Quincunx

  “He’s a rum nut, the Cat’s-meat-man,” put in Ben.

  “When he was young,” said my master, “there wasn’t nobody in Town to match him — barring gin.”

  “Why did you and Blueskin fall out with him?” Ben enquired sharply. When Mr Isbister didn’t answer he said: “Ain’t it true that Blueskin sarved his brother out?”

  “You’ve got the wrong pig by the ear,” Mr Isbister said dismissively. “That were never down to Blueskin.”

  “I heerd the same,” Jem agreed. “They say he stuck him with a knife on account of a noise over the blunt.”

  “Tell us the story, Jerry,” said Ben. “Or are you a-feared o’ Blueskin?”

  “I ain’t a-feared of Blueskin or no man,” Mr Isbister insisted.

  At that moment the door opened and a man came in very quietly, and this was all the more striking since he walked with a limp and I saw that he had a wooden leg. He was completely bald, had a thin mouth and an almost fleshless face with blue-grey eyes so pale that they seemed to vanish as you looked into them. He said softly: “Nobody heerd me knockin’, you was a-having sich a good time.”

  He appeared to address these words to the whole company, but he smiled at Mr Isbister, if that was the right word for such a scull-recalling grimace.

  Mr Isbister stammered: “Why, Blueskin, my good fellow. Come in and set yourself down.”

  “What was you all a-talkin’ about so cozy?”

  There was an uneasy silence.

  Then Mr Isbister said: “We was saying that business being as bad as it is, the lad here can help us.”

  Blueskin smiled at each of them and said softly: “Oh, was you?” Then he turned his cold gaze upon me and I felt a chill as he scrutinized me with those disconcerting eyes.

  “I don’t think we should use him,” said Jem.

  “Whyever not?” Mr Isbister exclaimed.

  “It ain’t right, that’s all.”

  “Well, perhaps we won’t need to,” Ben said. “Is there anything in from the searchers?”

  “No,” said Mr Isbister. “Old Nellie out in St. Botolph’s work’us sent word to say she had something, but then it weren’t no good. Relatives come for it.”

  They sighed and shook their heads.

  “Relatives!” said Ben scornfully, and the others muttered in agreement.

  “Has any on you had any luck today with the blacks?” Mr Isbister asked.

  Ben and Jem shook their heads.

  “Nothing,” said the latter. “I walked around till my feet was sore.”

  “I followed one,” said Blueskin. “From Great-Tower-street. It looked a good ’un.” At this the others smiled, but then Blueskin added softly: “Only then it went down the Borough.”

  Their smiles disappeared.

  “Then that ain’t no good to us,” Jem said. “The Boys o’ the Borough will have that one.”

  “I don’t see why they should,” Blueskin said. “The Cat’s-meat-man comes up this way. Why shouldn’t we go down there?”

  None of the others met his eye and he went on: “That’s the way I reckoned it, so I paid Sleeth fifteen to forget to lock the gate same as last time.”

  “We’ll settle next time,” Mr Isbister said, “when we’ll have done some business.”

  “We’ll settle now,” Blueskin said very gently, and with a scowl my master reached into his pocket and handed over fifteen shillings.

  “While you got your blunt handy, Jerry,” Ben began as Mr Isbister shot him a hideous look, “you can settle up for what we talked about earlier.” He turned to Blueskin: “Jerry got the boy to colleck a thing from Bart’s.”

  “Is that so?” Blueskin said. “Well done, Jerry. Cop us the blunt.”

  With an ill grace Mr Isbister gave each of the three men two sovereigns.

  “What, only ten?” said Blueskin ironically. “You was done brown. Especially with things so hard to come by just now!”

  “It weren’t a good ’un,” said Mr Isbister.

  “What about Harry’s share?” Jem asked.

  The other three looked at each other.

  “Harry won’t know,” Blueskin said. “Leastways, not if none on us don’t tell him.”

  “So that’s another ten each,” Ben said.

  As Mr Isbister counted out the money and gave it to them, Jem protested mildly: “I don’t think we should. It ain’t honourable.”

  “Don’t you want your share?” Mr Isbister snarled.

  Jem pocketed it ruefully.

  “Well,” asked Blueskin, looking round the room, “who’s game for the go tonight?”

  “Have you forgot the drubbing the Boys o’ the Borough give us last time?” Mr Isbister asked indignantly. “Look at this.” He rolled up a sleeve and held up an arm: “Be damned if I haven’t still got the scars where the Cat’s-meat-man pinked me.”

  Blueskin said softly: “I ain’t forgot at all, not at all, Jerry. That’s why I says we can’t let ’em have it all their own way, or where will it end?”

  “I’m cap’n,” said Mr Isbister. “I decide.”

  “It’s our living that’s getting took away from us. We all decide,” said Blueskin gently.

  “That’s the ticket,” said Ben, and even Jem grunted in support.

  “So what do you say?” asked Blueskin, turning to them.

  “We ain’t had no luck for weeks,” said Ben uncertainly.

  “You want a broken head, do you?” my master sneered.

  “See, last time we wasn’t ready for ’em,” said Blueskin to the other two as if Mr Isbister had not spoken. “But if they come tonight we’ll make ’em welcome.”

  “Aye, that’s right,” cried Ben, glaring at Mr Isbister. “We’ll win the horse or lose the saddle, says I!”

  “What do you say, Jem?” Blueskin asked.

  “I ain’t happy, but if you go I’ll make one with you.”

  “There’s a plucky Briton!” Ben exclaimed, turning his massive body so that he could glare at Isbister. “So we’ll go! And if anyone says contrairy, then damn him for a yellerbelly!”

  “Well, Jerry?” Blueskin asked quietly.

  “Why, I’ll come. In course I will. Did I ever say different?”

  Blueskin thumped the table beside him and looking round at the others, cried: “So we’ll go a-wooing, then?”

  Ben and Jem laughed and Blueskin shouted: “Go on, Ben, give it to us.”

  Ben began to sing to the tune of “Wapping Old Stairs”, and the others passed the jug round as they joined in the chorus, the comical point of which was to come in early cutting off the last line. As they did so they banged their tankards down on any nearby surface. All this time, to my dismay, Mr Isbister, singing in a tuneless bass, kept his gaze fixed upon me with a smile that I found more disturbing than any grimace. It was as if he were inviting me to admit that I was enjoying the joke:

  “Jack wooed a cold, cold lady

  To leave her mother’s side.

  Jack was a bashful wooer;

  She would not be his …

  Chorus:

  “Kneel upon the lady’s shift

  To arst her for her hand;

  And don’t mind if she’s stiff,

  And don’t mind if she’s stiff.

  “Jack told his dad his troubles:

  ‘The lady is too proud

  And stiff to let me take her,

  A-wearin’ of her …’

  Chorus:

  “Kneel upon … etc.

  “The old ’un answered Jacko

  In these most helpful terms:

  ‘You’ll have to straddle her boldly

  Or leave her to the …’

  Chorus:

  “Kneel upon … etc.”

  As the song finished with a climactic clattering of tankards, Mr Isbister said to me: “Well, young ’un, how do you fancy j’inin’ us tonight?”

  “No, Jerry,” Ben suddenly put in. “How do we know we can trust him not to nose?”

  “O
h I think we can trust him,” Mr Isbister said placing his arm over my shoulders and pulling me close to him. “He knows what’s good for him and his mam.”

  “I don’t want to, Mr Isbister,” I said.

  He got to his feet looking down at me with deep malevolence in his little black eyes. “You don’t want to,” he repeated, advancing upon me.

  I stood up as he approached and began to move away.

  “I’ve trusted you,” he said. “You know enough to queer our pitch.”

  He seized me with one massive fist bunching up my coat-front and pushed me back suddenly against the wall.

  “I say Jerry, lay off him,” Jem objected mildly.

  “What’s a half-long worth just now?” Blueskin asked quietly.

  Ben laughed but Mr Isbister, holding his face an inch or two from mine, said: “You don’t think I took you and your mam in out of pure kindness do you? You ain’t that simple, are you?” To emphasize his point he banged my head hard against the wall. “It ain’t just a matter of throwing you and your mam out. Oh no, it’s gone too far for that. If I can’t trust you …” He broke off. “Boys like you is fetched out of the river or found in the Fleet-ditch, oh, three or four times a week. So do you still say you ain’t a-coming tonight?”

  “No, not tonight,” said Jem. “Not if we’re going down the Borough and there’s a fair chance of trouble.”

  “All the better,” said Mr Isbister. “He can hold the hoss and keep an eye on the cart.” For added emphasis he gave me a blow to my head which sent it back against the wall. “Well, what do you say?”

  I was saved by a remark from Blueskin: “Jem’s right. He’d jist be in the way. Wait till we find a gate that wants squeezing through.”

  Mr Isbister looked at me resentfully: “All right, not tonight,” he said. “But next time we go out you’ll come with us. Now be off.”

  He stood aside so that I could pass, and I left the room. Outside in the dark little hall I paused and breathed deeply. I heard the voices of my mother and Mrs Isbister arguing together in the kitchen, and suddenly I felt that I could not bear the house any longer. I ran out and then hurried through the streets at random, bent simply on getting as far away from there as I could and resolved that I would never go back.

  I walked for a couple of hours, going over and over in my thoughts the choices that were available. If only something had come of my attempt to find Miss Quilliam. That reflection made me suddenly realize that I was not far from Mrs Malatratt’s house and I hurried thither.

  When I knocked on the kitchen door Nancy opened it and smiled at seeing me: “I’ve got something for you at last. The genel’man come and settled the account so she’s been ’lowed to take the boxes. She left this.”

  With these puzzling words, she reached behind a tray propped against the wall on a sideboard and handed me a letter. I turned it the right way up and saw that the superscription was simply one word: “John”.

  “I can’t speak now for the mistress has jist rung the bell,” Nancy said and closed the door.

  As I mounted the area-steps I opened the letter — my first proper letter! — and read the elegant hand with my heart thumping:

  “No. 47, Orchard-street,

  “Westminster,

  “The 4th. of June, 18--.

  “My Dear John,

  “Certainly I remember you, though that time at Hougham now seems to belong to another world.

  “I grieve to hear of the misfortunes that have befallen you and your mother, and I dearly wish it were in my power to help you. But only conceive what I must mean when I tell you that I am now in much less fortunate circumstances even than when you saw me last. However, though I fear I have very few means to help you, whatever may lie within my power I will perform — and more than gladly. If you and your mother wish to come to me, you will find me at the above address.

  “In the meantime I remain,

  “your very obedient servant

  “no less than your friend,

  “Helen Quilliam.”

  I was a little disappointed, and as I made my way quickly home, I speculated on whether I should persuade my mother to accept Miss Quilliam’s offer, and on how we would maintain ourselves if we did. Before I could urge her to leave the protection of the Isbisters, I decided, I had to be absolutely sure that my master was involved in something as nefarious as what I suspected. And then it came to me: I would follow him and find out tonight!

  It was nearly nine o’clock by the time I got back. I crept up to our room and, listening to the sounds of drunken laughter from the parlour and the quarrelling voices of the two women from the kitchen, consumed the saveloy and bread-roll I had bought on the way home.

  When, after a couple of hours, my mother at last came up to bed I could tell that it was not the occasion for a rational discussion of the future. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Isbister ascended the stairs, muttering drunkenly to herself. My mother quickly fell into a deep sleep and, except for her coughing, her breathing was soon deep and regular.

  Time passed slowly and all the while I could hear shouts and laughter punctuated by bursts of song issuing from the parlour. It was not until a little after midnight that I heard the men leave the house and instantly I slipped out of bed, pulled on my clothes in the dark, and left the room, squeezing the door shut behind me. Reassured by the sound of Mrs Isbister still breathing heavily in her sleep, I stole downstairs and, once in the kitchen, released the catch on the window, opened it, and climbed out, gently lowering it behind me.

  I now found myself in the little yard at the back of the house which was empty except for a water-butt, a heap of broken bricks and slates, and a dead rat, and which was surrounded by a high wall with a gate. I had scanned it from our window during the day and now scrambled over the gate without much difficulty, and then cautiously made my way along the dark little lane between the surrounding back-yards until I gained the street. Mr Isbister’s three companions were standing by the cart, and as I watched from round the angle of the house, my master himself approached leading the horse, which he had obviously just brought from the livery-stable. He harnessed it as quietly as possible in the light of the lanthorn that Jem held for him, and a few minutes later they boarded the cart and it rolled away. I kept well back when it set off and only emerged from concealment as it reached the end of the street. Now I would find out if I was going to be able to keep pace with it.

  Fortunately it was a fine night with many stars and a large bright moon, so that I could follow the cart’s progress from a considerable distance without losing sight of it. Though by the same token, I had to be more careful not to be observed. Mr Isbister kept the horse to a walk until he reached the high-road, probably to avoid attracting notice. I had never been out so late and though I was surprised by the volume of traffic and the number of foot-passengers on the road, I felt some alarm at the prospect of venturing into the dark bye-ways. Now Mr Isbister set the horse going at a trot — though fortunately for me a slow one, on account of the number of passengers.

  At first I was able to keep up with little difficulty by maintaining a steady and gentle run, but after fifteen minutes I was beginning to tire. The cart made its way steadily westward along Bethnal-green-road and then turned south into Shoreditch. By the time it was going at a good trot along Bishopsgate I began to flag and it drew steadily away from me. With my heart and lungs on the point of bursting and my feet in considerable pain because of the poor condition of my boots, I nearly cried aloud with frustration and anger at the thought that I would lose the vehicle after all. Since I had no more reserves of strength or wind, however, there was nothing to be done and a few minutes later it was out of my sight. I assumed that it was going to cross the river by London-bridge but beyond that, I knew I had no chance of regaining my quarry. Yet still I ran on for it was easier to do that than to admit defeat.

  Just as I reached the bridge, I suddenly realized that a vehicle that was pulled in to the side of the road a few yards
ahead of me was the cart! I had nearly run upon it! I hastily ran up Lower-Thames-street and then crept back to watch. This was a stroke of luck and it gave me the chance to get my breath back. After some minutes a figure approached from Upper-Thames-street to the west and, after a few words were exchanged, climbed aboard as the cart moved off. I assumed that this was the man, Harry, whom they had referred to.

  It went through the toll-gate on the bridge and a moment later I followed, slipping through the horse-gate so that the toll-taker, busy with his leather apron and money-pocket, did not even notice me. Once the cart had entered the Borough it went only a short distance down some side-streets and then drew up in an unlit lane. I stayed some distance away and watched the five men get down and take from the back of the cart certain objects which I could not make out because they were wrapped in sacking. And they were taking other precautions against noise for I heard not a sound. Then four of them made their way down an alley-way that led off the lane, and now I could see that they were carrying dark-lanthorns and long-handled tools. Above the tops of the nouses on that side I saw the spire of a church. The fifth man stayed with the cart and as I crept past it in the darkness on the other side of the lane I thought that I could make out that it was Jem, and I could see that the piece of tarred sacking was in place.

  I dared not go down the alley-way after the men in case they looked back, so I cut through other streets until, by a kind of tacking, I came up against a wall topped by railings and peered through. I could just discern dark figures moving among the pale stones and then was able to make out what it was that they were unwrapping. I needed to see no more. Exhausted, horrified, and in need of respite before setting off on the long walk home, I leant against the wall trying not to hear the faint sounds of metal striking earth.

  Suddenly I heard a noise from behind me: footsteps were approaching down the alley-way! I left the wall and pressed myself into a door-way opposite it just as a group of six or seven men approached. I felt the back of my neck tingle as I realized that they were treading as soundlessly as they could and then saw that they were carrying long staves.