The Devil in the Marshalsea

by Antonia Hodgson

  I staggered to my feet, almost welcoming the pain that stabbed the back of my head. Pain kept me sharp, kept me alert. I pressed my shoulder to the nearest wall and scraped my way slowly down the alley.

  You have the luck of the devil, Tom Hawkins. Is that right, Charles? I couldn’t go home, not without money. Benjamin Fletcher, my landlord, would have me clamped in irons in a flash. No point asking friends for help – I’d used up every remaining favour. Charles had no money left to lend – I had taken his last last penny. And family . . . I cut the thought dead.

  As I reached the end of the alley I heard the unmistakeable hiss of hot piss plattering into the mud ahead. I turned the corner to find an old whore squatting in the middle of the street, illuminated in the moonlight, a small puddle spreading about her feet. The street was still and empty – and it felt in that moment that we might be the only two living souls in the city, God help us. As she saw me she raised her skirts higher, a thin trickle of piss still rolling down her leg.

  ‘Farthing for a fuck,’ she said, weaving a little on the spot.

  A farthing to catch the pox? It was a bargain, I suppose – men have paid finer whores a great deal more for the privilege. I shook my head, then winced as the pain smacked against my skull. ‘Which way to the Garden?’

  She took in my tattered clothes; the blood stains on my shirt . . . and held out her hand. ‘A penny and I’ll show you.’

  ‘I was set upon. They took my purse.’ I opened my arms wide. ‘Have pity, madam.’

  ‘Pity?’ She chuckled, and wiped herself dry with her dirt-streaked petticoat. ‘Can’t afford it.’

  She stumbled away, back towards the dark heart of St Giles.

  I found my own way back to Covent Garden in the end. I kept to the shadows, hiding in porches when other men strode by. Perhaps someone would have helped me, if I’d dared to ask. One hears of good Samaritans, even in London. But I couldn’t risk it. I limped slowly through the streets alone, no doubt turning in circles half the time. Sometimes I felt eyes upon my back, and swore I heard the soft tread of footsteps behind me – but when I turned and peered into the darkness, there was no one there. Follow me all you wish, I thought. There’s nothing left for you to take.

  At last I stumbled upon the Garden – the reassuring feel of cobbles beneath my feet; the neat, solid silhouette of St Paul’s church and the glow of lights burning even now in the bagnios, shrill cries of false passion spilling from their windows. Out in the piazza, market traders set up their stalls by torchlight, calling and laughing to one another as they worked. An old woman in a red cape sat huddled on the steps of the Shakespeare Tavern selling hot rice milk and barley broth. I stumbled past them all, feeling like an old soldier returned from a war no one knew we were fighting. A nightwatchman held up his lantern and I shrank away – in my tattered, filthy state he might decide to sling me in the lock-up on suspicion of something . . . anything . . . and then discover there was a warrant out for my arrest with a nice plump fee attached.

  Moll’s coffeehouse was open – always open – but empty save for Betty, sweeping softly around an old lawyer lying dead drunk beneath a table. She took one look at me then ran and fetched Moll, who was sleeping in the shack next door – maybe with her husband and maybe not. I collapsed on a chair by the fire, my head in my hands, and started to shake. Relief that I was safe. Terror that I was not. As soon as the sun rose my creditors would call the alarm. How long before a warrant officer found me here, my favourite haunt? I had to run – but I was so battered and exhausted I could barely think, never mind move.

  Moll was still lacing up her dress as she arrived. ‘Well, now, Tom. What’s all this?’ Then she saw the state of me and gave a low curse of surprise. She prodded Betty towards the door. ‘Hot water, fresh clothes.’ She sat down beside me, touched her fingers to a scrape on my cheek. ‘What happened?’

  ‘They took my purse, Moll. They took everything.’

  There was only one thing for it, Moll decided. I must leave town at once. ‘Run to the Mint, before dawn.’

  I sighed bitterly. A few short hours ago I had succeeded in turning my fortunes around. Now my only hope was to flee to the old debtors’ sanctuary across the river. The Mint’s tight maze of streets was so violent, so riddled with disease, that bailiffs refused to set foot across its borders. One tried it, a few weeks back. They beat him bloody and pushed his face down into the thick, stinking river of filth that ran through the streets. He died a few days later.

  ‘Better the Mint than the Marshalsea,’ Moll insisted, wiping the blood from the back of my neck with a wet cloth. ‘You can leave again on Sunday. They won’t arrest you on the Lord’s day.’ She brought her hands together in mock-piety.

  ‘And after that? What shall I do on Monday, Moll?’

  ‘Monday?’ She rubbed harder at the dried blood, making me gasp with pain. ‘Since when have you planned that far ahead?’ Then she stopped, and pressed her lips to my ear. ‘My offer’s still open, Tom. Come and work for me. I could use a boy of your talents . . .’ And she set off upon a story about a new venture she had in mind, involving a trip to France. I can’t remember the details now and could barely understand them then. My head was throbbing and it was hard to follow her. I remember it sounded dangerous and reckless. And tempting.

  I considered my choices while Moll rinsed my blood from the cloth, wringing the water into the bowl with a sharp twist. I could stand and face my fate with honour, like a gentleman, and meet some squalid end in gaol. Or I could escape to the Mint and be lost from good society for ever. It was easy enough for Moll to advise the latter course. She was born in the stews and had spent most of her life working the streets for profit, one way or another. She knew when to run and where to go. She had escaped prison and transportation, been called a whore and a thief and worse. Somehow she always came back, brighter and braver than before.

  It was not the same for me. As the eldest son of a Suffolk gentleman, my life had been set along an old, straight track from birth: I would join the clergy like my father, and – in time – inherit his position. Three years ago – following an unfortunate incident in an Oxford brothel – I had abandoned that path. Now here I was, five and twenty, with no family, no prospects and no money. True, I had Greek and Latin and could dance a passable gavotte, but a man cannot survive on such things, even in London.

  I glanced through a copy of the Daily Courant that had been left upon the table, hoping for some clue to what I should do. Amidst the advertisements for horses, houses and an ‘infallible cure for scurvy’, I noticed that the South Sea Company had announced a three-month extension on borrowing. When the stocks collapsed seven years ago some investors had arranged to pay their debts in instalments – with interest, naturally. Perhaps Mr Fletcher might consider a similar scheme.

  Betty appeared with a clean change of clothes and a bowl of hot punch, God bless her. My waistcoat could be cleaned and mended, but my breeches and stockings were torn beyond repair. I stripped by the warmth of the fire, wincing from the bruises along my ribs. I pulled on the fresh stockings and a pair of old, snuff-coloured breeches, then eased myself into a matching waistcoat and jacket. Clean and dressed, I felt more myself again – but when I glanced in the tarnished mirror above the fireplace, I was startled by my reflection. I didn’t look like a man of honour – if I ever had. I looked like a man who would run.

  I shivered. So – this was my choice now. Gaol or a life of crime. A life that would most likely end with a rope around my neck. I touched my hand to my throat.

  ‘Mr Hawkins.’ A soft, low voice behind me. Betty’s reflection joined mine in the mirror, my ruined clothes gathered in her arms. She stole a glance towards the front door, where Moll was slopping out the blood and water into the piazza. ‘There is another way,’ she whispered.

  I turned, hope rising in my chest. ‘Tell me.’

  She smiled, gently. ‘You could go home, sir. Go home and ask your father for help.’

  My sh
oulders sagged. I poured myself a glass of punch and knocked it back. ‘I’d sooner ask the devil.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Moll asked sharply as she returned, but Betty had slipped away with my clothes and we were alone.

  ‘There’s the scoundrel! Arrest him!’

  Benjamin Fletcher, my landlord, stood in the doorway, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. He must have run all the way from Greek Street. As he limped forward he was followed by a warrant officer, a huge ox of a man, carrying a large wooden club in his fist. His nose had been squashed about his face a few times and a large white scar ran through one brow. A long loop of chains hung over his shoulder like a sash. Our eyes met and he smiled, quite cheerful, as if he had come to escort me to the theatre, not prison. His gaze dropped to the blood-soaked cloth in Moll’s hand. ‘Run into some trouble, sir?’ he asked, in the slow, steady voice of a man with very quick fists.

  ‘Seize him, Mr Jakes!’ Fletcher wheezed, tearing the hat from his head and fanning his sweaty face.

  ‘Mr Fletcher,’ I said, holding my hands out wide in apology. ‘I swear to you I had the money . . .’

  ‘No more lies, Mr Hawkins,’ he cried. He pulled a note from his waistcoat and thrust it at me, his hands shaking. ‘You have played me for a fool, sir.’

  The note was short, and written in a neat script that reminded me of my own. A gentleman’s hand.

  Sir.

  As a good Christian it is my Duty to report that yr Tenant that vile Dog Hawkins is engaged in relations of the most sordid Nature with your Wife and that the whole World speaks of their Infamy. Your kind Patience and Tolerance of his Debts to You, sir, he repays in this monstrous Manner to his own Shame and your Wife’s Ruin.

  A Friend.

  Beneath it was a crude drawing of a man sprouting horns from his brow – the unmistakeable sign of a cuckold.

  I frowned at the note, quite confounded. Mrs Fletcher was a pinched, mean-spirited woman with a shrill temper and the look of a shaved ferret. The very notion we were ‘engaged in relations’ was beyond contempt, but Fletcher believed it. This was calamitous. As my chief creditor, he alone could show mercy and grant me more time to pay my debt. He was not a cruel man; in truth he had been more patient than I deserved. But above all other things, he doted upon his wretched wife. His anonymous ‘friend’ had played a clever game upon us both. I must answer this with great care.

  ‘Mr Fletcher, sir. We are men of reason, are we not?’ I waved the note limply. ‘You must see that this is no more than malicious gossip? I mean no dishonour to your good wife, but . . .’

  Behind me, Moll gave a little cough. ‘But he’d rather fuck his own sister.’

  The chains lay heavy across my chest as Jakes led me through Covent Garden towards the river. I walked with my gaze upon the ground, the manacles tight about my wrists, hands clasped together as if in prayer. Too late for that, now. I doubt I was much of a spectacle. I had seen dozens of men led through Soho on their way to the Fleet or the Marshalsea or some other rotten lock-up, and given them little more than a moment’s thought. At least I didn’t have a wife or children trailing at my heels, lamenting their sorry fate. And that, I realised, was the best I could say for myself in that moment.

  We pushed our way through the busy market, past stalls laden with bright bunches of flowers and ripe fruit fresh in from the suburbs. I breathed in the sweet scent of herbs and the dusty rich tang of spices and wished I could linger, disappear into the bustling confusion of the crowds – traders shouting their wares; young maids selling nosegays, handkerchiefs, anything to keep them from the brothel; livestock bleating and lowing and snorting and stinking to the heavens; actors and tumblers, footmen and chairmen; gossiping madams and rock-faced bullies – just let me join you all, let me slip into this mass of bodies and disappear . . .

  Jakes kept pace beside me, one hand firm upon my shoulder, steering me down Southampton Street to the Thames. ‘Nice day,’ he observed, squeezing my shoulder in a friendly manner that almost buckled me to the floor. ‘Shame.’

  When we reached the river a crowd of watermen all dressed in doublets of red or green clamoured for our business at the Worcester stairs shouting ‘oars! oars!’ and ‘scullers!’, their boats knocking hard against each other as they fought to claim us. Jakes pointed to one dressed in green with the Lord Mayor’s arms picked out in silver. He rowed towards us while the rest jeered and cursed his good luck. When he reached the steps he glanced up at my chains. ‘The Borough?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jakes nodded. ‘Tooley steps. But threepence, no more.’

  ‘It’s double past the bridge, Mr Jakes,’ the boatman called up, then grinned. The Tooley stairs were only a few feet beyond the bridge.

  ‘I’ll take you for three, sir!’ another man cried from his sculler.

  Our waterman rounded on him. ‘Selling yourself cheap, Ned – you learn that from your mother?’ He turned back to us. ‘Fourpence.’

  ‘Three,’ Jakes replied, stubbornly. He gestured to the fifteen or so other boats we could choose. Our man sighed and waved us aboard, muttering in an unconvincing fashion about his poor starving wife and children.

  Jakes nudged me aboard then settled his impressive bulk at the other end of the sculler, facing the south bank. His thick knees pressed hard against the sides of the boat, but he seemed content enough, tilting his head to catch the sun. The waterman, sitting between us with his oars raised, looked anxious as the boat rocked under our combined weight – but my chains balanced out Jakes’ muscles and we settled soon enough. As we pushed off into the river, I watched the city drift slowly away from me like an inconstant lover, already forgetting me, turning its attentions on some new, sweeter diversion.

  Jakes leaned forward and the boat began to rock back and forth again, water slopping up and over the side. ‘Do you have much coin, sir?’ he called over the boatman’s shoulder.

  I held up my manacled wrists by way of answer.

  He traced a scar that cut through his left brow, considering this unfortunate situation. ‘Well, you’d better find some pretty sharp, Mr Hawkins. D’you not have friends? Family?’

  I shook my head. Jakes and the boatman exchanged a look. No friends. No family. No money. I might as well tip myself overboard and save everyone the trouble. Well, damn them both – I might not have much, but I did have my wits about me, and I was not as innocent as I seemed.

  We passed Somerset House, almost derelict, its golden days of masquerades and court intrigue long past. I caught the high, pungent scent of manure on the air; the Horse Guards had sequestered the old stables a few years back. These were the days we lived in since the South Sea Bubble burst: houses abandoned half-built or half-falling down; money flowing in and out of people’s lives, harder to keep hold of than quicksilver.

  The boatman rowed on, whistling quietly to himself, oars cutting smoothly through the water. Jakes reached past him and tapped my knee, making me jump. ‘I might look the other way, when we reach Southwark,’ he said in a low voice, rubbing his thumb against his fingers in an unmistakeable gesture. ‘Not something I do as a rule.’

  The bridge loomed up ahead, the windows of the houses upon it glinting in the mid-morning sun. A queue of boats waited to ride the churning waters below. ‘Why would you help me, Mr Jakes?’

  A sad, distant look came into his heavy-lidded, sea-green eyes. ‘You remind me of my old captain.’

  The river was flowing faster now as we reached the narrow arches of the bridge. I had to shout above the roar. ‘You were in the army?’ I should have realised from his battered, weatherbeaten face.

  ‘Nine years,’ he called back. He paused, lost in memories, then shook his head. ‘Captain Roberts was just like you. A rake and a gambler. And a drunk.’

  I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it again.

  ‘You look the spit of him, too. Odd, that. You could almost be brothers.’

  ‘Indeed?’ The closest I had to a brother was Edmund, my stepmother’s so
n – and we were both delighted to be nothing like each other.

  ‘John was not what you’d call respectable,’ Jakes said, frowning at the memory. ‘Not always square. But he was a good friend to me. Saved my life once.’

  I could tell by the way he was talking that Roberts was dead. ‘What happened to him?’

  He looked away, down into the swirling waters. ‘The Marshalsea killed him.’

  The boatman steered towards the arch closest to shore, holding tight to the oars. It was crowded with traffic, boats slamming against one another, shouts and curses filling the air. And above it all, the rush of the Thames, surging hard beneath the bridge. The river could be dangerous here, forced between the narrow arches; the waterman had to use all his strength to hold the little scull steady. One slip and it would be smashed to pieces. I didn’t fancy my luck in the water – not with twenty pounds of iron chains wrapped about me.

  ‘Coroner called it suicide,’ Jakes continued, oblivious to the drama unfolding behind his back. ‘But it was murder, no doubt of it. I’ve seen better corpses on a battlefield. There’s a rumour in the Borough that his spirit haunts the gaol, begging for justice.’ The boat pitched and turned against the swirling waters as we reached the arch. ‘Fat chance,’ he snorted, then leaned closer. ‘D’you know, there’s some that say the devil lives in the Marshalsea. And – forgive me, sir. I’m not sure you’re ready to meet him.’

  I wanted to ask him what he meant but at that moment the boatman steered us into the rush of water and we plunged full force beneath the arch, shooting through as though fired from a pistol. Jakes gripped the sides of the scull while I clung hard to my seat. The roar of the river echoed against the stone, white water frothing about us, spraying our faces. And then we were through, riding out into slower currents.