“Well, then—I’ll pay for her.”
This time the offer was accepted and the woman thanked her profusely, promising to repay her as soon as she was able—which would apparently be never if she was to be kept in prison until her debt was cleared. And then a man came in to put on the lighter shackles. They consisted of bracelets which fitted loosely about the wrists and ankles with long chains stretching between, and though they were awkward and clanked dismally they did not seem to be otherwise uncomfortable.
“Take the fanatic to the Common Felon’s side,” said Mrs. Cleggat to the man when he had done. “Come with me, ladies.” They trooped out of the room after her, first Moll, then Amber holding the bird-cage on her shoulder, and then the housewife.
Mounting a dark narrow stairway they reached a big room where the door stood open; above it was nailed a skull-and-crossbones. Mrs. Cleggat went in first with her candle and as they followed they could see two large flat beds, covered with flock mattresses and some grey rumpled bedding, a table, scarred stools and chairs, and a cold fireplace above and beside which hung some blackened kettles and pans and a few pewter mugs and dishes. Certainly there was nothing in this barren dirty room to suggest the luxurious quarters Mrs. Cleggat had painted.
“This,” she said, “is the Lady Debtors’ Ward.”
Amber looked at her in angry astonishment, while Moll smiled. “This!” she cried, forgetting her manacles and giving a sweep of one arm. “But you told us—”
“Never mind what I told you. If you don’t like it I can take you to the Common Side.”
Amber turned away, disgusted, and Mrs. Cleggat prepared to leave with Moll, who would go to the Lady Felons’ Quarters. Oh! she thought furiously. This nasty place! I won’t stay here a day! Then she swung around.
“I want to send a letter!”
“That’ll cost you three shillings.”
Amber paid it. “Are we the only prisoners?” She could still hear the voices, the incessant sounds that seemed to come from the very walls, but they had seen no one else.
“Most of the others are down in the Tap-Room. It’s Christmas Eve.”
The letter, written by an amanuensis, was sent to Almsbury, and she was very confident that he would have her out of there within twenty-four hours. When she got no immediate reply she told herself that since it was Christmas Day he had very likely been away from his lodgings. Tomorrow, she promised herself, he’ll come. But he did not, and the days passed and at last she was forced to realize that either he had not received the letter or was no longer interested in her.
The Lady Debtors’ Ward was the least crowded one in Newgate, but even so she and the housewife, Mrs. Buxted, had to share those scant accommodations with a dozen other women. In many wards, however, thirty or forty were crowded into the same space and there were more than three hundred prisoners in a building intended for half that number. It was impossible for everyone to lie on the beds at once and they had to use cooking utensils and dishes in turn. Usually these were merely scraped off between meals, for water cost money and was always stale and stinking and afloat with vegetation and specks of sewage. This encouraged them to spend what they could on ale or wine.
The entire prison lay in an eternal half-gloom, for the windows, deep-set and narrow, opened only upon dark passages. Links and tallow-candles were bought by the prisoners and they burnt all day long. Large ugly cats and numerous dogs, half-naked with mange, roamed the hallways and contested with the rats for every shred of refuse; Amber had to keep a constant eye on her parakeet. The smells were thick and almost palpable, product of the accumulated rot of centuries, and sometimes there was another strange and sickening odour which she learned came from the heads being boiled by the hangman in his kitchen below their ward. She had not been there an hour when she started scratching furiously. She caught the plump lice between her fingers, squashing them like boiled peas.
Newcomers were automatically assigned the duties of chamber-maid. The first morning Amber and Mrs. Buxted carried the slop-jars down the hall and emptied them into the cesspool below. The stench of the heavy fumes made Amber almost faint. After that she paid another woman two pence a week to do the job for her.
The prison was considered to be a place of detention, not of correction, and from eight o’clock in the morning until nine at night all inside doors were opened and each was free to follow his inclination.
Those who had been arrested because of their religious beliefs were now permitted to hold services, make what converts they could, or preach sedition. Whoever had money usually spent it in the Tap-Room, drinking and gambling. Well-to-do inmates sometimes gave large entertainments attended by persons of the first quality, for some criminals enjoyed considerable popularity. Visitors were admitted to the Hall and swarmed there by the hundreds. A man might have his wife and children to keep him company—sometimes for years—or, if he preferred and had the price, he could take his choice of the prostitutes who daily came from outside.
Thievery was common and fights went on continually, for discipline was maintained by the prisoners themselves. Some went mad and were heavily chained, but usually not segregated. Babies were born but seldom lived long, and the death-rate among all prisoners was high.
Amber remained as aloof from the life of the jail as she could; this was one place where she desired no popularity. She did not go to the Tap-Room and of course she had no visitors, so that the only time she left her own ward was on Sunday when everyone was herded up to the third-floor Chapel.
Most of the women in the Lady Debtors’ Ward were the victims of misfortune and all of them expected soon to be released. They sat by the hour talking of the day when their debt would be paid—by a father or brother or friend—and they would go free. Amber listened to them, wistfully, for she had no one to pay her debt and no reason to hope for freedom, though she continued stubbornly to do so.
With aching homesickness her memories went back to the Goodegroome cottage. She took pleasure in remembering many things she had not known she cared for. She remembered how the dormer windows of her bedroom were wreathed in roses, and the delicious summer scent they had had. She remembered how the overhanging eaves were full of sparrows so that every morning she woke to the sound of their twirring and twittering. She remembered Sarah’s wonderful rich food, the clean-scrubbed flag-stones of the kitchen floor and the rows of glossy pewter lining the shelves. She longed passionately for a sight of the sky, a breath of fresh air, the smell of flowers and hay new-mown, the sound of a bird’s song.
The holidays were dreary as she had never known they could be.
She remembered what Christmas had been the year before when she had helped Sarah to make mince-pies and plum-pottages; she and all her cousins had dressed up to go mumming; and everyone on the farm had toasted the fruit trees in apple-cider, according to the old old custom. On New Year’s Eve she spent several shillings of her fast-dwindling supply for Rhenish wine and the Lady Debtors drank it, proposing a toast to the new year. Just before midnight the bells began to ring from every steeple in London and Amber burst into lonely frightened tears, for she was sure that she would never live to hear them ring in another year.
A week later Newgate was swept with frenzied excitement: A rebellion had broken out in the city, led by a band of religious zealots, and for three days and nights they ran riot through the streets. Bellowing for King Jesus, they shot down whoever opposed them. Inside the prison they heard the bells banging out an ominous warning, confused shouts and cries and the sound of flying hoofs. The prisoners gathered anxiously in groups, talking of massacre and fire, discussing means of escape; the women became hysterical, screamed at the grates and begged to be set free.