The Bride of Newgate

Chapter I

Introduces the Hangman

THE HANGING OF DICK Darwent, outside the debtors’ door of Newgate Prison, was to take place on the following morning.

Not until dawn would anybody hear an ominous sound, not even the tolling of the great bell at St. Sepulchre’s. At dawn the spectators would hear the dragging clatter of hoofs on cobbles, the bump of wheels as horses drew out the scaffold from the Main Gate. It was a big and heavy scaffold, this one: a dozen feet high, and so broad that ten couples could have danced on its platform.

Its sides, boarded up like a box from platform to jolting wheels, were chastely painted black. Under the direction of John Langley, the hangman, it would be set up outside debtors’ door.

At the moment, on that summer night before the hanging of Dick Darwent, it was not much past ten-thirty. But a crowd was already beginning to gather in the narrow street outside.

Damme, said one hoarse-voiced turnkey, who was on duty in the lodge above the Main Gate, damme, but this’ll be a proper ’un!

The turnkey was leaning out the window, craning his neck to look left and downward at the gloom of the street called Old Bailey.

A second turnkey, who had held his job for less than a month but whose red longcoat was almost as soiled as his companion’s, hurried across to the window. The light of a single candle, burning on a table in the whitewashed room, for a moment showed only the backs of two dirty red long-coats craning outside.

There won’t be no riot! protested the second turnkey, his voice high as though with defiance.

W’y not?

They likes Dick. They’re friendly to Dick.

The first turnkey, called Blazes because of his nose, leaned down and patted the rough-stone front of Old Newgate as though he loved it. His hoarse-voiced chuckle floated from outside.

And so they was friendly to Holloway and Haggerty, he said, when Brunskill turned ’em off in ’07.

Ah?

Twenty-eight people, as come to see the execution, a-crushed to death in front of the scaffold. Not countin’ the ones as wos ’urt, either. And that’s not a word of a lie.

The second turnkey, tall and lean Jamy, drew his head back from the window. He knew it was not a lie.

And ’twasn’t a riot, argued Blazes. Leastways, not wot you’d think of as a riot. Lord, it begins afore the coffin meat comes out of debtors’ door, and they all gives the ’Ats Off! shout. It begins afore you knows it.

"But w’y does it?" insisted Jamy.

Blazes considered this, still patting the rough-stone front of Newgate.

They’re most of ’em drunk, for one thing. He stated a simple, natural fact. About daylight they begins a-whoopin’ and shoutin’ and singing. Maybe a dog nips somebody’s ankles. Maybe a ’ooman’s stifling to death, or thinks she is. And then—

Outside the window Blazes’ red arms described a whirl. His voice, which had been almost serious, became again a hoarse chuckle.

But the rarest games, though the crowd don’t like it, is when the hangman’s drunk too.

"No, and I never liked it meself!" Jamy cried suddenly.

Blazes slowly turned round. From the window emerged a large face with little blue veins trailing from the nose.

W’y, bless your innercence, he began, in a kind of passion, I’ve seen old Brunskill—afore Langley come in—so full-up o’ brandy-and-water he tried to put the halter round the parson’s neck ’stead of the coffin meat’s! And that’s no word of a lie either.

Abruptly, on the verge of another outburst. Blazes stopped.

Both men were uneasy. Both knew it. But neither would refer to what lay uppermost, like a fear clot, in his mind. And this fear clot had nothing to do with the execution tomorrow morning.

A hanging, to them as to others, was a familiar and almost a friendly spectacle. It was far more edifying than Punch and Judy. Some other disquiet, always there but seldom mentioned except with a jeer, oppressed their hearts as it oppressed all London. It could be felt in the air, and breathed like the smoke from the roofs opposite, on this night of Thursday, June twenty-first, 1815.

A bell on the wall jumped and danced and clattered.

That’s the wicket, growled Blazes. Inside, too.

Late visitor a-going out? asked Jamy, who was hurriedly lighting a lantern at the candle.

"Werry late, said Blazes, with a significant look. If you know what’s o’clock, my lad, you’ll get somethin’ handsome outen him for your trouble."

Jamy, his keys rattling, hastened down the corkscrew stair.

The late visitor, who stood by the wicket gate in the big Main Gate, seemed mostly in shadow even when Jamy held up the oblong lantern with its grimy glass sides.

The visitor’s nose twitched, perhaps his stomach twitched as well, at the smell of Newgate. From the Felons’ Side you could faintly hear the noise of a carousal; wine or spirits might be obtained at any hour here.

Late, sir, growled Jamy, in a voice imitating Blazes.

Precisely a quarter to eleven, replied the visitor, in a dry and even voice.

He was a little, spare, unemotional man, in a coat with several capes; but he wore the black knee breeches and buckles of the last century. An old-fashioned ’un, thought Jamy, a shrewd ’un, as he watched the eyes behind the small gold-rimmed spectacles.

But the gentleman, whose gray hair was clubbed behind the neck, put a shilling into Jamy’s hand as the later unlocked the wicket gate.

Begging your pardon, sir, Jamy blurted out. ‘Is there any news?"

Mr. Elias Crockit, lawyer, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, knew what Jamy meant.

None, I fear, he replied. Only rumor.

As the gate closed behind him, Mr. Crockit stood for a moment in the street under a fine if smoke-misted night of stars. He glanced at the house across the way. It was dark. But at dawn the windows would be lighted, and the champagne breakfast set out for that willful beauty, Miss Caroline Ross, and her guests.

It was the fashion of the gentry; no one minded. After breakfast, showing tipsy faces at the windows, they would watch the victim kick his heels on a rope with amusement or tears, according to their mood.

And Mr. Crockit must see Miss Caroline Ross now. Most desperately now!

A little way down Old Bailey, a hackney coach waited. In a low voice the little lawyer gave the address of Miss Caroline Ross, in St. James’s Square.

Inside the gloom of the musty-smelling coach, as it jolted down and turned right into Fleet Street, Mr. Crockit took his hat from under his cloak and placed it on the seat beside him. He leaned back, pushing his spectacles up on his forehead and closing his eyes.

Mr. Elias Crockit was frightened. And he confessed it to himself.

It was not that he cared a groat for Richard Darwent, a condemned murderer. Murderers should be dusted away as snuff is dusted off the fingers. But what Miss Caroline Ross proposed was so shocking, so much a-bristle with possibilities for scandal, that Mr. Crockit feared for his own reputation.

And on his mind, he confessed, rested the oppressiveness which had troubled even that poor brute of a turnkey.

To Mr. Crockit, not as a rule an imaginative man, this oppressiveness seemed like a huge, slow drumbeat: distant, yet approaching until all the drums should strike up.

News! he murmured aloud. News!

But he did not open his eyes until the cab drew near Pall Mall. With the Strand left behind him, Mr. Crockit felt he could breathe cool bloom and grass again. Much as Mr. Crockit (like others) might feel apprehensive in the presence of the gentry, he was at least permitted to approach.

Pall Mall lay deserted. The feeble street lamps burning coal gas, installed here seven years ago and now common to London, lighted up only dun-colored houses and lines of hitching posts. Mr. Crockit’s coach turned into St. James’s Square, and stopped before number thirty-eight. Having paid his fare, the elderly lawyer mounted the stone steps to the narrow redbrick house. He had just rapped at the bronze knocker, when …

Come, now! protested the startled Mr. Crockit, after which he wished he had not spoken.

A covered carriage, with horses nearly spent, smashed at full gallop into St. James’s Square, and drew up with a clatter before the door of number eighteen.

Number eighteen was the home of Lord Castlereagh, the War Minister.

Mr. Crockit saw that brief scene at right angles, and some distance away, by the gleam of a gas lamp. He saw a flash of red coat and two gold epaulettes as a young officer jumped out of the carriage, raced up the steps of number eighteen, and plied the knocker.

Now Mr. Crockit did not know that the young officer was Major the Hon. Henry Percy, aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington. But he saw, protruding from a carriage window, what looked like the standards of two captured French eagles. And some emotion squeezed at his withered old heart, such as he had not known for years.

Yes, sir? inquired a man’s voice, as the door of number thirty-eight opened to Mr. Crockit’s knock.

And Mr. Crockit was, first and last, a man of business. Whatever he may have felt was instantly shut up, with a snap, in one of the small innumerable drawers of his mind.

Miss Caroline Ross?

He raised his eyebrows superciliously at the tall footman, chosen as usual for wide shoulders and fine calves, who wore Miss Ross’s livery and a powdered wig.

Yes, sir. If you will please follow me?

The footman led him to the drawing room, up a padded staircase in a foyer softly lighted by candles. Coal gas was too dangerous for domestic lighting; a careless or drunken servant might blow up the house. Mr. Crockit approved such moderation. To him it remained an irritant that young dandies should wear grotesque tall hats, and (to him) the new fashion of trousers.

Clothes….

Another disturbing thought entered Mr. Crockit’s mind.

Miss Caroline Ross was determined on a mad, dangerous enterprise. What if bravado prompted her to wear one of the lewd dresses invented by Lady Caroline Lamb?—another Caroline! This dress consisted of nothing whatever except a gown of transparent muslin, dampened with water so that it should adhere to the body.

It was unlikely, of course. Despite her beauty, Miss Ross was widely known for being (plague take these vulgar expressions) as cold as a fish. But she was willful and fiercely stubborn. Mr. Crockit more than suspected she cared not a straw for her reputation.

Nevertheless, after one glance into the drawing room as the footman announced him, he was reassured.

Good evening, Mr. Crockit, said his hostess’s voice. Caroline Ross was a few months short of her twenty-fifth birthday.

Your most obedient servant, madam, replied Mr. Crockit, bowing low and meaning every word he said.

Both of them waited until the door had closed.

It was a bijou room, an intimate one too, decorated in the so-called Roman mode which permitted much green-and-white striping in the upholstery and many austere classical curves in the furniture. Four candles, each one inside a glass container and set in pairs, lighted the room from either side of the white-marble mantelpiece. Two tall windows, facing out over St. James’s Square, were closely muffled with heavy dark-green curtains bordered in gold.

Do you bring me good news, Mr. Crockit?

At least, madam, I bring you the news you desire.

The faint flush of triumph sprang into her face as he said that.

"Is there the faintest chance—no, the tiniest remote possibility!—that he may not die tomorrow morning?"

There is none.

Pray sit down, Mr. Crockit. Do sit down!

She was being kindly to him now, spreading condescension; and Mr. Crockit, so humble in the presence of the great, keenly appreciated the honor.

Caroline Ross, also after the fashion, wore a white satin gown cut very high at the waist and very low at the corsage; her arms bare, the gown ankle-length. Color touched it only with a scarlet sash, and a single ruby at her breast. Her rich light-brown hair was worn in bands across the forehead, and, at the sides, in short ear-length ringlets. Her eyes were dark blue, with black lashes.

And yet Caroline, so feminine of face and especially of body, seemed to have about her no hint of softness. No animation, no tinge of color except that of the excitement of anger, ever touched her cheeks or her eyes.

And so she sat there, at one end of a low backless sofa, one bare elbow on the curved side of the sofa, her hand supporting her cheek under the ringlets as she inclined her head, with the candlelight falling softly over her.

Her blue eyes watched Mr. Crockit without expression.

I am told, she said, "that this wretch what’s-his-name has no tiniest chance of escape. What assurance do you give me?"

The little lawyer looked grim."

You wished, I believe, that the hanging should be—expedited?

Yes, yes, yes!

Very well. I therefore made interest with a gentleman whom we shall merely call Sir B.

Do you mean Sir Benjamin Bloomfield? Prinny’s confidential adviser?

Mr. Crockit was pained to his very eyelids. In all else, madam, you may command me. But pray allow me to deal with your affairs in my own way.

You are rather an amusing old dear, smiled Caroline, still with her elbow resting on the sofa side and her cheek against her hand. Well! And then?

Darwent, said Mr. Crockit, was condemned to death on the 19th. In these matters it is customary to permit seven days’ grace, including one Sunday.

May I ask why?

"So that the condemned person may hear the preaching of an edifying sermon, and sit before a coffin as he does so. It is an excellent old custom.

However! continued Mr. Crockit, seeming all spectacles and forehead wrinkles as he bent forward. In this case the death warrant was signed almost at once by the Secretary of State. Whereupon, through the good offices of Sir B., it was shown to … to …

You don’t mean to Prinny himself? cried Caroline.

Again pain twitched at Mr. Crockit’s eyelids.

To His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, assented Mr. Crockit in a low voice.

And what did Prinny say?

His Royal Highness was told the entire story: a fair and accurate account, bear witness! His Royal Highness was filled with indignation; and also, I am told, with iced punch. The murdered man, Lord Francis Orford, was his near friend. Though it would appear …

That Prinny had forgotten all about him? Yes?

"In effect, yes. But His Royal Highness was graciously pleased to write across the death warrant, ‘This sentence must be carried out.’"

Oh, you are a dear! You are a jewel! You are a treasure!

I can but do my best. Madam, God Himself could not save Richard Darwent now.

There was a pause. Caroline sat upright, her hands folded. She seemed about to pour out more congratulations, when annoyance struck into her guarded life.

Upon my soul, she said pettishly, I can’t have quiet in my own home! What is that insufferable noise down in the street?

A movement of her eyebrows indicated that Mr. Crockit should ring the bell. Alfred, the first footman, was instructed to inquire about the disturbance. Any urchin in St. James’s Square could have told him.

Major Percy, clattering up in his carriage to the door of number eighteen, had found Lord Castlereagh not at home. But the War Minister, they told him, was dining only a few doors away at the home of Mr. Boehm. Abovestairs, still over the wine, he found not only Lord Castlereagh; he found Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, and His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent.

But none of the sparks from their talk, now blown and adrift over London, touched the bijou drawing room with its dark-green curtains and its white-clad hostess.

Then I am quite, quite safe! murmured Caroline.

Whereupon Mr. Crockit lost his head.

Before you do this, he burst out, I implore you to stop and consider.

I have considered, sir.

Madam, it is a damned outrage!

Caroline Ross merely looked at him.

That will suffice, I think. Effortlessly she put him in his place, as though with a candle snuffer. You yourself, she could not help adding, "told me that my grandfather’s despicable and mean will could not be contested."

No man can contest it. It is a good will.

‘A good will.’ repeated Caroline, and threw back her head. God save us!

Can you bear in mind, madam, that you inherit a very great fortune?

As I have always expected to inherit it. Naturally!

Well! Under the law, believe me, your grandfather could have imposed conditions much more severe. He might have chosen you a husband. Instead, the only conditions attached to your inheritance is that you are married by your twenty-fifth birthday. Mark that! Married by your twenty-fifth birthday!

Again there was a pause.

Do you recall, Caroline said dreamily, any particular phrase in the writing of that will?

I have forgotten it.

"I have not. ‘She’s a stubborn filly, and needs the whip.’ —Let us see!"

Mr. Crockit, in quiet despair, made one last plea.

Come now, he urged persuasively, there must be a dozen eligible gentlemen, if I may say so, eager to ask for your hand in marriage.

Caroline lifted one shoulder. I daresay.

And yet, to avoid the necessity of marrying anybody …

Caroline’s soft brown ringlets fell forward as she inclined her head in assent.

To avoid this, said Crockit, you would go by stealth to Newgate Prison. You would wed a verminous creature condemned to death. On the morrow, above all, you would watch from a tavern window while he kicks at a rope’s end. You would gorge a champagne breakfast, and make sure he is dead. This is not worthy of you.

Caroline regarded him fixedly.

Worthy or not, she replied, does it fulfill the conditions of the law?

The letter of the law. Yes.

Will this marriage be legal?

This afternoon, returned Mr. Crockit, and tapped the side of his coat, I procured a license at Doctors’ Commons. The Chaplain at Newgate, whom they call the ‘Ordinary,’ is an ordained clergyman of the Established Church. Yes: it will be legal.

"Can any man then contest my right to my inheritance?"

None in this world.

Why, then! Let me be married to the convicted felon!

As you please, madam. —You do not find it, forgive me, a trifle degrading?

Degrading! exclaimed Caroline, though in fact her cheeks were flushed. She arose from the sofa.

As though to conceal anger by concealing her face, she swept over to examine two framed silhouettes hung on the wall beside the door. After a moment she turned back to the small round table in the center of the room. Standing sideways to her guest, she glanced at him over one bare shoulder, past the ringlets.

Dear Mr. Crockit, she breathed. Do let me explain!

The lawyer merely inclined his head.

Caroline turned round to face him fully. The ruby at her corsage burned with shifting colors by candlelight.

"In marriage, it’s understood, the husband has a certain ‘right.’ I will not grant that right to any man. She rapped her knuckles on the table, breathing quickly. Do you understand me, sir?"

Perfectly.

That aspect, said Caroline, "I have always considered rather ridiculous and faintly revolting. But, under your precious law, the husband has still another right. Everything I own becomes his property, even to the house we stand in at this moment. And what, pray, do I get in exchange?

"I receive a boorish lout who will stamp home smelling of the stables, rattle out his oaths, and be hopelessly drunk by three o’clock in the afternoon. Or an empty-pated dandy (praise heaven the breed is passing!) who pays fabulous compliments, has a sour temper, and gambles away every farthing at Watier’s or White’s. If one lives à la mode, that’s a husband.

"And for this, Caroline went on, with bitter disdain, we’re taught to simper, and swoon, and tap coquettishly with a fan, and cry ‘Fie!’ at some mildly bawdy jest. For what purpose? To ‘catch,’ dear me, a husband who is not worth the trouble to catch!"

Her voice went up.

"It’s not fair. It’s odious, cried Caroline, suddenly becoming human and stamping her foot on the dark-green carpet. You say, Mr. Crockit, that what I propose is degrading. Very well! Then which is the more degrading: their style of marriage or mine?"

My dear young lady, protested a much-puzzled Mr. Crockit, I am not responsible. That’s the way of the world.

Not my world, sir. Not my world!

The lawyer studied her.

You have spoken much, he told her dryly, of feeling and sensibility. Have you thought of your felon-husband’s feelings?

Pardon me. Of … what?

We come to him, madam, during the last few hours of his life. We say to him, ‘Wed this lady and die as soon as possible, so that she may have fine jewels and painted carriages.’ It might well sicken a poor devil on the brink of eternity.

Caroline’s whole manner had altered to one of poised coolness.

"This murderer, I imagine, is not du monde? Her sarcasm increased. He belongs to perhaps a little lower stratum of society than my own?"

And if he does, madam?

Then how does it matter what his feelings are? Caroline asked simply. Indeed, he has no feelings.

That was the moment at which, suddenly, they both turned toward the door.

They could not have been more astonished if a tidal wave had swept up over Whitehall. For the door of the drawing room was almost flung open. Alfred, the first footman, stood red-faced and unable to control his voice.

He’s beaten, the footman said. "Boney’s beaten!"

The words struck across that fastidious room like hammers against glass.

And now they were all aware, as though noises had hovered only at the back of the mind, that a crowd was assembled in the square below. Two-hundred-odd voices were upraised with, God Save the King.

You may apologize later, Caroline told the footman. In the meantime … no, no; don’t try to speak formally: you’ll burst. Simply tell us.

On Sunday, madam, the footman began formally, and choked. On Sunday they beat the immortal stuffing out of Boney at some place near Brussels. The Frenchies, they downed arms and ran. Old Boney ran too. We might ‘a’ had the news Sunday night.

Sunday night?

Yes, madam. Two of our lads, cavalrymen they were, swore they’d ride all night and send the news to Dover by semaphore. They’d got a big semaphore, and a lot of brushwood for a fire to see it by. But in Dover …

Gently, now. Gently!

They couldn’t tell, even with the best spyglass, whether the message was, ‘Boney beat us,’ or, ‘Boney beaten.’ My brother says an old woman was hurt, and a man dropped dead. But there wasn’t anything more until today.

And outside the windows voices rose up:

Confound their politics,

Frustrate their knavish tricks,

On Thee our hopes we fix,

God save the king!

Verse after verse of that anthem, sung in deep fervor, rolled across the square. Mr. Crockit hastened to the nearest window, and threw back the heavy curtains.

Toward his left across the square, over a multitude of upturned faces, he saw that every window in Mr. Boehm’s house was illuminated. It kindled the trees of the square to spectral green. At the windows they were exhibiting the first trophies, two war eagles and four French battle flags. Out on a balcony moved an indistinct figure, which by its immense fatness could be only that of the Prince Regent. The figure bowed, and bowed again, amid a thunder of huzzas.

Napoleon Bonaparte, so-called Emperor of the French, would trouble this earth no more.

You may go, Mr. Crockit heard Caroline say to the footman. The lawyer hastened to close the curtains, and compose himself. For here, it is regrettable to state, there were tears in Mr. Crockit’s eyes.

Will you be good enough, Mr. Crockit, to favor me with your attention

I deeply apologize, said Mr. Crockit. I was much preoccupied.

This victory, said Caroline in a tone of anxiety, "will not disturb our plan?"

No, madam. Why should it?

There will not be—oh, what do I want to say!—a rejoicing, a jail delivery for the victory? He cannot escape hanging?

Caroline’s mouth, which was broad and full lipped and should have added to her beauty, had been compressed by sheer will power to a thin line.

I fear, said Mr. Crockit, you must take your notions of law from the Minerva romances. No; he can’t escape.

Stay a moment, though! You said, or at least hinted … oh, it’s absurd! it’s incredible! it’s impossible! … that the man might refuse this offer.

I had already thought of that, madam. He will not refuse.

What assurance do you give of this?

Mr. Crockit made a mouth.

The last position occupied by the man Darwent, be answered, "was that of fencing master at a salle d’armes near Drury Lane Playhouse. He became attracted by a young person …"

Yes, yes, I might have guessed it!

This young person is an actress, of sorts. But she is given very small parts, and is near destitution. If it had not been for Darwent—well!

Well?

He has nothing to leave her. Fifty pounds—an overly generous sum, mark you!—should keep her in comfort for a year. Yes; he will consent. —I have no pity to waste on murderers, Mr. Crockit added curtly. Yet the man Darwent, one hears, is a good fellow.

Oh, and indeed? Have you seen him?

No. I visited Newgate tonight for that purpose. I also wished to have a word with Darwent’s representative, a fat and drunken rascal named Mulberry. But I decided that an approach nearer the last moment would weaken him more.

Yes! I agree!

As for the young person from the playhouse …

Caroline made that sound which is usually described as faugh! Mr. Crockit politely ignored it.

He would die for her, they say, the lawyer mused, and then woke up. Come! he added, angry with himself. I have strange notions in my head tonight. He will die in any case, madam. Have no fear for that!

Chapter II

Deals with a Blue Coach at Twilight—

THE REV. HORACE SALUSBURY Cotton, Ordinary of Newgate, stumbled once or twice as he hastened over the rough ground of the Press Yard.

A turnkey, carrying a lantern, followed him respectfully. The lantern light shone on the clergyman’s black billowing gown, and the neat white bands at his neck.

The Rev. Horace Cotton was a large, rosy, robust man, with two kinds of strength in him. He was a trifle unctuous, they say, and a little inclined to be strong in his hell-fire sermons to the condemned. But this