Dido and Pa (7 page)

I could use a drink o' water, thought Dido, looking at the river; and turned back into the attic. Its door was shut and, she found when she tried it, locked; she rattled it vigorously, and yelled:

"Hey! Lemme outa here! Lemme out!" several times, but nobody came and nobody answered.

Reconsidering the room, Dido found a pint mug full of water and a chamber pot. Apart from these articles, and the straw mattress with its single worn blanket, the room was unfurnished, and quite cold. Philosophically Dido drank the water, made use of the pot, and then, squatting down on the mattress again, wrapped the blanket round her shoulders while she meditated.

What's all this about? Some weasely scheme o' Pa's; some of his Hanoverian dealings, that's for sure. Let's think: what was they a-talking about while I was drinking that Mickey liquor? Something about B.P.G. What did Pa say? I know: he said B.P.G. has stuck his spoon in the wall. So who is B.P.G.? Was B.P.G. the one as Pa wanted me to look after?

After a moment or two of thought the solution came to her. Love a duck! It's Bonnie Prince Georgie! He's hopped the twig! He's kicked the bucket! That's it for a certainty! Now I remember Mrs. B. saying "You can't have a party without a prince," just afore I passed out.

Bonnie Prince Georgie has took and died on them.

So what'll Pa and his cullies do now? They'll just have to pipe down and make the best o' King Dick.

But no, Dido recollected, her father had said something else. Someone—she could not remember the name—"has other fish to fry."

Fish, thought Dido; wish to goodness
I
had a few fish to fry A sudden pang of hunger made her get up and rattle the door again. She yelled, "Hey! I'm starving in here. What's the idea?" Still there came no answer.

No use staying in here if I can find some way to get out, Dido decided. If it can't be the door, then it'll hatta be the window.

Pushing the casement wider, she hoisted herself up, got a knee over the sill, and scrambled out onto the ledge, which ran along the edge of the roof outside. The parapet was only six inches high; kneeling against it, Dido squinted down through small, stinging snowflakes and found there was a sheer drop to the street a long way below; the house must be four, perhaps five stories high. Can't let meself down by the blanket, thought Dido; firstly, it ain't big enough, even if I could tear it into strips; and secondly, I wouldn't trust it above half, so moth-eaten as it is. Let's see what's round the corner.

On hands and knees, proceeding with care, for the narrow ledge was aswim in wet snow, she crawled leftward, toward the river end of the house. Humph! There's those timbers a-slanting down to the river. Could slide down one o' those, maybe...

Not overenthusiastic about this possibility—for the bulky piles were very steeply slanted and slimy-looking with age and weather—Dido explored on around the other two sides of the roof. But she found that the sloping buttresses did, in fact, offer her only chance of escape. She had hoped there might be a way of climbing across to the roof of another house, but a yard, bordered by a creek, lay at the back, and on the fourth side of the house a gully, three stories deep and too wide to jump, separated her from the next house in the alley. And even if she could clear the gully, the house on the far side had only a sloping slate roof to land on, white, now, with snow; I'd roll off there like an egg, Dido thought; that would be no manner o' use at all.

No: it's got to be a slither down one o' the joists, I reckon; like it or lump it. Resolving to lump it, she returned to the river end of the house and glumly surveyed the sloping piles once more. There were five of them, and they met the wall of the house some six feet below the parapet over which she peered. Slanting outward, they went into the river about fifteen to twenty feet away from the ground floor of the house; twenty feet of swirling, frothing, freezing Thames water. But the end pile, the westward one, entered the water only a short distance from the iron fence, embellished with spikes, which ran out past the house and curved into the water.

If I can climb down that joist, thought Dido—and it'll be as quick as a monkey sliding down an organ grinder's stick—I ought to be able to reach across and grab the railing, if the beam ain't so slimy I shoot straight into the water. Thing is to try and go slow. Well: best get it over and done with, light's going fast, shan't be able to see in ten minutes.

The parapet had a stone rail, or coping, on top, supported by a row of fat little stone or plaster balusters, their fatness diminishing to thinness down below; wonder if they'll hold my weight, thought Dido doubtfully, shaking one of them. It joggled. She tried another, which seemed firm enough. Returning to the attic, she had one more go at yelling and thumping the door. Nobody answered. Be blowed to 'em, thought Dido. She removed the blanket from the mattress and poked it through the casement, climbed out, crawled along the ledge with it, and doubled it around the baluster she had chosen, so that the ends hung down on either side; then, holding on to the blanket, she scrambled over the parapet and let herself down toward the end beam. Just as she felt the timber with her feet, the baluster pulled away from its rotten foundation and crashed past her, cleaving the water far below. Dido fell, too, but was able to grab the beam when she hit it, and hung on to it, wrapping her arms and legs round it. She began to slide down backward, much faster than she liked, unable to get a proper hold of the slimy, slippery, massive timber. Luckily it was not regular in shape, but just a tree trunk, propped against the end of the house; soon various lumps and bumps on it slowed down Dido's progress. They also bruised her and banged her. Never mind—she had not been stunned or knocked into the water by the falling baluster, which might easily have happened.

If this were a fair, thought Dido, they'd charge you a penny and call it the jungle glide; and I'll be tarnal lucky if I don't get a sousing at the bottom.

But no: she was able to reach over and grab the rusty fence as she neared the bottom, and swung across to it, scraping her hands rather badly and getting her trousers soaked in the process. Her feet trailed in the water, and at first, kicking about, she could find no purchase for them; gritting her teeth, she hoisted and dragged herself up by her arms, edged a knee onto the bottom rung of the railing, and so managed to work herself along the fence to its street end.

"Not bad!" said Dido, very pleased with herself; and she stepped ashore on the green-weedy cobbled ramp that formed the end of the alley, running down to the river. Her knees felt weak and trembly; she waited for a minute or two, holding on to the fence, until they were stronger and her head stopped banging, then set off resolutely, but quietly, toward the landward end of the alley. Passing the steps which she had gone down that morning with her father and Mrs. Bloodvessel—was it only that morning? it seemed a very long time ago—she noticed a green and tarnished sign on the rail that said
BART'S BUILDING
in barely readable letters. Probably once upon a time the place had been a warehouse.

She was just tiptoeing, with great caution, past the front door when, to her utter dismay and annoyance, it opened, and her father stepped out.

"There now!" he said gaily. "Now, isn't that a quinci-dence! Sink-sink-sinkro-nicity. Why, we might have—
hic
—arranged to meet on this spot by apple-pointment—
hic
—I never experienced anything so simmle-simmle-simmle-taneoglous. Lily had just said to me, 'Denzil, what was that splash in the river? I do show—so hope,' says she, 'that wasn't your dear daughter, our divine Dido, a-falling to her death.' 'No, no, my angel,' says I in reply, 'our canny little Dido would never do anything so—
hic
—harum-scarum and headstrong, not to say—
hic
—so downright ungiggle-grateful as to climb out the window. But,' said I, "tis an excellent thing, my love, you reminded me of our dear little sprite, for 'tis high time I took her along to meet our friend and biggie-benefactor. I'll step out the door a moment,' says I, 'to see if it snows, and then rouse up our little angle from her slumbers. And out I steps. And who should I see, a-coming along the lane, but her own self—all a-ready for our outing, and frisky as a lamprey."

Dido could see that her father was the better—or worse—for a good many mugs of organ grinder's oil. He grasped her tightly by the arm and marched her along the lane at a smart pace, sometimes singing to himself:

"
Oh, tooral-aye-ooral-eye-ingle,
Oh, tangle and tingle and tea,
A man will live longer if single,
Or that's what it looks like tome...
"

Sometimes he shook Dido's arm and mumbled, "You wasn't trying to
run away,
was you, daughter? Not from your own dear diddle-dad as loves you so? No, no, you'd
never do a thing like that, stap me, you wouldn't be so ungiggle-grateful."

Dido, angry and thwarted, said nothing; if only, she kept thinking, if
only
I hadn't waited a minute by that fence, if only I'd run off directly, I'd have got clear away before Pa ever came out. What a clunch I was! Another time I'll know better....

At the corner Mr. Twite stopped. A man was standing there, under a street lamp. His face, shaded by the wide brim of his three-cornered hat, was not visible, but he and Mr. Twite evidently knew one another. They nodded.

"See that cove, daughter?" said Mr. Twite, as they walked on.

"What of him?" growled Dido.

"He's the margrave's watchman. He's set there to keep—to keep an eye on the neighborhood. Once he sets eyes on you, you'd get no farther than you could throw a cushion—not unless you was with me."

To this, Dido made no reply.

At the next corner—where there was another watching man in black cloak and hat—Mr. Twite stopped, hiccuped several times, and said, "Daughter!"

"Well, what, Pa? Where are we going?"

"To visit our friend and protector. Our champion, guardian, patron, supporter, de-/zic-liverer, and libblerator."

"What's his name?"

"Eisengrim. He's the margrave—"

"What's a margrave?"

"—the margrave of Bad Nordmarck."

Dido could not decide whether her father was frightened or angry. He had become rather quiet, stopped singing, and frowned a good deal. Holding Dido's arm in a punishing grip, he said, after a few more minutes' walking, "Now listen to me, my chickadee!"

"Yes, Pa, what?"

"Where was you a-running to, just now?"

"That's my business, Pa."

"Were you a-running to that friend Simon of yours? Because—you take my word for it, my blossom—you better
not.
I told you that was my friend the margrave's man back there. You'll see a-plenty of 'em around here. And they'll see
you.
Wherever you go, it'll be known. You go to your friend Simon, he'll be eels' meat afore he's a day older. You know what happened to King Dick's friends—Fo'castle and Tipstaff and the dean? They're a-floating down the river to Gravesend at this very minute on their backs, nibbled by dace. And there'll be others to follow 'em. Lord Raven's next on the list. And your friend Simon'll be the one after, sure as you're alive, if you go scampering off to him. See? If you want to keep him walking about and eating bread and butter—if you know what's good for him—you'll stay with me. Comprenny?"

Dido was silent.

"There's a job for you to do here," Mr. Twite went on. "When that's done,
then
we'll see."

"What'll we see, Pa?"

"Why, we'll see whether it'll be safe for you to go and visit your friend Simon.

"Simple, simple Simon," sang Mr. Twite:

"
Met an apple pie man.
Bought a pair and et them there and—
"

"Pa?"

"Yes, my diggle-duckling?"

"What
is
this job? How long will it take?"

"Isn't that just why I'm
taking
you to our benefactor? That's where you will hear
all
about it.
All
about it," repeated Mr. Twite, walking much faster now, practically dragging Dido behind him round several corners, almost all of them guarded by the margrave's watchmen.

As they went along, Mr. Twite embarked on what seemed to be a rehearsal of his intended conversation with his patron, muttering different phrases over to himself experimentally.

"This is my little chick-child, excellency. Look at her with wonder—use her with tact and tenderness. You will not find her like in the whole of—of Margravia. Or even in Belgravia. Not this side of Habbakuk Corner. She is a veritable chip off the old block—an unbidden, unchidden spirit—"

"Unchidden, Pa?"

"Hold your hush, will you!" snapped Mr. Twite, and dragged Dido still faster.

He was a most awkward person to walk along the street
with, as he looked neither to right nor left, choosing a way for himself, but taking no account of whether Dido was obliged to hop over obstacles, or round people coming in the other direction, or over holes, or through puddles.

The streets they passed along, at first narrow, black, and murky, gradually became wider and more respectable. But this part of London was notably quiet. Perhaps it was the unseasonably early snow, or the time of day, but hardly a soul was to be met in the street, not a passerby, not a chaise, not a wagon, not a tumbril. A few of the margrave's cloaked and hatted guards stood in their places or went about their business, whatever that was. There were no women to be seen, no children. Where did all the lollpoops go, Dido wondered, who lodged nightly in Mrs. Bloodvessel's basement? Did they take themselves off to livelier parts of the town, to make their living in the streets?

"Who is the margrave of Bad Thingummy, Pa?"

"He's a great man, daughter—that's what he is. His anciggle-
hic
-ancestors go all the way back through history—all the way back to Adam. He's an aristocrat. And—what's more to the purpose—he's a musician. He values music as he ought. Got more of it in his little finger than old King Jamie had in his whole corpus. And if—and if matters fall out as hoped," said Mr. Twite, hesitating for a moment and then going on rapidly, "if ciggle-circumstances fall out prosperously for us,
then
your old da will be conducting the Phiggle-harmonic Orchestra, and will be appointed musician to the royal bedchamber and master of the king's music. How about
that,
my chickabiddy? Us'll have a mansion
in the Strand, a carriage and four, and twenty footmen to open the door when you come in outa the street. And a page in buttons for your very own."