Folly (2 page)
Authors: Marthe Jocelyn
Tags: #General, #Juvenile Fiction, #Children: Young Adult (Gr. 10-12), #Historical, #Europe, #History, #United States, #19th Century, #Family, #Historical - United States - 19th Century, #People & Places, #Family - General, #Health & Daily Living, #London (England), #Great Britain, #Diseases, #Household employees, #People & Places - Europe, #Business; Careers; Occupations, #Foundlings
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ITEMS GOING WITH HIM:
- 1 shirt
(He did have a second shirt, but Mama Peevey thought it wouldn't be wanted, so it was left in Kent.) - 1 pair of trousers
- 1 pair of shoes
- A cap
(He'd be wearing all that, so did it count as being taken?) - A Bible (from the Reverend Kelly, that he'd never looked at, but he carried it along in case the Good Lord was watching. Maybe a Bible would show them at the Foundling that he was a good and honest boy, though he was pretty certain it was a sin to fib about being honest. He'd felt the strap from Mister P. often enough for what was called devilment, and he knew he fell short of being good, no matter what Mama Peevey said.)
- 2 whistles, cut from willow by Mister's hand
- 2 pencils from the shop and an account book, Mister knowing he liked to keep account of things
- 2 peppermint sticks from the shop, his favorite. Mama Peevey slipped him a peppermint or a butterscotch on a rainy day. "Sugar is always sweet," she'd say. "But 'tis sweeter when the sky holds trouble." He remembered that
.
CHILDREN OF JOAN PEEVEY AND
HER HUSBAND, MISTER FRANK PEEVEY:
Arthur Francis Peevey, who died as a baby
Himself, James Nelligan
Elizabeth Ellen Peevey, called Lizzy
Rose Frey
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Joan Peevey never claimed to be his mother. She was nursing Arthur and had milk to spare, so she took James on from the Foundling Hospital and nursed him too. Lucky thing, she always said, that the left-behind babies had women like Mama Peevey who could feed more than one. Then she bore Lizzy, her own, and fetched Rose, a foundling, because she'd shown the hospital she was good at fostering.
"The good Lord saw fit to take Arthur before he'd got his teeth, but that only left more room in my heart for you, didn't it, lovey?" she said to James. "When you try me like this, I tell the Lord you're being naughty enough for two boys. But really, you mean to be good, don't you, Jamie? Aren't you a good boy?"
This was after she'd cut off Rosie's hair because of him. He'd got boiled sweets from the shop and tucked them into Rosie's braids, to see if the colors would glimmer through like jewels. But they got stuck, right close to her scalp. Mama had tried with vinegar, but finally had to snip them out, Rose howling till her face went purple.
"Aren't you my good boy, James?"
Nodding didn't make it so.
"It's only hair!" he bellowed at Rose. "It'll grow again!"
He liked the shop best, where they played, and where he did his letters and his counting. It wasn't a real shop, like the butcher or Gibson's Bakery. There wasn't an awning, or a proper window. Mister Peevey put up shelves in the front room of the cottage, banging all up and down the walls,
15
and shouting
Damn Jesus
when he banged himself. The coin box sat on a counter next to the stack of brown paper and twine for wrapping up packages.
Mister noticed early that James liked to count and to put the rows straight, so he set him a task each day, keeping records of the stock.
WHAT WAS IN THE SHOP:
- Barrels of pickles and brown sugar and flour and rice
- Bottles of vinegar, bottles of bumpy relish, called "gentleman's," black sauce with too many letters called "wooster," red sauce called "piquant," and so many others, all different colors, Mister said to pour on flavor when the meat was boiled tasteless
- Matches, candles, lanterns that need dusting, but only by Mama P., her not trusting children with glass
- Rope, knives, hammers, and mallets--the villain's cupboard, James called it; no swords, but several boxes of poison for killing rats
- Ink, nibs, pencils, sealing wax, twine, and all what was needed for accounts or school or packages
- Sewing needles, spools of thread in every color, buttons, in sets of five or eight, stitched to painted cards that had gilt titles like: JUST THE THING! or LADIES' LOVELIES.
- Pins for sewing and pins for hair, nets and clasps and curved combs made from the shells of tortoises. James hated those combs, thinking of naked tortoises, until one day he sneaked them out and snapped each of them in two. He hid the pieces in the dirt next to the garden steps
. - 16
- Packets and packets of biscuits, oh, and the best thing! A whole row of huge glass jars, with lids too heavy for James to shift by himself
.
INSIDE THE JARS:
- Peppermint sticks
- Toffees wrapped in gilt twists
- Sugar mice
- Licorice sticks, like rods of tar
- Boiled sweets, like lumps of ruby or emerald in a pirate's cache
SOME FIRST WORDS
- Peek Frean Ginger Crisps
- Hill, Evans & Co. Malt Vinegar
- Original and Genuine Lea & Perrins'
- Fry's Cocoa
- Epps's Cocoa
- Mooney's Biscuits
Mama Peevey sat on the low stool by the door, just inside for rainy days, out on the step when the day was bright. James leaned against her knee for years, it seemed, with Toby Dog leaning on him, until Lizzy and then Rose took his place.
"Halloo there!" Mama would call to every passerby, and always get a call back. She'd chuckle, and pat a handkerchief against her neck, or her bosom, where he stared in wonder at the size of it. Nothing like his own skimpy chest, rib bones announcing themselves like so many tin soldiers.
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James felt his insides wailing, preparing to leave the cottage and shop. She wasn't his born-from mother, but she was the only mother he'd ever known.
WHAT THE PEEVEYS HAD BEEN TELLING JAMES ALL ALONG:
- In London every building is as big as a church
. - In London James will eat meat every day
. - In London James will have a bed all to hisself
. - In London James will have new shoes every year and brass buttons on his jacket
. - In London there is a queen. (Lizzy wanted more than anything to meet Queen Victoria and be adopted as a princess, so it was her who added that bit.)
They'd had a hundred goodbyes and boohoos all week--at breakfast, dinner, suppertime, prayer time, and every minute in between. One or the other of them would be leaking about how it was the last bun he'd be eating out of that oven or the last taste of potato soup sprinkled with chives from Mama's garden or the last time there'd be a boy in the house, how it'd be them still together and him far away... one mournful reminder after the next until he put fingers into his ears and held his breath, hoping his eyeballs would pop out.
Finally, Mama Peevey said he'd done his last chore. He was to take Toby Dog outside and say goodbye to Martin. James was more than six but his friend Martin was nearly eight, so he was bigger. He lived over the road
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with two brothers even bigger than him. He had a real mother, and a stepfather named Bart who Martin called Fart but only with his brothers and James. Having all those biggers around, Martin thought he knew everything.
Lizzy had been stuck on James like a shadow all day, so she was following close when Martin said, "Hey, last chance to hit the cabbages." They stood side by side at the edge of the porch to see who could pee furthest into the garden, and it was Martin, like always, being bigger.
"That's nasty," said Lizzy.
She wouldn't let Rose come outside to look. There was a struggle with the door and fingers got pinched and more whimpering and what Mister called bellyaching. Martin and James sneaked off and sat on crates next to the shed, whistling some, but quiet after a bit, watching evening coming. The sky was smudged with pink between the gray clouds.
"Last night I listened," said Martin. "When I was in bed. My mother said something maybe you want to know."
"You shouldn't listen to her," James told him. "Your mother is an old gossip, my mother says."
"She's not your mother."
"I know that."
"She had another boy."
"I know that. Is that your secret? I know all about Arthur. He died when we were babies. Turned blue, he did."
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"There's a part you don't know." Martin picked up a stick.
"What?"
"When Arthur died, Mrs. Peevey was brokenhearted, my mother said. Cracked right in two, my mother said. She was going to pretend to the London hospital that it was you who died."
"What?" said James. "What do you mean?"
"She wanted to tell them it was the orphan baby who died. So she could keep you. She was that miserable, losing Arthur. She just wanted to have you for always, and to tell them a lie."
James's head was wobbly as if he'd been smacked with Mister's big hand. He sat very still, taking in a long breath in case a sob burped out.
"So, you know why she didn't?" Martin was digging with the end of his stick, spraying dirt over their toes.
"Stop that," James told him, shaking his foot. "Why didn't she?"
"Mister Peevey said no. He said the money was needed."
"The money?"
"They get money for you. Don't you know anything? They get al
low
ance, my mother calls it. To pay for what you eat and your clothes." He poked the stick into another hole, grinding it in.
James looked down at his trousers, patched with Mama Peevey's tidy stitches. "But now I'm going anyhow," he said. "Tomorrow."
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"That's right," said Martin. "Now they lose you
and
the money. But this way, at least, they had al
low
ance till you were six."
"But ..." James rubbed a new worn spot above his knee. "The other way they could have kept me forever, saying I was Arthur."
"Your dad wanted the money."
"He's not my dad."
"Yeah, my mother says Lord knows who your dad might be, but at least he must have been a handsome blighter. She was blabbing all this to my auntie Molly last night when I was in my bed. But then they talked about baking raisin bread, so I went to sleep."
In the morning, James tried to chew a hunk of bread while Mama Peevey dressed him as if it were Sunday. Around his neck she hung the cord with a band dangling from it, his number pressed deep into the tin: 847229. Rose had one too, but she wouldn't be needing it for nearly four years.
Mama Peevey looked at James and tilted her head and clucked her tongue. "Ah, the curls on you," she said. "You should have been a girl. With those eyelashes? You'll be a heartbreaker, mark my words."
He didn't think being a girl was anything to wish for and a heartbreaker didn't sound so excellent either, so he wasn't surprised when Mister stuck his nose in.
"What does he want to be a pretty boy for? He'll be better off knowing how to fight."
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"He's only six!" she said.
"More than six," said James.
"Six?" said Mister. "And never had a bloody nose?"
"Don't you dare!" said Mama Peevey, jumping up in a hurry. And Mister laughed, pretending to land his fist on James.
"Never had a black eye? That'll change at the big school in London, you mark my words. You pick your friends with care up there," said Mister. "You'll want to be giving black eyes, not getting them." And out he went to watch for the cart.
"Make me a nice cup of tea, will you, Jamie?" said Mama Peevey. "It'll be the last I get till the girls are growed two or three years."
They sat on the bench by the table, waiting for the kettle to boil, her stroking James's hair with her fingers, counting the minutes of his very last hour.
"I want to stay with you," he told her.
"I've got nothing pretty to say," she whispered. "No way to fix things." Tears rolled across her freckled cheeks. James hid his face in her lap so he couldn't see. He couldn't ask her, either, about what Martin had said.
Then Rose woke up, just what they hadn't wanted, and started her bleary-eyed mewling. Mister scooped her up, pressing her mouth to his shoulder. He pushed Mama and James out into the street where the cart was waiting, sent from the Foundling to bring them in. James winged a pebble toward Martin's window but it didn't get there, just fell with a
thip
in the dust.