Hanging Matter Read online

  A Hanging Matter

  DAVID DONACHIE

  To Pamela and Michael

  Deal is a most villainous place. It is full of filthy looking people. Great desolation of abomination has been going on here; tremendous barracks, partly pulled down and partly tumbling down, and partly occupied by soldiers. Every thing seems upon the perish. I was glad to hurry along through it, and leave its inns and public-houses to be occupied by the tarred, and trowsered, and blue and buff crew, whose very vinicage I always destest.

  WILLIAM COBBETT.

  Rural Rides 1823

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  About the Author

  Copyright

  THE WORDS OPPOSITE were written some thirty years after the action that takes place in this book, when the town was suffering from the recession caused by the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Cobbett did not stay long enough to witness the new war that had broken out between the excise and the smugglers, a conflict that, once the state had provided the resources in ships and men, could only end one way. Slowly, due to a combination of official harassment and increasing free trade, the industry was smothered.

  But during the war the activities of the contrabandiers were vital to the area, just as they were vital to the enemy. To term smuggling as a way of life on the East Kent coast was almost understatement. Napoleon could not have fought his campaigns without the gold that these men smuggled into France. So important were they to the French economy that the government allotted them a portion of Dunkirk harbour for their own use. Unfortunately, they were so rowdy that the burghers of Dunkirk complained and the Emperor had them moved to Gravelines. An early case of the English hooligan abroad?

  Today Deal stands as the last Georgian seaside town in England, a model example of that remarkable and elegant age. The anchorage is comparatively empty, unless there is a great storm in the Channel. Yet the history is not far from the surface. A Hanging Matter is a work of fiction, yet some of the characters did exist. The landscape still does!

  The Goodwin Sands remain as a formidable barrier guarding the coast, as do two of the three Tudor castles. Boats, fewer in number, are still hauled high upon the beach, though the town behind has become more respectable. The Hope and Anchor is fictitious, though there is a public house on the site. The Paragon has disappeared. Portobello Court is now a charming cul-de-sac of white cottages. The Ship Inn stands where it did in the 1790s and the Griffin’s Head at Chillenden still provides good food and drink for travellers. And if you look closely, you will see that the owner of the Griffin, at the time this book is set, was a widow called Naomi Smith.

  DAVID DONACHIE

  DEAL, 1993

  PROLOGUE

  THEY WERE getting noisier, the more they drank, and their voices echoed off the low rafters of the Griffin’s Head. They’d already turned a few disapproving heads with their boisterous behaviour. Three men, young, dissolute, but well dressed: these bucks were no doubt wealthy. They had money to spend, plus an air of easy assurance about them. Outside stood a coachload of contraband, with armed servants left to guard it. Such creatures were not an uncommon sight at the Griffin’s Head, for it lay on the route between Deal and Canterbury. Many a well-heeled individual made his way to the coast to buy his untaxed goods direct from the smugglers that infested the Kentish shore, returning by this route and avoiding the Dover to London road with its ever-present nosy excisemen.

  Tite, sipping his ale, took a step backwards and peered myopically through the doorway, his attention attracted by a sharp, feminine squeal. With his poor eyesight, and at this distance, the faces were something of a blur, but the picture was plain enough. The men were laughing as the serving girl Polly Pratchitt in some distress struggled to get free. Two tenant farmers at the bar of the small tap-room who could see through the hatch into the main parlour removed their pipes from their mouths and shook their heads. What they murmured to each other made him move through the doorway that led into the main parlour in the hope of a proper view.

  Unfortunately Polly was just a blur, running back towards the kitchens, attempting to cover her naked breasts with the tattered remnants of the blouse one of the bucks had torn away. He smiled. It was little wonder that they’d chosen to jest with her; she was a nubile creature, with an ample bosom that needed no support, one designed by nature to catch the roving eye. Hoots of derision followed her fleeing form as those who’d combined to assault her yelled noisily for more claret, as well as a sight of more bare flesh. He grinned: he was as partial as the next man to the sight of a naked breast. He put his tankard on the nearest empty table and made for the kitchen, jerking himself into the gait of a man with an urgent need to relieve himself.

  He was in luck. Polly, feeling safe in the kitchen, had removed the torn blouse so that she and her friends could assess the damage and engrossed in the task they failed to register the hunched figure in the doorway. Tite, a mere three feet away, got a heartwarming eyeful of Polly’s exposed flesh from waist to neck. The shout that followed his grunt of pleasure was accompanied by a flurry of activity, as Polly and her friends panicked in their attempts to render her decent.

  “Get away, you dirty, slimy old bugger!”

  “Can’t a man have a piss?” growled Tite, determined to trot out his excuse.

  “Filthy old sod,” hissed Amy Igglesden, the oldest of the girls. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you piss in the kitchen!”

  But she addressed this remark to an empty doorway, for he had exited through the back of the inn. He turned and faced the outside wall, close to the partially open window, and unfastened his breeches. He was half angry, half amused at the stream of abuse directed at him, his age, and his probable abilities which wafted out through the open kitchen window.

  “Never you heed my age, girls,” he chuckled softly to himself. “Old Tite can still manage enough of a gallop to pleasure any of you lot.”

  As the thin trickle of water began to play on the wattled walls, his mind wandered off to the past and to his days at sea. He’d served the late admiral when the man was a mere lieutenant and kept the post as his master rose in rank. It had been a good life. As a personal servant, Tite wasn’t subject to the harsh discipline of the other hands. They were denied shore-leave, for they couldn’t be trusted not to desert. He, given the task of stocking his master’s private larder, got ashore often. As a man who knew how to turn a
coin from such a lucrative post, Tite always had the means to visit the local bawdy-houses. There had been more permanent attachments, of course, some that lasted months if his master was lacking a ship. But in the main he’d gratified his lusts on whores, of all shapes, sizes, ages, and colour.

  “I say that they’re going to get worse. An’ tearing at Polly’s blouse is not to be borne. We should rouse out Mrs Smith to sort them out.”

  That remark, from Amy Igglesden, dragged Tite’s mind back from his fond, wistful memories. He’d assumed that Naomi Smith, the young widow who owned the Griffin’s Head, was absent; it was her habit to visit her late husband’s grave each morning, to change the flowers. What was she doing upstairs with all this turmoil below? She was strict about the way her customers behaved. She harboured a particular dislike for those who preyed on the poverty of the people who lived on the coast, seeing poor men, with wives and children to feed, forced into smuggling to feed the vanity of others. There was little choice, since there were few alternative methods of turning an honest coin in these parts, even if the war with France had broken out again.

  To lay a hand on one of Naomi’s girls was an outrage that called for a drubbing in the horse trough. Had she been in the tap-room or the parlour those boisterous bucks would have been shown the door before they’d got halfway down their first bottle. Tite had seen it happen before, when customers got out of hand. And if things took a turn for the worse, Naomi had the loyalty of her regular customers to back her up.

  Polly answered Amy. “She said that she and the gentleman were not to be disturbed. Not at any price.”

  Now Tite’s ears were positively twitching. For a man who’d been reminiscing about past fancies, such words as these struck an immediate chord. When a lady with the good looks of Naomi Smith entertained a gentleman, and said she was not to be disturbed, it could mean only one thing. He knew she was no widowed wallflower, despite her daily visit to the cemetery. The late admiral’s son, who just happened to own the land on which the Griffin’s Head stood, had a relationship with Naomi Smith that he suspected went beyond mere politeness.

  Tite, assuming an innocent air, walked away from the building towards the stables. That, he knew from experience, gave the best view. As he passed the wood-shed he saw Naomi’s small cart safe in the stable, its empty shafts pointing towards the red-tiled roof. But it was the horse in the next stall, a dappled grey mare, that took his attention. He recognised it at once. It came from the stables at Cheyne Court. He’d seen it that very morning leaving the house, bearing his master’s brother-in-law, a man he loathed. Tite spun round to look back at Naomi’s window. There was someone, wearing a wig and a black coat, standing with his back to the window. Then he moved away.

  Tite hurried back the way he’d come, slipping past the kitchen without being seen then turning right and making for the bottom of the stairs. The rowdy trio in the parlour were now singing a loud and vulgar version of “Tom Bowling,” which made it hard to hear the conversation that was taking place on the landing, but he recognised the voices. The unmistakable Scottish burr of Lord Drumdryan, and the deep, slightly rasping voice of Naomi Smith.

  Here with his arse bare lies lucky Tom Bowling,

  The darling of our crew …

  “I’m flattered, of course,” said Lord Drumdryan. “But I do have a dinner arranged for that …”

  Tite missed the rest, which was lost in the next censored verse of the song.

  His form was of the manliest beauty,

  His heart was kind and soft.

  Naomi’s voice was clear enough, but Tite missed her opening words. “… afterwards. I have told the girls what I plan, and they are very taken with the notion.”

  Faithful below he did his duty

  And now he’s gone aloft,

  Still with his breeches doffed.

  Singing gave way to unrestrained laughter. They banged their tankards on the table, demanding more claret.

  “I fear your guests are getting out of hand, madam.”

  “I must attend to them,” said Naomi. “But I’d be obliged if you’d tell me how you view my invitation.”

  The polite tone in Drumdryan’s voice seemed oily to someone as ill disposed as Tite. “It would seem churlish to refuse, madam. I can do nothing but accept.”

  Naomi grew a touch louder. “Then I can go ahead with the arrangements?”

  “By all means.”

  The sound of the lady’s feet on the stairs had Tite dashing away. Reclaiming his ale, he took station by a window that looked out over the front of the inn, his eye on the road that led back to Knowlton Court, muttering under his breath and wondering what value such knowledge might have. His train of thought was broken by Naomi’s voice. It was low, quiet, but firm, and right behind him.

  “My hospitality does not extend to an allowance of filthy songs. You will have nothing more, sirs. You will pay for what you’ve consumed, and leave.”

  “My dear Barrington,” said the one with his back to the wall, “I fear we are under threat. And from such a handsome creature.”

  “Why, madam,” said Barrington, the nearest of the trio, responding to his friend’s sally, “I have yet to eat or drink my fill. It would break my heart to depart prematurely. Especially from such a pretty morsel as you.”

  He was flushed with wine, and his wig was a touch askew. His exaggerated air of gallantry did nothing to dent Naomi Smith’s resolve. Her face was set hard, and she stood, hands behind her back, eyeing her three “customers” by turns.

  “You may well have a broken head if you stay, sir.”

  The young man called Barrington turned to sneer at his companions, for he couldn’t see the cudgel she carried, which was hidden in the folds of her dress.

  “Break my head indeed! I have more in mind to break some wench’s hymen.”

  The idea obviously appealed to the third one, who’d spent the last minute in a careful examination of Naomi’s figure.

  “Too late for that, Barrington. But she’s a spirited mare, an’ no mistake. Mind, I’d rather engage myself to the one with the large udders.”

  “My good friend Stanly, here, wishes to bed the serving wench. Her name is Polly, I gather. He may even consent to buy her a new blouse. Do you have a tariff for the creature?”

  The voice didn’t change. “You have a bill to pay, sir, for food and drink, which are the only things on offer in the Griffin’s Head. You may leave it on the table. Be so good as to settle now, before matters take a nasty turn.”

  Barrington looked past her, as if searching the room for some other form of compulsion. He noted the men who’d filled the doorway to the small tap-room, observed Tite standing by the window, and cast a jaundiced eye at the ragtag collection of customers in the half-filled parlour. In a strange place he couldn’t know how many were local, how they’d react if he attempted to bait the owner, so his response carried an element of bluff, rather than any threat.

  “Am I to be so addressed by a mere woman?”

  “This mere woman happens to own the premises, sir,” said Naomi.

  Barrington leant forward, his face stiffening as he looked up at her. “Then you will cease your insolence, madam. If you do not, my friends and I will reduce the furniture to matchwood.”

  It was Blake who added the words that mattered. He couldn’t see Barrington’s face, couldn’t observe the bluff. He took his friend’s bellicose statement at value, and decided to overlay it with a threat of his own.

  “And perhaps, madam, we will take from you, and that milch cow who served us, something you seem unwilling to offer, even for a decent price. Indeed you may wish to remove your blouse, and afford us a view, to save it from the same fate as the other trollop’s.”

  There was no word of warning. No cry of anger. Naomi’s cudgel took Barrington right on the forehead. He was catapulted out of his chair by the force of the blow and ended up in a crumpled heap on the wooden floor. The other two scrambled to their feet, but the uprai
sed club, in the hands of a woman clearly determined to use it, made them pause.

  Naomi wasn’t calm now. Her bosom heaved with anger or effort and her voice was like ice. “Pay, gentlemen, or I’ll ask my regulars to douse you in the trough.” This statement was greeted with a collective growl from all the men in the room. Polly Pratchitt stood by the kitchen door with a meat cleaver in her hand. The only other sound was that of coins rolling on the tabletop. “Now take this vermin and load him into your coach.”

  The place was silent as the two others, suddenly sober, sought to comply. They lifted Barrington between them and staggered towards the door. But Naomi wasn’t finished.

  “Should you be tempted to seek revenge, sirs, I would count the cost of your contraband cargo. Then ask yourself if you’re willing to lose both that and your liberty when you’re brought before the local magistrate and gaoled for transporting unexcised goods.”

  The thought of the contraband made Tite turn back to the window. But he didn’t look at the heavily laden coach. Instead his eye caught the rear end of the dappled mare heading up the hill towards Cheyne Court. He swore under his breath. Lord Drumdryan, who must have known that there was trouble in the parlour, had ridden off, leaving Naomi Smith to deal with matters herself. What could she see in a man like that? No one with an eye to see or an ear to listen could doubt that he was enjoying a dalliance with the lady. What would his master say when he found out that his brother-in-law had moved into a bed that had welcomed him? There would be the devil to pay and no pitch hot.

  “Come back soon, Captain,” murmured Tite. For he knew that Harry Ludlow wouldn’t have behaved so badly. He’d have behaved like a man and turfed those noisy buggers out single-handed.

  He’d had a lot to drink by the time he started on the journey home and staggering as he was, he was nearly run down by the man on the horse. He had time to curse at the disappearing hindquarters of the animal and through his bleary gaze he saw the flash of a red military coat.