“So-so, sir. It could be worse. It could be better. There is no telling.” He had a mournful manner of speaking, but then he smiled as if all were a great comedy.
“How did you come by it?”
“Inheritance, sir. My father was porter here all of his life. He dropped down dead while lifting a donkey out of its traces. Terrible event.” Then he smiled again.
“When was this?”
“Three months ago. I stood at his post the very same afternoon. My mother told me it was my station in life. She says it runs in the family.”
“Do you have a brother who could take over from you?”
“Several of them, sir. All willing.”
“Then I would like to offer you another post.”
“In another street, sir?”
“No. I mean to say, I would like to offer you another position. Would you care to be my servant here?” He looked at me, and took off his cap. “Your duties will be light. I am alone in the world.”
“Where would I sleep, sir?”
“There is a small room at the end of this passage. It looks over the alley.”
“The well-beloved alley.” He seemed relieved by my answer. “I would be what they call a general boy, sir?”
“You would prepare my meals. Lay out my clothes. And so forth.”
“I would run errands, would I?”
“Naturally.” He smiled broadly. “You would be my factotum, Fred.”
“I do not know if I could do that.”
“You would do everything. A guinea a week.”
He smiled, and seemed about to break into laughter. “That would be every week, would it?”
“Every week.”
“Under the circumstances, sir, I am happy to accept. I must just run and tell Mother.”
The mother returned with him an hour later. She was a weak-legged and somewhat woebegone woman; her shawl had the remains of snuff upon it, and there was a distinct smell of spirits upon her breath. She had difficulty in recovering herself, after climbing the flights of stairs, and I offered her my flask of strong water. She accepted it readily, and gulped down most of its contents before putting her hand upon her son’s head. “He is a good boy,” she said. “He is worth the guinea.”
“Mother-”
“I hear you are a foreign gentleman, sir.”
“Yes. From the land of the Swiss.”
“Is that so? You are handsome enough to be an Englishman, if I may say so.”
“It is very kind of you.”
All the while she was scrutinising my apartments. “Fred,” she said, “you must take care of that hearth. It is rotten in the corner. And those windows need a clean.”
“You are quite right, Mrs.-”
“Shoeberry.” When she smiled at me I could distinctly see that some of her teeth were missing. “You have heard of Mr. Shoeberry and the donkey?”
“Indeed.”
“It was a blow to the neighbourhood, sir. Yet I still do the laundry. That is my profession.”
She seemed to be waiting for me to speak. “It would be very good of you, Mrs. Shoeberry, if you were to take in my laundry.”
“A shilling for the linen. Sixpence for the sheets.”
“That is very reasonable.”
“I hope I am, sir. Do you have laundresses in Swisserland, sir?”
“I do not know. I believe so.”
“They will not come cheaper than me, I can assure you of that. Now then, Fred, look sharp and brush the gentleman’s coat. He has been travelling.”
So it was that Fred Shoeberry and his mother took charge of my life in Jermyn Street. I was happy for them to do so, since I was intent upon nothing except my work. I wished to begin immediately, but of course there was no possibility of undertaking it in such a fashionable district of London; I needed as much secrecy and isolation as I could find, and so I roamed through the less respectable areas of the city in search of suitable premises. The eastern sections, abutting on the river, seemed most promising. I inspected Wapping and Rotherhithe, in the hours of daylight, when in plain dress I walked unnoticed among the throng of nationalities and trades; it was remarkable to see the variety of garbs and faces, from Turk to Chinaman, passing along the narrow thorough fares beside the Thames. I had never seen such human life congregated together, and it put me in mind of the adage that London is a drink containing the lees of all nations.
Then I found a structure perfectly suited to my purposes. It was an old pottery manufactory in Limehouse, with its own yard or wharf upon the river. The buildings around it were warehouses of various descriptions and, as I imagined, quite deserted at night. I made enquiries in the neighbouring taverns, and I discovered that the employees had left several months before-after the owner had been declared bankrupt. Further enquiries led me to a commercial agent in Baltic Street who had an “interest” in the property. I soon discovered that he was the owner who had broken, and so it was a relatively easy matter to purchase his abandoned manufactory for what I regarded as a relatively modest sum. So I became a Limehouse freeholder.
I HAD WRITTEN to Daniel Westbrook a few days after my arrival, announcing my intention to remain in London and asking for news of his sister. I had heard nothing from him for several days but, on my return to Jermyn Street one evening, after an inspection of my new premises, I found him in earnest conversation with Fred at the door of the house. “My dear Daniel,” I said, “come in at once.”
“This lad has been barking at me like a Cerberus.”
“He says he knows you, sir.”
“Of course he knows me, Fred.”
“But he has no card, sir.”
“He does not need a card. Mr. Westbrook is an old friend. Now that you know his face, you must welcome him.”
“Do you hear that, old fellow?” Daniel asked him.
“My bark is worse than my bite, Mr. Westbrook.” Fred had an incurably silly look upon his face, which made us both laugh out loud.
“Well, they are safely married,” Daniel said to me as soon as we were settled in the apartment. “Harriet has written to me from Edinburgh. She is now Mrs. Shelley.”
“Are you not pleased?”
“I would have preferred better circumstances. But, yes, I am pleased for her. Her prospects in life are now immeasurably greater. Even my father sees the advantage of it.”
“Has she discussed her plans with you?”
“They are moving to Cumberland for a few months. Mr. Shelley has an interest in the Lake poets, I believe. Do you know of them?”
“I have read them.”
“He has already been in correspondence with one of them, according to Harriet, and has been offered the rental of a cottage by a lake. She did not remember which one.”
“It sounds delightful.”
“I hope it may be. They have invited me to stay with them.”
“Excellent. Did Harriet say anything of Bysshe?”
“He spends his time reading books from a circulating library and composing letters to his father.”
I suspected that very little profit would emerge from either activity, but I said nothing. I did not wish to injure Daniel’s happy expectations for the marriage, although I could see small cause for optimism. If it was a misalliance, as I believed, then little good would come of it. We spoke of other matters. He told me news of the Popular Reform League, and of a recent meeting on Clerkenwell Green when the army had been called; they had been told to quell any disturbances but the meeting passed off peacefully enough. By Daniel’s account the army had in any case been singularly reluctant to intervene. “They are working men, too,” he said. “They will not spill our blood.” Naturally I was pleased, and relieved for his sake, but my own enthusiasm for the cause had diminished. I was so intent upon my own studies that I had little inclination for other pursuits. What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man? I was as fixed as fate.