The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (83 page)

‘But how could I? I wasn’t made to associate with Jews.’

‘If you’d handled her properly, she’d have made you her heir.’

He thought for a moment. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance that the old girl—’

‘None whatsoever. I called on her last week.’

And how you must have enjoyed that, he thought, eyeing her with dislike.

It was all so confoundedly disagreeable. Why was everyone so hard on him? His needs were so few. An agreeable house, a few decent horses and perhaps a string of polo ponies. To be tolerably dressed, and to give the odd dinner for one’s friends. To keep a dear girl in a pretty little apartment, and perhaps frequent one of the better houses when the dear girl was indisposed.

He allowed his mind to wander to the dear girl he’d left behind in Jamaica. He ought to buy her a little something when he was next in the West End. Perhaps one of those Japanese paper sun-umbrellas? It wouldn’t cost much, and she would be so grateful. Girls like that were easily pleased.

‘What you have to appreciate’, said Sibella, ‘is that Papa isn’t going to stand much more of this.’ She opened her new crocodile handbag and frowned at the contents, then shut it with a snap. ‘He’s talking seriously of cutting you out of his will, and making Lyndon his heir.’

Alexander’s mouth went dry.

Lyndon, heir to Parnassus? Caddish little Lyndon, with his hooked nose and his greasy black hair? It was inconceivable. Surely the governor wouldn’t sink so low?

‘Of course we must put a stop to that,’ said Sibella, thereby reminding him why he preferred her to Davina. ‘And as a first step, you absolutely
must
clear your debts.’

Alexander thought for a moment. ‘When you marry this financier fellow the governor’s got in his sights, surely he—’

‘Mr Parnell’, said Sibella severely, ‘is quite horribly strait-laced. The merest hint of gambling debts and he’ll be off for good. And if that were to happen, which God forbid, then I’d be without a husband, and Papa would be without a business partner, and you, brother mine, would be out in the cold for good.’

‘Which brings us neatly back to Sophie Monroe.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Don’t
worry
, Sib. She’ll come round, given time.’

‘Unfortunately, Alexander, time is not in abundant supply.’ She paused for effect. ‘She intends to give part of her fortune to her brother-in-law.’

Alexander stared at her. ‘But – you told me she’d only
sold
the property. You never mentioned—’

‘Well, I’m mentioning it now.’

He turned his head and looked out across the park. ‘Of course, he’ll never accept it.’

‘Why not? Heaven knows, you would.’

‘Yes, but I’m not Cameron Lawe.’

Sibella snorted, as if to say that the man wasn’t born who would decline a gift of several thousand pounds. ‘Be that as it may, I take it that you now appreciate the need for speed?’

Slowly, Alexander nodded.

‘Good,’ said Sibella briskly. ‘And you agree that you must return to Jamaica as soon as possible, and square things with Papa, and put beastly little Lyndon in his place once and for all?’

‘And the best way of achieving that’, supplied Alexander, ‘is by bringing out Sophie Monroe as my affianced bride.’

‘Precisely.’

Again he ran his forefinger along his lower lip. Then he glanced at her and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, old girl. It’s as good as done.’

She threw him a sceptical glance.

‘Don’t
worry
,’ he said again. ‘I wasn’t born to fail.’

‘You can always tell the ones on the skids’, said Austen’s employer, ‘by the state of their windows.’

He glanced up at the narrow, soot-blackened houses that seemed to lean towards each other across the street. ‘If you’ve got curtains
and
blinds, then you’re in clover. If you’ve had to sell the curtains, then things are getting dodgy. And when you’re down to newspaper, it’s all over bar the shouting.’

He turned up his collar and narrowed his eyes against the rain. They’d come out without their umbrellas and were getting gently soaked, but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘It’s a funny thing,’ he went on, ‘but between a scrap of newspaper, and curtains and blinds, there’s nothing but a bit of bad luck. A fall off a ladder. A bout of the fever. And suddenly you’re down the drain, and you can’t get out again.’

He’d been in a strange mood for days. Restless and angry, and more unpredictable than ever. Twice when Austen had gone downstairs in the night for a book, he’d found his employer standing at the window in his long Turkish dressing-gown, gazing out at the glistening street.

And this afternoon he’d suddenly decided to take Austen on what he called a ‘little tour’. ‘Time you got to know your own city,’ he’d said with an angry glint in his eye.

They left Denmark Street and pushed through the crowds into Shaftesbury Avenue, then turned into Monmouth Street. Suddenly Austen didn’t know where he was. He’d never seen so many second-hand clothes: rack upon rack of limp, greasy skirts and frayed jackets turning sadly in the rain. ‘Where do they all come from?’ he wondered aloud.

His employer threw him an irritable look. ‘Dead people. Where d’you think?’

Austen blinked. ‘But – can that be healthy?’

‘What makes you think it’s any healthier if you go to a tailor?’

They stopped before a narrow shop-front and his employer jerked his head, as if to illustrate his point. Inside, Austen saw a young woman on a stool, sewing a Norfolk jacket. Despite the cold, she wore only a poplin skirt and a soiled blouse, but as she hadn’t yet attached the sleeves of the jacket, she’d pushed her arms through them for warmth. Austen couldn’t help noticing that she wasn’t wearing any stays. When she coughed, her front swung freely beneath the blouse.

‘That’, said his employer dispassionately, ‘is why you should never skimp on your tailor. She’s got a nasty cough and she can’t afford any coal, so why wouldn’t she put on the sleeves for a bit of warmth? And if the poor cow’s coming down with something, it’s ten to one that you will too, when you put on your nice new togs.’

Austen was silent. He was recalling how his sister Iphigeneia had narrowly survived a bout of typhus the previous Christmas, shortly after taking delivery of her new winter costume. He only remembered the connection at all because Iffy had complained about having to alter the wretched thing after she’d lost so much flesh.

‘Come on,’ said his employer. ‘I want to take a look at my old beat.’

To Austen’s relief, they hailed a cab. His employer told the driver to take them to East Street, south of the river. As they were passing the Strand, he said abruptly, ‘D’you remember Holywell Street?’

Austen’s ears burned. ‘Um, I can’t say that I—’

‘Of course you do! Everyone knew Holywell Street. Best pornography shops in London. My sister Lil used to make a good living posing for photos. Shame they knocked it down to make way for the Strand.’

Austen felt his face growing hot. He was beginning to resent this ‘little tour’. What did his employer hope to achieve, and why was he inflicting it on him? Did he wish to humiliate him? Did he hold him responsible, as a member of the peerage?

They crossed the river, and eventually the cab pulled up in a dingy part of Lambeth. Austen peered through the window with apprehension. But to his intense relief, his employer told the cabby to wait. ‘Here we are,’ he said with an ironic flourish. ‘East Street. My God, but it’s changed.’

For better or worse? wondered Austen, resisting the urge to take out his handkerchief and press it to his mouth.

Grimy tenement blocks towered overhead, criss-crossed with soot-streaked washing. In the middle of the street, an oily brown puddle spread outwards from a clogged drain, from which came a stink so powerful that it caught at the back of his throat and made black spots dart before his eyes. He fought the urge to retch.

Three urchins with fleabitten faces stared at them from a doorway. A frowzy woman scratched her arm with a vigour that could only mean lice. Above her ear was a bloody patch of naked scalp where a hank of hair had been torn out by the roots.

‘This used to be just houses,’ murmured his employer, shaking his head. ‘Five families to a house. None of these bloody tenements.’

‘I thought you lived north of the river,’ said Austen with an edge to his voice.

‘Shelton Street? That was later, after Ma died.’

One of the urchins had sidled up for a closer look. He had scabby bare feet and a pinched, knowing face, and he seemed to be sizing them up for what he could steal.

Austen’s employer had been gazing up at the windows, but somehow he sensed the urchin’s scrutiny, and turned to look at him. ‘I wouldn’t,’ he said softly.

The boy met his eyes, and backed away.

Austen said, ‘You said your mother died. How did she – er?’

His employer shook his head, his face impassive. ‘I don’t know. One day she just didn’t wake up. We thought maybe it was because Pa had knocked her about a bit worse than usual.’ He paused. ‘It was summertime. We couldn’t afford to bury her for a week. Christ. That smell. I’ll never forget it.’

Austen swallowed hard.

They turned and walked back towards the cab, but after a few paces Austen became aware that the urchin had followed them.

His employer laughed. ‘He doesn’t give up, does he? Here you are.’ He tossed the boy a sovereign. ‘That’s for persistence.’

As they were nearing the cab, he glanced back for a last look. ‘Look, d’you see over there?’ he said to Austen, pointing up at one of the windows. ‘Newspapers. I told you. It never fails. And that one over there,’ he added with a touch of scorn, ‘they’ve got pretensions. Bit of old wallpaper off a building site.’

Austen was nettled. ‘What’s wrong with that? At least they’re trying.’

‘To be what?’ sneered his employer. ‘Respectable?’

‘Well, and what if they are?’

‘
Respectable
. Respectable.’ His green eyes glittered. ‘It’s hankering after respectability that keeps you in places like this. Isaac’s ma was “respectable”. He told me once that she used to put on her hat to scrub the sodding doorstep. And when she took a bundle of togs to the dolly – that’s the pawnbroker’s to you – she’d shove it under her coat so that nobody’d see.’ He paused. ‘Austen, if I’d been like that, I’d still be here, in East Street. I’d be in awe of people like you.’

Austen didn’t know what to say.

They got back into the cab, and his employer gave directions for a Poor Law charity in Centaur Street. As they rattled over the cobbles, Austen cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me, Mr Kelly, but I feel I must ask something. Why did you bring me along today?’

‘What do you mean?’

Austen felt himself reddening. ‘It’s just that I can’t help feeling that you’re enjoying my discomfort, and I’m not at all sure that that’s fair. I mean, clearly I know nothing about the Poor, but I don’t believe that that in itself makes me worthy of blame, or – or humiliation. After all, until recently, you yourself didn’t know a great deal about – well, about—’

‘About gentlemen’s clubs,’ put in his employer, ‘and Fortnum’s, and riding in Rotton Row.’ He tapped his fingernail against his teeth. ‘Why did I bring you along? I’ve been wondering that myself. But you’re wrong, it wasn’t to humiliate you. I wasn’t thinking of you at all.’

Austen blinked.

‘I suppose – I wanted a witness.’

‘A witness?’ Austen was nonplussed.

His employer studied the crowds hurrying in the rain. ‘So many changes,’ he said quietly, as if to himself. ‘Half the old slums cleared. The rookeries torn down. Even Holywell Street gone. It’s as if none of it ever happened. It’s as if none of them ever—’ He broke off, shaking his head.

‘I’m not sure that I understand,’ said Austen.

‘I’m not sure that I want you to,’ his employer snapped.

Austen folded his hands about his walking-stick, and resolved to say no more.

Eventually the cab pulled up outside a dingy little house in a cobbled street just south of Waterloo, with a railway bridge at the end. Above the door hung a peeling sign:
St Cuthbert’s Charity for the Deserving Poor
. Through the grimy windows Austen could just make out people moving around inside. He was about to remark that the place looked rather busy when he spotted the brougham parked across the street.

His heart skipped a beat. It was the same carriage that belonged to the fascinating young widow in New Cavendish Street. He was certain of it. He recognized the L-shaped scratch on the door panel. ‘Shall we – go in and take a look?’ he said in a strangled voice.

His employer shook his head. ‘No, I just wanted to see it.’

Austen’s disappointment was so sharp that he almost winced. ‘It seems a shame,’ he ventured. ‘I mean, to have come all this way.’

Again the shake of the head. ‘You go ahead, if you want to. I’ll stay here.’

‘No, no,’ murmured Austen. If his employer didn’t come too, he’d never have the courage to go in alone.

His employer leaned forward and tapped the roof of the cab to tell the driver to move on.

Another chance missed, thought Austen, shuddering with self-loathing. I mean, dash it all, that’s probably the best opportunity you’ll ever get. And now you’ve absolutely gone and let it slip.

As the cab rattled off down the street, Sophie fielded the Reverend Agate’s exasperated plea for quiet, while straining to hear old Mrs Shaughnessy’s whispered request for an infirmary certificate, and telling Mrs Carpenter to wait her turn, and trying to ignore Sibella, who was standing at the window with a handkerchief pressed ostentatiously to her mouth.

‘Sophie, do hurry up,’ said Sibella, raising her voice above the determined grizzling of Mrs Carpenter’s baby. ‘I can’t let the carriage wait for much longer in a place like this.’

The Reverend Agate flung her an outraged glare, which she ignored.

‘I’ll be ready in a moment,’ said Sophie, watching in relief as he beat a dignified retreat upstairs. She handed Mrs Shaughnessy her certificate, and took a bottle of quieting syrup from the shelf and gave it to Mrs Carpenter. ‘A teaspoonful three times a day,’ she said, trying not to look at the baby, which was particularly unappealing, and had a habit of trailing snot over everything.