Black Hearts in Battersea

by Joan Aiken

  ‘Do you mean his Grace the Duke invited me?’ Simon asked, ignoring the sneer in the last sentence.

  ‘Of course I do. Uncle Bill Battersea, mad as a hatter, see, growing much fatter, see, oh, devilish good. I’m a wit, I am!’

  Simon disagreed, but kept his opinion to himself. He said:

  ‘Will you please tell his Grace that I thank him kindly for the invitation but that I shan’t be able to accept.’

  ‘Blest if I see why I should carry your messages,’ Justin said. ‘Why can’t you write him a note? Or can’t you write?’ he added rudely.

  Simon checked an irritable retort, calmly wrote a note on a page of his sketchbook, folded it into a cocked hat, and laid it on his Grace’s fireside table.

  ‘Fancy that! We can write!’ said Justin with heavy sarcasm. Plainly he was spoiling for a quarrel, and longed to provoke Simon into setting about him. Simon, instead, began to feel rather sorry for him; he seemed lonely and bored, disappointed at not being taken to the opera, and very much at a loose end.

  ‘Anyway, why can’t you come on Sunday?’ Justin inquired with the persistence of a buzz-fly. ‘It ain’t very polite to turn down Uncle Bill’s invitation.’

  ‘I’m taking Dido Twite to Clapham Fair.’

  ‘That little bag of bones? What the dickens do you want to do that for?’ Justin exclaimed, truly astonished. ‘She’s as dirty as a gutter-perch, and got no more manners or gratitude than a hedge-fish.’

  Simon remarked mildly that he had promised Dido a treat long since, and she had chosen to go to the fair.

  ‘Well, I wish I was coming instead of Dido,’ Justin remarked frankly. ‘It’s a prime good fair, I can tell you. I sneaked out last year and went with Jem the stable boy, but now old Buckle-and-Thong’s living in the Castle, keeping such a tight eye on me, I daresay I shan’t be allowed.’

  ‘You’re welcome to come with me if you can get permission,’ Simon said.

  Justin’s face lit up. ‘Could I? Oh, that’d be spanking. But,’ he added gloomily, ‘it’s no use asking, for if Buckle heard I was going with you and Dido Twite he’d never allow it. It’d be the monkey’s allowance, sure as you’re alive. He don’t permit me to associate with low-born persons. He’s a sight stricter than Uncle Bill! I’d slip off anyways, but they keep me so devilish short of blunt that I’ve hardly two groats to rub together. I suppose you couldn’t lend me a cartwheel, could you?’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ Simon said calmly. ‘But I shall tell your uncle that I am taking you, you know. I daresay he’ll have no objection, but I don’t want you to do anything behind his Grace’s back.’ He handed over the coin.

  ‘If you tell him, we’re making the whole arrangement for Habakkuk,’ Justin said discontentedly. ‘Surly old Buckle will find some way to stop my going, I’ll bet you a borde. How I hate him, the cheese-faced old screw!’

  ‘Lord Bakerloo!’ said an acidly angry voice just behind his back. He whirled round. Mr Buckle stood there.

  ‘What are you doing in the library, pray?’ Buckle said. ‘You know that his Grace left strict instructions you were not to consort with the cleaning boy and hinder him from his work. Back to your studies, my lord, if you please.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ replied Justin sulkily, and began to slouch away, making a grimace at Simon. Mr Buckle, who had hitherto ignored Simon, now cast one sharply penetrating and strangely malignant glance at him. His eyes moved on from Simon to the picture, completely clean at last. Something about it suddenly seemed to attract his very particular attention; he stared at it fixedly for a moment or two, then glanced at Simon again, with eyes dilated, then back at the picture. ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed under his breath, gave Simon a last hard scrutiny, and hurried after his charge.

  Simon, very much surprised, inspected the picture attentively himself to try and discover what had fixed the tutor’s interest. The last section to be cleaned was the portrait of a dark-haired boy on a pony. There seemed nothing odd about him that Simon could see; in the end he gave up the puzzle and began putting his tools together, preparatory to departure. At this moment he heard a confusion of voices outside the door and a group of persons burst into the room, all talking at once.

  The Duke was in front, with her Grace the Duchess, followed by Midwink, the sour-faced valet, and Sophie, besides a couple of footmen and an elderly lady’s-maid, who was alternately wringing her hands, examining a hole in a large opera-cloak she carried, and lamenting at the top of her voice:

  ‘Oh, my lady, my lady! Cloth of copper tissue embroidered with fire-opals! Fourteen guineas the inch! Ruined! And lucky you was not to be all burnt in your seats! Oh, why wasn’t I there?’

  ‘Nonsense, Fibbins, we did quite well without you,’ the Duchess replied briskly. ‘Now, Scrimshaw, don’t stand about gaping, but bring refreshment! We have all had an unpleasant experience and our spirits need sustaining. His Grace wants prune brandy and Stilton, while I will take a glass of blackcurrant wine and a slice of angel-cake. So will Sophie, I’m sure, won’t you, my dear? Indeed, without your cool head I don’t know where we should all have been. We should certainly not be here now.’

  ‘No indeed!’ interjected his Grace. ‘Gal’s got a head on her shoulders worth two of any of those dunderheaded ushers at Drury Lane. Very much obliged to ye, my dear; shan’t forget it in a hurry.’

  ‘Oh, truly, my lady, and thank you, your Grace; it was nothing.’

  Hearing this praise of Sophie, Simon could not resist lingering.

  ‘Hallo, you there, my boy?’ his Grace cried, discovering him. ‘You work while we play, eh? And better it would have been if we’d all stayed at home minding our own business. Here’s such an adventure we’ve been through; only just escaped with our lives, thanks to clever little Miss Sophie here.’

  ‘What happened?’ Simon asked, no longer attempting to conceal his lively interest.

  ‘Why, my lady wife drags us all off to the opera (and miserable plaguy slow it was, too, I don’t mind telling you; I can never make head nor tail of these fellers warbling away about their troubles – pack o’ nonsense, if you ask me, when anyone can see they’ve never wanted for a good dinner in their lives). All of a sudden in the first act we all smell smoke, and next thing you know, the whole of our blessed box is afire – curtains, carpets, and all! And can we get out? No, we cannot! Why, do you ask?’ The Duke, in his excitement, had quite thrown off his usual vague air. ‘Why, because the box door is locked, and though we shout and call, nobody can find the key! So we should all three have been nicely frizzled for anything anyone could do, if it hadn’t been for little miss, here.’

  ‘What did Sophie do?’ Simon asked, absently accepting a slice of cake and a glass of blackcurrant wine from Scrimshaw.

  ‘Why, she outs with Madam’s embroidery, which as you may know, is a piece of tapestry big enough to cover the end wall of this room, rolls it into a rope, hangs it over the front of the box, and tells me to slide down it!’

  ‘And did you, your Grace?’

  ‘To be sure I did! Haven’t had such a famous time since I was a little feller in nankeen snufflers sliding down the stair-rail at Chippings Castle!’

  ‘And did her Grace slide down the rope too?’ Simon inquired, much astonished.

  ‘Bless you, no! Took a fit of the vapours at the very idea! So we was all in a flim-flam, if Sophie hadn’t thrown the tapestry down and called out, ‘Hold it tightly by the corners!’ So I and half a dozen other gentlemen held it out tight, while her Grace and Sophie jumped into it – one at a time, of course; as it was, her Grace’s weight nearly pulled my arms out o’ the sockets, didn’t it, my dear?’

  ‘Such an indecorous thing to be obliged to do!’ sighed her Grace, fanning herself with a piece of cake.

  ‘Yes, and it’s my belief that you’d hardly have done it then if little Miss Sophie hadn’t given you a smart push from behind, eh, miss? I saw you,’ said the Duke, grinning at Sophie, who blushed, but defended herself.


  ‘Her Grace was – was hesitating a little, and really there was no time to be lost. The flames were already catching her cloak.’

  ‘Ruined! Ten thousand guineas’ worth of copper brocade,’ wailed the lady’s-maid.

  ‘Oh, be quiet, Fibbins! You should be grateful her Grace herself isn’t burnt to a crisp, instead of that miserable cloak I’ve never liked above half. Yes, and two minutes after they’d jumped, the whole box crashed down into the stalls. What do you think of that, eh?’

  Simon then recollected his manners and took his leave, sure that the ducal family would not wish the presence of a stranger after such an alarming adventure.

  The Duke clapped him kindly on the back. ‘Off, are you? How’s the picture getting on? What, done already? Come, that’s famous. I’d no notion you’d do it so quickly. See, Hettie, doesn’t it look better?’

  ‘Indeed, it is a great, great improvement,’ her Grace said warmly. ‘I’d no idea that dingy old painting could be made so bright and handsome. Why, good gracious! William, look at this, only look!’

  ‘What, my love? What has surprised you?’

  ‘Look at this girl on the pony!’

  ‘That girl, my dove, is a boy, observe his breeches!’

  ‘Girl or boy, what does it matter?’ said the Duchess impatiently. ‘But whichever it is, he or she is the very spit image of Sophie!’

  8

  IT WAS LATE that night before Simon returned to his lodgings. The Twites’ part of the house was all in darkness, and he had to feel his way up the steep stairs by the light of the moon which shone in at the landing window. He did not trouble to light a candle in his room, but was about to undress and jump into bed when an unexpected sound made him pause.

  The sound, which came from the bed, was a muffled and broken gulping, somewhat resembling the grunts of a small pig.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Simon said cautiously.

  The only reply was a dejected sniff. Beginning to guess what he should see, Simon found and lit his stump of candle. It displayed a small miserable figure curled up on his bed with its face hidden in the pillow.

  ‘Dido! What are you doing up here? What’s the matter?’

  She raised a tear-stained face and said woefully, ‘Ma won’t let me go to the fair!’

  ‘Why not? Have you been naughty?’

  ‘No, I never. But she was in a fair tweak about summat Pa said – they was at it hammer and tongs. I heard him shouting that she was under the thumb of her havey-cavey kin and would have us all in the Pongo – and then when I asked about the fair she just glammered at me and said no.’

  ‘Well, you were a dunderhead to ask her when she was cross, weren’t you?’ Simon said, but not unkindly. He sat down on the bed, put his arm round her, and gave her a consoling pat on the back. ‘Why don’t you be extra good for a day or two and then ask her again; it’s odds but she’ll have forgotten she forbade you.’

  ‘N-no,’ said Dido forlornly. ‘Acos when I said why couldn’t I go, she said acos I’d got no warm dresses that were fit to wear outdoors.’

  ‘Lord bless us! Can’t she buy you something, or make you something? You don’t have to keep indoors all winter, surely?’

  ‘She said she couldn’t get anything till Friday fortnit when Pa gives her the housekeeping. It’s not fair!’ said Dido passionately. ‘She was allus favouring Penny – only just afore Penny run off she had a candyfloss shawl and three pair of Manila gloves and a blue-and-white striped ticking over-mantle! Ma jist don’t like me, she never buys me anything!’

  This was true; Simon saw no point in disputing it.

  ‘And that’s another reason why Pa was cagging at her,’ Dido went on, ‘Acos she’d spent all the housekeeping on Penny’s duds and a load of Pictclobbers.’

  ‘What are Pictclobbers?’ Simon asked, pricking up his ears.

  ‘I dunno.’ Dido was not interested. ‘They put ’em in the cellar. And now there won’t be nothing to eat but lentil-bread and fish-porridge till Friday fortnit and I can’t go to the fair.’

  ‘Would your Ma let you go if you had something to wear?’

  ‘She said yes. But she knew I hadn’t got nothing, so it was a lot of Habakkuk.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Simon. He reflected. ‘Well, look, don’t be too miserable – I’ve a friend who might be able to help. She’s very clever at making dresses, and perhaps she’d have something of hers that she could alter. I’ll ask her tomorrow. So cheer up.’

  Dido’s skinny arms came round his neck in a throttling hug. ‘Would she? Simon, you’re a proper Nob. I’m sorry I ever put jam in your hair. I think you’re a bang up – slumdinger!’

  ‘All right, well, don’t get your hopes up too high,’ he said hastily. ‘Your ma may not agree, even if I can get something.’

  ‘Oh, it’s dibs to dumplings she will, if she gets summat for nix,’ said Dido shrewdly.

  ‘Now you’d better nip back to bed before you get a dusting for being out of your room.’

  ‘It’s all rug. They’re out: Pa’s playing his hoboy at Drury Lane and he got tickets for Ma and Aunt Tinty to go tonight.’

  ‘Still, I expect they’ll be in soon; anyway I want my sleep.’

  ‘Oh, all right, toll-loll,’ said Dido, whose spirits had risen amazingly. ‘But I’m nibblish hungry. I’m fed up with fish-porridge – hateful stuff.’

  ‘There’s a bit of cheese on the table.’

  ‘I’ve et it.’

  ‘Oh, you have, have you? Well, here, take this sausage, and be off, brat, and don’t take things that don’t belong to you another time.’

  ‘Slumguzzle,’ said Dido impertinently, but she gave him another hug (thereby anointing his hair with sausage) and condescended to leave him in peace.

  Just before he went to sleep a drowsy thought flickered through his mind. Dido had said that Mr Twite was playing his hoboy at Drury Lane. Drury Lane. Was not that where the Duke and Duchess and Sophie had met with their misadventure? Was there any connection between the two events?

  Next morning, as he ran down the front steps, he saw a small pale face at the downstairs window directing at him a look full of silent appeal. He waved reassuringly but did not stop to speak as he was late, and, moreover, saw Mrs Twite approaching with a basket of herrings, presumably for the fish-porridge. She gave him a chilly nod, scowled reprovingly at Dido, and passed within. Simon wondered what she would say if she knew Dido had told him that the housekeeping money had been spent on Pictclobbers. What were Pictclobbers, anyway? He was pretty sure they were not coal. Pistols or muskets seemed more likely.

  It was a cold, grey November morning, but presently the sun rose, dispersing the river mists and gilding the last leaves on the trees. Dr Furneaux ordered his students outside to ‘paint hay while ze sun shines’, as he put it.

  Simon was sitting on the river-bank not far from the Academy, hard at work on a water-colour sketch of Chelsea Bridge with the dreamlike pink towers of Battersea Castle behind it, when a handsome pleasure-barge swept under the bridge, travelling upstream with the tide. It passed close to Simon so that he was able to see the Battersea Arms (two squirrels respecting each other, vert, and az., eating mince-pies or) embroidered on the sail.

  ‘Good morning, Simon!’ a voice called, and he noticed Sophie leaning over the forward rail. She wore a white dress with red ribbons and carried the usual assortment of needments for the Duchess – a basket of shrimps to feed the gulls, a book, a parasol, a battledore and shuttlecock, and a large bundle of embroidery.

  Simon waved back and called, ‘What time shall you be home? Can I see you this evening?’

  ‘We shan’t be late,’ Sophie answered. ‘His Grace and my lady are off to Hampton Court to take luncheon with His Majesty, but we shall return directly afterwards because my lady is still tired from last night’s adventure. I’ll come round to Mr Cobb’s at nine – will you be there?’

  ‘That will do famously,’ Simon called. The Duke, who, dressed in full Court regalia, was s
teering in the stern, saw him and waved so enthusiastically that he nearly dropped his pocket handkerchief overboard.

  The day passed pleasantly in the warm autumn sunshine. At noon the students lit a fire and brewed acorn-coffee; later, Dr Furneaux came out and criticized their work. He discussed Simon’s picture with ferocity, going into every point, often seizing the brush to alter some detail, until his whiskers were covered with paint.

  Gus winked at Simon behind the Principal’s back and whispered, ‘Bear up, cully! The more old Fur-nose thinks of you, the more he’s into you.’ Then his eyes widened, looking past Simon, and he exclaimed, ‘Stap and roast me! What the deuce is the matter with that boat?’

  Simon turned to look at the river. A boat was coming from the direction of Hampton Court, but, for a moment, he did not recognize the ducal barge, so strange an appearance did it present. It was creeping along low in the water with hardly any of the hull visible, and the whole craft was curiously wrapped about in folds of material, so that it looked more like a floating parcel than a boat. Somebody had just jumped off it, and as they watched there were three more splashes, and they saw the heads of swimmers making for the shore.

  ‘It’s sinking!’ exclaimed Gus.

  ‘And the rowers have jumped clear,’ said Simon, recognizing the cream-and-gold livery of the swimmers. ‘But where’s the Duke and Duchess and Sophie?’

  In a moment he saw them as the barge, carried along by the outgoing tide, slowly wallowed past. They were all in the stern, the Duke and Sophie trying to persuade the Duchess to jump for it.

  ‘Indeed you must, ma’am!’ implored Sophie. ‘When the ship sinks – and she will at any minute! – we shall all be sucked under.’

  ‘But I can’t swim!’ lamented the Duchess. ‘I shall certainly be drowned, and in my best Court dress too – murray velvet with gold sequins – it will be ruined and it cost over twenty thousand—’