Kit checked his pocket watch. It was a quarter to the hour. He considered his options. Sit here awhile or search about for Peter and Susan on his bad leg, along with a child who also had a bad leg.
“No, we can stay here awhile.”
Pip relaxed, leaning back against the fetlock of the bronze horse under the watchful eye of its rider.
Kit’s attention wandered from the entertainment to watch the shifting crowds, picking their shapes through the shadows cast by the lamplight until they were near enough to emerge from the fog.
It had long been a habit of his – as much for his own protection as it was from rampant curiosity. He observed people as he watched the skies above when he sailed. An innocent-looking white cloud on the horizon might be the harbinger of bad weather ahead. A man simply walking past might have malintent. And Kit would see it.
“What do you see when you look at them?”
Once again, Pip surprised him. He thought the boy’s attention was on the puppet show. Kit shook his head. He ought to have known this was no ordinary child.
“That man over there.” Pip pointed to a well-to-do gentleman, his arms full of brown paper packages. “I like to think he lives in a big house. Perhaps he’s a Member of Parliament, and those packages are Christmas gifts for his children. What do you think?”
Kit rubbed the silver pommel of his sword stick with the palm of his hand, feeling its weight. His observation was somewhat different. He saw a man who ran the risk of being set upon by footpads, helpless to defend himself.
“Yours is a much better story,” he said.
“Then what about that man over there?”
At first glance, the second man looked no different to the first until Kit observed the fashionable attire was the only thing they had in common.
This subject walked briskly but stiffly along the street, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets. As the man neared, Kit saw a chap in his middle age, although his face seemed older and more careworn than his gait would suggest.
“I think he is a man of business,” Kit offered, “and that business is not doing well. Look at how he keeps his eyes front, looking neither to the left or right, and the way he brushes past people without a look or acknowledgement.”
A chestnut seller approached the man and received a stiff rebuke for his trouble. “A ha’penny? Highway robbery! I wouldn’t give you a farthing for double the amount!”
The businessman took no more than two paces away from the chestnut seller before stepping into a hole made by a missing cobble. He pulled his foot out and angrily observed the muddy mess made of his boot.
“Bah humbug!” he exclaimed.
Pip nodded. “He has suffered a great disappointment. Made him resentful, it has. He drags his grievance along behind him like an invisible chain.”
Again, another unusual observation from the strange child. Kit played along. “Oh? What kind of disappointment, do you think?”
“He doesn’t have a family. He’s driven them all away, including his lady love.”
“You can tell all of that from a man just walking down a street and stepping in a puddle?”
The boy shrugged. “I like to make up stories about the people I see, and imagine their lives. I mean no harm.”
Pip offered a shy smile and seemed to reflect a moment.
“There are times I dream I don’t have to use a crutch, and I play and go to school like other boys. Or that there’ll be a big, fat goose on the Christmas table surrounded by so much food my tummy would be near to bursting after dinner. But when I look around at people who seem to have all the things I lack, I realize they’re not happier than me. And many of them are a lot less happy. In reality, I think I am rich.”
“Why is that?”
Pip pondered the question.
“I have a lot to be thankful for. Our house is full of laughter. Mother makes the housekeeping money go a very long way. Our clothes may not be new, but they’re well cared for. She would never let us out in rags. Our home is always clean. Papa works very hard and, even after a long day, he smiles, laughs, and tells us stories. My brother and sister always have time for me, even though I am so much younger and smaller and cannot walk or run as they do.”
Kit smiled. “Then you are one of the richest people I know. What story did you make up when you first saw me?”
He didn’t know why he’d asked the question. It seemed such an innocent one – an extension of the game they’d played.
“You reminded me of them.” Pip pointed to the marionettes. “You’re the man behind the curtain, but most people don’t see you. They see only the puppets in brightly colored costumes and think they are talking to them and not you.”
A shudder went through Kit for the second time tonight. Once again, it had nothing do with the cold.
What could he say to that? He continued to play with his cane. In truth, he was as ashamed as he was astounded. This boy held a mirror to his life, and he’d found himself wanting.
Before he could marshal a response, the clock bells began to chime the eighth hour.
“We should go. Your brother and sister will be waiting.” Kit’s voice was flat.
He pulled himself to his feet, stretching out his right leg, stretching it out before putting his weight on it. He turned back to Pip and forced cheer into his voice.
“Come on, climb on my shoulders, and you can point out Peter and Susan.”
Pip did as instructed; crutch in hand. Even with his damaged leg, Kit could still shoulder a load, and the boy was not a burden in the least.
“Do you have a family?” Pip asked.
“Not like yours.”
“Not every family is like mine.”
Despite himself, Kit laughed. “Your family is exceptional.”
“Do you think so?”
“It would have to be to deserve a son like you.”
Chapter Five
“You never answered my question.”
Kit wasn’t sure which of the many questions Pip fired his way was the one he was expected to answer. The walk through the streets back to the toy shop might be slow going, but it was certainly entertaining.
“Are you a pirate?”
“I may have been once.”
“But not anymore? Why?”
“Because I got married.”
“Ah, so you have a family now. Do you have children?”
Kit hesitated. He wasn’t stupid. He knew Sophia’s illness might well be a sign of pregnancy but, so far, she had said nothing to him about the possibility.
“Only my two ships, the Calliope and the Clio.”
“Ships are like people?”
“They can be. You get to know them out at sea. How they move under your feet, how small changes to the rigging and the rudder will have them take you wherever you want to go. And when the weather turns, it’s you and her together against the world.”
“What brings you to London, Captain Kit?”
“I’ve come to find my parents.”
He hadn’t meant to stay that aloud. The only people other than Sophia who knew this was not a regular trading run were Elias and Jonathan.
“Were your parents lost?”
“No. I was.”
And that was the truth of it. After ten years being a captive of the corsairs, he’d had to build his life over again. He’d considered himself fortunate then to have had no family, no one to witness his shame or to rein in his excesses and his hunger for vengeance, only to find it left him just as empty and broken.
No – his crowning achievement was winning and keeping the love of his wife, followed by the respect of his crew, and the friendship of his business partners. He was more than satisfied with that – or so he believed.
But the thought of finding out something about his mother and father dangled like a lure, and he’d taken the bait. Now, he feared what he had done.
Kit felt Pip pat the top of his head.
“Never mind. You found me right enough
,” he said, “I’m sure you’ll find your parents, too, even if they couldn’t find you.”
He lowered Pip to the pavement, averting his eyes so the lad couldn’t see how those few words affected him.
“Pipsqueak! There you are!”
Pip turned and hobbled a few steps into the arms of his older brother and sister.
“You had us worried,” Susan added before giving him a full embrace while Peter ruffled his brother’s hair.
Kit watched the reunion with no small degree of envy. Longing sliced through him with an ache so deep it eclipsed the rheumy pain of his leg.
“You needn’t have worried about me,” said Pip brightly, “I was just watching the people walking by with my friend Captain Kit. Did you know he was a pirate? At least, he used to be.”
Kit took a deep breath and fell back on what he knew best – playing the fool. He set his best pirate voice. “C’mon, ye young landlubbers, it’s time to get ye back to yer home port. Look lively, or ye’ll be walking the plank!”
The three children paused as they passed the toy shop, giving the window display one last envious look before they linked arms and walked slow enough so Pip could keep up. Kit walked a pace behind, looking at the way ahead, mindful of the shadows where trouble might lurk.
It gave him the chance to observe all the Sim children together. Their clothes were more worn than he first noticed. Their boots, he did not doubt, were the very definition of “down at heel”. It was clear there was very little money for fripperies, let alone regular, hearty meals.
Not enough good, fresh food affected a man in more ways than simply hunger. He knew from his own experience of the positive effects a fresh supply of oranges had on the rates of scurvy on his crew.
Rickets?
The thought occurred to him out of the blue. Was that the thing that ailed Pip? The boy didn’t have a club foot or any other obvious physical deformity that accounted for his limp. Kit wasn’t sure whether the condition could be treated, but seeing the family had a good meal for a few days was something he could do.
Pip’s body couldn’t keep pace with his enthusiasm. He stumbled and his ever-patient brother and sister slowed even more to accommodate him.
Kit kept his senses attuned. They were now out of the bustle of the market, where newly installed gas lamps had given the square a festival atmosphere. Here, in the residential streets, they relied on the yellow-orange glow from lamps on the outside of buildings and whatever light spilled through windows.
He measured the risk. They could keep their slow pace and risk encountering a footpad, but at least he would have his sword hand free. Or he could carry Pip. They’d all reach the cross street sooner, and he could find a hack. He could ease the ache in his leg and see the children home warm and safe.
The latter thought won out and he invited Pip to ride on his shoulders once more. The lad did so with glee. But the child was not the only weight on his shoulders, so he asked the question.
“The streets aren’t safe to walk alone at night, so what were you three children doing out on your own?”
“Susan and I always meet Peter after he’s finished his work at the bakery,” said Pip.
“I clean all the pans and trays,” Peter added. “It’s a good job, and Mr. O’Dell lets me take home some of the day-old bread. He’ll have me as an apprentice after Christmas, then we’ll always have fresh loaves every day, and a cream cake on Sundays.”
“Father works as a clerk for a moneylender. He’s a miserly man who pays little and makes Papa work long hours,” Susan joined in. “Sometimes, Mother works in the kitchen of one of the great houses, so I keep house at home. And Pip is great company. He’s become very good at his reading, so he will read me stories while I work. Mother says when I’m a little older I can get a job as a scullery maid in the house where she works. But one day, I want to be a lady’s maid and help keep her fine clothes and jewels!”
Kit thought he’d gotten over his long-held self-pity, but its tentacles had buried themselves deep. And these children had showed him how much of it still lingered. Whatever these children lacked, they were rich in other ways – they were a family with laughter and love as their wealth.
He pitied anyone who would prefer cold coin to this.
Chapter Six
The hack dropped them at the street the children indicated. Kit was hit by an odorous assault to his nose by dung and urine from the stabled horses in the mews. He hoisted Pip onto his shoulders once more and let Peter and Susan lead the way home. They rounded a corner and the stench eased.
Tightly packed terraced houses, dozens of them, wide enough only to accommodate a door and a single window on the ground floor, lined the cobbled street. Each house rose three stories to a single tiny dormer window set in the sloping roof.
It was too dense with fog to see the night sky above. Kit imagined that even during the day, the lane would not see direct sunlight. Was it any wonder Pip was so poorly when he was even denied fresh air and sunshine?
Sounds and smells of domestic life spilled out dully out from houses shuttered against the cold. To the ears came the banging of pots and pans, loud conversations, the wail of an infant, the melody from a squeeze box. To the nose, smoke from the fires that brought with it cooking smells of potato and beef.
They approached the end of the lane. The children were no more than four feet away when the door opened wide. Silhouetted in the doorway was a slender woman not much taller than Peter.
“There you are!” she said on seeing them. “I was beginning to worry. Your father will be home soon, and you know how much he likes to have all his brood around the dinner table.”
The woman stepped forward. Kit saw her clearly for the first time. Light brown hair like Susan’s was tied back, although soft curly strands hung around her ears, making her look much younger than she first appeared – closer to Kit’s own age, in fact.
Large brown eyes, like Pip’s, regarded him with caution.
“I hope you haven’t been a bother to this gentleman,” she said to her children, her eyes never leaving his.
“We’ve been on an adventure, Mum!” Pip announced gleefully.
Kit tried to look as non-threatening as possible as he set Pip down, waiting until the boy had his crutch secure under his arm before straightening up.
“Captain Kit Hardacre at your service, Ma’am. I’m newly arrived in London, and your son here was kind enough to give me directions.”
He provided no details of how the four of them met, guessing that the children prefer he not reveal that Pip had gone missing – no matter for how short a length of time – and have their mother to worry. The grateful glance Susan gave him told him he’d judged right.
“Tis very good of you to escort the children home,” she said. Kit could tell that Mrs. Sim knew there was more to the tale than she was being told. “Children, have you thanked the captain?”
Kit acknowledged the chorus of thanks with a bow before their mother ordered them inside to begin their regular evening routine. Past the woman, through the open door, he could see into the small front room as the children went back into what he assumed would be the kitchen.
“You have very fine children, Mrs. Sim. You and your husband should be proud.”
The woman’s expression softened.
“Thank you, sir. They are good children, but a mother does worry, doesn’t she?”
Kit fiddled with his cane. He could reassure her, but they both knew it would be a false platitude. He bowed.
“I bid you good night, Ma’am.” He turned to walk away.
“Wait,” she called. “My husband will be home soon. Join us for supper.”
Kit knew the price of the gesture. How many times did the Sim family go to bed with their stomachs not as full as they might? So, to feed a stranger as well…
“I couldn’t put you out.”
He expected a look of relief on the woman’s place – an obligation politely refused without embarrass
ment. To his surprise, Mrs. Sim smiled.
“You would not be putting us out, Captain. This house is a house of hospitality. As the good book says, ‘many have entertained angels unawares’.”
What could he possibly say to that?
“Thank you,” he answered. “I’d be honored.”
Kit stepped from the street into a sitting room about the size of his cabin on the Calliope. One threadbare couch, flanked by three stools, faced the cold hearth. Apart from a couple of cheap knickknacks on the mantel, the only other piece of furniture in the room was a book shelf with a dozen well-worn books including a large, black, family Bible.
Mrs. Sim led the way back into the kitchen and announced Kit as their guest for supper. The children let out a cry of joy. He stood still inside the doorway, trying not to be in their way. They seemed to have their routine so well practiced that imitating a piece of furniture seemed the wisest course of action.
While Susan and her mother worked by the fireplace, Peter carefully sliced the loaf of bread that had been in his knapsack, while Pip worked his way around the table to set six places.
“Hey ho! Guess who’s home?”
Kit turned and looked to the front door. The booming voice seemed at odds with the slightly built man who stepped into the sitting room. He started in surprise at seeing a stranger in his home but, before Kit could introduce himself, Susan and Peter rushed past to greet their father. They embraced warmly.
“We’re one missing! Where’s my Pipsqueak?”
“Here I am, Pa!”
Pip hobbled as fast as he could on his lame leg and threw himself into his father’s arms. Mr. Sim embraced his son tightly, unashamed by his display of his affection for his children… all his children in front of their visitor.
“Papa, meet my new friend! This is Captain Kit Hardacre.”
Kit stepped forward and bowed, but Sim thrust out his hand.
“Then welcome, sir!”
The man’s grip was strong and sure.
“I’ve invited Captain Hardacre to stay for supper, George,” said Mrs. Sim from the kitchen doorway.
O Night Divine: A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales Page 52