Newgate Prison
‘You are to be moved,’ Hope said, when she next came to visit.
‘You look better,’ I told her.
‘You, my ninny-not, look ill.’
‘I am troublingly tired.’
Hope busied herself round the ridiculously small cell as if it were full of furniture, and clothes that needed packing, when there was was just a bed, a table and a pile of ribbon-tied paper.
‘Moved where?’ I asked.
‘To the prison governor’s house. There, you will be better looked after.’
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. To my surprise, Hope joined in.
‘Is this the Duke of H’s doing?’ I asked, for I could think of few others who would have the power and money to buy me out of this cell.
‘No,’ she said. ‘And it’s not Queenie’s either.’
‘Then who? Is it Avery? Tell me, please. Have you heard anything of him?’
‘No, not a word,’ she said, adding quickly, ‘It was Sir Henry Slater. It is surprising how much influence he has in unexpected quarters. And you will be glad to know that Mercy is improving. That at least is one grain of good news.’
‘Yes. But still nothing from Avery?’
‘Leave it, Tully. Pining for him will do you no good.’
She asked if she could take the manuscript. I had finished writing the first act of my story over a week ago. Now, I cannot write. Not by choice but because I have used all the paper and ink. I worry that I have hidden the truth of myself in the shade of naivety – not that it would matter as long as I was able to write more.
‘I have something else to tell you – a solicitor will be coming to see you tomorrow, a Mr Attaway.’
‘He was Lord B’s solicitor. Why does he want to see me?’
‘He will take over your case and make sure you have a good defence lawyer.’
‘There’s nothing to defend,’ I said. ‘I told the coroner that I shot Spiggot. I have no doubt that I will be found guilty.’
‘Tully,’ said Hope, ‘only you can save yourself. I strongly advise you to choose to fight – to live.’
‘Sadly, Justice, that dear, blind lady, might not give me the option,’ I said.
Only when she had left did I realise she’d taken the manuscript. An Almond for a Parrot.
The walls in my cell chatter. It is filled with more voices than there are bricks – previous occupants muttering crumpled prayers to a God they’ve only just remembered.
That evening the jailer came, not with my dinner but to tell me I was to be moved on account of my pleading the belly.
‘There are all sorts of stories about you,’ he said, rubbing his hands on the sides of his trousers. ‘They say you have a pearl hand that knows well how to rub a man’s cock.’
I knew where this was taking him – I could see by the bulge in his trousers. He closed the cell door and undid himself. His hard weapon sprang, loaded, ready to shoot. I doubted that it had given any woman much pleasure.
‘Now, I was thinking,’ he said, ‘because I’m a thinking kind of man…’
‘And with what do you think – your head or your lobcock?’ I asked.
‘You do me a little favour and show me this pearl hand of yours, and, in return, I will bring you some nice, pretty things – things you’d like.’
I felt a wave of nausea as he grabbed hold of my hand – the wrong hand – and put it over his weapon.
The image of Mr Truegood came to me and suddenly the jailer leapt back to the cell door.
‘Who’s that?’ he shouted.
Mr Truegood had, for once, made a welcome appearance. True to his nature, true to his character, he had arrived with all his gore. He was never one to wear the scars of martyrdom lightly. He stood in the corner of the cell weeping. Not for me, for himself and for the injustice of all the ill fortune of his life.
The sight of the ghost withered the jailer at both ends.
‘You’re a bloody witch,’ he said, his face white. ‘A witch, that’s what you are.’
He slammed the cell door behind him and turned the key. Two constables moved me to the prison governor’s house.
The governor looked shocked to see the state of me. Perhaps he imagined I would be dressed in all my finery and able to entertain him with illicit stories and sexual scandals. I had been so long without a bath or anything that would own the name of gown or shift that I must have seemed a wild creature indeed. Nevertheless, I was taken upstairs and, to my surprise, there was water to wash with. The clothes laid out for me were not of scratchy fabric but of soft cotton. And that evening the meal was edible. For the first time I slept and dreamed.
In the morning a box arrived containing paper and ink. There was no one to ask who had brought it.
My door was firmly bolted and my windows barred, but through them came sunlight and a breeze.
Let the curtain rise, let the footlights shine. Take your seat, my love, and I will show you this short life of mine.