Black Wreath

by Peter Sirr

  ‘It’s no trouble at all,’ Nancy said emphatically. ‘And you must stay here as long as you like, mustn’t he John?’

  The butcher pushed his plate back. ‘What’s ours is yours, young fella,’ he said. ‘Four mouths is as easy to feed as three, and it’ll be a great novelty to have a boy about the place. Not that we’ve exhausted the delights of womankind.’ He grinned at Nancy and gave Sylvia a little pinch on her arm.

  Sylvia flushed. ‘Stop it, Da,’ she said. ‘Don’t mortify me.’

  James felt a pang of guilt. What if his presence should bring misfortune on this family? Shouldn’t they at least know what they were dealing with? Maybe then they might be less open-hearted; they might even ask him to leave. In spite of this, he felt his name furiously racing around his head as if it wanted to leap into the room.

  ‘You may not like me so much when you know who I am,’ James said quietly.

  John Purcell raised his eyebrows. Sylvia and Nancy looked at him curiously. Nancy made to speak, but her husband raised a hands to his lips.

  ‘I am James Lovett–’

  John Purcell interrupted him. ‘Lord Dunmain’s boy? Him that’s dead, I mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ James said. ‘You knew my father?’

  ‘All Dublin knew him in some form or other, though not for the best of reasons, saving your presence.’

  ‘That’s alright,’ James said. ‘I know the kind of man he was.’

  John Purcell looked worried.

  ‘But I thought …’ he said. ‘I mean, it was given out that his son was dead. Many thought he had done away with him.’

  ‘They, I mean Miss Deakin and he – he abandoned my mother and let it be thought that she was dead – sent me away. Something to do with money he was borrowing, but I think Miss Deakin must have had a deal to do with it too. And then my father died, and my uncle assumed the title.’

  ‘And does your uncle know you’re still alive?’ Purcell asked quickly.

  ‘Yes, and that’s the trouble. I fear my uncle is a much worse man even than my father,’ James said.

  ‘You don’t have to do too much to better them,’ Purcell said.

  ‘John!’ Nancy said, as if she might be afraid James’s feelings would be hurt.

  ‘The lad knows it, Nancy. But he’s made of finer stuff, I’ll bet.’

  Sylvia was looking at James with sharp interest. ‘I knew you were no ordinary boy,’ she said. ‘Those hands haven’t seen much hard labour.’

  James looked at his hands and laughed. ‘Maybe not, but they can wield a sword–’

  Purcell broke in, an impatient edge to his voice. ‘There’ll be no talk of swords in this house,’ he said. ‘Swordplay is nothing to be proud of, if you ask me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ James said. ‘I meant nothing by it.’

  ‘You’ve been leading one kind of life, James,’ Purcell said, his voice quiet but determined, ‘but now it may be time to learn another.’

  Purcell’s words would echo often in James’s mind in the months that followed. Every day he spent in the house in Phoenix Street was a step away from the life he had been leading and a step into an unfamiliar world. The small routines of the house were as strange to him as the most distant jungle and he felt like a rough explorer with only the dimmest knowledge of the territory. He was surprised at the amount of industry a house demanded. There were endless tasks to be performed: provisions to be bought in the market, meals to be prepared, bread to be baked, floors to be swept and mopped, the fire to be lit and tended. When they weren’t bustling around the house, Nancy and Sylvia would be busy in their chairs with sewing and mending, their eyes narrowed in concentration. For a while, as he built up his strength, James was content to watch all this labour, but he soon realised that it was no good standing on the edge of things. Learning another life must mean being right in it, he thought.

  ‘Let me help,’ he said to Nancy. ‘There must be something I can do.’

  ‘Hold your arms out then,’ Nancy said. ‘You can be the wool holder.’

  James held out his arms. She put an untwisted skein of wool around them and then began to wind it slowly into a ball. James liked this because it meant standing close to her, but he had to keep his wits about him so the wool didn’t slip off his hands. He kept a close eye on Nancy to see which end the wool would be wound from next and move that arm towards her. It was a strange thing to match your movements to another’s like this, an intimate thing. He had never stood close to his mother like this and found himself envying Sylvia’s easy familiarity with Nancy. This is what a family should be like, he thought.

  ‘Not bad for a wild boy,’ Nancy teased.

  ‘Next he’ll be sewing and embroidering,’ Sylvia added coolly, and James felt his face burn. It made him want to drop the skein and run out into the street. He couldn’t decide if Sylvia liked him or not. He was annoyed at himself that her opinion seemed to matter to him; he found himself trying to make her think well of him. If swords were forbidden, then maybe his independence might win favour.

  ‘I know well how to sew,’ he said. ‘I learned it in the woods …’ He paused, seeing Nancy frown. ‘I mean I’ve often had to darn and mend. I’d be a sad sight if I didn’t.’

  ‘A sadder sight,’ Sylvia said.

  James ignored this. ‘I wasn’t very good at it,’ he said. ‘I’d like to do it better. There are so many things I don’t know.’

  ‘Then we must be your school,’ Nancy said. ‘We’ll teach you what we know, and, in exchange, you can tell us some of your adventures.’ She suddenly frowned, looking over at Sylvia and back at James. ‘Only those suitable for our ears,’ she added. ‘We don’t want to be scandalised.’

  ‘Speak for yourself!’ Sylvia said, grinning merrily.

  It was a fair bargain. Over the next couple of weeks James told them of his early life in Wexford and Dublin, his life with his father and then Miss Deakin, and his life in the streets. He didn’t tell Nancy about his time with the Darcy gang, but Sylvia’s constant questioning whenever they were alone drew it from him.

  ‘You could have died, you know that, don’t you? They could have hanged you.’

  She was especially horrified at the story of the trial and his own role in it.

  ‘What if Lord Norwood should see you now? He’ll know you’re a perjurer and might send the watchmen after you.’ She paled at the thought of the thuggish watchmen coming into the house.

  She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘You are quite recognisable, you know,’ she said, ‘with your soft voice and yellow hair.’

  ‘So are you,’ James couldn’t help himself blurting out. But it was true. It was not that she stood out in any obvious way. She was not startlingly pretty, but her sharp brown eyes seemed to draw James farther out of himself than anyone else had ever done.

  They were both silent after their observations, but James didn’t think she was entirely displeased.

  In return for his stories, James began to be an expert in the indoor life. He could bake a loaf that wouldn’t shame a baker as well as prepare the meat that John Purcell brought home and make a passable stew. And he could mend his stockings with a bit more finesse. He began to accompany Sylvia on her errands and soon got to know the stallholders and shopkeepers of the district. They were curious about him and it wasn’t long before everyone knew at least part of his story.

  ‘Aren’t you afraid that your uncle will find you?’ Sylvia said.

  Of course I am, James thought, but he also knew secrecy had offered him little enough protection. What would have happened if he hadn’t managed to escape the clutches of Kitty, Kelly and Hare? They would have delivered him to his uncle or his uncle’s henchmen. I would be dead by now, he said to himself.

  ‘He’ll find me whatever I do,’ James said. ‘But if I am well enough known, maybe that very fact will persuade him to leave me alone.’

  Nancy didn’t look convinced, but she held her tongue. Sylvia had often asked him the same question, but
she couldn’t deny that walking around the neighbourhood with a young lord, even if an abandoned and disinherited one, was a lot more exciting than her usual round of errands.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘a person should tell the truth. If you live a lie, at the end of the day you will be no one.’

  ‘Just now,’ James said, ‘all I want to be is the boy from Phoenix Street.’

  Twenty-One

  A Visitor

  James was kneading dough when John Purcell came home. James’s arms were covered with flour and he had managed to sprinkle liberal amounts of it on all of his clothes.

  Sylvia was watching him with amusement. ‘Faster,’ she said. ‘Imagine there’s a line of impatient customers with empty bellies outside the door.’

  Purcell took in the scene and shook his head. ‘Is this what you’re at?’ he asked, a note of genuine bewilderment in his voice. His own stout arms were sprinkled with blood from the day’s work at his butcher’s stall. He took off his deeply stained apron and hung it on the back of the door. ‘Well, I suppose you can always get a job as a cook’s maid if all else fails.’

  ‘Or a baker’s boy,’ Sylvia chipped in.

  ‘And is that enough, do you think?’ Purcell asked.

  James looked at him. He supposed Purcell thought his work not manly enough and maybe he thought James was wasting his time at home with the women all day. It was certainly true that he preferred this indoor world to the life he had been leading. ‘I like to be busy,’ he said simply.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you, you see,’ Purcell said. ‘One of my customers is Dr Smith, the master of the Bluecoat School. I told him about you, and he said there might be a place.’

  James looked at him in surprise. It was a long time since he had thought about school. He rubbed the flour from his arms. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not like us,’ Purcell said. ‘You weren’t born to be a butcher or a baker, or a runabout urchin. And if you’re to be a proper lord, you’ll need to know how to acquit yourself in high society.’ He grinned. ‘So it’s hard benches and long books for you, lad.’

  ‘What about me?’ Sylvia asked, a small trace of jealousy in her voice.

  ‘You can have my books,’ James said, ‘and my long nights poring over them.’

  And so James found himself inside the building he had looked at when he passed it on his way to the hide in the Phoenix Park. There was a stir in the large room full of boys when James was brought in. He wriggled in the uncomfortable blue tunic and felt his face redden under the scrutiny of so many new faces. The master was a grave, thin man in a dark coat, perched on a high desk, and he barely nodded at James, stretching out a bony finger to indicate the desk where James should sit.

  ‘I am told you are a savage ignoramus,’ the master said when James had taken his place.

  The remark was greeted with a titter. James felt himself redden again and beads of perspiration pricked the small of his back.

  ‘I hope I’m not an ignoramus,’ he said.

  The master regarded him evenly. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We shall see. You are familiar with arithmetic?

  James nodded.

  ‘Well then, imagine you are a farmer. You do know what a farmer is, don’t you?’

  More titters. James nodded again.

  ‘A farmer mingles twenty bushels of wheat at five shillings per bushel, and thirty-six bushels of rye at three shillings per bushel, with forty bushels of barley at two shillings per bushel; now I desire to know what one bushel of that mixture is worth?’

  James thought hard. Twenty plus thirty-six plus forty makes ninety-six bushels. One hundred shillings plus one hundred and eight shillings plus eighty shillings makes two hundred and eighty-eight shillings. Two hundred and eighty-eight divided by ninety-six …

  ‘Today, if possible,’ the master said to more sniggers, though there was nervousness there too. A tense silence followed.

  ‘Three shillings,’ James said. ‘Each bushel is worth three shillings.’

  The master nodded, with a slight reluctance it seemed to James. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Perhaps there is hope for you after all.’

  The best part of school was sharing what he learned there with Sylvia in the evenings. Her appetite for study was greater than his, and it made him feel he must try as hard as he could for her sake, not to disappoint her. They sat at the kitchen table poring over arithmetic, Latin and Greek. If he seemed a little less ignorant under the frowning gaze of Master Casson, it was because Sylvia had schooled him.

  One day, after school had finished, he set out to find Harry. He was slightly nervous when he reached the bridge, as he hadn’t crossed the river since the day he’d tumbled into Smithfield and he was afraid of encountering someone who knew him from his former life. But in his blue tunic and cap he looked like any Bluecoat boy and he reckoned no one was likely to give him a second glance. He was more nervous of meeting Harry. So much had happened since the last time he’d seen him. There had been so many changes in his own life, he couldn’t be sure Harry’s life hadn’t also been changed severely. James had been so used to Harry always being there at his pitch by the Custom House Quay that he never thought his friend could be elsewhere, but he viewed life differently now. James knew that everything could change in an instant, and what you thought was your life could be swept away forever and some other life put in front of you that there was no escape from.

  But he needn’t have worried. As he turned into Essex Street he saw Harry in his old spot. He was busy polishing the shoes of a stout merchant. Harry had a particular way of moving and polishing that James recognised immediately, but he noticed that his coat seemed to hang more loosely on him than before. James waited until the merchant stood himself up with the help of his cane and Harry’s shoulder, and then walked over. Shyly, he tapped Harry on the back. Harry turned and looked at him.

  ‘Want yer shoes polished, is it?’ he said, his voice flat and weary.

  ‘Harry, don’t you recognise me? It’s James!’

  Harry’s eyes narrowed as he looked closely at the boy in the blue tunic. It was only when James took off his cap that a smile flickered on Harry’s face.

  ‘Don’t you scrub up well?’ he said. Yet his smile was strained.

  ‘How have you been?’ James asked.

  ‘Busy, but not so busy as you, it seems.’

  James noticed the chilliness in his voice. ‘How do you mean? I know it’s a long time since I’ve been to see you, but don’t think I didn’t want to.’

  ‘But thieving’s an absorbing profession, I suppose,’ Harry said.

  ‘What?’ James said, surprised at Harry’s tone.

  ‘Isn’t that what Jack Darcy’s gang does?’ Harry asked.

  The name came as a shock to James. It was as if it belonged to another life, not his. Since he had been living in Phoenix Street he hadn’t thought any more about Jack Darcy or his gang. He had put the experience out of his mind and lived as if he had always been in Phoenix Street with Nancy, Sylvia and John Purcell. Harry’s words fell like stones on shallow ice.

  ‘I couldn’t help that, Harry,’ he said. ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘You always have a choice,’ Harry said. ‘Do you think I couldn’t have chosen to rob? Do you think I don’t need money? That I don’t have mouths to feed?’

  ‘I didn’t do it for money,’ James said, feeling how hollow his voice sounded. ‘I did it to survive. If I didn’t join them, I wouldn’t be here today. I’d be lying in a ditch in the Phoenix Park.’

  ‘I saw you with them,’ Harry said. ‘All standing on the street together. You didn’t look too uncomfortable.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right, Harry, maybe I should have run away. I did get away in the end. But I had to think about my future. I mean to claim my inheritance, I mean to be the true Lord Dunmain.’

  ‘And what kind of lord will you be, Jim?’

  James looked closely at Harry. ‘What do you mean?’

&nb
sp; ‘The city is full of lords. Your own father was one. Your uncle’s a false one. Being a lord is no great recommendation, it seems to me.’

  James tensed with anger. Why was Harry so unreasonable? ‘You think I should forget who I am?’ he said with more passion than he intended.

  ‘No,’ Harry said simply. ‘I just think who you are isn’t as important as what you are.’

  Of course he was right, just like the Purcells were right. They didn’t care what name he bore; they looked beyond that into who he really was, just as Harry had always done. James laughed suddenly. ‘Maybe that’s why “the who” is so important, Harry. Maybe I want to show that not everyone of my name is evil. But I have to get there first.’

  ‘Just mind how you get there, will you?’ Harry said.

  It was getting late by the time James had finished talking to Harry. He had treated his friend to mutton pie and small beer in a chophouse nearby. It’s always easier to talk with a full stomach.

  ‘Let’s not leave it so long again,’ he said to Harry as they ate the last of the meal.

  Harry jabbed his blue tunic. ‘You keep changing, Jim,’ he said. ‘You appear and disappear again like a strange spirit. What will you be wearing the next time I see you?’

  ‘No,’ James said, smiling. ‘That’s over now. Things are settled now. I mean to stay where I am until I’m old enough to be taken seriously by the law.’

  Harry said nothing. They left the chophouse and James escorted Harry back to his pitch.

  ‘You just see how soon I’ll be back,’ he said, but Harry already had a customer, and he was setting to work with his spudd and rag, scraping and rubbing as if he’d never left his stool.

  Before crossing the river, James called into the bookseller’s in the piazzas to inquire if any mail had come for him. The bookseller looked at him curiously and James removed his cap and told the man his name.

  ‘It’s a long time since you’ve been round here, Master Lovett, but, as it happens, a letter came here for you some weeks ago.’ He went to fetch it. After some rummaging he returned with the sealed package. ‘It’s a miracle it got here all the way from the New World,’ he said.