A Boy Called MOUSE

by Penny Dolan

  Suddenly she gave a quick soft cry, and I recognised my long-lost happy Ma once more, though tears glistened in her bright eyes. ‘Oh Mouse! What did they do to you, my best boy?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, Ma.’ I couldn’t bear to tell her about that time. ‘I’m all right now.’

  Ma held my hands tightly, as if I might disappear again. ‘Look, it’s our Mouse at last, Isaac. It is, it is!’ she called. ‘Can you believe it?’

  ‘Yes, Hanny, my dear,’ Isaac said, entering. ‘Shall we sit down?’ He lifted two rush-seated chairs down from hooks on the wall. ‘Kitty girl, that kettle’s on the boil. Why not make us a cup of tea?’

  I tried to keep calm, but the next question rushed to my tongue even faster than I’d feared. I didn’t care about cups of tea.

  ‘Ma, are you my mother? Are you? I went back to Roseberry Farm and everything was gone, and I met Wayland and heard about all the children.’ Her face had grown pale, despite the warm firelight. ‘Now I don’t know what to think at all. Am I your child, Ma? Am I?’

  ‘Oh Mouse!’ she gasped, and was silent.

  Eventually Isaac took hold of her work-worn hands. ‘Tell him, Hanny. The boy’s old enough to hear the truth.’

  ‘Tell me!’ I said.

  Ma took a big breath, and then her words scampered out, like hares set running free. ‘It was a wrong thing to do,’ she cried, ‘but she told me to keep you safe.’

  What on earth was Ma telling me now? Who said what?

  ‘You were so ill, you poor tiny Mouse! There was no way she could take you on-board. The ship was chartered, the crew hired and the whole expedition planned. She had to go, she did. She was going to send word for us to follow when it was safe, but . . . oh dear! . . . it took so long and it wasn’t safe . . .’

  ‘She? Who is she, Ma?’ My heart thumped like a drum.

  Ma’s hands twisted against each other, over and over. ‘She? Why, Adeline, of course. Your mother. And your father Albert too, for he was just as worried.’

  Isaac handed us sweet strong tea. My hands held the mug, but I hardly felt the heat. So I had a mother called Adeline, and a father called Albert, and I hadn’t known about either of them.

  ‘At Roseberry Farm I called you Ma, but you weren’t,’ I whispered, so confused. ‘You weren’t my mother. That was a kind of lie.’

  Ma gave a deep resigned sigh. ‘I know, Mouse, but truly I never said I was your mother, did I?’ Her voice was less than a whisper. ‘Though I loved you – loved you as if you were my own. It broke my heart when they took you away, child.’

  My head was in my hands. Maybe I would just run from all this. It had all become too difficult.

  ‘Now listen, boy.’ Isaac planted himself before me. ‘I’m not one for words, so don’t let me waste them. Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Here’s the truth, Mouse. Hanny was your nursemaid, and your mama asked her to keep you safe. Hanny loved you above all the other babbies, and you were always her best and dearest child. I was there, Mouse, wasn’t I? So I know. Now, if that wasn’t a mother’s love, it was the nearest that I’ve seen, and that’s something to be thankful for, boy. That’s what I think.’

  ‘But who am I then?’ I groaned.

  ‘Hanny,’ said Isaac, ‘tell the boy exactly why you brought him to Roseberry Farm.’

  So my story went on, becoming more and more like one of Adnam’s melodramas: an aged grandfather, whose heart hardened when his eldest son sailed off across the seven seas; an uncle – and here Ma sounded angry – who inherited everything if I, the little lad, met a sudden end . . . Ma must have been worried, because she – young Ma – had risked everything by bringing me to Isaac at Roseberry Farm.

  ‘Afterwards, I heard that the ship was lost at sea,’ Ma said. ‘You did have a real Ma and Pa, Mouse, if that’s what you wanted to hear.’

  Too late for me to know them, it seemed. This news should have made me sad, but it was hard to grieve for parents I hadn’t even known about before. Besides, I didn’t recognise this other, grander child who was both me and not me.

  Kitty was enraptured by the tale. To her, I’d been only the ragamuffin she’d rescued from the streets.

  ‘’Tis a long history, boy,’ Isaac added, ‘but seems to me that you were happier at Roseberry Farm than you’d have been anywhere else, including Epton Towers. You were safer too, and maybe that’s what mattered most.’

  ‘Epton Towers?’ Kitty was starry-eyed, like whenever the stage was transformed into a palace. ‘That place was in one of Tildy’s magazines, Mousey. It has towers and windows and gardens and all. How very wonderful!’

  ‘No, Kitty,’ said Ma. ‘It was not wonderful, not where it mattered. Then, even at Roseberry Farm, they found you, and that man took you off to school.’

  ‘That man was Mr Button,’ I said. His polished face glinted like a poisoned ruby in my memory.

  ‘That was that, or so it seemed. You never wrote to us, Mouse, and so we thought you were busy being a grand gentleman. We thought you had forgotten us.’ Hanny dabbed at her eyes.

  How could I explain that Bulloughby never gave us anything to write on? That any scrap of a note or message was screwed up and thrown into the fire? That by the time Jarvey arrived, there had been so long a silence that I had lost heart in letters?

  I answered one word at a time, to be sure Hanny understood. Each word was a weight on my tongue.

  ‘I . . . never . . . ever . . . forgot . . . you!’

  I closed my eyes and that awful time flooded through me, like water swirling round a dank drain. ‘Ma? Isaac? Don’t you know that school nearly killed me?’

  For what should be a joyful reunion, there was a remarkable lot of sighing and sobbing and quite a few loud curses, but slowly, as our tales mingled, a kind of balance came back to my mind. I knew that Ma was true and loving, and that was what counted most of all. As for the fairy-tale palace that so delighted Kitty, if shiny Mr Button was involved, I did not want to hear anything about it, not yet. Maybe never.

  My question had been answered. The old, old grandfather was probably dead and gone, and those who were my mother and father were no more. I would live my life as it was now.

  So I turned to Isaac. ‘What happened to your big horses?’ I asked.

  He scratched his head wearily. ‘We brought them with us, but couldn’t afford their fodder, Mouse, not here in the city. Had to sell the pair of them on.’

  ‘Fair broke his heart,’ said Ma, and she took hold of his hand and squeezed it tight. ‘Never mind, Isaac.’

  ‘But me and Ma get by, boy,’ he said. ‘That showy Mr Spangle employs me whenever he wants ponies or suchlike looked after, and when he don’t, Ma and I get what we can from selling milk and donkey rides on the heath. It’s enough of a life for us now, Mouse.’

  I glanced around this pitiful half-stable, half-shack that was their home. There was little enough space for Ma and Isaac, and there could be no real room for me there, no matter what they offered. I could never return to the life that had been mine so long ago. I was not that little child of Roseberry Farm any more.

  I smiled at this woman called Hanny, supping tea from a blue patterned cup. My mother she wasn’t, but my dear Ma she was. One day my story would make sense, one day I might find out more, but not this time. Just for now, things were good enough.

  Ma and I had met at last, and we would meet again. I was happy living at Nick Tick’s shop, at least for a while longer, and being among friends with Kit and her family. And there was the excitement of the flying machine.

  Kitty shifted and nudged me. ‘Mouse, we’ve got to leave. Work to do.’

  Ma and I parted with smiles and a hug. Yes, I was taller than Ma, and still growing.

  ‘Look after yourself, dear Mouse,’ she said.


  ‘I’ll come back soon, Ma,’ I told her as I climbed back into the cart beside Kitty. ‘I promise. I promise.’

  Whatever happened from that minute on, I knew that I had not imagined Ma’s motherly care. In all the muddle of my life, that was a crystal-clear fact.

  Back towards the city we went, over the hill and down the highway towards the theatre. I could not utter another word. I felt as twisted and worn as a used dishrag.

  Isaac’s cart dropped us off at the theatre steps. And life continued.

  .

  CHAPTER 54

  PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

  ‘Sorry, Mr Button, sir. Nuffink at all,’ said the man, tipping his filthy top hat to the back of his head. His skin, rimed with soot, marked him as a master chimney sweep. Only around his eyes showed the piggy-pinkness of his un-sooted skin.

  Button fixed his most forceful gaze on the man, but he stuck his thumbs into his belt and shook his head insistently.

  ‘Nope. I’ve asked around, Mr Button, and there ain’t no boys among my several acquaintances that fits your runaway. Believe me, if we found a champion scrambler, the word would get around quick. Nowadays we has to set fires in the grates to help the lads up the chimbleys. Not much nimbleness in the lazy creatures these days.’

  As the master sweep extended a filthy palm for payment, Button flung a coin so hard that it bounced across the floor.

  ‘You ain’t got no pity for my poor old back,’ the sweep groaned, picking up the money. He hauled a grimy bag up on to his shoulder and examined the coin. As he left he called out, ‘You ain’t gifted with a generous spirit neither, that’s for sure, Mr Button.’

  Button gritted his teeth. He had been sure the boy would soon be in his clutches. Button did not like being made a fool of, not at all. He would get the wretched creature!

  His one bright thought was that Bulloughby was no longer around to disturb his searches. His smile reappeared. His feet sprang from the pavement as he walked along, elaborating his plans in his head.

  Yes! Oh yes! He would seize that child soon, for sure. When he did get the boy, the stupid Scrope would have to pay well to get what he wanted, whether he desired to have the child found or wished him to be permanently lost.

  Button strode along, puffing short, quick breaths. The mistakes still nagged at his heels. If only the trail had not gone cold! That Punch and Judy man gave them no information at all, the stupid fellow, though when they threatened to smash his pathetic wooden puppets, he cried out as if they were his own children. The man seemed to believe that his bundle of sticks and canvas was a proper theatre, though it was wrecked and broken easily enough. Theatre? Silly wretch! Theatre?

  Theatre! That idea made Button whistle out loud. That was an entirely different area to consider, a world where a nimble boy might be needed, and might be hidden. Button must find out what was taking place in the playhouses of this city.

  .

  CHAPTER 55

  A STEP INTO THE DREAM

  My new history felt like a suit of clothes where no piece fitted comfortably. I had to get used to wearing this new self, so I only tried on the ideas one or two at a time. I needed to tread as carefully as if I was walking along a high ledge.

  I had not told Ma everything about Murkstone Hall, or Punchman’s last words to me, or my fear that Button and Bulloughby were after me. I wanted to keep the strands of my life far apart as long as I could. I was not completely sure I knew who I was any more and, far worse, I did not know if I was bringing danger with me.

  ‘Kitty, please don’t tell the Aunts or Nick or anyone at the theatre about the meeting,’ I said.

  ‘But, Mouse –’ Her eyes gleamed with excitement.

  ‘Not now. Not yet!’

  She sighed and agreed.

  These twists and turns in my life were easily hidden, because everyone’s mind was on the hurrying days and rushing weeks and the manic fire in Adnam’s eyes.

  The Aunts were working all hours. More helpers arrived, like a flock of cheerful hens. Mrs Orpheus had brought an elderly sister along to assist with the ironing. Two tiny squint-eyed women sat stitching hems and making cloth buttons and embroidering rows of buttonholes. They toiled away, supping tea, muttering fortunes and stringing out gossip between them.

  Costumes were cut, sewn, finished, pressed and sent daily by carriage to the Albion. The theatre’s rooms were crammed with freshly trimmed cloaks and gowns, the boot room was stuffed with neatly labelled slippers and shoes, and everyone was waiting for the rehearsals to end.

  Voices shrilled behind closed doors, and shouts rang crisply along the corridors. Each day brought the opening night closer.

  What was Adnam’s new play, Adnam’s new dream? It was a famous play by that man Shakespeare. It was about a king and his queen, and an ancient palace, and lots of people getting lost among the trees of a nearby forest – and magic.

  ‘Magical is best of all,’ Kitty said longingly. ‘He’ll have romantic scenery and distant shimmering lakes and beams of moonlight. The audience will love it.’

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream it was called. Adnam and La Bellina would appear in it, as both the royal king and queen and the fairy king and queen. This meant that the orchestra had to have enough music to cover the costume changes.

  On the day when the famous pair rehearsed their lines onstage for the first time, we crowded in the wings, even though they stood there in their day clothes, with the dust of the street upon them, with Adnam ordering ham sandwiches for a late breakfast.

  Adnam hardly needed to practise at all. He was already Oberon, the dark king of the Fairy Court, the very king of shadows. In magnificent anger, Oberon had made Titania, the proud Queen of the Fairies – La Bellina herself, in fact – fall in love with a clumsy fool in a donkey’s head. His name was Bottom, but I learned that Shakespeare chose that name, not Adnam.

  The Fairy Queen was to be marvellously enchanting and a star of the show, but she was also tragic because she was wronged. They had quarrelled about her love for a little orphan boy she wouldn’t give to Oberon.

  La Bellina would need her best acting skills for this, because most of us knew how she treated children. She raged when the fairy dancers were behaving perfectly, and would happily tread on any tiny toes that didn’t skip out of her path fast enough.

  ‘That besom would think nothing of tearing the wings off a butterfly!’ fretted Miss Tildy, as she daubed the children’s bruises with vinegar and wiped away their tears.

  Nor was Vanya happy about Miss Lander and the four ponies. La Bellina had added in a new Titania scene, though Aunt Violet declared it was not true to the play, or to anything that Shakespeare had written.

  ‘I will be shown riding the fairy chariot! It will be a remarkable moment for the audience, Hugo,’ she insisted as she swept back to her dressing room. ‘You must make sure the lighting is fixed upon me.’

  So, a painted landscape sliding behind them, the fairy ponies pulled her gilded chariot along a rolling surface. The audience saw Titania travelling along in all her floating finery. We saw how it tired the ponies.

  ‘Not good!’ Vanya complained, as he calmed the ponies after rehearsals. ‘That Bellina gives the poor creatures fidgets. Now I hear she asks for fairies bearing fire-torches in the scene too. I hope that wicked vixen gets a good pony kick right where it hurts very much,’ he grumbled, ‘and when the audience can see it too!’

  There were other actors, of course. In the magical forest were four sweethearts, always arguing and crying, and comical workmen practising a play for the king, and one of these was Bottom who got a donkey’s head instead of his own.

  Arthur Boddy enjoyed being Bottom, with and without the donkey’s head. He stalked about the front of the stage, trying to work his favourite jokes into Shakespeare’s words and practising a s
ong that Adnam did not know about, not yet.

  ‘Arthur often acts like an ass anyway, Mouse,’ Kitty added.

  She explained that Oberon’s impish servant squeezes magic juice from a purple flower into one of the sweethearts’ eyes, just as Oberon told him to, but that the servant mistakes which lover is which. The play was all about the mixed-up troubles that followed – with a happy ending, of course.

  I learned all this about Mr Shakespeare’s play from Vanya and Kitty, and through my own eyes when I watched snatches of rehearsals. However, I had not seen what I should have seen all along. Adnam had plans for me.

  Adnam called me into his room.

  ‘Boy, how is the flying machine proceeding?’

  ‘The machine works well, Mr Adnam.’

  ‘So Vanya tells me. He also tells me that you work well with it too. So it is probably time to sort out your words.’

  ‘What?’ I gasped. I had been trying the thing out. I had been an experiment, not an actor.

  ‘Your words, your lines,’ Adnam said, handing me a playscript. ‘Your voice is young and strong, and you are not afraid of heights. So, with a bit of extra help, you will make us an excellent Puck. Go on. Read.’

  Puck was Oberon’s mischievous servant! We went through the play, and Adnam told me exactly what I had to say.

  I found that I liked Puck’s words because they sounded magical, like the poems Jarvey had read to us. There were times when Puck was flying and times when Puck was speaking, and Adnam explained my lines and how to speak them aloud.

  ‘Please, what do I have to wear?’ All I had seen so far were bouquets of sequined fairy dancer skirts.

  Adnam laughed. ‘Boy, don’t worry. You’ll be covered in leaves and painted green all over, even your face and hands. You won’t be Mouse any longer. You will be a mischievous spirit of the trees and wild places. Nobody will recognise you as the likely lad who sweeps the stalls and carries the boots – nobody at all. Now go, all is settled. Learn your words.’