Folly (7 page)

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what Thou hast provided for me, and give me grace to be thankful, through Jesus Christ my Savior."

Tap
. Now there were murmurs and shuffling all around, spoons and forks fiddled with, salt scooped out of bowls and licked from palms.

"Where are the girls?" asked Walter.

"They live on the other side of the building," said Frederick. "Sometimes we see them in the yard, but we're not allowed to talk to them. Boys and girls together are sinners."

James did not have a chance to find out why, because the food arrived, bowls passed hand to hand along the table until each had one. James stared at a single ladleful of the thinnest
damned
gruel, nearly gray in color. He expected Mama Peevey to chuckle him awake and plonk down a bowl of real porridge, with top milk and some lumps in it. This watery dribble had barely enough grain to give it color, let alone lumps. But Frederick, and every other boy he could see, picked up his spoon and gobbled the muck down. James closed his eyes and thought about toast. The meal was over in less time than it had taken to march in and say the grace.

After breakfast they were gathered together to sit on stools in a classroom. Frederick had already told him they didn't have lessons until they were bigger. Instead, the youngest boys were taught to
do
things, like braid rope, or mend trousers, or make brooms.

On that first morning, a Big Chap called Tubbs stood

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in front of them. Until now, James had seen only boys his own age, called Infants. But that word meant babies and James was
not
a baby.

"Some of you Infants have already tried this," said Tubbs. "So you know it's not as easy as it looks. They've picked me to show you because I'm best."

"He always says that," grumbled Frederick.

"Whatever rude thing you may be whispering," said Tubbs, "it will be a matter of blistering importance--you get that?
Blistering
importance"--he laughed at his own cleverness--"that you learn to darn a stocking properly. You want to know why?"

James nodded, caught up.

"Because all the hose goes--heh! That rhymes! All the
hose goes
into the same laundry tub, doesn't it? These stockings have been here since the first boys came, over one hundred years ago. They've been worn by stinking, fungusy feet, over and over and over.... So you won't necessarily be getting your own back, will you? You never know when your own
ittle toesies
will be inside a stocking that's been done wrong, do you? I'm here to teach you the battle cry: Hosiery need not be a misery! Now, watch carefully...."

"He's a crackpot," whispered Frederick. "But scary."

"He's funny," said James, setting his sights higher than mere seven-year-old Frederick.

In his right hand, Tubbs held up a needle strung with wool. He plunged his left fist into the heel of a stocking, knuckles showing pink through threadbare patches.

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James held his breath, not knowing what exactly he should be paying attention to. It looked complicated. Only moments later Tubbs had filled the holes with a neat latticework of white strands.

"Now it's your turn," said Tubbs, passing around a basket of limp white stockings. "Whatever you mend today, you'll wear tomorrow. That'll teach you better than anything."

James soon discovered he was a natural darner. Pulling the wool taut, but not so tight as to pucker what it was meant to be mending, gently weaving the blunt-tipped needle over and under, over and under ... his breathing eased, his worry faded--he could do this!

Finished before any of the others, James couldn't help grinning as he held up the stocking. Wouldn't Mama Peevey think he was a clever boy? Tubbs's eyebrows lifted, faintly impressed.

"Good work. What's your name?"

"James," said James. "James Nelligan."

"Smell-Again, eh?" said Tubbs. James blinked.
Oh no, please not
.

"Excel-Again," said James, so quickly that he surprised himself. Frederick went still beside him. Tubbs snorted, but he handed another stocking to James and winked.
Ha
, thought James.
Devil's fart, but I'm clever
.

71

ELIZA 1877 Holding On to Bates

She was a wily one, that Mary. Eliza had told her plain, hadn't she? She had set her sights on being Eliza Bates someday and Mary was to keep herself to herself as far as Bates was concerned.

It burnt a hole in Eliza's belly the way he'd perk up when Mary come into the kitchen or bent over to tinker with the fire. She
seemed
to pay him no mind, but Eliza wasn't fooled. You wouldn't think a young slip like that would have many tricks up her sleeve, but what other explanation could there be for Bates's wandering eye?

Eliza got her hopes up for a bit that Mary'd cotton on to Mr. Daniel, the letter carrier. She always jumped at his knock and prattled on so he'd have to drag himself off to finish his rounds. But wouldn't you know it? He had a wife!

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The matter became urgent one morning when Mrs. Wiggins sent her out to the street with Bates, to help carry in a large order from the grocer. And to step lively.

"Hey, fella," said Eliza, quiet-like, holding a crate of beer. "I'll be counting linens at half past three.... What will you be doing?" She brushed past him closer than strictly needed. The linen cupboard was small and dark, with the advantage of blankets at hand to soften whichever hard surface might get bumped against during a tumbling.

"You'll be counting alone," said Bates, swinging a barrel of sugar up to his shoulder, jerking his chin to tell her
move over
.

"I could do it earlier," said Eliza, "Right after we've got the luncheon done?"

His head was shaking.

"Or later?"

"I'm busy, Eliza."

"Has Lady A. got you driving somewhere?"

"No."

"Tonight, then?" She hated herself for pushing.

"What the devil are you two doing?" Mrs. Wiggins waited in the doorway. "We need the sugar, Bates. Before Christmas."

"Not tonight," said Bates to Eliza.

She knew ahead what he'd be saying next, she knew it like she'd swallowed a spoon along with the pudding and it was choking her.

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"I'll be taking a rest from counting linens," he said, calm as a priest. "I know how many there are."

"Taking a
rest
?"

Shut your mouth
up,
Eliza
, she said to herself. He was cutting her off. She fought to keep the teasing smile on her face, not wanting to blub like a baby. She stepped in front of him with the beer bottles rattling, nearly treading on Mrs. Wiggins's swollen toes in her rush. Bates was right behind her. On usual days he'd have given her bottom a teasing pat.

Mary laughed somewhere in the pantry, calling Nut a greedy scamp. Eliza looked Harry Bates in the eye and saw it all. He wasn't counting linens with her because he was hoping to someday be counting linens with Mary. Eliza turned away so quick she felt her neck crink. It hadn't happened yet, she knew that much. There must be something she could do.

74

JAMES 1884 The Routine and the Corpse

It was all new to James, not possibly imagined, mostly awful. He'd never tasted such terrible food. His clothes were scratchy, forcing his legs and arms to struggle in woolen bindings. Since that first scalding bath, there'd been nothing but cold water for washing in. The ward where he slept--tried to sleep--was enormous and drafty, with a scary night nurse or matron stationed at each end. But even the matron did not prevent the bullies from pouncing.

Each evening, after supper and prayers, a few of the Big Chaps--ten or eleven years old, some of them--were enlisted to wash the smaller ones. Shivering in his nightshirt, James learned the ritual.

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GETTING WASHED:

By Saturday, the routine was too familiar. Was it better to know what to expect, or was he hoping for something new?

"It'll be your first Sunday tomorrow, won't it?" said Frederick as they waited in line. It was Tubbs and Ben Franklin and Harvey Hooper manning the basins and wielding the cloths. James recognized that note of I-know-something-you-don't-know in Frederick's question. Yes, it would be his first Sunday. Could things get worse?

"What's going to happen?" asked Walter, thumb hovering at his lip.

"Hey, Tubbs!" called Frederick. "First Sunday for these ones. Don't you want to tell them?" He bounced and giggled. "Are you afraid of the dark, Sir Walter Raleigh?"

Harvey Hooper squeezed a cloth over Frederick's head, the gush of water making him squeal.

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"You," said Tubbs, poking Frederick. "You. Need. To. Shut. Your. Worm-smelling. Mouth."

A thin sigh escaped from Walter, sagging as he watched.

Yes, thought James. Things could get worse. But
how
exactly?

These were only middle-sized Big Chaps. James had noticed that the very big ones--the thirteen-and fourteen-year-olds who were almost apprentices, or going to be trained up as sailors and soldiers--they didn't bother with new boys.

But these fellows had something to prove to each other. These were like those gang boys at home, who shouted rude things, and once broke the Peeveys' shop window and took all the biscuits they could reach through the jagged-edged smash.

James pretended not to notice the grins between the Big Chaps. In less than a week he'd learned to
seem
not to notice anything. It was safest with Big Chaps to see nothing and be nobody.

On Saturday night, Nurse Lees (known as Breath-Like-Old-Cheese) extinguished the lamps and hobbled off with her lantern to patrol the west wing dormitories. In the shadowy gloom, James found four boys plunking heavily onto his cot. Five, if he counted the squeaking, wriggling Walter dropped there by the others.

"Are you afraid of the dark?" It was Tubbs asking, but James could hear Frederick creaking the planks of his cot.

"Don't hurt us," said Walter.

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"I love the dark," lied James.

"Then it won't bother you when we take you down to the crypt under the chapel," said Tubbs.

James considered.

"It'll bother you, all right," put in Frederick. "It's gruesome!" But then Harvey cuffed him and Walter moaned, while James thought about what to say.

"Why?" he asked.

"That's where the coffin--" Frederick started, before getting hit again.

Coffin?

"C-c-coffin?" said Walter.

"There's a curse," said Monty. "Coram's Curse."

"Don't tell us!" shrieked Walter. "I don't want to hear!"

Harvey plastered his palm over Walter's mouth and kneaded his ear as if it were bread to be served at breakfast. Walter's eyes bulged while his head twisted in panic.

"One more noise and your tongue is coming out," said Harvey. "Listen carefully, because you have to learn the curse if you don't want it to come true."

"Walter will listen," said James. "Won't you, Walter? You just were playacting, weren't you?"

"No," sniffed Walter. "What are they going to do to us?"

"Just listen, you stupid baby," said Ben Franklin. "You know who Thomas Coram is, right? The fellow who had the grand idea of saving stupid babies like you from starving to death in the streets? He got the king to give him money--"

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"There isn't a king," said Walter. "It's Queen Victoria."

"It was a king
then
," said Tubbs. "And Thomas Coram, he started this hospital and then he hung about, wearing an old red coat and passing out gingerbread to stupid babies until he died."

"He died a horrible, lonely death," said Ben, his voice lower and shakier than before. "In a tiny, dirty room, with his mattress covered in spiders. And he had no friends coming to visit."

"And then," said Tubbs, "he was buried ... only not actually
buried underground
, because his coffin ... with his body inside ... the coffin is on a slab in the vault...."

"And," whispered Harvey, "the lid of his coffin--because the rats have chewed it--the lid doesn't fit quite properly--"

Frederick giggled and Tubbs pinched him.

"The lid is crooked ...," said Harvey. "And his
hand
is sticking out ... the long, bony
fingers
are dangling over the edge of the box. His ghost wants company and he's ... always
beckoning
...."

Walter whimpered.

"Coram's Curse," began Tubbs, in an ominous drone, and then recited the poem in the most dreadful voice.

"Every child who comes this way

Must visit Coram first Sunday.

In his coffin, there he lies;

Tattered coat and hollow eyes.