The Eyes of Portsmouth

"A man may stand before the law, but it is the eyes of his own people that strip him bare."

The doors swung wide on their well-oiled hinges, and the subdued creak dissolved into a surge of sound from within. It struck me at once—like a wave breaking against Portsmouth’s sea wall—steady, unrelenting, overwhelming. Voices murmured in low conversation, chairs scraped across polished boards, and the restless shuffle of papers mingled with the whisper of robes brushing fabric against wood. Together they rose into a hum that filled the air, a ceaseless undercurrent that seemed to pulse with the gravity of the place.

I stepped forward and faltered, my breath catching in my throat as the scene unfurled before me. The courtroom was vast, cavernous almost, its high ceiling vaulted above like the roof of some great, austere church. Heavy oak beams arched overhead, their dark lengths vanishing into shadowed recesses that no light dared reach. Along the eastern wall, tall windows stretched upward, their leaded panes fractured into diamond shapes that broke the morning sun into lattices of brilliance and gloom. The light cut across the room in stark contrast, every edge sharpened, every corner defined.

Before me the benches spread out in long, solemn rows, rising tier upon tier like the pews of a congregation assembled for worship. Yet this was no congregation of the faithful, but of the watchful. They were already filled, and as one the faces turned towards me, their collective gaze descending with a weight that pressed down hard enough to buckle my knees. The murmurs stilled. An uneasy hush fell, as if the room itself held its breath.

The wigs were the first to strike me—powdered, pallid, spectral in the sunlight. They perched stiffly atop heads of every shape and station, transforming the men beneath into something almost otherworldly, neither fully human nor entirely faceless. Beneath them, the eyes met mine—curious, cool, or openly condemning. Their gazes seemed to strip me bare, unravelling whatever dignity I had stitched together with Culpepper’s comb.

Among the rustle of robes and the faint coughs of the assembled came another sound: the flutter of fans. They opened and closed like wings in the hands of women seated amongst the crowd, the painted feathers slicing the hush with soft, persistent motion. Behind them, whispers darted, quick and sharp, too low to catch but heavy with intrigue, like sparrows fussing in the rafters, their bright eyes fixed upon me.

Among the sea of unfamiliar faces, a few I knew emerged like islands in the tide, their presence both balm and blade. The baker, broad of frame, who sold us our daily loaf and once, with a conspirator’s wink, had slipped an extra roll into Mother’s basket when he thought none would see. The chandler’s wife, her lips so often pursed in prayer or blessing as she moved along Butcher Street, ready with a kind word even for those beneath her notice. The cooper, his hands thick with labour, who had once clapped me on the shoulder with hearty praise for the quickness of my sums as I tallied his barrels in Harrison’s counting house.

Their eyes met mine, each in turn, but only briefly—glances sharp with recognition before darting away. They could not hold me in their gaze, yet neither could they look past me entirely. The weight of it hung between us, a suspended breath that bound us together in silence. I felt the sting of their memory, of what I had once been in their eyes and what I was now.

Culpepper moved ahead, his steps measured, unhurried, as though the whole court bent to his rhythm. He guided me towards a small bench near the front, its dark wood gleaming faintly beneath the fractured morning light that fell in sharp angles from the high windows. The surface bore the polish of countless anxious hands, smoothed by the restless touch of men who had sat where I was to sit, waiting for the judgment that would shape or end their lives. That sheen seemed almost alive, vibrating with the ghosts of their fear, their hope, their despair.

I followed him, each step a battle between will and weakness. My legs trembled, treacherous and hollow, as though they might buckle beneath me at any moment. Yet I forced them on, steadying my posture, raising my head, willing myself to appear more than the ruin I felt. Culpepper’s words rang in my mind—head high, show them what you’re made of—and I clutched them as though they were rope cast to a drowning man.

The sound of my shoes striking the polished floor rang out into the hush. Each echo spread through the chamber like the toll of a bell, solemn, inexorable, counting down the moments that remained before the truth of my fate was spoken.

To my left, the dock loomed—a grim enclosure of dark timber, more cage than stand. Its rail was pitted and scarred, the surface gouged with notches worn deep by the hands of men and women who had clutched it in their final hours of hope or despair. I imagined those fingers—knuckles whitening, nails biting into the grain as they faced judgment—and the thought turned my stomach. Soon, it would be my hands resting there, my weight bowed against those battered planks as I stood beneath the cold gaze of English justice.

The murmurs swelled again as I reached the bench, a tide of whispers shifting through the crowd like the restless wash of waves against a harbour wall. I lowered myself onto the polished seat, moving with stiff care, every creak of the wood beneath me echoing the strain in my own bones. For a heartbeat I shut my eyes, drawing in a slow, deliberate breath, fighting to steady the storm within.

When I opened them, my gaze was drawn once more to the dock. Empty now, it stood waiting, a place only a few paces distant yet impossibly far. An ocean seemed to stretch between me and those rails, an ocean not of water but of shame, of choices I could not undo, of a life already slipping beyond my reach.

Instinct tugged my eyes towards the gallery. I searched the sea of strangers, the blur of wigs and bonnets, until I found them—just where I had known they would be. My parents.

They sat side by side in the third row, their presence both anchor and torment. Mother’s hands were clasped tightly in her lap, the knuckles stark white against the dark folds of her best dress. She had chosen the one she saved for Sundays and holy days, its fabric plain but carefully mended, as though dignity might be stitched into its seams. Her face was pale, drawn near to ashen, yet her back was held straight, her posture quiet but unyielding in its pride. Still, I saw the truth in the small betrayals—the tremor in her chin, the faint quiver she fought so hard to master.

Her bonnet framed her face neatly, but it could not soften the weariness etched into her features. The lines about her eyes seemed deeper, carved there by weeks of sleepless nights and ceaseless worry. And her eyes themselves—those sky-coloured eyes that had once met mine with warmth and laughter—now brimmed with sorrow that no composure could wholly disguise.

Beside her, Father sat as though carved from oak, his shoulders squared, his jaw locked tight, his whole frame rigid with the effort of composure. His Sunday coat—brushed and pressed until the seams shone with wear—hung a little too loose upon him, and the sight pierced me with a pang of guilt. I knew that looseness was not fashion but want, the thinning of a man who had likely gone without, scrimping every penny to see this trial through. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, unblinking, as though to look at me—his son—might fracture the hard mask he wore and reveal the sorrow beneath.

Beyond them, scattered among the rows of benches, I caught sight of faces I had known since boyhood. Neighbours, acquaintances, the people of Butcher Street who had once nodded kindly as I ran errands, or laughed to see me chasing after the butcher’s dog. Now they sat in solemn judgment, or worse, in uneasy silence. Some offered tentative nods, their expressions awkward, uncertain, as if unsure whether compassion or suspicion was the proper response. Others avoided my eyes altogether, their gazes sliding away as though the mere act of meeting mine might bring misfortune to their own thresholds.

Among them, Mrs Thimblethorpe sat a row back, and I might have known she would not miss such a moment. She dabbed theatrically at her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief, her movements exaggerated, her sighs loud enough to draw attention. Whether her tears were born of true feeling or for the benefit of her audience, I could not say. Yet I knew well enough her fondness for spectacle, for gossip spun from the misfortunes of others, and here I was delivering her the grandest tale she had ever hoped to carry back to the chandler’s counter.

The shame of it burned hot in my chest, rising sharp and searing, until I could scarce breathe beneath its weight. Their stares pressed against me, heavy as chains, and for a moment I thought they might crush me where I sat. I forced my gaze away, blinking hard, swallowing against the lump lodged in my throat. The knowledge that every word, every glance, every gesture of mine would be carried from this room—spread to parlours, whispered across tavern tables, traded in doorways—was a burden almost too bitter to bear.

My eyes found him near the judge’s bench—Mr Blackwell. My accuser. He stood with his solicitor, their heads inclined in quiet consultation. His coat, cut from the finest cloth and tailored to perfection, hung elegantly upon him, its lines crisp, its colour rich. The powdered wig, immaculate and gleaming beneath the morning sun, seemed to stand in cruel contrast to the limp strands I had smoothed back with Culpepper’s comb. Everything about him—his posture, his attire, his composure—mocked my own shabby frame.

One hand rested, as it always had, on the gold-topped cane that was his constant companion, the very emblem of his authority among Portsmouth’s merchant class. Its polished surface caught the light, sending a glint across the room like a signal. He did not look at me, not directly, yet I saw the faint tightening of his fingers upon that cane, the small betrayal that told me he had marked my presence. The gesture, fleeting as it was, struck me harder than any spoken word.

To my right, the clerk’s table was alive with furious motion. Papers littered its surface in a seeming chaos of loose sheets, inkwells, and folded documents. Quills scratched relentlessly across parchment, the sound sharp and steady, oddly familiar. For an instant, the rhythm of pen to paper pulled me back to my own desk in Harrison’s house of business—the neat columns of figures, the comforting order of ledgers—before it had all unravelled into ruin.

One young clerk, hardly older than myself, glanced up as I passed. His eyes met mine for the briefest flicker of a second. The colour rose hot in his cheeks, and he dropped his gaze at once, his quill resuming its feverish work as though the mere act of looking at me had been a transgression.

Beside me, Culpepper lingered, solid and steady, his bulk a reassuring presence amidst the whirring storm of my thoughts. “You’ll be all right, lad,” he murmured. They carried the shape of comfort, though I knew them to be a kind lie. “Remember what I said about dignity.”

I wanted to believe him—that dignity could still be armour, could still mean something here amidst wigs and whispers. But as the courtroom settled, the murmur fading into a tense and watchful silence, that hope felt brittle, fragile as spun glass held too tight in a trembling hand.

The bailiff’s voice rang out, cutting clean through the heavy stillness, formal and commanding:

“All rise for the Honourable Judge Blackwood.”

A rustle moved through the chamber as the crowd obeyed, the benches creaking under the sudden shift of bodies. The judge swept into the room, a looming figure cloaked in dark robes that trailed behind him like the shadow of the law itself. His full-bottomed wig framed a face set in stern lines, his features sculpted into a mask of authority that betrayed nothing of thought or mercy. He carried himself with the measured gravity of a man accustomed to command, each step deliberate, each gesture exact.

When he took his seat upon the high bench, it was with the slow precision of ritual. His gaze swept across the courtroom, unhurried but piercing, as a hawk might cast its eye over the ground below, seeking the slightest movement of prey. In that moment, I felt the weight of his attention, whether it lingered on me or not.

The gavel fell with a sharp crack, a single sound that split the silence like the report of a musket. It echoed against timber and stone, ringing in my ears until it seemed to reverberate in my very bones. The whispers that had lingered moments before dissolved at once, as though snuffed out by the force of that single blow. The quiet that followed was absolute, pressing in on me until I thought I might choke on it.

And then—through that perfect stillness—I heard it. A voice, faint, trembling, yet unmistakable. My mother’s voice.

“Lord have mercy.”

The prayer was no louder than a breath, but it struck me harder than any accusation. The simple plea, fragile and full of faith, cut through the tangle of shame and fear binding my chest. I straightened slowly, my spine drawn taut, each movement deliberate, an answer to her call. If I could not claim innocence, I could at least claim courage.

I would face what came not as a beaten wretch, but as my father’s son—a man determined, however disgraced, to hold his head high.

The clerk’s voice rose then, clear and unflinching, reaching every corner of the chamber:

“The Crown versus William Thomas Jeffries. The charge is theft…”