Birdcage Walk

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Three months. He was born in September.’

  ‘He’s a fine child, and looks like to live,’ she said. Her voice was harsh, and deeper than her small frame suggested. I untied the shawl and laid Thomas down on the sofa she must have put there for ladies to sit on while they made their orders. He was fast asleep. Mrs Iles sank down beside him.

  ‘Will you show me the dress?’ I asked, but she was bent over Thomas and did not hear me. I asked again and this time she turned.

  ‘It is packed away in paper. If you will wait …’ She hesitated and I saw that she was not quite sure of me now. When she saw me with Diner, she had thought me a lady. She was doubtful now. It was her business to know to a halfpenny what Philo’s shawl was worth. I held out my hand, with Diner’s ring on it, so that she would see it and be reassured. Instead she stared as if transfixed.

  ‘You understand that I am Mr Tredevant’s wife.’

  Her mouth opened. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. I’ve been paid. I don’t want any money. You can take the dress now.’

  She hurried to the cupboard and fetched out a parcel. ‘You will want to see it,’ she babbled. ‘You’ve not been cheated. I can account for every yard of the silk.’ She was unpacking it, shaking out the folds. The grey silk rushed to the floor and spread out in the shape of a woman.

  I stood up. The dress was as tall as I was and the silk rippled as it might ripple when its wearer walked in it. The grey was very light, almost silvery in colour.

  ‘With her colouring, being so fair …’

  This dress had been fitted on Lucie. She had been in this room. Mrs Iles had seen her, touched her, measured her, spoken to her. If I asked Mrs Iles about how Lucie looked or walked or talked, she would be able to answer; but how could I ask? I was afraid of the answers. Fair meant light-skinned and light-haired, but it also meant, perhaps, that Lucie was beautiful. If only Diner would speak of her, but he never did.

  … being so fair.

  Suddenly I understood that Mrs Iles had stared at my ring because she recognised it. Lucie must have worn it. No, more than that: it had been Lucie’s ring, before it was mine. My heart beat hard but I did not know what I thought or felt. Lucie had gone to France and left her ring behind; and yet it had been given to her by Diner. Perhaps they had quarrelled. Perhaps she’d had no intention of returning.

  No, I thought, you are inventing what suits you. More likely, Lucie would not wear a valuable ring on a long journey and she had left it at home for safe-keeping.

  Mrs Iles lifted the dress higher. Bobbing her head ingratiatingly, she approached me with it. Before I could stop her she had held it against me.

  ‘You are almost the same size. An inch or so taller perhaps. I never forget a measurement. It can be altered for you within a day.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I am not going to wear it.’ I drew back, as if she might sew me into it before I could stop her. But she took no notice of my refusal.

  ‘A tuck here and there. Your arms are longer than hers. I can let it out, or inset a lace cuff …’ Her fingers were coming after me, prodding me as she measured me by touch. I pulled myself free.

  ‘It was a mistake. I should not have come here. Dispose of the dress in any way you choose.’

  Mrs Iles stepped back, clucking sorrowfully. She gathered the dress back into her own arms and stroked the silk as if it had been a child’s head. ‘Such beautiful stuff,’ she said. ‘Such a cruel waste.’

  ‘You can sell it, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll fetch you the bill.’ She laid the dress over her work table and scrabbled in a drawer. There it was, signed and dated, marked as paid. A second piece of paper fell to the floor and Mrs Iles scooped it up. ‘Ah dear! The note she sent me. She wanted to know when it would be finished. She had an engagement and wanted to wear it – but I told her I was going as fast as I could, with all the work I had on hand. And then I heard no more.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  She did not respond, so I reached out and took it. The writing was fast and flowing. ‘I hope not retard with the dress I need by the Friday next if you please. Lucie Tredevant.’

  ‘So she paid you before it was delivered.’

  ‘She paid for the dress when she was measured. She wanted it so.’

  Strange creature, I thought. If she was so eager to have her dress, did she not realise that Mrs Iles might work more quickly if she had not already received her money?

  ‘The dress was ready for her by the Wednesday. I would have sent it round but I had no direction for her. I expected her all that day and the next but she never came.’

  Whatever the engagement was, Lucie had not kept it, but had gone to France instead. It began to look more and more as if there had been a quarrel. I was not merely imagining what I wanted to imagine. Lucie had gone away in haste and perhaps in anger. It was possible that she had not meant to return.

  ‘I will keep the note,’ I said. ‘And the bill. Dispose of the dress.’

  I pushed it away, to make myself clear, and she began to fold it again. I watched her fingers touch the silk tenderly and I thought: She won’t sell it. She will put it back in the drawer and keep it.

  ‘It is quite certain that she is dead?’ asked Mrs Iles in the same loud, flat voice, as if she were asking about a bill.

  ‘Good God! What do you think I am? She has been dead these three years and more.’ I snatched up Thomas and wrapped him into the shawl again.

  ‘I meant no offence,’ said Mrs Iles. Her voice ruminated. ‘I’ve known women do many things, but I’ll never understand why she didn’t come to fetch her dress. This is Spitalfields silk. But never a word nor a note. If she was going on such a journey, why, it was only a step out of her way to call in. I am always here. She was a milliner, you know, back in France. She chose this pattern out of a book she’d borrowed. It was a pleasure to deal with her.’

  ‘The silk must have been very expensive.’

  ‘She had it as a present.’

  Diner would have given it to her, I thought. That silvery waterfall of Spitalfields silk: God knows what it would have cost. It drew me. I could not leave without touching it. I put out a finger and stroked the silk. Mrs Iles stood back and watched me with her hands folded meekly in front of her.

  It sent a shiver through my flesh. How soft it was. The sheen was like the bloom on grapes, which might be rubbed away by careless handling. Lucie had touched it too, like this. She had thought of how she would wear it and be beautiful in it. We were not alike, because I would never wear such a dress. For the first time I felt no jealousy towards her. This was her dress, shaped to her body, and she had never worn it. She had died instead and had been put away six feet deep in the French soil. She was rotted and her shroud was a rag.

  Thomas stirred against me. His mouth opened and then his eyes. He was hungry and he would cry all the way home if I did not hurry. He was lusty and impatient too, with no idea of waiting for anything. I could not help smiling, in spite of myself. Before Thomas, I had never realised how peremptory a baby would be or how strongly the current of life flowed in its small body. It swept everything else aside.

  ‘A fine child,’ said Mrs Iles. ‘You are fortunate.’

  ‘He is not mine. He is my brother.’

  ‘Very fortunate. A child is a great blessing. She would have found it so.’

  The woman was either deaf or pretending to be so. ‘He is not mine!’ I repeated, and the words came out too loud.

  ‘I asked if she had children. She said not yet, but she had hopes. You are thinner than she. See where the ring slips on you.’

  I twisted my ring back so the stone caught the light. It would always work its way towards my palm. Diner said he would have it altered for me but I did not want to part with it. Mrs Iles had noticed everything: it was her profession. She would easily read the swelling of breasts or belly. She would know so much that I did not dare to ask her. I thought of Lucie standing in the light
with the dress flowing down her, and I turned my thoughts away.

  ‘Sell the dress,’ I said, and turned to the door.

  16

  I almost walked by without recognising him. There was nothing of him to be seen under a broad-brimmed hat and a long, heavy coat with its collar turned up. But the familiarity of the hat caught my attention. I knew it, surely. I turned, and the man turned too, looking back at me.

  Of course. It was Will Forrest, hidden under Augustus’s hat. And wearing Augustus’s coat too, the one in which he tramped the length and breadth of England even when there was snow on the ground. What would he do without his coat? The thought of it made me feel an odd pang of tenderness for Augustus. He would be like a snail without its shell.

  Mr Forrest looked at me, did not know me, looked again. I’d forgotten that I was also disguised, in Philo’s shawl. I pulled back a fold so that he saw my face, and asked, ‘Why are you out in the street? You should not take such a risk.’

  ‘A man cannot stay indoors like a caged parrot.’

  There were his eyes, full of light and humour.

  ‘There will be nothing to smile about if you are caught,’ I said, thinking of Hannah and Augustus and what might come to them if Mr Forrest were traced to their lodgings.

  ‘I shan’t be caught. I shall walk up to the Downs, take the air, smoke my pipe, and all anyone will see is a perambulating chimney. I am scarcely a man at all. Perhaps you will accompany me?’

  ‘Does Augustus know you are out?’

  ‘He was not at home himself. Fortunately he left his coat behind: he said the day was too mild for him to wear it. It houses me completely. I may as well be indoors, for all that can be seen of me.’

  It was true that there was no trace of his red hair and under the hat his skin might have been dark or pale.

  ‘You should keep your collar turned up,’ I said. ‘I thought that you would be in the Highlands by now.’ I was already falling into step beside him. As I did so I pulled the shawl forward around my face again. Thomas squawked. For a moment I had forgotten his hunger. ‘Oh no, he is crying. I cannot come with you.’

  ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘A baby. What did you think?’

  ‘A cat, perhaps. I’ve known girls to be very fond of cats.’

  ‘But not to the extent of walking in the streets with a cat in a shawl. I must go. He is about to scream.’

  He peered at me. ‘I can see nothing. Are you certain it is a baby you have there? Is it yours?’

  I could scarcely feed Thomas fast enough when I got home. I was making the pap thicker now, on Mr Orchard’s instructions, and between mouthfuls I offered him sips of warm milk from his own cup. Philo knelt on the floor beside me. The baby’s greed made her laugh and she rocked on her heels like the child she was. She liked nothing better than to watch Thomas with his pap.

  ‘You going give your Philo a little smiley, bab? No, you thinks of nought but your stomach till ’tis cram-full. I never seen such a greedy-guts. Look at you there, mambling like a pig in clover.’ She pinched his cheek and he kicked in ecstasy as the spoon came to his lips. ‘Shall I mix some more?’

  ‘You’d better. But is it good for him to eat so much, Philo?’

  ‘Course it is.’

  She couldn’t wait to get her hands on him again. ‘I’ll change him,’ she said when the baby’s appetite was sated. She stripped off his clothes and kissed his thighs, his knees, his feet, caring nothing for the sour ammoniac smell that came from his napkin. ‘I could eat you up, I could.’

  ‘Philo … can I leave him with you, just for an hour or so?’

  ‘Course you can! Me’n Thomas’ll make the bread, won’t we, bab? I prop him up, see, in that chair, and he watches me.’

  ‘Mind he doesn’t slip down. He rolled right over this morning.’

  ‘You won’t slip down, will you, not the way your Philo’ll cuddy you up. You’ll be good as gold till that bread’s in the oven and my floor’s scrubbed. Then we’ll have us a little kick on the bed, shall us? Shall us?’

  Her sharp little face was soft as she heaved him up into her arms. She was still scrawny, Philo, although she had enough to eat now. It couldn’t make up for what she’d missed. Mammie used to say that from the look of her Philo must have been half starved in her infancy. Her teeth were bad and she’d had two pulled since she’d been with me. Often her face swelled up with the toothache, and an east wind made her cry when the pain was bad.

  ‘You need a new shawl, Philo. There is not enough warmth in this one for winter.’

  She glanced up at me. I thought I would never forget that look: sceptical, pitying, because I talked of things that neither I nor anyone else would change.

  ‘I’ll buy you another,’ I said. ‘There are three cold months still to come.’

  She turned away, saying nothing. I saw that she did not really believe me. I ought to have said nothing until I had the shawl in my hand ready to give her. I would buy her one second-hand that had no holes in it and would be thicker and better than what she had.

  ‘Make sure you don’t lay him down flat after all that food,’ I said instead, but she still pretended not to hear. She was vain enough in her way, Philo. She thought she knew better than anyone when it came to Thomas. But I could trust her. She would lug Thomas about for hours sooner than let his stomach gripe him. ‘I’m off now,’ I said. ‘I shan’t be long.’

  I don’t know what Philo thought of me going out a second time with her shawl over my head. She was very quick. I’d asked her to call me Lizzie when we were alone together, but she never once made the mistake of calling me so before Diner. If Diner came home early and asked where I was she would say, ‘Miz Tre’vant’s gone up Miz Rougemont’s,’ in a way that made him complain that she was an imbecile.

  I wore my stout boots. Pattens were all very well for the paved streets, but I was going over the fields. It was mizzling and although it was only two o’clock the light was already fading. The wind had changed, blowing colder as I hurried on to the Downs. Very likely he had turned already and gone home, I told myself, but I did not believe it. He was a poet. If the wind howled and the rain drenched him, so much the better. He could scarcely hope for a thunderstorm at this time of the year, but he would go to the highest point where he might gaze outwards at the weather blowing in from the west against the chasm of the Gorge. He would want to see everything. He would watch the boats beating their way upriver, and the white posts that glimmered through the dusk, marking the towpath far below. He might catch sight of a peregrine folding its wings for a dive. He would stand and face the immensity of dark, leafless forest opposite. I followed the footpath, climbing swiftly as the rain blew in my face.

  I had not been mistaken. He stood with his back to me and did not hear me as I approached across the grass. A sheep ran away, baaing; he still did not turn. I came so close that I could see how the heavy wool of Augustus’s coat was beaded all over with drops of rain. I smelled tobacco smoke. He was indeed as black and straight as a chimney and quite unrecognisable. I slowed my steps, wondering how long he had been standing there and what his thoughts were. Perhaps he was composing. I ought not to disturb him.

  I moved into his sightline without speaking. Philo’s shawl was rain-wet and its colours darkened. He might not even know me. I went to the wooden railing that looked over the Gorge, and stared down on the drifts of rain that shuddered as the wind took them. I thought I could smell the sea, far off as it was. I leaned forward and peered to my right, where Wales lay.

  A hand came on my shoulder and grasped it tight. I swung round.

  ‘It’s you again,’ he said. ‘I thought it was. But for a moment I doubted myself. I feared that you were a girl in trouble, come to cast herself away. That shawl is a very common pattern.’

  ‘I am only looking at the rain.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quickly. ‘It is beautiful. And yet there is no one besides ourselves to admire it. People think a great dea
l of sunsets and sunrises, but this is what I like better: a winter’s day, all the tints suppressed, wind and sky and rain. Your shawl is all over raindrops: aren’t you cold?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘And here I am so handsomely set up inside your stepfather’s coat. Perhaps we should make an exchange.’

  ‘Philo’s shawl would not cover you.’

  ‘Who is Philo?’

  ‘The servant girl.’

  ‘Who does she love?’

  ‘No one, I hope, apart from baby Thomas.’

  ‘Because philo, you know, is Greek for love. Philo-anthropia – φιλανθρωπια – philanthropy: love of humanity. Anthropos, you know, does not indicate the male sex.’

  ‘I have never learned Greek, Mr Forrest.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. I am a fool. I like to talk about words.’

  ‘So do most of the people I know.’

  ‘But not you?’

  ‘No. Most of the time I would rather scrub a floor.’

  ‘But you do not do so, I think. I am told that you are married to a man who makes his fortune from speculative building.’

  ‘There are no fortunes to be made nowadays. Philo and I do all the work of the house.’

  He took hold of my hand, as he had done before, and scrutinised it, turning it over. I saw how red my knuckles were. There was a brown, healing burn on the back of my hand.

  ‘I divine that you are telling the truth,’ he said. ‘A few days in gloves, an application of white lead and vinegar and all these marks will be gone.’

  ‘And then where will be your powers of divination?’ I asked him.

  He swung out his arm and hurled his pipe over the edge of the gorge. We watched it turn and tumble until it disappeared.

  ‘I am glad I came out,’ he said. ‘I have smoked myself back into my senses. I wonder why it is that women do not smoke?’

  ‘They do in the rookeries of St Giles.’

  ‘What do you know about St Giles?’