“There was soot and orphans everywhere, and gaslit cobbled streets full of fog and sinister gentlemen out for a night of illicit murder. It was a strict and unforgiving society; looking at a piano, eating too much butter, dancing with elan – the sour-faced Queen Victoria forbade all these things. And, it was also raining in the London of themdays – dirty grey slabs of rain that left everywhere shining and slippery.”
