“How did he die, ma’am?”
“In his bed! Naturally.”
“From what cause, ma’am?” He tried to make it clear without being offensive or distressing her more than was necessary. Her remarkable bearing might well hide deep emotion underneath.
“A complaint of digestion. No doubt it had a name, but I do not know it. He had been ill for some time.”
“I see. I’m sorry. Who was his doctor?”
Her arched eyebrows rose. “Dr. Hall, but I cannot see why you wish to know. Surely you do not suspect Dr. Hall of violating the grave?”
“No, of course not.” He did not know how to explain that he was questioning the cause of death. Obviously the whole train of thought had not occurred to her. “It is just that in order to find who did, we need all the information possible.”
“Do you expect to find out?” She was still perfectly composed.
“No,” he admitted frankly, meeting her eyes with something like a smile. There was no answer in her face, and he looked away, feeling a little foolish. “But it is not the only case,” he went on in a more businesslike tone. “And anything they have in common might help.”
“Not the only case?” She was startled now. “You mean you think Mr. Porteous’s grave robbing is connected to those others everyone is talking about? You ought to be ashamed, allowing such things to happen here in London, to respectable people! Why aren’t you doing your job, I should like to know?”
“I don’t know whether there is a connection, ma’am,” he said patiently. “That is what I am trying to establish.”
“It’s a lunatic,” she said firmly. “And if the police can’t catch a lunatic, I don’t know what the world is coming to! Mr. Porteous was a very respectable man, never mixed with fast society, every penny he had was earned, and he never put a wager in his life.”
“Perhaps there is no connection, apart from the time he died,” Pitt said wearily. “Lord Augustus was a respectable man, too.”
“That’s as may be,” she said darkly. “They didn’t find Mr. Porteous in that Gadstone Park, did they?”
“No, ma’am, he was sitting on a bench in St. Bartholomew’s Green.”
Her face paled. “Nonsense!” she said sharply. “Mr. Porteous would never be in such a place! I cannot believe it, you know what kind of people frequent it. You must be mistaken.”
He did not bother to argue; if it mattered to her to cling onto the distinction, even after death, then allow her to. It was a curious divergence. He remembered the rather worn clothes with the corpse. He had been buried very much in his second best. Perhaps at the last moment she had felt the best black all such men kept for Sundays to be too good to consign to the oblivion of the tomb. At least at that time she would expect it to be oblivion.
He stood up. “Thank you, ma’am. If I need to ask anything else, I shall call on you.”
“I shall make arrangements to have Mr. Porteous put away again.” She rang the bell for the maid to show him out.
“Not yet, ma’am.” He wanted to apologize because he knew the outrage before it came. “I’m afraid we shall have to do some more investigation before we can allow that.”
Her face mottled with horror, and she half rose in her chair.
“First you allow his grave to be desecrated and his body to be left in a park where public—‘women’—offer themselves, and now you want to investigate him! It is monstrous! Decent people are no longer safe in this city. You are a disgrace to your—” She had wanted to say “uniform”; then she looked at Pitt’s jumble of colors—hat still dripping in his hands, muffler end trailing down his front—and gave up. “You are a disgrace!” she finished lamely.
“I’m sorry.” He was apologizing not for himself but for the whole city, for the entire order that had left her with nothing but need and the trimmings of being respectable.
He spoke to the doctor and discovered that Porteous had died of cirrhosis of the liver, and had most assuredly visited the benches of St. Bartholomew’s Green before some grotesque chance had placed his corpse under its shade to be solicited by a prostitute to whom even the dead were no horror or surprise.
He left, wondering what had been the stuff of lives that ended like this: what failures; what bolstered-up loneliness, what constant small retreats.
Dominic put Somerset Carlisle and the disgraceful luncheon from his mind. He was looking forward to seeing Alicia again. The reinterment was over, and from now on, provided decent mourning was observed, at least outwardly, they could begin to think of the future. He would not wish to offend her sensibilities by speaking too quickly or cause her any embarrassment, but he could certainly call to pay his respects and spend a little time in her company. And in a few weeks she could afford to be seen out, not at theatres or parties, but at church with the family or during a carriage ride to take the air. He did not mind if Verity came also, for appearances; in fact, he liked her very well for her own sake. She was easy to talk to, once she felt comfortable with him and, although she was modest, she had her own opinions and quite a dry sense of humor with which to express them.
Altogether he was feeling in a very pleasant mood when he arrived at Gadstone Park on Thursday morning and presented his card to the maid.
Alicia received him with delight, almost relief, and they spent a totally happy hour talking trivialities, and meaning everything else. Just to be in each other’s company was sufficient; what was said was immaterial. Augustus was forgotten; empty graves and wandering corpses did not even stray into their minds.
He left a little before luncheon, walking briskly back across the Park, coat collar turned up against the north wind, finding it exciting and sharpening rather than bitter. He saw a figure coming the other way. There was something familiar about the step, the rather lean shoulders, that made him hesitate, even consider for a moment taking a sidecut across the grass, even though it was rough and wet. But he was not even sure who the person was. It was far too tidy for Pitt, too elegant, and not quite tall enough. Pitt’s coat always flapped, and his hat sat at a different angle on his head.
It was not until he was close enough to see the face, too close courteously to go another way, that he recognized Somerset Carlisle.
“Good morning,” he said without slackening his stride. He had no wish whatever to speak with the man.
Carlisle stood in his path. “Good morning,” he said, then turned and fell in step beside him. Short of being appallingly rude, there was nothing Dominic could do but make some attempt at conversation.
“Pleasant weather,” he remarked. “At least this wind should keep the fog away.”
“Good day for a walk,” Carlisle agreed. “Gets one an appetite for luncheon.”
“Quite,” Dominic replied. Really, the man was a confounded nuisance. He seemed to have no idea when he was intruding, and Dominic had no desire to be reminded of their previous meal together.
“Nice leisurely meal by a good fire,” Carlisle went on. “I should thoroughly enjoy a soup, something savory and delicate.”
There was no way to avoid it. Dominic owed the man a meal, and obligations must be honored if one wished to remain in society. Such a gaffe would quickly be remarked, and word spread like fire.
“An excellent idea,” he said with as much heart as he could muster. “And perhaps a saddle of mutton to follow? My club is not far, and I should be delighted if you would consent to dine with me.”
Carlisle smiled broadly, and Dominic had an uncomfortable feeling he saw something funny in the affair. “Thank you,” he said easily. “I should enjoy that.”
The meal fulfilled none of Dominic’s fears, in fact it was extremely pleasant. Carlisle did not mention politics at all and proved an agreeable companion, talking neither too little nor too much. When he did speak he was cheerful, and occasionally witty.
Dominic thoroughly enjoyed it and determined to repeat it as soon as opportunity arose. He was thinking along these lines when he found himself ou
tside again, where the wind was sharper and beginning to carry a fine rain. Carlisle hailed a cab immediately, and, to Dominic’s astonishment, fifteen minutes later he was deposited in a filthy back street where precarious houses huddled together like a lot of drunken men supporting each other before the final collapse.
“Where in God’s name are we?” he demanded, alarmed and confused. The street was swarming with children, noses running, clothes dirty; women sat in areaways, hands blue with cold, presiding over rows of worn-looking shoes; and light glimmered from below-street rooms. The whole air was pervaded with a stale, sour smell he could not identify, but it clung to the back of the nose, and he seemed to swallow it with every breath. “Where are we?” he said again with mounting fury.
“Seven Dials,” Carlisle replied. “Dudley Street, to be precise. Those people are secondhand shoe sellers. Down there”—he pointed to the rooms below pavement level— “they take old shoes or stolen ones; remake them out of the bits that are worth saving, and then sell the botched-up results. In other places they do the same with clothes; unpick them and use whatever fabric is still good for a little while longer. Someone else’s remade wool is better than new cotton, which is all they could buy. No warmth in cotton.”
Dominic shivered. It was perishing out in this ghastly street, and he was white with rage at Carlisle for having brought him here.
Either Carlisle was oblivious to it, or he simply did not care.
“Call back that cab!” Dominic snarled. “You had no right to bring me here! This place is—” He was lost for words. He stared around him, appalled at it; the weight of the buildings seemed to overpower him. The squalor was everywhere, and the smell of dirt, old clothes, grime of soot and oil lamps, unwashed bodies, yesterday’s cooking. On top of the roast it was almost too much for his stomach.
“A preview of hell,” Carlisle said quietly. “Don’t speak so loudly; these people live here; this is their home. I dare say they don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s what they have. Show your disgust, and you may not get out of here as immaculately as you came in—in any sense. And this is only a foretaste; you should see Bluegate Fields down by the docks or Limehouse, Whitechapel, St. Giles. Walk with me. We’ve got about three hundred yards to go, along that way.” He pointed down a side street. “Over the square at the end of that is the local workhouse. That’s what I want you to see; this is only incidental. Then perhaps the Devil’s Acre, below Westminster?”
Dominic opened his mouth to say he wanted to leave, then saw the children’s faces gaping up at him: young bodies, young skins, and eyes as old as the roués’ he had seen with the prostitutes in the night houses of the Haymarket. It was the weary avariciousness in them that frightened him more than anything else; that and the smell.
He saw one urchin, chased by another in play, pass close to Carlisle, and, in a movement as smooth as a weasel, extract his silk handkerchief from his pocket and move on.
“Carlisle!”
“I know,” Carlisle said quietly. “Don’t make a fuss. Just follow me.” And he moved almost casually over the street, onto the pavement on the other side, then down the alleyway. At the far side of the square beyond, he stopped at the large, blind wooden door and knocked. It was opened by a stout man in a green frock coat. The sour expression on his face changed to one of alarm, but before he could speak, Carlisle stepped inside, forcing him back.
“Morning, Mr. Eades. Comes to see how you are today.”
“Well, thank you. Yes, very well, sir.” Eades said defensively. “You are too kind, sir. You pay too much attention. I’m sure your time is valuable, sir.”
“Very,” Carlisle agreed. “So don’t let us waste it. Any of your children gone to the schools since the last time I was here?”
“Oh, yes! As many as we had at the time of intake, sir, you may be sure.”
“And how many is that?”
“Ah, well now; I don’t have the precise figures to my mind; you must recall, people come and go here, as the necessity finds them. If they are not here on the day of intake, which you must know is only once a fortnight, then, naturally, they don’t go!”
“I know that as well as you do,” Carlisle said tartly. “I also know they check out the day before the intake, and back in again the day after.”
“Now, sir, that ain’t my fault!”
“I know it isn’t!” Carlisle’s voice was raw with anger at his own impotence. He strode past Eades and down the airless, dank corridor to the great hall, and Dominic was obliged to follow him or be left alone in the stone passage, his flesh standing out with cold.
The room was large and low, gaslit; one stove burned in the corner. About fifty or sixty men, women, and children sat unpicking old clothes, sorting the rags, and cutting and piecing them together again. The air was so fetid it caught in Dominic’s throat, and he had to concentrate to prevent himself from vomiting. Carlisle seemed to be used to it. He stepped over the rags and approached one of the women.
“Hello, Bessie,” he said cheerfully. “How are you today?”
The woman smiled, showing blackened teeth, and mumbled something in reply. She had a large, shambling figure, and Dominic would have judged her to be about fifty. He did not understand a word of her speech.
Carlisle led him on a few yards to where half a dozen children sat unpicking old trousers, some of them no more than three or four years old.
“Three of these are Bessie’s.” He looked at them. “They used to work at home, before putting the new railway through caused the slum clearance, and the house their room was in was demolished. Her husband and older children made match boxes at tuppence ha’ penny for a hundred and forty-four, and out of that they found their own twine and paste. Bessie herself worked in the Bryant and Mays match factory. That’s why she speaks so oddly—phossy jaw—a necrosis of the jaw caused by the phosphorus in the matches. She’s three years older than Alicia Fitzroy-Hammond—you wouldn’t think it, would you?”
It was too much. Dominic was bewildered and appalled. “I want to get out of here,” he said quietly.
“So do we all.” Carlisle embraced the room in a gesture. “Do you know third of London lives no better than this, either in the rookeries or the workhouses?”
“What can anybody do?” Dominic said helplessly. “It’s—it’s so—vast!”
Carlisle spoke to one or two more people; then he led Dominic back out into the square again, bidding Mr. Eades a tart farewell on the doorstep. After the thick air inside, even the gray drizzle seemed cleaner.
“Change some of the laws,” Carlisle replied. “The meanest ledger clerk who can write or add is a prince compared with these. Get pauper children educated and apprenticed. There’s little you can do for their parents, except charity; but we can try for the children.”
“Possibly.” Dominic had to walk sharply to keep up with him. “But what is the point in showing me? I can’t change laws!”
Carlisle stopped. He passed a few pence to a child begging and saw him immediately hand them over to an old man.
“Fancy sending your grandchild out to beg for you,” Dominic muttered.
“He’s more likely no relation.” Carlisle kept on walking. “He probably bought the child. Children make better beggars, especially if they are blind or deformed. Some women even cripple them on purpose; gives them a better chance of survival. To answer your question, you can talk to people like Lord Fleetwood and his friends, persuade them to go to the House and vote.”
Dominic was horrified. “I can’t tell them about this sort of thing! They’d—” He realized what he was saying.
“Yes,” Carlisle agreed. “They would be disgusted and offended. Most distasteful. Not the sort of subject a gentleman embarrasses others with. I think I rather spoiled your luncheon the other day. You don’t get the same pleasure out of roast goose when you think about something like this, do you? And yet how far do you think it is from Gadstone Park church pews to Seven Dials?” They turned the
corner into another street and saw a cab at the far end. Carlisle increased his pace, and Dominic had almost to trot to keep up with him. “But if I can court a cold-blooded sod like St. Jermyn,” Carlisle continued, “to get a bill introduced, I think you can manage a little discomfort with Fleetwood, can’t you?”
Dominic spent a wretched evening and woke the next morning feeling no better. He told his valet to have all his clothes cleaned, and if the smell would not come out, then to give them away to whosoever would take them. But nothing so simple would get rid of the pictures from his mind. Part of him hated Carlisle for obliging him to see things he would much rather not ever have known of. Of course, he had always appreciated in his head that there was poverty, but he had never actually seen it before, one did not really see the faces of beggars in the streets; they were simply faces, there—like lamp posts or railings. One was always about some business of one’s own and too occupied to think of them.
But worse than the sight was the taste of it in his mouth, the smell that stayed at the back of the throat and tainted everything he ate. Perhaps it was guilt?
He had arranged to take Alicia on an errand she had some little distance away, and he had taken a carriage for the occasion. He called for her at a quarter-past ten, and she was ready, waiting for him, although of course she did not allow it to be obvious, in fact, might even have imagined he did not see it. Possibly she forgot he had been married and was acquainted with at least some of women’s habits.
She was dressed in black and looked particularly fine, her hair bright and her skin flawless, with the delicacy of alabaster. Everything about her was impeccably clean. It was impossible to equate her in any way with the woman in the workhouse.
She had been talking to him, and he was not listening. “Dominic?” she said again. “Are you unwell?”
He needed to share the turmoil inside him; indeed, he could not keep his mind upon anything else. “I met your friend Carlisle yesterday,” he said harshly.
She looked surprised, surely at his tone rather than the information. “Somerset? How was he?”
Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 04] Page 12
