Song of the Sea Maid

by Rebecca Mascull

  ‘Pressed. Gone, who knows where. Most likely dead.’

  ‘No, not dead.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘If he be only half as keen as you, he’ll have talked his way out of any trouble.’

  The coach slows and I think of my brother – perchance alive at sea – and am happy. We come almost to a stop as we approach a massive waggon pulled ponderously by eight horses. It is so broad it takes up almost the entire thoroughfare. No carriage can get past it.

  Says Mr Applebee, ‘How many hooves?’

  ‘Thirty-two, of course.’ And my tutor smiles, pleased with me, and I discover I am thrilled with his approbation. I have just met this man with the threadbare coat, and yet already I find I am so very keen to impress him.

  ‘Come, we will be stuck here for centuries. Let us walk the last stretch.’ Mr Applebee pays the driver and we dismount.

  At the same moment, we see a very well-dressed young man alight from a chair and take a step on to the path beside us. There his satin shoe finds a loose stone and rank black water shoots from beneath it all the way up his white stockings in a scummy splash. He cries out in disgust and looks about him, as if someone nearby is to blame, not Providence.

  ‘A beau-trap,’ Mr Applebee smirks. ‘One of the joys of a-walking the streets of London: watching the quality grapple with our domain.’

  The ways are crowded here by the river, almost as busy as the waterway itself, jostling boats filling its choppy waters with oars and scullers and cutters, the watermen shouting their prices to the customers on the shore, calling them over for a ride across the dirty old river. We walk past countless women sitting in chairs in the streets beside their front doors – engaging in gossip and complaints – watching the people, eyeing us as we walk by. A milkmaid has stopped at a house, her pails on a yoke about her shoulders, chalking up debts on a customer’s doorpost. So Matron was mistaken, think I: a milkmaid does need to write. Other street vendors carry their food atop their heads, shouting and singing their wares: ox cheeks, live lobsters and gingerbread – and my stomach yearns for them. Porters stride everywhere wearing big pewter badges, carrying goods of all sorts through the arteries of London. A constant barrage of sound assaults the ears, from the road and the river packed with vehicles, the street musicians – here bagpipes, there a trumpet – the knife grinders and stonemasons, the oxen bellowing, the horses whinnying and, above it all, the many hundreds and thousands of people everywhere raising each voice to be heard above the din, as if to say, Here I am, this is my business and I will see it done, by your leave! I see a fat man drag off his sweaty wig and thrust it in his pocket, then he trips over a dead cat and the sweat flies from his shaved head in fat droplets. We swim through a watercourse of humanity, of all shapes and types, from dukes to beggars. All life and all death are here.

  ‘I shall have that,’ says Mr Applebee. He scoops up the dead cat and, removing a cloth bag from his pocket, stuffs the mangy corpse inside.

  ‘What will you do with it?’ I cry.

  ‘I will gain entry.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘To the Tower of London!’ announces Mr Applebee and I look up to see an imposing building frowning down at me: a castle rising from the river, proud in its turrets and round-houses and narrow-windowed eyes. My sense had been so busy with the life of the street I had barely looked above my cap for many steps and had not seen the Tower as we approached. My tutor leads me through the gates and approaches a gatekeeper; he opens his sack and the keeper nods. The latter pulls out the dead cat and gives it to a lad, who runs round the side of the building, through a side gate and into a garden beyond. We follow him and find ourselves shuffling behind a crowd of onlookers filing in before us through the narrow gate. The smell beyond is immediate and as hard as a stone wall. A stench of old meat and something else, something alien to me, something pungent and rank. Then a sound – the most extraordinary sound, the like of which is unheard of in my life and so strange to my ears I almost run and hide from it, so great is my natural fear and revulsion of it. A roaring, a kind of shouting but from the belly not the throat, bawling in anger and fierce rage, a fuming yet empty kind of a sound, inhuman, unknown.

  ‘The Menagerie,’ Mr Applebee whispers by my ear with ceremony and we leave the garden to enter a row of cages in which sit, stand or pace squarely a collection of beasts and birds so outlandish, so utterly foreign that they may as well have leapt from the pages of a storybook. Their animal movements are uncanny and vital and to see them alerts my senses to the very life in me. The monstrous noise comes again and I spot its maker. I recognise the beast from my schoolroom picture books. I thought once that to read and write could teach you the world, yet at this moment I appreciate for the first time that one must seek out the world, in order to truly know it. ‘Marco, the lion. And this one is Caesar,’ says my tutor and we stand before the cages of the two lions. Caesar sleeps and Marco is awake and alert, padding the four steps from one end of his cage to the other, glaring at us in silent fury, his shaggy head as wide as a door, thick tail thrashing and prominent ribs jutting from his pale brown flank. Behind him, the boy we saw earlier opens a hatchway into the cage and tosses in our poor dead cat. Marco sets about it and after some grisly minutes the diminutive corpse is no more. I am glad to see him eat. He looks hungered.

  Says Mr Applebee, ‘They are of the same family, you know. The lion and the cat. Both feline.’

  ‘Cats are friendlier.’

  ‘True. Lions are to cats what wolves are to dogs.’

  ‘Wild and tame?’ I ask.

  ‘Precisely. Here are more felines: the tiger, the leopard and the panther.’

  The next three cages contain the variations upon the theme of cat: stripes, spots and full black; the tiger, heavyset and broad like a fighter, sleeps with one eye flickering open every time a child cries out; the other two are lean and muscular, watchful and restless. Next we see an eagle tied by thongs to its beam; a porcupine snuffling, its quills quivering on its back as it shuffles about its pen; a vulture, its ugly bare head sleeping in the sunshine, dreaming of carcasses no doubt. I know all their names as there is an animal A through to Z in one of my schoolroom books and vulture is V, lion is L, even porcupine is P. There are monkeys for M in the book – my favourite, as they are naughty in stories. They always looked to me like hairy people, cheeky people, with no sense of decorum.

  Say I, ‘Are there no monkeys?’

  ‘There was an ape here the last I knew. It must have died or been sold on.’

  ‘I should very much like to see a monkey one day.’

  ‘Noted,’ says my tutor.

  And then it is time to go. I wish to stay for hours but I follow him and, in truth, I am glad to leave the smell behind me. All the way back I think on the eyes of the wakeful animals, who rarely meet your glance, but if one does, it leaves you with the burning message: I am captive, but you are free to go. Not me: my chain is but a little longer than yours, bound as I am by my poverty and my youth, nameless and friendless as I have been. Yet I know Mr Woods and Mr Applebee now and they have slackened my rope and given me a taste of the world beyond my fence. And I will have more of it, mark my words.

  5

  Thus I begin my education. Every morning is spent at the table by the bow-window, where we grapple with mathematics and the English language primarily, with a little about the natural world and some logic when we can. The afternoons are spent with Matron; the reason being, when I returned from the Menagerie that day, I was set upon by some other inmates for my special treatment, who gave me very rough words and bid me begone. They put upon me and used me very ill, pulled me by the nose and struck at me. Thereafter, I remain with Matron, she my protector and I her pet.

  The founder insists I must continue to learn the skills of housekeeping, as, despite my education, I may well attract a husband one day or, if not, require such skills to earn my keep. So Matron keeps me with her each afternoon and we go through th
e playact of learning domestic service, yet she sometimes turns to me and pinches my cheek saying, ‘You’ll not need this, eh, my clever chick? You’ll be no oyster-wench. You will make your way in the world and be done for very nicely.’

  I begin my forays into that world in my first geography lesson. One day Mr Applebee rolls out a map for me to peruse. It contains all the known continents and seas. There is an area in the Southern Ocean where the vague outline of a land mass is painted but not completed. Beside it in elaborate script is written the phrase: Terra Incognita.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It means “unknown land”. Mapmakers use this phrase when they do not know what lies beyond.’

  ‘Beyond where?’

  ‘Beyond here,’ and he points to the boundary, surrounding which is a decorated border, yet no more land or sea.

  ‘What is beyond the edge of the map?’

  ‘Ah, now that is the mystery. It is believed there lies the Great Southern Continent, yet no one has discovered it thus far.’

  ‘Will it be found one day? Will the mystery be solved?’

  ‘Man is a celebrated explorer and he will answer it one day.’

  Geography becomes my favoured subject and I pester my tutor to unfurl the map for me often. My other favourite pastime in lessons is to ask my tutor for puzzles. He gives me problems in geometry or a conundrum in logic and has learned to give me the time to complete it. At first, he would wait a little, then ask if I required assistance, then begin to tell me the solution and make me fume so hotly I would go red in the face and more than once answered back in anger, though swiftly apologised, which he graciously accepted. Now he understands that it may take me many minutes, or a half-hour, or more, yet once I take my first step upon the puzzle I will not descend till I scale it myself. I work through it methodically, step by step, yet once in a while there is a moment when I simply see the solution laid before me, complete, as if I had lifted into the air like a bird and looked down upon the earth and saw the pattern of the maze as God would see it. Those days are rare at first, yet as we work on puzzles more and more, these moments increase. And it is a tremendous sense of accomplishment when the answer reveals itself to me. I have taken on the problem and I have conquered it.

  After some months of our studies, Mr Applebee informs me we are to walk to Bloomsbury, where we will visit the home of my benefactor, Mr Markham Woods.

  ‘You have been invited for luncheon to be had in the kitchen. Thereafter, upstairs for a conference with Mr Woods. He wishes to discern your progress, so you must speak up and be heard, or Mr Woods will believe I have been slack and taught you nonsense. Will you speak up, Dawnay?’

  ‘If I can take some meat home for the other children, or some other food, I will say whatever you like.’

  ‘Will you indeed! Well, we shall see about that. Perhaps something can be arranged,’ says Mr Applebee, and I am happy that I can offer some benefit to the others here, though they despise me in their jealousy. I do not hate them, as I see them like myself as the caged animals in the Tower, pacing their small lot. I have been given the promise of a key, and I would hate myself too for such a gift. I cannot give them my good fortune, but I can perhaps use it to ease their empty bellies.

  As we leave the orphanage, my tutor informs me: ‘Your institution is on the better edge of the hole that is the parish of St Giles. Walk further that way and you will find one of the worst areas of the country, let alone London. A cesspit of humanity and degradation. Here we are on the boundaries of a quality area, within which your benefactor lives in Bloomsbury Square. Thus poverty and wealth are uncomfortable bedfellows in this city.’

  Some way towards my benefactor’s house, we come across a spectacle in the street. A man has been put in the pillory and a crowd are gathering to throw missiles at him. The crowd is serviced by a woman selling oranges, a ballad singer screeching tunelessly and two boy pickpockets doing a good trade at the back. My tutor tries to hurry me along, but I overhear a woman in the crowd call out, ‘What are you in for?’

  The man wears a tidy wig, a clean shirt and a stock tie. He looks rather affluent to be a criminal. ‘I am a publisher,’ he shouts. ‘My only crime is that I printed an essay on how the Church does not help the poor.’

  A cheer goes up, a hat is passed round and, rather than throw rotten food and stones at the man, a small collection of coins is made and drink given him.

  ‘A publisher is a man who prints words?’ I ask my tutor.

  ‘Yes, it is. A writer writes the words, then the publisher arranges them in print and then books are made.’

  ‘Does this happy event occur with all publishers punished so?’

  ‘Certainly not. Only last month I saw another publisher near here, who had published ideas against the King, stoned almost to death. It is illegal to throw stones at the pillory, but who is there to stop it?’

  We walk on and I wonder at a world where words can be so dangerous. We reach Bloomsbury Square and a tall, picturesque house with a total of thirteen windows – one row of three, then two of four and at the top there are two more. We go around the side and enter a courtyard through a gate. We cross the yard to a brick outhouse and my tutor knocks gently on the door. It is opened by a woman slender of face and figure in a plain gown and apron. Tendrils of auburn hair peep from a mob cap topped with a black bow, which is prettier than Matron’s cap. Her nose and cheeks are scattered with freckles.

  ‘You remember that my wife is Mr Woods’s cook. Well, here she is, child. You may call her Mrs Applebee.’

  ‘She may call me Susan and be done with it,’ says Mrs Applebee, and sees us in. The kitchen is roomy with red-brick walls and a lovely fire, which I run to. I can never resist a fire, even in summer. The room is dominated by a broad table, upon which sits a variety of vegetables and fruit of assorted colours in wooden bowls, many of which I have never seen and could not name. The range looks enormous to me, with a considerable roasting spit and beneath it a metal plate to catch dripping. Beside it there is a separate bread oven, from which Mrs Applebee removes a just-baked loaf and places it on the table. On every wall are shelves stacked with pots, jugs, mugs and plate racks, filled with pewter and copper platters, while there are silver dishes displayed in a glass-fronted cabinet. From the ceiling on hooks hang meat and game to keep them safe from vermin. It is a kitchen from the realms of angels and I stare open-mouthed at all its glories.

  I see Mr Applebee give his wife a quick kiss on the cheek and she smiles with her eyes. Then she turns and squints at me.

  ‘They don’t feed them much there, do they?’ says she. ‘This one is as skinny as a pipe, and she favoured too. Come now, sit and eat.’

  Mrs Applebee brings me pigeon pie and potatoes in a rich dark gravy, with a pile of hot greens beside it that look for all the world like miniature trees. Hot food never graces our dishes at the asylum, only soup and tripe that are barely warm by the time they reach our mouths. The comfort induced by hot meat, hot vegetables and hot gravy and the taste of more than one distinct flavour in the mouth at once is delectable. I eat so fast I burn my tongue and nearly gag.

  ‘She will be sick!’ cries Mr Applebee.

  ‘Do slow down, child,’ says his wife. ‘There is no hurry to be had. You can take your time with it. She has never seen food like it, Stephen, I warrant. Poor lamb.’

  After, I am given a bowl of a creamy mixture, yellow and steaming hot; I am told it is called rice custard and it is the food they must serve in paradise, so delicious is it and soft in the mouth.

  ‘I was to ask for meat for the other orphans. But I think they would rather have sugary matter, as we never do have it, except a kind of fruit cake at Christmas time, only once a year, you see. Can I take some for them? Please, Mrs Applebee?’

  ‘What’s this?’ she says, and her husband has quiet words with her as I gobble down every scrap from my plate and use my fingers to wipe up the last vestiges of sweetness.

  ‘A kind child it
is,’ says Mrs Applebee and sits beside me on the bench. ‘But food for a score of children would be immediately missed here, my dear. I would be rightly accused of stealing and be sent away. You know this is true, Stephen. I am sorry, my dear. But I cannot give you food to take for the others.’

  Say I, ‘Matron says orphans’ legs bow naturally, that their teeth fall out because they talk too much. But I have learned from Mr Applebee that plants need light to make their food and soil and water to grow, and I think that children need their own medium similarly, that bread and cheese is not enough to make a child grow straight with strong teeth. And I think our simple food is making us ill. Mr Applebee agrees with me, is that not right, sir?’

  ‘It is possible, Dawnay. There is no proof for it. It is most likely an imbalance in the four humours within your bodies, and nothing to do with food. We would have to test it, by experiment. Let us think on it, but now we must go, as Mr Woods awaits you.’

  We leave the kitchen and cross the yard to a back door into the house, whereupon we wipe our feet carefully on the mat, proceed along an airy corridor to the front hallway and then ascend the main staircase. The walls are the light blue of spring sky, ornamented with the plaster heads of important men on plinths surrounded by garlands. I am led upstairs to the withdrawing room. A quick knock, and then another, is greeted with silence, so after a wait of some time, my tutor chooses to enter in any case. It is a room as spacious in size as the court room at the asylum, and yet its soft furnishings, canvases of ships and knick-knacks of china and carved wood serve to create a homely and welcoming atmosphere. The walls are covered with a deep red swirling silk, the fire warms every corner and three squat cabinets, one placed against each wall, all have circular designs on each door like eyes inlaid with subtle wooden shades of beige and copper and long legs that curve outwards, all of which serve to make them appear like three friendly toads waiting to greet me. There is nothing of grandeur here and everything of comfort and ease.