The Devil in the Marshalsea - [8]

Moll’s coffeehouse was open – always open – but empty save for Betty, sweeping softly around an old lawyer lying dead drunk beneath a table. She took one look at me then ran and fetched Moll, who was sleeping in the shack next door – maybe with her husband and maybe not. I collapsed on a chair by the fire, my head in my hands, and started to shake. Relief that I was safe. Terror that I was not. As soon as the sun rose my creditors would call the alarm. How long before a warrant officer found me here, my favourite haunt? I had to run – but I was so battered and exhausted I could barely think, never mind move.

Moll was still lacing up her dress as she arrived. ‘Well, now, Tom. What’s all this?’ Then she saw the state of me and gave a low curse of surprise. She prodded Betty towards the door. ‘Hot water, fresh clothes.’ She sat down beside me, touched her fingers to a scrape on my cheek. ‘What happened?’

‘They took my purse, Moll. They took everything.’

There was only one thing for it, Moll decided. I must leave town at once. ‘Run to the Mint, before dawn.’

I sighed bitterly. A few short hours ago I had succeeded in turning my fortunes around. Now my only hope was to flee to the old debtors’ sanctuary across the river. The Mint’s tight maze of streets was so violent, so riddled with disease, that bailiffs refused to set foot across its borders. One tried it, a few weeks back. They beat him bloody and pushed his face down into the thick, stinking river of filth that ran through the streets. He died a few days later.

‘Better the Mint than the Marshalsea,’ Moll insisted, wiping the blood from the back of my neck with a wet cloth. ‘You can leave again on Sunday. They won’t arrest you on the Lord’s day.’ She brought her hands together in mock-piety.

‘And after that? What shall I do on Monday, Moll?’

‘Monday?’ She rubbed harder at the dried blood, making me gasp with pain. ‘Since when have you planned that far ahead?’ Then she stopped, and pressed her lips to my ear. ‘My offer’s still open, Tom. Come and work for me. I could use a boy of your talents…’ And she set off upon a story about a new venture she had in mind, involving a trip to France. I can’t remember the details now and could barely understand them then. My head was throbbing and it was hard to follow her. I remember it sounded dangerous and reckless. And tempting.

I considered my choices while Moll rinsed my blood from the cloth, wringing the water into the bowl with a sharp twist. I could stand and face my fate with honour, like a gentleman, and meet some squalid end in gaol. Or I could escape to the Mint and be lost from good society for ever. It was easy enough for Moll to advise the latter course. She was born in the stews and had spent most of her life working the streets for profit, one way or another. She knew when to run and where to go. She had escaped prison and transportation, been called a whore and a thief and worse. Somehow she always came back, brighter and braver than before.

It was not the same for me. As the eldest son of a Suffolk gentleman, my life had been set along an old, straight track from birth: I would join the clergy like my father, and – in time – inherit his position. Three years ago – following an unfortunate incident in an Oxford brothel – I had abandoned that path. Now here I was, five and twenty, with no family, no prospects and no money. True, I had Greek and Latin and could dance a passable gavotte, but a man cannot survive on such things, even in London.

I glanced through a copy of the Daily Courant that had been left upon the table, hoping for some clue to what I should do. Amidst the advertisements for horses, houses and an ‘infallible cure for scurvy’, I noticed that the South Sea Company had announced a three-month extension on borrowing. When the stocks collapsed seven years ago some investors had arranged to pay their debts in instalments – with interest, naturally. Perhaps Mr Fletcher might consider a similar scheme.

Betty appeared with a clean change of clothes and a bowl of hot punch, God bless her. My waistcoat could be cleaned and mended, but my breeches and stockings were torn beyond repair. I stripped by the warmth of the fire, wincing from the bruises along my ribs. I pulled on the fresh stockings and a pair of old, snuff-coloured breeches, then eased myself into a matching waistcoat and jacket. Clean and dressed, I felt more myself again – but when I glanced in the tarnished mirror above the fireplace, I was startled by my reflection. I didn’t look like a man of honour – if I ever had. I looked like a man who would run.

I shivered. So – this was my choice now. Gaol or a life of crime. A life that would most likely end with a rope around my neck. I touched my hand to my throat.

‘Mr Hawkins.’ A soft, low voice behind me. Betty’s reflection joined mine in the mirror, my ruined clothes gathered in her arms. She stole a glance towards the front door, where Moll was slopping out the blood and water into the piazza. ‘There is another way,’ she whispered.