The Streets Read online

  ‘Indeed’, I said, ‘and I have taken the liberty of bringing it directly to you.’ I proceeded to recount the tale of my enquiries at the Records Office, my discovery that certain vestrymen were secret rack-renters, and how my questioning of same had caused a small riot at the Vestry Hall today. As I talked, I began to sense that my narrative was not inducing those gratifying expressions of outrage and disbelief that I had anticipated; in fact, neither one of my listeners betrayed even a moment’s surprise. On my first referring to Moyles I noticed Rennert shoot a look at Marchmont, who sat at his desk as still as a pasha.

  I stuttered a little towards the end, at a loss to explain the apparent indifference with which my disclosures had been received. Marchmont drummed his pudgy fingers on his desk for a few moments, then turned his gaze on me.

  ‘And this is what you expect us to run in tomorrow’s edition?’

  I shrank from the sneer in his voice. ‘I assumed it was fit to print –’

  ‘Fit for whom? We are not some fly-by-night satirical rag, sir, nor are we in the business of Radical pamphleteering.’

  ‘He has defaulted in his duties as a landlord – I would say there is a case for him to answer.’

  ‘Oh, you would?’ His tone had turned sarcastic. ‘And who, pray, would you hire to prosecute such a case when it comes to court? Do you imagine we can afford to lock horns with the likes of Walter Moyles?’

  ‘If we felt sure that we could win the case –’

  ‘But we do not. Moyles has made a great deal of money from his property speculations. How would a man accumulate all that without knowing precisely how far he can bend the law? Only think of the people he consorts with – Members of Parliament, magistrates, churchmen. He has so many of them in his pocket it has started to bulge.’

  I was surprised. ‘So . . . you knew that Moyles owned these slums? You always knew?’

  Marchmont looked at me pityingly. ‘Mr Wildeblood, there is very little that happens in this city I do not know about. It is in the nature of my work. So I would consider it a mark of respect if henceforth you refrain from carrying in these old scraps and laying them at my feet like some befuddled bloodhound.’

  ‘Sir, I confess I’m dismayed by your –’

  This was too much. Colour sprang to Marchmont’s cheeks as he stood up and hissed, ‘How dare you persist in bandying words with me! Must I remind you of our relative stations in this office? – I am the editor, without whom this periodical would cease to exist. You are a stripling, an apprentice. You are of no more account than that crossing sweep on the Strand – and I might add not half so useful!’ He had paused, trembling with anger. Rennert had also stood up and without a word was ushering me from the guvnor’s office. I felt myself blushing violently, too shocked to offer any kind of apology, even if one had been required. As Rennert marched me through the office I felt all eyes upon me. I had heard of Marchmont’s Vesuvian explosions of wrath – they were a kind of legend amongst the staff – but it was still an astonishment to find how suddenly he could be provoked. I was trying even now to determine exactly what my offence had been.

  We had reached the top of the narrow stairwell above the entrance hall when Rennert spoke, in a voice that sounded kind.

  ‘You should take the rest of the afternoon off. We will start again on Monday morning.’

  ‘I’m sorry to be the cause of – I believed I had hold of a good story.’

  ‘You were mistaken,’ he said, and I noticed then how weary he looked. One of his eyelids was twitching with fatigue. ‘He has a short fuse. You ought not to take it in a personal way.’

  I nodded, perhaps too complacently, for he seemed to take my equanimity as a sign that I was not altogether chastened by the recent dressing-down. ‘Allow me to give you some advice,’ he said. ‘For your own sake, don’t ever raise Moyles’s name in his hearing again. It may not go so well for you a second time.’ He had reverted to his brusque, impersonal manner, and I arranged my features into an expression of penitence. I would remember his advice, not because I thought it might save me, but because it was too mysterious to ignore.

  Leary man

  THE FOLLOWING DAY’S Chronicle ran a report of the tumult at the Vestry Hall, and, moreover, it named chief vestryman Walter Moyles as landlord of several slum properties in Somers Town. The anonymous reporter argued, with a distinct note of relish, that this intelligence ‘should shame Mr Moyles and persuade other such landlords to address the scandalous disrepair into which so many of their properties have fallen’. So it seemed that not every newsman in London was cowed into silence by Moyles’s reputation. I arrived at the office on Monday morning well aware that Marchmont would also have read the Chronicle, but I had sense enough not to raise the subject with him again. In fact I kept clear of the guvnor altogether. Something about his behaviour that afternoon – his disproportionate fury at my harping on the Moyles story – had put me on guard, and Rennert’s subsequent warning only strengthened it.

  That morning I was emerging from Salisbury Square when I noticed two men loitering on the other side of the street, watching me. As I walked west up Fleet Street I felt myself being followed, and I knew enough of London’s underworld by now to be prepared for a dodge – a ‘pull’ – whereby a sharper, operating in concert with one or two others, would select from the crowd a likely person to rob. It was a common hazard: the sharper would approach his victim, often a countryman new to town, and engage him in conversation. Having drawn him into a pretence of friendship (the tricky part) he would then invite him to a taproom or gambling den he knew. Once installed there, he and his confederates would ensure that their gull was carrying money on his person and, either with loaded dice or marked cards, relieve him of it.

  So when I paused outside a printer’s shop and stood at its angled window, I was not surprised to catch in the reflection those same two men, dawdling close by. Indeed, I felt an odd satisfaction in spotting them, having suffered the indignity of daylight robbery twice in my first month in London. I was becoming wise to the ways of the underworld. Rather than prolong the suspense of being followed, I decided to wait for them to approach me – which they duly did. They were a respectably attired pair, which in itself constituted a clue: sharpers knew that anything too ‘flash’ would encourage suspicion. This pair both wore dark frock coats and bowlers, like City gents, and their demeanour of professional competence was, I had to admit, artfully managed.

  ‘Sir,’ said the shorter one, ‘I wonder if you might have a moment to spare?’

  I turned and straightened, considering them. The idea of twitting them was irresistible. ‘Gentlemen,’ I said, looking from one to the other, ‘I should spare us all some time and effort if I tell you straight away that I have but a few pence in my pocket. I have no watch or jewellery of any sort to tempt you further, and I am too attached to my coat to let it out of my sight. I regret to shun a stranger’s overtures of friendship, but you must understand that they are wasted on me.’

  The pair made a show of looking nonplussed by this; perhaps they had not expected their dodge to be rumbled so precipitately.

  Again it was the short, well-spoken fellow who replied. ‘I think there is a misunderstanding. My name is Clifford Paget, and this gentleman is Mr Alfred Kenton, who has recognised you –’

  ‘I am not the gull you suppose me to be,’ I said, interrupting him, ‘and I have business at hand. So if you would kindly excuse me –’

  Paget held up his hands in a placating gesture. ‘Hold, sir, please. We are no magsmen! I write for the Chronicle – you perhaps read my article about the riotous assembly in St Pancras Vestry Hall last Friday?’ That stopped me. As I looked at them more closely, the man continued. ‘Mr Kenton here runs the Union for Rental and Sanitary Reform. He said it was your questioning of Mr Moyles that started it all off.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I said.

  ‘Cos I was there,’ Kenton replied. ‘I seen you around – you’re Jo Garrett’s mate, ain’t y
er?’

  ‘Mr Garrett also obliged us with your employer’s address. So you see, Mr Wildeblood, we are here only to discuss a matter of mutual interest with you.’

  ‘I do beg your pardon for –’ mistaking you for a pair of sharpers, is what I meant but could not bring myself to say. ‘But why did you not simply call at the office? I would have received you there.’

  Paget’s smile was unillusioned. ‘What? A writer from the Chronicle calls in for a chat? Your guvnor would throw a fit.’ We walked on a little, then turned off Fleet Street and found ourselves in Temple Gardens, overlooking the Thames. Paget was a plumpish fellow, in his forties I supposed, with a bulbous nose, piercing little eyes and a quick, assertive manner. Kenton was older, grey-whiskered but hale-looking, and sported a livid bruise across the bridge of his nose. He caught me looking at it.

  ‘A memento from the Vestry Hall. I caught a hot’un from the slops after we’d been pelting ’em’. His tone suggested he would not be reconciled with them in a hurry.

  ‘That brings us to our purpose,’ said Paget. ‘Mr Kenton and I have been allies ever since the Chronicle took up the scandal of the Somers Town rents, which, thanks to your timely prompt last Friday, is in the news once again. Knowing of your sympathies we hoped you might lend your support to our campaign.’

  ‘Campaign?’

  Kenton drew from his coat a handbill, such as one sees distributed outside music halls, and passed it to me. But it was no bill of entertainments.

  PAY NO RENT

  to unscrupulous landlords who flourish and grow fat on your misery and degradation. It is time to stop the exploitation of the poor, who are poisoned by their thousands in vile, unhealthy slums. The government has failed to help you. It is time to help yourselves.

  A MASS MEETING

  will be held in

  TRAFALGAR SQUARE, W.

  on Sunday, 7 May, at 3 p.m.

  Speakers will address the meeting in support of the No Rent Campaign.

  I looked up to find Paget’s gaze on me. ‘A worthy cause?’

  ‘Without a doubt,’ I replied. ‘But I’m not sure how I can help . . .’

  Kenton cuffed the pamphlet I was holding. ‘You can start by distributing these. We intend to rally all the poorest neighbourhoods in the city – Clerkenwell, Whitechapel, Limehouse. The Nichol, of course. We’d be most obliged if you agreed to be one of our agents in Somers Town.’

  Even as I nodded my willingness to help I sensed trouble ahead. Taking the sheaf of bills Kenton handed over, I warned myself that Marchmont should not get wind of my involvement.

  ‘Are you quite confident that people will come? For most workers the day of rest is rather precious.’

  ‘What have they got to lose?’ said Kenton. ‘People are sick to death of living in slums, despite what the government thinks. And once they know that the landlord they have been making rich is a peer of the realm, or a lawyer, or a churchman – well, I believe they will come, and protest.’

  ‘A churchman?’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘We have discovered that the head of the Ecclesiastical Commission owns a whole swathe of slum property.’

  ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it?’ said Paget in answer to my look of incredulity.

  Kenton now took out his pocket watch and checked the time. ‘Gents, I must press on. I have a revolution to organise! Mr Wildeblood –’ he offered me his hand – ‘let us hope that together we can do some good.’ He nodded in a familiar way to Paget, and walked off.

  ‘Capital fellow, that,’ said Paget. ‘Most energetic. You know his actual job is as a textile dyer? All the campaigning and proselytising, that’s just what he does in his spare time.’

  ‘He seems very . . . fervent. Who produces these?’ I held up the pamphlets.

  ‘He does – from a small printing press at a house in King’s Cross. Near to where he keeps his wife and six children.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ I muttered. ‘Just like my guvnor.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Paget, with a distant smile, ‘and how is dear old Henry?’

  I looked at him in surprise. ‘You know Mr Marchmont?’

  ‘Know him? I used to work with him. I suppose you might say we were friends.’

  ‘But . . . no longer?’

  ‘No,’ he said crisply. ‘Though I still follow his career with interest. He’s done well for himself – better than I would have anticipated.’ His words had been hung out like bait, and I rose to them rather defensively.

  ‘Why would you say that? You think him an inferior writer?’

  ‘By no means. Henry’s one of the very best on Fleet Street – as he himself will tell you. No, I am only surprised by his . . . prosperity. I gather he now keeps a rather grand house in Marylebone.’

  ‘It’s a comfortable place,’ I said warily. I couldn’t tell if he was angling for malicious gossip or simply wanted to determine how much I knew. Loyalty kept me close-mouthed.

  ‘He was not always so provident,’ said Paget, which piqued my curiosity the more. We had begun walking back towards the Strand, and still I said nothing. I sensed him looking sidelong at me. ‘Ever been gambling with him?’

  ‘Once or twice. And yourself?’

  He gave an abrupt laugh. ‘Oh yes. We used to play, years ago – mostly whist, billiards, a bit of roulette. My word, he did love to gamble! He was very nearly bankrupt because of it. Did you know?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘He went abroad to escape his creditors. His wife – poor Jane – answered the door to them. He might have gone to prison for it, but somebody must have bailed him out.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Possibly his father-in-law. Jane comes from money. He owed a good many people.’

  ‘Including yourself?’ I said, wondering.

  ‘Oh, no. Our parting was to do with – something else. It goes back to the time he conceived his Poverty Map of London. Perhaps you know it?’

  I admitted I had seen it at Marchmont’s house. ‘It looked very much a work in progress.’

  ‘I dare say. Henry invited me to assist him on it, seven or eight years ago. He had such high hopes of it – we both did. He once told me it would be his monument . . .’

  ‘It may yet be,’ I said, stirred to loyalty again by his doubting tone.

  Paget gave a conceding shrug that showed his double chin. ‘Of course. And if ever a man were capable of doing it . . . Well, his memory is prodigious. He could tell you how many knife grinders worked in Camden, or chair menders in Whitechapel. He knew the names of pubs in streets you’d never even heard of. Population shifts, living standards, every sort of data. He had it all up here.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘But – it was doomed! There are too many contingencies for such a project to be realised. Not even Henry could keep up. London is always in flux – one might just as well try to grasp hold of that –’ He gestured at a cloud of dust that had billowed grittily from behind the wheels of a passing omnibus. The Strand’s mid-morning traffic was on a thunderous crescendo. We had both raised our voices to be heard.

  ‘And that was your disagreement?’

  ‘We had many disagreements,’ he said. ‘The one which finally sundered us was of a more, ah, philosophical nature.’

  We dodged past carriages around St Clement’s and gained the picturesque quiet of Wych Street. Paget had left the story of his estrangement interestingly poised, but something had diverted his attention as we walked along the cobbled street of ancient shops and rickety theatres. ‘I love this old street. Most of it’s been here since the seventeenth century.’ I looked around at its timbered, higgledy-piggledy buildings, at the casement windows tilting towards each other like neighbours talking across a street. Its quaintness reminded me a little of Norwich. ‘And you know the great pity?’ Paget continued. ‘It will all be gone in a few years’ time. This street, Holywell Street – the entire neighbourhood I shouldn’t wonder.’

  I looked at him in puzzlement. ‘What d’you mean, gone?’


  ‘Demolished. They are planning a vast boulevard, on the Parisian model, to run straight from here up to Holborn. It is meant to be the centrepiece of a “new London”, the capital city of trade and empire – a big opera house, grand restaurants, shops finer than Regent Street’s. Some will make a fortune out of it, you can be sure. But little old streets like this –’ he paused to look about – ‘they will go. Commerce dictates it. If our omnibuses cannot trundle down them, well, what use are they? The council argue these streets have outlived their purpose, so down with ’em!’

  ‘That’s a sad prospect,’ I said.

  ‘It’s the future, I’m afraid. London is going to change out of all recognition. There is too much money around to prevent it.’

  ‘How do you know all of this?’

  Paget allowed himself a mock-affronted laugh. ‘My dear sir, I am a journalist. I am paid to know such things, or else to know the people who will tell me.’

  As we continued west I pondered the consequences of a gigantic swathe of streets and lanes and houses being torn up. Could any good come of it? ‘I suppose the slums around Clare market will be earmarked to go.’

  He nodded affably. ‘You do well to look on the bright side! Yes, those fetid dens won’t be missed. But such clearances themselves present a difficulty. In planning this spacious imperial city they neglect something vital. If you pull down the houses of the poor, you have to find new places for them to live.’

  ‘Mr Marchmont told me the very same thing,’ I said, recalling our conversation that day in Somers Town. ‘Perhaps you and he are more like-minded than you know.’

  I had intended the remark light-heartedly, but Paget did not smile. After a few moments he said, ‘I would not wish to consult him on the matter of the poor.’