An Honest Day's Labor

The May day on which I boarded the train was fresh and brilliant, in that way that only the English countryside can be. The sooty air and close streets of London had quickly slid past the windows of the train, giving way to rolling green hills and pastures filled with shaggy sheep, some apple trees still in bloom. Sadly, my mood could not match the beauty of the day. I glanced down at my hands in their black lace gloves, neatly folded in my lap. I would soon doff the clothes of mourning for my husband only to don the denim dress and work apron of a factory girl. The road ahead looked bleak. I tried to focus on the scenery outside.

Suddenly the door to the compartment swung open, and a man came in quickly, shutting the door behind him and perching himself on the seat across from me. I had been careful in choosing an empty compartment. I could trust my widow’s garb to grant me an air of propriety, but such allowances would only go so far. A woman alone in a compartment with an unknown man? Well, this was dancing with the boundary for sure. I gathered my skirt delicately around me and angled my body more towards the window, hoping the strange man would take the unsubtle hint that he was unwelcome. He seemed, however, not to register me at all. All his attention was absorbed in a small black book he held before him. He kept jotting something down in its pages, then looking up to the ceiling of the compartment, as though he was doing maths in his head. Surely, he was not so taken up with his writing that he had failed to notice me at all? Or was this to be my new life, as common men would now think that I was someone with whom they could fraternize freely?

I noted that he looked a little…rough, to be polite. His bowler hat was frayed at the brim. He had a large, plain face, with slightly protuberant eyes and nose. He was wearing a waistcoat with a garish green and yellow paisley print. He did not seem in any way to be a person of class or good taste. I sighed loudly. The likes of him were to be my peers from now on. Unfortunately, he had heard my sigh and glanced at me for the first time.

“What’s the story, duck?” he mumbled. He was looking at me sidelong while trying to keep up with his book as if still deciding whether he was really attempting proper conversation. I couldn’t possibly speak to a man who was not my husband, alone, when we had never been properly introduced. I blushed when he made the remark, and stared determinedly out the window, ready to pretend with all my might that he had not just tried to speak to me. Still not fully looking at me, he did a quick chin lift, apparently to acknowledge my all-black clothing. “Condolences,” he said gruffly. “Who’s kicked it, then?”

I stifled a gasp at his unseemly manners. I may be a woman of reduced circumstances, but this was too much! I was overwhelmed with nerves and grief, and a few tears dripped from my eyes beneath my black birdcage veil. He finally looked up from his black book when I still didn’t respond. “Aw, come off it, I dinnit mean no harm. Just trying to be cordial, like. I wouldn’t hurt you.” He stuck his hand inside his coat and drew out a handkerchief and offered it to me. It looked less than sparkling white, but not truly dirty, so I used it to dab my eyes.

“Thank you, kindly,” I deigned to say, as it would have also been rude not to acknowledge the small kindness, and truly I must take companionship where I could find it from now on.

“Name’s Pierce,” he offered, with a tip of the shoddy bowler, “William Pierce, pleased to acquaint you.”

Well, that would probably have to suffice for a formal introduction. “Clara, Clara Montgomery. Of the Rochester Montgomerys.”

Mr. Pierce raised his eyebrows, whistled softly, and nodded once, firmly. So, there it was. News of our shame had spread even to the lowlifes of the London gutter. More tears spilled from my eyes and I choked on a strangled little sob. “So, you know then! I suppose everyone knows, it was in all the papers. I never thought it would come to this!” I couldn’t help but bury my face in my hands and sob stormily, forgetting all decorum.

“There, there, that’s enough of that. It is what it is, as me mum always said. I ran into old Chester a few times around the pit, back in the day. ‘Course I’m just a railbird, but he seemed like he had some talent. Seemed like he’d always come out on top, but then he just couldn’t come right. Started chasing, and you know that never ends well. Is it true that he died of the shock of it, losing all that money?”

Instead of replying, I just cried harder. He leaned across the space between the seats and awkwardly patted my shoulder. I breathed shakily and tried to calm myself. I turned from the window, twisting the now soggy handkerchief in my hands. I glanced up at him very quickly, with a little smile. “Thank you for your kind commiseration, Mr. Pierce.” My voice had that stuffy nose sound one always has after crying.

“There, sun’s out, right, duck? Cat’s always land on their feet, as the saying goes. You’ll come right round, I bet. Find a nice new gent to marry, eh?”

“That is not possible, Mr. Pierce,” I said softly, “Our family money is gone to Chester’s creditors, and my parents have passed. I have no family or personal money to offer any prospective suitors. I am going to Folkestone to look for work, most likely at one of the factories.”

Mr. Pierce looked concerned and seemed about to say something, but at that moment the conductor walked through the hallway between compartments, announcing, “Redhill, coming into Redhill!”

“Damn,” Mr. Pierce muttered. “I’ve got to fly, duck, but you’ll come right round, I promise you!” and without another word, he opened the door to the compartment and was gone.

Mystified, I glanced down at the seat he had so recently occupied. I quickly got up to check the hallway, “Mr. Pierce, you forgot…” but I trailed off as I saw that there was no sign of him in the hallway. “You forgot your book,” I said, as the train lurched into movement again. Even more mysteriously, I saw a few tiny, gray balls left on the seat where he had been sitting. “Lead shot,” I whispered to myself, remembering the look from seeing it on my husband’s hunting trips in happier days.

Although I had firmly resolved not to violate Mr. Pierce’s privacy by opening his black book, since I had no idea how to return it to him, my resolve quickly weakened. I rationalized that perhaps the book contained information that might help me return it to him, and furtively cracked the cover. The book was equally as puzzling as everything else I had gleaned about Mr. Pierce. I noted thorough copies of the train timetables, diagrams of the train, indicating the purpose of the different cars, and long columns of numbers, which he may have been completing when he first sat down in the compartment. On another page was a drawing of a key, and then across from it, a drawing of the seal of Abell & Co, an auction house. I turned one more page, and saw a hastily scrawled note: “C.-Go to the porter’s desk in Folkestone and accept the package. It will come right round! -W.P.”

I sat stunned for the rest of the journey to Folkestone, my mind awhirl trying to put all the pieces together. I took my small bag and got off the train at Folkestone. After a brief search, I found the porter’s desk. I walked up to one of the uniformed men with a bushy mustache. “Please sir,” I almost whispered, “I believe I have a package. For Clara Montgomery.” With an irritated look, he said he hadn’t heard a word, and after repeating myself several times, he grabbed an old carpetbag from the platform.

“Ah, ok, here you are,” he said, “Kind of heavy for a little bag. Are you sure you’ve got it?”

“Yes, I’ll manage,” I said with a nod. I started walking away from the desk to a quiet bench on the platform when I saw a familiar face bobbing in the crowd. “Mr. Pierce!” I suddenly called as loud as I could muster. “Mr. Pierce, wait!” He was with another man, both of them looking odd-shaped under bulky coats, and as he heard me and looked back, the other man pulled on his arm, dragging him toward the train. “Sorry, duck!” he yelled across the crowd, “We’re going on to Dover!” As his friend crowded him into the car, the train whistle shrieked, and steam started puffing out as it began to move. The platform cleared quickly after the train was gone. And I was alone.

Full of trepidation and no small amount of excitement, I opened the mysterious carpetbag. Nestled under some old clothes were two gleaming gold ingots. I suddenly felt faint and sat down heavily on the bench. I sat there for a bit, but as a woman traveling alone late at night, I did not need to spend any more time in the deserted train station. I could afford to hire a hansom cab, spend the night in a decent boarding house, and in the morning, look into getting a train back to London.

Well, I suppose by now you’ve heard the rest. It’s been in all the papers, the arrest, the protracted trial. He only had a year and a half of freedom with all those marvelous riches. And it was such a clever plan, taking the pins out of the hinges on the trunk so the gold could be removed without damaging it, replacing the gold in the trunks with the lead shot so it would not raise eyebrows when they were weighed in Folkestone before being loaded on the steamer to Paris. I suppose I shouldn’t condone criminal activity, but one can’t help but feel that such ingeniousness should be…well, not rewarded, I suppose, but not punished.

As for me, I’ve kept quiet. Once I secured a country holding for myself, in a corner of Kent away from my infamy in Rochester, I kept my head down. It wasn’t enough money to keep me in eiderdown for the rest of my life, but it’s kept me out of the factory, and for that I am grateful. I’ve told myself time and again that I don’t owe him anything, but sometimes the pricking of my conscience when I’m in a comfy bed, thinking of Mr. Pierce suffering in solitary confinement, gives rise to strange thoughts.

Following these strange thoughts led me to a crowded dock in London on a hot August day. The convict ship, the Edwin Fox, was docked and being loaded with prisoners bound for the penal colonies of Australia. I spotted Mr. Pierce, bound in shackles, trudging towards the gangplank with the others.

“Mind yourself, then!” he shouted, as I bumped into him roughly. There was a moment of recognition as our eyes met, and he realized the object I had shoved into his hands was a small metal file that was tucked up into his sleeve before anyone could notice. The gangplank bounced a bit as he walked onto the ship, whistling “Botany Bay” like a man with renewed hope.