Now Jonathan laughed. “I knew you were different, Poppy. Independent. As I told you, I find it exciting. I should like to see you again.”
I glanced at the watch pinned to my bodice. “I must be going, Jonathan,” I said as I stood and waved to a waiter to retrieve my cape.
Jonathan stood and said, “Poppy, let me hail you a cab or-”
“No, thank you, Jonathan. As I told your page earlier, I prefer to walk.”
As soon as I had my cape, I drew it around me, tied it, thanked him for lunch and headed back to my office.
Men, I thought. Men! Is there not a single man in the world who would allow a woman to be - well, whatever she wishes?
Chapter 17
The day passed slowly, despite another flurry of patients. I counted the hours until Wiggins would escort me to The Four Swans to consult with Sherlock about the two cases - the dead swans and the dead Privy Council member.
Despite Uncle’s protest, I sat near the front door to wait with cape, scarf and bonnet on. As the grandfather clock struck six, I jumped. Just moments later, Wiggins knocked on the door and I raced to open it.
“There’s a hansom waiting t’ take us on t’ th’ Four Swans, Miss,” he said.
“Let us go then, Archie. I mean, Wiggins,” I said, grabbing my gloves and hooking my arm through his.
It seemed to take forever to get to the East End and all the longer because each time I tried to query Wiggins about his grave robbing enterprise, he either refused to answer or simply looked away. The Four Swans was in sight when Wiggins signaled the cabbie to stop. As we exited the hansom, I felt the squalor. All around me - the stench of sewers and drains, the foul odour of sweaty people molded to one another in the cheap lodgings, the pall of hopelessness washed down by pale ale. There was no hint that anyone in this desolate area would reap the harvest of their labors or aspirations. They had stopped dreaming long ago.
Before I took two steps, Sherlock emerged from the shadows. “Follow me,” he said gruffly. So began a sojourn down Commercial Street between Flower and Dean and Aldgate, near Whitechapel. “What are we doing, Sherlock? Where are we going?”
“Quiet, Poppy,” he said, gently taking me by the elbow to prod me along. “We will return to the Four Swans soon to have a meal and I will give you an account of our case.”
“Which case? The mutilated swans or the dismembered corpse?”
“Both. But first, do come along and observe.”
“But where are we going, Sherlock?”
“Just follow me.”
We finally stopped in an alley near Court Street directly across from London Hospital. Sherlock pointed to a woman standing beneath a gas lamp near a doorway several yards away. She was small in stature, with long brown hair and wore a crimson dress and a black bonnet trimmed with a wine-colored ribbon.
Many other women paraded along Commercial, most dressed neatly, hawking trinkets and menthol cones or in search of clients. I knew their lives likely alternated from lodging houses to workhouses to the pavement.
“Sherlock,” I whispered, but he put finger to lips and said, “Quiet. Observe.”
The woman looked back and forth as if she were waiting for someone.
“Sherlock, you must tell me at once what we are doing here or-”
“Ssshh,” he cautioned.
A few moments later, a man came from Thomas Street to her left. She turned and raised her skirts above her ankles. He spoke to her, then cupped her face with his hands. They turned to cross Court Street and he paused to fondle her beneath another gas lamp. It was then that I was able to focus on his face.
I realized it was Jonathan Younger.
Chapter 18
Soon they were laughing and groping each other like fecund feral cats. The woman emitted a series of unrelenting groans as Jonathan explored her, right there on the street. Then they stepped into a rowhouse and shut the door behind them.
It is difficult to describe the feelings I experienced in that moment. I had no deep affection for Jonathan. We were not in a significant relationship. Yet I felt a sense of betrayal. He was my brother’s dear friend. I’d agreed to be with him in a social setting and I had hoped that perhaps a new relationship would help me push away any romantic feelings I still nurtured for Sherlock. Whether I acquiesced to Jonathan’s pursuit was immaterial. It would have meant I was reasserting my emotional independence, that I was willing to discard Sherlock from my life entirely.
I closed my eyes for a moment, willing my surroundings to disappear, willing the clattering of horses and hansoms that heaped this reality upon me to vanish into the fog. My mind went to the Broads, to the river where some beautiful creature is always going about its business. I was sitting on the grass, watching birds float above, flailing their wings... teal and wigeon, reed and sedge warblers. I watched a marsh harrier careen at full tilt, clapping its wings, stalling above a rock and then banking off across the river. And then the butterflies floated by, mute, graceful, leading a short life of pure innocence. Swallowtails or a rare Norfolk hawker dragonfly, turning at this angle and that on the wind, shadowing the sunlight, nesting on a fen orchid or a crested buckler fern, then taking flight once more and waving goodbye as it disappears into a chink.
Come, a voice said to me. Come home and be greeted by your friends back home. Walk along the river, navigate the patchwork of waterways, watch for the harvest mice and water shrews and listen, listen to the swans gliding along the water.
But no. Reality is fixed, demanding. I could feel the roar of it, rough and grating inside my head like the rumble of a mile-high wave seething and heaving and
