Black Hearts in Battersea

by Joan Aiken

  As he ran down the stairs – matters were in such chaos all over the Castle, with students dashing hither and thither, that no footman attempted to see him out – he thought he heard somebody trying to attract his notice.

  ‘Hey there, you! Hillo! Psst!’

  He looked round the hallway and saw Justin waving to him from behind a suit of armour.

  ‘What is it?’ Simon said.

  ‘I’m coming to the fair with you tomorrow.’

  ‘Famous,’ said Simon. ‘I told his Grace about it and he doesn’t mind.’

  ‘That ain’t to the purpose,’ Justin said. ‘I tell you, Uncle Bill’s always agreeable. It’s Buckle who’d put a spoke in the wheel – sour old cheesebox – but it’s the luckiest thing in the world, he’s been called away to Deptford on two days’ urgent private business – rich aunt dying or some such humdudgeon – and won’t be back till tomorrow evening. Where shall I meet you?’

  ‘On Chelsea Bridge, an hour after noon,’ Simon suggested.

  ‘Tooralooral,’ Justin said conspiratorially, and disappeared back behind the suit of armour as if he expected that the very walls would report on his plans to Mr Buckle.

  Sophie, true to her word, had finished the blue dress.

  ‘Soph, you’re the kindest good girl in the world,’ Simon said, and gave her a hug. ‘I’ll buy you some fairings tomorrow, see if I don’t. Now, shall I take you back to the Castle?’

  ‘No, for Mrs Cobb’s invited me to stop the night here, thank you.’

  As Simon had half expected, Dido was lurking up in his room, on tenterhooks with anticipation.

  ‘Have you got it? Have you got it?’ she demanded in a whisper before he was through the door. When he lit a candle and showed her the dress she was absolutely dumbstruck with admiration.

  ‘Oh!’ she breathed. She took it reverently from him, laid it out on the bed, and stroked it as if it had been a living thing. ‘Oh! Ain’t it naffy! Shall I put it on now?’ She held it up against her.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Simon firmly. ‘If you did, it’s odds but you’d go to bed in it and come out tomorrow looking like a piece of mousetrap. You’d best leave it here, where it won’t get dropped and trampled on – I know how you treat your things.’

  ‘I never would with this! Oh, wouldn’t Penny be green if she could see it! I wish I could see her face.’

  ‘Well, run along now, cully,’ Simon said. ‘The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner morning will come.’

  She started towards the door, then turned and, coming back, pulled his head down to her level. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered gruffly in his ear, then bolted from the room.

  But Simon, getting into bed, felt a pang of dismay. Did Dido but know it, she had little cause to thank him for what he was going to do soon.

  They set off for the fair next day in high fettle, met Justin on the bridge, as arranged, and went on to collect Sophie from the Cobbs. Dido was delighted to meet the kitten again there and begged that it might be allowed to accompany them to the fair, but Simon felt that this would be too much of an anxiety; he had enough responsibility as it was. At first Justin and Dido were inclined to regard one another with jealous suspicion and hostility: Justin looked down on Dido as a gutter-brat, and she sneered at him as a high-nosed counter-coxcomb. But Simon and Sophie were so cheerful and good-natured that no one could be long in their company without succumbing to their influence, and soon the whole party were in charity with one another and marched off towards Clapham in good spirits. Dido thanked Sophie very prettily for the blue dress, while Justin went so far as to say that she looked quite well in it and he wouldn’t have recognized her.

  The fair was already in full swing when they reached Clapham Common. Hucksters were shouting their wares, shrill music from the trumpets and hurdy-gurdies competed with them, and the roar of the happy crowds could be heard above that of the giddy-go-round.

  ‘What shall we do first?’ said Simon, surveying the colourful booths. ‘Shooting Gallery, Imperial Theatre showing Panoramas from History, Fat Lady, Snake-Charmer, Living Skeleton, Mermaid, Flying-Boats, Wise Pig, Drury Lane Drama, Swan-Boats on the Long Pond, Whirligigs?’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Dido. ‘Everything! Everything!’

  Simon looked at Sophie. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes shone bright with excitement. ‘Isn’t this famous!’ she said. ‘Who’d have thought, a year ago, that we’d ever be having such a gay time?’

  They did everything. They won coconuts at the coconut-shies, looked at the Fat Lady and the Living Skeleton (very poor show for a penny, Dido considered), flew on the flying-boats (Justin turned very pale, but recovered himself after partaking of seven ginger-nuts and a glass of lemonade) and sampled the Drury Lane Drama and the Imperial Theatre. They interviewed the Talking Pig, which would answer any question put to it – and found that the answers consisted of grunts. They ate oysters and plum cake and ginger-wine at Barney’s Restaurant. Justin treated Dido to two rides on the giddy-go-round (the Duke had given him half a guinea and he had forgotten to return Simon’s half-crown); they whirled off, riding on a golden goose and a scarlet camel respectively. Simon took Sophie sailing in a swan-boat, and the whole party met again at the shooting-gallery, where Simon, whose marksmanship was excellent after several years of hunting for his dinner with a bow-and-arrow, knocked down ten bottles with ten shots.

  ‘First prize, sir,’ said the man glumly, and handed Simon a huge china vase. It was so big that Dido could have climbed inside it.

  ‘He doesn’t want to carry that about,’ said the quick-witted Sophie. ‘Give him what it’s worth instead.’

  The showman gave Simon ten shillings (‘I daresay it’s worth three times as much,’ muttered Justin) and he spent it on doughnuts for the whole party and a visit to the Fire-Breathing Dragon (where Dido disgraced them by tiptoeing round to the back and discovering a little man in the dragon’s stomach producing jets of steam by means of a boiling kettle).

  Then they listened to a lady singing ‘Cherry Ripe’, and inspected the Mysterious Minnikins, who proved to be puppets.

  Then, feeling somewhat tired and hungry, they ate mutton-pies and drank pineapple punch at a chop-stall by the Amazing Arcade, where there were little tables set out on the grass.

  By now evening had come and fireworks from the Spectacular Pyrotechnical Display were making wonderful swoops and sparkles and whirls of colour against the darkening sky.

  ‘I suppose we should be going soon,’ Simon said. ‘Mrs Twite said be back by ten, and so did the Duke.’

  Justin and Dido immediately broke into pleading for ‘just one more show’. ‘Look, there’s a fortune-teller, Madam Lolla,’ said Dido. ‘We ain’t been to her yet. Oh, please, Simon!’

  Simon counted his money and reckoned that he had just enough for the fortune-teller and the journey home, so they entered Madam Lolla’s booth.

  She was a fat, dark gypsy-woman with black eyes and a pronounced moustache, impressively dressed in a quantity of purple draperies.

  ‘Cross my hand with silver, young ladies and gentlemen,’ she said affably, and told them that Simon would have a long journey over water, that Justin would soon meet a long-lost relative, and that Sophie would be lucky all her life ‘because of your pretty face and taking ways, my dearie’.

  ‘Pho, what dull, mingy fortunes,’ cried Dido. ‘Tell mine! I’ll lay there’s something more exciting than that in it!’

  She stuck out her grubby hand to the gypsy who pored over it for a minute and then looked at her oddly.

  ‘What’s the score, then missis?’ Dido said. ‘Doesn’t I get a fortune?’

  ‘Yes, of course, dearie,’ the gypsy said quickly. ‘You’ll meet a tall dark stranger and have a surprise and go on a journey.’

  ‘Oh, what stuff.’ Dido was impatient. ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Only one other thing,’ the gypsy said. ‘You had a present today, didn’t you, missy?’

  ‘Yes I did.’ Dido glanced down
proudly at her dress, which, contrary to her usual habit, she had contrived to keep clean and unspotted through all the hurly-burly of the fair.

  ‘Well, soon you’ll be giving a present,’ said the gypsy. ‘You’ll be giving it to the two people as gave you yours, and it’ll be a gift as costs all you’ve got to give, and is worth more than they know. And there’ll be sorrow in the gift as well as happiness, but they’ll be grateful to you for it as long as they live.’

  ‘Is that all? Pooh, what a capsy, weevilly fortune. Give a present, indeed! I’d like to know how, when I ain’t got any mint-sauce. Nothing more?’

  ‘No,’ snapped the gypsy, suddenly and unaccountably angry. ‘You’ve tired me out, the lot of you. Be off, and leave me in peace.’

  They were all tired, they realized now. Justin stayed with the two girls under a tree at the common’s edge, watching the fireworks, while Simon ran off and found a hackney carriage. They drove home in the silence of exhaustion, first to the Cobbs, to drop Sophie who was staying there for her week’s holiday, and then on to Battersea Castle. Justin wanted to be left at the entrance to the tunnel, but Simon, who had promised the Duke to look after his nephew carefully, thought it best to take him to the main door.

  ‘Ain’t this swish?’ Dido kept murmuring as they bowled up the long drive between the gas flares.

  ‘Oh, odds boddikins,’ muttered Justin uneasily as they pulled up. A tall figure stood on the Castle steps awaiting them with folded arms.

  ‘It’s Uncle Buckle!’ exclaimed Dido. She put down the window on her side and called out. ‘Hillo, Uncle Buckle! Look at me! Ain’t I the dandy? We’ve been to the fair!’

  ‘Dido!’ exclaimed Mr Buckle, thunderstruck. He then turned to Justin, who was just alighting, and said terribly, ‘My Lord Bakerloo! What is the meaning of this – this escapade?’

  ‘Uncle Bill said I might go,’ Justin mumbled sulkily.

  ‘I am sure he had no idea you would be consorting with such low – vulgar – companions as these.’

  ‘I ain’t low!’ Dido called out indignantly, but Mr Buckle took no further notice of her, and went on rating Justin in a harsh, carrying voice. As there was nothing they could do for the unfortunate boy, and it seemed unkind to listen to his set-down, Simon asked the jarvey to drive on to Southwark, the coach turned, and they continued their journey.

  ‘Poor Justin,’ said Dido, giggling, as they rumbled through the dark streets. ‘I wonder if Uncle Buckle will dust his jacket for him? D’you reckon Ma will give me a trimming for going on the spree with a Dook’s nevvy?’

  Simon thought it unlikely.

  ‘Anyways,’ said Dido with a sigh, ‘I wouldn’t care if she did! It’s been the best bang-up day of my whole life and I’ll never forget it, never! Wasn’t the Punch and Judy a ripsmasher!’ She fell into a silence of recollection.

  ‘I never knew Mr Buckle was your uncle,’ Simon remarked presently.

  ‘Lor, yes, he’s Ma’s brother, but we ain’t gentility enough for him, so he don’t visit us above once in a blue moon. I’ll tell you what, Simon,’ said Dido, looking carefully around as if to make sure that Mr Buckle was not riding with them in the hack, ‘I can’t give you a present, like Madam Lolla said, but there’s one thing I can do for you – and I’d like to, as you’ve give me such a prime good time – I can tell you what happened to Dr Field!’

  Simon was silent with astonishment for a moment or two.

  At last he said cautiously:

  ‘I should like to know that, Dido.’

  ‘Well, it was like this,’ she told him. ‘Pa said I was never to mention it to a living soul, or he’d beat me and shut me up in the boot-hole, but I don’t care! You see Dr Field used to lodge in our house –’

  At this moment the hack turned into Rose Alley and stopped outside No. 8.

  ‘Why, there’s Ma!’ cried Dido. ‘Wait till I tell her what a famous time I’ve had. Ma, Ma, we saw the Drury Lane Drama!’ She opened the door and tumbled out on to the pavement, eager to relate her day’s doings. Mrs Twite, however, only said:

  ‘It’s long past your bedtime, child. Come along in at once.’

  Simon paid off the driver and turned to follow Mrs Twite. But she seemed to have locked the door behind her, and, as he rattled the latch unavailingly and then rapped the knocker, something dark and soft and suffocating was forced down over his head, and a pair of hands gripped his throat. He struggled and struck out, but other hands pinioned his arms and legs, while the clutch on his throat tightened. A rocket seemed to explode on the back of his head, he crumpled forward on to the steps, and was conscious of nothing more.

  10

  SIMON CAME TO by slow degrees. Once, long ago, he had lain ill of a fever at Gloober’s Poor Farm, and had been left, sweating and shivering and delirious, in the granary, where he would probably have died had not Sophie sometimes stolen away from her duties to bring him food and keep him covered with horse blankets.

  For some time he thought he was back in the granary. It was dark, but he could smell the same smell of meal and canvas and timber. Only one thing puzzled him: a strange regular creak and groaning which seemed to come from all round him; he finally concluded it must be the blood pounding in his feverish head. When he tried to move he found he was quite unable to do so.

  I must be very ill, he thought. I wish Sophie would come.

  But Sophie did not come and soon the fever, or nightmare, whichever it was, had him completely at its mercy. Although he could not move of his own will, yet he found himself rolled from side to side as if by a giant invisible hand, and was soon bruised and aching from head to foot.

  Could I be in a cart? he wondered. But no; if I were I should hear the wheels and the horse’s hoofs. I must be in the granary and I think I must be going to die. He rolled again, this time over and over; it was as if the floor of the place heaved up, up, up, in a long, tilting swing, and then down, down, down, in the other direction; he rolled and slid, helpless and dizzy. How much of this rolling and battering he endured he did not know; it seemed to go on for an eternity of misery, but at last fever and exhaustion and rough treatment overcame his bruised body and he fainted agam.

  When next he came to it was because somebody was shining a light very close to his face. He moved his head dazedly, opened his eyes, and quickly shut them again. He could hear low voices close to him.

  ‘Hold the glim nearer this way, sapskull! How can I see what I’m doing?’ ‘Sapskull yourself! It’s not as easy as all that. Here, let me do that and you hold the light.’ ‘Not on your Jemima! You’d probably slice his dabs off.’

  Simon became aware that something was being done to his numb, cramped hands. They had seemed immovably jammed against his sides but now, suddenly, he heard a snap and they were free. He realized that he had been tied up all this time, and struggled feebly to hoist himself on to his elbows.

  ‘Wait a minute, don’t be in such a pelter, we ain’t unfastened your trotters yet,’ somebody whispered sharply in his ear. Obediently he relaxed and lay back, curling and uncurling his fingers which tingled as the blood ran into them.

  Now he was shoved into a reclining position and found the neck of a bottle tilted against his mouth. He gulped and choked and spat, as liquid ran down his gullet and over his chin.

  ‘Enough –’ he muttered weakly, pushing the bottle away. ‘No more now – later.’

  The drink – it was prune wine – soon did him good; he opened his eyes and looked about. Close to him, illuminated by the flickering light of a candle, were two familiar faces. After a few seconds he identified them as those of Justin and Dido.

  ‘What the deuce?’ He raised himself feebly and looked into the gloom beyond them, where he saw ramparts of piled sacks and timber. ‘Where am I? What are you two doing here?’

  ‘Hush! Don’t make a row. We’re in the Dark Dew.’

  ‘Here, give him another drink,’ Justin whispered.

  Simon accepted another swig. Meanwhile, Dido’s
words had penetrated his mind and connected with something he remembered hearing Mr Twite say.

  ‘The dark dew? What do you mean? What is the dark dew?’

  ‘It’s a ship, o’course,’ Dido whispered impatiently. ‘We’re all at sea. Ain’t it a spree?’

  ‘A ship?’

  ‘Uncle Buckle had you shanghaied and taken on board her at Deptford because you was getting to be such a nuisance, always poking and asking questions.’

  ‘Where are we now?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Dido, giggling. ‘The Dark Dew is bound for Hanover – Bremen, Pa said (that’s where they pick up the Pictclobbers, you know) – but they don’t take you there. You get dropped off on an island on the way. Inchmore, it’s called. Fubsy sort o’ name, ain’t it?’

  ‘But what about you and Justin – what are you doing here?’

  ‘That’s the cream of it.’ Dido giggled again. ‘O’ course I didn’t know you was going to be kidnapped, though I been suspicioning that Pa would do summat o’ the sort. I jist luckily happened to be looking out o’ the window arter we got home from the fair, to see if you was coming in, and I saw Pa and Captain Dark put a bag over your head. Coo, you didn’t half struggle! Pa had to clobber you with the butt of his barker, and then they carried you off feet first. I thought I’d follow after; I’ve never liked it at home above half. Anyways, I was jist going to hop it when His Royal Nibs here came along.’

  ‘Justin, you mean? But why? We left you at Battersea.’

  ‘Yes, well, I wouldn’t stand it,’ said Justin sulkily. ‘You heard what a set-down the old grinder was giving me, a body couldn’t bear any more of it! He said you was a danger to me and he’d see to it I’d never have a chance to meet you again. After the prime time we’d had, too! So after he’d left me with a lot of Latin lines I thought I’d just show him and I went down to the stables and made one of the grooms saddle me a horse (lucky Waters wasn’t about) and rode to Southwark. I thought I’d call for you and we’d go to Drury Lane, just to show old Buckle-and-Thong who was master. But when I got to Rose Alley, there was Dido just smitching off to go to Deptford, and she told me you’d been scrobbled. So we thought we’d come along for the lark. Dido knew where the ship lay –’