‘No, not me, Miss. I’m a vewitable philanthwopist. Ask anyone up this stweet. Anyone who’s been in any way embawwassed. Like yer old man was. Go on, look, here’s ’is own note of ’and.’
And I scanned the grubby paper he was holding, and read that a bill for fifty pounds was to be discounted, to be taken up quarterly in increments, with increasing interest, and saw the lawyer’s seal, and the terms laid out, and Peter’s signature at the bottom.
‘This is my vocation, miss. I became a money-lender aht o’ the goodness o’ me ’eart. Sammy Skinner, Good Samawi’an, at yewer service. Come nah, I’m a lot prettier than the tallyman who’ll be comin’ in to give ya a good dunnin’ if ya don’t pay me.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr Skinner, but I don’t have any money to give you. You will have to deal with my husband when he returns. You will let him return, I trust? He won’t be able to pay you if he can’t work, so it’s in your best interests to let him go.’
‘Do me a favour, Miss, and pay me nah.’
‘I said, I have no money.’
‘Forgive me laughin’, miss,’ he said, almost peacefully, ‘but we both knows yewer tellin’ little porky pies. I can ’ear it,’ he whispered, ‘chinkin’ away, under yer skirts. Are you tellin’ me I don’t know the sahnd of money when I hear it? Wouldn’t be a good money-lender if I didn’t, nah, would I?’
I stood still, and looked at him in horror, and felt Lucinda looking up at us both.
‘Come on, then,’ he cooed, like a hungry man trying to get a chicken from a dog’s mouth. ‘Give it up. There’s a good girl.’ I put my hand to where my purse hung at my hip beneath my skirt, but did not put it inside. ‘Come on, girl. Or do I have to go in there an’ get it for ya?’
And so my hand slipped inside my skirts, and I untied the ribbon securing it, and made to tip the contents into my hand, when I saw Skinner shake his head.
‘Just give it to me. None a’ this cahntin’-aht nonsense. I need it all.’ And with that, he snatched it out of my hand, tipped its meagre innards out, flung the empty purse on the floor, and then he was gone, and with him my eight shillings.
I think it was fair to say that now, after the visitation from Samuel Skinner, having been too proud to ask for support, I had reached the point where desperation overcame pride. So the next morning, one of those awful ones when the water had frozen overnight in the pans, I left Lucinda with Agatha Marrow for as long as I dared, where I knew at least her stomach would be filled, and then in and out, in and out, my toes first took me back to the pawnbroker.
I waited in the booth while the man attended to a poor fellow whose face betrayed more misery than I dared to imagine. He handed over a blanket with a look of such sorrow it were like he were giving away a child, and took away a shilling for it. I wanted to run after him and check he had at least one more blanket left at home, but it would have served no other purpose than to make myself feel better in the face of his tragedy, and I feared the answer would have been no besides.
‘My flat-iron, how much?’ I asked as the door closed behind me.
‘Four pence.’
‘Four? But with the ha’penny gone to get me over the bridge that leaves me with next to nothing! I need at least sixpence!’
Still the man shook his head. ‘Then you’ll have to give me something else.’
‘But I only want sixpence! Surely you can do a flat-iron for that?’
‘I have twenty flat-irons back there,’ he said, waving his hand at the storerooms behind him. ‘All of ’em got four pence, nothing more. Here you go, here’s a thrupp’ny bit and a brown.’
‘But I need a tanner!’
‘So, what else you got?’
‘Nothing on me.’
‘What about that ring?’ He gestured towards my finger.
‘No! I can’t! That’s my wedding ring!’
The man shrugged and turned away. I thought about going home, to get my own blanket, or one of Peter’s waistcoats, which might raise nine pence, but I needed to get north of the river this morning, and I feared further delay would condemn me forever to the pile reserved for prevaricators and no-hopers.
‘Please don’t go! Help me! Raise me sixpence for the iron, and I’ll bring it all back, I promise.’
‘Not a hope, miss. I’ve heard it all before. Give me the ring, an’ I’ll give you what I think. If you redeem it soon enough, the old man might never know.’
And so I took off my wedding ring and handed it over. I looked down at the clammy white dented band it left behind on my skin, and waited for him to deliver his verdict.
‘Three shillings.’
‘You evil man! It’s worth at least a crown! Do you spit on my husband’s name?’
‘Which is?’ he asked, raising a pen.
‘Damage,’ I said meekly. ‘Peter Damage, two Ivy-street, Lambeth,’ as he filled out the ticket and handed me over the three silver coins.
Then in and out, in and out, my toes took me north across the marshes where the mud-larks – the tide-waiters, the beach-pickers, whatever name you want to give them – were wading over the shallows of the Thames in the rain for fragments of iron and wood, their children swimming alongside them waist-deep in mud, toes searching for lumps of coal and what-have-you dropped by the barges, to sell for one shilling per hundredweight. I scanned them for signs of Jack’s family, and indeed, for Jack, for the Lord knew how else he might be spending his days and earning his living while he was not at Damage’s. And then I approached Waterloo Bridge, and gave a ‘Good day’ and a shilling to the toll-keeper. I waited for my eleven pence-ha’penny change and the clicking of the turnstile, then went through onto the bridge.
And then it was that I needed the in and out, in and out of my frozen toes more than ever to carry me forward. Once through the toll-gate, the hansom cabs picked up speed as if to make up for lost time, and I felt that if I lost the momentum of my pace I would be whipped over the side by one of them, or by the vicious wind itself, and over I would go to my icy, smelly doom. But I knew even as I thought it, that I would catch the sides on my way over and cling on. That would have been me, there, hanging on to the rim, all my remaining strength going into keeping myself hanging there. I could have stopped myself falling further, but I could not have found the strength to pull myself back over into safety. And besides, even if I could have, it would only have brought me back into the path of a cab, or another gust of wind.
The fog was dreadful on the bridge; it did not hang like a brown pall, but flurried and swirled in a fast-moving current, as if the bubbling brown Thames beneath us were a fantasy compared to the raging course of the fog-river through which we had to wade. Not for nothing was this called the Bridge of Sighs. I could hear through the wind the howls of lives spent along with their ha’pennies; the world looked so bleak from here that I would have bet my eleven pence-ha’penny on there being very few prospective suicides who had paid their toll and then asked for a refund, having changed their minds in the centre of the bridge. From up here, it was not possible to tell how much worse down there would be.
Then in and out, in and out to the city itself, where I hoped to find assistance; I would not call it charity.
First I visited the Institute for the Restitution of Fallen Women, where I waited in line for two hours with nothing in my stomach to hold me up, but my fall being not a moral one, they had no time for me.
Next I went to the Guild of Distressed Gentlewomen, but, as I was not a widow, and lacked a whole cartload of children to support, my distress counted for nothing.
More hopeful was the Society for the Promotion of the Employment of Women, who told me I had the skills to become a fine governess, and so I could have been, had they not shuddered at my suggestion that my daughter attend me while I worked. But there was no other way: she would undoubtedly fall into convulsions at the prospect of long absences from me with only her invalid father for care. The harshest claws of poverty scratched like a mere kitten
compared to that.
The rain started on my way back to Lambeth. In and out, in and out, I picked up my skirts so they would not wick up the water from the puddles, and wrapped my shawl tighter around me. In and out, in and out, I passed the heavy gates of the St Saviour Poorhouse, and my toes went in and out quicker than ever to carry me far from its reaches. More than an absent mother off playing the governess, the workhouse would have meant certain death for Lucinda.
I finally reached Remy & Randolph, the most advanced bookbinders in London, where the guard told me with a yawn that I would earn eight shillings – eight shillings! – for a fifty-four hour week as a paper-folder if I could bring a reference. ‘They prefer girls to women, in ’ere, as girls are cheaper,’ he warned my departing back.
I remember leaving the gates of Remy & Randolph as the lamplighters started their rounds, and I was fretting about all sorts: that Lucinda might have had a turn in my absence; that Peter might never return; that I had no choice but to find that old suitcase of my parents’ in the box-room, and sell it, or at least pawn it, which might bring us enough money to last another two days. The evening chill was setting in, and I scrunched my toes in my boots to squeeze out the cold from them. I walked like this down New Cut, past the two hundred costermongers, the vagabonds loitering in gin-shop doorways, the five-year-old urchins collecting horse-droppings for the Bermondsey tanneries, in and out, in and out.
The rain had picked up even more, and my damp clothes quickly became saturated. The wool of my shawl was sodden, and my skirts were drenched by water hurled up from the cobbles by passing carriages. Soon, wool, flannel and horsehair were all soaking, and I stank of wet animal. I remember trying to wrap my cloak tighter around me, and my hand failing to grasp one side of the flabby fabric, and as I clutched for it in the bitter wind I found my knees giving way, and I sank down on to the pavement, skirts billowing around me like a deflating hot-air balloon. My legs had nothing left in them to carry out my orders, not even the thought of Lucinda at Agatha Marrow’s. My nose was streaming, but I had not the strength to move my arms to release my handkerchief from my cuff. I bowed my head so that my bonnet would disguise me from the scurrying swell of folk about me.
‘Here’s a pretty pickle,’ an old voice croaked behind me. I dipped my head further into the chafing wet of my collar, and sank closer to the ground. ‘Come, lovely. Down on your luck? There’s a sorry story to hear, I’ll warrant.’
I could see a pair of once-smart, heavily scuffed brown boots, and the hem of a brown tweed greatcoat. Then a gloved hand came down to mine, but I could not take it.
‘Come with me,’ the man said, his voice softer now. I wondered if he was one of those gentlefolk from the missions, who collect paupers from the pavements and throw them into church shelters for the night, only serving to delay for a few hours their inevitable demise in an icy puddle of gin and worse.
‘Where do you live?’ he asked, and the words formed on my lips, but it felt as if frost was spread there like a glass cobweb, and would not let them out. Ivy-street, I wanted to say, by the Necropolitan Railway. Not far yonder, I can walk there. But he did not hear me.
Ivy-street. It might not have been one of the golden avenues around Lambeth Palace, or as smart as Vauxhall and Kennington, but neither was it one of the crumbling rows of tenements butting on to the river, or the slums of Southwark and Bermondsey. It was not as holy as Lambeth Palace to the south-west, nor was it as mad as Bedlam to the south. It was in a tenuous position, poised between two fates, just like me at that point. ‘Ivy-street,’ I finally managed to say. But the man clearly didn’t know where that was, for he said, ‘Come now. Follow me, and there shall be some small salvation in it for you, I’ll warrant. I know a place that’s fine and warm . . .’ I let him pull me to my feet, and when I wobbled for a moment, he grasped my waist through my cloak, and steadied me. Some keys jangled at his belt; I shuddered as the thought crossed my mind that he was Relieving Officer for the Poorhouse.
‘. . . and better suited than the gutter for a fine-looking woman like yourself.’ I dug my frozen fingers up my sleeve to find my handkerchief, but it was not there. ‘Here, take mine.’ I raised my hand to take the white cloth from him, but he had already started to wipe my nose with it, like a mother to a child. He was kindly, though, even if he were from That Place.
‘Now, are you ready to walk?’ He proffered his arm, but still I did not take it. I moved my right foot, and tried to transfer my weight on to it. I could walk, I was sure of it.
‘Come, dear.’ We set off walking together, side by side but not arm in arm, although I was grateful for his presence. We came to the end of the street and I raised my hand to bid him farewell and thank him for his assistance, for it was clear that I was going one way and he another.
‘No, no, no, Mistress Pretty. I believe we have a misunderstanding. It is this way, comfier than the street and . . .’ here he dropped his voice, ‘. . . cosier too.’ His yellow eyes stared into mine, and he pulled his face so close that I could see the wax shining on the tips of his moustache. Beneath it, his dry mouth broke into a vile smile.
‘So, what’s it to be, you mischievous sow?’ As he spoke, the clouds of air used by his words hung between us, as if I were to read from them the choice he was spelling out to me. ‘So, what’s it to be, then? Workhouse, or whorehouse?’
Chapter Three
Baby and I
Were baked in a pie,
The gravy was wonderful hot.
We had nothing to pay
To the baker that day
And so we crept out of the pot.
I’d have been lying if I’d said I didn’t consider his proposal. I had often wondered how perilous life had to get before a woman would go to the bad, and now I knew. For it was not the word ‘whorehouse’ but the word ‘workhouse’ that sent a dart of power to my legs, and I stepped rashly into the street, into the path of a lurching omnibus, and hurled myself to the other side of it. The traffic was not heavy, but created enough of a slow-rolling barrier between us to prevent him following me. He stood at the side of the road and bellowed over the din, ‘My money not good enough for you, eh? It’ll be the workhouse for you, you whore! The workhouse, you ungrateful trollop!’
But I feared that his money was good enough for me. How hard could it really be, I wondered, to let this man lead me to his greasy bed and open my legs to him? I pondered it all the way back to Ivy-street, past Granby-street, which was notorious for its night-ladies. I did not turn in to Ivy-street, nor Granby-street neither, mind, but continued beyond, to the slums towards the river. No, I was not thinking yet of plying that trade. But I knew that there was no coal in the cellar, and no old log basket left to crumble into kindling, and I skulked along the shadowy streets where the tenements leered so far towards the centre that they almost met overhead. I met a woman in a door-way with a pinched face, eyes sunken and dead like coal, and, to my shame, I begged her for some wood. I could see from the rabble in her house that she was one of those who, at this time of year, actually become grateful to be living fifteen to a room, for the little warmth they could give each other.
I wondered if she ever let men take her for money. Not that I judged her to be a whore, but I wanted to ask someone who might know what it was like, how much to charge, how not to hate it, nor hate them, nor hate oneself, so.
She looked me over and said not a word, before going back inside. She must have read my mind, and I had offended her. I heard her growl something at a child; she was Irish. The little boy ran out of the house and past my legs, completely barefoot, his legs beneath his rags grey as a corpse. I began to turn to leave, but the woman grunted at me, and there was something in the sound that bade me stay. The scamp soon returned with a couple of thick sticks and a few lumps of coal, which he handed to me, staring at me directly with his dark, soulful eyes. There was a time when I wouldn’t have touched a wretch like that even with fire-tongs. I found out then that sometimes it is the most mise
rable who are the quickest to help someone else in a similarly pitiable state.
I returned with my gifts to our little house, and pushed open the door, so I could ignite the home’s warm heart and bring Lucinda safely back into it. In the gloomy darkness I could make out a shape on the rug in front of the cold hearth, and I could hear panting, punctuated with shrieks, like a monkey dancing to an organ-grinder.
‘Who’s there?’ I said cautiously. ‘Who is it?’ I kept my foot in the door, despite the rush of icy air, in case I needed to escape. The shape fell silent. Then it started to heave and sob, and in the heart-rending sounds of misery I recognised Peter’s tones. I let the door bang shut, dropped my meagre bundles, and sank on to the rug next to him, my hand on his back. He flinched, and scrambled to the corner like a chased animal, gibbering. But there were words amongst the incoherence.
‘Hub- hub- hub- . . . Roo- roo- roo- Hub- . . .’
I followed him into the corner and crouched down, ensuring I was lower than him and looked up to him, and smiled encouragement.
‘A – sp – a –, a – sp – a –, a – sp – a . . .’
I reached for his hands in order to hold them at chest-height as a kind of prayer of communication, but the moment I touched them he drew back and hollered in pain. But I had briefly felt the rage in his fingers, and feared for where he had been. It had not been drier than his home.
‘Where have you been, my love? Tell me.’
‘A – sp – a –, a – sp – a –, a – sp – a . . .’
‘A spa? A spot?’ I tried.
‘A – sp – a – n –, a – span . . .’ he continued. ‘A sponge –’
‘A sponge!’ I seized upon the word, and he nodded, then shook his head, which added to my consternation. ‘A sponge?’ Did he want one? Was I to mop his brow? His face looked black in the gloom; I moved myself to allow the lamplight from outside to shine on him, and saw that it was bruised, swollen, and matted with blood both fresh and dried.
The Journal of Dora Damage Page 5
