LUCK
A short novella written as an introduction to the Lace Map Trilogy
by Lesley F. Williams.
Chapter 1
A bright blue spring sky and a freshening wind gave Bill an extra spring in his step. The familiar rabble and noise of the quays surrounded him as he walked toward the Fore Street. The shouting men and screaming gulls seemed to be joining him in his high spirits. Today was the day he would become a father for the first time.
A bustle of fishing boats raced away from the quay at the same time, giving the gangs of shore hands a brief rest from their backbreaking work. Bill heard his name being called just before a young lad started tugging at his coat for him to follow. He shook the lad away with a swipe and ignored the calling. He was determined not to be delayed from getting back home on today of all days.
The streets and quays heaved with the tides of workers, their life and work dictated by the tides of the sea. The cobbled fish quay was always filled with noise. Black coated men in tall hats skipped from carriage to club, trying their best not to put a foot down on the filthy street. Barrows piled high with goods and food for sale were pushed blindly through crowds, stopping here and there to trade before being moved on, the barrow men constantly shouted out their wares.
Horses hooves, carriage wheels and thousands of feet, some shod, some bare, ploughed and weaved their way through the ankle deep sludge of dung, fish guts and general waste thrown out onto the streets from the many tightly packed houses and inns. The lively dance of traders, sailors, fishwives, thieves and strangers poured in and out of warehouses, stores, workshops and each other’s lives. Fishing boats piled their slippery catches onto the quay for bare armed fishwives to gut and pack into barrels. Ships tapped sheets against the masts, throwing their tall shadows down the narrow alleys leading away from the harbour. Tons of cargo in barrels, bales and boxes, was lugged about on strong backs, hoisted off, swinging about in the air. The holds empty for a brief moment before fresh supplies and new cargoes weighted down the echoing darkness. Sailors, weaving side to side in a pendulum walk as their sea legs got used to the solid manner of the land, came ashore with their long awaited wages, only to return to their berths with empty pockets and hangovers, as impatient as the ship itself to be back at sea.
“Mr Bill, I’ve been sent to fetch you.” Bill stopped and looked down at the lad who hopefully held out his hand. Usually he would have flipped a small coin to the messenger and promptly forgotten him, but this time, with his imminent fatherhood, he drew a shilling and pressed it into the small hand. Startled at the size of the coin, the lad tightened his fist around it and was out of sight in a flash. Shouting came from the end of the quay where a group of men were stood waiting for him.
“Bill, get yourself over here. This new chap reckons he’s fast with his fists. Come and take him down a peg.”
“Not right now mate. Got better things to do.”
“Come on Bill, won’t take you long to put him in his place.
“Or has that new wife of yours made you soft eh?”
“Hey, Bill, those flowers make you look right pretty. Come and give us a kiss.”
The taunts grew louder and more coarse. Bill’s temper rose easily to their baiting as they had known it would. The small posy of violets was crushed by the instinctive tightening of his challenged fists. He glanced down at the now limp and spoilt posy, then angrily dropped it to the cobbles. The men were already shuffling about to form a clearing. Wagers were being made even as he was striding toward them. Bill made more money from fighting than from loading and unloading fishing boats and ships at the harbour. Stockily built and well muscled, he could always secure a day’s work when he chose to, but today was different, he had only come out to the harbourside to buy violets for his wife from one of the flower girls. The young girl he had bought the posy from was a favourite of his, half thief, half trader, she pestered all and sundry, her shrill cries competing with the gulls in ferocity. Bill saw these street urchins in a new light, hoping his own child would never end up as one of these strays.
In November, just seven months earlier, the whole country was frozen in the grip of an arctic blast. Bill’s life was a simple one and he had no thought other than returning to his own warm fireplace.
The Barbican waters churned with grated layers of ice which were constantly ground up between the hulls of the frost glistened boats and ships. Ropes set hard as iron bars, and in the bright mornings, at least one lifeless body was found in the back alleys as hard as the ropes. Small huddles of hopeless men, women and children that had to be thawed out before they could be released from the cobbles.
The day had started with a bright blue winter sky filled with a bitterly cold wind. A grey band was rolling in across the sea, a freezing sea mist was on its way to shut out the sun and to make the harbourside drop another few degrees in temperature. Horses and people were surrounded by their own personal clouds of damp, chilling breath. The ground was covered in accumulated piles of frozen dung and rubbish with only narrow paths of treacherous ice worn between them. Ropes were thickened and white with the night frost, sails frozen together in a solid mass of canvas and ice. Men were frustrated as the boats were kept from going out to fish. The few catches of fish which had been landed that week had already frozen, making it near impossible for the fishwives to gut them.
Everyone moved more slowly and carefully than usual, a slip or a broken limb would see them with no chance work and would put their families in the workhouse at best, or maybe one cold morning they would also be found frozen to death in a dark back alley. Many of the homeless sought shelter deep in the stacks of barrels, nets and lobster pots piled up around the quay. Alehouses were packed tight with desperate men seeking out some warmth between jobs, penniless men stood quietly among them, unable to buy a pint or a pie of their own, just praying not to be thrown back out into the cold.
Having drawn a good crowd outside the tavern despite the cold, Bill entertained the crowd with jokes and exaggerated fake falls when he saw that his challengers could put up little in the way of a fight. Hardly needing to use the full power of his heavy fists, Bill saw off the three men who had been desperate enough to challenge him to fight. Buoyed up by the early success of his day, he had cradled the satisfying weight of the winning purse in his pocket and was making his way back home to wash the blood of the losers off his fists and shirt. He gave no thought to the three men who had been desperate enough to be knocked senseless in the slim hope of winning a fight against Bill, ‘King of the Quay’.
The dockside suddenly disappeared from Bill’s view and he saw only bright lights and cobblestones. He had tripped over a thin white foot sticking out from a pile of lobster pots, landing face down. The breath had been completely knocked out of him as he fell and sprawled full length across the frozen ground. A strange warm feeling spread out across his chest, a sticky mess sprayed up onto his throat.
Swearing and furious, his fists were clenched in readiness for a fight before he had even got back onto his feet. Instead of facing his assailant, he found himself staring into the blackest eyes he had ever seen. A pale, thin girl with tight curls which were dark enough to nearly match her eyes, was fearfully trying to press herself deeper into a towering wicker pile of lobster pots. The girl didn’t dare move when Bill’s wide shadow crept over her as he pulled himself to his feet. Like a rabbit caught in a hunter’s lamplight, she didn’t dare move, and could only stare, without daring to blink, at the man while she prayed that he would just go away without hurting her.
Bill started to laugh, a loud guffawing and snorting sound, and once he had started, he couldn’t stop.
Startled, the girl looked around for an escape route, but she was trapped. She couldn’t have run if she wanted to, her limbs stiff and numb with the cold, having spent several nights and the better part of the days burrowed in the poor shelter of the smelly baskets. She thought he must be mad, laughing like that after he had fallen into a fresh stinking puddle of horse muck. Homeless, hungry and cold to the point of insensibility, in some small way she almost welcomed an end to her suffering. Black eyes followed his bloody hand as Bill tentatively prodded at the tender lump visibly swelling up on his forehead. He absently flicked bits of straw and sticky manure off his chest.
“Well done lass. You definitely won that round.”
She pushed herself tight against the pots, there was no more space and she only made the twists of cane dig painfully into her back. Bill reached into his pocket and offered a coin out to her, she shrunk back as though it might bite her.
The girl had no energy left to keep hating her employers for throwing her out into the streets. When she told them she was pregnant, they blindly refused to believe that their darling son would ever bother to look at her, never mind to promise her a fine future as his wife. She felt a spark of that hatred returning now as it dawned on her that she would have to do what she needed to do if she was to afford a bite to eat for the first time in days. It dawned on her that when she had given freely of herself, thinking she was in love, that she could now get paid for. She could sink no lower. Now her body would have to earn her a way to survive the same way it had caused her to be abandoned.
Bill waggled his outstretched hand toward her. “Take it lass, you’ve earned it. There’s not many round here can claim to have felled me that quick. Just don’t tell anyone eh?”
The fear took too much energy to maintain and as she let it go, her ability to care what happened to herself from now on went with it and she slumped forward. The dark curls of her hair covered her face, shutting out the sight of the man in front of her.
She wasn’t going to let him see how desperately frightened she was, he could never pay her enough for that. She stiffly pushed herself out of the tangle of wicker and ropes and rose unsteadily to her feet. Holding onto the frozen pile of pots to keep herself upright, she grabbed the coin in one unexpectedly quick movement. He wasn’t as tall as she had thought, and he still had a little smile left over from his laughter on his face.
Bill was amused and saddened at the same time as he watched her struggle to get herself out of the pots. When they were finally standing eye to eye, they stared at each other for just a moment. The girl was taller than he had thought, and older. While she had been tucked tight inside the pile of lobster pots, she had looked so small, the ankle he had tripped over had been pale as a bone and shoeless which is why he had not seen it in time.
The fear in her eyes had been replaced with a hard edged blankness. He had not seen where the coin had gone, she had been so quick to make it disappear. Her cold, blue-white hands were now pressed flat against the sides of her skirt as she stood rigidly in front of him, chin stuck out with an air of defiance.
“Get on with it then.” her voice had a country roll to it, rather than the local accent of Plymouth. Her mouth was lopsided as she bit on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying with the shame. Having decided what she had to do, she didn’t want it to last a second longer than necessary.
Bill took a step back from her. “No, That’s not what I paid you for. You won it, fair and square. Made me eat cobbles quicker than men twice your size have ever done.”
She shook her head and blinked quickly, trying to figure out what game he was playing with her. He just stood there and smiling at her, his hands making no move to take hold of her. She took a step backwards and nearly fell over the tangle of ropes into the same cooling manure he had himself landed in, before daring to look him up and down. She was too weak to run away and nowhere to run to, she needed time to get the feeling back into her legs before she could make her escape. She took in his lopsided nose, twisted and lumpy from having been broken so often. One of his eyebrows was divided in two by a crinkled pink line where a thick scar had healed and stopped the hairs from regrowing. Scattered throughout his neatly trimmed beard were similar lines and dots of hairless pink skin from more scars, his lips were thin and his smile revealed many dark gaps in his teeth. The lump on his forehead was darkening as the swelling slowed. When her eyes rose to the lump, he gently traced a finger over it to check the damage and winked at her.
"Just don't hit me again, eh?" and he put his hand up as though to defend himself from her
Against her common sense, she really wanted to trust this stranger and reached to take hold of the hand which shielded most of his face from her. He kept the other hand deep in his pocket protecting his money from her fast fingers. Her fingers were so cold that she couldn’t feel his skin, only the weight of his large fist as she turned it over to better examine the partially dried blood spread across his knuckles.
“Name’s Bill.” He said wondering why she didn't seem inclined to let go of his hand.
“I’m Beth.” She licked her thumb and rubbed at the thin dark red crust to reveal a patch of rough, unbroken skin.
“This blood isn’t yours, and there’s none on your palms, so if you can't have got it from gutting or butchering. So you must have been fighting.”
“I can tell you’re not local by your accent, and you live in a pile of lobster pots.”
A sharp burst of what could have been a laugh came from the girl. It seemed to surprise her more than Bill.
“I get to keep the shilling just for making you fall over?”
Bill laughed at her again. “I'm telling you, you've earned it. Felled me before I even had a chance to defend myself. For goodness sake lass, if you don’t want your winnings I’ll take ‘em back.”
Beth finally let the twitch of a hopeful smile reach her face. Seeing through all the scars, the dried dots of the other man’s blood, and the streak of fresh manure across his cheek, she was sure his face was that of a kind man.
“Can I have my hand back now? Folks will be thinking we’re married.” He said with yet another grin which served only to enchant her more.
Instead of dropping his hand, Beth stared down hard at it for a moment, idly rubbing at the crusty, dried blood, making the small circle of cleaned skin larger, she looked up to search his face with such intensity that it started to make him uncomfortable. In her dark eyes he could see only the reflection of himself as tiny twin silhouettes. He couldn't read her at all.
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Beth said, finally.
She let go of his hand but it didn’t fall back to his side, but stayed stuck out in front of him like an offering as the last of his smile left his face, leaving him with his jaw dropped open in surprise. It was only seconds, but felt like a lifetime before he could move again and snap his mouth closed. The noise and bustle of the quay had disappeared for that small moment in time when it there was only the two of them in the whole world, trapped in each others eyes.
In a nearby smoke filled, but lively inn, Beth started to warm up and the pain as the feelings returned to her frozen limbs started to set in. To keep herself from crying in front of him, she bit down so furiously on the inside of her bottom lip she tasted her own blood in her mouth. Bill had refused to leave her on the quay for another night spent burrowed into the lobster pots, and had set about putting a meal in front of her at the first opportunity. He had thought to put her up in a room for a couple of nights, but the thought of leaving her on her own bothered him. Puzzled at this unfamiliar need to protect someone, he changed his mind and insisted that she took his room that night and he would sleep outside the door.
Despite being so much smaller and younger than Bill, Beth won the argument as to who would take the bed that night by threatening to leave. She insisted she would spend the night wrapped in a blanket on the single chair with her feet resting up on a wooden trunk. She cared less about what people might think of her sharing a room with a man she had only just met, she was more concerned with not risking the chance of losing his interest once she was out of his sight. Only when they were married just over three weeks later, Bill having dashed out in the morning to have the banns read the next Sunday in the first church he came to, did she join him in the narrow bed and start to think of the small rented room as her new home.
As Bill's wife, Beth easily found work and spent her time safe and warm in Bills small rented room sewing uniforms by the light from the window for a local tailor. Taking delight in his responsibilities of being a married man, Bill quickly found a couple of better rooms for them high above the stink of the main street in the attics of solid stone house. From the high attic window, Beth could see down the lane on the opposite side of the road and watch the bustle of the freezing dockyard from the safety of her new home.
A short time after the wedding, Bill had been stunned, then delighted, when a more rounded Beth announced it was not just the good food he provided which had changed her shape, but that he was to be a father.
Over the six months since the wedding, the baby seemed to grow at an astounding rate but Bill never once questioned how early after their wedding night that the baby had decided to make it’s appearance in the world. The midwife had sent him out of the way and all he could think to do was to buy violets for his wife. The small posy now lay forgotten on the ground. Bill was still determinedly turning a deaf ear to jeers that the baby might not be his. He was ready to let his fists to stop the rumours.
The crowd continued to grow as the fight dragged on and after half an hour, still showed no sign of a winner. The new challenger traded Bill blow for blow. It would be the making of this new man if he could win this first fight of his against Bill. He was determined to prove that his own reputation with his fists had been no idle boast. They were evenly matched but the newcomer had a fierce need to prove himself and was giving no quarter.
Both men endured a steady repetition of heavy, well aimed punches and both were starting to get unsteady on their feet when a woman, yelling Bill’s name at the top of her voice, distracted him for just one quick moment as he looked around. It was enough time to let his opponent land a hard blow on the side of his unguarded face.
Bill spat hot blood from his mouth which had turned suddenly hot with pain, two of his teeth hit the cobbles amid a splattering of blood. He drew the back of his hand across his face, smearing the redness around in the sweat till he wore an angry mask. The shock of the bright red on his hand made him remember the brightness of the ribbon on the lost violets, and the reason for buying them rushed back to him. A growing heat of furious energy ran through him, lending him a surge of strength despite his weariness. It was enough to aim a final, felling blow on his opponents jeering face. There was no time for him to put up a defence, the man thought he had already won the fight when Bill stepped away for a moment, and he had let his guard down too early. A fight was only over when Bill said it was over.
The challenger went down like a stone, banging his head hard on the cobbles as he landed. He lay still and quiet on the ground, making no effort to speak or move. When Bill was satisfied the man would not be getting up again, and without waiting to collect his winnings, he pushed determinedly through the mass of cheering bodies trying make his way home as quick a he could.
By the time he made it up the stairs to their rooms, he had rubbed away most of the blood from his face using his own pink sweat and spit and the tail of his shirt. He had to stop and lean against the wall on the first landing for a few minutes, trying to get his wits together. His head was spinning with the brutal pummelling he had endured, and the pain of the missing teeth set off an agonizing pain which shot through his face with each step.
The fishwife who lived below them, supplemented her income by taking on the self appointed duties of midwife. She had positioned herself in the bedroom doorway to stop the unsteady blood stained man entering. She could hardly recognise him as the same man who she had sent off to buy ‘something to cheer the mother’ less than an hour earlier, in her not too subtle attempt to get him out of her way.
Bill made an effort to smile while trying to keep his mouth firmly closed. He didn’t want to speak till he could numb the pain in his jaw with some strong drink. The midwife kept him at bay. The throbbing in his head was making it hard to understand the word he kept hearing Beth calling from the bed behind the fishwife’s obstructing body.
“She said ‘Kwilkyn’. You weren’t deaf when you left, and that’s all she’s been saying.” When the fishwife had seen him struggling up the stairs, staggering about and without sign of having bought anything for his wife, she assumed he had been drinking. Beth kept jabbing her finger in frustration towards the makeshift crib by the bed repeating the word again and again. She finally laid her head onto the thin pillow and closed her eyes, exhausted.
“You’re no use getting under my feet. You get back to your ale.” The midwife steered him forcefully away from the door aiming him toward the rickety stairs. Bill staggered down the first couple of stairs at the midwife’s second, more determined push, only just catching his balance in time to stop himself flying headfirst all the way down. He heard her laughing as she closed the door behind her.
In the bedroom, exhausted, Beth shut her eyes and curled up into a tight ball on the narrow wooden bed, a fresh line of red flea bites made a neat arch of dots on her bare shoulder.
Staring down at the baby’s screwed up face, the midwife shook her head at him and tutted. A brief, bright glimpse of pale blue eyes sparkled at her.
“Well now little Kwilkyn. What kind of name is that, I wonder?” She stroked the smooth cheek with the tip of her finger, a brief moment of wonder that another tiny baby survived its journey into the world. “Every mother thinks their own baby is the most beautiful one ever born, though I’ve seen enough of ‘em to know different, eh?” She smiled at her own little joke. “Bit of an odd name she’s given you though, must be something to do with her being Cornish I reckon.”
In the street below, despite the raging pain from his lost teeth, Bill managed to grimace as near to a smile as he could manage when he announced the new arrival of his son. With every hand shake or slap on the back, he winced with agony at the jolts in his face. The baby’s name was repeated, and then as someone translated it, the laughter started.
Two floors above the street, Beth had given up trying to make herself understood and had pulled the blanket up over her head.
By the time a small, dried up little frog was discovered caught up inside the baby’s blanket, it dawned on the midwife what Beth had been trying to tell them. But it was too late, the name had stuck.
Chapter 2
Tracing a perfect arc in the air, the bloody fish head made a direct hit on a thin, scraggy boy. It hit him hard on the back of the head and caused him to briefly stop hitting another boy who was desperately trying to defend himself. The two scrapping boys had kept the crowd entertained for a while and they now jeered at the fish head thrower for cutting their fun short.
“Come on Billy, leave him be. You won this time.”
The smaller boy’s hands tightened into tense fists at the sound of his father’s voice. He tasted the blood in his mouth from where a lucky punch from the other boy had split the inside of his lip against his teeth. That was nothing compared to what his father might dole out if he didn’t do as he was told. The boy braced himself, preparing to spring nimbly out of the range of his father’s huge, scarred fists. William shouted up into the drunken, misshapen face, his feet were already twitching, eager to turn and run.
“Not ‘Billy’, not ‘Kwylkin’, not ‘Frog’. My name is William and anyone as forgets that will get the same beating as ‘im.” He spat red streaked spit toward his opponent who was unwilling to get to his feet, taking advantage of having a little time for a quick breather while the shouting was going on.
The audience was thinning, thinning away at the edges now the fight looked like it was all but over. William’s fury had won him the fight so far against the older, larger boy. A sharp whistle to one side of him made him spin around, ever on his guard for danger, but instead of a fist, a coin was flipping in a flashing arc toward him. He snatched it out of the air and held it tight in his fist. A few bets had been made on the unevenly matched boys, and after providing a good ten minutes entertainment, he was due a winners prize of sorts. Bill held out his big hand for the coin, but William’s feet were ready and he was already sprinting out of Bill’s reach. With luck, he would have enough time to buy a meal for himself and his mother before Bill got home. Better that they ate than have it taken by his father who would simply drink it away.
These days Bill would spent most days in various alehouses and inns around the quays. A stumbling shadow of his former prize fighting self, he would keep challenging men to fight against him, but instead of creating an eager audience for his lumbering sparring, other fighters would melt away. He didn’t understand the change in attitude toward him, was he not the best quayside fighter for miles around? He was used to men seeking him out, hoping to win a fight against the legendary ‘King of the Quay’. A few drunks, or an occasional newcomer had become the best opponents he had managed to rouse to combat for a while.
Only a few months earlier, when Bill rightly strutted around the quays as the best bare fist fighter in the area, an unfamiliar fishing boat landed with hardly a catch on board worth the unloading. The three crewmen had eagerly sought out Bill and had egged him on to challenge all three of them to a fight. Despite having his pockets clinking with the bouts he had just won, he let his winner’s ale do the talking for him and agreed to their challenge. They were to fight, one after the other, and he would show them how worthy he was of his title. A large winners purse was quickly gathered and the alehouses emptied out onto the quay side. The noisy crush of bodies swarmed over the cobbles, a few wide arms created a clear area for action. The crowd was eager for sport.
A few rounds in, Bill unexpectedly found he was struggling to defend himself against the men who, it was becoming obvious, were not the normal fishing boat crew as they had first appeared. It took every bit of strength and stubbornness to win against the first two men, but spoiled his victory by being sick over the prone body of his second opponent after a particularly prolonged attack to his stomach. The last challenger, now his crew mates had weakened the King of the Quay, was able to viciously beat Bill till he was a senseless heap on the ground. Not satisfied with winning the fight, the man kicked Bill in the head as he lay gasping in pain from the beatings. The man gave a small, tight smile as he looked down at the body at his feet before raising his arm into the air, claiming victory, and the purse, for himself.
The audience, buoyed up by the spectacle, raised the new victor up onto their shoulders and the procession made it's eager way to the alehouse to celebrate the making of a new champion and to help drink his winnings. Only a few stragglers were left behind to see Bill struggling to stand up, retching and shaking his head dozily. He was blinking quickly, trying to force the suddenly darkened world back into focus.
“Dammit man, don't let them see I’ve been hurt.” One of Bill’s friends had come over to him and was trying to help him stand. His friend bit his tongue instead of complaining when Bill put all his considerable weight onto him. Bill found he could not even stand unaided.
“Get me out of here.” he hissed into his friend's face, the blood, still running in blooming red shiny rivulets from his beaten head and face, left a fine spray across his friends shirt front as he spoke.
“Sure Bill, after a drink eh? There’s still your winnings from the first two fights to claim, you can’t leave now or you’ll not see it again.”
“Get it then, but be quick about it. That last vicious bugger ‘as hurt me bad.”
“Alright Bill, just give me a minute.” He staggered under the weight for a dozen steps then, thankfully, leaned Bill up against a pile of barrels. Once in the alehouse, he happily accepted Bill’s winnings and didn’t take much persuading to accept Bill’s share of ale. When he finally returned, he found Bill slumped unconscious on the ground. Only the support of the barrels had stopped him from rolling over the side of the dock and into the black water.
No longer was Bill the King of the Quay. The injuries from this last fight had left him unsteady on his feet. The spinning in his head had only eased off a little in the days that followed, but it didn’t completely go away. He found his words were unwilling to come out as he wanted, he sounded slurred as though he were drunk all the time, sometimes he even had a struggle to find the words he wanted, much to the detriment of his temper. The cuts and bruises healed, a few more scars were of no concern to him, but the damage from that final, vicious kick to his head had become a problem that was not going away.
With noone to fight, he had no money so he sought out work. He was chosen immediately by the overseers, thinking he would be a strong back on their team, but his unsteady feet made a mockery of his remaining strength. When he did secure a day’s work, he would spend his wages on drink as soon as he had them in his hand. Drinking himself into oblivion was the only way he could find to silence the confusion of bees in his head.
Without his regular winnings, Beth and his son struggled to pay for food and rent. The next six months saw her move them three times into cheaper and progressively poorer lodgings until they were having to share a dark back room in a creaking old house with another couple and their two young children. With not a minute of daylight able to make it’s way through the boarded up windows in winter, Beth struggled to sew, now having to spend half the money she earned on candles. Beth took on as much work as she could, sewing all day long and often into the night. When she wasn’t sewing uniforms, she would go to look for work as soon as the boats came in on the tide. She would stand, half asleep, alongside the fishwives at the quay, gutting and layering freshly landed catches of glittering fish into barrels. William worked unpaid at her side, increasing the number of barrels she could fill. He would have to lean over the edge of the barrels some of which were nearly as tall as himself, to lay the fish around in tight spirals till they reached the top. In the hot summer months, they could barely breathe for the stench and the flies, in the cold winter, they couldn’t feel their feet or hands for months. Whatever the weather, while the boats kept the fish coming in, the two of them could just about scrape a living and keep a roof over their heads for the three of them.
From the quay, William kept a watchful eye on the brightly brassed front doors of the various Exchanges, shipping offices and gentlemen’s clubs dotted along Fore Street. Even when he wasn’t working alongside his mother, he chose to spend his time outside in the cold and wind where there was a chance of earning a copper, rather than return to their small half room where his mother would be either working or crying herself to sleep. Bill wandered in and out of their half room at all hours, no longer able to make sense of the world, seeking only to stay drunk enough to make it a slightly less painful one.
Bill hung out of the small window of their shared room, staring down at the dark narrow lane below. He hadn’t managed to find a drink for some days and yet he still felt thick headed and unsteady. Without the drink, the pain was becoming unbearable again. The stinking air was not helping him and despite the tight grip he had on the window sill, his hands still trembled uncontrollably. Though he knew he would only be turned away, he stumbled several times in his haste to get to the nearest alehouse, desperate and nearly out of his mind for drink.
A gang of nearly a dozen sailors were making their way to the alehouses and inns for their customary, riotous shore leave. They had been away for over a year and had not yet heard of Bill’s defeat. When they saw Bill sat nursing an empty tankard at one of the alehouses, they eagerly challenged him to fight without any idea of the changes to him since they last sparred. They remembered only how he had thoroughly beaten their champion, and were eager for a rematch.
With more luck than judgement, Bill landed enough lucky blows at his drunken opponent to win his first fight in long time. He downed the celebratory drinks as though his life depended on them. They made his head spin so violently that he couldn’t have said if he was upright or laid down, but at least the pain in his head seemed further away, and with each drink he had, his hands seemed to shake less. Drunk to the point of insensitivity, Bill felt proud of himself when he found he had even managed to hold onto some of his winnings and was minded to take them home to his wife. Bill felt life was starting to take a turn for the better, and despite looking like he was snarling, Bill’s face managed to summon what passed these days for a smile.
Staggering about the quay with his head spinning and trying to ignore the sharp stabs of pain behind his eyes at each footfall, Bill was slowly, by a roundabout route, making his way towards his home whilst enthusiastically recreating his latest victory to an audience of nodding boats. Bill’s feet struggled to keep up with his wildly swinging fists and he staggered headfirst into the cold, dark water of the harbour.
He didn’t feel anything much after his head hit the wooden rail of a boat on his way down. Fading in and out of consciousness, he struggling to breathe when every second breath he pulled into his chilled lungs was full of saltwater and foulness. Bill tried desperately to drag himself away from the two bobbing hulls which kept forcing him down under the water, but he got confused by which way was up or down, and his arms would not obey his commands. His feeble shouts for help were choked off each time he reached the surface and he swallowed more of the iridescent, greasy mixture of fish oil, dung and waste bobbing on top of the water.
At the low tide in the small hours of the morning, Bill’s body was found sprawled half in the mud and half on the bottom of the stone steps leading from the harbour to the quayside. Someone had dragged his body out of the stinking mud and left it there. A deep congealed gash glared bright red against his deathly pale grey forehead. His boots, belt, trousers and the few precious coins intended for his wife were long gone.
Numb with grief, Beth followed her husband a week later to the same early grave. Unable to face life without him and with the last angry words she had shouted at him that fateful day still playing over and over in her head, she hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. She would stand, a cold, limp fish in one hand, her gutting knife in the other, just staring into nothingness till William was fetched to take her away. Now with no money coming in from the gutting work, there was no food for either of them. The would sit together on the edge of the narrow bed, William tried everything he could think of to make his mother speak but she would barely even move. William needed to be out running errands but he couldn’t bear to leave her alone in such a state. They both had to go without food, but only William felt the hunger.
On the last night before they were due to be evicted from their half of the room, a family waiting eagerly to take over the bed and chair they had called home, William’s mother gripped tightly to her chest a man’s shirt, the only thing she had left of her husband. She sat motionless on the edge of the bed as she had done every day and night. In the dark, William would sleep curled up in the dip her husband’s body had left in the lumpy mattress.
A stray bright beam of moonlight cut through the smoke and noise of the night and stretched itself across the rough wall. A tiny, dry flower head was tucked into a crack in the wall, it’s colour was long gone and was barely noticeable during the day in the dull, decrepit room but the moonbeam made it stand out against the sharp black shadow behind it. A violet flower, which she had tucked high up to keep it safe ages ago, had somehow survived to remind her of better times. For the first time since her Bill had died, she felt something other than the howling emptiness of her grief.
A wash of calm acceptance ran over her and released the tension in her face. When she opened her eyes, the darkness didn’t matter to her, it would have been the same had it been the brightest day, she could only see Bill’s smiling face from all those years ago when he had stared at her after her foot had tripped him up and made him fall into a steaming pile of horse dung. With her fingers locked tightly around her husband’s shirt, she left her son sleeping and walked on silent bare feet down toward the bustling night quay side and sought out a private spot in the dark shadows of the tall warehouses. She chose stones as large as she could from the untidy piles of ballast laying about and ferried them to her shadow. When she had enough, she used her skirt, her apron and Bill’s shirt to tie them to her body. A strange, bright smile had lit up her worn, thin face while she worked. When she finally checked the knots holding the stones onto her body and was satisfied, she walked, stumbling under their weight, to the place where her husband’s body had been found. The tide was high and the water was nearly reached up to the top row of stones. Beth closed her eyes. With a barely audible short prayer, she gave up all her grief into one long, lung emptying sigh and in two steps, walked calmly off the edge of the quay and slipped beneath the dark water into oblivion. With only a few bubbles of air escaping from her clothes to show where she was, she let the chill water finally take her pain away.
~~~
William woke up with a determined finger poking him in his ribs. The couple who lived in the other half of the room were standing over him, wanting to know how he was to pay, not only the rent, but the debts they reckoned that his parents had owed to them. He looked around, not understanding what was happening, only concerned that his mother was no longer sitting on the bed. The couple were relentless, their poking of him and kicking at the bed made him pay attention quickly. Apart from the thin blanket on the bed and the clothes he had fallen asleep in, he saw he had nothing to call his own.
On the other side of the room, two children sat side by side on their family’s larger bed which now showed suspicious lumps which matched the size of what few possessions William thought he still owned up till that moment. The woman nodded to the foot of his bed. At least they had the decency to leave him his boots, such as they were. The woman noticed him looking over at her children and went to sit, shuffling up next to her children to better hide the lumps from his sight, while never once taking her eyes from him. Her husband coughed, he had recognised Beth’s body as it had been dragged, lifeless, out of the water. In the commotion he knew he could risk running home to forewarn his wife and to maybe give the young lad chance to get out of the way before his parents creditors landed him in the workhouse. He was not comfortable taking the lads few belongings but would never dare go against his wife’s determination to put her own family before anyone else, no matter how desperate they may be.
“They’ll be after you now lad, what with you being an orphan and all. If you don’t want the workhouse, you’d better make yourself scarce.” Having given William his advice, the only thing he could give him with his wife watching William like a hawk, the man left the room to run back to his work before he was missed. Less than a minute later, and for the last time, William also left.
Hungry and homeless without a penny to his name and with only the thin blanket he had grabbed off the bed for warmth, William spent the day haunting the quay in search of food. When he found that begging didn’t bring any rewards other than being spat at or kicked, he resorted to picking up discarded scraps from the rubbish in the street, eating them in spite of what they had fallen onto.
For several months, William could catch a few hours sleep curled up on piles of drying nets during the day, keeping on the move in the nighttime to keep warm. The shadows in the lanes were full of men and families who were much more desperate than himself, desperate enough to kill him even just for the poor clothes he had on him. He sold his boots after the first week of trying to live on nothing. He tried to work filling fish barrels for the fishwives, but after a full days work, his help was rewarded by laughter and a near swipe of a gutting knife when he asked for payment. Desperation drove him in his search further away from the quay. He spent hours walking around the narrow lanes, knocking on doors, asking for work, searching for food. Each time, when William returned defeated and hungry to the quay, he would lean against piles of barrels or lobster pots and stare at the doors to the offices and clubs, willing them to shout for a messenger, but with no boots, and with faster, better fed boys also competing to run their errands, it was rare for him to be picked.
The tall warehouses cast their dark shadows far out onto the water cutting out the light, William would stare at the reflections of the buildings in the gaps between the grinding boats and wonder if there was another world under the dark waters which had drawn his parents away, leaving him alone.
Chapter 3
There were many men eager to work, all with the same thing on their minds. Who would get picked for work that day so their family could eat that evening? The heavy hand of the foreman landed on shoulders of strong and able men then raised high in the air to pass over the old and the young, the troublemaker and the slacker who were not to feel the welcome weight of his choice. Labourers and stevedores needed strong backs and there was no profit to be made in the foreman being soft hearted. Desperate to avoid the workhouse, William turned up each morning despite rarely getting further forward in the crowd than a few bodies from the back. Wandering away from the sullen, aimless gang of workless men, he would set off on his own to search the streets and lanes looking for work while hoping for at least something to eat. William found the back lanes of the Barbican already filled with more experienced scavengers and beggars than him. Many had staked out their own small territories. They didn’t take kindly to each other, never mind a newcomer on their patch where a casually flipped coin could make the difference between starving and getting through another night. William never thought he would have missed his mother’s hated fish gutting knife so much.
The gaggle of fish wives that his mother had worked with over the years didn’t want to know him now, they were too concerned with managing to earn enough to feed their own families to take him on. He pestered every cab and cart driver, called at every shop, warehouse and workshop offering himself for work. Sometimes he got lucky and earned enough for a meal running an errand or taking on a job that even the scavengers might have turned down. He tried to sneak onto the fishing boats so often that fishermen would aim a blow at him if he walked within reach of a gangplank. The one time he managed to stay hidden, hoping to prove his worth once the boat was out at sea, he had became so violently sick that he decided he would rather keep what little food he managed to find inside him and gave up on that idea.
Living by his wits and fearful that he wouldn’t find work to provide a place to shelter before the winter set in, William reasoned that fair exchange was no robbery and set about systematically stealing clothes from washing lines, leaving the garments he had previously stolen in their place. Looking less like a beggar, he knew he stood a better chance of employment, and the temporary relief from fleas and bugs was a bonus.
William was drawn to the shadows of a narrow lane and returned sometimes several times a day to skulk in small shadow of the staggered buildings opposite where he could watch the comings and goings of the workshops and stores running down Thread Row. One tall thin building, which looked as though had been forced upwards and its bay window bulged outwards into the lane by its wider neighbours, interested him most of all.
The lane was only wide enough for a single cart to rattle through at a time, and William would draw back and press himself into a handy recess of the stone wall opposite to avoid the overhanging, or dripping contents of the carts. Unseen, he would unburden the occasional cart of a quickly grabbed handful of anything that was even slightly edible. The building was so tall that he could only just make out the tip of a pointed ridge of a small attic window poking out of the roof. A bold flourish of gold lettering on the glass panel above the door, though he could not read it, declared it to be the premises of ‘Abraham Pethers and Son, Outfitters to the Military & Makers of Fine Livery’. Through the small panes of the bay window Williams found some comfort staring at a headless torso on a deep red mahogany stand which displayed a bold red military jacket resplendent with flourishes of braid and piping, shining brass buttons studded down the front and along the cuffs, remembering his mother often telling him how she used to enjoy sewing the bright fabrics to make the uniforms before the gutting knife and freezing fish ruined her hands for the sewing.
William thought he could vaguely remember accompany his mother when she delivered parcels of the finished uniforms she had sewed, through the yard to the back door of this shop. They would return home with another parcel full of fabric pieces to make up into more uniforms under her arm. She would often stay sewing night and day, turning the strange shapes turn into smart red or black uniforms. The sewing work barely earned enough to feed the three of them. Bill often didn’t earn anything for days, but Beth would always buy a pie or they would stand and eat at one of the stalls on their way back home, making sure no sign of gravy or crumbs were left on their clothes incase Bill saw them.
William’s stomach let out a growl as he imagined the hot pies again so vividly that he could nearly taste one. Staring at the elaborate jacket on display in the window, he wondered if it might be one that his mother had sewn. He found himself constantly drawn to the shop, the warm memories of the visits with his mother being the nearest thing to a home he now had.
William couldn’t imagine what work a tailor could offer him, but he had promised himself that he would call at each and every property till he found work, and if no work was offered, then at least he could hope to find something to eat, even stealing something if he often had to. He went round the back of the building to find the familiar gate into the backyard of the shop solidly locked. A huddle of women were clustered outside the locked gate, muttering between themselves and paid him no heed. An empty cart, with a dozing pony standing still in it's traces was patiently blocking the narrow back lane just a couple of buildings further down. William climb onto the cart, and from there, clambered up to the top of the high wall. He worked his way gingerly, like a cat, along the wall till he reached the back of the tailor’s shop. A rickety lean to shed in the yard built against the wall made it easy for him to quietly let himself down into the backyard without breaking his neck. He dusted himself down, rubbed his face to even out the dirt more than to clean it and stood, preparing to be chased away, outside the back door.
No sooner had he nervously knocked on the door than it was thrown wide open and he was grabbed by the arm and dragged inside the building by a young woman.
“At last! What on earth kept you? Father’s upstairs on the landing.” She flapped her hands in the direction of a staircase which led upward into darkness. “Oh, why did this have to happen today of all days?” When William didn’t move, she gave him an impatient shove in the back. William made his way up the stairs without a word. A man’s voice, obviously in a great deal of pain, came out of the gloom above him.
“No time to waste lad, just get me down these damn stairs.”
William ran up the rest of the stairs to find a thin man sprawled out groaning on the floor, his head lolled weakly against the wall where he had tried to drag himself into a sitting position. He was pale grey in both hair and complexion, his forehead glistened with the sweat of pain and shock. His legs stretched out in front of him, but only one had a boot on. The other bare foot was swollen right up the ankle, and would not have fitted back inside the discarded boot. The foot twisted away from him at an unnatural angle and William could tell it was not going to bear the man’s weight. Shards of smashed crockery, a growing dark, wet stain around a broken teapot and a large wooden tray was scattered across the narrow red strip of carpet along the landing. The young woman had followed him upstairs and had knelt at the man’s side. She wiped his damp forehead with the cloth from the tray, her other hand kept reaching out nervously toward the twisted ankle but she didn’t dare to touch it.
“He is fortunate that it's only his ankle and not his neck this time. I keep telling him he must let me carry the tea tray down the stairs but he won’t listen.” She touched her hand to his cheek. He turned his head to her and when their eyes met, he made an effort to smile at her, but he could only manage a grimace of pain. He growled at her.
“Stop your fussing. I need to get to work. Those uniforms have to be finished and delivered before this evenings tide. I don’t need my blasted foot to thread a needle do I?”
The young woman looked up at William, waiting for him to act, but all he could see was the sparkle of bright tears welling up in her eyes and the softness of the unbound curls of morning hair draped like a shawl round her shoulders. Her vulnerability created a rush of fiercely protective, yet intimate feelings in him. Unsure how to respond to these strange new feelings, he simply stood there till she gave him instructions.
Together they managed to get the old man standing on his one good leg. The old man’s arm snaked tightly around William’s shoulders while William all but carried him down the stairs. Slowly and painfully he manoeuvred the man through the house, passing through a workshop filled by a large cutting out table. The old man gripped the door frame and fought to steady his breathing, giving William time to study the room. In the alcoves at the sides of the small unlit fireplace, the shelves prickled with domes of pins, coils and strands of braid and ribbon spiralled out of baskets and boxes filled with reels of cotton were stacked neatly on top on one another. Scissors, yellow stumps of chalk and a wooden measuring stick with brass ends lay on top of an unrolled length of fabric marked with dots and lines of chalk. Pegs fixed high around the walls of the room were hung with paper templates, all covered with tiny stabs of pin pricks and red pencil marks. Unlit oil lamps hung from a series of neat pulleys and chains fixed to the ceiling. A bench ran the length of the wall under the window, baskets of half finished work waited for the sewing women still locked outside in the alley.
William finally lowered the old man onto a chair that the young woman had quickly placed in a pool of morning sunlight in the front shop. Still wordlessly following her instructions, William dragged a long heavy table on it's screeching metal castors across to the old man who, with a combined groan of relief and pain, threw his arms out across it and laid his head onto the pin and scissor scratched surface. The young woman nudged her father back upright off the table and pushed a pile of bright red fabric pieces towards him. Seeming to forget his pain, straight away the old man started flapping the fabric about, meticulously matching the lines of chalk marks up to each other. The young woman placed a dome of pins at his elbow when his hand reached out, without looking, to pluck out a few of the pins.
“You, boy.” The man’s hands were already busy pinning pieces of the uniform together, his eyes fixed on the chalk marks. “Fetch another bolt of the best red. Flora will have to do the cutting now I’m stuck in this damn chair.”
Flora had scrambled underneath the table to lift the swollen foot and place it onto a low wooden box. Her father let out a sharp hiss of breath through clenched teeth, his lips pulled into a wide, painful grimace as she moved his leg. His nimble fingers fought through the pain to thread a needle, losing no time in starting work.
“What’s your name boy?” He spoke without looking up from his work.
“William, Sir.” he coughed to gain control of his voice which had come out a bit higher pitched than he expected. “William Trent.” He didn’t know why he gave his mother’s maiden name at that moment instead of his father’s. Maybe he felt he could leave his father’s legacy of dockside poverty, debts and shame behind along with his name. Looking around the shop from the inside for the first time, he took in the walls filled with tall banks of polished wood drawers and shelving. Two large mirrors stood angled on their stands, reflecting the room back at him. The mirrors on each side of the bow window directed sharp beams of light into the shop.
The young woman replaced the large glass globe back on the newly lit oil lamp which spit and danced as the flame caught hold. She pulled a slim chain to haul it up to the ceiling where it chased the gloom from the corners of the room as the eager little flame took a proper hold. She led William back to the dim hallway outside the cutting room and pushed open a door under the stairs leading down into darkness. She lit a small brass oil lamp and as she settled the glass funnel back into its ornate gallery, she stopped to take a closer look at William, holding the lamp up to his face.
“William Trent? You’re not Aggie’s lad then?”
“No Miss, I came looking for work and you pulled me inside.”
She smiled grimly at him, “Well William Trent, you’ve been more use than Aggie’s lad. And since he’s still not turned up, we can make use of you, for today at least. Father will be too busy to bother with you now, he’s got to make up for lost time.”
“I can make myself useful Miss. I’m strong and I learn fast.” He felt ashamed of himself in front of her, uncomfortably aware that, despite his stolen clothes, he must still stink of the docks. William couldn’t help himself and breathed in the scent of Flora while she stood close to him. The smell of her loose hair and the soap she had washed with that morning was the most wonderful thing. He stood tongue tied and felt his face grow red and hot, he lowered his head, hoping that under her close scrutiny and in the dimness of the room, she had not had chance to see him blushing.
The unaccustomed feminine scent, the swirls of tiny fibres from all the cut fabric and the chalk dust tickled his nose and he had to screw up his face to fight back a sneeze. He was determined not to leave, he just needed a chance to prove how useful he could be. He could barely hear the noise of the harbour from deep inside the building. William took the offered lamp from her and went down the stone steps to the store room in the basement to find a bolt of red cloth.
The name above the door of the shop had been wishful thinking on the part of Abraham Pethers, Outfitter to the Military & Maker of Fine Livery. When he lost his wife to the fever after delivering their only son stillborn, she left him responsible for their only surviving child, a daughter of nearly ten years. From that early age, Flora took on the roles of housekeeper and shop assistant to her father. The sign remained as a memorial to the son he had lost.
William worked hard to make himself indispensable to the tailor and his daughter, never mentioning the lack of any regular pay above the odd tip he was given when he made deliveries. He was happy as long as they put food out for him. When customers collected their new uniforms, often in a hurry to get aboard ship, they sometimes changed in the shop, leaving their old shirts and breeches behind. Clothes which could be repaired and sold on were sent out to be laundered, the rest were sold to the rag man. Flora told William to choose some presentable clothes from the pile so he didn’t show them up.
Along with no mention of proper wages for for William, there seemed to be no concern as to where, or how he was managing to live. As long as he presented himself every morning clean and willing to work, they were happy to make use of him. Before they rose, he had drawn water ready for Flora. He fetched, carried, cleaned and kept himself presentable enough for when customers saw him. When Aggie’s lad turned up later on that fateful day, he was sent away with a few choice words and a clip around his ear. William couldn’t help but feel pleased at hearing his whining protests being ignored as Flora shut the door in his face. His mother Aggie was one of the sewing huddle who had heard Flora shouting for help from the window that fateful day and her son would no doubt have received more than a clipped ear that night for his lateness.
The rhythm of the large black scissors bumping against the dark wood of the cutting table, Flora’s humming and the summoning bell of the shop door filled William’s days with new sounds. Gone was the shouting of the fishwives. He sometimes felt he was dreaming when he returned from making a delivery to find a plate of food left out for him on the end of the bench just inside the back door. He recovered quickly from the hungry months spent living hand to mouth on the streets and now made deliveries or pushed a hand cart piled with fabrics or coal along the same lanes which had previously seen him begging for scraps. The out workers who came to the back door to swap their finished uniforms for money and a new parcel of pinned cloth shapes to sew up always got a smile from William. He would watch their backs as they left with their small children darting around their skirts and tied to their backs and hope that they would have enough to buy a pie on their way home.
Mr Pethers began asking William to serve in the shop, preferring to keep his eligible daughter away from the colourful language and the unwelcome attention of some of their customers. Outside the shop, a one armed man spent his days sweeping the lane, keeping the area outside the shop clear of manure, waste and drunks. He would make a great deal of opening the door for wealthy looking customers, hoping for tips. William would pass some spare food out to him, thankful that he wasn’t also having to live on the streets.
The tailor, despite being left crippled by his ankle which caused him considerable pain and kept him from being able to walk or stand on it, lost no trade with his disability. William had soon made himself thoroughly invaluable and as each year rolled into the next, he proved himself to also be an eager student. Mr Pether’s lack of a son was made easier with William’s devotion and he slipped comfortably into training William to be a tailor.
Mr Pethers and Flora whose bedrooms were situated on the third floor, were unaware that, soon after being taken on, William had started sleeping in the basement storeroom at night. The high strip of window which let no more than a leaking light from the yard into the basement was fastened on a simple catch. William would leave it pushed closed but leave the catch undone. Later, he would return via the backyard and slide into the basement like a contortionist. In the early mornings, well before the family rose, he would fold away the blanket he use as a mattress and hide it away in a dark space behind the tall shelves and boxes of stock. On one occasion, Flora heard a noise in the basement and had gone downstairs armed with a huge pair of scissors. She had been surprised to find William already moving bales of cloth around and was embarrassed to be seen in her night dress. He told her innocently, while hoping she couldn’t see his blanket which was still laid out in the darkness behind him, that he had come in early to catch a rat before it spoiled any of the cloth. Relief at finding it was only William in the basement, she didn’t questioned at the time how he came to be there so very early in the morning when she hadn’t unlocked the back door.
Over the years, Mr Pethers and his daughter came to depend more and more on William. He managed the stock as well as carrying it. Flora had to spend more time nursing her father and his eyes grew weaker till he could only work in the brightest light. William would half carry Mr Pethers up and down the two flights of stairs between his bed and the chair in the shop where the old man spent more of his days by the small cast iron fire, feeding it with coal to keep the pressing irons hot, than he spent sewing. Flora kept begging her father to have his bed brought down into the cutting room where they could push under the cutting table during the day to save him having to suffer being carried up and down the stairs every day. William insisted it was no trouble to him at all. He wanted them to stay upstairs in the bedrooms so they wouldn’t find out he was still spending his nights in the basement.
Weighed down by three new bolts of fine woollen cloth on his shoulder, William walked down the stone steps to the storeroom. He knew these steps so well that he no longer bothered with a light, the dim light from the narrow window was enough for him. He had been careful to keep the stockroom as clean and neat as the rest of the house so, apart from the occasional stock check by Flora, when he would move his bedding out into the back lane, there had been no danger them finding him out. With a sigh of relief as he lifted the weight of the cloth off his shoulder and onto to shelf with a thud, he stretched his back and rubbed at his shoulder which ached after carrying the heavy cloth back from the warehouse.
“Welcome home William.” Flora’s voice came out of the darkness behind the shelves. William froze and felt his throat tighten as he fought for words to explain the pile of neatly folded blankets at her feet.
“Miss Pethers, it’s not what you think…” as William looked around, he saw how confident he had become in the privacy of the stockroom. He had relied on Flora being too busy running the house and nursing her father for her to need to come down to the basement. Hanging from the corner of one shelf was one of his shirts, and next to it was a small stub of candle settled in a pool of wax on a small pink flowered plate .
“I think your rats have made themselves rather too comfortable down here.” He could not see her face in the shadows to see how furious she was. Her calm voice gave nothing away.
“Please. I beg you, Miss Pethers, don’t turn me out. I only need somewhere to sleep.” Flora remained standing in silence. William didn't dare say more, aware she could see him even in the dim light, but he couldn’t see her in the shadows. Eventually she let out the huff of a what could have been a small laugh.
“Well for a rat, I suppose you keep the place clean and tidy.” He could hear her take a couple of careful steps out from behind the shelf. “I knew you were sleeping down here. I didn’t tell Father. I will admit I felt a bit safer having you in the house at night, but he really cannot be hauled up and down stairs any longer. I want him to move his bed into the cutting room but he won’t hear of it so I shall have to settle for moving him down into the parlour for now, at least there will only one set of stairs to manage. It will still too much for him, even with you all but carrying him up and down every day. I don’t see how you can stay in here without him finding out.”
Flora moved out of the shadows and to William’s relief, he saw she wasn’t angry with him, her face only showed concern for her father. She shrugged her shoulders with a hopeless air before taking control of her emotions and reverting to her usual business like manner.
“We can’t afford to pay enough for you to rent a room of your own, that’s why I didn’t say anything when I found out you were sleeping down here. You can move into one of the attic rooms and I shall tell Father that you are staying here for our convenience. I will also need my bed moving into the room next to him so I can be on hand when he needs me. You can make a start today by moving some furniture.”
William took an involuntary step toward Flora, stopping himself as her eyebrows shot up in the air in surprise. What had he thought he was going to do? Throw his arms around her, kiss her cheek? He felt so elated as a sense of relief flooded through him. After fearing he was to be put back on the streets, not only was he being allowed to stay, he was being given an official room of his own. He couldn’t stop a huge smile spreading across his face.
“You should smile more often, it suits you.” Before he could think of a reply, Flora had turned and gone up the steps to the cutting room. Eventually his face got tired from holding the wide smile and he had to let it relax away. He let out the long breath which he hadn’t been aware he had been holding for so long and felt slightly dizzy.
Life became quite comfortable for William. He enjoyed feeling secure for the first time in his life now he was officially living and working at ‘Abraham Pethers and Son, Outfitters to the Military & Makers of Fine Livery’. He forgot his previous determination to be as far away from the Barbican as he could, and put all his efforts into excelling at his unexpected new life. Customers assumed William was the son mentioned on the sign over the door of the shop. While it served Flora’s purpose if people chose to see William as family, she didn’t correct anyone who referred to William as ‘Master Pethers’ and William didn’t object to his new name. It both protected them from being seen as a vulnerable old man and daughter and gave William the new start in life he had craved. When Flora announced that she would to teach him to read and write so he would be more use in the shop, he felt he really was going up in the world.
William matured into a square set, solid young man. He sported fashionable long side whiskers as soon as he could get them to grow. He felt they gave him an air of prosperity, setting him apart from the wild full beards of the sailors or the hairless faces favoured by the stevedores and labourers.
The coughs and groans of Mr Pethers filled the shop during the day and, after being carried upstairs to his bed at night, his snores kept the house full of his presence. He no longer made any attempt to move for himself. There was no weight for William to complain about as the old man was shrinking by the month. One evening, as he settled Mr Pethers into his armchair, a dry, twisted hand dug into William's arm with surprising strength.
“Call Flora to come here.” William went to find Flora, who stepped unusually daintily into her father’s room wearing a tense, bright smile which made William nervous.
Flora went to stand demurely behind her father’s chair with one hand on his shoulder. Her excited eyes danced around the room, looking practically everywhere while still managing to avoid looking directly at William.
“My daughter has decided she is to be married.” Mr Pethers paused a moment to catch his breath before continuing. “I’ll not see another winter out, and I want to see her settled with a husband before I go.”
He glanced at Flora. She had dipped her head down and William could see her cheeks blushing.
William was at a loss what to think. He liked Flora well enough, but there had never been the slightest spark between them in the years they had lived in the same house. The distress of being abandoned by his mother, when she to take her own life rather than live without the man she loved, still haunted him. Even as her only child, he hadn’t been enough for her to stay. He had gradually come to understand how much his parents must have loved each other. He wanted no less for himself, and knew he didn’t have such feelings for Flora. He could not refuse to marry her if they asked it of him. After all they had done for him, William felt he owed them that much.
He stood for a while, staring at the pair of them. He couldn’t think of a single word to say. An air of unspoken expectation filled the room and he felt trapped. A dozen different possibilities ran through his mind and none of them saw him being kept on if he refused to marry Flora.
Mr Pethers broke the silence for him. “You have the makings of a fine tailor, so you will most likely be kept on here. Flora says there’s enough room down in the basement to put a bed if you can stand going down in the world.” Mr Pethers wheezed at his own joke, not realizing the full humour of it, and ended up in a prolonged, raspy coughing fit. Flora rubbed and patted his back till he recovered himself.
Flora’s beaming face finally settled on William’s startled one, and she laughed at him, seeing his confusion.
“Mr Kitchener’s son from the Drapers shop in Pin Street has asked Father for my hand. We are to be married within the month and will set up home here.”
Chapter 4
“Hang it all, I’ll not be seen wearing half my lunch down the front of me” The door to the shop was thrown open with a crash, making the bell clatter excitedly and the mirrors in the deep bay windows shudder and send their reflections jumping around on the walls. Flora pursed her lips at the noise and glanced over at William and, seeing he was already behind the counter, she slipped out of the shop into the cutting room. Flora would disappear when men entered the shop, by the nature of the goods they sold, William was better suited to serve them.
The man's wife had both her hands on his arm, trying vainly to steer him away from entering the shop. Her small frame couldn’t help but lose the battle against his more generous proportions. He shook her hands off his arm and went through the door of the shop with his chin jutting out defiantly. With her hand still outstretched toward his back, she made one last desperate attempt to stop him.
“My dear, you have more shirts at the hotel. There really is no need to buy more.”
“I've said I'll have a new shirt, and a new shirt I shall have.” With a loud thud of his cane on the wooden floor, he signalled an end to the discussion and turned his attention to the interior of the shop.
Laid out on the low dark countertop were three new white shirts, the tissue of their cardboard boxes had been laid open in invitation. William, having been unable to avoid listening to their exchange outside the shop, was using a small set of steps to reach a fourth box down from the highest top shelf. Noticing he now had the gentleman’s attention, he released the shirt from it's tissue bed, shaking it with a flap to make the folds fall from the fabric. With a well practiced flourish, he draped it across his arm in one fluid movement to display it.
A satisfied beam spread across the man's face at the seductive sheen of the silk.
“See, my dear. A gentleman shouldn't have to ask twice for what he needs. You could learn from this young man. Pethers is it?”
“If you please Sir.” William made discreet and humble bow, while noting the growing fury of his wife who now stood just behind her husband, biting her lip with frustration. The two daughters gazed around the shop showing little interest.
Under her breath, his wife hissed. “Edward, please. Think of the girls. They simply must have new gowns this season.”
“Enough I say”. He turned to face his wife with a narrow eyed glare which held an unspoken threat. His wife dropped her head and took a step back from him without another word. Turning back to William, his face flicked instantly back to the genial customer as he took William into his confidence.
“They’d have me dressed as a pauper while they take tea dressed up fine as royalty eh?” His fat fingers rubbed the fine lace at the neck of his shirt and William winced as a dark yellow grease mark was left on it. William decided to display the details of the shirts from his own side of the table, to avoid the man touching them. While showing the cut of the other shirts, William cast a casual eye over the rest of the man’s family. The girls dresses showed signs of having been re edged several times with bands of different shades at the hem. The man's wife stood rigid, her eyes staring at the back of her husband’s neck, not even glancing at the shirts on display. She knew any further word from her would only spur her husband into spending more just to annoy her.
Her husband never considered the expense when it came to his own fine attire, but her girls were still having to wear clothes from two seasons ago. She had insisted on joining her husband on one of his regular journeys to Plymouth to be on hand when he collected his dividends before he spend it on fine dining for relative strangers at his club. This time there had been little profit from his deals, and she would need every penny to smarten her daughters if they were to find decent husbands before long. They could not be seen socialising in the dresses they still had from when their father was still alive, even a skilled needlewoman couldn’t hide the fading of the fabrics which were several years old.
The younger of the two young women frowned at William from behind her mother’s back and shook her head, he blinked one slow blink to her, showing he had her understood. He started folding one of the shirts back into it's box.
“Hold fire there. I haven’t settled on any of them.” He glanced down at the large stain of fresh gravy down the front of his own shirt and lace and tutted. “If you’ll be so good as to help me change out of my lunch into one of ‘em, I’ll take em all.” He laughed heartily at his own joke while William unfolded a large panelled wood screen on brass castors into a small changing area at the back of the room.
With his good humour restored and his appearance spotless again, William wrote up the sales docket. The man’s wife was at his elbow, peering at the balance. She drew in a sharp breath at the total to be paid. The shirt her husband had thoughtlessly chosen to wear was the fine silk one from the top shelf which was many times the cost of the one he had been wearing. With her face so close to her husband's, a redness quickly rose from his neck till his face was flushed with anger. He turned his head, and, nearly nose to nose with his wife, snapped at her.
“Can I not buy even a shirt for my back without more of your confounded whittering?” She took a quick step away from him as though he had struck her.
He turned to address Williams in a lighter tone. “I’ll take a half dozen. Have them sent on will you?” his eyes were blinking fast and his nose held high in the air as he tried but failed to affect an air of being untroubled at the expense.
In barely a whisper, his wife spoke quietly behind him. “Edward, please. I beg you, show some restraint.”
“Make that a dozen, of each. Send them on to our house in Bath if you don’t have them to hand.” He turned around to face his wife and daughters like a ship in full sail, his new white silk shirt glowing in the reflected sunshine of the mirrors.
“Let that be the last word on this subject. I’ll not dress like a fool so you can spend all my money on your foolish fripperies.” The daughters each took an arm of their distraught mother and took her to sit in the chair by the window. The younger daughter gestured behind her father's back with a flurry of her hands to beg William to stop the ridiculously large order from being taken.
Such a large order would be very welcome in any shop. Businesses didn't succeed by always doing what was best for the customer, but on how much went into their tills. William knew Flora would be delighted to see such a large sale and there would be a little extra for William he was certain. Something about the younger daughter had interested him from the moment she had taken her first step inside the shop. Was it the way she had cast her eyes over everything, himself included, making him feel like prey to a hunter? Whatever the reason, he wanted to oblige her.
“If I may Sir.” William, ushering Edward away from the women with an outstretched arm indicating that Edward would like to go in front of him. William followed him to the far end of the counter. In a low voice, William addressed Edward with what he hoped was a suitable degree of simpering embarrassment.
“Sir. If I may be so bold. These shirts of ours are the very finest as a gentleman of such good taste as yourself can tell , but…” William appeared to hesitate.
“Out with it man. Or are you also determined to see me walking naked in the streets?” Edward growled at him.
“Not at all Sir. Only such a fine gentleman as yourself may not want to be burdened with such a large number of identical shirts. It may lead to embarrassment if it is thought you have only the one shirt as they are all the same.” William wondered if he had gone too far and overestimated the vanity of this blustering fat man.
Edward could only see a way out of current uncomfortable position was being offered, and he grabbed it. “Good point there, very good point. After all, tailors know about these things eh?”
“The other three shirts can be at your hotel within the hour. Sir.”
“Capital suggestion. Write the order up then and we shall be off. I must say, I do rather like this one I have on. It is silk you say? Do you have just another couple of these? After all, a man needs to wear more than his lunch eh?” He laughed at his joke again, not yet willing to let it go and also with relief at being released from the expensive hook he had managed to impale himself on with his short temper,
“I’m sorry Sir, that is our last one.” William rang up the sale, and dropped the coins in the till. The bell of the till sent an involuntary twitch across the face of Edward’s wife as though she were in pain. She was yet to know that it was not for as much as she had feared.
“Come along my dears. There are some fine gins to be sampled just a little way further down the road. I shall need something to get me through the horror of paying for your fine dresses.” Edward sailed before his family to the door. William just made it there before him, holding it open for them. The younger daughter hung back a little, seeming to struggle with one of her gloves. She was still at the doorway by the time her family were halfway down the lane.
“That was kind of you. You lost a big sale there.” She smiled at him and William felt he had been paid more than the price of the shirts just with that one smile. His face broke into a wide helpless smile in answer as he could find no words for once. She touched his arm lightly and laughed at him. In the lane, she looked back at the sign over the door.
“Goodbye Mr Pethers, it has been a pleasure to meet you.” William could only stare as she walked away from him. As she made her way down the cobbled lane, the colour was drawn from his world along with her, leaving him desperate to keep her in sight.
“William,” he called after her, “William Trent.”
“If you say so.” She called back coquettishly. “Goodbye then, Mr William Trent.” He stood and watched as she caught up with her family and, just before she disappeared out of sight at the bottom of the lane, she turned and quickly waved to him.
William felt heat rise from the centre of his chest to reach the top of his head and he had to wipe a hand across his damp forehead, his face burned red with awkwardness. She had known he had been watching her. He took a couple of minutes to cool down in the breeze coming up off the sea before he went back into the quiet of the shop. Flora had come through from the back room at the sound of the bell over the door, and was delighted at the sale
“Three linen shirts, one silk. I suppose he came for one and you persuaded him otherwise?” Flora cast him a small quick smile and looked at the coins in her hand. “Well, you’d better get them wrapped and take them to the hotel.”
“Yes Miss Pethers.” He folded the shirts back into their boxes, feeling slightly guilty that he had not taken the man's larger order. Now he needed time to figure out what he was going to do about getting to see the young woman again.
Chapter 5
“Come through, come through,” Edward pushed the maid at the open door aside, signalling for a surprised William to enter the house.
William had just placed his hand on the low cast iron gate which lead down the steps to the basement kitchen of the imposing stone house in Bath at the very same moment Edward was leaving the house by the front door. Not wishing to contradict the man, William did as he was bid and covered the wide steps leading up to the large open door in a couple of bounds and entered into the hallway. Obviously delighted to see him, Edward placed a proprietary hand on William's shoulder and ushered him through into the drawing room where his two daughters, Caroline and Agatha were sewing quietly with their mother in varying degrees of both interest and skill.
William had only enough time to shove the box he had been carrying at the disgruntled maid who, with a sniff, left it on the hall table and disappeared through a door which left only a vague outline and small handle visible in the wallpaper.
William had had Edward's discarded gravy covered shirt laundered and wrapped like it was a new one. Copying the home address written on the sales slip, he arranged to travel to Bath to deliver it himself. Mr Kitchener, as Flora’s husband and the new master of the tailors house, had not objected when he asked permission to deliver a special order himself although only Flora suspected the real reason for his sudden desire to travel and drew attention to the fact that William was paying for the journey from his savings.
“Quite caught your eye did she? Well, no harm in setting your sights high. Just be ready to be thrown out like last week's fish.”
William could only grin at her. He could think of nothing else since the moment she had turned back to wave at him from the end of the lane that day. He had to see her again and had thought no further than that, hardly daring to imagine what he would do if she had forgotten him. He knew it was madness. But he had nothing to lose but the cost of a night's board and the cheapest fare to Bath that he could find.
“Look who's come calling, my dears.” He tipped his head sideways toward William, and whispered through a fixed smile, “Refresh my memory, What’s your name again? I declare I have lost it somewhere in this old head of mine.”
“William Trent, Sir.”
“Of course it is.” He turned to his wife and daughters with a flourish of his arm toward William and made the introductions which were received in stunned silence. Slightly displeased by the lack of enthusiasm which met the appearance of his visitor, Edward turned to lead William out of the room.
“We shall leave the ladies to their needles, eh Trent? A particularly nice crate of brandy has just been delivered, you shall give me your opinion on it.”
“As you wish Sir.” William was lost for words. Glaring across the room at him, Edward’s wife could not disguise her fury. She recognised him well enough and thought he had presented himself at the front door of the house on purpose, instead of having been mistakenly forestalled on his way to the servants entrance by Edward himself. The elder daughter gazed disinterestedly out of the window. The younger daughter was biting her lip and blinking fast to keep her barely restrained laughter from escaping. Williams tried to speak as he caught her eye, but his mind went empty at the sight of her. She winked at him and before he knew what was happening, Edward had swung him around by the arm and was eagerly leading him towards his study and the brandy.
Unaccustomed to strong drink, William took his time with the fiery gold liquid and swirled it around the large glass, copying his host. He let Edward get several drinks ahead of him before he put down his glass. Edward had talked at length of his plans for bettering the families prospects, mainly his hopes to match his daughters with profitable marriages. With his own family's money long gone, he was steadily working his way through his new wife's inheritance with his expensive tastes and poor choice of business partners.
“If only I could raise a bit of capital from this house,” Edward was saying, “I could repair my fortune in a matter of weeks, but while it stays in the hands of our learned Professor…” Edward threw a spiteful glance toward the ceiling, as though to see through the floors into the Professors currently empty rooms, “I can’t even raise capital against the place.” He filled his own glass again generously, not noticing William had put his glass down. “How long did you say you were in town Trent? You’ll be staying at your club I suppose?”
“I came straight here. I have yet to find lodgings for tonight.”
“Wonderful, you will stay with us then. Yes, yes, you really must stay with us.” He looked at William again, although he was in the best clothes he had, they didn’t match up to what would be expected of a house guest. William had planned on finding a cheap lodgings if he couldn’t find a seat going straight away back to Plymouth. He hadn’t thought beyond catching sight of his hopeless devotion, certainly would never have dreamed to be invited into the house, never mind being asked to stay the night as Edward’s guest.
“We won’t stand on ceremony for dinner, there’s just family tonight.” Somewhat cheered at the prospect of being a fine host, he insisted on topping up William’s half full glass.
“What business do you have here in Bath, Trent? You probably told me but I declare, it's quite gone from my head you know. Things have a habit of doing that. Good brandy this one eh?”
Not wanting to risk being thrown out of the house by reminding Edward exactly how he had previously made his acquaintance, William was as vague as he could be without telling outright lies.
“Most of my business is with gentlemen such as your own good self, Sir.”
“Aha! The Exchange. That’s where I know you from. Serve a damned fine dinner there. Wonderful place. Don’t allow women in you know. Splendid idea. Wish I could do that in my own home sometimes eh?”
At the mention of food after his long journey, William’s stomach let out a protracted grumble which no amount of polite coughing could cover. He lowered his head in embarrassment. But his host laughed delightedly and went to open the door, sticking his head out and shouting to the empty hallway.
“Bradworthy. Set another place for dinner, and get a room made up a room for my good friend here.”
“I declare this brandy gives one a fine appetite.” Maybe it was the brandy, or just the impossible turn of events which let William give in and let himself be carried away in the moment. He was enjoying being treated as a gentleman. If Edward continued to talk without requiring anything much by way of answers from himself, William hoped he may not get away without having to reveal the real reason for his visit. If that moment came, he would be thrown out of the house without a doubt, but until that moment, he intended to enjoy seeing the young lady who had inspired him to come all this way just in the mere chance of setting eyes on her again. This was better than anything he could have ever planned. Edward happily returned William’s grin, happy to have such an amenable guest turn up out of the blue.
Chapter 6
Four young men appeared from the dark shadow of the trees. White lace frills at their throats stood out against the gloom. Their heads touching as they huddled close together to hear the hushed instructions of their ringleader. They peeled apart like the petals of a strange flower as they broke apart and stood straight again. The ringleader rested his hands on their shoulders throwing a large grin at the third man. As one, they moved toward the dark forest on the other side of the clearing and then walked out of the gilded frame.
The hot, fly infested, humid heat had lingered on for weeks filling everyone with hot tempers, heavy feet with the effort of working in the stifling air which held onto the stink of fish, dung and sour beer. Dressed to fit their station, there was no escape from the heat for a group of well to do young men till they could shed a layer or two in the relatively cool welcome of the dark lounge in the club.
Slumped in his chair, half a tankard of dark, pungent ale on the shelf by his elbow, William looked like he had dozed off. Only a flicker of an eye toward the heavy door of the club as it opened betrayed his constant surveillance. When the young men had entered, they let inside with them a gust of stale, fish stinking air, challenging even to their assorted clashing colognes. They passed by him without any acknowledgement. From his customary seat just next to the entrance lobby, William could innocently take note of members entering and leaving, and see who met with whom in the high ceilinged, smoke filled room using the reflection in the large mirror handily placed for his purposes on the wall opposite his seat.
The surface of the gilt framed mirror had at one time been enthusiastically painted over with a miserable landscape, leaving only the centre of the glass of any use. The gilded, ornate frame would have been better suited to holding portraits like the other pictures in the club. This mirror with its dark woodland scene had been hung more by merit of it’s grandiose frame than for any use or aesthetic beauty.
One day, while seeming to examine his whiskers at some length in the mirror, William had eased a wedge of cork behind one side of the frame. Being so careful that even the spiders webs were undisturbed, he positioned the mirror to reflect the view of the occupants of the main club room back toward William’s vantage point, without anyone being aware of his surveillance.
With the entrance lobby at one side and the view in the mirror showing him the rest of the room, no one could enter or leave without him knowing, and he could see who met with whom. Settled so near to the door, he overheard many a conversation loaded with parting snippets of interesting information. He was in the club, but not of the club and no one seemed to take any notice of him sitting with his ale, no more than part of the furniture, not thinking to guard their tongues as they routinely shrugged their coats on and off before going through to the main lounge or up to rooms on the upper floors.
Several members greeted him with a casual nod as they entered the comfortable surroundings of the Galilean Arms. With the straight backed, former military doorman keeping out common sailors and street trade, the club members felt comfortable to conduct business within these walls which would have been frowned upon inside the Exchange or Harbour Offices.
William had been allowed inside by oversight as he tagged on to the rear of a regular group and had become as much a part of the club as the dark wood panelling. Agatha chose his clothes well. She scarcely ever bought clothes for herself, and their two sons were still young enough not to care how they were dressed. Taking her sons with her, Agatha would walk up into the better areas of the city, enjoying the wide, relatively cleaner streets, relieved to be away from the mush of fish guts and horse dung covering the cobbles outside her door.
If she caught sight of an expensive cuff, or the glow of a quality velvet among the ragman’s cart of secondhand clothes, she would elbow her way through the crowd, haggling as well as any fishwife, to buy the best quality clothes. She wished she could buy the garments whole before they were stripped of the fine lace, buttons and ribbons so much of her spending went on buying these fine touches back again. She kept an educated eye on the rapid changes in fashion and would spend hours altering even these fine clothes. By the time she had finished working on them, even the original owners would have been satisfied to wear them again.
“Fine clothes for your spider.” William would say to her with a grin, standing patiently while she tied his neck scarf again and again until she was satisfied she had got it just right before standing back to admire her husband.
“Fine clothes open fine doors.” Agatha would reply.
Since choosing William above and against her family’s wishes, Agatha was determined that one day she would be returned to the fine lifestyle she had known as a child. Agatha had set about teaching William the ins and outs of the manners expected of a gentleman. Though he thought he had dressed finely enough when he had first turned up at her home, it had been glaringly obvious that not only his clothes but his manners were not going to be enough for him to be accepted as being any better than he was.
In the daytime, William would dress in his serviceable black trousers and waistcoat, his white shirts had permanent ink stains on the cuffs which suited his position as one of the clerks at the Harbour Office. Being just one of many anonymous clerks who constantly scurried around the offices, he could move unquestioned between different offices and exchanges using errands as an excuse while gathering information for his own purpose. William looked the same as all the other clerks perching on high stools ,writing in ledgers and poring over documents. There was no difference between one clerk and the other as far as ship owners or investors could see, looking impatiently down at the top of a head, interested only in what their pen was writing, thinking nothing of the man holding it. William used his position as a clerk to hide in plain sight while overhearing more conversations while bent over piles of itineraries and manifests than he ever heard in the club.
William had a third set of clothes which Agatha refused to have inside their rooms because they smelled so bad. These had to be left hanging on a peg outside the door and even these were sometimes stolen. These were used for William’s nocturnal prowls through the dark lanes and low taverns where drunken sailors would unwittingly give him precious information about their captain’s business. He carried only a few small coins for these trips, for fear of being robbed and found with too much for a common sailor to have on him. Not that he was in much danger of being robbed, keeping his wits about him, he avoided drinking any of the drinks he bought. He would pour his own drink into anyone’s glass if it looked like it would help it’s owner talk more freely.
Seen only as an impoverished clerk, for a coin here and there, a ship owner or investor would ask for information from the piles of ledgers, he would melt away from their side after quietly saying a few valuable words. Not all the information he passed was available in the ledgers, but he was becoming too useful a man to be questioned about his sources and so his web grew larger with every deal he managed to stick his nose into.
William didn't want to show off his growing illicit income, much to the frustration of his wife, and he insisted on keeping their lifestyle within the official means of a clerk’s wage.
“Soon, my love.” he said as he brushed his cheek against hers, his kiss missing her lips by only a whisker as she moved her head away at the last moment with a grimace. “I never need smell like a drunken corpse again.”
Agatha grinned weakly at him before pushing him out of the door, holding her breath to avoid breathing the rancid smell of his street clothes, he reeked of stale ale, salt air and fish and she didn’t know how he could stand to put these clothes on again and again. William refused to have them washed and often she would dreamed of burning them. Agatha heard him laughing at what he called her dainty manners as he went down the stairs, and was swallowed up into the night life of the harbour.
She hated seeing him dressed in such desperate clothes, but she trusted in him to make good his promise. The dirty seafaring rags she refused to have in the house had him accepted in the alehouses and brothels around the docks. Soon she would have to tell him the real reason why she had pushed him out of the door so quickly this time. She hadn’t wanted to distract him by telling him about the sickness she had suffered over this last few weeks. It had taken every bit of her self control to hold back the waves of nausea when she caught the warming smell of those horrible clothes on his body when he put them on this time.
If dressing her husband up in rags and sending him out into a night full of cutthroats and press gangs was what William needed to do to get them out of this place, then she would support him in any way she could.
Agatha born into a life of high status, but unfortunately, thanks to her mother’s second husband, who managed to ruin his own finances and was working his way through her mother’s with his hopeless business ideas and selfish self promotion. Even so, she had given up a life of relative comfort to marry William against her mother and stepfather’s wishes. The young Mr William Trent was too poor a prospect to have ever been considered a match for their daughter.
Agatha's parents refused to give her a dowry when she insisted on marrying William. They didn’t believe she would go through with the wedding when it was obvious she would be condemned to a life of poverty. Despite what they thought, she married William in a neighbouring parish without their blessing, and though she managed to fetch little with her beyond her own clothes, she brought with her the ways of how monied society worked. With her impeccable manners, she soon taught William to speak and act in the understated manner of a wealthy gentleman. She quietly struggled to maintain their meagre home and raise their two young boys. Their first victory when he was allowed into an exclusive gentlemen's club without being questioned by the doorman. It had cost him half a day's pay just to tip the man when he had arrived at the club’s door by carriage a couple of days later to make sure he would be let in on his own. The short journey from only two lanes away had amused the coachman, but as long as he was paid, he wasn’t inclined to ask in this part of the city.
Agatha had joined William in his attic room at the tailor’s shop, but with the birth of their first son, William secured a larger room for themselves on the main Fore Street above a whelk and eel shop and took on a better paid job at the Harbour Offices.
Agatha had to rub shoulders and sometimes fight with the street girls who would try and use the darkness of the shop doorway below the window to their room to ply their trade as she tried to get her baby to sleep above them. Even though she was shocked at just how poor William was she joined him in the attic at the tailors shop, being for the first time without a maid or even a servant, she simply rolled up her sleeves and made the best of what life had handed her. While she was with William, she was where she wanted to be.
The arrival of their second son saw William and Agatha proudly find their first house together. It couldn’t have been much smaller, being no more than a couple of tiny rooms built onto the back of an older stone house, but at least Agatha now had her own front door and William could slip away easily into the shadows of the back lane without anyone questioning his seemingly sudden rises and falls in status
Chapter 7
William’s curiosity was stirred by the young men’s arrival, though he gave no sign as he kept his head down and his eyes practically closed. Seeming to have fallen asleep in his seat, his head lolling uncomfortably against the edge of the window sill, the young men spared him only the briefest glance. The four men were known to William. He had watched them over the last few months as they kept coming into the Harbour Office searching for a name which had yet to be written in the listings on the large chalk boards of harbour arrivals and departures. He had seen them getting more anxious as they repeatedly sought out newly arrived captain's. They did not looking happy at any information, or lack of, that they received.
The groups noisy entrance into the main lounge caused some members to turn their backs to them with dissatisfied grunts at breaking the hallowed low muttering hum of normal club standards. They chose a table in the centre of the room, despite the more comfortable, and private, side booths available, they called for wine and food. Soon their table was set so full of dishes that a side table had to be pulled over to take the over spill of food and wine.
Their casual disregard for the quiet sanctity of the club confirmed for William that the deferential welcome given to them by the doorman and the landlord was due only to their families wealth and social standing, rather than any grace of their own making. He had seen the group several times, but tonight they were different, there had been an air of mischief about the group as they had come in. Their high spirits soon turned their attention to the distraction of gambling as plates were pushed aside and a pack of cards was produced. As the bottles piled up, so the stakes increased, all on the turn of a card.
Unable to match either the ringleaders luck, or income, one by one his companions backed out of the game. Past experience had taught them that their friend would insist on being paid out on his winnings, even if it meant they had to call on their families to make good their debts. William had moved from the lobby and taken a seat in the darkness of an empty booth where he could better see the lively goings on.
The ringleader suddenly stood up, pushing his chair away from him with a clatter and raised his glass in a grandiose salute to the room, then tapped it with the side of a knife to make it ring out. He waited till he had everyone’s attention, no matter how unwilling then, in a loud, slightly slurred voice, he announced to the room in general that his friends were insufferable bores.
“Surely there must be someone who will take a friendly wager? The game has become too rich for the blood of my friends here”.
“Calm yourself Charles.” One of his companions pulled at his sleeve to make him sit down. “ You would not be happy till you have the very clothes off our backs, that’s why we won’t take your damned wagers and well you know it.”
The ringleader, having no takers for his offer of a game, took up his friends suggestion and raised the stakes higher.
“What a splendid idea. Oh, my dear fellow, you are a most wonderful wit. That is what my next wager will be for.”
“On the turn of this next card, I offer my shares in the fine ship and cargo of the ‘Leticia’.” He paused to allow a minutes thought to go around the room while he took his time in refilling his glass.
“Is there one man among you who will match my wager for no more than the clothes on his back tonight?” He looked around the room as faces turned away from his searching gaze.
“If the card goes to me, then the loser will have to go home as naked as the day he was born.” His lips stretched wide across his face, showing his teeth in an attempt so appear jovial but his bright smile had the look of a shark and his friends looked down to the spent cards on the table, hands on their laps, avoiding the calculating faces around the room.
The uneven wager where he could lose such a large stake against the possibility of an evenings sport hounding a naked man through the rough streets appeared to be of little concern to him. His friends were divided in their support, two of them egged him on, cheering and raising their glasses at the prospect, but the other shook his head and tried and make him sit back down.
“Let it go man. Can’t you see you’re testing everyone’s patience? This is not the place for your games”. He nodded his head toward the landlord who had come out from behind the bar and was casually wiping down one of the tables near to them while keeping his attention fully on the group.
The young man shrugged off the restraining hand and waved in the direction of his seemingly concerned friend.
“My good friend here, Mr Nathan Ellis, is no less than a junior partner in the excellent firm of Crossland, Merriwether and Bywaters. By my good fortune, carries with him the shares I speak of. If the card goes in your favour, the deal can be done this very evening. My shares against a shirt. Who feels lucky enough to take my wager?”
William had watched as the evening unfolded and each man dropped out of the game in turn. Copious amounts of wine and brandy had been consumed both during and after their meal and the noise of the group had risen steadily. If it had not been for the money they had spent so freely, the landlord would have told them to leave.
Used to scanning page after page of ledgers, William had found he had a natural ability to account for large cargos at a flickering sweep with his calculating eyes. William had casually been counting the cards as the game had played out. When his companions no longer wanted to risk money on the turn of a card, the wagers had turned to the telling of secrets, for a month polishing boots and, although it was fortunately lost, for one night with one of the men’s sisters.
At the promise of immediate ownership with signed documents to justify the legality of such a daring public wager, despite the apparent inebriated state of the young man, and with a roomful of curious witnesses, William’s interest was aroused.
Less than an hour earlier, in his other guise of a dockside drunk, he had overheard a newly landed sailor reassuring a woman that the cargo ship ‘Leticia’ had been sighted off the coast of Ireland despite being overdue by some months and feared lost at sea. This information was too late to make an entry on the board at the exchange which had already closed its doors for the night, and it went some way to explain why the ‘Leticia’s shares were now being offered in such a one sided bet.
William considered the small risk that he might have to run naked through the very streets where it had taken him years to build a reputation and dismissed it. It would not happen to him. William had watched the cards all night and knew which would be drawn next.
When his winning card was turned, he would insist on taking immediate possession of the documents, he would not give way if they asked him to wait for the morning. If the card went against him, then he would call for the deck to be checked.
Drunk though he was, the young gentleman would be honour bound to make good on his side of the wager rather than risk ever being shown as a cheat. The shame it would inflict on his family’s good name meant he could not challenge William if he had to call for the deck to be checked. He would lose a lot more than just his share of a ships cargo.
More drinks were called for and Mr Nathan Ellis revealed a thin leather portfolio which had been kept tucked between his feet the whole evening. With slow, exaggerated care, he handed a beribboned sheaf of papers across to his friend with a word of caution,
“You are risking everything you own of the ‘Leticia’, both stocks and shares if you lose this wager.”
“No fun otherwise, eh Nathan?” He thumped his friend’s arm and took hold of the documents and waved them in the air above his head.
“Gentlemen, I offer you, on the turn of the next card, the legal ownership of all my shares in the splendid ship ‘Leticia along with my shares in her cargo. She is currently on her way from the East and will be laden with silks, spices and suchlike. A rich prize surely when set against the mere shirt off your back.” He waved the documents above his head again as he turned slowly around to meet the shocked faces in the room. The landlord stood dumbstruck with his hands on his hips, no longer keeping up his pretence of wiping tables.
“The cards are undisturbed, my fine landlord will surely be testament to this as he has watched us like a hawk from his perch on my shoulder” The landlord, having been drawn into the unwelcome spotlight, had to admit that he had moved closer to watch the game unfolding and had been only feet from them for the last half hour and could only nod his agreement.
“Surely there’s one man here brave enough to take on my wager?”
William let a tiny, brief smile escape before he stepped out into the glow of the room from his dark corner.
The bet sounded idiotic to the rest of the room, a fortune in shares on the turn of a card, but the young man played the fool well. He had given up hope that the missing ship was ever going to turn up after such a long time without word or sighting and he didn't want to be saddled with the debts an uninsured ship would put on him, he wanted to be free of it as soon as he could.
William, however, had received information only a couple of hours earlier, that the Leticia had been sighted. The captain had noticed that the rich cargo had attracted too much unwelcome attention in one of the ports on his way home, so had deliberately taken the ship wide off her course into uncharted waters to avoid being followed. With the hold full of the most expensive goods he had ever carried, he had not dared to risk even sending word ahead. The local fishing boat who had spotted her had no interest in the workings of the Harbour Exchange Office, only caring to let wives and mothers of the crew on the overdue ‘Leticia’ know that their men were at last on their way home.
Before the card was turned, William had the man restate the exact nature of his wager, ensuring that the whole room was in no doubt what was on offer. The young man clapped him heartily on the shoulder and called him a good sport, pulling a chair to their table to include him.
William’s rising excitement had sobered him from the the little he had already drunk. He felt more clear headed and alert than he had ever been in his life. He knew he was right about the cards. He wasn't worried about running through the streets naked as there was less than a hundred yards for him to reach the dark ginnel where he could quickly disappear over the wall into his own yard.
Thousands of entries in his ledgers told him this bet was well worth taking. His web had just landed a juicy fly right in the middle of it. He could feel the strands vibrating with promise. By in the time it took for another bottle to go around the table, there was a tight clump of men trying to get the best view of the innocent looking playing cards on the table. The landlord was keeping his eyes fixed on the pile of cards, having got himself unwittingly involved.
William playfully unbuttoned a couple of buttons on his waistcoat to the great amusement of the room. Showing himself to be a good sport. Though he was confident that this was as much as they would see of him removing his clothes that night.
Standing again to address the room, Mr Nathan Ellis stated the terms of the bet and was answered with a rousing cheer and shouts to get on with it. Both parties shook hands and took a step away from the table and hush fell over the room. The landlord was asked to turn the card in the name of impartiality, he approached the table, wiping his hands on his apron before he flicked the top card over.
Six red diamonds stared up at the room and a cheer broke out. William's hand was heartily shaken and his acceptance further into the club had been established. He would no longer be left to drink alone in future, he had been officially accepted in that moment as one of them. The documents were duly handed to William who tucked them deep inside his coat. He would have the shares transferred over into his name as soon as the doors were opened in the morning. By his reckoning, the ‘Leticia’ could reach port in less than a week’s time and he wanted no doubt as to his ownership.
“I think you will find these are all present and correct. Go see the agent, he’ll take care of everything for you.” It occurred to William that this had not been the rash and carefree bet it had seemed at the start. The shares had been fetched for the express purpose of passing them and their obligation onto someone else.
“Why would he have these documents with him?” he asked Nathan Ellis, trying to appear bewildered
“He likes to play for high stakes. I pray you have some good friends you can count on if this ship doesn't come in.”
William looked down at the papers. He unfolded the first one and scanning the neat writing. The documents were real, he had prepared enough of them to know good from bad. Flicking quickly through them, he calculated that they represented not only the major share in the ship, but half the profits of the cargo. He glanced over the shoulder of the man to see the gambler who was now agitated in his eagerness for William to leave the club along with the papers.
“Ah, I see. He believes the ship to be lost and needs to pass the liability on to some other poor soul.” He pursed his lips, they had played the same game, both thinking they had the better of one another. William could only wonder if he hadn’t known about the ‘Leticia’ having been sighted, would he have still gambled? It would have been better by far to have lost the bet and have to run through the streets without a stitch on rather than be made bankrupt and lose not only his home, but to see his family taken to the workhouse and himself to debtors prison if the ‘Leticia’ had truly been lost at sea.
“Well played Sir.” Instead of a handshake, the man had placed his hand on William's back, applying pressure to steer him toward the lobby, thinking to make him leave the club. William stepped aside nimbly to rid himself of the unwelcome hand and, waved with a big smile to the room in acknowledgement of the toast being made to him.
When he got out of sight of the club, he kicked up his heels and ran home as fast as he could. He shouted for Agatha and had her jumping out of bed in alarm, flying down the stairs to see what had happened.
William was babbling with excitement as Agatha helped him out of his fine gentleman’s attire, and straight into the grubby clothing of a common seaman. A different, slouching drunk soon stood before her in his place. William wanted to get back to the alehouse in the narrow alley before the drunken sailors were thrown out onto the street. Between their beds, whether they were on land or water, they would be grateful for a couple of swigs from the bottle of harsh rum William was forcing into his pocket. He was eager to seek out the crew of the ‘Piper’ to hear them tell again of the ship they had seen.
William had his name put to the documents with only minutes to spare before news of the ‘Leticia’ off the coast of Ireland was put up on the shipping boards. He had sidestepped the agent, saving precious time by going straight to the office which transferred the ownership to him. The access to other departments that his position in the harbour exchange had given him had served him well this time. William’s shares realized a small fortune when the ‘Leticia’ finally arrived intact a few days later and the money came through from the sale of it's rich cargoes of silks, spices and coffee beans. William and his family were waiting on the dockside to see it arrive when news came in that it had been sighted just off the coast early that morning and was on its way home.
Ships were often delayed. Many never returned at all. The ‘Leticia’ was nearly three months late, but that delay had secured for William Trent and his young family the start of a whole new life.
When the ship's cargo was finally assessed and the ship’s dues paid. William, in his position of Harbour masters clerk, had asked to handle the paperwork himself. Now he could see for himself the true value of the cargo, there would be no one to cheat him of his fair share. He noted down the full extent of the goods for himself, and he had to check his figures twice. Leaving the office, he saw the familiar four young men deliberately making their way toward him. He couldn’t avoid them. He only had a feint hope that they wouldn’t recognise him, now dressed in a clerk’s attire, as being the same gentleman from their club who won the wager only a few short weeks ago.
Tension ran through his body as he prepared for a confrontation. He half expected that they would demand the shares back from him. With no obvious way to avoid them, he stood firm and waited for them to walk past him, while still looking for a quick escape route, should he need one. Instead he found he was being offered the ringleader’s outstretched hand.
“Well played Sir. If indeed you even are a sir”. He gave Williams a cursory look up and down and his eyebrows drew together as he tried to work out just who William was.
“Remind me never to gamble with you again.” The smile on his face, though seemingly in good spirits, was cold. William shook his hand.
“I shall. Lady Luck was certainly on my side that night.”
“I very much doubt that.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but at a nudge from one of the other men, he fixed his smile back into place and clapped William in seemingly good humour on the shoulder. William took the heavier than necessary blow with good grace and smiled back, eager to be away.
“You must let me buy you dinner sometime. We could maybe do some business together?”
William nodded and walked away, leaving the gambler to discover just how much the cargo of the ‘Leticia’ had been worth, and no doubt to curse at having gambled it away.
Agatha asked what he would have done if the card had gone against him, he smiled and dropped a kiss onto her forehead.
“He saw me as the loser, no matter which card turned. But I knew I had already won, that card was only a formality.”
Chapter 8
For over a week, the days and nights stayed stiflingly hot and still. Restless people took no pleasure in what little weak, breeze stirred the foul air. In the long days of late summer sunshine there brewed an evil mood of short tempers which had people at each other's throats at the slightest provocation. No sailor enjoyed being trapped on land for too long. With so much time to kill, no money in their pockets, both men and women turned readily to brawling in the streets. The militia kept a peace of sorts, often fighting more violent than the men they were supposed to protect. Their uniform justified picking fights as a way of letting off steam.
The bed creaked and settled again as William rose slowly from it. Agatha’s arm flopped over onto the warm, damp impression his body had left. He smiled at seeing her reaching out to him, even in her sleep, but he had pressing business which would keep him from his wife’s embrace. The night air from the open window prickled the sheen of sweat on his hot face, it was quiet tonight, a low tide meant there was no night work or waves to break the unusual calm. In the dark stillness of the small hours he could hear the sound of blood beating in his ears as he reached for his clothes in the darkness. He needed no extra light from candles, the moonless night was lit by a clear sky of stars which cast a dim glow through the window, fortunately not so bright that it threatened to spoil his night vision. Only a few moments later he slipped out of the door, letting the catch fall shut behind him.
“Just a half hour, that should be enough.” On sleepless nights like these when he took himself off on his prowls, he promised himself that he would be back home before Agatha even noticed he was gone. A few steps was all it took for him to be swallowed up in the strange quiet world of a becalmed harbour night. The low tide mud left what little water there was shucking at the sides of the boats as it pestered for a hold. The sea had pulled away from the land, taking with it the slight relief of the lapping waves as the tide went out. The rotting mud was exposed again, releasing pockets of obnoxious gas with pops and gasps. William shook out a square of cloth from his pocket and tied it around the lower half of his face, only relaxing his breathing when it was firmly in place. Just because he had been born a few paces from the harbour didn't mean he had inherited his parents immunity to the all pervading stench of it. He breathed more comfortably through the soap scented cloth and set his face toward the road rising up along the seafront. Hoping to find some cleaner air, he set off walking uphill in the direction of the high walls of the Royal Citadel.
The smell of fish, offal, stale beer and urine still managed to sting his nose as he walked as soundlessly as a shadow through the dark shadows in the narrow lanes. At this unholy hour, the very clothes a man stood in could be judged worth more than his life. He didn’t want to risk tripping over or disturbing any scavengers or foul tempered landlocked sailors. No ship had been able to leave without a trace of a wind, and sailors wages had been spent within days of setting foot ashore with the expectation of taking up another berth and being away again within the week. This left them trapped ashore with no money for food or lodgings. Fights broke out at the slightest excuse and the ships stayed out of reach, anchored outside the breakwater, tormenting the sailors as hammocks lay empty while they slept slumped hungry in doorways.
Snores and low voices came from the houses closing together on either side of the narrow lanes. From over in the next street, a woman’s shrill voice argued against the answering growl of a man. A chorus of creaking beams, distant shouts and nameless thuds filled the night air. William’s ears strained to place and explain each unusual sound. He felt a stranger in his own neighbourhood.
Taking a moment to slow his breathing and calm the beating of his own noisy heart, he let himself became one with the shadows. Working his way through the lanes, he picked his way carefully around piles of sleeping bodies, some were sprawled across the full width of an alley making him have to backtrack rather than risk disturbing them. He moved in the starlight shadows of the long, low stacks of fish crates and barrels, lobster pots and piles of nets to slip through to the harbour road where his own shadow melted into those of the towering Citadel walls.
On nights when his mind just wouldn’t to turn off and let him sleep, he would take himself off on a walk, noting the ships and boats in the harbours and then go up to stand in front of the Citadel to watch the ships standing out to sea. The ship's lanterns would sway in the dark nights like tiny orange fireflies as far as the eye could see. At the corner of the huge stone wall, he paused to let his eyes adjust to the sudden brightness of the lanterns dotted around the walls of the Citadel. Glittering lines of yellow light cast from the ships lanterns disturbed the starlit blackness of the calm sea. He stared at a solitary rigid figure standing on guard further up along the crenellated wall. Polished brass buckles and buttons glinted on the uniform in the glare of the torch by his post. The strain on the buttons on the round front of the jacket told William that it had been many years since this man had seen active service. Though he was half a wall away, William threw the man’s name narrowly through cupped hands, relying on ears as sharp as his own to hear his call.
“Simmons.”
An answering whisper which sounded like a throat being cleared came clearly through the night. William picked his way along the cinder path, keeping to patches of scrubby grass so as not to make a sound.
“Thought I might see you prowling about on a night like this, Trent. There's nothing like the pull of other folks bad fortune to bring you out of the shadows, eh?” William carefully negotiated the last few exposed yards, keeping tight against the wall till he reached Simmons lookout post, stepping into the man’s shadow as they both scanned the vista for any signs of movement.
“I don’t suppose you have a drop of something to keep a man awake on a night like this?” William slipped a small leather covered flask around the side of Simmons body. A couple of deep swigs later, it was offered back to William. William had to admire the ability of Simmons to take a drink on duty without breaking his military stillness. Both men had a touch of reptilian grace about their movements.
“Been watching that man sat on that wall for the best part of the night again”. Simmons nodded slightly toward a lump on the harbour wall. “Captain by the uniform I reckon. Stares at the water for hours. What do you think, wife found a better lover or he’s lost his ship? He’ll miss his chance to jump onto them lover’s leap rocks if he doesn’t get a move on. Tide is on the turn.”
Against the starlit sparkle on the water a solid black silhouette of a bent figure was cut out of the night.
“Got some lead in that walking stick of yours tonight Simmons?”
“Aye, I’ll watch your back. Fancy another set of clothes do you?” The buttons down the front of Simmons uniform jiggled with his soundless laughter at his own joke. He tapped at the rifle held by his side, a small button on the wrist of his glove made a delicate click against the barrel of the gun.
William nodded in the darkness of Simmon’s shadow. Not much escaped of Simmons’ sharp eyes, it was one of the reasons William had taken to him. He noticed everything, said nothing, while he kept impossibly still for hours on end.
“I have a fancy to take a stroll along the harbour road. Any other eyes on him?”
“A couple of lowlifes are tucked below that wall over there. They’ll be waiting for him to jump so’s they can strip him of what little dignity he has left. Keep seeing their heads come up. Maybe they are thinking to help him jump if he doesn’t get to it soon.”
“Well let’s see if we can’t scupper their plans tonight eh?”
A ship’s Captain offered a way out of trouble could come in very handy to William one day, it wouldn’t be the first time he had taken on a man’s debt or sorted out an embarrassing situation for someone who had standing. He happily accumulated valuable favours and obligations as eagerly as he dealt in cargoes or gold.
Chapter 9
William innocently introduced himself to the Captain by way of complimenting him on choosing the finest seat to take in the far reaching views on such a night. The man had shrugged and barely given him more than a fleeting glance. At Williams subtle encouragement, the Captain soon found himself telling his story while he was still struggling to make sense of what had befallen him. It became very real when he heard the tale finally come from his own mouth.
The Captain had been away at sea for a few months and had returned home to find his wife and all three of their young children buried. Their new house had it’s shutters closed when he arrived and the whole house had been shut up. On the day he got his promotion to Captain, his wife had insisted they could afford to move into a fine house at the very limit of his income so she could establish herself and introduce their children to a better class of people than their previous location. He raised the money by selling his shares in the ship he captained. Now he was not only without his family, he had neither ship, nor family, nothing left but a fine house which he could never set foot in again.
He had started to become concerned that his children always seemed to be sickening. He sacked servant after servant fearing that they were poisoning his family. After the death of their newborn son, he set about hiring the most highly recommended and expensive servants he could find. Certain that he had left his family in safe hands, he went back to sea. The sudden deaths of his remaining three children so soon after losing the baby was too much for his wife to bear alone. After seeing the last mourners out of the house she locked herself away in her bedroom. When the servants finally became worried enough to force the door open, they saw she was not in the room, but had left using the servants back stairs to go in search of her children. They searched the house and found her curled up on one of the children’s beds, having taken so much laudanum to numb her grief that she never woke up again.
The Captain’s tale was delivered in a dull monotone as he relived the terrible events which had left him as the unfortunate owner of a house he could never bear to set foot in.
“I have lost my dear wife and our four beautiful children. When I tried to find out what had happened, I heard that the previous family had also taken strangely ill and had lost their children too. They say that the place is cursed and I believe them. I was only spared the same fate by being away at sea. I had to take any commission I was offered to pay for the upkeep of it all.” He stared at his hands, one was crushing the other as he constantly squeezed it in a tight, tense grip.
“You find me here, wondering if I have it in me to dash my brains out on those rocks below so that I might join them.”
William placed a light hand on the man’s shoulder and kept very still. He didn’t want the man to kill himself in front of him but he was puzzled why the children of both families, one after the other had died so quickly on taking up residence.
“Indulge me sir, but I would like ask you what will seem to be a rather strange question under the circumstances”.
The Captain gave the slightest of shrugs which William took as acceptance. He took a breath and continued.
If I may, can you tell me what colour the children’s rooms were decorated?”
The Captain flicked away William’s hand from his shoulder with an angry swipe. He turned for the first time to glare furiously at William.
“What is this nonsense? Did you not just hear me tell you I have lost my whole family and you ask about decoration, have you no decency?”
“ Please Sir, I assure you that I mean no disrespect with my question. It is just that I might have an idea what happened to your family, and possibly it is the same reason the previous family also lost their children. If you could bring yourself to answer me about the colour of the walls or possibly the drapes in the children’s rooms. Can you remember if they were green, a bright green colour?” William paused. “My apologies, I can see I have unwittingly distressed you though it was not my intention. I shall leave you to your own thoughts”.
The Captain read nothing but genuine concern on William’s face. His eyes slipped from William’s face and turned, unseeing, to rest on some distant point on the dark horizon. In his mind he could see the rooms of the house unfold in his mind. He saw his wife standing in the nursery with their youngest child in her arms. He was totally absorbed in the memory for a brief moment and, he smiled back at the image of her in his mind.
He could hear again the laughter of his children playing in the long beams of sunlight from the tall windows. The velvet drapes tucked into the big brass claws at each side of the windows were green, in his mind’s eye he saw the vibrant green flocked wallpaper on the walls.
“Yes, they were green. My wife was delighted that the house had been recently decorated and she was eager to buy new rugs to match. She did so love that house.”
“Then I suspect that they were poisoned, by the new décor and not by any servant. The green dye most likely contained Arsenic powder which contaminated the air in the children's rooms. Your life was only saved because you were mostly away at sea or you might have sickened too.”
The Captain stared at him, his mouth had dropped open, his eyes sunken into the dark shadows of his face. William stayed still and quiet as the Captain struggled to make sense of what he had just been told.
“Then there is no curse, only on me for being ignorant of alchemy. But knowing this cannot restore my family.” He began shaking his head vigorously as though to rid his mind of the horror of it all.
“Green, I cannot believe it was the green”. The Captain repeated the words several times as he rocked back and forth. William was concerned that the Captain would lose his balance on the narrow wall and topple to his death, possibly pulling himself over with him. He shuffled discreetly along the wall to put himself a safe distance away from the Captain.
“It is not common knowledge that arsenic is used in such a way. You cannot blame yourself for their deaths.”
The man pulled a woman’s pale green scarf from inside his shirt, screwed it up into a bundle and in anger, threw it down into the darkness below them where it sat stubbornly bright on the rocks, it lay like a sinister twisted ribbon twitching on the first incoming lappings of the new tide. “That damn scarf could be poisoning me for all I know. I always carried it with me when I was away from them. All that time and I never suspected.”
“That time you spent away from your family probably saved your life.”
“Saved my life for what, to own a house I can never set foot in again? If it were not for having being set upon and robbed of my money and documents a few days ago, I would have bought a passage to the Americas and been far away by now. I may as well dash myself down onto these rocks and join my family.”
“Hold fast, you may not have money, but you do still have the house. I would like to suggest a way for you to be on board the next ship to leave for the Americas in return, you simply put the house in my name.”
At first the Captain was taken aback at William’s sudden surprise of an offer and could only sit there and try and think. William was relieved that he had stopped his rocking and seemed to be considering the offer.
He swung his legs off the wall and onto firm ground, facing away from the sea which relieved William greatly and he promptly did the same. The Captain had regained some of his composure and now faced William as a man used to taking command.
“Sir, that house is worth a great deal more than the price of a cabin, you must think my grief makes me a fool.” Though he knew he had no other options open to him, the Captain was quick to rally and regained some of his sanity.
“It cost you the lives of your family. I can only offer you what I can, as one father to another.”
The man cast his eyes down, shaking his head. In a matter of moments he had swung from seeing the only end to his misery on the lost lovers rocks below, and now this stranger was offering him a way out. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“That house ties you to your grief.” William put a hand on the man’s arm. “Let me take it off your hands. In the morning, you could be set on your way to a new life.”
“I would need capital to set myself up in a new country. I could sell the house for quite a tidy sum now you have put me in a mind to part with it.”
William felt the deal slipping away from him. He had not even seen the house, but a family property in Plymouth large enough to have servants quarters and a whole floor for a children’s nursery was worth a gamble.
“How long would take to achieve that? It could take months, longer perhaps if the rumours of a curse are known locally.” William stood up as though he was ready to walk away.
“Accept my offer, and you will be gone on the next tide, in a matter of hours. I can lay my hands on as much as twenty guineas if it will sweeten the deal for you.” He started to turn away, rattling some coins in his pocket to hint at the availability of the money. Seeing the only chance that would see him aboard a ship to a new life on the next tide about to walk away from him, the Captain dragged William back by his arm and stared desperately into his face.
“What of the murderous green?” The man looked around wildly, as though he could see the ghosts of his family calling to him.
“I beg of you, don't even think of letting children into that house till all trace of that damned green is gone. I will not agree till you give me your word.”
“You have my promise.” William hit his open palm against his heart and stared calmly back at the Captain. He was quietly impressed that a man in such a desperate situation would still show concern for others.
As if the sea wanted to nudge the Captain to accept Williams offer, a light gust swept across the water and sent a welcome freshness over their faces.
“A new start in a new land. Will you agree to that Sir?”
Motionless, like a cat stalking a mouse, William hardly breathed as he waited for the man's reply. The Captain sucked a slow sigh of the freshening air deep into his lungs and finally nodded.
“We have an agreement then.” They shook hands. Both men were a little stunned at the deal they had just made. This had been quite an eventful night walk for William, and the end of a long night for the Captain.
“We shall have the documents drawn up at first light. Until then, I shall keep you company at my club till then for I doubt either of us shall sleep.”
William banged on the door of the club, waking up to the landlord to take them in. Once he was satisfied the Captain was safely settled in a room, William dashed back home. Never had it looked so shabby and squalid. After reassuring Agatha that he was in the middle of a deal and had not come to any harm, he set off to call in some favours and to drag a notary out of his bed. Before the sun was fully risen, he had secured a cabin for the Captain aboard the next ship to set sail for Ireland, and from there, onto the Americas.
At first light, as soon as the papers were signed, William waved the man off on the quickening tide with the thick document tucked safely inside his jacket. The man’s passage to the Americas had cost him little more than calling in a few favours. If it turned out that there was no house after all, William felt he could only bear a grudging respect for the man’s ingenuity. Even if the man had played him false, he would be out of pocket by only twenty guineas. He smiled a wry smile at the thought of how twenty guineas would have been an impossible sum for him to imagine having at one time, and now he was dismissing the thought of having lost such a sum without distress. He had come a long way.
William watched the Captain cross the gangplank and throw down his new bag on the deck. As he walked away, hardly able to contain his excitement at the deal he had made, William knew the biggest gamble was on the actual existence of a house. He decided not to tell Agatha till it was confirmed that the house was really his.
William hardly dared breathe as he imagined telling Agatha. He threw back his shoulders with pride that he could present her with the fine address that she had always dreamed of. Their cramped dockside house deep in the middle of the constant noise, fights and squalour made her fear constantly for the safely of their two young sons.
Chapter 10
An uneasy feeling of having been taken in by the Captain kept William worried during his many walks around the better areas of Plymouth, he would ask for directions from people and even resorted to hiring carriages hoping that the coachmen might know of the street. Had he paid all that money for nothing more than an old key and a fine tale? William felt his hopes of providing a smart house away from the quay was disappearing with every wasted day. He would have to admit to Agatha what he had done. Inside him grew a grudging admiration for the Captain’s story, and the delivery of it. William would have sworn that the man told him the truth, after all, how could he have known that anyone would ever sit by him on that fateful wall, never mind the very person who could provide the means and opportunity to set him on his way to a new life?
William admitted defeat after nearly a week of combing an ever widening search area for what was turning out to be a wild goose chase when he finally showed Agatha the deeds and told her how he came by them. She quickly scanned the thick documents and then went through them slowly again before putting them on the table between them and threw her head back and laughed till she started coughing and her face had turned quite red.
“My darling, Have you have been searching in Plymouth for this house all this time?”
William was not comfortable at being laughed at, much as he loved his wife, this was a new experience for him and he didn’t like it.
“I told you, the man was adamant, the house was in the city, with a nursery, room for servants, everything you said you wanted, I had to take the chance. But I was taken for the fool. Damn fine tale he told though, had me taken in from the very first word”.
Agatha calmed herself and pressed the stiff pages flat out on the table. “Look down here, the full address is written where the paper is creased here, you must not have read the whole page properly. It clearly say the house in in London, not Plymouth, you would not have found it in Plymouth if you searched for a month.”
William turned the pile of pages around with a finger, as though they had betrayed him. Clear as anything, there was the full address on the first page. The Captain had told him only that the house was in the city, it was only William who jumped to the conclusion that the city was Plymouth.
“Ah”. he closed his eyes and breathed in and out slowly. Calmer now he opened his eyes to see Agatha staring into them, a smile on her face as big as he had ever seen. “London. You think there really might be a house then?”
“You must go and spend at least a week looking for it in London, see if you can find this house there before we give up on this fine dream”.
William’s made enquiries to share a passage to the capital at the club and had several offers within the day to share a carriage. William was reluctant to be trapped for days being rattled about in the company of these particularly short tempered strangers, so he took up an offer of passage on a small ketch making its way around the coast. A brisk westerly wind had broken the weeks of stillness and, seeing it as a sign, he chose to sail and avoid the danger of travelling by road, deciding he would rather risk an empty stomach than empty pockets.
Would he be any better off swapping one city for another where he would be far away from all his contacts, where his intimate knowledge of the area gave him such an advantage in his deals? With Agatha beside him, he felt he could take on a new start, especially if it meant restoring to her the social standing she had given up when she married him. She deserved better and he would make sure she got it in London, no more hiding their wealth, they would live the life she had been teaching him to fit into.
His decision was sorely tested within moments of setting sail when he was violently sick. He took it in good spirits and submitted himself to many suggestions for relief and tried desperately to maintain some dignity despite being the cause of much entertainment.
When he got off the ketch for the final time, he felt it was a cruel twist that the very solidness of the cobbles underneath his feet now made him feel unsteady. He staggered away from the busy, noisy quay to sit on a quiet doorstep until he could regain control of himself.
William expected the house to be within easy reach of the docks, but had little success asking for directions. Too tired and hungry to keep asking around, he sought out a cab driver and gave the address before collapsing into the hard seat and closing his eyes. Quarter of an hour later, when he was getting suspicious that he was being taken, quite literally, for a ride so he could be charged for a longer journey than was necessary, the cab jerked to a halt.
The cab driver dropped him at the end of a row of tall, elegant houses. The repeating pattern of the row of tall houses with their matching sets of half a dozen wide stone steps leading up to their large panelled doors flanked with slim pillars holding aloft large slabs of scrolled stone stretched away from him along the wide street. The low wall in front of the windows below the street level were festooned with a black lace trim of pointed iron railings. William couldn’t believe that his property could possibly be one of these, yet, after he sent the cab away, the two people he asked did confirm that he had found the correct address.
He walked along the length of the street, nodding courteously to servants and gentry alike till he reached the right house. It’s tall windows stretched four floors high above him, looking down, he smiled as he touched the gate leading down to the basement entrance tucked out of sight below street level. This time he would enter by the front door with his own key, not by trickery. The shutters on all the windows had been shut tight against the world, confirming that he had, at least, reached an unoccupied house. William tightened his hold on the key in his pocket so fiercely with nervous anticipation that the sharp edge cut into the skin of his palm. For five minutes he could only stare up at the house before he finally stood back and again counted the doors along from the end to make sure this was the one he sought.
Expecting to be turned away at the door, he walked up the wide stone steps and faced the imposing black panelled door. He drew in a deep breath before taking a firm hold on the cold iron bell pulley and tugged hard. No footman or butler appeared, no shouting or running feet, no shutters opened as he heard the bell ring somewhere deep within the house. Three times he rang the bell without any sign of there being anyone on the premises before he dared to insert the large key into the lock.
He didn’t expect it to fit, still harbouring the suspicion that he had been expertly conned into paying heavily for nothing more than a lost key and a good story. The key turned easily, finding itself at home. William pushed the heavy door inward. His feet wouldn’t move from the doorstep as disbelief held his feet to the floor, hardly daring to make the first step into the house to claim it. With twinge of conscience, he remembered the dreadful circumstances that had brought him to this door. William peered into the dark, black and white tiled entrance hall. Doors off to each side were closed, the light from the open door sent his shadow stretching out in front of him. William stepped cautiously into what could only now accept was his new start in life.
With his ears straining to alert him should the genuine owner arrive to turn him into the street, he walked quietly through the dark house, inspecting every room, assessing each piece of furniture with a brief lifting of the large sheets that were laid over everything.
The house was more than he could have ever dared hope for. That it was in such a fine location had come as a great surprise to him. No wonder the Captain had given up his ship to provide the best he could for his young family. How he must have hated his decision when he found it had murdered them all in his absence. William remembered the mere twenty guineas he had handed over to the desperate man and tried not to feel guilty for having profited so handsomely from another’s misery.
The gleaming wood panelled walls of the high ceilinged entrance hall led him past a formal dining room, sitting room and drawing rooms, finally leading him out into a bright, vaulted conservatory lined with planters full of dry and dead plants at the back of house. Each room held ghostly shapes of furniture covered with white dust sheets. Completely throwing off an odd cover here and there, showed William that the quality of the furnishings matched the house. The rich warm tones of the panelled walls were complemented by gold frames of small landscape paintings. Heavy drapes hung in front of the shuttered windows and as he disturbed them by opening the shutters slightly. They showered lively swirls of dust motes down on him as he let the slivers of daylight into the silent rooms.
William was certain Agatha would love this house. Thrilled to be able to show her sister, who still lived at the family home in Bath, how far up in the world they had risen. This London house was larger and better appointed and to be able to boast about it would please her immensely. He shook his head at the sudden thought of how many servants Agatha might insist on. The costs of running such a house would hardly compare to the pittance Agatha managed with to keep their small family living in their current two roomed hovel of a house. He shrugged. He never had a problem earning money, it was Agatha’s job to spend it. They would no longer needed to hide their wealth in London.
From the well equipped kitchens on the lower ground floor to the airy servants quarters high up in the attics, the house delighted William. From an attic window he could see across the wide panorama of streets and warehouses down to the ships and boats on the river. On a clear day William reckoned, he would be able to see far up and down the river, and over to the town on the other side. He made a note to himself to set up a telescope at this window. Studying the shuffled roofs of the buildings between himself and the river he could saw, as he had suspected, that the cab driver had taken him a circuitous route to increase the fare. This house could be no more than a fifteen minute walk down to the river.
Walking through the children’s rooms he feel a shadow of fear as he thought of the little ones who had played and died there. The nursery maid’s room still had her brush and clips set out on the dresser, her few clothes still hung on the pegs, polished boots sitting neatly below. The poor girl must have died along with the children she had cared for. All falling victim to the poisoned air. Had she had chance to leave her employment voluntarily, she would surely have taken her personal belongings with her. The children’s empty beds stood in a row, a crib set near to the nurse maids room had a low chair beside it. The white draped canopies festooned with ribbons and ruffles sent a cold shudder down William’s spine. The quiet white furniture felt all the more ghostly for the story behind its abandonment.
William delicately drew back the shutters of the tall window, letting shafts of daylight stream in, lighting up clouds of dancing dust motes. The slightest movement made them swirl around enthusiastically in the air. Pulling out a large handkerchief, William held it firmly to his nose and mouth, breathing as little as possible through the bunched up cloth. The walls were decorated, as William had suspected they would be, with a vibrant green patterned wallpaper. The velvety scrolls of soft flocking on the satin wallpaper trailed their way up to the darkness of the ceiling. It was so pretty that William found it hard to believe it was the instrument in killing the children of two successive families in such a short time.
Relieved when he was away from the haunted nursery rooms, he let himself breathe easily again. His assessment confirmed that the green décor had only been applied to this one floor of the house. He made a note to have anything green removed, in any form, innocent or not and to have the whole house scrubbed from attic to basement before they made it their new home. He had counted eight furnished bedrooms but would not risk sleeping in the house while there was any trace of deadly emerald green.
“This will suit us very nicely.” William startled himself as his words broke the settled silence of the room. He had reached the final room in the servants basement and thrown open the back door to reveal a small, walled courtyard set below the level of the small garden and large conservatory. A gust of smoky London air made a flurry of old dry leaves stir at his feet. When he passed through the kitchen, his stomach reminded him how long it had been since he had kept food down The seasickness which had so thoroughly emptied it had passed and now it started grumbling. There would be no point looking for anything to eat in a kitchen that had no occupants for weeks but for the occasional mouse or rat. Though he was now getting lightheaded with hunger, he could not be tempted by the contents of the pots and glass jars neatly lined up on the cold stone shelves. He would not have dare eat in this house even if a banquet had been laid out till it was rid of all traces of green.
The weak warm sun shone on his face as he stood to watch the comings and going on the street from the open front door of the house. He stepped outside and a brisk wind made him press his hat firmly on his head. He relaxed and drew in several welcome deep breaths, pleased to no longer have to breathe through his handkerchief. A bitter overlying sting of coal smoke made him cough.
In place of the rowdy fishwives and drunks he was used to right outside his window, here were barrow boys, costermongers and tradesmen shouting their wares in the wide, open street, servants calling out from their basements. Carts and fine carriages rumbled over the cobbles, horse's hooves striking sharp staccatos on the granite instead of the dull clomp of the horses making their way through the mush of guts and dung at the Barbican.
Another growl from his stomach told him it would be happy enough to keep a meal down so he set off back down toward the river. He would need to introduce himself in the clubs and offices where he would be conducting his business, but for now he wanted to stay anonymous, to watch the comings and goings of harbour life, to listen to the unguarded talk in the taverns and streets. He would not be staying invisible for long.
Chapter 11
William called out to Agatha to let him in, his arms were full of gifts from London. He had only just reached the door when Agatha threw it open. Instead of being delighted to see him, she took one look at him and ran past him and out of the yard gate into the alley, holding her hand over her mouth.
“A man deserves a better welcome than that when he’s just found her the house of her dreams.” he called after her. The sound of retching came from the alley in answer. Compared to the fine London house and despite Agatha’s tireless hard work, their dockside home now looked extremely dingy and desperate. He was ashamed that he had made her to live here for so long when they could have afforded to move further away from the harbour several years ago.
Agatha reappeared after a few minutes, pushing her hair back into place as though nothing untoward had just taken place.
“A bad fish my dear?” She smiled at him, the phrase was used in their household to refer to anything that didn’t suit them.
“Quite the opposite, my little spider. I hope this fine new house of yours has an extra rooms, for we shall have need of more in a few months time.” She rubbed her hand in a circle on her stomach. It was obvious that her stays had been loosened for more than just her comfort.
His mouth fell open as the penny dropped. “Are you sure? It must be ten years since Anthony was born.”
“Babies don’t arrive when it suits their parents.”
“This one couldn’t have chosen a better time then. I left instructions for work to start on the house in London. We will be far away from here before he makes his appearance.”
“It might be a girl this time William. Don't count your chickens too soon.” She stuck her chin out as she raised her face up to meet his eyes. “Do you think you can find enough business in London so soon, and more importantly, what is this house like?”
“Business will come looking for me in London, don’t you worry about that.” He couldn’t stop smiling as he stared at her circling hand.
“Our new son, my love, will start his life in a splendid townhouse on Keswick Place. All the furnishings have been left for us so we need take nothing from here.”
Agatha shook her head and pouted playfully at him, “Well I want a girl this time. If I don’t get to choose my furnishings, then I want to choose the baby.”
“Oh, it's a boy, I’m certain,” he kissed his wife enthusiastically on the lips and she wriggled out of his grasp,
“You don’t get around me that easily William Trent.”
William and Agatha settled down together that evening and he told her the full series of events in detail, starting from the night he found the Captain on the Hoe road, buying him a passage to the Americas in return for the house in London. Agatha took William by surprise when she burst into hopeless crying on hearing how the Captain returned home from sea, his wife and children all dead and buried in his absence. William assured her that every last trace of anything green was to be removed from the house before he would even dare let her step one foot inside.
Agatha stopped him fussing over her by tapping him on the head.
“It’s not me that’s crying William, it’s this baby making me soft. I’m telling you, it must be a girl.”
First thing next morning, William went to put his shares in any business dealings which had anything to do with arsenic, even though they had always paid him high returns, he felt a hypocrite still making money after he heard the Captain’s story. His experience of the journey by sea to London made him eager to invest in the new canals and railroads that were the talk of the clubs. While appearing to be travel weary and hungry, William had had to order two suppers to justify staying so long at one table just so that he heard every last bit of conversation about new investments in transport.
William had spent nearly two weeks visiting every club, exchange and commercial district he could find. He set out to gather as many letters of introduction as he could now he was back home. He needed to make new contacts in the Capital if he was to continue dealing at the same level, he was certainly not going cap in hand, he wanted to be trading straight away. To his relief, many of his business contacts were delighted with his relocation to London and were only too happy to oblige.
The next morning, he passed over the usual working clothes of a humble shipping clerk and dressed in clothes more suited to his gentlemanly status. Walking straight past his former work colleagues at their tall sloped desks, he entered the harbour masters office with only a cursory tap on the door from habit, and gave in his notice. Even though he could have bought and sold every man who worked there several times over, he still insisted on being paid what he was due up to his last day.
The morning was a tight schedule of visiting lawyers and offices as he put his affairs in order for the transition over to trading in London commodities.
It all happened more quickly and easily than William had ever dared to hope. He developed a twitch in his cheek as he kept looking sideways, as though the Captain might be there, to say it had all been a mistake.
No longer living with the pretence of being a humble clerk's wife, Agatha hired a local girl to come in every day and take over the housework. As she grew larger, Agatha struggled to walk and the girl took on more and more work for her till she was running the house under Agatha’s supervision. Maisie turned out to be such a willing girl that Agatha insisted she was to be part of their new life in London. She didn’t like to admit she was nervous of being on her own with a new baby in a strange place.
Finally satisfied that the house in Keswick Place was safe, they travelled together by ship to London. Despite his loathing of sea travel, he could not subject Agatha to the long journey which would have bumped her up and down in uncomfortable carriages for days. To Agatha’s amusement, she enjoyed the experience and took delight in tormenting William for his weak constitution.
Agatha rubbed William’s back gently as he hung his head over the side of the ship, heaving his guts up while his two sons played about happily on deck.
“Now who’s had a bad fish then, eh?”
END
A bright blue spring sky and a freshening wind gave Bill an extra spring in his step. The familiar rabble and noise of the quays surrounded him as he walked toward the Fore Street. The shouting men and screaming gulls seemed to be joining him in his high spirits. Today was the day he would become a father for the first time.
A bustle of fishing boats raced away from the quay at the same time, giving the gangs of shore hands a brief rest from their backbreaking work. Bill heard his name being called just before a young lad started tugging at his coat for him to follow. He shook the lad away with a swipe and ignored the calling. He was determined not to be delayed from getting back home on today of all days.
The streets and quays heaved with the tides of workers, their life and work dictated by the tides of the sea. The cobbled fish quay was always filled with noise. Black coated men in tall hats skipped from carriage to club, trying their best not to put a foot down on the filthy street. Barrows piled high with goods and food for sale were pushed blindly through crowds, stopping here and there to trade before being moved on, the barrow men constantly shouted out their wares.
Horses hooves, carriage wheels and thousands of feet, some shod, some bare, ploughed and weaved their way through the ankle deep sludge of dung, fish guts and general waste thrown out onto the streets from the many tightly packed houses and inns. The lively dance of traders, sailors, fishwives, thieves and strangers poured in and out of warehouses, stores, workshops and each other’s lives. Fishing boats piled their slippery catches onto the quay for bare armed fishwives to gut and pack into barrels. Ships tapped sheets against the masts, throwing their tall shadows down the narrow alleys leading away from the harbour. Tons of cargo in barrels, bales and boxes, was lugged about on strong backs, hoisted off, swinging about in the air. The holds empty for a brief moment before fresh supplies and new cargoes weighted down the echoing darkness. Sailors, weaving side to side in a pendulum walk as their sea legs got used to the solid manner of the land, came ashore with their long awaited wages, only to return to their berths with empty pockets and hangovers, as impatient as the ship itself to be back at sea.
“Mr Bill, I’ve been sent to fetch you.” Bill stopped and looked down at the lad who hopefully held out his hand. Usually he would have flipped a small coin to the messenger and promptly forgotten him, but this time, with his imminent fatherhood, he drew a shilling and pressed it into the small hand. Startled at the size of the coin, the lad tightened his fist around it and was out of sight in a flash. Shouting came from the end of the quay where a group of men were stood waiting for him.
“Bill, get yourself over here. This new chap reckons he’s fast with his fists. Come and take him down a peg.”
“Not right now mate. Got better things to do.”
“Come on Bill, won’t take you long to put him in his place.
“Or has that new wife of yours made you soft eh?”
“Hey, Bill, those flowers make you look right pretty. Come and give us a kiss.”
The taunts grew louder and more coarse. Bill’s temper rose easily to their baiting as they had known it would. The small posy of violets was crushed by the instinctive tightening of his challenged fists. He glanced down at the now limp and spoilt posy, then angrily dropped it to the cobbles. The men were already shuffling about to form a clearing. Wagers were being made even as he was striding toward them. Bill made more money from fighting than from loading and unloading fishing boats and ships at the harbour. Stockily built and well muscled, he could always secure a day’s work when he chose to, but today was different, he had only come out to the harbourside to buy violets for his wife from one of the flower girls. The young girl he had bought the posy from was a favourite of his, half thief, half trader, she pestered all and sundry, her shrill cries competing with the gulls in ferocity. Bill saw these street urchins in a new light, hoping his own child would never end up as one of these strays.
In November, just seven months earlier, the whole country was frozen in the grip of an arctic blast. Bill’s life was a simple one and he had no thought other than returning to his own warm fireplace.
The Barbican waters churned with grated layers of ice which were constantly ground up between the hulls of the frost glistened boats and ships. Ropes set hard as iron bars, and in the bright mornings, at least one lifeless body was found in the back alleys as hard as the ropes. Small huddles of hopeless men, women and children that had to be thawed out before they could be released from the cobbles.
The day had started with a bright blue winter sky filled with a bitterly cold wind. A grey band was rolling in across the sea, a freezing sea mist was on its way to shut out the sun and to make the harbourside drop another few degrees in temperature. Horses and people were surrounded by their own personal clouds of damp, chilling breath. The ground was covered in accumulated piles of frozen dung and rubbish with only narrow paths of treacherous ice worn between them. Ropes were thickened and white with the night frost, sails frozen together in a solid mass of canvas and ice. Men were frustrated as the boats were kept from going out to fish. The few catches of fish which had been landed that week had already frozen, making it near impossible for the fishwives to gut them.
Everyone moved more slowly and carefully than usual, a slip or a broken limb would see them with no chance work and would put their families in the workhouse at best, or maybe one cold morning they would also be found frozen to death in a dark back alley. Many of the homeless sought shelter deep in the stacks of barrels, nets and lobster pots piled up around the quay. Alehouses were packed tight with desperate men seeking out some warmth between jobs, penniless men stood quietly among them, unable to buy a pint or a pie of their own, just praying not to be thrown back out into the cold.
Having drawn a good crowd outside the tavern despite the cold, Bill entertained the crowd with jokes and exaggerated fake falls when he saw that his challengers could put up little in the way of a fight. Hardly needing to use the full power of his heavy fists, Bill saw off the three men who had been desperate enough to challenge him to fight. Buoyed up by the early success of his day, he had cradled the satisfying weight of the winning purse in his pocket and was making his way back home to wash the blood of the losers off his fists and shirt. He gave no thought to the three men who had been desperate enough to be knocked senseless in the slim hope of winning a fight against Bill, ‘King of the Quay’.
The dockside suddenly disappeared from Bill’s view and he saw only bright lights and cobblestones. He had tripped over a thin white foot sticking out from a pile of lobster pots, landing face down. The breath had been completely knocked out of him as he fell and sprawled full length across the frozen ground. A strange warm feeling spread out across his chest, a sticky mess sprayed up onto his throat.
Swearing and furious, his fists were clenched in readiness for a fight before he had even got back onto his feet. Instead of facing his assailant, he found himself staring into the blackest eyes he had ever seen. A pale, thin girl with tight curls which were dark enough to nearly match her eyes, was fearfully trying to press herself deeper into a towering wicker pile of lobster pots. The girl didn’t dare move when Bill’s wide shadow crept over her as he pulled himself to his feet. Like a rabbit caught in a hunter’s lamplight, she didn’t dare move, and could only stare, without daring to blink, at the man while she prayed that he would just go away without hurting her.
Bill started to laugh, a loud guffawing and snorting sound, and once he had started, he couldn’t stop.
Startled, the girl looked around for an escape route, but she was trapped. She couldn’t have run if she wanted to, her limbs stiff and numb with the cold, having spent several nights and the better part of the days burrowed in the poor shelter of the smelly baskets. She thought he must be mad, laughing like that after he had fallen into a fresh stinking puddle of horse muck. Homeless, hungry and cold to the point of insensibility, in some small way she almost welcomed an end to her suffering. Black eyes followed his bloody hand as Bill tentatively prodded at the tender lump visibly swelling up on his forehead. He absently flicked bits of straw and sticky manure off his chest.
“Well done lass. You definitely won that round.”
She pushed herself tight against the pots, there was no more space and she only made the twists of cane dig painfully into her back. Bill reached into his pocket and offered a coin out to her, she shrunk back as though it might bite her.
The girl had no energy left to keep hating her employers for throwing her out into the streets. When she told them she was pregnant, they blindly refused to believe that their darling son would ever bother to look at her, never mind to promise her a fine future as his wife. She felt a spark of that hatred returning now as it dawned on her that she would have to do what she needed to do if she was to afford a bite to eat for the first time in days. It dawned on her that when she had given freely of herself, thinking she was in love, that she could now get paid for. She could sink no lower. Now her body would have to earn her a way to survive the same way it had caused her to be abandoned.
Bill waggled his outstretched hand toward her. “Take it lass, you’ve earned it. There’s not many round here can claim to have felled me that quick. Just don’t tell anyone eh?”
The fear took too much energy to maintain and as she let it go, her ability to care what happened to herself from now on went with it and she slumped forward. The dark curls of her hair covered her face, shutting out the sight of the man in front of her.
She wasn’t going to let him see how desperately frightened she was, he could never pay her enough for that. She stiffly pushed herself out of the tangle of wicker and ropes and rose unsteadily to her feet. Holding onto the frozen pile of pots to keep herself upright, she grabbed the coin in one unexpectedly quick movement. He wasn’t as tall as she had thought, and he still had a little smile left over from his laughter on his face.
Bill was amused and saddened at the same time as he watched her struggle to get herself out of the pots. When they were finally standing eye to eye, they stared at each other for just a moment. The girl was taller than he had thought, and older. While she had been tucked tight inside the pile of lobster pots, she had looked so small, the ankle he had tripped over had been pale as a bone and shoeless which is why he had not seen it in time.
The fear in her eyes had been replaced with a hard edged blankness. He had not seen where the coin had gone, she had been so quick to make it disappear. Her cold, blue-white hands were now pressed flat against the sides of her skirt as she stood rigidly in front of him, chin stuck out with an air of defiance.
“Get on with it then.” her voice had a country roll to it, rather than the local accent of Plymouth. Her mouth was lopsided as she bit on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying with the shame. Having decided what she had to do, she didn’t want it to last a second longer than necessary.
Bill took a step back from her. “No, That’s not what I paid you for. You won it, fair and square. Made me eat cobbles quicker than men twice your size have ever done.”
She shook her head and blinked quickly, trying to figure out what game he was playing with her. He just stood there and smiling at her, his hands making no move to take hold of her. She took a step backwards and nearly fell over the tangle of ropes into the same cooling manure he had himself landed in, before daring to look him up and down. She was too weak to run away and nowhere to run to, she needed time to get the feeling back into her legs before she could make her escape. She took in his lopsided nose, twisted and lumpy from having been broken so often. One of his eyebrows was divided in two by a crinkled pink line where a thick scar had healed and stopped the hairs from regrowing. Scattered throughout his neatly trimmed beard were similar lines and dots of hairless pink skin from more scars, his lips were thin and his smile revealed many dark gaps in his teeth. The lump on his forehead was darkening as the swelling slowed. When her eyes rose to the lump, he gently traced a finger over it to check the damage and winked at her.
"Just don't hit me again, eh?" and he put his hand up as though to defend himself from her
Against her common sense, she really wanted to trust this stranger and reached to take hold of the hand which shielded most of his face from her. He kept the other hand deep in his pocket protecting his money from her fast fingers. Her fingers were so cold that she couldn’t feel his skin, only the weight of his large fist as she turned it over to better examine the partially dried blood spread across his knuckles.
“Name’s Bill.” He said wondering why she didn't seem inclined to let go of his hand.
“I’m Beth.” She licked her thumb and rubbed at the thin dark red crust to reveal a patch of rough, unbroken skin.
“This blood isn’t yours, and there’s none on your palms, so if you can't have got it from gutting or butchering. So you must have been fighting.”
“I can tell you’re not local by your accent, and you live in a pile of lobster pots.”
A sharp burst of what could have been a laugh came from the girl. It seemed to surprise her more than Bill.
“I get to keep the shilling just for making you fall over?”
Bill laughed at her again. “I'm telling you, you've earned it. Felled me before I even had a chance to defend myself. For goodness sake lass, if you don’t want your winnings I’ll take ‘em back.”
Beth finally let the twitch of a hopeful smile reach her face. Seeing through all the scars, the dried dots of the other man’s blood, and the streak of fresh manure across his cheek, she was sure his face was that of a kind man.
“Can I have my hand back now? Folks will be thinking we’re married.” He said with yet another grin which served only to enchant her more.
Instead of dropping his hand, Beth stared down hard at it for a moment, idly rubbing at the crusty, dried blood, making the small circle of cleaned skin larger, she looked up to search his face with such intensity that it started to make him uncomfortable. In her dark eyes he could see only the reflection of himself as tiny twin silhouettes. He couldn't read her at all.
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Beth said, finally.
She let go of his hand but it didn’t fall back to his side, but stayed stuck out in front of him like an offering as the last of his smile left his face, leaving him with his jaw dropped open in surprise. It was only seconds, but felt like a lifetime before he could move again and snap his mouth closed. The noise and bustle of the quay had disappeared for that small moment in time when it there was only the two of them in the whole world, trapped in each others eyes.
In a nearby smoke filled, but lively inn, Beth started to warm up and the pain as the feelings returned to her frozen limbs started to set in. To keep herself from crying in front of him, she bit down so furiously on the inside of her bottom lip she tasted her own blood in her mouth. Bill had refused to leave her on the quay for another night spent burrowed into the lobster pots, and had set about putting a meal in front of her at the first opportunity. He had thought to put her up in a room for a couple of nights, but the thought of leaving her on her own bothered him. Puzzled at this unfamiliar need to protect someone, he changed his mind and insisted that she took his room that night and he would sleep outside the door.
Despite being so much smaller and younger than Bill, Beth won the argument as to who would take the bed that night by threatening to leave. She insisted she would spend the night wrapped in a blanket on the single chair with her feet resting up on a wooden trunk. She cared less about what people might think of her sharing a room with a man she had only just met, she was more concerned with not risking the chance of losing his interest once she was out of his sight. Only when they were married just over three weeks later, Bill having dashed out in the morning to have the banns read the next Sunday in the first church he came to, did she join him in the narrow bed and start to think of the small rented room as her new home.
As Bill's wife, Beth easily found work and spent her time safe and warm in Bills small rented room sewing uniforms by the light from the window for a local tailor. Taking delight in his responsibilities of being a married man, Bill quickly found a couple of better rooms for them high above the stink of the main street in the attics of solid stone house. From the high attic window, Beth could see down the lane on the opposite side of the road and watch the bustle of the freezing dockyard from the safety of her new home.
A short time after the wedding, Bill had been stunned, then delighted, when a more rounded Beth announced it was not just the good food he provided which had changed her shape, but that he was to be a father.
Over the six months since the wedding, the baby seemed to grow at an astounding rate but Bill never once questioned how early after their wedding night that the baby had decided to make it’s appearance in the world. The midwife had sent him out of the way and all he could think to do was to buy violets for his wife. The small posy now lay forgotten on the ground. Bill was still determinedly turning a deaf ear to jeers that the baby might not be his. He was ready to let his fists to stop the rumours.
The crowd continued to grow as the fight dragged on and after half an hour, still showed no sign of a winner. The new challenger traded Bill blow for blow. It would be the making of this new man if he could win this first fight of his against Bill. He was determined to prove that his own reputation with his fists had been no idle boast. They were evenly matched but the newcomer had a fierce need to prove himself and was giving no quarter.
Both men endured a steady repetition of heavy, well aimed punches and both were starting to get unsteady on their feet when a woman, yelling Bill’s name at the top of her voice, distracted him for just one quick moment as he looked around. It was enough time to let his opponent land a hard blow on the side of his unguarded face.
Bill spat hot blood from his mouth which had turned suddenly hot with pain, two of his teeth hit the cobbles amid a splattering of blood. He drew the back of his hand across his face, smearing the redness around in the sweat till he wore an angry mask. The shock of the bright red on his hand made him remember the brightness of the ribbon on the lost violets, and the reason for buying them rushed back to him. A growing heat of furious energy ran through him, lending him a surge of strength despite his weariness. It was enough to aim a final, felling blow on his opponents jeering face. There was no time for him to put up a defence, the man thought he had already won the fight when Bill stepped away for a moment, and he had let his guard down too early. A fight was only over when Bill said it was over.
The challenger went down like a stone, banging his head hard on the cobbles as he landed. He lay still and quiet on the ground, making no effort to speak or move. When Bill was satisfied the man would not be getting up again, and without waiting to collect his winnings, he pushed determinedly through the mass of cheering bodies trying make his way home as quick a he could.
By the time he made it up the stairs to their rooms, he had rubbed away most of the blood from his face using his own pink sweat and spit and the tail of his shirt. He had to stop and lean against the wall on the first landing for a few minutes, trying to get his wits together. His head was spinning with the brutal pummelling he had endured, and the pain of the missing teeth set off an agonizing pain which shot through his face with each step.
The fishwife who lived below them, supplemented her income by taking on the self appointed duties of midwife. She had positioned herself in the bedroom doorway to stop the unsteady blood stained man entering. She could hardly recognise him as the same man who she had sent off to buy ‘something to cheer the mother’ less than an hour earlier, in her not too subtle attempt to get him out of her way.
Bill made an effort to smile while trying to keep his mouth firmly closed. He didn’t want to speak till he could numb the pain in his jaw with some strong drink. The midwife kept him at bay. The throbbing in his head was making it hard to understand the word he kept hearing Beth calling from the bed behind the fishwife’s obstructing body.
“She said ‘Kwilkyn’. You weren’t deaf when you left, and that’s all she’s been saying.” When the fishwife had seen him struggling up the stairs, staggering about and without sign of having bought anything for his wife, she assumed he had been drinking. Beth kept jabbing her finger in frustration towards the makeshift crib by the bed repeating the word again and again. She finally laid her head onto the thin pillow and closed her eyes, exhausted.
“You’re no use getting under my feet. You get back to your ale.” The midwife steered him forcefully away from the door aiming him toward the rickety stairs. Bill staggered down the first couple of stairs at the midwife’s second, more determined push, only just catching his balance in time to stop himself flying headfirst all the way down. He heard her laughing as she closed the door behind her.
In the bedroom, exhausted, Beth shut her eyes and curled up into a tight ball on the narrow wooden bed, a fresh line of red flea bites made a neat arch of dots on her bare shoulder.
Staring down at the baby’s screwed up face, the midwife shook her head at him and tutted. A brief, bright glimpse of pale blue eyes sparkled at her.
“Well now little Kwilkyn. What kind of name is that, I wonder?” She stroked the smooth cheek with the tip of her finger, a brief moment of wonder that another tiny baby survived its journey into the world. “Every mother thinks their own baby is the most beautiful one ever born, though I’ve seen enough of ‘em to know different, eh?” She smiled at her own little joke. “Bit of an odd name she’s given you though, must be something to do with her being Cornish I reckon.”
In the street below, despite the raging pain from his lost teeth, Bill managed to grimace as near to a smile as he could manage when he announced the new arrival of his son. With every hand shake or slap on the back, he winced with agony at the jolts in his face. The baby’s name was repeated, and then as someone translated it, the laughter started.
Two floors above the street, Beth had given up trying to make herself understood and had pulled the blanket up over her head.
By the time a small, dried up little frog was discovered caught up inside the baby’s blanket, it dawned on the midwife what Beth had been trying to tell them. But it was too late, the name had stuck.
Chapter 2
Tracing a perfect arc in the air, the bloody fish head made a direct hit on a thin, scraggy boy. It hit him hard on the back of the head and caused him to briefly stop hitting another boy who was desperately trying to defend himself. The two scrapping boys had kept the crowd entertained for a while and they now jeered at the fish head thrower for cutting their fun short.
“Come on Billy, leave him be. You won this time.”
The smaller boy’s hands tightened into tense fists at the sound of his father’s voice. He tasted the blood in his mouth from where a lucky punch from the other boy had split the inside of his lip against his teeth. That was nothing compared to what his father might dole out if he didn’t do as he was told. The boy braced himself, preparing to spring nimbly out of the range of his father’s huge, scarred fists. William shouted up into the drunken, misshapen face, his feet were already twitching, eager to turn and run.
“Not ‘Billy’, not ‘Kwylkin’, not ‘Frog’. My name is William and anyone as forgets that will get the same beating as ‘im.” He spat red streaked spit toward his opponent who was unwilling to get to his feet, taking advantage of having a little time for a quick breather while the shouting was going on.
The audience was thinning, thinning away at the edges now the fight looked like it was all but over. William’s fury had won him the fight so far against the older, larger boy. A sharp whistle to one side of him made him spin around, ever on his guard for danger, but instead of a fist, a coin was flipping in a flashing arc toward him. He snatched it out of the air and held it tight in his fist. A few bets had been made on the unevenly matched boys, and after providing a good ten minutes entertainment, he was due a winners prize of sorts. Bill held out his big hand for the coin, but William’s feet were ready and he was already sprinting out of Bill’s reach. With luck, he would have enough time to buy a meal for himself and his mother before Bill got home. Better that they ate than have it taken by his father who would simply drink it away.
These days Bill would spent most days in various alehouses and inns around the quays. A stumbling shadow of his former prize fighting self, he would keep challenging men to fight against him, but instead of creating an eager audience for his lumbering sparring, other fighters would melt away. He didn’t understand the change in attitude toward him, was he not the best quayside fighter for miles around? He was used to men seeking him out, hoping to win a fight against the legendary ‘King of the Quay’. A few drunks, or an occasional newcomer had become the best opponents he had managed to rouse to combat for a while.
Only a few months earlier, when Bill rightly strutted around the quays as the best bare fist fighter in the area, an unfamiliar fishing boat landed with hardly a catch on board worth the unloading. The three crewmen had eagerly sought out Bill and had egged him on to challenge all three of them to a fight. Despite having his pockets clinking with the bouts he had just won, he let his winner’s ale do the talking for him and agreed to their challenge. They were to fight, one after the other, and he would show them how worthy he was of his title. A large winners purse was quickly gathered and the alehouses emptied out onto the quay side. The noisy crush of bodies swarmed over the cobbles, a few wide arms created a clear area for action. The crowd was eager for sport.
A few rounds in, Bill unexpectedly found he was struggling to defend himself against the men who, it was becoming obvious, were not the normal fishing boat crew as they had first appeared. It took every bit of strength and stubbornness to win against the first two men, but spoiled his victory by being sick over the prone body of his second opponent after a particularly prolonged attack to his stomach. The last challenger, now his crew mates had weakened the King of the Quay, was able to viciously beat Bill till he was a senseless heap on the ground. Not satisfied with winning the fight, the man kicked Bill in the head as he lay gasping in pain from the beatings. The man gave a small, tight smile as he looked down at the body at his feet before raising his arm into the air, claiming victory, and the purse, for himself.
The audience, buoyed up by the spectacle, raised the new victor up onto their shoulders and the procession made it's eager way to the alehouse to celebrate the making of a new champion and to help drink his winnings. Only a few stragglers were left behind to see Bill struggling to stand up, retching and shaking his head dozily. He was blinking quickly, trying to force the suddenly darkened world back into focus.
“Dammit man, don't let them see I’ve been hurt.” One of Bill’s friends had come over to him and was trying to help him stand. His friend bit his tongue instead of complaining when Bill put all his considerable weight onto him. Bill found he could not even stand unaided.
“Get me out of here.” he hissed into his friend's face, the blood, still running in blooming red shiny rivulets from his beaten head and face, left a fine spray across his friends shirt front as he spoke.
“Sure Bill, after a drink eh? There’s still your winnings from the first two fights to claim, you can’t leave now or you’ll not see it again.”
“Get it then, but be quick about it. That last vicious bugger ‘as hurt me bad.”
“Alright Bill, just give me a minute.” He staggered under the weight for a dozen steps then, thankfully, leaned Bill up against a pile of barrels. Once in the alehouse, he happily accepted Bill’s winnings and didn’t take much persuading to accept Bill’s share of ale. When he finally returned, he found Bill slumped unconscious on the ground. Only the support of the barrels had stopped him from rolling over the side of the dock and into the black water.
No longer was Bill the King of the Quay. The injuries from this last fight had left him unsteady on his feet. The spinning in his head had only eased off a little in the days that followed, but it didn’t completely go away. He found his words were unwilling to come out as he wanted, he sounded slurred as though he were drunk all the time, sometimes he even had a struggle to find the words he wanted, much to the detriment of his temper. The cuts and bruises healed, a few more scars were of no concern to him, but the damage from that final, vicious kick to his head had become a problem that was not going away.
With noone to fight, he had no money so he sought out work. He was chosen immediately by the overseers, thinking he would be a strong back on their team, but his unsteady feet made a mockery of his remaining strength. When he did secure a day’s work, he would spend his wages on drink as soon as he had them in his hand. Drinking himself into oblivion was the only way he could find to silence the confusion of bees in his head.
Without his regular winnings, Beth and his son struggled to pay for food and rent. The next six months saw her move them three times into cheaper and progressively poorer lodgings until they were having to share a dark back room in a creaking old house with another couple and their two young children. With not a minute of daylight able to make it’s way through the boarded up windows in winter, Beth struggled to sew, now having to spend half the money she earned on candles. Beth took on as much work as she could, sewing all day long and often into the night. When she wasn’t sewing uniforms, she would go to look for work as soon as the boats came in on the tide. She would stand, half asleep, alongside the fishwives at the quay, gutting and layering freshly landed catches of glittering fish into barrels. William worked unpaid at her side, increasing the number of barrels she could fill. He would have to lean over the edge of the barrels some of which were nearly as tall as himself, to lay the fish around in tight spirals till they reached the top. In the hot summer months, they could barely breathe for the stench and the flies, in the cold winter, they couldn’t feel their feet or hands for months. Whatever the weather, while the boats kept the fish coming in, the two of them could just about scrape a living and keep a roof over their heads for the three of them.
From the quay, William kept a watchful eye on the brightly brassed front doors of the various Exchanges, shipping offices and gentlemen’s clubs dotted along Fore Street. Even when he wasn’t working alongside his mother, he chose to spend his time outside in the cold and wind where there was a chance of earning a copper, rather than return to their small half room where his mother would be either working or crying herself to sleep. Bill wandered in and out of their half room at all hours, no longer able to make sense of the world, seeking only to stay drunk enough to make it a slightly less painful one.
Bill hung out of the small window of their shared room, staring down at the dark narrow lane below. He hadn’t managed to find a drink for some days and yet he still felt thick headed and unsteady. Without the drink, the pain was becoming unbearable again. The stinking air was not helping him and despite the tight grip he had on the window sill, his hands still trembled uncontrollably. Though he knew he would only be turned away, he stumbled several times in his haste to get to the nearest alehouse, desperate and nearly out of his mind for drink.
A gang of nearly a dozen sailors were making their way to the alehouses and inns for their customary, riotous shore leave. They had been away for over a year and had not yet heard of Bill’s defeat. When they saw Bill sat nursing an empty tankard at one of the alehouses, they eagerly challenged him to fight without any idea of the changes to him since they last sparred. They remembered only how he had thoroughly beaten their champion, and were eager for a rematch.
With more luck than judgement, Bill landed enough lucky blows at his drunken opponent to win his first fight in long time. He downed the celebratory drinks as though his life depended on them. They made his head spin so violently that he couldn’t have said if he was upright or laid down, but at least the pain in his head seemed further away, and with each drink he had, his hands seemed to shake less. Drunk to the point of insensitivity, Bill felt proud of himself when he found he had even managed to hold onto some of his winnings and was minded to take them home to his wife. Bill felt life was starting to take a turn for the better, and despite looking like he was snarling, Bill’s face managed to summon what passed these days for a smile.
Staggering about the quay with his head spinning and trying to ignore the sharp stabs of pain behind his eyes at each footfall, Bill was slowly, by a roundabout route, making his way towards his home whilst enthusiastically recreating his latest victory to an audience of nodding boats. Bill’s feet struggled to keep up with his wildly swinging fists and he staggered headfirst into the cold, dark water of the harbour.
He didn’t feel anything much after his head hit the wooden rail of a boat on his way down. Fading in and out of consciousness, he struggling to breathe when every second breath he pulled into his chilled lungs was full of saltwater and foulness. Bill tried desperately to drag himself away from the two bobbing hulls which kept forcing him down under the water, but he got confused by which way was up or down, and his arms would not obey his commands. His feeble shouts for help were choked off each time he reached the surface and he swallowed more of the iridescent, greasy mixture of fish oil, dung and waste bobbing on top of the water.
At the low tide in the small hours of the morning, Bill’s body was found sprawled half in the mud and half on the bottom of the stone steps leading from the harbour to the quayside. Someone had dragged his body out of the stinking mud and left it there. A deep congealed gash glared bright red against his deathly pale grey forehead. His boots, belt, trousers and the few precious coins intended for his wife were long gone.
Numb with grief, Beth followed her husband a week later to the same early grave. Unable to face life without him and with the last angry words she had shouted at him that fateful day still playing over and over in her head, she hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. She would stand, a cold, limp fish in one hand, her gutting knife in the other, just staring into nothingness till William was fetched to take her away. Now with no money coming in from the gutting work, there was no food for either of them. The would sit together on the edge of the narrow bed, William tried everything he could think of to make his mother speak but she would barely even move. William needed to be out running errands but he couldn’t bear to leave her alone in such a state. They both had to go without food, but only William felt the hunger.
On the last night before they were due to be evicted from their half of the room, a family waiting eagerly to take over the bed and chair they had called home, William’s mother gripped tightly to her chest a man’s shirt, the only thing she had left of her husband. She sat motionless on the edge of the bed as she had done every day and night. In the dark, William would sleep curled up in the dip her husband’s body had left in the lumpy mattress.
A stray bright beam of moonlight cut through the smoke and noise of the night and stretched itself across the rough wall. A tiny, dry flower head was tucked into a crack in the wall, it’s colour was long gone and was barely noticeable during the day in the dull, decrepit room but the moonbeam made it stand out against the sharp black shadow behind it. A violet flower, which she had tucked high up to keep it safe ages ago, had somehow survived to remind her of better times. For the first time since her Bill had died, she felt something other than the howling emptiness of her grief.
A wash of calm acceptance ran over her and released the tension in her face. When she opened her eyes, the darkness didn’t matter to her, it would have been the same had it been the brightest day, she could only see Bill’s smiling face from all those years ago when he had stared at her after her foot had tripped him up and made him fall into a steaming pile of horse dung. With her fingers locked tightly around her husband’s shirt, she left her son sleeping and walked on silent bare feet down toward the bustling night quay side and sought out a private spot in the dark shadows of the tall warehouses. She chose stones as large as she could from the untidy piles of ballast laying about and ferried them to her shadow. When she had enough, she used her skirt, her apron and Bill’s shirt to tie them to her body. A strange, bright smile had lit up her worn, thin face while she worked. When she finally checked the knots holding the stones onto her body and was satisfied, she walked, stumbling under their weight, to the place where her husband’s body had been found. The tide was high and the water was nearly reached up to the top row of stones. Beth closed her eyes. With a barely audible short prayer, she gave up all her grief into one long, lung emptying sigh and in two steps, walked calmly off the edge of the quay and slipped beneath the dark water into oblivion. With only a few bubbles of air escaping from her clothes to show where she was, she let the chill water finally take her pain away.
~~~
William woke up with a determined finger poking him in his ribs. The couple who lived in the other half of the room were standing over him, wanting to know how he was to pay, not only the rent, but the debts they reckoned that his parents had owed to them. He looked around, not understanding what was happening, only concerned that his mother was no longer sitting on the bed. The couple were relentless, their poking of him and kicking at the bed made him pay attention quickly. Apart from the thin blanket on the bed and the clothes he had fallen asleep in, he saw he had nothing to call his own.
On the other side of the room, two children sat side by side on their family’s larger bed which now showed suspicious lumps which matched the size of what few possessions William thought he still owned up till that moment. The woman nodded to the foot of his bed. At least they had the decency to leave him his boots, such as they were. The woman noticed him looking over at her children and went to sit, shuffling up next to her children to better hide the lumps from his sight, while never once taking her eyes from him. Her husband coughed, he had recognised Beth’s body as it had been dragged, lifeless, out of the water. In the commotion he knew he could risk running home to forewarn his wife and to maybe give the young lad chance to get out of the way before his parents creditors landed him in the workhouse. He was not comfortable taking the lads few belongings but would never dare go against his wife’s determination to put her own family before anyone else, no matter how desperate they may be.
“They’ll be after you now lad, what with you being an orphan and all. If you don’t want the workhouse, you’d better make yourself scarce.” Having given William his advice, the only thing he could give him with his wife watching William like a hawk, the man left the room to run back to his work before he was missed. Less than a minute later, and for the last time, William also left.
Hungry and homeless without a penny to his name and with only the thin blanket he had grabbed off the bed for warmth, William spent the day haunting the quay in search of food. When he found that begging didn’t bring any rewards other than being spat at or kicked, he resorted to picking up discarded scraps from the rubbish in the street, eating them in spite of what they had fallen onto.
For several months, William could catch a few hours sleep curled up on piles of drying nets during the day, keeping on the move in the nighttime to keep warm. The shadows in the lanes were full of men and families who were much more desperate than himself, desperate enough to kill him even just for the poor clothes he had on him. He sold his boots after the first week of trying to live on nothing. He tried to work filling fish barrels for the fishwives, but after a full days work, his help was rewarded by laughter and a near swipe of a gutting knife when he asked for payment. Desperation drove him in his search further away from the quay. He spent hours walking around the narrow lanes, knocking on doors, asking for work, searching for food. Each time, when William returned defeated and hungry to the quay, he would lean against piles of barrels or lobster pots and stare at the doors to the offices and clubs, willing them to shout for a messenger, but with no boots, and with faster, better fed boys also competing to run their errands, it was rare for him to be picked.
The tall warehouses cast their dark shadows far out onto the water cutting out the light, William would stare at the reflections of the buildings in the gaps between the grinding boats and wonder if there was another world under the dark waters which had drawn his parents away, leaving him alone.
Chapter 3
There were many men eager to work, all with the same thing on their minds. Who would get picked for work that day so their family could eat that evening? The heavy hand of the foreman landed on shoulders of strong and able men then raised high in the air to pass over the old and the young, the troublemaker and the slacker who were not to feel the welcome weight of his choice. Labourers and stevedores needed strong backs and there was no profit to be made in the foreman being soft hearted. Desperate to avoid the workhouse, William turned up each morning despite rarely getting further forward in the crowd than a few bodies from the back. Wandering away from the sullen, aimless gang of workless men, he would set off on his own to search the streets and lanes looking for work while hoping for at least something to eat. William found the back lanes of the Barbican already filled with more experienced scavengers and beggars than him. Many had staked out their own small territories. They didn’t take kindly to each other, never mind a newcomer on their patch where a casually flipped coin could make the difference between starving and getting through another night. William never thought he would have missed his mother’s hated fish gutting knife so much.
The gaggle of fish wives that his mother had worked with over the years didn’t want to know him now, they were too concerned with managing to earn enough to feed their own families to take him on. He pestered every cab and cart driver, called at every shop, warehouse and workshop offering himself for work. Sometimes he got lucky and earned enough for a meal running an errand or taking on a job that even the scavengers might have turned down. He tried to sneak onto the fishing boats so often that fishermen would aim a blow at him if he walked within reach of a gangplank. The one time he managed to stay hidden, hoping to prove his worth once the boat was out at sea, he had became so violently sick that he decided he would rather keep what little food he managed to find inside him and gave up on that idea.
Living by his wits and fearful that he wouldn’t find work to provide a place to shelter before the winter set in, William reasoned that fair exchange was no robbery and set about systematically stealing clothes from washing lines, leaving the garments he had previously stolen in their place. Looking less like a beggar, he knew he stood a better chance of employment, and the temporary relief from fleas and bugs was a bonus.
William was drawn to the shadows of a narrow lane and returned sometimes several times a day to skulk in small shadow of the staggered buildings opposite where he could watch the comings and goings of the workshops and stores running down Thread Row. One tall thin building, which looked as though had been forced upwards and its bay window bulged outwards into the lane by its wider neighbours, interested him most of all.
The lane was only wide enough for a single cart to rattle through at a time, and William would draw back and press himself into a handy recess of the stone wall opposite to avoid the overhanging, or dripping contents of the carts. Unseen, he would unburden the occasional cart of a quickly grabbed handful of anything that was even slightly edible. The building was so tall that he could only just make out the tip of a pointed ridge of a small attic window poking out of the roof. A bold flourish of gold lettering on the glass panel above the door, though he could not read it, declared it to be the premises of ‘Abraham Pethers and Son, Outfitters to the Military & Makers of Fine Livery’. Through the small panes of the bay window Williams found some comfort staring at a headless torso on a deep red mahogany stand which displayed a bold red military jacket resplendent with flourishes of braid and piping, shining brass buttons studded down the front and along the cuffs, remembering his mother often telling him how she used to enjoy sewing the bright fabrics to make the uniforms before the gutting knife and freezing fish ruined her hands for the sewing.
William thought he could vaguely remember accompany his mother when she delivered parcels of the finished uniforms she had sewed, through the yard to the back door of this shop. They would return home with another parcel full of fabric pieces to make up into more uniforms under her arm. She would often stay sewing night and day, turning the strange shapes turn into smart red or black uniforms. The sewing work barely earned enough to feed the three of them. Bill often didn’t earn anything for days, but Beth would always buy a pie or they would stand and eat at one of the stalls on their way back home, making sure no sign of gravy or crumbs were left on their clothes incase Bill saw them.
William’s stomach let out a growl as he imagined the hot pies again so vividly that he could nearly taste one. Staring at the elaborate jacket on display in the window, he wondered if it might be one that his mother had sewn. He found himself constantly drawn to the shop, the warm memories of the visits with his mother being the nearest thing to a home he now had.
William couldn’t imagine what work a tailor could offer him, but he had promised himself that he would call at each and every property till he found work, and if no work was offered, then at least he could hope to find something to eat, even stealing something if he often had to. He went round the back of the building to find the familiar gate into the backyard of the shop solidly locked. A huddle of women were clustered outside the locked gate, muttering between themselves and paid him no heed. An empty cart, with a dozing pony standing still in it's traces was patiently blocking the narrow back lane just a couple of buildings further down. William climb onto the cart, and from there, clambered up to the top of the high wall. He worked his way gingerly, like a cat, along the wall till he reached the back of the tailor’s shop. A rickety lean to shed in the yard built against the wall made it easy for him to quietly let himself down into the backyard without breaking his neck. He dusted himself down, rubbed his face to even out the dirt more than to clean it and stood, preparing to be chased away, outside the back door.
No sooner had he nervously knocked on the door than it was thrown wide open and he was grabbed by the arm and dragged inside the building by a young woman.
“At last! What on earth kept you? Father’s upstairs on the landing.” She flapped her hands in the direction of a staircase which led upward into darkness. “Oh, why did this have to happen today of all days?” When William didn’t move, she gave him an impatient shove in the back. William made his way up the stairs without a word. A man’s voice, obviously in a great deal of pain, came out of the gloom above him.
“No time to waste lad, just get me down these damn stairs.”
William ran up the rest of the stairs to find a thin man sprawled out groaning on the floor, his head lolled weakly against the wall where he had tried to drag himself into a sitting position. He was pale grey in both hair and complexion, his forehead glistened with the sweat of pain and shock. His legs stretched out in front of him, but only one had a boot on. The other bare foot was swollen right up the ankle, and would not have fitted back inside the discarded boot. The foot twisted away from him at an unnatural angle and William could tell it was not going to bear the man’s weight. Shards of smashed crockery, a growing dark, wet stain around a broken teapot and a large wooden tray was scattered across the narrow red strip of carpet along the landing. The young woman had followed him upstairs and had knelt at the man’s side. She wiped his damp forehead with the cloth from the tray, her other hand kept reaching out nervously toward the twisted ankle but she didn’t dare to touch it.
“He is fortunate that it's only his ankle and not his neck this time. I keep telling him he must let me carry the tea tray down the stairs but he won’t listen.” She touched her hand to his cheek. He turned his head to her and when their eyes met, he made an effort to smile at her, but he could only manage a grimace of pain. He growled at her.
“Stop your fussing. I need to get to work. Those uniforms have to be finished and delivered before this evenings tide. I don’t need my blasted foot to thread a needle do I?”
The young woman looked up at William, waiting for him to act, but all he could see was the sparkle of bright tears welling up in her eyes and the softness of the unbound curls of morning hair draped like a shawl round her shoulders. Her vulnerability created a rush of fiercely protective, yet intimate feelings in him. Unsure how to respond to these strange new feelings, he simply stood there till she gave him instructions.
Together they managed to get the old man standing on his one good leg. The old man’s arm snaked tightly around William’s shoulders while William all but carried him down the stairs. Slowly and painfully he manoeuvred the man through the house, passing through a workshop filled by a large cutting out table. The old man gripped the door frame and fought to steady his breathing, giving William time to study the room. In the alcoves at the sides of the small unlit fireplace, the shelves prickled with domes of pins, coils and strands of braid and ribbon spiralled out of baskets and boxes filled with reels of cotton were stacked neatly on top on one another. Scissors, yellow stumps of chalk and a wooden measuring stick with brass ends lay on top of an unrolled length of fabric marked with dots and lines of chalk. Pegs fixed high around the walls of the room were hung with paper templates, all covered with tiny stabs of pin pricks and red pencil marks. Unlit oil lamps hung from a series of neat pulleys and chains fixed to the ceiling. A bench ran the length of the wall under the window, baskets of half finished work waited for the sewing women still locked outside in the alley.
William finally lowered the old man onto a chair that the young woman had quickly placed in a pool of morning sunlight in the front shop. Still wordlessly following her instructions, William dragged a long heavy table on it's screeching metal castors across to the old man who, with a combined groan of relief and pain, threw his arms out across it and laid his head onto the pin and scissor scratched surface. The young woman nudged her father back upright off the table and pushed a pile of bright red fabric pieces towards him. Seeming to forget his pain, straight away the old man started flapping the fabric about, meticulously matching the lines of chalk marks up to each other. The young woman placed a dome of pins at his elbow when his hand reached out, without looking, to pluck out a few of the pins.
“You, boy.” The man’s hands were already busy pinning pieces of the uniform together, his eyes fixed on the chalk marks. “Fetch another bolt of the best red. Flora will have to do the cutting now I’m stuck in this damn chair.”
Flora had scrambled underneath the table to lift the swollen foot and place it onto a low wooden box. Her father let out a sharp hiss of breath through clenched teeth, his lips pulled into a wide, painful grimace as she moved his leg. His nimble fingers fought through the pain to thread a needle, losing no time in starting work.
“What’s your name boy?” He spoke without looking up from his work.
“William, Sir.” he coughed to gain control of his voice which had come out a bit higher pitched than he expected. “William Trent.” He didn’t know why he gave his mother’s maiden name at that moment instead of his father’s. Maybe he felt he could leave his father’s legacy of dockside poverty, debts and shame behind along with his name. Looking around the shop from the inside for the first time, he took in the walls filled with tall banks of polished wood drawers and shelving. Two large mirrors stood angled on their stands, reflecting the room back at him. The mirrors on each side of the bow window directed sharp beams of light into the shop.
The young woman replaced the large glass globe back on the newly lit oil lamp which spit and danced as the flame caught hold. She pulled a slim chain to haul it up to the ceiling where it chased the gloom from the corners of the room as the eager little flame took a proper hold. She led William back to the dim hallway outside the cutting room and pushed open a door under the stairs leading down into darkness. She lit a small brass oil lamp and as she settled the glass funnel back into its ornate gallery, she stopped to take a closer look at William, holding the lamp up to his face.
“William Trent? You’re not Aggie’s lad then?”
“No Miss, I came looking for work and you pulled me inside.”
She smiled grimly at him, “Well William Trent, you’ve been more use than Aggie’s lad. And since he’s still not turned up, we can make use of you, for today at least. Father will be too busy to bother with you now, he’s got to make up for lost time.”
“I can make myself useful Miss. I’m strong and I learn fast.” He felt ashamed of himself in front of her, uncomfortably aware that, despite his stolen clothes, he must still stink of the docks. William couldn’t help himself and breathed in the scent of Flora while she stood close to him. The smell of her loose hair and the soap she had washed with that morning was the most wonderful thing. He stood tongue tied and felt his face grow red and hot, he lowered his head, hoping that under her close scrutiny and in the dimness of the room, she had not had chance to see him blushing.
The unaccustomed feminine scent, the swirls of tiny fibres from all the cut fabric and the chalk dust tickled his nose and he had to screw up his face to fight back a sneeze. He was determined not to leave, he just needed a chance to prove how useful he could be. He could barely hear the noise of the harbour from deep inside the building. William took the offered lamp from her and went down the stone steps to the store room in the basement to find a bolt of red cloth.
The name above the door of the shop had been wishful thinking on the part of Abraham Pethers, Outfitter to the Military & Maker of Fine Livery. When he lost his wife to the fever after delivering their only son stillborn, she left him responsible for their only surviving child, a daughter of nearly ten years. From that early age, Flora took on the roles of housekeeper and shop assistant to her father. The sign remained as a memorial to the son he had lost.
William worked hard to make himself indispensable to the tailor and his daughter, never mentioning the lack of any regular pay above the odd tip he was given when he made deliveries. He was happy as long as they put food out for him. When customers collected their new uniforms, often in a hurry to get aboard ship, they sometimes changed in the shop, leaving their old shirts and breeches behind. Clothes which could be repaired and sold on were sent out to be laundered, the rest were sold to the rag man. Flora told William to choose some presentable clothes from the pile so he didn’t show them up.
Along with no mention of proper wages for for William, there seemed to be no concern as to where, or how he was managing to live. As long as he presented himself every morning clean and willing to work, they were happy to make use of him. Before they rose, he had drawn water ready for Flora. He fetched, carried, cleaned and kept himself presentable enough for when customers saw him. When Aggie’s lad turned up later on that fateful day, he was sent away with a few choice words and a clip around his ear. William couldn’t help but feel pleased at hearing his whining protests being ignored as Flora shut the door in his face. His mother Aggie was one of the sewing huddle who had heard Flora shouting for help from the window that fateful day and her son would no doubt have received more than a clipped ear that night for his lateness.
The rhythm of the large black scissors bumping against the dark wood of the cutting table, Flora’s humming and the summoning bell of the shop door filled William’s days with new sounds. Gone was the shouting of the fishwives. He sometimes felt he was dreaming when he returned from making a delivery to find a plate of food left out for him on the end of the bench just inside the back door. He recovered quickly from the hungry months spent living hand to mouth on the streets and now made deliveries or pushed a hand cart piled with fabrics or coal along the same lanes which had previously seen him begging for scraps. The out workers who came to the back door to swap their finished uniforms for money and a new parcel of pinned cloth shapes to sew up always got a smile from William. He would watch their backs as they left with their small children darting around their skirts and tied to their backs and hope that they would have enough to buy a pie on their way home.
Mr Pethers began asking William to serve in the shop, preferring to keep his eligible daughter away from the colourful language and the unwelcome attention of some of their customers. Outside the shop, a one armed man spent his days sweeping the lane, keeping the area outside the shop clear of manure, waste and drunks. He would make a great deal of opening the door for wealthy looking customers, hoping for tips. William would pass some spare food out to him, thankful that he wasn’t also having to live on the streets.
The tailor, despite being left crippled by his ankle which caused him considerable pain and kept him from being able to walk or stand on it, lost no trade with his disability. William had soon made himself thoroughly invaluable and as each year rolled into the next, he proved himself to also be an eager student. Mr Pether’s lack of a son was made easier with William’s devotion and he slipped comfortably into training William to be a tailor.
Mr Pethers and Flora whose bedrooms were situated on the third floor, were unaware that, soon after being taken on, William had started sleeping in the basement storeroom at night. The high strip of window which let no more than a leaking light from the yard into the basement was fastened on a simple catch. William would leave it pushed closed but leave the catch undone. Later, he would return via the backyard and slide into the basement like a contortionist. In the early mornings, well before the family rose, he would fold away the blanket he use as a mattress and hide it away in a dark space behind the tall shelves and boxes of stock. On one occasion, Flora heard a noise in the basement and had gone downstairs armed with a huge pair of scissors. She had been surprised to find William already moving bales of cloth around and was embarrassed to be seen in her night dress. He told her innocently, while hoping she couldn’t see his blanket which was still laid out in the darkness behind him, that he had come in early to catch a rat before it spoiled any of the cloth. Relief at finding it was only William in the basement, she didn’t questioned at the time how he came to be there so very early in the morning when she hadn’t unlocked the back door.
Over the years, Mr Pethers and his daughter came to depend more and more on William. He managed the stock as well as carrying it. Flora had to spend more time nursing her father and his eyes grew weaker till he could only work in the brightest light. William would half carry Mr Pethers up and down the two flights of stairs between his bed and the chair in the shop where the old man spent more of his days by the small cast iron fire, feeding it with coal to keep the pressing irons hot, than he spent sewing. Flora kept begging her father to have his bed brought down into the cutting room where they could push under the cutting table during the day to save him having to suffer being carried up and down the stairs every day. William insisted it was no trouble to him at all. He wanted them to stay upstairs in the bedrooms so they wouldn’t find out he was still spending his nights in the basement.
Weighed down by three new bolts of fine woollen cloth on his shoulder, William walked down the stone steps to the storeroom. He knew these steps so well that he no longer bothered with a light, the dim light from the narrow window was enough for him. He had been careful to keep the stockroom as clean and neat as the rest of the house so, apart from the occasional stock check by Flora, when he would move his bedding out into the back lane, there had been no danger them finding him out. With a sigh of relief as he lifted the weight of the cloth off his shoulder and onto to shelf with a thud, he stretched his back and rubbed at his shoulder which ached after carrying the heavy cloth back from the warehouse.
“Welcome home William.” Flora’s voice came out of the darkness behind the shelves. William froze and felt his throat tighten as he fought for words to explain the pile of neatly folded blankets at her feet.
“Miss Pethers, it’s not what you think…” as William looked around, he saw how confident he had become in the privacy of the stockroom. He had relied on Flora being too busy running the house and nursing her father for her to need to come down to the basement. Hanging from the corner of one shelf was one of his shirts, and next to it was a small stub of candle settled in a pool of wax on a small pink flowered plate .
“I think your rats have made themselves rather too comfortable down here.” He could not see her face in the shadows to see how furious she was. Her calm voice gave nothing away.
“Please. I beg you, Miss Pethers, don’t turn me out. I only need somewhere to sleep.” Flora remained standing in silence. William didn't dare say more, aware she could see him even in the dim light, but he couldn’t see her in the shadows. Eventually she let out the huff of a what could have been a small laugh.
“Well for a rat, I suppose you keep the place clean and tidy.” He could hear her take a couple of careful steps out from behind the shelf. “I knew you were sleeping down here. I didn’t tell Father. I will admit I felt a bit safer having you in the house at night, but he really cannot be hauled up and down stairs any longer. I want him to move his bed into the cutting room but he won’t hear of it so I shall have to settle for moving him down into the parlour for now, at least there will only one set of stairs to manage. It will still too much for him, even with you all but carrying him up and down every day. I don’t see how you can stay in here without him finding out.”
Flora moved out of the shadows and to William’s relief, he saw she wasn’t angry with him, her face only showed concern for her father. She shrugged her shoulders with a hopeless air before taking control of her emotions and reverting to her usual business like manner.
“We can’t afford to pay enough for you to rent a room of your own, that’s why I didn’t say anything when I found out you were sleeping down here. You can move into one of the attic rooms and I shall tell Father that you are staying here for our convenience. I will also need my bed moving into the room next to him so I can be on hand when he needs me. You can make a start today by moving some furniture.”
William took an involuntary step toward Flora, stopping himself as her eyebrows shot up in the air in surprise. What had he thought he was going to do? Throw his arms around her, kiss her cheek? He felt so elated as a sense of relief flooded through him. After fearing he was to be put back on the streets, not only was he being allowed to stay, he was being given an official room of his own. He couldn’t stop a huge smile spreading across his face.
“You should smile more often, it suits you.” Before he could think of a reply, Flora had turned and gone up the steps to the cutting room. Eventually his face got tired from holding the wide smile and he had to let it relax away. He let out the long breath which he hadn’t been aware he had been holding for so long and felt slightly dizzy.
Life became quite comfortable for William. He enjoyed feeling secure for the first time in his life now he was officially living and working at ‘Abraham Pethers and Son, Outfitters to the Military & Makers of Fine Livery’. He forgot his previous determination to be as far away from the Barbican as he could, and put all his efforts into excelling at his unexpected new life. Customers assumed William was the son mentioned on the sign over the door of the shop. While it served Flora’s purpose if people chose to see William as family, she didn’t correct anyone who referred to William as ‘Master Pethers’ and William didn’t object to his new name. It both protected them from being seen as a vulnerable old man and daughter and gave William the new start in life he had craved. When Flora announced that she would to teach him to read and write so he would be more use in the shop, he felt he really was going up in the world.
William matured into a square set, solid young man. He sported fashionable long side whiskers as soon as he could get them to grow. He felt they gave him an air of prosperity, setting him apart from the wild full beards of the sailors or the hairless faces favoured by the stevedores and labourers.
The coughs and groans of Mr Pethers filled the shop during the day and, after being carried upstairs to his bed at night, his snores kept the house full of his presence. He no longer made any attempt to move for himself. There was no weight for William to complain about as the old man was shrinking by the month. One evening, as he settled Mr Pethers into his armchair, a dry, twisted hand dug into William's arm with surprising strength.
“Call Flora to come here.” William went to find Flora, who stepped unusually daintily into her father’s room wearing a tense, bright smile which made William nervous.
Flora went to stand demurely behind her father’s chair with one hand on his shoulder. Her excited eyes danced around the room, looking practically everywhere while still managing to avoid looking directly at William.
“My daughter has decided she is to be married.” Mr Pethers paused a moment to catch his breath before continuing. “I’ll not see another winter out, and I want to see her settled with a husband before I go.”
He glanced at Flora. She had dipped her head down and William could see her cheeks blushing.
William was at a loss what to think. He liked Flora well enough, but there had never been the slightest spark between them in the years they had lived in the same house. The distress of being abandoned by his mother, when she to take her own life rather than live without the man she loved, still haunted him. Even as her only child, he hadn’t been enough for her to stay. He had gradually come to understand how much his parents must have loved each other. He wanted no less for himself, and knew he didn’t have such feelings for Flora. He could not refuse to marry her if they asked it of him. After all they had done for him, William felt he owed them that much.
He stood for a while, staring at the pair of them. He couldn’t think of a single word to say. An air of unspoken expectation filled the room and he felt trapped. A dozen different possibilities ran through his mind and none of them saw him being kept on if he refused to marry Flora.
Mr Pethers broke the silence for him. “You have the makings of a fine tailor, so you will most likely be kept on here. Flora says there’s enough room down in the basement to put a bed if you can stand going down in the world.” Mr Pethers wheezed at his own joke, not realizing the full humour of it, and ended up in a prolonged, raspy coughing fit. Flora rubbed and patted his back till he recovered himself.
Flora’s beaming face finally settled on William’s startled one, and she laughed at him, seeing his confusion.
“Mr Kitchener’s son from the Drapers shop in Pin Street has asked Father for my hand. We are to be married within the month and will set up home here.”
Chapter 4
“Hang it all, I’ll not be seen wearing half my lunch down the front of me” The door to the shop was thrown open with a crash, making the bell clatter excitedly and the mirrors in the deep bay windows shudder and send their reflections jumping around on the walls. Flora pursed her lips at the noise and glanced over at William and, seeing he was already behind the counter, she slipped out of the shop into the cutting room. Flora would disappear when men entered the shop, by the nature of the goods they sold, William was better suited to serve them.
The man's wife had both her hands on his arm, trying vainly to steer him away from entering the shop. Her small frame couldn’t help but lose the battle against his more generous proportions. He shook her hands off his arm and went through the door of the shop with his chin jutting out defiantly. With her hand still outstretched toward his back, she made one last desperate attempt to stop him.
“My dear, you have more shirts at the hotel. There really is no need to buy more.”
“I've said I'll have a new shirt, and a new shirt I shall have.” With a loud thud of his cane on the wooden floor, he signalled an end to the discussion and turned his attention to the interior of the shop.
Laid out on the low dark countertop were three new white shirts, the tissue of their cardboard boxes had been laid open in invitation. William, having been unable to avoid listening to their exchange outside the shop, was using a small set of steps to reach a fourth box down from the highest top shelf. Noticing he now had the gentleman’s attention, he released the shirt from it's tissue bed, shaking it with a flap to make the folds fall from the fabric. With a well practiced flourish, he draped it across his arm in one fluid movement to display it.
A satisfied beam spread across the man's face at the seductive sheen of the silk.
“See, my dear. A gentleman shouldn't have to ask twice for what he needs. You could learn from this young man. Pethers is it?”
“If you please Sir.” William made discreet and humble bow, while noting the growing fury of his wife who now stood just behind her husband, biting her lip with frustration. The two daughters gazed around the shop showing little interest.
Under her breath, his wife hissed. “Edward, please. Think of the girls. They simply must have new gowns this season.”
“Enough I say”. He turned to face his wife with a narrow eyed glare which held an unspoken threat. His wife dropped her head and took a step back from him without another word. Turning back to William, his face flicked instantly back to the genial customer as he took William into his confidence.
“They’d have me dressed as a pauper while they take tea dressed up fine as royalty eh?” His fat fingers rubbed the fine lace at the neck of his shirt and William winced as a dark yellow grease mark was left on it. William decided to display the details of the shirts from his own side of the table, to avoid the man touching them. While showing the cut of the other shirts, William cast a casual eye over the rest of the man’s family. The girls dresses showed signs of having been re edged several times with bands of different shades at the hem. The man's wife stood rigid, her eyes staring at the back of her husband’s neck, not even glancing at the shirts on display. She knew any further word from her would only spur her husband into spending more just to annoy her.
Her husband never considered the expense when it came to his own fine attire, but her girls were still having to wear clothes from two seasons ago. She had insisted on joining her husband on one of his regular journeys to Plymouth to be on hand when he collected his dividends before he spend it on fine dining for relative strangers at his club. This time there had been little profit from his deals, and she would need every penny to smarten her daughters if they were to find decent husbands before long. They could not be seen socialising in the dresses they still had from when their father was still alive, even a skilled needlewoman couldn’t hide the fading of the fabrics which were several years old.
The younger of the two young women frowned at William from behind her mother’s back and shook her head, he blinked one slow blink to her, showing he had her understood. He started folding one of the shirts back into it's box.
“Hold fire there. I haven’t settled on any of them.” He glanced down at the large stain of fresh gravy down the front of his own shirt and lace and tutted. “If you’ll be so good as to help me change out of my lunch into one of ‘em, I’ll take em all.” He laughed heartily at his own joke while William unfolded a large panelled wood screen on brass castors into a small changing area at the back of the room.
With his good humour restored and his appearance spotless again, William wrote up the sales docket. The man’s wife was at his elbow, peering at the balance. She drew in a sharp breath at the total to be paid. The shirt her husband had thoughtlessly chosen to wear was the fine silk one from the top shelf which was many times the cost of the one he had been wearing. With her face so close to her husband's, a redness quickly rose from his neck till his face was flushed with anger. He turned his head, and, nearly nose to nose with his wife, snapped at her.
“Can I not buy even a shirt for my back without more of your confounded whittering?” She took a quick step away from him as though he had struck her.
He turned to address Williams in a lighter tone. “I’ll take a half dozen. Have them sent on will you?” his eyes were blinking fast and his nose held high in the air as he tried but failed to affect an air of being untroubled at the expense.
In barely a whisper, his wife spoke quietly behind him. “Edward, please. I beg you, show some restraint.”
“Make that a dozen, of each. Send them on to our house in Bath if you don’t have them to hand.” He turned around to face his wife and daughters like a ship in full sail, his new white silk shirt glowing in the reflected sunshine of the mirrors.
“Let that be the last word on this subject. I’ll not dress like a fool so you can spend all my money on your foolish fripperies.” The daughters each took an arm of their distraught mother and took her to sit in the chair by the window. The younger daughter gestured behind her father's back with a flurry of her hands to beg William to stop the ridiculously large order from being taken.
Such a large order would be very welcome in any shop. Businesses didn't succeed by always doing what was best for the customer, but on how much went into their tills. William knew Flora would be delighted to see such a large sale and there would be a little extra for William he was certain. Something about the younger daughter had interested him from the moment she had taken her first step inside the shop. Was it the way she had cast her eyes over everything, himself included, making him feel like prey to a hunter? Whatever the reason, he wanted to oblige her.
“If I may Sir.” William, ushering Edward away from the women with an outstretched arm indicating that Edward would like to go in front of him. William followed him to the far end of the counter. In a low voice, William addressed Edward with what he hoped was a suitable degree of simpering embarrassment.
“Sir. If I may be so bold. These shirts of ours are the very finest as a gentleman of such good taste as yourself can tell , but…” William appeared to hesitate.
“Out with it man. Or are you also determined to see me walking naked in the streets?” Edward growled at him.
“Not at all Sir. Only such a fine gentleman as yourself may not want to be burdened with such a large number of identical shirts. It may lead to embarrassment if it is thought you have only the one shirt as they are all the same.” William wondered if he had gone too far and overestimated the vanity of this blustering fat man.
Edward could only see a way out of current uncomfortable position was being offered, and he grabbed it. “Good point there, very good point. After all, tailors know about these things eh?”
“The other three shirts can be at your hotel within the hour. Sir.”
“Capital suggestion. Write the order up then and we shall be off. I must say, I do rather like this one I have on. It is silk you say? Do you have just another couple of these? After all, a man needs to wear more than his lunch eh?” He laughed at his joke again, not yet willing to let it go and also with relief at being released from the expensive hook he had managed to impale himself on with his short temper,
“I’m sorry Sir, that is our last one.” William rang up the sale, and dropped the coins in the till. The bell of the till sent an involuntary twitch across the face of Edward’s wife as though she were in pain. She was yet to know that it was not for as much as she had feared.
“Come along my dears. There are some fine gins to be sampled just a little way further down the road. I shall need something to get me through the horror of paying for your fine dresses.” Edward sailed before his family to the door. William just made it there before him, holding it open for them. The younger daughter hung back a little, seeming to struggle with one of her gloves. She was still at the doorway by the time her family were halfway down the lane.
“That was kind of you. You lost a big sale there.” She smiled at him and William felt he had been paid more than the price of the shirts just with that one smile. His face broke into a wide helpless smile in answer as he could find no words for once. She touched his arm lightly and laughed at him. In the lane, she looked back at the sign over the door.
“Goodbye Mr Pethers, it has been a pleasure to meet you.” William could only stare as she walked away from him. As she made her way down the cobbled lane, the colour was drawn from his world along with her, leaving him desperate to keep her in sight.
“William,” he called after her, “William Trent.”
“If you say so.” She called back coquettishly. “Goodbye then, Mr William Trent.” He stood and watched as she caught up with her family and, just before she disappeared out of sight at the bottom of the lane, she turned and quickly waved to him.
William felt heat rise from the centre of his chest to reach the top of his head and he had to wipe a hand across his damp forehead, his face burned red with awkwardness. She had known he had been watching her. He took a couple of minutes to cool down in the breeze coming up off the sea before he went back into the quiet of the shop. Flora had come through from the back room at the sound of the bell over the door, and was delighted at the sale
“Three linen shirts, one silk. I suppose he came for one and you persuaded him otherwise?” Flora cast him a small quick smile and looked at the coins in her hand. “Well, you’d better get them wrapped and take them to the hotel.”
“Yes Miss Pethers.” He folded the shirts back into their boxes, feeling slightly guilty that he had not taken the man's larger order. Now he needed time to figure out what he was going to do about getting to see the young woman again.
Chapter 5
“Come through, come through,” Edward pushed the maid at the open door aside, signalling for a surprised William to enter the house.
William had just placed his hand on the low cast iron gate which lead down the steps to the basement kitchen of the imposing stone house in Bath at the very same moment Edward was leaving the house by the front door. Not wishing to contradict the man, William did as he was bid and covered the wide steps leading up to the large open door in a couple of bounds and entered into the hallway. Obviously delighted to see him, Edward placed a proprietary hand on William's shoulder and ushered him through into the drawing room where his two daughters, Caroline and Agatha were sewing quietly with their mother in varying degrees of both interest and skill.
William had only enough time to shove the box he had been carrying at the disgruntled maid who, with a sniff, left it on the hall table and disappeared through a door which left only a vague outline and small handle visible in the wallpaper.
William had had Edward's discarded gravy covered shirt laundered and wrapped like it was a new one. Copying the home address written on the sales slip, he arranged to travel to Bath to deliver it himself. Mr Kitchener, as Flora’s husband and the new master of the tailors house, had not objected when he asked permission to deliver a special order himself although only Flora suspected the real reason for his sudden desire to travel and drew attention to the fact that William was paying for the journey from his savings.
“Quite caught your eye did she? Well, no harm in setting your sights high. Just be ready to be thrown out like last week's fish.”
William could only grin at her. He could think of nothing else since the moment she had turned back to wave at him from the end of the lane that day. He had to see her again and had thought no further than that, hardly daring to imagine what he would do if she had forgotten him. He knew it was madness. But he had nothing to lose but the cost of a night's board and the cheapest fare to Bath that he could find.
“Look who's come calling, my dears.” He tipped his head sideways toward William, and whispered through a fixed smile, “Refresh my memory, What’s your name again? I declare I have lost it somewhere in this old head of mine.”
“William Trent, Sir.”
“Of course it is.” He turned to his wife and daughters with a flourish of his arm toward William and made the introductions which were received in stunned silence. Slightly displeased by the lack of enthusiasm which met the appearance of his visitor, Edward turned to lead William out of the room.
“We shall leave the ladies to their needles, eh Trent? A particularly nice crate of brandy has just been delivered, you shall give me your opinion on it.”
“As you wish Sir.” William was lost for words. Glaring across the room at him, Edward’s wife could not disguise her fury. She recognised him well enough and thought he had presented himself at the front door of the house on purpose, instead of having been mistakenly forestalled on his way to the servants entrance by Edward himself. The elder daughter gazed disinterestedly out of the window. The younger daughter was biting her lip and blinking fast to keep her barely restrained laughter from escaping. Williams tried to speak as he caught her eye, but his mind went empty at the sight of her. She winked at him and before he knew what was happening, Edward had swung him around by the arm and was eagerly leading him towards his study and the brandy.
Unaccustomed to strong drink, William took his time with the fiery gold liquid and swirled it around the large glass, copying his host. He let Edward get several drinks ahead of him before he put down his glass. Edward had talked at length of his plans for bettering the families prospects, mainly his hopes to match his daughters with profitable marriages. With his own family's money long gone, he was steadily working his way through his new wife's inheritance with his expensive tastes and poor choice of business partners.
“If only I could raise a bit of capital from this house,” Edward was saying, “I could repair my fortune in a matter of weeks, but while it stays in the hands of our learned Professor…” Edward threw a spiteful glance toward the ceiling, as though to see through the floors into the Professors currently empty rooms, “I can’t even raise capital against the place.” He filled his own glass again generously, not noticing William had put his glass down. “How long did you say you were in town Trent? You’ll be staying at your club I suppose?”
“I came straight here. I have yet to find lodgings for tonight.”
“Wonderful, you will stay with us then. Yes, yes, you really must stay with us.” He looked at William again, although he was in the best clothes he had, they didn’t match up to what would be expected of a house guest. William had planned on finding a cheap lodgings if he couldn’t find a seat going straight away back to Plymouth. He hadn’t thought beyond catching sight of his hopeless devotion, certainly would never have dreamed to be invited into the house, never mind being asked to stay the night as Edward’s guest.
“We won’t stand on ceremony for dinner, there’s just family tonight.” Somewhat cheered at the prospect of being a fine host, he insisted on topping up William’s half full glass.
“What business do you have here in Bath, Trent? You probably told me but I declare, it's quite gone from my head you know. Things have a habit of doing that. Good brandy this one eh?”
Not wanting to risk being thrown out of the house by reminding Edward exactly how he had previously made his acquaintance, William was as vague as he could be without telling outright lies.
“Most of my business is with gentlemen such as your own good self, Sir.”
“Aha! The Exchange. That’s where I know you from. Serve a damned fine dinner there. Wonderful place. Don’t allow women in you know. Splendid idea. Wish I could do that in my own home sometimes eh?”
At the mention of food after his long journey, William’s stomach let out a protracted grumble which no amount of polite coughing could cover. He lowered his head in embarrassment. But his host laughed delightedly and went to open the door, sticking his head out and shouting to the empty hallway.
“Bradworthy. Set another place for dinner, and get a room made up a room for my good friend here.”
“I declare this brandy gives one a fine appetite.” Maybe it was the brandy, or just the impossible turn of events which let William give in and let himself be carried away in the moment. He was enjoying being treated as a gentleman. If Edward continued to talk without requiring anything much by way of answers from himself, William hoped he may not get away without having to reveal the real reason for his visit. If that moment came, he would be thrown out of the house without a doubt, but until that moment, he intended to enjoy seeing the young lady who had inspired him to come all this way just in the mere chance of setting eyes on her again. This was better than anything he could have ever planned. Edward happily returned William’s grin, happy to have such an amenable guest turn up out of the blue.
Chapter 6
Four young men appeared from the dark shadow of the trees. White lace frills at their throats stood out against the gloom. Their heads touching as they huddled close together to hear the hushed instructions of their ringleader. They peeled apart like the petals of a strange flower as they broke apart and stood straight again. The ringleader rested his hands on their shoulders throwing a large grin at the third man. As one, they moved toward the dark forest on the other side of the clearing and then walked out of the gilded frame.
The hot, fly infested, humid heat had lingered on for weeks filling everyone with hot tempers, heavy feet with the effort of working in the stifling air which held onto the stink of fish, dung and sour beer. Dressed to fit their station, there was no escape from the heat for a group of well to do young men till they could shed a layer or two in the relatively cool welcome of the dark lounge in the club.
Slumped in his chair, half a tankard of dark, pungent ale on the shelf by his elbow, William looked like he had dozed off. Only a flicker of an eye toward the heavy door of the club as it opened betrayed his constant surveillance. When the young men had entered, they let inside with them a gust of stale, fish stinking air, challenging even to their assorted clashing colognes. They passed by him without any acknowledgement. From his customary seat just next to the entrance lobby, William could innocently take note of members entering and leaving, and see who met with whom in the high ceilinged, smoke filled room using the reflection in the large mirror handily placed for his purposes on the wall opposite his seat.
The surface of the gilt framed mirror had at one time been enthusiastically painted over with a miserable landscape, leaving only the centre of the glass of any use. The gilded, ornate frame would have been better suited to holding portraits like the other pictures in the club. This mirror with its dark woodland scene had been hung more by merit of it’s grandiose frame than for any use or aesthetic beauty.
One day, while seeming to examine his whiskers at some length in the mirror, William had eased a wedge of cork behind one side of the frame. Being so careful that even the spiders webs were undisturbed, he positioned the mirror to reflect the view of the occupants of the main club room back toward William’s vantage point, without anyone being aware of his surveillance.
With the entrance lobby at one side and the view in the mirror showing him the rest of the room, no one could enter or leave without him knowing, and he could see who met with whom. Settled so near to the door, he overheard many a conversation loaded with parting snippets of interesting information. He was in the club, but not of the club and no one seemed to take any notice of him sitting with his ale, no more than part of the furniture, not thinking to guard their tongues as they routinely shrugged their coats on and off before going through to the main lounge or up to rooms on the upper floors.
Several members greeted him with a casual nod as they entered the comfortable surroundings of the Galilean Arms. With the straight backed, former military doorman keeping out common sailors and street trade, the club members felt comfortable to conduct business within these walls which would have been frowned upon inside the Exchange or Harbour Offices.
William had been allowed inside by oversight as he tagged on to the rear of a regular group and had become as much a part of the club as the dark wood panelling. Agatha chose his clothes well. She scarcely ever bought clothes for herself, and their two sons were still young enough not to care how they were dressed. Taking her sons with her, Agatha would walk up into the better areas of the city, enjoying the wide, relatively cleaner streets, relieved to be away from the mush of fish guts and horse dung covering the cobbles outside her door.
If she caught sight of an expensive cuff, or the glow of a quality velvet among the ragman’s cart of secondhand clothes, she would elbow her way through the crowd, haggling as well as any fishwife, to buy the best quality clothes. She wished she could buy the garments whole before they were stripped of the fine lace, buttons and ribbons so much of her spending went on buying these fine touches back again. She kept an educated eye on the rapid changes in fashion and would spend hours altering even these fine clothes. By the time she had finished working on them, even the original owners would have been satisfied to wear them again.
“Fine clothes for your spider.” William would say to her with a grin, standing patiently while she tied his neck scarf again and again until she was satisfied she had got it just right before standing back to admire her husband.
“Fine clothes open fine doors.” Agatha would reply.
Since choosing William above and against her family’s wishes, Agatha was determined that one day she would be returned to the fine lifestyle she had known as a child. Agatha had set about teaching William the ins and outs of the manners expected of a gentleman. Though he thought he had dressed finely enough when he had first turned up at her home, it had been glaringly obvious that not only his clothes but his manners were not going to be enough for him to be accepted as being any better than he was.
In the daytime, William would dress in his serviceable black trousers and waistcoat, his white shirts had permanent ink stains on the cuffs which suited his position as one of the clerks at the Harbour Office. Being just one of many anonymous clerks who constantly scurried around the offices, he could move unquestioned between different offices and exchanges using errands as an excuse while gathering information for his own purpose. William looked the same as all the other clerks perching on high stools ,writing in ledgers and poring over documents. There was no difference between one clerk and the other as far as ship owners or investors could see, looking impatiently down at the top of a head, interested only in what their pen was writing, thinking nothing of the man holding it. William used his position as a clerk to hide in plain sight while overhearing more conversations while bent over piles of itineraries and manifests than he ever heard in the club.
William had a third set of clothes which Agatha refused to have inside their rooms because they smelled so bad. These had to be left hanging on a peg outside the door and even these were sometimes stolen. These were used for William’s nocturnal prowls through the dark lanes and low taverns where drunken sailors would unwittingly give him precious information about their captain’s business. He carried only a few small coins for these trips, for fear of being robbed and found with too much for a common sailor to have on him. Not that he was in much danger of being robbed, keeping his wits about him, he avoided drinking any of the drinks he bought. He would pour his own drink into anyone’s glass if it looked like it would help it’s owner talk more freely.
Seen only as an impoverished clerk, for a coin here and there, a ship owner or investor would ask for information from the piles of ledgers, he would melt away from their side after quietly saying a few valuable words. Not all the information he passed was available in the ledgers, but he was becoming too useful a man to be questioned about his sources and so his web grew larger with every deal he managed to stick his nose into.
William didn't want to show off his growing illicit income, much to the frustration of his wife, and he insisted on keeping their lifestyle within the official means of a clerk’s wage.
“Soon, my love.” he said as he brushed his cheek against hers, his kiss missing her lips by only a whisker as she moved her head away at the last moment with a grimace. “I never need smell like a drunken corpse again.”
Agatha grinned weakly at him before pushing him out of the door, holding her breath to avoid breathing the rancid smell of his street clothes, he reeked of stale ale, salt air and fish and she didn’t know how he could stand to put these clothes on again and again. William refused to have them washed and often she would dreamed of burning them. Agatha heard him laughing at what he called her dainty manners as he went down the stairs, and was swallowed up into the night life of the harbour.
She hated seeing him dressed in such desperate clothes, but she trusted in him to make good his promise. The dirty seafaring rags she refused to have in the house had him accepted in the alehouses and brothels around the docks. Soon she would have to tell him the real reason why she had pushed him out of the door so quickly this time. She hadn’t wanted to distract him by telling him about the sickness she had suffered over this last few weeks. It had taken every bit of her self control to hold back the waves of nausea when she caught the warming smell of those horrible clothes on his body when he put them on this time.
If dressing her husband up in rags and sending him out into a night full of cutthroats and press gangs was what William needed to do to get them out of this place, then she would support him in any way she could.
Agatha born into a life of high status, but unfortunately, thanks to her mother’s second husband, who managed to ruin his own finances and was working his way through her mother’s with his hopeless business ideas and selfish self promotion. Even so, she had given up a life of relative comfort to marry William against her mother and stepfather’s wishes. The young Mr William Trent was too poor a prospect to have ever been considered a match for their daughter.
Agatha's parents refused to give her a dowry when she insisted on marrying William. They didn’t believe she would go through with the wedding when it was obvious she would be condemned to a life of poverty. Despite what they thought, she married William in a neighbouring parish without their blessing, and though she managed to fetch little with her beyond her own clothes, she brought with her the ways of how monied society worked. With her impeccable manners, she soon taught William to speak and act in the understated manner of a wealthy gentleman. She quietly struggled to maintain their meagre home and raise their two young boys. Their first victory when he was allowed into an exclusive gentlemen's club without being questioned by the doorman. It had cost him half a day's pay just to tip the man when he had arrived at the club’s door by carriage a couple of days later to make sure he would be let in on his own. The short journey from only two lanes away had amused the coachman, but as long as he was paid, he wasn’t inclined to ask in this part of the city.
Agatha had joined William in his attic room at the tailor’s shop, but with the birth of their first son, William secured a larger room for themselves on the main Fore Street above a whelk and eel shop and took on a better paid job at the Harbour Offices.
Agatha had to rub shoulders and sometimes fight with the street girls who would try and use the darkness of the shop doorway below the window to their room to ply their trade as she tried to get her baby to sleep above them. Even though she was shocked at just how poor William was she joined him in the attic at the tailors shop, being for the first time without a maid or even a servant, she simply rolled up her sleeves and made the best of what life had handed her. While she was with William, she was where she wanted to be.
The arrival of their second son saw William and Agatha proudly find their first house together. It couldn’t have been much smaller, being no more than a couple of tiny rooms built onto the back of an older stone house, but at least Agatha now had her own front door and William could slip away easily into the shadows of the back lane without anyone questioning his seemingly sudden rises and falls in status
Chapter 7
William’s curiosity was stirred by the young men’s arrival, though he gave no sign as he kept his head down and his eyes practically closed. Seeming to have fallen asleep in his seat, his head lolling uncomfortably against the edge of the window sill, the young men spared him only the briefest glance. The four men were known to William. He had watched them over the last few months as they kept coming into the Harbour Office searching for a name which had yet to be written in the listings on the large chalk boards of harbour arrivals and departures. He had seen them getting more anxious as they repeatedly sought out newly arrived captain's. They did not looking happy at any information, or lack of, that they received.
The groups noisy entrance into the main lounge caused some members to turn their backs to them with dissatisfied grunts at breaking the hallowed low muttering hum of normal club standards. They chose a table in the centre of the room, despite the more comfortable, and private, side booths available, they called for wine and food. Soon their table was set so full of dishes that a side table had to be pulled over to take the over spill of food and wine.
Their casual disregard for the quiet sanctity of the club confirmed for William that the deferential welcome given to them by the doorman and the landlord was due only to their families wealth and social standing, rather than any grace of their own making. He had seen the group several times, but tonight they were different, there had been an air of mischief about the group as they had come in. Their high spirits soon turned their attention to the distraction of gambling as plates were pushed aside and a pack of cards was produced. As the bottles piled up, so the stakes increased, all on the turn of a card.
Unable to match either the ringleaders luck, or income, one by one his companions backed out of the game. Past experience had taught them that their friend would insist on being paid out on his winnings, even if it meant they had to call on their families to make good their debts. William had moved from the lobby and taken a seat in the darkness of an empty booth where he could better see the lively goings on.
The ringleader suddenly stood up, pushing his chair away from him with a clatter and raised his glass in a grandiose salute to the room, then tapped it with the side of a knife to make it ring out. He waited till he had everyone’s attention, no matter how unwilling then, in a loud, slightly slurred voice, he announced to the room in general that his friends were insufferable bores.
“Surely there must be someone who will take a friendly wager? The game has become too rich for the blood of my friends here”.
“Calm yourself Charles.” One of his companions pulled at his sleeve to make him sit down. “ You would not be happy till you have the very clothes off our backs, that’s why we won’t take your damned wagers and well you know it.”
The ringleader, having no takers for his offer of a game, took up his friends suggestion and raised the stakes higher.
“What a splendid idea. Oh, my dear fellow, you are a most wonderful wit. That is what my next wager will be for.”
“On the turn of this next card, I offer my shares in the fine ship and cargo of the ‘Leticia’.” He paused to allow a minutes thought to go around the room while he took his time in refilling his glass.
“Is there one man among you who will match my wager for no more than the clothes on his back tonight?” He looked around the room as faces turned away from his searching gaze.
“If the card goes to me, then the loser will have to go home as naked as the day he was born.” His lips stretched wide across his face, showing his teeth in an attempt so appear jovial but his bright smile had the look of a shark and his friends looked down to the spent cards on the table, hands on their laps, avoiding the calculating faces around the room.
The uneven wager where he could lose such a large stake against the possibility of an evenings sport hounding a naked man through the rough streets appeared to be of little concern to him. His friends were divided in their support, two of them egged him on, cheering and raising their glasses at the prospect, but the other shook his head and tried and make him sit back down.
“Let it go man. Can’t you see you’re testing everyone’s patience? This is not the place for your games”. He nodded his head toward the landlord who had come out from behind the bar and was casually wiping down one of the tables near to them while keeping his attention fully on the group.
The young man shrugged off the restraining hand and waved in the direction of his seemingly concerned friend.
“My good friend here, Mr Nathan Ellis, is no less than a junior partner in the excellent firm of Crossland, Merriwether and Bywaters. By my good fortune, carries with him the shares I speak of. If the card goes in your favour, the deal can be done this very evening. My shares against a shirt. Who feels lucky enough to take my wager?”
William had watched as the evening unfolded and each man dropped out of the game in turn. Copious amounts of wine and brandy had been consumed both during and after their meal and the noise of the group had risen steadily. If it had not been for the money they had spent so freely, the landlord would have told them to leave.
Used to scanning page after page of ledgers, William had found he had a natural ability to account for large cargos at a flickering sweep with his calculating eyes. William had casually been counting the cards as the game had played out. When his companions no longer wanted to risk money on the turn of a card, the wagers had turned to the telling of secrets, for a month polishing boots and, although it was fortunately lost, for one night with one of the men’s sisters.
At the promise of immediate ownership with signed documents to justify the legality of such a daring public wager, despite the apparent inebriated state of the young man, and with a roomful of curious witnesses, William’s interest was aroused.
Less than an hour earlier, in his other guise of a dockside drunk, he had overheard a newly landed sailor reassuring a woman that the cargo ship ‘Leticia’ had been sighted off the coast of Ireland despite being overdue by some months and feared lost at sea. This information was too late to make an entry on the board at the exchange which had already closed its doors for the night, and it went some way to explain why the ‘Leticia’s shares were now being offered in such a one sided bet.
William considered the small risk that he might have to run naked through the very streets where it had taken him years to build a reputation and dismissed it. It would not happen to him. William had watched the cards all night and knew which would be drawn next.
When his winning card was turned, he would insist on taking immediate possession of the documents, he would not give way if they asked him to wait for the morning. If the card went against him, then he would call for the deck to be checked.
Drunk though he was, the young gentleman would be honour bound to make good on his side of the wager rather than risk ever being shown as a cheat. The shame it would inflict on his family’s good name meant he could not challenge William if he had to call for the deck to be checked. He would lose a lot more than just his share of a ships cargo.
More drinks were called for and Mr Nathan Ellis revealed a thin leather portfolio which had been kept tucked between his feet the whole evening. With slow, exaggerated care, he handed a beribboned sheaf of papers across to his friend with a word of caution,
“You are risking everything you own of the ‘Leticia’, both stocks and shares if you lose this wager.”
“No fun otherwise, eh Nathan?” He thumped his friend’s arm and took hold of the documents and waved them in the air above his head.
“Gentlemen, I offer you, on the turn of the next card, the legal ownership of all my shares in the splendid ship ‘Leticia along with my shares in her cargo. She is currently on her way from the East and will be laden with silks, spices and suchlike. A rich prize surely when set against the mere shirt off your back.” He waved the documents above his head again as he turned slowly around to meet the shocked faces in the room. The landlord stood dumbstruck with his hands on his hips, no longer keeping up his pretence of wiping tables.
“The cards are undisturbed, my fine landlord will surely be testament to this as he has watched us like a hawk from his perch on my shoulder” The landlord, having been drawn into the unwelcome spotlight, had to admit that he had moved closer to watch the game unfolding and had been only feet from them for the last half hour and could only nod his agreement.
“Surely there’s one man here brave enough to take on my wager?”
William let a tiny, brief smile escape before he stepped out into the glow of the room from his dark corner.
The bet sounded idiotic to the rest of the room, a fortune in shares on the turn of a card, but the young man played the fool well. He had given up hope that the missing ship was ever going to turn up after such a long time without word or sighting and he didn't want to be saddled with the debts an uninsured ship would put on him, he wanted to be free of it as soon as he could.
William, however, had received information only a couple of hours earlier, that the Leticia had been sighted. The captain had noticed that the rich cargo had attracted too much unwelcome attention in one of the ports on his way home, so had deliberately taken the ship wide off her course into uncharted waters to avoid being followed. With the hold full of the most expensive goods he had ever carried, he had not dared to risk even sending word ahead. The local fishing boat who had spotted her had no interest in the workings of the Harbour Exchange Office, only caring to let wives and mothers of the crew on the overdue ‘Leticia’ know that their men were at last on their way home.
Before the card was turned, William had the man restate the exact nature of his wager, ensuring that the whole room was in no doubt what was on offer. The young man clapped him heartily on the shoulder and called him a good sport, pulling a chair to their table to include him.
William’s rising excitement had sobered him from the the little he had already drunk. He felt more clear headed and alert than he had ever been in his life. He knew he was right about the cards. He wasn't worried about running through the streets naked as there was less than a hundred yards for him to reach the dark ginnel where he could quickly disappear over the wall into his own yard.
Thousands of entries in his ledgers told him this bet was well worth taking. His web had just landed a juicy fly right in the middle of it. He could feel the strands vibrating with promise. By in the time it took for another bottle to go around the table, there was a tight clump of men trying to get the best view of the innocent looking playing cards on the table. The landlord was keeping his eyes fixed on the pile of cards, having got himself unwittingly involved.
William playfully unbuttoned a couple of buttons on his waistcoat to the great amusement of the room. Showing himself to be a good sport. Though he was confident that this was as much as they would see of him removing his clothes that night.
Standing again to address the room, Mr Nathan Ellis stated the terms of the bet and was answered with a rousing cheer and shouts to get on with it. Both parties shook hands and took a step away from the table and hush fell over the room. The landlord was asked to turn the card in the name of impartiality, he approached the table, wiping his hands on his apron before he flicked the top card over.
Six red diamonds stared up at the room and a cheer broke out. William's hand was heartily shaken and his acceptance further into the club had been established. He would no longer be left to drink alone in future, he had been officially accepted in that moment as one of them. The documents were duly handed to William who tucked them deep inside his coat. He would have the shares transferred over into his name as soon as the doors were opened in the morning. By his reckoning, the ‘Leticia’ could reach port in less than a week’s time and he wanted no doubt as to his ownership.
“I think you will find these are all present and correct. Go see the agent, he’ll take care of everything for you.” It occurred to William that this had not been the rash and carefree bet it had seemed at the start. The shares had been fetched for the express purpose of passing them and their obligation onto someone else.
“Why would he have these documents with him?” he asked Nathan Ellis, trying to appear bewildered
“He likes to play for high stakes. I pray you have some good friends you can count on if this ship doesn't come in.”
William looked down at the papers. He unfolded the first one and scanning the neat writing. The documents were real, he had prepared enough of them to know good from bad. Flicking quickly through them, he calculated that they represented not only the major share in the ship, but half the profits of the cargo. He glanced over the shoulder of the man to see the gambler who was now agitated in his eagerness for William to leave the club along with the papers.
“Ah, I see. He believes the ship to be lost and needs to pass the liability on to some other poor soul.” He pursed his lips, they had played the same game, both thinking they had the better of one another. William could only wonder if he hadn’t known about the ‘Leticia’ having been sighted, would he have still gambled? It would have been better by far to have lost the bet and have to run through the streets without a stitch on rather than be made bankrupt and lose not only his home, but to see his family taken to the workhouse and himself to debtors prison if the ‘Leticia’ had truly been lost at sea.
“Well played Sir.” Instead of a handshake, the man had placed his hand on William's back, applying pressure to steer him toward the lobby, thinking to make him leave the club. William stepped aside nimbly to rid himself of the unwelcome hand and, waved with a big smile to the room in acknowledgement of the toast being made to him.
When he got out of sight of the club, he kicked up his heels and ran home as fast as he could. He shouted for Agatha and had her jumping out of bed in alarm, flying down the stairs to see what had happened.
William was babbling with excitement as Agatha helped him out of his fine gentleman’s attire, and straight into the grubby clothing of a common seaman. A different, slouching drunk soon stood before her in his place. William wanted to get back to the alehouse in the narrow alley before the drunken sailors were thrown out onto the street. Between their beds, whether they were on land or water, they would be grateful for a couple of swigs from the bottle of harsh rum William was forcing into his pocket. He was eager to seek out the crew of the ‘Piper’ to hear them tell again of the ship they had seen.
William had his name put to the documents with only minutes to spare before news of the ‘Leticia’ off the coast of Ireland was put up on the shipping boards. He had sidestepped the agent, saving precious time by going straight to the office which transferred the ownership to him. The access to other departments that his position in the harbour exchange had given him had served him well this time. William’s shares realized a small fortune when the ‘Leticia’ finally arrived intact a few days later and the money came through from the sale of it's rich cargoes of silks, spices and coffee beans. William and his family were waiting on the dockside to see it arrive when news came in that it had been sighted just off the coast early that morning and was on its way home.
Ships were often delayed. Many never returned at all. The ‘Leticia’ was nearly three months late, but that delay had secured for William Trent and his young family the start of a whole new life.
When the ship's cargo was finally assessed and the ship’s dues paid. William, in his position of Harbour masters clerk, had asked to handle the paperwork himself. Now he could see for himself the true value of the cargo, there would be no one to cheat him of his fair share. He noted down the full extent of the goods for himself, and he had to check his figures twice. Leaving the office, he saw the familiar four young men deliberately making their way toward him. He couldn’t avoid them. He only had a feint hope that they wouldn’t recognise him, now dressed in a clerk’s attire, as being the same gentleman from their club who won the wager only a few short weeks ago.
Tension ran through his body as he prepared for a confrontation. He half expected that they would demand the shares back from him. With no obvious way to avoid them, he stood firm and waited for them to walk past him, while still looking for a quick escape route, should he need one. Instead he found he was being offered the ringleader’s outstretched hand.
“Well played Sir. If indeed you even are a sir”. He gave Williams a cursory look up and down and his eyebrows drew together as he tried to work out just who William was.
“Remind me never to gamble with you again.” The smile on his face, though seemingly in good spirits, was cold. William shook his hand.
“I shall. Lady Luck was certainly on my side that night.”
“I very much doubt that.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but at a nudge from one of the other men, he fixed his smile back into place and clapped William in seemingly good humour on the shoulder. William took the heavier than necessary blow with good grace and smiled back, eager to be away.
“You must let me buy you dinner sometime. We could maybe do some business together?”
William nodded and walked away, leaving the gambler to discover just how much the cargo of the ‘Leticia’ had been worth, and no doubt to curse at having gambled it away.
Agatha asked what he would have done if the card had gone against him, he smiled and dropped a kiss onto her forehead.
“He saw me as the loser, no matter which card turned. But I knew I had already won, that card was only a formality.”
Chapter 8
For over a week, the days and nights stayed stiflingly hot and still. Restless people took no pleasure in what little weak, breeze stirred the foul air. In the long days of late summer sunshine there brewed an evil mood of short tempers which had people at each other's throats at the slightest provocation. No sailor enjoyed being trapped on land for too long. With so much time to kill, no money in their pockets, both men and women turned readily to brawling in the streets. The militia kept a peace of sorts, often fighting more violent than the men they were supposed to protect. Their uniform justified picking fights as a way of letting off steam.
The bed creaked and settled again as William rose slowly from it. Agatha’s arm flopped over onto the warm, damp impression his body had left. He smiled at seeing her reaching out to him, even in her sleep, but he had pressing business which would keep him from his wife’s embrace. The night air from the open window prickled the sheen of sweat on his hot face, it was quiet tonight, a low tide meant there was no night work or waves to break the unusual calm. In the dark stillness of the small hours he could hear the sound of blood beating in his ears as he reached for his clothes in the darkness. He needed no extra light from candles, the moonless night was lit by a clear sky of stars which cast a dim glow through the window, fortunately not so bright that it threatened to spoil his night vision. Only a few moments later he slipped out of the door, letting the catch fall shut behind him.
“Just a half hour, that should be enough.” On sleepless nights like these when he took himself off on his prowls, he promised himself that he would be back home before Agatha even noticed he was gone. A few steps was all it took for him to be swallowed up in the strange quiet world of a becalmed harbour night. The low tide mud left what little water there was shucking at the sides of the boats as it pestered for a hold. The sea had pulled away from the land, taking with it the slight relief of the lapping waves as the tide went out. The rotting mud was exposed again, releasing pockets of obnoxious gas with pops and gasps. William shook out a square of cloth from his pocket and tied it around the lower half of his face, only relaxing his breathing when it was firmly in place. Just because he had been born a few paces from the harbour didn't mean he had inherited his parents immunity to the all pervading stench of it. He breathed more comfortably through the soap scented cloth and set his face toward the road rising up along the seafront. Hoping to find some cleaner air, he set off walking uphill in the direction of the high walls of the Royal Citadel.
The smell of fish, offal, stale beer and urine still managed to sting his nose as he walked as soundlessly as a shadow through the dark shadows in the narrow lanes. At this unholy hour, the very clothes a man stood in could be judged worth more than his life. He didn’t want to risk tripping over or disturbing any scavengers or foul tempered landlocked sailors. No ship had been able to leave without a trace of a wind, and sailors wages had been spent within days of setting foot ashore with the expectation of taking up another berth and being away again within the week. This left them trapped ashore with no money for food or lodgings. Fights broke out at the slightest excuse and the ships stayed out of reach, anchored outside the breakwater, tormenting the sailors as hammocks lay empty while they slept slumped hungry in doorways.
Snores and low voices came from the houses closing together on either side of the narrow lanes. From over in the next street, a woman’s shrill voice argued against the answering growl of a man. A chorus of creaking beams, distant shouts and nameless thuds filled the night air. William’s ears strained to place and explain each unusual sound. He felt a stranger in his own neighbourhood.
Taking a moment to slow his breathing and calm the beating of his own noisy heart, he let himself became one with the shadows. Working his way through the lanes, he picked his way carefully around piles of sleeping bodies, some were sprawled across the full width of an alley making him have to backtrack rather than risk disturbing them. He moved in the starlight shadows of the long, low stacks of fish crates and barrels, lobster pots and piles of nets to slip through to the harbour road where his own shadow melted into those of the towering Citadel walls.
On nights when his mind just wouldn’t to turn off and let him sleep, he would take himself off on a walk, noting the ships and boats in the harbours and then go up to stand in front of the Citadel to watch the ships standing out to sea. The ship's lanterns would sway in the dark nights like tiny orange fireflies as far as the eye could see. At the corner of the huge stone wall, he paused to let his eyes adjust to the sudden brightness of the lanterns dotted around the walls of the Citadel. Glittering lines of yellow light cast from the ships lanterns disturbed the starlit blackness of the calm sea. He stared at a solitary rigid figure standing on guard further up along the crenellated wall. Polished brass buckles and buttons glinted on the uniform in the glare of the torch by his post. The strain on the buttons on the round front of the jacket told William that it had been many years since this man had seen active service. Though he was half a wall away, William threw the man’s name narrowly through cupped hands, relying on ears as sharp as his own to hear his call.
“Simmons.”
An answering whisper which sounded like a throat being cleared came clearly through the night. William picked his way along the cinder path, keeping to patches of scrubby grass so as not to make a sound.
“Thought I might see you prowling about on a night like this, Trent. There's nothing like the pull of other folks bad fortune to bring you out of the shadows, eh?” William carefully negotiated the last few exposed yards, keeping tight against the wall till he reached Simmons lookout post, stepping into the man’s shadow as they both scanned the vista for any signs of movement.
“I don’t suppose you have a drop of something to keep a man awake on a night like this?” William slipped a small leather covered flask around the side of Simmons body. A couple of deep swigs later, it was offered back to William. William had to admire the ability of Simmons to take a drink on duty without breaking his military stillness. Both men had a touch of reptilian grace about their movements.
“Been watching that man sat on that wall for the best part of the night again”. Simmons nodded slightly toward a lump on the harbour wall. “Captain by the uniform I reckon. Stares at the water for hours. What do you think, wife found a better lover or he’s lost his ship? He’ll miss his chance to jump onto them lover’s leap rocks if he doesn’t get a move on. Tide is on the turn.”
Against the starlit sparkle on the water a solid black silhouette of a bent figure was cut out of the night.
“Got some lead in that walking stick of yours tonight Simmons?”
“Aye, I’ll watch your back. Fancy another set of clothes do you?” The buttons down the front of Simmons uniform jiggled with his soundless laughter at his own joke. He tapped at the rifle held by his side, a small button on the wrist of his glove made a delicate click against the barrel of the gun.
William nodded in the darkness of Simmon’s shadow. Not much escaped of Simmons’ sharp eyes, it was one of the reasons William had taken to him. He noticed everything, said nothing, while he kept impossibly still for hours on end.
“I have a fancy to take a stroll along the harbour road. Any other eyes on him?”
“A couple of lowlifes are tucked below that wall over there. They’ll be waiting for him to jump so’s they can strip him of what little dignity he has left. Keep seeing their heads come up. Maybe they are thinking to help him jump if he doesn’t get to it soon.”
“Well let’s see if we can’t scupper their plans tonight eh?”
A ship’s Captain offered a way out of trouble could come in very handy to William one day, it wouldn’t be the first time he had taken on a man’s debt or sorted out an embarrassing situation for someone who had standing. He happily accumulated valuable favours and obligations as eagerly as he dealt in cargoes or gold.
Chapter 9
William innocently introduced himself to the Captain by way of complimenting him on choosing the finest seat to take in the far reaching views on such a night. The man had shrugged and barely given him more than a fleeting glance. At Williams subtle encouragement, the Captain soon found himself telling his story while he was still struggling to make sense of what had befallen him. It became very real when he heard the tale finally come from his own mouth.
The Captain had been away at sea for a few months and had returned home to find his wife and all three of their young children buried. Their new house had it’s shutters closed when he arrived and the whole house had been shut up. On the day he got his promotion to Captain, his wife had insisted they could afford to move into a fine house at the very limit of his income so she could establish herself and introduce their children to a better class of people than their previous location. He raised the money by selling his shares in the ship he captained. Now he was not only without his family, he had neither ship, nor family, nothing left but a fine house which he could never set foot in again.
He had started to become concerned that his children always seemed to be sickening. He sacked servant after servant fearing that they were poisoning his family. After the death of their newborn son, he set about hiring the most highly recommended and expensive servants he could find. Certain that he had left his family in safe hands, he went back to sea. The sudden deaths of his remaining three children so soon after losing the baby was too much for his wife to bear alone. After seeing the last mourners out of the house she locked herself away in her bedroom. When the servants finally became worried enough to force the door open, they saw she was not in the room, but had left using the servants back stairs to go in search of her children. They searched the house and found her curled up on one of the children’s beds, having taken so much laudanum to numb her grief that she never woke up again.
The Captain’s tale was delivered in a dull monotone as he relived the terrible events which had left him as the unfortunate owner of a house he could never bear to set foot in.
“I have lost my dear wife and our four beautiful children. When I tried to find out what had happened, I heard that the previous family had also taken strangely ill and had lost their children too. They say that the place is cursed and I believe them. I was only spared the same fate by being away at sea. I had to take any commission I was offered to pay for the upkeep of it all.” He stared at his hands, one was crushing the other as he constantly squeezed it in a tight, tense grip.
“You find me here, wondering if I have it in me to dash my brains out on those rocks below so that I might join them.”
William placed a light hand on the man’s shoulder and kept very still. He didn’t want the man to kill himself in front of him but he was puzzled why the children of both families, one after the other had died so quickly on taking up residence.
“Indulge me sir, but I would like ask you what will seem to be a rather strange question under the circumstances”.
The Captain gave the slightest of shrugs which William took as acceptance. He took a breath and continued.
If I may, can you tell me what colour the children’s rooms were decorated?”
The Captain flicked away William’s hand from his shoulder with an angry swipe. He turned for the first time to glare furiously at William.
“What is this nonsense? Did you not just hear me tell you I have lost my whole family and you ask about decoration, have you no decency?”
“ Please Sir, I assure you that I mean no disrespect with my question. It is just that I might have an idea what happened to your family, and possibly it is the same reason the previous family also lost their children. If you could bring yourself to answer me about the colour of the walls or possibly the drapes in the children’s rooms. Can you remember if they were green, a bright green colour?” William paused. “My apologies, I can see I have unwittingly distressed you though it was not my intention. I shall leave you to your own thoughts”.
The Captain read nothing but genuine concern on William’s face. His eyes slipped from William’s face and turned, unseeing, to rest on some distant point on the dark horizon. In his mind he could see the rooms of the house unfold in his mind. He saw his wife standing in the nursery with their youngest child in her arms. He was totally absorbed in the memory for a brief moment and, he smiled back at the image of her in his mind.
He could hear again the laughter of his children playing in the long beams of sunlight from the tall windows. The velvet drapes tucked into the big brass claws at each side of the windows were green, in his mind’s eye he saw the vibrant green flocked wallpaper on the walls.
“Yes, they were green. My wife was delighted that the house had been recently decorated and she was eager to buy new rugs to match. She did so love that house.”
“Then I suspect that they were poisoned, by the new décor and not by any servant. The green dye most likely contained Arsenic powder which contaminated the air in the children's rooms. Your life was only saved because you were mostly away at sea or you might have sickened too.”
The Captain stared at him, his mouth had dropped open, his eyes sunken into the dark shadows of his face. William stayed still and quiet as the Captain struggled to make sense of what he had just been told.
“Then there is no curse, only on me for being ignorant of alchemy. But knowing this cannot restore my family.” He began shaking his head vigorously as though to rid his mind of the horror of it all.
“Green, I cannot believe it was the green”. The Captain repeated the words several times as he rocked back and forth. William was concerned that the Captain would lose his balance on the narrow wall and topple to his death, possibly pulling himself over with him. He shuffled discreetly along the wall to put himself a safe distance away from the Captain.
“It is not common knowledge that arsenic is used in such a way. You cannot blame yourself for their deaths.”
The man pulled a woman’s pale green scarf from inside his shirt, screwed it up into a bundle and in anger, threw it down into the darkness below them where it sat stubbornly bright on the rocks, it lay like a sinister twisted ribbon twitching on the first incoming lappings of the new tide. “That damn scarf could be poisoning me for all I know. I always carried it with me when I was away from them. All that time and I never suspected.”
“That time you spent away from your family probably saved your life.”
“Saved my life for what, to own a house I can never set foot in again? If it were not for having being set upon and robbed of my money and documents a few days ago, I would have bought a passage to the Americas and been far away by now. I may as well dash myself down onto these rocks and join my family.”
“Hold fast, you may not have money, but you do still have the house. I would like to suggest a way for you to be on board the next ship to leave for the Americas in return, you simply put the house in my name.”
At first the Captain was taken aback at William’s sudden surprise of an offer and could only sit there and try and think. William was relieved that he had stopped his rocking and seemed to be considering the offer.
He swung his legs off the wall and onto firm ground, facing away from the sea which relieved William greatly and he promptly did the same. The Captain had regained some of his composure and now faced William as a man used to taking command.
“Sir, that house is worth a great deal more than the price of a cabin, you must think my grief makes me a fool.” Though he knew he had no other options open to him, the Captain was quick to rally and regained some of his sanity.
“It cost you the lives of your family. I can only offer you what I can, as one father to another.”
The man cast his eyes down, shaking his head. In a matter of moments he had swung from seeing the only end to his misery on the lost lovers rocks below, and now this stranger was offering him a way out. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“That house ties you to your grief.” William put a hand on the man’s arm. “Let me take it off your hands. In the morning, you could be set on your way to a new life.”
“I would need capital to set myself up in a new country. I could sell the house for quite a tidy sum now you have put me in a mind to part with it.”
William felt the deal slipping away from him. He had not even seen the house, but a family property in Plymouth large enough to have servants quarters and a whole floor for a children’s nursery was worth a gamble.
“How long would take to achieve that? It could take months, longer perhaps if the rumours of a curse are known locally.” William stood up as though he was ready to walk away.
“Accept my offer, and you will be gone on the next tide, in a matter of hours. I can lay my hands on as much as twenty guineas if it will sweeten the deal for you.” He started to turn away, rattling some coins in his pocket to hint at the availability of the money. Seeing the only chance that would see him aboard a ship to a new life on the next tide about to walk away from him, the Captain dragged William back by his arm and stared desperately into his face.
“What of the murderous green?” The man looked around wildly, as though he could see the ghosts of his family calling to him.
“I beg of you, don't even think of letting children into that house till all trace of that damned green is gone. I will not agree till you give me your word.”
“You have my promise.” William hit his open palm against his heart and stared calmly back at the Captain. He was quietly impressed that a man in such a desperate situation would still show concern for others.
As if the sea wanted to nudge the Captain to accept Williams offer, a light gust swept across the water and sent a welcome freshness over their faces.
“A new start in a new land. Will you agree to that Sir?”
Motionless, like a cat stalking a mouse, William hardly breathed as he waited for the man's reply. The Captain sucked a slow sigh of the freshening air deep into his lungs and finally nodded.
“We have an agreement then.” They shook hands. Both men were a little stunned at the deal they had just made. This had been quite an eventful night walk for William, and the end of a long night for the Captain.
“We shall have the documents drawn up at first light. Until then, I shall keep you company at my club till then for I doubt either of us shall sleep.”
William banged on the door of the club, waking up to the landlord to take them in. Once he was satisfied the Captain was safely settled in a room, William dashed back home. Never had it looked so shabby and squalid. After reassuring Agatha that he was in the middle of a deal and had not come to any harm, he set off to call in some favours and to drag a notary out of his bed. Before the sun was fully risen, he had secured a cabin for the Captain aboard the next ship to set sail for Ireland, and from there, onto the Americas.
At first light, as soon as the papers were signed, William waved the man off on the quickening tide with the thick document tucked safely inside his jacket. The man’s passage to the Americas had cost him little more than calling in a few favours. If it turned out that there was no house after all, William felt he could only bear a grudging respect for the man’s ingenuity. Even if the man had played him false, he would be out of pocket by only twenty guineas. He smiled a wry smile at the thought of how twenty guineas would have been an impossible sum for him to imagine having at one time, and now he was dismissing the thought of having lost such a sum without distress. He had come a long way.
William watched the Captain cross the gangplank and throw down his new bag on the deck. As he walked away, hardly able to contain his excitement at the deal he had made, William knew the biggest gamble was on the actual existence of a house. He decided not to tell Agatha till it was confirmed that the house was really his.
William hardly dared breathe as he imagined telling Agatha. He threw back his shoulders with pride that he could present her with the fine address that she had always dreamed of. Their cramped dockside house deep in the middle of the constant noise, fights and squalour made her fear constantly for the safely of their two young sons.
Chapter 10
An uneasy feeling of having been taken in by the Captain kept William worried during his many walks around the better areas of Plymouth, he would ask for directions from people and even resorted to hiring carriages hoping that the coachmen might know of the street. Had he paid all that money for nothing more than an old key and a fine tale? William felt his hopes of providing a smart house away from the quay was disappearing with every wasted day. He would have to admit to Agatha what he had done. Inside him grew a grudging admiration for the Captain’s story, and the delivery of it. William would have sworn that the man told him the truth, after all, how could he have known that anyone would ever sit by him on that fateful wall, never mind the very person who could provide the means and opportunity to set him on his way to a new life?
William admitted defeat after nearly a week of combing an ever widening search area for what was turning out to be a wild goose chase when he finally showed Agatha the deeds and told her how he came by them. She quickly scanned the thick documents and then went through them slowly again before putting them on the table between them and threw her head back and laughed till she started coughing and her face had turned quite red.
“My darling, Have you have been searching in Plymouth for this house all this time?”
William was not comfortable at being laughed at, much as he loved his wife, this was a new experience for him and he didn’t like it.
“I told you, the man was adamant, the house was in the city, with a nursery, room for servants, everything you said you wanted, I had to take the chance. But I was taken for the fool. Damn fine tale he told though, had me taken in from the very first word”.
Agatha calmed herself and pressed the stiff pages flat out on the table. “Look down here, the full address is written where the paper is creased here, you must not have read the whole page properly. It clearly say the house in in London, not Plymouth, you would not have found it in Plymouth if you searched for a month.”
William turned the pile of pages around with a finger, as though they had betrayed him. Clear as anything, there was the full address on the first page. The Captain had told him only that the house was in the city, it was only William who jumped to the conclusion that the city was Plymouth.
“Ah”. he closed his eyes and breathed in and out slowly. Calmer now he opened his eyes to see Agatha staring into them, a smile on her face as big as he had ever seen. “London. You think there really might be a house then?”
“You must go and spend at least a week looking for it in London, see if you can find this house there before we give up on this fine dream”.
William’s made enquiries to share a passage to the capital at the club and had several offers within the day to share a carriage. William was reluctant to be trapped for days being rattled about in the company of these particularly short tempered strangers, so he took up an offer of passage on a small ketch making its way around the coast. A brisk westerly wind had broken the weeks of stillness and, seeing it as a sign, he chose to sail and avoid the danger of travelling by road, deciding he would rather risk an empty stomach than empty pockets.
Would he be any better off swapping one city for another where he would be far away from all his contacts, where his intimate knowledge of the area gave him such an advantage in his deals? With Agatha beside him, he felt he could take on a new start, especially if it meant restoring to her the social standing she had given up when she married him. She deserved better and he would make sure she got it in London, no more hiding their wealth, they would live the life she had been teaching him to fit into.
His decision was sorely tested within moments of setting sail when he was violently sick. He took it in good spirits and submitted himself to many suggestions for relief and tried desperately to maintain some dignity despite being the cause of much entertainment.
When he got off the ketch for the final time, he felt it was a cruel twist that the very solidness of the cobbles underneath his feet now made him feel unsteady. He staggered away from the busy, noisy quay to sit on a quiet doorstep until he could regain control of himself.
William expected the house to be within easy reach of the docks, but had little success asking for directions. Too tired and hungry to keep asking around, he sought out a cab driver and gave the address before collapsing into the hard seat and closing his eyes. Quarter of an hour later, when he was getting suspicious that he was being taken, quite literally, for a ride so he could be charged for a longer journey than was necessary, the cab jerked to a halt.
The cab driver dropped him at the end of a row of tall, elegant houses. The repeating pattern of the row of tall houses with their matching sets of half a dozen wide stone steps leading up to their large panelled doors flanked with slim pillars holding aloft large slabs of scrolled stone stretched away from him along the wide street. The low wall in front of the windows below the street level were festooned with a black lace trim of pointed iron railings. William couldn’t believe that his property could possibly be one of these, yet, after he sent the cab away, the two people he asked did confirm that he had found the correct address.
He walked along the length of the street, nodding courteously to servants and gentry alike till he reached the right house. It’s tall windows stretched four floors high above him, looking down, he smiled as he touched the gate leading down to the basement entrance tucked out of sight below street level. This time he would enter by the front door with his own key, not by trickery. The shutters on all the windows had been shut tight against the world, confirming that he had, at least, reached an unoccupied house. William tightened his hold on the key in his pocket so fiercely with nervous anticipation that the sharp edge cut into the skin of his palm. For five minutes he could only stare up at the house before he finally stood back and again counted the doors along from the end to make sure this was the one he sought.
Expecting to be turned away at the door, he walked up the wide stone steps and faced the imposing black panelled door. He drew in a deep breath before taking a firm hold on the cold iron bell pulley and tugged hard. No footman or butler appeared, no shouting or running feet, no shutters opened as he heard the bell ring somewhere deep within the house. Three times he rang the bell without any sign of there being anyone on the premises before he dared to insert the large key into the lock.
He didn’t expect it to fit, still harbouring the suspicion that he had been expertly conned into paying heavily for nothing more than a lost key and a good story. The key turned easily, finding itself at home. William pushed the heavy door inward. His feet wouldn’t move from the doorstep as disbelief held his feet to the floor, hardly daring to make the first step into the house to claim it. With twinge of conscience, he remembered the dreadful circumstances that had brought him to this door. William peered into the dark, black and white tiled entrance hall. Doors off to each side were closed, the light from the open door sent his shadow stretching out in front of him. William stepped cautiously into what could only now accept was his new start in life.
With his ears straining to alert him should the genuine owner arrive to turn him into the street, he walked quietly through the dark house, inspecting every room, assessing each piece of furniture with a brief lifting of the large sheets that were laid over everything.
The house was more than he could have ever dared hope for. That it was in such a fine location had come as a great surprise to him. No wonder the Captain had given up his ship to provide the best he could for his young family. How he must have hated his decision when he found it had murdered them all in his absence. William remembered the mere twenty guineas he had handed over to the desperate man and tried not to feel guilty for having profited so handsomely from another’s misery.
The gleaming wood panelled walls of the high ceilinged entrance hall led him past a formal dining room, sitting room and drawing rooms, finally leading him out into a bright, vaulted conservatory lined with planters full of dry and dead plants at the back of house. Each room held ghostly shapes of furniture covered with white dust sheets. Completely throwing off an odd cover here and there, showed William that the quality of the furnishings matched the house. The rich warm tones of the panelled walls were complemented by gold frames of small landscape paintings. Heavy drapes hung in front of the shuttered windows and as he disturbed them by opening the shutters slightly. They showered lively swirls of dust motes down on him as he let the slivers of daylight into the silent rooms.
William was certain Agatha would love this house. Thrilled to be able to show her sister, who still lived at the family home in Bath, how far up in the world they had risen. This London house was larger and better appointed and to be able to boast about it would please her immensely. He shook his head at the sudden thought of how many servants Agatha might insist on. The costs of running such a house would hardly compare to the pittance Agatha managed with to keep their small family living in their current two roomed hovel of a house. He shrugged. He never had a problem earning money, it was Agatha’s job to spend it. They would no longer needed to hide their wealth in London.
From the well equipped kitchens on the lower ground floor to the airy servants quarters high up in the attics, the house delighted William. From an attic window he could see across the wide panorama of streets and warehouses down to the ships and boats on the river. On a clear day William reckoned, he would be able to see far up and down the river, and over to the town on the other side. He made a note to himself to set up a telescope at this window. Studying the shuffled roofs of the buildings between himself and the river he could saw, as he had suspected, that the cab driver had taken him a circuitous route to increase the fare. This house could be no more than a fifteen minute walk down to the river.
Walking through the children’s rooms he feel a shadow of fear as he thought of the little ones who had played and died there. The nursery maid’s room still had her brush and clips set out on the dresser, her few clothes still hung on the pegs, polished boots sitting neatly below. The poor girl must have died along with the children she had cared for. All falling victim to the poisoned air. Had she had chance to leave her employment voluntarily, she would surely have taken her personal belongings with her. The children’s empty beds stood in a row, a crib set near to the nurse maids room had a low chair beside it. The white draped canopies festooned with ribbons and ruffles sent a cold shudder down William’s spine. The quiet white furniture felt all the more ghostly for the story behind its abandonment.
William delicately drew back the shutters of the tall window, letting shafts of daylight stream in, lighting up clouds of dancing dust motes. The slightest movement made them swirl around enthusiastically in the air. Pulling out a large handkerchief, William held it firmly to his nose and mouth, breathing as little as possible through the bunched up cloth. The walls were decorated, as William had suspected they would be, with a vibrant green patterned wallpaper. The velvety scrolls of soft flocking on the satin wallpaper trailed their way up to the darkness of the ceiling. It was so pretty that William found it hard to believe it was the instrument in killing the children of two successive families in such a short time.
Relieved when he was away from the haunted nursery rooms, he let himself breathe easily again. His assessment confirmed that the green décor had only been applied to this one floor of the house. He made a note to have anything green removed, in any form, innocent or not and to have the whole house scrubbed from attic to basement before they made it their new home. He had counted eight furnished bedrooms but would not risk sleeping in the house while there was any trace of deadly emerald green.
“This will suit us very nicely.” William startled himself as his words broke the settled silence of the room. He had reached the final room in the servants basement and thrown open the back door to reveal a small, walled courtyard set below the level of the small garden and large conservatory. A gust of smoky London air made a flurry of old dry leaves stir at his feet. When he passed through the kitchen, his stomach reminded him how long it had been since he had kept food down The seasickness which had so thoroughly emptied it had passed and now it started grumbling. There would be no point looking for anything to eat in a kitchen that had no occupants for weeks but for the occasional mouse or rat. Though he was now getting lightheaded with hunger, he could not be tempted by the contents of the pots and glass jars neatly lined up on the cold stone shelves. He would not have dare eat in this house even if a banquet had been laid out till it was rid of all traces of green.
The weak warm sun shone on his face as he stood to watch the comings and going on the street from the open front door of the house. He stepped outside and a brisk wind made him press his hat firmly on his head. He relaxed and drew in several welcome deep breaths, pleased to no longer have to breathe through his handkerchief. A bitter overlying sting of coal smoke made him cough.
In place of the rowdy fishwives and drunks he was used to right outside his window, here were barrow boys, costermongers and tradesmen shouting their wares in the wide, open street, servants calling out from their basements. Carts and fine carriages rumbled over the cobbles, horse's hooves striking sharp staccatos on the granite instead of the dull clomp of the horses making their way through the mush of guts and dung at the Barbican.
Another growl from his stomach told him it would be happy enough to keep a meal down so he set off back down toward the river. He would need to introduce himself in the clubs and offices where he would be conducting his business, but for now he wanted to stay anonymous, to watch the comings and goings of harbour life, to listen to the unguarded talk in the taverns and streets. He would not be staying invisible for long.
Chapter 11
William called out to Agatha to let him in, his arms were full of gifts from London. He had only just reached the door when Agatha threw it open. Instead of being delighted to see him, she took one look at him and ran past him and out of the yard gate into the alley, holding her hand over her mouth.
“A man deserves a better welcome than that when he’s just found her the house of her dreams.” he called after her. The sound of retching came from the alley in answer. Compared to the fine London house and despite Agatha’s tireless hard work, their dockside home now looked extremely dingy and desperate. He was ashamed that he had made her to live here for so long when they could have afforded to move further away from the harbour several years ago.
Agatha reappeared after a few minutes, pushing her hair back into place as though nothing untoward had just taken place.
“A bad fish my dear?” She smiled at him, the phrase was used in their household to refer to anything that didn’t suit them.
“Quite the opposite, my little spider. I hope this fine new house of yours has an extra rooms, for we shall have need of more in a few months time.” She rubbed her hand in a circle on her stomach. It was obvious that her stays had been loosened for more than just her comfort.
His mouth fell open as the penny dropped. “Are you sure? It must be ten years since Anthony was born.”
“Babies don’t arrive when it suits their parents.”
“This one couldn’t have chosen a better time then. I left instructions for work to start on the house in London. We will be far away from here before he makes his appearance.”
“It might be a girl this time William. Don't count your chickens too soon.” She stuck her chin out as she raised her face up to meet his eyes. “Do you think you can find enough business in London so soon, and more importantly, what is this house like?”
“Business will come looking for me in London, don’t you worry about that.” He couldn’t stop smiling as he stared at her circling hand.
“Our new son, my love, will start his life in a splendid townhouse on Keswick Place. All the furnishings have been left for us so we need take nothing from here.”
Agatha shook her head and pouted playfully at him, “Well I want a girl this time. If I don’t get to choose my furnishings, then I want to choose the baby.”
“Oh, it's a boy, I’m certain,” he kissed his wife enthusiastically on the lips and she wriggled out of his grasp,
“You don’t get around me that easily William Trent.”
William and Agatha settled down together that evening and he told her the full series of events in detail, starting from the night he found the Captain on the Hoe road, buying him a passage to the Americas in return for the house in London. Agatha took William by surprise when she burst into hopeless crying on hearing how the Captain returned home from sea, his wife and children all dead and buried in his absence. William assured her that every last trace of anything green was to be removed from the house before he would even dare let her step one foot inside.
Agatha stopped him fussing over her by tapping him on the head.
“It’s not me that’s crying William, it’s this baby making me soft. I’m telling you, it must be a girl.”
First thing next morning, William went to put his shares in any business dealings which had anything to do with arsenic, even though they had always paid him high returns, he felt a hypocrite still making money after he heard the Captain’s story. His experience of the journey by sea to London made him eager to invest in the new canals and railroads that were the talk of the clubs. While appearing to be travel weary and hungry, William had had to order two suppers to justify staying so long at one table just so that he heard every last bit of conversation about new investments in transport.
William had spent nearly two weeks visiting every club, exchange and commercial district he could find. He set out to gather as many letters of introduction as he could now he was back home. He needed to make new contacts in the Capital if he was to continue dealing at the same level, he was certainly not going cap in hand, he wanted to be trading straight away. To his relief, many of his business contacts were delighted with his relocation to London and were only too happy to oblige.
The next morning, he passed over the usual working clothes of a humble shipping clerk and dressed in clothes more suited to his gentlemanly status. Walking straight past his former work colleagues at their tall sloped desks, he entered the harbour masters office with only a cursory tap on the door from habit, and gave in his notice. Even though he could have bought and sold every man who worked there several times over, he still insisted on being paid what he was due up to his last day.
The morning was a tight schedule of visiting lawyers and offices as he put his affairs in order for the transition over to trading in London commodities.
It all happened more quickly and easily than William had ever dared to hope. He developed a twitch in his cheek as he kept looking sideways, as though the Captain might be there, to say it had all been a mistake.
No longer living with the pretence of being a humble clerk's wife, Agatha hired a local girl to come in every day and take over the housework. As she grew larger, Agatha struggled to walk and the girl took on more and more work for her till she was running the house under Agatha’s supervision. Maisie turned out to be such a willing girl that Agatha insisted she was to be part of their new life in London. She didn’t like to admit she was nervous of being on her own with a new baby in a strange place.
Finally satisfied that the house in Keswick Place was safe, they travelled together by ship to London. Despite his loathing of sea travel, he could not subject Agatha to the long journey which would have bumped her up and down in uncomfortable carriages for days. To Agatha’s amusement, she enjoyed the experience and took delight in tormenting William for his weak constitution.
Agatha rubbed William’s back gently as he hung his head over the side of the ship, heaving his guts up while his two sons played about happily on deck.
“Now who’s had a bad fish then, eh?”
END
Copyright © 2020 by Lesley F. Williams
All rights reserved. This book or any portion may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author