The Comb and the Keys

"They may strip a man of freedom, yet even in rags he may choose how he is seen."

“Time to be ready, lad.”

Culpepper’s voice cut clean through the fog of my thoughts, sharp and undeniable. I started, dragging myself back from the tide of memory to the hard present, and turned towards the door. He stood framed in the heavy oak, a gaoler made monument by the dim light. The ring of keys dangled lightly in one hand, chiming faintly as they shifted, while the other rested with ease against the scarred wood. His broad shoulders all but filled the doorway, his figure casting a long, unwavering shadow across the cell floor.

Dust motes drifted lazily in the shaft of light that slanted through the narrow window, circling and spiralling as though oblivious to the weight of fate pressing in on the room. The faint gleam of his brass buttons caught that pallid glow, glimmering dull gold against the deep blue of his coat. It lent him an air of solemn authority, the very weight of his office hanging about him as tangibly as the keys at his belt, as though gaol and man had fused into one, immovable and unyielding.

“Come on, then,” he said, his tone softened, stripped for once of its usual bark. “Best not to keep the court waiting. Judge Blackwood’s not known for his patience, and the gallery’ll be full already.”

I nodded in answer. The motion felt slow, strange, as though I were not moving of my own accord but jerked by strings unseen—a marionette bowed at the whim of some invisible hand. My body obeyed, but my mind lagged behind, heavy and hollow, watching it all as if from a great distance.

Rising from the bench, I brushed absently at the crumbs clinging to my trousers, the motion devoid of thought or purpose. It was no more than a habit of civility, performed by rote, hollow of meaning. My shirt sagged from my shoulders, the cloth dulled to lifeless grey. Once it had been broadcloth of a fine white, crisp and proud, a badge of my apprenticeship and of the small triumph my family had claimed in setting me on a path above the dockside toil. Now it bore the marks of my fall—streaked with grime, stiff with sweat, and dimmed by the long days and longer nights of confinement.

The odour of the gaol clung stubbornly to the fabric, steeped into every thread. Damp stone and mould lingered there, mingled with the stale reek of despair itself, a scent that no air could wash away. Beneath it was another note—the musty tang of linen left too long untouched—an odour that spoke not only of filth but of time stretched endlessly, of hours grinding on without relief.

My hands shook as I tried to tame the creases, my fingers tracing the edges of cuffs once neatly starched by Mother’s care. They were frayed now, limp and weary, the threads drawn thin as though even the cloth had lost the will to endure. They hung about my wrists like banners stripped of colour, torn and forsaken, fluttering in a windless sky.

Each pass of my palms over the worn fabric was a futile liturgy, a parody of the dignity I had once carried. It was the empty ritual of a man attempting to summon back something already lost—self-respect, pride, belonging. No matter how I smoothed, the shirt remained what it was: a ruin of its former self, a mirror of the man who wore it.

Culpepper lingered in the doorway, his keen blue eyes fixed upon me. There was still steel in his gaze, the authority of a man used to command, yet something softer flickered there too—pity, perhaps, or a weary resignation that spoke of years spent watching men march to their reckonings. In that moment he looked older, the silver threading his hair catching the dim light and lending him the air of a sentinel worn thin by long service. His jaw tightened once, a fleeting clench, before he reached into the deep pocket of his coat.

From it he drew a small wooden comb. The handle was dark with age, its surface smoothed by the polish of countless hands, the kind of simple object that bore the mark of years rather than fashion. It seemed almost out of place in the harsh confines of the gaol—a relic of ordinary life.

“Here,” he said, extending it towards me. His voice was steady but low. “No harm in looking like a man worth saving. They’ll be watching close, every mother’s son of them. Half of Portsmouth’s finest turned out to see justice done, or so they say.” He hesitated then, his weathered face furrowing as he searched for the right measure of truth. “Show them you’re more than what they think you are.”

The comb rested in his broad, calloused hand, its worn teeth glinting faintly in the shaft of light, polished smooth as driftwood tossed by the sea. I stared at it, caught by the strangeness of the gesture, as if it were some foreign token from a world I no longer belonged to. For a moment my hand refused to move. Then, slowly, I reached out and took it from him, inclining my head in silent thanks.

It felt heavier than it ought, the plain weight of wood transformed into something else entirely. A symbol, perhaps, of the fragile dignity still left to me. Once, combing my hair had been no more than habit, a casual act performed without thought before stepping into the counting house. Now it felt like grasping at the frayed edges of a life already slipping beyond my reach. Yet still I clung to it, for in that small act lay the stubborn defiance of a man refusing to be seen as nothing more than a wretch.

I turned towards the cracked mirror above the washbasin—a pitiful relic, its glass warped and clouded, its edges freckled with rust. It offered no true reflection, only a broken likeness, wavering and distorted, as if I peered into a puddle muddied by rain and footsteps. Yet even through that imperfect glass, what I saw was enough to halt me.

The face staring back was not one I knew. My hair, once neat and trimmed to respectability, fit for ledger work and the trust of merchants, now hung in limp, uneven strands, clinging to my temples with grease and neglect. My cheeks were hollowed, the bones sharp beneath skin sapped of colour. My eyes—how they startled me most—once lively and bright, now dulled by too many nights staring into the darkness, worn hollow by fear gnawing at the edges of every waking hour. What gazed back was not William Jeffries the clerk, the boy who had stood with ink-stained fingers among columns of numbers, but a gaunt stranger beaten down by stone, silence, and shame.

I lifted the comb, and dragged the worn teeth through my hair. They caught, snagging on tangles, each tug pulling sharply at my scalp. I winced, but pressed on. The rhythm of it became a kind of anchor—back and forth, strand by strand—giving me a purpose, however meagre, in the face of so much uncertainty.

As the comb passed through the unkempt locks, I felt a memory stir. Mother’s voice, firm yet kind, rose unbidden, as though she stood beside me still: “A gentleman’s appearance speaks before his tongue does.”

A bitter smile flickered and died upon my lips. I had never been a gentleman—merely a clerk in a counting house, now accused of theft, my name sullied before the courts. Yet perhaps, even so, I could salvage something—a shred of dignity, a hint of respectability—to carry with me into that courtroom.

I clung to the thought as though it were rope in a storm. I smoothed the comb once more through my hair until it lay flat, passable, presentable. It was a small triumph, but in that smallness there was defiance: the refusal to meet my fate already broken.

The morning light grew stronger, pressing through the narrow slit of the window in a pale flood that cut across the cell. It cast long, angular shadows upon the walls, cruel in their clarity, sharpening every crack in the stone, every pit of rust upon the iron, every flaw that the half-light had once concealed. In the mirror, the harsher glow caught me unkindly, drawing out the sharp lines of my jaw and deepening the hollows beneath my eyes. There was no hiding from it; the brightness revealed me for what I had become.

Outside, the gaol was stirring. The groan of heavy doors giving way on their hinges, followed by the reverberating clang as they were pulled shut again. The shuffle of boots over stone, measured and unhurried. The rise and fall of men’s voices, pitched low but carrying down the corridor. The business of the day had begun, and I—whether I willed it or not—was to be a part of it.

When I turned, I found Culpepper watching me. He leaned against the doorframe, one broad shoulder braced against the oak, his expression caught somewhere between scrutiny and thought. His blue eyes narrowed beneath the faint furrow of his brow, and as he shifted his weight the familiar jangle of keys at his hip sounded, a muted music of iron that threaded through the noise beyond. There was something in the set of him, in the mixture of authority and awkward concern, that stirred in me a pang of remembrance. For an instant, he reminded me of Father, standing in silence before speaking words carefully chosen.

“Better,” he said at last, his voice low, reluctant, as though the word had to be drawn from him. “You’ve still got a look about you. Like you’ve not given up yet. Hold onto that, lad. In that courtroom, bearing counts for more than you might think.”

I could not tell whether he meant it as praise or as nothing more than observation. Yet I clung to it as though it were the former, for there was little else to cling to. My fingers lingered upon the comb, tracing the smoothness of its worn wood, before I extended it towards him. “Thank you, Mr Culpepper.”

He waved me off with a rough flick of his hand, brusque as ever. “Keep it. Might need it where you’re going.”

The words dropped into the silence between us, heavy as stone, carrying with them the weight of truths we both already knew. Botany Bay. The distant shore that loomed in my mind with the menace of inevitability, as real to me now as though the sea-chains already bound my wrists.

Culpepper straightened to his full height, the authority of his office settling about him once more as he stepped back to clear the doorway. “Time we were moving,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact, though not unkind. “They’ll be calling the session to order soon.”

I drew in a deep breath, filling my lungs with the stale air of the cell one final time. It clung to my tongue with its bitter medley of damp stone, mildew, and despair, as if it wished to follow me beyond these walls. My legs trembled faintly beneath me, the weakness of long confinement betraying itself, but I forced myself upright, straightening until my back pressed firm against the pull of dread. Whatever came next, I would face it standing—not hunched, not broken, not skulking like some whipped cur.

As I moved towards the threshold, Culpepper shifted aside, but not before his hand fell briefly upon my shoulder. The touch was rough, the skin calloused from years of labour, yet there was a steadiness in it that carried more than words. For an instant it anchored me.

“Remember what I said,” he murmured, his voice pitched low, meant only for me. “Head high. Show them what you’re made of.”

I nodded, unable to trust my voice not to betray the storm within me. The weight of the moment pressed down with crushing force, seeping into bone and marrow, heavy as the stones that surrounded me. Yet still I lifted my chin, straightened my spine, and summoned what dignity I could. I did it for them—for Mother’s steadfast love, for Father’s hard-won pride, for all the sacrifices they had made in the hope that I might stand taller than they ever could.

The first step out of the cell was like stepping into a void. The corridor stretched ahead, dark and cool, its air close with the odour of stone and age. Dim lamps fixed to the walls sputtered weakly, their flames guttering, casting more shadow than light across the flagstones. The gloom pressed close, but I walked forward regardless—one step, then another.

My footsteps fell in rhythm with the soft jangle of Culpepper’s keys at his side, the sound marking time like the slow tolling of a bell. Each step carried me nearer—to the courtroom, to judgment, to the fate that awaited me like a gallows at the road’s end.