None the less Polly’s ears were pricked for the sound of tapping, particularly as she passed the north end of Blackfriars Bridge where she had first become aware of it. But this time she heard no tapping. And, anyway, she was in so much of a hurry and so worried about that other matter, which was of far greater importance than any danger to herself, that she did not pause once to make sure.
Instead she hurried even more, until she reached the third in a line of plain terraced houses, each one just like the other. And such was her haste to get inside that she did not even glance over her shoulder as she knocked on a door which quickly opened allowing her to immediately enter.
However, if she had done so she still may not have seen the man with the wooden leg through the fog and the mist, although he was very close by. He had pressed himself against the grey stone wall, rising directly from the cobbled lane, which formed the front of the row of houses.
Indeed so smoky and dense was the fog and such was the speed with which Polly had entered the house that he may not have seen her do so were it not for the flickering candle light from within which had illuminated her as the door opened.
He waited until the door was closed and she was safely inside before approaching. The window to the right of the door was roughly curtained, but the ragged drapes had not been properly drawn. Through a narrow vertical strip of uncovered glass he could see clearly into the room within, which was illuminated just enough by candles and a stuttering fire.
What he saw there greatly cheered him. It was as if someone had handed him a musket loaded with the ammunition he had been seeking in order to revenge himself against those he hated most.
He looked again, pressing his face against the window pane, carefully taking in the scene. Oh, there could be no doubt of it, surely. No doubt at all. You only had to look at the girl to know. The love in her eyes. The furrow of concern in her brow. It could only mean one thing.
He backed off then, and made himself as comfortable as he could in the doorway of an ironmongers’ shop across the street, from where he could still see the door to the house. Then he settled down to wait, smiling slyly to himself.
Ever since Silas Wegg had been made to give up any claim to the fortune left by John Harmon’s father, which he had tried to win by means of blackmail, he had hated the entire Boffin-Harmon household with a terrible venom and dreamed only of avenging himself against them.
He considered that the Harmons and the Boffins had humiliated and destroyed him, and truly loathed them. This in spite of Mr Boffin setting him up again with a street stall – selling items ranging from ginger bread to apples, and also ballads that Wegg himself roughly composed – which to Wegg, actually served only the purpose of providing the means to live long enough to achieve his revenge.
Now he congratulated himself on so swiftly grasping opportunity when it presented itself. He had seen the girl often enough at the Boffin-Harmon house, because Wegg had taken to passing by there whenever he could, concealing himself from the casual eye, becoming aware of all who lived and worked inside, and taking in as much as he could about them in case it could be used in the future.
He had seemed to make little progress, really, and indeed on his last spying mission had been chased away by that Sloppy character and informed that if he were seen again thereabouts the master would set the police on him for what he’d done before.
But then fate had played its part. And returning to his Blackfriars lodgings one night he had spotted Polly Martin passing by, in a hurry, her pale features fraught with anxiety. It had been an unusually clear night, and Wegg, momentarily unsure what to do next, had merely watched her pass. Watched and wondered.
He kept a bit of a look out from then on, though, stepping out of his lodgings at about the same time each evening. A couple of nights later he saw her again, and under cover of the fog had successfully trailed her for more than half an hour. But he feared the tap of his wooden leg must eventually have given him away, because she’d suddenly taken fright and run off so fast that he’d had no hope whatsoever of keeping up with her.
Tonight he’d had another chance. And this time he’d been ready for the chase. Chuckling to himself he glanced down at his wooden leg. The end was wrapped in a thick woollen sock, which seemed to have done well its job of muffling the sound of the tap tap tap.
She was inside the house for what seemed like an eternity. It was actually just over two hours. A long time indeed for a man with a wooden leg and only a doorway for shelter on a bitterly cold, damp foggy night.
He watched as she made her way out into the narrow street, turning to retrace her steps homeward, and walking steadily towards him until she came level with his doorway. Then he pounced, propelling himself forward onto his one good leg so that he was in front of her, blocking her path.
She gave a little cry and lurched to one side, desperately trying to find a way around him. He reached out and grabbed her, locking strong gnarled fingers around her stick thin arm.
“Be still, girl,” he hissed. “Do as I say and no harm will come to you!”
He tightened his grip on her arm, and allowed his tone to become even more menacing. “Nor to any that are dear to you. Do you understand?”
She tried to nod but could barely move her head. There was terror in her tired eyes.
“Do you understand?” he repeated.
Somehow she managed to mutter that she did.
“Right,” Wegg responded, his gap toothed mouth stretching into an ugly leering grin. “Then I will tell you what it is that you must do for me, dearie.”
That night when John Harmon came home from business in the city, Bella shared her worries about Polly with her husband.
He listened with care and responded kindly, though Bella noticed that he was rather more concerned with dandling his new son on his knee than the possible troubles of their parlour maid, for which, she felt, she could hardly criticise him.
“You know, my dear, how much I respect your desire to care for those around you,” he said eventually. “But you cannot carry the whole world’s trouble on those narrow shoulders of yours.”
Meanwhile Polly, exhausted after yet another sleepless night, and half out of her mind with worry following her encounter with Silas Wegg, went about her work as best she could, but with such a heavy heart. Polly was more sorely troubled than ever. Polly had a secret and it was one for which she expected no sympathy.
Indeed she expected that if her secret were ever to be known that she would not only lose her job but everything that she held dear – including the secret itself.
Polly’s secret was that she had a child. And she’d never had a husband. It was the child, suddenly sick with a fever, that she had been visiting late at night each time Silas Wegg had spotted her around Blackfriars. She had been content to visit her child, in the care of a waterman’s wife, just once a week on her afternoon off until the little girl, named Mary after Polly’s mother, had become so ill.
Polly handed over virtually her entire weekly wage to the waterman’s wife, a woman well known for hiring herself out to look after other people’s bastards, but she fretted all the while that little Mary was not being properly cared for.
In the previous week she had set off four times on the long walk through the night to that sorry little house by the river, in order to see her child and make sure, she hoped, by her very presence, that Mary was well nursed and nurtured, and that the money she handed over was indeed being spent on the baby girl’s welfare. Last night the waterman’s wife had told her that she had taken Mary to the doctor’s shop that day, and had asked Polly for yet more money, but she’d had little to report back and Polly was not sure that she believed her.
But Polly was so weary and so distraught that she could not think at all clearly. The arrival of Silas Wegg in her already unfortunate life had taken Polly Martin closer to total despair than she had ever been before.
She wanted only to lie down and die. But always there was Mary, her
own dear sweet child, and the little girl’s very existence ensured that her mother would not and could not give up.
However, she could hardly bear to contemplate what the man with the wooden leg had asked of her. It was surely something she could not do. But Silas Wegg had discovered Polly’s secret, grasping it with total accuracy just by seeing mother and daughter together. And poor Polly was sickeningly aware of the consequences were she to disregard Wegg’s instructions.
All that had mattered to Polly for a very long time now was the welfare of her daughter. For the first time she even considered handing her over, as an orphan, to a good and well-off childless couple so that Mary might have the chance of a far better life than her mother could give her.
But poor Polly dreaded the very thought of never seeing her child again, of her daughter growing up without having any knowledge of her mother. And in any case she did not even know how to go about such a thing – or at least, not without exposing her own vulnerability and her child’s bastard status, she didn’t.
She told herself there must be a solution, but was far too tired and empty to even imagine what it could be. However, her child had seemed a little better the previous night, so for the next two nights Polly slept gratefully in her bed, praying for some unknown salvation. On the third night she embarked once more on her long and wearisome walk across half of London. She had not in any case dared to leave it any longer. Wegg would have been expecting her before, and she knew without doubt that he was angry with her for letting him down.
In the park that afternoon, wheeling another child, little John, her mistress’s baby son, in the brand new baby carriage the whole family were so proud of, with her mistress alongside holding the hand of her toddler daughter, and with the faithful Sloppy in attendance, Polly had spotted Wegg lurking amidst a copse of small trees. Then toddler Bella had excitedly pulled her mother across the grass towards some ducks on a nearby pond, and Sloppy had danced his ever eager attendance, leaving Polly and baby John alone on the gravelled path.
Wegg had instantly shown himself and proceeded to approach Polly and her tiny charge quite boldly, moving as fast as his wooden leg would allow. But, just as she was becoming sorely afraid of what Wegg might intend, Sloppy, happy, carefree Sloppy, turned on his heel and began to lope, laughing, across the grass back towards Polly and little John..
Wegg backed off at once. Sloppy was stronger than he looked, and had a toughness born of his early street urchin days. Wegg had already learned that, and had no wish for another confrontation with him. He remained just concealed enough by the copse of trees so that Sloppy would not yet be able to see him.
But, from the path, where she stood in a state of panic, almost rooted to the spot, Polly could see Silas Wegg clearly enough. And she could certainly hear the words that he hissed menacingly at her. He mouthed them, stretching his lips exaggeratedly, so that she would have known what he was saying even if she had been unable to hear anything.
“Tonight, or else!”
He disappeared then, backing off out of sight behind the trees, still unseen by Sloppy who was by then at her side, cooing excitedly over baby John.
And so that night Polly set off grimly, knowing that Wegg would be waiting for her at Blackfriars, waiting for her to pass on her way to visit her own child, her very life. Waiting for her to report back, like the spy he had made her, waiting for her to conspire with him in a plot it almost broke her heart to even contemplate. But only almost. If she were to lose her dear, dear Mary then her heart really would break.
The tapping once again alerted her to his presence. But this time Wegg did not lurk in dark corners and doorways. He appeared suddenly in front of her in that way of his, so surprisingly fast for a man with one leg, like some sort of ghostly spectre. And a truly evil spectre, she thought.
“So when is it to be?” he asked her, his face twisted into an unpleasant leer again.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” she murmured. “I’m not sure . . .”
“Haven’t you found a way yet? Haven’t you found a way to do as I bid? If not it will be all the worst for you.”
“I don’t care what happens to me any more, truly I don’t.”
She spat the words at him. Only a fool could but believe her.
Wegg was momentarily taken aback by the fire in her. But he had a sly quickness about him. “Maybe not, but you care about that bastard child of yours don’t you?”
Against her will tears filled Polly’s tired eyes at even the thought of her dear poor Mary.
“What would happen to that child without its mother to provide for it?” Wegg continued. “No respectable household will employ you when they know your dirty little secret. And do you think that old woman would care for the bastard without your money? At best it’d be the Poor House for the mite, at worst, well . . .”
“Stop it, stop it, I’ll do as you bid.” Polly shouted the words at him, not knowing if she would or could fulfil her promise, but not caring either. She would have agreed to anything to stop him saying such awful frightening things.
“Tomorrow night then?”
“Yes, yes.”
“So, you’ll bring the baby boy here, at about this time. You’ll slip out of the house unnoticed, just as you’ve been doing all this past week, but tomorrow night you’ll bring young John Harmon here. To me.”
Polly nodded. Suddenly all the fight had gone from her.
“You won’t hurt him will you?” she pleaded. “You wouldn’t harm the dear child?”
“Not if his high and mighty father pays up the modest sum I shall ask for. And he will, he will. He won’t take no risks with his precious son and heir. And you Polly, you will take back a note and leave it in the baby’s bedroom. Then, if you choose, you can make it look as if someone has broken in and stolen the child from its bed. Mr John Harmon will bring the money and leave it where I ask, I know he will. Then his child will be returned. Mr and Mrs High and Mighty will never know who took their child, and for me a debt will be repaid, albeit only partially. Justice, eh, pretty Polly? Justice.”
“And you’ll leave them alone after that, Mr and Mrs Harmon and me too?”
Wegg twisted his mouth yet again into that now familiar ugly leer.
“I shall never leave the Harmons alone. Never. One half of everything they have should be mine. At least. That’s what was agreed. And as for you, dearie. Well, we’ll have to see, won’t we? There could be advantage in this for you, Pretty Polly, if you do well. Maybe we can work together, you and I. For your child’s sake, of course. For your child, dearie.”
Polly felt a shiver run the length of her body. Surely she could not be a party to any of this? It was wicked. Inhuman. Yet what choice did she have?
“’Til tomorrow, then,” murmured Wegg.
Polly nodded her head. Yet again words would not come. She backed away from him, then turned and began to run once more towards all that remained worthwhile in her life. Her baby Mary, her darling Mary.
Thoughts of her tragic past and her lost future raced through her head. None of this would have happened and sweet, sweet Mary would have had a proud loving father but for the cruellest turn of fate.
Thomas Vickery, her intended, had one fateful day refused to allow her to live with her drunken father for a second longer. Arriving to find Polly nursing a bruised and swollen face thanks to yet another beating at her father’s hands, he had whisked her away to his lodgings. Thomas was a fine craftsman, a carpenter, and his prospects were good. A wedding date had already been set, and engulfed at last by kindness instead of abject cruelty, Polly had seen no reason to deny Thomas any longer.
She shared his bed just the once. A night of tenderness she would never forget. Then the next day Thomas had left early for his work, as usual, and he’d never returned. Her lover, she was told, had stepped right into the path of a bolting horse. He had been killed instantly by a blow to the head from a flying metal-shod hoof. And Polly had often wondered if the ac
cident would have happened had Thomas not been, she was sure, every bit as euphorically happy as she, his bride to be, with his mind far more likely on the night before than the day ahead.
It soon became clear that she was with child. There was no point in turning to her father for help, and, in any case, as it happened, he succeeded in his apparent aim of drinking himself to death just before his first grandchild was born.
Thomas had been an orphan. Polly had no living siblings. In desperation she sought out the only surviving relative of which she knew, her father’s sister, who lived in the country just outside Chertsey. Grudgingly the aunt, who had no love for her brother or his offspring, had taken Polly in, purely out of a sense of Christian duty, she’d made it clear.
There had been three conditions. The first: that the presence of the pregnant Polly and later her child was to remain as much of a secret as possible. The second: that Polly would earn her keep, which she most certainly had done. She had cooked and scrubbed, fetched and carried, and washed and mended, virtually all day long. The third condition had been that after giving birth, as soon as Polly and the child were strong enough, the aunt would consider that she’d done her duty by both God and her errant brother, and Polly would have to leave to make her own way in the world.
It was the aunt, who, through a mutual acquaintance, had introduced Polly to the Reverend Milvey – without mentioning Polly’s bastard child, of course – as a young woman without family who was desperately in need of a domestic position in a good household. Now this was a position Polly feared she was about to abuse in the most horrible way imaginable.
The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits Page 47