by Avi
Mr. Farquatt was a most persnickety man and, to my young eyes, could have been anywhere between the age of twenty to forty years. I always felt there was something of the child about his person. That is, his face was very smooth, with eyebrows fair to the point of invisibility. He dressed like a jack-a-dandy, with a brushed top hat that seemed to be held up by his ears, so that I rather thought of him as a small candle wearing its own snuffer. He had small, childlike hands, their fingertips stained with ink like a schoolboy’s. But then, he was an accountant in the city at a French commercial establishment called the Credit Bordeaux, or so he had informed my sister, and she, making much of it, had told me.
Mr. Farquatt had been courting Clarissa since last summer. How he had met her, I didn’t know. He had just appeared. When he visited—which he often did—the two inevitably sat together in a far corner. It was a puzzle to me what they spoke about, for when they chatted in such whispery voices, it sounded like twittering sparrows. Mr. Farquatt liked to engage with my father, too, though Father was not so inclined.
In the event, as I spied Mr. Farquatt, he saw me and came forward with small, hurried steps, actually lifting his top hat as if greeting another adult. Hadn’t Mr. Tuckum done the same?
“Ah, Master John,” he said to me in his careful voice with just a trace of foreign accent (French, I vaguely assumed), “I am so very delighted to meet with you.”
He offered me his ink-stained fingers, which I shook, finding his hand as limp as an old apple peel.
“Yes, sir,” I returned, not knowing what to say to him regarding the state of our family affairs.
“You will wonder,” he said, “that I am on the streets at such an early hour.”
Having no reason not to be polite, I said, “Not at all.”
“I went to your home last evening so as to call upon Mademoiselle Huffam. Alas, she was not there.”
I said nothing.
“I was informed,” Mr. Farquatt hastened on, “that the family was—how shall I say?—removed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Though no one was close, he lowered his voice: “That your father … is in some deep difficulty … and has gone … to a … sponging house.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“I’m afraid,” he continued, “your neighbors were only too pleased to tell me what happened. You are—am I correct?—currently residing at the old Halfmoon Inn.”
“I fear it’s true, sir.”
“I thought,” he said, “before attending to my accounting work, I would acquaint myself as to the precise location of this inn. So I am very pleased to have met you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did your mother accompany your father?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And … your esteemed sister? Mademoiselle Huifam, is she there too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see.”
Not knowing what else to say, I stared at him.
“I believe”—he gazed at me from under his pale eyebrows—“it would be unkind to wait upon her in such an establishment. Perhaps even embarrassing. So then, Master John, since it’s my very good fortune to meet you, I wonder if I might impose … Could you deliver a message to her from me?”
“Yes, sir. I’d be happy to.”
“Give Mademoiselle Huffam my warmest compliments and tell her … if you would be so kind … that Mr. Farquatt would be pleased to meet her at three o’clock this afternoon at … the park behind St. Botolphs Church. It’s not too far from the Halfmoon Inn. Do you think you could tell her that?”
“Three o’clock. Behind St. Botolphs.”
“Exactly,” he said. “And, please …” He grew flustered. “Please tell her I have a … proposal to make to her.”
“I’ll do so.”
“And, though I hesitate to say it … I beg you to inform your esteemed father that if his difficulty is such that I might ease it, he need only request assistance—of me. But he should do so before I leave.”
“Leave?”
“Alas, a business trip to France. Can you pass on those two messages?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Farquatt slipped a few copper pennies into my hand before turning about and scurrying off on his little feet.
Not wanting him to think I would follow him, I turned and went back past Halfmoon Alley and on toward Bishopsgate, where the shutters on shops were just being taken down. Here, people were on the street in great numbers. There were many vendors, too. With one of the pennies I’d just been given, I purchased a hot pork pie for myself, as well as one for Clarissa and one for Brigit. Gobbling my share, I returned to the Halfmoon Inn.
As I entered the court, I saw—or thought I saw—the very same girl I’d startled when I’d come out of the inn at dawn. She had not gone to work—or anywhere else for that matter. But anxious to get back to my family, I set her presence aside as yet another coincidence and went into the inn.
None of my family was up. But Brigit was attending to the table.
“Ah, there you are, Master John,” she said upon seeing me. “You are up early.”
“I could not sleep,” I explained.
She said, “Your father woke me last night—before he went to bed—and told me where you might find your great-aunt, Lady Euphemia Huffam.”
That explained the voices I’d heard during the night.
“Am I to go now?” I asked, my stomach instantly tense.
“Master John,” she said severely, “not only would it be the wisest thing for you to do, it’s the only thing for you to do. Did you tell your father what I said, that he had best solve his problem himself?”
“I tried,” I said, puzzled that she should be so insistent on this obvious point.
“Very well, then: Your father says Lady Huffam is to be found at Forty-five Great Winchester Street. I think you should go now.”
I hesitated. “Brigit, do you think I shall be successful?”
“I fear not,” she said. “But, Master John, surely it would not be so very bad if Mr. Huffam understood he won’t have help from her.”
“Why?”
“It would force him to solve the matter on his own.”
Puzzled by her attitude, I nonetheless presented the meat pies I’d purchased and started out.
“Oh, Master John,” Brigit called after me. “I forgot to tell you another thing.”
I stopped.
“Mr. Huifam also requests that—after you visit with Lady Euphemia—you stop round to the Naval Ordinance Office and tell them that he’s indisposed and won’t be reporting for work today.”
I had completely forgotten my father’s employment. I did know—for Mother complained about it often—that as a clerk he made only one hundred pounds a year, which she considered a paltry sum. I now wondered what would happen if he were put into prison. Would he lose his position? His salary? And if he did …
“Can he not write a letter?” I asked. “The Penny Post makes six deliveries a day.”
“Master John, I’m only repeating his asking.”
“But, Brigit,”! protested, “he’s asking me to lie.”
She drew herself up. “Master John,” she said, her eyes quite severe, “I should think you’re old enough to know that for things held dear to the heart, all kinds of sacrifices must be made.”
With that reproof stinging my ears, I slunk away.
CHAPTER 10
I Set Off to Visit Lady Euphemia
Great Winchester Street, off Broad Street, was not that far from the Halfmoon Inn. Nevertheless, I walked slowly, all but wishing I were behind my desk at Muldspoon’s Militantly Motivated Academy. The next moment I wondered if I would ever return to its ranks or see Old Moldy again.
That being all too much for my head, I turned my eyes to the street. Happily, the day was now firmly in tow and there was much to distract me. Stalls were being filled. Shops were doing a brisk trade. The street was swarming with laborers, clerks, costermongers, business
men, and vendors whose great number and variety always fascinated me. That morning I saw a peppermint-water seller, children selling necklaces of red berries, a packman selling shawls, an organ-grinder boy, and a long-song seller. Also a muffin and crumpet peddler, a rag vendor, and a blind Irish piper. I would have stopped for the last, for I liked music—and I was thinking about Brigit’s unhappy Ireland—but feeling the pressure to complete my missions, I walked on.
Even so, at one corner I paused to watch a man and his boy erect a Punch-and-Judy booth. I always loved the puppets and had secretly wished to be such a boy assistant. Even as I looked on, he beat his drum to announce the start of the performance. But as I glanced about, I saw in the gathering crowd that girl again—the one with an overlarge boy’s cap. Seeing her gave me such a jolt, I quit the place in haste.
In just one morning I’d seen this ragged girl three times. It could not be a coincidence. She must be following me! Why she should pursue me—I had never seen her before—was an uncomfortable mystery.
As I hurried away, I kept looking back over my shoulder but did not see her. Instead, I tried to focus my energy upon the importance of what lay before me. And in such a fashion I soon arrived at Great Winchester Street.
At some time there must have been fine houses there. That morning they appeared drab, more like storage vaults than places for the living. Number Forty-five Great Winchester was on a corner, set back within a shallow flagstone courtyard. The brick house had a half basement, plus two stories with large windows. A wide, funnel-shaped flight of seven stone steps—the broad end of the funnel fronting the pavement—crossed bridgelike over the basement ditch and led to double doors with a large knocker in the shape of a lions head. A gas lamp with a pinky point of flame flickered over the doorway.
Checking to see if I had been followed—the idea that the girl was stalking me kept creeping into my mind—I climbed the steps slowly until, breathless with nervousness, I stood before the fierce lions face.
The doors had seemed large when I first saw them. Standing right before them, they seemed immense. Anxious, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure I had an escape route. This time a tall gentleman was passing, who, upon seeing me, abruptly stopped and scrutinized me, as if surprised, before bolting round the corner.
Brushing the hair out of my eyes, I took a deep breath and, using the heavy knocker—the lion’s lower jaw—rapped upon the door. I felt as if I were Daniel asking permission to enter the lion’s den.
There being no response, I knocked again. One of the doors opened, and a man dressed entirely in black looked down at me. There was something perfectly skeletal about him. That is to say, he was more bone than flesh, with a hollow, ashen-cheeked face. He was shiny bald, too, with such a small nose that it was almost as if he had none. Very more distinct were deep-set, dark eyes—eyes that glared at me with what could only be perceived as disapproval. His funereal appearance made me wonder if he was in fact an undertaker, if, as my father had feared, his great-aunt had indeed passed beyond his desperate reach.
“Yes?” said the man, drawing out the word while simultaneously frowning and lifting his thin left eyebrow, thus managing to convey disappointment, disgust, and dismissal all at once.
“Please, sir,” I said, “I should very much like to speak to Lady Euphemia.”
“Who are you?”
“Please, sir, I am John Horatio Huffam. Wesley Huffam’s son. Lady Euphemia is his great-aunt. My great-great-aunt.”
“Oh?” he said, making it less a question than a response of disgust. For this time his lifted left eyebrow communicated mockery. “Why,” he intoned, “are you here?”
“My father … sent me.”
“Your father sent you? Is madam expecting you?”
“No, sir.” By now I was sure the man was a butler. “But it … it’s very important I see her.”
He looked beyond me, on to the street, perhaps to determine if I was with anyone else.
“I’m here alone,” I hastened to say.
“How important is this?” he asked.
“Life and death,” I suggested.
A softening. “Is your father ill?”
“No, sir. Not at all.”
A stiffening. “Then what is it?”
Fetching up some pluck, I said, “Please, sir, the matter is only for Lady Euphemia’s ears.”
He contemplated me anew with his deep, dark eyes. This time I thought the lifted eyebrow suggested curiosity. “Step in,” he said.
I did, and he shut the door behind me noiselessly. “You may sit in that chair. Do not move,” he admonished, and ascended the stairs at the end of a long, gloomy hallway.
He had directed me to a small chair with a hard, faded red, and threadbare cushion. I had barely sat down when, from the same direction the butler had gone, a gray-haired woman appeared. Dressed in black, with a white lace cap and an apron, she clearly was a servant. She drew no closer to me but stood in place, hands clasped, staring at me as if at some oddity. I was quite certain she was there to ensure that I did not steal anything. Nonetheless, I did steal some looks about.
The hallway had a few doorways—all shut—which led, perhaps, to drawing rooms. Opposite where I sat was a small table and a salver onto which one might lay visiting cards. No cards waited, but a booklet rested there, a pamphlet with a light blue wrapper covered with many small illustrations.
The walls appeared to be covered with purple silk patterned with bunches of flowers, all quite faded. The threadbare rug bore a pattern of flowers too. A few portraits of dour men in old-fashioned dress looked down on it. In their dim and dusty faces I saw a vague resemblance to my father.
There was also a standing clock, which ticked loudly and had a minute hand that moved with slow jerks, as if it required constant yanking—like a reluctant dog on a leash—to keep pace with the present time. But then, between the dull light and the ticking, the house made me think of a fading garden in perpetual twilight.
How long I sat there, I don’t know. Under the watchful—if unmoving—eyes of the servant woman, it felt forever. Once, I shifted toward her and attempted a smile, even lifting a hand to make a timid wave with my fingerstips. She offered no response.
Tired—I had woken quite early—I believe I actually nodded off until, quite unexpectedly, a door opened and a tall man crossed in haste from one side of the hall to the other, paused momentarily to snatch up the blue pamphlet, then vanished through another door. For the briefest moment I imagined him to be the same man who had observed me as I stood before the doors of Lady Euphemia’s house. But before I could gather my woolly wits, he was gone. I was quite sure, however, the man had considered me with some suspicion. It was as if a regiment of guards surrounded my great-great-aunt.
Trying to put the man out of mind, I returned to waiting, making a church of my hands and peopling it with my dirty fingers. At length the butler returned, coming down the steps and walking toward me in grave silence.
I stood up.
He stopped and considered me, as if unsure whether to speak. “Lady Euphemia will see you—briefly,” he finally said even as the communicative left eyebrow rose and signaled disapproval.
“Thank you, sir.”
A flicking motion of his skeletal hand dismissed the servant. To me he said, “You will deliver your message, and then you will leave. She has an appointment with her solicitor. Indeed, he has already arrived. By the servants’door,” he added, as if to remind me that I had not used it.
I recalled my father’s warning regarding one Mr. Nottingham. “Yes, sir,” I said, only too willing to be done quickly. “I understand.”
“You will not sneeze. My lady catches illness easily. She will be furious if you bring contagion.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you will speak softly. She does not approve of loud noises.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your speech must be slow. She does not like to be rushed.”
“Yes, sir.�
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“You will be respectful. She does not like children.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now then, follow me.” He turned and led the way up the steps. I followed a few paces behind.
Upon reaching the first floor, I looked about. There was much in the way of heavy furniture, tables, chairs, mirrors, and curtains. Everywhere, objects were patterned with flowers as wilted above as below.
“This way,” said the butler. He knocked softly on a door, put his ear to it, presumably received permission to enter, and pushed the way open.
A full sense of what I was about to do—what I had to do—overcame me. My heart thudded. I felt weak to the point of dizziness. I tried to remember the rules: Speak slowly. No sneezing. No loud noises. No diseases. But by then I was already being ushered into the presence of Lady Euphemia herself.
CHAPTER 11
I Meet Lady Euphemia
A large bedroom. Two windows, curtains partially drawn, the light diminished. More silk wallpaper with more faded flowers. A tall armoire against one wall. Two chairs against another. A fireplace with a fire screen. To one side of the room, a chaise lounge. A corner washstand table upon which sat a great variety of pillboxes, bowls, cups, and apothecary jars. The room reeking of the medicinal smell of carbolic acid such as used for general disinfectant.
But it was a large four-poster bed that dominated the room. In turn, the bed was dominated by a woman beneath sea green blankets, which did nothing to hide her great bulk, which made a mountain of her bedclothes. In truth, I had never seen such a large woman (or man!), though all I could see of her were shoulders and head, propped up by at least five plump pillows.
Her eyes, nose, and mouth were all but drowned by folds of flesh: pendulant cheeks, multiple chins, beetled brows—the skin being the pallor of unbaked bread, and just as unappetizing.
