“Then what? You would make no commitment before, I well recall, but your wager has been won.”
“I have not freed myself from a prison of stones and lies to make myself yet a hostage to custom and society!” said Grainger, stepping towards her. “You have been the soul of my dearest thoughts, ever since.”
He reached and took her hands. The bailiffs had, by some mystic arrangement, retreated to the gate of Porlock Yard and looked out on the light morning airs with extraordinary vigilance.
“Do not speak of marriage because you would defy society!” exclaimed Cassie.
“So you grant this is marriage talk. A strange courting, I should say.”
“Perhaps,” she said calmly. “But I have my honour now. And you have your position restored. And I would have no one say that I worked this to my purpose all along.”
He grinned. “I have this morning a letter delivered from Lady Stepney. Presents her compliments. She is prepared to forgive all and accept me into my old place in her thoughts, mind, if I do but consent to be conventionally respectable again.”
“And what say you?”
Cassie waited for his reply.
“We together have overturned too many convenient arrangements and cast out too many frauds and hypocrites to ever be conventional or respectable again. I am no more fit for my old position than you are for The Steps, my lady.”
She bit her lower lip before responding. “Then we two are alike in that.”
He turned her hands over in his. She had taken off her few rings. “I may be no sort of material for a husband. Yet, perhaps, I did not know this before I was a lodger in the Bells, but I know you are the finest woman in Airenchester, of inestimable courage and worth. Well, a man under the lock finds all his thoughts be of locks and walls. If he is set free, and there is no yard or gate before him, is he to turn invariably to locks and bars and stone walls? They will pass through his dreams, but to his waking life let there be only the one he has chosen and the open way. Let us marry for love and truth, and have the measure of each other, and the world shall proceed regardless.”
Then her joy broke through: she bolted into his arms and he folded her in, staggering, and laughed with delight. Porlock Yard, with all its shouts and troubles, became but a shadow to her.
“I won’t part from you again,” she whispered, “for any cause. There is my choice.”
After a steady minute, there was an audible shuffling behind Cassie on the doorstep, a giggle, and one or two children even hazarded applause.
“I shall speak to your father,” he said.
She laughed. Her hands were set deep in his coat pockets. “I don’t know if he will embrace you or knock you flat for what you are about to ask!”
“I shall brave either. But then, pray, walk back with me, for I find the streets and the people do trouble me somewhat.”
THE FROST GATHERED silently, and the threat of snow stalked the air and would be resolved in a day or two. Yet not far from Haught, in a quiet square off the Getshall Road, the Grainger house brightened with candlelight and fire. The gate was unfastened, and Mr. Myron stood proudly by the threshold. The door opened, and a warm glow fell on the stooping oaks and lined the last few fallen leaves on the wet stones with a golden gloss, and a thread of laughter and talk could be heard within, and this corner of the witheringly wide world was the more cheerful for it.
In the parlour room, William Quillby conversed with Mr. Bensey and Mr. Tyre. Mr. Tyre’s was one of the countless bonds acquired by the Withnails and lost or dissolved in the collapse of their house. Yet if Mr. Tyre felt a little discomposed by the spaciousness of the parlour and the hall, he was reconciled to the company and the heat of the hearth, and looked attentively about.
William paused to accept, with merry thanks, a glass of wine. So he drank, and old Mr. Grainger’s claret, liberated a few hours ago from the cellars, breathed intimations of the far, coloured hillsides and the sun.
“I understand,” Mr. Bensey opened shyly, “that congratulations are in order.”
William seemed startled, looked down, and replied, “Miss Grimsborough has undertaken—that is, she assents—which is to say, that I am persuaded she will make me surpassingly happy, and I will strive to do the same.”
It was Mr. Bensey’s turn to be astonished. He coughed, then beamed and raised his glass. “Then, if we may, we will wish you both the most deserved happiness.”
“And the Captain,” asked Mr. Tyre, “offered no objections?”
“The Captain is a man of decided opinions,” replied Quillby. “But in this case, he has withdrawn his objections. That is to say, he has informed me that I have shown my mettle. Yet, not withstanding this, I undertake sincerely to be worthy in all ways of Miss Grimsborough’s affections.”
“If I may diverge,” continued Mr. Bensey, “those were not the congratulations I had in mind. I see that one or two pieces of your devising, detailing the events and circumstances surrounding the Bellstrom Gaol and the career and discovery of that notorious prisoner, are now circulating.”
“I fear they are only scribblings, hasty and dramatic at that,” admitted Quillby. “But I have been gratified by my readers. I have half a mind to put the fragments together into some sort of longer piece.”
“Excellent idea,” interposed Mr. Bensey.
“Not, I am sure, to the minds of my critics,” said Quillby, with a grin. “Why, here’s a fellow, writes to my editor—” William drew a paper out of his breast pocket and read—“‘Not content, sir, to be decorous or tedious, as art demands, the author nurtures ideas of the most dangerous and disorderly kind, and has the gall to conceal these under the guise of an entertainment, like to a literary card-sharper who deals subversions from the bottom of his tatty deck.’”
Mr. Bensey laughed heartily.
“Yet I am curious, if you will, to know how the whole story got out at all,” said Mr. Tyre.
After a moment, William became serious. “I am certain that we could not have overcome all difficulties and brought Thaddeus out of the Bellstrom without Miss Redruth. Her loyalty and resolve were utterly decisive. I recall our progress through The Steps, among dust and shouts and flames: we were pelted with stones, battered with sticks and threatened by knives. By her memory of the lanes, we came to the forgotten sally-port beneath the Bellstrom. We waited there, and when we heard the signal, the old bell ringing for the first time in decades, we struck off the lock and, leaving men to guard the gate, went inside.”
William drank again to clear his throat. “Even in the gaol, in the smoke and confusion and darkness, she held to the way. I admit that I was entirely bewildered in that maze of cells and passages, yet she led us through the prison to the Bell Tower without hesitation. Those who would stop us, she calmed by her words and her clear, plain dedication. They knew her, of course, but they were persuaded by her honesty and need.
“Then I had the honour of meeting Mr. Tyre and one or two others (including a rather heavy fellow they had detained). We went up the stairs. There we found Thaddeus, alone among the hoard of papers and strongboxes. We gathered up what we could and made our way out of the prison. By then, the guards had broken in at the gate, and the riot was driven down in blood and shot. Miss Redruth was steadfast and fearless throughout.”
“She is,” said Mr. Bensey, “a remarkable person. I am proud to say she was, however briefly, my pupil.”
“It fell to my friend here,” said William, with a nod and a bow to Mr. Bensey, “to sort through all that we had recovered and, with the assistance of Mr. Grainger, prepare a memorandum. A very fine job was made of it.”
“My concentration,” murmured Mr. Bensey, “is not as it was of old, but Mr. Grainger was very patient, despite his hurts.”
“Yet, what of the case?” enquired Mr. Tyre.
William raised the glass and lowered it again, untasted. “I set the matter and all our discoveries before Lady Tarwell. In the end, her interest in this case is that of a mothe
r to her murdered son. I shall never forget that dark and mournful hour, in which I laid out the proofs, some written in her son’s hand, some bearing the raven’s seal, before her. But she is an honourable lady, and true to her word she has been our strongest advocate. She put the matter before a certain Duke, who has the ear of the highest power in the land, and secured his release thereby. Shortly the verdict shall be vacated. The rest is reserved for her grief.”
Yet William could not remain downcast, for Miss Clara Grimsborough appeared, and the little golden curls about her brow, and her glittering blue eyes, were exceedingly diverting. Therefore, Quillby was delighted when she slipped her arm inside his and took him aside.
“Is something the matter?” he asked Miss Grimsborough.
“Not at all. On the contrary, I think there is something very fine to be said, and Mr. Grainger insists that you are the person to hear it first.”
With Clara to steady him (for he felt a little giddy, which he could not honestly ascribe to the claret), William crossed the hall to the library. A bright fire roared here, shining on the covers and gilt lettering of many books in their cherry-wood cases. As they entered, it may be that Miss Redruth and Mr. Grainger, who were alone at the hearth, parted a little abruptly, but Thaddeus was not abashed, and greeted his friend cheerfully, and both men shook hands, while Clara went to Cassandra.
“I see,” noted William, “that Clara and Cassie are on the path to becoming firm friends.”
“I should say,” replied Grainger, “that they are fixed friends already, and consequently deep in conspiracy against us.”
As the dark, lustrous head of the tall girl bent close to the pale, shining strands of the slighter, some words passed between them, and Miss Grimsborough glanced at William with an impish air of secret knowledge, William could not disagree, and yet the notion dismayed him not in the least.
William considered his friend. The cut to Grainger’s temple had healed, but the scar remained. The marks of the prison persisted also, no transitory thing: lines of hardship and weariness and dire struggle about the face, the stony flecks of grey in the dark hair; but even now they were eased by the calm, intent, loving look that rested on Cassie.
“I shall marry that girl,” said Thaddeus Grainger. “There is a thing for you to report!”
“My dear fellow!” exclaimed William.
“There it is! And I have a need to get away from this town, and I would be honoured if, during that time, which could well be a very long time indeed, you would consent to make this house your home—aye, and Miss Grimsborough, as well, if I read the signs aright! My father maintained some properties in the country, close to the border, very run down, at present, but I believe something can be done with them. Rustic and simple, as well, but I trust that I will be restored by a view of the hills and the lakes, with no walls or fences in between. And Cassie, and her family, will come with me. Of course, good sense and good breeding and our stations are all against it.”
“I should say, rather,” returned William quietly, “that simple justice, and the courage and loyalty and passion of the lady in question, and the duties and affections of a gentleman, are all for it.”
“You are right!” said Grainger, with a laugh. “Tongues will wag: they will say that she designed it so, that she worked her hold upon me while I was still a prisoner, that my wits are disordered, that I buy her silence for my crimes by taking her to wife. Let them say so, and I will not be moved.”
Quillby considered this with a wry smile. “Thaddeus, I don’t believe I answered your question.”
“Which was that?”
“I would be honoured to occupy your house for you, and Miss Grimsborough, I think, would be delighted.”
“Capital fellow! Only, you must think of it as your own, and never recall that I was here—except when we share a bottle from the cellar. Very well then,” Grainger rested his hand on William’s shoulder and turned him to the ladies. “Let us put our arrangements to the test. Miss Redruth, my dear Cassie, would you stop with me a moment? I have something to tell you.”
William, at Clara’s side, gently steered her out of the library. She slipped out first, and William paused on the threshold, with his hand upon the latch, to look behind.
Thaddeus whispered to Cassie. She laughed and nodded, and shifted into his arms. He sank, then, into the deep chair by the fire. Cassie stood, but he pulled her down into his lap, and her arms closed about his neck, and now William, a true gentleman, left the room and shut the door behind him.
THE END.
Author’s Note
THE OPENING PASSAGES of The Raven’s Seal were first written in the A.D. White Library at Cornell University, in the quiet between semesters, but the original idea of the prison—and prisoner—wrapped in a Dickensian mystery had been with me much longer. My first conception of the Bellstrom Gaol was a patchwork of images (Dickens’ Newgate and Marshalsea among them) and therefore entirely fictional, as was the city, rather like Dickens’ Cloisterham, that surrounded it.
With the Cornell Library, I began to draw out and give substance to those first strands of inspiration. As I researched the history of prisons, the gaol of the eighteenth century emerged as the ideal stage for the corrupt, brawling, chaotic scene I wanted to create. For this I am particularly indebted to The Oxford History of the Prison and especially the chapters by Randall McGowen and Sean McConville, which provided much of the background material.
The language of the prison and its wider milieu helped to capture its atmosphere and social structure. I pieced together many terms in part from John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (and the notes to the Penguin Classics edition) and a volume from my wife’s collection, The Slang Dictionary, published by John Camden Hotton in 1872. Later, a passage in John Birmingham’s “biography” of Sydney, Leviathan, helped sketch out the economy of the prison, so crucial to Grainger’s contest with Mr. Starke.
I have, whenever the pace of the story or interest required it, combined some features of the period and ignored many others. The early modern prison is strikingly different from the prison of today, but all prisons are administrative and ideological constructs, and the early prison gave rise, inevitably, to that which we now know. For a far more comprehensive, not to say accurate, history of social disruption and the shadow of the gallows in the eighteenth century and the conflicts driving the growth of prisons and crime under the Black Act, the interested reader can do little better than Peter Linebaugh’s magisterial account of The London Hanged.
About the Author
ANDREI BALTAKMENS was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, of Latvian descent. He has a Ph.D. in English literature, focused on Charles Dickens and Victorian urban mysteries. His first novel, The Battleship Regal, was published in New Zealand in 1996. He has published short fiction in various literary journals, including a story in the collection of emerging New Zealand male writers, Boys’ Own Stories (2001). For five years he lived in Ithaca, New York, where he was part of the professional staff of Cornell University. He is currently a graduate student in the Creative Writing Program at The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where he lives with his wife and son.
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