The Death of Me

by M. J. Tjia

  CHAPTER 10

  AMAH

  When Amah wakes at the Three Lions Inn in Liverpool she expects the dockyard reek of brine and tar to reach her nostrils, but all she can smell is the polish the boy has used to blacken her little boots and a hock of ham roasting in the kitchen below.

  She stretches her legs, luxuriating in being able to lie in for the first time in four days. Luckily rain hadn’t held them up on the road and after three uneventful nights in guesthouses of varying degrees of comfort, they’d reached Liverpool. Amah’s surprised by the quality of the mattress, which is firm, no lumps. Although not of the first class, the small inn has proven to be a good find. Amah knows that apart, perhaps, for the very grandest of hotels in town – those accustomed to fabulously rich foreigners disembarking ships from far away – she would not be welcome to a room in most. And she is here to gather more money, after all, not spend her savings on fancy accommodation. Therefore, Taff had asked around and found her this modest room, close to the harbour.

  Amah places her bare feet on the cool timber floor and tabs across to the window that looks out onto Northumberland Street. She gazes through a gap between the tall, handsome buildings along the harbourfront to the litter of ship masts that bob in the shoal-grey water. She wants to be down there amongst the shouts of the tide waiters and the flurry of sailors and fishermen. She wants to see for herself if the area has changed much in her absence.

  She quickly dresses, wondering how Taff fares. She hopes he and the horses found restful quarters and that he didn’t get too ‘corned’ – as he likes to call it – on Jamaican rum with his old cronies.

  The air is crisp when she steps from the inn, its slight fishy odour strengthening into an overwhelming damp fug the closer she walks towards the waterfront. A ship, newly arrived, spews people and cargo onto the dockside. She skirts dock labourers, all brawn and filth, and marvels at the number of vessels that jostle for room in the harbour. She looks to the mouth of the inlet, and her eyes peer further, to the horizon that slices sea from sky. In the direction of her earliest home. She’d sailed in on that body of water so long ago, and had never found her way out again.

  Amah stands at the edge of the pier, away from others, and lifts her veil. She closes her eyes and for two full breaths she relishes the feel of the lemony light on her face. She remembers how sometimes she used to escape to the docks here, away from the gloom of encroaching buildings and dark back rooms, so that she could experience just a few moments of space beneath the breadth of a muted sky. Opening her eyes, she turns to stare across at a vast, red-brick building that looms self-importantly above all others. The counting house of a prosperous shipping company. Where her love once worked when she first knew him. Her eyes search the windows just as they used to do, wondering which office was his.

  She was standing here, watching a drunken brawl between two scruffy deckhands, when they’d first met. Just as one of the men had pulled a knife from a scabbard, John had blocked her view, said, “Madam, you do not want to watch this.” She hadn’t worn a lace veil in those days, just a linen bonnet with a broad brim pulled low. When she’d lifted her face to peer up at him, at his fair hair that feathered from beneath his felt hat and the straight nose set in a plain, yet handsome, face, she watched as something like surprise, approbation, lit his grey eyes.

  Pulling her veil back into place she turns to her right and continues on her way. Her steps slow as she approaches Henderson Street. The fish shop still stands on the corner across from The Green Horn. As she passes the tavern, she can hear the clink of cutlery that accompanies the chatter of the breakfast crowd. The street is narrow, the buildings huddled close and intrusive. She walks past the rickety house that the spinsters used to live in; is surprised when she doesn’t see their pasty faces pressed to the grimy glass. Nasty, smelly old things, trying to catch passers-by unawares with the contents of their chamber pots. She doubts they’re still alive. She passes a run-down lodging house, quite sure that most of the occupants renting rooms there in her time would have moved on, although a young man, red-haired, skin ashen with malnutrition and dirt, stares at her as she walks by, and she wonders if he is the same boy who sometimes carried laundry for her for a farthing. She keeps walking, her shoes skidding on manure and mud and, as far as she can see, every second dwelling seems to have turned into a beer-house. A fiddler plays a merry tune to a bleary crowd in the shop where Mr Scout used to mend shoes and fashion belts out of scrap material, and two girls, skinny with rickety legs, lounge outside the hovel where a whole family of eight had died of cholera. Her mouth pulls down as she remembers that time, the boards nailed across the door, the terrible stench that no amount of wadding could keep from slinking through window cracks.

  Finally, Amah reaches the row of four semi-detached cottages and stands in front of the one furthest north. Mustard-coloured bricks, arched portico over the front door, large bay window. An attractive dwelling once, although rather shabby by the time Amah lived there. Going by the state of the peeling paint, the crumbling wall and the smashed window covered with newspaper, it appears the owners have fallen on even less fortunate times. She wonders if the Walters still live on the first floor, all seven of them crammed into the two and a half rooms and cellar.

  John had arranged for Amah to live on the second floor. She’d had a small scullery, living room and bedroom, all to herself. And it was from that window, the one on the right, that she’d watch John leave of a morning, his long, jaunty gait taking him down the road towards the docks. Sometimes he’d look back, grin and salute her, as though she were his captain. Amah clears her throat to loosen the tightness there.

  A glorious time in her life, that had been. Pitched in joy. She wonders how much the property is worth now, decrepit as it is. Perhaps the owners would like to sell. Amah thinks of the lodging house in Bloomsbury that she owns. She could arrange for its sale and invest the money here. She could have the front door re-painted a lovely red lacquer, have the yellow bricks scrubbed. She would hang lovely curtains – blowsy flowers against a black background – and have the floors covered in Axminster carpets. Maybe she would even leave London, leave Heloise, and live here.

  And what? Stare out the window for a man who will never return? Desiccate in discontent like that old woman in the Dickens serial? You can’t go back, she mutters to herself as she walks away. Past happiness could not be so easily regained.

  CHAPTER 11

  It’s almost evening when Hatterleigh’s coach pulls up across the road from my home on South Street. Hatterleigh and I parted ways outside his town residence in Piccadilly and I have come on alone. I wonder if he will rush straight into the countryside to his wife and children now that we are returned, but I am feeling far too jittery to care. My mind is a tangle of anxious thoughts and, to be honest, I was very hard put to not snap at his inconsequential prattle, poor fellow.

  Poking my head out the window, I glance around. As far as I can gather, I have not been followed. But how could I know for sure? I watch as a cab pulls in at the corner. Behind us, a buggy trots slowly along the road. The groom jumps down ready to open the coach door, but I hold the handle still.

  “Just give me one moment, please,” I say through the window to him.

  As I stare up at my house again, my eyes rest on the window of Amah’s sitting room. I wonder if she is at home. I wonder what she is doing. Sewing, perhaps, or writing a letter at her teak escritoire? I feel an overwhelming urge to jump from the coach and run to her side, tell her of all that has happened to me in the last couple of days but, for once, a sense of caution holds me back. I look up and down the street again. A lone man strolls the pavement. The cab still waits at the corner. The buggy has moved on further down the street but appears to be paused outside the house with the Greek columns. I almost choke on the stress of not knowing if my assailants have followed me from Paris.

  Light beams through the sidelights by the front door. Bundle has lit the lamps for the evening. I th
ink of him going about his butler business, and Agneau concocting something tasty in the kitchen, and how even Abigail might still be about, getting under everybody’s feet. And as much as I long to be inside with them, I am also terribly loath to expose them to the long hand of danger that reaches for me. I call out to the groomsman, still waiting on the pavement, “I’ve changed my mind, Roberts. Take me to Brown’s Hotel.”

  Traffic is light as we bowl along towards Albemarle Street, and I think of the warm bath I will enjoy as soon as I arrive. I will order champagne, just for myself, and eat a light supper of bisque or, perhaps, that pastry dessert of theirs I’m so partial to, served with the crème anglaise that has a hint of hazelnut liqueur. I feel a twinge of guilt that, while I enjoy such things, poor Violette’s mother, her son, will be wondering about her.

  I run my tongue across the sharp edge of the chip in my front tooth. Perhaps Brown’s is not the best place for me to lie low. Alone. With nobody to account for my presence, perhaps until it is too late. And it would not be very difficult at all for my assailants – if indeed there are assailants after me – to find out that Heloise Chancey often enjoys interludes at Brown’s Hotel. Besides the danger, too, how very mortifying it would be if my attackers from Paris were to pursue me to Brown’s, causing trouble or ruckus. As much as the good people at Brown’s might turn a blind eye to my profession – no doubt due to my wealth and Hatterleigh’s prestige – they would not look kindly upon being involved in a scandal, and I would greatly dislike placing my good name with them at jeopardy.

  I rap on the hatch again and call out to the coachman. “I’ve changed my mind again, Roberts. Take me to Derby Street.”

  “Heloise, how I have missed you.” Isobel Pidgeon trembles with emotion as we embrace.

  “And you do not mind if I stay with you for a few days or so? I’ve come home from Paris early, and my household is in an uproar over a gas leak of some sort.”

  “Of course not, Heloise. Come into the parlour. I have a fire going, and Hitchins will bring us supper shortly.”

  She leads the way into a cosy side room. Lace doilies, linen tablecloths, porcelain ornaments lift the darkness of the furniture. China plates line the shelves on the wall, and a small grandfather clock ticks above the fireplace. My heart stretches as I gaze up at the one portrait in the room – a timber framed photograph of Isobel’s father, Sir Henry Pidgeon.

  Isobel takes my hand and leads me to a cushioned chair at the small table. “Let’s not talk of sad things, Heloise. I’m weary of it. I have enough of that from Aunt Adelaide.”

  “Where is your aunt?” I ask of my old friend, buttering a square of bread to the very edges so that it greases my fingers when I lift it to my mouth.

  “We are in luck, Heloise. She is with my cousins in Scotland for the month. She became terribly attached to a set of people she met at a temperance meeting here in Chelsea, I’m afraid, and was quite unbearable.” She smiles as she pours tea. “I have another cousin staying with me at the moment. Charlotte. She’s taken to her bed with a terrible cold, poor dear.”

  “The house seems quite full up. If you do not have room for me, dear Isobel, I can easily stay in a hotel until the workmen have finished with my house.”

  “Well, the thing is, the only room we do have spare at the moment is dear Papa’s. It’s been cleared out, Heloise, of course. There is no risk of discomfort,” she adds quickly. “Or if that doesn’t appeal, I can have Hitchins make up a bed in this room, if you’d prefer.”

  “Of course I don’t mind taking Sir Henry’s room,” I say, leaning over to squeeze Isobel’s cold fingers. But the bread and butter sits heavy in my stomach.

  After a light supper of barley soup followed by pudding, we retire to bed. It’s very early but I’m shockingly tired from the long, hasty haul home. I look out the window briefly, making sure nothing suspicious catches my eye. Then I sink onto the side of the bed. Pidgeon’s bed. My fingers follow the pattern of stitches in the blue and white quilt. Isobel was right, apart from a framed portrait of Sir Henry and his late wife on the bedside cabinet, the room has been cleared of his belongings. The wardrobe is empty of his clothes; instead, my gowns hang there, where Hitchins, Isobel’s housekeeper, has unpacked them. Only two of the drawers in the chest are full, and that is with my undergarments and trinkets. I glance beneath the bed, pull open the cabinet door. Nothing. Isobel’s grief must be strong indeed to necessitate the almost total removal of her father’s presence. Or perhaps it’s her aunt’s hand at work here. She seems the bossy, interfering type who would arrange things thus. Or maybe – I pull a face at the thought – maybe Isobel has gathered his belongings close to her. Does she have his coats hanging in her wardrobe so she can sniff the cuffs for the smell of him? Does she rifle through a box of his things, weeping over the memories each trifle brings to her? I have never known such loss. I never knew my father, and my mind can’t even fathom a time after Amah.

  I wake at dawn, still fully clothed, lying across Pidgeon’s bed. I’d dithered so long over whether I could really sleep in his bed that I must’ve dozed off. It’s a drab morning, the sun buried behind a bank of grey clouds, and through the window I watch a couple of housemaids huddle against the wind on their way down the street. A street cleaner sweeps leaves that gust back towards him again, and an old man walks his little brown dog. Two men seem to be inspecting the street light on the corner while a line of four or five children watch on. Nothing terribly suspicious.

  I sit back on the bed and wonder what to do with myself. The day stretches out before me. I will wash and find fresh clothes to put on. I will breakfast with Isobel. Perhaps sit with her and her cousin. Sewing? Reading? Playing some parlour game? Do I let Amah and Bundle know I’m in town? What excuse do I give them for coming straight to Isobel’s? And then? My foot already taps with impatience. And then what to do with myself? When will it be safe to resume my normal routine, whatever that is? I would’ve thought being pursued would involve some sort of thrill, but in actuality it is boring indeed.

  Shedding my travel dress, I leave off my crinoline but pull on extra petticoats under the gown I had made for me in Paris. It’s the shade of treacle with contrasting green, and intricate lace patterns the hem. A matching shawl drapes my shoulders, crossing at my bosom. I’m just fastening a gold bangle around my wrist when Hitchins peeps around the door.

  “A guest for you ma’am.”

  My immediate delight at the prospect of a visitor is doused in the dark realisation that I couldn’t possibly have a guest. For nobody, besides Isobel, knows I am here. I shiver as the clasp of my bangle clicks together.

  “Madam?”

  I close my mouth. “Sorry, Hitchins. Did they give you a name?”

  “A Mrs White, I believe.”

  I rub my arms and my hands are quite cold. Mrs White? I don’t know a Mrs White, but she doesn’t sound all that threatening, after all. “Perhaps show her into the parlour we dined in last night, Hitchins. Is Isobel up yet?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Her and her cousin have already left for chapel.”

  “Ah. Yes. I forgot that was their plan. Thank you, Hitchins. I will be down in a few moments.”

  I finish my toilette in a hurry and, taking my pistol from its holster in my portmanteau, I make sure it’s armed. Shoving it into my skirt pocket, I wonder if I should instead brandish it as I enter the room. In my other pocket I slip my slender dagger.

  When I enter the parlour, an elderly woman turns from where she is inspecting a sky-blue plate that has a boy and cart painted upon it, and roses and peonies entwined around its edges.

  “Sèvres,” she says. Her voice is deep, gravelly, yet she is well-spoken. “A fine piece.”

  I stare at her, blank. What do I care of porcelain plates? “I am Heloise Chancey. Apparently you are here to see me?”

  “Yes, that is correct.” She contemplates a small sofa at the end of the room but decides against it and takes a chair at the table, nodding for me to jo
in her. “I have something to discuss with you.”

  The straight fold of her lips, the pucker of fine lines, seem familiar to me. Her hair, a dusty colour with streaks of white, is pulled back in a hairnet, but her eyes, as dark as currents, twinkle in a shrewd, knowing kind of way. For some reason yellow flowers spring to mind. And the smell of stale beer.

  “Mrs White, is it?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Mrs White, may I ask how you knew to find me here?”

  “We had you followed, of course.”

  I can’t help but look surprised. I change position in my chair, seemingly to rearrange my skirts, but really it is so my fingers can find the ivory handle of my pistol.

  “But why would you have me followed?” My stomach tautens, and I feel a bit nauseous. Afraid.

  “We’ve been following you since that night at the Dernier Livre, my dear woman.”

  I hesitate. It seems silly to deny my presence at the tavern as I had done with the French inspector. “We. Who do you mean by ‘we’? Where are these spies of yours?” My eyes dart to the sash window that looks out on the street.

  “It wouldn’t do for me to give away my people’s secrets, Mrs Chancey.” She places her reticule on the table and rummages in it. “And before you pull that ridiculous toy you call a gun on me, let me give you this.”

  She hands me her card. Mrs H.B. White. Cumberland House. Pall Mall.

  I look at her. I’ve heard numerous of my gentlemen guests speak of this place. She’s from the War Office.

  I can’t be sure how much this Mrs White knows of my movements. Does she know of my trip to the cemetery? Or of Violette’s death? “I really have no idea what interest you have in me.” If only it were not too early in the morning for a whisky. And Hitchins. Where is the dratted servant? She should have offered us tea or some such.

  “Tell me, my dear,” she says. “The good French inspector has told us of your games, but how did you come to be involved in the first place?”