The Unseeing

by Anna Mazzola

  “How dare you threaten me?” Edmund stepped farther toward his father so that their faces were inches apart.

  His father spoke softly, almost inaudibly. “I’m not threatening you, Edmund. I’m simply pointing out facts. If you go to the Home Secretary about this, he will have me disbarred, and he will think you a fool. And what will happen to Sarah? They may reopen the whole investigation. What effect do you think that will have on her?”

  “It strikes me that she is a good deal more resilient than she might at first have appeared.”

  “She’s a good woman, Edmund.”

  “So you say. What else have you been hiding from me?” Edmund said. “Have you taken the liberty of doctoring the evidence? Bribing the witnesses, perhaps?”

  His father puffed his cheeks and blew them out. “No, Edmund. I have done no such thing. If you’ve missed anything it’s because you’ve failed to see it. Just as you’ve failed to see that a trip to Australia is better than a hanging. Do you honestly think I have it in me to go about destroying evidence or coaching witnesses?”

  Edmund stared at him, unblinking. “I think you’re capable of doing anything in order to protect yourself and your own reputation.” He picked up his hat from the table. “The irony is that none of this would have happened if you’d looked after Sarah properly.”

  “What in the devil’s name do you mean?”

  “If she hadn’t been near destitute, do you think she would have stayed with Greenacre? She had nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to.”

  His father looked suddenly ill, the color sapped from his face. “I did support her at the beginning. But it became too difficult. I had other priorities.”

  Edmund snorted. “What? Other mistresses? You abnegated your responsibility to Sarah just as you did Mother. You left her at the mercy of a tyrant. And then, instead of supporting her publicly, instead of going to Lord Russell directly and speaking in her favor—as you could easily have done—you drag me into your grubby subterfuge. All in order to keep your name out of the gutter. You’re little better than Greenacre.” He turned to leave.

  “Oh, Edmund,” said his father weakly. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  Edmund did not answer. He walked back out into the noisy street, his ears hearing not the noise of the crowds but the words of Jelinger Spinks.

  “Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. Even the things you think you know.”

  • • •

  Once back at his chambers, Edmund closed the door to his study, cursed at his buttons, and threw off his jacket, leaving it lying on the floor. How could he not have seen it? He had always known that his father acted only in his own interests, so he should have guessed that he had a very particular reason for recommending him for this case. And Sarah: she must have known who he was when they first met, and yet she had said nothing. She had deceived him right from the start. How much of what followed had been lies? All he had was Sarah’s word that she had been coerced into remaining silent, and, thinking back, was that even what she had said? He unlocked his bureau and searched frantically for the interview notes. Finally he located the correct notebook and the correct page. Reading back over his scribblings, he saw that what she had in fact said was that she had “no choice.” No choice but to do what?

  A chill ran through him as the knowledge seeped in. He had allowed himself to see what he wanted to believe, to be guided by what he wanted to be the truth, rather than what was. And it was he who wrote the words in the affidavit and report, not her; he who mangled the information to present the picture he believed was right.

  Edmund opened the top drawer of the bureau and took out a decanter of French brandy. He removed the crystal plug, poured a large measure into a tumbler, and took a strong gulp, relieved momentarily by the burn hitting the back of his throat. He slumped down onto the sofa, the tumbler in his hands. He had been chosen not for his knowledge but for his gullibility, and he had proved his worth by believing the story he was told. Not only believing it, in fact, but formulating it. “He coerced you, didn’t he?”

  Swirling the golden liquid in his glass, he could not quite believe it was all an act on Sarah’s part. The distress had been real, palpable. It was just the reason for it that eluded him. What had really happened?

  • • •

  Edmund was still sitting on the sofa, revolving the possibilities in his mind, when, half an hour later, the door opened and Bessie entered with a rustle of silk and the scent of carnations: the perfume he had given her some time ago. When had he last bought her a gift, he wondered absently.

  “I thought I heard you come in,” she said gently. “You move around us like a spy these days.”

  “I’m sorry. I needed some time to think.”

  “To think about what?”

  He looked at her tired face and thought momentarily of telling her—about his father, Sarah, everything. But of course he could not. If he abandoned the pretense of being a decent lawyer and a good husband, it would all fall apart.

  Bessie’s eyes alighted on the mess of papers and notebooks that lay on the open bureau. “Oh, Edmund, you’re not still ruminating about the Edgeware Road case, are you? I thought that was all over?”

  “It is,” Edmund told her. “It is over.”

  But it was not over. It had only just begun.

  38

  “A lively and fresh run fish will appear twice as big as he really is, whilst a large but dull one will sometimes deceive his pursuer into the belief that he is weak and powerless, and then in a fit of desperation he will show his real size and capabilities by breaking away with a long line towing astern.”

  —Manual of British Rural Sports, John Henry Walsh, 1856

  Sarah half woke, clinging to sleep in the warmth of her bunk and, for a few moments, could not remember where she was. She wondered at the light rocking motion and the gentle sloshing sound, muted as though she were back in the womb. Then she emerged fully from her dreams and realized where she was: caged in a floating prison.

  “Larboard watch, ahoy. Rouse out there, you sleepers. Rise and shine!” It was the boatswain, waking the crew.

  A short while later came the sound of the men washing down the decks and polishing the planks: a din of stones and swabs and shouts, the wheeze of pumps, and the clash of buckets.

  Next, she heard the jolt of the hatches being opened and the bang of tubs of salt water being set down for the women to wash with. At six o’clock they climbed the steps to the deck to hang out their bedding on the bulwarks and rigging. As Sarah pegged out her own sheets and breathed in the morning air, she listened to the conversation of a group of women nearby.

  “It’s true. She said that in Australia we’ll ’ave more opportunity.”

  “More opportunity for whoring, most likely. That ain’t my idea of opportunity.”

  “No, not just that. Most of those out there are the waifs and strays who’ve survived the passage, so they can’t demand good character in the same way as your London madam. This is a chance for us, girls.”

  Mary Boltwood, struggling to hang out her bedding, snorted. “Don’t you believe it. Prejudices and pettiness is everywhere.”

  An older woman reached up to help her peg the sheets. “Yes, and so’s dirty linen. If they’re too partic’ler ’bout who they employ, they’ll be washin’ it themselves.”

  Sarah was carried back to her final conversation with Hannah Brown, the day she had gone to collect her belongings from the house. After looking at the wedding dress, they had descended the stairs and stood awkwardly by the door, Sarah holding her bundle of things.

  “You know,” Hannah had said, “if you’re looking for a position, I could do with some help at the laundry. It’s hard work, but it pays fair.”

  Sarah stared at Hannah, incredulous. It was Hannah, after all, who had ensured that she
and George were thrown out.

  “She doesn’t want you here after the wedding, I’m afraid, Sarah. She considers herself the lady of the house now.”

  Hannah Brown: a lady! She was an uneducated washerwoman. Did Hannah now feel guilty that Sarah was being left in biting poverty, kicked out of the house in the depths of winter with a young child, or was she mocking her? Well, she wanted neither this woman’s pity, nor her derision.

  “That’s most kind of you, Miss Brown,” she said coldly, “but I’ll get by just fine on my own. I always have.”

  Thinking about it now, however, it seemed to Sarah that Hannah Brown had been making a genuine offer, one woman to another, and she had been too proud to see it. Sarah reflected that she had only James’s word that it was Hannah, not he, who had decided that she and George should leave. It was quite possible that it was just another of his games, setting the women against each other. In fact, it was more than possible: it was exactly the sort of thing he would do.

  • • •

  The women formed into their messes for breakfast. Each group was issued with tea and sugar and each person was given a pot of burgoo—gruel mixed with sugar and butter. George and Lucy ate theirs eagerly, but Sarah managed only a few mouthfuls. She was anxious now to set sail, despite the dangers that lay ahead.

  During the day, the women were formed into work parties, and allotted tasks according to their skills. Former kitchen girls and maids peeled vegetables and prepared the food. Former seamstresses and bonnet-makers—Sarah included—were set to sewing new sails and mending clothes. They sat out on deck in the morning sunshine, the open air a blessed relief after the dank darkness of prison cells.

  In the afternoon, twenty or so more convicts arrived, many in a pitiful state, having traveled from all over the country shackled to the outside of prison carts. The first mate leaned against the boat, watching the women as they approached, eyeing them as he might a delivery of goods.

  “Could you tell me how many more we’re waiting for?” Sarah asked him.

  “There’s to be a hundred and forty in total, I believe,” he said, turning to look at her.

  “When do you think they’ll all be here?”

  The man’s face morphed into a leer. “Keen to leave, are we? Scared they’re going to think twice about letting you go?” A thin silver scar ran down his cheek, puckering at his mouth. “Don’t you worry, Sarah Gale. We’ll look after you.”

  • • •

  The children had quickly sought each other out. While the adults worked, the boys and girls ran up the steps of the hold and played puss in the corner and hide-and-seek among the bunks and barrels and coils of rope.

  When the pipe sounded for lunch, George returned from his new friends, breathless and red-faced. “Mama, we saw a monster.”

  “A monster?”

  “Yes, like a man but with lots of legs.”

  “Where?”

  “Where they put the sick people.”

  “The sick berth?”

  “Yes. It was making this noise.” George emitted a moaning sound.

  “George, are you telling me lies? It’s not good to lie.”

  He looked at her reproachfully, his pink mouth forming into a pout. “You tell lies,” he said.

  It was as though a cold wave had washed over her. “What do you mean, George?”

  “You make things up. Like about the boy who goes to sea and finds a whale.”

  Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. He was talking about the stories she told him at bedtime, no more than that. “Yes, I suppose I do. But a story isn’t the same thing as a lie. A story is something you make up to entertain someone. A lie is something you make up deliberately to trick them.”

  George looked at her in confusion. “What you told me to say about digging up the shiny things. Was that a lie?”

  Sarah flinched. “Sometimes, George, only sometimes, we have to lie.”

  39

  “There are also other situations, where it is highly necessary to deceive the adversary… But this mode of play should be reserved for material occasions, and not by its frequency give cause for its being suspected.”

  —Advice to the Young Whist Player, Thomas Matthews, Esq., 1808

  Dawn came on like a ghost, colorless and silent. Edmund awoke early, with a gasp. He did not remember what he had dreamed but Sarah’s face was before him as he opened his eyes. He blinked and turned over. His wife was still asleep on the far side of the bed, curled in on herself like a child, her golden hair spread out over the pillow. He rose quietly so as not to wake her, washed quickly at the marble-topped washstand, dressed, and left the house. It was gray and quiet as he made his way eastward past the great dome of St. Paul’s and through Cheapside, and the lamplighters were still running up their ladders to extinguish the streetlamps. It being Sunday, the City’s warehouses and offices were closed and silent, wreathed in the morning mist. Here and there, housekeepers and porters were about, sweeping away the night’s filth. Street children stooped and searched for anything they might be able to sell.

  When he reached Cornhill, Edmund heard the clop of hoofs and turned to see the omnibus to Paddington approaching. He thought again of Greenacre, carrying the victim’s head on his lap all the way to Stepney. Sarah could not have known that, surely. She could not have known that, and stayed.

  Edmund turned left up Bishopsgate and soon saw the bright lamp of the police station. Inside, two police officers in uniform were writing at a desk. The place was silent save for occasional shouts from the underground cells, which the officers ignored.

  “Can I help you, sir?” one of the men asked.

  Edmund explained he wished to speak to Inspector Feltham and was led through to a back room, where the inspector sat in his armchair, puffing on his pipe.

  “You’re up early, Fleetwood. Something wrong? Had your pocket handkerchief swiped?”

  Edmund would not rise to this. “I need to look at your file relating to the Edgeware Road murder.”

  “I thought you’d completed your investigation, sir. Your Miss Gale’s already on the boat, ain’t she?” He barely attempted to disguise the smirk on his face.

  “Yes, she leaves in the next week. There’s something in your records that I must check.”

  “What, exactly?” Feltham was interested now. Edmund should not have come.

  “I want to be sure that I was aware of everyone to whom you’d spoken—that there was no one who might have seen something, but who had slipped through the net.”

  The inspector gave an exaggerated sigh. “Mr. Fleetwood, as I’ve told you before, we spoke to every man and woman on the street. Everyone was questioned. None of them had anything useful to say. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, standing up, “I’ve other matters to be getting on with. Nasty attack on a young girl in Lavender Hill.”

  Edmund returned to the street, his heart racing.

  They might have questioned all of the men and women, but what about the children?

  He heard in his mind the sound of running feet.

  • • •

  Edmund traveled once more to Camberwell, to Carpenter’s Buildings. He knocked at the door to number eleven. The neighbor, wearing a ribboned cap, answered the door. The smell of baking wafted from within.

  She frowned, confused. “You want to see Greenacre’s house again?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am. I’m looking for a young boy I saw here the last time I came: torn blue jacket, about ten years old. He seemed at the time to be following me.”

  She wiped her hands on her apron. “That’s probably Bailey. He was fond of Sarah and often wanders ’bout the house. An odd little soul. His parents don’t pay much attention to ’im.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “At number eighteen, across the way. Don’t expect a warm reception
, mind. They don’t much like authority.”

  Number eighteen was a dilapidated house with soot-blackened walls and papered windows. Paint flaked from the front door. From inside he could hear the bawling of a baby. He hesitated and then knocked.

  “Yes?” came a shrill woman’s voice.

  “May I come in?”

  “What d’you want?”

  Edmund pushed at the unlocked door. Inside, a woman sat beside a small spluttering fire, nursing a baby. At her feet was a young girl in threadbare clothing, playing with a doll.

  “My name is Fleetwood. I’m looking for your son, Bailey.”

  “Is ’e in trouble?”

  “No, no trouble. I just need to talk to him about a friend of his.”

  She looked at him coldly. “He ain’t here.”

  “I’ll pay you,” he said.

  “Boy!” the woman shrieked.

  A dirty-faced child in a faded blue jacket appeared at the top of the stairs clutching the banister. As soon as he saw Edmund he was down the stairs and out of the door in an instant. Edmund did not stop to explain. He ran after the child as fast as he could, along the street, down a side road, off into an alleyway, catching sight of the boy’s blue form hurtling around bends as he rushed along the filthy passageway. They were approaching the rookeries off Bowyer Lane now—a labyrinth of dirty, narrow lanes and decaying timber houses slanting into each other like a deck of cards. A lean pig scampered out of his way and two small children flattened themselves against a wall as he went tearing past, through piles of rotting refuse. Glimpsing a flash of blue falling, Edmund threw himself on the boy and took him to the ground. He felt his hands on the boy’s torn shirt.

  “I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t tell no one.” The boy was breathing hard and shaking. Edmund relaxed his grip.

  “It’s Bailey, isn’t it?”

  The boy did not answer. He gave off the sharp smell of neglect.