by Joan Aiken
‘Aye, faith, that’s so,’ said the king. ‘The auld boy was gey set on his tunnel jollifications; he had laid plans for junketing and marching, regimental bands playing, and a’ sic whigmaleeries. I’ve half a mind to revoke the whole business, I’ve no great stomach for such ploys maself; the less so since the puir auld dad is no so lang in his grave; yet Battersea here tells me the people are looking forward to the merrymaking and it wad be a peety tae disappoint ’em. I wadnae wish them tae think their new monarch is a kill-joy and a mar-sport.’
‘I am certain your majesty is in the right,’ purred the Margrave. ‘And I am happy to hear that plans are still going forward for this happy affair. In my employ, sir, I have a musician – a most talented musician, I may say – and his talent is only exceeded by his zeal and patriotism. What has he taken it into his head to do, but to write a suite of music designed expressly for this tunnel opening, and he solicited me to ask your majesty’s permission to dedicate it to your gracious self and ask if it might be played on the occasion, while the procession is marching through the tunnel. Dare I ask your majesty’s acceptance of this small offering?’
‘Ech. Ach. Humph,’ said the king, evidently taken aback by this request and not quite certain how to respond. ‘I am not in the musical way maself, and nor was my dad,’ he confessed, ‘I can tell a reel from a strathspey, that’s aboot all; – ye say this man is very talented?’
‘Oh, very very, your majesty; to tell the truth, I believe him to be the most talented composer alive at this time. Moreover he is thought to have the power of healing illness by his music; indeed I believe that myself. He has done me great good.’
‘What is his name?’
‘Boris Bredalbane.’
‘Have ye e’er heard of the fellow, Battersea?’
Simon had looked up, half expecting to hear the name Twite; he shook his head.
‘How does this offer jump with you?’ the king asked him. ‘Would it fit in with your arrangements? – I have placed the duke here in charge of the festivities,’ he told the Margrave.
‘And a fine choice, I’ve no doubt,’ said that gentleman, giving Simon a brief glance. ‘Let me assure you, my dear Battersea, that my Chapelmaster’s music can only add a brilliant lustre to your no doubt superlative dispositions. My good, simple fellow will be quite out of his mind with joy when I tell him of the gracious acceptance of his tribute.’
‘Aweel,’ said the king, who had not yet said yes.
‘Your majesty’s name will resound over the world as a patron of the arts!’ continued the Margrave. ‘The Tunnel Music will be remembered long after our poor names are forgotten – our descendants will be playing it three hundred years from now, I daresay –’
‘Aye, aye, verra weel, let it be so,’ said King Richard. ‘If it will give the chiel such pleasure. For me, one tune is the same as anither, to tell truth. But Battersea here will look to the matter – will ye no’ Battersea? – and tell the mon what’s needed.’
‘Certainly, sir,’ said Simon, who had taken a strong dislike to the Margrave and was not at all pleased at being obliged to have dealings with him. ‘Pray command me in whatever way you think necessary.’
‘I will come and see you tomorrow,’ said the Margrave, all smiles now his purpose had been achieved. ‘It is but to make a small re-arrangement of the procession. I shall be happy to explain it to you at your better convenience. And I shall, of course, be happy to supply musicians; my own household players are highly trained and talented far beyond what is commonly met with.’
‘That’s settled, then,’ said the king, and called for his carriage. The Margrave taking his departure immediately after, Simon and Podge were left to explain the matter to Sophie, who came in just then with her basket of first-aid equipment.
‘Wicked little things!’ she said cheerfully. ‘They had been fighting; I had to stitch up his head; but he did not mean to push him off the fountain . . . Now, what was that man’s purpose in coming here?
‘It’s a thundering nuisance!’ exclaimed Simon. ‘I don’t care for that fellow, I don’t trust him. I hope this offer is not the cloak for some piece of devilment. I wish I had not got to deal with him.’
‘Still,’ pointed out Sophie, ‘Bonnie Prince George is dead and they do not have any other person to put at the head of their party – so I do not really see what they can do –’
‘But what about the Margrave himself? Isn’t he a cousin of Prince George – so he must be the king’s cousin also? And an heir to the throne.’
‘No, he ain’t,’ said Podge, who read the papers every day and knew much about public matters. ‘The Margrave’s parents weren’t married. His father was Prince Rupert of Hanover, but his mother was only a dairymaid. So he ain’t eligible. But anyhow it seems to me, Simon, that if they are hatching something connected with this procession, it is better if he comes and consults you – then at least you have a chance to find out what he is up to –’
‘Oh well, I suppose so,’ said Simon crossly. I wish Dido were here, he thought. She’s as quick as a needle; she’d soon spot anything shravey in the business. He went over to the window and stood looking out at the snow-covered yard. The children who played there had gone, to whatever cellars and hovels they huddled into at night time.
‘Sophie,’ began Podge shyly, and then stood tongue-tied.
‘Yes, Podge?’ said Sophie, smiling at him encouragingly. His diffidence in retiring to the back of the room while the grand folks were talking had not escaped her notice. (This had not prevented him, however, from watching the other three very heedfully; and he had come to several conclusions, which he kept to himself.)
‘I brought you a little token to mark St Gothold’s Day,’ he now explained bashfully, ‘but I didn’t like to give it you while those gentry were here.’ And he pulled out from his pocket a small twist of silver paper. ‘It’s to keep your needles bright –’
‘Oh, Podge, how pretty! Sophie cried in delight, undoing the paper, which contained a tiny velvet apple, green on one side, red on the other. ‘An emery ball! It is exactly what I need. Podge, you give nicer and more useful presents than anybody else in the world.’
This was true. Podge had a very low opinion of his own ability to make friends, or keep them, because he was so plain and plump, and not clever; because of this, he thought a great deal about the people he loved, and knew exactly the kind of thing that would please them. He had given Sophie a number of gifts, mostly small and inexpensive, but just what she liked best, and could use: a box with compartments to keep her embroidery silks in, a pair of scissors like a bird, a book about the language of flowers, a white dove which sat on her shoulder and ate peas from her hand, a pair of small pink-and-silver Turkish slippers with turned-up toes which he had bought from a sailor.
‘I know’d they’d just exactly fit your tiny feet,’ he had said proudly. Podge’s own feet were enormous, and he was rather ashamed of them. – He had also learned Japanese wrestling because he hated his own clumsiness; and had then taught the art to Simon.
‘Podge, just before the Margrave came in, you were starting to tell something to his majesty, and then you never said any more about it. Did you forget?’ asked Sophie, when the velvet apple had been put in a place of honour in her work-basket.
‘No, I didn’t. But I could see the king wanted to leave; and I didn’t reckon on blabbing out a lot o’ business in front of that Margrave. He’s got his finger in too many pies as it is; he owns a deal o’ property round our way and is up to a deal o’ mischief. I wouldn’t wonder if this trouble’s his brewing –’
‘What is it then?’ asked Simon, returning to the fire-place and throwing another log to crackle on the fire.
‘Why, it’s the hot cockle-sellers.’
‘The cockle-sellers, Podge?’
‘Mostways, like I was saying before, the young ’uns all helps each other. The ones as sells cresses, or walnuts, or whatever it is, they agrees among themselves about wh
o’s to have which pitch, in which street; and the buskers and street singers the same. But now there’s this new lot of hot cockle-sellers, the Bowmen, they call themselves . . .’
5
‘WE ARE HERE from his excellency the Margrave,’ said one of the two men in black hats. ‘We have brought the gentleman who is to lodge with Mr Bredalbane.’
‘Lodge?’ said Dido, startled. ‘I didn’t reckon as he was to lodge here? I thought he was just to step round for a bit o’ conversation once in a while. You’d best talk to my pa.’ And she called, ‘Pa? Pa? There’s a cove here from His Nabs –’
‘Hush, hush, my canary,’ exclaimed Mr Twite, hurrying up the basement stair and jingling a fistful of farthings as he came. ‘Bricks have ears and cobbles have eyes. Now then, what’s all this, pray?’
‘We’ve brought the chap as is to lodge with you. Here’s his traps –’ and the black-hatted man produced a carpetbag and a portmanteau. The bandaged stranger, meanwhile, stood silent in his line wrappings; Dido, somewhat awestruck and mystified, wondered if he were able to speak; his mouth was all covered over by white strapping.
Mr Twite reacted just as his daughter had done.
‘Lodge here? No one said anything about his lodging here.’ He scowled at the stranger.
‘His excellency thought it best,’ said one of the two escorts stolidly. ‘Dr Finster will be round to see the gentleman in the morning. He will call twice a day.’
And with that the two men in black turned smartly on their heels and marched off into the darkness.
‘Canker it!’ muttered Mr Twite, evidently much discomposed. ‘I never reckoned as the plaguy fellow was going to be bedded on us; that’s the outside of enough, that is!’
He looked indecisively at the two bags on the floor, and the bandaged man standing helpless in the doorway.
‘Blest if I know what to do about it,’ grumbled Mr Twite.
Without making the least effort to welcome the unexpected caller, or even address him, Mr Twite returned to the back room, calling over his shoulder, ‘Shut the door, daughter, do; we don’t want half Wapping gleering in at us; and it sets up a freezing draught, furthermore.’
From sounds within the room, Dido gathered that her father was helping himself to another jorum of Organ Grinder’s Oil.
Dido felt sorry for the visitor, standing there abandoned by his escorts and blinded by bandages.
‘Shall I take the cove – shall I take the gentleman to a room, Pa?’ she suggested, putting her head round the door. ‘Or would Mrs Bloodvessel rather –’
She stopped, for it was plainly no use expecting any instructions from Mrs Bloodvessel, who was snoring loudly on the tousled couch. Her head dangled upside down over the side, above a glass which had rolled across the dusty floor, leaving a trail of red syrup. A half-smoked cigar still dangled from her fingers. Dido removed it and dropped it into the dying fire.
‘A room, a room,’ mumbled Mr Twite. ‘A room, a-rum, a-rum, a-riddle-me-ree! What’ll we do with the bandaged stranger? Feed him in the stable, bed him in the manger . . .’ and he gave a great wrenching yawn, looking fondly at the couch where Mrs Bloodvessel lay, where there was just room for a second person, provided that person were thin.
‘We haven’t got a manger, Pa,’ said Dido impatiently. ‘Let alone a stable.’
She felt dog-tired herself; the ill-effects of Mrs Bloodvessel’s potion had by no means worn off, and she too longed to lie down somewhere peaceful and sleep for hours together. Dunno when I last slept in a proper bed, she thought; and it won’t be for a fair stretch yet, I reckon.
But there the stranger stood, blinded, powerless, and dependent on the inhabitants of Bart’s Building for some sort of hospitality. If there was a tiresome job to be done, Dido preferred to do it at once and get it out of the way.
‘I’ll put him somewhere, then, Pa; he shouldn’t be left standing about like a hitching post, poor devil. Here, where’s those keys?’
With distaste, she knelt by the unconscious Mrs Bloodvessel and managed to untie the whole bunch of keys that dangled from her belt. The woman snored and rolled over but took no other notice of Dido’s action.
That’s the ticket, my aphasia,’ yawned Mr Twite. ‘Give him – hic! – one o’ the best rooms, wi’ panelling and bedcurtains. Nothing too good for His Nabs’s candi-hic-candi-diggle. Any friend of Eisengrim is a friend of Desmond Twite – hic! – ipso hicso facto. Let him lay his head on a goose-feather bed . . . and rest his feet on a silken sheet. Hickety-cup!’
Dido picked up a straightbacked chair and carried it into the hall. It would not, she thought, be at all possible to lead the blind visitor through the total muddle of that back room.
‘Would you please to sit there a minute, sir,’ she said, and guided him to the chair. ‘I’ll just step upstairs and find a room for you, and I’ll be down again directly.’
Carrying a lighted candle and the heavy bunch of keys, she made her way upstairs.
The house called Bart’s Building proved to have three upper storeys, including the attics. Starting at the top, Dido unlocked and flung open all the doors in turn. Nobody was in any of the rooms; the house appeared to be unused, apart from Mr Twite and Mrs Bloodvessel on the ground floor, and the Slut and the lollpoops in the basement.
All the doors were locked, though there seemed little purpose in this, as many of the cold, high-ceilinged rooms were unfurnished. One was piled high with clothes, very gorgeous clothes, Mrs Bloodvessel’s perhaps, from some earlier period of her life. One of the three attics, as Dido had expected, was the room she had been shut up in. The attics were approached by a ladder.
Pa and Mrs B. must have had the dickens of a job hoisting me up there, thought Dido with a grin.
The stairs to the upper floors were so steep that a ship’s rope ran up beside them instead of a rail.
In a room on the third floor Dido found some articles which she recognized as belonging to her father: several hoboys, a dusty spinet with one key missing, some shoes, some books, lying on the floor, and a bundle of music. There was also a rather nice bag of her own, with blue flowers on it, which a fagott-playing friend of her father’s had once given her; it had vanished long ago, when she was seven or eight. It held a comb and a razor. Fancy it being here all that time, Dido thought; wonder how many years Pa has been coming to this house?
If Pa had to pick a lady friend, she thought, walking into another room and inspecting it with her candle, wouldn’t you think he’d pick one with a bit better looks and better temper? Mrs B. seems just as disagreeable as Ma, there’s naught to choose between ’em.
Of course, it’s true that Mrs B. has a house of her own; leastways one she rents from the Margrave, recalled Dido, descending the stairs to the first floor.
The rooms here were even higher. What a lot o’ locked rooms, thought Dido, going from one to another. What a lot o’ keys. Suppose I were to collect all the keys from all the houses in the street; suppose I were to pile up all the keys in London. What a pile that ’ud be. High as a church tower, very likely. All made so folk can keep themselves private. Wonder who first made a key and stuck it in a lock? Pa ought to write a bit o’ music about keys and locks . . . You’d have one part for the lock – with a kind of space in it, a-waiting – and then the other part for the key, long and thin . . .
Blimey, I ain’t half tired, thought Dido.
She was now in a room which contained a four-poster bed, a three-legged stool, and a sailor’s chest; it was the most fully furnished apartment she had yet come across, and she decided that it would have to do for the bandaged gentleman. There were no sheets or blankets, but she recalled piles of such coverings in the all-purpose room where her father and Mrs Bloodvessel spent their time. Slipping back there, she helped herself to an armful of bedding, also some other comforts: a candle, lucifer matches, a plate and mug and a tin basin.
‘That’s the dandy, my serviceable sprite,’ murmured her father, who neither helped nor
hindered these activities, but drowsily reclined on the bed by Mrs Bloodvessel, occasionally picking out a pattern of notes on his hoboy.
‘Dido Twite, a serviceable sprite,’ he warbled, and as Dido climbed the stairs a second time with her load she heard him begin to set those words to a slippery, catchy little tune which he repeated in several different keys.
Just fancy! thought Dido, Pa’s gone and made up a tune about me! and she could not help feeling rather proud, with part of her mind, though the other half wished impatiently that her father would do something more helpful about the bandaged guest.
When the upstairs room had been rendered as comfortable as seemed possible, she returned to the hall and laid her hand upon the bandaged man’s arm.
‘Will you please to follow me up the stairs, mister?’ she said, and took his hand to lead him. He came after her biddably, and seemed quite content with the room, what he could see of it through his eye-holes, though, thought Dido, it must seem poor and bare compared with any chamber in the Margrave’s establishment.
‘D’you want any supper, mister?’ inquired Dido, wondering what she would do if he said yes. But luckily he shook his head. Maybe he can’t eat, with his mouth all bandaged up, she thought, but then, to her great surprise, he carefully unwound the bandage from around the upper and lower parts of his face and head, leaving only the portion covering his nose. There seemed nothing wrong with the expanse of skin thus uncovered.
‘Croopus! What was the point of all them bandages then?’ Dido exclaimed
‘His excellency thought it best –’ said the man, after clearing his throat. ‘So I should not be recognized in the street; or tempted to speak, you know –’
Dido stared at him, really puzzled now, studying what she could see of his face.
‘Great fish, sir, ain’t you the king?’ He shook his head.
‘Well you’re as like him as one pin to another. Did you know that? Are you his brother?’
