Presently the fire and the shadow halted. Then the shadow grew enormous and engulfed one particular house. . . . Cautiously, and with solemn gentleness, the shadow’s owner took off his hump and laid the tattered woman against his front door while he fumbled for a coin to pay the linkboy.
Why was the night suddenly so dark? He stood up and turned. The boy with the torch had vanished. The square was empty and without light. He fancied he glimpsed a flickering coming from the direction of Fisher Street, which was some way off. It might have been the light of a linkboy; then again, it might not. The woman at his feet moaned again; he banged ferociously and urgently on his front door. He looked again towards Fisher Street, but the light had gone. He shook his head as if to rid it of a memory that was already faltering into disbelief. His front door opened, but before he went inside, he stared upwards as if for the sight of a new star. Nothing . . . nothing but blackness and rain.
Nor was it only from Red Lion Square that Possul had vanished; he disappeared from Three Kings Court, also. The night wore out, and Pallcat waited. Time and again he stirred himself and went down into the rain to search the maze of streets about Covent Garden. It was possible that Possul had got lost. Folk often did, round Covent Garden. He went along the Strand and wasted a whole torch in searching. Possul was nowhere to be found. He went back to his rooms. As he mounted the stairs, his heart beat in expectation; he crept into Possul’s room on tiptoe, almost as if he were frightened that, by making a noise, he’d scare off the fragile dream. He needn’t have bothered. He might as well have tramped in with iron boots; the room was empty.
Next morning he went outside again, squinting painfully against the cheap, all-pervasive light. He searched, he inquired, he scavenged in lanes and alleys; he went to the church where Possul had worked. The verger remembered the boy but had not seen him for many days. Most likely he was dead; it happened sometimes, and mostly to the gentle ones. . . .
Night came on, and, after tending his lamps, Pallcat renewed his search. He carried his torch through street after street, calling now softly, now loudly, for his apprentice. Every darkened alley might have concealed him, but the numerous stirrings and breathings in the night that Pallcat’s sharp ears picked up turned out to be such visions as Possul had lit up, visions of savagery and despair. These hateful and tragic images steadily burned their way into Pallcat’s soul, as if the light he served had entered his breast and blistered his heart.
For two nights and days the lamplighter scoured the town; he scarcely dared return to Three Kings Court on account of the sharp pain of expecting, expecting . . . and then finding only filth, confusion, and the emptiness of glass eyes. Possul had vanished, as if off the face of the earth.
At length he went down to the river, which he hated on account of its impenetrable blackness and sense of death. He asked of the waterman if they had seen, had found, a boy: a thin boy with bright eyes and a transparent-seeming face. They had not. But not to give up hope. Often corpses took days to come up and be caught under the bridge. . . .
“’E weren’t real,” said Pallcat mournfully. He was in the parlour of the Eagle and Child, in company with two lamplighters from Cripplegate Ward. He had given up the river for the night.
On being prompted, Pallcat’s companions recollected the boy at Sam Bold’s funeral feast, but they did not recall Pallcat going off with him; one thought that the boy had gone off on his own, the other had no clear memories of the latter part of the night.
“’E never talked much,” said Pallcat softly. “’E were just a—a presence. I felt ’im when ’e were there; and then when ’e went out I couldn’t believe in ’im. ’E ’ad a sort of shining in ’is face. I do believe ’e were a spirit . . . I think.”
“What sort of a spirit?” asked one of the lamplighters with interest. “A angel, p’raps? Some’at of that kind?”
“No . . . no!” said Pallcat, with a flurry of indignation. “A dream in meself. Something made up out of me mind. A spirit like—like—”
“Like gin?” offered the other lamplighter humorously.
Pallcat glanced at him, and the man saw with surprise that Pallcat’s old eyes were bright with tears.
“It were a grand dream,” said Pallcat, half to himself. “I wish I’d not waked from it, that’s all.”
He stood up and walked to the window that hung over the river. He brooded on the blackness below, seeing his own face, irregular in the rippled glass, like something floating and drowned.
“I wish,” he was whispering, “I wish—” when Possul came in.
“Where you bin?” screeched Pallcat.
“Found this one with me torch,” said Possul, his bright eyes gazing hopefully at Pallcat.
Hanging onto Possul’s back, much in the way the wreckage of a woman had hung over the large man’s back in Red Lion Square, was an indescribably filthy and gruesome tot—a midget of an infant with a smear of a face and a crust of lousy hair.
“Got him out of the river by Salisbury Stairs. Been looking for his home. Ain’t got one—like me. So I thought—I s’posed he’d make another spark?”
Pallcat did not speak, so Possul went on: “I call him Stairs, after what he fell in off. Can he come home with us?”
Still Pallcat did not speak. The thought of providing for yet another was looming large in his mind; nor could he rule out the possibility of others yet to come. He had seen a light in Possul’s eyes such as no lamp had ever given. He could not put a name to it; all he knew was that without it the darkness would be frightful. He gave a little moan. He would have to clean up his rooms; no one else would. He would have to create order out of chaos; no one else would. . . .
“I gave you a fine light, Possul,” said Pallcat hopelessly. “And look what you done with it. You must have come out of a winder, Possul, and that’s where you’ll end up. In a church winder, shot full of arrers. That’s what ’appens to saints, Possul, and, things considered, I ain’t surprised. Come on ’ome—the pair of you.”
Possul smiled, and Pallcat wondered, not for the first time, which of them was being created in the image of the other.
MIRROR, MIRROR
BETWEEN GLASS HOUSE Yard and Shoemaker’s Row lies Friers Street, where Mr. Paris’s premises occupy a commanding position on a corner. In the gloom of the November evening his shop window flares out extravagantly, as platoons of candles execute various dancing manoeuvres in flawless unison. On closer inspection, however, they turn out to be a single candle reflected in a cunning display of looking-glasses. Mr. Paris is a master carver of mirror frames; golden boys and golden grapes cluster round the silver mirrors and seem to invite, with dimpled arms outstretched, the passerby to pause and contemplate himself.
Inside, in the dining parlour, the family is sitting down to supper: Mr. and Mrs. Paris—a handsome couple who will be middle-aged when it suits them—Miss Lucinda, their young daughter, and Nightingale, the new apprentice.
Nightingale has not long arrived. He has scarcely had time to wash himself before sitting down to table. All day he has been tramping the streets with his father, a Hertfordshire joiner, and gaping at the multitudinous sights of the town. All in all, it has been a solemn day, what with the many unspoken leave-takings between father and son, the looks over the tops of toasting tankards of ale, the deep pressings of hands, the sentences begun and left half finished as the same melancholy thought strikes them both. . . .
They have never before been parted; or at least, not for more than a day. But now the inevitable time has come. Ten pounds have been paid for the apprenticeship, and Daniel Nightingale is to embark alone on the great voyage of life . . . as the village parson had been pleased to put it. Like all such voyages, it is to be seven years long, and the only provisions that the father might properly give his son to take with him have been the wise precepts he himself has treasured up and written down from his own seven years of apprenticeship.
Never come between your master and mistress. . . .
/> Nightingale looks up the table at Mr. Paris and then down the table at Mrs. Paris; the husband and wife gaze at each other with identical smiles, as if each were the reflection of the other’s heart.
Carry no tales or gossip between master and mistress, nor chatter with the servants of their private affairs. . . .
A greasy girl comes in with a dish of mutton and a carving knife. She puts them both on the table with a glance at Nightingale that makes his blood run cold.
Look upon your master as another parent to you. . . .
Nightingale catches Mr. Paris’s eye, but finds it altogether too slippery to hold. Mournfully he remembers his own parent; only a few hours ago he was “Daniel, boy . . . Dan, dear . . .” Now that fond distinction has been shorn away and he is plain “Nightingale.”
Perhaps now that I’m just a Nightingale, he thinks as a plate is set before him, I ought to sing for my supper? He smiles to himself, not having thought of many jokes before—wit in Hertfordshire being as thin on the ground as turnips are thick. Mr. and Mrs. Paris continue with their own smiles, and the table presents an amiable aspect . . . with the exception of Miss Lucinda, the master’s pretty daughter. She dislikes the new apprentice for no better reason than that he has failed to recognize her as the queen of the household. She knows it is every apprentice’s ambition to wed his master’s daughter, and she cannot endure the notion of being a rung in someone else’s ladder to the sky. She is not much beyond fourteen, with fair hair, fair skin, and a general brilliancy about her that suggests she has caught some shining complaint from her father’s wares.
“I hope and trust, Master Nightingale,” says Mr. Paris, never taking his eyes off his wife, “that at the end of your seven years we will all be as contented and smiling as we are now?”
The apprentice, caught with his mouth full, nods politely. At the same time, mournful thoughts of the day return. Seven years, seven long years . . .
After the meal, Mr. Paris rises and shows Nightingale where he is to sleep. According to usage, the apprentice’s bed is made up under the counter in the front room that serves as showroom and shop; thus if dreams come, they are more likely than not to be dreams arising from the day’s work, so no time will be wasted. Mr. Paris bids Nightingale goodnight and leaves him with a wax candle which he must be sparing with, as it is to last him for a week.
The apprentice mumbles his thanks and, when he is alone, prepares to say his nightly prayers. He is scarcely on his knees before the door opens abruptly and startles him. His master’s daughter stands in the doorway. He has no time to observe her before she calls out, “Nightingale! Catch!”
She tosses something towards him that glitters in the candle-light like a speeding star. The apprentice is too surprised to do more than put out a hand that just touches the object before it falls with a crash to the ground. It is, or, rather, was, a looking-glass. Now, it lies on the floor, shattered into silver knives and slices. Miss Lucinda smiles.
“You’ve broken a mirror, Nightingale. That means seven years’ bad luck.”
“You slept well, lad?”
Mr. Paris, smooth and glazed looking from his morning shave, came into the shop. The apprentice—hours of work, six until eight—had already taken down the shutters and swept the floor. Ordinarily as clear and truthful as daylight, Nightingale remembered his father’s precept: Carry no tales. . . . He nodded in answer to his master’s inquiry and said nothing of the sleepless night he had spent, caused by Miss Lucinda’s grim prophecy of an apprenticeship that was to consist of seven years’ solid bad luck.
He took breakfast with the family while the morning sun streamed into the parlour, enveloping Miss Lucinda and making her hard to look at. At half past seven he went to the workroom, where Mr. Paris’s journeyman—an ancient craftsman with the head of a prophet and hands like the roots of trees—was already at work.
“Job,” said Mr. Paris. “This is Nightingale.”
The journeyman looked up from his carving and smiled at the new apprentice. Everyone in the household seemed to smile . . . excepting the daughter. Nightingale, with the natural confidence of a good-looking youth, felt that sooner or later he would be able to melt her. His heart began to beat more easily.
“Come here, Nightingale,” said Mr. Paris. “Tell me what you see.”
The master drew a cloth from a handsome mirror that stood upon an easel as if it had been a painting.
“Look closely. Take your time, and tell me what you see.”
The apprentice, doing his best to reflect his master’s smile, obeyed and looked in the mirror. A soft, blushing face that required shaving but once a week beamed awkwardly back at him.
“Why, me, sir!”
“Indeed?”
Nightingale’s heart sank as he heard Mr. Paris’s voice take on a decided edge. What should he have said? He felt as if he were suddenly standing upon nothing.
“Is it not very vain of you to think, Master Nightingale, that I should keep an image of you in my workroom? Why should I do such a thing? Who would buy it?”
The ancient journeyman sniggered; Nightingale went as red as a radish.
“Job,” said the master. “Tell him what you see.”
Job, still sniggering, presented his own splendid countenance to the glass.
“I see vines, Mr. Paris; and the fruits thereof. I sees naked little boys, what might be angels, a-buttressing the mitres. And at the bottom, finely ’graved, I see ‘Josiah Paris, Mirror Frame Carver. Friers Street. Blackfriars.’”
“In a word, Nightingale,” said Mr. Paris, “he sees a frame. A well-carved frame. He does not see his own image, my lad.”
The journeyman smirked and went back to his carving, while Nightingale felt that his seven years’ bad luck had begun with a bull’s eye.
“In our line of trade,” went on Mr. Paris, covering up the mirror, “a craftsman—be he master, journeyman, or apprentice—looks at a mirror, not in one.”
“Yes, sir. I see, sir.”
“A mirror,” said Mr. Paris, expanding his thoughts and person at one and the same time, “is nothing.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And yet it is everything. It is like life itself; it gives back only what is put into it. Smile—and you create a smile; scowl and you double the distress.”
“Yes, sir . . . I see that now, sir.”
“Human life is a mirror,” said Mr. Paris musingly, as if his ideas were being reflected off mirrors inside his head. “Thus the idle apprentice who gives his master only a tenth of his time, gets back, from life, only a tenth of its value.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll always remember that.”
“There’s much wisdom to be gained from mirrors and the framing of them, Nightingale. It is not for nothing that we say, when a man thinks deeply, he reflects.”
“He always does that,” said the journeyman when the master had gone. “It were the same with the last ’prentice and the one afore him.”
“Where are they now?” asked the third apprentice, sweeping wood shavings industriously. “Didn’t they stay out their seven years?”
The journeyman’s chuckle faded into a remote smile, and he bent over his work.
“It ain’t for me to say. Carry no tales is a good rule for journeymen as well as ’prentices.”
Soon after nine o’clock the shop bell jumped, and Nightingale was summoned to assist his master. A tall, well-spoken gentleman had called to purchase a looking-glass for his wife. Books of patterns were duly consulted and several samples fetched out for demonstration of their quality. To Nightingale’s surprise, the gentleman, who’d been overbearing to begin with, turned soft as putty and easy to please. Although he’d been as awkward as the devil about the patterns, the mirrors themselves had quite the opposite effect. He fixed on a simple oval and made his escape as soon as price and delivery were settled.
Nightingale opened the door and bowed him out and into his carriage.
“Consumed with vanity,” said Mr.
Paris, handing his apprentice the pattern books and glasses to put away. “That gentleman was eaten up with vanity. You saw how he couldn’t bear to look closely at the mirrors? Only a vain man avoids his reflection so very particularly. He has such a fixed notion of his countenance that he will admit nothing that might disturb it. You saw what an ugly hooked nose he had? Most likely, inside his head, that nose was aristocratic. He had a hairy mole above his lip. Most likely he thinks of it as a rare ornament.”
Nightingale nodded in a bemused fashion and caught himself wondering if the radiant Miss Lucinda looked much in mirrors, and if she did was it a mark of modesty or was she contrary to all philosophy?
They dined at one: the journeyman in the workroom and Nightingale sitting down with the family after he had helped the greasy girl to bring out the dishes from the kitchen.
“I don’t ordinarily take on a lad with an irregular cast of feature,” said Mr. Paris, smiling down the table. The apprentice felt his cheeks grow warm, and he tried to absorb himself in the plate before him.
“Nor have you done so this time,” said Mrs. Paris, glancing at Nightingale before smiling back at her husband. “You really couldn’t say he was wanting in countenance.”
The apprentice, though grateful for the compliment, felt his cheeks grow hotter; and Miss Lucinda’s eyes seemed to be scraping the skin off his bones.
“In our line of trade,” said Mr. Paris to the household in general, “a dropped eye, a marred cheek, bad teeth, or a bent nose are highly disadvantageous. The possessor of such a countenance would not be welcomed in this establishment. Bodily misfortunes we can tolerate, providing they are not exposed. Job has a fallen hip and, I’m told, swollen knees. For my part, I’ve no objection to a wooden leg, even, if the stump be kept wholesome and clean. But the face must be as Caesar’s wife”—here he acknowledged Mrs. Paris with a peculiarly fine smile—“the face must be above suspicion. We must be able to look in mirrors without awkwardness, without shame. A man with a defect of countenance, in such circumstances, might fall into a melancholia and go mad of it. In our line we must be able to endure and endure ourselves with equanimity. I don’t say, with pleasure, but with equanimity. It cannot have escaped your notice, Nightingale, that we are a particularly fine-looking family?”
The Apprentices Page 3