Christmas comes and goes, with little to mark the day, our household being quiet and sombre. January is almost over when Mr Cheatley invites himself to dinner. Mr Tuffnell cannot make an enemy of his business partner while the Prudence remains at sea, though I am sure he would rather not play host to one who reneged on the terms of their agreement. I make sure to carry in the refreshments and linger as long as possible, removing one or two dead blossoms from the vase on the sideboard, tutting quietly as if the room is not as neat as it ought to be. After all, Mr Tuffnell did say he likes to see me work.
‘So, you are going to London next week, Mr Cheatley?’ my master says.
Mr Cheatley smiles thinly. ‘The Worshipful Company of Ironmongers hosts a banquet in their great hall on Fenchurch-street, and my great friend Master Ralph Fowler invites me to attend. He is a considerable person in the Navy-Office, by the way, as well as owning a substantial manufactory in Bishop’s-gate.’
‘Indeed. Then I wonder if I might ask a favour?’ My master sounds hesitant, and I think to myself that indeed he ought to feel able to ask for help from Mr Cheatley since that gentleman will owe him handsomely when the Prudence returns to Bristol, supposing it does. ‘I am loath to mention it,’ Mr Tuffnell continues, ‘but I seek intelligence about my coachman. He was mixed up in the unfortunate business.’ Mr Tuffnell stops to clear his throat, and Mr Cheatley gives a dry ‘hmph’ as if no explanation is required. ‘Mr Roach is his name, Mr Cheatley. At least I think it is.’ Mr Tuffnell runs out of words, having as much as admitted he does not know who he entrusted with his employ, and after an awkward silence Mr Cheatley turns the conversation to the fascinating subject of his iron manufactory and its importance to the trade in general. I gather the empty coffee cups and retreat to the kitchen, glad I do not have to stay and listen.
***
Friday, March 14th, 1704
Some weeks later, however, and two days before the assizes, Mr Cheatley rides back to Mr Tuffnell’s villa, and this time I have no need to feign dissatisfaction with the flower arrangements in the parlour. The gentlemen are dining, Mrs Hucker has been asked to provide three good courses, and Nell Grey being confined to bed with a toothache, I am to serve and able to hear the conversation from start to finish.
Mr Tuffnell endures a blow-by-blow account of Mr Cheatley’s worshipful dinner, and another of a dull-sounding evening he passed somewhere called St James, which is not a church as I first thought but some grand square where rich folk go to stroll. I wonder what the lords and ladies of Westminster made of drab Mr Cheatley with his never-ending sneezes and his rusty-smelling woollen suit.
Finally, the gentlemen settled at the fireside, Mr Tuffnell plucks up courage to mention Mr Roach, whereupon Mr Cheatley purses his mouth fastidiously. ‘I did make some enquiries, Sir, explaining I did so on your behalf. A man from Bristol applied to the skipper of the Henry last month, giving his name as Peter Smith and his occupation as coachman. It is possible this was an alias for your Mr Roach. Am I to understand Roach stole from you before he vanished?’
Mr Tuffnell catches my eye. I give the smallest nod. He bites his lip. ‘He may have done. That is, I very much suspect it.’
‘Well, you had better assume the loss is permanent. The Henry is halfway to St Kitts by now.’ Mr Cheatley sighs comfortably, and takes a pinch of snuff. ‘We Bristolians must look to our laurels if London is not to overtake our port. These men know where better wages can be had. Two other Bristol men joined the Henry. Their names—’ He sneezes, hunts for his handkerchief, and I cannot resist. ‘Were William Eardley and John Hench, were they not, Sir?’
Mr Cheatley recoils and Mr Tuffnell feigns a frown at my impertinence. I know he does not really resent anyone who stands up to Mr Cheatley, me least of all. I go on.
‘Pardon me, Sirs. I’ve heard of all those fellows, and not to their credit, and it don’t surprise me they ran away and sought to leave their ill deeds behind them. Mr Roach is a bully and a thief, William Eardley a wife-deserter, and John Hench is as savage a rogue as you could have the ill luck to run across. I believe he committed many of the murders credited to Red John, though I cannot prove it. Pity the ship that takes those three aboard.’
From Mr Cheatley’s face I wonder if he has a business interest in the Henry. He glares at me. ‘Many sailors are rough-and-ready. There is no reason to suppose these three better or worse than any other.’
‘They might be worse, Sir, trust me, they won’t be better. Will they, Mr Tuffnell?’
Mr Tuffnell winces. ‘My servant may be right, Mr Cheatley. Roach was mixed up in the attack on Aaron Espinosa. I had hoped to see him brought to justice.’
A newspaper is resting in the grate, ready to serve as kindling when tomorrow’s fire is set. Mr Cheatley nudges it idly with his foot. ‘Then your hopes could not be more dashed if the Henry were reported in next Tuesday’s Post Boy as driven ashore by storms and all the crew drowned. It left Deptford on Monday last. It will not return before the end of next year, Mr Tuffnell. Be comforted. What are the chances any of the common seamen will be seen again in England? Scant, I should say. What shall it be, do you suppose? Pirates? Flux? Let us hope they fall overboard, and make a dinner for the sharks. Now then, where is this game of cards you promised?’ Mr Tuffnell immediately busies himself setting up the table and sends me to fetch some brandy.
It is left to me to shed a silent tear for Jonty and Mrs Tuffnell and above all Abraham and the other little boys, all of whom died for less than these gentlemen spend on a single night of cards.
***
Clifton
Monday, March 17th, 1704
Mr Espinosa has been to Bristol Newgate and spoken to the chaplain, the Ordinary as they call him, and Jonathan Berwick avers he will plead Guilty, hoping, I daresay, to have his sentence softened to transportation, in which hope he shall be disappointed. The case is open and shut, and besides Mr Espinosa says that both Justices at the Quarter Sessions are associates of Mr Tuffnell, one being Mayor of Bristol, the other an alderman, and sure to be severe on any who wrong their business friend. I remember Jonathan Berwick as merry and impudent but he has grown thin and does not smile, and begs the Ordinary to pray with and for him whenever that gentleman visits the prison pit.
As for Suke Cross, the midwives who examined her found no sign of a child, so she cannot plead her belly, and if she did it would go hard with her, to deliver the babe and be hanged after, and know the child would be sent to the parish and given to a nurse who might overlay it or starve it or let it tumble in the fire. Suke Cross’s mother is on the parish too from what I know, there being no more stolen meats from Mr Tuffnell’s kitchen to find their way to Gammer Cross’s pot.
The day of the trial Nell Grey and I strip the beds and boil and rinse the sheets, spreading them in the garden to dry as best they can in the chilly winter sun. We turn and beat the feather beds and shake the blankets, toiling as hard if it were the start of spring. The chambers are cold and empty, and we make up the beds with clean linen, and hang lavender from the ceilings, and Suke Cross’s bed bears the impress of her bones no more, nor smells of the crusts of cheese she used to hide before she bundled them off to her mother.
Nell Grey finds a rabbit’s foot charm beneath the pillow. ‘Her neck, Corrie.’ Her mild eyes shine with tears. ‘I wonder why she never wore it, the day they came for her.’
‘Throw it in the kitchen fireplace, Nell Grey. It was just like her to tie such a nasty thing about her throat.’ I shudder to see the grey bit of string that showed whenever Suke Cross’s neckerchief slipped down.
We peep into the hall when Mr Tuffnell comes home, and he looks older, and seems not to want the usual care taken of him when we run out to fold his cloak and tell him there is roast beef for supper and a good fire in the parlour.
‘You’re tired, Sir,’ I say, as he pulls off his riding-boots. ‘It threatens snow, don’t it? The sky so white and dreary this afternoon.’
He does not answer, and after Nell Grey has brought his dinner out again, his slice of beef barely touched, I go in and find my master sitting at his fireside, eyes shut, as if the day in court has wrung the life from him.
‘Here’s a fresh candle, Sir.’
He does not look up.
‘Mr Tuffnell, may I ask if you got the verdicts you was looking for?’
‘Yes, Amesbury, I did.’
I wish he did not sound solemn when he should be glad.
‘Not that there was any doubt of it,’ I say.
‘Yet the scullery maid protested her innocence as they took her down.’ He grimaces. ‘To think my house harboured that creature. I thought her harmless. Indeed, I took her for a simpleton.’
‘Susan Cross is a great deal cleverer than she looks, Sir.’ I kneel to pick up the fire-irons Mr Tuffnell has left lying in the hearth. ‘Among us servants she harped on Red John this and Red John that, and all the while she knew her favourite was mixed up in something wrong.’
Mr Tuffnell shakes his head. ‘Thank Heaven not all my servants wish me ill. Hucker is a good soul and Grey is faithful. And you of course, Amesbury, you are a loyal servant in every way. You must go, the three of you.’ He sees my surprise and hastens to make his meaning clear. ‘To the place of execution, St Michael’s Hill. You shall have Friday as a holiday.’
In the kitchen we had taken this for granted, but I curtsey. ‘Will you be there to see the executions yourself, Sir?’
Mr Tuffnell drops his gaze to the glowing embers. ‘I have little heart for such grisly proceedings since the loss of my dear wife.’
I keep my distance lest his tenderness seeks an outlet and he tries to coax me to perch upon his lap. ‘None of us wishes to look on Death, Sir. Excepting Jonathan Berwick and our friend Scrub, of course. They had no qualms.’
‘God! What monsters they were. Pour me a glass of sherry, would you, Amesbury? However close to the fire I sit tonight, I cannot get warm.’
***
Friday, March 28th 1704
In the coming days it is as if we wait for the plague to strike our household, or the constable to return for one of us. A cold, hard stone is lodged in me when I wake on Friday morning. I see the prisoners pinched and shivering, hear the gaoler saying it is time.
At Mr Tuffnell’s villa no one speaks as we pretend to eat our porridge. Nell Grey’s eyes slide to the window that overlooks the yard, and I know she watches the sun creep up and wishes noon might never come. I did not know how bleak a kitchen could be when the fire is out. The water in the scullery pails has turned to ice.
‘Wrap up warm, girls,’ says Mrs Hucker, as she comes in from the outhouse. She drops onto a stool and rolls a pair of white stockings over her grey workaday ones. ‘We’ll take bread with us in case we’re late home. Fetch a loaf from the pantry, Corrie Amesbury.’
I shrink from seeing the place where Suke Cross cowered from Mr Tuffnell, and wish Mrs Hucker would send Nell Grey to find the bread. But she does not notice. She wraps our bit of dinner in a rag, and puts it in a basket with three hard-boiled eggs.
‘Here, let me,’ says Cook, tying our cloak-strings to save us taking off our mittens. Nell Grey’s hat is the one she wears for church, and mine is trimmed with jay’s feathers and a scarlet ribbon. Anyone would take us for mother and daughters, except that none would choose a January morning for a pleasure outing.
Yet we step into the lane to find that every man, woman and child in Clifton makes for St Michael’s Hill, a few on horseback, most on foot. On the Downs we fall into place behind a family of seven who walk steadily, quietly, as if a spell draws them to Bewell’s-Cross—Gallow’s-Cross, as many call it. The father and his eldest son wear snowdrops in their buttonholes, the wife a fine lace veil. The little girls and boys plod in silence, and their elders only speak when needed: an offer to hold hands across a patch of ice, a word of greeting to a neighbour.
Few chimneys smoke in the still air; even the hens huddle beneath the hedges. Reaching the end of the half-frozen muddy footpath we take the road to Bristol, and before long the tapering church tower of St Michael’s comes into sight. A hundred or more villagers stand round the cross. Most avert their eyes as we approach, perhaps considering us friends of the accused. The well-to-do sit on a platform close to the gallow-tree, while tethered to a post beyond the church their horses stamp and snort.
Mrs Hucker leads us to a patch of rising ground somewhat closer to the gallows than I would like. Several people are there already, and I catch a hint of sweat and wood-smoke from the man next to me. Some seated on the platform wear black ribbons or black silk flowers in their caps. Tokens of respect for the dead boys, I trust, not for their murderers.
We shuffle to warm our feet. The ground is iron-hard, and the cold air catches in our throats and makes us cough. Now and then a gust of wind brings with it flakes of snow.
Some close their eyes in prayer, while those of the better sort glance at their pocket watches or stand on tiptoe to peer down the hill. The prison cart is due at any moment.
At last the sun is at its height, a silver smudge in a grey dull sky, and across the city the church bells toll for noon.
Moments later a disorderly noise rises from the city. A faint tremble, a far-off murmur, rising by degrees to a steady hum, and finally a roar. I picture the crammed streets as the death-cart leaves the prison, officers holding back the onlookers to let the driver clear the gates, the mob surging forward to surround the vehicle, lifting their fists and jeering. The noise grows louder until those either side of us stir and mutter and begin to growl. Finally, the cart heaves into sight, the horses straining at the steepness of the hill, a swarm of people following behind, some outstripping the procession in their eagerness.
The prisoners, dressed in Holland shifts and tightly bound, stand at the tail of the cart, facing their audience. They are jolted by the roughness of the road, and now and then the chaplain is forced to put out a hand to steady them.
Their faces are so drawn and pale, their eyes so raw, that at first I hardly know them. Jonathan Berwick’s head is shaved, his feet scarred and grained with dirt, and when he grimaces I see his top front teeth are missing. Stripped of her heavy woollen gown and knitted shawl Suke Cross is no bigger than a child. The officers have cropped her hair above the nape, and she perishes in the cruel wind; her hands are blue.
As the cart, having gained the summit, draws up at the gallows the villagers of Clifton forget the solemn mood that reigned over us this last hour. They begin to mumble, then to call out and finally to shout. The crowds merge and within moments we might be at a fair; the place erupts with yells and cries. A group of chimney sweeps bear their brushes aloft like halberds. Children bounce on their fathers’ shoulders, waving their fists and cheering. A schoolmaster has brought his class of scholars to the event, and each brandishes a fluttering paper flag. Weaving through the throng, a hawker hands out broadsides so rapidly I wonder he has time to check the coins his customers press upon him.
One group of young apprentice butchers comes from Bristol carrying the effigy of a black boy. The body is fashioned from a sack stuffed with straw or something like it, and the shirt-front stained with quantities of beetroot juice. I shudder when two of the apprentices hold up the figure to taunt the prisoners. A leather ball has been painted to resemble the crudest notion of a negro’s face, jet black, with frizzy tufts of wool, wide eyes and pouting scarlet lips.
The gaoler will have given both prisoners a quart of ale before their journey, but I see no evidence their senses are dulled. When one of the apprentice butchers hops onto a wall with the effigy and proceeds to mime a bestial act upon it, Jonathan turns a sickly grey.
Someone calls out ‘Berwick! Shake hands with the Devil when you reach the other side.’ The crowd laughs good-naturedly, and an object, a sharp stone or a shard of glass, strikes Jonathan above the eye, inflicting a wound from which blood begins to trickle.
Feigning deafness to the slow hand-claps of the onlookers, the constables undo and remove the prisoners’ halters. Next, they unscrew their ankle-chains, and in a strange display of tenderness, one officer wipes the blood from Jonathan’s temple with his own pocket handkerchief, and the other stoops and examines Suke Cross’s foot, seeming to ask her if she is hurt.
Satisfied their captives are fit to face what is to come, the constables retire and the chaplain steps forward. He looks at Jonathan questioningly, and when Jonathan nods, he gestures for the crowd to let the condemned man speak.
Slowly, reluctantly, the uproar fades. Jonathan’s voice quavers as he begins.
‘To all here today, I beseech you pray for my soul and to the Almighty to pardon my offence. I am guilty of the crime for which I am to hang, and repent my sins, especially this most gravest one of which I am accused. May I beg forgiveness from my dear mother and father, for bringing shame on our family and on all those I love. I never set out to do what I did, I scarcely know how I did it except I know I did do it, how it happened is a mystery to me almost as much as to any.’
As he rambles the crowd begins to shout and drown him out, and he stops, defeated; the chaplain pats his arm and leads him back to where he stood before.
Suke Cross does not learn from this example. She shakes off the constable who holds her arm, and steps forward, lifting her chin to face the crowd.
‘Lord, don’t argue with your sentence,’ Mrs Hucker murmurs. ‘They will have you dance an hour.’
Suke’s blood is up too much for caution. And perhaps the people hope to see her endure the cruellest fate in the hangman’s power to give her, or perhaps they want to hear the confession of a female child-killer, but whatever the reason they are silent as she utters:
‘May God forgive me and have mercy on my soul.’ It is a promising enough beginning. Then she adds in a rush: ‘But all we the rest, though baptized and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things, and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’
A pause as her effrontery sinks in, and order gives way to riot, the crowd howling and pelting the cart and its occupants with whatever they can find. The constable drags Suke Cross back while her audience stamps with fury and several women spit at her.
My eye is caught by a small, round-shouldered woman moving through the masses towards the gallows. She must be fifty-odd years old, and as she reaches the cart she makes herself heard to an officer, who nods and indicates for her to use the mounting block to climb aboard. Once there she falls on Suke Cross, tears rolling down her face, clasping her daughter’s bony hands, then running her fingers over the shorn head and shaking her own in seeming disbelief.
She clings to her daughter until at last the constable parts them and helps Gammer Cross from the cart. Suke still cranes for glimpses of her mother when another officer takes out a linen hood from a crate and pulls it over her head, while a second does the same to Jonathan Berwick.
Muffled weeping can be heard from the prisoners as the chaplain prays. ‘Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed, against thy divine majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent.’ Considering these general words too scant, he improvises a prayer of his own devising: ‘For the souls of this wicked man and woman, whose crimes are the most detestable that may be imagined, and for the innocent children deprived by them of life, and for all Christians who see by their example that the wages of sin are death.’
Then, nodding genially to some of the children in the crowd, he offers a homely prayer: ‘For this great city and its brave sea-faring men, for our friends in the West Indies and the East Indies and Guinea and around the world,’ and God forgive my impatience but I wish he would give over his canting and let the hangman do his business. Jonathan’s hood bears a spreading stain where the half-brick gashed his forehead, and Suke Cross sways on her feet.
At last the chaplain claps shut his book.
‘Mother! Father!’ Jonathan calls, his voice faint; but no one answers.
The hangman clambers up, a little brown-skinned man with a peppering of moles; I had not noticed him perched on the cart-box next to the driver.
‘Ah! Make them wait!’ someone jests, and others laugh and cry ‘Aye!’ but with no sign he hears these rude suggestions the hangman reaches for a noose, loops it over Suke Cross’s head, and tightens the knot.
The same for the other. Over the head slides the rope, and carefully the hangman checks the knot. A pause, a satisfied nod at his handiwork, then, turning, he slowly scans the crowd until his eye alights on the effigy of the black boy. Delighted, the apprentices thrust the manikin above their heads again, handling it so roughly that it sprays the crowd with sawdust.
A whisper turns into a chant, and soon the place echoes to gleeful cries of ‘Beast! Beast!’
The chaplain is obliged to stand before the crowd for many minutes, patiently half-smiling now and then, before the noise abates, but at last, save for a stray catcall, the crowd is quiet. From the hood over Suke Cross’s face comes a stifled cry; her knees sag, but the nearest constable has her elbows gripped.
Suddenly, without a sign, he lets her go. The driver lifts his whip and strikes the horse. The cart is off, dragging the prisoners a yard or two before they drop. All is creaking, juddering timber as the gallows take the strain.
A lurch, weak spasms, and Suke Cross’s body spins like a sack of flour. Jonathan Berwick is very much alive. He writhes and gurgles. A man steps up to shorten his suffering, but the hangman puts out a hand to bar his way. The body struggles, lets out a set of rasping cries, seems to smother, then twists and shudders and emits a sound like boiling glue.
Not a soul in the crowd speaks. The feet flex, curl inward, flutter and quiver until at last they dangle lifeless. No more sounds come from the hood. A dead weight turning in the wind; a bundle of logs in a loose white sack.
The chaplain clambers up once more. Opening his book, he resumes droning. ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’
On the ground a constable mops his face.
‘Don’t cry, Corrie,’ breathes Nell Grey.
‘I won’t,’ I say, indignant. I was there when Suke Cross prated about the ‘evil pedlar’. I saw the look of horror Jonathan put on to mask his guilt. I swabbed the floor of blood when Abraham was killed, and I wept for my little fellow George, as good as these two wicked souls are damned.
Mrs Hucker turns to us, eyes bright with righteousness. ‘So help me God, I wish the crowd had torn them both in pieces.’
Only then do I turn so no one sees my tears.