Elijah’s Mermaid (2 page)

Tip once told me such business is lucrative, with rewards coming from the authorities, better still from the medical men who are always in need of another corpse, another fresh body to pin on their tables, to rip and dissect then stitch back up; no more use, no more soul than a sewer rat.

Tip is as cunning and quick as a rat. One lurching dip and his craft is moored, and he stands in the shallows at its side where the sluggish tide is rising round. He pulls a small silver flask from his pocket, deftly unscrewing its lid, knocking back a long slug then exhaling a sigh as the bottle is stoppered and stashed again. ‘
It helps keep up the spirits, dear
.’ And now, with his courage quite restored – slowly, almost tenderly – Tip Thomas stoops forward and lifts his catch, embracing what might be a bundle of rags, and while wading towards me, towards the shore, his pace is very leisurely – though what cause has he to hurry now, having found the thing he was searching for, able to savour each squelching step as his boots trudge their progress through gravelled sludge?

There is a moment I fear him lost, dissolved in the shadows beneath the pier’s boards until . . . Can you hear it, that
shlump, shlump, shlump
? That is the sound of Tip Thomas’s feet, a steady ascension up wooden steps. And look! He is here! He is right by my side, and the street lamp’s glimmer is lighting him up like a bauble on a Christmas tree. But what
is
this gift, this queer fish that he holds? Something soft and pale fleshed is nestling there, lodged between sacking and minky fur collar. And yet, there is no fishy odour. No metallic, glistening lustre of scales, nor the usual bloated decay of the drowned who stare through blind and jellied eyes. When Tip draws back his coat’s lapel to reveal his living treasure’s face I see it has eyes, green and glistening, and a tiny pink mouth like a shell that opens and whimpers and dribbles with slime before letting out a plaintive whine. And when that creature kicks and squirms the foot of an
infant child is revealed – though you might almost think it a little frog, the flesh between toes so wrinkled and webbed.

Tip Thomas is not the least bit repulsed by such an odd deformity. He makes a low sort of shushing sound, and I try not to flinch when that rancid and gin-fumy breath of his prickles like ice against my cheek – when common sense tells me that it should be warm – when the very blood almost stagnates in my veins to hear his crowing mantra, ‘
God bless your sweet little orphaned soul. Did she think I was going to let you go? A gift from Heaven you are to me. A pearl dropped into me waiting hands
.’

His hands? I wonder, what about mine? What will he do if I hold them out? Will he give her to me? Will he let me save this undrowned child from what is to be her destiny? But I must be taking leave of my senses even to contemplate such a thing, for this is Tip Thomas and he has no conscience, no bleeding heart for compassion to prick. Tip Thomas has only ever cared for what is waiting across the street, where behind iron gates and high brick walls that are topped with shards of broken glass an undraped window glows with light, and there, in its centre, as if on a stage, I see a woman’s silhouette – and the silhouette is lifting one arm, as if she is waving – or beckoning.

I know that is Mrs Hibbert. I know that she beckons to Tip, not me, because I am the ghost neither one of them sees. I stand in their future looking back to witness the time of my genesis. And that was a time passing strange, don’t you think, as strange as any myth they wove, when they called me the Wondrous Water Child, the Living Jewel from the Oyster Beds, Spawned from the Loins of Old Father Thames and the Fishy Womb of his Mermaid Bride?

But the truth always was more prosaic than that. The truth is that I was the bastard child saved from the river by Tip that night when my mother drowned herself for shame. And the only name I have ever known is the one Mrs Hibbert chose to bestow. And the very first memory I have is the sound of her lulling, lilting voice as she called for me to enter a room with lovely pictures all over the walls, walls painted with silvers, blues
and greens, with fishes, and mermaids with golden hair – hair wreathed with ribbons, with stars, with pearls.

My hair was once yellow and curling. I wore a crown of shells. Beneath lace skirts my legs were bare, no stockings or shoes to hide my feet, the stubby wedges where toes should be, tingling and cold on the marble tiles. I wanted to run back upstairs to my room but I knew Tip Thomas was standing close, his lips twisted into a snide grimace between whiskers as pale as walrus tusks, and the daggers of his fingernails digging down through the flesh of my shoulders, and me more frightened of riling him than whatever was waiting in that room, from where Mrs Hibbert coaxed again – ‘
Come, ma chère . . . ma petite nymphe
.’

Mrs Hibbert held out her black-gloved hands and crooned through the mesh of her thick black veils, ‘
Come play with my friends, my pretty Pearl
.’

Those Historical Documents Pertaining To The

Births Of Lily And Elijah Lamb: The Twins Who

When Babes Were Deposited At The Doors Of The

Foundling Hospital

FREDERICK HALL, PUBLISHER

41 Burlington Row

London

May 7th 1855

AUGUSTUS, DEAR FRIEND
,

I hardly know how to commence this post which is proving to be the most onerous task, and far be it from my intention to wish to cause you more distress than that you have already suffered during these past five years. It still fills my heart with grief and guilt to think I encouraged your dear boy to London to work with me in the publishing business. They say that fifty thousand souls were lost in that outbreak of cholera, and still no explanation known, whether the miasma of the air or the corruption of water supplies. Alas, I have grown too jaded to care what those quibbling scientists next debate. If only I could go back in time and offer myself to the pestilence, to give my life instead of his
.

I pray now that God will steady my hand as I come to relate some further news that has bearing upon your son’s personal affairs, and by that a direct connection with you. Believe me, Augustus, for too many nights I have struggled with my conscience, debating whether it is right to burden you with such intelligence. And yet, I do feel that it is my bound duty to relate what has recently come to light – that during the year he spent in my house, Gabriel succumbed to the lure of romance. His actions were not without consequence
.

The young woman in question went by the name of Isabella di Marco and, as you may surmise, was descended from Italian stock. I know of some details regarding her background, and for reasons that will soon enough be apparent, such as that in 1848 she left her homeland and set sail for England along with her father, himself an artist who had hoped for some prospect of work here in London. But he suffered a fatal seizure while their ship was still at sea. Isabella arrived here entirely alone, and being less than twenty years and of a most pleasing appearance then, was at no small peril of being abused by reprobates who seek to inveigle those innocents whose very trust and naivety mark them out as the prey for debauchery. Even so, the girl’s future was duly safeguarded when she happened to meet with a friend of mine – a virtuous man who had volunteered to work with the Dockside Nightbird Mission, a charitable Christian enterprise which strives to find occupation for all repentant homeless souls. I have two girls in the kitchens here, as amenable and diligent as those sent from exclusive agencies. But Isabella was a cut above, being refined and well educated, fluent in English and French as well as her native Italian tongue. When my acquaintance first brought her here he suggested she might be employed ‘upstairs’, helping to translate those foreign works that we often buy in from overseas – mainly short stories and travelogues to feature in the magazines which prove to be more and more popular, really the most lucrative business
.

But I digress from the point in hand
.

As I am sure you have now deduced it was through their mutual employment in the offices of Hall & Co. that an intimacy came to develop between the two young people. With both of them lodging in my apartments I should have been more vigilant to the signs of a growing affection. But the passions of youth flow very strong, and at times they can be devious, and though I believe they may have wed, events conspired to dash such hopes
.

With the tragedy of Gabriel’s death, and that coming so close on the loss of her father, Isabella could not, would not, be consoled. Within a month she departed my house without so much as a parting word. And now, there is the further distress of having discovered the reason why – the shame which befell that poor sweet wretch
.

You may ask how I happen to come by such news when over five years have since elapsed. My dear friend, I confess it is the result of the strangest of coincidences, which only makes me more convinced that Sacred Providence is at work
.

Of all those charities I support the very dearest to my heart is Coram’s Foundling Hospital, to which orphanage I make an annual donation along with a great many books – many of your own titles among them. Only last week, when visiting, I was invited to stay on a while to observe the boys and their marching band, and afterwards the refectory where they partake of their midday meal – though I hardly consider such a show to be classed as ‘entertainment’. If I wished to see keepers throw buns to bears I would visit the zoological gardens. I do not find it dignified, no matter what Lady This or Lord That happen to be in attendance. As such I made my excuses to leave, though barely gone past the clerk’s office door when faced with two bawling infants and the nurse who struggled to hold them, who, when questioned, gave me the harassed reply that only that morning, the siblings – twins, a boy and a girl – had been returned from their foster home
.

The smallest of the children here are farmed out until the age of five by which time they are deemed suitably mature to join the institution’s life. However, when in the Foundling the sexes must be separate. Boys in the west wing, girls in the east, and the chapel to separate between. And that was the knotty problem here, for the little girl screamed merry hell, refusing to let her brother go, clinging on to his arm like a limpet
.

Of course, I went to offer assistance, only to find myself struck dumb when viewing those siblings’ features. So familiar were they – so sure was my mind that I made some more formal enquiries, though how tiresome and protracted they were, my patience and nerves stretched to breaking point while waiting in that office, and whatever discoveries then ensued not without a little bribery. But that is by the by. Corruption is blessed when the outcome is moral. The point is that armed with a good enough guess at the probable date of admission and the fact that twins must be somewhat rare, I found myself viewing the relevant file and in that the petitioning
document where I read with the very heaviest heart the name of Isabella di Marco, and alongside that of Gabriel Lamb, he divulged as the children’s father, and the place in which he and Isabella had first come to be acquainted was listed as being Burlington Row, at the offices of Hall & Co. Finally there was the fact that Gabriel Lamb was now deceased, leaving the mother in no fit state to support dependent infants
.

And that, my dearest friend, is why I am now obliged to pass on such momentous news, though should you wish to ignore it, fearing the consequential slur on your own good reputation, then you may safely be assured that your grandchildren are in excellent hands and that both will be schooled for respectable trades with which to support their future lives – the boy trained for agricultural work, the military, or the navy – the girl for domestic service
.

I only urge you to swiftly decide on whichever course you think best to take
.

I am, as ever, Your own True Friend
,

FREDERICK

May 20th 1855. Adopted and removed from the Foundling Hospital, one male and one female infant, sibling twins, known as Elijah and Lily.

Name and Condition of the person adopting the children – Mr Augustus Lamb, widower. Occupation, Author. Residence, Kingsland House, Kingsland, Herefordshire.

References:- the Reverend John Preece, Bloomsbury, and Mr Frederick Hall, Book and Magazine Publisher, Burlington Row, London.

LILY

Clear and cool, clear and cool
.

By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool;

Cool and clear, cool and clear
,

By shining shingle, and foaming weir;

Under the crag where the ouzel sings
,

And the ivied wall where the church bell rings
,

Undefiled, for the undefiled;

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child
.

From
The Water-Babies
by Charles Kingsley

Received: A Blank Child
. Those four little words headed up the receipt given out whenever an infant was left in the care of the Foundling Hospital, become a blank canvas from which to erase every trace of inherited sin and shame.

Only today did I find our own, and the letter once penned by Frederick Hall, along with the adoption slip made out in the name of Augustus Lamb – Augustus Lamb, his dearest friend – Augustus Lamb, our grandfather – the man we always called Papa.

Now, all of those items are battered and yellow, having been hidden away for years in a box of antique ivory, concealed in a notebook with thick marbled covers, covers with colours all swirling like water – a remnant from those days gone by when Papa still used to write things down, beguiling the young with his fairy tales, the adventures through which his mind constantly swam – although now his mind is a murky confusion where the world is viewed through a shifting lens, and no
matter how often he tries to reweave them the threads of his memory dissolve. What ran with luminous colours before has dried to a trickle of thick grey sludge; as black as the ink that filled his pen, that now lies unused, impotent on his desk.