The Street Philosopher Read online

  Thorne straightened his cuffs. ‘Well, I must say that it is a welcome change. We had grown used to you being the Star’s very own Saint Jerome, Kitson, cowering away in the shadows–but now, all of a sudden, you seem to be the epitome of the well-connected gentleman. I look forward to it opening up a whole new dimension in your work.’ The editor tapped at Kitson’s shoulder with his cane. ‘Aha, look! The Buckle King is among us! And with both offspring in tow!’

  Kitson sat up, leaning a little closer to the balcony rail. She was not hard to locate. Compared with the lace-laden ladies through whom she moved, Mrs James was a model of taste and restraint. Her pale blue dress was worn with only a modest crinoline and a simple flounce, complemented by a dark shawl and bonnet. She drew condescending and occasionally hostile glances from those around her, but ignored them all completely. As she passed into the nave, taking it in, the look on her face suggested a reluctant admiration.

  Thorne followed the direction of his gaze. ‘The widow Jemima. A soul with a natural bent to controversy, they say; quixotic, rebellious, a constant source of concern to her father.’ He studied Kitson more closely. ‘Are you two acquainted, Kitson, perchance?’

  ‘We met on the night Major Wray was stabbed. She saw me with him on Mosley Street, and we—’

  ‘So this is the true motivation behind all this initiative, this dextrous ingenuity! Mrs Jemima James!’ The Star’s editor rapped the end of his cane smartly against the balcony’s metal floor. ‘And there was I, naïve fool that I am, assuming that you acted out of dedication to me, to my paper!’

  Kitson could not help grinning. ‘I have not forgotten the Star, Thorne. Never fear.’

  Thorne sighed, sitting back in his chair. ‘Well, I wish you luck, Kitson, honestly I do. The only advice I can offer is of a depressingly traditional nature, I’m afraid: beware the father. Like all men who have but recently arrived at their fortunes, Norton seeks to elevate himself, and is unlikely to be pleased by the advances of a lowly newspaperman.’ His face darkened a little. ‘Believe me, these self-made men are ruthless fellows–and that one particularly so.’

  The street philosopher looked across the hall to Charles Norton, the so-called Buckle King. He was in his mid-fifties, bewhiskered and austere, the classic figure of the Manchester labour-lord. He was conversing solemnly with other grandees, accepting compliments on the Exhibition as if it were all his doing alone–as if there weren’t another eighty-nine men on the Exhibition Committee, and an Executive Committee to boot.

  His children, meanwhile, were heading off into the crowd without him. William Norton, clad in a ruby-red cravat and yellow waistcoat, had taken his sister’s hand; they weaved around a gleaming marble statue of a sinuous classical huntsman and slipped through a gap between two display cases crammed with ornamental silverware. Kitson realised that they were making for a trio of chairs positioned off to one side of the dais, deep in the shadow cast by the southern balcony, which were being held for them by a willowy, long-haired young man. Like William Norton, he was extravagantly dressed, and his face was alive with anticipation. He greeted the siblings effusively, shaking their hands with great warmth. Before the three had time to sit, a ripple of applause started down by the doors, gathering quickly to a rousing ovation. Kitson could see nothing, but word soon travelled along the balcony that Lord Overstone, the Exhibition’s president, had just made his entrance, and now stood in place ready to welcome Prince Albert. It would not be long now.

  ‘Alfred Keane,’ Thorne informed him, indicating the willowy man. ‘One of the most notorious sodomites in Lancashire. And a close companion of the young dandy Norton, if you follow my meaning.’ He gave a low laugh and nodded at Kitson’s pocketbook. ‘Probably best if you omit that from your account.’

  William Norton and his friend Keane, placing themselves on either side of Mrs James, began to talk over her animatedly, gesturing and pointing as they surveyed the enormous audience gathered in the hall. Trapped between them, she read her programme, entirely disengaged from her surroundings.

  Kitson was so absorbed in his contemplation of her that it took him a few seconds to notice that William Norton had spotted him. He nudged his sister with an elbow, clearly amused, and directed her attention to the northern balcony. Mrs James’ face lifted upwards, and for an instant their eyes met. Kitson’s pulse throbbed against his tight collar. He went to raise his hat. She began to smile.

  A deep, rumbling roar started up outside, from the direction of the city, the loose chorus of thousands of voices cheering thunderously along the Prince’s route to the Exhibition. Every head in the hall turned towards the main doors; then, as one, the audience leapt to their feet, their conversation suddenly escalating in volume as they strained to catch a glimpse of the Royal carriage pulling up outside. Their grand ceremony was about to begin.

  When Kitson looked back across the transept, he could not find Mrs James. She was lost in a chaos of top hats and bonnets, all dipping and craning as they vied for a decent view. As he searched impatiently through the shifting multitude, he experienced a startling, unwelcome jolt of recognition. One of the faces he had passed over was familiar–very familiar.

  With mounting unease, he made himself look again. There, under the balcony opposite, off behind where he had seen Jemima, in what was probably the darkest corner of the hall, stood a stocky, bearded, black-haired man. Austere portraits of Cromwell and his generals stared down disapprovingly as he leant against a column, half-facing the wall, a cupped hand raised to his lips. A small spark glowed: Kitson realised that, in defiance of the rules of the Exhibition, the man was surreptitiously puffing on a cigarette. He tilted his head back to exhale, forcing the smoke out of one side of his mouth, a look of calm, slightly mocking confidence on his wide, ruddy face. Although he was over a hundred and fifty feet away, and shrouded in shadow, there could not be any doubt. It was Cracknell.

  2

  The spinners swayed unsteadily, cheering themselves as they did so, delighting in their drunkenness. They had worked fast. The half-holiday granted by their employers was only an hour old, yet already a good number were well on their way to intoxication, quickly drinking away any trace of sickness left over from the night before. They toasted Albert, they toasted the Queen, they toasted the sun, they toasted the policemen who toiled before them to keep the road clear, they toasted anything they could think of. Cheap boots and clogs clacked against the cobbles as they danced dizzy jigs together, and fell laughing into the dirt.

  The steam whistles had blown at midday, the mill-gates opening to release a flood of working people that rushed down from Ancoats, Oldham and Hulme, through the maze of streets and alleys towards the Royal route. Its progress was slowed only by visits to gin palaces and beer shops, which found themselves doing a brisk trade indeed for a Tuesday. In an atmosphere of abandoned celebration, the spinners lined the Stretford New Road, popped the stoppers on their bottles and awaited the Prince.

  Some, growing restless, found amusement in taunting the lines of policemen who wrestled to keep the vast bodies of people on either side of the road apart. Any good will on the part of these constables was soon used up, and more than a few blows administered with their polished wooden sticks. The better classes of spectator, who sat on the balconies of houses lining the road, or atop the large wooden platforms that had been erected on the intermittent stretches of open ground, peered down at the drab, swirling mass of the poor and shuddered.

  Prince Albert, when he finally appeared, did not disappoint. The Royal procession was composed of a long line of open carriages filled with lords and ladies, clad in all their finery, flanked by a company of golden-helmed dragoons. Albert himself sat in the fourth carriage, in the resplendent uniform of a field marshal. His long, sombre face bore an uncertain smile as he surveyed the vast numbers all around; the countless flags and handkerchiefs frantically waving; the signs and banners that hung from every window; the triumphal arches made from wood, cloth and cardboard that had
been erected along the route to the Exhibition, swathed with flowers and bearing declaration after declaration of extravagant, patriotic welcome.

  At last, the straight road began to turn and the Art Treasures Palace glided majestically into view. After the modest, scattered dwellings of Old Trafford, the purpose-built edifice seemed truly gigantic, equal almost to the famous Crystal Palace that had housed the Great Exhibition. Part cathedral and part railway terminus, this structure comprised three long iron half-tubes, fringed with decorative castings and set upon a two-storey base of red and yellow brick. As the carriages wheeled up before it, sunlight flashed across the semi-circle of its main façade, catching brilliantly against the many hundreds of glass segments encased within the intricately patterned metalwork. The company of dragoons turned about, formed into tight ranks and fired off a salute to announce the Consort’s arrival; and Prince Albert stepped down on to Mancunian soil.

  Beyond the open doors was a wall of silks, crinolines and morning-coats, and thousands of pink faces, all turned expectantly towards the Royal guest. Lord Overstone, a slight man in his early sixties, came down the steps. From inside the hall there came the sound of a vast choir, a hundred voices or more, singing the national anthem. Overstone greeted Prince Albert with a bow and a few formal words; and then the Prince and his entourage swept into the building.

  Up in the balcony, Kitson rose clumsily to his feet and stumbled back through the rows of newspapermen, deaf to their exclamations of annoyance. Thorne, still sitting at the balcony’s edge, looked around for him briefly, but his attention soon returned to the main aisle below, where Prince Albert was commencing his procession to the dais. The voices of the assembled congregation were joining with those of the choir that had appeared before the organ to create a stirring, mighty refrain. Whilst the metal rafters rang to cries of ‘God save the Queen!’, Kitson clattered down the balcony staircase, imagining as he went that Cracknell’s black eyes were boring into his back with destructive force. To loud tutting, he shoved his way around the corner of the transept and left by the northern door, heading out into the adjacent botanical gardens.

  Panting heavily, he leant against the side of an ivy-clad hothouse, taking off his top hat and running a hand roughly through his hair. His chest began to tighten most painfully, forcing him to snatch shallow, grating coughs between his gasps. He was utterly dumbfounded. How had Cracknell managed to locate him? What could he possibly want, after all that had happened between them? What might he be poised to reveal?

  The sun was warm upon his sweating face. He looked over to the pale gothic spires of the Blind Asylum, just visible behind a screen of poplars, and then back to the door of the Exhibition building. No one had followed him outside. This meant that either Cracknell had failed to notice him–or that it had not been his former senior after all. Could he have been mistaken? Was it even possible that the incident with Wray had affected him in some deep and injurious manner–that this apparent sighting of Cracknell was a new variation of delusory attack?

  Kitson tried to reason with himself. Cracknell used to make a regular show of his lack of interest in art, and he loathed the northern industrial towns with a passion–a significant factor in Kitson’s decision to take up residence in one. Why on earth would he attend the opening of the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition? It started to seem likely that Kitson’s regrettably disruptive exit had been made in error.

  But it had looked so much like Cracknell: the bulbous nose, the jutting jaw, the domineering self-assurance. Kitson stood still for some time, recovering his breath and waiting for his coughing fit to subside. More music floated over from inside the Palace as the ceremonials got underway: The Heavens are Telling, then The Hundredth Psalm. The street philosopher stared hard at the ground, a hand on his aching side, trying to work out if he was losing his mind.

  3

  The orchestra started a waltz, the first few bars looping gently to a short pause. Jemima looked on listlessly from the side of the ballroom as the couples on the floor made their bows and curtseys, changed their partners and resumed the dance. Bill and Alfred Keane were directly behind her. They were discussing Keane’s latest backstreet conquest, a clerk from Watts’ warehouse on Fountain Street, in the most lurid language. Jemima, who was both widely read and well past the blushes of youthful innocence, was not shocked or scandalised by what she overheard; and she had long ago accepted that her brother was a committed denizen of this clandestine world. She did wish, however, that they would pay more consideration to their surroundings. They were in the Polygon, seat of the great Fairbairn family, and the sanctimonius were everywhere.

  The wide ballroom was illuminated by a low-hanging formation of ornate gas chandeliers, which cast a soft yet pervasive orange light on to the guests gathered below. Over a hundred had already arrived, and those who were not engaged in the waltz stood talking of the glorious successes of the opening ceremony with grave satisfaction. The oak-panelled walls, usually covered with paintings, were all but bare: Thomas Fairbairn was chairman of the Exhibition, and had led by example when loaning the curators artwork from his collection.

  According to the monstrous clock on the mantle, Jemima had been at the ball for less than an hour, yet it felt strangely as if she had always been there, consigned to a particularly tedious level of Purgatory. A bibbed, heavily oiled waiter floated past, bearing a tray of crystal champagne flutes. She plucked one off and drank deeply. Bill and Keane, seeing her do this, left their less than private conversation to claim drinks of their own.

  ‘Dearest Jemima,’ drawled Keane as he leant past her to pick up a glass, ‘has anyone ever told you of your quite startling resemblance to Mr Millais’ Mariana? D’you know it? You have the same straight nose, and her pale auburn hair is yours exactly. Most handsome, I must say.’

  Jemima looked into Keane’s smooth, equine face and thanked him with faint sarcasm. One would not think that this effete character was the second son of one of Manchester’s wealthiest cotton magnates. Like her brother, he lived in fear of the family firm and did all he could to forget its inevitable claim on his future.

  ‘Where’s Father got to, I wonder,’ mused Bill idly, taking a swig of champagne. ‘I don’t see him. Off strengthening his business contacts in the smoking room, I expect.’

  Jemima turned away from the dancing. ‘As long as he is not preparing me another suitor from his inexhaustible supply of whey-faced, chinless millionaires, William, I am content.’

  Keane snorted with mirth. ‘D’you recall the reception at Waite’s, Bill, last October? That poor dunce from Liverpool? Why, I thought our Mrs J. was going to reduce him to tears before the entire company!’

  Their laughter was intended to be collusive, to show Jemima how much they admired her strength of will, but it irritated her nonetheless. They could hardly understand what it was like to be hawked around as if you were an aging brood mare or an unwanted piece of furniture. This was the humiliation of her position–as a penniless widow entirely dependent upon her rich father, she was forced to endure his intermittent efforts to rid himself of her.

  Jemima took a sip of her champagne and surveyed the room, which was growing fuller by the minute. For a Manchester assembly, she had to admit, it was a remarkably eclectic one. Amongst the usual industrialists and their families were churchmen, nobles of all stripes and a smattering of rather more singular figures. Some were plainly literary in background, or gentlemen from the national press; others she recognised as notable personalities from the art world, such as Sir Charles Eastlake and his statuesque wife, and the bespectacled Dr Waagen of the Berlin gallery.

  A handful, however, stubbornly defied any attempt at classification. She spied an especially conspicuous example leaning in the tall stone doorway that led through to the smoking room. Heftily built with a large black beard, he had a cigarette stuck in his mouth and his shirt was open at the neck–a dishevelled appearance more suited to the end of a night’s revelry than the beginning. He w
as watching the ballroom nonchalantly, but there was a wolfish air to him. Jemima felt sure that he was on the lookout for something. Suddenly, calmly, his eyes flickered on to hers, as if he’d been aware of her scrutiny. Smoke trailed out of his nostrils. He gave her a slow wink.

  Embarrassed, Jemima turned back quickly to Keane and Bill, saying the first thing that came into her head. ‘A–a shame that Prince Albert could not be with us this evening.’

  They fell upon this much-discussed topic with enthusiasm, expressing heartfelt sympathy for the recent Royal bereavement. The previous Sunday, the Duchess of Gloucester, last child of mad King George and Victoria’s beloved great-aunt, had died. It was this loss that had kept the Queen from Manchester and prevented Albert from attending the Fairbairns’ ball.

  ‘You could see the strain in him, I thought,’ opined Bill.

  ‘He is right to hurry back to his family,’ Keane said sagaciously. ‘They need him. It’s said that the Queen positively wallows in grief. Gets quite drunk on it, she does.’

  Jemima nodded along, not listening; after a couple of minutes, she glanced back furtively at the doorway. The bearded man had gone.

  Bill caught sight of something behind her, and his face lit up. ‘Why, look who’s arrived!’ he cried. ‘Major Wray’s guardian angel! Come over, sir, join us! We noticed you leave the opening ceremony in the most dramatic manner–I trust nothing was amiss?’

  Mr Kitson appeared at Jemima’s side. He looked somewhat abashed at this mention of his departure from the ceremony, and was clearly uncomfortable in the grand surroundings of the Polygon. His evening suit, she saw, had shiny patches on the shoulders, and his features were a little drawn; but his eyes held the same arch intelligence they had done in her father’s office on Mosley Street. Jemima felt her pulse quicken slightly, and a smile pull at the corner of her mouth. She adjusted her shawl and surreptitiously checked the pin that was holding up her hair, no longer so thoroughly bored by the Fairbairns’ ball.