The Street Philosopher (15 page)

Yet now, less than two hours later, he could hardly recognise this behaviour as his own. They were the actions of a madman–not of the charming, self-possessed lover of the widow Jemima James. The travails of the past few days now seemed trifling. His run-in with Wray was an unfortunate coincidence, best forgotten. The incident at the opening ceremony was the last delusion of a mind now firmly on the mend. All he wanted on Earth was to find a waiter, obtain two glasses, and get back to her as quickly as possible.

Mrs James’ assessment of his status at the Polygon ball, however, was woefully correct. Away from the dancing, the street philosopher found himself caught in a great shoal of disapproving faces. A waiter approached, cruising like a clipper through the assembly, his tray aloft. Kitson’s attempt to hail him was utterly ignored; the man simply altered his course, cutting towards the Polygon’s main hall. At that moment, Kitson was so full of light-hearted hope that he decided to give chase, repeating his hail as he did so. This attracted further opprobrium, with someone clucking ‘disgraceful’ as he passed them. Neither did it halt the waiter; indeed, he seemed to pick up speed. He left the ballroom, bending away into a servant’s corridor, vanishing from sight.

Kitson took four steps into this corridor and stopped. There was no sign of the man he pursued. Away from the orchestra, the hush was striking; a pungent smell of beeswax had replaced the many mingled perfumes of the ballroom, and the dim lambency of candlelight seemed almost like darkness after the gas chandeliers. He wondered what he was to do now.

A hand clapped on Kitson’s shoulder, seizing hold of his collar. His first thought was that he was to be ejected from the Polygon by a footman, and separated from Mrs James; but he was shoved instead into a corner beneath the twist of a back staircase and held hard against the wall. It was far worse than that.

‘Well I never,’ hissed his assailant, his heavy beard scratching against Kitson’s ear, ‘if it isn’t the fellow who saved Archie bloody Wray. Why would he do such a thing, I wonder, knowing what he does?’

‘Cracknell,’ Kitson gasped. ‘Release me, damn it. What do you–’

‘Is he on a divinely ordained mission to heal the afflicted, like Saint Elizabeth of Hungary? Does he hold an honest belief in the ultimate bloody goodness within every man?’ The grip on Kitson’s collar tightened. ‘Or has he perhaps forgotten what exactly our Archie is a party to?’

Despite painful protests from his chest, Kitson managed to turn himself around and push the other man back. And there it was, that same face he had glimpsed from the northern balcony, now only an arm’s length away. It had gained a few lines, and the black beard was flecked with grey–but it was indisputably the face of Richard Cracknell. Something was different, though; there was a bitterness beneath the old bombastic swagger that both reduced him and made him seem yet more volatile. He grabbed Kitson’s lapel, bunching it up in his hairy, tobacco-stained fist.

As his initial shock receded, Kitson felt a rush of fury. His detestation of this man, he discovered, was quite undiminished by the time that had passed. ‘Do you suppose I
knew
?’ he spat. ‘It was dark. I could see nothing. Do you honestly think I would have helped Wray if—’ He tried to free himself, but could not. Cracknell was still the stronger. ‘What the devil are you doing here? What do you
want
?’

Cracknell’s grin was chillingly familiar. ‘Let’s begin with Mrs James, shall we?’

Kitson frowned uncomprehendingly. He stopped struggling. A cold, deadening heaviness was gathering in his midriff; his fingers were suddenly numb. ‘What–what of her?’

Seeing that restraint was no longer necessary, Cracknell released him. ‘The hand of fate is at work here, Thomas. Can you not feel it? I arrive in Manchester to hear of a stabbing, and discover first that it’s Wray–and second that a fellow named Kitson was responsible for saving him. So I root around, as I am wont to do, and I find out that my dear old comrade Thomas Kitson is on the most favourable terms with none other than Charles Norton’s daughter. Is this chance? I think not! A higher agency is at work, my friend!’

‘What are you talking about?’ Kitson could hear the tense uncertainty in his voice. ‘You are drunk.’

With a throaty chuckle, Cracknell took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it on a nearby candle. ‘I’ve been watching you two this evening–all that delightful awkwardness and secretive simpering. For what it’s worth, I’d say your feet are well parked under that particular table. The gratitude of widows, eh? Still, a good piece of work–almost a shame to think of what must be done.’

Now Kitson was growing properly afraid. ‘What is your meaning?’

Cracknell laughed. ‘
Charles bloody Norton
, Thomas!’ he said, as if this was an explanation in itself; then he looked at his former junior incredulously. ‘Christ’s balls, d’ye really not know? Is that not why you are here, living in this godforsaken cesspool of a city? And cosying up to his daughter?’ He hesitated, taking the cigarette from his lips. ‘Haven’t you looked around the Exhibition yet?’

This caught Kitson off-guard. ‘No one has, bar the Committee. It opens to the public tomorrow. Why do you ask?’

Cracknell put a hand on his shoulder, rather more gently than before. ‘Introduce me to Mrs James.’

Jolted to his senses, Kitson knocked away Cracknell’s hand. ‘I will not. I don’t know what your purpose is in Manchester, despite all your insinuations, but I will have nothing to do with it.’

Cracknell smiled indulgently, a clear threat in his eyes. ‘Introduce me to her, Thomas,’ he murmured, ‘or by God I will go over there and introduce myself.’

It was immediately clear that something was amiss.

When Mr Kitson eventually reappeared, he brought not flutes of champagne but the black-bearded man who had winked at Jemima earlier. The street philosopher’s entire demeanour had altered. All peace and good humour had left him; his expression contained the same mixture of anger and shame that it had done on Mosley Street whilst in the proximity of Major Wray. He was stooping slightly, a hand lingering at the side of his chest–clutching at the ribs, Jemima could not help but think, as if it was holding them together.

The bearded man was the obvious reason for Mr Kitson’s discomfort, and Jemima found herself disliking him for this alone, before he had even opened his mouth to speak. As they approached the French windows, she saw that this odd person was not in proper evening dress. His jacket and trousers belonged to two different suits, and his puce waistcoat was stained with a variety of unidentifiable substances. He was attracting a good deal of attention, none of it favourable. Jemima wondered who he must know in order to have been invited.

Then, sustaining a neutral tone with evident effort, Mr Kitson introduced him. Jemima recognised the name at once. ‘Were you not the Crimean correspondent for the
London Courier
, Mr Cracknell? “The Tomahawk of the
Courier
”, didn’t they call you, in the later stages of the campaign?’

Mr Cracknell laughed condescendingly. ‘Yes, madam, my editor at the time decided to adorn me with that colourful title.’

A brisk polka began, the dancers greeting it with giddy hurrahs. Jemima looked at the two men. The
London Courier
linked them, but the relationship was palpably not that of correspondents working in different branches of a publication who happened to have become acquainted. Their demeanour spoke of something weightier, darker; something that had gone terribly wrong.

‘Much as
Punch
recently saw fit to call your father the Buckle King,’ Mr Cracknell continued, his voice becoming more loaded. ‘It is a silly habit of the press. I rather prefer mine, I must say.’ He lifted up his hand, drawing on the cigarette concealed within, and turned to Mr Kitson, who was staring down impassively at the floor. ‘Which is not to belittle Mr Norton’s accomplishments–Heaven forbid it! How could I, a lowly grubber scorned by the world, possibly cast aspersion on a man who has risen so high, and in such an astonishingly short space of time?’

‘His ascent has indeed been remarkable,’ Jemima replied carefully.

Tapping ash on to the Fairbairns’ carpet, Cracknell shook his head in sardonic amazement. ‘What connections the fellow must have.’

With some irritation, Jemima sensed that she was being used by Mr Cracknell to make a point for Mr Kitson’s benefit–not that he seemed any wiser than she about what the Tomahawk of the
Courier
was implying. That her father had somehow attracted Mr Cracknell’s disapproval did not surprise her; this jaded eccentric appeared to define himself by being antagonistic. She would not, however, simply stand and listen to him pontificate unchallenged.

‘So tell me, sir,’ she broke in, ‘why is the Tomahawk not in India? I have read that the Sepoys are close to open revolt. Is your rightful place not out there?’

The overbearing smirk that had been playing across Mr Cracknell’s florid cheeks since their introduction grew forced and mirthless. He did not wish to discuss the Indian mutiny
and his great distance from it, and tried to divert their talk back to Charles Norton.

Jemima persisted. ‘The
Courier
, I see, has sent someone else. Could it be that you have lost favour with the magazine’s proprietors–that the controversy caused by your behaviour during the Russian War has prevented them from appointing you?’

Mr Kitson shifted his weight from one foot to the other, raising his head to watch Mr Cracknell’s reaction to Jemima’s question.

‘It was a complicated situation, madam.’ He sighed, as if summoning his patience. ‘The war ended badly, as I’m sure you’ll recall, with the enemy undefeated and things generally rather unsatisfactory. None were pleased by that spineless treaty drawn up in Paris. The neutralisation of the Black Sea! What the deuce is that?’ There was a quick anger in his voice. He leant in towards her, so close that she could see the broken veins in his cheeks. ‘The truth is that we gained next to nothing for our staggering losses. The Russians
laughed at us
, Mrs James–we took their port city from them only to give it back a few months later and sail away.’ He dropped the end of his cigarette on the floor, and trod on it emphatically. ‘Few reputations escaped from that dreadful mess unscathed–my own included.’

A neat enough piece of evasion, but it did not satisfy Jemima for an instant. More blatant provocation was needed if she was to learn anything worthwhile. ‘Forgive me, sir, but I was referring to the specific allegations made against you alone. I greatly admired your work in the first months of the war. I must confess that the invasion seemed gratuitous to me from the start, but I had no idea that it was being done so thoughtlessly, with so little regard on the part of the commanders for the lives of those beneath them. You helped to raise awareness of this.’

Mr Cracknell nodded in wary acknowledgement, knowing that a qualification was coming. Mr Kitson had withdrawn into himself once more. Jemima could not tell if he was even listening.

‘It is regrettable, though, that you grew so vindictive. There
was that one officer with whom you became quite obsessed, that colonel…’

He snorted. ‘It was warranted, madam, I assure you.’

‘But it enabled your opponents to depict you as a mere provocateur, whose views stemmed only from personal animosity. And then there were those letters in the
Times
, accusing you of opportunism and worse—’

‘As I think I said, Mrs James, it was most complicated; and, I might add, entirely beyond female comprehension.’ Mr Cracknell’s tolerant smile now contained a distinct seam of malice. ‘I can assure you, also, that there were far more opportunistic people on that Peninsula than I. Compared with some I could name, I was a beginner, a bumbling amateur! If you do not believe me,’ he added casually, narrowing his eyes, ‘you can ask Kitson here.’

And suddenly Jemima saw it. Her street philosopher had been in the Crimea with Cracknell of the
Courier
. This was the missing episode from Mr Kitson’s life.

The orchestra brought the dancing to a close and stopped playing, setting down their instruments. After a round of applause, the flushed participants dispersed throughout the ballroom, adding appreciably to the hum of conversation. The Fairbairns must have returned from Bank Top station, after escorting the Prince to the Royal train; they would be making their entrance at any moment. Someone cleared their throat close behind her. She turned to see Bill, looking at her apologetically.

‘Sorry, Jem,’ he mumbled, ‘but Father insists that you join us. He wants to offer his congratulations to our hosts with his family around him. Or so he says.’

Jemima acquiesced absently, without a fight, her mind trying to assimilate this discovery into what she already knew. It was about the Crimea. It was about these two newspapermen and what had happened between them there; but it was also somehow about her father and the Norton Foundry, and that expedition to Balaclava where her husband had perished. There could be little doubt that Mr Cracknell had a reason for being in Manchester. What precisely it was, however, and what he planned to do, she could only speculate.

Mr Kitson bade her farewell. She looked up, setting her troubling reflections aside. They shared a despondent glance, realising that they would not see each other again that evening. Both knew that their friendship, which had seemed such a gloriously simple thing not half an hour before, was now beset with difficulty; but neither was deterred.

Mr Cracknell was busy introducing himself to a bemused Bill. Jemima took the street philosopher’s hand in hers. ‘Do not forget, Mr Kitson,’ she said evenly. ‘Three weeks’ time. The Foundry’s visit to the Exhibition.’ Their fingers locked; she pressed her gloved thumb hard against the side of his hand.

Mr Cracknell, releasing Bill, moved himself back between them. ‘Goodbye, Mrs James,’ he said, his tone both jolly and dismissive. ‘A real pleasure to talk with you, madam.’

Charles Norton watched his children cross the ballroom, wishing they would move faster and put more distance between themselves and the two miscreants at the French windows.

Mr Twelves had made his first report the previous night. The investigator had revealed that this Kitson was a street philosopher with the
Evening Star
, resident in the city for under a year, his previous whereabouts uncertain. Despite the social character of his work, he had few acquaintances or contacts, preferring to treat his topic in more general terms. He was highly regarded by his peers, though, and appreciated by the
Star’
s readers; circulation had doubled since his addition to its staff.

‘I’ve read ’im myself, from time to time,’ Twelves had commented slyly. ‘All flash and banter, but a good deal better than the rest o’ that miserable organ.’

More pertinently, it transpired that Kitson had not been Wray’s attacker on Saturday night, as the Major’s note had suggested, but rather the opposite. And afterwards, apparently, the fellow had sat in Norton’s own office as Wray was taken up to the Infirmary, drinking his brandy at the invitation of his meddlesome daughter; she had not, of course, thought to mention any of this to him herself. Norton had listened with
growing confusion, none the wiser as to what it was about Kitson that had prompted such panic in Wray.

Then, at the opening ceremony, he had been talking with Colonel Bennett–the 25th had just taken a consignment of undress belts made with Norton buckles–and had learned that the Colonel had obtained Kitson an invitation to the Fairbairns’ ball. It had brought him no little pleasure to inform Bennett that he had asked a street philosopher from a notorious local rag into the house of the most powerful family in Manchester. The Colonel had turned quite pale.

At the Polygon, he had kept his eyes peeled for this person, confident that so modest a character would be easy to spot. He had cursed when he located the man deep in conversation with his daughter. They were doubtlessly building on the acquaintance they had formed in his Mosley Street office. It was typical of Jemima to form associations that would cause him the utmost inconvenience or embarrassment. Charles remembered her marriage, how she had–on purpose, it seemed to him–selected the most argumentative and bloody minded of his managers to be her husband; and how much more outspoken Anthony James had become after their union. James and his forthright opinions had almost cost Norton the greatest chance of his life, in fact. Fortune, thankfully, had intervened.

This Kitson did not look like much of a menace, though. He had the bearing of an impoverished scholar, or a poet perhaps; Norton had expected someone a little more rascally. It was hard to think of this cerebral sort as one who necessitated the attentions of Mr Twelves.

But then the Irishman had joined them and the true nature of the situation was revealed. Everything suddenly made sense. Despite his innocuous appearance, this Kitson was an accomplice of Richard Cracknell, formerly of the
London
Courier
, a disgraced and very dangerous man. Norton knew Cracknell well; earlier in the year, he had made a desperate nuisance of himself at the Foundry’s London sales office. It had taken the intervention of the police to deter him from his activities. He was an undoubted enemy of the company, and could only be in Manchester to make further trouble.
Mr Twelves would have to be informed–Norton’s visitor was arriving in a matter of weeks, and this disturbance had to be resolved by then.

After dispatching Bill to reclaim Jemima from these undesirables, Norton summoned a pair of footmen from the hall, and voiced a suspicion that the bearded man by the French windows was present without an invitation. They bowed, and went to consult with the butler.

His offspring arrived before him. Bill, as usual, looked ridiculous, his waistcoat patterned with golden oriental dragons, his necktie an ostentatious shade of plum. The lad imagines that he is a new Lord Byron, Norton thought ill-temperedly–a Regency buck in search of profligate adventure. Did he not realise that this was a different age, an age of industry and pious discipline? Well, no matter, the labour-lord told himself; he will be made to see it soon enough.

Jemima’s brow was furrowed, as if she was deep in thought of a disquieting nature. Charles felt his responsibility towards his widowed daughter keenly, but she made it impossible for him to behave as a kind father should. She was so fractious and deceptive, concealing so much and doing whatever she could to undermine him; and now she was openly fraternising with his enemies. It would stop. He dreaded to think what that deranged rogue Cracknell might have told her.

‘You and I will speak, Jemima,’ he said sternly.

Before she could respond, Thomas Fairbairn was announced. Everyone turned towards the main doors that led out into the hall; and the chairman entered in the most lordly manner, graciously accepting the congratulations that erupted all around him. Norton beamed, his fears momentarily forgotten, and raised his applauding hands.

‘We are being scrutinised,’ Cracknell shouted over the uproar, indicating a huddle of conferring servants. ‘I propose we go outside.’

They left through the French windows. The night was cool and quiet after the hot crush of the ballroom. Cracknell
strolled towards the balustrade, his shoes clacking on the stone terrace, looking out at the stand of silvery oak trees that bordered the garden.

‘Well, that was most amusing, wasn’t it?’ he declared. ‘Did you notice how I guessed that you had not told her about your time in the Crimea, Thomas? Perspicacious, no?’

Kitson strode over to Cracknell and grasped hold of his arm. ‘You stabbed Wray, didn’t you? Deliberately close to my lodgings, so I would hear?’