by J C Briggs
‘And his mother kept him clean. He was loved,’ said Dickens.
Dickens and Jones went back to Rogers and saw that Stemp had returned with two more constables who were lifting the boy on to a stretcher to take him to the morgue.
‘I will get back to Bow Street,’ said Sam. ‘You should go home, Charles, after the night you have had. Go and rest those bruises. I will send word tomorrow if there is any news.’
They parted, and Dickens walked away from the church towards the High Street. He would get a cab in Oxford Street to take him home. Now that Sam had mentioned his bruises, he could feel them. Then, he remembered his clothes. He should have gone back to Zeb’s to retrieve his own coat and hat. Too late, he had not the energy. He wanted to get home, to seep in a hot bath, to wash away the dirt, and horror that he had seen. That poor boy. Somehow there was the betrayal of innocence in the brief sketch drawn by the dark girl. He could see the little scene as if it were spotlit – a boy trusting a young man who held him, and who, in that embrace, slid the blade into the unresisting heart.
6
POOR ROBIN
Isabella Gordon had gone. Dickens had dismissed her; now Urania Cottage at Shepherd’s Bush resounded with sobs, and tearful faces looked at Dickens and Mrs Morson with reproach as if Dickens did not feel bad enough when he had watched Isabella walk away with her half crown, wiping her eyes on the cheap shawl she had been given.
They went into Mrs Morson’s own parlour and sat silent for a few moments. Mrs Morson felt that she had let him down; she ought to have been able to cope with Isabella and Anna-Maria Sisini, but their combined mischief and malice, it had to be said, were too much in that they undermined the order of the house, and their relationship, she feared, was too close to be healthy. She felt always a sense of unease about them, and they knew it. They challenged her with their kisses, their caresses, their flirtation which could seem just affection, but which Mrs Morson was sure was not. Not that she condemned them; she had known of a similar relationship between two women in the tiny European community at the mine in Brazil. She had seen how one of them, a young woman abused by a hard-faced husband, had looked at the other woman with such love. Mrs Morson had been so afraid that others would see it too.
But what she feared in Isabella and Sesina was their insolence, and their desire to overturn the order of Urania Cottage. When she and Dickens had gone into her parlour, as they often did when he visited, she had frequently seen Isabella’s mocking eyes on her, and she had sensed her exchange of meaningful looks with Sesina. She had felt the beginnings of a blush and had held herself rigid, willing the tell-tale heat to subside. They challenged her authority by being able to discomfort her, and that annoyed her. It made her uncomfortable with Mr Dickens, and she felt that now, though they had always been good friends.
‘What about Sesina?’ he asked. ‘Will she last?’
‘I doubt it. She needs Isabella. And I told you before what I suspected about their relationship. I am surprised she didn’t go after her just now. I am sorry I failed with Isabella.’
‘I do not think anyone could have succeeded. She had to be the centre of attention, and I thought all along that the life we were offering would not suit her. She is so full of spirit, and yet so hardened by what she has been. I suspect we will hear of Isabella and Sesina, together again. We will not succeed with all of them. Alice Drown for example – she told me it was the very thought of a possible marriage in Australia that put her off. She said Australia was bad enough, but marriage was worse – and, you know, I could hardly blame her when she told me about her childhood, and I am not surprised that she got work in the theatre – she said she liked her independence when I saw her that time we were trying to find out who murdered Patience Brooke.’
‘Isabella is bright, too, clever enough to manipulate the others, teasing the plain ones whom she thought of no account – remember her spite against poor Lizzie Dagg when Lizzie fell in love with the curate. And clever enough to get the lively, pretty ones on her side by inventing grievances, telling them what a cruel place this is, and challenging our authority – not yours to your face, of course.’
‘Alice Drown was clever, too, and Sesina, and Jenny Ding,’ said Dickens thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes when I watch a group of girls in the street, I think that if these girls were properly educated, they would grow into capable, intelligent women, and yet society offers them nothing except drudgery or prostitution. Ignorance and want are the two great evils. I saw two girls sleeping in a graveyard last night – they could only be twelve or thirteen – same age as my daughters – and they stank of gin already.’
‘I know, and it is not much better, in some ways, for girls of the upper class, trained only for marriage, trained to be undemanding, to pretend to be simple and to submit to the authority of first their fathers, and then their husbands. And, still, too many girls have no choice in their marriage partner. I want something better for my girls.’
Dickens looked at her; he was not surprised by the indignation in her voice. He admired her. Here was a woman whose husband had died in Brazil, leaving her pregnant, having to bring home two small girls, and she had done it, had travelled hundreds of miles by mule to find a ship to take her back to England. Even when she was home she found that her husband’s brother had embezzled her husband’s money. But she had not sat down and wept; she had placed her children with their grandparents, and she had found herself this post – and she was the best matron he had engaged.
Dickens had to return to town. He bade goodbye to Mrs Morson, told her to write if Sesina caused more trouble, and clasped her hand to show that he was not disappointed. They were friends. Once he had felt something more, but it could not be. Outside the house, he looked down the street and thought of Isabella; he pitied her, felt sorry that they had not tamed her, worried what might become of her, and novelist that he was, imagined Isabella, bold and haggard, and flaunting and poor, and translated his image into Martha, the ruined girl in David Copperfield who, like Isabella, went weeping on her way to London. Somehow, he thought, Isabella would not weep for long.
His fly took him to Bow Street where he found the superintendent gazing at the shawl as if in its embroidery he could read the identity of the murderer. Rogers and other constables were out enquiring about the dead boy. Sam hoped that if they could find out who he was then they might discover the owner of the shawl. Inspector Harker had not had any success in finding out the identity of his boy either. But it was early days, Sam said to Dickens; his experience told him that they would have to wait, to follow all sorts of leads, some of which would be dead ends, but something would happen. Two murders, two masks and one beautifully embroidered shawl meant an unusual case, and unusual cases usually had a solution – eventually.
A constable, Semple, came in. ‘There’s a woman ’ere, sir, says she wants to know about the boy. ’Er son’s bin missin’ – not a runaway, she says, a good boy – well, they all say that. Still, she’s upset all right.’
‘Bring her in.’ Semple went out. ‘I hope for her sake that our boy is not hers,’ said the compassionate superintendent, ‘even though we desperately need information.’
The woman came in, a woman who had once been pretty but whom poverty had worn out, a woman who was very afraid that the boy who had been found was hers because hers was missing. She looked frozen. A rough piece of sacking was tied at her neck; that was all she had as a cloak or coat. She wore an old brown bonnet – it had once been good but the velvet had been rubbed away and it was tied under her chin with string. Her brown dress was threadbare, and Dickens could see the ancient boots she wore. He thought he had seen her before. She looked not at them, but at the shawl which was hanging off the chair where Sam had left it, its colours seeming to glow in the gloomy office with its utilitarian furniture.
‘Where did you find that? It is mine.’
‘Yours?’ The superintendent was astonished.
‘Well, it was, but Zeb Scruggs gave me fiv
e shillings for it – weeks ago. But, my boy, have you got my boy?’ She forgot the shawl now. Her terror about her boy returned.
‘How long has he been missing?’
‘Not long – only since yesterday. He wouldn’t run away, not my boy, not my Robin.’
The name conjured innocence for Dickens who thought of Ophelia singing of bonny sweet Robin, all her joy. Somehow he felt that this woman had loved her son, that he was all her joy. And he knew, though he did not know how, that the thin boy in the morgue was Robin, and that she would die without him. He felt it all as he looked at the wasted face, with its sheen of hunger shown up in the harsh gaslight, as he looked at the eyes, grey as dark water, in which dread and hope alternated.
‘Mrs …’ began the superintendent.
‘Hart, Mrs Hart. My husband is dead. Robin is all I have. You must tell me. Is it my boy – the boy you found in the churchyard? I must see him.’
‘Is there anyone else?’ asked the superintendent. He could not bear the thought of showing her the thin boy, and her finding it was Robin. He glanced at Dickens and saw the same thoughts in his mobile face, and how, in the luminous eyes, there was trepidation for this poor woman.
‘No, no – only me and Robin. Please, let me see him.’
They had to take her down the ill-lit corridor, down the stone stairs to the mortuary below. Their feet echoed in the cold silence as they descended, going down into what would be a circle of hell for Mrs Hart. Dickens’s intuition was correct. It was Robin Hart who lay on the icy marble slab in the white-tiled room where the attendant drew back a sheet to reveal the thin boy with his closed eyes, looking for all the world as if he were sleeping.
‘Who has done this?’ she asked. ‘Who has killed him?’ Her voice was strangely calm. Dickens and Jones had dreaded that she might fall, might faint, might cry out with horror. She did none of those things, but Dickens saw as she gazed at the boy how she was diminished, as if she withered away like a dried leaf before his eyes, and he saw how her heart died within her so that there could be no tears, only the arid grief that sounded in the one hacking cough that was like a bark. Then there was silence and stillness. They heard only the drip of water somewhere, and felt a shiver of a draught which seemed to make the blue gas flame flare a moment, illuminating the scene like a painting – the figures frozen in anguish, their faces in shadow except for the white face of the dead child.
Mrs Hart stepped forward before they had chance to stop her. She pulled at the sheet to see her son, and held the naked child to her. Dickens and Jones could not do anything but wait until she was ready to leave him. What then they would do with her they had no idea. She had no one. They turned away, as did the attendant.
It seemed a long time. Not a word was spoken except for the low murmuring of the woman to her dead child. Then she stopped. Dickens half-turned to see her lay the boy down, cover him again with the sheet as if she were putting him to bed, place her hand on his hair and caress the thin face.
‘I am ready,’ she said. ‘I know I must leave him, but it will not be long.’
They took her back upstairs, the superintendent holding her listless arm, and they sat her by the fire in his office, hoping it might bring her to life again. She paid them no attention at all as she stared into the flames.
‘I have seen her before. I saw her at Zeb Scruggs’s shop,’ said Dickens, remembering. ‘She was selling an old cloak. Zeb was kind and gave her two shillings – they obviously know her and her circumstances, and she said she sold him the shawl. I wonder if Effie Scruggs would look after her – she cannot be left alone.’
‘Yes, a good idea. We can find out if Zeb had sold the shawl and to whom – if he didn’t sell it, perhaps it was stolen, and he might recall something about that.’
Between them they helped the woman out of the building and into the clamour of Bow Street; it was always crowded with prison vans bringing in customers or taking them away. A waiting chorus of beggars, brawlers and bagmen cheered or jeered at what they called ‘Long Tom’s Coffin’ which took those who had been sentenced at the police court to the gaols around the city. The prisoners were brought out from the cells in the courtyard behind the station, a procession of starving wretches, sullen or enraged, a band of impudent pickpockets going to prison for the umpteenth time and not a wit cast down, a haggard woman who looked like a governess with her hands over her eyes, and a ragged little dandy who attempted a swagger, but whose eyes were burning, a man whose hooded eyes hid his knowledge that this was his penultimate journey. They were bundled into the van, into the little cells which lined the corridor of this wheeled black prison. A policeman climbed into his watch box on the outside and another took up his position in the inside corridor. Then they were off, the black horses drawing away the great funeral car, for one of them was going to his death. Somewhere a gallows stood waiting.
Scuffles broke out as drunken wretches were manhandled into the station: ragged ruffians abusing their captors in the vilest terms, bedraggled women with children swarming at their skirts, a prostitute in her gaudy red satin, and a scruffy pickpocket who managed to twist out of the constable’s grip and was away through the crowd which cheered him on. The constable shrugged – the lad would be back.
Mrs Hart paid no attention; she seemed neither to see nor hear as they walked her away through the crowd. Something in her stopped the noise; curious eyes watched her and the crowd stood back to let them through. Most knew the superintendent and some of the regulars knew the man with him, but no one shouted or jeered. They just watched the woman with the tragic eyes like dark water, and they knew that something dreadful had happened, and what little humanity was left in them was stirred to pity for a few moments.
Dickens and Jones walked with her between them up to Monmouth Street and Zeb’s shop where Effie took one look at Mrs Hart’s face and took her into the parlour at the back. Dickens followed while Sam stayed to ask Zeb about the shawl. Effie sat Mrs Hart by the fire. She found brandy and a glass, but Mrs Hart waved it away, her eyes fixed on the fire. Effie withdrew with Dickens who explained what had happened.
‘Then it’s all over with her, Mr Dickens. That boy was everything to her. Her husband died two or so years ago. He had been a clerk, respectable, you know, at Lincoln’s Inn and she was educated, and the boy. The husband was ill. They moved to cheaper rooms on Parker Street, but they couldn’t pay the rent – you know how it is – people move to a cheaper place, two or three rooms, then one, then a cellar, and then for some, nothing.’
Dickens did know how it was. He remembered only too well his own family’s descent from a respectable life in Chatham to dingy Bayham Street in Camden Town. Number sixteen he recalled as a mean, small tenement with a wretched back garden next to a squalid court. It was not long before the creditors pressed in: the butcher and baker were not paid, the books had to be sold, Dickens scurrying to the drunken bookseller; the household shrank as furniture and goods were pawned; then when insolvency proceedings were instituted against his father, Dickens went to the appraiser so that even his own clothes could be valued since a debtor and his dependants must have effects of no more than twenty pounds; finally the Marshalsea where John Dickens was imprisoned for debt, and where Mrs Dickens and the younger children joined him, leaving Dickens an exile in the blacking factory. Oh, it was so easy to fall.
Effie continued, ‘Then her husband died and left nothing. Mrs Hart took a room off Moor Street, her and the boy and a dozen other families crowded into the house. Terrible for her.’ Effie’s eyes filled as she looked at the woman who might have been carved of stone, who gave no sign, nor ever would again.
‘How did she live?’
‘She sold nearly everything – you saw her sell the cloak yesterday; she had the one dress left, and the boy a few things. She sold things, one by one, a green glass paperweight, a set of spoons, a brooch – her treasures. It was pitiful. Zeb stopped her going to the pawnbroker’s – gave her more than she would have got ther
e. We haven’t sold any of it. Then she did sewing, and he ran errands – earned a penny or two. Nice boy – honest, you know. People liked him. Who would have killed a boy like that, Mr Dickens? Who would be wicked enough?’ Effie’s kindly face was troubled. ‘Well, I’ll look after her, but, I don’t know what will become of her.’
Neither did Dickens. She was lost to this world. She would die, he thought. Effie would do her best, but Mrs Hart would not eat or drink; she would simply waste away of longing for her sweet Robin.
Dickens went into the shop to tell Zeb that he would come back later so that they could go to find Tommy Titfer, and maybe Poll and Scrap. He saw on a shelf the green glass paperweight gleaming with the sea inside it. She would never buy it back now.
‘Don’t forget to bring the coat and hat, and your specs,’ said Zeb, smiling at the thought of the old gentleman. Then his face changed. ‘And we’ll do what we can for that poor woman in there.’
‘Thank you,Zeb. Would it be possible for me to contribute?’ asked Dickens.
‘No need, sir, we have enough. I’ll see you later.’
Dickens and Jones went out into the street to make their way back to Bow Street, and the superintendent told him what he had learned about the shawl. Mrs Hart’s shawl was still in the shop. Zeb had not sold it; he had thought he would keep it if ever she wanted it back. He knew that she had been given it by her husband. He hoped that she might be able to raise the money though it was unlikely, but, somehow he did not like to sell it and nor did Effie – it did not seem right.
‘So, whose shawl is the one we found?’
‘Effie said that when Mrs Hart wanted to sell the shawl she told Effie that it had been made by a Frenchwoman, a milliner and dressmaker, and that her husband bought it before he became ill. Effie knew of a Frenchwoman who made clothes and lived in Hanover Street, but she didn’t know if the woman was still there. However, we can look for her and see if she made more than one shawl, and to whom she sold it. In the meantime, I suggest we find some supper before you don your motley and go a-playacting. Remember, Rogers will not be far away – and try to avoid getting into a fight.’