Artful: A Novel (7 page)

“And I’m sure the name is one what sounds chimes with you. When you think rotter, you think of Fagin.”

For the first time, Drina interrupted his narrative. “Actually, no,” she said. “I’ve heard nothing of him. News of such things doesn’t reach me all that often.” Sounding as if she did not wish to appear wholly ignorant of such vile pleasantries as typically
entertained
the riffraff, she said hopefully, “I’ve heard tell of Spring-Heeled Jack, though. He’s quite new, I understand, and supposedly very much the rogue. Leaping in front of
women
, terrifying them, rushing off. The police are all in a lather about it.”

The Artful waved it off as if Spring-Heeled Jack were not worth the slightest mention. “I got no patience what for someone whose main claim to fame is raising boorishness to the level of art. When Spring-Heeled Jack starts robbin’ people or murderin’ ’em, then he’s worth a fig. Till then, he ain’t worth nobody’s time, and the police can chase their tails in a circle lookin’ for him, and it’s fine with me ’cause it draws their attention away from more legit criminals.”

“Such as yourself?” asked Drina.

“I ain’t no criminal. Criminals break the law ’cause they enjoys it. I merely does what I gots to, to survive. If society wants me to stop takin’ what I need to in order to be able to serve up loverly meals such as this one, then all it needs to be doin’ is findin’ me a way of not doin’ what I’m doin’. Some way that don’t involve transportin’ or swingin’, if ya catch my drift.”

“It’s very well and truly caught,” said Drina. By that point, she had handed the remaining sausages—exactly half of what had originally been available—to Dodger, whose
impulse
was to eat them greedily all at once; but instead, he took his time and tried to appear as genteel as possible out of deference to his guest. He then took a deep gulp of the tea before continuing.

“Fagin, he was someone what got a bad name from a lot of people. And I’d be a liar if I didn’t say that there were times when he was fierce with me. But he took me in when the only other place for me woulda been the workhouses, if even that. He nursed me back to health. He took care of gettin’ me mum a decent
burial
. And he taught me a trade which a lot of people would say weren’t no good at all, except you saw some of the tricks I learned from him on display this evenin’, and they certainly worked to your con-vee-nee-ence, am I right?”

“I cannot deny that,” she said. “Still . . . taking a small boy and bringing him into a life of crime . . . .”

“D’pends on what you take the meanin’ of crime to be now, don’t it?” said the Artful, sounding a touch defensive. He leaned forward and regarded Drina intently. “Who are the guardians of the law, after all? The magistrates and judges what swear an oath to be just to all, but never temper that justice with care or
compassion
? The fat councilmen who eat at one of their meals more food than a workhouse full of orphans sees in a week? The right bast—sorry, miss, blackguards would be the more
politer
term—what passed the poor laws what said that unmarried mothers are the ones what got to pay for raisin’ the children while the fathers are off doin’ whatever?”

“But Fagin . . . from what you’ve said, he took you in in order to teach you to be a criminal . . . .”

“Not just me. Lots of other lads.”

“He preyed on you!”

“How is it preyin’ when it’s someone what’s not got any other kind of prayer?”

“But . . . it’s not right.”

Looking as serious as the grave, the Artful Dodger said, “Live on our side of the road for a long time, Miss Drina, and you’ll see the truth of it. Right, wrong—those are words thrown around by those what is in power in order to sit on the backs of those what ain’t. The biggest evildoers in the world, the ones who do what’s not right, are the ones who have all the power, and that’s what makes it right. It’s right not ’cause you say so, or I say, or even if the Lord on high says so. It’s right ’cause them what’s got the
money
and the power, they say it’s right, and that makes it right even if it’s dead wrong. Dead wrong. I seen stuff that all those pompous windbags who says what is right and wrong would nod and smile and say that justice is served and God’s will be done, but they wouldn’t know justice if it bit ’em and wouldn’t know God if His words showed up in flaming letters thirty feet high on their walls. And sitting above it all, the royal family, looking down like gods from Mount Olympia, not caring about nothin’ that matters to the everyday folk like you and me.”

“Really.” Her mood was turning frosty, not that the Artful Dodger noticed. “You think the royal family doesn’t care?”

He gazed at her levelly. “Prove that they do.”

She returned his gaze but then, as much to her surprise as his, lowered it and said softly, “I can’t, actually.”

Dodger bobbed his head in triumph, but then, for no reason that he could readily discern, he didn’t feel as if he had won much of anything at all.

The two of them stared at their empty teacups for a brief time, and then the Artful Dodger said, “Seems to have stopped raining. Care to walk around a bit? See the sights?”

“With you as my guide?”

“None better.”

“I would like that, Dodger,” she said, and she hesitated for a moment and then reached over and placed her hand atop his. “I would like that very much.”

The room suddenly seemed much warmer to the Artful than it had been only moments before.

SEVEN

I
N
W
HICH IS
T
REATED THE
A
RTFUL
’
S
E
NCOUNTER WITH THE
S
ECOND
P
ERSON OF
I
NTEREST IN
T
HIS
O
VERWHELMINGLY
S
INGULAR
E
VENING

I
t is indeed a remarkable night when you meet someone who is going to have a significant impact upon your life, and to meet two upon the same night admittedly strains credulity, and yet coincidence does happen, and indeed seems to do so with unusual frequency in the presence of the Artful Dodger, if one considers—as a single example—that the Artful, in the company of Charley Bates and Oliver Twist, sought to liberate the pocketed contents of one Mr.
Brownlow
, who turned out—through a staggeringly unlikely series of
circumstances
—to hold a key piece to the puzzle of Oliver’s parentage. Dubious, and yet, in sum, the way that life is:
replete
with odd happenstances that in works of fiction would be dismissed as absurd. Indeed, fiction is a harsher, more
demanding
mistress than fact.

So be kind and understand when you read of the following events and know that, when it comes to the caprices and
manipulations
of the gods or God, whichever philosophy you may embrace, we are all of us merely pawns in their games,
rather
than players.

So it was that Artful and Drina emerged from Dodger’s home into a cool, crisp London evening, which was to say, a typical London evening. Dodger thumped his chest several times and declared, “The city is splendid after a rain.”

“It is,” she said. “The cobblestones glisten so nicely, and the drops hang just so from the rooftops.”

“That and the stink is largely washed away.”

“I had not noticed,” said Drina, when in fact she had but was simply too refined to make note of it aloud.

Dodger had an entire plan for his random stroll that would take Drina through all the best parts of town, which was to say, the least odorous. He had had a rather successful week in terms of earning money, and if you do not believe that picking pockets clean of funds therein is hard work and therefore the dipper has earned his income, then we defy you to try it and see how well
you
do. So, being rather flush, Dodger had the wherewithal to genuinely purchase some niceties for Drina or perhaps even hire up a ride for them, a nice hansom cab that would emulate the sort of gentlemanly behavior to which the Artful aspired.

As they were heading out, however, Mary called from her corner, “ ‘Oy! Dodger! Goin’ somewheres with yer dollymop?”

Drina looked at Dodger questioningly. Rather than inform her that Mary was referring to her as an amateur prostitute, Dodger shrugged as if he had no idea what Mary was talking about. Then he turned to Mary and called back, “Sing to someone else, me fine ladybird. I got no ears for you tonight.”

“Well, yer lucky I have eyes for you, or better to say, eyes out for you! You owe me, Dodger, ya do.”

“Owe you?” This comment puzzled him tremendously, for he had never sought to avail Mary of her services and so could not imagine what possible monetary transaction between them was outstanding. “What’cha talkin’ about?”

“There was some lad lookin’ fer ya. Some boy what swore that only the Artful Dodger could help ’im.”

Drina and the Artful exchanged confused looks. It was Drina who said, “Why did he say that?”

“Said he was in trouble and could’na trust th’ crushers,” she said, her face screwing up as if talking to Drina was distasteful.

Now it was Drina’s turn to look back at Dodger. “Crushers?”

“Rozzers,” said the Artful, and when he saw the continued confusion on her face, he further explained, “Coppers.”

“Oh. Policemen. You have a great many names for them.”

“Keep comin’ up with new ones so we can talk about ’em while they’re near, and they don’t know.” Dodger turned back to Mary. “Did he say what kind of trouble?”

“Naw. Just said that he was askin’ other lads where t’go to if he was in a fix and hadda stay lavendered in.”

This time Dodger didn’t even wait for Drina to ask. “Stay hidden from the law,” he explained.

“Ah,” she said. She looked around. “So . . . where is the boy, then?”

Mary smiled proudly. “Sent him off that way,” she said and pointed west. “Told ’im ye’d most likely be at the common house up the King’s Road.”

“By Aldwych?” When she nodded, he laughed. “Good girl,” said Dodger. “You’re right, I do owe you.”

“Wait, wait,” said Drina, even more confused than she had been. “Your lodgings were in the other direction. Why send him that way?”

At that question, Mary rolled her eyes and said, “Don’t’cher little midinette know nothin’ at all, Artful?” With a great show of insincere patience, she said to Drina, “The boy was likely a nose, tryin’ t’ sniff out Dodger for the . . .”—she paused and then
overpronounced
with as arch a tone as she could—“. . . po . . . lice
. . . men
.”

“You mean you think he was a spy of some sort?”

“Oooo, she’s a bright one, she is,” said Mary sarcastically. “And the boys at the commons house there, the Broken Nail, they don’t take well t’ spies. Which is what he most likely is.”

With a touch of pride, Dodger said, “We get at least one new nose pokin’ around every few months. I got a bit of a reputation, ya know, and the coppers are always tryin’ to send someone down here to see if they can get a sniff of the ol’ Artful.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Never sent a young one before. Gettin’ more cleverer, I’ll give ’em that.”

“But . . . you don’t know of a certainty that he was a spy,” said Drina. “He might well have been a child in genuine trouble.”

“Not likely.”

“All right, well,”—she gave a small shrug—“I suppose that you would be much more knowledgeable about these things than I would.”

At first, Dodger nodded, pleased that she had wound up agreeing with him. But her voice had trailed off a bit at the end in a manner that raised his suspicions. “What d’ya mean by that?”

“Mean by it? Nothing, really.”

“I know what’cher thinkin’,” he said after a moment. “You’re
figurin
’ that right now, even as we’re here, there’s some kid what needs my help and I’m just sittin’ here laughin’ at ’im. And that Mary’s arranged even more problems for ’im, but here I am, not carin’.”

“Well . . . you’re not,” said Drina reasonably. “I mean, it’s obvious you don’t care.”

“And you do.”

“A bit, yes.”

“Why do you care?” said Dodger. He knew it should have been irrelevant to him, but he couldn’t help but ask.

“Why do you
not
care? How long ago was it that you were a young lad in trouble, and someone stepped in to help you when he didn’t have to.”

“You mean
preyin’
on me, don’t’cher?”

“Whatever his reason was, he helped you. From what you’ve said, you’d be dead if it weren’t for him.”

“So what if that’s the case?”

“So,” she said, and she pointed in the direction the boy
had bee
n sent, “it could be argued—and because you brought it up, then obviously you’re choosing to argue it—that you
have a moral obligat
ion to help him as you were helped by someone else.”

“Get
her
! A moral obligation!” Mary howled with laughter over the prospect. “As if the Artful has anythin’ t’do with morals of any kind!” She continued to howl with merriment at the prospect, and the Artful Dodger felt a burning in his cheeks, and when he saw the way that Drina was looking at him, the disappointment in her face, the silent chastening in her eyes, he felt something for the first time in the entirety of his existence.

He felt shame.

He turned back to Mary and said, “What did he look like?”

“What?”

“The boy. What did he look like?”

“Um . . . black coat, short pants. Square jaw, biggish nose, large forehead, shock of red hair . . . Dodger, you’re not thinkin’ of—”

Taking Drina’s now gloved hand firmly, he said, “Let’s go get him,” and he started off at a rapid trot toward the Broken Nail.

Mary, appalled, shouted after him, “You’re putting your neck in the noose, tryin’ t’ impress that Judy! You’ll be dancing on air, Dodger, mark me! Mark me!”

The Artful Dodger did indeed mark her, and he was fully aware that there was every possibility that Mary was absolutely correct. But to his astonishment, he realized that he would rather face the possibility of dodging the law than the probability that Drina would give him another look of disappointment. He wasn’t entirely sure why the opinion of someone he had known a relatively brief time was of any consequence to him, but it was. Perhaps it was because she carried herself with a quiet air of authority and importance that consequently lent weight to her estimation of his character. It was an unusual sensation for Dodger, caring what someone else thought of him. There was something about Drina that made him want to be better than he was. To
aspire
to something beyond
being
the most skilled tooler—that is,
pickpocket
—in the whole of London.

None of which he would admit to her, of course. There were some things that a gentleman simply did not discuss with a lady, and feelings were most definitely one of them. Ten of them, even.

“I’m . . . I’m having trouble keeping up!” Drina said, and he realized she was gasping for breath.

He felt a flash of anger despite everything, or perhaps because of everything. He wanted to tell her that if she was having problems, they were entirely of her own doing. Then, to make matters worse, he felt guilty over feeling angry. The girl was beginning to get on his nerves, twisting his emotions around the way she was, without even trying.

Suddenly he saw a hackney rolling their way from behind, empty of passengers. Without hesitation, he let go of her hand and waved his arms to flag it down. The driver made eye contact with him and, flicking his whip, prepared to send the horse-drawn cab barreling right past, clearly unimpressed by the youth who was endeavoring to catch his attention.

Drina looked from the Artful to the driver, and then she took in a breath and called out a single word, an order, in a voice that would not allow for even the slightest possibility of being ignored.

“Halt!”

Reflexively, automatically, the driver yanked hard on the reins, forcing the horse to a stop so abruptly that the animal let out a startled and irritated whinny of protest.

Without waiting for the driver to clamber down, Drina strode forward and yanked open the door. “Get in,” she said to the Artful and then fixed an angry glare upon the driver. “Is that what you consider proper business conduct? Ignoring a customer who was endeavoring to engage your services?”

The driver looked taken aback. “Sorry, miss,” he said. “Didn’t mean nothing by it. Just meant to be a bit of a laugh.”

Icily she said, “We are not amused.”

They clambered in, and the Artful Dodger gave quick instructions. The driver sent the horse speeding down the King’s Way while Dodger kept his eyes upon the road in front of them, scanning the walks, trying to catch a glimpse of the lad that he was certain they would overtake. He did take time, however, to glance toward Drina. The heat of the moment having passed, she seemed ever so slightly contrite. “I hope you’re not upset,” she said, “that I did that.”

“You mean take charge?”

“Yes.”

“No. No, you were brilliant,” he said in wonderment. “I think . . . I think it’s good you’re strong.” He looked away from her then and said softly, “I cared about two women in my life. My mum. And a girl named Nancy. Both of them were gentle souls. Both of them paid for it with their lives. World don’t seem t’ welcome gentle souls. You stay strong, you take charge, and you can meet the world on its own terms, which means maybe you won’t go the way they did. That’s fine with me.”

“Mr. Dawkins,” said Drina, “that may be the most sincere thing I’ve heard you say. I’m flattered. And . . . intrigued, to be
honest
. Are you insinuating that you care about—”

“There!”
said the Artful Dodger abruptly. “Pull over! There!”

Just ahead of them, approaching the Broken Nail, was a boy who exactly matched the description that Mary had provided them. He was moving with quick, steady strides, his arms pumping furiously. It was remarkable how much distance those little legs could consume.

And then two men seemed to come out of nowhere and grabbed the boy by either arm. They were cloaked in brown Inverness capes that were ragged and tatty around the edges. The boy let out a startled yelp and tried to pull away, but they easily hoisted him off his feet and carried him off into the darkness of a nearby alley.

For half a heartbeat, the Artful was back in his young mind from years ago, and he saw his mother struggling in a similar dark alley. He remembered his cowardice, being frozen with indecision and fear, and doing nothing as she died.

“Not again,” he snarled. “Not this time!” Without further hesitation, he vaulted out the side of the hansom cab as it rolled up, swinging his walking stick down and around at the head of the nearer of the two men.

“Dodger, be careful!” Drina cried out.

There was a sharp crack and Dodger landed on the sidewalk, looking up at the man whom he had bludgeoned with his cane . . . only to find the man was looking down at him without the slightest indication of any injury. A clang alerted Dodger to dart his eyes downward, where he saw the heavy metal head of the cane landed on the street, having snapped clean off.

“Let him go!” shouted the boy, struggling furiously in the hands of the man who was holding him. “Don’t hurt anybody because of me!” His voice sounded odd, foreign. Clearly he was not English, and that crime alone was sufficient to prompt the Artful to wonder why he was bothering.