Elijah’s Mermaid (49 page)

With my free hand already on the latch I gave a little cry of alarm to catch out of the corner of my eye a shifting shape in the shadows – feeling foolish to see it was Ellen Page.

Since the day of Papa’s funeral she’d come to the house less often. When she did come, she gave us no warning, except for the smell of new-baked bread, or the apple pies she placed in the range – which was where she was sitting that afternoon, her skirts ruched high over saggy darned stockings, and while sniffing the odour of mustard and lard then rising up to greet my nose, I said, ‘Oh, Ellen, you startled me. Are your knees sore with all of this dampness?’

Expecting another diatribe on the state of her rheumaticky joints, all I received was a black gummy smile, and then a little jerk of her head to nod at the creature in her lap, who squeaked like a baby bird in a nest crying out for its mother to bring a worm – and as I could never bear to hear the slightest whine from Angel’s lips, I asked, ‘Is he hungry? Is he well? Shall I go and look for Pearl?’

‘You might think to call her to come back in . . . she went out to the gardens, to get some air.’

I thought Pearl might walk to the grave with me; that we might have the chance to talk for a while. She’d been acting very oddly of late, beginning to speak then breaking off. She’d stand in the open study door and watch me while I sat and worked, her fingers plucking at her skirts. I worried she might be getting ill, about to take a turn for the worse, starting up with imaginings again. But in the event I need not have feared – though it was a shock to find her like that – and the man who was walking at her side, both of them coming up the drive as I stood beside the laurel hedge, as still as a statue, my mouth gawping open when Pearl called out, Look who I found in the
graveyard! He saw the announcement put up in
The Times
. He wanted to come and visit us.’

When Samuel Beresford took my hand the blood was pounding in my ears, and through that beat I heard him say, ‘Hello, Lily. You look very well. I would hardly have known you . . . the same with Pearl.’

He glanced at the rose in my other hand, gave a slight sniff and then lifted a cloth to wipe his nose, which was red and sore – just as it had been the first time I saw him when plagued by the pollen in Cremorne. But very soon, he was going on, ‘I must express my apologies . . . not arriving in time for the funeral.’

‘Frederick Hall was there,’ I said, ‘though I wonder that he had the nerve. At least he did not have the gall to show his face at the side of the grave.’

‘But he couldn’t have come,’ Samuel replied, brown eyes looking troubled and filled with confusion.

‘No, he couldn’t,’ Pearl interjected, her face grown pale and strained, and such a look of guilt in her eyes when she plunged a hand into her pocket and said, ‘I have something that you should read. I thought it was best not to speak before. But now . . . now that Samuel is here.’

She held out a newspaper cutting, very creased it was and the ink all worn in the places where the folds had been, but nothing so bad that I couldn’t make out the story that was printed there – further stunned to read the date – the same as Papa’s funeral. Who would ever believe such a thing had it not been set down in black and white? But then who would believe I had seen a ghost, for still, to this very day, I would swear on the Bible that Frederick Hall really had been there, in Kingsland church – even though he had died some hours before.

The shock of it caused my mind to reel, dropping the paper, dropping the rose, and the screams I heard I thought my own, not knowing then that Ellen Page had staggered out to find us, the baby wailing in her arms, and so loud he might almost wake the dead.

The Cheyne Walk Murder Trial

Yesterday morning the convict Frederick Hall was executed within the precincts of the gaol of Newgate for the murder of ‘Tip’ Thomas, a notorious criminal and delinquent. The capital sentence was executed in the presence of the Lord Mayor Alderman Phillips, and Sheriff Knight, Sheriff Breffit, Mr. Under-Sheriff Baylis, Mr. Under-Sheriff Crawford, Mr. Sidney Smith, the Governor, and the Rev. Lloyd Jones, the Ordinary of Newgate. A limited number of strangers and representatives of the Press were also present. The gallows had been erected within the gaol yard, and was peculiar in construction and appearance; it being roofed over, lighted with lamps at each end, and having a deep pit, over which a chain and noose were suspended. In front of the scaffold, but well away from it, the spectators were placed; and a picked body of the City of London Police were in attendance to maintain order if necessary. As the clock of the neighbouring church of St. Sepulchre chimed the hour of 8 a procession which had been formed within the prison emerged into the open space leading to the scaffold. First came the Governor of Newgate; then the Sheriffs and Under-Sheriffs in their official robes, and carrying their wands of office; next the convict, with the executioner – Marwood – by his side; and lastly the Reverend the Ordinary, reading as he went the opening sentences of the burial service. The prisoner, who had apparently been dressed with scrupulous care, bore himself at this awful crisis with conspicuous fortitude; and as he stepped upon the drop, fronting the spectators, his handsome features were lighted up with an expression of resignation. After the white cap had been
drawn over his face, and while the noose was being adjusted, the heaving of deep emotion was distinctly visible through the folds of the cap. The necessary preparations were speedily made by the executioner, and all things being in readiness, the drop fell at a touch or signal with an awful shock, echoing for a moment or two all over the prison yard. The body fell a depth of exactly 6 feet 3 in. – that being, by a coincidence, the convict’s own height. Judging from the tension of the rope for some considerable interval after the bolt had been drawn the prisoner must have ‘died hard’, as the saying goes. After the body had hung the accustomed interval, it was taken down, and with Mr. John Rowland Gibson, the prison surgeon, having certified that life was then extinct, it was placed in a coffin and subjected, later in the day, to a coroner’s inquest, in compliance with recent legislation. Towards evening, in accordance with long usage, the remains were buried within the precincts of the gaol, that being an integral part of the sentence. A black flag was hoisted, conformably with the statutory practice of late years, from the roof of the prison to indicate to the outside world that the dread sentence of the law had been carried out. The Governor afterwards read, in the presence of the Sheriff and Under-Sheriffs and the representatives of the Press, a written statement which the convict had placed in his hands at 11 o’clock on the previous evening, before retiring to rest. In that, said the Governor – using the convict’s own language – he appealed to the loving kindness of a merciful God that his transgressions might be blotted out, for the sake of that blessed Saviour whom he had so long neglected. He then acknowledged the justice of his punishment, and said he deserved it, though he did not absolutely confess that he had committed the crime. He afterwards expressed his sincere thanks to the Governor and all the officers of the prison for their attention, and to his many friends and relations – known and unknown – who he hoped would think of him in their prayers; and he
concluded by commending his soul to the hands of that Almighty Father who was the protector of the widow and the fatherless.

PEARL

‘
But remember,’ said the witch, ‘once you’ve taken human form, you can never be a mermaid again. You can never come back into the water . . . or to your father’s castle
.’

From ‘The Little Mermaid’ by Hans Christian Andersen

When Elijah comes home and hears the news his emotions are barely contained. He turns on Samuel. He remonstrates, ‘Why didn’t you write and tell us before? He was innocent! He could have been saved!’

Samuel remains calm but is clearly distressed, ‘You think I have no conscience! You think I have not spent months on end agonising over this? The fact is that Freddie made me swear never to tell you while he lived . . . even though there was always the risk that you might read the stories in the press.’

‘We rarely bought any papers. We shut ourselves off from the outside world, and now . . .’ Elijah’s eyes are damp. He picks up a glass to throw at the wall and a hundred little glittering shards scatter like rain on the boards below.

That act of violence shocks me. I think of a mirror smashed down to the floor in my crow’s-nest room in Cheyne Walk. I think of what happened to Monkey, then Tip. I think that since leaving London last year we have lived in a bubble of make-believe, our happiness bursting, about to dissolve. Meanwhile, Elijah is all agitation, pacing the room, demanding to know, ‘What happened to Freddie? Did he say?’

Samuel answers glumly, ‘Freddie’s confession was well worked out; employing those facts that he had learned when
we gathered together in Burlington Row. He told me that when he left his house . . . no doubt fired with the heat of the brandy he’d drunk . . . he decided to redeem his crimes, hoping to gain some forgiveness, from Isabella . . . from Lily . . . from you.

‘He travelled by cab to Chelsea, telling the driver not to wait when arriving at the House of the Mermaids, and there, when the bell brought no response, and finding the street gate firmly locked, Freddie ventured instead to the back of the house, where he scaled a wall . . . though God knows how, with those spikes of glass being stuck in the mortar. But once that obstacle was breached, despite being somewhat bloodied, he had very little difficulty in finding the broken orangery window . . . at the same time shocking some drunken whores who were wailing over the monkey’s corpse.

‘When their panic had subsided some, Freddie assured them he meant no harm and asked where he might chance to find their pimp . . . thus testing their intelligence. One said that Tip Thomas must have gone out, that he’d been in an agitated mood before sending them off for a night on the town, and the state of poor Monkey was there as proof. It seemed that none of them had spied the velvet throw on the floor near by, and any scattered blood around they must have imagined belonged to the ape. But Freddie knew what was beneath, and when he saw the metal file . . . well, that was enough to aid his plan.’

Samuel sighs and pauses a while. ‘Freddie insisted his mind was quite clear. When he was done with his frenzied attack he pulled off the throw to reveal what carnage lay beneath, and every one of those whores convinced that she had witnessed a murder . . . right there, before her very eyes, the slaughter of a sleeping man. It must have been pandemonium. But in due course the police were called, to whom Freddie willingly confessed, though refusing to say another word regarding a motive for the crime. Later, in court, it was presumed that he must have been subject to blackmailing scams . . . a matter later qualified when some brothel ledgers were produced, with accounts going back for many years.’

Samuel stares down at the glass on the floor, as if unable to meet our eyes. ‘Suffice to say, Freddie was implicated in scandalous matters of varying degrees. Some pornographic literature was proved to have been supplied by him.’ He wiped a hand across his brow. ‘I’ve done my best. I really have. But the business has suffered terribly.’

Samuel is done. He looks all used up, and the rest of us are dumbstruck – until Lily murmurs, as if to herself, ‘But he could have hired the best legal advice. He only had to tell the truth. The judge might have shown some clemency.’

Samuel’s reply is abrupt. ‘And have Isabella accused of the murder . . . and tell the whole world that you and your brother were born in a brothel . . . shaming your names for evermore! No, there was nothing to be done with a hope of saving Frederick Hall, because Frederick Hall did not wish to be saved.’

Another summer has come around. Mostly, we still live in Kingsland House, though occasionally we travel to London, where Elijah is gaining great success, particularly with his photographs. He has visited Buckingham Palace to capture the royal children. Many portraits of the lesser known are displayed in prestigious galleries – this summer, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and there Mr Millais, the artist, bought the print in which Lily once posed in a tomb, pretending to be Ophelia. The focus was a little blurred but that lent it a somewhat ghostly tone – and it seems that ghosts are quite ‘the thing’.

I myself have developed a passion for plants, and sometimes Elijah photographs them. If only he could capture the smells! The gardens in Kingsland have been transformed, no longer such a wilderness, though I did quite like its rambling lurks, all those secret places in which to hide. To have spent so many years living with no one but Osborne Black, well, it is not always easy to adapt to the bustle of family life. But I have two glasshouses in which to grow seeds, where I potter alone to my heart’s content. And we have a man who tends the lawns, and
this spring he cut the ivy back, which means that the house is filled with light – and the rambling rose is thriving still. Lily says there have never been more blooms.

She keeps herself busy, still writing her stories, which Elijah continues to illustrate, and Samuel Beresford publishes them, having set up a business of his own. His office is based in Burlington Row, and the plaque that once said Hall & Co. now bears the legend Beresford Books. A percentage of the rent he pays is entailed to the Foundling Hospital, following the precedent that was set by Frederick Hall before, who, along with Augustus Lamb, stipulated that all of his earthly possessions be equally shared between the twins. But the house that belonged to Frederick Hall, the one that stands opposite Beresford Books – that property has now been sold. No one wished to live there.

Some books on the shelves Elijah burned; those that had not been taken away and used in court as evidence. But some paintings were kept and now hang on our walls – in Herefordshire, where Lily has one above her bed: ‘Isabella . . . The Pot of Basil’.

Elijah has taken a London house for those times when he needs to visit town. It almost feels like the countryside, being south of the river in Camberwell Grove, and I do my best to be content, but whenever we are staying there I find myself missing Kingsland House, the place where I feel protected.