Sweet Thames

by Matthew Kneale

  The crowd is so alive with shouting of the foreman’s name, so fevered with arms waved in the air, with fellows jumping on to the backs of others to be better noticed, that it resembles some angrily tentacled sea creature.

  ‘Keith, you’re in. Clock Quay. And you, Sturrock. Thomas, Rock...’

  Joshua Jeavons, shouting as loud as the rest of them. Joshua Jeavons, appearance much altered with weeks passed; shirt collar frayed, frock coat worn and shapeless, and on his back a strange and battered leather sack, fitting so well to his frame that he might have been carrying it since birth. His step may be as impatient as ever, but his eyes also are different; distracted and seeming to stare, troubling to any who catches his glance.

  All across the metropolis, too, the weeks had brought changes. The summer heat, once begun, showed little relenting, and grass in the parks and gardens was yellowed, leaves on the trees fading to brown, as if autumn ware arrived months early. Street dust was little less than a plague, blinding the eyes as it flew, coating alike window panes, boots of gentlemen, woodwork of carriages, and the foreign vessels riding in upon the river; painting all a sandy beige, as if eager to transform London into some angular desert.

  The heat seemed to gain strength from its very endurance, slowly baking the stone, bricks and timbers of the metropolis until they were its allies, strangely warm to touch even at night. The air itself seemed to have caught fever, robbing Londoners of sleep, making snug beds unexpected foes, sheets hot against the skin.

  Other changes had come, too; changes less discernible to the eye, though no less awesome for that; changes quietly evidenced by the great number of funeral processions plying the streets. Normally to be seen only in the central part of the day, these bleakly solemn corteges were now an all but continuous sight, from first light of dawn until after night was fallen, as undertakers – blissfully overcome with employment – found they had barely daylight hours enough to cope with the wealth of trade fallen into their laps.

  Most were poor affairs, for tradesmen and the like, with only one carriage, and no more than two or three feathermen, drunkenly parading their black ostrich plumes. Here and there, however, was some grand death, with a splendid hearse – all glass and wood and tiny cast-iron crosses sprouting from the roof – as well as several mourning coaches, and twenty or more feathermen, coachmen and mutes, these last decked out in finest gowns, gloves, and silk hat bands, and dour as could be.

  The cause of this sudden thriving of the industry of death was a mystery to nobody. Week by week the toll of victims of the disease was listed in The Times, edging upwards with each issue. Coroners’ reports on other pages filled in the details behind mere numbers; sometimes the malady would single out a victim, leaving his family and neighbours untouched, if shocked and fearful. Elsewhere a whole street or court might be struck, with dozens taken, and more fleeing their homes in hope of saving themselves. Mostly it was poor areas that were afflicted, though not only such; among the list was the occasional government official, financier or businessman, while in a Wandsworth terrace of newly built houses and most respectable residents, more than two dozen were taken in a single week.

  Again and again the coroners noted, to my interest and satisfaction, that the malady frequently appeared in the vicinity of defective sewers. Worst struck of all the metropolis was Jacob’s Island, the ‘Venice of Drains’; that slum of crazed wooden walkways and overhanging rooms, close by which I had examined the sewer outlets. Now it was the disease centre of London, and within its black alleys and crowded dens of population the Cholera ranged freely, snapping up victims by the score.

  And what of measures taken to counter this evil? The Metropolitan Committee for Sewers – that fine institution, in which I had such faith, and to which I had sent a full copy of my Drain Plan – had, I had been proud to see, put its machinery into motion with admirable promptness. Indeed, every Londoner within pistol shot of the river could smell the evidence of the Committee’s determination. Flushing drains into the Thames had been conducted on nothing less than an heroic scale, with noxious effluent expelled by the hundreds of tons.

  Yet, strangely, the Cholera had shown no signs of abating. Indeed, it grew steadily worse, confounding all predictions, and striking panic into the surviving population, poor and rich alike. In newspaper leaders there was concern at possible public unrest.

  My dearest Joshua,

  I write knowing myself to be beyond forgiveness. Nor do I ask any such thing. Rather I seek to tell you that I AM truly sorry for the hurt I may have caused you.

  It was never my intent. Know this. Contemptible though I am become, I was not always so. Joshua, believe me. It is not my nature. Nor am I to blame alone. My greatest misery is that you, who are possessed only of goodness, should be the sufferer.

  It is better I am gone. Forget me now. Remove me from your thoughts as a thing unworthy. I will never trouble your life again. But try, I entreat you, to think upon me not too harshly.

  I am not so wicked as I seem.

  Sincerely yours,

  Isobella.

  Thus it was; the sole communication received by me from my wife. It had arrived a full week after her vanishing, delivered to the house one afternoon when I was out, by hand – if only I had been there to see the face of its bringer – and written upon a strange sort of paper, that might have been used for the wrapping of flowers.

  Confusion; this was my soonest response. I was filled with desire to believe the sad humility of her words. Glancing over the letter a second time, however, I grew harder. Had I not believed enough already? Enough for a hundred cuckolds. Why should this be anything other than an attempt to waylay my just anger. She asked me to forget her, to remember her without over-harshness; perhaps she knew of my searchings, and was fearful I might soon discover her.

  Not that my investigations seemed so well advanced. In fact, sadly, this could hardly have been further from the case.

  Superintendent Lisle had shown signs of losing interest in the matter almost from the moment I became – thanks to Bowrib’s sighting of my wife – such a reduced candidate for murderer. Indeed, though he never said it clear, he hinted there was probably now little that could be done.

  ‘We’ll continue to put out descriptions, of course. But having heard nothing for so long makes me wonder if she mayn’t be staying somewhere quite willingly.’ He lightly tapped his knuckles with his pencil, his look politely knowing. ‘Perhaps not even in this country. In which case...’

  I found myself angered by such insinuations. Although there was certainly evidence enough to support them.

  And as for my own labouring upon the mystery? Another man might have let the matter rest. He might have endeavoured to forget Isobella, as she herself had urged, or even have left the country; flown to America or Russia to start a new life. To stop? To cease to inflict pain upon myself with hourly needle-sharp ruminations, and instead begin to piece together a new and fresh existence? No, I do not believe I considered doing so even for an instant. Isobella was as an itch that would give me no peace; a potent mixture of mystery and unendurable insult.

  Thus I threw myself into the task of further expeditions to the Haymarket: day after day of them. Though, to my disappointment, these evinced only one solitary discovery, and this was more alarming than useful.

  ‘You ain’t the only one no more.’ The dog-seller had recounted the information only after much negotiation, the two spaniels watching me, one sniffing my sleeve. ‘There’s another looking for her now.’

  For some reason my thoughts turned to the man he had last seen Isobella with. ‘The old one? Whom she bawled at?’

  ‘Naah, naah.’ He took a kind of pleasure at my wrong guess. ‘Completely different. Not posh. A pale bloke, as if there was no blood inside ’im. Pale hair, an’ eyes like water. Quite a startler to look at, he was.’

  Another description that meant nothing to me. My wife seemed to be keeping strange company indeed. ‘He wasn’t from the police?’


  ‘Nothing like,’ the lad answered firmly. ‘’E didn’t have no nice painting of ’er like you did. Just a drawing, on a bit of paper, rather messy, though it was her right enough. And he was dead keen.’ He regarded me a touch scornfully. ‘Gave more dosh than you did.’

  My concern at this mysterious rival made all the more galling the relentless failure of the Cafe Castelnau to offer up either my wife or the young aristocrat. One of my first actions had been to take up the offer of the smooth-faced waiter, and I spent evening after evening of expensive vigils at a corner table, watching for the man to signal the arrival of the aristocratic son. Watching in vain. As days passed my confederate began to grow irritable at the delay in receiving his sovereigns.

  ‘They’ve no right to vanish off like that. The fellah should be more regular in his ways.’

  With time my declining capital forced me to abandon my table, and instead observe the cafe from a distance; I would stand on the pavement opposite, sometimes for hours at a time, watching all who came and went, and straining to observe my ally within; a regime of seemingly motiveless loitering that caused much bafflement to the match-sellers and beggars I had for company.

  ‘Enjoy hangin’ about in the dust all evenin’, does you?’

  Money. It was lack of it that turned my thoughts to Moynihan, and caused me to reflect – with faint surprise – on his failure to show his face. Strange it was, especially in view of his determination, at our last meeting, that we should work closely together. Though his silence had suited me well enough at first, as my few savings became depleted relief turned to something different. I needed work and, unhappy prospect though a return to the man’s employment was to me, I could think of nowhere else where it might be found.

  Thus I made my way to the office; strange to me after my long absence. I soon learned there had been changes here too; alterations that seemed to go far in explaining my father-in-law’s behaviour.

  ‘He’s hardly ever here now,’ Farre recounted in a hushed tone. ‘The word is he’s engaged on some secret project for the admiralty.’ He leant closer, eyes beady with rumour. ‘Nobody knows for sure, of course, but Mr Luke claims it’s a new quay for Portsmouth, that can be moved open and shut with steam engines, while Ned Harris says it’s some new gunboat, small but very fast, with a single but mighty piece of artillery.’

  As if such details mattered much to me. From Barrett the butler I learned that the man was now rarely to be found at his home either. Most annoying. There seemed no course left except to write to him.

  The reply I received within only a few days. Though most courteous, he answered, to my disappointment, that he was unable to employ me at the moment, though he hoped to do so at some later date. He enclosed three sovereigns. Curiously he made no mention of Isobella.

  The sovereigns, at least, were most welcome. Two I sewed into the hem of my frock coat, that they would be preserved, ready for payment to the waiter at the Cafe Castelnau if need should happily arise. The third was my own, and served to keep hunger at bay, at least for some further days. These I used to tour other engineering companies, although without success. It was no time to seek work, and even a visit to Harold Sweet at his molasses yard proved unavailing. The man nodded sombrely as I recounted my difficulties. ‘I’d take you on if I could. You know that right enough. But trade’s been so slack just of late that I may have to rid myself of a couple of these here.’

  Only when all but the last pennies were gone did I resort to selling household possessions. A desperate measure, certainly, but once having settled upon it, I hurled myself into the task with enthusiasm, even a kind of passion. Several times I scoured the house – each shelf, cupboard, drawer – that no object, however paltry in value, might be overlooked. Again and again I journeyed back and forth, carrying weighty articles from pawnbroker to second-hand shop and back, that I might locate, by scientific method, where the highest prices could be found.

  The process proved something of a revelation. Treasures of our parlour I had long regarded with soaring pride proved worth far less than I had imagined. Even the busts of Queen Victoria and Albert, whose dust-protective glass domes Isobella had kept so vigorously polished, fetched only a few shillings. Though disappointing, such discoveries offered up a kind of fascination as I recalled the givers – most of the objects having been wedding presents – and learnt exactly their generosity or mean-spiritedness.

  I sold everything: chairs and tables, mirrors, pots and pans, my own clothes – indeed, as I realized later, more of these than was wise – and even my wife’s abandoned dresses and undergarments. Within only a few days the house was emptied, and the rooms gave forth strange echoing sounds as I walked among them.

  As for the sum raised, though not a huge one, it would have likely provided me with a frugal living well into the autumn months. You will doubtless have observed, however, that I use the words would have. This is because the capital did not remain in my hand long enough to discover. Within only a few days I had used the bulk of it, on the renting of a slum room.

  A slum room? A strange course of action, it may seem, for one who has just rescued himself so narrowly from hunger. At the time, however, I assure you the notion struck me as nothing less than a stroke of genius.

  The decision was immediate. Weeks of fruitless traversing of the metropolis, back and forth from my home to the vicinity of Haymarket, had inspired in me more than a little impatience. Weeks passed and the Cafe Castlenau had yielded up nothing. Yet she must be, I was convinced, somewhere within those maze-like streets; must be known to some among the rush of people forever brushing past one on the way. It was as if London itself were some gargantuan lock, for which I lacked the key.

  ROOM TO RENT. RAITES FAIVRIBULL.

  The sign caught my eye one afternoon as I was striding down a grimy way between the Seven Dials and Leicester Square, not far from Katie’s den, and within a few hundred yards of Sweet’s molasses yard. Hand-scrawled on a piece of vile paper, it had been stuck on to a door with a rusty nail. I paused, filled with thought.

  The landlord proved easy to discover; an old Jew with tired-of-life eyes and a beard as long as his face, evidently puzzled that someone of respectability should show interest in such an area. The room itself was no better than one would expect, with bare, plaster-flaked walls that gave forth a strong odour of damp, and for furniture only a collapsed bed, and a chair well on the road to final extinction. The building containing it was as others of its kind, with a single privy – a spot of unutterable vileness – serving a dozen fiercely populated rooms, and no piped water.

  The position of the place, however, interested me greatly. As the crow flies it was no more than a couple of hundred yards from the grand cafes of the Haymarket. Also it possessed a commanding view; in addition to the road below, a second street – one that led up from the very direction of the Cafe Castelnau – aimed itself exactly towards the room’s cracked and soot-coated window, providing a vista of all manner of traders and beggars and thieves, vanishing into smallness with distance. The rent, if not cheap, was within my powers, even though the landlord – grown suspicious of my purpose – demanded three months as a start.

  My design was to use it as a daylight advance post from which I might observe the crowds beneath; though I could hardly envisage my wife having any business in such a slum of a district, she might well use it as a route to Covent Garden or Holborn. To this end I thoroughly cleaned the window, and carried up a telescope previously used in my engineering work.

  From such a base I could also, I reasoned, become quickly known to the local population, subtly blending in among the poor wretches and winning their trust. If I showed my wife’s likeness to everybody in the vicinity – so near where she had last been observed – there was surely a good chance I would find at least one soul with a useful tale to tell.

  In the event, winning the co-operation of such people proved more easily said than done.

  Thus the fellow who inha
bited the room above my own. A large man with a round face much like a gnarled orange, his main interest was in vicious-tempered dogs, which I could often hear barking through the ceiling. From overheard chatter I gathered he entered these in rat-killing contests in East End beer houses. His response, when shown the locket, was to stare at me strangely. ‘And who’re you then, askin’ questions?’ As if in answer to his own, he then tugged the lead of the animal at his feet, causing it to bark menacingly. ‘I ain’t seen her, nor nobody else you’re curious ’bout.’

  So too it was with the Irish family – too numerous to easily count, though they all of them inhabited a room no larger than my own – who lived just across the landing. When I questioned the mother she seemed somehow alarmed at my face – though I had done nothing more than most politely address her – and hurried away without so much as a reply. Later I overheard her on the stairway, instructing some of her many children in the importance, whenever passing my room, of chanting a prayer of supplication to the Virgin Mary. ‘That you’ll be safe from spells.’

  A most ludicrous reaction. Yet when I attempted to tell her so – through the fastness of her locked door – she pretended there was nobody within, though I could hear their whisperings.

  Of course I did not limit my investigations to the building I inhabited, but soon began exploring the whole area; mercifully it had not yet been touched by the Cholera, and thus was in a state of relative calm. Quite a campaign, I embarked upon. Questioning, and observing too; watching for any suspicious figures who might be in the pay of my enemies, might themselves be drain rivals, come in person – their faces unfamiliar to me – to embark upon their wickedness.

  I at first concentrated my efforts upon landlords of beer houses and gin palaces, as these seemed something of an authority as to the locality’s population. They were also, I discovered, a dour and tight-lipped tribe, wary of parting with their knowledge.