Dazed and shivering, still kneeling, she turns to fix her view on something, anything recognizable. Pagoda-like piers. Winding stairs. A river busy with small steamers and their lamps glaring through an approaching fog. Human and boat traffic of the Thames. And she is still here. Utterly, shockingly, impossibly, still here. She crosses herself again and again.
She tests her legs; they lead her from the floating piers at the quay and up the winding stairs past a little wooden house with signs that direct passengers to ‘Pay Here for Taking Boat’. She trudges past people who gawk at her. Onward she trails through the Hungerford market in which she descends the stairs to the fish market.
The mud on Verity’s mourning gown attracts the fish scales and bones underfoot and, as if they are alive and entities unto themselves, they attach to her trailing skirts. When she reaches the narrow passageway lined with advertisements that lead her away from the market and the river, the nightlife of St Martin’s Lane greets her and she shrinks from the cacophony it produces.
‘I must walk … I need to walk. Soho Square.’ Her gravelly voice shocks her.
When Long Acre appears she turns off to navigate the small maze of streets in Soho. The longer she walks, the more she is mantled by shame and guilt. She expects her sister may never forgive her. But what is important now, this moment, is the fact of the miracle. She seeks Father O’Brien.
The privileged have long fled Soho. Prostitutes swan their way through their purlieus; music halls and small theatres have moved in. The buildings are crammed, and their open windows discharge the first smoke and song of the evening.
Verity toils on towards Soho Square, dragging her black skirts that glitter with mud spots of silver fish skin and scales. She recognizes the gardens as she draws closer. The poorest of the poor swing their children over the iron railings surrounding the garden so that they might relieve themselves before they are put to sleep with sips of gin in the nearby rookery.
Behind Carlisle House sits the two-storey Catholic chapel of St Patrick’s. Francis Lawless had contributed heavily, moved as he was by the poor Irish trying to survive in desperate circumstances in the surrounding parish of St Giles.
Verity makes a fist and pounds on the door. Her eyes sting from the nasty river water. It takes more than one attempt before the door creaks open.
‘Sister, I must see Father O’Brien,’ Verity pleads.
The sister opens her mouth and shuts it straight away. She cannot fathom the creature she sees in the light of the gas lamp.
‘I am a miracle, Sister, a miracle!’
‘Yes, yes, aren’t we all, aren’t we all. I’ve over two hundred miracles that want feeding soup and bread this very moment. And Father O’Brien visits the rookery at the risk of his health.’
‘But he must hear my confession, I must tell him about the miracle.’
The sister heaves a weary sigh. Another lost to the drink, she thinks.
‘Go on now. We haven’t room tonight. The father will be late returning and a good deal exhausted he’ll be, too.’
‘I am the daughter of Francis Lawless, who was one of the largest benefactors of this chapel.’
‘Yes, dear, and I am related to Prince Albert.’
The door slams shut.
‘Ah!’
She turns away, rendered speechless by the cold reception. Overcome by the cruelties of the day, Verity sinks to the pavement in front of the iron fencing that borders the chapel.
Though her empty coin purse is lost in the Thames, she slips her hand in the side seams of her gown where between her underpetticoat and her petticoat her pocket is still tied to her waist. There is enough to procure a cab and suddenly she wants nothing more than to be at Lawless House with her sister. A hansom has just let down one of the square’s residents. The driver leans down to hear the instructions, wary of her dreadful appearance, but when Verity offers him much more than his regular shilling a mile, he whistles in delight.
A fairly clean blanket is provided which she now pulls over her muddied and reeking gown. The cab jerks forward to begin its long journey to Camden Town.
‘It is Verity! She is home! Come, Constance,’ Percy shouts out from the front door of Lawless House.
Constance lifts her skirts and runs to the door. Percy leaps to the cab and opens the folding doors that cover Verity’s legs.
‘What a fright you gave us!’ Constance steps out into the bitter evening air. And what a fright you look! Good Christ, Verity!’
‘Constance, Percy. A miracle.’ Verity calls out.
Once all are inside, Constance and Percy pace the drawing room, passing each other time after time while they wait for Verity to change her sodden clothes.
‘Cognac, Constance?’ Percy asks.
‘No, I cannot drink it. Annoyingly, I have gone off it. I do not know why.’
‘Finish your tea then, you need your strength, too.’
Finally, Verity is clean and dressed warmly under her white banyan. She nervously fingers her rosary beads.
‘Where in the bloody hell have you been? Your sister and I have almost gone insane.’ Percy is red-faced and unusually angry.
‘Percy! I have never before heard you swear!’ Constance is taken aback.
‘This is a night for it, Constance.’
‘Are we alone?’ Verity asks.
‘Yes, Thomas drives Rachael home now. He’ll return the trap in the morning. What has happened to you Verity, we cannot wait a moment longer. And I am becoming very cross,’ Constance says. ‘Here, sit down by the fire.’
‘You will be crosser, dear sister. And you, Percy.’
‘Go on,’ Percy says.
‘God forgive me, I …’ Verity sits and looks away from them and into the flames, ashamed.
Constance perches on an arm of the sofa squeezing a cushion, her knuckles white with tension. Percy pours another whisky and sits beside her. They wait.
‘I have been to Temple Stairs.’ Verity puts her fist to her lips and shakes her head. ‘You see, I wished for nothing
