Sweet Thames

by Matthew Kneale

  Drawing near, at a point so dark that I was guided as much by the sound of his footsteps as by the sight of him, I took a long stride, reached forward, and pushed him against the brick wall, evincing something like a yelp. Indeed, beneath his fine clothes he was nothing more than a shrimp of a fellow, and offered little struggle as I held him smartly by the lapels; only uttering a kind of scared whimpering.

  ‘Don’t hurt me, please. Take my wallet. It’s yours.’

  ‘Your money’s nothing to me,’ I told him. ‘The woman you were with at the Cafe Castelnau. Where is she?’

  His face was only a vague shape in the gloom. From his tone of voice my question confused him. ‘Which woman?’

  ‘Which woman? Which woman? How dare you not remember?’ My wife may have used me most ill, but still I would not hear her slighted thus. ‘I’m speaking of Isobella.’

  ‘Isobella?’ Still no enlightenment, though he seemed eager enough to give me an answer. ‘Isobella Farqueson? The duke’s daughter?’

  She might have given another name. I thought of striking a match that he could see the locket, but decided the darkness was not without use. He would not know who had waylaid him. ‘Fair. Eyes very pale. A full figure. It was in mid-June, a Wednesday afternoon.’

  ‘You mean Lucy?’ He sounded unsure.

  ‘You were with her in the Castelnau?’

  ‘I met her there.’

  ‘Lucy then.’ Probably she had been too ashamed to reveal her real identity. If she were capable, that was, of such delicacy of feeling. My thoughts recalled how his foot had touched hers beneath the table, so immodestly that the waiter himself had observed. ‘What surname did she give?’

  ‘Hardcastle. But what’s all this to you?’

  ‘Never you mind,’ I told him firmly. ‘Just tell me where she is now.’

  ‘It’s some time since I saw her last.’

  A further insult. ‘You took up with her just for a short while, I suppose, then threw her away when you grew bored.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he whined. ‘She went off with another fellow. A Hungarian.’

  Foreigners now. ‘Who?’

  Here he made a belated attempt to stonewall. ‘I can’t say. I just can’t.’

  I gave him another shove to remind him of the hardness of the bricks behind him; not, I admit, without some satisfaction. The effect was like shaking apples from a tree.

  ‘Count Nemis.’

  A count. Next I would find my wife had opened her legs to minor royalty. ‘And where is this man?’

  ‘He’s only sometimes in London. But he stays in the Hotel Orleans. In Mayfair.’

  ‘This had better be true,’ I warned.

  ‘It is,’ he wailed.

  I let him linger a moment in the silent darkness. ‘You’d be most unwise to make any attempt to tell this man of our talk here.’ As my hold over him would vanish the instant I let go of his lapels, I resorted to a little poetic licence. ‘You are known, Herbert, and you are easily found. Stay quiet and no harm will come to you.’

  ‘I will.’ The fellow whimpered so fearfully – especially at the sudden mention of his own Christian name – that I left him, slumped against the alley wall, with some hope he would do as I urged.

  The Hotel Orleans was not a name I was familiar with. Nor was it, I soon learned, familiar to many other metropolitan inhabitants; only after a good deal of asking did I find myself standing before its entrance. Looking on to a quiet street not far from Shepherd’s Market, the sign and frontage were modest, and gave little hint of the grandeur within. A uniformed boy pulled open the door as I approached, revealing a surprisingly spacious hallway with, as centrepiece, a marble statue of a naked girl staring musingly upwards in classical pose. A discreet establishment. Two porters scrutinized me uncertainly, probably wondering whether I were some wayward-looking guest worth a few pennies’ tip, or one who would shortly require flinging out of the door. Behind the desk, the reception clerk – a hairless sort whose skin possessed a pink, putty-ish look to it, as if he had applied theatre make-up – glanced towards me with disapproval.

  ‘I have a message for Count Nemis.’

  The man showed no surprise. ‘Give it over then.’

  So Herbert had been telling the truth, at least thus far. ‘There’s no note. It’s a verbal message.’

  A frown, tempered by the thin smile of one in possession of an insuperable obstacle. ‘He’s still off abroad, isn’t he. Won’t be back for two days.’

  ‘I’ll return then.’

  I had to be sure. Accordingly I did not leave the neighbourhood, but made for a beer house lodged close behind the Orleans. Sure enough, within the hour I spied, stepping in through the door, the thirsty face of one of the hotel porters. Nor were his reddened features misleading; he proved far from averse to accepting the offer of a drink from a stranger, nor prejudiced against a few unexpected shillings.

  ‘The count? Yes, I know him all right. Carried ’is bags a few times. A good tippin’ man. When it comes to yer pennies these foriners is often freer than our home grown nobs.’

  He had been staying, it seemed, only a couple of weeks previously. I asked if he had been in company.

  ‘With ’is cousin.’

  Disappointment. But then I saw the knowing look on the other’s face.

  ‘As much ’is cousin as is meself, she was. And as ’ungarian as good Lord Palmerston. Nice bit, mind. If I was a bleedin’ count, I’d have myself a few cousins like that, I can tell you.’

  Shouts and animal cries breaking the late night stillness of Mayfair; walking along a narrow street, I found before me a shopman’s cart, one wheel splintered upon a lamppost, a cascade of onions and potatoes fallen into the street muck. Before and behind other carts stood caught, their owners cursing as they tried to turn them about in the stifling place. The shopman himself was beyond such efforts, merely striking his horse repeatedly with his whip – in slow vengeance for nothing – and causing the poor animal to neigh and bellow in pain.

  An ugly commonplace scene. I strode past as quick as I might. Then, reaching an avenue of fine villas, their front gardens filling the air with rich, summer-night smells, I felt myself caught by sudden faintness. I leaned against a gate post until my head cleared, my breath grew even.

  Two days only to wait. Walking onwards, I felt – coming upon me no less abruptly than my weakness – a reanimation. Though light of head still, I was filled with eagerness; a kind of pale energy. I felt as one in control, possessed of power. Striding down the wealthy street it was as if I might – should I choose – command the very bricks and timbers of buildings to stir from their places, the clouds in the sky to scatter and dance.

  Two days. And what would I do when I found her? One moment my thoughts were dark; my hand would clench in my frock-coat pocket, touching the thin blade of the knife emblazoned with battling warships. Next I would conjure up in my head impassioned scenes; Isobella weeping distraught on the ground before me as she repented, I – haughtily dignified – hearing her out, sometimes choosing to forgive her, sometimes casting her into the night.

  The truth was I could hardly imagine what might occur. All possibilities were as some dreamed fiction.

  Regent Street was lifeless except for a solitary drunk bawling at a shop window, and a few tramps crouched in doorways. Beyond, in the rubbish-strewn lanes of Soho, more signs of humanity were to be found. Tarts peered out from their places, cooing to me to stop. ‘Give yer a good time, mister.’

  ‘How yer doin’, lonely?’

  It was some time since I had been the subject of such interest. I was pleased, feeling it to be, somehow, a further sign of my improved fortune.

  When I reached the rented room, however, exhaustion returned, as swiftly as it had departed. I did not trouble to light the lamp but, seeing my way by the faint light of the moon drifting through the window, slumped upon the bed – the copy of my drain plan, concealed in the mattress, a touch hard to fall upon – and closed my e
yes.

  Weariness flowed through me, yet I could not sleep. After a few minutes I sat up. Probably, I considered, it was my overtiredness – the consequence of weeks of exhaustion finally catching up with me – that prevented unconsciousness.

  I rose, more from habit than design, and crossed to my desk, peering through the telescope into the darkness. It was then that I felt the nausea. So sudden that, for a moment, I almost imagined – illogical though it was – that the device might somehow be to blame. But then, rising to my feet, I felt a threatening sense of looseness in my bowels.

  I was much relieved to find the privy was unoccupied; an advantage of returning at such a late hour. My stomach was in quite a turmoil. Though concerned, I still imagined I might be suffering nothing worse than had Miss Symes. Something that had been left too long in the hot sun. The pork and orange pie, perhaps. Or even the raspberries in the drinks. I would make camp until it was passed.

  It was only later, when the diarrhoea changed to fits of vomiting, that I acknowledged to myself what had actually struck.

  Chapter Eight

  The Piedmontese possess fine skills indeed in the arts of food. The country being a poor one compared with my own, dishes contain only meagre quantities of meat – reflected in the feeble physique of the inhabitants – but are flavoured with ingenious use of herbs and spices. Though I am careful to keep up my strength with frequent resort to beef steaks, I am also most partial to many of the local offerings.

  A staple dish here is pasta; wheat cooked by boiling, often taking the form of long strands named ‘Spaguetti’. At first I found its texture unsettlingly slippery, but with time I have grown used to its foreign nature, and now I consume it often. It is especially good with a sauce called ‘Pesto’, which, though created from nothing more than ground nuts, cheese and leaves of the Basil herb, is most subtle and distinctive in taste.

  This popular love of flavours is reflected in the great number of food markets to be found in Turin. These, indeed, are my favourite feature of the city, especially where fruit and vegetables are sold. The stallholders show something akin to artistic talent in the way they display their wares, in patterns of colours finely catching to the eye. Customers make their choice only after careful inspection of the fruits themselves, and much noisy disputing as to the price.

  Though the weather is now grey and icy, with a cutting wind blowing down from the Alp mountains, in August the sun is hot indeed here. Accordingly street pumps and drinking fountains are to be found in most of the market places; features that never fail to win my glance. The water is usually of good quality and all but absent of lurking vilenesses, much of it carried hither via ancient water-courses, from streams freshly emerged from the hills. Still, after that long metropolitan summer, I cannot watch the stallholders and their children as they drink their fill, or playfully cause the water to spray upon one another, without remembered disquiet.

  The singular feature of the Asiatic Cholera is its utter lack of fever. How different from typhus, influenza, scarlet fever, smallpox, and most of the other fearful maladies that afflict us. These reduce the sufferer to a state remote from the world, whether in dream-like delirium, or the blankness of a sweated coma that may endure for days and nights. Cholera, by contrast, leaves its victims alert, rational – if ever weaker – almost to the very end.

  Not that my lucidity made the ordeal easier to endure; quite the opposite was true. Fever, though it can effect nightmarish delusions, at least dulls the senses, and speeds the passing of time with sleep. By contrast I was all too aware of the rising nausea that warned of further attacks of vomiting, the sharp pains in the pit of the stomach that followed each assault.

  The privy was an outhouse behind the main building; a shack built upon a hole. It was late as I crouched there in the darkness – hand pressed against the wall that I might keep balance, waiting for the next fit of retching – but not so late that all neighbours were asleep. I heard one pace across the yard, push at the door – a poor piece with no lock, that could be kept closed only by pressing upon it with a foot – then knock more rudely.

  ‘What’cher doin’ hin there? Writing an hincyclopedia?’

  Though I was reluctant to tell of the nature of my affliction – I feared I might be blamed for having brought the malady into the district – the risk had to be taken.

  ‘I have the Cholera.’

  The other ceased thumping at the door, but uttered no reply.

  ‘Can you get me a doctor?’

  I heard nothing but his footsteps fade away.

  Silence. I regretted not having been firmer with the man. I should have shouted. Demanded he do as I asked, this moment. Or at least required he bring me some water.

  This last was the one that occupied my thoughts most as the hours passed.

  The process of ejections worked me into a state of parched thirst, mouth dry and foul-tasting, and tongue feeling as swollen as an orange. In my room, I remembered, was some water I had collected in the bucket – if only a small amount – and twice I tried to venture across the yard to the building that I might reach it. The disease, however, allowed no expeditions; I stumbled only a few years before weakness and further spasms sent me back.

  The foolishness of having rented a slum room, of isolating myself from the world I knew. In that oozing darkness any face would have been welcome. Miss Symes herself would have been as an angel.

  With time the vomiting and diarrhoea worked upon my body like great hands squeezing dry a cloth; my arms, legs and gut became subject to sudden fits of cramp, while, with my fingers, I could feel the surface of my skin strangely altered. When the dawn light filtered through the cracks in the door, I observed, with revulsion, how wrinkles had broken out across most of my body, while in places I could perceive an ominously blue tinge.

  Morning. People, surely. Finally I heard light footsteps and saw a small girl approach, whom I recognized as one of the daughters of the Irish family who lived across the hallway. I leant my head past the privy door and, in a voice so hoarsely feeble I hardly recognized it as my own, told her, ‘Get a doctor. As quick as you can.’

  Blue and wrinkled, I must have made a ghastly picture: the poor child stared at me as if I were some ghost. ‘Doctor?’ My request confused her. ‘Where is he?’

  A simpler demand was at least more likely to succeed. ‘Just get me some water.’

  She returned with an old stained bottle – setting it down, arm outstretched, on the ground before me, doubtless fearful I might grab her and carry her off to hell – then scurried away as quick as she could. At last. I drank the liquid down in one swig. Unwisely. My stomach churned and it was brought back no less speedily.

  Quiet once more, I wondered if word of my affliction had spread through the neighbourhood, and people were deliberately keeping away. As the pale morning light grew brighter, telling of another hot day looming, I felt a weariness spreading within me. A numbing apathy. Though the attacks of vomiting – painful as there had long been nothing left to be expelled – grew less frequent, I found myself becoming almost resigned to the privy; too tired to think of effecting escape.

  The Earl of Clarendon’s maidservant had eaten gooseberry fool in the evening, only to be carried off in a pitched and sealed coffin next morning. Another celebrated case, much discussed in the newspapers, had been that of Mrs Smith, young and beautiful, who had dressed to go to church one Sunday morning, only to have herself taken direct to her maker by eleven that night. I had been taken ill soon after midnight, so how many hours…

  A sad end it seemed; Joshua Jeavons, trained engineer, choking out his last breath, slumped in a privy in one of the vilest slums of London. And what of his life? After the long struggle to become trained as an engineer, I had hardly begun to put my skills to use. The drainage plan on which I had worked so hard, in which I had had such faith, would be left with its copies scattered, unknown to any who might put them to use. And as for my marriage…

  A dark moment. I
would never have imagined, as I lay sprawled in that terrible place, that one day in the future, living finely in a distant foreign country, I would look back upon my having been struck with the Cholera, and view it, in some ways, as having been one of the best things ever to happen to me.

  You must know that it is possible I would have survived even had nobody come. One of the remarkable qualities of the Asiatic Cholera is that it can depart the sufferer at the latest of stages, though he seems to be toppling on the very edge of the precipice. This knowledge did not, however, diminish the gratitude I felt towards my visitor; indeed, recollection of the moment can still move me close to tears. It was not only welcome, but also so unexpected. Had I been required to guess the identity of who might arrive to assist me in such a dark hour, I do not believe I would have succeeded though I had all morning to try.

  The several sets of footsteps must have advanced swiftly, as – weak as I was – by the time I had raised myself to peer through the crack in the door, I could see only pairs of legs, the foremost among them clad in a finely fashionable cut of trousers, polished black shoes, and possessing, beside them, the neat metal tip of a stick.

  ‘Drain man, you in there?’

  It was Jem.

  A humiliation, perhaps? Joshua Jeavons, requiring rescue from a vile and stinking slum privy. Joshua Jeavons, drainage engineer of the future age, self-appointed saviour of the metropolis, so reduced in situation that he is in need of the help of a child criminal. It did not strike me so at the time, I assure you.

  ‘Slim Jimmy here heard ’em chattering down by the butcher’s stall,’ he explained, indicating one of the two wan adults beside him. ‘Sayin’ the toff wot had bin askin’ all them questions had bin struck nasty – ’course I guessed it were you – who else could it be – an’ I couldn’t leave me mate the drain man to go pewkin’ hisself to death.’

  ‘Can you find me a doctor?’