Black Hearts in Battersea (7 page)

"I see you've found a
friend,
Miss Fine-Airs," sneered Midwink. "Nice sort of riffraff you slight decent folk for, I must say! What would her Grace think if she saw you consorting with horse-yobs and gutter-boys—there wouldn't be so much of 'my pretty Sophie' then!"

"Oh, be quiet, Midwink—I do not find you interesting at all!" snapped Sophie.

Simon chuckled quietly to himself. Sophie's speech was so very characteristic that he wondered how he could have forgotten it. She had a trick of rattling out her words very fast and clearly like a handful of beads dropped on a plate. He wondered where he had recently heard somebody else speak in the same way.

"
I
know when I'm not wanted," said Midwink sourly, "But you'd best guard your tongue, Madam Sophie—a pretty face isn't the only passport to fortune here, as you may find!"

"Who's he?" asked Simon, as Midwink walked ahead of them and took a turning to the right.

"Oh, he is the duke's valet—he is of no account," Sophie said impatiently. "He would be turned off it it were not for his knack of tying cravats. The duke has grown too shortsighted to tie his own, and Midwink is the only person who can arrange them to his liking. But tell me, how do you come to be in London? Did you ever go back to Gloober's Poor Farm? What have you been doing all these years? Oh, there is so
much
to ask you! But I must run to my lady with these things—she is waiting to embroider them. Can we meet tomorrow—it is my evening off, are you free then? Ah, that is good, excellent, I will meet you, where? Not too near the castle or Midwink may come bothering—Cobb's Yard? Yes indeed I know it, that will do very well. Now, here are the stables and there is Mr. Waters. Good evening, Mr. Waters, here is my friend Simon who has brought back your horse."

"That ain't no horse, Miss Sophie, that's as neat a little
filly as yourself," said Mr. Waters.

"Ah, bah, horses and fillies are all the same to me! Simon, it is
wonderful
to see you again. Now I must fly. Till tomorrow!" She stood on tiptoe to give Simon a quick peck on the cheek, then ran off with her basket.

"And where's Jem Suds got to?" asked Mr. Waters. ("Come up, my beauty, then, hold still while I put a saddle on your pernickety back.")

Simon explained about the kicked knee and Mrs. Cobb's tar poultice.

"That lad's born to get his neck broke," sighed Mr. Waters, tightening a girth. "Ah, there's his young lordship, you just brought the mare back in time—"

"Aren't you ready yet, Waters?" called an irritable voice, and a boy came out of a doorway. Simon recognized Justin, the unwilling art student. He swung himself rather clumsily into the saddle, then looked down at Simon. "Oh, hallo," he said carelessly. "What are you doing here?" He did not, however, wait for an answer, but gave a flip with his crop and trotted across the stable yard and out through a gateway that led into the park.

"Wait, your lordship!" called Waters. "I've got Firefly saddled, I'll be with you directly." He led out another mount, but Justin impatiently called back, "I don't want you, Waters, I want to be on my own," set spurs to the mare, and galloped off into the dusk.

"Pesky young brat!" growled Waters. "He knows he's not allowed out alone. Now I suppose I shall have to chase him all over the park, afore he breaks his neck."

"Who was that?" Simon asked.

"Young Lord Bakerloo, the Dook's nevvy. He's the hair, as his Grace never had none o' his own ... Good-by, my lad, thank you for bringing back the filly" Waters called as he rode out of the gate.

Simon made his way back through the tunnel.

The elderly gentleman was still slung up on his painter's cradle halfway along, gazing at the roof through a magnifying glass. Simon had forgotten about him, and was rather startled at being addressed by a voice above his head as he waded through the largest puddle.

"It's rather damp down there, isn't it?"

"It
is
rather damp," Simon agreed, pausing and looking up politely.

"You find it inconvenient?" the old man asked, betraying a certain anxiety.

"Bless you, no!" Simon said cheerfully.

The man brightened up at once.

"You don't mind a bit of damp? You're a boy after my own heart!
I
don't mind damp either. In fact I
like
damp. You don't find it troublesome? That's excellent—excellent."

"I suppose it's a bit of a nuisance for females," Simon suggested, thinking of Sophie's white cambric skirts. The man's face fell.

"For females? You think it is? Yes, perhaps—perhaps." He sighed. "Still, you yourself don't object to it—that's very gratifying. It's always gratifying to find a kindred spirit. Do you, I wonder, play chess?"

"Yes I do, sir," said Simon, who had been taught to play by Dr. Field.

"You do? But that's capital—famous!" The old gentleman looked radiant. "We must certainly meet again. You must come and play chess with me. Will you?"

"Why, certainly, sir," said Simon, who began to believe the old gentleman must be a trifle cracked. Still, he seemed a harmless old boy, and quite kindly disposed. "When shall I come?"

"Let me think. Not tomorrow night, dinner with the Prince of Wales. Night after, Royal Society, lecture on moss. Night after that, tennis with the Archbishop. (Indoor, of course.) Night after, Almack's with Henrietta. (Devilish dull, but she enjoys it.) Night after, ball at Carlton House. Stuffy affairs, can't be helped, must put in an appearance. Night after, billiards with the Lord Chief Justice. How about today week?"

"That would be quite all right for me, sir," said Simon. "Where shall I come?"

"Oh, I'm always around and about," the man said, waving a hand vaguely. "Anyone will tell you where to find me. Any time after nine. That's excellent—really delightful." He pulled on a rope and his cradle moved away.

"Excuse me sir—whom shall I ask for?" Simon called after him.

"Just ask for Battersea," the man's voice came faintly back.

Battersea? Battersea? He
must
be cracked, Simon decided. No doubt by that day week he would have forgotten all
about the invitation. Perhaps Sophie would know who he was, and whether the invitation should be taken seriously or not. Sophie was so shrewd and cheerful and kindhearted—what a comfort it was to have found her again!

Leaving the tunnel, Simon swung on toward Vauxhall Bridge, whistling happily. If only he could find Dr. Field, life in London would not be so bad!

Next day, chancing to wake early, Simon looked out of his front window into Rose Alley and saw his unfortunate donkey, Caroline, struggling to pull an outrageously heavy milk cart loaded with churns, and being encouraged thereto by the shrewish dairywoman, who was beating her with a curtain pole.

Simon threw on his clothes and ran down to the street.

"Hey!" he shouted after the milkwoman. She turned, scowling, and snapped, "Penny a gill, and only if you've got your own jug."

"I don't want milk," Simon said (indeed it looked very blue and watery). "I want my donkey." And before she could object, he kicked a brick under the wheel of the cart and slipped the relieved Caroline out from between the shafts. In two days she seemed to have grown noticeably thinner and to have acquired several weals.

"I'm not leaving her with you a minute longer," Simon told the woman. "You ought to be ashamed to treat her so."

"I suppose you are the president of the Royal Humane
Society," she sneered. Then she turned and bawled, "Tod! Bring the mule."

"Coming, Aunt Poke," called a voice, and the boy Tod appeared leading a scraggy mule with one hand and holding his trousers around his neck with the other. He put out his tongue at Simon, and remarked, "What price cat's meat?"

It was still very early, and Simon decided this would be a good time to make inquiries about Dr. Field at the shops in the neighborhood. There was a greengrocer's next to the dairy, adorned with piles of wizened radishes and bunches of drooping parsley. He saw Mrs. Grotch, Aunt Tinty, watering these with dirty water from a battered can. Guessing that he would get no help from her he passed to the next shop, a bakery.

"Can you tell me if a Dr. Gabriel Field ever bought bread here?" he asked, stepping into the warm, sweet-smelling place.

"Dr. Field?" The baker scratched his head, then called to his wife, "Polly? Know anything about a Dr. Field?"

"Was he the one that lanced Susie's carbuncle?" The baker's wife came through into the shop, wiping her hands on her apron.

Just at that moment Simon heard a voice behind him. Tod, having harnessed the mule to his Aunt Poke's milk float, had wandered along the lane and was spinning a top outside the door and singing in a loud, shrill voice,

"Nimmy, nimmy, not,
My name's Tom Tit Tot."

Whether this song had any effect on the baker and his wife, or whether they had just recollected a piece of urgent business, Simon could not be sure, but the baker said hastily, "No, there's no doctor of that name round here, young man," and hurried out of the shop, while his wife cried, "Mercy! my rolls are burning," and bustled after him.

Simon walked the length of the row of shops, asking at each one, but all his questions, perhaps because of Tod, were equally fruitless, and at length, discouraged, he set off for the academy, while Tod turned a series of cartwheels along Rose Alley (keeping his trousers on only with the greatest difficulty) and launched a defiant shout of "My name's Tom Tit Tot" after Simon which it seemed wisest to ignore.

It was still only half-past seven, so there was time to call at the Cobbs' and ask if Caroline might be boarded at the stables there.

The Cobbs were at breakfast and received Simon with great cordiality, offering him marmalade pie, cold fowl, and hot boiled ham. Mrs. Cobb, a stout, motherly woman, insisted on his having a mug of her Breakfast Special to see him through the day. This was a nourishing mixture of hot milk and spices, tasting indeed so powerfully of aniseed that Simon thought it would see him through not only that day but several days to come.

"Ah, it's a reg'lar cockle-warmer, Flossie's Breakfast Special," Mr. Cobb said fondly and proudly. "You see, young 'un, my wife was a Fidgett, from Loose Chippings;
those Fidgett girls know more about housewifery and the domestic arts by the time they marry than most women learn in a lifetime."

Simon was very interested to hear that Mrs. Cobb came from the same part of the country as himself, while Mrs. Cobb was amazed to learn that Simon had passed the early part of his life at Gloober's Poor Farm.

"And you such a stout, sensible lad, too!" she exclaimed. "I thought they all turned out half-starved and wanting in the head, poor things. O' course we'll keep the donkey here, and gladly won't we, Cobby! The lad won't mind if little Libby has a turnout on her now and then, I daresay?"

As little Libby Cobb was only two, and looked extremely seraphic, in complete contrast to Miss Dido Twite, Simon had not the least objection to this.

He bade farewell to the Cobbs, hastened down to the academy, and set to work in the Mausoleum, drawing a bronze figure with a trident. He had not, however, been at this occupation very long when Dr. Furrneaux appeared and whisked him away to another room where an old lavender-seller had been established with her baskets on a platform to have her portrait painted by a dozen students.

They had been working for a couple of hours and Dr. Furrneaux was giving a lecture from the platform (largely incomprehensible because he had somehow got his whiskers smothered in charcoal dust and kept breaking off to sneeze) when two people entered the room.

Glancing around his easel Simon recognized the boy Justin, whom he now knew to be young Lord Bakerloo, the
Duke of Battersea's nephew, and his tutor, the pale-eyed Mr. Buckle. Justin looked wan but triumphant; his right arm was heavily bandaged and he carried it in a sling.

Buckle addressed Dr. Furrneaux in low tones. Meanwhile Justin had caught sight of Simon and nodded to him familiarly.

"Brought it off!" he confided, gesturing with his bandaged arm (which appeared to give him no great pain). "Done old Fur-nose brown, I have. Can't paint with my dib-dabs in a clout, can I?"

"Did you take a toss?" Simon asked, remembering the headlong way Justin had galloped across the twilit park.

"Walk
er!
" Justin replied, laying the first finger of his left hand alongside his nose. "That'd be telling."

"Yes indeed,
most
regrettable," Mr. Buckle was saying sorrowfully to Dr. Furrneaux. "But we must be thankful the accident was no worse. The doctor fears Lord Bakerloo will not be able to use his right hand for at least a month."

"My dear Justin—my poor Justin!" Dr. Furrneaux exclaimed warmly, darting to Justin, who winced away nervously. "Ziss is most tragic news! A painter has no business wiss riding on a horse—it is by far too dangerous."

"I'm not a painter, I'm a Duke's grandson," Justin muttered, but he concealed from Dr. Furrneaux his look of satisfaction at being told not to return until his arm was completely healed.

When evening came and the students departed to their homes, Simon returned to Mr. Cobb's yard, where he was to meet Sophie, and occupied the interval by blacksmith's
work. He had just finished bending an iron rim onto a wheel when she arrived.

"Why!" cried Mr. Cobb. "Is
this
your friend? It's the bonny lass as waits on her Grace. Dang me, but you're a lucky young fellow!"

Sophie had brought a basket of fruit and proposed that she and Simon should walk into Battersea Park and eat their supper sitting on the grass. But the hospitable Mr. Cobb would not hear of such a plan.

"Look at the sky!" he admonished them. "Full to busting! There's enough rain up there for a week of Sundays. You'll just be a-setting down to your first nibble when it comes peltering down on you. No, no, you come upstairs and eat your dinners comfor'ble under a roof; Flossie would never let me hear the last of it if I let two young 'uns go off to catch their deaths of pewmony."