Except the Dying

by Maureen Jennings

  The noise was stupendous, the boys only too glad to let off steam, their voices stentorian from long practice.

  Shepcote walked out to the lectern, bowed, basked in the din for a moment, then raised his hands for silence. A few whistles more and the throng quieted down, ready to listen. When he was sure he had their complete attention, he began.

  “Fellow newsboys – I can say that in all honesty because you and me are fellows …” He waited for the cheers to subside. “And even though many years have passed since I stood on those windy corners, I still consider myself a newsboy … just a grown-up one.” He paused and pointed at somebody in the front row. “I saw doubt on that face … and I don’t blame him. Who am I to stand up here and say those things?” He patted his paunch. “I don’t look like a newsboy. Yes, you may laugh, you may be skeptical, but I tell you, we are fellows.” He paused and leaned forward on the lectern. “I know what it’s like to be so cold your fingers and toes are dead wood, so cold your ears could snap off like pieces of frozen cabbage. I know because I was there. I know that ever-present companion of newsboys, the dog-fox called Hunger. He that gnaws at your innards ’til you could cry out with it … but you don’t because you have pride. The pride of those who must fend for themselves and who ask no quarter.”

  There was now complete silence in the hall.

  “I remember the voice of fear. I know that devil who perches on your shoulders and whispers in your ear, ‘Where is my next piece of bread coming from?’”

  A sigh rippled through the packed ranks like wind through a hay field. Shepcote scanned the rows and it was as if his eyes met those of everyone in front of him. Even the tobacco pipes were laid down. The gathering was under his spell.

  Murdoch became aware that a man was standing at his elbow and moved over to give him room. It was Shepcote’s manservant, incongruous in this crowd in his sober black suit and grey gloves, dark hair well-oiled and smoothed back from his brow. He nodded in the direction of the stage.

  “He’s in fine fettle tonight, isn’t he?”

  Murdoch agreed. “Amazing.”

  Shepcote took a sip of water, moving slowly and deliberately. He knew how to play an audience the way the fishermen back east had known how to play a big fish, thought Murdoch.

  Shepcote’s voice dropped lower. “I said my fellows and I mean my fellows because I have not forgotten, nor ever will forget, those many nights when the hard pavement was my bed, the celestial heavens themselves my roof, and my only covers the very newspapers I was selling …”

  There were some groans of recognition from the boys. Shepcote stepped closer to the edge of the stage, his face glistening with sweat. “Within these walls I have told my story before, but with your permission I would like to tell it again. Because even though it is my story, I know it is not unique to me. It could be the story of you, John Jarvis, you, Tim Black. Among all of you gathered here tonight there are similar journeys yet to be made, lives to be lived that may be even harder than mine was. And if I can be a guide to you, an inspiration, I will fall on my knees and give thanks to Our Father that my pain and my tribulations have not been in vain. So I ask you, brothers, can I tell my tale again?”

  He reached out with his arms like a supplicant.

  The boy beside Murdoch whistled shrilly, his fingers in his mouth, and others echoed him. Shepcote waved his hands and waited for silence. It came at once.

  “When I was a boy, so young I was hardly out of skirts, my father died. He was a good, Christian man, hardworking to a fault, but his illness was protracted and when he was finally called to his Maker, my mother was left destitute. I had one sister, a girl so fine of character, so noble of spirit, she had no place on this earth. My mother had barely put off her widow’s mourning garb when she was stricken again with grief. My sister went to join the angels, a far more fitting place for her than this vale of sin we mortals call home.”

  He pulled a white handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped at his face. “At the tender age of four, I was left the sole support of a bereaved and poor woman. My mother was so overcome with her sorrows she repined on her bed, unmoving day after day. What could I do? I prayed every night for guidance until my knees ached. It was a bitter cold winter and I made a few pence by sweeping away snow, carrying bags for the wealthy women who shopped on King Street. Some of them were kind, some of them paid me no more attention than if I had been a wheelbarrow …”

  “Shame,” yelled the boys. “Boo! Boo!”

  “Come, boys, we must leave their sort to the judgment of the Almighty. Let me continue … It was December, one week before Christmas. I had stayed out especially late, hoping against hope to make a little more money so I could buy my mother a gift for Our Lord’s nativity. But it was so cold nobody was abroad and I could find no employment at all. I had not eaten. I was exhausted. Finally unable to walk another step, I curled up in a drift of snow against the cathedral. And I tell you, my dear, dear fellows, at that moment I cared not whether I lived or died. Perhaps I fell asleep, I know not, but suddenly I heard a voice, a kind deep voice. I opened my eyes and there was a man standing in front of me. ‘Child, you cannot sleep here. It is too cold,’ he said. ‘You must get home.’ Perhaps it was his kindness, the gentle expression on his face, that I was not accustomed to. Whichever it was, it touched my heart and tears sprang to my eyes and sobs tore, red-hot, at my throat. I know what you are thinking: what sort of unmanly behaviour is that? But remember, I was still a mere prattling child and I was close to starving. I will pass on over the words we exchanged, that man and me. All I need to tell you is that he vowed to help me, not through mere charity, although he did that, but by guiding me to where I could earn my own living, to where I could hold my head up with pride. He bade me come early the next morning to a certain corner. I could sell the newspapers I would find there. I determined to do exactly what he ordered and as dawn was breaking I arose and went to that same corner. The stranger was nowhere to be seen, but as he had promised there was a pile of newspapers, neatly bundled up …”

  There was a hush in the hall. Murdoch could sense the stillness in the man Canning. Shepcote looked up to the ceiling.

  “Who was he? I don’t know. I never saw him again and sometimes I wonder to myself if indeed he was of mortal flesh … but no matter. I had my newspapers and I seized my chance to earn my pitiful living. No playmates for me, no hoops and balls to wile away the careless hours. I was still so small the sandwich board was bigger than I was. In fact, on rainy days I would creep inside it for shelter …”

  This stirred a waft of laughter. Many of those present had done the same.

  “But I worked hard. Where other boys walked a mile to sell their papers, I walked two. Where they got up at six to catch the first edition, I got up at five. Where they went home at nine, I stayed until ten. And so we eked out a living. I took home my earnings to my mother, who with that pittance fed us both.”

  He wagged his hand playfully at his audience. “Unlike many of my friends here, I did not waste one single penny on beer or tobacco.”

  More laughter and friendly catcalling. Shepcote continued.

  “In spite of my best efforts, my mother seemed weaker, more and more frail. Every night when I came home there was a nourishing broth ready, sometimes a hot stew. Oh, not a banquet by rich men’s standards, a paltry meal to them, but prepared with such love I felt as if I was eating ambrosia itself, and I left the table sated. Every night I asked her to join me at the meal but she always said she had already eaten. Child that I was, I took her at her word.” He pressed the handkerchief to his eyes. “Forgive me, boys, I can never say this part of my story without tears … I was fortunate to have such a mother. I know that many of you have never been so blessed … that you have never known the joy of a mother’s smile or the sweet sorrow as her loving tears fall on your cheeks. My dear mother died. You see, what I did not realize was that with the loving self-sacrifice only mothers can show, she was giving all her
food to me and she herself was starving.”

  He paused, searching the rows in front of him for acknowledgement. He found it on more than one thin face. Some of the boys were crying quietly. One or two put their arms around younger fellows. Murdoch himself felt a lump in his throat. The little boy next to him gave a loud sniff, and he patted his shoulder. The boy smiled up at him gratefully. Canning never moved his gaze from the stage.

  “My dear mother passed away. Peacefully and piously, as she had lived. But she left me a gift. After her funeral, overwhelmed by my sorrow, I opened her battered old Bible to pray, and there, tucked inside, was an envelope. Puzzled, I opened it up … and took out …”

  He paused, and one bold youth shouted, “Fifty dollars!”

  Shepcote smiled good-naturedly. “Exactly. Fifty dollars. She had scrimped and saved and gone without so she could give me this legacy. Not a princely sum by most standards … not enough to start a bank …”

  A lot of laughter now, the boys glad to be taken away from their painful thoughts.

  “By the greatest of good fortunes, there was a stall for sale on my street, the owner old and tired. When I went to him with my fifty dollars in hand he laughed in my face. ‘Send your father, laddie,’ he said, ‘then we’ll do business.’ It took him a long time to believe I was buying the stall myself.”

  According to Shepcote’s narrative, thought Murdoch, he would have been about six years old at this point, but none of the audience was critical and he was never questioned.

  “And that’s how it began. I worked hard and honourably. No wasting my money on dice … yes, you know what I’m talking about. I prospered. I bought another stall, and another, and then I bought the newspaper itself.”

  He waited while they applauded and whistled.

  “Now I have the great honour to represent the good people of our fair city as an alderman. The other day, one of my fellow councillors came to me. I won’t name him because it is to his everlasting shame that he said what he did. ‘Tell me, Mr. Shepcote,’ he said, ‘why do you, a busy man, an alderman whom so many people look up to, why do you waste your valuable time going to speak to a group of rowdy good-for-nothings?’ It’s true, those were the words he used, I regret to say. I looked him in the eye. ‘Why? I’ll tell you why. Because among these so-called rowdy good-for-nothings might be the future leaders of the city. Wait … wait. Among those rowdies are as good men as you will find in your banks and law courts. Among that rough lot are diamonds.’”

  The whistles and shouting broke out and he could not continue. Finally he yelled, “All they need is a chance to show what they are made of!”

  The boys stamped their feet, awash in the waves of excitement, empty bellies temporarily forgotten. Shepcote knew that the city council was planning to eliminate the grant to the newsboys’ lodge this year, but he was not going to tell them that bad news. They would find out soon enough when the lodge door closed to them and indeed the pavement would become their bed.

  He waved and bowed as the cheering and whistling continued. Finally the master of ceremonies returned. He shook Shepcote’s hand and amidst stomping and clapping the alderman left the stage.

  Murdoch turned to Canning. “Excellent speech. Was it true?”

  The man’s pursed lips relaxed into a small smile. “Some of it.”

  Murdoch would have liked to hear more, but with a nod, Canning stood up.

  “I’d better see to him,” he said and he left the hall.

  Murdoch’s pipe had gone out and he stuffed it back in his pocket, not wanting to arouse the cupidity of his neighbours, who were fast recovering from the mood that Shepcote had engendered. He had to admit to himself that a tear had formed in his own eye at more than one moment. Mr. Shepcote was a persuasive speaker indeed. The master of ceremonies started to call for silence again and Murdoch realized he was up next. He stood up and made his way down the aisle towards the stage. Over on the far side, some boys had started to sing. It could have been “Land of Hope and Glory,” but he wasn’t sure.

  In the wings Shepcote mopped his dripping face and neck and took a quick sip from his whiskey flask. Canning approached him, a towel over his arm.

  “Well done, sir. I wish I had a story like that to tell.”

  Shepcote didn’t miss the irony in his servant’s tone, and he scowled. “I doubt your life could be told anywhere except in a penal colony.”

  In fact, a lot of what he had recounted was true. He had been left fatherless at any early age, but the man he generally referred to as his father had been killed in a barroom brawl. His sister had indeed joined the angels at the age of sixteen when she died of venereal disease. It was concerning his mother that there was the most fiction. Destitute, yes, but never for a single moment could she have been termed self-sacrificing. Her last words to him were vile curses because he wouldn’t fetch her more gin. It was true that after her funeral he had found money. Hidden under the mattress. Money she had systematically stolen from his trousers, then forgotten about in her sodden mind. With the money, twenty dollars, he had made a down payment on a newspaper stall, cheating a near-blind old man by pretending to give him more than he did. But what was true was that he had worked and clawed his way out of the gutter, driven by a need to be better, to have the kind of comforts he witnessed in the lives of his customers, as distant from that skinny boy as the stars themselves.

  And he had done it. He had a fine carriage and horse. A large house. He had married a woman from a better class; his daughter would marry even higher. But in the mixture of lies and half-truths he had handed out this afternoon, there was one total truth. He never forgot he had been a newsboy. Sometimes he awoke at night in a sweat of fear that everything he had built might be taken from him and once again he would be a pauper.

  Beatrice Kitchen was darning her stockings, and she held the needle poised in mid-air as she looked at Murdoch.

  “Sounds like an improbable story to me. As if angels would soil their hands selling newspapers. It was more likely some Methodist taking advantage of a hungry child.”

  Her husband chuckled. “Now, Mother, let Will get on with his tale.”

  It was late by the time Murdoch had got home, but the Kitchens were waiting up for him. Beatrice had made him a salty beef tea and he was sipping it.

  “There’s not much more to say, really. Mr. Shepcote struggled up the ladder of success by dint of hard work and good morals. I believed him. He made me weep along with all the others.”

  Arthur started to cough and Murdoch waited until he’d got his breath. Beatrice handed her husband a cloth to wipe his mouth.

  “Any luck with the boys?” she asked.

  “I think so. Of course there must have been at least three dozen of them ready to swear they’d seen Therese Laporte, in case there’s a reward in the offing, but two of them sounded believable. One boy described her exactly. He’d been trying to sell his remaining newspapers at the Somerset Hotel which is at the corner of Church and Carlton. He was turfed out sometime after nine and walked down Church. He says she crossed in front of him at Gerrard Street. She was going east. He said she was, and I quote, ‘a tasty bit of crumpet.’”

  “Naughty boy!” exclaimed Beatrice. “I hope you gave him a slap to mind his manners.”

  “I did.” Murdoch chuckled. “You should have seen him, Mrs. K. His name is Charles Elrod, but he’s got a shock of red hair and he’s been called Carrots so long he could hardly remember his real name. The other boy’s a bit slow-witted and he was vague. However, he was going home and claims he saw the girl at the corner of Berkeley and Queen streets. She was walking towards Sumach, which is about where she was found. His description was close enough. The problem is he can’t tell the time and doesn’t know when it was he saw her, but he says St. Paul’s had just chimed the quarter.”

  “If it was Therese the redhead saw and if she kept walking, I calculate she’d have been at Berkeley and Queen about a quarter to ten, so that fits,” said Kitchen.r />
  Murdoch grinned at Arthur. “We should have you on the force. Yes, that’s what I figured.”

  “She could have hired a carriage,” said Beatrice.

  “That’s true too. We’re examining the dockets of cabbies who work in the area.”

  “Where was the poor child going?” asked Beatrice. “She’s nowhere near the train station on Queen and Berkeley.”

  “I wish I knew. However, I’m going to check at the French-Canadian church on King Street.”

  “The old Methodist church?”

  “That’s it. There’s quite a colony of tanners come down from Quebec and they go to that church.”

  “Funny how we all gravitate to our own,” said Beatrice.

  “I’m gambling she was heading there. I’ll call on the priest tomorrow. Mr. Shepcote says we can run a picture in his paper free of charge as long as necessary. Somebody will come forward. And at least now we have an exact description of what she was wearing.”

  Beatrice broke off the wool thread with her teeth and slipped out the wooden egg that was inside the heel. She picked up another stocking from the pile in the basket and started to examine it.

  “I can’t get over the gall of those two young women stealing clothes from the dead. Heathens would behave better.”

  Her husband snorted. “They denied everything, I’ll wager. Am I right, Will?”

  Murdoch nodded. “Absolutely right. According to them anyone could have put the garments in the outhouse.”

  “Which is true, got to give them that.”

  “You should just send them to the Mercer and throw away the key,” said Beatrice.

  “We can’t do anything until we have more evidence. We brought them down to the station and Crabtree and I were at them all afternoon, but they wouldn’t budge. Problem is, you see, the privy is used by the other inhabitants of the house and it’s quite accessible to anyone in the alley. The bundle was well hidden, but it would have taken only moments to put it there. We had to let them go. For now, anyway.”