by Alex Reeve
At the back of the mill was a paved area leading up to another building, a pair of semi-detached cottages of the quaint sort one might see next to a village square. I supposed they predated the mill, and had watched the bigger, shabbier, noisier buildings multiply around them, casting them into shadow.
The left-hand cottage looked unused, the curtains drawn, but the right-hand one was occupied. As we approached, a secretary emerged and held the door open for us.
The parlour had been converted into an office. Sir Reginald was sitting behind a mahogany desk, annotating a document, his pen pecking at the page.
‘My name’s Stanhope,’ I said. ‘You sent me a letter, Mr Thackery … I mean, Sir Reginald.’
His writing paused, and I sensed he was vexed. I had forgotten to use his proper title, which was foolish on my part. Nothing must suggest we had ever met before.
He indicated a chair without looking up. ‘Sit.’
I did as instructed, taking in the room. It was neat and efficient with no sign of ostentation; he was a man dedicated to his work. The one personal item I could see was a picture of the old mill at Ponder’s End, though the painter had romanticised it with blossoming trees and neat shiplap boards where in reality there had been rubble and corrugated iron.
He finished his annotation with a firm dot and carefully laid down his fountain pen.
‘You’ve come across a pair of orphans, I believe?’
I didn’t respond immediately due to his strange phrasing. A pair of orphans made them sound like matching candlesticks. ‘Yes, Aiden and Ciara Hannigan.’
He didn’t acknowledge their names. ‘And how are you involved with this business?’
He was little changed; balder perhaps, and his skin paler and slacker, hanging below his eyes like folds of the cloth that had made his fortune. But his blue eyes were the same, astute and unflinching. When he looked at me, I felt that he could see under my clothes and knew exactly who I was.
‘I’m not involved.’
I could hear the light pitch of my voice and feel the roughness of my cilice against my skin.
He went back to examining his document as if my foolish denial had bored him.
‘Yesterday, you took them from the place of care provided by the police, and you did not return them. Ergo, you still have them. What I would like to know is: why?’
He was remarkably well-informed. I wondered what else he knew about me.
‘Ciara has a malady, and the woman who runs the halfway house was unwilling to care for her.’
He leaned forwards so abruptly I almost jumped back in my chair. ‘What kind of malady? Is it serious?’
‘She has fits at night.’
‘And the boy?’
‘No. I mean … he’s healthy, as far as I can tell.’
Sir Reginald picked up his pen again, rotating it in his hand. He was trying to hide the fact, but I was certain he felt relieved to hear Aiden didn’t suffer the same way as Ciara.
‘Charles Darwin is right,’ he said, allowing no room in his demeanour for disagreement. ‘It’s simple biology. The stronger blood will always defeat the weaker.’
I wasn’t sure how to respond. Was he making a medical judgement or a philosophical one?
Anyway, he didn’t seem to feel my input was required.
‘You are ideally placed to carry out a service for me,’ he announced, without preamble. ‘In return, I will pay you one guinea, which is more than generous.’
I kept my mouth shut, assuming he would explain what the service was, but instead he continued looking at me as though it wasn’t important, and that I should accept any task he might give me in exchange for such a sum. Again, I felt as though he recognised me, though I was equally sure it was my imagination and he examined everyone with the same intensity.
Without warning, he gripped the edge of his desk and was assailed by a terrible fit of coughing, coming upon him so fast he had no time to inhale. He groped for air, his face flushing purple. I leapt up to beat him on the back, fearing he was choking, but he pushed me away, finally drawing in a gasping, rattling breath.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked him, shocked by the suddenness of the attack. He was covered in sweat, like a boxer after a brutal bout.
‘Of course.’ His voice was hoarse, and he spat a glob of phlegm into a tankard apparently put there for that purpose. ‘It’s nothing. I take it we are agreed?’
‘May I ask why you’re taking an interest in the children?’
‘You may not.’ He briefly looked at the piece of paper in front of him, picking up his pen to make a correction and then slamming it down again in exasperation, spraying ink across the desk. ‘Look, it’s perfectly simple. The task I wish you to perform is the following: you will place them in an orphanage of my choosing and you will tell no one. I’ve made the arrangements and the police have been informed. All you have to do is deliver them safely this afternoon and have nothing more to do with this matter. Is that clear?’
He evidently expected me to take his money and leave, but this might be my last chance to find out more about Dora Hannigan.
‘I was hoping you might know of a relative of theirs, or someone who would be willing—’
‘My understanding is they have no relatives, hence my instruction.’
I wondered how he could know that. Was he telling the truth?
‘I’m concerned about them, Sir Reginald. Their mother was murdered, and the culprit hasn’t been found, as far as I know. And you must be aware that the police uncovered evidence of a plot to set fire to this mill. Do you have any idea what connects these things?’
He produced a bottle of laudanum from his drawer and took a sip, shuddering and gritting his teeth. ‘That blasted club. It’s filled with Chartists, Owenites, Fenians and God knows what else besides. Radicals and anarchists. They want to blow up the world and to hell with the consequences. I was assured by Hooper that you weren’t sympathetic to their cause. I hope he wasn’t wrong about that?’
‘He wasn’t.’
‘Good. If I had my way, they’d all be hanged. Thank the Lord they’re too bloody incompetent to be dangerous.’
I felt a welling up of resentment. Who was he to decide who should be hanged and who shouldn’t on the basis of their beliefs?
‘If they’re too incompetent to be dangerous, Sir Reginald, I presume you think none of them murdered Miss Hannigan?’
He stared at me, his jaw clenching and unclenching. When he finally spoke, it was in a low voice, measured and precise, as if he wanted me to be entirely certain of what he was saying.
‘I’m offering you a very generous payment for a simple task that’s in the interests of the infants. They will be well cared for. If you refuse, I must remind you that you removed them from the institution to which they were assigned by the police. You are therefore guilty of kidnapping. If you wish to stay out of prison, I suggest you do as I instruct.’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bag, which he emptied on the table: eight half-crowns and one shilling. He took some trouble to arrange them in a stack on his desk, lining up the edges with precision.
‘Why not ask your secretary to do it?’
‘Because I’m asking you.’
He seemed to want to keep the whole business as quiet as possible, and I wondered why. But I also knew I had little choice. I was down to a king and two pawns, and checkmate was only a question of time.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it. Where do you want me to take them?’
He watched closely as I put the coins into my pocket, clearly feeling it was the transaction that bound me, not my agreement.
‘Do you know the orphanage at Newport Street?’
‘I think so. Next to the market.’
It was near my home, and I was slightly familiar with it, having once befriended a student who had lodged in one of the rooms opposite. He had moved back to Birmingham on the completion of his studies, though not before selling m
e his chess set. It was bequeathed to him by his grandfather, he said, and he was sad to see it go, but the alternative was a week of sobriety.
‘You will take them there this afternoon and … and this is important – vital, in fact – you will tell no one where they are. No one at all. Not your wife, your friend, your barber, no one. Do you understand?’ He didn’t put out a hand for me to shake. We were not equals. ‘Do what I’ve asked and nothing more.’
He picked up his pen again, apparently a signal that our conversation was over.
I examined his face, wondering if he truly was responsible for Dora Hannigan’s murder, as John had insisted. I could still feel her cold hand in that dank courtyard, when I had tried to find a sign on her skin that she had defended herself. Like his son, Sir Reginald seemed fired by certainty, although he held the exact opposite views. I could easily imagine him sitting at his desk and instructing a man to put a sword through her and bury her. I could imagine him not giving a damn.
11
I didn’t reach home until after three o’clock. I’d walked along the railway embankment to find a station, but it was closed, so I’d been forced to walk for another hour to Aldgate and then wait forty minutes for a Metropolitan Railway train.
Constance was in the back room with Aiden and Ciara. She had placed them on chairs facing her.
‘I’ve been telling them about the bones of the body,’ she explained, sounding like a teacher when the headmaster enters the room. ‘What’s this one, Aiden?’ She pointed to her forearm.
‘The ulna,’ he answered in a flat tone. I’d left the back door open and he gazed through it yearningly.
‘And this one, Ciara?’ asked Constance, pointing to her collarbone.
‘The clavicle,’ the little girl replied, looking a good deal more proud than Aiden had. She turned to me with what, at first, I thought was a broad grin, except it wasn’t. She was showing me her teeth. ‘Look, Mr Stanhope.’
She wiggled an upper front one with her finger, and I felt slightly sick. Then she shut her mouth abruptly, with a rueful expression, and spat into her hand. When she opened her palm, the tooth was there, lying in a pool of pink.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, poking her tongue into the new gap.
‘You can put it somewhere for the tooth mouse to find,’ I told her. ‘Maybe he’ll leave you something sweet in return.’
I closed my eyes, realising what I had said. There was no time for a tooth mouse to visit and leave her a pastry. I would be taking her to the orphanage at Newport Street this afternoon. She would never come back here again.
I couldn’t face telling her, so I had to watch her wander around the house with her tooth on a saucer, searching for the best spot, eventually deciding on the corner by the stairs. She placed it there with ceremonial care.
‘The tooth mouse might be busy, you know,’ I said. ‘There are so many children. Why don’t I give you a penny instead?’
She took the coin, but I could see what she was thinking: a penny was very nice, but what about the tooth mouse? What if he came and left something sweet for her to eat, and she didn’t know?
‘And for you as well,’ I said to Aiden, paying off my guilt in pennies.
But what did I have to feel guilty about? I was doing the right thing, wasn’t I?
The Newport Street orphanage was almost completely hidden behind high walls and wooden gates. From the pavement, all I could see was the top storey and the roof, which sprouted chimneys of all different shapes and heights like schoolboys lined up for a photograph.
This is it, I thought. I will leave them in this place. It’s the best outcome for everyone.
I knocked on the main door with a swift bang-bang-bang and could feel Ciara’s hand tighten in mine.
I had packed all their things into the carpet bag, except for their money, which I had kept, for now. I promised myself I would come back and visit them from time to time, and when Aiden reached maturity, I would give it to him. The thought of that moment, of the overjoyed expression on his face, almost soothed my unexpected grief at leaving them.
An elderly woman opened the door. ‘Ah, yes!’ she exclaimed, peering at us through thick spectacles. ‘We were told to expect you. How lovely! Come along in.’
She beckoned us inside, smiling broadly.
The hall was cool and austere, dominated by a large picture of military insignia flanked on either side by rows of smaller paintings of infantrymen in different uniforms. I could hear a woman’s voice echoing down the stone stairs, and children repeating what she’d said. That sound – the dull, uninflected chorus of times tables and spellings – slipped me back to my own school in Enfield in an instant; the hard floor under my feet and the lye in my nostrils.
On my last day at school, aged eleven, my teacher had piled half a dozen books into my arms, wiping her eyes, and had gone back for another book and then another, making me promise to keep reading, no matter what. My father had returned every one of them the next day, saying we had quite enough books at home, which would have been completely true if my interests had extended only to dogs, ornithology and anatomy. It was, in fact, one third true; I did quite like watching birds.
‘Wait here,’ said the elderly woman. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
She beamed again at the children and shuffled off.
I must say, I was impressed. Sir Reginald had chosen well. While I would have preferred a less martial decorative style, an orphanage must require a fair degree of regulation, and this place seemed perfectly pleasant and sanitary. It was a world away from Oliver Twist.
Ciara kept hold of my hand and pressed herself against my hip. Aiden went to examine the pictures.
‘What do you think?’ I said to him.
‘Do they shoot guns here?’
‘I don’t know.’
He took one of the picture frames and tilted it, so it was hanging crookedly, and stood back to admire his handiwork. I frowned at him, but he didn’t straighten it. They were all exactly aligned except for that one, which was now leaning at an angle like a drunken soldier on parade.
The woman came back with a fellow who I took to be her husband from the way she guided him towards us, her hand at his elbow. He was elderly too, but where she was dressed in a homely fashion, he was neat and smart with not a stray strand of cotton or wisp of hair out of place. He introduced himself as Charles Ramsden.
‘Is this the boy Sir Reginald informed us about?’ He had a sheet of paper in his hand and peered at it. ‘Aiden, is it? How old are you, young man?’
‘Ten.’
‘Ten, sir.’
‘Ten, sir,’ repeated Aiden, though his customary scowl didn’t soften.
Mr Ramsden gave me a reserved smile. ‘Well, I’m sure we can make something of him.’
He half-bowed in a manner both polite and dismissive, and steered Aiden with a firm hand towards the corridor.
‘Lift your chin,’ he instructed the boy. ‘Slouching leads to laxity.’
I have done my best for him, I thought. He will be happy here and properly educated among others of his age. He will grow up and join the army, as my brother had done. It will be a good life.
I felt a shudder run through me; of course, it would not be like my brother, who was a captain last I heard, directing other men into battle and then retiring to the Mess or shooting at jugs for a bet. Aiden would be a … I didn’t even know the word. A troop? There were plenty of former soldiers in London; some, like Alfie, were whole and well, but I had met his friends. One of them was missing a foot and another was so badly burned only half his face was capable of expression. And there were the silences. In the midst of a story, a name would be mentioned – young McNeal or Ted-a-bed – and a wordless breath would follow before the story could continue. I had the feeling that if one of those silences had lasted just a few seconds longer, every man around the table would’ve been in tears.
But none of that was my responsibility. I could only help these two as they
were now, not as the adults they would become.
‘Wait,’ I called after Mr Ramsden. ‘What about Ciara?’
He turned and peered back at her as if she was a neighbour’s cat who’d sneaked in. ‘We don’t take girls.’
His wife held out her hand. ‘You don’t want to stay with the boys, do you?’
Ciara buried her face deeper into my coat. I sensed the woman was affronted at having her coaxing skills so summarily spurned.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Where do girls go?’
‘The Good Shepherd orphanage. She’ll do lovely there, I’m sure.’ Mrs Ramsden folded her arms. ‘If she ever comes out.’
‘Where’s The Good Shepherd orphanage?’
It wouldn’t be so bad, I thought, if they could visit one another.
‘Leytonstone.’
‘But that’s … it must be ten miles away!’
Mr Ramsden, who had shown little interest in Ciara’s welfare up to this point, wagged his finger to correct me. ‘It’s eight and a half miles precisely.’
‘But they’ll be separated,’ I protested, realising that was the whole point; boys couldn’t be hardened for a life as soldiers in the company of girls.
Aiden twisted out of Mr Ramsden’s grasp and ran back to his sister. ‘She can’t go somewhere on her own, being as she is.’
‘Your concern does you credit,’ Mr Ramsden said, sternly but not unkindly. ‘However, it isn’t for you to say. She’s a beneficiary of the philanthropy of Sir Reginald and it’s up to him to decide how it’s administered.’
Aiden glared at him, dark-eyed. I doubted he understood all of Mr Ramsden’s words, but he gathered the gist well enough: do as you’re told.
‘No, we must stay together.’ He threw me a look. ‘You promised, Mr Stanhope.’
Mr Ramsden pointed to his piece of paper. ‘Sir Reginald left specific instructions. We are to take the boy, and the girl goes to The Good Shepherd. That’s what he requires.’
Aiden glanced towards the door and I knew what he was thinking.