John Diamond (Vintage Childrens Classics)

by Leon Garfield

  I sat there feeling unutterably bewildered, ashamed and wildly angry, too, with this uncanny world of digs and hints and smartness, where everything turned out to be a joke in the end … even death.

  I wanted to get up and run away; but the fog outside had imprisoned me. I longed, even, for the malicious dwarf to come back; but it was not yet nine o’clock. I hated Mr Jenkins, and I was frightened of him, too. I knew he only wanted the secret of the ten thousand pounds, which he thought I had; and he’d stop Mr Robinson helping me if he didn’t get it.

  Then Mr Robinson said:

  ‘That’s enough, Jenkins, old man. That’s quite enough of that.’

  To my astonishment, Mr Jenkins stopped laughing as if he’d been punched. I don’t think that Mr Jenkins ever forgot that Mr Robinson was his superior and that he was rather lucky to have him as a friend.

  ‘The trouble with you, Jenkins, is that you’ve got no feelings.’

  ‘I—I beg your pardon, old man?’

  Mr Robinson turned to me; and suddenly I felt that he wasn’t at all like Mr Jenkins. In fact, he was really quite gentlemanly. I felt that he liked me and was angry both with Mr Jenkins and himself over the little joke. He smiled faintly; and I was aware of a curiously warm feeling between us; a sense of sharing something from which Mr Jenkins had just been excluded. I suppose it was breeding.

  ‘You may not know it, Jenkins,’ he said, ‘but feelings can be very strong. Feelings can quite easily drive a boy to run away from—from the country. Feelings can drive a boy to find out his dead father’s friend. It don’t have to be money, Jenkins. Feelings are quite enough. Feelings can be very deep, Jenkins. Feelings can be as deep as—’

  ‘Hell?’ suggested Jenkins.

  ‘The River Thames,’ corrected Mr Robinson.

  ‘At London Bridge, old man?’

  ‘At London Bridge … old man.’

  I finished my drink, and back came the waiter with more. As far as I know, nobody called for him, but there he was, beaming and waiting for his money. I paid.

  Mr Robinson said, ignoring Mr Jenkins completely:

  ‘Come back tomorrow, young Jones. I’ll do what I can to find John Diamond. I can’t promise, of course. But I’ll do what I can. Feelings must be respected, eh?’

  ‘What time? What time, sir?’

  ‘Make it five o’clock. If I’m not here, I’ll leave a note with Jimmy.’ He indicated that “Jimmy’ was the Horse Boy, and the note would be on his tray.

  I thanked Mr Robinson with tears in my eyes; and in order to hide my emotion, I finished the rest of my drink. I put down the tankard, which Mr Jenkins thoughtfully refilled from his own.

  ‘If—if you find him, sir, will you b-bring him with you?’

  Mr Robinson reminded me that John Diamond was a needy fellow and did not go much in places like the Horse Boy. John Diamond’s haunts were on the darker side of the town. John Diamond, being a bit seedy, didn’t care much to be dragged out into the light of day.

  I gazed round the parlour, which Mr Robinson evidently took as being representative of the light of day. It was rather hazy and more full of cubby-holes than I’d recollected. They looked like the work of enormous mice.

  I shuddered and drank some more sherry. Then I stared hard at Jimmy, and thought of tomorrow at five.

  The Horse Boy appeared to be winking at me, first with one eye and then with the other. I thought about it carefully, and then winked back. I caught sight of Mr Jenkins beginning to snigger.

  ‘I’m quite all right,’ I said.

  ‘Of course you’re all right,’ said Mr Robinson.

  ‘I’m more all right than him,’ I said, pointing to Mr Jenkins.

  Mr Robinson agreed; and then, with appalling suddenness, he and Mr Jenkins slid up over the top of the table and left me on the floor.

  ‘Where’s he gone?’ I heard Mr Jenkins say. ‘One minute he was sitting there, now ’e’s gone.’

  I did not think it necessary to answer, as I could see Mr Jenkins’s feet quite distinctly.

  ‘Passed out,’ said Mr Jenkins. ‘Cold.’

  I lay quite still. I was comfortable where I was and thought it better not to move until I had had a rest. I could hear Mr Robinson humming and whistling and vague snatches of conversation going on over my head. I thought it was very like lying in bed and listening to voices downstairs; only the other way round, of course.

  Mostly I heard Mr Jenkins, as his voice was higher and carried more.

  ‘’E knows … ’e knows all right … John Diamond … must know … cryin’, ’e was!’

  Then Mr Robinson, very indistinct.

  ‘Have to see what Diamond says … good old John!’

  There was a sound of laughing; and then Mr Jenkins again:

  ‘London Bridge, eh? Me owner won’t ’alf cut up rough about that …’

  ‘Make it Blackfriars, then. It’s feelings, Jenkins, feelings … no accounting for ’em … very queer …’

  ‘Not so queer as old John … ten thousand … set me up for life … John ought to ’and over, eh? … What d’you say …’

  ‘You know old John!’

  ‘Good old John … John … John …’

  The name went trundling off into a loud dark roaring; and then there were faces, some laughing, some angry, and one that was huge, ugly and malign At the same time, I felt such a blast of hatred, that all the world went black; and there was nothing left but a whistling:

  ‘I care for nobody, no, not I;

  And nobody cares for me!’

  8

  I HAD A horrible nightmare. I dreamed that my father was dead; that I was in a strange place far from my home; that I had been told of a great sum of money and forgotten where it was; that I was searching for somebody enormously important and that he was hiding from me; that suddenly there had been a blast of hatred strong enough to murder me; and that I had been confronted by a glaring face as ugly as it was malign.

  Then I found out that it hadn’t been a dream. The malign face had come back. It was less ugly—it was rather refined, in fact—but it was no less malign. It was the face of the dwarf.

  In addition, I was in a strange place, under a strange ceiling and surrounded by strange walls. I seemed to be confined in something like a coffin; and the smallest movement provoked a sharp pain in my head as if a drunken undertaker had been knocking nails into it under the impression it was the lid. I felt very ill.

  ‘Where—where am I?’ I moaned.

  ‘In St Paul’s Cathedral,’ said Mr Seed contemptuously. ‘And I’m the Dean.’

  When I expressed timid disbelief, he informed me that I was in his bed, in his house, which was situated in Hanging Sword Alley, off Fleet Street. I had slept away the night and owed him a shilling for his hospitality.

  The mention of money made me feel even more uneasy, until he produced my purse and my watch and laid them on my chest.

  ‘Found them on the table,’ he said. ‘And found you under it.’

  I opened my purse. The dwarf watched me.

  ‘It’s all there. Six pounds and two shillings. You’re still rich.’

  I gave him his shilling and tried to sit up. The pain was terrible. Mr Seed grinned and assured me that, in an hour or so, the worst effects of my drinking too much would have worn off; whereas now I might feel as if I had been run over by a coach and six, I might confidently look forward to feeling that it had only been a coach and pair.

  ‘Am—am I far away?’ I asked, remembering that I had an appointment with the Horse Boy at five o’clock.

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘The Horse Boy.’

  ‘Half a mile as the crow flies. But longer as the dwarf and drunken boy weaved.’

  I said I was sorry for the trouble I had caused. Mr Seed put the shilling in his pocket and said I had paid him for it.

  ‘I’ve got to be back at the Horse Boy,’ I said unhappily, ‘at—’

  ‘At five o’clock,’ said the dwarf.
r />   ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You told me. Don’t you remember?’

  I shook my head, which now seemed to have a cannonball inside it that rolled frightfully.

  ‘Don’t you remember our little walk?’ pursued Mr Seed, sitting down on a dwarf-sized stool by the bed and resting his short hands on his stubby knees. ‘Don’t you remember falling asleep in the roadway? Don’t you remember trying to walk through a wall and crying because you couldn’t?’

  I confessed that these episodes, together with others of a similar kind, had been expunged from my mind.

  ‘Don’t you remember the footsteps?’

  ‘What footsteps?’

  ‘The footsteps in the fog. Shuffle—drag … shuffle—drag … shuffle—drag! That’s how you said they went.’

  I felt as cold as ice.

  ‘D-did you hear them? Did—did you see anybody?’

  ‘No. But you did. Heard ’em at every corner. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘No … no.’

  ‘That’s queer. That’s very queer,’ said the dwarf, thoughtfully.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You made such a yelling commotion about it. I thought, once or twice, that you really could see the man … the way you stared and glared.’

  ‘W-what did I see?’

  ‘I told you, I never saw more than a green boy. A very green boy,’ he added, with a malicious smile.

  ‘Was there anything—anything else?’

  ‘Only your shouting out about Mr Diamond being dead and that it wasn’t your fault. I wondered if you could have seen the name painted up.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Diamond. I told you, Diamond.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Round in Fleet Street. Jones and Diamond. Coffee Merchants. This house used to be part of it before the business was sold. Mr Twiss bought it up and kept the name for the goodwill. This house belongs to Mr K’Nee. He’s me landlord and takes me rent.’

  Mr Seed stood up.

  ‘And talking of Mr K’Nee, it’s time I was off to me place of business. It’s eight o’clock.’

  I begged him to stay a little longer and tell me more about Jones and Diamond. He frowned and then, recalling that my name was Jones, wondered if there was any connection between me and the Jones round the other side.

  I told him that I was sure that there was. My father had indeed been in coffee and Mr Diamond had been his partner. I asked the dwarf if he remembered my father? He shook his head. The business had changed hands long before he’d come to Hanging Sword Alley. Jones and Diamond were only faded names to him.

  Nevertheless he said that if I was interested in visiting my father’s old place of business, I might stroll round into Fleet Street and take a cup of coffee in the shop that Mr Twiss had opened in the front of the old warehouse. Otherwise I might remain in his bed until four o’clock, when he would be back to take me to the Horse Boy—in exchange for another sixpence, of course.

  He left me strongly advising the coffee; which, if I wanted to keep secrets, he said, I would be better advised to drink than sherry. After that, he banged the door and thumped down the stairs, exchanging loud good mornings with other inhabitants of the house.

  I lay back in his short, narrow bed, wondering wretchedly what else I had shouted out in the night. Had I shouted about Hertford and Woodbury and my Uncle Turner? I wondered if the dwarf had gone off to inform on me in the hope of a reward. Certainly he was a greedy little man as far as money was concerned, and I knew that he disliked me for being richer than him.

  Later I had cause to remember this fear; but at that time my greatest concern was over the footsteps in the fog. That I’d heard them and couldn’t remember them, somehow made them more frightening; and I wondered what else was hidden inside my head.

  I got out of bed and staggered a good deal. Not because of illness, but because the floor sloped in several different directions, so that even water, I think, would have had difficulty in finding its own level. It was an ancient house that had shrunk and sunk and tortured its doors and windows into the most fearful problems in geometry.

  I thought of my schoolmaster in Hertford, and how he would have delighted in making constructions on them; and then, when I didn’t understand, beaten me till the dust flew out like a carpet.

  It was Friday, and I would have been sitting in my place at school. At once a new rush of strangeness came over me as if I had not run away all at once, but part by part, and with each part came a fresh loss. I missed all the old, familiar sounds of my home; and I thought of my mother and sisters frantic with worry. My heart warmed greatly towards them and I shed several melancholy tears as I thought of myself as the beloved ornament of the household, lost forever.

  I went to the window and looked out, to see what had taken the place of grass and trees.

  The fog had gone and in its place was a misty sunshine, tattered with black smoke. Below me stretched Hanging Sword Alley, a long straight lane, thin as a sword blade, cutting downhill between buildings and ending with a blazing slice of the River Thames.

  I saw small boats and sunken barges drifting, it seemed, out of one house and vanishing into another, at about the level of the second floor. I opened the window and gazed round at the furrowed fields of roofs from which a million chimneys sprouted like stricken corn.

  I stared on them with gloomy awe; till, leaning out for a wider view towards my left, I saw, with a kind of shock, an immense dark mountain heaving up over the town and sitting in the sky.

  It was the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral; and I had never seen anything so huge.

  Absolutely lost in wonderment, I tried to imagine the tiny London workmen building it up, stone by stone, until it got so high that people begged them to stop. But higher and higher they went until at last the master-builder screwed in the golden cross on top, like a locking-pin; and there was St Paul’s finished, and a wonder of the world.

  Feeling cold, I shut the window and looked round for my clothes, as I was only in my shirt. I found them folded on a chair. I noticed that my other shirt and a pair of my stockings were missing. I felt alarmed and angry that the dwarf should have stolen from me while I slept.

  I began to dress, feeling that the sooner I left his house, the safer I would feel, when there came a knock on the door. It was followed immediately by the appearance of a red face tied up in a cloth, like a pudding.

  ‘Mrs Carwardine, first floor front,’ announced the face. ‘Only popped up to tell that Mr Seed give me your linen and stockin’s for washin’. Cost you fruppence; but ’e said you got money to pay.’

  She vanished, leaving me to change my mind about the dwarf. He wasn’t a thief, but he was a real demon for emptying my purse.

  Feeling a little easier in my mind that I hadn’t fallen among thieves, I finished dressing and was about to leave the room, when I was thrown into a fresh alarm.

  There was the most enormous bang that shook the whole house till its very teeth rattled.

  I thought we must have been blown up and rushed to the door to escape before the building crashed in ruins. I could hear a violent commotion on the stairs, then more banging and the sound of smashing glass. Mercifully the house remained standing.

  Mrs Carwardine had begun shouting and shrieking at the top of her voice: ‘Boarders! Boarders!’ and a bell began to ring as if a mad muffin-man had got inside and was determined to sell all his stock.

  ‘Boarders! Boarders!’ yelled Mrs Carwardine, and several more female voices joined in.

  I ran back to look out of the window. Down below, in the alley, a dozen or more ragged boys—some of them quite big—were hurling bricks and stones at the dwarf’s house and making ready to thunder at the door again with a great piece of timber.

  ‘Boarders! Boarders!’ shrieked the women; and I saw, coming out from between the slits and cracks that intersected the crowding tenements, as if they were falling apart at the seams, a grim and menacing pack of ruffians, with murder
in their eyes.

  There was something about them, and the awful darkness from which they emerged, that strongly suggested wolves and bears coming out of a forest. Although they seemed to be armed with nothing worse than fists, I felt that they had sharp claws and even sharper teeth.

  Instantly the ragged boys dropped their weapons and fled. Mrs Carwardine came out into the alley, still holding the bell.

  ‘Much obliged—much obliged,’ she said. ‘Sorry to have troubled you so early. But very much obliged … on be’alf of Mr Seed, naturally.’

  The wolves and bears grinned, displaying horrible teeth, and went back into their forest; and Mrs Carwardine came back into the house.

  I stared down Hanging Sword Alley to see if the boys would dare to come back again. But they had gone. There was a moment of quietness; then I heard, from a little way off, a strangely familiar sound. It was somebody whistling.

  ‘I care for nobody, no, not I;

  And nobody cares for me!’

  9

  WHAT WAS MR Robinson doing out there? A thousand thoughts rushed into my mind and came together and made one. Mr Robinson had found John Diamond and was coming to tell me!

  But how did he know I was in the dwarf’s house? Instantly I was plunged into gloom. His presence was nothing to do with me. I turned away from the window.

  But of course he knew where I was! He must have seen Mr Seed take me away last night; and Mr Seed was well-known to his friend, Mr Jenkins! So he was out there on my account! And any moment he would be knocking on the front door.

  I left the room and hurried down the stairs to be ready for him. There was a crowd in the hall. Everybody in the house was out there, talking excitedly about the damage that had just been done, which amounted to a couple of broken windows and some largish splinters out of the door.

  There was so much noise, mostly from a tremendous number of children, that I feared that Mr Robinson’s knock would go unheard. I tried to push my way through; and Mrs Carwardine, catching sight of me, bundled some of the children out of the way—which was rather like trying to push water as they all kept flowing back again—and introduced me, at the top of her voice, as ‘Mr Seed’s young gentleman,’ to two other ladies: a Mrs Baynim and a Mrs Branch.