The Newgate Jig (18 page)

But
not for me, I thought. Everything is changed now.

One
Day — Tipney's Wonderful
Gaff
and

Exhibition — Barney's Plan —Murder

I should have
put on my coat and muffler and left that very night. Strong's Gardens were not
so far away. With a steady walk and a couple of stops, I could have been there
by morning.

But I stayed in
my bed that night. And the following day. And the one after that. I slept and
woke and stared at the wall, but I did not stir. I lay until the sheets stank
and I with them, and the mattress was stained into the outline of my body. My
boys were anxious, only leaving me to visit the area and then hurrying back to
lie at the foot of the bed. Mrs Twentyfold called through the door and Will
rattled the handle and begged me to come out, but I did not answer it. I could
not bear their company. I wanted nothing to do with the world.

As my bruises
turned from black to purple and the pain eased, I forced myself to get up. I
did not want to think about Barney and his troubles, the Nasty Man and his
roughs. They were nothing to do with me. I went unwashed and unshaven for days,
and if it hadn't been for someone (Will or Trim, I expect) paying Mrs
Twentyfold to put bread, tea and milk outside my door, I believe I would have
starved. And, with nothing to occupy me, I could have taken to my stew of a bed
again, if it hadn't been for a change in the weather. Standing at the window
one morning, I saw that there had been a fierce frost during the night, both
outside - where the bushes in Mrs Twentyfold's area were dusted white - and
inside, where it lay thick upon the glass. My room was bitterly cold too, and I
lit a fire (which I never did as a rule before the evening) and wrapped myself
in my coat and scarf until the warmth had spread. The stale stink of illness
floated in the damp air, the ice on the window began to melt and drip onto the
floorboards, and I was fixed by the mournful eyes of my two faithful
companions. This would not do! And within a quarter of an hour, I was outside,
on Mrs Twentyfold's top step.

We avoided the
wasteland and the Aquarium, and those other familiar places - the chop house, Garraway's,
even the Pavilion - and wound our way through squares and back streets in the
direction of our country retreat. It would be just a visit, I thought. But if
Titus Strong begged me to stay and help with the cabbages and look out for Lord
Bedford, then, since he was such a good, old friend, how could I refuse? I
hoped he would beg me to stay.

We made good
time, despite my injuries, and I was even enjoying that familiar bite at the
back of my throat from the bitter, acrid air. Brutus and Nero trotted in front,
eager to inspect the usual posts and walls but, when I stopped to ease my
aching ribs, they stood patiently by me, waiting until I was ready to continue.
I felt stronger, and more certain that today my fortunes would change. Then,
turning a corner, I was brought up sharp when I spied my name, in two-inch
capitals of dense black ink, hallooing me from a wall. It seemed like a year
ago that I had found Pilgrim in the hallway of the Aquarium waving just such a
bill as this at me, but without doubt it was one and the same: the Royal Crown
Theatre, otherwise known as Tipney's Gaff on Fish-lane, the very one, next door
to my friend Pilgrim's bookshop. It still roared a programme of kingly
proportions and startling celebrity. Mr Macready's name was almost as large as
mine, and the dramas of
Othello, Richelieu
and
The Miller and His Dogs
were given similar bravado. No one who reads these bills is duped. Everyone
knows that it is all guff: Mr Macready (if he did but know it) merely
'recommends' the Royal Crown Theatre and
Othello
will be
done and dusted in twenty minutes! In fact, the company consisted of only a
handful of performers - Mrs Dearlove, Mr Crowe, Mr Tafflyn, Mr Corney Sage and
Miss Lucy Fitch, Les Trois Acrobatiques, Senor Spaniardo and the Infant
Prodigy, Little Louisa Penny who, but seven years old, will dance and sing -
and, of course, Mr Bob Chapman and his excellent hounds, Brutus and Nero. The
street was liberally pasted with these thin bills, which were doing their job
and attracting much attention, particularly from crowds of boys.

And there was my
good friend Pilgrim, out upon the step of his establishment, anxiously
inspecting his neighbours. The building work seemed to have been completed, and
the whole shopfront, even up to the gutter, was covered in bright flapping
bills announcing not only the Royal Crown Theatre and Bob Chapman, but also an
Exhibition of Waxworks and Novelties and one for which the artist had exercised
his brush and a great quantity of red paint. In particular, the execution
business of the waxwork show was most carefully attended to, and almost every
bill had a picture of a man being stretched, and a grinning madman holding up a
bloody cleaver or a rope!

The shop was
transformed. Where its front window had been, was a brick wall and a second
entrance (or exit) had been put in on the opposite side to the present door.
I've seen these places many times before. They are what the showman calls an
'in-and-out' show, and do exactly that - let people in one door and out the
other, swiftly and without a crush. This in-and-outer had a penny theatre at
the rear, the Royal Crown no less, and while one slack-jawed youth announced
the bloody delights of the waxworks ('The reeel choppin' block, and reeel
blood'), another was roaring out the improving drama of 'Maria Marten and 'er
'orrible murder by the willain Corder in the Red Barn! Just about t'begin!'
Poor Pilgrim was in a state of terrible agitation. 'You see how it is, Bob
Chapman! Thieves and wagrants on my very doorstep!'

('Quiet, you!
I'll tell him, John Pilgrim!') 'Not you! Day and night that commotion is
murdering my ears. And now it's underground.'

('I've told you.
Buried treasure and pirates.') 'And Bob Chapman appearing next door! What did I
tell you? Did you believe me?'

('We have the
bill to prove it, don't we? Shove him out, you waster! You frog-taster! What're
you afraid of, John Pilgrim?') 'Not you, cat-sick-man! Bob Chapman is our
friend. No gaff-acting for him. An impostor, that's who it is.'

He thrashed
wildly at himself and pinched his own arm and kicked his shins.

('Bob Chapman
should smash the man who has been taking his name, damn him!') 'He's right, for
once.' ('Smash the man!')

'Not with those
hands,' and mad old Pilgrim nodded at my poor bruised mitts and hooked my two
boys into his shop (to feed them sugar and biscuits), slamming the door behind
him.

I was eager to
be on my way, and my ribs were aching so that I could hardly breathe, but
being, so to speak, in the business, I am never too proud to look into a penny
show, nor even a gaff. They are not all as bad as people claim. I have seen
conjuring and balancing, as well as singing, dancing and acting in these places
that would not disgrace the stages of some of our nobbier theatres. Of course,
not all are up to the mark, and many are the last resort of the mummer turned
to drink. His cobweb throat and dull eye single him out, and if he is not
looking pale upon the stage, he can be found sweating in the gin-shop or
sleeping in his costume on a sack of flour. But, when I see these unfortunate
relics of the profession, I remind myself that, if ill-fortune had not been
looking the other way when I found my present comfortable shop, I too could
have been pumping the harmonium outside such a gaff.

If you have never
been inside a penny exhibition, let me say now that it is not for the
faint-hearted. Not that there are fearsome things to be seen, for anyone with
half a cup of sense will know that the blood, splashed about like a pie man's
gravy, is merely paint and water, and that the figures, all wide-eyed and
leering whether they represent royalty or saint, are made of plaster and
sawdust. That the 'terrible sharp sword' is fashioned from a roof-timber, and
even the hangman's rope is worn to a thread in places, not from long service
upon the three-legged mare, as the guide will assure you, but from hauling
barrels in and out of Mr Publican's deep cellar at the Two Royal Children over
the way. Gloom is the showman's friend. From the entrance, where it is so dark
that you are forced to lean upon the greasy wall – greasy from the numbers of
shoulders which have leaned there before you
–
you must grope
your way into the nether regions, to a room lit only by a couple of naked gas
flames (courtesy of the previous occupant) and a tuppenny tallow. What you
cannot see, you must imagine!

But if it is not
a familiar resort of yours, you will not be hardened to the celebration of
crime and criminals to be found in a penny show, and it will shock you to see
how casually people enjoy scenes of murder and execution. How they will stand
for minutes before even the roughest tableau of a man cutting his wife's
throat, having already banged his infant's head against the hearth stone. And
though the wax- figures are awkward and hardly resemble the living or the dead
- a change of costume next week will transform the Empress of Russia into
William Tell or Springheel'd Jack – people will still relish, for as long as
the showman allows, the scene of outrage and the blood splashed liberally all
over. And once outside in the street, they will straightway pay a penny to see
it over again!

Today, a lanky
youth, a mere streak of water, described the exhibit's for general edification.
"Ere,' he says wearily, 'are the very stones under which poor Mrs Vowles
was buried. They was lifted from the 'ouse and brung 'ere with the dust and
blood still upon them.'

A murmur of
interest goes around, for the so-called 'Deptford Murder' was of recent and
terrible notoriety and the audience of wide-eyed boys shuffle forward to see it
better and have to be restrained from dipping their fingers into the gore.

'And
'ere h'is the wery plaster wall agin which Mr Vowles, h'in 'is fit of h'awful
temper, slung 'is beautiful child an' dashed 'er very brains upon. 'Ere you may
h'observe the drips of the brains as they run all-a-down the plarster.'

There certainly
was a disagreeable stain upon the wall, on which was also the engraving of a
dog begging for a bone, torn from a picture paper, and two tickets for a
distant tea-gardens, 'to include band, dancing platform extra'.

The other
waxwork tableau - comprising a scene from
Hamlet
showing the
appearance of the prince's father as a ghost (a very pale figure in a large hat
gesturing to heaven) and the murder of the poor little princes in the Tower of
London ('Look at that old feller, a-smothering them to pieces!' cried one boy.
'Wouldn't I like to find out where he lives!') - were only part of the show. In
another corner was a talking fish that was brought out of its dark and narrow
box to blow out a candle and count to five in a strange coughing voice, and
rewarded by being shoved roughly back into its box again before anyone could be
more interested. In the final, gloomy alcove was a display of antique swords
and knives (labelled 'INSTRIMENTS OF TORCHER FROM ITALY' and all very carefully
fastened down), after which we were emptied into a passage, one way leading out
into the street and the other to the back of the house where, according to a
swarthy man lashed by a wide belt into a uniform several sizes too small, 'Here
it is! Just about to begin!'

Ah, here they
were! The villain who had taken my name, installed in the gaff theatre and
ready to do his show. I handed over another penny and traced another dark and
greasy path to the theatre. This had evidently been the back room of the shop,
for there were still traces of it left - a fireplace, a cupboard (without its
doors), remnants of pictures pasted to the walls, and gas mantles (without
their covers) doing service as lights on a stage raised up no more than a
couple of feet, and draped with ill-matched curtains. And, what with the heat
of the gas, the closely packed audience (we were crowded as tight as herrings
in a barrel, standing room only) and the air thick with 'Black Jack' and 'Old
Moley', it was a veritable inferno.

I
stood, shoulder to shoulder, with a stern-faced coal- heaver, his hands - if he
had any, for I never saw them - thrust into his trouser pockets, and for the
duration of the entertainment, he neither moved nor spoke. He was exceptional,
however, because the rest of the audience was in a state of excited fury, which
erupted at every moment with shouts and roars of laughter. Boys were mostly
responsible, and seemed to count it as a point of honour to jump upon the back
of their nearest neighbour at every turn, and call, at their utmost volume,
obscenities which would make the roughest cazzelty blush.