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Authors: John MacLachlan Gray

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BOOK: The Fiend in Human
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Having no idea where he is other than somewhere south of New Oxford Street and north of Leicester Square, keenly aware of the potentially fatal consequences of every breath taken in this fetid warren, Whitty determines his best course to be one of discretion: retain a cordial accord with his host on all issues moral and political, express deep regret for harm done, and negotiate the best possible terms of release by agreeing to everything. Not the boldest strategy, but Whitty is not in a bold mood.
‘May I ask where you are taking me, Mr Owler?’
‘Tea-time, Mr Whitty,’ replies the patterer. “Course, if you prefers to be on your own …’
‘Not at all. Absolutely delighted to join you.’
Through a set of green stable doors they enter what can only be a kitchen, to judge by the pervasive smell of burnt animal fat and fish. Visually, the room is obscured by thick grey smoke (a loathsome miasma carrying every disease in Europe), pierced by a narrow shaft of light from a hole in the roof.
Whitty has found himself in some appalling hovels, but nothing to compare with this.
‘Be it ever so ’umble, Sir. Consider yourself my guest.’
‘Most grateful, I am sure,’ replies the correspondent as though charmed by the quaintness of it, lighting the stub of a cigar he has found in a pocket, the better to breathe without retching.
As they cross the room Whitty’s eyes adjust to the gloom so that he can now make out a blackened chimney, which stands out from a brick wall like the flying buttress of some dismal cathedral. Blackened beams hang from the roof and down the walls, supported by a floor of packed dirt. The two men pass beneath an iron gas pipe whose flame provides a feeble illumination; as they reach the opposing side Whitty can see that the entire wall is a long, projecting wooden bench, in front of which stand a series of tables of various heights, sizes and shapes, with each one of them at some stage of collapse.
Across the tables loll the torsos of at least twenty sleeping men, lying back to back for warmth, knees bent like sleeping infants. At the end of the room, a group of men and women huddle about the stove in blankets and coats the colour of soot. A few are toasting herrings, which smell strongly of overripe oil and add to the unwholesome sweetness of sheep fat. To one side of the stove, three men occupy themselves by drying the ends of cigars collected in the street.
Whitty has never seen so ragged and motley an assemblage in his life – hair matted like sheared wool, unshorn beards slick with grease, pallor approaching a luminous green. Two men – either artists or thieves who stole from artists – wear tatty smocks; another sports a rotting plush waistcoat with long sleeves; another an ancient shooting-jacket.
Even in such company, the appearance of the party who rises to greet Mr Owler defies comparison: his cheeks are so sunken that it is impossible that the man can have any teeth; a skeletal frame covered by an ancient coat, stained black and worn shiny; a shirt so brown with wearing that only close inspection can discern the shadow of a chequered pattern. The sight of the man is of such overpowering
wretchedness as to be almost comical. Whitty wonders for how much longer the man will be able to stand up at all, especially with the lady’s side-buttoned boots he wears on his feet, the toes of which have been cut out so that he can get them on.
The man executes a wobbly bow. ‘Good afternoon, Henry. Lovely to see you.’ His voice seems to emanate from some distance away.
‘Good afternoon, Jeremy. Mr Whitty, allow me to present Mr Hollow, my former associate – former I regret, owing to illness and infirmity. Mr Hollow is a very fine poet.’
Whitty bows; the hand in his feels not unlike a packet of twigs. ‘I am extremely pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir.’
‘Jeremy, this is a newspaperman, moniker of Whitty.’
Replies Mr Hollow, ‘You have heard of
The Husband’s Dream
perhaps?’
‘Regretfully, I have not had that honour.’
‘Henry, we really must revive
The Husband’s Dream
.’
‘Should have done so already, Jeremy, but for the cost of paper.’
‘Very popular in the streets it was, in its day.’
Owler turns to the correspondent. ‘And a stunning instructive piece of work it is, Sir. Imaginatively conceived and cunningly wrought. Consider: a drunkard falls asleep in the gutter and is redeemed in a dream. Simple, true, and wery uplifting to the sensibilities of all as read it.’
‘I shall certainly read it at the next opportunity.’
‘That will be difficult, Sir,’ replies Mr Hollow. ‘We have no copies for want of capital.’
‘And yet,’ says the patterer, ‘we must never forget as how the writer lives on in the memory of the faithful reader.’ As though to prove his point, Owler begins to recite in a purposeful, resonant baritone:
‘O Dermot you look healthy now,
Your dress is neat and clean;
I never see you drunk about,
Then tell me where you’ve been …’
‘That is the opening, for your information Mr Whitty,’ says the poet. ‘It sets the scene of a chance encounter.’
Adds Owler: ‘In the next stanza, Dermot recounts as how he dreamt of his wife’s sudden death.’
‘The dream is, or so it seems to me, a most poetic state of mind – do you not agree, Mr Whitty?’
‘I do not doubt it, Mr Hollow.’
‘Indeed,’ says the patterer, ‘the misery of his children as they cry over their mother’s dead body is wividly described – one can see it before one’s eyes as t’would squeeze a tear from a banker. Now, hark to the redemption:
‘I pressed her to my throbbing heart
Whilst joyous tears did stream;
And ever since I’ve heaven blest
For sending me that dream …’
At the concluding line, the patterer’s substantial baritone tapers to a whisper as though drained; in response, a ripple of applause erupts among the wretches seated about the stove. ‘Of course, with no sheets to sell, even a masterpiece is not worth a farthing.’
‘May I take it, Gentlemen, that you are business associates?’
‘Mr Hollow were my wersifier for many years, until his infirmity.’
‘And what, may I ask, is the infirmity?’
‘The eyes, sir,’ says Mr Hollow. ‘I am nearly blind.’
‘That is indeed a terrible affliction, and I am sorry to hear it.’
‘You are generous, Sir. I can still compose my verses, but they die with me for want of copying.’ Mr Hollow turns to Whitty, who can now perceive a milkiness of the eye. ‘As a professional man, what might be your honest opinion of my work?’
Honest?
Whitty side-steps the subject, having no desire to undermine the
raison d‘être
of a blind man. ‘Empty praise is cheap, Sir. Allow me to offer you some small sustenance as a gesture.’ So saying, he reaches into his pocket, retrieves the few coppers remaining from the unremembered events of last night, and slides them across the table between Mr Hollow and Mr Owler.
Sighs the poet, transfixed by the sound of money: ‘A kind gesture, Sir, most kind. Although material reward is a poet’s last consideration, I confess that remuneration of late has reached an unusually low ebb. To make ends meet, I have been occupied in collecting dog manure for use by tanners. I go by the smell, you see.’
Whitty didn’t know such an occupation existed. ‘A lean business, I should imagine.’
‘Not nearly so lean as the writing of poetry, sir.’
‘I readily admit it, Mr Hollow.’
‘Now, Gentlemen,’ Owler announces, ‘enough banter, for we are here on a wery sober business.’
He leans over the table (its deal surface has developed into a series of rolling hills, with a long, flat indentation in the centre), removes his crooked hat, sets it upside-down, intertwines his fingers sausage-like and assumes the worrisome aspect he displayed earlier in the privy.
‘Mr Whitty, I am not one to mince words or to dance around a thing. I likes to call a thing by what it is, and we are here on a serious matter. Jeremy, this here Mr Whitty, a
newspaperman,
has indicated in the public mouth that my “Sorrowful Lamentation” concerning Chokee Bill is, to put it baldly’ (the patterer stammers as though he can scarcely produce the word) ‘a c-c-cock, Sir. A flam.’
‘Oh dear, Henry, that is very bad.’ The poet turns to the correspondent with grave aspect: ‘I will have you understand, Sir, that in the trade Mr Owler is known as a scholar of murders who has not missed a public execution in a quarter-century. For sheer devotion to the craft he is without peer, having spent more than an hundred hours altogether with criminals in the death cell, conversing with them in great seriousness on the prospect of that eternal world upon whose awful precipice they sit. You may take my word on it, Sir, Mr Owler shines as a beacon of integrity. Mr Owler has been a steadfast friend to me, Sir – indeed, more than a friend …’
Aware that he is not out of danger and with no escape in sight, Whitty chooses an aspect of judicious, measured dignity.
‘I accept your estimation, Sir, that the issues of which you speak are of unexampled gravity.’
The poet laughs ruefully. ‘I fear that the damage to your reputation will put you in the manure business yourself, Henry.’
‘If not the workhouse, Jeremy. And what’s to become of the young women in my care? As I am known to say, Sir, life goes on – whether we like it or not. You what has noted those wretched female carcasses in the courtyard, I leave you to your conclusions as to my fears.’
Thinks Whitty: Clearly for wretches such as these, the great fear is not death so much as the cruelty of survival, the consequent suffering when ‘life goes on’.
Cautions the poet: ‘While your agitation is not without reason, Henry, reason also suggests that you give thought to the disposition of your daughter. A girl of exceptional character if I may say so, I who know her as well as if she were my own.’
‘That is true, Jeremy. Both Phoebe and Dorcas will endure cold and wet and starvation before applying to the Union and winding up in the workhouse.’
‘It is not right, young girls breaking stones and picking oakum like convicts.’
‘Not to mention the attentions of the porter. It don’t bear thinking, Sir.’
‘The workhouse is for girls who have only their virginity to sell.’
‘True for you, Jeremy. Do you agree, Mr Whitty?’
The correspondent nods back and forth, wearing an agreeable, serious expression. It is not a pleasant business to encounter someone who faces ruin as a result of a thing one has written, and is now in a position to do the writer harm in return.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Owler, but I hope you will accord me the assumption of honest intent. I had no wish to do you harm.’
‘I assume so, Sir, and in that spirit I shall therefore undertake to prove you wrong. Should I be successful, I trust that you will do the honourable thing and return a man’s reputation to him. Does that seem the right course, Sir?’
‘Indeed, Mr Owler. Wholeheartedly. If I were proven to be in error, professional ethics require a prompt correction.’ Not necessarily true, thinks Whitty, but this is no time for hair-splitting.
‘May I have your word on that, Sir? As a gentleman?’ Owler puts out his hand, which the correspondent grasps as required. The patterer’s palm is like wood to the touch.
‘Indeed, Sir, you have my word as a gentleman.’
(In actual fact, the correspondent has reason to doubt both his status as a gentleman and the likelihood of persuading
The Falcon
to retract, it being general policy not to do so unless under threat of a lawsuit, a parliamentary hearing or the imminent removal of the correspondent’s kneecaps.)
Owler’s face reassumes that open aspect which Whitty finds so troublesome, for there is nothing more mortifying than honest gullibility. ‘Now that we have resolved the measure to our mutual satisfaction, Mr Whitty, I propose some wictuals. Well, Gentlemen? Some material sustenance to sustain the wital organs?’
‘With pleasure, Henry,’ replies Mr Hollow, nearly in tears at the prospect.
‘Absolutely delighted,’ adds the correspondent, relighting his stub of a cigar against the smells to come.
Appropriating three of the correspondent’s coppers, the patterer approaches the stove at the far end of the room and places them into the open hand of the keeper of the stove, a sharp-eyed crone in a brown
night-gown, who ladles out three bowls of a thick, steaming substance from an enormous iron pot. Now Whitty stares into the battered tin vessel before him, as blackened and grease-encrusted as the stove itself, wherein lies a thick grey liquid, with a curious lump of something like tripe floating upon its surface.
Owler speaks confidentially: ‘In this establishment, Mr Whitty, it is the custom for a patron to supply his own utensils. Your bowl is come courtesy of Mr Elkin there.’
Whitty glances in the direction indicated: seated by the stove, the gentleman in the deteriorated shooting-jacket (with what looks like a small goitre on the side of his neck) waves magnanimously. The correspondent waves a queasy thank-you in return.
BOOK: The Fiend in Human
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