by Janet Ellis
‘A pretty game,’ I say. ‘They are so foolish, aren’t they? If they wanted to, they could fly to the rooftops and end your sport.’
She looks about her to see if there are others who have been watching her. She looks at me quizzically. ‘Yes, Miss.’ She makes to leave.
‘Wait. Do you know your way about these streets?’
‘Well enough.’
‘Do you know Levener’s at Meek Street?’
‘Ye-es.’ She answers with suspicion, thinking that she might have done a wrong thing to invite my questioning. I smile to reassure her.
‘What is near the place, to prove what you say?’
She describes the alley to the left. Then the sign propped up.
‘Good girl.’ I hold up a penny. She goes to take it, but I snatch it back.
‘This is for when you’ve earned it.’
She holds her head up primly, wanting to appear deserving. ‘I am ready. What shall I do?’
‘Take this to the boy there.’ He won’t be a boy to her. ‘The young man,’ I correct myself. ‘He has dark hair. And a nice look. There is only the fat butcher and his thin wife there besides him, so you can’t mistake him. But don’t give it to anyone else and keep it secret from them, too.’
I give her a note for Fub. It tells him to meet me by St Peter’s at noon. I have not signed it with love words, only ‘Anne’.
‘I’ll stay here until you come back. I know the way and how long it takes, so don’t get distracted or detour from your path. This waits.’ I hold up the penny again. She runs off, scattering the birds more effectively this time.
Perhaps I should have brought my book of verses but, having no other diversion, I can only watch the street around me. The time hangs heavy. There is only so much entertainment in the doings of others. Sometimes a passing horse takes my eye, then one stops and messes nearby and I have to pinch my nose at the smell. I observe an old gentleman go so slowly and with so much effort that I want to offer him my arm, but I daren’t move in case the child is quicker than I bargained for and returns to find me gone. Two fat babies, identical to each other, are pushed by their nurse in a vast contraption. They couldn’t be told apart; they could be displayed at the fair as curiosities, they are so alike. I imagine the route to Levener’s, to estimate how far she might have got, but I can’t sustain this fancy and resort to singing snatches of song in my head, over and over, instead.
‘Miss!’ She is returned. She holds something out to me.
‘What did he say?’
‘He gave me this.’
‘A button? Is there no note?’ What has happened? Why has he given her this?
‘He took your letter and gave me this, says so you’d know it was from him.’
‘I had rather have it written,’ I say under my breath. She still holds out her hand.
‘My penny, please, Miss. Was I quick?’
‘As the wind. Here.’ She snatches it with a soft ‘Yes!’
I roll the button about in my hand, curious. It does not seem like Fub to offer me a token, especially without any significance. I don’t know what meaning a button conveys. I can ask him soon, though: a clock chimes and I count eleven strikes. In one hour, we can discuss buttons and plenty more.
* * *
At St Peter’s, I’m tempted to go in and call on the vicar, but there is only a little time to wait when I arrive and anyway, I foresee complications – that man is too unwieldy for a short visit. I settle myself just inside the church wall, reading the stones on the graves while I wait.
I could be examined on the inscriptions, the dates and even the types of stone, I have to read the words so often. Here Lies Jerome Stephens. One quarter hour passes. Dedicated to the Memory of Agnes Field, marks another quarter. Peter and Joan O’Reilly, In God We Trust. He is nearly an hour late!
When the church clock strikes one, I have him dead and buried himself – surely there must have been an accident? That is why he does not come.
After fifteen long minutes more, I decide he is unfaithful. He had chosen not to come. He got my note and decided it was worth a button, that explains that. By the next chime, I am resolved to give him up, for today and for good. And I shall tell him so. One last visit to the butcher’s – who cares if the Leveners find it odd, it’ll be the last time I come. With such a set purpose, I hardly notice how stiff I’ve become sitting so long on the wall.
* * *
I peer at the shop from across the street. At first the sight of the place is dear to me: this is where he stays! Then I remember why I am here and the happy vision is corrupted. Much as I don’t mind what that under-roasted man and gristly woman think, I’d rather not encounter them if possible. Is Fub there? Is he alone? It is difficult to see clearly into the depths of the shop, so I zigzag my way over to try and see inside. On my last pass, Fub appears in the doorway. He is smiling broadly.
‘Anne! Have you adopted the habit of a donkey going up a hill?’
I am so angry I can barely speak. First, he fails to keep our rendezvous, now he mocks me. ‘I have been waiting for you, stuck where I was like a scarecrow. Nearly two hours passed!’ I hiss. ‘Did you mean to make me look a fool? Then you have failed, for I am far from stupid and hardly need your estimation of my intellect for proof. I am certainly clever enough to know that I don’t care much for you, either.’
‘What?’ He is taken aback. I study him carefully. I don’t think he pretends. ‘Anne, did you not get the button?’
‘Oh yes, a valuable thing to send in reply.’
‘Anne, I told that girl that you must come here, to tell me what you wrote yourself.’
‘Why should I do that? She did not say any such thing to me. Only that you had given her this.’ It is still in my hand. ‘Never mind all that, even if you could not meet me, you should have replied to my note. I had written that I didn’t want to come here, hadn’t I?’
‘Was I to meet you?’ I can hardly hear him.
‘At St Peter’s. At noon.’ Why can’t he recall this?
‘Anne, I . . .’ He casts about, looking to the ground then to either side. It is most off-putting, that he doesn’t defend himself.
‘I cannot . . .’ He mutters something.
‘What do you say?’
‘I cannot read.’
I blanch.
‘I cannot read. Your note, any note.’ He looks surly.
Oh, this is wonderful! Light-headed with relief, I embrace him. He staggers back as I fling my arms round him, then holds me for a moment, too.
‘Why does that make you so happy?’ He disentangles himself, looking towards the blank window-glass in case we’re observed.
‘I thought you were dead,’ I gasp, still laughing. ‘Or wounded. Or that you had decided not to see me again. This is a much better reason. You are safe!’
He watches me with his usual amused patience. ‘Yes, I am safe. Such a little thing makes you so pleased.’
‘Not a little thing, my waiting in broad daylight, where anyone could see.’
‘Then tell me what you would have said, if I had kept our appointment.’
‘I would have said . . . ‘‘Well, I was surrounded by the dead, we did not discuss much, so I would tease them for not living. For instance: there lies poor Jerome, who can never know the happiness we have. And there is dear departed Agnes, who cannot spend two whole days with her sweetheart, as I can, because her parents are not visiting in the country. And Peter and Joan there must be mourned twice over because they don’t know that my suitor is banished for a while. None of them can share my good fortune!”’
‘Two days? I’m trying to understand your babbling. We can spend two days together – is that what you mean?’
‘It is!’
‘Tomorrow I have to be with Levener. Then we – yes, then you and I – are going to St
Bartholomew’s Fair. The day after tomorrow it is! Titus shuts the shop and I have nowhere else to be.’
I have never been to the fair, it must be a riot of pleasure. My head fills up with images of jugglers and puppets, a parade of freaks and conjurors. In the centre of this gaudy vision, Fub and I run wildly, hand in hand.
‘Fu-u-ub!’ Bet’s shout is a reedy thing.
‘And if you can fetch some money with you . . .’ He trails off.
‘Fu-u-u-ub!’
‘She will come looking in a minute.’ He takes a step backwards, then steps to me again.
‘And tomorrow?’ I have to be bold, there isn’t enough time to be polite.
‘Tomorrow we can meet at St Peter’s. At noon.’
‘I can share my reading matter with you there.’
‘With the ranks of the buried? I’m in good company, they all appear to be old friends to you.’
‘I’ll introduce you. They are the best sort of people: reliable and stout.’
‘You certainly always know where they are. And they lie but they do not lie.’
‘FU-U-U-UB!’
‘She’ll shatter the glass any minute. But, one thing before we part: am I worth only a button, do you think?’
‘It came from my mother’s wedding dress.’ He shrugs. ‘She gave it to me when I came up to London. She’d owned nothing else precious. Precious to her, that is – it’s not worth anything.’
I hold it tight. Extending my hand, with my fist still closed tight about the trophy, I say, ‘Best have it back then. Till you mean to give it.’
‘I mean it.’ He folds his hand over mine.
‘Tomorrow!’ I turn on my heel and leave, but ten steps on I turn around. He still stands there, watching me.
* * *
I think the way home has never looked lovelier, or the people more charming. I even smile broadly at my canary aunt, before I remember how heavy she thinks my heart. ‘God is good, Aunt Elizabeth!’ I say, to explain my expression.
‘Yes,’ she answers warily. ‘He works wondrous quickly, to be sure. Do you feel his spirit already healing you?’
‘I am just grateful to be setting out along the right and true path, with Him as my guide,’ I tell her. ‘But I have much comfort to find yet.’
‘It cannot be done in a day.’
‘His way is not easy,’ I counter, ‘but rewarding and uplifting.’
She raises her eyes. ‘All praise be to Him.’
‘How have you kept, Aunt?’ We cannot keep quoting platitudes at each other.
‘Mr Onions called, to enquire after you.’
This pinches me. I thought I had made it clear that he should stay away, in case my woman’s blood got on him.
‘I . . . I had not thought he would call so soon, after his . . . Did you tell him I was gone?’
‘He enquired after your health. I was as civil as I could be, Anne. I said that he should not concern himself with you and that as long as I stayed here, he should not visit. I said that I had reason to be disappointed in him, but I did not elaborate. Of course,’ she adds, ‘I could not bring myself to accuse him of his . . . crimes. They are altogether too vile for any virtuous woman to speak aloud.’
‘How did he take it?’
‘He asked if it was my place to deny him.’
If I had scripted the exchange myself, it would not have been better. How her breast would have swelled with ire at this slight.
‘I informed him that I am mistress of the house until further notice and that your father would not be returning for some time.’ She preens, smoothing her feathers.
‘Did he leave directly?’
‘He tried to persuade me to reconsider, but I was deaf to his entreaties.’ She demonstrates how resolutely she stood her ground, placing her feet wide and her arms across her body.
‘I am only sorry that you had to encounter him at all, Aunt Elizabeth. You must have thought, from how he behaved to me, that he would look like a monster but, as you now know, he is only a man.’
‘He has the mark of sin on him,’ my aunt says, confidently. ‘Even if you had not described his behaviour to me,’ she shudders with displeasure, ‘I should have known him to be wicked. It issues from him, his wickedness.’ She shivers again. ‘While your goodness streams from you like a beam of pure, bright light.’
I take her hands in mine and squeeze them. Then I run up the stairs as quickly as I can, because if I stay in that pose a moment longer I will laugh till I burst.
Chapter 14
In the morning, Aunt Elizabeth waits for me. She wears a bonnet with a wide brim and it is trimmed, I am delighted to notice, with large feathers. She has put tied flower-bunches at intervals around the house. They give off the odour of pond water. She places yet another on the hall table.
‘Dear child,’ she parrots concern, ‘have you slept well?’
I slept like a baby. ‘Only a little,’ I say, sadly. ‘My dreams are very frightening and keep me awake.’
‘They will pass. Do you go to the church today?’
I am truthful in my answer to this. In part, at least. ‘I do.’
‘I prayed for his soul, that undeserving creature.’
‘He has both our prayers, then.’ Mine that he should come to a painful end and meet up with the Devil and hers that he should bounce out of Hell when he falls. He’ll have an uncomfortable Eternity waiting if both our prayers are answered.
‘Do you go out, Aunt?’
‘I must pay my visits.’ She sighs. She would have me believe this is an onerous obligation, when I know full well she cannot wait to hint to anyone she speaks to of Onions’ perfidy. In a few months’ time, with this town crier spreading the news, he will be unwelcome in all of the good houses around.
‘I shall rest here. Please give my regards to those you call on.’
She watches me go to the parlour, fixing this last image of me – solemn and dignified – as the one she will report. ‘Despite everything,’ she’ll say, ‘Anne is carrying herself properly. She will make a good marriage yet.’ And her confidantes will click their tongues and shake their heads with enough force to effect a change in the weather.
From the parlour window, I watch her walk swiftly down the street, only her heavy skirt and stays weighing her down enough to stop her taking flight.
The house is still and, for a moment, I relish the silence. Jane is a floor beneath me, and Aunt Elizabeth has given her a recipe for a cake that sounds so elaborate to make that she’ll hardly have time to sleep, let alone appear upstairs. Even so, when I cross to my father’s study, I look about me carefully.
When I enter, I half expect to see him in his chair, or standing by the fire tapping his pipe against the mantleshelf. But he is not here and first I stand stock-still then turn a full, slow circle to take everything in. There are the papers on his desk weighted with a marble orb. There are the books that no one reads.
There’s a small glass, spotted with dark mould at the edges, set above the fire. I catch sight of myself, thinking that the last time I stood here I was not waiting to spend a day with Fub. Neither was I about to steal from my father. Is the expression in my eyes changed now? Is my bad intention visible? I’ve been telling so many lies to so many people this last little while that I may well look different. I examine myself carefully. Apart from the fact that my cheeks are flushed – and this is becoming – I appear unchanged, and I smile at my reflection to reassure us both.
I assume he keeps some coins here, but where? I must leave everything as I find it, and so begin to touch things so carefully that nothing moves. Becoming bolder, I pick up a paper from under the weight then replace it carefully. It is covered with figures, added and subtracted; they are of no interest to me.
The desk itself is the most likely hiding place for anything precious. I ease mysel
f into my father’s chair set behind it, sit as he would and open the lowest drawer. More papers. No wonder my father is so often bored; all this stuff is enough to put anyone into a stupor.
The next drawer is no better: leather volumes and more reams. I put my arms on to the desk in front of me, as he does.
‘Now, Thomas,’ I say in his gruff voice, ‘where do you keep your money? Here?’
I slide open another drawer. ‘No. Not in this place.
Then – here?’
The largest drawer, running the full length of the desk, is slimmer than its fellows. Inside I see his pipe, a small almanack and two little boxes, one enamel and the other made of wood. This one jangles with good news when I pick it up and inside are several coins of the realm. At first, I remove only a couple, then go back for the rest. I may as well take them all, and I imagine Fub will be pleased with my haul.
The enamel box has a bouquet of flowers painted delicately on its domed lid: a surprisingly pretty thing to find here. Perhaps a treasure of my mother’s that has found its way here by mistake. When I open it, I almost drop it in surprise. My little tooth, that my father had said he did not remember, lies there, wrapped in a twist of silk.
Beside it, so soft to my touch that it might almost be warm, is a lock of blond hair. A tiny curl, gathered at one end with a ribbon. ‘Oh!’ I say aloud to the empty room, for I know it to have been my little brother’s. I recall, with a catch in my throat, snipping it free from his head myself. I had used my smallest scissors and was tender and careful when I took it, although he was waxy with death by then and would not have felt any cut.
I cannot see clearly any more. Fresh tears spring but do not spill. I blink them back, and look quickly to the ceiling to keep them in my eyes. I have my same mournful trophy in a locket of mine. And here must be the one my mother kept. Two fat tears disobey me and snake down each cheek to meet beneath my chin. Putting the box back with tender care and closing the drawer softly, I wipe at my wet face with a sleeve. I exhale until there is no breath in my body and my stomach draws in tight.
‘Come, Anne,’ I say to myself, summoning a heartiness I do not feel. ‘Get your swag and go.’
