That night, lying in bed, she could hear an unsteady pattering of rain falling onto the roof tiles. Her face felt very cold, and the words of Johnny’s song kept going through her mind. I wonder where she is, I wonder what she’s doin’? Underneath the blankets she pressed her hands together and closed her eyes tight.
‘Dear God in heaven and St Jude,’ she whispered, ‘please let Mr Treble change his mind.’
*
The waiting gave her stomach ache. The doctor had said she should stay at Gilder Terrace, and in due course a boy would be sent with a message. Mr Treble and his lady friend were staying at a modest hotel in Clerkenwell, and when his friend became sick, he would call for them.
‘I must go to Axford Square,’ he said, clumsily buttoning his overcoat. ‘It’s a simple enough case, and I shan’t be gone too long. If I’m not back in time, you’ll have to fetch me from there, so walk quickly. Remember, when we get to the hotel, I am a perfectly ordinary medical doctor. If she needs to take more tincture, then the tincture is a medicine, and we are trying to make her better. Understand?’
Jane now sat in the kitchen while Alice swept around her feet. The floor was awash with cake crumbs and lentils. The house was always a mess, Edie said, because they were paid next to nothing, and the Swifts didn’t care. ‘Where is the doctor anyway?’ said Edie.
‘Axford Square,’ Jane told her.
‘Another girl? They’re all mad if you ask me – oh, the boy will say he loves them more than his own true heart, or his mother, which always gets a fast result.’
‘I’d rather die,’ said Alice.
*
The doctor returned at lunchtime, though it was almost three o’clock before the messenger arrived, a thin rake of a boy, a dirty red cap squashed between his hands.
‘Yes?’ said Jane, trying her best not to look too concerned.
‘Didn’t you hear me shouting?’ the boy panted. ‘The doctor’s needed. It’s urgent.’
‘Where?’
‘The Dragon Hotel, Clerkenwell. It’s off Leather Lane, a big place on the corner, you can’t miss it, a lady’s there and very sick.’
‘I’ll tell him straight away.’
The doctor appeared in the hall, carrying his bag. ‘Here,’ he said, pressing a few coins into the boy’s sweaty hand. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘The name’s Lincoln,’ he said, as if he’d only just remembered. ‘Room 28.’
Jane suggested a cab, but as the doctor was quick to point out, a cab would mean yet another person knowing where they were.
They walked quickly at first, the doctor chewing a peppermint to hide the scent of whisky on his breath. For the first time that year the air almost felt humid, and after twenty minutes walking Jane began to envy the horses being watered at the roadside.
When they arrived in Leather Lane, the doctor suggested they pause for a moment outside the hotel in order to compose themselves. ‘Get your breath back,’ he ordered, dabbing a handkerchief across his own beaded forehead. After only a couple of minutes, he looked remarkably unruffled. ‘Remember what we are here to do,’ he said. ‘And you must do as you are told, without any question.’
The hotel was a sprawling, shabby hostelry. The painted dragon emblazoned on its gable end was peeling green scales across the pavement. When they reached its open yard, the doctor stopped at a small pile of rubbish, picking out a boot box.
‘A boot box, sir?’
‘Just take it,’ he said, pushing it roughly into her hands.
Jane’s knees dipped as they approached the reception desk, where a man was busy hunting for a key. Instead of waiting, the doctor nodded towards a painted arrow, and they followed it past an empty dining room, up three creaking stairs, and down another corridor to Room 28.
‘Leave the box out here,’ the doctor whispered, taking off his hat and running a hand through his rough springy hair. When he knocked on the door, Jane’s heart jumped with the raps of his knuckles, which he then rubbed across his coat when Mr Treble answered.
‘What took you so long?’ he hissed.
The room was stifling and airless. Mr Treble, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, his braces dangling, led them to a woman sitting in a giant double bed.
‘You are not my doctor,’ she said, alarmed. ‘Where is Dr Grey?’
Smiling, Dr Swift put down his bag and held out his hand. ‘I’m Mr Treble’s personal physician,’ he explained. ‘He sent for me.’
‘Sent for you?’ Frowning, the woman looked at Mr Treble, who was pacing near the window. ‘But Johnny, I particularly asked for Dr Grey, he knows my situation, he knows everything. Eugene Grey is my doctor.’
Mr Treble looked annoyed. ‘Dr Swift was nearer and available,’ he said. ‘He’s a good doctor. The best.’
The woman laughed. ‘The best?’ she said. ‘Who told you that?’
Jane was surprised to see how well the woman looked. She had pale hair, sharp green eyes, and around her neck she wore a thin gold chain. She reminded Jane of the medieval paintings in Father Boyd’s Book of Olde History.
‘Now, what’s the problem?’ the doctor asked, seeming unperturbed and sitting closer to the bed. ‘How might I help you?’
‘How might you help me? What about my name?’ she said. ‘You have not even asked for my name. What kind of doctor are you? A pedlar? A quack? Do you always treat your patients without asking such a fundamental question as their name?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ snapped Mr Treble, ‘just tell the man your name.’
With a very surly expression the woman said her name was Julia Lincoln. ‘And though it might seem shocking to you, I am expecting a baby.’
‘I have never been easily shocked,’ said the doctor.
‘But I have had pains, excruciating pains,’ she said, looking anxiously towards Mr Treble, who was now leaning very close to the window frame. ‘The baby isn’t expected for months. Is there something terribly wrong with me?’
The doctor sucked in his lips. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said. ‘You must try not to worry. Let me take a look at you.’
Jane stepped closer. She handed the doctor a towel. The woman looked horrified. ‘Where on earth did you spring from?’ she said.
‘This is Jane, my assistant. She is a very able nurse.’
‘Nurse?’ said Miss Lincoln. ‘That girl is really a nurse?’
Sighing, and curling her lip, Miss Lincoln suddenly gave in to everything as the pain began to grip her. ‘You see,’ she breathed. ‘Here it comes again.’
‘Now these pains,’ said the doctor, looking very warm, ‘might have nothing to do with the child. They might be digestive. Have you eaten anything bad, or unusual?’
‘No,’ she told him. ‘I’ve had coffee, bread and butter, a bowl of soup and some fruit. Now I feel worse. Johnny? Won’t you take my hand?’
Appearing reluctant, Mr Treble did as he was told, closing his eyes when the doctor pressed firmly on the sides of Miss Lincoln’s swollen abdomen. ‘I’m afraid the baby might be coming,’ said the doctor. ‘I know it’s much too soon, and I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ Miss Lincoln sat a little higher, pulling at the doctor’s shirtsleeve. ‘Isn’t there something you can do? Something that might save it? I have money.’
Calmly, the doctor opened his bag, producing a bottle of the tincture. Jane had never known him to give another dose. ‘This might possibly do the trick,’ he said, giving it a shake, ‘though I’m not making any promises.’
Jane, who could hardly bear to look at the scene, perched on the end of the bed. ‘You’ll be all right, miss,’ she heard herself saying. ‘He’s a very good doctor. He’ll do all he can.’
‘Has it worked before?’ asked Miss Lincoln, wincing at the taste of it. ‘Has it stopped a baby coming?’
‘Yes,’ said the doctor. ‘It has stopped a baby coming.’
‘Johnny, come and lie with me,’ Miss Lincoln said. ‘Please?’
Shuddering, Mr Treble started rolling down his sleeves. ‘I’m quite all right where I am.’
The doctor looked at Mr Treble, then at Jane. ‘Perhaps Mr Treble could do with a breath of fresh air. Why don’t you take a stroll around the yard?’ he said.
‘Don’t leave!’ said Miss Lincoln. ‘I’m frightened.’ But Mr Treble was already pulling on his jacket and heading for the door.
‘Why don’t you go with him, sir,’ said Jane. ‘We’ll be all right for ten minutes.’
When they left, the room felt hollow. ‘He couldn’t wait to go,’ said Miss Lincoln. ‘Did you see him?’
‘He was nervous, miss, that’s all. It happens.’
It was a plain, shabby room. Jane looked at Miss Lincoln in her fine lace nightdress, her monogrammed case propped against the wall. She must love him very much, she thought, to want to keep the baby, to leave her good life and family, to stay at this down-at-heel hotel in a room smelling of damp, mothballs and other people’s sweat.
‘It feels like a knife,’ said Miss Lincoln. ‘Like someone might be stabbing me.’
‘Perhaps walking might help?’
Gritting her teeth, Miss Lincoln said she’d try anything, gingerly swinging her legs off the side and getting tentatively to her feet. Jane took her clammy hand and they moved towards the window, where Miss Lincoln slumped into the sill, telling Jane the pains were like those she’d had with her monthlies, and that had to be a bad sign.
‘Mr Treble is something of a vagabond,’ said Miss Lincoln. ‘Or he was. He’s a theatrical now, quite famous, did you know?’
‘No, miss.’
‘He doesn’t have a house, or even rooms of his own,’ she smiled thinly. ‘He lives in lodgings. “Digs” he calls them. He travels all over the country. He talks about seeing America. It’s a wonderful sort of life, but when the baby comes, we will have to settle somewhere.’
Jane nodded as Miss Lincoln screwed up her eyes. ‘We’re only staying in this wretched hotel because Johnny says his landlady would not approve of my visits. I mean, what business is it of hers?’
‘It’s not her business,’ said Jane, watching Miss Lincoln bend in half as a trickle of blood ran down her leg and fell between the ridges of her toes. ‘It’s not her business at all.’
When the two men returned, Mr Treble sat on the floor with his head in his hands. Miss Lincoln was biting the edge of the pillowcase to stop herself from calling out, and the doctor was grateful as the walls looked very thin.
Afterwards, Miss Lincoln was quiet as the doctor wrapped the mess in one of Mr Treble’s shirts and whispered for Jane to fetch the boot box from the corridor, and to be very quick about it.
‘Was there any breath at all?’ said Miss Lincoln. ‘Any heartbeat?’
‘I’m sorry, there was nothing.’
‘A boy, or a girl?’
‘It was much too early to say,’ said the doctor, arranging the bloody shirtsleeves and tucking them into the box.
Mr Treble made fists and covered his eyes. ‘It’s all over now, isn’t it?’
Jane glanced towards the window. The clouds were heavy. They could hear a distant rumble of thunder. ‘Listen to that,’ said Mr Treble. ‘I’m doomed.’
As soon as Miss Lincoln’s eyes were closed and she appeared to be sleeping, Mr Treble pounced on the fine leather case, pulling out a bottle of whisky. He filled a toothglass. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he whispered. ‘Both of you. Send me the bill and I’ll see that she gets it.’
The doctor winced. ‘I’m in no hurry,’ he said.
The heavens opened. The thunder sent the horses rearing, and dogs fell to their haunches, hackles rising. Jane and the doctor hurried through the streets. The doctor had removed his overcoat and wrapped the boot box in it. He was carrying it in his arms. His jacket was sodden. Jane could feel the water running down her back. She kept wiping her eyes as the lightning jumped across the rooftops.
At the house they stood inside the kitchen. Edie and Alice had left. It was past eight o’clock. They were breathless. Pools of water ran from their fingers. Their feet were rooted to the floor tiles, the doctor still gripping the box, Jane’s fingers still tight around her collar, as if the rain might reach her through the ceiling.
Eventually, they came back to life. Jane could hear her teeth rattling. Her jawbone was unstoppable as the doctor placed the bundle he’d been clutching on the table, where it sat like a dark, bleeding dog.
‘Do you think the box has melted?’ Jane asked.
‘I could still feel the corners.’
‘What are you going to do with it, sir?’ The rags were usually burnt, the encumbrances were usually small enough to wrap inside a flannel, or a small piece of towel. Jane had never looked at them.
‘We could put it on the fire,’ he said. ‘Or we could throw it out with the ashes.’
‘No.’ Jane pressed her cold fingertips into her eyelids. ‘Perhaps I could bury it, sir?’
‘Bury it?’ The doctor looked surprised. ‘Would that make you feel any better?’
‘It would not make me feel any worse.’
‘Then I will remove it,’ he told her. ‘I will place the box inside the coal shed. Yes. I’ll lock the door, it will be quite safe until morning. You can’t go back outside. Not now. The rain,’ he said. ‘There’s too much of it.’
All evening the rain continued making rivers of the pavements. Mrs Swift, still rooted to her chair in the parlour, had heard from Edie that in places the Thames was bursting its banks. ‘And I asked her, did you see Mr Noah hastily building his ark? Were the animals coming down the Mall in pairs?’
Jane made Mrs Swift her supper. Toast and honey. Cocoa. She mopped puddles and banked up the fire. She caught sight of herself in the mirror. Had she changed? Her face looked the same. Her eyes seemed dull. There was a strange metallic taste in her mouth, like she’d been chewing dirty pennies.
*
That night the attic felt like her own cold boot box. She pictured the world outside, dark and full of water. She thought about the coal shed. The rain pounding on its small slate rooftop. When she lived with her family, the rain often felt comforting. She would watch it through a window as she settled by the fire. Her father would sing songs about the fine Irish rain, and though the songs were melancholy, most seemed to celebrate that great wash of water. Her mother would curse that her boots were leaking. Agnes would slump. The rain seemed to drain all her sister’s energy.
Tomorrow would come soon enough. How would she manage? She would wrap the box in hessian and put it into her basket. She knew an abandoned public garden not too far away. If someone saw her, she would say, ‘It’s my poor pet kitten, sir, we called her Topsy, but she drowned.’ Most nice girls buried cats. Or else they sold them very quickly to the pet-meat man.
‘The coal-house key,’ the doctor said, pressing it into Jane’s hand. It was a damp, dismal morning, but at least the rain had stopped. ‘Do you know where you will take it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You are a good girl,’ he said, gently patting the top of her head. ‘Really. You put us all to shame.’
Jane found a large basket, a piece of hessian sacking, and a spoon she could use as a spade. Her chest felt crushed. Her shoulders were almost touching her ears as she walked towards the coal shed and slid the key in the lock.
The box was on top of the coal mound. It looked damp, but still intact. A dark stain was blooming into the label that read: Smart Ladies Tan. Jane put her hand towards it. She drew it back again. She did this seven times before she eventually took hold of the box, giving a small involuntary cry as her finger pierced the cardboard. By the time she had placed it into the basket, under the sheet of hessian, she was so out of breath she had to lean on the door jamb, panting.
Walking through the streets, she looked to all the world like a crippled serving girl out on her errands, and though the basket was cumbersome, she walked quickly, occasionally shifting the weight of it. At Shaftesb
ury Avenue she watched herself in the plate-glass windows of the shopfronts, her hips leading the way, and for a second it made her think of the small crabs scuttling at Margate. On a corner a breeze whipped through a bookseller’s awning, still dripping with rain, and a man came out wearing eyeglasses, blue lenses the size of halfpennies, holding an almanac to his chest.
She was almost there. The deserted garden was a tangled place, almost lost between rows of crumbling buildings, the lawn knee-high and overrun with bindweed. Looking over her shoulder in case of prying eyes, she stepped between the gateposts, circling the grass. Her boots sank as she looked for a burial plot, quickly thinking the border would be best. The soil was damp. When she tried it with the spoon it felt easy enough and she carried on digging, finding little stones, a buckle, a pile of broken oyster shells.
Blocking out the real world, Jane forced pleasant memories. Liza Smithson unwinding a sari from a trunk, a river of pale blue and gold. The trunk had been pasted with labels saying Majestic Hotel, Bombay, East India Company. She saw a circus parade. The ringmaster in a bright scarlet tailcoat. The Margate sea crashing noisily onto the shingle. And she could hear it now in the traffic, the rustling of the trees and the cries of the birds as they circled overhead.
At last the hole was ready for the box. Squeezing her eyes, she picked it up quickly, or she would never pick it up. She made a small moaning sound through her lips. Stepping back, she threw a handful of stones across the lid and a few bedraggled wildflowers, before covering it with dirt.
Six
Before
A Little Education
THE PRIEST SOMETIMES stopped at the corner, straightening his cloak, or pressing down the fine black strands of his unruly hair. When the girls were out on an errand one day they found the church with its pale marble statue of St Joseph peering out of the brickwork. During a rainstorm, they sheltered inside, watching the smoke of the dying candles spiralling into the light. They admired the gold crosses and the pale blue dress worn by the plaster Mary Magdalene. The incense reminded them of Liza Smithson, though Agnes said the scent was different, it was not quite so pungent, or foreign.
Little Bones Page 10
