A Very Unusual Pursuit (26 page)
‘Yes,’ said Birdie. She knew all about Jem because Miss Eames had taken an interest in his progress. After Jem had angrily denounced both Doctor Morton and Sarah Pickles to the police – thereby triggering the doctor’s arrest and Sarah’s sudden disappearance – his sad story had found its way into the newspapers, and had aroused the sympathy of an Islington grocer named Barnabus Leach. Mr Leach had thought Jem a promising lad, bright and quick though badly raised, and had offered to take him in off the street. At the time, Jem had been at a loose end. Sarah had either gone to ground or been killed for betraying one of her own boys (no one seemed quite sure which), and Jem was too widely known, by then, to earn his bread picking pockets. So he had agreed to work for Mr Leach.
‘Jem says as how I should start bogling again, but I’ve a suspicion it’s
him
as wants to be a bogler,’ Alfred went on. ‘Ned, too. They never leave me alone – allus going on and on about bogles . . .’
Birdie was well aware of this. Ned had twice waylaid her outside her singing teacher’s house with the news that Alfred had turned down
yet another
bogling job. After Doctor Morton’s trial had been reported in the newspapers, Alfred had become something of a household name. Appeals had started flooding in from all over England. A village in Cornwall had lost a couple of children in a large pond; a coalmine in Yorkshire had mysteriously mislaid four of its ‘hurriers’, or coal-dragging girls; six children had disappeared in the vicinity of Maidstone, Kent, over the past three years.
But for every appeal there had been half a dozen insults. While accusing Doctor Morton of being an evil and deluded maniac, the newspapers had also condemned Alfred for defrauding bereaved working folk of their hard-earned wages with his stories of child-eating monsters hiding in chimneys. After two members of the Victoria Institute had interviewed him, and had come away scoffing at his claims, people had begun to abuse him publicly – though not, for the most part, in his own neighbourhood. The inhabitants of Bethnal Green knew Alfred well enough to defend him when nosy journalists, drunken thrill-seekers and prying folklorists came poking around, asking questions.
Even so, Alfred had decided to move. Too many strange people had found out where he lived and were soon waylaying him in the street, or knocking on his door, demanding bogle-slime for their potions or offering to save his soul from the devil. He wasn’t comfortable in the limelight, and wasn’t happy talking to gentlemen who used long, scientific words. What’s more, he had decided to give up bogling, after his discovery that some bogles were actually desperate enough to attack an armed grown-up. How could he protect his apprentices if he couldn’t protect himself? Miss Eames had been right, he said. Bogling was not safe for apprentices, and until an alternative bait could be found, he wasn’t about to put any more children in danger – no matter how many times Jem or Ned might plead that bogling was better than picking pockets, or sifting mud, or cleaning bacon-slicers.
‘But what about all the missing kids in Yorkshire and Kent and Sussex?’ Birdie inquired, as she inspected the talking doll. It had ruffled pantaloons, silk stockings and white leather boots. ‘Don’t you care about
them
?’
‘Not enough to throw more kids into a bogle’s mouth.’
‘But what if you don’t have to?’ Birdie put the doll back down and focused her attention on Alfred. ‘See, I came here to tell you summat –
something –
that I heard today at me singing lesson. There’s a cove in France has used a machine to copy part of a song onto a cylinder. So it won’t be long before there’s a machine as can record songs
and play
’
em back
! Like a self-playing piano . . .’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’ Alfred queried as he settled down onto his usual stool.
‘Well – if you had a machine as could sing like a child, you wouldn’t need a real child no more!’
‘And how much do you think this new machine’ll cost, when it’s finally invented?’ Alfred asked in a dry voice.
‘Oh, that don’t matter.’ Birdie dismissed the question impatiently. ‘Miss Eames’ll buy it for you.’
‘I think she’d prefer it if I didn’t bogle at all,’ said Alfred, plugging his old clay pipe with tobacco. ‘Which I won’t, if I have to wait for a machine that ain’t bin invented yet.’
‘Then how will you
live
?’ Birdie had been worrying more and more about Alfred, who had refused to take money from Miss Eames, and who was fast running through the fees paid to him by various journalists. According to Ned, Alfred’s first foray into rat-catching had left him with an infected bite that had put him in bed for a week. ‘You ain’t no vermin-hunter, you’re a hero!’ Birdie cried. ‘You’d be wasted as a ratcatcher, or a nightwatchman or – or—’ She was suddenly interrupted by a tentative tap on the door. ‘Who is it?’ she barked.
There was a brief pause. Then a startled voice said, ‘Birdie?’
‘Come in, Ned.’ Alfred’s tone was long-suffering. ‘You
know
you ain’t got to knock.’
‘Yes, but I brought a visitor,’ Ned explained, as he sidled into the room. Behind him was a swarthy young navvy wearing moleskin trousers, hobnailed boots, and a velveteen coat. A gaudy handkerchief was tied around the navvy’s neck; he carried a white felt hat that he kept rubbing between thick, nervous fingers.
‘This here is Fettle Joe,’ Ned announced awkwardly. ‘He works on the London and North Western Railway.’
Fettle Joe bobbed his head, which was crowned by a dense thatch of black hair. More hair covered his throat, jaw, arms, hands and upper lip. His brown eyes looked softer than the rest of him.
‘Me ganger sent me to find you, Mr Bunce,’ he said. ‘We heard all about that wicked doctor as went to gaol on account o’ you.’
‘Oh, aye,’ Alfred replied, in a noncommittal way.
‘It’s just . . . well, we’ve got boys working alongside us in the tunnels, see, and some no more’n ten years old. But two of ’em vanished, last week. We ain’t seen hide nor hair of ’em since, though I did hear one scream, afore he disappeared.’
‘They work underground,’ Ned interposed. ‘And bogles like deep holes.’
‘Mr Bunce knows what bogles like!’ Birdie snapped. But Alfred said nothing.
‘We thought as how you might help, if there’s a bogle dogging us,’ Fettle Joe continued. ‘Which we’re inclined to believe there is.’
Alfred hesitated. ‘I don’t kill bogles, no more,’ he growled at last. ‘’Tis a thankless job.’
‘I can appreciate that, sir, but they was stout little lads, one supporting a sick mother with his wage and the other learning to read.’ Seeing Alfred frown, the navvy softly pleaded, ‘Will you not take pity on the other boys, Mr Bunce? Who must give up either their lives or their livelihoods?’
Everyone stared at Alfred – including Birdie. He wouldn’t look at her, though.
‘We’d pay double,’ Fettle Joe added.
‘And I’d be yer boy,’ Ned volunteered, much to Birdie’s disgust.
‘
You!
’ She couldn’t contain herself. ‘What do
you
know about bogling?’
‘Not much,’ Ned had to concede. He fixed his clear, trustful gaze on Birdie. ‘You could teach me, though.’
Birdie glanced back at Alfred, who was shaking his head. ‘If there’s smoke again, or summat worse . . .’ he began. But she forestalled him.
‘We’d have more’n one lure, to protect ourselves,’ she pointed out. ‘Say there was three of us, widely spaced. You saw what happened at Mr Fotherington’s; the bogle didn’t know which of us to eat first. Suppose there
is
smoke, which I doubt, since you’ve seen only one smoking bogle in yer whole life. We can slow the bogle by confusing it with
three different voices
: Jem’s, Ned’s and mine.’
‘Not yours, lass,’ said Alfred. ‘Miss Eames wouldn’t like it.’
‘Miss Eames needn’t know,’ Birdie retorted. ‘And it’s only this once.’
‘
I’ll
do it,’ Ned cut in. ‘And so will Jem.’
‘Please, Mr Bunce,’ begged the navvy.
‘The next boy who’s taken will be on yer conscience if you don’t help,’ Birdie warned Alfred. ‘Can you live with that? For
I
cannot!’
‘And me and Jem – we need the experience,’ Ned mumbled. ‘We’ve our hearts set on bogling. ’Tis a respectable trade, and mudlarks don’t make old bones.’
‘There’s no one can do this but you, Mr Bunce,’ Birdie argued. ‘And there’s still more underground lines to build, with boys slated to work ’em. Ain’t that right?’
She appealed to Fettle Joe, who nodded gravely. Meanwhile, Alfred sat hunched in his old green coat, sucking on his pipe, looking tired and worn and grim but somehow indomitable, like an ancient ruin. At last he pulled the pipe from his mouth.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’ Before the navvy could thank him, however, Alfred addressed Birdie in a tone that she knew well – a tone that had governed her life since their first meeting in the Limehouse canal, when she was just four years old. ‘But this is the last time, d’you hear? The very last. For you’ve passed beyond this, Birdie. I ain’t yer master no more. We’re on different roads now, and must stick to ’em.’
‘Of course,’ Birdie answered – because Alfred was right. He
wasn’t
her master. They
were
on different roads. And for this very reason, she no longer had to do what he said.
She could plot out her own course, towards her own goal, in her own way. And if that meant a bit of unofficial bogling – well, then Alfred wasn’t going to stop her. Certainly Miss Eames wasn’t. If Birdie wanted to be a music-hall singer with a sideline in bogling, there was no reason why she should abandon that dream.
‘So shall we give Jem’s doll a try, while we’re about it?’ she suggested, bright-eyed and keen-voiced. ‘Since there’s more’n one way to skin a cat, it might be the same for a bogle. Don’t you think so, Mr Bunce . . .?’
Was there ever a bogler, or Go-Devil man, in England? Probably not, though there might have been someone similar. For in the nineteenth century, many people still believed in folk monsters. They believed in knuckers, and boggarts, and banshees, and worricows. And although by this time these beliefs weren’t generally found among educated, urban people, a lot of lower-class country folk were slower in giving up their old beliefs. They still patronised ‘cunning women’, who cured with herbs and folklore. They still laid curses and used charms to protect themselves. And since there were any number of tradesmen who used to conduct their business door-to-door – such as chair-menders, and knife-grinders, and chimney-sweeps – who’s to say that somewhere, at some time, there wasn’t a man who, for a small fee, promised to kill any bogles that might be lurking in your privy or your coalhole?
Hackney Union workhouse was a real place. It really did have a cook and a night porter. In the 1870s, the main building really did contain a kitchen, a lobby, and the Master’s bedroom. As for the men’s and women’s quarters, they actually did face each other across an inner courtyard. There was also an infirmary, a laundry and drying room, schoolrooms, coal and lime sheds, a pigsty, a chapel, kitchen gardens, and a medical officer. There was even a gelatine factory next door. And there was a well, too – there was always a well.
But was there a bogle in that well? Since nobody ever mentioned one, I guess we’ll never know.
Victoria Park cemetery really existed. It was a privately owned burial ground, opened in 1845 and never consecrated. In the 1850s, it was so overcrowded that several stacked-up coffins would be buried in each pit – around 130 every Sunday. The cemetery closed in 1876, and is now called Meath Gardens. It’s no longer full of headstones, but the creepy Gothic gate is still there.
Wapping was a very busy area in Victorian London. It was down by the London docks, seething with porters and sailors and labourers of all kinds. It was also a popular place for scavengers – or ‘mudlarks’, as they were called – and for people who had to live in common boarding houses for two or three pennies a night. But since there were a great many warehouses, merchants, and shopkeepers in the area, the place had money coursing through it.
Bethnal Green, on the other hand, was a slum, pure and simple. Very few well-off people lived in Bethnal Green. The middle classes tended to live further west, in places like Bloomsbury, and Paddington, and Westbourne Park. Islington was a little more rackety, with patches of run-down, lower-class housing. But a doctor might easily have lived there, in a very old house. Especially if he wanted to pursue his own peculiar little hobbies in secret.
London House was a private lunatic asylum in Mare Street, South Hackney. It was licensed to a Mrs Ayres, daughter of Doctor William Oxley (deceased), and in 1874 had twelve female patients. According to the Annual Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, 1868, it was a gloomy place that employed isolation and restraint when patients were difficult. Apparently it was visited twice a week by a ‘medical man’. Was that medical man Doctor Morton? I’m afraid the records don’t specify …
AREA
the basement-level entrance under the front door of many nineteenth-century terrace or row houses, often with railings around the top