It was difficult. But it was either submit, or watch Ned die a lingering death in the muck of Newgate. The history of love was full of such sacrifices — Pyramus and Thisbe, Venus and Adonis, George and Martha Washington. If they could do it, so could she. As she lay in Ned’s arms behind the cold stone walls of Newgate, too sore and exhausted to move, her lips swollen and eyes wet with tears, she felt herself lifted into the airy solitudes of the Christian martyrs, into the realm of Ignatius, Polycarp, Joan of Arc — of Christ Himself. This was martyrdom. This was love.
Ned did his best to lighten the load. He soothed her, massaged her welts and bruises, tried to smooth away the calligraphic blot on her backside with creams and unguents — all the while swearing he’d get revenge, make it up to her, take her off to some island in the Mediterranean and raise an altar to her. She let him talk on, his voice an anodyne. The walls were of granite, the gate of cast iron. He was penniless, powerless, emasculated by a system that crushed the downtrodden and rewarded perjurers and thieves. She never reminded him. Never undermined his hopes, never burdened his flights with the ballast of reality, and above all, never alluded to the trial that hung over their heads like the wicked flashing blade of a guillotine.
But now the moment was at hand. Ned would be acquitted and she could turn her back on Brooks to live with her lover in poverty and ecstasy. Or else—
She steeled herself. Thisbe’s example had not been lost on her.
♦ THE BLACK CAP ♦
The day of the trial dawned like an infection, the sky low and pus-colored, the sun a crusted eye. A few sickly pigeons flapped over the prison walls like newspapers lifted on the wind. From the street below came the pathogenic roar of the mob gathered outside the courthouse. Ned Rise felt sick to his stomach.
The mob was a ruly one for the most part, composed of shopkeepers, clergymen, budding industrialists and the wives of M.P.’s — the very heart, lungs and marrow of the middle class. They had been convened largely through the efforts of Sir Joseph Banks. Tirelessly, throughout the fall and early winter, he had led a campaign in the press and in the drawing rooms of Soho and Mayfair to make a public example of this case, to “lay its bloated carcass before the public eye and nostril till the very sight and stink of it drives them to rise up and exterminate the human vermin that infest our streets and threaten the life, liberty — and yes, property — of our good citizens.” He was stung by the wanton act of violence against his old friend and African associate and maddened to the brink of aneurysm by the revelation that his own ex-servant was connected — in the most odious way — with the evildoer. One thing and one thing only had brought him to the Old Bailey: to see Ned Rise sentenced to hang.
Inside, the gallery was packed. Charles Fox was there, Sir Reginald Durfeys, the Duke of Omnium and Lady Bledsoe. Countess Binbotta, Twit’s sister, was in from Leghorn with her husband Rudolfo. The African Association was out in force. Cariotta Meninges was there, and Bishop Erkenwald. So too was Beau Brummell, now an intimate of the Prince of Wales, and well on his way to becoming the preeminent cravat folder of the age. Twit’s death had come as a jolt to all of them, nagging as it did at the heels of their own vulnerability. Who hadn’t lost a purse in the street or been robbed at gunpoint in one’s own coach? Or come home to find his rooms ransacked and jewelry absconded with? But this — this was something else again.
There were nearly two hundred capital offenses on the books during that winter of ‘96-’97, including such heinous crimes as: stealing linen from a bleaching ground; shooting at a Revenue Officer; pulling down houses, churches, etc.; cutting hop binds; setting fire to corn or coal mines; stabbing a person unarmed if he die in six months; sending threatening letters; riots by twelve or more, and not dispersing in one hour after proclamation; breaking down a fish pond where fish may be lost; stealing woollen clothes from tenter grounds; stealing from a ship in distress; privy councillors, attempting to kill, etc.; sacrilege; turnpikes or bridges, destroying. With so many felonies to choose from this poor idiot had to go ahead and murder a nobleman. It was more than a crime. It was an outrage, a violation of the rules, a challenge to the system. Let them murder a Lord today, they’ll be raping a Lady tomorrow. It was unthinkable. Burghers and haut monde alike had turned out in protest. They’d come to see the prisoner get his deserts. They’d come to see the judge put on his black cap.
♦ ♦ ♦
The entire cast was assembled when Ned Rise was led into the courtroom, chains tintinnabulating at his wrists and ankles. The jurors had taken their oaths, kissed the ancient lip-blackened Bible and settled themselves in their box; the counselors were shuffling papers and grinning over some private joke; the judges — the Lord Mayor, the alderman, the sheriffs and the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas — were arranging their robes and coughing into their fists, the ebb and flow of their plethoric wigs like a flock of sheep on the run. Clank-clank, echoed the chains. The faces in the gallery looked up from newspapers, knitting, flasks of brandy, keen as weasels on the scent of a stricken bird. Ned, shoulders slumped, looking apologetic, clanked into the dock.
The Chief Justice wiped his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose while Ned scanned the room for a friendly face. None was readily apparent. The judges looked bilious and sour, as if just awakened from naps; the members of the jury sat stiff as fence posts, some wigged, others not, their faces hammered from granite; the prosecutor gnashed his teeth. Ned’s glance shot from face to face in the gallery, lighting on Sir Joseph Banks’ Vesuvian cheeks and brow, the Countess Binbotta’s rapierlike nose, Reginald Durfeys’ fluff of silver hair, and then finally, with a sigh of relief, on Fanny’s sad and wistful smile. At least she was here, thank God. But who was that beside her, in the scarlet jacket and beestung lips? Was that Brooks? And even worse, who was that tattered hag in the front row — the one with the ring struck through her lip? There was something about her that made his blood run cold, something strange and terrible, something that reached back to his earliest memories and whispered lost, lost, all lost.
“Clerk!” thundered the Chief Justice. “Read the indictment.”
The clerk’s voice was pitched like a bassoon, deep and meUifluous. “It is charged,” he read, “that the prisoner, one Ned Rise, did willfully and with malice aforethought take the life of Lord Graeme Eustace Twit in a violent manner on the night of August 11, 1796, after having lured his late lordship to the prisoner’s own foul and disreputable lodgings in Southwark, and there defenestrating him to his great bodily harm and subsequent demise.”
“The indictment has been read,” observed the Chief Justice in his sonorous tones. “How does the prisoner plead?”
Something caught in Ned’s throat. “Not—” he choked, seized by a sudden coughing spasm, drooling and wheezing for breath while the bailiff thumped his back and the spectators sniffed at jars of vinegar and crumbled sprigs of rue to ward off contagion. Finally, eyes tearing, Ned managed to squeak out his plea. “Not guilty. Your — Worship.”
There was a hiss from the gallery. The Chief Justice pounded the table with his gavel. “Call the first witness!” he roared.
The first witness was Mendoza. The Champion Fisticuffer strode across the room to a murmur of approval, resplendent in a pristine cravat, charcoal-gray jacket and black velvet trousers. His hair, lightly powdered, was tied back at the nape with a bit of ribbon that coordinated with his pants in the most delicate and felicitous way. He told his story in a clear, forthright voice, occasionally choked off by a flood of emotion when forced by the prosecutor to dwell on the more unpleasant details of the crime.