The Quietness (2 page)

‘It is time you were introduced to the world,’ he said.

Mary had been beside herself with excitement and persuaded me to dab some rouge on my cheeks.

‘He’s sure to be taking you to Rotten Row, miss. A ride around Hyde Park to show you off to the gentlemen of town. He’ll be wanting to find you a husband. You mark my words!’ She squealed with delight as she bustled around me fixing my hair and smoothing my skirts. Could it be true? I did not dare to hope so. But I remember I felt as though I was floating and my heart was beating fast, like the heart of a frightened mouse.

Father did not take me to Hyde Park. Father took me to the hospital. He took me down into the dirty yellow light of the dissecting room. Lying on a table was a man. His head was shaven; his skin brown and papery. I stood as though in a trance. Father walked towards the body and picked up a scalpel. I could not look away. He used the scalpel to slice down the centre of the body. Then he pulled it apart and dipped his hands inside. A hot stench of vile sweetness filled my nostrils and my breakfast rose in my throat.

‘Do you have any questions?’ asked Father.

I was dizzy and weak. From behind my lace handkerchief, I managed to ask Father who the man had been.

‘No one of consequence,’ he replied. ‘Just an unclaimed wretch from the asylum.’

I must have fainted then, for I awoke back in the carriage with a damp handkerchief on my forehead. Father was staring at me.

‘It is a pity you were not born a boy,’ he said. ‘You would have appreciated the great service I am doing mankind and be inspired to carry on my good works. As it is, it is enough that you saw it with your own eyes.’

I think Father knows all there is to know about the inner workings of the human body. He knows people from the inside out. I think that was what he was trying to tell me in the sadness of that yellow room. That he knows inside of me. He knows all of me and I can never hide from him.

As soon as Mary had finished my hair, I hurried downstairs to the dining room. Mother was already sitting at the table. She is a wisp of a woman, so pale and fragile that I sometimes think the merest breath of wind could carry her over the rooftops of London and lay her to sleep on a cloud. She was dressed as usual in black silk, trimmed with stiff crepe, her silver hair hidden under a lace cap. I have never known her to wear anything other than black. All my life Mother has been in mourning for her dead babies.

‘Never able to keep one,’ Mary told me once. ‘All of ’em dead before they came out. Poor woman.’ I had looked at her, puzzled, and she had looked back at me with a faraway look in her eyes before suddenly seeing my face.

‘Well, ’cept for you, of course. She was allowed to keep you.’

I often think those dead babies must have taken her love away with them. Bit by bit, one by one, until by the time I came along there was none left for me.

Mother barely nodded her head as I whispered her a good morning. We sat in silence, listening to the shouts of the newspaper boy and the double beat of horses’ hooves that rattled along the road outside. Ninny, the cook, and Mary came into the room and waited at the back for morning prayers to be said. Mary had changed into a clean apron ready to serve breakfast but Ninny had grease spots and smears of bacon fat on her bib. I could hear her breath whistling loudly through her nostrils. She shuffled and sniffed and wiped the sweat from her top lip with the back of her hand.

The dining room door opened at last and Father walked in to take his place at the head of the table. The room held its breath, and even Ninny’s nose-whistling paused, as Father looked at us all with his watery eyes and then bent his head to pray.

Every day it is the same. Ninny retreats from the room as Father’s
Amen
settles in the air like the soot on the mantelpiece. Mary pours the tea and serves the muffins and bacon, while we, the eminent anatomist Dr William Walter Swift, his wife Eliza and I, their daughter Ellen, sit like strangers.

Mother will eat barely a bite before excusing herself and evaporating from the room as though she was never there. She hates the world outside her bedroom. She sits in there day after day, surrounded by fresh flowers and her cages of birds: her finches, parakeets and golden canaries. Her little ‘sugar birds’. I sometimes think she is half bird herself, with her brittle bones and beady eyes.

Father has a hearty appetite, and will eat a whole plate of bacon and a pile of greasy muffins before he folds his newspaper in half and takes out his pocket watch. At precisely half past nine he places the watch back in his pocket and calls for his coat and hat. The front door slams behind him and the ornaments on the sideboard rattle in agitation before the vibrations settle and the house sighs in relief. Then I am left alone in the quietness, with nothing but my books and my dreams of finding love and the emptiness of the day stretching before me.

Except that on this particular morning, Father made an announcement and I somehow knew that my life would never be the same again.

Queenie was woken by a low moaning noise. She opened her eyes. It was morning, and from her straw bed by the far wall, Queenie could see the baby lying still on the floor, his thin blanket rucked around his middle so his little legs poked out, all dry and bent like twigs. Mam was sitting slumped on the edge of her and Da’s bed, her mouth wide open, and her arms dangling.

Da roared, ‘Shut up, will you!’ and Queenie saw him sitting in the corner of the room, rocking back on his heels. He had that same hard look in his eyes as when he’d been on the beer, and he’d taken his prized neckerchief off and was twisting it round and round in his fingers.

‘Is the baby dead?’ asked Queenie.

Mam started to moan louder. The sound maddened Queenie and she wanted to tell Mam to shut up too. Babies came and went all the time. It had been a weak little scrap anyway, always whining for the titty. And Queenie knew there was another one on the way. There always was. Da had got into the habit of passing Mam his portion of bread again and her cotton gown was pulling tight across her belly. Queenie wanted to ask them why the devil they brought any of them into the world when there was never enough money for them to eat proper, let alone enjoy themselves. But she didn’t. Not with Da in that mood. She just stayed on the straw and let the little ones press close to her.

Da wouldn’t look up from the floor, like it was his fault the baby had died. Queenie watched as he stood and gathered the baby up with quick angry movements and parcelled it in the blanket. Without his neckerchief tied at his throat, Da looked unfinished. The green silk with its yellow flowers belonged around Da’s neck and not in his hands. It told the world who he was: a seller of fruit and vegetables. A costermonger. He was so proud of his green silk; it was a bad thing that he’d taken it off. He’d be taking it to the pawnshop, Queenie knew. Hoping for a few shillings to bury the baby. He didn’t try to comfort Mam or even kiss her before he slammed out the door.

After he’d gone, the room seemed smaller. Mam had finally shut up and was lying down on her bed with her face to the wall. The little ones were tugging at Queenie and wailing for their breakfast. She shook them off and they straight away hunched together again: a pile of wide eyes and jutting bones. Queenie could hardly tell who was who any more. Which was Tally? Which was Kit? Which was Albie? They were all of them shrunk to skin and bone with tatty hair and smudged-out faces. Queenie couldn’t bear to look at them or to watch Mam lying there with her arms all empty. Besides, hunger was growling around her insides like a mad dog on the loose.

There’d be nothing to sell today, Queenie knew that. No spare shillings to buy pears from the market to fill her basket, not with a burial to pay for now. But she couldn’t stand to stay in the sadness of that room, not when there were other ways of cadging a penny or two; plenty of other ways.

Outside, great slabs of fog, the colour of dirty linen, hung in the passageways as she trailed her fingers along the walls of houses to find her way out on to the streets. The fog was always bad here, being so close to the river, and the lingering smells it brought with it were enough to make a cat retch. But Queenie never minded it. She liked to disappear in it; it made her feel free somehow, and made for easy pickings if you were of a mind to relieve a careless gentleman of his purse.

She would walk to Waterloo Bridge, she decided; there were always plenty of people about there. By midday the fog turned a murky yellow, and she liked to stand on the bridge and watch how the tall chimneys of factories and the bulky warehouses on the banks of the river got blurred in the greasy veil and were turned into mysterious golden palaces.

There would only be six of them now, she thought, living in their pokey little room. One less mouth to feed. And she felt lighter somehow, and unbuttoned and easy, and she even noticed a faint tongue of sunlight licking its way through the fog. Just the sight of it warmed her insides.

Mother had just taken a tiny bite of her muffin when Father loudly cleared his throat. The crumb, which had been balancing delicately between Mother’s front teeth, shot out across the table and lay quivering in the centre of the white lace tablecloth. Mother clamped her napkin to her mouth in horror and we both looked across at Father.

He had not touched his breakfast and was already folding his newspaper. Mary had set a candle on the table next to him. The flicker of the flame and the grey morning light had given his face the waxy complexion of a corpse. Flesh hung from under his eyes and mutton-chop whiskers grew wide and long on the broad sides of his head. His hands were slender, though, despite his fatness; his fingers long and tapering and delicate like a woman’s. They made me shudder.

Father cleared his throat again. He used words sparingly. Mealtimes were for nourishing the body and not for idle chatter. His deliveries of the morning prayers were the only words ever permitted to break the silence of the dining room.

‘I received a letter this morning,’ he stated, and he took a fold of paper from his pocket and slowly spread it out.

He had never addressed us at the meal table before and I had to hold my hands in my lap to stop them from trembling.

‘It seems,’ said Father, ‘that my dear sister Isabella is no longer with us.’ He scanned the letter again. ‘Ah, yes. Thrown from her carriage and trampled upon by horses.’

There was a gasp from Mother and she clutched at her throat. Mary hurried to her side and poured her a glass of water.

‘Yes,’ continued Father. ‘It would seem she met her end in a most ghastly fashion.’

My mind was racing. Who was Isabella? I had no idea that Father had a sister. Questions bubbled into my mouth, one on top of the other. Questions I knew I could not ask now.

‘However,’ said Father, ‘I will spare you further details. All you need know is that her sixteen-year-old son, Jacob Grey, will be coming to stay with us for a time.’

A cousin, I thought. I have a cousin?

There was a thud and a clatter of cutlery. I turned to find Mother had fainted. I sighed. She would be indisposed for days now, and I would have to attend to her birds as she sipped her tonics and twittered out instructions from the depths of her bed.

‘So,’ said Father. He folded the letter carefully, ignoring Mother’s predicament. ‘It seems we must extend our hospitality to this . . . boy. It would not do to be seen as uncharitable. Mary, you will get the blue room ready for our guest. And, from tomorrow, this household will be in mourning. Now, fetch my hat and coat and clean up this . . . mess.’ He waved his arm over the table at the leftover remains of breakfast and at Mother, spilt across the table like a jug of milk.

The front door slammed and Mary
tsk-tsked
as she helped Mother from her chair. I did not offer to assist. I was thinking of Isabella Grey, of an aunt I had not known existed, and of Jacob Grey. My cousin, Jacob Grey. I liked the name.
Jacob Grey, Jacob Grey
, I whispered. It tasted good, like a bowl of spiced soup on a cold wet day, or the crisp skin of pork, salty and hot from the fire. Would he be handsome? I wondered. Would he be kind? What would he think of me? He would be grieving, I reminded myself. I hoped I could offer him some comfort.

It had been three days since the baby died and Da was still not home. Queenie sat on the musty straw in the corner of the room shivering. The little ones were sleeping next to her, and Mam still hadn’t moved off her bed. Mam had done nothing but sleep or stare at the walls. She’d stopped sobbing at least and the little ones had stopped mithering, but the quietness was the wrong sort.

Da would be drinking, Queenie knew, but he’d never stayed away for this long before. Sometimes when he didn’t come home all night Mam would send her out in the morning chill to search the streets and gin-shops. She’d peer down dim alleyways and into doorways, hoping like mad that one of the lumps sleeping under their jackets would be Da; his pockets empty and his breath stinking of stale beer. She’d pray to catch a glimpse of the green and yellow of his neckerchief, bright against the stubble on his face. Often as not she’d find him curled under a table, snoring gently into the early morning silence of a gin-shop; an empty mug still held in his hand and a pack of cards scattered across the table. After she’d shaken him awake, they would hold tight to each other as she steered him through the streets back home.

But it had been three whole days, and she’d run out of places to look. There was only the workhouse now, or Horsemonger Lane Gaol, and she hoped he wasn’t in either of those places. People never came out of those dark holes.

Queenie hadn’t fared too well out on the streets the last few days. She’d managed to snatch a hot pie from a street vendor, and to hide herself quickly while his angry hollers got swallowed up in the fog. But then a quick-witted gentleman had smashed her leg with his walking stick when he felt her hand creep into his coat pocket. Now Queenie was bruised and sore and knew she wouldn’t be able to outrun a swift stranger.