General Well'ngone In Love (3 page)

General Well’ngone stuck his hands into the
pockets of his greatcoat and glared down at the tip of his faded
black boot.

The Earl of Gravel Lane motioned for Saulty
to leave the room. When he and General Well’ngone were alone, he
said, “You cannot keep a secret from me. Who is she?”

“
Nobody. Just an ordinary
girl.”

“
If she were an ordinary
girl, you would not have been thinking about her for the past
quarter of an hour. Who is she?”

The General shifted uneasily in his seat.
“Miss Sarah Krinkle.”

“
The Miss Sarah Krinkle
whose father died a few weeks ago?”

General Well’ngone nodded his head.

“
Where does she
live?”

“
Duke’s
Street.”

“
As of this hour, General
Well’ngone, consider Duke’s Street to be enemy territory. You shall
neither walk through there nor work there, until this folly has
passed.”

The Earl paused and waited. “Those are
orders, General Well’ngone.”

“
Yes, sir,” replied the
General, albeit reluctantly.

“
In our profession, a man
has to keep his wits about him. When a love-sick laborer makes a
slip up, he loses his job. When we get caught, we get a noose
around our necks.”

The Earl made a gesture of being hanged on
the gallows. In the past, the General would have laughed at his
companion’s gruesome expression, certain that he and the others
would always escape that grisly fate. Today, however, the game of
successfully eluding the hangman seemed much less thrilling.

“You there, don’t you know how to properly
shut a door? You’ve let in all the cold air. I cannot think why Mr.
Barnstock puts up with you.”

Berel Krinkle cast a wary glance in the
direction of the desk where Arthur Barnstock was sitting, before
returning to the door and giving it a shove. He knew that the
younger Mr. Barnstock did not like him, even though Berel was
certain he had done nothing to offend the young clerk.

“
Is Mr. Barnstock
available, sir?”

“
No, he is not. Do you
think he has nothing better to do than talk with messenger boys?
There! See what you have made me do!”

Berel saw that the contents of a bottle of
ink had spilled onto the pages scattered upon the desk, but he did
not see what his presence had to do with the unfortunate
occurrence. Still, he held his tongue.

Arthur Barnstock angrily mopped up the ink
with his handkerchief. When his eye again fell upon the boy, he
became even angrier. “What are you grinning at?”

“
I am not grinning,
sir.”

“
Do not contradict me.
Give me that package and go away.”

“
I shall be happy to go
away, sir. But my instructions are to deliver these papers into the
hands of Mr. Horace Barnstock, and no one else.”

“
Impertinent little
...”

The clerk’s rant was brought to a halt by
the opening of the door to his father’s private room. The solicitor
and his client, Lord Liverwood, a round-faced gentleman whose face
perpetually had the expression of a happy child, were standing in
the doorway.

“
I shall attend to it at
once, Lord Liverwood. Are you staying in London for a few
days?”

Lord Liverwood’s attention was elsewhere.
His stubby, bejeweled fingers were searching through his pockets
for some object. “I cannot think where that fob seal of mine went
to.” His eye fell upon Berel, and there was an uneasy silence for a
moment.

“
A man cannot walk from
his house to the end of the street without some urchin reaching his
hand into his pocket,” said Arthur Barnstock, also looking in
Berel’s direction.

It took Berel all the restraint he could
muster to refrain from talking back. But the situation was saved by
Mr. Horace Barnstock escorting Lord Liverwood to the front door.
When Lord Liverwood had left, the solicitor motioned for Berel to
follow him into his room.

“
How quickly can your
sister work?” he asked, while he wrote several lines upon a page.
“Will you be able to bring back a clean copy of this
tomorrow?”

“
I know she will try,
sir.”

“
Good. Here’s a coin for a
fresh candle. I will pay you for this document and the other work
when you return.”

Berel was disappointed that he had not
received the full amount, but he was not unduly worried. After all,
what was one day? They were not starving, thank God. He stuffed the
new work into his coat pocket and, after securely wrapping his
scarf about his neck and pulling his cap low upon his forehead,
turned in the direction of his home. He had not gone far when he
saw some other boys running in the direction of the River Thames.
When one of them stumbled and fell near his feet, he helped up the
child. “What’s the rush?” he asked. “Is London on fire?”

“
Fire? Didn’t you hear?
The river’s frozen! There’s a Frost Fair going on.”

“
What’s a Frost
Fair?”

“
How should I know? That’s
what we’re running to see.”

The child scampered off. Berel knew he
should continue walking towards home. But his feet seemed to have a
mind of their own. They followed the boy, who was running after his
friends, who were all running in the direction of that magical
sounding thing, the Frost Fair.

General Well’ngone stepped gingerly upon the
frozen surface. He supposed there was no danger of falling through
the ice and sinking to the depths of the river. He could see in the
distance scores of people promenading up and down “Freezeland
Street,” not to mention the dozens of makeshift stalls that had set
up shop in the middle of the Thames. But he was the sort who liked
to see things with his own eyes—or in this instance, test the ice
with his own toes—before he accepted a fact as true.

The younger members of his band of thieves
had no such qualms. The Earl had given them all a holiday, in honor
of the Fair, and they were slipping and sliding upon the frozen
river with carefree abandon.

“
Can we have a coin for
the swing?” asked one of the younger boys.

General Well’ngone reached into his pocket
and gave the child the money. “Mind, just one turn each.”

The boys ran off, whooping with delight. As
he looked after them, the General suddenly felt very old, though he
would not see twenty for several more years. The frozen river was a
marvel; there was no question about that. But he could not join in
with the general hilarity over drinking beer and eating
gingerbread, just because it was being done in the middle of the
river. Something was missing, though he could not say what, until
he spied Berel Krinkle standing in front of one of the bookstalls
and the vision of a certain young person once again appeared before
his eyes.

He recalled the way that this young person
had watched over her younger brother like a lioness guarding her
cub—and surmised that Berel Krinkle had gotten a telling-off that
he would not soon forget. And as he walked over to the boy, the
General thought it must be a nice thing to have someone care so
much about you, even if it meant getting a dressing-down from time
to time.

“
My compliments, Mr.
Krinkle. It is a pleasure to see you again so soon. I hope you and
your sister are enjoying the Fair.”

“
Sarah is at home, General
Well’ngone. I suppose the Fair isn’t for girls.” Berel looked at
the motley crowd that had gathered around a stall selling
gin.

General Well’ngone also shot a dark glance
in the direction of the gin drinkers. “No, I suppose it is not. We
must buy her something then, something from the Fair.”

“
Why should you buy my
sister a present?”

“
Well, why not?” replied
the General, hoping that Berel was not the curious type who would
ask a dozen questions. “Who knows when we shall see such a thing
again? It seems only right to have some memento.” He picked up one
of the books on display, a slender volume, and leafed through the
pages. “What sort of book is this?” he said with wonder. “There’s
nothing written inside.”

“
That’s the joke of it,”
replied Berel, turning back to the first page. “All it says is
‘Bought on the Thames.’”

“
What would a person do
with the rest of the book?”

“
Write on the pages, I
suppose.”

“
Do you know how to write,
Mr. Krinkle? If I purchased this book, could you write something
for me?”

“
I could, but I don’t have
a pencil with me.”

The owner of the stall was growing
impatient, or perhaps he feared that the youngsters would run off
with the book when he was not looking. “If you two boys are going
to buy, hand over your money. If not, move on.”

The General bristled at being called a boy,
but he gave the man a coin.

“
Where will you find a
pencil, General?” asked Berel.

General Well’ngone knew where he would
usually go to find a pencil—the same place he would go to find a
pocket watch or gold fob. But while he was surveying the crowd, on
the lookout for an unsuspecting “client,” he felt an unfamiliar
feeling, a twinge of conscience, which took the form of a question:
How could he write a message to a pure being such as Miss Sarah
Krinkle with a pencil that was stolen?

“
Do you see any of your
acquaintances here, Mr. Krinkle? Perhaps we could borrow a pencil
from them.”

Berel also looked about the crowd. The only
person he recognized was one of the gentlemen who had been at his
father’s funeral, Mr. Samuel Lyon.

Mr. Lyon had come to the Frost Fair with his
family and they were all laughing and sliding about the ice. Mrs.
Rose Lyon, the matriarch of the family, began to flap her arms up
and down to keep her balance, which made the two youngest Lyon
daughters laugh so hard they fell down on their bottoms. Their son
Joshua, not to be outdone, also fell down on the ice and kicked his
legs in the air with delight.

Miss Rebecca Lyon, a young lady not quite of
the marriageable age (and, Reader, the Narrator of this story,
although she did not know at the time that such interesting events
were about to unfold), was the only member of the family who tried
to maintain a sense of dignity. Indeed, she regarded her laughing
parents, who were usually the epitome of all that was dignified and
refined, with a look of stern approbation, which unfortunately they
ignored.

It was Mr. Lyon who spotted Berel and the
General and he slid over to them, proud of his prowess on the ice.
“Enjoying yourselves?” he asked them. Mr. Lyon was not well
acquainted with Berel Krinkle, but he was familiar with General
Well’ngone, who had come to his assistance a few years earlier,
when some money of his was stolen. Indeed, Mr. Lyon had tried to
convince the General to leave his sorry profession and come and
work in his clock-making workshop. Although the General had
declined the offer, Mr. Lyon still had hopes that he might be able
to influence the youngster to change his ways. But on this day,
when all London seemed to have just one thing in mind, enjoying the
Frost Fair, he said, “May I treat you both to a ride on the
merry-go-round?”

“
It is not money we need,”
replied the General. “If you have a pencil we might borrow, we
would be much obliged.”

“
A pencil? Let me see.”
Mr. Lyon searched through his pockets, but could not find the
desired object.

“
Allow me.”

They turned and saw two well-dressed
gentlemen standing behind them. Berel recognized one of them as
being Lord Liverwood, the person who had been in the solicitor’s
office. Lord Liverwood handed the pencil to General Well’ngone.

“
It may take us a while,”
said the General. “We are not accustomed to writing.”

“
Keep the pencil, with my
compliments,” replied Lord Liverwood, who bowed to Mr. Lyon and
then walked away with his companion.

Mr. Lyon returned to his family, and Berel
and General went to find a place where they could sit.

“
What shall I write,
General Well’ngone?”

The General could think of many things that
he wished to say. But even though he had grown up in the streets of
London, he had learned from the Earl that there was such a thing as
polite manners. He therefore said, “Begin with, ‘To Miss Krinkle.’
And for the middle, write, ‘With my compliments.’”

Berel wrote down the words, but stopped at
the final one. “Compliments is a complicated word, General. In your
opinion, does it begin with a C or a K?”

Although spelling was not the General’s
strong point, it was his nature to take charge of a situation. He
therefore said, “In my opinion, I think either one will do, Mr.
Krinkle. Otherwise, why have two letters with the same sound?”

Berel was not sure if this reasoning was
correct, but he wrote down the word as best he could. “How shall we
end it, General Well’ngone?”

How indeed? He feared it would be too
forward to write “Your Faithful Admirer,” since he had met Sarah
Krinkle only once—and the abruptness of that meeting had precluded
their being formally introduced.

While the General sat and thought, Berel
suggested, “Perhaps you should just say, ‘A Friend.’”

“
Without my name? How will
your sister know the book is from me?”

“
I think it is better if
she does not guess your identity at once. She might not accept the
book if she knows it comes from you. We may be poor, but we are a
respectable family. No offence intended, General, but there it
is.”