by Andy Conway
The young man who’d called himself Mister Fred looked all pale and was sweating, though curiously, he was also shivering in the cold. Tim wondered how someone could both shiver with cold and also sweat at the same time. Perhaps he had the ague and had come from the marshes or the tropics. Mrs Hudson tended to him, and Miss Belle gave her a pretty blue handkerchief so that Mister Fred could wipe the sweat from his brow.
“I’m not sure I ought to have told you this,” Tim said. “I might get into trouble.”
“Don’t worry, Tim,” Miss Belle said. “I won’t reveal that you have said anything. You may pretend you’ve never seen me in your life before.”
“Wait here, then, and I’ll get them.”
He walked down the red carpet under the pergola, as bold as brass, and right through the lobby, so ornate it was like a palace. He informed the gentleman on reception he was here to collect Mr Forster and Mr Huffam, and the gentleman waved him through to Room 102.
When he came back with them, he walked ahead so he could warn Miss Belle.
“This is them,” he said.
They came walking up the red carpet under the grand pergola: the big fat man with grey hair and whiskers and the young man with wild, dark hair and vivid blue eyes, stalking ahead, almost marching, still arguing about books.
“This is them,” Tim said to Miss Belle. He tugged at Mr Forster’s coat, as a signal, sort of like. Judah kiss, though it was obvious who the two gentlemen were.
Miss Belle cried out, “Mr Dickens! Mr Charles Dickens, if I’m not mistaken!”
Mr Forster’s eyes bugged out of his head and he let out a little cry of fright, as if Miss Belle had leapt at him with a cudgel. “Boy! Lead on, and quickly!”
He shoved Tim ahead so that he found himself marching down New Street in the direction of the printing house.
“Mr Dickens! Please!” Belle cried.
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, madam,” Mr Dickens said, tipping his hat and rushing on. “My name is John Huffam.”
Why did grown-ups behave in such odd ways? Belle wanted to ask the nice man from London who played magic tricks to help her, but when Tim brought her to him as she’d asked him to, she pretended it was all an accident and a coincidence that they’d met.
The nice man from London said he wasn’t Charles Dickens, but Tim knew that wasn’t true because he’d heard them say how important it was that Charles Dickens pretend to be John Huffam. But Charles Dickens had been happy to be Charles Dickens when the woman at the train station had asked him to write his name in her book. They’d joked in that strange way grown-ups did — when what was being said was simple but what was happening was more than what was said. But then when his fat friend Mr Forster had returned, Charles Dickens had turned back into John Huffam and pretended nothing had happened.
Tim feared he’d never understand it.
And now that Miss Belle did the same to Charles Dickens, he pretended to be John Huffam again. Was it because Miss Belle didn’t have a book in which he could write his real name? Or was it that Mr Forster was present, and Charles couldn’t be Charles when Forster was there? Perhaps that was the point of the game, like a Christmas game of Blind Man’s Buff or Charades, when someone had to guess what you were. Perhaps all the grown-ups in the world were playing such a game and only when Tim became a man would the rules of the game be explained to him.
Tim crossed the street at Cornish’s bookshop and the two gentlemen followed swiftly, though Charles Dickens was not really following, more walking right alongside Tim with his hand on his shoulder and pushing him onward.
Miss Belle gave chase, just behind, but Mr Fred stopped in the street and stared up at the shops. Mrs Hudson dragged him out of the path of a horse and cart.
“But, please, Mr Dickens, I beg you. You are to write of my theatre performance later today and I urge you to come and talk to our players, to fully acquaint yourself with the work we do here.”
“I’m not him, madam,” Charles Dickens said.
Miss Belle tried to run, but she was aware of Mrs Hudson falling behind, because Mr Fred walked like an old man, as if with each step he was afraid the ground would fall away under him, or like he was swaying on a ship. Perhaps he was a sailor used to voyaging the tropics and dry land made him queasy.
The printing house was up ahead and Tim wondered if Miss Belle and her friends would follow the two gentlemen of London inside. For the first time he feared he might get himself into trouble for revealing the identity of the mysterious guests. The trouble might also extend to his dear father working under Stingy Swingey.
They came to the printing house and Tim waved the two gentlemen to the door, calling, “In here, sirs.”
Miss Belle reached out, almost to grab at Mr Dickens’ coat tails but stopped short. “I want my play to have a fair hearing, that is all.”
As they bustled through the door and the printing house bell chimed their entrance, Charles Dickens turned, astonished, and said, “You wrote the play?”
But Miss Belle could not answer, because the door slammed in her face. The two gentlemen from London were safely inside and Tim thought it best to stay out here and make sure Miss Belle and her friends didn’t follow them. He stood before the door.
“It is him. I don’t know why he’s pretending it isn’t,” Miss Belle said, stamping her foot.
“He looks so young,” said Mrs Hudson. “I was expecting the older man.”
Miss Belle gave her a curious look. It was indeed a strange thing to say. How could one expect to see an older version of a man if he wasn’t yet old? Perhaps he had a father by the same name.
Mr Fred caught them up and stood wheezing, looking back down the street. “Corporation Street wasn’t there,” he said. “It should be there round about where Cornish’s bookshop is, but it’s just a straight row of shops. It isn’t there.”
“Not yet,” said Mrs Hudson.
“Why would he pretend to be someone else?” Miss Belle said, ignoring their strange comments about streets that didn’t exist.
“It’s the same with my father,” Tim said, trying to be helpful. “Papa comes home from a hard day’s work and tells Mama what a nasty, spiteful miser Mr Swingeford is. He’s the meanest man in all of Birmingham. But when he’s at work, he speaks very nicely of Mr Swingeford and is very polite to him. It’s a pretend game that all grown-ups play. I don’t know the rules yet. They’re very complicated.”
The grown-ups stared at each other and Tim sensed that his helpful comment hadn’t really helped at all.
“Mr Ebenezer Swingeford?” Mrs Hudson said.
“He owns this publishing house and a great many other things,” said Belle. “Including a part share in the theatre. I have had the displeasure of his acquaintance once already this morning and I don’t wish to suffer it again.”
And yet Miss Belle looked longingly at the printing house window, and had her nose up against it, almost in the way Tim would press his nose to Miss Jagger’s Dining Rooms window across the street.
“I will speak with him,” Miss Belle said. She stamped her foot and went to the door to follow him in.
But right at that moment, Mr Fred fell over like a tree that was axed. Swooning and falling into the dirty gutter.
— 11 —
MRS HUDSON WAS THE first to reach down to Fred. She moved with a swiftness that surprised her, dragging him up and out of the way of a coach-and-four that thundered past, the coachman shouting out curses. Fred fell against her and she tottered back and would have fallen if Belle hadn’t held her.
“He’s fainted,” Belle cried. “Oh dear, the poor man. He did look rather ill. I shouldn’t have made him come on this wild chase.”
“He’ll be all right,” Mrs Hudson said.
Fred was standing on his feet, a little woozily, but he could walk.
Mrs Hudson looked up and down the street. There wasn’t a single building she knew from her own time.
“Over there,” Miss Belle s
aid. “The Hen & Chickens Hotel.”
She took Fred’s other arm and stepped into the street and they weaved through the coaches and horses, making for an elegant four-storey Georgian building fronted with an ornate balcony. They walked Fred right through the front door and Belle turned left into a side room. A comfortable parlour, busy with men and women drinking and reading newspapers and letters, tables dotted around, comfortable nooks and crannies, booths with private tables. It was part parlour, part waiting room, part wine bar.
They swept through to a booth and dumped Fred down on the bench. A commotion all around at their entrance. “This gentleman has fainted in the street,” Belle said.
The landlord, a great round Christmas pudding in human form with bushy whiskers, came rushing with a glass of rum and put it to Fred’s lips. “My word, Miss Belle, he looks a proper fright. Stranger, is he?”
“A friend, visiting from afar, Mr Fezzwig.”
“My son,” Mrs Hudson said.
They looked to her. She noted the surprising ease with which the lie had popped from her mouth. It was important to have a cover story when you travelled, she remembered this. She had done the same with other people... people she couldn’t quite remember. The girl with red hair. What was her name? And the young man with the funny moustache. He was called... Mitchell, was it? Damn this brain of hers.
“Do not be distressed, Madame,” Mr Fezzwig said, reaching out and squeezing her elbow.
Her frustration at not being able to remember these damned names. He’d taken it for fear for her fainting son. Well, that would do. Until she could remember what she was here for, if they thought she needed help and pity, all the better.
Fred spluttered and opened his eyes. A flash of alarm at his surroundings. He wiped his mouth and his pale cheeks went a light shade of scarlet.
“There,” Mr Fezzwig said, beaming. “That really has brought the colour back to your cheeks.”
Not the rum, Mrs Hudson thought. The embarrassment. To faint in front of Belle. The boy was in love with her.
“I’m all right,” he said. “It’s nothing. Just the recent exertions of travel have taken it out of me.”
Belle sat in the booth next to him and took his hand. He looked down at it in wonder.
“Whatever are you doing here, Tim?”
They all turned at the voice. A wiry man with a kind, simple face and a top hat that was too big for him.
“I’m helping Miss Belle, father,” Tim said. “Honest.”
“Mr Cratchit,” Belle said. “Don’t be alarmed. Your son really was only here helping us.”
“This man fainted,” said the landlord. “In the street.”
“I’m all right,” said Fred.
Mr Cratchit patted his son’s head and swept his hat off his own head, revealing a wiry mess of curls, and a receding widow’s peak. “I do worry about my son, Miss Belle. There are unsavoury characters in the Froggery who would make young disciples of the boys and have them carry out all sorts of nefarious deeds. I want to protect my tiny Tim from that.”
“As do I,” Miss Belle said, reaching out to clasp Mr Cratchit’s hand and pull him to sit beside her. There was ample space in the curved bench of the booth and they all found themselves sitting. “We are only here because my friend, Mr Fred, was taken ill and fainted in the street. Your son was passing and helped us. I believe he was escorting two guests from London to the printing house?”
The landlord put more glasses down before them and poured rum for them all. Mrs Hudson took one and felt it golden and warm. A relief.
“Why, yes,” Mr Cratchit said, a little flustered to find himself press-ganged into this drinking party, looking about with unease to locate the thing he’d come for. “Those guests are talking with Mr Showell right this minute.”
“It’s Mr Charles Dickens and his business manager, isn’t it?”
“I’m not supposed to say, Miss Belle. I oughtn’t to, I really oughtn’t. It’s a delicate business matter.”
“So he’s here to arrange a publishing deal.”
“I didn’t say anything of that sort.”
“I suppose it would be cheaper than publishing in London.”
“It would, if that were what he was here for, and I cannot say if he is or he isn’t.”
“A monthly periodical, I’d guess. Not a book.”
“Oh, you really mustn’t prise it out of me, Miss Belle. That wouldn’t do.” He pushed the drink away and put his hat back on. “I really do have to get back to my desk. I only came in for...”
“Cratchit!”
A hoarse, hard as flint voice that sent a chill through the room, as if the caller had left the door open and brought in the winter air with him. Everyone shuddered, even though there was a roaring fire across the room.
Mr Cratchit shot up and almost knocked the table over. “Mr Swingeford, sir.”
The man was a gruff old skinflint who might have been the most miserable looking pall-bearer in town, if he hadn’t been wearing grey, head-to-toe.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m here to collect the mail, Mr Swingeford.”
“You are here imbibing on my time.”
“No, sir, honest, sir. I collected the mail and then saw my son here and enquired as to why he was here, concerned for my boy’s welfare. Only it turns out he was here helping this young gentleman who fainted in the street right outside of the offices, Mr Swingeford, sir.”
“Mr Swingeford,” the landlord said, puffing out his chest.
Mrs Hudson couldn’t be sure of the exact hierarchy involved here, whether Mr Swingeford, as a gentleman, outranked this mere tradesman, or if Mr Fezzwig being the landlord meant he was king of anyone who entered his domain. But there was a definite battle of wills here, both men stiffening like a pair of alley cats and trying to make themselves larger.
“I can confirm everything he says is true. Mr Cratchit is as honest as the day is long. There’s no more honest and hard-working a man in the whole of Birmingham, I would wager, and he’s never once taken a sip in here, more’s the pity for my business, not even on Christmas Eve.”
“Bah, Christmas Eve,” Mr Swingeford snarled. “If I had my way...”
“Oh, do shut up, you miserable man.” Mrs Hudson found that she was standing, and that those words had come from her. There it was again. Her lips running far ahead of her agonizingly slow mind. “Enough people have confirmed it for you. Now go away and find a crutch to kick or something.”
Chuckles fizzed around the bar. Mr Swingeford’s face went beetroot red. Mrs Hudson instinctively looked to his fists. She was quite sure that under his kid gloves, his knuckles would be white. He raised his cane as if it were a microphone that would amplify his words.
Mr Cratchit stumbled out of the booth and ran to the bar where he collected a bundle of letters. He scampered out of the place. His son watched him go with a look of quiet fury.
“And you, Miss Ruth,” Mr Swingeford continued. “This is no place for a young lady. You will leave here at once.”
Fred tried to raise himself but stumbled back. “Listen here, who do you think you are, ordering people around like that?”
A hiss flew around the drawing room as everyone sucked in a deep breath. There were a few delighted whoops. It was clear from the reverberation that Mr Swingeford was very much a man who could do exactly what he had done and no one would beg to differ.
“A young woman should not be in saloon bars unaccompanied,” Mr Swingeford said.
“But I’m not unaccompanied,” Belle said. “I’m with Mr Fred here and Mrs Hudson. They are relatives of mine, here to visit me for Christmas.”
Mr Swingeford looked them up and down, first Fred and then Mrs Hudson. She felt his cold eyes take her in and a shiver danced up her spine.
“What relation are they to you? I was to understand that you were an orphan.”
“Mrs Hudson is my aunt. Mr Fred here is her son. I think that makes h
im my cousin.”
Mr Swingeford glared down now at Belle’s hand, clasped on Fred’s. She sensed his disapproval and drew her hand away.
“And when was this known to you?”
“Very recently,” Mrs Hudson said. “We have been searching for our dear, long lost relation for years, and here, at last, we’ve found her.”
Mr Swingeford looked them over each in turn, confounded by the easy lie. But he knew, Mrs Hudson could tell; he knew he was being lied to.
“I see you are bereaved, madam.”
Mrs Hudson looked down at her black dress and cloak. “I’m a widow, yes.”
“Recently?”
Mrs Hudson tried to remember. She’d had a husband. Once. What was his name? It had been so long. “No,” she said, and she heard the thread of sadness in her voice. “It was a long time ago.”
“And still in black. I think that very noble.” Mr Swingeford turned from her and pointed his cane at Fred. “And what are your intentions?”
“My intentions?” Fred said.
“Towards the young lady here?”
“What? Are you her father?”
“Don’t be impertinent. Miss Ruth is a ward.”
“I’m unaware that I have ever been your ward, sir,” Belle said. “Unless you are some mysterious benefactor of whom I’ve been ignorant.”
“I am not your benefactor, no. But my investment in the Theatre Royal makes you a concern of mine.”
“I am not one of the theatre’s props,” Belle said.
“No,” Mr Swingeford sneered, grinning as if he were about to lay down a Royal Flush. “But as an unverified sitting tenant of the theatre, your position and the question of your propriety, weighs heavy on myself and the board of directors. And I do hope your relatives are not lodging with you. That would be most unseemly. The hotel is next door. Or even here, if they are poorer than they look.”
He tipped his hat, turned and left.
The bar room resumed its hum of conversation, glasses chinking and the air warmed by a few noticeable degrees.
“Worst man in Birmingham,” Mr Fezzwig said. “Ebenezer Swingeford. A horrible old mean-spirited skinflint tyrant. Even the dogs skulk out of his way when he walks the street.”