The Essex Serpent(56)

That afternoon, as rain gathered in the gutters in the Tower Hamlets streets and poured from the eaves, Edward said, ‘He came to see me again, the Scottish man. He prayed with me and left some money.’ This was John Galt, whose tent mission in Bethnal Green brought the gospel to the city alongside temperance and improved personal hygiene. Martha knew of him – had seen his photographs recording the city at its worst – and deplored his tender Christian conscience. ‘He prayed, did he?’ She shook her head and said, ‘Never trust a do-gooder,’ disliking as always the connection between righteousness and weather-proof walls.

‘It’s not only that he does good,’ said Edward, thoughtfully. He surveyed a chip before putting it in his mouth. ‘I think he is good.’

‘Don’t you see that this is the trouble – that it’s not a question of goodness – it’s a question of duty! You think it’s kindness to bring you money and ask if the walls are damp and leave you in God’s hands, wherever they are, but it’s our right to live decently, it shouldn’t be a gift from our betters – oh!’ She laughed. ‘See how easily that came out! Our betters! What, because they never put money on the dogs or drank themselves stupid!’

‘What are you going to do about it, then?’ He said it with good humour so deeply buried that only Martha could’ve seen it there. She finished her meal, and wiping the oil from her mouth with the back of her hand said, ‘Plans are afoot, Edward Burton, mark my words. I’ve written to a man who can help – always comes down to money, doesn’t it, in the end? Money and influence, and God knows I’ve no money and not much influence but I’ll use what I’ve got.’ She thought briefly of Spencer, and his way of looking at her slightly askance, and felt a little ashamed.

‘Wish I could have a hand in it,’ said Edward, and with a gesture that took in his thin legs – thinner now than ever, since he could not run ten paces without losing his breath – he looked briefly hopeless. He’d taken his place in the city without considering it, until this woman with her hair like a rope and her brisk way of talking had stood on one of his mother’s rugs and raged at what she’d seen in the streets. Now it would be impossible to walk from one end of Bethnal Green to the other without thinking how that dark labyrinth of mean housing had a consciousness all of its own, operating on everyone who lived in it. At night, when his mother slept, he took out rolls of white paper and made drawings of high, wide buildings that let in the light, with good water running through them.

Martha withdrew her umbrella from under the chair and unfurled it, sighing at the rain running thickly down the window-pane. ‘I don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I can do. But something’s going to change. Can’t you feel it?’

He was not certain he could, but then she kissed him on the cheek, and shook his hand, as if she could not decide which greeting suited them best. At the door she paused, because he called out after her: ‘It was my fault, you know.’

‘Your fault? What is – what’ve you done?’ It was so unlike him to speak unprompted that she was afraid to move and startle him out of it.

‘This,’ he said, and lightly touched his breast. ‘I know who did it, and why. I deserved it, you know. Or if not this – something.’

She returned to her chair, not speaking, turning away to pluck at a thread loose on her sleeve. He knew it was done to spare him, and there was a movement in his damaged heart.

‘I was such an ordinary person,’ he said. ‘It was such an ordinary life. I had a bit of savings. I was going to get a place of my own, though I didn’t mind living here: we’ve always got on all right. I didn’t mind my job, only sometimes got bored and made plans of buildings that’ll never be built. Now they tell me I’m a miracle, or whatever does for miracles these days.’

Martha said, ‘There are no ordinary lives.’

‘At any rate, it was my fault,’ he said, and recounted how content he’d been, there at his desk at Holborn Bars, awaiting the clock’s chime and the hour of freedom. He’d had a popularity he neither sought nor enjoyed, and suspected his peers were conned by his height, and by the biting wit he could barely remember possessing. The Edward who’d fallen in the shadow of the cathedral was not the silent man that Martha knew. That other man had been always laughing at this or that; his temper had been quick, hot, and soon extinguished. Since his own bad moods passed swiftly, he was heedless of the lasting harm his careless blows might cause. But the blows did fall – they did cause harm: ‘It was just teasing,’ he said. ‘We didn’t think anything of it. He didn’t seem to mind. You couldn’t tell, with Hall. He only ever looked miserable, so what did it matter?’

‘Hall?’ said Martha.

‘Samuel Hall. We never called him Sam. That’s telling, isn’t it?’

No: he didn’t seem to mind, thought Burton, but telling it now to Martha he flushed with shame. Samuel Hall, unblessed with good looks or good humour; arriving in his drab coat a minute before the working day and departing a minute after its end; resentfully diligent, entirely unremarkable. But they had remarked on him – lightly perhaps, and in hopes of drawing out some buried wit – and it had been Edward, laughing, always at the fore.

‘I couldn’t help thinking there was something so funny about how unhappy he was. Do you understand? You couldn’t take him seriously. He could’ve dropped dead right there at his desk and we’d’ve all laughed.’