The Wedding Read online

  “Say,” he said suddenly, “hold on. I think I know a way I can make it up to you right away. I think I really do.”

  Crispin smiled. “Not necessary, lad. How much farther have we got to go? You need to see a sawbones right away and get some good wood on that leg.”

  “I live here,” Willie said with a shrug, “and we got more quacks inside than in a duck pond on a May morning. Some of them owe me, too. I know one who’ll put my leg together faster than I snapped it, and mend it straight as an arrow, if he’s not gut-drunk yet. Yeah. It ain’t noon yet,” he said, squinting up at the sky, “so be fine with him. But I think I know of a job of work for you, guv’nor, one that will pay good, too. Afore you turn your nose up,” he added quickly, seeing a slow grin begin on the gent’s handsome face, “let me tell you it pays good and there ain’t no work to it, and no danger in it neither.”

  “Then why is the position free?” Crispin asked.

  “’Cause you got to know somebody to get it,” Willie said, puffing out his thin chest. “An’ you do—me. Come on. I’ll tell you whilst we walk.” He picked up his crutch and hopped along as Crispin followed, intrigued. He needed money, Lord knew that, and it was only a sign of how much he needed it that the boy’s sharp eyes had discovered it in spite of his best efforts. As they passed the first entry to the prison, some ruffians who had been lounging against a doorway there accosted Crispin.

  “Hey, sir, need a girl?” one asked, while another added eagerly, “Pretty. Young and clean… No? Well, then, old and dirty? How about—”

  “How ’bout puttin’ a sock in it, Yert?” Willie said with disgust. “The gent’s with me.”

  “Oho! It’s a skinny lad ’e wants, is it?”

  Before Crispin could move, Willie did. He grabbed the ruffian by his grimy neck stock and pulled so hard the fellow’s surprised eyes were dragged down to a level with his. “Somethin’ the matter with your ears, Yert?” Willie snarled. “Maybe you need a bit of hemp nice and tight around your neck to clear them. This gent’s with me, I said.”

  The man swallowed as hard as he could with his throat still locked in that rough grasp. “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir,” he managed to say to Crispin, and then said it louder. Willie released him, and the man smiled sheepishly, ran a filthy finger around his neck, and said, “Only foolin’, Willie lad, only a jest.”

  “Not funny,” Willie said, and hopped on toward the next gate. Crispin followed, smiling and shaking his head, wonderfully diverted.

  As they walked, they were approached by several other men who were eager to offer Crispin the services of women, matchmakers, fortune-tellers, attorneys, and doctors, until a word from Willie sent them away.

  “There seem to be several thriving businesses around here,” Crispin remarked. “Which are you engaged in?

  “All,” Willie said simply as he hopped through an entryway.

  A guard standing there began to speak, but a nod from Willie made him grin. He touched a finger to his forehead in mock salute and, after a glance at Crispin, waved him on, too. Crispin followed Willie into the vast confines of the Fleet prison. He noticed the signs that adorned all the walls inside, advertising everything from the lawyers and doctors he’d been offered, to all sorts of tradesmen and women.

  “And these enterprises are run from the prison?” Crispin asked incredulously.

  “You ain’t from Lunnon, then. Thought so,” Willie muttered, before he answered, “Sure. Why not? Just ’cause a chap’s body is in jail don’t mean he leaves his wits outside, does it? If a fellow can mend a boot or another man, why should he just sit on his hands while he serves his time at the king’s pleasure?”

  Speechless, Crispin nodded. The jail in his district at home wasn’t seen as a career opportunity for prisoners. But he was far, far from home now. And the practice did make sense. The only flaw in this system was that crime was meant to be punished, not made profitable for the criminal. But as he went farther into the deep recesses of the Fleet prison, he saw that with so many prisoners in London, the rules for crime and punishment would be as different from what he was used to as everything else was these days for him. He looked around in wonder. He’d seen the canals of Venice and the cathedrals in Rome, he’d crossed the Alps and tasted the pleasures of Paris, but he’d never seen a place like this. The prison seemed to go on forever. There were at least as many people within the gates as on the streets outside. It was a city in itself.

  The ancient, tilted buildings were a jumbled mass of old and dirty gray, dusty stone; they looked dismal and sorry, but the pavements and courtyards surrounding them were teeming with vibrant life.

  There were vendors selling their wares from push carts and baskets, crying out the price and condition of everything from fish to flowers. People shouted their orders from high barred windows and threw down coins to pay for them. With a nod and a wink, the items were wrapped and handed to boys who raced upstairs with them. There were cleaning women armed with brushes and mops hurrying to their jobs, barbers and bloodletters hastening about their business with their trays and cutlery. People were strolling as well as running, dressed as fine as fivepence or as poor as beggars. The place overflowed with life, and Crispin couldn’t tell visitor from prisoner.

  A long covered table gave off the scent of fresh-baked bread and pies to tease his nose. As they passed it, Willie flipped up a corner of the cloth, filched a bun for himself and tossed one to Crispin with a wink.

  “Here! You young villain,” a buxom woman shouted, as she came rushing from the building to box his ears. “Oh, Willie,” she said fondly when she saw him, “you’ll like them. They’re all over currants.” She lowered her floury hands, spread her apron, and curtsied to Crispin, saying, “Sir.” Then she looked up at him with a frank invitation to more than her honeybuns in her sparkling eyes.

  Crispin was accustomed to being stared at by women, and he was not particularly interested in the baker’s overblown charms. Still, he bowed to her as though she were a lady. She put her hand to her heart and sighed as he walked on.

  “She can bake as good as she looks, but I wouldn’t go near her,” Willie commented through a mouthful of sweet bun. “She done her man in with a cleaver. The judge thought she was as sweet as her apple pies, so she didn’t have to walk on air. But she ain’t walking out of here for a while, neither, that’s certain.”

  “Thank you for the hint,” Crispin said dryly. He hadn’t been so well entertained in years. Certainly not in weeks, he thought. But Willie didn’t give him time to think more.

  “Here we are,” Willie said, and disappeared inside a small dark doorway.

  Crispin followed, ducking his head as he did. Now he could tell he was in a prison. The room he followed Willie into was dark and dank, and the small high windows were barred. The furnishings, however, were lavish, though mismatched and outlandish. A silken couch was pushed up to a wall where satin draperies hung over the barred windows. Several delicate chairs were grouped around a magnificent mahogany desk, which dominated the room. When his eyes adjusted to the murky light, Crispin saw a middle-aged man sitting behind the huge desk. He wore a fine bagwig and his coat was made of an excellent slubbed silk, but the cuffs of his shirt were not clean, and though he’d recently shaved, it was clear that he would never shave his blue cheeks entirely clean. He was as pale as milk, and his thin mouth wore a smile that never showed in his light, calculating eyes. Crispin grew wary. Shake hands with that one, he thought, and count my fingers after.

  “Why, Willie my lad, who is this fine gentleman you’ve brought to see me?” the man asked genially, looking up. “May I help you, sir?”

  “He’s just that, Harry. A fine gent,” Willie said before Crispin could speak. “He helped me out of a tight spot. See, I broke a stem, on a wignapping lay,” Willie said, gesturing to his leg, and then proudly produced the wig from beneath his shirt. “Took it off a Mr. Wigsby with a pole and a hook. Rum flash, ain’t it?” he asked proudly. “I swiped it clean, and
was on the fly across the rooftops when I missed a step and came down like thunder. But this here gent didn’t peach on me when he found me. And he helped me here. So afore I go see the leech, I thought I’d bring him to see you as a favor to him—and to you. See, I thought he’d be able to do a good spot of work for you. You know,” Willie prompted when the man didn’t speak. “The trouble you been having with John Finch and all. Come on, Harry. Use your eyes. Did you ever see a finer groom?”

  “Perhaps not,” the man he’d called Harry said thoughtfully. “Perhaps not.”

  “I’m afraid Willie didn’t understand,” Crispin said quickly. “I merely came along to see him safely home. I’m not looking for a position. I’ve never worked as a groom,” he added, startled at the thought, wondering how much his appearance had deteriorated in the weeks since his fortunes had changed.

  “I never doubted it,” the man said, “which is why, perhaps, you’d make such an excellent one. Yes. So you would. Good work, Willie. No, sir, you don’t look like a groom to me, either. But you do look like a fine groom. Ha, ha,” he said with an artificial laugh. “You’re not from London Town, are you?” he said when the harsh laughter stopped. “Well, there’s sense in what I said, I assure you. At least, here there is. Ah, you run along now, Willie lad, and I’ll have a word or two with your gent…Mr.—ah?” he asked delicately.

  “West, Crispin West,” Crispin said truthfully. He was honest enough to give his name, if not all of it, and certainly not his title. That, he thought, would be not only unnecessary, but mad as well.

  “Mr. West… ” Harry began, but frowned as Willie said, “No, thanks, Harry, I’ll stay and see what’s what, I think.”

  “But your leg,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Do you think it wise?”

  “It’s broke now,” Willie said. “That won’t change for a while, so what’s the hurry? I’m staying, Harry,” he added in a harder voice, and the man gave him a glinting look, then shrugged and turned to Crispin.

  “My name is Harry Meech,” he said smoothly, “and the lad’s right. I might have work for you. You’re a gentleman, Mr. West. Anyone can see that. But if you don’t mind my saying so, it occurs to me that you might be interested in a job of work?”

  Crispin could almost feel the one lone coin in his pocket cry out an answer before he could. The sweet bun Willie had filched had been his breakfast and his luncheon, and might be his dinner as well. This was a terrible man, no doubt, in a terrible place. But a job of work would mean that Crispin wouldn’t have to smile and pretend he’d just eaten when he called on his friends tonight. The pretending was getting harder every day.

  “I might,” Crispin admitted, settling himself in the chair Harry Meech indicated and hoping that the pinch of hunger in his gut hadn’t made him wear more than a politely interested smile.

  “Ah, well,” Harry said. “Let me explain it clearly, then. I am in need of a groom. Not for my horses,” he said, holding up one hand, “but for a bride. For several of them, in point of fact.”

  Crispin got up from his chair. “I do not think,” he said through clenched teeth, “that this is a very funny jest.”

  “So it is not,” Harry said gravely. “It is mortal truth. Stay, please, and hear me out. I run several rigs here, Mr. West. I don’t live here, though. I only work here.”

  “He used to live here,” Willie put in.

  Harry frowned again. “Well, that was then,” he went on, with a stiff little smile. “I’m wiser now, and in no hurry to live here again, if you get my meaning, Mr. West. So all that I do, I do with circumspection,” he said proudly. “One of my enterprises is the bridegroom lay—that is to say,” he added when he saw one of Crispin’s thin finely arched brows rise in inquiry, “I provide bridegrooms for females who need them. For purposes of debt, Mr. West. I don’t procure men for women.”

  “Only women for men,” Willie muttered, and earned another hard glance from Harry, before he went on, “I certainly wouldn’t ask you to involve yourself in anything like procurement, Mr. West. No, all I need is a fine-looking, well-spoken gentleman to marry women who find themselves in ruinous debt.”

  He saw total incomprehension on Crispin’s face, and sighed. He got up from behind his desk and paced in front of it before he swung around and confronted Crispin. “If a female discovers herself up to her ears in debt, what becomes of her? I ask you, sir.”

  “I imagine she must find a way to pay,” Crispin said.

  “Yes. Or else she ends up in prison until she can pay, which is difficult to do from here. Ah, the poor dears. They end up selling themselves or, worse, they never leave this prison. So what can they do? Why, marry, of course. Marry. Then their husband becomes responsible for their debts. Ah, but what if the poor dears can’t find a man willing to take on their debts, much less their hand in marriage? Why, then there’s nothing to do but come here and stay forever, or until they earn enough to pay whatever they owe. It’s tragic. Which is why I see myself as their benefactor. What I do is provide husbands for these poor wretched creatures.”

  Willie groaned, but when Harry glowered at him he stared down at his leg, as if it was that which had pained him.

  “Yes, well, I can see that it’s a problem,” Crispin said, rising. “Come along, Willie, let’s get you to that doctor. I have no money, Mr. Meech, and so I’m afraid I can’t help you. And there’s no way I wish to marry now.”

  “Don’t be such a thick head,” Willie snapped. “Listen to the man. Do you think I’d haul you here to grab your gold? Really!” he said with disgust.

  “Inelegant but correct,” Harry said. “I don’t need your money, Mr. West, just your hand—and for a quarter of an hour, not a lifetime—and your name, whatever name you wish to use, because,” he said before Crispin could say anything, “it will change on each wedding certificate you sign. You see? It’s a practical solution to a cruel problem. We supply men to wed all of these dear creatures. I have three or four bridegrooms presently working for me.

  “Here,” he said, holding up a finger, “look. The bride. I introduce her to her groom.” He held up another finger. “She pays a fee, the vicar pronounces them man and wife.” He smiled and crossed his fingers. “He documents the glad event on a wedding certificate—carefully dated the day before her debts were incurred, of course. What’s in a date?” he asked jovially. “You’re a man of the world, sir. I put it to you: is it better to clap a poor lass in prison for years, or for life, because of a debt, or simply to move a few days or weeks about on a bit of paper and thus free her to earn an honest livelihood? It is a sensible solution to a senseless law, is it not?”

  He nodded at Crispin’s thoughtful expression. “Exactly,” Harry said, and went on. “Then her groom signs the marriage register as, say, Mr. Black. And then they part,” he said, moving the two fingers apart again. “Forever. The bride gives her wedding certificate to her debtors. They search high and low for Mr. Black, but he is nowhere to be found, because he does not exist. So the debt is discharged and the bride goes free, as does the groom. Everyone is happy except the debtors, and my sympathy, I assure you, is not with them. Neat, is it not?”

  Crispin thought for a moment. “No one notices that it is a false name?” he finally asked.

  “No one ever bothers to say anything about it. There is only me, the false groom, and the poor beset bride. And the vicar of course, but he is nicely paid and addled to boot. Come, now, Mr. West, it’s a common enough practice. Think about it. How do any of us know any fellow’s true name? Why, no offense meant, but you might not be Mr. West after all. You might be Mr. Black or even Lord West, for all I know,” Harry said and, seeing Crispin’s sudden start, added quickly, “as I might not be Harry Meech for that matter.”

  “Might not?” Willie muttered, gazing innocently at the ceiling.

  “How is anyone to know?” Harry continued. “And who is to care? I assure you, Mr. West, no one cares. I have men who have married a dozen females and who are still free
bachelors in every sense of the word. It is an easy job, a good living, Mr. West, a choice position.”

  “Then why do you need me?” Crispin asked.

  “Because, sir, females are fussy, even the worst of them—women who slop hogs for a living as well as ladies born. If I present them with a low and badly spoken gent, they’ll turn up their noses and go to a competitor. Oh, yes, this is a competitive business. So my bridegrooms are well spoken and good-looking, the sort a female can put her trust in. Such men are difficult to find around here. My grooms inspire trust, Mr. West, and frankly, so do you.”

  “Yeah. Silky Frankie is as handsome as he can stare,” Willie agreed, “and John Finch used to be one of the best pimps in town afore he got on the bottle.”

  Harry scowled at him, but Crispin laughed. Willie’s comment was what he’d needed. A good bucket of cold water on a scheme that had momentarily looked much too warm and tempting to him.

  “I am afraid this is not for me, Mr. Meech,” Crispin said with genuine regret.

  “Ah, well, at least, Mr. West, say ‘not yet,’” Harry said.

  Crispin chuckled and nodded his agreement.

  “A glass of wine, then, to show good feelings all ’round!” Harry shouted to someone unseen. When there was no reply he made a great show of annoyance, begged Crispin to wait only a moment, and left him and Willie alone in the room.

  “Too bad,” Willie sighed. “You’d do, and it’s a rum lay. Harry’s no better than he should be, but he’s got a good thing here. And he is having trouble with John Finch these days.… Well, then, sir, what are you going to do?”

  “Is need so visible, then?” Crispin asked, amused.

  “It’s never invisible,” Willie said seriously. “So what are you going to do?” he persisted.

  “Why, I suppose I’ll just go on with what I’ve been doing,” Crispin said, smiling sadly and speaking the absolute truth. “I’ll wait for my ship to come in.”

  Harry finally came back with a bottle and glasses and poured out three drinks. Crispin was going to protest when he saw the brimming glass that Harry handed to Willie, but then he thought of the boy’s broken leg and was silent. He remained silent when he saw how neatly Willie downed it and smacked his lips afterward.