Chapter 12
Thick, foul-smelling smoke twisted frenetically out of the pristine black funnel, engulfing everything in a melancholy sheet of grey. Soft bright vapour came up against hard black ironwork, in a strange symphony of sharp silhouettes and thick blurs. Steam swirled around the formidable steam train, its sharp corners of brass and steel glinting in the wintry sun evaded into Victoria Station. Most of the more delicate looking females were bringing handkerchiefs to their lips or breaking out into coughing fits, but Anne was indifferent, used to polluted air from her lodgings in Coal Yard Alley.
“Your train’s here, mother,” she said, encircling her adoptive mother’s shoulders in her thin arms and helping her up from her chair by the rigid grid of iron railings. Mrs Lincombe stood up on faltering legs, like a newborn colt, her frailty bearing comical disparity with her ample size. Anne reached down and picked up the few oak trunks the invalid would be travelling with, and ushered her mother across the noisy, cluttered platform.
Anonymous people swarmed around them, light valises and cumbersome trunks swinging with varied ease from dangling arms. Fragments of conversations merged like a circulated fog of syllables. There was a claustrophobic closeness between the coats, bags, and knuckles. Anne had to gulp in several breaths of steam-choked air before she could clear the dizziness from her head. An overstuffed suitcase, splitting at the sides from its bulk banged against Anne’s knee, grazing the silk fringe. She pulled her dress free and looked around in panic.
“I...I have no idea where to look for the first-class carriages,” Anne admitted finally, biting her lip as they curtseyed their way past a group of gentlemen, their black top hats as shiny as polished coins.
“Don’t look at me, dear,” panted Mrs Lincombe, emerging from behind a buxom, taffeta-clad mother holding her young son in a tender embrace, “I never did like train travel meself. A big tin can with a spout on wheels, that’s what it is.”
“Oh...oh dear,” Anne sighed, somewhat put off by the invalid’s unhelpful response, “We cannot miss the departure.”
A florid, jowly station master came to their rescue. “Hullo there,” he said in a Cockney brogue, “What can I do fer you two ladies?”
“We...we’re trying to get to a first class compartment,” gabbled Anne, smiling gratefully at him.
He held up his black uniform cap like a sign that he was not to be trifled with, and led them swiftly through the buzzing throng, pushing past haughty business men, clusters of giggling stage-performers, obsequious porters in smart red uniforms fawning to the wealthy-looking
The station master unfastened the door to the nearest carriage and wished Mrs Lincombe, “an ‘appy journey.” Anne took hold of her arm, “That’s it, Mother,” she said, gingerly supporting her body until it was safely inside the carriage. The woman settled herself on the nearest seat, grunting with the effort, and Anne ducked her head and stepped inside the compartment for a moment to place the baggage on the shelf above Mrs Lincombe’s head.
Two young ladies seated symmetrically in identical, enormously voluminous travelling costumes looked on in amusement as Anne fumbled around, trying to assure the suitcases would not fall off. Having succeeded, she gathered her navy velvet skirts together and clambered down in a somewhat ungainly fashion that caused Mrs. Lincombe’s young travelling companions to titter.
Anne gently closed the door stepping back somewhat and Mrs. Lincombe unlatched the small window blurred with oil grease, just as the train began to emanate a metrical chug.
“Mother...” began Anne, trying to keep her voice out of time with the all-encompassing rhythm of the engine.
Mrs. Lincombe stretched a plump hand out of the window and lightly touched Anne’s pale cheek with her fingertips. Anne tipped her head to one side and scrutinised each fold, each wrinkle, each blemish as if she were observing some beautiful piece of rare artwork.
“Take care....” she started, the words feeling awkward in her mouth, “Do get better soon...remember to write...”
Mrs Lincombe squeezed Anne’s hand, peering into the large, watery eyes. “I will, m’dear. And...and I’m so, so sorry, love. About ever’thing.”
“Of course, Mother,” said Anne, just as the train started to trundle along the diagonal of soot-blackened track. She let go of her mother’s hand as Mrs. Lincombe hastily rolled up the window to avoid a rush of grit escaping into the compartment. A great billowing flag of white steam puffed out of the funnel and the steam train hurtled away. Without blinking, Anne intently watched the white hand pressed against the window, until the dark, remote vision disappeared through a gap in the colonnade.
Anne nearly jumped out of her brass-buckled shoes when she felt a sharp, urgent tap on her shoulder. She spun round, suppressing a shriek – but nobody was there. The bystanders were dispersing already, wiping tears from their eyes or sighing wistfully and walking away. There was not a single person close enough to have touched her – but she could not have imagined it.
Intent on walking to clear her head, Anne left the station to brave the frost and hawkers. Steam rose from the mud in the streets. The day was bright and clear, as were the sounds of the city. It was overrun with Cheap Johns, water cress girls, flower girls and the like. Shouts of, ‘Scissors sharp as like to cut as of themselves, 1/- only’ melded with the plaintive cries of skinny girls of barely eight years old hawking ‘Cresses, cresses, four bunches a penny.’
Anne opened her string purse and tossed a penny to a smut-faced girl in a yellow bonnet. Turning away as the waif held out the wilting bunch of greenery, Anne realized there was a scrap of paper in her purse. Upon further investigation, she saw it to bear a quick scrawl, reading, ‘Meet me at The Chaste Maid.’
Much intrigued, yet slightly frightened, Anne made her way to the designated place. She half-expected it to be Mr. Murdoch who had slipped her the note because after all, that was where they had lunched the previous day. Though Anne thought, surely he would not go to the trouble of creating such intrigues.
Such as The Chaste Maid were not too rare in England. Neither post-house nor coaching-house, its custom comprised the rough butchers and slaughtermen of the Shambles and the more rakish of the commodity brokers from Goldsmith’s Row: young ruffians in search of women who made mock of the hostelry’s name.
Passing through the public bar, Anne noted Thackeray, the landlord, hugger mugger with two hulking brutes who appeared to know little of silverside of beef or silver trading. He leered when he saw her. “’Ere again, miss? You do ‘ave yer fair share of gentl’nmen, don’t yer?”
Anne recoiled from his vile-smelling breath, her face screwing up. “I’ll thank you to mind your own business, sir,” she retorted.
“It is me business though. I’ve been asked ter tell you t’go up to room two.”
“Oh,” said Anne, increasingly perturbed by the second. “Well. Thank you.”
The staircase at the rear was dark and unwelcoming, but it led to the room and Anne took the stairs themselves at a gallop. The bed was little more than a cot and the remaining furnishings as ill-matched as the load on a totter’s van. Anne threw her cloak and hat on the sad cot and rummaged in her string purse for the scrap of paper. She checked it – yes, it was The Chaste Maid she had been asked to go to. But there was nobody here.
When Anne was just deciding to leave the wretched dwelling, the door opened with an ominous creak and in walked an imposing figure, half his feature muffled by a heavy coat. All she could make out was a flash of silvery-red hair, rheumy grey eyes and a large, bony face with more wrinkles on it than a slab of agate mud. Although he was partially concealed, Anne deemed him honest, and could not find any reason not to trust him.
“Ye’ll be Miss Timmins,” he said in what Anne recognized Scots accents; Edinburgh, to be precise. It was a most peculiar voice; high-pitched, with unexpected modulations, as if a moderate student of the bagpipes were practicing on his chanter. No less odd was the man himself. He might have been of middling height, had his lower limbs not revealed a childhood diet like that of the worst slum-dweller. His head was uncommon large, the forehead bulging forth made his hairline seem to recede though it plainly did not. I warrant looking directly down at his head from above would have revealed an elongated oval. Anne could see none of his features below his hooked nose; as they were hidden by his coat.
“No, sir,” said Anne in faltering tones. “Miss Lincombe.”
“Ah, yes!” he said, head snapping up. “Ye’ll think summat else, won’t ye?”
Anne’s forehead creased. “Er...I’m not quite sure I understand.”
He paced around the room, casting an occassional glance out of the window.
“Sir...”
“I’m Gibbous, miss,” the man said hurriedly. “Joseph Gibbous.”
Gibbous...Anne wondered, where had she heard that name before?
“I must be going presently,” he continued. “But here.” Mr Gibbous pushed towards Anne a meagre pile of papers fastened with a grubby, once red ribbon.
“Thaire ye are,” he said. “it’ll aw be thaire, now I really must be goin’...”
“But Mr Gibbous…” Anne began.
“It’s Gibbous, naw but Gibbous.”
“Well. Let it be so, but I understood there was to be some explanation.”
“Look, miss. With all due respect, I really canny give ye no more of me time,” Gibbous said curtly.
With that he ushered Anne out: laying not a finger on her, he propelled her all the way into Hawthorne Lane as if by force of will from under his enormous brow.
I did enjoy this chapter a lot. Possibly one of my favourites so far. Will dear Gibbous become more of a main part in this story? By that, will he be frequenting us? I do so hope, or to speak like a normal human although no one wishes to do so, I do hope so. Me wants more of Gibbous. Seriously, this story is like a drug, and I am like an adictee ? Is that the word? 
