The Frost Fair

Chapter Three

Over the years, Christopher Redmayne had seen his brother in many embarrassing situations. He had watched Henry being pursued by creditors, harassed by discarded lovers, thrown out of gaming houses, afflicted by shameful diseases, mocked by his colleagues at the Navy Office and, on more than one occasion, so hopelessly drunk that he could barely recall his own name. There was also a time when Henry was subjected to a violent assault that put him in bed for a week and gave him the perfect excuse to whinge, whimper and feel thoroughly sorry for himself. He had been battered and bruised enough to arouse anyone's sympathy. Nothing he had seen before, however, prepared Christopher for the image that he beheld in Newgate prison that morning. Henry Redmayne was in despair.

Locked in a tiny, dark, dank cell, he was sitting on the ground beneath a barred window with his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around his shins. His face was drawn, his eyes rimmed with fatigue. In spite of the cold, he wore nothing but a shirt, breeches and stockings, all of them sullied with filth. Without his wig, he looked a decade older than his true age. Henry was so caught up in his tragedy that he did not seem to notice the stink that pervaded his cell nor the rat that was rustling the straw. When the turnkey showed the visitor in, the prisoner did not even raise his eyes. It was only when the heavy door clanged shut that he came out of his reverie.

'I want no food,' he declared. 'I'd sooner starve than eat that offal.'

'Henry,' said his brother, putting a hand on his shoulder. 'It's me, Christopher.'

'Thank God!'

'How came you to this sorry state?'

'You may well ask!'

'Your valet rushed to my house yesterday evening with news of your arrest, but they would not let me see you until this morning. I had to bribe the turnkey to be left alone with you for ten minutes.'

'This whole place is run on bribes and favours.'

'Tell me what happened,' said Christopher, shocked at his brother's condition. 'Your valet said that officers came to your house.'

Henry put a hand to his brow. 'It's been like a descent into Hell.'

'Have you been badly treated?'

'I've been everything, Christopher. Manacled, fettered, browbeaten, bullied, interrogated, humiliated and even threatened with torture. Had I not had sufficient money to buy a room of my own, they'd have tossed me in with the sweepings of London. Can you imagine that?' he asked with a flash of his old spirit. 'Me, Henry Redmayne, a man of delicate sensibilities, locked up with a seething mass of thieves, cutthroats and naughty ladies, all of them infected with maladies of some kind or another. They'd have torn me to shreds as soon as look at me.' He stared down at his stockinged feet. 'I had to give my best shoes to the prison sergeant - the ones with the silver buckles - so that he'd spare me from being chained to the wall.'

'I'll protest strongly on your behalf.'

"There's no point.'

'Even a prisoner has certain rights.'

'Not in Newgate.'

'It's not as if you're a convicted felon,' argued Christopher. 'You're simply on remand. When this whole business is cleared up, you'll be found innocent, released and able to resume your normal life.'

'Normal life!' echoed Henry gloomily. 'Those days are gone.'

'Take heart, brother.'

'How can I?'

'We'll help you through this nightmare.'

'It's too late, Christopher. The worst has already occurred. The very fact of my arrest has blackened my name and, I daresay, cost me my sinecure at the Navy Office.'

'Not if you are completely exonerated.'

'Nothing can exonerate me from the torment I've suffered so far,' moaned Henry, running his fingers through the vestigial remains of his hair. 'I was arrested in front of my valet, taken by force from my house, questioned for hours by rogues who had patterned themselves on the Spanish Inquisition, deprived of my wig and most of my apparel, then flung into this sewer. By way of a jest, the turnkeys pretended to lock me next door.'

'Next door?'

'Can you not smell that noisome reek?'

Christopher nodded. 'It's the stench of decay.'

'They made me see where it came from,' said Henry, glancing at the wall directly opposite. 'In the next cell are the quartered remains of three poor wretches who were executed earlier this week. They are being kept there until their relatives can get permission to bury what's left of them. The turnkeys took a delight in pointing out that there were no heads in the cell. They'd been parboiled by the hangman with bay-salt and cummin seed so that they would not rot. Those heads have now been set up on spikes for all London to mock.' He grabbed his brother. 'Do not let that happen to me, Christopher. Save me from that disgrace.'

'Only those found guilty of treason suffer that indignity.'

'They'll do their best to pin that crime on me as well.'

'Nonsense!'

'There's nothing they like more than to see a gentleman brought down,' wailed Henry. 'I'm like one of those bulls they had at the frost fair, a noble animal forced to its knees by a pack of sharp-toothed mongrels. I can feel the blood trickling down my back already.'

'Enough of this!' said Christopher, determined not to let his brother wallow in self-pity. 'Our main task is to get you out of here today.'

'There's no chance of that.'

'Yes, there is. I'll speak to the magistrate who committed you.'

'I'm more worried about the judge who'll condemn me.'

'The case will not even come to trial, Henry.'

'It must. The law will take its course.'

'Only if there's enough evidence against you,' argued Christopher, 'and, clearly, there is not. A gross miscarriage of justice has taken place here. You'll be able to sue for wrongful arrest.'

'Will I?'

'Yes, Henry. The charge against you is preposterous.'

'They do not seem to think so.'

'Only because they do not know you as well as I do. What better spokesman is there than a brother? You have your faults, I grant you - and I've taken you to task about them often enough - but you are no murderer, Henry. I've never seen you swat a fly, still less raise your hand against another man.' 'I do not always reign in my temper,' confessed Henry.

'All of us have lapses.'

'Not of the kind that lead to arrest.'

'I'd be surprised if you even knew the murder victim.'

'But I did, that's the rub. I knew and loathed Jeronimo Maldini.'

'Maldini? Who was he?'

'The man they found in the river.'

Christopher was startled. "The fellow they had to cut out of the ice?'

'According to report.'

'But I was there at the frost fair when the body was discovered. Good Lord! What a bizarre coincidence we have here! Is that what has brought you to this pass? I did not even realise that the man had been identified yet. It was one of Jonathan Bale's sons who actually stumbled on the corpse. The lad was frightened to death.'

'So was I when four constables came knocking at my door.'

'What was name again?'

'Maldini. Jeronimo Maldini.'

'And you disliked him?'

'I detested the greasy Italian,' said Henry petulantly. 'At one time, I made the mistake of going to him for fencing lessons but we soon fell out. Our enmity began there and grew out of all proportion.'

'You said nothing of this to me.'

'If I told you about every acquaintance of mine with whom I have a disagreement then it would take up an entire week. Life is a process of constant change, Christopher. We learn to see through people. Friendships fall off, antagonism takes over.'

'How antagonistic were you towards Signor Maldini?'

'Very antagonistic.'

'Could you give me more detail?'

There was a pause. 'I'd prefer not to.'

'But this is important,' said his brother. 'If I'm to help you, I need to be in possession of all the facts. I had no idea that there was any connection between you and the man they hauled out of the Thames. When I heard that you'd been arrested, I assumed that some grotesque error had been made.'

'It has!' Henry looked up at him in dismay. 'At least, I hope that it has.' 'Why did they issue a warrant against you?'

'Judicial spite.'

'They must have had some grounds for suspicion.'

'Witnesses had come forward.'

'Witnesses?' repeated Christopher, feeling anxious. 'What sort of witnesses?'

'Ones who were there at the time.'

'At what time? There's something you're not telling me, Henry.'

'I despised Maldini. I admit that freely.'

'Did you quarrel with him?'

'Several times.'

'And did you do so in public? In front of witnesses?'

Henry bit his lip. 'Yes,' he murmured.

'What was the nature of the argument?'

'It was a heated one, Christopher.'

'Did you come to blows?'

'Almost. His insults were too much to bear.'

'And how did you respond?' Henry put his head in his hands. 'Please,' said his brother, leaning over him. 'I must know. I came to Newgate in the confident belief that some appalling mistake had been made and that, when I'd spoken up for you, I'd be in a position to take you home or, at the very least, to set your release in train. Yet now, it seems, there were grounds for suspecting you. Is that true, Henry?'

'I suppose so.'

'Heavens, man! Your life may be at stake here. We need more than supposition.'

'It's all I can offer,' bleated Henry, looking up at him once more. 'For a number of reasons, there was bad blood between Jeronimo Maldini and me. It came to a head one evening when we had a chance encounter. His language was so vile that he provoked me beyond all endurance.'

'So what did you do?'

'I expressed my anger.'

'How?'

'I said something that, on reflection, I should not perhaps have said.'

'And what was that, Henry?'

'Does it matter?'

'It matters a great deal,' insisted Christopher. 'I've known you make incautious remarks before but never ones that might land you in a prison cell. Now let's have no more prevarication, Henry. What did you say?'

'I threatened to kill him.'

Christopher was staggered. It had never occurred to him for a moment that his brother was guilty of a crime serious enough to justify arrest and imprisonment. He knew his brother's defects of character better than anyone and a homicidal impulse was certainly not among them. Or so he had always believed. Now he was forced to look at Henry through very different eyes. Strong drink could corrupt any man and few indulged as frequently as his brother. Whole weeks sometimes passed without his managing more than a few hours of sobriety. Such a life was bound to takes its toll on Henry. The thought made Christopher put a straight question him.

'Did you murder Jeronimo Maldini?' he asked.

'I don't know,' replied Henry with a forlorn shrug. 'I may have done.'

Word of the arrest spread throughout London with remarkable speed. Within a couple of days, it was the talk of every tavern and coffee house in the city. Since she had been there when the murder victim was found, Susan Cheever took a keen interest in the case and seized on every scrap of information related to it. She was astonished to hear that Henry Redmayne was the chief suspect. Her father, an unforgiving man, was plainly disgusted.

'He should be hanged by his scrawny neck at Tyburn,' he announced.

'But he's not been convicted yet, Father,' she reminded him.

"The fellow is guilty. Why else would they arrest him?'

'There are all kinds of reasons. Mistaken identity is but one of them.'

'We have been the victims of that, Susan.'

'What do you mean?'

'We took the Redmayne family for honourable men,' he said, gesticulating with both arms, 'and we were most cruelly deceived.'

'Not so, Father,' she rejoined with vehemence. 'Christopher Redmayne is the most honourable man I've ever met and his brother, Henry, can be quite charming when you get to know him.'

'I've no wish to know him, Susan.'

'At least, give him the benefit of the doubt.'

'What doubt?' he asked. 'Henry Redmayne consorts with some of the most notorious rakehells in the capital. That says everything. It pains me to admit that my son, Gabriel, was once embroiled in that same twilight world of decadence and debauchery. He paid for it with his life.'

'And who helped to solve his murder? Christopher Redmayne.'

'I've not forgotten that.'

'But for him, the villains would never have been caught.'

'That was one crime, this is quite another.'

'It's unfair to reproach him because of what's happened to his elder brother.'

'Certain traits run in families.'

Susan exploded. 'That's a dreadful thing to say!'

'Nevertheless, it happens to be true.'

'But their father is the Dean of Gloucester.'

'You know my opinion of Anglicans,' he said with a sneer. 'That may be the reason the sons were led astray. Brought up on debased values, they had a false start in life. It's ended at the gallows.'

'It's done nothing of the kind, Father,' she said, 'and I'll thank you to stop talking about the two brothers as if they are the selfsame person. They most assuredly are not. It's Henry who has been charged with this terrible crime and I, for one, will presume him innocent until he's proved guilty in a court of law.'

'I know the man did it. I feel it in my bones.'

'That's no more than old age creeping up on you.'

'Old heads are the wisest.'

'Not when they make unjust accusations.'

'The fellow has been arrested, Susan,' he said, slapping the table with the flat of his hand for emphasis. 'Evidence has been gathered and a warrant issued for his arrest. That's proof positive to me.'

Susan bit back a reply. In his present mood, Sir Julius would not even listen to her properly. His mind was already made up while her own was still very confused. The tidings about Henry Redmayne had alarmed her. In her heart, she could not accept that any member of the Redmayne family could be capable of murder. Vain and feckless, he might be, but Henry was not, in her opinion, a potential killer. Yet he had been indicted and such a step would not be taken lightly. Her real concern was for Christopher. Though he was the younger brother, he always seemed older and more responsible than Henry. The latter's peccadilloes were an unceasing source of discomfort to him and he had rescued his brother from countless embarrassments. This time, Susan feared, even Christopher would be uncertain what to do. She felt an urge to go to him.

Sir Julius Cheever seemed to read his daughter's mind.

'Stay away from him, Susan,' he warned.

'Who?'

'Mr Redmayne.'

'But he must be in great distress.'

'That's a problem he must cope with alone. It does not affect us.'

'It does. At a time like this, he wants friends around him.'

'Well, he'll not number us among them.'

'He will and he ought to,' she said hotly. 'Do you condemn one brother for the alleged sin of another? What a miserable species of friendship that is! It's callous to desert Mr Redmayne when he needs us most.'

'We do it for our own protection.'

'From what?'

'The taint of evil.'

'That's a monstrous suggestion!'

'I'll not have you associating with any member of that family.'

Susan was defiant. 'Would you forbid me?'

'No,' he said, taking a deep breath to calm himself. 'I'd not go that far. I'd simply appeal to your love and loyalty. For my sake, keep away from Mr Redmayne. I know that you are fond of him, Susan, and I know that he has many virtues. Why,' he went on, looking around the room, 'he designed this very house in which we stand and I'm very grateful to him for that.'

'He did much more than that to earn our gratitude, Father.'

'Do not harp on about Gabriel.'

'He was my brother,' she said with tears in her eyes. 'You shut him out of your life in the same way that you now want to exclude Mr Redmayne and his brother. Did you never stop to think that, if Gabriel had been kept within our family, he would not have met such an untimely end?'

'No!' yelled Sir Julius, rounding on her. 'That's not true!'

'Be honest with yourself, Father.' 'Silence!'

He was so furious that he did not trust himself to say anything else until he had regained his composure. Crossing to a large oaken court cupboard, he opened the door to take out a bottle of brandy and a glass. He poured himself a measure and drank it down in one gulp, waiting until it had coursed through him. When he turned back to his daughter, there was sadness as well as anger in his voice.

'Never dare to say that to me again,' he cautioned.

'I did not mean to hurt you so.'

'Gabriel's death lies heavy enough on my heart, as it is. I need no additional burden of anguish. Let him rest in peace, Susan. Please do not tax me on his account.'

'No, Father.'

He opened his arms to give her a hug of reconciliation and she kissed him on his cheek. Since he was due to leave London the following day, Susan did not want any disagreement between them. It might be months before they were reunited. On a subject as important as her friendship with Christopher Redmayne, however, she could not stay silent. Sir Julius held her by the shoulders to look at her.

'It's so ironic,' he reflected.

'What is?'

'Here am I, telling you to spurn Mr Redmayne when, only a few days ago, I called at his house for the express purpose of asking him to keep an eye on you while I was away from London.'

She took a step back. 'You talked to Mr Redmayne about me?'

'Yes.'

'Why did you not say?'

'It was a private matter between the two of us.'

'Not if it concerns me,' she said, hands on hips. 'I'm not sure that I like the idea of anyone keeping an eye on me. Am I a child that needs to be assigned to a new parent whenever my own goes away on his travels?'

'No, Susan. You misunderstand the situation.'

'I understand it all too well. You do not trust me to fend for myself.'

'That's not the case at all.'

'I'm wounded by this news. It's galling enough to be packed off to Richmond to stay with Brilliana when I could just as easily remain here.' 'Not on your own.'

'There are servants in the house.'

'They are hardly adequate companions.'

'I've friends in London on whom I can call.'

'That's my fear. Mr Christopher Redmayne is one of them.'

'A few days ago, you were urging him to look after me.'

'That was before I learned the ugly truth about his family,' said Sir Julius. 'It changes everything. Tomorrow, I depart for home but not before I've delivered you into Lancelot's hands. His coach will arrive by mid-morning at the latest.'

'You do not have to stand over me like that, Father.'

'I do it by choice. That imbecile of a brother-in-law will hardly be entertaining company but Lancelot will at least get you safely back to Richmond. I've written to Brilliana to tell her what's afoot here.'

'There was no need to do that.'

'Brilliana is your sister. She has a right to know what's going on.'

'She's too critical of Mr Redmayne.'

'With just cause, it seems.'

'This will only feed her misconception.'

'Brilliana will take a dispassionate view of it all.'

'She'll only interfere.'

'Precisely,' he said with a cold smile that signalled the end of the conversation. 'Brilliana will agree with me and her husband will, as usual, do what she tells him. That contents me. Between the two of them, they'll keep you well away from Mr Redmayne and that murderous brother of his.'

Susan felt helpless. She could do nothing but smoulder in silence.

The first thing that Christopher Redmayne did when he left the prison was to fill his lungs with fresh air. It helped to clear his head and rid his nostrils of the abiding stench of Newgate. His visit had been deeply disturbing. It was bad enough to find his brother in such an appalling state. To learn that there were genuine grounds for suspecting Henry Redmayne of murder was truly shocking. What made it even worse was that Henry himself could neither deny nor confirm his guilt, making it almost impossible for Christopher speak up in his defence. On previous occasions when he had been arrested, Henry had been fined for being drunk and disorderly before being discharged. He had never spent a night in a prison cell before, especially one as cramped and fetid as the bare room that he now occupied. Unused to squalor, he was having it rubbed in his face and his ordeal seemed likely to continue until he went to trial for murder.

Christopher walked away from Newgate then turned back to study it. Razed to the ground in the Great Fire, the prison had been rebuilt and work was still continuing on it. As an architect, Christopher had to admire the magnificent facade, decorated, as it was, by emblematic figures and statues. Among other civic worthies of the past, Richard Whittington and his cat looked down on the hordes of people going in and out of the city. Behind the sumptuous exterior of Newgate, however, was a grim prison that retained all the faults of its hated predecessor. Bad ventilation, an inadequate water supply and serious overcrowding made it a breeding-ground for disease. Those who survived the brutal regime imposed upon them often fell victim to gaol fever. In one way or another, Newgate left an indelible mark on anyone incarcerated there.

Fearing for his brother, Christopher heaved a sigh and turned his steps homeward. The stroll back to Fetter Lane gave him an opportunity to reflect on the situation. Henry Redmayne had mourned the loss of his job and of his reputation but there was another potential loss, so great and so frightening that Henry had not even been able to address his mind to it. Out of consideration to his brother, Christopher had said nothing but the dilemma now had to be faced. What of their father, the eminent Dean of Gloucester? Should he be informed of the disgrace brought upon the family by his elder son or should he be kept in the dark in the hope that Henry would be found innocent and set free? It was a thorny problem.

Christopher's first instinct was to keep his father ignorant of the events in London but he soon came to accept how unfair and unwise that would be. If, by any chance, Henry were convicted of the murder, the Reverend Algernon Redmayne would never forgive his younger son for holding back information about the arrest. He would see it as the ultimate betrayal. There was another consideration. Even if Christopher remained silent, others would not. The Dean of Gloucester had enemies in the Church hierarchy and they would revel in the situation, taking an unholy delight in telling him that one of his sons faced execution. Given the name of the murder suspect, Archbishop Sheldon himself might be moved to write to their father. The truth could not be hidden indefinitely.

Christopher accepted that it was his duty to pass on the sad tidings. He knew that the Dean would travel immediately to London. It would be an additional blow for the prisoner. Henry would view a visit from his father as worse punishment than being stretched on the rack but it could not be helped. In a time of crisis, the Redmayne family needed to come together. When he got home, Christopher went straight to the parlour and sat down at the table.

He began to compose the most difficult letter that he had ever written.