Pugg's Portmanteau

by DM Bryan

  “Very likely,” said Morris. “But I cannot present myself at Hill Street dressed as I am. If any person from her staff should tattle, I would not like to face Elizabeth’s questions.”

  “Like as not, I can help with that,” said the boatman. His voice startled them both, for they’d forgotten him completely. He’d taken his pipe from his mouth and held his oars dripping above the waves. For the first time, Glossolalia and Morris really looked at the man. He was a fellow of middle years, dressed in his own hair, the loose shirt, and kerchief of his kind. Now, he relit his pipe and spoke through teeth clenched around the stem. “My wife is by trade a laundress, and she serves many fine folk. She can certainly provide the loan of suitable garments, so long as you ensure their careful usage and prompt return. Many times, she’s done the same for others when they need to dress as fits their station but haven’t the means. She’s a kind soul, my wife.”

  Glossolalia and Morris took little urging to fall in with this plan, for it was a good one, and they soon reached the city side of the river. The minute they disembarked at the stair, the boatman tied up his craft and whistled for his son. The boy, a child of no more than eight, appeared with a torch in his hand, prepared to lead the way through the dark streets. If the child was surprised to see his father accompanied by two ladies—one dressed as a wigless gentleman—he gave no sign, and walked with his parent’s hand in his until the party reached the low front door of a Thames-side cottage.

  Inside, Glossolalia found firelight illuminating a small parlour, with smoke-darkened beams and whitewashed walls. A worn sideboard held stoneware plates and bowls, and over the mantle stood the ceramic figure of Mr. Nobody, his head joined directly to his legs. At the back of the room, a flight of stairs led upwards, most certainly to a pair of low-ceilinged rooms. Beside the stairs, a door opened onto a small shanty, built onto the back of the dwelling. This held the rounded pots of a laundress’ trade and rack upon rack of drying cloth, and the whole cottage smelled equally of Thames water and of soap.

  Glossolalia could see Morris looking about her with interest. Had she ever been in a house as low as this one?

  Now, the waterman’s wife came forward. She was not the stout, coarse person Glossolalia expected but a very pretty soul of five and thirty who showed herself at once capable of both discretion and efficiency. Betty, for so she was named, made a neat curtsy to her unexpected guests, evidencing no surprise at Morris’ costume. She only set about sharing out the warm broth intended for her husband. Glossolalia protested at this diminishment of the man’s supper, but both Betty and her waterman refused to hear. “It’s cold out on that water this time of year,” said Betty, “and anyone who comes off it needs something to warm the bones.”

  Glossolalia, noticing how weary Morris looked, acquiesced, and soon Betty had seated the two women in chairs before the hearth.

  When the boatman explained to his wife what was needed, she disappeared into the room behind the stairs. When she emerged, she had the necessary garments draped over her arm: a linen shift, a hooped petticoat, boned stays, a pale silk skirt, a gown of brown satin, a lace apron, a tucker, and ruffles for the sleeves. Betty set her load down on the table and went back to her laundry. When she returned, she held in one hand a cap to cover Morris’ hair and in the other a straw hat trimmed with cloth roses. She said, “These things belong to a young lady about your size, who won’t call for them this week and maybe not the next one either. She’s a mercer’s daughter and is never short of something to wear.”

  “Thank you,” said Morris, speaking very softly.

  “Your thanks are very welcome,” said Betty.

  Glossolalia took her purse from her pocket, and Morris already had some coins in her hand, but Betty would take neither. Then Morris was sent upstairs with her arms full of clothes, having refused all offers of help. “I have unfrocked myself,” said Morris, “and now I must do penance.” Dressing did not take her long however, and when she came down the stairs, Glossolalia smiled to see how little the gown and tucker altered Morris.

  The girl joined them all by the fire, but now the assembled company recognized they had arrived at a difficulty, for the evening had advanced very far, and it was grown too late to rouse the caretaker at sister Elizabeth’s Hill street house.

  “Nay,” said the waterman, who was enjoying the rest of the soup, “We must all stay put until morning.”

  “But we cannot put you to so much trouble,” said Glossolalia, who knew that small cottage held few rooms and fewer beds. Besides, the size of Betty’s family, which included her husband and son, now swelled to include a girl of about twelve and a baby in a Moses basket, who needed nursing.

  The waterman relit his pipe, using a straw held to the flame. Leaning back, he looked proudly at his wife. “Happens,” said he, “my Betty can spin a tale to while away a handful of hours on a cold evening.”

  Again, Glossolalia protested at the trouble caused, and again her objections were waved away. Indeed, the boy and the girl quite begged their mother for a story, and Glossolalia saw at once that this was a settled way of life with them—the fireside, the ring of faces, the

  familiar tale.

  “Give us the one about pale man, Mama,” said the girl.

  “Yes, do—give us that one,” echoed her brother.

  “Will that not be too frightening for you?” said his mother, settling the baby on one breast. “Last time I told it, you would not sleep in your cot for a week, but bothered your father and me, and woke the baby.”

  “I did not,” said the boy, glancing quickly at the visitors.

  “Tell it,” said the girl. “It is your best.”

  “My best?”

  “Well, I like it best,” said the girl, lifting her chin.

  “Very well, said her mother, “I will tell you all about the pale man. My tale begins with a house, ramshackle and ill-kept. It stood in an alley that was made like an eel, with a cloaca at one end and a mouth at the other. The teeth, I had met already in the form of the mistress of that house, who bit me hard in that part I call my conscience. I had just bid that cruel person farewell—although in truth I did not know if she should fare well, and certainly, she did not expect to do so—when I found myself in the front hall, which smelled of liquor and rising damp. Distantly, I could hear voices, raucous laughter reminding me of what I was—an unaccompanied young woman. I was overdue for heading home, but, as I turned to leave that gothic pile, I heard a great creak and saw I could proceed no further.

  In the very floorboards before me, a crack appeared, gaping wide. In another instant, a trapdoor opened, and someone was rising to block my way. The figure that stood there looked more shadow than man, dressed head-to-toe in an ink-coloured coat, with a hat that brimmed his face. He stood in my way, like an unpleasant thought. His hands vanished in the ruffles of the coat that overhung them, but he held up an arm and the motion of the cloth urged me down the stairs that now opened in the floor between us.

  “I’m not going down there,” said I. And then: “Out of my way.”

  At the sound of my voice, the figure lifted his head. In the poor light of the hallway, I saw a face of stretched linen, with eyes like holes. At first, it seemed to have no mouth. Then, one opened, small as a plughole in a basin, and the voice was only a man’s.

  “You do not need to be afraid of me,” he said.

  “I am not afraid,” I lied, “but I am expected at home and already late.”

  “Mistress,” said the pale man, “descend with me.” And my dears, it was not a question.

  Said I, “It would be no end of foolish to climb down into the cellar with a gentleman I do not know. I am no actress or orange-seller, but rather a laundress, and that is a name that means what it says. If you give me your ruffles, sir, I will wash and starch them for you, neat as you please, but I will not step down those stairs with you—not for one hundred gol
den guineas.”

  “Your help,” he told me, “is needed below,” and that gave me pause. You see, I had already tried to help once in that house and had been repulsed, denied the satisfying view of myself as a benefactress. Beneath my cloak, I carried a copy of Mr. Hogarth’s Harlot, and that work was a powerful spur to my conscience. I did not trust the man who blocked my way, but I had seen the character of that house and well believed it might contain a soul in distress.

  “Who lies below?” said I. “What can I do?”

  “You are good,” said the pale man. Indeed, he almost moaned. “You are all goodness.”

  I was not. But I wished to be. And in the end, it was that desire that proved irresistible. Chiding myself for a lack of courage, I made my decision. I descended those stairs, and my companion followed, blotting out all light from above.

  At the bottom, I found a layer of dampness seeping through the leather soles of my shoes. “How wet it is,” I said.

  “You must go forward,” he urged me, and afraid of him in the dark, I went on.

  I moved along a passage a foot or two but stopped when no light or doorway appeared. A feathery touch between my shoulders made me continue, but a step later, the floor dropped, and water lapped my shoes. “I can go no further,” said I.

  But the pale man had an explanation. “The Fleet runs beneath us. At this time of year, the hallway floods. Take but another step or two, and all will be well.”

  I walked on and found only more water. My long skirts sucked at the wetness. My cloak soaked up its share of river water, adding to my discomfort.

  “I will go back,” I said, my voice a panicked, flapping thing.

  “A little further. They lie below.”

  “Who?” said I. “I can do no good down here. Let me go up again.” All the dim mustiness of the hallway over my head now seemed to me the brightest summer’s day.

  Glossolalia, who had been watching Morris carefully, now interrupted Betty. The girl, in her borrowed dress, looked cold although the fire burned brightly and the room grew overwarm. No doubt the effects of her experience with the Vaux-Hall villains plagued her still.

  “I fear, said Glossolalia, “that the tale is too frightening for one of my mature years—perhaps we must find another.”

  “Oh no,” said Betty’s little son. “The story is at its worst now—you will suffer more if you don’t hear it out.”

  “Please,” Morris said, “I should like to know the rest.”

  “If the company wishes to continue, Mrs. Betty,” said Glossolalia, “I shall not stand in our way. But might I beg the further loan of a shawl for my young friend? She shivers a little in her borrowed finery.”

  “Allow me,” cried Betty’s daughter, jumping up and returning with a woollen mantle, which Morris accepted gratefully.

  Then Betty continued. “Every time the pale figure spoke in the dark, his voice teased me with its ordinariness—a man might be standing there, and then the nature of my peril would be clear.

  The pale man said, “The darkness frightens you?”

  “Is there not a lamp or candle you might light? If I could but see where I am.”

  “You should not mind so much,” he said, and glancing behind me, I could just perceive his outline, a pale seam stitched in shadow. “We are born of darkness and wet.” And again, I felt something soft and damp pushing me forward.

  I moved away from his touch, finding only deeper water in my way. Then, I reached out and felt the walls around me. When I encountered wet, splintering wood, I knew I stood on the threshold of some room. As soon as I entered, a current caught at my skirts, dragging me sideways, and I took small, staggering steps, like a drunken duchess. Then, the floor dropped again, and this time the water reached my knees.

  I cried aloud and tried to go back, but I could hardly move my legs, the burden of my skirts deadweight against the current. The Fleet that ran beneath that house had risen high enough to reach the cellar, and now I foundered in its hold. The more I struggled, the deeper I went, until I felt the water about my thighs.

  Then, I stopped struggling and tried to see where I was. A kind of blue-black light rose up from the water, and I could observe a pelt-like sheen upon the surface, as if muscles roiled and coiled beneath. Above, rose the four walls, of which excavated recesses filled three sides. In some of the bays I saw wrapped shapes—tapered bundles of linen and silk, some long, some tiny. I suspected what these were, for the woman upstairs had no churchyard for her burials. The fourth wall contained only the brick arch of a sewer, wide and tall as a man. The current moved toward that low opening, and indigo light trickled from it.

  “This place has many uses,” said the voice, coming from the passage door. “The Fleet has always been a baptismal font,” he said. I heard him and shivered. I could only just feel my feet, unsteady on the gritty floor.

  “You’ve tricked me—there is no one here I can help,” said I, unwilling to look again at those bundles. Fingers of cold pierced each layer of my own costume, so that I was chilled to my neck. If anyone had been baptized in this place, it was a deadly sacrament.

  “Only yourself,” said the other, his voice now low to the water. I imagined him, snakelike, coming closer.

  “Help me,” I said. “Help me or be damned, for I will escape you in death.”

  “Nay,” said the voice, very near my elbow. “I tell you that you will live. No murder in this house.”

  “You forget—I know who is mistress here.” I thought of the woman upstairs and her peculiar carelessness in everything.

  “Nature is mistress here,” said the pale man, “And it is to me she gives the harlots’ children. I take an arm—a bone in my grasp—settle the child on its back, and tug it into the current.”

  “And then?” said I.

  “I let it go.”

  I stood with my head bowed and my jaw convulsed. I waited for the pale man to seize me and pull me below those nightmare waters, but his sucking touch never came. I listened for his voice, but I heard nothing save the lapping of waves on stone walls. I asked him why he did not complete what he had begun, but my own words echoed on water.

  My apron floated, seafoam lace. I could no longer control my shaking, and now the water began to embrace me. Soon, I could no more distinguish water from cold than cold from comfort. I began to sink into the numbness of the liquid in which I was trapped, my clothes billowing around me. I had no hope to swim, but neither could I remain to die of cold. When the water reached my neck, the weight of my sodden costume lifted from my shoulders, and I rolled on my back and felt the current take hold. I was drifting toward the brick arch. A shimmering spot of light led the way, like an underwater moon. Bone scraped and cut my stockings, and my head went under the water. My breath exploded into silver bubbles, as other shapes swirled around me, dark against the pale water. The river was very deep now, and as I sank, the Fleet filled with silk ruffles, with petticoats, with linen shifts. With gowns. With swimming arms. With heads and hair.

  Freed from my cloak, Mr. Hogarth’s print floated away. I felt the Harlot leave me. Then, I felt no more.

  My dears, I cannot pretend I died in that place, for here I sit, alive and well. They pulled me out where the Fleet crosses under Chick Lane. There is a bridge there, and a woman washing her garments in that foul water saw me floating with my face upwards towards sun and air. She waded in to grab me by my hair and pull me ashore. A crowd gathered, and a sailor stepped forward who knew how to push the water out and the sense back in. When I sputtered and spat, sitting up at last, a pug-dog jumped up and licked at my face, welcoming me back to the daylight.

  “You are quite the biggest fish, we have pulled on to shore,” said the washerwoman, when she saw I was alive.

  My throat ached, and I was still retching water, but I somehow asked her if she meant there were others.

  “Indee
d, there are. My son Moses is one, and he is such a good boy—a gift straight from heaven.”

  I spat out more water in my surprise. “Surely heaven didn’t sink him in the Fleet?”

  “Oh hush,” said the washerwoman, “He’s no whore’s whelp—if that’s what you mean.” And with that, she turned her back, leaving me lying on the cold bank.

  I walked home, my lungs aching and my clothing such a mess that my mistress herself could not put it to rights. She nursed me with all the skill she had, but when I finally revealed to her that I could no longer bear the thought of water, she took me, on a blue-sky day, to the shores of the Thames. There she set me into the care of a waterman, whom she knew to be a good man, and if his gentle nature did not reconcile me to water after our first voyage upon the waves, it softened my disappointment in having to undertake a second.”

  “And that is our father,” explained the boy, beaming at Glossolalia. “So the story has a happy ending.”

  “Indeed,” said that lady.

  “And look,” said Betty’s girl, who had again jumped to her feet, “here is the Harlot our father gave our mother to replace the one she lost in the river.” And the girl held out a large package of waterproofed cloth, which she set on Morris’ lap.

  When Morris opened the flaps, she found a set of Mr. Hogarth’s much-admired pictures. These she leafed through with many expressions of admiration, for the prints were very good and must have cost the waterman many a cold Thames crossing. Returning to one of the prints, Morris said, “I cannot approve the danger you took in your adventure, but I understand how Mr. Hogarth’s illustrations moved you to charitable action. They also remind me to be more generous, for recent experience teaches me it is easier to fall than I knew.”

  Betty passed her sleeping infant to his father and got up to better see the print Morris indicated. It was the one in which the still-innocent Harlot arrives in London and none are there to save her from ruin. Betty nodded, but said nothing, only kissing her finger and letting it hover over a small figure at the back of the print. If Morris noticed the curious gesture she made no comment but passed the package to Glossolalia, so that she too might enjoy the waterman’s gift.