Soon afterwards, Dr Stiven and I left the pleasure gardens. As we walked home the balloon reappeared above us. It was low now, the basket almost brushing the chimney pots, the bulbous harlequinade coat bright against the grey roofs of the city.
I seized Dr Stiven’s arm and pointed to the spire of St Saviour’s Parish Church, as sharp as a fish-hook, towards which the Great Goddard was heading with unstoppable momentum. The basket hurtled forward to slam against the spire. A rope snapped. The balloon jerked, and the figure tumbled out of the basket. He bounced once, twice, his red coat as bright as blood against the slates, and then he was gone.
Dr Stiven and I ran into the churchyard. Beneath the nave window the Great Goddard lay smashed into the earth. Overhead, the balloon billowed and flapped.
‘There are two lessons to be learned from this,’ said Dr Stiven. ‘The second is that arrogance is the curse of the age.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said. I closed my eyes to shut out the horrible sight before us. ‘And the first?’
‘The first is that death always catches up with us, often when we least expect it.’
And now here he was once again, in the main hall at Angel Meadow Asylum, shaking my hand as if he never wanted to leave go of it. I had not seen him since we had witnessed the death of the Great Goddard. The thought of it made me shiver, for I had never forgotten the sight of that mangled body, those twisted and broken legs. Death always catches up with us, often when we least expect it. The words were commonplace enough, though I had never forgotten them.
I introduced Dr Stiven to Will and Gabriel. Gabriel stared in amazement, until I jabbed him in the ribs and told him to find Dr Stiven a glass of punch, and to be sure not to drink any of it himself as he brought it over. Will shook the fellow’s hand. He hid his surprise well, for although Dr Stiven’s appearance was less colourful than when I had first met him – his use of powder less copious, his waistcoat less garish – his appearance was unique nonetheless. I could never understand why he chose to attract attention so ostentatiously – if he removed his wig and powder he might pass down the street unremarked and unnoticed.
‘A pleasure to meet you, sir,’ said Will. ‘Are you well acquainted with Dr Hawkins?’
‘I’m not sure I would say that,’ said Dr Stiven. ‘Though we are certainly acquainted and he has been kind enough to offer me, and my ward, accommodation here this evening. His rooms are commodious enough, and Mrs Hawkins no doubt prefers the town house on St Saviour’s Street—’
‘Your ward?’ I could not keep the surprise out of my voice. ‘I had no idea you had such a thing.’
‘My dear sir,’ the voice that came from beside Dr Stiven was low and melodious, and playful in its rebuke. ‘I can assure you I am most definitely not a thing.’
‘Ah,’ said Dr Stiven. He smiled. ‘There you are, my dear. Come along, come along and meet my friends.’
She was small, no taller than five feet, and wore a tightly fitted dress of green silk. She had a small, heart-shaped face, out of which peered a pair of eyes as black and glittering as the jet buttons on her dress. She did not quite look like a lady – her gaze was too direct, too amused, for that – certainly she did not walk like one, and she stepped forward in a strange rolling, bobbing manner.
‘Susan Chance,’ she said. Her grip was as strong as a man’s, but soft, her fingers small and slim. ‘Dr Stiven is my guardian.’ And then, before I had a chance to say anything, she added, ‘You are no doubt wondering why I have the walk of a seasoned sea captain.’
‘No, ma’am—’ I began.
‘It’s because I have a crippled foot, which is encased in an ugly boot of hardened leather and braced with a metal calliper.’
‘I see—’
‘Most people perceive my gait and wonder. I find it easiest to state the fact of the matter openly so that we might . . .’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘Get off on the right foot, as it were.’
‘And yet it is the left foot, I think?’
‘Yes it is.’ She grinned at me then, and I felt myself blush with pleasure that I had made her smile.
‘Susan, my dear,’ said Dr Stiven, tut-tutting. ‘You are too . . . arch.’
‘Oh no,’ said Will and I together.
‘I am always telling her,’ said Dr Stiven. ‘Ladies are not forward. Nor are they witty.’
‘There was a time when you would’ve considered both of those things a virtue,’ I said.
‘And so I do. And yet I fear I have made you rather too unique, my dear. I am hoping to introduce Susan to society,’ Dr Stiven said. ‘Dances, soirées, calling round for tea and such like. I thought here might be a good start. I have a slender acquaintance with Dr Hawkins, who is fully aware of the case.’
‘The case?’ I said.
‘Oh yes. It makes me hesitate to bring Susan out. Here at Angel Meadow all is well. And yet I fear what might happen if I were to take her to less understanding places.’
‘I’m sure Miss Chance would be a credit to any society,’ said Will. He had not taken his eyes off the girl. ‘How could anything untoward possibly happen?’
‘My past precedes me,’ said Susan.
‘Now, now, my dear,’ said Dr Stiven.
‘I’m from the Rookeries.’ Susan Chance stood as tall as her stature would allow. ‘I was born in Prior’s Rents.’
‘We know the Rents, don’t we, Mr Jem?’ cried Gabriel, who had suddenly appeared at my elbow. He handed a sticky-looking glass of rum punch to Dr Stiven.
‘Oh?’ Susan’s face betrayed a polite interest.
‘Mr Jem and me takes stuff up there sometimes,’ said Gabriel. ‘Prescriptions an’ remedies and such. Mr Jem says there’s no chance for anyone in a place like Prior’s Rents, and most of ‘em’s likely to end up dead o’ the cholera, or twitchin’ on the end of a rope or like as not a whore and none of those is a fit choice for anyone to make.’
‘They are not fit choices at all,’ said Susan.
But Gabriel wasn’t listening. He screwed up his face thoughtfully. ‘We don’t go there much, but when we do—’ He shivered. ‘The place don’t half get into your bones, don’t it, miss? Them dark, dripping walls.’ He drew his arms about himself. ‘No one could ever forget them. And the sounds, the cries and groans o’ the place.’ His voice sank to a whisper. ‘Why, miss, sometimes if I’m awake at night, if I can’t sleep and the wind’s a-blowin’, I feel like it’s callin’ to me. Callin ’—’
‘That’s enough, Gabriel,’ I said sharply. ‘You’re not reading one of your penny bloods now.’ Susan’s face had turned sickly.
‘I were just sayin’,’ said Gabriel, his expression sulky.
Susan forced a smile. ‘You’re quite right, young man. Your impression of the place is most . . . exact. I remember it well. Perhaps a little too well at times.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Dr Stiven. ‘You are quite free of the place now. Books, tranquillity, friendship, hard work, these are universals. These can be learned in the same way that vice can be learned. Prior’s Rents has been excised from your heart and soul, just as I have excised it from your lips. She speaks just like a lady, don’t you think, Jem?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, though I had noticed something rather wooden in Susan Chance’s elocution, as though she wore her new-found respectability with some awkwardness.
As for the girl herself, her face had darkened.
‘See that clock?’ she said, nodding towards the mantel–piece. ‘Along with them candlesticks and that lamp? Fetch two guineas fenced at Finch’s shop in the Rents, that lot would—’
‘Not now, my dear,’ said Dr Stiven. ‘Not here—’
‘You think it’s behind me, sir? You think the place is gone from my heart and soul? Perhaps it is. But what about my mind? I’ve not forgotten what I know. I’ll never forget.’
‘Knowledge is never wasted,’ he answered. ‘I have always taught you that.’
‘And you include knowledge of the lusts and vices of men, or the insi
de of a Newgate cell?’
Dr Stiven seized Susan’s hands. ‘Of course I do. We none of us judge you here.’
‘Newgate?’ I could not help but draw breath.
‘For sure!’ chided Dr Stiven. ‘Miss Chance is quite familiar with the inside of Newgate.’
‘She visits?’ I asked, though I could not imagine that tiny bobbing figure in the midst of a band of Bible-reading lady philanthropists.
Dr Stiven chafed the girl’s fingers fondly. ‘Oh no, Jem. Miss Chance does not visit. She was once a resident. She is a murderer.’
Angel Meadow Asylum, 18th September 1852
I helped my mother as best I could, sewing and mending night after night, though we could hardly see to make our stitches. She was a proud woman, not born into Prior’s Rents but forced there by hardship. Her own mother and father had been respectable people, she said – weavers from the north. But they had died of the cholera, my father too, so there was no one but her to keep us both alive.
Downstairs from our lodgings, in the basement of the old mansion, there was a kitchen. It was the home of a woman who called herself Mrs Kindly, though I doubt that was her real name. The kitchen was a long, low-ceilinged dungeon, festooned with lines of damp clothes, and cluttered with benches and chairs, upon which men and women would gather to talk about the day’s activities. Mrs Kindly kept a generous pot of broth boiling on the fire. It was little more than watery slop glistening with fat and lumped with bits of soft turnip, gristle and bone, though it was hot and filled your belly, and a plate of the stuff might be had for a penny. I suppose it was horrible down there — the air close and stinking, the people dirty and drunk. And yet it was warm and — to Goblin and me at least — as safe and familiar a place as we were likely to find in such a neighbourhood. It was peopled by all sorts, though none of them anything but poor – thieves and whores, mostly, bit fakers, housebreakers and pickpockets.
At the back of the kitchen, far from the fire and wrapped in layers of old coats and blankets, a student sat huddled over his books. We all knew him, and as he wanted nothing from us and caused us no trouble, we left him alone. He had no money, being from humble origins with little to support him, and in that regard was no different to the rest of us. He lived somewhere in the Rents, but spent time, as so many of us did, in the basement kitchen whenever he needed warmth and the company of others. He earned his money as a screever, writing letters for pennies, though he told me he was a medical student, and that one day he would be a doctor riding in a fine carriage and looking after the health of rich ladies and gentlemen. watched him poring over his books and scribbling on bits of paper. His voice was soft and kind, his writing as neat and beautiful as lace across the page.
One day I asked if he would teach me to read and write, to add and subtract. I was willing to learn, I said, and like him I wanted a better life. I spoke in my most clear and polished voice — the voice I had learned from the ladies and gentlemen who strolled up and down on Oxford Street. He laughed at first; no doubt it amused him that this girl from the Rents should be so adept, should have schooled herself to talk like a lady. Perhaps it would be more amusing still to see whether she could master reading and writing too. What a narrow life we lead! For all that we might travel the seas, cross continents, change our lives or faces, we inhabit a narrow compass when all is said and done, and I was to meet this kind gentleman again, though his circumstances were to have proved just as capricious as my own. He taught me well, sitting beside me in that steaming kitchen, surrounded by dirty washing, dirty faces, noise and laughter. He taught Goblin too, sometimes, though Goblin could not see the advantages as well as I.
But any improvement in my situation would not come without money, and after a time I took my fancy accent, and my neat handwriting, and found employment in a boot and shoe repair workshop and blacking factory owned by a pair of gentlemen named Mr Knight and Mr Day. Goblin came too. He worked in the polish factory and the boot and shoe workshop, but I was put in the ‘office’, a small stuffy room above the workshop, filled with the fumes of old leather, ink and boot blacking. I was to be trained in book-keeping. Mr Day was to teach me himself. He paid me a shilling a week.
‘A shilling?’ I said. ‘Is that all?’
‘It’s a fair price for a girl from Prior’s Rents,’ he replied. ‘It’s a job for boys, usually, not girls. You’re lucky.’
The boot and shoe workshop had a number of functions. All manner of repairs were attended to. Boots and shoes in varying states of decrepitude – dancing pumps, top boots, lace-up shoes, walking boots, brogues – all were welcomed at Knight and Day’s. If they had life left in them, Day’s repair workshop would find it. Aside from this, Mr Day collected and reconditioned old boots and shoes, refurbished them and offered them for sale. Finally, Knight and Day’s gathered exhausted and useless boots and shoes for pulverisation at the dye works.
Keen to offer a product as well as a service to his customers, Mr Knight heated up giant vats of boot blacking next door. These were continually on the boil, and Knight and Day’s factory was begrimed with the substances of their trade — soot, turpentine, beeswax, tallow. The place reeked. It was insufferably warm, as the wax had to be melted until liquid without evaporating the turpentine. Mr Knight regulated the steam that heated the vats, whilst men and boys brought in the ingredients from the yard; others added the lampblack once the mixture had cooled, ladling the stuff into bottles or sticking labels. Goblin was to be a polish ladler, but he was also asked to carry sacks of lampblack from the yard into the factory and add them to the mixture. One day Mr Knight discovered that Goblin had mistakenly poured a sack of soot into the polish at the wrong moment in the process. He lashed Goblin with a strip of leather from the workshop to teach him a lesson.
I worked in the office every day under Mr Day’s watchful eye. When I had finished with his account books, I was tasked with writing advertisements. Mr Day fancied himself a literary man, and wanted verses penned that might emphasise the qualities of his and Mr Knight’s products as well as of his own literary pretentions. I gave him my work and asked for an increase in pay. I can still remember the verses, written by the light of the grimy window in Mr Day’s office, the stink of blacking so heavy in the air that my head ached. He read out my work in his high-pitched mincing voice.
Out in St James’s I met a young lady
’Mongst crocus and daffodil, dancing and gay.
Wind-whipped, her hair was in frightful confusion,
Sable locks streaming, like night tossed with day.
‘O find me a mirror to pin back my tresses,
A surface with lustre and polish, I pray,
A mirror,’ she pleaded, ‘a glass whose reflection
Shines bright as the sun once the night turns to day.’
With cries of delight at my feet fell the lady,
And crouched o’er my boots (she would brook no delay)
The reflection she found there of looking-glass brightness,
From peerless jet-blacking, the best KNIGHT and DAY.
‘Oh, Miss Devlin,’ he said, grinning. His teeth were as brown as the shoe leather he reconditioned. ‘This is quite the thing. Can you write others?’ And so I did, though he never gave me a penny more and he did not hesitate to put his own name to my work. He said he had other ways of thanking me, that I would soon find out what they were, and that I would enjoy what he had to give me far more than a few extra pennies every week.
Every day Goblin and I trailed in from Prior’s Rents. As we walked through the factory we passed lines of men toiling over lasts, and benches of women stitching leather, all surrounded by shoes and boots in various stages of repair. Beneath the windows of Mr Day’s office were the polishing benches, where lustreless leather was transformed into something that gleamed like polished jet. Some of the men and women had been there all their lives. Was that to be my fate too?
‘It’s a good business,’ said Mr Day, stroking my shoulder as he looked out at
his workers. ‘And, if now and again I can save a girl from filth and squalor, is that not a good and noble service? A philanthropic act?’ He settled his hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ve brought a number of girls here,’ he said. ‘Some from Prior’s Rents. Once they are cleaned up they can be quite pretty. And they are so grateful. I allow them to demonstrate their gratitude in a variety of ways. I assume I can count on your gratitude too?’
I said nothing.
Mr Day sighed then, and moved round to stand beside my chair. His hand was heavy on my shoulder, his fingers hot against my neck, smooth and soft from years of beeswax and tallow. I sat without moving, my eyes focused upon the account sheet before me.
‘You, my dear, are not like most of those who come from the Rents.’ He put a hand to the back of my head. ‘You are something of a lady, and a pretty one too.’ I could hear his voice tremble, hear his excited heartbeat echo in his breathing. He pulled my face closer, both hands pushing my head down towards the bulging buttons of his trousers. Inches from my nose, they were pungent with a smell like fish oil and rancid animal fat. ‘Perhaps you would like a pair of dancing pumps,’ he said. ‘I have a spare pair, just newly cleaned. They would look so dainty.’
‘I cannot afford dancing pumps,’ I said. My neck ached from resisting the pressure of hands.
‘Oh the price is quite affordable.’ Mr Day smiled again, and let me go.
Chapter Four
Dark Asylum Page 5
