A thin coating of snow lay over London on that sunny December afternoon in 1862. From the great dome of St. Paul’s to the round pilings of the docks, the snow had lightly touched everything. The trouble at the shipyards was still continuing, and Becky had decided to go down and see for herself what was happening. She summoned the carriage, which was always at her disposal for her shopping or other errands, and had the coachman take her down to the red brick building which housed the firm of Gregg & Kerr.
She left the carriage intending to go inside and see her husband. But almost the moment she stepped onto the sidewalk she observed the impressive, tall figure of Bart Woods walking towards her. He wore no hat and his dark hair rustled in the wind. He walked with his head down slightly, wearing a heavy black coat.
As he came up to her he recognized her and bowed. “Mrs. Gregg!”
“Yes,” she said, with a small smile. “I have come down to take a look around.”
“Don’t venture near the yard,” the young man warned her. “We had serious trouble there yesterday, and we’ve only a small gang working today.”
She gave him a worried look. “So the trouble drags on?”
“It does,” the handsome young man said in his curt way. He stared at her with those sharp, black eyes, and she found herself wondering if in his career as shanghai artist he might have been the one who murdered Davy Brown.
“Is there no hope of ending it?”
“Soon. If they meet our terms,” Bart Woods said. “You will excuse me—I’m on my way to make a report to Mr. Gregg. Were you planning to see him?”
“No,” she said. “I won’t bother him now. I’ll just drive by the shipyard and return home.”
“Very well,” the dark man said, With a slight nod of his head he went on to the entrance door of the building and then inside.
She stood for a moment speculating what to do next. She had changed her plans at the last moment. She’d meant to see Mark but knew he would think her in the way if she went up there now; so it was better to move on. She instructed the coachman to take her by the roadway which led directly to the yards. She sat back in her seat during the short drive, bothered by the knowledge that the strike was continuing.
The carriage halted and she glanced out. Bart Wood’s words were underlined by the fact that although there were two small ships on the stays, the full work force was not present. Just a tiny group were busy at the ship while several others stood guard not far with rifles in their hands.
The yard looked bleak on the windy December afternoon. She was watching the doings at the yard and in the harbor and river beyond when a familiar figure in a heavy gray coat with fur collar and a jaunty gray hat came smiling up to the carriage, It was James Kerr, son of old Matthew Kerr. He looked up at her pleasantly.
She quickly opened the door and said, “I didn’t know you ever came down here.”
He removed his hat and laughed. “I happen to have a share and interest in the business through my father.”
“Of course! It’s cold!”
“Yes. May I join you in the carriage?”
“Please do,” she invited him in and moved to give him room. He stepped in and took a seat beside her. Then he opened the tiny window behind the driver’s seat and gave him the address of a restaurant. He closed the window and settled back as the carriage got underway: “No reason why we shouldn’t have a hot drink and something to eat!”
She was a little upset by his taking her for granted. “I hadn’t planned to go to a restaurant,” she said. “Certainly not with you!”
“Your husband won’t hear about it,” James said with a smile on his weak but pleasant face. “And what if he does—it is all perfectly innocent.”
“Just so long as he understands that,” she said.
“I promise to bear all the blame,” James Kerr said. “What brought you down to the yard?”
“The same thing that brought you, I suppose. I was interested in the strike.”
“Ladies aren’t supposed to take an interest in business.”
“No one has told me it is a crime,” she replied. “My husband is deeply involved in the trouble. It is bound to concern me.”
“Miss Lee from Birmingham,” James said mockingly. “You are truly an original!”
“What do you mean?” she asked. Paying all her attention to him and none to the passage of the carriage through the cobblestone streets.
His top hat was resting in his lap and he said, “You are different! You have beauty and a good mind! You deserve better than Mark! Vera, my sister, would have done for him. I am sure he’d intended to marry her.”
“I do not find that a pleasant topic.”
“Sorry,” he said. “But I expect you’ve noticed how she moons about whenever Mark is nearby.”
“I prefer not to notice such things.”
“Very wise,” he said. “Father brought this new chap home for dinner the other night. The new manager, Bart Woods, and I must say he is something!”
She glanced at James. “You don’t like him?”
He shrugged. “I think he is a powerful, young man with ambition and no scruples. He has a record of being a waterfront thug. Now he’s trying to turn respectable as a strike-breaker, and Mark has made him manager of the yards. It seems Mr. Wood is on his way to becoming respectable.”
“He struck a hard bargain to settle the strike—and it isn’t over yet.”
“It will be,” James said. “I was talking to some of the old hands. They can’t hold out against Woods and his thugs. So it’ll be a new day for the company. And Woods, like my father, sees the future of shipping in iron ships. Maybe they’ll join together against your husband.”
Becky had to resent the reckless young man’s impertinent remarks about her husband. She said, “I do not think any new manager, not even Bart Woods, will break up the allegiance your father has for Mark.”
“Maybe not,” James said. “More’s the pity.”
“You don’t like my husband,” she challenged him.
“Few do.”
She stared at him. “How dare you say that? I could easily tell him of your opinion.”
“I don’t think you will.”
“He is my husband, remember.”
“But you are clever enough to see through him,” James taunted her. “He gives everyone the impression of his strength. But he is not a strong man; he’s a cowardly one. That is why he tends to be cruel and corrupt! Worse than that, he corrupts everyone with whom he comes in contact!”
“Please!” she said sternly.
“I beg your forgiveness,” James said. “But it is true. To an extent he has corrupted my father, making him engage in labor practices which are unfair to the loyal men who have worked for us over the years. He has drawn this Bart Woods to him because he knows of his corrupt background and hopes he will be of use to him. Even you must have corrupted your moral values to become the wife of a Mark Gregg!”
“If you were not the son of my husband’s partner, I would ask you to leave the carriage,” she warned him. “I do not like your conversation.”
“You are right,” he said. “I should not so loudly express what are merely my opinions. I’m probably jealous of Mark for taking the place I might otherwise hold in the firm. If you will overlook all that I’ve said I will pursue another tack in my conversation.”
“You must, or leave my company,” she warned him. But while she could not agree with him, she knew much of what he’d said was true. This cut deeply. Especially his comments about her. She had compromised in marrying Mark, and perhaps now she was getting her proper pay for it in an unhappy married life. For she was truly not happy with the stern, middle-aged tyrant.
The carriage halted and James helped her out. The restaurant was a popular one in a fashionable street. But it was small and rather intimate. She was relieved at this and pleased when they were quickly seated at a small table somewhat hidden by a false waterfall in the middle of the dining room. They ordered and then faced each other over drinks.
She said, “No prudent wife would be doing this.”
“Your reputation is safe with me.”
“Mark is jealous of you, I must tell you that And of me.”
“Don’t worry,” the good-looking James said. “Soon after the New Year I’m leaving England for America.”
Becky was surprised. “You’ve made your mind up?”
“Yes. My father is still well enough to look after his share of the business. And Bart Woods joining the firm means there will be no active place for me. I don’t agree with Mark’s policy in any case.”
“What will you do?” she asked.
“In America?”
“Yes.”
“I have a few things in mind,” James said airly. “If I wish I can live on the family money.”
She said, “You must have more ambition than that.”
“There is much shipbuilding going on in America and in Canada,” James told her. “I intend to look into the firms and perhaps make some agreement with one of them. Unlike Mark, they are all much interested in iron ships.”
“I see,” she said.
“Samuel Cunard has established a regular mail service across the Atlantic,” James said. “Passenger traffic is increasing every year. Steamships are beginning to come into their own. But they will be ships with hulls of iron!”
“You should try to convince my husband of that.”
“He won’t listen,” James Kerr complained. “But perhaps Bart Woods will be able to make him see sense.”
Their food came and they had an enjoyable lunch. Then she and James parted, and she went back home in the carriage. It had been an interesting and not unpleasant afternoon. She found James extremely intelligent and felt it a pity that his lack of ambition made him so indifferent about what he did with his life.
When Mark returned that evening, he brought up the subject of her visit to the yards. He asked her, “Why did you not come up to the office to see me?”
“I met Bart Woods on his way to you. I thought it might be an important discussion and I’d find myself in the way. So I simply continued on.” She omitted any mention of meeting James or having lunch with him, trusting that Mark would not hear of her mild adventure.
Her husband’s stern face was lined with weariness. “The strike will end tomorrow, but on Bart Woods’ terms.”
“Isn’t that what you wished?” she asked.
He stood before their log fireplace with his back to it and his hands clasped behind him. “Yes and no.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mark frowned. “I’m worried about him. I need his firm hand to keep the laborers in line, but I think he is overly-ambitious. And worst of all, he agrees with Matthew Kerr; he thinks we are wrong in not turning to the construction of iron ships.”
“Perhaps you should consider it?” she ventured.
“Never,” he snapped. “The company will be operated my way—and that is that!”
She made no further mention of business to him. But she noted from that evening on that he began to drink more. He sometimes came home from the office with whiskey on his breath and in a surly mood. And he would continue his drinking through the evening, being no company for her. Then he would drop sodden into bed to sleep drunkenly through the night before beginning another day in the same way.
The way his drinking was aging him alarmed her. But when she made a small protest to him about it, he accused her of being a meddling wife and not knowing her her place.
• • •
The holiday season was at hand. A time for Christmas festivities and saying an end to 1862. Becky had first read Dickens’
A Christmas Carol
while her father was still alive, and it had changed customs in England a great deal. More than ever, Christmas had become a great family tradition with a tree, a feast of turkey, and many parties. Mark Gregg informed her that he and Elizabeth had always held a dinner party for the Kerrs on Christmas night, and that they, in turn, entertained on Boxing Day, the day following Christmas.
“I want you to see that this is the best year of all,” he told her in one of his more sober moments, and he gave her a wad of pound notes to cover the expenses.
She was excited at the prospect. But one thing concerned her more. She was still haunted by the knowledge that Peg had not been found. With the money she had put aside each week and some pound notes from the Christmas money, she made a journey to the business section of the city one afternoon. There, in a small office up three rickety flights of stairs, she met a most peculiar man.
Mr. Phineas Pennifeather was thin with round shoulders, and he had a mass of long, gray hair which was always wildly askew and thick-lensed glasses shielding small blue eyes. He had a pinched face and in his shabby, dark clothes, he could have been anything from fifty to seventy. He was the sort of old man whom no one looked at twice. And that was the secret of his success, for Mr. Pennifeather was a private detective.
He sat at his rolltop desk and listened to her story. Then in a gravelly voice, he said, “It is an old story, Mrs. Gregg, and a sad one. I have often been engaged to find missing girls.”
Becky leaned forward, the face under her cranberry shade bonnet pale as she said, “Have you had much success?”
“Sometimes,” the old man said, drumming bony fingers on the desktop.
“Sometimes these girls vanish in the underworld without a trace.”
“I assume this Alfie Bard and Peg are still in France,” she said.
“I doubt that,” he told her.
“You do?” She was surprised.
He nodded. “It is a familiar trick to throw the family of the girl off the track. No doubt he has made use of her in Paris to his advantage. And then when he has felt it safe, he has returned to England with her.”
She said, “So you think she might actually be in London?”
“More than likely, she is,” Phineas Pennifeather said. “But it will take a good deal of seeking out.”
“I’m prepared to pay.”
“You must not be impatient,” the private detective warned her. “This could take weeks, months, or perhaps as long as a year. I could even fail altogether.”
“I have confidence in you.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” the old gentleman said. “I have a good name in the city. I’m known as honest, which is a rarity in my profession. I will undertake the search and will contact you when I have any news. In the meantime you can generally find me here when you wish to talk with me or look after additional fees.”