by May Woodward
She shut her eyes and prayed to whoever might be listening. A whoosh of air whipped past, knocking her sideways.
Clemence staggered against the pawnbroker’s railings. She steadied herself, hand over her poor ticker.
The policeman stopped his dash for one moment, turned to Clemence with a regretful look, touched the rim of his helmet, said ‘sorry, madam’ to her, and in one instant was back on the chase.
Clemence just caught sight of the cheeky-faced young gonoph disappearing behind the church wall, waving the gentleman’s silk fogle he must have pickpocketed.
TWENTY-ONE
Fleet. Farnborough. Deepcut. Names of unknown towns and villages. But each one chugging her nearer the metropolis.
‘How much further, ma?’
‘About ten more stops, I fink, an’ we’ll be at Waterloo Bridge, Billy.’
Clemence silently thanked the snot-faced terror who’d asked his parent the question which she, too, had wanted an answer to.
At each halt on the Exeter to Bristol line, her heart had thumped. Would there be lunatic-catchers and police waiting on the platform? Now aboard the Great Western and heading eastwards, each station inched her closer to London’s sweet-smelling bowery vale where she ought to be safe.
In Mr Laine’s office in Taunton, she’d mumbled ‘Greenteeth,’ and then prayed. Might he enquire whether she had, perhaps, just escaped from Dwellan House? But no – the banker had at once disappeared, and then returned with a sum of money.
What a brainwave she’d then had: to go by Parliamentary train – the government’s budget transport for scumbag third class passengers. She could have afforded fifty shillings for a first-class ticket. But, no… enlightenment moment! She must be under pursuit by now; they’d expect Her Grace the Duchess of Ardenne to travel first class, wouldn’t they? Never look for her on the Parliamentary train with the pond-life, would they, oh, no.
Brilliant, Clemmie. She didn’t think. Now she was stuck in a chug-along without lavatories or upholstery on the seats, which stopped at every piffling country station, sharing a carriage with a snoring chap who looked like a publican, a carter with his family of eight, which included a suckling infant and youngsters who chased each other under the seats, a surly fellow with grimy hands and a smudgy face – possibly a chimneysweep – and, sitting opposite her, a young man wearing a billycock hat who she thought might be an apprentice draughtsman or articled clerk; he’d spoken to the guard in the accent of Bethnal Green which Clemence was used to hearing from street-vendors… and who’d had his smouldering eye on her ever since he’d boarded at Andover.
She should be so censorious. In her grey wool gown from the pawn shop, which had been stitched to clothe a larger dame than herself, side-spring boots, straw hat and patched shawl, the apprentice-type person looked her social superior.
‘Down’t ‘ee disturb that lady and gen’lman, Billy,’ the woman warned the little nightmare, who was clambering behind first Clemence’s seat then her admirer’s.
‘I don’t mind, ma’am, truly I don’t,’ Clemence said in her Somerset accent. ‘He reminds me of a brother of mine who was a real rascal at that age, always in scrapes. Sadly, I have since lost him. Died at Balaclava fighting Johnny Rusky, he did.’
She’d be worse off if she changed carriages; a pack of larrikins occupied the one on the other side of the corridor. The devil’s locomotives had been around for two decades by now, but she knew some older people who’d yet to risk a voyage aboard one; she could see their point.
‘Looks as if the rain ain’t keepin’ orf,’ said Bethnal Green, surveying the vista outside. His gaze returned to Clemence. ‘Have you a conveyance awaitin’ at Waterloo Bridge, ma’am? I should be glad to share mine to where’er it is you is heading.’
Clemence bestowed a gracious nod of the head.
‘I am much obliged, sir. But my husband will be waiting with the carriage. Dingy thing it is,’ she added with a conspirator’s smile. ‘I’ve told him, I have, “Theo, you could have bought us a smart barouche with the prize money you won when you became Middlesex County heavyweight champion.” But would he listen? Oh, dear me, no!’
She enjoyed the corridor view a trifle better for that.
What if her husband really was waiting at the station, though? He could be. It must now be eleven or twelve hours since they’d have found her gone from Dwellan.
A constable had been standing on the platform back at Taunton. He had been looking her way… she felt sure he had been. Had he taken a step toward her as she stepped aboard the train? Couldn’t be sure… saw no more of him… she’d just huddled in a corner of the compartment all the way to Exeter.
But Philo or Richard could have been telegraphed, couldn’t they? And advised that she’d bought a London ticket?
The Brunswick-green locomotive juddered at last into Waterloo Bridge Station, and sat there, hissing.
Clemence let the little tyke and his family scream and bustle their way out first. Get out in the midst of the company. Less conspicuous. And keep my head down. Slip in between them and Bethnal Green – even if it does mean his pinching my backside. She might pass along the platform unnoticed then. If there was someone waiting. Was there?
Oh, dear sweet God, yes… there was a policeman. Clemence could see him… standing beside the barrier at the platform ticket office. He held a truncheon behind his back. It dangled down between his spread legs – to young Billy’s amusement.
The policeman’s eyes were following the mass who’d got off the train. He was looking for someone among the crowd. He was. Dear Father, what shall I do?
She kept her face averted. Stared at the track and steaming side of the train. But he is looking at me! He is – I know it.
Could she slip her arm through Bethnal Green’s? Make like they were man and wife? It was a lone woman Warburton’s hounds would be seeking.
But, ah! Over by the arch which led into the central station was a vendor wafting editions of The Illustrated London News. Oh, God – the press. Yes, the story of the mad duchess’s flight might be in the newspapers by now.
Meanwhile, the splotch of humanity shuffled its way towards the exit. The policeman was only two feet away. His eyes were boring into her. Her heartbeat sounded like the fast, measured clickety-click of wheel-on-track which she could almost still hear inside her skull. Wasn’t looking at anyone else. No, he was not! Staring straight at her. Only her.
She kept her head right down as she drew level with the policeman.
A smacking-kiss kind of noise came her way. Clemence jumped as her left buttock was pinched. But it wasn’t Bethnal Green who’d done it… he was busy talking to the ticket collector.
For a few moments she was stupefied… stood there, mouth agape… until dulcet tones somewhere to her rear barked out ‘Oy! Get a bleedin’ move on, will’yer, missus?’
The ticket-man was holding a palm under her nose – stern expression in his eye.
The policeman had pinched her bottom.
Clemence pushed her way through her fellow passengers, dashed through the arch without glancing at the headline on the newspaper billboard, bumped into someone, mumbled an apology but didn’t stop… out through the station entrance into the open.
Why didn’t she take his number or something? Grrrr… Just wait until next time she was dining with the Chief Commissioner…
She leaned a hand on the damp, mossy stone of the great doorway arch. Someone collided with her, called her a name… she only remembered later. Right now… she was gasping for breath.
Next time she was dining with… oh, no, Clemmie, there would be no next time. A lunatic at large was she. If she was caught she would never leave Dwellan again – never, ever. As an escapee she’d be deprived even of the small liberties she’d enjoyed before.
She raised her eyes to the wide yonder. Before her lay the expanse of th
e capital. The Thames glinting with sunlight. St Paul’s and the rooftops and chimneystacks of Lambeth.
Even if she wasn’t apprehended she was scarcely better off… a fugitive. She’d never dine in polite circles again. Cut off she was. Severed from all she had ever known… family, friends… all on the far bank of the river which, for her, no bridge crossed.
She stood up straight… and saw blobs of yellow wetness on the ground beneath her. She’d thrown up? But this couldn’t be the outdoor-sickness back… not now, when she’d come so far? That old familiar carousel was not spinning her round and round… I can breathe. I’m not suffocating. But I’m sweating… sweating… why?
‘You needin’ a shove, lady?’
She spun around as the words were spoken right behind her. A spotty youth in a filthy frock coat and stovepipe hat was leering at her.
‘I can take you to the cigar-divan where they sells it,’ he went on. ‘For a farving for me trouble.’
What on earth was the specimen talking about? Better not give her ignorance away, though. He was, presumably, speaking the lingua franca of the locale which it might seem suspicious she did not know.
‘I don’t need a… shove. I’m new in town from the country and I’m a trifle lost.’ Take a gamble? Why not? ‘You know of any lodgin’s around ‘ere?’
‘There’s Vaudrey’s Nethersken if you likes, missus. Or the spike, of course. Most of us prefers it ‘ere, though, ‘neaf the railway arches. But if you fancies Vaudrey’s… it’s threepence a night.’
That was a point, though. Was her money intact? It was all she had to get her to Mr Almond’s bank. Might she have been robbed during that squash to get off the platform? She’d hidden her reticule beneath her skirt, dangling from the waistband… thank the Lord, she could feel it there still.
‘But I can see you’s definitely needing a shove, lady,’ said the lad with the unpleasant smile. ‘Ain’t had one and yer due, ain’t yer? Yer sweatin’ and divverin’, see. Anyone can see that.’
It was as if the sun had flashed out from a cloud.
‘I’m not… I ain’t an opium fiend, see?’
‘All right! All right! Only trying’ to ’elp, Pretty Ellen!’
Thankfully, he backed off.
Dickon thought the medication they gave you…
Oh, my God. I’m not ill at all. Clemence choked, and then laughed. I’m in withdrawal from whatever it was they were tranquilising me with at Dwellan House.
So, before she tried to go any further, she must sleep. If she was right about what ailed her, then all she could do was sweat and shiver until Warburton’s poison was out of her system.
TWENTY-TWO
Clemence stepped out of Mr Almond’s bank into Little Wild Street. She now had, in her reticule, thirty pounds and the address of a lodging-house for respectable single ladies, whose proprietress had been advised to expect Miss Carswell. First call, though, should be to a Marshall and Snelgrove’s store to acquire something decent to be wearing when she arrived at Mrs Bonney’s.
A fine drizzle was falling. She slipped beneath the boughs of one of the lime trees which lined the street. An envelope had also been waiting for her along with Lysithea’s money. She read the note, sheltering it from the rain beneath her shawl.
‘Miss Carswell. I trust this note finds you well. As I do not know the date you are expected in town, please reply via Mr Almond. I shall call in daily to Almond’s bank to see if a response is forthcoming. Would you, pray, meet me at the Harp Tavern in Covent Garden at seven in the evening on the first Tuesday after your arrival? I will bespeak us a private parlour there. Yours in friendship, BF.’
Could she trust him?
Clemence wandered through the pathways of Kensington Gardens. A recent shower had left the grass smelling fresh, a breeze blowing the surface of the Long Water into ripples and wavelets.
For two days she had been mulling and mulling over Fanny’s note. Four years of loss and illness had not changed her feelings for him. Except that the ecstasy of realising she loved him had flipped into pain.
But loving someone did not mean they could be trusted. He was Richard’s friend before he was hers. Had broken her heart. Could a thoroughly sensible man have misread her so utterly? And it didn’t seem to her that he had done aught to thwart Philo and Mathy in having her committed to the asylum – although quite what he might have done escaped her for the moment. Still, could she meet him as he asked?
Yet the only way he could have known about the arrangements with Almond’s bank was if Lizzy had taken him into her confidence. So Lysithea must trust him absolutely.
From the walkway of the little bridge, Clemence looked out over the small lake. Water birds were squabbling and yark-yarking as they scudded across the surface. She wished she had crumbs for them.
What if the note was not from Fanny at all – but someone in Amathia’s and Philo’s employ, and a trap was being laid?
Clemence settled on a bench in the sunken terrace known as the Dutch Garden. Beside her was a bed of daffodils, their nodding heads dripping raindrops. A lady and gentleman ambled by, smiled at her, and the man raised his top hat. She looked respectable again in a plaid cotton dress, chemisette, cape and bonnet. She’d had to flash her money at the smart warehouse in Oxford Street before they’d even serve her.
One reason she was haunting the park was because there was a news vendor’s stall close to the gate. She’d not seen a news sheet since her flight. Her adventure must be all over the press by now. For over four days she’d been gone from the asylum. And what would the headlines say?
Lunatic peeress at large. Public are warned not to approach this woman who is said to be dangerous. If you see her, inform the police at once…
No, that was too unsubtle.
Flight of the Duchess. Beloved wife of one our most distinguished peers of the realm went missing four nights ago from a hospital where she was being treated. “I’m out of my wits worrying about my dear wife’s safety,” His Grace the Duke of Ardenne said yesterday…
She must at least see what the newspapers were saying. However bad it was. But each time she got up to go to the stand and purchase a broadsheet… her heart failed her, and she sat down again.
Her mind kept dwelling on those worse off than she was. At least she had Lysithea’s money to live on for now, and Mrs Bonney’s warm roof to sleep under. That first night after she’d gone on the run, she’d spent in a nethersken. Netherskens were the lowest lodging-houses in the meanest of London’s rookeries.
She’d learned what a cigar-divan was, though, through listening to the enlightening discourse of her fellow dormitory lodgers: a sort of swell smoking-lounge for gentlemen, which was really a front for a brothel or opium house. The sort of place Philo might frequent. She’d not put it past Richard either.
Then, in the dead of night a ruckus from downstairs had awoken her and drawn her to the head of the dormitory stairs to see.
The doorman had been quarrelling with a sobbing girl. She had been the thinnest creature Clemence had ever seen – two shivering stick arms peeking from her shawl, sunken pools where the eyes should be.
‘Please, sir, just let me in out of the rain! I’ll get the money tomorrow, I swear.’
‘I’ll be blessed if you will, you varmint! Spend it on lush, you will, and I’ll not see none of it. Rules is rules! If you ain’t got threepence you ain’t sleepin’ ‘ere.’
‘Oh, please, sir! My baby’s sick! I don’t fink he’ll last much longer in that damp cellar. Just one night in the warmth, sir, please…’
Beneath her skirt, Clemence’s reticule had felt as if was burning her flesh. The remaining funds it held would pay for a cabriolet to take her across town to the bank, and a smidgen to eat, perhaps. But she could go without the food, couldn’t she?
She had been about to offer to pay the wretch’s fee. But
– ah… if this lowlife thought she had money on her…
And so Clemence had turned away, the feel of the coins in her reticule biting her thigh a thousand times sorer than ever could the bedbugs. And would remember the blue-lipped girl to her dying day.
Were there homeless and hungry all over the city… the land… the empire? Shivering in the snow beneath the windows of the plump? Who had all attended, along with Clemence, the public readings of Mr Dickens’s most harrowing passages, and who thought only what an astonishing performer of his art the devilishly debonair Mr Dickens was? On the Boulle cabinet in her aunt’s sitting-room perched a Delft figurine of a stag which Lysithea’s late husband had bought for a sum which could have fed and housed all Seven Dials.
What could Clemence do – one frail, sick woman on the run from the law, facing legions of poverty and rampant indifference among her own class?
But… what in blazes could she do, she had cried, for the dead and dying in Balaclava? Yet she had gone on to assist in her own minuscule way. A Christmas dinner for the denizens of that black pit; shoes for all the children… when she thought things through the possibilities were boundless.
A gust of wind rustled through the trees and shrubbery nearby. Clemence clutched at her headwear.
She rose from the bench and paced back and forth. The church bells struck three o’clock. She realised she had eaten nothing since the muffin and cheese she’d had for breakfast at Mrs Bonney’s. A coffee stall stood close by. She crept near enough to smell the pea soup which the vendor was ladling into a bowl for a customer.
But suddenly, in her mind, Clemence saw that nethersken girl. The spindly fingers seemed to stretch towards her. Black, empty cavities where the eyes should be. ‘Please ma’am… just a bowl of soup for my baby? He’ll die…’
Where were that wretch and her child now? Dead in a doorway somewhere? Clemence could have saved them.