Behind the Sun Page 6

  The clerk read out the indictment, then returned to his seat. Harrie knew this wouldn’t take long — she had already indicated she would plead guilty, so it was simply a matter of what her sentence would be. She glanced up at the gallery, but fear had blurred her vision and she couldn’t pick out her mother’s face in the crowd. She hoped she hadn’t come after all.

  Counsel for the prosecution called Mr Wilton and all eyes were upon him as he mounted the creaky steps to the witness box.

  ‘Mr Wilton,’ the barrister began, his voice booming out across the courtroom, ‘can you tell the court in your own words what happened on the afternoon of the event in question?’

  ‘I most certainly can,’ Mr Wilton said pompously, leaning back, his hands gripping the lapels of his best black coat. ‘I was in my drapery, working hard as an honest man does, when I asked my shop assistant to step into the back room with me.’

  There was a titter from the gallery at this, which earned a stern look from the judge.

  ‘There were three or four customers patronising my establishment at the time,’ Mr Wilton went on, ‘including that girl there.’ He thrust an accusing finger in Harrie’s direction. ‘I had my suspicions from the outset, I did. She was fingering the Chinese dupioni like she couldn’t wait to get her hands on it. We were only gone a minute or two and when I returned I immediately noticed that the bolt of silk was missing. And so was she!’ Mr Wilton pointed again. ‘So I ran out to the street and there she was haring off like the devil himself was after her. I shouted and gave chase and was able to wrestle her to the ground and retrieve my stolen property. She had one of my compendiums, too, down her skirt. Good silk thread, six spools of it!’

  The barrister consulted his notes. ‘It says here in the arresting constable’s report that the prisoner said she dropped the bolt of silk, then fell over it.’

  Mr Wilton made a horse noise with his lips. ‘That’s her story!’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Wilton. You may be seated.’

  Mr Justice Thompson enquired of the counsel, ‘Do you have any more witnesses, Mr Crawley?’

  ‘One more, my lord. I call Mrs Maude Lynch to the witness box.’

  Harrie felt fresh apprehension prickle at her already clammy skin as her ex-employer made her way from the witnesses’ waiting area and entered the box.

  ‘Mrs Lynch, you are Harriet Clarke’s employer, are you not?’ Mr Crawley asked.

  ‘I was,’ Mrs Lynch replied haughtily. Her mouth took on the appearance of a drawstring purse pulled very tightly indeed. ‘She’s no employee of mine now.’

  ‘And what can you tell the court about her character, Mrs Lynch?’

  From the public gallery, someone cried out in a high, reedy voice, ‘Thief-taker!’

  This was a gross insult, as individuals known as thief-takers used their knowledge of the underworld to inform on those who had committed a crime to collect the rewards the state offered for their prosecution. As many of the unemployed and the labouring poor in London knew someone accused of criminal activity, or perhaps had even been in that situation themselves, thief-takers were deeply unpopular. They also weren’t above blackmailing individuals wanted for crimes, in exchange for not informing on them.

  To Harrie’s ears it sounded like a child’s voice. Very much like her half-brother Robbie’s, actually. She suppressed a smile, then worried that Robbie, at only seven years of age, might have come to the Old Bailey alone. She squinted at the public gallery a second time, but again saw no one she recognised.

  Mrs Lynch ignored the accusation and rearranged her bonnet ribbons so they lay flat over her shawl. ‘I can tell the court that she was a sour-faced little thing at times — and slow to do as she was asked if she wasn’t feeling disposed. An adequate sempstress, yes, but I never quite trusted her with money. Or my bits and bobs. I was often missing lace pins and what have you. And they’re not cheap to buy, you know.’

  Harrie gasped. Mrs Lynch had been enough to try anyone at the best of times and, yes, she had dragged her feet occasionally, but she had never stolen from her, never! And she’d always been trustworthy with money: Mrs Lynch had frequently sent her to the draper’s and the haberdasher’s and she’d always brought back the right change!

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Lynch, I believe we’ve heard enough,’ Mr Crawley said. ‘You may step down.’

  A low rumble of commentary spread through the courtroom as Mrs Lynch scuttled back to her seat.

  The judge swept the court with a warning gaze then turned to Harrie. ‘Harriet Clarke, do you have anything to say in your own defence?’

  About the theft she’d committed she didn’t, but Harrie certainly had something to say to Maude Lynch. She’d worked for the old shrew since she was fourteen, and never said a retaliatory word in three whole years, but now, it seemed, she had nothing to lose. She leant out of the dock so she could see Mrs Lynch sitting in the witnesses’ waiting area and in a loud, clear voice said, ‘Actually, Mrs Lynch, I think I’d have preferred to swing than carry on working for you. You paid slave wages; you’re a carping, vindictive old bitch; I wouldn’t be seen in a pauper’s grave in one of your tatty gowns; and your ugly husband pinched my arse at least twice a day. I hope you rot in hell.’

  The gallery burst into wild applause while Mr Justice Thompson went red in the jowls and shouted, ‘Order! Order!’

  When calm was finally restored, he demanded of Harrie whether she pleaded guilty or not guilty.

  ‘Guilty, my lord.’

  The jury was therefore not required to deliberate and the judge sentenced immediately.

  ‘Seven years’ transportation to New South Wales,’ he declared, his mind on the roast beef he would shortly be having for his dinner.

  The latest new girl lay on her side, sobbing. She was obviously destitute: she had only the clothes she’d arrived in. She’d eaten nothing for a day and a half, despite the orders of the turnkeys and a short-tempered telling-off from Matron — all she would do was hide her face and weep. It was getting on everyone’s nerves. Since Mad Martha had been moved to the hospital the nights had been a little more settled, but now this girl had arrived and was upsetting everything all over again. Becky Hoddle, the new wardswoman, who was even more disagreeable than Maryanne Marston had been, was already muttering about ‘sorting her out’. And as right-hand-woman to Liz Parker, ringleader of Newgate’s flash mob contingent, she had every resource at her disposal to do so.

  Finally Harrie, unable to bear the sound of such anguish any longer, crouched beside the girl. She tried to remove the grubby hands from her face but couldn’t budge them.

  ‘Go away,’ a snot-thickened voice mumbled, and a slender, wool-stockinged leg struck out, its knee hitting Harrie’s arm. Harrie didn’t move.

  The girl was delicately built and a good couple of inches under five feet. It was hard to tell, the way she was all curled up. Her unbound hair, lank and dirty, was straight and very light blonde, almost white, and her skin fair. Her wrists looked the size of a child’s. Perhaps she was a child? Her clothes, though filthy and spotted with grease, were of reasonable quality.

  ‘Come on now, that’s enough crying,’ Harrie murmured. ‘Surely you’ve run out of tears by now?’

  ‘Go to hell,’ the voice replied. ‘Leave me alone.’

  Harrie considered how she’d best dealt with her little brother and sisters when they behaved like this.

  ‘If you don’t stop that I’m going to smack your arse so hard you won’t sit down for a week.’

  The sobbing slowed to a sniffle, then stopped.

  ‘You can’t say that to me,’ the girl said.

  ‘I can and I just did,’ Harrie replied.

  The little hands came away from the face. The girl’s irises were a startling cornflower blue, at the moment framed by sclera turned dull red from copious crying. Her eyelids and lips were swollen and her nose raw and running, but even so Harrie could see she was extremely pretty.

  ‘You can’t cry forever.
’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ the girl replied, and started again.

  Harrie grasped her thin shoulders and sat her upright.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Rachel.’ The girl’s face screwed up and her mouth wobbled ominously.

  ‘Stop that,’ Harrie warned. ‘Rachel what?’

  ‘Rachel Winter.’

  Harrie settled onto the mat. ‘Rachel, you do know where you are, don’t you?’

  ‘In gaol.’

  ‘That’s right. And in gaol there are plenty of people who will hurt you if you annoy them. So please, try not to cry any more.’

  Rachel rubbed her face and pressed the heels of her palms against her hot, swollen eyes.

  ‘Do you have family?’ Harrie asked.

  A nod.

  ‘Do they know where you are?’

  Rachel shook her head.

  ‘Do you come from London?’

  ‘Guildford.’

  ‘And how have you ended up in Newgate?’

  Sniffing loudly and wiping her nose on the back of her hand, Rachel said, ‘I eloped.’

  Eloping wasn’t a crime, so something else must have happened between then and now. As tactfully as she could, Harrie asked, ‘And where’s your husband now?’

  ‘We’re not married yet. He had to go back to his regiment, but he’s coming back for me.’

  Harrie’s heart sank. She wasn’t the most worldly person, but even she knew that if she had a pound for every girl who’d been told by a soldier he’d be coming back for her, she could have started her own dressmaking business ages ago.

  ‘Did he say when he’d be returning?’

  Rachel’s bottom lip wobbled again. ‘He just said for me to wait.’

  ‘But how did you end up in gaol?’

  ‘Lucas — that’s his name, Lieutenant Lucas Carew — paid for me to stay in a lodging house here in London, but he gave all the money in advance to Mrs Begbie, except she kept it and said he hadn’t given her anything, and —’

  ‘Just a minute, who’s Mrs Begbie?’

  ‘The landlady. Rotten cow. And I couldn’t pay the rent so I sold everything I had except these clothes, then she accused me of pawning some of the things in the room, but I didn’t, and she called the watch.’ Rachel’s face crumpled and fresh tears dribbled down her cheeks. ‘And if Lucas doesn’t get here in time I’ll hang!’

  ‘No, sweetie, you won’t hang. Can you write to your family? Do they have any money? You’re going to need some in here.’

  Reluctantly, Rachel said, ‘They’ve a little bit of land. My da’s a farmer.’

  ‘Well, send them off a letter today, right now. My friend Friday can get you some writing paper and I’m sure we can —’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’ It occurred then to Harrie that perhaps the girl didn’t know how to write, and she silently castigated herself for being so thoughtless. ‘Or I could do it for you. Really, it would be —’

  ‘I know my letters,’ Rachel snapped. ‘And I can read. I’m just not doing it.’

  Harrie stared at Rachel in astonishment. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t care to communicate with them. They don’t approve of Lucas.’

  Harrie felt her normally calm disposition faltering and she briefly considered shaking Rachel until the pretty blue eyes flew out of her empty head. ‘Well, I suggest you have a good look around! You’ll freeze and you’ll starve in no time!’ She pointed at the ring Rachel wore on her wedding finger. ‘And that will be gone before you know it. I’m amazed Becky Hoddle didn’t have it off you the minute you came through the door.’

  ‘It’s a tidy piece of work,’ Sarah said, returning from rinsing her basin under the pump. She leant in for a closer look. ‘Pearl, enamel and some nice little diamonds. You’re lucky you’ve still got your finger, never mind the ring. I could probably get you a reasonable price for it.’

  ‘No!’ Rachel snatched her hand away and tucked it into her armpit. ‘Lucas gave it to me. And I won’t starve or freeze. He’ll be here soon.’

  Sarah glanced at Harrie. ‘Who’s Lucas?’

  ‘Her lover.’

  ‘My fiancé,’ Rachel insisted.

  Reining in her irritation, Harrie asked solicitously, ‘Rachel, have you actually told him where you are?’

  Rachel stared at her knees. ‘I can’t. I’m not sure where his regiment’s stationed.’ She raised her face, swollen eyes alight with hope. ‘But when he writes to me at the lodging house and I don’t write back, he’ll know something’s wrong and come looking for me. I know he will.’

  Harrie and Sarah regarded her in embarrassed silence. Harrie said, ‘I’m sure you’re right. But until then, why don’t you send a message to your family? They must be very worried.’

  A shadow of longing and regret flickered across Rachel’s face, though she struggled valiantly to contain it. ‘I can’t. My da will beat the hell out of me.’

  ‘Not from the other side of the visitor bars, he won’t,’ Sarah observed.

  Harrie asked, ‘Rachel, how old are you?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  Harrie’s eyes narrowed; she looked a lot closer to thirteen. ‘Is that the truth?’

  ‘I’m not lying, I swear. I’ve always been small.’

  A possible complication struck Harrie. ‘This fiancé of yours, did you and he —’

  ‘Yes. But I’m not with child. I’m not completely stupid, you know.’

  ‘Oh, no, love, I wasn’t suggesting that,’ Harrie said hurriedly, but she dared not catch Sarah’s eye.

  They were sitting in the yard, their backs against the wall and their bums freezing in spite of the blankets folded beneath them. A few feet farther along, Rachel Winter lay in the crumpled heap she’d slumped into when Friday deposited her after carrying her out of the ward for fresh air because she’d refused to walk out herself.

  Pitching her voice so it contained just the right balance of conversational fact with a hint of not-too-earnest pleading, Harrie said, ‘She doesn’t have any clothes or money or anything. Not even something she can sell for garnish.’

  ‘Oh rubbish, she’s got that bloody great ring,’ Sarah said.

  That was the other reason they’d brought her outside; so they could see her and make sure she wasn’t robbed. They had attempted themselves to take the ring off her for safekeeping but Rachel had screeched like a banshee and scratched and tried to bite them, so they’d left it on her hand, where it shone like a beacon at almost every inmate on the women’s side of Newgate Gaol.

  She’d snivelled her way through last night jammed, at Harrie’s behest, between Sarah and Friday, neither of whom slept at all, and since daybreak she had been ‘accidentally’ manhandled by no less than a dozen women in an attempt to separate her from her jewel. She’d fought like a cat and managed to defend herself and her property, but Sarah had remained nearby in case her help had been required. Why, she didn’t know, as she said to Friday — the girl was a spoilt little cow and deserved to be robbed.

  ‘But that’s her betrothal ring,’ Harrie protested. ‘Would you sell the last thing you had to remind you of your fiancé?’

  Sarah said ‘Yes’ as Friday nodded.

  ‘You’re being silly, Harrie, and so’s that precious little dollymop,’ Sarah said, pointing at Rachel, now lying flat on the cold, wet ground. ‘We’re in gaol. If we don’t pay garnish, we don’t eat, and if we don’t eat, we die. Princess Rachel, too.’

  Harrie realised then that it was unrealistic, and rather childish, of her to expect either Friday or Sarah to pay for Rachel Winter, especially when she did actually have a means of paying for herself. They were already supporting someone — her. She felt ashamed at having even briefly entertained the idea. She stood up, wiped her hands on her skirt and approached Rachel.

  She bent down. ‘Rachel, get up.’

  Rachel’s bonnet had been left behind on their mat, which meant that by now it would have been stolen and sold to someone
in another ward. Her dirty hair was spread across the ground, the ends lying in a puddle of muddy slush. Harrie noted, not for the first time, that Rachel had quite a flair for the theatrical. She pulled her into a sitting position, then hoisted her to her feet.

  ‘Come on, love, we’d like to talk to you for a minute.’

  ‘What about?’ Rachel grumbled. Her breath was rancid from not having eaten for several days and she desperately needed a bath.

  From the corner of her eye, Harrie caught sight of Liz Parker approaching across the courtyard and hurriedly pushed Rachel towards Friday and Sarah. At the last minute Liz veered away, giving Harrie a filthy look.

  Harrie breathed a sigh of relief. Liz Parker was a big woman, shorter than Friday but considerably wider, who had managed to retain her bulk despite being incarcerated in Newgate for the past six months. Everyone knew she had most of her food smuggled in; it wasn’t uncommon for her to dine on oysters, saveloys and pickled eggs for breakfast, potatoes and fresh or smoked fish from Billingsgate market for dinner, and meat pies from the pennie-pie vendor for supper. She also had a seemingly endless supply of coffee, tea, tobacco, salt, Coleman’s mustard and gin, only a fraction of which she appeared to share even with her coterie. Anyone with a friend or associate on the outside could arrange to smuggle in food or gin, but those with less money at their disposal than Liz Parker, which was the majority of inmates, tended to rely on the garnish system for their food and spend the bulk of their money on gin and tobacco.

  Parker wore gold hoop earrings no one dared steal from her and a fine silk kerchief at her throat, ran the card schools in the wards and was the most cunning sharp of the lot, and was very free with her fists. Her own nose had been broken several times and now sat kitty-corner to her lumpy face; her four top front teeth were missing; and healed nicks and scars further blemished her already heavily pockmarked complexion. A gang of about thirty inmates had declared allegiance to her and within that thirty was a coven, as Sarah had labelled them, of around a dozen zealously loyal women and girls who acted as her eyes and ears in the wards. She was a very powerful woman, almost as powerful as she had been out on the streets overseeing one of inner London’s more successful flash mobs. She scared the living daylights out of Harrie. Every night during compulsory prayers, she thanked God Liz Parker slept in another ward.