What a fine little world is ours! Richard reflected wryly. A common-room one can hardly stand up in, and, when a gaoler opens the gate, a disgusting men’s dormitory up the steps. He had become quite case-hardened; stripped and bathed at the pump in an airless black cell without regard for the women, washed his bum rags under it with calm unimpaired, and filtered his drinking water through his dripstone under the gaze of more than three dozen pairs of incredulous eyes. A degree of selfishness had crept into him, for he made no attempt to share his purified water with either Lizzie or Willy; the dripstone was slow, taking an hour to produce two pints of filtered water. Nor did he share his soap or rags. What few pence he disbursed from his hoard went to Maisie, the laundress, for washing his underdrawers, shirts and stockings; as for breeches and other outer wear—well, they simply stank of sweat.
Maisie was the only one of the women without a protector and dispensed her favors gratis, whereas two or three of the others could be had for a mug of gin. When the urge visited a couple, they lay down on whatever vacant piece of floor they could find, or, failing that, stood against the wall. Not an erotic business, as clothes stayed on and the most a curious individual could see was a glimpse of a fleshy pole or hairy mound, though usually not even that. What fascinated Richard most was that none of the copulating happened in one of the adjacent cells; everybody seemed terrified of the dark.
Bess Parker and Betty Mason broke their waters on the felons’ common-room floor early in March and were carried off to the female dormitory to finish the birthing process in that foul place. Two other women were nursing babies born in Gloucester Gaol, and Maisie had a toddler she had brought into gaol with her. Most of the babes died at or soon after birth. Toddlers were a miracle.
But there was plenty of work to do, a blessing. Richard was put to carrying limestone blocks from the castle dock to the new prison, which gave him both fresh air and a chance to look around. Gloucester’s tiny port was just north of the castle precinct on the same bank of the Severn, which was navigable to this point for small snows and large barges. One of the town’s two foundries made church bells, whereas the other contented itself with small iron items readily sold in the neighborhood. They gave out smoke, but not nearly enough to foul the air, which Richard found sweet and crisp. Nor did the Severn look fouled, though the endemic gaol fever indicated that the gaol’s water source was contaminated. Or else it was spread by the fleas and lice, which Richard dealt with by scrubbing his filthy pallet with oil of tar and keeping himself and his clothes picked over constantly. Oh, God, to be clean! To live clean! To have a meed of privacy!
The gaol
fever broke out scant days after Richard and Willy were admitted, which brought the population of the common-room down from forty to twenty; only a small influx of new faces kept the number due to be tried at fourteen.
Time and shared work had introduced him to all the men, some of whom he found himself able to like well enough to call them friends: William Whiting, James Price and Joseph Long. They were all on the Lent assizes list with him.
Whiting stood accused of stealing a wether sheep at the same place had harbored Richard and Willy amid the straw of the Stars and Plough, Almondsbury.
“Absolute rubbish!” said Whiting, who was a regular wag. No one was quite sure if what he said could be taken seriously. “Why on earth would
I
steal a sheep? All I wanted to do was fuck it. Would’ve had it back in its pen the next morning and no one the wiser. Except that the shepherd was not asleep.”
“Desperate, Bill?” asked Richard without cracking a smile.
“Not so much desperate as—well, I plain like fucking, and a sheep’s arse feels much the same as a woman’s quim,” said Whiting chirpily. “Smells the same, at any rate, and ’tis a bit tighter. Besides, sheep don’t answer back. See, ye stick its back legs in the tops of your boots and away ye go.”
“Whether it is bestiality or sheep stealing, Bill, ye’re up for the rope. But why
Almondsbury?
Another eight miles and ye could have found a thousand whores of either sex in Bristol—they do not answer back either.”
“Could not wait, just could not wait. Had the loveliest face—reminded me of a parson I once knew.”
Richard gave up.
Jimmy Price was a Somerset yokel with a poor head for rum. He and a companion had robbed three houses in Westbury-upon-Trim and stolen a large quantity of beef, pork and mutton, three hats, two coats, an embroidered waistcoat, riding boots, a musket and two green silk umbrellas. His confederate, whom he called Peter, had since perished of the gaol fever. He was unrepentant because he considered his conduct blameless. “Didn’t mean to do it—don’t remember doing it,” he explained. “What would I need with two green silk umbrellas? Ain’t nowhere to sell them in Westbury. Wasn’t hungry neither, and none of the clothes fit me or Peter. And never took no powder or shot for the musket.”
The third of the trio, whom Richard pitied deeply, was far sadder. Weak-willed, weak-witted, Joey Long had stolen a silver watch in Slimbridge. “I were drunk,” he said simply, “and it were so pretty.”
Of course Richard had answered the same sort of questions; the felons’ common-room was a kind of Grand Larceny Club. His explanation was always brief: “Extortion and grand larceny. A note of hand for five hundred pounds and a steel watch.” A reply which earned him much respect, even from Isaac Rogers.
“A useful term, grand larceny,” he said to Bill Whiting as they lugged limestone blocks; Whiting was literate and intelligent. “For me, a steel watch. For poor Bess Parker, a couple of workaday linen shifts worth sixpence, if that. For Rogers, four gallons of brandy and forty-five hundred-weight of best hyson tea at a pound a pound retail. Over five thousand in plunder. Yet we are all charged with grand larceny. It is senseless.”
“Rogers will dance,” was Whiting’s comment.
“Lizzie got the sus. per coll. for stealing three hats.”
“Repeated offenses, Richard,” said Whiting with a laugh. “She was supposed to reform her ways and never do it again. The trouble is that we are most of us drunk at the time. Blame the booze.”
* * *
The two
Cousins James arrived in Gloucester by hired post chaise on Monday, the 21st of March. As they could find no decent accommodation in the town itself, they ended in putting up at the Harvest Moon, in the barn of which Richard and Willy had spent their last night before entering Gloucester Gaol.
Like Richard, they had confidently expected to find the new prison more bearable by far than the old. Besides, they had not imagined that any prison could be worse than the Bristol Newgate.
“It is pretty fair at the moment, Cousin James, Cousin James,” said Richard, surprised at their horror when conducted into the felons’ common-room. “The gaol fever has cleared it out greatly.” He had pecked each of them on the mouth, but would not let them enfold him in hugs. “I stink,” he said.
A table and benches had suddenly appeared after the Sunday service; warned that the Parliament was paying severe attention to John Howard’s report on debtors’ prisons and that in consequence the Baron Eyre might ask to inspect his premises, the head gaoler had responded by doing what he could.
“How is Father?” was Richard’s first question.
“Not well enough to make the journey, but better all the same. He sends his love,” said Cousin James-the-druggist. “And prayers.”
“Mum?”
“Herself. She sends her love and prayers too.”
The Cousins James were amazed at how well Richard looked. His coat, waistcoat and breeches were very smelly and shabby, but his shirt and stockings were clean, as were the rags padding his ankle irons. The hair was cropped as short as it had been in the Newgate and showed no sprinkling of grey; his nails were clean and well trimmed, his face freshly shaven; and his skin showed not a single line. The eyes were remote and stern, a little terrifying.
“Is there any news of William Henry?”
“No, Richard, not a peep.”
“Then all this does not matter.”
“Of course it does!” said Cousin James-of-the-clergy strongly. “We have engaged counsel for you—not a Bristol man, alas. These county assize courts do not welcome foreigners. Cousin Henry-the-lawyer instructed us to seek out a proper Gloucester assizes man. There are two judges, one a Baron of the superior court of the Royal Exchequer—that is Sir James Eyre—and the other a Baron of the superior court of Common Law—that is Sir George Nares.”
“Have you seen Ceely Trevillian?”
“No,” said Cousin James-the-druggist, “but I am told he is lodging at the best inn in town. This is a big event for Gloucester—conducted with great ceremony, I hear, at least on the morrow, when everybody parades through the town to the city hall, which is also the court house. The two judges stay in special lodgings nearby, but most of their serjeants, barristers and clerks put up at inns. Tomorrow the Grand Jury sits, but it is merely custom. Ye’ll all go to trial, so your attorney says.”
“Who is he?”
“Mr. James Hyde, of Chancery Lane, London. He is a barrister who travels the Oxford circuit with Barons Eyre and Nares.”
“When is he coming to see me?”
“He will not do that, Richard. His duties are in the court. Do not forget that he cannot present your side of the story. He listens to the witnesses and tries to find a chink in their testimony for cross-examination. As he does not know who the witnesses are nor what they will say, it is useless his seeing you. We have briefed him very adequately. He is very down-to-earth and able.”
“What is his fee for so much work?”
“Twenty guineas.”
“And ye’ve paid him already?”
“Aye.”
It is a travesty, thought Richard, producing a warm smile and squeezing the arm to either side of him. “You are so very good to me. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your kindness.”
“You are family, Richard,” said Cousin James-of-the-clergy, sounding surprised.
“I have brought you a new suit and a new pair of shoes,” the apothecary James announced. “And a wig. Ye cannot go into court crop-skulled. The women—your mother, Ann and Elizabeth—have sent ye a whole box of underdrawers, shirts, stockings and rags.”
To which Richard made no reply; his family had prepared for the worst, not the best. For if the day after tomorrow were to see him set free, why did he need a whole box of new clothes?
The sounds of Gloucester celebrating the beginning of its assizes came clearly to Richard’s ears the next day as he lumped his blocks—the blare of trumpets and horns, the roll of drums, cheers and oohs of admiration, music from a band of drums and fifes, the sonorous singsong of voices orating in fluent Latin. The mood of Gloucester was festive.
The mood within the prison was dour. No one, Richard realized when he looked at his sixteen fellow accused (the tally had risen again), truly expected any verdict other than “guilty.” Two others could afford counsel: Bill Whiting and Isaac Rogers. Mr. James Hyde was their man too, which led Richard to assume that Mr. Hyde was the only candidate.
“Do none of us hope to get off?” Richard asked Lizzie.
Veteran of three trials in these same assizes, Lizzie looked blank. “We do not get off, Richard,” she said simply. “How can we? The evidence is given by the prosecutor and witnesses, and the jury believes what it hears. Almost all of us are guilty, though I have known several who were the victims of lies. It is no excuse to be drunk, and if we had friends in high places, we would not be in Gloucester Gaol.”
“Is anyone ever acquitted?”
“Perhaps one, if the assizes are big enough.” She sat on his knee and smoothed his hair much as she would have a child’s. “Do not get your hopes up, Richard my love. Being in the dock is all the damnation the jury needs. Just wear your wig, please.”
When Richard shuffled off at dawn on the 23rd of March, hands in manacles and everything chained to his waist, he wore his new suit, a very plain affair of black coat, black waistcoat and black breeches, with his new black shoes on his feet and clean padding on his wrists and ankles. But he was not wearing the wig; the feel of the thing was too horrible. Seven others went with him: Willy Insell, Betty Mason, Bess Parker, Jimmy Price, Joey Long, Bill Whiting and Sam Day, a seventeen-year-old from Dursley charged with stealing two pounds of yarn from a weaver.
They were ushered into the city hall through a back door and hustled down some stairs to the cellars without gaining a glimpse of the arena in which combat was verbal but death possible just the same.
“How long does it take?” Bess Parker whispered to Richard, eyes big with apprehension; she had lost her child of the gaol fever two days after he was born, and it was a grief to her.