The Streets Page 17

  ‘May I keep this?’ I said, holding the card in its envelope.

  He looked at me oddly. ‘As you wish.’

  I stared at the picture for a moment, and a sudden flash of intuition sparked within my brain. ‘Does the League have plans for Bindon Fields, Father? I mean, to build upon it?’

  Kay leaned back in his chair, and a cautious smirk formed on his lips. ‘Whatever would have given you that idea?’

  I sensed that my blind throw had hit its mark, but I kept my voice casual. ‘Oh, I was talking to one of your parishioners – Mrs Nicholls, on Barclay Street – who seems to believe you are going to lead her into the Promised Land. I wondered if Bindon Fields might be its location.’

  ‘Mrs Nicholls,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Poor woman. Too feeble-minded even to keep a confidence. And those two young children of hers . . .’ He leaned forward now, and his tone became quietly earnest. ‘You see it very strongly in children – that taint in the blood. There is a school of thought, I’m sure you know, that says allowing our weakest elements to breed will lead to the degeneration of humankind.’

  ‘Not a very Christian school, I should say.’

  He gave a little dismissive shake of his head. ‘It is a grave challenge to society, Mr Wildeblood. The children of the very poor are not born but damned into this world. Their only inheritance is a weak mind and a deformed physique – have you noticed how defective is their hearing, their sight? They are stunted in their growth. Consider this: the British Army is preparing to lower its minimum height for recruits from five feet six inches to five feet three. Can we allow this to be the physical standard of the future?’

  ‘I gather your friend Mr Sprule argues the same in his book.’

  ‘Indeed he does. This is the hereditary taint, and unless something is done to check it, evolution itself will be reversed.’

  ‘And you propose to save society from this “taint” by – what – isolating the poor?’

  His look turned shrewd. ‘Between ourselves, there is such a scheme in hand.’

  ‘At Bindon Fields.’ I no longer posed it as a question.

  ‘There is much to say for it. Fresh air, comfortable conditions, appropriate employment for all. They will farm their own food and manufacture their own goods. A self-sufficient community. We hope it will constitute a more, well, salubrious home than Mrs Nicholls and her like would otherwise enjoy.’

  I stared at him. ‘There is one thing you overlook. Not all the poor of Somers Town are as pliant as Mrs Nicholls. How will you deal with those who decline to be resettled? By force?’

  ‘It will not come to that. You must understand, in a few years hence Somers Town will cease to exist in the form we have known it. Those wretched houses will be swept away, but the occupants will not be forsaken as of old. We will offer them shelter in a secure environment.’

  ‘Secure? That makes it sound –’

  ‘Every form of society requires its protection. There will be a superintendent and a staff to keep the place in order – but we must not get ahead of ourselves. The plans are still being drawn up.’ He looked at his watch, a gold hunter, and rose from his desk. ‘Much as I would like to continue this, sir, I have obligations elsewhere . . .’

  ‘You have been most generous with your time,’ I said, rising, and as he led me to the door he talked of more day excursions he had planned for Somers Town. He believed that a gradual approach would help people adjust to the prospect of resettlement. It appeared that the Social Protection League had done some careful preparation. His sharp, not quite friendly eyes were on me as he shook my hand. ‘As I said, this matter is between ourselves. I hope I have your word as a gentleman?’

  ‘Of course, Father . . . though, there is one thing that puzzles me. It’s your “hereditary taint” theory. Even if the poorest elements are persuaded to resettle in Bindon Fields, there is still nothing to prevent them from – breeding.’

  Father Kay returned a frowning look, as if I had missed the whole point of his argument. ‘My dear sir, the settlements we are talking about – I thought this was made clear – they will be separated by sex. Men only, or women only.’

  I cannot say whether I concealed my astonishment or not. I hope that I did. But as I retraced my steps down the corridor and out into the yew-shaded churchyard I had begun to conceive the unsettling possibility that this benign-seeming clergyman was not entirely sane.

  11

  Dark horse

  THE NEWSPAPERS’ REPORTS of Kenton’s death were, in the main, generous towards his achievements as a union organiser and social reformer. They acknowledged his tireless work on behalf of the renting classes, and several praised his fierce oratorical power in public debate, ‘most recently evinced at the Trafalgar Square disturbances in May’. Yet barely one of them troubled to doubt the official verdict of suicide, or the coroner’s explanation: according to The Times Kenton had been ‘temporarily of unsound mind’ when he had taken his plunge into the cold Thames, and no evidence of foul play had been discovered.

  ‘Rot,’ said Paget, tossing the newspaper aside. ‘Kenton was as sound as Lloyd’s. I’m sorry to see the Thunderer doing the police’s work for them.’

  We sat in the booth of a dimly lit chop house round the corner from the Chronicle.

  ‘I notice that your own paper declined to air any suspicions,’ I replied.

  ‘I don’t believe the misbuttoning of the deceased’s coat will carry much weight in a court of law. And at least our report refused to call it a suicide.’ He shrugged, his expression disgruntled. ‘Until we have more persuasive evidence it would be better for us to lie low. I have no wish to follow poor Kenton into the morgue.’

  The Bindon Fields postcard lay on the table. Its discovery in Kenton’s pocket still tantalised us: Paget believed that someone had passed him information about Father Kay and the Social Protection League, but whatever it was we could only guess. If continuous staring at an object could yield its secret I would have possessed it by now.

  ‘The disturbing part of it is that Kay appeared quite serious about the idea of male–female segregation.’

  ‘He and Sprule both,’ said Paget. ‘And they are not without support in Parliament either. I know a fellow, an underling of the Home Secretary, who has told me things that would raise the hairs on your neck. He’s heard members talk openly of measures to prevent the lowest classes from breeding – as though it’s a danger to humanity!’

  ‘Kay said something about appointing a superintendent at Bindon Fields. Would your man be privy to that sort of information?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied, ‘though I really don’t see how such a scheme is practicable. You may separate the sexes in a workhouse, but on a larger scale nobody would stand for it. You cannot “engineer” the race.’

  A waiter interrupted us, and Paget’s beady eyes brightened as he contemplated the beefsteak and mound of boiled carrots set before him. Steam rose off it, and he gave the satisfied sigh of a trencherman. ‘Hearty fare they do here,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘Are you sure you won’t join me?’

  ‘Thank you, but no.’

  He looked more closely at me. ‘You look rather pasty, my boy. Is all well?’

  ‘I’m . . . out of sorts, I confess.’ To his enquiring look I gave a small grimace. ‘I have an engagement, this afternoon. With someone I have not spoken to in more than a year.’

  ‘And may I ask . . .?’

  ‘My father. A long story,’ I said, instantly regretting my candour. ‘But he’s attending a pharmacology conference in town today, and has asked to see me.’

  Paget gave a wry, faraway smile. ‘I was seldom on good terms with my old man. When I told him that I was considering a career in journalism he threatened to disown me.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Oh, that decided me for certain. Two years later I was working down here for the Evening News.’ He laughed, and took a swig from his pewter.

  ‘I think my father would have
approved such ambition. He never expressed the smallest belief that I would amount to anything at all.’

  Paget briefly stopped chewing, and eyed me with sympathy. ‘That’s harsh. You strike me as just the chap a father would be proud of!’ His words were kindly meant, but they made me sad. I glanced up at the wall clock – ten past three – and got to my feet.

  ‘I must away. May I take a pinch of this before I go?’ I pointed to Paget’s snuffbox, and he opened it for me in invitation. I held a dab on my wrist, snorted it up – then sneezed volcanically.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, taking another gulp of ale, ‘something I meant to ask you – about Condor Holdings. When did you last consult the register of leases?’

  I tried to recall my last visit to the Records Office. ‘I suppose it was about two months ago,’ I replied.

  ‘Interesting. Because I sent one of our boys to check the Somers Town section and he told me that Condor Holdings is not listed anywhere.’

  I gaped at him. ‘What? He must be mistaken. Their name was all over the ledger. I saw it with my own eyes!’

  Paget tweaked a side of his mouth in philosophical resignation. ‘Well, look again – it’s not there any more.’

  As I hurried through Holborn I felt myself to be a drowning man, sucked under by a riptide of perplexities. Every time I seemed to grasp a spar of verifiable fact the ground beneath me gave way and I was whelmed in deep waters again. Had Condor Holdings really managed to disappear from the list of leases? If so, it indicated that they – whoever ‘they’ were – knew they were under suspicion. But how? A few moments’ thought solved it. They had surmised that somebody was on to them; indeed, they knew his name – it was mine. Pondering the episode at their office in Bishopsgate, and the brusque reception by the man in the checked coat – the one I had followed to Marchmont’s door – I recalled now that I must have given him my name. Alas . . . there was my error. And I had to presume that Marchmont himself was now apprised of a certain Wildeblood poking around the Condor Holdings business. Under my breath I cursed my want of guile. With their name removed from the leases, there was nothing at all now to connect the company with the Somers Town clearances.

  This anxious cogitation had so preoccupied me that I was hardly aware of having reached Gordon Square. I crossed the public garden and mounted the steps of the Gothic-fronted collegiate building, my heartbeat picking up the pace. A cavernous entrance hall was aswarm with dark-coated gentlemen of the pharmacological profession, their voices echoing in the gloom. It seemed that a lecture had just ended and disgorged the delegates hither. On enquiry I was directed up a balustraded staircase to the library, not today a place of quiet study but another meeting room where refreshments were being taken. An odour of cigars and sherry suffused the air.

  It took me a moment to recognise him. He stood alone at one of the mullioned windows, gazing out, a lean, tall man lost in thought. His hands, held across his chest, absently entwined one another; it was a pose that lent him the faintly worried aspect of a clergyman. I approached him, and ‘Papa’ was almost on my lips before I stopped myself. The appellation seemed no longer appropriate. Of course, he was still my father, that would not change, and he had never been as severe with me as Paget’s sire with him. But the affectionate word belonged to another age – childhood – when relations between us were without strife or strain. Now it smacked of a presumptuous familiarity. I cleared my throat, and he turned.

  ‘David,’ he said with a pained smile, and offered his hand.

  ‘Sir,’ I said, trying to sound assured. He didn’t blink at this formal address, and I felt a little stab to my heart. ‘I hope I find you well?’

  ‘Oh,’ he murmured, as if waving away the enquiry, his well-being of no consequence to anyone. A year had marked a change, I couldn’t say what. An air of distracted authority still hung on him, and in his wandering gaze one sensed, not a shyness – for he could be gregarious when it pleased him – but a reluctance to be amongst crowds. To be anywhere, indeed, apart from in his library, alone and undisturbed. His melancholy brown eyes rarely met mine. He gestured me to a vacant table and we sat in matching armchairs, facing one another. ‘Would you care . . .?’

  ‘Some coffee, thank you.’ We waited in silence until a man came to take our order, and then we were left with nowhere to hide from each other’s company.

  ‘Well then, tell me of your journalistic endeavours. Even in the benighted territories of Norfolk we have heard of Henry Marchmont.’

  He maintained his look of polite attention as I recounted my time in the guvnor’s employ, and I even embroidered it a little to suggest a greater influence at the office than I commanded. I told him about my friendship with Paget, though avoided the subject of Kenton’s death and the rents scandal. I felt his interest quicken only when I brought up the Camberwell Beauty we had seen at Bindon Fields, and again I elaborated the story, such was my eagerness to impress him. This led me naturally to talk of Kitty, and her father.

  ‘I recall from your letter that Elder – Sir Martin, I should say – invited you to dinner. I dare say he lives in grand style?’

  ‘He does. A large house in Kensington. He talked of you, of course – said you were one of the finest minds he’d ever known.’

  My father, who was quite without intellectual vanity, or any other sort, merely raised his eyebrows, then said, ‘I recall a holiday up in Scotland, it must have been our last year at Oxford. We both of us were keen birdwatchers . . . though much of the time was spent in theological debate.’

  ‘He told me that you “saved” him from taking orders.’

  His rueful half-smile neither confirmed nor denied it. ‘I don’t believe a career in the Church would have benefited either party.’ His gaze returned to the ceiling, and the mention of Church inevitably brought to my mind one of its most devoted adherents. My father’s thoughts must have been tending likewise, for he now said, ‘Your mother – as you would imagine – still does her charitable work in the parish. Her sense of duty is quite . . . selfless.’ He spoke haltingly, and I realised that this was his way of talking around the unmentionable subject of our estrangement. It occurred to me that he had not actually told my mother of this meeting between us, and I felt goaded by a renewed sense of hurt to say, ‘I wonder if she has ever been minded to dispense her charity closer to home – towards her son, for example.’ My father flinched as though he had been slapped on the cheek. He had not expected me to bandy words. His look of dismay was painful, but my blood was up, and leaning forward I spoke without premeditation. ‘It is too hard, this silence of hers . . . How can my own mother be so implacable – she who prides herself on Christian values? Surely you see the contradiction in it?’

  My voice had risen under the pressure of indignation, and my father, aware of the public room, made a conciliatory patting motion with his hand. I sat back again, trembling, and watched him pinch finger and thumb over his closed eyelids – a long-suffering look I knew well. The silence felt charged between us. ‘Your mother has a good heart,’ he began, then sighed – ‘but it lacks understanding. Be patient. The shock to her, to both of us, was grievous –’

  ‘But you found it in you to forgive! Why cannot she?’

  He opened his eyes again, and suddenly looked wearier. That was the change in him, I now saw – a shading below the eyes, a hollowness in his cheek. ‘She has too much pride. That is her cross, if she only knew it. One day she will learn forgiveness.’

  ‘And then I should ask it of her?’

  ‘No. She will ask it of you.’

  I looked away, and we fell silent. I wanted to clear the air between us, but I could not speak candidly without causing him distress. Around us in affable colloquy were my father’s fellow delegates, scientists from all over the country eager to exchange new ideas, propound new theories and enlarge their already well-stocked minds. Through the forest of bodies my eye alighted upon two august-looking gents absorbed in discussion, one listening, nodding in agr
eement with his interlocutor, whose talk was emphatic with hand gestures. Of what they spoke it was impossible to say, but one could fairly speculate it did not concern trivialities. The whole mood of the room felt gravid with erudition, and it suddenly daunted me to think of the volume of knowledge packed within these walls. What mystery could these men of science not unravel? What darkness could they not illumine? Then, as I looked again at my father’s melancholy countenance, a line came to me: What is knowledge but grieving?

  ‘Sir, may I ask you – about something that has troubled me?’

  His brow lifted enquiringly. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I wonder if you have heard of the Social Protection League?’ He shook his head, and I continued. ‘They are a charity, run by certain well-to-do gentlemen with an interest in matters of heredity. They take their theme from Darwin, and, as far as I understand, believe it would be beneficial to society if the weaker elements – the mentally defective, the shiftless, and so on – were prevented from breeding.’

  He gave a quick nod. ‘I am familiar with the theory – though it rather traduces Darwin. He did not prescribe meddling with the constitution of the race.’

  ‘And yet I hear it said – by an Anglican rector, amongst others – that the pitiful conditions in which the poor live is retarding evolution and endangering the race. Can this be true?’

  My father frowned, considering. ‘There is no conclusive proof of progressive degeneration. Even if there were, we cannot simply dispose of these weaker elements. What distinguishes man as a species is his capacity for love of all creatures – other races, other animals – however lowly.’

  ‘So you do not hold with the theory of tainted blood? That certain people are born without hope of being anything but bad?’

  Again he paused before answering, perhaps struck by the singularity of this conversation. ‘I am inclined to believe – who can say for sure? – the criminal is made, not born. Those “pitiful conditions” you mention are at the heart of it. Some endure such extremes of penury and want that their succumbing to drink, or to theft, seems nearly unavoidable. Personally, I think it a wonder that they are not ten times more depraved than they might be.’