“What is it fer you’re doing?”
“I am doing nothing. I am walking.”
“Walking, are you? Why in this spot?” There was menace in the young man’s voice, but also something deeper and slyer.
“Are you looking for a chicken?”
“Chicken?”
“You seem like a man who would like a chicken.” He stroked the front of Gissing’s trousers. “A shilling will do for me. Do you see what I’m on about?”
Gissing pushed him away and began walking even more quickly than before; then he started to run when he heard footsteps coming up behind him, and he fled down another lane. But what was ahead of him? There was a vast form belching out light and heat; for one moment it might have been the Analytic Engine come to monstrous life among the poor, like some medieval specter bathed in fire, but then he realized that he was standing in front of a manufactory. There was a sound of movement behind him still; he had no wish to linger here and, for want of any better escape, he walked towards the building. There was an extraordinary and almost overpowering smell of lead, or acid, or both mixed; he went over to an open door, which seemed to be the entrance to this place, and saw a line of women in dark gowns proceeding up a staircase towards a loft. Each one carried a large pot on her shoulder, and the smoke bellowed from these vessels towards the wooden roof; it wreathed through their dark gowns, and formed clouds around them, as they climbed upwards. On the floor of the manufactory there was another line of women, passing pots from hand to hand until they were pushed into a large, glowing oven. He had no notion of what they were doing but then, among the noise and the billowing smoke, he realized that they were all singing. They might have been proceeding up and down the staircase for eternity, as they slowly sang in unison. He could even make out the words now—it was that old melody from the halls, “Why Don’t They Have the Sea in London?”
He stayed a few minutes longer until he believed it was safe to venture out again into the night; he turned down another lane and, to his great relief, found himself in a street that led back down to the Strand. He had really heard tonight what “man has ever said” and “woman whispered”—and if the air indeed were one vast library, one great vessel in which all the noises of the city were preserved, then nothing need be lost. Not one voice, or laugh, or threat, or song, or footfall, but it reverberated through eternity. He remembered reading in The Gentleman’s Magazine of an ancient myth which supposed that all lost things could be discovered on the other side of the moon. And perhaps there was such a place where perpetual, infinite, London would one day be found. But then perhaps he had found it already—perhaps it was in him, and in each of the people he had encountered that night. He returned to Hanway Street and, finding Nell asleep upon their narrow bed, kissed her gently on the forehead.
FORTY-TWO
It was just before dawn when I returned to Bayswater; I did not wish to wake my husband, but I aroused Aveline with a gentle knock upon the door of her attic room. She seemed very alarmed. “Where were you? What has happened to you?”
“Whatever do you mean? Nothing has happened to me. Now be a good girl and prepare a fire for your master.”
“But you look so pale, and so—”
“Interesting? It is the morning air, Aveline. Most delightful.”
I left her and crept downstairs towards my husband’s bedroom. I stood quietly for a few seconds, debating with myself whether I should wake him with an innocent kiss, but instead I whispered to him through the door. “Nothing has happened,” I told him. “Nothing has happened at all.”
Unfortunately he was sullen and truculent all that day but, when he saw how cheerful and patient I remained, he began to reconsider. I said nothing about the events of the night before, and from my general demeanor I managed to convey the impression that the whole episode was dead and forgotten. It was inconsequential. A few stern glances at Aveline made it quite clear that the subject was not to be raised, and indeed it was not; Misery Junction was never mentioned again in my presence and, after a few weeks, life in Bayswater appeared to resume its normal peaceful course.
I had hidden my anger so deep that there were times when even I could not find it. Yet it was always there, somewhere, just as I only had to look at my husband’s face to recognize his failure and resentment. But why should I be blamed? Why should I be the one person in the house to be accused? To be made to feel guilty? What had I ever done, except to assist him with a play which was so wretched that it could not be performed without my savings and which even then had been hooted down by the Limehouse mob? Even Aveline looked at me in the strangest fashion, from time to time, as if I were somehow responsible for changing the atmosphere within the house. Well, it was not to be my burden or my fault. There were others weaker and more foolish than I. Did either of them really believe that I could be turned into their scapegoat?
“Will you take Mr. Cree a hot beverage?” I asked Aveline one evening. My husband made a habit now of retiring early to his room, and reading; I never complained, since I was quite happy with my own company. “And I think, Aveline dear, that you should bring him a cup of something every night. It will help him to sleep, don’t you think?”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so. Hot cocoa can work miracles. Every night, mind.” I suspect that she understood my plan from the beginning, but she never objected to it. She had always admired Mr. Cree from afar, as I knew, and she was certainly a creature of instinct. As for Mr. Cree, well, as I have admitted, he was a man of ungovernable lust. It would take only a few weeks of cocoa.
FORTY-THREE
Aveline Mortimer was dusting the wax fruit when she heard John Cree enter the drawing room. So, in her old stage manner, she began to hum a tune that signified she was working very merrily.
“What is that song, Aveline?”
“Oh, sir, it is nothing. It is what is called a light air.”
“But you do not seem happy.”
“I am always happy, sir. That is how Mrs. Cree prefers it.”
“You need not obey my wife in everything, you know.”
“Tell that to her.” She had sounded very sharp, but she carried on humming even more fiercely than before. She pretended to rearrange two of the wax pears and, glancing up, realized that Cree was looking out of the window.
“My wife tells me that you come from a poor family. Is that so, Aveline?”
“I was in the workhouse, sir, if that is what Mrs. Cree meant. I have already told her I am not ashamed of it.”
“Nor should you be. There is no need for shame, when it is the hard fate of so many.”
“It may be mine again one day.”
“Oh, do not say that. Never say that.”
“Your wife does.” Aveline savored the moment. “She makes quite a drama of it sometimes. ‘Go back to the workhouse,’ she says, ‘go back where you belong.’ ” Again she paused. “Do you wonder why I am not always happy here?”
John Cree came over from the window, and placed his hand lightly upon her shoulder as she remained bent over the wax fruit. “Mrs. Cree is not always in command of herself, Aveline. She does not mean these things.”
“She is hard, sir, very hard. Just like she was on the stage.”
“I know it.” He withdrew his hand. He had not meant to admit so much, not even to himself, but he enjoyed sharing her anger and resentment. “But I can stand against her, and protect you. I can be your guardian, Aveline, as well as your employer.”
“Can that really be so?” She was about to turn and look at him very fondly, when Elizabeth Cree entered the room. “Yes, sir, if you wish it will be chicken tonight.”
“Does Mr. Cree wish for chicken? Well, Aveline, I suppose you know how to prepare that dish.” She could have seen nothing, but there was no doubt about the coolness of her manner towards husband and maid. “I am surprised at you, John. You know that white meat affects your digestive organs. You will be awake half the night.”
“It
was a whim, Elizabeth. If you wish for something else—”
“No. Not at all. I doubt that my wishes are of any consequence in this household. And, Aveline, mind how you stuff it. Nothing too rich, or too salty. I am told that salt stirs the blood. Is that not so?”
She left the room as abruptly as she had entered, while John Cree and Aveline Mortimer looked at one another doubtfully. He sat down, trembling, and put his hand up to his head. “Do you know, Aveline, what I wish for most in this world?”
“Chicken?”
“No. I wish that you and I might—”
“Go on, sir. Do.”
“Might help one another. Otherwise our life here would be—”
“Unendurable?”
“Yes. That is the word. Unendurable.” He looked towards the door, which his wife had slammed shut a few seconds before.
“Will you do something for me, Aveline?”
“Oh, gladly, sir.”
“Will you show me the workhouses?”
“What?” It was not at all what she had expected, and she could barely conceal her disappointment. “Whatever do you mean?”
“My play has failed. I know it. My wife has made that very clear to me. But over the past weeks and months, Aveline, I have found a great theme. I wish to explore the lives of the poor.” He had become very animated, and she looked at him with horror. “The spoils go to the victor. That is the lesson of our century. But do you know, Aveline, that now I think I would prefer to lie among the vanquished?”
“Don’t tell me you want to move to the workhouse. Mrs. Cree is not that much of a tartar.”
“I want to see them. I want to talk to the people there.”
She considered this the request of a man no longer wholly sane, but she knew that she could steer her own path with him and derive some benefit from the arrangement. So she agreed to accompany him, without the knowledge of Elizabeth Cree; she knew the places well enough, and she was acquainted with many of the people who inhabited them. They visited establishments from Clerkenwell to the Borough, and John Cree was exultant. He had never before seen such misery, and he could have picked up these rags of poverty and vice in order to lift them towards heaven. He could have taken the mass of foul lives, and held them above his head like some monstrance of grief before which all must kneel. He realized, too, that in Aveline Mortimer he had found a poor girl who might redeem him.
FORTY-FOUR
I recognized all the signs—the sudden silences, the whisperings, the blushes, and, most important of all, the fact that he never looked at her during breakfast. I allowed a month to pass and then, at the beginning of December, I boldly stepped into his room without knocking upon the door: there they were upon the bed, as I had expected, lying with one another. “Shame upon shame’s head!” I cried out. He was quite distraught and jumped from the bed, while she simply looked at me and smiled. “So this has come to pass!” In my excitement I echoed one of the phrases from The Northolt Tragedy. “This is the fruit of my marriage!” I left the room and, banging the door behind me, began to weep as loudly as I could. Now I had him, tied with bonds stouter than cord. I would no longer be the guilty one. He would plead with me, praying for forgiveness, and at last I would be the master in my own house.
So it proved. He begged me to forget what I had witnessed, and to avoid what he described as a “domestic tragedy.” He had only a second-rate imagination. I concurred reluctantly but gracefully, and from that day forward I had no trouble from him. I assume that he consorted with whores, because he never touched Aveline again, but that was of no account to me. He was, as Dan might have said, utterly squashed.
There was one consequence of the dreary fumbling with Aveline, however, which raised me even higher in the household. About three months later it became clear that she was with child. “Aveline dear,” I asked her very sweetly as we stood together in the pantry, “am I correct in thinking that there is something kicking within your belly?”
She could not deny it, and stared at me in her usual defiant fashion. “And who do you think put it there?”
“I would not like to say. It could be practically anyone.” I knew that she was about to hurl some obscenity at me, so I took her by the wrists and held on to her very tightly. “I could turn you out of doors forever, Aveline Mortimer, after what you have done. You would be on the streets without help or favor from the world. What would become of you then? No one cares for a pregnant woman. You would be back in the workhouse where you belong.”
“So what do you wish me to do?”
“What you must do, dear. You cannot have my husband’s child. It is unthinkable. Unimaginable. The thing must be destroyed.” At that moment I heard Mr. Cree entering the house and I conceived a masterstroke. I rushed into the hallway and, leading him into Aveline’s presence, explained precisely what he had done. He was so dismayed and distraught that he leaned against the wall, weeping, and put his hands up to his face. “This is no time for tears or lamentation, Mr. Cree,” I said to him. “It is time to act.”
“Act?”
“This child cannot be born. It is the offspring of a shameful coupling, and will carry a curse with it everywhere.” I believe that my mother had once said something of the same kind about my own unhappy origin, but I repeated it quite naturally. “It is an abomination, and must be killed.” I am sure that Aveline had been party to some such arrangement in the past, since she offered no resistance. He seemed about to object, but I stopped him with a motion of my hand. “It is not for you to rule us now, Mr. Cree. It is you who must bear the sin and the blame.”
“So what is to be done, then?”
“You need not concern yourself with female business. I have your agreement, and that is enough.” It was my plan to keep them both under me: if there were any sign of rebellion, I could threaten them with the details of their child’s sad fate. Who would believe that I had played any part in it, when Aveline and Mr. Cree could so easily have arranged everything together? I was not a child-killer. I was the innocent, wronged wife. Over the next several days I gave Aveline a potion of my own manufacture; it encouraged cramps and spasms and would, I knew, expel the seed from her womb. She looked as sick as death but the thing was voided a week later. I put it in a tin chest, and flung it into the river by Limehouse that same winter’s night. There were many such objects washed up by the tide, and no one would take notice of Aveline’s rejected creature.
So it was done. At last I ruled the household, and need brook no interference from any other. By a stroke of good fortune Mr. Cree’s father died a few months after, just at the time we were visiting him in Lancashire, and with our greatly increased fortune I decided to move to a modern villa in New Cross. From that time forward, my dear husband always spent his days among the books of the British Museum. He said that he was composing a tract on the lives of the poor. It was a most disagreeable subject, but I thought it most unlikely that he would ever complete it.
FORTY-FIVE
Inspector Kildare shared his house in Kensal Rise with another bachelor. George Flood was a civil engineer with the London Underground Railway Company, and he had a fine, inquiring mind which had in the past proved invaluable to his friend. Kildare gave him a quick peck on the cheek when he returned home after his interview with Dan Leno. “Well, George, old fellow,” he said. “We have a rum one.”
“The Golem, still?”
“The same. There is no solution to it. No solution at all.”
They settled down comfortably, facing each other in armchairs on opposite sides of their sea-coal fire. The grandfather clock ticked loudly in the corner. “Would you like a nice gin and water, Eric?”
“No, thank you. I’ll smoke a pipe, if it’s all the same to you. It will help me cogitate.” He took it out, lit it, and looked contemplatively at his friend. “You know, George, that I am not very keen on old-fashioned ways of thinking.”
“Why ever should you be?”
“But I have my doubts about this
Golem matter. Do you think there might be such a thing?”
George looked into the fire, as the grandfather clock struck the half hour. “In my line of work, Eric, we use iron and rivets and pig lead. We deal with material things.”
The Trial of Elizabeth Cree Page 21