The Black Book of Secrets

by F. E. Higgins

  ‘My name is Eleanor Hardy and I cannot live with my lies any longer . . .’

  ‘My name is George Catchpole and I have a most shameful secret . . .’

  ‘My name is Oscar Carpue. In a fit of mindless rage, gripped by madness, I . . .’

  That was all I managed to read before Joe came whistling back into the room. I snapped the book shut and jumped awkwardly to my feet, knocking over the chair.

  ‘Let us see how you have done,’ he said, ignoring my confusion and taking the book from the table. I watched nervously as he examined what I had written.

  ‘Excellent work, boy,’ he said, placing the red ribbon on the next clean page and closing the book. ‘I doubt I could have done better myself.’

  A sudden burning flushed my cheeks. I was not used to praise. To cover my embarrassment I pointed to the golden words on the cover.

  ‘What language is this?’

  Joe’s face lit up. ‘Ah, Latin,’ he said. ‘The language of precision. “What is spoken flies, what is written never dies.” Remember those words, Ludlow. People believe what they read, whatever the truth of it.’

  Joe held up the book and spoke quietly. ‘The stories we have in here are very precious to their owners and, as a result, of monetary value to others. They have confided in me, confessing their deepest secrets, and it is my duty to protect them. Wherever I go, there is a criminal element, loyal to no one, who would pay well for this and use it for financial gain or worse. But these confessions have been trusted to us, Ludlow, and we must not speak of them outside this room.’

  Joe did not seem to be including me among those criminals. But just then my hand felt something cold in my pocket and my heart skipped a beat. The timepieces. I still had them. He must not have noticed they had gone. I resolved to return them as soon as possible.

  I nodded solemnly. ‘I can keep a secret,’ I said.

  ‘I believe you think you can, Ludlow. But I also know what it is to be human. Temptation is a curse to all men.’

  ‘I can do it,’ I said firmly. ‘Just give me the chance.’

  For a moment I thought he might say no, but he laughed and said, ‘What is life if you don’t take a chance now and again? I knew a fellow once who only made decisions on the toss of a coin. Should he get up or stay in bed? He tossed a coin. Should he eat or should he not? He tossed a coin. He lived thus for nearly two years until he was struck down by illness. So he tossed a coin to decide whether or not to send for the physician and the coin said yes.’

  ‘And he was cured?’

  ‘Well, unfortunately for him, the physician was not the best. His diagnosis was somewhat awry and the medicine he gave was rather too strong so the poor chap died the next day.’

  I didn’t understand what Joe was trying to tell me.

  ‘You see, Ludlow,’ he explained, ‘life is a gamble whatever way you play it. Now, where were we?’ He patted the Black Book of Secrets and his tone became more serious. ‘Of course, if you are to work for me, there are a few things you need to know. First, we always start on a clean page. I make it a rule to go forwards, never to go back.’ He smiled knowingly and stared into my eyes. He knew I had looked in the book.

  ‘And second, when we are finished we must keep it somewhere safe from prying eyes.’

  I watched as he put the book in no more safe a place than under his mattress. Was this some sort of test? Was he tempting me to steal it?

  As I continued to stare he asked me a curious question.

  ‘Do you believe in luck, Ludlow?’

  I had thought about this more than once in my life. ‘I believe some people are luckier than others. Such as those who are not born in the City.’

  Joe laughed. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘a most unfortunate birthplace. Most born there die there. But you have managed to leave.’

  ‘Then I must be lucky.’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is not just luck. Maybe it was Destiny herself brought you here to me.’

  ‘Destiny? More like my own two feet!’ Then I asked him, ‘Which do you believe in, luck or destiny?’

  Joe considered for a moment before replying, ‘We make our own luck, Ludlow, by our actions and our state of mind. As such you control your own fate. Only one thing is certain: none of us can escape the grave.’

  Then he surprised me further by handing me a shilling. Although it was unexpected I took it.

  ‘For a job well done. Add it to the other coins in your purse,’ he said and winked.

  We went to bed soon after that. When I heard Joe’s snoring I felt in the crevice behind the brick for my purse and dropped in the shilling. Then I settled down again, wrapped up in the cloak. Sleep evaded me, for my mind was restless. I turned over and thought of Obadiah and Jeremiah Ratchet. Poor Obadiah, he was right to be disgusted at himself; grave robbers and bodysnatchers were considered below contempt. What a cruel irony, for a gravedigger to have to unbury the dead. As I pitied the gravedigger, my contempt grew for Ratchet. He might have brought me to the village, but that was more by luck than design.

  An hour passed and still I was awake. My mind was thick with confusion. I knew that had Ma and Pa been here they would not have thought twice about hitting Joe over the head and taking the Black Book of Secrets. As for the bottle on the mantel, that would have been downed long ago.

  They would have expected no less of me. My instincts – to lie, to steal, to cheat – were bred into me practically from birth. But here, in Pagus Parvus with Joe, they seemed wrong.

  I lay in an agony of indecision. My conscience tried to stop me but I am ashamed to admit, despite Joe’s kindness to me and his warning, I gave in. How could I be expected not to do what had come naturally to me my whole life?

  Carefully I eased the book out from under his mattress and tucked it in the crook of my arm. I wrapped the cloak around me and crept through to the shop. The frog watched me with accusing eyes and I could hear Joe’s deep and noisy breathing. I was surprised to find that the door to the street was unlocked. I pulled it open and stepped outside. It had all been so easy. Not a floorboard had squeaked, not a hinge had creaked. Snow was falling lightly and a glow fell on the street from the lights in the windows. Like last night most of Pagus Parvus was still awake. If I went now I could go down that hill and never be seen again.

  Suddenly I felt the timepieces jarring against my leg and I stopped. I laughed quietly at my own stupidity. What was I thinking? It was the middle of the night, the middle of winter. Behind me was a warm bed and food and someone who seemed to care for me; ahead of me was nothing but white snow and bitter cold.

  I hurried inside and placed the timepieces back in the window. With a shaking hand I slipped the Black Book back under the mattress, willing Joe not to wake, and crept over to the fireplace. As I curled up beside the orange coals I chastized myself.

  It was hard to believe that only a day or so ago I had been in the foul City, living the precarious life of a common thief and facing at the hands of my own parents a terrible betrayal. Yet here I was now earning a living, and one more mysterious and exciting than I could ever have imagined. ‘Ludlow,’ I said to myself, ‘you are a fool.’

  I looked at Joe, fast asleep, and I knew whatever happened tomorrow, and the next day and the next, I never wanted to go back to the City. I might have to live with my past, but here, with Joe, I had a future.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Of Frogs and Legs

  Ludlow woke the next morning to the smell of warm bread. Joe was standing in front of the fire toasting the heels of a loaf on the end of the poker.

  ‘Just in time,’ he said, as Ludlow emerged from his nook. ‘Did you sleep well? I was a little disturbed myself.’

  ‘Well enough,’ mumbled Ludlow, yawning.

  Joe dropped the toast on to a plate and sat down at the table. ‘I forgot to lock the door last night. We could have been murdered in our beds.’

  Ludlow’s cheeks burned as hot as the toast.

  Joe continued
smoothly. ‘So, now you’ve had a chance to think it over, will you stay? It’s not a difficult job. You would be a great help to me.’

  ‘I should like to stay,’ said Ludlow. ‘Very much.’

  ‘Then it is settled. Time for breakfast.’

  In the City, Ludlow’s breakfast might have been a mouldy crust or hard porridge. In Pagus Parvus, in the back room of the Secret Pawnbroker’s, it was a veritable feast. The table was laden with toasted bread, boiled hen’s eggs, thick slices of pink ham, a slab of golden butter and two jugs, one of beer, the other of fresh milk. There was even cutlery, but Ludlow did not let this slow him down and he ate as if he were a condemned man. Joe looked on, marvelling at the boy’s appetite as Ludlow gulped down a second cup of milk then eyed the pork pie that sat in the middle of the table.

  ‘The butcher dropped it up this morning,’ said Joe. ‘And the baker brought the bread by. Such hospitality.’

  ‘Maybe they just want you to buy more of their old junk,’ muttered Ludlow.

  Joe took another large bite of toast and washed it down with a mouthful of beer. He dabbed at his chin with a napkin that lay across his knees. Ludlow had not seen such gentility before and self-consciously he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Then for once he waited until he had swallowed before speaking.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I feel sorry for Obadiah. I think he is a good man.’

  ‘Being good isn’t always enough,’ Joe said.

  ‘I suppose you’ve heard many stories like his?’

  Joe nodded. ‘And many far worse. But that is little comfort to the poor man. He is right to be scared. If he is caught, then he will certainly be put in prison or hanged from the nearest tree.’

  ‘And Jeremiah? What about his part?’

  Joe frowned. ‘He would deny everything. After all, what proof is there that Jeremiah is connected? It is a poor man’s word against a rich man’s. The verdict is as good as decided already. I fear Jeremiah has such a grip on this village that no one here would dare accuse him, let alone try to convict him.’

  ‘Do you think the money is enough?’

  ‘For now,’ said Joe. ‘He will be able to pay his rent at least. But I wonder what else Jeremiah has up his sleeve’

  ‘Perhaps we can help him in other ways,’ said Ludlow.

  Joe shook his head. ‘No, no. I must not interfere in the course of things. Our job is to keep secrets. Once it is in the book, the matter is closed. In fact, we should not even be speaking of it now.’

  ‘So is there nothing we can do?’

  But Joe was silent.

  Business came in fits and starts all day and by closing time Joe’s display benefited from the addition of a flower vase in the Grecian style, a pair of leather braces with silver clips (one missing), a sturdy pair of scuffed boots (only slightly down at heel) and a set of decorative brass buttons. The chamber pot sat in the corner next to the wooden leg. Towards the end of the afternoon Ludlow was rearranging the buttons in the window when he became aware that he had an audience. Three boys stood outside – the same three who had been in the crowd when Joe had first introduced himself – their heights descending from right to left. They pressed their faces against the window but they appeared to be shy about coming in. Joe went to the door.

  ‘May I help you young fellows?’ he asked and fixed them with his stare.

  The youngest proved to be the bravest. ‘We have nothing to pawn,’ he said, ‘but we want to see the frog.’

  Joe laughed. ‘But of course, come in,’ and the three piled in, the youngest pushed to the back now that the invitation was extended.

  They were the Sourdough (to rhyme with ‘enough’) brothers, sons of the bakers, Ruby and Elias. They went up to the tank and looked in awe at the colourful creature who repaid their interest by promptly turning her back to them.

  ‘What’s it called?’ asked the middle one of the three.

  ‘She,’ corrected Joe. ‘Her name is Saluki.’

  ‘What does she eat?’

  Joe showed them the bags of sticky writhing worms and shiny-cased bugs that Saluki ate. He allowed them to drop the tasty titbits into the tank through a hatch in the lid.

  ‘Can I hold her?’ This time it was the youngest who spoke.

  ‘May I,’ corrected Joe. ‘I know that you can. After all, it is not difficult to hold a frog. What you seek is my permission.’

  ‘May I?’ asked the boy, twitching with frustration.

  ‘No.’ This request was made again and again on each subsequent visit (the Sourdough brothers came daily), and although Joe agreed that the boys had to be admired for their optimism and persistence, he always refused on the grounds that Saluki was not the sort of frog that liked to be held.

  ‘Would she jump away?’

  ‘She’s a tree frog,’ replied Joe. ‘More of a climber than a jumper.’

  ‘Where did you get her?’

  A dreamy look came into Joe’s eyes. He hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels.

  ‘She comes from a land on the other side of the world, where the earth curves to the south and there are all sorts of creatures that you couldn’t even begin to imagine.’

  ‘Did you catch her?’

  ‘She was a gift,’ he said, ‘from an old man to a young lad, such as yourselves.’

  The Sourdoughs tittered.

  ‘Yes, even I was young once,’ said Joe.

  Joe had a tale for the boys almost every day they came up to the shop. He mesmerized them with stories of the faraway lands he had visited, where the mountains spewed fire and molten rock; of the forests where the trees were so tall it was always cold night on the forest floor and yet their leaves were burned by the sun. He spoke of ships and cities that lay together on the bottom of the ocean; of the frozen wastes where the sun never set. But there was one thing he never told them about, no matter how hard they pleaded, no matter how urgently they begged.

  ‘Tell us about the wooden leg,’ they implored.

  But Joe always shook his head. ‘Not today,’ he would say. ‘Perhaps tomorrow.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wagging Tongues

  Polly would have liked to spend as much time in the shop as the Sourdoughs, but while Elias and Ruby were happy for Joe to entertain their boys, Jeremiah was not so lenient and Polly’s visits were shorter and less frequent. She and Ludlow still enjoyed their brief chats over the counter, although actually it was more a case of Ludlow listening and Polly talking, for once she got started it was no easy task to stop her. ‘I don’t know what it is about this place,’ she giggled more than once, ‘but every time I come in here my tongue just runs away with itself.’

  Ludlow liked to listen. He was curious about the village and its inhabitants, Jeremiah in particular, and Polly was more than happy to tell him about the goings-on in the large house down the hill.

  She told him of Jeremiah’s habits (generally bad) and tempers (the same) and unreasonable demands (many and often). Ludlow soon realized that life had not treated Polly well. She was bright but suffered the disadvantage of little education. In those days ambition wasn’t as free and easy as it is today, and although Polly was far from satisfied with her lot she was resigned to it. Her parents had died when she was only a baby, and Lily Weaver, the local seamstress, had taken her in. Lily taught her to sew, indeed Polly showed some skill, but Lily quickly realized there wasn’t enough work in the village for the two of them and soon she became nothing more than an extra mouth to feed. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, for Polly, it was about that time Jeremiah Ratchet made it known that he was in need of a maid. So Polly had wrapped up her few belongings in an old spotted linen cloth, tied it to a stick and walked across the road to Jeremiah’s, where she had lived and worked for the last six years.

  ‘It’s not as bad as you might think,’ said Polly. ‘As long as I do what I’m supposed to then he can’t complain overmuch.’ But Polly always looked tired and hungry and
Ludlow almost felt guilty that he worked for Joe, Jeremiah’s complete opposite.

  ‘It was better when Stanton Cleaver was around,’ Polly told him one day.

  ‘Stanton Cleaver?’ asked Ludlow.

  ‘The butcher’s father. When I first came to Jeremiah’s, he and Stanton use to eat together nearly every night of the week. It gave me some peace.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ asked Ludlow.

  ‘He had a bad heart, at least that’s what Dr Mouldered said, and he died very suddenly. They buried him so quickly no one even saw the body. Everyone thought Stanton was a great man but I’m not so sure. He treated Horatio, his son, really badly. Anyway, after Stanton died Jeremiah didn’t have any more friends in the village, so he started gambling in the City. He’s still at it and I never know if he’s going to come in late or early, but whatever the time, he’s always drunk.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t understand why you left the City to come to this place, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. Was it really that bad?’

  ‘It’s much worse than I told you,’ said Ludlow grimly. ‘You’d hate it, Poll. It’s full of all sorts of nastiness.’

  ‘Some people say that you left the City because you committed a crime,’ said Polly. ‘They think you’re on the run.’

  Ludlow frowned. ‘Let them think what they want.’

  ‘And what about Joe?’ she persisted. ‘Where did he come from?’

  Ludlow shrugged. The few times he had asked, Joe had avoided the question very successfully. Ludlow did not actually know very much about his new master. Even in the exotic stories he told to the Sourdough brothers Joe somehow managed to give little away.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Polly with a grin, ‘no matter. He’s got Jeremiah in a proper lather. You should hear how he curses the pair of you. One day he really will explode!’

  Whatever Jeremiah Ratchet thought of Joe and Ludlow, the villagers made good use of the pawnshop. True, they owned little of any great value, but, unlike most pawnbrokers, Joe took everything he was offered, even the most ridiculous and worthless items – a moth-eaten, slightly mouldy stuffed cat being one such example – and paid good money as he promised. Ludlow could not imagine even Lembart Jellico accepting such a pledge.