The Door That Led to Where (15 page)

The following morning Slim had gone to work and Leon was still fast asleep when AJ left Mrs Furby's.

Outside it was snowing and two little boys were throwing snowballs. A snowball hit AJ's coat and, laughing, the boys ran away. In the confusion of vehicles the snow was turning to watery slush. AJ hailed a hackney cab and with some difficulty pulled himself up and into the seat.

‘St John Street,' he said, hoping that he wasn't too late and that Miss Esme hadn't already been taken away.

It would help, he thought, if the mobile phone had been invented. A calling card didn't quite do it. The hackney cab pulled up outside the Dalton's house and AJ had the presence of mind to ask the driver to wait, saying he would treble the fare.

He rang the doorbell. It was opened by Miss Esme's maid, Agnes. It was obvious she had been crying.

‘Is Miss Esme at home?' AJ said.

‘No,' said the maid, sniffing. ‘No one is at home to visitors.'

AJ's heart sank. ‘Do you mean she is at home and not seeing anyone, or she is not actually on the premises? I need to know – it's urgent.'

The maid stifled a sob.

‘Please would you tell her it's Aiden Jobey?'

The door was closed.

How do you ever see anyone in this city? thought AJ irritably. Or, more to the point, see them alone?

He was waiting, not sure what to do, when the door opened again and the maid, her head darting this way and that, said, ‘Quickly, sir, come in.'

AJ didn't wait to be told where to go. He went straight up the stairs. Miss Esme was on the landing to meet him.

‘Was it you?'

‘Was it me what?'

‘Was it you who told the beadle that you suspected my father was poisoned?'

‘No, of course not. Why would I? You said the doctor had diagnosed an infection.'

Miss Esme sighed.

‘It was her then.' To the maid she said, ‘Keep a lookout for Mrs Meacock.'

‘I've packed a bag for you, Miss Esme. Come now, she'll be back soon,' said Agnes.

‘What happened?' AJ asked as he followed Miss Esme into the drawing room.

‘Someone told the beadle that they were certain that my father was poisoned and the coroner requested that my father's body be exhumed. The inquest will be reconvened today. Mrs Meacock has taken the carriage to fetch Doctor Seagrave. She will have him sign the papers to say I am insane.'

‘Please, Miss Esme, we must go,' called Agnes.

‘I agree,' said AJ. Miss Esme looked so vulnerable. ‘Let's get the hell out of here.'

‘What does that mean?' asked Miss Esme.

‘It means you and me leave before Mrs Meacock comes back with the doctor and they have you locked up.'

‘That would be as good as confessing to murder.'

‘No, it would just give us time to find out the truth.'

‘Miss Esme,' called Agnes. ‘Be quick, the carriage is coming down the street.'

‘There isn't time to argue about it,' said AJ.

‘No,' said Miss Esme. ‘I am innocent and I refuse to be blamed for something I didn't do.'

AJ heard Mrs Meacock's voice in the hall.

‘And we will prove it,' he said, ‘but right now  … '

The drawing-room door opened and Mrs Meacock came in accompanied by a small man wearing a full wig.

‘Mr Jobey,' said Mrs Meacock. ‘I am so sorry that you find us in this state. I must ask you to leave right away.'

‘Mr Jobey is my guest,' said Miss Esme, her voice shaking. ‘And this is my house.'

‘Was, my dear,' said Mrs Meacock, ‘until you went mad and murdered your father. Better by far that you go with Doctor Seagrave than go to the gallows.'

‘I am not mad. I never have been mad,' said Miss Esme.

AJ took hold of her hand.

‘We're going,' he said.

The unexpected nature of his sudden decision took everyone by surprise. It wasn't hard to push past Mrs Meacock or the doctor, who was too taken aback to resist. AJ slammed the drawing-room door and locked it. As he and Miss Esme ran down to the hall, they saw three burly men waiting by the open door. Beyond them in the street stood AJ's hackney cab.

AJ wasn't up for a fight. He took a handful of coins from his pocket.

‘How much to bugger off?' he said.

Two men took what was offered. That left only the third, who was made of gristle and muscle and looked as if he beat up bears for a living. He had a leather strap in his hand but before he was close enough to do any damage with it he was soaked by the contents of a chamber pot thrown from the landing by Agnes.

The hackney cab driver helped Miss Esme into the cab and AJ struggled in after her.

‘Where to?' asked the driver.

At that moment, they heard a cry.

‘Miss Esme! Miss Esme, please don't leave me here.'

AJ opened the door again and pulled in Agnes and her box.

‘Mount Pleasant,' he said to the driver. ‘As fast as you can.'

As the hackney cab sped away AJ looked back to see Mrs Meacock gesticulating from the drawing-room window. Her words were lost to him.

AJ could only imagine that Ingleby must have known they were coming, for the hall, usually devoid of heat or light, had both. In the grate a fire had been lit, as had the broken chandelier. The light did little more than confirm AJ's fears that the whole building was on the verge of toppling down. He could imagine the house featured in one of those up-market magazines for people who had enough money to indulge in dreams, but he realised Miss Esme and Agnes would find the idea of decay being fashionable tricky to understand.

They stood, a small, shipwrecked party washed into a crumbling hall.

‘Where are we?' Agnes asked
.

‘Mr Ingleby's house,' said AJ.

Right on cue, Mr Ingleby rushed up the back stairs.

‘Welcome,' he said, breathlessly, but with such heartfelt meaning that there was no more to be said about the dust and decrepitude of the building. He led them up to a drawing room that AJ had not seen before. It was full of furniture, all of which looked awkward and out of place and added to the general awkwardness felt by everyone there.

Even His Honour looked as if he had been spruced up for the occasion of Miss Esme's visit.

Ingleby started to explain that he himself had planned to bring Miss Esme to safety and to that end he had hired the third thug to stop anyone who tried to snatch her.

‘Oh, my,' said Agnes. ‘I emptied a chamber pot over him.'

‘Yes,' said Ingleby. ‘And I had to pay him double.'

All of them laughed and the awkwardness started to dispel.

Mrs Ingleby arrived with a tray of glasses and a bottle of her best elderflower wine. She seemed to be completely attired in someone else's clothes that neither fitted nor suited her and the whole ensemble was pulled together by another melodrama of a hat. So striking was her appearance that Agnes was unable to help herself, and let out a gasp. Her reaction upset neither mother nor son but rather confirmed to Mrs Ingleby what she had first suspected on seeing Miss Esme, that none of her rooms were suitable for such lady-like company.

AJ saw Miss Esme looking nervously at the magpie, flinching when it stretched its wings.

Ingleby saw it too and said, ‘His Honour won't hurt you, Miss Esme.'

‘Forgive me,' she said, ‘but my mother was frightened of birds, especially magpies. She thought one was haunting her. When they came to take her to the asylum, she screamed that it was the bird that had stolen her reason.'

AJ moved nearer to Miss Esme then held out his hand, not knowing if His Honour would leave Ingleby's shoulder. To his surprise the magpie flew and rested on AJ's outstretched arm. Some moments, AJ reckoned, stood outside the logic of time and space, too important to belong to the dullness of minutes and seconds. With His Honour on his arm and Miss Esme's hand – tentatively at first – stroking the bird's head, this was such a moment. Her grey eyes met his and he felt a tug on his heart.

Then it was over. Time rewound itself and the magic of that moment was gone. Had she felt it too? She must have done.

‘I'll leave you to settle in,' said AJ. ‘And call on you tomorrow if that's all right.'

AJ bowed as he left the room, and thought as he made his way down the stairs, that he was beginning to get into the swing of things. Ingleby followed him, His Honour perched once more on his shoulder.

‘Your father would have been very proud of you today, Mr Jobey, as am I,' he said.

‘Thanks,' said AJ, trying to sound casual, which was hard as he rarely received compliments. He wrapped his muffler round his neck. ‘There's something I want to ask you.'

‘What, Mr Jobey?'

‘I've been wondering  …  was it His Honour Annie Sorrell saw that day at my grandfather's house?'

‘I couldn't say. He wasn't my bird then. But he had belonged to someone, that is certain, for he was very tame. I came across His Honour – near Smithfield it was – about ten years ago. He was as near dead as a creature could be, weren't you, my poor
Pica pica
?'

The magpie let out a cry.

‘I revived him and he took it into that clever head of his that I was his saviour and decided to take a peck at life again.'

AJ headed back to Mrs Furby's. If only his bones would stop hurting he might be able to think straight.

Should he tell Miss Esme that there was a door that led to the future, to a place where her real father and her grandmother lived, where she would be loved? The past is all there, he thought, at the touch of a search button, whereas the future takes some explaining. Most probably she would cling to the furniture, refuse to budge and take her chances of proving her sanity to the doctors rather than with some nutter who claimed he could travel through time. Perhaps he should instead concentrate on how to tell her about her real parents.

His muffler, his supposed protector against the snowy rain, had failed in its duty and he felt the damp seeping through. His arm and leg ached something rotten. His coat was water-logged and heavy, and he found himself limping, wishing he'd brought the stick. There was no escaping it – he couldn't miss his hospital appointment. If there had been time he would have had his dressings changed before he brought Leon through Jobey's door.

Here you are in London in 1830, he thought to himself, with a young woman in real trouble, worrying about a hospital appointment in the twenty-first century. It's bonkers.

Other people went abroad, took package holidays, had road trips and saw America. He had been nowhere, except once to Blackpool, and that was a shock. He had imagined the sea would be blue; it was grey. It had rained and Roxy's dad was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Happy family memories. He was doing something more extraordinary than anyone with a first class ticket had ever achieved: he had travelled in time, walked painlessly through two centuries and back again. It wasn't a journey he could tell many people about without being seen as one of the loonie tunes in Clissold Park. The camera hadn't been invented; any souvenir would look like he'd got it in an antique shop. If he sent a postcard it would never arrive.

To him this London felt like a foreign land: intriguing but with a language and manners that baffled him. He was genuinely surprised that Slim had taken to this non-electronic jungle with such ease, as if all along he was meant to be in this century. Why was it then that he, AJ, felt uneasy here? Perhaps he needed to get to know the place better. After all, it was his inheritance, his door, his key. Perhaps all travel was like this, disjointed, as if fragments of you had been scattered across time.

The day was running out of light and AJ watched a theatre of windows reveal different scenes. A family sat down to eat in a cosy glow. In a basement he could make out the hands of a cook as she stuffed a chicken. In another window a man took a book from a shelf and in another two cats were preening themselves. All of this life went on, went backwards, went forwards, a see-saw of time.

He was near Chancery Lane when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun round.

‘Slim,' he said. ‘What's happening, man?'

‘Nothing special. I'm just on my way home from work.'

‘You really like it here, don't you? Don't you miss your city, your skateboard, your family?' asked AJ.

‘You know, I've sort of forgotten about it all.'

‘You can't have. It hasn't been that long.'

‘Tell me, what is there to be all mixed-up nostalgic about? I can't remember a time, even as a kid, when I opened the front door to find someone who wanted to see me. Or to find anyone there at all.'

‘It's a major step,' said AJ.

‘It's just like emigrating to America.'

‘Come on, Slim – really?'

‘One day while you were gone I took Dora in a hackney carriage to Stoke Newington. Do you know, it's a village with farms, fields and a huge common. Children were playing in the snow and it looked like one of those glittery Christmas cards that Auntie Elsie has on her mantelpiece. Except I was in it. And I thought, yes, this is where I want to live, in this here and now. I tell you, the only thing I will miss is you, bro, nothing else. It's that simple.' He opened Mrs Furby's front door and they were greeted by the smell of cinnamon and honey. ‘Come on, let's get warm.'

‘Oh, Tom, there you are. I've been waiting for you,' said Mrs Furby, coming out of the parlour. ‘Waiting for you both,' she added.

‘Is Leon here?' asked AJ.

‘No, he went out for a walk. A quiet one, is Mr Grant. I think he is still grieving for his mother. Now take off your wet clothes and come and sit by the fire. You look half frozen, Mr Jobey, and too pale, if you don't mind me saying.'

The parlour was snug and the lamplight flattered the room, softening the corners. Sitting near the fire was a woman much older than Mrs Furby, who AJ recognised as the nurse he'd seen that first morning at Samuel Dalton's house.

‘This,' said Mrs Furby, ‘is my dear friend Mrs Renwick.'

Mrs Renwick's starched bonnet was doing its level best to define some features of note in her kindly pudding of a face but it was her hands that interested AJ, for they were red raw with scrubbing.

‘These are the two gentlemen I told you about,' said Mrs Furby. ‘Mr Slim and Mr Jobey.'

‘Jobey?' said Mrs Renwick, not moving from her cosy seat. ‘A pleasure, I am sure.'

‘Mrs Renwick is a nurse,' explained Mrs Furby. ‘She boarded here for two years.'

‘The nicest lodgings I have had in the whole of London,' said Mrs Renwick. She had a ponderous way of talking as if each word mattered and needed time to be heard before bothering to join it up with the next.

‘Sit, gentleman, sit,' said Mrs Furby. ‘I will ring for tea.'

Nellie looked as pleased as punch when she brought in the tray.

‘I filtered the water twice, Mr Slim, and boiled it for five minutes precisely,' she said.

‘Perfect,' said Mrs Furby. She poured the tea and, handing the nurse a cup, said, ‘Would you mind telling Mr Jobey and Mr Slim the story you have just told me?'

‘I see no point in repeating the sorry tale. It won't make it any better and could make it worse by hearing it all again.'

‘Mr Jobey, I know, would be interested to hear it. He is acquainted with Miss Dalton.'

‘The words of the dying are not to be trusted,' said Mrs Renwick. She stood up. ‘I should be going. I just brought Dora some Madeira wine sent me by a well-wisher and, as Dora knows, I do not drink.'

‘Please,' said AJ, ‘I want to hear what happened. I saw you when I came with another gentleman, Mr Ingleby, to visit Mr Dalton.'

‘So you did, sir. I thought I recognised you.' Mrs Renwick sat down again and began with a loud sigh. ‘There wasn't half a rumpus after you left. Mrs Meacock had Miss Esme locked in her room and then she said to me that on no account was Mr Dalton to have any more visitors. She stood at the end of his bed with this smile on her face and said, “You've brought this on yourself, Samuel.” And with that she was gone. Two days I looked after him. It was a slow and painful death. He asked me, over and over again, if Mrs Meacock was in the house. When I said she was, poor Mr Dalton became most agitated and whispered, “Don't let her near me.”

‘I have looked after those coming into the world and those leaving. Often you find those that are sick with fever speak with tongues that belong half to this world and half to Hades for all the sense they make. Once he asked me if I could see Mrs Meacock in the room. I told him there was no one there and he begged me to look outside the door for he was sure he heard rustling. What I heard outside was laughter that came from the dining room. I saw trays of food were being taken to Mrs Meacock and Doctor Seagrave.'

Leon had come in quietly and stood leaning against the mantelpiece.

‘I am not a woman of imagination. I have no story to tell, none worth listening to. Neither do I believe in ghosts but, even without the extravagance of imagination, I have never seen a man more terrified of anyone than Mr Dalton was of Mrs Meacock. Two hours before he died he started talking to someone who he called  … ' The nurse paused and looked at AJ. ‘ …  Old Jobey.'

‘As I said, I'm not a woman of imagination and it bothers me little as to who the dying wish to converse with. Mr Dalton said, “I did not do it, Old Jobey. I would not have done that to you. I swear I didn't know  …  I didn't know until they had hanged her.” His last words before he died were, “The will  …  it was the will.”

‘I went to tell Mrs Meacock that her master was dead and I found her and Dr Seagrave were  …  well, I will say nothing other than drunk. I was disgusted. I laid out Mr Dalton and left.'

‘May I ask a question?' said Leon.

The nurse nodded.

‘In your professional opinion, was Mr Dalton poisoned?'

‘I couldn't say for sure, sir. But if he was, I know who poisoned him and it wasn't that young girl.'