Smuggler's Moon Read Free

Theatre. Lady Fielding had since then been filling in as cook as best she could as we searched to find another like Annie (vain hope!). Now, with Lady Fielding gone, it was up to Clarissa to fill in—and she with little training in the culinary arts. Nor was she to neglect her regular duties at the Magdalene Home for Penitent Prostitutes.
    Clarissa, then just fifteen, had taken a path into the Fielding household in a manner similar to my own. She was the daughter of a felon—or one who would surely have hangedas one—educated beyond her station and bright beyond her years. Yet Lady Fielding took pity upon her and saved her from the Lichfield poor house, or service in some aristocrat’s downstairs crew, by persuading Sir John to take her on that she might have a secretary to aid her in her work at the Magdalene Home.
    As for myself, I, an orphan, did come before Sir John falsely accused of theft. That most just of magistrates saw through the perjured testimony that had brought me to him. He made me, after his fashion, a ward of the court and eventually took me into his household. Thereafter, I helped with the housework and soon found myself able to give him aid in his work as magistrate. And how, you may ask, could a mere lad of thirteen (which was then my age) be of help to one noted as a lawyer and as an enforcer of the laws? Why, by performing all those duties for him which he might have been capable of had he the faculty of sight. For yes, strange though it may seem, and amazing though it would have been to see, he had so distinguished himself as a magistrate that he had been knighted—even though he had been blinded many years before.
    All the while, as we wended our way through the tight streets, Clarissa kept her mind upon the awful tests that lay ahead. That is to say, I was reasonably certain that it was thereupon she had concentrated her thoughts, for as I glanced over at her once or twice, she seemed to be repeating Lady Fielding’s instructions to her word for word, over and over again, almost as a litany, a prayer. But then, of a sudden, she did turn to me, stopped in the busy walkway, and confronted me.
    “Jeremy,” said she, ”you will do the buying for me, will you not?”
    “Why, certainly,” said I, ”if that is what you require. I did the buying for Lady Fielding, for Annie, and for Mrs. Gredge before them all. But perhaps you ought to accompany me—if not this day, then another—that you might seehow the buying is done. I would introduce you to Mr. Tolliver, the butcher, and to some others. They can be very helpful.”
    “Well …,” said she, in a manner a bit less certain than her usual, ”as you say, if not this day then another. I believe another would be better.”
    Thus we came to Bow Street and sought entrance not into the courtroom, for Sir John’s voice could already be heard through the stout oaken door, loud and commanding.
    “Come along upstairs,” said she to me. ”I’ll prepare a list for you.”
    Returning from Covent Garden well over an hour later, I was fair loaded with all manner of comestible cargo — packages of carrots and turnips, a sack of potatoes, a loaf of bread, and last (though not in the order of importance), some good pieces of stew meat bought from Mr. Tolliver, our butcher. That last came with detailed instructions for preparation, which I was to pass on to Clarissa. And that I would have done had I not been hailed by Mr. Marsden, the clerk of the Bow Street Court, the moment I struggled through the door.
    “Here, you, Jeremy! The magistrate wishes to see you most immediate.”
    It had been my experience that when Mr. Marsden referred to Sir John by his position, it bode ill for me—and so it proved that day, as well. The moment I looked into the modest room at the end of the hall, which he referred to somewhat grandiosely as his ”chambers,” I was greeted by a blast that near singed the hair upon my head.
    “Who is there? Is that you,