The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (84 page)

‘There,’ she breathed, when the door tinkled shut. She sat down at her desk and put her elbows on the pile of Registers and her head in her hands. There was a rhythmic pounding in her temples. Her eyes felt scratchy with fatigue. She hadn’t slept properly for days. She’d been worrying about Fever Hill, and whether Madeleine had got her letter yet.

Why was everything so mixed up? She longed for it to be next week, when Alexander and Sibella would be safely on the mail steamer bound for Jamaica. And she wished she’d had the strength of mind to throw out the rest of the Reverend Chamberlaine’s Registers, instead of letting them pile up on her desk like this. She was beginning to find his relentless acidity strangely depressing.

Sibella stared in horrified fascination as Mrs Carpenter made off down the street, hoisting the wailing infant on her hip. ‘Sophie, how can you
bear
this? I shouldn’t have dreamed of coming if I’d known it would be half so appalling.’

‘I never asked you to,’ Sophie muttered ungraciously.

Sibella pursed her lips. ‘Well, do forgive me for wanting to deliver a friend from the horrors of the Bakerloo line.’

Sophie did not reply. She was looking down at the topmost Register, lying open on the pile. ‘Jan. 22nd, 1889,’ she read. ‘Mrs Bridget Kelly, 39 East Street.’ Something about the address was vaguely familiar.

‘Were you expecting visitors?’ said Sibella.

‘What?’

‘That cab. It stopped outside, and then moved off.’

‘Perhaps they were lost,’ said Sophie.

East Street. The Kellys of East Street.

Oh, God. No.

We
lived in two rooms on East Street
, he’d told her that day at the clinic. She hadn’t thought of it in years – hadn’t wanted to think of it – but now the memory was so sharp that she could almost see him.

‘If you’ve finished,’ said Sibella impatiently, ‘then we can go. Sophie? Are you listening?’

‘What? In a moment.’ She put out a tentative hand and touched the Register. Suddenly she was frightened. She didn’t want to know what it said. Why should she? That was all over years ago.

Mrs Bridget Kelly,
she read,
39 East Street. Immigrant Irish. Aged 32, but looks 50, she is so raddled & unkempt. Husband Padraig a coal-heaver & a low
radical, currently ‘indisposed’ (i.e., he drinks), who got himself dismissed for attending a ‘union’ meeting, and is now learning that the world can do without him. The family owes 5 wks’ rent at 10/- per week, landlady requires 15/- down, which Mrs Kelly says she has not got; she says they must remove to cheaper lodgings if it cannot be found. She makes 2/6d a week by piece-work, & the children contribute. The eldest boy, Jack, 14, works as a ganger at 4/- per week. The girls, Katherine, 15, & Lilian, 13, are silk-winders at 2/- each, but widely reported to be engaged in immoral activities, although Mrs Kelly of course denies it. Benedict, 8, is ‘supposed at school’; Robert, 2, is a defective with rickets; and the babe in arms is yellow & ill-favoured.

Benedict, she thought numbly. I always thought it would have been Benjamin. Or simply Ben.

She didn’t attempt to convince herself that this was some other family. Of course it was his.

Was this the real reason she’d taken the position at St Cuthbert’s in the first place? Was this why, without even admitting it to herself, she had trawled through volume after volume of the Reverend Chamberlaine’s Registers?

Well, now she had her reward. This sick pounding in her heart. This gnawing conviction that wherever she went and whatever she did, she would never be free of him.

‘Sophie,’ said Sibella. ‘I really am about to lose my patience.’

‘Coming,’ she murmured.

Manifestly,
wrote the Reverend Chamberlaine,
the Kellys are far from respectable, and quite undeserving of any kind of aid. I told Mrs Kelly so in no uncertain terms, and suggested that, as they are Catholics, she might apply to the authorities at St George’s. She said that St George’s had already turned her down, & that we were her last resort. Scarcely complimentary! Application refused.

Sophie sat blinking at the crabbed, backward-slanting writing. She shut the Register, grabbed hold of the whole pile of volumes, and crammed them into the waste-paper basket. Then she stuffed an old newspaper on top, to cover them up.

She got to her feet, and wiped her palms on her thighs, as if to rub away the last trace of them. ‘There,’ she said. ‘There.’ Then she turned to Sibella. ‘I’ll fetch my hat, and we can go.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

Everything’s different since Pa got the sack.

When they lived in East Street, Ben was always out on the click with Jack or Lil. But now they’ve moved north of the river, and Lil’s down Holywell Street all the time, and Jack’s got a job down the docks, and moved into a dosshouse on the West India Dock Road. Ben never thought he’d miss him but he does.

He never thought he’d miss Ma neither, nor the baby, but he does. Everything’s different. Pa’s down the Lion all the time, and when he’s back he’s yelling at Kate or watching her like a cat, which is worse. And Kate’s different, too. She gets this wary look when Pa’s around, and she don’t laugh no more.

Robbie’s the only one that’s stayed the same. He never even noticed when they left East Street. Just found hisself a corner in their new room and settled down to wait for another spider.

Yesterday, Kate told Ben there’s something wrong with Robbie. ‘He’s one button short of a row,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to look out for him, Ben. You’re the big brother now.’

The way she said it. It made him go cold inside. ‘But you’ll be here too,’ he said. ‘You’ll be looking out for him too.’

She put down the violet she’d just finished and reached for another. ‘Yes, but not for ever.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I won’t.’

‘But you’re coming hop-picking, yeh? End of summer, we always go down Kent for the hops.’

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. ‘I will if I can.’

That was yesterday, and it’s been eating away at him ever since. What did she mean, ‘if I can’? What did she mean?

So this morning he went down the docks to ask Jack. But Jack wasn’t up for talking. ‘Shove off,’ he snapped without breaking stride. ‘If I blab on the job I get the boot. Don’t you know that yet?’ So Ben hung about all day, waiting for him to finish. But when the whistle went, Jack pushed past him and disappeared into the dosshouse.

Ben knew better than to follow. Jack’s a docker now. He’ll thrash the stuffing out of you soon as look at you.

Ben hates the docks – and not just because they’ve took his big brother. He hates all them tattooed Lascars and darkies and Americans. He hates the din of the steam cranes and the rattle of the trolleys. But most of all, he hates the sugar.

First day he come, he thought it was topper. Sacks and sacks of it. It’s all over the quays, all brown and sticky, and the air’s thick with the smell of it. So soon you’re stuffing your pockets and cramming your gob – and then you’re down on your knees, catting it up again.

It gets everywhere, the smell of that sugar. It gets into your togs and your skin and your dreams. It’s on him now as he’s padding the hoof back to Shelton Street.

He’s all in, he is. Padders throbbing and sore, black dots darting in front of his eyes, and so hungry it hurts. But he’s just turning into their street when he remembers he was to stop off at the chemist’s and pick up a pennorth of blackstick for Lil. Bugger. She’ll be well narked that he forgot.

‘What’s it for, anyhow?’ he’d asked that morning when she give him the penny.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘Come on, Lil. What’s it
for
?’

She grinned. ‘You pinch off a bit and roll it into pills and, hey presto, you’re not in the family way no more.’

‘Get along!’

‘It’s bible, honest. Works a treat. Only you got to take care cos it’s lead, so if you eat too much you turn blue and snuff it.
Horribly
.’ She pulls a face, and they both laugh.

Lil’s all right. But she’ll have to wait till tomorrow for her blackstick, cos he’s too beat to go back for it now. Anyway, it’s not his fault if she’s got a dumpling on.

Soon as he gets into their house he knows there’s trouble. All yelling and banging coming from upstairs – from their place.

He stops at the foot of the stairs, feeling suddenly blue. He don’t want no trouble. He just wants to crawl into the corner with Robbie, and have a kip.

All of a sudden the door opens, and out comes Pa. He stumbles down the stairs, then sees Ben and lurches to a stop. He’s well basted, and not too steady on his pins; but steady enough to grab Ben by the shoulder and shake him like a rat.

Ben knows better than to sing out. He don’t breathe, don’t move. Just waits for it to stop.

Pa puts his face down close and peers into his eyes. He looks angry, but also sort of ashamed. Then he chucks Ben against the wall, and lumbers out.

Rubbing his shoulder, Ben picks hisself up off the floor. No harm done, he thinks. Pa will be down the Lion for a couple of hours at least, so everything’s topper.

Couple of minutes later, Kate comes out onto the landing. His heart goes still. She’s all poshed up in her blue frock and the hat with the violets round the rim. One eye is swelling shut, and she’s lost the buttons down the front of her jacket. Then he sees the carpet-bag in her hand, and it’s like he’s been kicked in the belly. No no no.

He shoves his cap back on his head and puts on a cheery look. Maybe if he’s cheery, she won’t go. ‘Where you off to, then?’ he goes.

She comes down the stairs, the carpet-bag bumping against her thigh. Then she sits on the bottom step. ‘Come here, Ben,’ she goes, very low and quiet.

Close up, her good eye is very blue, but red round the rim. ‘Ben,’ she says, rubbing his arm as if to make it better. ‘I got to go, Ben.’

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He just stands there gaping like a fish.

‘I got to. I can’t stop here no more.’

He tries to swallow but he can’t. He’s got this lump stuck in his windpipe. It’s like a bit of bread or something.

‘I’m going to Jeb,’ she says, not looking at him. ‘I’ll send you word, soon as I know where we’ll be. But you got to promise not to tell Pa.’

‘Kate – no.’ He reaches up to touch her face, and misses and knocks a violet off her hat. He picks it up and brushes it off, and tries to shove it back on again, but he can’t. Everything’s swimming. He can’t hardly see.

‘If I stop here, I’ll end up killing him. Or he’ll kill me.’

‘I’ll kill him for you,’ he mumbles.

She touches his cheek. ‘You would an’ all, you daft little bugger. That’s another reason why I got to go.’

He grabs her hand. ‘I’ll come with you.’

Her face crumples. ‘You can’t.’

‘Why not? I’ll be ever so—’

‘Ben – no. Jeb can’t take you too. How can he? He can’t afford to take me, let alone you and Robbie.’

‘I don’t care about Robbie!’

‘Well you got to. You got to stop here and look after him. You’re the big brother now.’

‘No – Kate, no.
No!
’

He’s still yelling as she pushes past him and yanks open the door and runs out into the street.

Someone knocked on the door of the study, and Ben raised his head from his hands and looked about him without recognition. He drew a deep breath and rubbed his face. Then he cleared his throat. ‘What is it?’ he said.

The butler opened the door. ‘Mr Warburton to see you, sir.’

Ben glanced at the clock on the desk. Ten o’clock in the morning. Warburton was on time, as usual. Private detectives seemed to make a point of that.

He gazed at his hands on the green morocco desktop, and struggled to get back to reality. It was three hours since he’d woken from the dream, but he still couldn’t shake it off. It had left him feeling drained, with a gnawing sense of loss.

Discreetly, the butler cleared his throat.

Ben looked about him and squared his shoulders. ‘Send him in,’ he said.

Sophie heard the front door opening and closing with stealthy, conspiratorial softness. She pulled on her dressing-gown and moved out onto the landing to listen.

Down in the entrance hall, Mrs Vaughan-Pargeter shooed away the housemaid and tiptoed forward to extend a tremulous greeting to Sibella Palairet. ‘I’m
so
sorry, my dear,’ she whispered, shaking her head so violently that her powdered jowls quivered and her jet beads glittered on her chiffon-clad bulk, ‘but I’m terribly afraid that she won’t see anyone at all.’

‘Not even me?’ murmured Sibella, aghast.

Mrs Vaughan-Pargeter shook her head. ‘The thing is, she’s still so frightfully
down
. Won’t eat a morsel. Can’t seem to get up an interest in anything. It’s all the fault of that dreadful, dreadful man.’

‘But surely . . .’

Their voices faded as they moved into the drawing-room.

Sophie went back into her room and shut the door, and stood leaning against it. The distance to the bed seemed endless. She slid down onto the floor and clasped her arms about her knees.

That dreadful, dreadful man.

But the Reverend Agate wasn’t dreadful. He was simply right. He had been right to be angry and horrified, and relieved. He had been right to lose his temper. ‘You could have
killed
that child!’ he’d bellowed, brandishing the offending bottle. An opiate strong enough to put a grown man deeply to sleep – and Sophie had given it to Mrs Carpenter for soothing her baby.