Chapter 2 Characters

Veronica Lockhart, Known as Sally Lockhart:
"She was learning that if she pretended to be weak and frightned, adn dabbed at her eyes with lacy handkerchief, she could turn aside all manner of pressing questions. She disliked this intensely, but she had no other weapons-apart from the pistol. And that was no use against an enemy she could not see."
Mrs. Rees:
"...Mrs. Rees discussing in catlike terms her own shortcomings."
Unknown Gentlemen:
"First, a gentlemen in a cold house read a newspaper."
Unknown Lady:
"Second, an old- what shall we call her? Till we know her better, let us give her the benefit of the doubt, and call her lady-an old lady entertained a lawyer at tea.
Unknown Sailor:
"Third, a sailor in unhappy circumstances came ashore at the West India Docks and looked for a lodging house."
Marchbanks:
"The gentleman in question was called Marchbanks; his servants, in the days when he´d had a full staff, had called him the Major. He lived thirty miles outside London, on the coast of Kent, overlooking a grim tract of land that was flooded at high tide, marshy at low, and desolate always. The house was empty of all but the bare necessities of life, for the Major´s wealth had suffered a wasting disease. It was now on the verge of expiring."
"On this particular afternoon the major sat in the bay window of his chilly drawing room. The room faced north, out to the drab wilderness of water; gray and cold as it was, something drew him constantly to this side of the house, to watch the waves and the ships that passed farther out. But he was not looking out to sea just now; he was reading a newspaper lent to him by the only servant who remained--a cook-housekeeper so afflicted by drink and dishonesty that no one else at all would employ her."
"Listlessly he turned the pages, holding the paper up to the fading daylight so as to defer till the last possible moment the expense of lighting the lamps. His eyes scanned the columns of type with no ssssign of interest or hope--until he caught sight of a story on an inside page which made him sit up suddenly."
"The paragraph which interested him most read: The only witness to this sad event was Miss Veronica Lockhart, daughter of the late Mr Matthew Lockhart, a former partner in the firm. Mr Lockhart´s own death, in the wreck of the schooner Lavinia, was reported in these pages last August. "
Mr. Jeremiah Blyth:
"To this house came Mr Jeremiah Blyth, a stout and shady lawyer of Hoxton. His previous business with the owner had been transacted elsewhere; this was his first visit to Hangman´s Wharf."
The lawyer.
Does arrangements in perfectly legal terms.
"Mr. Blyth´s voice had the habit of fading away rather than coming to a stop at the end of a speech; it seemed to suggest that he made at the last moment."
"Mr. Blyth opened his leather case and took out some papers patiently."
"He paused there to let Adelaide enter the room with a tea tray. She put it down on a dusty little table, curtsied to Mrs. Holland, and left wothout a word. While Mrs. Holland poured tea, Mr. Blyth resumed.
"Dont be a coy, Mr. Blyth."
"He looked exqisetely pained at having to name something clearly. He lowered his voice, leaned foward in his chair, and looked around before he spoke."

Adelaide, Child:
"His knock brought a child to the door-a girl whose only feature seemed to be, on that dingy afternoon, a pair of enormous, dark eyes. "
"The child materialized. She could not, thought Mr. Blyth, be older than nine, and so should, by law, have been at school--for the new Board schools had been set up only two years before, making education compulsory for children under thirteen."
"However, Mr. Blyth´s conscience was as wraithlike as the child herself--dar too insubstantial to enquire, let alone protest. So his conscience and the child remained silence while Mrs. Holland gave directions for tea; and then they both vanished again."
"After Adelaide had shown him to the door, making no more noise than a shadow."

Mrs. Holland:
The owner of the house. She was a wizened old woman with sunken cheeks, pinched lips, and glittering eyes. She held out a clawlike hand to her visitor and spoke-but she might have been speaking in Turkish for all the sense Mr Blythe could make of it."
"Once the door was shut she opened a little tin box on the mantlepiece and took out a set of false teeth, fitting them into her wrinkled mouth and smacking her lips over them. They were too big for her and looked entirely horrible. "
"Im a fair woman."
"Mrs Holland sat for a while in the parlor, reading once again the document that the lawyer had brought her. Then she put away her teeth, after first rinsing them in the teapot, put on her cloak, and set out to look for the premises of Hammond and Whitgrove, Bankers, of Winchester Street.
Mr. Holland:
"Me pore dear husband´s this were. Real Ivory. Made for him out of East twenty-five years ago. Look at the worksmanship!"
"And when he deid , pore lamb, they was gooing to grave with him, being as he was took so quick. Cholera, it was. Gone in a weekend, pore duck. But I whipped ´em out of his mouth afore they shut the lid on him. There´s years o´wear in them teeth, I thought."
Matthew Bedwell:
"The third of our new acquaintances was called Matthew Bedwell. He had been second mate on the tramp ship in the Far East, but that was a year or more ago. At the moment, he was in a sorry state."
"He was wandering through the maze of dark streets behind the West Indies Docks, a kit bag slung over his shoulder, a thin jacket done up tight against the cold."
" He had a slip of paper in his pocket with an address on it. From time to time he took this out and checked the name of the street he was in, before putting it back and moving on a little way. Anyone watching him would have thought he was drunk; but there was no smell of alcohol around him, and his speech was not slurred, and his movementes were not clumsy. A more compassionate observer would have thought him ill or in pain, and that would have been nearer the mark. But if anyone had seen into his mind and sensed the chaos that reigned in that dark place, they would have thought it remarkable that he managed to keep going at all. There was one idea, flickering dimly like a candle in the swirl oof dreams and fears that blew around it. Just one, and it had brought him twelve thousand miles to London--but it was burning very low."
"Adelaide gave him a stump of candle and left him alone, and as soon as the door was shut he fel to his knee and toree open the kit bag. For the next minute or so his shaking hands worked busily--and then he lay on the bed, breathed deeply, and felt everything dissolved and soaked away into oblivion. Very soon, he was lost in a profound sleep. Nothing would awake him for the next part of 24 hours. He was safe."
"But he had nearly given up in Limehouse; the Chinaman, the smoke...An opium den, of course. And Bedwell was a slave for a mighty drug."
"He slept, and something of great importancce to Sally slept with him."
Chinaman:
"..when he caught sight of an open door, with an oldman squatting motionless on the step. The old man was chinese. He was watching Bedwell..."

WRITTEN AND POSTED BY: TOBIAS OBIGLIO