Black Hearts in Battersea (11 page)

"All right, all right, don't deafen me, brat! You shall go to the fair. Only for my sake, will you put on a clean pinafore when we go, and wash your face?"

"Oh, stuff!" Dido put out her tongue at him between the railings. Simon waved a hand to her and went whistling away down the street.

The Duke of Battersea was not at home that evening, having been inveigled, for once, into attending a performance at the opera with his lady. Sophie, who sometimes slipped into the library for a chat when Simon was there, had left a note tucked among his cleaning tools, informing him that she also would be out, escorting her mistress. (For fear of being bored, the Duchess would go nowhere without a supply of amusements, reading matter, and embroidery things, which it was Sophie's duty to carry.) The party would not be home until a late hour.

Simon was disappointed not to see Sophie, but the absence of his Grace's somewhat fidgety companionship made it easier to get on with the job, and he applied himself with a will, whistling gently between his teeth as he uncovered more and more of the large picture until there was only a patch as big as a top-hat left to clean.

"Hilloo," remarked a supercilious voice behind his
shoulder after an hour or two had gone by. "How's the paint-scrubber getting on?" He turned to see young Lord Bakerloo surveying the cleaning operations somewhat scornfully. He seemed disposed to linger, however, rocking to and fro on his heels, picking up first one, then another of the cleaning tools until Simon longed to tell him to leave them be.

"How's old Fur-nose?" he presently inquired.

Simon replied that Dr. Furrneaux seemed in the best of health, and civilly asked after Lord Bakerloo's arm.

"Can you keep a secret?" said Justin.

"Of course."

"Well, so can I. Mum's the word." Justin doubled up with laughter at his own wit and added, "You won't see me at that old academy again for a long, long time, I can tell you."

Simon made no reply to this, but quietly got on with his work, while Justin wandered about behind him, occasionally singing snatches of a ballad which seemed to consist principally of the refrain:

"Hip-hap, habble-dabble-oh,
Shall we go
To Haberdashers' Row?"

until Simon felt there was no place in London that he less wished to visit.

"Devilish dull here, this evening, ain't it?" Justin presently broke off to say. He yawned until his face seemed
ready to split. "I almost wish I'd gone to the opera with the old gudgeons—not that Aunt Hettie asked me," he added sourly. "I believe Buckle peached on me; said I hadn't finished my lessons. By the bye, Uncle Bill charged me with a message to you. I was to ask if you was free to play chess with him on Sunday. Getting jumped-up in the world, aren't we? My oh me, playing chess with the gentry and nobil-itee."

"Do you mean his Grace the Duke invited me?" Simon asked, ignoring the sneer in the last sentence.

"O' course I do. Uncle Bill Battersea, mad as a hatter, see, growing much fatter, see, oh, devilish good. I'm a wit, I am!"

Simon disagreed, but kept his opinion to himself. He said, "Will you please tell his Grace that I thank him kindly for the invitation but that I shan't be able to accept."

"Blest if I see why
I
should carry your messages," Justin said. "Why can't you write him a note? Or can't you write?" he added rudely.

Simon checked an irritable retort, calmly wrote a note on a page of his sketchbook, folded it into a cocked hat, and laid it on his Grace's fireside table.

"Fancy that! We
can
write!" said Justin with heavy sarcasm. Plainly he was spoiling for a quarrel, and longed to provoke Simon into setting about him. Simon, instead, began to feel rather sorry for him; he seemed lonely and bored, disappointed at not being taken to the opera, and very much at a loose end.

"Anyway why
can't
you come on Sunday?" Justin
inquired with the persistence of a buzz fly. "It ain't very polite to turn down Uncle Bill's invitation."

"I'm taking Dido Twite to Clapham Fair."

"
That
little bag of bones? What the dickens do you want to do that for?" Justin exclaimed, truly astonished. "She's as dirty as a gutter perch, and got no more manners or gratitude than a hedge fish."

Simon remarked mildly that he had promised Dido a treat long since, and she had chosen to go to the Fair.

"Well, I wish I was coming instead of Dido," Justin remarked frankly. "It's a prime good fair, I can tell you. I sneaked out last year and went with Jem the stableboy, but now old Buckle-and-Thong's living in the castle, keeping such a tight eye on me, I daresay I shan't be allowed."

"You're welcome to come with me if you can get permission," Simon said.

Justin's face lit up. "
Could
I? Oh, that'd be spanking. But," he added gloomily, "it's no use asking, for if Buckle heard I was going with you and Dido Twite he'd never allow it. It'd be the monkey's allowance, sure as you're alive. He don't permit me to associate with
low-born
persons. He's a sight stricter than Uncle Bill! I'd slip off anyways, but they keep me so devilish short of blunt that I've hardly two groats to rub together. I suppose you couldn't lend me a cartwheel, could you?"

"Yes, all right," Simon said calmly. "But I shall tell your uncle that I am taking you, you know. I daresay he'll have no objection, but I don't want to do anything behind his Grace's back." He handed over the coin.

"If you
tell
him, we're making the whole arrangement for Habbakuk," Justin said discontentedly. "Surly old Buckle will find some way to stop my going, I'll bet you a borde. How I hate him, the cheese-faced old screw!"

"Lord Bakerloo!" said an acidly angry voice just behind his back. He whirled round. Mr. Buckle stood there.

"What are you doing in the library, pray?" Buckle said. "You know that his Grace left strict instructions you were not to consort with the cleaning boy and hinder him from his work. Back to your studies, my lord, if you please."

"Oh, very well," replied Justin sulkily, and began to slouch away, making a grimace at Simon. Mr. Buckle, who had hitherto ignored Simon, now cast one sharply penetrating and strangely malignant glance at him. His eye moved on from Simon to the picture, completely clean at last. Something about it suddenly seemed to attract his very particular attention; he stared at it fixedly for a moment or two, then glanced at Simon again, with eyes dilated, then back at the picture. "Good God!" he exclaimed under his breath, gave Simon a last hard scrutiny, and hurried after his charge.

Simon, very much surprised, inspected the picture attentively himself to try and discover what had fixed the tutor's interest. The last section to be cleaned was the portrait of a dark-haired boy on a pony. There seemed nothing odd about him that Simon could see; in the end he gave up the puzzle and began putting his tools together, preparatory to departure. At this moment he heard a confusion of voices outside the door and a group of persons burst into
the room, all talking at once.

The Duke was in front, with her Grace the Duchess, followed by Midwink, the sour-faced valet, and Sophie, besides a couple of footmen and an elderly lady's maid, who was alternately wringing her hands, examining a hole in a large opera cloak she carried, and lamenting at the top of her voice: "Oh, my lady, my lady! Cloth of copper tissue embroidered with fire-opals! Fourteen guineas the inch! Ruined! And lucky you was not to be all burnt in your seats! Oh, why wasn't I there?"

"Nonsense, Fibbins, we did quite well without you," the Duchess replied briskly. "Now, Scrimshaw, don't stand about gaping, but bring refreshment! We have all had an unpleasant experience and our spirits need sustaining. His Grace wants prune brandy and Stilton, while I will take a glass of black-currant wine and a slice of angel cake. So will Sophie, I'm sure, won't you, my dear? Indeed, without your cool head I don't know where we should all have been. We should certainly not be here now."

"No indeed!" interjected his Grace. "Gal's got a head on her shoulders worth two of any of those dunderheaded ushers at Drury Lane. Very much obliged to ye, my dear; shan't forget it in a hurry."

"Oh, truly, my lady, and thank you, your Grace; it was nothing."

Hearing this praise of Sophie, Simon could not resist lingering.

"Hallo, you there, my boy?" his Grace cried, discovering him. "You work while we play, eh? And better it would have been if we'd all stayed at home minding our own business. Here's such an adventure we've been through; only just escaped with our lives, thanks to clever little Miss Sophie here."

"What happened?" Simon asked, no longer attempting to conceal his lively interest.

"Why my lady wife drags us all off to the opera (and miserable plaguey slow it was, too, I don't mind telling you; I can never make head nor tail of these fellers warbling away about their troubles—pack o' nonsense, if you ask me, when anyone can see they've never wanted for a good dinner in their lives); all of a sudden in the first act we all smell smoke, and next thing you know, the whole of our blessed box is afire, curtains, carpets, and all! And can we get out? No, we can not! Why, do you ask?" (The Duke, in his excitement, had quite thrown off his usual vague air.) "Why, because the box door is locked, and though we shout and call, nobody can find the key! So we should all three have been nicely frizzled for anything anyone could do, if it hadn't been for little miss, here."

"What
did
Sophie do?" Simon asked, absently accepting a slice of cake and a glass of black-currant wine from Scrimshaw.

"Why, she outs with Madam's embroidery, which, as you may know, is a piece of tapestry big enough to cover the end wall of this room, rolls it into a rope, hangs it over the front of the box, and tells me to slide down it!"

"And did you, your Grace?"

"To be sure I did! Haven't had such a famous time since
I was a little feller in nankeen snufflers sliding down the stair rail at Chippings Castle!"

"And did her Grace slide down the rope too?" Simon inquired, much astonished.

"Bless you, no! Took a fit of the vapors at the very idea! So we was all in a flimflam, if Sophie hadn't thrown the tapestry down and called out, 'Hold it tightly by the corners!' So I and half a dozen other gentlemen held it out tight, while her Grace and Sophie jumped into it (one at a time, of course; as it was her Grace's weight nearly pulled my arms out o' the sockets, didn't it, my dear?)."

"Such an indecorous thing to be obliged to do!" sighed her Grace, fanning herself with a piece of cake.

"Yes, and it's my belief that you'd hardly have done it then if little Miss Sophie hadn't given you a smart push from behind, eh, miss? I saw you," said the Duke, grinning at Sophie, who blushed, but defended herself.

"Her Grace was—was hesitating a little, and really there was no time to be lost. The flames were already catching her cloak."

"Ruined! Ten thousand guineas' worth of copper brocade," wailed the lady's maid.

"Oh, be quiet, Fibbins! You should be grateful her Grace herself isn't burnt to a crisp, instead of that miserable cloak I've never liked above half. Yes, and two minutes after they'd jumped, the whole box crashed down into the stalls. What do you think of that, eh?"

Simon then recollected his manners and took his leave, sure that the ducal family would not wish the presence of
a stranger after such an alarming adventure.

The Duke clapped him kindly on the back. "Off, are you? How's the picture getting on? What, done already? Come, that's famous; I'd no notion you'd do it so quickly. See, Hettie, doesn't it look better?"

"Indeed, it is a great, great improvement," her Grace said warmly. "I'd no idea that dingy old painting could be made so bright and handsome. Why, good gracious! William, look at this, only look!"

"What, my love? What has surprised you?"

"Look at this girl on the pony!"

"That
girl,
my dove, is a boy; observe his breeches!"

"Girl or boy, what does it matter?" said the Duchess impatiently. "But whichever it is, he or she is the very spit image of Sophie!"

It was late that night before Simon returned to his lodgings; the Twites' part of the house was all in darkness and he had to feel his way up the steep stairs by the light of the moon which shone in at the landing window. He did not trouble to light a candle in his room but was about to undress and jump into bed when an unexpected sound made him pause.

The sound, which came from the bed, was a muffled and broken gulping, somewhat resembling the grunts of a small pig.

"Who's there?" Simon said cautiously.

The only reply was a dejected sniff. Beginning to guess what he should see, Simon found and lit his stump of candle; it displayed a small miserable figure curled up on his bed with its face hidden in the pillow.

"Dido! What are you doing up here? What's the matter?"

She raised a tear-stained face and said woefully, "Ma won't let me go to the Fair!"

"Why not? Have you been naughty?"

"No, I never. But she was in a fair tweak about summat Pa said—they was at it hammer and tongs, I heard him shouting that she was under the thumb of her havey-cavey kin and would have us all in the Pongo—and then when I asked about the Fair she just glammered at me and said no."

"Well, you were a dunderhead to ask her when she was cross, weren't you," Simon said, but not unkindly. He sat down on the bed, put his arm around her, and gave her a consoling pat on the back. "Why don't you be extra good for a day or two and then ask her again; it's odds but she'll have forgotten she forbade you."

"N-no," said Dido forlornly. "Acos when I said
why
couldn't I go, she said acos I'd got no warm dresses that were fit to wear outdoors."

"Lord bless us! Can't she buy you something, or make you something? You don't have to keep indoors all winter, surely?"

"She said she couldn't get anything till Friday fortnight when Pa gives her the housekeeping. It's not
fair!
" said Dido passionately. "She was allus favoring Penny—only just afore Penny run off she had a candy-floss shawl and three pair of Manila gloves and a blue-and-white-striped ticking overmantel! Ma jist don't like me, she never buys me
anything!
"