“Peaches and pomegranates! Best Kent cherries of the year!”
“Walk up! Walk up! See the mermaid in a bottle! See the girl born back to back with a bear! See the Nottingham Giant! See the Brussels midget—not eighteen inches high! Walk up! Walk up and see all the wonders of the world!”
“Fried apples and raisins! Peacock pie!”
“Tickets for the lottery! Win a prial of diamonds! Win a ruby ring! Win a golden timepiece! Win a coach and pair!”
“Walk up! Walk up and see the burnin’ of Sodom and Gomorrah! See old Noah’s Flood!”
“See the savage lion!
See the dancin’ bear!
See the pussy with two ’eads!
See the lady all covered with ’air!”
All hope and amazement, all eagerness and eyes, the virtuous apprentice passed into the throng like a soul into the forecourt of heaven, for here were the riches of creation, poured out with an unwithdrawing hand.
Here were marvels, not monsters, as terrific deformities became objects of wonder and applause. Maimed creatures, the offspring of disaster, who’d hidden for a year in shadows from the workaday world, now flaunted their extra limbs and feet with fifteen toes; and Creeping Jesus and Tom-in-the-Pot—who had but one leg between them—fought and banged in the dust over a shilling, rolling over and over like upturned beetles, waving their stumps as more and more money showered down, untainted by the pale stain of pity.
“Walk up! Walk up! See King Solomon and ’is lovely daughter! See ’em caper! See ’em dance! See Princess Betty dance on the slack rope till your ’earts come out of yer mouths!”
Piper halted. The sweat ran down his back; he felt cold as ice.
“Walk up! Walk up, young lovers, all! Walk up and try yer luck! Sixpence to come in, and a shillin’—only a shillin’—to try fer the best prize of all! Win two pound, or a night with the princess ’erself!”
Piper began to move towards the rope dancers’ tent with stiff strides, as if moved by a force beyond his will. A huge painting was flaunted on the wall of the tent, a painting of King Solomon’s daughter in all her glory. She was all the wild, tender world, at once shy and alluring, at once frightened and frightening.
Nearer and nearer drew the virtuous apprentice; his eyes were bright with tears. This was the secret that lay too deep for words. He was in love. He was desperately, wildly, passionately, frantically in love with King Solomon’s daughter. He would have given his life itself for—
“A night in Paradise!” shrilled the tiny boy who’d been shouting on a platform in front of the tent. He beat on his drum, and his voice squealed in ecstasy.
“Where are you, young lovers? Walk up! Walk up and try yer luck!”
Piper walked up. Though he’d only seen her twice in the flesh, he’d seen her since in every turn of his mind’s eye. He’d seen her in every pile of tumbled silks; he’d seen her in every reflection that passed the shop window; he’d seen her in the sky and in the darkened corners of the storeroom; he’d seen her in carriages and glimpsed her hastening down every street. If he’d been able to sleep, he would have seen her in his dreams; but all his life had become a dream, and he saw her always in the absolute blackness that reigned when he pushed his knuckles into his screwed-up eyes.
“Come along, young lover! You got a lucky face!”
Once more, the forces that moved Piper took command, and the silk mercer’s apprentice paid his sixpence and went inside the tent. At once he felt as if he’d entered the setting sun. There was a melting heat, and everything, the earth, the sky, and the pushing, shuffling throng, was of a golden brown. The very air was brown, and Piper’s bright green coat lost all its colour, though not its ugly stain.
He pushed his way forward until he stood before the dancing rope, which was stretched between two poles some twelve feet high. To one of the poles was fixed a Jacob’s ladder, up which Piper had seen an angel pass, yesterday and the day before.
Outside, the drum rattled and the tiny boy shrilled on, with his monotonous invitation to come and behold the Princess Betty and for young lovers to try their luck. The crowd grew greater, and Piper, gazing up at the rope, felt that he was going to faint. He closed his eyes and swayed; then the drum rattled in his very ear. He opened his eyes and saw that the tiny boy had come in and was half way up the ladder and beating his instrument with one hand.
He begged for silence for His Majesty, King Solomon, the greatest performer on earth—the only crowned head that had performed before Europe, and fresh from triumphs in Japan. Another roll on the drum and out from behind a tattered curtain scampered King Solomon, in taffeta and brown plush. He wore a tipsy tin crown and carried a sceptre as tall as a door.
He was old, very old, and as he bowed in all directions, he seemed in danger of breaking in two. The boy came down, and King Solomon went up the ladder on twinkling, skinny legs. He swung and swayed and heaved himself up on the rope. Then, balancing with his sceptre, he scampered back and forth, twelve feet in the air.
He was an old, old man, and maybe a king in Israel; it was a wonder he was still alive. Yet everyone longed for him to fall and break his scraggy neck. Three times over he performed his perilous journey, till it seemed the most tedious thing in the world; at last the king came down, and the boy went up and danced like a monkey while Solomon beat on the drum.
Then both were down and bowing and smiling and waving all round. They ran back and forth between the poles, swinging the ladder and pointing, pointing to the tattered curtain that had begun to shiver and bulge as if with child.
“We gives you—we gives you, young lovers all, the lovely, the beautiful, the talented, the marvellous, the soul-eatin’ Princess Betty!”
There was a roar, as if from the throats of ten thousand lions, as from behind the curtain came the absolute darling of the Fair.
She sparkled, she glittered, and beams of devouring fire flashed from the sequins glued to her eyes. She neither curtsied nor smiled, but, with a toss of her golden head, she flew up the ladder and danced along the slackened rope.
She had long, thin white hands that twisted and turned and seemed to catch the air for support when she needed it. Sometimes she’d fling them out in a strange, embracing gesture; sometimes she’d flutter them at this young lover or that; sometimes she’d clasp them over her head while she marched—with high, uplifted knees and delicate naked feet—contemptuously above the fascinated throng. She’d jump—and everyone would cry out; she’d swing from side to side—and everyone would sigh.
With every sound that reached her, she turned and stared with a look of unchanging contempt. Who could fathom her? Who could plumb her uncanny depths? Not King Solomon in all his glory. He, like the others, watched and gaped. Only a lover, then . . .
Piper’s heart thundered within his neat chest as he remembered that yesterday—only yesterday—she’d seen him looking up and had seemed to smile. Could he be her destined lover—he, Mr. Martlet’s good apprentice?
She danced to the middle of the rope, swinging, swinging . . . and the crowd went mad! Each time she swung towards them and soared aloft, she flounced out her skirt, and a storm of pink paper, cut up like rose petals, flew out from underneath and fluttered down. She was all flowers, and Piper could smell roses in the air.
There was a great rush forward as everyone scrambled for the paper petals; Piper secured a whole handful and furtively kissed them. He felt she saw him, for she seemed to nod. Or had he been mistaken? Was she nodding to King Solomon to tell him she’d finished her dance? She flew to the ladder and dropped lightly down.
Now came the moment that Piper had been waiting for, the moment that had caused him so many terrors and determinings throughout the day.
The old man took his daughter by the hand and cast down the challenge to “Young lovers, all.”
“Walk up! Walk up! ’Oo’ll try fer a shillin’ to walk the tightrope and win a darlin’ prize? Win two pound—or a night with the Princess Betty! Can I
say fairer than that? Up the ladder and across the rope—and the lovely lady’s your’n!
“Lovers old and lovers young!
Come set yer foot upon the rung!”
He clasped her hand in both his own and held it up to the audience, so that, for a moment, she seemed like a marvellous waxen doll. She looked across the rows of faces, and once more Piper felt that her eyes lingered longest on him. He made to step forward, but somehow his legs were imprisoned. He couldn’t move for fear. The rope was horribly high.
Already he’d seen two other lovers try for the prize, and both had come to grief. One had been drunk and had fallen from half way up the ladder; the other had reached the rope and, after two steps, had fallen and broken his leg. His screams of agony still echoed in Piper’s ears.
But Piper had been practising. He’d stretched threads across the storeroom floor and walked and walked till his feet never deviated by a hair’s breadth. He’d—
“I’ll ’ave a go at it, mister. ’Ere’s me shillin’.”
Even as Piper opened his mouth to speak, he was forestalled, and the worst thing in the world stepped up out of the crowd. It was the toad, the monster, the spoiler of his days; it was that filthy beast Shag!
He was even shorter and uglier on the ground than ever he appeared on his plank, and he stumped and strutted with a curious swaying motion, as if he were in danger of falling from the surface of the earth.
As usual, he was grinning his gargoyle grin, and Piper’s hatred for him knew no bounds. He hated him with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might. It was a marvel that Shag never felt it. He grinned and grinned and paid out his shilling in pennies.
The Princess Betty watched the money, then dropped a faint curtsey and turned away. Shag blew her a kiss and to cheers and applause began to mount the ladder.
“I hate you! I hate you!” whispered Piper. “May God strike you down!”
The higher Shag climbed, the dirtier and uglier he looked, till, by the time he reached the top and crouched over all, he was like Satan himself.
“Fall down! Fall down!”
Suddenly Shag stood upright, and there was a great silence in the tent, for the lad seemed to be balancing on nothing. Then a sound floated down, as of laughter, and Shag, with stumpy arms outstretched and jerking his hips and knees like a cockere, began to walk the narrow rope as cheerfully as if it had been as wide as all Smithfield.
“With a one! And a two!
And a one! And a two!”
He snapped his head from side to side, looking each time, it seemed, at a rapturous nothing. His eyes were shining like newly minted coins.
This was, after all, Shag’s only talent: his gift for balancing and his marvellous head for heights. He revelled in the exercise of it, and the tent was full of angels, singing, cheering, and shouting for more.
So Shag obliged the company with his well-known imitation of a boy about to fall. He tottered, he swung and swayed, he flailed the air with sawn-off wings, drawing forth shrieks from those beneath and creating hope in Piper’s anguished heart. But it was no use; Shag walked upon goat’s feet, even though he hid them in boots.
At length he came off the rope and down the Jacob’s ladder. He stumped up to King Solomon with a look of impudence and pride.
“Well done! Well done, young lover!” said the king, while the crowd roared and shouted for him to be given his prize. The old man smiled and bowed. He took his daughter by the hand and then reached out for Shag, as if to unite the happy pair. Piper nearly died.
“I want the two pahnd!” said Shag loudly.
“What’s that? What’s that?”
“You ’eard, mister!”
The old man stared in amazement, and the crowd began to laugh.
“Two pounds? Two pounds, when you can ’ave me lovely daughter?”
“Garn!” said Shag, eyeing the gaudy trifle with baffled eyes. “What do I want wiv’ ’er?”
“Ain’t you got no soul, young lover?”
“I ain’t a young lover, mister. I’m a ’ouse painter. Gimme me two pahnd!”
The laughter increased, the king fidgeted; only his daughter remained unmoved. She stared over the heads of the multitude as if to some fascinating place that only she could see. Her expression was at once remote—and intimate. It was curiously like the look that had been on Shag’s face as he’d strutted along on high.
Piper’s brain was melting—with heat, noise, and a sense of cruelty that made him ache. He was bewildered and profoundly, bitterly dismayed. His all-embracing hatred for Shag had turned, quite suddenly, against himself. He loathed and despised himself—not because he’d hesitated in taking up the challenge, but because he knew that, never in a million years, could he really have done it.
He looked and felt and understood that he was not of them—the creatures who flew. He was earthbound in his little green coat and his knee buckles and his master’s little shop. He was strained and constricted; he was fettered and locked up in a prison to which only he had the key. The key was in his hand, but he could not use it. Each time he reached out his hand, someone came running, and it was he himself, the gaoler, who struck the key from his hand with a cry.
“You filthy beast in there!”
“What was that, lad?”
“I said, filthy beast,” repeated Piper, half dead with dreaming.
“Why did you say that?”
“I—I meant him! Taking the money like that . . . and leaving her.”
“Have a go yourself, then—if you think she’s worth a shillin’!”
“Have a go! Go on, lad! Have a go!”
“Walk up! Walk up, young lover! Try yer luck and save me daughter’s shame!”
“Get out of my way!” screamed Piper suddenly, though no one was impeding him. “Get out of my way and let me have a go! I’m coming out! I’m coming out, I tell you!”
He stumbled forward, and Shag, money in his fist, turned to stare at him. Though they were scarcely six feet apart, not even the Law of Gravity seemed to unite them any more. If dropped, one would have fallen up, and the other down.
Curious, Shag watched Piper pay his shilling; then he stumped off towards the door of the tent. Curious again, he paused and looked back. He watched Piper, mottled green Piper, climb the swinging ladder.
He saw him get to the top and sway and bend down in a panic to clutch at the rope. Shag saw with interest that Piper’s face was as white as plaster and that his eyes were rolling as if he longed to come straight down.
Then, suddenly, the silk mercer’s apprentice straightened up and, to loud cheers, set his foot upon the rope. Shag watched him take three steps, then a fourth; then it seemed as though an invisible hand had seized one of his ankles and was waving it in the air. Piper flapped his arms wildly, and suddenly he was dancing on air.
Shag grinned his gargoyle grin as he saw the bright apprentice fall, like a doomed angel, from the high rope to the ground beneath.
“Serves ’im right!” said Shag, and went back to Amen Corner, proudly clutching his two gold pounds.
Amen Corner was as quiet as the grave, and the scaffolding in front of Martlet and Peabody’s cast a cage of black shadows under the riding moon. Here and there, below windows particularly, Shag’s paintwork had dripped and run, so that it looked as if the establishment had been crying with thick, pale tears.
Shag himself, high up on his plank, stirred in his rag of a blanket and awoke from his gargoyle dreams. He looked inquisitively down the front of the building, then nipped along the plank and peered down the side. He scratched his head. He could see nothing; he could hear nothing. Piper had not returned. Shag shrugged his shoulders and went back to his blanket. He lay on his back and stared up at the moon. The moon grinned down—and Shag grinned up.
“Most likely ’e’s wiv’ ’er.”
“Go and see then,” said the moon.
“Why should I?” said Shag irritably. “It’s no skin orf my nose.”
/> “And what’s your nose got to do with it?”
“Pokin’ it into ’is business. That’s what.”
“Then go back to sleep.”
“I will if you stop shinin’ in me face.”
“No skin off my nose!” grinned the moon; and Shag swore and came wearily down to the ground.
He stumped off through the streets with nothing more inside his head than ever there had been. It was a good head for heights, but depths never concerned it.
He trod happily in the rubbish of Giltspur Street, kicking it in the air and bending down to pick up anything smelly and offensive and posting it through the first open window he found.
He reached Smithfield by Pie Corner and tried all the shutters of the cook shops with an iron bar he’d wrenched off a barrow. He had no luck, so he stared across the wide emptiness of the Fair. Booths, platforms, stalls, and pennants stood engraved under the moon, and the ground was sliced with silver.
“All right, then, where is ’e?” inquired Shag.
“He might be dead,” said the Fair.
“Garn!” said Shag contemptuously.
“Suit yourself,” said the Fair.
Shag spied a moonbeam and began to walk along it.
“With a one! And a two!
And a one! And a two!”
With infinite caution, he avoided the blacks and came, by a series of dances, hops, and wild gyrations, to King Solomon’s silent tent. Inquisitively he poked his head inside and, after a moment, followed it with the rest of him. He listened carefully and heard a sound of breathing.
“Is that you?”
No answer, so he crept forward into the reeking gloom.
“Is it you in there?”
It was King Solomon, his boy, and his radiant daughter, lying in a heap behind the tattered curtain. They all looked dead to Shag till the Princess Betty stirred and parted her moon-black lips and showed her silver teeth. She was having a good dream.
Shag sat back on his heels, frowning and grinning and rocking himself to and fro. If there were thoughts in Shag’s head, they were total strangers and quickly got lost.
The Apprentices Page 26