Theft of Life

by Imogen Robertson

  ‘Lord, Mr Trimnell never misses a one. He’s a little strange, ma’am. Said he wanted to save our souls, but he always looks to me as if he’d rather eat ’em.’ Some of the listening shadows laughed. ‘But it was Mr Trimnell paid for the room, ma’am. He came in with Mr Willoughby a month ago and paid up front, all the way through to Christmas.’

  Harriet released her and she disappeared into the warren of dark and smoke-filled rooms.

  Crowther handed Mrs Westerman down from the carriage opposite Somerset House. The air was already cleaner than around St Paul’s and there were more strolling macaronis and bored ladies of fashion moving along the streets here, but it was still a mixed and busy crowd. The self-conscious elegance of the town and the thrusting merchants of the city met here and mingled like hot water and cold.

  The girl had been quite right: Mr Willoughby was not difficult to find. He stood on the corner of Catherine Street upon an upturned apple crate, his Bible in one hand, the other raised to the Heavens and his head thrown back. He had managed to gather a rather motley collection of listeners: a pair of women, arm-in-arm and giggling, and two men, labourers by the look of their clothes, who were watching the girls as much as the preacher. Others passed with a casual or contemptuous glance.

  ‘Come to the Lord your saviour!’ he called to them. ‘There is room in His heart and in Heaven for every one of you, whatever your sins. How will you account before God? Have you been charitable? Have you been kind? The great and the poor, the mighty and the weak will burn together without the love of Jesus to save them!’

  A gentleman in a tight-fitting coat glanced over his shoulder at the preacher as he passed Harriet and Crowther. ‘Mixed company, how perfectly foul.’ The man walking alongside him tittered.

  ‘Save yourself from the flames! The everlasting torment of Hell!’

  Harriet sighed. ‘How long do you think this might go on for, Crowther? The man seems to have plenty of breath.’

  ‘Even Methodists must exhaust themselves eventually,’ Crowther said and continued to watch the preacher and the people that passed by, all caught in their own dramas and business. It was as if the character from every play in London, from the low farces of servants and shopkeepers and the comedies of the drawing room to the poetical works of the Classical Age, had all been thrown out of the theatres and into the street. He observed them with a professional eye, picking out specimens in the crowd. The young woman with her skirts hitched around her ankles, a swaying walk and showing the first hints of disease under her rouge; the man in good broadcloth with the blood vessels under his eyes bursting with brandy, his walk stiff and painful – gout probably; the child, pale and coughing with the last stages of lung disease.

  He glanced at Mrs Westerman and the fine lines developing around her eyes, and wondered if Mr Palmer were married. The preacher was still exhorting the crowd at full voice but then a middle-aged man emerged from the shop behind where he had set up his pulpit among the refuse. Purple with anger, he kicked the crate under the preacher’s feet so hard that he stumbled off it and onto the pavement.

  ‘Enough! That’s it! You’re bloody ruining me, you crow!’ He grabbed handfuls of the preacher’s coat in his hands and brought him close to his face. ‘Christ, I’d rather have a bagpiper on the street than you. Get out of it!’

  The preacher’s arms hung by his side. ‘I will preach the word of God, brother. Listen to me or face the flames of Hell! I will not be moved.’

  The shopkeeper slapped the preacher hard across the face. He flinched from the blow but made no move to defend himself. Harriet released Crowther’s arm. He bowed to her and crossed the street.

  ‘Come on then, you bugger! Where’s your God-given strength now?’ The shopkeeper slapped the preacher’s face again, hard enough for the sound to crack the air. The preacher’s arm spasmed and his black Bible dropped to the ground. London paused and turned to enjoy the entertainment. The preacher looked at the man who held him for a moment, then slowly turned his face, showing the other cheek. The crowd, for though they would not gather in numbers to hear preaching, a fight was another thing, called out in delight and there was a smattering of applause. Harriet could hear the suede gloves of a lily-white macaroni standing next to her clapping together.

  ‘Fine then! If that’s what you want, it’s what you’ll get!’ The man lifted his hand once more to deliver the back blow but found himself interrupted by the firm pressure of Crowther’s cane on his shoulder. He turned, not relinquishing his grasp on the collar of the priest. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll watch a fair fight as happily as any man,’ Crowther said. ‘But if the man will not fight back, it is not fair. Let him go.’

  The crowd hooted with enthusiasm. A priest getting beaten and now a gentleman – and all for free.

  ‘Very well,’ the man said, shoving the priest away from him. ‘You want the blow, you take it.’ He swung rather wildly. Crowther rocked backwards and as the man’s fist sailed by him, he bent slightly and swept his cane sharply against the back of the man’s knees. His opponent stumbled and fell flat on his face in the filth of the street. The crowd roared; Harriet’s neighbour laughed and applauded again. Crowther placed one foot on the man’s lower back, holding him down.

  ‘Stay there a moment, there’s a good fellow.’ He pressed a little harder with the edge of his black heel against the man’s kidney to reinforce the point. The man stopped wriggling. The crowd had been cheated. It had been shaping up well, but now, just as they were getting comfortable, it seemed to be over with. London shifted its packages, looked at its pocket-watch, and began to drift away.

  Crowther released the shopkeeper and bent down to pick up the preacher’s Bible, knocking the muck off it with his handkerchief. Then he offered his hand to his fallen foe, whose rage had been knocked out of him, along with his breath. He looked sulky, but more sheepish than angry now. ‘Next time, just hire the pipe-player,’ Crowther said and left him.

  Harriet had gathered the preacher up, taking his arm and leading him away from the corner. He looked back over his shoulder. ‘They’ll take my crate!’

  ‘You will find another,’ Harriet replied, then when they were at a sufficient distance, waited for Crowther to join them. He did so, and Harriet watched his thin face for any sign of pleasure or self-congratulation. She saw none. He could find cause for pride and vanity in many things but not, it seemed, in knocking a tradesman over into the filth. He handed the Bible to Mr Willoughby, who accepted it with a bobbing bow and a troubled expression. The slap had put some angry red into his cheek, but he was otherwise a pale fellow and seemed smaller now he was not up on a crate and in the full flight of speech.

  He turned the Bible in his hands. ‘I should thank you, and I do with all my heart, for picking up my Bible, but you should never strike another man, sir. No matter what the provocation. God Himself told us it is a sin to answer violence with violence.’ There was a sweetness in his voice when he spoke of God. The skin on his bruising face seemed to glow, as when a girl mentions her sweetheart’s name.

  Crowther raised one eyebrow and was opening his mouth to speak, but Harriet intervened before the conversation could become theological. ‘Mr Willoughby, we would have some speech with you. It touches upon Mr Trimnell.’

  The passion left his face and was replaced with warm concern. ‘Oh, has he sent you to speak to me? I had worries for his health on Friday and hoped he might take the air and help me distribute notices for my prayer meetings. People will not take them from me, but when he stares at them, they take them like lambs. I sent a note to his lodgings.’ He produced from his pocket a bundle of the handbills matching the one that had led them to him in the first instance.

  Harriet put his hand on Willoughby’s arm. ‘I am sorry to tell you of it, but Mr Trimnell is dead.’

  The man’s face fell and the bills were returned to his pocket. ‘He is? I had not heard. No, I had not. I am sorry to lose a friend, but thanks be to God, he is with Jesus now
. I hoped God might spare him a little while longer. I shall pray for him. Thank you for bringing me word.’

  ‘He was attacked, and died as a result, Mr Willoughby.’

  ‘Oh!’ The preacher looked down at the Bible in his hands. ‘Oh, poor Mr Trimnell. Oh, that is very bad, I thought perhaps a recurrence of his sickness. He was become so thin. Some robbery, I suppose. The luxury of these late times has dragged many a poor soul into sin. We are none of us free from the guilt of it.’

  His distress seemed genuine and Harriet pitied him too much in that moment to tell him the exact circumstances of Trimnell’s death. He would find out soon enough.

  ‘Mr Willoughby, did you see Mr Trimnell then on Friday evening?’

  He folded his arms, holding his Bible across his chest. ‘Oh yes, I saw him almost every day, and he would never fail to come to one of our regular meetings. It was after midnight when he left me.’

  No visit to the Jamaica Coffee House then, Harriet thought, and Trimnell would have to pass by the Cathedral on his way home. She had a sudden vision of a man, or men waiting in the darkness by the Cathedral, their whip and ropes at the ready. ‘Are we right in believing it was you who brought Mr Trimnell to the Lord?’

  Willoughby said solemnly, ‘It is Jesus Himself who calls, madam, and He alone, but I was there to guide him as best I could. I was preaching in the city and he happened to pass by in the days that followed his return from Jamaica. I could see that God had called him, and after that day we had many conversations. Poor man. He was much tormented by his past. What he told me of his life on those islands …’

  ‘When did he repent of his part in the slave trade, Dr Willoughby?’ Harriet asked. ‘Was it on hearing you preach?’

  The man blushed like a schoolgirl. ‘No, no. He began to think on his sins during his illness in Jamaica and told me he spent his time on board ship reading a Bible he had borrowed from the ship’s captain. When he arrived here, he went at once to speak to a priest he knew, but did not find the assistance he craved. Then, while walking the streets in a great confusion of mind, he heard me speak.’ He looked at the ground in front of him as if he expected them to join him in a moment of prayer. ‘He was distraught at what he had done, the sufferings he had inflicted on his African brothers and sisters.’ Willoughby looked a little grey. ‘He had worked as a trader of slaves on the coast before inheriting his estate.’ To Harriet it seemed that the sounds of the street had dulled. She thought of the sunken face she had seen, whatever expression it had, hidden by death. She thought of the creeping dawn finding his body staked out in the churchyard and found at last a small tremor of pity for Trimnell.

  ‘You are no friend of slavery then, sir?’ Crowther asked.

  Willoughby shook his head violently. ‘A man can be under no necessity of degrading himself into a wolf, as Mr Wesley said himself. It is an evil. An absolute evil.’

  ‘And Mr Trimnell was persuaded of this?’

  ‘Absolutely. He was sick with horror at his past sins and determined to do penance. He was terrified at facing Judgement before he had done all he could to appease God’s anger.’ There was a tremor of doubt in his face and Harriet saw it.

  ‘Asking God’s forgiveness was not enough?’

  A sedan chair was being carried past them at a great pace. They had to step close to the window of a goldsmith’s shop to avoid being knocked aside. Harriet had the flash of a female face inside the chair. An impression of powder, silk, ostrich plumes.

  ‘My God is the God of love Who rejoices when a sinner returns to Him. He asks for our repentance, not our pain. Though I applauded Mr Trimnell’s attempts to make amends.’

  ‘He paid for the room at the Red Lion?’ Harriet said gently.

  Willoughby nodded. ‘Oh yes. And he arranged and paid for the printing of my handbills, but he did more. He meant to do more. I rejoiced with Mr Trimnell when he found that a runaway slave of his was in London, so that he might assure the man that he was free. It must have been a great relief for the poor fellow. He also believed that he had a mulatto daughter in the city. He told me he was planning to acknowledge her and bring her up in his home. He even found another boy whom he had sold to a merchant, working in a grocer’s shop in Charles Street, and gave him all the money he had about him.’

  No wonder he was poor then, Harriet thought. ‘And Mrs Trimnell?’ she asked.

  ‘I do not know. She never came with him to pray with me. But she lost four children during their years in Jamaica. Whatever her sins, surely God punished her enough by taking her children from her.’

  His hands were shaking now and the fire of his preaching had grown cold.

  ‘When you saw him on Friday evening,’ Crowther said, ‘was Mr Trimnell carrying a metal mask with him?’

  Willoughby shuddered. ‘No – that is to say, I have no recollection of his having it. He had once brought it to a meeting. He wished to show another member of the congregation that such things did in truth exist. I asked him not to bring it again. Such an evil object.’ His voice had become distressed. ‘Forgive me. If you wish to speak more to me, you may find me here or in my lodgings. I must pray. I must pray. Good day to you both.’

  He hurried off along the street and Harriet looked back to the corner where he had been preaching. ‘Did you see what happened when he dropped his Bible, Crowther? How he took the blow and his body wished to defend itself, but he would not allow it?’

  ‘I did. You believe it might explain why Trimnell did not defend himself from his attackers?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The glimmer of the goldsmith’s wares caught her eye. The shopkeeper was removing something from the window. She could just see him passing it with a bow to a gentleman waiting inside. ‘I think I shall call on Mrs Trimnell.’ She looked down at her dress. ‘Though I should probably wear something a great deal less muddy to do so.’

  III.9

  CONSTABLE MILLER HAD BEEN right about the proceedings of the Coroner’s Court. The coroner seemed to be attending only under duress and was expecting to close the proceedings before his beer had even settled in his tankard. He noted carefully that there was ready money in the house which had not been taken, so dismissed the idea of a robbery and seemed not to note the disappearance of the maid at all.

  Francis recognised the look the man gave him when he stated that he had seen a wound to Eliza’s eye and that her body was cold. It was a twitch in the lip that indicated he was being troublesome. The jury paid attention, however. Constable Miller had gathered together a group of men who had got used to these sorts of proceedings over the years and were not intimidated by Barthlomew’s stares. The constable produced the graver, and it was passed between them. They handled it as carefully as a relic, though Bartholomew only frowned at it and waved it back into the constable’s possession. The jury asked to speak to the surgeon again, a man as dismissive as the coroner. Under the foreman’s careful questioning, however, he conceded that the condition of the body when pulled from the ruin meant he could not say there was no injury to the eye. He equally could not say whether ‘the woman’ had died in the fire or not. If he had called her by her name, the coroner might have got the answer he wanted, but the foreman was Scudder indeed, and was justifying the faith that Miller had shown in him.

  ‘It needs adjourning,’ the butcher said, and crossed his fat arms over his chest. The coroner began to argue but Scudder shook his great head. ‘Now, Mr Bartholomew. You know I served on a dozen juries like this and for the Aldermen too. Happy to do my duty, as are we all.’ He looked around him and the rest of the jurors, local tradesmen all and a bookseller or two among them, Francis noted, bobbed their heads in agreement. ‘If this fella can’t say how good Mrs Smith died, get someone who can. And bills. You can print up bills asking if anyone saw anything dubious. Tell ’em to take the cost out of my rates.’

  The coroner was irritated. ‘It is likely no one could tell, Mr Scudder, from the condition of the body. And we cannot go to the expense of printing bill
s just because of the impressions of one confused man.’

  One of the younger jurors tapped Scudder on the shoulder and leaned forward to him, whispering. Scudder bent his neck slightly to listen. ‘Two things, Mr Bartholomew. Thing one, Mr Glass here don’t seem confused to us. Thing two, young Jarvis here has just mentioned you had a smart fella in for that slave-monger this morning. Let him have a look at her.’

  Mr Bartholomew said severely, ‘Mr Trimnell was a landowner in Jamaica, not a trader, and Mr Crowther is an authority who happened to be on hand. I cannot order him to come again.’

  Scudder was a stubborn man. He seemed to settle himself even more firmly into his seat. ‘What would be the harm in sending this authority a little note with our compliments. Seeing as this other bloke don’t seem to know his arse from his elbow,’ he added in slightly lower, but still perfectly audible tones. It was too much for the surgeon. He stood up and stalked out of the room. Scudder watched him go with no sign of either discomfort or regret.

  Mr Bartholomew stared at Scudder, who met his gaze with calm assurance. Bartholomew blinked first. ‘Very well. I shall adjourn for a week and write to Mr Crowther – though I doubt he will come. But this is most irregular, Mr Scudder. And a waste of our time.’

  The younger juror murmured something and Scudder laughed. Bartholomew did not ask the reason and gathered his papers with obvious irritation. Scudder did not move until the coroner was gone, then he stood with a deep sigh and approached Francis.

  ‘Take an ale with me, Mr Glass?’ he said. Normally Francis would have refused him, but he couldn’t say no today.

  When they had their beer in front of them, Scudder offered a toast to Mrs Smith and Glass drank with him.

  ‘Not that she’d approve of us taking a drink, even in her name,’ Scudder said.

  ‘She wouldn’t. Thank you, Mr Scudder, for insisting.’

  ‘Didn’t do it for you, Pompey,’ he said. Francis managed to conceal his flinch. ‘He’s getting above himself, Bartholomew, ever since he started dreaming of becoming an Alderman some day. It’s good to remind him, once in a while, that he serves us. I’ll not be asked to sit on a jury for a while either, which suits me fine.’ Glass said nothing. ‘You know I don’t have any great fondness for you black fellows, but Mrs Smith liked you and I’ve never heard it said you are dishonest.’