by J C Briggs
Dickens could hear the names in his head beating in time with the sound of the train which was taking them to Rochester — names he had stolen from neighbours and shops and gravestones to give to characters in his works. Mary Weller had been his nurse when they lived in Chatham, at Ordnance Terrace, then St Mary’s Place, where, from an upper window at the side of the house, he had looked upon an old graveyard. All the childhood days — the river where he had sailed on the Medway with his father in the Commissioner’s yacht, the ships, the military parades on the lines, the windmills, the woods, the fields — had all vanished like a dream to be replaced by the dreary reality of Bayham Street, Camden Town.
‘I left Chatham by coach when I was nine years old,’ he said to Jones who was gazing at the unfolding landscapes as they chugged past the Elephant and Castle, Camberwell, and through Dulwich where Mr Pickwick had retired to his white house. The train gathered speed, taking them on to Penge, then Bromley.
‘On your own?’
‘Yes, packed like game — forwarded, carriage paid, to the Cross keys, Cheapside.’
‘A parcel to be collected?’
‘I suppose I must have been collected. I can’t recall, but I’ve never forgotten the smell of damp straw — it rained all the way.’
‘Kitty Quillian’s baby.’
‘What about it?’
‘Passed around like a parcel — Mrs Brimstone said it was going spare. Dear God — she got fifty guineas for it — him, I should say.’
‘A son — someone wanted an heir, I daresay. Moneyed folks?’
‘So she said. Name of Cartwright.’
Dickens looked thoughtful. ‘Any address?’
‘Montague Square.’
Dickens whistled. ‘Eldred and Joyceln Cartwright. Well, I never.’
‘You know them?’ Jones’s eyes were eager.
‘He’s a stockbroker — I met them at some dinner. My wife told me that Mrs Cartwright was expecting a child — the interest being that they had been married for six years without any sign of a child. Great happiness, apparently, at the prospect of a son. He hoped for a son, of course.’
‘Perhaps they’d ordered one from Mrs Brimstone,’ Jones said drily. ‘She said they’d gone to France.’
‘To put you off the scent. But, they’d go somewhere — then come back with a few months old child. What can you do about it?’
‘That’s what Elizabeth asked when I told her. And the answer was that I didn’t know. She only pointed out what I thought myself. Drag them through the courts — disgrace them, and what happens to the baby? The father is Paul Brady who will be in prison for a long time.’
‘Orphanage. We know he would be better off with the Cartwrights, but — oh, I don’t know, Sam — what did you say about the baby to the magistrate?’
‘Only that he was missing and that I was pursuing enquiries. Not that he was interested in the child.’
‘Who was the magistrate?’
‘Old Snapper.’
‘Ah.’ Dickens knew Julius Snapper, beak-nosed, irascible bachelor whose outbursts of temper were legendary, and whose disdain for any woman brought before him meant that, innocent or guilty, she was sure to find herself in Newgate.
‘It suited me that he ignored the fate of the child in this case because I wasn’t ready to mention the Cartwrights — Mrs Brimstone could have told me a pack of lies. But now — well, I’ll wait until we know for certain that Kitty is dead.’
‘You think she is.’
‘I do — Paul Brady told me how she loved the child. She wouldn’t have left him.’
The train slowed as it approached Strood Station. They went out to take a cab which, after a few minutes, took them over Rochester Bridge where Mr Pickwick had dallied, contemplating nature and waiting for breakfast, and over which David Copperfield had trudged, footsore and tired, on his way to Dover.
The cab deposited them at the Bull Inn where Jones looked through the covered gateway as if he hoped to see Pickwick or Jingle, or best of all Sam Weller.
That gentleman seemed, after all, to be beside him. ‘Business first, pleasure arterwards, old ’un, as King Richard said when he stabbed t’other King afore he smothered the babbies.’
Old ’un — impudent blighter, thought Jones, laughing, as he turned to follow Dickens marching on down the High Street towards the Cathedral and Minor Canon Row.
They went through the quiet precincts where the only sound was of the rooks hovering about the cathedral tower. Passing through Prior’s Gate, they found themselves in the Row — a terrace of houses with red-brick walls toned down in colour by time and clinging ivy winding its leaves around the latticed windows, and odd little porches over the doors which Dickens always thought looked like the sounding boards over old pulpits.
A maid opened the door and they were shown into a panelled room where the windows showed a stone-walled garden with bare fruit trees. The Reverend William Drage stood waiting for them.
He was delighted to see Mr Dickens — and the Superintendent, of course. He asked about Mrs Dickens, the children, Mr and Mrs John Dickens whom he had known at Ordnance Terrace in Chatham; enquired about the girl he’d sent to Mr Dickens’s home at Shepherd’s Bush; praised David Copperfield, remarked on David’s passage through Rochester and Chatham and the appearance, as the ugly old man to whom David sold his jacket, of Old Charley, a Rochester dealer in second hand clothes, a notorious drunkard who, legend had it, had sold himself to the Devil; invited them to take tea and plum cake, and after it was served, gazed at them benevolently with a question in his kindly hazel eyes.
‘There is something with which I can help the Superintendent?’
‘You have read of the death of Lancelot Plume?’ Dickens asked by way of preparation.
‘Indeed. A most shocking affair. A young girl, the newspaper said — dear me.’
Dickens explained his visit to Miranda Deverall in Newgate, and told him of their conviction that she was innocent, their certainty that the reasons for the murder lay in the past, and their desire to know something of Plume’s former partner, Doctor Frederick Sefton. Could Mr Drage remember anything of them?
‘Not a great deal,’ William Drage responded. ‘I know that not long after Doctor Plume’s departure for London, Doctor Sefton gave up the practice and took a post at the hospital at Fort Pitt. Then, he went to London…’ He paused there, and they saw him frown. He resumed after a few moments’ thought. ‘An odd young man — I met him once or twice — he came to the cathedral sometimes. Very reserved, lonely, I would say… Something in his soul o’er which his melancholy sits on brood.’
Dickens was quick. He completed the quotation from Hamlet: ‘The hatch and the disclose will be some danger.’
William Drage stared. ‘You do not think he —’
Jones interrupted. ‘We have no evidence, sir, but Mrs Plume told us of a quarrel. Had you heard of that?’
‘Doctor Plume became a wealthy man upon his marriage. Sefton gave up his failing practice. It was said that Plume was better liked, and that Sefton failed for lack of funds as well as popularity. That was the talk, but I hardly think…’
‘No,’ said Jones, ‘but I should like to find him. Would anyone at Fort Pitt know of him? He must have had a recommendation for a post in London if that is where he is.’
‘I should think he will be remembered. Perhaps you should try Doctor Piper there.’
‘We will. We ought to go now. I need to get back to London this evening.’
William Drage stood to escort them to the hall, but as they prepared to leave the room, he said suddenly, ‘There’s something I’ve remembered. Of course, it may be nothing of moment, but it’s an odd little story connected with the two doctors.’
They sat down again and waited for William Drage to collect his thoughts.
‘The story concerns a young servant girl whose mother was in service with the doctors — not a housekeeper, exactly — a woman who cooked and cleaned for them. She
lived in her own house, but her daughter, Rose, helped her.’
Dickens glanced at Jones. A young servant girl. Something, perhaps. At last.
‘How old was the girl?’ Jones asked.
‘Fifteen or sixteen — her mother’s pride and joy. A beauty, they said. An only child. A sad tale. She disappeared on a bleak winter’s day. It was thought she had drowned out on the marshes.’
‘What was she doing out there?’ Dickens knew the marshes well — not the kind of place you would take a stroll on a cold winter’s day when the light faded fast and the water might rise. Where it was easy to lose your way.
‘There was a sick aunt lived over at Hoo — Rose was to go to see her and stay overnight. She knew her way, having walked often, but the marshes can be treacherous. That is the only explanation. I don’t know that it has anything to do with Plume or Sefton. The mother left their service. She died not long after.’
‘No one connected either doctor with her disappearance?’
‘No, Superintendent. It came into my mind because it was such a tragedy — the daughter, the mother and the father all dead so very quickly. It’s the only odd thing connected with the two doctors that people remember.’
But, it’s more than odd, thought Dickens, if only you knew. He thanked Drage for his help and they left him in front of his warm fire, musing on the death of the pretty little girl.
Their returning steps took them to the great west door of the cathedral. Somewhere quiet to reflect on what they had heard. They went in to the soaring space where shadows were deepening in the corners, and jewels cast upon the pavement of the nave from stained glass by the declining sun, began to perish. There was a smell of dust and earth. And something indefinable, thought Dickens, the smell of age.
‘It’s like looking down the throat of old Time,’ he murmured.
‘The past again. What did Sefton brood on when he sat here for those years after Plume was gone?’
‘The story of the servant girl? Rose. What did you make of that?’
They sat down in the gathering twilight. The jewels faded to darkness. Someone came out of shadows near the altar with a taper shivering in the dark.
‘A little light in our darkness,’ whispered Jones, ‘that’s what I think of it.’
Candles flared up. The darkness was dissolving up there, at a distance. They caught the gleam of light on the brass eagle holding the sacred book upon his wings.
‘A beauty, they said. Young — innocent, probably. A girl who vanished, a girl who worked in the house of Doctor Lancelot Plume,’ Dickens whispered back.
‘I wonder — did he seduce her? Did she run away — to her death, out on those marshes?’
‘With child, perhaps?’
‘And Sefton knew.’
‘That’s what he brooded on.’
‘But all those years?’
‘It must be as we said, Sam — he found out about Plume’s life in London, went to confront him. The old quarrel — not about money, about Rose.’
The shadows deepened round them. Dickens looked along the nave to the chancel where within the grill-gate, white robes could be dimly seen, and the organ sounded faintly, a low, deep murmuring — the voice of Time. They sat, listening, hoping to catch the meaning, but it was obscure, mysterious. Nothing to tell them.
‘We have to find him. How far is it to Fort Pitt?’
‘Ten minutes walk.’
The way into Chatham took them down the High Street, passing the Guildhall with its moon-faced clock where Dickens recalled seeing an Indian swallow a sword.
‘I now suppose he wasn’t and he didn’t, but at the time, well it was a phenomenon.’
‘Disillusioning, time.’
‘Ain’t it just. I once thought the Guildhall the grandest place I’d ever seen.’
They reached Watts’s Charity with its lantern over the quaint old door. Jones paused to look at the curious inscription which promised six poor travellers, not being rogues or proctors, bed and board for one night and a gift of fourpence.
‘Two poor travellers?’ asked Jones. ‘Not to be sneezed at — fourpence.’
They walked on down the High Street full of old gables and timbers carved into strange faces and latticed bay windows until Dickens stopped suddenly.
‘Chatham,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘Hereabouts. If anyone knows to a nicety where Rochester ends and Chatham begins, it is more than I do. But, on the high ground there is Fort Pitt where Doctor Piper, we hope, may be found. You can see the Chatham Lines behind where we used to watch the military parades and reviews. Beyond the lines, there was a grim collection of cottages called Tom All Alone’s. I was always looking for poor Tom, whoever he was. I had it in my mind that he must be an orphan ghost — I never found him, but he haunted my dreams.’
An inquisitive little boy, I bet he was, thought Jones, as they toiled up the hill. He imagined a bright-eyed lad whose eyes darted this way and that, taking it all in, frightening himself, but unable to resist the lure of Tom All Alone. And, years later, writing it all down.
Doctor Piper consulted his books. Yes, he had a copy of the letter of recommendation he had written for Doctor Frederick Sefton — somewhere. He turned the pages, frowning — somewhere.
‘Ah, yes. Here it is —’
‘The hospital?’ Jones asked, hardly able to restrain his growing impatience.
‘Lying-in Hospital — Queen Charlotte’s.’
He handed the letter to Jones who scanned its contents. Dickens saw his face change. He had seen something that was significant, but he only said, ‘He was a good doctor, you say here.’
‘Oh, yes, indeed. A very skilled surgeon. A man of few words — not a sociable man, but I valued him. I was sorry to see him go.’
‘Were you surprised at his choice of hospital in London?’ Dickens knew that the hospital was for invalid soldiers and that there was an asylum for insane soldiers at Fort Pitt, too.
‘Not at all. We are a military hospital, but we do deal with confined women, the wives of soldiers and other workers, too. There are some one hundred and fifty confinements each year. It is difficult in that we have no special wards for lying-in patients — the wives and children are treated in the barrack rooms. Doctor Sefton took a special interest in the lying-in cases, especially where disease took hold after birth. Many of these women are undernourished and weak before they give birth, and after, well — puerperal fever, septicaemia, phthisis… He wanted to save lives, Superintendent, and he very often did so.’
To save lives, thought Dickens, and yet to be a murderer. That was Plume’s doing — it must have been.
Doctor Piper was still talking. ‘And, of course, as far as Queen Charlotte’s Hospital is concerned, it was an ideal choice. The wives of soldiers and sailors are considered to have special claims upon the Charity. Doctor Sefton’s experience here would have fitted him well for his work there. I said so in my letter.’
‘You have not heard of him since his departure?’ Jones asked.
‘No, I have not. I did not expect to — he was not a man who made friends. In fact, I have not thought about him for years — not until…’
‘Until?’
‘I heard of Plume’s death. It has been the talk of the town. I wondered if Frederick Sefton had met Plume in London —’
‘He may have. That’s why we wish to find him.’ Jones was brisk. Time to go before the doctor put two and two together. ‘You have been most helpful, Doctor Piper. I am much obliged to you, and now we must hurry for our train to London. Might I keep the letter for the time being?’ The letter would be useful at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital — save time.
Outside, Dickens asked immediately, ‘What was in that letter. I saw your face — there was something important. What?’
Jones smiled at his urgency. ‘See for yourself.’
Dickens took the letter and began to read. ‘Dear Doctor Cream, I write to recommend, without reserve, my colle
ague, Doctor Frederick Willoughby Sefton — Willoughby — Will. Sam, we’ve found him. Will!’
Chapter 34: The River Rises
‘The geography’s right,’ Jones said.
They were on the train. They’d walked back along the High Street, resisting the temptation of a supper of fried soles and broiled fowl at The Bull, past the huge dark shape of the roofless castle, hurrying over the bridge again, aware of the water swirling in the darkness. They had caught the London train with only minutes to spare.
‘It is,’ Dickens replied. ‘Just along the New Road — not that far from Devonshire Terrace.’
‘And, more importantly, near enough the workhouse, David Street, Dab Lane, Bones Alley — and Weymouth Street. He was near Plume, he heard of him, found out — somehow — about Plume’s activities —’
‘And the past which he had thought to escape in London came rushing back. He knew about Rose — that she had been with child.’
‘We think,’ Jones put in, tempering Dickens’s eagerness.
Dickens raised an eloquent eyebrow. ‘Well, yes, but for now let’s go with the idea. Sefton feared that she had drowned herself on the marshes. Sefton felt guilty — he may have thought he should have done something. It weighed on his mind.’
Jones considered for a few moments, ‘I think you’re right about the child. Consider the lying-in hospital. It fits — a charity for poor, pregnant women, women from the slums —’
‘Unmarried women, too. They take in unmarried women at Queen Charlotte’s. He wanted to atone for Rose’s death.’
‘Plume obviously didn’t — I would bet he forgot all about her until —’
‘Sefton turned up and reminded him. And they quarrelled, and in that quarrel, Plume was killed — somehow.’
‘Mm — but, why did Plume turn his back on Sefton?’
‘Told him to get out and Sefton, enraged, stabbed him.’
‘Yet, no knife was missing — did Sefton use his own? In that case, did he intend to kill Plume?’
