The Duke's Agent

by Rebecca Jenkins

  He seemed to have made the desired impression. Belligerence waned in the thickset man’s eyes to be replaced by a certain wariness. He got up. His movements betrayed a body that had run to soft fat and he wheezed as he moved. He fetched a pitcher of ale and a mug and set them before Jarrett.

  ‘That’ll be a penny,’ he said. His eyes skirted round the pistol and he took care not to crowd the visitor.

  Jarrett sensed the man’s uncertainty. So far so good. He hoped he would be able to see the charade through. He looked into the pale eyes staring down at him. The man was thinking. It was clearly a painful process. Curiosity and caution jostled in his expression. He wiped a corner of the table with his filthy blue apron. ‘Travellin’?’ he asked with a comical pretence of casualness.

  Jarrett kept his face a wooden mask and returned a hard look through narrowed eyes. He lifted the mug to his lips with his free hand and drank deliberately.

  ‘Come far?’ the alehouse-keeper persisted.

  Jarrett set down his mug with effect. ‘The coast,’ he said at last, with a jerk of his head in the general direction of the east coast. Long Tom, he recalled, when in his most bullying mood, had always been short in his speech, relying on hard stares and significant pauses for effect. The technique appeared to be working with this bumpkin. Behind his mask Jarrett was beginning to find the brevity of their conversation absurd. If the pauses became any heavier he was afraid his levity might break out and give him away.

  He took another swig of the cloudy ale. The curved grip of the pistol felt cool and firm under his hand. ‘I’m looking for a man,’ he said. ‘They call him the Tallyman.’

  It was an arrow shot at venture, but it struck home. The big man looked away and stepped back from the table.

  ‘None here by that name,’ he said too fast. He turned and stumped back to his chair by the far wall.

  ‘This is the Moorcock?’ Jarrett sent his voice cutting across the room. The three players were hunched over their dominoes, blocking him out with their turned backs. The alehouse-keeper’s bulk seemed to have deflated in his chair, pricked by the very mention of the Tallyman’s name. He barely answered Jarrett’s jeering question with a jerky nod and turned away to stare at the frozen game. ‘And you don’t know no Tallyman?’

  Silence spread thick between them, torn only by the snores of the drunkard asleep by the hearth. Jarrett was losing his audience. He picked up the pistol and contemplated it ostentatiously. ‘Fancy piece, this,’ he said in a voice loaded with meaning. ‘Mighty accurate. But has a temper all its own – that she does. You wouldn’t credit it.’ He sketched a graceful flourish with the weapon. ‘Sometimes – she just goes off!’

  Four pairs of eyes were fixed on the slim blue barrel. He had their attention. ‘Catches me quite unawares sometimes,’ Jarrett finished and held them with a hard stare.

  The pause that followed seemed unaccountably long. He was laying it on as thick as a travelling player performing melodrama in a country barn. The image came uncomfortably close; he had the sinking feeling he was about to get the bird. One of the players, a small man with hollow eyes and grey cheeks, pushed over a domino with an audible click on the wooden table. ‘Tallyman and he’s of a piece. They’s welcome to each other,’ he mumbled. He tossed his head defensively in the direction of his companions and said in a rush, as if to forestall their objections, ‘Tallyman don’t call here but once a season to collect. His lay’s in town, down on the river – at the sign of the Three Pots. That’s all we know here. Wouldn’t want to know more.’

  A performer could not wish for a better exit line. Jarrett finished his ale. He bowed mockingly to the company and backed – as gracefully as he could – out through the door, the pistol held loosely before him. He rode off slowly, with a swagger, as he imagined a confederate of the Tallyman might. Reaching the road he put his spurs to the big bay. As he cantered off, he laughed out loud. ‘Perhaps Mrs Siddons would care for a new leading man, eh, Walcheren? I could hardly believe they would buy that bill of goods – but they did, they did.’

  Out of sight of the Moorcock he reined the bay back into a walk as he stripped off the warm coat and stowed his pistols in the saddle bags. ‘So what have we learnt, old friend?’ he asked aloud, rubbing at the dirt on his face with a handkerchief. ‘One, Crotter was not behaving as a decent steward ought – letting a good farm go for a thieves’ alehouse – sheep rustlers, I’ll wager; and even writing them out licences.’ He paused. Walcheren’s ears twitched as his eye caught sight of a tempting bit of foliage. Jarrett’s strong hands mechanically pulled the horse’s head back from the bush. ‘Now why would he do that? Why issue licences when any half-wit knows only a magistrate has the right?’ Walcheren was dawdling again. He kicked him on. ‘These peasants must be easily parted from their money. Two, this Tallyman fellow was in the roguery somewhere. But in what fashion?’ he mused.

  Jarrett’s blue-grey eyes gazed out over the summer scenery, his attention turned inwards. The bay horse took advantage of the slackened reins to snatch a bite. Then another. ‘A partner or agent? Is there some other villain in the business? According to Duffin’s account, Crotter was dead when this Tallyman took the books, and this bully hardly sounds like a reading cove – what think you, old friend?’

  Jarrett looked down to note that they had halted. Walcheren, leaving his master to his discourse, was absorbed in consuming grass. He hauled the horse’s head up and spurred him on.

  ‘There is nothing for it, we shall have to seek out this Tallyman and ask him,’ he said, and energy surged through his veins at the prospect of the hunt ahead.

  *

  Two dams blocked the river at each end of the bend in which the town of Woolbridge sprawled. The dams fed the mill races that powered the wheels and machinery of the cloth mills and carpet factories at the water’s edge. Flat-bottomed boats and wherries slid across the smooth water above and below the bridge as the rivermen ferried raw materials and finished goods to and from the factory docks on the town banks. As Walcheren’s shod hooves echoed on the stone of the ancient bridge the scene was alive with activity. There were bargees with bright red kerchiefs tied about their throats. Bare-chested, their muscles gleamed with sweat as they lifted bales of wool on to the landings. A group of boys splashed in the dye-stained shallows, deepening the grimy hue of their skin in patches until they appeared piebald.

  There was work in the town and a purposeful hum about the place. The grinding and thudding of the machinery throbbed out from the woollen mills. The rivermen joked and called to one another and swore above the rush of the water.

  The streets clinging to the side of the steep hill had not been broad to begin with. Over time they had become encrusted with poor shacks, stalls and lean-tos that cramped the way. Jarrett and Walcheren had to jostle past the other users of the street. The respectable working man walking about his business; the rag and bone man with his basket on his back crying out his trade; the woman who took in laundry selling gin from her half-door while she gossiped with an acquaintance. About her stall lean, ragged fellows loitered drinking at mid-day. They bore the sullen, explosive air of the young and energetic who find themselves at a loose end.

  The street wound about and swallowed up all sense of direction. Little alleyways filtered off between the jumble of wood and masonry, signs and stalls and washing hung between window and window across the narrow street. It was not going to be easy finding the house that went under the sign of the Three Pots. Many of these alehouses were merely a poor basement room in some tenement. Jarrett began to think he would need to find a guide. He was loath to ask directions. Despite the bustle he could sense that he was in a close-knit community. The gin-seller and her gossip were weighing him up and he felt the eyes of the group of drinkers fixing on him. They were already half-cut and he had no desire to be drawn into some brawl for their amusement. He kicked Walcheren on as if he knew where he was going, following along the line of the river as best he could.

  To
his left Jarrett glimpsed the river down a slip that led to a small landing. Two rivermen had just left their craft and were coming up the lane.

  ‘G’day, Tobias,’ one greeted the other. ‘And how’s thee, man?’

  ‘I’m to the Three Pots,’ replied his friend. ‘Bloody Thorndike’s played me false and I’m looking for another load.’

  ‘I’ll walk with you. I’m mighty dry. Good drinking weather, this,’ laughed the man, wiping the sweat from his face with his folded shirt. He slung the garment across his bare neck as they strode past Walcheren, scarcely giving the rider a glance. His luck was in today! Allowing a decent space to extend between them, Jarrett set off to follow the two men.

  The Three Pots stood at the end of a short alley. It was a shabby, half-timbered house, standing hard up against the high wall of a tanning yard. To the far side and behind the building the deep waters of the river swirled on their way to the lower dam. Jarrett could see why Duffin might warn against visiting the place after dark. The street was a quiet dead end. Those people who hurried past the mouth of the alley kept their eyes to themselves, and the tenement opposite showed no signs of life at its mean windows. The door to the house stood open. Jarrett did not like leaving Walcheren unattended in such a place, but he had come so far it seemed foolish not to go in. He dismounted and followed the rivermen through the dark passage.

  The room into which he emerged was unexpectedly spacious. His two guides were over by the bar and Tobias was speaking to a coltish youth wrapped in an apron, who was writing in a large book laid open on the counter.

  ‘Tobias Hind,’ Jarrett heard the man say. ‘I’ll take any load.’

  ‘There’s nothing in right now,’ replied the youth as he wrote in a painstaking hand. ‘Mr Bedford’s just brought in a load of dye. That’s why there’s nowt in. You’ve but missed it by an hour. But Mr Pickering’s expecting wool. He may send down at any time. Have a glass while you’re waiting,’ he consoled, with the smooth solicitude of the salesman.

  Jarrett caught the youth’s eye. The barman gestured to the newcomer with an abrupt jerk of the head that he should wait and turned to draw a pitcher of ale with practised ease. He handed the pitcher to a lad of six or seven. ‘You take that to Mrs Riley down on Fish Lane,’ he directed. The lad walked carefully out of the shop and the youth yelled after him, ‘Mind you come straight back with the money or I’ll flay ya!’

  The youth poured a mug of ale and brought it over to Jarrett without being asked.

  ‘Is this Lumping Jack’s house?’

  The barman nodded. He had a watchful, guarded face.

  ‘Is he here?’

  The youth busied himself collecting up some dirty pots. ‘Lumpin’ Jack and his missus are gone to Darlington. They’ll not be back this day or next, I’d reckon,’ he said.

  ‘As it happens, my business is not with him. I am looking for one they call the Tallyman. I may have work for him. I was directed to ask for him here.’ Jarrett slid a silver coin across the table, keeping his fingers resting lightly on it.

  The youth’s eyes flickered and he looked the stranger up and down. ‘What kind of work?’ he asked.

  ‘My business, not yours,’ answered Jarrett, pulling back his hand to leave the coin in plain view. The youth wiped the table and picked up the mugs. The coin was gone.

  ‘Not been in a while,’ he said. ‘I heard word he’d gone to the coast. Might be in Friday night. Can’t tell you more.’ He moved off to deal with some new customers. As the interview was clearly at an end, Jarrett finished his ale and left.

  Retrieving Walcheren who was standing forlorn looking out over the water, it occurred to Jarrett that he had not eaten since the night before. The thought of Mrs Bedlington’s boiled ham drew him to retrace his steps and make his way up the hill towards the Queen’s Head.

  Mrs Bedlington greeted him with exuberance, as if they had not just parted the day before. ‘Why, Mr Jarrett!’ she cried with coquettish pleasure. ‘You have come to pay us a visit! You must be famished, poor man,’ she fussed. ‘No one to have care of you in that horrid old manor. You just sit there and I’ll fetch you a nice bit of ham and green peas, fresh picked this morning.’ She turned to catch sight of her maid in the act of kneeling down, a pail beside her. ‘Molly! Not with water, you silly slut! It’s a dry rub with sand for boards, as you well know if you’d but take a moment to reflect, girl!’ Driving the unfortunate maid before her, Mistress Polly bustled away to the kitchen.

  Jarrett found himself the sole occupier of the little parlour. The sun streamed through the windows and he took pleasure in the room’s calm after the crowded alleys of the river quarter. The tap through the passage past the stairs was quiet that afternoon. One or two regular customers could be heard drinking and exchanging the occasional subdued remark.

  There was a clatter outside and a medley of hoots and cries, and a boisterous group of young men roiled into the tap like a pack of young wolves. They bore all the marks of being on a spree; doing every alehouse in town by the sounds of them, thought Jarrett. He could only see a small wedge of the room beyond the passage, but the sounds carried clearly. There were shouts of, ‘Bar! Bar! Where’s the tapster?’

  ‘Why wait for him? We can draw our own,’ said another.

  This presumptuous suggestion was countered by the arrival of Jasper Bedlington. He spoke with the cheerful, no-nonsense authority of the professional innkeeper. ‘What’s this? What’s this? Well, well – Will Roberts and friends. Celebrating your return from Ireland, my boy? You’ll be glad to be rid of your red coat I’ll be bound, eh, Will? You put that down, Nat Broom. I can draw me own ale, I’ll thank you. So you’re all here, eh? Does your Nancy know you’re not at your loom, Harry Aitken? She’ll not relish the sight of you half seas over on a Monday afternoon. And Joe Walton, too. There you are. I’ll take the money now, if you please; you’re like to forget later on, the way you’re headed.’

  Chastened by this treatment, the group settled down. There was a tone to their voices Jarrett had come to recognise from his time as an officer. He had heard it frequently enough when the lads broke loose for a spree. They were entering that phase of intoxication when young men’s excited energies balance on the cusp between exuberance and violence. The innkeeper retired into the background. The voice Jarrett overheard had more than a little of the boisterous boy smarting from a telling off by the school master.

  ‘That’s right, Harry – what will your Nancy say? And as for you, Will Roberts, your sergeant’ll be on to you – half cut in the middle of the day.’

  ‘Aye, a proper man’s full cut or nothing, that’s his philosophy,’ replied Will.

  ‘So Sergeant Tolley’s hoist the blue flag at the Swan, has he? And how is it living with your sergeant, Will? I’ve heard of marrying the service but, by heck boy! And they say he’s a proper bastard.’

  ‘Didn’t marry him.’ Will sounded like an even-tempered sort.

  ‘Oh aye?’ The words were a jibe. ‘Way I hear it, marry his daughter and you get him on your back for life. You’re either a fool or a brave bugger, Will Roberts – whatever the skirt’s condition.’

  ‘Have another beer and quit riling him, Nat,’ intervened another voice. ‘You always must be stirring.’

  Nat laughed and drank some more. ‘What’s this about Black-Eyed Sal, then?’ he started off again. ‘I heard word she’s talking about a breach of promise – you slighting her to marry another. That’s a court matter, that is. You’d best lie low a while, man. That piece is mad enough for anything.’

  ‘Sal’s not a bad lass.’ Will’s voice was placating.

  Jarrett had a picture in his mind of an easy-going, pleasant sort of fellow. He shifted in his seat to try and get a glimpse of the speakers through the passage. He could just see the edge of the group. There were perhaps five or six young men in their early twenties. Nat Broom was a wiry, dark-haired man, tense and quick. One to keep your eye on if he was under your command. Unreliable; the kin
d who bore grudges. The peacemaker who intervened was Harry Aitken, the weaver. He had the most married look of the three. His dress was cleaner than the rest and all his buttons were firmly fixed.

  Will Roberts was a country Adonis. So this was the suitor who had slighted Sal. They would have made a striking couple, yet to Jarrett’s mind the boy he saw before him would have been vastly outmatched by the black-haired witch he had encountered in the churchyard. Will Roberts was tall and clean limbed. Curly chestnut hair fell over a broad forehead. He had a sleepy, handsome face with a straight, clean-cut nose and full lips. Thinking of Sal’s bright, mischievous face, Jarrett could imagine that she might be piqued to have lost so handsome a swain, but somehow he could not believe she would have chosen such a biddable boy to match her fire. And yet, women were a mysterious sex.

  ‘I’d not mind having Sal after me!’ chipped in a voice.

  ‘You’re not married, Joe, and you don’t have a bugger like the sergeant for a father-in-law,’ chimed in Nat Broom. The envious kind, that one, thought Jarrett; a troublemaker. ‘Never fret, Will lad,’ Nat went on. ‘Old Tolley’ll see her off. Even Black-Eyed Sal is no match for the sergeant. How the likes o’ him ever got fixed with a wife and daughter, the Lord alone knows. I can’t see him living under the cat’s foot.’

  Mistress Polly emerged from her kitchen bearing a loaded tray. She seemed unsurprised to catch her favourite customer eavesdropping.

  ‘The lads aren’t disturbing you, Mr Jarrett?’ she asked, setting the dishes before him. ‘Will Roberts and Harry Aitken are good boys but that Nat Broom’s a troublemaker to my mind,’ she said, succinctly summing up Jarrett’s own impression. ‘He gets them all fired up at times. Never you mind, sir. You get this inside you, and then I’ve an apricot pie just out of the oven.’

  *

  The pie was good. And to please Mrs Bedlington he ate two pieces. It was nearly three by the time he finished and Jarrett was feeling the need to take some exercise. ‘Did you get your letter taken to the post, Mr Jarrett?’ enquired the innkeeper as he cleared away the plates.