Smith

by Leon Garfield

  With that, she imprinted a large, moist kiss on Smith’s surprised face. He blushed—and everyone laughed . . . including the coachman who laughed loudest of all. So in a matter of moments, Smith was become quite a hero, and when the parlormaid (who’d gone back to her post at the library door), came down with the news that Smith was wanted, everyone—even Smith himself—was convinced it was because Miss Mansfield wanted to show off the wonders she’d worked in him. He got off his chair and straightened his coat. The housekeeper found a comb and brought order to his hair. A footman wiped a smut off his face; another suggested a quick bath—and chuckled.

  “Go on up, Smith!”—“Do us all proud, Smith!”—“God bless you, Smith!”—“Don’t forget, Smith—we’re all behind you, lad!”

  And so they were, for, as Smith went proudly up the stairs, the Vine Street household followed closely after to give him a last pat on the back as he knocked on the library door and went inside.

  It was just on midday. A brisk fire was burning in the library, for the weather was turned very bitter and the sky bulged with unshed snow. For a second time Smith and Mr. Billing stared at one another; and for a second time the attorney shuddered—to the depths of his soul, it seemed.

  “It is him. This is the boy I saw. In the Court. This boy stabbed Field. I saw him! He is the murderer! My poor friends—how monstrously you’ve been deceived!”

  Mr. Billing was the man from Godliman Street: the same man who’d questioned the unlucky bookseller.

  9

  GREAT HOPES, GREAT JOY, great trust, when they fall, do so swiftly—in a bleak and evil instant. They do not diminish, little by little so that a man you trusted yesterday, today you trust a little less. He is lost, damned; nothing of him remains but is false as quicksand—

  “Snake! Venomous little snake!”

  From outside of the library door, where the Vine Street household was gathered, eager and close, to hear its prodigy’s triumph, came this single, bitter, trembling voice.

  “Snake!”

  Whether it was the housekeeper’s, a footman’s, the coachman’s—no one knew. It was of no consequence. It was the voice of the household, shaken and shocked out of its pleasant dream by the dreadful words of the attorney.

  Within the library the brisk fire still danced and gleamed on the polished wood, the calm brown walls and the gilded backs of the books.

  Miss Mansfield—elegant, handsome and gay in a yellow brocaded dress—had lost every scrap of her complexion. She’d put her hand to her face as if to hide from the world her horror and dismay. She cried: “No! No! It’s not so! You’re mistook, sir! Not this boy! Never, I tell you!” But in her heart of hearts she could not but believe the attorney, not because she wanted to, but because she dreaded it was so.

  “It is the boy I saw from my window in Curtis Court. I saw him struggle. I saw him stab. I saw him escape. There is no doubt. I wish to God there was. Forgive me . . .”

  The attorney spoke low and shakingly, but his eyes were cold as stone. If anything gleamed or flickered in them, the terrified Smith never saw it. If anything pricked in that subtle, black and dreadful place that he suddenly divined was the attorney’s heart, there was nothing to show for it. Save once. When Miss Mansfield cried out for a second time, there was in her voice such a world of misery that Mr. Billing’s white hands clenched and he seemed to flinch— as if his real love for Miss Mansfield had moaned: You’re murdering me, Thomas Billing!

  Miss Mansfield moved—and the rustling of her dress was as a dragging sigh. She crossed the room to her father—that motionless man in his high-backed chair. She made to lay her hand on his (which was fixed upon his stick), but he sensed her intention and waved her off. The customary blandness of his face seemed carved out of granite.

  While Smith—Smith, who’d done nothing—could do nothing but moan in a dreadful amazement several times over, “You’re mad! You’re mad! I never laid a finger on the old man! I never touched the old man! I never—never—never . . .” He retreated from them and began to glare very hopelessly about the room . . . to Miss Mansfield, to the window (against which stood the sorrowful, terrible attorney), to the door behind which was the Vine Street household.

  No way out. Thoughts—such as they were—whirled in his head and made him feel sick. The blow that had fallen was inexplicable, frightful, crushing. He crept to Mr. Billing. Stared up at him very piteously.

  “You—you was wrong, Mister Billing! For Gawd’s sake, tell ’em! For you’re a-killing me!”

  But the attorney shook his handsome head.

  “Not wrong, Smith. I saw. I know.”

  “Then damn you!” shouted Smith and flew to the Mansfields— blind father and tragic daughter.

  “Miss! You knows me! I never done it! Swear on the Scriptures! Swear! Swear! You believe me, Miss Mansfield? Please—”

  In an inward agony Miss Mansfield stared down at Smith . . . and then to the sad but certain attorney—who seemed to have no reason in the world to lie. Maybe she remembered the Smith who’d first come to her—and tried to rob her blind father’s study? Maybe she thought the boy’s fall was a punishment for her own pride in imagining she’d redeemed him? Who can tell what went on in her unhappy soul!

  “Oh, Smith!” she whispered, and turned away.

  “Then damn you, too! You Bedlam-mad saint!” wept Smith helplessly, and bent down, crouching, at the magistrate’s feet: his old blind justice . . . his mole-in-the-hole.

  “Mister Mansfield! You believe me. I know it. I can see it in your—your . . . You know me—and I know you. You know I never done him in!”

  But the magistrate—to whom justice was the only fixed thing in a dark, uncertain world—said nothing. He was casting out of his heart and mind everything save the attorney’s measured words and the urchin’s frantic denials. Word against word.

  “Mister Mansfield!” whispered Smith, staring up and seeing his own face distortedly reflected in the blind man’s black spectacles. “You must believe! It wasn’t me! It was them two men in brown and—”

  “—Two men in brown?”

  “Yes! Yes! And—”

  “—You saw them kill him?”

  “I—I—”

  “Yet you told me once you’d never seen Mister Field!”

  Too late! Smith realized he’d ruined himself! Now he was done for.

  The blind man sighed like the winter wind.

  “So . . . so . . . it was you who killed him.”

  The world fell away, and Smith, still crouching on the floor and watching the blind man’s lips, felt as lonely, bitter and forlorn as if he were already on the gallows. Softly, the blind man went on:

  “Which hand did you use, Smith? Was it the one you gave me that night we met? Was it that same, small, helping hand? Tell me, Smith! Don’t be ashamed—for didn’t I say to you that devils and angels are all one to me?”

  “Voices in the night!” muttered Smith, despairingly. “We’re all voices in the night to you—you poor old blind fool!”

  “You will be committed to prison to await your trial.”

  “Trial? What d’you want to try me for? Might as well do me in now. What’s one voice less in your noisy night, Mister Magistrate Mansfield? You’ll never see me face when I’m nubbed. Nothing’ll haunt you! You done right, you have! All I ’ope is—fer your sake and mine—that if you goes to heaven, then I goes to hell! For I wouldn’t want you to clap even dead eyes on me!”

  “Smith—”

  “I never done it, Mister Mansfield.”

  “You’ll be tried—”

  “—And nubbed!”

  “God have mercy on your soul!”

  “Not if He’s a blind old gent like you!”

  “Smith—”

  But Smith did not say another word. He shook his head with an air of grimness and despair. He had retired a great way within himself and whatever he found there seemed to absorb him entirely.

  He was much mishandled as he was bundl
ed into the coach, for the Vine Street household were very bitter and outraged by the monstrousness of Smith. Even those who, but an hour before, had decided once and for all that there was much goodness in him and had vowed never again to judge by appearances—even they thrust bleak and savage faces close to his, to let him know what the world now thought.

  There was a good deal of treading on his feet and jerking of his clothes. Two of his bright buttons were torn off and the side of his face was bruised. But all he did was to shake his head endlessly . . . even to the one kindly face that managed to push its way in among all the anger and contempt to look at him through the coach window. It was Meg, the scullery maid. Her eyes were as large and round and wet as Margate oysters.

  “I’ll come and see you, dear. I’ll bring you something nourishing. Don’t fret, little Smith. Meg won’t forget you, dear!”

  In the general commotion something had been forgotten, or would have been but for the scrupulous attorney.

  “Wait! Wait!” he shouted from the window. “The warrant!”

  The warrant was sworn and witnessed.

  “I’ll take it down, sir.”

  The magistrate nodded, wearily.

  “And I’ll go with him to the jail.”

  “There’s no need, Billing. There’s no need for you to endure any more.”

  “I’ll go, sir. It—it’s the least I can do. Let the wretched child have some company on his journey. I’ll see him decently lodged.”

  Miss Mansfield raised her eyes to Mr. Billing. Their look much moved him.

  “We thank you, sir, for this—kindness.” She sighed. “I blame myself for this. It was I who encouraged the boy. My father was not a party to it. But he was too kind to urge his better judgment. And now—and now—” She spread out her hands and shook her head. Then she seemed to recover herself somewhat and frowned in a semblance of her old manner. “Papa! You have a donkey for a daughter! A sentimental Mister foolish donkey! So we must be thankful for Mister Billing who’s proved himself the best and truest of friends!” She curtsied. “Your servant, sir. Your very humble servant!”

  The coach was waiting, much scraped from a more than ordinary collision with the uneven arch. Within crouched Smith, wiping from his face what the coachman had spat in it.

  “To Newgate!” ordered the attorney, and joined his victim.

  The coach moved off and, for a little way, the two occupants stared at each other: the one, incredulously—the other, calmly. Then, when the wheels had settled down to a steady, loud rattle, Mr. Billing leaned forward.

  The skin round his eyes puckered somewhat—as if to suggest a smile. But his eyes were still like stone.

  “Give it to me, boy.”

  Dully, Smith began to comprehend. He stared back at the attorney with violent hatred.

  “For God’s sake, boy! There’s not much time! Give it to me— the paper you stole from the old man. Let me have it—and you can go.”

  “I ain’t got it.”

  “And I know you have!”

  “Search me—or are you afraid of being bit? For I’m a venomous little snake, I am!”

  The attorney looked at the boy sharply; then withdrew the hand he’d held out. He shook his head with a curious air of gentleness.

  “All right, lad—I believe you. What was in it?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Then—where is it?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Don’t your life mean a fig to you?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Mr. Billing compressed his lips, then shook his head again with the same strange gentleness as before. He sighed.

  “You’re foolish, young man. I promise I’ll help you, but you must tell me. It’s your only chance. All right—all right! Keep silent now, if you must. I’ll understand. But believe me, young Smith, I’m your truest friend! And soon you’ll come to see it. Not today, nor even tonight—but tomorrow, maybe. I’ll visit you, boy—and we’ll talk again. Lay our cards on the table, eh? And then—and then, who knows, but we may be friends? You and me, Smith. Don’t look so despairing, son. I’m not a villain. It’s this vile world we live in, boy!”

  But Smith continued to look despairing; the blow that had befallen him was more terrible, even, than the attorney guessed at. The document was lost and, though at last he could have read it, it was further away from him now than ever it had been since he’d picked Mr. Field’s pocket. It had brought him nothing but disaster, but it seemed his life depended on it. He hated it; he dreaded it; yet it was as though he’d sold his soul for it.

  “Newgate Jail, sir!” shouted the coachman, grimly.

  Mr. Billing sighed—and Smith groaned . . . while the birds on Old Bailey and St. Paul’s screeched out in high triumph:

  “Jug him! Jug—jug—jug him!”

  At last, they were about to be obliged.

  10

  THERE LAY IN NEWGATE a very famous felon whose days were drawing to a close. Indeed, on this Wednesday, there was less than a fortnight’s life left in him; on Tuesday, January twenty-third, Dick Mulrone was to be taken out and hanged. A great many petitions had been got up to save him, but none had succeeded, and no one in his heart of hearts was truly sorry, for the death of a hero (even though he was a murderous ruffian) was a vastly romantic thing.

  From morning to night there was a press of carriages outside the jail—for Mr. Mulrone had more friends and admirers than he knew what to do with. They came to see him, to talk with him, even to drink with him, and then go away and brood on the frailty of human life (Mr. Mulrone’s, not their own).

  Even great ladies came and went—their huge skirts swinging and pealing down the doleful passages like so many brocaded bells, tolling:

  What a pity. What a shame. Dick’s to die on Tuesday week. What a pity. What a shame. Poor Mr. Mulrone.

  So it was that Smith, and his bitterness and bewilderment with all the world, dropped into Newgate with no more stir than a driblet of spittle into the Fleet Ditch. True, the jailer at the lodge had been surprised when he’d discovered that the undersized object in livery was Smith.

  “Not old Smith?” he’d said, with a shrug and a grin. “Not grubby little Smith? Thieving Smith, Smith o’ the doorways and corners? Smith o’ the stinking Red Lion?”

  Then he’d thrust his reeking, bristly face close and remarked on Smith’s cleanliness and said he’d never suspected his features were so human.

  “But washing ain’t exackly been profitable, eh? For yore dirt, Smith, hid a multitude o’ sins and now them sins is exposed to the view, so here you are, me lad! Jailed, jugged and bottled—as we say in the trade!”

  But when he learned the charge was murder, he withdrew somewhat and said reproachfully: “Ah now, Smith—that’s bad! Poor Miss Fanny and Miss Bridget. When they comes to alter them clothes—why, they’ll wash ’em with their tears!”

  Smith was lodged in the Stone Hall, but was spared fetters on account of Mr. Billing’s having paid the jailer the necessary dues; which charitable act had been accompanied by a whispered, “Don’t take it too hard, lad!” and a look as deep as the ocean. Then the Stone Hall was locked and Smith was, for the first time, a resident in it and not a visitor. Which was a dark and lonely time for him . . .

  Though he’d been shut in the Stone Hall as a kindness—there being worse places in the jail where he might fairly have been lodged—he dreaded meeting with old acquaintances now his circumstances were so come down. He shrank from Mr. Palmer and his friends, for he remembered, burningly, that he’d last departed from them with some defiance, being on his way up in the world. Mercifully, he was spared Mr. Palmer’s sneers and scorn. The gentleman was otherwise engaged. Indeed, all the superior debtors were, at that time, too full of Dick Mulrone’s grand visitors to spare a glance for the dismal, fearful, pallid child who crept from corner to corner like a persecuted ghost.

  The only soul to pay him any heed had been an old man who’d not seen daylight for fifteen y
ears. This queer old fettered bird slept in the fireplace all the year round, save on Christmas Day when the fire was lit (when with much good-natured laughter they shoveled him out), and had come to resemble a dusty ember.

  He beckoned Smith over with four or five sharp gestures and offered to share his strange nest. Salubrious, he said it was, owing to a good down draft from the chimney. With a clank of his fetters, he pointed upward to the ragged black hole and declared that sometimes a star might be seen, twinkling away like it was sat on Newgate’s roof.

  “It ain’t so bad, little sparrow. You gets used to it. Though we never sees the sun, we never gets doused by the rain, neither! And it’s a comfort to know you’re in the worst place in the world . . . so you’ve nought more to fret and slave about to keep yourself from falling lower. For you’ve arrived!”

  Then he settled back on his haunches and appeared to doze off, leaving Smith to stare up into the darkness. From time to time the old man—now sunk into a nesting coil—would twitch and jerk in a curious fashion, bringing his chained wrists together and thumping them down as if on a hated head. This done, he’d sigh and settle down once more into a contented sleep . . . till the next time.

  Smith shivered and wondered if the old man, too, had his Billing and Mansfields to plague his very sleep. Smith had come to hate the Mansfields more, even, than he hated Mr. Billing. Once he’d admired and even loved them. He’d respected them and trusted them. He had, so to speak, made great exports from his heart towards them and had reasonably expected some sort of return. But at the first squall, they’d defaulted—bankrupted Smith—and left him in a state of blind rebellion. If ever Mr. Billing was able to get him out of the jail, Smith would make it his business to take a good revenge on the saints of Vine Street.

  This resolution, in part, calmed him, though the mystery that clung about Mr. Billing, the document and—worst of all—about the unseen man with the limp, remained as dark and menacing as ever.