by Erica Brown
* * *
Reuben Trout had disappeared. A constant shadow, he’d followed Tom around for months, unseen until Conrad Heinkel had pointed out his presence. Tom was in no mood for forgiveness.
As darkness descended, the sights, sounds and smells of St Augustine’s Quay altered. The stench of strong beer, sweaty bodies and rat droppings overpowered the daytime smells of ships’ tar, tobacco and hot metallic smoke from the refineries and the glass kilns.
Tom searched and asked questions in dockside taverns, even hid in corners and doorways hoping to catch a glimpse of Trout. The only word he got was from Aggie Pike.
Her little eyes gleamed as she said, ‘Heard yer after ’im, Tom. Heard yer out to kill ’im, old butt!’
Tom sipped at his rum, no longer keen on either its taste or the burning sensation it left at the back of his throat. ‘He deserves killing,’ he muttered grimly.
Aggie’s pipe jiggled at the corner of her mouth as she nodded. ‘Agree with ’e there. Never was a man that needed killing as much as ’im.’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
She closed one eye as she considered the question, wrinkles radiating out like spokes on a wheel. ‘Weeks ago now. Didn’t see me, though. Too busy offering a shillin’ or somethin’ to your friend Sally.’
Mention of Sally chilled him to the bone. It was as though there was nothing left in his stomach but a big, blank space.
Aggie went on talking. ‘Her boy came in here a few days back asking ’bout his mother. I told ’im the same. Can’t remember the date. Just knows that nobody saw Sal after that till she was pulled from the river with ’er throat cut.’
At the mention of Clarence, Tom grabbed her arm. ‘When did you see her boy?’
Aggie eyed him quizzically. ‘Just a few days ago.’
It had been two weeks since the Miriam Strong had gone up in flames. Clarence was alive.
‘Thank God,’ Tom said, throwing back his head and closing his eyes.
Aggie added, ‘Can’t tell you where ’e is though.’
‘Never mind,’ said Tom, rising from the high-backed settle from where he could see the door, the quay and the nightlife drifting by. ‘I know someone who might.’
* * *
Conrad Heinkel and his family had moved from the house next to the refinery to a newer property on Redcliffe Parade. The house faced Dundry Ridge at the front and Redcliffe wharf at the rear. The windows were large and let in ample light, and the furnishings, although of heavy design, appeared lighter in the brightness.
Big as he was, Conrad Heinkel had the gentlest touch. He personally bathed Blanche’s scratched nose and gave orders to his servants to fill a bathtub and get his wife’s clothes from the chest in which they were stored while hers were laundered. After that she slept.
In the days that followed, he left her very much to her own devices and did not press her as to how she came to be at the river. Life became normal, more so than she’d ever known it.
His children’s governess had left to marry. Two weeks after Conrad had rescued her, Blanche found herself giving them lessons in reading, writing, drawing and arithmetic, sometimes in the big room that looked over the city through finely arched windows. On one particular day, they did their lessons on the grass at the edge of Gallows Lane where, young Hans informed her, the gallows really used to be.
‘Then we’ll go further up,’ she said, disguising a shiver. They resettled themselves further along, close to the observatory at the top of the Avon Gorge.
Conrad Heinkel had clever children. They asked questions, talked about subjects the Strong children were not allowed to study. History seemed to be their favourite, though Hans was good at maths, better than she was. Most of all, they struck her as being uncommonly happy, and she put that down as their father’s doing. Parent and children were uncommonly close. They were rarely out of each other’s sight. Unlike mealtime arrangements at Marstone Court, the children ate with their father. At Conrad’s request, Blanche joined them.
Every so often, she caught him looking at her and knew that it was only a matter of time before he asked her if she’d read the letter and asked for her answer. She had no intention of raising the subject herself just in case he also asked her why she had been distraught and dishevelled on the riverbank that night.
On a lovely evening in early September after she’d seen the children to bed, and the servants were clearing the table, Blanche wandered in the garden. Roses of every colour imaginable grew in the Heinkel garden and the air was heavy with their scent.
Blanche followed the redbrick path that led away from the house and through the rose beds to a trellised arbour with a grass-covered seat and a yellow rambler growing over it.
The arbour was positioned in such a way that anyone seated there could not be seen by anyone approaching. By the time she smelled tobacco, it was too late to turn back.
‘I knew you would come here,’ he said, his face openly congenial and a bright expectancy in his eyes. He patted the clipped grass beside him. ‘Please. We must talk. There is something I want to ask you.’
Sensing that the moment had at last come when he’d refer to the letter, she sat down. Explanation was preferable to questions, she felt, and said quickly, ‘There are so many things you don’t know about me, so many things I didn’t know about myself until recently. I’ve always known I was a bastard.’ She thought it better to be frank from the start and to use honest words rather than try to be prim and proper. ‘My mother was a kept woman, mistress to Otis Strong whom I had assumed to be my father, though now I find that is not so. I had a good life back home in Barbados and was waited on by servants, whom I should point out were also my relatives. I came to England fully expecting to be taken in as a true daughter by the household. Instead I found I was to be a children’s nurse. My background, you see, was not deemed fit enough to be a lady, only a servant. Then I found out that Sir Emmanuel was my father and… there was a man… I might be having a baby.’
Conrad showed no sign of surprise. ‘Go on,’ he said.
She paused, rethinking what she wanted to say. ‘So I had to get away, but unfortunately I ran in the wrong direction and almost ended up a dockside doxy, but I escaped.’ She looked at him sidelong. He was staring at her, his mouth open slightly, the tip of his pipe resting on his tongue. ‘I didn’t know what to do next. They stole my bag, you see. Everything of value was in there. Then you came along.’
Conrad didn’t move. She guessed it was taking some time to digest all that she’d told him.
‘So now you know, without having to ask me,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘And if you want me to leave…’ She bit her lip, hoping and praying he would at least keep her on as a servant until the baby was born, for her body was telling her it would indeed be so.
Conrad shifted, his broad body almost taking up one third of the available space. He rested one hand on a meaty knee and sighed resignedly. ‘An interesting story, though it does not answer the question I was going to ask you.’
Blanche looked at him with tear-filled eyes, and he looked right back, smiling gently and nodding his head as if he’d known all about her all along. He had such honest eyes.
‘You never answered my letter,’ he said.
She gazed transfixed, amazed by what he implied. ‘You still want to marry me?’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes. I do.’
‘And the things I’ve just told you… don’t they matter?’
He shrugged and puffed on his pipe. ‘I like you. The children like you. And you like me. I think these things matter. They are good things on which to base a marriage. And your baby needs a father.’
Blanche stared at him open-mouthed. Everything her mother had said about the world and women belonging to men came back to her. Without a man, preferably a husband, there was no security. And she had lost everything she’d had in the world. Where would she end up if she didn’t take up his offer? The gutter, she thought, and shi
vered at the thought of Mrs Harkness, Cuthbert Stoke and Tom’s mother who’d been pulled dead from the river. Conrad was the only option she had left.
* * *
Later she sat in the rose arbour telling the children a story. Conrad’s proposal was still on her mind.
‘…after the giant Goram died, his friend, the giant Ghyston, travelled to Salisbury Plain and erected a great monument to his friend, Goram. After that, he went to Ireland and built a causeway to the north of that land. Eventually he grew old and tired, came back to his beloved Avon Gorge, which he and Goram had cleaved from the rock with their great axes. He saw how pretty it was and tears sprang to his eyes. When he died, he fell into the river, which carried him out into the Severn where it deposited him midstream. Silt came down from the Welsh mountains and covered him, and at sunset when the tide is running low, you can still see his great burial mound dividing the river in two between the English and Welsh coasts…’
The two children were mesmerized. Mouths open and unblinking, they continued to stare up at her as if awaiting a sequel, the girl with plaited hair the colour of corn, and the boy with a freckled face and broken front tooth.
Were the giants bigger than my father?’ asked Hans.
‘Much bigger.’
‘It must have taken a very long time to cut a gorge for the river to run through,’ added Lisel, her stiff plaits remaining still though her head moved with each word she said.
‘I hear you can see Goram’s footprint in Blaise Woods,’ said Blanche. She remembered Edith had told her that, and felt a sudden pang of loss. Rough and ready as she was, Edith had a heart of gold, and Blanche even missed her homespun wisdom and outright lies.
‘A girl’s got to be a bit respectable if she’s gonna get ’erself a husband,’ Edith had said. ‘What kind of life can I have if I ain’t got a bloke to look after me?’
Like my mother, thought Blanche. And also like Horatia, though the latter could afford to kick over the traces and be independent if she wished. Wealth made all the difference.
Hans suddenly asked, ‘Are you going to be our mother?’
The question took her by surprise, although she’d been giving serious consideration to the matter. Conrad was a kind man and would make a good husband. She liked him and his children and felt warm in his company. Perhaps in time she might love him, but for now she considered they had enough in common with which to build a happy marriage. She smiled. ‘I expect so.’
‘When?’ asked Lisel.
‘Whenever your father wishes,’ she said.
‘The sooner the better,’ said Hans and threw his arms around her.
Lisel followed where her brother led. ‘I think it’s the best idea in the world.’
‘So do I,’ said Blanche. It was the only course open to her. Only the night before she’d woken in a sweat, reached for the chamber and a strip of linen with which she wiped between her legs. There was no sign of her monthly flow.
* * *
The Fourteen Stars smelled of stale sweat, disturbed earth, and the sour grubbiness of men who worked, played and slept too close for comfort in hastily erected shacks. The navvies from the railway had arrived en masse.
Tom pushed his way through them, looking for the pock-marked face of Reuben Trout. News must have got out that he was hunting for him, thought Tom. He’d searched all his regular haunts, but without luck. If anyone in the shadowy underworld around the docks knew his whereabouts, it would be Cuthbert Stoke, but he too seemed to be lying low.
The landlord of the Fourteen Stars was a man named Herbert Champion, almost six feet tall with a mass of black hair and a plaited beard to match. Some said he was a direct descendant of Bristol’s most infamous pirate, Captain Teach, better known as Blackbeard. Herbert exaggerated his appearance, sometimes sticking lighted candles in his hair just as his supposed ancestor had done.
Tom grabbed Herbert’s shoulder. ‘I’m looking for crew,’ he said as if he really meant it. ‘How do you feel about a passage round the Horn, Herbert?’
Herbert shook his head vigorously. ‘You know me, Tom. Ain’t never been to sea in me life.’ He laughed as though fully expecting Tom to do the same. Instead of laughing, Tom’s look darkened. ‘Then tell me where I can find Cuthbert Stoke.’
‘Well, I don’t really—’
Tom bent Herbert’s arm up behind his back. ‘Tell me where he is, or you’ll find yourself halfway across the Atlantic and living on salt beef and biscuits.’
‘Mrs Harkness,’ Herbert spouted, his face paling behind the black beard at the thought of actually going to sea. ‘She keeps a house, if you know what I mean, down in Cock and Bottle Lane.’
The navvies, who had been keeping their own company up until now, heard the raised voices. Crazed eyes in weather-beaten faces turned in their direction. Those braver or less drunk than the rest, rose to their feet and rolled up their sleeves.
Tom attempted to push past, but they barred his way. They wanted to fight. They wanted him to fight. Drink had made them brave. Tom clenched his fists and prepared himself, though he had little chance of battling this many at once.
‘Got problems, Tom?’
The navvy Tom had been matched against in his last fight raised a beefy arm before the human barrier, pushing them aside so that Tom could get through.
‘Plenty,’ said Tom, nodded his thanks, and made for the door.
Red for port. Green for starboard. That’s what it was on ships, but every sailor in any port in the world knew what a red light hanging above a lone doorway meant. Chinks of light showed around shuttered windows, but neither they nor the red lantern of the brothel did much to alleviate the matt blackness of Cock and Bottle Lane.
Stumbling and slipping on the unseen cobbles, Tom headed straight for the red light, wrinkling his nose as the familiar smells of human dirt and despondency rose like a fog to meet him.
The brothel door opened with hesitant squeaks, as though someone had seen him and changed their mind about closing it again. Meagre light from within touched the hard features and light hair of a small person, a child.
‘All right, mate? Want a good time, do you?’ The child hung on to the door handle with one hand and perched her other hand on her hip. ‘Got all sorts we ’ave. Milk white, mud brown and matt black. Some with teeth and some without – depending on what you want, if you know what I mean.’
Tom could hardly believe his ears. He’d been in many ports around the world, but had never come across a child as worldly wise as this. She was chirpy and cheeky, but God, he thought, once he’d looked into her eyes, she’s a hard one.
‘I’m looking for a man,’ he said once he’d drawn level with her.
She sniffed and shook her head. ‘We ain’t got none of that kind of thing ’ere. Get yerself down to Sunshine’s. He’s probably got what yer lookin’ for.’
‘I want Cuthbert Stoke,’ he said as he pushed past her.
‘Oh! That’s different,’ she said, and slammed the door behind them both.
A Chinese woman wearing a muslin chemise floated down the stairs, her black hair writhing around her shoulders like a nest of dark snakes.
The woman halted. So did Tom.
‘That’s Chinese Dora,’ said the small girl. ‘Half a crown and she’s yours.’
‘Stoke,’ he said adamantly, ‘I want Stoke.’
The child shrugged. ‘Your choice, chum.’
An effort had been made to make the interior of the house presentable. The walls were painted pale green, their plainness presently being transformed by a bent figure with a full beard and a palette of oils. Clusters of red and yellow pears, apples and other fruit decorated the walls above paintings of salacious ladies with plump thighs, tight smiles and no clothes.
The artist nodded a silent greeting and turned back to his work. Tom pushed at a door.
Lit by a central candle, Cuthbert Stoke and a woman with sharp features and black eyes, sat across a table from each other, coins and valuables
piled up between them.
The woman leapt to her feet. ‘Out!’
Stoke merely looked nervous. ‘Tom!’ He managed to smile, but his face was ghostly white. ‘What can I do for you? Need a fight?’
Tom grabbed Stoke by the neck of his waistcoat and heaved him to his feet. ‘Where’s Reuben Trout?’
To Tom’s surprise, Stoke seemed relieved. His expression softened. ‘What do you want ’im for?’
Tom glared and said nothing. Stoke’s eyes said it all. He knew why he wanted him.
‘An eye for an eye, Stoke.’
Tom waved a broad fist in front of his nose and saw him swallow.
‘What do I care about Reuben Trout?’ said Stoke. ‘I’ll tell you where he is.’
* * *
Bennetts Carriers was a different place when it was empty, though it was always warm, even in the middle of the night. The heat of the horses’ bodies saw to that.
Reuben Trout felt warm and safe beneath the loose straw he’d pulled over himself in the empty stall. To either side of him, horses snuffled at maize and oats, or pulled hay from iron mangers. Trout cursed himself for being so careless as to let himself be seen – and by Sally’s brat no less. Must be getting old, he thought, his joints creaking as he brought his knees up under the straw. He’d had no choice but to abandon the small room in the ramshackle boarding house owned by Cuthbert Stoke. Tomorrow he’d leave the city for good, sadly so, but he had no choice. The moment Clarence had seen him, he’d known it would be no time before Tom Strong was told and came baying for his blood.
Luckily, that bloke Benson had paid him well for getting rid of the Miriam Strong. And Cuthbert Stoke had been ready and willing – for a price, of course – to hide him prior to getting him out of the city.
He swigged the last drop of beer, then buried the empty stone bottle beneath the straw. Snuffling like drunks do as he settled himself, he closed his eyes, content that he’d be out of the city soon and safe in Ireland or some other haven Stoke had arranged for him.
