Quincunx

  I hardly knew how it came about but I found myself, as the pale sun rose, in the dank and noisome little square near the Fleet whither I had followed my mother a little over a month before. I remembered that date well — the ill-omened 13th. of November — but I was not sure what the date was today. Gazing at the ugly long mound beneath which my mother lay, I wondered how soon it would be before I would join her there. At length, however, I was recalled from these reflections by the memory that I had things to achieve. And so at midday I dragged myself away from there.

  All that day I wandered aimlessly about the frozen streets, shivering with the cold and limping painfully for my feet were sore in the ill-fitting boots. I could not bring myself to beg but I went so far as to stare at people whose faces seemed kind. However, nobody stopped to offer money and I realized that, surrounded by importunate and experienced beggars as I was, I would have to make a direct appeal if I was to expect charity, and this I could not yet bring myself to do.

  I reviewed the people I could go to for help: Mrs Fortisquince and the Mompessons were clearly out of the question now. They would not assist me, but anyway I would die rather than ask them. Miss Quilliam, who had little power to aid me anyway, was in Paris. After recognising Barney, I could no longer hope for anything good to come from finding Mrs Digweed. That left only Henry Bellringer and, knowing how impecunious he was himself, I could not bring myself to go to him. There was nobody besides, for surely I dared not go to Mr Escreet? Not after the way he had received my mother, and in view of her explicit injunction? And anyway, I did not know which street the house lay in.

  That night I tried to sleep in the hall-way and on the stairs of houses in and around Drury-lane, but I was always driven out with oaths and blows. The next day, in desperation and keeping a careful watch for a police-officer or street-keeper, I began to beg, holding out my hand to passers-by with a few words of supplication. After only a few minutes, however, a cripple came towards me along the pavement, swinging his legs between two crutches and hopping like a sparrow. When he was a few feet away he rested on one crutch and, before I guessed his intention, swung the other towards my head. I moved and it caught me a painful blow on the shoulder.

  “Why, I’ve bought this walk,” he cried. “I pay my footing to work these streets. Cut away!”

  I had similar experiences when I tried to beg in other places and learned by this means that all the decent streets were owned and sub-let by the police and street-keepers.

  “Try down the Garding,” a foot-passenger said, seeing me moved on by a sturdy woman in rags. “That’s where boys like you goes.” When he saw my incomprehension he added: “Common-garding.”

  I took his advice and arrived there at dusk. The market was over for the day and, apart from a few old women who were sitting on upturned baskets and shelling peas, the market-people were sweeping up and making ready to leave. Strewn around was the detritus of the day’s trading — straw, shavings, broken boxes, and the like — and I now saw a number of ragged boys foraging for rotten fruit and vegetables amongst this rubbish. When I began to imitate them they told me to clear off, but then one of them, who was a year or two younger than I and had a crippled arm swinging uselessly at his side, said: “Let him be.”

  So the others ignored me and I managed to find a couple of apples and a tomato which were partially edible. Suddenly my new companions started and then all ran off.

  The boy who had been friendly called out: “Hook it! The beadle!”

  I saw the imposing figure of the market-beadle, with his golden epaulettes, his staff, and tri-corn hat, approaching round the corner of a row of stalls and took to my heels after the others.

  When I ran up the next avenue I could not see them, but suddenly a head popped out from beneath an abandoned stall and a voice hissed: “In here.”

  I dived under it and buried myself among the straw. My rescuer was the boy with the crippled arm and as we lay hidden waiting for the market-beadle to go, he told me his name was Luke.

  “How long have you had the key of the street?” he asked.

  “Just a few days. What about you?”

  “Longer nor I can tell. Ever since I rubbed away from me master. ’Cept when I was quodded for three months (and well-whipped twice in the bargain!) for prigging two buns and eight biscuits of a pastry-cook in Bishopsgate. That was when I was living in a brick-field by Hackney. A-fore that I had unfurnished lodgings under the arches of Waterloo-bridge, but it’s rough there.”

  “What about your parents?” I asked as we cautiously emerged and renewed our search for food.

  “Don’t rec’lleck nothing about ’em. Fust thing I know, I was a sweep’s boy down in Lambeth. That was all right, though some of the chimbleys was mortal narrer, but me master died and I was passed down to his son along with the connexion. He was a booser and hadn’t no understanding of the trade. He sarved me wery ill. I had to eat the candles at night. He broke me arm once in a beating and it was never set and now it’s useless. So at last I rubbed away.”

  I told him a little of my story in return, not concealing from him that I had not a penny to my name.

  “I’ll lay odds I could get something for that,” he said indicating the ring that Henrietta had given me.

  Doubting this and warning him that it was only worth a penny or two, I gave it to him in exchange for a piece of bread — resigning it with only a moment’s regret. He left me and, not expecting to see him again, I continued to search for food with little success. Towards midnight, noticing that many of the costermongers and waggoners who had come in from the country were sleeping beneath their carts — most of them under a pile of blankets and great-coats — I was just beginning to wonder where to spend the night, when I felt my arm being nudged and discovered Luke grinning at me.

  “Found you,” he said, and held up two meat pies and a couple of polonies.

  “So you sold it?” I said, taking the pie that he proffered me. “To whom?”

  He nodded and bit into the pie as a hint that conversation was to be suspended. When we had eaten — leaving the polonies for breakfast — he suggested that we should find an unattended waggon and retire for the night.

  “Won’t it be too cold?” I asked.

  “I ain’t never cold,” he said. “I wraps the ’Tiser over meself. Somehow no other paper won’t do as well.” As he spoke he looked through some abandoned newspapers lying on the ground and picked one up: “I knows the ’Tiser by the cat and horse on the front.”

  Puzzled by these words I looked to see what he meant and saw the lion and unicorn on the masthead. I followed his advice, but even the Morning Advertiser did not prevent me from passing a sleepless night. My thoughts were as bitter as the cold. If I had to live like this, then I did not want to live at all. Yet I must live in order to enforce justice against my enemies. Henry Bellringer, poor though he was himself, was my last hope. Surely, for his half-brother’s sake, now that I was actually starving, I was justified in appealing to him for help?

  By the time the pale misty dawn was breaking over the dark dome of St. Paul’s, I had overcome my scruples and, saying farewell to Luke, I began to make my way towards Henry’s chambers, eating my breakfast as I went.

  Just at the corner of Chancery-lane and Cursitor-street, I saw a familiar figure: “Justice!” I called out, and the old man turned his blind face towards me like an animal sniffing its way.

  He was unchanged except that he was carrying a leathern bag over his shoulder and was without his companion.

  He smiled as I came up to him: “I remember you from your voice, Master John. That’s the great blessing of blindness when you’ve been afflicted as long as I have.”

  Remembering something that I had heard from Barney’s people, I asked: “Were you always blind, or were you blinded as a child to make a beggar of you?”

  He chuckled: “Is that what they say? No, the truth is I lost my sight in gaol for I had the fever bad with the poor wittles and the darkness
. The turn-keys gived me the by-name of ‘Blind Justice’ for they said I was as blind as Justice.”

  “Justice is not blind,” I protested without thinking, for I was disconcerted by what he had told me; “but blind-folded, to show that she is impartial.”

  “Is that so?” he said with a gentle smile.

  Suddenly I recalled that Mr Pentecost had told me that the old beggar had given his sight for his principles, and was puzzled to make these two explanations match.

  “And how do you live now? Where is Wolf?”

  “Why, I’m collecting for him.” He touched the bag. “I does my rounds every day for people knows me and him now, and they gives me scraps for the old dog. He brings out the best in folks.” He paused and I would write that he scrutinised me if it would not sound absurd. Then he went on: “I can tell that you’re a-wondering what I was in quod for. Well, seeing as you’re a friend of Mr Pentecost, I’ll tell ye the tale. When I was a young man — oh, this is going back more than thirty year now to the time when the French wars was jist starting — me and a few other young fellows, ’prentices and young journeymen like myself for the most part, we was in a Radical s’iety. All we ever done was we met and talked about rising up like the French. But there was a government spy among us, a gentleman who pretended to be as Radical as us. More Radical, in fact. Mayhap he was, but was frightened into what he done. Who knows why a man does the things he does? Not even himself don’t always. Be that as it may, he ’peached on us and we was all took up and stood a-fore the Privy Council. They sent us up for treason. What he said at the trial was all lies but it was b’lieved. Two on the others was hanged and the rest marinated — that is, transported. I was sent to the Hulks at Gravesend for seven years but respited arter three on account of I’d lost the use of my eyes. But the strangest thing, young master, is that I believed I heard his voice again not long back. In fact, it was that time I met you in the street with Mr Pentecost.”

  I was silent for a moment. I understood Mr Pentecost’s words about the old man’s principles now.

  Then I said: “I have heard that Mr Pentecost is dead.”

  The old man sighed and shook his head: “The kindest individual I ever knowed.”

  “Where do you lodge now?”

  “Why, to tell you the truth, I don’t have no regular lodging. I sometimes pays my tuppence for a night’s lodging but otherwise I sleeps under the stars. But are you well yourself and prosperous? You and your mam both?”

  “Yes,” I said. And as much to divert his enquiries as from any better motive, I said: “Let me give you this for Wolf. It’s half a polony.”

  He hesitated and then said softly: “I cannot lie to you, Master John, for Mr Pentecost’s sake. Old Wolf is dead.”

  I continued to hold it out to him. Then, recollecting myself, I said: “Take it anyway.”

  He accepted it, we took leave of each other and I continued on my way to Barnards-inn. This time when I tried to sneak past the lodge I was not quick enough, and the porter hurried out and seized me by the collar: “Where do you think you’re going, boy?”

  “I’m a friend of Mr Henry Bellringer. I’m going to call on him.”

  “Oh, you’re a friend of Mr Henry Bellringer what you’re a-going to call on him,” he repeated, giving me a shake. “You’ll have to conwince me as how he wants to see you fust, young feller. Perhaps you’ll ’ave the goodness to send in your card?”

  “Will you tell him that …”

  “What, do you think I’m going to carry messages for you? Are you simple?”

  “But who will, then?”

  “There ain’t nobody here but me. But it’s Thursday, ain’t it? His laundress comes in later. She’ll take it if she’s a mind to.”

  So I took up my station in the cold street while the porter watched me at intervals through the lodge-window as he sat reading the newspaper in front of a cozy fire.

  After a couple of hours a hideous old woman arrived carrying an enormous laundry-basket on her head. Wisps of reddish hair peeked out from under her dirty cap and she had a cob-pipe stuck in her mouth.

  “That’s who you want,” said the porter, looking out of window.

  “Will you take a message to Mr Bellringer?” I asked her.

  She peered at me malevolently: “What’s it worth to me?”

  “I have nothing,” I said. “But I’m sure Mr Bellringer will be grateful to you.”

  “Him?” she said sneeringly. “Grateful’s about all I count on from him.” Then she said: “Well, what is it?”

  “Please tell him that Stephen’s friend, John, wishes to see him.”

  She nodded curtly and passed in.

  I waited and waited while several hours dragged by and it grew even colder. I walked up and down the street opposite the lodge swinging my arms around my body to try to keep warm.

  Eventually the old woman came out. “What, are you still here?” she said.

  “What did he say?”

  She looked at me keenly and then said: “He wasn’t there. He’s gone away sudden.”

  “How long for?”

  She and the porter, who was grinning through the window, exchanged glances.

  “I dunno. Several weeks, I b’lieve.”

  She threw these words over her shoulder as she made off down the street with her basket on her head.

  The porter slid open his window to say: “There you are, then. And I shouldn’t think it would be worth your time to come back.”

  I set off dispiritedly down the street, having no idea where I was going. By this time it was late in the afternoon and snow was beginning to fall. I dared not contemplate another night in the open and without food, and one thought became clear to me, hazy though my mind now was. By barring all other paths, fate had forced upon me the outright defiance of my mother’s explicit injunction: I had to go to my grandfather’s old house and throw myself upon Mr Escreet’s mercy. And after all, I had not in fact given her my word that I would not go there. But the question was, could I find it?

  With the last reserves of my strength, I set off for Charing-cross. It was a fine evening for all it was so cold, and as I walked westward, the setting sun dyed the sky before me a bright blue that was faintly purple, as it shone through the thin racks of cloud which were like gauze — but dark at the centre and pale at the edges. And because of this, the buildings near me were reduced by the faint mist to a single shade of grey so that details were effaced.

  I came first to Northumberland-court which I found to be a narrow street of small houses squeezed into the gardens of the houses in Northumberland-street on one side, and built up against the wall of the mansion on the other. These were not large enough to match my mother’s description of my grandfather’s house. Remembering from the map that there were courts on the other side, I passed the great Jacobean building and slipped into a narrow court-mouth between two of the high old houses. I went first into Trinity-place which I found consisted of squalid little dwellings made down into separate tenements. I came out and looked at the court before me. It was surrounded by the backs of the houses in Trinity-place and Charing-cross, except for a big old house that faced me and looked as if it had been there before any of the others were built. There was a paling before it and a skinner’s yard behind that, and from the smells I guessed that the house was now being used as a tallow-boiler’s. Though otherwise matching what I sought, it had no vestibule. The place was deserted, except that a man in a shiny cap was standing on the corner where the house protruded, and idly smoking a long-stemmed pipe.

  Dispiritedly I walked towards him and then passed round the angle of the house. Suddenly I saw before me on the back of a big building in the next court two hideous faces carved in stone, now pitted and worn. I recalled how my mother had remarked on the stone-carvings at Mitre-court and confused them with those near her father’s house. This was surely the place mentioned in her account! I turned to the right and there was a second big old house that had been hidden b
y the first. It had a vestibule!

  Exhausted as I was, I felt close to tears when I beheld the building in which I believed so much had taken place. It was tall, gaunt and delapidated, and was set back from the court by a rusted railing; the windows were shuttered or had broken panes; the guttering hung down, and fallen slates lay along the foot of the wall.

  I went up to the street-door which protruded from the house because of the vestibule, whose tiny windows were barred and obscured by grime. The paint had peeled so much from the ancient door that the naked boards were visible. There was a huge iron-rimmed key-hole into which I could have inserted all my fingers, and at about the level of my eyes was another metal-rimmed cavity which I took to be a judas-hole. On a brass plate, worn so smooth that it was almost unreadable, was the legend “No. 17” — which conveyed nothing to me. Then I saw that the heavy iron knocker was in the form of the familiar quatre-foil rose. So beyond doubt this was the house I sought!

  I lifted this and let it fall. As it struck the hammer-plate the noise seemed to fill the court. I waited but nothing happened. I knocked again and with the same result. In growing despair now, I hammered several times, remembering how my mother had had to keep knocking.

  At last I heard — or thought I heard — a faint noise. It seemed to me that the judas-hole was being slid aside, but when I tried to peer into it I could see nothing.

  I stepped right up to the door and spoke. I did not choose the words but they came as if inevitably:

  “My name is John Clothier. I am Mary’s son. My mother is dead. I have nothing. Please help me.”

  There was silence, then it seemed to me that very slowly the cover of the judas-hole was being slid back into place. I waited for the door to open but it remained immobile.

  I don’t know how long I stood there and waited — I believe it was a long time — before I realized that the door was not going to be opened. I was almost delirious and cannot bring to mind exactly what happened after that.

  I remember feeling passionate rage at this casual treatment — for this is what I conceived it to be. After defying the dying wish of my mother I was ready for insult, suspicion, further horrible revelations or danger, but I had not expected to be ignored. I felt that Mr Escreet — for I assumed it was he on the other side of the door — had no right to bar me from entering the house that had belonged to my family for so long.