attycoram was a girl of eighteen with bright blue eyes, a radiant smile, and a complexion darkened, no doubt, by years of having lived within that haze of coal dust and carbonated grime that permanently besooted all who claimed the village of Blackheath for their home. I expected a shy and overly propitiatory young woman and got quite the opposite. Tattycoram was voluble and animated and eager to tell her story in her thick coal-town dialect.
Muntle was last to climb the stairs to Antonia’s unlet rooms and was offered a cup of chicory coffee before he’d even had the chance to sit down. Antonia Bocker possessed a fondness for chicory that far surpassed her affinity for tea or chocolate or even the unadulterated version of that nonchicorous half of chicory coffee, which was drunk in its pure form only by the wealthiest citizens of the Dell, given its preciousness. “I drink chicory,” she explained, “because it was all that there was for me to drink back in the days in which my circumstances were so severely diminished. I grew to tolerate and finally to crave the taste, and because it has less caffeine than does its richer beverageal cousin, it allows me to sleep a bit better. But if you would prefer tea instead, I’ll ask Harriet to put a pot on. It is no trouble.”
The three of us declined the alternative and endured the chicory, which has little smell but isn’t entirely insipid.
The room was spare. There was not much more therein but a few old deal chairs and a moulting sofa upon which to sit and a Pembroke table carved and turned not by the best of Dinglian furniture-makers but perhaps by one of their journeymen progeny. “I will have you know that I don’t usually put out my rooms to let in such a sparse state. My last lodger, you see, purchased a few pieces from me upon taking his leave. But enough empty talk. Tattycoram, my dear girl, you must tell us exactly what you heard whilst standing outside the door to your mistress’ apartments. It is most important for us to know.”
“It was not wot I heerd, aye, but den wot I didna hear.”
“What do you mean, dear girl?”
“Dey was feetin’ wit da words — hollerin’ one t’nother. Den, in da meedle of all of da fussin’ and da feetin’, I heerd da glass, it break loud on my ears and I heerd her cryin’ out of da winder as she fall. For meself, I backed away from da door so’s da master Mr. Peegrove, woo-na see me when he coom out.”
“And did he see you?” asked Muntle writing upon his pad.
“No, he di-na. But here be da ting dat I want you to know bout-tit: his good wife, she fall out da winder, but he di-na leave da room. He in dere all quiet-like and do not go down to find out just how she be. It was like dis, Mr. Sherf — it was like he wos waitin’ for her to be dead on da street afore he go. Now a minute or two, dey pass, and dere is a lot of clatter and commotion on dere street below, and so finally he coom out da door and go down da passage and down to da street and I go into da room and I meself look out da broken winder to see him down below a’weepin’ and a’wailin’ like he know’d noten bout da deed till dat very moment.”
I pushed forward in my seat. “As if he were putting on a show through his reaction to it.”
“Yessir, yessir. Dat was as it happened.”
Antonia, who was taking notes of her own, looked up from her tablet, chewed the end of her pencil in brief thought, and then said, “Tattycoram, my dear girl. You must now try to remember everything that was said in that room prior to Mrs. Pyegrave’s unfortunate defenestration. What can you recall of the exchange?”
Tattycoram nodded and took a sip of the chicory, then looked about the room. “Is dere be a sweetmeat or two for me to eat as I be recollectin’?”
“I have a cupboard full of sweetmeats in the shop below, my dear. Harriet, go down and fetch Tattycoram a few liquorice drops.”
Tattycoram smiled her approval and began to search her brain with the help of her roving, contemplative eyes. “Dey was feetin’, as I done said.”
“What were they fighting about, Tattycoram? Do you remember?”
Tattycoram coloured a bit but quickly recovered. “I will tell it, but it be a ting I woo-na in polite compnee normally say.”
“We understand,” said Muntle. “We will not judge the messenger regardless of how unseemly the message.”
Receiving this preemptive acquittal of her character, Tattycoram proceeded: “Da master was a’ blazin’ over da mistress. He done found out a ting ‘bout her — a not very good ting.”
“What did he find out?” asked Antonia, licking the end of her pencil in eager anticipation of the intelligence.
“Dat she had been wit another.”
“With another—?”
“Not her husband. Dat she was wit another in da flesh-to-flesh.”
“Flagrante delicto!” exclaimed Muntle.
“Not necessarily,” cautioned Antonia. “How did he find out, Tattycoram? Certainly he didn’t walk in on Mrs. Pyegrave in the very midst of the assignation.”
Tattycoram shook her head. “And it warn’t a man besides. He ain’t no more den a boy of eighteen like meself. It be da stableboy Jemmy wot works at da Regents Park. It was head groom who done toll to Mr. Peegrove wot he seen Peegrove’s wife a’ doin’ wit da stableboy in the back of dat dere stable. He tolled it to Peegrove for coin, I ‘spect. And Peegrove he go to his wife in da bed and ask her if it be true and she say it were true, every word of it, but he ain’t to do a ting bout it, or else’n she’ll go and tell everybody ‘bout — and here I cain’t but hear da words too clearly.”
“What did they sound like?” I prodded. “The words that you couldn’t quite hear?”
“I change me mind. I could hear dem, govna. I just can-na remember all da parts a dem.”
“This makes no sense,” said Antonia in an underbreath. Harriet entered with a tray of sweetmeats, from which each of us plucked up a lozenge except for Muntle who swiped a handful and stuffed them into his waistcoat pocket. (This act confirmed Muntle’s love of liquorice, about which hitherto I could only conjecture.)
Tattycoram popped the sweetmeat into her mouth and began to suck it, employing both of her dusky cheeks. “I will tell you wot it sounded like to me ears.”
“You do that, dear,” said Antonia, raising her voice slightly to be heard above the sound of sucking and slurping (for even Harriet had taken a black lozenge into her mouth to enjoy).
“She say — Mrs. Peegrove — dat she will go and tell everybody ‘bout da Tya-dya-dya projette.”
“The ‘Tya-dya-dya —?”
“Projette.”
“You must mean project. Oh what a most curious name!”
“It weren’t probly dat zactly. But it sounded some-ten like dat.”
“Yes, I understand, my dear. And was there anything else?”
“She say how she a’ goin’ to tell everybodys ‘bout da fett. She a’ goin’ to ruin the fett for one and all.”
“The fett? Like, do you mean fête, as in some sort of festival?”
“I don’t know the word, begpardon.”
“And how did Mr. Pyegrave respond to this threat by his wife?”
“He yell to her dat she will na do it. He kill her first.”
“Did he really say that, girl?” asked Muntle, looking up from his notetaking. “It sounds terribly tidy.”
Tattycoram nodded. “It be tidy I s’pose, but it be true, Mr. Sherf.”
I struck in, “How much time would you suppose passed from statement of the threat to the point at which we can all now assume Pyegrave pitched his wife through the window?”
“Meebe a minute or two or tree. Dem two went back and forth for a short spell. ‘Are you really goin’ to go and tell all dem tings?’ And she say yes, she’s a’lookin’ aforward to doin’ it. And he ask her again meebee two more times and da answer da same each at every askin’, and den he musta gone right to her at dat instant ‘cause dere den be a sound like he be liftin’ her from da bed, all da covers a rustlin’ and da sound of da bedstead thumpin’ and bumpin’ and dere’s a mufflin’ sound coomin’ too like meebee he got his hand over her moof.”