The girl’s family fought back. The mother had cholera; the girl was headed for the pump in the night. The mother was dead now, the girl unable to walk, her brothers and sisters helpless in the slums, if it weren’t for the community spirit of the borough drawing together to protect the defenceless from the rich riding them down. Mrs Mauve’s story was undermined: she was on no train that night. Why on earth was she in those backstreets at such an hour—or was she covering her illustrious husband’s back?
The day before his testimony, Mauve was ousted from the cabinet for failure to make good on election promises. The headlines concealed further scandal: a kept woman, impregnated and paid off, now found beneath Waterloo Bridge. One of the articles was bold enough to mention the woman’s chequerboard tattoo.
Mauve had been thrown to the lions. The people bayed for circuses. The papers delivered. If the thumbs turned down in condemnation, what matter? His day had passed. Fresh blood, fresh scandal.
* * *
Mauve was a shadow of the man who had lorded it over the Phoenix Foundation party, dispensing wit and champagne at the side of his coveted wife. As he took the stand, the galleries were full. Justice Fairchild’s injunction against journalists was all very well, but anyone might take notes on Mauve’s revelations.
The questioning barrister stated that Mauve’s personal travails were by the bye. In addressing the court’s wider queries, he must be candid.
He went to pieces. He recounted at length the anecdote about meeting his wife in the maison de tolérance, inappropriate enough when told to me at Brodie’s, but here, so ill judged, it provoked uproar.
Justice Fairchild called for silence.
The barrister underlined specific points: Mrs Mauve had been seeking satisfaction outside wedlock? And Mauve himself?
Yes, yes, Mauve conceded, but that was beside the point, which was that they rediscovered the joys of wedlock.
The barrister, with misgivings, delved further into the couple’s unconventional practices. Their visits to Kate Hamilton’s together. (Why, I wondered, was I shown that lurid peepshow?) Orgiastic revels chez Mauve, with choice girls from select establishments; choice boys were not mentioned, but corporal punishment was.
The barrister blinked. “You beat your wife?”
“And she me, sir. Consensually. What of it? Don’t you?” Mauve grinned like a daring schoolboy, confessing all. He sang, to the crowd’s mirth:
A whelp, a wife,
A walnut tree:
The more you bash,
The better they be.
The deeper he dug himself, the more he seemed a monster. None of us took thought of our own sins and how they would look if dragged into the public eye. Shame on us that this man had been in government; shame on us that we had fanned his egotism and lauded his nonsense.
Asked about Cora, Mauve became maudlin. He regretted her death. He was fond of her. He loved her, he declared suddenly. This was why his marriage had foundered, his growing obsession with her. He had been a fool. They could have had a life together, hidden from his wife, hidden from public view. He should have paid up; the seeds were planted, the beds prepared, ripe to flourish.
The barrister, troubled, asked him to expound.
Mauve glanced around the court wide-eyed, like a stag caught in the hunting fences. He burst into tears, exclaiming, “Why am I pursued so? My wastepaper stolen. My letters steamed open. Maids seduced. My wife systematically demoralised by these fiends from the daily rags—”
Justice Fairchild intervened.
Mauve recovered his decorum. The questioning moved on.
The traffic incident. After evasions and expressions of sympathy, Mauve at last confessed: he himself had been driving, but his wife persuaded him not to stop. She knew the ruse: people were always getting themselves “run down” in the hopes of a handout from the quality; he had heard of families that lived entirely by blackmail, the mortified culprits paying for “treatments” for years on end. Could one complain? Could one expose them? Not without rousing the ire of the penny pamphlets. Find that girl now, he declared, and you will see her legs are no more broken than yours or mine.
Noise from the gallery: “She’ll be here.” Applause. “You’ll see.”
Peeved at this outcry, Justice Fairchild demanded an end to Mauve’s evasions. What had Mauve meant, with regard to Cora, by paying up?
Mauve’s cheeks paled. He had said nothing of the kind.
The judge assured him that he had.
Mauve started telling of a gambling hell where a friend once failed to pay up.
Counsel asked him to return to the judge’s question.
Mauve objected that he was bloody well addressing it.
Counsel declared equably that, if his memory was unclear, the record could be consulted. Mauve’s objection overruled, the passage was duly read back to him.
Feigning confusion, he continued the story of the gambling hell. He began gesturing wildly, playing up to the crowd with the flamboyance of a music hall entertainer; except he had none of Molly’s charm, overemphasising his comments and telegraphing his punch lines before the jokes were halfway done.
Justice Fairchild lost patience. It had been a long day. “Mr Mauve, kindly ponder the seriousness of leading this Enquiry astray. Come back in the morning with your notions reformed, sir. Proceedings adjourned.”
Mauve had planned a party that night to celebrate his public exoneration. He cast it as another fundraiser for the Phoenix Foundation. He had even sent me a brusque demand for the guest list from the Quarterhouse do; I was so occupied, I failed to reply.
The fog was filthy that night. I was reluctant to attend. So was everyone else. Though nobody admitted going, rumours soon spread about young boys present, girls on the youthful side, brandy drunk from ice sculptures’ appendages.
LAST GOODBYE
Must speak. Please. Usual corner, 10 tonight.
Find another house. Can you? Please. —A
It was this note, waiting for me at the Yard, that made me skip Mauve’s party. The timing could not be worse. But I could never refuse her summons.
Ridiculous, to be intimate and know no more than her first name. It had seemed prudent, and fascinating. To be swept up in the maelstrom of desire without regard for our station in life. She knew I was in the police. I knew she was a lady, from the countryside, who was in Society but not caring for it overmuch; whether she hid a husband back in the shires I did not ask—better remain ignorant. I had never thought of the man I cuckolded, until the moment of this message.
She never suggested my rooms, or anywhere else we might be known. She lived out of town, in Surrey or Suffolk or one of those shires that sound all the same to a Scot. We spoke little of our feelings; when one of us blew cold, the other showed their love more keenly, and the thing came right about. As the man about town, I was expected to know places; I did know bawdy houses, of course, a thousand of them, but few I would take her to.
I stopped by Kate Hamilton’s. She was to speak near the end of the Enquiry, on the same day as I. “I trust you’ll show your face, Kate.”
“Wouldn’t miss it, my lover. A chance to show off to the quality.”
“A chance to defend your girls,” I said, “and their rights.”
“And their wrongs.” She licked her lips. “I’ll do my duty, Watchman. You look like you have a thirst. Girls, moisten our pet Scotsman’s chaffer.”
As Kate could see my disquiet, I swallowed my pride: I asked, in an undertone, for a discreet place to meet. I feared she would broadcast my request in her usual cackle; she was kind enough not to.
“Usual haunts under observation, eh?” With an appraising look, she murmured an address I knew on a street nearby. “I’ll send word to prepare a room fit for a king, my lover, and his queen.”
* * *
As I waited at Seven Dials, I gazed at her note as if it had fallen from the heavens. We had never needed to write to each other, not since that first note.
She kept me waiting, just a little. “I shouldn’t have come,” she sighed.
“I shouldn’t have asked you.”
“I asked you, you fool.”
On the short cab ride, we fell silent. En route, I spied, within the walls of a foundation not unlike Felix’s, the fallen women bent over in the yard, washing clothes.
Alexandra followed my gaze. “Tempted?”
I made a face. Though, if anyone were looking in at us, they might read a dark history into it.
Denmark Street was not the salubrious haven I had hoped for. I tapped at the door of Adelphi House, my nerves rising. The door opened discreetly; the madam gave a nod. The hall was dank. Below stairs, though, was a heavenly bedroom: fresh sheets, flowers, bonbons on the pillows.
“I surmise,” Alexandra breathed, “that you know that landlady.”
“Yes, but through my work, not hers.”
She fell silent. Lush hair. I wanted to touch it. It was as well not to return to Titchfield Street, but I did not ask why. Perhaps we had been recognised. I did not ask. I still knew nothing about her, and she little of me.
On the wall, that same print: the striving lady, the lounging fellow, torment and exaltation. Alexandra stood beside me, eyes shining. “I saw this painting exhibited ten years ago. The Awakening Conscience. I thought it dreamy. Lace hearts round her petticoats, rich shawl at her hips, determination on her face, and that hair. I was young and innocent.”
I gazed at her, more beautiful than any painting. “Like her?”
“Don’t you see? The girl is seduced; only now she repents.” She put her hand to her mouth, smiling, but tears were close behind. “We must end it.”
This was not our usual routine. “You’ve tired of me.”
“Never.” She was not making the usual replies. “This must be our last goodbye.”
“It always is.” It was not our first attempt to end it. Not our tenth.
“All this. It doesn’t become you. You—” She looked at me. Her rehearsed speech faltered.
“What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
“Tired. Perhaps I’ve caught a chill.”
She reached out; I grasped her hand. I could make no sense of it, but she was in earnest. Voices sounded from the street, boots on rain-soaked pavements. I swept the ringlet from her face, trailing my finger over her cheek, lingering over her lips. We were lost. There at the dresser, knowing it was the last time, every touch was filled with aching; through the bliss, a pain in my gut reminded me I was striving to ignore the impending gloom.
“This doesn’t become you.” She tried again. “You’re young. You should find somebody—a wife—and grow up… grow old together. We must end it. Further, and we can only hurt each other. I… I’ve found something out. I can’t tell you. I wouldn’t have come at all,” she whispered, “only—stupid excuse—I have realised something. About Felix.”
I was angry with her. I should have listened; I had spent so long puzzling at Felix’s story, but I had not the patience for it on such a night, after such a week.
She was eager to tell me about Felix, things she recalled from his memoir, about his family. “His heart was broken, Campbell. His wife killed and his child, his daughter, gone missing in the Italian revolutions. That scarred him, you see. Poor stoical heart. No wonder he became unbalanced. Monomaniacal.”
“Alexandra—”
She wanted to explain: how she saw sense in his starting the Phoenix Foundation. “His interest in fallen women was not entirely— No, I don’t mean that. Can’t you see? The thing is, Felix’s upbringing. His mother a courtesan; like a slave. And he saw it all. While his father—not his own father—had no time for him. Then the military orchestra—no place for a boy. And now his stroke.”
I could bear her indifference no longer, talking of such things that stood so far from our entire story. Stupid excuse, indeed. I barely heeded her words.
I took her in my arms; I silenced her with a kiss and I walked out, leaving her upon that bed, beneath that print, with the bonbons untouched on the pillows.
TRANSPONTINE DELIVERIES
The next day, a girl hobbled into the gallery on crutches. Mauve’s traffic incident come to haunt him. I looked closer, but whether she was the backstreet girl who I had “run over” I could not tell. She drew back beneath the protection of her forbidding protectors, her soi-disant family.
Mauve never appeared. When they found his body, later that day, it was kept secret; but Justice Fairchild adjourned the hearing for a week. We had to use these precious days to resolve our search. We had to find them.
* * *
Time was running short. On Quartern Lane, nobody had spied the girl, neither Jeffcoat nor Molly’s cohort. How could I allay Felix’s anxiety? A dreadful unease haunted my nights: the tapestry of sin remained obscure, and if my testimony was to hold, I must discern the threads that bound it together.
I was for strolling into the Mews and questioning the landlady: where had the girl gone? What of Felix? What of their relations? Jeffcoat restrained me. Felix’s girl had vanished and No. 17 fallen silent, but girls came and went in the adjoining houses. There was every chance they fell under the same organisation. Something must out.
We redoubled our watch. Even before the adjournment for Mauve, we decided we must watch all hours, even if it meant missing more of the questioning.
Jeffcoat appeared, triumph on his face.
Quartern Mews did receive daily deliveries after all, but everything arrived before daybreak: sumptuous flowers, sweetmeats, bread, fine wines. Jeffcoat had sent urchins to follow each of the carts on their rounds of the West End, but in the dreadful fog their little legs got them no further than the bridges, as every single cart headed south of the river. Most likely everything was delivered from one place.
Jeffcoat was itching to follow himself, but to go alone was folly. He might give the game away or be despatched into the river. It must be done aright.
* * *
I joined him at Quartern Lane long before dawn. It was Saturday, and the Enquiry would not convene. We wore workman’s clothes, our carriage stationed close by.
We watched the deliveries: milk, bacon, newspapers, firewood to every house in Quartern Mews. It was not until the laundry van delivered its fresh white sheets that Jeffcoat nudged me into action. The other carts went on to do the rounds of Mayfair, Kensington and Belgravia. But this, our urchins reckoned, was the laundry cart’s final stop before heading back.
We headed south of the river. It was a gloomy March morning, the freezing air making it difficult to talk. The rising fog swept the bridges bare, obscuring the tilted moon. I’d never seen London so deserted. I wished it otherwise, for I feared calamity. So many months seeking; finally, we were making sense of this dense pattern. How I longed to believe Kate and her girls came to the trade willingly and thrived in it; how easy this job would be then, and the world brighter, and London equitable and just. But the world is not equitable, and our task looked darker by the hour.
The laundry cart rattled across Southwark Bridge, and we were obliged to hang back. The lamps south of the river were so poor, we could not be sure where it turned. Jeffcoat was steering the horses between the old vinegar works and Barclay & Perkins Brewery when I spotted the cart, veering into the riverside alleys.
We turned abruptly. The place must be near, else London Bridge would have been the easier route. A square, full of wind and dust; thin trees lashed against the railings, as we stopped, listening for the cartwheels’ telltale rattle. On, quietly on, past a dishevelled doorway, and quite unexpectedly I clutched at Jeffcoat’s arm.
I confessed it all in a breathless whisper: how I had run down the girl, right here in this spot. He understood at once. Any poor mother would bawl if their child was run over, holler for compensation; that was the spirit of the age. Why let me go? They must have things afoot they did not wish police to know of: the two girls, the room of grey-faced seamstresses. Within these buildin
gs lurked something ill.
Jeffcoat jumped down and ran ahead. I rounded the block circumspectly.
He intercepted me, breathless, and ushered me to a nook, behind the brewery, where we might station the carriage. “It’s there. This is it. These warehouses backing onto the river.”
We looked at each other in utter silence. What we had found looked like an old laundry or a forgotten clothier’s. But we both sensed it: this was the loose thread we had been searching for. We must bide our time. With the Enquiry adjourned, we could be patient. Pull at the thread too soon, too sudden, and the tapestry would unravel before we discerned the pattern.
Many girls had hinted of a place, a kind of nursery where they were taken to be broken in. None could tell us where it was; none seemed to know exactly, for they were taken there drugged, in darkened carriages. A scheme so bold no one would credit it. Right here, in the heart of London, two steps from London Bridge and Borough market—could this be their academy of sin?
And Acton’s figures: the unmarried mothers and childbirths registered, those discrepancies must be explained somewhere.
We must not be spotted. Jeffcoat sketched out the entrances he had spotted on his circuit of the building. I would keep first watch, while he returned to the Yard for clothes and provisions.
An hour’s watch was revealing. I saw blankets and towels brought in, bedding, lamps, divans, an ottoman, and fine furnishings, pots, pans, privies, bedpans, headboards. This parade I watched with awed reverence, imagining an army of cooks, haberdashers and laundresses at work. And this turned out to be the side entrance.
We must take our time and get the whole picture. With day about to break, the streets were busier, and I feared I was conspicuous. Jeffcoat returned on foot, bringing disguises, namely hats, capes, glasses, whiskers, fishing rods, newspapers and toolboxes that would allow us to take up positions around the building without obvious loitering.
Lawless and the Flowers of Sin Page 20