by Alex Reeve
That night, the children took my bed again. On some impulse, I sat on the edge of the mattress and pulled the blankets closely around them.
‘Goodnight, Mr Stanhope,’ mumbled Aiden. Ciara was already asleep.
I lay down on the rug, listening to the singing of two drunken men in the street. When they finally finished their duet – gone home or passed out – I opened the window and curled up in my chair, breathing in the moist air and watching distant flashes light up the clouds. I counted to fifteen before I heard thunder, so low it was scarcely audible, almost a tremor in the floor and walls. There was a movement in the bed and I jumped up, fearful that Ciara was having another fit, but it was Aiden, his shoulders shaking and his breath catching. He sniffed quietly, and I realised he was crying. I wanted to comfort him, but what do you say to a boy whose mother has been killed? I spent a few minutes trying to find the right words, but by the time I had thought of them, he’d gone back to sleep.
Tomorrow morning, I thought, I will have to return them to the halfway house. I detested the idea of it, but what choice did I have? I wasn’t their guardian. All I could do was beg Mrs Downes to keep them for another few days, to give me time to find a decent orphanage. I would pay for it in monthly instalments from the pouch of money. They would have the best life orphans could hope for.
I dozed as the rain fell, but was awake again before dawn, when a blackbird started announcing that Colly was in the yard and we should all watch out.
Not long after that, the church bells began, warning us of a different danger, that we might remain asleep or spend a pleasant morning reading Wilkie Collins when we ought to be at Holy Communion, having our immortal souls redeemed.
I left Aiden and Ciara getting dressed in my room to avoid further antagonising Alfie. He and Constance were bustling about, getting ready. His late wife, Helena, had believed attendance at church was important. He had never confided in me what he believed.
I was sitting alone in the back room with a pot of tea and two shortbread biscuits when Constance interrupted me, her face screwed up in an expression of contempt.
‘Apparently, Father’s invited Mrs Thing to come with us.’
‘Mrs Gower,’ I corrected her.
‘I can never remember her name.’
‘She seems to be doing him good, Constance. He’s happier these days, don’t you think?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed.’
She looked so miserable, I felt the urge to give her a hug, but of course I couldn’t. When I was young, my life had been full of hugging and touching, with my mother and Jane and my father’s dogs, and Bridget brushing my hair or straightening my clothes. But now, I had to suppress it. What if she was able to feel the narrowness of my arms, the inward curve of my waist or, worst of all, the edge of my cilice beneath my shirt? Those few inches of air between me and everyone else kept me safe.
‘Don’t you want to be a family again?’
‘We are a family, aren’t we?’ she said.
I realised she was including me. I had lived above the pharmacy for a quarter of her life.
‘Of course,’ I replied, but how could it be true? How could they be my family when I kept secrets from them?
Constance didn’t seem to notice my reserve and fetched another cup, emptying the rest of the pot into it, tea leaves and all, not bothering with a strainer.
‘A boy delivered a letter for you,’ she said, pointing to the dresser. ‘I think it’s for you, anyway.’
I briefly wondered if it was another letter from my sister, but the envelope was of higher quality and the addressee was ‘Mr Stanholt’.
I ripped it open.
34 Gordon Square, London W.C.
Dear Mr Stanholt,
I understand from the Police Superintendent that you were instrumental in the rescue of two children. We have not met, but I feel that we should, and at the earliest opportunity. It would be greatly to your benefit to do so. Please visit me at the Canning Town Mill on Barking Road, near the railway line. Any time today would be convenient.
Yours faithfully,
Sir Reginald Thackery
I was perplexed. Why did he want to see me? And what did he mean by greatly to your benefit?
‘Is it from Mrs Flowers?’ asked Constance, ever alert to my social goings-on.
‘No. Why would it be?’
She sipped her tea and helped herself to one of my shortbread biscuits. ‘I thought you might have written to apologise and this was her letter forgiving you.’
I shook my head, exasperated. ‘How on earth would a messenger have made it all the way to Mrs Flowers’s shop and back here in that time? And anyway, she knows how to spell my name. Why are you grinning like that?’
‘So, you admit you have something to apologise for?’
I pulled a face at her, but I wasn’t really cross. ‘You are infernal, young Miss Smith.’
‘I knew there was a reason she left so quickly. If you haven’t apologised yet, you must, and soon. I like her, and I know you do too.’
I decided to change the subject. ‘I meant to ask you before. What does bromide of potash cure?’
Despite her youth, she knew almost as much about remedies as her father, especially now she was studying his books during every waking minute.
‘Bromide?’ she said. ‘It settles the nerves and relaxes the muscles.’
It was as I had guessed. ‘Could it aid a sufferer with convulsions?’
‘Yes, it could. Why do you ask?’
‘I’m curious, that’s all.’
She seemed intrigued, about to ask me more questions, but her curiosity withered as Alfie came in, accompanied by a well-dressed woman with bright red hair and a frown-shaped mouth. He introduced her as Mrs Gower.
‘I’ve heard so much about you, Mr Stanhope,’ she said. When she spoke, her face became quite merry and I could see why he liked her. ‘Alfred told me you help orphans. What a kind thing to do.’
Behind her, out of Alfie’s eyeline, I could see Constance making the motion of stabbing herself with a table knife.
‘Just two,’ I said. ‘And only temporarily. In fact, I was wondering if you might do me a favour. Would you mind taking them with you to church this morning?’
I needed time to think without distractions.
Mrs Gower looked back at Alfie, and I could see some unspoken communication pass between them. ‘Are you not able to take them yourself?’
‘Leo doesn’t go to church,’ said Alfie.
‘Oh.’ She appeared quite taken aback, as though she hadn’t considered non-attendance to be a possibility.
‘I’m a vicar’s son,’ I explained. ‘I went enough as a child to last a lifetime.’
We heard footsteps on the stairs, and Aiden and Ciara appeared, wearing the clothes I had recovered from their room at the club. When Aiden saw Mrs Gower, he stood slightly in front of Ciara.
‘Good morning,’ said Mrs Gower.
I had expected a woman to be more naturally equipped for talking to children, but she was no better at it than I was. Did she have children of her own? I wasn’t certain.
Alfie squeezed Aiden’s shoulder. ‘Of course we’ll take them.’ The boy seemed to be growing on him.
Aiden chewed his lip, and I wondered whether anarchists went to church. Did they believe in God? By way of contrast, Constance appeared delighted, no doubt preferring the company of other children to being on her own with her father and Mrs Gower. She helped Ciara on with her coat, presumably a cast-off of Aiden’s as her fingers were barely visible at the ends of the sleeves. The younger girl looked up at Constance with something close to veneration.
‘Is she your mummy?’ I heard her whisper, eyeing Mrs Gower.
‘No,’ Constance whispered back, doing up the younger girl’s buttons. ‘My mummy’s …’ She paused momentarily and then recovered herself. ‘My mummy’s in heaven now.’
Ciara blanched and recoiled, covering her eyes with her hands. She remain
ed like that for several seconds, seeming alternately to stiffen and subside, and I worried she was about to have another fit.
When she lowered her hands, her cheeks were pink. ‘Mine is too,’ she said.
Constance held the little girl’s face between her palms. ‘Oh, you’re freezing. I have some old gloves and a scarf somewhere. Would you like to help me find them?’
Ciara nodded, and the two of them trotted up the stairs together.
I couldn’t help but wonder what Constance would be like now if she’d lost both of her parents at Ciara’s age, instead of only her mother. Without Alfie, this confident young woman, full of vitality and kindness, would be a warped reflection, leery and tough. I was grateful beyond words that she was as she was. But, for Ciara, I knew either path was still possible. I felt a shiver run through me.
After a couple of minutes, they came down again, Ciara now resembling a ball of wool with arms and legs. The whole party left through the pharmacy door.
In the silence that followed, I sat on the stool and reread Sir Reginald’s letter. He seemed not to have changed in the last eleven years; I could almost hear his voice as he dashed it off to a secretary before moving on to the next matter at hand. I considered declining his invitation but was sure he’d simply become more insistent. I recalled that he didn’t like to be denied, once hounding a man with one leg out of a pew he had come to think of as his own. And he might have information that could help the children. Dora Hannigan had worked for him years ago and, according to John, he’d abused her in a dreadful way. The worst thing, John had said.
Might Sir Reginald have paid for her silence? Might he have killed her to make certain of it? If so, I could be walking into a very dangerous situation.
Another thought occurred to me, one which forced me to cover my face with my hands. He might recognise me. My better sense told me it was foolishness, and he wouldn’t know me even if I was wearing a dress, let alone as I was now.
And yet, John had.
What if John had already told him who I was? I had seen a fervour in his eyes that might lead him to do anything.
No, I didn’t believe that. It was paranoia. Not only would it be unspeakably cruel, but that knowledge was his leverage over me. And besides, if Sir Reginald knew who I was, he would have indicated as much in the letter, to make sure I did as he instructed.
Very well, I thought. I am not exposed. Not yet.
I would meet him and hear what he had to say.
As I was searching for my other shoe, I was interrupted by a loud knock at the front door. My room looked out over the yard and the houses behind, so I had to go into Alfie’s bedroom and peek down at the pavement between the curtains. I was half expecting to see the top of a brown felt hat, but instead I was looking down on a woman’s bonnet, sky blue and quite expensive. As she glanced upwards, I stepped back into the shadows.
It was my sister, Jane. I didn’t think she’d seen me.
I felt a coldness in my stomach. It was unimaginable that she would visit me here. I could never allow her to meet Alfie and Constance. She might tell them anything, everything, and they would never understand. Alfie would view me with disgust, ashamed that I had lived in his house for three years. And Constance! She had trusted me with her loathing of Mrs Gower, her fears for her father, her ambition of becoming a doctor. And I had been deceiving her all this time, allowing her to think I had once been a boy like any other boy, and was now a man like any other man.
I had wanted to tell them. There was one evening, a few months after I had taken up my lodging, when Alfie first offered me a glass of his whisky. Actually, we had enjoyed a number of glasses, four or five big ones each, and were surprised when Constance came in holding a candle. She was only nine years old then.
Alfie ushered her towards the stairs. ‘I thought you were in bed already.’
‘I’ve been reading.’
She held up my copy of Barnaby Rudge. I had lent it to her after she told me she’d finished almost every book in her school library and would shortly be reduced to the horrors of W. H. G. Kingston.
‘Say goodnight to Mr Stanhope,’ Alfie told her, and she did, stopping in the doorway.
‘Who’s Lottie Pritchard, Mr Stanhope?’
‘What?’
‘Her name’s in the front of the book.’ She opened up the flyleaf and there it was, in my handwriting. ‘Who is she?’
Whether it was the lateness of the hour, the effect of the whisky or the simplicity of her question I didn’t know, but I almost told her. It was the biggest risk I could have taken, but these two were already dear to me. A part of me, a large part, wanted to trust them.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
‘Aha!’ said Alfie, raising his eyebrows. ‘A lady from your past, perhaps?’
‘In a way,’ I admitted.
‘You can have your secrets, Leo,’ he said, watching his daughter scamper off to bed. ‘But we’ll find out everything in the end!’
The opportunity never came up in quite the same way again, and time passed. What might have been possible after a few months became unthinkable after three years. It would no longer be a revelation, it would be a confession, and a terrible one at that. Our friendship would be destroyed.
At ten-thirty, I found a cab on Piccadilly, and the driver agreed to take me as far as the East India Dock at All Hallows, but no farther. He said it wasn’t worth getting his throat cut for an extra half a crown.
When I disembarked at the dock it smelled foul, the rancid silt reaching into my throat and squeezing my epiglottis. The wharfs were desolate but for seagulls winging down between crates of cargo.
I passed a sign pointing to ‘The Creek’, which was far less rustic than it sounded, being sludgy and lined with barges, most of them lying crookedly on the stones. A dozen or more mudlarks were crawling among them, sieving the brackish water with their fingers.
I generally considered the area around my home on Little Pulteney Street to be practically a slum, but it was a paradise compared with this. Yes, Soho was busy and dense with people pushed together in tenements, houses, shops and factories, living over and under each other, sharing rooms and breathing in each other’s air, but most of us had enough to eat and the children went to school. Here, the pavement was scattered with beggars, some lying still enough to be corpses and others so thin they looked desiccated, as if poverty had sucked all the blood from their bodies. I placed a farthing into a fellow’s palm and was startled when his fingers closed over it.
A crowd of children came rushing out from a building I had assumed derelict and surrounded me, forcing me to wade through them and slap their quick little hands away from my pockets. I couldn’t help but think of Aiden and Ciara. This might be their future, if I didn’t help them.
The mill was ten minutes’ walk beyond the railway bridge, a long shed of brick set back from the road, thrumming with noise. I was amazed. How could it be working on a Sunday?
There was a lane leading down under a railway arch, presumably for the carts carrying raw jute from the docks. On all sides, great puddles had merged into bogs and reed beds, as if the marshes resented man’s intrusion and were intent on reclaiming their territory. If I strayed from the lane, I would be knee-deep.
The windows on the mill were black with dirt, though I could make out lamps hanging from the ceiling and the movement of the men inside.
The main door led into a room where a young fellow was sitting eating an apple. He stood up as I entered, hastily thrusting the fruit into a drawer.
‘Delivery?’ he asked, looking me up and down.
‘No. I was invited here by Sir Reginald.’
I held out the letter and he scrutinised it thoroughly, as if suspecting a forgery, before returning it to me.
‘This way,’ he said, and led me inside.
John Thackery had been right: this truly was a hell on earth, dense with noise and thick with the smell of metal and oil, stinging my eyes as they ad
justed to the darkness. Huge machines were lined up in long rows, each of them pounding and roaring, attended by men feeding in coarse threads of jute, their fingers almost touching the teeth of the mechanism, while others collected the cloth as it spewed out, heaving it on to trolleys to be wheeled away. Not one of them would meet my gaze.
As I followed the clerk, I experimented with making a sound of my own, starting with a growl in my throat and rising to a shout, to find out whether I could hear myself. Even at full volume, I could not. It was terrifying, but also strangely liberating, to yell with all your might and yet have no one hear you.
We walked the length of the shed, and the din mercifully reduced towards the end. Here, scores of smaller looms were operated by women, threading and winding strands, their hands darting in and out so nimbly among the wheels and spindles it was impossible to tell what they were doing. One slip, and they would surely lose a finger.
At the back of the building, another door led into a short corridor where bright windows looked out on to the marshes and the railway embankment. The sudden glare made me blink. The noise had diminished to a dull hum, though you could still feel its vibration through the floor.
‘How are you able to operate on a Sunday?’ I asked the clerk. ‘There are laws, surely?’
‘All the workers are Jews today,’ he replied, with a sly expression. ‘The law doesn’t apply to them.’
I thought of Jacob. He often worked on a Sunday and took his own Sabbath off, though he usually spent it recovering from too much ale the day before.
‘So, you close on Saturdays instead, you mean?’
‘No.’ He gave me a broad wink. ‘On other days, we employ non-Jews.’
‘I don’t understand. Are you Jewish? What about Sir Reginald?’
‘Ah, well, you see we’re Jews on some days and not on others.’
It was a flagrant violation of the law. I didn’t for a second believe they employed men of different religions on different days, which meant they were enabling or, more likely, requiring men to work seven days a week. It was inhumane. I was amazed that Sir Reginald could get away with it. But I supposed he had enough influence and money to get away with anything.