Eppie (15 page)

Eppie leapt to her feet and pointed to a space beside a horse
drinking-trough. ‘There! Where that wagon’s leaving the saddlers.’

Whilst Martha served customers, placed eggs in bags, counted
carrots, and pocketed coins, Eppie squatted on a step, her back against the stone
pillar of the market cross, watching the activities around her.

Fresh water slapped into muddy puddles from the pannier
buckets of oxen driven through the streets. The sign over the liquor shop, a
painting of a green bottle, creaked.

She jingled coins. ‘I’ll go and fetch those things for Betsy
and Sarah.’

‘Whilst you’re at it, take this to Wakelin.’   

Mingling with the crowds, she bought tea and sugar.

Upon the pavement outside his workshop, the shrivelled
cobbler seemed forever rooted to his chair, rap-rapping with his hammer.

A greasy odour drifted from the candle-maker’s shop, where a
woman was dipping a row of candles into a bath of liquid wax.   

Leaning heavily upon a crutch, a one-legged, red-coated
soldier climbed the steps to the elegant front of The Rogues’ Inn. The door of
the sandstone building was flung wide and Thurstan bounded down. ‘Ah, Miss
Strutt, it is a fine morning.’ 

Eppie was traversing Corn Street. Intrigued by this meeting,
her steps faltered.

Nervously, Alicia smoothed the pagoda sleeves of her gold
leaf-patterned frock.  ‘Certainly, Mr du Quesne, it is.’

Thurstan drew her hand to his narrow lips and kissed it. A
dusting of powder from his bob wig sprinkled upon her wrist.              

‘Might I compliment you on your delightful hat,’ he remarked
of Alicia’s fashionable black beaver hat with its purple cockade. 

A petty hawker tramped past, his backpack brimming with
cheap crockery, thimbles and song-sheets. He ogled at her bonnet. 

‘Yours also,’ Alicia said bashfully. ‘Most becoming.’

Thurstan whipped off his three-cornered silk hat. ‘It is from
London, designed to fold, thus, making it most suitable to sit upon at the
theatre. Perhaps you would care to accompany me to the next play?’ 

‘That would be delightful, Mr du Quesne.’ Hearing a farmer
bellowing, Alicia turned to see Eppie dithering in the road. She dragged her
out the path of the wagon.  ‘Is that a pie for Wakelin?’

Thurstan’s passion was cooled now that Eppie had joined
Alicia. He bowed. ‘I bid you a good day, Miss Strutt. I am required to attend
the sessions. Might I request your brother call upon me at his convenience? 
There is a matter of delicacy that I wish to discuss with him.’

‘Mister Thurstan didn’t half skem at your new hat,’ Eppie
said.

Heading towards Charlotte Street, they dodged a dishevelled
trapper from the countryside, pheasants, rabbits and hares strung upon his
back.

Alicia blushed. ‘Did you not consider him most handsome in
his black silk coat?’ 

Eppie gazed at her, blank.

Alicia laughed short and clear. ‘I know I should not say
such things to a child, but I must admit to finding him most gallant.’

Eppie could not think why. He looked creepy to her.

They scurried up the covered alleyway to the side of the finishing
shop. Only feet away an evil-smelling river lapped, gurgling on grassless
banks. Scurrying from a dilapidated shed, a rat plopped into the water beside
fragments of floating timber.  

Ezra leant over the trestle table, skilfully cutting cloth
by squeezing metal shears.  Rolling his shirtsleeves higher, he revealed his
biceps to Eppie. ‘Bet you’d like some of these?’

Shyly, she shook her head.

‘Wake won’t be long.’ He whispered, so that Alicia would not
overhear. ‘Between you and me, he’s taking a detour whilst Mr Strutt is out, if
you get my meaning. I don’t think you’ve met our latest apprentice?’

‘Hullo,’ muttered the bored-looking boy. Stood before a
wooden frame fixed upon the wall, he was brushing cloth with spiky bracts. The
teasels rasped as he raised the uneven nap. 

‘Wake and I are taking wagers as to how long he’ll last,
aren’t we Simon? So far it’s been three days. The last apprentice ran off after
an hour of using the shears, his hands soaked with blood.’ 

Kicking back the door, Wakelin blundered in, a bundle of
cloth on his shoulder. 

‘Here’s your little sister,’ Ezra said. ‘She’s brought us
something tasty.’

A besom stood against the stone wall. Wakelin prodded its
handle into Eppie’s stomach. ‘Seeing as you’re here, ya might as well make
yersen useful.’

Alicia looked sharply at him, annoyed with his rudeness.
‘Kindly leave Eppie alone and get on with your work.’

‘Aye, Miss Strutt. Straight away, Miss Strutt, anyfin ya
say, Miss Strutt.’

Alicia motioned Eppie to follow her through the adjacent
door into her dressmaker’s shop. In the window was a display of fashion dolls;
when a lady visited the shop she could see a miniature version of what her
frock would look like before it was made up. Several girls sat sewing in the
room behind, including Jenufer, Alicia’s sister. 

Alicia took up her embroidery and set about couching the
silver and gold threads. ‘That brother of yours is so ill-mannered. I suspect
he’s been drinking again.’

‘Hey!’ Wakelin yelled. ‘What’s going on?’

Alicia huffed.  ‘Now what?’

People shouted to one another as they fled up Charlotte
Street. The sewing girls gathered around to watch. ‘I imagine it is a protest
about the dearness of wheaten bread,’ Jenufer said.  ‘It’s cheaper to eat
meat.’

‘Wakelin, the riot has nothing to do with us,’ Alicia
scolded. ‘Close that window. Your work is waiting.’

‘Stuff us work.’

‘My brother left strict instructions for you to have that
order finished before he returns.’

‘Let it wait.  Cropping’s borin’, borin’, borin’.’ 

A chimney sweep boy rushed past. Wakelin grabbed him. 

The boy wriggled for freedom, tears streaming down his sooty
cheeks. ‘Get off me, guv’nor!’

‘First tell me what’s going on.’

Gilbert Crowe, the chimney sweep, bore down on the lad. His
face was paralysed down one side. This lent to him the appearance of a permanent
scowl, which appeared all the more pronounced by the soot engrained into every
crevice and pore. Crowe rented a couple of rooms down the road and so was well known
to Wakelin. Eppie often saw him and his climbing-boys about the parish. The
boys were painfully thin; it was not in the sweep’s interest to keep them well-nourished,
their slender stature making them perfect for cleaning narrow chimney flues.

‘Whether you like it or not, Dawkin, I’m going to make you
and the lads watch Titcher swing. That’ll learn ya not to whine about yer empty
bellies. Wake, are you and Ezra coming to watch? Du Quesne’s hanging one of my
lads for stealing.’

Septimus Strutt stormed into the finishing shop. Anger
surged in his contorted face like molten ripples of pig iron. ‘I was hailed by
Mr du Quesne on his way to the sessions. He complained that last night you,
Wakelin Dunham, acted in an excessively drunken and disorderly state at his hostelry.’

‘Nop, weren’t me. I went to me sack early, din’t I lads? I had
a rotten gut.’

Wakelin slept in the same room as the other apprentices. Even
to Eppie, the startled look that passed between Ezra and Simon spoke all.

‘I know it was you,’ said the master cropper, ‘for when you
returned to these premises at two o’clock this morning you made such an
intolerable clamour, cursing in a manner so abysmal and in such a sway that
it disturbed me out of my sleep. Legally, I could have
you imprisoned for being drunk on my premises.’

‘Why can you not be more like Ezra?’ Alicia implored
Wakelin. She was full of high hopes for Ezra, who was engaged to Jenufer. ‘He
is most industrious and steady, certain to make his way in the world. Some day
you too may wish to marry. Is it not better to save than to squander money on
liquor?’

Ezra was embarrassed for Wakelin’s sake. ‘I’m nowt special,
Miss Strutt.’

‘How’d you like to be chained to this toilsome work with
nothing in life to look forward to?’ Wakelin asked. ‘It’s my concern what I do
with my nights, not some interfering busybody.’

‘Kindly do not address my sister in so impudent a manner,’
Septimus fumed. Agitatedly, he strode about the shop floor. ‘It is to be
lamented, Wakelin Dunham, that you are a dissolute character, a miserable sot
who has given my premises a bad name by beating another boy about the head. In
Mr du Quesne’s words, you used violence that bespoke inordinate passion and a
cruel, malignant disposition. What have you to say upon this accusation?’

‘That namby-pamby Thurstan du Quesne ought to keep his
‘tatie-trap padlocked. That you oughta, come ta that. How d’ya think I feel
when folk make fun o’ me thumbs? I’m sick of you forever telling the
apprentices
Stumpy
will show you this,
Stumpy
will show you that.’

‘Surely you can take a little joke? You call others names,
and not so innocuous might I add. It is precisely because you are a good worker
that I have not spoken against you before. In recent months, however, you have
become something of a grizzle.’ 

Wakelin turned a sullen eye, making pretence of not
listening.

‘Your attitude to your learned work has always been shabby.
You set a bad example to the novices. Full well you know that skilled croppers
are expected to be efficient at reading and writing.’

‘Learning’s for thickheads like Thurstan du Quesne who know
nowt.’

‘Now, all this trouble with this distinguished gentleman of
the town,’ Septimus went on.

‘Distinguished? Thurstan du Quesne don’t know a B from a
bull’s foot.’

‘Having considered the matter,’ the master cropper said in a
judicious tone, ‘I have arrived at the conclusion that your continued presence
is injurious to the morale of my other apprentices. Consider yourself removed
from your present sphere of life.’

In an act of defiance, Wakelin withdrew from his leather
waistcoat a spirit flask, which he called his pocket pistol, and downed its
contents. 

Septimus’s wrath soared at the sight of such insolence. ‘I
do not want to see your face in my shop a moment longer. Fetch your things and
go.’

Grabbing his jerkin from a peg, Wakelin slung it on and tied
the waist with rope. ‘What tuts have I but what I stand up in?’ He took Eppie
by the hand. ‘Come on. I’m that clam I could sup a gallon o’ gin. Be seeing ya,
Ez.’

Eppie pulled back. ‘I’m staying with Alicia. I want to look
at the dressing dolls.’

Wakelin was in no mood to listen to her excuses.

She squealed and thumped him on the back as he stomped out,
carrying her over his shoulder as though she were a roll of cloth.

They had almost reached The Black Sheep Inn when the roar of
a crowd rent the air. Wakelin’s strides faltered. Overwhelmed with curiosity,
he headed back along Castle Street.  Before them the swelling multitude blocked
the road.

‘Let me down, Wakelin!’

‘I’m sick to death of noddies telling me what to do. I’ll do
what
I
want for a change.’ He hoisted her up and dropped her upon his
shoulders.

Outside the castle walls a rough scaffold was rigged. Upon
it stood a man, a black cowl over his head. Before him was a boy, his hands
tied behind his back. 

Wakelin stood with Crowe at the rear of the crowd. ‘So he’s
one of yorn?’ he asked conversationally.   

Eppie stared over the sea of heads. Few, except Dawkin and
the other climbing-boys, reflected in their faces her sense of revulsion. Was
this mob the same cheerful, carefree customers she had seen milling around the
marketplace only a short while ago? 

‘Always been a trouble, that Titcher,’ Crowe answered. ‘He
was set on running away and stole to buy food. You’ll have to take your sister to
see the pirates in London. After they’re hung their heads are stuck on poles.
She’d like to see that.’

Eppie shrank from the man’s hideous features.

The hangman dropped the noose about Titcher’s neck.

Defiantly, the boy yelled at the crowd, ‘It’s Crowe who
oughta hang! When he gets drunk he beats us lads raw to the bone. He makes us
sleep in the cellar. When he gets mad he shoves our heads into the soot so’s we
can’t breathe. I only took the spoon … ’ 

‘Admits his guilt!’ Crowe cried exultantly. ‘Hang him!’  

A mass chorus echoed his words. The trapdoor thudded.

Titcher lashed out wildly. Kicked for life.

The crowd cheered and tossed their hats into the air. 

Crowe looked on eagerly. ‘Let’s take a closer look.’

Weaving his way through the thinning crowd, Wakelin ignored
Eppie’s slaps on his head as she squirmed to be let down. 

A man rushed up to the hangman. ‘A token off the villain?’

Eppie recognised him as the fishmonger.

‘It’ll cost ya,’ the hangman answered, dragging the body
onto the platform.

Eppie shuddered at the sight of the congealed veins on
Titcher’s neck.

‘It’s no less than he deserved,’ Crowe said. 

‘My thoughts entirely. Indeed, I would venture to say that every
member of the criminal class ought to be brought to justice at the end of a
rope.’

Beneath her knees, Eppie felt Wakelin stiffen at the sound
of Thurstan’s loathed voice.

A handful of immaculately dressed dandies, including Cudbert
Catesby, stood around Thurstan, their dashing ringleader. 

Wakelin set Eppie on the ground. The gang surrounding him, she
took this opportunity to slip away.

‘Justice is a wonderful thing, would you gentlemen not
agree?’ Thurstan asked. ‘I caught this turkey making off with a silver spoon
from my inn. Which reminds me, Dung Heap, you have as yet denied me the
pleasure of seeing you swing for your crime. There is still that matter of the
samurai sword you tried to steal from me.’