Fair and Tender Ladies (31 page)

Rob grabbed Mrs Wade by the hair, tightening his grip until she howled as he dragged her out of the building.

‘It's over now,' Nottingham whispered in Emily's ear, stroking her hair as he gathered her close. ‘It's over. They can't ever hurt you again.'

She was crying, letting the tears flow freely. He could feel Lucy next to him, hear her breathing, but the only thing he cared about was Emily.

‘Papa,' she said, trying to gulp back the sobbing, ‘I hurt inside.'

‘They cut you?' He didn't understand. He'd seen nothing on her. Now, as he glanced, he could see blood colouring the back of her dress.

‘The baby.' She clutched her belly, and her eyes were wide and fearful as she looked up at him. Before he could speak, Lucy edged him aside, gently guiding Emily out of the door, where the women were waiting.

The Constable stood alone in the room, feeling the silence weigh down on him. He bent to gather up his weapons. He'd never need them again. It was finished. If he'd done his job properly, if he'd
thought
, it would have ended before all this. Now Emily might still die.

He turned at the tentative footfalls. ‘How is she?'

‘They've sent for the midwife,' Lucy told him. ‘One of the women has taken her in.'

‘Will she …?' He couldn't finish the question.

‘They said she should be fine.'

‘The baby?'

‘No.' Her mouth crumpled as she said the word.

‘I want you to stay with her,' Nottingham said. ‘I'll go to the jail and send Rob down.'

He started to walk out, one hand on the door, when Lucy said, ‘Mr Nottingham.'

‘What is it?' He wanted to leave this place, to smell air that didn't stink of gunpowder.

‘You're not going to do this any more, are you? I can see it in your eyes.'

He had to smile. How could she be so young and understand so much? At times he wondered if she had something of the fey in her, the way she sensed things that were thought but unspoken.

‘You're right.' She opened her mouth but he held up her hand to quiet her. ‘But not a word to anyone yet. Don't worry, you'll still have a job. And a home. Thank you for what you did today. How did you know?'

‘I just did.' She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘There's evil in that woman. I want her to suffer for what she did to Miss Emily.'

So did he.

I
t was rare enough to hang one person up on Chapeltown Moor. Three of them together, and a family at that, made it feel like a holiday. The anticipation had been growing for a week, ever since the sentences had been handed down. There would be horse races in the afternoon, drawing people from all around, all capped with Sir William Milner competing against Mr Arthington, twice around the circuit for the Hunter's Plate. Hundreds of pounds had already been wagered on the outcome and there'd be hundreds more before dinner. Folk had their stalls open early, ready for the crowds, selling hot pies or mugs of ale, while women offered their baskets of lucky heather and a patterer told the tale of the killers in exchange for coins.

Anne had been sent off to Whitby to face her own justice; the Constable had no doubt she'd soon find her fate there. On the first Monday in July as the bell at the Parish Church struck seven, he escorted the Wades from the prison under the Moot Hall to the cart that would take them out along the Newcastle road. Mrs Wade and Sarah were in the only clothes the whores had left them, hair covered in newly laundered caps, and Mark Wade wore his best dark suit. All three of them were defiant, standing together as they were shackled into the wagon and holding their heads high as the cart edged up Briggate and out of Leeds.

The Constable led the procession, Rob by his side. Crowds lined the street all the way past Town End, then fell in behind. Lucy was somewhere back there, eager to see the spectacle. Emily had stayed at home.

After they'd taken the Wades to the jail he'd sent Rob hurrying back to the Calls, then stood and looked at the cells. Mrs Wade sat with her arm around Sarah, Mark at the edge of his bed, whispering quietly to them through the bars. There was nothing the Constable wanted to say to them. There were no words for what he felt.

Instead he locked the door and walked to the house on Lands Lane, waiting as a baby wailed and footsteps moved towards the door. Lizzie had Isabell on her shoulder, her hand rubbing circles on the girl's back.

‘Mr Nottingham,' she said in surprise. Her hair was lank, her face drawn and tired. ‘Come in, please. Sit down.' She gestured towards the table. ‘I …'

‘It doesn't matter,' he told her with a smile. ‘She's more important.'

Lizzie sat across from him and he could see all the questions on her face. Why had he come? What did he want?

At least he couldn't hurt her with more bad news, he thought.

‘I wanted you to know that your John helped solve something.'

‘John?' she asked in astonishment. ‘You mean those women you were looking for?'

‘Yes,' he said and told her everything, the deputy's idea, the letter he'd written and what it had all meant. When he'd finished she sat back, shook her head and gave a small laugh.

‘He could be a dark one at times, couldn't he?'

‘But worth ten of most people.'

‘They're going to hang?' she asked.

‘There's no doubt about it. And soon after that I'm going to resign.'

‘You?' She looked at him in disbelief. ‘Why?'

‘Because it's time.' It was the best he could offer, a small sentence that seemed to say everything. ‘But I hope you'll still be a friend to us all. James and Isabell, too.'

‘Of course.' She grinned and he caught a glimpse of how she'd been before her man died. ‘But only if you promise not to be a stranger here, either.'

The school remained closed for a fortnight, long enough for Emily to regain her strength. She'd been taken home, to rest in her own bed, and Lucy had seen to her needs until she'd had enough of being waited on like a lady and was eager to do things for herself once more. Rob had been with her whenever he wasn't working, attentive and asking what she needed until she finally snapped at him to leave her alone. That was when the Constable knew she was ready. The day the school reopened the girls brought in small bunches of wildflowers they'd gathered to give to her. She wasn't going to stop teaching, he knew that, she wasn't going to let herself be pushed out. The fear was still there, it would always be there, but she'd never let it show, she'd keep it locked away, hidden from sight; she took after him that way.

The new books arrived and the smile slowly returned to her face. She didn't say anything to him about what had happened, but he knew she and Rob must have talked. In the evening she devoted less time to her work and more to her young man. They still planned to marry; the banns had been read for the first time the previous Sunday. They'd decided that it seemed the right thing to do.

The Corporation voted Nottingham a pension as gratitude for his bravery. Money to keep him, he thought as he sorted through a chest, finding one of Mary's old dresses. He held the garment close to his face, taking in the scent of her that still lingered faintly in the material, picturing her face, the texture of her hair as he stroked it, and loving her as much as when she'd lain next to him.

The moor was packed with people; most of Leeds and the villages around had come out, it was an event few wanted to miss. The members of the Corporation, all in their finery, had ridden the three miles out to Chapeltown after the cart had arrived and the prisoners taken up to the gallows, hands bound behind them and the nooses around their necks. The vicar moved between them, urging repentance and saying his prayers for their souls.

Finally, as the small bell of St Matthew's church tolled nine, he stood back. The executioner checked the knots and nodded to the Constable. The crowd fell silent, craning for a good view of the end. Before he could give his consent, Mrs Wade spoke out, her voice loud, ‘I damn Constable Richard Nottingham and his family.'

The trapdoor opened and the bodies fell suddenly so all that was left above the platform were heads and shoulders. People surged forward, noisy, excited, eager to touch the feet as they dangled close to the ground. A few more minutes and the hangman would be busy selling lengths of rope and the clothes of the corpses, cut into small squares, as the bodies were taken off to be buried.

‘A good hanging, Richard.' Tom Williamson stood, a peacock in his finest clothes. As an alderman he had to be there. ‘But her words can't hurt you.'

‘I know.' He managed a sad smile. They'd slid off him, just one more curse among so many over the years. But there had been too much dying, too many deaths.

The week grew into the next and the weather turned sultry, a patchwork of storms and prickly, fretful heat, sun blazing one day, rain pouring the next.

The Constable was at his desk, noting down expenses, gathering together small notes and adding up totals. The windows of the jail were open wide and he was in his shirt, still sweating as he worked. He opened the drawer and glanced at his letter of resignation again. At the middle of the month he'd give it to the mayor.

He'd almost finished his work when Rob returned from his early rounds.

‘Did you know they're starting to clear that old orchard on Lady Lane where it runs down to Sheepscar Beck?'

‘The one by Vicar's Croft?' he said with interest. ‘What are they doing?'

‘I talked to the foreman. They're going to build houses.'

‘There?' He knew the city owned the land; it had been bequeathed to them years before.

‘I asked who they were working for. He said it was Tom Finer.'

He found the man where he expected, sitting in the corner at Garraway's Coffee House, reading through the London papers that had arrived the night before. Finer looked up and waved the Constable to the table, smiling slyly.

‘I had a wager with myself that you'd come looking for me before dinner.'

‘How long have you owned the land?'

‘Patience, laddie.' He lifted his hand and nodded his order for another dish of coffee. ‘You thought the workhouse was what I was after, didn't you?'

‘Wasn't it?'

Finer allowed himself a satisfied grin. ‘You saw that and it was all you could think about. But you should have dug a little deeper. It was only one part of my arrangement with the Corporation. The rest involved the land. Plenty of room for building there, and a pretty penny to be made from it. I told them I'd renovate the workhouse and run it if they sold me the land cheaply.'

‘Then the workhouse burned down,' Nottingham said.

‘So it did,' Finer agreed blithely, cocking his head. ‘So it did. Unfortunate, wasn't it? Still, we'd already signed papers on the land. To tell you the truth, I didn't mind about the fire.'

‘You wanted the workhouse.'

‘Did I?' The man raised his eyebrows. ‘I'd have made a little from it, but that's all. Hardly a fortune and there'd have been plenty of effort. The real money's in land and building these days, laddie. That fire turned out to be a blessing.'

‘A very handy one. Did you start it?'

Finer sat back. ‘I'd be very careful with questions like that if I were you. I wouldn't ask them too loudly. A little too far and they come close to slander. I doubt my friends on the Corporation would like that.' He sighed. ‘You saw what you wanted to see, laddie. Or what I wanted you to see. You just never understood it was only one part of the picture.'

‘It seems I didn't,' the Constable agreed.

‘Amos might have taught you a thing or two but he was never a man for subtlety. You might think you are, but you've still plenty to learn, Constable.' He picked up the newspaper and began to read again.

Nottingham stood. As he opened the door Finer called out, ‘Think on for the future, laddie.'

The Constable walked out into the harsh sunlight.

 

 

There was a workhouse in Leeds. Originally opened in 1638, it was in use as a school between 1705 and 1725. Then it was decided to re-establish the workhouse, and it operated for three years, with the wonderfully named Shubaal Speight working there. It closed in 1728, in debt from a lack of contracts. The real workhouse wasn't destroyed by fire; that's purely my invention, as is Emily Nottingham's school.

I'm grateful to Kate Lyall Grant, whose words helped transform the book entirely, into something that I hope is deeper and richer; to all the staff at Severn House, and to Lynne Patrick, a wonderful editor and friend. To my agent, Tina Betts, and to Thom Atkinson, a superb writer himself, whose reading of my work and suggestions are always perceptive. My thanks, too, to Linda R. Hornberg for the map. To Penny for her constant support, and to the friends who believe – you know who you are.