How the Hangman Lost His Heart Read online

  “Oh, just get it out, get it out!” Ursula clacked her heels. She knew nothing about male anatomy at all. “We can’t get it out because it’s not in,” said the boy, who was enjoying himself. This woman—if that is what she really was—should be in the circus!

  Alice glared and wasted no more time before calling for Bunion the coachman and the pantry boys to set Uncle Frank’s coffin on the dining table. No sooner had they plonked the coffin down when a tiny old woman, bent and wizened as an ancient spring onion, tottered down the stairs, her face almost hidden by a wig that dwarfed even Ursula’s. As an additional, if unintentional, decoration, she was covered, from head to toe, in blue wig powder.

  “Hello, hello,” she growled, for her once sweet voice had lurched downward with each passing birthday and now, so old she had lost count, was almost in her goatskin boots. “What’s going on?”

  Alice and her aunt exchanged glances. Granny must be in one of her really forgetful moods not to remember Frank’s execution. Alice braved the blue clouds and moved to kiss Lady Widdrington’s papery cheek. “She’s not going to mind Uncle Frank’s body being here,” she hissed as she brushed past Ursula, “because she’s not even going to remember who Uncle Frank is—was.”

  “All the more reason to get him away,” Ursula hissed back, her wig wobbling like a bird’s nest in the wind.

  “All in good time. But his body has to wait somewhere.” Alice itched to pull Ursula’s wig right off. Her grandmother was peering sideways at the cart boy. Was this one of her children? She put out a claw and the boy backed into the corner. Alice took the claw instead. “Granny,” she coaxed in a voice of honeyed innocence, “can Uncle Frank stay here just for the night?”

  The old lady looked puzzled. “Frank, Frank,” she murmured, her face crumpling like a raisin. Then she perked up. “Frank!” she said. “Frank! What a fool I am! Of course he can, my turtledove. Does he need somewhere to lay his pretty head?”

  “Not exactly, Granny, but he does need somewhere to lie down.”

  “Well, we’ve plenty of space,” came the reply. “We could lay a mattress on the table here if this dirty box wasn’t taking up so much room.” Lady Widdrington gave the coffin a vicious poke.

  “That’s all right, Granny,” said Alice hastily. “We’ll find somewhere.”

  The old lady glared at Ursula. “Go and tell the servants to shift themselves. Frank’s coming. He likes good food and the more you feed him, the more wicked he is. It’s all humbug, I know, but still, he’s one of the few pleasures I have left. Not that you care about my pleasures, Ursula. Look at you. All those ribbons can’t hide the fact that you’re forty and a spinster and bring me no pleasure at all.” She winked secretively at Alice. “How did I produce such a twiggy specimen? I blame Ursula’s father, you know. As for your father, Alice deary, I’d certainly have run off with him if he’d asked, but he wanted your mother instead, the booby. Now, I’m going upstairs to put on a good dress and some more powder. I suggest you do the same. Maybe Uncle Frank will bring a friend and it is high time, Alice my lovely, that you thought about marriage or you may end up like her.” She pointed dismissively at Ursula. “We’ll dine at five.”

  Alice cast a glance half-triumphant and half-sympathetic at her aunt. In an act of small rebellion, Ursula stuck out her tongue before snapping off down the passage. She was thirty-eight, not forty, as her mother very well knew, and she had her admirers, or would have if only her mother didn’t frighten them all away.

  “I’ll be off now,” said the cart boy. He was glad his mother was just a plain old drunk who beat him. At least she hugged him afterward. You couldn’t imagine Lady Widdrington hugging anybody, and as for that Ursula, you’d need paying before hugging her.

  Alice showed him out. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry about Dan’s wife throwing those slops at the pony. He’s a nice pony too.”

  “Never mind,” said the boy, giving Alice a friendly dig in the ribs. “It’ll wash off. And if ever you’re in the same position as your uncle Frank, I’ll come and help give you a good send-off.”

  Alice watched him go in silence.

  When five o’clock came, Lady Widdrington did not appear and, unable to bear the thought of dining alone with Ursula, Alice took herself off to bed. She could hear the rain beginning to beat down. What a dreadful time to be alive, she thought as she huddled into a tiny ball and watched the candle flame flicker. Who cared who was king? She only cared that she would never hear Uncle Frank’s teasing voice or be swept into his welcoming arms again. He was the reason she had agreed to come to London in the first place. She hadn’t wanted to. The thought of staying with Faraway Granny, as they called Lady Widdrington, was distinctly unappealing. But Uncle Frank had whirled her around and told her how he would take her to coffeehouses and the theater and how she should have a smart London horse and they would ride at Kew together. He had laid out a life of such unimaginable glamour and sophistication, in which he had promised that she would be the star, that Alice’s reluctance had melted away. With Uncle Frank’s promises ringing in her head, she had said good-bye to her mother and her old nurse with barely a qualm and, indeed, had been filled with the happiest anticipation.

  Then came the rebellion and everything went wrong. Uncle Frank vanished and on the back of the beautiful horse he had bought her, something for which she still couldn’t quite forgive him. Worse, everybody was so nervous, hardly daring to swallow in case it reminded others that there were still throats waiting to be cut, that fun was in short supply. Even now, with the rebellion ended, life would hardly be the same without Uncle Frank. What was left except listening to Aunt Ursula’s gripes during the day and endless evenings powdering Granny’s monstrous hairpieces?

  She rolled over. Grosvenor Square was finished for her. It was time to go home. What wouldn’t she give to find herself, at this moment, in the orchard being licked by the dogs, with her father stroking his knuckles and droning on, as he always did, about how to measure rainfall. Never again would she be bored by his notebooks and colored graphs. Never again would she surreptitiously empty the contents of his chamber pot into his scientifically placed glass jars. And never again would she agree to come to London.

  A crash on the front door made her jump. Bunion was shouting and, for a moment, Alice wondered if they were being attacked by a mob. But it was only the wagoner come to collect the coffin. Alice splashed some water from her ewer onto her face, then ran downstairs and outside. Maybe she could go home in the hearse. The wagoner was certainly willing. “You can come if you want, missy,” he said, looking her up and down and smiling in a knowing way. “You’ll be warmer company during the night than a headless corpse.”

  Alice froze, but not with fear. Oh, lordy me! Uncle Frank’s head! She had not been thinking straight. How could she leave London with it still up on Temple Bar? She couldn’t! Uncle Frank would think she had entirely deserted him.

  She drew herself up to her full height, which was considerably more than the wagoner’s. “That’s my uncle Frank you are talking about,” she said imperiously, “and whether I come with you or not, if you don’t treat him with respect, he’ll haunt you. Do you know about haunting? Well, let me tell you that Uncle Frank, headless or not, died with his eyes open.” She very slowly raised one eyebrow, then the other, an old trick she had often used to frighten her nurse. “That means he sees everything, everything, and if you don’t deliver him safely, your own head will rot and drop off of its own accord.”

  The wagoner fled to the top of his box. “You coming then?” he asked nervously. Alice shook her head. The wagoner picked up his whip and immediately the horse raised his tail and let fly a gust of noisy wind. Alice clenched her fists. It was not a glamorous end for Uncle Frank.

  As soon as the coffin was out of sight, Ursula peeped out. “Are they gone?” Her face shone white, for she had painted it with zinc in the mistaken belief that it recaptured her youthful bloom. If King George’s soldiers did come
to arrest them because of their connection with Uncle Frank, maybe one would fall in love with her and she would be saved. Alice slid past her. What did she care for Aunt Ursula? All she could see as she made her way back upstairs was Uncle Frank’s head sitting in soggy splendor on Temple Bar, tears running down his pitchy cheeks. She got into bed again, but though she tried, she couldn’t sleep. Instead she lay for hours listening to the watchmen shouting to each other and the dogs barking at their shadows. In truth, she wondered how she would ever sleep again with Uncle Frank’s head and body in two different places. Indeed, so long as his head was displayed in such a shameful way, how could anybody who loved him ever rest? She tossed and turned, then, as she listened to the church bell solemnly strike three, a thought made her go quite rigid. Perhaps the reason Uncle Frank’s eyes wouldn’t close was because he was uncomfortable too. Maybe they would only close when he was all back together, head and body, in one place. Alice clutched at her pillow and slowly, in the dark, a resolution began to form in her mind, a resolution so grim that she wondered if she would ever be able to stick to it. She told herself it was stupid. She told herself it was impossible. But within five minutes, she knew what she was going to do. She was going to steal Uncle Frank’s head and get it home herself.

  Now she did not even pretend to rest, but got up and began to walk about her room. Faster and faster she paced, as if winding herself up to the right speed, then she ran to her wardrobe to find suitable clothes. Uncle Frank will not spend one more night on that Temple Bar, she vowed as she rummaged among her garments, not one more night. She pulled out a pink dress, then rejected it because it was too frilly and stealing a head was a serious business—and anyway, she didn’t think it suited her and on such an expedition you never knew whom you might meet. In the end she chose a green gown that had once been her best but was now a little battered. That would do very well. She thought her courage was high until she sat down to lace her boots. Then she paused. Now that she was out of it, her bed looked irresistibly downy and inviting. Perhaps she should just get back in. After all, Uncle Frank was dead.

  The trouble was that she could see his expression as clearly as if he was in the same room and his open eyes reproached her. Resolutely, she hugged her cloak around her shoulders, took her candle, and tiptoed downstairs. On her way through the hall, being a practical girl, she shoveled up all the money her grandmother kept in the long case clock. Then she quietly let herself out of the back door and, before she could talk herself out of it, hurried away.

  3

  It was much longer after dawn than Alice had hoped before she was standing once again underneath Temple Bar. Several times she had lost her bearings and, with the heads now silhouetted against a brightening sky, she needed every ounce of her determination to keep going. The Bar looked so big and she felt so small. She spoke sternly to herself. Having got this far, she would not slink away.

  Her first challenge was to get to the top of the monument and to do this she first tried the door of the shop whose staircase Dan had used. Unsurprisingly, it was firmly closed. She glanced up. Uncle Frank glanced down. Come on, he seemed to be saying, come on. Alice could feel panic creeping pox-like over her skin, because even as she stood there the city was beginning to wake and early traders were already splashing their way through the oily skim left by the rain. Soon the road would be busy. She looked wildly about her.

  Amid a mass of building work and scaffolding farther down the street, she spied a long ladder and her spirits rose. Surely that would get her onto the wide ledge parallel to the shop window and, once up there, she was sure she would find the shorter ladder Dan had used to shin up past the scrolls and onto the roof. She craned her neck to see Uncle Frank again. He was still staring straight at her. She steadied herself. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—disappoint him.

  Setting her chin, she ran to the ladder and tilted it over. It was so heavy that she could only just drag it through the wagons collecting the night soil. The tradeshorses stamped their feet as she began to talk aloud to herself. “Keep your head,” she repeated again and again, but could not manage even the smallest smile at her joke.

  When she finally got the ladder to the Bar, it took her several goes to hook it up against the wall, but eventually, though it threatened occasionally to fall and flatten her, she managed to make it reasonably secure. There was no time to look at Uncle Frank again. Now she must climb.

  Nobody took much notice to start with except a few rude chimney sweeps’ boys and flower girls. They scoffed but let her be. They saw stranger things than Alice every day. However, after a while, when people began to emerge from their breakfasts, they gathered in small crowds until it seemed as though the entire neighborhood had assembled to watch her progress.

  Concentrating hard and counting every rung, Alice climbed higher and higher, higher than the postern gate, higher than the windows, higher than she had ever been before, even when she had climbed the ancient Towneley Hall chestnut tree on a dare. The ladder, once so heavy, seemed flimsier and flimsier, as if the tiniest movement could send it flying and leave her stranded. Her ankles went all rubbery. She closed her eyes and just kept climbing until the rungs gave out. Then she took a deep breath and hauled herself onto the ledge on which the scrolls of the Bar rested. The smaller ladder, as she had thought, was still propped against the buttress and Alice was soon halfway up this too. Then, almost disastrously, she wavered, for although she had the ledge below her, she was suddenly and acutely aware how far above the street she was. Too far. But it was no good going all wobbly now, just when she had to work out exactly how to remove the head from the pike. In Grosvenor Square, this had seemed like a minor detail. Now it seemed easier to knit with rats’ tails. Nevertheless, she must try.

  Once on the roof itself, Alice flattened herself out and began to crawl over the curved lead. It was slippery and as soon as the pike was within grasping distance she grabbed it thankfully. However, to her horror, her grabbing made Uncle Frank’s head spin around. “Stay still, Uncle Frank! Stay still,” she cried. After a long minute, both head and pike stopped twirling and Alice managed to haul herself up the pike shaft, one hand above the other. Pushing her feet against a ridge, with great difficulty she began to pull the pike shaft out. It swayed like a drunk.

  A veritable age later, she felt a lurch and the pike suddenly came loose. But now, horrors! Though she tried to be so careful, Alice was not strong enough to hold it and it crashed off the roof and onto the ledge. There was a loud crack as Uncle Frank’s nose hit the scroll, but since this was nothing in comparison with what he had endured already, Alice did not waste time apologizing but saved what remained of her energy to clamber down in pursuit.

  Yet now that Uncle Frank’s head was within reach, how hard it was to approach! Alice loved Uncle Frank, she really did. But he certainly seemed different without his body attached. Her movements became very tentative. First she took off her cloak and laid it out. Then, screwing her eyes as tightly shut as she could without blotting out all her vision, she dropped to her hands and knees, crawled to the end of the pike, seized Uncle Frank’s hair, and, with a desperate tug, jerked his head free. This was much worse, much much worse, than any nightmare. It took every ounce of her courage to crawl back to her cloak and wrap the head up in it, because—and this was something Alice had not bargained for—it was impossible to avoid being spotted with blood and other stuff quite unmentionable. Never again, she swore to herself as she turned her cloak into a makeshift sack, tied a knot in it, and hooked it over her arm for her descent. Never, ever again.

  The descent should have been easier, only it wasn’t because Alice’s whole body rattled as if she had the palsy. “Help me, Uncle Frank,” she prayed. But how could he help her, when all that was left of him was his silent stare and a pair of pale lips? By the time she got back to the ladder, her shoes were so slippery and her muscles so achy that several times, as she eased herself onto the top rung, she missed her footing and nearly fell. It was
no good telling herself not to be so silly, that all she had to do was climb down the way she’d gotten up. When you are clutching a head, things don’t appear quite that simple.

  The crowd had fallen silent as soon as they realized what this strange little figure was doing. Now they watched with growing disbelief. Some began to mutter and shake their heads. Others backed away. They wanted to see if Alice made it to the ground, but even to witness such an audacious theft of a criminal’s head was an act of treason toward the king. They remained only because they were gripped by an atmosphere tense as a breaking thunderstorm.

  But it was not thunder they heard. Quite suddenly, the air was filled with the brisk clatter of hooves and, above it, a voice shouting, “Move. Move for Kingston’s Light Horse! Make way.”

  Alice, at last firmly established on the long ladder and beginning to feel as if she had made it, choked. Not soldiers, surely not soldiers? Please, please let them just pass on.

  They did not. Instead, there was a barked order to stop and her head swam as she saw dozens of shiny boots and dozens of open mouths tilted up toward her. “Ignore them. Ignore them,” she ordered herself. But it was no good. Her concentration was broken and, with Uncle Frank a dead weight at her side, all she could imagine now was spiraling down, her hair streaming like a great yellow wave. She clutched at the ladder rungs, her ears full of the jangling of steel bits and the occasional impatient rasp of iron-shod hoof against cobble. These sounds were not reassuring.

  Forcing her eyes to focus, she began to climb onto the ledge again. Maybe escape was possible over the rooftops. But from out of high windows, people were leaning forward, anxious, so it seemed to Alice, not to help her but to arrest her. One man actually had his leg over the sill and when Alice heard him drop down behind her, she grabbed the short ladder and began to climb back onto the roof. Oh, why was Uncle Frank’s head so heavy? She could hear the man’s excited panting. He would get her! He would get her!