out of Newgate, but to direct it to so great a person, well ...”
“But Cecil must know that I—we—are here. I swear I will make it worth your while.”
Abraham agreed to do what he could. Matthew watched him move off into the crowded room. It was only after he had left that it occurred to Matthew that it would be very unlikely for a message to go directly to Cecil. It would go first to the doorman, at best to one of his secretaries. Perhaps even to John Beauclerk, who would have no reason to see that his master got the message. Matthew realized letting Cecil know of his whereabouts would not be easy.
Much distressed, he went to a comer of the ward and sat down. Presently two warders struggled in bearing a huge iron pot hanging on an oak beam they bore upon their shoulders. They set the pot upon the floor and then began ladling its contents out into the wooden bowls of the men who had gathered around to receive their portion. These, Matthew observed, were the poorer inmates, the thieves, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars who depended on public charity. They held their bowls in their hands meekly while waiting for them to be filled; they stood without talking and with the vacant stares of men remembering happier times. Matthew knew he could have had better fare—fresh bread, apricots and jam, beef or lamb, and wine of good quality—if he had only been willing to pay for it. But that day he felt he had paid enough. He resented the continual supplication of the prison system, which had made him feel like a milk cow being milked dry.
Yet he would eat the stew, he thought grimly, as the strong odor of fish filled his nostrils.
He joined the line of men waiting to be fed but by the time his turn had come the pot was nearly empty. He looked into the pot. On the bottom a mackerel’s head with stark, glassy eye and what looked like niggardly bits of carrot and onion floated in a thin, milky-white liquid. He declined the gruel, thankful that hard rolls were included in the supper, and wandered off into the comer to probe the stale roll
for maggots. Relieved at finding none, he ate it bitterly.
“That’s a most beauteous gown, sweetheart. A most beauteous gown indeed. Did a gentleman buy it for you?”
The eyes, nose, mouth, and chin of the woman all struggled to dominate the small, pale face. She was all skin and bones, and Joan could see the thin blue veins in her arms like little serpents and, beneath the ragged smock she wore, the severe outlines of her shoulders. Her manner was childlike, and this coupled with her devastated appearance made her present attention all the more horrible. She reached out to touch Joan’s gown, to feel the texture. Joan recoiled instinctively. The woman smiled with a mirthless grimace, with a dog’s breath.
“Beth won’t hurt you. Beth won’t hurt the pretty lady.” Joan longed to slap the hand away, but she was afraid, afraid of the haggard creature that touched her, afraid of the other inmates who were watching her curiously. How glad she was that she had thought to conceal her ring. She had tucked it into her stocking; she could feel its comforting hardness next to her ankle.
Since her arrival in the ward, Joan had stayed to herself, studiously avoiding conversation with the other women. Of these, there were fifty or sixty crowded into the high-ceilinged, crumbling vault with its dirty walls, its stench of urine and unwashed bodies, its total absence of anything to interest the eye or delight the heart. There were windows on one side of the chamber but they were far above eye level. How she wished she could look out of them. But, then, what would she have seen? The grim parts of Newgate, sooty London. Joan felt abused and defeated; she could not restrain her tears.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
Joan did not want to tell the woman her name. She thought of inventing a false one, but reconsidered. What difference would it make now? Her own true name meant nothing here. A false name would not rid her of her shame. She said, “Joan Stock is my name.”
“Joan, Joan Stock?” The woman screeched with laughter. Other prisoners, as wretched as she, were drawing about Joan now, staring at her clothing, enjoying her discomfort.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You used overmuch courtesy to some strange man, the law came upon you, and having no money about your person at the moment you could not buy your freedom from the sheriffs men. Do I say truly?”
“I shouldn’t be here. I’m innocent. I and my husband,” Joan said, gathering up her courage. She was now the center of attention of a dozen women, slatterns with hard, savage faces.
“Ah, your husband came with you,” exclaimed another woman, drawing close to Joan. The woman’s breath stank abominably of the fish broth the woman’s ward had been served for supper, and Joan drew back. This gesture seemed to excite the resentment of the others. One, a girl with raw red skin and straw-colored hair hanging down over her face, reached out and pinched Joan painfully. Joan pushed the girl away.
“Stay, there!” a masculine voice commanded. Joan looked up. One of the warders was approaching them. The man had a full, red beard and beneath his arm he carried a sheaf of papers and in the other he had a mallet.
“Lord, Lord, it’s handsome John—he that hides his visage in that monstrous growth of fur upon his cheek.”
“A bear, a bear,” several of the women cried mockingly.
The warder cast the women a threatening look and inserted himself between them.
“Are you going to take us all on with that mallet, John?” asked the hard-faced prisoner who had begun the taunting.
“If I have to, Beth, if I must. You know what happens to prisoners who fight, don’t you? We drop them into the Hold. It’s filthy there-”
“It’s filthy enough here,” inteijected the girl who had pinched Joan.
“The rats are bigger there.”
“And hungrier,” added another woman, cackling as though the idea of the rats was a great joke.
“Back off, I said,” snarled the warder, whereupon there was a hail of curses from the prisoner called Beth. This outburst seemed to satisfy the rest and they dispersed, leaving Joan and the warder alone.
The warder turned and said, “You wouldn’t be Mrs. Stock, would you?”
Joan looked at the grinning man with the huge stomach. She had never seen him before. How did he know her name?
“I have a message from your husband. It’s yours for tuppence.” “You gave her her husband’s message?”
“I did, sir.”
“And how did she reply?”
“She said I was to convey back to him that she would come.”
“Good.”
“Will you want more of me?”
“No. Here.”
The warder stuck the new reward in his purse with great satisfaction. He was paid very little for his job and it was only by doing extra favors for prisoners and others that he was able to live.
“Thank you then, sir. Remember me, please, when you have need. Shall I continue to watch this fellow?”
“Yes. He’s a dangerous man, although he seems harmless enough on the outside. I wouldn’t be surprised if he and his wife try to escape. Perhaps they meet in the chapel for that purpose.”
“In faith, they shall not!” cried the warder.
“Marry, never fear,” said Starkey in his lilting voice. “They shall meet, but they won’t escape.”
Thirteen
JOAN had hardly slept. How could she, propped as she had been against the filthy wall while mice rioted on the bare tables for scraps and the snoring of her fellow inmates resounded in the ward like the plainsong of frogs in Chelmsford pond? There was a bed of sorts; all the women’s wards in Newgate had beds, and she had been issued a blanket, but the straw was alive with vermin and the blanket—she shuddered as she thought of it—was tom, nay, chewed upon, and stained suspiciously with a dark brown stain she was sure was blood. She had sat against the wall all the night, thankful only that it was not winter, and as the morning began to glow through the high windows of the ward she was almost as much past feeling as past hope. Now she observed the other women as they awoke from sleep. There was not a face among them that did not seem weary and ashen, not an eye that did not seem dull. The women rose reluctantly, then sat about in a kind of stupor, staring vacantly at the walls, or at their hands. They did not look at each other; that would have been too painful. A warder brought fresh water, some of the women washed, but the others seemed too tired.
Breakfast consisted of stale bread and a thin gruel. Joan might have fared better had she been willing to pay for breakfast. A fresh egg, a cake, a bottle of good ale—these might have been hers for a few extra pennies and a smile at the mean-faced knave who had proffered them and won her enmity with his supercilious airs. Joan’s pride would not permit her to part with a penny of the little store of coins Matthew had conveyed to her. She was left to breakfast on her pride and a poor unsubstantial dish it was.
When the warder returned to collect what had not been eaten by the women Joan approached him to inquire about the chapel service. The warder was a wiry little man with intense dark eyes, a grizzled beard, high flushed cheeks, and a belligerent manner. She had heard the women call him Wat, although whether this was his Christian or family name she could not tell. The women taunted him with jibes about his size and beard, and he repaid in similar coin in a high-pitched, churlish voice, moving among the beds and tables of the ward like a little animal scurrying among stumps in a forest, and seeming to enjoy the exchange of caustic wit.
“Ah, then,” said Wat, looking at Joan with a clearly defined sneer, “wanting to make peace with God, are you?” His narrow eyes scrutinized her from top to toe.
“If it please me—and Him,” Joan retorted, responding to the man’s impudence with a frigid stare. She was satisfied to note at the same time that she and he were of the same height and that she had the advantage of weight. But her boldness had little apparent effect on Wat. The warder balanced himself on the heels of his boots, rocking to and fro as though at any moment he would hurl himself at her in his fury. On his hip he car
ried the wooden trencher and what remained of breakfast; his load was very light, for the women had eaten ravenously and what they had not consumed they had concealed.
“I have heard tell,” she said in an icy, disciplined voice, “that the preacher here has a most commendable tongue— a golden tongue, indeed.”
“Oh, have you now?” replied Wat bumptiously. “Well, so he may for all I know. I have never heard the man.”
She asked again, “What time is the service?”
“Anon,” said Wat, his little face screwed up maliciously.
“An hour, half-hour, or wain?” asked Joan, pursing her lips.
“Anon,” repeated Wat.
“Anon, anon, anon,” Joan mimicked, much vexed now. In disgust she stamped her foot and showed him her back. She was walking away when she heard him cry out behind her.
“Patience, goodwife! You’re not amongst your minions or servants now. You have here no docile husband to scold. Trulls and cabbagemongers are your peers in the ward. Mend your manners or I’ll show unto you neighborhoods of Newgate that will make where you stand seem a pleasure palace.”
Joan swiveled around, all patience flown, her face burning. Every woman in the ward watched her, but she cared nothing for that. “You log, you salamander!” she shouted, shaking her flst at the warder.
But already Wat’s back was to her. He was making for the door, laughing and flinging his taunts from side to side like a rich man casting alms to beggars, an enemy to all he passed and apparently not a whit less happy for that.
Feeling quite miserable and struggling to suppress her tears of anger and mortification, Joan went over to the pallet she had disdained to lie upon and sat down. She was no longer the object of attention and, seeing her privacy restored, she yielded to the full measure of her grief and wept like a child.
“Wat is a great fool,” said a woman who, it seemed, had come to comfort her. She had round eyes and a pale white forehead. She had been pretty once but age and Newgate had done their work: her countenance was now marred with grief and hopelessness, and her tattered garments had a musty smell as though they had been laid away in a chest for years.
Low Treason Page 23
