Morgan’s Run (24 page)

“I heard a rumor,” said Dick doubtfully.

“Tell me, Father. My weeping days are over, you need not be afraid that I will shame ye,” said Richardly gently.

His father’s face reddened. “Well, it came to me through Davy Evans, my new rum distiller—
beautiful
drop, Richard! He told me that the trade is saying that Cave and Thorne went to Trevillian the moment they heard about your rumpus in Clifton, and asked him to prosecute you and Willy. You and I know that Trevillian is actively involved in the excise fraud, but the trade is ignorant of that, and has made the connection a different way. Davy Evans says Cave and Thorne want you and Willy convicted felons before the excise case can come to court. Then there is no case, for felons cannot testify. Furthermore, Cave has been to see the
Commander
of Excise—your Benjamin Fisher’s brother, John—it is all in the family, as usual—and offered to make a sixteen-hundred-pound restitution. The Brothers Fisher are of course aware that you and Willy have been arrested and know perfectly well why Trevillian is doing this, but there is absolutely no proof.”

“So we are to be convicted felons disbarred from testifying.”

Willy began to howl like a dismal dog; Richard swung around with one of those lightning moves that defied sight and grasped his arm so hard that he squealed shrilly.

“Shut up, Willy!
Shut up!
Cry one more tear and irons or no, I will kick you to the other end of this establishment—
and
leave ye to die of fever!”

Dick gaped. Willy shut up.

Just as well, thought the stunned Dick, that Cousin James-the-druggist chose that moment to appear, lugging a wooden box the size of a small trunk. Otherwise, what was there to say to a stranger?

“A few things for you, Richard, but later,” the newcomer said, putting the box on the floor with a grunt. His eyes shone liquid with tears. “It looks worse and worse for you.”

“That comes as no surprise, Cousin James.”

“The Law is so peculiar, Richard! I confess I had no idea what it says or does beyond my own small part in the scheme of things, and I suppose that is true for everybody, especially the poor.” He held out his hand to Richard, who took it and found its grip convulsive. “You have almost no rights, especially outside the bounds of Bristol. Cousin Henry has tried and both the Reverend James and I have seen every important man we know, but the Law says that we cannot get a glimpse of Ceely’s sworn statement, nor even know the names of his witnesses. It is shocking, shocking! I had hoped to post bail, but bail is not granted for crimes ranked as felonies, and ye’re charged with”—he gulped, swallowed—“grand larceny
and
extortion! Both are capital crimes—Richard, ye could hang!”

“Well,” said Richard tiredly, “I brought it all upon myself, though ’twould be interesting to know what Ceely has sworn about extortion. He
offered
a wronged husband a note of hand as an out-of-court settlement. Or is he now saying I am not a husband and so extorted under false pretenses? If I call her my wife, then she is my wife under the Common Law unless I already have a wife, which I do not. That much I do know about the Law.”

“We have no idea what he has sworn,” said Dick hollowly.

“The first thing we must do is lay hands on Annemarie Latour. She can verify my story when I tell it in court.”

“Ye’re not allowed to testify on your own behalf, Richard,” said Cousin James-the-druggist quietly. “The accused is bound to silence, he is not allowed to tell his side of the story. All he may do in his defense is produce character witnesses and—if he can afford it—retain counsel to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses. His counsel cannot examine him, nor introduce any new evidence. As for the woman—she has disappeared. By rights she ought to be in the women’s section of the Newgate equally charged, but she is not. Her rooms in Clifton have been vacated, and no one seems to know whereabouts she went.”

“What a place is England, and how little we know of how it works until it touches us,” said Richard. “Am I not even allowed to have my counsel read out a sworn statement to the jury?”

“No. You may speak only in reply to a direct question from the judge, and then you must confine your answer entirely to it.”

“What about finding Annemarie through Mrs. Herbert Barton?”

“There is no Mrs. Herbert Barton.”

Willy Insell emitted a loud sob.

“Do not, Willy,” said Richard softly. “Just—do—not.”

“It is diabolical!” Dick cried, borrowing a Dissenter word.

“To sum up, then, we have no idea how Ceely is going to go about prosecuting me, nor who his witnesses are, nor what they will say,” said Richard levelly. “And all of it is going to take place in Gloucester, forty miles away.”

“That is the sum of it,” said Cousin James-the-druggist.

For as much as a minute Richard sat silent, chewing his lower lip, in thought rather than in anxiety. Then he shrugged. “That is for the future,” he said. “In the meantime I have urgent needs. Rags to pad my fetters. Rags for washing. And rags for wiping my arse.” His face contorted. “I will launder the last under the water pipe and use them damp if I have to. These poor creatures are too far gone to have much energy for stealing, but I doubt my rags would survive being hung up to dry. I will have to pay one of the gaolers to cut off my hair. I want soap. Changes of some clothing every few days—shirts, stockings, underdrawers. And clean rags, always clean rags. Plus money enough to drink small beer. That water over there comes out of the Pugsley’s Well pipe, I would bet, and will not be fit for drinking. So many in here are sick.” He drew a breath. “I know this means I will cost ye money, but I swear that the moment I am free, I will begin to pay it back.”

In answer, Cousin James-the-druggist opened up the wooden chest with the flair of a fairground conjurer. “I did think of rags already,” he said, burrowing. “If it is possible to keep custody of this box, do so. Sit on it, or be like Dick and tie it to your big toe. The gaoler inspected it minutely when I came in, of course.” He tittered. “No files or hacksaws, which is all he was worried about. Though it seems odd to me, ye’re allowed a razor and a pair of scissors. Perhaps the gaolers do not care if ye cut each other’s throats. A strop and a whetstone.” He lifted the scissors and handed them to Dick. “Start cutting, Cousin.”

“Cut Richard’s hair? I could not!” cried Dick, appalled.

“You must. Places like this are riddled with every kind of vermin. Short hair will not keep them entirely at bay, but at least it means far fewer. I have put in a fine-toothed comb as well, Richard. Trim your body hair too, or pluck it.”

“I have very little, so cutting it will suffice.”

Cousin James-the-druggist was still ferreting, trying to get his hands around something heavy and awkward. Finally he succeeded in dragging it out, and set it triumphantly on the flagging. “Is it not wondrous?” he demanded.

Richard, Dick and Willy stared at the object blankly.

“I am sure it is, Cousin James, but
what
is it?” asked Richard.

“A dripstone,” said Cousin James-the-druggist proudly. “The stone part, as you can see, is a slightly conical-bottomed dish which holds about three pints of water. The water soaks through the stone and drips from its bottom into the brass dish below it. Whatever magic happens within the stone I do not know, but the water in the collecting dish is as sweet and fresh as the best spring water. Which,” he explained, launched into one of his scientific enthusiasms, “is pure and sparkling because it too makes a journey through porous rocks! I had heard that the Italians—clever people!—have these dripstones, but I could not lay my hands on one. Then about a year ago my friend Captain John Staines came home from Brazilian parts with a cargo of cocoa beans for Joseph Fry and cochineal for me. He called into Teneriffe for water, which that isle has in abundance. Someone showed him this, thinking to interest him for an English market—it is at present exported to those parts of Spain where the water is terrible. Thus he gave it to me rather than to Fry, who cannot think beyond chocolate. I tested it on the water from the Pugsley’s Well pipe—as ye rightly said, Richard, undrinkable. Since the pipe is wooden and passes through four burying grounds, little wonder.”

“How did ye test it, Jim?” asked Dick with a long-suffering look, wincing as he snipped off Richard’s thick and curling hair.

“I drank the water the dripstone produced myself, naturally.”

“I knew ye’d say that.”

“I have begun to import dripstones from Teneriffe, and thought of you immediately,” said Cousin James-the-druggist, tucking the dripstone back into the box. “It will come in handy, Richard, though I warn ye that it does not last forever. My trial one became smelly and the water cloudy after nine months, but it is easy to see when the corruption begins because the inside of the stone bowl grows a sticky brown substance. However,” he went on, “the paper which came with my first shipment says that a dirty dripstone can be purified by soaking it for a week or two in clean sea-water and then drying it in the sun for another week or two.” He sighed. “Not possible in England, alas.”

“Cousin James,” said Richard, smiling with enormous affection, “I kiss your hands and feet.”

“No need to go that far, Richard.” He rose and dusted his hands together, then suffered a change of mood. “I brought the box today,” he said carefully, “because no one will tell me when ye’re likely to be moved to Gloucester. Since the next assizes are not due until Lent, it may not be soon. But it may be tomorrow. And James-of-the-clergy said to tell ye he will be visiting.”

“It will be a joy to see him,” said Richard, feeling light-headed. He rose while Dick, still squatting, scooped up his shorn hair. “Father, wash your hands in vinegar and oil of tar when you get home, and do not touch your face until you do. Bring me clean underdrawers and soap, I beg you!”

The move
did not happen on the morrow. Richard and Willy remained in the Bristol Newgate until into the new year of 1785. A blessing in some ways—his family could see to his needs; a curse in others—his family witnessed the misery of his situation.

Determined to see Richard for herself, Mag came once. But after the horrors of finding him amid that horde of wraiths, one look at his face and bristling scalp saw her faint dead away.

That was not to be the worst. Cousin James-the-druggist came alone just after Christmas. “It is your father, Richard. He has had a stroke.”

The eyes Richard turned upon him had changed out of all recognition. Even through William Henry the tranquillity and flashes of humor had not completely vanished, but now they had. Life was not gone from them, but they observed rather than reacted. “Will he die, Cousin James?”

“No, not of this stroke. I have put him on a strict diet and hope to ensure that no second and third follow. His left arm and left leg are affected, but he can speak and his thought processes are not disordered. He sends all his love, but we feel that it is not wise for him to visit the Newgate.”

“Oh, the Cooper’s Arms! It will kill him to have to leave it.”

“There is no need for him to leave it. Your brother has sent his oldest boy to train as a victualler there—a good lad too, not so money-hungry as William. And pleased to be out of that household, I suspect. William’s wife is as hard as she is watchful—well, I do not need to tell ye
that.
”

“I daresay ’tis she has put her foot down and forbidden Will to visit me in gaol. He must be mourning the loss of his gratis saw-setter,” said Richard without rancor. “And Mum?”

“Mag is Mag. Her answer for everything is to work.”

Richard did not reply, just sat on the flags with his legs stretched out in front of him, Willy the shadow on his far side. Fighting tears, Cousin James-the-druggist tried to study him as if he were a stranger—not so difficult these days. How could he be so much handsomer than he used to be? Or was it that his handsomeness had gone unnoticed? The raggedly cropped trying-to-curl hair, no more than half an inch long, revealed the fine shape of the skull, and the sharp cheekbones and aquiline blade of nose stood forth in the smooth, unlined face. If that face had altered, then the change lay in his mouth; the sensuous lower lip remained, yet the whole had firmed and straightened, lost its dreamily peaceful contours. His thin, peaked black brows had always lain close to the eyes beneath, though now they looked—oh, more as if they belonged, as if they had been etched in as emphasis.

He is six-and-thirty, and God is trying him as He tried Job, but somehow Richard is turning the table on God without cheating or insulting Him. Over the course of the last year he has lost wife and only child—lost his fortune—lost his reputation—lost family like his selfish brother. Yet he has not lost himself. How little we know of those we think we know, in spite of a whole lifetime.