The Fatal Tree Read online

  ‘Forgive me, Mother,’ Richard told her, ‘but she led me astray.’

  It is said that with repentance of sin comes a hatred of its object, and that the greater the affection felt in the act so the detestation will be more in proportion afterwards. If that is the case then Richard might well have been telling the truth when he told me that he loved me before as he treated me so cruelly afterward.

  And so, in those flash terms I was soon to learn, love is a sharper that works the queerest of drops. I had my innocence filched from me and, thus peached, I was dismissed from the household.

  ‘Take your guinea,’ Lady Steevens told me curtly, ‘as the wages of your sin.’

  But for that accursed coin, all I had was a meagre bundle of my possessions. Fenton escorted me to the gate with a sorrowful look on his face. ‘I warned you not to be so familiar, Bess.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘But this is cruel. Far too cruel.’

  ‘What am I to do, Fenton?’

  ‘Make for London, child. You’ll find work in one of the grand houses there. But be careful, my dear.’

  He bade me goodbye. I was fearful at being turned out of doors into the wide world but I knew that all I could do was follow his advice, to journey to the great city and find some employment there.

  So I left meekly but vowed that one day I would come back and take vengeance. I would make them pay somehow for my ruin. With the gold coin I bought a place on the next stage-coach for town and was soon on that straight road to Tyburn.

  Arriving in London I felt a fierce assault on all my senses: the bewildering parade of people and carriages in the streets, the mad bustle of business, the shriek and clatter of its traffic. And the stench! Scattered heaps of filth, dead fish and offal, dung everywhere. Ragged beggars clamoured at every corner. I held my little bundle close and made to walk in a manner that might show I knew my way. But I was hopelessly lost.

  The world there was so close and stifling. Even the grand houses Fenton had spoken of were often crowded in terraces. They stood proud above the squalor below but elsewhere lay darker streets and alleys cluttered with wretched dwellings and menacing inhabitants. All was discord and tumult to a forsaken country girl.

  I was as shocked by the harshness in manner of London’s citizens as I was bewildered by the sharpness of their tongue. I would, of course, soon learn a new way of speaking. Indeed, the reader will be tutored in it also as they follow my tale.

  But for the moment all I sought was a friendly face and counted myself lucky when a kind-looking lady of middle age approached me. She wore silks and a bonnet and had a large beauty spot on one cheek. ‘You look new to town, my dear,’ she told me.

  I nodded.

  One hand held a fan, the other stroked my face. ‘Then you must be careful,’ she went on. ‘London is a wicked place. Full of danger for a young maid like you.’

  ‘What am I to do?’ I beseeched her.

  ‘Come with me, my dear. There’s a position for a serving girl in a good house, if you’ll take it.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Call me Mother Needham.’

  But as she went to link her arm with mine a younger woman came between us and pushed her away. ‘Leave her be, you old trull,’ said the interloper.

  ‘Touted her first!’ answered the elder.

  ‘Touted her last, too.’

  And so an argument arose that proved a lesson in the peculiar discourse of the streets. Tout meant to see or to look: I could follow that at least.

  ‘She’s no game pullet for you,’ the new arrival went on, grabbing me at the elbow. ‘Offer you work, did she? Say Romeville was a wicked place and she could look after you? Well, this abbess will want you for her nunnery, sure enough. She’s a buttock-broker.’

  ‘Blow the widd, would you?’ Mother Needham called out, her voice now coarse and shrill. ‘Then blow all of it and tell her you want her for your own academy!’

  ‘Least I won’t sell her to the colonel. Like you did me.’

  Mother Needham stopped still and squinted at the young woman. ‘Punk Alice,’ she declared. ‘You’ve grown. I’d hardly recognise you.’

  ‘I was but a child then. Like this dell.’ Punk Alice turned to me. ‘Come, let’s wet the neck. Will you take a cup of prattle-broth with me?’

  By this I learned that we were to take tea together as she led me to a nearby tea-house. There Punk Alice explained that Mother Needham was the most notorious procuress in the whole of London and would approach girls who had arrived fresh from the country and offer them work as servants. She would first sell them to the colonel, an evil rake with a taste for young virgins known as the ‘Rapemaster General of All England’, then set them up at her brothel in St James’s. There she would work them day and night for little pay, making them hire the very clothes on their backs and throwing out any that fell sick or into disfavour. I was truly shocked by this, but with the relief in avoiding this fate came fear and, indeed, confusion at what plans this Alice might have for me.

  She related everything to me with many of the strange words and phrases I had heard her use with Mother Needham. This was the first time I had come across the thieves’ cant known as flash and I learned slowly how to patter it, as they say. A canting-crew can hide the meaning of what they communicate to outsiders but it seems to have another purpose all of its own. I swear that as I became versed in its strange terms it changed how I saw the world, how I heard it and how I comprehended its meaning. And once you master this way of speaking you become its slave. You become a flash one yourself and can never truly be anything else.

  We walked to Covent Garden and reached the piazza by sunset. That great Square of Venus was ending its daily trade and preparing for its nightly commerce. Alice pointed out the beaus and the bloods, the gentlemen of fashion, the toasts of the town, all dressed up fine. She insisted that, it being my first day in London, we go ‘for a dish at Moll’s’, meaning Moll King’s coffee-house, not much more than a shed in front of the church that I came to know as a most popular meeting place where parties might consult on their nocturnal intrigues. There, they might make assignations (though to effect consummation they might need to find other premises). At Moll’s all society, high and low, went to see and be seen.

  Quite a throng had gathered outside on the steps and portico of the church. There was a buzz of conversation and some lively comments made in our direction. Punk Alice hustled me within and we found a bench in an inner saloon she told me was called the Long Room. I noticed above the fireplace a framed print of a fellow in mask and motley crouching behind a woman on all fours baring her ample buttocks as he kissed them. It was entitled The Curious Doctor.

  We were waited on by a black serving-girl, whom Alice hailed as Tawny Betty. The coffee at Moll’s is laced with strong spirit: brandy, rum or arrack. I had not tried coffee before, let alone hard liquor. The effect of them together both quickens and dulls the senses at once. In a calm reverie I watched a mizzy-eyed man try to rouse a sleeping strumpet, who lolled asleep, her ragged handkerchief fallen and her bosom exposed. A soldier broke into a bawdy ballad and some of the company joined in. I smiled, quite unperturbed by my disordered surroundings. Half of me knew that I had fallen into a low and debauched place while the other half reasoned that if this was Hell it was a merry place indeed.

  All at once the hubbub hushed as a thick-set man entered. He wore a fine brocade coat and a long powdered wig beneath a tricorn hat but as he turned his head I noted a brutal countenance contrary to his noble bearing. His appearance was undeniably striking: a once handsome face etched with livid scars and coldly vigilant eyes of the palest hue. He walked with a loping gait, one leg dragging a little, pounding out a mournful rhythm as a silver-hilted sword swung at his side. All the assembly marked his entrance, though none dared look directly at him. Except me, of course. I sat staring with all the foolish curiosity of innocence. He caught my gaze and held it fast: in an instant I was trapped by his pallid stare. Then he reached into his coat and, seeing the butt of a pistol poking out, I gasped, thinking he was about to draw it. He grinned at me as he pulled out a pamphlet and held it up for all those in the Long Room to see.

  ‘An Answer to a Late Insolent Libel,’ he declared. ‘Sixpence a copy, and here’s a free issue for Moll King’s reading room. Where is she?’

  He dropped the bound tract onto a table as Tawny Betty led him through to find the proprietor.

  ‘Who is he?’ I whispered to Alice.

  ‘Jonathan Wild,’ she replied. ‘The new thief-taker.’

  I thought I knew something of that breed of men. We country folk imagined them as bold fellows who recovered stolen goods and apprehended villains in the wicked city.

  A rake had picked up the pamphlet and begun to read aloud from its detailed frontispiece. There was some general discussion and the gist I caught was that there was a dispute between Wild and another, in a similar station, called Charles Hitchen. The rake holding the paper was ragged and wild-eyed but his deportment bore some trace of the stage, as did his voice when he intoned: ‘Wherein is prov’d in many particular instances who is originally the Grand Thief-taker; that a certain author is guilty of more flagrant crimes, than any thief-taker mention’d in his nonsensical treatise; and he has highly reflected on the magistracy of the City, in the said scandalous pamphlet …’

  ‘This is his reply to Hitchen’s accusations,’ Alice explained.

  ‘What accusations?’

  ‘Of villainy. Each blames the other, then boasts of his own reputation as a whore might protest her virtue.’

  I thought to question this as they surely both sought to uphold the law but Alice had turned to hear more.

  ‘… set forth in several entertaining stories, comical intrigues, merry adventures. With a diverting scene of a sodomitish academy!’

  At this the room broke into an uproar.

  ‘Wild has really blown the widd now!’ cried Alice.

  ‘Why, all Romeville knows that Hitchen’s a molly!’ called another.

  I had yet no notion of what they spoke.

  Wild came back into the room, baring a blackened tooth as he grinned. He snatched back the pamphlet and held it up in a gesture of triumph. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, with a slight bow of the head. ‘Ladies. You see before you the new thief-taker general. Never mind Hitchen. He’s nothing more than a madge-cull.’

  He tossed the paper down and made his way over to where we were sitting.

  ‘Thief-taker general,’ said my companion, with a hint of mockery in her voice. ‘I remember you when you were just Mary Milliner’s twang.’

  ‘Punk Alice.’ Wild sat at our table, addressing her while staring at me. ‘You’ve fresh prospects, I see.’

  I looked to Alice. She shrugged.

  ‘Anything for me?’ he went on.

  ‘Nix my doll.’

  The thief-taker sighed and shook his head. ‘You’ll come to the gallows with no credit at this rate, Alice. Now, cant this.’ He leaned forward so as not to be overheard. ‘Let all the prigs know that as the trade goes at present they stand but a queer chance if they deal with Hitchen. And if they have made anything and carry it to the fencing-culls or vamp it to any flash pawnbrokers they are likely to be babbled. So, when they have been upon any lay or planning to speak to any purpose, let me know the particulars. Otherwise they’ll run the hazard of being scragged.’

  Punk Alice nodded. Jonathan Wild turned once more to me. ‘And who’s this dimber mort?’ he asked.

  ‘Bess. She’s just come to town from Edgworth,’ Alice answered.

  ‘A flat one, eh? Take care, Edgworth Bess. This one will want to play a game of flats with you.’

  He stood up and scanned me once more with his steely glare and I felt some quality of his power. His pale blue eyes bestowed a share of the attention he held in the room, and as all looked upon me I was charmed. I knew at once that this was a man who knew how to rule others.

  ‘Welcome to Romeville,’ he said, with a smile. ‘We’ll meet again soon.’

  Then he turned and walked out. Moll King’s resumed its revels with his departure. I felt fairly lightheaded with all the excitement of the day so I was quite relieved when Punk Alice stood up and announced it was time for her to show me my new lodgings. I hoped for some rest and sanctuary, little knowing what misadventure lay ahead.

  It was dark as we left the coffee-house and the lamps of the link-boys glowed here and there, marking out a constellation across the cobbled piazza. One of the theatres had just emptied its crowd, and now a boisterous audience set forth to make its own drama. We passed the column with its sundials and gilded sphere. On its steps women sat selling hot milk and barley broth. I was led up a side-street to a quiet and respectable-looking terrace.

  ‘Welcome to our house of civil reception,’ said Punk Alice, as she ushered me up some steps to the front door. As we entered, a surly footman roused himself from a chair in the hallway. ‘Fetch Mother,’ Alice snapped at him, and he skulked off to some back parlour.

  While we waited I felt great trepidation. I was fearful of what might happen to me in that strange house but full of determination also. I spied a Bible lying open on the hall table but I took it for yet another ruse. Circumstance decreed that I could not hope for God’s blessing but I might yet find mortal favour. My further ruin seemed already certain. What mattered now was my survival of it.

  Presently a silver-haired woman appeared wearing a velvet mantel. Alice introduced her as Mother Breedlove.

  ‘Ah!’ she declared, upon seeing me. ‘What a fine kitling we have here. What is your name, child?’

  I was about to answer, ‘Elizabeth Lyon,’ but something stopped me. It was as if I was no longer that person, no more the callow girl from the country. I felt I had already changed to fit this wicked new world and find my way in it. I was wilfully consenting to the destruction of my virtuous self, perhaps, but that person was no use to me now. Some guile, or merely the pretence of it, was necessary if I was not to be seen as helpless. ‘I am known as Edgworth Bess,’ I told Mother Breedlove, repeating how the man Wild had called this new creature into being.

  Both women laughed heartily at this and I knew I had earned some credit of notoriety. From that moment on I reasoned that in a bad world there is little point in being good.

  ‘Best tip the dell some prog,’ said Mother Breedlove.

  We followed her through to the back parlour and she bade me sit at a table on which supper had been laid out. Though hungry I scarcely managed to eat more than part of a cold capon’s leg, so full was I with a nervous tremor. I had less trouble with the drink poured for me. I had never tasted red wine before but I loved it at once for the richness of its flavour and the instant warmth with which it endowed me. And soon it worked its power on me as I felt a marvellous transportation from disquiet. Mother Breedlove and Punk Alice talked more in the strange cant that I was only just beginning to understand but I no longer struggled to follow it, just allowed the haze of conversation to diffuse around me. I returned their smiles and Alice poured me another glass.

  I not only felt my senses wrapped comfortably around me but something else, something unknowable, something like prophecy. This was the effect of the drink on me: like a premonition that everything would be well, a vague but certain promise of happiness. And it was this feeling that would hold me in its thrall. The elation one might feel in having done a virtuous deed, without the arduousness of undertaking such a task. Pure pleasure in idleness, a celebration of nothing and for no reason.

  I started as I felt a hand at my elbow, rousing me from my reverie. ‘It’s time for Alice to show you to your room,’ said Mother Breedlove.

  ‘I’ll take her up to Sukey’s old cribb,’ added Alice, as she stood.

  I felt giddy as she helped me to my feet – the entire house appeared to reel about me. Alice put an arm around me and we climbed the stairs together. I was shown a fine room with a dressing-table and a gilt-framed looking-glass. Escorted to a large canopy bed with its curtains tied at each post I sat down and caught my breath.

  Punk Alice began to unlace my stays and loosen my dress. I thought nothing of it at the time since I had spent most of my life helping the girls and ladies of my household in this manner. Then, stripped down to my shift, she held my shoulders and kissed me full on the mouth with a great eagerness. For a moment I had the notion that this was merely the London way of bidding one goodnight but as her embrace of me became tighter and more urgent I knew that she was fixed on some keener purpose.

  I was shocked at first but soon gave in to the will of my assailant. Fatigued by all the events of the day, as well as the effects of the wine, I was easily steered by the firm command of one with as much knowledge of my body as of her own. For her hands moved over every part of it, caressing and squeezing me with the same intent young Richard had had but with far more expertise. As she withdrew to undress herself I lay back gasping on the bed beneath her.

  Alice had a strong, sturdy frame. She was but five-and-twenty and had seen the worst of the streets, yet she held herself with a pride that gave me a strange kind of hope. She pulled off my shift.

  ‘You’re a long-meg, aren’t you?’ she said.

  I took this to be a comment on my frame since even at that young age I was tall and big-boned. I laughed. ‘What is this?’ I beseeched, looking up at her.

  ‘This?’

  ‘This game.’

  Now it was her turn to laugh. ‘Yes, it is a game I’m going to teach you. The first of many,’ she replied.

  ‘The man Wild mentioned a “game of flats”.’

  ‘Yes.’ She laughed once more.

  ‘Like a game of cards?’

  ‘Yes. But we’ll not be studying the history of the four kings.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. We’ll play the queens not the knaves. Here.’

  She climbed onto the bed, her strong legs straddling me. Leaning forward she kissed me first on the mouth, then on my chin and down along my neck. I gave a little cry of delight, my mouth wide and head thrown back. As my body arched upwards I felt her face between my breasts, her tongue following each curve. Then she raised her head and looked down at me once more.