She stopped herself, diverting her anger to a candy, that she ripped open and crunched without a single suck. There goes a shilling, I thought.
‘You’re right,’ said I. ‘I am a lowly Thief-Taker, unworthy of the House of Lemon. You deserve better.’
She looked to me for the first time that afternoon, still frowning, then back to the blistering horizon, twiddling her toes. She had touched upon the nub of it, of course. Her father was broke. And with the contemptible dowry he was offering, she was lucky to even get a Thief-Taker.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Isobel, you underestimate your father. He insisted that I’m granted a title before he’ll consider a marriage.’
‘Really?’ she asked, her face immediately brightening.
‘Of course. Isobel’s name is my principal concern, was what he said.’
‘Please don’t mention,’ replied she, turning urgently to me, ‘that I doubted him.’
‘You have my word, Isobel Lemon.’
‘I will be proud at your arm, Mr Wild. Or should I say Sir Jonathan. I shall make your house the most enviable in all of London.’
‘Please don’t speak of such wonders. Anticipation isn’t something I abide so well. And the matter hasn’t been settled. We can’t speak of it until I’m granted a title. And it’s no trifling task.’
‘Oh, but think of the drawing room. I will make a space to hold the finest contests in all of …’
She began talking of cards, late-night card games for four, afternoon games for eight, occasional games for two and solitary games for one. She spoke of cards made in Indochina with suits of many-armed elephants and nose-ringed princesses. She spoke of an octagonal purple felted card-table she’d once seen at a Fife’s castle in Aberdeen. She spoke of her favourite house, the house of spades (‘I call it the “Black of Hearts”’) and the etymological origins of clubs. She spoke of wax coatings that promoted smoother sliding. She spoke of mystical games invented by a French Chevalier in a mountainside cave.
‘… Brusquembille can be boring if the stakes aren’t high, nothing like Seven-Card Loo, which needs nothing but two willing – ’
‘Will you teach me all these games?’
As was the manner of the Lemon family (even Astley in his sulking) she acted before thinking, reaching out her hands and clasping my left one, bringing it towards her promising bosom.
‘I will teach you everything!’
I worried that the gesture had been seen by someone in the house behind, but didn’t dare remove those slender hands from my own.
‘Maybe there are some games of my own I can teach you?’ I winked.
She released her grip and dusted her dress.
‘I suppose you mean Bavarian Shafkopf, which I know a young girl shouldn’t be taught, but I do have Grimswald’s Gargantuan Guide to Gambling and …’
I tuned out, watching the last of the sun eaten by a distant grove of fig trees.
The dinner bell rang and Isobel jumped to her tiptoes. ‘Maybe I’ll even beat Astley to marriage.’
‘Izzy,’ said I, standing and straightening my coat. ‘Don’t forget your candies.’
‘Mr Wild.’
‘Aye?’
‘You’re not wearing your pistols.’
‘A young lady needs no exposure to violent weapons.’
‘And is it true, about the one they call The Lad?’
‘A girl your age shouldn’t know of such evil –’
‘Could he have really done all those things? Housebreaking at The Mayfair three consecutive nights?’
‘He is a most dangerous –’
‘Is it true he gave some of his spoils away?’
‘Who said these things?’
‘I heard it cried yesterday, when Mother and I went to Blackfriars.’
‘All that matters is that he’s now manacled to the walls of St Clement’s Roundhouse. His trial and execution are imminent.’
She swayed flirtatiously in her place. ‘Mr Wild?’
‘Aye.’
‘Your work is dangerous, is it not? How often are you required to use those pistols of yours?’
‘You needn’t worry about my safety, dear Izzy.’
‘Astley once took me hunting,’ said Isobel. ‘I blew a goose to smithereens.’
‘I’ve no doubt.’
Silently we walked together up the slight hill. Isobel was dreamily preoccupied, presumably with stories of a rich, fearsome husband and her own personal casino. I was also indulging fantasies, but mine were of a different sort viz. a title, a hunk of useless Crown land and the spectacularly beautiful Isobel Sacrifice Imelda Lemon.
The tinny dinner bell rattled once more and odours of spit-roasted partridge drifted from the open door. Isobel swung her shoes in one hand and with the other took my arm. I had love for this Isobel. And plans, I had them too. They ran in dizzying circles. Indeed, I realise, my whole life has been in service to one addiction: the future.
DEFOE
Finally rich
October 1724
Defoe wakes to the sound of the milkman’s trap turning into Cheapside. From the relative warmth of his pallet, he slides onto the cold stone floor, joining fingers in a warm plait and touching his forehead to his knuckles. With lids at a half close, he whispers his morning prayer, the steam from his mouth condensing on his linked thumbs.
‘O Christ Jesus, through the immaculate heart,
I offer you my prayers and works
For all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart …’
Each morning, as his knees ache and the pads of his horny toes bend back to support his shaking legs, Defoe crawls an inch closer to humility. Tears build in his eyes, run cool and salty to his top lip. He wipes his cheeks, and slowly pushes himself up to greet the morning.
Following his prayers, Defoe executes the routine of bodily stretches and exercises he has developed to relieve the stiffness in his back and knees. Warmth and flow, both physical and intellectual, are the only antidote to the injurious effects of his extended incarceration, that is now entering its fifth month.
‘Here we go,’ someone mutters at the sound of Defoe’s stomping and reaching. ‘The Compter-King is at his tricks.’
As the first of the grey morning light fills the cell, Defoe takes a bite of his morning costard and opens Jeremiah’s Lamentations to the passage he underlined last night.
Alas – she sits in solitude! The city that was great with people has become like a widow … she weeps bitterly in the night and tears are on her cheek … all her friends have betrayed her. Impurity is on her hems, she was heedless of the consequences. She has sunk astonishingly, there is no one to comfort her …
He reads the passage again. Defoe takes another bite of the sweet fruit and works his jaws over the flesh. There is the dull rattle of keys as the gaoler unlocks the gate and steps into the room, carrying two steaming jugs, one of coffee, one of ale.
‘One penny only,’ he calls, stepping over many sets of legs.
‘’Ere,’ one calls, dropping a coin into the gaoler’s hand.
‘On my account,’ says another.
‘Mr Knolly, your account ceased to exist six months ago,’ the gaoler replies.
‘Pray, for my health.’
Without asking, the gaoler pours Defoe a full mug of coffee.
‘Prithee,’ says Defoe. ‘And I’ll be needing a fresh writing book and more ink, if you will. One more pen, too.’
‘As you wish.’
‘Bloody Defoe,’ someone mutters.
‘What of today’s news?’ he asks the sentry.
‘They still hunt for The Lad,’ comes the answer. ‘With each week that passes, Wild’s reputation suffers.’
‘And the Scottish Alliance? Does it hold?’
‘Can’t say I’ve heard on that.’
‘Thank you,’ says Defoe.
He takes his first blessed mouthful and sets the mug aside, taking up his papers. His desk is a piece of timber that rest
s on his knees. He has multiple works on the go and spreads out four different pages: a description of the dense forest and mysterious animals in West Sussex; the still-unfinished tale of Jack Sheppard; a fallen widow orchestrating a depraved orgy; and guidance for a meaningful life spoken on the deathbed of a dumb servant. A conspicuously awful passage requires a strikethrough and before Defoe has decided it, he is engrossed in improvements. He measures out the remainder of his coffee in small sips.
The requirement is thirty pages, although often it will run to fifty, or once sixty, pages in a single day. Of his previous vacillation over the task – the inability to gain momentum, the nagging of his dick for attention – he now miraculously seems to be cured. The words are fuelled by their own flow.
Regularly, he will listen to one of his fellow prisoners pulling rhythmically at his or another’s penis, or a few joining together in a communal deed of pleasure. Of the many women who live in the prison, there are two willing to give up their bodies for ten shillings. These acts now seem a foreign, baffling mechanism of the human body. Why exactly he is now numb to this tendency he cannot answer; he only knows that he will not analyse it further.
Following his attempted suicide, Defoe redrafted the letters to his father and Mary. Whilst he promised not to take his life, he urged both his father and wife to treat him as having done so. They were now absolved of his burdensome existence. The children were to be notified of his indefinite overseas travel. He would accept no visitors, accept no financial assistance and would reply to no letters. Mary should remarry.
Contradiction still persists, even within the simplicity of the prison. Whilst spiritual purity is his principal concern, the thousands of words he writes each day are mostly preoccupied with questionable, and often downright abominable, behaviour. Whilst he refuses financial assistance, he hasn’t questioned the origin of his seemingly unending account with the gaoler. Whilst he is committed to self-effacement, he still sits in his privileged place in the prison, and, admittedly, takes some gratification in it. No, he cannot eradicate his inclination to pride.
As the last beams of twilight hit the ceiling, split by the prison bars like a meshwork of embers, Defoe sets aside his work and eats a cold dinner of salted lobster and pumpkin. Colour fades into a hierarchy of silver and grey. He lights a tallow for his evening reading; a curious memoir of a dead Frenchman. Some await for death trembling and afraid, others bear it easier than life. Later, snuffing the candle, the darkness is hefty and indivisible. With very slow, timed twists of his left hand, Defoe silently uncorks a hidden flagon of gin and takes his two prescribed swigs. He exhales the fumes, relaxes his shoulders and adjusts his position on the pallet.
Of the prison routine Defoe has developed, it is this moment now – the first in the still, silent darkness – which is the most arduous. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Defoe pauses, presses his fingertips into his eyes, tries to quiet his mind. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. He sighs. Thy will be done, he repeats. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Kingdom come! After another exhalation, he capitulates. If I must.
Though it carries only misery, he summons the memory, wincing with its intensity. A summer day, otherwise clear, sitting with a book in his Cornhill rooms. Thunder strikes. A flash storm rips across the city. Rain lashes at his one window. Vendors curse as they urgently pack away their carts. Hats are blown into spinning vortexes. His two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, stand at the glass, watching. He lays the book across the arm of his chair, and approaches his young girls, laying a hand on each of their shoulders, bringing them against his legs.
‘We are blessed with our own apartment,’ he tells them, ‘safe and dry’.
The door swings open, and there is Mary, his wife, drenched through. Her bonnet sags, hair is stuck to her cheek, her boots squelch. She rips off her bonnet.
‘I told you!’ she shouts, pointing at Defoe. ‘I said it wasn’t the day for it. You COERCED me to go and buy these forsaken rolls –’ she throws down her wet shopping bag ‘– that are now balls of two-penny sludge.’
Mary pauses her tirade, observing the three sets of eyes gawking at her sodden, infuriated being. She shakes her fists and stomps her legs up and down. His daughters cover their mouths to repress their laughter. Mary continues cursing, stripping down to her undergarments. As she steps out of her dress, she trips, hops once and collapses on the floor. Their giggles now erupt into belly laughing. Defoe can’t help joining in. Mary lies on the floor, given up. The girls walk over to untie her boots then Defoe carries her to their bedroom, laying her under the covers, where she strips to nakedness. Her green eyes are electrified by the wetness in her hair. She is soft and cool as he embraces her.
‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,’ Defoe mutters, wiping tears. ‘Thy Kingdom come.’
The old Fenchurch lacer, his neighbour who still hasn’t been released, lets out an embattled exhalation as he shifts from one discomfort to another. Defoe gives up on prayer, sits up, looking at the moon’s quicksilver across the wet walls, the heaped bodies spread about the space like stone outcroppings on a snow-covered field. Yet again, he is the last one awake. He settles back, attempting to close his eyes. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Kingdom come.
THE LAD
I am incarcerated in St Clement’s for a crime I didn’t commit
February 1724
I counterbalanced my increasing disillusionment with increasing volumes of gin. Every spare minute, when not planning or implementing a heist, I was submerged like a specimen in preservation, every part of me saturated with the blessed fuel. Often enough I awoke with the sun like a thousand needles piercing my brain, my heart moved to the inside of my skull where it rattled at its enclosure like a caged bear, my mouth like splintery wood slightly moistened with piss, and eyes blearily searching for where I might vomit the stew of last night’s fish. It was, I suppose, only a matter of time.
I awoke on Friday morning, 25 February of 1724, imprisoned in St Clement’s Roundhouse. According to the charge sheet balled in my lap, signed by a watchman named Partiger, I had pocketed two spoons from the Rummer Tavern, Charing Cross, with so many witnesses it would be impossible for me to deny it otherwise. I recollected none of it.
My ranking within Wild’s crew apparently bore no standing in this particular roundhouse, operated by the cruel Mr Nibblo. I am well qualified to comment on the running of prisons, having spent a regrettable amount of time therein, and this was the most mercilessly run of all.
I was incarcerated there for over six weeks, until one evening Miss Lyon arrived late, dressed in her gentry costumes. She attempted to persuade Nibblo that her ‘poor mute brother’ was taken by mistake. He allowed her the visitation but to all her other protestations he folded his arms.
‘My dear brother,’ she said, bending down to me. ‘What will Father say?’
‘I-I-I-I-I …’
I was parched, hungry and too long without a single dram; I don’t think my speech had ever been more hopeless. Miss Lyon produced a bladder of water, set it to my lips.
‘Mr Nibblo!’ she called with vehemence. ‘I demand the release of this boy’s fetters.’
‘For a guinea, not less,’ he called through the gate. ‘And his hands only.’
‘A guinea! At Newgate, it’s half.’
‘You’ve a second brother then?’
She huffed, pulled out the money, and fat Nibblo wobbled over with his key (which I noted the wardings of). She set out a joint pie with quince sauce and some poundcake.
‘Your trial is Tuesday,’ she began, once Nibblo was returned to his desk. ‘And Justice Blackerby isn’t one of ours. I’m sorry it has taken so long for me to come. Wild knows nothing of my being here.’
I nodded, chewing the lumps of veal and pastry. Fool that I was, weeks of resentment were dissolved in a moment of her presence. She pulled a flask from her jacket, and I drank a fiery and blessed mouthful.
‘Two
hundred yards of lace and no evidence. Two worthless spoons and there were five to witness it.’
I smiled, took her hand. There was much to say, and I couldn’t speak a word.
‘Blackerby is a brutal magistrate. He has sent more to Tyburn than any.’
I ran my dirty thumb over the back of her hand. It was oily and clean. I took a long multiple gulping from her flask. It flowed through my system mellifluously, like the seesawing of a falling leaf.
‘That’s bet-t-t-t-ter,’ I said, smiling. ‘All worth it-t-t-t, for a mom-m-m-ment.’
‘Not a worry, huh?’
‘If I’m with you, Bessie.’
‘I’m your sister,’ she warned, looking over her shoulder.
I reached for her face, and put my thumb to her lip. She discreetly kissed it.
‘Dear Jack,’ she said, coming even closer. ‘You must listen to me. Matters are not so good for you.’
‘I don’t remember taking spoons,’ I said. ‘Wild can surely sway a jury?’
‘You’ve created problems. Political problems. You were too good. The city is out for blood, and the Thief-Taker must deliver it.’
I was still too naive to understand. ‘All will be well,’ I said. ‘Surely.’
‘My dear brother,’ Bessie replied. She leaned in and I felt the weight of something drop into my lap. I fingered the corrugations of a file and puncheon. ‘I will tell Mother so,’ she continued in her histrionics, as I concealed the tools in my trousers.
‘Lend me a jacket,’ I said. ‘I’m c-c-c-cold.’
She gave me her shawl, which I placed over me.
‘I must kiss this generous sister of mine,’ I said.
She turned to check Nibblo’s view, then quickly leaned forward, briefly kissing me with an open mouth, her fingers in the softness behind my jaw. She pulled away, holding my face, and blinked at me slowly, her eyelids caressing the air between us.
‘Get yourself out of here, Lad,’ she whispered. ‘So we might be together.’
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