The Death of Me

by M. J. Tjia

  “The likes of you don’t want to stay there, miss,” a paperboy says to me from where he squats in the gutter. “Not if you don’t want no room for no more than an hour or so.”

  I stare at him over the rim of my fake glasses and then back to the hotel. The entrance hall is dingy and I’ve quite lost sight of them. Thanking the boy, I drop a couple of pennies in his hand.

  Damned if I’m going to stand around and wait for Modesto to finish up with whoever his ladybird is. I’m nearly at the park again when I realise my mistake. What if Modesto is up to something that is not simply carnal? What if that woman holds the key to a future bombing? Turning reluctantly, I walk back towards the hotel. I’ll have to wait.

  By the time I return to Green’s Court several hours later, I am feeling very annoyed indeed. That blasted man, Modesto. True to the paperboy’s word, my quarry had re-emerged not an hour after they had entered the hotel, blinking at the light and straightening their clothes. Mr Modesto turned towards home while the woman took off down the road in the opposite direction. I decided to follow her, see where she would lead. By the time we arrived in Covent Garden, outside her dwelling, which was clearly a doxy house, my shoes pinched my feet and my temper was quite frayed.

  As I enter the house on Green’s Court, I curse myself for squandering half the day. Although, perhaps it had not been a total waste of time. Perhaps I can now discount Mr Modesto as a suspect. He’s certainly despicable, but most probably not caught up in a possible attack.

  I pause with the front door still open. Voices – hushed, clipped – come from the sitting room. A muffled thump against the wall. A squeak.

  A rush of anger rings in my ears. Not for nothing did I spend years in bawdy houses. I would recognise the furtive, threatening echoes of menace anywhere.

  I slam the door shut and call out, “Is anyone home?”

  Mr Modesto steps into the hallway from the sitting room. He looks a little flushed. “Yes, Miss Charters. But Mrs Modesto is resting. You must not disturb her. She is very feeble and if she doesn’t get her rest, she is of even less use than usual.”

  Stretching a smile across my face, I promise myself that before I leave this place, when this is all over and done with, I will lace his milky coffee with a good dollop of boracic acid.

  I pace the floor of my bedroom, torn between going to Mrs Modesto and offering assistance and letting things lie until I find out who is planning to bomb innocent people in a matter of days. Realising my fingertips tremble with not just anger, but with hunger as well, I snatch up my bag intent upon finding a late luncheon somewhere.

  As I leave the Modestos’, I pretend to tackle a recalcitrant parasol so I can scrutinise the house opposite. The number eight has been painted in the top right hand corner of the door. All the curtains are drawn, and nobody seems to stir within. Perhaps I will find out who this charwoman is that Mrs Modesto shares with the ‘scientist’ across the lane, question her about him. Turning right onto Peter Street I have a meal of fritters and mince in a passably clean eating house and, replenished, I stand on the pavement. Down the road I can see the Horse and Clover Inn. I will saunter that way, see if there is any further sign of Mr Ripley.

  I don’t go into the restaurant this time, although I do peer in the side window as I pass. The dining room seems to be quite empty, and as far as I can see, the American isn’t seated there. I come to the door to the taproom and poke my head in. A group of five or six hobbledehoys, dressed in greasy cords and pea jackets, gather around an upright barrel, sharing three ales between them. And two men sit at the end of the room on high stools at the counter. I’m almost positive it’s Mr Ripley’s straight, broad back I look upon. And next to him, someone who looks terribly similar to dastardly Cyril, Hatterleigh’s brother-in-law. But it could not be…

  “Miss Charters.”

  Swinging around, I make my foolish whooping sound in Miss Haven’s face. I straighten my spectacles. “Oh, you did startle me. I was just peeping in here to see if it were a coffee room but, alas, it seems it is an ale room for the men.”

  I step away from the doorway; I don’t want to be seen by either of the men. Miss Haven points out a coffee stall across the road.

  “Let us have a coffee from there, and then I must be on my way,” she says.

  We walk past the taproom again and I glance in. I see the American has disappeared, but the other fellow, the one who looks strikingly similar to Cyril, remains seated on the high stool, his head tilted back as he swallows the last of his beer.

  As we pay for our coffees, Miss Haven says, “I’ll be moving on soon from the Modestos’. She’s nice enough, but he keeps the purse strings tied too tight.” She holds up her coffee. “I should be able to have a nice cup of tea when I arrive home, but he makes it very difficult. And that show last night about telling Mrs Modesto to get some fowl in, what an untruth that was. Mark my words, most every meal you have in that household will be herring, or mackerel, when it is in season, later in the year. We are always served cheap fish, although sometimes we are lucky enough to get boiled mutton of a Sunday.” Miss Haven draws breath and leans in. “You know, he never lets her out of the house.”

  “Mr Modesto?”

  She nods. “Never lets his wife out. It’s a wonder the poor thing’s bones haven’t turned to mash. Can you believe it?”

  Yes. I can. We sip from our pannikins of coffee. “How was work today?” I ask her politely.

  “I don’t mind the work,” she says. “I don’t even mind when my boss expects long hours of us. I am luckier than the others, because I don’t live in. Mr Munby allows me to start at seven in the morning and leave at five in the evening. And I get half Sunday off. But the pay, Miss Charters, the pay, it is not enough for a person to live on.” She shakes her head. By the bleached light of dusk, I see that she is not as young as I had earlier supposed. Her skin is covered in faint lines, like watermarks on brittle paper, and her eyes are tired. “Look at us here. Reduced to taking a hot drink in the middle of the road, with all the bonnetless women and the shoeless children, when everybody should have the means to feed themselves and house themselves comfortably.”

  “You work at a draper’s, I think you said?”

  She nods, swirling the remnants of her coffee. “Very lucky, I was, to get the work. My mother, before she died,” Miss Haven swallows, pauses a moment, “she was a very good needle-woman. But the hours she had to work! By the light of a candle. Quite ruined her vision it did. I think that’s what killed her, you know? She couldn’t get around no more, couldn’t do anything, until she just waited out her final days on some straw bedding.” Miss Haven returns her cup to the coffee stall owner. “Of course, some young puss on one of them sewing machines would have replaced her by now. Yes. Lucky I was to get work in a shop. What about you, Miss Charters? You happy with your employment?”

  I scan the street for Mr Ripley, or the man who looked remarkably like Cyril, as we head towards Green’s Court. “I can’t complain. Although I agree, a more generous wage would be most welcome.” I think of the restrictive life a governess is expected to lead; the lack of possessions and privacy. My tone is more grievous when I add, “I mean, we are expected to watch over people’s precious offspring; to care for them more vigilantly than even their parents do.” I pull a face. “Although, perhaps we are to be thankful, for one day we might very well be replaced by a machine too.”

  Miss Haven halts and gazes up at me. “I see that you feel like I do about these things. You should come to a meeting with me tonight!”

  I think of the temperance meetings that Isobel talked of. I can’t imagine sitting amongst a bunch of prudes prosing on about whichever virtue or offence that has taken their fancy. “What meeting would that be, Miss Haven?”

  “One of our delivery men introduced me to them.” Her eyes glisten a little when she speaks of him. “It’s a place where men – and some women too – can protest their treatment at the hands of their employers.”

/>   “But why? What does that achieve?” I ask.

  “Oh, they don’t just sit around and grumble, Miss Charters,” she says, taking me by the elbow and steering me past Green’s Court. “They speak of ways we can rise above those who are determined to keep us down.”

  We walk for twenty minutes before Miss Haven guides me down a muddy alley, littered with broken bits of glass and one soleless boot. We come to a narrow building, its pale façade grimy in the dreary evening light, and follow a line of men down a set of steps that lead into the building’s basement. The stench from a public privy nearby makes my eyes positively water. We shuffle in, shoulder to shoulder with factory workers and the like, sweat and grime etched into their every furrow. Miss Haven waves to the one other female in the room, a tall, forbidding type.

  “We might need to wait a little for some of the workers to finish their shift for the day,” she tells me.

  I look about me and calculate that perhaps thirty, forty, people are crushed into the basement.

  “Mr Beveridge,” I hear Miss Haven say. “I’ve never seen you here at one of these meetings.”

  I turn to look at the bus driver. He appears to be as reluctant to converse as he was the night before in the dining room. He mumbles something about usually missing the meetings due to his work and, tugging the brim of his hat, he moves away, squeezing through a knot of men.

  At the front of the room, a rough-looking fellow, black stubble with several missing teeth, turns over a wooden fruit crate and stands on it. He calls for everyone to “Bloody shut your yaps, would you.” He says he’s a representative of something called the Reform League, the words whistling through the gaps in his gums, and from what I can tell he demands more political rights for the working class, he wants a time of manhood suffrage. He goes on and on and my damned shoes start to pinch my toes again. Industrial system… dismantled… exploits workers… The old man next to me, his gnarled knuckles clamped over a short pipe, mutters, “Aye,” once in a while, while a group of men to my right shout, “Hear, Hear!”.

  Next, a short man takes his place on the box. He’s much more charming than his predecessor, with a pleasant Irish accent. Miss Haven becomes still beside me, her hands clasped in front of her breast.

  “Is that your delivery man, Miss Haven?” I tease.

  “Yes, no, not my delivery man, Miss Charters. But yes, that is Mr Connolly.”

  Mr Connolly beguiles us with his lilting voice, urging us to demand less hours, to insist upon better pay, to learn self-respect. There’s a low rumble of agreement from his audience. Mr Connolly’s tone slowly climbs until he bellows something about doing away with piecework altogether and Miss Haven squeezes my hand, no doubt in memory of her dead mother.

  “And if they won’t give to us what is rightly ours,” he shouts, “we will take it. By force if need be. We will show them we mean to have our way.”

  The men around us cheer and stamp their feet, and Miss Haven claps her hands. It comes back to me that Mrs White had told me of a group calling themselves the Red Brethren. My eyes scan the gaunt men who mutter amongst themselves. Could they be here? Could this be a cover for their more covert activities? As the crowd disperses, I ask Miss Haven what she thought Connolly meant when he said he’d use force if need be.

  She shrugs, but someone behind drawls, “I suspect they mean to cause trouble, like them Fenians in Ireland or them Frenchies across the channel.”

  I turn slowly, already aware that it’s Mr Ripley I will encounter.

  He smiles down on me as if we are old mates while I manage to maintain a blank stare.

  “Are you two acquainted?” asks Miss Haven.

  I say no, but Mr Ripley says, “I am sure we have met before, ma’am. You look remarkably familiar. I spied you last night in the Clover and I said to myself: Sean Ripley, where in the name of Sam Hill have you seen her before?” His eyes narrow like he’s trying to place me but I can see that he is funning. His fair hair is tucked neatly behind his ears and he’s clean shaven. Not at all like when I first met him in Paris when he fell all about the place, drunk as a lord. I glance up at him, wondering if it had all been an act. He’s still smiling but there’s a gravity about him that is unsettling. My heartbeat picks up speed. If he’s the bomber and he does suspect that I was at the Dernier Livre that night, I am in great danger.

  I go to walk past him but he bars my way. “No, wait, ma’am. It’s coming back to me. Could it have been in Paris that we met?”

  “I’m sure we did not.”

  “Actually, now I remember.” He slaps his forehead. “You look uncommonly like a – sorry if this gives offence – like a fellow I met in a saloon in Bocages des Angels or some such place. What a screwy idea! There is no way a lady like yourself would be in a seedy saloon like that. Looked uncommonly like you, though. You have a brother I might have met?”

  I shake my head, jamming the spectacles more firmly onto the bridge of my nose. “I doubt it, Mr… er?”

  “Ripley. Sean Ripley, at your service, ma’am.”

  I smile widely for him and say, “Won’t be needing it.”

  Again I try to move on but he’s joined by the second speaker, Connolly, and Miss Haven won’t budge.

  Connolly clasps the American on the shoulder and thanks him for coming.

  “Very interesting business, Pat. Gave me a lot to think on,” says Ripley.

  “Meet me tomorrow, Sean, and I can give you a lot more to think on,” Connolly says, a hard glint to his blue eyes.

  Connolly and Miss Haven peel off together leaving me to follow with Ripley. Once outside, I fold my arms against the chill breeze that has picked up.

  “You staying close to here?” he asks.

  “Not far.”

  “A bit of a coincidence us meeting up like this again, wouldn’t you say?” I turn to remonstrate, but he holds his hand up, skirts an old lady pushing a barrow of green walnuts. “Didn’t want to wear that moustache again? Looked like a black grub ready to march right off your lip, it did.”

  I can’t quite make out his expression in the dark alley.

  “All right, you have me,” I capitulate. “I had a great desire to have an adventure in Paris, so I dressed up in my master’s clothes and sneaked out with the chamber maid. Please don’t tell anyone of my indiscretion. It would cost me dearly.”

  “You in these parts for work too?”

  “I’m between stations.” I point towards Miss Haven. “I’m currently staying in a boarding house with Miss Haven not far from here. And you?”

  “Much the same.”

  I roll my eyes when he doesn’t volunteer further information. As we stroll along, I think hard. It really is too much that he is here in Soho so soon after that night in Paris. And I think of how close he stuck to Violette and me. I feel a pang at the thought of poor Violette. Could this man have something to do with her death? A shudder of fear passes through me. Could Ripley be the man who had tried to kill me, even? Tried to mow me down with that carriage? There is only one thing for it. I think of Mrs White’s words. I have to stop being the prey; I must be the hunter. Although I’ll have to be very cautious indeed. Removing my glasses, I pretend to wipe them clean between gloved fingertips.

  “Where are you staying, Mr Ripley?” I gaze up at him by the light of a tailor’s shop. It’s all about eye contact when trying to beguile a man.

  “At the Clover Inn. Where I saw you last night. You should swing by sometime and share another absinthe with me.” He smiles, and I’m the one who has to break eye contact, stomach flipping, because I can’t tell if it’s with admiration or if he wants to stick a knife in my gullet. I’m glad of my velvet bag, the bulk of my pistol giving it a reassuring heft.

  We say our goodbyes to the men at the corner of Green’s Court and Miss Haven whispers to me of a possible assignation the next afternoon.

  “Perhaps a picnic, Mr Connolly said. Do you think…” She breaks off as we come across Mr Modesto, standing in the midd
le of the court, lamp held high.

  “Miss Haven. Miss Charters. You missed supper.”

  “Oh, I do apologise, Mr Modesto,” says Miss Haven. “We were caught up looking in shop windows, were we not, Miss Charters?”

  Modesto waves his free hand in a very foreign manner. “I have asked you before, Miss Haven, to please inform Mrs Modesto if you are not to join us. All that food wasted!”

  Wasted? No chance. I’m just thinking of how he’ll probably serve it up re-heated for our breakfast, when I catch sight of an old man rapping at the door of number eight with talon-like fingers. A skinny thing, he is, quite engulfed by his overcoat, top hat pulled low over his ears and in his right hand he carries a portmanteau. The glass in his pince-nez winks in the light thrown from Modesto’s lamp. I glance back to the main street again and, standing on the corner, hands deep in his coat pockets, is Mr Ripley. When he catches me looking, he tips his hat and moves on.

  “Miss Charters? You will join us?” says Mr Modesto from the steps of his house.

  As I turn to follow him into the boarding house, the man raps on number eight’s door again, calling out, “Is there anybody home? It is Ernst here!” and I almost stumble.

  There is no doubt that his thick, guttural accent is German.

  CHAPTER 18

  AMAH

  The key rattles in the lock, and the door swings open. Amah tenses as a draught washes over her. One figure, then another, silhouetted against the shadowy staircase, make their way into the cellar. The first person holds a lantern to Amah’s face and she squints against the sudden light.

  “She looks hearty enough,” he says.

  Amah strains to see the planes of his face by the lantern’s light. Yes. Just as she thought.

  “Ugh,” a woman’s voice responds; a voice Amah recognised immediately the night before. The woman with the big eyes. “I almost wish she had perished.”