Lamentation

Chapter Forty-eight

Josephine went to fetch her fiancé, young Brown. He was happy to help look for Timothy and he and Josephine went one way, I another, to search all the surrounding streets, up beyond Newgate. But although Timothy could not have been gone more than an hour, we found no trace of him. Only when it grew dark did I abandon the search, returning to a deserted house where I lit a candle and sat staring dismally at the kitchen table. I cursed Brocket, who had deliberately humiliated the boy. I realized that I had come to think of Timothy almost as my own son, just as I had come to see Josephine, in a way, as a daughter. Perhaps that was why I had been so hurt by what Timothy did, and had in turn hurt him, by letting my anger fester. Foolish, foolish, I. It would have been better for us all had I looked on them only as servants.

As I sat there, hoping Josephine and Brown would return with Timothy, Bealknap’s words as he lay dying came back to me: What will happen to you? Almost as though he had foreseen the disasters that would come.

Then I drew a deep breath. I remembered again how, last autumn, Bealknap had made those uncharacteristic overtures of friendship; for a while seeming to be always hovering nearby, as if wishing to engage me. And then he had fallen badly ill — in the first months of the year, that would have been; at just about the time I took Martin on. I had thought Martin’s spying was connected with the heresy hunt. But what if Bealknap, too, had been trying to spy on me? Perhaps Stice had first recruited him and then, when Bealknap’s efforts to worm his way into my confidence failed, and he fell ill, Stice had gone looking for another spy and found that my new steward had money worries.

I ran a shaking hand through my hair. If Bealknap had been spying on me, that would explain his deathbed words. But who could have had an interest in me as long ago as last autumn? The heresy hunt had not yet begun and I was not even working for the Queen then.

My reverie was interrupted by the sound of a key turning in the kitchen door. Josephine and Brown entered, looking exhausted. Brown shook his head as Josephine slumped at the table opposite me. ‘We can’t find him, sir,’ he said. ‘We asked people, went into all the shops before they closed.’

Josephine looked at me. ‘Timothy — he has good clothes, and surely anybody who saw that gap in his teeth would remember it.’

Young Brown put a hand on her shoulder. ‘There are many toothless children on the streets.’

‘Not with Timothy’s smile.’ Josephine burst into tears.

I stood up. ‘Thank you for your help, both of you. I am going to Jack Barak’s house now. He may have some ideas.’ He would, I was sure; he had been a child on the streets himself once. ‘With your employer’s permission, Goodman Brown, we shall resume the search at first light tomorrow.’

‘Offer a reward.’ That was Barak’s first suggestion. I sat with him and Tamasin in their parlour, nursing a jug of beer. As always, it was a cosy domestic scene: baby George abed upstairs; Barak mending a wooden doll the child had broken; Tamasin sewing quietly by candlelight, her belly just beginning to swell with the coming child.

‘I’ll do that. When we go out tomorrow. Offer five pounds.’

Barak raised his eyebrows. ‘Five pounds! You’ll have every lost urchin in London brought to your door.’

‘I don’t care.’

He shook his head. Tamasin said, ‘What is Josephine’s fiancé’s first name? You always speak of him just as Brown.’

‘Edward, it’s Edward. Though I seem to think of him as just young Brown.’

She smiled. ‘Perhaps because he is taking Josephine away from you.’

‘No, no, he is a fine lad.’ I thought of his uncomplaining willingness to help tonight, his obvious love for Josephine. She could not have done better. Yet perhaps there was some truth in what Tamasin said.

She said, ‘I will go out tomorrow with Goodwife Marris. I’ll come to your house in the morning and we can divide the city into sections.’

‘No, you won’t,’ Barak interjected. ‘Going up and down the streets and stinking lanes. No.’ He put down the doll. ‘I’ll talk to some people; plenty of the small solicitors and their servants would be happy to look for the boy for five pounds.’ There was still amazement in his voice at the size of the sum I was prepared to lay out. ‘Have you paid the latest instalment of your taxes?’ he asked me.

‘Not yet. But remember I got four pounds from Stephen Bealknap.’ I frowned slightly, thinking again of his deathbed words.

‘Make sure you find him,’ Tamasin told her husband. ‘Or I will be out looking the next day.’ She asked me, ‘Is tomorrow not the day you go to Hampton Court?’

‘Yes. But I do not have to be there till five in the afternoon. I’ll search for Timothy till I have to leave.’

Next morning, while Barak was busy rousing people to join the hunt, Josephine and Goodman Brown and I went out again. They took the road eastward, to see if the boy had left London; if he had, he would be impossible to find. But he had spent all his life in the city, he must surely be here somewhere.

There was a little crowd in Fleet Street, for today was hanging day and people always gathered to watch the cart that carried the condemned to the great gibbet at Tyburn, its occupants standing with nooses round their necks. Some of the crowd shouted insults, others encouraged the condemned to die bravely. Though I shuddered as always at this spectacle, I stopped and asked people if they had seen Timothy. But none had.

I went along Cheapside, calling in all the shops. I had dressed in my robe and coif, to impress the shopkeepers, but perhaps some thought I was mad as I asked each a set of questions which soon became a chant: ‘I am looking for a lost stable-boy... ran away yesterday afternoon... thirteen, medium height, untidy brown hair, his two front teeth missing... Yes, five pounds... no, he hasn’t stolen anything... yes, I know I could get another...’

I asked among the beggars at the great Cheapside conduit. At the sight of a rich gentleman they crowded round me, their stink overpowering. There were children among them, filthy, some covered in sores, eyes feral as cats’. Women as well, too broken or mad even to be whores, in no more than rags, and men missing limbs who had been in accidents, or the wars. They were all blistered by the sun, with cracked lips and dry, matted hair.

More than one said they had seen Timothy, holding out a hand for a reward. I gave each a farthing to whet their appetites and told them the extraordinary sum of five pounds awaited if they produced the boy — the right boy, I added emphatically. One lad of about twelve offered himself in Timothy’s stead, and bared a skinny arse to show what he meant. One of the women waiting for water at the conduit called out ‘Shame!’ But I did not care what they thought, so long as Timothy was found.

There was one further resource I had not tapped. Guy had met Timothy several times at my house, and the boy liked him. What was more, if something happened to him, he might turn up at St Bartholomew’s. Despite the distance that had come between us, I needed Guy’s help.

His assistant Francis Sybrant opened the door and told me his master was at home. He looked at me curiously, for I was dusty from the streets. I waited in Guy’s consulting room, with its pleasant perfume of sandalwood and lavender, and its strange charts of the human body marked with the names of its parts. He came in; I noticed he was starting to walk with an old man’s shuffle, but the expression on his scholarly brown face under the thinning grey curls was welcoming.

‘Matthew. I was going to write you today, about Mistress Slanning. I am glad you told me about her.’

‘How does she fare?’

‘Not well. Her priest has spoken with her, but she told him what she and her brother did, and allowed him to tell me, but then broke down again badly. I have prescribed her a sleeping draught; she has a good household steward, he will keep her from doing what her brother did, so far as anyone can. Perhaps in a little while she may confess fully, and receive absolution.’

‘Do you think confession would rest her mind?’

He shook his head sadly. ‘I think it will never rest again. But it would ease her.’

‘Guy, I need your advice on another matter — nothing to do with the great ones of the realm,’ I added as his expression became wary. I told him Timothy was missing, and he readily offered to look out for him at the hospital. But he added sadly, ‘There are thousands of homeless children in London, more every week, orphans and those cast out from their homes, or coming in from the countryside. Many do not live long.’

‘I know. And Timothy — it is partly my fault.’

‘Do not think of that. I am sure you are right, he is still in the city, and your offer of a reward may find him.’ He put a comforting hand on my arm.

I returned to the house shortly before lunchtime. Barak was there, and said he had half a dozen people out looking. He had told those who had joined the hunt to recruit others, on the promise that each would get a portion of the reward if they found the boy. ‘Contracting the job out,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’ve got Nick out looking too, we’ve more than caught up with the work at chambers.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, grateful as ever for his practicality.

‘I think you should stay here now, to hand over the reward if someone finds him. What time must you be at the banquet?’

‘Five. I must leave by three.’

‘I’ll take over here then.’ He stroked his beard. It was tidy as usual, Tamasin kept it well trimmed. ‘You’ll look for Lord Parr?’

‘I’ll make sure I find him,’ I answered grimly.

‘Remember, Nick and I are available tonight, if we’re needed.’

‘Tamasin —’

‘Will be all right. You’d be mad to go there alone.’

‘Yes. I hope Lord Parr will supply some men, but bring Nicholas back here after the search for Timothy, and wait for me. Just in case. Thank you,’ I added, inadequately.