by Mary Hooper
‘And what was that?’ she asked, trying to keep her tone even.
‘Last week I was consulted by someone who happened to have exactly the same natal chart as you.’
Eliza blinked at him, not understanding.
‘I mean someone who was born in the same place as you, at the same time, and with the same planets in the same houses. That is, with a preponderance of planets in the second and the tenth house.’
‘But … but is this so extraordinary?’ Eliza asked. ‘One sometimes finds that one shares a birthday with someone.’
‘This was not just a birthday. This is someone who in every single aspect is your astrological twin.’
‘My astrological twin? Someone at court?’ Eliza asked, knowing that was where he obtained most of his clients. ‘But who?’
Doctor Deane smiled so that his yellow skin crinkled like paper. ‘That, my dear young lady, would be a breach of confidentiality. I didn’t disclose your details, and I won’t disclose theirs. I won’t even say if my client is male or female.’
‘Does it mean that there is someone who’s very like me in character, then?’ Eliza asked, terribly intrigued.
‘It does not, for the circumstances of your upbringing have been so very dissimilar that you are different in every possible way.’
‘So is there any connection between us?’
‘The connection is this: with due consideration to your present position in life, I believe that something very interesting and remarkable happened at your birth. That’s all I will say.’
And before Eliza could ask anything else he bowed and withdrew.
Eliza walked home, deep in thought. She had no idea what it all could mean. The astrologer had bewildered her so completely, she realised, that she’d completely forgotten to ask him about Nell’s forthcoming child.
‘The king,’ Nell said with some impatience that evening, ‘has the Venetian ambassador staying and they’ve gone hunting wild pig together in Windsor.’
‘So you haven’t been able to see him?’
‘Not even for a moment!’ Nell said. ‘And tomorrow he is Touching all day – which, before you ask, Eliza, is when those of the population who are afflicted with a disease called the King’s Evil come to the palace to be cured by him.’
‘I’ve never heard of such a thing.’
‘And pray you never do, for it’s a horrid and nasty disease which they believe only the touch of a king can undo.’ Nell paused only briefly. ‘But how did you fare with Doctor Deane?’
Eliza had already decided not to say anything about the discovery of the person who shared her birth details, for she wanted to ponder on it a while, think what it might possibly mean.
‘Well, ’twas very strange,’ she said, ‘for when I gave him the paper he knew straight away that it was for Louise de Keroualle.’
Nell smiled. ‘As long as he doesn’t return the chart to her! And what more did he say about the sex of my child?’
Eliza had to admit then that she’d forgotten to ask and Nell, rather cross, said that Eliza should remember that she was her maid first and foremost, not merely her friend. Eliza, deeply hurt, turned away with her eyes stinging with tears, and Nell immediately said she was sorry.
‘I’m a cross-patch and you must take no notice of me!’ she said. She put her arm through Eliza’s. ‘But when you go back to collect Squintabella’s chart you must remember to ask.’
Eliza nodded. ‘Of course!’ she said, but felt again an anxiety about her situation. Not only might Nell lose her position with the king, but it was possible that she, Eliza, might fall out of favour with Nell. And what would happen then?
The incident now forgotten by her, Nell sighed. ‘But did you notice that everywhere on the street the talk is of nothing but Claude? I heard his name dozens of times even from within my carriage.’
‘As I walked through the market at Leadenhall I heard a ballad sung about him,’ Eliza said. ‘And then heard a different one as I was crossing Fleet river!’
‘At least our friend wants for nothing. The messenger came back from Newgate to say that he’s as well as he can be, has paid for his own cell and is having food sent in from the Fox and Grapes.’
The two girls looked at each other and sighed dismally. Eliza thought that Nell was perhaps a little in love with the so-handsome Claude – and she herself certainly kept a special place in her heart for him.
‘We must try to save him,’ Nell said fervently. ‘I’ll see the king as soon as I can – I’ll send a message to him through Chiffinch.’
The next morning Eliza was leisurely buying ribbons from a peddler outside the front door when the information came down the street from several sources – by whisper, by shouted word, by the forlorn cry of a woman in the street, and lastly from a shout from the bellman – that Claude Duval had been sentenced to hang at Tyburn in two days’ time.
Hurriedly taking this news back to Nell, Eliza found that she was receiving Aphra Behn, who’d come to see her with a new play, so had to wait on the landing for that lady to leave. When Nell discovered that sentence on Duval had already been passed, she immediately sent for her carriage so that she and Eliza could go to the palace together.
‘I haven’t yet heard back from Chiffinch,’ she said, ‘but we’ll go this instant and wait for the king to become free. If necessary, we’ll stay there all day.’
Arriving at Whitehall Palace, Eliza was amazed to see a winding snake of people coming out of one of the doors and extending all around the gravelled square where the carriages usually waited.
‘So many folk waiting to see him!’ she said to Nell.
‘The king touched nigh on four thousand last year,’ Nell said. She nudged Eliza. ‘But don’t go too close to any of them, for fear you may become infected.’
‘Then doesn’t the king catch the disease?’
‘Of course not,’ Nell said, frowning. ‘He is the king.’
Eliza was not sure how Nell knew her way, but after entering the palace and travelling some distance through it, they found themselves in a vast presence chamber where scores of afflicted people sat on benches waiting patiently to be seen. Every so often a small line of people would be led off, then the whole audience would shuffle along to sit in these places and more people be let in from outside. It was not just sufferers who were waiting, Eliza saw, for some were accompanied by members of their families and there were also doctors and black-clothed ministers milling about. All of these together contributed to a tremendous bustle and noise.
It was apparent that many of those waiting knew who Nell was – and those who didn’t were quickly informed – so that soon Eliza found they were the focus of attention for several hundred pairs of eyes. Nell attempted to get into the next room, into the actual presence of the king, but as those in charge of proceedings all seemed to be churchmen who knew and disapproved of her reputation, she didn’t get very far.
She went back to sit with Eliza after another attempt. ‘We may have to wait until the whole blooming lot of them have gone in!’ she said crossly – and so loudly that a whole bevy of clerics turned and waggled their heads at her disapprovingly. ‘And you needn’t look so hoity-toity,’ she retorted unabashed, ‘for I’ve seen plenty of you at the theatre taking a sneaky look at my privities!’
They waited there for two more hours, until the High Chamberlain, one of the palace officials with whom Nell was friendly, came in and, noticing her, gave leave for them to be taken into the next chamber. Nell was escorted through, smiling triumphantly around the room, and Eliza followed in her wake.
This chamber was about a quarter the size of the other and the king stood within it on a raised dais, a minister to each side of him reading from the Bible in a constant sing-song. Ten patients stood in a line before them.
Nell and Eliza took their places at the back and watched as each of the patients approached in turn. The king laid a hand on their head and the other on the afflicted part and said a few words. A m
edal of some sort was placed about the patient’s neck – which Nell said was of angel-gold and could be sold on afterwards. The ten patients being touched and led off, a basin of water was brought in for the king to wash his hands, then another ten people appeared.
Nell coughed loudly.
‘I see you, Mistress Gwyn,’ the king said, ‘but you’ll have to wait your turn to be touched.’
Nell pulled her cloak back to indicate her belly. ‘’Tis certain, sire, that you have already touched me!’
The ministers looked scandalised and the king hid a smile. ‘I’ll speak to you very soon, Nelly.’
Another half-hour went by before the king called for a break and, while Eliza sat waiting, he and Nell went off into an inner sanctum.
Nell was away only ten minutes or so, and when she returned her face was grave. She didn’t speak until they returned to the carriage.
‘The king says he’ll try to obtain a reprieve for Claude, but we’re not to hope for one,’ she said.
‘Did you say that it was Claude Duval who –’
‘I did,’ Nell nodded. ‘I told him that he owed his life to Duval.’
‘And what did he answer?’
‘He said that whatever Duval had done for him didn’t excuse the fact that he was a highwayman and villain. He said,’ Nell went on sadly, ‘that law and order must be maintained.’ She put out a hand to take Eliza’s. ‘I fear that he’ll hang, Eliza. There’s nothing more we can do to help.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘And we’re to ’ave seats right in front of the scaffold, you say?’ Old Ma Gwyn was very pleased with this news.
Nell nodded. She’d been crying, Eliza could see, and her face was pale under the rouge she’d applied, but her spotted veil hid the slight swelling of her eyes.
Eliza had been crying too, but had not, she thought, managed to hide the results as well as Nell, for her nose was red and her eyes ached. She looked at herself in the Venetian mirror in the hall as they waited for the carriage and adjusted her hat so that its veil fell across her face. She wasn’t wearing black, for Nell had insisted that the three of them should wear their best, most beautiful clothes.
‘We must look as if we are going to a wedding, not a hanging,’ she’d said the night before. ‘I’ll wear my crimson wool suit, and you, Eliza, must wear your russet dress and embroidered jacket. I want Claude to see that we’ve dressed in our very best for him.’
Even Ma Gwyn had been prinked up for the occasion, and her unruly shape had been shoe-horned first into a commodious bodice and then a grey linseywoolsey suit with a frilly white jabot at its neck. Her footwear, unfortunately, let her down, for her packhorse-sized feet were encased in boots which had been tied around with great raggedy squares of sacking to protect them from the mud.
Ma Gwyn and her boots, Eliza thought as they travelled to Newgate prison, seemed to take up most of the carriage, for that lady was sitting four-square in front of the window and blocking out most of the space and all of the light. Nell, in deference to the solemnity of the occasion, had drawn down the blind on her side of the carriage, but Ma Gwyn was waving to people in the street from her window – and had twice spotted someone she knew and insisted that the carriage stop so she could pass the time of day.
‘Ma, ’tis not a party we’re attending, ’tis a hanging,’ Nell said as they travelled down Fleet Street accompanied by a great number of other carriages, sedans and hansom cabs.
‘’Tis a great and special ’anging and an opportunity for mixing with the ’igh and mighty,’ Ma agreed. ‘And for making all sorts of deals,’ she added in an undertone.
Nell looked at Eliza and sighed.
‘I was thinking of a waxworks show,’ Ma went on. ‘A model of Monsewer Duval and ’is ’orse, and maybe a couple of wax well-ter-dos crying at the wayside. I could ’ave it up and going by next week.’ A sly look passed across her face. ‘I was wondering, my sweeting, if you could use yer good offices to obtain the great man’s clothes for me.’
‘No, I couldn’t!’
‘Pity. Still, I’ll try for them meself.’ The old lady waved merrily to someone outside and then an indignant look crossed her face. ‘I’ve ’eard that the Tangier Tavern is trying for ’is body. They wants to embalm it and put it on show there.’
‘That would be very unseemly!’ Eliza protested.
‘That’s just what I said,’ said Ma. ‘For they don’t know ’ow to do these things with taste and discretion, whereas if I ’ad ’im I’d put on a most hexcellent show.’
It was not possible, they soon found, to get anywhere near Newgate Prison. The hanging procession was to leave from here, so the road outside was clogged with people who’d either come to catch a last glimpse of the highwayman or to sell refreshments, and carriages jostled for space with pastry-cooks crying gingerbread, fishsellers selling dried hake and milkmaids leading cows.
‘Been like this since five o’clock this morning!’ a footman on a neighbouring coach informed them.
‘Oh-ay,’ Ma nodded approvingly. ‘There’s a mint o’ money to be made today.’
‘What if there was a last-minute reprieve?’ Eliza asked Nell suddenly. ‘How would the message get through?’
‘A reprieve?’ Ma echoed, clearly distressed at the idea.
Nell shook her head. ‘There won’t be,’ she said. ‘The king tried – he spoke to Sir William Morton himself – but told me that he could do no more.’ She sighed. ‘And anyway, he’s gone to Windsor races today and won’t be available for the signing of reprieves.’
As they waited, the tumult about the prison grew greater and Eliza could now hear a faint cry from the prisoners within its walls.
‘Claude Du-val!’ they chanted as they banged their metal cups on the bars and stamped their feet. ‘Claude Du-val! Claude Du-val!’
Nell spoke to her mother. ‘I thought Rose and Susan were coming in the carriage with us today?’
‘Lawks, no, girl. Susan will be out begging. She always does very well at an ’anging.’ She paused and smiled proudly. ‘She ’as ’er new carbuncle on today.’
Eliza didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this, so she closed her eyes and waited for the hour of ten to strike. At that time the doors of the prison would open and Claude Duval would begin his journey across London to be hanged at Tyburn.
Her attention, however, was soon drawn back to the moment.
‘’Ere, I just remembered,’ Ma said, nudging Eliza violently, ‘I ’ad two people in the tavern last week asking about you.’
‘About me?’ Eliza asked, startled.
‘That’s right. Came up to me right boldly and started asking questions. I didn’t give ’em no answers, of course.’
‘Oh, that’s good.’
‘Leastways, not until they paid me.’
Eliza looked at her anxiously. ‘What did they want to know?’
‘Well, they knew I’d rescued you from Clink, and they knew you’d played the mermaid. They wanted to know other stuff – where you come from and who you mix with – that sort of stuff.’
Eliza felt her spine prickle with fear. Someone was spying on her. Someone knew that she’d helped Claude Duval …
‘I hope you didn’t give away anything, Ma,’ Nell put in sharply.
‘Very little,’ she said. ‘Not for what they paid. For sixpence I gives very little.’
As ten o’clock struck there was an expectant murmur from the crowd and Eliza, peering over Ma’s shoulder from the carriage window, could see that the heavy gates of the jail had been pushed open. A moment later a series of carts came into view led by the City marshal on horseback, and he and his sheriffs began to clear a path through the crowd, causing several carriages, including Nell’s, to be moved to one side until the procession had passed. A cart pulling a man along backwards on a wooden hurdle came directly after the sheriffs.
‘’E’s committed treason, then,’ Ma informed everyone around them. ‘And ’e’ll be dead afore
’e reaches Tyburn,’ she added as the people in the street started pelting him with all manner of rotten vegetables and not a few dead cats and dogs.
A small cart containing four other condemned prisoners came next: three men and a woman carrying a swaddled child in her arms, and then at the last, to a great uproar of laments and shouts from the crowd, came the cart holding Claude Duval.
Eliza let out a long sigh on seeing him.
‘Oh, he looks very fine,’ Nell said, giving a sigh of her own. ‘He is a most fiendishly handsome man.’
‘What’s ’e wearing?’ asked Ma Gwyn, trying to peer over their shoulder. ‘In case I need to know for the waxworks.’
‘A white silk jacket over emerald shirt and waistcoat,’ Nell replied, ‘and he has high leather boots and his highwayman’s hat and mask.’
‘Does he look afeared?’
‘He does not!’ said Eliza. ‘There are ladies giving him their mouchoirs and throwing flowers into the cart, and he’s smiling at them and blowing kisses.’
Nell’s carriage not being able to get close to his cart, they followed behind as part of the long procession going slowly down Snow Hill towards Fleet Ditch, with crowds lining the roads all the way. At St Sephulchre’s Church the procession stopped and a churchman rang a handbell twelve times and urged all those condemned to die to pray for the salvation of their souls. He handed white flowers and a cup of red wine to each prisoner before the procession went on.
During the last portion of the route along the teeming Oxford Road the crowds were at their most disorderly, and once a surging mob made Nell’s coach rock so much that they feared it would be overturned. At some point on this last portion of the journey there was also, they heard later, an armed attempt to free Duval, but owing to the large number of sheriffs present the would-be liberators were thwarted.
