The Dandelion Seed (2 page)

The landlord looked like a rough customer. He had a recent cut on his head and his eyes were red-rimmed and raw-looking. He was not, Thomas thought, a very prepossessing fellow. He had a full, brutal-looking mouth and his unshaven chin was prickly with bristles.

The old man spoke in a hoarse whisper that was so loud Thomas could hear every word from where he sat.

‘They got your woman.’

‘Oh, yes?’ the landlord shook his head. ‘Upset me, I can tell you.’

‘I thought you wanted to get rid of the missus,’ piped up the old man.

‘Shh!’ hissed the landlord, glancing from side to side. But then he spoke in a louder voice. ‘But she were a witch, right enough. See what she did to me . . .’ He touched the recent cut on his head. ‘Threw sawdust in me eyes and pushed me down the stairs. Wonder I live to tell the tale.’

The old man chuckled. ‘I thought you fell down and she chucked sawdust ’cause you were trying yer old tricks on that little girl.’

The landlord’s fat face went dark red. He squinted in the direction of Thomas, who was sitting perfectly still and pretending to doze. ‘Shut your great mouth, old Jem,’ he said, ‘or else I’ll shut it for you.’

Nattering and muttering, Jem made his way to the door. ‘Made a fine mess of her in the stocks, they did,’ he said with relish. ‘I expect they have drowned her by now.’ Shaking his head he disappeared.

The landlord began to polish the tankards in a fierce noisy manner until Thomas opened his eyes and asked the time of the day.

‘’Tis nearly nine o’clock,’ the man replied, all smiles. ‘Would you like something to eat, sir?’

‘No, thanks,’ said Thomas. ‘I am on my way.’ He felt a wave of anger at the ugly rogue in front of him, and wondered what had happened to the little girl. But it was not his business and he was expected at Whitehall. So he got his horse from the stables and continued his journey towards London.

He left Hackney and rode through the pretty hamlet of Kings Hold, passing another great manor house surrounded by green meadows. For some reason he could not stop thinking of that little girl. His shirt front still felt damp from her tears; perhaps he should have stayed behind and tried to find her. He felt sad, but at the same time he knew that it was no good sticking his head into other people’s trouble. In times like these, no one was safe. And if he had not been such a fool in the past, he might have been in a better position today, instead of riding messenger for the despicable Robert Carr.

Thomas reached Bow Bridge and entered London. A foul smell hit his nostrils. It was disgusting and hung over the whole city. Londoners said it was the plague that brought it, but any foreigner knew that it was caused by the dirt and filth the Londoners lived in.

Already Thomas was longing for a breath of clean air from his beloved Dorset, for the undulating moors and the golden sands down at Lulworth Cove, where he had first become aware of his urge to go to sea. In the distance was the grey Tower, where Sir Walter Raleigh, his old master, had been cooped up for the last ten years. Thomas’ own father and brother had died in the service of that great man and Thomas knew that he would never have a master like that again.

The streets were getting narrower and more crowded. Crowds of people were swarming all over the place and ragged little children ran under his horse’s hooves, begging for bread. Thomas felt sickened. What a desperate place it was by day, this poor part of the city!

As he approached the Fleet prison, he passed a horsedrawn cart guided from behind by a man carrying a long whip. Tied to the back of the cart was a man whose battered body showed that he was just completing a part of his punishment of being whipped at the cart’s tail for four days. Thomas felt nauseous at the sight of it. There was no such sympathy from the crowd. People ran behind the cart shouting and jeering at the poor fellow tied to it, and each time the whip descended there were roars of delight and screeches of laughter. It was pure entertainment to them.

Thomas’ strictly Puritan mind was shocked. It was all the fault of that Scottish devil King James! But it had not always been so. He could well remember when he had been a young page in the court of the great Queen Elizabeth. Recalling her last days, he could still picture her sitting propped up on the floor, her face yellow and wrinkled with pain and old age. But that astonishingly dominant spirit still shone out and the greatest of men were reduced to shivering wrecks by one angry look.

The Queen had been a real sovereign, someone to respect and look up to. But what had they now? This Scottish fellow did not command any respect, with all his pimps and hangers-on. He threw the country’s good money away and toadied up to foreign powers such as Spain. Thomas felt his anger rise welling inside again. He was damned if he would not ask for his release and go off to Virginia again!

Soon he had skirted Saint James’ Park and entered the Holbein gate of Whitehall. Fantastically dressed courtiers minced past him, Thomas frowned disapprovingly. ‘More like foolish women than men,’ he muttered.

Jumping from his horse and handing it over to the servants, he quickly went to the anteroom to wait to be called by his master and the King’s favourite, Robert Carr. He sat quietly as other ushers and messengers sat about talking, and pages trotted in and out. The lofty room echoed with the sound of voices. But Thomas did not talk. He had not been nick-named, Dour Thomas for nothing. He had no use for talk of lechery or of the foolishness of the King, the usual topics of conversation at court, so he kept himself to himself.

Soon the call came and he followed the page to the sumptuous apartments of the effeminate Robert Carr. Thomas’ master had hair as golden as a young girl’s. He was slim-waisted and elaborately dressed in velvets, braid and beads, lace and frills. He opened the letter Thomas had handed him and his face paled slightly as he read it.

‘Stay around, Thomas Mayhew,’ he ordered. ‘I will have need of you to ride to Essex with me in a few days.’ Then with an airy wave of his hand, he dismissed him.

Thomas walked to his lodgings. It had been a most depressing day. The image of Marcelle’s little face lingered in his mind; he could hear her weeping and feel the soft brown sweep of her hair, like a sparrow’s wing. That’s it! She had been like a little bird. Would he ever see her again? he wondered.

When Marcelle had dropped from Thomas’ horse, another terrible fear made her little body tremble.
He
was in there, that monster who had caused her mother’s death, the pig who had made their lives hell these last three months. She knew she could not face entering that inn again, so she ran to the only person she knew, along a narrow alley, and between two hitching posts where tall wooden houses leaned lopsidedly over the street.

On the steps, taking in the air, sat Betsy. She was half dazed and clearly trying to get rid of the effects of last night’s rendezvous with the bottle. It had been a busy night for Betsy up in the city. The gentlemen were always ready for a quickie in the alley and never minded paying. But a little drink always helped, and gave her a bit of Dutch courage. She was not a bad-looking girl, but to look at her she would have been taken for about twenty-five, when she was in fact only eighteen. Obliging the gentlemen since she was fifteen had aged her a lot, but she still had that fun, over-blown beauty. Blonde, with china-blue eyes, she had the sort of good looks that fade very quickly.

Betsy was Marcelle’s only friend in England. They had met at the inn where Sam, her stepfather, employed Betsy when he had a rush of customers, and the two girls had become friends. So in the daytime, Betsy would sit on her steps on call, and when the situation at home became unbearable, Marcelle would seek her out and sit outside with her. With her rough-tough humour and love of life, Betsy was just what the gentle, confused little Marcelle needed. And now in her anguish, she ran to Betsy, jumping on her as she dozed.

‘Blimey!’ said Betsy, waking up with a start. ‘That you Marci? You gave me quite a turn.’

‘Oh! Betsy, Betsy.’ Little Marcelle hung on to the older girl’s greasy petticoats and laid her head on her lap. Here was a place of safety at last.

‘What’s up, love?’ Betsy asked. ‘Old Sam been up to his tricks again?’

‘No, it’s my mother,’ Marcelle whispered in a small frightened voice. ‘They have killed her.’

Betsy jumped to her feet. ‘They haven’t!’ she exclaimed. ‘My God, Rolly come down here!’ she shouted into the hallway behind her.

Moments later, from the darkness came the tall gangling figure of Betsy’s brother, Rolly. The boy’s head lolled to one side and he drooled from his wide, open mouth, but his physique was magnificent. He was at least six foot tall, with huge shoulders and chest, giant hands and feet. He was truly a formidable figure. As he came outside, he looked sheepish, like a little boy caught stealing apples. One eye was damaged and a piece of flesh was missing from his ear. Betsy looked at him angrily.

‘Rolly, what’s all this about Marcelle’s muvver?’ she demanded.

‘I dunno, he said.

‘What you mean, you dunno? You was here watching out, wasn’t yer?’

‘Yus, I saw ’em but I never joined in, honest I didn’t,’ Rolly protested like a small child.

‘Why didn’t you wake me up, you stupid sod?’ yelled Betsy.

‘It was no good, they took her before you was home,’ he muttered into his chin.

Betsy, arms akimbo, looked at Marcelle for confirmation of this.

‘He’s right,’ answered Marcelle. ‘They took her last night and they drowned her at dawn.’

‘The bastards!’ yelled Betsy, her pretty face flushed with rage. ‘The dirty bastards! Rolly, go and find out who rounded them up, and don’t come back till you do,’ she shouted after her.

Rolly’s tall shape ambled off down the alley immediately. He knew he had to go at once rather than annoy Betsy by hesitating. Theirs was a strange brother and sister relationship. He protected her physically, while she with her brains looked after him.

‘Come indoors with me, love.’ Betsy took Marcelle by the hand and they went inside the building. A long passageway led to Betsy’s one room. Children played about and old folk lay in this corridor as if it were the last place to rest from a world that had no further use for them. The air was heavy with the rank smell of sweaty bodies.

Betsy’s room was very bare, with only a rickety homemade table in the corner and two straw pallets on the floor. A brown jug stood on the table and beside it a tin cup. Betsy poured a drink for herself and knocked it back quickly. Then she poured one for Marcelle. ‘Drink it, love, it will do you good. It’s rum. A sailor gave it to me last week. He didn’t have no money, so I took the goods.’ She started to giggle and Marcelle’s frightened eyes glanced around the poverty stricken room.

‘Tain’t much of a place, is it?’ said Betsy. ‘But never mind, it’s better than the river arches. I made do with them till I got this room.’

She pulled out a little stool for Marcelle to sit on and from the corridor she found a wooden box for herself. As she sat down, she hitched up her skirt to reveal the scarlet quilted petticoat that she was so proud of and settled back with her legs wide apart and her bare feet on the dirty floor.

‘You know, Marci,’ Betsy said, ‘you think it’s a terrible world out there, but it’s much worse down in the city, I can tell yer. Me and Rolly came up here when our folks died in the plague. And I ain’t sorry. It might be a long walk down the town to earn a few shillings, but it’s cleaner and safer up here.’

Marcelle felt warm and fuzzy with the fiery rum inside her. She sat hunched up on the stool, still feeling quite dazed by all that had happened to her.

Betsy looked at her sharply. ‘For a girl like you it ain’t going to be easy,’ she said. ‘I think you had better stay here.’

Marcelle looked around the hovel, and felt afraid. It was so stark and squalid, and Rolly slept here as well. Besides, her stepfather would find her soon enough. ‘No, not here!’ she stammered. ‘I can’t, but I can’t go back to the inn, either. I’m too scared. He will get rid of me. I know too much about him.’

Betsy looked thoughtful. ‘Not if I come with you,’ she said. ‘When Rolly comes back we’ll go and see him. Rolly will stay here, otherwise he will be off down the cockpit and get himself all chewed up again. I have to keep an eye on the bleeder.’

Ten minutes later, Rolly came sidling in.

‘Well,’ demanded Betsy. ‘What have you found out?’

‘Sam paid men from London. The villagers never done it. That’s what they say, Betsy,’ Rolly replied.

‘Where’s old Sam now?’

‘Gone up Brook House to see the lord. Says he’s going to claim damages for the loss of his wife.’

‘Bloody old hypocrite!’ Betsy looked down at the frightened girl. ‘Never mind, Marcelle, we will go back to the inn, and you must lock yourself in your room. I’ll settle Sam, the old devil. Now, Rolly, don’t you dare leave this alley! I’ll be watching to see if you do.’

It took a bit of persuasion to make Marcelle move, but in the end, with Betsy holding her arm and Rolly dawdling along behind them, they walked down the alley towards the inn.

‘How can we get in if it’s shut up?’ asked Betsy.

‘Through the stables,’ Marcelle replied.

They crept through the stables to a back door that led to the kitchen. Betsy’s round blue eyes looked hungrily at the food left on the table. ‘Crikey! Let’s have a good tuck-in before old Sam gets back.’