Antonia Hodgson - The Devil in the Marshalsea

‘Oh, am I your servant now, sir?’ she muttered, but she did as she was told.

Woodburn took Jack’s other arm and we lifted him together. The boy was so thin I could have easily carried him on my own, but now that Acton was gone the chaplain seemed almost desperate to help.

‘That was brave of you, Mr Hawkins,’ he said, as we made our way to the chapel.

I frowned, remembering Samuel Fleet’s observation up in the Tap Room. Had I been brave? Or just foolish? Was there much difference in a place like this?

Thinking of Fleet, some instinct made me look back at the Tap Room window. And there he was, watching us from above, leaning over the balcony. As I caught his eye he grinned and clapped his hands, as if this had all been a play for his benefit. The applause echoed around the empty yard.

‘ Look at him.’ Woodburn clenched his jaw. ‘The black-hearted fiend. God forgive me, but I’d wring his neck if I had the chance.’

The chapel was quiet and clean, with smooth-plastered white walls and a large window facing on to the yard. Woodburn threw a fresh blanket on the floor by the altar and I settled Jack down carefully. I could feel him trembling in my arms as I laid him down.

‘Poor boy,’ Woodburn sighed. He heaved himself into the nearest pew and bowed his head in prayer.

Jack shuddered softly and coughed. A thin trickle of blood slid from his lips. I hoped Woodburn was praying for Jack’s soul – it was too late for the rest of him. The shock of it brought tears to my eyes. Thirteen years old. I blinked them back and kneeled down next to him, wondering how on earth I had become entangled in all of this. On a different day, in a different mood, Acton could have clapped me in irons or beaten me just as he’d beaten Jack – and who would have come running to save me ?

Jack reached for my hand. ‘Ben. Where’s Ben…?’

Kitty arrived with a bowl of hot water and a cordial. She shooed me away, loosening Jack’s grimy rags and examining his injuries with a speed and skill that surprised me. He was so dirty that it was hard to see where the bruises lay, but once the hot water had washed him clean the violence of Acton’s attack was clear enough. Thick red weals criss-crossed his body, deep, savage wounds that had torn almost to the bone.

Kitty cleaned them as best she could and put the bottle of cordial to his lips. ‘Just a few sips, Jack.’ She touched his hair softly.

‘Is he a friend of yours, Kitty?’

She nodded, setting the cordial to one side. ‘He cleaned bed sheets on the Master’s Side till he caught a fever. Then they threw him back over the wall.’ She ran her fingers across the boy’s battered body then glanced at Woodburn, still praying with his head down. ‘Look,’ she murmured, touching a large spread of green and yellow bruises running across his chest like countries on a map. ‘These are old beatings.’

I studied the boy with new eyes. Kitty was right; the bright red wounds from Acton’s whip were merely the climax to a brutal story that had played itself out for many weeks. Jack had been battered and beaten so badly that there was barely an inch of clear skin left. No wonder he’d tried to escape.

‘Why did they do this to him?’

‘He got himself into trouble with John Grace, Acton’s clerk,’ Woodburn said. He was slumped back in his pew, almost as grey as the boy.

‘Trouble?’ Kitty rounded on him. ‘His mother was starving to death on the sick ward! They left her lying in her own filth, no blankets, no bed. Nothing. Jack only asked for what he was owed. Just a bit of charity .’

Woodburn flinched, then turned a deep red. ‘Watch your tongue, girl,’ he cried, rising from the bench. ‘I did everything I could to help Jack and his family. I spoke with Mr Grace and Mr Acton on countless occasions.’

‘Little good it did them,’ Kitty snapped back.

Woodburn glowered at her. ‘This is Samuel Fleet’s influence,’ he said, narrowing his eyes. ‘Mrs Roberts tells me you’ve been spending far too much time in his company…’

Kitty pressed a hand to her chest. ‘I’m so sorry, sir,’ she said, her voice catching with remorse. ‘It’s just… the shock of… of seeing poor Jack…’

I almost laughed, it was so poorly acted. But Woodburn fell for it. He patted her head, all thoughts of Fleet forgotten. ‘You’re a good-hearted girl, Kitty. We just need to calm that temper of yours, eh? And my thanks to you, sir,’ he said, giving me a short bow. ‘If you would stay here I’ll have a quiet word with Acton about the Strong Room. Perhaps I can change his mind.’

He waddled down the aisle, closing the door softly behind him. The chapel fell silent for a moment.

‘Sanctimonious cock,’ Kitty said, rinsing her hands.

Even Jack cheered up at that.

I nodded at the boy’s bandaged ankle. ‘You’ve done a fine job there.’

‘My father was a doctor,’ Kitty said, without thinking, then gave a start, as if surprised by the confession. She turned away and began scrubbing the blood from the chapel floor.

With Jack cleaned and bandaged there was little more we could do for him, but we were loath to call for assistance. As soon as he left the chapel he would be clapped in chains and locked in the Strong Room, over on the Common Side. Kitty wouldn’t say much about it, except that Mr Acton was a bastard for sending him there.

We sat side by side on the front pew, not saying much. I felt numb with shock, the force of what I had witnessed only now hitting me. Kitty was trembling a little, fighting off the tears. Jack had fallen unconscious again.

‘He might live,’ I said.

‘No. He won’t.’ She pulled off her cap and shook her hair loose, red locks tumbling down about her shoulders.

‘He was asking for someone called Ben.’

‘His brother. There’s just the two of them. Their mother died of gaol fever a month back.’ She covered her face with her hands.

I headed down the stairs and back out into the yard. It was late afternoon and the sun hung low above the Lodge gate, casting long shadows. Woodburn was sitting on a bench by the chapel door, prodding at the weeds growing up around the cobbles with the end of his cane. He looked miserable and distracted; clearly his talk with Acton had not gone well. As for the rest of the Park, it was as if nothing had happened. A game of ninepins had resumed beneath the Court’s porch and Gilbert Hand was back at his station by the lamppost in the middle of the yard.

‘What a parish, eh?’ Woodburn said, rubbing his temples. ‘Do you think if I prayed very hard the Lord would take pity and transfer me to Mayfair?’ He stuck a finger through a hole in his jacket. ‘The truth is I wouldn’t change it for the world. There’s so much good work to be done here. So many souls to save.’ He glanced up, shyly. ‘Does that sound foolish to you, Mr Hawkins? I fear it’s not the fashion for clerics to talk about souls these days.’

I smiled, understanding better than he realised. I had spent three years at Oxford studying to join the clergy. Three years of rising at dawn to pray, daily seminars in classics, divinity and logic. Long hours hunched over my desk translating Greek into Latin and Latin into English before rushing back to church for evening prayers… and finally to bed. Unfortunately, it was in that gap between ‘evening prayers’ and ‘finally to bed’ where I was tested; and failed magnificently. If only God had put fewer hours in the day. And not invented twins.

‘Well, well. I must call for a chair to take me home,’ Woodburn said, heaving himself up from the bench with the help of his cane.

I rose and bowed. Lucky man, to come and go as he pleased.