Sweet Thames

by Matthew Kneale

  The place was not new to me, as I had visited it during my great questioning forays. Though populated by young thieves, vagrants and prostitutes, it had possessed a strangely domestic air. The sleeping room being crowded with beds, all had been gathered in the kitchen, where they lounged at long tables; the boys smoking pipes, perhaps reading a Dick Turpin book, while the girls – many of them respectably dressed – busied themselves sewing or knitting. Now, however, the mood was quite changed. The kitchen was all but deserted, except for one poor girl spluttering over a bucket, with another sat beside her to help. The few others present were grouped at the far opposite end of the room, where they chattered noisily, doubtless to drown the sound of coughing.

  A painful sight the creature made, shivering with exhaustion and fear. I knew, with such exactness, the sensations she was enduring; watching her I was affected by a feeling of helplessness, little less than stifling.

  The sufferer’s friend greeted Hobbes with relief. ‘Back agin already, Reverind? Can’t keep you away, can we.’

  We sat beside them, Hobbes offering what help he was able. Though this amounted to nothing more than soothing words, I was surprised by the skill, even warmth, that he put into his task, revealing quite a different view of the man from the dour fellow I had seen before; I could understand now why many in the neighbourhood seemed to have trust in him. For my part – feeling a fierce need to do something of usefulness – I told the girl how I had myself been struck with the disease, and recovered.

  ‘Don’t give up to it,’ I urged. ‘You’ll be better before you know.’

  Our words seemed to give her some cheer.

  If the hostel had seemed a grim spot, our next destination made it seem nothing less than an oasis of calm and comfort. A single room in a tottering house, it was inhabited by at least ten people; though whether they were of one family or two was impossible to say, the confusion was so great. Most of the space was quite taken up with beds, which – despite the lateness of morning and the crisis all around – still had several sleeping occupants, enwrapped in their sheets like mummified Egyptian Pharaohs. The floor was stained with the vilest of spillings, which nobody had thought to clean away, and the air stank beyond description. A poor lank-haired fellow with hopeless eyes – one who, with dismay, I realized I had once questioned in the street about Isobella, and who had answered me kindly enough – greeted Hobbes as if he were some long lost prince.

  ‘Your reverind. Come at last.’

  The odours, the suffocating absence of space, the familiarity of the fellow’s hopeless eyes; these were too much for me. Only a short while before, walking in the street, I had still been regarding the Cholera as something of a dangerous puzzle yet unsolved. Stood here, I saw it clearly; more clearly, indeed, even than when it had struck myself. It was wickedness, nothing less. ‘These people should be in hospital. All of them.’

  ‘True enough.’ Hobbes crouched over a child who had been struck; one that, judging by the lank soul’s jumbled utterings, was his own. Its mother, too, had been affected, explaining why nothing had been done to remove the mess. ‘Except that the parish hospitals are full, and the Guardians haven’t seen fit to open houses of refuge.’

  To open such places was a usual precaution during such a crisis. ‘Why ever not?’

  He only shrugged. ‘I’m not acquainted with their reasoning. I only know their instructions.’

  To do nothing in the midst of such a crisis was not mere indolence, it was . . . ‘Whose decision was this? The Guardians’, or some higher authority’s?’

  ‘I couldn’t say.’ Turning, he called to the lank-haired fellow to bring up some water from the street pump.

  I helped him move the mother from where she lay. ‘What could possibly justify such a thing?’

  ‘Perhaps they don’t like the smell of charity.’

  To open no houses of refuge at such a time… The clamour of my thoughts grew louder as we worked upon the dismal room. A criminal act. Greater even than criminal. If it were indeed as Hobbes had claimed. Or might there yet be some less harsh explanation?

  We began with those unafflicted who were lying strewn in the beds – one, remarkably, still snoring – evicting them from their places. By moving the beds back and forth we shifted the tiny space remaining, and so were able to scrub at the vilenesses lurking below. Our efforts, gratifiably, were not without effect, and the lank-haired fellow joined us, along with two of those previously sleeping. Before long the chamber was improved, at least within the narrow confines that such a den might reach; we washed the sheets that were soiled, and placed the child and mother on the cleanest of those remaining, that they could enjoy at least some little dignity. Both were in a state of coma – usually the very final stage of the disease – and the skin of each was as wrinkled as that of some ancient crone, but with a visible bluish tinge; it seemed hardly likely either might recover, though the lank-haired man – husband and father – kept up a restless flow of questions to Hobbes, as to his opinion of their state.

  ‘She’s got a bit of colour there, on her cheeks. Don’t you see? Come an’ have a look, Reverind. She’s less blue than before, surely.’

  The vicar gave no answer, except to promise to return as early as he might, within an hour or two. What else could he say to the fellow?

  ‘Perhaps the Guardians don’t realize the seriousness of the outbreak here,’ I suggested to him, as we made our way down the stairway. ‘Have you spoken to them yourself?’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s been no time. I sent several messages, but received no reply.’

  I have never been one to enjoy the role of mere spectator; of one who takes no action, though the very ground and air seem to be crying out for nothing less. ‘There might’ve been some confusion,’ I proposed. ‘I could go to them, and try and settle the matter.’

  Hobbes only shrugged. ‘As you like. Though I doubt there’s much purpose.’

  I would make it of purpose; I would remonstrate with the fellows, and have them see the matter truly. Indeed, my strength of feeling gave to me a strange sureness in my own powers of persuasion. ‘I will go.’

  Outside, the drizzle was falling still, working upon the street dust so it formed a powdery mire, much like old dough. The wet was no small relief after the long heat, and did much to steal the salty gauze from the air. Striding through the alleyways, I observed the local women had been quick to make use of this change; on the wooden rails straddling the chasm hung quantities of still-wet washing – heavy in the breeze – doubtless placed there in the hope that it might dry before the dust returned, staining all beige.

  ‘I do’n know you.’

  In my haste I at first hardly noticed the speaker. A ragged fellow, crouched on his haunches by the side of the road, his hair seemed to be hurtling all in the same direction, as if he had stood too long in a windy place.

  ‘I said I do’n know you.’ When I did not answer, or slow my pace – I was in too great a hurry to dally at the command of some poor madman – he got to his feet, blocking my way. ‘Who’re you then?’

  ‘What’s it matter? Out of my way, please.’

  He did not move, however. ‘But it does matter. Matters a good lot.’ He regarded me, eyes intense, yet somehow un-seeing. ‘Snooty voice you’s got for one in such rags. Bin sent, have you?’

  The remark meant nothing to me. I made to step round the fellow, only to have him block me again.

  ‘In a hurry, in’t we?’

  ‘Indeed I am.’ The strange gleam in the fellow’s eye – unreadable, yet pregnant – made me reluctant to attempt simple force upon him. ‘And I’d be grateful if you’d let me pass.’

  ‘Where’s you off to then, in yer hurry?’ He managed something like a knowing grin through the grime on his face, the effect being most unsettling. ‘But I can guess. Off to the wells, in’t you?’ Having reached this mysterious deduction, he turned, that all loitering in the street might hear. ‘Caught one, ’aven’t I. Come and s
ee.’

  As it was, most of those within hearing – the few pondering melancholy bargains at the stalls – showed no great interest in his announcement to them. Only an old crone and a vagrant child – his face resembling a blackened pancake – stopped to watch.

  Though far from certain what manner of fellow he thought he had caught, I felt I had little choice but to try and reason with the man. ‘If you must know, I’m set upon a most urgent task, on behalf of the Reverend Rupert Hobbes.’

  Though the name caused something like recognition, it brought no change in the fellow’s disposition towards me. ‘An’ I’m good Queen Vick’s uncle.’ Indeed, he stepped nearer, that he might better obstruct my path. ‘Got yer poisin, has you, mister snoot? Yer poisin that you’ve bin shovin’ into our wells, that we’ll all drop dead of Cholera?’ He stared knowingly at his small audience, and they looked blankly back. ‘Show us it, why don’t you? Show us your poisin.’

  So that was his delusion. An absurd claim, but one also potentially hazardous to me; I glanced about the street, to see if any others were showing interest in the scene. Fortunately none seemed to be doing so. ‘The Cholera often strikes hard at a small area. It’s nothing to do with poison or wells.’

  ‘In’t, indeed?’ he asked, with sarcastic surprise. ‘So it must jest be coincidence that all them that’s bin took’s drunk from the same pump, in Boot Lane. But then you’ll know it, won’t you mister, having jest bin there yourself, pouring your mixings into it till the water’s good an’ ripe.’

  ‘But that’s nothing to do with the matter. That’s…’ Here I hesitated; my thoughts tumbling upon themselves as horses trip in mid gallop. My answer seemed to vanish quite from me; the truth is, I found myself quite stopped by the mad-eyed fellow’s words. ‘Boot Lane?’

  ‘’Course.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Everyone knows.’ He offered me a sneering look. ‘Don’t try actin’ innocence with us, mister.’

  It was the pump I had used many times. Used, what was more, during the days just prior to myself being struck down. It seemed hardly possible, but yet… In the water, not the air at all… The notion caught my thoughts as a scarf snagged upon a thorn branch.

  ‘Stumped, in’t he?’ the other declared, triumphant, to the old crone and the vagrant child.

  My thoughts were spinning. If it were so… Gone would be the mystery of why parts roundabout Jem’s rooms had been spared; they were served by a different well. And no surprise that the shore workers had been untroubled; only those who drank the vile stuff would be affected – such as the poor souls of Jacob’s Island – while One Eye and his friends, on six shillings’ worth of findings a day, would never be so desperate as to drink Thames water. They would have beer.

  Thus, on that drizzly early September morning, in a slum street, threatened by a wild-eyed madman of a vagrant, I found myself converted. Or at least doubtful of my old faith, which is the first stage of conversion. Thoughts bubbled in my head as some froth, stirred up by the new consequences implied. If it were indeed in the water…

  Should I return that moment to Hobbes, and confer with the man? But what of the Poor Law Guardians? I felt like a cat upon a wind-swept branch, unsure whither to leap.

  Certainties first, theories later. I would attend to the Poor Law Guardians, dealing with them as quickly as I might. Then, after…

  ‘Look at him,’ declared my accuser. ‘’E ain’t got nothing to say. Din’t I tell yous I’d caught one of them poisiners.’

  I had all but forgotten the fellow. ‘I thank you for your help.’ Reaching out, I took his unsuspecting hand and keenly shook it. ‘You’ve done more service than you know.’

  Though it was not intended to do so, I doubt any action could have been better calculated to confuse the poor man. He stared at me, quite as if I had changed myself to a hat stand before his eyes.

  The miracle of London. Two minutes walking and I was gone from the land of shadowed alleys and slinking courts, of suspicious glares and fear, and was arrived in a separate world. A carriage flashed past, coat of arms emblazoned on its door and two uniformed footmen perched on the back, blinking at the rainy weather. Elegant loungers whiled away a dull morning peering at shop windows or resorting to another cup of China tea. Faces here showed not the slightest awareness that King Cholera was hard at work so near. But then how many fine folks would venture into such a spot as the Seven Dials? Most likely few had even heard the name.

  The Poor Law Guardians, however, would be well familiar with the district. Especially of late. Commanders and dispensers of local government relief, they would have been busy indeed at such a time. Or so one might have assumed. Consequently it was with some concern that, as I approached the building where their meetings were held, I saw no cabs waiting, no messengers hurrying away. In fact I discerned no signs of life at all. Ringing three times, without result, I even wondered if Hobbes might have directed me to the wrong address, until I saw the brass plate beside the bell, title written upon it in fine strong letters. PARISH UNION OF ST GILES AND ST JOHN HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.

  My thoughts turned to the room with its population of sleeping and dying, floors vile with spillings.

  Trying the large brass handle, I found the door was unlocked. I stepped inside.

  The place was deathly quiet; the only noise within was a faint but persistent scratching, much as some cat idly battling against its own fleas. Closing the door behind me, I pursued the sound, following along a corridor and to a door, ajar. Stepping beyond I found myself in a long-shaped room, all but filled by a mighty table. Around this, presumably, would be found the Poor Law Guardians during their solemn meetings. Now it seated only a single soul, crouched pale and bespectacled at the far end, thoroughly absorbed in writing in a large leather-bound volume, the quill he used causing the scratching sound I had been following. Glancing up to find a stranger stood before him, he gave me – through his spectacles – a hard look.

  ‘How did you get in here? Did I forget to lock the door? Out with you – this is no place for beggars.’

  ‘I’m nothing of the sort,’ I answered him, firmly. ‘Where are the Guardians?’

  He blinked, taken back by my unexpected resolve. ‘About their own business, I dare say. They meet on Tuesdays.’ He deposited his quill in the pot of ink with an irritable click. ‘Today, you may know, is Wednesday.’

  ‘Six more days?’ In the very midst of a Cholera epidemic. It was as some wicked joke. Stepping closer, I observed the man was at work transcribing jottings on loose paper into a leather-bound volume: his script was one of remarkable tidiness, while the text, by the look of it, seemed the minutes of some meeting. He must be the clerk. Then he should be able to call a meeting. ‘They must assemble at once. We have a crisis in the parish. St Giles is engulfed in Cholera – they must be told.’

  ‘You think the Guardians don’t know what is at hand in their own parish?’ He frowned at my foolishness. ‘The Cholera outbreak was discussed only yesterday.’

  ‘And what was decided?’

  His face neatly closed itself. ‘That’s not for you to know. To examine the minutes you must first gain permission from the relevant authorities. As it is, I don’t believe…’

  Permission from relevant authorities… ‘I’ve just come from St Giles – I’ve seen what’s happening there,’ I declared, with some heat. ‘Now tell me what’s been decided, before I lose all patience.’

  He shook his head, his face emanating the dim glow of obstructive satisfaction. ‘D’you have an appointment here, perhaps? No? I thought as much.’ He gave my clothes a sneering look. ‘I rather think you had better leave this place, before I call in somebody to make you…’

  He got no further. It was no cunning ploy of mine; I simply hoped that, comprising, as it did, minutes to some meeting, the book in which he had been writing might tell me what I required. The effect of taking the thing from the fellow proved greater than I had anticipated. In an instant his sc
ornful smugness vanished; indeed, his mouth fell quite open, and he stared at the thing – just beyond his grasp – almost as might a mother at her stolen baby.

  ‘Give me that back.’ He was on his feet. ‘It’s property of the Parish Union.’

  His interest, naturally, made me all the less eager to obey. Stepping away, I began leafing through the pages of perfectly formed script.

  ‘Stop at once. Your hands aren’t even clean.’ So that was it. I picked up the ink pot – quill hanging from it – and held it above the very text.

  He turned quite pale. ‘Don’t. Please.’

  ‘Then show me the minutes to the meeting. They’re in here, I assume.’ Still holding the inkpot, I handed him the book and watched as, with great care not to crease the paper, he turned the pages. I examined the section he found.

  Quite a document it proved. The decisions of Assembly – decisions that seemed, from the text, strongly influenced by utterings of the chairman – included all that Hobbes had claimed, and, remarkably, much more. The Guardians had first listened to reports on the extent of the Cholera, seemingly accurate enough, and even including one that quoted a message from Hobbes. Next they had gone on to discuss the matter of houses of refuge, only to vote – and vote strongly, too – against such measures being taken. The same had been true of a proposal that they themselves should meet more frequently during the crisis. Most astonishing of all, however, was the question of doctors. The Guardians had decided, by a large majority, to actually forbid parish physicians from making house calls to those struck with the Cholera.

  Doctors prohibited from seeing those struck. It seemed beyond comprehension; the invention of some grotesque satirist of the last century. Yet, staring at the page, I recalled how Jem’s confederate adult had been unable to convince a parish physician to visit me, when I had been struck. The man had been scared of losing his place.

  I turned to the clerk. ‘What’s the name of the chairman of the Guardians who led this meeting?’