‘Come. Let us be away from here this instant,’ Verity says.
Constance casts one more lingering glance into the crowd of dispersing people. For the second time they have lost him.
‘I curse the Thames, the lake, I curse all bodies of water.’ Constance tears through the house discarding her clothes, leaving them where they fall. She waves away the new maid who wishes to help her, and stands in her chemise at the top of the stairs. Her skin has a bluish tint and her veins add green to her alabaster skin.
Verity climbs midway up the stairs, stops short and gasps at the sight of her.
‘Well. What?’ Constance is furious. ‘What do you think you looked like the night you decided to join our dead family?’
‘That again,’ Verity says.
‘You should have gone after him.’
‘I made a choice, Constance.’
‘Yes, you did. The wrong one. Always, the wrong one.’
Verity shrinks from her sister’s stinging truth.
‘We have lost him again. We must begin searching again. I wasn’t going to die today, Verity. All of this …’ Her arm sweeps to emphasize her point. ‘It has all changed. I was in no danger. I was just bloody freezing. It was stupid of you.’
‘That is cruel, sister,’ Verity says softly.
‘No. I shall tell you what is cruel, shall I? The poor boy had marks and puncture wounds on his arms and his neck.’
‘Wounds?’ Verity stammers. ‘Such as what – bruises, or swellings?’
‘Such as cuts from lancets, and wound marks on his temples … like punctures! His hair …’ Constance shrinks at the memory. ‘His hair was floating up in the water, swishing every which way, and when I held him to me his head turned and I saw that a patch had been cut close to his scalp. They are taking pieces of him, Verity. And you let him go. He is with his monster mother now.’
‘Oh, Constance. Oh, no. Why would she do such a thing? We must pray, we must go to Mass and ask God …’
‘God? There is no God. What kind of God would allow this?’
Verity crosses herself. ‘Constance. You are not well. I shall call for Percy.’
‘Oh no. No, no, no. I am absolutely crystal-headed and fit as a race walker.’
‘Surely, sister, you do not mean it.’
‘Do not tell me what I mean. Please leave me now.’
‘Shall I bring you tea, or cocoa, something warm, or brandy?’
‘Go away, Verity.’
Exhausted, Constance changes into her dressing gown, grabs a blanket and waits to hear Verity retire. She eases down the steps with a lamp and into the drawing room to her writing desk. It takes the best part of two hours to gather her thoughts to compose a letter to Benedikt. When she’s conquered the words, the nib flies as she relays her version of the day’s events, her fears for Rafe, and a plea for Benedikt’s assistance in locating him. She explains that when he was first taken they had no wish to keep him from his mother; they only asked to be a constant in his life. Now, she writes, she is certain the child is subjected to something devious.
And finally,
I am shaken with the anomaly of our situation. It will take some time to adjust. How ironic, for we have plenty of that stuff now. All the time. Time and nothing but time.
I better understand your purpose and the clandestine way in which you go about it. I wonder how many of us exist and of those, the count for good and compassion, and the count for evil …
Constance falls to sleep at last while contemplating the Serpentine. She took life back from it today. The boy would have lived, of that she is certain. But there was something about the actual taking of him that allows her to rest.
The next morning the newspaper hawkers begin their work, feeding the hungry public with the previous day’s mysterious and miraculous events at the Serpentine. The amazing rescue garners unwanted attention to all involved.
Thomas, his arms full of tools, cannot quite meet their eyes at breakfast. His morning greeting is subdued and he goes quickly to work on the balcony repairs.
The privacy that residents on the street treasure and guard is sorely missing today at Lawless House. The maids cannot get on with their work for answering the door to callers who wish to steal a moment to congratulate Mrs Fitzgerald on her brave rescue of the boy. Constance turns them all away. She goes from room to room closing the shutters, drawing the curtains. Today, she intends to live the few precious hours of daylight in seclusion.
‘Did you mean the things you said last night?’ Verity asks her.
‘Don’t I ordinarily?’
‘Yes, but these are extraordinary times.’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
‘Owen was never secretive. Or nervous … He seems so very nervous.’
Nora Mockett has taken up talking aloud when she is alone. She finds it calming and is able to sort through her troubles and those things that niggle her.
‘It is most certainly to do with the back room,’ she says, as she repositions the Mockett’s Mandrake Pills beside Mockett’s Balm for the Skin. ‘I do not know what it is he does back there in his inner sanctum, toiling away like a possessed sorcerer.’ Her head bobs along as she resolves.
‘And the Fowler boy, there is something not at all right about the Fowler boy.’
The screeching of the paperboy interrupts her monologue. He gives full range of his lungs with a gulp of the mucky air.
‘Moooorning Chronicle! Times! Times! Former Limehouse Convict’s Son Saved by the Sisters Fitzgerald!’
Nora throws open the door.
‘That is a mouthful, you villain. Give me one of those!’
‘Who’s for today’s news? News! News!’ he crows.
‘I say there, boy.’
‘How many, mum? Ten?’
She shuts the door on the pitiable child after she pays him, tips him, and feeds him from her own breakfast with a large brick of bread and a half-round of cheese, which he promptly carries away to his mother. The employees have not yet arrived and it is still too early for Owen to come down. Nora sparkles in this, her golden hour. Perched on top of a high stool she sips her scalding coffee. From a chain around her neck she opens her mother-of-pearl-encased reading glass. Yet another sign of her weakening body.
‘Now, let us see. Where are you?’ She peruses the pages. ‘There!’
Miracle at the Serpentine,it reads. The article recalls how three people, who by all rights should be dead, survived immersion into the Serpentine for longer than any would think possible. The trio rose from the icy water on an interminably cold March afternoon. The Fowler name is in print. A description of a tall, elderly lady with silvery-white hair is described as the Heroine of the Day.
‘“One of the sisters Fitzgerald. Clovis and Finn Fowler … Their son …”’ Nora’s voice builds as she reads aloud. ‘Owen!’
The queerest feeling rises in her. She is overcome by the sense that everything she once knew is no longer valid. With it, the oddest vulnerability crawls against her skin, something akin to what she always imagined madness to be and it portends a complete loss of control.
‘Owen!’
‘Nora? What is it?’
But Nora cannot answer. Her attention turns to the view of the street. She looks to the past, those years ago when the door was stubborn and stuck. The day Clovis Fowler and her pregnant belly taunted her until the sisters arrived and eclipsed the Fowler beauty. How Nora had savoured that moment. She recalls the atmosphere and how it was heavy with everyone, except her. That day mirrors her feelings now. Even the air can be pregnant, but she will never be, in any way. At last she turns to her husband’s inquisitive face, knowing that she has been excluded in this as well. No matter how hard she works, or how hard she loves, it is not to be.
Nora rises from the stool. As certain as she is that her world has turned upside down, she is equally certain that her darling Owen is lost to her unless she takes action. She hands him the paper, picks up her bowl of coffee and retreat
s upstairs.
Owen reads the story of the miracle and drops the paper on the floor where he stands.
‘Nora. Nora, dearest.’
He takes the stairs two at a time. She is found in their odd little parlour with its corner of windows that jut out onto the noisy Commercial Road. She studies her hands again; he often catches her at this. She turns them and strokes the faintly coloured spots. When she is aware of him, she places them in her lap. With a tilt of her head, she beckons him to sit with her.
‘Tell me everything,’ she says.
There have been difficult moments in their lives. The most bitter and lingering has always been that cruel absence in the cradle she insisted they purchase. Owen wonders if the circumstances were turned and she were to tell him the events that he now relays to her, if a cloud of disbelief might cross his mind. Would he be frightened of her, and for her?
He begins with the truth as he knows it and ends his story with hope. He tells her he seeks to replicate whatever strange and terrible essence the boy has running through his veins so that she too might join their number.
‘That, dearest Nora is how I spend each spare moment of every day. My work is for you. The Fowlers are under the impression that I work for them, to bottle a miracle. I work to discover this boy’s secret so that it may be shared with you.’
‘You say it is in his fever.’
Owen expects laughter, disbelief, or an attempt at a note of levity, but not this dispassionate, flat response.
‘It seems to be. You are the only one amongst us who never touched him while he was with fever.’
‘I remember that night well. And the sisters Fitzgerald?’
‘Yes. It would seem so.’
‘And you have no sleeping sickness. It is a result of your condition?’
He nods.
‘You know where the Fowlers make their home now. You have known all this time.’
Owen pauses. ‘I cannot …’ He changes his mind. ‘Yes.’
‘You will tell me where I may find Clovis Fowler.’ She is calm in her demand.
‘They are in a temporary situation across the river in Bermondsey.’
‘Bermondsey? Well. This news is almost as shocking as … as the other. They have fallen.’
‘They are far from destitute. They go where they are unknown, where people are occupied with survival.’
‘And where will we go, Owen? When our customers and the people of the Commercial Road begin to notice how well you look compared to your wife – and compare their own ageing faces. I daresay they already gossip. Dear God in heaven.’
‘It is the very reason I summon all my willpower to replicate this … this … thing.’ He pauses. ‘I am becoming a man of science and I will find a way to make all this right, Nora.’
She is not convinced.
The fourth week after Owen’s confession, Nora remains ragged and in bad temper. She awakes boiling with so much anger that she could bite a brick and crumble it with the power of her jaw. Before Owen awakens she is warm with coffee and buttered buns, dressed, and out the door. The note she leaves explains her absence as an opportunity not to be missed in the West End.
Ten minutes from the Surrey side of London Bridge, Nora’s fury has made her senseless. Forgoing a cab, she treads in unfamiliar territory. She feels no fear, even when accosted by the foulest smells she has ever encountered. Gagging not once, but thrice, she locates her vinaigrette in her reticule and inhales with a heaving bosom.
An innkeeper’s directions have gone wrong and lead her to sights so macabre that she quite nearly turns back. Owen will strangle her if he learns of her strolling in this sparsely populated area, assaulted by the scent of blood amidst men in aprons and gaiters of raw hides. The tanners and their pits, the hide market, with its tens of thousands of soaking hides, is eerily quiet.
Ragged children share the weight of buckets of dog dung, for which the Bermondsey tanners pay up to ten pence a load. Nora stops a pair of them.
‘You, there.’
She is aghast to see the children’s faces and hands smeared with shit.
‘Wha?’
‘I seek Bermondsey Street.’
‘Ha! Not fer noffin yer don’t.’
She places tuppence on the ground in front of them. The urchins snatch them, laugh, and run away with the coin, leaving Nora none the wiser.
By some miracle she marches closer to Bermondsey Street, where the odour from the vinegar factory on Tanner Street moistens her eyes with its sting. Nora turns a corner and the street she seeks is suddenly underfoot. Her anger subsides for a heartbeat or two, replaced by, God forgive her, smugness. For the dismal street is so lacking in colour that it appears only in sepia tones. The houses crunch together, leaning in all directions, peeling plaster harshly covers their wooden frames.
Nora adds paint to the scene, turned out as she is for the West End in her purple ensemble. Her bonnet’s ribbons fly behind her, trailing past the shoemakers and cobblers, and finally her marker, the Watch House on the corner from where the parish constables keep watch on the graveyard. On the opposite side of the street is the house, end of terrace, where the shopfront is closed up and shuttered, where the black door protects the Fowlers. Nora’s ire returns.
There is no knocker, no invitation to call; she taps firmly with her fist. And again. On the third knock the door opens a crack and the servant girl’s face appears.
‘Mrs Mockett!’ Willa cries.
Before Willa can react further Nora pushes against the door, nearly knocking the girl over.
Rafe appears in all of his awkwardness. The sight of him sends her into a spin of longing and regret, and she cannot stop from charging, holding his shoulders firm, she shakes him.
‘Get it. Get it right now. Get the fever.’
He is wide-eyed and frightened and pulls away, but she is stronger.
‘How often do you do it? Do it now. Let me feel your head.’ Nora places one of her hands on his forehead, holding him fast with the other.
‘Here, here! Stop that, Nora Mockett.’ Finn appears and pulls Nora off Rafe.
Jonesy comes next and places his robed frame between Rafe and Nora.
‘Take him away, Jonesy,’ Finn orders.
‘I am sorry to witness such a display. You are not at all well, Mrs Mockett.’ The familiar voice, tinged with accent, causes Nora’s eyes to close in a blind rage. ‘Leave us,’ Clovis says to Finn and Willa, before turning back to Nora. ‘I have foreseen this day for years. You are predictable, Nora Mockett.’
‘How often does the fever come?’
‘It is of no business of yours … but I will tell you, not once since we have earned our tickets-of-leave.’
‘It is very much my business. I am here today to tell you this. If I have not become a member of your miraculous party in six months’ time, I will tell the world.’
Clovis laughs.
‘Oh, Mrs Mockett.’ She is genuinely amused. ‘You will not place your husband in danger.’
‘No, I will not, for he will be none of your business. You have no hold over him.’
Clovis changes her tack.
‘None of us knows when or if Rafe will have the fever again. But if he should happen to be overtaken with it, I will send for you. You will have to be content with that offer, I know of no better solution.’
‘Six months.’
‘If you would like to limit the time, then do so. There is no predicting it.’
‘Six months. Bring him to me. I shall not be “sent for”.’
‘Willa, see Mrs Mockett out.’
While Nora Mockett’s plum skirts trail away from the Fowlers’ house, Clovis continues to stare at the door, as if an imprint of the hysterical woman remained.
‘Finn! Come here.’
‘What now?’ Her husband runs his fingers through his hair, a sign that the encounter has unnerved him.
‘We are too long in Bermondsey Street, Finn.’
‘Out of the ar
ea, then?’
‘No, she would expect that. Wiser to stay near. There is a property on Magdalen Street.’ She turns to him, ‘See to it.’
Just before dark while those in the household are occupied with recovering from Nora’s visit, there is one who cannot be at peace. Mrs Mockett has rattled him so that Rafe feels he might die if he does not get out of the house. At fourteen, he is not afraid of stealing away into a London night; he has evaded detection before and tonight he means to do it again.
Outside, the streets are changing over from the business of the day, to the business of the night. He strides to London Bridge in no time and crosses its busy path with the stampede. A thick wad of upset in his stomach produces gritty tears. He has searched for Auntie Connie and Auntie Very before, but when his mother callously informed him of their deaths after his rescue from the Serpentine, his quest changed. He seeks their place of burial. St Anne’s graveyard pulls him towards Limehouse. Might they rest near their father?
An hour’s continuous walking is uneventful but for a faint feeling of being followed. Each time he looks back, he blames his nerves when he detects only shadows. Full dark brings him to Shadwell High Street. There are whores everywhere, trawling the pavement, parading in short nightgowns, cheap silk and bare heads. His father has educated him regarding whores. Finn seems to know quite a lot about them.
Inside the Half Moon and Seven Stars where Rafe hopes to buy a pie, or a serving of soup, a clean-smelling woman catches his attention. Unlike the others, she is quietly dressed. She approaches him in a light grey mantle, a black silk coat, and ample crinoline. Her eye is drawn to his full pocket when he pays for his food. The publican winks at her.
‘Young sir, forgive my boldness. Would you like to retire to a quiet and more orderly place to enjoy your meal?’
Rafe falls into her pretty smile and the glow of her yellow hair, and says yes, yes he would like that very much.
‘Please call me Priss, as all my friends do.’
She takes him around the corner to an accommodation house where, for five shillings a turn, she entertains her punters in a clean room, with fresh linen and a large bed. She chats away while he eats and when he is finished she grabs his crotch. He pulls away from her so violently that he knocks over the pitcher of water in a basin that was meant for further cleanliness afterwards. His face is terror-stricken. He must not impregnate a woman. In achingly embarrassing discussions his mother has hammered into his consciousness that it is irrecoverably dangerous to do so. He has developed a further theory that his semen either in or out of a woman should not be touched, just as he must not be touched when in fever. This is the secrets he keeps. No one must know he still suffers from the fevers – especially his mother.
The Parentations Page 30