The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,50

known this, but Hudson had made mention of it while helping him to dress, and he had immediately wondered whether Spenton had chosen the day with this in mind.

Hanging days were occasions for public holiday, and there was a festive, jubilant air in the crowd. Street musicians and beggars and performers of all kinds were taking advantage of this concourse of people. There was a man juggling with pointed spikes, a troupe of dwarf acrobats, a legless ex-soldier, still in tattered uniform, on a little wheeled cart. Pies and sausages were being offered for sale, and a bareheaded Gypsy woman was holding out to passersby a single white rose that she claimed had come from the buttonhole of one of the men executed that day.

Kemp was put out by the proximity of so much humanity, most of it unwashed and vociferous. His clothes were not ostentatious, but they were clearly expensive, and he was aware that he would be an object of interest to pickpockets in such a press of people. He should have brought Hudson with him to guard his back. He was annoyed at his failure to do this, and annoyed at having to wait. Anything that came to delay or impede his purposes irked him as if it were part of a deliberate design. He thought of attempting to hire one of the boats for his use alone, but this would have aroused the hostility of those waiting and exposed him to risk of violence.

He hesitated for a short while, then began to walk away in the direction of Lambeth, keeping close to the embankment. After ten minutes or so he found a small barge with a single oarsman, who agreed to take him to Vauxhall Stairs for two shillings. It was twilight as they set off, and the passenger boats out in the river were lit up with small lanterns set along the rails. As the air darkened, the shapes of the boats were defined by these lamps; beyond them, moored out in midstream and flooded with light, were the bigger boats, Bishop’s restaurant and the floating brothel known as the Folly prominent among them. Voices of revelry and the sound of orchestra music carried clearly over the water.

Reaching the Stairs, Kemp paid the boatman and made his way to the Corinthian columns and triumphal arch of the portico that gave admittance to the gardens. An old man with a powdered wig, dressed in the red-and-silver livery of those employed in the gardens, was taking the money at the turnstile; two younger men, wearing the same livery and armed with batons, stood at the sides of the counter to make sure no one tried to enter without paying.

He had arranged to join Spenton’s party at their supper box in the front arcade of the pavilion, and he made his way there now, passing up the river stairs and thence along the central avenue, crowded with strollers, its trees ablaze with lamps, to the main garden and the supper rooms. He had not met Spenton and had no idea what he looked like, but there were only three boxes in the gallery at the front of the arcade and the whole area was brilliantly lit, so he was not troubled by fears of failing to find him. And in fact, while still at some distance, he recognized his banking associate, Sir Richard Sykes, who was standing at the balcony of the box on the right. Sykes saw him at the same time and waved.

As he drew nearer to the pavilion he was approached by a liveried footman, to whom he gave his name and who led him not to the box containing Sykes but to the middle one of the three. This directly overlooked a raised platform that had been set up amid the shrubbery; he noticed that four men with musical instruments were seated there. There were several people in the third box too, and someone he did not see called out a greeting to him. So Spenton had hired all three of the supper boxes, the best ones, allowing a view over the avenue and the passing crowds …

It was Spenton who stood up now, as he entered the box, to shake him by the hand and perform the introductions. Kemp heard the names and uttered the prescribed phrases of acknowledgment without paying a great deal of attention to the faces: the Honorable James Conway, the Viscount and Viscountess Mowbray, Sir Joseph Golding, Miss Sheridan,