Edward Marston - The Counterfeit Crank

According to the sketch that was drawn from Dorothea’s memory, Nicholas was in the same room where Hywel Rees had been kept. It was from one of the windows that he must have seen the girl being taken reluctantly to the feast in the hall. If that was the case, Nicholas wondered how the Welshman had been able to get out in order to go to the girl’s rescue. The window was too high from the ground for him to drop down with any safety, and the door far too solid to force.

Nicholas remained at a window to watch. There was no sign of either Joseph Beechcroft or Ralph Olgrave, but a number of other people came into view. Some were obviously inmates, forced to do whatever chores were necessary, and there were several keepers on duty as well. But he also noticed a few men who came and went from doors on the opposite side of the courtyard. They moved around with complete freedom and, judging from their attire, they could hardly be described as paupers. Nicholas asked himself what function they had in Bridewell.

When the cart had been unloaded, one of the boys was clipped around the head by the keeper and sent through an archway to do another task. The keeper then took the second boy towards the door through which Nicholas had come. Leaving the window, Nicholas went to the last mattress and dragged it away from the others, then he put his arm back in the sling and arranged the patch over his eye. He crouched on his mattress and waited. After a while, the door was unlocked and a weary young boy came in, only to have the door locked immediately behind him. Seeing Nicholas, the boy stopped.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, warily.

‘My name is Tom Rooke,’ said Nicholas, in the cracked voice he had practised earlier. ‘I’m convicted of vagrancy and sent here. What do I call you, lad?’

‘Ned. Ned Griddle.’ He approached slowly. ‘What’s wrong with your arm?’

‘I was stabbed in a brawl, and lost a lot of blood.’

‘They’ll want you to work in here.’

Nicholas held up a hand. ‘Stay back, Ned. I do not smell too sweet.’

‘Have you been in Bridewell before?’

‘Never,’ said Nicholas, adjusting his sling, ‘but I had a friend who was sent here recently. I hope to see him again.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A young Welshman by the name of Hywel Rees. Do you know him?’

‘I did,’ said the boy, sadly. ‘I liked him. Hywel was discharged.’

‘So soon? Why was that, Ned?’

‘They said he caused too much trouble. There was a girl he knew, she was in here as well, but they would not let him see her. So Hywel escaped.’

‘How?’ asked Nicholas. ‘If he’d jumped from the window, he’d have broken his legs. There’s no way out.’

‘Hywel found one,’ explained Griddle. ‘He climbed on the roof and worked his way along until he came to an open window. He went through it. That room was not locked because I later saw him run across the courtyard to the hall.’

‘Brave man! The girl must have been Dorothea, then.’

‘Did you know her as well, Tom?’

‘A little,’ said Nicholas. ‘They’d not been in London for long.’

The door was unlocked again and four youths came into the room. Thin and dishevelled, they had obviously been working hard because they all dropped down on their individual mattresses. One of them fell asleep at once, the others barely gave the newcomer a glance. Ned Griddle’s mattress was the one next to Nicholas. He squatted down on it and slipped a hand inside his shirt. Making sure that the others did not see him, he passed Nicholas a piece of the bread he had scrounged from the kitchen. Both of them munched in silence for a few minutes.

‘How many of us are there altogether?’ said Nicholas at length.

‘No more than fifty or sixty in all,’ replied Griddle, ‘most of them girls.’

‘I heard there were the best part of two hundred people here.’

‘There are, but they’re not all sent for punishment. Many of them live here.’

Nicholas was surprised. ‘They live in a workhouse?’

‘Master Beechcroft rents out rooms to them,’ said the boy. ‘He makes more money that way. He sells what we make but it brings only a poor profit.’

‘What sort of work do we do?’

‘We make nails, draw wire, cut timber to size. When my brother was here, they had him unloading supplies on the wharf. We’ve no skills, Tom,’ he complained. ‘Hard labour is all we’re fit for. Those with skills are the ones they treat much better.’

‘Skills?’

‘Look at Ben Hemp, for instance. They’ll never let him out.’

‘Why not?’

‘He brings in too much money,’ said Griddle, resentfully. ‘That’s why he has a room of his own to work and sleep in. Ben is a cunning forger. He makes false dice and packs of cards for cony-catchers. He was taught by the best in the trade.’

‘Oh,’ said Nicholas. ‘And who was that?’

‘A fiendish clever fellow, according to Ben. A true master of the art.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Lavery,’ said the boy. ‘Philomen Lavery.’

Philomen Lavery dealt the cards with nimble fingers and shared a disingenuous smile among the people sitting at his table. Because it was his last night at the Queen’s Head, he had invited some of those who had played regularly with him to partake of food and drink in his room. It had put the visitors in a pleasant mood. They were sorry that Lavery would be leaving and taking his cards with him. None of the actors was there but Adam Crowmere had drifted in to play for a while. He soon accepted that he was not going to win. After losing every game in a row, he rose from the table with a chuckle.

‘I’m not going to let you rob me of my last penny, Master Lavery.’

‘Sit down again, Adam,’ coaxed the dealer. ‘You may yet have good fortune.’

‘Not at cards. Everyone at the table has better luck than me tonight.’

‘It was not always so. There was a time when you emptied all our purses.’

‘Then lost the money the next night,’ said Crowmere, amiably. ‘A card table has too many risks. To tell the truth, I prefer dice. Real skill is involved there.’

‘Yes,’ said one of the other players. ‘I’m a man for dice as well.’

‘Nothing gives me the same thrill as a game of cards,’ argued Lavery. ‘Turn one over and it could mean the difference between wealth and beggary.’

‘The same is true of dice,’ said Crowmere. ‘One throw could make you rich.’

‘Or very poor, Adam, if you do not have the knack of it.’

‘I have that knack, Master Lavery. At least, I used to have.’

‘I confess that I do not possess it.’

‘Then you must stay with your beloved cards. I know that you feel much safer with them, and they clearly favour you this evening. Dice would give the rest of us more of a chance to win back what we have lost.’

Lavery blinked up at him. ‘Do you really believe that, Adam?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said the other.

‘You feel at a disadvantage with cards?’

‘Only when I play against you.’

‘Yet you’d be prepared to wager on the throw of a dice?’

‘Time and again.’

‘Then we’ll put it to the test after this game,’ decided Lavery, looking around the table. ‘As it happens, I do have some dice with me somewhere. If we can find them, we’ll see if our cheery landlord really does have the knack of which he boasts.’ He beamed at the others. ‘Are we all agreed?’

Standing at the window, Nicholas had counted four carriages. One by one, they had rolled into the courtyard to disgorge their raucous occupants. All the visitors were men and they were welcomed at the door of the hall by Joseph Beechcroft. Other guests arrived on horseback and a few came on foot. Arrayed in their taffeta, the women soon came out to join them. Nicholas gazed around the room. Most of his companions were fast asleep, uninterested in a banquet from which they were excluded and too exhausted to remain awake to talk. Ned Griddle was the only one whose eyes were still open. He crept across to the window.