How the Hangman Lost His Heart (2 page)

She grabbed Dan. “Don't put Uncle Frank's head up there. I can't bear it.”

“Ouch, missy,” said Dan, for Alice's fingernails were sharp. “I must. That's my job, see.” He shook the pike to get the head straight. “It's all right for rich people like you”—he wiped some brown mush that might once have been potato off the end of Uncle Frank's nose—“but if I don't work, me and my missus will starve. They might even send me on to the ships.” His grimy cheeks went white at the thought because he had once executed a cabin boy whose innards were so slimy they wouldn't even burn. “I couldn't do that.”

“But my family would pay you,” pleaded Alice.

“I'm sorry,” said Dan. He took a firm hold of the pike. “I wouldn't look if I were you.”

But Alice could not look anywhere else. With awful fascination she watched as Dan got out of the cart, fought his way through the hustlers and jostlers, and, negotiating the length of the pike as best he could, disappeared into the shop that provided the only access to the top of the monument. Eventually he reappeared
dragging a ladder and climbed up, over the great stone scrolls and onto the roof. Conscious of Alice staring up from below, he did some last-minute tidying of Uncle Frank's hair before raising the head high and easing the pike into its hole, where it wobbled a little before coming to rest. Ever the professional, he couldn't help taking a quick glance at Uncle Frank's unknown neighbor, whose neck, unlike Uncle Frank's, was a real mess.
Honest to God
, Dan thought as he made his way back down to the street,
some people take no pride in their work
.

As he climbed into the cart the clouds thickened and even the hardiest onlookers felt the carnival spirit of the morning evaporating fast. When it started to drizzle, it was clear that the fun was over. Alice's teeth began to chatter, but she would do her duty, just as Uncle Frank would expect. “B-b-b-b-boy,” she commanded, “take Mr. S-s-s-skinslicer home first, then drop me and what's left of Uncle Frank at my granny's. Somebody else will take his p-p-p-poor body home.”

The boy made a horrible face. “Hope home's not far,” he said.

“About 250 miles to the north,” Alice told him.

The boy burped. “He'll pong summat terrible by the time he gets there.”

Alice thought she had never felt sick so many times in one day before.

The boy clicked to the pony and Alice looked up one last time. She could not help exclaiming at what she saw. The drizzle, persistent now, made it look as though her uncle was crying. “Of course, it's just the raindrops,” she told herself sternly. “I know it's just the raindrops.” Nevertheless, she hated to leave him looking so dismal and, unable to restrain herself any longer, burst into just the kind of loud and noisy sobs that she prided herself she had quite grown out of.

It was not until early afternoon that the pony drew up wearily in front of the solid stone house in Grosvenor Square that belonged to Lady Widdrington, Alice's grandmother. Alice climbed stiffly over the side and paid the boy more than the sixpence she had promised, for it had been a thoroughly unpleasant journey. Dan lived on the side of what Alice could only describe as a drain. There Johanna, his brassy wife, had been waiting for him, swinging a pail of slops as greasy as her skin. “Papists! I can smell 'em!” she had screamed, and had tipped the slops all down the poor pony's hind legs, where great lumps had stuck.

Alice had pretended Johanna did not exist and just thanked Dan for his work, telling him, in a precise voice that quavered only occasionally, that if anybody had had to execute Uncle Frank, she was glad it had been him. Her gratitude and her handshake had made Dan blush. That made Johanna scream louder than ever.

Once back in Grosvenor Square, however, Alice forgot about Dan and seized the heavy iron latch, calling for help. The house was in pitch darkness, for Aunt Ursula had been too nervous to light the lamps, and it was some time before a light bobbed down the stairs. To take her mind off her brother-in-law's execution, Ursula had been tying pink-and-green ribbons in her bright yellow wig and the effect was, to say the least, unfortunate. When she saw Alice, she started and her ribbons trembled. “Oh, Alice, Alice,” she cried, blinking her eyes. “Your grandmother will be relieved to see you. Where
have
you been?” Then she spotted the cart boy. “And who on earth is this?”

“Where do you think I've been?” Alice replied sharply. The sight of her aunt always fired her temper. “I've been to see Uncle Frank chopped up, Aunt, as you well know. And if you had as many guts as Uncle Frank—although, of course, he doesn't have any now—but if you had had half of what he once had, if you see what I mean, you would have been there too. He was always so nice to you.”

“And so troublesome too, I'll have you remember, young lady, with his fancy French songs and his naughty ways.” Ursula's lips thinned into cheese wires but her eyelashes fluttered as she remembered how Frank had tickled her. Oh, who would tickle her now?

“Well,” Alice said, finding her aunt's expression disturbing, “he's going to cause a bit more trouble yet. We've got his coffin outside.”

Ursula gave a shriek. “You've brought the body of a traitor here? Get away with you, Alice. Do you want us all taken to the Tower?”

“Oh, pish!” said Alice crisply, deliberately using a word forbidden by her parents. “Uncle Frank is—was—no traitor. Any anyway, Aunt, we haven't brought all of him here. His head's up on Temple Bar. Nobody will know whose body this is. It could be yours—well, almost.” Alice's knowledge of male anatomy was more advanced than her family ever suspected.

“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.