by Y. S. Lee
James forced himself to read each word slowly – the letter-writer prided himself on a dashing and near-illegible penmanship – but there was no controlling it: that instant, prickling excitement of a new and ambitious project. The sort of request to which he couldn’t possibly say no. Even if he were so inclined. When he’d finished the letter, he sat staring at it for several moments, his mind already racing ahead to design, materials, time to completion, possible difficulties.
It was George who brought him back to the present with a smug, “Awake now?”
“Fully conscious, yes.” This would be one of the largest and most important jobs Easton Engineering had ever been offered: the reconstruction of a series of underground vaults at the Bank of England. Utterly confidential. Highest security. And, naturally, deeply urgent. And yet … deep within him, there was an alarm bell ringing.
“Come on, you donkey! This is just the sort of thing you need. That bridge project is boring you silly, I can tell, and that’s why you’re still lolling in bed this morning.” George squinted at James, leaning in close to inspect the patient. “Tell me you’re not instantly bucked up by this job: logistical nightmare of new excavation, two storeys underground. Vaults full of French gold to be juggled about London in the middle of the night. It sounds damn near impossible, and must be done in as little time as possible. That sounds exactly like you, Jamie.” He paused, then added, “Not to mention that there’s no tender. You’re the man they want.”
James nodded, chewing his lip. That sentence, stipulating his specific involvement, made him nervous. “I wonder what they mean by that? I mean, why not you? If it comes to that, why not one of the larger engineering firms? Brunel has far more experience than we do.”
“Perfectly obvious,” scoffed George. “There was that business at St George’s Tower, which brought you into contact with that chappy, the First Commissioner of Works. He liked you enough to give you the Palace job and he’s probably married to the sister of a Director of the Bank of England. Then you did a bang-up job at Buckingham Palace. The bigwigs have been gossiping, and young James Easton is the man.” He drained his cup and poured himself another, sugaring it even more lavishly than usual. “I ought to be miffed, really. Nose out of joint, and all that. After all, how could they pass over the elder brother in favour of the younger? Positively unchristian, that.”
James’s mouth twitched. “If we lived in the Old Testament, I suppose. But take heart, esteemed elder brother. Perhaps it’s only that your dashing sartorial style would be wasted two storeys below ground level.”
George smiled. “Say what you will, but do say that you’re chuffed about this job, Jamie. I couldn’t devise a better one, given all the money and power of the Queen.”
James felt a rush of warmth for his brother. George was frequently all bluster and blunder, and he was preparing to marry a young lady who thought him wiser than Solomon, a state of affairs that could only be disastrous for his ego. But he had a disconcerting ability to sift through confusion for the core of the question, and a genuinely kind heart. James had always loved and admired those things in him.
“It’s a hell of a prospect,” added George. “And then to have it handed to you on the proverbial silver platter!”
James nodded and sipped his rapidly cooling coffee. What to do? How could he possibly explain to George that the proposition simply felt … off? Wrong? Too convenient and tailor-made?
“Well?” demanded George. “Don’t just sit there drinking coffee and looking po-faced! Say something!” James silently passed George the plate of biscuits. George adored sugared biscuits, and nearly always became distracted by their presence. This time, however, he waved away the plate. “You’re stalling,” he barked. “What the devil is wrong with you, man?”
James felt his cheeks grow warm. Usually, he found it easy – perhaps too easy – to produce clever, biting, yet safely evasive replies to inelegant questions. This time, however, he merely shrugged and mumbled, “I wondered if we were already fully committed. We’ve several projects underway—”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” roared George, his face turning beetroot. “Are you doing this simply to torment me?” He rose to his full height, slopping coffee down the front of his dressing-gown as he ticked off items on his fingers. “You’re on-site for only one building project, a perfectly straightforward repair-and-rebuild that anyone could handle. You’ve a few tenders in the works, but I daresay half of them will come to nought and the others can be reshuffled. And then there’s this golden opportunity, with invitation, acceptance, a handsome fee and astonishing future prospects, all in one! What is wrong with you, James Easton?”
James shrugged, weakly. “Nothing.”
“Then?” thundered George. He made as though to tear his thinning hair, but then thought better of it. “Oh good Lord, you’ll be the death of me,” he muttered, sinking back into the bedroom chair. “What’s the matter, Jamie? What are you hiding that makes it impossible for you to leap at the best opportunity our business and our family will ever receive?” He passed a weary hand over his eyes. A second later, he parted his fingers to fix James with a single beady eye. “Still nothing to do with your blessed Miss Quinn?”
James closed his eyes. He didn’t think he could bear it, this invisible contest of loyalties between the woman he loved and the brother who’d raised him. He could protect neither, defend neither, do justice to neither. He sighed and uttered the words he knew he’d come to regret. “I was merely surprised, George. Of course I’ll accept the job.”
Monday, 15 October, early morning
Newgate Prison, London
She’d not planned to come on a hanging day. It was the crowds that tipped her off, well before she was in view of the prison. The crowds, and the festival atmosphere. Men and women thronged the streets, shrieked and bayed, trod upon children and animals. Others hawked pickled whelks and fried potatoes, boiled puddings and spiced wine, for nothing whetted the appetite like a public execution. There was a sprinkling of gentlemen in the crowd; there always was. But most of this raucous sea of humanity was cheaply dressed, and Mary was glad she’d done the same. If anything, her coarse cotton dress and simple bonnet were slightly too plain. Evidently, many Londoners looked upon a hanging as akin to a play: one dressed up to be so divertingly entertained.
For one long, cowardly moment, Mary considered turning tail. She could start again tomorrow. Tuesday morning would be relatively quiet and offer a clearer view of the grim stone walls that haunted her dreams. Yet wouldn’t that be an admission of defeat, fleeing the sight she’d come to see? Undoubtedly. Mary set her jaw. What surer way to rout a nightmare than to confront it at its hellish worst? Besides, wedged in the crowd as she was, it was already difficult to turn back. Bodies pressed ever closer. They were slowly losing their individuality, becoming part of a river of flesh that flowed towards the gallows in Newgate Street.
Mary edged closer to the jail, guarding her ribs with her elbows and her purse with her fist. The roaring crowd flowed fast and she was around the corner before she had quite realized it. The grimy stone walls loomed high, but not as high as in her nightmares. The windows were grim, but mere windows, not the malevolent eyes she remembered. Perhaps the prison itself lost some of its fearful power when the real nightmare was to be played out before her: the public execution of a human being.
She knew, of course, that many of the people hanged were violent murderers like Maria Thorold. Yet Mary couldn’t think of the loop of thick rope without feeling it about her own neck; couldn’t imagine the trapdoor without feeling it swing open beneath her feet. She rubbed her throat, to banish the sensation of coarse hemp against her skin, and the tattooed sailor breathing down her collar grinned at her familiarly. “What’s a pretty girl like you got to worry about, hey? Got something to confess?”
She shook her head. It was beyond her powers to banter about this subject, at least.
The wooden platform was directly before her now, wit
h its sturdy gibbet. The hangman, a macabre figure all in black, was testing the mechanism, fitting a weighted dummy into the noose. A moment’s fiddling, and then he pulled a lever. The dummy dropped; a sarcastic cheer rose from the crowd.
She was going to be sick. This was a ghastly error. She turned around and began to push fiercely through the crowd, heedless of the indignant cries of the people in her wake. There was no escape; the wall of bodies pressing ever closer, always towards the gallows. With desperate strength, Mary shoved her way through, swallowing the burning bile at the back of her throat, sorting people to her left and right as she sought a way out.
There, she saw her salvation: the open door of a pub. She stumbled through it, into a cool, cavernous room. It was startlingly quiet – not silent, in truth, but seemingly so after the hubbub in the street just outside. She drew a long, unsteady breath, and then another. Took a few shaky steps towards the bar before her trembling knees forced her to drop onto a bench at the first unoccupied table.
“Miss? You all right?” The voice was gentle but persistent. It might have been speaking for some time, but Mary only became aware of it when a large, plump hand rested firmly on her arm.
“Yes.” Mary lifted her head swiftly and flinched with regret as the room tilted and spun around her. She swallowed hard. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“This y’first? The first time is always the hardest,” the voice confided. “When we took on this place, I was near to fainting at the very idea, but now, why, I hardly notice when they build up the gallows.” Mary forced herself to focus on the speaker, a broad, rosy-cheeked woman wearing a frilled cap. The landlady, of course. “And Mr Calcraft, why, he’s a regular in here. Likes a stiff whisky after the fact, and I can’t blame him.”
Calcraft was the executioner. A notorious figure, he was both feared and cheered as a celebrity. Even children knew of his penchant for the “short drop”, which often failed to break a prisoner’s neck. Indeed, “playing Calcraft” was many a street urchin’s idea of amusement: lads would simulate an execution, and while one playing the dead man pretended to choke and strangle, another would swing from his legs to amuse his mates, just as Calcraft often did with his real victims. Mary’s own near-execution should have inured her to gallows humour, but she always looked away when she spotted a game of Calcraft in an alley.
“Sure you’re all right? You don’t look half pale.”
Mary nodded firmly. “Fine, thank you.” Then she remembered where she was. “I’d thank you for a brandy, though.”
The woman nodded and returned presently with a small glass of amber liquid. “Drink first and pay me later, my dear. Lord knows you need it.”
Mary sipped gratefully, the sweet fire burning away the taste of fear and filling her with warmth. “It’s a good brandy, Mrs…?”
“Bridges. That’s the finest French brandy, that, and a bargain at tuppence a glass.”
Now that she was returning to herself, Mary glanced around the pub. It was smaller than she’d first thought: not a major tavern at all, but an old-fashioned drinking den. While far from full – all the action was in the streets at the moment, awaiting Calcraft’s entertainment – there were a few obvious regulars who continued to sip their drinks, oblivious to the excitement of a public hanging.
“How long have you managed this pub, Mrs Bridges?”
“Oh, Bridges and I took over the Hangman only a year ago. We had a little pub in Essex, before then, but our daughter’s living near by, so we thought to move nearer to her.”
“And business is good?” Mary noted the gleaming glass and polished brasses, the gas lights that hissed bravely against the dark-panelled walls. How odd to find such a homely, comfortable landlady so near to the place of death.
“Too busy,” said Mrs Bridges with pride. “Why, I’m rushed off me feet, most of the time. It’s quiet now, of course, but just you wait: an hour after that trapdoor drops, it’ll be merry mayhem in here. I swear, nothing gives a Londoner a thirst like a good hanging.”
Mary repressed a shudder. Why was she here, making polite conversation with this woman? Then again, where else ought she to be? The realization shrivelled her sense of righteous horror. She was here for one reason only: to see if she could, indeed, help bring Mrs Thorold to justice.
She, Mary Quinn, had survived the death of her parents, a childhood on the streets, a career as pickpocket and housebreaker. She had escaped the very gallows she now quailed before, with the help of the Agency. She had benefited from an education at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, and been trained as a secret agent by the Agency. She had chosen a life of action, utility and independence. Why was she now so scandalized and easily bruised by experience? If this was how life as a lady had transformed her, she needed to change back. And quickly. She drained her brandy and fished out her purse. “Thank you,” she said, paying Mrs Bridges. “That’s just what I needed.”
But the landlady was looking at the coin, then at Mary. “Tell you what,” she said, after a moment’s pause. “Keep your money and give us a hand with the washing-up, instead.”
Mary nearly laughed until she realized the woman was in earnest. “Do you always find your barmaids off the street?” she asked.
“You’re a decent sort, I can tell. And we could do with a girl to help us out,” said Mrs Bridges. “Someone neat, what minds her Ps and Qs, and you’re not hard on the eyes, which always helps.” She gave Mary a swift once-over. “Eight shillings a week, with your room and board. Start tomorrow.”
Mary half-smiled. “You’re kind, Mrs Bridges, but I’ve my own work to get on with.”
“What d’you do, then?”
“I sell gingerbread,” said Mary, surprising herself. Even as she uttered the words, however, she realized how ideal such a cover would be. She could wander the length and breadth of Newgate, mingling freely with the crowds. She could come and go as she pleased. Gingerbread was lightweight, too: she needed nothing more than a covered basket and a few pennyworth of spiced dough from a bakeshop.
The landlady sighed with regret. “That’s cold, hard work, in the streets. You’d be better off here, in the pub.”
Mary begged to differ. Pub work would keep her tethered to one spot. And with the offer of room and board, she’d find herself working eighteen-hour days. Nevertheless, she said politely, “If I change my mind, I’ll come and find you.”
“Come and find me anyway, dearie,” said Mrs Bridges, getting up and starting to polish the pumps again. “We all need a sit-down and a gossip, now and again.”
Mary smiled and made her way back into Newgate, fortified both by brandy and a sense of purpose. The street scene was as squalid and raucous as ever, the high wooden gibbet still a scar against the low grey sky. This was her London: brutal, coarse, dangerous. It was a part of her history. It had moulded her character. But she would not allow it to shape her destiny.
Six
Late morning, the same day
Threadneedle Street, the City of London
James Easton had a fairly good imagination. Even so, the best description he could find for the underground vaults of the Bank of England was “unimaginable”. The rows upon rows of gold bars stored within, stacked like so many cakes of soap on simple metal shelves, gave the place a surreal, childish quality. One wanted to laugh and scratch off the gold paint to show that they were, in fact, ordinary and unprecious lead. Even so, how much would such a vast quantity of lead be worth? Transfixed by the sheer scale of things, James automatically began a calculation, but abandoned it a moment later.
“How do you intend to manage your assets during the period of construction?” he asked the party of five men, members of the Court of Directors of the Bank of England, who were showing him around.
“Eh?” said an older man named Bentley who seemed, unofficially, in charge of the committee. “How d’you mean?”
“Will you move the gold to a separate storage facility while the work is underway?”
�
��Yes,” said Mr Bentley with a fussy nod. He spoke with his upper lip perpetually curled, so that his “yes” sounded like “yis”. “Yes, unfortunate and risky as the task will indubitably be, that is essential. We simply haven’t enough extra space to redistribute the gold.” He coughed and glanced doubtfully at James over his pince-nez. “Not to mention the security risk of having workmen down here on a daily basis, with the gold close by.”
James wasn’t offended. His labourers were all carefully vetted, but there was no need to expose them to temptation. Different men had different breaking points. “I must advise you that the removal and storage of such precious cargo is new to me. While I am willing to undertake the work, you may wish to organize that yourselves.”
Mr Bentley looked vaguely surprised. “Your point is noted. We shall, er … hem. We shall have to discuss that amongst ourselves.”
“Very well. Let us treat the two matters – the clearing of the vaults and the repair work – as entirely separate tasks for now. It will be difficult to know just how much time we’ll need to complete the work until the vaults are completely emptied. We may discover further rot or areas of structural instability that are presently concealed.”
The Directors frowned as one. “Oh.”
“I shall need a copy of the original plans for the storage vaults, as well as details of any alterations that have been carried out.”
The youngest of the gentlemen, who was still James’s senior by two decades or so, presented him with a card. “I shall have those delivered, by secure guard, to your office this afternoon. Please communicate directly with me should you require anything further along those lines.”
James thanked him. “As we’re contemplating such a significant expansion, you will perhaps also consider if you’d like to include gas lighting in the new and rebuilt vaults. We shall have to address the question of air exchange, which means it’s quite straightforward to lay a gas line at the same time.” There was a brief pause in the group’s mutterings and throat-clearings, during which James’s keen ears picked up a faint but distinct rustling noise. Naturally. “It sounds as though I must also mention the rather impolite matter of vermin. Is there currently an infestation of any sort at the Bank?”
