The old man had been a fisher of eels, so he claimed, for the pie trade in Widnes, until, some years past, fuddled in drink, he’d let his boat be smashed to pieces at high tide at Rock Ferry. His two eldest daughters had taken him in, or rather he’d divided his time between them, and gained little comfort from either. In that respect, George held, he was very like a king, which showed how tipsy he remained. The old man now lived with his youngest daughter in a lean-to next to a blacksmith’s, and was at her mercy, which was why he slept nights on the sand. She had a mouth on her like a navvy and he preferred the nip of the sand-hoppers to the sting of her tongue.
‘She’s six young ones,’ he said, by way of excuse. ‘And no man to support her.’
‘Life is cruel, sir,’ George agreed, chucking another length of wood on to the fire, sending the sparks showering.
‘If I had my chance again,’ the old man said, ‘I’d go for a soldier. They gives you a pension.’
‘They also furnish you with a fair opportunity of getting killed,’ George argued, at which the old man said there were worse ways of leaving this world than from the swift kiss of lead.
We left him then. A true philosopher, George called him, collapsing to his knees on his third attempt to climb up beside me. I bundled him inside the carriage, fearful he would do his addled self an injury and I’d be blamed for it. When I made to close the door, he seized my hand and tried to drag me in with him. I couldn’t see his expression, for now it was night, yet his sly smile was imprinted in my head, mouth curved like those of the man-beasts keeping guard outside Blundell Hall.
I’d seen that face on him once before, after we’d laid his father down and Myrtle had been sent off to the kitchens to fetch water for washing. He’d thanked me for my help and declared I was remarkably practical for my age and that he would never forget my kindness, nor my reticence. It was my intelligence, he said, that rendered me incapable of taking advantage of the present situation. His words, spoken with such apparent sincerity of feeling, took me aback. Up until then I’d been biding my time, having every intention of squeezing five shillings out of him before I left the house. We were standing on either side of the bed, his dead father between us, and for one warm moment I did indeed imagine I was possessed of a superior sweetness of character. ‘You’re a good boy,’ he murmured, and then he raised one knee on to the coverlet and hoisting himself up leaned across to touch my cheek. I knew instantly what he was about, and quit the room. I wasn’t a stranger to that sort of happening, nor unduly alarmed by it, and if he’d not laid on the flattery I might have indulged him – it’s not a vice restricted to any one class, though it’s my experience that the better off bend to it from inclination and the poor more often out of necessity. It was his conning me into thinking I was something other than I was, something better, that shook me off guard. Dr Potter was coming out of the parlour as I ran down the stairs. Startled, I’d clung to the banister rail, expecting to be denounced. He’d never seen me before and he could have, should have, taken me for a thief, or at least demanded to know my business, but he just looked at me, and I fancied he read the trouble in my eyes. I had difficulty opening the front door; coming to my side, he tugged at the latch and let me out.
It was some minutes to seven by the Observatory clock when we crested the hill beyond the Boulevard and turned into Blackberry Lane. Within the carriage George was bawling at the top of his lungs the chorus of ‘Mother Dear, I am Fading Fast’. The queer thing was, when we came to a standstill at the end of the drive and I helped him down on to the moonlit gravel, he uttered those self-same words of praise, You’re a good boy – only this time, too late, I believe he meant it.
I brazened it out, of course, and think I got away with it, there being no evidence to incriminate me. It was Dr Potter who did the confronting, which was tricky, he being a man who saw through people.
He was waiting for George and beckoned him into the study the moment we stepped through the door. I went out to see to the unpacking, and as I came back in with the tripod and the tent, George burst from the room and ran ahead of me up the stairs. When I came down again Dr Potter was standing in the hall, staring at me. He said, ‘Pompey Jones, I’d like a word with you when you’ve emptied the carriage.’ I knew something was up from the look on his face; my stomach lurched. Each time I descended he was still there, still staring. Finally, I had nothing more to carry in and was about to lead the horse round to the yard when he came on to the porch and said I was to leave off what I was doing and come inside immediately.
I followed him into the study, heart thumping. I reckon it was the ether as much as apprehension. He took his time to come to the point, clearing his throat and fiddling with the buttons on his waistcoat. Most fat men look foolish when they’re acting serious; not Dr Potter. I kept telling myself I hadn’t done anything really bad, but his eyes made me believe I had.
At last, he said, ‘I’m not unaware of the position you hold in this family … and perhaps we are the ones most at blame. I’m not sure you’ve been given sufficient guidance—’
‘I have received nothing but kindness,’ I interrupted. I wasn’t being insincere. With him, it wouldn’t have been wise.
‘That’s as may be,’ he said. ‘You were little more than a boy when you came here …’ He paused, eyes searching my face. I put up my hand to cover my mouth, as though the mulberry stain on my lip had returned.
‘But you are now a man,’ he said, and again he paused.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I believe I am.’
‘A man,’ he repeated. ‘And a man must take responsibility for his actions, however innocently or ignorantly conceived.’
‘It would be better if you came out with it,’ I said, stung by his reference to ignorance.
So he enlightened me. First thing that morning young Mrs Hardy had gone into the dining room to fetch the needlework she’d left on the sideboard the night before. ‘The curtains were still drawn,’ he said, ‘and in the half-light the rug appeared menacing—’
‘The rug,’ I blustered. ‘What rug?’
‘Frightened out of her wits,’ he thundered, ‘she turned to run out of the door and tripped—’
‘Tripped—’ I echoed.
‘She fell against the wall. Result … a broken wrist. And that’s not all …’
I stayed dumb, but my face burned with shame. I truly felt remorse.
‘A broken bone can be set,’ he said. ‘Dashed hopes are not so easily mended. You take my meaning?’
I didn’t, not then, though I nodded.
‘At first,’ he went on, ‘it was thought Lolly had been slovenly in her work. Mrs O’Gorman spoke up for her. She herself had inspected the room before she retired for the night and everything was in order. She said you were in the house at dawn.’
‘I was told to come,’ I protested. ‘Master George told me to come. I know nothing about a rug.’
Mrs O’Gorman wept when I left the house. Half of it was on account of young Mrs Hardy having miscarried again, the other to losing me. She sniffed she wouldn’t be able to bear it if she was stopped from knowing me. I told her she wasn’t to worry, that things would blow over. ‘George won’t part with me for long,’ I said. ‘You’ll see.’
I walked to my lodgings under a heaven sprinkled with stars. I wasn’t cast down. One lives and learns, I reasoned.
Plate 3. 1854
TUG-OF-WAR BESIDE THE SWEET WATERS OF EUROPE
We began our ill-advised excursion to Constantinople on 27th February, sailing from Liverpool Docks on the Cunard steamer, Cambria. I speak of our expedition in such pessimistic terms, owing to the inclusion of the women and children, not to mention the maid and nursemaid deemed necessary to attend them. It had been originally planned that only George, Myrtle and I would make the journey. It could be, I felt, that in the advent of war, an event which day by day seemed more and more likely, George and I might be of use, he in his capacity as surgeon, myself as observer. Twenty years
earlier I had visited the Crimea, in particular Balaclava and the coastal range, and, indeed, published a scientific paper at my own expense on the formation of the Steppe limestone common to the western portion of the Noghai plain. Result – no interest whatsoever, but perhaps that is beside the point. Myrtle was to accompany us for the simple reason that she was unable to let George out of her sight.
Quite when George had been inveigled into taking Annie along eludes me. There had been a cholera epidemic two years before, and fearful of another outbreak, she’d argued it would be safer for the children to be out of the town during the coming summer. No quarrel with that. I understood she had written to an aunt, who had a house overlooking the Menai Straits in Anglesey, asking to be allowed to stay there, and received a reply by return of post to the effect that she would be most welcome, and Beatrice too. As far as I knew, both women were perfectly content with the arrangement. Then, two weeks before we were due to depart, George feebly announced that Annie was coming with us after all. ‘She insists on it, Potter,’ he said. ‘In the circumstances, how can I refuse? She is, after all, my wife.’ I suspect Myrtle had a hand in it, on account of the children.
In vain did I lecture Annie on the intemperate climate, the frosty nights in early spring, the scorching months of July and August, the withering of the vegetation, the flies – she would have none of it. Optimistic fool that I was, I even gave her a book on the subject, which she took from me as though handling broken glass and deposited on the parlour mantelshelf, where it lay unopened. I have proof of that. Annie was addicted to crystallised almonds and Lolly spent her life sweeping sugar grains from the furniture. The marker I placed to indicate the relevant passages – the drying up of river beds, etc. – remained in an upright position and the pages pristine. Needless to say, once Annie was of the party, it became impossible to exclude Beatrice.
The Cambria was crowded, to the extent that we wallowed below the water line, there being two hundred troopers on board, four engineers, a veterinary surgeon and a representative of the Liverpool Board of Commerce, sent out to see what supplies might most be in need of urgent shipment should war commence. ‘It is the patriotic duty of the citizens of Liverpool,’ this gentleman informed me at the first opportunity, ‘to make whatever sacrifices necessary in support of our army.’ His name was Naughton and a more odious and obsequious individual could not be imagined. I had several heated conversations with him during the course of the voyage and formed the opinion that profit rather than patriotism ignited his sense of duty.
We were fortunate in the weather on the first leg of our journey to Malta, though one would never have known it from the groans and whimpers issuing from Beatrice. Nothing of note happened in the first three days, save for the ship’s collie producing eight pups. Myrtle insisted on earmarking one, the runt of the litter, for the children. It would be good for them, she declared, to be responsible for something small and helpless. That same afternoon a so-called wife of one of the troopers gave birth to an infant daughter. Thankfully, it died three hours later, else Myrtle might have added it to our list of dependants.
The food on board was excellent. It would not be going too far to say we dined like kings. For breakfast there was pigeon, rump steak, cold hashed meat, eggs prepared in a variety of ways; hard-boiled, scrambled, coddled, fried. This feast was served up at eight o’clock sharp. Two of the engineers and, as bad luck would have it, the wretched Naughton generally kept me company. Neither George nor the womenfolk ever made it to the table. In George’s case this was due to his having drunk too much the night before. Poor Beatrice, she who had boasted so loudly and so long of a desire to sail before the mast, had a miserable time of it, being confined to her berth, sick as a cat, except for those occasions on which Myrtle dragged her from below and marched her, distinctly green about the gills, up and down the deck. I could have been unkind – God knows, Beatrice has given me enough provocation – but I held my tongue. For all her faults, she had proved a satisfactory helpmate, particularly in regard to those intimate services required of a wife. Unlike Annie, Beatrice positively relishes her conjugal duties and has always brought a touching enthusiasm to her participation in our happy tumbles.
On our fourth day out it became apparent that Naughton was considerably smitten with Myrtle. She, as usual, appeared unaware of it, though she could scarcely move for tripping over him. It wasn’t the first time she had caused a flutter in a manly breast, not that Naughton could by any stretch of the imagination be classified as manly. His lurch towards Myrtle surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought he was discerning enough to appreciate her, he being the shallow sort of fellow susceptible to more obvious charms – a rosy complexion, sparkling eyes, splendid bust, etc. Myrtle was smallish, pale, had a chest as flat as a board, morose eyes of a colour neither green nor brown, and a somewhat sullen pout to her lips. It’s true that when she engaged one in conversation, or was observed playing with the children, or she smiled, it was a different story. Then I do believe she cast a spell. Beatrice adored her, and Annie, who, God knows, had every reason in the world to find her detestable, showed signs of sincere devotion.
Naughton, struck all of a heap, went so far as to take George to one side and make his feelings known. ‘Your sister is remarkably fetching,’ is how he imprudently put it. ‘I imagine that she has many admirers.’ To which George rashly replied she had but one, to whom she was betrothed and who was waiting for her to join him in Constantinople.
I say rash, because it was highly likely we would continue to rub shoulders with Naughton when we reached our destination, and what did George intend to do then?
‘Are you going to hire some young hussar to play the part of lover?’ I asked him.
‘I’ll worry about it when we get there,’ he retorted, and then drank so much during the afternoon that he quite forgot to tell Myrtle of her impending marriage.
Result – in the middle of dinner, the infatuated Naughton turned to her and blurted out for all to hear, ‘Your fiancé is a fortunate man, Miss Hardy.’
The effect of this startling announcement on our section of the table was comical indeed. Annie, about to fork up a portion of pie-crust, sat with open mouth and implement suspended in the air. Poor Beatrice, already munching, choked on her morsel and might have expired if the veterinary surgeon hadn’t thumped her between the shoulder blades. Myrtle alone stayed calm; gazing steadily at the speechless George, she replied, ‘It’s kind of you, Mr Naughton, but I assure you it is I who am fortunate.’
I don’t know what she said to George afterwards. Nothing, I expect. George could do no wrong. If ever there was a woman with fairy dust in her eyes, it was she. Once, I had appealed to her to put a curb on George’s drinking, which had grown excessive following the demise of his father. ‘It’s not for me to interfere,’ she’d said. ‘Besides, it makes him happy.’
Secretly, I wondered whether she didn’t prefer him half-seas over: possibly it gave her more of a hold. He’d been shaken far more than was necessary at the circumstances surrounding his father’s death. Though he didn’t confide in me until some months later, I already had my suspicions that matters were other than they seemed. A relative of old Mrs Hardy, a Captain Tuckett, had come to the house the night it happened, and he’d told me that George was in a horrid state earlier in the evening, quivering and blubbing, and rambling on about Punch and Judy of all things. Then, of course, there was the sudden intrusion into the household of Pompey Jones – the duck-boy as Myrtle insisted on calling him – not to mention her own unexplained and astonishing elevation, packed off to boarding school as though she was a daughter of the family.
Myrtle was now indispensable. Old Mr Hardy had been a bully and a fraud, and as often happens with sons of such men – sensitive boys, that is – George had feared and admired him in equal proportions. It would not be incorrect to say that George had placed him on a pedestal, and a pretty lofty one at that. Mr Hardy’s topple from the heights had shattered both of them. I
t was Myrtle’s destiny in life to make George believe he had stuck himself together.
Several days later, when I was taking a turn about the deck, staring out at the monotonous vista of sea and sky, Naughton joined me and began a footling conversation on the construction of violins; the best wood, etc. He was a manufacturer of the things, with a thriving business, so he boasted, not a stone’s throw from the Custom House. I am not a lover of music, though I once had the luck, during the celebrations surrounding the inauguration of the Albert Dock, to attend a piano recital enlivened by the soloist unexpectedly somersaulting from the platform.
Naughton was tedious enough when raving on about instruments, but he soon became even more so; he had the temerity to share his thoughts on the coming war. His ignorance of history was infuriating and his judgements worthless. It was his opinion that our affairs were in the right hands.
‘By that,’ I said, ‘I presume you mean those buffoons who, by reasons solely of wealth and title, control both government and army?’
‘Buffoons—’ he stuttered.
‘Idiots, triflers,’ I elaborated. ‘No national respect for ancient tradition, no adulation of rank, however sincere, can fit an uneducated man for high office.’
‘Uneducated?’ he protested. ‘Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Russell, Lord Raglan—’
‘The want of educated men,’ I thundered, ‘has been the cause of our miseries in the East. They know next to nothing about the vast empire of the Turks. Our consular service, its members recruited from the aristocracy, live in their palaces as though the Thames flowed outside their windows. Their duties consist of home pursuits – the reviewing of parades, the throwing of garden parties, visits to the opera. They might just as well be living in Buckinghamshire. What reports have they sent on the nature of the climate, the terrain, the produce and resources of the country, the state of the roads?’
Master Georgie Page 5
