The Betrayal

by Mary Hooper

  I’d sewed myself a big cloth bag to keep safe my few possessions: my washing cloths, a comb, a piece of looking-glass mirror, some reddening for my cheeks and lips that Isabelle had given me and a chunk of soap and a towel. I neatly rolled my kirtles and bodices and fitted these in the bag as well, and found room also for a spare petticoat, my house slippers and a pair of high pattens to lift me above the London cobbles (for everyone said that mud and muck lay thick on London streets whether the weather was good or no).

  That night, Mr Kelly stayed until very late, he and Dr Dee (I observed from my visits to the library to make up the fires) spending hours over their mathematical tables. By eleven of the clock, however, Mr Kelly went at last to his own lodgings and Dr Dee retired for the night, so I made one last call to the library to damp down the fires and make sure the candles were properly extinguished.

  Both fires were still glowing slightly when I went in and there was the moon shining through the end window, so it was not entirely dark. This window was of stained glass, however, and the light it cast blue-tinted and somewhat eerie, causing me to hum a tune under my breath just to prove to myself that I wasn’t afeared.

  I’d brought a bucket of wet leaves with me and I pressed a handful of these on to the first fire to dampen it down, and was about to move to the other when I heard a pattering noise, causing me to down my bucket and lift the skirts of my kirtle immediately. If there’s one thing I can’t abide it’s mice, for I have an irrational fear of them running up between my petticoat skirts and not being able to find their way down again. The pattering turned into a different sound, however, and I stood immobile for a moment, just listening.

  I might have supposed it to be something supernatural, seeing as I was in the very heart of a magician’s lair. I did not, however, because I knew a secret about this room: in the large disused fireplace there was a hidey-hole which had been made for the use of Catholic priests after performing an illegal Mass. I’d found it when the girls and I had been playing hide-and-seek, and had actually hidden there myself in order to see the queen when she visited Dr Dee. It was from this direction – the old fireplace – that the sounds were coming from.

  I stood very still, waiting, and after a moment a dark, stooped shape appeared in the fireplace opening. This made me fear for an instant – not that it was something supernatural – but that it might be a robber with a knife who could slit me open in a trice and make off with Dr Dee’s valuable things.

  Thinking this, I should have screamed and roused the household, but did not, for something told me that this person meant no harm. (Besides, if it was a robber, it was a very small one.)

  I waited until the figure had emerged into the room, then, realising who it was, let out a little gasp of surprise.

  The figure started back. ‘Go to, Missus, you gave me a fright!’

  ‘And you gave me a fright!’ I retorted. ‘What are you doing here?’

  The small boy before me – Sonny, as Isabelle had named him – scowled at me. His coif was off and his head gleamed in the light from my candle. ‘I’m here because I don’t want to go back to Christ’s Horspiddle. I hates it there.’

  ‘So you followed me?’

  ‘Nah. I saw which way you went and I asked your lady-friend what house you lived in. She told me ’twas the magician’s house.’

  I looked at him severely. ‘And then?’

  ‘Well, when the cart came for us to go back, I hid. No one missed me. Then I just asked about till I found me way here.’ His shoulders sagged and he gave me a forlorn look, such as I’d seen beggars on the streets give. ‘I thought, there’s a kind gel there, one who’d give a poor boy an ’ome.’

  I ignored this blatant attempt to gain my sympathy. ‘But how did you get in without anyone seeing you?’

  ‘I bunked in through the kitchen window late last night. No one saw me ’cept the monkey – and he’s not telling.’

  ‘And then what did you do?’

  ‘Had summat to eat from the larder, then walked about the house for a bit and found this little hidey-hole. I been here all day. I went to sleep while those old coves were talking on and on.’ He gestured around at the contents of the library. ‘And ain’t this a right queer set-up?’

  I ignored this. ‘You can’t stay here,’ I said.

  ‘Why not? I wouldn’t do nothing bad.’

  ‘You can’t set up home in a fireplace!’

  He shrugged. ‘Be all right. Better than at Christ’s.’

  ‘Dr Dee would be furiously angry if he found you. Besides, I’m leaving the house tomorrow so I couldn’t look out for you or bring you food.’

  His bottom lip quivered. ‘Please, Missus. Just let’s stay a little while, till I get me strength back. I just need a bit o’ food and somewhere to shelter. I’ll give you me sixpence if you let me bide a while.’

  His voice trembled too, but I’d seen enough beggars to know play-acting when I saw it. ‘You really can’t,’ I said firmly. ‘Dr Dee isn’t the sort of master who would take kindly to strangers in the house. If he found you, he’d hand you over to the magistrates and have you deported.’

  ‘Just let me stay tonight, then,’ he said. ‘One single night. You wouldn’t chuck a poor boy out into the freezing cold, would you, Missus? You might have a death on yer hands.’

  I sighed, recalling the way that I’d used almost this same ploy some months back in order to persuade Mistress Midge to let me stay. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘but you must come into the kitchen and make do with an old blanket on the floor there. If Dr Dee ever found that someone had been in his library …’

  ‘’Course I will, Missus! I was going to the kitchen anyway to find myself a few vittles. I’ll leave everything as fine as can be. No one will know I’ve been here!’

  And so I left him in the kitchen – and was awake most of the night worried in case I’d misjudged him and that he was making away with Dr Dee’s treasures.

  Chapter Five

  I slept in a little the following morning on account of my late night, and, making my way towards the kitchen at seven o’clock, was alarmed to discover that Mistress Midge had reached the kitchen before me. Poor Sonny, if he’d been discovered and had come up against the rough side of her temper this early in the morning!

  Pushing open the kitchen door, however, I was astonished to see Sonny sitting at the table. He was wrapped in a blanket and tucking into a bowl of rabbit stew and dumplings left from the previous evening, while Mistress Midge stood by the fire, a ladle at the ready to replenish his bowl.

  ‘Who’s this, then?’ I asked, raising my eyebrows at Sonny to communicate that he shouldn’t speak out of turn.

  ‘This is Sonny,’ she said. ‘I found him near froze to death on the back doorstep!’

  ‘On the doorstep?’ I asked, startled.

  ‘Almost gone, he was.’

  Sonny looked up pathetically between mouthfuls of stew. ‘I owe this fine lady my life, ’deed I do,’ he croaked.

  ‘But where does he come from?’

  ‘From London. He was hired for a big funeral in Barnes and the cart went back without him! Imagine that.’

  ‘Hmmm …’ I murmured.

  ‘So I said he could hitch a lift back to London tomorrow on our wherry. He can help us carry the books.’

  Sonny managed a wan little smile. ‘Be pleased to be of help as long as me strength holds up, Missus.’ He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Is there a bit more bread to be had?’

  I cut him a chunk of yesterday’s loaf. ‘Here,’ I said, and couldn’t resist adding, ‘but are you sure you’ve got the strength to help us with heavy books?’

  He nodded, his chin awash with grease. ‘I think I’ll be all right – as long as I can manage to get enough vittles down me.’

  He did manage to get a hearty amount of food down him, and then sat toasting hunks of bread – and his feet – before the fire. When Mistress Midge went upstairs to take washing water to the mistress, I
took the opportunity to ask Sonny what he’d been doing on the doorstep.

  ‘Oh, I weren’t there all night!’ he said. ‘I heard yon cook coming and got out on the doorstep quick. Then I made some little noises until she heard me and hauled me in. Saved me life, she did.’ He added cheerfully, ‘Least, that’s what she thinks.’

  Perhaps I should have tweaked his ear for having such cheek, but I did not.

  When Merryl and Beth came to breakfast I told them that Mistress Midge had found Sonny on the doorstep. I asked them not to tell their mother or father about him, and said that I’d be taking him back to the foundlings’ home as soon as we got to London.

  The girls were rather delighted with him, exclaiming how grubby and tiny he was (for he was as scrawny as a day-old rabbit despite the amount of food he was capable of putting away). They admired his shiny scalp, all the more so when he told them that it was shaved every week to keep the lice off, and, discovering he could do tricks with cards and coins, they fell to treating him much as they did their pet monkey, carrying him from chair to stool and making him their baby. He took all this in good part, for I believe it was the first time he’d ever been made such a fuss of, and the three children plus the real monkey entertained each other most of that day, leaving me and Mistress Midge to get on with the packing and stacking of boxes ready to be taken to London. There was a great deal to see to, Dr Dee having ordered that we should take as much as possible in the wherry with us.

  I found time to say goodbye to Isabelle that day and because I knew I’d be seeing Merryl and Beth very soon, my only regret on leaving Mortlake was that my ma wouldn’t know where I was. When last I’d seen her, I’d assured her that in the event of any emergency, I could be found in Mortlake, at the magician’s house, and anyone locally would be able to tell her where this was. Supposing, I thought now, one of my sisters was poorly and Ma needed to tell me of it – or suppose she was sick herself and no one knew how to reach me? I pondered on this problem for some time but found no solution to it, for even if I’d been able to obtain parchment to send her my new address I had no money to pay for a messenger to go as far as Hazelgrove. Besides – and this decided it – neither Ma nor my sisters could read.

  I thought about my family and of home as I packed boxes, tied up books and wrapped utensils, musing on the last day I’d spent there: the day of the village Michelmas Fair. On this day the great lady of our manor, the splendidly gowned and jewelled Lady Margaret Ashe (who had, in her youth, been lady-in-waiting to our queen) had opened the fair and entreated us all to enjoy ourselves. I’d been doing just that when my father had come along with his threats and his bullying, causing me to run away.

  But perhaps I had reason to be grateful to him, I thought, for if he’d not been such a bully and a tyrant then I might never have landed up in the magician’s house and so met Tomas.

  We had to catch the morning tide, and Old Jake, who was sometimes employed by Dr Dee to do odd jobs around the place, arrived with a cart early the next morning to take everything down to the wharf. Mistress Midge and I were ready for him and, having been up since an icy-cold five of the clock, surrounded and befuddled by all the pots, pans, boxes and bundles we had to take with us, were pleased to be on the move at last.

  Sonny was a little quiet; probably because we’d explained to him that as soon as we arrived in London he’d have to be taken back to Christ’s Hospital. Our neighbour, Mistress Gove, had assured us that it was against the law to steal a child from a foundlings’ home, and that we could be punished for doing so. Informing Sonny of this, I’d told him several times that he’d be better off in a permanent place, that at least they’d see he was always fed and sheltered – and in time they’d apprentice him to a shoemaker or baker so that he had a good trade. Whenever I started on this all too familiar track, however, he’d taken to putting his hands over his ears and whistling so that he couldn’t hear me.

  The journey was not pleasant, for an icy wind swept up the river and sleet fell, making the three of us retreat into a little wooden cabin at the fore of the boat. I’d hoped to see lots of important buildings along the way, but most of the time it was just too wet and dreary for me to put my head out of the cabin.

  When, in the afternoon, the weather improved and I looked out, we’d almost reached London and everything seemed to appear at once: Lambeth Palace went by at the same time as another most wonderful church on the opposite bank; then came towering warehouses with strange and wonderful contraptions called cranes standing alongside landing stages; after that, spacious houses with gardens containing neatly clipped trees of box and bay all in rows, and here and there knot gardens like the queen’s privy garden at Richmond. There was a deal here to look at, for the river traffic increased greatly as we neared London and many other wherries, tilt boats, small craft with sails, ferry boats and barges appeared. Most of the barges carried coal, timber or waste, but one was beautiful and gilded (putting me in mind of the royal barge that Her Grace used to travel the river between palaces), and Sonny said this was sure to belong to one of the livery companies. Between all these craft, lines of icy-white swans glided about looking for food, seemingly unconscious of all the activity around them.

  We began to smell London at this stage: the same stench which swept upriver to Mortlake when the wind blew from that direction, but though Mistress Midge began complaining and holding her nose, to me this odious smell didn’t seem much to bear when you thought of all the other delights the city offered.

  Seeing other watermen, our two rowers began to name-call and trade insults and profanities with them, which surprised us very much. Sonny, red-faced and giggling fit to bust at their words, explained that watermen had reputations as the foulest-speaking and most blasphemous men in London, and indeed I heard that day many amazing and ingenious insults which I stored away until such time as I might have a use for them.

  We passed the riverside walls of Whitehall Palace and I could not contain my wonder at this mighty building, for it was beyond large, seeming to be the size of a small town. Going past more buildings, a prison, a church and some magnificent houses with lavish front gardens running down to the river, we at last reached Puddle Dock. There were several fellows waiting here with hand-carts for hire, and Mistress Midge selected one of these and asked the man to load all the baggage and boxes on to his cart and convey us to the house Dr Dee had rented, which we’d been told was on the corner of Milk Street and Green Lane.

  Mistress Midge is a slow walker, so it took us some time to get to this address. Here we received a welcome of sorts when a window in the house next door flew open and a bowl of dirty water was thrown out with the cry ‘Mind yerselves below!’

  ‘This is never it!’ said Mistress Midge, staring up at the house and brushing drops of water from her skirts.

  ‘This is the corner of Milk Street and Green Lane, lady,’ said the carter, and he began to take our things off the cart at some speed, for I suppose he wanted to get back to the wharf for another hiring.

  Mistress Midge and I stood outside, looking up at the house before us. It seemed to lean sideways, its window frames sloping this way and giving it a drunken appearance. Two windows were broken and had been repaired with brown paper, and it seemed that all the woodwork, frames and beams had once been painted green, but these were now blistered and peeling.

  ‘Lord above!’ Mistress Midge sighed. ‘The mistress won’t like this.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t like the look of it myself, for it seems a nasty, mean sort of place and ’tis probably running with rats.’ She suddenly seemed to notice that the carter was placing boxes all across the door, inhibiting our entry. ‘Not there, you rapscallion!’ she roared. ‘Weren’t you born with any sense? How are we supposed to get in?’

  Whistling, careless, he removed the boxes and Mistress Midge produced a key which opened the front door. Inside we found a dusty, cobwebby hall. This gave way to rooms which, although fair-size
d, were piled high with empty crates, husks of corn and rotting cabbages. These stank abysmally, causing us both to hold our noses. My heart sank. It was a long way from how I’d envisaged living in London.

  ‘Dr Dee told me that the house had once been home to a family who bought and sold vegetables,’ Mistress Midge said. She nodded sagely. ‘And here’s what they did with those stuffs they couldn’t sell …’

  There were smaller rooms at the back of the house, one of these a kitchen with a range, oven and turning spit. Outside was a courtyard shared between the row of houses, a soakaway for the emptying of chamber pots, a well and a privy to be shared with the neighbours. In all the rooms, upstairs and down, broken furniture, gnarled, stinking vegetables or rubbish lay on the floor. The walls were so damp that mildew and fungi grew on them and the windows, if not broken, were grimy. To top it all the husky smell of mouse hung in the air.

  Mistress Midge observed these rooms, taking a horrified breath in each until finally she was as puffed up as a pigeon.

  ‘Good God alive!’ she finally exploded. ‘What are we supposed to do with this filthy piggery? Does he really think we can turn this hole into a place a lady would want to live? What if Her Grace came to visit, as she did in Mortlake?’

  ‘Perhaps we won’t find it so bad once we start work,’ I said lamely.

  ‘Not so bad! It’ll be worse, you mark my words! This is a rat hole, a kennel, a fly-bitten pigsty of a place!’

  Shouting and muttering by turn, she paid the carter and then the three of us set about clearing the fireplace so that we could light a fire and warm ourselves. At least we could do that, I thought, for there was rubbish aplenty to burn. And in the morning, perhaps, things would look better.