by John Marsden
My time as an assistant to the apothecary having come to such a brutal and unexpected end, I reverted to the ways of my former life. After experiencing the malevolence of the public countenance, I now experienced its benevolence, but the latter proved to be as short-lived as the former. New scandals and other matters of interest came along, and it seemed that among most people the memory of Mr Ogwell quickly faded. Within days I found I was being treated no better and no worse than I had always been.
My main legacy from my time in the service of Mr Ogwell was many months of frightful dreams, during which I saw all too often the sight I had avoided on the Friday of the execution. In these visions I saw him mounting the steps, not bravely and in hope of the Lord’s mercy, as the broadsides led me to believe many had done before, but always being half-carried up there because his legs would not support him. And I saw the clergyman approach him with the Good Book in his hands and Mr Ogwell unable to hear the words of exhortation and repentance. And I heard him invited to address the crowd but turning his head away, for he always had a certain delicacy and disdained the common herd, which must have made doing business in a place such as Hell particularly repugnant to him. Not for him, I surmised, the fine speeches made by many about to go to their doom, saying as how although their body was to suffer upon the gibbet yet they hoped their souls would be admitted to Heaven, and admonishing reprobates and Sabbath defilers to mend their ways lest they meet a similar wretched fate.
In my dreams I saw him then escorted to the scaffold, shaking the hands of those who offered them, having the cap placed over his head and the rope around his neck, then the dreadful moment when the prisoner himself must give the signal to the hangman that he is ready to proceed, and the lever pulled and the hatch dropping beneath him. After that, the dreams became even worse, for I envisaged a variety of situations, each worse than the previous, too awful to dwell upon here, but mostly involving a slow and ghastly strangulation, the rope having failed to break the poor man’s neck, so that the executioner was required to jump up from underneath and attach himself to the legs of the condemned man in order to speed his end.
For a long time these dreams were so bad that I was afraid to fall asleep at nights, and in consequence of that, and I daresay of general malnutrition, I started to waste away, so that when I saw my reflection in a shopfront one day I scarcely recognised the gaunt stripling staring back at me. Shocked by this apparition I decided that, regardless of my apprehensions about the fate awaiting felons, and even despite my brief experience of incarceration at the magistrates’ court, I had no other course but to expand my criminal activities if I were to survive.
Even as I came to this conclusion I imagined I could hear the gates of Hell creaking open to admit me.
It gives me no pleasure to recount what follows, as it has given me no pleasure to recount some of the passages already herein recorded, but I have resolved to be nothing but honest in these pages, so will press on, trusting to my readers’ stores of Christian compassion and understanding. And I should say by way of mitigation that during this period of my life I made many attempts to find respectable employment, without success.
No sooner had I taken the dishonourable decision to do whatever it took to survive, regardless of right or wrong, than I fell in with one who seemed well equipped to assist me in my course. One night I was passing a small and dingy tavern close to the river’s edge when a man came striding out and turned to the left, marching along confidently, pipe in mouth, until he was less than a yard away from stepping straight into the river. ‘Hold hard, sir,’ I shouted, and flung myself at him, managing to make such an obstacle of my puny body that I tripped him up and nearly catapulted him into the river from which I had been trying to save him. He was on his feet again in a moment, and I saw him to be a small stout man with a dark complexion, made darker by his anger at me. Dressed in a black suit and smart red waistcoat he seemed a cut above the average denizen of Hell.
‘What are you about?’ he shouted, and I realised that a small dagger had appeared as if by magic in his hand and he was preparing to defend himself against me.
‘Please, sir,’ I panted, frightened out of my wits at having another knife presented to me. ‘You were about to fall into the river.’
He looked about him and saw the truth of my words. Then he laughed long and loud and put the knife away. ‘Faith, there’s a pretty thing,’ he said. ‘The rotgut I’ve poured down my throat in that place has made me blind. All right, boy, thank you, you saved me from a drenching at best and a drowning at worst.’
He said all this with perfect diction and apparent sobriety, but no sooner was the last word out of his mouth than he dropped where he stood, crumpling in a heap on the ground. I was used to seeing drunks insensible upon every street and in every lane in Hell, and there seemed no reason to be concerned about this one. The night air was cool, to be sure, but not so cold as to pose any threat to his survival. I made off down Stanley’s Lane, but halfway along, stopped. I had realised with suddenness of thought that if I wanted to graduate to the next rung of the criminal ladder, I could take my opportunity now. The streets were deserted and as far as I could tell no one had seen my exchange with the well-dressed little man.
I retraced my steps, keeping a sharp lookout. Everything was quiet except for my heart, which was making a noise to rival Big Ben. The man had not moved. I knelt beside him and reached inside his coat pocket. I could feel a bulge. I insinuated two fingers as gently as possible and withdrew his purse, slipping it immediately inside my own jacket and then retreating. His other pockets could have been stuffed with valuables, but I was too frightened to investigate further. I hared off down Stanley’s Lane and did not stop running until I was inside the sanctuary of St Martin’s.
I waited until everyone was gone and the building locked for the night before I took out the purse. Then I lit a candle stub and prepared to count my ill-gotten gains. When I undid the string I almost stopped breathing. The bag was stuffed with pound notes. I pulled them out and slowly counted them. I could hardly believe the total. One hundred and fifty-three pounds, as well as a few silver coins. It was more money than I had ever seen in my life, and certainly more money than I had ever dreamed of possessing. I sat in a daze, the notes spread in front of me, wondering what I could do with a fortune so vast, but also feeling afeared of the man’s reaction when he awoke and found he had been robbed of such a sum. Would he remember my face? If so, I would be his first suspect, and he was certain to come looking for me. I had exacted a heavy penalty for saving him from a ducking.
Next day I kept off the streets as much as possible. When I did have to go out and about I skulked along the darkest laneways and alleys. I half-expected the whole of Hell to be in a ferment over so big a theft, but as far as I could tell, nothing had changed.
It was virtually impossible for a boy such as me to pass a pound note. Nothing was more certain than that anyone to whom I offered it would call the Bow-Street Runners or else pocket the money and laugh at me when I asked for it back. I spent the coins easily enough, and quickly, on food for Quentin and me, but I did not touch the notes for four days, and I did not dare tell Quentin of my sudden prosperity.
Alone, and cogitating agitatedly as to my best course, I called to mind the name of a certain Mr Weekes. He had a reputation for trading in almost any commodity without asking uncomfortable questions. I knew the gentleman by sight, and so resolved to take my windfall to him.
Mr Weekes had an office, for want of a better word, atop a rickety old staircase which crawled up an old building jutting out over the river. The whole thing looked as though it could topple into the Thames at any moment. I made my way up there with much trepidation. Carrying one hundred and fifty-three pounds through the streets imposed an enormous weight on my mind, even though I had not seen the stout little man with the knife again.
Mr Weekes seemed pleased to welcome me into his establishmen
t. ‘Come in, my young friend, come in,’ he cried. He was sunning himself on the windowsill, his legs hanging out of the window, and eating a pork pie, with a bottle of beer by his side. A black cat with a white spot on the very tip of its tail lay beside him, draped across the sill and accepting occasional titbits of pork from Mr Weekes’s fingers.
He waved those same greasy fingers at me. He struck me as a young man, though I had never thought of him as such before. I remembered him as having a beard but now he was clean-shaven. His hat was pushed back on his head, and altogether he seemed remarkably nonchalant for a man who, according to rumour, might one day keep a similar appointment to that recently kept by Mr Ogwell. I stood nervously just inside the doorway, wondering how to broach the topic that had brought me there. But he no doubt had more experience in this line than did I, and with the same joviality with which he had welcomed me, he put down his pork pie, swung his legs around and jumped up. ‘I see by your manner that you are here on important business,’ he said.
I found this disconcerting, as people did not normally speak to me in such terms. Nevertheless, I took another couple of steps into the room and produced the canister in which I had concealed the money.
‘I have something I want to sell,’ I said.
Without answering, Mr Weekes bustled across the room and shut the door, sealing us off from the long-nosed gossiping world outside. Then he turned back to me and said: ‘Well, you wish to sell something, you’ve come to the right place. I like to buy and sell. I trade, that’s what I do. What is it you have?’
‘Money,’ I said.
He smiled, although his smile reminded me of the creatures in the menagerie in the Tower of London. ‘It’s a little early to speak of that, my young friend,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to show me what you have in your canister first.’
‘That’s what I have,’ I said. ‘Money.’
He pushed his hat back further and scratched his head. ‘Indeed you speak in riddles. You are selling money for money, is that what you are saying?’
I gave a little nervous nod. I knew there was no going back now.
Mr Weekes frowned and looked around, as if to make sure no one was looking in the windows. ‘What exactly do you have there?’ he asked. His tone had changed.
I had to remind myself to breathe, then took the lid off the canister and turned it upside-down, giving it a shake to discharge the contents. The banknotes fell with a soft thud onto the table. Mr Weekes gave a long soft whistle. ‘Well, well, my young friend . . .’ he said, as if to himself. He stepped up to the table and fingered the wad of money. ‘How much is here?’
‘One hundred and fifty-three pounds,’ I said, almost proudly.
He whistled again, then began to count it. He counted it not once, not twice, but three times, backwards and forwards, before he looked at me again. ‘How hot is it?’ he asked.
‘Hot?’ I asked. I was so new to this game that I did not know what he meant; for a moment I thought he must be referring to the weather outside.
He shrugged, then laughed. ‘You’re a green one,’ he muttered. ‘Well, how much do you want for it?’
I had no idea how much to ask for. ‘The notes are too big for me to take around,’ I explained. ‘I just want coins.’
He laughed again. ‘You just want coins,’ he repeated. ‘Well well, if you stay in this game long enough, you hear everything. All right my young friend, you shall have coins.’
He picked up the notes, stuffed them into his pocket – with some difficulty – then disappeared through the doorway into another room. I could hear him rummaging about, and I heard a jingle that signified coins. He soon re-emerged, holding a cloth bag, which he held out to me. I took it and was surprised at its weight. I opened it and looked inside. I saw a mixture of silver and copper. I put in my hand and pulled out a few coins. They were all silver: three pennies, a sixpence and a half-crown. I dipped into the bag again, and this time pulled out copper: three farthings.
I looked at Mr Weekes. He looked steadily back at me. ‘There you are, my young friend,’ he said. ‘You have coins. Now be off with you and mind you never breathe a word of doing business with Nathaniel Weekes.’
I nodded. I was happy enough to go. I was excited at the weight of the bag and the number of coins within it. Now I felt that I truly had a fortune. I was like a child who swaps a precious jewel for a lollipop. I scuttled to the door. As I left he called after me: ‘Come and see me again, young friend, next time you have something to sell.’
Chapter 14
Quentin and I lived for nearly a week on the proceeds of the coins. I doled them out parsimoniously enough, but it did not take him long to realise that I had an almost inexhaustible supply. Although he nagged me for explanations, I refused to tell him the source of my riches, afraid that he might talk too much around the streets of Hell.
We had, however, by no means depleted the contents of the bag when our situation changed most unexpectedly. We were wandering along the banks of the river one morning, speaking, I recall, of a dark-skinned man we had just glimpsed on a barge. People from Africa were becoming more common in London but they were still a novelty to us.
We were only a block from Mr Weekes’s office, but he was not in my thoughts as we followed the path, passing into the shadows of a large tavern. The sign affixed to it described it as the River Inn, but it was known to all and sundry as Riley’s, that being the name of its owner. Riley’s was rarely closed, but it was either closed now or just very quiet, for there were no signs of human life in its vicinity. Suddenly, however, with a quick movement a man appeared to my left. For a moment he seemed to be a shadow himself, but then he became detached from the shadows and I realised it was Mr Weekes. My lips started to form a greeting but before I could speak or utter a sound he was on me and his arm came around my neck. He forced me back against a tree, pinning me to it with considerable force. He was stronger than he looked.
‘Now my young friend,’ he said in a voice that could have been mistaken as pleasant, ‘what do you take me for, hey?’
If it were not for the arm preventing me from breathing I could have again imagined he was asking me about the weather.
With his arm at my throat I could not speak, and I pointed to it to explain my muteness. He eased the pressure a little, but then as if to compensate slapped me across the side of the head, still smiling all the while.
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ I said, gasping with the relief of the air eking its way into my lungs. ‘I take you for a very smart and fine gentleman, sir.’
From the corner of my eye I could see Quentin, pale with fear, edging away, and I could not help thinking that it would be best for him if he were to abscond, and the sooner the better.
‘Mean? Why, I’ll tell you what I mean,’ Mr Weekes said, establishing a policy of equilibrium by slapping me now on the other side of my head. ‘I mean that you were in a fair way to have me on the gallows, my young friend, to join your late employer Mr Ogwell. Seems like you have something of an infectious disease. Let’s call it gibbet fever, shall we? For a lad of your tender years you have a deadly way with you.’ He went into quite a fever himself with those words, a fever of slapping, hitting me left and right half-a-dozen times.
‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ I said, not sure that my head would stay on my shoulders much longer with this treatment, ‘I would never mean any harm to you, and I’m sure I never meant any to Mr Ogwell. I wish you would explain, sir.’
At the same time as I professed my innocence, I was aware that my theft of the money from the pocket of the unconscious drunk must have somehow rebounded onto Mr Weekes. Now he pinned my head back against the trunk of the tree and spoke very slowly and distinctly, but softly, right into my mouth: ‘Every one of those notes, every single last one, is a forgery. Do you hear me? A forgery.’
A cold running feeling went through my
insides, as though a tributary of the Thames had formed in my guts. I did not know much of the world, but I knew that forging banknotes was a sure path to the gallows. Royal pardons were few and far between for those caught with counterfeit currency. ‘I hear you, sir,’ I squeaked.
‘You evidently have a poor opinion of my intelligence, young friend.’ He struck me a savage blow to the stomach, driving the air out of me. Insensible to almost everything, I was aware only of Quentin running away at last, like a little mouse. I felt alone in the world. I did not know if I would survive the next few minutes, and I did not know that I cared, given the pain Mr Weekes had inflicted on me. I regretted very much embarking upon the path I had taken since losing my position with Mr Ogwell.
‘Where did you get those banknotes?’ Mr Weekes hissed. He made no pretence at smiling now. I did not answer because, deprived of air, I could not, but my silence apparently enraged him, and he slapped me vigorously again, backwards and forwards. My cheeks seemed to get bigger with each slap. My skin burned. Tears that I was not able to control ran out of my eyes. I could feel my teeth getting looser. When he stopped it was only to repeat the question: ‘Where did you get those notes?’
‘Let me speak, sir,’ I tried to say, but I am not sure if the words came out in any intelligible form. I suspect they did not. Nevertheless, my attempts appeared to have some effect on him, because he stopped slapping me and snarled into my face: ‘Where?’
