Read The Fiend in Human Online
Authors: John MacLachlan Gray
The Fiend in Human (8 page)
His hand relaxes as he reconsiders. ‘A game. Of course. My dear, I am terribly sorry. That was wretched of me. Though you do bring up the beast in a man.’
‘That is the entire point, is it not?’ She relaxes now that the danger, if any there was, is over.
By the end of it she has earned her shillings painlessly, having satisfied his requirements by means of her hands and thighs, and him sufficiently fevered with randiness and drink not to detect the absence of actual penetration.
While he lies against her, satiated and limp, she thinks about his display of meanness and the way he took his pleasure. Many men, in her experience, love women as much for malice as for lechery. Still, a girl does not have to like it, nor does she have to put up with it.
So she decides she will rob him, not so much for monetary gain as a form of trophy-taking.
However, her young stallion will not co-operate. In a surge of renewed vigour he proposes to rendezvous with his companion, who will provide him with funds for further refreshment and entertainment.
Having hired another hansom and having instructed the driver to return to the Haymarket and Orange Street, she watches her Mr Brighton sink at last into a sodden sleep.
After making certain the curtains are well closed, she goes to work, deftly removing his silk handkerchief, gold ring, pocket-watch – and of course the now-empty silver flask with the coat of arms. She takes care to place each object in its own pocket inside her cloak, so that they will not bump one against the other.
She unlatches the door and prepares to jump – hesitant, reluctant to damage her good shoes on the cobblestones – when Providence comes to her assistance, as the cab abruptly pulls to a halt on a narrow street to permit another coach to pass. While the drivers exchange the time of day, quality of business and hours of work remaining, she climbs softly down onto the cobbles, silently refastens the door, and hurries up the lane in the direction of Leicester Square, smiling to herself …
‘You there, Miss! Just a word, if you don’t mind!’
The unmistakable voice of the Metropolitan Police. The sudden stab of fear causes her to gasp, for here lies a greater danger than anything she experienced with her young man this evening.
‘Yes, Sir? What is it you would have of me, Sir?’ As usual when there is trouble, she chooses an aspect of innocence and ignorance as her best defence.
‘Step under the lamp where I can see you, if you don’t mind.’
‘Yes, Sir. And what is it you wish? For I am but a poor woman. Please, if you’re a thief I have no money to give you.’
‘Don’t play the idiot. State your business.’
In the light of a nearby lamp, by his height alone she recognizes Mr Salmon, who is well known on the Haymarket and whose presence bodes well or ill, depending. Mr Salmon is not a regular Peeler but another kind of policeman, which means that he will not bring her in capriciously as a prostitute; but should he suspect her of some other crime, he can be bribed neither with money nor with flesh. This too is well known. She is ever so glad to have packed her stolen things in separate pockets where they will not rattle, for they are enough to bring
her ten years’ transportation.
her ten years’ transportation.
Standing in his long shadow, she understands why Mr Salmon is called an ‘inspector’, for she can feel his eyes looking her up and down as though she might be a stray animal or a possibly stolen cart.
‘I’m a lacemaker, Sir. On my way home from work. I live in Perkin’s Rents.’
‘A lacemaker, do you say? Who is your employer?’
‘I work for Mrs Blossom of Whitechapel.’ Indeed, Flo once worked for Mrs Blossom, who operates one of the better-known slop shops in the city. Lies are always best when they stop just short of the truth.
‘And what might a lacemaker be doing, travelling about London by cab? And why should she disembark in such haste?’
He saw. That is why he stopped her. Now she must think quickly, for the rest of her life hangs in the balance of probabilities as he weighs them back and forth.
‘It was a young gentleman, Sir. Of the quality. He invited me to take supper at the Crown, and I accepted because I was hungry. But on the way there he made an improper suggestion, and improper advances too, so I left him. That is the honest truth, Sir, I swear.’ Indeed it was a young gentleman, and he was heading for the Crown; again, she chooses near-honesty as her best defence.
‘A chance meeting, was it? For that is not the dress of a lacemaker.’
To this she has no reply.
‘Very well, Miss. I see that we’ve come to the truth at last. No, I’m not on a quest to rid London of its whores. Carry on, then, do you hear me? Don’t just stand there gaping. Go about your business.’
‘Thank you, Sir.’ She swallows hard to contain the tears of relief rising up in her.
‘Only a moment, while I offer you a piece of advice.’
‘Yes, Sir?’
‘I would not wander about the empty streets alone if I were you. Not after dark.’
‘I understand, Sir.’
‘No, Miss. I don’t think you do.’
The Holy Land
The appalling stench burns his nose and lungs alarmingly and penetrates his eyes, though they remain tightly closed. And he is retching. He was retching even while he slept. This symptom has occurred to him before of course, yet he hates it no less for the acquaintance. As he regains consciousness he becomes aware of a hand, a large, callused hand. How strange – the hand is clutching the back of his neck, holding his head steady within a circular opening about the size of a horse’s halter. A stable? No, that cannot be right …
In truth, these awakenings are becoming insupportable, the blackouts, the nausea, now this.
‘Give him air, Father. He is retching.’
‘That is to the good, my dear. The natural ammonia is doing its work. Better than smelling salts, ammonia is. Quick now, my angel, define ammonia.’
The young girl with the pale skin, long dark hair and the dress made from many dresses, transforms from angel to pupil. Daughters of all classes assume such roles for Father’s benefit, especially when approaching womanhood. When a girl develops in certain places, she cannot be herself any more with the men of her acquaintance. This is not entirely a bad thing. (Secretly, she plans for a career on the stage.)
‘Ammonia, Father, is a noxious gas.’
‘Wery good, Phoebe. And where is it commonly found?’
‘Ammonia is a by-product of the coke ovens, and from certain … bodily functions.’
‘Speak it right out, my angel, there is no profit for the scientist in squeamishness. Meantime,’ Owler adds, turning to Dorcas, ‘do you, Miss, have anything to add to the discussion?’
Holding the correspondent’s head down the hole with one hand, Owler removes his own crooked hat with the other, revealing a ruddy bald head and a fringe of reddish hair. He passes the hat to Phoebe’s friend, who is of the same age and complexion as her contemporary, but with hair the colour of the sun after rain, and with a languorous quality – a family inheritance no doubt, as is her fondness for spiced gin. The latter tendency he cannot control, alas, for Dorcas is not his
daughter but his ward, taken as company for his child when Phoebe’s mother drank bad water and they expected the worst.
daughter but his ward, taken as company for his child when Phoebe’s mother drank bad water and they expected the worst.
‘Aye, Henry? What is it you wish from me?’ Dorcas smiles at him experimentally, in a way a young woman ought not to smile at an older man.
Owler sighs wearily. He has spoken to these two about modesty in dress and the folly of a prematurely provocative demeanour. As with the drink, his authority in such matters is diminished with Dorcas; hence, a wariness on his part, an aspect of decorum in the presence of his daughter’s blooming young companion, thereby to safeguard the innocence of his daughter, and of himself into the bargain.
It is the environment to blame, thinks Owler, the time and place we live in, when the poor can no longer afford to be respectable. With every imaginable sort of indecency proceeding in plain view, the most intimate acts on display in the gas-lit shadows of a normal evening, what is left to protect? Having cost the young their childhood, who are we adults to begrudge them their sad, partial sophistication?
And yet the streets are more dangerous now, with all manner of beasts lurking about.
Pushing these troubling thoughts to one side, the patterer removes the head of his guest from its pungent container. ‘Well now, Mr Whitty, or should I say, Mr Special Correspondent: are we ready to regain our senses?’
Whitty breathes deeply the comparatively fresh air, while gazing about the small, windowless room (morning light filtering through cracks in the walls), striving to assess the situation. He recognizes the standing patterer, even without his crooked hat, as the party who has been following him all day.
Suddenly the correspondent for
The Falcon
becomes sensible of the nature of the hole to his right, which he has occupied for an uncertain amount of time. ‘We’re in a bog-house, Sir! You have put my head down a privy!’
The Falcon
becomes sensible of the nature of the hole to his right, which he has occupied for an uncertain amount of time. ‘We’re in a bog-house, Sir! You have put my head down a privy!’
‘It is indeed a privy, sir,’ comes a feminine voice to Whitty’s left. ‘You should consider yourself fortunate that Father did not throw you into the cess-pit below, for it is over a fathom deep and you would have drowned.’
He turns to confront the speaker – unless it is two speakers. Or perhaps he is seeing double, which would not surprise him in the least. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss, but I don’t believe I have had the honour …’
‘My name is Phoebe. And this is my companion, Dorcas. And this is
my father, whom you may address as Mr Owler, and whom you have sorely ill-used, sir.’
my father, whom you may address as Mr Owler, and whom you have sorely ill-used, sir.’
‘Grievous bad,’ adds Dorcas, with a pretty smile.
So there are two of them. Having established this fact, the correspondent directs his attention to his captor. ‘Have I been kidnapped, Sir? Am I under torture?’
The ruddy, whiskered face assumes a pained expression: ‘Nothing so barbaric, sir. A medically necessary procedure, is what. You was in a bad way when we brought you here, was my observation. You was into trouble with an unusual wariety of persons – surely you remember the circumstance yourself.’
‘A bad way? What sort of a bad way was I in?’
‘There was an assault, Sir. A most wicious assault of which you was the recipient. Hardly what one expects from a member of the gentler sex, if I do say so. The lady proposed to wield a coal-shovel to wery bad effect, as she ushered you out of the building. When the lady returned inside, you was then attacked by two other gentlemen who came out of the shadows – like they was standing in a queue, waiting their turn.’
‘Such a popular gentleman,’ remarks Phoebe to Dorcas.
Blast.
The ratters
.
The ratters
.
‘I’m not one to pry into the business of others,’ continues Owler, ‘yet had we not intervened I am certain you would surely have suffered a serious injury.’
Whitty massages his pounding temples, for it is as though someone has driven a nail straight through one side of his head to the other. ‘Would the lady with the coal-shovel by any chance have been speaking in a foreign accent?’
‘Irish I believe, Sir. A handsome people, but with a temperamental streak in my observation. You was in a sticky situation. You was lucky to have escaped without broken bones.’
‘I am grateful to you, Sir.’ Although at a loss as to how a man and two girls might hold back two ratters, Whitty must take the patterer’s word for it, for the scene is but a vague memory of unintelligible voices and terrible curses.
Feigning a gentlemanly calm, the correspondent extends his hand. ‘Edmund Whitty of
The Falcon
, Sir, at your service.’
The Falcon
, Sir, at your service.’
Owler does not reciprocate. ‘Oh, I knows who you are. You are the newspaperman.’ He spits out the word as though it has a vile taste.
While Whitty considers this alarming utterance, Owler turns to the
two young women: ‘Now I’ll thank you young ladies to be on your way, whilst I have a word with the newspaperman.’
two young women: ‘Now I’ll thank you young ladies to be on your way, whilst I have a word with the newspaperman.’
‘Certainly, Father.’ Phoebe nods to her companion, confirming a private set of plans, the particulars of which her father would prefer not to know. Now she turns to the gentleman guest with her most refined smile: ‘Good-day to you, Sir.’
‘My compliments to you, Miss. Your presence has been the highlight of my day thus far.’
Thinks Phoebe: What must he think of her, having been held prisoner in a privy?
Alone now with his captor, Whitty’s mind has recovered sufficiently to gather that this is the same standing patterer upon whom he heaped defamation in the hanging piece – a far more damning shot, now that he recalls it, than he would deign to aim at a fellow correspondent. For the moment he chooses not to refer directly to this connection, but to affect the aspect of a victim of mistaken identity.
‘You done me an injury and an injustice, Sir. Yet life goes on.’ Owler gestures toward the door like a head butler. ‘And now Mr Whitty, you may accompany me to the dining-room.’
‘Excellent. Might one have the opportunity to wash?’
Mr Owler finds the question highly amusing.
The instant the two men emerge through the creaking door of the bog-house, it all becomes horribly clear: Whitty will be fortunate to get away with the clothes on his back; indeed, he will be lucky to get away with his back.
They are situated amid a warren of yards and passages crammed with outcast humanity, a dense mass of worm-eaten houses with walls the colour of bleached soot, so old they only seem not to fall, their half-glazed windows patched with lumps of bed ticking.
He is a man lost in a maze, without hope of extrication by calculation or craft: between these houses curve and wind a series of narrow and tortuous lanes; stagnant gutters bisect the lanes, filled with substances Whitty does not wish to think about; above them is a formless architectural mass, interconnected by an elaborate complex of crude runways between roofs, with spikes located beside the upper windows to permit a party literally to climb the walls. Below ground, Whitty has heard, bolt-holes link one building to the next in a maze of escape routes. The cumulative result is that a fugitive can pass over and under a series of houses and emerge undetected in another part of the rookery in a matter of moments. Should the Peelers or some other authority
dare to pursue him, their prey will simply have vanished. Should a foolish crusher follow him into the cellar, chances are good that the policeman will drown in a concealed cess-pool like the one of Whitty’s recent acquaintance; surviving that, the constable will in all likelihood place his head in a bolt-hole and promptly lose it.
dare to pursue him, their prey will simply have vanished. Should a foolish crusher follow him into the cellar, chances are good that the policeman will drown in a concealed cess-pool like the one of Whitty’s recent acquaintance; surviving that, the constable will in all likelihood place his head in a bolt-hole and promptly lose it.
‘My God, it’s the Holy Land,’ Whitty whispers, turning somewhat paler than normal.
Owler smiles: ‘Werily, Sir. And welcome.’
Straddling New Oxford Street, extending from Great Russell Street to St Giles High Street and bounded by a series of frightful brothels, is an immense, squalid warren crammed with outcast humanity – in effect, a foreign country, as though in the core of Empire dwells a race of cannibals from the far end of the Nile.
When ancient trades became obsolete and ancient villages became uninhabitable, families whose existence depended upon them migrated into the city, there to form villages in miniature amid the gracious estates behind Regent Street and the Strand, causing their well-born inhabitants to wonder if London was any longer the place for them.
Meantime the pace of progress stepped up, and with each change more hands went out of work. As the income of the working classes descended, more people and lower people – chimney-sweeps, washerwomen, tripe-sellers, beggars – poured into London’s centre to pack the back streets, courts, squares and mews.
Naturally, the social tone coarsened. Inhabitants of the quality were set upon by ruffians and had their watches stolen, and the presence of the lower orders became simply too oppressive to be endured. So the quality moved away, leaving their fine houses to be subdivided by agents on commission.
As these houses deteriorated, the subdivisions divided again and again. Whole families moved into single rooms in which to do piecework to pay the rent, pawning the spoons at the end of each week to make up for the shortfall. As these meagre spaces became insupportable, parts of rooms were sublet, then beds, then parts of beds. In the meanwhile, primitive shanties were constructed in the back-yard, then let, then sub-let, then sub-sub-let.
By this point the area had become known as the Holy Land, after the impoverished Irish Catholics who poured in as though it were Jerusalem.
It is the common wisdom that no person has any business there who is more than one step away from death by starvation, disease or
hanging. Despite a variety of pecuniary and social embarrassments, Whitty has never sunk quite this low.
hanging. Despite a variety of pecuniary and social embarrassments, Whitty has never sunk quite this low.
True, one’s chance of being murdered for one’s money or clothing is greater in the lanes behind the Ratcliffe Highway, and the opportunity to become infected by an appalling disease is more available on the mud-flats where the sewers empty into the Thames; yet the Holy Land is more feared. In scope it has attained a macabre grandeur, like a canto out of Dante, as though majestic Britain, the pinnacle of civilized progress and Christian virtue, has somehow brought about within its own bosom an equal majesty on the other side.
The patterer conducts his guest across Carrier Square – if the term ‘square’ may usefully be employed to describe an outdoor space bisected by a drain and cluttered with coster carts, upon which lie the bodies of sleeping prostitutes of the lowest sort, skirts every which way, white legs indecently exposed, dangling over the rims like the necks of plucked geese. In the reeking hubbub of Rosemary Lane, festoons of second-hand clothes wave like pennants from tiny cave-like shops; other surrounding streets – alleys really – emanate from the square like arteries from a heart, filled with sick persons and stick-persons, monuments to the act of loitering.
A woman with a bloated face, a short pipe in her mouth, tiny eyes darting incessantly back and forth and with a wolfish dog by her side, tears rags in strips for some commercial purpose. A young man with a consumptive cough, covered only by a blue rug stolen from a livery stable, cries out piteously while banging a tin alms cup. A group of black Irish keep watch for someone who might profitably be waylaid – assuming themselves already lost to the Devil in this heathen Protestant city.
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