Imogen Robertson: Island of Bones

Evening of 3 February 1751, Tower of London

There was a peculiar hush around the Tower the night before an execution. The mist from the river shushed the streets and people moved quietly. The guards nodded to each other, stamped their feet and wished for dawn, then thought of the man in the Tower; they looked at the light showing faintly from his rooms and shivered again.

The fire could do little against the damp air of a February night, and nor could the wine warm the two men keeping vigil in the white-washed cell. They had been silent a long time. It was clear they were brothers — they had the same hooded eyes, the same slender figure — but they were turned away from each other, thinking their own thoughts. The younger of the two, Charles, glanced sideways at his brother without turning his head. Lucius Adair Penhaligon, 2nd Baron Keswick, was shivering and flushed; his silk waistcoat was undone and his hands were working one over the other as if he were trying to wash something from them. Charles looked back into the yellow flames, a little nauseated.

The fire cracked and Adair started at the noise; then, as if woken suddenly, he looked around at the plain walls with an air of disbelief.

‘What a little life I have had, Charles,’ he said. ‘And now I am afraid to lose it.’

Charles picked up the decanter and filled his brother’s glass again. His own was still full. He set it back down on the table between them and returned to his contemplation of the fire without replying.

‘How can it be I shall be dead tomorrow at this time? I cannot imagine it — I cannot.’ Adair then downed the contents of his glass. His voice quivered. ‘Can nothing be done? Can you do nothing?’

Charles shook his head and heard his brother begin to snivel.

‘I did not murder him, Charles!’ Adair shook his head slowly from side to side, as if trying to shift some weight across the floor of his mind. ‘No one believes me, but I did not, I swear I did not. Where is Margaret?’

‘You have had her letter. She is in Ireland now.’

Adair looked around the room as if the matter was not settled, as if their sister might appear in the shadows. ‘Yes, of course. And has no one else come, Charles? Have none of my friends come to sit with me tonight?’

‘No.’

The sound of his weeping grew louder, and Charles wished he could block out the noise. The stones around the fire were charred black with the ghosts of other flames. Charles watched, willing the sparks to fly free of the grate and consume it all — his brother, himself, then the whole city — and leave not a trace of them or their history behind them. The flames continued feeble and sullen. Very well, if he could not burn away his past, he would abandon it. Once the estate was sold, he would sign himself into the student roll of the University of Wittenberg and lose himself there and in his studies; after that, Padua perhaps. Then he could forget the gothic horrors of his family, the blood and money. Finding himself thinking of his own future, he glanced back at his brother. The sobbing had eased. Adair wiped his face and snuffled into his handkerchief.

‘What will they say of me when I am gone, Charles? Will they say anything, as they lose the money they won from me at the card table? Perhaps they will laugh. They used to laugh at me. I would be so sure of winning, I wore my coat turned inside out for luck, and each night they would ask if I were certain of my success, then laugh at me — but I was sure, I was sure every time. I only needed a hundred, and it seemed like such a simple thing. Oh God! Will it hurt, Charles?’

Charles turned away. ‘If the hangman knows his job, it will be quick.’

Adair scrambled suddenly to his feet and ran to the corner of the little room where a jug and ewer waited and bent over it. Charles heard the splatter of his vomit on the porcelain, the dry heavings of his stomach. After some moments Adair returned to the fire to find his glass full again. He could hardly hold it to his lips, so violent was his trembling.

‘Charles, do you think there is a God? The priest tells me I shall be saved if I repent.’

His brother did not answer him.

‘You think I am a coward?’

‘You fear what every man fears.’

Adair suddenly stood again and threw his glass with a cry. It smashed, and the last of the wine dripped down the wall.

‘For God’s sake! Will you not weep for your brother, Charles? How are you so cold? I was no better a brother to Margaret, yet her letter was so sodden I can hardly read it. Do I not deserve your tears? Can you weep? Are you a man at all?’ Adair dropped back into his seat as if that small act of outrage had exhausted him entirely. When he spoke again, it was as if he was talking to himself. ‘I did not kill him — and yet no one believes me. It was the other man, the man with a hundred pounds. It was not my fault. Why does no one believe me?’

Charles stared at his cuffs and would not look up, willing the time to pass.

‘Oh, leave me to the priest, Charles. He will weep, if only because it is his pleasure to see a man pray.’

Charles stood and turned towards the door.

‘Charles?’ Adair tumbled out of his seat and on to the brick floor at his brother’s feet, grabbing hold of his hand. Charles felt the soft damp flesh on his own and was revolted, but Adair’s grip was too desperate for him to be able to pull free. ‘I swear I am innocent of this! The old man wanted to see him alone, and I needed the money — what was the harm? Father was dead when I found him! I took the knife out of him, but he was gone, then I ran. I was afraid. Oh God! I am innocent and now they are going to kill me, and you shall let them. Why don’t you believe me?’

Charles looked down for a moment, then crouched beside him. ‘I don’t believe you, Addie, because you have always been a bully and a liar. I don’t believe you because you were found with the knife in your hand, and confessed the crime. .’

‘I only meant I had caused it by arranging for the man to meet him! Please, Charles, I am begging you. .’

Charles felt Adair’s fingers kneading his own.

‘I don’t believe you because you had the money you stole from our father’s notecase in your coat. It was bloody, Addie, our father’s blood was on the bills.’

‘I found him, and I pulled the knife out and then I meant to throw the money away so it got bloody from my hand. .’ his voice was whining, ‘but I needed it, Charles! I could not throw it away. It was the other man, the-’

‘The man whom no one has seen.’ Charles’s voice was hard. ‘No one, Addie! The man you only conjured in your mind when you found you had neither the courage to take your own life, nor stand trial for the crime. If you had not retracted your confession, there might have been some mercy for you.’

‘But I didn’t do it!’

His grip relaxed. Charles pulled one hand free and put it around his brother’s neck, then with his thumb lifted Adair’s face till they could look each other in the eye. Adair’s face was soaked with tears and his nose dripped; his eyes were bloodshot and a thread of bile hung from his lip.

‘Yes, you did, Addie. May God forgive you, and I shall forgive you for it if I can.’

He let Adair’s head drop again then stood, reached into his pocket and drew out two gold guineas. These he placed carefully before his brother on the cold floor. ‘Give these to the hangman when you reach the scaffold. Goodbye, Addie.’

He opened the door to the outer room where two guards looked up from their cards, then turned back. Adair remained kneeling on the floor, the fire making silver on the silk of his embroidered waistcoat, gold in the expensive weave of his britches, jewels across his close-cut coat with its porcelain buttons. He was staring at the coins in front of him. The only thing left in the world he could buy was a quick death. Charles closed the door and was escorted out into the dark and stench of the city.