by Carol Hedges
“Josephine King. You are to report to the Headmistress’s parlour. At once!”
There was only one reason this summons was ever issued, so a score of curious eyes had followed her as she slowly rose, and crossed the length of the room. But upon entering the parlour, the first thing she'd seen was a tall red-haired man standing in front of the fireplace. She had stared at him. The man had stared back. Then his eyes had lit up, and his face broke into a smile.
“Hello Josie,” he’d said. “I’m your Uncle Herbert – your father’s brother. I’ve come to take you home.”
She recalls placing her small pathetic bundle of possessions into the hired carriage, and then asking for it to stop just as it had left the Bertha Helstone Institute. She’d got down, walked back through the grim iron gates, picked up a large stone from the rockery and hurled it with all her might at one of the latticed windows, shattering the glass into a thousand pieces. It had been a glorious moment. A final gesture of defiance.
Now the cab drops her outside her uncle’s house. The questions in her head are like birds beating against the bars of a cage. Inside the house, the air is steamy and acrid. On the first floor landing, she encounters Annie. The parlour maid is carrying an armful of dresses. She recognises them instantly: they are her lovely new dresses, bought when she first arrived in London. Most of them have never been worn.
“I’m taking these downstairs to Mrs Hudson,” Annie sniffs. “She is going to boil them up with some black dye. You won’t be wearing colour for a long while. I laid out your other black dress for you.”
Her other black dress?
Josephine hurries to her room. On her bed is the itchy, ill-fitting woollen dress she wore at the Bertha Helstone Institute. She had thrown it out the moment she arrived at the house. The servants must have kept it. She stares at the hated garment, and a shiver runs down her spine.
Her life has gone round in a complete circle. Only this morning she was a carefree, happy young woman in a secure loving home, contemplating the prospect of a delightful future. Now, she knows without a shadow of doubt, that she will never be that person again.
****
It is the following morning. Dark columns of smoke rise from a million massed chimneys, for London in 1860 is a filthy, stinking city. There are too many people, too much coal dust, too many horses, and too many cowsheds and abattoirs. There is smoke in the streets, in the air, in the river, in the clothes people wear as they go about their daily business.
Smoke turns clean washing brown in a few hours, and covers the trees with soot. It enters the nostrils and penetrates the lungs. In Winter, the city is frequently almost pitch dark in the middle of the day, everything visible turning the colour of brown paper or pea-soup.
The offices of King & Co are located on the second floor of a tall smoke-grey building at the far end of a narrow smoky Holborn street. Access is under a sooty brick archway and across a cobbled square, where a stone entrance leads to a flight of dusty stone steps, reminding the visitor of the entrance to some ancient church. The impression is reinforced by the view, from the open half-landing, of the ruins of a burial ground, where ivy-covered gravestones lean against crumbling cloisters.
Josephine climbs the steps to the second floor. She is not sure what her uncle’s business was exactly, she only knows he will not be doing it anymore, and it is now her painful duty to break the sad news of his death to the clerk.
She enters the outer office. There are invoices impaled on a lethal-looking spike, calendars, and bundles of papers held together by pegs. Picture pages cut out from newspapers are pasted onto the walls. There is a tall wooden desk with a high wooden stool, and a smoky fire in the grate.
There is also a thin young man with a pale bony face, a pale bony nose and pale bony fingers stained with black ink. This is Trafalgar Moggs, her uncle's clerk. She has encountered him a couple of times when he called at her uncle’s house to deliver some papers.
“Oh, Miss King – it is you!” he stammers, getting to his feet, and sticking the pen awkwardly behind one ear. “I have just read the tragic news about Mr King on my way to work.”
“Read?”
He places a copy of the Illustrated London News upon the desk.
“It is in all the newspapers.”
She picks up the newspaper. Under a large headline stating MIDNIGHT ASSASSINATION! is a drawing of a smartly-dressed City man being struck about the head by several rough-looking individuals. His top hat has fallen off, his mouth is open in a silent scream, and his hands are raised in mute protest. The drawing bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to her uncle.
“The detective police are baffled by the senselessness of such a brutal killing carried out at night on an innocent member of the general public going about his lawful business,” she reads.
“The newspaper quotes a Detective Inspector Stride of the detective police, based at Great Scotland Yard,” the clerk observes. “He says that Mr King’s death was ‘an act of meaningless violence’.”
Josephine puts the newspaper down.
“I came to inform you of my uncle’s death, Mr Moggs, but clearly you know of it already.”
“I only know what I have read in the newspaper. I should be grateful for anything else that you care to tell me, Miss King. I have been employed in this office for some time, and Mr King was a man I held in the highest regard.”
She waits while he fetches a chair from the inner office. Then she tells him everything that has happened since the visit of the two detectives. The clerk listens attentively until she has finished speaking.
“This is very strange. I cannot imagine that Mr King could ever be so terrified of anything that his hair would turn white.”
He scratches his head with the end of the quill.
“I have been going over and over the day he died in my mind, trying to find something unusual that happened, but there was nothing. In the morning, your uncle dealt with the post, did some correspondence, and saw clients. At three, I put the afternoon post on his desk. A short while later, he came out of his office. He'd got on his ulster and top hat. “I’m just stepping out for a while, Moggs,” he said. “I’ll be back before the end of the day.” That was the last time I saw him, for he never returned.”
He regards her thoughtfully.
“You are very alone, Miss King ... if you don’t mind my observing. Is there nobody ... I mean a lady of course ... whom you could consult about all this?”
“No one,” she replies. “But that is perfectly fine, Mr Moggs. The detective police are investigating my uncle's murder. And I can look after myself.”
The clerk’s face radiates doubt on both counts.
She hurries on.
“I will let you know when my uncle’s funeral is to be.”
“Thank you, Miss King. I should like to pay my respects. In the meantime, if I can be of any help in any way?”
Caught unaware by the kindness, her eyes blur with tears. She casts a glance around the office.
“Could you continue to run my uncle's business?”
The clerk draws himself up.
“Of course I will, Miss King. Have no worries about that. None whatsoever. It is only what Mr King would expect.”
****
Leaving her uncle’s office, Josephine catches an omnibus, which drops her at the north side of Westminster Bridge. Detective Inspector Stride had described the exact spot where her uncle’s body was discovered. Now she has come to see for herself. She walks to the edge of the pavement. There are bloodstains on the cobbles. The scarlet threads of murder.
She tries to picture the scene. The dark, the gang, the brutal attack, so terrifying that her poor uncle's hair turns white with shock. Everything seems so normal now. Thin grey rain is falling. Foul-smelling water oozes under the bridge. Hurrying passers-by jostle for space on the pavement.
Suddenly she hears a husky voice.
“You come to see where the swell woz murdered?”
&
nbsp; Startled, she looks around, but cannot locate who has just spoken.
“Down ’ere.”
There is a bundle of rags at her feet. She has not noticed it. The bundle gets up, turning itself into a filthy dirty small boy with strangely intense light blue eyes. He is wearing a man's body-coat, the tails of which are dragging on the ground, and trousers tied up with fraying string instead of braces. His feet are clad in broken boots. In one hand, he grasps a battered broom.
“Who are you?” she asks.
“Oo wants ter know?”
“I do.”
“An’ who are you?”
“The one asking the questions.”
A vaguely thoughtful expression crosses the boy’s face. He feels around in his matted hair, eventually removing something tiny which he cracks between finger and thumb.
“Give us a penny? I’ll show yer ezackly where it ’appened. Blood an’ all.”
“I’m looking at it right now, blood and all, for free.”
The boy gives her a resentful stare.
“Well, I might be able ter tell you somefink else abaht it, if you likes.”
“Really? What?”
“Wot’s yer name?”
“Josephine King.”
The boy's blue eyes sparkle.
“Josephine King,” he chuckles hoarsely. “Jo King. Hohoho. Joking ... Geddit?”
Josephine brings her face as close to him as her sense of smell will allow.
“Where I used to live,” she remarks quietly, “there was a girl who made fun of my name. Do you know what happened to her?”
“No.”
“She died.”
This is partly true. A haemorrhagic fever may have also contributed.
The boy takes a step back.
“Coo ... scary ain’t yer?”
“Very. So, what can you tell me?”
He rolls his eyes.
“Hard to fink straight when your belly’s empty.”
She feels in her pocket and holds out a few small coins.
“’Ere. Hold the broom.”
The boy runs over to a nearby coffee stall, returning shortly with a chipped white china cup and a thick doorstep of bread-and-butter, which he consumes with alarming speed.
“My eye! That was good,” he says, wiping the last crumbs from his mouth.
“So, tell me everything you know.”
He shoots her a cunning look.
“Well ... all I can tell you is ... I don’t know nuffink. Wasn’t there. Didn’t see a fing. Hahaha, only joking, Jo King.” He waves a grubby finger. “Gotcha!”
A hot tidal wave of anger rises up inside her.
“You nasty little ragamuffin!” she exclaims. “The man was my uncle. The only relation I had left in the world! Now he's dead and I am all on my own. And you think it’s funny?”
She turns her head away, too proud to let the dirty small boy see her cry. There is a brief silence, followed by a strange scritch-scratching noise. The boy is carefully sweeping a circle around her. He looks suitably contrite.
“Didn’t know,” he mutters. “Sorry, miss.”
She struggles to master her feelings.
“Maybe I could ask round for you,” he suggests. “See wot I can find out.”
“Friends in low places?”
He ignores this.
“Be back ’ere in a couple of days. I might really ’ave somefink to tell you then. And if I ain’t here, ask at the coffee stall – they’ll know where I am.”
“Who should I ask for?”
“Don’t ’ave a name as sich.”
“What should I call you?”
A well-dressed City man arrives at the opposite kerb. He glances in their direction, then shouts,
“Oi! Crossing-sweeper!”
The boy rolls his eyes.
“Call me Oi,” he says, picking up his broom. “Why not? Everybody else does.”
****
On her return to St John’s Wood, Josephine sees that the small silver dish on the hall table has filled up with cards. Since she has been out, half of London's carriages appear to have rolled up at the door.
Who on earth are all these people, she thinks. Several of the cards have the top righthand corner turned down, indicating that the unknown caller brought her equally-unknown grown-up daughter with her.
She tries to recall what Uncle Herbert said about calling cards.
“You just concentrate on settling in, Josie. Go shopping, see the sights. Once you’re ready to launch yourself upon London society, I’ll find you some jolly girls to run around with and have fun.”
Too late, she thinks grimly. She stares at the neat copperplate writing, wondering which turned-down edge might represent a ‘jolly girl to run around with’.
Annie bustles into the hallway, her face wearing a smug, triumphant smile.
“Mrs Thorpe and Miss Isabella Thorpe are waiting in the drawing room,” she announces. “They have come about the arrangements.”
The arrangements?
Josephine unties her bonnet strings and pins up some wayward strands of hair. Then, adjusting her facial expression to what she hopes is suitably welcoming, she opens the drawing room door.
A large florid-faced woman in an elegant tight dark blue silk dress and an elaborately-trimmed purple hat is sitting on the sofa. A young woman, equally elegantly-clad, lounges in one of the wing chairs.
“My dear, dear child!” Mrs Thorpe intones in a sepulchral voice, as she heaves herself upright. “What a tragedy! What a disaster! As soon as I heard, I said to Mr Thorpe: ‘I must go to her, poor orphaned lamb, and see what I can do’. You know, of course, that your poor dear uncle was at school with my husband? And then at the university? In fact, if it wasn’t for Mr Thorpe’s help and advice, your dear uncle might not have had the success in business that he had.”
Mrs Thorpe extracts a tiny lace handkerchief from an equally tiny glass-beaded reticule, and dabs at her eyes. She pats the sofa space next to her.
“Sit, sit.”
Obediently, Josephine sits.
“Now my dear, call me an interfering old woman if you will, but I was wondering: have you begun to think about the arrangements?”
Josephine waits for Mrs Thorpe to clarify.
“For the burial, I mean. Mr Leverton, the undertaker, should be instructed to see to the finer details. The mourning coaches will need to be secured at the earliest opportunity. And of course, the actual internment has to be at Kensal Green. It is the only place for a man of his standing in the business community to be buried.”
Mrs Thorpe’s corsets creak, as she leans forward and lowers her voice.
“The Duke of Sussex and Princess Sophia are buried there, you know.”
She sighs and lays a plump, heavily-beringed hand upon Josephine's knee.
“Do not worry my dear. We are here, and we shall take care of everything. You must leave it all to us.”
“Mama is very good at organising things,” Isabella Thorpe remarks acidly.
Josephine glances at Isabella. She has a pale prettiness. Her grey eyes are the colour of river-washed pebbles, and her chestnut hair curls in tight ringlets on either side of her face. Her pink striped silk dress, which does not suit her pale colouring and chestnut hair, looks very expensive, as do her spotless grey kid boots.
Looking at her, Josephine becomes painfully aware that her black dress is too tight, rather damp under the arms, and very frayed around the hem. Also, that frizzy orange snakes have once again escaped from the combs and chignon. And that Isabella has noted it.
Isabella reads her glance and smoothes down her dress with a dainty kid-gloved hand.
“I shall take personal charge of your mourning dress and bonnet, of course,” she says, studying Josephine with a practised eye.
“Bella is such a dear caring girl,” Mrs Thorpe coos.
She hauls herself creakily upright, patting Josephine’s shoulder as she rises.
“Now do not fret, poo
r dear child. Everything is in our hands. Come, Bella my love, we have other calls to make.”
Isabella gathers her pretty pink paisley shawl around her sloping shoulders.
“I shall write to you in a day or so. I’m sure Papa will let me have the brougham for our shopping trip.”
She gives Josephine a further careful scrutiny from under her eyelashes and sighs sadly.
“Black is a terribly unfortunate colour,” she murmurs. “It drains the complexion badly. And of course, you will have to wear it for at least three months before you can go into the tiniest bit of colour. I am so sorry for you.”
Annie is hovering in the hallway, holding Mrs Thorpe’s mantle ready. Josephine suspects that she has probably been standing outside the drawing room door, listening to every word.
Elaborate farewells are exchanged upon the doorstep. The Thorpes enter a very smart carriage that has drawn up outside and are whisked away.
As the front door closes, Josephine notices that another visiting card has been pushed through the letterbox, and is lying on the floor, ungathered. She bends down and picks it up.
“Who is Mrs Lilith Marks?” she asks.
The parlour-maid's face freezes. Next second, she snatches the little pasteboard square out of her hand, and tears it in two.
“Nobody, miss,” she says abruptly. “Nobody and nothing.”
****
Upon Westminster Bridge the rush hour is in full swing. A steady stream of young clerks in dark suits and bright waistcoats jostle for pavement space with shop-workers and factory drudges.
Cabs weave a precarious path across the bridge, for there is no right of way, no drive-on-the-left rule. It is every man for himself here, and devil take the hindmost.
Horse-drawn omnibuses, their knife-boards packed, rattle to a halt on the south side, and disgorge their passengers, who join the vast swarm eagerly rushing across the bridge, to be swallowed up by offices, banks and shops, just like every other morning. And just like every other morning, the elderly couple running the coffee stall are doing a brisk trade in hot drinks, bread-and-butter, and ham sandwiches.
Eventually the crowd around the stall thins, until there remains only a young woman in an ill-fitting black dress, black coat, and plain black straw bonnet. Her eyes are dark smudges in her pale face, and her bright copper-coloured hair is coming down at the back.