“Was it full?”
“Pretty tight, sir. There was a seat on the top.”
So I went into the tavern and brought out two mugs of porter. “There we are, Job. Sluice the dust from your throat.”
Job had told me in the past that he had been shipped from Barbados as a captain’s boy, or slave, and that he had been abandoned by his master on their arrival in England. The ship had docked at Limehouse, and he had lived in the neighbourhood ever since. He survived now on the few coins he obtained from those using his crossing, and from the drivers of the carriages. “Where do you live?” I asked him as we sat on a wooden bench outside the tavern.
“Along the street yonder.” He pointed out to me an alley of tenements that led off Limehouse Church Street. “It is a mouse-hole, sir.”
“Are you married, Job?”
“I never be married. Who want a poor black man like myself?”
“Your race does seem to be unfortunate.”
“We be harried and cursed and beaten. Some of these fine gentlemen will aim a kick at me on the crossing. Some of them swear dreadful.”
I do not know whether it was the effect of the powder, but I experienced a sudden and overwhelming feeling of pity for the sweeper. “Come inside,” I said. “It is a raw day.”
“No permission, sir. Mrs. Jessop will not abide black people.”
“Then I will bring another drink to you, Job. I wish to learn more of you.” When I returned I questioned Job closely about his life in Limehouse. Much to my surprise, he had stories worse than his own to relate: of newborn babies abandoned on the streets, of small children forced to wade into the stinking cesspits in search of the cheapest items of any value, of the dead buried under the floorboards to save the trifling expense of a pauper’s funeral.
At night Job himself would go down to the foreshore, and search for objects that he might use or sell; on one occasion, he told me, he had found an ancient dagger that he had sold for a shilling to a tobacconist in Church Row. It was now on display in the shop window. “But some nights,” he said, “there is something happening in the river.”
“Happening?”
“Something arriving. From downstream.”
“You mean some kind of boat?”
“No boat. No. Something moving fast under the water. All the shore is silent when it passes.”
“A whale?”
“No. No fish. A thing.”
“I do not understand you, Job.”
“Have you been hearing, sir, how the estuary is haunted? Down by Swanscombe Marshes?” I shook my head. “No one goes near. Even the fishermen will not work there.”
“What is this apparition? Does it have a name?”
“No name, sir. It is a dead thing living. It is greater than a man.”
“How do you know this, Job?”
“It is my supposal. My mother told me the stories she had heard.”
“These were the stories of the slaves?”
“Yes, sir. But the stories come from far back. When there were not slaves. My mother told me of the dogon. It is a dead man brought to life by magic. Living in the forests and the mountains. A phantom, sir, with eyes of fire.”
“Surely you do not believe that such a thing lives on the estuary?”
“I know nothing, sir. I am a poor black sweeper. But I wonder what this thing is that moves under the water.”
At this point the carriage arrived, with Holborn as its destination. Job stood up and went over to the horses, which seemed to recognise him. They became still when he spoke to them and stroked them. I called up to the driver. “Do you have a seat?”
“Inside, sir. One of the parties is leaving.”
So I mounted the step and, within a short time, the carriage was on its way to the city.
WHEN I CAME BACK to Jermyn Street, I went at once to my study where I had left some of my calculations. I renewed my work with fresh enthusiasm, knowing that I was close to a precise formula for the reversal of the electrical charge in the process of its formation. If I were able to create and to maintain this negative force, it might subvert and utterly undo the power of the original charge.
I was interrupted by the sound of voices, and of laughter; then Bysshe and Mary came into the room, with Fred following. “I could not stop them, sir,” he said. “They rushed me from the door.”
“I cannot be stopped, Fred.” Bysshe was in the highest spirits. “I am Phaethon in his fiery chariot. Have you heard of Phaethon?”
“There is a fly driver in Haymarket, sir.”
“Fly? That is a new word, is it not?” Then he turned to me. “May I present to you, Victor, Mary Shelley?”
I rose from my chair, and embraced them both warmly. “When did you do this?”
“This very morning. In St. Mildred’s, Bread Street.”
“For the sake of any future children,” Mary said, “we observed the form.”
“It was a lovely ceremony, Victor. Mr. Godwin cried. I cried. The parson cried. God bless us all!”
“I did not cry.” Mary was smiling as she spoke. “And I do not think that God will bless us.”
“Old Father Nobody had nothing to do with it,” Bysshe replied. “We are free. We are not exiles on the earth. Will you join us for tea at the Chapter? I can promise you the finest Marsala in London.”
“Do come,” Mary urged me.
It was not a place, in truth, I would recommend to the newly married. It was one of those eating houses that have preserved the manners of the last century while manifesting all the inconveniences of the present one. The parlour was dark, even in the early afternoon, since precious little light filtered through the thick and small-paned windows. The beams were large, the roof low, and the space was partitioned into a number of dark wood compartments or “boxes” as the Londoners call them. The word has always reminded me of coffins.
The three of us were shown to a “box,” and Bysshe immediately ordered a round of ham sandwiches with a bottle of sherry. An elderly waiter, of gloomy demeanour, proceeded to serve us. He was wearing knee-breeches, in the old style, with black silk hose and none too spotless cravat. I gathered from Mary that his name was William. “Will the foreign gentleman,” he asked Bysshe, “be requiring mustard?”
“I will ask the foreign gentleman.” He said this in the most grave manner. “Will you be requiring mustard?”
“I think not.”
“You have your answer, William.”
“Very good, sir.”
Mary burst out laughing, after he had walked away with dignified step. “He has never been known to smile,” she said. “People have perished in the attempt.”
She broke off as William returned with the sandwiches. Bysshe fell upon them as if he were quite famished. “We have good news, Victor,” he said. “Byron has invited us to join him on the shores of Lake Geneva. Your old home.”
“He has rented a villa there,” Mary told me. “In the event of an imminent marriage, as he put it, he has thrown the doors open to us. You are invited.”
“Me?”
“Why ever not?” she replied.
“Do you know the name of the villa?”
“Diodati,” Bysshe replied for her.
“Diodati? I know it well. I have climbed into its garden at night, and tasted the fruit.”
“An omen, my dear Victor,” he said. “You must taste the fruit again. We will travel to Switzerland together.”
Bysshe was in a state of great exhilaration, and I could not resist the tide of his enthusiasm. So I consented. I believed, too, that a suspension of my labours and calculations might assist me; the mind needs rest as surely as the body, and I trusted that a period of indolence would restore all my faculties. We agreed to set out within the month.
“We will speed across the plains of Holland -” Mary said.
“-And see the castles of the Rhine nestling in their turpitude,” Bysshe added.
“And you, Victor, you will see your old familiar places.”
“I am afraid,” I replied to her, “that I will seem a stranger there.”
Bysshe laughed and signalled for another bottle. “You are a stranger everywhere, Victor. That is your charm.”