Chained in Time

by David Waine

CHAPTER 17

  Friday, November 9th, 1888 (8.00 am)

  Joseph Barnet slept late. The depressing events of the previous day, coupled with a large quantity of beer had combined to extend his slumber well beyond his normal hour for rising. By the time his eyelids fluttered blearily open, weak wintry sunlight was filtering through the gap between the curtains over his bedroom window. He smiled involuntarily as the memory of Mary Jane standing naked at the same window on their first morning together came back to him.

  Several moments elapsed before he realised that something was amiss. There was no warm, soft body beside him. The sheet was cold and rumpled where she should have been. A sudden surge of concern tore the remaining filaments of sleep from his brain as he fairly sprang from the bed and clawed his way into his clothes, calling her name. There was no reply.

  Dashing cold water into his face from the basin on the washstand, he checked both the parlour and the kitchen in the vain hope that he might find her there preparing his breakfast. Both were empty. Casting around, he looked for a note. There was none. Mary Jane was a weak writer at the best of times and it probably would not have occurred to her to leave one.

  A feeling of helpless panic rose in his breast as he thrashed about, unsure of what to do next. Desperately he tried to think, but the alcohol still in his system dulled his thinking and was already beginning to make its presence felt as a growing headache.

  Carefully, he sat down on the sofa and gathered his thoughts. Almost at once, her words of the night before came back to him.

  But I am a whore, Joseph.

  Dear God, no! That must be it. Following his misfortune, she had gone to earn some money in the only way that she knew, money that could still be their salvation if she was successful, money to replace what he had drunk the night before. Poor loving little trollop, did she not realise the risk she was taking?

  Wrapping his muffler round his throat, he left his apartment, locking the door behind him. There were two keys in his pocket. Of course! One of them was hers; she had given it to him on the night that he rescued her. There had been no need to lock his door since then because she had always been there to mind his rooms. Consequently he had forgotten about the second key. It would provide access to her little rat pit in Miller's Court if he had to go there. A vague feeling of innate alarm immediately rebelled at the thought. Somehow he knew that he would only go to Miller's Court if he failed to find her elsewhere.

  Clattering down the stairs, he ran straight into his landlady at the foot, carrying a wicker basket full of dirty linen out to the wash house in the yard.

  “Mornin', Mrs. Willoughby,” he gasped, attempting to push by without appearing to be rude.

  “My, you are in a hurry today, Mr. Barnet,” she replied with a forced smile on her face, but an undeniably tart note in her voice. “Late for work, are we?” Her eyebrow arched as if she knew something that she could not possibly know. Nobody knew apart from Mary Jane, and she would never have told her. Would she?

  “No, I'm not at work today,” he explained hurriedly. “It's my cousin, Mary Jane,” he explained, “she's not home and I need to find her.”

  The other eyebrow arched. “Oh yes?” Mrs. Willoughby's voice took on a tarter edge. “Left you, has she?”

  He did not like the way that she said the words, 'Left you.' He shook his head desperately. “No, it's not that. She's not well, you see, and needs to be looked after. That's why she stays indoors. In case she wanders,” he finished lamely.

  “And she's wandered, has she?” asked Mrs. Willoughby coldly, her breath condensing in the freezing air. Her back stiffened as she put the basket down, folded her arms and eyed him icily.

  Joseph was desperate now. He knew that his story about looking after his sickly cousin from up north was paper thin at best and that he was lucky that she had put up with it as long as she had. “Have you seen her?”

  “No, I haven't,” came the clipped reply. “Lottie and me have been up since before six and she must have already gone because she ain't come past either of us. Looks like she left you in your sleep, Mister Barnet.” He hung his head. He could sense what was coming and a dread chill spread through his loins. “Funny we never got to meet your cousin,” went on his landlady. “Lottie spoke to her through the bedroom door a few times when she was cleaning the room. For a girl from up north, she talks an awful lot like an East Ender. Funny that, isn't it? And for someone who's supposed to be sick, she can move at a fair lick. Several times we've seen her skirts disappearing back into your room too fast for us to follow.”

  Joseph was deflated. Mrs. Willoughby had surmised everything. “All right, Mrs. Willoughby, I admit it,” he said shamefacedly. “She is a local girl and she ain't sick, although she might be in great danger. But it's all above board, honest. We're savin' to get married and live respectable. We haven't caused any trouble, have we?”

  The landlady pursed her lips. She did not believe that she had been told the full truth, but also reasoned that she probably never would be. At least it was more than the lie she had been given so far. And it was true that they had caused no trouble.

  “All right, Mr. Barnet,” she said at last, “I'll believe you, although thousands wouldn't. If she's in 'great danger', as you put it, might she be on the run from the killer?” Joseph blanched. “If she is,” she went on, “that would make her a harlot and that is something I will not have. If you say you're saving to get married, however, that's all right by me. I'd be happy to see you make an honest woman of her, but I don't want any trouble brought here. I run a respectable house and it's going to stay that way. I have my reputation to consider.”

  Familiar words. Mr. Turlough had used a similar expression the day before when showing him the door.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Willoughby,” he said gratefully, “I won't forget your goodness.”

  “See you don’t,” replied the landlady, turning her back and picking up her basket of washing. “Wherever she is, she's long gone now. I just hope you find her before he does. Good luck.”

  Tossing the final words over her shoulder, she was gone and Joseph Barnet, muttering the words, “So do I,” under his breath, was out of the street door and fairly running through the tumult of human traffic that drifted up and down Brick Lane all day long.

  He ran the full length of the street and back up again, slithering to a stop on the frosty cobbles whenever a woman of something like the right age or height or hair colour came into view, but he failed to find her. After he had looked in the fiftieth face, he was becoming so confused that he even fancied that he could no longer remember what she looked like. He shook his head angrily to clear it of such stupid thoughts. Of course he would know her if he saw her. Arriving at the corner of Hanbury Street, he looked it up and down. No sign of her there either so far as he could see. Miller's Court was away to the right, but not by any direct route. Turn left into Commercial Street and then right into Dorset Street past the Britannia. The court was through a blackened archway first on the right. Tightening his muffler, for the cold was beginning to bite, he made his way along Hanbury Street towards the junction with Commercial Street. The major road was even busier than Brick Lane with carts laden with produce, hansom cabs laden with toffs and the everyday hurly-burly of working men, women and ragged children, all doing what they did. There was the Ten Bells about fifty yards away to his left, on the corner with Fournier Street. He knew she used to patronise it during her working days because she had told him so during one of their post-coital chats. It was as good a place as any to begin his investigation.

  The pub was doing only light business at that hour and the landlord had the time to indulge in a little talk between polishing glasses and restocking shelves. Yes, Mary Jane had been there the previous night; she had come into the snug by herself, had two gins, one of which she didn't pay for, and left immediately. No, he didn't know which direction she had taken because he had returned directly to his decent customers who did pay
for their drinks. So saying, he returned to polishing and stocking, and pointedly ignored the questioner.

  On the street again, Joseph cast about. Across the road he could see the Britannia and, further on, the Princess Alice, by far the grandest buildings on that side of the street with their imposing tiled frontages. There also lay the entrance to Dorset Street, the gateway to Miller's Court, more a depressed-looking chasm between two slabs of blackened brick wall than a street. A slow, inexorable feeling of dread rose within him. Something innate told him that was where he must go if he was to have any chance of finding her again.

  His legs felt unbearably heavy as he put one foot in front of the other and made his way down Commercial Street towards the bleak gap. The clean, pillared frontage and thrusting steeple of Christ Church passed him by unnoticed as he trod wearily, and warily, on until he stood opposite the gap in the wall.

  How he feared that gap. Unlike Commercial Street, it was a gloomy, sooty alleyway, straight but deserted. No air of welcome hung about it, day or night. Even though the sun had now climbed above the rooftops, Dorset Street retained its depressed air. It was as if good things shunned this place, for there could be no happiness here, only misery and worse.

  Mechanically, his feet began to move, crossing the road without looking. A startled yell failed to even jerk his head as the driver of a hansom cab had to swerve suddenly to avoid hitting him, and passed on with a loud and obscene curse. Joseph Barnet failed entirely to notice, plodding on across the busy thoroughfare until he stood in the centre of the gap that was the entrance to Dorset Street.

  The noise from the busy street behind him was strangely muted here and the cold seemed to have attained an additional sharpness. Perhaps it was the overwhelming air of desolation that seemed to cling to the very bricks that made up this miserable road and ensured that winter never really left this place.

  On he paced, past blank, grimy window after blank, dusty door, until he stood in front of the archway. It looked smaller by daylight, but every bit as black and filthy as it had on the night that he had first met her. He could see straight through into Miller's Court beyond. There was Mary Jane's window and door with the paint peeling. He could see the whitewashed walls flaking nearby, where somebody had once tried to capture a little elusive light, and failed.

  He did not remember passing under the archway. All he knew was that he was standing before her window and looking in. It was dirty and there was a frosty cobweb across it. He brushed the web away and rubbed his hand across the uneven glass, but to little avail. The curtain on the inside was drawn partly across the glass, but he could see enough to realise that the poky little room was occupied. A form lay still on the bed, seemingly asleep, a mere misshapen lump of a form, barely visible through the filth.

  It was not like her to sleep so late, he thought, but then he reasoned that she might be tired after a night's exertions. Raising his hand cautiously, he tapped on the glass. There was no response. He tapped again louder. Still no response.

  The feeling of dread was now settling in his stomach, where it coagulated into an icy fist gripping his loins. His right hand strayed to the pocket of his jacket and pulled forth two keys. One of them was the key to his rooms. The other, he knew, would open the door to Mary Jane's little lodging.