‘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.
