The Apprentices

by Leon Garfield

“If only,” said Bosun to Blister, “they’d been the other way round. If only there’d been a girl at Mr. Greening’s and a boy ’ere! What a night that would ’ave been, eh?”

  He sighed and pondered on how nearly he and the world had come to being saved.

  “If only it ’ad been a boy!” sniffed Moss, dabbing her eyes.

  “We’d never ’ave ’ad to work again,” said Bosun.

  “There’d be no more dyin’,” said Moss.

  “There’d be no more rainin’ on Sundays,” said Bosun.

  “There’s be no more damp winters,” said Moss. “And no more growin’ old.”

  “There’d be strawberries all the year round,” said Bosun, “growin’ in the streets.”

  “We’d all be wed,” said Moss, “wiv never a death to part us.”

  “We’d all be beautiful,” said weaselish Bosun. “There wouldn’t be a ugly face anywhere.”

  He glanced at Blister, who was gazing up to the stars. Blister alone was neither mournful nor full of regrets. She was smiling, a strange, secret smile. She had not been rejected, not by the Holy Ghost, or Moss, or mankind. She had been visited; she knew it. She smiled and smiled at the stars. Bosun continued to watch her and found her mysterious and quite heart catching. Blister, feeling his scrutiny, looked into his eyes.

  “All we needed was a boy,” sighed Moss.

  “All we needed was a boy,” repeated Blister, and the two apprentices—the one like a beanpole, the other like a weasel—continued to gaze into each other’s eyes.

  “’Appy Christmas!” called the lamplighter, who still stood under the archway that led out into Three Kings Court. “For unto us a Son is born!”

  “It were a girl,” said Moss sadly. “We needed a boy.”

  “But I got a boy,” murmured Blister.

  “You got a boy,” agreed Bosun, and took her by the hand.

  There they go, Moss, Blister and Bosun, hurrying through the dark streets.

  “Moss!” called out Blister. “It were ’im, after all.”

  Moss turned and looked back at Blister and then at Bosun. She smiled and nodded.

  “In a manner o’ speakin’, dear,” she said. “In a manner o’ speakin’.”

  THE CLOAK

  IT WAS NEW Year’s morning, and nature, in a burst of good resolutions, had decided to begin with a clean slate—or about a million of them: snow had fallen heavily during the night. Everything was white; roofs, alleys, courts, lanes, and streets looked as fresh and hopeful as a clean page awaiting the first entry. . . .

  A greasy old lamplighter, high on his ladder in Southampton Street, brooded on it all. He saw his own footprints and the marks made by his heavy ladder as he’d moved from lamp to lamp. Everything showed, even where he’d stumbled. He saw two kitchen maids hastening to fetch the morning’s milk. He wished them a Happy New Year, and his voice, floating down through the silence imposed by the snow, startled them. They looked up with bright morning faces, wagged their fingers at the old man, and, laughing, returned his greeting.

  The silence was uncanny; folk moved across the white like toiling dreams. A gipsy woman with a laden donkey came down from Covent Garden way as soundlessly as a black thought.

  Her face was dark, her hair was wild, and she and her beast trudged up a little storm in the snow.

  “Apples! Sweet Kent apples!” she cried as she saw the lamplighter. “Who’ll buy?”

  She halted beside the ladder and turned her fierce eyes upwards.

  “No teeth,” said the lamplighter sadly. He gazed down into the baskets the donkey patiently bore. In one lay a bushel of green and yellow apples; in the other, well wrapped in rags, slept a tiny baby, no more than a week old. The lamplighter grinned.

  “But I must say, your little ’un looks soft enough to eat . . . even with poor bare gums like these.”

  He stretched back his lips in a kindly snarl.

  “You can have her for a pound,” said the gipsy.

  “Nowhere to put her, dear.”

  “Fifteen shillings, then? Just so long as she goes to a good home.”

  The lamplighter shook his head. He climbed down from his perch and, dipping his little finger into a tin of blacking he’d been gathering from the burnt remains of his lamps, reached into the basket and marked the top of the baby’s head with a tiny cross.

  “That’s for luck, dear. Lamplighter’s blacking, nought shall be lacking.”

  “That’s kind,” said the gipsy with approval. “Here’s a sprig of white heather for you and yours. Gipsy’s heather brings good weather. Where’s the nearest pawnshop?”

  “That’s a bad way to start the new year, dear,” said the old man.

  “Got to keep body and soul together,” countered the gipsy. “Ain’t I?”

  The lamplighter scratched his head as he considered the problem.

  “They won’t take apples . . . nor babies, neither.”

  “Got a garment,” said the woman proudly.

  “They’ll take that. Right off your back, if need be.”

  “Will they?”

  She stared into the lamplighter’s cracked and ancient eyes. Suddenly he kindled up and grinned with an air of elderly mischief.

  “Drury Lane, dear. Mr. Thompson’s.”

  The gipsy returned the old man’s smile.

  “Rachel’s blessing on you!” she called as she began to continue on her way.

  “And a Happy New Year!” answered the lamplighter, watching the woman and her donkey move soundlessly down the street, kicking up the snow in a fine spray so that it seemed they were walking upon a long white sea. It was just five minutes to eight o’clock.

  At the southern end of Drury Lane, upon the left-hand side, stood the premises of Mr. Thompson, Personal Banking on Moderate Terms. From a stout iron gibbet above the shop door hung the emblems of the trade: three brass balls that winked and gleamed in the wintry sunshine, beckoning to all in distress. Even on them the snow had settled, crowning them with caps of white, so that they resembled three little round and shining brides of Christ.

  Upon closer examination the brass balls did indeed bear vague smudges like countenances, but not of a particularly radiant cast. Long ago, an actor (most of Mr. Thompson’s customers were on the stage, or temporarily off it) had climbed up and painted the masks of grim Tragedy on each of them, but time, weather, and the scrubbing brush of Coot, the apprentice, had worn them away to the merest ghosts of grief.

  A rigid man was Mr. Thompson (and so was his brother-in-law, Mr. Long, who pawnbroked in nearby Henrietta Street), and he conducted his business on the principle of the iron hand in the iron glove.

  “A pawner is a man in difficulties,” he always warned his apprentice whenever he was called away and had to leave the shop in that youth’s care. “And a man in difficulties is a man in despair. Now despair, my boy, makes a man untrustworthy; it turns him into a liar, a swindler, a cheat. Poverty may not be a crime, But in my experience it’s the cause of most of ’em. Poverty debases a man, and a base man is a man to keep a sharp eye on. It tells us in the Bible that it’s hard enough for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, so think how much harder it is for a poor one and the dishonest things he’ll do to get there! He’ll swear on his mother’s grave that the article he’s pawning is worth twice as much as ever we could sell it for. He’ll give you his solemn word that it’s only a loan and that he’ll come back tomorrow and redeem it. We know those redeemers, my boy. Like tomorrow, they never come. So you watch out!”

  With these words, Mr. Thompson had left his apprentice as he and his brother-in-law, Mr. Long, had gone off into the country for Christmas and the New Year. Then, recollecting that it was a festive season, he had thought a joke would be in order.

  “And if anyone comes,” he added, with a grisly twinkle in his eye, “and wants to pawn a soul, you just send him down to Mr. Long’s! A Merry Christmas, my boy, and if you watch out, a prosperous New Year!”

  Accordingly,
the apprentice watched out; he watched out in ways, perhaps, that even his master never suspected.

  He was a neat, thin youth of sixteen and was in the fourth year of his apprenticeship. He wore brass-rimmed spectacles (borrowed from stock), which lent him a studious air and enlarged his eyes, which were, otherwise, inclined to be small and furtive.

  Although the shop was not yet open, he was already seated on his high stool in a discreet wooden cubbyhole that resembled a confessional, occupied in resting his elbows on the counter and making mysterious entries in a ledger. Beside him was a short piece of mahogany on which his name—Mister Coot—was painted in black; and beside that was a yellowed card announcing that “The House of Thompson wishes all its customers a Happy New Year.” It was kept in a small linen wallet and brought out every year.

  Presently, having completed his entries, Coot gazed at the festive card and, with a jerk of inspiration, arranged the piece of mahogany over it to produce the heartwarming sentiment that “The House of Thompson wishes Mister Coot a Happy New Year.”

  He sat for several minutes admiring it, then fished in his waistcoat pocket and came up with a massive silver watch secured to his person by means of a stout steel chain, like a criminal. He flicked up the lid and, observing that it lacked a minute till opening time, he thoughtfully picked his nose. At eight o’clock, Coot-time, he slipped from his stool, crawled under the counter, and unbolted the door, returning with ratlike speed and dexterity lest a customer should catch him at a disadvantage. The House of Thompson was open to the new year.

  The first customer was an aging actor, hoping to raise five shillings on a pair of breeches that weren’t worth three.

  “And—and a Happy New Year to you!” he finished up, leaning over the counter with a mixture of affability and confidence through which despair showed in patches.

  Coot smiled his pawnbroker’s smile (which was next door to an undertaker’s) and silently removed his name from the card, thereby returning the greeting and saving his breath.

  He began to examine the breeches with fastidious care.

  “Did I leave a guinea in it, old boy?” asked the customer with pathetic jocularity as Coot turned out the pocket.

  Coot said nothing; he was watching out. He pushed the breeches back to their owner.

  “Ay’m afraid they ain’t much use to us. A bit too far gone.”

  The actor was thunderstruck. He was outraged; he was humiliated; he was bitterly dismayed. He argued, he pleaded, he begged—

  “All right. A shillin’, then,” interposed Coot with composure, when he judged the customer to be sufficiently low in spirits to be agreeable to anything.

  “A shilling? But—”

  “Try Mr. Long’s in ’Enrietta Street. P’raps my colleague, Mr. Jeremiah Snipe, might up me a penny or two. On the other ’and, ’e might down me a sixpence. Go on. Shove off and try Mr. Jeremiah.”

  The pawnbroker’s apprentice stared coolly at the customer, knowing him to be a beaten man. He wouldn’t try Jeremiah—never in a month of Sundays! He wouldn’t dare risk another such slap in the face. He was done for; he didn’t even kick up much of a fuss when tuppence was knocked off his shilling: a penny for receipt and warehousing and a penny for two months’ interest in advance.

  “Really,” he muttered. “That’s a bit sharp, ain’t it?”

  For answer, Coot slid his eyes towards two framed notices that hung on the cubbyhole’s wall. Decorated with the emblems of the trade, in the manner of illuminated missals, they set forth the rates of interest permitted by law and the regulations designed to protect both parties, in a lending transaction, from the sharp practice of each other.

  Wearily the actor shook his head. There was no sense in wasting his eyesight on the small print. Everything was aboveboard, and the apprentice was as honest as an iron bar.

  “I’ll be back next week,” he said, taking his tenpence and mournfully patting his pawned garment, “to redeem you, old friend.”

  “Redeem? You don’t know the meanin’ of the word,” murmured Coot, as the customer departed into the not-quite new year.

  Next came a fellow trying to pawn a wig, but the watchful apprentice found lice in it and sent him packing; and after him came a lady with the odd request that the apprentice should turn his back while she took off her petticoat hoops on which she wanted to borrow seven shillings.

  “Turn me back?” said Coot, mindful of Mr. Thompson’s instruction to watch out. “Ay’m afraid not. You might even nick me timepiece,” he said, laying that precious object (which his father had given him to mark the beginning of his apprenticeship) on the counter. “I’ll just sit as I am and not put temptation in your way.”

  So the lady, with abject blushings, was forced to display her dirty linen and torn stockings to Coot’s dreadful smile.

  “Why—they ain’t even real whalebone,” he said when the hoops were offered across the counter. “Ay’m afraid they ain’t much use to us. Two shillin’s. That’s the best.”

  “You dirty little skinflint!”

  “Come to think on it,” said Coot, rightly taking the expression as a personal insult, “a shillin’ and ninepence is nearer the mark.”

  He pushed the hoops back. “Or you can try Mr. Long’s in ’Enrietta Street. My colleague, Mr. Jeremiah Snipe, might up me a penny or two. On the other ’and, ’e might down me a sixpence. Go on. Shove off and try Mr. Jeremiah.”

  He stared at her trembling lips and tear-filled eyes. She was done for, all right. She’d not try Jeremiah—never in a month of Sundays!

  He was right, of course; he was always right; that was why Mr. Thompson trusted him.

  “I’ll be back, of course,” said the lady, struggling to salvage some shreds of her self-respect, “to redeem them next week.”

  With that, she snatched up her shilling and ninepence (less tuppence) and departed into the fast-aging year.

  Coot smiled and watched her through the window, noticing how her unsupported skirts dragged in the snow and wiped out her footprints even as she made them.

  “Redeem?” he murmured. “You don’t know the meanin’ of the word!”

  He sat still for a moment, lost in philosophy; then he slipped from his stool, crawled under the counter, and bolted the street door. Returning, he gathered up the hoops and breeches, ticketed them, and carried them into the warehousing room at the back of the shop.

  Here, in a dispiriting gloom that smelled of fallen fortunes, humbled pride, and camphor to keep off the moth, they took their places amidst a melancholy multitude of pledges awaiting redemption. Wigs, coats, gowns and sheets, walking sticks, wedding rings, shoes, and watches waited in a long and doleful queue as, month by month, they were moved up till, at the end of a year and a day, they were sold off unredeemed.

  It was a grim sight, but Coot, being in the trade, was not unduly moved by it. He surveyed the crowded racks and pigeon-holes and shelves.

  “Redeemed?” he whispered. “You don’t know the meanin’ of the word!”

  When he arrived back, he found his cubbyhole as black as night; in his absence, a shadow, thick as a customer, seemed to have taken up residence.

  “What the ’ell—” began the apprentice; then, craning his neck, he saw the gipsy woman at the window, obscuring the light.

  She’d got her arms stretched out and was pressing her face and hands against the dirty glass as if to see what was being offered for sale. She gave Coot quite a turn, looming up like that; angrily, he waved her off.

  She grinned at him and pointed to the sign that hung over the door. Coot frowned; of all folk, gipsies needed watching the most. Turn your back on them and they’d have the buttons off your coat.

  “Shove off!” he mouthed. “And a ’orrible Noo Year!”

  But the woman continued to grin, showing a set of teeth much too good for her. She pointed to the sign again and moved aside so that Coot could see her donkey. Vigorously he shook his head.

  “No livestock!” he shoute
d. “Don’t take ’em. Try Mr. Long’s in ’Enrietta Street!”

  Now it was the gipsy’s turn to shake her head, so Coot unbolted the door and it opened by a crack. At once a sinewy brown hand came through and grasped the lintel. Coot glared at it and meditated slamming the door hard.

  “Rachel’s blessing on you, dear!” came the gipsy’s harsh voice.

  “Wotcher want?”

  “Got something to pawn.”

  “Nicked?”

  “You know better than to ask that, dear!”

  He did indeed. Nevertheless he had to watch out. Come to think of it, there wasn’t much time left for watching out; Mr. Thompson was due back in a couple of days.

  “What is it, then?”

  “Garment.”

  Coot snorted. The gipsy stank like one o’clock. He’d not have advanced a sixpence on every stitch she stood up in—including whatever she wore underneath.

  “Try Mr. Long’s in ’Enrietta Street,” he said, and tried to shut the door.

  “Real silk, dear,” said the gipsy. “Fur collar and all. Worth a mint.”

  Coot opened the door a further two inches and applied his eye to the gap, taking care to duck under the grasping hand. He saw that the woman was clutching a bundle under her free arm.

  “That it?”

  She laughed and tossed back a flap of the bundle. Coot saw the top of a baby’s head. There was a black mark on it.

  “Don’t you bring that in ’ere,” said Coot nervously. “It’s got somethin’ nasty.”

  “But it’s cold out here.”

  “You should have thought on that before. You gipsies ain’t fit to ’ave babies. It don’t come in ’ere.”

  To Coot’s surprise, the gipsy nodded meekly and returned the baby to its basket. Then she came back carrying a black article that she’d removed from one of the bundles on the donkey. It was silk, sure enough.

  “All right,” he said, letting go of the door and bolting back to his place with his customary neatness and speed. But as he settled on his stool, he couldn’t help feeling that she’d been too quick for him and come in while he was still at a disadvantage.

  Silently the garment was passed over the counter and Coot began to examine it. It was a cloak of black silk with a violet lining. The collar was real fox fur, and round the inside of the neck there was some delicate embroidery. It certainly was a handsome article, but nevertheless, the pawnbroker’s apprentice knew he had to watch out.