Peaches and the Queen
Page 7
At the top of the stair, he hesitated, because a lady and a gentleman were walking toward him. Theo froze in place, not knowing what to do. They were more grandly dressed than he’d ever seen so close, except in pictures. The lady’s stiff satin skirts hissed as she and the gentleman walked past Theo without seeing him. They drifted down the hall as though they were ghosts of this palace, and for all he knew, they were. He hurried on.
As he went down the first carpeted passage he passed another page dashing along in the other direction. He also saw two laundresses, a gaggle of maids, footmen every three feet, and a pair of gentlemen sauntering along the corridors chatting as though they were out for a walk in the park. None of them noticed him. Now he began to have the odd fancy that he was the ghost, and was walking in a dream.
He took the turns the butler had indicated, turning and twisting into the heart of the palace. The further he went, the fewer people he saw. It grew quieter too, until the only sound he heard was his own blood racing. He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse, because this part of the palace had the feel of a cathedral to it. Then he saw the statue of the winged boy standing in the center of the hallway in front of him.
Theo’s pulse began to gallop. His face heated, his hands turned cold. He stood staring at that other, marble boy. The Queen’s rooms were on the right. That was the way he had to go, making sure he wasn’t seen. He looked back and saw no one coming. He turned his head, then his feet, and stealthily, on his toes, he sneaked down the hall—and stopped, as surely as he thought his heart had done.
A door on his right was easing open. Theo thought of turning and running in the other direction. But Bill said that was the one thing he must not do. “Only thieves run,” Bill said wisely. “If they see you, act all innocent. You do that good.”
Theo tried to look lost instead of panicked.
No one came out the door.
Theo waited until he got the uneasy feeling that whoever was on the other side of that door was waiting too. He craned his neck, trying to peer inside the room. If whoever it was wasn’t coming out, after all, he might be able to slip by. He took another step, sidled up to the door, looked in—and felt a surge of relief.
It was a gilded room, fit for a fine lady. And so the chimney sweep standing in the center of it wasn’t going anywhere. He was likely just waiting for his boy to come down.
Theo squared his shoulders, and carefully watching the sweep, began to walk past the door like a boy on honest business. The sweep’s head turned. Theo’s eyes widened.
Dressed in rags, blacked by soot, still there was no mistaking the intense dark stare that looked out of that filthy face.
Thomas Farrow stood staring at him.
Theo couldn’t have run if he’d wanted to.
“Oh, gads,” Thomas muttered. “I should have known,” he said in an angry whisper. His head came up like a dog’s on the hunt. “Anyone with you?”
Theo shook his head. He was beyond words.
“Ah,” Thomas said, and heaved a great sigh. “Still, might not be bad, not bad at all,” he murmured. Then he skated toward Theo, his rag-covered feet sliding silently along the floor.
“Yes, better this way,” he said softly, looking down at Theo thoughtfully. “I should have thought of it. Your friend Bill and his brothers are a wide-awake lot. I’ll have to remember to offer them work. All right,” he whispered, bending so only Theo could have heard him, and Theo had to strain his ears, “listen close.”
“You do it alone. Go down ten doors on the right, seven on the left.” he said on the merest breath of sound. “Turn to the right again. The white door’s the one where the cat should be—and the dogs. Be quick, and be silent, and if the dogs bark—and they will—keep going before anyone else comes. They won’t bite, I don’t think. The law will, if they catch you. Take the cat and run back this way. Hand it off to me. I’ve got a sack, sweeps are supposed to have them.”
He saw Theo’s expression, and said acidly, “Where were you going to carry it? Ah, I see they didn’t think of that. Nice to know I’m still needed,” he added with sarcasm, looking both ways along the hallway.
“You’re here for me?” Theo asked in astonishment.
“Partly,” Thomas said softly, as he scanned the hall. “Partly for your dog. I prefer dogs to cats. And partly,” he said, a white smile appearing like a white slash amidst all that soot, “the best partly, for your sister.… All right, coast’s clear. Go get the damned moggie. I’ll interfere only if I have to. Try to see I don’t have to. Now—go!”
Theo flew.
He counted off the doors on each side and stopped when he got to the white one. Then, holding his breath, trying not to think, he tried the doorknob. It turned. He turned it all the way, and quickly stepped inside the room.
The dogs barked.
Theo stood frozen. Big dogs bellowed and roared, medium-sized dogs belled and croaked, little dogs yipped and yapped. He could swear there were a hundred barking. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t have run if his life depended on it, and he supposed it did. He could only stand, waiting to be attacked.
But nothing bit him.
A soft voice said, “Oh, hush,” and the room hushed.
Theo opened his eyes.
The eyes of a pair of hounds and a dog the size of a horse stared back at him, almost on his own eye level. A clutch of terriers, some small white and brown dogs, and a few other tiny ones watched him intently. He and they were standing in an enormous room, with more gold in it than he’d seen so far.
But there was more everything here than he’d seen so far. Furniture, carpets, pictures and tables—many tables, their tops covered with shawls, doilies and runners, and framed daguerreotypes, figurines, vases, bowls, books and lamps and candlesticks, and more that Theo couldn’t take into his shocked mind. Because there was an old woman sitting in a chair, and she was looking at him.
She was plump, her white hair partially covered by a lace cap, and her gnarled hands, stilled in her lap, were covered with rings. Theo had only seen pictures of her in newspapers he sold, but he knew her.
He didn’t know whether to bow or run or cry. So he sank to one knee and hung his head, like a page of olden times, and waited for the words of his Queen.
“What are you doing here, boy?” she asked.
He was beyond lying. He looked up. “Looking for my cat, Ma’am… Your Majesty.”
“Indeed?” she said with interest. “So I have been too. What does yours look like?”
“She’s orange, Ma’am,” he said, rushing into speech, the words bubbling out because his only hope was the truth. “Orange with white stripes, and a white beard and mustache too. Her name’s Peaches, and I had to try to find her because she’s so important to my old dog, Nibs. He’s sick, and he’ll die if she doesn’t come back, and I know she would if she could…Ma’am.”
“It is very good when a cat and a dog get on together,” she said, nodding her head. One hand gestured toward a window on the other side of the room. “I have an orange cat, boy. Is she like yours?”
Theo raised his head, trying to see beyond all the splendor. “You may rise. Go and see.”
He went to the window, where he finally saw what he’d thought to be just another statue. The large orange cat looked serenely back at him. She was big, and had faint white stripes, a white mustache and beard. But she was not Peaches.
Theo’s shoulders slumped. He turned. “Thank you, Ma’am. She’s very nice. But she’s not my cat.”
“No, I should not think so. Do not pine. The cat comes back, they say. Here, boy. Take these. In case your cat does not return, these can buy you a new one, though I know too well that will not do, will it?”
She reached into a purse in her lap and took out two gold coins. “Here, take them.”
As though walking in his sleep, Theo stretched out a hand and let her drop the coins into it. “Ma’am?” he said, looking down at them. “I don’t deserve these.”
Theo bowed like a courtier, turned, and left.
He slowly went down the corridor, all fear of discovery vanished along with his hopes. When he passed a puzzled Thomas Farrow where he hovered behind a half-open door, he merely shook his head. “Not mine,” he said softly, and walked slowly onward.
He’d wanted to believe in miracles. He’d risked everything for one, because Christmas was coming and if ever there were a time for miracles it was now. He’d been sure the Queen had his cat. He’d needed to believe it as much as the miracle he’d hoped for. And yet he knew better. Hadn’t he lost his mother and then his father? Hadn’t he lost his fine home too? Didn’t he live in a low slum now, and worry how much further he would sink? Not to mention how bad he felt about his sister and her lot in life. Whatever possessed him to believe in miracles, Christmas or not? Had he been mad?
He walked in a daze, until he heard a shocked voice say, “Hold! What are you doing in these quarters, boy?”
Theo turned misted eyes and saw a ruddy-faced palace guard looking down at him. The soldier’s red jacketed chest rose and fell as though he’d been running hard. Another guard raced up behind him, also panting with exertion.
Theo stared, too many words coming to his mind and none to his lips. He was beyond fear. He’d taken such risks, he hadn’t gotten his cat, he’d seen the Queen. These things were so enormous that he couldn’t remember one of his memorized lies.
“Got him!” the guard said to someone behind Theo. “We heard there was a suspicious intruder and we nabbed him.”
“Aye,” a deep voice said in disgust, “suspicious. You’re on the job, all right. The intruder is a bearded man, I heard. This is a boy. Without a beard. A page boy, at that. Did you take a wrong turn somewhere, lad?” the new man asked Theo.
Theo looked up and up at the new soldier’s face. He nodded.
“There, you’ve frightened the sense out of him,” the soldier told the other two. “Here, lad,” he said, kneeling to be level with Theo’s eyes. “Are you lost?”
Theo nodded. It was true in so many ways.
“Have you seen a red-bearded man with rust eyebrows?”
Theo shook his head in the negative.
“Well, there you are,” the huge solider said. “I’ll take the boy out, then I’ll go right. You two take the left corridor.”
The guards raced off.
The big soldier stayed kneeling, watching Theo. “Go home, young Theodore,” he said softly. “Go directly home now, off with you. And don’t come back, hear?”
Theo stared at him.
“Your eyes, lad,” Augustus said, as he rose to his full height. “You and your sister had better never take up lives of crime. Now go home, and tell your sister I’ll keep looking.”
“It wasn’t my cat,” Theo whispered, because with all these strange things happening, that still was foremost in his mind.
“You saw the Queen’s? Nevermind, there’s no time for a tale now, though I will want to hear all later. I’ll want to make sure no one can get in so easily again, not even a boy looking for his cat. I’m sorry it wasn’t yours. But who knows, yours may be back by the time you get home. Cats come back. Now, go home. And,” he muttered, “I just hope for his sake there’s no red-bearded fellow with rust eyebrows visiting the palace now. Go,” he told Theo again before he strode off down the hall.
Theo went on along the corridor, head down.
He went the way he’d come, only slowly, absently, thinking hard. He tucked his coins in an inner pocket. He had gold for Ben at least. He supposed the other coin might buy him another cat, but Peaches hadn’t been bought, she’d given herself to him. There might be cats in his future, but he saw no future for Peaches, nor for Nibs, not now, not anymore. He could hardly see his own way either, because of the tears swimming in his eyes.
“Here!” a familiar sounding deep voice said right by his ear.
Theo turned in time to take the big wicker basket that was thrust at him. It contained something that rocked and bumped in the basket as he clutched it to his chest. A heavy weight—that mewed.
Theo looked up at Lord Montrose.
“Home!” Lord Montrose ordered him, “Quickly.”
Theo didn’t dare peek in the basket or let his spirits soar the way they were starting to do. Clutching his heavy shifting burden, he ran down the corridor, and took the stair fast as he could. When he reached the bottom he ran for the outer hall.
“Aha, she gave you something to carry back,” the butler chuckled when he saw Theo trying to make speed while struggling with his awkward load. “Don’t worry, lad, the heavier the burden, the greater the reward.”
Yes! Theo thought as he ran to the door he’d come in by, hoping it was true. He headed toward the front gate, scarcely able to bear the suspense any longer, much less the heavy basket. But he didn’t dare stop.
Until someone shouted for him to do so.
“Hold on, boy!” a haughty voice commanded.
Theo stopped, clutching the basket to his chest.
“The boy his acting most suspiciously,” Mr. Howatch explained to the guards and palace workers who had heard his command and saw the stricken-looking boy standing looking up at him. “Hi have kept an eye out for such, since the events of late.” He touched a finger to his nose and nodded wisely, to remind them of the secrecy of the subject.
There were grudging murmurs of agreement from the growing crowd.
“Hi saw him coming hin today, and he was not hin such a hurry then. He was, hin fact, hesitant hin the extreme. Scared, one might say. But now look at him! Tearing out like his pants were afire. What is hin that basket, boy?”
Theo clutched the basket tight. His eyes were wild, his livery disheveled, his pomaded hair was beginning to come unglued, and stuck out every which way. He looked desperate enough to be up to anything, much less stealing a cat. And he was, because he’d decided he’d go to Tower Hill and put his head on the block before he ever gave up the basket.
The man who had stopped him approached Theo, terrifying him even more, because his face was a welter of scratches and he was bandaged like a mummy.
“What is in that basket,” a musical voice said with a laugh, “is what the wretched boy was supposed to bring me hours ago.”
Theo turned, unbelieving. His sister was walking toward him, slowly. So slowly and with such an undulating gait that every man there turned to watch her too. Despite the cold day, she was lightly dressed. But she was dressed as a laundress, one who had come straight from her steamy place of work. Her cheeks were rosy, her usually carefully bound hair was coiling down from under a kerchief wrapped round her head. She’d kilted her skirts so that her shapely ankles showed. Every man there was looking at them. She laughed again. A different laugh, a deep throaty one. Her voice and accent were different too, slower and rougher. Theo stared. But so did all the men watching, if for different reasons.
“He was supposed to deliver the lady’s…unmentionables to me hours ago,” she purred. “Villain of a boy, did you find another lad to play with and forget your duty? His mistress will have the skin off his bottom,” she said with a saucy wink at the men. “That is, if I tell her. But I think I won’t. Christmas is coming, and where’s the harm if I get my work done before her ladyship goes off with the Queen’s party? Which means I have to start now. Here, boy, hand over the basket and I’ll save your neck—uhm—rump, for you.”
Her audience laughed appreciatively as she added, “Consider it a Christmas gift from me.”
“Where’s mine?” one humorous fellow asked.
“Aye,” another called eagerly. “And mine?”
“Oh, you fellows will just have to wait until I get the laundry done,” she laughed, pulling the basket out of Theo�
�s hands. He felt her falter as she received the full weight, but she kept her bright smile and after that one lapse, handled it as though she was used to hauling such burdens.
“Hold,” the kennel master said angrily. “How do we know she hisn’t hin league with the boy?”
“In league with a boy?” Elizabeth asked, moving close to Theo. “Do I look as though I have to deal with boys?” She laughed along with the men, but Theo could see the worry in her eyes.
“Is there a reason for this assembly?” a new voice asked.
“Hi have reason to doubt this woman and this boy,” the kennel master told the massive red-coated palace guard who stood glaring at him.
“Reason enough to cause such a stir?” Lord Montrose asked, as he joined them.
The kennel master quailed, but said, “Hi saw the youth standing hin front of the gate for a long time before he entered the palace, my lord. He was running out like he was fleeing for his life. Since we have had problems of late,” he said with ferocious emphasis, “hi considered hit my duty to watch for any peculiar happenings.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” a soot-covered sweep in the crowd commented. “So why wasn’t you watching me when I come in—or out?” He picked up his sack of soot and grinned. “Want a look at this too?” he asked the kennel master. “Or ain’t Hi pretty enough to be in league with nobody?”
The crowd laughed.
“I think that’s quite enough,” Lord Montrose said in bored tones. “I believe it’s time for everyone to go back to work. You,” he told the sweep, and then as his cool gaze fell on her, “and you,” he told Elizabeth, “return to your work, my good woman. And you, lad,” he told Theo, “best get back to your master or mistress before you find yourself out of that work. As for you, Mr. Howatch,” he said slowly, “I do wonder. Are there not enough dogs to tend to? Perhaps you feel in need of more work? I am sure the stable master could use your services.”