The Apprentices

by Leon Garfield

  “Friend of yours, Miss Jessop?” murmured Hawkins, nodding down towards the grave beside which they stood. His eyes lingered on the wreath. “A dear departed, was he? Taken when ’e was sixteen. That’s a year less than me. . . . He’s grassed over well; but then it’s five years and the soil’s good in St. Martin’s. . . .”

  Hastily Miss Jessop looked away. Something black was flickering out of the corner of her eye. With a start she realized it was the veil from which she’d meant to hang herself. It was still tied to the bough of the elder tree.

  “I—I never knew him,” said Miss Jessop awkwardly. “It was just an occasion we—we furnished . . . a long time ago. It’s no more than that.”

  “Yes, miss. As you say. Only I supposed”—he indicated the twisted veil—“that it was a favour, a love ribbon, in a manner of speaking . . . like round a mute’s wand. I thought to myself, that’s a beautiful, poetic idea . . . making mutes of the trees. I was going to ask you if we—Todds’s—might adopt it . . . that is, wherever there’s a suitable branch, of course! I hope, Miss Jessop, you wouldn’t take it amiss if we—Todds’s—was to do something in the same line? We could call them Jessops, if you like. . . .”

  All Miss Jessop’s anger returned with a rush. It was intolerable that the insufferable Hawkins should turn even the evidence of her despair to his own business advantage. She didn’t want to look at him. She reached up to untie her veil, which had become ridiculous and humiliating in her eyes. Hawkins, unaware of her feelings, came courteously to her assistance. He smelled of varnish and aromatic herbs, and his nose was as smooth as marble.

  Briefly his hand touched hers over the knot in the veil. Miss Jessop snatched hers away in instinctive horror, remembering other hands she’d touched. She felt she’d betrayed the sleeper under the grass, who lay so quietly, listening and watching. . . .

  Surreptitiously she wiped her fingers clean as Hawkins untied the knot, smoothed out the delicate muslin, and returned it to her.

  “It’s a nice stone, Miss Jessop,” said Hawkins, looking down at the grave again. “They don’t do them like that any more. They never do the inscription as deep. Sometimes it’s not much more than a scratch.”

  “Mr. Jessop has always been very particular about the stone.”

  “And well known for it,” said Hawkins gravely. “Even Mr. Todds used to say that when his time came he’d as soon Jessop & Pottersfield’s furnished him as anyone else in the trade.”

  “Really?” said Miss Jessop, taken off guard and warmed by the unusual tribute from a rival. “Did he really say that?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed!” said Hawkins eagerly. “Good taste, he always said. That’s what Jessop & Pottersfield’s have. Impeccable taste. Do you know, in the old days—”

  “Yes! In the old days!” interrupted Miss Jessop bitterly. “But things are very different now! We’ve not furnished anybody for a month, Mr. Hawkins! A whole month! Did you know that? Of course you did! But can you know what it means to us, Mr. Hawkins?”

  Hawkins looked momentarily guilty and distraught; then with an impulsive gesture, he clasped Miss Jessop’s hands.

  “Things will look up, Miss Jessop! Please don’t you worry! Everything will be all right! It—it’s only the season. Come March and a cold snap and before you can say dust to dust, there’ll be bereavements and funerals left over and to spare! Mark my words, Miss Jessop, you’ll not be able to move in the shop for coffins and hatbands and shammy gloves! Oh, the good times are coming back, Miss Jessop!”

  “Are you sure of it, Mr. Hawkins?” asked Miss Jessop, undeniably touched by the stately youth’s concern for her.

  “As sure as we’re both standing here in the churchyard!” cried Hawkins, clasping Miss Jessop’s hands even more tightly. Gently she freed herself, and Hawkins took off his shining black hat to reveal a pale brow, bright with perspiration.

  He closed his eyes and tendered his sincerest apologies for having taken such liberties with Miss Jessop. He did not wish her to think him lacking in sympathy or respect; it was just that he had been borne away by the sight of her distress. . . .

  She accepted his apology, and Hawkins, with immense relief and dignity, proposed a stroll among the sunny tombstones to refresh them both. So they walked, side by side—the funereal youth and the funereal girl—pausing by stones and monuments and sombre urns, criticizing this and admiring that, for it was their trade.

  Many of the sleepers had been laid to rest by Jessop & Pottersfield’s; Miss Jessop remembered them all and talked of the lively times of her pa’s heyday. She found herself recollecting the old mutes of her childhood—tall, sad fellows decked with crepe weepers like melancholy maypoles—who’d made her laugh with strange jokes when she’d cried over a dead mouse or a broken doll. . . .

  They read the inscriptions as if turning the pages of an old stone album: “Deeply loved . . . deeply missed . . . we will be together again . . . loving . . . loving . . .” Love was everywhere, and the crisp grass rustled and sighed.

  “Is this one of yours, miss?” asked Hawkins, pausing beside a simple grey headstone that marked a newly grassed grave. Miss Jessop shook her head.

  “Samuel Bold,” read out Hawkins. “Lamplighter late of Cripplegate Ward. To them which sat in the shadow of death, LIGHT is sprung up.”

  “Very suitable,” said Miss Jessop.

  “If I’d furnished ’im,” said Hawkins softly, “I’d ’ave advised a monument, Miss Jessop.”

  “What sort of a monument, Mr. Hawkins . . . bearing in mind the circumstances of the bereaved?”

  “An angel, Miss Jessop. A boy angel, holdin’ a torch. Might I show you, Miss Jessop?”

  She nodded, and the undertaker’s apprentice, with graceful decorum, laid a white handkerchief with a black border at the foot of the grave. Then, placing his hat beside him, he knelt.

  At first Miss Jessop was inclined to smile . . . until she saw it was no smiling matter. The youth, upon one knee, had lifted up his arms and was holding them out towards her. His long fingers trembled, and on his face was an expression that would have melted the finest Aberdeen granite. Beloved . . . loving . . . dear one were carved all over it till there was no room left to end it even with a date.

  “Would you—would you care for a monument like this?”

  “Mr. Hawkins!”

  “Please, Miss Jessop! Tell me—”

  “I—I don’t know . . . I can’t say. . . . You must get up, Mr. Hawkins. . . . The grass is chilly and damp. You will catch cold . . your death of cold. . . .”

  “And if I did, would you put such a monument over me?”

  “I don’t know—I don’t know! B-besides, Todds’s would—would be furnishing you . . . I’m sure they would! And—and in any case, Mr. Hawkins, you wouldn’t look half so fine in stone!”

  “I love you, Miss Jessop! I’ve always loved you,” whispered the youth, his eyes shining and his face pale with hope.

  “Please don’t say such things, Mr. Hawkins! You can’t mean them. . . .”

  But he assured her that he did. Still kneeling, he went on to tell her how, when he first came into the trade, he’d admired her, longed for her, and dreamed of her. He told her, shyly, of how, in the early days, he’d carved her name on every coffin lid and scratched it on headstones where none but he could see it. He told her how he’d vowed to make himself worthy of her. He’d prayed for strength to work and work to make something of himself so that he could approach her. Every funeral he helped to furnish had been a step nearer. . . .

  “Oh, stop, stop!” cried Miss Jessop. She was immeasurably distressed and ashamed to hear that all Hawkins’ industry, which had ruined her family, had been only for her.

  “Everything has been for you,” said Hawkins, rising to his feet and standing so close to her that she felt dizzy from the smell of varnish and herbs.

  “And now,” he murmured into her ear, “the time ’as come, Miss Jessop.”

  He went on to tell her, with mingl
ed modesty and pride, that Todds’s was opening up in Queen Street and that he, Hawkins, was to manage.

  “Though I’m still only a ’prentice, miss, Mr. Todds ’as promised me the management. He only told me yesterday, Miss Jessop . . . and my ’eart sang like a nightingale. I knew my St. Valentine’s Day ’ad come round at last. That’s why I came here, to find you. . . .”

  “You came here for me?”

  Miss Jessop trembled and blushed deeply as she recollected what she’d been doing when Hawkins had found her . . . the dreadful preparations she’d been making.

  “I—I wasn’t going to . . . really . . . I wasn’t . . .” she stammered, clutching her veil and wishing it would vanish away.

  Hawkins smiled and shook his head. A natural compassion for distress prevented him from telling her how panic-stricken he’d been as he’d watched her about to make away with herself. Suddenly his smile broadened as he realized how his impulsive saving of Miss Jessop’s life had deprived the new premises of a client. Mr. Todds would not have been pleased with him. . . .

  “Why are you smiling, Mr. Hawkins?”

  “Pleasure, Miss Jessop, at being with you.”

  She accepted his explanation, even though she felt it to be not entirely true. The undertaker’s apprentice bent to pick up his hat and his black-edged handkerchief. He asked if Miss Jessop would honour him by visiting the new premises? It was very close, he assured her, no more than a walking funeral off. . . .

  He extended his arm to Miss Jessop, and together they strolled from the lamplighter’s grave.

  “We’re opening up day after tomorrow, Miss Jessop. With old Mrs. Noades.”

  She bit her lip with a sudden pang of envy.

  “We’re making a real occasion of it,” went on Hawkins proudly. “We’re donating ten yards of black silk to the church at our own expense. There’ll be four mutes with white ’atbands and weepers on their wands done up with black love ribbons. Six branch boys with real wax candles and shammy gloves all round—even for the servants. No ’orses, of course, as she’ll be going from Queen Street, but there’ll be a featherman—”

  “What’s that, Mr. Hawkins?”

  “Ah! It’s the newest thing. French and very smart. It’s a tray of black ostrich plumes carried on the featherman’s ’ead. Works out at two shillings. . . .”

  “It sounds very handsome—”

  “Would you care to see it, Miss Jessop? If you are not otherwise engaged, would you attend the occasion as my guest? It would be a great compliment, and I can’t think of anything that would set off a furnishing to better advantage than your presence, Miss Jessop!”

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Hawkins.”

  “The repast is to be at the Eagle and Child, on the river.”

  Miss Jessop inclined her head. “In the old days, Mr. Hawkins, we used to have little honey cakes in black paper cups. They made a very good impression. . . .”

  “I’ll order them directly!”

  They paused by the lych gate.

  “I told you,” said Hawkins, so softly that she could scarcely hear him, “that I love you, Miss Jessop, and that, for me, the time ’as come.”

  He put his hand upon hers, where it lay in the crook of his smooth black elbow like a bouquet of lilies.

  “In two years I’ll be out of my apprenticeship and will be of a man’s estate. . . .”

  She began to tremble violently; her heart fluttered and she could only draw breath with difficulty. She knew he was about to make her an offer . . . that he was on the point of asking her to become Mrs. Hawkins.

  Her mind, confused by the profoundest agitation, struggled for words to reject the youth. She had no choice but to reject him. Her heart was already given; and how could she, in the twinkling of an eye, turn from hanging herself for a dead love to accepting the advances of a brand-new live one? It was too much to ask! She could never, never be wife to one who had never been her valentine. There had to be a springtime of love before its summer. And besides . . .

  “Will you—will you accept my sincerest affection and become my wife?” murmured the funereal lover in tones that would have done credit to a parson.

  Alas, poor Hawkins! He was too conscientious an apprentice to quite cast off the quality of his trade! Decorum and respect were instinctive to him in the presence of an occasion, and what greater occasion had he ever faced than this present one of declaring his lifelong love?

  “Will you marry me?” he repeated, bowing his head.

  Miss Jessop, no less conscious of decorum and respect—and admiring them in their proper place—turned her head away and gazed, with anguish and pleading, towards the grave under the elder tree. If only he could help her . . . if only he could send her a sign!

  Her eyes widened. The wreath—his wreath—had gone! What did it mean?

  “Will you be Mrs. ’Awkins?”

  “The wreath . . . it—it’s gone!”

  Hawkins somewhat dismayed by this reception of his addresses, followed the direction of Miss Jessop’s gaze. He frowned; he scowled; he muttered something under his breath. With an unaccustomed agitation he freed her arm from his.

  “It’s not gone far,” he said, and began to walk, at first slowly and reverently, among the headstones, apparently bowing to each loving memory as he passed.

  Suddenly there was a quicker movement among the tombs. Something small and earthy scuttled out. It might have been a large rat. Then it squealed, “Look out! ’E’s arter us!”

  Two similar creatures emerged from concealment and began to fly, with screams and shrieks, before the advancing figure that, they sensed, was bent upon vengeance.

  Hawkins’ pace quickened; he broke into a long-legged, dancing run. His hat tumbled off and his fair hair flew out like an unquenched candle. The demon children squealed with terrified delight and went zigzag among the dead. Hawkins, with coattails flying, leaped the graves, swung on the iron railings that enclosed the monuments, and vaulted the “loving memories” and “deeply beloveds” as lightly as a bird.

  Miss Jessop, standing by the lych gate, looked on, half in terror and half in fascination as life sprang up among the meek and helpless dead; how it danced and scampered, squealed and shouted, and became, at length, a wild, fantastic game in which the silent sleepers under the grass played the only part they could—by offering their “loving memories” as obstacles, concealments, refuges, and, ultimately, stepping stones for the triumph of—

  He’d caught them! He’d stalked them round a black marble monument to the memory of a clockmaker and his wife, and trapped them against the railings! Miss Jessop heard his shout of triumph and the children’s wail of dismay. What would he do with them? Nothing. He laughed and let them go. Wrath and sternness were no part of Hawkins. . . .

  He returned to Miss Jessop, panting and bearing the now battered circlet of holly.

  “Here!” he said. “They nicked it. They nicked yours, too, earlier on. They brought it to me in the shop. I paid them and—and put this one in its place.”

  “And—and the card?” murmured Miss Jessop, overcome with remorse and confusion. “Did you put that there?”

  “You read it then?”

  She nodded.

  “Will you be my valentine?” asked Hawkins, flushed and weary from his wild pursuit. “Will you, my love?”

  “Yes,” said Miss Jessop, who could not find, either in her mind or in her heart, the words to reject him. “I will be your valentine!”

  They walked from the lych gate and left the churchyard behind them. They strolled into Queen Street to view the new premises, twined in each other’s arms. People smiled as they passed, and an old lamplighter, dragging his ladder, recollected that it was St. Valentine’s Day and, remembering an ancient custom, mumbled, “There they goes: the ivy girl and the holly boy.”

  LABOUR-IN-VAIN

  “MY MA,” SAID Gully to his friends, “Looks after our family leather business. In quite a big way, y’know. Old-established premises i
n one of them quiet parts off Old Change.”

  He himself was apprenticed to Noades’s, the bucklemakers in Shoemaker’s Row, where he worked in brass, plate, and pinchbeck with chips of Bristol stone sparingly cemented into the more fancy styles.

  “My son,” confided Mrs. Gully to a new neighbour, “works in the jewellery line. ’Andles pearls and diamonds as if they was as common as them black beads you’re wearin’. Meanin’ no offence, of course. . . .”

  She lived in Labour-in-Vain Yard, where, with the help of an ancient journeyman, she kept a small dark cobbler’s shop that always reeked of leather and feet.

  “I once worked for a lady what had a real diamond brooch,” murmured the neighbour, forlornly fingering her beads. “It was in—”

  “My Gully don’t go all that much on diamonds,” interrupted Mrs. Gully, raising her voice as the journeyman started hammering in the workroom next door. “’E thinks they’re a bit common nowadays.”

  “She used to wash it in buttermilk!” shouted the neighbour anxiously.

  “Sometimes ’e’s brung me things on Motherin’ Sunday,” howled Mrs. Gully, “that wouldn’t disgrace ’Anover Square!”

  “The lady what I worked for lived in—”

  “The Lord God Almighty,” bellowed Mrs. Gully when the journeyman’s hammering stopped, leaving her voice exposed as a raw, passionate shriek, “knows what ’e’ll bring me next!”

  They were a proud dynasty were the Gullys, and rising in pride with every generation. But this same pride, which might have united them, divided them in the cruellest way. Although, as the crow flies, it was less than half a mile from Shoemaker’s Row to Labour-in-Vain Yard, as the proud apprentice walked, it might as well have been a thousand. Gully visited his ma scarcely one Sunday in a month; and even when he did, it was with feelings of awkwardness and distress.

  Being in the buckle business, which, by its very nature, was some inches off the ground, he felt himself removed from the odious trade of feet entirely. He didn’t care to think of it at all; and particularly he didn’t like to dwell, in his mind, upon his ma’s dingy workroom, where the old journeyman sat with his bunioned toes exposed and stinking like the old soles he patched.