by M C Beaton
That was as far as he got. A richly dressed young man in the other boat seized a long bargepole and drove it full into the waterman’s chest, tumbling him into the river. Three of the other young men in the aristocratic party had unsheathed their swords.
And then a voice Polly knew only too well commanded, “Sit down. It is only a party of Cits. Would you commit murder on this fine day? Fie, for shame, to become so incensed over the insults of such as these.” It was the marquess of Canonby.
Polly turned her head away as the richly decorated barge floated past only a foot away. She sensed rather than saw the marquess as his eyes scanned their boat. She did not look round until she was sure they were past. There were screams and splashes as the Cits helped the waterman back on board.
The party resumed. At last Polly stood up and looked down the river at the retreating barge. There was a tall figure, his hand shielding his eyes, who seemed to be looking straight at her. She was sure it was the marquess. She sat down again quickly.
In vain did she try to enjoy the rest of the day. But the marquess’s face seemed to dance on the water before her eyes. She told herself fiercely she was glad he had not had a chance to see her, while all the time a treacherous little longing inside went on and on, wondering and wondering what he would have done if he had recognized her.
The sun sparkling on the water was beginning to make her head ache and she was heartily glad when they finally moored alongside the pier. There was laughing and chattering as she made her farewells, and Barney proudly promised to bring her along to the next outing. He knew Polly’s beauty and aristocratic bearing had made him seem even more important in his employer’s eyes.
Polly declined a chair, saying she would be content to walk home. In vain did Barney and Jake outline the dangers of the London streets. There was the danger of an apprentice letting down the shutter of a shop without looking first to see if anyone was standing underneath; danger from the coal carts rushing up the narrow lanes from the Thames; danger of slops being emptied from overhead; danger in a traffic block where one might receive a cut from a whip during a whip fight between draymen; danger from thieves who fished for hats and wigs with long wires, leaning out of upper-story windows.
Polly only smiled and said she was well protected by their escort. The farther they walked from the river, the less the memory of the marquess became. The walk and exercise removed Polly’s headache and she was feeling tired and happy by the time they reached home.
Their apartment was on the first floor, so as Polly swung the kettle over the newly lit fire to boil water for tea and heard the sound of footsteps mounting the stairs, she assumed it was only one of the residents of the upper floors returning home. The pounding on the door of their apartment made the three of them freeze. The fire crackled, the clock in the corner of the room ticked busily, as they waited holding their breath.
Then Barney began to laugh. “We’re respectable now,” he said, approaching the door. “It’s probably one of the neighbors come to borrow something.”
He swung open the door and the marquess of Canonby walked straight past him and into the parlor.
“Good evening, Miss Jones,” he said, making her a bow.
“How did you find me?” cried Polly.
“Simple, my child. I saw you on the river, watched where your boat moored, landed farther along and then followed you. If you are not tired, Miss Jones, will you walk with me a little?”
“She is tired,” said Barney truculently. “Be off with you!”
“No,” said Polly. “I owe this gentleman my life. The least I can do is to give my lord a little of my time.”
She and the marquess walked to the end of the street and then along a grassy path which led across the marshy fields of Bloomsbury. The evening was calm and golden, more like summer than spring. Urchins were bathing naked in the ponds and their shrill cries mingled with the lowing of a herd of cows being driven homeward by the herdsman, his blue smock a vivid splash of color against the green and brown of the marshy fields.
“Now, Polly,” said the marquess gently, “why did you run away?”
“I wanted to be independent,” said Polly, who had no intention of telling him she had been listening at the door of the morning room and had overheard him talking to the colonel.
“But do you not think it might have been polite to tell me? You left all your pretty gowns. I have no need of them.”
“They say you did it for a bet,” said Polly. “Took me from the scaffold, I mean.”
“You are overnice, Polly. You were rescued. Why should the motive matter?”
Polly bit her lip and said nothing.
“But I have a concern for you,” he went on, “and must ask you how you and your villains manage to afford your comfortable lodgings and how you come to be so finely robed.”
“Barney is working,” said Polly, who briefly thought about telling him about the present of Mrs. Worthington’s ring and then dismissed it. He would probably never believe her, and even if he did, she would have to admit to being at the ridotto. “He has a job of keeping the books for a tea merchant. He is highly thought of.”
“And what is the relationship of these men to you?” asked the marquess sharply.
“I told you,” said Polly crossly. “They used to work at the brothel, but left, and are turned respectable.”
“Why should they wish to look after you? What is their interest in you?”
“I don’t know,” said Polly candidly. “I was suspicious at first. We were all living in one room near Tothill Fields after I left you and I used to sleep with the rolling pin under my pillow, but they behave like brothers. In fact, that is part of our respectable front. I am Polly Smith and Jake and Barney are my brothers.”
“But there is no reason for this masquerade, my child.”
“What if someone should recognize me?” asked Polly, glancing over her shoulder as if frightened that the Bow Street Horse Patrol was already bearing down on her.
“It does not matter if anyone recognizes you. If you survive the gallows, then you are free from the charge of theft!”
Polly could hardly tell him that, as she planned to go on with her life of crime, it still suited her best to remain anonymous.
“And so this Barney manages to support you comfortably?” the marquess pursued when she remained silent.
“Yes, he is all that is respectable.”
“Then I confess myself delighted. I was afraid you had returned to your thieving ways.”
Polly colored. “I took certain objects from the Early of Meresly, yes, but that was because I was about to be made homeless. He has plenty of money. He need not have missed them.”
“But he did,” said the marquess severely. “You lack morality. What is the Meresly family to you? Are you one of the countess’s family’s by-blows?”
“Go away and leave me alone and take your insults with you,” said Polly fiercely. “It is all very well for you to be so high and mighty. You have never been faced with starvation.”
“No, but if I were, I would find work.”
“You are not a woman either. What work can a woman find except that of a drudge?”
“Do not let us quarrel,” he said. “You are respectable now and many a city clerk would be honored to have you as a wife.”
For some reason she could not quite understand, Polly found this last remark even more insulting than being called a thief and asked whether she were a bastard. There was only a dim, half-formed realization that she would never be good enough for him. The marquess obviously considered marriage to a clerk a worthy enough ambition for such as Polly Jones.
“You are pompous and arrogant and you offend me,” said Polly, picking up her skirts. “Good day to you, my lord.”
She turned and hurried back along the path, leaving him staring after her.
As she reached the corner of Biddeford Row, she was so anxious to escape into her home and examine her hurt that she failed to n
otice the scene taking place on the other side of the street.
But a woman ran past her, shouting, “That one-eyed thief has been took.”
Polly stopped dead in her tracks and looked across the street. There was a small knot of people around two men. One was Jake, clutching his brow with a handkerchief and trying to staunch a bright rivulet of blood. The other, a truculent-looking gentleman, held a stick with a silver knob and the knob was smeared with blood. He was holding Jake in a cruel grasp.
“Waiting for the parish constable,” said a thin slatternly-looking woman next to Polly. “Old one-eye there stole the gentleman’s watch, but the gentleman caught him and stunned him and is holding him so the constable can find the goods on him.”
Polly edged into the crowd, pushing, shoving until she was standing behind Jake. Still jostling and pushing, she fell against Jake, and before she righted herself, she had slipped a hand into his pocket, taken the watch and lifted it out, her hand closed tightly round it.
“It cannot be true,” cried Polly shrilly. “This is my brother. He would not steal. Do spare him, sir.”
She wound her arms about the gentleman’s neck. He tottered back a step in surprise but did not release his hold on Jake.
“Here’s the constable,” yelled someone, and the crowd, including Polly, fell back.
“This man stole my gold watch,” said the gentleman, shaking the half-conscious Jake.
“He cannot have done so,” said Polly stoutly. “This is my brother, Mr. Jacob Smith.”
The constable hesitated, impressed by Polly’s beauty and the elegance of her gown.
“We’ll see about that,” said the gentleman truculently. “Search in this one-eyed fellow’s right pocket, constable. I deliberately left my watch on him, so he should not have a chance to weasel out of his crime.”
The constable plunged his hand into Jake’s pocket. Nothing. He searched all Jake’s pockets. In bewilderment, he even prised open Jake’s mouth and looked down his throat.
“Nothing there, sir,” he said.
“Why doesn’t this gentleman look in his own pocket,” said Polly, “and leave my poor innocent brother alone?”
“Of course I have not got it,” said the gentleman wrathfully. “I had it here before this fellow took it,” he said, plunging a hand into a capacious pocket, “and …”
Then a ludicrous expression of dismay and amazement crossed his face. He slowly drew out his gold watch and stared at it.
“Monster,” said Polly, giving a pathetic little sob.
“Yes,” said the constable. “You should be took to Bedlam for wasting my time with your stories. Do you want me to charge him with assault, miss?”
“Oh, no,” said Polly. “If I can just get my brother home, that will be enough.” She smiled sweetly on the gentleman, who was still staring at his own watch. “Do not look so distressed, sir. Neither I nor my brother harbor ill feelings toward you. An easy mistake to make in these dangerous times.”
“Here, let me help you, miss,” said the constable eagerly, and putting a comforting arm around Jake’s waist and with Polly helping, he escorted them home.
The little crowd of onlookers dispersed. The gentleman shook his head, tucked his watch into his pocket and went on his way.
The marquess of Canonby stood alone, feeling thoroughly depressed. He had followed Polly at a distance, sorry he had angered her, wondering whether he should apologize for suggesting she might be a bastard of Lady Lydia’s family. He had witnessed the scene with Jake, his tall height allowing him to stand back from the crowd and yet see over their heads. He had seen Polly deftly take the watch from Jake’s pocket and transfer it back into the gentleman’s.
“I did society a great wrong by saving the life of such as she,” thought the marquess. “Thank God we move in different circles, for it would sicken me to set eyes on her again!”
It took Jake over a week to recover from the blow to his head. He had had a great fright. In the moment that the robbed gentleman had held him fast, Jake had at last realized he stood to lose his freedom, his comfortable, happy, respectable way of life—and life itself.
For the first time it occurred to him that taking a job might be a safe thing to do.
Polly, too, had been frightened by Jake’s near-arrest. She had planned to go to another ridotto as soon as the Season began and try her luck. But although the determination to steal was leaving her, it was being replaced by that old, burning curiosity about the Mereslys, and what had happened to Meg at Meresly Manor the day she died. Was she a bastard of the Mereslys? The answer lay with the earl and his family, and the only way to get close to them was to be in society. There was to be a masquerade night at Vauxhall Gardens on the following week. The social columns said all of society planned to be present. Polly took a deep breath. She herself would be there. The Mereslys had twin daughters. Perhaps she might find an opportunity of gossiping to one of them and thereby find some clue to the death of the old woman who had raised her.
CHAPTER TEN
Polly had never told Barney or Jake much about her past. They interpreted her burning desire to go to the masquerade at Vauxhall as a thieving expedition. Barney was against it. He was enjoying his newfound respectability and for the first time felt that Polly was placing his security in jeopardy.
He had promised Jake to try to get him a post as a clerk, and so Jake no longer frequented the taverns but sat each day assiduously practicing his handwriting to bring it up to the required copperplate standards of the tea merchant’s business.
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens on the south side of the Thames cut across class lines and was one of the few places where the common folk and the aristocracy mixed freely. Jake and Barney had promised to go with Polly but not to stay beside her, as the sight of the three of them together, even masked, might jog “someone’s” memory. That someone was the marquess of Canonby.
Polly was too busy making preparations for the ridotto to notice that her power over her two henchmen was waning. They felt uneasily that they were becoming respectable and she was not.
The day before the ridotto was a Friday, and Barney had been given a day off. He suggested they should visit the Museum of the Royal Society in Crane Court, a narrow court leading off Fleet Street, where they would be able to see fascinating exhibits from all over the globe.
They walked slowly through the streets together, each prepared to enjoy the outing. When they reached the museum, Barney was shocked to find the catalogues cost two shillings each. With new respectable thriftiness he suggested they buy only one and share it.
All, however, considered the exhibits prime value. There was a bone from a mermaid’s head, a tortoise—“his grease is good for scurvy: said when turned on his back to sigh and Fetch Abundance of Tears,” a white shark, a picture of a large whale rending a boat, and a flying squirrel which the catalogue informed them “can ford a river on the Bark of a Tree, erecting His tail for a Sail.” Jake and Barney gazed at these wonders with childlike awe, and Polly realized for the first time that both were actually young men, possibly only in their early twenties. Jake’s tall, thin figure and hideously marred face made him seem much older, and Barney’s heavy, brutish face and squat powerful figure made him look as if he had never been young. But wonder and excitement had temporarily wiped all traces of the years of villainy and hardship from their faces.
After leaving the exhibition, they walked along the Strand until a crowd gathering in Durham Court, just off the main thoroughfare, attracted their attention. They pushed forward to see what was going on.
A watchmaker had set up a booth. On a trestle, he had placed a tiny chaise with four wheels. As they watched, he coaxed a flea out of a box, and made it draw the tiny carriage. Then he set other fleas to turn watermills and march in troupes like soldiers.
Polly was clapping her hands and laughing at the antics when Jake looked across the crowd and found himself staring straight at Mrs. Blanchard. She was not looking at him. She
was gazing at Polly, her expression of surprise and shock fading to be replaced with one of sheer malignancy.
“Barney!” hissed Jake. “Get Polly. It’s Ma Blanchard!”
They hustled Polly away. Mrs. Blanchard followed them. But Barney and Jake had guessed she would, and they knew every twist and wynd in the neighborhood. They were panting and breathless when they finally slowed their pace.
Barney pushed open the door of a tavern and hustled Polly and Jake inside.
“Fair turned my stomach when I saw her,” said Jake, when they were all seated at the corner of a long table.
“But what could she do to us?” asked Polly. “I cannot be charged with the same crime, and she will have no interest in harming either of you.”
