The Devil's Company (41 page)

Mr. Franco listened with particular interest to my description of the mystery surrounding Ellershaw’s stepdaughter. “This is the perfect place to find out,” he said. “If she engaged in a clandestine marriage, she would do so within the Rules of the Fleet.”

“Very true,” I said, though without enthusiasm.

“As you are here, perhaps it would be wise to pursue that line of inquiry.”

“I should prefer not to. I am sufficiently aggrieved that I must inquire into the Company. I have no desire to upturn personal lives and heap miseries upon Mrs. Ellershaw or her daughter.”

“Often, in business, it is the circuitous path that is the most expedient. That matter has been raised, and you tell me that this Forester appears to be concealing something from you.”

“Yes, but as he has tender feelings for Mrs. Ellershaw, it seems likely that he conceals to aid her.”

“I see no harm in pursuing the matter, in the event you are mistaken. I do not wish to use my position to influence you, but I would hope you would use every advantage possible to influence those who hold all our fates in their hands.”

It was true enough. The investment of a few hours might yield nothing, and if that were the case I could easily forget I had pursued this course. “Perhaps you are right.”

“Indeed, I may save you some time. I met this morning a priest by the name of Mortimer Pike who told me he lives within the Rules, on the Old Bailey, and he, at least according to his own declaration, is fairly the king of Fleet marriages. He appears rather proud of the claim that he has performed more of these ceremonies than any other man alive. I cannot speak of his veracity, but he does appear to do a brisk trade and, what’s more, knows the other priests.”

I thanked him for the intelligence. And, after visiting for some half an hour more, I set off in search of this servant to Hymen.

IT HAS EVER BEEN one of the most curious aspects of the city that there are small sections in which the normal laws that govern our lives do not apply, almost as though one might stumble into a neighborhood where a dropped object would fly upward rather than downward or in which the old turn young rather than the young old. The Rules of the Fleet, the dense and tangled quarter surrounding the prison, was such a place, for therein a man could never be arrested for debt, and so the most desperate debtors in the city would make it their home, never venturing away except on Sundays, when no man can be arrested for debt anywhere. By similarly curious tradition, marriages can be performed within the Fleet, even marriages of the underaged, without permission of parents or the traditional reading of banns.

Thus I walked the streets of the Rules, in the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and listened to the cries of the boys in employ of priests—every one of them impecunious, defrocked, or false. “Marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage!” called out a young fellow from under a shop sign. Another tugged at my pant leg with dirty hands. “Get married, sir?”

I laughed. “To whom? I have no lady with me.”

“We can answer that, for we’ve no shortage, sir.”

Was marriage now like a good meal, something a man must pursue when he felt the need, and if only indifferent offerings were available, he must make do? I told the boy I searched for Mr. Pike’s marriage house and he brightened prodigiously.

“I work for him, I do. Come on, then.”

I could not help but feel equal amounts of amusement and sadness at this mode of commerce, but such is the nature of marriage in our kingdom. Indeed, it is said that fully one third of all marriages that take place are of a clandestine nature; that being the case, it is surely cause to wonder if the rules governing the institution require some revision when so many people are unwilling to comply. Granted, many such marriages were of a kind that no just law could endorse—those between siblings or other near relatives, those between parties already married, those between children or, worse yet, adult and child. And yet the greater part of these secret marriages stood between young people who simply cared not for the lengthy process required of them by canon law.

In light of this demand, it is hardly surprising that officiating over marriages should become a popular means of generating income among indebted priests and, indeed, indebted men who are capable of performing a tolerable impersonation of a priest.

I could not say into which category Mortimer Pike might have fallen, but he clearly operated a profitable business at the Queen’s Fan, a tavern close enough to the Fleet Ditch to be permeated with the stench of that river of offal.

When I walked inside, I observed that the building was no place in which to make one of the most solemn decisions in the life of a man. Here was a poor sort of tavern, an old wooden structure with a low roof, smoky, crowded, and all surfaces sticky. The clock on the wall read shortly before nine, for by law a marriage must take place between 8 A.M. and noon, so here the world was always frozen between those hours.

A goodly number of prospective spouses drank while preparing themselves to enter Hymen’s temple; toward the back, the good priest performed his services in a little alcove decorated with tarnished church vestments. I heard his words before clearly observing the wedding party, noticing he hurried through the service in a haphazard manner, and though I am no expert in Church doctrine, I could not but suspect he read the text unexactly. This little confusion was made clear when I noted a distinctive drunken slur to his voice and saw that the book he held was not precisely ecclesiastical but rather a collection of the plays of John Dryden, and held upside down too.

This little impropriety did not long hold my attention, however, for I noted something far more amiss. The bride was dressed in a most exquisite blue silk gown with a gold bodice and ivory stomacher. She wore about her graceful neck a chain of gold and had all the appearances of a lady of some worth. The groom, however, was dressed in plain undyed wools, was possessed of many scars upon his face, and had the general appearance of a rude fellow. Indeed, the clandestine marriage had been invented in large part to facilitate the unions of those unequal in rank, but something of far greater import transpired here. The bride, elegant in dress though somewhat unlovely in her face, could not stand of her own accord and was held in place by two fellows as rude as the groom. These men laughed to each other and made a great joke of attempting to hold the bride’s head upward, because it was clear to me that she was entirely disordered with drink or some other potion.

Drunkenness at these affairs is to be expected, though not always for the clergyman, and I might not have been alarmed had not, when the good priest asked the lady if she willing accepted her vows, one of the rude witnesses took her head and puppeted a nod, which produced general laughter among the men.

“I shall accept that,” the priest announced, and then turned to the groom.

Perhaps the priest could accept it, but I could not. Hardly taking the time to consider the prudence or consequences of my actions, I lunged forward, drawing my hanger as I did so. In an instant I stood among the wedding party, but I differed from the others in the gathering in that I had a blade pressed to the groom’s throat.

“Speak a word,” I told him, “and it will be your last.”

“By Mary’s cunny, who are you?” he demanded, in violation of my orders, though not significant enough a violation for me to follow through with my threat. I had, after all, only intended that the ceremony not be completed.

“I am a stranger who has happened upon what appears to me an abduction and forced marriage,” I said. Such crimes, sadly, were another consequence of the ease with which clandestine marriages were carried out. Young women of considerable portions might be abducted and made insensible one way or another, so that they would awaken to discover themselves wedded, their bodies violated, and their new husbands demanding dowry.

“A forced marriage!” the priest cried, in a poor imitation of alarm. “Sirs, you scandalize me!”

“Give us a moment to make this spark mind his own affairs,” one of the witnesses said, and the two men put the bride down upon the floor as though she were a sack of flour. They turned toward me, indicating with raffish grins that they were more than ready to answer what I should demand. I turned from the groom and quickly struck with my blade. It had ever been a maxim of mine that the removal of an eye is the fastest way to discourage a villain from further mischief, and here I found it a means by which two men could be dispatched. No sooner had I slit one of the fellow’s eyes, and he cried out and dropped, than his companion fled the premises without further complaint.

Allow me to say, lest I be accused of excessive cruelty, that I reserve such tactics for when I believe my life to be at risk—which was not precisely the case here—or when I deal with men I think deserving of more than a sound beating. Anyone who would say I am cruel must consider that here was a man who would take a young lady from her family, ply her with drink, force her to marry a monster she knows not, subject her to rape, and then demand that she ask her family for her marriage portion. If he does not deserve the loss of an eye, I am hard-pressed to consider who might.

The rascal was now on the floor, rolling and shouting most pitiably, so I turned to the groom. “He was only the assistant, so I believe one eye sufficient. You are the perpetrator, and so you shall lose both. Alas, my code of honor demands that you threaten me before I can, in good conscience, deprive you of your vision.”

His unwashed face had gone white, and I understood he meant to make no fight of it. He backed up and away and then around me, collected his friend from the floor, and dragged him from the marriage house with all the dispatch at his disposal.

I, the priest, and those awaiting marriages watched the slow exodus in silence. When it was over, the priest turned to the boy. “It is well we ask for payment in advance,” he said. Then, to the crowd. “Who is next?”

By now I had picked up the unconscious bride and held her by keeping one of my hands under her armpit—not the most gentlemanly means in the world, but the best at my disposal. I was grateful she was slight of build.

“I am next,” I growled to the priest. “You will deal with me.”

“Ah, you wish to marry the lady yourself?”

“No, I wish to make you account for your actions. How could you allow such a crime to take place?”

“It is never my business to inquire into why couples wish to marry, sir. I merely provide a service. It is business, you know, and business has nothing to do with right or wrong. People must take responsibility for their own lives. If the lady did not wish to marry, she must say so.”

“She does not appear to me in a condition to say anything.”

“Then she had a responsibility not to find herself in so poor a condition.”

I sighed. “She is heavy. Have you a back office where I can set her down and deal with you as I see fit?”

“I have marriages to perform,” he said.

“You’ll deal with me first, or I promise you will never perform another marriage again.”

He knew not what I meant, for neither did I, but as he had seen me run my blade into a man’s eye not minutes before, he understood I meant something unpleasant and complied accordingly.

“Come with me then.” Mortimer Pike was some five feet in height and fifty years of age, with a face lined and weathered, but handsome and charming for all that, and he had a pair of sprightly grass-green eyes as dull with drunkenness as his movements.

We moved slowly because of my burden, but once in his office, I set the lady down in a chair, where she slumped like an enormous doll. Making certain she would not topple, I turned to the drunken villain of a priest.

“I want to review your marriage records.”

He studied me for a moment. “My primary purpose, good sir, is to marry those in search of happiness, not the distribution of records. I cannot even consider aiding you while couples await my services.”

“Please don’t make me threaten you more. Or, worse, act upon threats. If you do as I ask, you may then leave me be to examine the books, and I will need disturb your work no further.”

“It is hardly work to provide happiness,” he said. “No, it is a blessing. The greatest blessing a man can know.”

“Knowledge is a blessing too, and I wish to be blessed with the record of a marriage of a Miss Bridget Alton. I had hoped I might be able to review your book for such a record.”

“The book,” the priest repeated. The moment I mentioned his volume he picked it up and, though it was a large and heavy folio, clutched it to his bosom as though it were a beloved infant. “You must understand that the registration of a marriage is a sacred and private business. I am afraid it is quite against the laws of God and man to show this book to anyone. And now, if you will excuse me.”

“Begging your pardon.” I took a gentle hold of his arm to make certain he did not truly abandon me. “Is not the very purpose of that book to provide a record so that men upon the very sort of errand I am performing may have an opportunity to do their researches?”

“It is commonly believed to be so,” he said. “But that belief, as you have just now discovered, is a false one.”

“You will let me look at the book, or I shall take this lady to the magistrate and make certain you hang for what happened today.”

“Perhaps if I let you look at the book you will spare my life
and
give me two shillings.”