He stamped up and down the room, getting his head entangled with Mrs Branch’s belongings, and referring to me as Lord Muck. Mrs Carwardine, who still had a great deal of respect for my shirt and stockings, was rather shocked to hear Mr Seed abusing me; and in some sort of defence of me, went downstairs and banged on the wall again with the broomstick and shouted:
‘Pig! Villain! Coward! Burn us down, would you!’
Back came the banging and the threat of having the law on Mrs Carwardine. This had the effect of calming Mr Seed’s temper; but he still continued to look at me with a strong dislike.
I thought at first that he would refuse to take me to the Horse Boy out of revenge; but his fondness for money got the better of his feelings; and, at half-past four, he got up and said:
‘It’s time for your sixpennyworth, Lord Muck.’
It was nearly dark when we went out into the alley. The watermen’s boats were already lighted, and they drifted past on their reflections, like pairs of fireflies. We began to walk.
‘Good evening, Mr Seed.’
‘Evenin’ … evenin’
…’‘Nice to see you looking so well, Mr Seed …’
‘Evenin’ … evenin’ …’
‘How are things in Foxes Court, Mr Seed?’
‘Mustn’t grumble. Up and down … up and down …’
‘You will have your little joke, Mr Seed!’
He seemed to know everybody; or at least, everybody knew him. We reached the door of the Horse Boy and he demanded his sixpence.
‘Shall I come back and fetch you again?’
‘I think I can remember the way, Mr Seed.’
He looked rather disappointed to have lost an extra sixpence; but then brightened up when he understood I was going to come back, which meant another shilling, for the night.
‘Are you meetin’ Mr Jenkins, or the other one?’
He glanced up at me inquisitively.
‘That boy,’ he said, abruptly changing the subject. ‘He’d have killed you if he’d had a knife. Wouldn’t have thought twice about it.’
‘I—I’m sorry,’ I said.
I was confused and uncomfortable as I realized that Mr Seed had known all the time that I’d let the boy go on purpose. That was why he’d been so angry. I suppose it would have been better if I’d smashed the boy’s arm.
I said as much, and he frowned; so I asked him, meaning to excuse myself completely, whether he himself really had been going to beat the boy with the poker. He smiled.
‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘He was a head taller than me. When he was standing up.’
‘Oh yes, of course,’ I said sarcastically. ‘I didn’t think of that.’
‘Of course you didn’t, William Jones. You don’t think of anything. You may be taller than me, and you may be richer; but always remember, I’m four times as old as you, and forty times as clever. If you see that boy again, run for your life!’
11
THE HORSE BOY grinned; the parlour grinned; and so did the waiter. The usual dozen or so smart young men were sitting about in the cubby-holes and at the tables, exactly as they’d been before. I thought they might have been there since last night.
I stood by the door looking round for Mr Robinson, when the waiter came up to me.
‘Half a pint of the usual, young Mr Jones?’
I smiled cheerfully and felt quite flattered to be known to the waiter (I suppose Mr Jenkins had told him my name), and enrolled in the company of the Horse Boy to the extent of having a ‘usual.’
Remembering my unfortunate experience, I declined; and the waiter, grinning more broadly than ever, remarked:
‘Ah yes. We was a little under the weather last night.’
‘Under the table, you mean,’ I said.
‘Oh that’s very good!’ said the waiter. ‘I must remember to tell that around!’ Although I hadn’t meant it to be funny, I laughed as if I had, and looked forward to the prospect of being famous for it.
‘Mr R.’s been and gone,’ said the waiter. ‘You just missed him.’ He looked down pointedly at the Horse Boy’s tray. There was a little heap of messages and right on top was a folded paper addressed to ‘W.J.’
Eagerly I went to pick it up.
‘You got to stroke Jimmy’s head first,’ said the waiter, restraining me. ‘All the gentlemen does. Custom of the ’ouse; and it’s for luck, too.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I forgot.’
I felt grateful to be guided so agreeably in the ways of the London world; and I looked round, thinking how I might boast of it all when I got home.
The Horse Boy’s head proved surprisingly cold, as if it was wet. The waiter sniggered. I glanced at my hand. It was shiny and black with something like printer’s ink.
‘No call to be angry, young Mr Jones!’ said the waiter, wiping off the remains of the ink from the Horse Boy’s head with his napkin. ‘New gentlemen always has it done to ’em!’
I tried hard to take the stupid joke in good part. I reached to get my message; but the waiter gave it to me to prevent my dirtying all the others.
‘There you go!’ he said cheerfully. ‘We knew you’d do that!’
‘What?’
‘Push your hair back like that! You’re always doing it, ain’t you!’
It was a habit I never really knew I had. After all, habits are those things about you that only other people notice. The waiter, grinning very broadly, made me look in a mirror. There were two long black finger marks on my forehead. I tried to wipe them off with my sleeve.
‘Don’t do that, young Mr Jones! You’ll only make it worse. Just leave it and everybody’ll know you’re a regular of the Horse Boy. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of!’
As all the customers were staring at me and laughing and grinning, I thought I’d better do the same, although I didn’t feel like it.
The waiter nodded, approving my good humour, and said:
‘Now you’re a real Horse Boy, young Mr Jones!’
‘Only in parts,’ I said, pointing to my forehead.
‘Oh that’s a good one! I must remember to tell that one around!’
I read my message. It was very short.
‘J.D. in the Sun in Splendour. Coalman’s Alley. Blackfriars. After dark.’ It was signed: ‘Affectionately, R.’
I showed it to the waiter. He gave me directions and said it was about twenty minutes’ walk. I put a sixpence in the Horse Boy’s tray and set off to meet John Diamond.
After dark. Blackfriars. Coalman’s Alley. The Sun in Splendour! What a conjugation from gloom to glory! What a piling up of shades and shadows, of shrinking streets, unseen corners, wrong turnings and alleys as blind as bats … until the Sun in Splendour!
It hung over an open doorway, a little tarnished ball in spikes. There were a few steps leading down, and a smoky yellow glimmer coming up, as if the sun had had a misfortune and fallen downstairs, and was limping back up, one step at a time.
I went down with my heart and mind full of John Diamond. I pictured him sitting at a table next to Mr Robinson: a needy, nervous person, who’d start and turn to Mr Robinson for his nod and smile of, ‘Yes. That’s him.’ Then he’d get up and come quickly towards me.
‘I’m John Diamond!’ he’d say; and we’d shake hands and there’d be an instant warmth between us.
But it wasn’t at all like that.
The parlour was crowded and noisy; and the only thing that came to greet me was a vicious-looking black dog, which, however, changed its mind about biting me when it sniffed at my coat.
I suppose my clothes still had some country smells about them that reminded the dog of the open air and fields; for it wouldn’t leave me alone and kept pushing its nose into me and turning round to the parlour as if to say: ‘I told you so! I told you all along that there was a countryside! Come and have a smell!’
I tried to push it away, as its affection for what I was wearing was attracting a good deal of interest; and, I ca
n tell you, it wasn’t at all like the interest Mrs Carwardine had displayed. It was savage and envious; it was inquisitive and crafty; it made me thrust my hands into my pockets, to make sure they were still there, and look about for a corner where I could hide.
I hunched up my shoulders and tried to look as if my fine clothes were not my own, but that I’d just murdered William Jones for them, and was therefore a perfectly ordinary boy, not worth a second glance.
The parlour of the Sun in Splendour was a dreadful, smoky, stinking hole of a place, lit by two huge black lanterns that were chained to the ceiling as if to stop them being stolen away.
I couldn’t see Mr Robinson anywhere; and without him, I’d no hope at all of finding John Diamond. For all I knew, he might have been sitting there already, glancing at me and wondering if the nervous, out-of-place-looking boy was David Jones’s son.
Every face I looked at might easily have been John Diamond’s. They all looked needy, furtive, restless and anxious to be out of the light. I felt a touch on my sleeve. I looked down. A great hulk of a man, with something like a dead cat on his head, had pushed along his bench and precipitated someone off it at the other end, and was indicating that I might sit on the scrap of seat he’d thus provided.
Not wanting to offend him, I did so, and the black dog settled down to gnaw at my shoes.
‘Stranger?’ inquired the man.
I told him I was looking for a Mr John Diamond.
‘I didn’t ask thee what tha’ was looking for. I asked if tha’ was a stranger.’
I admitted that I was.
‘What’s tha’ sup then? What’s tha’ booze, tha’ drink? Gin? Brandy? Ale?’
Remembering the sherry, I said I was partial to mild ale. Instantly he shouted for the landlord and a pint of ale was put before me, for which my new friend paid.
He was off a ship, he told me, a Newcastle collier, and was a stranger himself. He thought all strangers ought to stick together; that way, they wouldn’t feel strange.
I think he’d had a good deal to drink; but he wasn’t the worse for it, rather the better, in fact. Most likely, he was a real terror when he was sober.
I tried to buy him a drink, but he wouldn’t hear of it as he’d just been paid off and was in ‘foonds.’ I was quite sorry when he got up to go.
Several other men went soon after, and so did the dog. I heard it barking, and the sounds of an argument outside in the street. Then the dog came back eating something. By its pleased expression, it was probably a finger.
The parlour was half empty now, and I was alone at the table. I took out my watch to see the time. Instantly I felt a staring of eyes upon my back and a sensation of cobwebby hands in my pockets. The very air seemed to be composed of invisible thieves. I put the watch away without even looking at it.
There was a little crowd of boys round a table on the other side of the parlour. They were watching me intently. Suddenly, and with a horrible shock, I saw that one of them was the savage boy that Mr Seed had caught! I went cold as I remembered his warning: ‘Run for your life!’
But he made no move towards me; he didn’t even seem to recognize me. I sat still and wondered at the coincidence of his being there. Then the thought flashed upon my mind that he was John Diamond!
That’s why he was there! I remembered that the dwarf had caught him soon after I’d heard Mr Robinson whistling. Mr Robinson must have sent him and the dwarf had made a terrible mistake!
As I looked at him—wild and savage creature that he was!—I couldn’t help sweating as I recalled my ideas of taking John Diamond home and even going to school with him. The prospect was quite staggering. My Uncle Turner would probably have him shot.
One of the boys—not him—stood up and walked over to my table.
He looked at me carefully and then said:
‘You got a dirty face, mister.’ He pointed to his own forehead, which was by no means above reproach. ‘There.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I got it in the Horse Boy.’
The boy grinned; at first I thought rather menacingly, but afterwards I discovered it was only the shape of his mouth. When he wanted to be menacing, he looked quite different. He was, I supposed, offering me friendship, as from one boy to another, in a world of men.
‘Come along over an’ sit wiv’ us,’ he said. ‘You ken buy us a drink if you like.’
I looked at his table and saw a good many reasons for not going there. Eight, in fact; and they were all watching me. But I thought the boy might turn unpleasant if I refused; and besides, I was anxious to talk to the savage one.
‘Be pleased to,’ I said; and walked back with him.
I sat as near as I could to the one I thought might be John Diamond. I thought he might be a year or so older than me, as he was oddly wrinkled. As soon as I could, I asked him his name.
He answered me exactly as he’d answered Mr Seed. He spat at me.
‘He ain’t much of a talker,’ said the boy who’d fetched me over. ‘He allus does that.’
‘What’s his name, then?’
‘Dunno. We calls him Shot-in-the-’ead.’
‘Why?’
‘Dunno. I’ll ’ave gin. And me friends likewise.’
The landlord, not trusting them with private receptacles, brought a jug.
‘That’s a ’andsome purse,’ said one, when I paid.
‘It—it’s real Morocco leather,’ I said; and then, not wanting to seem too rich, I added, ‘My grandma gave it to me.’
‘’Is gran’ma! Cor! That’s ’is muvver’s muvver!’
‘No it ain’t! It’s ’is pa’s!’
‘Go on! Tell us!’
‘It’s my—my mother’s mother.’
‘Get that! Get that! It’s ’is muTHer’s muTHer!’
‘Did she give yer that coat an’ weskit, too?’
‘N-no! My f-father—’
‘Cor! ’Is fa-a-ather! ’E’s got a fa-a-ather, too!’
‘No—no!’ I said, anxious to disclaim any further possessions. ‘He’s dead! Honest, he is!’
‘Oh! There now! What d’yer know! ’Is fa-a-ather’s gone an’ deaded ’isself!’
They were leaning across the table and beginning to pull at my coat and shirt. Also the dog had come back and was showing an equal interest in my shoes.
I was very frightened. The mood had changed so quickly that I didn’t know what to do. Although I was not exactly a stranger to warfare, and had, on occasion, been referred to as ‘a disgusting little ruffian,’ there were eight boys against me and they could easily have killed me.
The first boy was now demonstrating how he looked when he really wanted to be menacing; and was making a very creditable job of it.
Suddenly I thought I had seen him before. I had seen him before! I had seen all of them. They were the ragged boys who had attacked the dwarf’s house!
Shot-in-the-Head—or whatever his name was—was no more John Diamond than he was Lord Mayor of London! He’d been outside the house just as Mr Seed said: trying to burn it down!
I stood up and got hold of the jug, meaning to hit out with it. The landlord came and took it away.
‘I won’t ’ave no wiolence in ’ere,’ he grunted. ‘Not from the likes of you.’
He departed. I don’t know where to. To hell, I hoped.
I clenched my fists and offered, rather hopelessly, to fight my opponents one at a time. I thought they might respect me for it.
They didn’t. They declined my offer on the grounds that they didn’t like my face, or the way I talked, and that they were going to alter both. Or words to that effect.
I began to back away towards the steps. I remember very clearly that the dog followed and was snarling and whining in a peculiar way. I think he could smell how frightened I was.
I felt the first step behind me. I turned. Shot-in-the-Head was standing in my way. I looked straight into his eyes, trying desperately to remind him of how I’d let him go. It was his turn now.
The expression ‘selling my life dearly’ came into my head. On rapid reflection I decided I would sooner try to buy it. I threw my purse at the crowd, punched Shot-in-the-Head in the face, and fled up into the street!
It was only when I was outside and had run about twenty yards, and was congratulating myself on the brilliance of my escape, that I realized that I would have been better off if I’d stayed where I was.
In the parlour I might have been badly kicked and punched and probably bitten; but no one would have dared to do more than that. They wouldn’t have killed me with people about. Out in the street however, in dark, empty Coalman’s Alley, it was different.
They came up out of the Sun in Splendour like quick black rats. I caught a glimpse of knives and a fearful-looking iron hook that would have ripped open an ox.
My purse hadn’t stopped them. They weren’t mercenary. It was me they wanted, not my money. I know people are always saying that it’s better to be wanted for yourself alone rather than for your possessions; but not when it’s your blood they want, all over the street.
Perhaps, if I’d had that six months with my Uncle Turner and been made a man of, I’d have turned with my back to the wall and fought off my enemies until they lay in a groaning heap at my feet.
As it was, I shrieked for help and ran like mad, without caring what anybody thought of me, until I fell over a loose cobble at the end of Coalman’s Alley.
I thought I was done for. I lay, shaking with terror and hoping I’d be taken for dead. Something began tugging and gnawing at my foot. It was the dog. I was going to kick it, when I remembered that a dead boy wouldn’t.
Suddenly I realized that nothing had happened. The noise of pursuit had stopped. I could hear somebody whistling.
‘I care for nobody, no, not I;
And nobody cares for me!’
It was Mr Robinson and Mr Jenkins, on their way to meet me in the Sun in Splendour. My pursuers must have seen them and taken fright.
Mr Robinson helped me up. He was rather angry.
‘Why didn’t you wait inside the parlour, young Jones?’
John Diamond (Vintage Childrens Classics) Page 8