Brutus and Nero lent their keen noses to the pursuit and trailed back and forth along the edge and, had I let them, doubtless they would have found a way down the steep bank, but I held them back. It is no secret that I cannot abide close places, and the black hole of the tunnel, viewed even from this distance, gripped me with terror, and so with my heart thumping, I stood for some minutes, with the rain pelting down, looking into that underworld, noting the flicker, here and there, of lanterns as the cazzelties laboured on, burrowing into the ancient London soil. The boy must have gone somewhere! I looked around me at the wild expanse of wretched earth, and across the chasm at the houses and their unblinking windows. And I waited, with the gale howling in my face, for the boy to clamber up the chasm face, or to shout for help from the bottom.
But I waited in vain. After five, ten, fifteen minutes, when there was not a sign of him, and the only sound the echo of spade and pick, I turned my back upon the cutting and bent into the wind.
My Friend Trimmer
I did not expect to see or hear about the boy again. Why should I? Certainly, he had given me the trouble of mending my torn breeches and sponging away the foul clay which stuck to them, and if I did, when we next traversed the wasteland, contemplate the cutting and wonder if he had slid to the bottom of that terrible gulf and his body was lying there under a heap of bricks, I was not inclined to enquire further. In fact, if I had the inclination to worry, it was about myself and my dogs and our future, for my every moment of leisure these days was spent in sending out cards and letters to likely places (halls and pleasures gardens and the like), and scanning the columns of the Era, just to keep track of my competitors. There is one man, Mr John Matthews, who I regard as a keen rival, and he is often favourably reported, with his excellent hound, 'Devilshoof'. Matthews is a busy man, also, and has more strings to his fiddle than I, being also an exhibition swordsman. What work he does not get with the dog in the circus or theatre, he can make up for with his sabre on a military show. He is a clever man, and no mistake. I wish I had his many skills.
Keeping body and soul together in these uncertain times and trying to put a little by, that was my constant worry. I was forever inventing new tricks for Brutus and Nero, little novelties which were easy to learn, but would amuse and keep spectators returning and asking for Chapman's Sagacious Canines. It was a wearying time. My boys were quick scholars and diligent at their work and right as ninepence after only an hour in the back-yard, but I was more often worn out after a day's performing and ready for a cup of tea and a few pages of a rollicking story before I answered the sweet siren-call of my mattress.
One evening, not many weeks after the business with the boy, Mrs Gifford, our housekeeper at the Aquarium, caught me as I was homeward-bound and waved a letter at me. I had just finished my last show, had quickly rounded up my dogs and was on the stairs, already contemplating supper in my own room with a nice little fire, when I heard her footsteps behind me, and her 'Mr Chapman! A moment, please!' I generally avoid her if I can, and would certainly rather stare at a blank wall than meet her eye. But a glance at the folded note she held out made me as close as snatch it from her. 'To Chapman, Aquarium, URGENT!!! By Hand. URGENT!!!' quickly announced to me that its author was Trim, and within was the simple instruction, 'Meet Cheshire Cheese. 11 sharp. Urgent. T.' It was unusual for Trim to issue such a summons in such a way, but I was not about to reveal that to Mrs Gifford. I held it close to my chest, read it once, twice, three times, before I folded it carefully and put it in my pocket. I needn't have bothered being so careful.
'I hope I wasn't the bearer of bad news, Mr Chapman,' said Mrs Gifford, clinging to my back like a shadow as I hurried down the stairs. I would have wagered a week's chink then that she had already looked at the note, and when she forgot herself and said, 'The Cheshire Cheese is not a respectable tavern, you know. And tonight there is an auction in the yard, so it will be crowded,' of course no further proof was needed. (She had, as Trim once remarked, the gall of the French.) She continued, 'You should take care, Mr Chapman. It's a place that attracts the light-fingered sort, so don't you go losing your handkerchief or those handsome dogs of yours.'
Gifford was standing on the next to bottom step of the big staircase at the Aquarium, with a bunch of keys in her hand, and wearing that high-nosed look as though there was a bad smell, and I was the cause of it. My dogs, waiting on either side of me, were as still as headstones, though Nero gave a low growl, little more than a rumble in his throat. But it didn't tell. She wasn't moved at all, though her mouth drew itself into a thin line. 'You want to watch that dog, Mr Chapman,' said she. 'It might turn nasty, and you wouldn't want the police taking it away and putting it down. What would you do then?'
We hurried out of the door and, though I never looked back, I could swear that she watched us until we turned the corner, and we did not stop, not even to smell the freshly baked pies at Mrs Quilter's shop. Only when we heard the roar of voices and a rosy glow lit up the street, did we slacken our pace, for it announced the nearness of the Cheshire Cheese. And Mrs Gifford was at least correct in her prediction of the auction. In the Cheese's great yard (regular host to marionette and theatre shows) was raised a gaily lit canvas booth, inside which was a platform and seats, crowded to the rafters with people eager to be parted from their pennies and shillings in exchange for 'handsome parcels of beef (unfit for dogs) and 'handsome clocks and watches' (unfit for timekeeping), which Harris the Hawker, as he was popularly known, and his cohort of street-wise assistants were selling 'from the plank'.
The Cheese was low in all respects. It stood at the corner of a low street in a low neighbourhood. Many of its ceilings were so low that they required a man to stoop all the way to his seat or risk bruising his head on the beams, which were old and knotty, just like the assortment of benches and tables which might have been dragged from both dining rooms and barracks, so ill-matched were they. It was very old, I believe, and Drinkwater, the landlord, liked to boast about Shakespeare and Julius Caesar having sat in its best room and carved their initials on his oak settle, and took pride in showing them to visitors, who felt obliged to be impressed. But the Cheshire Cheese itself, though low, is not a bad place, and when we meet, Trimmer, Will Lovegrove and I, we take ourselves to a corner of the remotest room in the house and there enjoy our supper of bread and cheese and a glass of the best. I am not a drinking man, but I enjoy the company of my friends and so I am willing to put up with the little discomforts of heat and fug. And Brutus and Nero, of course, were happy in any place as long as they found kind, affectionate friends! They were eager to find Trimmer and Will Lovegrove, then, and it was not difficult to do, for they sat in our usual corner with a jar each and one ready for me, and the plate of bread and cheese on the table before them. Only it stood uneaten, the cheese sweating in the heat and the doorsteps of bread drying to stone. And my two friends like statues themselves, in attitudes of silent anxiety, were only slightly relieved when Brutus and Nero, tails a-wagging with joy, demanded their customary attention. Will Lovegrove clapped my shoulder and shook my hand.
'Ah! Bob Chapman. A good evening to you - and to Brutus and Nero, of course! Come and join us, and see if you can relieve poor Trim here of his worries. If you are unable to, I very much fear that they will consume him completely and that, alas, we will be forced to carry him home in pieces, so broken is he by his fretting! Haroo!'
Will Lovegrove, leading actor at the Pavilion, sometimes found it difficult to leave his dramatic roles in the theatre. He was a fine William Braveheart and John Masterman, a roguish Captain Freestaff and Mynheer Deepson, and did Trim much good service in the representation of his highwaymen and pirates. Jack Blackwood, a heroic gentleman of the road, was cheered on - and off - the stage for months, and as tall, handsome Ruggantino, the Spanish Pirate, had many young women lingering at the theatre door and their men threatening to fight him! But Will was a good soul, as brave as those heroes he represented, and with such a fine figure h
e had no need of PFCs (padded false calves, which are shoved down the legs of their stockings by less shapely actors) and wore his own dark hair long and curling about his shoulders. Will Lovegrove was probably the most handsome man I had ever seen and certainly, Trim and I, being just everyday lookers, had reason to be envious when Lovegrove turned the head of every pretty young woman in the street.
But Trim, anxiously twisting his gloves about and not wanting to look either of us in the eye, was above and beyond his usual state of agitation. Will frowned and nudged him encouragingly, and said in that rich, sailor-hero voice he reserved for serious occasions, 'Now then, old fellow. Buck up and hoist yer topsail! Tell Bob here about your dreadful shipwreck.'
Trimmer smiled weakly and laid his hands upon the table. 'It is simple enough and you already know the first instalment, Chapman. I left Garraway's this morning with a full stomach, a light heart and a manuscript copy of Elenore the Female Pirate, a Christmas Extravaganza in one pocket and The Vulture's Bride; or the Adventures of Fanny Campbell, the Terror of the High Seas, A Novel, in the other. I arrive at the Pavilion Theatre with Elenore in a muddy and despicable condition, and The Vulture's Bride in the hands of a stranger.' He paused, for dramatic effect. 'I've been robbed. Distressing enough, of course, but that's not all.' Trim wound the ends of his muffler around his fingers. 'If it were just a robbery, I should not mind. The fact that it was my only finished copy of The Vulture's Bride, and it'll be the devil's own job to re-write it from working scraps, is bad, but it can be done.' He reflected. 'No, it's not just the robbery. Rather the manner of it. And what went with it.'
And then followed a description of his route, what and who he saw on the way, and finally his strange encounter with a street boy - 'Skulking in the shadows!' - just on the corner of Dunfermline-street, where the pavement was narrowest and the shadow of the London and South Metropolitan railway bridge was deepest. 'I suppose I wasn't looking where I was going, and tripped over this boy. I hit the ground rather hard and dropped the manuscript, and it scattered everywhere. Whilst I was trying to recover it, the boy hooked the novel from my pocket and made off at a lick.'
Will was frowning and tracing pot stains on the table. 'An unusual robbery, I'll give you that.'
'The boy was sitting on the ground,' continued Trim, 'with his back to the wall, like some Chinese statue. And just out of sight, round the corner. No doubt waiting for me.'
Will nodded thoughtfully. 'If you say so, old fellow. Was he alone?'
'I didn't see anyone else,' said Trim, 'but there might have been someone hiding. There are plenty of rows and courts around there.'
Will considered.
'Just a passing thought, old fellow, but don't you think it's rather out of the way for a boy to rob you like that? On his own? Pick your pockets in a market, yes. Trip you up on a dark street at midnight, certainly. But even then, with someone else larger and taller to hold you down, or kick you, or beat you with a club, before robbing you. And it doesn't sound like a garrotting either. From your description, it sounds more like an accident.'
Trim's eyes widened in indignation. 'Well! Clearly, I've had a narrow escape! By rights, I should be weltering in the road! Or have had my throat pressed by a nasty man till I'm insensible.'
'All I am saying—'
'No need, Will,' said Trim, trying, I think, to keep his irritation under a sack. 'As a matter of fact, I have already formed my own opinion. I think this is a simple matter of professional jealousy. A conspiracy to steal my new story even before Barnard's have seen it and pass it off under a different name. I can think of two or three likely candidates in the penny novel business even now.' He shook his head. 'Jealousy is one thing, but theft!'
I was not convinced, and don't think Will was either.
'You may be right,' he said, patiently, 'but it seems a lot of trouble to go to just for a packet of paper, even if it is your very excellent story. After all, how would this boy know you had it on you? You are sure nothing else is missing? Not your purse? Your handkerchief?'
'No. Only the manuscript.'
'And the boy,' continued Will, thoughtfully. 'What was he like? Short? Tall? Red-haired?'
But Trim couldn't remember, though he swore he would know him again if he saw him for but a second. 'He was small. Dirty, of course. But aren't they all? He wore a scabby short coat and boots out at the toes. A red handkerchief around his neck, showman style. Remains of a hat - what do they call them? A flat poke, I think. Maybe a tooth or two missing. I don't really know. I didn't get a very good look at him.'
Will laughed. 'But you took in everything at a glance! Woe betide us all! Witnesses?'
'None,' Trim said quickly. 'Not one. No one around at all. Unless - but I can't see how he had anything to do with the business - there was a strange-looking creature who delivered a page into my hands.'
The clock ticked, the fire crackled and spluttered, Brutus and Nero snored lustily. We were warm and snug for now, but opening up a mystery, had we but known it, which would affect all our lives.
We waited and, after a moment's thought, Trim explained.
'He gave me a page from the drama, Elenore the Female Pirate. I'd dropped the whole lot, as I told you, and there was paper scattered everywhere. I thought I'd collected them all, but one escaped, I suppose, and he rescued it and gave it back to me. A strange-looking creature. Perhaps I should try and find him.'
'In what way strange?'
Trim wriggled in his seat. 'Well, to begin with, he was enormously large,' he said, 'like a pudding about to burst, and with a head as round and smooth as a cannon ball. And he was strangely dressed. All pale. He might have been an actor. You fellows can be extravagant in your costumes.'
Will seemed not at all put out, though he was affecting a rather large collar and a scarf which was also oversize. And, of course, his hair was long and curling about his neck. In an actorly fashion.
'Was he foreign, perhaps?'
'No, not foreign, but not regular either. He had an odd way of talking, rather overdone.'
Lovegrove stared at our friend and ran a hand through those glossy locks with such careless elegance that I could have been envious. 'My dear fellow, his size and his bald pate, and what might be an actor's lisp to boot - this stranger must stand out like an honest man in parliament! We will make enquiries. He seems a prime candidate.'
Trim shook his head and gazed at us, by turn, with an anxious expression.
'No, no. You are very kind. Good friends both. But I fear,' he said with a dramatic emphasis that Lovegrove could never have taught him, 'I very much fear that I shall never see him, nor the boy, nor The Vulture's Bride again.'
He was, of course, completely wrong.
The Pavilion Theatre
My dogs and I are comfortably seated at the side of the stage of the Pavilion Theatre. Mr Carrier has requested our attendance in connection with some occasional work in the forthcoming Christmas extravaganza written by that talented dramatic author, F. H. Trimmer, Elenore the Female Pirate; or the Gold of the Mountain King. We are as pleased as a dog with two tails - Brutus and Nero in partic.! - and not just because it puts some extra shillings our way for the penny bank. No, it's the novelty of a theatre show, for we haven't had so much as a sniff of greasepaint for almost a year - since we were usurped at the Bower Saloon by our friend Mr Matthews and 'Devilshoof - and, according to Trim, it is a buster, and will reach the pages of the Era and the notice of other managers. All in all, a good thing. So we are happily waiting upon the manager and our friend Will Lovegrove, who has yet to arrive, but who I am certain we have to thank for this opportunity.
Mr Carrier has certainly taken a risk on Trim's Christmas piece and has dispensed with the Harlequin theme altogether, and Will says he is the only London manager to do so. 'Traditional' and 'time-honoured' are bywords for the pantomime, and woe betide the man who will contemplate an alternative. We are used to Harlequin King Rumbledetum and the Fair Princess Who-Will-Have-Her-Own-Way;
or the Bright Secrets of the Dark Lake and a Misty Plot to Boot. We expect a foggy story, topical songs and jests, gorgeous costumes, a brilliant spectacle with banners and flags of all nations, a fairy ballet, effects to take one's breath away, and a transformation scene to dazzle.
Pantomimes are all the same, every year. No matter what.
Until this year.
Yes, Mr Carrier is taking a risk.
'Mr Hennessey at the Oriental,' he confided to the company only last week, 'is rumoured to have secured the services of Van Ambrose, the great equestrian and animal trainer. I have heard that his act two finale will present a magnificent procession of camels, horses and elephants. Then, at the Duke's Theatre, I understand Mr Goldhawk is building an entire Chinese pagoda, complete with turtle doves for his transformation scene.'
'But,' said Mr Pocock, his faithful secretary, 'Mr Willard plays safe with Ali Baba, though his forty thieves are all, to a man, female and rather lumpy.'
There was a titter from the ladies and something ruder from our low comedian.
'No laughing matter, ladies and gentlemen,' Mr Pocock gloomily continued, 'particularly since he has secured the services of Mr Lawrence, the firework manufacturer and pyrotechnist. We know, from our own experience, that mighty explosions and clouds of smoke will be the order of the day.'
A back-hander, according to Will, since old Lawrence nearly burned down the Pav one year in an accidental burst of blue fire when the drop-scene went up in smoke.
'Of course,' continued Mr Carrier, 'thanks to Mr Lombard, we are not short of wonders at the Pavilion - the ship-in-full- sail in act three will be a "stunner", I am sure.'
The Newgate Jig Page 3
