by Erica Brown
Duncan’s nostrils dilated. ‘You are going to have to get him down.’
The sweep pushed his hat back on his head and ducked beneath the mantelpiece. Half his body disappeared up the chimney.
‘Willy! Willy! Where are you, Willy?’ His voice echoed inside the tall chimney.
Duncan turned his attention to Edith. ‘Well?’
Edith cursed herself for feeling so awkward in Duncan’s presence. What was he anyway? Nothing but a jumped-up slave in a smart suit and a white wig, but the fact that he spoke in such a superior manner, plus his height, unnerved her. She felt herself reddening before she managed to say, ‘Lady Verity sent me to find out what all the noise was about.’
He gazed at her as if she were an absolute idiot. It made her want to hide her rough, square hands and check her appearance in the nearest mirror. ‘Well, you’ve found out. The matter will be dealt with as quickly as possible.’
‘And how will that be?’ she asked nervously.
Duncan’s expression was unchanged. ‘Either the boy comes down or he doesn’t.’
The sweep re-emerged from the chimney looking concerned. ‘I can’t hear anythink any more. I think p’raps Willy’s passed out.’ Although Duncan was unmoved, Edith gasped with fear and clasped her hands in front of her. ‘The poor child! What’s to be done?’
The sweep took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow leaving a white line through the black soot.
Duncan fixed his eyes on the fireplace as he came to a decision. ‘It’s unfortunate, but I can’t really see what we can do. You’ll just have to pack up your things and go home. We can’t have this mess in the dining room all day, and certainly not tonight. Sir Emmanuel has a dinner party tonight. Guests are expected.’
Edith’s jaw almost fell to her chest. She couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You mean leave him up there?’
Duncan shrugged. ‘We have no choice.’
The sweep glared at the footman. ‘He’s got to come down.’
Duncan’s eyebrows shot skywards. ‘Really? And how do we get him down? Are you going to go up there?’
The sweep shook his head! His eyes were like stars in the sootiness of his face. ‘I’m too big. I’d get stuck too. So would you.’
Duncan’s height seemed to double as he pulled himself straight in order to emphasize his complete unsuitability for such a venture. His voice rang with authority. ‘My good man, I have no intention of going up the chimney.’
Edith felt helpless but couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the boy up there. ‘Well, someone has to do something!’
The sweep lifted his hat and scratched his head, half turned towards the door, saw someone standing there, and took a second look.
The man’s hair was dark and fell unfashionably to his shoulders. He had blue eyes and broad shoulders, and was an imposing figure. He wore a leather jerkin over a linen shirt, and suede trousers tucked into calf-length sea boots.
Tom Strong dropped his sea chest on the floor. ‘What’s all this noise about?’
* * *
Edith sighed with a mix of relief and adoration. It was as though the power of the tides had swept into the room. The salt smell of the Atlantic permeated his clothes and clung stiffly to his hair.
‘There’s a boy stuck up the chimney,’ Edith exclaimed, her legs weakening. This was only the second time she’d met Tom Strong. Her legs had wobbled then at the sight of him, and they did the same now.
‘He’s a chimney sweep,’ Duncan added unhurriedly, as if it wasn’t really quite as important as Edith’s emotional outburst indicated. ‘I don’t think we can do very much at all.’
The sweep took off his hat, recognizing that Tom Strong was more than a servant in this house, and touched his forelock with obvious reverence.
‘If you could help, sir,’ he pleaded. ‘Though he’s getting too big and too old for the job, I’d miss Willy. Intended learning him the whole trade, as you might say. I was told to sweep the attic chimney this time round, but the opening up there’s too small, so I sent my boy up this way.’
The sweep had an odd way of speaking, but Tom understood. ‘Then we have to get him down.’
The footman sniffed, his disdain far from diminished and his pride dented. Duncan did not like tradesmen or staff going over his head. He needed to feel in control of everything to do with the running of Marstone Court. ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ he repeated. He sounded petulant, almost childish.
Tom ignored him. He’d met men of every race, creed, colour and social class, and got on with them all. Duncan was a man he didn’t like.
‘We’d better be quick,’ he said suddenly, and headed for the stairs. Edith followed. ‘What are you going to do, Master Tom?’
Tom bounded up two stairs at a time and Edith followed, her skirts bunched up almost to her knees. She’d be almost indecent if she weren’t wearing Lady Verity’s cast-off pantaloons.
‘You’re too big. We’re all too big,’ Duncan called after them.
‘Well, if I’m too big to get up there and get the boy down, then someone small has to do it,’ Tom called over his shoulder.
Edith was left puffing down on the second landing by the time Tom had reached the nursery. He flung open the door and all four children gasped with joy and tumbled off their chairs to greet him.
He barely gave them a chance to hug him, before he said, ‘Rupert! We have an emergency. I need you to do some climbing.’
Rupert didn’t need telling twice. ‘Super,’ he shouted and was out of the door and bounding along the passage with Tom. Unwilling to be left to explain the situation to Mrs Grainger, the other three followed, Caroline holding young Georgie’s hand.
Rather than going all the way back down to the dining room, Tom led Rupert, the other three children and a flushed and puffing Edith into the room where the new nurse was going to be housed. The fireplace was much smaller than those on the lower floors, the mantelpiece and surround made of wood and painted green.
Tom dismantled as much of the grate as he could, removing a few loose firebricks and the stones above with his bare hands. Stooping low in the gap left by the absence of ironwork, he looked up the chimney. From this height he should have been able to see a patch of sky high above him. To his great dismay, he saw only darkness. Something or someone was blocking the main flue.
‘Damn it,’ he muttered and forced his shoulders up into the narrow gap. It was hopeless. His shirt tore on rough edges that grazed his arms. He had no alternative but to retreat and do what he’d intended in the first place. He stripped off his jerkin and shirt, and beckoned Rupert over. ‘Take off your clothes.’
‘Everything?’ Rupert asked as he began unbuttoning his breeches, jacket and linen shirt that scratched his skin and left a red rash around his neck.
‘Down to your drawers.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Rupert, his face pink with excitement.
‘I think we need this,’ said Tom, detaching a rope from around the mantelpiece, obviously the place where a past occupant had hung a little laundry to dry. Rupert was now stripped down to his drawers and his feet were bare. Tom tied the rope around his waist.
‘Now listen,’ he said, glad to see that Rupert’s expression was as intense as his own. ‘I want you to climb up that chimney just like you would a mast on a ship in exactly the way I told you.’
‘Aye, aye, Cap’n,’ said Rupert, and saluted smartly.
‘Take this.’ He slid a knife from the silver scabbard hanging from his belt. Originating from North Africa, it had a cruel curve but was light enough for a boy to use. ‘Stab it gently into whatever’s blocking the flue, then use it like a spade, digging a little at a time, but only a little, mark you. Understand?’
Rupert would have saluted again, but Tom didn’t give him time. He pushed him towards the grate and interlocked his hands to form a stirrup.
‘Try to push the blockage back towards me, but keep to the side. It’ll come down in a rush and you mi
ght come down too. I’ll hold this end of the rope so if you do get buried in soot, I can pull you out quickly. Will you be all right?’
Edith gasped. ‘Oh my God!’
Neither Tom nor Rupert acknowledged her.
Again Tom asked, ‘Understand?’
Rupert, his face shining with excitement, nodded and put his bare foot into Tom’s hand.
‘Then up you go.’
Tom was aware that Edith and the other children were close, but he couldn’t possibly spare the time to look at them. He knew by their silence that they were waiting with baited breath, wondering who would come back down, if anyone. It was a risk to send Rupert up at all, but the lad was brave and if there was the slightest chance of saving the chimney sweep’s boy, they had to take it. He gritted his teeth as soot trickled down, hopeful that Rupert would come down unharmed. He was not so sure about the sweep’s boy, who might be buried beneath a fall above the blockage. God help him, he prayed, and hoped for the best.
Small amounts of soot and stones fell as Rupert climbed higher. Tom watched, his head craned backwards as he encouraged him.
‘Steady there… Keep looking up… Remember what I taught you.’
On occasion the boys had accompanied him to the Miriam Strong, the training ship set up by Jeb, where, after an initial wariness, they had mixed in with the apprentices and learned seamanship, including how to climb the rigging. Rupert had shown an aptitude for climbing. But you couldn’t get suffocated on open rigging, and that was Tom’s greatest fear. If the soot and other debris came down, he had to pull the rope quickly in order to get Rupert out. Hopefully they’d get the sweep’s boy out too. At worst he’d be given a Christian burial.
Rupert braced his bare legs across the flue, his toes gripping the rough brickwork like the claws of a bird gripping a branch.
The sweep was close by, his brow knotted with concern and his hands resting on bent knees. The others, including Duncan, watched from a distance, Edith with her arms around the children who would be in the fireplace with their brother if they could.
Rupert stopped climbing. One foot slid; his legs trembled as he sought to gain a more secure foothold.
Tom felt his heart hurtle into his mouth, but refrained from asking if he was all right. The boy needed to concentrate. Shouting wouldn’t help.
At last Rupert shouted, ‘I’m there.’
Tom let out a sigh of relief. ‘Good lad. Now then, carefully, very carefully, poke the knife into the left side of the blockage and lean to the right.’
It suddenly occurred to Tom that the boy was swapping the knife from his right hand to his left and he cursed himself. What was he thinking of? The boy was right-handed. He should have instructed him to lean to the left and stab at the right. Tom folded his lips inward and wished his throat didn’t feel so dry. What if Rupert got killed? How could he live with it?
He wanted to tell Rupert to be careful, but he dare not panic the boy. Best leave him to get on with it.
The first trickle came down like black water, hitting the bare grate and forming dark clouds to rise mistily around Tom’s legs. The second trickle was grittier and faster, granules of unburned coal dust glistening and scattering as they hit the ground, rebounded and flew into the air.
Tom tensed and tightened his grip on the rope. At the slightest sign of things going wrong, he would pull Rupert back down.
Suddenly the trickle became a torrent, smacking him in the face. Instantly recognizing the danger, he pulled on the rope. Too easily, it fell towards him along with the debris, but there was no sign of Rupert. Tom couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see, but he forced himself upwards, reaching out, trying to feel for the boy’s legs.
Falling stones became larger, hitting him in the face. As an unmistakable stickiness seeped from his forehead, he knew he was injured. But still he scrabbled in the dark grittiness of it all, cursing himself for not checking that the rope wasn’t tighter.
There was never any question of giving up. The debris was coming down and the boy would come down too – hopefully alive. Hopefully both boys.
In an instant, Tom was knocked backwards as the inside of the chimney collapsed in on itself. The main bulk of the deluge was Rupert, who came down black with soot, coughing and rubbing the dirt from his eyes. Tom grabbed hold of the boy and heaved him to his feet. Edith grabbed him, and although mindful not to dirty her clothes too much, she checked him over, fussing with his hair and brushing the soot from his cheeks with the corner of her apron.
Tom rubbed the dirt from his own eyes and bent almost double as he coughed the dust from his throat. The discomfort was bearable because, although the rope had broken, Rupert was all right. But what about the sweep’s boy?
Edith was clucking like a mother hen. ‘Thank God you’re all right. Thank God! Let’s get you washed up.’
Tom found it irritating but also sad that Rupert was receiving comfort from a servant and not from his parents.
More soot began to fall, and Tom cocked his ears.
Edith continued to fuss.
Tom shouted at her. ‘Shut up!’
Edith looked hurt before turning indignant. ‘The boy needs some soft words after what he’s been through!’
‘Shut up, woman! Listen!’
They obeyed; Duncan with his pristine crispness, the children full of excitement, almost as if the whole thing were a specially laid on dramatic performance, and Edith, her snow-white apron now streaked with soot.
Something was moving in the chimney and it was coming closer. A sudden fall of soot and old birds’ nests were followed by a pair of feet, which then became legs encased in a pair of ragged trousers. The sweep’s boy.
They all sighed with relief and their tense faces broke into smiles. But things were not quite over.
‘Get back!’ shouted the boy as he swung out from beneath the mantelpiece and into the room. ‘The bloody lot’s coming down!’
The sound of falling grit became a rumble. Clouds of thick, black dust billowed from the grate. Twigs, soot, feathers and dead birds lay on the floor – and something else. The children gaped and Edith screamed, then covered her face with her hands.
Up until now Duncan had shown nothing but disdain for the proceedings. Now he stood round-eyed, his jaw dropped and his mouth wide open.
‘Oh Lord!’ said the sweep.
‘Bloody ’ell,’ said his apprentice.
Tom blinked the dust from his eyes. He’d come home smelling of the sea and full of tales for the boys about the sights and sounds he’d seen and heard. Now he smelled of dead soot, and nothing he’d seen could compare to what lay at his feet.
Amid the rubble, lay the mummified, semi-smoked remains of a long-dead child, fragile locks of dark gold hair clinging to his scalp.
Tom closed his eyes.
The sweep took off his hat.
‘Get the children cleaned up and back in the nursery,’ Tom ordered Edith. His voice was resonant; the sort of tone he used on ship to get things done quickly and with the least fuss.
‘Come along, come along,’ trilled Edith, impatient to get them out of the room, and away from the small body that had fallen from the chimney.
Duncan followed them, and Tom, the sweep and the sweep’s boy were the only ones left.
The sweep had his hat in his hand and was scratching his head. ’He’s not one of my boys,’ he said, ‘but then I only bin doing these chims for about fifteen years. Didn’t come up from Taunton to take over from me uncle till then. Mind you, he never told me nothing about no boy getting stuck up there, well, at least, not at Marstone Court. By the looks of him, he’s been up thur for years, seeing as that’s part of the old chim.’
Tom didn’t contradict him. ‘We can at least make sure the boy has a decent burial.’
The sweep nodded. ‘I’ll bring me cart round to the stable yard.’
All three stared at the body. The boy’s skin was the colour of well-smoked bacon left too long in the smoke house. Tufts of c
orn-coloured hair clung to the dried-out skull. Birds must have taken some, thought Tom, but did not venture the information. Few stomachs could cope with it.
Tom plucked a piece of cloth that still bore some resemblance to its original colour. He fingered its softness and it was then that his worst fear took form. He made an immediate decision. ‘Bring that chest over,’ he said, nodding to an old oak coffer beneath the window.
As the sweep and his boy heaved the chest away from the wall, Tom ripped down a curtain and carefully wrapped it around the body.
‘Tis a fine coffin,’ said the sweep as he lifted the heavy lid.
Tom placed the fragile little bundle inside the chest. ‘He deserves it.’ He dipped into the money pouch that hung from his belt, withdrew two sovereigns and passed it to the sweep. ‘Please see the boy is properly buried.’
‘That’s more than enough,’ the sweep said, eyeing the gleaming coins.
‘And for your trouble,’ Tom added.
The sweep touched his forelock. ‘Thank ye, sir.’
Tom patted the carved lid of the chest. ‘Rest in Peace,’ he said softly. Inside, his heart ached with a terrible knowledge.
It took all three of them to carry the chest down the back stairs, past the kitchen and sculleries, and out into the handcart alongside the sweep’s brushes, his bags and his pails.
‘Sad business,’ said the sweep.
‘Sadder than you could imagine,’ murmured Tom.
Tom made for his room. Horatia was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, her face beaming with delight.
‘I heard you were home,’ she said. ‘Are you joining us for dinner?’
‘I’d like to see Jeb before then.’
She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t join us for dinner at all now. He’s a lot worse.’
Tom sighed.
‘Why do you never call him Father? He’d like you to.’