Authors: Deborah Hopkinson
Begging. He wanted to turn Henry into a beggar. And when the takings were slow, he’d want him to be a pickpocket too.
“So tell me, Eel,” growled Fisheye. “Where have you got ’im stashed?”
He paused and blew his foul breath into my face. “Where is Henry?”
Fisheye badgered me for most of that long, awful afternoon. But I wouldn’t give in. He was still at it when I heard the downstairs door open and heels clop up the creaky stairs. In a minute the room was flooded with a sickly sweet perfume, strong enough to make me gag.
“Well, well. What you got here, Bill?”
“This ’ere’s my stepson, Kate. The one I told you about from my married days, short and sweet as they were,” Fisheye Bill told a thin, sharp-looking woman.
She had bright spots of red on her cheeks, and even redder lips. She smiled, showing yellow teeth stained with brown streaks. “Got ’im at last, eh, Bill?”
The woman came close and stuck her face right into
mine. I was almost overtaken by the smells: beer and fish and tobacco, all mixed with that stinky perfume.
“But ’e ain’t pretty, except for the saucer eyes on ’im,” she said in surprise. “I thought you said ’e would make our fortune.”
“Not this one, Kate,” Fisheye Bill growled. “This ’ere boy is the big one. ’E’s got the little one hidden from me.”
Kate put her hands on her hips and looked at me in mock astonishment. “Well, I never. Who ever heard of such a thing? Hidin’ a child from his own devoted father. That’s a cruel thing for a lad to do. Dangerous too.”
“Cruel and dangerous,” agreed Fisheye Bill. “And now that you’re home, love, you can hold ’im down so I can take the strap to him, like any good father would when ’is son goes against his wishes.”
“Before I’ve had me tea?” Kate shook her head, and a thin strand of oily hair escaped her cap. “ ’Ave a heart, Bill. I been workin’ all day.”
Working? I couldn’t imagine what kind of work Kate did.
Probably another thief
, I thought. I glanced down at the floorboards, which were black with grime and splotches of grease.
I thought of how Abel Cooper had taught me to keep the floors of the Lion Brewery clean. “As clean as if you might drink ale right off ’em,” he’d said.
I’d been wrong. Even if I’d been too cowardly to talk to Mr. Edward, I should have gone back to see Abel Cooper.
Maybe, like Florrie, he was a friend, one I could have trusted with my secret—and the whole truth about Henry and me.
But I hadn’t done that. Instead I had got myself into trouble. Great trouble indeed.
I wish I could say that after a good amount of gin, Fisheye and Kate forgot about me and I escaped. But that’s not what happened. In fact, eating a hot steak-and-kidney pie seemed to give Fisheye extra energy for the strap, which he used on me with considerable force, with Kate holding me down.
I can say, though, that maybe I cried, and maybe I yelled, and I might’ve even used some words that my mum told me not to say—but I never told where Henry was.
After a while Fisheye threw the strap down in disgust. “I’m off to the pub. This vile creature has worn me out. We’ll see what he says in the morning after no supper and no breakfast. I expect he’ll change his tune.”
“You ain’t gonna leave me alone w’im, are you, Bill?” asked Kate, rubbing her thin hands together nervously. “What if ’e gets loose and turns on me?”
“I’ll tie him down under the iron bedstead,” Fisheye said. “He can lie on the floor and call it a good bed. Can’t you, boy?”
“Better gag him, just the same,” Kate suggested.
Fisheye stuffed an old, smelly rag in my mouth and tied it tight. After he left, Kate stretched out on the bed above
me and was soon snoring up a storm. My mouth felt dry and sore. The welts on my back stung something fierce.
I tried to come up with some way to escape. It was no use. It might’ve been the effects of being beaten, or the long walk in the sun, but a dark wave came over me and there was nothing I could do. I slept.
Thursday, September 7
I woke to loud snores and a burning need to use the chamber pot. My lips under the rag were cracked and dried. My jaw ached. I was hungry but queasy at the same time. I was used to being up early to work. But I doubted that Fisheye Bill and Kate ever rolled out of bed before mid-morning.
I tried feebly to get their attention, banging my heels against the floor. My yells came out like low growls. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Fisheye Bill grunted, half asleep, “What?”
It opened. Even if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes, I would’ve smelled him: Nasty Ned.
“Got some coal to sell you and the missus, Bill,” he
began. All at once he spotted me lying tied up under the bed. His eyes closed to slits. He cleared his throat. “Thrup-penceworth today.”
Fisheye Bill hauled himself out of bed and put some coins in Ned’s hand. Then he grabbed Ned’s wrist so hard the mudlark cried out. “Eeow! What you wanna do that for?”
“I see you’ve noticed that young Eel is here for a visit,” Fisheye Bill said smoothly. “And I thank you for telling me that my dear stepson was still in town. But I don’t want a word of this to anyone, hear me?”
Ned gulped and stared right at me with large, frightened eyes. “I didn’t think he was goin’ to torture you, Eel. I didn’t think that!”
“Don’t talk to him!” Fisheye yelled, raising his hand toward Ned.
Ned flinched but didn’t take a step back. “You’re not gonna kill ’im, are you, Fisheye?”
“No, I ain’t. But I’ll tell you what’s to happen. You done me a good deed, and I did one for you: I bought your coal for an extra good price,” Fisheye Bill declared. “But that’s the end of it. Like I said, you better keep your mouth shut about this. This is my private matter. A private
family
matter.”
Fisheye drew out the word,
fam-i-leee
, and smirked as he said it.
Ned moved his bare feet nervously on the floor, his toes almost black with mud. “I ain’t seen nothin’, Fisheye. I’ll be off now. Good day to you.”
Ned closed the door, then clattered down the stairs and was gone. Nasty Ned. I should have known. It had been Ned who’d let on to Fisheye Bill that I wasn’t dead.
It was probably good that I was tied up. Because otherwise, I might have rushed at Ned and done something my mother wouldn’t have approved of at all.
When Ned had gone, Fisheye allowed me to use the chamber pot and gave me a sip of water.
“Now, Kate and me, we got a little business to do that can’t be put off,” he told me. “A little breakfast and a little business. Then, when I get back, you and me are going to visit Henry. You got that, boy?”
I clammed up. I wasn’t about to answer him. But when they’d left me alone in the hot, close room, I began to think.
Things looked grim on all accounts. First there was Florrie. I couldn’t bear her thinking I’d forgotten her. Then Dilly. She was probably already lost. Despite what Mr. Griggs had said about her sense of direction, I didn’t expect she’d be able to find her way to Dr. Snow’s house.
Finally, there was Dr. Snow. Tonight was the committee meeting. If I didn’t get there in time, he wouldn’t have the information about the unexpected case of Mrs. Susannah Eley, which proved that the water from the Broad Street pump had caused the cholera outbreak.
Without that proof, the chances that the committee would agree to remove the pump handle weren’t so good.
And that, I knew, meant more people might die.
I suddenly remembered Dr. Snow’s face on that first day at the pump. I’d wanted him to rush up and save Bernie. But he couldn’t—I realized that now.
What Dr. Snow wanted was to unlock the mystery of the blue death—not just for the victims of this outbreak, but for everyone in the future. Taking the handle off the Broad Street pump would just be the beginning—the start of a time when innocent people like Bernie and his parents wouldn’t have to die from a disease they didn’t understand. So that bright girls like Florrie wouldn’t have to suffer.
What was my life, or Henry’s life, against all those future lives that could be saved? Should I trade my freedom for Henry’s?
My head hurt just thinking about it. I didn’t know the right thing to do. All I knew was that Henry was my little brother. I’d promised Mum to protect him. That was my job in life, more or less. How could I betray him?
No matter how I looked at it, everything seemed lost.
Time is a strange thing. On the river, I could tell what time it was from the tide and the light. Sometimes I could hear the great bells of St. Paul’s Cathedral chime the hours. I’d heard church bells here, but what with my head hurting and my dozing off now and again, I couldn’t be sure what time it was. I began to wonder if Fisheye Bill and Kate would ever get back.
But then came the moment when I heard another new sound. I was curled on my side on the filthy floor. I ached all over. I raised my head a little, leastwise as much as I could, still being under the bed.
Clump, clump. Clump, clump
.
Someone was coming up the wooden stairs. Fisheye must be back. My heart sank. I still didn’t have a plan.
I tensed, listening. The steps halted in front of the door. The silence lengthened. It was almost as if the person on the other side was listening. Suddenly the door flew open, slamming against the wall.
Thumbless Jake filled the doorway like a giant creature come out of the river.
“Jake!” I croaked, though of course it didn’t sound like that with the rag in my mouth.
He looked down at me and shook his great head. “Always in trouble.”
Thumbless Jake came closer. Then I noticed.
In his good hand he had a small, shiny knife. I gulped. Was he going to do me in? Then Jake flashed a queer sort of smile.
“Now, what did I tell you, lad? We’re all riverfinders,” he said, bending down to cut the rope that bound me. “And today it looks like you’re the bit o’ something shiny that it’s my lot to find.”
As it turned out, Ned had been so frightened that Bill would kill me and he’d be haunted by my ghost, he’d run and found Thumbless Jake and told him the whole story.
“He got a good shaking from me, I’ll tell you,” said Jake after he’d helped me down the rickety steps.
“Where are we?” I asked, rubbing my hands where the rope had been.
“Down in the Borough,” Jake answered. “Somewhere near Lant Street.”
“Lant Street!” I exclaimed. We were probably two miles from Broad Street. “What time is it?”
I could tell from the shadows on the street that it was early evening already. I’d slept a lot longer than I thought.
Lucky for me, Fisheye and Kate had gotten delayed somewhere, doing some sort of criminal activity. Or, just as likely, they’d gotten drunk in a pub and lost track of the hours.
But if it was late, that meant I didn’t have much time to get to the committee meeting, which would begin at seven o’clock. As if in answer, Jake’s stomach rumbled.
“Time? It’s time for my tea.” He grinned. “I should think it’s after six. Not, mind you, that I pay much attention to the hours these days. I mostly just flow with the tides.”
After six! We began walking toward Borough Road. From there, I figured, I could make my way to Waterloo Bridge and then north to Soho.
All at once, a woman rushed up to me and grabbed my arm. I yelled and pulled away, thinking it was Kate.
“It
is
you!” the woman exclaimed. A small girl came running up behind her. “It’s him, Betsy! It’s that boy from Broad Street.”
“Betsy!” I cried.
Betsy threw her arms around me. “Eel, you came! Just like you said you would. But where’s Dilly?”
I couldn’t answer because suddenly Betsy’s aunt was grabbing my hands and talking at great speed into my face. “I am that glad to see you, dear lad. You must think me a perfect witch after how I acted the other day. I’ve always been this way, flying off the handle and saying things I don’t mean. Just the opposite of my dear brother, who was as mellow as an old mare. I’m right sorry.”
She pulled Betsy close to her. “Perhaps it was the grief and shock that got hold o’ me. Betsy is a dear girl, and my husband and I are lucky to have her.”
I was happy for Betsy’s sake. But time was short. Fisheye Bill could appear at any minute. And I had to get over the river and all the way to Soho soon. Very soon.
And then I had an inspiration.
“Ma’am, I believe you mentioned that your husband kept a cab,” I said urgently. “By any chance … would your husband—and his horse—be home now?”
Betsy’s aunt had just opened her mouth to answer when something fast and strong slammed into me and knocked me down, making wild grunting noises. Chaos erupted.
“Now, what’s this?” I heard Jake say.
“You did bring Dilly,” cried Betsy, clapping her hands. “You brought her, after all!”
It was quite late Thursday evening by the time I got to Berwick Street, eager to tell Florrie the whole incredible story. And the most incredible thing of all was that she was alive to hear it.
Florrie was lying in a small bed. I pulled a chair up beside her. I’d never been to the Bakers’ rooms before. Florrie shared one with her sister, Nancy, a special luxury for our neighborhood.
On the walls around her bed hung sketches she had
done. I recognized our friends and neighbors: Annie Ribbons holding a sewing basket that overflowed with thread, bits of lace, and streams of ribbons. Mrs. Lewis with baby Fanny in her arms. Mr. Griggs cutting cloth for a new jacket. And there were Betsy and Bernie, who was throwing a stick for Dilly, all three of them smiling. There was even a picture of me and my mudlark bag, with Little Queenie’s head poking out.
Florrie’s father had let me in and warned that I couldn’t stay long. “She’s holding her own and resting comfortable-like,” he told me. “But don’t tire her out, lad. I’ve lost my wife and can’t bear the thought of losing my dear girl too.”