White Stone Day (13 page)

Falcon Not since the capture and hanging of the fiend known as Chokee
Bill have rumours and reprehensions swirled about the city at such a
rate as they do presently. Grave doubts are voiced in all quarters
following the disappearance of Edmund Whitty, correspondent for The
Falcon. Of particular concern are revelations which cast a shadow
upon the Metropolitan Police, together with a suspicion that certain
members of the police imagine themselves, not as public servants, but
as vigilantes in some penny dreadful in the colonies. Your
correspondent has learned that Mr Whitty was arrested at the scene of
the murder of Dr Gilbert Williams, that he was duly charged, and that
he was seen to leave Buckingham Gate in the back of a police van.
Since then, Mr Whitty has vanished from the face of London. There is
no Whitty present in any prison – this we have ascertained by
painstaking effort. Nor has a record of the charges against Mr Whitty
yet appeared in the itinerary of the Magistrate's Court. When
questioned on this matter, Inspector Salmon of Scotland Yard replied:
'Charges are being prepared and the accused is in process. Beyond
that we cannot comment upon the case.' Finding this explanation
unsatisfactory due to the uncertain meaning of 'in process', we
enquired further; at which point it was revealed by a trustworthy
source that Mr Whitty has been confined in Millbank. 8r WHITE STONE
DAY Notwithstanding, in all of that vast institution there exists not
a single prisoner by the name of Whitty. Further enquiries of the
governor were referred to the Ministry. The entire affair remains
steeped in the supernatural – a murdered medium, a voice from
the dead, and now a disappearing correspondent. Net one detects more
earthly concerns at work. We do not suggest that Inspector Salmon
might undertake a false arrest, in retaliation for criticisms that
have appeared on these pages following the Chokee Bill affair.
Nonetheless, to your correspondent, the narrative seems to exist more
in the realm of scoundrels than spooks. 82 14

Crouch
Manor, Chester Wolds, Oxfordshire The Right Honourable the Duke of
Danbury K.G.C.V., K.G.C.S., K.C.A.J., (H.)O.L.J. Bissett Grange
Cordially Requests the Company of The Reverend C.G. Lambert and
Family On Friday next, for Dinner at Eight o'Clock. Carriage Provided
R.S.V.P. Admiring the invitation (Could he actually have written it
by hand?), Birdie Lambert smooths a blank sheet of writing–paper
upon the leather surface of the desk, opens an inkwell, and pauses
with pen in mid–air. How does one properly address a duke? A
formidable question when one has had little schooling, and has never
in one's life attended an event involving an R.S.V.P. What should she
wear? How should she wear it? As a last resort she could fall ill, a
tactic which has served in the past. Yet, for a storekeeper's
disgraced daughter to visit Bissett Grange would be a triumph of
staggering proportions; to enter a world which has existed only on
the page and in the mind – how can she resist? Birdie turns her
attention to the pale woman in the mirror above the writing–table:
she has lost weight again. With her cheeks so hollow, her eyes appear
large and liquid, like the eyes of her elder daughter. This can be
worked with. It has its appeal. And her hair is still good. She takes
a few drops of laudanum from the little silver spoon she keeps in the
pocket of her apron, along with her volume of George Eliot. She
places the invitation in a drawer, leaving the reply for another
time. When Emma is informed by Miss Pouch that the family has been
invited to dinner with the Duke of Danbury, she experiences an odd
mixture of feelings. 83 WHITE STONE DAY Her first encounter with the
duke occurred at church, when he honoured the congregation with his
presence – and a presence he surely was. He seemed to inspire a
more lofty atmosphere, in which prayers were deeper and hymns more
fervent. While conducting the singing, not once did Father avert his
gaze from the solitary man in the princely pew – screened to
protect its inhabitant from the prying stares of the congregation,
and cushioned so that even a muttered 'Amen' remained a private
affair between the duke and the Almighty. It was the first time his
Grace had bothered to attend church since the Lamberts' arrival. Miss
Pouch later explained that the date, Z3 April, coincided with the
Feast of St George; that the Duke of Danbury was fiercely patriotic;
that an ancestor fought alongside Richard the Lionheart and saw the
ghost of St George appear before the king. Having been warned of the
duke's intention to honour St Swithan with his presence, the Reverend
Spoole devised the entire proceeding for Danbury's benefit –
the cumulative point being that, should the duke continue in his
profligate ways, this ancient earldom will collapse in ignominy. The
sermon was based upon the text, Great men are not always wise (Job
xxxii, 9), and might have verged on the discourteous had not an
ill–fitting set of dentures prevented Mr Spoole from making his
point clear. Emma occupied herself by examining the pillars on the
either side of the nave, carved with the distorted faces of
villagers: to the left, goggle– eyed men leered, tongues
extended, towards the opposite pillar, itself adorned with grotesque
women, with hooked noses, crooked teeth and squinting eyes. As the
postlude sounded its triumphal blast, the congregation did not
immediately flock behind the Reverend to the door as was the usual
custom, but remained seated, heads bowed, to await the duke. After a
long pause, Danbury rose, stepped into the aisle and passed through
his subjects, looking neither to right nor left, displaying his regal
profile, the elegant side–whiskers, the thoroughbred flare of
his nostrils, the planate bridge of his nose, the finely shaped,
slightly receding chin. Her mother having departed for the vestry to
await her husband, the girls and Miss Pouch were the last to leave
the church. Curtsying before Reverend Spoole, Emma inhaled the fresh
air as she descended the foot–worn stone steps – and was
astonished beyond description to see the yellow phaeton in the road
before them, with the 84 CROUCH MANOR, CHESTER WOLDS, OXFORDSHIRE
duke standing beside it, one boot upon the carriage step, stroking
his side–whiskers with thumb and forefinger. 'Rather a ragged
lot,' she heard the duke whisper to his companion, a wire–haired
gentleman who looked to Emma like a burrowing animal. She had never
in her life seen a man with so little anxiety in his bearing.
Compared to the duke, her father and Mr Boltbyn lived in a perpetual
twitch of nerves. Before the goggle–eyes of the remaining
congregation, Danbury stepped forward, executed a barely perceptible
nod to Miss Pouch (who turned crimson in reply), inclined his head to
Lydia (who was looking at his shiny boots and did not notice), then
turned to Emma. When he looked upon her it was as though estimating
the price of an item of jewellery. The silence between them did not
bother him a bit, though it made her feel most awkward. 'Do you like
roses?' he asked at last, in what was surely the most beautiful
pronunciation of four words she had ever heard. 'Yes, sir,' she
replied with effort. After another pause he bowed again, extended one
hand to receive a red rose handed him by his companion, and placed
the rose in Emma's hand. 'Pray oblige me, miss, by accepting this
bloom as a token.' She felt the tawny softness of his glove against
her palm, and the smooth stem of the rose, its thorns carefully
clipped. Whispered the duke as though telling a secret: 'On St
George's Day it is traditional for a gentleman to furnish a lady with
a red rose, and for the lady to repay him with a book. It is a
curious custom, but tradition must be respected, as I'm sure you
agree.' Emma made no reply, but could only stare, saucer–eyed,
at the gentleman hovering above her; it seemed as if some splendid
tropical bird had swooped down and offered to fly her away to another
land. Yet when her eyes finally met his, they met the unblinking gaze
of a hunter. 85

15

Millbank
Prison 'Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! I wonder if I've
changed in the night. Let me see – was I the same when I got up
this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little
different. But if I'm not the same, who in the world am I? Ah, that's
the great puzzle!' It was during his latest confinement in the dark
cell that Whitty felt himself actually to disappear – or
rather, felt the self in his mind replaced by various others. No
night, no cellar, no crypt is so dark as the dark cell at Millbank.
To Whitty it seemed as if the air was made of black wool. At
unpredictable intervals, however, a tiny opening in the door would
slide open, and – he may have imagined this – a bright
eye would appear, like the eye of a huge wading–bird, a crusher
no doubt, confirming that the prisoner had not crushed his head
against the wall or hanged himself. Whitty's most recent seclusion
followed two counts of speaking aloud, compounded by blasphemy,
insulting an officer, and by his conduct at his audience with the
governor, at which he denied his own name. At some point he remembers
pretending to be mad, howling like a dog and proclaiming
hallucinations – a spider in his soup, a corpse under the cot;
later, he remembers raving in the same fashion – in all
sincerity. Still later, when the heron's eye flashed in the window,
the prisoner could have been Whitty, or Willows, or Fido for that
matter, for the being he was before entering the dark cell no longer
existed. Yet someone continued to pace his cell. This party would
careen from one wall to another, back and forth like a snooker ball,
hour after hour, eyes shut tight, shoulders hunched. At one point in
his mind he actually transformed into a rhinoceros, which has
notoriously poor eyesight; he could feel the weight of bony growth on
his forehead and a shell envelop his shoulders like a brittle cloak,
while in his mind a childhood rhyme played itself over and over: 86
MILLBANK PRISON To consider oneself a rhinoceros Might to some seem a
loss to us But to think one is horn With a nose, not a horn To us is
a prospect prepocerous . . . After several days, or they might have
been weeks, he was taken from the dark cell and transferred to the
refractory cell, in which healing rays of light were to be
reintroduced by degrees. Hours later, his eyes, let alone his mind,
have only begun to adjust. Shafts of light slice through the slits in
the window, like blades, stinging his face. When he ventures to open
one eye, the bricks seem to pulse with energy as though breathing;
when he opens both eyes, the entire room seems to undulate, so that
he must grip the sides of his cot to avoid toppling onto the floor.
After several minutes (or hours, or weeks), he struggles to a seated
position against the wall, presses one eye to the crack in the window
– and beholds a series of triangular, needle–like
structures, spewing smoke and fire, like an Egyptian temple, to a god
like the sound of a stutter. In what is left of his rational mind, he
knows it to be the Lambeth gasworks; yet he is just as certain that
he has been transported to another world. How long has he been here?
Has he become an old man? The metallic snap of a deadbolt causes him
to cry out in alarm and to cover his ringing ears. A metal door
grinds open. He opens his eyes – too suddenly, for he must shut
them tight until the pain subsides. From somewhere in the room a
stentorian voice ricochets against the walls – sharper than the
voices in his mind. Nearby, someone is weeping. It may be himself.
'Yor, Prisoner Willows, on yer feet, sharp now, mon, cease yer
snivelling, let's see yer!' Upon reflection, the sound is not a
deafening bark but an urgent whisper. 'Move yer arse, mate, d'ye want
out or not? . . .' By squinting carefully, he can discern the shape
of a man in the doorway – the screw probably, whose bull's–eye
is pointed, not into the prisoner's face as usual, but onto the stone
floor, creating a patch of light like an egg. 'Step up, mon, get
moving! There be seconds ta spare!' To spare for what? wonders
Whitty, standing upon legs of butter, trying to focus upon the yellow
egg cast on the floor. Abruptly an 87 WHITE STONE DAY impatient,
muscular grip imprisons his arm, and the egg begins to move before
him with the speed of a comet. 'Are we in a hurry?' he asks.
'Shut up,' comes the reply – the usual requirement here at
Millbank. By the hollow splat of footsteps and the mortifying smell
of ammonia, Whitty guesses that they are in the broad corridor
leading to or from the central hexagon. A glimmer of distant light
reflects upon the wet stone floor, causing it to heave like a sea of
treacle. The vice– grip on his arm tightens, and there comes a
whisper like a blast of steam in his ear: God's blood! face the wall,
monl Whitty is shoved directly into an alcove, smashing the right
side of his face against the brick wall. Immediately thereafter, a
flash of something like sheet lightning illuminates every square inch
of the corridor. Whitty has heard tell of this device, which makes
ingenious use of mirrors, reflecting off one another at complicated
angles so that nothing escapes. The brilliance is astonishing; with
eyes tightly closed it seems to illuminate the inside of Whitty's
cranium, like lightning, or the spotlight in the window of the dark
cell . . . 'Christ,' whispers his invisible companion. "Tis the
Guv up there.' 'Governor Whidden? Up where?' 'Middle tower. Roams the
floor with spy–glass and mirrors, all hours of the night,
focusing without warning. Gets to inspect every man in spike, and
waken and blind 'em in at the same time.' 'Are you taking me to see
Governor Whidden?' 'Yer be taken to avoid him, ye dunce.' Suddenly
Whitty is lurched out of the alcove, and frog–marched further
down the heaving corridor, black as a mine–shaft, with no egg
of light to follow – and therefore no warning when he is
stuffed into a low, narrow doorway, cracking his head in a shower of
sparks. 'Watch yer head, mon.' Bent double, clutching his pounding
head, Whitty stumbles, or is pushed, down a low, narrow passage,
which reminds him of a London sewer–pipe with its rounded
ceiling – and, to go by the rustling and squeaking, the rats.
'Where the devil are you taking me?' 'Up the governor's arse, mon.'
Not an implausible journey, thinks Whitty, for the omnipresent
ammonia has given way to the odour of damp earth, rotten wood, 88
MILLBANK PRISON spoiled potatoes – and, more strongly as they
descend, sewage. They are up to their knees in liquid when his escort
comes to a halt and relaxes his grip. 'Here I leave yer, mon.' 'I beg
your pardon?' 'Yer s'posed to wade to the end of the tunnel.' 'Wade
to where?' Whitty can discern a small, round, dimly lit hole
somewhere in the distance – an unpromising prospect at best.
'And what the devil am I to do when I get there?' 'Keep to the shadow
and the high grass. And keep yer head down – the screw's a
crack shot with a carbine.' Grass, sewage, carbines. 'I would prefer
to return to my cell, please.' 'Suit yerself. Yer as easily shot
coming as going.' As easily shot coming as going? With no more
rational thought than a moth entering a candle, Whitty lurches
forward, ignoring the thick, foul liquid now up to his waist. He
cares not how deep it might become – such is his level of
courage, or lack of an alternative. As he moves towards the
illuminated, circular opening, the muck thins, until by the time he
reaches it, he is knee–deep in a drainage ditch. His mind
wonders what to do next; a voice some distance away removes all
doubt: 'Get over here,' hisses the voice. 'Who the devil are you?'
Whitty hisses back. 'Shaht up,' comes the reply. Whitty sees a pair
of gorilla arms silhouetted against the night sky, and recognises the
officer who escorted him into this peculiar hell in the first place.
'Mr Clive, I presume,' he whispers. 'I said shaht up.' 'Quite.'
Maintaining a wary silence, the escaper and his companion wade
through a swampy clearing with the smell of a horse–pond, then
down a slender tongue of land between two monumental buildings shaped
like pentagons. Crouching double, they scurry across this opening,
which leads to a desolate black sentry box, whose officer stands out–
side by the root garden with a carbine over his shoulder, taking a
piss. Keeping to the shadows, they reach a similar tongue of land
between two other pentagons, where they make their way through a crop
of swamp grass, thick and tall, undulating like a field of corn. 89
WHITE STONE DAY Crawling on his hands and knees through a maze of
prickly vegetation, Whitty can make out the yellow brick walls of the
prison itself, lit by the lights of Lambeth. Thankfully, the pain in
his eyes has diminished and he can now open them fully. He catches
sight of the Millbank pier, its deep red lamps glowing like bloodshot
eyes, and behind it, the inky Thames; and on the far shore, the
Gothic biscuit– ware of Parliament. 'There's the boat,'
whispers Clive. 'Stay below the gunnels. And shaht up, fer sound will
travel across water an' the crushers is listening.' 'Why is this
happening? Who must I thank for this?' 'Not the Lord, that is fer
certain.' The ironwork of Vauxhall Bridge stretches above him like
the legs of an enormous grasshopper as Whitty clambers out of the
boat and onto the landing. Rising awkwardly to his feet, he looks
behind him to see that the silent oarsman has already headed the boat
back across the river. Climbing the stone steps in the silent dark
(not so dark as the dark cell), he recognises the smell of Lambeth –
its bone–crushing factories, plants and potteries, whose
combined effluent spreads sickness and suffocation for a mile on
either side. Whitty inhales with gusto, for it is the smell of
freedom. Given that he lacks the means to pay for a cab (and stinks
to a degree that would bar him from one in any case), and given that
he is wearing a prisoner's uniform, he sets out on foot, by the
shortest, most discreet route to the Alhambra Baths. Keeping to the
alleyways behind Regency Street, he notes that his mind has not fully
recovered from the programme of cleansing at Millbank. For one thing,
it seems unwilling to stick to any one topic, preferring to bounce
laterally from one mental exhibit to another as one does in a dream.
Approaching Vincent Square, it flits and darts promiscuously between
present and past, legend and fact, giving equal weight to what he
knows, remembers and imagines (Playing–fields of Westminster
School; prison–camp for Scots; plague burial–pit;
hunting– ground for rhinoceros . . .), and wonders whether he
must adhere to fiction–writing in future. Keeping to the
perimeter of the playing–field, he becomes so absorbed in the
history and myth and other associations brought on by Vincent Square
that he fails to notice the two footpads in ankle–length coats,
leaning against the trunk of an ancient oak. They, however, do not
fail to notice him. 90 MILLBANK PRISON Eyes locked upon the quarry,
the smaller and more barrel–shaped of the two reaches inside
one of the many pockets in his voluminous garment and produces a
length of telegraph wire, with pieces of dowelling tied to either
end, for grip. He is about to spring horizontally at Whitty's throat,
but is restrained by an outstretched arm like a length of
transatlantic cable. 'Not the ticket, Norman. Remember what the
Captain said.' 'You are right, Will,' answers the smaller man,
putting away his weapon. 'Seize but do not mangle. Them was the
Captain's orders.' 'He will be an easy mark to trail.' 'If only by
the stink.' Insensible to the foregoing, Whitty keeps to the shadows
to avoid the police courts on Rochester Row, then turns in the
direction of the Royal Horticultural Society; seeing his course, the
two footpads break into a smooth trot across the darkened field, like
two athletes, taking their midnight exercise on the playing–fields
of Westminster School. 91 16