4th February 1876
I went for my walk today. I must get out of the house, no matter how black it is outside. It felt so good to get out, and though the air was no clearer, there was certain relief to be away from Connaught Place. There are new bill stickers along the Edgware Road, and all the way up Oxford Street. This is what they say:
IMPORTANT NOTICE!!
ALL MUST READ!!!
IT IS A CRIME TO HARBOUR ANY PERSON FROM THE EXTINGUISHED BOROUGH OF
FOULSHAM
ANYONE WHO IS FOUND CONCEALING ANY SUCH PERSON SHALL BE SUBJECT TO THE SEVEREST PENALTY OF THE LAW
ALL PEOPLE OF FOULSHAM/FORLICHINGHAM MUST BE PLACED INTO QUARANTINE IMMEDIATELY. ANY PERSON SEEING OR COMING INTO CONTACT WITH ANY PERSON (ALIVE OR DEAD) FROM THE FORLICHINGHAM/FOULSHAM DISTRICT MUST
IMMEDIATELY REPORT TO THE CONSTABULARY
THERE IS TERRIBLE DANGER OF
Further down the street I saw a bill posterer putting up new notices:
KEEP ALL VISITS TO A MINIMUM
STAY AT HOME WHENEVER POSSIBLE
WASH FREQUENTLY WITH CARBOLIC SOAP
KEEP YOUR DOORS LOCKED AND YOUR WINDOWS FASTENED
THERE IS TERRIBLE DANGER OF
There were so many new commands, so many do thises and do thats. And the streets so quiet now, and the constables so many. It was not long before one marched up to me. There was mud on his white trousers and his top hat was rather scuffed. He seemed very nervous.
‘What are you doing, miss, what’s your business?’
‘Hullo, Officer, I am going for my walk.’
‘Go home, child, it isn’t safe.’
‘I’m not a child, I’m thirteen.’
‘Go home, go quick.’
‘Why exactly isn’t it safe?’
‘People escaped.’
‘What people, if I may inquire?’
‘Dreadful bad people.’
‘What do they look like?’
‘Can’t tell exactly. Bad people, people of Foulsham.’
‘What’s exactly bad about them?’
‘They’re diseased. Mustn’t touch them, mustn’t go near.’
‘And what would happen should I come across such a person, and if I touched one, say?’
‘It would be the undoing of you.’
‘Oh! Really! How exactly might I come undone?’
‘There is contagion, there most certainly is.’
‘Tell me what they’ve done so wrong, these people, that they are hunted so.’
‘They’re vagrants, aren’t they? Foreign filth. They’re diseased sure enough, we need them off our streets. We must be certain of it.’
‘What are you so afraid of?’
‘Afraid? I’m not afraid of anything.’
‘You sound like you are. What may happen to us?’
‘Contagion. Worse than any cholera. We’ll all be dirt and rubbish.’
‘Shall we? Is it very likely?’
‘Go home, girl, and stay home.’
But then I thought I should tell them, it wasn’t right to keep it quiet.
‘Excuse me, sir, I shouldn’t like to get anyone in trouble. But I think the people you are talking of, I think they may be living in our street.’
‘Oh yes?’ he said. ‘Just come upon this notion, have you?’
‘I do think that’s where you shall find them. The house they are in looks abandoned, though it is not. I saw one of them once. (Well, perhaps it was two, I couldn’t swear to the second, he was so much in the shadow.) In the night, just for a moment. He wore a brass helmet.’
‘Move along now, miss, move along.’
‘Have they taken away the sunlight, these people? Are they the cause of it?’
‘Go home, will you?’
‘You do not believe me, do you?’
‘No, miss, I do not. We are very busy and seek to help, please go to your home and to safety. Leave the streets to us; we shall find them in the end.’
‘You’re all frightened, aren’t you?’
‘Go home and keep clear of any rubbish. Don’t go poking your nose in where it’s not wanted, you may just get it bitten off. There’s been people drowned dead in rubbish, falling in and coming up no more.’
‘Another rumour?’
‘No,’ he said, and there was a sudden sadness in his voice. ‘This I’ve seen myself.’
I went back then, but not directly.
I saw more policemen further down the Bayswater Road. They’d gotten hold of some poor tramp and were taking the fellow away. I wonder if he’d done anything wrong other than being a tramp. That would do it around here. Lowering the tone, they call it. These poor shelterless people – for we that have homes to put ourselves in ignore those others that don’t as if they were invisible, and the police move them on, and what happens to them then I wonder, what other miseries are waiting for them in streets darker even than ours?
There were children in the park again, that was a bit of a relief, as if there could at least be some normal life somewhere. Except they hadn’t ventured far beyond the railings, as if they feared to go in too deep. I heard their game, their singing:
‘Black as night
Black as death
You’ve a stinking in your breath
Your father’s got lost
Your mother’s gone dead
Your sister’s got spots
All over her head
Drop dead, drop dead, drop dead, drop dead
The night’s come up and the sun has fled
There’s a big fat rat at the foot of your bed.’
They skipped along to this game, one around the other, and every now and then one must fall down and pretend to die in the most horrible convulsions. It did look fun. I waved at them but they were so preoccupied with their game they didn’t notice me.
This morning Nanny left us. I say this morning, though of course and as usual there’s no sign that it’s day, other than the say-so of the clocks about the house, which keep telling us the day has come around again, though there’s precious little evidence. Nanny gave no warning, she left no note. Just in the morning (we must say it is the morning, you know, or go mad) she never appeared. Her room was much the same as ever, even her few possessions were still there, but no Nanny. And, I nearly forgot, there was an eyebrow comb upon the floor, a wooden one I’d never seen before. I thought I knew all Nanny’s things, I did like to snoop about them rather, and she’d ever been happy for me to look about, until recently that is, when she demanded more privacy. Yes, an eyebrow comb but no nanny. She’d gone. She’d deserted us.
‘Well,’ Mother said, ‘she wasn’t happy. I knew she wasn’t happy. I wish she’d said. I wish she’d given us warning. She may at least have done that.’
‘Shall we not see her again?’ I asked.
‘Did you say anything to her, Eleanor?’ Mother asked me. ‘Anything particular, that might have led to this?’
‘Nothing Mother, I just told her of those people across the street and of their queer ways.’
‘You frightened her away I suspect, Eleanor.’
‘How could I have?’
‘You’re a very clever girl, Eleanor, cleverer than most. And that cleverness can show itself, on occasions, to have a little too much imagining inside it. Well, child, I do not scare easily. Perhaps we may say you’re quite old enough now to go forward nanny-less.’
It is not my fault Nanny has gone, it is the fault of the dark and shy new people across the street. They’ve changed everything since they’ve come and I see that I shall personally have to do something about it. Nanny never believed me, Mother won’t believe me, Father smiles but won’t properly listen. So then I am on my own, a small army of one.
The fire extinguisher on my landing has grown another three inches. One of the servants must have moved it out of the cupboard, for it is just beside my bedroom door now. And Ann Belmont who helps Cook in the kitchen said she saw a strange, ugly dog prowling around, large and wild, and she was certain she saw it enter the abandoned house across the street.
5th February 1876
Oh but what news I have today! I have seen another of the new neighbours! I have seen him twice, three times this day! A young man. He comes to a window on the third floor of the house, opens the curtains just a little bit and looks out. He has dark circles under his eyes and black hair brushed in a parting. (I used Mother’s opera glasses to see him the better.) He was dressed in a nightshirt. Perhaps he is sick. I waved at him. Very cautiously, and just for the tiniest of moments, his fingers made a very small flicker, barely perceptible, but I know that he has seen me and knows that I am here.
He holds up a candle to me, I hold one up to him.
I wait for him. I’ve been waiting for him to wave again.
I haven’t told anyone about him; I can’t see what would be the point of it, they’d only say I was lying again. No, him I keep to myself.
The last time he came to the window I waved wildly at him. Then he was there so short a time and instantly rushed away and in his place appeared for a moment the top of the head of a strange squashed man, whose forehead and eyes only reached beyond the window level. They were very large, protuberant eyes he had and those eyes stared hard at me, and made me look away. When I looked back again, though I had glanced down only for the smallest moment, the curtains were closed. They have not been opened since. Nor has the young man ever reappeared.
I have vowed to go across the street and knock upon the door of the house. I know they’re in there. I do know it and I shall prove it. I want to talk to the young man. Tonight I shall meet him, I shall meet them all, I shall walk over and knock hard upon their door and keep knocking until someone comes to answer it. Perhaps we shall come to know each other very well, and visit often. Whatever the outcome, I shall gain entry and walk around the rooms and see quite how many they’re keeping in there. I think there must be hundreds of them, I really do. I’m going to wait until our house is quiet, then I shall slip out. I’m leaving this note so that if by any chance I do not come back then it shall be known where to look for me. If I’m not back I’ll be over there, in that house across the street.
I’m going now.
Deep breath.
Here goes.