I led them to the cart, where Mr Isbister was standing by the horse’s head, and they laid the body down. I covered it with some of the straw and handed the shilling to one of the men, who both touched their hats politely towards my master — the more politely since he had his face turned away from them — and went back into the building. When they had gone Mr Isbister got back onto the box and as the cart rolled off, he smiled at me and began to whistle tunelessly.
“Mr Isbister,” I said, “Why did you not warn me that Mr Leatherbarrow …” I broke off.
He laughed: “I was a-feared you might be skeered. But now you know there ain’t nothing to be a-feared on.”
After a few minutes he pulled the cart up at the corner of the City-road and Old-street.
“Make your way home from here,” he said and handed over a coin. “There’s that shilling for being a good lad.”
I took it but felt a certain disquiet as I climbed down and walked away. After a few yards I glanced back and saw to my surprise that Mr Isbister had not moved off but was watching me. Just before I turned the corner I looked round again and saw him still keeping his eyes on me.
I walked about the streets lost in thought. Had Mr Isbister really been simply helping his friend? If it was something more than this, I could not understand how he could be profiting by it. And what should I tell my mother? I resolved merely to say that my master had given me a half-holiday and a shilling to enjoy it.
When I came out of my reverie I realized that I was near Coleman-street and on an impulse turned aside to call in. The little servant, Nancy, answered the area-bell (I dared not ring at the street-door now) and told me that Miss Quilliam had not been back since our visit.
As I reached the door of the Isbisters’ house half an hour later, it opened and my mother and Mrs Isbister appeared. They were both laughing and clutching each other as if for support, but when my mother caught sight of me standing a few yards away and watching her, she flushed and said: “Why, Johnnie, whatever are you doing here?”
I told her of the half-holiday and the shilling, at which she exclaimed: “How lucky! We were just going to the shop. Now you can run round and buy another quart of …”
She broke off and looked at Mrs Isbister, giggling and covering her mouth with her hand.
“The Reg’lar Flare-up,” Mrs Isbister, who was having difficulty standing, put in.
“I shan’t,” I declared. “We need the money for other things.”
“Why, that ungrateful ill-mannered young rascal,” Mrs Isbister said.
“Johnnie, you must respect … respect and obey your mother. Now do as I tell you.”
“It’s my money,” I cried. “I earned it.”
Mrs Isbister sucked in her breath through her teeth at this: “I’ve told Jerry agin and agin as how that boy ain’t worth the bother.”
Furious and ashamed, I turned and ran down the street. I walked about for a couple of hours and bought a meat pie which I ate sitting on a broken wall near the church. Where could we go and how could we earn our bread? And yet we had to get away from these people, for I had begun to form an explanation for their interest in us. Our only hope lay in selling the document that the Mompessons and Mr Barbellion (on behalf of our mysterious enemy) were so anxious to obtain. And until I knew why it was so important to them, I was reluctant to try to persuade my mother to do so.
When I got back I could hear Mrs Isbister and my mother still in the kitchen, so I went upstairs and got into bed.
I could not sleep and was still awake when my mother came upstairs several hours later.
“You must not speak to me like that before other people,” she said carefully.
“I hate to see you with her,” I answered. “She’s horrible.”
“She’s not,” she cried. “Of course she’s vulgar and uneducated, but she means well.”
“She doesn’t,” I said. “Can’t you see? Mamma, we must go away from here. I’m sure I can earn more than Mr Isbister gives me.”
“You?” she said in surprise. “How much could a little boy like you hope to earn? You know, Johnnie, you live on the money I get from Mrs Isbister. It is I, not you, who keeps us.”
“That’s not true,” I cried. “You’re kept on charity. I know how little Mrs Isbister pays other women for the work you do.”
“You’re only saying that to hurt me,” she said. “Why do you do it?”
We argued ourselves into silence, and though my mother fell asleep quickly, I lay awake. After an hour or so she began coughing and woke up, and then we both lay in the darkness for some time listening to the other’s breathing and pretending to be asleep.
Nearly three weeks had passed and my mother had been spending more and more time with Mrs Isbister and yet was increasingly at odds with her and resentful of her treatment. Then on the morning of the 3rd. of May, as we were about to go out on the cart, Mr Isbister told me to put on my best clothes and make myself look smart. When I saw the cart I was not surprised to see the sacking in place once again.
We drove in silence for some time but as we began to go down Cheapside, Mr Isbister suddenly cleared his throat and began to speak. He told me a rambling and incoherent story concerning a friend of his, Ben (“You’ve most likely seen him coming and going at the crib.”). It appeared that Ben’s mother had recently died, and the old woman had always wished to be laid to rest beside her husband in the burying-ground at St. Giles-without-Cripplegate. Ben’s sister, however, with whom he was not on the best of terms, had prevailed upon the family of her mother’s employers — for malign but unspecified motives of her own — to bury their late servant in a different ground. And since they had obtained her ticket to the hospital and paid for her medicines, “the coves at Bart’s will do as they say.” If, however, I were to compose a letter purporting to come from the old woman’s employer, Mr Poindexter, and instructing the authorities to surrender the body to his son and servant — “That’s me and you, see?” — then the old woman’s dying wish could be gratified and Ben’s peace of mind restored.
At this point he appeared to notice the expression of dismay on my face for he licked his lips and said: “There’s two shillin’ in it for you.”
“I don’t think I can oblige you, Mr Isbister,” I said.
The effect of these words was dramatic. His face darkened suddenly and his little black eyes appeared to protrude. He leant towards me and, lowering his voice, spoke rapidly:
“Then you’re both out tonight, you and your blessed mother. Why do you think I took you in? I can get a good price for that room. And boys to help on the cart is ten a penny. And the old ooman says your mother is so slow and stupid she costs her more than her work’s worth in …”
As he talked I thought of what sudden eviction might do to my mother. And yet the alternative was hateful.
I realized that Mr Isbister was watching me hungrily: “Say three shillin’, then?” he said.
He had mistaken the nature of my scruples, but it might be better to dissimulate them.
“Five,” I said.
“You’re a hard ’un, but all right,” he said in ill-disguised relief.
He produced the materials, I wrote the letter, and we drove to the hospital and drew up outside the back-gate in Well-yard. I went in and played my part successfully, once again noticing, as two of the porters helped me to carry out my prize, that Mr Isbister kept his face averted.
He drove off and halted at the same place as before, gave me my money and told me to get down and walk home. I looked back and although he was sitting on the cart watching me, I now acted upon an intention I had formed after the last incident. I passed around the corner but after a few moments crept back just as the cart was moving off. It turned and went back up Old-street and, staying well back, I tried to keep up with it.
The difficulty was not, as I had anticipated, that the cart went too fast for me, for I found that I could just manage to keep up with it because it was slowed down by the othe
r traffic. The problem was that, in the press of other vehicles, I could not distinguish it unless I kept so close that Mr Isbister would see me if he looked round. And so at the intersection with Goswell-street, where I had difficulty in crossing, I lost sight of it.
As I made my way home I debated my best course of action. Given that I had no conclusive evidence of what Mr Isbister was doing, was I prepared to force my mother into complete poverty and homelessness on the grounds of my suspicions alone?
As I entered I heard low voices coming from the kitchen and looked in. The room was lit only by the dull glow from the grate and my mother and Mrs Isbister were sunk in their chairs at the table and did not notice me.
“Please don’t call me that,” my mother was protesting.
“I’ll call you what I please. Givin’ yourself them airs as if you was a fine lady.”
“You’ve no right to say that.”
“Oh, haven’t I? How dare you speak to me so disrespeckful. Why, Meg, you would ’ave starved, you and that blessed boy, if we hadn’t’ve took pity on you. We on’y keep you out of charity.”
“How can you say that when I work so hard!”
“Work! Why, you’re so slow and you sp’il more than you make. And that’s to take no account of what you cost me in …” She broke off and looked up: “Who’s that?”
I crossed the room and almost pulled my mother from the chair.
“Come,” I said.
Protesting feebly she allowed me to lead her upstairs where she staggered into our chamber and sat heavily on the bed. When I reproached her for letting Mrs Isbister abuse her, she started weeping and begging my pardon. I gave it rather grudgingly, and she dozed off. I tried to sleep as well, but she began coughing in her sleep and that and the events of the day running through my mind prevented me. The dampness of the house was bad for her lungs and I feared that the long hours she had to work, and other things, were sapping her strength. Yet could I force her to leave the comparative safety of that house? If only I could be sure of what Mr Isbister was involved in! And now it was that the resolution came to me: I would follow the cart the next night that Mr Isbister and the other men went out on it!
CHAPTER 34
My opportunity seemed to come only a few days later, for one afternoon two of Mr Isbister’s companions arrived at the house earlier than usual. They stayed in the parlour drinking and I could hear their laughter and shouts as I sat upstairs with my mother.
Suddenly Mr Isbister came out into the hall and roared up the stairs: “Jack! Come down here!”
I obeyed and when I found him standing at the door he pushed a couple of shillings into my hand: “Look sharp and bring us three quarts of nine-penny, there’s a good lad. Arst for Jerry’s reg’lar and they’ll sarve you the Real Knock-Me-Down.”
When I got back from the gin-shop round the corner and knocked on the door, Mr Isbister pulled it open but instead of simply taking the bottles from me as he had done on previous occasions, he said: “Come in and meet the lads.”
Reluctantly I entered the hot little room for the first time for it had always been forbidden to me before, and now the smell made my nose work though I wanted it not to. My master and his two companions had already consumed several jugs and if not actually “knocked down” they had certainly taken considerable punishment. I recognised them as the men I had seen on previous occasions, though I did not know their names. One was very fat and the other extremely thin. Mr Isbister beckoned me forward and then seated himself so that I was standing as if on a stage before the three men.
“You haven’t seen my new boy, have you?” he said.
“He don’t look worth much,” said one of the men.
He was so enormously fat that his chest and stomach seemed almost perfectly spherical and his chin appeared to rest on the top of his chest for I saw no sign of a neck. He had small black eyes which, set in an oddly small head with thick black curls, seemed to be restlessly staring about them as if in surprise at finding themselves stuck at the top of such a monstrous form. I saw something move and realized that he was carrying a couple of bull-dog pups in his capacious pockets.
“He may not look like much, Ben, but wait until you hear him speak. Now say something to show the genel’men,” Mr Isbister urged me.
“Mr Ben,” I said, “I am very sorry about your mother.”
He stared at me in obvious amazement: “I’m wery sorry about the infernal old nuisance, meself, but I’m damned if I see that she’s any consarn of yourn.”
I looked towards Mr Isbister in surprise.
He leaned forward: “Your mother, Ben,” he prompted. “Your blessed mother as passed away t’other day. It was Jack here what fetched her from the dead-house at Bart’s so as you could bury her beside her old feller, according to her dearest wish.”
“Be damned if I hadn’t forgotten,” said Ben. He turned to me: “Well, thank you, my young cully.” He looked at Mr Isbister: “How did you manage that? They’re too wide-awake there, I thought. Finesilver’s a sharp ’un.”
Mr Isbister smiled: “See this boy dressed up like a little genel’man and carrying a letter from his dad wrote out proper and sealed and everything.” He suddenly screwed up his face and, speaking several tones higher than usual, said: “Excuse me, Mr Finesilver, I ham most confounded sorry to trouble you, but my dad arst me to give you this here letter and for you to give me the thing mentioned in it what he wants collected.”
Ben and Mr Isbister roared and slapped their knees at this sally. The thin man smiled and drank from his tumbler.
“So how much do you owe us, Jerry?” Ben asked.
“Not a brass fardin!” Mr Isbister exclaimed, the smile disappearing very quickly. “That was on my own account.”
“Your own account be damned! I won’t take gammon. You know what we agreed,” Ben said. “Share and share alike: everything what we hears, the time what we puts in, every blessed thing. Eq’al money for eq’al risk. Ain’t that right, Jem?”
“That’s right,” the other man agreed, and wiped his nose emphatically with the back of his sleeve.
“I’ll tell you what, Ben: you can whistle for it,” Mr Isbister replied cheerfully.
“Why, honour among genel’men,” said Ben raising his massive body from the chair with difficulty. “That’s the company’s blunt not yourn.”
Mr Isbister looked up at him as he loomed before him blocking his light, then calmly drank from his tumbler before speaking: “Sit down, Ben.” He added conversationally: “Or I’ll beat your phiz to a pulp.”
Ben sank back into his seat like a pierced pig’s bladder.
Mr Isbister turned to me and said genially: “Take a seat, Jack. Here Jem, pour the lad a wet. And will you take a second glass yourself?”
Jem, who had a long melancholy face and weak eyes, replied: “Why, I will. Always wet both eyes, says I.” He poured me a large tumbler. “Here, lad, take it slow and it’ll do you no harm.”
I sat on a chair near the door and pretended to drink the raw spirit whose very smell I had come to loathe.
“We had a boy when I was fust on this lay a good few year back,” Mr Isbister said expansively. “And wery useful he was, too. But he weren’t no gentry-boy like this ’un. And the Jew has got a boy now, but Ikey’s boy don’t speak as nice as what this ’un do. And Jack here’ll read you off print or hand-wrote letters faster nor a dog kin trot. And write ’em, in the bargain.”
Jem looked at me curiously and even Ben, who had appeared not to be listening, turned a speculative eye upon me.
“So you reckon,” said Jem, “to put him to work, what with the reg’lar line of business being so bad the last few weeks …”
Mr Isbister interrupted quickly: “Exackerly.”
There was a pleasant silence while the three men — even Ben, who was still sulking — looked at me and drank contemplatively.
“I reckon it’s the weather,” Jem said. “It’s too dry. We wants a nice damp spell.”
/> Mr Isbister agreed: “Warm and wet. This dry weather ain’t no good to no-one. It’s jist the same in the winter. Cold and dry ain’t no use to us.”
“There jist ain’t enough things,” said Jem. “Pertickerly with the competition. There’s a deal too much. The trade can only support so many.”
“Too many on us and what happens?” Mr Isbister replied. “Why, the price comes a-tumbling down. It’s the Cat’s-meat-man what’s sp’iling the trade for all on us, the honourable men.”
“What’s he getting?”
“Lampard and Morphew pays twelve for a long, five for a small long, and two for a small.”
The others drew their breath sharply through their teeth.
“It’s a scandal!” said Ben, speaking for the first time since his altercation with my master.
“Why, it don’t show no respeck, do it?” Jem agreed. “Twelve pound!”
They shook their heads.
Jem turned to Mr Isbister: “Things don’t fetch what they used to. What was it you used to get when you started this lay, Jerry?”
Mr Isbister sighed: “Nigh on twenty for a long. Them was the days. Jist a-fore the War come to an end. There weren’t nobody in the trade but us and the Jew.”
“Aye, you and Blueskin was working mates with the Cat’s-meat-man and Barney then, wasn’t you?” said Jem.
I pricked up my ears at this.
“Aye,” Mr Isbister said, adding quickly: “But then we fell out with ’em and started on our own. So that left him and Barney down the Borough and arter that there was a deal o’ competition between us.”
“But then not long arter that him and Barney come off at hooks, didn’t they?” Jem said.
“Aye, the Cat’s-meat-man ’peached on him about seven year back. He had to leave Town and go down into the country but when he come back the Cat’s-meat-man got him took up. He done a couple o’ year at Gravesend at the Floating ’Cademy a-fore he managed to buy his ticket.”