Free The Asylum by John Harwood Page A

married. And there’s about two hundred capital, in trust from your mother. The cottage was to be yours, and everything in it—no use now. If you go to Josiah, you’ll be able to save a bit. Maybe find an occupation—we’ve talked of it often enough—more chance for you in London.
    “Our solicitor’s name is Wetherell—Charles Wetherell, in George Street, Plymouth. When I’m gone, write to him. I’ve named Josiah as your guardian—has to be someone—told him to let you do as you please.
    “Now—marriage. You know what I think, but you’re a handsome gel, not like I was. You’ll have offers. If you accept someone, write to Mr. Wetherell—tell him who you’re marrying. Papers to draw up—he’ll tell you what’s needed.”
    She slid back amongst the pillows, breathing hard, and closed her eyes. I could not bring myself to disturb her, and three days later she was dead.
     
    I arrived at Gresham’s Yard in the midst of a fog that would last another three weeks. I was used to the gentle mists that drifted about our house on the cliffs, and I had vaguely assumed that fog was the same, only denser. But this was altogether different: noxious, laden with soot, a dark, greasy yellow by day, pitch-black by night, clutching at the throat and choking the lungs. My uncle cheerfully informed me that this was nothing compared to the fog of two winters before, which had begun in November and lasted until the following March. And even when it lifted, the streets remained shrouded, either in smoke or driving rain: I woke each morning feeling as if I had inhaled a lungful of coal dust, and I was always catching cold.
    My spirits, desolate enough when I arrived, sank lower as the weeks dragged on. My uncle was interested only in bookselling, and since his specialty was obscure theological works, there was little to converse about. To any question about our family, his invariable reply was, “You know, Georgina, it was such a long time ago; I really can’t recall,” until I gave up asking. What I had taken for benign approval was really benign indifference, an absolute lack of interest in anything beyond the confines of his shop.
    As the days lengthened, and I began to venture out of doors, I discovered that everything sounded louder, and smelt worse, than I had ever imagined; my nostrils were constantly assailed by the stench of dung and drains, decaying meat and rotting fish, my ears deafened by the clatter of hooves and the cries of street vendors; yet the sheer extremity of sensation was a relief from the oppression of the house. In my wanderings through Bloomsbury, I was constantly amazed at how quickly the scene could change, from the grand houses in Bedford Square to wretched tenements a mere hundred paces away. The first time I saw a man sprawled dead drunk in the gutter, with passersby taking no more notice of him than of a sack of coals—far less, indeed, for the coals would have been carried off at once—I wondered if it was my duty to help him. But I soon learnt to avoid meeting the eyes of my fellow pedestrians, to walk briskly through the less-salubrious streets, and which streets to avoid altogether.
    Gresham’s Yard was a small, cobbled square, opening onto Duke Street, close by the Museum. A little sign above the entrance said JOSIAH RADFORD: ANTIQUARIAN BOOKS BOUGHT AND SOLD . There were other shops in the square, including a stationer, a cabinetmaker, a tailor and a haberdasher. You passed through the entrance, which was like a short tunnel of blackened stone, roofed over by the upper floors of the houses, turned left, and there was the entrance to the bookshop, where my uncle sat in the front room at a battered roll-top desk when he was not pottering with the stock.
    Despite his shortsightedness, he seemed to know where any book was in the shop, and if the price was not pencilled on the flyleaf, he would always give it without hesitation. The customers were mostly elderly men like my uncle, scholars