Mistress of Madderlea

by Mary Nichols

  On the other hand, she had been very distressed when he had last seen her and that was probably increased when Mr Hundon arrived and she knew her hoax had been uncovered. Was it worth checking the coaching inns which, considering how many there were, would take forever, or should he concentrate on Sergeant Dawkins? First things first—he must return to Holles Street; she might have returned in his absence and he was worrying over nothing.

  But she had not. He decided to say nothing of his suspicions to her family, who were all distraught enough as it was, and offered to recruit all his friends to help search for her. He sent Luke to rouse Freddie and Martin and enlist their help in looking everywhere a properly brought-up young lady might be found: the shops, libraries and dressmakers, and the drawing rooms of acquaintances. He sent other men servants to check the coaching inns and set off himself to search the less salubrious areas of the city.

  He went home, picked up a pistol and ammunition, told the butler where he could be contacted if anyone should have news, then returned to the house in Maiden Lane in a closed carriage where he told Mrs Stebbings and those men who were in the house that Mrs Carter had not returned home and he was afraid for her safety.

  ‘Did she say anything to any of you about where she was going, or of any fears she had?’ he asked.

  ‘No, Major,’ they murmured.

  ‘We’ll find her, never fear,’ Andrew Bolt said. He was a big, craggy-faced man with only one eye and a hand missing, but neither disability seemed to trouble him much. ‘If we have to search the whole of London.’

  ‘I think Sergeant Dawkins may have something to do with it,’ Richard added. ‘He bears me a grudge. Do any of you know where he might be found?’

  None did, but the legless man, sitting by the door on his trolley, pushed himself forward.

  ‘I did see the sergeant talking quiet-like to a cove yesterday, outside here,’ he said. ‘Didn’t like the look of him, thought they might be up to something smokey, like robbing the house, so I followed them.’ He grinned, tapping his wheels. ‘I can move pretty fast on these here round legs, when I choose to, and nobody notices me, bein’ so near to the ground.’

  ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘Into an alley off Seven Dials.’

  ‘That was yesterday?’

  ‘Yes. I know it don’t prove nothin’, but if we could find the other cove, he might lead us to the sergeant.’

  ‘You can’t go into Seven Dials in that flash rig, Major, and that’s a fact,’ Tom Case said. ‘You won’t take two steps before you’re set upon and stripped bare. Besides, as soon as it’s known you’re looking for one of their number, the word will go round and every no-good footpad, pickpocket and cut-throat in the place will come to protect their own. It will take more than one man…’

  ‘Are you volunteering, Trooper?’ Richard asked with a smile. The man was skinny and stooped, but that did not mean he was weak, as Richard well knew. Like all of them, he was a good man to have with you in a tight corner.

  ‘At your service, Major, and the service of the little lady.’ It was a sentiment echoed by everyone present.

  ‘I’ve got an old suit of clothes belonging to my husband, God rest his soul,’ Mrs Stebbings said. ‘I brought them here to give them to one of these men, but they might fit you. Very plain they are and a little shabby, but the better for that under present circumstances, wouldn’t you think?’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Stebbings.’

  She found them for him, and though the breeches were a little short so that his stockings barely reached them, and the cloth of the jacket was so tight across his shoulders that the seams began to spilt, that was all to the good, he decided. He rubbed dirt on his face, hands and boots, obliterating the shine which had taken his valet hours to produce.

  After that, the search for Sophie took on the semblance of a military campaign, carefully planned. Men were dispatched to gather information. Others produced old muskets and rusty swords and expressed themselves willing to use them, but Richard, who did not think it was the right moment to ask how they had acquired them, forbade that.

  ‘This is England,’ he said. ‘Criminals must be punished according to the law. I shall use my pistol only as a last resort.’ He smiled a little grimly. ‘Though if you were to find anyone mistreating or showing any indelicacy towards Mrs Carter, I should not object to them being taught a lesson.’

  ‘Then what are we waiting for, Major?’ Andrew Bolt said.

  Even more impatient than they were, he forced a smile. ‘For our runners to return. Reliable intelligence is half the battle, you should know that. Going off at half-cock will lose us our prize.’

  Sophie had no idea where she was. All she knew was that it was dark and it smelled horrible. Her previous worries faded into insignificance as she wondered if she was about to die. What she did not know was why. Who wished her harm?

  How long had she been there? How long before she was missed? She had rejected Lady Fitzpatrick’s admonitions and Richard’s scolding about going out alone so often, it was possible those at home would think nothing of her absence until she did not return for nuncheon.

  Richard would not miss her at all because she had sent him away, rejected his proposal of marriage and refused to give him a reason. This was her punishment, to be tied hand and foot, her mouth gagged with a disgusting piece of cloth, and left to die in an empty room which stank of rotting garbage and excrement. Where had Sergeant Dawkins gone?

  Why was he conspiring with that dreadful, leering giant of a man with a patch over one eye and huge rough hands? What did they want from her? She had offered them all the money in her reticule and promised more if they would only release her. When that failed, she had asked them what it was they wanted, had said she understood their problems and would try to help them, that if they released her unharmed she would not put the law on to them. Her only answer had been guffaws of laughter.

  She had accepted Sergeant Dawkins’s offer to escort her home only when pressed to do so by Mrs Stebbings, not because she was afraid of him—though he did make her a little nervous—but because she did not want him to know where she lived and who she really was.

  It was her silly pride again, she supposed, and the fact that she had become so used to secrecy, to deceit, that she kept on with it even when it no longer mattered. Her true identity would be the talk of the town before the day was out. But would she live to hear it?

  Dawkins had walked beside her as they made their way between the crowds in the market, pushing a way through for her, yelling at the urchins who had recognised her as one of the two ladies who had thrown coins for them. They wanted more. Dawkins clubbed one about the face, kicked another and swore at them all. Terrified, they fell back.

  On the corner, Dawkins was joined by the second man, who silently took up station on Sophie’s other side; it was at this point that she knew something was wrong and became really frightened.

  ‘Sergeant, I think I can manage to find my way home from here,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘Thank you for your trouble.’

  ‘Oh, it ain’t no trouble,’ he growled, pressing more closely to her, so that the smell of his unwashed body almost overpowered her. ‘And we expect to be well rewarded.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I am sorry.’ She delved into her reticule for a coin.

  ‘That!’ He took it from her and threw it behind him, laughing as one of the waifs, bolder than the rest, dived on it. ‘We’ll have more than that before the day is out.’

  They were opposite a narrow alley and the two men, each holding one of her arms, hustled her down it.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘A short cut.’ Dawkins grinned. ‘A short cut to my just reward. I’ve got a score to settle.’

  She had opened her mouth to scream, but that was a mistake. The second man clapped one enormous hand over her mouth, twisted her arm behind her back with the other and marched her forward. They left the busy market behind them and darted down one
narrow alley after another. Tall tenements rose each side, blocking out the light and air. A few people stood about, but no one paid the least attention; they certainly showed no sign of wishing to intervene.

  After a few minutes in which her futile struggles weakened, they entered a doorway and she was carried, Dawkins at her shoulders and the other man at her feet, up several flights of stairs and into this room.

  ‘Now, you’ll stay ’ere until I come back,’ Dawkins said when he had regained his breath. ‘And if you’re a good girl, Joe will bring you food and drink.’

  She had made the mistake of struggling fiercely and yelling at the top of her voice, which resulted in her being tied and gagged and flung on to a filthy straw palliasse on the floor.

  Now she was alone and her eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom, she realised she was in an attic. There was a sloping roof above her, with some of the slates missing so that tiny beams of light played on the dust motes in the air. The room had no window and only one door and, apart from the mattress, the only furniture was a small table and a couple of rickety chairs with broken backs. In the corner lay a canvas bag and beside it a coil of knotted rope. It was unbearably hot and the gag had dried her mouth, so that she longed for a drink of water.

  She heard footsteps on the stairs and Dawkins returned. He was carrying a small case from which he took pen, paper and a bottle of ink. ‘Seemed to me that it would be better coming from you,’ he said, in a chatty voice that took no account of her distress. ‘I want you to write me a letter.’

  She grunted and he sat down beside her on the mattress to look closely into her face while her eyes tried to convey that she wanted the gag removed.

  ‘You want to speak, do you? Well, as to that, I don’t know. I’d need your promise not to yell out again.’

  She nodded and he reached round her and untied the gag. She took several gulps of air but that hardly helped; the room was airless and she was parched. ‘Water, please.’

  He rose and went to the table where there was a jug and a tin cup. He poured water and came back to hold it against her face, but he made no attempt to tip it towards her lips. He grinned. ‘You going to be good?’

  She was so desperate for a drink, she would have agreed to anything. ‘Yes, but untie me, please. I won’t run.’

  ‘Course you won’t, there’s nowhere to run to. There’s the door and beyond it three flights of stairs and old Joe at the bottom of them and it’s the only way out.’

  He put the water down and untied her hands. She grabbed at the cup and poured the disgusting liquid down her throat, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  ‘I must say, for a genteel filly, you’ve got plenty of guts,’ he said, watching her. ‘A bit like my wife.’

  ‘And what would you think of anyone who carried your wife off and held her prisoner?’ she demanded.

  ‘Couldn’t do it. She died two years ago while I was stuck in Spain.’

  ‘I am truly sorry.’

  ‘Are you?’ He looked closely at her. ‘Maybe you are, so you won’t mind writing a letter for me.’

  ‘If it’s only letter writing you want me for, you could have asked me at the house in Maiden Lane. You didn’t need to abduct me.’

  ‘But this is a very special letter and the whole lay depends on you being hid.’ He fetched a piece of broken floorboard and put the paper on it, took the lid off the ink bottle and offered her the pen. ‘Write what I say.’

  With a shaking hand, she took the pen and he began dictating. ‘To Major Richard Braybrooke, Bedford Row.’ He grinned at her gasp of astonishment. ‘Go on, write it down.’ He waited for her to do as she was told, then went on ‘Dear Richard. Please do not try to find me or I shall be killed before you reach me.’

  ‘Why do you think the Major would try and find me?’ she queried, concluding he probably did not know Richard had come into a title since returning from Spain. ‘He has no interest in me. We quarrelled.’

  ‘Oh, you cannot gammon me, Mrs Carter. Or should I say Miss Hundon?’

  ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘It weren’t difficult. Followed you home, talked to the servants, watched the house, saw the Major visiting…’

  ‘But he was visiting my cousin, not me,’ she said, realising he did not know the whole truth, that she was not Miss Hundon, but Miss Roswell.

  He laughed. ‘One for the ladies, is he? It don’t matter which one he was after, you were the easiest to pull in, bein’ a mite more adventurous than the other. Aside for that, I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Now, go on writing.’

  She dipped the pen in the ink again, just as heavy footsteps could be heard ascending the stairs. Dawkins scrambled to his feet and stood behind the door, drawing a knife from his boot. She held her breath, but it was only Joe who was tired of standing guard at the bottom of the stairs and wanted to know what was happening.

  ‘You could ’ave got yerself killed,’ Dawkins said, returning the knife to his boot. ‘I told you to stay downstairs.’

  ‘This is my room, I come to it when I want.’ He looked down at Sophie. ‘Ain’t you got that letter writ yet?’

  ‘Never will if you keep interruptin’,’ Dawkins said, returning to sit on the mattress again. ‘Got that down, ’ave you?’ he asked Sophie.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then write this: “I shall be returned safely if you bring a thousand yellow boys to—’”

  ‘Two thousand,’ Joe muttered. ‘Tell him two thousand.’

  ‘He won’t pay it,’ Sophie said, guessing he meant guineas. ‘Where would a major find that amount of money? And if he could, what makes you think he would pay it for my release? He would simply turn the letter over to the Bow Street Runners and forget about it.’

  They looked at each other, wondering whether to believe her, then Dawkins laughed. ‘Nice try, Miss Hundon. Now write: “Bring one thousand guineas to the steps of St Paul’s tonight at seven—’”

  ‘Two,’ insisted Joe.

  Dawkins turned on him angrily. ‘I want him here, I want him to feel the lash as I felt it and if we’re too greedy, he’ll do as the chit says and hand the whole matter over to the law.’

  ‘What do I care for your damned revenge?’ Joe said. ‘It ain’t nothin’ to me, what you did in the war, nor what he did neither. If you bring him here, to my lay, then my safe ken is blown and I need to find another a long way away and that takes blunt. He’ll pay. Just look at her. She’s a lady.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Sophie said, wondering what it was Sergeant Dawkins had against Richard. Whatever it was, it inspired powerful feelings of revenge stronger than mere greed. ‘And a very wealthy one. I can give you more than Major Braybrooke who is nothing but a son of a second son, of no importance at all.’

  She could see that Joe was interested. ‘How much?’ he demanded.

  ‘You shut up and get out!’ Dawkins shouted at him. ‘Are you a cod’s-head that you can’t see she’s trying to gull us to protect him? I want that man here. I want him to feel this.’ He got up and went to the corner and picked up the rope by its handle. Sophie realised it was not an ordinary rope at all, but a cat o’ nine tails. He swished it through the air a couple of times and then sat down again. ‘I haven’t finished the letter,’ he said. ‘Tell him to come alone and make sure he is not followed. If he brings anyone with him, I shall know of it and he may look for your body in the Thames. Tell him you know I mean it, beg him to come to your aid, say you are in mortal terror. Then sign it.’

  She wrote slowly, trying to think of a way to warn Richard of what they planned for him. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We ain’t got all day.’

  She wrote, her pen poised over the signature, but before she could write it, there was the sound of someone pounding up the uncarpeted stairs, making no attempt to be quiet. Joe hid behind the door, while Dawkins rose and faced it, standing poised with the lash in his hands, ready to use it. They could hear whoever it was banging on doors on his way up, shout
ing to the occupants.

  ‘The Runners are coming down the street and they’re searching all the houses.’

  Joe flung open the door. A ragged man stood on the threshold, panting. ‘If you’ve got anything to hide, you’d best make yerselves and yer booty scarce,’ he said. ‘The Runners are going from door to door looking for booty. I’m off meself.’ He turned and clattered down the stairs again, but not before Sophie had recognised Tom Case. Was the refuge she had set so much store by, and worked so hard to create, nothing but a den of thieves? She cursed herself for her gullibility.

  ‘I’m not waiting around for fool’s gold,’ Joe said, grabbing the canvas bag which clinked as he lifted it. ‘But just you remember, you owe me, George Dawkins, and I shall find you, wherever you’re laid up.’ With that he disappeared down the stairs behind Case.

  Dawkins was more cautious, but it was obvious he would be trapped if he stayed where he was. He stuffed the unsigned letter in his pocket, then bent to take Sophie’s arm and hauled her to her feet, upsetting the ink bottle over her hand as he did so. ‘Time we was gone,’ he said, pushing her in front of him down the stairs, holding the cat o’ nine tails at the ready. ‘We’ll finish this somewhere else.’

  When they reached the street door, he poked his head out and looked this way and that, then up at the windows of the tenements. There was not a soul in sight. The cry that Bow Street Runners were in the road had been enough to send everyone to ground.

  ‘Right, you first.’ He pushed Sophie ahead of him, walking backwards himself. They had gone perhaps twenty yards when an arm shot out of a doorway and hauled her inside.

  The next minute the street was full of men, some of whom she recognised, and children, dozens of them, converging on the cornered Dawkins, but Sophie was only half aware of them, as Richard, in an ill-fitting wool coat and worn leather breeches, held her tight against him. She felt breathless and weak and almost ready to faint. ‘Are you all right?’