Dear Laura (18 page)

‘N
OW
this is what I like to see,’ cried Inspector Lintott heartily. ‘A fine strong child a-tucking into good food,’ though Blanche was making a poor attempt at tea, in spite of constant dosing with Liebeg’s Extract.

‘Eight of bread and butter afore she has a slice of sponge cake,’ said Nanny firmly. ‘Was you wanting to see me, sir?’

‘I can wait,’ Lintott replied comfortably, accepting a deal chair. ‘A pleasant room, Miss Nagle.’

The nursery overlooked the garden at the back of the house, and Laura’s hand was evident in its decoration. The lower
portion
of the walls was pasted with scenes from the Christmas books of Mr Walter Crane and Miss Kate Greenaway and
varnished
: the upper portion distempered for the sake of health and cleanliness. Miss Nagle had made the rag rug on the linoleum. The brass-railed fireguard gleamed and flickered in reflection. Window-boxes promised spring flowers.

‘And do you keep your toys in that cupboard, my dear?’
Inspector
Lintott asked the child, seeing not a single Dutch doll, not a golliwog in sight.

Blanche, already in difficulties with her bread and butter, laid the slice down and nodded.

‘Speak when you’re spoken to, Miss Blanche!’ Nanny warned.

‘Yes, sir, if you please,’ said the little girl obediently.

She had inherited her mother’s pallor, though it was now flushed with anxiety.

‘You needn’t mind me, my love,’ said Lintott smiling. ‘I ain’t an ogre, you know.’

‘This gentleman is an important policeman,’ Nanny
threatened
, ‘come to see you eat all your tea like a good girl!’

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Lintott cheerfully. ‘I’ve come to see you have your sponge cake. Do you like sponge cake, Missie?’

Head bent, speechless, Blanche stared at her plate. Nanny’s mouth opened but he waved at her peremptorily, sternly.

‘I like cake,’ said Lintott, sitting four-square. ‘Miss Nagle, as you’re a friend of mine, you wouldn’t like to offer me a cup, would you? Yes, of course you would. I can see it in your face.’

Nanny rang the bell with some asperity.

‘It’s a half after four by my watch,’ Lintott observed,
consulting
its plain dial. ‘Suppose we let poor Nanny have her tea in peace downstairs, and you and I have ours together? Would you like that, Missie?’ The child, in dread of them both, looked uncertainly from one to the other. ‘Yes, of course you would.’

Harriet Stutchbury appeared at the door with an injured air.

‘Ain’t you got everythink, Miss Nagle?’

‘The Inspector’d like a cup of tea,’ said Nanny reluctantly.

‘And give my best compliments to Mrs Hill, Harriet,’ said Lintott, ‘and just mention that I’ve been on my feet all day, will you, my dear? She’ll know what I mean, I’m sure.’

‘Fetch a tray up, then, and hurry yourself, Harriet!’

‘Yes, Miss Nagle. Yes, sir.’

She returned with a little banquet that made her arms ache.

‘Buttered crumpets,’ said Lintott, lifting a metal cover. ‘Piping hot! Three kinds of cake! Cherry conserve! Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits! I must be a favourite. Now, my handsome lass,’ to the bridling nanny, ‘off with you and enjoy a chat in the kitchen. I’ll take care of your young lady here. Lor’ bless you, you needn’t worry about us. I’ve got two girls of my own.
I
know all about children.’

‘Very well, sir. Miss Blanche, mind you eat all your bread and butter!’

‘Oh, she will,’ said Lintott blandly. ‘I’ll see to that.’

A straggle of sun crept across the table and Lintott poured his tea in relaxed silence. The child sat, pink with terror, small hands knotted in her lap, glass of milk untouched.

‘Have a piece of crumpet,’ Lintott offered, holding out the plate.

She shook her head and bit her bottom lip.

‘Why ever not, my dear? Don’t you like it?’

She swallowed, and said, ‘Nanny thinks it’s too rich.’

‘I don’t,’ said Lintott. ‘I think it’s capital!’

He threw a bit in the air and caught it in his mouth like a dog. A quiver of lips told him that this was appreciated, so he
repeated
the performance. She glanced at him quickly, and smiled.

‘That’s better, my love. Come on. We shan’t let Nanny know.’

Her fingers sidled to the plate and secured a delicacy. Then she paused.

‘What about the bread and butter, sir?’

He stared at the eight triangles in amazement.

‘Do you ever get through it all, my love?’

She shook her head, the crumpet clutched in one palm.

‘So you never have any cake?’

Another shake.

‘I tell you what I’ll do,’ said Lintott, ‘I’ll eat it for you. What about that? Here, you’ve got your hand all over melted butter. Let me wipe it on my handkerchief.’ And this he did most
carefully
. ‘Now you tuck into whatever catches your fancy, and I’ll have a go at this mountain. Do you know something?’ Spreading cherry conserve thickly on the bread, and cutting it into strips. ‘I’ll wager you could eat one or two of these as well. Yes, I thought so.’

They ate together amiably.

‘Sometimes my Uncle Titus eats my bread and butter for me,’ Blanche confided.

‘Does he now? He’s a kind uncle, isn’t he?’

She nodded several times. ‘He’s funny, too, like you. He makes us laugh. He snored at Christmas, for the man on the lantern slide.’

‘That’s good, my love. Does Nanny make you laugh? And Mama?’

‘Oo no. Nanny says not to do things. Mama reads to me. But Uncle Titus is funny all the time.’

‘What about your two brothers, Missie?’

The grey eyes were surprised.

‘Edmund and Lindsey are boys. They would not play with a girl. Besides, they are not at home now, except in the holidays.’

‘Who do you play with, then? Other little girls?’

‘Sometimes. Fräulein Walther is my governess, but she is not my very own governess. She teaches at three houses and we all share her. One week she comes to our house. Then next week she comes to Julia’s house. Then next week she comes to
Frances’s
house. Then next week to our house. She teaches Julia’s sister and Frances’s sister, too.’

‘And what do you learn, my love?’

‘Deportment and French and music and drawing and
arithmetic
and history and general knowledge. And when I am older I shall learn German and water-colour painting as well.’

‘I daresay you’re a clever girl, aren’t you?’

‘Not very, because I think of something else instead of
listening
. But Nanny says better to be good than clever. But Fräulein Walther says to pay attention.’

The state of her fingers dismayed her.

‘Wipe them on my handkerchief again, and destroy the
evidence
, Missie. Poor Papa must have been proud of you.
I
should have been.’

‘Papa has gone to heaven because he was a good man.’

‘That’s right, my love.’

‘He would like me to speak the truth, since he watches over us.’ She was troubled, remembering. ‘Papa could not love me very much because I made so many mistakes, you see.’

‘We all do, Missie.’

‘I make more mistakes than anybody else. All the time. The pennies fall off the back of my hands when I am playing the piano, and Nanny has to wash my sewing before I can show it.’

‘But Mama doesn’t mind mistakes, does she?’

‘Mama does not notice. She has so many headaches.’

‘And is there nobody in the house that makes much of you, my love?’

‘Only Uncle Titus. I love him best – except for Papa and
Mama, of course. May I get down now, sir? I have had sufficient.’

‘Yes, my love. Did you know that rag rugs told stories? Come and look at this one. Here’s a bit of bright blue that might have been one of Mama’s gowns. And a bit of dark grey that might have been Papa’s suit. Do you see?’

‘That red is Sergeant Malone’s old jacket. If I am a bad girl, Nanny says, the sergeant will fetch me and put me in prison.’

Lintott’s plain face was expressionless.

‘A soldier can’t do that, Missie. That’s
my
job. You see this here key?’ He brought out the humble instrument that locked his garden shed at Richmond. ‘You see the size of it?’ She
nodded
, impressed. ‘That’s the prison key,’ said Lintott deeply. ‘Now if I’ve got this key how can anybody else open the door?’

She stood by his side, hands clasped behind her back,
white-stockinged
legs together, low-heeled strap shoes shining. He looked at the pale pretty face, the pale tongue of hair, the
submissive
head and gentle mouth.

‘Is Nanny telling – fibs, sir?’ she dared to ask, and was appalled.

Lintott considered the question gravely.

‘She’s made a mistake, that’s all. She thought it was true, but it isn’t. So next time she mentions the sergeant fetching you, you tell her that Inspector Lintott said she had made a mistake. Say it politely, mind. And tell her, by the by, that I’ve spoken with Sergeant Malone, will you?’

‘Was there any message, sir?’

‘No message, my love. Just tell Nanny I’ve spoken to him.’

The sound of Nanny’s footsteps on the stairs took the ease from the child’s body, and brought anxiety back.

‘Well now,’ Lintott said blithely, ‘Miss Blanche is a credit to you, Miss Nagle. All that bread and butter’s eaten right up!’

*

Miss Nagle did not return from the parlour immediately, and when she came in to the nursery she was concealing something in her apron.

‘I’ve got somethink for you, sir,’ the nanny whispered, though no one could have overheard.

‘Indeed, Miss Nagle? And what might that be?’

‘You know what you said, sir, about keys being left in desk drawers and that?’

‘I can’t remember every blessed thing I say, my lass. You may have misunderstood my meaning, for all I know.’

‘I’ve got her diary.’

‘Be careful, now,’ he warned her with an uplifted finger. ‘Be very particular as to your words, Miss Nagle.’

‘Oh, I’ve done nothink wrong, sir. It all turned out as you said.’

‘I said nothing.’

She was impatient, wanting to impress and soothe him, to rid herself of him since he had the power to make her uneasy.

‘Very well then, sir, you said nothink. I happened to notice this diary lying about and I brought it to you while Mrs Crozier and Miss Blanche are in the parlour. Only I must be quick to put it back, sir.’

‘Lying about, eh? Harmless enough, I should think,’ turning the pages swiftly, snapping up items.

Nanny stood tall and thin, twisting her hands in her apron, trying to read his expression.

‘A lady writes down her daily sorrows and blessings, Miss Nagle. Our dear Queen, God bless her, keeps a diary. Nothing that can’t be read by anyone. But precious, Miss Nagle, very precious to the lady concerned.’ He stopped, noted, passed on. ‘Something to look back on in one’s old age.’ Turning,
memorizing
, calculating. ‘Something to pick up and think, “Ah! That was the time!” Eh, Miss Nagle?’

‘Yes, sir. To be sure.’

‘A carriage ride here. A theatre there. A gift. A letter. What does it mean to the outsider? Paltry stuff, one might say. And yet, to the writer, a whole world. Yes, as I thought, nothing here, Miss Nagle.’ He closed the book, held it out, and said sharply, ‘When did you find the key?’

‘On Tuesday, sir.’

‘Two days ago. Have you read this?’

‘Oh no, sir. No, sir.’

‘Where did you find the key, Miss Nagle?’

Ferreting among silk and velvet and serge and linen.
Searching
closets and drawers. Feeling beneath pillows and mattresses. One ear cocked for footsteps. Finally, closing the fingers round it at the bottom of a bowl of
pot
pourri
. Sly cat! So that’s where she hides it?

‘I must take it back, sir. I’m sorry it’s of no use to you.’

‘Not a bit of use,’ said Lintott airily, examining his fingernails. ‘But then I didn’t expect it would be.’

‘I hope I did right, sir,’ holding the green leather volume to her starched front.

Lintott looked at her heavily from beneath his brows.

‘I hope you did, too, Miss Nagle. Private property is private property. If you were so tempted as to commit a little breaking and entering, or anything of that sort, it would be a serious matter.’

‘Oh no, sir,’ she sought to protect herself, falling between one lie and the next, contradicting herself. ‘The key was in the lock and the drawer half open.’

He regarded his nails with interest.

‘And if you were to talk to anyone – I hope you haven’t done so, my dear – even to that dashing sergeant that worships the ground you tread on … Well, I couldn’t answer for the
consequences
. That would be slander atop of theft, to my mind. But then, you’ve done nothing of that kind, have you, my dear?’

‘No, sir. Indeed I haven’t.’

He became genial and patted her shoulder.

‘Then pop it back and let’s forget it, shall we?’

‘Oh yes, sir, if you please.’

He donned the hat from which even Kate had been unable to part him, and nodded amiably.

She watched the inspector descend the stairs in slow dignity, and then hurried to Laura’s bedroom. Fearful that Kate might come in on her early evening duties, she thrust the diary back, locked the drawer, and buried the key beneath the dried confetti of
pot
pourri.
Then she smoothed the surface, so that no one should notice.

L
ONDON
at dusk was poignant enough to stir even Lintott’s stolidity. The evening light on the river, the long exquisite shadows, the dark alleys, the tall chimneys on the skyline,
softened
him. Clicking his tongue in contentment, he walked more slowly and looked all about him. A lamplighter trod his nightly round, leaving behind a train of shimmering gas globes. At the street corner an old man roasted chestnuts on a brazier, and shovelled them into paper cones. A hurdy-gurdy ground its plaintive tune, and the monkey whisked off his military pill-box hat. Lintott, finding the animal’s eyes distressingly human,
dropped
a farthing into its braided cap.

The steamed windows of food shops shone against the dark, cajoling customers with warmth and odours. For one penny you could buy a meaty saveloy, two faggots, a paper of fish and chips, a fried or boiled egg,
a bloater, sardines on toast, a slab of Nelson cake (sweet with icing sugar), two large oranges, two thick slices of bread and butter, a pair of kippers, or a big cup of tea, coffee or cocoa. Twopence brought you into the realms of ham
sandwiches
, sausages, bacon and fresh cream horns. For threepence you could dine on a helping of ‘Harry Champion’ (boiled beef and carrots), ‘Baby’s Head’ (steak and kidney pudding), or ‘Side View’ (half a baked sheep’s head). Butchers, clad in blue and white striped aprons and straw boaters, offered fresh rump steak at one shilling a pound; or the same quantity of any boiled joint at the same price with a pint of gravy; wing rib and sirloin at eightpence; small chops and stew cuttings for fourpence to
six-pence
. The walls of the General Stores were studded with
cheeses, and a shaving of any given on request, for tasting. The dairies – brass scales gleaming, deal counter scrubbed white – sold eggs in wicker baskets at ninepence the dozen, full cream milk at twopence a pint. All the shops had opened before eight that morning, and would not close until ten or eleven o’clock that night.

By the bookstalls, men with more learning than substance browsed endlessly and sometimes bought a battered volume for a penny or so. In the great workshops of the West End the
sempstresses
and milliners stitched twelve hours a day, and would work through the night on a special order.

A cavalcade of horse-drawn buses bore an army of clerks home from offices: lit inside by oil lamps, rich outside with
advertisements
.
Holloway’s
Pills
&
Ointment,
Oakey’s
Wellington
Knife
Polish,
Paysanda
Tongue,
Vinolia
Soap,
Pink’s
Jam,
Borwick
’
s
Baling
Powder.
On top, muffled in scarves and greatcoats,
topped
by oilskin capes and an old hat pulled well down, rode the kings of the highway: the omnibus drivers. Their bellies were warmed by frequent draughts of Disher’s Barley Wine (a potent ale); their faces crimsoned by all weathers. They carried their whips like wands of office. Their horses, also supported by an
inward
application of a ‘Burton’ beer, hauled their loads fifteen hours a day. These Victorian knights bore the burden of envy and impudence with stalwart indifference: taunted by boys who could not afford the fare. ‘Garn Whiskers!’ they would shout, running alongside. ‘Who strapped you in? Muvver?’ Sometimes to be dispatched with a light flick of the whip, like flies. And there were conventions among the passengers, too. Ladies and children rode inside, young bloods rode outside; and no young man would be seen boarding a bus in the usual style, they either leaped on when it was moving or jumped down before it had stopped. Furthermore
The
Dumb
Friends’
League
insisted on printed pleas bearing the message ‘Stop the Bus as Seldom as Possible as the Restarting is a Great Strain upon the Horses’. But the drivers stopped anywhere, when signalled from the
pavement.

Now, as the light waned, and the muffin man took home his bell and tray, the other life of London came awake. Fortunate
children were at home or abed. The unfortunate scurried into shops to buy fragments of cheese or ham for the family supper; begged from the shadows; waited outside public houses; or
huddled
together for warmth in doorways and arches and along the embankment; homeless and destitute.

The majority of chop-houses and coffee-houses would be closed by eleven, but taverns and supper-rooms and night coffee-houses were coming into their own. The earlier entertainments – from the glitter of Covent Garden to the tawdry threepenny show at the Royal Victoria Theatre – were done. As lonely men finished dining or applauding, the darkest face of London turned from its looking-glass and sought the streets.

In the West End, the great courtesans distributed fleshly
largesse
to an exclusive and well-heeled clientèle. In Brompton or Chelsea, in St John’s Wood or Fulham, clever ladies, securely
esstablished
, gave their favours exclusively to one admirer who settled the rent. In the night-resorts their more available sisters, gaudily dressed, coquetted for money among the gentlemen
present
. Along the Ratcliffe Highway, and in every dock, sailors’ tarts strolled arm-in-arm and hoarsely cried their wares to any passing seaman: lifting beribboned gowns to show a plump pinkstockinged calf, flourishing bright brass heels which could dance or stamp. Against the damp walls of alleys, love and cash made rapid exchange. A man could be robbed and coshed if the lady had a waiting accomplice, but on the whole the trade of buying and selling was straightforward enough. Lower down still, the worn vendors of pleasure walked the city pavements, soliciting. They promised paradise for a few pence, in a voice husky with gin; though the pocked face beneath the veil and the ravaged body beneath the frippery were visions out of hell. And deepest in the pit, lying or squatting on bare boards, racked by disease and wasted by poverty, the remnants of the oldest profession in the world died in rags and squalor.

Expensive but obtainable, virgins of thirteen were lured,
drugged
and raped by particularly fastidious connoisseurs – some of whom thought to cure themselves in this way from venereal
disease
. A little court of necessary accomplices ministered to this gourmet’s market, from the procuress to the woman who first
pronounced the girls pure and then made good the subsequent despoliation.

Less prolific, because less easily traced, the other side of
sexuality
catered mainly for members of the services who had acquired a taste for the male body. Open solicitations were
infrequent
, but behind the respectable skirts of many a madam, boys sat up late at night ‘waiting for Jack’, and older she-shirts were available at every port. The Amendment Act of 1885 – the ‘Blackmailer’s Charter’ as it was dubbed – pronounced any public or private sexual act between males a criminal offence, thereby arousing an interest among members of the underworld which had formerly been absent. Threats of giving information to the police now drew gold from the pockets of citizens who could not afford to be known as homosexuals. This simmering cauldron was to boil over England in 1895, dimming the brilliance of Oscar Wilde and marking ‘Bosie’ Douglas’s failure either to be a
normal
man or a loyal friend. They had made the cardinal mistake of being found out: a sin Victorian society was unable to forgive.

From these various caterers incarnate, the brothel-keepers, the fancy men and the pug-uglies collected a lion’s share of earnings. The honeycombed lodging houses of Bluegate Fields rented out rooms for a few shillings a week, or a shilling a night, to any wretched whore who could pay. But elegant establishments charged a couple of guineas per client. Allied to the
accommodation
houses were the introducers who found ladies to suit all tastes and contacted potential customers at their clubs or offices, by letter.

Last and most vulnerable of all, the unwanted offspring of a desperate girl could find a market. For the sum of five pounds a baby-farmer would undertake to adopt and raise the infant, promising a comfortable home and a parent’s care if the child was sickly. Bastards, being the result of vice, naturally succumbed more quickly. The death-rate among illegitimate children was eight times higher than among the legitimate.

All this Inspector Lintott carried in a shrewd head, and
regretted
in a private heart. So much misery, acquisitiveness and
degradation
must have set his face against humanity had it not been for the Richmond sanctuary. Here, in his slippers and old jacket, he
could listen to lighter voices and enjoy a sweeter world. Twenty years of marriage had fleshed Mrs Lintott handsomely, turned a vivacious girl into a mettlesome woman, and transformed a
tendency
to giggle into sound good humour. She thought her
husband
the cleverest and best man on earth, and he concealed nothing from her but the noisome details of his profession. So she darned and sewed and knitted, and passed on the news of the neighbourhood while he smoked and thought. He listened
because
he loved her and the sound was pleasing, but the policeman in him never rested: sifting, docketing, remembering. As he often said, all information could be useful. So Richmond, too, was under his vigilant eye. He picked up knowledge from his children in the same manner, and was proud that John thought of entering the Police Force, and Joseph the Queen’s Army. He tended – as his wife told him – to be over-indulgent with his two daughters, though he insisted on good schoolwork so that they might obtain posts in offices. This consideration apart, they took gross advantage of his affection. And he, knowing how hard life was for a woman, rendered their girlhood easy.

The tenderness in him could temporarily bemuse his
judgement
, and he had clung to a belief in Laura’s innocence of
adultery
until the evidence was paramount. Now, treading his
corrupt
city, he turned over the pages of her diary in his mind and searched for excuse. She had taken him into deeper feminine waters than those to which he had been accustomed, and he brought all his seamanship to negotiating them. Titus’s
love-letter
might have been merely an expression of his feeling for Laura; and no woman could be blamed for arousing love, only for wrongly gratifying it. She had torn his letter into pieces, and could have appeared to dismiss his suit.

Foolish, Lintott thought. She should have burned it. But then she is careless with pen and ink. The diary.

The name of Woman, to him as to all members of his sex, even though they might desecrate it, was synonymous with Virtue.

‘When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray.’ She should have thought of that. And she should never, never have written it. Anyone might have found it. Her husband even.

He wondered for a moment whether Theodore had indeed
unearthed
the diary and, doubly betrayed, sought a violent way out. Then sent the idea packing as romantic nonsense.

‘Fiddlesticks!’ said Lintott aloud, and startled a beggar in a doorway.

He had formed a pretty accurate picture of
Theodore Crozier, and his strength of purpose was too powerful to be dismissed.

No, you would never find a man like that shirking his duty, Lintott thought. A great one for duty. He would have confronted both wife and brother and demanded an explanation. Then what? Dissolve the partnership with the brother, probably, and turn the wife onto her relative. And he himself, brooding over the household and children, would face life alone. Alone but right. That was what mattered to Theodore: the rightness. A righteous man, a correct man, a man who insisted on all the rules and kept them strictly.

Then why the mistress? And, taking it further, why the letters? A man’s physical needs were not the same as those of a woman, but even there a code existed, rules existed. It was laid down in heaven, where marriages were made, that one loved one’s wife. So it followed that one did not love one’s mistress, only found relief or amusement with her. This mistress,
according
to Kate – whose opinion he respected – had been one such as a fastidious man would not be expected to love.

But you never get to the bottom of the human heart, and that’s a fact, Lintott mused. Anything might be so. That diary!

Laura’s hand etched the night with words and phrases which caused him softly to click his tongue in rebuke.

It wouldn’t be half so bad, he thought, if the Titus fellow was worth it. But he ain’t.

He stopped in his tracks, appalled, and shook his head as if to clear it. No, it would be bad whichever way you looked at it, he admonished himself. What more could such a woman want than a rich husband, three fine children and a nice house? Theodore Crozier wasn’t mean with her. Those dresses of hers cost a pretty penny, let alone the jewels. Money of her own, of course. Five hundred a year was not to be sniffed at.

I’ll never smell that much, and that’s another fact, he thought.
But
he
didn’t keep up such a front on four times that amount, I’ll wager. That firm must be worth – what? And she’s inclined to whim money away, I’ll be bound. Reckless, though you’d never think it to look at her. Reckless with money as long as there’s nobody to stop her. I wonder if that fellow has coaxed his debts out of her, yet? Got her to sign something. Reckless with her reputation, and that’s a thing a woman should value above all else. Everybody talking, sniggering, speculating.
Reckless
in feeling, more heart than judgement. Reckless enough to … Well, women are fickle cattle. Even the good ones can
surprise
you. The desperate ones usually do.