The Harmons and the rest of their curiously assorted household, the Boffins, Mr Sloppy and the Doll’s Dressmaker, were the only people who had shown her kindness since the death of her gentle mother five years earlier. Apart from Thomas Vickery, of course.
Life had not been so bad while her mother had lived. Polly’s father, although always a cold and distant man, had not been unkind in those days, as far as she remembered, and certainly not violent. He had been a good provider too. He’d held a management position in a tea house. The family had lived comfortably in a well-appointed home, and Polly had been educated by her mother, an unusually accomplished woman, who had taught her to read and write well. She had never known which had come first, her father’s excessive drinking or his losing his job. Or maybe the two had gone hand in hand.
At about the same time her mother had died from consumption. Her father’s drinking and his temper had both become excessive and unpredictable and the rest of Polly’s years growing into young womanhood were steeped in misery. Until Thomas Vickery had so briefly provided salvation. A salvation that had ultimately led to the position Polly found herself in that grim night. A frightened young woman, keeping the very existence of her own child a secret. A young woman being cruelly blackmailed into conniving in kidnapping the child of the only people left in the world that she cared a jot for – excepting her own dear little Mary, of course.
For Polly Martin had indeed come to care greatly for the Harmons. And as she hurried along the unsavoury lanes of darkest London Polly’s mind was in a fervent turmoil.
The next day Bella Harmon noticed at once that Polly looked worse than ever. The circles around her now red-rimmed eyes were blacker and deeper, and her hands, as she attempted not all that successfully to busy herself about her work, were shaking quite dreadfully. Bella was quite sure that the girl had been crying. She made one last attempt to find out what was wrong.
“Won’t you trust me, Polly, dear?” she coaxed. “I desire only to help you in any way that I can.”
And that was too much for poor Polly, because she knew it was true. She ran from her mistress’s presence, and Bella was well aware that she was weeping, because she could clearly hear Polly’s sobs and see her shoulders heaving up and down as she fled.
She did not go after the girl. Bella felt that all she could do now was to wait and hope that Polly would eventually confide in her, as she so wished.
There was, however, no hope of that any more. Polly had made her decision. It was approaching midnight, the whole house by then cloaked in silent darkness when, moving as quietly as she could, Polly slipped out of the house, just as, in the words of Wegg, she had done several times before, and made her way through the front gates into the street. Little John’s beautiful new baby carriage made her exit trickier than usual. One of the wheels had developed a squeak. Polly slowed her pace, hoping to keep the noise down.
Once safely away from the Harmon house she bent over the carriage and tended the little bundle within, adjusting the pillow, smoothing the covers, before hurrying onwards.
Polly’s face was tearstained, and her eyes even more red-rimmed than earlier. But her hands no longer shook and she didn’t feel the slightest bit tired any more. Nor so afraid. She knew beyond any doubt that she now had no choice but to continue with this course of action she had decided on.
It took her almost an hour to reach the place in Blackfriars where she knew Wegg would be waiting for her. The night was clearer than it had been for days, the river mist reduced to salty wisps, and no fog at all to speak of, just the occasional billow of smoke wafting from the thousands of city chimneys.
Nonetheless the man she now feared more than any other still managed to take her by surprise. He appeared before her suddenly again, a horrible apparition materializing out of nowhere as she stepped into a shadowed alleyway.
“Well, well, my dear, so you’ve brought him to me,” he murmured, looking down at the new baby carriage. “My passage to riches. My revenge for injustice. He is here then, at last.”
“As you see,” murmured Polly. Her head was spinning. The plan had seemed so simple, so straightforward, earlier in the day. And above all, inevitable. Now she feared that her courage had departed her.
Wegg moved forwards surprising quickly again for a man with one leg pushing Polly aside, so intent was he on getting his hands on the tiny creature he saw as nothing other than a replacement for his stolen fortune. He bent over the shiny black carriage, peering at the little bundle within.
“Well then, my beauty, my pieces of silver, my grandest finery, all of my riches, let old Silas have a look at you, my chicken, my lovely young chicken that will lay such a golden egg for me.”
Silas leaned still closer to the bundle. With one gnarled hand he tugged at the blankets in order to get a better view. Then he cried out quite loudly, both in surprise and anger, straightened up, turned round, and half threw himself at Polly.
“Where is he? Where is my passage to riches? Where is the child Harmon? What trick is this? And who are you, girl, to think I’ll allow you to get away with such a thing?”
Silas grabbed Polly’s shoulders with both hands and began to shake her. His face was even more twisted and contorted than she had seen before. Greed and jealousy had surely made him a truly evil being. His hands slipped upwards until they were around her throat.
Was he so mad that he intended to strangle her? She would never know for Silas Wegg was not to get the chance. Polly lifted her right hand and plunged the long sharp carving knife it held deep into the soft flesh beneath his rib cage and up into his cold and avaricious heart.
Silas Wegg died at once, slumping immediately to the ground, the knife still imbedded deep in his flesh. He didn’t scream, merely grunting slightly as he fell. Bella looked down at him and at the blood on her hand and all over the front of her clothing.
She felt no remorse. She made no sound. Perhaps she was beyond any reaction.
It had been her absolute intention to kill Silas Wegg. She had guessed that he would bend to check on the child he had demanded that she bring to him, and she had intended to use the knife she had secreted among the folds of the heavy winter coat the Harmons had provided her with, to stab him in the lower back, on either side of the spine where she knew that the flesh was soft and all manner of vital organs lay within.
But when the time had come she had been unable to kill in cold blood, instead standing frozen to the spot until he came at her. Only then did she find the strength and the courage, if that is what it had been, to do such a dreadful deed.
And now, afterwards, she felt quite at peace. She was not even really a murderess, she felt. Not in God’s eyes, anyway. After all, ultimately she had surely killed in self-defence.
She looked around her, squinting into the night. There was nobody in sight. If anyone in that Godforsaken place had seen or heard a peep they were, it seemed, too wise to intervene.
Silas Wegg lay dead like a dog on the cobbles.
It was almost over now. There was just one avowed task left for Polly Martin.
She turned back in the direction of Fleet Street and the Temple, then left onto Blackfriars Bridge.
Once she had reached the middle, where she deemed the mighty Thames to be at its deepest, she climbed onto the great bridge’s iron balustrade and, without pausing even for a second, allowed herself to fall into the swirling river below.
Bella found Polly’s letter early the next morning, right after noticing that little John’s baby carriage was missing.
“If you are reading this note, my dear, dear, kind Mrs Harmon, then I will have done the dreadful deed and, most probably be dead,” the note began. “Last night I learned that my beloved daughter Mary had departed this earth, dying of a fever she would almost certainly never have developed had I been able to care for her and provide the home that a mother should.
“The only good to come of this might surely be that I am now free to prevent a terrible wrong, and t
hat I can rid the only people alive who have shown me compassion of an evil thing. But in order to do so, I have to do evil myself . . .”
By the time Bella had finished reading the letter she was in tears. Polly had told of her plan to murder Silas Wegg, she had told of her ill-fated love, of her cruel father, of the even more cruel loss of her husband-to-be, and of her near desperate intent to maintain her apparent respectability and to provide properly for her daughter. An intent that had ultimately led to her downfall and threatened the well-being of her most kindly employers.
“I had no wish to bring my shame upon your house,” she wrote.
Bella put the letter down on the table before her, and buried her face in her hands.
“My poor, dear Polly,” she said, talking only to herself. “Can it be true? Can you really have done this dreadful thing? And for us?”
It was true of course. Silas Wegg’s body was found the next morning and Polly Martin’s dredged out of the river the following day.
Polly had made only one request of the Harmons. It was, she said, her dying wish. She had left all that remained of her wages and her few shillings of savings, with the letter to Bella. She said that she wanted nothing for herself but asked that her little dead daughter should be given a good Christian burial, as an orphan, and not, whatever happened, be labelled in death as a bastard child.
Bella and John Harmon carried out Polly Martin’s wishes to the letter, and went further. After consultation with their lawyer, Mr Mortimer Lightwood, and his barrister friend, Mr Eugene Wrayburn – who had himself once protected the man who’d maimed and tried to murder him simply in order not to compromise the respectability of the young woman he loved – it was concluded that there was nothing that would link poor tragic Polly to the murder of the monstrous Wegg, as long, of course, as no attempt was made to reclaim little John’s shiny new baby carriage.
Therefore they decided that just as Polly Martin’s adored daughter should not be labelled a bastard, neither should little Mary’s mother be labelled a murderess. Instead they instructed reputable undertakers to take possession of Polly’s body, and meanwhile spread about the story that the poor girl must have slipped to her watery death while running an urgent errand for her mistress which had called for her to take a riverside path after dark, something for which her mistress would always reproach herself.
And so Polly, who had so craved respectability for herself and her child, was also given a good Christian burial, and finally laid to rest in a carefully chosen plot close by her dear Mary.
The Harmons, the Boffins, Mr Sloppy, the Doll’s Dressmaker, Mr Wrayburn and Mr Lightwood all attended the funeral and genuinely mourned for poor Polly.
“She did it for us,” whispered Bella to her husband. “So that we would be rid of that awful Wegg.”
“Aye,” responded John. “And so that she would not bring shame upon herself and, as she believed, upon us too.”
Bella found herself moved then to pose the kind of question that had never occurred to her before.
“But, dear John, what kind of world do we live in where a decent, kind, young woman can be so afraid of losing her respectability that she is driven to such deeds?”
“It is our world,” John Harmon responded. “And the only solace, my sweet, is that some time in the future it will change, I am quite sure of it.”
Bella clasped his hand tightly, yet again thanked God for her own good fortune, and for the sake of every Polly and Mary Martin left alive, prayed that her husband would one day be proven right.
The Tidal
Michael Ryan
It was while writing Our Mutual Friend that Dickens was involved in a serious accident in which he could well have been killed. He had been staying in France with Ellen Ternan and her mother and was returning to London by train, known as the Tidal Train, because it operated according to the tides. There had been works on the line which were incomplete and the train crashed near Staplehurst in Kent. All but one of the carriages tumbled to the River Beult below the embankment. Dickens’s carriage remained coupled to the engine, though it hung precariously over the embankment. Nevertheless, with remarkable bravery and presence of mind, Dickens set about helping the injured and dying. He even climbed back into the carriage to retrieve the manuscript of the next episode of Our Mutual Friend. Although only 53 at the time Dickens was already in poor health, but disregarded his own pains to help others. The shock of the crash did not affect him until the next day and ever after he found it difficult to travel by train. Many have suggested that the stress shortened his life.
Michael Ryan takes this incident as the starting point for a story of mystery and intrigue and it’s interesting to see another of Dickens’s contacts becoming involved.
Ryan is currently an English Lecturer at North Devon College. He has written a range of drama for stage, TV and radio and compiled and edited over 50 published educational texts. He is the author of the Brother John mysteries, Where There’s a Will (2005) and John Tracy Casebook (2006). Michael has also acted in and directed more than 20 stage plays and has been co-chairman (along with Derek Wilson) of the Cambridge History Festival.
On Friday the ninth of June, in the year 1865, I was travelling to London on the South Eastern Railway. The tidal train was a scant twenty minutes out of Folkestone when, with a sudden application of the brake, I was hurled into a corner. My companions and I were unhurt. The carriage we travelled in did not plummet as so many did, but went off the line, nearly turned over a viaduct and, caught aslant upon the turn, hung over the bridge at Staplehurst in an inexplicable manner. When all was still, and I realized that the danger must be over, I at once became calm and, clambering out of the carriage window, stood upon the step and gazed around. The bridge was so broken as to be almost gone and, some dozen or so feet below, lay most of the carriages, telescoped together in the bed of the stream and on the grass banks bordering it. In all directions lay dead and wounded, so that the ground was like a battlefield. At once, I rushed back inside, helped my companions to safety, then took out my travelling Brandy flask and top hat. I hastened down the bank, filled my hat with water, and did what I could among the dying and dead.
At first, there being so many needy souls, I was at a loss where to begin. Among them was a woman, scarce more than a child, whose body lay in what remained of an overturned carriage, her eyes and mouth frozen in a look of absolute terror. The sight was almost too much for me to bear. I braced myself for further horrors and hurried on when, almost at my feet, there came the pitiful cries of one in agony. Looking down I beheld a man of middle years, with florid complexion and full whiskers, struggling to raise himself from the ground. His head was horribly gashed across and his body contorted upon its side. Kneeling, I turned him as gently as I could and laid him on his back. Splashing water on his face, I was gratified when his eyes flickered open and a weak smile came to his lips. Gently, I parted them and poured in a little Brandy. The poor fellow swallowed with obvious difficulty then, looking me full in the face, said simply, “I am gone.” His head lolled to one side and his breathing ceased. I almost wept, but had no time to linger for, as I gazed round, my eyes lit upon a figure propped against a nearby oak.
Stumbling across the uneven ground, I came upon a woman of mature years, decked simply in sombre grey, her only concession to ornament being a choker and brooch of jet. Her face was covered in blood but her eyes were open, gazing up at the vault of heaven. For a moment I feared that she, too, was dead but then she coughed, a dry bitter sound that chilled my heart. Dipping my kerchief in the small store of water, I mopped her brow. Again the Brandy, again the agonizing wait. Then, when I was near to despair, her eyes met mine. She whispered a hoarse, “God bless you, sir,” and smiled; such a warm, kindly open countenance that my very soul cheered to see colour returning to her cheeks. Her gloved hand found mine. The slightest hint of pressure, then her fingers slipped and she seemed to rest. I felt for her pulse. It was erratic but strong enough. She
would live! My resolve strengthened, I left her, hurrying to and fro, doing my best to revive and comfort every poor creature I met who had sustained serious injury. Yet, alas, despite my best endeavours, the task seemed impossible. My heart grew heavy and something akin to panic seized my mind.
Increasingly weary, my halting steps led me to a pile of masonry and iron rails. I was about to rest upon a large block of stone when I heard cries from deep inside the ruin. I clambered up and, with bare hands, frantically tore at the pile of shattered stone and twisted metal until, at last, I uncovered the head and shoulders of a young man. Jammed in upside down, he was bound in every direction. His face was covered in dust but I judged him to be no more than five and twenty at most. He was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose and mouth and I feared that unless he could be rescued promptly, he, too would die. Since he could move neither hand nor foot to aid himself, and my own powers were insufficient for the task, I gazed round desperately hoping for aid. In the distance, a gang of men moved slowly among the wreckage, but they were too far off. Nevertheless, Fortune smiled. One of the guards was within earshot. “Hey!” I cried. “Pray stop. I need assistance here!”
At once he halted. “Sir?” he asked.
“For God’s sake call some of those labourers and help me to rescue this young man!”
“At once, Mr Dickens!” he cried, doffing his cap. Soon a half-dozen burly workmen were clearing away the debris. Progress was painfully slow until heavy tools were summoned to break up the carriage that surrounded him. Then, he was free! With the aid of one of the labourers, I assisted him to the side of the railway and administered Eau de Cologne and Brandy, which speedily brought him round. Just then the guard rushed across with an elderly gentleman. “Make way,” he wheezed. “I am a surgeon!”
The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits Page 48