“Even as lads fighting to survive on the streets, he had a way about him. He wouldna harm another unless they started it, and never the girls who worked the streets. He would slip them a few coins or a loaf of bread we’d pinched when we had little ourselves, and expectin’ nothin’ in return.
“It’s not that he wouldna set someone right if they needed it,” Munro had gone on to explain. “He set me right a time or two. It’s as if he didna want to disappoint his mother, even though she was gone. If ye get my meanin’.”
I did understand. I had seen that quality in Brodie and on the streets in the inquiry cases we had taken on. Mr. Cavendish came to mind. One of those whom Brodie trusted and took care of.
Honor among thieves? I had never thought of it that way.
* * *
It is officially known as the British Museum, established over one hundred years earlier and considered the oldest museum in the world.
It was enormous, the colonnaded buildings surrounded by iron fence work with a gated entrance that filled two city blocks. Inside it contained exhibits and artifacts from around the world collected over the last hundred years from different parts of the Empire.
I had spent hundreds of hours there, my imagination and sense of adventure fueled by the ancient sarcophagus from the last pharaoh of Egypt, the 3200-year-old statue of Ramses II, and the Rosetta Stone inscribed with text in three scripts, artifacts acquired by British explorers and through the political machinations of foreign agreements.
I had little understanding of those things then, a much better one now having traveled extensively, my appetite piqued by those early museum explorations. I had visited many of the places where those artifacts were found.
While it was exciting to see those places, at the same time there was something almost poignant that a sarcophagus or statue had been carted off by a team of explorers and shipped hundreds of miles away.
Of course, those explorers argued that it was in the name of art and discovery so that others might appreciate these ancient artifacts.
I did wonder if Nectanebo II, who was supposedly the last true pharaoh of Egypt, might feel about having his sarcophagus paraded about London and then placed in the museum for all to look at including sticky-fingered young children I had seen once who had no appreciation or reverence for such things.
Further proof that supported my preference for a Viking funeral upon my own demise. No sticky-fingered children, if you please, or others gawking at my body laid out in some parlor.
There were at least a dozen galleries at the museum spread throughout the massive buildings. Upon my arrival, I was directed to the art gallery which now included an extensive display of photographs.
The museum had added additional exhibits and galleries since my earlier explorations there and it was a very good thing that I had worn my walking skirt and boots as I set off for the art exhibit room.
I could have easily wandered into other buildings and explored as I had on several occasions, my appetite for adventure fed by what I had discovered there. However, now was not the time. I promised myself to return as I eventually reached the art gallery.
I found the display of photographs at the back of the gallery, dozens of photographs mounted on easels and along the walls, much like works of art from artists of the past.
While I had never before thought of photographs as art, there were some surprising and stunning images on display that included a scene of the Thames and London Bridge at last light, the street lamps across the bridge glowing through growing darkness, one of the Queen’s horse guard, and another of Buckingham Palace.
There were also daguerreotypes of notable persons, with their bronze tones as a progression of the photography was noted in cards displayed on those earlier forms, including an early one of prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.
I had to admit that he looked very much like an overstuffed toad, as my aunt had once referred to him.
“He’s Italian for heaven’s sake!” She declared and not in a complimentary way. “They’re much better at wine than politics. Although, their food is quite acceptable.”
Never let it be said that she didn’t have her opinions. And this from a woman whose great ancestor was an immigrant from Normandy in France.
Then there were common street scenes, some that I had seen myself— Hyde Park with couples exchanging greetings, a cyclist with his bicycle as he stopped to chat with a young lady.
And then one photograph, perhaps, was the most poignant and compelling. That of a little girl who couldn’t have been more than three or four years old with a basket of flowers on her arm with Covent Garden in the background.
It was in stark contrast to the others taken about London, that included the Houses of Parliament, London Bridge, and monuments.
In the photograph, the little girl wore a patched dress with oversized boots that looked as if they might have been handed down from someone.
She was looking up at the camera, a hopeful expression on her face. Not, I thought, in anticipation of the photograph which she might not understand, but in anticipation of a coin for some flowers.
I wondered if the photographer who took the picture had purchased any that day. That might have made a small difference in her life— a loaf of bread, a biscuit from the bake shop, or an apple.
There were other visitors about here who gathered around the paintings by well-known artists and those not yet well-known as the curator explained the use of light and perspective in the subjects the artists had chosen.
“You seem quite taken with our little girl.”
