by Jon Redfern
In the moonlight from the window, Weston became a dark wrathful figure descending a darkened staircase, his mind full of bitter words. The vexed actor touched his forehead; he drew his hand hard across his skin. Like a binding cloth, the cold house closed in on him. Moving again, he went into the parlour on the first floor. He passed through the room, stepping over cracked chairs to an upright desk. Its drawer proved empty like the other one upstairs. He stood and looked about in silence, and turned. A night breeze seemed to brush his cheek. He could feel it touch him as he had never felt air before. The room stretched before him, and there was silence, but then other movement.
“Well, Will,” said a voice. Slurred, calm, a silhouette in hat and walking stick.
Weston stumbled face-to-face with Samuel Cake.
“But why, Will? Did you think I hid my money here?”
The tone was gentle, steel-edged.
“You have been angry, I see. Look at this place. I must consider you for my next extravaganza. ‘Jack the Giant Killer.’ What arms you have!”
Cake’s voice entangled him like a hangman’s rope. Cake tipped the brim of his hat, at the same time swirling his cloak. His cane tapped the edge of the sofa. Weston was standing very near, breathing hard. His mouth dried up, his tongue grew heavy. Cake struck the sofa then danced on the crunching floor.
“Why, Will?” he mocked.
Weston shivered ignoring a pain cutting into him. Words were lost; only a shake of his aching head responded to Cake’s needling voice. His hand suddenly showed a cut. Blood like a red line drawn through chalk. He looked up. Cake was grinning, his walking stick held high and ready to strike and cut once more.
“You are a stupid man, Will. Sick and stupid. Get out of here. Go on.”
The stick fell whizzing again at Weston’s shoulder. He ducked, luckily thrust his body backward. Blood shimmered on his skin. From his pocket he pulled out his gloves, the ones his Sarah made him wear. He slipped them on, one looser than the other. He plunged toward the hall. He wanted only to run, to breathe in street air. “Get out,” screamed the drunken Cake. But the voice Weston heard through his headache and his terror was not an angry male voice. It was, instead, the voice of a woman. A dour petty woman. The familiar screech of a cold-hearted, mean-spirited hag. How often had he run from his aunt’s rasping tongue? How frequently had he wished to strike her down after she had beat him, trample her pious humiliating presence under his boot.
Weston’s glove hurt his cut hand as tears flushed his eyes. “Run!” he commanded himself, heading confusedly for the open front door. Cake’s sharp-headed walking stick hit him again from behind.
“Stop this, for God’s sake!” Weston shouted. He turned. “I will not be humiliated!” he cried. Cake sidled up to him until the two men stood chest-to-chest. Lifting his cane, Cake pressed its carved ivory head into Weston’s right cheek. The man’s breath stank of wine; the man’s odour sharpened Weston’s headache.
“What did you say, Weston, you rummy fool?” Cake scratched the tip of the cane against Weston’s face. “And how is the little Sarah?”
“You harmed her, Cake. Made her ill with your cruelty.”
“I did?” Cake sneered, raising his chin to step back. “Oh, for some sweet punch, what do you say, poor Weston?”
“For God’s sake, Cake,” the actor moaned.
“What a stupid hopeless girl she was. And not so pretty after all.”
“Do not insult my sister, sir.”
“Well, hardly, Weston. How does one insult a sparrow? For is she nothing better now than a puking animal?”
“Stop, you demon,” cried Weston.
Cake pushed his cane against Weston’s shoulder. “Get out and go to your sister,” Cake laughed. He began to whistle nonchalantly.
“A blackness fell over my eyes. I swear it. I could reason no more,” confessed Weston. “I sensed only muscle and force. Stop stop you demon.” Moments later, when the blackness lifted, Weston found himself grasping the walking stick in his right hand. Samuel Cake, meanwhile, was reeling backwards. “Good God, Weston,” Cake shouted. Tumbling into the sofa. Cake laughed while raising his hand in defense. His beaver hat rolled to the floor. Laughter such as Cake’s inspired a sudden piercing wail in Weston’s ears. Blackness returned. Weston--surprised, daunted, yet still mobile and strong--dreamed he saw a tall man like himself hitting another, a helpless drunken man in fine clothes, his tongue mocking the air, horrific as a hyena’s howl . The ivory dog bit Cake’s ear, cracked his temple, tore hard at his eyes and cheeks, hard, harder. A warm spray of liquid rose in the darkness as Cake fell onto the floor. His huge cloak settled over him as he floated on a spreading pool of blood.
The night air blew cold and damp.
“What in God’s mercy have you done,” Weston rasped as his mind cleared and he saw the walking stick clutched his right hand. A few feet away, Samuel Cake lay sprawled face down on the bare floor. Weston heaved the stick at the wall. His glove scraped his cut, so he pulled off the itchy leather. Struggling downstairs toward the back door, it was as if the Devil’s minion were driving him. Weston stumbled on the outside steps; his hands grasped the brick wall to steady his balance. Then he ran down the alley. Stars blinked high above him before hiding themselves behind icy cloud. Weston ran and felt for his glove and found it gone. But he was so tired, so needing to be at home in his own bed, he did not go back for it. Racing, he felt oddly free, as if he were a wild beast set loose from a trap. He ran and ran until he barged into the midst the city’s chaos, ran until he finally reached his house, where the dour aunt greeted him in her nightgown, her face tired, her mouth angrily spouting words about the late hour, the sick sister.
“Yes Auntie,” Weston cried. “Please forgive me, I beg of you.”
The taciturn aunt nodded to him. Leaving her, Weston rushed to his bedroom to pass the rest of the night in torturous, dream-racked sleep.
* * *
The confession finished, a silence entered the room seconds before Inspector Owen Endersby witnessed William Weston fall to his sister’s bedroom floor, totally spent. The glass he was holding broke against the hearth rail. Stott and Caldwell moved quickly into the room. The dour aunt, who had heard all, wept quiet tears. She was holding a flannel cloth and went to the canopied bed. She began to pat the sweating head of Sarah Weston. Neither she nor Sarah seemed to notice the group of men behind them, two of them lifting William Weston to his feet, one pulling from a satchel a pair of wrist irons, a third coming into the room, dripping from being outside, and all of them as a herd, trotting quickly out of the chamber, their eyes and mouths held in serious manner, the bulky inspector himself blank-faced, staring ahead with much concentration furrowing his brow.
A hansom cab was secured. William Weston was accompanied to the Fleet Lane station of Scotland Yard. Up the stairs to the admittance sergeant, then into a small room, where the actor was given a cup of tea, then courtesy of the inspector, a second cup filled with rum and hot water. Inspector Endersby called in Stott and Birken, and the three of them, while sitting across from Weston, took quill, ink and paper and wrote down all the details of the murder story, word for word, strike by strike, as Weston had told them. The actor wept. He rubbed his wound. He was then requested, in very polite terms, to take quill and ink and paper and write down the same story. He was so tired he could barely lift and dip the quill, but the inspector said, “Come along, Will. You are a good man, a caring brother. You did all for your Sarah. Ne’er forget that.”
“In vain,” came the whispered words from the princely figure.
After much coaxing, the confession was written. William Weston was then led to a smaller room behind the open courtyard and placed under custody until the magistrate and Mr. Borne could speak with him. Endersby ordered all his three sergeants to follow him to a club he knew nearby—a public house with a private kitchen—and there, with plates of steaming sole in butter and roast beef—they read to each other their own versions of
the Weston confession. “Remarkable, gentlemen,” said Endersby. “All of a piece.”
Caldwell then recited the words written by William Weston. To the group’s astonishment, the actor’s were almost word for word the same as his spoken version. And on hearing them, Endersby could imagine the tones, the tragic emphasis of the man’s voice, as if in his most brutal hour of life Mr. William Weston had turned all into the finest expression of his art.
“Until tomorrow, gentlemen.”
The sergeants were dismissed. Endersby walked to the courtyard. He glanced into the high window of the cell where Weston lay. The leading star of Old Drury sat upright, his eyes moist and dull in the candlelight. He was speaking under his breath, arms moving as if he were on the stage. Endersby could not decipher the mouthed words, but he imagined from their shape they were from the recesses of his troubled soul. As he left Fleet Lane to walk home, Endersby recited favorite words of his own, taken from William Shakespeare: “I have lost my reputation. I have lost the immortal part of myself...”
* * *
Snow piled onto the sill. Harriet Endersby rose from her dining table, having left part of her late supper untouched. “How can you gobble, so?” she reprimanded her husband. The night was very dark. Solange stood by the door leading to the kitchen. Endersby finished his plate of oyster pie and wiped his mouth. “I have learned, dear Harriet, one cruel fact in my profession. It is hard to bear, I admit.”
Harriet raised her chin. She waited, and as she admired the freshly scrubbed but tired face of her husband, she let out a small smile, knowing that justice had been performed.
Endersby went on, taking a last sip of his French wine. “Never bring the corpse home with you to dinner.”
Solange gasped.
“Never,” reiterated Endersby. “Or you shall find it next in your bath, then in your bed, crowding you from under the covers. And you will end up raving, alone, without prospect, and bloody cold.”
“A happy thought, dear Owen,” said Harriet, her tone lightly sarcastic. “But a wise one, indeed.”
Endersby rose from the table. He put his arms around his wife. He thanked Solange for her meal, and after she had gone into the kitchen, he led Harriet into the small parlour, where she had decorated a little pine tree. He took a taper and lit the seven candles on the meagre branches. “It still has a forest perfume,” said Harriet. She strung her arm into her husband’s and pulled him closer.
“It is time, I believe,” said Endersby. He found a sudden surge of energy, and he scampered as best he dared to his study, where from a trunk he pulled out packages and bottles. Quickly, he found his way back to the cheery parlour. At that same moment, Solange entered from the kitchen with a plate of fruity tarts. After the three of them had toasted the season with French wine, they said a prayer before Solange went off to her bedroom. The inspector and his Harriet opened their few lovingly wrapped presents. “It will be the great day soon enough,” Harriet said, pulling at a string.
“Indeed. A day of joy for us all.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Friday, December 25, 1840
Poets say all great cities are alike. They have their mighty towers and their hovels, their heroes and villains. In all men’s hearts, regardless of station or purse, one thing remains immutable: the desire for merriment. Inspector Owen Endersby felt that very emotion as he dressed for his breakfast, pulling on a bright red waistcoat for the special day. He had arranged to meet the staff of Old Drury. On his way there in the hansom, as streets pulsed with voices and laughing children, he reflected on the grand theatre. It was but a glance at the place he wished to take on this sleety Christmas morning. Old Drury, he believed, was not so different from a great lady in the aristocratic circles of the capital. Both had long lineage; both admitted to admirers and critics; both remained glorious despite the ravages of age, the vicissitudes of Fortune, the ever-pressing need for gold and diversion.
He thought of his favorite old stager, the comedian Mr. Beazely, who wore his britches up and a frayed powdered wig to cover his bald pate. He thought of his neighbour on Cursitor Street, Mrs. DeWinter, who habitually left her dining table early to attend the play, having taken an early supper with Mr. DeWinter, a draper. A commodious man, thought Endersby, a clever one to have secured his success with Scottish woolens. His wife hated the farce, was never fond of Beazley or indeed of Mr. Jerrold’s light wit, yet she was mad for the melodrama. So was Mr. Potter, a copy clerk who lived under the DeWinters, a man overly fond of the installments of Mr. Dickens and who, having never married, dined alone on a single cutlet in a chop house near the theatre. He did so in order to arrive early and take in the heady odours of the pit, of onion, lamb and beer, as well as the delicate aroma of the gas lamps.
Indeed, the place was a world unto itself, and as Endersby alighted at its stage door entrance, he allowed his powers of recollection to subside for the instant as he was met by a serious- faced group. Endersby spoke to them quietly. He had arranged to meet with a number of the staff, and he gathered them together in the stage-door entrance. He told them the coroner’s surgeon had declared the death of Betty Loxton an accident, and so the little coster girl would be allowed a Christian burial. The coffin makers near Chancery Lane had wrapped the blackened body in a white sheet and lifted the pathetic mass into its final wooden cradle. Sharp new coffin nails secured the top. Endersby gave young Crabb two pennies and told the mournful boy to buy a flower bunch, as the hearse was on its way.
With Endersby now was Hartley, the old stage-door keeper, Mrs. B. and the haughty Henry Roberston Dupré, all at attention in Vinegar Yard. The theatre people witnessed the scattered procession of coster lads and Betty’s weeping sister come around the corner and move past the stage door. Heads bowed behind the slow-moving hearse. It was a simple flat cart pulled by a blinkered dray. The small coffin lay in the embrace of two worn leather straps that kept it from sliding onto the pavement. Endersby knew it must have been Dupré who’d paid for the funeral. Mrs. B stepped forward. The hearse stopped as she laid Betty’s soiled bonnet on the coffin’s lid. Catching his breath, young Reggie Crabb returned in time and held up his bunch of flowers in a salutation to his lost friend.
At the final moment, before the driver cracked his whip to drive southward to the pauper’s cemetery, an elegant carriage drew up. On its door glistened a royal insignia. A thin man in velvet stepped down into the street. His sense of majesty, his air of power, prompted Endersby and the others to take off their hats. The man was indeed from the palace. He spoke deliberately in an official tone. His words included pity, goodness, a reference to the baby Jesus. And then he took from a footman’s hand a small cluster of white roses. The thin man handed the bouquet to Endersby. “Sir, Her Majesty asks that these be put on the coffin of Miss Betty Loxton. In respect for the poor child.” Endersby obeyed and gently placed the blooms on the top of the pine box, while two of the gathered company quietly wept. The hearse then rolled forward; the royal carriage went on its way; Endersby shook hands with Dupré, Mrs. B and Hartley.
“Sir?” said a small voice.
Young Reggie Crabb stood with cap in hand at Endersby’s elbow.
“May I be dismissed, sir?” the boy asked.
“I beg your pardon, lad?” asked the inspector.
“From my duties.” Reggie Crabb lowered his voice. “Your eyes and ears, sir.”
“Ah, indeed, brave boy. And here, take this bonus shilling for your pains.”
Young Reggie thanked the inspector, stuffed the shilling into his waistcoat, and in a dash, ran off down the street, his cap back on, his right hand holding up his bunch of violets. Eventually, after a turn or two, he caught up to the hearse and soon was seen marching in time beside the dray, the costers and Betty’s sister holding up their heads with pride as they went along.
Brydges Street on a cold Christmas Day. Here is the end of our story. The hearse trundled around muddied corners leading towards the murky Thames, its box of fresh-smelling
cut pine, its rough surface decorated with a snow-speckled bonnet and a white bouquet. Only those who knew her story remembered the thin waif inside the coffin, her hands folded like an angel’s across her breast. It was a frosty morning; here and there people hurried along the cobbles bearing brightly wrapped packages. Owen Endersby walked slowly home toward Number 6 Cursitor Street, his mind pondering the life of his city, noting how the death of a mere child made but a faint mark on this huge metropolis of souls, this London, returning yet again to its noise, bustle, smoke and labours.
And when the fall of midnight comes and trumpets sound no more, the great house of Old Drury shall empty of spectators. The thin women with twig brooms will begin their own peculiar dance, sweeping the pit for lost buttons and spots of tobacco and hat pins and pennies. The great tiers above once crowded with fine silken gowns inevitably become like ancient mausoleums, abandoned places of pillars and grandiose arches. And the galleries, trampled, pounded, porter-stained, pissed-upon, once hot and swarming, resign to fetid darkness. The street portals close for the sleep of a few hours, the lamps grow dark. With all her phantoms fled, Old Drury stands for a blink in time as nothing more than a bulk of stone.
* * *