Sweet Thames

by Matthew Kneale

  The smashing of the pump left Jem in a state of great excitement – he had quite lost himself in the pleasure of shouting out directions to any present – and I felt it best to speak instead to Sal. ‘If there’s a single case of Cholera close by your rooms,’ I warned her, ‘then do not, under any circumstances, drink from the well near you. Throw away any water you’ve collected. And tell Hobbes. Your lives may depend upon it.’

  ‘Aw’right, drain man.’

  Young though she was, she seemed to have taken in my words.

  Only after I had rung four times did the grand door of the Metropolitan Committee for Sewers deign to open, and then by no more than a crack. The fellow who peered out – regarding me with faint and alarmed recognition – I saw to be one of the clerks who worked in the upstairs rooms of the building.

  ‘I must see Mr Hove.’

  ‘There’s nobody here.’ He had the unhappy look of a foot-soldier left to defend the fortress single handed. ‘There’ve been no meetings since Mr Sleak-Cunningham left us.’

  ‘One must be held soon, surely?’

  He shook his head. ‘The minister’s out of town and no new chairman’s been appointed.’ A worried look flashed across his face. ‘You’re not a journalist, are you?’

  A disappointment; if the authority were still unformed, then who might I alert to the discoveries I had made?

  I managed, not without difficulty, to convince the clerk to allow me inside, and have the use of pen and paper. The fellow must have assumed I would set down only a short note, and became restless as the minutes and hours passed. I paid him no heed.

  Two letters I wrote, one to Hove, one to The Times newspaper, though the essence of each was the same. Both recounted the evidence against the miasma theory, and argued the case for the spread of Cholera poison through the water supply. I also urged investigation of all wells, water intake pipes, and immediate prosecution of the Westminster and Thames Water Company. Lurking within the committee building was, I learned, a messenger – idle, needless to say – and, by playing upon the poor clerk’s impatience to have me gone from the premises, I had the boy sent off to deliver both missives.

  Thus I had done my best to alert the world, floating in confusion though it now was.

  Was that all there was left to me to do? It seemed little enough. Stepping into the street outside the Committee building, the air growing warmer now the drizzle was past, I wondered if there was not another little matter I should attend to. Sleak-Cunningham might have been humiliated for the wrong reasons, but at least the fellow had been humiliated, and toppled from his place. While as for…

  Joshua Jeavons crouched on his haunches by the roadside, oblivious to the dust, waiting for the night to come. Joshua Jeavons pacing through the metropolitan darkness, furtive, his fingers – concealed in his pocket – grasping a small and rattling box. Joshua Jeavons loitering by a street corner, watching for the road to be empty of evening walkers. Then quickly clambering over metal railings, and dropping quietly into the space beyond.

  As I had recalled, there were no houses or other buildings adjoining the place. Thus vanished the last possible impediment. Hurriedly I scoured the site for suitable materials, discovering some scraps of wood and a few dry rags. These I placed on a pool of thickly oozing liquid that scented the air, sickly sweet. In a moment I had rolled further barrels to the spot, and broken open their seals, their contents spilling forth. All that was left was to… I recall pausing. A strange moment – though it cannot have endured more than a few seconds – of strong flavour; the taste of suspended criminality. Not that I had any serious doubts. My strongest feeling was resentment at having been driven to such desperation.

  I struck the match.

  My immediate concern was that I should regain the road without being observed. Luck was with me, and clambering over the gates I discovered the lane beyond was deserted. I had only just time enough to regain the main road; even as I joined the crowds my nostrils detected a faint but rich smell, recalling baking treacle cake. Within moments a fierce crackling sound had filled the air, and the street began to lose its night-time murkiness, coming alive with red light and dancing shadows. Others trotted past me back towards the yard, faces bright with excitement at the drama. I went with them, grimly curious.

  What a fire it proved to be. Indeed, watching amid a pleasure-yelping mob, I wondered if I might not have caused the destruction of all Westminster. The flames seemed to be as high as a tree. Fortunately there was no wind, while the fire was not so huge as to leap beyond the yard. I stayed until the windows of Sweet’s office cracked into splinters – with a sound like gunshots – eliciting a ragged cheer from the watchers.

  A dark notion, perhaps? One that may even set your hearts against me and my story? So be it. I cannot reinvent the truth of my past; nor for that matter would I want to do so. My action was rash – and of course criminal – but also just. Justice of a kind new to me, whose logic I was only beginning to grasp.

  To think that only that very morning – before the Reverend Rupert Hobbes had paid his little visit, and set me upon my long road of discoveries – I had expected to rest, to sleep away the day. The hope already seemed hazily distant; almost as if belonging to some other man. Indeed, such had been the weight of the day’s findings that, for the first time in many weeks, Isobella had almost been banished from my thoughts.

  Almost.

  An engineer is not worthy of that noble title if he does not possess some good knowledge of the laws of science; thus I am in no poor position to consider the tenacious nature of momentum. Momentum is the sum produced by the speed of a moving object, multiplied by its weight. A livelier representation, perhaps, is that of a coach and horses, in which the creatures cease to tug at their wheeled burden, only to have the vehicle pressing them forward, driving them on with its bulk.

  Another instance of the word, though less scientific, might be that of a fellow driven by the restless ache of personal mystery; a soul hungry for relief, striding onwards through the night, though he hardly now has the strength to reason why.

  Or, to put it in a more mathematical, form:

  MOMENTUM X CURIOSITY = JOSHUA JEAVONS

  STEPPING (WEARILY) INTO THE HOTEL ORLEANS

  The foyer was lively now, with porters carrying in the luggage of late night guests, fresh arrived – most of them couples of which, I observed, the man was usually a decade or three older than his female companion – while others strode in and out through the discreet doors, embarked or returning from forays into the London night. The distractions caused by such activity, together with the growing familiarity of my visits, seemed to do much to reduce the suspicions of the reception clerk with putty-coloured skin. Indeed, he hardly gave me a second glance.

  ‘A message for Count Nemis, wasn’t it. Who from?’

  ‘His friend Herbert.’ It was an answer I had long had prepared.

  Only then did the momentum begin to leave me; the push of the carriage dwindling, leaving the horses strangely deserted. Standing before the desk, watching the purposeful bustle all around, I even wondered if I should not quietly slip away. The matter must be attended to, certainly. But must it be tonight, when I was hardly able to think? I could return tomorrow…

  ‘The count will see you now. Room 204.’

  Too late. My recollection of what follows grows hazy; perhaps the consequence of my exhaustion, or the seeming unreality of the moment. I remember the shuffling porter, smelling faintly of drink. The gaudiness of the corridors, decorated with lush curtains and occasional musingly naked females in statue form; these last doing nothing to raise my spirits. And the fine brass numerals upon the door.

  Also, as I stood waiting, the urge that came upon me; quite without warning, yet overwhelming of strength. Only to see her face.

  The fellow who peered out was young – younger than I – but with a certainty of eye. His spiny moustache, so carefully waxed, proclaimed – as did his thick accent – his foreignness.
He inspected me with something of a frown. ‘You are from Herbert? Yes? What is this message?’

  Of course I found myself utterly unprepared. I had never really thought beyond this point. ‘It’s… A matter concerning your lady companion.’

  A narrowing of eyes at this. ‘Yes? You talk of Lucy?’

  That name again. Observing the man’s annoyance, I wondered if I had not struck some raw spot – hardly unlikely in view of what little I knew of Herbert and him – and stumbled into the midst of an old feud. A ridiculous position to find myself in. Yet, to see her face… ‘Might I speak to her?’

  A sharp shaking of the head. ‘Certainly no. What is this Herbert’s message?’

  ‘It wouldn’t take long.’

  The fellow regarded me with something like suspicion. ‘Why is Herbert not here himself if there is such importance?’

  I seemed to be making little progress. It was then, however – between the Hungarian shoulder and the frame of the door – that I caught sight of something. The light movement of a woman; a glimpse of scanty, lacy garments, hurriedly and insufficiently covered with a towel; a bit of bared leg, of slim waist.

  Our chatter must have caught her attention. ‘Leo, what is this?’ Thus I finally discovered her. Except for one small detail. It was not Isobella.

  The remarkable thing was the lack of close resemblance. I do not believe she would have made even a convincing cousin of Isobella, let alone sister; her features, though pleasing in their way, were coarser by far. Foolish, blankeyed. Had she been at the far end of a distant room still I would not have mistaken her for my wife. Only her hair was similar.

  All those dusty vigils among the tramps and matchsellers opposite the Cafe Castelnau. The long pursuit of Herbert the wealthy son through the novelty shows of the West End. The bribing with drink of the hotel porter. And this last mad escapade. All for nothing.

  What could the waiter have been thinking of? Probably he had little troubled himself over likelihood, being more concerned with the guinea I had offered. A fraudulent, cheating soul.

  But then… A thought occurred to me. If it were not Isobella, had never been Isobella, then… At once I felt my spirits beginning to lift. Gone was the Isobella shamelessly playing footsie at a table of the Cafe Castelnau. Gone was the Isobella being touched by the soft hands of Herbert, child of the aristocracy, the Isobella lying shamelessly between a foreigner’s scented bedsheets.

  ‘What does Herbert say?’ The count, having banished Lucy back into the hotel room, was fast growing impatient.

  I think I even laughed. The fellow was, at once, so splendidly unimportant. ‘Herbert says nothing to you. Nothing at all.’

  A mighty frown. ‘This is your joke of such things? It is not any joke to me.’

  As if I cared. My thoughts were far away as I was led back down the gaudy corridor. I did not deign to answer the reception clerk as – his face gaining, with displeasure, something like a healthy colour – he snorted and weakly threatened police. Only after – as the porters hurled me from the door, into the dust of the Mayfair street – did my ponderings begin to strike a more sombre note.

  If my investigations of all these weeks had been, all along, the hurrying of a man down a road to nowhere, then what did that leave me?

  What did I know?

  Away to the north a faint red glow in the sky marked Harold Sweet’s molasses yard; though the colour was beginning to fade, it had been shining brightly for some hours now, indicating the barrels had burned well; a cause for some satisfaction. My thoughts, however, were more concerned with the sight immediately before me; the house of Felicia and Gideon Lewis.

  Though it was approaching eleven, there was still, I was pleased to see, some sign of life, in the form of a solitary illuminated window. This was on an upper floor, just below the servants’ quarters, and – as far as I could recall from my knowledge of the building – was that of Gideon’s studio. Perhaps he was working late upon one of his biblical paintings, or some commission of church design. The other windows were all of them lifeless, but still… I strode forward and rang the bell.

  A seller of King Charles spaniels, a lecherous man balding of head, the wizened Reverend Michael Bowrib, Albert Farre, Superintendent Lisle and Constable Collins: these were among the many souls who chased one another through my thoughts that evening. Unravelling; this was the game. Plucking out from the tangle the false strand placed there by the mischievousness of the Cafe Castelnau waiter. Then studying what was left. The remnant, unhappily, seemed to be nothing more than a confusion of threads, lacking, so far as I could see, any connection with one another, let alone taking me in some useful direction.

  My first thought had been of Lark Road. Indeed – invigorated by my relief at Isobella’s absence from the count’s bedroom – I had journeyed there without delay, only to find the place as deserted as upon my last visit; indeed more so, as there was not the slightest sign this time of any mysterious intruder having paid a visit.

  Next I recalled the dog seller. Making my way to the Haymarket – glittering with night-time bustle – I found, however, the fellow was not at work there that night. Perhaps he had sold his day’s quota of animals.

  Back, and further back, in my thoughts. To her disappearance, to the dinner party. Earlier yet. And so, despite the failure of earlier visits, I became drawn to the house of the Lewises.

  One pull at the doorbell I gave – the ringing echoing loudly from within – then another, and yet two more, until I heard stamping footsteps drawing near. Even then the door opened only a crack, held thus by the chain.

  ‘Who is it?’ The speaker I recognized as servant of the household, a thin, awkward soul by the name of Betty, spotty of face, this last being the only part of her I could see, the rest being concealed behind the door. I seemed to have woken her from sleep, and her eyes cast a dazed – and troubled – glance at my clothes.

  ‘Joshua Jeavons is my name. I’m come to speak to your master or mistress. It’s a matter of great urgency.’

  ‘The mistress is away at her cousins’.’ She offered the news with finality. ‘And the master’ll be in bed by now.’

  Felicia away; it seemed quite an opportunity. ‘There’s still a light burning in Mr Lewis’s studio,’ I countered. ‘The matter is, I assure you, a most important one. Nothing less than an emergency.’

  Though she received the news far from happily, her resolve to keep me at bay proved frail. ‘I s’pose I should call him. You’d best come inside.’

  Doing so, I saw further reason for her reluctance to admit me; she was clothed only in a nightdress, which she gathered about herself with some shyness. ‘I can see myself up,’ I offered.

  She seemed relieved. ‘Well, if you don’t mind…’

  There was just enough light filtering down from the studio for me to see my way up the stairs. Finding the door open, and receiving no response to my knocking, I stepped inside.

  The lamp was lodged near the entrance, hissing noisily and casting a good white glow upon the room, which was well filled with the smell of paint, and candles of biblical scenes. I found myself before an easel, supporting a huge rendering – still unfinished – of Moses leading the Israelites across the parted Red Sea; the face of Moses himself calling to mind not so much divinely appointed authority, as a washerwoman impatiently hurrying to the gin palace, fearful she might find it already closed.

  As for Gideon I could see no sign. Indeed, I was beginning to wonder if he might have retired to bed, having imprudently left the lamp burning, when, in the quiet of the room, I became aware of a low rhythmic sound, resembling snoring. Pursuing this, I found myself drawn to a collection of canvasses leaning against a wooden chest, from behind which extended a pair of bootless feet. Apart from these extremities, the artist – for it was Gideon – proved fully clothed, and slumped most peacefully, his mouth wide open; a ready trap for any incautious summer fly. Most of interest to me about him, however, was the overpowering odour – easily over
taking that of the paint – that hung about his person; that of strong liquor. Sure enough, close by his head stood a bottle of whisky – empty – with another just started close beside.

  A most remarkable sight. Gideon Lewis, church architect, friend of the Reverend Mr Bowrib, painter of moments of biblical excruciation, brother of the puritanical Felicia, slumped in drunken insensibility in his own studio.

  My foot caught one of the canvases, causing a clatter that saved me the task of waking the fellow. He sat up, eyes open wide, but showing no confusion; he seemed unaware of his having been sleep. Then stared at me.

  ‘Josher.’

  For a moment I wondered if he might cry out, or seek some weapon with which he might defend himself against so unexpected an intruder. I could hardly have been more wrong. His face sagged into a kind of bobbing-headed smile. I realized – with some surprise – the fellow was actually pleased to find me stood before him.

  ‘Josher,’ he repeated, clambering up – unsteadily – from the chest. ‘Come to see me after all this time.’ His words were slurred almost to incomprehension. ‘Where’f you been?’

  It was not a question I rightly knew how to answer. Indeed, I chose not to try. ‘I’ve come to ask if you’ve some knowledge of what’s become of my wife.’

  He was not in the slightest taken aback by the question. Rather, he grew petulant; annoyed by my failure to visit before. ‘Off course I raven’t. That’s why I’ve been so surprise you’ve not come see me.’ He directed to me a wounded look, as one mistreated. ‘We’re bzozhers, Josher. Nothing less. Bzozhers for our love.’

  The remark was puzzling indeed. ‘What love?’

  He plucked up the full bottle of whisky, and offered it to me: an invitation I declined. ‘For Isobella, of course.’

  So there it was. All that Isobella had told, at last confirmed: the poison pen letters had indeed been Felicia’s. I had hardly needed to wheedle it from the fellow. Indeed, his shamelessness was extraordinary; regarding me now with a look of sombre self-pity, he seemed almost to expect me to applaud him, or offer him an embrace. Perhaps he did.