by Lyndsay Faye
“Don’t leave me.” For the first time, she sounded frightened. “You wouldn’t, would you?”
“Never,” I called back.
I meant it, but which direction was I to take? Clarke and I were educated innocents, a condition resembling stupid clerks or intelligent kitchen slaveys, which is to say useless. Cognisant we would be desperate enough to sell practically anything unless we found regular employment, and terrified of watching the small nest egg I had stolen crack and dribble away, I ploughed through piles of mismatched boots and discarded nut husks, knowing that I had never yet failed to find an opportunity when I set my mind to it and still at age sixteen foolish enough to trust myself.
My stomach was empty, my mind echoing its cavernous snarl. The twisting streets with the brown water trickling between the stones led me farther from Clarke, and it occurred to me then that, were I a good person, I should leave her. Becky Clarke would live better without the hindrances of my demons and my doubts. Surely, were I to vanish, she would return to her parents, and surely being ignored was preferable to being penniless? Kicking through clamshells as I neared the great sluggish foul river, I hesitated.
Do I love Clarke enough to say good-bye to her?
I did not, I realised.
Then I heard a strange voice calling out.
“Most ’orrible and beastly murder done! Most haudacious and black crime committed!”
A man of middle age stood with a sheaf of yellow papers, crying out the latest atrocities. He was bent over—I hesitated to call him hunchbacked, but he flirted with the appellation—a heavy, downward-leaning human whom I could imagine tracking rabbits like a bloodhound. He owned a bloodhound’s jaw too, a great slab on either side of his face framing his crooked teeth with fleshy drapery. His hair was russet and his eyes a hard yellowish hazel like petrified wood.
“Murder most ’einous!” he cried. “Murder most hunnatural! Penny a page, miss.”
Blinking in astonishment, I reached for the broadside. He growled and I paid him belatedly, walking a few paces away to read:
MOST FOUL AND DELIBERATE MURDER OF A COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER.
Mr. Vesalius Munt, a most upstanding gentleman of E—— parish, was found stuck like a pig through the gullet and left to die in a pool of his own red gore. The villain what competrated this most perspicable act, an act sufficient to strike thunderific fear into the hearts of even the most auspicillary citizens, remains at large. Many schoolgirls of Lowan Bridge have gone missing; thirty or so have vanished into the idyllious countryside, two hundred more staying under the most dutiful and meritransible guard of their teachers, the rest having returned home.
Mr. Munt was lauded as the most distinguished philanderist, and a knife was shoved so far into his throat that his molars suffered renumerous damages, according to experts. The most authoritive and ingeniable Inspector Sam Quillfeather has been assigned the task of hunting his killer, and the townspeople are most certifitive that his quest will end in the stringing up of the traitorious fiend’s neck like the most veriable chicken.
A finger snapped beside my ear.
I had not fainted, but a murky tide swam before my eyes, all grey silt and shrinking terror. The patterer’s fleshy face—for he was a patterer of dark deeds, and I had been identifying every way possible to obtain money whilst preventing my legs from parting company—hovered over mine, seeming at once fascinated and annoyed that I had been so affected. He wore funereal black, but had enhanced this theme with a scarlet cravat and trousers to answer, the effect being that one grew fretful over whether he had just been stabbed in the throat and the legs.
“What ails you?” he demanded.
“I went to school there,” I murmured, scarcely knowing what I was saying.
Secrets, reader, are tidal—they swell and recede, and my greater misdeeds had forced this lesser intelligence from my lips, a river spilling over its bed; at the unexpected name Sam Quillfeather, the constable like an embodied question mark who had peppered me with queries after Edwin’s death and apparently been promoted, my spine turned to jelly. The only good news the article contained was that so many had disappeared, for our absence—should it occur to Inspector Quillfeather that a schoolgirl was capable of stabbing her headmaster—would thereby seem much more natural.
“Eh?” he exclaimed. “You were there, ye say?”
“I merely—I was confused. I’ll just—”
“A man in my line o’ work would pay dear in order to print someone’s hinsider perpinion, ’specially if you saw the cold dead corpse, like. Did you?”
He winked, and then I understood—he expected me to lie in order to earn a commission in exchange for the tale.
“Yes,” said I, attempting to appear a bad perjurer, which is a bemusing trick and not one I recommend the layman acquire.
The man chuckled, jowls quaking. “Name’s Mr. Hugh Grizzlehurst. And yours?”
“Miss Jane Steele.”
We shook hands, I and this purveyor of tragedy, as an idea gently hatched in my brain.
“There’s another Lowan Bridge girl with me, and we’ve need of lodgings for the night. I’ll exchange my story for our board.”
Mr. Grizzlehurst nodded. “If it’s an hextraordinary story, I’d not begrudge two nights. Tell Bertha—Bertha’s me wife—that ’appy circumstance sent you, and I’ll be along when I’ve hexpleted my stock. The ’ouse is twelve Elephant Lane, Rotherhithe—if you hespy the White Lead Manufactory and the Saltpetre Works, you’ve gone too far.”
Weak with shock and relief, I shook hands. Meeting Mr. Grizzlehurst seemed one of those felicitous coincidences which occur so seldom in fiction—for in fiction, such blessings can scarce be believed, whilst in life they are shared with future generations as thrilling tales of danger averted and luck seized.
I say that it seemed just the gift we had been seeking; I have since grown more cautious. Nature’s boons are equally plentiful and random, but I have never yet encountered a more capricious mistress—save perhaps for her daughter, madly mercurial London.
• • •
Clarke and I, pulses thin with nerves, trudged past warehouses and shipyards, past a harelipped Italian organ boy whose eyes followed us soulfully as he ground his instrument, past earnest geranium boxes tucked under begrimed windows, and finally entered Rotherhithe where it perched upon the edge of the Thames. A whaler, salt in his beard and a blue marine glint in his single eye, directed us to Elephant Lane and trudged away as we knocked at number twelve.
The door creaked open. Mrs. Grizzlehurst stood there, blinking—a dull woman with flat greyish hair and an overbite which rendered her resemblance to a rodent more profound than she might have ideally preferred. Bertha Grizzlehurst’s close-set eyes were amiable, however, and her dry lips even spasmed in a theoretical smile.
“I am Miss Rebecca Clarke and this is Miss Jane Steele,” Clarke introduced us.
No answer emerged.
“We’re looking for Mrs. Bertha Grizzlehurst?” I explained.
The woman who was probably Mrs. Grizzlehurst continued affably saying nothing.
The wind from the Thames scraped across our necks as I glanced worriedly at Clarke; we had made our way from the bridge through market gardens and occasional meadows, rejoicing as the stench of refuse faded and the aromas of maritime saline and humble beds of mint met our nostrils. Rotherhithe was actively being bullied by the metropolis, however; upon nearing the waterfront, the sunlight failed to reach the cobbles as the rickety buildings grew thicker and taller. Huge draught horses lugging wagons of timber passed, making us feel even tinier than we did already. I badly wanted a meal and a bed, and the same for Clarke.
“Your husband asked for our testimony regarding a recent murder,” Clarke attempted.
Mrs. Grizzlehurst’s smile spread towards her ears; this time she stepped back, and we followed.
The place was shabby, but so impeccably kept that no one could sneer at it; the hearthstone shone like a riverbed, and the irregular
panes of glass fitted into the windows had been carefully cut, sparkling in a frenetic rainbow of tonic greens and medicinal ambers and bottle blues. The chimney leaked smoke in a friendly fashion, as if it wanted to join in the conversation, and a misshapen iron pot was just coming to the boil.
“Lodgings.” Mrs. Grizzlehurst jerked her head upwards; her voice proved harsh but friendly, like the buzzing of a bee.
“Excuse me?” I replied.
“Low rates, breakfast gratis. He’s only been gone these two days, has Mr. Buckle, but I’ve cleaned it plenty thorough.” Mrs. Grizzlehurst waved her knife at a narrow staircase, then dropped a coarsely chopped onion into the pot. A pair of lobsters from a basket followed, flailing against their demise as they were boiled alive.
Clarke and I ascended the staircase, confused but equally curious. There we found a half-height garret room complete with bed, pot, washbasin, and—wonder of wonders—a skylight through which the coral and violet sunset yet gleamed. My friend sucked in a happy breath.
“Might we—”
“I hope so,” I agreed instantly.
“But how will—”
“I’ve a plan,” I discovered.
Our hostess, when we returned downstairs, lifted a cleaver as she prepared to make two lobsters do for four bellies. In our absence, a skillet of roasted potatoes had appeared along with a cask of porter, two glasses already poured.
“Day after tomorrow,” Mrs. Grizzlehurst concluded, as if she had been conducting a conversation between her ears.
“Beg pardon?” Clarke requested.
“He’ll trade two nights for two accounts. You can start paying the day after tomorrow.”
Holding up my hands, I said, “We’ve only modest—”
“The room can’t be empty.” Gooseflesh sprang to life along Mrs. Grizzlehurst’s wiry arms. “You’ll pay the day after tomorrow.”
I took this to mean that the Grizzlehursts danced upon the lip of penury. My conscientious Clarke had just opened her mouth to explain our own lack of gainful occupation when Mr. Grizzlehurst burst through the door, booming exultations in great volleys.
“If I never see such a day for hexceptional sales, it ain’t my fault.” Laughing, Hugh Grizzlehurst showed teeth resembling indifferently worn pencils. “This young lady with the fey looks is a good homen, Bertha—a positivical homen, I tell you.”
His wife set out potatoes and a modest pat of butter.
“Is this the other heyewitness?” Mr. Grizzlehurst captured Clarke’s delicate hand, which I found myself irrationally resenting. “An ’onour, miss.”
“Likewise,” Clarke managed.
“Mr. Grizzlehurst,” I interjected, “I should like to propose that we lodge upstairs; in exchange, rather than pay you directly, I would assist you.”
A silence fell; our host’s twiglike masses of eyebrows descended.
“’Ere now.” Mr. Grizzlehurst thrust his face into mine, jowls swinging like pendulums. “True enough Mr. Buckle hasphyxiated down at the granary, but you’ve habsconded from school by your own hadfession. Now I’m to suffer the keeping o’ you?”
Clarke bristled, and I pressed her toe with my boot.
“You write up murders for a living,” I reminded him. “Well, I’ve read the Newgate Calendar back to front, and I’ve been educated by the renowned Mr. Vesalius Munt. I know you didn’t believe me, but it’s true. I offer stylistic improvements and new material in exchange for room and board.”
“’Eavens above us, hexisely what manner of improvements are you a-thinking of?” Mr. Grizzlehurst growled. “My customers dote on my turn o’ phrase.”
“Think what fields we could expand into together!” I coaxed. “Gallows ballads, last confessions!”
“They live upstairs and will work for breakfast,” Mrs. Grizzlehurst said.
Hugh Grizzlehurst slammed a fist upon the table, still vigorous despite his bowed back and drooping face. “Why them? We’ve money enough for the room to be hempty a few nights.”
“They live upstairs,” Bertha Grizzlehurst insisted, though her face paled to match the lobster flesh peeking from the shells.
“I’ve no need o’ hassistance when it comes to my broadsides! My broadsides is known ’ither and yon and every street betwixt!”
“I don’t think positivical is a word,” Clarke observed.
“Can you prove positivically that it hain’t?” he shouted in high dudgeon.
“No,” I hastily owned, “but wouldn’t it be better to employ words which actually exist?”
“Hexistence nothing.” He regarded me with an outraged eye. “You lot will hexplicate how Mr. Vesalius Munt came to have his neck spitted like a guinea fowl, and then—”
“The room can’t be empty!”
The shriek—high but thin, like the feral cry of a shrew—rendered all three of us mute. Following this decree, Mrs. Grizzlehurst, three plates balanced on her left arm and a fourth in her right hand, set the meal upon the table.
When finished, she sat and stared at her husband; a silence of grotesque dimensions ensued.
“We’ll sup first,” Mr. Grizzlehurst said contritely, “and then—then, mind—we can talk about halternatives.”
Clarke and I ate as Mr. Grizzlehurst slurped from a lobster shell; Mrs. Grizzlehurst only gazed at her plate, relief softening her ratlike features. After supper had ended, I jotted down an account of Mr. Munt’s murder, prudently leaving out my guilt whilst doubling the gore. I did not need to ask whether it would suit; it was a mingling of my memory and imagination, and as such was criminally engaging.
Hugh Grizzlehurst read my work, snorting in approval.
“I decide which crimes deserve hadvertisement,” he admonished.
“Of course.”
“You get not a cent—just lodgings, that’s hessential.”
“Absolutely.”
“And what’ll she do, then?” he demanded, pointing at Clarke.
“Teach music lessons,” Clarke said dreamily. “All we must do is find a piano, and I shall partner with the owner quick as thinking.”
“Well,” said Mr. Grizzlehurst. He regarded his spouse as if struck by sudden melancholy. “They live upstairs, then, it’s settled.”
Smiling, Mrs. Grizzlehurst cleared the plates and uttered not another word that day … nor the day after that, nor the day after that, which ought to have set off plentiful warning bells in my ears and did not, more’s the pity for everyone involved.
• • •
Clarke set out to partner with a pianist upon the morrow. A week later, having failed in many attempts, she disappeared one morning and sent me into a hair-tearing panic—wondering whether she had met with misadventure, wondering whether she had tired of me. She materialised ten minutes after supper ended (which Mrs. Grizzlehurst always served us whether we had paid her the extra fourpence or not) with three shillings, which she pressed into my palm.
“I stood upon the street corner, practicing, before meeting with Mr. Jones, but I needn’t bother over using his piano.” Her smile engulfed her pretty face despite the small scale of her lips. “I always thought I had a knack for music, though Miss Lilyvale’s praise wasn’t precisely encouraging.”
“You made this much warming up your voice?” I stared stupidly at my hand.
“Imagine what I’ll earn when I’m doing it on purpose,” she concluded, skipping upstairs to wash.
Thus Clarke settled into an unlikely occupation as a street singer, trilling “Cherry Ripe” and “Poor Old Mam” whilst I penned atrocities; had we not been educated at Lowan Bridge School, learning daily despite our sorrows, I shudder to picture what would have become of us. She was even happy, I think, warbling like a strangely technical songbird, whilst I took heinous tales from my employer and translated them to actual English, with sufficient spilt viscera to please everyone.
These might have been idyllic circumstances, but they were not.
Mr. Hugh Grizzlehurst’s behaviour when drunk owned p
eculiarities which it failed to evince when he was sober; furthermore, these whimsical quirks tended to be visited upon the person of Mrs. Bertha Grizzlehurst. In fairness, Mr. Grizzlehurst only imbibed when he had been unsuccessful, and—as my help and his experience rendered us jointly successful—this was seldom. When every other month, however, the British Empire had been distressingly peaceable, Mr. Grizzlehurst would arrive home with a jug of gin which could either have been imbibed or employed to strip the paint from the chipped green rocking chair.
When Clarke and I had retreated upstairs, ducking to avoid the low slant of the ceiling beams, we would hear shouting. At times, the shouting would prove the climax, and we should find at dawn Mr. Grizzlehurst snoring upon the knotted rug. At other times, shouting would prove insufficient to Mr. Grizzlehurst’s purposes, and the sharp crack of a slap or two would follow, and Clarke’s entire body would flinch alongside mine as I set my teeth hard against each other.
“What can we do?” Clarke whispered the third time this happened, shifting up on one elbow to stare at me with her nightgown slipping over her shoulder.
I did not know. Bertha Grizzlehurst was silent for days on end, ugly as her husband, and relentlessly calm; and now that I knew the reason for her insistence upon our lodging there, I suspected we were already doing the task she had planned for whatever tenant occupied the garret: we were witnesses, which went a long ways towards stopping a real crime from ever occurring.
“Nothing,” said I. “We are here to prevent things going too far. It isn’t our business.”
Clarke settled her head between my neck and collarbone, smelling of starlight and lavender as she always did, and murmured, “Then whose business is it?”
Pondering, I sifted her hair through my fingers. I was not, even at age sixteen, foolish enough to suppose that love and marriage always kept company; my mother had loved my father to distraction, but I had never seen it, and as for the union our former music teacher might have enjoyed, the topic was best left unexplored. Theoretically, however, some form of affection was meant to be involved—and though I could only love hungrily, I could not imagine ever striking Clarke if I had been a man and she a woman, no matter what she may have done.