Foulsham

by Edward Carey

  ‘I call you all,’ I said, ‘I call you all, Percy Hotchkiss, Little Lil, Mr Gurney, Albert Powling, Alice Higgs, come now John Julius Middleton, Muriel Binton come, come Perdita Braithwaite, even come Geraldine Whitehead, strike, strike now. Strike fast!’

  Nothing.

  Nothing moved.

  Ormily’s can twitched once in her hand.

  ‘I command you, Lieutenant Simpson, Annabel Carrew, come Amy Aiken, come Mark Seedly, come Gloria Emma Utting. Come up, I command it!’

  The watering can, the shoe, the weight, even, wheeled up in the air, twisting, turning towards Grandfather. And Grandfather, seeing all this traffic coming towards him, waved his hand at them like they were no more than flies, and all tumbled down again, their flight so short.

  ‘Grandfather, sir,’ I screamed, ‘I mean to kill you!’

  ‘Do you, Clod?’

  ‘He’s our blood, Umbitt. Remember. He’s Ayris’s child,’ said Granny.

  ‘I will kill you, Grandfather!’

  ‘Ayris is dead, Ommaball. She’s never coming back.’

  ‘Clodius, you are an Iremonger. You know you are.’

  ‘Please, my lady,’ said housekeeper Piggott, coming forward. ‘My lady, there is not much time. The fire, my lady, the fire arrives!’

  Indeed the smoke was coming back now and everyone’s face was dripping with sweat.

  ‘And here,’ said Grandfather, ‘is Rippit restored to us.’

  Such a strange shrunken, flattened figure stood out from behind Grandfather. Like someone had been playing with his bones, melting them down, but only reached halfway through the procedure before being disturbed. In his hands he had a long, rusted knife. I knew it to be Alexander Erkmann before ever I heard the Tailor’s weak voice.

  ‘Rippit,’ said cousin Rippit.

  ‘Yes, Rippit, here you are among us.’

  ‘Rippit,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, cousin,’ I ventured weakly, ‘there you are again.’

  ‘Rippit,’ he said.

  ‘Is that all he says?’ I asked.

  ‘Rippit,’ said Rippit.

  ‘It is for now,’ said Grandmother. ‘In time we shall recover him. And we have thought it best, since you have had such an adventure together, that Rippit should be your companion, that Rippit should look after you.’

  ‘Rippit,’ said Grandfather, a great misery on his face. ‘Rippit shall Iremonger you, Rippit shall bring you back into shape.’

  Then shrunken Rippit pulled at his pocket. I recognised the dirty cloth with which the Tailor had wrapped him when he was but a hip flask. From under that cloth came a new noise:

  ‘James Henry!’ I cried. ‘You have James Henry!’

  ‘Yes, yes, child, your plug,’ said Grandfather. ‘Rippit shall hold him for you, for a while. Until you earn him back.’

  ‘Excuse me, my lady,’ said Butler Sturridge. ‘I am sorry to mention it, but unless we are very soon underway, I fear it may be too late.’

  ‘James Henry Hayward! James Henry Hayward!’

  Oh please, oh please do not cry out so, oh my plug.

  ‘Clodius,’ said Granny, ‘be an Iremonger! Clodius, you will be an Iremonger, you will earn those trousers!’

  ‘Oh, Granny,’ I cried, ‘I am that broken.’

  Some planking, some brick fell from the ceiling onto the platform, setting some of my family screaming. A clattering of footsteps, in rushed hateful Unry with Otta clumping beside him.

  ‘The house is going!’ he cried. ‘The railings have gone down, the whole house is swarming with Foulsham people, all in a terror, they’re coming down, they’re coming, the building, the building, it won’t hold! It cannot hold!’

  ‘Come, come now, all my gathering blood,’ said Grandfather, ‘step in, we leave this place, we shall break the curse.’

  ‘I quite need a holiday,’ said Granny.

  My family and the servants rushed, pushing and shunting, into the waiting carriages.

  ‘Get on the train, get on the train!’ cried Sturridge.

  ‘I may stay, I think,’ I managed.

  ‘You shall not, indeed,’ said Granny.

  Moorcus was behind me, with several of his officer men, and I was picked up and bundled in like any twist of paper.

  ‘Lucy, Lucy!’ I cried.

  ‘Please Clodius!’ said Granny. ‘Will you think! You’ll upset Pinalippy. We shall have you married, and soon. There now, there’s something to look forward to: a fixture!’

  I was pushed down into a seat, squashed Rippit beside me, staring bitterly at me through his ruddy eyes. I lurched for the window but was pushed back down.

  ‘Lucy! Lucy!’

  ‘I see you are going to be tiresome,’ said Granny.

  ‘LUCY!’

  ‘She’s dead, Clod, she’s gone,’ said Granny, a very horrible look on her face.

  There was a terrible tumbling, cracking, smashing. There was the most enormous crashing, like the whole world had tripped over, like we were buried deep now in our graves.

  ‘The Heap Wall, the Heap Wall is down then,’ said Granny, with no more seriousness than if she’d lost a button from her jacket. ‘Foulsham is over.’

  ‘Oh Foulsham’s gone! It’s gone! Lucy, oh Lucy,’ I cried. ‘LUCY!’

  The train screamed as if answering me and we lurched forwards, into London.

  26

  OBSERVATIONS FROM A NURSERY

  Beginning the narrative of Eleanor Cranwell, 23 Connaught Place, London W

  I mean to write it all down, just as Mr Pepys did before me. He saw the Great Fire of London and from the look of the flames in the distance maybe I shall witness something similar. I’ve been sat at the window since the first explosion went off. Nanny’s been in several times to tell me I must sleep now. She says it’s nothing to worry about, that all the flames shall long be put out before they come anywhere near Connaught Place. It is true that there has been little enough adventure on our street, nothing more of interest than the house opposite, where the Carringtons live, having a case of the cholera, poor souls, and now their house is all shut up over there and no one comes in or out. Even so, I keep at my post, my diary in my lap.

  The wind’s got up terribly. I sit at my window still. There’s everything blowing down the street, how the wind does rattle all about. Our house itself seems to move as if it has the shivers, I hope it’s not going to catch the ague, our own dear house. I wonder whether this wind will put the flames out or blow them over here.

  There’s some people on the street now. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone like that. A whole load of them it looks like, a whole family all dressed up like they’ve been on a trip. I wonder who they are. There’re servants with them too, a great deal of servants, and men in lines coming after. They’re going to the house opposite. They can’t go in there, there’s illness there, it isn’t safe. Someone should tell them, the whole house has been quarantined.

  Ah, but someone is coming to tell them, it’s one of the servants from next door, she’s running up to the people on the street. She’s being pointed to the old man in the tall top hat, she goes up to him, does a quick bow. The old man looks round at her, there’s an old woman beside him, most peculiarly dressed. I wonder whoever they are, there’s a strange look to them, I feel, like they do not know how to dress, as if they’d been given a manual about it, only they had not read it over correctly. I wonder what they’re doing here.

  The servant’s talking to the old man, she’s explaining it all. I am so glad of it, because it’s been made very clear to us all that we’re not to go near that house, not for any reason. The old man doesn’t seem to like being disturbed, he has such a frown on his face. He turns and grimaces now, raises a gloved hand and gestures impatiently at the servant, his fingers move as if he were flicking water at her.

  I cannot explain what I saw next, only that I am certain that I did see it.

  No matter how impossible it is.

  I must try to put it down
properly.

  The poor servant from 32!

  Here I go, then.

  A moment after the old man flicked his finger at her, she fell down the steps, it was a strange falling, not like anything I have ever seen before, she seemed to spin around and around, to shrink and shrivel, and tumble so. She fell to the ground, quite to the ground. Only, I swear this is the truth, only when she was upon the ground, the moment she hit it, she was no longer a servant at all. She was a music stand. A music stand. She wasn’t a servant at all. I swear I saw it. And one of the other people of the party, a young man – quite handsome – in a strange policeman’s uniform, with a brass helmet and some sort of medal upon his chest, he kicked the music stand out of the way, further along the street.

  I know I saw that.

  I do swear that I did.

  My hands have been shaking so much. I’m trying very much to keep calm and sensible. To be sensible, that is the thing. The strange family have moved in opposite, they’ve all gone in there now. There was such a group of them. They shall fill it very easily. Whatever has become of the Carringtons that used to live there before?

  Among the family I saw going in were: the old man and the old woman; the fellow in the helmet; a small blind man and with him a similarly small man who kept a whistle to his lips, a tough-looking lady with a brass doorhandle, a haughty-looking lady, about my age, her head held high and beside her a kinder, fair-haired girl holding of all things a watering can. There were many others that followed, going forwards in a line, being ticked off a list by the handsome man in the helmet. Towards the end I saw an even more shrunken fellow, about half the height of all the others, and beside him, rather uncomfortably, I thought, a young man with a prominent forehead and very black hair in a parting, he turned around, he did. Great black circles under his eyes, or smudged as if he had been crying, his suit was very messy, unlike the others.

  Who were these people? What ever was going on? He seemed to know I was looking, that unkempt young man. He turned to me, looked right up at the window, he seemed to see me for an instant. I thought he tried to smile at me, but the tiny man beside him took a tug to his arm and he went inside then with all the others. Last of all several men came in odd leather garments, between them an enormous figure, some sort of giant.

  They have entered now, the entire family, under cover of night. I shouldn’t have seen them but for the gas streetlighting. There’s something very wrong about them, something that should not be allowed.

  It is morning at last. It was all a dream, surely, a strange dream. I am subject to fancy dreams. Nanny tells me that I’m not to read so many books, that if I continue at my current rate I shall read myself quite to death. Well then, she must be right. Somehow I must have slept at my window post and had the strangest dream. It is morning now, the house opposite is as shut as ever it was, and I’m sure the poor Carringtons are convalescing inside. A strange dream indeed. But it was so vivid. I cannot shake it from my mind.

  I called on Martha, the tweeny maid, to do a favour for me. She said of course she should, anything to bring the colour back to my cheeks. I told her to go out into the street and see if she could find a bent music stand there. She looked puzzled, but obliged. I’m sure she shall not find any such object and then all shall be forgotten, then I shall be able to sleep quite peacefully.

  Martha’s just come and gone away again.

  I have the music stand in my hands.

  It is strangely warm.

  It was not a dream then, not a dream at all.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the really amazing team at Hot Key for all their help and support with this trilogy: Sarah Odedina, Jenny Jacoby, Kate Manning, Sarah Benton, Megan Farr, Jet Purdie, Cait Davies, Sanne Vliegenthart, Naomi Colthurst and Livs Mead. Sara O’Connor, wonderful editor, remains the Iremongers’ best friend in the world and Jan Bielecki has been brilliant and possesses a patience greater than Job’s. I would also like to thank Hadley Dyer, Tracy Carns, Elisabetta Sgarbi and Pierre Demarty for letting the Iremongers come to their countries.

  Everyone at Blake Friedmann has been enormously industrious with these books, I must acknowledge all the work and care of Tom Witcomb and Louise Brice, and most of all, and as always, my wonderful agent Isobel Dixon, without whom I’d come undone, completely.

  Edward Carey

  Edward Carey is a playwright, novelist and illustrator. He has worked for the theatre in London, Lithuania and Romania and with a shadow puppet master in Malaysia. He has written two illustrated novels for adults – OBSERVATORY MANSIONS and ALVA AND IRVA – and both have been translated into many different languages. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he wrote the Iremonger Trilogy because he missed London and rain. Follow Edward on Twitter: @EdwardCarey70 or find out more about his books at edwardcareyauthor.com.

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hot Key Books

  Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AT

  Text and illustrations copyright © Edward Carey 2014

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-4714-0162-6

  This eBook was produced using Atomik ePublisher

  www.hotkeybooks.com

  Hot Key Books is part of the Bonnier Publishing Group

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