Elijah’s Mermaid (21 page)

‘Lily . . .’ There! It came again. Someone – something –
was
calling my name, and so clear and so near I could almost imagine that lips were pressed against the glass. And yet, there was nothing to see, any view obscured by the ivy leaves, and against that darkness my own small reflection, and my own reflection gave a gasp when I sensed something move inside the room, a presence shifting around on the walls, floating through shadows that seemed to be swaying as if the air was water, and that air too fluid, too thick to breathe.

Turning around, very slowly, I pressed my palms against my eyes, afraid to witness what was there, too curious not to take the risk of spreading my fingers to peep through the gaps, to see that every rosebud wall had now become a glistening red which danced in the light of a fire that was burning in a white stone
hearth, and I swear I could feel the surge of its heat – even though no fire was really lit, my own little iron grate quite cold.

I blinked, and those phantom flames were gone. My room was still and ‘empty’ again, as was my bed with its crumpled quilt, and, jutting below, my chamber pot, and hanging on the wall above, the sampler once made by our grandmother, embroidered with birds and flowers and leaves that twined around the curling words: ‘
Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me
’.

Cautiously tiptoeing back, heading past my big doll’s house, I wanted no more than to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head, to wish my vivid dreams away. And perhaps they were only dreams after all, and perhaps it was nothing more than a breeze that caused the ivy to rustle and sigh, that lured me to glance at the window again, where a lingering image was burning – no longer my face but that of a woman, a woman who I felt I knew. And even though her mouth was closed, in my mind I heard her speak my name, and when I answered, I said,
Mama
.

That night, when I lay in Burlington Row, as I drifted off to sleep in a room where red shadows danced round the walls, I remembered that face at my window again – the same face I now saw in a little frame – and how it had slowly disappeared, the features unravelled like ribbons of mist before they had simply ceased to exist.

The maid knocked at nine, then turned and rattled the knob of the door – the door that remained locked up all night.

When I rose from the bed to open it she came in with some coffee for me to drink. I tried some but found it much too cold, thick and silty, black as mud. I wondered whether she had simply poured what was left on the tray from the previous night – though she looked too honest and open-faced to have done such a thing maliciously, bobbing and blushing nervously when she said, ‘Mr Hall is already downstairs. He’s waiting for Mr Beresford. Do you want me to make your fire up? Do you want me to help you wash or dress?’

I said no, I should manage quite well on my own, and the
moment she’d gone I was hurriedly splashing my face with some water grown chill in a bowl near by. A brief shivering glance in the mirror above and I pinched my cheeks and bit my lips, trying to bring some colour in. I tied back my hair in a plain brown knot before snatching up clothes thrown off last night, fumbling to fix the corset clips and cursing while securing the bustle, hoping those ribbons would stay at my waist, and with them the lump that padded the rear. There was a cartoon I’d once chanced to see in Papa’s copy of
Punch
magazine. It was captioned ‘A Woman’s Humiliation’, with the woman concerned quite unaware of the bustle that slipped from beneath her hems, with gentlemen sniggering behind when she seemed to be laying a giant egg. The thought of it haunted me still, whenever I wore the wretched thing – but there was no time for such petty concerns as I rushed down the narrow flights of stairs to join Freddie in the dining room, though again I felt much too anxious to eat, only taking small sips from my coffee cup, that beverage now being fresh and hot, though most of it was left undrunk when I heard sounds of hooves and the rattle of wheels, and a sudden loud knock at the house’s door.

Samuel Beresford did not come in but waited to greet us beneath the porch while, in something of a rush, Freddie and I bustled round in the hall donning our hats, my cloak, his coat, before heading out to the waiting cab, its wheels soon splashing through rain-swept streets, the two men sitting opposite me, and me all a quiver of anxiety as to what the coming day would bring – or was that simply the state of my nerves after meeting with Samuel Beresford, or was it that coffee which buzzed through my blood to make me feel giddy and nauseous?

When I was only fourteen years, when my blood had fizzed with Cremorne champagne, my behaviour had been precocious. Now, I could barely bring myself to meet with Samuel Beresford’s eye when I finally summoned the courage to ask, ‘Mr Beresford, did you happen to see my brother on his latest visit to London?’

He said, ‘No, only that day in Cremorne.’

Do you remember me in Cremorne?
I glanced up to appraise Mr Beresford’s looks, to compare this new version with what I recalled, when he must have been of a similar age to that which I had now attained. His attire then had been very gay, but today he wore a black top hat, a dark jacket, a plain white-collared shirt, knotted at the neck with a grey cravat. His face was still clean-shaven, and his hair still hung long to his shoulders, still a gleaming chestnut brown, the same with his eyes, intelligent, kind and full of an earnest intensity – just as they’d been when he kissed my hand and I’d thought I should drown in his smiling charm. Had that previous attraction been mutual, when he’d stood at my side in dusked gardens – or had I been foolishly naive, my overexcited female mind interpreting London etiquette for something more akin to romance?

Such frivolous yearnings were soon put aside when Freddie began to make complaints regarding how fruitless his posts in the press, which had garnered no news of Elijah at all, to which Samuel answered in serious tones, ‘There has been some gossip going around, about Osborne returning from Italy because of a violent incident . . . something involving a studio assistant.’

‘What sort of violent incident?’ Such a horrible sense of dread I felt, though Freddie’s response was calmly made, ‘I don’t give a fig for such tittle-tattle unless there is actual proof. And, without any proof, let us hold our tongues or risk upsetting Lily more.’

My answer was one of blunt indignation. ‘But I want to know
everything!
’

‘Well . . .’ Samuel Beresford paused for a moment, as if torn between humouring Freddie or me, ‘I dined with my mother only last night and certain matters have reached her ears. There
may
be another route of persuasion . . . some rumours pertaining to book illustrations now come to light in Holywell Street, and their value so much greater these days with my cousin’s reputation grown.’

Uncle Freddie was musing, as if to himself, ‘Hmm, Holywell Street, you say?’

‘What illustrations?’ I was abrupt. ‘Do they have anything to do with my brother?’

‘Nothing to do with Elijah at all!’ Freddie gave his friend a very stern look before offering his explanation. ‘There are vendors in that part of town who specialise in . . . how shall I put it . . . in salacious types of literature.’

Samuel Beresford went on, ‘There is talk that when Osborne was younger he became involved with a decadent crowd, providing images for books, so shocking they might well ruin him now
if
come to the public’s attention . . . and that’s not to mention the wrath of the law . . . the Immoral Publications Act.’

‘Can you be sure?’ Freddie enquired, his voice grown cold and very low.

‘Oh yes! On the best authority.
The Times
’s art correspondent has long been a friend of Mama’s. He has had the story at hand for some weeks, suppressed out of consideration for her . . . for our family connection. But he thought it best to alert her, and I shall alert my cousin in turn. We might come to an understanding, for Osborne to give any news of Elijah, in return for which I shall furnish him with the name and address of this dealer so that he may then purchase the items himself. If nothing else, Osborne is proud. He won’t want to have his name dragged through the gutters.’

Freddie continued to quibble. ‘Is there really any point in bringing up such historical facts?’

‘But why not,’ I protested vehemently, ‘if they lead to some news of Elijah?’

‘Miss Lamb,’ Samuel Beresford touched my hand, ‘if your face doesn’t prick my cousin’s heart . . . if he has the brass neck to see you and . . . well, who knows, he may tell us something, if only the day and the time of your brother’s disappearance . . . or what he was wearing, or what form of transport he might have used, anything that might help us with identification.’

‘Identification?’ That word was used when describing the dead. Reluctantly, I drew back my hand and turned my eyes to the window, trying to hide my own distress when hearing
Freddie spit his threat, ‘If that boy has come to any harm, then Osborne Black will rue the day he made an enemy of me!’

While speaking he shifted about in his seat to rummage in greatcoat pockets, from which he pulled a box of cigars, a cutter, a small silver tinder box. The paraphernalia sorted out, he finally lit the smoke in his mouth while puffing away to make it burn. The tip glowed red. His cheeks flushed dark and, almost like a child with a lollipop, Freddie’s temper was quickly soothed, his lips puffing out grey plumes of smoke, so thick that I edged towards the door where some draughts of fresh air were blasting in, and, as I did that, through the folded crush of my cloak and skirts, my legs pressed against Samuel Beresford’s. I must have turned red as a beetroot, and all I could do was stare at my lap in which my hands were tightly clasped. Meanwhile, Samuel Beresford started to cough, which made me think yet again of Cremorne and the sneezing attacks that had plagued him there. He proceeded to wind down the window, through which a sleety rain drove in, and I thought how selfish Freddie was, to keep blowing out that acrid smoke when it clearly caused his friends upset.

Brushing specks of ice from my burning cheeks, I persisted with my questioning. ‘So . . . you think Osborne Black will be at home? You think he will actually . . .’

Uncle Freddie removed the cigar from his lips. ‘Whether that man is there or not, the thing is to try and get Pearl alone. Mark my words,
she
holds the key.’

I heard a voice, a voice in my head, repeating the words I’d seen last night – ‘
He knows. He lies. He is here
.’

And then, we were ‘
there
’, and Samuel Beresford tugged on the string to alert the cabman to make a halt, parked in a narrow country lane where he then asked Freddie to sit and wait, hoping that way for more success – considering Freddie’s lack before – and my uncle seemed happy enough to comply, already lighting another cigar to add to the dirty fug around.

Having descended from the cab, Samuel Beresford took my arm. We both sheltered beneath one umbrella, and really on any
other day I might have believed my giddiness the result of such close proximity, by the fact that his breaths froze and merged with mine while around us a circle of silver dripped, and through that veil I saw a church, and above its grey tower the snapping of wings, gulls screeching, whirling, soaring. And what was that assault on my nostrils, a distinct aroma of sewage and fish and something else I didn’t know, a sweet malty odour that Samuel explained was the waste from a brewery built near by.

Elijah had mentioned a brewery. Hard to think that any factory could exist beside dwellings as lovely as those that we passed while walking along the Mall, all red brick façades and black balconies and beyond them flowed the River Thames, though its dimpling surface of gunmetal grey was grim and cold and forbidding that day, as were the puddles through which we splashed. By the time we arrived at Dolphin House my skirt hems were sodden and dragging, but rather than lifting them up I was far more concerned with gazing about, trying to picture my brother living in such a place.

Just as his letters had described, Dolphin House was set apart from the rest. Looming high above its walls were the wintery skeletal branches of trees. Tall gateposts were topped with stone dolphins, and between them there hung two iron gates, which that day had been left to stand ajar as if we were expected.

‘Has Osborne Black always lived here?’ While making our way up the gravel path I looked at Samuel Beresford. His answer was barely a murmur, as if fearing we might be overheard. But I noted the tone of reproach in his voice. ‘He inherited it from his mother. She and my mama . . . her sister . . . were raised in this very house, but then it was empty for many years when both of the sisters married . . . my mother to a banker, and Osborne’s to a clergyman who hailed from Manchester himself and considered London to be no more than a hotbed of sin and iniquity . . . so much so that the sisters rarely met, a rift growing up between them. My mother despises him to this day, even if the man is dead.’

By then we were standing beneath a porch and Samuel shook his umbrella down, a pool of raindrops dribbling round as I whispered my question back at him, ‘Then, how did you and Osborne meet?’

‘He left home to study in London. By then my mama was widowed and glad of the rent that he could pay. He lived with us for almost a year, though his father strongly disapproved, considering his son’s chosen career as being akin to the devil’s work. But later, when his parents died – an unfortunate incident with a fire – Osborne went on to inherit the bulk of his mother’s not insubstantial estate, which meant that he could then pursue any goal or career that he wanted to. Before that, he had been involved with your uncle, illustrating some of the magazines . . . which was how I first came to meet Freddie myself when he visited our house one night. I was no more than a boy at the time, but all of their talk of the publishing world . . . well, I knew that was what I wanted too, pestering Freddie remorselessly until he agreed to take me on.’

As I listened I stared at the gleaming green door, its brass knocker shaped like a mermaid, only with a tail that split in two, curling up on either side. Upon that seemingly decadent form Samuel Beresford’s hand played a loud tattoo; so very insistent it made me start. Surely no one inside could have failed to hear – unless they happened to be stone deaf – unless they pretended to be elsewhere.