Antonia Hodgson - The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins

‘Kitty…’

‘This was James Fleet’s work, wasn’t it?’

I gave a small, grunt, admitting nothing.

‘It’s no great puzzle,’ Eliot called from the table. ‘Kitty mentioned your visit this afternoon…’

‘… and then – all of a sudden – you had a secret, unexpected meeting,’ Kitty finished. She cupped a hand to my swollen jaw and held it there lightly. ‘Tom. Tell me this. Is it finished with?’

‘Yes,’ I said, without hesitation.

‘And you promise you won’t work for that bastard again?’

‘ Never .’

She reached over and hugged me close, hiding her tenderness in a grip that half-crushed my ribs. ‘Well then,’ she said, when she was done injuring me. ‘You are forgiven. Are you not the luckiest dog alive?’

Sam materialised, and dropped a packet of ice in my lap. I shrieked an oath.

‘Mrs Jenkins wants sixpence.’

‘Cow,’ Kitty muttered.

‘Did you enjoy the play, Sam?’ I asked, once I’d recovered.

Sam shook his head, curls flying.

‘Oh!’ Eliot and Kitty protested together.

‘It was made up,’ Sam shrugged. ‘Don’t see the point of it.’

‘What was the play?’

‘ The Beggar ’ s Opera ,’ Kitty answered for him, when it became clear that Sam did not know and did not care. ‘We’ve been talking about it for weeks, Tom.’

‘Oh…!’ I said, crestfallen. ‘I was longing to see that.’

Kitty muttered something under her breath.

Eliot slapped his hands upon the table and pushed himself up from his chair. ‘I’m sure it will run for weeks. Anything that rude about parliament is sure to be a success.’

‘Was it not about a gang of thieves…? Ah. ’

Eliot squeezed himself into his coat, flexing his arms with a look of surprise, as if it had shrunk since he took it off. ‘I doubt Mr Gay will be welcome in court from now on. But I suppose that was the point. The play is his revenge upon them all.’

‘Indeed?’ Eliot made it his business to read every newspaper and broadsheet he could lay his hands upon, and always knew the gossip around the court. ‘How so?’

He plucked his hat from its hook on the wall. ‘Gay is a great friend of Henrietta Howard. He was sure she’d secure a nice plump position for him at court one day – planned his future on it. Then old frog eyes was crowned king and it transpired that Mrs Howard had no influence over him whatsoever. It’s the queen he listens to and no one else. Who would have guessed it? A man taking advice from his wife .’ He winked at Kitty. ‘Most unnatural.’

I smiled but stayed quiet, thinking of the terrified woman I had met so briefly tonight. I was not surprised she’d failed to help John Gay: she couldn’t even save herself. Had she promised something similar to the man who had attacked her tonight? Some preferment that had failed to appear? Ach, and what did it matter? I would never see her again.

‘Mackheath should have hanged,’ Sam said.

‘Hanged?’ Eliot was outraged. ‘He’s the hero!’

‘He’s a highwayman,’ Kitty corrected him, plucking his hat from his head and setting it upon hers at a jaunty angle.

‘You can’t kill the hero, not in a comedy,’ Eliot persisted, reaching for his hat. Kitty swirled away from him, laughing. ‘The audience would riot.’

Sam disagreed. ‘Seen fifty or more Mackheaths turned off at Tyburn. The audience cheers.’

Later, Kitty and I lay in bed, drowsing under thick blankets as the fire dwindled to ash. I rested my head against her heart, listening to its soft beat as she ran her hand over my scalp, bristles rasping beneath her fingers.

‘I must visit the barber,’ I said.

She traced a finger down my bruised jaw. ‘Leave it to grow a little. I like it when it turns soft. It feels like moleskin.’

I chuckled and reached for her hand.

‘Tom,’ she said, after a while. ‘Could I have lost you tonight?’

I thought of the man’s fingers tearing at my throat. The heavy thud of horses’ hooves. The desperation and terror in Henrietta’s eyes. ‘Of course not.’

‘I couldn’t live without you,’ she said, very quiet.

I laughed. ‘You could live very well without me. Think of the money you’d save.’

She sighed and said nothing. The room was dark, and silent, but I could feel her disappointment in the air all around me, settling upon me like a dank mist.

There was a loud thud against the wall behind us. We both started in alarm.

Thud . Again, louder this time, something slamming hard on the other side of the wall.

‘What is that?’ Kitty whispered, crawling closer to the wall to listen.

I fumbled for my tinderbox, sparked a light. As I lit the candle, a woman cried out.

‘ Ahh! Ahh, God. Yes! ’

Kitty clapped a hand to her mouth. Started to giggle.

The bed thumped again, and the woman yelped.

I stared at the wall in astonishment. Next door was Joseph Burden’s house. People didn’t fuck one another in Joseph Burden’s house. We exchanged excited looks. ‘Who is it, do you suppose?’

Kitty put an ear to the wall. ‘Alice? Alice and Ned?’

‘No. Their rooms will be up in the attic.’

She listened closer, frowning in concentration. ‘It can’t be Judith. I suppose it must be Alice.’

‘With Stephen?’

There was a long, shuddering moan, then silence. Kitty pulled a face. ‘Ugh. That wasn’t Burden , was it?’

We threw up our hands in horror at the idea – then sniggered like children. Joseph Burden, proud member of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, was fucking his housekeeper. Well, well.

‘Oh! Your gift!’ Kitty said, then reached under the bed and lifted out a handsome wooden box. She slid it towards me, a little nervous.

I put the box on my lap and rested the lid on its hinge. Inside lay a dozen packages, narrow and flat. I took one out and opened it up, conscious of Kitty watching for my reaction. Nestling in the envelope was a long, translucent sheath folded in two and tied loosely with a thin piece of ribbon. A condom.

‘I ordered them from France, for the shop. They’re made from sheep’s intestines.’

How arousing. ‘Yes. I’ve er… I’ve used them before.’

She slipped her hand in mine. ‘So… we don’t have to wait, any more.’

Her face gleamed in the candlelight. So young, so pretty. This was her gift to me, then. The last of her innocence. I brushed her hair from her face. She smiled, nervous, and looked deep in my eyes.

Tell her. Tell her why you ’ ve waited this long. Tell her that you want to marry her first and take care of her. That you want it to be different from all the other times. Tell her that you ’ re afraid if you don ’ t wait, she will never have cause to marry you.

Tell her that you love her, damn it.

I opened my mouth… and the words died in my throat. ‘I’m… I’m rather tired tonight, Kitty. After all that’s happened…’ And it was true, save for my lie of omission.

Her eyes softened with concern. ‘Oh. Of course,’ she agreed, embarrassed, shutting up the box at once and slipping it beneath the bed. She touched her lips to my cheek. ‘Of course.’

I blew out the candle and we lay in silence in the dark.

On now – the procession carries them to the narrow stone bridge and the Fleet ditch. He smells it long before he sees it: a stinking slurry of shit and offal. Not so much a river as a running sore, oozing its way down to the Thames. Thank God it is a cold, sharp day in March, not the dense heat of summer. The wind whisks the stench away down south towards Blackfriars. Hawkins closes his eyes, his body swaying as the cart turns on to Holborn Hill.