They looked like dockers or butchers, but it was difficult to tell because they were both so bloodstained. One was supporting the other, who had a dirty cloth clutched to his forehead and was dripping blood from it onto the sawdust on the floor.
‘I brung ‘im ‘ere, ye see,’ his friend explained, ‘on account of ‘e was ‘ere before, when ‘e cut ‘is ‘ead on a cleaver. Show ‘er the scar, Tommy. See. All dahn that side.’
It was an ugly scar but Euphemia hardly glanced at it. Her attention was drawn to the gaping wound she revealed on the man’s forehead when she lifted up that blood-soaked pad. It was six inches long and spurting blood alarmingly.
She stayed calm with an effort. ‘How did you come by such an injury?’ she asked the man.
‘Trafalgar Square,’ the man said, wincing as she eased the last section of the pad away from the edge of the wound. ‘The Grand Assemblage. Me an’ Charlie got copped. Is it bad, miss? Was we right ter come?’
‘Of course you were,’ she said, wondering how she could stem that dreadful flow.
‘Is it bad?’
‘No,’ she said, and was pleased to hear how convincing she sounded. ‘It’s nasty, but we’ll soon have you patched up.’
He let out his breath in a great sigh of relief. So it was beneficial to give comfort and reassurance, as the books claimed. ‘I think you might need a stitch or two. I will give you a clean dressing and then the doctor will look at you. Meantime I will clean the wound for you.’
That was an amazing idea. ‘Clean it?’ the man asked, squinting up at her. ‘Wash it, you mean? Whatever for?’
‘To help it to heal more quickly,’ she said. ‘Dirty wounds are more likely to turn septic.’
‘Well, blow me down. I never knew that.’
She sent the porter to ask one of the doctors if he would be so kind as to attend a patient. Then she found a bowl and filled it with water from the ewer, took a little cotton wool from the cupboard, and set about her first attempt at nursing. She was very clumsy, which shamed her, and he endured stoically, which made her feel even worse, but by the time the doctor arrived, smelling strongly of cigar smoke and none too pleased to be taken from his meeting, the wound was clean.
Then four other casualties arrived, all from the same demonstration, two with head wounds, one with a broken arm and one who said his foot had been run over by a cart.
‘Why, it looks like a battle,’ she said, joking to cheer them. ‘You have been in the wars.’
‘We have that,’ one man said. ‘You should ha’ seen it. The cops come down on us like ninepence. So you know what we done. We took up the fence round ol’ Nelson’s column and we set about ‘em good an’ proper.’
‘And what was it all about?’ she asked, as she examined the second gash of the afternoon.
‘Why, to support the French Revolution and win the vote, to be sure. We seen the coppers off, didn’t we Horace? Horace’ll tell yer.’
Horace was the man with the swollen foot. ‘They come back though, didn’t they,’ he said lugubriously. ‘They come right back, more of ‘em than ever. They was still scrapping when we come away.’
Sure enough, casualties continued to limp into the hospital all through the afternoon, and soon more nurses were sent for and the long narrow room was full of people. By the time her long shift ended, Euphemia was tired to the bone, her white apron crumpled and bloodstained and her feet aching as if somebody had been treading on them all afternoon. She could see why Miss Nightingale had told her to wear lightly soled shoes. And she was very glad indeed when Nan’s carriage arrived to take her home to Bedford Square to the luxury of clean clothes, scented soap and lovely warm water, to a well cooked meal, which was delicious even if she did have to eat alone, and to the eventual and superlative comfort of her well cleaned bedroom.
It wasn’t until she was in bed and almost asleep that she remembered Henry and Caroline and baby Henry and wondered how they’d been getting on all through this long, long day. At least, she comforted herself, it couldn’t have been as difficult for them as it had been for her.
But she was quite wrong. It had been very difficult indeed.
For a start the baby had been fractious all day, grizzling to be fed at the most inappropriate times, and refusing to settle to sleep no matter what anyone tried to do to placate him. Totty made things worse by explaining that he was missing Miss Euphemia, poor little man.
‘Don’t start that,’ Caroline said crossly. ‘If you’ve nothing more sensible to say you’d better take him away and see if you can rock him to sleep by the fire. I’ve got books to read. I can’t spend all day feeding babies.’
Books to read was an understatement. She’d never seen so many, piled up on her desk, and in heaps on two of her chairs, and even set down on the carpet. Cousin Edward seemed to have been bringing them in all day long.
‘I know you want to make your decisions quite soon, Carrie,’ he’d said when he arrived with the last lot. ‘Is there anything else I can get you?’
‘A bit of peace and quiet,’ she said, grinning at him ruefully. ‘I shan’t have time to look at all these, let alone read them.’
‘Then I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, giving her his most charming smile. ‘Mustn’t get in the way of business.’
‘I wish young Harry thought the same,’ she said, picking up a book from the nearest pile.
‘If I were you,’ he suggested, ‘I’d check the top and bottom one in every collection and leave all the others to fend for themselves. Two should be enough to show you the quality.’
‘If the worst comes to the worst,’ she said, ‘that might be a good idea.’
And the worst did come.
Harry was disconsolate without Euphemia. He grizzled his way through the next ten working days, stopping only when his harassed mother took time away from her decisions to hang a ‘Do not disturb’ notice on her door and sit behind a screen in her inner office and feed him into a better humour. The days passed far too quickly. Soon it was the day before the quarterly meeting and there were still six piles of books needing attention, the list of intended orders wasn’t drawn up and just when she was at her wits’ end and ready to scream at the next interruption, Mr Maycock came bumbling into her office with what he dared to call ‘a last minute addition’.
‘Impossible!’ she said. ‘There isn’t time for any more. I’ve still all these to look at.’
His fat face fell visibly. ‘Oh dear!’ he said. ‘I thought them quite excellent, upon my soul I did, or I wouldn’t have brought ‘em. You did say we were to show you all the books we considered suitable. It is written in the minutes. I have my copy here.’
‘I have half an hour,’ she told him sternly, looking at the clock.
Fortunately Edward came breezing in just at that moment. ‘Now, now Mr Maycock,’ he said, ‘you’re not plaguing our Mrs Henry at this late hour I hope?’
‘Just one last selection, Mr Edward,’ Mr Maycock spluttered. ‘That’s all. I’ve brought them up on Mr Jernegan’s instructions. I’m sure it won’t take a minute and they are truly excellent books. Art books, if you know what I mean. Beautifully produced.’
‘I’ve all these …’ Caroline began, gesturing at the six heaps.
‘I tell you what,’ her cousin suggested. ‘Let Mr Maycock leave his selection and if he’ll pop off and hold the fort in my office, I’ll stay here and help you with these. I haven’t got much else to do.’
‘Would you?’ Caroline said with surprise. ‘Oh, I’d be so grateful.’ How very kind of him and she’d always thought him such a selfish young man!
‘It’s the least I can do,’ Edward said, positively beaming at her. ‘Well, cut along, Mr Maycock. You can leave all this to me.’
And he was splendidly helpful, taking the first collection onto his lap immediately, and rejecting it with equal speed. ‘Not very well produced,’ he said. ‘Look at that binding. It would come apart in seconds.’
She agreed that t
he books wouldn’t do.
‘You try those,’ he said, carrying the next pile across to her desk. ‘Top and tail ’em, like I did. That’s all you really need to do to get the feel of things.’
The top book he handed her was a properly written description of the Colosseum in Rome, printed on poor paper and with a nondescript illustration. She inched the last book from the bottom of the pile, and it was equally poor. ‘Well!’ she said.
‘No good?’ Edward asked. ‘Neither are these. I know I wouldn’t buy ‘em. I say Carrie, we’re getting through this lot at a rate of knots.’
Three piles had been discarded already. It was quite heartening. ‘Many hands make light work,’ she said, reaching for the next collection. It was the pile Mr Maycock had left on her desk just a few minutes ago. Goddesses of Greece, she said, opening the first book. ‘That looks familiar.’
It was a handsome book, full of well drawn sketches of Greek statues, and reasonably priced too.
‘These might do,’ Edward said, handing her a book from his pile.
It was a collection of etchings, mostly landscapes, and rather expensive. In fact, very expensive when she compared them to the Greek Goddesses.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I think I prefer these.’ And she took up the next book on Mr Maycock’s pile.
‘Top and tail,’ Edward laughed at her, ‘or we’ll be here all night.’ And he slid the bottom book from under the pile and handed her that instead.
It was called Roman Goddesses and was every bit as well produced as the first one. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we’ll have these.’
‘Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ he said, picking up the pile at once and holding them against his chest. ‘We’ll let old Maycock order them for us. That will teach him to go pestering you at the last moment.’
‘What about the rest?’
‘These are no good,’ he said, nodding his head towards the pile he’d just been examining, ‘and that only leaves the three little green books on the chaise longue. Bit on the small side, but they might do.’
‘Leave them with me,’ she said, ‘while you attend to Mr Maycock. And thank you for your help. It was very kind of you.’
‘It was a pleasure,’ he said.
And so Caroline made her decisions in time and was able to tell the regional managers that the new books were on order and would be on sale at the stalls on Mr Chaplin’s London to Birmingham line before the next quarterly meeting. And Nan was happy to see that Henry and Edward were as pleased about the announcement as she was.
Edward was so excited about it that as he and Mirabelle dressed for the customary dinner that night, he couldn’t talk of anything else.
‘The time is coming, Mirry,’ he said, preening before the cheval glass, ‘when your husband will be the undisputed manager of the firm. What do you think of that, eh?’
He looked so pleased with himself, his fair hair burnished by the gaslight and his eyes dark and bold above the rich blue of his evening jacket.
‘You expect Caroline to stay at home now that Harry is crawling?’ Mirabelle said, adjusting her pearl necklace. ‘Well, it’s true she won’t be able to keep him in an office for very much longer, but I daresay she’ll leave him at home with Totty and go on with her work just the same.’
‘She should stay at home with him herself,’ he said. ‘It’s only right and proper. A busy office is no place for a woman. Think of the mistakes she could make.’
‘So far as I know,’ Mirabelle said, ‘she ain’t made any.’
‘But she might, eh? She might?’
What has he been up to? she wondered. He was far too eager for her to agree with him. Far too excited. ‘And what of Henry?’ she said, in her slow teasing way. ‘Do you expect him to stay at home with the baby too?’
‘He might find himself in a position where he would wish to resign,’ he said. ‘Oh Mirry! I am so near to success! And newspaper sales up for the third month in succession thanks to all this trouble in Paris.’
‘I’m sure they would be most gratified to hear how useful their sacrifice has been.’
‘Sacrifice?’ he asked, frowning at her. ‘Really Mirry, you do say the oddest things.’
‘Some of them were killed, were they not?’
‘Well, of course they were. You have to expect deaths in a revolution.’
‘Then let us hope that nobody gets killed in London when the Chartists present their petition. I’m sure poor Pheemy has dealt with enough broken heads to last her a lifetime. And it would be pleasant if we could send Will news of a well ordered English demonstration, would it not?’
But Edward wasn’t the least bit interested in such things.
‘The manager of the firm,’ he said, smiling at his reflection. It only needed one letter of complaint, and he was quite sure it wouldn’t take Mr Jernegan long to organize that.
Chapter 25
The letter arrived wrapped in a parcel like a birthday present, addressed to ‘The person who is responsible for selling books at the Easter stalls on the London to Birmingham railways’. The post boy carried it cheerfully into Caroline’s office one bright May morning.
‘Present from a satisfied customer, I shouldn’t wonder, ma’am,’ he said as he set it down on the desk among all the other mail.
She opened it as soon as he’d gone, quite warmed by the thought. It was a copy of one of Easter’s special cheap editions. She recognized the green cover at once.
‘How odd!’ she said, turning over the accompanying letter and beginning to read.
‘Sir,’ it said,
‘I wish to draw your attention to the enclosed, I will not say “book” for that would be too kind a word for such an abhorrent publication, which I purchased from your stall on the railway station at Birmingham. I took it to be a book about art, but as you well know sir, I was sadly mistaken.
‘At first I could not believe that such rubbish was being offered for sale so brazenly and hoped that it was an aberration which had turned up upon the stall by accident.
‘I resolved to ascertain the truth of the matter at the earliest opportunity, and within a week visited every railway station on the Birmingham line. It was a painful and a humiliating inspection. The same unmitigated rubbish encumbered the bookshelves of every bookstall I visited. The purchasers were not few and far between, but the greater their number the more melancholy the scene. Were all the buyers daily travellers? Did they daily make these precious acquisitions? If so, it was a dismal speculation to think how many journeys it would take to destroy all decency for ever.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself, sir, to purvey such rubbish to the public. And if you are not, sir, then you very soon will be. My solicitor will shortly be in touch with you, for I mean to take action against you and your company for causing a public nuisance, which must not be allowed to continue.
‘I am sir, your enraged customer,
M.J. Furmedge (Esq)’
Before she could understand the meaning of the words she received their anger, violently and physically, like a punch to the stomach. It made no sense to her to be sent such an angry letter, but that didn’t diminish the shock. The writer’s fury was obvious even from his handwriting, black and spiky, jabbing across the page as though he meant to corrode the paper. But she tried to be reasonable, thinking how extraordinary it was that something as harmless and pleasant as a book could rouse somebody to such an outburst. What did he mean by calling it a public nuisance? How could a book be a public nuisance? What could it possibly be about this one that had made him so angry? And she picked it up and held it in her hands while she recovered her balance, the familiar green cover rough under her fingers.
Then she opened it.
This time the shock was so extreme it made her feel sick. She was flooded with a sudden primitive fear, so strong that it took all the colour from her face. She could feel the blood draining away as if she’d been wounded. She wanted to scream, run away, hide, anything rather than stay w
here she was and see what she saw. But it had to be faced, this obscenity on the page, this revolting, ugly, unnatural nakedness. Because this was an Easter book, a book she’d chosen herself. But how could that be? She would never have chosen such a fearful thing. It wasn’t possible.
She stood there, forcing herself to stay calm, as words from the letter began to filter through into her intelligence, ‘solicitor’, ‘action’, ‘must not be allowed’. A court case, she thought, understanding at last. Dear God, if there is a court case, everyone will know about it. The firm could be ruined. What am I to do? I shall have to get every single copy out of the bookstalls at once. And released into movement at last, she picked up the book and the letter and ran pell-mell down the corridor to find Henry.
She was so distressed she ran straight into his room without waiting for the clerk to announce her as he ought to have done, to the astonishment of the six men from the warehouse who were standing before the wall charts, discussing something with Henry. They turned as one man at the rush of her entry, their eyes bolting with surprise.
‘Caroline! My dearest! What is it?’ Henry said, looking up at her wild face. ‘Could you excuse us for five minutes, gentlemen? I will solve this problem for you presently. You have my word.’
They left reluctantly, being obviously and avidly interested in what had brought her into the room so precipitately. She didn’t see them go because by then she was weeping.
‘What is it?’ Henry said again, putting his arms about her and lowering her into the armchair in his familiar loving way. ‘Tell me what it is.’
She handed him the book and the letter, mutely, with the tears running down her cheeks, and he took them and read the letter where he sat. But when he opened the book she put her hands over her eyes, because she couldn’t bear to see the shock she knew it would give him. The long hiss of his indrawn breath was bad enough. She listened anxiously as he stamped to his feet and paced about the room, breathing noisily and angrily.
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