Antonia Hodgson - The Devil in the Marshalsea

A servant pushed past me with a fresh bowl of punch, liquor slopping over the brim on to the floor. Acton grabbed two glasses and plunged them into the bowl before it was even set down, handing one to me as Mary danced up to us, swishing her skirts.

‘Well now, hussy,’ Acton grinned, pulling her close. ‘What do you make of Mr Hawkins in his fine gentleman’s outfit?’

Mary smiled up at her husband, arms wrapped tight around him. Her gaze flickered over my clothes from the ribbon in my wig to the buckles of my shoes. ‘I know that waistcoat…’ she frowned, narrowing her eyes.

‘It’s on loan from Mr Fleet,’ I explained.

‘Ugh,’ she sneered, mock-shuddering in Acton’s arms. ‘Horrible little toad, sliming about in other people’s business. William…’ She stroked her husband’s chest and put on a high, babyish voice. ‘ Surely we can find a better roommate for our guest.’

Acton kissed the top of her head. ‘That’s up to his purse, my love, isn’t it?’ A sudden gleam entered his eyes. ‘So. You’re a friend of Buckley’s, eh? I’ll wager Sir Philip pays him well enough…’ He licked his lips, already stained red with punch. ‘Did he offer to help with your fees?’

It was at this very moment that the musicians put down their instruments to rest and take a glass of punch, leaving Acton’s question to fall heavily upon a quiet room. It was also at this moment that I spied Acton’s clerk, John Grace, sitting by himself in the darkest corner of the room, far away from the fire. He did not eat or drink, just sat, silently, still clutching the black ledger, bony hands stroking the surface as if it were a purring cat. He leaned forward to catch my response, wintry blue eyes unblinking behind his spectacles.

To my great relief, Edward Gilbourne slipped across the room to join us. ‘Mrs Acton, would you introduce me to our new guest?’ he said, darting a friendly glance in my direction. Acton, seeing the conversation move away from money, wandered off in search of more punch. John Grace sat back, stiff as an old hinge, glaring at Gilbourne with unguarded hatred. So – it would appear that the two clerks were not on good terms. Another reason to like Gilbourne.

‘This is Mr Gilbourne, our deputy prothonotary,’ Mary trilled, announcing him as if he were some foreign diplomat new at court.

Gilbourne rolled his eyes. ‘Palace clerk,’ he muttered in my ear. ‘You don’t have to kneel.’

‘This is Mr Hawkins,’ Mary continued, quite oblivious. ‘He’s a…’ She paused, lips pouted in thought. ‘What is it that you do , Mr Hawkins?’

‘I’m a gentleman, madam. I do as little as possible.’

Gilbourne laughed. ‘An excellent ambition,’ he said, with mock solemnity. ‘But I don’t believe a word of it. You seem an industrious fellow to me, Hawkins. You’ve only been here a day and the whole prison speaks of you. Kindly, of course,’ he added swiftly. ‘Mr Woodburn has been singing your praises to the skies.’

Mary puffed out her cheeks with irritation and stormed over to the poor musicians to harangue them for stopping. They put down their drinks and took up their instruments again with a dejected air.

Gilbourne winked, mischievous. ‘Our dear governess finds the chaplain tedious company,’ he smiled. ‘Too many sermons and not enough dancing. Just the mention of his name is enough to rile her. Perhaps that was wicked of me…’ he pondered, taking a small sip of punch. ‘But at least we are free to talk for a while.’

As the music resumed Mary twirled about the room searching for a partner. Acton and Grace were hunched over the clerk’s ledger, plotting, while Mack suddenly found that he needed to send out for more food, so she settled for the thin, elderly gentleman sitting at the table. She pulled him to his feet and shuffled him into a reluctant, doddery minuet.

‘Mr Wilson. Mary’s father,’ Gilbourne explained. ‘His daughter has danced circles round him for years.’

‘He was a prisoner on the Common Side, I hear.’

‘Astonishing!’ Gilbourne stepped back a little, marvelling at me. ‘So newly arrived and yet you have the measure of every man here.’ He waggled his finger at me. ‘You’re a capable man, Mr Hawkins. Observant.’

Mary’s father was clutching his side and mopping the sweat from his brow with a silk handkerchief. ‘It must be hard for Mr Wilson,’ I said. ‘Returning again and again to the place where he suffered such misery and disgrace.’

‘I had not thought of it,’ Gilbourne frowned. ‘But now you say it, I see you are quite right. But then… perhaps he has forgotten his time as a debtor here? It was many years ago.’

I cleared my throat. ‘From what I’ve heard of the Common Side, it is not an experience easily forgotten, Mr Gilbourne.’

‘That is true. And it’s worse under our host’s rule.’ He shook his head. ‘I only wish there were more I could do to help the poor wretches.’

‘I am sure you do your best, sir,’ I said, sorry to have brought the conversation to such a gloomy turn. ‘Shall we sit down together and try Mack’s feast?’

We settled ourselves at the table and fell quickly into deep conversation. Gilbourne told me his family were farmers from Kent, but he had come to London as a lad to live with his uncle, a lawyer, who had no children of his own.

‘I can’t imagine you tending the fields,’ I said, nodding at his clothes. His suit was plain but expertly stitched to fit his lean frame and he wore a brand-new brown wig, lightly powdered. The warm, chocolate-coloured cloth of his jacket and waistcoat matched his eyes precisely and there was a crispness to his appearance that could only come from the very best tailoring.

‘And I cannot imagine you tending your flock in a Suffolk parish,’ he replied with a smile. ‘It seems we are neither of us cut out to be our fathers.’ He held up his glass and chinked it against mine. ‘Praise the Lord.’

Gilbourne was a good companion, witty and perceptive for all his insistence to the contrary. It seemed to be a trait of his to admire other men’s talents while dismissing his own. And yet he had risen to the post of deputy prothonotary in just a few short years – a position which, I soon realised, was blessed with a good deal of power and reward. Every court case, every arrest or release for every debtor, came through his office to be ordered and approved. Every prison fee, every change in the rules or hiring of a new turnkey must be signed and agreed with Edward Gilbourne. He wore his position lightly and with a humble shrug of the shoulders but I saw now I had underestimated him. He was not just excellent company; he could be a powerful ally. Charles might have Sir Philip’s ear, but Gilbourne understood the inner workings of the Marshalsea better than anyone; save perhaps its governor.

With Mary’s mother still grazing her way through the supper dishes we kept our conversation light, though she seemed more interested in her large slice of pound cake than our talk. Mary had trapped poor Mack in a dance while Acton was singing and swaying to the music, his arms about his father-in-law, squeezing him like a wet cloth on laundry day. Henry had somehow managed not to fall into the fire amidst all this chaos and had now reached the more dangerous destination of Mr Grace’s feet. The clerk was glaring impatiently at Acton, lips twisted in annoyance, the ledger now open and waiting on a table by his side. I watched in alarm as the boy attached himself to Grace’s stick-thin calf, perhaps mistaking it for a chair leg. Grace gave a shiver of revulsion, as if he had seen not a boy but a diseased rat clutched to his stocking. His gaze flickered to his master. When he was sure Acton wasn’t looking he gave a sudden, violent shake of his leg, kicking the boy into the middle of the room.