Court of Foxes (27 page)

‘Well, and so he caught me up in his arms and laughed and ruffled my hair and seemed so happy to see me. And said I was the very fellow he needed, for I should carry the roses to you.’

‘He wouldn’t bring them himself?’

‘No, for I asked him and he said — Gilda, he said it was as much as his life was worth to be recognised in that place; for whatever the family might promise, there was still a price on his head, for the shooting of the Earl of Tregaron.’

‘But he did come in,’ she said, a cold hand on her heart.

‘Because of what I told him was being said — that she’d make a sport of you. Then he laughed no more, his face grew quiet, his eyes — his eyes flashed, Gilda, like a — like a sort of fire…’

‘So I have seen them,’ said Gilda, ‘often enough.’

‘And he said: ‘We shall see about that. I have made a bargain with them—’

‘Then it
was
he who held up their wagon. He must indeed be back at the Cwrt.’

‘Why yes, and said he brought you a thousand messages, and they couldn’t but laugh at your tricking them all and wished you good fortune out of it — especially since they learned no ransom would have come to them even had you stayed. And then he — he caught me by the arm and asked me how you did, and were you happy—?’

‘You told him I was so? — deliriously.’

‘I told him you were happy and — and with child.’

‘And he—?’

‘I
told
you, Gilda, yesterday. Made a bow and a scrape and said I should give you his felicitations.’

‘And after that smiled no more?’

‘Well — he smiled, Gilda; only not with his eyes. And then — and then we saw the Earl of Trove’s carriage drive up, and waited in a dark corner till they were gone through the entrance and towards the boxes. And then he said: “You go that way, little brother—” little brother, he called me, Gilda, “and I this,” and started off into the house after them. I caught at his coat and begged him not to place himself in danger; but he brushed away my hand and said…’

She held the small hand tight. ‘Yes, well, continue… Tell me again what he said. Last night I hardly listened, but now that he’s apprehended, and all through me, that I be not made a mock of… Come, tell me again. He said he would not hear me called slut and strumpet—’

‘Although — although a slut and a strumpet indeed you were — but should not be called so in a public place and by a woman who would sell herself for wealth and position, and to the very man whose slut and strumpet you were. Not—’

‘Not—?’ said Gilda.

‘Not while you bore his name,’ said little Jake; and fished suddenly in his pocket. ‘Why, but that reminds me that all this time I’ve forgotten the note that was to go with the roses.’

The old message: the same message. ‘… till I die.’

She sent for her brothers. ‘You must help me, you must find out what’s going forward, you must arrange for me to see him.’ Against their protestations she was adamant. ‘For me, entirely for me, because he wouldn’t have me publicly insulted — he’s got himself into this terrible situation. There’s nothing I must leave undone, that I can do to save him.’

‘Gilda, for heaven’s sake! — what is this fellow to you?’

‘Among other things he is my husband.’

‘A forced marriage — a trickery.’

‘Legal and binding,’ she insisted, shrugging. ‘If not, do you think David wouldn’t long ago have married me, Blanche or no Blanche?’

‘If they should hang him… Gilda, once he was dead…’ But James brushed the thought away. ‘Well, no: we couldn’t wish that.’ And he confessed: ‘There is after all a — something — about him…’

‘There’s nothing about him,’ said Gilda, crossly. ‘It’s nothing to do with that. You’re dazzled by the memory of a man in a green brocade coat who flourished and made pretty speeches while you handed round cakes—’

‘It was I who ate the cakes,’ said Jake. ‘But
I’m
not dazzled by a man in a grand coat. I remember that he’s a highwayman, brave and daring and clever and gay—’

‘There’s nothing brave and gay about a highwayman,’ said Gilda. ‘If you were a frightened woman in a coach on a lonely road, you’d soon discover that!’ But there came back to her the memory of herself, hanging down from the branch of a great tree, to look into just such a coach: and of how his bright eyes had looked across into hers from the opposite window; and she burst forth for a moment into laughter. ‘Well, well! — perhaps there is some romance in it, after all. And in him some — charm; though he’s nothing but a rogue…’

‘A rogue and a robber,’ said George, steadily.

‘And murderer to boot,’ said Sam.

‘Who offers his life that a slut and a strumpet — as he civilly calls me — shall not be insulted in public. Which life I shall save if I may, and you cannot refuse me your assistance.’

And that very day she went, with no escort but little Jake, her elder brothers being constrained by their occupations from accompanying her — and joined the throng of other women clamouring at Newgate Gaol for a sight of the highwayman. To visit such unromantic romantics was the fashion, and, curious, excited, shameless in sensation — seeking, they crowded the foetid, narrow corridors leading to his cell-bright in their silks and velvets, the great ladies of high society, struggling like alley-women for a glance from him, a word from him — from him who had robbed just such women of their property, rough-handled their menfolk, not seldom ‘insulted’ themselves with his violent attentions. Thief, plunderer, murderer — now safely caged, he was to be the hero of the few brief days remaining to him; and they his slaves.

Little Jake struggled along behind her, the tears streaming down his face. ‘Gilda, this is a terrible place…’

Yes; it was terrible. Due to be pulled down soon and re-erected on lines at least a little more humane, it consisted now of a higgledy-piggledy of dark, dank passages of sweating stone into which no gleam of daylight entered; lined with abominable cells — mere niches in the walls, ten feet long, perhaps and not half that width across, windowless except for the barred upper half of the wall fronting on to the corridor — itself windowless; furnished with a stone bench built against the inner wall — and with nothing more. Through the bars, hands reached out as they passed: filthy, unshaven, poor wretches due for death craved a last charity of the great ladies pressing by. But the ladies held their muffs to their noses and hurried on; and at last came a mob so dense that Gilda, following, knew that they must be near him. ‘Oh, Gilda,’ said the little boy, raising his pale child’s face to hers, ‘if we should find him in such a kennel as these—!’

‘What gold can buy him, dearest, he shall have.’

What gold could buy had been bought already. She should have known him better! He had bribed his way to a cell twice the size of any other, with good blankets, a warm carpet of deep, clean straw on the stone floor, a table and two chairs. His face was cleanly shaven, his dark hair, caught back by its black velvet ribbon, was smooth brushed as ever; he wore his green coat and if the ruffles at his throat and wrists were a little soiled, no matter for she saw that fresh shirts had been brought to him and lay in readiness, spread out on the bed — the fine ladies, it seemed were well versed in the needs of such heroes and only too eager to forestall them. And the table was laden with wine bottles and good things to eat; and he, with a pretty girl on each knee was feeding himself and them alternately with hothouse grapes and exchanging badinage with the mob outside the bars.

A turnkey, filthy and villainous, barred Gilda’s way with outstretched palm. ‘No nearer, Madam. Orders is orders.’

‘Others are right inside the cell.’

‘Lord knows by what means; unless it may be said,’ he mumbled, slyly insinuating, ‘that they have greased the key.’

She looked at him, revolted. ‘I see grease enough already.’

He refused to be offended. ‘Doubtless, Madam, for this is a greasy old place. But the ointment I speak of is golden.’

She gave way: sovereigns chinked and he forced a way through for them, roughly jostling the fine ladies as he went, and so left them at last, close up against the cage. But now that she was here, she grew frightened, the women behind her, indignant at having being ousted from their places, pressed forward, she was afraid of being crushed against the bars, afraid of danger to her unborn child. Within the cell, he sat laughing, pouring brandy for the girls, bandying mockery with those outside. She called out sharply: ‘Gareth!’ but he did not hear her. ‘Oh, Gilda,’ whispered Jake, ‘it’s no good, it’s all horrible — let us go!’

‘He is but play-acting,’ she said, looking down at him, compassionately, ‘to put on a brave show,’ and she called out again, shrilly, forcing her voice above the din: ‘Gareth! Gareth y Cadno!’ and added in Welsh all the vile words she knew.

He lifted his head; shouted out suddenly to the chattering women: ‘Be silent!’, turfed the two sluts roughly off his knees and stood up. ‘Who called to me then, in Welsh?’

‘I,’ said Gilda, into the comparative silence. ‘And in terms you could not but recognise.’

‘What, is it you, my Vixen?’ And he came across to the bars of his cage, but slowly, almost it seemed reluctantly, kicking the straw as he came; and put his hand through the bars and caught at hers. ‘Gilda,’ he said, half whispering, ‘you shouldn’t be here.’

‘No, I shouldn’t; and I see that in fact there was no need for me to come. But since I
am
here — is there anything I can arrange for you? Whatever you name, I’ll do if I can.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, as to naming — I could name quite a lot. But not here, my love, alas! — not here.’

‘Very well, very well,’ she said irritably, ‘spare me the speeches; for that sort of thing you have candidates a plenty. But you’re in deep danger — and through me, I know; so that I feel obliged to help you if I can.’

He lost his laughter. ‘But I think you can’t, my dear; nor God, nor any man — not this time.’ His strong hands grasped at the bars. ‘This place wasn’t built for escaping from.’ He saw Jake’s scared face peering up at him. ‘I told you, my would-be highwayman, didn’t I? — long ago: that all of us must end one day upon the Three-legged Tree. And so, you see, must Gareth y Cadno of the Court of Foxes.’

‘You shall not, you shall not!’ cried the little boy, weeping.

‘Ah, but I shall and you mustn’t shed tears, my boy, and make me grow weak with you. Dry your eyes; and one day not too far ahead I’ll undertake to make you the proudest boy in Christendom — to you alone will I wave, I swear it, as the cart goes by. Which reminds me, Madam Vixen, this at least you could undertake — pay I know not who, but you can doubtless discover — for a coffin and shroud to be loaded on the cart and go with me—’

‘I’ve thought of that,’ she said.

He bowed. ‘You are all consideration.’

‘It was in case — in case—’

He shrugged. ‘Accept it; this time there’s no “in case”.’

‘Oh, Gareth!’ She lifted her lovely eyes to his and met his own, dark and unfathomable. She whispered: ‘Under all this — unreality: are you not afraid?’

‘Afraid?’ He turned his head aside, looking away from her, for a moment closed his eyes, almost as though he were about to faint. But he turned back almost immediately, looking down, brilliantly smiling, into the little boy’s tear-stained face. ‘Afraid? she asks me. What, I — afraid? Shall I not have my friends about me — they’ll come up from the Crwt, you’ll see; I’m not the first of the gang to end up my days on the Nubbing Chit and they know all the tricks, how to pull on my legs so that of the manner of death itself I need have no terrors. And for the rest — a triumphal progress: how better can a man go to meet his end? Do you be there, Jake, little brother, to see me pass, with the flowers at my feet and the girls in white dancing by the cart, and bouquets from half the fine ladies of London…’ He broke off. ‘Will you send me a bouquet, Madam Vixen? Red roses: will you send me red roses? — and those I’ll carry, if you will, and let all the rest rot. Jake, see that she sends me red roses. I’ve sent them often enough to
her.
’

‘And with a message,’ said the little boy, sobbing still, trying to rub away the tears with his sleeve.

‘Ah, well, as to the message — she could send me no such message: though since the time would be short enough, my Vixen, perhaps you might essay it — just for that brief progress to say that you will love me till I die? I wouldn’t keep you waiting.’ And he put out his hand through the bars and caught at her own and pulled it through to him, the small, white, scented hand and kissed the palm and folded her fingers over the kiss; and ruffled the boy’s hair and turned away from them without another word.

Half fainting, she forced her way out again, from the noise and the crowd, and the dank, foetid stench; and within her muff, her fingers were unwrapping the paper he had slipped into her hand with the kiss. Secretly, sending the child forward to find out where the carriage was waiting at the prison gate, she read what he had written there, prepared in advance apparently, for any true friend that should come.

For God’s sake
—
get me laudanum!

The days passed. She obtained laudanum, wheedled her brother Sam into taking it for her to the gaol; the experience had sickened her, mentally and physically too and her mother was insistent that, if only for the sake of the baby, she should not go again. But on the third day as she lay fretful and anxious on her bed upstairs, little Jake came pounding at the door. ‘Come, Gilda, quick! Here’s such a rabble below that my mother is having the hysterics. A woman and three villainous-looking fellows, but they’ll only say that they’re friends of her ladyship…’

She struggled out of bed, flung on a white wrapper, all ribbons and lace, flew down to the hall. ‘Catti! Dio! Huw! My little Willie-bach!’ And she flung her arms round their necks and drew them with her into her elegant drawing-room, too excited to observe how gingerly they perched themselves on the silly little gilded chairs. Dio y Diawl, in fact, struggled up immediately to his feet again. He cut across her suddenly faltering flutterings of welcome. He said: ‘Have you seen him?’

‘Have I seen Gareth? Yes, I’ve seen him. And my brother has been to him. I was ill but my brother took him — took him laudanum.’