‘We chose you, Dinjerous Boy, to hijack the man,’ said the man in the red hat, amidst nodding faces. ‘We did not choose you to decide. If we wan’ you to kill him, you kill him! What’s change’ yo’ tune, bogus boy?’
I was trembling so hard the veil must have been bobbing visibly to the entire room, although no one was interested in me. I was sharing a room with a renegade group of fugitives in a tiny corner of an unimportant district of London, yet here the plans to overthrow the entire remaining centuries-old institution of slavery were being laid down. The secret I had hoped to procure in order to barter with Din for his loyalty was proving larger, more horrific, more noble, than I had ever, ever imagined.
And here Din faltered.
‘What’s change’ yo’ mind, for you, hmm? Bin seein’ too many pretty ladies, hmm?’ A peal of laughter went round the group; some of them looked over at me.
‘Leave her out of it,’ Din said.
‘But you brought her here, Din-din. Did yo’ ask? Don’t nobody bring no one here without askin’. Who are you, precious girl?’ Red hat called over to me. ‘Stand up. Let me see your pretty face.’
There was more laughter; I wished I could have pleaded with my eyes to Din to know what to do.
‘Leave her, Jon-Jo,’ Din commanded.
‘You makin’ me?’
‘Yes I am. The lady will be no trouble. No trouble at all. She’s got enough dirty secrets of her own to worry about. It’ll be easy for me to keep her quiet.’
‘Make sure you see to it, brother. Personally.’
‘Oh, an’ I will.’ He threw one more glance over at me, and with that, the attention shifted away from us, and I exhaled, and Din too, by the look of him. He chewed the skin round his fingers as the conversation turned elsewhere, but he did not look back at me.
I concentrated hard for the rest of the evening, and I learnt a lot. I learnt that it was one thing to leave America if you’re black, and quite another to get back in again, and I heard the pros and cons of route A (Cunard, the Great Western, steerage and Ellis Island), versus route B (cargo, trade, contraband and stowing-away). I heard news about sources of funds, timing, different ways to get messages safely to the mostly Quaker families closest to Davis’s homestead who had offered their support. Only by listening hard could I forget about myself; slowly, my trembling subsided, and the meeting, too, started to relax. Eventually Din came over, and offered to escort me home.
‘You not comin’ to the tan-pits, Dinjer Boy?’ someone called, but Din shook his head. We climbed the stairs together, knowing that we were leaving something of a stir behind us, and stood outside in the dark.
‘Don’t take me home. You are going to the Borough.’
‘So? You goin’ to Lambeth. I will survive the journey; you might not.’
I was grateful, in truth, for it wasn’t safe for me. Besides, I knew I needed to explain my presence there, but the questions poured forth as we walked, and I believed my interest compensated for my transgression. I knew nothing, and wanted to know every how, why and wherefore that had brought Din to that dingy basement in Whitechapel.
So he told me, on the long journey back to Lambeth, about the many slave insurrections that had been tried and which had failed, and the difficulty in co-ordinating uprisings across the country. For a full-scale revolution, he told me, a critical mass of insurgents had to be reached: the big ones – Gabriel’s Rebellion in 1800, Southampton County in 1831 – were not big enough. They might have raised awareness of the sufferings of slaves, but only served to increase fear of the darkie. He told me too of John Brown, a white man, who nearly succeeded, seizing a hundred thousand muskets and rifles from the arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia just a few years ago, with the intention of galloping south with them to arm every slave he met along the way, but he failed.
‘Why? There must be millions of you, Din, enough for several armies.’
‘Do you know, ma’am, what slavery does to you? Do you think all slaves are always poised for a rebellion, watchin’ an’ waitin’ for any chance to rise up an’ conquer? Liberty’s been so long gone now, folks are scared of it. Slavery makes you dependent. It’s a drug you’re forced to swallow, a drug that lays you low and strips you of all your dignity. If you ain’t got dignity, you ain’t got nothin’ to fight for. There ain’t gonna be no wholescale rebellion, only isolated escapes here an’ there. You can’t tell a man to give up opium once the doctor has made sure of his addiction. You can only destroy all opium around, an’ help the addict find something better.’
‘So, why are you planning to take someone hostage?’ I asked.
‘Call it a new approach. It’s radical, an’ it’s simple. Can you imagine white folks allowin’ a man like Jefferson Davis to become a martyr, to die at the hands of niggers?’
‘They said you changed your mind; said that you wanted murder before.’
‘I did, for a while. But now I’m not so sure.’ He fell quiet, and I did not know what to say. My body was suffused with some strong feeling for him, and it ached for reciprocity. ‘This way, America will be forced to listen; they will rewrite the statute books.’
‘Do you really believe that?’
‘Yes. And no. Ain’ nothin’ sure when you’ve been a slave. But it won’t be much longer. I can feel in my bones that a war is imminent. Yet too I wonder if it will ever happen. I promise you now, ma’am, I will die tryin’.’
‘I believe you. But I do hope you won’t.’ Oh, but I curled into myself, for my trite words could not say the half of it.
‘It’s what I live for, ma’am. Once my mamma died, I had nothing else, except the freedom of my people and their children. It is all I live for. It is how I love.’
Love. We were here at last. He had said the word. I probed him gently. ‘I do not understand. How is it how you love?’
‘Is love not only sacrifice? Do we not give up those we love, in order to prove to them that they are loved? My mother gave up her freedom for me; I gave up my chance of freedom for her. I only know love for what we lose by it.’
And I was lost myself, for I started to realise then what what I wanted with this man, and knew that I would never have even half of it, and was not sure that I even deserved it.
Eventually I was too tired to ask any more, and he had spoken enough. We sat in each other’s silence on the omnibus home, and barely looked at each other. I kept my veil on; it was easier that way. After all, I was meant to be returning from a funeral, and whatever little reputation I might have in the neighbourhood would be lost entirely if I were seen publicly with a black man in the small hours of the morning. But he was my protection too; I was safe from the drunkards, the leering swells, the policemen, the beggars. I did not for a moment think I might be at risk from him.
I put my finger to my lips when we neared the front door of 2, Ivy-street, and motioned to the door of the workshop instead, for we would be less likely to wake the household that way. I pulled the key from my skirts, and put it in the lock, my mind full of the evening and what I had learnt of this man, when I discovered that the door had not been locked. The door had been left open. For how long? And why?
I pushed the door slowly open with my fingertips, and waited on the threshold as my eyes adjusted to the dimness. Din sidled past me, and lit a candle.
No one was there.
Had Jack forgotten to lock up? Unlikely, for such a responsible lad. So what, then? Who? And were they still here, somewhere? We paced round the workshop, with increasing confidence as we discovered no one under the benches, or hiding in the booth, and no disturbances to the work on the tables, or in the presses, or in the crates. Jack’s apron was on the peg; his coat was gone. And, most importantly, the new, heavy door was still locked between the workshop and the house, and the only key for it was hanging beneath my skirts.
I pulled it out and unlocked the door, then crept into the kitchen with the candle. Through the gap into the parlour, we could see a dwindling fire flickering
its red light onto Peter, who seemed to be sleeping. I tiptoed upstairs: Lucinda was sound asleep in the box-room. I glided downstairs. Din was hovering around the new door, as if unsure whether the potential danger of the situation justified his setting foot in my house for the first time. I motioned to him to go back into the bindery.
‘Do you want me to stay?’ he whispered once we were out of the house. ‘I’ll sleep here, on the floor.’
‘Yes, I do. But not because I’m scared. Because I don’t want you going back to the Borough at this time of night.’ I went over and locked the door to the street.
‘I can fend for myself.’
‘But I’d rather you didn’t have to. Be safe; don’t put yourself in danger when you can avoid it.’ Or is that impossible for you, I wanted to add. I went back into the house and collected some blankets; I handed them to Din at the door of the workshop.
‘It won’t be too comfortable,’ I said.
‘I’ve slept on worse.’
‘I’ll have to lock you in, but here’s the key to the street if you need to get out.’
I decided not to disturb Peter, but stoked the fire to keep him warm; I would be rising in only a few hours, and I would move him into our bed then. It was just as well, for I was wakeful with frets and perturbations: the revelations of the pub basement in Whitechapel, the mystery of the unlocked door, the presence of Din’s sleeping body in such close proximity to mine. I slept on my side, with my hands tucked between my thighs for comfort.
I rose at five as usual to start the morning chores before Pansy arrived. Peter was still in his chair, and the fire was low. I picked the blanket off his knees to wrap round him better when he stood, to discover that his legs were cold, like pink-veined marble, such that there was no warming to be had from any blanket. I checked his face. His eyes and mouth were wide open, like a pig’s head on the butcher’s stand.
‘Peter,’ I said sternly, as if he were a child playing games with me. ‘Peter!’
I did not know when the spirit had left him; had I checked on him properly before turning into bed I might have discovered something then that could have saved him. I grasped his lifeless hands; they caused him no pain at last, and I squeezed them and squeezed them as if they were bellows, as if through them I could breathe new life into him as into the dying fire.
Chapter Sixteen
My father left me three acres of land,
Sing ivy, sing ivy;
My father left me three acres of land,
Sing holly, go whistle and ivy.
We kept the curtains closed all the while; Pansy and I washed his body by candle-light, and we patted him dry with towels and finished him off in front of the fire. I shaved his face, and cut a piece of hair from his head, which I tied in a knot and placed in a box on the mantelpiece, where the clock had been before I sold it to Huggitty. But even if we had still had it, I would not have known the time at which I should have stopped it. Pansy said Peter had bid her farewell as she left last night. She also said that Jack had still been in the workshop.
We wrapped him in a sheet and laid him out on the floor under the windowsill. I sent Lucinda to hang Peter’s blanket over the mirror in our bedroom, and Pansy out into Ivy-street to tell the neighbours.
‘Can I be of service?’ Din asked, as he brought his breakfast plate in from the workshop.
Yes, you can hold me through my grief; yes, you can go away and leave me for ever, I wanted to scream both at once. I had not expected so extreme and immediate a punishment for my unnatural urges.
‘You may go home, Din. We shall not be working today.’
‘As you wish, ma’am.’
‘Oh, but Din?’
‘Ma’am?’
‘Go and tell Jack, won’t you? See what’s happened to him. Pond Yard, up past the Vinegar Works, by the river. Lizzie, his mother is.’
Jack. The coincidence of his disappearance with Peter’s death troubled me. I never doubted the boy his love for my husband; even my suspicious mind did not dare imagine that he might have been in some way responsible for this. But I troubled that there was something further to this than I could see. I fretted that we might find Jack dead today too, for all I knew.
Mrs Eeles passed Din on his way out. She scarcely seemed to see him or me as she hunted round to find where I had hidden my husband.
‘He’s gorn!’ she lamented, clutching her hands at the air. ‘Our dearest Peter! Gorn! What a suffering befalls us all before the day of reck’ning! Where is his body?’ I gestured to where he lay under the window. ‘What, no coffin yet? But least you’ll be able to bury him nice,’ she added, finally locking my eye, ‘what with business and that.’
Oh, I had not thought that far. Of course my Peter could not have a pauper’s funeral, but we had not a penny spare.
‘You’ll be wanting horses with plumes and all, won’t you, and mutes, and shall I be coming with you to get your blacks dyed? Black Peter Robinson’s we could go to. At least to get some mourning trimmings for that dreadful old frock of yours.’
But then I remembered the finery: I would pawn those impractical brown boots and the cream silk scarf, and the empty hamper, the parasol, the hair comb and fan. They would come in useful after all.
‘It’s all so expensive,’ I said wearily. ‘What do you think we’ll need? Four or five guineas at least, for a plain burial?’
‘A plain burial?’ a deep male voice said behind us. ‘My finest bookbinder shall have nothing of the sort.’
We turned to find Sir Jocelyn Knightley standing in the front doorway, doffing his hat. ‘A plain burial, Dora, for your dear husband?’ He held his arms out to me, one hand still holding his distinctive silver cane with the red ball top, but I did not stir. Lucinda came downstairs slowly, clutching Mossie, and eyed him carefully.
‘Little Lucinda,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry, poor child. There are no words.’ Then all of a sudden, off the bottom stair, she launched herself at him.
‘Don’t!’ I screamed at her, and at him, but the rogue crouched down and seized her, and she buried herself deeply in his chest. ‘Don’t,’ I repeated, more feebly. I had not imagined I would let him touch her ever again, but I could not stop this.
‘There, there, precious girl. Cry all you must. But your mother is dry-eyed. Does she not cry, Lucinda?’
Lucinda shook her head from within his coat.
‘I am not afraid of tears, Dora,’ he said, looking up at me.
But I had no tears to shed. My chest was crammed with grief, but it would not be released. Besides, I feared that if I started crying I would not stop, and I certainly did not want to give Sir Jocelyn cause to comfort me. Lucinda pulled herself away from him and started to wrap herself in me. I was so wretched with misery I could scarce summon up the requisite loathing for him.
‘I heard word,’ Sir Jocelyn said, standing up slowly. He pulled himself up on his cane, and pressed into his waist with his other hand: his stab wound, I remembered. ‘I came as quickly as I could.’
‘Why?’ I said, my mouth clenched.
‘Why? Theodore – Dr Chisholm – is away in the country shooting, and I am unaware of any physicians of note in Lambeth.’ He raised an eyebrow, as if challenging me to dispute him. ‘Lucinda, take Mossie, and go and play in your room.’ The girl slid from my arms, and obeyed. ‘Come, let me see the body.’
I led him over to the window and carefully unwrapped the sheet from Peter’s corpse. Sir Jocelyn laid his cane down, and crouched next to him. Mrs Eeles was peering over my shoulder; whatever she thought of me, she was relishing this.
Peter was cold and heavy as stone: more solid, even, than when he had been alive. We watched without flinching as Sir Jocelyn examined him all over, cut him with a scalpel in places, and put a tube down his throat. He asked me many questions as he worked, and I answered frankly, even when it came to his consumption of laudanum. Sir Jocelyn pulled himself up on his cane again, and asked to examine the remaining bottles of Black Drop. He
sniffed them, before placing one in his bag.
‘I shall issue you now with a certificate of death,’ he finally said. ‘There is no need for an autopsy, and you would not wish for a coroner’s interference, would you?’
‘Not if you say so,’ I said doubtfully. I could not speak my worries, for Mrs Eeles’s presence.
He pulled out a printed form from his bag, sat down at the dining table, and wrote for several minutes. I rolled Peter’s body back up in the sheet, while Mrs Eeles watched. Pansy returned, and busied herself in the kitchen.
‘Now, you must leave the funeral arrangements to me,’ announced Sir Jocelyn.
‘But I cannot . . .’
‘But of course you can. I insist.’
‘Is that really . . . proper?’
‘I shall take care of it all. There is to be no argument.’
‘Well, Sir Jocelyn, if there’s—’
He held up his hand to silence me. ‘You have more than enough to worry about, you poor dear girl. I am glad to see you are well supported by your community.’ He nodded at Mrs Eeles. ‘A finer neighbour than Mrs Damage one cannot hope for.’
Mrs Eeles was in trouble, and making peculiar noises. Clearly she did not quite know where to put herself in the presence of Sir Jocelyn: if she truly thought that I opened my legs to men like these, she was realising now the true perks of the trade. Torn between arch disapproval of my whoring and the thrill of breathing the same air as a full-blooded aristocrat who would even pay for the finest funeral to which she had ever borne witness, she sucked her teeth and fretted her hands. ‘Nor a finer tenant,’ she eventually affirmed.
The Journal of Dora Damage Page 28
