Black Hearts in Battersea (5 page)

"Yes, sir. How—how much will they cost?" Simon asked, doing feverish sums in his head, wondering how soon Mr. Cobb would pay him for his work, how much he would get, how late the paint shop stayed open.

Dr. Furrneaux looked at him sharply and said, "For ziss time, you pay nossing. Here, I give you ziss note to Madame Bonnetier—"

"Oh, thank you, thank you, sir! And my fees? How much—"

"Never mind zat for ze moment. We shall see, later. Now, go, go! Do you sink ze pr-r-rincipal of ze academie has nossing to do but talk to you all day?" Dr. Furrneaux plainly hated to be thanked. "Ah, bah, it is nossing, I too was once a poor ragged boy,
II
Take ze little one, too."

He grabbed the kitten, which was on his desk again, and held it out. As he did so his eye fell on Justin's drawings. He checked a moment, his mouth opened, then shut. He stared at Simon as if about to ask something, then evidently changed his mind, sighed, and gestured him to go.

"He knew," Simon said to himself. "He knew I'd been helping Justin. I wonder if he was angry?"

When Simon returned to Rose Alley that evening it was late. He had been to the paint shop and bought beautiful new fat glistening tubes of paint, soft smooth brushes, and a glossy palette. Then he had returned to Mr. Cobb's yard where he was given about five jobs to do in quick succession—replacing a cracked panel in a barouche, mending a broken axletree, turning a new spoke and putting it in a chariot wheel, shoeing a pony, and bending an iron wheel tread. By the end of this grueling stint he was nearly dead of fatigue, and ravenous, but it was worth it, for Mr. Cobb, slapping him on the shoulder, pronounced him a prime all-arounder, paid him a guinea then and there, with the promise of as much work as he wanted, and invited him up for a dish of pigs' pettitoes and onions with Mrs. Cobb and young Miss Cobb, who lived in a little neat apartment up a flight of steps over the coach house at the back of the yard.

When he got home to Rose Alley he found Dido Twite swinging on the broken rails in front of the house.

"Why've you bin such a long time?" she greeted him.

"Working," said Simon.

"Watch me do a handstand. What you bin working at?"

"All sorts of things." He was very weary and disinclined for the company of this fidget of a child, but she seemed so delighted to see him that he lingered a minute or two, kindly admiring her antics.

"There's a circus coming to Southwark Friday week. D'you think they'd take me as a tumbler?"

"I'm not sure," Simon said cautiously. "Anyway you don't want to leave home, do you?"

"Don't I jist? Will you take me to the circus?"

"I may not be here still," said Simon, who had been offered lodgings at the Cobbs', and was inclined to move nearer to Rivière's Academy. Dido's face fell and she gazed at him open-mouthed. "Where can I get a wash?" he went on.

"Washus at the back," Dido said automatically. "Hot water's tuppence a bucket. Why won't you be here?"

"I may move to Chelsea. I'm going in now, good-by."

He ran whistling upstairs. From behind a closed door on the first floor came long, breathy, mournful notes. He heard Dido scurry up behind him and burst through the door crying, "Pa!
Pa!
Stop playing and listen."

Simon went on up to his own room, fed the kitten, and rummaged among the things in his pack for a small towel and a lump of soap he had made himself from wood ash and goose grease. Presently he ran downstairs again. As he neared the bottom a voice above him called, "Hey!"

He looked up and saw Dido hanging upside-down over the stair rail. She dropped a slice of bread-and-jam which landed jam-side downward on his head.

"Now look what you've done, you wretched brat!" said Simon crossly. He made a grab for her through the rail, but she retreated, screeching with laughter and mock alarm.

"Oo, you don't half look a sight! Jellyboy, jellyboy!"

"Just wait till I get you!" Simon threatened.

"What's it matter, you're going to wash anyway."

Simon reflected that this was true, and went out to the washhouse, which was in a lean-to at the back of the house. A fire burned under a large copper in a brick bunker; the water in the copper was steaming. In a corner behind a screen stood a tin bath, with a shower pan supported on iron legs above it. Simon poured hot water into the shower pan, undressed, and stepped into the bath. He pulled the string of the shower and hot water sluiced down on him and washed the jam out of his hair. He was soaping himself enjoyably when the washhouse door opened.

"Go away!" Simon shouted apprehensively. "I'm in the bath."

Dido's face came poking around the door. "It's only me,"she reassured him.

Simon scowled over the top of the screen. "Well, be off! It's not polite to come in when someone's bathing."

She skipped across the room. "Shall I take your clothes? You
would
look a nut-case then!"

"Don't you dare!"

"Well, will you give me a ride tomorrow?"

"All right."

She put his clothes down and retreated, turning in the doorway to say "Pa says you're to come and have a dish of tea when you're ready."

Simon hurried out of the bath as soon as she had gone and put his clothes on again. While he was emptying the water in canfuls down a grated drain he heard voices apparently coming from the roof. This puzzled him until he realized that the chimney of the copper acted as a conductor for sound. What he could hear was the voices of Mr. and Mrs. Twite in their upstairs parlor.

"...very annoying that he found his way here," Mrs. Twite was saying irritably.

Mr. Twite replied in a rumble of which nothing could be heard but the words "Dido ... most unfortunate."

"Eustace says"—her voice came clearer, as if she had stepped toward the chimney piece—"best stay here under our eye for the time."

"I'm sure
I
don't care," her husband replied rather shrilly. "It's only
my
house after all. It's all one to me if Eustace and his ideas land us in the—"

"Quiet, Abednego! It's only for six weeks or so, in any case. Only till we can dispose of him by means of the dark dew. And you may be sure that we'll be handsomely rewarded when the Cause triumphs."

"Yes?" he said sourly. "We haven't had any reward for our other trouble yet, have we? I'm put upon, that's what it is, I'm put upon! All I want is to follow art and play my hoboy, but what happens?" He must have been walking
across the room, for his words became fainter and Simon could hear nothing but a distant mumble in which the word "paint" was alone distinguishable.

He returned to his room with all his suspicions aroused once more. What—or who—was the cause of the "other trouble?" And was he himself the object of the Twites' conversation? And who was Eustace? And, even more mysterious, what was the dark dew by means of which somebody was to be disposed of? Poison? The Twites looked a shifty havey-cavey lot, but he found it hard to believe they were poisoners.

The mournful music had begun again, but it stopped when he tapped at the Twites' door.

"Come in, come in, my dear young feller," boomed Mr. Twite, who in daylight proved to be a scraggy individual, thin and bony, with a wisp of hair and a wisp of beard and curiously wandering eyes that never stayed in one position very long. "Settling, are you?" he went on. "Capital, capital. All one happy family here, aren't we, Penny? Aren't we, Dido? Aren't we, Ella my dear?"

The young lady addressed as Penny replied listlessly, "Yes, Pa," and did not lift her eyes from a copy of
The Gentlewoman's Magazine
which she was studying. Dido, toasting bread at the fire, caught Simon's eye and pulled a face. Mrs. Twite, pouring hot water into a teapot, snapped, "Hold your hush, Abednego, and fetch the cordial."

Mr. Twite meekly laid down the large wooden instrument on which he had been playing (Simon guessed it to be his hoboy) and took a dusty black bottle out of a cupboard.

Mrs. Twite turned to Simon, all smiles. "Sit down, Mr. Thingummy, sit down, don't stand on ceremony here. (Dido—
move!
) You'll take a dish of tea, I hope?"

"Thank you, ma'am." Simon had already done very well at the Cobbs', but in order to be polite he accepted tea and toast.

"And a dash of mountain dew in it?" said Mr. Twite with the black bottle.

"No thank you," Simon said firmly. He wondered if this could be the dark dew, but decided it was not, after Mr. Twite had administered a large dram to himself and his lady and a small one to Penelope. After a few sips of tea Mr. Twite, who had been looking rather gloomy, cheered up amazingly and began singing,

"Oh, it's dabbling in the dew that
makes the barmaids fair,
With their dewy, dewy eyes and their brassy, brassy hair!"

"Now, my dear boy," Mrs. Twite said to Simon, "We want to hear
all
about you."

"Yes," agreed Mr. Twite, putting down the dew bottle, "we want to hear
all
about you."

"
All
about you," murmured Penelope, without raising her eyes from the magazine, and even Dido piped up, "
All
about you," and dropped a fistful of toast crumbs down Simon's neck.

"Oh, there's not much to tell—" Simon began, but Mrs. Twite would have none of this.

"Dear boy, there must be.
Where
have you come from,
who
do you know,
what
are you going to do all day long in London?"

Question by question she drew from Simon all there was to know about him. At the age of three he had been found wandering in the village of Loose Chippings in Yorkshire. Nobody claimed him and, mysteriously, he could not speak a word of English, so he was sent to the Poor Farm, where unlucky orphans were starved and neglected by the overseer, Gloober, whose only interest was in the half crown per head per week he was paid by the parish. Here Simon survived as best he could for five years—he would not have endured it for so long, he said, had he not made a friend there whom he was reluctant to leave—until at the age of eight he decided to run away and live by himself in the woods.

"And that has been my life ever since," he concluded, "until last year I met Dr. Field and he said I should learn to paint, which I have long wanted to do."

"But what a
romantic
tale!" exclaimed Mrs. Twite, casting her eyes up. "Is it not, Abednego? And did you never hear what happened to your friend?"

"Oh, she's in London too," Simon said happily. "I had the good luck to see her today. But about Dr. Field—I wrote to him, to this address, saying when I should arrive. Was my letter not delivered here?"

"Never, dear boy."

"And Dr. Field has not been here?"

"Neither hide nor hair of him," declared Mr. Twite.
"Now is not that a curious thing? But of course there are many,
many
Rose Alleys in London and I daresay we shall find that your Dr. Field is living at one of the
others
and, when you discover which one, why then you will be happily reunited. Depend upon it, that is the explanation, do you not agree, my dove?"

"Oh, undoubtedly," agreed Mrs. Twite. "But in the meantime, my dear Mr. Thingummy, you mustn't
think
of moving away. We've begun to look on you as one of us, haven't we, girls?"

"Yes," yawned Penelope, bored, looking at a picture of a lady's dolman with bugled ruching.

"Besides, if you moved away and Dr. Field
should
chance to make his way here, think what a misfortune if you missed one another!"

"Then you are expecting him?" Simon said hopefully.

"Never heard of him till today, dear boy. But
if you
are looking for
him,
it stands to reason that
he
must be looking
for you,
doesn't it?"

"I suppose so," Simon said doubtfully. He glanced about, half hoping for some trace of Dr. Field's presence. The room was large and extremely shabby; it contained several down-at-bottom armchairs, a table covered with dingy red plush, a potted palm in a brass pot, and a piano with several of its yellowed keys missing.

"You play?" said Mr. Twite, following the direction of Simon's eyes to the piano. "You are a follower of Terpsy-core?"

"No," said Simon, without the least notion as to who
Terpsy-core could be.

"All my family sing and play. My dear wife, the triangle. My sister-in-law, the violoncello. Dido, the hoboy like myself. Penelope and my father-in-law, the pianoforte. Penelope my dear, you shall play and sing for us, to welcome our young friend into our circle."

"No I shan't, Pa," said Penelope shortly, and returned to her reading. Simon thought her a disagreeable girl. She was pale and, like Dido, had straw-colored hair which was elaborately dressed in ringlets. She wore a showy gown adorned with floss and spangles. She caught Simon's eye, gave him a scornful glance, yawned again, and said, "Isn't anyone coming in tonight?"

Simon excused himself, explaining that he had to be up early.

"Now you won't
think
of moving, dear boy, will you?" Mrs. Twite gave him a toothy smile. "We might even—
even—
see our way to lowering your rent." She thought this over and added, "Washing water reduced to three halfpence a bucket."

"Thank you." Simon wondered why the Twites, last night not at all keen to have a lodger, were now so anxious to persuade him to stay.

He was at the door, about to say good night, when it opened smartly in his face and a woman walked in carrying a cello. She was looking behind her as she walked, and she called to somebody behind her, "Put them in the kitchen, Tod, do; mind you don't drop the cabbages." She turned to Mrs. Twite and added, "There's cabbages, Ella,
and as nice a basket of potatoes as you'll find this side of the Garden."

"Thank you, Tinty," Mrs. Twite said, looking a little flustered. "This is our new lodger, Mr. Thingummy. My sister Mrs. Grotch."

"Good evening," Simon said. Mrs. Grotch, too, appeared disconcerted, but nodded stiffly. On his way up to bed Simon glanced down the stairs and saw the boy, Tod, stagger into the Twites' kitchen with a heavy load of mixed vegetables. Simon's suspicions were confirmed. For Tod was the boy who had snatched his letter on Southwark Bridge and Mrs. Grotch, or Aunt Tinty, was the little woman who had misdirected him. A slow plodding step was now audible coming up the stairs from the front door. Simon lingered, waiting to see if his last guess was right, and was rewarded. For the old man who came into view, pulling himself up laboriously by the handrail and pausing to take a long quavering breath on each step was the same white-bearded elder whom he had last seen on Southwark Bridge talking about his youth in the forest of Epping.