I wonder what it was about living with Renfrew that made her snoop around his private papers, and what it was she did to punish herself for so obvious a sin.

ф

A noise runs through my chambers. I know at once what it is, and yet I have never heard it before, not here, in my rooms, atop the kingdom that is my school. It cuts me to the marrow. It is a noise that must not exist. There it comes again, the shrill bleating of a bell. It jerks me upright, sees me race to the door. I lock her in, the girl, just as the third ring sounds; am by the custom-built cupboard at the fourth. It takes me three more rings to find the key; insert it (how clumsy my fingers are, how sweaty my palm!), turn it, and open the cupboard door. The ringing only stops when I take the receiver off the hook.

“Hullo,” I say, unsure of the procedure. “Samuel Trout here.” And then, blustery in my confusion, whispering hoarsely into the funnel jutting out of the wooden box: “This had better be an emergency!”

The voice that answers is so immediate, it seems to stand in the room with me. Its words pour out from the shell of the receiver straight into my ear; they have a crackle to them, as though someone were talking to you in a storm. I listen carefully, find myself nodding, before realising that it is sound that is transmitted, not motion.

When I hang up, I lock the cupboard very carefully, place the key in my pocketbook, and change into my travelling clothes. Half an hour later sees me leave the school in our fastest trap. In my carpetbag, clutched against the soft of my chest, are thirty pounds sterling, two changes of undergarments, my razor, my hairbrush, ten illegal cigarettes, and a box of sweets.

The Colt I wear in its holster. It rides high up my flank, the butt turned outward, like a doorknob growing out of the hollow of my armpit. Outside, the land lies dark under a sickle moon.

PART FOUR ANGEL

PART FOUR ANGEL

I asked him whether there was a great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense brown smoke that scarcely anything was to be seen.

“Oh, dear no, miss,” he said. “This is a London particular.”

I had never heard of such a thing.

“A fog, miss,” said the young gentleman.

“Oh, indeed!” said I.

CHARLES DICKENS, BLEAK HOUSE (1853)

THE COUNTRY AND THE CITY

THE COUNTRY AND THE CITY