The Disgrace of Kitty Grey (18 page)

‘Ah.' She smiled at me sympathetically. ‘You were unlucky to get caught.'

‘And the landlord said I stole his chickens, too – though I certainly didn't!'

‘That will be dismissed as being impossible to prove. But how much was the chair worth?'

‘Just a few pennies.'

‘Then you will be all right. 'Tis only when you dispose of something worth more than eleven shillings that they deem it a capital offence, you know.'

‘But he has said it was worth more. And they have used the word
arson
.'

‘Oh, that's much more serious!' said Mrs Goodwin, who had been listening. Her hair wobbled furiously. ‘Sometimes, if they want to make an example of you, they give a fearful sentence for arson.'

‘They will want to know if your crime was malicious, or if you were just seeking to warm yourself,' Martha said. ‘They will also examine your character and try to discover if you have ever been in prison before.'

‘I never have!'

‘Then I'm sure you'll be all right,' Martha said reassuringly.

Realising that she must have had some previous experience with the law, I asked nervously if she knew what my sentence might be.

Martha checked her baby, who was asleep, then appealed to the aristocratic lady. ‘Mrs Goodwin, will Kitty get ten strokes of the lash for a first offence, do you think? Or be pilloried?'

Ten strokes of the lash!
Wondering if I would be able to stand it, I asked, ‘Would that be better or worse than the pillory?'

‘The pillory and the stocks are both shocking, my dear,' Mrs Goodwin said. ‘Spending a day and night with your feet or your hands locked in a wooden case whilst at the mercy of others is well-nigh intolerable, especially if the crowd takes against you.' I nodded, thinking of the unfortunate felons we'd seen at Charing Cross the day we'd arrived. ‘Ten strokes on your bare back is perhaps the lighter sentence and might be expected for a first offence. And if you bribe the prison officer the lash will not fall on you as harshly as it might.'

I thought about this: ten lashes, and then I would be on my way. That was a better punishment, surely, than being locked into the stocks or pillory? But
ten lashes
. . .

Martha touched my arm. ‘I can see how your mind is going, but you won't be able to choose, you know. It'll be up to the judge.'

‘Of course,' I said. I hesitated, wondering whether to be so bold, then, Mrs Goodwin appearing to have gone to sleep, asked why Martha was in there.

‘This time I am in for theft,' she answered. ‘My daughter – Robyn, there – and I were down to our last crust and I went into the draper's and stole a skein of knitting wool, just a trifling thing, which I exchanged for a pie. The draper came after me, but we had eaten the pie before he caught us, so there was no evidence. Now they are trying to find the draper, but he has run off with his master's wife and is not to be found. In the meantime, I have to spend my days here. I have been imprisoned before – about once a year they take me in for some petty thing.'

‘But you have a baby . . .'

‘I have.' She looked down at the little raggedy bundle. ‘And glad I am to have her, for I would have been transported to Australia last month had I not been on the verge of giving birth. Now I hope for a lesser punishment: that I may be sent into a workhouse with my two girls.'

I knew a woman could avoid certain sentences if she could prove she was with child, but was surprised that Martha was content to be sent to a workhouse. I'd never heard of the sentence of transportation, however, and had to ask where Australia was.

She shrugged. ‘I hardly know. Just that 'tis a land beyond the seas.'

‘Beyond the seas?' I repeated wonderingly. How could that be? Beyond there was . . . nothing, surely? ‘But why would anyone be sent to such a place?'

Martha shrugged once more. ‘All I know is that you travel to Australia in a big ship and it takes more than a year. I've heard that there are sea monsters on the way – and when you arrive, wild men who will eat you. If they try to send me there again, I will certainly refuse to go!'

‘I don't blame you!' I said, in my head weighing up which was preferable: the stocks, the lash, or being sent to this Australia. I looked about me fearfully. ‘It is most terrible in here, yet you seem resigned to it. Whatever causes you to return to such a place?'

‘What else can a poor girl do? In London it's steal or starve.'

‘Can you never find any honest work?'

‘Sometimes, in the summer, I can work a few hours on a market stall, and then I eke out what I earn for as long as possible and keep out of trouble. In the winter, though, if I did not pass the odd dud coin or steal sheets off a washing line, we'd go hungry.'

‘And does Robyn always come in here with you?'

She nodded. ‘I have no one to leave her with, and 'twould break my heart to have her taken away from me.' She gestured towards Betsy. ‘But you were unlucky to bear a child so young.'

‘Oh, Betsy is not mine!' I said immediately.

She smiled. ‘You don't have to make up stories for such as me,' she said. She indicated the baby. ‘This little one here, I could not say for sure who her father is.'

I had, I realised, led a very sheltered life before coming to London, and I tried not to look shocked. ‘She is a very pretty baby,' I said, although I could not really tell, the baby being too well swaddled to see. ‘What's her name?'

‘I haven't decided on that yet,' Martha said. ‘I am waiting to see what name she suits when she grows a little. So, your child, Betsy . . .'

‘No,' I said, ‘she is really not mine. She is the sister of a friend – the friend I came to London to find.'

‘If she is not yours, why not ask an orphanage to take her in?'

I shivered. ‘I could not. I have heard them to be horrid places.'

‘
This
is a horrid place!'

‘It is,' I agreed readily, ‘but at least she has me.' I rubbed my cold arms to try and warm them, wanting to change the subject, for thinking of just why Betsy was here was making me feel uncomfortable. ‘ 'Tis monstrous cold!'

‘But you wouldn't want to be here when 'tis hot, either – when fever spreads through the wards and people lie half-dead across the floor, groaning and vomiting by turn. Why, they die so fast that the other prisoners have to be employed as gravediggers to help bury them.'

I shuddered.

‘But where do you come from?' Martha asked. ‘Your accent tells me you are not from round these parts.'

‘I come from Devonshire, where I was a dairymaid on a farm,' I said. And as I spoke that past life of mine seemed so idyllic, so sweetly pastoral – and such a contrast from what was around me – that I began weeping.

Martha patted my shoulder, but after a while said gently, ‘It will do you no good at all to weep, Kitty. You'd be better occupied finding out when your case is to be heard and deciding what you'll say in your defence.'

After a moment I sighed, dried my eyes as best I could on a corner of my sleeve and asked what I should do.

‘You must give the turnkey a penny and ask to see the guv'nor, who's a fair man who can be bribed to do most anything for a pipe of baccy. Say you've a young child with you and you want to know how quickly your case can be heard.'

‘Shall I go to see him now?'

‘Not now,' Martha said. ‘The brazier is being damped down and we must take our rest.'

‘Where must we go for that?' I asked, picturing some sort of dormitory. Mrs Goodwin woke up with a start and Martha looked at me curiously.

‘Why, nowhere at all,' said Martha.

‘But where are our mattresses?'

Mrs Goodwin gave a sudden shout of laughter. ‘Mattresses!' she exclaimed. ‘Bless the young girl!'

‘It's a quaint notion,' Martha said, smiling.

I looked around. ‘Is there not even any straw for us?'

‘Not so much as a wisp!' said Mrs Goodwin.

And so, after using the bucket in the corner, I spread my skirts on the floor, cuddled Betsy to me and prepared for my first night within the walls of Newgate Prison.

Chapter Seventeen

 

 

I did not sleep – of course not. The wailing, screaming, raucous singing and noisy arguments amongst the women went on and on throughout the night by the light of a flickering candle, so much so that I began to think that I had been consigned to a madhouse. It seemed that the women not only hated the prison, but hated each other, and many seemed always drunk, for those who could afford liquor were able to get a plentiful supply of it from the taproom. Indeed, I soon realised that if you had money you could get a plentiful supply of just about anything from the turnkeys, who derived most of their income in this way. Lying sleepless on the stone-cold ground I saw, too, both men and women slipping in and out of the ward gates, and discovered later from Martha that women who were willing to either visit the men's quarters, or entertain a man in theirs, were well paid for it. Some women were even willing to do it for nothing in the hope of getting pregnant, for then they could plead their bellies and perhaps receive a lighter sentence.

It cost me tuppence to see the governor, and, although Martha offered to keep an eye on Betsy, I thought it best to take her with me. Martha seemed  very nice – at least, for someone who was frequently in gaol – but as I had learned, I should trust no one. For all I knew there might be a thriving trade in child slavery in the gaol; there was certainly every other kind of depravity.

I had One-ear as my guide to the governor's office and, though he was not very attractive to look at, he maintained a flow of interesting information about the prison and those who dwelt within it. Thus I discovered that there were several different areas within the gaol itself: one side containing those who, like me, could not afford to pay for their upkeep, which was known as the Commons' Side. Another area, the Press Yard, contained those people who were notable or titled, while those who were rich had the distinction of residing on what they called the Master's Side, which meant they were under the direct supervision of the governor and, as long as they could pay for it, could appeal to him for any little trifle they fancied.

‘They has the best of everything,' One-ear told me. ‘They sends out for food, they has proper beds – four-posters, some of 'em – and clean linens afore they needs 'em. They has parties and folks in to visit when they please. It's a reg'lar home from home. Some keep horses in the stables and come and go as they like.'

I stared at him in surprise.

‘And the gentlemen who don't have their wives with 'em always has a steady stream of lady visitors. But I don't mean
ladies
, if you get my meaning.'

He sniggered at this but I did not respond.

‘There's a highwayman who comes in reg'lar and uses the gaol as his London residence. Plans his next robberies here, he does.'

‘But doesn't he ever get caught and sentenced?'

‘Certainly he does,' One-ear said, sounding shocked. ‘In he comes, and then he bribes or breaks his way out again, does another crime and comes back. It's like he's on a length o' string!'

The stench got momentarily worse when we passed across what One-ear called a stream but actually was an open sewer into which the inmates could empty their buckets.

Betsy was both fascinated and appalled by the sight of this putrid and nauseating mess flowing sluggishly across our path. ‘What's all
that
?' she asked, staring down and holding her nose.

‘What do you think?' I said, grabbing hold of her hand to pull her along. ‘Come along quickly now. We don't want to get left behind.'

‘There's the kitchen,' said One-ear, pointing down a corridor. ‘It's there that they cooks all them luvverly foodstuffs you're going to have while you're staying with us.'