The House on Vesper Sands

by Paraic O?Donnell

  ‘Safe?’ Miss Tatton glanced at him, but kept up her pace. ‘Ain’t much that’s safe, young master, when a girl must work for a living.’

  ‘It grieves me to hear it,’ Gideon said. ‘Truly, it does. But I believe you meant something different, miss, or my uncle did. Did you not say, when we spoke last evening, that he did not want you to be seen walking abroad? What is it that he fears?’

  She glanced at him, and her look was quick and measuring. ‘Your old uncle,’ she said, after a moment. ‘He means well, as far as I can tell, and he’s done right by me. He has some peculiar notions, maybe, but he keeps me in clean lodgings, and puts me under honest masters, which not every girl can say. I don’t know why he bothers, if you want to know the truth. It’s the work he was put here to do, so he says. You stop wondering about the why of it.’

  Gideon puzzled over this, and was about to pursue the matter of his uncle’s ‘peculiar notions’, but Miss Tatton chose at that moment to cross the street, gathering in her skirts and skipping lightly from the kerb. She darted behind a tinker’s cart, and for a moment he lost sight of her. When he caught up, on the far side of the road, he was disconcerted and a little out of breath.

  ‘Miss Tatton?’ he called after her. ‘I did not give any offence, I hope?’

  She half-turned as she walked, raising her face to the mild light. ‘We’re going to the duck pond,’ she said.

  Gideon hurried to her side. ‘The duck pond, miss?’

  ‘It’s my day out, young master, in case you’ve forgotten. I want to feed the ducks, while it’s still nice and light. I’m fond of ducks. You ain’t going to tell me you’re not fond of ducks?’

  She looked at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet, and there was more in her look – slyness and resolve, a testing levity – than he could easily disentangle.

  ‘Oh no, miss,’ he said, finding himself flustered again. ‘I hold them in the highest regard.’

  Miss Tatton’s duck pond, it transpired, was a grand body of water in the grounds of St James’s Park. They stopped on the way to buy a loaf of bread and, keeping half for the ducks, they passed the remainder between them as they went along, talking easily of his uncle’s peculiar table manners, or of the likely fate of his housekeeper’s husband. Gideon watched Miss Tatton when he could, guardedly and at cautious intervals. There were habits of hers, small gestures that he came to recognise. Her way, when she was bored, of swinging her arms in loose arcs, or of raising her wrist – inflected just so – when something moved her to laughter. In all of this there was a strange charge of giddiness. It occurred to him that even this faint intimacy was unfamiliar, that in all his life he had never paid such close attention to another living soul.

  They turned for home at seven o’clock, returning by way of the river. The sun was declining as they passed through Victoria Embankment Gardens, kindling the tired willows and glazing the flanks of the birches. Before them on the footpaths their shadows splayed and crossed.

  They spoke freely now, after a fashion, having come to it by accidents and false starts, and although they talked of inconsequential things – of fashioning petals from scraps of cambric, or of the perils of sneezing in a cathedral – it seemed to Gideon that their conversation was directed by hidden means. Miss Tatton did not prompt him to say when he might return, but he found himself brought to that subject by a sequence of disconnected remarks. Likewise, when he spoke of the prospects of a young churchman, and of his likely circumstances if he were to secure a small living, he could not tell what had led him to it.

  The sun was setting when they came at last to London Bridge, and although they knew they must shortly return to his uncle’s lodgings, they turned and lingered at the parapet. Looking out over the river, they watched its surface cleave and fold in the slow wake of the barges, turning from copper and violet to rosewood and pewter, syrup and ash.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll learn my letters after all,’ Miss Tatton said after a long silence. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘I do hope so,’ Gideon said, deliberating over his words. ‘Not that it is any failing, of course. I mean, that is, if circumstances prevent it.’

  ‘It won’t matter, though.’ She glanced down at the foreshore, where a gaggle of children roved, combing the broad expanse of mud that the tide had uncovered.

  ‘Why do you say that, miss? It can only be to your advantage, surely.’

  Miss Tatton squinted, her eye drawn to some glimmering place on the shore. ‘I meant it won’t matter to us. It don’t happen overnight, does it. That Pamela had her whole life to learn. I won’t be writing letters any time soon. Or reading yours.’

  ‘Scripture teaches us patience,’ Gideon said, unable to think of anything less feeble to say. ‘Jacob served seven years for Rachel, but to him they seemed but a few days because of his … well, because of the nature of his feelings.’

  She looked at him keenly. ‘You’re not like him, young master. You’re not your uncle, and I like it better when you don’t pretend to be. You were put on this earth for other things. For better things. Ain’t that so?’

  Gideon took off his hat. He studied it for a moment before meeting her eyes. ‘I believe so, miss. I believe you are right. And yet – well, I should not complain of my lot, I know, but I am not as free to choose as you might suppose. Such prospects as I have depend on doing as I am bid.’

  ‘I know that much,’ Miss Tatton said. ‘I know what your uncle wants for you, and what he don’t want too. And if he thought you had any notions to the contrary, I know what he’d tell you.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’ He passed a hand over his hair, finding it disordered from the heat of the day. ‘I know what he would tell me. But I will not always be so beholden. A time will come, perhaps, when I may …’

  He extended his free hand towards the water, describing a vague arc of liberty, and as he did so a cry reached them from the shore below. Miss Tatton leaned out to look, and a ruck in her hem disclosed a stockinged fraction of her calf. Gideon fidgeted with the brim of his hat, crushing the felt against the heat of his palm. In an instant of panic, he realised that she had spoken.

  ‘Pardon me, miss,’ he said, coming to her side. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘He’s got something,’ she said, pointing to the foreshore. ‘Something for us, he says.’

  Gideon stared in puzzlement. Below them, ankle-deep in the mud, stood the ragged figure of a boy. He was perhaps ten or eleven years old, though he was so much obscured by filth that it was hard to be sure, and he held something aloft. ‘Who is he?’ he said in bemusement. ‘Who are these children?’

  Miss Tatton gave him a quick and pitying glance. ‘Mudlarks,’ she said. ‘They go about the shore when the tide is out, rooting in the mud.’

  ‘Rooting for what?’ Gideon said, half-disbelieving still.

  ‘Anything that’ll fetch a few coppers. Coal, mostly, or bits of rope, but sometimes they get lucky.’ She made a funnel of her hands. ‘Bring it up here, then! Let’s have a look!’

  The boy called back in answer, but Gideon could not make out his words. ‘We’ll have to take it off him,’ Miss Tatton explained. ‘If he’s to come all the way up.’

  Gideon blinked, uncomprehending.

  ‘You never know, young master.’ She cuffed him lightly and raised her face to his, gilded softly by the low sun. ‘It might be nothing. Or it might be treasure.’

  She turned back to the boy and waved him ashore, watching eagerly as he climbed to the wharfside. Gideon was glad of the returning lightness in her mood. He felt a furtive gratitude, too, at the timeliness of the distraction. He did not know quite what it was that he had begun to say, or how he might finish it with any credit.

  The boy scurried along the bridge, slowing as he drew near them and coming to a halt a yard or two off. He was a diminutive and wary creature, but with a decorous way about him for all the squalor of his appearance. ‘I’ll stop here,’ he said, ‘for I don’t smell too handsome. I’ll leave it her
e once you put down the price of it.’

  ‘The price of what?’ Gideon said.

  The mudlark opened a blackened palm, showing the dull gleam of a misshapen coin. ‘Crooked sixpence, sir. Which it looked like you was wanting a token.’

  Miss Tatton raised her wrist, but withheld her laughter.

  ‘A token?’ Gideon repeated the words in frank bewilderment. ‘A token of what?’

  The boy looked to each of them in turn, his soiled face inscrutably creased. ‘Ain’t you making your promises? You and the young lady? What else you stood here for in your courting clothes?’

  ‘Courting clothes?’ Gideon said dully.

  The boy turned to Miss Tatton. ‘He all right, is he? Tell him he’s got to take it now, one way or the other. That was the bargain.’

  ‘Yes, very well.’ Gideon stepped forward, anxious to bring this fresh embarrassment to an end. ‘How much do you want for it?’

  ‘Sixpence, innit,’ the boy said. ‘Like for like, when they’re in good nick. Which, I’m actually going easy. Little beauty, that one is.’

  ‘Sixpence?’ Gideon was incredulous, but it was clear now that he must appear either foolish or miserly. He put down a bright new coin, and in an instant the boy had replaced it.

  ‘Gentleman,’ he said, touching his sodden cap. ‘Might as well use it as not, you ask me. She’s a pretty one, and the likes of you will do no better. Give you joy of it.’

  With that the boy darted away, and when Gideon snatched up the token he did so only out of an unthinking urge to have it out of sight. It was hardly a creditable way to bring the matter to an end, but he could see no other course that would not deepen his humiliation. He returned to Miss Tatton’s side without uttering a word. Still clutching the coin, he leaned on the parapet and stared out in dejection at the declining colours of the evening.

  Gently, impossibly, her fingertips grazed his knuckles. ‘Well, young master. It’s getting late.’

  He turned to her slowly. She did not look up at once, and when she did her expression was both teasing and solemn. He hesitated, then turned his hand under hers, carefully uncurling his fingers. ‘Will you not call me by my name at last, and let me call you by yours?’

  She pressed her lips together. ‘You ain’t caught on yet, have you?’

  ‘Forgive me, caught on to what?’

  ‘Oh, God bless us all. You’re meant to give that to me.’

  ‘The sixpence? But it’s crooked, and filthy besides. Surely it’s worthless?’

  ‘Well, it ain’t worth sixpence, I can tell you that much. There’s a lot they don’t teach you up in Cambridge, young master. It’s a token. It’s what people give – you know, when they ain’t got the price of a ring.’

  ‘Ah.’ He blinked, a heat flourishing in his chest. ‘Yes, of course. I’m afraid I didn’t quite—’

  ‘You never do, do you?’ She traced a circle on his palm, not yet touching what he held. ‘Well, Mr Gideon Bliss? What is my name to be?’

  She held his eyes, and he could no longer pretend that he did not understand. He would be worthy soon, he hoped, would offer her everything. But until then he could not give the answer she wanted.

  ‘Not Angela?’ he said. He felt a sour shame now that thickened his speech. ‘Angela mea. “My angel”, it means. It is Latin.’

  Her gaze was steady and searching still, but she smiled a little. ‘You’re a funny one,’ she said. ‘One minute you can hardly get a word out, the next you’re saying it all. And still saying nothing.’

  He flushed again, and made an indistinct sound.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s nice. But everyone calls me Angie. Angie Tatton in ribbons of satin. It’s what my – when I was little. It’s what they used to say.’

  ‘Angie, then,’ Gideon said. ‘May I call you Angie?’

  ‘Well,’ she said. In the heat of his palm, her fingertip traced a dwindling volute. ‘I suppose it’ll have to do.’

  XVI

  Soho-square was no great distance from Wardour-street, yet the journey seemed interminable. The carriage laboured through the mired streets at hardly more than walking pace, and in the thickening snow the life of the place seemed strangely lulled, its ashen somnolence slowing all movement almost to stillness.

  But when they reached the hospital at last, Gideon was like a man set free from a prison. He leapt from the cab before the driver had set out the step, skidding a little in the slush of the gutter but righting himself at once and surging towards the steps. He presented himself to a porter, not even turning to see if Cutter was behind him, and announced their purpose firmly, asking to be shown at once to Miss Tatton’s bedside.

  He paced the floor as they waited, while the inspector – who had come in quietly and seemed content for now to let him make the running – took his ease with a newspaper in the porter’s own chair. It was Gideon who greeted the doctor in attendance when he appeared, and who demanded to be taken up to the wards with all possible haste.

  The doctor drew out his spectacles, fitting them after some fumbling to the bridge of his nose. He was pale and thin, and somewhat disordered in his appearance.

  ‘You must excuse me,’ he said. ‘The porter did not give me your names.’

  Cutter rose from his place at this. ‘Inspector Cutter of the Yard,’ he said. ‘Sergeant Bliss here is the soul of politeness, as a rule, but he’s taken a good rattling.’

  Cutter extended a hand, and the doctor clasped it briefly. ‘Usher. Dr Samuel Usher.’

  ‘You must forgive the lateness of the hour, Doctor,’ Gideon said, offering his own distracted handshake. ‘There is a young girl in your care, we believe, who may be of assistance in a police matter – in a police matter of considerable urgency.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Dr Usher. ‘Such things cannot be avoided entirely, I am afraid. We open our doors to those of all walks, you see. If you give me her name, I will have her brought down. She will forfeit her place, naturally.’

  ‘You have the wrong end of the stick, sir,’ said Cutter. ‘The girl in question is wanted on no charges. She is the victim of wrongdoing, if anything. Her name is Tatton, Angela or Angie. It was the Reverend Cusk of St Anne’s parish who brought her in.’

  ‘Miss Tatton?’ Usher blinked at each of them in turn. ‘You believe she can assist you?’

  ‘Is there cause to think otherwise?’ Cutter said.

  Dr Usher let out a weary breath and considered them for a time in silence. The vestibule was poorly lit, and his face was half in shadow. ‘Come with me,’ he said at length. ‘See for yourselves.’

  The hospital was a dim and sprawling place, bigger by far than it appeared from without. Usher led them up several flights of stairs, then conducted them through a warren of dismal passageways. The wards were hushed at this hour, and they hardly glimpsed a single soul. They climbed still higher, into the lightless upper reaches of the building. The air was cold here, and tainted with the sad must of abandoned rooms.

  ‘God help us, Doctor,’ the inspector called out at last. ‘Have you consigned the poor child to an attic?’

  Usher glanced over his shoulder but made no reply. He reached into his coat, and presently he came to a halt before a door, bending in the gloom to rattle a key into the lock. The ward they entered was orderly in its appearance, but it seemed entirely desolate. A dozen bedsteads were arranged about a broad aisle, each flanked by a nightstand and set apart from its neighbour by the same precise interval. Above the bare tables where nurses might have been stationed, great lamps hung unlit on their sturdy chains.

  But there were no nurses in sight, nor any patients to be tended to. The ward was silent, its beds unclothed and empty. Gideon turned to the doctor, meaning to demand what he meant by this, but Usher put a finger to his lips. He took an oil lamp from a stand and lit it, indicating with a small motion of his head that they were to follow him. At the far end of the ward, they came to a curtain that had been drawn across its entire width, keepin
g a portion of the room out of view. Here Usher paused and again raised his finger for silence.

  The sound of singing reached them. It was faint and abraded, as if it came from a phonograph, but it was her voice. Her voice, but strange now. Paler somehow.

  ‘She is here!’ Gideon cried, and lunged forward, but the doctor raised his arm, barring his way.

  ‘A moment, Sergeant.’

  ‘She is here,’ Gideon repeated, confronting Usher with an unthinking fierceness. ‘We must speak with her. Did we not make it clear that this is police business?’

  Usher relaxed his arm, bringing it to rest for a moment on Gideon’s shoulder. His expression softened a little, though perhaps it was only in weariness. He was unshaven, and the lamplight gave him a jaundiced and ill-nourished look.

  ‘You will speak with her,’ he said. ‘But before you do, I must make plain to you certain particulars of her case. There are things you must know, since you are to take charge of her.’

  This drew a sharp look from Inspector Cutter. ‘Take charge of her? We mean only to question the girl. In any case, you cannot mean to discharge her yet, surely? She was brought here half-dead, by all accounts.’

  ‘Half-dead,’ Usher repeated. He looked away for a moment and let out a frigid laugh. ‘It is strange that you should choose those words. Listen to me, both of you. This institution is a place for the sick, for women and their general and particular ailments. We are far from richly endowed, but we do our utmost. There are limits, however, to what modern medicine may accomplish.’

  Cutter agitated his shoulders beneath his coat, in a manner Gideon had come to find familiar. ‘Here is another fine orator,’ he said. ‘You would give young Bliss here a run for his money.’

  ‘My point, Inspector, is that certain conditions are beyond the province of science, which is to say nothing of the moral and ethical considerations. We must preserve certain essential virtues if we are not to leave our institution open to condemnation. And we must think of our nurses, for that matter, whose good offices we could scarcely do without. They are good Christian women, as befits their calling. And the papists, the Irishwomen – they do not like it one bit. They are simple-minded creatures, and very fierce in their resentment of the unnatural. They will not even enter the ward, Inspector. What is the time, by the by?’