They Hanged My Saintly Billy (5 page)

Then Duffy comes here for the second time, drinking and reading the newspapers slowly through as before, and still seems to shun company. I try to get him to talk about the coach accident, but he shuts up like an oyster. In the evenings, when this parlour and the tap-room attract the most custom—and we draw it from miles around because of our home-brewed, which is unequalled in this county, though I have not travelled widely enough to make any grander claim—Duffy always slips out for a country walk, well muffled up, and don't come home until close on midnight.

Where he might go was none of my business, nor what he did when he went wherever he might go. On the day that Mr William's brothers George and Walter ride to Walsall for the fetching back of Mr William, Duffy goes off after supper for his usual stroll and this time don't return at all. He owes the house some three or four guineas, and when I question Mr William, who comes in for a drink, he seems surprised to hear that Duffy's been along again. He don't offer to pay the bill, though I mention it; and says no word either for Duffy or against Duffy. 'No doubt he's been called away suddenly,' he says, 'and will soon be back. I understand that he has big interests in Liverpool.'

'Well, we still have his traps,' say I, 'including his sample box.'

'Then you may depend on it that he'll be back soon,' says Mr William.

I do no more in the matter, but wait; and time goes by, and no Duffy. Mr William, he says no word to me on the subject either, and I
don't care to pump him. Presentl
y, Duffy's boxes begin to smell very bad, and at last my missus opens them. It was no murdered child, as we feared, but a quarter of Stilton cheese which had grown over-ripe, among a few dirty shirts and stockings, a rusty razor, two or three tradesmen's bills, old letters and suchlike. In the sample box we found some small pieces of linen, which I held as a pledge for the debt owed the house, though not worth above five shillings in all. I never set eyes on Duffy again, and he went away with no clothing but what he wore on his back.

I often puzzled on his sudden disappearance, and feared foul play—no, Sir, don't mistake my meaning! He went away
the
day before Mr William's return from Stafford, and Mr William knew nothing of
the
matter at all. But the contents of the sample box gave me a clue to what happened. In among the papers, not put by with care as though they were of particular value, but just lying anyhow, my missus found a number of love letters which made her cry out: 'Well, T never did!' and nearly split her sides with laughing.

The first of the letters in date ran as follows—for which you may take my word. It's a long time indeed since I read that letter, but like the celebrated Scottish historian Mr Macaulay, I am gifted —or, as you may say, cursed—with a memory like a photographic camera. What I have once read I can recall at will years later without effort. I have won many a wager thereby. This, as I say, was how the letter ran:

The Yard: Dec. 3rd, 1841.

I trust you will pardon the liberty I take in writing to you, and the still greater liberty
of
begging you the favour of calling here tomorrow at 3 o'clock, with the same cambric linen samples that you offered mc yesterday. I know you will have some scruples as to my request, knowing that linen is unlikely to form the sole topic of our conversation, if you will be so kind as to accede to my request. You will find me alone at that hour. May I beg of you the kindness to forgive mc this note in anticipation of the cause which I shall explain to you? What I have written is strictly confidential, and having been informed of your high and noble sense
of
honour and your absolute discretion, I need say no more. Although we exchanged only a formal few words, and those in the presence
of
my son George, yet believe me, I am one
of
your warmest, most sincere friends,

Sarah Palmer

—To Cornelius Duffy, Esq., The Shoulder of Mutton Inn.

It seems that Esquire Duffy took his box of samples around to The Yard next day at the hour named, and was satisfied with
the promised explanation, for th
e second letter read even warmer and
more
sincere. Now, how did
that
one begin? Ah, I have it:

The Yard: Dec. 5th, 1841.

My Dearest and Best Friend,

This morning I received a note from a lady neighbour, whom I am to go visiting, that she would prefer my taking tea with her on Monday instead
of
Tuesday. Now, can't you come Tuesday, at
five
o'clock? The boys won't be here, and I have given the servant leave to sit with her sick sister; but pray come by the back premises which are reached least obtrusively by the canal tow-path. You will come, won't you? I had anticipated so much delight in seeing you Monday. The postponement
of
one day seems very long to me, but I have to exercise discretion, because it would n
ever do if unkind and malicious
gossip about our love were to reach the ears of my son Joseph. All Monday I shall be thinking of the pleasure of seeing you, and I hope the time may pass quickly until our meeting. I am a lonely woman, and you have been very generous to me, more generous perhaps than you guess. Don't laugh at this note, for I have written it fresh from my heart. And pray
, if not too late, accept Mr She
rrit's invitation which you declined before, to sing the tenor parts in the choir tomorrow. It will make you well thought of in the town, and also give me the opportunity to rest my eyes for an hour or more on your dear face; since my pew is so fortunately placed that I shall be able to do this without turning my head.

If you cannot come Tuesday, I will excuse myself to the lady on some pretext, for on no account on earth would I miss another meeting so happy as the last proved to be.

Most affectionately yours,

Sarah Palmer

The remainder of the letters were written in a more abandoned style, and always finished with loving kisses. The lovers made appointments to meet in many places, among them the graveyard and coach-house, and were never, it seems, discovered until Mr William returned from Liverpool. I was in no way interested in their love, nor did I censure them. It was but natural that a high-spirited woman like Mrs Palmer, forbidden to remarry, though still young in heart and sturdy enough in body—having, moreover, reached an age when she need not fear the disgrace of bearing an illegitimate child—should solace herself with the embraces of a fine, upstanding, tenor-voiced Irishman, such as Cornelius Duffy, her junior by several years. And Duffy, to judge from the tradesmen's bills we found in his traps, and the poverty of his possessions, would have been glad to oblige so wealthy a protectress as Mrs Palmer, to the full extent of his powers.

At all events, I should have burned the letters, if I had had the sense, but my missus and her sister grabbed them and used them for the purposes of business. It's been said that I charged sixpence a head for the peep-show; but that's a lie. The way in which they came to be seen was that my missus got speaking of them, and one or two young chaps at the bar gammoned her to let them take a squint. 'Not till you've spent a shilling or two in grog, that you don't,' says my missus. They held her to that—I was out at the time, trying the ale at Bilston, for a man gets plaguey tired of his own brew, be it never so good—and she showed the letters. Then in comes another young chap, and another, and all take a look, those of them as can read; until at last I stagger home. Seeing what's afoot, I get properly vexed, and snatch the letters from the missus, but the harm's done; and though I hide them in the family Bible, which is the last place I'd expect her to look, and swear I've burned them in the grate, she don't believe me. A day or two later, I consult the
Song of Solomon,
where I'd put them, and 'behold, they are vanished away, like unto a dream remembered on waking,' as Parson Inge would say sorrowfully when the choirboys prigged his poultry or rabbits. I didn't know what my missus had done with the letters, and if I had asked, she'd only have said: 'What letters?—them as you burned in the grate, Mr C?' There's no keeping women quiet in these matters, but I'm sorry that The Shoulder of Mutton earned a bad name in consequence of my carelessness. I've told you the whole tale to show you how it all came about.

The construction that I put on Mr William's case, since you ask me, is that he had a certain hold on his mother on account of being at first the only person who knew of her goings-on with Duffy. I believe that he was greatly distressed and shocked at the revelation. A lad can laugh at a matter of that sort if it happens in a stranger's house, and shrug his shoulders if it happens at a neighbour's—but his own mother! I daresay you remember how Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet felt—not that I'm accusing old Mrs Palmer of being in any way concerned with her husband's death, though there are cruel tongues in this town have hinted even at that. Well, as I should guess—but, mind, it's no more than a guess! —Mr William reads his mother a lecture on her sins, and threatens to tell Mr Joseph about them if she doesn't send Duffy packing. She gives in at once. Mr William asks her for money to settle Duffy's score with me, and she gives it to him. Be sure, Duffy's already screwed a deal of money out of her, but Mr William surmises that he'll pretend to be waiting for a remittance from Belfast to settle the score—with the object of making more money yet. Which, I reckon, is exactly what Duffy has in mind; but when Mr William surprises him by paying the score, and then (as I suppose) threatens him with the thrashing of his life if he ever returns to Rugeley, Duffy takes the hint. Mr William was very handy with his dukes, as we say here.

Months later, Mrs Palmer writes to Duffy at Liverpool to say that the coast is clear, because her son
William
has gone to
Haywood and nobody else is in the know. She invites him back to The Shoulder of Mutton. He comes for three weeks or so, and those letters prove that she continued on the same course as before, only with greater heat. It seems she had lost all her modesty, and there are phrases in the last letters which would cause a pedlar to drop his pack with surprise. Then came news that Mr William had broken his apprenticeship, and that George and Walter had ridden off to Walsall to fetch him back. That must have put Mrs Palmer in great fear. She sends
Littler
with a sealed letter to Mr Duffy, containing money and warning him (as I reckon) to clear out at once for both their sakes, and leave no vestige behind—not even sending his boxes by carrier to any place, where they might be traced. All I can say for sure, is: she tells Littler that the letter contains money for Mr Duffy, who has undertaken to send her some fine linen sheets from Belfast. I reckon she'll have sent a fifty-pound note to make it worth Duffy's while to humour her. My missus remembers Littler coming in with the letter, and Duffy going upstairs to fetch something from his box—maybe a watch and chain she's given him.

Well, Mr William returns and hears about Duffy from me; the news is a great surprise to him and though, as I say, pretending to be unconcerned, he seems to have used it to his good advantage. His mother could not now reproach him for having continued in his youthful attachment to Jane Widnall (whom he wished one day to marry), when she had been making a fool of herself with a chap like Duffy—a married man, by the bye—after her promise to William to have done with such frolics for ever.

I don't mean to say that Mr William would have threatened his mother: 'If you will not plead my case with Joseph, I will expose you to him!' That he would not have done, for he loved his mother, with all her faults. But he may well have said: 'Mother, I forgive you, as I trust that you will also forgive me.' At all events, she did plead with Mr Joseph and, I am told—but this is only hearsay—offered to tell his wealthy wife certain things very discreditable to him unless he forgave Mr William. For it was known that Mr Joseph still paid five shillings a week for a bastard daughter of his, whom he fathered on a nailer's daughter, by name Alice Plummery, over at Darlaston; and other tales are told of him, besides.

So Mr William is forgiven, and Mrs Palmer is forgiven, and Mr Joseph relents, which goes to s
how what a Christian spirit the
knowledge
that
we are all sinners together i
n th
e eyes of God can awaken! However, Dr Tylecotc would not take William back as his apprentice, because of
the
scandal that he caused in Haywood, and the deceptions he practised. This resolve greatly incommoded Mr William, who wished to renew his studies and make his way in life by industry. He was now so disgusted by the news of Jane's elopement with Peter Smirke, that he swore never to trust a female again, and once cried out in my hearing that if they had gone away to any nearer place of refuge from his wrath than Botany Bay, he'd have followed them with a gelding-knife. And I think that this talk of a gelding-knife, and his offer to fight his brothers, and Duffy, shows well enough that Mr William was the violent sort when aroused, not the cold, crafty poisoner, which he is now falsely represented as. being. To be sure, he poured acid on Smirke's clodies, but Smirke was such a little wisp of a man and so unhealdiy looking, that William could hardly in honour have gone to fisticuffs with him.

Well, as th
e saying goes, there's always a way out while there's brass in the purse.