Rack & Ruin

by Carol Hedges

  “If you would care to walk in Miss …, I shall go and find out if she is receiving visitors today. The family has recently suffered a bereavement, as you see.”

  Daisy proffers her card.

  “I did not know. But we are old acquaintances from boarding school, so I am sure she would want to see me and I her. Please take my card to her at once.”

  A few minutes later, Daisy is shown into the small sitting room where Letitia, wearing full mourning, immediately rises from the sofa.

  “Oh Daisy, how good of you to call,” she says.

  Daisy tries not to look shocked. This Letitia does not resemble the bright girl of their shared past. This Letitia is thin, and white-faced. Her hair looks unwashed and her black dress only accentuates her pallor.

  She holds out both hands.

  “Tishy - it is so good to see you too,” she says warmly.

  The woman hovers by the door.

  Daisy unties her bonnet, and shrugs off her mantle.

  “Thank you,” she says, handing them over.

  Clearly offended by being taken for a servant, the woman stares at her, but receives the bonnet and mantle and goes to hang them up in the hallway. As soon as she has left the room, Letitia darts over to the door and turns the key. Then she draws Daisy onto the sofa next to her.

  “I must speak low: she will be listening to our conversation,” she murmurs.

  Daisy stares at her in astonishment.

  “What is going on? Who is that woman?”

  “Mama is dead. And Papa has invited Mrs Briscoe to be my companion and help me to look after the boys. That is who she is.”

  Daisy frowns.

  “Invited? She is not a servant, then?”

  Letitia bites her lip.

  “She is a good friend of the family - at least that is what I have been told. But I never heard Mama mention her, nor has she ever left her card. And the boys say they have never seen her before.

  “I do not dare name what I suspect she is. Oh Daisy - it is so disgraceful. I think she and Papa ... are ... I cannot utter it.”

  “Mrs Archer’s Downfall?” Daisy says, naming a certain sensation novel that was passed clandestinely around the older girls at boarding school. The story was of a man who murdered his sickly wife and then moved his mistress into the family home.

  Letitia nods, looking down at her clasped hands.

  “In a way. Though Mama died in her own bed from weakness of the heart - which I may have contributed to,” she sighs.

  Seeing Daisy’s shocked expression, she tells the story of the boys’ escapade, and the events that followed on after. The words come spilling out, followed by hot tears.

  “But you were not to know she was dying,” Daisy says stoutly. “She had been ill for such a long time; how could it be your fault?”

  “Papa says that had her heart not been weakened further by the shock, she might have lived longer. And had I not neglected my duty, she might not have died alone and unattended.”

  “And is your Papa a medical man?”

  Letitia shakes her head.

  “Well, my Papa is, so I shall ask him for his opinion tonight,” Daisy says. She gestures towards the door. “But why all the secrecy?”

  “Oh Daisy, you have no idea what my life has become. I have barely left the house since Mama died and if I go anywhere, that woman accompanies me because it is not suitable for a young woman, especially a young woman in mourning, to gad about on her own, she says.”

  “Well, I gad about frequently on my own and I have come to no harm. This is 1863, not the Dark Ages.”

  “How very modern you have become,” Letitia says, the pale ghost of a smile hovering around the corners of her mouth.

  “Oh Tishy, I am so sorry about your Mama. I wish you had written,” Daisy says, pulling a face. “And now I feel bad, for I came to tell you all about my first ball.”

  “I should like nothing more than to hear about it. It would cheer me up immensely and I need cheering up.”

  Daisy looks at her, head on one side.

  “Then I shall tell you. But first, let us devise a plan to get you out of the house.”

  “It cannot be done.”

  “It can be done and it will, and this is how we shall do it: I’ll tell your gaoler that I am taking you for a carriage ride. She can hardly object to that, for you will be accompanied by me every minute. On the way, we’ll stop and have something nice to eat and we will have a really good long chat. What do you say?”

  “I say what a truly excellent plan.”

  “Then let us execute it at once.”

  Daisy rises, holding out her hand for the key. Putting a finger to her lips, she softly tiptoes to the door, unlocks it and flings it open. Red-faced, Mrs Briscoe starts back, her guilty expression revealing all too clearly what she has been up to.

  “Please fetch my bonnet at once. Also, Miss Simpkins’ bonnet if you wouldn’t mind. I am taking her out in my carriage,” Daisy says in a very lordly manner.

  It is clear that Mrs Briscoe minds. Minds very much, but there is nothing she can do. Bonneted and shawled, Letitia sails out of the front door on Daisy’s arm and is helped up into the phaeton. The groom whips up the horses and off they go.

  Just as they reach the corner, Letitia glances briefly round. Mrs Briscoe is standing in the doorway, her face contorted into a mask of fury. She is shaking her fist at the departing carriage.

  ****

  Faces, contorted or not, are also the hot topic of conversation at Bow Street police office. Two faces in particular - and they are currently staring out at Inspector Greig from the front page of the The Inquirer under a banner headline that reads:

  Archbishop’s Son in Brutal Attack! Scarface Man Hunted by Bow Street Police Officers!

  Beneath these uncompromising words is an artist's impression of the scene, which seems to have taken place outside a cathedral. The engineer, in vaguely clerical garb, is lying on the ground ‘weltering in his own gore’ (quote).

  Above him looms a ferociously grimacing man with flowing hair, wildly staring eyes and a scar running the length of his face. He brandishes a knife and is snarling: ‘Give me all your possessions at once!’ (quote).

  When Greig arrived for work earlier in the day, both the outer office and waiting room were packed with the usual members of Crimestoppers Unanimous, all eager to claim that they recognised the scarfaced man, and knew where he lived.

  There were also several men with scarred faces, equally eager to insist that they were not involved in the fracas in any way whatsoever and had alibis and witnesses aplenty to prove it.

  It is turning out to be another frustrating day, most of which Greig is spending in his office gently fuming. The question foremost in his mind is how, exactly, did the penny-a-line hacks that call themselves journalists get hold of the story in the first place?

  The only people who knew the identity of the engineer were the surgeon (unlikely to talk to the press), the engineer (not in any fit state to talk to the press), himself and young Hacket and he knows that he didn’t speak to any member of the fourth estate.

  Having eliminated three possible suspects, he has just sent a constable to find Sergeant Hacket, who is currently dealing with something somewhere else.

  In the meantime, the list of people to be questioned and people not to be questioned (‘coz they weren’t there, were they?’) is growing exponentially. All of which means endless paperwork, with his officers being tied up in pointless interviews and following up tenuous lines of inquiry when they should be out on the street tracking down the real scarfaced man and his baby-murdering friends.

  By the time Sergeant Hacket returns to Bow Street the lunchtime edition of The Inquirer will appear, in which the story has become embellished by a lurid description of the actual injuries inflicted (with graphic diagrams) and the revelation that the victim is currently at death’s door.

  Eventually a rather sheepish Sergeant Hacket slides into Greig’s roo
m. Stern faced and unsmiling, Greig points him to a chair.

  “Sit yourself down, Ben. Now then, can you throw any light on this?” he asks, handing the sergeant The Inquirer’s front page.

  “I didn’t know he was a journalist, sir.”

  There is an ominous pause.

  “Go on …”

  “I was in the Bunch of Grapes with ... er ... a young lady.”

  Greig raises an eyebrow.

  “Drinking on duty?”

  “No sir. It was strictly out of work hours. Anyway, we were in a private booth and I was telling her about my work and then a man asked if he could join us. He bought a round of drinks and, well, one thing kind of led to another ... I’m so sorry,” the young man tails off awkwardly.

  “You had too much to drink and blabbed about the investigation, is that correct?”

  Sergeant Hacket is turning his helmet round between his hands so fast it is a wonder it doesn’t take off.

  “Tell me, do you always drink in that public house?”

  “Oh yes sir, a lot of the officers from local police stations do. It’s a well-known place to meet up.”

  “And members of the gutter press would also know that?”

  “I suppose they might.”

  “Clearly they do. Can you recall anything else you might have said in your cups? Did you name the Halls at any time, do you think?”

  Ben Hacket shakes his head.

  “Well, that’s one mercy, I suppose.”

  “It won’t happen again sir, I promise.”

  Greig allows the silence to continue slightly beyond the comfort zone.

  “Right. Well I hope you’ve learned a very useful lesson. If not, then I’m afraid you are of very little use to me in this case, and to the force in general.”

  Hacket pulls a wry mouth.

  “May I suggest that you choose your drinking place with a little more circumspection from now on. And never - I repeat, never speak of anything that happens between these four walls to anybody out there. Your girl, your brother officers, don’t even tell the neighbourhood cat. Because you just don’t know who might be listening.”

  “No sir.”

  “Get out.”

  Hacket goes.

  Greig writes himself a note to call in on a few other police offices and have a word in private with their superintendents. He has sometimes wondered where members of the press picked up their information about police business. Now he knows of one source. It will need to be plugged quickly.

  He acknowledges that the young sergeant never intended to do any harm. Nevertheless, his foolish actions might inadvertently be the cause of harm to others and he cannot allow that to happen.

  Greig sighs and stares into the middle distance. Ever since he started investigating the child murders, he knows he is shouldering his way through the ghosts of the past. Though they do not follow him, he senses their eyes on his back.

  ****

  Unaware that he is weltering in gore and at death’s door, the engineer is being transported to his place of convalescence. Heavily sedated, he knows no more than that he is being jolted about, and there is a lot of street noise in the background.

  He wakes to a cool breeze and soft sheets. A white capped and aproned figure is sitting by his bed. For a moment, he is totally confused. The figure speaks,

  “Glad to see you have opened your eyes, sir. Mr Lawton says you are to take this tincture upon waking.”

  The tip of a spoon is placed against his lower lip. Obediently, he opens his mouth and swallows the reddish-brown liquid. The taste reminds him of incense and for a moment he wonders if he is back in his father’s church. Then he feels his head growing heavy, the room filling with clouds ....

  Downstairs, Mrs Lawton is reading the cook the diet sheet that has accompanied the patient. Beef tea and milk puddings seem to feature. She has had the patient’s situation carefully explained to her and she has been shown his father’s missive.

  Even so, she hopes he will be back on his feet soon. Back on his feet and back in his own lodgings. It is the Season, after all. She and Daisy are hosting a five o’clock tea party tomorrow and as soon as that young lady reappears, they must start organising the food.

  The presence of an injured young man - even though she has been reassured that he does not bring any contagion with him, is inconvenient to say the least.

  Still, she reassures herself, as long as the nurse uses the back stairs, so that guests do not realise there is anything untoward happening, and Daisy herself stays well away from the sickroom, she supposes that no harm will accrue from the short time the young man is under their roof.

  ****

  Mr Sprowle, landlord of number 18 Hind Street, which is now cartographically the last house standing, surveys the view from his doorstep. It has been raining and the gravel in the front garden has turned to clay, which has been steadily trod into the house by returning tenants.

  The temporary way of planks, erected for his use and the use of passers-by over the yawning cavern underneath the pavement is wet and slippery. Nobody has begged his pardon for the weeks and weeks of disruption, and he strongly objects to the constant noise, dust, chaos of timber, shaft holes and earth mounds.

  Muttering imprecations, Mr Sprowle fetches mop and bucket, fills the latter from the tap which by some mercy is still giving water, and prepares to do battle against the combined forces of man, machine and nature now the house is temporarily empty.

  Eventually he reaches the first floor and the rented back room of the two young upstart bank clerks Edwin Persiflage and Danton Waxwing. He tries the door. Usually it is locked. Today it opens and Mr Sprowle and his mop and his bucket of greying scummy water enter.

  Tutting to himself, he surveys the mess of plates, bottles, clothes, papers and fruit peelings. The room smells fusty. He goes to the window and opens it, pausing to peer down at the iron buckets, chains and pumps working below.

  They may be clerks, but they live like ruddy pigs, he thinks sourly as he gets to work swishing water around the floor, pushing the piles of detritus into various corners.

  As he swills and mops, the mop handle accidentally knocks against a small sealed can on the mantelpiece. The can tips, topples, and falls into the fireplace.

  There is an almighty explosion.

  And suddenly number 18 Hind Street is no longer the last house standing.

  ****

  Nothing lasts forever, except forever itself. All too soon Letitia Simpkins and Daisy Lawton have scraped the last delightful morsel of food from their plates and drunk up the fragrant coffee. It is time for Letitia to return home. Her golden few hours of freedom have melted away like icing on one of the cakes.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she trails after Daisy and climbs into the carriage. All the way back she feasts her eyes on the brightly dressed women passing by the carriage window, her spirits sinking with every mile that is bringing her nearer to home and closer to Mrs Briscoe.

  “I have enjoyed our outing so much,” she sighs.

  “Then let it be the first of many.”

  “Ah, but that is easily said, less easily accomplished.”

  Daisy frowns.

  “They cannot prevent you coming and going from your own house.”

  “It is not my own house and they can. Mrs Briscoe has asked me several times to give up my front door key. I have declined, but it is inevitable, after this afternoon, that she will make another foray.”

  “Then let her try!” Daisy declares. “We shall not give in, dear Tishy - just as we did not when that hateful Miss Porbelle tried to stop us having midnight dormitory feasts.”

  “Sadly, I do not think barricading myself inside my room is going to work,” Letitia smiles wryly.

  Daisy lapses into silence, her brow furrowed. The carriage halts outside the Simpkins house. The two girls fondly embrace.

  “Write to me,” Daisy says.

  “If I can get to the post-box.”

  Letitia is helped
down. She walks slowly up the path. She takes a final look round at her friend, and raises her hand in farewell.

  Her heart heavy within her, Daisy flings herself back into the seat. She cannot allow her dear friend Tishy to wither away in that terrible house with that dreadful woman. She must - nay she WILL come up with a plan to save her.

  Meanwhile Letitia hangs up her bonnet and heads for the stairs, ears strained to catch the heavy footsteps of Mrs Briscoe advancing towards the parlour door accompanied by the Disapproving Sniff that always preceded her.

  Hearing nothing at all - in fact the house is strangely silent, she breathes a sigh of relief and mounts the stairs. She opens the door to her room. And freezes on the threshold.

  Squatting on the end of her bed like a huge black toad, sits Mrs Briscoe. Strewn all about her are all the letters that Letitia retrieved from her father’s desk.

  Mrs Briscoe rises, her face mottled red with anger, eyes spitting venom.

  “Yes, miss, yes!” she hisses, “Here I am, and here is the evidence of your wickedness and wilful behaviour. Your Papa shall know of this before the day is out, oh indeed he shall!”

  And gathering up the precious letters, she stalks out, pushing Letitia roughly aside as she goes. There is the sound of a key turning in the lock, then heavy footsteps descend the stairs. The parlour door is slammed shut.

  Letitia rushes to the door and turns the handle frantically. The door does not open. She is a prisoner. She has never been locked in her own room before. She bangs on the door, demanding to be let out. There is no response.

  Eventually, after shouting herself hoarse and bruising her fists, Letitia sinks down and leans her head against the door. Her mind feels empty, like the volute of a shell.

  She no longer thinks of herself, but of turning points. Of how quickly lives fall back on themselves. There is a tightness in her throat and she feels dizzy. On the other side of the door, the silence gathers, dark and ominous.

  ****