A Very Peculiar Plague (15 page)
Jem shuddered.
Not only floggings, but ghosts as well
, he thought.
Ugh!
‘Then I encountered Mr Froome, yesterday,’ Mrs Kerridge concluded. ‘He told me about the creature in his crypt, and I decided to seek your help. Mr Froome was kind enough to alert me when he saw you in the neighbourhood.’ Hearing St Sepulchre’s bells toll the hour, she said crisply, ‘I cannot stay. Will you undertake this work? I’m told that your fee is six shillings, and a penny for salt.’
‘It’s six shillings for
every bogle
,’ Jem corrected. ‘And fivepence if there ain’t none.’
Mrs Kerridge raised a delicate eyebrow at Jem. Alfred, meanwhile, had set down his sack. ‘You didn’t answer me, Ma’am,’ he reminded her. ‘Has this thing bin seen?’
‘Not seen. Only heard,’ Mrs Kerridge replied. ‘A strange, dragging, shuffling noise.’
‘No smells or stains?’
The matron regarded him levelly. ‘It is a school, Mr Bunce,’ she said. ‘There are always smells and stains.’
Jem snorted with amusement. He couldn’t help himself. Mrs Kerridge looked at him and asked, ‘Where do
you
go to school?’
Jem stiffened. He glanced nervously at Alfred, who muttered, ‘He don’t.’
‘A pity.’ Mrs Kerridge eyed Jem’s bare calves, dirty knees, torn shirt and uncombed hair, as if ticking off a mental checklist. At last she turned back to Alfred. ‘You didn’t answer me either, Mr Bunce. Will you take the job? There are forty-five boys in my ward, and another six hundred in the school. If bogles eat children, as Mr Froome claims, then you hold all those young lives in your hands, sir.’
Alfred took off his hat and scratched his head.
‘I’ll not claim that the Warden will be grateful to you,’ Mrs Kerridge went on. ‘He refuses to listen to any concerns that might damage the school’s reputation. If I were to mention bogles, he would dismiss me in an instant. And say afterwards that I was spreading lies to seek revenge.’ She sniffed, then took a step forward so that she was standing toe-to-toe with Alfred. ‘But
I
shall be indebted to you, henceforth,’ she declared, ‘as will all the other matrons, save one – who prides herself on her breeding, and, as a consequence, won’t concede that bogles exist.’
Still Alfred wasn’t persuaded. He glanced at Jem, who stared back mutely, waiting and watching. Though Jem wasn’t eager to go bogling again, he couldn’t help but wonder if recent events might work to his advantage. After all, Alfred had just stumped up a whole shilling. Who knew how much more the bogler might fork out, if Jem had to brave unnumbered bogles without Birdie’s help?
‘We’ll pay double,’ the matron suddenly offered, in a businesslike manner.
‘Done.’ Alfred capitulated. It wasn’t really surprising, Jem thought. Even Miss Eames would have found it hard to withstand the matron’s iron will. ‘But I can’t promise nothing,’ Alfred continued. ‘I’ll have a look, and if I think you’ve a bogle, we’ll proceed from there.’
Mrs Kerridge nodded. ‘In that case, you must oblige me with a subterfuge,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t be here, as you probably know. Will you wait a few minutes until I return to my duties? Then present yourself at the entrance in Butcher Hall Lane, off Newgate Street, and give my name to the porter.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Alfred promised.
‘If asked, you’re to say you catch rats.’ Mrs Kerridge’s gaze flickered towards Jem for a moment, as if concerned that he was listening. ‘It pains me to resort to such a falsehood,’ she admitted, ‘but circumstances demand it. You’ll not get past the gates if you tell the truth.’
‘No, Ma’am. I understand that.’
The matron nodded again, still regarding Jem. ‘Have you no coat, boy?’ she inquired of him.
Jem blinked, then shook his head.
‘A child needs a coat, now that winter’s coming.’ Mrs Kerridge seemed to measure him with her eyes. ‘Christ’s Hospital is a charitable institution. Perhaps I can supply you with something suitable.’ Seeing that Jem was struck dumb, she didn’t wait for a ‘thank you’, but tightened her shawl around her stocky frame and addressed Alfred. ‘I’m very grateful, Mr Bunce,’ she said. ‘And I’ll see you again shortly.’
All at once she was marching across the street, away from Alfred and Jem – who didn’t immediately follow her. Jem felt winded, as if he’d just run into something hard.
Alfred looked stunned.
‘Miss Eames ain’t going to like this,’ Jem finally observed.
‘If Miss Eames has a problem, she can take it up with Mrs Kerridge,’ the bogler retorted.
Then he reached down and picked up his sack.
‘What’s this?’ said Alfred.
He had stopped to peer down at a grating in the middle of the schoolyard. Mrs Kerridge, who was walking ahead of him, turned and answered, ‘That’s the Ditch. We call this entire playground the Ditch.’ She gestured at the wide expanse of cobblestones, which was flanked on all four sides by large, handsome buildings. ‘It covers the ditch that used to surround London in the old days. Now the ditch is merely a drain, of course.’
Alfred gave a grunt. Beside him, Jem eyed the grating nervously, wondering how many bogles were lurking beneath it. One? Two?
A hundred?
‘Over there are the Grammar and Mathematical Schools,’ Mrs Kerridge went on, flapping her hand first at one massive wing, then at another. These great piles of stone looked very stern and imposing in the grey, wintry light. But the boys weaving in and out of their arched doorways looked ridiculous – or so Jem thought. He was thankful that
he
didn’t have to wear yellow stockings, or a silly blue tunic.
With a pang of dismay, he remembered the matron’s promise to find him a new coat. Surely it wouldn’t be one of these strange, old-fashioned smocks?
‘Must the boys wear their uniforms out on the street?’ he couldn’t help asking. Mrs Kerridge studied him for a moment. Now that she was back in her own little kingdom, she seemed more formidable than ever. Her cheeks were ruddy, her step was brisk, and her grey hair lay flat on her temples, like thin slabs of iron, beneath the starched pleats of her cap.
‘A boy must wear his uniform even during his holidays,’ she finally declared. Seeing Jem wrinkle his nose, she added, ‘It builds character to be constantly fighting off the taunts of apprentices and errand boys.’
Jem wasn’t so sure about that, but he made no comment. It was Alfred who said, ‘Where do the lads sleep?’
Mrs Kerridge motioned to an elaborate stone gateway at the southern end of the quadrangle. ‘The dormitories are through there, off the cloisters.’
‘And the kitchen?’ asked Alfred.
‘Under the Great Hall. I’ll show you.’
The Great Hall was an enormous Gothic structure that looked like a church. It had stone buttresses, a tower at each corner, and ranks of stained-glass windows three storeys high. As they approached the building, Mrs Kerridge explained that its back wall stood in the London ditch, and that it was sitting over the cellars of the old Greyfriars refectory. ‘There’s a lot of cellar space under the hall,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard tell that runaway boys were once placed in dungeons, where they were chained up and poorly fed. But that was sixty years ago, before the hall was built. So it’s hard to say whether the cellars and dungeons are one and the same.’ Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. ‘
Master Ferris!
’ she rapped out. ‘What have you there, pray?’
She was addressing a large boy of about fifteen, whose wispy fair curls were at odds with his big, beefy head.
‘A stick, Matron,’ he mumbled.
‘A
stick
?’ She sounded appalled, as if the boy had said ‘dead snake’. ‘Are you permitted to
run
with
sticks,
Master Ferris?’
‘No, Matron.’
‘No, you are
not.
’ Mrs Kerridge held out her hand. ‘If you like sticks, Mr Tice would be only happy to acquaint you with his cane. Is that what you want?’
‘No, Matron.’
‘Then give the stick to me. And get along with you.’ For a moment she watched the boy as he lumbered off. Then she turned to Alfred and said, as if nothing had happened, ‘John Cobb was very near the cellars when he disappeared. I’ll take you to the buttery, and show you what our arrangements are. The school is between meals, at the moment, so we shouldn’t be in anyone’s way.’
Alfred said nothing. He glanced at Jem, who rolled his eyes. Then they followed Mrs Kerridge into the Great Hall – which turned out to be a colossal room built above a warren of smaller ones. Jem caught only a glimpse of the main refectory. It was a dazzling sight, all stained glass, ribbed vaults, galleries, chandeliers and row upon row of tables. At one end of this room, the staircase that led down to the buttery was also very handsome: wide, well-lit and intricately carved. But the buttery itself was a disappointment. It was just a small space full of shelves, neatly stacked with crockery, glass, silver, linen and pewter.
Jem was much more impressed by the smell of baking from the kitchen.
‘At every meal, three of the senior boys are appointed head cellarman, bread monitor, and clerk of the dairy,’ Mrs Kerridge explained. ‘Then
they
appoint a salt boy, a cloth boy, a beer boy, a potato boy, and so forth.’
‘A potato boy?’ Jem echoed. ‘What’s that?’
‘A boy charged with serving potatoes.’ Mrs Kerridge spoke in a flat voice more withering than any sneer. ‘And a very popular job it is, too.’
Jem wasn’t surprised. If
he
had been a potato boy, he would have eaten one potato in every three.
‘John Cobb was plate boy, the night he disappeared. He had to distribute clean plates, then collect and scrape the dirty ones. So he was one of the last boys left here.’ Mrs Kerridge sighed as she spotted a patch of grease on the floor. ‘A scullery maid saw him deliver a load of dirty plates to the kitchen, but he never returned to the buttery from there. And no one’s seen him since.’
‘Would you show me the kitchen, Ma’am?’ said Alfred.
They descended another set of stairs, emerging into a massive space under a high ceiling that was held up by broad granite pillars. Even in the mid-afternoon, it was a busy place. Fires were burning, pots were boiling, and legs of mutton were being basted. Jem counted three cooks and six kitchen maids, together with a young boy in an apron, hauling coals.
Since the boy wasn’t wearing a silly blue smock, Jem assumed that he was a servant, rather than a scholar.
‘The scullery is over there,’ Mrs Kerridge said to Alfred. ‘I’ll show you.’ She led him past a fat cook and a thin maid. Jem shuffled along behind Alfred, amazed at the number of ovens, ranges and shiny copper pots that were needed to supply the school with three hot meals a day. Great vats of stewed fruit could have fed a whole army. There was so much flour scattered about, he felt as if he were in a mill.
At one point Mrs Kerridge stopped to address a young slavvy, whose apron was spotted with grease and whose fine black hair was falling out from beneath her crumpled cap. ‘The floor in the buttery needs cleaning,’ Mrs Kerridge informed her. ‘Kindly see to it, Minnie.’ Then the matron moved on, weaving her way between scurrying figures until she reached the far side of the room – where a long, narrow passage led to a scullery. Opening off this passage were several dark doorways. ‘Those are our larders and store rooms,’ Mrs Kerridge told Alfred. ‘One of them contains the brine trough, and another the meat safe—’
‘Hello
?’ Alfred interrupted, raising his voice. ‘
Is anybody in there?
’ When no one replied, he addressed Mrs Kerridge. ‘Don’t move,’ he instructed. ‘I’ll not be wanting company. You wait here too, lad.’
Jem nodded. He had no desire to explore the dingy passage, which looked much older and damper than the rest of the kitchen. So he stood back while Alfred advanced into the shadows, wondering how the matron would react if he asked her for a spoonful of blackcurrant jam.
‘I might fetch that coat,’ Mrs Kerridge suddenly remarked. ‘If I can safely leave you here all alone, Jem?’
‘Yes’m,’ Jem replied.
‘I’ll not come back to find that you smell of treacle, or candied ginger?’
Jem shook his head. ‘I ain’t a thief,’ he said shortly.
‘Good. For thieves go straight to Hell.’
Mrs Kerridge then bustled away, promising to return very soon. Jem watched her go with a sullen look. It angered him when people simply
assumed
that he would steal things – especially when they knew nothing about his past life. Was it so obvious that he had once picked pockets? Why did everyone seem concerned that he would resume his bad habits, even though he now had a perfectly respectable job hunting down bogles?
Had his work for Sarah Pickles left some kind of indelible mark on him, like a brand?
Perhaps he
was
marked. Perhaps he was permanently spoiled and twisted, thanks to Sarah. Thanks to that shuffling, two-faced, evil . . .
All at once he gasped, as a brilliant idea flashed into his head.
‘Here!’ A sharp voice punctured his fit of abstraction. ‘You’re in me way, you dozy lummox!’
Jem gave a start. He realised that he was blocking the path to the scullery, and that the grease-spattered slavvy was trying to get by. She was staggering under a huge load of dirty pots.
‘Begging yer pardon, Miss,’ he mumbled, taking a step back.
‘They ain’t never hiring
you
?’ she demanded contemptuously.
Jem shook his head.
‘Good,’ she snapped, then lurched past him into the damp, dark passage. Jem wondered if she would ever come out again. Did bogles eat big girls? Minnie was scrawny, but she also looked tough. And she was old enough to wear a corset . . .
‘
Minnie! Oi, Minnie!
’ one of the kitchen maids suddenly bawled. Next thing she was hurrying after the slavvy, waving an omelette pan. Just as the two girls erupted into a screaming battle somewhere out of sight down the passage, Alfred emerged again – as if chased out by all the noise.
‘Well?’ said Jem.
Alfred sniffed. His face was long and sour under the drooping brim of his hat. His dark gaze scanned the busy kitchen, jumping like a flea from body to body. ‘We’ll come back tonight, when it’s quiet,’ he growled. ‘That bogle won’t be out and about till all this commotion ceases.’
