The Convictions of John Delahunt (14 page)

Heaving the case up the stairs was a great hardship. Two young girls sat on one of the steps, shoeless and wearing ragged dresses. When I asked them to move, they stared back at me as if I’d spoken in another language. We had to squeeze between them. As I lifted the trunk over their heads, I made sure they had to duck.

On the first floor, the door to what was once the drawing room was open. A woman in a drabbet dress knelt beside an iron tub, in which two infants stood shivering. Other youngsters were scattered about, wearing sullen faces and grimy hand-me-downs, playing patty-cake or squabbling over toys. The hassled woman regarded the new tenants passing her doorway with unfriendly eyes. She remained silent even when Helen offered a cheery hello.

Helen and I lived on the second floor, in what was once the master bedroom. It was rather cramped, but it had two tall bay windows and a fireplace in the wall opposite the door. In the first few days, we swept the floors and polished the surfaces, then arranged the few pieces of furniture still in our possession. Helen would stand in the middle of the room and direct me to drag the bookcase a few feet to the left or right, and the kitchen table so it stood closer to the dresser. Then she’d consider the result with her head tilted, and say, ‘Actually, they were better where they were before.’

Boxes of books lay jumbled in a corner for more than a fortnight, until I took it upon myself to put them away. I arranged them in the case first by subject, then changed my mind and put them in alphabetical order by author, then finally, for the sake of neatness, I grouped them together by the colour and height of their spines. It took most of the afternoon.

I watched Helen working at her writing desk, in the last light of a watery sun setting over the terrace opposite. There was a sheaf of letters received stacked in a small cubby to her left, and a couple of unopened envelopes with spidery lettering and London postmarks on her right.

She might have been the picture of a young married lady attending to her correspondence, except her hands wore fingerless gloves. Her dress wasn’t of lawn muslin but coarse wool, and she had no headgear except a scarf around her shoulders that snagged on the pins in her hair. She still possessed some fine gowns, but they were folded up at the bottom of her trunk. She didn’t want to wear them here, as they’d make her look out of place.

When I finished with the bookcase, I said, ‘Would you like some tea, Helen?’

She smiled at me over her shoulder and said that I’d read her mind. I filled the kettle from the basin, then hung it from a hook over the coals.

We had done our best to make the room comfortable, but all refinement had been stripped away by the landlady and previous occupants. The windows had no drapes. There had once been a thick red carpet, judging by tufts that had caught on exposed nails in the skirting, but it had been removed. The oil paint on the architraves flaked off at the merest brush, and warps in the sash windows admitted cold draughts.

Steam began to whistle from the spout, so I picked up the kettle with a cloth over the handle.

There were some vestiges of former grandeur, such as the fine black marble fireplace. Also, the room retained its original plasterwork. A delicate central rosette and oval garland adorned the centre of the ceiling, but the chandelier they once surrounded was long gone. All that remained was a bare hole that allowed the ingress of various types of creeping fauna, with wriggling feelers and segmented bodies. Helen couldn’t stand to have the bed directly beneath.

I took the teapot down from the shelf, and frowned at a small chip in its spout. The tealeaves were in a tin tray with a hinged lid, which had originally contained tobacco. I poured the tea without a strainer, added a pinch of sugar to Helen’s mug, and placed it on the desk beside her. ‘Who are you writing to now?’

‘My father’s cousin in Bristol.’

‘Did you ever meet him?’

‘Her. She visited once when I was little.’

Helen whiled away her hours by writing snatches of poetry and stories in jotters; one tale in particular she hoped to turn into a novel. It was a hobby I had been unaware of; one that she had pursued for years at home in Merrion Square. Among her possessions when she moved into Fitzwilliam Street were a series of notebooks and a bundle of pages loosely bound into a manuscript.

Occasionally, while writing her book, she would lift her head to pose some obscure question, such as the term-length for a member of parliament, or the name of a certain type of carriage. Once she asked what was another word for ‘profuse’, and when I couldn’t think of one, I said surely ‘profuse’ would suffice. I once requested to read some of her stories, but she became coy, gathered the pages to herself and said she couldn’t possibly let anyone read them. I said, ‘Of course, I understand.’ I had only asked to be polite.

Otherwise she was at that desk writing letters to family members living in Britain. She would explain our situation, and enquire if there were any positions of employment in their households or localities. No matter the address to which she wrote, her parents had already sent word. All of the replies that Helen received expressed dismay at her decision to elope and abandon the Stokes name. Some of her particularly beloved aunts and uncles denounced her disloyalty with language most vitriolic. Helen carefully filed each response.

No one lived on the floor above us, but the miserable couple below were constantly arguing. The woman we had seen was married to a slow-witted handyman named Lynch. Helen and I would listen to their raised voices muffled through the floorboards while we huddled in the dark. It would start with an abrupt yell from one or the other, the wail of a child, and Helen would say, ‘Here we go.’ The strains of their voices would rise in intensity, and snatches of words became audible.

For amusement, we would take sides. I usually showed solidarity with the husband, and would concoct arguments to match the pitch and length of his complaints. When Mrs Lynch cut off her husband’s lament to begin some shrieking rebuttal, it was up to Helen to take up the gauntlet. Mimicking her counterpart, she made up accusations of an increasingly base and depraved nature, and I was impressed by the breadth of her imagination. I had to wait for Lynch to lift his voice again before I could respond.

One night, their quarrelling became particularly ferocious, and was ended abruptly by the smash of a breakable and a heavy thud. Even the child stopped its crying. Beneath our covers, we listened to the heavy silence. Then Helen said, ‘He was asking for that.’

Our first months in the apartment were relatively contented. The responsibilities of running a small household kept us occupied, and we were each sustained by the companionship of the other. By the end of September, Helen’s only real dilemma was using the outhouse at the end of the yard, which consisted of a hole in a splintery wooden bench over a foul pit. The door of the shack wouldn’t close securely, and Helen insisted I stand guard whenever she used it, lest one of the Lynches barge in.

We examined the latch together one morning. She said, ‘Surely you can fashion something to lock it properly.’

I prodded at the bent piece of metal and said I wasn’t a carpenter.

Her lips pressed together, and straightened in a way I’d come to recognize.

‘But I’ll do my best.’

I asked Lynch for a lend of a screwdriver, and set about my task. I had never been one for manual labour, but unfortunately by that time I was qualified for little else. My final examinations in Trinity at the start of the summer had not gone well. The result hinged on my passing an oral examination by my tutor, Professor Lloyd. On the morning itself, my fellows had gathered on the steps to the rear of Library Square, lounging about with notes on their laps. Most were committing phrases to memory, mumbling aloud as if preparing for some important oration. I sat poised and silent among them. It was not at all that I had confidence I would pass. But my experiences in the previous months had put this trial in some perspective.

Lloyd’s office was on the top floor of the science building, up a grand Regency staircase. The panelled room was filled with shelves and glass cabinets, each containing rows of books, loose papers, or the most intricate optical devices used by Lloyd in the course of his experiments. The Professor barely acknowledged my arrival, waving for me to sit in the chair opposite. He referred to a sheet that contained a list of questions with my name printed on top. ‘Mr Delahunt,’ he said, ‘explain to me the experimental procedure required to observe the conical refraction of light in a piece of biaxial crystal.’

I had never heard of such a phenomenon. I pursed my lips and looked to the right as if gathering my thoughts, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say. The question had been too specific for me to start talking on some general theoretical point. Lloyd waited patiently with his pen poised over the sheet. When I said I didn’t know, he simply made a note and moved on.

I fared little better with the other questions, even struggling with topics that I covered during my studies. I kept omitting important details and repeating others. When my final answer trailed off into silence, he looked up at me.

‘Would you like to add anything?’

I said no.

‘Very well.’ He quickly totted the scores and signed his name at the bottom of the sheet. ‘You failed.’ He suggested that I retake my final year starting next September, or I would not achieve my degree.

‘My father recently passed away.’

He placed my sheet atop a pile. ‘On your way out you can send in Mr Delaney.’

As I withdrew each screw from the bolt in the outhouse, I methodically placed them in my pocket for safekeeping. The curved metal catch was surprisingly malleable, so I bent out its kink, then fastened it again slightly lower. The screws drove inward easily, their threads biting into the black, rotten wood. Despite my best efforts, one of the screws had gone missing, but the bolt was fast and secure.

Back in our room, a fire blazed in the hearth, and Helen was removing a kettle that had come to the boil. She had already set out two mugs on the table. I found the idea of her brewing a hot beverage for her handyman husband heart-warming. It was only as I advanced into the room that I noticed we had a visitor.

Sibthorpe sat in my chair beside the fireplace. It was hard to believe that it was the same man who had lain prostrate on my basement floor in Fitzwilliam Street a few months before. His mutton-chop whiskers had grown fuller, and his brown hair had been cropped short. He wore a black suit and grey cravat, which made him look like an undertaker. Helen seemed nervous as I approached, and she looked at me as Tom rose from my seat.

‘John, it’s good to see you again.’

I wiped my palm on my sleeve and shook his proffered hand.

Helen walked over and handed him a mug of tea, which he accepted with a nod. Then he sat down again without invitation.

She stood beside me and handed me the other mug. I looked at her. ‘You don’t want any?’ She shook her head and went to sit by her writing desk.

There was no other seat in the room, unless I perched at the foot of the bed, so I leaned my elbow on the mantelpiece as if I posed for a portrait. Sibthorpe blew steam from his mug. ‘I’ve already had a chance to thank your wife. I believe it was the ministrations of your father-in-law that saved my life.’

I said we hadn’t heard from Mr Stokes for several weeks.

He took a sip of his tea and I noticed he held his right side in a stiff manner.

Helen leaned forward, her voice tinged with anger. ‘Your intrusion that night had very serious consequences for us both.’

Sibthorpe appeared surprised that she had spoken. He met her eye, and then looked around the sparse room. ‘So I see.’

She was about to speak again, but he raised his hand. ‘I realize the events that night caused you much hardship and I truly regret that. But I wish to make some amends.’

From the fireplace I asked how so.

‘By offering you some employment.’ He placed his mug on the armrest.

I said my experience of working for the Castle had proved too costly already.

‘Come now, John. Leaving aside my imposition that night, which I admit was bad timing, you had done rather well from your interaction with the Castle.’ He turned to Helen. ‘Didn’t we keep your brother from gaol, and save your family’s reputation – though you might not care about that now?’

Helen was stung, but before she could reply he addressed me once again. ‘And what about your bother with the coal-porter? Not to mention the twenty pounds we paid into your hand.’

Helen said, ‘John earned that reward money.’

‘And he could earn it again. Regularly.’ He said my position as an agent within his department would be formalized. I would be under no obligation, but I could meet him in the Castle at any time with information regarding any issue, no matter how petty – a pub that opened after hours, a neighbour who beat his wife, the political affiliations of an acquaintance – and that information would be paid for, every time. ‘Occasionally, you might be called upon to help with a certain case, a few hours’ work here and there, often very lucrative.’

I looked over at Helen. The promise of a steady income appealed to me. But her voice was quiet.

‘A paid informer?’ She twisted the wedding band on her finger. ‘It’s hardly work suitable for a gentleman.’

Sibthorpe glanced at me. ‘If I may, Mrs Delahunt, you seem too mindful of our society’s double standards when it comes to honour. You yourself have suffered stigma, and for what? Marrying the man you love.’ He paused as if trying to fathom the attraction. ‘Where is the dishonour? Where is the dishonour in serving your city? In the Castle we maintain the common good. What matter if some of our activities are covert?’

Helen’s eyes remained downcast. The mug of tea in my hand had begun to grow cold so I placed it on the mantelpiece. I told Sibthorpe we’d have to think about it.

‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, how would you like to make five pounds assisting me this evening?’

Sibthorpe and I sat in a cab bound for the police station in Store Street, trundling down the slope of Gardiner Street towards the Customs House. He sat quiet and still beside me, and I was content to look out of the window at the evening traffic. We were delayed at the bottom of the street. Construction work continued on the new railway bridge that swept over the river, traversed Gardiner Street, and cast Frenchman’s Lane completely in shadow. I looked up at the houses adjacent, and imagined their sash windows wobbling as great steam engines rumbled by.