by James Wilson
We ran the length of Queen Anne Street, and then my quarry (pilot?) vanished into a small dimly lit court at the end. I went after him, but could not immediately see him, and – since there was no way out but the narrow alley by which we had gone in – assumed he must have entered one of the tenements, where I had no chance of finding him. But then I heard an urgent clacking sound, and, looking towards it, was just able to make out his figure in the shadows. He was desperately rattling at a latch, as if he were intending to escape inside but found the door locked. He glanced over his shoulder as I sprang towards him, and turned to face me.
I should have seen the warning in his eyes. They were not frightened, as they should have been, but satisfied – almost triumphant.
But I had not time to heed it. I pushed him roughly against the wall, seized the reticule, and – fearing he might try to snatch it back – thrust it into my pocket.
Then I heard the door opening, and steps, and hoarse, rapid breathing. I tried to turn, but was jostled off balance. Before I could recover myself, someone was tying my hands behind me. And then someone else slipped a hood over my head, and whispered:
‘Come along, sir.’
There was a man on either side of me, and a third behind. They edged me back towards the street, rearranging themselves into single file in order to pass through the alley. When we emerged they stopped for a second or two. I heard the stamp and snuffle of a stationary horse, and murmured voices, and a door opening; and then I felt myself being lifted and bundled into a cab.
Only one man, I felt fairly certain, got in with me; but in my present helpless state I could not hope to tackle even one, so as we moved off I forced myself to stay calm, and await a more favourable opportunity to get away. It was not easy, not only because I was naturally confused and disoriented, but also because my pinioned arms prevented me from sitting back in my seat, so making me prey to every lurch and bump in the road. But I determined not to protest – or indeed to speak at all, unless my captor spoke first; for to do so would have been to throw away the only weapon I had.
I think he must have seen things in the same light; for several times I heard him drawing in his breath, or clicking his tongue, as if he were on the point of saying something – but in the event he always appeared to think better of it, and kept his peace. From which I deduced, first, that he was hoping by remaining silent to break my nerve; and, second, that his own nerve was far from steady – both of which only stiffened my resolve.
I thus had ample time to reflect on who he might be, and why he had gone to such lengths to abduct me. The most obvious motive was robbery – but surely he and his friends might easily enough have accomplished that in the little court? I could think of no-one who might have a reason to murder me – and, in any case, for that, too, the cab was a quite unnecessary contrivance. I could only conclude that he had taken me for someone else, and that in due course – if I had not managed to get away first – his mistake would be discovered.
We had been going, I should guess, about ten minutes, when a particularly savage jolt flung me to the floor, knocking my face (for of course I could not put up my hands to protect it), and wrenching my shoulder. At this, my companion’s firmness finally deserted him, and he cried out:
‘Oh! Are you ‘urt, sir?’
Hurt and dazed as I was, I was conscious of a certain exhilaration at having won the battle of wills between us. I did not reply, which made him still more anxious.
“Ere,’ he said, helping me back to my seat. His hands were trembling, and his breath was rancid with gin. He laid two fingers against my throat. I felt something hard and sharp protruding between them.
‘This ‘ere’s a spike,’ he said. ‘You understand?’
I nodded. Perhaps the hood prevented him seeing, for he gave me a small jab and repeated:
‘You understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well, then. Now, I’m going to undo your ‘ands, and tie ‘em again in front of you, so’s you can sit straight. But you tries any dodges, and I swear as you’ll get this’ – another prick – ‘in ‘ere. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
But for all the bravado of his words, he spoke them with a tremulousness that suggested he was far from confident, and which tempted me, for a moment, to take advantage of my freed hands to try to overpower him. Then I reflected that he could see, and I could not; and that even a drunk and irresolute man might have plucked up the courage to stab me before I had been able to tear off the hood. I therefore decided to bide my time, and meekly let him go about his business – which he conducted with surprising deftness, loosening the rope in a moment, and fixing it again in a moment more, with such assurance that I could only suppose he was, or had been, a sailor. When he had finished, he sat back, and said:
‘I’m sorry, sir, but there was no other way to make you see ‘er.’
His voice was quite different now: sad, and almost gentle.
‘See who?’
‘My wife, sir. As ‘as something to say to you. She called at your ‘ouse, but was turned away.’
‘My house!’ I exclaimed, suddenly seeing a chance to demonstrate that I was not the man he thought. ‘And where is that?’
‘Brompton Grove, sir. That’s what she told me.’
I was dumbfounded. I had no recollection of sending anybody away. And I could not think of any woman who might have sought me out in this manner. The prostitute I had met at the Marston Rooms? True – I had left her abruptly – but not before paying her, so she had no cause for complaint – unless she had been as consumed with lust as I had been, an idea which I immediately saw was absurd. And how, anyway, could she have known where to find me?
Then I remembered the pawnbroker in Maiden Lane. I might unwittingly have left some evidence of my address in the pocket of my coat. But why might she want to see me? And why had she waited so long?
Finally, at a loss for any plausible explanation, and with a growing feeling of alarm, I said:
‘Why does your wife want to see me?’
‘She’ll tell you that ‘erself, sir.’
To have pressed him further would have been to betray my fear, so I held my tongue. I did not speak to him again.
I had long since lost any sense of direction; and without my eyes to help me, had to rely on hearing alone for clues as to where we were going. Once or twice I made out the steady beat and splash of steam-boats, from which I knew we were close to the river; but none of the other sounds I could pick out – the rumble of passing vehicles, a drunken bellow, a barking dog – was specific enough to tell me anything useful, save that we were still in the city. I was, however, conscious of a gradual change in the quality of what I heard; for everything – even the thrum of our own wheels, and the clatter of the horse’s hooves – seemed by degrees to become softer, as if we were being slowly wrapped in a blanket, and so cut off from everything around us. At the same time, the air grew stiller and colder, numbing my bound hands, and making me long for the gloves and the little flask of brandy in my pocket (though I would not demean myself by asking for them) – from all of which I guessed it must be snowing.
And I was right; for when we at length arrived – after heaven knows how long – I could smell it through the fabric of the hood, and feel it underfoot when my captor helped me down. I heard him mutter something to the driver, and then he took my arm and began to guide me across some rough cobbles, taking care to prevent me slipping. Behind us I heard the cab driving away, at which my heart sank – for with it went any hope that this might only be a short interview, and that they intended I should be taken home immediately afterwards.
We appeared to be approaching a public house, for from just ahead of us came the unmistakable sound of singing and raucous laughter; but we stopped before we reached it, and I heard the secretive patter of fingers knocking on a window, and then, after a few seconds, a door opening. A woman’s voice, so quiet that I could barely make out the words, said:
‘This the man?’
There was no reply that I could hear, but a moment later I was led into an uncarpeted hall, and thence into what seemed to be a parlour, for I could feel the welcome warmth of a fire. I heard the rustle of the woman’s dress as she came towards me, and then felt her fingers quickly squeeze mine – like a strange token of the handshake she would have given me if my wrists had not been bound, and this were merely a normal social occasion.
‘I’m the lady of the house,’ she said. She spoke softly, with the trace of an Irish accent; and I knew at once that I had never met her before in my life. ‘Mary’ll do for a name, if you want one. Please sit down.’
The man helped me into a comfortable chair close to the fire. I heard her settle herself opposite me.
‘I’m sorry I can’t take that off,’ she said. ‘But I cannot run the risk.’
I wanted to ask: Of what? - but I felt that to enter into conversation would be to suggest that I accepted this situation, and so somehow make it appear legitimate.
‘But I’ll not be making excuses,’ she continued. ‘You’re wanting something, and I’m going to help you to it.’ She paused a moment, for effect: ‘The truth about Turner, am I right?’
I still said nothing. She sighed, like a mother cajoling a sulky child – which instantly made me feel a little like one. Finally she repeated:
‘Am I right?’
‘What of it?’ I said, as carelessly as I could.
‘I knew him,’ she said. ‘He used to come here.’
‘And what is “here”?’
‘A lodging-house,’ she replied simply. ‘Most of the boarders is sailors’ women.’
‘And he presented himself as “Turner”?’ I said, instantly suspicious – for anyone who had really known him would have realized that such recklessness was quite out of character.
‘No. I’d no idea who he was, till the fellow who keeps the Ship and Bladebone saw him one day by chance, and said, “You’ll never guess who that is.’”
‘And how did he know?’
‘Turner was his landlord.’
‘What! You mean he owned the place?’ I cried; although – as I privately had to admit to myself – the very improbability of the idea gave it an odd sort of credibility, for it was the kind of detail no-one would think to invent.
‘That’s what Mr. Hodgson told me,’ she said defensively.
At that moment – as if the mention of a public house had put the notion in his head – the man suddenly mumbled:
‘I think I’ll just slip next door for a drop of somethin’ short.’
He had the shifty, off-hand manner of someone who fears he may be stopped, and thus hopes to escape attention; but the woman was having none of it. As he started to edge away, she said, lethally quiet:
‘What, are you still afeared?’
‘Don’t a man deserve a drink?’ wheedled my captor.
‘You take another one, you won’t be able to stand,’ she replied.
‘I brought ‘im ‘ere, didn’t I?’
‘Afterwards,’ she said, relenting slightly.
‘Oh, come on!’ he said. “E ain’t going to cut it now!’
‘In a minute. After he’s gone upstairs.’
My skin prickled with contradictory emotions: dread, and outrage, and excitement.
‘He had his own ways, Turner,’ she said. ‘His own tastes.’
‘What kind of tastes?’ I said.
‘You’ll be seeing one of his women shortly,’ she said. ‘She’ll show you.’
Show, not tell. My mouth was dry. I said: ‘May I have some water?’
‘Upstairs,’ she said. ‘In just a moment. But first I wants to tell you something about her. About poor Lucy. She’s not got a great head on her, and what she has’s been all but fuddled away, for she’s a terrible one for the crater. That’s why we keep her in, and I lay out her money for her, when her sailor-friend sends it; for she’d drink it all else, and then try to make away with herself after. But you can trust her. She won’t lie to you. You understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come along, then.’
She went ahead of me, and the man came behind, pushing me out into the hall and up the stairs. When we reached the landing we paused for a moment, and I heard the woman unlocking a door and opening it.
‘Now, Lu,’ she said gently. ‘You know what is expected of you?’
There was no answer, as far as I could tell; but the woman must have been satisfied, for I was promptly thrust forward again. All at once, the light outside the hood seemed brighter. I was conscious of the smell of cheap scent and cheap coals – and then, suddenly, of a shrill squeal, half surprised and half amused, which made me fear for my safety – for there was something uncontrolled, even mad, about it.
‘We’ll come for you in a little while,’ whispered the woman, close to my ear. And then I heard the door closing behind me, and the key being turned again from the outside.
The squealing continued for a few moments, but all the time subsiding into giggles, like a pot going off the boil, until at length it had become no more than a kind of breathless, bubbling trill. Then I heard – or rather felt – her approaching; smelt the violet cachou on her breath, and the eau de Cologne on her skin, and beneath them both, like a half-buried secret, a rank hint of animal heat. She said nothing; but as she touched my icy fingers she winced, and put them to her lips, and rubbed them to restore the circulation, before finally turning her attention to untying them. As she fiddled clumsily with the knots, I could not but reflect that we had never met – never seen each other’s faces – never even heard each other speak; and yet that I was closer to her than I have been to any woman save Laura in my adult life.
She at last managed to free my hands, and then quickly plucked the hood from my head. I blinked; for even the light of the gas-lamp was enough to dazzle me after so long in darkness. She seemed to emerge, in consequence, through a kind of fuzzy mist: first a squat, rather full figure in a low-cut blue dress; then a wide, pale face, puffy from drink or tiredness; deep-set blue eyes and a bright red mouth; the thick brown ringlets untidily pinned up behind her head. She had one hand on the bed – which was not the mean object I should have expected, but a four-poster hung with a dirty chintz curtain. She caught me looking at it, and smiled with a quite uncoquettish frankness, and then shook her head and laughed, as if my presence there still bemused her.
‘You got anything to drink?’ she said. Her speech was slow and slurred.
I had, of course; but was unsure whether I should own to it. It seemed churlish to deny her; and yet had not the woman downstairs said she was a drunkard, and must be prevented from tippling? She must correctly have interpreted this hesitation as meaning ‘yes’; for she immediately said, ‘You ‘ave, ain’t you?’ and began rifling through my pockets with the frantic single-mindedness of a dog digging up a bone. When she plucked out Marian’s reticule she held it up for an instant like an exhibit in a court case, laughing ‘You’re a sly one, ain’t you?’; and then flung it to one side and resumed her search. Within a matter of seconds she had found the flask, unscrewed the cap and sucked it dry, running her tongue around the little nozzle to catch any stray drops that might have escaped her.
‘Nothing more?’ she said, before she had had time to catch her breath again.
‘That’s enough,’ I said, conscious even as I did so of a jarring note of priggishness in my voice.
She looked at me curiously, focusing her eyes with some difficulty.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Did they not tell you?’
She seemed surprised that I should ask, and shook her head emphatically – until it seemed to make her dizzy, and she stopped abruptly
‘Jenkinson,’ I said.
She drew in her breath sharply; and then her confused expression slowly cleared.
‘Ah, I gets it,’ she said. ‘You likes the same.’
She picked up the hood and the ropes f
rom where she had dropped them on the floor, and dangled them before me. I could not begin to guess her meaning, and merely stared stupidly back at her.
“Ere you are, then,’ she said impatiently. ‘Take ‘em.’
I did so, and stood holding them helplessly. She turned towards the wall opposite me, where a round looking-glass in a rosewood frame hung above a small chair. Then slowly, without a word, she started to unhook her dress.
I could not move. I thought I should faint. And yet some part of me – the Walter Hartright that the world saw, and that until two months ago I had always supposed myself to be – would still not accept that this was desire, but clung doggedly to the notion that I was there for some perfectly respectable purpose – much as a shipwrecked sailor clings to some pitiful fragment of his smashed boat, in the hope that it will keep him from being swept away. I did not avert my eyes as she let the dress drop to the floor and stepped out of it – I could not; but I tried to persuade myself (God! what madness!) that I was looking simply in order to try to establish her age. From her broad plump hips and thighs, and the slight slackness of the skin on her arms, I guessed between thirty and thirty-five. Though I could barely speak, I said:
‘How old were you when Turner came here?’
She did not turn, but her eyes found my reflection in the glass.
“Oo?’
The other Mr. Jenkinson.’
‘Oh, must’ve be twelve or thirteen when ‘e first ‘ad me. ‘E come reg’lar after that.’
‘For how long?’
She shrugged. ‘Five, six years?’
‘And how old are you now?’
She giggled; and then unpinned her hair, and shook it free, so that it tumbled down her back. “Ere, you want to talk, or what?’
I tried to say something.
I could not.
She unlaced her corset and pulled it away, as a sculptor may remove a mould; and then drew her chemise over her head, and laid both on the chair. All she was wearing now was a pair of grubby stockings. She pulled at one of the garters.
‘On or off?’ When I did not reply she brusquely repeated the gesture. ‘Hm?’