Elijah’s Mermaid (7 page)

Today, I have not left my room. I hardly slept a wink all night, my knees folded tightly up to my chest, trying to rock the fear away, afraid of the seven years ahead when I looked at the shattered glass on the floor – when I wondered whether Tip would return to finish what he started. I have not had the heart to dress. I am wearing no more than my shimmy now as I stand at my window and grasp the bars, the ones put there when I was a babe, in case I should try to climb and fall. But I don’t feel safe here any more. I feel like a prisoner in a gaol. And the watcher, ‘the doorman’ who guards the gate, the one who keeps the ruffians out . . . is he also there to keep me in?

I breathe the lilac blossom’s scent, the sap of the trees on the pavement edge. Above them the air is singing and blue and only the faintest sewage smell, and there on the opposite banks of the Thames, the Wandsworth fields are picturesque, with sheep like little dots of white, and a church spire that points all the way up to Heaven. And even in shadows beneath the bridge where the water is rippling, black as lead, here and there the sun
is glittering; flickering flashes of gold and green which reflect the steamboats sailing by, all of them decked in coloured flags as they ferry the visitors to Cremorne.

Cremorne is the place where, these past few weeks, after all these years of being confined and playing no part in the real world, Mrs Hibbert has taken to walking me out. In Cremorne she converses with gentlemen who press their lips to her black-gloved hands, upon whom she bestows her
cartes de visite
– though why she must advertise the house when Tip Thomas brings trade from the gentlemen’s clubs and, every night when it is dark, so many cabs draw up outside? Very often I stand here and watch, seeing all those vaguely familiar men, always coming and going, coming and going – and Sarah, who is one of the maids, the one who mostly cares for me, insists there is not the capacity for increasing the visitors’ numbers. ‘Why, any more top hats in that hall and Mrs Hibbert shall need a new whore . . . and even if she had a mind, I ask you, Miss Pearl, where is the room?’

I think of that now and my head starts to whirl. Mrs Hibbert has always called me her favourite, the one for whom she has great expectations. She has said I shall never work in this house. She has said I shall never be one of her whores. And yet—

And yet, in my heart, I have known what must happen for some time. I sleep here at the top of the house, and under the strictest instructions to go up and down by the service stairs and never use those at the front of the house, the ones which the gentlemen frequent. But I am not stupid, or deaf, or blind. I hear all the thumping of bedsteads on walls, all the sighings and moans that spill under doors, and sometimes those sounds invade my dreams – and once I rose from the warmth of my bed to walk along the corridor where two enormous Chinese jars stand either side of the curtain there, the curtain that conceals the stairs that lead the way to the floor below. I pushed it aside and went on down. I crouched before a closed-up door and pressed my hands against the wood, my fingers spread wide on that barrier as I peered through a keyhole to see
a room that was dimly lit with sputtering jets which glimmered on marble washstands and mirrors, illuminating the naked flesh of the man and woman sleeping there. A tangle of limbs on an unmade bed, and might that be the alabaster face of Mrs Hibbert, the house madam? I’d never seen such features before, so languorous and sensual. Such a potent animal air there was of alluring seduction and decadence. With those swags of red velvet draped around she might be an actress on a stage. The star of this miniature theatre. The queen of a sultan’s harem. Scheherazade come to vibrant life from a scene in
The Arabian Nights
. Really, it seemed like a fairy tale with those pictures all around the walls – a woman who lay with a white-necked swan, a woman with legs astride a bull, its horns wound with garlands of flowers and shells, much like the little crown I wear.

I have never forgotten that scene, even though I am older and wiser now, even though I know that fairy tales can only be illusions of art. And I know there can be a ‘consequence’ for acting out such fancy games – and that is why the doctor comes, regular as clockwork, once a month, to sit at the scrubbed kitchen table where he looks for disease and dresses wounds inflicted by clients with tastes too exotic – though I’ve heard the gossip in the house, how he has some peculiar tastes of his own, but before his reward is handed out he is entirely professional. He offers potions for those ‘indisposed’ to make their moon bloods flow again. He hands out bottles of ‘Collis Brown’ to soothe the nerves of those who cry, and jars with vinegar sponges inside, pickled as if they are gherkins, and what they call ‘ballons boudruches’, which Sarah says are the bladders of pigs, but prettily tied at the top with red ribbons. I cannot be sure what they use them for, but I know it is something to do with ‘down there’ – the private tackle between the legs that monkeys and men like to fiddle with.

I hope no one tries to fiddle with me. I hope there are no syphilitic old goats, because sometimes the doctor’s potions fail and sometimes a pretty face is scabbed, or a narrow waist begins
to swell until it can no longer be concealed, and Tip takes the belly plea away, and who knows where to, but I think I do now. I think it must be ‘down Limehouse way’.

I have learned not to get too fond or attached. There are only two constant things in this house. One is Mrs Hibbert. The other is Tip.

And now, Mrs Hibbert is at my door. I hear the hushing of her veils and the snapping crunching of her feet as they tread the shards of broken glass. She does not ask me why it is there, only murmurs gruffly under her breath, something about Sarah coming up, to sweep the mess, to clean the room. She extends an arm of thin black silk. She caresses my cheek with a silk-gloved hand and her voice is as clear as a tolling bell when she says that I must wash and dress, because we are to walk in Cremorne again.

I don’t answer. I keep looking out of the window.

I am gasping, gasping. I cannot breathe.

ANOTHER LETTER FROM FREDERICK HALL

53 Burlington Row

Tuesday, April 19th 1864

DEAR FRIEND, AUGUSTUS

Forgive the delay in sending news. As you will note from this letter’s address, I have recently up-sticked, as they say, though only the shortest of distances, leaving my lodgings ‘above the shop’ for one of the houses opposite. The intention has been to create more space. You would not believe the growth in trade – as your next remittance will demonstrate!

But far more important is the fact that, within these new walls and without the sad ghosts of memories past, you might feel yourself somewhat more inclined to accept an invitation; for the country mouse to visit the town, when I thought we could make a trip to Cremorne, where, as you will see from the cutting enclosed, a ‘mermaid’ is to be displayed during this coming month of May. I beg you refrain from telling the twins, even though they are well beyond the age when such things could be viewed as ‘actual’. Even so I should like to surprise them. And it is very fitting, do you not think, considering your latest published work? What could be more appropriate!

However, I shall not press this point. Should you choose to decline nothing more will be said and I shall content myself once more with making my annual pilgrimage to the rural splendour of Kingsland House
.

I am, as ever, Your Own True Friend
,

FREDERICK HALL

LILY

So mind all fast young gentlemen, who journey to Cremorne
,

Or any other gardens, or where crinoline is worn
,

Do not propose to wed strange girls, however well they dress
,

Or else like me you perhaps may get in such another mess
,

Be sure you know her station well, before you say you’ll wed her
,

A little care is just as good, as good and a great deal better
.

Final verse of the popular song ‘As Good and a Great Deal Better’

It promised to be a glorious day, though only twenty-four hours before when we’d waited on Leominster station the air had been dreary, drizzling, grey. Not that anything could have dampened our spirits, even if the train was late, the minutes dragging on like hours, during which we had amused ourselves by viewing the posters on platform walls. One was headed up with the words ‘
Times Past
’ and depicted a cart and a shabby horse driven by a curmudgeonly looking old man. (I suppose it was cruel that we giggled so – but that man did look very much like Papa.) The one at its side, ‘
Times Present
’, that showed a gleaming passenger train with great puffs of steam rising up above and the faces of passengers peering out, every one of them young, smiling, gay. To be honest, I couldn’t stop smiling. I was breathless with all the excitement, though as it turned out we might just as well have travelled to London town by cart, for even when the train arrived the journey proved to be dreadfully slow, the engine crawling to a stop at every station on the route, quite belying Ellen’s fears that the motion and velocity would
cause such a pressure inside our brains as to risk a fatal injury – a nosebleed at the very least!

Papa had laughed and called her mad to entertain such notions. Even so, when I think about it now, perhaps Ellen Page was right to fret. Perhaps she had some second sight, some premonition of danger to come, a suspicion of Papa being ill? It’s obvious now, the way he’d been tired and distracted for months, hardly lifting his pen to write a word and then, when he did, his hand trembling so that writing was nigh on impossible. Still, any fellow passengers who peered through the glass of our carriage door might only assume him in perfect health; a wholly distinguished gentleman whose long grey hair and beard were trimmed and whose suit, despite smelling of mothballs and mould if you happened to venture a little too near, was pressed so sharp it might cut like a knife – as sharp as Ellen’s warnings, which kept playing again and again in my mind, as if she was really there on the train. And I think she would have been, you know, if only she’d been invited. A nod and a wink from Frederick Hall and Ellen Page would fly to the moon, she would face any peril life threw head-on – instead of which she waved us off with those premonitions of doom and gloom rattling like bullets off her tongue –

‘You be sure to be careful and keep your wits. There’s folk there in London who’d slash your throat for the sake of no more than a penny apiece. There’s thieves who’ll try to chop off your hair and sell it to barbers for making wigs. And don’t you go trusting any strange men’ – that said with a serious nod at me – ‘there’s more than one innocent country lass been flattered and charmed, then dragged to her ruin . . . her brains all addled by drugs or booze, her virtue in tatters before the next crow of the morning cock.’

When she said that Elijah laughed, and then blushed as red as a beetroot, though the joke was entirely lost on me, but the rest of her cautions continued to nag until my brother touched my hand, murmuring, so as not to wake Papa, who by then was dozing at my side, his head rolling gently forward in time with
the rocking of the train, Little sister . . .’ My brother’s eyes shone silver within the dark frame of his lashes, and he offered his most mischievous smile. ‘You look as timid as a mouse. But really, you shouldn’t be worried at all! What does Ellen know of London life . . . except what she reads in magazines?’

He had recently taken to calling me ‘little’, having grown four inches taller that year, his new trousers already too short in the hem, no material left to let down again. But I didn’t mind, and I had to agree, because it was true that Ellen Page had never gone anywhere very much beyond our village church or shop.

‘And, of course, Uncle Freddie will be there to meet us.’ The words ran smoothly off my tongue, though with every chugging lurch of the carriage my toes were wriggling round in my boots and I fidgeted back and forth in my seat. But then, as the day faded into mauve shadows, I must have dropped off to sleep as well, my cheek pressed hard to the window glass – until jolted awake with such a fright when the engine’s whistle screeched so loud and I tried to look out of the window again and all I could see was cold black glass with reflections of me, and Elijah, and Papa, each one of us a silvery ghost beyond which a rolling bank of steam was flecked with glowing cinders – all that fire and whiteness through which we stepped in something of a weary daze when, at very nearly midnight, we found ourselves on the platform edge – and there was Freddie, just as he’d said, holding his arms out to greet us, as if to embrace the whole wide world.

What grandeur there was in Freddie’s world! What immensely tall buildings. What breadth of streets that seemed to run on for evermore. I felt as if my head might explode from the rumbling clang of the iron-hooped wheels, and the stamping of the horses’ hooves, all of the shouting and shrieking laughter that issued from those still out and about who worked or played in the hours of dark, with our own drowsy Kingsland left behind as still and quiet and dark as a grave – whereas London had
lamps to gild your way, to sputter and hiss like serpents’ tongues. And then, how peculiar it was to stand in a street where every tall brick building resembled the model that Freddie once gave to me, that still stood beside my bed at home – with its grand double frontage, square windows each side and a canopied porch above wide stone steps.

In London, in the world of reality, two maids, very neat in black and white, were already waiting at the door ready to carry our bags upstairs while Elijah followed Freddie in. But me – I lingered outside a while, waiting for Papa, who seemed to have fallen into a trance while gazing out across the street. He was staring at another house – exactly like Freddie’s in every way except it was seeped in darkness, and there on the door was a large brass plaque, the dull metal faintly glimmering in a street lamp’s sputtering glow of gas.