Person or Persons Unknown (3 page)

When, however, I reached my destination, I saw that I had dallied too long, or perhaps not hurried quite fast enough, for what should I see but a coach-and-four pulling away from his door, unmistakably that of William Murray, the Earl of Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice. I watched it go, standing there on the walk, as if wishing might bring it back. At last I saw it disappear down Great Russell Street, and I turned to the door and banged upon it with the heavy, hand-shaped knocker. It was near a minute before the butler arrived in full livery. As I had grown taller he seemed a less imposing figure. Nevertheless, his chill manner would have turned back a regiment of foot.

“I have a letter to the Lord Chief Justice from Sir John Fielding,” said I, brandishing it as a constable might wave a warrant.

“He has just departed.” The butler put out his hand to accept the letter.

“I have instructions to put it in his hands direct and wait for a reply.”

“He may not be back for quite some time.”

“Nevertheless.”

“So be it then.” He began to ease the door shut.

“Uh… may I wait inside?” I asked, damning him for a black-hearted villain, for making me beg. “Perhaps on that bench in the vestibule?”

He turned and looked at it, then looked back at me — looked very closely, in fact, scrutinizing me from top to bottom.

Then said he: “Certainly.”

Stepping aside he held the door wide for me as I entered and took my place on the bench. Though it was padded, it had no back. In truth, it was not wonderfully comfortable, yet it was ever so much better than standing like some vagrant outside the door.

“Thank you,” said I to the butler, ever mindful of my manners.

“Don’t mention it,” said he, closing the door.

Then, turning his back on me, he started away, stopped, and turned to look again.

“Young man,” said he, “that is a very handsome coat.”

I could scarce believe my own ears. I stammered and stuttered and barely managed to call out my thanks before he disappeared down the hall. In the two years I had been trotting between Bow Street and Bloomsbury Square I had not known the butler to unbend previously — not once, not in the slightest. This must indeed be a considerable coat to awaken admiration in one by nature so cold.

It had so raised me in Marieih’s estimation that she had doubled her price. Ah yes, of course, as I sat there alone and prepared myself for a long wait, my thoughts fled swiftly back to her. I called up the image of her as we had talked but minutes before in the doorway. There was beauty in that face of hers, to be sure, but there was true emotion, life, and good humor as well. Were all Italian girls so? No, I was convinced that of all in the world she was unique. So is it when one is young.

As best I could, I summoned up a much dimmer memory of her from two years past. On a Sunday afternoon I had stood in a crowd assembled in the piazza and watched a troupe of acrobats and tumblers performing quite impossible feats. Most impressive of all was the small black-haired girl who climbed to the top of a human pyramid, posed triumphantly for a long moment as the crowd applauded, then dove headlong to the mats far below. She had tumbled, bounced to her feet, then been applauded even more enthusiastically. Pence and tuppence pieces were thrown down by the crowd in appreciation. Scrambling about, she gathered them up, and when she passed near me, I tossed her a shilling, one of three I had left in my pocket. She saw from whence it came, fixed me with her dark eyes and kissed the coin with her sweet lips. Then she called her thanks to me in a strange tongue, perhaps the very same phrase she had used some minutes ago when we had parted, the one that sounded a bit like “moldy grass.” Ah, how that touched me! Even more was I moved by her gesture of blessing my gift with a kiss, and most of all by the look in her eyes; with it she recognized me, in spite of my young years, as a person of consequence. For weeks afterwards I returned to Covent Garden on Sundays, hoping to see her again and make her acquaintance — all to no avail. I later learned that such performers move constantly from fair to fair and town to town. There could be no telling where they might be.

As I sat in the vestibule, stretching my legs and twiddling my thumbs, I listened to the sounds of the Lord Chief Justice’s household, as they came to me from near and far. It appeared to be empty of all but servants, yet in such a house as this, larger even than Black Jack Bilbo’s, there must be an army of maids and servers and footmen about. The sounds I heard were, near as I could tell, those of cleaning. A maid called for a footman’s help in moving furniture, and there were soon bumps and thumps as he complied. A ditty was hummed up above, perhaps to make the work go faster. The house, empty of its master and mistress, was fair humming with activity.

And I? I simply sat alone with my thoughts, and my thoughts were all of Mariah. There was no doubt of her situation. Alone in London, deceived into separating from her family, she had been forced to prostitute herself in order to survive. How long could she last? When first I laid eyes upon her two years past she had seemed younger than me, and now she looked a bit older. Give her some time on the street, and she would appear very much older — and not by the artifice of rouge and paint. No, if she followed the course described to me by Mr. Bilbo, the depredations of disease and gin would take their toll. While I might daydream an exchange of loving kisses with her, I would not allow myself even to imagine taking her in a more carnal embrace — though it were easily bought, and I had the price. Though I had great fear of disease, and every day had examples before me of the ravages of the pox, even more did I fear besmirching the tender affection I felt for Mariah with base brutish desires. Any man on the street could take her for two shillings — or was it just one? Only I could give her…

What was it I could give her? Was it love, this overflowing of attention, this constant doting upon her which seemed to have possessed me so completely? In a way I liked it not, for I seemed to have lost mastery over my own mind, and I, let me assure you, reader, had always considered myself a serious lad. Yet it was so pleasant simply to sit and wallow in thoughts of Mariah and so easy to do just that — for the little good it did.

For yet again, what could I give her? With my whole heart I wished to alter her situation, to make it possible for her to leave the streets. Yet how could I do that? I was but fifteen years of age; I had no money of my own, no regular employment. In my dependent state — I was an orphan, after all — I could do no more than wish that I could help her. Perhaps I had chosen wrong when Sir John was so eager to have me enter the printing trade; with all that I had learned from my father and my facility at setting type, I might by now have been a journeyman, able to live independent, even perhaps able to marry. But Sir John’s great example blinded me to practical considerations, encouraged me to elevate my ambitions to the law, perhaps too high for such as me.

Ah, what I could do with a bit of money! It would not take a great deal, really — ^just enough to pay for passage for two to America. There I could start a new life for Mariah and me. There was opportunity for all in the great city of Philadelphia, or perhaps Boston or Baltimore. These were magical names to me, as they were to many young Englishmen of that time, names put on hope, symbols of optimism to stir the imagination. And indeed they stirred mine, for what else had I to do as I waited but spin fantasies of what might be for Mariah and me in the American colonies. There were adventures in the printing trade, perhaps even a career in law, speeches to be given, important documents to be signed, and in all these dreams Mariah was at my side, the very model of a wife for a personage such as myself; I would dress her in silks and laces; we would have children and a great house to keep us in. Or perhaps I should be a farmer — land was to be had for the taking out there in the wilderness; all I should need would be an axe, a plow, and some seed — and Mariah; together we would make our way, braving dangers, aiding and being aided by our Iroquois neighbors.

Thus did I pass the time, sitting alone there in the antechamber of that great house. I lost all sense of the passing minutes; whole hours slipped by (two, in fact, and the better part of a third). So deep was I in my thoughts and fantasies that I barely noticed when the butler returned, clack-clack-clacking down the long hall, until he was near upon me, illuminating my darkened comer with the candelabrum he bore. I jumped to my feet.

“He has returned,” said he, placing the candelabrum on a small table.

And as he said it, I heard the rumble and clop of the coach-and-four as it came to a halt outside the door. How had the butler known? Had there been a lookout posted in the upper rooms?

He threw open the door with great authority, a “Welcome, my Lord,” and a proper bow. I took a place suitably back from the entrance as the Lord Chief Justice came bustling in. Rewarding the butler with his hat and stick, the Earl of Mansfield gave me a look and grunted.

“Sir John Fielding’s boy,” said the butler.

“I recognize him.” Then to me: “Have you a letter for me, boy?”

“I have, my Lord.” And I stepped forward and handed it to him with a bow of my own.

He took it and ripped it open at the seal. He stepped over to the candelabrum to read it. “Smithers,” said he to the butler, “do let us have some light in here. Lady Mansfield will be home soon, and she hates coming home to a darkened house, even more than I.”

“Til attend to it immediate, my Lord,” said the butler.

And off he went as his master gave his attention to the letter.

“Oh, he makes conditions, does he? Well!”

The Lord Chief Justice continued to read, mumbling to himself to the end of the letter. Then he refolded it and offered it to me.

“You may tell Sir John that I shall do my utmost to see that his conditions are met. More I cannot promise.”

I kept my hands steadfastly at my side — in effect, refusing to accept the letter.

“Sir John asked in particular that you make a reply in writing, my Lx)rd. He said there was room at the bottom of the page.”

“Oh? Indeed? Wants something he can wave under my nose sometime in the future, does he?”

“If you say so, sir.”

“I just did.” He sighed. “Oh, all right, come along then.”

He picked up the candelabrum and led the way into the library nearby. Standing at the great desk, he took a pen, dipped it, and scrawled his message. He signed his name with a flourish and handed the letter to me; this time I took it from him with thanks.

“I wrote it down as I said — I’ll do all in my power.” He waved his hand at me in a dismissive gesture. “On your way, boy.”

With a bow, I left him, emerging into a hall that had suddenly been transformed by the light from half a hundred candles. The butler barely noticed me as I let myself out.

It was near dark outside. The streetlamps had been lit all round Bloomsbury Square. I chose a different route, leaving by Southampton Street, then down Little Queen Street, and so on. Though it was longer so, and I was late, the way circled those streets where I might have encountered Mar-iah. I had no wish to see her in conversation with some young blade, and even less to catch her marching off arm in arm with one to some place of assignation.

The streets were filled, as they always were at that late time of day, with folk leaving their places of employment for their places of rest. Yet among them was one I spied who was then just on his way to work. And that was the one-armed Constable Perkins. He was just ahead when I turned upon Great Queen Street, easily recognized from the rear with his coat-sleeve pinned below the elbow. During the past year, since the time we had gone out together in search through low Thames River dives for a disappeared witness, we had become fast friends. I admired the proud way he conducted himself in spite of his affliction; he had much good sense to offer and had an attitude of hope and good cheer that no two-armed man of the Bow Street Runners could match.

“Hi, Mr. Perkins,” I called, running to catch him up.

He turned, warily and swiftly — the man seemed to be always on his guard — and then, recognizing me, he relaxed and allowed himself to smile.

“Ah, Jeremy, it’s you, is it? I daresay we be goin’ in the same direction. Would you care to walk with me?”

“Certainly I would,” said I. “And how are you this good evening?”

“No better and no worse than I was the last — which is to say in no bad fettle at all.” We commenced a-pacing side by side. “And where was you so late in the day?”

“To deliver a letter for Sir John to the Lord Chief Justice, and then to wait near three hours on a reply.”

“Ah, well, one must always wait on such a man as that. He must live in a grand house, he must.”

“Oh, he does, grandest I’ve seen — in Bloomsbury Square.” Having said that, an idea struck me of a sudden. “Mr. Perkins, I’ve a question to ask.”

“Ask away, Jeremy.”

“Do you think I might be made one of the Bow Street Runners?”

“You mean sometime in the future?”

“No, I mean now — soon. You and I know, as do most, that Sir John has been given authority to enlist new men in the Runners.”

“True, or so I’ve heard.”

“Why could I not be one? I know the duties. I know Westminster and the City.”

“Well, you’re a bit young.”

“Constable Cowley was taken on when he was eighteen or nineteen, something thereabouts.”

“You’ve twice the brains he has, and that’s for certain sure. Still and all …”

He thought upon it, saying nothing for a space. And as he thought, he turned us onto Drury Lane, and so my plan to circle wide round Mariah had thus gone to naught.

“I thought you was for the law,” said Constable Perkins at last. “That’s some higher than walkin’ about with a club. I, for one, would hate to see you lose such a goal in life.”

“Well, I need not,” said I. “I could read the law in my spare time, perhaps. It might take a bit longer, but — ”

“In case you have not noticed, Jeremy, us Runners have precious little time to ourselves.” He threw me a sharp glance. “And let me be honest with you in this. I’m just not sure certain you’ve the taste for blood. You’re a plucky lad, no doubt of it, for I’ve seen you rise to the occasion. But on the streets at night you must be a bit angry at all times. Carry your anger and your suspicion with you, and let that be your shield. If you be challenged, you must be willing to break a head, even if the cause be slight. Only so can you win respect from the great band of blackguards who roam these precincts at night; only so can you keep it. You, I fear, would try to use reason with such.” He paused, as if considering some plan, some course of action. “But…”