The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics)

by George W. M. Reynolds

  “Nearly a year!” exclaimed the Resurrection Man. “But if you was to call on the agent——”

  “Absurd!” ejaculated Vernon. “Have I not told you that my brother believes me still to be in the East—still travelling in Turkey? So long as he supposes me far away, I can carry on my projects in London with far greater security. In a word, it is much safer that my presence in this country should remain a profound secret. He will die shortly—he must die—he is daily, steadily parting with vitality. He is passing out of existence by a sure, a speedy, and yet an inexplicable progression of decay. Of his death, then, I am sure; and when it shall occur, how can suspicion attach itself to me—since I am supposed to be abroad—far away?”

  “You are certain that your brother is hastening towards the grave?” said the Resurrection Man. “The great obstacle—the greatest, I mean—will be hereby removed. Suppose that Lady Ravensworth should be delivered of a boy, would it not be equally easy——”

  “Yes—it would be easy to put it out of the way by violence,” was the rapid reply; “but, then, I would risk my neck at the same time that I gained a fortune. No—that will not do! I could not incur a danger of so awful a nature. The infant heir to vast estates would be jealously protected—attentively watched—surrounded by all wise precautions:—no—it were madness to think of practising aught against its life.”

  “Could not the same means by which—even though at a distance—you are undermining the life of your brother——”

  “No—no,” replied Vernon, impatiently. “It is not necessary that I should explain to you the precise nature of the means by which I succeed in effecting Lord Ravensworth’s physical decay; suffice it to state that those means could not be applied to a child.”

  “Nevertheless,” continued the Resurrection Man, “you must have an agent at Ravensworth Park; for if—as I suppose—your brother is dying by means of slow poison, there is some confidential creature of your own about his person to administer the drugs.”

  “I have no agent at Ravensworth;—I have no confidential creature about my brother’s person;—and I have so combined my measures that Lord Ravensworth is actually committing suicide—dying by his own hand! Another time I will expound all this to you; for to you alone have I communicated my projects.”

  “Have you not explained yourself to Greenwood?” demanded the Resurrection Man. “I thought you told me, the last time we met, that he knew you well—and knew also that you are in England?”

  “I was acquainted with him some four or five years ago, when he was not so prosperous as he is—or as he appears to be—at present,” replied Vernon; “but having been abroad since that time until my return last week, I had lost sight of him—and had even forgotten him. It was not a little provoking to run against him the very first day of my arrival in London; and, though I endeavoured to avoid him, he persisted in speaking to me.”

  “You are not afraid that he will gossip about your presence in London?” said the Resurrection Man.

  “He promised me most faithfully to keep the fact a profound secret,” returned Vernon.

  “And will he not advance you a small sum for your present purposes?” demanded Tidkins.

  “I called on him last evening, in consequence of the suggestion contained in your note;—I requested a loan for a particular purpose;—but he refused to oblige me,” added Vernon, his brow contracting. “I wish that I had not so far humbled myself by asking him.”

  “No matter for that,” said Tidkins: “we are wandering from our subject. Here is the substance of the whole affair:—Lord Ravensworth will soon be gathered to his fathers, as they say: but in the meantime Lady Ravensworth may have a child. If it is a daughter, you are all safe; if it is a son you are all wrong. I don’t know how it is—I’m not superstitious—but in these matters, where a good fellow like yourself is within reach of a fortune, and whether you are to get it or not depends on the sex of an expected infant,—in such cases, I say, the card generally does turn up wrong. Now if the child should be a boy, what will you do?”

  “I cannot consent to abandon the plan of bribing the clerk to destroy the leaf in the register,” answered Vernon.

  “Pshaw! the project is bad—I told you so all along. See how the matter would stand,” continued Tidkins:—“Lord Ravensworth dies and leaves, we will suppose, an infant heir—a son. Then you suddenly make your appearance, and demand proofs of your brother’s marriage. The register is searched—a leaf is missing—it is the one which contains the record of the union celebrated between Lord Ravensworth and Miss Adeline Enfield! Would not this seem very extraordinary? would it not create suspicions that Lord Ravensworth may not have died fairly? No—your project, Mr. Vernon, will never do: it is baseless—shallow—childish. It is unworthy of you. If you persist in it, I shall wash my hands of the business:—if you will follow my advice, you shall be Lord Ravensworth before you are a year older.”

  Vernon could not conceal a sentiment of admiration for that man who thus dexterously reasoned on his plans, and thus boldly promised that consummation to which he so fondly aspired.

  “Speak, Mr. Tidkins,” he said; “we have met to consult on the necessary course to be adopted.”

  “Let us come, then, boldly to the point,” continued the Resurrection Man, sinking his voice to a whisper: “rest patiently for the confinement of Lady Ravensworth, which, you have learnt, is expected to take place in six weeks;—if the issue is a girl, you need trouble yourself no more in the business, but calmly wait till death does its work with Lord Ravensworth.”

  “And if the issue be a boy?” said Vernon, gazing fixedly on his companion’s countenance.

  “It must be put out of the way,” answered the Resurrection Man, in a low, but stern tone; “and you may trust to me that the business shall be done in such a manner as to endanger no one’s neck.”

  “You think—you imagine that it can be done——” said Vernon, hesitatingly—but still with that kind of hesitation which is prepared to yield and to consent.

  “I do not speak upon thoughts and imaginings,” replied Tidkins: “I argue on conviction. Leave the whole affair to me. I have my plan already settled—and, when the time comes, we will talk more about it. For the present,” continued the Resurrection Man, drawing a bill-stamp from his pocket, and handing it to his companion, “have the goodness to write the name of Ravensworth at the bottom of this blank. I shall not use it until you are really Lord Ravensworth, when the signature will be your proper one.”

  Vernon cast a hasty glance over the bill, and observed, “It is a five-and-twenty shilling stamp.”

  “Yes—to cover three thousand pounds,” returned the Resurrection Man. “That will not be too much for making you a peer and a rich man. Besides, I intend to advance you a matter of fifty pounds at once, for your immediate necessities.”

  “And if I should happen to fail in obtaining the title and estates of Ravensworth,” said Vernon, “this document would enable you to immure me in a debtor’s prison.”

  “Ridiculous!” ejaculated Tidkins, impatiently. “In that case your name would not be Ravensworth; and it is the name of Ravensworth which I require to this bill. As for throwing your person into a prison, what good could that do me? A dead carcass is of more value than a living one,” he added, in a muttering tone.

  Vernon did not overhear this remark—or, if he did, he comprehended not the allusion; but he signed the bill without farther hesitation.

  The Resurrection Man consigned it to his pocket-book, and then drew forth a purse filled with gold, which he handed to his companion.

  Vernon received it with a stiff and haughty inclination of the head:—his necessities compelled him to accept the succour; but his naturally proud feelings made him shrink from its source.

  Having so far arranged the matters which they had met to discuss, the aristocra
tic villain and the low miscreant separated.

  Vernon returned to his lodging in Stamford Street; and the Resurrection Man proceeded into the Westminster Road, where he took a cab, saying to the driver, “Golden Lane, Saint Luke’s.”

  CHAPTER CXCVI.

  THE OLD HAG AND THE RESURRECTION MAN.

  The Old Hag, who has so frequently figured in former portions of our narrative, had latterly become more prosperous, if not more respectable, than when we first introduced her to our readers.

  From having been the occupant of only one room in the house in the court leading from Golden Lane, she had become the lessee of the entire dwelling. The commencement of this success was owing to her connexion with Lady Cecilia Harborough in the intrigue of the “living statue;” and from that moment affairs seemed to have taken a new turn with her. At all events her “business” increased; and the sphere of her infamy became enlarged.

  She would have taken another and better house, in some fashionable quarter, and re-commenced the avocation of a first-rate brothel-keeper—the pursuit of the middle period of her life;—but she reasoned that she was known to a select few where she was—that the obscurity of her dwelling was favourable to many of the nefarious projects in which her aid was required—and that she was too old to dream of forming a new connexion elsewhere.

  It would be impossible to conceive a soul more diabolically hardened, more inveterately depraved, than that of this old hag.

  In order to increase her resources, and occupy, as she said, “her leisure time,” she had hired or bought some half-dozen young girls, about ten or twelve years old;—hired or bought them, whichever the reader pleases, of their parents, a “consideration” having been given for each, and the said parents comforting themselves with the idea that their children were well provided for!

  These children of tender age were duly initiated by the old hag in all the arts and pursuits of prostitution. They were sent in pairs to parade Aldersgate Street, Fleet Street, and Cheapside; and their special instructions were to practise their allurements upon elderly men, whose tastes might be deemed more vitiated and eccentric than those of the younger loungers of the great thoroughfares where prostitution most thrives.

  A favourite scheme of the old woman’s was this:—One of her juvenile emissaries succeeded, we will suppose, in alluring to the den in Golden Lane an elderly man whose outward respectability denoted a well-filled purse, and ought to have been associated with better morals. When the wickedness was consummated, and the elderly gentleman was about to depart, the old hag would meet him and the young girl on the stairs, and, affecting to treat the latter as a stranger who had merely used her home as a common place of such resort, would seem stupefied at the idea “of so youthful a creature having been brought to her abode for such a purpose.” She would then question the girl concerning her age; and the reply would be “under twelve” of course. Thus the elderly voluptuary would suddenly find himself liable to punishment for a misdemeanour, for intriguing with a girl beneath the age of twelve, and the virtuous indignation of the old hag would be vented in assertions that though she kept a house of accommodation for grown-up persons, she abhorred the encouragement of juvenile profligacy. The result would be that the hoary old sinner found himself compelled to pay a considerable sum as hush-money.

  We might occupy many pages with the details of the tricks and artifices which the old hag taught these young girls. And of a surety, they were subjects sufficiently plastic to enable her to model them to all her infamous purposes. Born of parents who never took the trouble to inculcate a single moral lesson, even if they knew any, those poor creatures had actually remained ignorant of the meaning of right and wrong until they were old enough to take an interest in the events that were passing around them. Then, when they missed some lad of their acquaintance, and, on inquiry, learnt that he had been sent to prison for taking something which did not belong to him, they began to understand that it was dangerous to do such an act—but it did not strike them that it was wrong. Again, if by accident they heard that another boy whom they knew, had got a good place, was very industrious, and in a fair way to prosper, they would perceive some utility in such conduct, but would still remain unable to appreciate its rectitude.

  Most of the girls whom the old hag had enlisted in her service, had been born and reared in that dirty warren which constitutes Golden Lane, Upper Whitecross Street, Playhouse Yard, Swan Street, and all their innumerable courts, alleys, and obscure nooks, swarming with a ragged and degraded population. Sometimes in their infancy they creeped out from their loathsome burrows, and even ventured into Old Street, Barbican, or Beech Street. But those excursions were not frequent. During their childhood they rolled half-naked in the gutters,—eating the turnip-parings and cabbage-stalks which were tossed out into the street with other offal,—poking about in the kennels to find lost half-pence,—or even plundering the cat’s-meat-man and the tripe-shop for the means of satisfying their hunger! This mode of life was but little varied;—unless, indeed, it were by the more agreeable recreations of particular days in the year. Thus, for instance, November was welcomed as the time for making a Guy-Fawkes, and carrying it round in procession amidst the pestilential mazes of the warren; August gave them “oyster day,” to be signalised by the building of shell-grottoes, which were an excuse for importuning passengers for alms; and the December season had its “boxing-day,” on which occasion the poor ragged creatures would be seen thronging the doors of the oil-shops to beg for Christmas-candles!

  These had been the only holidays which characterised the childhood of those unfortunate, lost, degraded girls whose lot we are describing. Sunday was not marked by cleanlier apparel, nor better food: if it were singled out at all from the other days of the week, the distinguishing sign was merely the extra drunkenness of the fathers of the families. Good Friday brought the little victims no hot-cross buns, nor Christmas Day its festivities, nor Shrove Tuesday its pancakes:—they had no knowledge of holy periods nor sacred ceremonies;—no seasonable luxury reminded them of the anniversaries of the birth, the death, or the resurrection of a Redeemer.

  No—in physical privations and moral blindness had they passed their infancy—and thus, having gone through a complete initiation into the miseries and sufferings of life, they were prepared at the age of ten to commence an apprenticeship of crime. And the old hag was an excellent mistress: were there an University devoted to graduates in Wickedness, this horrible wretch would have taken first-class degrees in its schools.

  Thus, be it understood, up to the age of ten or eleven, when those poor girls were transferred by their unfeeling parents (who were glad to get rid of them) to the care of the old woman, they had scarcely ever been out of the warren where they were born. Now a new world, as it were, dawned upon them. They laid aside their fetid rags, and put on garments which appeared queenly robes in their eyes. They were sent into streets lined with splendid shops, and beheld gay carriages and equipages of all kinds. Hitherto the principal gin-shop in their rookery had appeared the most gorgeous palace in the world in their eyes, with its revolving burners, its fine windows, and its meretriciously dressed bar-girls:—now they could feast their gaze with the splendours of the linen-drapers’ and jewellers’ establishments on Ludgate Hill. Their existence seemed to be suddenly invested with charms that they had never before dreamt of; and they adored the old hag as the authoress of their good fortune. Thus she established a sovereign dominion over her poor ignorant victims through the medium of their mistaken gratitude; and when she told them to sin, they sinned—sinned, too, before they even knew the meaning of virtue!

  Such was the history—not of one only—but of all the young girls whom this atrocious old hag had bought from their parents!

  To many—to most of our readers, the details of this description may seem improbable,—nay, impossible.

  The picture is, alas! too true.

 
Poor fallen children! the world scorns you—society contemns you—the unthinking blame you. But, just heaven! are ye more culpable than that community which took no precaution to prevent your degradation, and which now adopts no measures to reclaim you?

  As for ourselves, we declare most solemnly that we believe no age to have been more disgraced than the present one, and no country more culpable than our own. In this age of Bibles and country of glorious civilisation,—in this epoch of missions and land of refinement,—in this period of grand political reform, and nation of ten thousand philanthropic institutions,—in the middle of this nineteenth century, and with all the advantages of profound peace,—and, what is worst of all, in that great city which vaunts itself the metropolis of the civilised world, there are thousands of young children whose neglected, hopeless, and miserable condition can only be looked upon as an apprenticeship calculated to fill our streets with prostitutes of finished depravity—to people our gaols, hulks, and penal colonies with villains familiar with every phase of crime—and to supply our scaffolds with victims for the diversion of a rude and ruthless mob!

  It was nine o’clock in the evening; and the old hag was seated in the same room where we have before frequently seen her.

  She was, however, surrounded by several additional comforts. She no longer burnt turf in her grate, but good Wall’s End coals. She no longer placed her feet on an old mat, but on a thick carpet. She no longer bought her gin by the quartern or half pint, but by the bottle. She sweetened her tea with lump sugar, instead of moist; and in the place of a stew of tripe or cow-heel, she had a joint cooked at the bake-house, or a chicken boiled on her own fire.