Behind Fred, Kate appeared, holding her purse. She opened the strings and handed Mrs. Gordon what money she had. “For breakfast. Buy some milk for the children.”
Mrs. Gordon bobbed awkwardly.
“We should go,” Charles said, wondering if his parents would appear again, but they did not. He pushed the slow burn of anger down, deep into his belly. When had they ever shown any mercy? But he must be polite, for Kate’s sake. “Thank you, dearest one.”
Kate smiled at him. “We shall see you tomorrow.”
Charles held out his hand to Mr. Gordon, who took it solemnly. “Come to Furnival’s Inn if anything happens,” he urged.
“I won’t leave my shop alive,” Mr. Gordon said, his head stiffening on his neck. “If I lose the cloth or my tools, we are as good as doomed.”
“Good luck,” Charles said. “I have spent more time than I care to admit raising funds to keep people out of sponging houses.”
Chapter 8
As expected, Mr. Hogarth sent a boy to collect Charles not ten minutes after he arrived at his desk after seeing the Gordons and Fred to Furnival’s Inn. He set down his penknife and half-cut quill and went to the editor’s office.
“How is the visit progressing?” Mr. Hogarth asked from his chair. His curved nose was reddened at the long tip, as if he’d been rubbing it. “Are the Dickens and Hogarth ladies in good humor?”
“I think so, yes,” Charles said, leaning against the doorway. “There has been some drama in the building, but inside my parents’ rooms, all is serene.”
“Excellent,” Mr. Hogarth said, pulling out his tin of tobacco. “Harmony is important. One never knows who will end up residing with whom over the years.”
“Very true,” Charles agreed, though he’d rather have every one of his siblings move in than give either of his parents a bed for the night. He didn’t trust them not to trade on his name and spend money he didn’t have. “I will have them home to Brompton tomorrow, entirely unscathed.”
The editor chuckled. “Very good.”
Charles cleared his throat, remembering how his last act of charity had come close to wrecking his chances with the Hogarths. “You should probably know that I brought home three members of the family next door. A Scottish family, the Gordons, the wife and two small children.”
Mr. Hogarth narrowed his eyes and scratched at his bushy gray side-whiskers. “A widow?”
“No, sir,” Charles assured him. “Her husband is hard at work, hoping to collect the funds he needs in order to have his rooms restored to him.”
“What are the chances he will accomplish this?”
“Good, I think.” Charles sighed. “They are perhaps not the best at business. I am hard at work on the final stages of my pawnbroker sketch. The Gordons are exactly the sort of people who will end up in front of a pawnbroker if they do not do a better job managing their tailor shop.”
“At least they didn’t lose that.”
“Not so far. I did learn one thing, though. Mr. Ferazzi, who is my landlord, is also my parents’ landlord and, of course, the Gordons’.”
“Must be a wealthy man. I’ve never heard of him, though.”
“Me either.” Charles shrugged. “I don’t think I’d want to rent rooms from him again. I know it’s a hard business, but his thugs were throwing chairs out the door as if they wanted to destroy what little the family had left.”
“Add the tale to your list of sketches,” Mr. Hogarth advised. “But not until you depart Selwood Terrace.”
When Charles returned to his desk, he finished trimming his quill, then pored over his pawnbroker sketch. The technique he’d employed was that of describing a specific shop on Drury Lane. He half closed his eyes, remembering what had been for sale in the shop, because he thought the description in his first draft lacked something. “Strings of coral with snaps?” He altered the line so that it read, “Great broad gilt snaps.” Then he considered his description of the rings and brooches, adding fanciful detail.
He remembered the wives hovering about the front of the shop while men turned in their tools for a bit of coin until they found their next job. The women often carried large baskets of cheap vegetables, while their children ran loose in the streets, many without shoes, none with socks. On a fine summer day, it mattered not, but winter would come again, and then what?
He hoped the Gordons had better luck than the families he’d seen while visiting the pawnbroker.
An hour later, he finished his sketch, satisfied with it at last, and walked it to Thomas Pillar, the under-editor.
“Have at it, Thomas,” he invited.
“Thank you.” Thomas removed his spectacles and glanced up from his desk, his smile kindly, as usual. His hair had fluffed out around his head. He must have been running his fingers through it while editing a difficult piece. “This is the one for the edition on the thirtieth?”
“That’s the one.”
“You come up with the most interesting ideas. Have you thought about turning them into a book?”
Charles snorted. “Who would want to read a book by me?”
“I’ve always thought of you as a young man with a great deal of self-confidence,” Thomas said mildly. “I wish I’d applied myself so thoroughly when I was young. If you want to have a book someday, you shall have it, Charles.”
“Someday,” he echoed, feeling a strange urge to chortle. What a thing to imagine for a young man who’d once spent his days gluing labels to inkpots.
He walked along the editor’s passage after finishing his conversation with Thomas. Mr. Hogarth gestured him into his office.
“Sir?”
The editor handed him three folded letters. “These came in. Some parliamentary affairs for you to check into, meetings to attend.”
“Excellent. I’ve just finished my sketch.”
Mr. Hogarth nodded. “Can you send William in my direction? I need to give him his assignments, as well.”
“Very good, sir.”
Charles marched directly to his desk and found that his friend had appeared at his own desk. William was feverishly scratching away at his papers. “Anything new on the inquest?”
“Not yet. The search for the missing convict continues.” William set his quill over his inkpot and glanced up. Are those for me?” William gestured to the letters.
Charles turned his chair to face William’s desk and sat. “I have three new assignments. You need to go to Mr. Hogarth for yours.”
“It never stops, does it?” William muttered. “I’d rather focus on the Haverstock murder.”
“I’ll help you with it,” Charles promised, stacking his letters into a neat pile on his lap. “If you’re going to stay in town, we can talk here at the office each day. Then I can carry out the investigation in Chelsea for you. I owe Mrs. Jones that much. I don’t think her husband is involved in anything nefarious.”
William nodded. “We’ll be back in Chelsea, too, but I want the air cleared first. Julie has been through enough this year without that.”
“Does she have auditions here in town?” When he’d met Julie, she’d been a sixteen-year-old actress with the love of the lads in the pit. But a series of misadventures had cost her the spot with that theater, through no fault of her own, and she hadn’t worked in the past five months. In that time, she had been busy with marriage and newly found relatives.
The newlyweds had moved into a Furnival’s Inn front-facing apartment with three rooms and a beautiful bay window, a great improvement over William’s two damp bachelor rooms, where ice had formed inside the windows every night in the winter.
“No,” William said, not explaining further. “But I promised to take Julie mudlarking on the foreshore tonight. Want to join us?”
“Yes. We should check on our charges. Besides, I need the diversion.”
“How is the funding for the Charity for Dressing the Mudlark Children of Blackfriars Bridge?” William asked. “We have not been going door-to-door, collecting.�
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“No, but there are only four of them that we are in contact with, and as they do not want to leave the bridge, there is only so much money we can spend.” They had taken turns walking a hot meal down twice a week to the mostly orphaned children they had befriended the winter before, along with some loaves of bread. Over the winter they had supplied a blanket for each child, as well as a new suit of clothes, then had replaced them with summer clothing. The children also had shoes, though they viewed them with suspicion.
“We could do more,” William said. “Julie and Fred can help.”
“I don’t think either of them should wander the bridge area unaccompanied. I myself felt like I was in danger, until you vouched for me.”
“They are tame now, our four,” William said. “And it will pay to build our informant network.”
“I have wondered why more children don’t come to us. I know the mudlarks guard their patches, but surely by now they know there is enough food for more.”
“We’ll be blunt with Lucy Fair tonight and ask the question. With us backing her, you’d think she’d want to grow her gang.”
“I’d rather she tired of the life,” Charles said. “Now that she’s being fed regularly, you can see she’s starting to develop into a woman. She might be thirteen already, and she’s going to be in danger from men if she stays in her present profession.”
“What would you do with her?”
“Put her into service? Apprentice her to a milliner?” Charles shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“That’s exactly the problem,” William said. “She’s better off in the life she has, hard as it is. There isn’t much to choose from for any woman, much less a girl like her. She’s too young to marry.”
A boy waved at Charles. He rose and set his letters on his desk. “Looks like I’m being summoned. Knock on my door tonight, when you are ready.”
* * *
When the Agas came for Charles at ten-thirty that night, he grabbed a twine-wrapped parcel containing a shawl and two blankets he had waiting. He had suggested to Lucy Fair, the mudlarks’ leader, that they keep extras in their hidey-holes so that they could clothe others in need. She hadn’t been amenable, but if she wanted to sell the blankets instead or use them for her little family, his work had still been done.
Blackfriars Bridge wasn’t far. William had a lantern, since only half of the moon could be seen in the sky, but the night was clear, and a canopy of stars shone overhead. Soon their boots were sliding over rock-crusted ground. They could see the mudlarks where the water lapped against the sand, hunting for treasures, or at least anything that might bring a few pence, that the water had cast up.
William lit his lantern. One side effect of feeding the children was their increased strength, and none of them wanted to be attacked because they weren’t recognized. He held the light between himself and Julie.
One of the figures lifted her head. Charles recognized the silhouette of a long-legged girl in a tatter-hemmed dress. Lucy Fair. She had her usual trio with her: Poor John, Brother Second, and Little Ollie, the youngest, at about seven years old, or at least the size of a child that age. Additionally, another small figure separated itself as Lucy put her hands on her hips, spreading her stance wide like a sailor. Eddies of water lapped at her bare ankles. As usual, the children didn’t want to ruin their boots. He understood that, which was why they had brought the children wooden clogs in April, purchased with the last of the money they had raised that month, but the children found them too clunky to hunt the foreshore in. They were also afraid of damaging artifacts with the clogs, saying that sometimes they found items with their feet.
“Any luck tonight, Lucy?” Charles asked, stepping forward.
“Mr. Dickens,” she said crisply, lifting her bucket.
The charity had paid for the buckets, as well, the best purchase they’d made to date.
The Agas walked forward. “Your bucket has a hole already,” Julie said, clucking over the gouge on the side. “What happened?”
“An old dagger went straight through. Still not sure ’ow it ’appened,” Lucy said. “Bucket’s still good enough.”
“This li’l dodger needs ’is own,” Brother Second pronounced, wrapping his muddy arm around the smallest shape.
William held up his lantern and revealed a small grubby face. “Awfully young, this little one.”
“’E’s six,” Brother Second explained. “Me cousin, aw right?”
“Ah,” Charles said. He glanced from boy to boy. Brother Second had obtained, at most, ten years, and everyone’s hair was hidden under caps, even Lucy’s. But he thought he could see some similarity between the cousins in their stocky build and widely spaced eyes. “Good thing we brought extra blankets. Mrs. Aga can measure you, and we’ll get you clothes.” As the child was dressed in an old frock coat, tied around him with thick rope, and wore little else, they couldn’t clothe him soon enough. “What’s your name, my boy?”
The child glanced at Brother Second. When he nodded, the boy piped, “Arfur.”
“What made you join the gang?” William asked. “Still living at home?”
The boy sniffed. His hand went into his cousin’s. Brother Second lifted his gaze to the reporter. “ ’Is ma died two weeks ago. Pa’s done nuffink but drink since.”
“Are there any other children?” Charles asked.
Brother Second nodded. “Two li’l ones.”
William rubbed his chin. “Are you keeping them, too?”
“My ma took ’em,” Brother Second said. “But we gots to bring ’em money.”
These two small children had had to take on even more mouths to feed. Charles already knew that all of the other children were fatherless.
As Julie fussed over Cousin Arthur, turning him this way and that, Lucy gestured to William. The reporter followed her under the bridge, swinging his lantern. The children had sheltered there during the winter, but then construction had begun on the bridge yet again, and they’d been sleeping high on the shore. They used the bridge only as temporary storage now, because any protection they placed there was soon dislodged by the workmen.
Charles gestured to the remaining three boys, and they went back to the tide’s edge. He crouched with them, letting water lap against his waxed boots, and tried to allow patterns to form in the sand, hoping to find anything of value among the rocks.
Poor John went to his knees next to Charles. Bigger than Brother Second, he was the oldest boy in the gang, and the one most interested in the outside world. Charles told him about Miss Haverstock’s death, and the boy, fascinated by the missing prisoner, asked a dozen questions. When they had exhausted that topic, Charles shared the story of the murdered Jewish girl, Goldy.
“Oh, tell me something new,” Poor John said scathingly. “I’ve ’eard that one afore.”
Charles dropped a round rock he’d been hoping was a lead ball and turned to the lad. “You have?”
“Sure. It’s a river story, ain’t it?” He tilted his head. “They was mudlarks like us, a long time ago.”
“Tell me your version,” Charles requested, curious. He assumed it would have the same kind of wild, paranormal elements as the ghost story Poor John had shared last week. However, the story was very much the same as the one he’d read in the magazine. The only real difference was that the other children were named only by nationality. The four little monsters were the Norwegian, the Italian, and the East End twins.
Charles heard footsteps approaching just as Poor John finished. Lucy and William were coming from the bridge, dragging something behind them. Charles stood up.
“Can you believe it?” William asked. He dropped what he’d been dragging in front of Charles. Metal clanked as the unwieldy item landed on the rocks.
Charles kicked at the discovery with his boot. Twisted and broken circlets of metal fell apart, displaying the chain in between. His eyes went wide. “Manacles?”
“Not even rusty,” William said with satisfaction, l
etting the lantern’s light spill over them. The cuffs appeared to have been bashed into submission, rather than carefully removed. Dark splotches, which might have been blood, were dried on the metal.
“A second set of fresh manacles?” Charles said in a near monotone, shocked. “These need to go to the police.”
“It’s a long way from here to Chelsea,” William pointed out.
“But not so far from Coldbath Fields.” Charles crouched down, pointing to what his keen eyes had seen on one of the cuffs.
William squatted next to him, then ran his finger along the letters cut into the cast metal. “C and F. You think this has something to do with our murder?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” Charles said. “That missing Ned Blood could have come into this part of London.”
“What about the manacles in the Joneses’ smithy?”
“An excellent question.” Charles rubbed his chin. “Assuming we are right that Mr. Jones is an honest man, those manacles did appear Sunday morning.”
“How did the police know to search for them?” William queried.
Charles gave a mirthless chuckle. “Another excellent question. And if Ned Blood stayed in these parts, who killed Miss Haverstock?”
“What should we do with them?”
“We need to learn more,” Charles pronounced. “I’ll take these to Constable Blight. Maybe I can free Daniel Jones on this evidence alone.”
“It would be a pretty night’s work,” William agreed. “But it won’t happen. They’ve got a man in custody and won’t let him go easily.”
Julie came down the beach to them. “You don’t think this Ned Blood is still nearby, do you?”
“No,” William said. “We don’t even know where they went into the Thames.”
“Wot will you pay us for them?” Lucy Fair asked, ever practical. She’d long since realized that William and Charles wouldn’t ask for any of their treasure without offering coins.
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