The Apprentices

by Leon Garfield

  “You’d better, Cooty. You’d better!”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “If I go to jail, so do you. There’s other things, you know. If I get caught on this one, you get caught on the others. Don’t you think I’m going down alone. You always said we were in it together.”

  “That’s nasty, Jerry. Particularly as you’ve always been ’appy to sit back and enjoy the money I thought of gettin’. But I don’t ’old it against you. You’re younger than me. All I want you to consider is that . . . well . . . what’s the sense in both of us goin’ down when it need only be one? Wouldn’t it be better if one of us stayed safe so’s ’e could ’elp the other when the time came?”

  “All right. You take the blame and I’ll help you when you come out of jail.”

  “Point taken,” said Coot. “But the money ’appens to be missin’ from your ’ouse, not mine. Otherwise I’d be ’appy to oblige.”

  Jeremiah began to cry again; then, seeing that his tears had no effect, he grew exceedingly angry. He made it plain that he did not trust Coot. Coot had got him into it, and Coot was going to get him out. Or suffer by his side.

  At last Coot was forced to see how matters stood. Jeremiah was taking advantage of previous acts of friendship and was holding them against him. He just wasn’t capable of distinguishing between business and pleasure.

  “If that’s the way it’s to be,” he said bitterly, “we got to lay our ’ands on six pounds, and another five shillin’s, which is the hamount I’m in to Mr. Thompson.”

  “And before the day after tomorrow,” said Jeremiah, anticipating any attempt to delay.

  “Six pounds ain’t a fortune,” went on Coot, ignoring the interruption. “As I see it, there’s reely only two ways of gettin’ it. We could either borrer it—or nick it.”

  “I ain’t stealing,” said Jeremiah quickly. He felt that it was in Coot’s mind for him, Jeremiah, to do the nicking. “You can get hung for that.”

  “Point taken,” said Coot. “No nickin’ on account of the risk. Although—”

  “Any stealing you can do yourself, Cooty.”

  “Like I said, no nickin’. That leaves borrerin’.”

  “Who’d lend us six pounds, Cooty?”

  “Good question. What about pawnin’ more of the stock to each other?”

  “I’ve had enough of that. We’re sure to get found out.”

  Coot sighed and stared at his overcautious associate. His eye fell upon Jeremiah’s christening mug.

  “All right,” he said slowly. “Seein’ as ’ow you’ve taken things out of my ’ands, you can do somethin’ yourself for a change. ’Ow about pawning’ that pot of yours?”

  Jeremiah began to cry again. Tears ran out of his eyes as fast as melting snow. Contemptuously Coot waited.

  “You’re a pig, Cooty,” said Jeremiah at length, still sobbing. “Take it, then, and give me six pounds!”

  “Six pounds?” said Coot. “Ay’m afraid,” he began from force of habit, and then corrected himself. “Climb down a bit, Jerry. You know I daren’t make it six. Old Thompson goes through the books like a dog through a dust ’eap when ’e gets ’ome! ’E’d never stand for six pound! Not for an old piece of Sheffield plate with scratches all over it!”

  “It’s not plate! It’s solid silver! I wasn’t christened in plate!”

  “Tell us another, Jerry! Look at it! Copper showin’ through everywhere, plain as a baby’s bum. Two pound is the very best. Solid silver my eye!”

  “You’re a dirty rotten liar, Cooty! Make it four pound, then?”

  “I daren’t, Jerry. It’s more than me place is worth. Tell you what though. I’ll make it two pound ten shillin’s and that’ll only leave you three pound ten to find. There, now, don’t say I ain’t comin’ up trumps. That’s what I call real friendship!”

  “And that’s what I call dirty swindling, Cooty. You’re not leaving here till all the money’s made up. If you do, you’ll be right in it alongside of me. You can pawn your watch. . . .”

  “Me timepiece?” cried Coot, shocked to the core. “But it’s a valuable hobject. No . . . I couldn’t do that.”

  “Then it’s jail for the both of us.”

  “Do you know you’re bein’ very nasty, Jerry? And ’ard. I never thought you was so ’ard underneath.”

  “Your watch, Cooty. Come on. Let’s have a look.”

  Silently Coot withdrew the gleaming article.

  “This ’ere timepiece is worth—is worth fifteen pound if it’s worth a penny,” he said sorrowfully. “You’re takin’ an ’ammer to crack a egg, Jerry.”

  “Pass it over, Cooty.”

  Coot released his treasure from its chain and laid it on Jeremiah’s counter. Jeremiah fell to examining it closely.

  “Fifteen pound? Oh dear me, no! Old Long would have me committed for life if I was to go along with that,” said Jeremiah. Like Coot, he had good reason to fear his master’s scrutiny of the books, and, also, he was still smarting under Coot’s treatment of his christening mug.

  “If I was to give you two pounds, I’d be stretchin’ it, Cooty.”

  “Two pound? You dirty little skinflint!” shouted Coot, banging on the counter so that the watch jumped in alarm. Jeremiah folded his arms.

  “To begin with,” he said, “it ain’t silver. It’s only pewter. And what’s more, it’s stopped ever since you dropped it earlier on. And it’s all scratched and dented like a tinker’s spoon. That there chain’s worth more than the watch.”

  “That there timepiece was give me by my pa!” said Coot savagely. “I wouldn’t be pawnin’ it but to ’elp you! Come on! Give us twelve pound!”

  “You’ll take two pound ten shillings,” said Jeremiah coldly. “Just like me.”

  “You lousy rotten stinking little skinflint!” raged Coot, attempting to regain possession of his watch. “I’d sooner rot in jail than be treated like this! Oh, for Gawd’s sake, Jerry, make it nine pound and call it a day? Please, Jerry! It’s me pa’s watch! It’s valuable to me . . . It—it’s all I got in the world!”

  “Two pound ten,” said Jeremiah. “Less warehousing, of course.”

  “You’re cuttin’ off your own nose, Jerry. You’re cuttin’ your own throat.”

  “And yours, Cooty,” said Jeremiah, not without satisfaction.

  “What about the other pound and five shillin’s?”

  “I’ll take your weskit for half of it; and you can take my new coat for the rest. That’s fair.”

  “Your coat, Jerry, it pains me to tell you, ain’t worth more’n two shillin’s. I’ll ’ave your best shoes, too!”

  “I don’t like you, Cooty.”

  “Nor me you, Jerry. And I never ’ave.”

  Following on this frightful revelation, there was a pause.

  “But it’s been worth it,” said Jeremiah finally. He had been brooding on how he might display, even more crushingly, his contempt for Coot. “Yes. I don’t begrudge the experience. It’s shown you up, Cooty. I’m glad to have paid to see you, really to see you. I’ve had a narrow escape, Cooty. I might have turned out like you if I hadn’t seen what you’re like underneath.”

  “Likewise,” said Coot, determined to outdo Jeremiah. “And what’s more, I’d willin’ly ’ave paid out double to see what I ’ave just seen. ’Orrible. Made me sick to me stomach. You’re the sort, Jerry, what gets ’uman bein’s a bad name. Thank Gawd I found out in time.”

  Jeremiah, who could come up with nothing better for the moment, opened the shop door and indicated that his colleague’s presence was no longer welcome. Breathing heavily, the two apprentices stood in the doorway. Coot thought of punching J. Snipe in the face. He shook his head. He recollected, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. He stared up and saw the weighty emblem of Mr. Long’s trade poised above Jeremiah’s head. Go on, God! he thought. Fix ’im! But the three brass balls remained stolidly in the air.

  “And don’t you go sending me any of your c
ustomers any more,” said Jeremiah, having thought of something else. “Because I’ll tell them what a grinding little skinflint you are. I’ll show you up. If you send them to me, I’ll give them what they ask for.”

  “And I’ll give ’em more!” said Coot furiously. “Just for the pleasure of hexposin’ you! I wouldn’t send a dog to you, Jerry!”

  “If I could find that gipsy,” said Jeremiah, stung to the quick, “I’d get down on my hands and knees and thank her for letting me see the truth.”

  “I might remind you,” said Coot loftily, “that I’m the one she came to. I’m the one what was chosen to be redeemed.”

  Jeremiah breathed deeply.

  “Garn!” he said. “You don’t know the meaning of the word!”

  Slowly Coot made his way back to Drury Lane. A church clock began to strike midnight; the New Year was past. Unthinkingly Coot fumbled for his watch to see if the church was right. No watch; no waistcoat, even. He shivered as he felt the cold strike through.

  Snow had begun to fall again, tiny flakes that pricked and glittered as they passed through the feeble rays of the street lamps. Little by little, as the snow settled, the black scars and furrows that marked the road lost their sharpness and seemed to fade. Presently they were reduced to smudgy ghosts, like rubbed-out entries in a ledger.

  By the time he reached Drury Lane, the snow was fairly whirling down and he was as white as the street. The flakes kept stinging him in the eyes, so that he could scarcely see where he was going.

  It was under these circumstances that he saw the apparition; and considering how much he’d drunk and what he’d been through, it wasn’t surprising. He saw the Holy Family.

  Out of the snow they came: the laden donkey, the radiant mother, and the tall, saintly man beside her. Coot crossed himself as they drew near.

  “Buy an apple, dear!” called out the gipsy woman. “Buy a sweet Kent apple for good luck!”

  “A Happy New Year! A Happy New Year, my boy!” called out the man by her side.

  He was the stranger, the hook-nosed stranger, stalking along in his treacherous, ruinous black silk cloak!

  They’d been in it together—the pair of them! They’d done him! They’d swindled him! They’d stripped him bare! The thieves! The rogues! The rotten, crafty swindlers! They were all in it . . . most likely the baby and the donkey, too!

  Coot stood as still as a post, and then began to shake and tremble with indignation. Helplessly he watched them pass him by and then vanish like a dream into the whirling curtain of snow.

  Then he gathered together his tattered shreds of self-respect and reflected on many things.

  “I suppose it were worth it,” he whispered. “All things considered, I suppose it were worth it in the end.”

  With aching head and shaking hands, he unlocked the door of Mr. Thompson’s (Personal Banking upon Moderate Terms) and let himself in.

  He leaned across the counter, staring into the dark emptiness, which was his place in life.

  “If anybody comes in to pawn a soul,” he whispered, remembering his master’s little joke, “just you send ’em down to Mr. Long’s! But what if,” he went on, smiling mournfully to himself, “they comes in to redeem one?”

  He went to the door again and opened it. He stared out into the teeming weather. Although the little family had long since gone, he fancied he saw them imprinted on the ceaseless white. He tried to recollect their features—the man, the woman, the tiny child. But they were just shapes, haunting shapes that left not footprints; all that remained was a vague perfume of apples and spice.

  “Try my colleague in ’Enrietta Street,” he called softly into the night. “Go on; try Mr. Jeremiah Snipe, my friend.”

  THE VALENTINE

  NOT VERY FAR from Jessop & Pottersfield’s, in little Knightrider Street, is St. Martin’s Churchyard, where wicked children hide among the headstones, waiting to nick anywreaths and sell them back to the undertakers. Horrible, unfeeling trade! But even in the midst of death life must go on!

  One cold, bright morning in February (it was the fourteenth, but they didn’t know it), three such shrunken malevolents played and darted among the dead, like apprentice spooks. . . .

  “Look out—look out! There’s summ’un comin’!”

  Instantly they vanished behind the tombs and crouched, trembling in the freezing grass, as the Lady in Black drifted towards them over the green. They quaked. What was she? Was she a witch, a spirit, a ghost? . . .

  They’d seen her before; she haunted the churchyard, and one grave in particular . . . the one under the shadow of the bent elder tree. They’d heard that every St. Valentine’s Day she brought a wreath of flowering ivy and wild garlic.

  Sure enough, they saw she carried a wreath, and their interest quickened. She was deeply, impenetrably veiled, and only the dim sparkle of her eyes could be seen as she approached and paused by the graveside, glancing first at the overhanging bough, and then down to the smooth coverlet of grass. Quickly she knelt and laid the wreath against the headstone.

  “Get a move on!” muttered the tiny watchers, perishing from stillness and cold. “Get a move on, can’t yer?”

  But the Lady in Black remained in her prayerful attitude for several minutes, as if longing to be translated into stone and stay for ever by the grave under the elder tree. Only a faint trembling of her veil betrayed that she was still alive; she was whispering to the sleeper under the grass.

  At length she rose and drifted out of the churchyard with a step as silent and light as thistledown. The wreath remained behind. . . .

  “Quick!”

  “What if ’e’s watchin’?”

  “Oo?”

  “’Im, down under!”

  “Garn!”

  “Look! The grass moved!”

  “It were the wind.”

  “But what if it were ’im, turnin’ over?”

  “All right, I’ll ask ’im. Did yer turn over, mister?”

  The three demons held their breath, and one of them pressed his ear to the ground. There was no answer.

  “Don’t you mind us, mister. It’s nuffink personal. It’s just that we got to live anyways we can.”

  Six feet below, Orlando Brown, who had been taken from this life in his sixteenth year, deeply loved and much missed, held his tongue as his lonely tribute and remembrance went the way of young flesh and was heartlessly nicked. . . .

  Jessop & Pottersfield’s had buried him on St. Valentine’s Day, just five years before. They’d done it handsomely and tastefully . . . which was a sight more than Alfred Todds’s would have done had the business gone its way; but luckily that was before Mr. Todds’s had employed the odious Hawkins.

  Hawkins was a nothing, a nobody, a lean, scraggy undertaker’s lad so anxious to get on in life (which was comical considering his trade!) that he made himself ridiculous in the district—ridiculous and dreaded!

  The very sight of him in his outgrown blacks (he seemed to keep on sprouting like a stick of starved celery), hanging about at street corners, eavesdropping on gossip, and following physicians and midwives, made cold shivers run up and down your spine. He made folk uneasy, especially the old and the sick. He was like a gleaner in the cobbled fields, waiting for the Grim Reaper so he might gather in the fallen sheaves.

  His eager knock and his low, horribly respectful voice—“Mr. Todds tenders his sincerest condolences, and might he have the honour of furnishing the funeral?”—made you sick that anyone could stoop so low in the way of business.

  These were the feelings of Miss Jessop, lovely daughter of the proprietor of Jessop & Pottersfield’s. She loathed and despised Hawkins, who, despite his undeniably dreamy eyes and long poetical hands (with fingernails permanently wearing the livery of the trade), was coarse and pushing and always picking up custom where he had no right to.

  The Lord alone knew where Todds’s had found him—on some rubbish heap, most likely—but he’d taken to the trade with a passion and zeal that
were quite unnatural. He’d worked his fingers to the bone (and they looked it!) for Todds’s, scrubbing their dreary yard, washing the customers, running errands for their drunken joiner (who couldn’t put a screw in straight to save his life), polishing the lamps on the hearse, and then managing to turn out in time for the funeral, glossy as a beetle in his working blacks. At first he carried a branch of candles; but then when he kept sprouting, he took a turn at bearing. You could always pick out his spiky shanks, coming and going under the pall.

  “That lad’s a gem,” boasted Mr. Todds to Mr. Jessop. “Mark my words, he’ll go far!”

  And he did go far. In fact, he went right to the confines of Little Knightrider Street and poached trade right out of Jessop & Pottersfield’s very pockets. Sometimes Miss Jessop felt that were her ma and pa to drop dead tomorrow, Hawkins would be at the door within the hour, murmuring, “Mr. Todds tenders his sincerest condolences, miss, and might he have the honour of furnishing the funeral?”

  So strongly did Miss Jessop feel this that there were times when she almost exploded with fury. The worst of it was that people, good, ordinary people, really were taken in by the loathsome Hawkins and his “sincerest condolences.” They stopped their dazed weeping for long enough to nod and leave everything to Todds’s, without a thought for the fact that they might have done better elsewhere. It’s a melancholy truth that in times of bereavement, when the undertaker ought to come into his own as he is the only one standing upright while others are lying distraught upon couches, nobody thinks of asking a friend or a neighbour, “Is he the best to be had?”

  Recommendation goes for nothing. Alas, it’s not a trade like butchery or haberdashery that enjoys a regular family custom. Generally speaking, folk only get buried once and are in no situation to praise or complain about the service.

  Consequently—and thanks to Hawkins’ pushing ways—Todds’s now furnished nine out of every ten funerals in the district, while Jessop & Pottersfield’s, discreet, courteous Jessop & Pottersfield’s, languished in circumstances that daily grew as straitened as the sides of a coffin.