The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins

by Antonia Hodgson

  ‘You let me hang for it.’

  Stephen dropped his head. ‘The jury found you guilty.’

  ‘But you knew, Stephen. In your heart you knew it was Judith.’

  He began to cry again, great gulps. ‘I prayed for you, sir. Over and over in my room. I swear it.’

  Judith glared at him from the bed, disgusted. She pulled again at the rags about her wrists, struggling to free herself. ‘So. What now, Brother? Will you betray me? Will you let me burn?’

  A burning. The punishment for petty treason. The king rules his people, and a father rules his family. For a girl to murder her father was the same, in law, as murdering her king. She would be burned at the stake if she were caught. I had not considered this.

  ‘You killed our father, Judith!’ Stephen cried.

  ‘Well? What of it? How many times did we dream of it? How many times did we pray for it? Do you not remember, the last time he beat you for daring to speak against him? He would have killed you if Ned had not begged him to stop. I had to kill him, Stephen. I had to kill him because you were too weak.’

  Stephen jumped up and ran from the room. Kitty ran after him. ‘He’ll wake Ned,’ she hissed.

  ‘Stay here,’ I ordered Sam. ‘Keep her quiet.’

  Stephen had not run far – only back to his father’s room across the landing. He was crouched over a chamber pot, puking loudly. Kitty and I stared at one another helplessly. What now?

  ‘Where is Ned?’ I wondered. We had made enough noise to wake half the street. Surely he must have heard us by now.

  ‘He left us,’ Stephen sniffed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Kitty crinkled her nose. The air now stank of fresh vomit, laced with the usual bedroom smells of a fifteen-year-old boy. ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘I don’t know. In search of work, I suppose. The business is in ruins. Father spent all the money.’ He hung his head. ‘There’s nothing left but debts.’

  Kitty touched my arm. ‘Tom. That’s why Burden planned to marry Alice. The debts.’

  Of course. It had always puzzled me, why Burden would marry his housekeeper. Even more so once I’d heard Gabriela’s story. Now I understood. He had not loved Alice – of course not. But he knew his life was in danger. If he died, then all his debts would pass to his family – to Stephen and Judith. But if he married Alice and named her in his will, she would be forced to take on all the responsibility for repayment. Thank God he had died before Alice married him. She might have spent the rest of her life rotting in a debtors’ gaol.

  ‘We owe money to half the town.’ Stephen sobbed. ‘And my sister. My sister . . . What am I to do?’

  I glanced at Kitty and could guess what she was thinking. Learn to fend for yourself, the same as every other wretched soul in this world. He had let me hang, after all. But I did not have the heart to hate him. He was a boy – older than Sam in years, but younger in so many ways. His father was dead, and all he’d inherited was debt. He might well be thrown in gaol now, instead of Alice.

  So I said nothing, and the room fell very quiet. The whole house, indeed, was silent.

  And then I thought of Sam and Judith, alone across the landing.

  Something dark fluttered in my chest.

  The door to Judith’s room had been closed. I stood outside it for a moment and prayed to God I was wrong. Then I turned the handle and stepped inside.

  God had not listened to my prayers in a very long time.

  ‘Sam.’

  Sam removed the pillow from Judith’s face and stepped back. Her wrists were still tied to the bed, her eyes staring up at the ceiling, empty of life.

  ‘No blood,’ he murmured. ‘I promised.’

  Sorrow pressed against my throat, like a rope. I couldn’t speak.

  He cradled her head and slipped the pillow back into place. Delicate. Gentle. Turned to face me.

  ‘Had to be done.’

  No. No. Not in a thousand years.

  He pulled a letter from his pocket. A confession, forged in Judith’s hand. He must have written it earlier, on Phoenix Street. He must have planned it all. And wasn’t that Sam’s way? He tucked it under the candlestick by the bed. Plucked a bottle of Felblade’s opiates from the table and poured the contents out of the window. Smooth and fluid as a dancer, well-trained in his art. ‘She couldn’t live with the guilt. Your death. Her father’s.’ He placed the empty bottle next to the note.

  I said nothing. My heart was breaking.

  Sam brushed a stray lock of hair from Judith’s face and stepped back. ‘Look. Is this not better? See how peaceful she is.’

  I forced myself to look at her. Her dark lashes closed. Her lips tinged blue. The girl who just a few moments before had been so alive. Who had wanted so much to live. Poor Judith. Silenced for ever.

  I spoke at last, the words heavy on my tongue. ‘Your father will be proud of you.’

  He smiled up at me, black eyes shining. ‘I didn’t do it for him, Mr Hawkins.’

  epilogue

  Dawn in London, but there will be no sun today. A carriage whisks its way through the rain-soaked streets, water hissing beneath the wheels. The windows are closed and covered with thick black curtains. The cushions are of black velvet, trimmed with gold.

  And I too wear black; fitting clothes for a dead man. Kitty sits at my side, watching me in that new way she has. Careful. Concerned. I wish she would shout at me instead. I miss it.

  Five days have passed since my hanging. The newspapers are filled with stories about Judith’s confession and her suicide. The town is horrified and fascinated and can speak of nothing else. Broadsheet writers indulge themselves with lurid fictions of her life and death. They tell of her final moments, imagine her weeping with guilt as she drinks the fatal draught of opium. There are fresh illustrations too, of Judith attacking her father, blade held high. Swooning at the trial. Attending my hanging with a secret smile upon her face.

  Poor, tragic Thomas Hawkins, hanged for a crime he did not commit. How quickly I have been transformed from monster to blameless victim. I could walk into any tavern or coffeehouse in London and be declared a miracle. A saint. The thought turns my stomach.

  I had declared my innocence for weeks, and no one would listen, even as they put the noose about my neck. Now at last the town believes me. Now, when the guilt of Judith’s death presses so hard upon my shoulders that I can barely lift my head.

  I had walked from that room without a word. Left Judith lifeless upon the bed, her skin turning cold. I found Kitty on the landing, her face pale. She had guessed, too. Her eyes softened with pity as she saw my expression. No need to ask. Dead.

  ‘Leave now, Tom,’ she’d said, touching a hand to my bruised throat. ‘Let me take care of this.’

  And she did. Somehow she convinced Stephen that the note was true, that Judith had suddenly transformed from the fierce, defiant woman who had mocked him from the room, to the weak, fragile girl, too racked with guilt to continue living. He did not ask how she had broken free of her bindings or when she could have written the note. He turned away from the truth, just as he had turned away before when he realised Judith had killed their father. In time the memories of this night would fade, and he would be left clinging to this comfortable lie.

  I walked back up into the attic and its smell of dust and camphor. Sam trailed behind me with a candle. I put a hand lightly on his chest and his face dropped.

  ‘Mr Hawkins?’

  ‘Go home, Sam.’

  I slipped back through the attic door. I don’t suppose I shall ever see him again.

  I spent the next few days hiding in our close-shuttered bedroom. Smoking, thinking. Alice and Neala kept the visitors away. Alice thought I was the most wondrous creature in the world. I’d saved her from the gallows and now here I was, alive and well after my own hanging. Neala thought it was God’s work. Kitty knew better.

  ‘You shouldn’t grieve for Judith.’

  I couldn’t explain tha
t I was grieving for Sam, too. Everything he might have been. Everything he now would be. His father’s son.

  One slight comfort, that first terrible day – Ned returned home. He came to visit me, squeezing himself through the attic door. He looked haggard and sick with grief, but he shook my hand and smoked a pipe with me, and promised not to tell the world I was alive. We didn’t speak of Judith. What could be said, after all? But he promised that he would look after Stephen.

  ‘He’s my brother,’ he said, simply.

  I had begun to think, lying in that darkened room, that I should remain dead. I had no desire to become the city’s latest wonder – the hanged man who cheated Death. And then there was the chance to free myself of all those old debts, to James Fleet, to the queen. To invent myself afresh, a new man. We had enough money to live contentedly in another country. Somewhere I could feel the warm sun on my skin, breathe fresh air. Drink the water. Imagine such a marvel.

  It was time I paid attention to the lessons I had learned last autumn, in the Marshalsea. The lessons I had learned riding the cart to Tyburn. Life was adventure enough. There was no need to go about prodding the damned thing with a stick.

  ‘Are you sure you would not grow bored?’ Kitty asked.

  I yawned, stretching out upon the bed. ‘I should love to be bored.’

  And so it was settled. Alice and Neala would take care of the house and shop. Kitty and I would travel to the continent. I would write to my father and sister to let them know I was alive. The rest could believe what they wished. Perhaps we would come back one day. Perhaps not. I began to dream of sunlight and orchards instead of graves and gaols.

  We gave ourselves a month to plan. Foolish. We should have left at once. I have said it a thousand times before, and one day I shall take the care to listen to myself. There are no secrets in this city.

  This morning I heard voices raised in the shop, Kitty cursing and Neala shouting at someone to leave. And then a lazy, drunken drawl I recognised at once. Charles Howard. I grabbed my dagger and ran downstairs.

  ‘I thought you should know, Miss Sparks. I stopped the royal pardon. D’you understand?’ He was standing in the middle of the shop with a bottle in one hand and a sword at his hip. Drunk as ever, and a dangerous look in his eye. ‘He is dead because I demanded it of the king himself. And who will protect you now, eh?’ He sneered at Neala. ‘This Irish invert?’

  ‘Mr Howard,’ I said, softly.

  He spun on his heel. I took some satisfaction in watching his beetroot face drain white.

  ‘Not . . . not possible,’ he slurred. ‘I watched you hang. What the devil . . . What are you?’

  Even as I stepped towards him, he hesitated. The man was wild enough to fight anything, even a demon from hell. But then the soldier’s training saved him. He’d fight a ghost, but not a ghost with a dagger, supported by a woman with a double-handed blade. He backed out of the shop and ran up Russell Street, cursing us all.

  He was gone, but I had been seen, and the rumours were spreading across the town. We kept the doors closed and I returned to my hiding place upstairs, hoping the story would fade. A few hours later a black carriage drew up outside the house, and a guard with a battered face jumped down. Rapped upon the door until Alice was forced to open it.

  ‘Hear there’s been a resurrection,’ Budge called up the stairs. ‘Hurry down, Mr Hawkins. And bring Miss Sparks with you.’

  The carriage slows and turns sharply. I draw back the curtain. We’ve arrived. I settle back against the seat and reach for Kitty’s hand. A squall of rain spatters on the roof and I flinch, remembering the road to Tyburn, the stones clattering about my head.

  Budge appears at the window, holding up a large umbrella. He beckons me out of the carriage. Kitty picks up her gown and slides to join us, but Budge shakes his head. ‘Just you, Hawkins.’

  ‘You asked for us both.’

  ‘Her Majesty wishes to speak with you alone.’

  Kitty slams the carriage door closed and drops back against the seat. Folds her arms. ‘Her Majesty can kiss my rain-soaked arse.’

  I follow Budge up the back stairs to the queen’s rooms, leaving a trail of muddy footsteps behind me. In the antechamber, Henrietta Howard waits in a lilac gown, tightly corseted and hung with jewels. Her expression is light and composed, her hands loose at her side.

  I bow. ‘Madam.’

  Budge glances anxiously at the door to the queen’s room. ‘My lady,’ he warns.

  ‘One moment, only.’ She draws me to one side. ‘Mr Hawkins. You have survived after all. How remarkable.’ She smiles, but she does not seem so very pleased.

  Perhaps, indeed, she loathes me with an exquisite passion. It is impossible to guess from her countenance. For eleven years she had dreamed, desperately, that she might see her son again. She had hoped that as he grew older, Henry might realise the truth about his father, and forgive her for abandoning him. I wonder what she was forced to write in her letter to him, and I feel ashamed, again, for my part in it. ‘I am so sorry, madam, about your son.’

  A flash of pain crosses her face. It is gone as fast. ‘I had a son. For ten years, I had a son. That much alone I can say.’

  ‘But you are free now. You may leave your rooms, visit your friends. Walk in the park without fear.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She folds her hands together. ‘These are comforts indeed. I am most grateful.’

  ‘And here you are, Mr Hawkins. Risen from the dead.’

  I present a low bow.

  ‘Are you angry with me, sir?’

  I look up, still bent in my bow. ‘Furious, Your Majesty.’

  She laughs, great hiccuping gulps that make her long strands of pearls slide across her vast bosom. ‘Princess Amelia is in deep mourning for you. Such a heroic death. She will be most disappointed when she hears you are alive. Debout, monsieur.’

  I stand. It is many weeks since our last meeting. Since then I have been arrested, put on trial, sentenced to death, hanged, and revived. The queen, meanwhile, does not appear to have moved. Her dress is new – a heavy, dark-blue sack gown – and there is a fresh plate of confectionery at her side. Other than that, the room is precisely as I remember it, and unbearably hot. She holds up a fan embroidered with garden scenes. Fans herself.

  ‘All in black,’ she muses. ‘How very sober you look. I suppose you wish to know why I chose not to pardon you?’

  Chose? And with that word she reveals the truth – that my death was indeed part of her agreement with Howard. The truth is, she had enjoyed very little choice in the matter – and she would rather die than admit it. ‘I am sure Your Majesty had a very good reason.’

  ‘Oh, he is sure. What, am I your servant, to solve all your petty troubles? Fold them up comme ça?’ She snaps the fan closed. ‘What a conceited notion. Perhaps the Queen of England had no reason at all. Perhaps she was busy playing cards or embroidering a handkerchief. Budge, pour the boy a glass of claret.’

  I sip the wine. It is even better than I remember. The queen decides to rise. This takes some effort and she appears to regret it, wincing as she walks to the fire. A touch of gout, I think. When she first arrived in England she would walk for at least an hour every day and wore out all her ladies-in-waiting.

  ‘Have you ever visited Yorkshire, Mr Hawkins?’

  I am too tired to wonder at such an unexpected question. ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘I’m told it has a rugged charm.’ She lets her gaze wander over me for a moment, but leaves the jest unspoken. ‘We have a friend, in need of assistance. You will set off at once. You may take your little trull along, if you wish. You had best marry her somewhere along the way. Your city manners will not be appreciated in the North.’

  ‘Your Majesty . . .’ I stop. Why waste breath refusing? This is not an offer, it is a command. I throw back the last of the wine. Bow my obedience.

  Budge leads me back down the stairs. When we reach the final landing he hands me a sheaf of papers, bound with a black
ribbon. ‘For Yorkshire.’

  I tuck it beneath my arm. There are many things I wish to say to him. That I feel betrayed. Ill-treated. That I have no desire to travel all the way to Yorkshire, or perform any service for his mistress. But there seems no purpose in arguing, and so I say nothing. I find that I am saying less these days.

  Budge is not used to my new, sombre ways. He peers at me, worried. ‘You hoped for an apology.’

  ‘No.’ I am not so foolish.

  ‘The queen never explains,’ Budge says. ‘And never apologises.’

  I nod. In truth, I do not really care.

  He glances up the staircase. Leans in. ‘Howard refused to agree terms unless you hanged. Twelve hundred pounds a year, control of his son, and no pardon for Thomas Hawkins. I do think she was passing sorry, sir.’

  ‘And Betty? Was she sorry?’

  Budge frowns. ‘What choice was she given, do you think?’

  The carriage rolls along the Strand. Kitty is so angry not to have met the queen that she cannot disguise it. She looks so furious and beautiful that I begin to laugh, for the first time in weeks.

  ‘We were going to Italy,’ Kitty grumbles. ‘I have seen Yorkshire on a map. I believe it is some distance from Italy.’

  Sedan chairs weave around us, chairmen trudging through the rain, water pouring from their hats. A merchant skirts past a stream of brown filth spewing from a broken gutter. I have not left London in three years. I cannot decide if I will miss it. ‘The queen wants us to marry.’

  Kitty looks down at her boots.

  ‘Kitty. Are you afraid I will gamble away all your money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you afraid I will grow bored and leave you?’

  Her boots are still of enormous interest to her. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you truly think that, my love?’