Sweet Thames

by Matthew Kneale

  Another surprise. ‘Bawling?’

  ‘Yeah. Fit to scare half the street. After she done with cooing at the dogs they goes strolling off an’ I saw him murmur som’it into her ear. But she couldn’t ’ave liked it none, as before you could blink she was roaring fit to burst.’ The boy’s voice took on an aristocratic drawl. ‘“’Ow dare you suggest sich a thing? ’Ow dare you?”’ He grinned, proud of his own mimicking abilities. ‘Then she goes storming off, but none too fast, as if she didn’t want to lose him. She needn’t have worried, as he was close ’nough behind. I think it were off that ways. Into one of the cafes, p’raps.’

  His story was hardly reassuring, though it did offer, if one set aside his own vile conclusions, the chance that my wife had been teetering on the brink of catastrophe rather than already lost.

  The cafes of the Haymarket. These were splendid affairs – finest in London, and of a kind I had never before thought of venturing inside – with the most modern of decoration and the highest of prices; the cost of a mere brandy was hardly to be believed. Customers were mostly on a par; splendidly dressed fellows, careful in the way they lounged. Alongside the grandeur, however, a darker element was also discernible; thus the young women who sat alone at tables, many of them possessing beauty and dressed in the finest crinolines, but who conjured up a sense of the unexpectedly familiar – recalling to mind night-time alleys – as they glanced coyly at men passing by, offering them perhaps a greeting, a mistaken recognition, in voices a jot harsh for those so finely attired.

  At each cafe I ordered the cheapest item on the menu, whatever it might be, then delayed the waiter with chatter, until I deemed the moment was right to show the locket. After trying five establishments, however, and causing corresponding depletion of the coins in my pocket, I had bought myself nothing except scornful glances at my simple attire. I was beginning to wonder – and hope – if I had been foolish to think she had visited any such place. At the sixth, however, the waiter examined the portrait with more interest.

  ‘I might have.’ The man, a smoothly knowing sort, surprised me with his absence of wariness; so much in contrast with the responses of his colleagues in other cafes. Nor did this establishment, the Castelnau, seem to have anything less to hide than its rivals; even as I had entered two finely plumed young women had offered me bright smiles, one asking me if I was not the fellow she had met on Tuesday last.

  The waiter hovered beside the table. ‘Though my memory can be a little slow at times.’

  I held out some coins. He eyed them without speaking until I added to their number.

  ‘Now I recall. Yes, she was in here, I’m sure.’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘That’s right. Something like five, I’d say.’

  I swallowed my remaining pride. ‘With another?’ With a sinking heart I watched the waiter nod. ‘An older man? With greying hair, not much of it?’

  Here, however, he shook his head. ‘Nope. Young fellah, hardly past twenty. Rich by the look of him. Son of some nob, I’d say.’

  Different again? My wife seemed to be familiar with half the manhood of London. ‘You’re sure this was yesterday?’

  ‘Certainly I am.’ He regarded me confidently. ‘They were in here for a while. Looked like they were getting on close, too. I saw their feet under the table.’

  A few short words, spoken to me by a stranger, in a place not known to me until that day. Yet their effect upon me… Gone were my last hopes. And I was left with whom? With Isobella the dirty. Isobella the loose, the cheap. Isobella the harlot; except to her own husband, for whom it was always ‘too soon’. Isobella the betrayer.

  And Joshua Jeavons the cuckold of cuckolds.

  ‘You all right?’ the waiter was frowning.

  ‘Of course.’ I had to be gone from this place, had to feel a breeze upon me. I threw the coins upon the table. The other plucked them up, swiftly counting their value as he slipped them into his pocket. Getting to my feet I found him raising a hand to delay me.

  ‘Important to you is it, this?’

  ‘What if it is?’ If he had more to tell I was by no means sure I wanted to hear.

  ‘This wasn’t the first time they’ve been in. I’ve seen her before, I’m sure. And as for him, lately he’s been almost a regular.’

  ‘So?’

  The waiter must have heard the warning note in my voice. ‘I’m only trying to help you, mister.’ He opened his face, offering a smile of reassurance. ‘I’m saying they might be in again. Especially him. If you come evening time, there’s a good chance. I could point him out to you.’ He slipped his hand into his money pocket. ‘Of course it’d be risky for me, and that.’

  More bartering; bartering for further poisonously wounding revelations. I shook my head. ‘Not now. Perhaps another time.’

  Trafalgar Square with its roar of clattering vehicles half seen by lamplight; brougham cabs and heavy wagonettes, brewers’ drays and whitechapels laden with vegetables, dog carts and brightly painted omnibuses, all swirling in slow procession. Though I hardly heard their din. The scurrying crowds; every kind of beggar, swaggering young clerks, milliner girls and genteel ladies, fast racetrack fellows and stiffly doleful military sorts freshly loosed from squeezed regiments, all elbowing forward. Had I known my own wife any better than these strangers?

  Whitehall with its lurching façades of erratic buildings, hardly two the same; half-timbered inns, brick shops, stone government buildings making a strange parade above such a traffic-crushed thoroughfare. Ahead the masonry of the Palace of Westminster loomed into view, silhouetted against a smoky moonlit sky, the two intended towers still little more than stumps; fists vanishing into gloves of scaffolding.

  Even these seemed changed to me. Spoiled.

  ‘I saw their feet under the table.’

  All those months of courtship, of engagement, of marriage. Had she simply ceased to care at some moment, some hour? Or had the whole long journey been a deception, from that very first afternoon, when she had found me in her father’s library, and asked if I would stay for tea.

  ‘Son of some nob, I’d say.’

  Was that what she had wanted all along? A dapper young lord? Then why trouble the life of Joshua Jeavons? Why show enthusiasm to be his wife?

  Victoria Street, that new thoroughfare, still in the midst of construction, roadway raised up above marshy wasteland to either side, where the slum of Palmer’s village had lately stood. The wide scars of demolition were clothed in mist, a gang of street urchins faintly discernible through the gauze, filling the rare patch of empty space with some ragged game, their shouts muted by the foggy air.

  I glared at the scene, almost as if it, too, had done me injury. Past the foundations of great buildings soon to line the new street I went, past Westminster House of Correction, and the Grosvenor Canal Basin – giving forth its stench of oily and stagnant water – and to my own street.

  I ignored Pericles’ growls and, lamp hissing before me, stepped into Isobella’s room. The bedroom of both of us, it should have been. I began with the cupboard. So much had I been a stranger here that I had never seen its contents before, never even opened its doors.

  Most of the objects – rather to my surprise – dated from her girlhood: plaster dogs and horses, dolls in pretty dresses – all in a remarkable state of preservation – and a medallion souvenir from Brighton.

  The shelf below contained books; quite a little library, also of her youth. She seemed to have kept every volume of exercises from her studying days, and I found myself discovering the same round, but uncertain-seeming writing describing all manner of things: animals to be found in Sweden, ways of cooking beef, simple mathematical calculations, the splendours of the Magna Carta. In addition she had kept many journals, most of them issues of the same publication, titled ‘Household Wisdom’, with the description beneath, ‘For the useful instruction of young ladies’. Leafing through one such, I found myself studying ‘What every young lady should
know, for her future happiness’.

  A clean house is a house respected and content. Young ladies, be sure you make your own thus. Objects that may shine pleasantly – silverware, the faces of clocks, and items of china – should be made to do so. All surfaces should be kept free of dust and settlings from the atmosphere, while…

  Here at least I could find no fault with Isobella. I glanced down the page.

  It is most unseemly for a young and still unmarried lady to entertain a male guest without other company present to join in their cheerful conversation. Most suitable as candidates for this pleasant task are, of course, the young lady’s parents, or a female friend. Failing this a servant will suffice; she can be employed perhaps quietly providing tea, and, for the young man, even refreshment of a more solid kind. Thus…

  I recalled my first visit to Trowbridge Street, that winter’s afternoon. Yes, this lesson, too, she had evidently studied. If only she had kept it more presently in her thoughts.

  Having finished with the books and magazines, I set to work upon the framed pictures upon the mantelpiece. I had found no diary, but might there not be some letters? Even notes of arrangements made, hurriedly jotted? Something to tell of a secret life. The pictures were small affairs, depicting biblical or moving scenes; a crofter’s dog mourning upon his dead master’s old chair and such like. I prised open the backs, removing the prints themselves before dropping the separate pieces on the floor. Nothing.

  ‘Looked like they were getting on close, too.’

  I began to work more swiftly, pulling forth dresses from the wardrobe. Now I plucked shoes, a coat, blouses and stockings and bonnets and more, corsets, her very undergarments, letting them drop upon the floor, throwing them before me.

  ‘I saw their feet under the table.’

  At once I found myself gripped as by a fever, as one drunkenly possessed, hurling, tearing the cloth. Pericles made feints at my hands, his head flicking back – eyes rolling with flashes of white, giving him the look of a creature demented – as scarves and hats and corsets flew above him, casting leaping shadows on the walls with the light of the hissing lamp. Until the cupboards were all empty.

  I had found nothing.

  It was then, my glance passing level with the top surface of the ransacked chest of drawers, that I saw the tangle of cloth and needles of my wife’s embroidery. These, somehow, had escaped being thrown to the ground. Sat on top was the knife with the decoration of embattled ships of the line. I glanced at the thing for only a moment. Then slipped it into my pocket.

  Pericles uttered a low growl.

  Joshua Jeavons crouched in the midst of the wreckage of his wife’s possessions, turning the pages of her young ladies’ magazines, though he seems not to take in the meaning of the print. Joshua Jeavons absorbed, eyes seeming faintly to burn, as one who has passed round a corner in the road, into a harsher and more ugly landscape, to which he is slowly coming to adjust.

  I was sitting there still when I was brought to the present by the sound of a knock on the front door.

  What if it had been Isobella? The question occurs to me not infrequently as I sit in my Torinese rooms, so high of ceiling and window, rich with smells of food and smoke, drifting inside with the cooling evening air. I would have been angry, of course. But – I like to imagine – controlled of myself. Coldly hearing her out, then offering my reply.

  I have to admit, though, I am by no means sure.

  Fortunately it was not her. Pulling open the front door, I found stood before me the stiff frame of her father. ‘Joshua, I’m so glad to find you in. Have you news?’

  I had all but forgotten the man, and my promise to inform him instantly of any discoveries made. ‘You’d best come in.’

  Lamp in hand I led the way to the parlour, littered as it was with drainage documents. I cleared a chair of diagrams of Effluent Transformational Depositories that he might sit, observing, as I did so, a look of dubiousness upon the fellow’s face. Probably the house did appear a little strange now, with its jumbled and neglected rooms and the pervading scent of rotting food.

  ‘There is news,’ I told him.

  He nodded, tautly eager. Looking at the man – the lamp illuminating one side of his head with bright clarity, but leaving the other in darkness – I realized how changed I was towards him. Four days ago I had regarded us as allies in our concern for Isobella. Now I was no longer so sure our interests coincided. I did not want to discover my wife with him at my side. Nor, for that matter, with the lumbering Constable Collins. No, I wanted to find her alone.

  ‘She’s been seen,’ I told him. ‘Just yesterday, by the Reverend…’

  Though relieved, Moynihan did not seem as surprised as I had expected by the news. Surely it was remarkable that his vanished daughter had been jauntily promenading London streets? Or, I pondered, was this perhaps not the first time she had disappeared? He sat back in his chair, frowning, as might a general puzzling upon unclear reports from his scouts. ‘Nothing since then? Have you been down to the Haymarket?’

  ‘With a police constable. We questioned a number of people.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They told him nothing of usefulness.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  No. I would not have him know the rest. It was for me alone. ‘That’s all.’

  A slow nod. The way he watched me, I wondered if he had guessed I knew more. ‘Joshua, we really must be as one on this terrible matter. It’s of such importance.’ He glanced at me, stiffly earnest. ‘I know we’ve had differences in the past, but I ask you to put such matters behind you. We must work together.’

  The lamp began spluttering unhappily, and I rose to light a candle before it expired. ‘And what of you? Have you had any thoughts? Perhaps some person to whom she might have flown?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Has she ever done such a thing before? Or made you suspect she might?’

  ‘Never.’

  The lamp finally died. Sitting down opposite the man, observing his features by the flickering candle, I had the strange feeling that he, too, knew more than he was prepared to tell. ‘You’re sure.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The impression lingered, however, remaining strong in my thoughts even when – having taken the names of the two policemen I had been working with – he rose to leave.

  ‘I had hoped to see you at the office, at least to know what had happened.’ His tone, as we made our way into the hall, was faintly reproachful.

  I had no intention of sounding apologetic. ‘I’ve not had time. Nor will I have for a while, as far as I can see.’ I gave him his hat. ‘Besides, there’s little enough work for me now, with the Sweet Warehouse design complete.’

  He nodded, relenting. ‘But we must stay in touch. It’s so important. Bring me any news, the moment you have it. Come to the office, come to my house, day or night. And I’ll do the same for you.’

  He offered a hand and I shook it, though by no means convinced of the partnership thus signified. Opening the front door a warm gust of wind blew inside, causing the candle flame to lean frantically, then die, leaving a tiny and short-lived glow at the tip of the wick. There was no sign, now, of the moon, and the darkness outside was as thick as that within, enveloping us both.

  ‘I’ll get a lamp,’ I offered.

  ‘It’s of no matter.’

  I could hear the fellow feeling his way towards the door – banging noisily into the coat-stand en route – and, beyond, his tread changed as it found the stone step.

  ‘Don’t forget to tell me any news. The moment you hear.’ His voice, calling out from the foggy blackness, sounded unexpectedly near.

  ‘I won’t.’

  I heard his footsteps echoing away, and he was gone.

  Of course it was to be the last time I saw him. At least alive.

  Chapter Seven

  The great globe turns in slow revolution, and turns again, as some giant millstone ever grinding. Grinding upon men’
s hopes and fears, upon their passions, their hatreds, slowly reducing all to fine dust. Grinding likewise upon the small life of Joshua Jeavons, in ways constantly unexpected to him.

  Thirty times the globe revolves. Then thirty again, air and gases – warmed mightily by the sun’s glow sweeping slowly back and forth across its upper half, consolidating the heat they bring to the lands beneath. Sixty full rotations. With each the certainties enjoyed by Joshua Jeavons – mere speck though he is within such immensity – grow a little more battered, as apples in a tumbling box. Yet their reduction, sad to say, has still far to go.

  Where may we find him after two months have passed, early upon a Wednesday morning? Not at his house in Lark Road, a cup of tea comfortably before him. Nor at his fatherin-law’s office, working upon some quandary of railway mechanics. Nor yet in the molasses yard of Mr Harold Sweet – whose warehouse is now fast rising up from its foundations – or the debating chamber of the Metropolitan Committee for Sewers, frenzied with summer accusations. No, we find him before one of the larger London docks, where – driven by no motive beyond simple need – he finds himself, for the first time, seeking a meagre day’s wage emptying ships’ cargoes.

  Joshua Jeavons nervously taking his place among the roughened morning crowd; that mob of every kind of unfortunate, bankrupt and ne’er do well, all of them drawn thither – himself likewise – because there, alone in all London, a day’s pay may be won by any man lucky in the morning scramble, regardless of skill or character.

  Restlessness in the air as the minutes tick by; shoving matches breaking out, threats of later ‘settlings’. Until a rolling, rhythmic din fills the air; the chiming of a hundred clocks across the eastern metropolis, ships’ bells too, all announcing the hour. Eight o’clock. The gates swing open and the crowd surges in, segmenting itself into smaller groups before the line of calling foremen – the choosers – who set to work picking out faces already known to them, and favoured.

  ‘Taylor, in you go. Clock Quay. Reeve, you too.’