Watery Grave

by Bruce Alexander

  “Gladly.”

  “I have a great jumble of clothes that I have so far collected for the Magdalene Home. Perhaps you can help me load them in a hackney carriage. The ladies will unload them swift enough, I’m quite sure. I had intended to ask Tom to do this and accompany me so he would have some notion of what it is has involved me this past year. Yet why not let him sleep, eh? I take it he was deep in the arms of Morpheus when you left him?”

  “Oh, indeed yes. He was like unto a dead man.”

  “Very good,” said she.” Well then, after you have brought the tray to Mrs. Gredge, I should like you to go out to Bow Street and flag down a hackney carriage. Bring it round, and we shall load it up together. No need even to mention Magdalene to Tom.”

  The Magdalene Home for Penitent Prostitutes had been the better part of a year a-birthing, midwifed into existence jointly by Sir John and Lady Fielding. Her idea it was, and his the energy and practical planning that brought it forth to substantial reality. Even I had made a modest contribution, for who but me had carried Sir John’s begging letters about town?

  Thus was the plan circulated and thus was the money collected. If those first donors did not perhaps shower guineas down upon Sir John and Lady Katherine, they were at least sufficiently generous so that a sturdy house could be bought and rebuilt within as she would have it done, a small staff could be hired, and the doors thrown open at last. The truth was that many were curious what would be made of the place before they were willing to give freely for its support. Most, ladies as well as gentlemen, seemed to question the very existence of penitent prostitutes —thus, it was said, the place would go empty. On the same principle, the blades averred the opposite, declaring that the Magdalene Home would no doubt become London’s most crowded brothel.

  Neither prediction, of course, proved out. Indeed there were, and still are, penitent prostitutes, for the Magdalene Home filled early and, though none of its residents stay for more than a year, remains lull to this day. It is not, as some call it to this day, a club for fallen women. Lady Fielding insisted there were those who, given the chance, would leave the life on the streets. If they had a trade, or other means of earning money, every effort would be made to place them in positions where they might earn their way; this was ever accomplished in a lew months time. If they had no trade, as most had not, then they were taught one and given a rough apprenticeship while resident at the Magdalene Home; there is, after all, little work done by women in this world that cannot be learned in a year.

  It was hence to the Home, located in Westminster, that she would go on that morning. I brought the hacknej carriage round to Number 4 Bow Street. Then, with no help from the driver, I made to fill it with the great pile of dresses, skirts, and shifts I had hauled up from the cellar. There was bare enough space inside for Lady Fielding when at last she emerged, apologizing for her tardiness and showering me with praise for doing all without her assistance (which, in any case, I should have declined).

  “I shall be gone a good part of the day,” said she.” I mean to inquire among the ladies in the Home for one to help out in the kitchen.”

  “Mrs. Gredge may soon be able.”

  “And again she may not.” She sighed.” Well, Jeremy, no need to tell Tom much about all this —simply that I shall return when I can do so. I’m sure you can keep him entertained.”

  “I wiU do my best, of course.”

  “And out of trouble.”

  To that I made no promise but simply waved a goodbye as she mounted into the carriage, and the driver pulled away.

  “You must tell me more of this place,” said Tom Durham.” A charitable home for young women, you say? Have I understood that aright?”

  “I think I should not say more,” said I to him.

  “Oh? And why not?”

  “Because,” said I, “your mother wishes you to be kept ignorant of it.”

  At that he let out a loud yelp of amusement, then continued walking in silence with me for a good long space.

  It had been his notion, after all, that we go off on a ramble through Covent Garden. I did a bit of buying out of a list Lady Fielding had provided —vegetables for the stew she would make from what was left of the roast. But most of our time in the Garden had been spent wandering about in no particular pattern from one end of the grand piazza to the other. It contented him so.

  As I had expected, his seaman’s duds caused quite a stir among the layabouts and lazy boys. They called after him; he smiled merely and waved a greeting. One stepped out before us and attempted to execute the steps of a hornpipe as a kind of jeering salute to Tom, who nimbly demonstrated in his turn how the dance was done proper. The women of the street, too, gave him note with calls, cries, snatches of song, and open invitations. To these he was quietly unresponsive. He did indeed cause quite a stir.

  “Ah, Jeremy,” said he (following a warm solicitation by one of their number —black-haired and blue-eyed, she was), “I suppose what I should do is pick out the prettiest of the lot and get the awful deed done with. I’ve money enough for it. I’ve the appetite, God knows.”

  Here was a disappointment. I had supposed Tom Durham to be well past me in carnal experience. I had hoped he might supply me with knowledge, even perhaps a bit of wisdom, in these difficult matters. Yet I was certainly sympathetic to his situation and attitude, so like my own they were.

  Yet I gave him a matey reply to his complaint: “What is it prevents you then?”

  “Lack of opportunity, I suppose.”

  How could that be? Half the easy women in London seemed to have established themselves here in Covent Garden and the streets surrounding it.

  “And the pox,” Tom added.” I may as well own up. I am frighted of the pox.”

  “I share that same fear.” I confided it to him in little more than a whisper.

  “Well, what do you do?” It was as if sixteen-year-old Tom were seeking advice from fourteen-year-old me.

  His question was so direct that it left no room for equivocation or subterfuge. I had no choice but to fall back on the truth: “I’m afraid I abstain.”

  “I’m afraid that’s what I have done, too. My messmates think me a freak. The ship’s surgeon insisted upon examining me. Hints were dropped from on high. And all this came as the result of my refusal to go with my mates on a sorrowful expedition to a Bombay brothel, from which three did, in fact, return poxy. Strange, don’t you think, that my mother means to keep me away from her home for young women and girls because she believes me to be like some ravening wolf who will prey upon her poor lambs?”

  “Now there I believe you wrong her, ” said I.

  “What then do you say?”

  “They are not lambs, and well she knows it. Perhaps she fears they will prey upon you. You are, after all, her son. She wishes to keep you from harm —at all cost.”

  “Well, with that last I agree,” said Tom, “at all cost, certainly.”

  After much back-and-forth through the Garden, we had come to rest at the pillar, which then stood at the exact center of the piazza but now stands there no more. We leaned against its base as we conversed, and though impassioned by our frustration, we spoke in quiet tones. Indeed we spoke so quiet, our heads so close together, that there in the daylight, with the marketing crowd all about, we must have had the look of conspirators. For when Jimmie Bunkins spied us and approached, he hailed us thus:

  “Here’s a rum sight for me peepers! Tom, the village hustler of yore, decked out natty in a sailor suit, selling me pal Jeremy into a life on the scamp!”

  At that, Tom Durham let forth a guffaw, jumped down from the pillar base, and threw his arms open to Bunkins.

  “Jimmie B.! The hornies ain’t got you yet? I figured you for a scholar on Duncan Campbell’s floating academy. Or worse. Your heaters kept you out of the clink, have they?”

  I was doubly surprised: first, that the two were obviously well acquainted; second, that Tom should know Co vent Garden’s flash-talk s
o well, much less remember it, as he did, after an absence of near three years.

  They embraced, as proper friends might. Tom, much the taller of the two, pulled poor Bunkins off his feet. There followed a bit of back pum-meling and hand shaking with shouts of “How beya?” “You’ve grown to man size, ” and so on.

  Then Bunkins, the reformed thief, turned to me and again expressed his surprise at seeing Tom and me together. I explained, as best I could, our relation. Then Tom gave to me his history with the one he called Jimmie B.

  “We were scamps together, ” said he.” My year in the Garden he was a proper chum. He taught me nap prigging, tick squeezing, and all the dark arts practiced in the precinct. Ain’t that so, Jimmie B.?”

  ‘Pon my life,” swore Bunkins, “and I never had no better student. Just listen how he learned the flash!” Bunkins stepped close and, with an eye toward Tom, spoke quietly to me: “In fact, had he stuck to napping, as I advised, he would not have gone bad with the Beak-runners.”

  Then to Tom: “It was the Beak hisself saved you, was it?” (He referred, reader, to Sir John.)

  “It was,” said Tom Durham.

  “A rum cove,” said Bunkins.

  “A rum cove,” Tom agreed.

  “Where’s your mate Jonah? You two was shipped off together.”

  “Well, keep a dubber mum, cause all who get a chance at the sea should jump at it, but pal Jonah crapped on the Malabar Coast.”

  “Mum’s the word. But … did he get caught napping?”

  “Oh no, we left all that ashore, the two of us. Jonah Falkirk died a fair seaman’s death in a battle with Indian pirates.”

  “Injun pirates, is it? Crikey, Tom, you got some stories to tell, ain’t it?”

  “A fair few.”

  “My cove HUhf a seaman,” said Bunkins proudly. Then whispered: “They say he was a pirate, but he don’t talk none about such.”

  “Your cove, is it? And who might he be?”

  “John Bilbo, so he is.”

  “Black Jack Bilbo? Him who has the gaming house in Mayfair?”

  “The same, on’y he don’t let just everybody call him that. He asks me to call him Mr. Bilbo, and I obliges, for he treats me fair and looks out for me.”

  “I’d noticed you’d come up in the world, ” said Tom, “and not just that you’d grown a few inches. You’ve a proper suit of clothes on you, and I see your face clear and unsmudged for the first time in memo It’s a new Jimmie Bunkins I see before me.”

  “Chum, you don’t know the half. Mr. Bilbo’s got me learnin’ to read and to do sums!” He looked craftily about.” How would you like to meet him, Tom Durham? Walk right up and give his daddle a wiggle? He’s a good sort, ain’t he, Jeremy?”

  “Oh, he is indeed,” said I.” A friend to Sir John —though it’s true they have their differences.”

  “Well, then, come along—you, too, Jeremy. He speaks good olyou, always askin’ after Sir John and yourself.”

  Shaking my head with a show of regret, I held up the bag of vegetables I had bought at the stalls. “If we are to eat tonight,” said I, “then I must return with these. Go, Tom, and on the way tell Bunkins the tale of the grabs.”

  They said their goodbyes and waved. As they started off together.

  I heard Jimmie Bunkins ask, “What, for Gawd’s own sake, might a ‘grab’ be?”

  Walking on by myself across Covent Garden in the direction of Bow Street, I reflected that Tom Durham and his Jimmie B. seemed an odd pair —but then, so must Bunkins and I appear equally ill matched.

  I had not realized Tom had quite such a history in petty crime. The two were reformed villains and each had done his separate form of penance. It would be best, I decided, not to tell Lady Fielding where her son had gone and with whom. She might indeed draw the wrong conclusions.

  Upon my return, I visited Mrs. Gredge, and then I was free to seek out Sir John. He had asked me to be ready as soon as he concluded his court session, and we would travel to the Navy Board office for the meeting with Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Redmond. Only minutes before, I had tested the door to the courtroom and found him engaged in the examination of a witness. It seemed likely then that this would continue for quite some while, yet when I left Mrs. Gredge and returned to the courtroom, I found it empty.

  Quite in a panic, for I did not wish Sir John to make such a long trip alone, nor did I wish to lose the chance to meet an admiral, I went searching and found him directly in the little alcove that served Mr. Marsden, the court clerk, for an office.

  Yet before I spoke, he had turned his head in my direction.” Jeremy,” said he, “is that you?”

  “It is, sir.”

  “Good, then let us be off. I believe our business is complete, Mr. Marsden?”

  “Yes, I shall have the letters on your desk for your signature before I leave tonight.”

  “Shall we go then, Jeremy?”

  Mr. Marsden or Mr. Fuller, or one of the other daytime gentlemen, had seen to the matter of the hackney carriage. One stood waiting on the street just outside the door.

  As we ascended into the carriage cabin, Sir John called out our destination to the driver.” Tower Hill,” said he.” The office of the Navy Board.”

  I brought the carriage door shut behind me and turned to Sir John with a question:

  “Sir, when I came up to you just now at Mr. Marsden’s desk, you knew quite immediate it was me. I had not even spoken, yet you knew. It has happened just so more times than I can remember. IF I may ask, Sir John, how are you able to tell?”

  He smiled.” Oh, it was partly a matter of anticipation,” said he.” I was expecting you, after all, for we had agreed to go off together to Tower Hill. But then, too, I may have noted your step. It is a bit quicker and lighter than most heard in Bow Street.”

  Then he hesitated but a moment, frowning, as if weighing the wisdom of proceeding. Yet eventually he did:

  “There is another matter to be taken into consideration, as well.”

  “And what is that. Sir John?”

  “You have a smell.”

  “I … I stink?” Surely I washed clean enough to rid myself of those noxious odors of the body which so many disguise with perfume.

  “No, no, do not take offense, Jeremy. Each of us has a distinctive odor. That is how dogs tell us apart —not by our clothes, which matter little to them, nor by our faces, which they seldom see, but rather by our odor. Their sense of smell is much superior to their sight.”

  “And yours is also so keenly developed?”

  “Oh, I am no hunting dog, yet I can pick up a scent when the situation requires.” He laughed at his little joke.

  We rode in silence for a time; then I thought to ask:

  “What is my smell like?”

  “Oh, what indeed?” said he.” What makes one face different from another? A longer nose, perhaps? A chin stronger or weaker? It is, rather, the combination of all the elements, their balance, that gives the look of a face —or so I recall from my days with sight. Is that not so? Well then, just so, your smell is compounded of a good many elements—sweat, yours has a rather high odor; milk, you drink a good deal of it; and —oh, other things I suppose. It is not, in any case, an unpleasant smell, if that was your fear. Simply your smell.”

  “And each has his own?”

  “Precisely.”

  That silenced me, giving me much to consider, for a good piece of our journey. Sir John kept his quiet, as was often his way. Not until the Tower was in view did he speak up.

  “Did you have an opportunity to look in on Mrs. Gredge?”

  “I did, sir, yes.”

  “How did she seem to you? Better? Worse?”

  “In some ways better. She was awake and alert, but I noticed some difficulty in her speech, as if her tongue had grown too big for her mouth.”

  “I noticed that. Apoplexy may be the cause. She must not work again. I fear it would be the end of her. I shall try to contact her sons. There are thre
e, I believe — two in London.”

  All discussion of Mrs. Gredge’s sorry situation ended at that point, for the hackney driver pulled up before a large, imposing building in a row of such imposing buildings. Although they stood within sight of the great rampart and moat, I had not noticed them on my previous day’s visit, so taken was I by the prospect of the Tower.

  These buildings housed the offices of the Navy Board. In one of them Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Redmond awaited our visit. Up the stairs and inside, we presented ourselves to a petty officer, who chose a seaman from three on a bench nearby and detailed him to accompany us to the proper office. It was then up a good many more stairs and down a long hall. Sir John had no difficulty keeping up but had as little notion as I just where we were headed. There were two unanticipated turns at which we nearly collided with our guide, but at last we found ourselves before the proper door.

  The seaman rapped smartly upon it, then bawled forth, “Permission to enter, suh!”

  Then, from beyond the door, in a voice near as strong: “Permission granted!”

  The door was thrown open before us and we two. Sir John and I, entered an outer office at which a young lieutenant presided. The door slammed behind us. We were left in the lieutenant’s charge. He stood rigid in full-dress uniform, hat folded beneath his arm, and spoke forth in an unnatural nasal singsong tone, as if issuing orders to us.

  “I take it, suh, you are Sir John Fielding?”

  “I am he.”

  “And the young man?”

  “My companion.”

  That seemed to baffle him. He hesitated, then nodded sharply, about-faced, and made for the large door that stood behind his desk.

  We were ushered into an inner chamber twice the size of the one we had left. In size and furnishing, the room reminded me of the one occupied by Sir Percival Peeper at the East India Company in Leadenhall Street, not too far away from this very building. Yet where Sir Perci-val’s was a dark room made darker by drawn curtains, the admiral’s was all light and bright, the rear wall but one wide window by which I was near dazzled by the sunlight reflected upon the great river below. The Thames was there in full view, its docks and wharves busthng with activity, ships and boats, large and small, plying its streams in both directions.