by David Field
‘And he hoped that you would become one of these?’ Matthew asked politely.
Carlyle burst out laughing. ‘Hardly! He considered that I was wasting an expensive education by “fiddling around with bodies, instead of concerning yourself with minds”, to quote his own words. Ironically, of course, I have developed an interest in the human mind, insofar as it affects the body.’
‘It’s a pity that your uncle didn’t concede the possibility that there might be great women,’ Adelaide commented sourly as she pushed her plate away with her supper half eaten, threw her napkin down beside it and rose from the table. ‘If you would excuse me, I have a paper to prepare. An address to the Highgate Ladies’ Institute next Friday, although I doubt that it will find its way into the cobwebbed museum founded by my great uncle.’ With that she swept from the room like a galleon putting hurriedly to sea.
Carlyle shook his head slowly as he watched her close the dining room door behind her. Then he turned back to Matthew. ‘You must think my daughter an Amazonian.’
‘She certainly holds strong opinions,’ Matthew conceded.
Carlyle nodded. ‘I fear that she fell too much under the influence of her dear mother, whose entire life was spent battling the male establishment. But I have learned to assess Adelaide more deeply and much of her bravado is a facade.’
‘How so?’
‘She will be twenty-three on her next birthday and like most women of that age she is governed by those urges that drive respectable women into marriage. No, spare your blushes for a more suitable occasion, for I am not speaking of carnal urges, except perhaps insofar as they operate as the purely animal motivation for nest-building and child rearing.’
‘On a prior occasion she complained of the attitude of men towards women that regards them merely as baby factories.’
‘That is, of course, a classic defence ploy,’ Carlyle explained, as if to a student on a course involving human psychology. ‘What she most wants, but believes that she cannot have, she denigrates. I believe that it was our illustrious bard Shakespeare who said, of one of his heroines, that “I think the lady doth protest too much”. But what, pray, might be your opinions on the role of women in this male dominated society that we seem to have acquired for ourselves?’
‘I would hesitate to say so in front of your daughter, but deep down in my heart I cannot see women other than in the role of wife and mother,’ Mathew admitted.
‘No role for them in a man’s world, then?’
‘Obviously,’ Matthew hastened to explain, ‘I do not believe that being a wife and mother in any way detracts from a woman’s true value in society — in fact quite the opposite. As your late wife demonstrated, it’s perfectly possible for a woman to dedicate her softer instincts to the invaluable work of supporting a husband and children, while at the same time playing a significant role in society with whatever other talents she may possess. In the case of your late wife, a talent for writing. I do not deny that maintaining such a double lifestyle would be onerous and again I strengthen my case by reference to your wife, if I may do so without causing you unnecessary distress. From what you confided earlier today, I understand that the strain involved weakened her constitution, making her more vulnerable to infection.’
‘Indeed, and one part of me seeks to protect Adelaide from burning herself out in the same manner. But as a father, I also feel for her in her mental torment. She desperately desires a husband and a domestic nest, but she fears that by yielding to what she publicly condemns as a weakness, she will not only be betraying those of her sex, but also appearing to be a hypocrite, insisting in public that women have a greater role to play in society than they are currently afforded, while in private enjoying all the pleasures of a family life, in which — perhaps inevitably — she will be dependent upon the material support of a man.’
‘That is not only sad, but also — if you would forgive me — hardly reasonable for a woman who has such a great logician for a father,’ Matthew observed. ‘Surely, just like her mother, she can demonstrate to the entire world that while biological reality dictates that she adopt a role that some might regard as submissive, she is still capable of great intellectual feats and should not be thought any the less of, simply because she is also nurturing the future of society. Her body may belong in the nursery, but her mind is free to inspire and govern the entire world.’
‘I shall try to remember that line,’ Carlyle said as he clapped his hands gently in token applause. ‘I only wish my daughter had been here to hear it.’
‘If she had,’ Matthew grinned back at him, ‘I might well now be wearing a supper plate on my head.’
‘She needs gentle treatment, Matthew. The man who seeks her hand must choose his words carefully.’
‘A pity that some men never learn the value of gentleness,’ Matthew commented sadly. ‘Every day in my work I encounter pitiful wives and mothers whose men treat them like punching bags. It is enough to put one off marriage and family life.’
‘And has it deterred you, Matthew?’ Carlyle asked solicitously. ‘Is that why you remain unmarried? Fear of becoming like one of those men?’
‘God forbid,’ Matthew replied vehemently. ‘I could never treat any fellow human in such a fashion, let alone a woman who has so trusted me that she has allowed me access to her body and borne my children.’
‘And yet you remain unmarried? Were you never tempted into matrimony?’
‘Once,’ Matthew replied as his face fell. ‘And that was enough for me, let me assure you. It was the most beautiful time of my entire life so far, but ultimately it led to the lowest.’
‘She rejected your offer?’
‘Yes and no. She led me to believe that she would have happily become my wife, but circumstances led to her need to seek financial security from another. We are not well remunerated in the Wesleyan Church, you see. At present I am awarded a mere pittance and even were I to be appointed to a church of my own I could barely afford to take on the responsibilities of a wife and family.’
‘But the experience to which you allude has put you off the idea of a wife and family?’
‘Say rather that it has led to me putting all such ideas behind me,’ Matthew replied sadly.
It fell silent and Carlyle rose from the table. ‘If you have consumed enough from that fine plate of cheese and fruit, there will be fresh coffee laid out in the sitting room. I shall be consuming a glass or two of an excellent port and while I do not expect you to join me in that, you may wish to smoke your pipe while I indulge in a cigar. Then I shall attempt to persuade you to attend a forthcoming meeting of the Hackney Branch of the Charity Organisation Society.’
‘And why should I need to be persuaded?’ Matthew asked. ‘If it is the meeting regarding the new housing proposals in Bethnal Green, then I already know about it and I am aware that members of other branches have an open invitation.’
Carlyle said, ‘I should perhaps advise you that someone else who’ll be attending is my daughter Adelaide. She has quite strong views on the matter.’
The following morning Matthew awoke to the sound of a busy household preparing for the day ahead and the delicious smell of bacon. He dressed hurriedly and made his way down to the dining room, where Carlyle appeared to have completed his breakfast and was urging Adelaide to get a move on. He nodded as Matthew appeared at the side table with its heated dishes containing cooked breakfast delights. ‘No need to hurry on your part, young man. Collins will come back after delivering us to the hospital, with instructions to take you wherever it is that you need to go. Come along now, Adelaide.’
With a brief sideways look at Matthew that was almost an appeal for sympathy regarding her employer’s insistence that she leave her breakfast half consumed, Adelaide rose from her seat and dabbed her mouth with a large white handkerchief that she extracted from the sleeve of her blouse. In her haste to replace it, she failed to secure it sufficiently under the cuff buttons and it fell to the carpet.
Matthew gallantly stooped to pick it up and was in the process of handing it back to her when he noticed an orange emblem of some sort embroidered on one corner. It resembled a somewhat squashed rectangle and in an effort to generate a brief conversation he looked at it, then commented as he handed it back to her, ‘An interesting looking decorative motif.’
‘It was my mother’s,’ Adelaide replied. ‘It was her favourite, since it bears a symbol of the country of her birth, which was of course Ulster. It’s a harp.’
Matthew’s mind was in turmoil as he mechanically helped himself to bacon and eggs, poured himself a cup of tea and took a seat at the empty table. A harp. Not just a symbol of Wales, seemingly, but also Northern Ireland, the birthplace of Adelaide’s mother. The harp that his grandfather had bid him look out for, as a sign of an important relationship that was to come his way in the near future. At least, those had been Sarah Barlowe’s words, purportedly coming to him from his dead grandfather, who was, if one was to believe Sarah, now in a place where he could look back down on earthly events and guide his grandson’s footsteps.
His logical brain reminded him that Sarah Barlowe had been caught out perpetrating a cheap conjuring trick while pretending to be in communication with ‘Spirit”. But then his emotional self kicked back into life and he conjured up his mental image of Adelaide Carlyle. Delightful soft red curls, a face full of freckles and clear green eyes like breaking waves cresting out on the world with honesty and purity. An English rose born of Scottish and Irish parents. A tall, slim figure with curves in places where they ought to be. At least two men in his hearing had described her as ‘pretty’, but that hardly did her justice. She was beautiful.
But she was also brittle and given to explosive outbursts against men. A woman who, if she were only to admit it, needed a man who would love and cherish her and allow her true talents full reign. But that man would also need to be wealthy, given the comfortable circumstances in which she’d been raised. How could he, an impoverished clergyman still dependent on his parents for at least some of the necessities of life, even contemplate a bid for her affections? He’d already failed to secure a lady’s heart because of his impecuniosity and had his own heart handed back sorely wounded.
And what about Nerys Jenkins? Did she not also come from a background that included a harp? Had he not been thinking deeply of her, only a few nights ago, hoping that she was somehow trying to communicate with him via his grandfather? What if she was the victim of an unhappy marriage from which she needed rescue, or remained unmarried and was pining for him, too proud to admit her mistake? Was he not betraying her memory by thinking of Adelaide in terms of a romantic attachment? How would Nerys feel if she knew what his disturbed and confused mind was contemplating in his uncertainty?
Best to leave well alone, he finally determined as he finished his breakfast and made his way back upstairs to wash his face in the basin before heading back down for the front door.
Collins had already returned and while Matthew could not be certain that the coachman had pulled a wry face when asked to drive to Cable Street he did as requested and Matthew found himself back before the noticeboard in the Mission that had become like a second home.
‘You should consider that opening in Spitalfields,’ said the familiar voice behind him and he turned to the superintendent.
‘You’re very kind,’ he replied politely, ‘but there are surely others more deserving than me of such a raising.’
‘That rather depends upon how you define “deserving”,’ the superintendent replied. ‘I hear constantly of your devoted ministering to our humble flock and if these positions were handed out by popular acclaim, then you would already be conducting Sunday preachings in the Albert Hall. But you will appreciate that other considerations come into play and that our Deacons and Trustees like to have their say in such matters. You are long overdue a circuit of your own and Spitalfields would be a fine place to start, but again I have to warn you against becoming associated with matters that are perhaps not appropriate for men of our calling. Involvement with the police, for example.’
‘I was assisting them with enquiries into these horrible recent events relating to the alleged return of plague victims,’ Matthew explained, earning only a troubled frown from the superintendent.
‘Precisely that sort of thing, Matthew. Keep your head down low, your nose clean, and your pastoral record immaculate and who knows? But heed my warning.’
Matthew wandered back down towards the chapel, deep in thought and in need of divine support and inspiration. An appointment to an Assistant Ministry, while modest in itself, was the next logical step towards a permanent living of his own and a position on the local ‘circuit’ of Wesleyan chapels. It would also all but double his current income, to a level that was somewhere just above ‘adequate’, but hardly in the category of ‘comfortable’, let alone ‘wealthy’. It was with a sigh of relief that he chased all conscious thought of Adelaide Carlyle out of his mind as he knelt in prayer and sought guidance and comfort.
10
Two days later, Matthew was walking across the cobbled courtyard of the local workhouse when he spotted a familiar figure walking towards him and slowed down as the distance between the two men narrowed.
‘I knew that you church types aren’t paid very much,’ Jennings grinned, ‘but has it come to this?’
Matthew laughed back. ‘We’re certainly “poor as church mice”, as the expression goes, but it’s not yet that bad. I might equally ask what you’re doing here.’
Jennings frowned. ‘Just checking the inmate rolls for this place, in my search for the Head Brewer at Bennings. Former Head Brewer, as it turns out, since he was replaced some time ago, according to the directors. I’ve managed to speak to all of them and they all give me the same story — that a cove called Alfred Morrell was dismissed some weeks ago.’
‘Sounds a likely suspect for poisoning beer,’ Matthew observed. ‘No wonder you’d like to speak to him.’
‘That’s just the point,’ Jennings grimaced. ‘He’s gone missing. Done a runner from his house in Hoxton and didn’t bother telling his wife that he’d been sacked. According to the brewery he’d taken too much of a fancy to his product and had become unreliable. After the third batch had to be flushed down the drain he was given the Grand Order of the Boot. Then according to his wife he set off from the house one morning a month ago, telling her he was off to work as usual and hasn’t been home since. He took off with their life savings, seemingly. I’ve checked the hospitals, obviously and now I’m down to the workhouses like this one. Every man in the East End’s got his description, for all the use that is, given that it’s so vague.’
‘Talking of hospitals, have you been keeping Dr Carlyle up to date with your investigations?’
‘Of course. He tells me that you helped him with an experiment and that he can now reveal to the world what the poison was.’
‘He could, but for some reason he won’t,’ Matthews told Jennings with a frown. ‘Perhaps he’s waiting until you collar that man Morrell, who by the sound of it may have been going around the East End lacing people’s beer.’
‘Probably, but officially the matter’s in my hands, not his,’ Jennings reminded him. ‘We’re still getting reports of people going off their heads and claiming to have seen horrible phantoms and suchlike, so presumably this bloke Morrell is still at it, flitting from pub to pub. Every pub involved, even now, is a Bennings pub and its directors have not been slow to put two and two together. They’ve made an official complaint to the Yard about lack of progress and my arse is out of the window until I catch the bugger. Oh, sorry — pardon my language.’
‘I hear a lot worse, every day, in my job,’ Matthew replied. ‘Which reminds me, I’d better get back to it. Hopefully you’ll get your man before much longer.’
‘It won’t be for lack of trying, anyway. I’ve got men staking out almost every Bennings pub these nights. There’s no shortage of volunteers,
obviously, but there are complaints about the manpower I’m using up, apart from anything else.’
The large meeting room on the first floor of the premises leased by the Hackney Branch of the Charity Organisation Society was filling up fast, even though it was a midweek evening. However, the topic was one of the most compelling for all those with any concern for the poorest among the working-class and several branches of the largely middle-class organisation of which Matthew and Carlyle were members, albeit affiliated to different branches, had been invited to attend.
The main speaker tonight, Councillor Montague Treadwell, from the London County Council Housing Committee, was here to advise them of how they might best work alongside the authorities in what promised to be a ground-breaking experiment in the alleviation of suffering and hardship in one of the East End’s worst slums.
The ‘Old Nichol’ in Bethnal Green was a byword in pestilence and inner urban squalor. Some six thousand poor residents were crammed into a cramped network of some thirty streets, each with festering courtyards running off it. Such regulations as existed regarding building standards had been cynically ignored as ‘speculative’ builders had, almost a century earlier, employed lime-based by-products from local soap factories as their mortar, instead of the more traditional lime mortar. Since it had never properly dried out, even years later, the consequence was sagging and unstable walls.
Nor had they bothered with any resemblance of foundations; instead, floorboards had simply been laid on bare earth and cheap timber and half-baked bricks of ash-adulterated clay, along with badly pitched roofs, had all but guaranteed that the houses would be permanently soggy with the damp from the roof and the earth seeping through the buildings.