“Three shillings for sitting in your alligator hands not thirty seconds?” the landlord roars, but ultimately pays her price, because, as Mag knew, he wouldn’t have hung about if he didn’t seriously want it.
Despite his blustering, Whilky leaves more or less satisfied with his deal. Having cashed in the 6 s. linen gown, he technically got the dress for eight, and eight shillings is a small price to pay for expanding one’s empire. It’s a dangerous time to be entrepreneurial, this he knows, but the Quarantine can’t last forever; he’s already heard rumblings that that sot Londonderry is insisting it be lifted. He’ll take the Eye off blue duty and place her on white, and the hell with Gustine, ungrateful little chit that she is. Out of the kindness of his heart, when he found out her brat had died and she’d lost her job at the pottery, he let her crawl back into the dress, but has she earned any money for him? No, she’s done nothing but mope over that tiny coffin, making the whole house miserable and maudlin. At least it’s finally in the ground and they can all move on with their lives.
BY
ORDER
OF
THE
BOARD
OF
HEALTH
Loose
BOWELS
are the
First Sign of
THE
CHOLERA
MORBUS
Call Immediately for a Doctor
All Sickroom Bedding and Clothing
must be
BURNED
All Cholera
DEAD
must be
BURIED
TWELVE
HOURS
after Death BY
ORDER
OF
LAW
Out front of Mag’s the actors have paused directly in front of a bulletin, to confer and diwy up their money. Talk of timetables and stagecoaches engage the three men, but the lady, prim and pert of manner, looks up and down the Low Quay with unconcealed disgust. Her eyes widen at the sight of Whilky shoving into his satchel her Phebe dress, made by an old Italian widow who finally went blind stitching on the last rows of glass beads. Miss Watson had sobbed uncontrollably when ordered to part with it, for it was her favorite gown, and though exceedingly pastoral, could be made to double in a pinch as a wedding dress. But with the complete failure of the troupe’s “Cholera Morbus; or Love and Fright,” they were utterly destitute, and the only thing worse than surrendering the dress would have been staying in this godforsaken town. Now they have enough money to move on to London and remount the wretched production therewhere it will be appreciated, in the words of the injured Mr. Eliot, playwright, who has still not forgiven Sunderland’s refusal to riot.
“You’ve bought my dress, I see,” Miss Watson calls to Whilky Robinson. “I hope you will take care of it.”
“It’s being put to a very special use,” smirks Whilky. “Employment with a high profile, I assure you.”
“Good,” replies Miss Watson haughtily, suspicious of being mocked. “I’ve been married in it many times.”
“Where’re ye off to?” asks Whilky, sniffing out a stagecoach schedule in the scrawny actor’s hand.
“London.”
“To tread the boards?”
“Just so,” replies Mr. Eliot, thinking, What a wonderfully cretinous character to punish Miss Watson with! Can I write him into my next production?
“I’m a bit of a performer myself,” smiles Whilky broadly. “I pretend to give a bloody shit about my lodgers and their gittish little problems.”
“Brilliant!” exclaims Mr. Eliot, slapping the landlord’s back, while a thoroughly disgusted Miss Watson fights the urge to snatch her poor Phebe from this vulgarian’s hands.
“M’little friend here is even more of a star,” continues Whilky, reaching into his frock coat and extracting the weasel, who’d sought warmth in his armpit. “Meet Mike, who today is fighting Fat Tom’s upstart collie for Crown Prince of Ratters. Ye look like betting men to me. Care to join us for a beer and a match?”
Miss Watson sniffs indignantly, but Mr. Eliot eagerly agrees. They’ve missed the morning coach and the next one won’t be along until eleven this evening. Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Webster both look dubious, but Eliot’s always going off after material for his sketches. At least they can kill time inside, out of the cold.
“Aw, do come along, miss.” Whilky bows winningly. “There’s many a dainty sundry for a woman of your refinement at my brother’s place.”
What else is she to do? Wait by herself on the streets of Sunderland? With a shudder she takes the arm presented her, already imagining the adulterated wine and rancid leek tarts in store. “Just one last thing,” says the landlord, reaching behind her lovely brown head and ripping the Board of Health sign from the wall. He takes from his bag one of his many
DEATH
ACCUSING
THE
RICH
, and tacks it in its place. “Must do our part for the Health of the Nation,” he smiles.
At stake tonight: the sovereign title, Crown Prince of Ratters. Last year’s champion: Mike, Whilky Robinson’s ferret. This year’s challenger: Fat Tom Brown’s mangy, half-mad Border collie, Banquo. The contest: A teeming cage of one hundred sewer rats, fifty each to be let loose in two five-minute intervals, during which time the contestants, one at a time, are to set upon them, following which the lifeless bodies shall be counted by an impartial judge and the regalia awarded to that ratter (dog or ferret) judged most mortiferous. Mike is the odds-on favorite, but Banquo, being larger and more erratically ferocious, is a true dark horse.
“Where are the rats then?” asks a curly-headed brunet gentleman of the labourer who has been explaining the event. “I see no cage of one hundred rats.”
“Not here yet,” replies his knowledgeable companion. “Comes at the last minute to avoid accidents.”
So the brunet gentleman must sketch from imagination a cageful of ferocious, furious rodents, pushing their heads through the bars, hissing gruesomely at the spellbound audience. The reality is quite different. The capacity crowd laughs and jokes, ignoring the hastily constructed center pit, which is filled with sand and ringed with an elbow-high wall to keep the terrified rats inside. Here to lay wagers on the contest are butchers who’ve scrubbed their hands but missed their bloody forearms, splintery glassworkers from the Wear Flint Bottle Works, a prim teacher of sewing and arithmetic at Donnison’s Charity School for Girls, whose father was a rat catcher and in whose heart the blood sport holds a sentimental place. Then there are the keelmen, the recently laid-off pottery workers, and of course those men whose job it is to do nothing all day but complain about the Quarantine that keeps them doing nothing all day, forming, as usual, the main constituency of John Robinson’s clientele. In the middle of this rabble sits the brunet gentleman, his burnt-sausage-coloured locks falling into his eyes as he hastily scribbles notes on his companions: Woman to my left:Jat,Jlatulent, bovine specimen. Breasts as big as my head. Wet nurse? Man beside her: scrawny and consumptive-looking. Former R.C. postulant, now Jills his evenings with gin and rat baiting? He has sketched in a charcoal gray wash of humanity, a good deal more pockmarked and boil-ridden than perhaps Nature has drawn, but after all, he is trying to get the Flavor of the event, to show what amusements the Poor must pursue, denied the education to enjoy a good book. Next to him, nursing his fifth beer, sits our old friend Robert Cooley. An amazing personage, really, thinks the sketch artist, for did you know he’d single-handedly fought off six doctors coming after his carcass with saws and knives?
At a commotion in the doorway, the artist turns his attention away from his companion and toward the troupe pushing inside, singularly out of place, he would say; for like him, they appear to be people of quality. Three men: one tall and thin, one short and fat, and one mature, accompanied by a perfectly delightful young woman (who has the good breeding to look appalled), and rear-guarded by a portly, redheaded capital-looking fellow, holding high a white ferret. Why, this must be the owner of champion Mike. How rich! He has been hogging a table near the pit, but on seeing this fascinating entourage, he beckons them over to join him.
“There’s a table,” Miss Watson points out, relieved to see one genteel face in this wretched establishment.
“Take it! Take it!” Whilky shouts over the crowd. “I’ll put up this dress and join you in a minute. What would you like to drink? First round’s on me.
As he orders up three ales and a lemonade, the actors from “Cholera Morbus” make their way through the crowd to the free seats pit-side.
“Glad to make your acquaintance, glad to make your acquaintance,” the gentleman gushes as introductions are made all around. “Couldn’t help but notice that you looked a touch out of place.”
“Out of place?” Miss Watson exclaims, rolling her pretty brown eyes. “If Desdemona might be considered ‘out of place’ among the Moors.”
“You are of a theatrical bent, I see,” smiles the young man, congratulating himself on his acuity. “You are perhaps thespians by profession?”
“How discerning!” Miss Watson turns to the others in amazement. “We were just on our way to London, but”
“No! Don’t tell me!” The young man throws out his hand to stop her. “Just tell me how close I come.” He studies each face closely for a moment, then closes his eyes and begins.
“You are a talented troupe of players, performing in all the grand houses of England and Europe, feted by the press, toasted by your aristocratic audiences. You might play any theatre you desired, in any kingdom, for any pricebut. Not content to gratify the rich and powerful only, you feel a need to take your work to the People, to give a little back to the Dispossessed of this great country, and so you come here to stage a masterpiece, something edifying and ennoblinga gift to the common crowd. But how could you know that at last you have reached a town without a soul, a town without the faintest stirring in its thick, barbarian chest? You play your hearts out, giving the performances of your livestrying, trying to reach them but do they appreciate you? No! They yawn and boo, too bestial to realize your transcendence. With the last of your meagre resources, you’ve booked passage to London, where at least intellect will come if the call be given. You’ve been brought here to await your coach by that man who accompanied youowner of Mike, Champion Ratter, who is favored to beat Banquo, Fat Tom’s Border collie!”
On that triumphant note, the young man finishes, to the applause of a deeply impressed Miss Watson. Except for the part about a masterpiece, this gentleman was uncannily correct. What a relief it will be to reach London and take up their work again there.
“I am amazed. Simply amazed,” Miss Watson breathes. “Mr. Mortimer, has this young man not been spying on us for a week?”
“Indeed, it seems he has,” replies the credulous old gentleman. “Pray, sir, what is your profession? Are you not a spy?”
The young man shakes his head. “Call me a spy if you will, sir. If so, it is only into human nature. I am a Student of Lifeno more can I claim. I’ve come here to add to my book on the workingmen of England: their pursuits and their pastimes, their dreams and disappointments. By chance I learned of this ‘event,’ and knew my book would not be complete without a section on the prototypical pastime of Ratting.”
“Ayr ye speaking of my Mike?” Whilky Robinson asks, approaching the table laden with drinks. “There was no lemonade, miss,” he says respectfully to Miss Watson. “I got you a sherry instead. Whoever’s laid no money on my Mike’s got no right to speak of him.”
“Let me remedy that immediately, sir,” says the Student of Life gallantly. “Five shillings to win.”
“Tha’s the spirit,” shouts Whilky, who gets part of his brother’s house cut on all wagers, plus whatever pot Mike should win. “Ye’re a fine lad!”
“And for my five shillings, sir, would you allow me the honor of interviewing Mike’s owner?”
“Me? Per what?” asks Whilky suspiciously. “Ayr you with the census?”
“Good God, no!” exclaims the Student of Life. “I am writing a book on the common man, so that his more fortunate brothers might know and understand his ways. I dream of a bridge spanning the great gulf that yawns between rich and poor, and hope to lay the keystone, if you will, with my humble book.”
Whilky looks doubtful, but it is flattering, after all, to be put in a book, and who knows, if the book is published and people read it, they might find their way to his lodging house, and that would be good for business. With that in mind, Whilky agrees; the other gentlemen settle back to listen, but Miss Watson, wanting nothing less than to hear this cretin’s life story, picks up the Student of Life’s discarded newspaper and peruses the advertisements.
“Now then,” says the excited Student, “how old are you?”
“Forty-three,” Whilky lies, being but forty-one. It is a harmless lie, one that matters not at all, but that is why it is fun to tell it.
“And you are a ratter by profession?”
“No. lam”
“Wait! Let me guess!” the Student of Life interrupts his own interview mid-sentence, and begins sketching as he speaks. “My new friends here can tell you how good I am with histories. Now let me see… . Judging from your cocksure swagger and that scar behind your ear, I would wager you spent some time as a highwayman, am I right? A regular two-pistol, cutlass-carrying outlaw, sticking up coaches along the Great Northern Road! You were quite abandoned, don’t deny it. One day, as I see it, while in the process of robbing the mail coach, your cutlass nicked the throat of a young lady and she quickly bled to death. You grabbed the basket at the poor lady’s feet and immediately rode off, consoling yourself with thoughts of her riches. How startled were you then, when tearing open the basket you found not precious booty, but a sickly mother ferret, nursing four squirming young! Your murdered lady had stopped the coach not three miles back to rescue this weasel family, and was going to turn them loose on her estate.
You were about to strangle the wretched creatures in your rage, when one Mike, your future companionlooked up and licked your hand. In that moment your hard heart melted. I shall raise up these poor foundlings, you vowed, and forswearing banditry altogether, you have learned to find your thrills not on the road, but in the Ring!”