The Death of Me

by M. J. Tjia

  Hearing the Modestos’ front door bang shut, I cross to my bedroom door and open it, listening for what I can from below. Miss Haven peeps out too, a wet flannel pressed to her face as though she’s been frozen in the act of washing. I place my finger to my lips as I step towards the stairs and peer down. Mr Modesto’s shadow crosses the hallway as he makes his way to the sitting room.

  Mrs Modesto’s voice is high-pitched, cajoling almost, as she says something in Italian to her husband.

  He shouts at her in their language and then, in English, “I never said you could meet with that man. Never.” The sound of a slap, sharp against bare flesh, reaches us all the way upstairs.

  My stomach curls into a sick knot and Miss Haven gasps. She bites into the flannel.

  “But he just take stockings, Giuseppe, the bonnets… To the mission…” Her voice has deepened, lengthens out into a moan. She lets out a short scream when he slaps her again.

  Then we can hear a scuffle of some sort, something overturned, fallen to the floor?

  “You… oof… better… oof… not… oof… go… outside… again…”

  That’s it. I run down the stairs in my stockinged feet, and swoop into the sitting room, with nothing but my rage as armour. Mrs Modesto lies on the ground near her chair, curled on her side, forearms covering her face. Her husband’s foot pauses when he sees me. A light sheen of perspiration on his forehead, as he tugs at his collar with the exertion of beating his wife.

  “Get away from her, you fucker.” My voice is low. I almost choke on the anger I can feel coursing through me.

  “This is none of your business.” He goes to push me out of the sitting room, close the door. I grab an ugly brass candlestick from the tabletop, brandish it at him.

  “Get away from her or I will hit you,” I say slowly, through gritted teeth.

  With all his niceties peeled away it is as though each knobbly contour of Mr Modesto’s ugly skull has been thrown into sharp relief. His ears protrude from his head, crimson, and his eyes bulge. He reaches for me, curling his thin claws about my upper arm and I tug free, swing the candlestick across his face.

  Clapping his hand to his cheek, he growls something at me in Italian as I back towards Mrs Modesto, still waving the candlestick between us. I’ve seen that look before, in the eyes of men and animals. It’s a murderous look. If he runs from the room to procure a knife or other weapon, I’ll have to try and barricade us in somehow.

  “Come, Mrs Modesto, get up. I will help you,” I say. Help her to what? All I can think is I need to get her away from this man, to her room, outside, anywhere. If only I had my pistol instead of this silly candlestick to threaten him with. And where is that Miss Haven? Mr Beveridge? The maids? I could do with some bloody assistance.

  Mrs Modesto pushes herself into a seated position on the threadbare carpet. I’m just helping her haul herself into the armchair when she shrieks, cowers to the floor again. Mr Modesto grabs me by the hair and tugs me towards the door, still cursing in his own language. I twist around and try to swipe him with the candlestick but, in avoiding it, he pulls me into a bear hug. I try to remember what Ripley said about this. I stomp on his toes, but what harm can my bare foot do when he wears leather boots? Pulling away, I kick at his knee, but he just keeps frogmarching me towards the hallway.

  Somebody raps furiously on the front door, and in the moment that Modesto pauses, listens, I take my chance and raise the candlestick as though it’s a bat in that ballgame I’ve seen the grubby little imps play in the back-alleys, and I whack it across the side of his head. He staggers, knocking over two of the spindly table chairs, crashing to the ground. I’m satisfied to see a split in the skin above his ear spill a thin line of fresh blood.

  Modesto groans like a beaten dog, while his poor wife whimpers in her chair. I stand, candlestick still clasped to my side, rubbing where my scalp smarts from when he yanked on my hair. Panting, it’s only on the sixth inhalation that I recall the loud knocking on the front door.

  Moving swiftly to the window, I glance out onto the lane. Two, perhaps three, carriages block the entrance to Green’s Court, and a number of men, three of whom are uniformed policemen, make for the lodging house. I’m puzzled. This is a very unusual turn-up. I have never heard of such a response to a case of wife-flogging.

  I hear Miss Haven’s hushed voice out in the hallway talking to someone through the front door, and I’m just crossing the room when Mrs White sails in, her eyes narrowed as she gazes from the husband, still prone on the floor, to the wife folded over in her armchair.

  “I see you have things in hand, Mrs Chancey.” Her voice is dry. She points out Mr Modesto to the two burly men who have followed close behind her. “Is this him?”

  I nod. Mr Modesto squints at Mrs White, tries to protest as the two men haul him to his feet. He gesticulates, pointing at me, all the time switching between English and Italian. He looks as scrawny as a scarecrow between the two men, with a face that shows he might cry. The lily-livered creature has crumbled all too swiftly.

  “No longer the big, strong man, Mr Modesto? Is it only with women you can bring out your fists?” I want to say the words with scorn, but instead my voice still shakes with anger.

  I watch as they drag him from the room. Two more men enter, a constable in tow.

  “I won’t need you just yet,” Mrs White says to them. “Make sure the others keep searching the court for anything suspicious. I’ll wait here having a word with these ladies first.”

  She looks at me, mild surprise on her face. “What happened here?” Her eyes take in my appearance. My hair now a mess, the rent in the stitches between bodice and skirt.

  Blowing a stray lock from my face, I dislodge a couple of pins, and smooth it back from my forehead, pressing the loose strands into place as neatly as I can. “That b—” I nearly say bastard, “That brute was raising his hand to his wife.” And kicking the life out of her, I want to add.

  Mrs White walks across the room to Mrs Modesto, who still has her head hidden in her hands. She takes a seat next to the woman in the other armchair, nodding for me to follow. I lift one of the chairs from the floor and pull it close.

  “Madam, look at me,” Mrs White says. “Look at me.”

  Mrs Modesto takes her hands slowly from her face. Her skin is blanched with tears, and her left cheek is fever red from where her beast of a husband has slapped her. She turns damp eyes from Mrs White to me. “Who is this, Miss Charters?”

  “You may call me Mrs White.” She takes a folder from a Gladstone bag. Her initials HBW are engraved upon its side in gold lettering. “I have here some information on you and your husband, Mrs Modesto.” She rustles through several pages, before pulling one to the top. “Or perhaps I should refer to you by your true name, Mrs Marchesi.”

  The Italian woman – Modesto? Marchesi? – grows still. “You can call me Sofia,” she says, finally, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

  “Sofia, I am afraid you and your husband are in a bit of trouble.”

  Mrs Marchesi shakes her head. “I have nothing to do with my husband’s work.”

  “And what do you know of his work, Sofia?”

  “I know nothing. Nothing.” Her thin fingers fidget and she looks to her basket of knitting.

  Mrs White brings two pieces of paper forth from her folder. “I have here a portion of a letter written by Mr Marchesi, and its translation. Do you know what the letter contains?”

  Mrs Marchesi shakes her head, her eyes sliding towards the paper and then away again. “No. I know nothing of my husband’s work,” she repeats.

  “Well, then let me explain. He writes to someone of an uprising, of gaining unity, freedom, through violence of some sort.” She cocks her head as she gazes at the other woman. “Mrs Marchesi – Sofia – what can you tell us of this?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all.” With shaking fingers, she plucks up her knitting needles from the floor, pulls up a line of wool.

  Somet
hing clanks in the kitchen, and I wonder if the household is still going ahead with their breakfast. A constable opens the door and pokes his head in, before withdrawing again swiftly when he receives an annoyed glance from Mrs White.

  “Mrs Marchesi, listen to me.” Mrs White leans forward in her chair. “There is something planned for today. Something terrible. If you are to help us in finding out what the dreadful deed might be, we can offer you assistance, perhaps even keep you from prison.”

  Mrs Marchesi gapes at Mrs White, her mouth hanging open like a baby blackbird begging a worm. “Prison? But we came here to escape going to prison in our own country.” Her hands start to tremble even more. At first I think it’s with fear, but when I search her face – the heat that suffuses her glare, the rigid set of her jaw – I realise she’s furious. “What has he done?”

  “We fear there will be a bombing somewhere. Today.”

  “A bombing?”

  Mrs White nods.

  Mrs Marchesi sinks back in her chair, the knitting falling to her lap. She lets out a soft hoot. She looks genuinely amused. “A bomb? You think Giuseppe will bomb something today? In London?”

  “That is what we are afraid of, yes. Perhaps even here in Green’s Court.”

  “Ridiculous.” Sofia’s face grows solemn again. “Giuseppe would not know how. He is a man who can write many letters, not a man who takes action. And anyway, if he were to do anything, it would not be here. It would be at our home.”

  Mrs White waits for more, but when nothing is forthcoming, she slips the sheaves of paper back into her bag. I go to the side board and pour a glass of wine for us each. Maybe a little ratafia will loosen Mrs Marchesi’s tongue.

  “Perhaps Mr Marchesi has no idea of what is afoot here,” I say, handing a glass to the Italian woman. “But someone has been plotting something for today. Someone who uses a code to communicate with others in their circle. Do you know anything about a code, Sofia?” I make sure she sees my eyes linger over her pile of wool.

  “I know nothing of a code. What is this code?” Mrs Marchesi brings the wine to her lips, takes a small sip, then one more; chokes a little, her eyes watering, when I pick up her Bible and hand it to Mrs White. The older woman takes it from me, gets to her feet, straightening the creases in her gown with her free hand.

  “If that’s the case, then, I am afraid we will need to take you along with us, Mrs Marchesi. You will be detained with your husband.”

  Sofia clutches the cushioned arms of her chair. “But I do not want to be detained with him. I do not want to see him again.”

  “I’ve told you our terms, Mrs Marchesi. If you cannot assist us, then I am afraid I cannot assist you.”

  The Italian woman hangs her head for a moment. The silk of Mrs White’s skirts rustle as she bends to pick up her bag. A man calls to another outside. I glance out the window, watch as a constable moves on a neat tinker, his metal wares winking in the dull sunlight.

  “All right,” Mrs Marchesi says, finally. “I tell you all. Perhaps you have ruined all my plans and I have nowhere to go.”

  Mrs White drops her bag to the ground and takes her seat again. I lean against the window sill.

  “My husband was part of a secret society back home. He, along with the others, were trying to arrange a revolution, but before they could, most of the others were arrested. Then they were executed. So we fled here.”

  I think of the meeting I attended with Miss Haven. “What did they want? Better work conditions?”

  She shakes her head. “No. They want a unified Italy, away from foreign control. But of course our government is against this, as are the Austrians. They would lose power and influence if our lands were to unite.”

  “And your husband still wants this?” prompts Mrs White.

  Mrs Marchesi nods. “More than ever. He cannot return home until all is organised, or else he will also be arrested and executed. Which is why he tries to organise things from here.”

  I think of Modesto’s – Marchesi’s – almost immediate collapse when the police had arrived. Of the fear in his face when strangers turned up to drag him away. But he is lucky, I think, that it is the British authorities who have him in hand, not his own countrymen, after all.

  “By ‘things’, Mrs Marchesi, you mean he is trying to organise another rebellion.”

  “I believe so.”

  “Tell us more of this code of yours.” Mrs White taps the cover of her Bible. “How do you contact these compatriots of your husband’s?”

  “Me? I do not have anything to do with my husband’s stupid ideas. Nothing. Everybody knows he would not include me, and that I have little interest, which is why…”

  “Why what?”

  Mrs Marchesi lifts a stitch of emerald wool between finger and thumb, and gently pulls it loose from the knitting needle. “Which is why they asked for my help.”

  “Who asked for your help?”

  She picks up the next stitch and loops it over the top of the needle. “One morning they came, here, when Giuseppe was out, doing whatever he does during the day. They slipped in without the maids knowing. Two men. They’d heard of me through a friend of mine, a friend who knows of my hardship. They tell me, if I do this thing, they will help me with money. They will help me return home. Without him.”

  “What did they ask of you?”

  “They want me to tell them who my husband contacts. He writes many letters to people back home, trying to form another secret society.”

  “These people who came to you? Were they from your government?”

  Mrs Marchesi shrugs. “I think they were Swiss. Or maybe Austrian. They suggested a code, from that Bible there, but he is jealous, my husband, a paranoid man. I cannot write letters to anyone. Imagine if he were to find them? Or if he were to come home and I am away, trying to send them? He would beat me. You saw this!” She turns to me. “You saw this! He pays the shop man next door to spy on me, the maids too. You saw what happened today? The shop man told him I passed something to the organ grinder this morning.”

  I glance at her basket of wool again. It’s empty of stockings and bonnets. “And did you pass on something to the organ grinder?”

  “Yes. This is how I tell them who Giuseppe is in contact with.” She slips off one more stitch, so the length of wool has three kinks where it unravels. “We decided upon page thirty-eight in my Bible. The letters correspond with the number of rows I knit. And only the stockings. Never the scarves or bonnets.”

  Damn. No wonder those baby woollens were so haphazard in design. And long.

  “The organ grinder works for them too. He pretends to take my woollens to a mission, but he takes them to these people to solve. I am not allowed to write or send correspondence, but this I can do. Of course, in the beginning, I asked my husband’s permission, and Giuseppe approved of me giving these things to the poor orphans, but this morning he was already angry about something…” She presses her lips together against their quivering.

  Mrs White contemplates the other woman for a few moments. “So perhaps he did have some sort of violence arranged for today? Perhaps he was nervous, out of sorts?”

  “No, not a bombing,” says Mrs Marchesi. She seems adamant, and a spiteful note creeps into her speech. “That man will bleat like a sheep about taking action, but really, he is a weak man, better at running away than doing anything useful.” She turns anxious eyes from me to Mrs White. “What will happen to him now? You will keep him, won’t you?”

  Mrs White stands again. “I will see what we can do, Mrs Marchesi. I am not sure of your story, after all. Perhaps I will track down these Austrians or Swiss people you speak of. They may help you. In the meantime you will need to go with my officers.” Noticing the scared look in the Italian woman’s face she says, her voice kinder, “I will make sure you are not detained with Mr Marchesi. We will arrange something suitable. Do not fret.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Sliding the soft bristles of my brush across my head, I
peer into the speckled mirror above the chest of drawers, trying to neaten my braid without re-doing it. I just need to find a cab home, and Amah can wash and set it again. I cannot wait to tell her of all my adventures. We’ll sip cups of hot chocolate and I have no doubt my sitting room will smell pleasantly of lilies or peonies or whatever other flowers Hatterleigh will have sent from his hothouse. I almost feel refreshed just thinking of it.

  I can hear furniture scraping across the floorboards above, where Mrs White’s men are still searching for anything untoward.

  “So, Marchesi is not one of these anarchists, as such, like some of his countrymen with their senseless violence and attacks,” she said to me, once they’d taken Mrs Marchesi from the sitting room. “But we can’t be positive he doesn’t still mean trouble. And we can’t be sure of her word either.” We watched as the woman was escorted to one of Mrs White’s carriages and driven away.

  Mrs White looked troubled. “I wish I knew what was planned for today.” She took a small notebook from her bag and it flipped open to a page she had obviously pressed open many times before. “The Queen’s family is having photographic portraits taken in the afternoon, but the photographers have been thoroughly scrutinised. Nothing much in parliament. The Home Secretary has already boarded a train for Edinburgh, and Thomas is visiting a Brazilian businessman in Audley Street.”

  My ears pricked at Audley Street, which was terribly close to my home, but she didn’t elaborate.

  “Perhaps if someone means to meet the man I had the note from – you know, the man who died in Cimetière du Romilly – perhaps they are waiting for someone to be wearing a red and white kerchief, like I had to when I went to the Dernier Livre. If one of your men is to don a red and white scarf of some sort, that might lure the contact to us.”

  Mrs White looked at me. “A red and white scarf?”