The note was short, and written in a neat script that reminded me of my own. A gentleman’s hand.
Sir.
As a good Christian it is my Duty to report that yr Tenant that vile Dog Hawkins is engaged in relations of the most sordid Nature with your Wife and that the whole World speaks of their Infamy. Your kind Patience and Tolerance of his Debts to You, sir, he repays in this monstrous Manner to his own Shame and your Wife’s Ruin.
A Friend.
Beneath it was a crude drawing of a man sprouting horns from his brow – the unmistakeable sign of a cuckold.
I frowned at the note, quite confounded. Mrs Fletcher was a pinched, mean-spirited woman with a shrill temper and the look of a shaved ferret. The very notion we were ‘engaged in relations’ was beyond contempt, but Fletcher believed it. This was calamitous. As my chief creditor, he alone could show mercy and grant me more time to pay my debt. He was not a cruel man; in truth he had been more patient than I deserved. But above all other things, he doted upon his wretched wife. His anonymous ‘friend’ had played a clever game upon us both. I must answer this with great care.
‘Mr Fletcher, sir. We are men of reason, are we not?’ I waved the note limply. ‘You must see that this is no more than malicious gossip? I mean no dishonour to your good wife, but…’
Behind me, Moll gave a little cough. ‘But he’d rather fuck his own sister.’
The chains lay heavy across my chest as Jakes led me through Covent Garden towards the river. I walked with my gaze upon the ground, the manacles tight about my wrists, hands clasped together as if in prayer. Too late for that, now. I doubt I was much of a spectacle. I had seen dozens of men led through Soho on their way to the Fleet or the Marshalsea or some other rotten lock-up, and given them little more than a moment’s thought. At least I didn’t have a wife or children trailing at my heels, lamenting their sorry fate. And that, I realised, was the best I could say for myself in that moment.
We pushed our way through the busy market, past stalls laden with bright bunches of flowers and ripe fruit fresh in from the suburbs. I breathed in the sweet scent of herbs and the dusty rich tang of spices and wished I could linger, disappear into the bustling confusion of the crowds – traders shouting their wares; young maids selling nosegays, handkerchiefs, anything to keep them from the brothel; livestock bleating and lowing and snorting and stinking to the heavens; actors and tumblers, footmen and chairmen; gossiping madams and rock-faced bullies – just let me join you all, let me slip into this mass of bodies and disappear…
