A Very Peculiar Plague (11 page)
‘Double negatives,’ Birdie muttered under her breath, as she stomped into the hallway. ‘I’ll give
you
double negatives!’ Though Jem couldn’t see her expression, he knew from her tone that she was furious.
Mary watched them both trudge upstairs with a smug look on her face.
‘D’you think I’ll get that sandwich?’ Jem asked Birdie, once they had left the first landing behind. He was amazed to see that the stair-carpet ran all the way up to the first floor – and that there were just as many pictures and fans and mirrors covering the walls in this private region of the house as there were in the more public spaces downstairs.
‘If it’s food you want, you’d be better off in the kitchen,’ Birdie growled. She led him into one of the best bedrooms, which contained a shiny brass bedstead heaped with feather pillows, a large chest of drawers, an array of china figurines, a fireplace, a chair, a washstand, a dressing table, a looking-glass and a paraffin lamp. The walls were papered in a floral design that matched the curtains. An Axminster carpet lay on the floor.
‘Is this
your
room?’ Jem was astounded. ‘I thought you slept in the attic!’
‘I did, at first,’ said Birdie, heading straight for the fireplace. ‘But then they moved me here.’
‘No wonder the maid hates you.’ Jem gazed around, shaking his head in wonder. ‘You’re addled,’ he announced. ‘Why kick up a fuss when you got all this? I’d rather live here than at Alfred’s.’
‘That’s because you don’t understand what it’s like.’ Squatting in front of the grate, Birdie took a brass-handled poker and thrust it straight up the chimney. ‘You think it’s all jam tarts and silk shifts, but it ain’t. They won’t let you do
nothing
without permission. They tell you how to talk and walk and sit and stand—’
‘What’s that you’re doing now?’ Jem interrupted. She seemed to be dislodging a loose brick. ‘If you’re trying to bring down the chimney, I’ll not be a party to it.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’ Birdie’s tone was scornful. ‘This is how I eavesdrop. The flue leads straight up from the dining room, so if the folding doors are open, I can hear everything they say in the parlour.’
‘Oh.’ Jem munched on his jam tart as Birdie wriggled into the fireplace. She then put her ear to the hole she’d made, ignoring Jem, who began to inspect the contents of her room. The cane-seated chair was worth about three shillings, he guessed. The washstand had a marble top. Birdie’s brushes were backed with horn, and she had a workbox inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
‘They’re talking about Ned,’ Birdie suddenly revealed, from her listening post. ‘
She
wants to know why Ned can’t help. Mr Bunce is saying Ned would lose his job if he missed a day.’
‘Which is the truth,’ said Jem. He picked up a little silver casket, checked inside, and saw that it was full of sugar pastilles. For some reason, the discovery made him furious. ‘You’re off yer head, wanting to leave this place and live in a dirty garret!’ he spluttered.
‘
You
chose to live in an East End cellar,’ Birdie rejoined.
‘Only because I’m looking for Sarah Pickles!’
‘Shh!’ Birdie flapped her hand at him. ‘They’re talking about me, now . . .’
But Jem had already fallen silent. Something was stirring in the back of his mind. Sarah Pickles . . . garrets . . .
Birdie gave a sudden squeal. ‘Miss Eames says I can do it!’ she crowed. ‘As long as she comes too!’ When Jem didn’t respond, Birdie turned around to see why. ‘Did you hear? We’ll be going down the viaduct together!’
‘Shh!’ Jem was holding his temples with both hands. The name was on the tip of his tongue. It was so close, he could almost smell it . . .
‘What ails you?’ Birdie demanded. ‘Is it a headache?’
‘Eunice Pickles!’ Jem blurted out.
‘What?’
‘Sarah’s daughter! Eunice Pickles!’ Jem gazed at her wildly, amazed that he could have forgotten about Eunice. ‘I seen her in the streets around Newgate! She’s living there, I’d swear to it! And if
she’s
there . . . why, then
so is her ma
!’
That night Jem dreamed of Sarah Pickles. He dreamed that he was hiding under the bed in her garret lodgings, which he’d only ever visited twice in all his years of faithful service. The first time, he’d gone there with her son Charlie to collect some tools for a break-and-enter job in Islington. The second time, he’d been sent there all alone with a delivery of silver plate.
On both occasions Eunice Pickles had been hovering in the background, fat and frumpy and silent. She’d had the look of someone who spent all day sweeping floors and boiling bacon. But in Jem’s dream she was trying to lure him out from beneath the bed with a plate of jam tarts, as Sarah waited behind her, axe in hand.
Then Jem felt something coil around his ankle, and realised that a bogle had broken through the floorboards . . .
‘Aaaah!’ He woke with a cry and sat bolt upright.
‘Nightmare?’ asked Ned, who was perched on a nearby stool, tying his boots.
Jem nodded, dry-mouthed. It was still very early. Alfred lay snoring on the other side of the room, under a pile of coats and blankets. Ned hadn’t lit the lamp because a pale-grey wash of light was leaking through the window.
‘You’ll need to stoke the fire,’ Ned observed. ‘
And
empty the bucket.’
‘I know,’ rasped Jem.
‘What was the dream about?’
‘None o’ yer business.’
‘I’ll wager it had bogles in it.’
Jem scowled. It irritated him that someone who’d been scouring mudflats for a living only six months before should suddenly look so prosperous and respectable. Despite his missing teeth and scarred hands, Ned knew how to present himself. His mop of dark curls was always neatly combed, now. His square-cut face was always buffed clean, and every tear in his shirt had been expertly mended. He wore new boots, a new cap, and a new blue coat with three brass buttons.
He’d even become more talkative, thanks to long days spent selling fruit off the back of a barrow. And though he was barely eight months older than Jem, he was already much larger.
Jem couldn’t help feeling that he’d been outstripped. That was why he reached for his own new boots, which he thought much finer than Ned’s. But before he had a chance to pull them on, someone knocked at the door.
Rat-tat-tat-tat.
Ned glanced over at Alfred, then asked Jem, ‘Is he expecting company?’
Jem shrugged. Ned sighed and went to answer the door, which swung open to reveal Josiah Lubbock. The showman had abandoned his purple topper and silver lace; instead he wore a plain tweed lounge suit and a bowler hat.
‘Good day to you!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Am I right in thinking that this is the residence of Mr Alfred Bunce?’
‘Uh – yes,’ Ned replied.
‘But he’ll not want to see
you
,’ Jem added.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ said Mr Lubbock. ‘Not until he hears my proposal.’ He began to shoulder his way past Ned as Alfred stirred and coughed on the other side of the room.
‘Here!’ Jem jumped up. ‘What d’you think you’re doing? No one asked you in!’
Ignoring him, the showman addressed Alfred. ‘Mr Bunce, I have a proposition. If you allow me to accompany you on your next job, and bring at least one paying customer with me, there’ll be a ten-shilling fee in it for you.’ Mr Lubbock removed his hat as Alfred sat up in bed, unshaven and bleary-eyed. ‘People pay handsomely to watch dogs kill rats,’ Mr Lubbock went on, ‘and would pay even more to see you kill a bogle.’
Alfred hawked and spat. ‘How in the devil did you find me?’ he croaked.
‘Why, I heard Miss Eames give your address to the cab-driver, yesterday.’ Mr Lubbock seemed completely unfazed by all the bits of paper dangling overhead. Even Alfred’s dishevelled, red-eyed, half-dressed condition didn’t appear to trouble him. He simply ploughed on, oblivious to Jem’s scowl, and Alfred’s coughing, and Ned’s sudden restlessness.
‘I must go or I’ll be late,’ Ned murmured to no one in particular, then slipped into the hallway and shut the door behind him.
Mr Lubbock didn’t so much as pause to take a breath.
‘Since then I’ve been sounding the market, Mr Bunce, and I can assure you that there
is
an audience for bogle-baiting. One naturalist of my acquaintance – who originally came to me expressing an interest in my preserved griffin – has promised to stump up a whole
pound
for the privilege of a ringside seat.’ Before Alfred could do more than yawn, Mr Lubbock added, with an ingratiating smile, ‘I thought it only fair to split this sum down the middle, you understand.’
‘Hah!’ Jem gave a snort. ‘Which is to say, yer friend promised
two
pounds, and you’ll be pocketing three-quarters of it!’
‘Oh, no, no.’ Mr Lubbock wagged a finger at him. ‘That’s not the way I conduct my business, young man.’ Alfred, meanwhile, was climbing stiffly out of bed. His nightshirt was flapping around his bony white ankles. ‘The answer is no, Mr Lubbock,’ he said.
‘But surely—’
‘Bogling’s dangerous. Too dangerous for spectators.’
‘Oh, come now,’ Mr Lubbock chided. ‘How dangerous can it be, if you have children working with you?’
Jem scowled. He wanted to ask Mr Lubbock how
he
would react, if cornered by a bogle. Then he saw Alfred’s expression, and decided not to speak after all.
‘I don’t pull untrained kids off the street and set ’em to work,’ Alfred said through his teeth. He shuffled past Mr Lubbock, making for the door. ‘Besides, bogles don’t like crowds.’
‘It wouldn’t be a crowd,’ Mr Lubbock assured him. ‘Two or three people at the
most
—’ ‘Even one is too many.’ Alfred grabbed the doorknob. ‘Good day to you, Mr Lubbock,’ he said, then pulled the door open – and nearly jumped out of his skin.
Two familiar figures were standing on the threshold.
‘Mr Bunce!’ Hugh Purdy exclaimed. His raised fist suggested that he’d been about to knock. Beside him, Sam Snell was holding his fan-tailed hat in both hands, but was otherwise fully decked out in his flusher’s gear: a blue oilskin coat, fishermen’s boots, and leather gauntlets.
While Alfred stared at him, Purdy continued, ‘We’re that sorry to rouse you so early in the day, sir, but you told us to look you up when we heard more. Which we have.’
‘Our Inspector o’ Sewers has given us leave to take you down the tunnels,’ Sam Snell interposed. ‘So we was wondering if you’d care to do it now, Mr Bunce?’ Catching sight of Josiah Lubbock, the flusher added genially, ‘And anyone else you might care to bring along is more’n welcome, o’ course.’
‘Indeed?’ said Mr Lubbock. But Alfred rounded on him.
‘You ain’t invited,’ Alfred snarled. ‘Get out o’ here.’
‘Sir—’
‘
Now!
’
Startled, Purdy and Snell both stepped back to clear a way for the showman, who made a dignified, if slightly hurried, exit. ‘Mr Josiah Lubbock, at your service,’ he informed the other two visitors – perhaps in the hope of securing their names. Alfred, however, was already hustling Purdy and Snell into his room.
After slamming the door in Mr Lubbock’s face, he turned to them and said, ‘Don’t pay
him
no mind. He’s a liar.’
Hugh Purdy nodded politely, prepared to drop the subject. His friend, however, was more inquisitive.
‘What did he want?’ asked Snell.
‘Nowt.’ Alfred’s tone was brusque. He addressed the plumber. ‘Where are you expecting us? And when?’
‘Oh.’ Purdy’s face fell. ‘Can you not come now?’
‘There’s someone else needs to be fetched first, and that might take time.’ Alfred didn’t elaborate, but Jem realised that he was talking about Birdie.
As the plumber sighed, his friend said, ‘We’ll meet you at twelve o’clock, then, after I finish me shift. Under the bridge is the best place.’
Alfred nodded. He was eyeing Sam Snell’s waterproof clothes. ‘We ain’t got no sou’westers,’ he pointed out.
The flusher dismissed this concern with a wave of his hand. ‘You’ll not likely need ’em.’
‘And there’s to be a lady with us,’ Alfred finished. Jem saw the two visitors exchange a surprised look. But even this news didn’t put a dent in Sam Snell’s good humour.
‘Why, and I’d be proud to escort any lady as would show an interest!’ he declared with a grin. ‘Only tell her not to wear her Sunday best.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said Alfred. He had the slightly impatient look of someone who wanted a moment’s peace to dress and shave and empty his bladder. But before he could invite his guests to leave, one of them launched into yet another plea for help.
‘There’s something else I must ask you, Mr Bunce, while I’ve got yer ear,’ the flusher announced. ‘I’ve a friend as works at Smithfield Market who’s bin a-fretting over stories told by some o’ the lads there, about a missing butcher’s apprentice.’
‘Oh, aye.’ Alfred didn’t sound very encouraging. Jem’s heart sank.
Not another one
, he thought.
‘There’s all manner o’ railway sidings under the new market, where the porters unload carcasses from the trains and transport ’em straight up to the main building in hydraulic lifts,’ the flusher explained. ‘And though it’s a busy place, day
and
night, it ain’t without its quiet corners—’
‘They’ve got a bogle under the market? Is that what you’re saying?’ Alfred interrupted.
‘Well, sir, that’s what Bob’s a-wondering, now he’s heard there’s a plague o’ bogles just down the street.’ Snell went on to inform Alfred that his friend Bob Ballard had heard reports of ‘summat strange’ near the sidings – and that a trucker’s boy had last been seen picking up meat scraps from the Smithfield platforms. ‘I understand.’
Alfred cut him off, rubbing his furrowed brow as if he had a headache before turning to the plumber and asking, ‘Is that what the folk round Newgate call it? A plague o’ bogles?’
Purdy nodded. ‘In the Viaduct Tavern they do,’ he replied.
Alfred shook his head morosely. ‘It’s the truth,’ he muttered. ‘I ain’t never seen nowt like it before . . .’
‘But you’ll come, sir?’ Sam Snell’s tone was both eager and breezy, as if he had no doubt whatsoever that Alfred would oblige. Something about his unyielding confidence must have influenced Alfred, who heaved a weary sigh of resignation and growled, ‘I’ll come. Tell yer friend I’ll come tomorrow morning.’
