Читать книгу An Act of Mercy: A gripping historical mystery set in Victorian London - J. Durham J. - Страница 9

Charles Dickens contemplated the shadows gathering on the ceiling. They eddied and swirled as clouds passed over the moon outside, creating fantastical shapes and figures. He could make out a face with a nose like an eggplant, and another with a long neck and bare, curving breast. His hand twitched, tempted to stray to his groin, but he forestalled it. One of his restless moods was upon him, and he knew from experience that onanism would do little to soothe it.

The house on Devonshire Terrace was quiet, with no sound at all from Catherine’s room across the hall, and none from the nursery above, apart from the usual creaks and groans from settling floorboards and joists. It was one in the morning, and every nerve, every sinew in his body was itching to be up and out of bed. He sighed and scratched his thigh. He had just published the novel he thought of as his crowning achievement, had poured into it every drop of his energy, all the triumphs, and disappointments of his younger self. The Personal History of David Copperfield had been well received, as he had known it would be, and he was satisfied. For now. Unusually for him, however, he had yet to begin another novel. He had many ideas bursting in his head, but none was compelling enough to put onto paper. So he had kept himself busy with his new journal, Household Words.

It had long been his ambition to create a regular journal, one that entertained and informed its readers, and included contributions of other writers he admired. It had taken hard work and determination to launch it, but now it was underway it seemed to have acquired its own momentum. It would not take up so much of his time. He was proud of what he had achieved so far, and particularly proud of his articles on the new Detective Police. He liked to think that his goodwill had helped the new division overcome some of the initial prejudices of the middle and upper classes.

He lay for another few minutes thinking of nothing in particular, sighed and swung his legs out of bed. There was no point fighting it when the restlessness was upon him, it only left him irritable and enervated in the morning. What he needed was a walk!

He dressed himself by the light coming in through the window, and then made his way downstairs. He tiptoed along the Turkish runner in the hall, pausing only to unhook his overcoat from the peg by the door.

He closed the front door behind him, and stood on the step to take a deep breath of London air. Coal smoke, sewage, and the tang of salt from the docks. There was no finer smell on earth!

The night was moonlit and sharp, and stars sprinkled the sky like sugar frosting. He gazed up at them and his chest swelled with happiness: he felt as if anything was possible! He set off at a brisk pace, in no particular direction, and let his mind wander with his feet. Somewhat to his surprise, the first thing that popped into his head was Johannes Appler. He had played a key part in Appler’s capture, having passed on the note that revealed Appler would be using the sewer at Cockspur Court to dispose of his victim’s body. It was with a certain amount of surprise that he had learned about Appler’s arrest from Inspector Field, although, naturally, he had been delighted to write about it at the request of the Editor of the Chronicle.

But …

But … there was something about the business that remained highly unsatisfactory. According to Field, Appler was denying any knowledge of the crime, in the face of evidence that would make any man crumble. Any guilty man. And there was something about the note itself – the use of red ink, perhaps – that seemed unnecessarily dramatic. Who had written it, and what were his motives for betraying the young Dutchman?

He stopped, so abruptly that the couple walking behind cannoned into him.

‘Watch out, guv’nor!’ snapped the man. The woman giggled. They both turned as they stepped around him, assessing his clothes.

Dickens realized he had strayed, unthinking, into the edge of St Giles, a part of the city he was usually careful to avoid at night. He turned in the other direction, back towards Marylebone, and set off again at a brisk pace. As he did, he became aware of a sound behind him, an echo of his own footsteps, but slightly faster and less substantial. Was there someone behind him? It sounded as if someone had stopped at the same time as he had, and started again in tandem. To test the hypothesis he stopped abruptly. The echo also stopped, but not immediately. For a few paces he heard the footsteps sound clearly on their own. He turned around.

At first he could see no one on the street behind him, but then he discerned a dark shape in the shadows by the railings. Tall, but decidedly feminine.

‘Can I help you, my dear?’

She stepped into the light. The face beneath the straw bonnet was pale, apart from two rouged spots, and the eyes were large and expressive. She clutched at her shawl with mittened fingers.

‘Are you Mr Dickens?’

He nodded. She seemed at a loss how to proceed.

‘May I be of assistance?’ he prompted. Now he had the chance to look at her more closely, he could see her dress was of decent quality, but was thick with mud around the hem. The shawl was the kind that could be bought on a market stall for a few coppers, and was often worn by a certain type of female. She saw his scrutiny, and lifted her chin.

His interest stirred.

Two men stepped around them on the pavement, glancing first at Dickens and then at the girl, and coming to their own conclusion. One grinned at Dickens as he passed.

‘What is it?’ demanded Dickens, more briskly than he had intended.

‘I heard you have a place, a refuge, for … homeless women.’ She licked chapped lips. ‘I wondered … that is, I wanted to ask you …’

‘I’m sorry, but we take girls on referral only, from a magistrate, or a doctor. The Magdalen Hospital is on St George’s Fields; why not ask there?’

Her eyes flashed contempt. She didn’t stir.

He frowned. He had no wish to be discourteous, but he couldn’t stand about in the street all night. He was about to say so, when the matter was taken out of his hands: the girl’s eyes rolled up in her head, and she dropped like a stone onto the pavement.

He looked at the fallen figure in astonishment, and not a little dismay.

‘What’s happened here, then?’ A burly youth dressed in a dirty overcoat and apron – a labourer on his way home from his shift – stopped beside Dickens and bent to inspect the fallen girl.

‘She’s fainted,’ said Dickens. ‘From hunger, I imagine. How would you like to earn a shilling by helping me put her in a cab?’

The youth scowled at him. ‘You ain’t abductin’ her?’

‘Of course not!’ When the youth continued simply to stare at him, Dickens felt his temper rise. ‘If you’re not prepared to take my word for it, I’ll have no choice but to leave her where she is. Do you want that on your conscience?’

The youth weighed his words, saw the practicality of them, and nodded. ‘I saw a growler back on Baker Street. Wait here while I fetch it.’ He took off at a jog, hobnails sparking on the pavement.

Less than five minutes later Dickens had bundled the still senseless girl into a Hackney cab, and the young workman was able to continue on his way, jingling his pocket happily.

‘Where to, guv’nor?’ called the cabbie from his box.

‘Shepherd’s Bush.’

‘Well, Mrs Wallace, what do you think of my latest find?’

Dickens sat back in the parlour of Urania Cottage, and resisted the urge to pat his stomach. He had slept soundly in the bedroom kept for his particular use, and had enjoyed a hearty breakfast of eggs and muffins. If the shirt beneath his colourful waistcoat was a little crumpled, and smelled a little sour, he was content to put up with it until his return to Devonshire Terrace.

Mrs Wallace, a handsome woman of indeterminate age, gave him a reproving look. At first Dickens had been indifferent to her appointment as Head Matron of Urania Cottage, but now he found, somewhat to his surprise, that he wouldn’t want to be without her steady, unspectacular influence.

‘I’m not sure I approve of plucking girls off the street, Mr Dickens.’

‘I could hardly have left her there.’

The door burst open.

‘Missus! Isabella has my comb and she won’t give it back! I can’t pack it unless she gives it back!’ The intruder was a fresh-faced girl of seventeen, her wrap agape, and her hair in curl papers.

‘Can’t you see we’re busy, Annie?’ said Mrs Wallace.

‘I beg pardon Missus, Mr Dickens, sir.’ She bobbed him a breathless curtsey, unembarrassed by her déshabillé. ‘I didn’t mean to cut in, like.’ She turned back to the Matron. ‘But it’s the only bloody comb I have!’

‘Don’t curse, girl.’ Mrs Wallace shooed her out. ‘How will you ever find a husband in the colonies, using words like that? Go on with you, I’ll be up in a moment.’

The door slammed, and they heard an unladylike bellow on the other side of it.

‘The missus is coming! Now you’re for it, Isabella Bloody Gordon!’ They heard the thump of Annie’s feet back up the stairs.

‘I’d forgotten that Annie and Martha were sailing today,’ said Dickens.

‘We’re up to our ears in drama and packing cases. Your new girl will think she’s landed in Bedlam.’

‘Is she awake yet?’

‘Awake, washed, and dressed. I’ve given her one of our gowns. Her own was soaked through.’

‘What do you think?’

‘Well, she hasn’t said much, but she seems well mannered enough. She tells me her name is Rebecca Wood, and she seems keen to stay. I suppose there will be room now.’

‘I will interview her this morning, as I’m here.’

A thump shook the ceiling, followed by a wail.

‘Missus!’

The Matron looked heavenward and sighed. ‘Give me a few minutes, sir, and I’ll bring the girl down.’

He stretched his toes to the fire. A visit to Urania Cottage never failed to warm his spirits, even when the girls were acting up. Their behaviour was always at its worst in the winter months, when they were cooped up for so many dark hours indoors, but that was due to high spirits rather than outright badness. He was glad to be able to help ‘his’ girls. There were so many of their kind in the city, women obliged to sell themselves for a bed for the night, or to keep their families out of the spike line. His pulse quickened when he thought of the humiliating workhouse queue, where a family would be forced to stand for hours. And for what? To be separated from each other, and put to labour for a bowl of thin skilly and an even thinner mattress. He had seen the workhouses for himself, at close hand. When he had passed on his discoveries in Oliver Twist, some of his readers had wept for pity.

Tears were easily wrung, but pockets proved a little harder. He had no intention of abandoning his campaign to help the poorer elements of the city, but there were times he was discouraged by the relentless effort necessary to achieve so very little. No matter how many times he wrote of the plight of the poor, no matter how many petitions he signed, refuges he set up, or funds he raised, the spike lines outside the workhouses grew longer every year, and more and more unfortunate women were obliged to put themselves in danger.

He glanced at the newspaper that lay on the table, still open at the article that had caught his eye at breakfast – yet another prostitute, found slaughtered on the floor of her lodging house, just like his own poor Nancy. How his readers had thrilled to Nancy’s death! How they had sighed over it, and raged against Bill Sykes and the circumstances that had forced her to such a life. But they had soon forgotten their grief. Nancy was merely fiction, after all, and Dickens was coming to the regretful conclusion that fiction had no lasting effect.

But his work at Urania Cottage was different. He found it both heartening and delightful to think what his young charges had once been, and to imagine a different future for their children. His optimistic thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, followed by the reappearance of Mrs Wallace, accompanied by his nocturnal petitioner. He got to his feet and nodded to one of the chairs.

‘Sit down, my dear.’

Her cheeks had been scrubbed of rouge, and she was dressed in one of their bright blue gowns – a uniform, of sorts, but much more cheerful than the black and white worn by the women at the Magdalen Hospital for the Reception of Penitential Prostitutes. He had personally insisted on having something brighter for the girls at Urania Cottage. There was nothing more depressing than pretty birds with drab plumage.

‘Did you sleep well, Rebecca?’

She looked blank.

‘It is Rebecca, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir. And yes, thank you, I slept very well.’

His interest was piqued. She was well-spoken, even more so than he had realized the night before. ‘You came looking for me last night,’ he continued, ‘so I imagine you had heard of our work here?’

‘I read about it in the Evening Chronicle, and your Journal.’

That was unusual. Only one or two of the Cottage residents could write their own name, and none could read a newspaper. He estimated Rebecca was older than the other girls too, perhaps around twenty, or thereabouts.

He cleared his throat. ‘I set up Urania Cottage, with our patron, Miss Burdett-Coutts, in order to help rehabilitate young women such as yourself. It is not a fashionable concept that a woman once fallen into sin can be lifted up again, but it is something we believe in here, most fervently. Our emphasis here is not on repentance, but hope. Not in looking back, but forward, to a better life.’

‘I could wish for nothing more.’ Her large eyes were fierce.

‘Don’t have family somewhere? A mother? A father?’

Her lips thinned.

‘I must ask,’ pressed Dickens. ‘But once you have told me, you have my word of honour it will never be spoken of again.’

‘My father was a factor, sir, on an estate near Chelmsford. He’s dead now. My mother died a long time ago. I’ve been in service ever since I came to the city, but I lost my position, when … ’ she broke off.

‘I assume you have been earning your living on the streets?’

She flushed and lifted her chin. ‘If you can call it that … I did it twice, because I had to.’

Dickens nodded. ‘It’s fortunate you found us so quickly. Is that not so, Mrs Wallace?’

‘Yes, indeed, sir.’

‘There is another thing I must ask you.’ He met the girl’s gaze, unflinchingly. ‘If there is any chance at all of your being in a … delicate condition, I’m afraid we cannot accept you. We cannot accommodate another generation here at the cottage.’

‘I’m not pregnant.’

‘Good. There are also certain further conditions to accepting a place with us. We will keep you only for a year, to prepare you for a new life, in a new country. In short, we expect you to emigrate. Do you understand what that means?’

‘Transportation?’

‘No, no, my dear, nothing like that. This is not punishment. This is the chance to begin again, free of stigma: to find yourself a husband, to start a family.’

She paled.

‘You would have to leave everything behind.’ He took care to labour the point. It was important for all the girls to realize the significance of the step they were taking.

‘There is nothing left for me here.’

He nodded, satisfied.

Mrs Wallace leaned forward. ‘While you stay with us, we expect you to adhere to a certain code of conduct.’

‘You want me to go to church?’

‘Well …’ Mrs Wallace glanced at Dickens, thrown by the question. ‘All our girls attend church on Sunday, and we always have prayers in the evening, at bedtime.’

‘I won’t do that.’ The girl’s face was set, stubborn.

‘But, surely … ’ began Mrs Wallace.

Dickens interrupted her. ‘I don’t think that would necessarily be a problem. I don’t hold with sermonizing. As good Queen Bess once said, I do not wish to “make windows into men’s souls”.’

Mrs Wallace seemed for a moment as if she might take issue. She opened her mouth … and closed it again.

Rebecca Wood glanced at her. ‘If that is the case, I would like to stay.’

‘Excellent.’ Dickens beamed. ‘It’s decided, then. Now run along and get some breakfast.’

They watched the girl rise and go gracefully out of the door. When it had closed behind her, Dickens turned to the Matron.

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘If Rebecca Wood is her real name, I’m a Dutchman.’

‘What makes you think that?’

Mrs Wallace shrugged. ‘Feminine intuition. But she’ll have to give us her real name if she’s going to stay.’

‘Ah well, there’s plenty of time for that. What do you think of her disposition?’

‘The girl has backbone, which is a good thing. But if I’ve learned nothing else these last three years, it’s that you can never tell how they’ll turn out.’ She began to clear the table, putting the dirty crockery onto the tray. She picked up the newspaper, and sighed. ‘Another one dead.’ She skimmed the words on the page. ‘A governess, engaged to her employer, who “fell into sin” when he abandoned her.’ She snorted and dropped the paper back onto the table. ‘More fiction than anything you write, sir.’

‘Her friends apparently called her “The Countess” on account of her good looks and regal bearing.’

‘I daresay she was handsomer than most. Poor souls, old before their time, missing teeth, too addled with drink to care about anything other than where they’re going to find a fourpenny piece to buy a bed for the night.’ She gathered the rest of the breakfast things and straightened up, indignation glowing in her cheeks. ‘It’s a pity the newspapers feel they have to make a sensation out of the poor woman’s death.’

‘It’s their job, Mrs Wallace.’ Guilt stirred, as he remembered his piece on Johannes Appler’s arrest.

‘Aye, well, in my opinion they should be less concerned with selling newspapers than in telling people the truth about the world. But I imagine your detectives will get to the bottom of the matter.’

‘I imagine they will.’

‘They’re a good thing, your detectives.’ Mrs Wallace sniffed and nodded decisively. ‘A very good thing.’

Dickens rubbed his chin. She had given him an idea.

‘You want to write about me?’ It wasn’t so much a question as an expression of astonishment.

‘If that’s agreeable,’ said Dickens. ‘Inspector Field has been boasting of your investigative skills.’

‘He has?’ Dick Tanner glanced at Charley Field, who was leaning against the bookcase of his office.

Field nodded. ‘Mr Dickens has asked if he might spend a little time with us, observing them at first hand.’

Tanner puffed out his chest.

Dickens sat forward. ‘I’m particularly keen to see you at work on the Eliza Grimwood case.’

Tanner’s chest deflated. ‘Are you sure, sir? I mean … it’s a very unwholesome sort of crime. Wouldn’t you prefer burglary?’

‘I have read about the Countess in the newspapers, and her murder sounds intriguing.’

‘Bloody journalists,’ Tanner sneered, then caught Field’s eye. ‘Begging your pardon,’ he said to Dickens. ‘I don’t mean you, sir. But other journalists have not got a grasp of the important aspects of the case at all.’

Charley Field narrowed his eyes. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell us what those aspects are, in your opinion.’

Tanner nodded. ‘She was a better class of,’ he broke off, suddenly aware that his usual terminology wouldn’t serve, ‘unfortunate, from the usual, which means she did her transactions in private. It’s almost impossible to get a picture of her movements that evening. An associate of hers, Catherine Edwin, says she saw Grimwood with a man in the Strand. A well-dressed foreigner, she says. But Black Kate’s not known for her honesty, and, apart from her, no one saw Grimwood at all after six o’clock.’

‘You searched her room?’ asked Dickens.

‘We scoured it cleaner than a parson’s …’ Field coughed. Tanner reddened. ‘We searched it thoroughly, but found nothing. No murder weapon, and no trace of a visitor. Only a pair of gentleman’s gloves under the pillow that might or might not have anything to do with the murderer.’

‘Do you have the gloves?’ asked Dickens.

‘In my office, sir. Shall I fetch them?’

‘I’ll come along with you and take a look. If I may?’

Tanner and Dickens both looked at Field, who nodded.

Dickens followed Tanner out of the room, and allowed his smile to slip. He had already made up his mind to dislike the detective. It was a fault of his, he knew, making judgements of character too promptly on first meeting people, often basing his prejudices on little more than the way they might phrase a sentence, cock an eyebrow, or meet or not meet his eye. As a fault, however, it had served him well, for once his judgement was made he seldom needed to revise it.

And he didn’t care for Tanner at all. He found the detective’s voice grating. He didn’t like the way the man puffed himself up, and voiced his opinions about women and journalists so readily, even if he occasionally shared some of those sentiments himself. Now that he had made up his mind to write as plainly as possible about the Countess’s murder, he wasn’t about to change his mind about Tanner.

But it was a pity Harry Pilgrim wasn’t in charge of the case.