The Flight of Sarah Battle (29 page)

*

They see Joseph ever more rarely at Digham's place in Paternoster Row. In Little Russell Street Joseph employs a man to operate his press, a woman close at hand to limn his engravings. No one replaces Lucy in the shop, but since he gave up producing portfolios for hire some time ago and wastes little time on satires, there are fewer customers. The demand is for his ‘serious' paintings and prints. What visitors he has come to commission, must discuss pose and price with the artist himself.

As Fanny's desire for him expires, his thirst for the noisome, for harsh, warm gutter life dwindles. When his mind darkens he doses himself into oblivion behind shutters and soon the squalor of his rooms resembles that of the old lodgings in Albion Place. No one sees this but himself; his public person impresses, frequently charms.

‘Lucy's upstairs with little Matthew,' Digham says to him when he ducks into the old engraver's shop one morning. ‘I'm always pleased to see you, my young friend.'

‘How are you, William?'

Digham conceals surprise at a question not often asked. There's something else his ex-apprentice wants.

‘As well as I can expect at my age. Anhelous at times when I'm up and down stairs. Thank the Lord I have Batley to turn the star-wheel. Oh, short of breath!'

‘Are you kept awake at night?'

‘Very little. You know my sad history: I'm glad of a child in the house. And a pretty woman. Both are flourishing. It is better for them here even in this dark old place than with you, Joseph. That was always a bad arrangement. And you, you are free of course.'

‘Yes. I'm becoming known. Money flows, William. You will be pleased to hear I've given up Wood's.'

‘At last! What does your Sal or Moll say to that?'

‘She's gone for someone else. Besides she's become fat.'

Digham peers up at Joseph. He thinks he can guess.

‘Lucy had a visitor,' he says. ‘The proprietor of the coffee house, Battle's. You know her, I think. Mrs Battle, is it?'

‘Sarah.'

‘Ah yes. Sarah Battle. A good, kind woman. And a looker, I'd say.'

‘You would?'

‘She hasn't Lucy's beauty. She's not immaculate: her colouring's too high, her nose too long. There's something of the selenite about Lucy I think occasionally: her pale perfection. Though like the moon, she always revives, grows full again. Sarah Battle, on the contrary, is of this world. And intelligent. I took to her right away, especially when she wanted to see my work!'

‘She's buying the series of Shakespeare women for her coffee house. I'm painting a whole new set.'

‘Hoho, you'll have asked a good sum, no doubt! And it shows she has taste. A widow, I believe. Somewhat older than you, is she?'

‘Oh, perhaps. Not much.'

‘If she were nearer my age I'd make her an offer. Every man needs his cynosure, his guiding star, even if she's earthly. Perhaps
especially
when she's earthly. Not that any woman would want an old mole of a man like me. Who's limning for you now, young man Young?'

*

It's only the remnants that are taken at the Seven Stars, Bethnal Green, a spot north-east of the city walls remote enough for escaping madmen, for resurrectionists digging up bodies in the churchyard. Nevertheless a foolish place to meet, the publican well known for his opinions. The main conspirators are already in prison after the raids on the Royal Oak and the Nag's Head a year ago and on Thomas Jones's house, which they ransacked for papers, taking away sacks of evidence as well as Lizzie and her child, Edward.

Contrary to Joseph's belief, Matthew never went to Hamburg, but lurked in safe houses and unsafe ruins of houses, risking his life from falling beams, collapsing half-burned floors. Moving on every few days, he saw himself as a rat. Hated but hating, cunning. Uncatchable. As the hue and cry faded he sometimes came across a fellow United Briton or two, trembling in a cupboard in a tumbled building. Gradually a few of them dared meet together to plan and dream.

The Runners break down the door of the tap-room, grab the men by their collars, discover a cutlass and two archaic pistols. As he emerges, handcuffed, under the stars and glaring moon Matthew sees light-horsemen surrounding the tavern, swords drawn.

In Bow Street Police Office they're searched. A list in secret code is found. In soap-boiler Clarke's pocket scrawls from the memorable meeting with ‘Captain Evans' the year before:

Newgit cobathfilds  clarkevell prisns  berricks  towr  benk  stop myul cochis

Lucy wouldn't recognise Matthew if were she to see him now. He has a beard, long hair, his clothes are filthy. He is taken before the Privy Council, called together at a disagreeable hour.

The room is full yet silent. Fifteen Privy Councillors sit at a long green-covered table, hands clasped or fiddling with inkwells and pens, sifting papers, fingers tracing routes on maps, drumming impatiently. Messengers and other servants edge the room.

‘You are brought here, Matthew Dale, on charges which may affect your life. You may refuse to answer, if the answer will criminate yourself.'

Briefly he is at a loss, intimidated into blankness. For a year he has barely said a word. More fox than rat, he's survived by speed of movement and decision. In safe houses he's been fed, given precious coins and sent on his way. Coins enough to pay a girl sixpence in a doorway and hasten off as she pulls down her skirts, or buy half a pint of shrimps, occasionally a pamphlet from a bookstall. His mind runs on iron lines, driven by hatred which surges now. He sees they are the same as the masters at the school, as his father. But he is no longer a boy, knows the exact worth of those before whom he stands.

‘Pray, sir, what are those charges?'

‘Here is the warrant. You are charged with the crime of high treason.'

‘Sir, high treason is so general and indefinite a charge that I am unsure what you have in mind.'

‘We cannot help that. Were you at the Seven Stars, Bethnal Green, on the night of February 18
th
?'

He doesn't answer.

‘Mr Dale, you have not attended to the question asked of you.'

‘Indeed I have, sir. I am considering whether to answer.'

‘Well, Mr Dale?'

‘I have decided to remain silent, sir.'

‘Have you ever gone under the name of Mason?'

‘Sir, I cannot answer any questions while I am still uninformed of the
exact
charge against me, “high treason” being so general and indefinite.'

‘If you are innocent you have nothing to fear.'

‘I'm not so sure of that, sir. As I'm ignorant what may be deemed high treason I don't know how far I may commit myself by an indiscreet answer.'

Sometimes he wants to laugh, sometimes to rush at them, jump on the table and strangle them with their silk cravats, his filthy fingers tightening the ends until their eyes pop out. But his hatred feeds an immaculate politeness. He knows he disconcerts them, his manner and education quite at odds with his present appearance and his no doubt reported activity.

At the end of the first day, it being around midnight, he has told them nothing; is taken by carriage to the Tower.

*

The governor of the Tower fails to smother his own discomfort. He's an anxious man in any case, chewing his finger ends at the presence of the deputy chaplain's son before him on the gravest of charges. With a military guard they march to the south-west tower. It's dark; other men are asleep.

Three floors up, they unlock a door and the governor addresses two warders: ‘You are to remain in this room night and day. Hold no conversation with your prisoner, nor suffer him to go out of the length of your swords. You answer for his appearance at the peril of your lives.'

The warders are old, obedient but not unkind. Each one sleeps on a cot in a closet on either side of Matthew's bed. Matthew sleeps well, not having spent a night in a bed for some time. In the morning he finds the collar and cuffs of his coat, the padding of his neckerchief, the soles of his boots ripped open and sewn up again.

For a week he appears constantly before the Privy Council, maintaining pedantic politeness or silence. His days are patterned and although he is allowed neither books nor writing materials, he is not uncomfortable. He is given twenty-one shillings a week for subsistence, sends out for his meals. Each morning a woman lights a fire, boils a kettle, prepares breakfast, makes his bed, sweeps and cleans. There's more order to his life than he's had for years.

He feels keenly the irony of being back in the place from which he thought himself forever severed. He's not terrified, as many other prisoners must often be, rather is disgusted at his failure. No visits are allowed although the governor could hardly refuse a request from Matthew's parents. Partly he dreads, partly longs for the announcement of his father, to confront him, shame him. Is glad there's no weeping, snuffling mother.

Daily he stares out through each of his two windows at the river. Sees high tide, low mud, the great ships at anchor in the centre, wherries crossing, sails, oars, poles; gulls screaming unceasingly. Singles out particular boats and lightermen, wonders who is thieving, who planning to sail to America.

Imagines a boy and a stout, sweating, blackguardly lawyer. The hasty construction of a Tricolour with his earnest sister Lucy, about whom he rarely thinks. Did William Leopard ever get to America? Did he really hold radical views? His
Rights of Man
was greasy and bent:
someone
had read it. For certain the man was on the run: the signs he didn't know then, he knows now. The sour smell, stubble, eyes darting continuously round corners. And of course, he was after Matthew's money. His childhood is an embarrassing dream: he will forget it.

*

Sarah tries to help Lucy, though she cannot think what to do for Matthew. She shudders at the thought of Lucy's brother in the Tower, a traitor. There's no mention yet of a trial, no mention of the likely outcome of conviction. She remembers Pyke's words: ‘a few rash men… futile revolution… will be caught and hanged.' If she can hardly bring herself to think of the word execution, what must take place in poor Lucy's mind?

There's no one with influence among Battle's customers, who, though they're mostly canny and make themselves money, have little power. She thinks it unlikely Matthew can even be visited, for the Tower is hardly Newgate, bad enough though that would be.

Listening to the tale of Lucy's life with Joseph, she feels pity and a certain fascination. It seems he was unkind, ruthless, yet also affectionate, declared he loved her, at first, anyway. Rushed to his mistress, returning to sleep off his debauchery and attack Lucy for complaining, sometimes for not complaining. The paintings and engravings of her that Sarah has now seen, show his admiration of Lucy's gentle beauty, yet he rarely calls on her, barely speaks to her. There's some small consolation to Lucy that Sarah, too, had a marriage that never was. Sarah says little about Tom, however: it can't help the girl fathom Joseph.

But at least there's William Digham, thinks Sarah. She observes the old man's calm and warmth, his patience, humour; the way, holding Lucy's child, he lets him tweak the spectacles off his nose again and again, pull the embroidered felt hat over his eyes. And Sarah's Eve is about the same age as Lucy's Matthew, so that by spring, 1802, no longer babies, they play together in the nursery at Battle's, pretend to read to each other from the tiny pretty books of
The Infant's Library
.

Joseph reveals no sign of his erratic behaviour to Sarah. He's egotistical, ebullient, but his conceitedness, arrogance, are eased by a youthful, fair-haired grace of bearing that pleases, and an attention to her she can't quite ignore. Knowledge of his cruelty to Lucy disturbs; she puts it aside. Then there's his great ability as artist and engraver. It wasn't difficult for her to agree to buy the whole series of Shakespeare paintings which he reconstructs from his sketches. They decide which walls are best for each canvas. With Wintrige gone, Battle's can finally become the superior coffee house Sarah always wanted it to be, where people can contemplate Shakespeare and the skill of Joseph Young.

His reputation is growing; he is even becoming grand. He paints portraits which he signs
Josephus Iuvenis pinxit
and, with the sitters' permission, rarely withheld, he engraves them too. The sitter displays the expensive portrait on his wall, while others enjoy the reflected glory of the engraved version on theirs.

It has been a long time since Sarah talked so much to an educated, intelligent man. Her longing for Tom plays its still-discernible ground beneath her thoughts, a passacaglia beating to her blood. At times Joseph displays a pomposity that she mocks. Yet she cannot help her bias: Joseph is an artist. She begins to feel an affection for him almost as if Newton has come again.

He orders brandy at Battle's one morning and, as he often does, asks for Sarah.