Black Hearts in Battersea (13 page)

"Come and do it here," offered Mrs. Cobb. "You'll be company for me, my dear; Cobby's off to Hackney to look at some carriages."

"Soph, you are a Trojan," Simon said. "I made sure you'd be able to help." A bright idea struck him. "If you have the week off you could come to the Fair too, couldn't you? We could make a regular junket of it. It's on Sunday—the day after tomorrow."

"Why, I should love to!" Sophie said, her eyes sparkling at the thought.

They agreed to fix a meeting time and place next evening, when Simon came to fetch the dress.

Dido's problem was now solved but, as Simon walked home after having escorted Sophie to the gates of Battersea Tunnel, he reflected that the cloud of mystery in which he moved seemed to be thickening daily. He wondered if he
ought to warn the Duke that danger threatened—if it did—or would that merely raise unnecessary alarm in the kindly old gentleman's breast? But the sinking of the barge seemed highly suspicious, following, as it did, so soon after the fire in the opera box. Not for the first time Simon wished that Dr. Field were at hand to advise him. It seemed more and more plain that the doctor must have stumbled on some piece of the Hanoverian plot and been put out of the way.

As Simon climbed the steps of Number Eight, Rose Alley, he saw Dido's wan face pressed to the windowpane. He wondered if she had been there all day, and gave her a reassuring smile and wave. She darted out to intercept him in the hall.

"Have you got the mish? Come in here—Ma's got a gentleman visitor in the kitchen and Pa's asleep." She pulled him into her untidy bedroom.

"It's all right," Simon said. "My friend's making you a dress and she'll have it finished by tomorrow night. So all you have to do is get cleaned up—you can't wear a new blue merino dress looking like that."

"New blue merino!" breathed Dido, round-eyed. "Coo, I'll wash and wash and
wash!
But what about the mint sauce? Wasn't it dear?"

"No, because my friend had the stuff given to her as a present."

"New stuff and she give it away to someone she didn't even know? She must be loose in the basket!" Such generosity seemed hardly conceivable to Dido.

"Shall I tell your Ma about the dress?"

"Best not jist now. She's been out all day visiting Aunt Minbo at Hampton Court and come home as cross as brimstone! She said I wasn't to disturb her while the gentleman man visitor was there or she'd clobber me."

"All right, I'll tell her in the morning. Good night, brat," said Simon. Hampton Court! he thought. Could there be some connection between this visit and the wreck of the barge?

On his way upstairs he happened to glance back just in time to see Mrs. Twite's visitor come quietly out of the kitchen.

It was Mr. Buckle, the tutor.

"There must be a connection between Battersea Castle and this house," Simon said to himself positively as he got into bed. "And it's time something was done about that load of Pictclobbers in the cellar. I'll go to Bow Street and inform the constables tomorrow."

He wondered what would happen to the Twite family then. Presumably Mr. and Mrs. Twite would be haled off to jail. What would become of Dido? Surely children did not get imprisoned for the misdoings of their parents? Would the poor little thing have to go and live with one of her disagreeable aunts?

Recalling the new dress and the Fair, he resolved to put off his visit to Bow Street until Monday. Let Dido have her one day of pleasure. "After all," he thought, "a day's delay can't make much odds."

He went to sleep.

The dinner that the Duke of Battersea gave Dr. Furneaux's students was long remembered at the Academy of Art. As the Duke explained apologetically, the menu was put together at such short notice that the guests could only expect pot luck; just a neatish meal. There were but three courses: the first consisted of oysters, lobsters, salmon, turtle soup, and some haunches of turbot; this was followed by turkeys, chickens, a side of beef, and a whole roast pig; the last course consisted of veal-and-ham pies, venison pasties, salads, vegetables, jellies, creams, and fruit. "Just a picnic," as the Duke observed, "but as we are all such near neighbors I hope you won't take offense that we haven't been able to do better in the time."

Neither Dr. Furrneaux nor his students showed any tendency to take offense. The students many of whom had never seen so much food in their lives before, ate like famished wolves. Gus, sitting by Simon, and surrounded by high ramparts of oyster shells, had eaten steadily and in silence for an hour when at last he broke off to announce
with a sigh, "It's no use; I couldn't cram in another crumb, not if you was to pay me. It
does
seem a waste with all that's left! Ah well, this dinner ought to do me for a week, then it's back to apple peel and Mrs. Gropp's parsley. I must say, his Grace is a prime host, ain't he, Fothers? Nothing behindhand about this setout, is there?"

Fothers could not reply; he had eaten nineteen jellies and was leaning back in his chair with a glazed expression.

The Duke stood up and cleared his throat rather shyly, amid shouts of "Three cheers for his Grace!" "Silence for the Dook!" "Pray hush for old Batters!"

"Gentlemen," the Duke said. "My wife and I are very happy to welcome you here tonight. You saved our lives yesterday and we shan't forget it. There has always been a bond between my family and the Academy of Art ever since it was founded by Marius Rivière who, as you may know, married my aunt, Lady Helen Bayswater. From now on the bond will be even closer. I should like to make this dinner an annual event"—("Hooroar for Battersea!" "Good health to old Strawberry Leaves!")—"and I am also going to endow the academy with five scholarships for needy and deserving students. They will be known as the Thames Rescue Bursaries. The first two have already been awarded by myself and Dr. Furrneaux in consultation, to Mr. Augustus Smallacombe and to Mr. Simon—I'm afraid I don't know your last name," the Duke ended, breaking off and looking apologetically at Simon, who was so astonished that he stammered, "M-mine, your G-grace? I don't know it either."

"Were you never christened?" asked his Grace, much interested, "or had your parents no surname?"

"Why, you see, sir, I was an orphan," Simon explained. "I never knew my parents."

"Then where—" The Duke's further question was interrupted by Jabwing the footman, who chanced to drop a very large silver tureen full of oyster shells with a resounding crash just behind his Grace's chair. Then the students began cheering Gus and Simon so vociferously that no more could be said. The Duke, smilingly nodding to Simon and indicating that he would very much like to hear his history on a later occasion, stood up and invited his guests to come and view the restored Rivière canvas.

They all trooped up the great flight of stairs from the banqueting hall to the library. Here the end wall had been curtained off by a large piece of material—was it the Duchess's tapestry turned back to front? Simon rather thought so—and when everybody had been marshaled in, and Dr. Furrneaux shoved to a position of honor at the front, the Duchess pulled a string to unveil the picture.

The material fell to the ground and there followed a silence of astonishment.

"Devil take it!" exclaimed his Grace. "What's become of the picture? Scrimshaw, Jabwing, Midwink—where's the Rivière gone?"

Nobody knew. "It was there this morning, your Grace," Jabwing said.

"Well, I know that, stupid! You didn't take it out for a last cleanup, did you, my boy?" the Duke asked
Simon, who shook his head.

The Duchess, feeling that the spirits of the party might be sadly lowered by this mishap, cried, "Oh, do not regard it, William! 'Tis odds but it's merely been mislaid and will turn up directly if we do but keep our heads. Let us think no more about it, but, instead, amuse ourselves and our guests with dancing or diversions which I'm sure the young people would much prefer."

"Let's play Hunt the Picture!" exclaimed Gus.

"Capital notion!" shouted somebody else.

"Huzza for Gus!"

"We'll find the picture for your Graces, never fear!"

In a trice the high-spirited students had scattered from the library and were darting upstairs and downstairs, along galleries, through suites, in and out of closets, saloons, antechambers, armories, falconries, heronries, butleries, and pantries all over Battersea Castle in search of the missing picture. They turned the whole place topsy-turvy in their enthusiasm, but the Rivière canvas was not forthcoming, though innumerable other pictures were whisked down from the walls and submitted for the Duke's inspection.

"Is this it, your Grace?"

"Is this?"

"Is this?" Pictures were soon piled high in the library. But the Duke shook his head to all of them.

"Dear me," sighed the Duchess, "I could wish that these
delightful
young people were a little less
volatile.
"

At that moment a chandelier, on which Fothers had
been swinging from side to side as he examined some pictures that hung rather high up, fell to the floor with a loud crash. The chandelier was shattered but Fothers was unhurt, though he looked rather green.

"Dashed uneasy motion," he murmured. "Like on board ship. Shan't try
that
again."

He picked himself up and went off to search in the muniment rooms.

"Oh, fol-de-rol, my dove," said the Duke, "I don't know when I've enjoyed myself so much. Never seen the old place looking so lively. Anway we won't trouble our heads any longer about the picture—of a certainty some poor half-witted niddlenoll must have gone off with it—one of those whatd'ye-callems with a mad craving for pictures. I'll tell the magistrates about it tomorrow and ten to one the feller will be laid by the heels in a couple of days if he doesn't walk in with it saying he's Henry the Eighth."

Soon after this Simon took his leave, expressing warm gratitude to the Duke and Duchess for their hospitality and for the unexpected and most welcome Thames Rescue Bursary. It was nearly time for his appointment with Sophie.

As he ran down the stairs—matters were in such chaos all over the castle, with students dashing hither and thither, that no footman attempted to see him out—he thought he heard somebody trying to attract his notice.

"Hey there, you! Hilloo! Psst!"

He looked round the hallway and saw Justin waving to him from behind a suit of armor.

"What is it?" Simon said.

"I'm coming to the Fair with you tomorrow."

"Famous," said Simon. "I told his Grace about it and he doesn't mind."

"That ain't to the purpose," Justin said. "I tell you, Uncle Bill's always agreeable. It's Buckle who'd put a spoke in the wheel—sour old cheesebox—but it's the luckiest thing in the world, he's been called away to Deptford on two days' urgent private business—rich aunt dying or some such humdudgeon—and won't be back till tomorrow evening. Where shall I meet you?"

"On Chelsea Bridge, an hour after noon," Simon suggested.

"Tooralooral," Justin said conspiratorially, and disappeared back behind the suit of armor as if he expected that the very walls would report on his plans to Mr. Buckle.

Sophie, true to her word, had finished the blue dress.

"Soph, you're the kindest good girl in the world," Simon said, and gave her a hug. "I'll buy some fairings tomorrow, see if I don't. Now, shall I take you back to the castle?"

"No, for Mrs. Cobb's invited me to stop the night here, thank you."

As Simon had half expected, Dido was lurking up in his room, on tenterhooks with anticipation.

"Have you got it? Have you got it?" she demanded in a whisper before he was through the door. When he lit a candle and showed her the dress she was absolutely dumbstruck with admiration.

"Oh!" she breathed. She took it reverently from him, laid it out on the bed, and stroked it as if it had been a living thing. "
Oh!
Ain't it
naffy!
Shall I put it on now?" She held it up against her.

"Certainly not," said Simon firmly. "If you did, it's odds but you'd go to bed in it and come out tomorrow looking like a piece of mousetrap. You'd best leave it here, where it won't get dropped and trampled on—
I
know how you treat your things."

"I
never
would with
this!
Oh, wouldn't Penny be green if she could see it! I wish I could see her face."

"Well, run along now, cully," Simon said. "The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner morning will come."

She started toward the door, then turned and, coming back, pulled his head down to her level. "Thank you," she whispered gruffly in his ear, then bolted from the room.

But Simon, getting into bed, felt a pang of dismay. Did Dido but know it, she had little cause to thank him for what he was going to do soon.

They set off for the Fair next day in high fettle, met Justin on the bridge, as arranged, and went on to collect Sophie from the Cobbs. Dido was delighted to meet the kitten again there and begged that it might be allowed to accompany them to the Fair, but Simon felt that this would be too much of an anxiety; he had enough responsibility as it was. At first Justin and Dido were inclined to regard one another with jealous suspicion and hostility: Justin looked down on Dido as a gutter brat, and she sneered at him as a high-nosed counter coxcomb. But Simon and Sophie were
so cheerful and good-natured that no one could be long in their company without succumbing to their influence and soon the whole party were in charity with one another and marched off toward Clapham in good spirits. Dido thanked Sophie very prettily for the blue dress, while Justin went so far as to say that she looked quite well in it and he wouldn't have recognized her.

The Fair was already in full swing when they reached Clapham Common. Hucksters were shouting their wares, shrill music from the trumpets and hurdy-gurdies competed with them, and the roar of the happy crowds could be heard above that of the giddy-go-round.

"What shall we do first?" said Simon, surveying the colorful booths. "Shooting Gallery, Imperial Theatre showing Panoramas from History, Fat Lady, Snake Charmer, Living Skeleton, Mermaid, Flying Boats, Wise Pig, Drury Lane Drama, Swan Boats on the Long Pond, Whirligigs?"