Rack & Ruin

by Carol Hedges

  “Toothache,” Letitia lies.

  “Does it hurt?’

  She turns away from his gaze, unable to sustain the fiction without breaking down.

  “Please get up now. Dress and come down for your breakfasts,” Letitia says shakily, averting her face as she leaves their room.

  She hauls the other jug of water upstairs and leaves it outside her father’s room. Finally, she returns to the kitchen, where the cook has now arrived and is taking off her bonnet in preparation for work.

  “Gawd miss, what happened to you? You look like you went two rounds in the boxing ring,” she gasps.

  Letitia tells her the same story. The cook, who is not as gullible as the twins, regards her sceptically with pursed lips.

  “If you say so,” she says. “Shall I make you some porridge - slip down nice and easy, and the hot would help the swelling go down a bit.”

  Letitia nods. “That would be very kind of you. And now I should like to discuss the day’s meals,” she says.

  The cook waves her away.

  “You leave it to me, miss. You go straight back upstairs. ‘Toothache’ like that needs all the rest you can give it. And so I shall tell Mr Simpkins when he comes down for breakfast. If he asks.”

  The tacit implication that he won’t, for obvious reasons, which they both know, though neither is acknowledging it, hangs in the air between them.

  Folding her arms, the cook nods towards the green baize door.

  “Off you go. I shall be up with your hot water as soon as I’ve got my traps off and my apron on. It’s going to be a warm day, so we won’t need no fires and the dust can wait for a day or so.”

  Letitia tries to smile, wincing as pain stabs her jaw. She climbs the stairs and gets back into her bed. At least it wasn’t her right wrist, she reminds herself. She can still compose letters; she can still produce essays. Her life has not come to a complete stop, just a brief temporary halt.

  ****

  For Persiflage and Waxwing, anarchists manqués, life seems to be inching along unsatisfactorily in the metaphorical slow lane. Here they are at their favourite watering hole being waited on by the unattractive barmaid with the squint and downturned mouth.

  They are drinking flat beer and bemoaning their lot. At least Persiflage is bemoaning. Waxwing is more concerned by the state of his shoes.

  “I wanted them pointed - do you think these are pointed enough?” he asks, stretching out a foot for contemplation and comment.

  Persiflage ignores him.

  “I mean, I know I have somewhat broad feet, but these look more square-toed than pointed to me.”

  It is Friday evening. The weekend stretches ahead. The city awaits, brimful of more pleasures and delights than two young men could possibly imagine. And a lot more that they probably couldn’t.

  “Only I was looking at that messenger boy Willoughby’s boots and they were considerably more pointed than mine were,” Waxwing continues. “I wonder if I should return them - what do you think, Edwin?”

  “I think it is time to lay down a marker,” Persiflage says savagely, running a finger round the rim of his dusty glass. “I think it is time to let those who hold the reins know that we are primed and ready.”

  Waxwing frowns. His train of thought, which has been happily pottering along on a branch line, has suddenly been diverted.

  “Ah. Umm. What reins are you talking about? I say, steady on, we aren’t going to hurt any animals, are we? I shouldn’t like to do that.”

  Persiflage rolls his eyes.

  “I’m talking about people, not horses, you fool! The people who live in big houses and splash us with mud as they pass in their shiny carriages. The people who think they own us all, body and soul.”

  “Ah. Those people. Now I understand you. So, what are we going to do?”

  Persiflage’s face takes on a dreamy expression.

  “We are going to send a little message,” he says. “Boom,” he adds nodding significantly.

  Waxwing stares at him, open-mouthed.

  “Yes, my friend. It will be the forerunner to the Big Boom.”

  “Didn’t we do that when we were living in Hind Street?”

  “No Danton, that was not the Big Boom, that was an unfortunate accident.”

  “It killed Mr Sprowle, though, didn’t it? I’m not sure we should kill people.”

  Persiflage regards him askance. Truth to tell, he is becoming fed up with the oafish stupidity of his erstwhile roommate, who seems to lack the fire in his belly that he and Muller possess.

  “Mr Sprowle was a dirty smelly old man who overcharged us on the rent and stuck his nose into our business whenever he could. The world is well rid of him,” he says firmly.

  “But did he deserve to die, is the question?” Waxwing muses, tracing patterns on the dusty table with a finger.

  “Danton, we are Anarchists. You do understand what that means, don’t you? Anarchists create anarchy. In a state of anarchy, people may just possibly die, yes - but that is their destiny. It is what happens. The old and rotten has to be cleared out to make way for the new.”

  “Like Hind Street, you mean,” Waxwing says, brightening.

  “Yes, Danton, yes. Exactly like Hind Street. Or rather, not like Hind Street in that this will be a deliberate act and I have already chosen our target.”

  “You have?” Waxwing is wide-eyed with admiration. “What is it?”

  “Not what, my friend, who. We are going to blow up the statue at the top of Portland Place. The one of that fat German. Every time I pass his smirking face it makes my blood boil.

  “They spend a fortune putting up a statue to some foreign fool with ugly legs when there are people dying in the streets and back courts for lack of food.”

  “Too right,” Waxwing says. He pauses. “And when are we going to do it?”

  Persiflage glances round, then lowers his voice.

  “By Monday morning the world as these people know it will have changed, my friend. Changed forever.”

  He gulps down the last mouthful of beer and gets to his feet.

  “Come Danton, there is much work to do in preparation. We have finally grasped the tiller of Fate and pushed the boat of Revolution away from the shore of Apathy. There is no turning back now.”

  ****

  Letitia Simpkins passes through the ornate gates of Kensal Green cemetery. In her hand is a tiny bunch of flowers picked from the garden, which she will shortly place on her mother’s grave. It has been a while since she last visited. Indeed, it has been many days since she set foot outside the house.

  Nor would she have today, but her father and Mrs Briscoe have left for the weekend to visit the latter’s elderly mother in Harrogate. She is ailing. They have taken the reluctant twins with them. The whole party departed early in the morning to catch the first train north from Kings Cross and will not return until late Sunday night.

  The bruises to Letitia’s face and side are healing. The bruise upon her soul is not. It remains as raw as the day the blows to her body were struck. But her spirit remains unbroken, and much to her surprise, she is finding a certain satisfaction in realising that she cannot be ‘made’ to say or do anything against her will.

  She has also discovered an unexpected ally in the cook, who dislikes Mrs Briscoe almost as much as she does. The good woman has been secretly supplementing her diet, strictly against the orders of her father, who has declared that until Letitia apologises to Mrs Briscoe, she is to have nothing but bread and water to eat, and that in very small quantities only.

  More importantly, the cook has provided her with the spare key to the kitchen door. For some unaccountable reason neither her father nor Mrs Briscoe seem to have realised that there is a servant way in and out of the house. Or entertained the notion that Letitia might stoop so low as to use it.

  So although she surrendered her front door key - in reality it was torn from her neck on that dreadful evening, Letitia has obtained the means to leave the house,
subject to the absence of Mrs Briscoe. Who is not currently present. So here she is, face hidden under some black veiling which she has pinned to her bonnet.

  On the way to the cemetery, she has posted her latest essay to her tutor, also a carefully worded letter to Daisy. Letitia has sometimes pondered, in the dark hours before dawn when hunger gnawed at her and sleep abandoned her, what it must be like to live in the sunny uplands of Daisy’s world.

  Daisy would certainly never be reduced to contemplating what she is planning to do later on, after her visit. But then Daisy has not had to walk for miles in shoes that are worn out and stockings that are more holes held together by darns than anything else.

  Letitia reaches the plain white marble headstone that marks the final resting place of her mother. The simple inscription reads: Here lies Mary Eliza Simpkins, wife of Reginald Simpkins. “Taken too soon and much missed.”

  Kneeling down, she pulls out the weeds that have already started to encroach, and places her flowers gently against the headstone. Tears prick her eyelids and for a brief moment, she surrenders to the sense of abandonment that is never far from the surface of her life. If she lay down on her mother’s grave and died right now, who would care? Who would mourn her?

  “I am sorry, Mama,” she whispers. “I should have been a better daughter. Please forgive me.”

  Wiping her eyes, Letitia scrambles to her feet and straightens her shoulders. This will not do. She cannot afford to weaken. She takes a final long look at her mother’s grave, imprinting the image of it on her subconscious. She does not know when she will be allowed to visit it again.

  Then she turns and walks away. It is time to do what has to be done.

  A short while later, Letitia Simpkins stands outside a pawnbroker’s shop in a fashionable district of the city (for even Fashion cannot dispense with its pawnbrokers). She stares at the unredeemed items in the window: enamels and miniatures, cashmere shawls, diamond rings, mathematical instruments, buhl clocks, watches, gold chains, and bracelets, while she mentally screws her courage to the sticking point. When she reaches it, she enters the shop.

  The door opens into the common shop where a number of shabby looking individuals are engaged in earnest discussions with the gentleman behind the counter. From their casual attitude, it is clear that long usage has rendered them indifferent to public scrutiny of their poverty.

  Glancing up, the gentleman sees Letitia’s bewildered look, and directs her to a side passage from which some half-dozen doors lead to small closets facing the counter. Here the more timid or discreet customers can wait, shrouded from their fellows, until the pawnbroker behind the counter is disposed to attend to them.

  Letitia waits patiently until the pawnbroker, who has curly black hair, a flashy diamond ring and a double silver watch-guard, arrives on the other side of the closet. She fumbles in her bag and brings out some jewellery boxes.

  “I should like to pawn these things, please,” she says hesitantly, placing the boxes on the counter and not making eye contact.

  He nods, produces a jeweller’s loupe on a chain and begins to examine the contents of the boxes: a gold eternity ring, a pair of ruby and diamond earrings and a silver cross on a long chain. All belonged to Letitia’s mother and should, by rights, have been passed down to her as the eldest (and only) daughter.

  They have not been though. Instead Letitia has removed the boxes from a drawer in her mother’s dressing table. Initially she wanted to have the pieces as keepsakes. Now she needs money for such essentials as writing paper, ink and shoes.

  The pawnbroker does some calculations in a notebook, then names his price. It is sufficient for her immediate needs and more. She knows she could probably get a better price if she haggled, but she has never haggled in her life and isn’t sure how to begin.

  So she hands over the boxes, gives the gentleman her name and address and a promise that these items are indeed her property, and receives in return a roll of bank notes and a pawn ticket.

  Unexpectedly richer than she has been for a very long time, Letitia leaves the pawnshop, stashing the money safely at the bottom of her bag. Her first port of call is a stationer’s, where she replenishes her diminished stock of writing materials.

  Then passing a tea-room, she decides to throw financial caution to the wind and treat herself to afternoon tea. She has not eaten properly for a long time and the sight and the smell of all the freshly baked bread and cakes on display almost overpowers her.

  A waitress shows her to a table in the window and hands her the menu. Letitia orders sandwiches, scones, a plate of cakes and a pot of tea. While she waits for her order to arrive, she watches the people on the other side of the glass.

  The tea-room is very close to a park. Families and couples pass by in an endless stream all going in that direction. The women wear bright coloured dresses, and carry pretty parasols. The children smile and hop and skip. She envies them their happiness.

  After a while, she starts to notice the others - the ill clad and barefoot children in the gutter. The pinch-faced women with ragged shawls. The faces at the edge of the banquet. The lookers-on in the doorways. The unwelcome reminder that life is not all sunshine and roses for everybody in the great city.

  The waitress brings her tea to the table. Letitia consumes it with unladylike rapacity, making short work of the dainty sandwiches and the warm scones with their pats of sweet yellow butter. The richness of it leaves her dizzy and she has to close her eyes for a few minutes.

  When the last crumbs have been consumed, she pays for her tea with a few of her precious coins and walks out into the afternoon sunshine, her spirits buoyed by her full stomach.

  She is just passing the British Museum and wondering whether she might go in to look at the objects on display, when her attention is drawn to a couple walking just ahead of her.

  The elegantly dressed man is Daisy’s future fiancé Digby Barnes Baker - she is sure it is him and on his arm, a slender woman with blonde curls and a pretty straw bonnet.

  It must be Daisy. Letitia’s heart leaps. What a lucky coincidence. She quickens her pace and draws alongside. Reaching out her hand, she touches the woman lightly on the elbow.

  “Daisy?” she murmurs in a low voice.

  The young woman looks round. Letitia’s mouth opens in an O of surprise. It is not Daisy; it is another young woman altogether - very pretty, but older than she looked from behind.

  She has quick and greedy eyes and a small pointed chin and her expression bespeaks an experience of life that is worlds away from anything Letitia or Daisy might know about.

  Red-faced with embarrassment Letitia stammers an apology.

  The woman looks her up and down, the look taking in Letitia’s shabby black dress, veiled face and worn out shoes. Then she clicks her teeth, and tosses her head dismissively as she takes her companion’s arm in a closer embrace.

  The pair walk off quickly. But not before Letitia has confirmed that at least she was right in one respect: the man is indeed Digby Barnes Baker. He regarded her with the same expression of complete indifference as he did on the first and only occasion of their meeting.

  So what is he doing here now, strolling in the summer sunshine in the company of another woman? And does Daisy know of her existence? Somehow Letitia doubts it.

  She begins to follow them, but the crowd on the pavement is too thickly packed and she loses sight of them after a few minutes. Nevertheless, Letitia reminds herself, she had her suspicions about Daisy’s admirer from the moment she met him.

  At the time, she’d put it down to first impressions. Now it seems she was correct. Mr Barnes Baker is not what he appears on the surface. But how to tell Daisy? And what to tell her? That is the problem that occupies her thoughts all the way home. By the time she gets back, she still hasn’t come up with a satisfactory answer.

  ****

  London at night. The magic of millions of gas-lamps; brightly-lit stores resplendent with every masterpiece that human ingen
uity can devise. Houses lit like shops, shops lit like theatres.

  Like moths to a flame, people are attracted to the lighted streets, to the world of enchantment and illusion. They have a hectic appearance, their clothes appear strange and fantastical, like stage costumes in some vast drama.

  Take a night-time promenade along Regent Street, past the troops of elegantly-dressed courtesans, their silks and satins rustling as they mingle with others of every order and pursuit, from the ragged crossing-sweeper to the highbred gentleman of fashion and the scion of nobility.

  Satiety reached, step away from this gay scene. Almost at once you enter the shadowy world of danger and disorder, the world of introducing houses and gin-palaces, where space is reinterpreted into seeing illumination and blind shadow, where the familiar becomes unfamiliar, a confusion of dream and reality.

  Here, behind the architectural splendour of the aristocratic street with its shops, cafes and concert rooms, sounds become distorted, so that the screams and shouts of night people course up and down the streets in strange shuddering echoes.

  Listen. Saint Giles’s Church clock strikes the hour. Inside the neighbouring gin palace all is light and brilliancy. The long bar is of carved mahogany. There are stucco rosettes surrounding the plate-glass windows and a dazzling profusion of gaslights in richly-gilt burners.

  Leaning nonchalantly against the bar are two professional looking men in their mid-twenties. They look well fed and have a gentleman-like appearance, their clothes and demeanour being slightly at odds with the loud drinkers who sit at tables or booths, attempting to get as much cheap alcohol down their throats as possible before chucking out time.

  The two at the bar smoke their cigars and sip their gin and water, the glasses discreetly topped up at intervals by the barmaid. No money is demanded or offered. Every now and then somebody comes in, eyes the two men, nods, and goes out again.

  These two are professional cracksmen, the highest- ranking villains amongst the vast tide of criminal underworld that swirls around the great city. These men give time and skill to the meticulous planning of crimes. They are masters of their craft.