Wicked Company (12 page)

When Daniel McGann returned to the shop later that day, Sophie lost no time in confronting him with the engravings and describing Lord Lemore’s conference with the messenger. “He must have bribed the caddies to tell him if a packet from London ever was to be delivered to the book shop.”

“Jesu!” Daniel whispered. “What danger I’ve put you in… put us
both
in. When I saw how Lemore put his filthy hands on you, I simply told him that I’d not placed the order. Now he must have guessed that I lied.”

“You were so brave that night, Da,” Sophie said, flinging her arms around his neck. “I love you so much!”

Furtively, she rewrapped the engravings and buried them under several ledger books in the bottom drawer of his desk.

Hunter’s appearances as Whisper in
The Busybody
brought him an excellent notice in the
Edinburgh Courant.
With his Highland burr more firmly under control, he was soon cast by David Beatt as the Duke of Norfolk in
King Henry VIII
—one of Shakespeare’s lesser performed history plays—which was presented the first week of the new year. Three days later he appeared as Byam in an adaptation of Aphra Behn’s novel
Oroonoko.

As January wore on, Sophie was pleased when several clients came to McGann’s in search of printed copies of the plays that they had recently seen performed at the Canongate, and she was only too happy to sell what few she had in stock. However, the steady stream of customers had apparently caught the attention of the clergy of St. Giles. One afternoon, Sophie found herself exchanging looks with a rotund man in a black cassock, whom she knew to be the Reverend Mr. Meeker. The minister glared through the shop windows at one of his flock who was in the act of pushing several shillings across the counter for a copy of
Oroonoko.

“So! Once again you are promoting that Jezebel’s work!” he thundered from the doorway at Daniel, who simply stared at the clergyman, dumbfounded. “Don’t think I haven’t seen the comings and goings here!” he announced angrily, refusing to set foot inside the shop. “I’ve seen that vile Irishman frequenting this place of abomination… that
Sheridan
fellow
!
A
Catholic,
no doubt! And I know you offer wicked, profane texts in
French
for sale!” he said accusingly, as if Lucifer himself might be a clerk at the shop. As the embarrassed customer departed, the minister followed him down the street spewing a righteous torrent of abuse against godless books, plays, and playhouses.

The following Sunday, a bitterly cold morning in February, Reverend Meeker’s sermon at St. Giles Cathedral was an hour-long diatribe against music, dancing, and all forms of public entertainments.

Two days before Sophie’s seventeenth birthday, Constable Munro, normally a friendly fellow, marched through the book shop’s door flanked by two red-coated guards from the Tolbooth prison.

“Daniel McGann?” the constable inquired, knowing full well the identity of his long-time neighbor on the High Street, “I have a warrant for your arrest. I charge you by the authority vested in me for the commission of blasphemy and the selling of ungodly texts.”

Daniel remained silent but the color drained from his heavily lined face.

“Who has brought this charge?” Sophie demanded angrily.

“’Twas instigated by the clergy and elders of St. Giles, and it charges your father to appear before the Justiciary Court,” Constable Munro replied. “Since this is a capital offense, Danny, I must take you to the Tolbooth.” When Sophie gasped, Munro added with gruff kindness, “Most likely, bail will be
set
at only sixty pounds or so—”

“Sixty pounds!”
Sophie wailed. “It might as well be
six hundred!”

“I’m afraid I must confiscate those Frenchy books mentioned in the Lord Advocate’s writ, here,” he said, pointing at the document with a detailed list of titles, “and all those printed plays, too, I’m afraid. Need ’em as evidence, it says here.”

“How would the Lord Advocate know which books we sell here by
title
?” Sophie asked suspiciously as she surveyed the list. “He and that Mr. Meeker never
shopped
at McGann’s!” she added angrily.

“Now Sophie,” Constable Munro cautioned, mindful that the red-coated guards were not above tattling behind his back to the church elders. He wasn’t about to tell her that a degenerate peer named Lemore had provided a detailed listing of exactly which blasphemous works might be found at McGann’s and had received a blessing from the avenging kirk elders for doing so.

“Shall I search the premises, sir?” one of the two stone-faced guards declared.

Constable Munro nodded before turning to Daniel.

“Don’t suppose I need to put irons on you, Danny,” he said quietly. “We’re close enough to the Tolbooth. I’ll take you out the back.”

“No!” Sophie cried, but the other guard stepped forward and restrained her as she tried to run toward her father.

Meanwhile, his fellow guard began scooping volume after volume from the shelves. As Sophie sank onto her small stool by the hearth, the other guard systematically searched the rear chamber where the printing press stood. He returned to the book shop with a copy of the broadside she had printed for Sheridan’s lectures and a few other examples of her handiwork.

“Check the desk,” he grunted to his companion, whose arms were stacked high with books.

“You
check it, sapskull!” the first guard snapped.

The second guard placed the placards on top of the desk, yanked open the drawers, and rummaged through their contents. Sophie’s heart froze. For the first time in her young life, she thought she might faint.

“Holy St. Ninian! Blast me! Sweet Jesu!” the guardsman swore in a string of epithets that were far more blasphemous than anything poor Daniel had ever uttered.

“Let me see those,” the other guard demanded, setting his pile of books on the desk beside the placards. “God’s bones! Will you look at
that!”
he marveled, gazing over his comrade’s shoulders at Lord Lemore’s undelivered order of engravings from
Fanny Hill.

“I’ll take those!” Constable Munro intervened, confiscating the pictures. “Bring the rest of the evidence to my chambers,” he added brusquely. Then, prodding Daniel McGann into the alleyway located behind the Luckenbooths, Edinburgh’s keeper of the peace escorted the haggard bookseller through the granite portals and into the bowels of the forbidding fortress known as Tolbooth Prison.

***

On the first of April, Sophie, Hunter, and William Creech sat in the Justiciary Court, watching as the prisoner was led to the dock. Despite her effort to steel herself, Sophie was aghast at his condition after two months’ incarceration. Her father had not shaved in weeks nor, it seemed, had he bathed. His clothes were in tatters and he was shoeless.

She was further dismayed to see James Boswell’s father, Lord Auckinleck, sitting as one of the jurists hearing the case. As she took stock of the courtroom, she noted that among the jury of thirteen men were several friends of Lord Lemore, whom she recognized from the crowd that had attended Thomas Sheridan’s lectures at the Royal Infirmary.

The Libel of Indictment for Blasphemy against Daniel McGann was read in full by the court clerk. Sophie felt her spirits sinking with each damning phrase.

“Said Daniel McGann has most unlawfully, seditiously, and maliciously contrived and intended by wicked, artful, and scandalous insinuations to molest and disturb the happy state of this kingdom,” intoned the court clerk. “Said Daniel McGann insolently did scandalize and vilify our sovereign lord and king, George III, to incite and stir up the subjects of the realm to insurrection against said king by wickedly and feloniously offering for sale bawdy and ungodly engravings from
Fanny Hill
and other ungodly and blasphemous texts, and did knowingly…”

Sophie clamped her eyes shut and tried to blot out the ghastly accusations, but she could not. When Daniel at last stood in the dock, he seemed to have shrunk to half his size, and his voice quavered when he spoke in his own defense.

“I believe, my lords and jurymen,” he said softly, “in the rights of men to allow their conscience and sensibilities to choose what they should read, see, or hear. I do not, myself, endorse what my accusers consider obscene, but when authorities deem it their right to dictate these matters, there will be no freedom of thought, word, or deed in this land.”

Sophie could hear a disgruntled muttering coming from the direction of the bench where the august Lords of Justiciary sat in their wigs and gowns.

“And do you, sir,” demanded Lord Auckinleck sternly, “deem it
your
duty to supply society’s wastrels and scoundrels with such disgusting fare?”

“No,” Daniel replied slowly. “But I believe ’tis their right to seek it if they choose.”

“And you make a pretty penny on the stuff, I’ll warrant,” the judge said sharply.

“If I had, I could have raised the necessary bail,” Daniel said mildly.

There were titters from the onlookers, which did not please the panel of judges.

The Lord Advocate rose and requested the judges’ permission to call a witness regarding the procurement of the lewd engravings, which had been entered as evidence, but which even the jury had not been allowed to see. Sophie sank deeper into her courtroom seat as the caddie who had delivered the packet from London approached the witness box.

“And you recall delivering a packet franked from London to McGann’s Printers and Booksellers?” the Lord Advocate queried.

“Aye,” the caddie said, staring down at his shoes.

“And did the said packet look like this?” he asked, holding up the very wrappings in which the
Fanny Hill
illustrations had been sent.

“Aye. That’s the one.”

“And is the person to whom you handed this same packet—which the constable’s men swear contained the lewd drawings—present in this courtroom?”

“Aye,” the caddie replied.

“Will you tell the court who that is?” the Lord Advocate asked patiently.

“Aye… ’twas Sophie McGann over there, the bookseller’s daughter.”

“May it please the court, I call Sophie McGann to the witness box!”

Sophie gasped with horrified surprise.

“You must
go!”
William Creech whispered urgently.
“Go up there, lass!”

Sophie stood up and made her way to the witness box like a sleepwalker. When she stood to face the spectators, she was even more unnerved to see that Lord Lemore had slipped into the courtroom and taken a seat in the back.

He’s come to see himself avenged,
she thought bleakly, her legs so shaky that she clung for support to the top of the witness box.

“You are the accused’s daughter, are you not?” the Lord Advocate was saying.

“Aye, sir,” Sophie mumbled.

“And you were in the shop the day the caddie delivered the packet sent from a London book agent?”

“A-aye,” she repeated.

“And did you open this packet?” he asked loudly.

Sophie stared at Lord Lemore, stunned at the obscene cruelty of the man. She wasn’t the prettiest wench he could have coveted, or certainly the best tutored in the ways of debauchery. Why?
Why her?
Was it because Lemore was enslaved by simple lust or, rather, that he was a man who invariably got his way?

“Did you
open
the packet?” the Lord Advocate repeated sharply.

“Aye… I d-did,” Sophie stuttered, suddenly unable to control her words.

“And what was inside?” her inquisitor asked forcefully.

Sophie looked in the direction of her father standing in the dock and her eyes misted over.

“Eng-g-gravings,” she stuttered once more, alarmed that she could not seem to master her speech.

“Engravings of
what?”
the Lord Advocate demanded, his patience finally wearing thin.

“Of
F-Fanny Hill,”
she choked.

“Will you tell the court the complete title of this obscene work?”

“F-F-Fanny H-Hill,”
she said, her voice sounding more strangled than ever,
“M-Memoirs of a Woman of P-Pleasure.”

Something horrible had happened to her ability to speak out in the hearing chamber. She felt her throat close, and sweat beaded her upper lip.

“And were placards printed in your shop promoting lectures by one Thomas Sheridan, the so-called God of Elocution?” he asked thunderously.

“Y-y-yes,” Sophie agreed helplessly.