The Masters of Bow Street (25 page)

And whenever a new death-penalty edict reached him from Westminster, he sent a formal letter of protest in which the form was almost unvarying: protesting the impression of such a savage penalty for so minor a crime and beseeching repeal of the decision.

For his pains he inevitably received a courteous acknowledgment from the Private Secretary and occasionally from Walpole himself; and eventually, note of an additional crime for which the death penalty had to be ordered.

Occasionally, late of an evening, he would talk of this to Ruth, with an edge of bitterness but with a greater sense of sorrow.

All this time, with unrelenting persistence, he wrote to Members of Parliament, the leaders of the guilds, everyone with influence at high and middling levels, urging formation of the peace force. Few even acknowledged, fewer still sent a considered reply, although he did get a letter from Henry Fielding saying that he was ‘vastly interested’ and hoped before long to create an opportunity to discuss the whole matter. Most of Furnival’s missives were delivered by hand, although those in the farther areas of London went with street postal carriers by the new penny post. None was sent by the House of Furnival, although each week a messenger came with a few additions for the list of those who might support him.

He did not replace Moffat and came more and more to rely on Ruth for personal things, although insuring that she obtained ample and sufficient help in the kitchen and with the housework. As each week passed she came to love the polished dark oak, the brass and the ironwork, the warmth and the comfort of the rooms upstairs, where now she had a room for her exclusive use. While she looked after Furnival’s wardrobe in his spacious bedroom overlooking Bell Lane, she had never slept on the huge four-poster bed. It was the back room below and the small alcove which woke his strongest desire for her, and his greatest affection; and she grew into an abiding love for it, also.

Two things had changed: he did not now use the room for quick peccadilloes with female witnesses and he did not bring Lisa Braidley here. He went to see her in Arlington Street, Ruth knew, and there might be others of whom she was unaware, but this caused her no distress. The longer she lived here with the men she had known so long and with others whom she had only come to meet recently, the more she learned about the way of life between so many couples. She had not realised how sheltered she had been with Richard, how little she had really known. If a man could not afford a mistress he could always afford a prostitute for sixpence, sometimes even for a single drink of gin. If a woman of quality, even of the middle class, did not think she was taken to her bed by her husband as often as she should be then there were many houses of assignation she could frequent. And whether a house be elegant and the patrons able to pay their guineas, or a stinking brothel or a ginshop where favours were exchanged for pennies, these places were the breeding grounds for crime. Information about stolen goods would pass freely; stolen goods would be offered at very low prices; the thief-takers who knew where to ‘buy’ stolen goods and have them sold back to their owners often met the victims here, for their own safety from the few rigidly incorruptible constables.

All these things became part of Ruth’s understanding and acceptance of life.

She was in one way grateful and in another troubled by one thing: James’s future. For soon after the cholera epidemic, when the pupils had been kept in long dormitories, the School for Young Men had decided that since there was so much dirt and squalor, foul air and filth, and that those living among these were most vulnerable to the worst diseases bred, it should become a school for boarders. When Furnival had asked if she would agree to this, she had been living in the shadow of Moffat’s death, and some cholera victims were still dying, while there had been two outbreaks of smallpox. Once smallpox really took a hold nothing could control it; only those who were naturally immune were safe. So she had said yes, eagerly, and in deep relief. But now she saw James so little, although he came to the cottage each Sunday - or on those Sundays when the risk of infection seemed at its lowest. He was growing fast and was more like Richard than she had realised; he was a little too formal with her and extremely formal with John on the few occasions when they met. But once launched on a recital of events he became his old self, and she could see the colour in his cheeks and the brightness of his eyes, and understood that his lean figure was due to exercise, not to lack of food. Among those things he most liked were tours, under strict supervision so that little contact was made with passers-by, to such places as the Tower of London, the Mint, the great palaces, even to theatres where performances were given for pupils from a restricted group of schools.

She had no doubt at all that he was happy; little doubt, either, that he was growing away from her, although occasion ally when he romped in a wild rough-and-tumble with his sisters at the cottage, it was as if the distance between them did not exist.

It was in December of that year, on a brisk, bright day, that Ruth saw a carriage draw up at the back entrance to the house in Bell Lane and watched from the window of the cottage as a footman climbed down and, a moment later, opened the door to a lady of such elegance and so adorned with furs that at first she thought she must be one of John’s sisters. But if so, then why should she come so furtively? Ruth did not know whether John was in court, and she unfastened her apron and hurried across to find the young clerk in a state of obvious embarrassment staring up into Lisa Braidley’s face.

‘I - I dare not disturb him, ma’am, m’lady, he is in the middle of a c-case. If you w-will wait—’

‘Upstairs in Mr. Furnival’s study perhaps?’ Ruth stepped forward and smiled, but her heart was thumping. She did not want to take Lisa Braidley into ‘their’ room, although it was possibly the only room the other woman was familiar with.

Lisa Braidley said quite easily, ‘You must be Ruth Marshall.’

‘Yes, ma’am. That is my name.’

‘If you will take me to the study I shall be grateful,’ Mrs. Braidley said. If she had the faintest idea why Ruth had headed her off from the back room she did not show it. She followed Ruth upstairs, her clothes rustling, and stood for a moment in the doorway, the light from a huge fire flickering over her. ‘Such a beautiful room, I had almost forgotten,’ she said. ‘Have you time to bring some tea and drink it with me?’

‘I will gladly bring you tea, but—’

‘I simply must talk to someone,’ declared Lisa, and she had never looked more beautiful even though her age was showing clearly; Ruth had the impression that she had made no real effort to conceal it. ‘I have such exciting news, and I cannot wait for Mr. Furnival to know.’ She leaned forward and her eyes danced in such a way that Ruth believed she could really like the woman. ‘I am to marry the Duke of Gilhampton, my dear.’

John arrived half an hour later, and Ruth made fresh tea and brought a fresh supply of the lemon curd tarts, now part of the daily teatime meal. John looked tired but took Lisa’s hands and drew her close, gave her a hug and a kiss - and over her head gave Ruth a broad wink. Ruth went out, her heart as light as could be. She heard them laughing and talking, and deliberately went back to the cottage so that he should not think for one moment that she had been spying. Within half an hour the coach took Lisa off and for a moment John was outlined against the open door as he waved her goodbye. Then Ruth saw her name framed on his lips as he turned inside. He was in the back room when she returned, shutting the door against the cold.

She affected to be surprised when she saw him, but something in his expression touched her with shame, and she said laughingly, ‘I saw you in the doorway.’

‘So you saw the future Duchess of Gilhampton driven off,’ observed John, looking at her with his head on one side. ‘I expected she would marry an old man who would soon die, but Gilhampton’s healthy enough in body even if he isn’t the brightest intellectual star in the firmament. Ruth, my love, you are the most discreet person I know or have known. Who taught you the value of silence?’

‘My father,’ she replied simply.

‘That remarkable parson and craftsman in wood! Tell me, how much do you know about my past?’

Her eyes danced.

‘All I wish to know, sir!’

He laughed in turn, deep down inside him, and she had not heard him laughing since Silas Moffat’s death. His body was still quivering when he put an arm around her and kissed her cheek.

‘I’ll be bound you do! And I’d pay you for the rejoinder if there weren’t seventeen miscreants waiting to find out what bad news I have for them!’ He hugged her and then stalked off without a backward glance.

From that time on he began to mellow, was more often his old hearty self, laughter came more often and more freely. The periods of silence which had followed the gathering at Great Furnival Square and Silas Moffat’s death all but ceased, and never once did he voice any bitterness towards those of the family who were so determined not to help. For much of the winter Anne visited him regularly and then in early March of 1740 she came with a mingling of excitement and regret. Jason Gilroy had decided to stay in Calcutta and to maintain offices in conjunction with the East India Company there, and for the bad seasons of the year they would go to nearby hills, where it was much cooler, if Anne would bring the children there to join him.

‘Go?’ John roared. ‘Of course you must go; it’s past time you had some pleasure out of that man of yours!’

He took Ruth to the St. Catherine’s Docks, not far from the Tower, to see her off, but would not join the mass of the Furnival family crammed onto the terrace outside the director’s room at Furnival Tower House. She sailed with a dozen others going to help establish the new headquarters, on a day early in April 1740 when the sun struck hot enough for June, when the daffodils were out in the window boxes, one of those days when it was so easy to forget the ugly side of London. The ship, a four-masted bark of the Furnival Line, was taking supplies to Bombay and Karachi, and also enormous bales of cotton cloth from the north-country mills for the Indian natives. A band of the Royal Navy played on deck and every man on the quay and on other boats, great and small, roared his farewell.

‘It is surprisingly easy to be glad for someone else and sorry for oneself,’ John said when they were back at Bow Street. ‘Well, Ruth! Now you’ve seen Furnival Tower House from the grounds of the Tower of London. Did you wish you were on the terrace with the rest of the family?’

‘When I am with you it does not enter my mind to wish I were somewhere else,’ Ruth said, and was astounded when he responded with obvious delight.

The sadness of Anne’s going did not weigh upon him too heavily, and he now seemed fully recovered from the loss of Silas Moffat. With the men and the officials in court, Ruth was told, he was less brusque and gruff and would listen with more patience. His manner with his fellow magistrates, who visited occasionally for coffee or port, or even some of Ruth’s lemon curd tarts, which had become famous, was much easier. There was less noticeable change in his manner with her; he was affectionate all the time, very seldom abrupt or impatient, occasionally he would tumble her with the abandon of a youth, and always, afterward, he was gentleness itself.

She did not know the actual occasion, although inevitably she could place it within a period of three weeks, when she conceived. It was six months after she went to live at Bell Lane and Bow Street. The possibility had been in her mind for a long time and had worried her, partly because she did not want to add to John’s problems and the decisions he had to make. She used a sponge whenever she felt sure they would make love but his desire would sometimes come at the most unexpected moment. She did not want to believe the truth at first, but when she was three weeks late with her flow, and each morning she felt nausea, not yet severe but quite unmistakable, she was certain. For the first time since she had recovered from Silas Moffat’s death, she longed for the old man: it would have been easier to break the news to John with him at hand. The only other person who might have helped was Anne.

On the day when she decided to tell John, there was a great stir in Bow Street, for a man who had become almost as notorious as Frederick Jackson had been caught by two Westminster constables and Tom Harris, working together. He was Peter Nicholson, who had waylaid a wealthy Member of Parliament with a friend just outside the City walls; the friend had tried to run and had been shot dead. On such days the tension spread to all parts of the court, the cells and offices as well as the private quarters. Ruth caught a glimpse of the manacled man who had helped to plot the case against her son; a tall, handsome, bearded creature. He wore a long peruke and the most fashionable of clothes, a red coat and bright-green breeches with red hose and green shoes. Although so helpless, there was courage in his mien and he tried to sweep her a bow as he was hustled into the courtroom.

Would this, after all, be the day to tell John Furnival?

She had found an excuse to put it off twice already, she reminded herself, and each passing day would make it more difficult. She wished only that she had some idea of how he would receive the tidings: whether he would want her to stay here.

Furnival came to the back room late in the afternoon, looking very tired. Word had come to Ruth through Tom, Sam Fairweather and Ebenezer Noble that a dozen witnesses had been brought into court to swear that Nicholson had been with them at a cockfight at the time of the holdup and the problem was how to cast doubt on these statements. The landlord of the inn, his wife and two taproom men had sworn in Nicholson’s favour; the Member of Parliament as well as one of the Westminster constables swore on oath he had been the highwayman. When Ruth had last heard, John had not made his decision; she wondered whether he was still undecided. At first she thought that the case had cast him back into a mood of silence and bitterness, but as she brought tea to the table and placed it by the side of a dish of muffins, he laid his hand gently on her shoulder.