The Petticoat Men (50 page)

‘For
who
to be certain? Lord Arthur? Or for you to be certain, Mr Wade?’

To the young man, the bearded, strange-looking Mackie appeared now to be God on the Thames Embankment as the setting sun disappeared completely behind clouds and smoke. Faster and faster he gabbled.

‘Mr Newlyn from the King’s Arms in Christchurch, he had been there – he knew Arthur was dying, you could tell he was dying. You can ask Mr Newlyn. Arthur was dying when we came.’

‘Did you give him more?’

‘He was
desperate.
He was terrified of going to prison and scandal, he kept blaming people, naming names, all sorts of names – none of it true, of course, but he was delirious, you should have seen him in that terrible little room.’

‘I did see him in that terrible little room as you call it, with the window closed and the curtain drawn and the little girl downstairs.’

This information caused the younger man to look as if he was actually going to faint. His face had acquired a greenish tinge.

‘I’ll ask you again.
Are
you a doctor, Mr Wade, as you told Johnny Hewlettson and as one of the newspapers seemed to think? And you happened to be in Christchurch, and then you came to Mudeford?’

‘Yes. No, no! I am a gentleman. I do not say that I am
that
Mr Wade. I am not a doctor. You have made a mistake. I keep telling you: there must have been two Mr Wades there at the same time. I am someone else. I am being sent as a missionary in Africa.’

‘Is that so?’ said Mackie. ‘Were you in Mudeford then to save Lord Arthur’s soul?’

‘I – no – yes. To comfort him, of course. I didn’t stay. I wasn’t there when he died.’

‘So it was just to give a
short
bit of comfort?’

‘I am to travel to Africa next week, I have nothing to do with any of this, my work is to be in Africa, taking the word of God.’

‘Africa.’ Mackie mused for a moment beside the Thames. ‘To – get you out of the way perhaps. Are you looking forward to Africa?’

Mr Wade burst out suddenly as if he could not help himself, ‘If you lived in London, for God’s sake, would
you
go to the damned wilds of Africa?’

‘Oh, I see. For God’s sake. Is the bishop going with you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘But no doubt, Mr Wade, you will tell the Africans about that biblical law I saw on a sign outside the court every day this week – that man must lie with woman only, and you’ll tell them God says so, even if’ – Mackie paused – ‘even if you yourself were a colleague of Lord Arthur and of several certain bishops?’

‘
Me?
A colleague of Arthur? A colleague of bishops? No, no! Of course not –
of course not!
I never met – any of them! I keep telling you, you have made a mistake.’

Mackie looked at him implacably. Finally the man began to weep.

‘Someone had to go to see how Arthur was, that’s all.
They made me go!
’

‘Who? Bishop Julius, Mr Wade?’

It was at this point that the gentleman turned and vomited loudly into the River Thames.

Mackie felt like vomiting himself; he stared at the dirty, stinking, crowded water, saw smoke rising everywhere, heard ferries hooting and boatmen calling as it got darker. The vomiting, sweating man went on weeping amid his vomit; Mackie thought of the sleek, knowing, clever gentlemen in the historic building behind them, making their sleek, clever speeches; this great city: London. Big Ben sonorously chimed just then almost directly above them, as if to confirm matters.

‘Where are you meeting the bishop, Mr Wade?’

The younger man stood miserably beside the river, fumbling for a handkerchief, trying to wipe away the vomit and tears that were mixed on his chin.

‘It is – a private establishment…’

‘Let’s walk there then, shall we, Mr Wade?’

‘You – you would not be allowed in.’

‘Well, I’ll send you in, Mr Wade.’

The two men walked back from the river, Mackie’s hand now lightly holding Mr Wade’s arm; back from the River Thames and into the Parliament Square. They turned towards Victoria Railway Station. Mackie looked up at the big, beautiful, glorious Westminster Abbey, shadowed now against the sky, but that glory was not, apparently, to be the meeting place.

They began to turn again, into smaller streets, and then past the remains of a makeshift, empty street market; children yelled from a broken cart, kicked some mouldy carrots and slipped on rotten tomatoes, and as always, but still noticeable to the man from Mudeford, there was the sour, acrid smell of piss. Down a darkening alley street rats were pulling at something under another cart, the smell now of decaying meat was strong; nearby an unmarked door seemed to be their destination and beside it a small gas lamp shone dimly.

‘Bring him out,’ said Mackie.

‘He won’t come out,’ said Mr Wade.

‘Tell him I’m from Mudeford, that I’m known to Mr Ouvry, the lawyer for the Newcastle Estate. And that I’d like a moment of his time. If he chooses not to meet me I’ll go, now, to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and I’ll have the conversation with Mr Ouvry instead. That’s all.’

He rapped the knocker briskly and then stepped back into the shadows as a small wooden peephole slid open. The dishevelled Mr Wade was admitted.

It was quite some time before anything happened but Mackie waited patiently as darkness fell. At last the wooden peephole was slowly opened again, then the door, and a large figure appeared – not, however, the bishop. Mackie, who was from Mudeford after all, was not exactly certain whether the person in front of him, carrying a stick and dressed in a bright yellow and over-elaborate uniform, was a footman to the episcopacy, or a clown from a particular kind of entertainment. After all, one of the witnesses in the trial had spoke of wrapping Mr Ernest Boulton in a tablecloth, so Mackie tried not to be surprised by London ways.

The emerging figure saw the other, waiting patiently in the shadows.

‘Oy, you!’ he called, and Mackie stepped forward so that the yellow-clothed person could see him more clearly.

‘As usual the Bishop sends someone else to do his business for him,’ said Mackie.

‘What d’you want?’

‘I want to talk to Bishop Julius.’

‘The Bishop Julius won’t be talking to the likes of you.’

‘Is that right?’ said Mackie, and something about his appearance and his implacable manner unnerved the other man.

‘You a copper?’

‘Do I look like a policeman?’

‘You look like a bleeding ancient prophet.’

‘And you look like a bleeding clown.’

The clown swung at him with his stick; the ancient prophet caught his arm firmly; inside somebody had obviously been listening and the door was opened again. This time the fine-looking, white-haired gentleman whom Mackie had seen in the court materialised in his cassock and his cloak and wearing his jewelled cross. Mackie let the clown go and turned to the clerical personage who, although
he
was supposed to be the man of God, was startled at the sight of the biblical-looking figure in the half-light of the gas lamp.

‘What is it you want?’ He spoke abruptly.

‘I think perhaps you might prefer this conversation to be held in private. I carry no weapon as you can see.’

‘I prefer to have my man with me.’

Mackie nodded. ‘Fine.’

The bishop tried to pull himself together. ‘How can I help you?’

‘It is yourself, Bishop Julius, that you might help.’

Then Mackie was silent for a moment, looking at the cleric carefully. The uniformed person standing slightly behind watched Mackie’s every move.

‘Bishop Julius, you might have a chat, I suggest, to your God at this point. I think you would help yourself immensely by making that long journey to Africa next week. With Mr Wade.’

Bishop Julius was completely taken aback; this was not what the weeping Mr Wade had led him to expect. His hands automatically went to his jewelled cross.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Who are you?’

‘I am from a place you may have heard of called Mudeford, Bishop. People call me Mackie. I helped bury Lord Arthur Clinton. Mr Ouvry knows that, you see – you may of course ask him about me if you don’t think I look like a man who is telling the truth.’

‘All this has nothing to do with me. I am afraid I cannot imagine why you thought it might. I must bid you good evening.’ And the clerical gentleman turned back to the wooden door.

‘I’ve met people who remember you at Mr Porterbury’s ball in the Strand, Bishop Julius.’

The cassocked man froze. ‘I will manage this, thank you, Claude,’ he said and the yellow uniform bowed and disappeared through the wooden door, which remained, however, slightly open. ‘I will knock, Claude, if I require entrance.’

The wooden door clicked shut. The bishop slowly turned back. The two men stood together under the gaslight.

‘I know, Bishop Julius, as I said, people who remember you at Mr Porterbury’s ball. I also happen to know you were delighted with Mrs Dodo Fortune’s afternoon fruit cake but that didn’t stop you helping to hound her and her husband out of their home, which seems to me to be one of a number of unchristian acts I find you seem to have been personally responsible for.’

In the darkness the bishop, transfixed, became suddenly pale at the turn of the conversation.

‘And I understand that you sent Mr Wade to Mudeford.’

‘Mr Wade is a hysteric and a liar. I know nothing of Mudeford.’

‘He may be those things, Bishop, and you may not know Mudeford but I myself – and many of my neighbours – saw Mr Wade in Mudeford. And I think perhaps you sent him there. I know Mr Gladstone is a trustee for the Newcastle Estate and knew Lord Arthur Clinton much better than is public knowledge – at this point in time. I helped put Lord Arthur Clinton in his coffin, and was present at his burial, which you – of course – were not. No headstone has been erected but I could show Mr Ouvry and Mr Gladstone exactly where he is buried, should there ever be any confusion, or question, about his – scarlet fever.’

In the gaslight Mackie saw that the bishop’s polished, urbane face was now dripping with sweat.

‘Do you believe in your God, Bishop Julius?’

‘How dare you blaspheme in my presence! Of course.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am sure.’

‘Aren’t you therefore terrified?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Aren’t you terrified that your God – I’m sure you know your Bible well – is all-seeing, and will therefore find out the things that I found out – let alone
Reynolds News
and
The
Times
?
I would go to Africa if I was you, Bishop Julius, I’m sure of it. Because once you’ve seen a lonely dead man stinking for want of a coffin – and then seen all the hypocritical cant that covers up such a story, and heard all the speeches regarding the noble nobility – well, you want to spew, like Mr Wade has been spewing. I know so much that I could ruin you, Bishop, and I am not party to your gentlemen’s code, which keeps society’s secrets.’

‘What do you want?’ the churchman whispered in the darkness, staring at the looming bearded stranger. ‘
Who are you?
’

‘I’m just a fisherman, Bishop Julius.’

‘
A fisherman?
’
And, like Mr Wade before him, Bishop Julius (who indeed knew his Bible well, and was also under great stress of course) thought for a moment that he was having a religious hallucination in the dark, stinking alley.

‘I think you should go to Africa, Bishop Julius. Not because you’re a sodomite too, because that’s your business. And not because you are a bishop, because that’s your business also.
But because you are a bloody, lying, cowardly hypocrite
.’ In the shocked silence Mackie added: ‘Although I fear for the Africans.’

And he turned from the man of the Church and left.

Mackie walked back to the river and along to Blackfriars. The last ferry to Gravesend had left, but Mackie stood on the bridge as the young boy from Tooting had stood, staring at the murky water in the darkness, and he thought of the trial that had ended this day; the pomp and the circumstance and the noble speeches. He thought of Lord Arthur Clinton; he thought of Mr Wade vomiting into this river; he thought of the bishop in his cross and cassock. He thought of the ferries in which he took passengers daily through the channels of the great river to Gravesend, where the big ships were waiting to carry them across the seas to build the Empire of Great Britain: the Great British Empire of Mr Gladstone, of the Prince of Wales, and of Queen Victoria.

50

Mackie got back to Wakefield-street late that evening, but Billy and Elijah had also arrived late from the Working Men’s Institute and were still eating the sausage and mash that had been kept warm on the stove. Mattie bent over a stiff hat-brim with a large needle and white cotton; everyone was still in the downstairs kitchen, discussing the trial, knowing what anybody in London who was still interested would have known by now: that the case regarding the Men in Petticoats, that had once been labelled ‘the Scandal of the Century’, had eventuated to nothing at all, and was over.