Devil Water (35 page)

“It’s degrading for you, Alec,” said Charles sadly. “How can you bear it!”

“Not hard at all, sir,” said Alec. “Rob he’s a fine canny lad. Sometimes he plays me the pipes, then we talk o’ the North -- of Tyneside, and -- Dilston.” Alec went on quickly as he saw his master wince. “As for the job. Well, Rob, he won’t go for a ‘prentice, won’t bind himself down for all he’s so young and able. He wants to make money, and buy himself land on Tyneside, set up for a squire someday and wipe the eye of Black Will Cotes-worth.”

“Cotesworth?” said Charles wondering, so far past was the time he had met the grim colliery owner, so far past seemed even the arrival of the bailiffs Cotesworth sent to Dilston to catch James last October. “So ‘tis Rob Wilson’s ambition to be a squire? Heaving coal at London docks scarce seems a step in that direction.”

“ ‘Tis all that we can find just now,” said Alec. “Needs must.” The valet’s eyes twinkled bravely, but his mouth was pinched, drawn into a lopsided smile.

Charles turned and went to the table. “I’ll write to Lady Mary,” he said. “I’ll write to her now.”

It was on Charles’s twenty-third birthday, Monday, September 3, that the bleakness of his life was lightened, though he awoke to despair. Pitts refused to extend further credit for the private cell, or to admit Alec again. Tomorrow Charles must move to the common dungeon. The privilege of the “Castle” had already been denied him, so he had no further opportunities to inspect the little door. Muggles never came near him except to shove a jug of filthy water into the cell. Charles had lived for two days on the sausage and bread Alec had brought on his last visit. From Lady Mary there had been no answer.

In the morning Charles marked off his calendar, and saw that it was his birthday, also that he had been nine months less six days in Newgate. There was nothing to read except tattered pages from the Bible the prison chaplain had left here long ago. And no light to read by. The last stub of candle burned out while he marked the calendar. Charles took to pacing his cell. Six paces this way, four that way. Every third time around he rewarded himself by pressing his face against the barred slit of window. Way up and beyond the massive stone wall outside he could see an inch of blue sky. Ever and again he interrupted his ritual to listen while St. Sepulchre’s bell bonged out the hour. At two o’clock he stopped pacing and lay down on the cot. There he finished the last crumbs of bread and sausage.

Shortly afterward he heard a noise outside his door; the raucous voice of Muggles, and the grating of the bolts. Pitts at last, Charles thought. To announce my execution tomorrow! For a second he was flooded with relief, and a wild desire to laugh; the next instant the relief vanished and Charles was shaken by a heart-pounding animal fear. His muscles locked and he sat rigid on the cot while the key turned and the door opened letting in light.

The turnkey came in with a candle, and gave a great laugh when he saw Charles staring at him. “Naow then, sir,” he said in a voice Charles had not heard in weeks. “Perk up! Wot a wye to greet a lydy!”

“Lady?” repeated Charles stupidly, still gazing past Muggles to find the figure of Pitts.

“Your sister!” said Muggles, and he bowed low, as Betty in her cloak, hood, and mask walked by him. “An’ a fine generous ‘earted lydy she is!”

Charles swallowed and stared at Betty, until the turnkey shut the door, then he said, “I scarce expected to see
you
again!”

She threw off her mask and cloak, and going to him took his hands in hers. “I couldn’t write, Charles. It wasn’t safe, and I didn’t know where Alec was. But, darling, I knew you weren’t in danger, and Charles --what is it?” She broke off. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“For months I longed and waited,” said Charles. “And then I ceased to think about you -- as you and others have ceased to think about me.”

Betty withdrew her hands, stung by the unfairness of this. Then she saw how thin he was, how pallid, and she remembered that he knew nothing of all that she had done for him.

“Listen, dear,” she said gently. “My father’s dead. He died July fourteenth, and we’ve all been in Oxfordshire, at Ditchley Park.”

“Jenny too?” asked Charles quickly. At times during the miserable broodings, he decided Betty had gone back on her word and got rid of Jenny.

“Of course, Jenny too,” she said beginning to understand. “The child is blooming, she loved the country -- oh, Charles, you
couldn’t
think I’d really forgot you when I -- every moment -- I -- even at my poor father’s funeral --” She broke off. Her golden-brown eyes misted. She put her hand to her mouth.

“Forgive me,” said Charles flushing. He took her hand and kissed it. “This world of black shadows -- I’ve lost my way. I’ve become a boor. My deepest sympathy, Betty, for the loss of your father.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, so bemused by the touch of his lips on her hand, that it was with effort she went on. “I was his favorite child, and he left me a legacy. Several thousand pounds. Frank will administer most of it, of course, but I’ve managed to get a thousand now, for myself. George talked Frank into letting me have it.”

“George?”

“George-Henry, my eldest brother, who is now the Earl of Lichfield. Charles, he’s a friend to you, and he has not forgotten that we are kin and share a royal grandfather. During those weeks while we were at Ditchley, I told him a little about you. He’s in love with a Catholic himself -- Frances Hales. He’ll marry her now that Father’s gone. Do you see what a difference this makes?”

“Not entirely,” said Charles. “Except that you look much happier, and have come into money, which I’ve begun to see is an essential commodity.”

“But it’s for
you,
you idiot!” Betty cried. “What else would I want with a thousand pounds! It’s to get you out of here, and if it isn’t enough, George will give me more. I know it.”

“Holy Saint Mary,” Charles whispered, ashamed that he had doubted Betty, and feeling in his vitals the churning of a wild hope. “I don’t know--” he murmured. “It might work, yet, my dear girl, when could I pay you back -- and your husband -- won’t he question?”

She shook her head. Frank was easier to manage now. Not only because of his delight at her legacy, but the other thing. During the sequestered days of mourning at Ditchley, she had often wondered if her other lies for Charles were forgiven, since one of them had been so surprisingly made fact. She had not been pregnant in May when she told Frank so, yet she was now. No doubt of it, and Frank had not even questioned her premature revelation. Such womanish discrepancies did not interest him. And he had indulgently acceded to her wish to do as she pleased with a small part of her legacy. “Don’t worry about Frank,” Betty said quickly. “Think what’s to be done here. You must know a way . . .”

“Perhaps,” Charles said slowly. “Though it’ll take time. They’ll hang me first.”

“They
won’t”
she cried. “Charles, I told you that they won’t! Listen.” In a few hurried words she recounted her visit to the Princess Caroline. “So, you see, I think you’re safe until the King returns,” she finished. “They say he may come back for Christmas -- and oh, my love, we must plan fast!”

“Yes,” said Charles looking at her steadily. “But not right now.” He raised his arms and drew her against his chest. Into the kiss he gave her he put all the fervor of his gratitude. Betty yielded her lips, then as she looked into the gray eyes so close to hers, and saw them narrow with passion, she gave a little whimper in her throat. Her bones and sinews seemed to melt in the sweetness which ran through her body. She forgot the dank prison cell, she did not feel the cot’s lumpy straw against which her shoulders were pressed. She knew only the beloved weight of his body on hers, and the wild joy of surrender. He had torn open her silken bodice and was kissing her breasts, when suddenly he gave a shuddering groan and sprang away from her. He got off the cot and pounded his clenched fist on the table. “Betty, I cannot!” he cried in a voice as rough as anger. “Cannot take
you
here like this. Like a common whore. I love you too much. I owe you too much.”

She lay tense, quivering, looking at him mutely while the blood pulsed in her throat.

For some minutes there was no sound in the cell, except the heavy rasp of his breathing, and the sputtering of the candle. Then she pulled her bodice over her breasts and sat up slowly, while the long auburn curls fell on her shoulders. “You’re right, Charles,” she said faintly. “More right than you know.” The babe, she thought. The new one which was in her womb. On the night of its conception, she had been thinking of Charles. And ever since, in the secret recesses of her soul, she had thought of the babe as belonging to Charles. A pitiable delusion. “Indeed,” she said quickly, “my love for you leads me down many a strange and shameful path.”

He walked back and sat beside her on the cot. He took her long white hand in his, and turning it over kissed the pink, fragrant palm.

“Someday -- Betty,” he said, “when I am not a condemned traitor in Newgate’s stinking jail, someday if I am free. Ah, dear God, if we might
both
be free -- in France perhaps -- in the sunshine -- in Italy . . .”

She bowed her head against his shoulder, and they sat silent. For each of them the prison wall dissolved and they saw beyond it the deep blue skies, the flooding gold of southern sunlight which they had never seen in reality. Passion had left them both; they sat like two children lost in their dream. Then Betty roused herself, and looked up into his face with a sad little smile.

“Before that day could come, my dear one,” she said, trying to speak lightly, “there are certain considerations. Earlier -- earlier this afternoon, you said you had some plan for escape. Tell me now what it is.”

Muggles, much gratified by all the guineas with which Betty had bribed him, and accurately foreseeing that Mr. Radcliffe would once again be in funds, did not disturb the two in the cell until six o’clock.

By that time they had concocted and discarded several plans, and finally settled on the most likely procedure.

They kissed goodbye, a quick embarrassed kiss, since both were afraid of the urgent flame in their bodies. But they smiled at each other with hope, and, after Betty had left, Charles sat for a long time staring at the purseful of gold she had given him. Then he got up and banged on the iron door until Muggles came and peered through the grating. “Wot’s up, gov’nor?”

“Tell Mr. Pitts I wish to see him at once!” said Charles at his most lordly. “And bring me some coal, candles, and meat. Wine too, if you can find any!”

“Aha!” said the turnkey, his bulbous face splitting into a grin. “There’s bin a chainge in the wind, I see!”

During the next weeks, Charles regained all his former privileges, except the freedom of the Press Yard. Though he did not find Pitts as amenable to certain hints, as he had hoped.

The Keeper’s eyes shifted uneasily when Charles spoke of the improvement in his fortunes, and explained with perfect truth that an aunt of his had come to the rescue. On the day after Betty’s visit, when Alec was permitted to return, the valet brought news from Rodbourne. Lady Mary had sent a draught from Durham to Radcliffe’s agent. It was for five hundred pounds. “Not that I dare hope ‘twill save C. R.’s worthless neck,” wrote Lady Mary, “but that he may pamper himself in prison in a manner fitting to his rank.”

So Charles set to feeling Pitts out, as he and Betty had agreed. After two interviews with the Keeper, Charles was forced to give it up. Pitts’s eyes gleamed at the sums Charles tossed out negligently, his shiny red lips positively drooled, yet at last he backed way, and staring hard at the ceiling, said, “Mr. Radcliffe, I understand you, but
you
don’t understand
me.
There’s been some escapes from this jail, which I might’ve known about or I might not. I get me orders same as everyone else. An’ I’ve got ‘em now. If somehow or other
you
was to break out o’ here, they’d have
me
swinging at Tyburn in your stead, and wot use would a sackful o’ guineas be to me then?”

“But,” said Charles, and the Keeper interrupted angrily, “I can’t speak plainer. It’s no go, sir. Ye can buy yourself as much comfort as possible here, and here ye’ll stay until ye’re hanged, which won’t be long now.” Pitts walked out of the cell, banging shut the door.

Charles was not unduly discouraged. He had never dared hope much from Pitts. It must be the other plan then. The long complicated one which centered about the little door in the “Castle” latrine.

Charles went daily now up to the “Castle” and sometimes saw Tom Errington there. Errington, though insolvent, managed to retain this and other privileges by acting as secretary for the Keeper. Still, Tom had lost spirit, Charles discovered. He had grown morose and excessively religious. In some way he had got hold of a Missal, which he read constantly. He refused the drinks Charles offered him, and on the one occasion in which Charles mentioned the hidden door Errington shrugged unpleasantly and said, “Forget it,

Radcliffe, you’re getting as crazy as poor Jem Swinburne. You’d best be thinking of the state of your soul, instead of privy doors that don’t lead anywhere.”

So Charles ceased to confide in him; he spoke to Blueskin instead. Blueskin was in high spirits. His chum had already come up for trial at the Old Bailey and been released. Blueskin’s own trial was scheduled for next week and he had had indirect assurance from Jonathan Wild that the outcome would be as favorable. “Too bad ye ain’t one o’ the gang, sir,” he said sympathetically while gulping the gin Charles had bought him. “Ye’d be outa ‘ere in a jigtrot. ‘Tis a sad thing ter be a gent wot the King hisself ‘as taken a scunner at.”

“Aye,” said Charles, glancing cautiously towards the turnkey. Black, though by now less suspicious, and more at ease in his duties, was nevertheless a constant threat. But Black had one night a week off -- Thursdays -- on which various substitutes appeared. This was one point about which Charles thought deeply. Another he whispered casually to Blueskin. “If I had an enemy -- say -- some chap I wanted out of the way for a while, how would I manage . . .” Charles hesitated.