The Walworth Beauty Read online

  Tonight, the children were shouting two floors above. Eager to wash, first of all he needed to get rid of the green burdens he carried. He put the cactus on the floor under the coat-pegs, left the marigolds on the hall table. He undid the vile cloak Mrs Dulcimer had pressed on him yesterday. Blue tweed, flecked with yellow and purple. Cape over the shoulders, tortoiseshell buttons down the front. Shrugging it off, he caught a hint of violet perfume. Ha. But the day was behind him now: he had reached home.

  Milly, bless her, had lit a fire in the bedroom against his return, had also brought up hot water. Often and often he’d told her not to lug those heavy cans. Don’t fret, Pa, Milly would snap: I can manage. If we had a servant she’d have to do it, and it would be just as hard for her. He’d kiss Milly’s cheek: I’d help any girl struggling under such a burden, you know I would.

  The steaming bath stood on the hearthrug, the empty cans beside it, their brass sides shining in the firelight.

  Joseph unbuttoned his grey waistcoat. Inherited from his stepfather, a larger man. Expertly turned by his mother, to reveal the less-worn inner side, necessarily taken in as a result of the re-stitched seams, it ended up fitting Joseph exactly. He stroked the waistcoat as he took it off. Wool soft as his littlest one’s face.

  The children kept him in the healthy centre of his life. Gambolling and frisking, or whining and squabbling, they were innocent as cherubs. He wanted to show them all possible love: surely their good behaviour would flow from feeling cherished. Cara dwelled on the effort involved in goodness. You had to set your back against temptation. Resist it with all your might. Reading the newspaper, so full of horrors, made her tremble and cry out. This morning she’d reported to him an item about a woman who threw her three small children off Waterloo Bridge, then hurled herself after them. How could she do that? Cara sobbed. Joseph said: who knows what despair she felt? Perhaps she was starving. He stroked his wife’s arm: hush, my dear one. This sort of thing happens every day, you know it does. Don’t tear yourself apart fretting about it.

  He unbuttoned his trousers and stepped out of them. He unloosened his necktie, took off his collar, rimmed with black from city smoke, and tossed it down. He undid his shirt.

  Perhaps the father of those children had deserted that woman. Had they even been married? Hard for women of the labouring class to remain virtuous, Joseph had speculated to Mayhew two days back, given the overcrowding in their tenements. He’d stood in a Waterloo street recently and counted twenty people leaving one dilapidated dwelling, over the course of an hour, fifteen trudging out of the house next door. Little privacy in those slums for washing or for changing clothes. Men and women mingled freely in the beer shops, the street, worked side by side in the markets, on the pavement stalls. Was it in these circumstances of easy familiarity that so many females took that first, fatal, false step, crossed over from the daylight world into that other, shadier one?

  Joseph had dropped into the Morning Chronicle offices that evening, as he sometimes did, to describe the day’s work, the success or otherwise of his attempted interviews. After a brief discussion, he’d perch at a desk in the corner, write up his notes in the neat hand he’d perfected during his years at Bow Street, coaxing things into shape, sharper focus, for Mayhew to look over later. The great man, dark hair sticking up untidily, cuffs turned back, presided at a larger desk piled with notebooks and papers, cluttered with pens, inkpots, blotters, a tray of nibs and India rubbers. A brass bell stood on one corner of the leather surface, a peacock fan lay on another.

  As usual, Mayhew had reminded Joseph who was in charge. Careful, Benson. I don’t want you to understand people so much as study them. We have to keep a distance from the objects of our survey. Our scientific method requires us to remain detached.

  He seized his pipe, leaned back and put his feet up on his desk, and began to pack the bowl with tobacco. He lit it, inhaled. You’re still new to this work, of course. Let me remind you of my project’s nature. Let me recapitulate.

  Joseph studied his boots, silently addressing first the right and then the left: I know all this already! You’ve explained it to me a dozen times! The boots jumped up, did a brief dance, kicked each other, then sat dutifully still.

  Mayhew emphasised his points by striking his pipe on the desk. Flakes of burning tobacco flew out, onto his pile of papers, adding scorch marks to ink blots, and he crushed them with the pipe stem. Joseph listened, and gazed at the half-eaten ham sandwich lying on a plate perched on a heap of files. Mayhew had had lunch, but he hadn’t. Too busy pounding the filthy streets behind Waterloo Bridge. His stomach lurched, complained. He tried to ignore it, concentrate on his employer’s words.

  Mayhew waved his pipe. The main point we must bear in mind at all times, I insist, is simply to listen to the poor, record their own versions of their working lives. Or their lives of vice. Keep your opinion out of it. Just take down what they say.

  Joseph had been on the job for three weeks so far. He sometimes met other researchers on the office stairs as they clumped up and down, notebooks clutched under their arms. Better born than he was, better educated, he could tell from their voices, their assessing glances. Would-be journalists, a retired clergyman or two. Hard-pressed chaps with copy to write, deadlines to meet, stopping just for a nod, a spot of chaff, then speeding on again.

  He himself had been taken on as an investigator in the second division, his daily task to interview examples of the poor who chose not to labour but to exploit and rob their fellow men. An ex-police clerk, Mayhew had mused, interviewing him: used to dealing with villains, eh? Yes, I can certainly use you.

  He’s started Joseph off with stallholders. For his first two weeks he concentrated on the cheats amongst them. You fell into conversation; showed your interest; tickled their vanity. Amazing how quickly they trusted you, how they couldn’t resist revealing their tricks: hiding bruised, near-rotten plums at the bottom of the punnet and displaying fine ones on top; bulking out packets of tea with dried grass underneath the Orange Pekoe; using false weights on their scales. Inwardly shocked, Joseph kept a bland face, took notes, reported back to the boss.

  Now Mayhew had set him to collecting information on a different group of the criminal poor, in a particular part of town: the prostitutes on London’s Surrey side, in the south-eastern districts lying nearest the Thames. You’re the fatherly type, Mayhew remarked: you won’t scare ’em off.

  Joseph hoped so. He needed to hang on to this precious bit of luck. The attack of dysentery had done for him: too much time off work and Bow Street had given him his marching orders. The governor had been decent though: written him a reference, mentioned Mayhew, and so Joseph had pushed along to the Morning Chronicle office, introduced himself, bargained for a post. He’d try to keep his mouth shut from now on. Complete his probationary period satisfactorily. Their fortunes were on the mend, he’d promised Cara: his wages at the end of the month would prove it. All his savings had been wiped out by butcher’s bills, grocer’s bills, that single, expensive visit from the doctor. Just enough left over for day-to-day living costs, if Cara continued very careful with her housekeeping. Mayhew had been generous, understanding Joseph’s straitened financial situation, advancing him plentiful expenses, telling him simply to keep an account of what he spent. Joseph wasn’t making nearly enough. He should take on an additional job. Not yet, though. Give this one a chance first.

  A starling flapped up outside, landed on the bedroom windowsill, struck its beak against the glass. Joseph yawned and stretched. So much freer with most of your clothes off. He stroked his belly, which was rounding out once more, after the dysentery had melted the flesh off him. He wasn’t fat, but perhaps he should start exercising again. Boxing? Dumb-bells? Get back into good physical shape. Sharpen his wits. Recover all his former alertness. During that last conversation with Mayhew, two days previously, he had nearly blown it: offering a personal and unsought point of view.

  Mayhew’s pipe had gone out. He tried to get
it going again, sucking it quickly, making little snorting, gasping sounds, then flung it down. He tapped his pen on his desk. Nonetheless, my dear Benson, what you say reminds me of something. We don’t yet know enough about the actual living conditions of the criminal poor. Interviewing these girls on the street isn’t enough. Have you visited any of their dwelling-places? You must do so!

  Joseph relished his evening visits to the Morning Chronicle. The half-hour offered a chance to wind down after the difficulties of the working day, coaxing sullen, suspicious individuals into accepting being questioned. Seeing Mayhew both reassured and intrigued him. Plump Mayhew, in his heavy black suit, with his outflung arms and waving hands, crouched in his sanctum like a great dark spider, issuing gossamer threads in all directions, spinning a huge, complicated web, catching just the flies he wanted. Flies buzzed in a tussling rage, hurling themselves around the corners of the room, and criminals hurled themselves around the corners of the city. Capture them at the right time, Benson! Choose your moment! Was Joseph a spider too, or a fly? He wasn’t always sure, although Mayhew liked to protest that all his assistants were invaluable: I may be the one initiating this work, Benson, but I depend upon you completely to help me. You are my eyes and ears!

  His hot office smelled of coal dust, rancid butter and stale ham, and sweat. Windows tight shut against the foetid street outside. The great man directed all operations from his throne-like oak desk, thumping his domed brass bell when he required his scribes to run in from the next room. His Chronicle bulletins were meeting with great success amongst readers, his empire ever-expanding. Accordingly, to get his articles written on time, he employed, in addition to his band of informants, a team of secretaries, messengers and stenographers. He collated the information his scouts brought back, dictated and re-wrote and re-shaped. You handed in a report, and it became Mayhewed.

  Joseph leaned on the edge of the bath, stood on one foot then the other, rolling down the knee-length stockings Cara had knitted for him, pushing them off over his heels. The wool was matted and damp with sweat. He untied the string fastening his drawers. The smell of his own semen rose up. Like fresh milk turned a little sour. Odd how other people’s smells were always much worse than one’s own. People farting on omnibuses made him want to retch. His stockings and drawers joined the heap on the floor.

  Mayhew was the boss. Find out about tarts’ lodgings! Jump to it! Accordingly, that same evening, after their discussion, Joseph had gone out again after supper, walked down to Mother Busk’s on Waterloo Road, asked for Polly, the black-haired girl he’d met a year ago.

  She remembered him, or pretended to: long time no see! Not dead yet, then? What can I do for you? And then last night he had visited Mrs Dulcimer’s in Walworth, and been robbed for his pains. Damn the woman. She’d babbled excuses as she half-smothered him in that horrible cloak. All a mistake. Doll’s one for taking odd notions into her head, d’you see, she took a fancy to you, obviously, and so she took your coat. She’s not a thief. She didn’t mean to steal, I’m sure. It just came over her, I expect. She’s not a bad girl, really.

  Doll was a bit touched, perhaps. On his way home in the jolting cab Joseph had decided to accept Mrs Dulcimer’s tale. For the moment. Would Doll interest Mayhew? A simpleton who stole not from straightforward wickedness but for some other, twisted reason. What was her story? Well: they’d see.

  Now he had a hold over the black lady. Possibly he could turn the event to his advantage, force the woman to reveal more of her trade secrets. What kind of place nurtured a being like Doll? Perhaps she hid keen wits under those daft looks. Those sensual, swinging hips. Perhaps she was a decoy. Probably Mrs Dulcimer knew all the back ways to all the local swag shops. Rather than get a warrant, go straight to the house with a constable, and have the place searched, too late by now probably, they should watch the canny black lady’s comings and goings. What was she, exactly? Facts, Benson, facts!

  He stepped into the bath, sat down, drawing up his knees. He reached over, took up one of the clean towels Milly had left out, folded it, placed it behind him to make a headrest, and lay back, basking in the clean steam.

  Late this morning, still obediently pursuing Mayhew’s latest instructions, he had visited a row of lodging-houses on Newington Road. How to tell which harboured decent working people and which sheltered prostitutes? He chose at random: two establishments, side by side, whose doors on to the street stood ajar. He knocked on the door of the nearest and went in.

  The low-ceilinged basement kitchen was warmed by a steeply banked fire. Ropes suspended over the fireplace held drying shirts. A dozen or so men, shabbily dressed, clustered around an oilcloth-covered table, reading newspapers, eating fish breakfasts, drinking tea. All looked sour-faced with exhaustion. One had given up, slumped asleep, his head on his folded arms.

  Some of these chaps had been hop-picking in Kent, the landlady explained, her thin lips parting over tobacco-stained teeth, and had walked a long way. Others, she indicated with a wave of her hand, were resting after dawn shifts selling fruit at the market, preparatory to going out again, for whatever casual work they could get. After their bit of bread and butter they’d be off. Her open mouth revealed gums clotted with white wads of half-chewed bread and fish. She put in a finger, rummaged, pulled out a fishbone. She looked at it, cast it onto the table. She swallowed, picked up another piece of fry in her fingers and bit into it. Grease ran onto her chin, which she wiped with her sleeve. Joseph tipped his hat and left.

  The kitchen of the second house, peopled solely by women, seemed livelier. Here, the purple-gowned landlady was pouring out coffee for a group of half-a-dozen well-dressed girls of about Milly’s age. Cheerful and healthy enough they looked, lounging in wooden armchairs by the fire, or at the big central table, laden with crockery, packs of cards, and candle-holders. Dresses, bonnets and petticoats hung from strings looped all round the salmon-pink walls and over screens.

  One young creature, smartly got up in a green jacket and skirt, her hair neatly coiled and netted, was sorting through a pile of silk and muslin squares in front of her. Cravats, scarves and handkerchiefs. Next to her, a more genteel-looking girl in pale blue was paring her nails with a knife, while another, wrapped in a red shawl, was mending a long tear in the hem of a white gown. They ceased their chatter as he came in, glanced at each other. The girl in green swept her hoard of flimsies onto her lap, stuck out her chin and gave him a bold look. When she bade him a merry hello, the others followed suit.

  Joseph introduced himself, asked if they would talk to him about their lives. They shrugged. He searched for a tactful formula. The landlady was watching him. One clumsy word, one seeming allegation that she ran a dodgy set up, and she’d throw him out. How could he ask her lady lodgers to describe their bedrooms? Whether they ever shared them with men casually picked up on the street? How often they changed the sheets? Impossible. No. Avoid all mention of sleeping-quarters for the moment. Start with something less intimate. Assume these girls are virtuous, and gainfully employed. Begin there.

  He cleared his throat. What jobs do you do, young ladies? Who employs you? How much do you earn per day, roughly speaking? How far do you have to travel to your place of work? What are your hours?

  They stared at him. Then giggled. Hey, mister! Chilly out, is it? One of the girls pointed at his cloak, chortled, put her hand over her mouth. Another stood up from her perch on a settle drawn close to the grate. She flounced the cage of her crinoline backwards, so that it turned inside out, curved up around her like a great shell. Saucy as a parakeet flashing its plumage, she plumped down again, her back skirts over her head, her front ones drawn up to reveal her quilted pink petticoat, and a white one showing under that. Ta-da! she jeered at him, while the others laughed.

  They were all, of course, thieves. Doubtless most of them were also prostitutes. Night-prowlers, going about the streets to plunder drunken men. Right! Exactly the sort of women Mayhew wished him to interview. It ought to be easy:
none of them seemed the slightest bit ashamed. None of them, however, wished to talk to him. What! He was joking, surely. He could be a plain-clothes policeman. They tittered at each other, then bade him insolent goodbyes. The parakeet-girl flapped up her petticoats again, squawking. The landlady jerked her thumb towards the doorway. She clapped shut the door behind him.

  Joseph stood in the street, his cheeks hot. The bloody cloak’s fault. If he’d been wearing his overcoat he’d have been treated with more respect. Watching boys catcalled, pointed and jeered, and he waved his fist at them. When a group of heavies in leather aprons rounded the corner and lurched towards him, Joseph made off.

  He lifted his right foot out of the bathwater, balanced it on his left knee, and soaped his toes. From in between them he winkled out crusts of dirt, particles of grit. Astonishing what you picked up in a single day. Were his boot-soles worn to holes? Quite possibly, with all the walking he did. He plunged his feet back into the suds, gave them a good rinse.

  During the afternoon, not wanting to give up, he’d paced more streets of the neighbourhood. The narrow thoroughfares stank of excrement, flowed with rubbish. No pavements: simply the road surface of packed rubble and puddling mud. Women hopped along it, hoisting their skirts well clear, showing their gaudy stockings. In some cases, naked legs. Bare feet thrust into cracked old shoes. Two small girls plodded past, wearing enormous down-at-heel slippers. Someone’s cast-offs. Bareheaded mothers, their hair scraped back, slumped on chairs at the front doors of decaying tenements. Hard-faced, with gaunt cheekbones and hostile eyes. They slapped away the pestering children, slapped them again when they fell over and whined.

  Joseph shifted down the bath, held his nose with one hand as he submerged himself, pushed his other hand through his hair. He sat up again, the soapy water sluicing his shoulders. He spluttered, wiped his cheeks.

  Nathalie, pregnant almost immediately after their marriage, had still seemed like a child herself. So tiny and so delicate. Yet she brimmed with maternal tenderness, towards him as much as towards the coming baby. She would stroke his shoulders as he kneeled by her chair, his head against her belly, to feel the child kicking. He whispered his fears: that she was so narrow, that the birth would rip her apart. Nathalie would hush him: I’m young, I’m healthy and strong, just stop your fretting. He pressed her fingers to his mouth, kissed them one by one.