Soul

‘Come in, child,’ the woman said, ‘before the babe catches a fever. Your servant—that’ll be the one with the cheeky tongue—can wait outside.’

‘He is not my servant and he will come with me,’ Lavinia replied firmly, thankful that Meredith Murphy appeared sober.

The bedroom at the top of the boarding house was a loft with two windows that looked up to the sky. A china washstand stood in the corner of the room; there was a reasonably sized fireplace (at which knelt Bartholomew, the young boy Lavinia had met on her previous visit, puffing a pair of bellows into the flames), and a large bed, covered in a bedspread embroidered with the Brian Boru harp, was pushed against the wall.

Aidan, wrapped in blankets, lay sleeping in the middle of the lumpy horsehair mattress, his face softly oblivious to the mayhem that surrounded him, his bent arms raised to his ears, his fists clenched in his customary manner.

‘He might be a good man, but you cannot afford to love him, Lavinia. Have you ever stopped to think what this will do to his livelihood? You will be disgraced, but that coachman will, quite likely, never work again in this town. And he is naught but a boy.’

‘We will find a way.’

The two women sat in armchairs by the fire, Meredith smoking a clay pipe. Lavinia, made drowsy by the flickering flames, was dazed by the speed with which her circumstances had changed.

A portrait hung above the mantelpiece: her parents some twenty years earlier. Her father, dressed in his clerical robes, looked rawly earnest in his youthfulness, while Meredith was almost unrecognisable—there was an optimism in her wide cat-like face (no longer visible in the older woman) and her black eyes danced with wry humour. She sat in half-profile, looking up at her husband, the Reverend’s hand on her shoulder. Fascinated, Lavinia tried to fathom the sentiment that had made her mother keep the portrait all these years.

Emptying her pipe into the fire, Meredith coughed then spat to clear her lungs.

‘What of my grandson then—what can you offer him instead of his father’s fortune? Think I don’t know what it’s like to part with a child, to place its happiness before your own?’

‘But I am his mother,’ Lavinia replied faintly.

‘And I was one too. It is not a woman’s world, Lavinia; all marriages end up a prison and most husbands are rakes, whether it be in their dreams or on their travels. Your father would call your husband’s behaviour a sin, but in my profession I’ve learned there are all manner of

men and quirks and it is not for us to judge. You were blessed. Your prison was a palace. You should have stayed there.’

Reaching into the purse hanging off her belt, Lavinia pressed a one pound Bank of England note into her mother’s hand.

‘We’ll be leaving as soon as I’ve booked a passage to Marseilles.’

‘Save your money.’ Meredith handed back the note. Standing heavily on her walking stick, she limped to the door.

‘Lock yourself in tonight. I shouldn’t want any clients stumbling in. Sleep well, daughter.’

‘But where will you sleep?’

‘Sleep?’ She broke into a cackle that finished with a wheeze. ‘Morpheus and I have not had words for years.’

Lavinia bolted the door and, after blowing the candles out, lay down on the bed. A moment later a loud thud somewhere below, followed by the sound of a man groaning in pleasure, made her sit up. She wrapped the lumpy old pillow around her ears then broke into a sneezing fit because of the dust. Another loud cry from the room beneath woke her ten minutes later; it seemed as if the rickety terrace was literally shaking with the spooning that was occurring between its thin walls. Somewhere below, someone started to play reedy-thin but beautiful violin music. Lavinia wondered what manner of musician would play in a brothel. Suddenly, she was scratching furiously; after locating the culprit, she crushed the bedbug between her fingernails.

She lifted Aidan into her arms, his sleepy head lolling against her bosom, and stared up at the night sky while the music of the violin filled the bedroom like writhing snakes.

‘I will have you dismissed without a character reference. You will be utterly without employment. I promise you, you will see the inside of Mount Street workhouse within the month.’

The Colonel stood in front of the huge marble fireplace, his voice barely containing his rage.

‘That might be, sir, but I cannot help you for I’ve no idea where Mrs Huntington is.’

The Colonel’s cane smashed down onto a console, cracking the marble top and narrowly missing the coachman. Aloysius did not flinch.

‘Damn you! This is my wife and child!’

His narrow shoulders hunched, his eyes downcast, Aloysius tried to think only of the notion of a new life awaiting him across the Channel.

‘I am sorry, I cannot help you, Colonel.’

Staring at the gaunt young Irishman, whose truculence transformed him into a graceless block of wood, the Colonel wondered what Lavinia had seen in the youth.

‘You are dismissed. Pack your bags and collect your papers. I expect you out of the house by tonight.’