Whittington

by Alan Armstrong

  “Will wouldn’t. He made up a story that Dick Whittington was a distant cousin and he was taking him to kin in London.

  “‘On your head and at your expense,’ snarled the agent, clambering back into his carriage, red-faced and huffing.

  “Long after they were out of sight of the village, Dick heard the single dry bell from his grandmother’s church. He pictured her looking for him. His heart gave a jump. He blinked back tears.

  “They were two months on the road. The roads were terrible, potted and dusty where they weren’t puddled and clayey. In wet places the carriage would sink to its hubs in long ruts. Sometimes Dick walked ahead, scouting the driest way through a bog. When they got stuck, he dug and pushed alongside Will or went forward and pulled with the horses. He tried to please the grumpy man in the carriage. When the agent had to obey a call of nature, Dick brought the footstool and laid a path of brush over the mud.

  “In some places there were overhanging branches and reports of thieves and highwaymen. Will kept beside him a long knife and a cloth sack of fist-sized stones. A few days after they’d left Dick’s village, a wizened man lurched into the road waving a blade. The horses shied. As Will struggled to calm them, Dick fired a stone that hit the man in the thigh. The man squealed and stumbled backward into the brush. A week later and fifty miles on, in a remote place, two dirty-looking thugs rushed out from their hiding and grabbed the reins, pulling the horses into a swale. The horses reared. The carriage tipped. Will was roaring, trying to control the horses, when Dick put the knife in his teeth and dove under the flying straps. Balancing on the traces, he slashed at a hand. Its owner gaped as he sank under the flailing hoofs. Dick swung at the other man. The knife went deep. The reins went free.

  “Will fought the pitching carriage back onto the highway and whipped the horses. It was rare that he struck them; usually a snap was enough for them to start or speed up. He hit now to settle them on running. There might be more robbers.

  “Dick got cut deep from the corner of his mouth to his right ear when he pulled the knife from his teeth. When they rested the sweating horses, Will packed the boy’s wound with a stinging plaster of cheese mold and moss that fell off only when the scab did. The cut itched but it never infected. For the rest of his life Dick carried a faint straight line across the right side of his face, not ugly but enough to notice.

  “After that the agent paid for the boy’s meals and for odd bits of clothing Will bought for him as they went along because it was getting cold. At every stop Will would ask if there was a boy Dick’s size around and did his ma have shoes or trousers or a jacket she’d sell for little. Dick put on everything he got but there were never any shoes for him.

  “‘How did you get your scar?’ the boy asked one drowsy afternoon as they lumbered along. Against Will’s leathery throat the scar ran straight down like a piece of white cord.

  “They were in open, rolling country now, with sheep grazing. The animals dotted the green mounds of grass and bracken like clots of cream. The old sheep looked on, motionless, as the carriage passed. The lambs frisked and gamboled like young rats. There was a constant music from the little ones. Will and Dick never saw a shepherd.

  “‘It was a halibut that done it,’ Will said. ‘I was choking and gagging and turning blue. Ma figured I was dead anyway, so she felt down my pipe to where things was stuck and cut it open to get the bone and all out. Then she stitched me up and here I be. There wasn’t hardly any blood.’

  “One evening Dick asked if he might polish the agent’s boots. Old Radish Face allowed as he might and then allowed that he’d never had his boots come back so nice. Thereafter the boy got a mug of beer with his supper. A lot of vitamins in dark beer. He slept with the horses because it was fall now and they kept him warm.”

  “Beer?” Abby asked. “They gave him beer?”

  “Everybody drank it then,” the cat replied. “Beer or cider—what you’d call hard cider. It was safer than the water. He drank milk too when he could get it, but milk doesn’t keep and cider does.”

  The cat continued. “Dick and Will talked and sang together through the long, slow days on the road. The boy came to trust the coachman. Will began to think of him as a younger brother. Dick told Will about his dream, and what he’d heard the carter say. He told his story with the fierceness of an old prophet, his lean face drawn and determined.

  “‘Those roads in London,’ Will mused one afternoon, ‘they be as hard as roads anywhere….’

  “Dick shook his head.

  “‘I’m going to London,’ he said.

  “Ah, you’ve set your teeth and you’re not to get shook loose. Like as not you’ll end up lord mayor, but it will be a hard way….’ Will paused and looked at the grim-faced boy. Dick was staring down.

  “‘There’s nothing to go back to,’ he said quietly.”

  “SLOWLY THEY CREPT UP on London and London crept up on them. First the market gardens, then the smoky outskirts with dumps and stockyards and slaughterhouses, tanneries, fat renderers, rag-and-bone places, smelters—all the dirty work of a city that the nicer sort of people who live there want to keep out of sight and never smell.

  “London proper, when they finally got into it, was dark and cold. At London Bridge Dick swung off the carriage with a handshake for Will and a nod to the radish-faced agent. Radish Face gave him a grudging wave and flipped him a penny.

  “By the time he’d left the carriage Dick knew it wasn’t true about the streets of gold. It couldn’t be—all those hungry-looking people around. Maybe he had to get away from the river to find the London he’d heard about at home. He walked the London streets for three days and never got away from the river and never found so much as a half-penny He found people poorer than those he’d left at home. Once he’d spent his penny he begged for food and got kicked for his pains. He nearly starved to death.

  “One evening he fainted in a doorway he was drawn to by the delicious smell of roasting meat. When he knocked at the door, the cook took her broom to him. He moaned and fainted. In a fury she hit him with the stick end, but he couldn’t stand up. She was shoving his limp body toward the gutter when the merchant whose home it was arrived. He carried the boy inside.

  “By the time Dick slumped down in the merchant’s doorway his clothes were so worn and filthy they weren’t worth washing. The cook was sent to borrow an outfit from a surprised neighbor who’d watched her give the broom to that very boy not an hour before.”

  Suddenly the cat stopped speaking. A rat had crept out after a bit of grain. The Lady didn’t see it but the cat did. He tensed, his tail trembling. The Lady noticed his tail and guessed what was up.

  “Wait, Whittington!” she yelled.

  As the rat dove under a board, the cat drooped like a pitcher called from the mound.

  “You, rat, come back out here,” the Lady said. “You too, Old One. All of you. We’re going to have a parley. For the moment you’re safe under my protection.”

  The cat glowered as rats crept out of their holes and hiding spots around the barn. They gathered at the far edge of the stable, milling and chittering together, all eyes on Whittington.

  The Lady flapped up on a hay bale. The chickens huddled together behind the cat, muttering and watching the rats.

  “Quiet!” ordered the Lady. She turned to the rats. “You know what Whittington can do. He’s the law now. If things don’t change, sooner or later he’ll get all of you.

  Or we’ll figure out a way to get along together. We don’t want you taking our grain until we’ve first had our share. We don’t want you going after our chicks and eggs anymore.

  “That’s what we want. What do you want in exchange?”

  The Old One spoke. “To be safe from the cat.”

  There was a loud murmur from the rats behind him. “And a share of the grain,” he added. “Especially in winter, when we can’t get out.”

  The Lady looked at the chickens. “Are those terms okay?”

&n
bsp; Nobody said anything.

  “Yes,” said the Lady.

  She turned to the cat. “Whittington, you’re the law, but I’m in charge. I say if the rats keep their word, we will keep ours. We’ll leave them a share of what Bernie puts down and you won’t go after them anymore. There’s a lot of play in rats. It would be dull around here without their shows and parties. You’ll see.”

  There was a faint cheer from the huddle of rats. The bantams and Coraggio hummed their surprise.

  “Who knows,” the Lady continued, “maybe someday the rats will be able to do something for you, like in the fable.”

  The cat looked up sulkily. “What’s a fable?”

  “A story that tells a truth,” she said. “One day a nearsighted rat stumbled over the muzzle of a sleeping lion. His fur tickled the lion’s nose and made him sneeze. The lion clumped his paw down on the rat.

  “‘Please,’ gasped the rat. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps if you let me go, I’ll live to perform some service for you in the future.’

  “‘Audacity and presumption!’ snorted the lion. But then he smiled at the idea and lifted his paw. The rat limped off.

  “A year later the lion got trapped in a hunter’s net. It was a strong net, skillfully set. The lion lunged and clawed at the sinews that held him. It held tight. He roared for help. His friends came. Some tried digging under it, some tried pulling the net apart. No one could help him.

  “The rat came. He knew what to do. He gnawed the cords with his sharp incisors and set the lion free.

  “‘Thank you,’ said the lion, shaking himself tidy.

  “‘Tit for tat,’ said the rat.”

  SCHOOL WAS CLOSED AGAIN because of snow. Ben was glad; it was a day like Saturday or Sunday, when he didn’t have the tightness in his throat about having to read. They couldn’t get the truck in, so Bernie and the kids pushed their way down to the barn with jugs of steaming water on the round sled.

  After skidding the water down, the kids dragged the sled back up and whizzed down, twisting and balancing to take the curve, dragging arms and legs to hold down their speed. They did it a couple of times, shrieking and laughing so hard Bernie came out to watch. “My turn!” he yelled.

  He hauled the sled up the hill, sat down, and was off before he was ready, arms and legs akimbo as the dish spun around and shot him down head first. The sled flipped on the curve and dumped him. The kids rushed to help. He got up slow, wiping snow from his face and hair, out from around his neck. He groped for his hat and tried to laugh. It hurt. The cigar was ruined.

  It was cold and blowing, the way it gets right after a snow. When it’s falling, the sky glows and the air warms up and takes on a spice smell. Once the front has passed, the air clears and the temperature drops. It was bitter that morning. The sky was blue with white streaks. Sounds carried in the cold, dry air. A jay soared, blue on blue. His call sounded like struck metal.

  “Did you bring the book?” the Lady asked Abby as soon as Bernie was on his way back up the hill.

  Abby had her Sunday-school book. It wasn’t the Bible but it had psalms and parables.

  “First Whittington’s story,” Ben said. The afternoon before he’d taken a kitchen knife and locked himself in the bathroom. He’d put the knife between his teeth and looked in the mirror. It looked better edge in. He got a small cut at the corner of his mouth. That night he’d dreamed that he was on the road to London with Will and the agent. He had become that scrawny boy in his imagining, deciding on his life.

  The Lady agreed they could hear the rest of Whittington’s story before they learned to read. She figured learning to read and the rest of Whittington’s story could be done in a morning.

  Whittington floated up to his place the way cats jump. He was looking sleeker. Maybe it was the diet of tuna and canned milk. Because it was blowing cold, the Lady had the kids pull down extra hay and ordered everyone to lie close together. It took a while to get settled because the chickens snuggling down tickled the horses, and the horses, without meaning to, shuddered the way they do to drive off flies, which sent the chickens flying. While all this was going on, the rats drew close and entertained themselves playing chase-my-tail and leapfrog, the next largest over the littlest and so on up to the Old One, who did not jump or chase his tail but sat rocking on his haunches waiting for the story.

  “Once the merchant had the boy fed, washed, and clothed,” the cat began, “he sat down with Dick and asked him what he could do.

  “‘Help around.’

  “‘Anyone can help around,’ the old man said, not unkindly. ‘What can you do that’s special?’

  “Dick didn’t know. He had no skill, no trade; all he owned was his name. He told how he’d begun to learn to read and write. He said he could do small sums.

  “‘What work did you do at home?’ the merchant asked.

  “‘Simpling for my grandmother. She concocted.’

  “‘You know plants?’

  “‘Some.’

  “The merchant pressed his thumb against his nose and nodded. That was his way of tucking away something important.

  “‘Teach me what needs doing,’ the boy said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  “He had spirit. He wasn’t sorry for himself. He would ask but he wouldn’t whine.

  “The merchant’s name was Hugh Fitzwarren. His cook was a small-eyed woman, squat, round-faced, gap-toothed. She wore layers and layers of tops and skirts and kept an iron pan tied to her belt for protection in the streets. She was as much family as Fitzwarren had. She was not a good cook and she had a dark temper, but the merchant felt responsible for her. And now he had this boy on his hands.

  “Dick tried to stay awake to argue how he could be useful to the merchant and his cook, but fatigue and a full stomach overwhelmed him. His head sagged. He fell asleep on the table. Fitzwarren carried him to his own bed.

  “He summoned his cook for a talk. She was told to feed the boy back to strength. He gave her money to buy him clothes. He added that she might scold but she was never again to beat him. If the boy was so bad as to deserve beating, Fitzwarren said he’d turn him out. But he was not to be hit. The merchant was against all beating and flogging, although most children were beaten in his time.

  “Fitzwarren was comfortable, not rich. He was a cloth merchant. He wore the livery of his guild, a long velvet coat the deep green color of sea moss.”

  “What’s a guild?” Abby asked.

  “A group of merchants chartered to carry on a particular business. No one but a guild member could practice that trade. The guild set standards of quality. Fitzwarren was a member of the Mercers Company. Mercers dealt in cloth and fabric.

  “He imported small quantities of precious fabrics and sold English woolens abroad. Wool was the great product of England then, raw and woven. England’s wools were the standard of the world. Her fortunes depended on it. Even so, English people of quality liked to flaunt fine silks, brocades and satins, glowing velvets, flashing taffetas. The gentry were the merchant’s principal customers.

  “Fitzwarren’s shop smelled of new wool and spices. Along with fabrics, as agent for a friend who was a member of the Pepperers and Spicers Guild, he did a small, steady business in remainders of spice shipments he was offered by ship captains when he was on the docks seeing to his other cargoes. He bought pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmegs, and cardamoms, along with pure white rock salt mined in Germany.

  “For pleasure, Fitzwarren bought the strange roots, slips, seeds, bulbs, and plants that captains, mates, and sailors sometimes had for sale on their return from foreign lands. He was always handy with money in his pocket when a ship docked.

  “He gardened for flowers and sweet smells. He had exotics in his garden—clove-smelling gillyflowers; peaches he raised against the wall from pits carried up the Silk Road from China by the traders; tulips from Turkey; daffodils; salad greens grown under glass for his table year-round. Few ate salads in his time.

  “He had a bush from the Orient
whose berries were said to make goats drunk, and a scarlet French strawberry with gold dots like the queen’s robe. There were things in his beds that never came to flower because the London sun didn’t burn long and hot enough.

  “His garden was strange-looking, the plants tucked helter-skelter in long raised beds edged with cow shins and knucklebones. Violets, periwinkles, and tiny hyacinths carpeted the narrow paths. He might have made things handsome and patterned like his neighbors’ had he ever stood back and looked at it all as a garden. He never did. He was always hunched over one plant or another.

  “One evening in the garden Fitzwarren asked Dick if he recognized any of the plants.

  “‘Oh yes sir, the celandine there for sore throat when boiled with wine. The catmint my grandmother would honey the young tops into a conserve for nightmare. The green hellebore she concocted into a potion for worming children….’

  “Again Fitzwarren pressed his thumb against his nose.”

  “SINCE HIS BUSINESS had to do with consignments and cargoes in many ships, Fitzwarren spent part of every day hurrying around the docks, delivering and collecting his packages and keeping an eye out for sailors who had plants and strange things to sell. You had to be quick to survive there, and tough. The docks were no place for the timid.

  “The merchant was getting on. Fifty-odd was a high age then. The boy appeared quick and tough even though he was half starved. He could read and figure enough to manage the waybills. He was anything but timid. Fitzwarren decided to try Dick on the docks. He could handle the smaller parcels and keep a watch for curiosities. He knew something about plants.

  “The boy started going down to the water with Fitzwarren to collect consignments. He studied how the merchant jollied the captains as he paid them so his dealings always seemed more pleasure than business. He paid attention to how his master arranged for cartage of the bigger loads to his countinghouse and how he dickered with the sailors for bulbs, roots, nuts, odd carvings, beads, weavings, shrunken heads, mermaid hands. They bought all those things.