The River Sings

by Sandra Leigh Price

  Jupiter howled and started running around the burning vardo looking for my father, poor animal, so I took him and tied him to a tree, lest he injure himself. His whimpers stung my ears as much as the smoke did my eyes.

  I went back to my mother but she was already walking off in the direction of the river to throw the bag of smashed silver in the waters, so I had to chase her.

  “Mother?” I called but she was silent. “Mother, speak to me,” I tried again.

  She turned on her foot then, the flames painting her face red. “You choose, Patrin, you choose. It’s either him or us, there is not room in our family for both,” and with that she struck off for the river, leaving me with ash burning my eyes.

  FOURTEEN

  Patrin, 1819

  Later that night, as the others slept in the camp, Amberline clapped his hand over my mouth in the darkness and I woke fighting for breath until I realised who it was. Once he had my silence he lifted Little Egg into my shaking arms and I carefully strapped her to me, all my fingers thumbs. Her little head lolled against my chest and I hoped the smell of me wouldn’t wake her. He bid me follow and I hesitated. Where were we going? He led me out of the vardo and I waited for Jupiter’s loyal bark, half hoping it would ring out across the camp to rouse my mother, but the dog just lay there in the embers of the fire, prone and still, his tongue unrolled, a spool of unmoving red ribbon, puddled in blood.

  We walked in the veil of darkness, Amberline’s feet stepping gingerly over the fallen branches, heading Lord knew where, until we were out of earshot from anyone in the camp.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Amberline put his finger gently to my lip. “What chance have we here? I can’t change what happened, but we can start anew, Patrin, our little family, you, me and Eglantine,” he said, his arms reaching round both of us, Eglantine a little human wedge made of our love, our skin. He was right, how could I spend another minute in this camp? My mother would only try to drive Amberline out, unable to endure my father’s sacrifice. None of us could live here without his calm presence. If I didn’t go with Amberline, my father’s sacrifice would be for nothing, the sacrifice he made not just for Amberline but for me and my daughter also. The only chance we had was if we broke ties with the old ways of the camp and tried to forge a new life.

  We hurried at such speed in the dark without lantern or caution, further than I’d been from the camp before, our belongings jangling on Amberline’s back. The image of my father’s beloved dog cut through the fog of my mind, to wake me up from this walking nightmare.

  “But Jupiter?” I said, imagining the swivel of his loyal ears.

  “It was a mercy, poor beast,” Amberline said and he was right. What life would Jupiter have without my father? He’d be always on the lookout for him, waiting to catch the scent of his pipe, bounding to his side at a whistle. His suffering was over.

  The morning bled over the horizon and my feet felt they had become a part of the ground we staggered on. We trespassed through the fields and meadows until the road offered itself up to us, a rope to the drowning, pulling us all the way to the beast of London.

  The roar rose up towards us as we entered the city. I’d never heard such a clamour, where did it all come from? The higgledy-piggledy houses crammed together, the effluent running past our feet in the gutter; hooves and wheels pounded on the road, a bigger caravan of wagons I’d never seen. The brackish air almost unbreathable.

  Amberline darted through the streets, a fish in his own river, while I floundered, my senses overwhelmed by all I saw, heard, smelled. If Amberline let go of my hand, I would be lost in the tide of people, wagons, buildings, so I held on tighter and tried to take note of my surrounds. But every corner appeared to have the sign of a public house, the painted signs hanging low, but as soon as I recalled one, I forgot another – the Red Lion, The Lion and the Unicorn, The Unicorn and Lion – all the buildings bleeding into each other, varying only in size and squalor. The streets were pulsing with wheels – carts, wagons, hansom cabs, jigs. Amberline led me all through this until we left the thoroughfare into a maze of small lanes and he instructed me to stay put beside a well. He kissed me and put his coat around us to keep us warm while we waited, before he disappeared. My heart lurched. What if he never came back? All I had was Little Egg and the clothes on my back. I leaned against the well and listened to the water speaking and I felt my legs sway. How far had we come? I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, Amberline was walking towards me, a grin on his face, a key in his hand. He led me further down the lane and stopped at a small door.

  This was to be our home.

  He opened the door and I stepped inside the darkness, my eyes adjusting. One large room divided by a torn, stained curtain, a small grubby pane of glass letting in light like fog. I looked behind the curtain and saw an old mattress on the dirt floor, and a spidery web of mould running across the walls and up the ceiling.

  The fireplace was a black gaping mouth in the wall, the hearth stone never having seen the bristle side of a brush. Our vardo may have been small, the contents patched and worn, but there was never any filth, it was clean and neat, my mother as house proud as the King’s housekeeper, even if it was no house we lived in. I felt the damp of that squalid room close around me and squeeze at my lungs and I wondered how would we live in this place. The only walls I knew were of the vardo and the hedgerow. The only ceiling I knew was the vault of the sky. My floor had extended across field and moor, woodland and fen, but now it was circumscribed, fenced in by the walls of Amberline’s choosing.

  “I know it isn’t much, but with a bit of a clean and tidy I’m sure we will make the best of it,” he said and, seeing my expression, cupped my face in his hands. “Just until I get back on my feet,” he said.

  What of my mother? My old life? The words bubbled in me. I heard Little Egg open her eyes with a little click like the cogs of a tiny clockwork. Amberline reached down and brushed his eyelashes across her cheek just to see the dimples of her new smile. I looked at them both, they were all I had in the world now, I’d have to make this place a home, for all our sakes, for our new life.

  The first morning Amberline rose before dawn. Little Egg was at my breast having woken to the noise of the city, sucking the last of the free-roaming milk that I had. Her little hand went for the jangle of the coin necklace that was my dowry, as was her wont, but it was no longer there. Amberline had used the last of the coins on our journey and had melted down the chain. Now, he went out to enquire about work and I set to making this place our new home.

  My heart was heavy as I stepped outside, looking at the jostle of buildings, the fog, the dawn not even a patch of sky. All the houses looked nearer to falling down than to standing, and I felt them press against me, the soot shadowing the edges of them. Only a few had windows; ours having a small pane of glass was, I now saw, a luxury, for most had plain shutters or were bare, some with tattered curtains only or a cupboard pushed up against the frame to stop the elements. I walked towards the well, bucket in hand, and felt eyes upon me. I stopped and looked up, but nothing stirred, no face looked back at me. I heard shouting from one of the buildings and I hurried to the well, Little Egg bobbing on my chest, her eyes watching me, her mouth opening and closing; she’d cry soon with hunger. The stones grew slippery beneath my feet and I felt the seep of damp go through my shoes and stockings to my skin. The smell of the water rose up to me, so sour I wanted to cry. The stones around the well were slippery with moss; the water pooled in a fetid puddle on the ground.

  I lowered the bucket into the well, the rope slick and damp like a water spirit’s braid unravelling in my hands. The wood hit the water and threw a few droplets into the air as the bucket filled. When I went to wind it up, the bucket stuck. I peered over the edge and carefully looked in, but all that revealed itself to me was a dark shape. Little Egg began to babble. I looked at her face, her eyes clouded by the shadow. I pulled at the bucket and felt the rope strain. Li
ttle Egg kept up her chatter, but it grew louder, bouncing off the walls. I kissed her head to quiet her, but she continued. I pulled angrily at the rope and the bucket came up, released from whatever it was caught on, and tipped over the edge, drenching my feet for my efforts.

  I swore under my breath and tried again, watching the bucket lower towards the water. When I saw the circle of its rim dip into the water a face slowly rose up out of the deep to look at me. I clutched Little Egg closer to me in dread of the spirit that shimmered for a moment, seeing a face, but as the water stilled I saw it was just my reflection looking up at me from the depths. I pulled up the bucket, slower this time, careful not to spill a drop, and decanted it into our own bucket, glad the ordeal of water was over. A pigeon flapped down and drank at the spill, his iridescent feathers covered in soot.

  When I turned to walk back I saw a man watching me from the doorway of his house, a pipe between his teeth, his eyes looking at my red skirts, the brightest thing in the crooked lane. The putsi around my neck drew his gaze so I carefully tucked it beneath my shawl and kept my eyes directed at my feet. A woman sloshed the night waste out of her bucket and into the gutter and I stepped backwards. A cart turned into the lane, wheels striking cobble. All of me felt a stranger. I counted the steps to the door and made sure it was securely latched behind me. I placed the bucket next to the fireplace and set to making the fire roar. The water in the bucket was dark and still, but it would need boiling twice over. I laid the twigs and sticks and struck the tinderbox, grateful for a small stack of wood left by the fire by previous occupants, for where would you find enough wood for the fire in this treeless place? The flames were reluctant to take suck, the chimney no doubt caked in soot and ash; as if on cue a pile of soot started sifting down the chimney and a fine coat sprinkled over Little Egg’s face. I dipped my shawl in the bucket and wiped her face clean, before I put her to the breast, willing the fire to take.

  Slowly the flames grew and I stood up with Little Egg in the crook of my arm and reached for the split wood, but as I pulled it out I saw something had been buried beneath: a cloth, a sack? Whatever it was, I pulled at it, hidden as it was, and I felt sick with the discovery. Amberline had taken the sack my mother had thrown in the river, the sack filled with the smashed silver teapot and sugar bowl, the silver spoons, the knife. He was blinded by silver. I carefully poked the sack back in where I’d found it, pushing it deep down into the cavity, and piled up the wood over it, hoping that whatever Amberline would melt it down into would be enough to let my father’s spirit take its rest. I told myself he took it just to put food in our mouths until he found work for a jeweller. Little Egg cried out, the fire had made the room smoky and I was glad of the sting, for at least she wouldn’t see my own eyes, spilling with tears. When I stopped crying I set Little Egg down on my shawl on the mattress, rolled my sleeves up and set to cleaning.

  That night Little Egg cried out for me from her cradle, an emptied drawer I had lined with all the soft things I had brought with me, her mattress a sheepskin my father had skinned from a lamb bought from a farmer. My fingers struck the softness of it as I lifted her to me and I felt my sorrow eddy around me. How was it that my father was on this earth no longer? The heat inside pressed down on us as Amberline stoked on the other side of the curtain. The shadow of the flames flickered over the ceiling; I gave Little Egg my breast and watched the flames dance, my eyes growing heavy, the air bitter with the smell of Amberline submitting metal to his pot. I would not look.

  FIFTEEN

  Eglantine, 1833

  The night was like a hood pulled down over London; the river churned as we passed and it eerily threw up its own light towards us, a world of drowned stars. Was my mother’s starry face amongst them? All was darkness except for the dogged determination on Makepeace’s face as we made our way to see my father.

  Newgate Prison’s cold metal-studded doors were bolted against us, but Makepeace rapped hard enough to wake the dead, until the door opened and she pushed a coin in someone’s hand and one by one the bolts were unlocked to admit us.

  We walked down into the holding cells, the echo of the key in the lock, the jarring of the bars, the sickening stench that rose up to our nostrils with each step. The turnkey to the cells where the men were held put out his hand and Makepeace shed yet another coin. I felt the damp wick up my skirt; a rat’s furred shape crossed our path and I heard Makepeace swear under her breath. We were led through the dim light and the dank walls that trickled with rivulets to a shadowy cell where the turnkey halted. I peered in, only to see a cluster of poor grubby souls crammed together, resting however they were able, tossed about like shipwrecked survivors, abandoned and exhausted though the ship was still to sail. The cold bars bit at my cheek, but look as I might, I couldn’t see my father anywhere. The men grew aware of our presence at the door, poised and alert as if we had the means to let them out. Oh, I would have if I could have, every last one of them. The despair of them.

  “He’s not here,” Makepeace whispered close to my face.

  “Father?” I shouted. “Father?” My voice echoed and if any men had been asleep they weren’t now.

  “Eglantine?” My father moved from the back of the cell, made from shadows until he stood before us. Makepeace stepped back and looked at him. If not for the fine cut of his coat, I doubt she would have recognised him. His face was grimy and crowned with a black eye.

  I looked at his hand that reached towards us and saw then how my father stood apart from his cellmates, in his clothes, his manner, his demeanour. I took his hand, my arm pressed by the damp bars on either side, my cheek scratched by metal, lime rust scraping against my skin, just to get closer.

  “Father,” I said, wanting reassurance. I looked at the lock and back to the turnkey who held a ring of keys, like a giant’s chatelaine, wondering which key would open it, rusted as it was.

  “I’m sorry, Eglantine, I didn’t get you your boots,” my father said and attempted a smile. Someone laughed behind him. I looked down at his hands, his fingernails silted up with grime. Makepeace frowned at him, at his attempt to make light.

  “Amberline,” she said, her hand reaching through the bars for his other hand, holding it to her. My father kissed both our hands, before he reached through the bar to wrap around me, in an awkward embrace, my father, Makepeace, the bars and I.

  “What happened, Amberline?” Makepeace asked. “What went wrong?”

  My father hesitated. His eyes fell to his hands, looking at them in disbelief, his faith in them shaken. “I thought I saw her,” he said very quietly.

  “Who?” I said. To see my father transformed from a gentleman to a prisoner unnerved me.

  “I was in a crowded street, beside me was a woman with a child in her arms, wrapped in a fine blanket. In the child’s drowsy fist was a coral-handled silver rattle close to dropping. It was the sort of rattle you should have had, Eglantine, wrought so finely. The mother was distracted by a street singer, as were those around us. No one paid attention to my fingers as I caught the rattle in my grasp and concealed it without a sound. But as soon as I placed it in my pocket, my whole pocket mysteriously filled with water and started to drip, splashing my trousers, my shoes, the road. The singer stopped singing and the baby cried. Then the mother turned to look at me and I saw her face, Patrin’s face looking back at me. I was apprehended and charged and brought here.” My father put his hands away under his armpits and I felt water run down the back of my own neck, the cells dripping with their own rain.

  “Eglantine, listen now and listen closely. It’s up to you now, you’ll provide for us,” he said, close to my ear. I smelled the sourness of his breath. “You’ve learned all I could teach you, it’s up to you to keep yourself and Makepeace safe.”

  “But we could sell the house, Father, let Makepeace go. Let me come with you,” I said. Makepeace stiffened beside me.

  “No, the house is our one non-portable asset, Eglantine. We’ll not sell it, I’ve worked
too hard to keep it, I’d not have a misstep make us lose it. We’ll not return to the old ways.” The turnkey appeared and I felt the cold seep up from the floor. “And I’d not have you leave Makepeace or England and follow me to God knows where. Makepeace will be your guardian and you be a good girl. Remember what I taught you,” my father said. We were escorted out then, Makepeace’s coin having run out.

  Makepeace and I awaited the day of the trial, and like an out-of-control wheel it came too soon. The court was a hive of noise – weeping, shouting, screaming, howling – until the judges walked in. Their grey wigs fell down the sides of their faces like aging cocker spaniels’ ears. The stalls were quiet until the judges sat and then there was a burst of noise. The awesome might of the Empire was in the scrawl of their hands as they sat above, looking down on us all.

  For the next few hours we sat perched listening to a world of inventory – a stolen pocket handkerchief, a filched loaf of bread, a length of satin ribbon, a fork, a thimble, a plank of wood, a bushel of tea, a bristle brush, a dozen iron nails, a pamphlet, a pair of stockings, a funnel, a cooling pie, a lace parasol, a gentleman’s tie, a bobbin of thread, a pat of butter, a vial of laudanum, a shawl, a pair of sturdy hobnailed boots, a skein of rope, a saucepan, a ladle, a pair of woollen mittens, a pair of kid gloves, a posy of violets, a cake of soap, a bottle of castor oil. Imprisonment, banishment or death dependent on the value of the goods. Above a shilling, most received His Majesty’s one-way ticket, but some were unlucky to get the rope. When those unfortunates heard the news most of them crumbled and pleaded for clemency, mercy, that they were a mother or a father, as if their parenthood would save them. In some instances the judges commuted their sentence, but others were left with it, the thought of it already crushing their throats.