My uncle spoke to my mother.
‘Have you asked her yet, Rose?’
‘No. Not yet. I—I thought I’d leave it till tomorrow.’
‘I think you must ask her tonight, Rose. After all, it’s a valuable object and quite a temptation.’
‘I can’t believe that she took it!’
‘Perhaps she put it in a drawer and forgot to tell you? You mustn’t neglect it, Rose. If she’s been dishonest, she must be made to admit it.’
I realized they were talking about my father’s gold watch. My uncle had noticed that the mahogany stand was empty and suspected that Mrs Alice, or one of the maids, had stolen the watch.
It was in my waistcoat pocket. I could hear it ticking away like an enormous insect. I felt my face grow very red. I knew I ought to have got up and said, loudly and truthfully, ‘I’ve got my father’s watch. He gave it to me before he died.’ But somehow I felt unequal to it. Instead, I put my hand over my ticking pocket and hoped nobody would hear it.
‘What’s that, my boy?’ said my uncle sharply. ‘What have you got there?’
He never missed anything, and must have seen my change of colour. I felt quite ill as I knew there was no hope. If I didn’t own up he’d search me and that would make matters worse.
‘It’s the watch,’ I mumbled. ‘It—it’s Pa’s watch.’
My mother looked relieved; but my sister Rebecca immediately said that I had no right to it, and that it was perfectly disgusting.
‘But Pa gave it to me!’ I shouted angrily.
My mother, trying to keep the peace, said to my uncle:
‘There! You see? It’s all right. Nobody stole it. William has it … and, I suppose, it really ought to be his.’
Rebecca began to complain; but my uncle told her to keep quiet and said to my mother:
‘I think you’d better leave this to me, Rose.’
There was an awful, anticipatory note in his voice, like a hangman about to enjoy his trade. He turned to me.
‘Now, my boy, show me that watch.’
I held it up and then put it back in my pocket as quickly as I could, as if I was performing a conjuring trick with it. My uncle nodded.
‘Yes. You told the truth. You have the watch. Now I want you to be very careful before you answer again. How did you get the watch, my boy?’
‘I told her—Rebecca! Pa gave it to me!’
‘And when did he give it to you?’
‘The night—the night he died!’
Immediately I saw my uncle give a triumphant smile as he thought he’d caught me out.
‘That’s not true, my boy. I was in the room when you said good night to your father. He never gave you anything. Come now—admit it, admit it!’
‘It wasn’t then! It was much later … in—in the middle of the night! I heard him … and—and went down to see! That’s when he gave it to me!’
My uncle looked incredulous.
‘You heard your sick father in the middle of the night and never called your mother or me? Now that’s a lie, my boy. That’s a wicked, wicked lie!’
I protested that it wasn’t, it wasn’t, and offered, in proof of my veracity, the fact that my father had even told me about winding the watch up, six turns every morning and night.
Even as I said it, I knew it sounded feeble and lame, and I saw my sister Rebecca staring at me contemptuously, as if she could have invented a much better tale. But I was in a frightful situation. It was absolutely impossible for me to explain that I hadn’t called for help because I detested my uncle so much!
My uncle lost his temper altogether. He began banging on the table as if it was my head, and he was determined to crack it, like a nut, and get at what was inside.
‘Now see what comes of indulging him, Rose!’ he bellowed. ‘Now you can see how he’s turned out! If only you’d let me have him for that six months when I begged you, none of this would have happened! Now he’s become a liar and a thief! Look at him! A boy well provided for, with everything to look forward to! And what does he do? He steals from his dead father—from your husband, Rose! He can’t even wait for his father to be cold in his grave! And what a father! A fine, upright man who never did an underhand thing in his life! We can only be thankful that he isn’t here to see it! That such a father should have such a son!’
I know I should have kept quiet and let the storm blow over. I know it would have been more sensible to have shrugged my shoulders and said that my uncle was entitled to his opinion but that it was not necessarily the right one; but I was, after all, only twelve years old, the youngest at the table and very frightened and distressed; and the awful banging on the table only made matters worse, so that I felt that, if I didn’t shout and scream back, my head really would split open and everything would come out.
All I wanted was to defend myself against that large, violent man, and to make him believe me.
So, with this in mind, I told him, at the top of my voice, that he was the liar, not me. I told him that he didn’t know anything about my father at all; and, in order to substantiate my claim, I banged on the table as he did, only with both fists, and shouted that my father was not an upright man, but was a swindler and a cheat and had told me so himself! I shrieked out all about Mr Diamond and Foxes Court, and, for good measure, swore that all the money we’d come into was on account of a mean and treacherous crime!
I suppose I must have presented quite an extraordinary sight, shrieking and banging on the table and blackening my dead father’s name. But I never thought of it like that.
It was only when I noticed that my mother and my sisters were staring at me in horror that I realized what I’d done. I think even my uncle was taken aback to discover that I’d turned out to be even worse than he’d supposed.
‘That will be enough,’ he said quietly, when I finished up in tears of misery and indignation. ‘That will be quite enough, my boy. Go to your room. Your mother and I will decide what is to be done with you.’
He didn’t even tell me to stop snivelling and be a man. He looked at me in the most extraordinary way; and, for a moment, I thought I’d actually frightened him. But if I had, it wasn’t half so much as he’d frightened me.
I went upstairs shaking with terror as to what fate would be decided for me. The threatened six months would be at least a year; and I had some thoughts of hanging myself with a note attached, to the effect that I hoped everybody would be sorry for what they’d done.
I lay on my bed without getting undressed and tried to hear what was being said downstairs; but they all kept their voices down. I wondered if Cissy, or Mrs Alice, would come up to see me and tell me not to worry too much. But no one came. Then I remembered that I hadn’t wound up the watch.
I went to kneel by the fire so that I could see to put the key in. The time was half-past eleven.
The day had been a long one. The funeral might have taken place last year, and all the departed guests no more than solemn figures in a dream. I would not have been surprised if the open grave I’d stood by that morning was already grassed over and half forgotten. I wondered what my father was thinking as he lay in the darkness under the ground.
I wondered if he knew about the frantic unhappiness he had brought about by giving me his watch? I wondered if he knew that he had left me unutterably alone!
I remember I cried a good deal and confided, to the burning coals, that I wanted my father to come back and save me, by telling everybody that I had told the truth. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, that, even if I cried myself bone-dry, he would never come back and that I must shift for myself.
Then I knew that I would have to find Mr Diamond, and make him come back and confess that my father had cheated him, and that I had told the truth.
‘Mr Diamond …’ I murmured, as if the name was a talisman. ‘Foxes Court … Mr K’Nee …’
Suddenly it all seemed very simple, and I wondered that I hadn’t thought of it before; and I drifted into an agreeable dre
am of producing Mr Diamond at the dining table, with a burst of music and a shout of triumph.
I must have fallen asleep. All at once, it seemed, the house was quiet, the fire was low, and I saw that it was one o’clock. I was still lying on the floor, with my head resting against the fender and a general stiffness all over.
For a moment, I remembered having had a good idea, and felt quite pleased … until I remembered what it had been. That I should go and find Mr Diamond and bring him back home.
It was hopeless. Even if Mr Diamond still lived, how could I ever find him? How could I even leave the house without my uncle seizing me and dragging me back? And supposing I did get out of the house, where would I go? To Foxes Court? How would I find it in a huge place like London; and who would take any notice of a boy of twelve? I would be robbed, murdered, and thrown into the River Thames.
These and a hundred other heavy considerations weighed me down and plunged me into such a gloom that I cursed the wretched watch over and over again.
‘Why, why did you give it to me?’ I demanded of the dying fire. ‘Why did you tell me everything when you knew you were going to die? Why … why?’
The fire whispered harshly and threw up a brief flame. I stood up, meaning to go to bed. I felt very cold, and I remember thinking that the weather must have taken a turn for the worse, as if, like me, it had decided there was no hope and was appalled.
I stood, holding the ticking watch in my hand, and shivering. Then, as if somehow I’d expected it all the time, I heard the most terrible sound.
I swear that this is true. I heard, quite distinctly, from the empty room underneath, the sound of my dead father’s footsteps, dragging across the floor!
He had left his coffin and come back! He was down there, walking back and forth, back and forth, and sighing ceaselessly over the wrong he had done and never put right.
Then I knew that, until I found Mr Diamond, neither my father nor I would ever have peace. Night after night he would shuffle and drag across the floor, and night after night I would hear him; unless I left the house and set out on the journey that would lay his ghost.
4
TO LEAVE A house where you have lived all your life, where your best possessions are scattered in every room from attic to cellar, is no easy matter; but to do so in secrecy, in the middle of the night, with no candle, and fearful that every creaking floorboard is betraying you and every ill-fitting cupboard and drawer—no matter how carefully you open it—is shrieking aloud: ‘He’s running away! He’s running away!’ is an undertaking to stop the heart and freeze the blood in your veins.
I had a silver tankard; but it was in the kitchen, so I had to leave it behind; I had a folding fruit-knife with a mother-of-pearl handle; but it was in the dining room, so I had to leave that, too.
Fortunately my money was in a purse in my own room. I had seven guineas given to me on birthdays by my grandmother in St Albans. She was my Uncle Turner’s mother; but you would never have known it.
Remembering my father’s dislike of shabbiness, and fearing that Mr Diamond would turn out to be the same, I put on my best clothes and took a change of linen; or, rather, a sameness of linen twice over, as I wore two shirts. Also I tied two pairs of stockings round my neck, as if I was being strangled by legs.
I took these precautions rather than carry a bundle, which, I feared, would have advertised me too openly as a runaway. I thought about leaving a note, but decided against it as it might have been found too soon and I’d have been hauled back and locked up, probably for the rest of my life.
I left my house at half-past five. It was still pitch-black outside, and very quiet; but that didn’t stop me seeing my uncle behind every tree and stepping out to confront me, like a monster, at every turn in the narrow winding road.
I got to Hertford an hour before the coaching office opened, and spent the time pressed into doorways and hiding behind posts as I was convinced that every passerby knew all about me and was going directly to my uncle to inform him that his scoundrelly nephew was running away.
At last the coach office opened and I bought a place on the London coach from a clerk who, I feared, had only pretended to go and get change and was, in reality, galloping like mad back to my house with the news of my flight.
Even when I was actually sitting in the coach and on my way, and Hertford was behind me, I was not easy in my mind. I stared cautiously at my dozing fellow passengers and became convinced that they were united in a conspiracy to lull me into a false sense of security and were silently preparing to have me seized at the very first stop. When one of them got out, I thought he’d gone for a constable; and when another got in, I thought he was a constable.
It was only when we got to Waltham Cross, and changed horses, and ate breakfast, that I was able to put my Uncle Turner behind me and to think about the great city that was only another hour and a half away.
Although I had never been to London, I had heard a great deal about it, chiefly from Mrs Alice, who had been there when she was a girl. It must have been a long time ago, as I had a picture of the town consisting entirely of St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower, which was always kept smart with traitors’ heads.
Mrs Alice had once seen the Lord Mayor, but she could find no words to describe his magnificence; and she had been taken to see a highwayman hanged at Tyburn, where they sold the best pies in the world.
All in all, I was prepared for a place of dazzling splendour and excitement that would burst out upon the road ahead like a gorgeous thunderclap. I wouldn’t have been surprised if great golden gates had swung open and trumpeters had sounded our arrival from the walls.
Instead of which, at half-past eleven, we came to a dismal huddle of broken houses loitering round an oversized church, and a few market gardens that seemed to be growing nothing more than bricks. Then we went over cobbles and turned into a dirty inn-yard. We stopped and everybody got out. I never saw such a miserable place in all my life.
‘Is this—is this London?’ I asked an ostler, half expecting to be laughed at for making such a mistake.
He gazed at me pityingly, as if he understood that it was all too much for me. Then he nodded.
‘This is Lunnon, all right!’ he said, with every appearance of affection and pride. ‘Best town in the world!’
I looked up. The sky, which, in Hertford, had been of a clear, wintry blue, was now yellow, as if it was much older and none too well. Even the sun had a bloodshot look and seemed to be in danger of going out.
‘Lovely day,’ said the ostler. ‘Nothin’ like Lunnon in the sunshine!’
Somewhat depressed, I asked him if he knew a place called Foxes Court?
He scratched his head and couldn’t say that he did.
‘It’s near a place called Holborn,’ I said.
‘Ah!’ said he, brightening up and pointing knowledgeably straight at a brick wall. ‘You wanna go dahn that way, sec’nd on yer left, then ’long Bishopsgit, right turn and ’long past Bedlam ’orspittle, left at Aldersgit, right at Newgit, an’ ye’re practickly there! Can’t miss it! ’Bout a hour, I should say.’
I hadn’t understood a word he’d said; but I thanked him and set off, meaning to ask again as soon as he was out of sight.
I walked and walked and the town began to close in upon me, not with splendor, but with grey, stony, twisted limbs, that were endless roads and lanes and streets.
There was a strange smell in the air, that grew stronger and stronger. It was something of cheese, something of cabbage, something of boiled meat, and a good deal of sulphur; so that I felt I was in that part of hell where they did the cooking.
There were other signs of hell, too … such as a gigantic uproar composed of grinding iron wheels, scraping shovels, squealing horses and the never-ending shouts and curses of demons and damned as they got in each other’s way.
Everybody was angry. There was anger in the very air. When I asked the way, I was answered angrily, or not at all. A man pulled m
e out of the way of a cart, and asked me angrily if I wanted to be killed? Angrily I answered, no, and was I anywhere near Holborn yet?
He told me to keep a civil tongue in my head and sent me off down a great street where all the world seemed to be rushing along one way, as if the street had been tipped and they were all swirling down into a drain.
I never saw so many people before; and, I thought, so many people had never seen me. In Hertford, and on the coach, I’d been frightened that everybody knew me and knew what I was doing. Here I was even more frightened because nobody knew me and nobody cared what I was doing.
The town was huge beyond belief; it was a hundred towns all jumbled up together; it was a sprawling calamity of brick, stone, and noise through which I was doomed to walk and walk until I died, asking for:
‘Holborn … Holborn … Can you please tell me the way to Holborn, sir?’
‘Holborn? Are you blind, lad? You’re right in the middle of it! This is Holborn!’
I ran after the gentleman, thanking him with all my heart. I couldn’t believe my good fortune … until I began to ask for Foxes Court. Nobody knew it. Some thought it this way, some that, and some thought it might be over yonder, on the other side of the river. But at last somebody did know it.
He knew it like the back of his hand, he said; and held that object up, and I could see that it was such a tangle of gnarled veins that it might well have been a map of that part of the town, coloured in to show the dirt.
He directed me down a narrow passage between two buildings, with the advice that I should follow my nose, as if I was a hound, and foxes still lived in Foxes Court, and I would infallibly sniff it out.
As I walked along the passage, which was dark and seemed to have a running cold in its bricks, the noise of the town receded and what at first I took to be another noise, crept cautiously into its place. This other noise grew more and more pervasive until eventually it had blotted out the last faint sounds of the town.
John Diamond (Vintage Childrens Classics) Page 3