Jack Maggs

by Peter Carey

  “I can’t see.” Jack Maggs contorted in his chair. “I can’t see you doing anything.”

  “Oh yes you can. You can see exactly what I am doing. I am sending them to sleep. Can’t you see that?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Of course you can. Can’t you see their eyes closing? You know I have the power to do that, don’t you?”

  “I think they are dying.”

  “Some are falling down, but it is only sleep that causes it. They are falling asleep.”

  “Now what will I do with them?”

  “We are going to get your Phantom to carry them out.”

  “He won’t do that.”

  “He will do it if I tell him to. I am telling him to remove these people from your stronghold. Look at him. How is he today?”

  “He has a nasty look about him, Sir. He keeps staring at me.”

  “Yes, but he will do as I say, and he is strong enough to carry out the sleeping people. Some of them are quite large, aren’t they? Do you see a woman with double chins?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Surely there is a woman there in a black dress with a great deal of jewellery?”

  “I think I see her now.”

  “Is the Phantom dragging her?”

  “No, he has picked her up. He is picking her up and carrying her out of my house.”

  “You must be feeling a deal better.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Is there any pain?”

  “Everything is much better. Much better, thank you, Sir. He is going to stay outside the door now, Sir?”

  “When he has carried everyone out.”

  “He has, Sir. He’s a such a jolly old bullock, ain’t he?”

  “He has removed them already?”

  “He’s a regular dervish, Sir.”

  “And outside now?”

  “Yes, outside.”

  “Then I am locking the door. You are in your house. You are all alone. Nothing can harm you. You are going to the window now. You are looking out of the window?”

  “Yes, I am looking out of the window.”

  “What do you see? Any street numbers? Shops?”

  “Nothing, Sir.”

  “You can’t see anything?”

  “Pitch black, Sir.”

  “Come, Jack Maggs, there is the lamplighter, now look—it’s as bright as day.”

  At this, the Somnambulist became extremely agitated, rolling his eyes and striking himself upon the breast.

  “I am not permitted to tell you.”

  “You must.”

  “No,” cried the footman and threw out his arms, one of which struck Tobias Oates a grazing blow upon his temple.

  “Cease!” cried Toby. “Be still!”

  But Jack Maggs groaned and flung himself violently back in his chair.

  “Be still there, that’s a fellow. Down now.” In this style Tobias continued to soothe his angry subject, talking very low, as to a frightened beast.

  When peace was finally established, Tobias Oates stood and gazed down at Jack Maggs. He would be the archaeologist of this mystery; he would be the surgeon of this soul.

  His youthful face was flushed, and the flecks in his pale blue eyes had turned as bright as mica. He picked up the stool and moved it over to the desk, and though it was too low for such a task, he sat upon it to compose his letter.

  “Dear Mr Buckle,” he began, “one sometimes hears a servant described by this or that lady as a ‘treasure.’ ”

  With his prisoner’s breathing whispering in his ear, he continued—three drafts before he had it exactly right.

  15

  IT WAS EDWARD CONSTABLE who informed Mrs Halfstairs that her new footman was missing. He presented himself triumphantly in her parlour door at six o’clock on Monday morning, knocking in that brisk way—one, two, one two—that was at once so characteristic and so insolent.

  She bade him enter.

  “Yes, Constable.”

  “It’s your man, Ma’am . . . He’s bolted.”

  Her stomach tightened. She lay her quill down on the blotter.

  “Which man, Mr Constable? If it is Mr Maggs you mean, he has likely gone on an errand for the master. Did you inquire of the master?”

  “It is my belief, Ma’am, that Mr Maggs was never in his life an upper servant. He seems to be some kind of rascal.”

  “You are not a parson,” said Mrs Halfstairs, “and were not employed to have beliefs. Did you check with the master?”

  “You think the master harmed?”

  She had thought no such thing, but now she thought it—she saw again the dreadful death of the previous footman, his skull half blown away and all that matter on the oaken dresser.

  “I came first to you, Ma’am,” said the footman. “I did not think to wake the master.”

  “Then go now, if you please, Mr Constable, and check the silver.”

  “The silver, Ma’am?”

  She caught his bright hard eye.

  “Not the master, Ma’am? The silver?”

  “Do as I have asked you,” said Mrs Halfstairs. “And pray do not disturb Mr Spinks with this news until I tell you to.”

  She climbed the stairs with a heavy heart, wishing for the old days when Mr Spinks had ruled the household. Constable would not have behaved this way then. Pope would not have dared to kill himself. As she walked heavily up the stairs—her breathing came hard to her— Mrs Halfstairs was convinced already that her master had been harmed. Her mood was therefore much elevated when she peered round Mr Buckle’s partly opened door and found him safely snoring in one corner of his enormous bed.

  As she returned to the ground floor a knock came on the front door, and she answered it herself, to Mr Oates’s messenger.

  By the time Constable came to inform her that the silver had not been stolen, she had carefully examined the contents of Tobias Oates’s letter and knew that Jack Maggs was to be a source of glory not of shame.

  She gave the envelope to Mr Constable so he might take it to their master.

  “I heard the door bell, Ma’am.”

  “Yes, Mr Constable. It was this same letter.”

  “Perhaps Ma’am, could I ask, that I be permitted to answer the door, as is my duty?”

  “I am always pleased for you to do your duty, Mr Constable. And your master will be pleased to receive this letter at your hand.”

  That gave him pause a moment. But then he came at her from a different quarter.

  “And did you notice, Mrs Halfstairs, when you was answering the door, did you happen to notice that the next-door servants were about again?”

  “No, Mr Constable, I did not.”

  “I also went to the door, Ma’am.”

  “No need for you to have done that, Mr Constable.”

  “And found them all everywhere about the street.”

  “I did not notice, Mr Constable.”

  “I wonder, did it occur to you, Ma’am, that perhaps Mr Maggs has run away with them?”

  “Run away with them, Constable?”

  “He has an interest in them, does he not? He said he was to be their footman, although I doubt he was, but he had a very fierce interest in that household, and asked us many questions about Mr Phipps himself. Seeing all this activity, Ma’am, I naturally drew it to Mr Spinks’s attention, and he thought that may explain your man’s departure.”

  “Mr Constable, did I not request you to wait until you informed Mr Spinks?”

  “Ma’am, you know it most improper for a footman to go having secrets from a butler.”

  Mrs Halfstairs took a breath. “Take this letter to the master,” she said at last. “And when you are done with it, present yourself down here.”

  And then she went to find Mr Spinks and see if she might restore some order to that poor old wandering mind.

  16

  AT HALF PAST NINE THE absent footman limped in through the kitchen door. His eyes were wild and red, his hair
most queerly disarrayed; a great smudge of black disfigured his smart yellow livery; and yet there was, for all his hobbling, nothing in the least apologetic in his demeanour.

  “Can a cove get a cup of something?” he demanded, sitting down at the long deal table and glaring at Mercy Larkin who was busy cutting the rot from the day’s potatoes.

  “Yes, Sir,” said she, but no sooner had she set her knife down than Mrs Halfstairs, always alert to the creak of the kitchen door, came clattering in from her parlour on her heavy heels and—without one word about Jack Maggs’s disgraceful livery—escorted him straight away upstairs to be brought before the master.

  “Can a cove get something?” said Constable mocking Jack Maggs’s hoarse voice. “That cove is about to get his marching orders.”

  “I never heard of such a thing,” said Miss Mott. “It is the butler’s job to dismiss him. I can’t imagine what Mrs. Halfstairs is thinking of—taking him before the master.”

  “At Lineham Hall,” said Constable, complacently stirring his third teaspoon of sugar into his tea, “he would have his livery removed at the gate house and be sent off in his undervest.”

  “Mr Constable!” cried Miss Mott.

  “Or worse,” said Constable, who had a fondness for shocking the cook. “I once saw a page boy put out in the frost with nothing but a pair of old hessians on his feet.” And he then went on to describe, in some detail, the cruel ways in which various servants had been dismissed from his previous establishment.

  Constable had a long repertoire of such incidents but was cut off in his first chapter not only by the return of Mrs Halfstairs and Jack Maggs, but also by the arrival of the butler himself. Mr Spinks entered the kitchen with a long brass poker which he had, perhaps absentmindedly, carried away from Mr Buckle’s snuggery. He stood with his back to the dresser, swaying slightly, seemingly unsure of why he had come. Observing the distressing confusion in those cloudy eyes, Constable turned all his attention on the miscreant.

  “Oh hello Maggs,” said he conversationally. “If you had slept the night at home you would have woken to the sight of your friends next door galloping in and out of their front door.”

  Jack Maggs jerked his head towards his informant.

  “A stranger would have thought them thieves,” continued Constable, as if unaware of the effect he was having on his listener. “Sugar bowls. Tea pots. You should have seen the plunder they carried off.”

  “Mr Phipps is returned?” asked Maggs, fixing upon Constable a gaze both fierce and hungry.

  “If you had been back a half hour earlier, you might have had your old job back.”

  “We have no interest in that household, Mr Constable,” interrupted Mrs Halfstairs.

  “Young Mr Phipps was there?” Maggs asked again but to no effect. Mrs Halfstairs was staring malevolently at Mr Constable and so Maggs repeated the question to Mercy, who answered him gently.

  “Not Mr Phipps. Just his carriage, and two of the upper servants.”

  “You saying he is back?”

  “No, Mr Maggs. I’m afraid he ain’t returned.”

  Mr Spinks banged his poker. “Sit!”

  “Sit,” echoed Mrs Halfstairs. “What is it that you are thinking?”

  Jack Maggs did not sit. “I am thinking that if Mr Phipps is home, it is time for you and me, Mrs. Halfstairs, to say farewell.”

  Mr Spinks cleared his throat.

  “Did not Mr Buckle welcome you back into the fold?” said Mrs Halfstairs, turning incredulously to Mr Spinks. “Did you ever hear so generous and Christian a speech? No, no, Mr Maggs, it is Mr Buckle who is your master now.”

  “He’s not sacked?” cried Constable, indignantly.

  “You skate on very thin ice, Constable,” hissed Mrs Halfstairs. She turned back to Mr Spinks. “It is true that he has behaved in a most improper manner, but on the other hand he has found favour with Mr Oates. That is true, is it not, Mr Spinks?”

  “Oates likes him?” Constable demanded. “Oates has an interest in him? Oates will visit? This Hopping Giles has become a social ornament? Is that what I am witnessing?”

  “As any crossing sweeper would know,” said Mrs Halfstairs, “it would be a distinction to the household to have a connection with so up-and-coming a gentleman as Mr Oates.”

  “But this rascal,” cried Constable, “he never even heard of Captain Crumley.”

  Mercy saw that this last intelligence reached Mrs Halfstairs with a certain force. The housekeeper blinked her little eyes. “Still, we will not release him to Mr Phipps,” she said at last.

  Constable appealed to the butler. “He could not do his own hair. I did it for him.”

  “Mr Maggs has agreed to be the subject of Scientific Experiment. Is that not so, Mr Spinks? It is your brow?” Mrs Halfstairs suggested to Maggs. “Mr Oates wishes to measure it?”

  “Surely, Ma’am,” sneered Constable, “you measured it already.”

  “You have pushed my patience, Mr Constable.”

  “It is a light enough load, Ma’am.”

  Mrs Halfstairs looked hard at Mr Spinks.

  “The point,” began Spinks, “the point, Sir . . .”

  “The point is about service,” said Mrs Halfstairs. “And I cannot see that you can require Mr Constable’s any longer.”

  There was now a great silence in the kitchen.

  “Quite so,” said Spinks at last. He tapped the brass poker on the floor between his shoes, then turned a stern unflinching gaze on his footman. “Quite so. Not require him.”

  It was obvious Constable had not expected this turn of events. He began to rise from the table, a teaspoon still in his hand. His handsome face was stricken.

  “Mr Spinks . . . Sir? Mr Spinks, Sir, do you know me?”

  Mr Spinks tapped the poker on the floor. “I know you, Sir.”

  Constable held himself erect, but Mercy could see—anyone could see—that his cheeks were hollowed and his eyes desolate.

  “Sir . . . you are dismissing me?” His proud demeanour was contradicted by his trembling voice. “Mr Spinks, have you forgotten? May I remind you, Sir, about the problems with my letters . . .”

  During all of this dispute Jack Maggs had seemed to be occupied with his own thoughts, but now he took two paces forward and stood beside Edward Constable.

  “Mr Constable and me,” said he. “We are a pair.”

  Then, much to Mercy Larkin’s surprise, he smiled at Mrs Halfstairs.

  “We are bookends, ain’t we, Mrs Halfstairs? Can’t have one without the other.”

  17

  IT IS NO EASY MATTER to ride the footplate of a phaeton, to pose like a piece of German porcelain, to float like one of God’s angels above the mud and ordure of the London streets.

  Yet when the two footmen walked out to the mews the following morning—that is Tuesday, April the eighteenth—Jack Maggs did not request instruction, and he rode without anyone having shown him how to keep his knees a little loose, to hold his chin high, to alight before the coach was finally still. Even Edward Constable, who was of a habitually critical frame of mind, was impressed by the performance.

  Their first appointment was the Patent Office Library on Chancery Lane, and although there was no more momentous business at hand than their master’s wish to peruse the plans of the latest donkey engine, they proceeded towards this destination at desperate speed, cutting in ahead of pony carts and hackney cabs, in a style at once so reckless and arrogant that even the most belligerent of London drivers—and that was the grand majority—gave way to the handsome blue phaeton with the gold lion emblazoned on its door. Having watched Maggs survive this desperate charge it was obvious to Edward Constable that his benefactor had, not to put too fine a point on it, a “gift.”

  At the Patent Office, Constable opened the coach door, guided his master past a puddle, and watched him scurry up the steps. The very sight of Percy Buckle Esq., with his sunken cheeks and bandy little duck-legged walk, would normally have been enough
to put him in an irritable sort of mood, and indeed it was a constant trial to him to wait in attendance on so low-bred a master, but on this particular morning, Edward Constable had almost no interest in Mr Buckle. It was his fellow footman who preoccupied him, and in this regard his skill on the footplate was a very small item indeed.

  The two servants stood side by side on the footpath of Chancery Lane. Only inches separated them, but the newcomer affected a distance which Constable, much burdened with his own feelings of guilt and gratitude, soon found intolerable.

  “You are a puzzle of a fellow,” he began.

  Maggs turned, briefly presenting him with the blank wall of his face.

  “If I was unfriendly to you,” Constable persisted, “—and it is not even ‘if’ for I know I was...”

  “It’s past, mate. Forget it.”

  “My friend is dead. It makes me bitter, and when I’m feeling bitter I say things I regret.”

  “Say no more then.”

  “But I must say more,” cried Constable. “So help me, Mr Maggs, I must do more. I am a man that always pays his debt.”

  “The old dame was whipping you, and I took a great personal pleasure in stopping her. But if you want to thank me . . . do you know that fellow driving our coach?”

  “Foster.”

  “You know him a good while, no doubt?”

  “He was with Mr Quentin when we were at Bath.”

  “You’ve done him some favour in your time?”

  “We know each other, Mr Maggs. What do you want? Say the word.”

  “Tell him that Jack Maggs begs the use of the titty he is sucking on.”

  “Mr Maggs, I want to oblige you.”

  “Then here’s the answer. Ask him.”

  “But Mr Maggs, you ask the one thing I cannot do.”

  “Your wooden leg ain’t broken, is it? Go tell that dozy old farmer that his brother the footman wants to dance with his sister Miss Flask.”

  “I enjoy a gin myself, Mr Maggs, but a footman in his livery cannot be seen drinking from a flask.”

  “You said yourself—I am a scoundrel, not a footman. A Knight of the Rainbow may not get a thirst, but a scoundrel . . . Come, Mr Thingstable, I have the pain back in my face. Would you rather I went into that little dram shop yonder? I do not doubt they would be pleased enough to have my money. It is a funny thing about a dram shop, they have a great fondness for we rascals. We are patron saints to them.”