‘I have a persistent cough I cannot shift,’ Mrs Wiggs would say. ‘It must be the fog. It creeps under the doors, along with the soot and filth and the disease that floats this way from that stinking pit they call the Thames. And the smell…! I cannot open a window for fear of inhaling poison and I cannot open the back doors because we will be taken over by flies. I cannot breathe in this city. What if the bad air has given me consumption? I wonder how long I have left.’
‘It is not the bad air, Mrs Wiggs. Those are old-fashioned ideas. We have germ theory now. It’s the diseases lurking inside other people that will kill you. If they cough or sneeze, you will be done for, so you best not invite anyone in.’ I could not help but tease her from behind whatever newspaper I was devouring in search of more news on the murder, pulling faces like a child as I did so.
She kept a detailed account of whenever there was a light mist on the Thames. It was as if she believed the underworld would creep out of the river.
‘It is impenetrable! I cannot see more than twelve feet in front of me. No wonder criminals and thieves come to London; it gives them the perfect conditions for their deviancy. The smell sticks to the drapery, the linens, the rugs. I cannot rid my nostrils of this foul odour.’
‘I thought your nose was blocked because of the consumption?’ I said.
‘Unlike you, Mrs Lancaster, I am not a city dweller. I miss the clean air and flowers of the country. I suppose it is the river’s revenge for having all that effluent flushed into it. One day it will rise up and come back to kill us. I do wish we could go back to using cesspits. Life seemed much simpler then.’
‘It is much healthier sending the waste into the sewers.’
‘I’m not convinced these modern solutions are as good as we are led to believe,’ she replied, covering her mouth and nose with a scented handkerchief. ‘One must take responsibility for one’s output; you cannot simply flush it away.’
Aside from fretting about the murderous germs, she was also convinced we were wasteful and would go about the house turning the gas lamps off, or refusing to put them on altogether, issuing candles and hiding the rest in her bedroom. I began to harvest half-burned candles and then ask for more, although I swear she routinely searched my room for contraband. I learned to feel my way around the house soon enough, but in the beginning I was forever bumping into furniture and stubbing my toes, bruising my knees, straining my eyes and cursing in the dark. We always had the drapes closed to keep the filth out, the lights off to save the gas, and the candles rationed to save money. It was as if we were in hiding, waiting for some horrible event to be over before we could start living.
The one time I challenged her on her candle rationing, I soon came to regret it. She gave me a lecture on the prudent running of a house for at least half an hour – as if she would let me have anything to do with it.
‘Running a house economically is a virtue unto itself, Mrs Lancaster. Regardless of income, a thrifty woman is a morally upright woman. We are using six pounds of candles in a week! Are we eating them? Whoever heard of burning six pounds of candles in a week in a house as small… as… as this?’ She glanced about herself, as if she were standing in a fourpence-a-night doss house. ‘At Abbingdale Hall we used twenty pounds of candles and I do not need to tell you – or I suppose I do, as you have never been there – it is a great deal larger than this house.’
I hadn’t felt so managed at the hospital, and there I’d had Matron to report to. I was mistress of this house in name only. I felt like an imposter. I had not been to Abbingdale Hall to meet my in-laws. I had not met a single relative and I wondered if they even knew of our marriage. What kind of husband failed to take his wife to meet his family? Mrs Wiggs liked to remind me of this at regular intervals. She saw it hurt me once and kept trying to find the same spot.
8
Chelsea was a confused area: neglected in parts and immaculate in others. It had a small parade of shops and big shady trees along the shore where the boats were moored. When there was a strong wind, I could sometimes catch the scent of tar and oil from the shipyards. Our road was a clutter of tall, shallow-faced houses with iron-railed fronts and flagstone paths, and a pavement lined with lime trees.
The house itself was old, spacious and well built and would doubtless survive long after I was gone. Each storey extended at least forty feet, which felt huge compared to what I was used to. It was almost strange not being cooped up in
