Once More, Miranda

by Jennifer Wilde

  I turned a corner, heading toward the spire of St. George’s that towered over the filthy, shambly, multilevel rooftops. A thatch-haired lad who wasn’t over ten staggered out of a gin shop, clutching a half pint of the poisonous liquor. His tiny sister tottered out behind him, holding her half pint in her arms as another little girl might hold a doll. Both children were dressed in rags and covered with lice. Both would probably go blind from drinking the swill. There was a horrible, squealing noise as a mud-covered hog came tearing down the street, hotly pursued by a group of shouting women. Fleet Ditch nearby was occupied by hogs that roiled in the slime and fattened themselves on the refuse. Although no one would dare go into the ditch after them, whenever a hog ventured out of the ditch it was fair game for anyone swift enough to catch it. I leaped aside as the hog raced past me. The pack of women almost trampled the children who had come out of the gin shop, knocking the boy to the ground, causing the girl to drop her gin.

  I had chased a hog or two in my time, but I’d never been fortunate enough to catch one. A juicy pork roast would be delicious, I thought, moving on down the street, or one of those tasty-looking bacon rolls all smeared with mustard. What heaven it would be to have one right now. Food. One never stopped thinking about it. Fancy havin’ enough to eat any time you wanted it. There were people who actually did. I walked on through the crowd, ignoring the din and confusion, passing squalid shops and ragpickers’ carts and doss houses, turning another corner to take a shortcut down Half Moon Alley.

  A strapping, terrified grocer’s apprentice in soiled apron was crouching behind a towering heap of garbage. His brick red locks were all atumble, his brown eyes wide with terror. He couldn’t be over fourteen, I thought. Compassion could get you killed, yes, but if you had an opportunity to do someone a good turn without any danger to yourself, you did it. The boy stared at me, trembling all over, and I looked up the alley to make sure that it was empty, then stepped over to him and asked him what was wrong.

  “Th’ crimps,” he moaned. “They’ve been after it all mornin’, snatchin’ any lad they ’appen upon. I saw ’em snatch Teddy Bennet, grabbed ’im as ’e was comin’ outta ’is ’ouse. I left th’ shop to fetch th’ cabbage for Mr. Cathcart an’ they started chasin’ me! They’re bound to catch me!”

  “Jump over that wall,” I told him. “There’s a courtyard beyond. The cellar of the building is empty. You can ’ide there.”

  The boy gulped, muttered his thanks and scrambled hastily over the wall as four fierce-looking men came tearing into the alley. I sauntered on, not a bit alarmed. The crimps who worked for the East India Company weren’t interested in abducting girls. The vicious press gangs kidnapped only likely-looking lads to sell to a ship captain short of crew. Although only seamen could legally be impressed, no lad was safe during a “hot press,” and the East India crimps were the most brutal of the lot, creating a veritable reign of terror whenever they were on the prowl. The four men thundered toward me, looking left and right.

  “You, wench!” one of them called. “You seen a red-’aired boy?”

  “’E ran out th’ alley!” I cried. “Almost knocked me on my arse, th’ bleedin’ sod. Go get ’im!”

  The four thugs ran out of the alley, footsteps pounding loudly. I wondered how many lads they would kidnap before they were finished. The boys were kept chained up in a foul cellar and horribly brutalized before they were eventually turned over to a sea captain. Nothing was ever done about it. Life was cruel, indeed, I reflected, pleased I had helped the grocer’s apprentice avoid a terrible fate. Only the strongest lads survived the scurvy and the floggings and the constant hazards of life aboard ship.

  Leaving the alley, I strolled past Critchin’s Gin Shop and Mother Redcoat’s and a receiving house with windows crammed with plate and brass candlesticks and porcelain clocks. There was a tray of shoe buckles, too, and I recognized those paste-encrusted silver buckles. I’d snipped them off a dandy gent’s shoes as he was climbing out of a sedan chair. The grooms had given chase and one of them had almost caught me. A penny I got for those buckles, one penny, and they were genuine fake diamonds and rubies. Bleedin’ fences. Robbed you blind every time you brought in your loot.

  Lost in thought, I threaded my way through the crowd, utterly at home here amidst the squalor, brash and confident as I passed the toppling buildings and skirted the refuse heaps and took shortcuts down the dark, narrow alleys. Today was going to be very profitable, I told myself. Public executions always brought out a whopping big mob, and with all the noise and excitement and distractions, they were heaven for a pickpocket. As I neared St. George’s, the streets grew a trifle wider. I could see larger patches of gray sky, and thin shafts of dusty yellow-white sunlight slanted through the overhanging rooftops to polish the filthy cobbles. I turned a corner. I could see the magnificent spires and stone archways of St. George’s now, towering there like a sentinel at the entrance of St. Giles, symbolizing another world forever closed to the people who dwelled here.

  “’Ey, wench! ’Ow ’bout it? I ’ave ’alf a crown to spend.”

  A husky lout was blocking my way. Gazing at the splendid church, I hadn’t seen him. I tensed, giving him a fierce look that didn’t faze him at all. He grinned, his lascivious eyes taking in my long legs, my slender waist, the full swell of my breasts straining against the low, tattered bodice of my violet blue dress.

  “Up your arse!” I snapped.

  “’Alf a bloody crown don’t suit you? Well, well, well, looks like we ’ave a bleedin’ duchess on our ’ands.”

  “You’d best keep your ’ands to yourself, mate.”

  “Saucy, ain’t you? Maybe I’ll just ’ave it for nothin’.”

  He moved toward me. I braced myself, eyes flashing, claws ready. Something in my stance warned him. He hesitated a moment, studying me, and then he muttered a curse and shambled away. I was used to such encounters, had learned how to defend myself a long time ago. A kick to the shin, a knee to the groin, nails to the eyes and they let go soon enough. Few of them cared to tangle with a wildcat when a few shillings would get them what they wanted on any street in St. Giles. Tail was too easy to come by to make it worth a fight.

  A crowd had gathered at the end of the street, jeering and laughing boisterously as a plump, gin-sodden woman with oily gray hair and pasty cheeks made drunken efforts to defend herself from three filthy youths who were trying to steal the loaf of bread clamped under her armpit. She shouted abuse and flailed wildly, reeling, tottering. The youths were merely amusing themselves, toying with her as a cat might toy with a mouse he has no real interest in devouring. The plump woman slipped on the cobbles and landed on her backside. One of the youths gave her a sharp kick as another snatched the bread. The mob hooted with delight as the third youth grabbed a bucket of slops and poured it over her face. I wanted to kill all three of them, but one didn’t interfere. I passed on, turning another corner, and it was then that I saw the two men standing in front of the squalid gambling hall.

  One was a muscular giant of a man with a savage face and hair the color of dark honey. He wore muddy boots, tight brown breeches and a leather jerkin over a filthy, coarsely woven white shirt. I didn’t recognize him, but I recognized the man with him. I stopped, backing cautiously against the wall. I remembered what Nan had said, and I had no desire to attract the attention of Black Jack Stewart. Tall, skeleton-thin, he wore his customary tall black knee boots, his bottle green breeches and black satin frock coat with dirty gold braid on cuffs and lapel. Tattered white lace spilled from his throat and at the wrists. The king of St. Giles had a great beak of a nose and thin, leering lips, and he always wore a shiny black patch over his right eye.

  He seemed to be dressing down his henchman. The blond giant scowled unhappily, nodding. Black Jack gave him some instructions and then turned wearily, a bored monarch disgusted with the inefficiency of his servants. He glanced down the street, idly surveying his domain, and then he saw me leaning against the wall. He s
tared. I felt a chill in my bones that had nothing to do with the cold. Black Jack stroked his lower lip, reflecting, that one dark eye glittering, never leaving me. He said something to his henchman. The ruffian turned to look at me, squinting. Black Jack asked him a question. The ruffian shook his head. Black Jack wanted to know my name. He wanted to put me in his fancy new house. My heart was palpitating. Fearless I might be, but Black Jack Stewart was another matter altogether.

  A baker’s apprentice scurried down the street, a heavy bag of flour slung over his shoulder. A skinny lad with bugging gray eyes and a shaggy thatch of white blond hair, he worked for Bullock’s, the bake shop near Hawkins’s, and his name was Alf. I had spoken to him several times. As he passed the two men, the blond giant seized him roughly by the hair and whirled him around. Alf let out a cry of alarm, dropping the bag of flour. It burst at the seams, flour spilling all over the cobbles. Alf shrieked, even more alarmed now, for he would be held responsible for the flour.

  Black Jack’s henchman slapped Alf viciously across the face and twisted him around until the lad was facing in my direction. Still gripping Alf’s hair, the muscular blond ruffian gave his head a vicious jerk and asked him a question. I stared at Alf, willing him not to give the right answer. The boy gulped, tears spurting from his eyes as the ruffian’s fingers wound more tightly around those white blond locks, pulling savagely. Alf spluttered out something. The giant scowled, slapped him across the face again and let go of his hair. Alf tumbled to the cobbles, landing on the shattered bag and causing puffy clouds of flour to explode all around.

  Alf hadn’t given me away. He hadn’t told them my name. I was going to have to thank him for that, but I had wasted too much time already. Black Jack spoke to his henchman again, and the ruffian started toward me. I turned quickly and darted back down the street the way I had come, almost colliding with a hunchback who was carrying a flimsy stick-cage full of squawking chickens. I ran down an alley, climbed a wall, scurried across a yard littered with rotten lumber and into the basement of one of the tenements. Rats scampered in every direction as I padded across the floor and up the rickety stairs. I left the building through a side door, moved up the street at a rapid clip and eventually turned down another alley, arriving back on the street I’d left, only much further up, in the shadow of St. George’s.

  Keeping well in the shadow of one of the jutting arches, half hidden behind a pillar, I peered cautiously down the street. Black Jack and his henchman were no longer in sight, although poor Alf was still on the cobbles, on his hands and knees, desperately trying to scoop up the flour and get as much as he could back into the split cloth bag. Relieved, I emitted a heavy sigh and strolled on, leaving St. Giles behind me. It had been a scary experience, all right, and I’d been all goose pimples for a moment there, but I put it out of my mind quickly enough. There were hundreds and hundreds of likely girls in St. Giles, far too many for Black Jack to bother trying to track down just one. In the thronging congestion of the slums the chances of my running into him again anytime soon were slim indeed. Life in St. Giles was fraught with danger. One got used to it. No need to worry unnecessarily.

  Once beyond St. George’s, the whole face of London seemed to change. It was like stepping out of a dark, fetid closet into a spacious and airy drawing room. The streets were wider, with ample room for the wonderful carriages and coaches and sedan chairs, and the shops weren’t jammed together so closely. A person could dawdle and gaze into the windows at fine leather goods, at pastries and marvelous china and a veritable garden of beribboned, befeathered bonnets. The pavements were crowded, true, but the people were a marvel to behold: fine ladies in rustling satin and striped taffeta and powdered wigs, gents in splendid frock coats, clerks, grooms, flower girls—a fascinating and colorful parade, constantly shifting, constantly changing. There were squares and parks and gardens—trees everywhere, it seemed—greenery framing fine old buildings of brown and tan and weathered gray. There was dirt, too, of course—everything seemed to be sprinkled with soot—and the smell of the river wasn’t pleasant, but after St. Giles it seemed like paradise.

  I strolled leisurely, winding my way toward Tyburn, keeping my eye out for an easy mark. I had learned how to size people up a long time ago, and I rarely took chances. That prosperous-looking merchant striding down the street in his sturdy boots and heavy cloak had a mean look to him. He’d be on the watch for pickpockets. That plump housewife with the package in her arms would start squawking if I even got near her, and the thin young clerk with the ink-stained fingers wouldn’t have anything on him worth stealing. Those three women in satin gowns who stood chattering in front of the milliner’s probably, had lots of pickings, but one of them was holding a tiny dog. Dogs nipped your ankles, even tiny, pampered dogs, and a very fine carriage stood nearby, a stocky and sullen-looking groom lounging against it and keeping an eye on the gabbling trio. He’d be on me in a minute if I approached them, would undoubtedly pummel me with his fists and send me sprawling with a well-placed kick.

  I sighed heavily and walked on, keeping my eyes peeled for the right opportunity. The three ladies in satin recoiled as I passed by them. One of them gasped and held her nose. I turned and stuck my tongue out at her, and she almost collapsed into the arms of her companions. The sullen-looking groom stood up straight and glared at me, his hands balled into fists. I marched past him with my nose in the air, just like a duchess, and when I was far enough away I made a rude noise and extended a stiff middle finger. He spluttered angrily, but he didn’t give chase. He couldn’t desert his post just to cuff a saucy street urchin, although he would have liked to lay hands on me. I had seen it in his eyes as I passed. Even in rags, even with my curls all atumble and my face streaked with dirt, I had aroused the brute. It gave one a feeling of power, being able to do that, but such games didn’t interest me. Didn’t seem fair to trade on your looks when you didn’t intend to let ’em paw you.

  I moved down Snow Hill and passed over the horrid-smelling Fleet by the narrow stone bridge, hurrying now, for it wouldn’t do to be late, and there was sure to be a vast crowd. A public execution was a festive affair, free entertainment for the raucous populace. In a book I had once stolen from one of the stalls I had read that London was called the City of Gallows because you couldn’t come into the city by road or by river without seeing at least one. They stood at Putney, at Kensington, in Old Kent Road and Wapping, but Tyburn was the favored spot. There was so much more room for the merry spectators, and all the important criminals were strung up there. The merchants, the stallkeepers, the hawkers and pamphlet-sellers always had a profitable time at a public hanging, as did pickpockets and thieves. Everyone seemed to prosper and have a good time except the poor condemned man.

  The crowd had thickened considerably as I moved down Oxford Road. The open country of Marylebone Fields was to my side, the villages of Hampstead and Highgate visible on the high ground beyond. There must be at least five or six hundred people trudging along the road, I reckoned, most of them laughing raucously, singing lewd ditties, waving bottles and eating meat pies and eagerly anticipating the treat in store. Fine carriages and elegant sedan chairs were caught up in the mob of pedestrians, grooms cracking their whips, shouting abuse, elegant ladies peering around the curtains with alarmed, excited faces. When we reached the junction of Oxford Road and Edgeware Road, near the wall of Hyde Park, I caught my first glimpse of the enormous gallows, so large it could accommodate twenty-one bodies at the same time, and I repressed a shudder. I had been to many executions in my time, but I never watched the proceedings. They were much too grisly, particularly if a traitor was to be executed.

  Traitors weren’t merely hung. They were cut down while still alive and disembowled, their bowels burst in front of their eyes. They were drawn and quartered next, finally beheaded while hundreds chatted and laughed, ate gingerbread and sipped lemonade, lustily enjoying the splendid entertainment. I found it difficult to understand this thirst for savagery that pervaded
our age, for it wasn’t something confined to St. Giles and its denizens. Gentry swarmed to executions, noble lords rubbing elbows with costermongers and chimney sweeps, refined ladies devouring chocolates and standing up on their stalls to get a better view.

  Tyburn Fields might have been the scene of a fair this morning as I made my way through the thick, jostling crowd swarming around the immense wooden gallows. Mother Proctor’s Pews were solidly packed, I observed, the tiers of wooden seats affording a choice vantage point and, incidentally, making a fortune for the shrewd woman who owned the concession and rented them out to the gentry and more affluent merchant class. There were carts and carriages amidst the crush, the rooftops of the latter providing another dandy vantage point. A flock of brightly clad women perched atop one of them, their colored skirts like so many petals fluttering in the breeze as they waved to acquaintances, flirted with men and chattered nonstop. Rowdy revelers of every class thronged the scene, pushing, shoving, cheeks flushed with excitement, eyes aglitter with anticipation. Ancient bawds in filthy shawls guzzled gin and shouted obscenities. Rough laborers reeled about drunkenly, joking with the whores. At least half a dozen fistfights were in progress, and the gallows itself was encircled by a troop of grim-faced soldiers who kept the mob at bay, using the butts of their muskets to discourage the more enthusiastic spectators.

  Hawkers shouted their wares, doing a brisk business in gin and beer, chestnuts and oranges, pasties and tarts and gingerbread. A husky man with a grinning, amiable face held aloft a rack from which dangled tiny wooden dolls with nooses around their necks, selling the grisly souvenirs at sixpence apiece. “Hear the condemned man’s confession!” shouted a pamphleteer, waving handfuls of freshly printed sheets, while others sold lurid accounts of previous executions and even more lurid tales of famous criminals, the life of the infamous Jack Sheppard a perennial favorite. All were crudely written, crudely printed, hastily run up overnight to satisfy the public’s lust for such fare. I had read several, fascinated and repelled by the bloodthirsty details and explicit woodcuts.