The Black Charade. John Burke
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a less valued customer than yourself I’d charge more. We’re having a lot of troubles. Expensive troubles. Our special consignments from France have been intercepted more than once—terrible loss.’
‘Terrible.’
‘And when we have translations printed over here, we get some remarkably meddlesome printers. One firm has been known to complain to the authorities. I hear poor Vizetelly’s in a spot of bother, for one. Need a lot of care. And that means a lot of money.’
‘Disgraceful interference.’
‘I couldn’t agree more, sir. Why, there’s two Members of Parliament talking this very week of tightening up regulations, of closing down shops which offer the cream of intellectual society like yourself the intelligent reading matter it has every right to demand. What do we send these men to Parliament for: to represent us, or to persecute us?’
They shook their heads over the evils of the administration.
‘Five pounds, you said?’
‘Five guineas, sir.’
A minute later Wentworth was wrapping the volume up.
When his satisfied customer had gone, he turned his attention back to the window. Some titles could be moved to one side to make room for the newer ones. One had best be taken out altogether: A Primer for the Pleaser, Issued by a Gentleman’s Personal Attendant, which, for some reason, was hanging fire. Perhaps it would attract more notice if it were left on a shelf inside, where it could be picked up and opened at random.
In the back room, in packing three more French novelties, he let his eyes stray again to the book of plates he had set on the shelf. He turned a page; thought of Annie in such a posture; looked at the clock and saw that twilight was closing in.
Across the courtyard the lamplighter raised his pole. Framed in the entrance of the alley to the Strand, stooping into a pool of light, a boot-black rubbed vigorously at a gentleman’s high-buttoned shoes.
Wentworth went to stand in his open doorway for a few contemplative minutes.
He had stood here so many times waiting for Annie to pass with her father’s barrow, wanting to be sure of not missing her. Now he had no need to fret, to count the minutes. All he had to do was close the door and make his way upstairs.
He closed the door and bolted it.
Annie leaned, slender and wilting, against the window frame. She must have heard him opening and then closing the door, and had propped herself there to look dreamily down into the courtyard. She was like a slender young boy, idling as a lad would, gawky and languid and uncommitted. The room was untidy, very much as he had left it this morning, but with a torn skirt dropped on a chair and two unwashed teacups added to those already on the table. Tidy in himself and in his household, Edgar Wentworth ought to have reproached her. But one cheeky, gamin smile from her, and he was incapable of anything but gratitude that she should be here.
‘You’ve closed early, aintcher?’
‘Got to go out this evening.’
Her face became petulant at once: because she thought he would expect it of her, or because she was genuinely vexed?
‘You’re not goin’ down there again?’ The Cockney rasp was shrill and threatening.
‘I’m merely going to visit a client with...er...a valuable collection for sale.’
‘Oh, yes?’ She mimicked a fierce scowl, which puckered up her little button face. ‘Lor, yes, I’ve heard that one.’ She paused, pushed herself upright and ran her hands over her hips. ‘I’ll give yer the strap if yer late.’
‘Yes,’ he said happily.
She looked at the large, flat book under his arm. ‘You an’ yer books.’
He pushed cups to one side, flicking away a few crumbs with his free hand, and put the book on the table. Annie approached as he opened it. From the far side of the table she stared at the engravings upside-down, then edged round to his side and rubbed against him, giving off a stale warm smell as warm and animal as that of the trim little donkey she had once accompanied.
‘Coo,’ she said. ‘Fancy them putting that sort of thing in books.’ She studied the fine interlocking lines and interlocked bodies. ‘Well, then. Is that what you fancy?’
He managed a nod.
‘Thought you was going out.’
‘There’s time,’ he said hoarsely, ‘before I go.’
‘And that’ll make sure yer don’t fancy anyone else while yer gone, eh?’
Her voice coarsened, and her laugh was harsh. This was how he loved her most. Her stubby fingers began to pluck at his buttons. When her hand, still rough and sandpapery from the work she used to do but did no longer, reached his flesh he let out a moan which abruptly cracked, making her shriek with laughter and attack him even more violently. Then her slim nakedness twisted away from him. A red glow of firelight ran up her leg into the shadows of dark enticement. She spun slowly, steadied herself, and stooped. ‘Like this?’ Her growl was the slow, preliminary flick of a whip. Her mouth quivered, her hands opened like claws. And when he was drawn on to her, torn by her teeth and claws and then drowned in her, she goaded him with words he had read in the books on his shelves but never heard sung like this, never known as such a wildness of flailing, biting ecstasy.
When they had finished, she was content to lie where she had rolled from him, limbs spread lax and wide on the floor, her mouth still open and murmuring away into silence, while he went to wash. He came back with a clean shirt and dressed by the sitting room fire while she watched him through half-closed eyes, occasionally letting her tongue make a drowsy exploration of her bruised lips.
He adjusted his cuffs. ‘Well, I must be off.’
‘Mmm.’ She yawned, and stroked her thigh indifferently. She was so slight, she looked little more than a child. But he remembered the strong grip of her legs; and the lacerations in his back were beginning to sting.
‘Have you had any further thoughts,’ he said, ‘about going to school?’
She pouted. ‘You want to get rid of me?’
‘I only want you to be occupied during the day. Some day establishment for young ladies, now—how would that suit?’
She sat up slowly. Between such tiny breasts the fire cast only the faintest line of shadow. ‘Suits me awright the way things are.’
She picked at the corner of a toenail. ‘What’s wrong wiv just bein’ here?’
‘But what do you find to do all day?’
‘Just knock about. Could start working me way through them books of yours, I s’pose. That’d be what you might call an education, wouldn’t it?’
‘Mind you don’t get them dirty,’ he said fondly.
‘I’d say they was pretty dirty already.’
Her laugh followed him and went on ringing in his ears as he left the house. He wanted to stay. But it was for her sake, and for his own love of her, that he was going out. The paradox would have amused her if she had known; and if she had understood.
She had never so much as set foot in a ragged Sunday School. It would take careful education and a lot of application on her part before she could grasp what their life together might be, and what she must contribute.
There was time.
With luck there would be a long, long time. He would be changed and renewed. That was the promise.
He crossed Kemble Court, glancing up once at the lighted window over the shop. She was safely inside, now. Safely lodged where she belonged, instead of crossing the courtyard only at intervals, flitting unpredictably in and out of his life.
* * * *
She