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By Gaslight

Page 6

by Steven Price


  She started to speak and then she bit her tongue and then she could not help herself. What about Japheth? she said. Do he get to wear that?

  Never mind him.

  After a moment she pulled a bundle of clothes from her small suitcase and got sullenly up and crossed to the bar and the barman said something to her and lifted up the heavy swing counter and she ducked under it and was gone.

  She’s kind of a scary wee dipper, ain’t she, Fludd said. Weren’t she never just a kid?

  Not since I met her.

  Never?

  Foole looked at him. You have your answer, Japheth, he said quietly.

  Foole had rented her as a gonoph for a delicate job of distraction on some minor heist in Hyde Park in that first year after Fludd’s conviction in New York and she had been so clever and so convincing that he had doubted her age. She was living then with seven other waifs in a pickpockets’ crew under the care of two half-blind sisters, both cruel, the elder a widow who went by the name of Sharper and who was rumoured to have poisoned her husband. Molly they had called birdie in what Foole had believed at first to be affection. Her sole companion during those years had been a four-year-old boy named Peter who fetched wood and emptied the chamber pots and huddled with Molly for warmth at night. She loved him like a brother. Like any of the Sharper dippers she could be rented by the hour or by the fortnight by members of the flash world and Mrs. Sharper asked no questions so long as her merchandise was returned undamaged. Foole bought the child outright on her sixth birthday knowing nothing of the boy Peter and she already knew to dress in rags with her tiny feet bare for better purchase and knew to wipe grease on her fingertips to slip them more surely into a lady’s handbag. They were nimble fingers and long for her size and he had admired them from the first. Two weeks after he bought her he gave her her freedom and she had gone at once out into the streets in search of Peter and returned at dawn alone. There had been blood on her sleeves and her face when she came back but it was not hers and he had not asked and she had not spoken of it. She could outrun a beak’s whistle the length of a city block and could time a street crossing to pass under the belly of a dray. But she dipped only those marks as instructed and turned over her poke without complaint and kept no fig for herself. She had a talent for accents and speaking as others spoke and was smarter than she was hungry. Foole tutored her in her letters himself and she learned to read quickly as if already understanding the rare gift that would be. She wore boys’ clothes always unless a job called for other and even then it was a labour to convince her. Despite their bickering she and Fludd had taken to each other almost at once upon the giant’s release and the three of them made already a strange kind of family. Molly the child of none and all. For Foole had seen her wax up a stick of peppermint of a Sunday out of a shopkeeper’s very hand and had heard her reciting her alphabet backward in order to fall asleep and watching her small white face as she dreamed he could have sworn a sweetness played at her lips. Could she not be more than she was? Of course she could. Was she never a child? Of course she was. A child she was still.

  That is what hurt his heart so.

  From the flash house they made their way to the sleek rolling roofline of Lime Street station. It was all iron and glass and seemed a wonder to Foole in its flow like a thing of water fixed in place and a mark of the new age. The dark château of the North Western Hotel loomed up just beyond, its weird new electric lighting just coming on in the afternoon gloom, and across the way he could see the drumlike facade of the Picton Reading Room and he thought of its fluted columns and its carbon-arc lighting within and he understood he was again nearing the centre of a modern empire.

  The station was cold, vast, loud with the clash and echo of voices in the huge space. He had last been here on a summer morning eighteen months earlier without a shilling to his name and the station then had been filled with light like a bell and he had wondered at the strange new beauty of it. Now there was a thin layer of coal dust on the counters and railings and crumpled wrappers and old tickets kicked into corners and several stalls along one wall were hawking books and newspapers and savouries. The warm smell of baked goods mingled with the pipe smoke of sailors and the harsh bite of tar coming in from the platforms. The porter he showed their tickets to nodded and pointed where a guard had raised the signal for the London train on the central platform and they could see the carriages were already loading. Molly left to find their luggage, which had been sent on ahead. He watched the girl disappear in the crowds wearing her boy’s suit and with her hair tucked up under a cap and he felt something savage and protective rise in him that he swallowed down. Fludd was grimacing and carrying his trunk in both fists out in front of him towards the platform. He too had changed into a black frock coat and grey trousers and had cut back his beard and no man from the Aurania would know him to see him, never mind his size. Foole stopped at the mesh telegraph wicket and waited in the line and when he reached the clerk he scrawled out a quick message and had it sent on ahead. Then he bought a copy of the Times and adjusted his bowler and his cuffs and folded the newspaper under one arm.

  He glimpsed Molly in the crowds arguing with one of the porters and he watched her throw up her arms and shake her head and then turn away. She was biting her lip and she reached into her pocket and threw something into a bin and then she saw him and came towards him.

  What’s the concern? he asked.

  She tipped her cap back on her forehead and made a sour face. No concern, she said. They just want to skim the top of it is all.

  The luggage?

  All up.

  Foole nodded. As she slipped on ahead of him he lingered a moment studying the cold grey light in the station and then as he turned to go he sighted something in the bin. A fold of pink cloth in the shape of a body. A pale edge of porcelain flaring in the light like a burst of phosphorus. It was the doll Molly had stolen from the Webster girl on the ship. Foole frowned and looked across through the drifts of steam on the platform but Molly and Fludd had already boarded and he looked back at the doll. The head had been ripped from the body and thrown in on top of it. It had been painted delicately once with a fine brush but was chipped now and dulled though the yellow hair looked soft still. Its eyes were green cut glass and under their heavy lids they would move when its bearer moved.

  Foole stared and the doll stared back and the day felt luminous and sad.

  As he came into their compartment an exhaustion poured suddenly through his legs and he sat with a groan, eager for sleep. Fludd was picking at something in his teeth, his big knees crowding the space. Molly leaned against the window facing the door as if she had been watching this long while for him to appear, as if afraid he might vanish even then.

  He sat down across from her with a sigh. His leg touched Fludd’s and he pulled away.

  The benches were a dark polished oak like secular pews but softened with individual velvet cushions held in place by a brass bar and Foole adjusted his and crossed his legs and opened his paper. They had hired foot warmers and he could feel the heat coming up through his shoes. He could hear the banging of boots on the roof above them as the porters lashed fast some baggage or other and then there was a sharp whistle and a rush of steam and the train shuddered and began, slowly, to move. There were still men on the platforms waving and walking alongside the carriages passing packages and handkerchiefs up through the windows and he watched them with a blank face, the paper opened out on his legs.

  Molly cleared her throat. Who is she? she said softly.

  He looked at her in surprise.

  She had lifted her cap and was stuffing a strand of hair back into place and biting her lip as she did so and there was a tightness around her eyes that he understood or believed he did.

  Who you on about? Fludd said irritably. He was fussing with his seat. Who is who?

  Foole said nothing.

  Molly met his gaze. Then she reached into her waistcoat and took out the daguerreotype of himself and Ch
arlotte Reckitt from Port Elizabeth all those years ago in the sunlight and studied it and screwed up one eye in a squint as she did so.

  Give it over, Foole said. What are you doing with your eye?

  Molly, squinting and squinting. Who is she? she said again. She looks fat. Is she fat? What’s wrong with her eye?

  What are you talking about?

  Her eye. Look at it.

  Fludd leaned his bulk over, peered at the daguerreotype. Is that Charlotte Reckitt?

  Who’s Charlotte Racket?

  Her eye do look weird. Fludd screwed his own eye up.

  Who’s Charlotte Racket? Molly repeated.

  Give it over, Foole said again, glaring, uncrossing his legs.

  Aw it’s a scratch, kid, look. Fludd rubbed a thick fingertip over the woman’s face. Right there on her eye.

  Charlotte bloody Racket who? Molly said again, as Foole reached across and plucked the daguerreotype from her small hands and leaned irritably back in his seat.

  Reckitt, kid, Fludd said, grimacing. Charlotte Reckitt. Mr. Adam’s sweetheart, once upon a time. You never told her bout Charlotte Reckitt? A fat lot of trouble, that one.

  Where did you find this? he said to Molly.

  She shrugged. In the cabin. You dropped it.

  He looked at her. He’d be damned if he had.

  You never mentioned her, she muttered.

  Les sociétés ont les criminaux qu’elles méritent, he said.

  Fludd laughed.

  Molly’s expression turned sullen, suspicious.

  It’s from Lacassagne, he said, rubbing at his eyes. The carriage rattled and creaked as they pulled slowly through the station, through the cutaway, the high brick walls steaming and wet and glistening in the dying light, and then the sudden flashes of darkness as they accelerated through the short tunnels and rose up out of the earth and were away. He was brooding at the sight of it and then said, to Fludd: Lacassagne is a detective with the Sûreté in Paris. An interesting man. You would like him, Japheth.

  Foole could see Molly did not want to ask its meaning and he felt a quiet satisfaction and then under that a distaste at himself for feeling it. She was headstrong but what else did he expect.

  It means you get what you deserve, birdie, Fludd said to her.

  It means if I travel with a dipper, Foole said with a shrug. He smiled to soften it and smoothed a hand over the newsprint laid out before him and studied the columns there though he was not reading them. Charlotte Reckitt, he said, resigned, has written me a letter. Mrs. Sykes forwarded it to our hotel in New York. Charlotte was one of the flash mob, Molly, untraceable. As light a touch as I ever saw. You wouldn’t have even been born when she worked the lay. He met Fludd’s eye. She wants to see me.

  Fludd grunted. I thought she were retired.

  It seems not.

  How long I been in the darbie? You ain’t forgot what she done to you, Mr. Adam?

  I haven’t forgotten anything.

  Molly had gone very quiet.

  Fludd looked across at her uneasily, cleared his throat, rubbed his enormous hands on his knees. Aw now, kid, he said, it were all a long time ago. Back when it were just Mr. Adam an me. Charlotte Reckitt’s uncle, Martin, he were almost the only jake we was all afraid of. You turn your back on a buzzer like that, well. Used to call him the priest, on account of his bein thrown out of the priesthood when he were young. He liked to say he followed a higher callin. You remember what he done to that lad in Bristol, Mr. Adam? With the bad leg? He looked at Molly. Carved the boy’s nose from his face while he were sleepin one off. Martin Reckitt’s hands they was always dry. Dry like a lizard. We ain’t never worked with him much but there were a job in South Africa Mr. Adam got involved in, Reckitt gone down there with him to work it. It were there Mr. Adam met Charlotte. I met her later, once or twice, after that job gone bad, after Mr. Adam missed his rendezvous in Brindisi. Then we all had our fallin-out an we tried not to cross paths no more. I don’t think we ever much did. Did we? He turned his huge shaggy face towards Foole and his eyes were unreadable in the shadow for a long moment while the tracks rattled past underneath and when Foole said nothing he said, in a low voice, So what is it she writes then?

  Foole traced a reluctant finger along the edge of the newspaper. There’s a job, he said. Six months in the planning. She’s being watched by some detective and needs another party in. She doesn’t discuss details—

  Course she don’t. Is that bastard priest uncle in on it?

  Martin’s up in Millbank.

  Fludd gave him a long appraising look. Still a guest of Her Majesty?

  Apparently so.

  He let out a low whistle. An you sure you ain’t gettin you head mixed up with no other bits?

  Foole felt the heat rise to his cheeks. I never said we were going to do anything. I’m considering it, that’s all. It might prove profitable.

  Be a nice change, that, Molly muttered.

  No other reason? Fludd said.

  Everything else is in the past, Japheth.

  Charlotte Reckitt, Molly said quietly. Charlotte Reckitt.

  It’s exhaustin, that is, Fludd said.

  What is?

  The past.

  You never mentioned her, Adam, Molly said. Why not?

  Foole shrugged tiredly.

  The locomotive was reaching speed now and the evening opened into darkness. Liverpool felt like an unsettling dream.

  Molly was kicking at Fludd’s seat, steadily, rhythmically. Whispering in time to her kicks.

  Charlotte, Reckitt. Charlotte, Reckitt.

  The hours passed.

  They had been travelling through the night for some time when Foole at last folded the Times and set it down on the empty seat beside him and stared at his reflection. His eyes like small burning lanterns in the glass. Outside the winter passed and passed. He could feel the ties clattering underneath them, hear the rattle of their carriage adjusting around a curve. Then the weight shifted and the sound altered to a hollow clacking and he understood they were passing over a wooden trestle. A kind of lightness came over him. He thought of the black waters churning far below, he thought of the veer and the plummet. He remembered then that last afternoon with Charlotte in Port Elizabeth and the easy way she greeted him in the hotel lounge. The slant of the sunlight through the big green leaves and the way her skin smelled. He knew he was taking a risk in coming to see her. He knew she might prefer the memory of him to the man he had become. He rubbed his eyes.

  After a few minutes the old shuddering clatter returned and then they were back on solid earth and Foole grimaced and massaged his sore thighs and got to his feet. Molly had got up some time before and not returned and Foole now sighed and buttoned his lounge coat and slid open the door of their compartment. He left Fludd snoring with his mouth open and his huge hands dangling between his knees.

  The passageway was quiet, the twin lamps at either end were turned low and reflected in the warpled windows of the doors. Foole made his slow way to the rear with his hands outstretched as if leaning into a strong wind.

  He struggled with both hands and opened the rear door.

  The roar in the blackness was ferocious. He squinted against the cold and saw Molly huddled there at the railing, a tiny shapeless bundle. A solitary lantern burned above her, jittering with the shaking of the carriage trucks.

  Couldn’t sleep? he hollered to her over the noise of the tracks.

  It’s quieter out here, she shouted.

  He nodded and stood close to her with his white hands gripping the frozen railing and they stayed like that for a while, leaning into each other. After a time Molly said something he did not catch and he leaned in closer.

  I said, didn’t you never feel no regret bout it Adam?

  He looked down at her in surprise, the play of shadow about her face. About what? he hollered.

  She shrugged.

  I want you to listen to me, he shouted. He took her by the shoulders and turned her s
quare to him and the wind whipped at her hair. The world will take from us what it wants. It doesn’t mean we have to permit it. We are not here on anyone else’s behalf.

  She bit her lip.

  Lives like ours are about what we manage to keep. Like you and Peter. That’s something you’ve held on to. Charlotte is like that for me. His eyes were running from the cold. What did you do with that doll? he hollered. Did you lose it?

  When she looked up at him the shadows were distorting her face. That doll, she shouted. That was all just pretend. It weren’t life.

  He felt a pain in his stomach as he looked at her. He set one hand on the railing and watched the freezing night unroll behind them. The lantern swaying and clattering above the door, the arc of the tracks in the gaslight in their infinite unravelling.

  What if you could have it back, he shouted. Would you want it?

  He reached into his coat and pulled the porcelain doll’s head out into the cupola of light. He had not salvaged the muslin body and seeing her face now he regretted it.

  Just don’t let Japheth find it, he shouted. You’d never hear the end of it.

  She took the doll’s head from him in both of her hands. He could not see her face for the shadows and for the fall of hair obscuring it. It seemed to him then the darkness they moved through was not space only but time, too, that his century was already passing, and he thought of the girl as she would be when she was very old and he was long vanished from the earth and it seemed all at once terrible in its loneliness. The past is always just beginning. For us as for any, he thought. He set a cold hand on the girl’s shoulder but he could not feel her through her thick coat and they stood like that as all around them the cold night deepened and scrolled past and away.

  FIVE

  William came up out of the mortuary feeling blown out, depressed. He could not say if Charlotte Reckitt had deserved her end and he told himself he did not care but it was not true. He thought of her ravaged scalp and the tufts of hair and blood on it and how her body had been cut up and the legs still, for god’s sake, missing. Then he could not stop himself and thought of his daughters in Chicago, thought of Margaret. Swore under his breath and clapped his hands on his sleeves as if to dislodge the reek of the dead and stepped out into the fog.

 

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