Behind the Sun (5 page)

Sarah was the first to admit she didn’t look the sort of person to make a likely friend. She had a sour face marred by an ugly scar, she didn’t smile enough and she was often in a bad mood. She hadn’t always been this way, but since she’d lost the job she loved and gradually descended into a life in the underworld, her good humour had also slipped away. Those early months when she’d lived like a muck snipe sleeping on the streets and eating discarded scraps from the markets had been very, very hard. She’d not sold herself, but she’d come very close.

Then came the day she’d tried to pick Thomas Ratcliffe’s pocket on Regent Street and he’d caught her, but instead of dragging her off to the nearest watchman as she’d feared, he’d made her an offer and so had begun her second apprenticeship. For the next two months she’d practised picking the pockets of an empty coat with small bells attached to it until the bells stayed silent. She then progressed to picking Tom’s pockets and relieving him of his watch and rings until he judged her proficient enough to go onto the streets. When it became clear she had a talent for stealing, he taught her the craft of the cracksman, or house-breaking, and presented her with her own set of skeleton keys. Because she was small — barely five feet tall and slender — she could break into houses and hide there, if necessary, until it suited her to let herself out again.

The people she met during this apprenticeship had almost all been flash mob and she hadn’t liked them, and it had taken her some time to admit to herself that she was flash now, too, whether she cared for it or not. She had come a long way since she’d last been legally employed, but very much in the wrong direction. She was very good at what she did now and it kept her from starving and off the streets, but it didn’t make her happy and it had soured the way she looked at the world. Friends would be nice, but friends weren’t for the sort of person she had become.

She felt a sharp, stinging sensation on her breast and dug into her bodice, her fingers closing over something tiny and hard. Carefully, she withdrew her hand and dropped the offending flea onto the sleeping body of her neighbour.

Harrie Clarke shouldn’t be in Newgate Gaol, that was obvious. Her first effort at pinching something and she’d been nabbed! That only happened to either really incompetent sneak thieves, or the completely naive. Harrie Clarke was clearly the latter. She really was quite likable — very chatty and friendly. No artifice, which was very refreshing. But no nous and not a hint of slyness or duplicity, either, so she would never manage in here on her own. Perhaps
that was the reason Friday Woolfe had befriended her. If so, Friday must be the proverbial whore with a heart of gold. Sarah smiled in the darkness. She’d never met one herself and very much doubted they existed. So was there something specific Friday wanted from Harrie?

Friday could be a useful ally. She was smart, physically and mentally strong, and savvy in a way that could work in their favour should the three of them find themselves together on their way to New South Wales. And to be honest, Sarah had to admit, she admired the girl, with her big mouth and rowdy laugh and irreverent attitude.

She yawned, and realised with a little jolt of shock that she was actually considering accepting Harrie Clarke and Friday Woolfe’s offer of friendship.

Except she had rather ruined that opportunity.

Harrie had been chosen by Maryanne Marston to assist with fetching the morning’s bread and gruel. While she was gone from the ward, Friday sat down on the edge of the barracks bed next to Sarah.

‘I want a word with you.’

Sarah regarded her warily, then nodded.

‘You didn’t have to be such a bitch to Harrie yesterday. She was only trying to be kind.’

Sarah said nothing.

Friday leant menacingly towards her. ‘I think you should say sorry, don’t you?’

Sarah scowled, but Friday got the feeling she wasn’t as discomposed as a person told they had to apologise should be.

Looking her squarely in the eye, Sarah said, ‘You don’t frighten me, Friday Woolfe.’

‘I expect I don’t. I expect you’re as hard as ruddy nails. But Harrie isn’t, so I want you to tell her you’re sorry.’

‘All right,’ Sarah agreed. ‘I will.’

Friday blinked. ‘When?’

‘After what passes for breakfast in here.’

They sat in silence for a minute as the women in the ward talked and called out and milled around them. Sarah’s heel tapped rapidly on the filthy flagstone floor, as though her leg had too much energy and couldn’t help itself. She didn’t seem to notice.

She said, ‘I like your jacket. Velvet, isn’t it?’

Disarmed, Friday nodded. ‘Cost me a fair penny, too.’

Was the dark girl toadying? That didn’t seem likely, from the little Friday already knew of Sarah Morgan. Or was she trying to make amends for her rude behaviour, without actually saying sorry? That felt closer to the mark.

‘You’re a toffer?’

‘Streetwalker,’ Friday corrected. ‘Can’t be bothered with the swells. I do all right.’

‘Flash man?’

Friday made a derisive face and shook her head. ‘You?’

‘Yes, and may he rot in hell.’

Friday said nothing, sensing there was more to come.

‘We worked together. Posed as nobs and ran capers.’

‘He was your man?’

Sarah’s top lip curled, revealing good, sharp teeth. ‘He was
a
man. Not mine. Took most of what we made. There were six or seven of us.’

‘Unlucky, just you being nabbed.’

‘No, it was Tom who was caught. He sold the rest of us up the river. Some of the others got away. I didn’t.’

Friday fiddled with her woollen scarf, rewinding it around her neck so the ends were the same length; she knew if she waited long enough Sarah would finally tell her what line of work she was in.

Eventually she did. ‘I’m a dip and a crackswoman. Well, screwswoman, really: I specialise in keys.’

Friday’s copper-coloured eyebrows shot up. She was impressed: a pickpocket, yes, but you didn’t hear of many women skilled in the arts of house-breaking and lock-picking. ‘And you’ve always done that?’

Sarah’s heel ceased tapping; her face had softened and her eyes glimmered with something that might be regret.

‘No, only for the last few years. I’m a qualified jeweller. I did an apprenticeship in Hatton Garden, with a Jew. He had a son, ten years older than me, who’d bought himself a commission in the army. Just after I’d finished my apprenticeship, the son sold his commission and came home to work in the shop.’ Sarah’s heel started tapping again. ‘He wouldn’t leave me alone. I complained to his father, who disbelieved me and told me to leave. Bloody smouses, always stick together.’

Surprised, Friday said, ‘I thought
you
were a Jew.’

‘With a name like Morgan?’

‘You’ve got that skin; it’s not very English. And Morgan could be short for Morgenstern or something.’

‘For God’s sake, my grandparents came from Wales.’

Friday shrugged; she didn’t particularly care what Sarah’s ancestry was. ‘So did you leave?’

‘I was dismissed in the end. But I couldn’t find another position as a jeweller. Or anything that paid a decent wage.’ Sarah’s face turned hard again. ‘So instead of making beautiful things, I stole them. And here I am.’

Friday was silent for a moment. It was a hard-luck story, but everyone had one of those. ‘What about your family?’

‘What about them?’

‘Could you not have gone to them after you lost your job?’

‘What for? They don’t have any money. My mother’s dead and I’m not bothered if I never see my father again. Why didn’t you go to
your
family instead of walking the streets?’

‘If you must know, my ma’s dead too and I don’t know who my father was. Neither did Ma.’

‘Anyway, it’s none of your business,’ they both said at exactly the same time, which made them smile.

Friday noticed that when Sarah smiled properly, and meant it, the corners of her mouth turned up quite charmingly. She said bluntly, ‘It wasn’t my idea to offer you the hand of friendship, but if you want it, that’s all right by me, as long as you don’t do anything to hurt Harrie. You have to promise that.’

Sarah looked at her unwaveringly. ‘I’ll only promise if you tell me why you’re so fond of her.’

‘Well, for Christ’s sake, look at her! She shouldn’t be in here!’

Sarah silently agreed, and waited. She knew a bit about listening herself.

Friday inspected the toes of her boots, then retied one of the laces. ‘And she reminds me of someone I used to know. Someone I cared about.’

Sarah knew what it was to have secrets; she let it go. ‘All right, I promise.’

‘If you do hurt her,’ Friday warned, ‘I’ll give you a right dewskitch. I’m not joking, I’ll beat the shit out of you. And I don’t trust you yet, all right?’

The expression on Sarah’s face told her the feeling was mutual.

By the following morning the rain had stopped, leaving the courtyard’s cobbles dotted with miniature lakes frozen at the edges, icy doilies around water turned a scummy brown. Harrie trod on as much ice as she could on the way to the pump, something she had done with much glee as a child. She felt her bowels cramp but ignored the discomfort, having learned to hold on for as long as possible in an effort to limit her visits to the dank, reeking, vermin-infested water closets. The gruel made it difficult, though. And the farting!

She worked the pump handle, rinsed her basin and spoon, then splashed freezing water over her face. Finally, she rubbed a finger over her teeth and gums, worrying at a back tooth that felt a little loose, hoping it wasn’t going to give her trouble.

She backed away from the pump and stamped squarely on someone’s foot.

‘Beg pardon,’ Harrie said.

‘Just me.’ Sarah Morgan pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders over her jacket; in the pale sun and crisp air her face looked washed out, her scar more obvious. ‘I’ve something to say. About yesterday.’

Harrie glanced around the courtyard, saw Friday leaning against the far wall, smoking her pipe and watching a handful of sparrows fight over something on the ground.

‘I was feeling out of sorts,’ Sarah declared. She paused, then sighed with ill-disguised irritation. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded rude. It wasn’t my intention.’ Another pause. ‘Well, it was, but you shouldn’t take it personally.’

Harrie could see the apology was costing Sarah a great deal. This was Friday’s doing, she was sure. But Harrie had never been one to hold a grudge and didn’t particularly need an apology.

‘I just thought you might want someone to talk to. A friend or two.’

Sarah inclined her head in Friday’s direction. ‘She looks out for you, doesn’t she?’

Harrie nodded. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without her.’

‘And what does she ask for in return?’

‘Nothing. Luckily, as I don’t have anything to give her.’ Harrie frowned, then her heart thudded with shock as she realised what Sarah was implying. ‘Oh! What a thing to say!’

‘I’m
not
saying it; I’m just wondering. Well, you know, in a place like this. I think I
would
like to be friends, if the offer’s still open, but not if you and Friday are…together. That wouldn’t suit me.’

Harrie’s cheeks flamed. ‘Well, it bloody well wouldn’t suit me either!’

Sarah burst out laughing. ‘You should see your face.’

‘I’m not inclined that way at all!’ Harrie went on, her voice sharp with indignation, ‘And neither is Friday. She’s just very generous and kind, which you’d know if you got yourself a really tall ladder and climbed down off your high horse.’

Sarah laughed even more heartily. ‘You look like an angry squirrel.’

‘And you look like a cackling old crone,’ Harrie shot back. She picked up her basin and marched off.

Sarah grabbed her sleeve. ‘No, wait.’ She wasn’t laughing now. ‘I meant what I said before, about being friends.’

Harrie stopped.

Sarah said, ‘But I have to warn you, I’m not a very easy person to like.’

Harrie regarded her for almost a minute. ‘Friday made you come and apologise to me, didn’t she?’

Sarah nodded.

‘Would you have done it anyway?’

‘Probably,’ Sarah said after a short pause. ‘Eventually.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of the look on your face when I said I’d think about it. You looked like I’d slapped you. I felt…well, I felt mean.’

Harrie smiled. ‘Then I’m happy to let bygones be bygones.’ She extended her hand. ‘Friends, then?’

Sarah shook. ‘Friends.’

They glanced across the courtyard at Friday. The sparrows had gone and she was in shadow now, but her nod of satisfaction was as plain as day.

January 1829, Newgate Gaol

Sarah had wished them both luck. Harrie knew the wish had come from a place inside Sarah that no one saw very often, so it was quite precious.

She wasn’t the same girl these days. Oh, she was just as sly and sharp and prickly with the others in the ward, and certainly with anyone who crossed her, God help them, but Harrie knew she and Friday were privileged to know another side of her.

For a start she was unexpectedly generous. She had money — her ‘running away money’ she called it — and wasn’t averse to sharing it, though she had it secreted away somewhere. Which was very sensible, Harrie thought, given their current situation. To date she hadn’t told Harrie or Friday where and neither had asked, but at regular intervals cash would appear to supplement Friday’s reserves, which Friday always carried on her person for safekeeping and used to pay the garnish for both herself and Harrie
and to buy luxuries like soap, tobacco, gin and extra food. Harrie, to her never-ending shame, had no money at all, but one day Sarah presented her with a small package of needles and assorted thread and after that she assumed responsibility for mending and patching their clothes, which were rapidly turning to rags in the harsh, damp gaol conditions. It wasn’t much, but it helped her feel as though she were making a contribution.

They were all three firm friends now, though sometimes Friday and Sarah bickered and argued and when she was in one of her moods Sarah was prone to silence for hours on end. Friday couldn’t keep quiet if her life depended on it. Then it was up to Harrie to smooth things over as best she could. And it wasn’t just because she relied on Friday and Sarah for the things she needed in Newgate, it was simply because she hated to see the people she cared about upset.

Now, on the day she and Friday were to face the judge, stumbling through the dank passageway that linked Newgate Gaol with the Old Bailey courts, she felt sick to her stomach and watery-kneed with fear. Beneath the flagstones in the passage lay the bodies of murderers executed outside Newgate and she was sure she could smell the stench from their rotting remains wafting upwards, taunting her, even though she knew she wouldn’t be facing the gallows. The Grand Jury had declared ‘true bills’ for both herself and Friday, meaning that sufficient evidence had been presented by the prosecution to justify sending the bills of indictment against them to court and putting them on trial. Today they and four other Newgate women would learn their fate.

Harrie was second in line. She and the others were ordered to sit on wooden stools in a small antechamber and wait to be escorted into the courtroom proper when their turn came. Normally they would wait in the underground cells beneath the courtroom, but as a large number of men were also being tried today, the cells apparently were full. Harrie could not afford the prohibitive cost of private counsel and was to defend herself, though she had been
offered the services of a state-subsidised dock brief yesterday afternoon. Sarah had offered to pay the fee, but everyone in Harrie’s ward, including Sarah, told her not to bother, as it was common knowledge that dock briefs were notoriously young and inexperienced and therefore as good as useless. Gilbert Wilton, the linen-draper from whom Harrie had stolen, however, probably was in a position to engage experienced counsel to act on his behalf. She wondered if he had.

Friday was called first. At the sight of her the clamour from the crowd in the jammed public gallery started almost immediately; her voice rang out clearly above the din. She was deliberately encouraging them, Harrie was pretty sure. Fascinated, her own fears temporarily stifled, she shuffled her stool along so she could see better through the doorway, earning a scowl from one of the turnkeys.

Her name, Friday was informing the courtroom, was Friday Woolfe, she was eighteen years old and, yes, her occupation was in fact correctly recorded as being ‘on the town’, a declaration evidently meeting with approval from the public, who clapped and whistled. The judge, the Right Honourable William Thompson, Lord Mayor of the City of London, barked for quiet.

A clerk stood up and read out the indictment against Friday, while she leant in the dock with her arms crossed, gazing at the domed ceiling in a deliberate display of contempt. The clerk sat down again and several foot-shuffling, throat-clearing minutes passed before a bewigged man in a black gown rose and began asking her questions about where she was on a certain night and so forth, then called on a rather insignificant-looking gentleman named Hector Slee to give evidence. Mr Slee, Harrie noted, was managing to look both embarrassed and indignant at the same time, so she guessed it was he who had been cuckolded and robbed. The way Friday had recounted the story had made the victim sound like a vainglorious little seek-sorrow. Harrie had assumed this was
to make the yarn more amusing, but she could see now Friday hadn’t been embellishing.

Friday gave Mr Slee a withering look and announced that given the amount of ‘amorous encouragement’ likely to be required, she would have charged a lot more than a quid to lift her skirts to him, therefore it couldn’t have been her who stole his watch and walking stick.

The gallery roared and Mr Justice Thompson was forced to call the room to order again, this time warning the accused to watch her tongue.

The turnkey poked Harrie on the arm and told her to move away from the doorway, obscuring her view of the proceedings. She could hear quite clearly, though, when the judge pronounced sentence a short while later because the public gallery had fallen into an anticipatory silence — fourteen years’ transportation to New South Wales.

When Friday was brought back through the antechamber, Harrie saw that beneath the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks her skin was parchment white. Her mouth, however, was set in a little smirk of triumph: Harrie knew she’d half expected a life sentence. Fourteen years was nothing compared with that. She sent Harrie a quick wink.

Then it was Harrie’s turn. The turnkey prodded her off her stool and led her up the steps into the dock, and by the time the little wooden gate had clicked shut, closing her in, all Harrie’s stomach-clenching fear had flooded back. She desperately needed to sit down but there was no chair, so she leant her elbows on the rail, feeling dizzy and sick.

‘Stand up straight, prisoner!’ the turnkey ordered in a terse whisper.

Harrie straightened, but kept one hand on the rail to steady herself. Below the dock sat counsel for the prosecution at an expansive green baize table, beyond them the Clerk of the Court
and, above him, directly opposite her, Mr Justice Thompson in his scarlet robes and long white wig. The Lord Mayor of London, Harrie thought as her face flamed and her very innards shrivelled with shame. The Lord Mayor of London himself is to pass judgment on my sins!

On her right sat the jury in two tiered rows. At one end stood the witness box and above both ran the packed public gallery. Her stomach rumbled at the smells of vinegar, fried fish, spice cakes and hot nuts wafting down from the crowd. She was amazed she could feel hungry at a time like this. On the opposite side of the courtroom, on her left, sat the reporters, several members of the watch and various other official spectators.

The clerk read out the indictment, then returned to his seat. Harrie knew this wouldn’t take long — she had already indicated she would plead guilty, so it was simply a matter of what her sentence would be. She glanced up at the gallery, but fear had blurred her vision and she couldn’t pick out her mother’s face in the crowd. She hoped she hadn’t come after all.

Counsel for the prosecution called Mr Wilton and all eyes were upon him as he mounted the creaky steps to the witness box.

‘Mr Wilton,’ the barrister began, his voice booming out across the courtroom, ‘can you tell the court in your own words what happened on the afternoon of the event in question?’

‘I most certainly can,’ Mr Wilton said pompously, leaning back, his hands gripping the lapels of his best black coat. ‘I was in my drapery, working hard as an honest man does, when I asked my shop assistant to step into the back room with me.’

There was a titter from the gallery at this, which earned a stern look from the judge.

‘There were three or four customers patronising my establishment at the time,’ Mr Wilton went on, ‘including that girl there.’ He thrust an accusing finger in Harrie’s direction. ‘I had my suspicions from the outset, I did. She was fingering the Chinese
dupioni like she couldn’t wait to get her hands on it. We were only gone a minute or two and when I returned I immediately noticed that the bolt of silk was missing. And so was
she
!’ Mr Wilton pointed again. ‘So I ran out to the street and there she was haring off like the devil himself was after her. I shouted and gave chase and was able to wrestle her to the ground and retrieve my stolen property. She had one of my compendiums, too, down her skirt. Good silk thread, six spools of it!’

The barrister consulted his notes. ‘It says here in the arresting constable’s report that the prisoner said she dropped the bolt of silk, then fell over it.’

Mr Wilton made a horse noise with his lips. ‘That’s her story!’

‘Thank you, Mr Wilton. You may be seated.’

Mr Justice Thompson enquired of the counsel, ‘Do you have any more witnesses, Mr Crawley?’

‘One more, my lord. I call Mrs Maude Lynch to the witness box.’

Harrie felt fresh apprehension prickle at her already clammy skin as her ex-employer made her way from the witnesses’ waiting area and entered the box.

‘Mrs Lynch, you are Harriet Clarke’s employer, are you not?’ Mr Crawley asked.

‘I
was
,’ Mrs Lynch replied haughtily. Her mouth took on the appearance of a drawstring purse pulled very tightly indeed. ‘She’s no employee of mine now.’

‘And what can you tell the court about her character, Mrs Lynch?’

From the public gallery, someone cried out in a high, reedy voice, ‘Thief-taker!’

This was a gross insult, as individuals known as thief-takers used their knowledge of the underworld to inform on those who had committed a crime to collect the rewards the state offered for their prosecution. As many of the unemployed and the labouring
poor in London knew someone accused of criminal activity, or perhaps had even been in that situation themselves, thief-takers were deeply unpopular. They also weren’t above blackmailing individuals wanted for crimes, in exchange for not informing on them.