Beloved Poison

by E. S. Thomson

Apart from my eyes, which they say are green like my mother’s, I looked just like him – I had his coarse hair, large bony hands and square shoulders. Over time I developed his mannerisms – if I was anxious I tugged my ear as I talked; I stood straight as a reed and walked with a long stride; and in the evening I sat before the fire with my legs stretched out before me. I became tall and lean. I was without grace or beauty; I had no use for the former, and the latter was never my prerogative.

  Why did my father not marry again? Why did he not start another family to get the male heir all men want? I asked him many times. The answer, when he gave it, was always the same, though I could make no sense of it. It was because he was afraid. I should be afraid too, he said, though he would never tell me what I should fear, or why.

  Walking to the chop house on Fishbait Street I had little to say. Dr Bain too appeared preoccupied. He seemed nervous, repeatedly glancing back the way we had come as though expecting at any moment to feel a hand upon his shoulder. I saw him put his fingertips to his forehead, gingerly touching the moist cut at his hairline and its surrounding bruise. No doubt his run-in with Dr Catchpole and Dr Magorian had unsettled him. But his uneasiness was infectious, so that in the end I too turned and looked back. I stopped. Was that a shadow I could see at Dr Bain’s door: tall and black and hooded with darkness? But then the fog ebbed and billowed, and the shadows swirled – and dissolved.

  Dr Bain and I exchanged a glance. ‘Were you expecting someone?’ I said.

  He shook his head.

  We passed the wrought iron gates to the hospital, the grubby yellow glow of a candle visible through the window of the porter’s lodge. Further along, a line of ragged children were huddled together against the infirmary wall, beneath them the iron ventilation gratings of the furnace room. There were often children lying on the gratings. They slept there, wrapped up in sacks and old newspapers like bundles of rubbish. The porter tried to move them along, but they always came back again. Dr Bain knew each of them by name. He was often seen with a line of them following him down the road to the pie shop at the end of St Saviour’s Street. Dr Magorian was not so charitable. It threatened to engulf us all, he said, that tide of human misery and degradation. To leave them to die of cold and hunger would be a kindness, as the poor were so numerous that it was impossible to go anywhere without, quite literally, falling over them. Not two streets away from St Saviour’s lay the children’s neighbourhood: Prior’s Rents, a savage colony of blackened decayed tenements teeming with the most wretched examples of humanity. Their corpses filled St Saviour’s churchyard to bursting, and provided Will Quartermain with his ghastly work.

  The children’s ringleader was a lad called Joe Silks – a snitcher of handkerchiefs by trade. He had appeared amongst the ragged children about two years earlier, and, after a series of scraps and brawls, had succeeded in assuming a leadership role. ‘Dr Bain!’ Joe’s rough-edged voice cried out from amongst a mound of greyish rags as we drew close. ‘Dr Bain, there’s a man what’s lookin’ for you.’

  ‘But I’ve been in all evening, Joe,’ replied Dr Bain. ‘I didn’t hear anyone at the door.’ He rooted in his pocket and tossed a shilling towards the bundle of rags. For a moment it glittered as it spun, caught in the lamplight like a moth in the moonlight. And then a bruised and bony arm flashed out, and deftly snatched the coin from the air.

  ‘No,’ said Joe, more vocal now that he had been rewarded. ‘No one knocked on yer door. But ’e looked. Looked right in! I seed ’im with my own eyes, just lookin’.’

  ‘Who was it?’ I said.

  Joe shook his head. ‘I din’t see that,’ he said. ‘But the fog’s up, so small wonder. Night like this? P’raps it were the Abbot.’

  ‘The Abbot?’ said Will. ‘The ghostly Abbot?’ The dampness of the night must have been eating into his bones for I saw him shiver. ‘Where? When?’

  ‘Lookin’ in Dr Bain’s window, like I said,’ said Joe. A cab rattled past. The fog was lifting, and despite the darkness of the night we could now distinguish the outline of the houses on the opposite side of the road.

  ‘How did you see anyone at Dr Bain’s window when the fog was so thick?’ I said.

  ‘I were walkin’ past, weren’t I?’ said Joe. ‘I were just comin’ back from mindin’ me own business and I passes the doctor’s gaff an’ I sees ’im there. Standin’ outside, ’is face pressed almost to the glass. You ’ad the shutters open, din’t you? Don’t know ’ow you din’t see ’im yourselves.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ said Dr Bain.

  ‘Saw me watchin’ ’im and ’e scarpered. Quick as you like.’ The boy’s eyes were sharp in his dirty face. ‘Worth another shillin’, ain’t it?’

  ‘Two shillings if you saw where he went?’ I said quickly.

  ‘Easy,’ Joe grinned, and gestured up at the great dark edifice of St Saviour’s wall. ‘He went in there!’

  It was after eleven by the time we emerged from the chop house. A plate of lamb cutlets and a few glasses of ale had restored Dr Bain’s mood, and he winked at me and clapped his hands. ‘Well, Jem,’ he said. ‘Fancy a little trip to Wicke Street? And how about you, Quartermain? Are you up for some entertainments? There are a few hours still left of the night.’

  I had made my excuses so often, but tonight Dr Bain was not prepared to accept my refusal. ‘If it’s money you’re worried about then don’t. Don’t worry. Tonight, it would be my pleasure to pay for your pleasure.’ He clapped an arm about my shoulders. ‘Come along now, gentlemen. Quick march!’

  And that’s how I found myself walking down Wicke Street arm in arm with Dr Bain and Will Quartermain. I had been to Mrs Roseplucker’s with Dr Bain on a few occasions, though I did my best to avoid it. There were many such places nearer the hospital, but for some reason – familiarity, economy – this one was Dr Bain’s favourite.

  ‘Are you not tempted to look for a wife, Dr Bain?’ said Will as we marched brothelwards through the thinning fog. I was surprised by his familiarity, but the ale and the darkness, and perhaps our destination, lent our little group an unexpected intimacy. ‘A man of your age and profession usually is.’

  ‘Are you not tempted, Mr Quartermain?’

  ‘I’m only twenty-five,’ said Will. ‘I have plenty of time yet.’

  ‘Whereas I am forty-five, and feel every day of it in my bones.’ Dr Bain sighed. ‘Yes, sometimes I do think it might be time to settle down. Besides, Mrs Roseplucker has put her prices up, and I fear Mrs Catchpole may be developing expectations.’ He smiled. ‘And Eliza Magorian would be worth the sacrifice, don’t you think?’

  ‘Her father would never allow you near her,’ I said. ‘Not now. Have you forgotten already? Besides,’ I added, ‘you might have the pox.’

  Mrs Roseplucker’s house was at the top of Wicke Street. It was a tall town house, built during the Regency and plastered in a scabrous layer of peeling white stucco. A lamp burned in a downstairs window but the rest of the place was engulfed in smoggy darkness. At the far end of the street I could make out the shape of a stationary hansom, but, despite the usual popularity of the establishment, other than that there was no one about. Gentlemen customers came in through the front door, but were let out at the back, so that there was little chance of them meeting one another.

  The door was opened by Mr Jobber, a gross, silent man with flabby cheeks, who rarely stepped out of the shadows long enough for one to appreciate anything more about him than his air of menace and his gigantic size. He sat in a curtained cubby-hole little bigger than his own dimensions, located behind the door. His purpose was to let men in, to ensure there was no trouble upstairs, and to make sure they left quickly via the back entrance once they had done what they came to Wicke Street to do. And no one ever argued about payment when Mr Jobber could be heard breathing in the shadows.

  ‘Good evening, sir!’ cried Dr Bain. He stepped swiftly past the vast bulk of Mr Jobber’s greasy waistcoat, and strode down the hall into the parlour. Will seized my
arm in the gloom.

  ‘I have never been to a . . . a brothel,’ he hissed. ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘You’re a man, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something.’

  ‘But what about you? What in heaven’s name do you do here?’ He looked at me strangely. I could see that he was still a little drunk. All at once I was certain that he knew who and what I was. He knew! How could he?

  ‘What’s it to you?’ I snapped. ‘I do as I please, just like any other man.’

  ‘Of course,’ stammered Will. ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Come along,’ I said. Then I saw his face. He looked almost tearful. I knew I had looked the same on my first visit to such a place. But we were here now, and were both obliged to disport ourselves as best we could. ‘Since you ask,’ I muttered, ‘I don’t especially want to be here either.’

  Will followed me into the parlour. Before us, sitting by the fire in a straight-backed chair, was Mrs Roseplucker. She was reading a greasy, well-thumbed copy of Crimes of Old London, and appeared not to have noticed our arrival, though I knew from experience that very little escaped her notice. She was well over fifty years old but she was powdered and rouged like a Regency courtesan. Her dress was a brazen crimson monstrosity, ragged with torn lace and blotched here and there with sinister dark stains. Her head was crowned with a giant wig of dark frizzy curls, upon which her widow’s cap was jauntily perched, like a crow caught in a thicket. The creases in her face had caught her powder in floury drifts and the vermilion grease she applied to her lips had leeched into the surrounding wrinkles, so that her mouth looked as though it had been darned onto her face with coarse red wool. The room was lighted by dim yellow lamps, the walls painted a visceral plum colour and hung with crude paintings depicting scenes of elaborate congress. The place was boiling hot – perhaps as an incentive to go somewhere else and remove one’s clothes – the atmosphere musty and sweetish. I recognised the reek of opium – along with some other things: cardamom and cloves, and an underlying whiff of camphor, against the moths.

  There were two girls lolling on chairs, one dark, one red-haired. Their dresses were low on their shoulders, as though the merest yank at the hem would cause the flimsy garments to slip to the ground. They stood up as we walked in, and I watched them in the mirror over the fireplace as they dragged the smiles onto their faces.

  Dr Bain greeted Mrs Roseplucker cordially enough. She knew his requirements by now, even if she pretended not to know his name. ‘Any of the girls available, Mrs Roseplucker?’ he said.

  Mrs Roseplucker indicated the two young trollops. ‘New girls, sir. Virgins.’

  Dr Bain smiled. ‘They will be perfect for my companions. But where’s Lily? I would like Lily tonight.’

  Mrs Roseplucker nodded. She reached out and tugged on a bell-pull. Then she turned to me, her loose-rimmed eyes taking in my stony expression, my dusty clothes and red mask, and her smile vanished. She remembered me, I could tell. How could she forget?

  I stared closely at the two girls. Neither of them displayed any obvious signs of disease, though what might lie beneath their skirts was another matter. I already knew about Mrs Roseplucker – the fix of her eye, the gentle rhythmic nodding of her head from the flaccid heart valves of advanced syphilis. ‘The madam has the pox,’ I had whispered in alarm to Dr Bain the first time he brought me to the place. ‘Did you notice?’

  ‘I’m not interested in the madam,’ he had replied. ‘I’d no more have her than I would Dr Graves.’ He laughed. ‘But what’s life without a little risk?’

  Now, one of the ‘virgins’ approached me. ‘Would you like to come through?’ She smiled, revealing crooked teeth. She must have been no more than sixteen years old and although her mouth was painted and her cheeks were rouged it was clear that she was tired out. Dark circles were visible beneath her eyes, even under her white make-up. She put up a hand to tweak her curls. Her fingers bore calluses – old ones, gradually softening, but calluses nonetheless. She had been a seamstress once, perhaps not all that long ago. I turned to speak to Dr Bain, but he had paid Mrs Roseplucker, and was being led towards the stairs by a tall blonde girl who had been summoned by the bell.

  Beside me, Will was sitting stock still, his stove-pipe hat on his knees, his eyes fixed fearfully on the carpet in front of him. The red-haired virgin came over to sit beside him. I caught a whiff of sweat and, beneath the scent of cologne that still clung to her from the previous customer, something more briny and visceral. I saw Will’s nostrils flare as he smelled it too. He squeezed his eyes shut, and I saw his knuckles turn white as he gripped the rim of his hat. Perhaps, by the time I saw him next, he would have torn it clean off.

  ‘Never mind ’im,’ whispered the ex-seamstress. ‘Annie’ll look after ’im.’ She took my hand and led me to the stairs.

  Outside, the fog had closed in on us once more. The window of the girl’s room was loose and I was sure the air within had a brownish tinge to it, as though the fog had somehow managed to gain ingress. I stood for a while, the dusty crimson curtains drawn back, looking out at the night. Sometimes I could distinguish a lamp, a dim beacon in a great grey-brown ocean, sometimes I could make out nothing. It was as though we were lost inside some gigantic liquid organism.

  ‘I hope you clean yourself out afterwards,’ I said without turning round. ‘Between customers, I mean.’

  ‘Course.’ She sounded bored. She probably was.

  ‘What do you use?’

  ‘Soap an’ water.’

  I shook my head. ‘That’s not enough.’ I pulled a scrap of paper from my pocket and a stub of pencil. ‘Can you read?’

  ‘More or less.’ She lay down on the bed, her head propped on her hand. She saw my gaze drift down to where her breasts bulged above the rim of her corset and she ran her fingers across the white skin of her décolletage. I could not help but follow the gesture with my eyes. With a quick movement, she pulled out both her breasts. She was slim and dark-haired, like Eliza, her breasts small and pointed. All at once my breathing felt shallow, constrained. What would happen if I touched her? What if I ran my fingers across her soft, warm flesh, took her nipple in my mouth or buried my face, my ugly blighted face and my loneliness, between her thighs? Would she laugh? Would she push me away? She would do anything I asked, I knew, for Dr Bain had paid Mrs Roseplucker well. All at once the atmosphere in that small dark room seemed to be made up of nothing but the panted breath of a hundred fucking men. Was I no better? I closed my eyes. ‘You wantin’ somethin’ or not?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘But thank you.’ I handed her the piece of paper, upon which I had written the following words:

  2pt hot water

  Half pt vinegar

  Tablespoon each of:

  Peppermint

  Comfrey

  Camomile

  Wintergreen

  Sage

  Pennyroyal

  ‘Make it up, as if it were tea,’ I said.

  ‘I drink it?’ She looked appalled.

  ‘You clean out your cunny with it,’ I said. ‘It’ll wash everything away, and soothe the skin. You’ve got something to use, I suppose. A rag, or a sponge or something?’

  I was surprised to see her blush. ‘Yes. Mrs Roseplucker makes us plunge. She wants a clean house.’

  ‘Mm,’ I said. I snatched back the paper and scribbled a few more words onto the list. ‘I can give you some wild carrot seeds too.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To eat. You don’t want a child, do you?’

  A smile ticked at the corners of her mouth. ‘Carrots don’t stop babies.’ She spoke slowly, as if talking to an idiot.

  ‘Not carrots,’ I said irritably. ‘Wild carrot seeds. They can prevent conception. I’m assuming you’d rather not ply your trade with a baby at your breast?’

  She held up her hands and gestured about her at the lurid wallpaper, the ghastly prints – copies of those downstairs in the parlour – the greasy
-looking bed sagging in the centre of the room like a foundering ship. Her smile had vanished. ‘Bring a child into this? No, sir. Not ever.’

  ‘Well then. I’ll give you the seeds, and you must chew them well. You must make up the rest of the ingredients into a wash and keep it beneath your bed. Use it after every man.’

  ‘An’ how much will all this cost?’ she said. ‘Mrs Roseplucker ain’t that gen’rous. Got to pay for the room an’ the sheets bein’ washed and keep myself nice for me gentlemen.’

  ‘Well, you won’t be making Mrs Roseplucker any money at all if your face is eaten away with the pox,’ I said. ‘Come to the apothecary, St Saviour’s Apothecary, and I’ll give you the stuff myself.’ I wondered what my father would say if he found that I was inviting prostitutes to the place and handing out prophylactics for free. I sighed. Why was I bothering? There were so many of them, Mrs Magorian never tired of telling me, so many girls who had ‘fallen’. It was a hopeless situation.

  ‘Is there no other work you could do?’ I said gently. I knew the answer already.

  ‘What? Like bein’ stuck in a fact’ry, or spending all day workin’ me fingers raw stitchin’ up gowns for rich ladies?’ She snorted. ‘There’s not much leisure in that, and less money too.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said. The girls in the foul ward said the same, even as they spat a tooth, and a mouthful of blackened saliva, into the ward privy. What choice did they have? Virtue was a useless ideal, and those who espoused it would never be obliged to trade theirs in.

  The girl grinned up at me. How young she was. Little more than a child, really. ‘You’re nice,’ she said. ‘You’re not like most of ’em. But you’re almost out o’ time. D’you want a go? Take it slow, like. No extra charge.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No?’ she looked surprised. ‘But you must want somethin’.’ And then, almost to herself: ‘They always want somethin’.’ She frowned, as though suddenly afraid she was being gulled into trustfulness prior to some monstrous violation. ‘Who are you anyway?’ she cried, rearing up before me on the bed.