Rack & Ruin

by Carol Hedges

  With a roar of rage and a sweeping gesture, her father knocks the cutlery, wine glass, water glass and plates onto the floor. The boys yelp with shock and cower in their seats. Tears fill William’s eyes.

  “Mrs Briscoe will NOT be dining here tonight! Or any other night!” their father shouts, a nerve starting to tic at the side of his forehead.

  Letitia sits as absolutely still as she can. When her father is in this mood, it is best to make oneself as small and insignificant as possible. She exchanges a quick warning glance across the table with the twins.

  “For future reference, Mrs Briscoe has decided to stay in Harrogate. In her mother’s house. Which is now her house. And I NEVER want to hear her name mentioned again in my presence. Is that CLEARLY understood?” their father shouts.

  He glares round the table. The boys look down. Only Letitia meets his gaze. If the nerve beating in his temple accelerates any more, it might burst through his skin, she observes detachedly.

  “Clear up this mess,” her father orders roughly, gesturing at the broken plates and shattered glassware.

  He seizes the carving knife and starts slashing at the meat as if it is an enemy to be defeated. Letitia rises and collects up the pieces. Her heart sings for joy. Much later, in the solitude of her room, she will stand by the open window, breathing in the quiet night air and watch the moon sail across the night sky.

  Her world has shifted back into balance. The hated intruder has gone. She will then close the window, and sit in front of the looking glass, staring at her reflection, her face broken open with a smile, until the candle-end sputters and goes out.

  ****

  Digby Barnes Baker wakes to a splitting headache (the result of rather too much champagne) and a vague recollection of plump white thighs, round breasts and the naked writhing body of Miss Lottie Turner.

  He glances to his left, but there is no blonde head on the pillow. Whew. Lottie always likes a little morning encore upon waking and he isn’t sure in his current state that he could perform to her, let alone his, satisfaction.

  As he lies on his back reassembling the night before, there is a discreet knock at the door and Hunter sticks his head round to announce that Digby’s bath is ready and there is a communication from his mother awaiting his perusal.

  Digby yawns, stretches, then throws off the covers and makes his way to the bathroom. While he immerses himself in a tub of hot water, removing the effluvia of the night before, he instructs Hunter what clothes to get ready.

  Bathed, scented and facing a large and well-cooked breakfast (the bachelor quarters provides two meals a day, shipped in from various local hostelries) he finally opens the letter from his mother.

  It is short and succinct. Digby has been seen in the company of a woman of low repute - from the description supplied, it is clear that the woman is the luscious Lottie. He is to desist forthwith from being seen in public with unsuitable consorts. He is an engaged man. A reminder is also added of how much time, money and influence is being expended to secure him a seat in the Palace of Westminster.

  Digby Barnes Baker swears under his breath. Does the mater expect him to live like a bloody monk? It could be years before he is able to marry. And who on earth could have peached about Lottie? A second reading of the letter brings to mind the young woman in mourning who accosted Lottie in the street a while back.

  Digby sets down his knife and fork and focuses his thoughts. Was the young woman the same one he met at the Lawton house - some family friend of Daisy’s? Plain and rather too fond of the sound of her own voice as he recalls.

  She wore full mourning, had one of those flat thin figures that he hates in a woman. Yes, the more he thinks about it, the more he is sure they are one and the same person. So, was she the one to tip off the mater?

  He summons Hunter, who has been consuming a hasty breakfast in the back pantry, and orders him to go and whistle up a cab. They have calls to make. People to see, women to shed.

  While Hunter is cab hunting, Digby finishes his own breakfast, composes a quick note to his mother, and a slightly longer one to Daisy. He is sure Daisy will be delighted to accompany him on an afternoon walk in the local park, blah blah. In the course of which he intends to quiz her closely about her friend.

  He hooks his top hat from the hat stand and heads out of the front door.

  Arriving on the street, Digby finds the cab and his manservant awaiting. He hands over the letters and gives Hunter other careful instructions. Whatever else he is, Digby is not a reckless fool. He has staked his future on becoming an MP. He is not going to allow anybody to stand in his way.

  ****

  Meanwhile Inspector Greig’s hopes that someone would come forward to identify the unnamed man’s body lying in the police morgue, and thus link him to the Halls, have been dashed.

  It seems no person is willing to claim kin, and so the man has finally been laid to rest in a communal unmarked grave very early on a morning with a mist so thick it looked as if the coffin was being lowered into cloud.

  Greig decided to allow details of the prospective funeral to be put in the newspapers, and attended the event himself, carefully scrutinising the mourners. This did not take long, as there weren’t any.

  It confirms his suspicion that somehow, word has got round the criminal fraternity that the ‘Men from the Railway Company’ who turned up at Pastorelli & Rifkin were not what they seemed. He does not know how this has happened, and there is probably no way of finding out at this late stage.

  Greig sits at his desk, studying the latest advertisements in the Daily Telegraph that solicit for the weekly, monthly or yearly care of infants. All the advertisers claim to be widows with a family of their own, who are prepared to offer a home to a young child. For a fee.

  To the general public, they look like genuine and kindly offers. To the initiated, as Greig now is, every advertisement carries a coded message to unmarried or desperate mothers. Money down and you will never see your child again.

  To add insult to injury, the paper actually carries a story on its front page of the discovery of a four-month old baby wrapped up in a newspaper (unspecified) lying beside a road in Kilburn.

  The story has, however, given Greig an idea. When his officers broke into the house used by the Halls for their baby minding business, they found a recent copy of the Telegraph in the kitchen. It suggests that the couple are literate and indicates what their preferred literature might be.

  Thus, Greig has formulated a plan. He is going to place a fictitious advert in the paper. It will be from a Mrs Harding, who is seeking to place a young child with a couple to bring up as their own. The remuneration offered is tempting. There will be a box number for the response.

  He spends some time drafting the advert before summoning a constable and directing him where to take the letter. It is a chance in a million that the right people will read and respond, but while there is even a straws-worth of a chance, Greig is willing to grasp it.

  ****

  By coincidence, as Digby’s cab is making its way towards her house, Daisy and Africa are being driven through Hyde Park. Letitia’s revelation, dismissed out of hand at first hearing, has gradually worked its way into Daisy’s subconscious like some tropical worm.

  Unwilling to face Digby with her thoughts, she has chosen the lesser path and decided to quiz his cousin instead. Thus, the two girls, straw-hatted and sun-shaded, sit in the open-topped carriage and are drawn through the lush green park by the Lawton’s bay carriage horses.

  “Oh, isn’t this such fun,” Africa exclaims for the third time, twirling her sunshade madly. “I love carriage rides! Look at all the people!”

  Daisy smiles vaguely. She isn’t really listening to Africa’s chatter. She is preparing her run up to the matter in hand. Eventually, when she can remain silent no longer, she remarks casually,

  “I expect you see quite a lot of your cousin, now you are in town.”

  “Diggy? I see him now and then. He is suppo
sed to take me out, but a lot of the time he doesn’t turn up. His Mama is not pleased.”

  “Oh? I wonder why,” Daisy says with feigned innocence.

  Africa chews one of her bonnet strings. Truth is, she has a pretty shrewd idea what her cousin is up to - she has heard her aunt and uncle arguing about it in the drawing room, but she also knows that loyalty to family, especially family that is hosting her in their London house, must come first at all costs.

  “I think he has a lot of men friends he likes visiting. And then there is his club and his tailor ...” she shrugs.

  “I see,” Daisy nods. “Yes of course.”

  “And then he has to see a lot of people about getting into Parliament,” Africa continues. “I know my uncle is very busy arranging things for him.”

  Daisy stares out at the passing trees. She wants to believe Africa, she really does. But if it came to a choice between her and Letitia, she knows who would win the truth stakes hands down. Miserable and conflicted, she clutches the handle of her pink parasol, reminding herself how lucky she is to be engaged to such a talented, if busy, man.

  All at once Africa clutches her sleeve,

  “Oh, I say, look at those handsome soldiers!”

  A mounted phalanx of red-coated Dragoon Guards from the Knightsbridge barracks has just entered the park for a little morning exercise. Sitting upright on their immaculate horses, harness jingling, they ride two abreast straight towards the Lawton carriage.

  Daisy’s face colours as she recognises one of the lead officers. It is Arthur Gerrard, her former beau. Since her engagement, she has seen nothing of him. Indeed, as soon as her relationship with Digby became public property, the steady stream of party and ball invitations and callers have turned into a trickle. She is taken, and society Mamas are no longer interested in securing her for their sons.

  As the Guards draw alongside the brougham, Daisy hastily lowers her eyes. Her hands tighten compulsively on the parasol handle. She bites her lower lip.

  “Did you see that?” Africa exclaims, “One of the soldiers saluted me! Oh, I am so thrilled! He had lovely moustaches! And tonight, I am going to a Cotillion ball and aunt has promised that there will be plenty of officers attending. Perhaps he will be there?”

  Perhaps he will, Daisy thinks gloomily. But I shall not. And soon I won’t ever be able to flirt and have handsome young men salute me - for it was me he was saluting, I am sure. She sighs.

  “Shall we turn back now?” she asks dully.

  Africa is leaning out of the carriage in a most unladylike way and staring back at the horses.

  “What lovely lovely uniforms,” she enthuses, nodding her head and shedding pins everywhere. “My Mama always swears she fell in love with an entire regiment of Hussars when they were camped at Brighton.”

  “Did she?” Daisy replies dutifully.

  “She says they used to call it ‘going down with scarlet fever’. Isn’t that droll? Of course, she ended up marrying Papa and going abroad instead. That’s where I got my name from, you know.”

  “Yes,” Daisy says. “You have told me.”

  She instructs the coachman to take them back, telling him to drop Africa at the Barnes Baker’s house first. As the carriage makes its way back through the park, she suddenly wishes Tishy was sitting next to her.

  What fun they would have quizzing the people leaning against the rails watching them pass by. How they would laugh and talk about the old days at school, the secrets they shared.

  As Africa descends clumsily from the carriage, Daisy is almost tempted to tell the coachman to drive her round to the Simpkins’ house. But that wouldn’t do, she reminds herself sharply. She has cut Tishy out of her life. It was her choice to do so. And for good or ill, she will probably now never see her again.

  ****

  From his window, the engineer has been studying birds in flight. Now he is designing a flying machine. He sees it as an essential mechanism for connecting the two sides of bridges built to span wide rivers.

  His desk is full of tiny drawings and scraps of paper full of intricate calculations. Right now he is working on the weight : wing span ratio, based on a pair of blackbirds nesting in the chestnut tree in the garden.

  It would be easier if he could actually catch, handle and weigh one of the birds, but as that is impossible, he is making a set of calculations based on observation and surmise.

  The way the engineer sees it is that the ability to join the two abutments quickly and accurately would obviate the need to construct the wooden derrick poles that stand in the river bed and act as cranes.

  It is highly complex and technical work, and he has been busy with it for some time. He is allowed to walk to the post box as long as he is accompanied by someone, so he has sent his initial designs and thoughts to Mr Bazalgette together with a polite reminder of his previous letter. As yet, he has received no reply.

  At night, when sleep evades him, the engineer often slips out of the house and stands in the darkened garden. Lights here and there in adjoining houses give everything the appearance of an unfinished puzzle.

  At such times, he debates whether it would be possible to build a flying machine powerful enough to get to the moon. It is after all only a matter of scale and proportion.

  He wonders what one would discover there. People like himself? Strange cities with tunnels and bridges of marvellous construction? Or just cold, icy, uninhabited desert stretching away to infinity and beyond.

  ****

  Meanwhile in a small dusty room above a small chemist’s shop in Somers Town, Edwin Persiflage sits on his bed brooding darkly, his ravell’d sleeve of care (in his case it is more a frayed cuff) unknitted by sleep.

  He thinks back to his lost and abandoned childhood, how so many opportunities were denied to him. So many doors slammed in his face. He could have made it big if he’d been given a chance. There are some who dine on peacocks stuffed with larks’ tongues. And some like him, who dine on stale bread and stagnant water.

  Now his belly is filled with bile and spite. He swims in a flood of venom and vindictiveness that is only waiting for a chink in the dam to let it roar out. Despite having spent a perfectly pleasant evening in the company of Millie, he cannot forget the carriages full of rich people that passed them by in the street, the well-dressed young man who almost knocked him off the pavement and didn’t apologise.

  Persiflage adds it all to the septic reservoir of jealousy and resentment that he has built up over the years. He has now decided that he has had enough. Enough of the slights and oversights. Enough of the mundane job, enough of the scrabbling around, enough of being pushed off life’s pavements.

  In Persiflage’s opinion, there is no difference between the richest man in his mansion and the poorest beggar in the gutter, apart from the fact that the former has lots of money, food, nice clothes and good health. These don’t make him better though - just better dressed, fed and healthier.

  Persiflage opens his mind to possibilities. When they return from wherever they have got to, he will summon his fellow Anarchists to a meeting and lay before them his ultimate plan. It is time to enact the Big Boom.

  ****

  There are certain songs that are sung in taverns the world over. They tend to be sung (though maybe ‘roared’ would be a better term) by young men who have imbibed a lot of alcoholic beverages. The songs are usually about young maidens, often of the dairying profession, and their encounter with the aforesaid young men on a May morning. Such a song is even now being roared out in a certain tavern on the outskirts of Kings Cross.

  The tavern is called the Three Turks, and is known locally as a black hole of bred-in-the-brickwork lawlessness patronised by the sort of locals who can progress from amiable badinage to fisticuffs in an astonishingly short space of time.

  Among the singers are the unlikely duo of Waxwing and Muller, though the bank clerk only knows the first three verses and Muller doesn’t know all the words and the ones he does know he doesn’
t really understand.

  They are celebrating Waxwing’s birthday. That is why they have, after many drinks in many pubs, ended up here. They are not sure how it happened, except that this pub is on the way back from wherever they started out. They can’t remember precisely where that was either.

  The usual clientele, after eyeing them up prospectively, have decided to leave them alone on the basis that one of the duo is over six foot, heavily bearded and speaks in a funny accent.

  The song ends.

  “Ach, I see,” Muller says, swaying in his seat, “it is a humorous play on words, yah?”

  “Yah - playonwrods, zactly!” Waxwing burbles happily.

  He is at the lexical blurring stage of intoxication that precedes the falling over one. Muller raises his glass in salutation.

  “Happy birthday, my friend,” he says solemnly.

  Waxwing raises his glass unsteadily in acknowledgement.

  “Least you remembered,” he says bitterly. “Not like bloody Eddy.”

  “Ach, our good friend Edwin has many deep matters to attend to, no?”

  “All that matters to him is planning the next explosion. Not sure I care anymore, t’be honest,” Waxwing says staring moodily into his glass. “No fun being an an..an..kissed.”

  “Never say zat, my friend. Never!”

  “Well, ’s true. Where is he tonight?”

  “Out with the lovely Millie, I believe.”

  “Yeah - tha’s another thing: How come he has a girl an’ I don’t? I got better clothes, and I don’t go on and on about blowing things up. I’m fun and amusing,” Waxwing says, with the deluded self-belief of the very drunk.

  “Ah - I am reminded: a woman came into the shop yesterday asking for you. She was quite young - I think she used to rent a room in Hind Street. She wanted to know if you were living over the shop. I told her yes. Then she went away.”

  With some effort, Waxwing focusses on Muller’s face.