by Alex Grecian
He worked there seven days a week, from six o’clock in the morning until just past four in the afternoon, then closed whatever remained unsold inside the tray, along with a small hand-lettered sign that read REASONABLE TOBACCO.
He would walk to Finsbury Circus and around its perimeter, scanning the ground for discarded butts, then up Moorgate to the Artillery Ground, or sometimes back down to Trinity Square and the Tower. He bypassed the end of Moorgate, where a new department store had recently opened. Traffic there was terrible and cigarette ends were hard to find.
Once, on Featherstone near Bunhill Fields, a stranger shouted at him. He turned, and the man yelled, “Walter! Walter, is that you?” and jumped up and down, waving his arms. Day hurried away, and the stranger followed after him for a few minutes, trying to get his attention. Eventually, the stranger shrugged and turned back, and Day slowed his pace. Within minutes he had forgotten about the man, but he unconsciously avoided Featherstone after that.
He retained a slight limp, the result of an old injury that he could no longer recall, but his leg didn’t cause him pain until late in the day and he rarely leaned on his cane.
By now he was well known, and the local boys would often scout the streets in advance, hoarding butts that they traded to Day in exchange for a smoke from his leftover stock in the folding tray. He learned the names of the most talented scouts and saved cigarettes back for those boys. Soon he had a network of children searching out tobacco for him, and he would retire early in the afternoon, receiving them in a short queue outside the warehouses of the East India Company on Seething Lane. Each evening he returned to Drapers’ Gardens by various circuitous routes, always careful that he wasn’t followed.
Within a few weeks of opening his Reasonable Tobacco business, itinerant though it was, he was doing well enough to rent a room above a shop that overlooked the gardens. For sixpence a night he was able to look out his window at the trees and shrubbery he had slept in during the first and most difficult days of his freedom.
He began stockpiling the butts that were brought to him, sorting the used tobacco by color and collecting it all in three jars. He rolled new cigarettes and cigars on Saturdays, never leaving his room except for tea with his landlady, Mrs Paxton.
She was a kindhearted young widow, and she picked out a new wardrobe for him, allowing him to pay for it over time with the small addition of a penny a night on his room. Sundays he would help Mrs Paxton press the blouses and skirts to hang in the window of her downstairs shop. Her wares were strung on a thin wire across the bay window that faced the gardens. Before dawn each day he swept the path to her door and filled the gas lamp above it. She told him that she enjoyed having a man about, but she continued to be troubled by his lack of memory.
One Sunday she was folding a petticoat when she stopped and let it hang from her hands. She looked across the room at him, frowned, and bit her lower lip. “What if you have a family somewhere?”
He shrugged. “If so, there’s not a thing I can do about it.”
“Why haven’t you gone to the police?”
The question troubled him. He wasn’t sure why he’d avoided the police. He shook his head and tested the iron that was heating over the fireplace. A drop of water sizzled on its surface, but he left it where it was for a moment. “I think the police would put me in the workhouse,” he said. “I couldn’t stand it. I prefer to be my own man. I value my freedom.” But he knew it was a lie as he said it. Or, rather, it was a half-truth. He did enjoy his freedom, but there was another reason he avoided the police, some compulsion. Even thinking of it brought a deep feeling of doom. He knew he must stay far away from New Scotland Yard and he must not think about the possibility of a family waiting for him somewhere.
But his answer was enough to satisfy Mrs Paxton. She finished folding the petticoat and placed it atop a stack on the window seat. “And what about your name? Do you enjoy not having a name as well?”
He shrugged again and picked up the iron by its blackened wooden handle. “I have a name. But call me whatever you like. I don’t care.”
“Don’t you want to know your full name?”
“Someone told me my full name. It was some time ago and it may even have been a dream. I don’t remember it well. I was half-asleep.” He thought perhaps he didn’t want to remember.
“Maybe if you thought hard about it. Maybe if you say your first name over and over, your last name will occur to you.”
“Walter, Walter, Walter . . . No, nothing seems to come after Walter.”
“Nothing?” She put a finger to her lips and smiled. “And what if I need to introduce you to someone? Shall I refer to you as Mr Nothing?”
“Why would you introduce me to anyone? Besides, I hardly need a name to press this skirt.”
“I could say that you’re a cousin of my husband’s. I could call you Mr Paxton.”
“Did your husband have a cousin?”
“Several, but he was never terribly close with them.”
“What was his name? Your husband, I mean.”
Another long pause, long enough that he had time to realize how much the memory of her husband might hurt her and to regret giving her reason to return to that memory.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’d rather not talk about my husband.”
“Of course. I apologize.” He turned and got to work. After a moment he heard the rustle of fabric and knew that she had returned to her own chore, folding clothes.
It was some time before she spoke again. When she did, he was pressing a white cotton jacket. The work was somewhat delicate, and he did not turn around to look at her.
“His name was Ben. Benjamin Paxton.”
“Ben is a good name.”
“He was a good man.”
“He must have been very good indeed if you chose to marry him. But I’m sorry I made you think of him just now, Mrs Paxton. I didn’t intend to upset you.”
“I’m not upset. Perhaps a little sad, but that has nothing to do with you.”
“I think it might not be a good idea to tell people I’m his cousin. I think for now we can leave my full name a mystery and simply call me Walter. When you need to call me anything at all.”
“Walter it is, then,” she said. “And you must call me Esther.”
“I couldn’t,” he said.
“I wish you would.”
He finally turned and looked at her. Their eyes met, but her face immediately flushed and she took a step farther away from him. He nodded and stared down at the jacket, at the iron in his hand. The thought of calling Mrs Paxton by her given name stirred the same feelings of wrongness in him that the idea of the police did. And yet, he had nothing, he had no reasons for anything he felt, no memories of anything before his cold cell and the sun shining on a narrow courtyard. Now he was free and alive and he could not bear the notion of shutting himself away again, of giving up the things that life had to offer. If he could not remember his old life, how could it be wrong to build a new one?
“Very well,” he said. His throat felt very dry. “Very well, Esther.”
9
Of course I feel for you. You’re a woman trying to get by on suspect employment, and with four small children, with no man to help her and no future prospects so long as she remains in this city. You can’t accuse me of not understanding your life when I’m up late every night thinking only of you and the mess you’ve made of things.”
“That’s . . .” Claire stopped and calmed herself before speaking again. “Father, you have to know how cruel that sounds.”
“I think you should watch your tone of voice when speaking to me,” Leland Carlyle said. “I know women these days are encouraged to speak before they think, but you ought to be grateful to me. Lord knows I’ve been patient with you.”
“Yes, thank you,” Claire said. She was so angry she could barel
y see, but she knew that any outward sign of her feelings would only be used against her.
“Before you launch into another of your unwarranted attacks against me, I was only agreeing with you,” Carlyle said. “I was telling you I genuinely understand your position. It can’t be easy. That man left you with four children. Although, of course, there’s no real reason for you to burden yourself with half of them.”
“Robert and Simon are my children just as much as Winnie and Henrietta are. And my husband didn’t leave me. I never said that.” But her father had struck a nerve, and she hoped the doubt she felt didn’t show on her face. She didn’t want to believe that Walter might have left her on purpose, and she tried not to even think about the possibility, but it was there.
Carlyle snorted and crossed the room. He poured himself a drink from the decanter of brandy that Claire kept filled for the day Walter returned home.
“You’ve adopted children when you can’t even care for your own children.” He took a drink. “Claire, perhaps I’ve loved you too much, indulged you too much. You must have some perspective, some logical sense of responsibility, rather than tripping gaily about on your feelings. Do you want the boys to go to an orphanage? Of course not. I confess I find them charming. I want what’s best for them, too. I simply don’t agree that you and this situation are what’s best for them.”
“I love them, I feed them, I clothe them. They have a roof over their heads.”
“And they have no father. They are boys without a father.”
“That’s not their fault. They lost their parents, and then they lost Walter. Would you have me abandon them, too?”
“So you admit Walter’s abandoned them? Abandoned you all?”
“That’s not what I said. You keep twisting my words.”
“I’m doing no such thing. You continue to evade my points. What kind of men will those boys become when they have no father in their lives?”
“When Walter comes home—”
“I’m tired of hearing about Walter Day. Of all the men you might have married, it escapes me why you would choose that one.”
“I did choose him. And I choose to stay here until he comes home to me.”
“The wiser choice is to come back to Devon with me. Your mother and I will see to your needs, and the needs of your children. Make the better choice, Claire.”
“Between you and Walter? I will always choose Walter over you. Always.”
Carlyle raised his hand to hit her, but then took a deep breath and lowered it. He closed his eyes and sipped his brandy. When he opened his eyes again, he smiled at her. “He has no intention of coming home. I know that’s a harsh truth, but you need to hear it.”
“He will. He’s been hurt or imprisoned somewhere.”
“Would it shock you to know that Walter is alive and well? And that I saw him?”
“Saw him?” Claire’s heart swelled and seemed to fill her, to squeeze her lungs. She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t see. Her father’s words rang like bells in her ears.
“I debated whether to tell you, but now I think it might be best for you to face the truth.”
“What do you mean you saw him?”
“I was leaving the club, and he was on the other side of the street, walking along just as daring as you please. Someone called out to him and he darted away.”
“What street? Where were you?”
“Oh, I don’t remember. As I say, I was near my club, so it must have been somewhere near the bridge.”
“London Bridge?”
“Yes, the bridge.”
“What was he doing?”
“Walking.”
“What were you doing?”
“I was also walking. There was nothing remarkable about any of it except that he turned and ran when he heard his name.”
“Walter can’t run. His leg injury prevents it. You saw someone who looked like Walter.”
“I know my son-in-law when I see him.”
“That’s the first time you’ve ever called him that. You’ve never acknowledged that he’s a part of your family, and you only say it now to hurt me.”
“Not at all. If I’ve kept my distance from him, it’s only because he makes his life more complicated than it needs to be. And he complicates the lives of everyone else around him. I honestly don’t think you can deny that.”
Claire sat on the arm of a chair and threw her hands up in frustration. “I need to know so much. Was it really Walter? Did he see you at the same time you saw him? Did you chase him away? I believe, if it really was Walter, you must have said something awful to him to drive him further from us.”
“I assure you that’s not the case.”
“Well, why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you call out his name? Or follow him? You say you watched him as he disappeared again. Why wouldn’t you try to bring him home?”
“As I say, he didn’t see me, and I didn’t wish to make a scene in the middle of the street.”
“I need to be alone, Father. Please.”
Carlyle drained his glass and set it on the table. He put his hand on Claire’s shoulder, and when she tried to move away from him, he tightened his grip.
“I understand,” he said. “But you deserved to know the truth. Your husband isn’t missing. He simply doesn’t want to be with you. It’s hard to hear, I’m sure, but I think you’ll thank me someday for my honesty.”
“Please just go.”
“Do you need any money?”
“I don’t need anything from you.”
“Very well. I’ll ask your mother to look in on you tomorrow.”
He grabbed his hat and went to the door. He turned back, and he looked as if he might say something more, but then changed his mind and left, closing the door quietly behind him. Claire sat for some time, staring at the door as if it might open again and Walter might be standing there. She knew her father had meant to hurt her with his words, to unmoor her and make her more willing to leave London, to return home with him to the estate in Devon. But he had made a mistake because he didn’t understand the depth of her love for her husband. Leland Carlyle had given his daughter renewed hope.
10
The boy’s name was Ambrose and he was fourteen years old. He was a clever lad and full of energy, and Day had put him in charge of some of the other boys. Ambrose worked many jobs. Every morning he scouted for cigarette and cigar butts in the streets. He coordinated the efforts of the other children involved and helped to make sure nobody covered the same ground twice in a day. In the evening, after their findings had been given to Day and the other boys had gone, Ambrose took his chess set and sat in Trinity Square, playing all comers for money. He did well. The square was close enough to both Tom’s Coffee House and the George and Vulture Tavern, where London’s most enthusiastic chess lovers regularly met, so Ambrose’s table attracted those players who were not members of chess clubs or who couldn’t get in on a game at those reputable establishments.
His board was handmade from grooved and fitted boxwood, and he had fashioned the pieces from materials he had found while scavenging. The white king was made from the bowl of a broken ivory pipe, while the black king was an ebony organ key that he had stolen from a church, then sanded into shape and polished.
He played anyone who sat down across from him and only collected if he won. He usually made enough from three or four games to pay for a room in one of the houses across the bridge. When he lost, or when he couldn’t get anyone to play against him, he slept in nearby alleyways or on rooftops.
But whether he was in a room or on a roof, he got little sleep. The rooftops were safer, but he tended to move a lot while dreaming and sometimes came perilously close to rolling off the edges of buildings. It was better when there was a skylight. The boxy frame of a skylight gave him something to anchor himself against. And
it gave him a thrill to peek down inside businesses and warehouses. He often wondered about the businessmen who met in top-floor offices, wondered at how their lives had been arranged for them so that they never had to sleep out in the cold. He imagined they had all grown up with parents and families and opportunities that Ambrose would never know.
He had been chased away from the roof of the East India Trading Company and so found himself in the alley behind Plumm’s. Two washerwomen passed Ambrose without seeing him in the shadows and entered the department store through a back door. Ambrose waited a few minutes, then tried turning the knob, but the door had been locked behind the women. Too bad. Finding an out-of-the-way corner in a storage room would have been ideal. Instead, he found an access ladder that was semi-concealed in a niche at the back of the building and climbed up. It was a new building, without the customary coat of grimy black soot that covered the bricks of more established stores in the neighborhood. Ambrose was able to hug close to the wall, out of sight of the alley below.
He pulled himself over the edge of the roof and stepped out, testing the boards and shingles beneath him before putting his whole weight on them. From his new vantage point above the fog he could see far in every direction, all the way past Drapers’ Gardens to the Thames in the south. He took a deep breath of the cool, clean air and smiled up at the stars. He tiptoed to the enormous domed skylight and peered down into a room below. It didn’t occur to him that he might be violating anyone’s privacy. Finding things was a big part of his job.
