by Carol Hedges
“They won’t let us beat the gels,” Mrs Crevice observes, pulling a face.
“More’s the pity. Nothing like a good whacking to show who’s boss. And who ain’t.”
He slurps the last of the porter and pushes back from the table.
“Here, you can clear away now. I’m off out. Got to see a man about a bit of business.”
Mrs Crevice piles up the plates, placing some leftover scraps on a separate plate which she will save for the boy’s breakfast. In the distance, a church clock chimes the hour. Her eyes narrow. Just time to swill the pots, then she must hurry back to check on those lazy girls. Maybe she cannot beat them, but she has other ways of making their lives miserable. Oh yes.
Night wears on, until the hour arrives when the lingerers and malingerers, the whores in the doorways, the flâneurs on the footpaths have all left the gaslit fairyland of the bewitching streets. It is quiet. So quiet, that when something crashes against the window of Morbid Crevice’s shop, the sound thunders like cannon fire, startling Tonkin awake from a beautiful dream of hot sausages and gravy.
Scrambling to his feet, the boy trips and falls his way to the shuttered window. He hears laboured breathing, interspersed with low groans. Tonkin cautiously applies an eye to a crack in the shutter.
The dark figure of a man is standing outside. He shakes and sways, as if driven by some great internal force. Sodding drunk, Tonkin thinks. Crashing around in the middle of the night, waking up honest folk.
He is just about to return to his pallet of rags when the groans cease, to be replaced by a sobbing that turns swiftly to a wailing that is more animal than human. In the sound there is agony, dark tortured places and nameless terrors. The hairs on the back of Tonkin’s neck stand on end. He has never heard anything like it.
Then, to his horror, the man turns towards him and starts beating his head against the shutters. It is too much for Tonkin, who legs it back to his bed, pulling the ragged coverlet over his head so that he cannot see the agonised expression, and pressing his hands against his ears to block out the dreadful noise. Christ allbloodymighty, he mutters, I wouldn’t like to be thinking wot you’re thinking.
****
Stars and stillness give way to a pale-primrose dawn. It tiptoes on soft rosy feet over the still sleeping city, pausing momentarily on its journey at the lodging house of Mrs Lucinda Witchard, widow of the late Enoch Witchard, piano factory owner. Here, the Foundling, who has been up before the dawn laying fires, is now busy laying the table with the cheap cloudy cutlery for the lodgers’ breakfasts.
The air is redolent with the smell of fatty bacon and burning bread as Mrs Witchard exercises her culinary skills in the poky basement kitchen. On the first and second floors, the lodgers are preparing for the working day ahead, and steeling themselves for the first ordeal, shortly to take place in the poky dining room.
Up on the third floor, however, Mrs Witchard’s new lodger has other things than breakfast on his mind. He has awoken with a confused recollection of events the night before, thinking he can smell death and bloodshed on the sheets.
A glance in the cracked looking-glass reveals that whatever happened last night, he cannot go into his place of work today. There would be questions, to which he has no satisfactory answers. Also, he does not want to see the glass specimen jars of hare lips, monstrous foetuses, haemorrhoids, hernias and oddly-shaped genitals.
He has cleaned off as much of the blood as he can with a cloth, which he has burned in the grate. The smell of food nauseates him. The prospect of facing his fellow lodgers, let alone his fellow man, appals him. He glances at the clock on the mantelpiece. It is time to seek solace in the only way he knows.
Reaching for and uncorking the small bottle, he dips in an empty syringe, withdrawing it full of reddish-brown liquid. He is not looking for a means to escape the past, he reminds himself, as he tightens a leather strap around his upper arm. That obsessive want of something was there before she appeared.
He inserts the needle into the vein that winds like a blue snake under his skin. He has wonderful thick veins. He remembers someone telling him that. The metal slides through the skin. He injects the drug into his bloodstream. His eyelids half-close and his mouth half-opens. He has that feeling he experiences from time to time that everything is floating, and nothing could happen to him. His head falls back. Oblivion and darkness take him.
****
In 1861 the Victorian General Postal Service was run like a well-oiled machine. From its stately porticoed headquarters in St Martin’s-le-Grand, urgent letters, packages, missives of love and newspapers were sorted, bagged and dispatched by train all over the country.
Closer to home, hourly deliveries ensured that from 7.30 in the morning to 6.30 at night letters fell like showers of ladybirds through city letterboxes. As well as letters and parcels, the postal service carried more esoteric items such as cakes, leeches, mosses and manure.
And now, a scarlet-coated postman is stopping outside the Islington town house which is home to Lobelia and Hyacinth Clout. In his hand, he carries a letter. It does not appear to have the customary black border, so it is clearly not a Mama-related missive. Could it be a letter of love? Clearly it is not a box of leeches.
Inside the house, Hyacinth, wearing a clean apron and a pair of household gloves, is busily dusting the parlour furniture. Later, she and her sister are to attend a meeting at the church hall of the Overseas Missionary Society for the Conversion of the African Heathen. The celebrated female philanthropist Mrs Eustacia Mullygrub is to speak. Lobelia is in a state of nervous collapse at the prospect, and has taken to her bed.
The clang of the letterbox brings Hyacinth into the hallway. She seizes the letter, peruses the superscript. Oh, miracle of miracles! It is addressed to her! She feels her heart start beating like a bird in a whalebone cage.
“Was that the postman?” comes a plaintive voice from above.
Hyacinth clutches her letter to her bosom.
“Yes, but it was nothing important. Just another of those advertisements.”
“Not another one? Why must we be bothered with this rubbish? There should be a law about it. Such a waste of time and paper.”
“Indeed,” Hyacinth’s eager fingers are already working their way into the envelope. “I shall put it on the kitchen fire.”
“That is the best place for it. I think I should like a cup of weak tea and an arrowroot biscuit now,” the temporary invalid cries.
But her words fall on deaf ears. For Hyacinth is already back in the morning room, perusing the contents of her letter.
Dear London Lady (the letter begins),
I reply to your letter, which has been passed on to me by the editor of the newspaper. I have read it with the most respectful attention. In placing my own letter in the newspaper, I hoped that nobody would answer through impertinent curiosity, but would regard the sentiments expressed worthy of serious consideration. Such seems to be the response of your letter, and I am therefore prepared to engage further in correspondence with you.
Let me therefore enlarge a little on my position. I am in my early forties, but hale and hearty notwithstanding. I have one daughter – a precious ewe lamb, who has lacked the tender ministrations of a mother’s care for many years since the death of my beloved wife.
At present, I rent a substantial property in the Muswell Hill area, but may in the future purchase my own house where, should I find a respectable and sympathising companion willing to confide her happiness in one who is, I believe, qualified in every way to render the matrimonial state conducive to her well-being, I would be happy to settle down.
Before meeting and conversing with you, I should be pleased to receive your response to my letter. My caution in thus proceeding arises purely from the Christian duty I have for my little one, whose delicate nature and temperament must be shielded from the rough ways of the world. If you choose to reply, please be assured that my honour and secrecy may be relied upon.
&n
bsp; Yours sincerely,
A Lonely Widower
Hyacinth reads the letter through several times. She has never received a letter from a man before, let alone a man she has never met, and she has absolutely no idea if this is how men write to women. She is also not sure how to respond. Indeed, she is not sure whether she ought to respond, whether it might not be better to forget the whole thing.
She is still puzzling over this when she hears footsteps on the stairs. Hastily folding up the letter, she stuffs it in her apron pocket just as her sister pushes open the morning room door.
“Did you not hear me?” Lobelia demands querulously. “I am parched and weary. I would have thought making a cup of tea was not beyond your capabilities.”
“I have been busy cleaning the room,” Hyacinth replies.
Lobelia eyes the duster in her sister’s hand. Then she moves to the mantelpiece and slowly and deliberately runs her finger along the marble top.
“I haven’t dusted the mantelpiece yet,” Hyacinth says defensively.
“Slapdash and slipshod. Poor Mama, how she prided herself on her standards of cleanliness. How sad she would be to see the decline into slovenliness wrought since her parting from us.”
“You could always help,” Hyacinth says pointedly. “Or we might employ a maid. Part-time. I can’t be expected to do everything on my own all the time.”
There is a shocked silence.
“I wonder you can stand there and accuse me of negligence,” Lobelia says indignantly, a bright spot of anger burning in each flaccid cheek. “Who nursed poor suffering Mama day and night? Who was her constant companion both in life and at the end of her life?”
“Only because she preferred you to me.”
“Indeed, she did,” Lobelia hisses. “And why was that, do you think? Why did she always refuse to have you anywhere near her?”
Hyacinth lowers her eyes, bites her lip.
Lobelia’s eyes sweep round the room, this being the nearest she ever comes to domestic work.
“This is my house now. Mama left it to me in her Will. So, finish the cleaning. And when you have done, I should like a cup of tea and two arrowroot biscuits brought up to me on a tray. If it is not too much trouble?”
She flounces out, closing the door firmly behind her. Hyacinth retrieves the letter from her pocket and peruses the contents once more. ‘Early forties’ doesn’t sound too bad. Especially if the gentleman is in good health – she has had quite enough of invalids. And sisters. And he has a child. She is fond of children. She likes teaching the little ones in Sunday School. From the tone of the letter, he sounds a respectable man. She decides she will reply after all.
Hyacinth completes her cleaning tasks in record time – skimps might be a better description, but let us not quibble. She then descends to the basement kitchen, where she prepares tea for Lobelia. While she waits for the water to boil, she mentally sketches out her response to A Lonely Widower.
Placing the tea and arrowroot biscuits onto a tray, she carries them upstairs to her suffering sister’s bedroom – formerly Mama’s room, which has now been transformed by the twin miracles of paper and paint. Entering the room, Hyacinth is struck once again by how light and pleasant it is in its new guise.
The windows face south, so that the room is filled with light, and the view over the small garden is delightful. It is just the sort of room she would choose for herself. Except that she has had no choice, and thus remains in the bedroom of their childhood, still with the nursery bars across the window.
“There you are at last,” Lobelia says, raising herself up on the pillows.
“If you are indisposed, perhaps I should take a note round to the vicarage,” Hyacinth suggests, placing the tray beside her.
Lobelia picks up one of the biscuits and demolishes it in two swift bites.
“You will do no such thing. It is not every day that we are honoured by the visit of such a celebrated philanthropist. I am sure I shall feel better shortly.”
She regards Hyacinth disapprovingly.
“Do you not have tasks to continue?”
Hyacinth gets the message and leaves. But she does not continue her tasks. Instead she goes straight back to the morning room and opens the writing desk. She selects a piece of writing paper, frowns, stares into the distance for a few seconds, then dips her pen into the ink and writes:
Dear Lonely Widower,
I was pleased to receive your letter. I should like to reassure you that having read it, I regard your sentiments as worthy of serious consideration. I understand your caution regarding your daughter. Please be assured that I am extremely fond of children.
I have lived a very secluded and quiet life for several years, as I have been looking after my Mama, whom I nursed during her sad decline and final illness. Her death has prompted me to review my life and circumstances and to think about my future, which is why I decided to respond to your advertisement.
Yours sincerely,
London Lady
Hyacinth seals the envelope and addresses it to the newspaper. Then, feeling as if she is a character in one of the epistolary novels she borrows occasionally from the library, she slips furtively out of the house to post it before Lobelia gets up.
****
Afternoon arrives, bringing to the church Mrs Eustacia Mullygrub. She is accompanied by Miss Portia Mullygrub, eldest daughter and amanuensis. Together, they enter the church hall, where Mrs Mullygrub, a large woman wearing a variety of odd garments, a pair of spectacles on a silver chain, and an uncompromising hat, is conducted to the front of the hall and ensconced on the raised platform at the front of the church hall. From here she surveys her audience with a benign and earnest expression.
Miss Portia Mullygrub, who is in her early twenties, hovers in the foyer, greeting visitors as they come through the door and handing out tracts and pamphlets. The meeting is almost ready to begin when Hyacinth and Lobelia (who has staged a magnificent rally), arrive in the porch.
Graciously accepting a tract with a gloved hand but no eye contact, Lobelia sails down the centre aisle, acknowledging various church committee ladies with a graceful nod. Hyacinth bobs in her wake. They reach the front of the hall. There is a single unoccupied seat in the front row. It has clearly been saved by Bethica Bittersplit, who occupies the seat next door and whose sallow features light up when she spots Lobelia approaching.
Without giving her sister a second glance, Lobelia plonks herself down and fixes her eyes raptly upon the stage, where Reverend Bittersplit now rises and clears his throat. A hush falls on the assembled company. Hyacinth glances frantically round. There are no vacant seats anywhere. She has been left the last woman standing.
Humiliated, her cheeks aflame, she returns to the rear of the hall where Portia Mullygrub waits to attend upon any latecomers. It is clear from the expression on the young woman’s face that she has witnessed Hyacinth’s discomfiture.
“There are no more seats,” Hyacinth says, by way of explanation.
Portia nods. Then, unexpectedly, she asks, “Do you really want one?”
Hyacinth’s eyebrows lift in astonishment. She stares at Portia, noticing that her hair is carelessly bundled into a net, her bonnet lacks any form of trimming, and her dress has an aura of missionary barrel about it, being a little too tight and a lot too unfashionable.
“I have heard Ma’s talk so many times, I could recite it in my sleep,” Portia says. “If you like, I could recite it to you. Word for word. Shall I?”
There is something about the way she says this, and the tone of voice she uses, that suggests she is not saying it in a good way. The two young women eye each other speculatively.
“Do you always accompany your mother to these events?” Hyacinth asks.
“Mostly. Sometimes I stay at home. Do you always accompany yours?”
“Oh, that lady I was with is my sister. My Mama died last year.”
Portia laughs bitterly.
“Well, Ma isn’t go
ing to die. Not for ever as far as I can see. Not while she has me to mind the little ones and write her letters and get Pa’s supper ready for when he comes in. And yes, Miss, don’t think I haven’t seen you looking at my bonnet. I know exactly what you are thinking. It’s a disgrace. And my dress is a disgrace too. And my shoes are a disgrace.”
“Oh ... no ... please,” Hyacinth stammers. “I was thinking nothing of the kind.”
“Well then, you should’ve been. Because it is. And so am I.”
And to Hyacinth’s utter astonishment, the strange young woman suddenly pulls the bonnet off her head and flings it into the lobby.
Hyacinth rushes to retrieve the battered black object, which now has an added layer of dust to add to its lack of ton. She returns it to its owner, who is yanking at her hair as if she is trying to pull it out by the roots.
“I expect you have nice clothes, don’t you, Miss? Silk and satin. Nothing out of the missionary barrel for you. Nothing that lets in the wet and the cold. And I expect you dine on chicken and lobster and jellies every day.”
“Um ... I think there is tea in the small hall,” Hyacinth suggests cautiously. “Would you like some?”
Portia rams the bonnet back onto her head. She half-opens the double doors, cocks her head to one side and listens.
“There’s plenty of time. She has barely begun. And then there will be the questions of course. Thank you, a cup of tea would be lovely ... Miss?”
They exchange names, after which Hyacinth leads the way to the small hall, where a big silver urn is hissing gently on the gas ring. She settles the rather wild young lady in a chair. As she goes about making the tea, Hyacinth wonders whether, despite her new companion’s strange behaviour, she might possibly have found a kindred spirit.
****
Sunset falls on castle walls, on place gate, on head of state. Stand in the shadow of this street lamp and you can watch it fall on a square four-storeyed building fronting the road. This is the Strand Union Workhouse in Cleveland Street, a place where the down and desperate, the poor and perishing are forced – by life, by fate, by circumstances, but never by their own choosing – to seek shelter.