Blind fury took me. The rapture turned black. I avenged myself on her for the thousand sins that life has done me. Her insults stirred me so, and her impudent gaze, those impish eyes, the heart-shaped face framed by such perfect ringlets of hair. There she lay, crumpled on the floor against the divan in such a wanton pose. My fury redoubled and turned into something carnal and loathsome.
* * *
Once we had rearranged her dress, I called the maid. She decided the doctor must be summoned. He treated her bruises and said she must stay in for a week, wear high scarves and broad hats, and say she had fallen. Simpson spoke cantankerously, frowning at what I had done. “And you, sir, will do well to becalm yourself, or you will have a fit.”
“For God’s sake, have pity, doctor,” I protested. “I was told this was my daughter. I believed it until today.”
“You need say no more, sir. I have seen much darker stories. All I would say is this: if this is not your daughter, it is hardly the fault of the Flowers. I would remind you that you signed the contract and pay the bills, otherwise I should not be so precipitously summoned. Secondly, I remind you not to break your promise. To criticise the Flowers is reckless.” He let his warning hang in the air. “Tell the same to your daughter, or whatever you choose to call her now.”
I stumbled back to Quarterhouse, but could not endure the society of my fellows. On I went to the river. Oh, the futility of man’s wishes. I had wanted an impossible thing. I had been deceived; I had let myself be deceived. I should have known that things were not right; her accents were not as they should be; so many other hints. But I longed to believe. If I spoke to Brodie, he would laugh at my naivety; of course, the deception was plain. Nobody could have believed it, to find a girl lost fifteen years ago, halfway across the world, in another age.
That should have been the end of it. I resolved to pay her off, give her notice and her maid, and be quit of the diabolical affair. I had ruined her; I must toss her aside. Such was my disgust at my own depravity. I was ashamed, too; I had squandered the Foundation’s funds on my fruitless indulgences. I had wilfully been taken for a fool. I had believed her my daughter. Then, despite her so young, I had done unmentionable things…
* * *
She received me, dressed in softest silks. Her drawing room was draped in the purples and lavender of a Turkish harem. Candles, fruit bowls, silvery apples and golden pomegranates. I fell again.
When it was done, and the beauty and wonder all faded, I was disgusted. She bade me punish her for this seduction, and I did. So we went on, day after day, yielding to each other. I was revolted, to find such angers within me. And she, she received my tantrums with love. It stoked her passion.
She showed herself expert in the ways of love. Self-denial thrown to the winds, she abased herself in the most unladylike ways; thrilling, erotic ways. We explored pleasures ever more wayward, beyond the pleasures I had known before, beyond my marriage, beyond the depravity of my London debauches, and, at the last, beyond the degradations I suffered at the hands of the filthy army conductor. Beyond any woman, she knew how to please. I enjoyed her and punished her for that enjoyment. She revelled in the abasement. I had finally learned the rapture offered by the Flowers: not the angelic love I sought but a fervid venality that torched my soul. Yet still I loved her.
One day, I truly hurt her. I told the servant to call Simpson. I left in a panic, like a thief. I meant to return the next day. I could not return. I ordered more of Simpson’s pills and doubled my dosage.
The parliamentary Enquiry was soon to begin. I sent word to Lawless that I should like to make a deposition. I thought to expose the sordid deception. I do not know what I intended to disclose. But I must unburden myself. Yes, I must reveal to the Enquiry what I knew. I could not avenge all the lost girls, but I could at least confess how I had wasted the Foundation’s funds on private purposes, ill purposes; and I could publicly repent. I must be punished, however it ruin my good name. If you are reading this, Lawless, the matter is resolved or I dead in its cause.
I have no regrets. The passion in these last months, the hope and the wickedness, was worth it. I once believed it was our duty to seek rapture. Epicureanism is not about drink and merriment. Pleasures of the flesh may spark rapture. But the touch of that ineffable magic, the wonder of love, this is the majesty that, to know for a moment, justifies a lifetime of seeking.
* * *
Lawless did not come. I fell into restless slumbers.
I awoke to find Brodie’s jackals at the door. The knock was brutish. They had intercepted my message. They did not need to berate me. I took Simpson’s pills to calm my nerves, and a dram of gin to wash them down. I suffered the stroke straight after, I suppose.
Hours passed before they found me. I was lucky that they did. I often dined with Angelina, but my neighbouring Brother was in all afternoon and knew that I had neither gone out nor taken dinner. In the silence of this solitude, I lived a thousand ages of remorse. I relived every moment of my time with her, the splendour of finding her, the despair of her rejection.
I lost the power of speech. I am recovering my thoughts. These brilliant cripples are digging from the corners of my mind the phrases I devised in that long solitude, never knowing if I would be able to share them. I know the men will come to make certain of my silence. I have begged Bede and his little friend to secrete these texts in my violin case, where the jackals will not seek, and flee. I fear the recriminations Brodie’s men may exact on them.
If I must die—and I must soon—let me declare this: I loved, I lost. I never thought I could love again, but I did. I did, with a wild rapture unthought of in common hours. I am a man thought admirable, when I know none more debauched.
I will ever reserve in my memory a cherished palace for you to dwell. I wish I could believe that I shall walk with you in the hereafter. Oh, how I long for the possibility of meeting you again. How did I stay sanguine through all those years? The truth is, I did not. I despaired of life and thought often of ending it. Now I resume my discourse with death.
I shall not look upon the sun again. I am a man divided. The world esteems the gentle artistic half; blessed few have suffered the beast behind this carapace. She, who filled me with such joy, unearthed the childish lustful furious vengeful raging ugly monster that is in me, that is me; she faced it gladly, and still she seemed to love me.
I must leave you now. Useless to prolong this damnation, and the time awfully fails me. I hope that Lawless, that any readers of these poor pages, may try to understand, through their disgust. Unless you are one of the dead people, I think you will understand me. I think you may forgive me. We are predators hurled through this world by forces we cannot fathom. We are all romancers and fools.
And, oh my heart, Angelina, my sweet, sweet Angelina, I hope you may live—
A knock.
Little ones, hide. Hide yourselves, please. And hide these tender pages.
Knock, knock, knock.
Bring her back with your knocking. If only I could. Hide now. Soon, love, we shall come to that finishing end—
(Here Felix’s Testament ends.)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
SERGEANT CAMPBELL LAWLESS, also known as Watchman
FELIX SONNABEND, musician
MOLLY, leader of street urchins
BEDE & THE PIXIE, the Oddbody Theatricals
SIR RICHARD PAYNE, commissioner of Scotland Yard
SERGEANT SOLOMON JEFFCOAT
BERTIE, Prince of Wales, son of Queen Victoria, and his wife
PRINCESS ALIX
GABRIEL MAUVE MP & MRS MAUVE
J.W. BRODIE, newspaper magnate
ALEXANDRA
MISS RUTH VILLIERS, librarian
SERGEANT JIMMY DARLINGTON
KATE HAMILTON (also called Kitty), bawd house madam
CORA, prostitute
SABINE, otherwise Mrs Stephanie Boulton, prostitute
WILKIE COLLINS, novelist
HENRY MAYHEW,
social commentator
CHARLES DICKENS, novelist
SKITTLES, or Anonyma, or Catherine Walters, courtesan
WILLIAM DUGDALE & JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, erotic booksellers
SHERIDAN GROGGINS, elocutionist
DR WILLIAM ACTON, social commentator
SIR ANTONIO PANIZZI, librarian
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE FAIRCHILD, judge
WILLIAM GLADSTONE, MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer
DR MALACHI SIMPSON
THE MCGARRIGAN FAMILY: Agnes, Susan et al.
EVELINE
In addition, manifold unnamed servants, glaziers, doxies, dollymops, fourpennies, zuches, bobtails, jawbreakers, lushy betts, cast-iron polls, dirty salls, dancing sues, pineapple jacks, fancy men, bullies, followers, bawds, procuresses, pimps, panders, children, socialites, lords, dukes, parliamentarians and intemperate young men.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The characters and situations in this novel are the fabrication of the author, apart from the ones that clearly aren’t. Skittles, Collins, Mayhew, Payne (actually Sir Richard Mayne) and Kate Hamilton are real, Mauve and Brodie palpably not.
Many of the women’s tales are adapted from Henry Mayhew’s interviews with the London poor, as is Bede’s story (see “The Crippled Nutmeg Grater Seller”). The figures of the Society for the Rescue of Young Women and Children are genuine (The Times, 23 December 1864); Jeffcoat’s evidence is adapted from Mayhew.
Knowing that readers of Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square enjoyed distinguishing the historical from the fabricated, I give more hints at william-sutton.co.uk.
I have stolen most from The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor and Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal.
My Secret Life by “Walter” was published, in the end; its author remains a mystery, though The Oxford Dictionary of Biography has suggestions. I have misconstrued its origins for my own purposes, but the quotations are genuine, if abridged. It remains an extraordinary document, shocking and tawdry by turns, guaranteed to embarrass anyone reading it over your shoulder on the train.
Brodie’s novella in a yellow jacket is Phoebe Kissagen. The volumes in the Flower Garden Catalogue, Ancient & Modern, are all genuine, except for Mutton Walk Cyprians, as was the British Museum Library’s Secret Cabinet. See Private Case—Public Scandal: Secrets of the British Museum Revealed, Peter Fryer.
Further significant sources: Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words, John Camden Hotten. Peter Quennell’s introduction to London’s Underworld (selections from Mayhew). A Dictionary of Victorian London, Lee Jackson (see also his legendary website victorianlondon.org). Jonathon Green’s Timelines of Slang website. The Victorian City, Judith Flanders. The Austrian Dungeons in Italy, Felice Orsini. ’Orrible Murder, Selections from The Illustrated Police News, Leonard de Vries. London: the Wicked City, Fergus Linnane. Poor Things, Alasdair Gray. The Less Deceived, Philip Larkin.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Caroline, Phil Patterson, Miranda Jewess, Emlyn Rees, Bryon Quertermous, John Sutton, Doris and Nina, Mum and Dad, Chris and David, Rebecca my map guru (rebeccawilliamsart.com), Andy and Carolyn, Jamie, Lucy, Alfie and Megan, Sally, Romily and Dexter, Lucy Holmes, Jamie and Ben, Siân and Jeremy, Vikki Cookson, Mirko Sekulic, John Lloyd, John Waltho, Sarah Salway, SJ Butler, Jason Bermingham, Charlie Loxton, Tim and Sonya, Katherine May, Greg Klerkx and Samantha Holdsworth of the ReAuthoring Project @NimbleFishArts, Andrew Powney, Roy Leighton, Jennifer McCoy, Chris Myles Kennedy, Tara and Martin Knight @southseacoffee, Dom Kippin, Tessa Ditner, Jo West, Diana Bretherick, Matt Wingett, Zella Compton, Tom Harris, Christine Lawrence, Charlotte Comley, Fark and Lilou @TheTeaTray in the Sky, Portsmouth Writers’ Hub, New Writing South, Seán Moore, Pedro Monteiro, @AuthorsCC, Alwyn James, Dallas Campbell and George Cochrane.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Sutton comes from Dunblane, Scotland. He has appeared at CrimeFest, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, High Down Prison and CSI Portsmouth. He compères Day of the Dead in Portsmouth’s Square Tower, dismaying audiences with his ukulele nonsense. He writes for magazines across Europe on language, travel and futurology. He has had articles published in The Times and plays produced for radio and theatre. He teaches classics. He plays in chansonnier Philip Jeays’ band. He played cricket for Brazil, and now plays with The Authors Cricket Club.
william-sutton.co.uk | twitter.com/WilliamGeorgeQ facebook.com/WilliamGeorgeQ | pinterest.com/wgq42 soundcloud.com/william-george-sutton
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
LAWLESS
AND THE DEVIL OF EUSTON SQUARE
WILLIAM SUTTON
It is 1859, and novice detective Campbell Lawless has just arrived in London. He is summoned to the scene of a deadly act of sabotage at Euston Station by the illustrious Inspector Wardle. Wardle believes that the man found dead amidst his handiwork is the culprit, but Lawless is not so sure. So begins his hunt for elusive revolutionary Berwick Skelton. Aided by a gang of street urchins and a vivacious librarian, Lawless must capture his underworld nemesis before Skelton unleashes his final vengeance…
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Lawless and the Flowers of Sin Page 32