Rose (5 page)

“You can talk. Could use you as a bowling pin with that thing on.”

The two boys watched each other suspiciously for a second or two before they reckoned enough insults had been exchanged.

“All right then?” Bill muttered. “Rose, this is George. He's from St. Bartholomew's too. Got a job in a smart house over the other side of the park now. She's from St. Bridget's,” he explained to George.

“You know my sister, Eliza? She all right?” George asked.

Rose nodded shyly. She could see the likeness now. He was covered in freckles, just like Eliza. She didn't like to say that she'd done Liza out of a job.

“Liza's fine,” she whispered.

George nodded. He probably hadn't seen Eliza for years except in church, Rose thought with surprise, even though they'd lived next door to each other.

“You seen Jack?” he asked Bill now, frowning a little.

Bill shook his head. “Not for a couple of weeks. Why?”

George folded his arms and hissed dramatically, “Disappeared!”

“What?” Bill sounded scornful.

“Gone. Vamoosed. Done a runner!”

“Why would he do that? And where's he gone to, anyway? Load of nonsense,” Bill scoffed.

“S'true though. Didn't go home one day. The coachman from his place came around to ask me if I knew where he was 'cause he knew I was from the same orphanage. Jack's just gone.”

“Run off to join the circus probably,” Bill chuckled.

“He was always crazy about it. Bareback riding. He'll be back in a while.” He frowned. “He's stupid though. They won't take him on again. He'll get sent back to the orphanage.”

George shook his head. “Nope. They won't have him. He'll be in the workhouse, for sure. Anyway. Gotta get back. Be seeing you.”

He strolled on, and Bill led Rose further up the street, his expression grim. “Can't believe he'd do that,” he said quietly. “Stupid, that's what it is.”

“Was he a friend of yours?” Rose asked him shyly.

“Yeah. We all left St. Bartholomew's at the same time. Jack's a couple years younger though. And he was only there a short while. His dad went off to fight in the war and never came back. Then his mum got a fever and passed on. So he turned up with us. Always said he shouldn't be there, he wasn't an orphan, and his dad was coming back for him. Not gonna happen though.” Bill shook his head. “He was a stable boy at a house near George's place. Always loved horses. He was happy an' all! Why'd he go off without saying anything?”

“Is this the fishmonger's?” Rose asked, grabbing Bill's coat as he walked on, staring at the pavement. She'd spotted a sign with a painted fish on it, swinging above their heads.

“What? Oh! Yeah. Come on then.” Bill led her into the tiled doorway and through the smart glass door, and Rose gazed around at the piled counters. They'd always had fish on Friday at the orphanage, but it was horrible. The cheapest fish the cook could find, and it stank. Small wonder she hated fish, even without her added history. There was a faint fishy whiff in here, but nothing like the orphanage kitchen on a Friday morning. And the fish—they were like monsters! Rose had never imagined fish could be so big—one of them was half as big as her. They were laid out on marble slabs, with chunks of ice and tufts of green stuff decorating them. Their eyes seemed to roll and follow Rose as she approached the counter, a mass of silvery scales. Greenish black clawed things were piled up on one side, looking more like the sort of thing Rose had expected to see in the workroom back at the house—disgusting spell ingredients. She peered at them, intrigued, and then jumped back with a tiny scream when one of them waved a claw at her. They were alive!

Someone sniggered from behind the counter, and Rose flushed, looking up at a boy a little older than Bill, wrapped in an enormous blue-and-white striped apron.

“You shut up,” Bill told him in a lordly fashion. “We're here to complain, see. Rose, give that overgrown beanpole the note.”

Rose drew it out of her basket and passed it over the counter. Despite the shining marble slabs, the boy's fingernails were grubby and encrusted with shiny scales. She wrinkled her nose disapprovingly.

The boy read it slowly. “That were a perfectly good crab!” he muttered. “Old skinflint. Me dad's out the back, taking the delivery in. I'll give it to him later. You'd better have one on account, anyway. Here.” He reached over to the pile of clawed monsters and grabbed one.

“This do for her?”

The crab wriggled a claw feebly—its pincers were tied closed with string—and Rose shrank back in horror.

“Well, come on!” the boy snapped. “What, you want a bigger one? She don't ask much, does she? All right then.” He dug around in the heaving pile, and eventually brought out an enormous crab, waving it in Rose's face. “Will this do, then?”

Rose nodded. The crab glared at her from fierce little black eyes and attempted to clack its claws. Its back legs waved madly, and Rose gulped. It was like a spider, only much,
much
bigger.

“Can you—wrap it up?” she stammered. She simply couldn't walk home with it in her basket just like that. It looked like it would climb out and start eating people.

The boy heaved a sigh and started to swathe the creature in paper. Eventually he held out a wriggling parcel, and Rose held the basket up to the counter. Even through the paper, she wasn't touching that thing. She wasn't squeamish about mice at all. No one who'd lived at St. Bridget's could be—they were everywhere. She'd even woken up once to find a rat sitting on her bedcover, eyeing her as though he thought she might be tasty. She hadn't screamed. She'd flung a boot at him, and he'd scuttled off. All the girls knew to make sure their toes were well tucked inside their blankets if they wanted them to still be there in the morning. But Rose had a horror of things with too many legs. Anything with over five, and she didn't want it anywhere near her. The crab was like the worst spider she'd ever seen, and then about seventeen of its friends, all rolled into one. It was squirming in her basket now.

Rose looked hopefully at Bill as she followed him out of the shop, leaving the fishmonger's boy muttering irritably.

“Not a chance,” he told her, smirking. “I'm not going around carrying a basket like that. I'd look a proper fool. Come on, let's do the rest of the shopping. You can put the silver polish on top of the crab, and then it won't wriggle so much.”

Rose followed him, holding the basket away from her as much as possible and trying not to look at it.

The grocer's was an unbelievable treasure house. Rose had already been shocked by the amount of food that was eaten at the Fountain house—not just the amazing dishes that Mrs. Jones concocted for Mr. Fountain's dinners, but the meals she was served in the kitchen, mostly cooked by Sarah, the kitchen maid. Meat every day! Sometimes twice! And cups of tea and odd bits of cake. Not to mention the huge slabs of bread and dripping that Bill seemed to be tucking into whenever she saw him. Not that they made him any less skinny. Rose supposed that he was making up for all his years of never quite enough at the orphanage.

But this shop was packed with food. Great, towering piles of it. Sacks overflowing, tins tottering, enormous hams swinging from beams up above. A flock of small boys swarmed up and down spindly ladders, fetching the produce from the ranks of shelves. It was like a temple dedicated to eating. Rose couldn't help feeling that it was all rather improper. Still, at least the tin of silver polish and the packet of crystallized violets hid the crab a little bit.

Bill pulled his penny out of his trouser pocket, and led Rose over to a small counter in front of a sparkling array of glass jars filled with brightly colored sweets. A pretty girl in a frilled white apron turned to serve them. At least, she was pretty until she smiled, and then Rose couldn't tear her eyes away from the girl's teeth—her mouth was filled with blackened stumps.

Bill didn't seem to notice. “Pennyworth of sherbet, please!” he said eagerly.

“Mrs. Jones said you weren't to have that!” Rose reminded him, banging the basket into his leg. He glared at her, and added, “The green kind! All right, Little Miss Know-it-all?”

“You'll still be sick, I bet,” Rose muttered, but he ignored her.

“Would you like anything, miss?” the shop girl asked. Rose tried not to stare at her teeth and looked at the rows of jars instead. She had no idea. “Butterscotch?” the girl suggested. “Licorice pipes? A sherbet fountain? Toffee? Aniseed balls?”

“Not those, Rose, you wouldn't like them. They're disgusting,” Bill told her firmly.

Rose was almost wishing she didn't have a penny. The girl was starting to look irritable, and Bill wouldn't stop laughing at her. “What are those?” she asked desperately, pointing to one of the jars.

“These?” The shop girl lifted down a jar, and Rose gasped with delight. She'd pointed at random, but they were so pretty. Little pillow-shaped sweets in glorious stripes—pink and white, green and gold, purple and red. They looked like something from a fairy tale; Rose could see a princess's bed piled with them.

“What are they called?” she asked, thinking that they'd probably be something dismal like cough drops.

“Chocolate satins. Want them?”

“Oh, yes!” Rose nodded eagerly, watching as the jewel-like sweets poured into a paper bag. The name was perfect too. It was like being handed treasure. She gave her penny over the counter with a tiny pang of doubt, remembering the beggar child. It didn't feel fair—but these were her first ever sweets. Didn't she deserve them?

They strolled along the street, Bill dipping his finger in the sherbet bag blissfully, until his black livery was covered in a faint dusting of green, and Rose cautiously sucking a chocolate satin—the green and gold kind, which reminded her of the frog prince in the one book of fairy tales in the schoolroom at St. Bridget's.

“Oh, they're different in the middle!” she exclaimed after a while.

“That's the
chocolate
, Rose!” Bill sighed. “Chocolate satins? Honestly.”

But Rose wasn't listening. She was some way behind him, staring silently into another plate-glass window. Bill found himself telling empty air how if she was that dumb she was asking to be stolen by slave traders. He turned around and pelted back.

“What are you doing? I nearly lost you! Come on! I'm never going anywhere with you again; it's like herding a cat.”

Rose seemed to be stuck to the floor. Really stuck, for when he tugged her, all she did was lean slightly. He couldn't shift her at all.

“Look!” she whispered, enthralled. She was pointing at something in the window. Dresses, Bill supposed at a guess, but when he looked too, he saw it was a toy shop. An enormous doll, dressed in a white fur cloak, was staring grandly out at them. She had golden hair in ringlets—real hair, Bill thought. His mother had sold her hair once, but she hadn't got much, because it was only brown, not a fashionable auburn. He remembered being horrified to see her with short spikes all over her head, like a boy. Beside the doll stood a perfectly miniature little dog, a curly white French poodle on a blue leather lead that the doll held in her kid-gloved hand. She was surrounded by doll's furniture, including a little gold-painted wardrobe, out of which spilled more silk and lace outfits.

“Suppose you've never seen a doll,” Bill suggested. “Big one, isn't it?”

“I have,” Rose murmured. “Miss Isabella has one almost as big. But this one moved!” She glanced up at him, pleadingly. “Really it did, Bill. I'm not lying. She waved to me! Is it magic?” She turned back, and then clutched his arm. “Oh, look! Look!”

Again the doll stiffly raised one arm in a grand lady's regal wave, and this time the little white dog barked too, in a strangely squeaky voice.

Bill looked at it carefully, then peered around the side of the doll, pressing his nose to the window. “Nah. Thought so. Clockwork. Look, Rose, you can see the key.”

Rose leaned in to see too. He was right. Sticking out of the doll's back was a large silver key. As they watched, the doll's mouth opened slightly, and she said “Ma-ma!” before the key clicked around.

“You wind her up, and she does all those things one after the other,” Bill explained. “Clever.”

Rose stared at the doll, disappointed. “I thought it was a spell,” she said sadly. She'd imagined a magic doll, who could sit at the little tea table in the window next to her and drink from the flower-painted china, like a tiny girl.

Bill snorted. “Doll fit for a princess, that would be. That thing probably costs ten years' wages as it is. If it had a spell on, you'd be paying it off for a century!” He looked down at her, frowning. “What do you think magic's for, Rose? It doesn't get wasted on dolls. Too expensive. Too
rare
. Don't go thinking it's all over the place, just because Mr. Fountain can click his fingers and it rains rose petals.”

“Can he?” Rose asked excitedly.

“Only if someone's paying him a king's ransom for it. Magic's serious stuff.” Bill frowned at her.

Rose nodded. She understood what Bill was saying, but she just couldn't bring herself to believe it. There was so much richness here in the world outside St. Bridget's. And however important and special magic was, she'd only seen it telling stories on shiny things. That wasn't serious at all. Surely magic couldn't be all to do with making gold? That seemed so sad.

“Look, if magic was easy to get, do you think we'd be polishing the silver all the time? It'd have spells on it to keep it shiny instead. And there'd be self-lighting fires, and plates that washed themselves.” Bill shook his head. “People are cheaper, Rose. We're cheaper.”

“So you don't ever see it, then?” Rose asked sadly. “There's never magic things in shops, or anything like that?”