Children of the Tide. Jon Redfern

      Chapter Six

      Lardle and Co.

      At this same hour in fashionable Bedford Square, a distinguished-looking gentleman opened up the back door to Number Sixteen. The house was a three-storey brick affair with an iron gate and silk curtains at the windows. Number Sixteen lay a world away from Drury Lane, where the St. Giles Workhouse stood in early afternoon gloom. The gentleman’s name was Josiah Benton, a physician and regular church-goer. He had not slept the whole night. He looked again at the clock in the hall behind him. “Where in blazes is the filthy man?” he mumured to himself. He felt a constriction in his throat. He brushed down his velvet waistcoat, his front pocket stuffed with coins ready to pay his hireling, Mr. Lardle, if the wretch would ever return from his search.

      Dr. Josiah Benton was a proud man, highly respected for his accurate diagnoses of his patients’ symptoms. Today, like all others in his work week, he had to ready himself for the exigencies of his surgery. No doubt, given his restless night, he would have to fill his stomach with coffee to keep his mind alert. A solitary gentleman one year short of forty, he had enjoyed being the son of a wealthy father and had learned much from his fine education; he had taken full advantage of his youthful travels, relishing the pleasures of drink and rich food. Fortunate he had been, but he was plagued these days by a pervading loneliness ever since his wife had decided to leave him two years before. Dear Dorothea. She had accused him of unnatural appetites, a phrase which frequently had amused Dr. Benton. For without doubt, Josiah Benton was a man of peculiar passions. He frequently gave in to his penchant for secret games — behaviour which his wife argued had undermined her notions of a proper marriage.

      The one true tragedy in Dr. Benton’s life was his lack of children. Dorothea had been barren. The absence of offspring had been another motive in the dissolution of their marriage.

      “Ah, dear little ones,” Dr. Benton now sighed, the chilly air catching his breath. Pushing thoughts of his wife from his mind, Dr. Benton stepped back inside Number Sixteen. He went downstairs to the area kitchen in the basement where his cook was preparing his lunch. This sudden change of venue lifted his spirits. He nodded to Mrs. Wells, then walked up the servants’ stairs into his surgery and looked through the list of patients he was to greet within the hour. His was a thin, well-formed body, carefully nourished except for the occasional glass of sherry and a monthly visit, incognito, to one of the opium houses in Soho. He brushed his waistcoat again, then with sudden delight marched out of his panelled office. He had heard, at last, the light tapping on the back door.

      “No need,” he said to his eager butler who was rushing to raise the latch. “I shall attend,” Dr. Benton said. In fact, he must attend, given the business at hand. Of course, the hour was too late now for him to take advantage. If in fact the scum man had been able to do his duty. Often, the man arrived empty-handed. All Dr. Benton knew of him was that he was poor, and was once an orphan brought up in a workhouse. Pulling open the back door, the doctor viewed his hireling.

      “The hour, Mr. Lardle,” scolded Dr. Benton. “I have been up all the night. I must to my surgery soon.”

      The bedraggled fellow bowed his head in reply. He wore long unwashed hair; his face was masked by a poorly kept beard; a large black hat — a dredgerman’s hat, the doctor surmised — covered much of his face, and if truth be told, he so often arrived in the dark that Dr. Benton had never had opportunity to look long or close enough at the man’s rough features. This morning his hands were smudged. To the doctor’s eye they suggested Lardle had been washing in coal dust. As always, the man had a stink; more likely his rotten teeth or his unwashed torso, Dr. Benton concluded.

      “Nought to yer taste, Doctor Benton.” Lardle’s head hung low, his face shadowed by his hat.

      “What in blazes do you mean? None on the streets, by the bridges?”

      “ Fled, sir. Dashed away when I comes close.”

      “Donkey,” the doctor retorted. “You’ve smashed your knuckles?”

      “Yes, sir. All night I been up and down, in and out. Searched every which ways, I did. Found two but not right they were, sir. Not for you. Scarred one of ’em was, not right. Not a fit, sir.”

      “And the nanny houses?”

      “As I been tellin’ you, sir, they keep ’em indoors. Up the stairs. You must go to ’em.”

      “How many times have I told you, Lardle, that is impossible.”

      “Yes, sir,” said the man in a hoarse whisper.

      “I suppose you want coin for your trouble tonight?”

      “If it be no bother, sir,” replied the man, trembling in the afternoon drizzle. “And if yer wishes it, I found one last minute, near Covent Garden.” The dirty man raised his left hand and pointed to the brick archway leading into the courtyard of Dr. Benton’s private lot. A woman in a bonnet, a face soured by poverty and illness. Damp feathers in her bonnet, hands gloved in shredded muslin.

      “You are a mad dog,” snapped Dr. Benton. “Why bring me a scull, sir?”

      Mr. Lardle signalled to the woman with his hand. She stepped forward and pulled with her a short, light-haired girl, no older than thirteen, thin, rouged, her tattered dress made of blue cotton. “Says her daughter is a good ’un, sir. Makes her mum a few coin a day for food. Been at it a couple o’ years now.”

      “Good God, Lardle.”

      Dr. Benton stepped into the courtyard, waving the two figures to go back under the arch. He surveyed the upper and lower windows of his house to be sure there were no gawking house maids peering down at his doings. In the dimness of the archway, Dr. Benton examined the face of the young girl. She had been pretty but life had already hardened her face and taken two of her front teeth. The girl’s mother stretched out her hand. “For my trouble, guvnor, if you’d be so pleased.”

      “Come here,” Dr. Benton called to Mr. Lardle, who came hobbling over to the archway.

      “Never humiliate me nor women of this ilk ever again, Lardle, and never at this daylight hour. You know what I want. You have done it before. When you search, you must put effort into it. Pay these pathetic creatures and then get yourself off to home.”

      “But sir,” Lardle said, “I ain’t got but tuppence.”

      Dr. Josiah Benton grasped the coins in his pocket and tossed them toward the man. “Take these and go away,” he commanded before turning and moving back toward his back door. As he entered the house, Dr. Benton could hear the two street females giggling in a mocking fashion as they bent down to grasp the coins. “Come away, come away,” Mr. Lardle growled at the two of them. From the kitchen window, Dr. Benton watched them go and gave out a sigh of relief. He despised the tone his voice had taken, but it was the only way to deal with such people. Mr. Lardle most times could be trusted to be discrete. As long as he was paid.

      “Sir?” said a female voice behind him. Dr. Benton turned to see his cook holding a wooden spoon.

      “Your luncheon, sir, is ready,” she said.

      “Good,” snapped Dr. Benton.

      The woman gave a quick curtsey as Dr. Josiah Benton made his way toward the dining room. Sitting down alone, he said grace. An ache of despair filled his chest; such disappointment after his night vigil. “Now what to do?” he asked himself. “How desperate must I become? What must I do to find another?” he whispered, his mind full of doubt.