Folly (15 page)

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MARY 1878 Telling About Time Like Treacle

Every hour, I expected to be hurled out in the street, but every hour passed, and then days, and I were still scrubbing or peeling or slicing or hauling, just as I'd been doing every day since I'd come here, as if there were no world outside the scullery and no story unfolding except in my own head. It were most unnerving. Mrs. Wiggins were snappy and Bates were scarce, making letter deliveries for His Lordship all over town. Eliza were oddly polite while ignoring me but making a big show in the attic of sleeping on the floor. I tried, of course, to say a few words, begging to clear things up, but she would leave the room if I started, and never answer.

Thursday came again. I were in such a state of bewilderment over wondering each minute if I'd be working or

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loony by the next minute, that I near forgot the day of the week.

"Are you not going out, Mary?" asked Cook. "I was going to ask if you'd bring me back a packet of that tea I like, with rose hips. I'd have asked Eliza, only you got it last time and you know the kind."

"Is it Thursday already?" I said.

"Are you daft?" said Nut.

"She
is
daft and that's only half of it," said Eliza.

"I'm teasing, Nut," I said. "And yes, Mrs. Wiggins, I'll get your tea."

I were not uplifted in spirit. With good reason, as it turned out. Simply said, he did not come to meet me. I waited. I fretted. I walked a bit around the square, but I knew already it were no use. I saw the pin girl and smiled, though I were sick with dismay. I made up all the reasons, as the hour ended and I headed back: Unexpected, he were kept in the stable. He were ill in some manner. Jacob Vickers had snitched and Caden had been punished on my behalf.

I would not yet permit myself to consider other possibilities.

"I'm back early because I've got a bit of a sore throat," I explained to Mrs. Wiggins. "But here's your tea."

Eliza raised an eyebrow in my direction, first time she'd looked my way all week. But that were all. An eyebrow.

Friday. Saturday. I scrubbed, peeled, hauled, and

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sliced. Saturday night, Bates sent Nut to fetch a leather hide from the tanner, wanting to mend bucket handles and patch the driver's seat on the carriage.

"Ssst, Nut," I said as he were getting his jacket on. "I've an errand for you too."

He cocked his flappy ear and listened while I told him the least I could but enough; there were a young man hadn't kept a promise and I'd be most obliged if he'd stop by the stable to inquire over his state of health. It were close enough to the tannery that he could do it quick-like.

"Sure enough," said Nut. "And if I find him, I won't half tell him what I think of anyone letting down our Mary."

"Shhh, Nut. Keep it under, will you?" I lifted his cap and swiped his head. He winked at me, conspiring.

An hour passed, and eventually back he come, his cap pulled low. No one else bothered to look at him but I saw right off he had a shiner. Lordy, he'd been walloped! He dropped the leather in Bates's lap, grimaced at me, and pointed to the cellar, where he disappeared at once.

"Oh, didn't I forget to bring up the ..." I stopped. What single item could possibly be needed from below? No one were really listening. I started down, but Bates called me back.

"Mary," he said. "Come here."

I stood by, feet jiggling.

Bates crooked his finger at me, made me bend over to hear his whisper. "Is there a boy needs whipping, Mary?"

That startled me upright. "What, Nut? No, Mr. Bates,

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he's a good--" I were confused, knowing the poor boy had already had his eye blacked.

Bates yanked me back so I could feel his breath too close on my ear. "I don't mean the brat." That set a flush prickling up my neck like a wool scarf.

Worse, Eliza were on us. "Save it for elsewhere," she said. There were trouble brimming in her eyes. She were laying the tea trays, Cook were rolling pastry, I were meant to be spooning Master Sebastian's rice pudding into a dainty little bowl called a ramekin.

"Have you had any more news from home, Mary?" asked Eliza.

"You know I haven't."

"I suppose that stepmother would greet any good news of yours with surprise and great delight? Last Lane Cottage, was it? Pinchbeck?"

This is the minute she chooses?

"Currants," I said, pulling away from Bates. "Master Sebastian does like currants in his pudding."

I near flew to the cellar. Nut were at the bottom of the steps, his bashed-up face peering out of the dark.

"Oh, Nut, what's happened to you?"

"Come 'ere," he said. "I've got to tell you."

Did I want to know?
"Did you see him?"

"I saw him, and I hate to say what I saw, miss, I'm that sorry for you."

I sank to sit on the bottom step. "Just tell me, Nut. We've only a minute."

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"He was ..."

Not kissing someone else, please, not that!

"He was
drunk
, miss, terrible drunk."

Much better!
"How ...? Where did you ...?"

"I asked at the barracks, in the stable there's a man named Cleves, and he told me, 'Tucker's not here, try the Rose and Crown,' but at the Rose they told me they sent away the soldiers for being rowdy, miss."

"Rowdy? So where did you find him?"

"He was being carried by his mates, out of the Sailor's Delight. They were yelling at him, 'Tucker! Shut it!' But he was yelling back something awful."

"Yelling what?"

"Didn't catch all of it, not being close enough. His sisters, he said, they'd be wishing him dead."

"His
sisters
?"

"Then I went over, and I said, 'Mr. Tucker?' and he said, 'Who's asking?' 'I've got a message from Miss Finn, sir,' only then his mates beat me around the head, saying I was the cause of all his troubles. I told them no I wasn't. Mr. Tucker fell over and said he was cursed and who would tell his mother? His mates told him that's the way it is with women, they love you till you feel cursed. Then I skedaddled and come home."

My blood took to pounding in my earholes. I could only pat Nut and murmur, "Thank you, go off now," before I put my forehead against the stone cellar wall to cool my brain. Caden Tucker were full of shame, that much

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were clear. Scared as a bunny ... Facing those sisters of his with his head up straight, telling them about me ... Were he willing to cast me off so easy? Were it all a trick, us being sweethearts? It seemed real to me, but ... what did I know? Nothing I learned in Pinchbeck made sense here. But for him to pretend I weren't even ... just so's he could look his family in the eye ...

If I could have sunk lower than the bottom step, I'd have done it.

171

JAMES 1888 Using the Tree

That new nurse had told him, "Go straight to the ward and stay there." If James missed supper, he'd be almost obeying. It was Sunday, so Mr. Byrd would be occupied with the evening service. James could be occupied with finding his mother at Mr. Byrd's home.

Every boy at the Foundling Hospital knew where the chaplain lived, even if they'd never seen it. Thanks to the chaplain's partially lame and entirely whimsical sister, the Byrd house was famous for flocks of her carved birds adorning the windowsills and perched along the edge of the roof. Rumor said that each time the chimney sweep came for his monthly visit, she paid him pennies extra to install her new creations.

James was certain that he could find such a house

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without any trouble, knowing it was close enough that Miss Ada Byrd walked--limped--to the Foundling chapel on Sunday mornings. He'd seen her there, with a hickory cane and wind-mottled cheeks, though he had never been close enough to discover whether the boys' imitations were accurate. They claimed she warbled such comments as "My dear brother has his congregation, and I have mine ...," talking about the wooden birds.

He would find out tonight. He would see his mother and see the birds.

He climbed the tree. He inched his way along the branch, further than he'd gone before, not liking how it wobbled under him. The height from the top of the wall was greater than it had seemed before, now that he prepared to drop. Up there, he was still shielded by leaves, but as soon as he let go there would be no more hiding. Maybe he should wait until dark? No, finding the Byrd home meant seeing the birds, and that meant
before
dark. But still he hesitated. He hadn't been outside the gates in nearly five years. Things were different out there. Even the way they talked was different.

"Fresh and tasty, buy them hasty! Pies!"

Pie Peter! Someone he knew. Almost a friend. James held his breath and jumped,
whooft
, landing hard on his bum and an elbow.
Ouch!
But
no
crying! He scrambled up and dusted off. He shouldn't look as though he'd just escaped over a wall, should he? That made him smile, despite the scrapes. He was out!

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Out, and in the middle of it! It was ... like nothing he'd ever seen, except in glimpses from his branch. James imagined that the inside of the monkey man's music box might sound this way, with songs and clatter and cries chittering from every side. And
motion
wherever he looked: wheels hammering, horses clopping, bodies bumping, mouths hollering, chewing, laughing, kissing, spitting ...

"Savory pies! Fresh and tasty!"

James had missed supper. The smell of the meat pies was enough to make a hungry boy dizzy. No wonder those urchins had staged a raid. But that kind of stealing was beyond him. He gazed at the basket, seeing glints of golden crust between folds of grease-spotted paper. He had not seen or sniffed any sort of food he'd actually
wanted
to eat since he was six years old.

"Hey! What are you gawpin' at?" Pie Peter was shaking his cap at James. "Get off with you, I've had enough of thieving boys!"

"I'm not a thief!" said James. "I want ... I want a pie."

"Have you got a penny?" asked the old man. "Aha, I thought not! No penny, no pie. Get off with you!"

James slunk away, stomach churning.

There was a girl about his size against the wall. At least, James thought she was a girl. She wore a skirt, of sorts, though it seemed mended badly and was creased with grime. Her face was so filthy that Matron would have taken one look and fainted dead away. James hadn't

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spoken to a girl since his little sisters. She was staring at him, though, with dark, needing eyes.

"What?" said James.

"What yerself," she said, and sniffed. Her stare slid over James's jacket and down to his shoes.

Coram's bones!
thought James. He didn't look right for being out there. It was the stupid uniform. He looked like ... a foundling. He tore off the jacket and rolled it into a bundle that he clenched between his knees. His shirt was so clean it just about shone. With a shudder, he scooped a fistful of muck from the gutter and smeared it over his sleeves. He undid the tie and crumpled it up.

The dirty girl studied every move.

"What?" said James.

"What yerself."

"Go away," said James.

"Go away yerself."

James turned his back, tucked the jacket under his arm, and moved along the wall away from the Hospital's front gates. It began to drizzle, melting the mud splotches on his sleeves to a more even brown. The girl stayed right behind him. James stopped. He threw down his red tie and watched her pounce.

"You can have it," he said. She kept watching him while she knotted it around her own neck. Then she lunged, surprising him, snatching at the jacket. James held on but she had a good grip and kept yanking in sharp tugs.

"Hey! Stop it!" James hoped one of those hurrying

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gentlemen would come to his aid, but no. The girl had one of the brass buttons now, twisting it hard until suddenly she tumbled backward, button in hand. James laughed, she looked so astonished, sitting there with her legs sticking out. There were no soles on her boots! She scowled and hauled herself up, waving the button at him before racing away.

Was that what she'd wanted all along? The buttons? They were shiny and gold-colored, each imprinted with a little lamb, the symbol of the Hospital. Maybe out here, buttons could work the way sweets did on the other side of the wall? Thinking of sweets, James felt the jacket cuffs and found two. One for now and one for later. He turned the jacket wrong way out and put it on again, with the buttons pressing against his chest.