The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [105]
‘I was in Coldbath Fields rather than Newgate, my dear, but generally I found everything to be most agreeable. The food, which was brought to me from a bakeshop, was quite acceptable, under the circumstances, and the pot boy kept me in plentiful supplies of ale and claret.’
Emily had sufficient good sense not to try to patronise Godfrey or act in a deliberately pious manner, but Pyke could tell she was bothered by some of the stories he was telling.
‘Perhaps if you were poorer or without connections your stay might not have been as agreeable?’
‘On the contrary, my dear. The common lags seemed to be having a whale of a time. On occasion, it was hard to tell the difference between the ward and a tavern.’
‘I think the question Emily is seeking to ask is whether it is appropriate for convicts to behave in such a manner.’
Emily glared at him. ‘I can speak perfectly well for myself, thank you.’ Then her smile returned as she turned to Godfrey. ‘Isn’t it desirable that the prison is run well enough to ensure that prisoners’ clothes are occasionally fumigated, that the genuinely sick have the chance to consult a doctor, and that the child thief is separated from the adult murderer?’
Godfrey clapped his hands together. ‘Well said, my dear. Well said, indeed. What have you to say to that, eh?’ He looked across at Pyke and grinned.
‘I would simply point out that in the new Millbank prison, where everyone has their own cell, suicides have tripled, scurvy and dysentery are rife and that, very recently, prisoners rioted, and even hung the warder’s pet cat, just so they could be transferred to one of the hulks.’
‘A good point,’ Godfrey said, scratching his chin in mock contemplation. ‘My dear?’
‘You could perhaps inform your nephew that all the evidence indicates individual cells arrest the moral infection of the young by the old.’
‘Moral infection?’ Godfrey said, frowning. ‘Sounds like something that I might be responsible for spreading.’
‘I’ve heard it can make you go blind,’ Pyke said.
‘Now you’re both mocking me.’ She looked at them, with a smile on her face.
‘Not at all, my dear. I think the point you make is an excellent one.’
Pyke stared at her, waiting. It was true that he enjoyed their verbal sparring and that they both had sufficient intelligence to discuss highfalutin subjects, but he also wanted to fuck her with an urgency and intensity that even he found surprising. ‘In the end, I think we do what we do because we want to. Whether that’s robbing a blind man or helping him across the street.’
Emily thought about this for a moment. ‘And what would you do? Rob the blind man or assist him?’
‘You really need to ask?’
She regarded him across the table with an amused stare. ‘It’s funny, Pyke. For all your cynicism, you have a peculiarly romanticised vision of yourself.’
‘I am a romantic now?’
‘You see yourself as a dying breed. There’s a certain romanticism in that.’
‘Wonderful,’ Godfrey said, raising his empty glass in mock celebration. ‘She’s as sharp as a tack.’ He turned to Emily. ‘Pyke is, indeed, a dying breed. I’m sure he hasn’t told you of the time when he, single-handedly, pursued a rogue kidnapper who had snatched the young daughter of a landed aristocrat across open country for two days and two nights.’
‘That was a long time ago.’
Emily seemed at once amused and intrigued. ‘If such bravery and selflessness were ever made public, your reputation would be ruined.’
Pyke shrugged. ‘I was well paid.’
Emily studied his reaction. ‘What became of the daughter? ’
‘Oh, she was shaken up but came through the ordeal with flying colours.’ Godfrey scratched his chin. ‘If I’m not mistaken, I heard the other day she’s due to marry