Chapter 27
“Eh bien, Madame Aldine. This whole affair is most unfortunate, but it is not at all convenable for a lady like you to go to Newgate. I am much too busy to arrange such a thing. I have a large dinner at my house on Saturday that I must plan for—perhaps you can come to that, rather than Newgate?”
“Please,” Helena begged, trying to melt the heart of her brother’s friend, the Marquis de Montesquerrat. He had always been kindly disposed to her, and it was only a few hours of his time she was asking of him. Tears fell from her eyes.
“Mais non, s'il vous pla?t, do not cry.” The marquis looked uncomfortable now. Helena knew Edwina could have offered her an embroidered handkerchief, but instead, Edwina waited until the marquis was forced to perform that office himself so that he could receive the full effect of Helena’s sorrow. “Voici, dry your tears.”
Helena sobbed into his handkerchief.
“Are you so certain your husband will want to see you there?” asked the marquis in a final effort to dissuade the tearful woman.
“Why would he not wish to see me?” asked Helena, her limpid blue eyes blinking away the tears.
“He will be unwashed, unshaven, unadorned with the trappings of a gentleman. Perhaps he does not wish to see his très jolie femme in such a state.”
“I don’t care a bit what he looks like,” said Helena with a sniff. “I simply must see him.”
“Eh bien, but perhaps you care what he smells like. And I assure you, madame, he will stink!”
“Perhaps you could go ahead of us,” suggested Edwina, “and bring fresh clothing and toiletries for Mr. Aldine. Then he could refresh himself and not be embarrassed by the presence of his wife.”
The marquis’ Gallic nostrils flared. “Miss Cecil, you are prepared for every objection. I feel trapped, or—what is it you English say?—waylaid. And I have never had the misfortune to be trapped by a woman before.” He looked at Helena’s friend curiously.
“Please,” said Helena again. “You were kind enough to escort me all the way to Scotland for my marriage. All I’m asking for now is a short trip across town.
” She tilted up her chin as her eyes continued to plead her case.
“It is for the sake of love, my lord. Is that not something the French understand? That love conquers all, even the proprieties of who can visit Newgate Prison?”
The marquis threw up his hands in surrender. “What can I do but yield? D’accord, I will take you to Newgate, Madame Aldine. And then,” he added darkly, “your brother Geoffrey will kill me with that sword he likes so well.”
Pevensey nodded to Dolly, allowing her to leave. There were more secrets to dig out there, but once again, Tibbs’ presence was in the way of a thorough excavation.
After Dolly had disappeared down the corridor, casting a single fearful look over her shoulder, Pevensey took the notebook Tibbs held out and thumbed through it. “Where did you find this?”
“I followed Danvers like you said. This floor’s as creaky as an old codger’s bones, but I managed to keep him from hearing my footsteps.
His office is above the entrance at the back of the theater.
He went in there for a few minutes and did God-knows-what inside.
I had to duck into an empty dressing room to keep him from seeing me when he left.
I waited till he left and then went inside—”
“I assume he locked it?” interrupted Pevensey.
Tibbs gave a sly smile and pulled a pair of lockpicks out of his waistcoat pocket.
Pevensey’s red eyebrows flew up. His own pocket held a set that was brother to that one.
It was not Bow Street policy for thief takers to carry about the implements of a thief.
He would have assumed that Tibbs would disdain to do so.
But, annoying as the man was, he still held surprises.
“The window in the office has a prime view of every bachelor’s son or cunning baggage that enters the theater. The desk was messy, but I saw a notebook lying there amid the litter of receipts. This notebook,” he said, pointing to the book open in Pevensey’s hands.
The book was divided into columns. In the first column was a date.
In the second column was an initial. In the third column was a name.
And in the fourth column was an amount of money—somewhere between a single shilling and ten pounds.
Most of the amounts of money had a tick mark next to them, but a few of them were missing that important notation.
“So, you think this is a guestbook?” Pevensey asked Tibbs.
“Course it is.” Tibbs’ insistent finger pointed at the third column, the one with names. “These are names of gentlemen frequenting the place. Look here. Carlisle. Aldine. Montague. Fremont. Ford.”
They exchanged a glance at that last one.
Sir Richard Ford, the head of Bow Street, was known to keep a mistress at Drury Lane, but perhaps he had also visited the ladies at the King’s Theatre.
Pevensey, with the mysterious note signed by “F” in his pocket, began to burn with curiosity.
“What do you make of these initials in the second column?” Pevensey asked.
Tibbs grunted. “I don’t know. First names of the nobs?”
Pevensey saw the initials “C.S.” in the column next to “Ford.” If they were the first initials of the visitor, then Sir Richard could be exonerated. But perhaps the initials were less closely associated with the name and referred to something else?
“See here, Tibbs. There are several times that the same initials show up next to a different name. Look, here is ‘C.S.’ with Montague and Ford, and then a few months back, ‘C.S.’ with Barrington multiple times.” Pevensey flipped back a page where a smattering of other initials appeared.
‘G.G.’, ‘R.A.’, ‘E.C.’ The farther back Pevensey flipped in the notebook, the more initials he found.
‘D.C.’ was there once, and ‘L.J.’ several times. ‘B.E.’ and ‘V.A.’
“Danvers must be blackmailing the men who come here,” speculated Tibbs. “Charging them a fee to forget about their visits.”
“Maybe,” said Pevensey, his lips pursed in thought. “Did you notice which money amounts have no mark beside them?”
Tibbs located one and grunted. “Fremont.”
“Among others. Everything in the last three months with the initials ‘E. C.’”
“Elizabeth Clifford!” blurted out Tibbs, finally making the connection. “Apparently none of her visitors wanted to pay after sampling the goods.”
“Or apparently, she made no payment.”
Tibbs looked confused.
“I don’t think Danvers is blackmailing his visitors,” said Pevensey patiently. “I think he’s charging his actresses for having extra guests on the premises.”
Ralph looked up in surprise as the door to his cell opened. It was not the normal time for a meal to be delivered, Sir Philip Phipps had already asked him everything he knew, and the trial was still a week away.
“What’s this?” he croaked at the warden who was bearing a large basket.
The warden thrust the unwieldy wicker into his arms. “Present for you, Mr. Aldine.” He looked at him suspiciously. “There’s a razor in there. You won’t do away with yourself if I give it to you?”
“I will not,” pledged Ralph. He had far too much to live for, even if his rattling cough felt like death at the present moment.
The warden grunted an acceptance of that promise and left the room. Ralph saw that the basket contained a change of clothes, a small mirror and shaving kit, tooth powder, soap, and even a large flask of water in case he had no clean water to wash with. Was this from Geoffrey?
At the bottom of the basket, he found a folded slip of paper. He read it in the dim light. “Please make yourself presentable. A lady wishes to see you.”
What on earth did that mean? Ralph unfolded the clothes and looked them over.
He had lost weight in the last two weeks, so they would fit him quite loosely, but it was better than wearing the same clothing in which he had been arrested at the inquest. Setting up the small mirror on the shelf near the window, he poured water into a tin cup and daubed the soap with liquid to smear on his face.
Then slowly, carefully, he slid the straight-edged blade over a field of unkempt stubble, leaving only his usual sideburns of modest length.
Every time he felt the urge to cough he would remove the razor from his chin and stand a moment panting before it was safe to try again.
He had no intention of slitting his own throat due to an ill-timed gasp for air.
After shaving, he cleaned himself with soap on a rag and used up the rest of the water rinsing off the soap.
Then, he pulled on the fresh set of clothing, folding up his own worn clothes to place back in the basket.
The note had said that a lady wanted to see him, but it said nothing about the time this might take place.
He could think of only one lady who might visit him at Newgate—his half-sister Maud.
He did not think that Geoffrey had told her of his plight, but perhaps it had been placed in the newspapers, and she had come to hear of it through other means.
He tried to think of how he might console her if she did visit.
There was certainly a good deal about his case to cause anyone distress.
He wondered how distressed Helena would be if she knew?
Or would she gratefully assume the respectable status of widow, now able to keep her child and begin life in London again without a scandal?
He thought back to that farewell kiss he had given her with her golden hair unfurled about the pillows of her bed.
That soft, lingering kiss that had proved that his wife was as desirable as she was beautiful.
That eager, interested kiss hinting that the distance between them might be coming to an end.
Two hours later the promised visitor still had not arrived. Ralph lay down on his hard pallet and drifted off to sleep.
Helena and Edwina clutched each other’s arms while the marquis went ahead of them to the gate of the prison to ask for access.
Leaning against the wall across the street were four women in dirty and immodest dresses, laughing with each other in a riotous fashion.
They stared frankly at Helena and Edwina and acted like seeing a fine lady at Newgate was like seeing an African lion in a menagerie.
At first, Helena thought they were making fun of her new soft gray wool pelisse, but she soon realized that they were the sort of reckless females who would mock anything that came into their path.
“What are those women doing here?” Helena asked the marquis as he returned from the gate and offered her his arm.
“Eh bien, they pay the keeper, and he lets them come into the cells and stay the night. It is—how do the English say it?—a conjugal visit.”
“So, they are the wives of the prisoners?”
The marquis began to look uncomfortable. “Mais non, but they say they are. The cellmates pay them well.”
“Oh,” said Helena in a small voice. Apparently, this was one of the reasons why Geoffrey had not wanted her to come to Newgate.
“Pay them no heed,” said Edwina, taking Helena’s other arm. Her cheerful face was always a bastion of strength in trying times like this.
The keeper allowed them into the prison, handing the marquis a lantern to use. The marquis passed through the courtyard and turned the ladies into the right-hand corridor.
“Where are ye bound?” asked a tall man, one of the wardens. The marquis told him a cell number.
“Follow me then,” said the warden. A rusting sign indicated that the women’s quadrangle was in this direction as were the private cells and rooms for state prisoners.
Helena mouthed the cell numbers as she walked through the stone corridor.
They were single file now, and both she and Edwina were trying to keep their skirts from touching the damp walls.
“Voilà,” said the marquis, stopping in front of a wooden door.
The warden, who had advanced a few paces too far, stopped and returned to the group. “Here ye be.”
“How do we get in?” asked Helena.
A bundle of heavy keys grated against each other as the warden removed them from his belt. He inserted one in the keyhole. Then, without allowing the cell’s occupant the courtesy of a knock, he pushed open the door.
Helena slipped past the marquis to be the first inside.
A face was lifting from the sorry scrap of a pillow on a narrow pallet.
It was gaunter and whiter than she remembered it, but still infinitely dear.
“Ralph!” she uttered, wondering if she knelt at his side whether she would be able to get up again.
He preempted that notion by rising from the narrow pallet, his eyes alert as soon as her voice made her presence known.
“Helena!” his voice rasped. He was on his feet much more quickly than she would have been able to fall to her knees.
He pulled her into his arms and laid his cheek against hers.
She wrapped her arms around his chest as far as she could and laid her fingers on his shoulder blades.
He was thinner than she remembered him—and the thought that she knew the shape of her husband’s body almost caused her to blush.
“Helena!” he said again, clinging to her fiercely.
His hands splayed across her back and his lips began to devour her ear, her cheek, her eyebrow, her mouth like flames in a forest of bone-dry kindling.
In the fire of their meeting, Helena almost forgot she had brought an escort with her until she heard the marquis say, “Allons, allons. We must give them their privacy. Love conquers all, eh bien?”
The door swung shut and they were alone in the cell.