Andrew Pepper - The Last Days of Newgate

‘You’ll never be the same as anyone else.’

‘Fine words.’ She punched him playfully on the arm.

A little later, Pyke decided to ask her a question that had been bothering him for a long time. ‘The second or third time I met you, after you’d given me a tour of Newgate, you said to me, “People aren’t who you imagine them to be,” and then added, “That applies to you as well as me.” ’

He felt her stiffen a little in his arms. ‘You have a good memory.’

‘What did you mean?’ He hesitated, ‘Why did you say it?’

Emily laughed, unconvincingly. ‘I don’t remember now.’

Pyke, though, wasn’t ready to let the subject go. ‘In what way were you not the person I might have imagined?’

‘How can I possibly answer that, Pyke?’ She sounded irritated. ‘I don’t know how you imagined me, do I?’

‘Oh, I imagined you to be virtuous, honest, generous, open.’

For a while, they were both silent. ‘And you don’t think I am those things now?’ She wouldn’t look at him.

‘I didn’t say that.’

Emily wriggled free from his grasp and sat up. ‘So what are you saying, then?’

‘I was watching you talk to Jo today. I noticed how close the two of you seem to be.’

‘What’s this all about, Pyke? Am I being accused of inappropriate interactions with my servant?’ Her tone and body language suggested she was tired but Pyke knew she was rattled, too.

‘I’m not accusing you of anything.’ Pyke waited for a moment. ‘But if I asked what business your servant Jo had following me even before I had first visited Hambledon, what would you say?’

In the darkness, he could not make out Emily’s expression. ‘I don’t understand, Pyke.’

He told Emily about his sighting of Jo in the Blue Dog tavern and said Jo’s intervention had possibly saved his life.

‘But why might Jo have been following you?’

‘Perhaps she was assessing me.’

‘Assessing you? For what purpose?’ Something in Emily’s voice struck an odd note.

‘Or for what role?’ Pyke waited for a moment. ‘And I was also wondering what if Jo knew more than she let on, the time she came and visited me in the church.’

‘You’re talking in riddles.’

‘She told me about your proposed meeting with James Sloan. She also happened to mention she’d overheard your father in conversation with his lawyer, something about a codicil to his will.’

‘A codicil?’ Emily’s voice was quieter, her tone less combative.

‘Did you know that your father had drawn up a codicil to his will?’

For a while, Emily didn’t answer. The atmosphere between them grew strained, even tense. ‘If I said that I’m happy now, happier than I could ever have imagined, and that you’re the reason for my happiness, would that be a sufficient answer?’

‘I’d be flattered, of course.’

‘What you did for me, finding and rescuing my mother, and taking such good care of her, was the kindest, noblest thing anyone has ever done for me.’ Now his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he saw tears streaking her cheek.

‘I did it because I wanted to.’

‘But you’re still not reassured?’

‘In this codicil, your father stipulated that, after his death, not a penny of his money was to go to charitable causes.’

‘I see.’ Emily’s expression was troubled. ‘Don’t you think some questions are best left unanswered?’

‘Like whether you actually believe your father died of a heart attack?’

That drew a sigh of indignation, possibly even anger. ‘What is it you want from me?’

But Pyke knew he already had everything he wanted. In the back of his mind, he had known all along that Emily had wanted something from him, and perhaps had selected him for a role that he himself had been happy enough to fulfil. It made it sound so calculating, so cold. Perhaps it was. Perhaps he had willingly allowed himself to be used. Perhaps he had used Emily himself, for he now had everything he had ever wanted. Edmonton’s estate was in a rotten condition — it had long been mismanaged and, in spite of his greedy, high-handed ways, the cost of maintenance still outstripped rents — but the land itself was worth more money than Pyke had ever dreamt of, and he had married a woman he loved. But did it matter? Pyke thought about something he’d said to Peel. Virtue was defined by its consequences. What were the consequences, then? Emily had sufficient money to fund her charitable works. Edmonton was dead. But so were Lizzie, Mary Johnson, Gerald McKeown, Stephen and Davy Magennis, Clare and her baby. And despite it all, Pyke was happy, or as happy as a man of his cautious disposition knew how to be. So did it matter that Emily had used him in some still-undefined way?

As Pyke pondered this question, Emily turned her back on him, the white cotton sheet draped across her shoulders. Even in the semi-darkness, he could admire her slim figure, her shapely, defined arms, the thickness of her hair. Instinctively, he reached out and gently touched the small of her back. She neither flinched nor moved in any way. In the end, Emily had done what she had needed to do, what he would have done. He could perhaps admire her even more, if that were possible, for her fortitude and cunning. It was true she had not been entirely honest with him, but he had never rated honesty as an important virtue; better to get what you wanted than be virtuous or honest. Momentarily taken aback by the strength of his feelings, he thought of what might become of them — intoxicating scenarios involving devotion, fun, passionate sex, maybe even children; and morbid ones, involving disease, loneliness and slow, painful death — and could no longer restrain himself. But this time, Emily was prepared for his touch and, in that moment, any niggling doubts dissipated before they had the chance to take root.

‘Pyke?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he whispered gently in her ear.

‘What doesn’t matter?’

‘What we were just talking about.’

‘How do you know that it doesn’t matter?’ But her expression was not accusatory.

Pyke kissed her gently on the forehead because he could not think of an appropriate answer.

A while later, she said, ‘Do you think something good can come from something terrible?’

‘The idea that virtue begets virtue is the least truthful of all the untruthful Christian doctrines.’ But he didn’t want to know what Emily thought to be terrible.

‘So do you think that we might be. . happy?’

He pulled away from her slightly, only to be able to see her expression; eyes that were warm and moist.

‘Might be happy?’

‘All right. Do you think we will be happy?’

‘Do you?’

‘Of course,’ she said, laughing nervously. In the darkness, her skin was smoother than alabaster. ‘What about you?’ She bit her lip and tilted her head slightly to one side.

Briefly Pyke thought about the baby, strangled and discarded in a metal pail for no other reason than it had been crying. Shivering, he pulled Emily towards him, felt her warmth envelop him, and even before he had opened his mouth, he knew he was going to lie.