Page 3 of Pandora

“Please yourself.”

The door begins to close. Dora lowers the pencil.

“Lottie?” The door stops. “What was so important at the dock that Uncle had me mind the shop?”

The housekeeper hesitates, scrunches her stub nose. “How’m I to know?” she says, but as the door swings shut behind her, infernal bell tinkling, Dora thinks Lottie knows very well.

Chapter Two

Creed Lane teems like maggots in an open sore.

The traffic seems to have spilled over from the heaving maw of Ludgate Street, flooding into side streets with the ferocity of a burst riverbank. The smells so unique to the city seem more pungent in such close quarters—soot and rotten vegetables, fish on the turn. He keeps a handkerchief clasped firmly to his mouth and nose. When he finally emerges onto the quieter slope of Puddle Dock Hill, Hezekiah Blake breaks into the fastest walk his corpulent body can manage.

The letter—crumpled now from excessive reading—arrived over two weeks ago, and while he anticipated the time it takes to travel such a distance he expected the Coombes to arrive long before now; Hezekiah’s patience wears dangerously thin.

Slowing, he lowers his handkerchief and tries to catch his breath. His inclination to idleness is apparent from his squat build, though at fifty-two he sees this as quite, quite ordinary, for a man so long in trade like himself must surely be expected to enjoy the fruits of his labors. Hezekiah tugs at his wig, tweaks the lip of his newest hat, smooths a hand down the muslin waistcoat stretched tight across his rounded belly. Indeed, he is sorry not to be more at liberty to indulge—the luxuries that could be his!—but soon, he thinks with a smile, soon he will be free to indulge all he likes. He has waited in long sufferance these past twelve years. Very soon, his wait will be over.

As he approaches Puddle Dock, Hezekiah lifts his handkerchief once more. He uses this particular wharf for all his more questionable transactions. Here the stench of filth is at its most pungent. Primarily a laystall for the soils of London’s streets, shipments here are unlikely to be monitored. He is thankful that this particular transaction will be conducted in the depths of deepest winter for in the summer months the fumes of shit steam and rise, sinking into everything they touch: nostril hair and eyelashes, the very clothes on his back, shipments large and small. The last thing he wants is for this most precious item to be tainted with the stench. No, he thinks, that would not do at all.

This dock is small and narrow as docks go, enclosed between two towering buildings with boarded-up windows. Hezekiah must press his back to the grimy walls to get past the bustle of dockers, tries unsuccessfully to ignore the night-soil men emptying their carts of excrement, the unappealing slop and smack of brim-filled buckets hitting the cobbles. His heel skids on something slick (Hezekiah refuses to entertain the thought of what it might be) and he barrels into the back of a Chinaman holding a bucket, its filthy contents threatening to spill over at the collide. As he reaches out a hand to steady himself against the wall Hezekiah stares, affronted, but there is no apology, no sign the man has even registered his presence at all and he has moved along before Hezekiah can press the matter. Eyes watering he breathes deeply into cotton, continues unsteadily down the sloping ramp to the river’s edge.

The foreman, directing the night slop on the barges to be taken downriver, has his back to Hezekiah, and the older man must call out across the racket to be heard.

“Mr. Tibb, if you please! Mr. Tibb!”

Jonas Tibb half-turns his head to see who calls for him then looks back to the barges, and with a gesticulation toward the river says something Hezekiah cannot hear. The foreman turns fully then, makes his way up the dock steps, onto the sloping bank where Hezekiah impatiently waits.

“Again, Mr. Blake?” Tibb hooks filthy thumbs over the waistband of his trousers, glances back across to the river. The weather—while cold—has remained dry and bright; the water is as still as a duck pond, smooth as glass. “I told you yesterday there had been no sign. That’s changed none since the sun has set and risen.”

Hezekiah’s shoulders slump. He feels the stirring of annoyance in his belly, the harsh punch of renewed disappointment. Seeing his face Tibb sighs, removes his woolen cap, rubs at his bald head.

“Sir, you already said your men won’t be taking the quicker route by road. It’s nearly five hundred miles from Samson and with winter tides you can always expect a day or two delay. Why must you keep coming here when I’ve told you I’ll send word?”

Usually Hezekiah would not stand for such talk. He is a reputable tradesman after all and this man would ordinarily be beneath his notice, but Jonas Tibb has never once questioned why Hezekiah wishes to conduct his business in such a way and the foreman’s discretion has always been unwavering.

“Hell’s teeth, Tibb. You have no notion of its import. I paid good money to claim this shipment.”

Money, he thinks now with unease, he could ill afford.

Tibb lifts his shoulders in what seems to be the beginnings of a shrug before he appears to think better of it. His watery gray eyes crinkle in a half-smile.

“I’m sure the Coombes won’t be letting you down. They never have, have they?”

Hezekiah brightens. “No, no indeed, they have not.”

Tibb nods curtly, replaces his hat, and Hezekiah grunts now, annoyed with himself for displaying weakness in front of a lowborn.

“Well, then,” he says. “I shall look forward to hearing from you in due course. I expect a note delivered as soon as you see his boat coming in, do you understand?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Very good.”

And so Hezekiah—handkerchief once more in situ—makes the distasteful journey back up to Puddle Dock Hill, through the cramped cesspit of Creed Lane and onto the crowded bustle of Ludgate Street, but his mind is all a muddle, his temper most aggrieved, despite the foreman’s words.

Where are they? Where is his shipment, his most longed-for prize? Perhaps something has happened—an ambush, or perhaps the Coombes have run off with it, or—and here Hezekiah barks a laugh that causes a milkmaid to look at him oddly and tip her yoke—it has sunk! No, the thought is too awful, too ironically funny to consider. Quick, he thinks, quick! He must have something to ease his turmoil.

Hezekiah’s attention is now drawn to shop windows, eyes darting like billiard balls at the break. A new snuffbox? No, he already has two. Another wig? He touches the fine coil at his ear, the silkiness of carefully chosen human hair. Mayhap not, this one was expensive enough. A cravat pin, perhaps? But then his eyes alight on something else and he smiles, feels the familiar surge of want, the satisfaction of knowing an item is meant so perfectly for him. He enters the shop and, credit given, the purchase is done in moments.

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