The Masters of Bow Street (46 page)

‘How in heaven’s name did you learn that so quickly?’ gasped James.

‘Oh, we have ears in many surprising places. Is it true?’

‘Yes, Sir John.’

‘What little influence and experience I have will be in your support,’ promised Fielding, continuing before James could begin to utter thanks. ‘I will have the constables and their deputies in all the Minshall parishes examined, and where we can find an honest man we must set him to work. The parties can spend a fortune in bribery, and they can also terrify any who would support a candidate against their interests. One of the duties of a real peacemaking force, James, would be to supervise elections and make sure people can vote freely and without fear of any consequences. Ah, David! You are done, then? Good, good! I’ll sign the writ. If there is any trouble, any trouble at all, I am to be told at once, whether the court is sitting or not.’

‘It is a wilful defiance,’ the Duke stormed. ‘I will not allow a blind man who is a magistrate by our favour to defy us. Is it not enough that he is always begging more money for his court? Did he not beg a knighthood and did I not give it to him? He shall not be heeded.’

‘I hope you will be gracious enough to consider other aspects of the situation,’ the Solicitor General murmured sleekly. ‘Sir John Fielding is highly regarded by many who give us their support and he’s highly popular among the people.’

‘Damn the people!’

‘It would be indiscreet to do so openly in the House,’ declared the Solicitor General. ‘I have been making inquiries. Had our action yesterday persuaded Sly to withdraw his remarks, little would have been said, but since he refused - Well, I confess I misjudged the response of many of our supporters.’

‘You really mean we must release the newspaperman Sly?’

‘For the time being at least. Once that is done there will be less danger from the press of further vitriolic attacks on you or the King.’

‘We must find a way to keep these damned pests of Grub Street quiet,’ growled the Duke. ‘Find a way.’

‘I shall lose not a moment. And, meanwhile, I have your authority to order Benedict Sly to be freed?’

‘Damn it, that’s what you’re forcing me to give you, isn’t it? Yes, release him. And I hope he falls out of his carriage and breaks his neck!’

‘We can hardly expect such good fortune twice in one week,’ murmured the Solicitor General.

‘What? Good fortune? What - oh.’ The Duke began to laugh, the first sign of good humour since this interview had begun. ‘Topham, y’mean. Twice!’

He was roaring with laughter when the Solicitor General went out.

It was as if all London had erupted! Masses of people packed the streets leading to Newgate, but unlike those gathered together in times of riot or on hanging days, these were well dressed and prosperous looking. In thousands of hands a pamphlet fluttered, whilst pinned to every hat and jacket was the slogan printed at the foot of the pamphlet:

FREE SLY! FREE THE PRESS! FREE THE PEOPLE!

Never in London’s history had there been such an uprising of the middle classes. Only on the fringes did the mob appear, some light-fingered, some joining in for the excitement, for the battle that looked inevitable.

From an open carriage hemmed in at Newgate, James Marshall, Nicholas Sly and Jabez Peterson watched with awed fascination. Outside the jail entrance they could see a ring of dragoons, sent hastily from both Tilt Yard and the Tower at the urgent request of justices in Westminster and the City.

‘One act of violence and the whole crowd will riot,’ muttered James.

Tension was on the faces of all three men, when suddenly there came a cry from the direction of Holborn.

‘Fielding! . . . Make way for John Fielding! . . . Make way for Sir John.’

‘God be praised they are not out of control,’ Peterson murmured.

Over the heads of the crowd they could just see the top of a sedan chair, two Bow Street officers in front and two behind. One of the leading officers, his stentorian voice worthy of a town crier, was roaring, ‘Make way for Sir John! Make way for the Blind Beak!’

As the cry was taken up, men pressed back to allow the chair to pass. Fielding was framed in the open doorway, the pale evening light showing the ruddiness of his face in a strange glow, the black ribbon over his eyes in sharp contrast. He wore his robes, chain of office, and big three-cornered hat with upswept brim. Every now and again he raised his right hand to acknowledge the roaring acclamation, the throng closing in behind his chair as it moved on.

At last he reached the clearing between the crowd and the dragoons, while the roar split the evening skies.

‘Fielding, Fielding, Fielding!’

A youthful lieutenant came forward as the chair was placed on the forecourt and Fielding got out with surprising ease of movement despite his clumsy-looking body. He handed a rolled missive to the lieutenant, who unfolded it, read, saluted, then immediately turned on his heel and went towards the prison gates. Fielding moved, alone, towards the now empty gallows and walked up the wooden steps, as sure-footed and as nimble as if he were a man with full vision. Reaching the spot over which dying men so often dangled - men he himself had committed - he held up his hand for silence. For three or four minutes he tried in vain to make himself heard, and at last two of his Bow Street men went up to the platform, and David Winfrith joined them. Before they reached his side, however, the prison gates opened again and the lieutenant of dragoons appeared with Benedict Sly at his side.

At last quiet fell, while Benedict joined the chief magistrate and waited until the older man spoke in a voice pitched high enough to reach many standing out of his sight in the side streets.

‘I came to ask you to disperse, since I hold the Solicitor General’s authority to hear the charges against Benedict Sly in Bow Street, there having been some error when Mr. Sly was committed yesterday. I—’

He was forced to stop by the tumult, and it was several minutes before he could go on.

‘I myself have examined the charge and will call on witnesses, and upon the evidence decide.’

There was no difficulty in clearing a path for him and for Benedict. Sly, no longer manacled, as they went to the waiting coach which would take them to Bow Street for the second hearing. Nor was there much doubt in James’s mind as he and Nicholas Sly and Jabez Peterson followed, that the Solicitor General’s charge on which the committal had been made would be dismissed by Fielding.

At last, after the evidence and the witnesses were again brought forth, Fielding observed dryly, ‘I will admit that the incident has come near to inciting a riot, but I am satisfied that the cause was not the words written by the accused and published in a newspaper owned by him. I therefore dismiss the charge.’

‘And because the press of this great city kept the people informed of what was happening at Westminster,’ Benedict declared, ‘justice has been done. This is a great day for the newspapers, a day when they first spoke with one voice for freedom—’

But the crowd would not let him finish. The cheering went on and on, until it seemed that they would stay at the place of their triumph forever.

Suddenly James saw a party of twenty men or so holding a banner, two of whom carried a pole to which one end of the banner was secured. Painted in red on a pale cloth which looked like stiff linen was the now familiar slogan:

FREE SLY . . . FREE THE PRESS . . . FREE THE PEOPLE IN THE NAME OF THE LORD

One of the pole carriers was a young and massive man whose appearance made James start, for at first he could have sworn that he was Johnny! Everything about the face and figure was uncannily like his half brother.

But this was Simon Rattray, officially the son of the minister of the church near Lincoln’s Inn, but surely the natural son of John Furnival.

Benedict Sly, followed by James and Nicholas, climbed the stairs to James’s rooms, long after dark, and dropped into a chair in the living room while Mary came hurrying from the kitchen. It had been two hours before the crowd had stopped calling on him to speak, two hours before first Fielding and then he had been able to get away.

Sly mopped his forehead and declared, ‘The rescue was a far greater ordeal than the arrest! Would you have believed such a rising, James?’

‘I’d not given it a thought, but if I live to be a hundred I’ll never know a greater day. Sir John was magnificent.’

‘Yes,’ Benedict agreed. ‘He was indeed. Why doesn’t David come, I wonder? He would tell us how Sir John responded when the press had gone. I will wager—’

Mary hesitated, but none of the others had any reason to believe this was because she had heard that David was expected. But she recovered quickly, carried in coffee, and rejoiced with the men, masking her apprehension. Benedict did much of the talking, mostly about the horror of Newgate Prison, while James said enough to make it clear that conditions had not improved and that his own youthful experience still burned in him.

David did not arrive, that night or for many nights to come. It was as if he had dropped out of their lives.

At the coffee house in Wine Court next morning, James saw that The Daily Clarion and other newspapers all carried a straightforward if elated account of what had happened. Every newspaper but one, the Tory St. James’s Journal, promised its help in electing Marshall. Until that morning James had not even begun to realise the impact he had made on either the newspapers or the public. For the first time Mary and others who had thought his candidacy hopeless began to believe that he might win.

The week following he received many letters of support from his mother, Henrietta, Timothy, Sir Mortimer Tench, Beth, and more friends than he realised he had.

A letter from Francis Furnival read:

My dear James,

I hasten to send you my best hopes for your success, in which William joins me. Indeed, I speak for all the senior members of the House of Furnival, the young, as always being a law unto themselves. These past few years have been a most unsettling period in the House, and while it is always in the Furnival interest to maintain the highest possible volume of trade, it is increasingly evident that many social evils remain here at home, particularly in and near London. A strong voice drawing attention to these can only do good. No doubt you will campaign, among other things, for a peace-keeping force. I think if my brother John, your stepfather, were alive today he might find less rigid opposition. But opposition, nonetheless! I have a feeling that we may be moving into a new age. . .

Another letter, from Johnny, was more disturbing:

Jamey, you are a fool. Don’t do it.

The words, written in purple-coloured ink on a small sheet of parchmentlike paper, seemed to leap out and strike James. A sharper, more unexpected blow could not have been imagined. Why? he thought. Why, Johnny? He had seen very little of his half brother during the past few years, their meetings being mainly at family reunions at Great Furnival Square. Now and again Johnny had been to see his mother and his half sisters but he never stayed long. It was as if he were determined to cut himself as loose as possible from his mother’s side of the family. He had grown into an extremely clever and shrewd young man and it was said that he always had a following of devoted admirers, and that he had conquered more feminine hearts than any man in London.

Moreover, the place held for him inside the business was very high. It was not simply that he was entitled to a high place by birth; his ability was beyond question, and many believed that in a few years he would be a powerful figure - perhaps one day the leading figure - in the great banking and merchant empire.

And there was no doubt that if ever he came to rule the House of Furnival, it would be with great - perhaps too much - strength.

None of these things was in James’s mind at that moment, however. Two short sentences rang through his head.

‘Jamey, you are a fool. Don’t do it.’

James put the note aside and was thinking now of David Winfrith, of whom he had seen practically nothing for a month. David on the one side and Johnny on the other, both shunning him. It was the strangest and most painful experience. He felt guilty, blaming himself for failing to see what was responsible.

Slowly, he opened other letters, mostly of encouragement for the coming campaign, but none significant enough to draw his mind from gloomier reflections. The next envelope appeared to contain a stiff card, which fitted so tightly that he had difficulty in pulling it free.

As he did so he caught his breath for he looked down at an unmistakable caricature of himself hanging from a gallows. So vivid was the facial likeness that it was impossible to believe that whoever had drawn it did not know him well. He turned it over - and, unable to control himself, was taken by a fit of shivering. For on the back of the card was an identical picture of his face but here his body was cut into four as would be that of a man who had first been drawn, then hanged and quartered.

One word was printed in black across the foot of the card: Traitor.

‘It could have been sent to frighten you, the work of some cartoonist with a twisted mind,’ suggested Benedict. ‘There is no doubt of strong opposition. What does surprise me is that the opposition should have remained so subdued. I would give this to David; he can show it to others at Bow Street who might recognise the work and be able to identify the artist.’

It was on the tip of James’s tongue to say that he had no desire to consult David; then he decided that this might be a good opportunity to break the barrier which had grown up between them. Rather than go to Bow Street he would invite David to dinner and discuss it with him afterward. When he suggested this to Mary he was surprised by her momentary reluctance, but she quickly infused warmth into her voice. The idea was stillborn, however; David sent a brief note that he was sorry but had no time as work at the court was getting heavier every day.