A Very Peculiar Plague

by Catherine Jinks

  ‘Why, if it ain’t Mr Bunce!’ A familiar voice greeted them as they stepped into a room that Jem barely recognised. The crowds had melted away; the gas-lamps were burning very low; the air smelled stale and sour. But Mabel Lillimere was in her usual spot behind the bar, wiping and shelving pint-pots. ‘And Mr Purdy, too!’ she piped up. ‘So you found each other! I am glad. Here . . .’ She reached under the bar and produced a bottle of brandy. ‘You’ll not be paying a penny in this establishment, Mr Bunce. I’m to tell you as how Mr Watkins just hired his new pot-boy, and won’t be fretting about his safety, thanks to you and your ’prentice.’

  Alfred grunted. Jem grinned. Purdy, meanwhile, was peering around the room, which was almost deserted.

  ‘Is Sam not in yet?’ he asked. ‘I’ll have me usual, by the by.’

  ‘I ain’t seen Sam, but I expect to,’ the barmaid told him. She had already measured out Alfred’s brandy-and-water. ‘Anything for the lad, Mr Bunce?’

  Delighted, Jem opened his mouth to order a quart pot of Dutch bitters. But Alfred spoke first.

  ‘A dram o’ cider,’ he said, before knocking back his brandy in one gulp.

  Jem glowered at him.

  ‘How did you fare on that roof?’ asked Mabel. She seemed very well informed. As Hugh Purdy explained what had happened, Mabel listened intently. And though her eyes never left his face, she didn’t spill a single drop of the various orders that she was dispensing.

  When the plumber finished, she nodded slowly. Then she turned to Alfred.

  ‘There’s someone needs to consult you, Mr Bunce,’ she declared. ‘He’s sexton at the church across the road.’

  ‘Sexton?’ Jem echoed, almost choking on his cider. His experience with churchmen had never been good. They seemed to do nothing but preach at him – perhaps because he’d spent so much of his life picking pockets.

  Though Alfred didn’t say a word, his expression became wary.

  ‘I can take you over there while Mr Purdy waits for his friend,’ Mabel continued. ‘Mr Froome would be so grateful. He’s a lovely man, sir, and mortal worried.’

  ‘About what?’ Alfred growled.

  ‘Why, about his missing choirboy!’ Mabel was already untying her apron. Before Alfred could protest, she turned her face to the nearest door and shouted, ‘Edgar! Where are you? Come here at once!’ To Purdy she said, ‘Edgar will look after you while I’m gone, since I’ll not be more’n a minute away.’ Then she raised her voice again. ‘Edgar! You’re to mind the bar, d’you hear?’

  ‘I hear,’ Edgar replied, lumbering into view. He was a boy of about twelve, large and raw-boned, with red hands, bloodshot eyes, and coarse, gingery hair. He wore a calf-length apron spattered with grease.

  ‘I’ll be back directly,’ Mabel told him. She produced a bonnet from some unseen locker, then stepped out from behind the bar. ‘Edgar’s our new pot-boy,’ she informed Alfred, dragging her bonnet onto her head. ‘He’s strong for his age, and cheap at the price. But he can thank you for his job, Mr Bunce. We’d not have dared hire him, if you hadn’t killed that bogle!’

  Jem was amused to see how meekly Alfred followed Mabel out of the tavern. With her hand tucked under his arm, she steered the captive bogler straight across Giltspur Street as if he were no older than Jem. He seemed unable to resist her. Though he dragged his feet and muttered under his breath, his dour expression was no match for the barmaid’s bustling confidence.

  Jem trailed after them. He kept his eyes peeled, but saw no familiar faces on his way to St Sepulchre’s. The church sat in a modest yard behind a fence of iron railings. Its main entrance lay further down Newgate Street, beneath an elaborate porch. Here an elderly man in a rusty black coat and knee-breeches was sweeping dead leaves off the flagstones. He didn’t see Mabel until she was almost on top of him.

  ‘Why, it’s Miss Lillimere!’ he said, in a cracked and quavering voice like the bleat of a broken reed instrument. His hair was white, as were his side-whiskers. But he wore no beard or moustache. ‘Ye’re too late for the morning service, lass.’

  ‘I didn’t come for that, Mr Froome.’ Releasing Alfred, Mabel laid a hand on the old man’s arm. ‘This here is Mr Alfred Bunce, the Go-Devil man. He kills bogles for a living.’

  ‘The Go-Devil man . . .?’ Mr Froome peered at Alfred with small, pale, rheumy eyes. Alfred stared back morosely, adjusting the weight of his sack.

  In the lengthening silence, Jem’s gaze began to wander. He noticed that the ceiling of the porch was covered in extravagant carvings: shields, roses, doves, angels. They were all damp and soot-blackened.

  ‘Ye’re a bogler?’ Mr Froome asked abruptly, just as Mabel was opening her mouth to prompt him.

  ‘I am,’ Alfred replied.

  ‘He killed a bogle in our cellar yesterday,’ Mabel volunteered. ‘And since you’re missing a boy, Mr Froome, I thought as how you might need Mr Bunce.’

  The sexton blinked. Jem wondered if he were a little deaf, or senile. But then the old man cleared his throat and said to Alfred, ‘I once met a bogler in Lincoln. Name of Chaffey. D’ye know him?’

  Alfred shook his head.

  ‘Strange feller. Gypsy blood. Worth every penny, mind.’ Leaning on his broom, the sexton seemed to escape for a moment into memories that left his eyes misty and his mouth slack. It wasn’t long, however, before he shook off his reverie and asked, ‘How much do ye charge, Mr Bunce?’

  Alfred recited his fees in a low rumble, while Mabel edged past him. ‘I have to go,’ she said apologetically, once he’d finished. ‘Edgar’s so new, I don’t trust him at the bar. But you’ll not be needing me, I’m sure. Why, you’re old enough to manage your own affairs!’

  She chuckled at her own wit, as a smile cracked across Mr Froome’s wizened features. ‘Allus a pleasure, Miss Lillimere,’ he assured her, touching his forehead as if he were tipping a hat. She responded with a nod and a wave, then headed back down Newgate Street.

  Jem was watching her go when Mr Froome said to him, ‘Ye’re not from this parish. I’d know if ye were.’

  ‘I’m with Mr Bunce.’ Jem cocked his thumb at Alfred. ‘I’m his ’prentice.’

  ‘What’s yeer name?’

  ‘Jem Barbary.’

  The old man nodded. He seemed satisfied. Moving a little stiffly, he tucked his broom under his arm, turned on his heel, and shuffled into the church. ‘I’d best show ye the crypt,’ he declared.

  Alfred and Jem exchanged a doubtful glance before setting off after him.

  ‘Is that where the child went missing? Down in yer crypt?’ Alfred asked the sexton’s retreating back – which was bent with age and ridged like a ship’s keel.

  ‘’Tis where the poor lad was last seen,’ Mr Froome answered. His voice echoed slightly, bouncing off a very high, vaulted ceiling that was held up by two rows of columns. Jem was surprised at how big and white and empty the church was inside. No one was sitting in the pews, or kneeling in front of the altar. No one was cleaning the brass.

  ‘Show some respect,’ Alfred muttered, whisking the cap off Jem’s head. He had already removed his own hat, which was now squashed under one arm. His boots squeaked loudly as he followed the sexton – who soon came to a halt by the south-west wall, where a short flight of stairs led down to a low arch fitted with an iron gate.

  ‘We’ve no mortal remains tucked away here now,’ Mr Froome remarked, putting aside his broom to fumble with the keys that hung on a chain around his neck. ‘Most of the old bones were took out in the fifties, on account of the Cholera. The rest were moved to Ilford cemetery when they dug up half the churchyard, not long ago.’

  ‘Good,’ Jem mumbled. But Mr Froome didn’t hear him.

  ‘The state of the foundations grows more parlous with each passing day. There’s talk of backfilling the crypt, though I’ve heard such talk these twenty years and seen nothing come of it.’ Mr Froome unlocked the gate and pushed it open, causing rusty hinges to squeal. ‘At present I use the crypt for stora
ge. Wood scraps. Old gravedigging tools. Things of that nature.’

  ‘Then why was the boy down here?’ Alfred wanted to know. When the sexton didn’t immediately reply, he began to ask the question again. ‘Why was—’

  ‘Our choirmaster sent him down,’ Mr Froome interrupted. ‘By way of punishment, or so I’m told. For singing sharp.’

  A brief silence fell. Alfred grimaced. Jem felt glad that he had never joined a parish choir. Then Mr Froome observed, ‘We’ll be needing a light.’

  ‘I have one,’ said Alfred. He produced his dark lantern as Jem peered into the undercroft, which looked very old and dirty. Ribbed vaults sprang from squat, stone columns. Irregular piles of junk were silting up corners. The floor was damp, and the air smelled of rot and mice and mould – and something else.

  ‘Are you sure there ain’t no corpses down here?’ Jem asked nervously, forgetting that he was supposed to keep his mouth shut. Suddenly Alfred’s lantern flared, pushing back the shadows.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Mr Froome replied. To Alfred he said, ‘Our choirmaster claims he released the boy. ’Tis my belief Mr Tindall simply unlocked the gate and walked off without a second glance, being the sort of feller who has eyes only for his organ and ears only for his music.’ Watching Alfred scan the crypt, Mr Froome coughed and added delicately, ‘Ye’ll understand, Mr Bunce, that our rector believes the boy ran away. He’ll have no truck with the notion of bogles.’

  ‘Gentlemen never do,’ said Alfred. Then he stiffened. ‘What’s that?’ he barked, pointing at the crown of an archway embedded in a distant wall. It was partly concealed by the planks of wood propped against it.

  ‘That?’ said Mr Froome. ‘Why, that’s the old Newgate tunnel.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The tunnel to the prison.’ Seeing Alfred’s blank expression, Mr Froome tried to explain. ‘Back in the old days, the sextons of this church would ring a handbell outside the condemned cell at Newgate, on the night before a hanging. But the crowds used to gather so early that they blocked the path of anyone leaving the church too late. So this secret tunnel was built.’ As Jem shuddered, staring aghast at the murky void, Mr Froome suddenly broke into verse. ‘All ye that in the condemned cell do lie,’ he intoned, ‘prepare ye, for tomorrow ye shall die. Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near, that ye before the Almighty must appear.’ When his voice cracked, he stopped and cleared his throat. ‘I’ve forgot most of the text,’ he admitted. ‘It was recited in full for the prisoners’ solace. But I never was charged with the duty myself, thanks be to God.’

  ‘It came from in there,’ Alfred said flatly.

  The sexton gaped at him. ‘What?’

  ‘The bogle. It’s a-waiting down that passage.’ Alfred nodded at the tunnel, a mirthless half-smile tweaking the corner of his mouth. ‘Yer boy’s dead and gone, Mr Froome,’ he announced, ‘for that there is a bogle’s den if ever I saw one.’

  11

  THE CRYPT-BOGLE

  Alfred laid down his ring of salt not far from the tunnel’s entrance. He wouldn’t let Mr Froome shift any bits of rubbish around, explaining that he didn’t want the bogle disturbed. So the mouth of the tunnel remained half-blocked by a broken pew-back.

  Jem was told to wait on the stairs until Alfred was ready.

  ‘And what should I do, Mr Bunce?’ asked the sexton. ‘Stand by with an andiron? Or mebbe a pick-axe would be better . . .’

  ‘Bogles is fast movers, Mr Froome,’ Alfred replied. ‘If I was you, I’d keep me distance. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come back.’

  The old man seemed to accept this. He gave a thoughtful nod, then offered to fetch Alfred’s fee. ‘If ye’ve no objection, Mr Bunce, I’ll record this payment in our books as “expenses pertaining to vermin”,’ he said. ‘For the rector won’t question a rat-catcher’s hire.’

  ‘I ain’t got no problem with that, Mr Froome.’

  ‘And I’ll fetch a pair of boots, while I’m about it,’ the sexton added, patting Jem’s head on his way up the stairs. ‘For I mislike seeing a lad in work go barefoot, like a beggar. And there’s a good supply of old boots in the vestry, thanks to our parochial mission.’

  Jem perked up when he heard this. He had been sitting very quietly, trying to ignore the tremor in his hands and the sweat on his brow. For some reason he was far more anxious about this job than he’d been about the last. But the offer of free boots made him feel much better.

  It was a month at least since he’d worn through his previous pair.

  ‘You ain’t to hawk them boots,’ Alfred warned him, once they were alone. ‘I know Sarah Pickles used to make all her boys beg ’em off charities to sell or pawn, but I’ll not have you do it.’

  ‘I weren’t about to!’ Jem replied, stung. He would have said more if Alfred hadn’t put a finger to his lips and muttered, ‘Not another word, now. Here’s yer looking-glass. There’s yer position. Don’t take yer eyes off me – and don’t let yer guard down. Understand? This is the third bogle we’ve found in the neighbourhood, and there ain’t no telling how many more might be lurking nearby.’

  Jem swallowed. By this time his heart was pounding so hard that he feared it would burst through his ribcage. ‘You mean – you mean you think there’s more’n one in the tunnel?’ he squeaked. But Alfred silenced him by pushing Birdie’s mirror into his hands.

  Soon Jem was stepping carefully into the ring of salt, while Alfred positioned himself beside the tunnel entrance. A wash of daylight spilled down the stairs in front of Jem, but didn’t reach the shadowy regions behind him, where Alfred stood with his salt and his spear. Only the dark lantern illumined Alfred’s coat-tails, waistcoat-buttons, and long, bony, solemn face.

  Jem’s hands were shaking so much that he found it hard to frame Alfred in his little square of glass – or to recognise the bogler’s signal, when he saw it. He thought Alfred’s nod was caused by his own tremor. But when Alfred hissed, and nodded again, Jem realised that he was supposed to start singing.

  So he did.

  The night afore Larry were stretch’d,

  The boys they all paid him a visit;

  A bit in their sacks, too, they fetch’d –

  They sweated their duds till they riz it.

  Jem’s voice wobbled like jelly. Something about the crypt frightened him far more than the tavern cellar had. Was it that ominous tunnel to Newgate? Had the corpses once buried here left a lingering miasma? Or was the hidden bogle somehow making him feel like this?

  Telling himself not to be so craven, Jem took several deep, calming breaths before launching into the second verse of his song.

  For Larry were allus the lad,

  When a friend were condemned to the squeezer,

  But he’d pawn all the togs that he had

  Just to help the poor boy to a sneezer.

  A scraping noise suddenly reached Jem’s ears. It was the tiniest sound, but it caused him to shift his gaze slightly from Alfred’s reflection to the wooden planks propped across the tunnel’s mouth.

  Something was creeping through a black space between these planks. The light was so poor that at first Jem thought he’d spotted a huge spider. But then he realised that the hairy, jointed legs silently fanning out were, in fact, giant fingers. And they were connected to four long, hairy arms, which slowly unfolded like carpenters’ rules as they emerged from the darkness.

  Jem paused and swallowed, then continued to sing.

  ‘’Pon me conscience, dear Larry,’ says I,

  ‘I’m that sorry to see you in trouble,

  And yer life’s cheerful noggin run dry,

  And yerself going off like its bubble!’

  The body attached to the arms was a great, hairy bladder, propped up on legs like a toad’s and crowned by a head bigger than a bull’s. The bogle’s horns weren’t like a bull’s, though; they were as barbed and twisted as weathered chunks of thorn hedge. Its snout was long, with flaring red nostrils and a double row of huge, d
ripping, steely fangs. Its eyes were on fire.

  Jem tried not to look. He was having trouble breathing. But he managed to stammer out another verse.

  ‘H-hold yer tongue in that matter,’ says he,

  ‘F-for the neckcloth I don’t care a button,

  And by this time tomorrow you’ll see

  That yer Larry will be dead as—’

  Alfred lunged. Jem shrieked. He dropped his mirror as he threw himself straight over the salt and into a forward roll – and another – and another. He completed four somersaults, bowling along like a hoop, until he fetched up against the opposite wall, upside down with his legs in the air.

  Behind him, something exploded.

  He heard the crackling roar and saw the green flash. He even felt the heat. But by the time he’d slid sideways and righted himself, the flame had been snuffed out. Nothing was left of the bogle except a huge black scorch-mark – and a truly awful smell of burnt hair.

  Even the salt had turned brown.

  ‘I don’t like the look o’ that,’ Alfred said hoarsely. He was standing at the edge of the circle, his moustache singed and his face dusted with soot. When he disturbed the salt with the toe of his boot, it made a sizzling noise. ‘Don’t you touch it, d’you hear? It might be poison.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Jem mumbled. He staggered to his feet, vaguely aware that his left knee was smarting. ‘I dropped the looking-glass,’ he quavered. ‘I – I don’t know where it is.’

  ‘Mebbe it’s broke,’ said Alfred, who was now rummaging through his sack. Jem blanched. He knew that a broken mirror meant seven years’ bad luck.

  But when he finally did find the mirror, it wasn’t in pieces. It had turned into a pool of black glass, which had fused to the floor.

  ‘What does that mean?’ he asked Alfred, as they surveyed it together. ‘Is it good luck or bad luck?’