Ann Granger (33 page)

This did not sound promising. Hand-reared babies generally didn’t thrive, even I knew that. The fact that ‘deceased’ was not entered in the record might turn out to be a clerical oversight, despite the vaunted efficiency of the system. My spirits, which had risen, plummeted again.

Beside me Morris fidgeted. I knew he was worried, too.

‘Where might we find this woman, sir?’ growled Mr Roche whose patience was fast running out.

‘Number twenty-seven,’ said Mr Potter ‘was given into the care of Mrs Dawson of Scuttle Lane. I know Mrs Dawson. She’s carried out this work for many years and has great experience.’

‘Just so,’ wheezed Stoner in corroboration.

‘Then may I ask one or both of you to accompany us to the place?’ I asked.

Both hesitated. Potter’s gaze slid towards the magistrate’s letter. ‘It would be better, perhaps, if we sent to Mrs Dawson and asked her to bring the child here.’

‘I think not,’ I said firmly. ‘Since it appears you identify the children only by number then Mrs Dawson might simply send us the healthiest at present in her charge.’

Stoner pursed his lips, gave us an angry look, but left any reply to his colleague.

Potter swelled up like an indignant rooster and his domed head turned bright red. ‘What are you suggesting, sir? I’ll have you know that Mrs Dawson is an excellent woman of high moral principles. She has done this work for the parish for a number of years without any complaint from anyone and we have every confidence in her.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ I informed him. ‘Then you shouldn’t object to us paying her a surprise visit. For myself, I would prefer not to give the excellent Mrs Dawson time to think about it. Let’s go right now to Scuttle Lane.’

Potter snatched up the magistrate’s letter and thrust it into his pocket.

‘As you wish.’

‘You don’t need me,’ said Stoner, rising to his feet with an effort. ‘And I have a business to attend to. Good day to you, gentlemen.’

*   *   *

We found, when we left the building, that our cabbie had not waited for us, despite being requested to do so. He had insisted on being paid immediately on arrival for the journey to the workhouse so perhaps it was not surprising that he had abandoned us. Cabs rarely waited here and were the object of some curiosity, to say nothing of the attention of grubby urchins. One of their favourite pastimes was well known to be throwing stones and lumps of brick at the cab and its driver; or at the stationary horse in an attempt to score a hit on its legs. We could not blame our cabman for his desertion. There was no hope of finding another cab in this vicinity; we set out on foot, plunging into the crowd.

The crush became easier as we progressed. Gradually the word had spread that ‘the law’ was visiting them. These people know a police officer instantly, plain clothes or no. A way began to open up before us, ‘Much like the parting of the Red Sea,’ I observed to poor Mr Roche who clutched his cane with one hand and held on to his hat with the other.

‘I would not have walked here without police protection,’ he said frankly.

‘Have a care to your valuables, even so, sir,’ advised Morris. ‘There are any number of dips about, pickpockets, sir. You wouldn’t believe the artfulness of some of them. They ought to be in the music hall doing a turn on stage, they’re that clever at relieving you of your watch or pocketbook and you none the wiser.’

At last Potter led us to Scuttle Lane – if the title ‘lane’ or street of any kind rightly belonged to it. It was no more than a gap between buildings. The one on the left of the entry was a public house and the one on the right an establishment from which emanated such a foul stench that the business conducted there must involve boiling bones. Scuttle Lane itself was a dark malodorous alley with an open gully running down the middle of it carrying away filthy water the origin of which did not invite speculation.

Our arrival was noticed. Before the public house the regulars propped, pint pot in hand, on benches, turned their befuddled curiosity in our direction.

‘It’s the law…’ observed one of these gentry inevitably.

‘No, it ain’t, it’s old Potter from the parish,’ argued another. ‘Mean old skinflint what he is.’

‘I know it’s ’im, I seen his miserable face enough times, ain’t I? But the two coves with him are peelers, the sort what dresses like lawyers’ clerks and reckons no one will recognise ’em fer what they are!’ The speaker spat, not exactly in our direction, but not a long way off.

‘Here, Mr Potter!’ yelled someone else. ‘You remember me? Jones is the name. You refused to bury my old mother! My wife had to sell her winter gown to pay fer it.’

‘Let us make haste!’ Potter ordered us testily.

‘Tell ’em anywhere,’ said the drinker who had first identified us as policemen, sticking to his guns. ‘I dunno who the cove what looks like a gent is. Proper swell, ain’t he?’

‘So much for plain clothes,’ I observed to Morris
sotto voce.
‘I wonder we bother.’

‘I did suggest,’ Potter told me with some smugness, ‘that it would be better to send to Mrs Dawson to bring the child to us. But you would come yourselves.’

He had stopped before an archway and ducked into it. We followed. He led us into an interior court crammed with rubbish, children and mangy dogs. An old woman sat before her door sorting a pile of rags. She didn’t so much as glance up but she was well aware of us. Her foot knocked against a bucket, as if by chance, and the clang was certainly a warning to anyone in the sordid den behind her. In similar fashion the children scattered, no doubt running to warn their families of the approach of officialdom. Potter knocked at a door.

It was opened by a brawny woman in a tartan gown and grimy apron whose hair was twisted up into a wired ‘Apollo knot’ on top of her head. It was a fashion I believe was popular in old King William IV’s time and little seen nowadays. But Whitechapel is a place where if they like a thing they stick to it. To my eye it looked like a knob on a biscuit barrel lid. Her expression on opening the door had been aggressive but on seeing Potter she melted into smiles.

‘La, Mr Potter, I wasn’t expecting you!’ She put a hand to the loop of the Apollo knot and simpered.

‘Good day to you, Mrs Dawson,’ said Potter. ‘I apologise for disturbing you. I bring these gentlemen with me. May we come in?’

Her eyes darted past him to us. ‘The law?’ she demanded, the simpers and smiles disappearing. ‘I’ve no reason to be visited by the law.’ She placed her hands upon her hips and took up a stance denying us entry.

I spoke up before Potter could. ‘We are accompanying this gentleman, Mr Roche, who has some business to conduct with you.’

The virago’s eyes took in Charles Roche. With great presence of mind, he took off his top hat and bowed.

‘Oh well, a gent…’ said Mrs Dawson, smile returning. She took her hands from her hips and dropped a curtsy. ‘Come in, gentlemen all, come in.
Here, Dotty
!’

She turned her head and the sudden increased pitch of her voice caused us all to jump.

‘Dotty! Stop stirring that porridge and put on the kettle for some tea. I got company!’

She led us indoors, untying the grimy apron as she did and casting it from her out of sight behind a rickety armchair.

The room we were in served both as parlour and kitchen. On the far side was a small range at which stood a slatternly girl of about fourteen struggling with a dented tea kettle. Dotty, I presumed. The abandoned porridge pot slurped and glooped away by itself. The smell of it suggested it had already burned. A rope tied across the room above the level of the range was festooned with drying rags I guessed served as swaddling cloths.

I remembered little Peter Harris abandoned at King’s Cross station. He’d also been given into parish care before ending up in a place, Spartan enough, but marginally better this. The unfortunates present in this room had drawn the short straw.

‘Sit down, gentlemen,’ invited our hostess.

Potter seated himself but as for the rest of us, we were too fascinated by the other occupants of the room to do anything but stand rooted to the spot. There must have been a dozen infants of all ages in the one place. Some crawled, some toddled, others lay in cradles made of orange boxes. One or two slightly older ones had been put to work washing plates in a bowl of greasy water. It was probably the only water their hands were likely to see that day for none of the children appeared to have been bathed recently. Their clothes were equally grubby. All were thin and rickety and kept an unchildlike silence. Their large apprehensive eyes were fixed on us. One or two had their heads shaved, probably in an attempt to remove some infestation, and the shaven skin was daubed with patches of bright violet colour.

‘Gentian Violet, that,’ observed Morris to me. ‘My wife keeps a bottle by in her medicine cabinet. Very good for skin troubles.’

I pulled myself together and sank down on the chair offered me. Roche took the rickety armchair. Morris stationed himself standing by the door.

Potter briefly explained our purpose and showed her the letter. She made no attempt to read it and I suspected she might be illiterate.

‘Come to take one of ’em away, have you?’ she enquired, cutting immediately to the heart of the matter. ‘I’ll be paid for one less, then, Mr Potter, I take it?’

‘No doubt there will be another to take its place soon, ma’am,’ Potter assured her.

‘Which one do you want?’ she asked carelessly, waving a hand around the room to indicate its infant occupants in general.

The girl, Dotty, appeared at my side and thrust into my hand a chipped enamel mug of black tea.

‘Like a drop of rum in that, dear?’ enquired Mrs Dawson politely.

‘Thank you, no,’ I replied.

‘You’ll be on duty,’ she observed. ‘Will the gentleman take a drop? Or you, Mr Potter? You usually do.’

Potter was not best pleased at this remark and said quickly, ‘Only when my chest is affected by the fog.’

‘Number twenty-seven!’ I said loudly. ‘Name of Flynn.’

She put a hand to the Apollo knot again and looked vaguely round her charges. ‘Oh, well, let’s see. I don’t know I can rightly remember which one that is.’

‘It’s that one, Ma,’ said Dotty, pointing at an orange box.

She took it upon herself to go to the cradle. We watched, hardly daring to breathe, as she stooped over it and plucked an infant from it. Dotty turned to us with a smile of satisfaction. ‘’Ere you are, then,’ she announced. ‘Number twenty-seven, like I said.’

The baby lay quietly in her arms. That she was awake was only indicated when she gave a sudden twitch and waved her tiny fist feebly in the air as if seeking to grasp something, but with little expectation of finding it.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Roche in a hoarse voice.

‘Yes, of course I am. See here…’ Dotty dragged up the little soul’s grimy gown and indicated a piece of card that was secured to the baby by a piece of string round its ankle. ‘I wrote on it like I write on ’em all when they come in.’

‘Dotty’s a great one for her letters,’ said Mrs Dawson with maternal pride. ‘She learned ’em at the Sunday School.’

I set aside the tea and went to inspect the child. She had her mother’s beautiful blue eyes but they stared up at me incuriously. I had seen that lack of expression before on the faces of neglected children who had never been cuddled or had baby talk lavished on them. Here the babies would be ignored for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. Such babies do not cry. They have learned it serves no purpose. I was angry but knew I mustn’t show it. I turned the label and read
27 Flynn
written in ill-formed characters.

‘This is the one,’ I said to Potter.

Charles Roche rose to his feet. He was an impressive-looking man with his silvery side whiskers, brocade waistcoat and gold watch chain, and just now he appeared in that grubby crowded little baby farm like Jove about to give judgement. Mrs Dawson got up and smoothed her gown nervously.

‘We shall take my great-niece and leave at once,’ he said.

‘How?’ enquired the practical Dotty.

It was a good question. We should have to carry the child until we reached a cab stand; and since cab stands didn’t abound in Whitechapel that might be for some distance. That we should board a public omnibus carrying an infant would make us such objects of surprised curiosity that it was out of the question.

‘If you can spare Dotty for a short while,’ I said to Mrs Dawson. ‘Perhaps she could carry the infant with us as far as needed. It will be worth her while.’

Dotty’s eyes sparkled but her mother observed waspishly, ‘We’ll all be out of pocket. It costs me far more to feed ’em and clothe ’em than the parish pays me.’

Mr Roche knew his cue. He put his hand to his inside pocket. ‘Allow me, madam, to recompense you for your trouble.’

His tone was sarcastic but Mrs Dawson was untroubled by that. Her hand shot out with the rapidity of a snake’s tongue and grasped the bank note he held out.

‘There,’ she said, tucking it into the bosom of her grimy gown, ‘I could see you were a gent.’

We quitted the wretched place, triumphant. But what a strange procession we formed for any onlooker! Potter led the way, trying his very best to look as if he were not part of our party at all. Dotty came next carrying the child and Roche, Morris and myself brought up the rear.

Roche, who was silent for some distance, found his voice. It shook with rage. ‘Such a business should not be allowed! That – that harridan no more took care of those unfortunate children than—’ His voice spluttered to a halt.

‘It’s all that’s on offer, sir,’ said Sergeant Morris unexpectedly. ‘The parish won’t pay her much. She has to take in so many kids to make a living at it. I’m not defending her, sir. I’m only saying that’s the way of it.’

‘Then I shall not rest until that is no longer “the way of it”!’ Roche snapped.

I didn’t doubt his sincerity but I did doubt his ability to change very much. The policy of the parish was to do as little as possible, to discourage application for relief. An orphan pauper was a burden upon the respectable ratepayer and unwelcome. However little the money spent, it was begrudged.