Bellman

by Diane Setterfield

  At the turn of a corner he saw, alighting from a cab, a familiar figure. Black.

  Bellman halted.

  He was not in the least surprised. It was in the nature of the man to appear at strange moments. At ordinary times he kept his distance and then, when crisis struck, there was Black. Peculiar, but then that was Black for you.

  Why not tell him now? It was as good a time as any. At the thought of unburdening himself of the emporium and all it entailed, he felt a profound relief.

  Black turned into the side street and Bellman headed after him. He had to follow at a great pace for Black seemed able to walk at an unnaturally fast speed. More than once he thought he had lost him in a maze of alleys and passages, but each time he caught sight of him again: a tailcoat disappearing round a corner, the jaunty tilt of his hat half concealed in the shadows.

  For all his great efforts Bellman never seemed to gain ground on Black; the man always stayed out of reach. After ten minutes of this chase, Bellman began to doubt himself. Was it really Black he had seen? Surely he should have caught up with him by now?

  Staring down an empty street, Bellman took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow. He was shivering. He realized that he didn’t know where he was. The streets were narrow and rough-looking and it was darker now. There were dark doors to the dwellings on each side of him, some half open, and it was not difficult to imagine what kind of ruffians might be hiding behind them. He was suddenly aware of how he would appear to any ne’er-do-well loitering in the dark. A middle-aged man, out of breath and trembling in a part of town he was clearly unfamiliar with. He had heard the stories: men like him, either lost or lured into dark side streets, emerging later with a bump on the head the size of an egg and missing their pocket watch, their purse, their shoes. Or worse. And Black? He was nowhere to be seen.

  Resigned to the worst, Bellman heaved a sigh and forced himself to put one foot in front of the other, slowly making his way to the next turning. And there, to his amazement, he saw Black. How could he mistake a profile like that! He was in conversation with someone, a girl or a young woman.

  “Black!”

  The man appeared not to hear him.

  “Black! Hoy!”

  But then the next moment Black was gone—he must have nipped into that door just behind him, Bellman thought—and the woman was making her way along the street in his direction.

  She has tried it on with him and now it will be my turn! he thought, and he prepared himself to put her off. But as they drew nearer she did not speak, nor even glance at him, until they were close enough to have to step sideways to avoid each other in the narrowness of the passage. Then her eyes briefly met his and a startled look crossed her face.

  It was the seamstress. Girl No. 9.

  Bellman made an effort to win control of himself, to straighten the desperation that had fixed itself upon his face.

  “Black!” he heard himself say, “I know that man!” but his voice came to his ears as though from far away and after some delay. He felt himself sway.

  The young woman peered at him. “Mr. Bellman?”

  He did not know how to answer. How to explain this feeling that something inside him had come undone, that some small but essential element was adrift in him where it had once been connected and until he could locate it he would never be himself again?

  He tried to speak then, unable to help himself, he had to put his hand heavily on her shoulder to keep from falling.

  He was aware of contact—despite his leather glove, despite her serge jacket—contact and a transfer of weight from himself to her. For a moment she supported him, and they knew a precarious moment of balance; then there came a sinking, a giving way, and with something inevitable about it the flagstones beneath his feet, the shoulder on which he leaned, his own bones, seemed to dissolve, and he knew nothing but black.

  When he came to himself he was in a low-ceilinged room, sitting in the only chair. There was no fire in the grate, no logs either. A cup of liquid appeared before him, and he drank it: honey water.

  “That man. Black . . . “ he began.

  “I don’t know who you mean. Who is it you’re looking for?”

  “Black.” He frowned. How to explain. His business partner? A stranger? A friend?

  “Black? Of Bellman and Black?” She looked nervously at him, puzzled. “And you think he is here?”

  “I saw him. He spoke to you.”

  She embarked on a shake of the head, repressed it, reluctant to contradict her employer.

  “There,” he insisted, “just now, in the street . . . “

  The point of a white tooth caught her lip and her eyes rose uncertainly to his.

  A fit of trembling overtook Bellman.

  “Your coat is wet,” she murmured. “You are cold. I can walk with you to the main road, there will be a hackney carriage—”

  He nodded, rose, the room swum around him and he sank back to his chair.

  “There is nothing for it then,” she said to herself. “You must sleep here.”

  She peeled his rain-sodden coat off his arms and opened a door in the wall. A bed was concealed, cupboard-style, behind it. He sank, his face was for a moment against her breast, then on a pillow, then he was asleep.

  An hour later he was awake. There was the beginning of light in the room. He sat up. The bed was firm beneath him. He put his feet on the floor and the floor felt solid. He took a few steps. No wall reared or tipped or sheered away.

  Girl No. 9 was sleeping in the chair. He tiptoed past, returned to put some coins on the table, and she didn’t stir. Her skin had traces of salt on it: tear trails, and her brown curls were damp where she had been weeping.

  To get out Bellman had to edge past an infant’s crib. Empty.

  ***

  In his own bedroom, Bellman peeled off his wet clothes and hung them over the back of a chair. They would take a long time to dry. His slow, dull brain mechanically unearthed a fact and presented it to him.

  He had no second black suit.

  His face pulled into a grin or grimace. He had meant to get another two black suits made up for himself. That was what he’d forgotten! That was what had been troubling him all day yesterday!

  Thank goodness!

  The sob that escaped from his lungs might have been laughter.

  Bellman had never been more grateful to clamber into bed, and he sank instantly into a deep sleep.

  ***

  Waking for the second time that morning, William leapt out of bed and ordered a bath.

  He did not pause to think about his anxiety of the day before, his collapse on the roof, his mad chase after Black through the streets of London, his decision to renounce the shop. He merely recollected that he’d had a bit of a dizzy spell, a touch of fatigue, and now, finding himself so extraordinarily well again, he congratulated himself on his sturdy constitution.

  In between the hundred and one other things he meant to do today, he would find time to be measured for a new suit. With thirty-five seamstresses on the premises it would hardly be a problem.

  &

  On a warm day in summer, pairs of rooks will ride the warm upward current, soaring with leisurely ease to a very great height, where they are—to earthbound humans—mere dots of black in the sky. There, they allow themselves deliberately to slip off the edge of the air wave, and plummet Icarus-like to earth, tumbling and twisting as they go. Then, when your heart is in your mouth and they are a short mortal second from the ground, they extend their wings, gain a featherhold on the rising air, climb aboard the breeze, and rise aloft—whereupon they do it all over again.

  There is no purpose to this. They are teasing gravity, showing off, pretending for the sheer hilarity of it to be human.

  To judge by the merriment of the sky laughter, there can be little in the world more pleasurable than t
o be a rook pretending not to know how to fly.

  ***

  There are numerous collective nouns for rooks. In some parts people say a parliament of rooks.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Regent Street was alive. Nannies went about with their charges in smart, black perambulators. Young women trotted along, listening to their mothers while their eyes roamed the window displays, avid for bonnets, shoes, gloves. Men of all ages made their way busily here, there, and everywhere, dashing among the carriages as they crossed the street. Street hawkers shouted their wares, assessing the passing trade with a professional eye. Children clung to the hands of adults far above them, but even they looked up at certain windows and dragged their feet: there were sugar canes the size of walking sticks and at the tobacconist’s a mechanical monkey smoked a cigar and exhaled real smoke. People ambled or sauntered or strode, they wove in and around each other, absently or impatiently. They were in a hurry or they had all the time in the world. Someone stepped into the street, carriages swerved, drivers cursed and shouted warnings . . .

  In one place only there was a stillness and a hush: it was the pavement alongside the new shop, Bellman & Black. Curiously the crowd was thicker here than anywhere else.

  The shop was not yet open, but the day before, behind drapes, the windows had been dressed, and this morning at eight o’clock the black shrouds had come down to display the temptations of Bellman & Black to the world.

  Each window was framed by theatrical sweeps of gray silk and contained an artistic still life. One composition was of gloves and fans, another of urns and angels. One elaborate arrangement presented stationery, a dozen ebony ink pots. There were hats stabbed through with jet hat pins and there were veils. Everywhere were swathes of fabric, in every material and weave imaginable: cottons and linens and woolens and silks; baratheas and worsteds and crepes, each bringing its own individual note to the chord that was black. One window much studied had tombstones and memorial plaques, registering the passing of a number of generic colonels, beloved wives and sisters and dear children. But the most admired window was perhaps the simplest: a starburst of ribbons passing from white to black through off-white and dove gray and pigeon gray and French gray and donkey gray and slate gray and charcoal gray, more shades of gray in fact than there were names for. The message was understood by all: every gradation of grief would find its match at Bellman & Black.

  At the very front of every window, dead center, on just the other side of the glass, was a six-by-eight white card, edged with black, and printed like an invitation to a ball:

  Bellman & Black

  Thursday 15th May

  11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

  It was only nine o’clock. The pavement was thick with people staring openmouthed at the displays of funerary and mourning goods. Far from being drab, the black and gray were so artfully composed that the effect was mesmerizing. Newcomers to the crowd looked first to see what everyone else was looking at, then fell into the same state of rapture that had ensnared the others. All were under a spell, conversations were whispered, then halted altogether as a thoughtful hush came over the viewers. Death, grief, and memory offered so exquisitely for sale set the most robust heart throbbing and set the mind thinking.

  Impossible to see it without thinking of the time when they would want the services of such a place. How soon? they wondered. And for whom? Some already suspected the answer to these questions; they considered their choices in advance of the event and calculated the cost.

  The windows of Bellman & Black reminded their viewers of what they most feared and at one and the same time showed them where to find consolation. Grief and sorrow come to all, but there is consolation in being able to honor your loved ones by saying farewell in a hat secured with a jet hat pin . . .

  Some there were who leaned more heavily on their sticks or felt again the pain that had been troubling them. These knew that they would not be customers of Bellman & Black in person, but that their contribution to the success of the store would be made before too long. They considered the tombstones and rewrote them with their own names.

  The clatter of hooves, then shuffling in the crowd to make way for the carriage that drew up at the main entrance. A fine carriage it was too, and a stir of curiosity broke the rapturous disquiet of the crowd. A uniformed driver jumped down to open the door, and a woman emerged, neatly collared and cuffed in her gray dress. Together they went to great pains to extract the second passenger: a tiny, hunched figure swathed in black silk. Was it a child? She had the size of a child, but she was slow and bent like an old woman. Her veil was so dense she must have been all but blind inside it, but she looked up, nonetheless, at the silver insignia announcing the name of the shop, before being guided step by painful step to the entrance.

  The crowd parted to let the curious pair through. Neither woman appeared to notice the eyes that followed their progress, and they did not utter a word. All onlookers were thinking the same thing, but all held their tongues, waiting for someone else to speak.

  It was a child that said it.

  “It’s not open yet. Eleven o’clock, look.”

  He pointed to the card.

  But there was the sound of a key turning, the door opened just enough, and the two ladies were swallowed up by the shop.

  The key turned again.

  In the crowd strangers murmured and turned astounded faces upon each other.

  The little lad who had spoken pressed his face to the crack between the double doors, but he could see nothing.

  “Eleven o’clock,” he repeated. “That’s what it says on the invitation.”

  ***

  Inside there was a feverish circulation of people and goods. Swift feet ran messages; strong arms carried; tidy minds counted and noted; deft hands arranged and displayed. Crates were opened, the contents spilled out. Then, faster than you could believe, all was neatly stacked and ranged, the crate itself disappearing as if by magic, and the same trick was being repeated over and over again in every department.

  Among all these black goods being carried about in all directions, was one distinctive cargo. Sedate and slow, Dora was carried through the shop in a sedan chair. Bellman meant to show her the entire shop. She was introduced to department managers, shook hands, and although she did not speak, said with a look and a smile something that in words would have gone like this: Yes, I know I am peculiar. Think nothing of it.

  Everywhere was something her father wished to point out to her: the uniforms of the various staff, the goods arriving, the fittings of the shop, every last detail was something he had imagined, brought into being, and he laid it all before her, the Italian gloves, the Chinese silk, the Whitby jet, the Parisian collars. She admired, complimented, and approved.

  Bellman led the procession of Dora, sedan, carriers, nurse, from floor to floor. When he had shown all the departments in the sales floors, they visited the offices, the clerks, the cashiers, Bellman’s own office. Next they went up to see the seamstresses’ area. Here again Dora felt herself being spied upon from the corner of eyes, understood that glances were being exchanged behind her back. Again she admired what she was called upon to admire, approved what was to be approved. Don’t mind me, her eyes said to the seamstresses who could not help staring. Be glad of your curls and your limbs and the curves beneath your clothes. Enjoy your good fortune.

  The staircase was too narrow to admit the sedan chair to the top floor. Might one of the porters carry her up? She was relieved when the decision went against. But Dora was not to be released yet. Oh no! For there was the basement still to be seen. She was shown the dispatch room, and the canteen, and the kitchens at the side of the store where the windows opened into a narrow pit that permitted the smell of cooking to escape through a grille at ground level above. “My!” Dora exclaimed.

  “And it’s not over yet!” Bellman exclaimed.

  At
floor level, at the back of the shop, next to the goods entrance, were wide double doors that opened onto a coach house. The Bellman & Black brougham was a sight to behold. A graceful black carriage, the B&B insignia in silver on the doors. A fine black horse was stabled nearby so that two seamstresses and a coachman could travel at a moment’s notice anywhere within eighty miles of the capital.

  Bellman opened the door to show the interior. With the air of a conjuror, he opened a compartment under the seat. In the dark it looked empty, and she was bewildered till she realized it was filled with fabric, crepe, the blackest fabric available, so absorbent of light it seemed to be made of darkness itself.

  “And this!” her father exclaimed, opening one of the portable cases with a flourish. Inside were a hundred little compartments, and each one filled: scissors and tape measures and needles and spools of thread and a silver thimble.

  “It’s a miniature Bellman & Black’s!” she marveled.

  “In just two days our traveling seamstresses can provide essential mourning wear for a family; in four days, evening wear too. Give them a week and the servants of the house will be in black, down to the little girl who lights the fire in the mornings.”

  She had run out of words and nodded her weary approbation.

  “And what is more, as it goes through the streets of London our brougham will make a very fine impression. Everyone will turn to see it. When it races through the streets, when it arrives at the finest houses, it will be noticed. When the Earl of This and the Marquess of That call in Bellman & Black everyone will know. It will bring in more business than a hundred—a thousand—advertisements. So, what do you think, eh?”

  He was tense with expectation, rushed through his words, awaited her verdict with obsessive intent. His eyes glittered, his pale face glittered. She hardly recognized her taciturn, frowning father. Bellman & Black had him in its grip.

  Dora was astounded by her father’s creation. Troubled too. It was beautiful, she supposed, in a powerful, uncomfortable way. “A cathedral’ someone had called it in the newspaper. She understood what they meant. But she had seen something beneath the feverish activity, the agitation and the rush. The sense of something silent, biding its time. What was it waiting for? The idea of a mausoleum knocked at her mind, and she turned it away.