Chris Nickson - The Broken Token

“But you can go where you like, when you like, stay out drinking until all hours…”

“True enough,” he conceded. “And there are plenty who do. But let me ask you, would you want a husband who did that?”

“No, of course not,” Emily answered. “I’d expect him to be more considerate.”

“So then, if you were a man, you wouldn’t be like that,” Nottingham said after a moment. He was remembering his own father, a man who’d been anything but considerate to his wife and son.

“I suppose not,” she agreed slowly.

“Drinking and whoring doesn’t make someone a man,” Nottingham said with quiet conviction, “and don’t you ever forget it.”

“But whores can become ladies. Moll Flanders — ”

“You’ve read that?” he asked sharply.

“Yes — ” Emily began, but before she could continue the door opened and Mary and Rose bustled in.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” Mary said in a merry voice. “We were talking and lost track of the time. Good Lord, we need more light in here. It’s almost pitch black.”

“That’s all right,” Nottingham told her. “Gave us time for a chat.” And he winked at Emily.

Later, after the girls were in bed, Nottingham and his wife sat by the dying fire. He was dozing intermittently, jarring awake as his chin fell on his chest.

“So was it daggers drawn earlier with Emily?” Mary asked.

He shook his head. “Not at all. Not even a cross word,” he answered happily. “We could have talked a lot longer.”

She raised her eyebrows, not quite believing him.

“Then that’s a change.”

“She’s just beginning to learn that the world is a smaller place than she’d hoped.” He hesitated, then asked, “Do you ever feel like all this isn’t enough?”

“All what?” said Mary, confused.

“This.” He groped to put the idea into words. “Me, the girls, this house. Don’t you ever feel your life should be more than that?”

“Ah,” she replied with gentle understanding. “So that’s the problem. I’m content with this, Richard. I always have been. It’s easier now than when we started out, but I was happy then, too, you know.” She reached over and took his hand, her fingers lightly stroking his palm. “But I knew what I wanted and I got it.”

“Emily’s different.”

“I suppose she always has been.” Mary sighed and started to lose herself in the past. “She was never one for playing with the other girls, do you remember that? She always seemed happiest on her own. And after she learnt to read, it was all we could do to pry her away from a book.”

“True,” he smiled. He couldn’t remember all the times he’d found her reading in bed when she should have been sleeping.

“Rose is like me. She’ll be quite content to settle down with her nice lad and have a family. But I don’t know that Emily’s ever going to be happy,” Mary said with a tinge of sadness. “Not really happy. And I know that’s a terrible thing to say about your own daughter, but it’s true. I think deep down she knows it, too. That’s why she’s so angry. She just wasn’t made for the world as it is.”

Nottingham knew she wanted to talk about this, but he was uncomfortable. He felt at home with facts, even ideas, but emotions always left him uneasy and restless.

“So what do we do about her?” he asked, hoping his wife would have an answer.

“I honestly don’t know, Richard,” Mary replied with a helplessness that reflected his own. “I wish I did.”

“She told me something that worried me.”

“What’s that?”

“Did you know she’d read Moll Flanders ?”

Mary laughed lightly, her eyes twinkling in the dim light.

“Of course I did, Richard. Who do you think lent it to her?”

The sun was shining, the sky clear and blue, with just the faintest breeze coming from the west. It was as if summer was enjoying its final gasp. Normally Nottingham would have enjoyed the weather, but now it seemed to be making a mockery of the day.

He’d borrowed a cart to take Meg to the church, and he was soberly dressed in his best coat and breeches, sweating under their weight as the grey woollen hose itched against his calves. The old woman was in the same dress she’d worn the last time he’d seen her — probably the only one she owned, he thought — leaning heavily against him for support as they walked very slowly on the path through the churchyard to the imposing wooden doors.

Mary and the girls were already inside, sitting in the front pew. Mary put her arms around Meg’s hunched shoulders, whispering in her ear as the new curate began the service.

He spoke sonorously, letting the litany of the words flow smoothly, much to Nottingham’s surprise. He’d expected Crandall to rush through the funeral. Cookson would have given him the task, and Pamela was nothing to him. He glanced at the others; Meg’s face was in her hands, Rose and Mary both looked down and Emily was gazing at the curate.

Outside, they followed the cheap coffin to the waiting grave in the far corner of the churchyard. The curate took his time, letting the power of the words flow into the listeners. Reluctantly, Nottingham had to admit that Crandall was a powerful, mesmerising speaker. He watched the curate pause, eyes moving around the mourners to gauge the effect of his voice, his glance lingering on Rose, and a little longer on Emily, before returning to the verses. Finally it was all done, the ashes to ashes and dust to dust, and Nottingham followed Meg in tossing a clod of dirt into the grave. Another life spent so fast, to be covered and forgotten as the days went by. At least Pamela had a proper burial, he thought, and remembered another whore in a pauper’s grave.

As he walked away, Crandall called to him and took him aside.

“I wanted you to know I don’t approve of this,” he said in a low, angry voice.

“Of what, Mr Crandall?”

The curate’s eyes were dark. He spoke quickly.

“Of burying a whore here. Of giving her a service in the church. Her profession was evil.”

Nottingham answered slowly, coldly, and carefully.

“Then understand this for your pains. You did your duty for a woman who was brutally killed, a woman who’d once been the servant in my house, someone who was loved. Think on that. Then try remembering that Our Lord took in Mary Magdalene. Wasn’t she supposed to have been a whore?”

He turned on his heel and walked away.

They rode back to Harrison’s almshouses. Mary, Rose and Emily would stay with Meg for a little while. Nottingham would return the cart and get back to work; Thursday was already slipping away. Sometimes he wondered if death wasn’t easier than life.

Sedgwick was waiting for him at the jail, nibbling the remains of a pie that was probably his dinner. He stood up quickly as Nottingham entered, crumbs falling from his cheap, worn waistcoat on to the floor.

“Sit down, John,” the Constable said, pulling off his coat and draping it over the chair. He felt exhausted, drained by the funeral, his heart empty. “Did you find anything more yesterday?”

“Oh aye,” Sedgwick grinned broadly. “I’ve finally got someone who saw Morton Monday night.”

“Oh?” Suddenly Nottingham felt alert again, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Where was this?”

“The Talbot.” The deputy let the name roll off his tongue.

The Constable raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I wonder why such an upstanding man of God was in a place like that,” he said. “It’s not filled with the holy spirit.”

The Talbot was notorious in Leeds. It had a pit for cock fighting, and a reputation as a thieves’ den, where violence was exchanged as common currency.