Sweet Things Dying - Chapter XXII

In the latest instalment, Cole confronts Reverend Bloom face-to-face...

XXII

An iron sky tinged with crimson streaks of dying sunlight left much of White Lion Street lost inside a well of spreading darkness. Cole stood near the Commercial Street end, watching the lamplighter stroll along the pavement, striking a yellow flare of life into each lamp he passed beneath. Few lamps lit the roadway, which was still more than most of the East End’s courts and lanes had. The lighter continued past the Bloom residence, lit a final lamp at the opposite end of the street where it opened out to Shoreditch, then was gone.

Yet the gloom had not retreated.

Heavy curtains were drawn across Bloom’s windows, keeping out the cold that pressed against the glass. A line of warmth and light seeped out between the edges, where the curtains met the windows, except in the garret where Heather’s room had been. Her windows stayed dark. On the front steps a few scattered flower petals remained, but the condolences that had once covered the stoop had long since been moved off.

Cole rapped on the door, surprised when Jasper Pearson answered.

Pearson was equally shocked: “What do you want?” he asked.

“I wish to speak with Mr. Bloom.”

“The reverend is busy at the moment. And I do not believe he has any further business to address with you.”

Cole looked past Pearson into the foyer and the open door of the parlour beyond. He spoke up: “I come with news, Reverend – from the police. An arrest has been made.”

The effect worked.

“Let him in, Mr. Pearson,” Bloom called from the parlour. “If only for a minute.”

A fire crackled in the hearth and Cole was allowed a moment to warm his hands.

Bloom was sunk within a wide armchair, pen in hand and notes upon his knee. To his side, between he and Pearson’s chair, was a table on which a Bible and a concordance lay open. The flames in the hearth scintillated off Bloom’s spectacles as he stared expectantly at Cole.

“I find it an inconvenience to have you in my home once again, Mr. Cole, but now you are here what have you to report?”