by Renee Duke
“Busier than it is in our day,” Paige remarked, remembering the tranquility of their canal ride. “Smellier, too. In fact, London seems to smell worse now than it did in the Middle Ages.”
“That’s because it does,” said Jack, “but it was really bad earlier in the century. By now they’re at least working on the sewage problem. Daddy told you that on the waterbus. Weren’t you listening?”
“No. And neither were you.”
“I’ve heard his Thames waterways speech before. It’s—” He suddenly broke off and stared straight ahead.
“What is it?” asked Dane.
In answer, Jack indicated two grimy children sitting by the side of the canal picking through some mud-covered objects they had tipped out of a sack. The girl, who looked about eight or nine, wore a thin black shawl over a dress at least two sizes too big for her. Her face and tangled dark brown tresses were partially covered by a black felt bonnet with faded silk flowers pinned to it. The boy with her was about five. He, too, had clothes that were too big for him. In his case a long, oft-mended, shirt stuffed into a pair of corduroy trousers held up with a piece of rope. The only thing that actually seemed to fit was the cloth cap sitting atop his straggly dark hair.
“There they are,” Jack declared. “They’re the ones we’re after.”
“How do you know?” asked Paige.
“I just do. Come on.”
Exchanging dubious glances, Paige and Dane followed him.
As they approached, the two ragamuffins sprang up and stood protectively in front of the things they had been sorting.
“Clear off,” the girl growled. “This here’s ours.”
“We don’t want it,” Dane said hastily. “We just want to talk to you.”
Her stance remained aggressive. “Why?”
“We’ve just arrived in London,” Jack explained. “We don’t know anyone here. We thought you might help us find our way about.”
“Oh? Come up for the old girl’s Jubilee, did you?”
“The old girl? Oh, you must mean Queen Victoria,” said Paige. “And this would be…let’s see…her Golden Jubilee, wouldn’t it? Celebrating fifty years on the throne?”
“Yeah.” The girl seemed to relax a bit. “Think you’ve missed most of the good stuff. There were a big procession yesterday. Didn’t see it ourselves, but our mates, Minnow and Nolly, did. Said it were a real sight to behold.”
“Minnow?” said Paige. “What kind of name is Minnow?”
“Dunno. His name. Think it’s actually Benjamin, or summut. What’s yours?”
“Paige. This is my brother, Dane, and our cousin, Jack.”
The girl raised her eyebrows. “I’d say them names is a bit odd too. ’Cept for his,” she added, nodding toward Jack.
“What about you?” Paige inquired.
“I’m Hetty. This here’s me brother, Pip.”
“Where do you live?” Paige went on, determined to find out more about the pair.
“Here and there. Mostly round Whitechapel way at the moment.”
“Is that near here?”
“Not too far.”
“Do you go to that school over there?”
“That place? Not likely! All they wants to do is learn you stuff.”
‘What’s wrong with that?” asked Jack.
“Got better things to do with me time than that, mate.”
“Like what?” Jack persisted.
“Like earning me living. Can’t go out ’larking if you’re at school.”
“What’s ’larking?” asked Paige.
“Mudlarking. Looking for things in the mud. Things what we can sell.”
“What if the weather’s good and there isn’t any mud?”
Hetty gave her a strange look. “There’s always mud. Every day.”
“She’s talking about the mud of the Thames,” Jack explained. “The Thames is a tidal river. All sorts of things get washed up and left in the silt. Mudlarks used to poke about in it at low tide.”
“What you mean, ‘used to’?” said Hetty. “Find lots of good stuff there some days.”
“Not today,” said Pip, looking down at a broken brick, some rusty nails, a cracked teapot, two short pieces of rope, and a few bones.
“Yeah, well, that’s how it goes, titch. But at least we got summut. And the day’s not over yet. ’Larking’s not me only trade,” she explained to the others. “I does other things as well. What about you?”
Dane shrugged “We don’t really do anything. Like Jack said, we’re new here.”
“Can tell that from the way you talks. Where you from?”
“Canada.”
“Where’s Canada?”
“A long ways off. Across the ocean.”
“You’d know that if you went to school,” said Jack. “An education can be very useful.”
Hetty snorted. “That’s what Nolly says. He and Minnow’s been talking about going to that school yonder. Not regular, of course, just when they can fit it in. You from Canada too?”
“No, I’m English.”
“Yeah, and a toff, too, from the sounds of it. I’m guessing you’re educated. From the looks of your clobber, it’s not been of much help to you.”
“My family’s come down in the world.”
Hetty nodded sagely. “It happens. Used to be better off ourselves. Nothing fancy, mind, just a bit better off. How you planning to make your way here in London?”
“Don’t know,” said Dane. “Maybe you could give us some ideas.”
“Well, let’s see. You wants to steer clear of the factories. You really has to graft in them. And nobody cares if you gets hurt, neither. A mate of mine got proper mangled in a factory. Only fit for begging now.”
She thought for a moment. “You two might be able to flog newspapers, if you think you could shout down the older lads,” she told Dane and Jack. “And you could try flowers, Paige. But you’re getting to an age where you’d have to make sure the blokes knew it was flowers you was selling, and not kisses.”
Paige blinked in surprise. Surely Hetty was too young to know about things like that.
“Flowers’d be better than watercresses,” Hetty went on. “They’re all right this time of year, but they makes your hands wicked cold in the winter. I know a girl, Gladys, what does that. She gets chilblains something awful. Almost as bad as ours. Were still pretty much winter when we started ’larking, and our feet swelled up like taters.”
“You mean you wade about in the river in the winter?” Paige said incredulously.
“’Course. We hates going in then, but how else’d we get stuff out of it?”
“What do Nolly and Minnow do?” asked Dane.
“Minnow works the river. Canals, too. He used to just be a lark, like us, but now that he’s twelve he’s big enough to help on the barges as well. Nolly holds horses and does sweeping.”
“Chimney sweeping?” Dane inquired.
“Nah. Sweeps can’t put kids up chimblys no more. T’nt allowed. Noll’s a crossing sweeper. You know, sweeping away the dust and muck so ladies don’t get their fancy shoes dirty crossing the street. You’d have to get yourselves brooms if you was wanting to do that. Good ’uns are at least tuppence ha’penny. Maybe more. How you fixed for dosh?”
“We’ve got a little,” said Dane, remembering Uncle Gareth’s presents.
Just then a heavy-set brown horse with a white blaze approached, towing a barge. With a squeal of delight, Pip raced toward it.
“That’s old Malachi,” said Hetty. “He’s a special pal of Pip’s. Pip’s mad for horses.”
“He’s living up to his name, then,” said Jack. “Philip means ‘lover of horses,’ and Pip’s a nickname for Philip, like Hetty is for Hester and Nolly for Oliver.”
“T’nt nobody what calls us that.” Hetty looked at Paige. “He don’t half know a lot. Do he ever just talk like regular people?”
“Not often, no.”
Jack glared. “Daddy says there’s
no point in having a mind if you don’t use it. Besides, Philip comes from the Greek name ‘Philippos’. Mummy does so much with ancient Greece, I can’t help but know names associated with the place.”
“Oh, you’ve got a mum and dad, then,” said Hetty.
“Don’t you?” asked Dane.
Hetty waved her hand dismissively. “Somewheres. Dunno where. Our dad cleared off just afore Pip were born. Mam at least waited ’til he could walk.”
“So, who looks after you?”
“I does. Now, anyways. An old party called Rosie kept us for a bit after Mam went off. But then she got the rheumatics real bad. Knees and ankles, mostly. Made it hard for her to do for herself, never mind a couple of kids. Few months back, she paid some feller and his missus to take us in. They ditched us afore the day was out.”
Dane frowned. “Ditched you?”
“You know, took us a long ways off and left us. I could’ve found me way back to Old Rosie if I tried, but why bother? Even though she’d’ve had us, we knowed she weren’t up to it. And it would just’ve upset her that them two took her hard-earned and then didn’t look after us. She were quite fond of us, you see. She just couldn’t manage.”
Her listeners’ eyes went wide.
“Was she related to you?” Paige managed to say.
“Dunno. Might’ve been an auntie or summut. She never said. She were a nice old thing. We really misses her. The only rose we got now is me brooch.”
A brooch! Paige and the boys exchanged eager looks.
“Does it look anything like this?” Paige asked, pulling out the medallion.
Alarmed, Hetty quickly stuffed it back out of sight. “You don’t wanna go flashing that about, girl. Not round here. Someone’ll have it off you. Me brooch is summut like that, but I always keeps it hid. See?”
She carefully drew back her shawl and undid one of the buttons on her dress to give them a glimpse of a large, solid gold brooch pinned to her ragged undergarment. It was in the shape of a rose and was undoubtedly a Keeper Piece.
“Pretty, innit?” said Hetty, refastening her button and letting the shawl fall back into place.
“Yes—and valuable, too,” said Paige. “Really valuable, Hetty. How come you haven’t sold it? I mean, you’re so poor, and—”
“Don’t care about it being valuable. It’s a rose. That makes it special. Like our Old Rosie’s special. No way I’m parting with it ’less I absolutely has to.”
“Did she give it to you?” Paige asked.
“Nah. Got it the same place I gets most things. Outta the mud. But I’d just been thinking about Old Rosie when I happened on it. It was like me and Pip was meant to have it.”
Paige nodded thoughtfully. She looked across at Dane and Jack, who returned her nod.
Their presence in this time and place made it clear that Hetty and Pip were meant to have the Keeper brooch. They just had to figure out why.
Chapter Four
While Paige was helping Hetty scoop her mud pickings back into the sack, Dane and Jack joined Pip in petting Malachi. The horse’s owner was called Alf. With no barge immediately behind them, he allowed the animal to stop and rest.
“No apple for him today, then?” he asked Pip.
Pip shook his head sorrowfully.
“No matter. It’s you what Malachi likes, not your treats. Looks for you, he does. Gets proper downhearted if we’re nearing home and he’s not seen you all day.”
After Alf and Malachi moved on, the children left the canal and went into what Hetty called a rag and bottle shop. A thin man with a pockmarked face took her sack without comment. He then disdainfully inspected its contents.
“Ha’penny,” he said at last.
Hetty put her hands on her hips and scowled. “Come off it, Ike. It’s worth twice that, and you know it.”
“Take it or leave it,” Ike snapped.
“I’ll leave it. There’s lots of shops what’ll pay me a fair price. Shops run by coves what can think to the future. You see, me new mates here are thinking of taking up ’larking. They’re not likely to bring their stuff to someone who’s looking to cheat ’em.”
“Hmph,” said Ike, but bumped his offer up to a penny.
“That’s more like it,” Hetty said as they made their way out of the shop. “Half the price of tonight’s lodgings. We’ve got a really good doss at the moment—a shed at the back of a carter’s yard. It don’t leak much, and the cartie’s got a big old dog what sees off anyone who might come round disturbing us.”
“It costs you tuppence just to stay in a shed?” Jack sounded indignant. “What if you don’t have tuppence?”
“Then we sleeps rough—though the cartie’s wife did let us stay one night anyways, when Pip were poorly. She’s all right, is Nellie. Her and Harry’s got kids of their own to feed, so we pays ’em when we can. Like I said, it’s a good doss, even if it is quite a step from the river. Takes us nigh on an hour to hike there.”
“And an hour back, I suppose,” said Paige. “Don’t you get tired?”
Hetty shrugged. “That’s where the river is.”
“You didn’t get much out of it today,” Dane commented. “How are you going to get the rest of the money for your shed? Or food, for that matter?”
“I’ve got me ways. Come on.”
Hetty’s ways included delivering three baskets of laundry for a washerwoman, fetching a bucket of water for a gentleman’s horse, and selling some flowers she cadged out of a flower seller who owed her a favour. She also helped a costermonger pick up the cabbages “some little varmint” had knocked over, for which she was rewarded with a farthing and a couple of squashed cabbages. The coster was, of course, unaware that the little varmint had run ahead of his sister to create just such an opportunity.
Like the modern city, Victorian London teemed with a variety of characters. Barrowmen shouted the quality of the wares they wheeled before them, as did stall keepers from their stationary positions. Black-faced, soot-covered chimney sweeps and other work-stained men tramped along calling out greetings to friends. Some, whom Hetty called flypaper men, wore high, battered hats wrapped round with the same foul-smelling paper they carried in packages under their arms, the effectiveness of which was attested to by the thick covering of flies attached to the hats. Almost everyone had some kind of head covering and most people were dressed in shabby, but respectable, clothes, or wore ragged ensembles similar to Hetty and Pip’s. One exception to this was a jovial recruiting sergeant with a spotless uniform and luxurious moustache who was lurking near a pub looking for young, unemployed men who might be induced to join the army. There were also a few well-dressed men and women whose reasons for being in one of the poorest districts in London were not immediately apparent. Those who were charitably disposed occasionally tossed coins to young children singing and dancing to the accompaniment of adult street musicians playing tin whistles, harmonicas, and concertinas.
Since gas-powered automobiles had only recently come into being, there were no cars around, but even without them, pedestrians had to watch out for traffic. Horse-drawn vehicles rumbled along every street, moving smoothly or wildly, in accordance with the skill and sobriety of their drivers. The men at the reins had to manoeuvre past each other and keep an eye out for dogs, cats, barrows, donkey-carts, and the boys who darted out to shovel up horse droppings almost as soon as they fell. Hetty said the collected dung was sold on as fertilizer, and that the boys also went after pures, which were the dog droppings tanners used in the purification of leather.
“We doesn’t bother with either of ’em much. Them lads are what you might call ‘territorial’.”
“Not friends of yours, then?” queried Jack.
“Nah. We usually gets Malachi’s muck, if he obliges, and any we comes across when none of ’em are around to stop us, but that’s it. Still, we has our own endeavours.”
By evening, their own endeavours had added half a dozen farthings and two halfpennies to the penny she had rec
eived from Ike, giving her a total sum of three and a half pence.
Hetty turned the coins over in her hand. “Not a bad day’s work.”
“But it took you almost all day to get it,” Paige remonstrated. “And you had to tramp over half of London.” She and the boys had never walked so far in their lives, and she doubted they could have kept going if Hetty had not sometimes stopped to let Pip rest because he was, as she said, “just a littl’un.”
The boys had been glad of such respites as well. Dane had allergies, and the city’s pollution was causing him to experience some breathlessness. Jack didn’t mind walking “within reason”, but for him, the day’s wanderings had gone well beyond that.
“Go on with you,” Hetty said with a laugh. “We’ve not hardly been out of the East End. And at least we has boots at the moment. We still had these ’uns when we left Old Rosie, and they don’t fit too bad. Old Rosie didn’t like us going barefoot, and I won’t sell ’em unless we gets hard up and they becomes an indulgence we can’t afford.”
“Do you ever get up Buckingham Palace way?” asked Jack, remembering where they would be going on their next trip to London. “Or Madame Tussauds Waxwork Museum? Or St. Paul’s Cathedral?”
“Got no reason to go by the palace, and I can’t say as I’ve heard of this Madame Whatzit’s. We knows St. Paul’s, though. We does some of our ’larking near there. And it can be a right good place to beg of a Sunday.”
“So you beg as well,” said Paige.
“Not regular. Old Rosie didn’t approve. But we does it sometimes. Pip here can look right pathetic. Show her, Pip.”
Pip immediately lay down beside some iron railings and began to emit feeble groans. He was a pale child, and in that position seemed even paler.
“Help us out, sir,” Hetty cried. “Have pity, sir. Me and me little brother’s not et for days, sir.”
The well-dressed gentleman to whom she addressed this plea looked momentarily startled, and then distressed. “You poor child,” he murmured. “Here’s a penny.”
