Lawless and the Flowers of Sin

by William Sutton

  The temptation was too great. Yet I had no money. My savings were gone on my hospital treatments. I had only my meagre pension. I told Brodie as much. For a friend, he insisted, initial enquiries came free. If it went further, we’d discuss it then.

  I was dazzled, ashamed, confused. Could my little angel be found? I was ashamed I had not sought her longer. I feared discovering her dead.

  Brodie’s man came to me, an expansive Irish poet. He drew me on Angelina’s looks and personality. He told tales of the Italian quarter, the bordellos and workshops. I told him all: her eyes, her hair, her nose, the birthmark. He annotated it all, as if he were trying to recreate a submerged civilisation. He told me to wait.

  I waited.

  * * *

  I could do nothing useful for weeks. I fretted, I worried. Sergeant Lawless saw me at the theatre. What a state. He must have wondered what had become of the refined old chap he had previously met.

  I received frequent reports at first: of their enquiries abroad, the trafficking route, Naples, the East End, Little Italy, children sold, children apprenticed, and worse. The whole thing became clandestine after the scandal in ’58, which stopped the trail dead. But I should not give up. Here in London, lines of enquiry often took time to bear fruit.

  A known trafficker, in Millbank Penitentiary, was discovered to be running his agency from within those bleak walls. With persuasion, he could be prevailed upon to have a long memory of past transactions.

  Daily we expected news, so Groggins told me. He checked with me again her birthday, her love of singing, her sullen moods, her quickness to laughter. Fool that I was, I told him every detail, never considering how little a young child in 1849 would be like a young lady in 1863, in a different country, with a different name.

  Daily, Groggins came to me and reported that enquiries, though hopeful, had yet to prove fruitful. December was torture.

  At last, torn between hope and despair, I intruded upon Brodie’s calm office. I demanded what I should expect from the garrulous Irishman. Why torment an old man unless to annihilate my heart and my savings? For I had insisted on paying their fee, and there were tips enough.

  Brodie took me seriously. He removed Groggins and installed another man on the case, a model of discretion, whom I would never meet. I should not expect results on the instant. Instead, I should return to my daily round of visits and concerts and the club and the opera. He by no means encouraged me to be hopeful, but he promised news within a six-month—and he would take no more payment from the Phoenix Foundation until we had that final news, one way or the other.

  This impressed me and allayed my terror. It was a tremendous pressure, keeping my excitement from my fellows for so long, for the Brothers are a close-knit group, and we notice each other’s excitations and improprieties.

  * * *

  This is a story I have never told. I am old. Forgive me if I repeat myself. It is the most extraordinary thing, but when I lost my family, I had no time to mourn. I was quickly snatched into dulling solitude. Incarceration pierces the soul. Only those capable of suppressing their feelings survive, as I learnt at a tender age. I prevailed. I grew strong in my desire for survival—and requital. I never suffered the true pain.

  In December, so many years after the despair and deprivation, I was granted hope. And it lacerated. I longed to speak to friends of my lost daughter, but I could not.

  For years, I have woken at four in the morning, my heart beating, fear and longing slapping me in the face. I am afraid to tell what has woken me all these years. She stands by the fireside, diaphanous, unattainable. Is it a dream? I care not if it is. I am overtaken by a joy I cannot describe in my waking hours.

  Dr Simpson talked of insomnia. Neurasthenic anxiety. He prescribed pills to soothe the blood. And then I saw her.

  A ghost of the past. At the opera. I knew it was she. I had seen her in my dreams, I knew her for sure. I seemed to move but could not move. I seemed to speak and could not speak. I stood dumbly and watched her walk away, but my heart was singing.

  * * *

  I roared around the town. I hid away and wept. Imagine how that feels after so many years. But the fury of my suffering abated, and in its place came hope. I gave in. I believed the unbelievable. And I have suffered the consequences.

  Two days later, I waited in a gazebo in Cremorne Gardens, respectable enough of an afternoon, as you know. It was one of those clear winter days, free of the sleet, and the scent of lavender filled the air. Brodie had arranged everything. I thought I might explode with waiting. At last, Groggins arrived to prepare me. I could barely comprehend: they had told her that I was a relative, from her distant family; that I would ask questions; that I might help her in life. She knew nothing of her past, but she knew she was not from London.

  Sure enough, an ugly chaperone drew near at four o’clock in funereal black. On her arm, a delicate butterfly, in chenille and lace.

  My Angelina.

  In the light of day, I knew her for sure. I leapt up; I had to restrain myself from sweeping her into my arms. Groggins and the chaperone sat decorously apart, and we talked.

  The sound of her voice thrilled me, that dusky timbre resonating through elegant cheekbones. I had not heard that voice for fifteen years, and my heart leapt into my mouth; it was her mother’s voice, reborn. I stayed calm as we chatted, but inside, my thoughts danced a polka of joy. She was delightful, after an initial reticence. Free and natural, she spoke of opera and theatre, and her musical hopes, while I nodded like a nincompoop, sure that she took me for some old fool.

  Finally, as if her nerves had become frayed, she mentioned a book of old Italian songs she had seen in a Charing Cross bookshop. I said I should like to buy it for her, if she would allow. When was her birthday?

  A shadow obscured her brow, and she exclaimed, “Sir, I think you know that I am an orphan and know little of my earliest life; but, I’m told, my birthday is nigh; it is three weeks hence, on the feast of St Sebastian.”

  “Then, my child, my sweet and lovely child, I remember dearly the day of your birth.” I grasped her hand, careless of propriety. “For I am your father.”

  * * *

  When it proved true, and the unhoped-for became real, I hardly dare to believe it.

  On our second meeting, as I bought her tea and scones under the eye of the chaperone, I tentatively asked her what life had dealt her. She began stumblingly to disclose the deprivations she had endured. I began to see her in these terrible places: the mouseholes of Naples, where life is so cheap they do not bury their own; the dockyards of London; the slave ship; and the milliner’s whence I had rescued her. She spoke of her sisters, their carelessness of her, and her mother’s—not real sisters and mother, of course, but the thieves’ republic who adopted her. My heart ached.

  She said, over and over, how she was not worthy of the kindnesses I bestowed on her, of the luxuries I lavished. Mere tea and scones.

  I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and fly her high over the streets of this wild, welcoming city to deliver her safe to her home. I wanted to light her way in the darkness so she need not fear, to light a thousand candles in her bedchamber that she might see at last her own beauty in the glass.

  It was too great a gift from a God I had long cursed. A Christmas wonder. A miracle. I nodded to the chaperone. I signed, I promised, I paid.

  * * *

  A week later, after the wonder and disbelief, she was installed in apartments off Quartern Lane. Her people were paid off. She had an income, a servant and modest garments to shield her from any who had a claim upon her. From the demure hat to her well-hidden ankles, Brodie’s Flowers arranged all.

  Brodie himself urged continued discretion. I should not initially be seen with her, not more than was necessary. We cooked up the story that she was a long-lost niece, reunited through European family. I paid Brodie’s lot a bonus; or rather, they took it from the fund; and that, I understood, concluded their involvement.

 
I was walking on air. At night, I had to calm my beating heart, knowing that she slept just five hundred yards away. In the morning, I took coffee with the Brothers, but refused my bacon and eggs; in twenty minutes, I would be knocking on her door with pastries, perfume or whatever gift my fond old heart had settled on.

  I learned of her early life, the little she could recall.

  A kindly old Judaeo-Italian, now deceased, kept a house near the river for Neapolitan orphans. He had favoured her, a Milanese girl with musical inclinations, and schooled her tolerably, but refused to teach her Italian, calling it a barbarous tongue, insisting on English. When she was twelve, he died. She subsisted on her wits and the kindness of charitable societies, who finally placed her as a milliner’s apprentice. She hoped that she might one day enter society and marry, though that seemed a distant dream.

  I enjoined her to sing for me. Her voice was vigorous, but untrained. I asked if she would learn violin. This gave her pause. I thought it was sullenness, but it was the very way children behave with their parents. They do not like to be tutored in something they will always be worse at, to be forever corrected. Believe me, I know how belittling it is to have a famous teacher.

  Nonetheless, I contrived to leave an old fiddle with her servant. One day, I arrived to hear a lively air played in rustic fashion. I burst into the drawing room and saw to my amazement that my Angelina could play in the gypsy style. Her posture and hands were barbaric, but to hear those angelic hands strike out a tune so irrepressible made my heart sing. Truly, though her tender years had been lost and lowly, she was my own daughter.

  On the surface, calm. Within, a tempest of emotion. My life was filled with fresh joys from morn until night. Soon enough, fresh troubles. The best melodies hide discord deep within their harmonies.

  I lived to all appearances the same life as before, only instead of going out with my fellows, I was bold to step out with her. Her: my Angelina, and such I called her; she called herself Eveline, as the old Neapolitan Jew had named her when he bought her. We kept to places where we were not like to encounter any who knew us: Hampstead Heath, Burton’s Colosseum, the Park Square Diorama. These were far from her stomping ground by the river and little frequented by my friends.

  Finally, the itch took me to see a new production of Gluck’s Orfeo at the Opera House. She begged me to take her for her birthday. What a joy to me that was, to be sat there with my daughter—my daughter! How my old heart swelled, as the years of tribulation fell away, and I watched my darling Angelina delight in the foolish comings and goings onstage. At the intervals, I was taken aback how many raffish young gents passed close to us, some pleasant enough, but some with ribald jibes aimed at her beauty, or suggesting our relations improper. Angelina did not react appropriately, which irked me; this was the first time I found myself telling her off. To be familiar did not become a lady. She ought to restrain her gaze and her pert replies.

  Angelina was instructed, by Brodie’s lot, not to venture too freely from home. A single lady in London may nowadays walk unaccompanied, it is true, as far as the Post Office, or to purchase a crumpet, or even to church. Any further, for one so young, and she seems not quite a lady. Besides, I had a hovering fear—without delving deeply into her past—that there might be someone who had a hold over her or wished her ill. I repeated Brodie’s injunction. I tipped her servant to remind her of her duty as a young lady and to inform me of her movements.

  Her housemaid informed me, in hushed tones, that when I was not expected, Angelina was in the habit of wandering whole afternoons abroad. Blow me if Angelina didn’t sack the woman on the spot. I bribed the next with more circumspection. This is when I learnt the watchful spying that is the mark of fatherhood, especially of a lass. In today’s thought-tormented age, when girls vanish and societies are dedicated to their ruination, fathers will fret. I, though old, was no different. I had missed so much of her upbringing, I was determined to make amends. Those first days were sweet, a rediscovery of Eden: the perfume of my wife’s hair, the memory of her soft cheek. What was to come was a bitter hell. I had dealt with the devil; now I should pay for it.

  Angelina begged me to take a box at the Opera House. I am a tired old man. I can only stomach the theatre twice or thrice a fortnight. She longed to go every night. I gave in. I was still in the way of spoiling her.

  But something in her manner made me suspicious. After a few days, I turned up at the Opera House without warning. Rather than go to our box, I took a seat nearby. Cloak and daggers, indeed. She sat alone, rapt with the drama. It was as if, after long deprivation, she could not get enough of that other world, the world of glimmering hopes and wild passions, a world we may but glimpse beyond the pillars for a careless hour of which—if we are lucky—this world is but a pale reflection. As I was about to leave, sure enough, a young bounder appeared in the back of her box, our box. She greeted him decorously enough, then the two of them repaired to the back room. I stormed up, hot-headed, demanding admittance from the theatre manager.

  “The locks are worked from within, sir. On this is the popularity of the Opera House founded.”

  I fumed. I felt the tantrum well within me, but I waited, without knocking, without pounding the door down, until the very end. Whereupon, decorously enough, Angelina and the young cad emerged. She laughed to see me and introduced me to her friend, Angelo, whom she knew through her millinery work. He seemed to hold her in esteem, without the predatory looks I had grown accustomed to seeing from younger men. He suggested we go to the Holborn. My rage abated. They gave me to understand that Angelo was of another persuasion and no threat to Angelina’s honour.

  The next week, I came again unannounced. The story was less sweet. I cannot say what I saw her doing, for my eyes were full of rage. It was the bloody Irishman, Groggins. He had the decency to be discomfited. He had used to give her lessons, she said. She owed him thanks, and so should I, if I was at all grateful that she was alive. Again to the bloody Holborn. But this Groggins was decidedly not of the other persuasion. He insisted upon flirtation, touching her elbow, right there, in front of her old father. The impudence of the modern generation.

  So I learnt the pains of fatherhood. I am afraid I behaved badly that night. Angelina did not upbraid me there but suffered me to walk her home after we had despatched the frisky Dubliner.

  The next day, she would not receive me. I laughed in the face of her new housekeeper and strode past her, as well as I can stride.

  She launched into such a stream of invective as I have never heard: how I held her back, I tied her down; I dressed her like a princess, I treated her as a slave; so much fun she used to have before she met me; and she preferred being poor, when you could cadge off the world, rather than being one of the quality, when everyone looked to cadge off you. Besides, what was the point of being a society lady but to bag a man? Which made you as bad as the Haymarket whores, only for a steeper fee.

  “Chuck me out of the coop, if you want. Call me ungrateful, but I can’t live how we’re living. All your wittering about the past. Wars on the continent. A girl today can’t be expected to care about all that, can she?”

  “Angelina, my love, my life—”

  “I am no daughter of yours.” She slammed the door in my face.

  I returned to the Brothers in disarray. We were estranged.

  * * *

  The days passed. The feast of St Valentine came and went, and I did not see her.

  I had learned something. That my aching desire to be a father, to be a good father, had prejudiced my sympathy with her. Perhaps she was flirtatious, perhaps she was uncouth. But what torments she had undergone. A tiny child ripped from her loved ones; a youth brought up in vilest squalor by an exploiting old Semite—lucky he died before she was of the age he could sell her or charge for her or otherwise use her.

  I went to her to make amends. She was not there. This was the end of February, and Lawless saw me on her balcony in a panic.

  Groggins came to
see me. He was in a state. He reminded me of my vow to the Flowers. I must not divulge any word about finding her. I sent him away with a blessing. Whatever his misdemeanours, I had found new peace.

  I went to abase myself before her.

  She received me warmly, more like a tolerated old uncle than a beloved father. I apologised if I had upset her, and her friend, but I was a foolish antediluvian zealot. I had spent so long without her that it hurt like the devil to see her drift away, this time into adulthood.

  She was changed. More grown up, more familiar than before, she spread her hands. “Don’t brood so, you daft ha’porth. We both know it, plain as day.”

  I did not comprehend her fully.

  She said it clearer, bold as brass. “I’m not your daughter. I never was.” She explained it all: the Flowers of Sin, where girls are taken into service, trained in all the arts of a lady, all the arts, on the French model; and for each of Groggins’ classes in elocution and comportment, they underwent training twice as rigorous in satisfying gents’ more unacceptable demands.

  The sweat went cold on my neck. My hand trembled. My tongue lay dormant in my mouth.

  She described, in too much detail, what she had been taught. With those desires awoken, what a disappointment it was to be saddled with a stiff old lizard like me. Not only did I talk so endlessly, and insist on our convoluted pretence, but I refused to lay a hand on her, so that she was driven mad with pent-up desires. Could she be blamed if she invited the odd gent of her former acquaintance up to our private box to make her feel loved?

  I sat without hearing, without seeing. “What have you done with Angelina?” I hissed. I do not remember hitting her. I recall her impudent gaze as I hit her a second time. “You are not my daughter.”

  More, she seemed to say. That is what I deserve. That is how you long to treat me. “I could see it in your kindly old eyes,” she said, “that somewhere inside was a devilish old goat chomping to get out and punish me, as I deserve.”