Mr. Timothy

by Louis Bayard

  Philomela pushes…pushes…until the lid is perpendicular to the ceiling. Then, after a ceremonial pause, she gazes downward, and I follow suit, bending my neck over the coffin’s rim.

  Gazing back at us is a pair of eyes. Eyes such as one might see on a drowned body: bluish-white, with a web of exploded veins. Eyes swollen well beyond their normal size, and so fixed and unyielding as to land upon us with the force of an auger.

  The eyes of death, I am about to say. Only these eyes blink. From the depths of their sepulchral chamber, they blink.

  Some part of me must notice the pale crust of face, the dilating nostrils, the drawn-back lips. But I am lost, I am drowned, in these eyes. They stare past me, with an expression of such abject feeling I have not the heart to look away.

  And so, for want of anything else, I say:

  —You needn’t be afraid. We’re here.

  But before I can finish, the girl has found her tongue.

  —I good. You say. I good. No fight. You say them I good.

  A Mitteleuropa cadence to the words, but the terror…the terror is beyond language. It is bone deep.

  —I good. No fight. I good.

  The sound she makes releases me, after a fashion. I am free now to take in the rest of her. That plump white face. The foreshortened body. The black shoes and stockings and the remnants of a white shawl, torn nearly in two and littered with what look to be marigolds.

  And most of all, the hands: claw-shaped, bloody-knuckled. These are the hands that have been following me from day to day, street to street, in and out of consciousness.

  —I good. I good.

  She is ten years old at most, but in this context, immeasurably aged. And in truth, lifting her from the coffin is akin to hoisting a longtime invalid from her daybed. There is no springiness in these bones, only weight. Philomela takes her by the legs, and I take her by the shoulders, and we lift with all our might, and I would swear we were lifting a giantess from the bowels of a pit. Gasping, Philomela sets the girl’s feet on the ground, but the girl can no more keep her balance than a newborn baby. She swoons in my arms, and for a moment or two, we dance there, across the stone floor, between the coffins—a curiously intimate exchange that ends with both of us collapsed on the floor, sandwiched together like oarsmen. So close are we now I believe I can actually smell her fear, which mingles with the larger tang of shit and piss and sweat.

  —Good. So good. You tell.

  The girl shows no inclination to move, and it occurs to me we might profitably spend a fair amount of time in this very position—laying out our future, as it were—but that is not to be. From above us comes an abrading surge of light, and I look up to see Iris, dressed for work in a fitted bodice and long, full skirt, standing halfway down the steps and holding aloft a lantern. Her face is in shadow, but I have no doubt as to the expression it wears. And even so, I am desperate enough to run towards her, waving my hands.

  —Iris! Wait!

  Too late. She has hitched up her skirt and dashed for the light, and by the time I reach the bottommost stair, she has slammed the door after her.

  An awful sound—lethal in its force. And yet it has the effect of opening a new door in my mind: the human connection I have failed, until now, to decipher.

  Iris.

  This is the curse of the male egoist: to assume that a woman opposes him out of feminine pique. When all along, she has simply been following orders.

  That’s just what Iris has done, from first to last. It was Iris who left me to rot in gaol by keeping the news of my arrest from Mrs. Sharpe. It was Iris whom Colin and I encountered the morning after the Christmas party, waiting for us in the hallway. How easily she might have overheard me dropping Gully’s name. How easily she might have passed the name to George and let the hounds loose.

  And how easy now for her to walk those few steps to Mrs. Sharpe’s office, to summon George out of his private conference and tell him of the three people she has just trapped in the cellar.

  The prospect is too enraging to consider for a moment longer.

  —Philomela! Is there a back entrance?

  She jerks her head from side to side, as though she were seeing the room for the first time. She mutters:

  —Back…

  And then she is off, shambling through the darkness. I see a flash of hand, a glint of bare calf. I make to follow, but the girl from the coffin circles her arm round my calf.

  —I good. You see. All good.

  It’s no use trying to shake her off—I must pry her fingers, one by one, from my leg. Whether this causes her pain, I cannot say, for as soon as I have freed myself, she falls straight on to her back, re-creating the very position in which we found her: staring straight up at the ceiling.

  I hear Philomela’s low, affirming voice:

  —Door.

  But it might as well be counted a wall. Over eight feet tall and nearly as wide, a heavy oaken slab such as one might find in a French castle, belted with blackened iron, rotting and warped and sagging on its hinges, yet for all that, monolithic and impervious. One could scream away one’s life in this room and never be heard.

  —How did you open it, Philomela?

  There’s not a knob in sight. Only a tiny hole where the knob once was, and through this hole passes a chain, made fast by a padlock.

  Philomela whispers back:

  —Boot.

  This is the only thing she says, and so it costs me seconds—precious seconds—to understand what it is she wants. Many more seconds before the blucher has been wormed off my foot.

  From here, however, she wastes no more time—jams the toe of the boot between the door and the frame and, bracing the heel against the jamb, begins to work the thing like a lever. As soon as I grasp what she is trying to do, I make quick to assist her, and between us, we exert enough force to pry the door open a few inches. Through that aperture I crook my fingers and pull with all my force; below me, Philomela carries on her calm levering rhythm; and under our combined onslaught, the great oak slab slowly yields—another inch, another inch, another.

  And then no more. With an elderly groan, the chain snaps taut, and the door grinds to a halt. Nothing will budge it even a fraction more.

  A brush of wind paints my face as I peer through our little opening—barely six inches wide, not even large enough to admit my head. Philomela, though, wastes no time in sliding herself into the crevice. At first, I can’t imagine she will get any farther than I, but with the deftness of a contortionist, she turns out her feet and straightens her spine and turns her head towards me and, against all known laws of physics, squeezes her way, with excruciating slowness, to freedom.

  Even so, it is the narrowest of openings, and there are moments in the ensuing minute when I wonder if she will not be trapped here forever. But her body keeps pressing forwards, and this mechanical momentum has the effect of liberating in her feelings that she would otherwise have deemed extraneous. They come in a flood now: anger, of course, and fear, and relief, too, quite enormous relief, all washing through her features.

  And also, I think, regret. A more adult sentiment than she is accustomed to entertaining—it leaves a crease of puzzlement across her face even as it raises us to a new level of certainty. For she and I both know I cannot follow.

  And that understanding must be what causes her to pause on the other side of the door, on the very brink of freedom. She squints back at me. Her lips part.

  I say:

  —Go along, now.

  She won’t, though. She won’t.

  —I must see to the other girl, Philomela. She’ll fit through, I know she will.

  Her throat wobbles. A carpet of air passes through her lips. And on that carpet, a single word rides:

  —You…

  If there is an ensuing predicate, it is erased by the influx of George’s voice, long and tall and surprisingly courtly.

  —Come away from the door, Mr. Timothy.

  I whisper one last time:
/>   —Go!

  And this time, she complies. Slips away in a cloud of lace, leaving behind only the tattered skin of Father’s comforter, still wedged in the doorway.

  Oh, yes, she is gone from sight, but if I shut my eyes tightly enough, I can see her at this very moment, doing exactly what she was doing the first time I saw her: running. Her native expression. And as I track her progress in my mind, I feel a terrific surge of pride, as if it were my legs carrying her out the courtyard and down the street, my lungs pressing the air through her, my heart beating time.

  —Come away from the door, Mr. Timothy. Or we’ll be dining on your brains. For breakfast and dinner.

  George stands, alone, on the bottom step. The lantern swings jauntily by his side, but everything else is obscured—face, torso, feet. The only things claiming their rightful share of light are his left hand…and the revolver that sits there, addressing me with its astonished muzzle.

  My first revolver. A milestone of sorts.

  Letting the pistol dangle in his hand, George walks over to the coffin girl, still supine on the stone floor. He plants his foot on her belly, in the manner of an explorer colonising new land. Smiles softly as she mutters:

  —I good. I good. You see.

  —Not another word, Inge. There’s a good girl.

  Mysteriously soothed, she rises to a sitting position, wraps her arms round her shins. And waits.

  George waits, too. There is about him no high dudgeon, no overweening urgency. He seems to be ambling through the darkness on some invisible private errand. Were it not for the weapon in his hand, one might think he’d come for a glass of sherry.

  —It’s devilish clever, George, I’ll give you that. The coffins, I mean.

  I’m struggling for the right pitch, is that clear? Essaying a tone that is dry and conversational without being provokingly sly. And beneath this affectation is a single driving imperative: to gain time. Time enough for Mrs. Sharpe to learn what has happened. Time for Colin to bring the police. Time…

  —Now, are all the girls sent down here, George? Or just the ones who resist? I’m sure, in any case, after a few hours, they become much more pliable. Assuming they don’t die, of course. From asphyxiation or…or, I suppose, the plain terror of it. Some people have rather a hard time of it in close quarters.

  That first girl, probably…the one in the alley. It must have been fright that took her. And to think she was carried from this very spot and deposited like a broken dresser three blocks away. Not a mark on her, except for the hands, still clawing.

  —And using mostly foreign-born girls, George, that’s very sensible. Less chance of their telling anyone, isn’t there? Less chance of anyone believing them.

  All this time, George has been moving in his soft, indeterminate circles, evidently paying me no more mind than he would a cat. Now, however, he stops, turns slowly round, and, in a tone of grave courtesy, says:

  —Step into the light, would you please?

  I come forwards a few paces, until my feet have just entered the parabola cast by the lantern.

  —Oh, Mr. Timothy, you have been an object lesson. I give you credit for that, an object lesson.

  Raising the lantern to his ear, George shakes his head.

  —Every time I look at you, I say to myself, “George, a fellow must always obey his instincts. When a fellow sees people who look like they don’t fit in, why, that fellow owes it to himself to see they don’t fit in. No matter who says otherwise.”

  A sigh, charmingly elongated.

  —But you know how women like Ophelia can be, Mr. Timothy. Always needing their way, aren’t they? Oh, and don’t think they want it in half measures, oh, no. Give ’em just a wee bit of sovereignty, they want more and more. And now here we are. Look at us!

  The workings of fate appear to strike him at some profound intellectual level. He screws up his brows and studies a patch of air, but if any wisdom penetrates those blue eye-pools, he cannot articulate it. He can only give me the lightest of shrugs and say:

  —No one’s fault, really.

  Talk. Talk.

  —On the contrary, George, the fault is all mine. It is my…my misfortune, really, to be always a little behind the facts. I think I have now pulled abreast of them for the first time. Shall I test a few propositions on you?

  He gives me no sign either way.

  —You have a long-standing arrangement with Lord Griffyn—going back many years, perhaps. I admit I was thrown off the scent by your account ledgers. You fixed them, I suppose, to make it look as if the money were flowing out. The truth is, you probably receive a regular retainer from Griffyn in exchange for sending him patrons. Patrons who have indicated a preference for a particular sort of love object. In addition, Griffyn compensates you for housing girls from his stable—the ones who are being a little too recalcitrant and need to be brought into line. Am I correct thus far?

  Not a word from the man.

  —I must say, I’d thought better of you, George. Always took you for a sharp sort of fellow, but it seems to me…I don’t know…jeopardising a respectable business…awfully rash, isn’t it?

  He gives me his most affable smile yet.

  —Oh, but you must consider certain premises of economics, Mr. Timothy. Allow me to put them to you, in the abstract. On one side, you have a business falling off steady over a long period of time. On the other, you have a demand outstripping supply. Under such conditions, what’s the wise entrepreneur to do? Why, he must tailor the business to the demand. Simple as that, really. Oh, ’course, we can dress Sadie in pigtails and pinafores, and that’s good enough in its way, but the truly…the truly discriminating gentleman, well, such a man wants the genuine article, don’t he? He wants quality supply.

  George swings the lantern to bring me back into the light. And in that splash of illumination, my carefully constructed disinterest nearly gives way.

  —Supply, George. I’m wondering if you have actually seen the supply. Young girls barely old enough to tie their shoes, have you seen them?

  —Oh, listen to him! As if it’s such a bad thing. Some of ’em, it’s the best thing that could happen. Catch the right gentleman’s eye, it’s like hitting the lottery. Makes you for life.

  His face brightens at an unexpected thought.

  —Why, look at Iris! She didn’t make out too badly, now did she? Could have done a sight worse, believe you me.

  I can’t say which staggers me more: the fact that I will now have to look at Iris in a more complex light—when my hatred of her was approaching a state of incandescence—or the fact that Griffyn’s line of business has been going on as long as that. Ten, twelve, perhaps fifteen years. Fifteen years’ worth of girls flung headlong into darkness. Girls like Inge, coiled and cringing on the cold stone floor.

  A decade from now, if we are to share George’s optimism, this same Inge will be plying her trade in an establishment much like this one. Pleasuring the genitalia of grand dukes. Flirting with the sons of bishops. Getting her buboes lanced each Christmas.

  And a decade from now, perhaps, there will be someone—someone just like me—bleating out another protest.

  —It can’t go on, you know, George. The police are on their way.

  —Oh, the police.

  —And Mrs. Sharpe will be only too glad, I’m sure, to tell all she knows.

  —Ha! Oh, yes! That would be quite a lot.

  He scratches his head with the revolver’s muzzle. Clicks his tongue.

  —Such a touching faith you have in people, Mr. Timothy. I’ll miss that, I truly will.

  He points towards the newly vacated coffin.

  —And now, if you’d be so kind as to lay yourself down in that there bed? It’s a bit cramped, I know, but I think it’ll answer.

  When I hesitate, he looks quite put out.

  —We’re not barbarians, Mr. Timothy. It’s got ventilation, I don’t care what—Oh, I see, it’s this one, is it?

  He nudges the girl with th
e tip of his boot.

  —Well, this here is property, so naturally, it remains with its rightful owner. And the other one—well, that’s property, too, and must be reclaimed. Now, between you and me, why his nibship should go to such trouble reclaiming a single item of inventory, I couldn’t say. But no accounting for taste.

  He stares at me for a moment, then turns his attention back to Inge. With the hammer of his revolver, he strokes a long line down her spinal column, scratches a circle round her exposed knee, rakes her stockinged shin. His voice, when it resumes, is so velvety that at first I assume he is speaking to her.

  —Maybe you’d like me to take off a bit of her kneecap first. His lordship wouldn’t mind. The stiller they are, the better he likes ’em.

  Impossible to gauge his sincerity now that his face is averted. The only evidence I have is that becalmed voice:

  —Two kneecaps would do just as well. Throw in two eyes while we’re at it. Now let me see, that’s a pair of bullets left over. What shall we do with those, Mr. Timothy?

  And now he drags the revolver all round her body with a kind of sensual abandon. Under these ministrations, the girl gives a low, trailing moan and writhes into stillness.

  —What if I do as you ask, George? Will you do as I ask?

  —Meaning…?

  —Release her.

  —Oh, now don’t be insulting, that’s completely out of the question. But I’m not a hard man, so…shall we say her time in the box is done? How does that strike you? She’s learned her lesson, I daresay.

  He smiles as he glances up at me, but it is not the smile that arrests me. It is the unaccountable look in his eyes. An omnipotent pity, with me as its object. I have seen, I have felt this look before. In Uncle N’s sitting room. That unknown gentleman with the sad and encompassing eyes, fixing me with a sense of my own obligation. This is the gaze that straitens me now, that reduces, or perhaps elevates, me to the status of character.

  —In you go, Mr. Timothy.

  And at this moment, it seems entirely possible that no one will come for me. No one, aside from a helpless few, will even know I set foot in this cellar. And so I must reckon with the question that has dogged me without my knowing. Is there something else? Something that has drawn me here, neither with nor against my will, towards a final resolution?