The Final Recollections of Charles Dickens (8 page)

The evil deed was done from behind. The murderer stepped out of the shadows as James Frost approached Florence's home. Wingate did not have the courage to look James in the eye. James was given no opportunity to fight for his life. There was no grappling hand to
hand. A shot was fired. A bullet lodged in the back of James Frost's head, and he fell to the ground, dead.

All of this was unknown to Florence as she waited for James to take her away. Tears of joy clouded her eyes. The best of her life lay ahead.

Wingate opened the door softy with a key and strode lightly up the stairs. Florence saw him. There was a dreadful look upon his face. Her own face was so beautiful, so full of dreams. His was a cruel mask.

He stared at her intently for several moments. His eyes looked powerfully down into hers. There was something ghastly in the contrast between the violent passion in them and his harsh low voice.

“You have brought this upon yourself. I hate with greater pleasure than I love.”

Florence saw the bright sharp edge of a razor.

Wingate struck sharply. His hand was steady, and his thrust was deep. One motion, then another, slashing all trace of beauty from her. She staggered and fell blind in the eye that had been cut out by the razor as it sliced across her face. A face so beautiful moments before, now formless flesh and blood.

I
sat, listening in horror, as Florence concluded her tale. Her face resembled the grotesque shaping of a wild painter's brush, not the work of Nature's hand.

“I had two eyes once. And my face was pretty. What happened can never be undone. But I am still a woman, one of God's creatures. Please, have the decency to look at me, Mr. Dickens.”

CHAPTER 4

We sat close together. The glow of the fire cast a dim light on Florence's ruined beauty. As she told of the savagery that had befallen her and James Frost, her heart was so filled with grief that I thought I could hear it breaking. Death itself could not have been more sorrowful.

All the while, the baby lay sleeping with the innocent smile of childhood on its face.

James had been buried with a lock of Florence's hair tied to a ribbon placed round his neck. She had worn the ribbon on the day that they pledged their lives and their love to one another. It would lie upon his chest forever.

“Four years have passed since that day,” Florence said as she told me of her journey. “Four years, and James has been with me ever since. In dark night and sun, in the light of candle and fire. No one has ever been happier than I was on our last day together. There was enough joy in those hours to keep me for this life on earth.”

She held her hands tight upon her heart as she spoke, as if nothing less would keep it from splitting into small pieces.

“When I was a young girl, before I knew what death was, I would play in the churchyard with no thought to whose ashes lay beneath my feet. If you buried James fifty feet deep and took me across his grave, I should know without a mark that he was buried there. But he no longer lies in the grave. He has flown to a beautiful place beyond the sky where nothing dies or grows old. I hope he is as happy in his new life as I have prayed for him to be. And I wish that he has not given his heart to another, that he waits for me. I dream so much of Heaven and Angels and kind faces that I never see when I am awake. Heaven is a long way off, and they are too happy to come to the side of a poor woman like me. But in that other world, if I am forgiven my sins, I will wake some day and James will find me.”

As Florence spoke, Christopher sat clenching his fist as if he were to beat down a lion.

“My sister was a toy for Wingate's pleasure,” he said. “Let him remember what happened for so long as he is on this earth and for eternity in hell ever after.”

“How did he escape punishment?”

“The word of a whore carries no weight against the word of a gentleman in an English court of law,” Christopher said bitterly. “The police accepted a fiction he told and made threats against us should we pursue the matter.”

“And you let it be?”

“I was of a mind to seek him out. Wingate was never in such peril of his life as he was at that time. When he
is within five minutes of breathing his last, he will not be nearer to death than he was at my hand. But I feared punishment from the law that would deny Florence my protection. My curse is upon him. I still think of such an act. I wish he had never been born.”

I wanted to know more about Wingate.

“How did he earn his pay when you knew him?” I asked Florence.

“He worked in business. That was all I knew.”

“Did he work alone?”

“He had a partner whose name was Owen Pearce.”

“How long were they partners?”

“Until Mr. Pearce died.”

“There was more,” Christopher urged his sister.

Florence worked her fingers together uneasily.

“I met Owen Pearce several times,” she said at last. “We had dinner on occasion with Mr. Pearce and his wife. Her proper name was Lenora, but she preferred to be called Lily.”

“Go on.”

“After Mr. Pearce died, Geoffrey told me that Mr. Pearce had signed several documents in his presence. If I was asked about the matter, I was to say that I had been there when the documents were signed.”

“What kind of documents?”

“I was told that it was none of my concern.”

“How did you respond?”

“I understood the life I had. I gave for money what should only be given for love. And I knew nothing about business. But I would not have stories made for me and told him so. Geoffrey grew angry and said again that, were I asked, I should speak other than the truth.”

The sound of the infant crying intruded on our conversation. Florence bent down over the egg crate and lifted up the child.

“What is her name?” I asked.

“Ruby.”

“How old is she?”

“Seven months.”

Pushing aside the ragged clothes that covered her breast, Florence began nursing her daughter.

“You are a gift to me, fresh from the hand of God. I should like it if, some day, you are a fine lady with a true love who shelters you in his arms. I live now so that some day you may be happy and remember a woman who looked over you and kissed you and called you my child.”

Holding Ruby close, Florence turned toward me.

“Do not think that all power I had of loving is gone. I did not know that anything could be as dear to me again as she is now. It is not a slight thing when those who are so fresh from God bring us love.”

Ruby stopped feeding, and Florence moved to put her down in the crate.

“May I hold her?” I asked.

Florence handed me her daughter. I cradled the baby in my arms. Words are not powerful enough to describe my emotions of that moment.

Ruby lay with her head upon my chest, her eyes trusting and wide, her soft cheek pressed against my heart. This child, as precious as any child born to rank and wealth, had a special grace about her. She clutched my shirt with a tiny hand, innocent of any knowledge beyond her immediate senses. I was completely at peace
with myself. Every agitation and care passed from my soul. If I had died then with that feeling in my heart, I would have been more fit for Heaven than at any time in my life before or since.

“The light of intelligence is in her eyes,” Christopher said. “I wish that she should be taught to read. There are times when I feel my want of learning very much.”

Ruby fell asleep in my arms. Florence took her from me and set her down in the egg crate.

“There is not much cost to feeding her now. I just must keep my own condition strong. But before long, she will need more.”

Night was approaching. I wanted to leave the slum before dark.

“There are several more questions I must ask. Do you know where I can find Lenora Pearce, the woman you knew as Lily?”

Florence shook her head.

“If it comes to pass that Wingate is placed on trial, would you be willing to bear witness against him in a court of law?”

“It would give me something more to live for.”

“I will do what I can.”

“It would be well if you could. Satan is in him. I ask myself at night some times if God is punishing me for giving myself to this man. I never walked the streets, but I was no better than those who do. Do you think I will suffer more in the afterlife for my wickedness?”

“God does not speak to me as he does to you, Miss Spriggs. But I believe that God is forgiving and understanding of all human conduct that flows from a person
of tenderness. You should have no fear of what comes after the life that we know.”

“In my dreams, I know that is true. I was beautiful once. Or so men said. In my dreams, some times, I am still beautiful.”

“We must go now,” Christopher told me.

He rose to lead me to the door. There was one thing more I wished to do. I reached into the pocket where I carried my coins and put them all in Florence's hand.

“For Ruby.”

“Thank you. If there were more like you, there would be fewer like me. God bless you, Mr. Dickens.”

Christopher led me out of the slum by the same passage we had travelled before. The sun was fading, and the streets were more ominous than earlier in the day. Men and women dressed in rags huddled together in anticipation of the night. They were of a class that works hard to stay alive, seeking no other destiny and having none.

A wretched woman stood at the entrance to an alley. Her face was wrinkled, her few remaining teeth protruded over her lower lip, and her bones were starting through her skin. She was singing a song of sorts in the hope of wringing a few pence from a compassionate passerby. A mocking laugh at her trembling voice was all she gained.

We passed a churchyard with straggling vegetation of the sort that springs up from damp and rubbish. No plant could have its natural growth as God designed
it in that fetid bed. A new mound, not much longer than the body of an infant, had been freshly dug in the churchyard. Shrouds are not only for the old. They also wrap the young within their ghastly folds.

My thoughts went to Ruby and who her father might be. I wondered what would happen to her as she grew older.