John Furnival was buried in the churchyard at St. Giles only two days later, attended by his brothers, surviving sisters, and some other close relatives and friends. Among those not of the family who came to the simple funeral ceremony was John Fielding, who brought condolences and deep regret from his brother. Tom Harris came, too, and old Sam Fairweather, so crippled with arthritis that each step caused pain. Benedict Sly was also present, and the Reverend Sebastian Smith, who had journeyed with friends across London and had then taken the stagecoach from the Hyde Park Turnpike.
When it was over, the members of John Furnival’s family departed from St. Giles except for Francis and his wife, Deborah, who were to stay the night. Beth and Henrietta stayed with the Tenches, and only Francis and Deborah, Ruth and James, were together at the farmhouse dinner of roast beef and batter pudding.
‘Ruth, this may not be the night to talk about the future, but I would like you to be sure of two things,’ Francis said. ‘For as long as you wish to stay at St. Giles, it is yours, and if there is ever anything you need that we at the House of Furnival can provide, that is yours also.’
Ruth had said very little since her husband’s death, the only indications of her grief being pallor and a redness at her eyes. Now she looked at Francis with thoughtful intentness.
‘You are very kind,’ she replied. ‘I believe I know what I must do.’
‘You see, Francis,’ Deborah said, ‘I told you so.’
It was seldom that Deborah spoke when in the company of those not part of her immediate family, so her intervention made James and Ruth look at her in surprise, but no greater surprise than that of Francis. Deborah was a short, broad woman, with not particularly, attractive features; at moments, when on horseback or out walking, she could be taken for a man. There were those who wondered whether her masculinity had appealed to Francis because of the contrast between them: his delicacy, her solidness; his almost feminine good looks, her plainness; his beautifully shaped fingers, her broad, flat-tipped ones. She wore few adornments and this evening looked even more sombre than usual in her unrelieved black dress. Only her eyes, pale grey, gave her any brightness.
‘What did you tell Francis?’ Ruth inquired mildly.
‘That you would know what you desired to do, and would be as stubborn as—’ Deborah broke off, perhaps because of the expression on Francis’ face.
‘As my husband,’ Ruth finished for her.
‘Deborah did not mean—’ began Francis.
‘Francis, perhaps Deborah would always speak more freely if you did not talk for her,’ Ruth interrupted, and James was astonished that she should speak in tones of rebuke. But Francis laughed, and his laughter brought a smile of relaxation from Ruth.
‘Indeed you may be right,’ Francis agreed pleasantly.
‘Well, he was as stubborn as a mule,’ declared Deborah.
‘As an ox would perhaps be better,’ countered Francis.
‘As a man who had great faith in what he was trying to do.’ Ruth put in equably. ‘Yes, he was stubborn, thank God! And he began changes in the thinking of men and women that will one day come to fruition. Francis, you have always been kind and affectionate towards John, and I would not reward you if I were to tell half-truths or pretend what I do not feel. I am grateful for your reassurance and it would not be surprising if one day I came to you for help. You know that John took all his inheritance and sold his shares in the House of Furnival so that he could spend freely on his chosen task. Yet he left me a goodly competence. Notwithstanding that, I cannot live here or for that matter anywhere else and do nothing. My life was full in every minute with John, and while I could serve him I was content. Now James is more than old enough to fend for himself, Beth is soon to be married, and Henrietta is an independent young woman who will decide her own future. I shall return to London and seek a post in one of the foundling hospitals for which I shall need no salary. I shall be dealing with those too young to have become incurably contaminated by the evils of the world.’ She paused a few moments, then asked, ‘Does that shock you?’
‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ declared Deborah.
‘I am not shocked but I am surprised,’ Francis replied. ‘I believed you loved this place.’
‘John came to love it.’
‘And you loved it only because of that? Ruth,’ Francis went on, getting up and drawing close to his sister-in-law, ‘you are a most unusual woman, but reasonable also. Will you ponder your decision at least long enough for us to sleep on it?’
‘You’ll never bribe her to change her mind,’ Deborah declared. ‘That’s a thing you’ve never learned, Francis - the good are the most stubborn people on earth. Did you ever hear of a martyr in a bad cause?’
Quite suddenly James began to laugh, and his mother followed; soon all of them were laughing.
James spent a few minutes in his mother’s room before going to his own, staying long enough to assure her that whatever decision she made he would support her. In fact, the only anxiety he felt was about Henrietta, but even that did not weigh enough to prevent the best night’s sleep he had had for some days. Yet the next morning he was up before the others, striding through the grounds - until suddenly he realised with a shock that he had forgotten Johnny.
But his mother could not have forgotten her youngest child. Had some arrangements been made for Johnny’s future? Or did she expect to be able to keep him bv her when she laboured? Utterly confused, James stood by the little stream watching the early-morning mist rising almost invisibly before he hurried back to the house. Soon, they were all at breakfast in a pleasant room overlooking the hillside. Dust was already rising as the first stagecoach of the day from London approached at what seemed even from there a wild speed. That was a sight which, a few years before, Johnny had loved to see. He would rush down towards the stagecoach, pointing a wooden gun and crying in his unmistakable voice, ‘Stand and deliver! Stand and deliver or I shoot!’
‘No, Jamey,’ his mother said, ‘I had not forgotten Johnny.’ There was a strange expression on her face.
‘Then what is to happen to him?’
‘His father and I did not attempt to deceive ourselves,’ Ruth Furnival replied. ‘We knew that our time together would be limited, and we discussed my need to serve. We agreed that Johnny should be cared for by one of his uncles or aunts. Because John had left the House of Furnival there is no reason to deprive Johnny of its benefits. That is one reason why he was sent so early to school. Had there been more time to talk, my son, you would have been told of this.’
‘It is not important whether I knew,’ James replied, and yet he had a sense of hurt. His mother could have written to him while he had been away; he had a right to know what was happening to members of his family, especially to Johnny of whom he was inordinately fond. It was on the tip of his tongue to make some comment when he reminded himself that his mother had suffered too great a loss to be harassed because of his stung pride. Lightly he substituted, ‘But it would be interesting to know what else my absence has kept from me.’
To his surprise his mother looked away, and he saw Francis draw his brows together as if at some distasteful prospect. Had his remark been so sharp as to earn their disapproval? Only Deborah, who was slicing a large steak on her platter, appeared oblivious of any undercurrents.
‘There is one other thing which has been kept from you,’ Ruth admitted slowly.
‘About Johnny.’
‘Yes, about Johnny.’
‘I should be very glad to hear it.’
‘You may be very sorry to hear it,’ replied his mother, ‘but you would have been told and indeed consulted had you not been away. As it was, I believe I was glad you were not here.’ She paused, and when James said nothing, she went on: ‘Your brother has always been self-willed and intractable. You well know that at one time only you were able to make him behave; you were the one person among us all whom he would heed. When you went away to your studies, this wilfulness became much more pronounced. He began to run wild, tormented his sisters, defied us, and spent much of his time with lads in the village, always the ringleader in escapades that were dangerous and caused much distress and trouble. Because of who he was and because countryfolk often have more tolerance of the waywardness of the young, he escaped severe punishment. When many a lad would have been taken before the justice, Sir Mortimer Tench, Johnny was brought home for correction. But on one occasion when he had, with some others, trapped a fox and let it loose in a farmyard with the gates closed so that there resulted a great slaughter of fowl, he was taken before the justice. Indeed, that is how Beth met her betrothed, who was given the task of bringing him back here. For a while after this Johnny was more subdued, but before long he was at his tricks again.’
‘You make him out a little monster!’ protested James, horrified.
‘He is a little monster,’ Deborah declared.
‘Aunt Deborah—’ James began hotly, only to be stopped when his mother stretched out a hand and touched his arm.
‘There were additional and even stronger reasons for sending Johnny to the Gordon School, where there are many others of his own age, activities which will absorb his high spirits, and a strict code of discipline. Had you been here I am sure you would have agreed that this was the best course.’
‘I must say I wish I had been told,’ James said. ‘I might have come back and brought influence to bear on him.’
‘At sacrifice of your own good and your own opportunities,’ his mother replied.
‘A man has a right and a duty to help a member of his family!’
‘A mother has a right and a duty to do what she believes best for her children,’ Francis interpolated. ‘This your mother did, James, both for Johnny and for you. She consulted Johnny’s father to the full. This matter was discussed at much length, and I for one have no doubt of the wisdom of the course that was taken. Johnny is a headstrong child who is maturing at remarkable pace.’
‘He is a little monster,’ declared Deborah once again.
‘I am sorry but I cannot sit here and listen to such words about my brother,’ James declared, rising to his feet. ‘I will ask you to excuse me.’
Deborah leaned back in her chair.
‘You won’t get anywhere if you don’t face facts, Jamey,’ she declared.
‘But if I am not satisfied that they are facts, ma’am?’
‘James, your Aunt Deborah and I must return to London later in the day and afterward I have no doubt that you will have much to discuss with your mother,’ Francis put in. ‘I urge you to endeavour to see this situation without heat. And I hope you will not leave us at this juncture for I would like to talk to your mother about her own plans and it would be helpful if you were present.’
Reluctant to create a more difficult situation, James drew his chair back to the table. A hundred questions burned through his mind, but all his training told him that Francis was right and he should take time in which to consider the news dispassionately. By now, moreover, he was able to accept the justice of the implication that he had been away in his own interests and could hardly expect family decisions to have been postponed until his return.
‘So you have slept on my plans,’ Ruth remarked, turning to Francis.
‘Yes, sister Ruth, I have slept on them. May I ask you some - a very few - questions?’
‘Indeed you may.’
‘Do you love St. Giles?’ asked Francis.
‘Greatly, yes.’
‘Is your reason for desiring to leave due to the pain of its association with John?’
‘In no way,’ Ruth Furnival replied without hesitation.
‘Have you a great love for London?’
‘Affection perhaps but no great love. Brother Francis, may I explain that to serve one must go where the need exists, and there is great need in London for work of charity among the newborn. Many are left to die, as many are born out of wedlock to young women who are then never likely to find any life outside a brothel. It is a known truth, sir, that mothers kill their babes because they cannot suckle or feed them, and the parish authorities do nothing to prevent this, not wishing to spend funds on keeping them alive in misery.’
‘Oh, I don’t dispute what you say for one moment,’ Francis declared. ‘In fact, I can tell you that in the year 1750 there were more than three thousand foundlings left in the streets and alleys. It is said that most of those who do find homes of any kind are taught to steal as soon as they can walk. The situation is a grievous and shameful one; and the foundling hospitals are already overcrowded. Nor are they properly staffed, and they are situated in parts of London where smallpox and cholera are most likely to originate.’
‘One must accept the situation which exists and try to help as best one can,’ Ruth rejoined.
‘I do not think that is the proper philosophy for the wife of John Furnival,’ said Francis, but the tenderness in his expression eased the words of any sting. ‘He would insist on changing the situation.’
‘While nevertheless overworking to alleviate conditions within that situation!’
James had never seen his mother more animated.
‘True enough,’ agreed Francis, placing some honey on a crust of bread. ‘I believe there is a way in which you can do both.’ He popped the morsel into his mouth, thus leaving time for Ruth or one of the others to comment, but no one did.
Something in Francis’ manner suggested that he was wholly confident that what he had to propose would appeal to his sister-in-law but it was difficult to imagine what it was, and clearly Ruth was as baffled as James. Deborah, who had finished her steak, was now eating bread and honey with intense application, as if nothing that had been said affected or interested her; perhaps it did not.
‘I shall be most happy to hear of such a solution,’ Ruth Furnival said at last.
‘Very well, I will submit it for your consideration! Instead of going to London to alleviate the sufferings of a trifling number of foundlings brought to places we know are already overcrowded, why do you not help to create a foundling home here at St. Giles? In this house. The conditions are well-nigh perfect, and additional buildings could be erected at little cost. You would find foster mothers and nurses eager - aye, anxious! - to work here, far away from London. You would be able to have a resident doctor and yet be so close to London that more experienced doctors and surgeons would always be available. You would have—’
‘Francis,’ interrupted Ruth very quietly and deliberately, ‘are you saying that the House of Furnival would finance such a home?’ She was pale, and a hand which rested on the table trembled slightly.
‘I believe that it would, yes. If there were some legal impediment or other objection, I would myself finance—’
‘We could invest the necessary money.’ Deborah cut across her husband’s words. ‘What Francis could not afford, I could.’ She stared belligerently at Ruth as if defying her to refuse.
James, astounded, looked from Deborah to Francis and back to his mother and saw what he had not seen in his life before: tears spilling from her eyes.
Beth and Henrietta were back and stood at the gates with James and their mother as Francis and Deborah drove off with their own pair, brisk in a sultry morning’s air in which rain threatened; rain had been falling on and off for several days and there were reports of huge thunderstorms in the West Country and in the Midlands. A streak of lightning showed vivid in the sky to the north but the thunder which followed was distant and overhead the sky was blue. Beth was full of excitement at plans for the wedding, now only two months away, and James left his sisters together while he went up to his room and stood looking at the wooded hillside where a hawk hovered and swooped downward.
The pleasure and excitement he shared with his mother about the future of this house was subdued by the burden of other problems.
When he had come here he had been concerned with only himself. Now there was the problem of Johnny. Surely the boy could not have changed as much as had been suggested. And even if he had, should he, James, acquiesce in the others’ plans for him? He was worried, too, about Henrietta’s future - it was almost as if his mother was planning a life in which her children had no part. At any other time he would have talked to her frankly, but the sight of her tears at the breakfast table had told him clearly what Aunt Deborah had confirmed when they had been left alone for a few moments.
‘Your mother has been living in a state of high tension which is bound to cause a collapse or an outburst of some kind. Be kind to her, Jamey.’
Yet outwardly, once the paroxysm had ended, Ruth had been almost her old self again and obviously pleased at the prospect of making a home for foundlings in the house she had learned to love.
There was a great deal James did not understand but he had no doubt of the basic goodness of Francis and the kindliness of Deborah.
He was contemplating this when he heard footsteps outside his door, and then heard Henrietta say, ‘You are so excited I declare I do not know how you can wait two months!’
‘Everything is so wonderful,’ Beth said. And then in a voice pitched in a lower key, ‘If only Johnny does not spoil it.’
James stood motionless for a moment as if struck with an axe, and then strode towards the door, but as he opened it that of another room closed and both girls were lost to sight. He fought the temptation to go to them and turned to a spiral staircase which led down to the back of the house and to a door into the walled garden. He strode through this, then set off at a furious pace across the fields. How could Johnny spoil Beth’s marriage?
He was fulminating over this and at the same time warning himself that he must be dispassionate, must review the situation as an intellectual, not an emotional, problem, when he saw a horseman leave the highway and turn in the direction of the house. He was a man in his middle thirties, James hazarded, wearing no hat, and with fair hair blown wild in the wind; judging from the lathered sides of his horse he had ridden a long way.
James hurried back to the house to meet the stranger, but when he arrived he found the man already waiting by an open front door and a maid’s voice sounding clearly:
‘I will tell Lady Furnival that you are here.’
Ruth arrived at the door as James approached from the side. The stranger bowed to her and spoke almost at once.
‘Lady Furnival, I am grieved to bring you harassing news. I am a master at the Gordon School and have my credentials in my pouch. My task is to inform you and the parents of four other students that your son and theirs ran away from school two days before the river pageant and have not been traced beyond London. It is my hope that your son has come here.’
Ruth closed her eyes and seemed glad of James’s steadying arm as he stepped to her side; the rider drew the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead and waited for her answer.
‘This is most disturbing news,’ she said at last. ‘No, he is not here, sir. But you will have ridden a long way and need rest and food. Will you not come in and recover from the journey? And if you will, tell us what makes you think my son went to London.’
‘The evidence was conclusive,’ James said to Francis when he reached Furnival Tower House late that afternoon. ‘Johnny was leader of the truants and they made it clear to their fellows that they were going to visit the river pageant. The messenger talked with an innkeeper at the Kent Road Turnpike and identified the five chiefly by describing Johnny. It’s a thousand pities the boy looks so much older than he is - although the innkeeper swears he would not serve them with beer, simply gave them bread and cheese and sent them on their way. This was in the early afternoon of the day of the pageant.’
‘How can we search for him in London?’ Francis asked in a harsh voice. ‘Who can possibly find them if they do not want to be found?’
‘If I may suggest it, uncle,’ said James, ‘Mr. Henry Fielding’s men are the best trained in London and have no doubt he would immediately organise a search for Johnny. He would, however, require funds to use as bribes and persuasion to loosen the tongues of watchmen, turnpikemen and their like.’
‘He may name his own sum,’ said Francis briskly, ‘and not a moment should be lost.’
‘It is an opportunity to prove our worth such as we have seldom had,’ Henry Fielding declared as soon as he heard the request. ‘I will ask my brother John to take from you a description of your brother and have him send this description, printed in a pamphlet, to all parish constables, watchmen, trading justices, alehouses - yes, and bawdy-houses, too. I shall be disappointed and surprised if the boy is not found, with his friends, in forty-eight hours.’
Only an hour later, the blind brother of the magistrate raised his head and declared, ‘This description might well be of a younger John Furnival - the father, not the son.’
‘There could be no better way of describing him,’ James declared.
‘Then we shall have no difficulty at all in finding him and I do not think there need be the expense or publicity of a printed notice. We can spread this by word of mouth. With the proper use of fifty pounds, by tonight a hundred men and by tomorrow night a thousand will be on the lookout for the boys. Will you see that the House of Furnival is made aware of this?’
‘I will tell Mr. Francis myself,’ promised James.
He told Timothy that night, and Francis the following morning at Furnival Tower House, where there was great commotion because of a report of the loss of one of the Furnival Line ships in a hurricane in the Bay of Biscay.
But while he waited for a word with Francis before leaving to take part in the search, a messenger came posthaste from Bow Street with a missive for him, written in Winfrith’s small, easy-to-read hand. James tore it open and read:
All five boys have been found unharmed except for the fact that they are drunk on gin. Your brother appears likely to become conscious sooner than the others.
Yours obediently,
David Winfrith
The five had been discovered in a cellar next to an alehouse, and it was believed they had paid for the gin, so no known crime lay at their door. Word was dispatched to St. Giles and to Gordon School, where all five would be returned under escort from the House of Furnival. The discernment of the doctor who had examined them proved excellent: Johnny came to full consciousness some hours before any of the others, and James went to see him in a room at one of the cottages in Bell Lane. The boy still wore the knee breeches, green stockings and plaid shirt of Gordon School, but he had lost his shoes. He had bathed before James’s arrival, and his face had an innocent expression which momentarily deceived James.
‘Jamey!’ the lad exclaimed. ‘What a sight to see! I imagined at best a Furnival underling or even a lout from Gordon School. How are you, Jamey?’
‘Why did you run away?’ demanded James, not to be distracted.
‘To see the sights of London’s river! I asked permission to come and was rudely refused so I took what I believe is called French leave. Were you at the pageant? Wasn’t it a truly glorious spectacle?’
James hardened himself against his brother’s glowing eyes.
‘Yes, Johnny. Why did you defy your masters?’
‘To obey them all the time would make life unbearably dull. I am too old for school. I wish—’
‘You are not yet eleven years old,’ James interrupted.
‘Compared with some of the young gentlemen’ - Johnny sneered the last two words - ‘I am a full-grown man. And I am too old and too intelligent to have to take orders from masters who are my mental inferiors, get up at four-thirty each morning, go to chapel for a service of worship I do not believe in, have three hours of lessons which are not worth learning before breakfast—’
‘I am well aware of school routine; it is similar at most,’ James interrupted. ‘If you consider yourself superior, why not prove it by industry and example?’
‘Jamey, you sound like a scolding woman! I’ve known some sent to the stocks for less!’ Laughter seemed to bubble in the lad’s eyes, bloodshot though they were. ‘I have had my glimpse of freedom and will now go back to jail and take my punishment. Leave me happy memories of you.’
‘Johnny, you can’t reject all discipline—’
‘I’ll not talk about it,’ the younger brother interrupted, suddenly cold-faced and sharp-voiced. ‘What I do I do, and that is all there is to it.’
‘Johnny,’ James said, ‘your father died on the evening of the pageant.’
‘I am aware of it. I read both the notice and the obituary in The Daily Post. What does it matter? He was dead while he was still alive. Am I to grieve for a corpse?’
Slowly, out of sudden pain, James said, ‘You could grieve for your mother, and for yourself.’
‘When the day comes, I may grieve for myself,’ Johnny retorted. His expression softened as he stretched out a hand and touched his brother’s. ‘There is only one other person in. the world for whom I could grieve, Jamey, and that is you. My mother gave me nothing; her love and care were all for that wreck of a man. If there is one good thing to be said of my father, he lived his own life and damned the rest of the world. In such a way I shall live. Can you not live that way also?’
‘You make one mistake,’ replied James, speaking very quietly. ‘He lived his own life but he damned no one except lawbreakers and the wicked.’
Across the other’s face passed an expression which was difficult to understand unless it was one of cunning or deception. The moment it was gone Johnny gripped both of James’s hands in his, held them tightly and declared, ‘I will think on what you say, Jamey, have no fear.’
James sensed two things in that moment. First, despite the warmth of assurance, the boy’s words had a hollow ring of insincerity, more hurtful than anything else which had transpired. Second, although Johnny was so many years the younger, he seemed, in that moment, to be the elder and the more dominant of the two.
Before either brother could speak again there was a flurry of movement outside the cottage and the sound of approaching footsteps, and in the next moment Francis limped in, accompanied by one of the senior members of the guard of the House of Furnival.
On the instant, Johnny’s expression changed yet again and became soft and cherubic, his eyes touched with humility, as he said, ‘Uncle Francis, how can I tell you how sorry I am to have caused so much commotion? I do declare it was simply born out of my eagerness to see the river pageant, a tribute to the House of Furnival which my masters denied me. But I know now that I should not have behaved so, and that immediately afterward I should have come to ask your forgiveness.’
No one could have sounded more contrite, and it was hard to believe that this was the arrogant boy who had spoken with such truculence only minutes ago.
‘The important thing is that you seek and obtain the forgiveness of Mr. Gordon,’ Francis said, ‘and that you realise how much distress such escapades cause your mother. We are ready to start the coach for the journey back to Rochester. Your unfortunate companions are already in it.’ There was no sternness in his tone, and it was obvious that Johnny had fooled him with his show of contrition.
James, however, felt with acute distress that he was now seeing his half brother as he really was.
After the coach in which Johnny departed turned the corner, Francis swung round and said to James, ‘I don’t know what magic you used, Jamey, but you made a remarkable impression on your brother! Your mother has told me that when he was younger you were the only one of the family to whom he would listen and for whom he showed any affection.’ Francis placed a hand lightly on James’s shoulder, and, looking at his uncle, James was suddenly acutely aware of the hidden strength in this man who had mastered so completely the handicaps of his infirmity. ‘But then,’ went on Francis, ‘they would be strange human beings who would not have affection for you.’
James flushed scarlet as he stammered, ‘Y-you are too generous, sir!’
‘Not many, if any, would agree.’ Francis gripped James’s shoulder for an instant, then released his hold and began to limp towards his carriage. ‘I must go back; seldom has so much happened in one day. The name of Johnny has not been blessed at Furnival Tower House! But before we part I have a message for your mother which I hope you will give by word of mouth. It is the firm opinion of my brother and sisters that the foundation of Saint Giles should be a matter for us all as individuals, and we pledge the sum of five thousand pounds each, a total of twenty thousand pounds, together with such an annual sum as may be necessary. We shall consider it a memorial to our brother. Now, James! I must be on my way.’
Dazed by news of such munificence, James watched as Francis was handed into the coach and was driven off. He glanced at the turnip-shaped silver watch in his fob pocket: it wanted fifteen minutes of five. He must ride back to St. Giles at speed, but before he fetched his horse he must have a word with Winfrith and perhaps one or both of the magistrates. Turning, he found Winfrith and Benedict Sly coming towards him.
‘I cannot thank you or the justices enough—’ began James.
‘Do not try,’ interrupted Winfrith. ‘Your uncle has already done so magnificently. He rewarded the boys’ actual finder with twenty-five pounds, all our officers with ten pounds each, and deposited a further fifty pounds in the poor-law box.’
‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ remarked Benedict. ‘And I swear that a kinder family I have never met.’ He threw back his head, laughed, and then went on in a challenging voice, ‘Jamey, are you prepared to spare me an hour of your time?’
‘An hour? You know well that I plan to start back immediately for St. Giles!’
‘If you can delay for this hour I believe you will find it worthwhile,’ Winfrith assured him earnestly.
‘There is ample time for you to come with me and still reach Saint Giles this evening,’ Benedict urged earnestly.
‘Do we need horses?’ James asked.
‘It will be quicker to walk,’ Benedict replied, and James fell into step beside him.
Soon they had plunged into a rabbit warren of lanes and yards lined with dilapidated buildings where there was an unrelenting stink, the worse to James because he had become unfamiliar with the noxiousness of open sewers. Then, suddenly they were in open fields, close by Lincoln’s Inn. Here and there small houses had been built, new and clean-looking, even though the all-pervasive odour was still discernible.
One such building proved to be a small church, with a house adjacent.
James had never seen so small a church, but its size was explained when he saw the noticeboard outside, reading:
UNITARIAN CHURCH
The Fields
Minister: The Reverend Thomas Rattray
A sign in the small garden of the house said simply Manse and James was more and more puzzled at being brought here, until a youth of fourteen or fifteen appeared from the side of the vicarage, and James knew on the instant what Benedict wanted him to see.
This youth was remarkably like Johnny: so alike that they might be brothers.