The Devil’s Acre. Matthew Plampin
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sighed sharply, her head dipping forward.
‘D’you know him?’ Caroline asked.
Her sister rubbed at her eyes with a bony, needle-scarred knuckle. ‘He was a porter with Mart and Jack in Covent Garden,’ she replied, ‘but they’re old pals. From Ireland. There’s a whole group. I – I was hoping that Mart had broken with them, by moving to Colt and all, but I had me doubts.’ Amy hesitated. ‘It’s just that Pat Slattery is – is – he’s –’ Merely saying the name made her slip on her words and lose her way. She was frightened.
‘D’you think they’re up to something? Planning mischief – or thievery?’
Amy shook her head. ‘No. No. Martin wouldn’t. He’s a good man, Caro. He’s never been nothing but kind to Michael and Katie and me.’
Caroline scowled, made immediately impatient by this unconditional loyalty. ‘Oh Amy, for Christ’s sake, listen to yourself! Where is he right now, if he’s such a saint? It’s the dead of night, you’re alone with your babies in this wretched place with no coal and no food even, and where is your precious Martin? Out drinking up his wages, that’s where, propping up some bar with the legion of the bloody useless!’
Katie caught the heat in her aunt’s voice and gazed at her questioningly. The girl’s almond-shaped eyes – the same eyes as Caroline and Amy – were open wide, her lower lip starting to tremble. Caroline made a shushing noise, bounced Katie up and down rather briskly, and then gave her another piece of the sandwich.
Amy, too, grew annoyed. ‘He is gentle,’ she said. ‘Not once has he so much as raised his hand to any of us. And he is true – do you have any notion of how rare that is, Caro?’
Caroline rolled her eyes; her sister would often resort to this tactic. ‘How could I possibly, Amy, unmarried as I am?’
This sarcasm was ignored. ‘Neither does he pay any notice to the many spiteful things that are said out in the Court. They call him a traitor to Ireland, to his people, as he is bound to an Englishwoman with half-English issue. And he does not pay them any notice at all.’ Her pale cheeks were colouring, and her voice becoming yet more insistent. ‘He is my husband, Caro.’
‘Only in the eyes of Rome,’ Caroline retorted. Her blood was up now. ‘Where was it you was betrothed? A chapel in an old potter’s shed on Orchard Street, weren’t it, by some crack-brained boggler of a priest? You ain’t no Catholic, Amy. Your union with Martin Rea is founded on a flaming lie.’
Amy didn’t respond. She fell quite silent, in fact, reaching over to pick at her artificial rose. Caroline itched with shame. Yet again, she’d gone a step too far; she’d said things she hadn’t meant, regretting them even as they passed through her lips. She didn’t, in truth, give two farthings for religion of any kind, yet here she was coming on like some doorstep Evangelical raging against Papist heresy. This was often the way between the sisters these days: an almost accidental battle, with the victor plunged into miserable remorse the second it was concluded.
‘I’ll bet you’re right, anyway,’ Caroline said at last, as if making a concession, attempting to mask her guilt with breezy cheerfulness. ‘Lord, you couldn’t steal from the bloomin’ Yankees even if you were stupid enough to try. They’re far too careful. I ain’t so much as seen a complete pistol in all the time I been there.’ She cast a look around the tiny, dirty room. ‘We stand to turn a decent penny off this Colonel Colt, Amy – your Mart in particular, what with this Mr Quill looking out for him. You’ll be leaving the Devil’s Acre, I should think, before this year’s out. I’ve found lodgings just along the river, in Millbank, in a new terrace next to a lumber yard. You could do very nicely over there.’
Katie had finished the sandwich but wanted more. Whimpering, she tugged at the front of Caroline’s apron. When nothing else was produced, the whimper grew into a low, continuous moan, the infant’s smooth little berry of a face crumpling with distress.
Amy stood, wrapping a thin shawl around her shoulders. ‘This is our home, Caroline,’ she said coldly. ‘We ain’t going nowhere.’ Then she crossed the room and took back her child.
London dirt coated the window beside Caroline’s drilling machine like a sheet of cheap brown paper. She had to lean up close to the pane to see anything much through it at all. Her ears had not misled her; down in the courtyard were the thirty or so men employed in the forging shop. Released to take their dinner, they were wandering towards the river, over to the row of costermongers and victual-sellers that had set up on the near side of Ponsonby Street to snag custom from the new Colt factory. All had removed their caps in the April sunshine and were smoking hungrily after their morning’s labour. After passing through the tall factory gates, most simply selected a stall, made their purchases and walked back into the yard, eating as they went. A small number lingered, however, taking time to choose or trying to haggle down the price.
There was an angry, affronted shout from the direction of a boiler-cart selling steamed potatoes. Caroline squinted, looking closer. A dark, fierce-looking man, quite short and thin but utterly fearless, was cursing loudly in a strong Irish accent, making an energetic complaint to the stallholder. It was Pat Slattery, the fellow she’d seen with Martin and Mr Quill in the Eagle – whose name alone had caused her sister such alarm. A handful of others, his Roscommon boys, rushed to his side, raising their voices along with his. Martin’s stooped, broad-shouldered form was not among them. Caroline supposed that he must be off somewhere doing the bidding of the chief engineer.
Slattery and his friends started rocking the cart back and forth, and a dull clang rang out as one of them struck the boiler with his fist. The rest promptly followed suit, and soon the squat iron tank was under a prolonged, noisy attack. The stallholder did not try to weather this battering for long, driving his dented boiler-cart off towards Vauxhall Bridge in a hail of oaths and stones, whipping his braying mule for all he was worth. The Irishmen patted each other’s backs, nodding with the curt satisfaction of a job well done. They paid visits to a couple of the surrounding stalls – which served them quickly, waving away payment – and then came back through the factory gates, joking with each other as they settled against a wall to eat. These were creatures from the Devil’s Acre, Caroline thought; that was their natural place. What could possibly have lured them out to this Yankee’s factory in Pimlico? It wasn’t just the daily wage, that was for certain. Amy was wrong – something was going on here.
Nancy, the girl across from Caroline, cleared her throat pointedly. This could only mean that Mr Alvord, their overseer, was approaching. Abruptly, Caroline turned from the window and reapplied herself to her labours. The drilling machine was about the size of a household mangle, but far more intricate and weighty in construction. Everything centred on the pistol part held in its middle by an elaborate clamp. This particular part was called the hammer, but to Caroline it looked more like a small twig or a wishbone. It was certainly hard to imagine this delicate piece of steel fitting into anything as deadly as a gun; hang it on a length of chain, she’d thought when first she saw it, and it would make a pretty pendant. Two different-sized holes had been run through the hammer presently fixed in the machine, which meant that there was one more left to do. The rotating head suspended before her held three drill-bits. At that moment, however, she couldn’t for the life of her remember which bit to use.
Compared with other factories that Caroline had seen – a few mills and potteries, glimpsed from the street – the machine floor of the Colt works was almost disturbingly quiet. The labour done there largely involved making adjustments, aligning clamps and so on; the machines were actually engaged for a few seconds only, and would emit no more than a high, rasping whine. There was the slapping of the belts, and the constant background hum of the brass driving cylinder overhead, but for much of the time the floor was swaddled in a schoolroom hush. The sound of men’s boots coming up behind her was thus clearly audible, and she stiffened at it; there were at least five pairs of them. Chancing a backwards glance, twisting momentarily atop her stool, she saw that the chubby, bland-faced Mr Alvord was surrounded by numerous others, more than she had time to count. They were