The House of the Wicked

The Man in the Derby





He waited till the door clicked shut softly behind him before turning to face her. She sat rod-backed in a plush chair upholstered in lemon yellow. Ever the artist he deliberated on the jaundiced light it cast under her cheekbones. Her heavy lids blinked unhurriedly. A stray wire-grey hair fidgeted at her temple in a breath of air from the open window. Her lips – thin, hard – struck across her jaw, a no-nonsense, fleshy tripwire.

“I am come, as ordered,” he said coldly. “But not without reservation.”

She motioned with her hand to a chair opposite. He hesitated, then did as he was bid.

“Tea?” she asked, her head nodding almost imperceptibly towards a delicate teapot on a low table.

“You did not summon me here to take tea, Mrs Denning.”

A bird-boned hand, once pretty but now bearing the telltale hallmarks of age, clasped the teapot and began to pour. “You do not mind if I have one, Mr Wilkinson?”

He chided himself for believing the action carried deeper meaning. “Cut to the chase, Mrs Denning. I have no time for games.”

She took a pair of silver tongs, dropped two lumps of sugar into the hot liquid. With short, elegant sweeps she stirred the cup, one tap of the spoon on the cup’s rim before resting it noiselessly on the saucer. “Come, come, Mr Wilkinson, let us not be uncivil with one another.”

He was aware of his forehead beginning to glisten with sweat. “What do you want of me?” he said.

She raised the cup, took a sip. Rested the cup on its saucer. Dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “The usual business, Mr Wilkinson.”

“We are through with the usual business, Mrs Denning. I made that quite clear. We had an agreement.”

A patient smile. Behind it the thought that she knew she would get what she desired. He wondered if it had always been so, even in her youth. “Let us not be too hasty,” she said. “Are you sure you do not want a little tea? I find it most beneficial in calming rattled nerves.”

“I told you, after France there would be no more. It would end there. We had an agreement,” he repeated, but the act of repetition appeared to weaken it.

“Events have put that agreement on temporary hold. I – we – need your services again, for a little while yet, Mr Wilkinson.”

He got to his feet. “Then secure them elsewhere, I am finished with the business.”

“Sit – “ she said sharply. Then more gently, “ – Mr Wilkinson. Please?” That same barbed wire smile.

With reluctance he returned to his seat, nodding for her to go on, his face as pale as if he were about to hear a sentence of death.

“We desire to remove Stephen from London. Relocate him to somewhere a little quieter. Out of the way. Secluded. More conducive to his health. You understand?” Another sip of tea. She looked aside, almost wistfully. “Mr Wilkinson, I have for some time been intrigued by those Newlyn painters, in Cornwall.”

“I know of their work. What of it?”

“I’d like you to persuade Stephen to accompany you there.”

He laughed, though it had a nervous, quivering edge. “What? To Newlyn? The place will be as bad as Pont Aven, people swarming all over the place. There’s even a special train put on to carry out the weight of canvases being produced. It is hardly secluded.”

“Not to Newlyn, to Porthgarrow.”

His brows lowered. “Where on earth is that?”

“Precisely,” she said. “You will fabricate some believable story and you will encourage my son to follow you there. You will keep him in this Porthgarrow place, for the time being.”

His eyes narrowed. “And if I refuse?”

“My dear young man, you cannot refuse. You know that.” She angled her head. “Mr Wilkinson?”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes tired, his head beginning to throb.

“Mr Wilkinson?”

A shadow at his shoulder caused him to start.

“Mr Wilkinson, is everything alright?” It was Jenna Hendra, cheeks flushed with the cool morning air. I hope I am not disturbing you.”

“Miss Hendra, how delightful to see you. Forgive me, my mind was deep in contemplation.”

“Contemplating your art, no doubt,” she said, pointing out his sketchbook.

A page fluttered like the wing of a wounded bird, on it a brooding charcoal sketch of black fishing boats and shadowy fishermen. He clutched a charcoal stick that had smudged on his fingertips. “That’s right, my drawing. You know how it is, should it be a dash here, a line there? Choices that we artists must labour over in our restless search for perfection. We are doomed never to find peace,” he said heavily.

“Alas I fear you shall never find perfection. As for peace, that is another matter, rare but ultimately attainable.”

Peace, he thought; that would be a wonderful, precious thing.

“Is your friend Mr Denning not here yet?” She feigned only a cursory interest but he could read in her expression a suppressed eagerness. “He will miss events. The launch – it is both important and a spectacle.”

“It is barely light. Stephen is unused to arising at such an early hour. I warrant we shall not see him for a while yet.”

If she were disappointed she did not reveal it. He noticed how difficult it was to read this woman. She held before her a deliberate veil through which one caught only the haziest glimpses of her true disposition.

“Father tells me he has commissioned him to paint my portrait. I wish to arrange the details with him.”

She didn’t strike him as one who was so vain as to pursue having her portrait painted. It confirmed his estimation of her true motives. “Yes he has ability. On that account I can vouch for his utmost reliability and sincerity. But only on that account, Miss Hendra.”

“Should I be looking for other meanings hidden behind what you say, Mr Wilkinson?”

“Alas, Miss Hendra, they are not so deeply hidden.” He closed his sketchpad. “I shall say only that he is a man of inestimable depths.”

“You are a strange friend to talk so.”

“We have a strange friendship.” He stowed the pad away under his arm, pocketing the charcoal stick. “I shall not detain you in attending to your duties; the boats await you.”

She followed his gaze to the ranks of fishing boats on the beach, the crowd of people swarming over the shingles, passing between the tar-black hulls like a colourful sea. Someone was playing an accordion, badly. She always loved this time of year the most. The launching. The thrill of casting the first seines, the sea alive with thousands of flittering silver fish being scooped out of the water. The place burst with life, with hope and expectation. A time of plenty.

She saw her father amongst a small group of black-suited seine owners, his obvious importance and standing placing him at the centre. Reverend Biddle was there also, positioning the tea chest upon which he would stand to give his blessing to the entire venture and from which he would spout another of his interminable sermons. Her father motioned for her to come over.

“You do not like me, do you, Mr Wilkinson?”

Dark eyes appraised her. Dark thoughts behind them. “You will believe what you wish to believe.” Then his features softened. “Mr Denning is indeed a fine-looking young man. He has wealthy and influential connections. But trust me on this; he is not for you, Miss Hendra.”

“You presume a great deal.”

“I am for my sins an artist. I am fated to read all those truths that others might not know to be there.” His fingers brushed his eyelid. “Here, for instance…” Then his cheek. “…here…” Then to the base of his throat. “…and here. We say so much when we believe we are saying so little.”

She turned her head away from him, his words, his gaze, disquieting. “Is it because of who I am, my humble origins? Does that offend your sensibilities?”

He stroked his hair back from his forehead where the wind had cast it. “On the contrary. My father was a factory labourer’s son. He has made his fortune and name from manufacturing biscuits, yet he cannot write that name, nor read it in giant letters above the doors of his factory. It is not where you come from that colour my words, but where you may take yourself. That is all.” He gave a tiny bow. “When I see Mr Denning I shall inform him you were asking after him.”

“It’s been a pleasure,” she said with little pleasure.

“Mutual,” said Wilkinson, equally perfunctory.

As she came close to her father the tiny group of men began to disperse. She knew it was she that caused it. The other owners did not take kindly to a young woman having so much authority and power in such a strong male bastion. Only her father’s near monopoly on the seine ownership in Porthgarrow prevented them from openly disclosing this simmering displeasure. They had many other subtle methods of displaying it, though. Avoiding her was one of them. Her father knew all this, of course, but their inability and reluctance to voice their position only served to heighten his.

Only two remained close at her father’s coat tails by the time she came to his side. Both men raised their hats to her, nodded politely enough.

“Good morning, Mr Wearne, Mr Pellow,” she acknowledged.

Pellow was second only to her father in standing. He owned four successful seines, Delight, Intrepid, Swift and The Union. Mr Wearne’s Resolute and Gull were but small fry by comparison.

“Taking the morning air?” said Wearne.

“Taking care of business,” she returned. She could almost detect his jaw wince beneath his beard.

“An example to us all,” he said. “I have business of my own to attend to.” And both men tipped hats and wandered away.

Her father gave a single, hearty laugh. His weighty arm draped across her shoulder and drew her closer to him. “I am pleased you are engaging with our new guests,” he said. He bent close to her ear and stabbed a thumb at Wearne and Pellow’s backs. “Such people are a welcome distraction from all the huffings and puffings of pompous Porthgarrow politics, eh? And not without benefit to you and I.”

“I watch their wake with interest, father, but am careful not to be drawn too readily into it.”

He removed his arm from her shoulder, rubbed his red hands together. Squadrons of dark clouds sailed overhead. Two gulls bobbed like buoys on the restless water before them. Hendra did not like what he saw. And what he saw were small catches again, and smaller profits. His concerns were mirrored in the worried chittering of his business colleagues, and in the faces of the fishermen preparing the boats for launch. But unlike his colleagues the common people were a superstitious lot and did not voice their doubts, for they believed that to speak of them often brought them to life.

“What do you think of Mr Denning? He is of exemplary stock.”

“You speak of his family as if they were cattle, and he a prize bull.”

He motioned with his nose to the sea. “You as well as I can read the signs.”

“I read them very well, father.” She lifted her chin. He saw her mother reflected in that small action and was both warmed and grieved. “But I will not offer myself up as insurance against another poor year. We will come though this season as we have come through others. If you at least listen to what I propose – “

He held up a stiff forefinger. “What you propose is not acceptable; it is foolhardy and far too daringly venturesome. It could ruin us.”

“As you say,” she said.

He watched her walk away over the shingles. The gulls savaged each other with red-tipped beaks before rising from the sea on a frantic clapping of wings. He could no more control Jenna than he could the weather, he thought broodily.

Revered Biddle came to his side. “Don’t worry, Gerran, God will provide.”

It was as if he could hear his thoughts. He grunted in reply. Agitated fingers wrestled with each other behind his back.

“I hear that Jowan’s son has returned to the cove,” said Biddle.

The fingers froze for a moment, then resumed their fraught bickering with each other. “He is not welcome here. He will soon leave.”

“That is hardly Christian, Gerran.”

“The sins of the father…” he returned.

They stood in silence for a while, their own thoughts noisy in their heads. “Foolishly some are already blaming the bad weather on his return. How easy the old ways are revived.”

“I cannot stop them believing what they wish to believe.”

“See, they make futile offerings of fish on the beach to Baccan, to appease the spirit.”

“It has always been so. There is no harm in custom.”

He pointed out a huddle of fishermen. “Look upon their faces. Is that merely harmless custom that darkens their brows, or is it unfounded fear stirred up by an unfaltering belief in some ancient story? When custom leads to harm, as it has in the past, then that is all the more reason to stamp on it at the outset to prevent it from raising its ugly head.”

Hendra took out his pocket watch. He did not need to know the time but it diverted his attention, gave him pause for thought. The heavily ornamented gold case, a generous gift from a consolidation of pleased investors in his business, was also a symbol of his success and how fragile that success depended upon the whim of the sea. Reminded him how easy it was to lose your footing on the business ladder, how a few bad years could ruin a lifetime’s work and achievement.

“As long as each and every hogshead is filled I care not what they do or what they think. Do you not have a custom of your own to perform?” He realised how cutting his words must have sounded. “Please, Marcus; they will take great comfort from your blessings. As will I.”

Biddle buttoned up his coat against the stiffening breeze that threw up choppy little waves across the water. “Help me onto my box, there’s a good fellow. My knees are starting to fail me in my old age.” Hendra clutched the man’s arm and aided him to his position on his makeshift pulpit. He looked imperiously down. “Call them around, Gerran, and let us see if God will deign to answer all our prayers.”

Hendra thought that he would pray to any devil, spirit or false idol if that would protect his business. Before him lay his black-tarred, beach-stranded empire – to his left the Laurel, Napier and Active seines; to his centre the Catherine, Unity and Providence; to his right the Majestic and Lady White. Each clutch of boats that made up the individual seines bearing their own special mark on the prows. As he had made his own mark on this cove, in this community.

But shadowy thoughts prowled his head that prayers, in any form and to any deity, had done little to quell. His stared at his daughter – his future; she was bending to a small boy who had snared her attention. How he longed to have sent her away from here. He did not want to see her trapped in this cove for her entire life, as he had been, her life shrunk to these stinking, decaying confines. He’d once harboured plans to leave, to seek his own future elsewhere. But that future had long ago been stripped from him and he was now as chained to Porthgarrow as Baccan was to his rocky gaol. Young dreams long ago rotted away to leave behind a vile-smelling bitterness and resentment. Yet there was still hope for Jenna. Still a chance. If he could keep the business afloat long enough for it to attract an eligible, and preferably wealthy, suitor then it might be different for her.

He scanned the blurred horizon. A squall was building for certain, even before the first boats had been launched, and his heart sank. Perhaps it may hold off long enough to land a first good catch. That would auger well for a good season.

Prayers? Yes, he was in desperate need of an answer to those.



* * * *



At first she did not look at the piece of paper the boy had given her. The boy had tugged at her skirt like a bell rope, thrust a crumpled up wad of paper into her hand. Another little game, she thought as the boy skittered across the shingles between groups of villagers. Jenna’s mind was elsewhere, running over the conversation with that sour little man Wilkinson, whom she did not like in the least, for all his varnished manners. And her interest in Denning? Like most men, he assumed that women are driven purely by, and prisoners to, their over-active emotions. Love? Marriage? She laughed inside. She was enamoured not of his admittedly pretty face and well-proportioned frame but his potential financial backing.

Catches were dwindling year on year. The Italian and Spanish markets drying up. The techniques employed by her father were outdated and wasteful, designed for a time when the pilchard were landed in such abundance that surplus or damaged catches could be thrown over the fields as fertiliser in huge quantities without putting a dent in profits. The fish were still salted and bulked by hand in the palaces, an old time-honoured method little changed in hundreds of years. They created large stacks of alternate layers of fish and salt, a process that over many weeks cured the catch before it was eventually pressed in barrels for shipping abroad. Damage to the fish if not properly cured or packed was common. With so few fish being landed these days, this was fast becoming uneconomical.

On a recent visit to Newlyn she had seen at first hand a new kind of factory employing the most modern of technique of canning in oil or brine. The fish escaped being handled so much and the packed cans were less likely to spoilage on long journeys, better suited to the growing West Indian market. What’s more it required less labour to carry out. What better way to make the most of what was being served up by the sea.

Secretly she had met with a representative from a Messrs Buckler and Stone of London to learn about the new processes and enquire as to the necessary investment required for the establishment of such a factory. If she were to progress this she had first to break through her father’s seemingly impenetrable stubbornness in doggedly hanging onto the old methods and then she must secure the additional fiscal means to make it a reality.

When her father had initially informed her of the two artists she first supposed that it would be Wilkinson who would be the fat fish to lure into her net, but his antipathy towards her was too much in evidence to make any reasonable advances possible. Denning, on the other hand, came from a well-connected family of means. Moreover he had shown a palpable interest in her from the outset, so she had decided he would become her trout ripe for the tickling. Her father had played into her hands by suggesting the portrait. Thus thrown together she could work on him at her leisure. He was also a man whose interest in money matched that of his interest in woman. She didn’t have to be an artist to read that, she thought. Eventually he would respond just as passionately to a return on investment of 60% as he would the promise of a kiss.

She learnt from an old woman of the cove that to attract and keep a man she should treat him to sunshine rain and snow. Bursts of sunshine to warm his heart, the rain to make him always feel just that little bit uncomfortable, and the snow to keep him so in the cold as to desire the sunshine again. Mr Denning had already begun to feel a little of each.

Idly she unfolded the piece of paper that rested like a tiny white butterfly in the palm of her hand. What game is being played now? she thought. The cold air blast of the words in harsh black pencil caused her to catch her breath.



Meet me in the grounds of the monastery. Please, this is of utmost importance. Jowan C.



What game is this? She thought angrily, looking about her for the conspirators. She studied the note, re-traced every crude letter. Glanced about her as if lost. Her fingers folded over the paper.



* * * *





Canvases were sprawled against the walls, some half finished, most of them blank. Brushes lay sprinkled across a table. A paint-mottled easel stood empty in a corner. Everywhere about the cramped room were the implements of activity with little sign of the activity itself.

Wilkinson knelt by his bed, tossed aside a few canvases that blocked his way, sliding out a trunk from beneath. He paused, lifted the lid with the gravity of an explorer disturbing an ancient tomb. Underneath the clothes within lay a cloth-wrapped bundle tied with twine. Small, heavy. He untied the string and peeled back the material and instead of the dead, cold bones of an ancient king he touched the dead, cold metal of a revolver, silent and menacing amid its deathly shroud.

He did not like to look directly upon it, for he detested its repugnant presence, its barrel a cruel pointer to his darker intentions. He pocketed it swiftly. The feel of it pressing against him gave him a modicum of perverse reassurance. The enticing, agonising possibility of release.

He stowed the trunk away. He needed to think things through, take a walk. It was madness. All was madness.

Spikes of cold rain pin-pricked his face as he took the path up the cliff towards the ruined monastery and the wood. The distance-muffled sounds of people on the beach hardly registered in the ferment of his mind. A number of men and women passed him, on their way down to the cove from their temporary cliff-top home in order to offer themselves up for the possibility of work. One or two voiced a greeting but he stared fixedly ahead, hardly noticing their presence. And all the while the gentle thump of the gun, in time to his urgent stride, reminded him, goaded him.

He walked till he was breathless, the wood with its near-empty shanty town far behind him. Ahead only the bleak rolling cliff top, the lonely path a gnarled thread running through murky green velvet. He looked over the edge of the cliff, the height dizzying, boulders appearing as pebbles, waves as ripples. He seated himself on a rock close to the edge. The gun now rested heavy in his hand, a dull uncompromising light streaking across it as he turned it over, giving it life, of sorts.

One true shot to the heart, to the head. A single squeeze on the trigger.

In the distance he saw someone walking towards him, the shadowy wood at his back. A steady, gentle amble. As he came closer he noticed the man wore a Derby, at a rakish slant, hands deep in trouser pockets, a folded newspaper tucked under his arm. He was whistling to himself; the crude melody of a music hall song. He put the gun safely away.

“Good morning, sir,” he greeted brightly as he eventually came up to Wilkinson.

“Good morning,” Wilkinson returned dully.

He removed his Derby, wiped a spotted handkerchief over his forehead. He plonked the hat back on, tapping it firmly on its crown to seat it properly on his head. He took a cigar from out of his pocket. “I used to dislike the rain and the wind but I find I tolerate it better now than in my youth. Can I offer you a cigar, sir? I have a surfeit of them – gifts you might say, for services rendered.”

“No, thank you,” he said.

The man in the Derby lit up his cigar, puffing and sucking noisily to get it going. “I’m sorry,” he said, shooting out his hand. “I’m Benjamin Croker. Pleased to make your good acquaintance.”

His lined forehead was emphasised by his deep suntan, obviously a man recently returned from sunnier climes. He had a strong nose and pond-green eyes flecked with brown, a fair beard run through with streaks of grey at the corners of his mouth. It was a plain, ordinary face that would not stick in the memory for being one thing or another. His clothing was altogether different, for he was smartly turned out, a crisp white collar and necktie at his throat, a neat broad-checked jacket, dark blue waistcoat and shining watch chain, all looking new and of reasonably expensive quality. Wilkinson could not accurately place his accent but detected an underlying bedrock of vulgar East End London, above which sat many layers, evidence of a life spent in varied places or of one seeking to submerge roots.

Resignedly Wilkinson shook the man’s proffered hand. “Terrance Wilkinson,” he returned.

“Oh, I know who you are,” he said chirpily.

Wilkinson raised a brow. ”Do I know you, Mr Croker?”

“I very much doubt that, Mr Wilkinson. But sure I know you. You are quite the famous artist. I says to myself as I came across you sitting here, is that the Mr Wilkinson, all alone and looking out to sea? Why, I says, yes it is! Now isn’t that a curious thing! And I thought, this is just the opportunity for me to introduce myself. And so here I am and here you are.”

Wilkinson got to his feet, brushing dirt from his trousers. “I don’t think we have ever met before.” A sense of unease began to stew in the pit of his stomach. “What is your business in Porthgarrow?”

“I am a correspondent by trade, sir, currently compiling an article for my paper on the lives of the poor noble fishermen. Livelihoods under threat, the demise of an industry - tragedy, romance, starvation, drownings. I take what I observe and I Crokerise it – a term you’ll struggle to find in any dictionary, for I boldly coined it myself – whose meaning I loosely translate as transforming the ordinary and unpleasant into the pretty and thrilling. You know how readers like their facts served up. Why, now I deign to look upon it, we are so much birds of a feather, you and I, for is that not the same as you do with your paintings?”

His nervousness increased. “It has been a pleasure, Mr Croker,” he said flatly, “but I’d like to continue my walk now. Another time, perhaps?”

“Well, isn’t it my very good fortune that I am headed the very same way? Come let us walk together!”

For some reason this Croker reminded Wilkinson of the gendarme back in Pont Aven. Words saying one thing but hiding another. Was he really who he said he was? Why had he not seen the man before? There were few strangers in this place, and none so strikingly dressed.

“How long have you been here in Porthgarrow, Mr Croker?”

Croker spat on the ground, shoved his cigar tight into the corner of his mouth. “Around the same time you arrived. This is the funny thing,” he said, taking out his cigar and waving it at Wilkinson, “I covered an exhibition of yours in London for my paper, oh, quite a while ago now. You wouldn’t remember me. I was just one humble speck of a newspaper hack amongst many amid that crowd of well to do folk raining down praise on your good work. We are ignored as a profession, generally, carry little weight in society. Take Mr Hendra here as a case in point. Does he jump at my request to meet with him so I can take down his thoughts for my article? No, he does not even reply. Whereas you, respected artist and gentleman – which indeed you are, sir – are no sooner lodged in Porthgarrow than you are sat around his very fine table. Yet look upon this, here we are, you and I, veritable strangers washed upon the same beach like so much flotsam. The artist and the journalist, flung together once again. A funny thing, eh?”

Breakers boiled at the base of Baccan’s Rock. It appeared to absorb and hold onto the light, being so dark and featureless. Even the gulls seemed keen to avoid it. Not a single bird, nor blade of grass, marked its sombre black surface. Beyond it the sea and sky melted into a grey mist. The rain began to fall a little harder but Wilkinson was not aware of his wet coat or damp hair. The rock to his right. The man with the Derby to his left. He felt ever more hemmed in, panic beginning to seize him.

“I do miss the sunshine though,” Croker continued. “Last year, you see, I was covering the war against the darkies in Africa. The Zulu. We gave them a sound thrashing at Kambula. I was fortunate enough visit the site of the battle very soon afterwards and speak with the officers and men for my paper. What a fine sight to see all those heathens laid low by our brave boys! Two thousand of them killed, and not near enough by half in my opinion. Their corpses smelled to high heaven, but in truth they smell as bad whether alive or dead, take it from a man of experience.”

Wilkinson stopped. “I’m sure it is very interesting,” he said, “but…”

“That’s the thing with primitives, is it not, Mr Wilkinson? The smell. Take the people down there. Fish. Always the smell of fish. I says to myself, imagine having to kiss a woman who smelled constantly of haddock. That’s if you could find one agreeable enough to kiss in the first instance!”

He held up a hand to cut him short. “Mr Croker,” he said bluntly, “I wish to continue my walk alone. Your thoughts are best kept to yourself, and I would like the space to have a few of my own.”

“But of course! Of course! I intrude on your privacy. And such a place as Porthgarrow, isolated, forgotten by the greater world you might say, is the perfect location to enjoy such privacy, is it not, Mr Wilkinson? Away from the uncertainties and meanness of the city.” He whipped the newspaper out from beneath his arm. “Take this as a case in point.” He opened it up, flicked energetically through the large pages, folded it back on itself. Wilkinson watched with mounting nervousness. “See here, the tale of a poor young woman, found dead in an alley, throat cut like a pig’s. What is the world coming to, eh, Mr Wilkinson? Who would do such a thing?” He folded the newspaper and put it back beneath his arm. “Yes, you do well to seek out a refuge, leave it all behind.” He smiled and gave a mock bow. “Please, do not let me fetter your company a moment longer or interrupt your restorative perambulations.”

They held each other’s gaze for a second. “Good day, Mr Croker,” Wilkinson said and strode quickly away.

Coker spat on the ground again, threw away the barely-smoked cigar and took another out of his jacket. He grinned as he lit it up, put his hands back in his trouser pockets and headed towards the wood humming a little tune to himself.



* * * *