The Flight of Sarah Battle (19 page)

A good-natured nice king

But hope we ne'er shall have a-nother!

Pause while they listen for the clink of hostility. Then louder than ever the songs they've learned from the Irish, ‘Erin go Bragh', ‘Croppies Rise Up' and, from the heart of the Revolution, ‘Dansons la Carmagnole'. Best of all:

Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira

Les aristocrates à la lanterne!

Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira

Les aristocrates on les pendra!

And all the rest of the verses, every word.

*

Although Joseph sometimes speaks of Lucy as his wife, of course she's not. He tells her she's his wife by common law, for haven't they lived together now for more than three years?

He hasn't brought Fanny Lobb to the new house in Little Russell Street. Yet Lucy now knows when he visits her, for she has learned the signs that must precede it. First his ebullience dulls, he becomes morose, still occasionally weeps at the worthlessness of his work. Something distils within him, drip by drip. He barely speaks, nor will she risk abuse by speaking to him. He looks up from his work only to stare, listening to an inner violence. Sits all night without moving, as though suddenly he might crumble to dust.

She is relieved when at last he goes. Shutters out intermittent bawling from the street; tries less easily to shut away her worries about Matthew. The Watch proclaims each half hour. She reads the poet of consoling gloom.

‘How have you the patience for such melancholic stuff? Nothing but dying trees and dead rabbits,' Joseph has said to her. Though he approves of Cowper's poem against slavery, he abjures all writers except Milton and Paine. And Shakespeare of course.

Alone, her feet warm before the grate, Lucy reads Cowper undisturbed.

But me, perhaps,

The glowing hearth may satisfy awhile

With faint illumination, that uplifts

The shadow to the ceiling, there by fits

Dancing uncouthly to the quiv'ring flame.

Not undelightful is an hour to me

So spent in parlour twilight: such a gloom

Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind,

The mind contemplative, with some new theme

Pregnant, or indisposed alike to all.

She is suffused by gentleness. The poet is a mother to her, a father, kinder by far than they who brought her into the world; than her brilliant, erratic, heartless, common-law husband.

His return, exhausted, his pupils glittering pinpoints, is always merely a confirmation. He plunges into sleep and she must wait until he wakes.

Fanny did sit for him as Emilia. The print sold well, Lucy's distress as Desdemona all too real. He abandoned a scene with Fan as Lady Macbeth and another with her as Gertrude for which she might have been suitable. But he brought along his black Othello before the move from Albion Place.

‘Lucy, meet a friend of mine, Gilbert Downs. He's agreed to sit for Othello to your Desdemona. He knows the play.'

A big man, taller than Joseph, Gilbert, curious, genial, shakes hands with Lucy.

‘I've read the play and I'm pleased to be your husband, ma'am!'

‘Yes.' Lucy nods politely. Gilbert cannot know how his joking declaration pains her, for, of course, he could be, she not being married in law.

Something in her face alerts him. ‘Your play-husband, Mrs Young, for I am myself married and my wife, Ann, would not tolerate bigamy.'

‘Indeed, Gil, you are a good husband.' Lucy is unsure whether irony or guilt or neither flit over Joseph's face.

‘Well, I'm glad not to have to remember all the lines,' Gilbert says. ‘What memories these actors have!'

‘Valets surely must remember what their masters want, Gil? Gilbert is valet to Lord Whoever-he-is with a vast wardrobe, Lucy. Will he buy a print of you as Othello?'

Gilbert laughs. ‘No, no! He mustn't know of it.'

‘The valet as general!' says Joseph. ‘You may develop some airs, Gil.' More laughter.

First Joseph paints the half-completed scene in which Desdemona presses Othello on Cassio's behalf. Gilbert is swathed in a fine white cloak with braided edges. It emphasises his height, his upright bearing, his blackness. Lucy watches.

Then comes the first scene of the play's final act. Desdemona in bed asleep. Othello standing over her with a lamp contemplating the wife he'll shortly kill.

‘And shall I sleep all day?' she asks, half-jokingly.

‘When I've painted you, Lucy, you can get on with your work.'

‘No, Joe. That won't do at all,' says Gilbert. ‘How can I think that whole soliloquy with only a bed before me? My face will express nothing but thoughts about your sheets!' They shout with laughter. Lucy, unsmiling, closes her eyes, knows she'll never make him laugh like that.

It is the strangest thing she's done in her life, though sewing a Tricolour for the King's Birthday in the middle of the night was odd enough. Desdemona's story is hard to bear. How awful to be an actress, to act your own death on stage! Yet here she is, feigning sleep on her bed, contemplated by a man who is not her husband, who is making himself think Othello's jealous, murderous, loving thoughts while looking down upon her.

She wonders about Gilbert: is he a freed slave? She's seen black musicians in the street, black servants in livery. One comes regularly to hire the amorous portfolios for his master. Gilbert has been educated, speaks easily. He and Joseph are friends; no doubt he knows of Joseph's other life. Of Fanny Lobb.

She dozes. Is Gilbert's wife black too? He is a handsome man. Does he, like Joseph, have another woman from whom he cannot keep away, despite what he says about bigamy? What is he thinking about as he stands there? Can he look at her lying on a bed without wanting…?

She closes her eyes more tightly. Gilbert notices a delicate erubescence rise from her neck to her face.

*

Thomas Jones, revolutionary silversmith, has a second wife, Lizzie, several years younger than him. When his first wife died in childbirth along with the baby, Thomas transferred much of his distress to the cause of revolution. He met Lizzie in a tavern whose landlord was friendly to democracy; saw the sense in distraction from his widower's grief.

Matthew is happy minding Lizzie's first child when, some days, feeling the need for society and pocket money she returns to the tavern to work. Thomas's silversmithing is a success and in the Jones home in Plough Court there are mats on the floors, there's more than one upholstered chair and plenty of bedding. The child, Edward, is lively, just walking and has begun to speak. Matthew observes a childhood quite unlike his own, the fond parents attentive to their offspring.

Thomas probes, for he must ensure the division has not been infiltrated. Questions Matthew about his father, his education, his beliefs. The boy, as he thinks of him, is painfully honest. Soon both find relief in the other's confidence.

‘Matthew. You should know that there are government agents everywhere, paid well. We must always be alert for them.'

‘Aren't the men sincere? They seem so to me.'

‘Sincerity must ring like gold. The gleam of silver deludes – it is malleable in heat.'

‘Do you suspect someone? The Snob?' This is the nickname of Jas Bacon, the shoemaker.

‘No. That's just his manner. I tell nobody but you. Pole. The baker. We must watch him, cautiously. He is too quiet.'

Once in a while the United Britons dare to meet in Thomas Jones's house. A back way takes them through the court and into the cellar. There the threatened French invasion shakes their unity.

‘We should think again. I am unhappy with this heavy dependence on the French that we have nourished for so long,' says Arthur Heron, his face basted remnants of leather.

‘What? Where's your trust, Heron?' says John Boxer irritably, breathing harshly. Jones admonishes him: ‘Citizen.'

‘Where's your trust,
Citizen
Heron?'

‘They have betrayed the revolutionary cause,
Citoyen
Boxer.' Heron can stand up for himself. ‘They are more desirous of establishing an extensive military despotism, than of propagating republican principles.'

Matthew holds back, watches Thomas whose opinions are now his guide.

‘Moreover,' Heron continues, ‘they joyfully massacre priests.'

‘Priests,' growls Boxer.

‘And prisoners.'

‘There's some justice in your view, Citizen Heron.'

‘Thank you, Citizen Jones. We must effect change with our own hands. It would therefore be best we join the Volunteers and keep the French out of our country.'

Roar of disapproval from soap-boiler Clark and his companions. A murmur from Pole.

‘We can't succeed without French arms,' Boxer rasps.

‘But as Volunteers we shall be armed!'

‘Citizens! We surely do not want to become a mere part of France,' says Thomas. ‘We want our own English Republic.'

‘Keep out Bonaparte with our own arms, citizens, then remove the King!' Heron's voice is rising.

Amid shouts, jeers, a stick appears through a hole in the ceiling, a sign from Lizzie that the men must disperse. Perhaps she's seen a gathering of Runners on the corner of the street. Or some known opponent pass by slowly, listening to the night.

*

Joseph makes his way to Change Alley with a large, flat cloth-wrapped parcel. His mood is circling down. Soon his mind, closing in, will catch itself and start to burn. He'll need Fan with her blinding drugs of raucousness, songs, sex, drink and pipes of opium and tobacco to stanch the fire.

He'd far rather go to Wych Street than Battle's Coffee House, yet he knows there's money promised, possibly a lot. The area makes him feel queasy; too close to the rich with their well-cut waistcoats and airs, and the rushing, jabbering jobbers and operators pumping the engines of revenue. Owner's daughter ran off with a Painite, they say. Good for her.

He makes his way to the central bar where a frowning woman apparently unaware of him takes orders from everyone else.

Infuriated by her inattention and the stench of coffee and chocolate he peers into her face.

‘Yes?'

‘I've come to see Mr Samuel Battle. Mr Sopwith brought a message.'

Instead of replying she clicks her fingers at a passing waiter, points at Joseph, turns her back.

In his dark office Sam Battle makes up for the sour welcome to which he guesses Joseph has just been treated, offers him a dish of coffee.

‘Mr Young, I have a proposition.'

‘So I understood.'

‘Several men ask to use a private upstairs room for weekly meetings of… of …' But Joseph won't help him. ‘Of… ah yes, connissewers. Connissewers of art. I hear your work is for hire.'

‘To hire out both portfolios so regularly would be to deprive others. I should prefer to sell them.' Was it the coffee that provoked this cunning move or a final burst of energy before his mood plunged? ‘And if I sell them to you then I must draw or engrave a whole new supply.'

‘How much do you ask?'

‘Sixty guineas for two portfolios.'

Sam sits down. ‘Sir, do you imagine I am a wealthy man?'

‘No doubt you will charge your connoisseurs for hire of the room.' Joseph hears the voices of his friends Jack and Hugh: ‘Show us your shiners!' they shout. ‘I don't imagine you are poor, Mr Battle. I think you'd best see the work.'

He unwraps the parcel. ‘Look, bound in morocco; beautifully done, the title in gold.' He opens up the first portfolio and Sam is defeated as Joseph knew he would be.

Licking his lips, his eyes darting wildly over the sheets Sam agrees to the price, urges Joseph to wrap them up again.

‘Mr Sopwith also told me you have prints from Shakespeare.'

‘Shakespeare's women.'

‘Ah! Are they, are they like…?'

‘They are nothing like these. They are entirely respectable and in high demand.'

Shivering with erotic sensation, in defiance of a dead wife's ghost, Sam has no memory of his daughter's longing to improve the coffee house with lectures and concerts. He'll recoup the cost of the
Amorous Scenes
before long and then make money. And if he has a few Shakespeare prints downstairs, too, won't that somehow make up for what'll take place above? Some of the merchants who go elsewhere today might change their minds once they know what's on offer, both downstairs and upstairs.

Joseph returns home empty-handed with his pockets full of shiners. For a few hours he's light-hearted.

*

Nine men assemble in the taproom of the Bleeding Heart, Hatton Garden. Eight division commanders and Matthew, assessed by Thomas Jones in his position as commander of the North City division as exceptional. Not just for his education and youth. Thomas has seen the hatred that propels Matthew, a hatred whose other side is the gentle playfulness of his relationship with Thomas's toddling son Edward.