Sweet Thames

by Matthew Kneale

  ‘Surely.’

  I tried to express my thanks, but he seemed hardly to hear, his attention having already moved onwards, to the task of moving me from the privy. Though I tried to stand I found myself unable, and the lad had his two confederates help me; managing the operation with the same enjoyment with which he had directed Hayle – long previously as it now seemed – my servant during the sewerage researches.

  ‘Take him by his arm, why don’t you – an’ don’ forgit that funny sack there – an’ some’un should pick up his feet. . .’

  The adults tried to touch me as little as they might – not an easy matter when they were required to carry me bodily out – presumably out of fear of themselves catching the malady. After some shoving and pushing, however, I was extracted from the place.

  ‘My room’s upstairs.’ Standing now, leaning on the helpers for support, I saw we were leaving the building altogether, and moving into the street beyond.

  ‘You don’t wanna stay in this ’orrible slum, does you?’ From the scorn in Jem’s voice one might have imagined he had never strayed from the most respectable of accommodation, and had slept in nothing poorer than linen bedsheets. ‘Come up to me rooms, why don’t you.’

  A long journey it seemed, along dazzling streets, past street stallholders with their raucous cries; though it could not have been further than two hundred yards. One comfort was that it was bodily weakness that made it so, rather than any further attacks of vomiting. These seemed, for the moment at least, to have ceased.

  The rooms were just as Jem had claimed at our last brief meeting; spacious indeed for such a district. Having sent off one of the adults to search for a doctor, he placed me in the hands of ‘Me gal, by the name of Sal’. A sleepy-eyed creature, pretty of face – though she was barely more than a child – she set about giving me a rudimentary wash, as I had been fearfully stained by my ordeal. Then, having me lie down on a couch, she handed me a glass of water.

  ‘Drink it slow.’

  Miracle of miracles, it stayed down.

  Jem was evidently much pleased to have a guest present, even in such circumstances, and strode about the room, proudly pointing out details of the premises. ‘See the chandelier – good in’t – this here’s me bedroom that I’ll show you when you’s better – an’ I’ve a wardrobe big enough to put four blokes standin’ in line – that’s full up with me own clothes – don’t think this is me only suit as I’ve two others jest as good if not better – an’ I like to keep Sal pretty – do’n I Sal – and git her lots of bright rocks an’ that – some of ’em I even bought in shops – now look ’ere…’

  Doubtless he would have revealed more. Having managed to swallow a further three glasses of water, however, and so diminish my thirst, a profound weariness came upon me. Though I tried to listen, I soon fell deeply asleep.

  I must have slept long, as it was dark when I awoke. Confused for a moment as to where I could be, my eyes first lit upon a face peering at me through the gloom, neck framed by the white rectangle of a dog collar.

  ‘Am I dying?’

  ‘Not you, no.’ The voice was that of the Reverend Rupert Hobbes, the urban missionary. ‘You’re all right.’ He spoke with a hint of disapproval, as if I had been feigning otherwise. ‘You’re among the lucky ones.’

  His words surprised me. ‘There are others, then?’

  ‘Of course. Two souls carried off already.’

  ‘I was not even the first?’

  ‘I doubt it. One was struck soon after dusk yesterday.’

  Though I had been too occupied to give the matter great thought, I had from the first assumed myself afflicted as a consequence of the expedition to the sewers; from some poisoning to which the shore workers were immune. If others in the neighbourhood had also been attacked, however, and sooner than myself...

  ‘Is the malady still at large?’

  ‘Certainly it is. Worse tonight than yesterday, with three took sick in the last two hours. People whom I’d best see to, what’s more, rather than sitting here chatting.’ His grim glance seemed to accuse me of time-wasting. ‘As they may be nearing their ends on this earth.’

  Jem showed more enthusiasm for my survival. ‘Soon be runnin’ round them sewers again now.’

  ‘Jest as well you cured yourself,’ added Sal, cleaning her finger nails with little girl primness. ‘Seein’ as the doctor wouldn’t come.’

  ‘Wouldn’t come?’ I was puzzled.

  It seemed one of Jem’s adult accomplices had been sent to find a physician of the parish, and, what was more, had succeeded. But he had been unable to persuade the man to return and see me. ‘Said he weren’t ’llowed,’ explained Jem. ‘An’ that it weren’t worth ’is riskin’ ’is job fer – don’t make much sense do it – when I done told ’Obbes he jest shook his head an’ scowled.’

  A mystery indeed. Though what mattered was that I had survived.

  The Cholera had left me in a greatly weakened state, and, at Jem’s suggestion, I remained on the couch in his rooms for some little time, resting. His girl Sal had asked advice among neighbours, and I became her patient; first working at sipping quantities of water, then embarking on quite a course of eating. This began with simple foods, such as toast with honey, then extended to more substantial dishes. I could feel the strength returning to me, and after meals – as the effects of the food dispersed through my system – I would grow strangely light of mood, as if from liquor.

  This time of recuperation gave me ample opportunity to observe the routine of the household. A shocking routine it would have been, too, in the eyes of any respectable citizen, encamped beside me as a secret witness. The journals of the day would have had no hesitation in choosing phrases to describe such a place; ‘A den of vice’, or ‘A nest of criminality’. Nor, for that matter, would such words have been inaccurate.

  ‘Criminality’? Several times I watched Jem and the two adults stride out to the street in thoughtful concentration, to return a few hours later – noisily cheerful – and lay out their booty on the table; a wallet or two, perhaps a pocket book, or a lady’s brooch or purse. Jem was skilled indeed at his new profession judging by the respectful looks on his fellows’ faces after each foray, and by the division of the spoils, in which he received as much as the other two together.

  And ‘Vice’? Even the two adults were sometimes embarrassed by the way Jem would begin slapping or stroking Sal’s more intimate parts – quite through her clothes, as if she were naked – though they might be standing close before him, or addressing him in conversation. Also there were the noises. At all times of day and night – indeed, I was astonished by the frequency – there might begin the familiar rhythmic wood creakings, the grunts and squeals, echoing forth from the bedroom. Yet by Jem’s own admission Sal was not yet fifteen years old, while he was younger than she.

  Vice indeed. And yet, though I was taken aback by such goings-on, I could not find it within me to greatly disapprove.

  You are likely shocked, my readers. It cannot be helped. There had been a change – of no small or unenduring nature – in my understanding of things. After all, how much evil was there in pick-pocketing fineries from the fashionably wealthy, or even the rest? Nothing to encourage, certainly, but what of…?’ One question in particular was much in my thoughts.

  ‘Jem, why did you come and help me? You had no need to do so.’

  He seemed surprised, when I uttered this, that I had thought such a question worth asking. ‘Like I said, I couldn’t leave the drain man to jest go cop it, could I?’

  ‘You hardly knew me.’

  He shrugged, eyes already wandering to the window, perhaps seeking some more promising subject for his attention. ‘Does it matter?’

  Truly there is nothing like an attack of Cholera to shake one’s notions from their slumber.

  Joshua Jeavons hobbling through the streets of Mayfair, finding himself – after his days of confinement – dazed by the feel of the breeze upon his cheek, by
the hardness of cobblestones beneath his feet. Joshua Jeavons, dizzying greyness gathering before his eyes, causing him to lean against a wall, until the moment is passed. Then pressing onwards, towards the Hotel Orleans.

  Three days of convalescence and studious eating had done much to restore my strength and, that morning, stepping tentatively from my couch, I had discovered myself light-headed to the point of frailty, but no worse. Jem had been delighted by the sight of me, thus mobile, and had at once used the opportunity offered to press me into a full tour of the house, showing off – with great pride – the splendours of his clothes, his oak bottle chest, the wardrobe large enough to hold four men stood side by side, and many other prized possessions. ‘So you can see what a right sharp I’s become.’

  My announcement, soon after, that I intended to leave my hosts’ charge – at least for a few hours – and venture out into the world, brought, however, quite a change. The sitting-room, that had been so serious and adult for all these days, seemed abruptly to alter into a kind of raucous nursery. Jem plucked my battered top hat and, with a shout of triumph, began a game of throwing it back and forth to Sal – she shrieking with delight – so it was ever beyond my reach. I only retrieved it by feigning great anger; indeed this seemed to have been the lad’s intention, as it caused him to subside into giggles.

  ‘Drain man the kill joy, drain man the kill joy,’ he called out, sing-song. ‘Go out and git yerself Cholera agin, why don’t you?’

  I had almost forgotten the real ages of the two, so mature had they seemed during the previous days, as they nursed me back to health. A strange transformation to witness. And, I may say, the sight of them squealing and playing, children once more, caused my respect for them to be enhanced, not otherwise.

  Before I might venture out, I had to attend to the unfortunate matter of my clothes, as these had by no means been improved by my night of sickness. Both cuffs had been torn clean away from my shirt, so the sleeves flapped raggedly, while the front of the garment was fearfully marked with yellow and brown stains that I had been unable to vanquish. Nor was my frock coat much better; the black of the material had begun to fade into greys and discolorations, and the elbows each had a gaping hole. One boot had cracked so that the sole was loosened and my toes peered out at the front, while the brim of my hat – trodden upon by one of Jem’s helpers as he tried to rise me up from the privy floor, and further weakened by Jem’s playing – hung down, absurdly, as a throwing ring caught about a prize at a fairground game.

  Between his childish teasing, Jem went so far as to offer – and most keenly – to buy for me a whole new suit of clothes. I felt I could hardly accept such kindness, as he had already helped me more than enough, but I did ask if he had any materials with which I might engage on repairs.

  This process proved no easy one. The discolorations upon my garments proved so ingrained that I was forced to work upon them with nothing more subtle than paint; white upon the shirt, black for the frock coat, hat and the sack containing my drain plans. The holes at my elbows I patched with some spare pieces of sackcloth – though they by no means matched the worn smoothness of the material – while for the hat, I had no choice but to secure the drooping brim with a length of string, progressing downwards from the upper reaches of the garment at a slant, rather in the manner of a cathedral flying buttress. Possessed, as I was, of no cobblers’ skills, for my shoes I resorted to the desperate measure of filling the gaping ends with black painted newspaper, and, as my toes ware still part visible, of colouring these to match. Altogether, stood before the mirror of Jem’s wardrobe, I realized myself to form an odd-looking sight indeed. Though no stranger than many others on the streets of London.

  The foyer of the Hotel Orleans looked different by the light of morning; uneasy, and lacking in its night-time slickness. The porters seemed less knowing, more loitering, while the statue of the naked girl in classical pose resembled less a soul seeking the light of inspiration than one fresh emerged from the bath, only to find herself in a room full of interested strangers.

  Four days it was since I had stood here last, after my pursuit of Herbert, son of the aristocracy, about the novelty shows of London. The realization came as a shock. Four days. The Cholera had caused such a twisting and turning of the road of my memory that all occurrences prior to my sickness seemed belonged to some other era.

  Of what is composed the experience of disease? Suffering, of course, and pain. Also a huge bewilderment of the senses. Lastly – and most important of all – the fear of worse soon to come; a brush with death. A simple enough matter, perhaps, yet the effects can be enduring. In place of mere habit, mere assumption, we may find a surprised excitement at life. Where there had been only haste, can arise new reflection. Anger strangely dissipated.

  The truth of it was, though her betrayals still sharply stung, and the mysteries of her vanishing were not at all reduced in their relentless allure, I no longer felt the raw hatred I had for my wife; the wish for undetermined revenge. Something was changed.

  ‘Yes?’ The clerk with putty-coloured skin peered at my clothes doubtfully, with something of a sneer. I could hardly blame the fellow; indeed, I was doing my best to conceal from his eye a smudge of black paint that had formed upon the polished surface of the reception desk.

  ‘Count Nemis,’ I told him. ‘He should be back from abroad by now.’

  Inspecting the key racks behind him, he regarded me with bored satisfaction. ‘The Count’s out. Won’t be back till night. Nine at the earliest. You could come back then, though of course there’s nothing to say he’ll see you.’

  An annoyance, I considered, but no giant one. Only a matter of a few more hours. All my forward thinking still focused upon the expected moment of that meeting, and not beyond; strange, it seems now, that I could see no further into the future than an event so unsure and unplanned, yet so it was.

  I would sit out the time at Jem’s, I decided, where I could resume my rest; he had urged me to return. Nine o’clock seemed no great distance hence. I could sleep my way through to the hour.

  How mistaken one can be.

  The weather was offering a rare break from heat, and by the time I returned to Jem’s rooms a light drizzle was falling. The scene that greeted me was a quiet one, even domestic, with Sal working at her knitting, while Jem and his adult confederates, having enjoyed only a dull morning’s pickings about the Strand, were lazily discussing which streets they might ‘work’ that afternoon. Their voices grew low indeed when Hobbes appeared at the door. Observing the hushed huddle regarding him, he threw them a disapproving look.

  ‘You’ll all find yourselves on Botany Bay before you know it. I’ve warned you often enough.’

  Jem only grinned.

  It was I that Hobbes had come to see, that he might be certain I had not taken it into my head to die without his say so. Observing, at a glance, that this was by no means the case, he regarded me with dulled interest. ‘Better now, I see. Didn’t I tell you it would be thus?’

  There was no denying he had. ‘What of the Cholera? Is it finished here?’

  He shook his head grimly. ‘Twenty-five more taken from us, and twelve more grown sick only last night.’

  ‘Then it becomes worse.’ The numbers surprised me; during the previous days I had observed, from my sick bed, a warm gusty wind blowing upon the windows, that had led me to imagine that the miasma might be expelled from the district. ‘I had hoped it might be gone by now.’

  Hobbes only shrugged. ‘You hoped wrongly.’ He glanced at his watch, then regarded me with a look more thoughtful. ‘If you’re so curious, why not come see for yourself. There’s no little to observe, I assure you.’ He cast a weary look towards the door. ‘Who knows, you might even be useful.’

  This last remark told me his suggestion, though sudden, was no less serious for that. To join him on his tour of the neighbourhood; a burdensome offer it seemed. My own brief brush with the disease had left me far from eager to meet with it a
gain, even as a spectator rather than one struck. ‘I’ve no medical knowledge.’

  ‘Neither have I – what of it? You’ve a pair of arms. And you look recovered enough.’ He studied me with a kind of suspended disapproval. ‘Or perhaps you don’t care to.’

  It seemed churlish to refuse assistance when I had been so grateful myself to receive it. ‘Very well.’

  Walking through the odour-filled ways, still weak of head, my sack of drain plans upon my back – old habits are slow to die – I glanced about me for some signs of the Cholera raging in the district. They were not obvious; the streets were no less bustling than on any other day, the shouts and cries of street vendors selling vegetables or eels all of them quite as usual. But was there not, I observed, something new in the faces; a fearfulness, suspicion. This impression was strengthened when an ageless, red-faced fellow loitering by the roadside fixed us with a malevolent stem, murmuring, in a fashion just audible, ‘Cholera doctors, come to finish the job. Cholera doctors come to settle things for proper.’

  ‘Some of them have mad fears and suspicions.’ Hobbes had noticed my alarm at the fellow. His tone surprised me; it was protective, as a father defending his children, who have been behaving poorly. ‘It’s not their natural state. The outbreak has made them so’

  ‘Has it been bad about here?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not here. All the cases are near by the building where you yourself were living. Here, though we’re only two hundred yards distant, there’s not been a single instance. It might be a different continent so far as the disease is concerned.’

  And yet the stench of defective drains was far more evil close about Jem’s rooms. A puzzle indeed. Was it possible the Cholera could evolve at some distance from its breeding ground, as mosquitoes spreading forth from the pools in which their grubs dwell? But then why should it gather in such concentration… I had little time to complete my thoughts, however, as we had soon crossed the frontier between health and death. Hobbes led the way through the gates of a cheap hostel that was close behind the building containing my rented room.