Antonia Hodgson - The Devil in the Marshalsea

‘No need. I broke his nose this afternoon.’

He chuckled, and slid the dagger towards me. ‘Here. In case you run into someone in a dark alley.’

I tucked it away. ‘But I wonder if you might help me with another matter, sir. Kitty vanished from the Marshalsea ten days ago. No one knows where she is. Perhaps some of your friends could ask around town.’ And saying that, I remembered his son, the link boy. Sam Fleet. Named for his uncle.

‘My friends can find anything or anyone, Mr Hawkins. But that won’t be necessary in this case.’ He stood up, then beckoned me to follow him. Samuel would have weaved and danced his way across the room, quick as a fox. James Fleet cut a clean, straight path, and men drew back to let him pass.

As we came closer to the hearth he clapped a hand upon my shoulder, and pointed to a low, battered leather armchair set by the fire. A pale, slender hand rested against the arm, clutching a pipe. Fleet’s journal lay on a table close by. ‘There, sir.’ He disappeared back into the crowds.

‘Kitty?’

She turned her face from the fire then rose slowly to her feet. For a moment I thought James had been mistaken, she seemed so altered. She wore a black hat, tilted jauntily over one eye, and her plain servant’s clothes were gone, replaced with an emerald silk gown, trimmed with lace and tied with black velvet ribbons. But the change was deeper than her fine clothes; she seemed older, somehow, and more sure of herself. Then again, she had killed a man.

‘Well. Mr Hawkins.’ She gazed at me steadily, green eyes offering no clue to her thoughts.

I hesitated. Since learning she was still alive I had imagined what I might say and do in this moment. I’d thought I might sweep her into my arms. But then I had also dared imagine she would be pleased to see me. ‘Kitty…’

She pursed her lips. ‘ Miss Sparks . Well; and I suppose you’ve heard of my change in fortune at last? Samuel left me everything in his will. And now here you are. What a queer coincidence. Am I good enough for your company now I’m a lady and not some common slut?’

I stared at her in consternation. ‘I had no idea, I assure you.’

She laughed at me. ‘Do you think I’m a fool? I saved your life. Nursed you when you lay dying. I risked my life and my soul for you, Tom Hawkins. And how did you repay me? The moment you were free you abandoned me without a moment’s thought.’ She clenched her teeth, fighting back the anger. ‘I saw you in Sir Philip’s yacht, flirting with his daughters. I watched you from the riverbank as you sailed away down the Thames. And I vowed I would never let a man betray me again. Never .’

I sighed, remembering the pain I’d felt that day; the dull weight of loss that had oppressed my spirits ever since. ‘I was not flirting, Kitty,’ I said, quietly.

‘Well, that’s how it seemed to me. All those cushions.’ She frowned at the floor, skirts bunched tight in her fists. Even in her fury, she knew this sounded ridiculous. ‘Perhaps you were not flirting,’ she relented. ‘But you cannot deny that you left me. Well, I’m glad of it. You taught me a valuable lesson and now I’m free of you.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘I will not be fooled again, Mr Hawkins.’

‘Charles told me you were dead.’

She froze, hand pressed to her heart. ‘Oh,’ she breathed, the blood draining from her face. ‘ Tom .’

‘I thought I’d lost you.’

Her eyes welled with tears. She blinked them away. ‘I see.’ Her fingers trailed across the soft silk of her gown. ‘So, you didn’t know about the will?’

‘No.’

‘But you still came looking for me?’

‘Yes. As soon as I knew you were alive. Trim told me this afternoon.’

‘Well, that’s…’ She shook her head. ‘ Well. ’

And that is the closest I have ever seen Kitty Sparks come to admitting she was wrong, about anything.

I kissed her then, as many times as she’d let me. This was the life I thought I’d lost; I would not let it slip through my fingers again. And then Moll appeared and fell into a deep, involved discussion with Kitty about business. Covent Garden’s most notorious coffeehouse and London’s most disreputable print shop – there was a great deal to talk about. I ordered a bowl of punch and drew up a chair by the fire and before I knew it I had dozed off.

Kitty nudged me awake at midnight. ‘You were snoring,’ she said. She tucked her feet up beneath her and smiled at me.

‘God save the king!’ someone shouted.

‘God save Moll King!’ someone called back – and everyone laughed.

Kitty watched Betty pour a fresh pot of coffee with a soft expression. ‘A new king,’ she murmured, then shot me a bright smile. ‘A new day.’

I stretched and yawned. ‘I suppose I should find myself an occupation. A place to live…’

Kitty smiled and nudged her toe against my thigh. ‘Why, don’t you want to live with me, Tom?’

I propped my hand against my chin in a vain attempt to appear nonchalant. ‘What about your reputation?’

‘I’m rich. I don’t need a reputation.’

I cleared my throat. ‘How rich, exactly…?’

‘ Very. ’

I leaned forward and took her hand in mine. ‘I will make an honest woman of you, Kitty Sparks.’

She grinned. ‘Don’t you dare.’

We left Moll’s at dawn, crossing the piazza to Russell Street. Kitty wrapped an arm about my waist and I pulled her close, touching my lips to her cheek. The buildings grew more tatty and disreputable the further we went, private homes and smart coffeehouses making way for an apothecary, then a grocer’s shop, a rundown tavern, a gin shop. A brothel. The stink of piss and rotting food wafted up from the gutters. Kitty slipped her arm free and held her skirts up out of the filth. ‘Home,’ she said.

And then I saw it, from the corner of my eye: a small, dark building, shrunk back from its neighbours as if it were sulking. The windows on the lower floor were piled high with a confusion of books and maps and engravings all tossed together in an impossible jumble. The shop sign sported a cocked pistol, set at an indecent angle.

I cupped my hand and peered through the dirt-smeared window.

‘It all needs sorting,’ Kitty said. ‘I haven’t had the heart these last few days.’

‘I can help.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘ Indeed? You’ll roll up your sleeves and scrub the floor, will you?’

‘I meant the books and pamphlets. The sketches. I’d be happy to read through them…’

She laughed. ‘I’m sure you would, you dog.’ She stepped closer and kissed me.

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow,’ she agreed. And then she took my hand and pulled me through the door.

This novel was in part inspired by actual events and many of the characters are either real or based loosely on real people. All of the conditions described are taken from first-hand accounts – if anything the reality was even worse. The anonymous debtor and writer of the poem ‘The Marshalsea, or, Hell in Epitome’ (1718) described prisoners being chained to rotting corpses as punishment.

Many of the details of the prison come from John Grano’s contemporary diary of his life in the Marshalsea from 1728 to 1729. (See the note on real characters for more information.) I also drew extensively from the Gaols Committee report of 1729 and the reports of William Acton’s murder trial from August 1729.

Much of Mr Woodburn’s lecture comes from a real sermon given to debtors in Ludgate prison in 1725. One can almost hear them shuffling and sighing in their seats nearly three hundred years later. The descriptions of turnkeys having to knock back cups of liquor before they opened up the prison wards is based on evidence from The State of the Gaols in London by William Smith, MD (1776 – which shows just how little conditions had improved in fifty years). Corpses were left to rot until grieving families could pay for their release. Mary Acton loved to dance – and Acton hated it. And there was a room called Belle Isle on the Master’s Side.