Dido and Pa (8 page)

Dido found and held the brass button in the pocket of her sheepskin coat.

Did that boy carry my message? she wondered. And then felt an icy chill of fear as she recalled her father's warning. Even if I do manage to scarper off, I better not go near Simon. Pa really meant what he said, I'm sure of that.

Reckon I'd better stay with Pa, and do this job, whatever it is?

At the end of a fairly wide street Mr. Twite and his daughter stopped in front of a handsome brick mansion, approached by a noble curving flight of brick steps. A porter in a box by an impressive pair of iron gates stepped out, inspected a card that Mr. Twite showed him, then nodded and gestured them in. Another man, at the double front doors, inquired, "Name?"

"You know me, Fred!"

"Name?" repeated the man impassively.

"Bredalbane, for Habbakuk's sake! And this is my little chick-child."

"Name?"

"Dido. I told you that, I dunnamany times!"

"Mr. Bredalbane and Miss Dido Bredalbane!" bawled the doorman, and they ascended another flight of stairs. Rows of pages, dressed in black velvet suits, stood on either side, looking at nothing. Boring for 'em, thought Dido. The house was very grand, with crystal chandeliers, gilt chairs,
marble statues, and thick velvet carpets. Dido, cold and dripping in her wet midshipman's trousers, began to feel out of place. Still, it's warm here, she thought; that's one blessing.

They turned off the main staircase and Mr. Twite led the way along a gallery, down more marble steps, and into a little black and white music room. It was circular, with a white marble floor and columns, and two rings of gray velvet-covered benches. Four musicians sat waiting for Mr. Twite. From their patient look, they had been waiting for a long time. One sat ready at a harpsichord, two held hoboys, and the last one had a fagott. Mr. Twite nodded briefly at them, picked up another hoboy which had been lying ready on a music stand, gestured with it, and they all began to play.

Dido glanced about her. Wet as she was, she did not think it right to sit on one of the gray velvet seats, so she settled herself cross-legged on the white marble steps that led down to the musicians' plinth in the middle.

Wisht I had a bite to eat, she thought, sighing—for she knew full well how long her father and his mates were capable of going on, once they all got to playing together.

After a few minutes, though, the sheer beauty of the music made Dido forget her need for solid nourishment. Pa really can toss it out, she thought happily and dreamily. She was interested, though not at all surprised, to see that as soon as he began to conduct, the last traces of alcoholic fud-dlement dropped away from Mr. Twite, and he became wholly intent on the matter in hand. Dido felt certain that
the music the group was playing was his own, for she recognized several themes in it—the one she had once used to call Calico Alley; and Black Cat Coming Down Stairs, and another one which she remembered without a name; it was very sad ... They were all cleverly knit together, like strands in a piece of woven material, so that first you heard one of them, then another, then they twined round each other to make a new strand, then that crossed over yet another and showed itself in a different character, cheerful instead of gloomy, or dark instead of bright. It's like that thing you look through, with mirrors, and the pieces all slide about, thought Dido, remembering a peep show at the Battersea Fair. If this margrave of Bad What's-his-name can get Pa made master of the king's music, then it's no more than he deserves. Pa's music is the best I ever heard; and I reckon he
ought
to have a house in the Strand with twenty footmen...

She sat rapt, with her elbows on her knees and her chin propped on her doubled fists; almost an hour had passed before a slight noise behind caused her to turn her head. She saw that a large, rather fat man, grandly dressed in a velvet suit, had come in and sat himself down in a gilded chair with silk cushions that stood on a small marble platform by itself. Mr. Twite continued conducting the music, regardless of the new arrival, but the other four players hesitated a moment, and the rhythm was lost. The margrave—for Dido guessed that it was he—gestured them to go on playing, so they stopped, went back a few bars, started again, and finished the piece.

"Bravo, gentlemen," said the margrave. "That was most pleasing. I am obliged to you."

He had a light, high voice.

Pleasing, thought Dido, it was a lot more
than, pleasing. A whole
lot more.

"Now you"—the margrave nodded imperiously at the harpsichordist, the hoboy and fagott players—"all of you retire. I wish to speak to Bredalbane."

The players bowed and retired with silent speed.

"No doubt, Bredalbane, this is your daughter?"

The margrave's eye rested coldly on Dido.

"Dido!" hissed her father. "Make your curtsy to his excellency!"

How's a person going to curtsy when they're wearing sopping-wet middy's breeks? thought Dido crossly. Instead she got up and ducked her head politely at the nobleman, then sat down again, despite her father's reproving scowl and warning gesture.

"Yes, my lord—this is my little Dido—the neatest little craft as ever sailed along Battersea Reach."

Pa's allus silliest when he's scared, thought Dido; what is there in this fat fellow to scare him so? Why don't Pa stand up to the margrave of Thingembob?

She lifted her eyes and met those of the margrave.
Blimey,
she thought—
now
I see what has got Pa so rattled. This man is like—What is he like? He's like summat I've seen somewhere not so long ago...

Chasing the memory, which slipped away from her like
a fish in dark water, she studied her father's patron. The margrave of Nordmarck was tall, and fat, but not immensely so; his black hair appeared to be dyed, but there was quite a lot of it; his color was high—maybe from rouge—his skin was shiny; he carried himself with a kind of carefree dignity, as if everything he ever tried had turned out successfully. He wore stays: Dido could hear them creak, just a little, when he breathed. His velvet suit was of deep, dark blue, and his snow-white shirt had ruffles at throat and wrist; diamonds flashed on his fingers and in his ears and ruffles and the buckles of his shoes.

He's wicked, thought Dido; wicked clean through and through.

Then she remembered what his cold unmoving eye had recalled to her: once when she was aboard a whaling vessel she had been allowed to go out in a rowing boat, and a huge shark had followed and rubbed its great spine along the keel of the dory, observing the crew of the boat with a chill, passionless round eye, showing its rows of ghastly teeth as it rolled; this man is like that shark, Dido thought. He'd swallow you and never notice he'd done it.

"Your daughter appears to be wet," said the margrave gently.

"She fell in the river, my lord..."

"She had best change her attire," the margrave continued, observing with distaste how Dido dripped on the white marble steps. "My steward will find her something—"

He nodded toward the door where a man in black jacket and striped trousers waited.

"Go with Boletus, my love," said Mr. Twite hastily. "His excellency is so kind as to—"

Dido went with the steward and was swiftly fitted out with a page's uniform of black velvet, muslin collar, and gilt buttons.

"Not bad," she said, regarding herself in the glass.

"His lordship does not care to be kept waiting."

"All right, I'm a-going—"

Indeed Mr. Twite was anxiously pacing about the entrance to the music room while his master remained seated in the gilded chair.

"Now, my angel, tell his excellency how you met the Pre—how you met King Richard."

"There ain't a lot to tell," said Dido, surprised. "It was on account o' the Georgians a-fixing to knock down St. Paul's at the crowning. Me and my mates had got inside the church to warn the king afore he was crowned. He ain't a bad cove—quite a deal of sense, he has. He was up in the top o' the church, chewing the rag with the old dean, playing cards. We had a bit of a parley. And then he got the folk down in the church a-singing hymns while the constables went round, looking for the Georgian coves and sorting them out. He sure knows a sight of hymns, King Dick do. And then—arter that—he said me and another gal and a couple o' boys should carry his train at the crowning.... That's all there is to it, really."

"So you were talking with the—with the king for an hour or two before his coronation. And then carried his train. Would you know him again?"

"O'
course
I would," said Dido testily. "I'm not thick!"

"Dido!" hissed her father.

"Beg pardon, yer lordship."

"And you would recognize his voice? You remember the way he speaks?"

"Sartin sure I would; he speaks rather quick and short, like a Scotsfeller. That's what he is."

"Look at these pictures and tell me which is his likeness."

Boletus the steward laid out twenty or so portraits on the velvet benches. They were all very similar—slight, active-looking men in their thirties with long noses, weather-beaten skin, bright gray eyes, and reddish hair. Some were smiling, some serious. Dido considered them all, slowly—once, then again. Then she put her finger on one and said, "That's him."

Mr. Twite looked anxiously at the margrave, who nodded.

"Yes, she knows him. But has she the ear for a voice?"

"She has
my
ear," said Mr. Twite with much more assurance.

The margrave nodded again, slowly.

"Very well. She may—for the time—instruct the replacement. We shall see if he makes good progress. If not—"

Mr. Twite, already rather pale, became paler at that "if not."

"My daughter is a very clever girl, your excellency—"

"We shall see," repeated the margrave impassively. His expressionless eyes moved from Dido to her father. "Have you completed the Tunnel Music?" he asked.

"V-very nearly, your worship. The last movement must be a courante. That is not quite com—"

"It is of no moment. I do not at present see how it can be used at the tunnel opening. The Pretender is not yet—ah—displaced. Your music must be held over for a subsequent occasion—a firework progress, perhaps."

"Fireworks?" muttered Mr. Twite, sounding anything but pleased.

"You. What about the other two who carried the royal train at the coronation—the two boys and the girl?" suddenly demanded the margrave of Dido. "Where are they?"

"One of 'em's gone off to Wales with his dad, sir; Owen Hughes, that is; and the other two has gone back to Sussex where they lives."

"Very well—they are out of the way," murmured the margrave. "You may leave me, Bredalbane. Leave the child here, in Cinnamon Court."

Mr. Twite seemed utterly dismayed at this order. He stammered, "B-beg pardon, your eminency.... But wouldn't it be better—don't you reckon—if Dido was to teach the cove round at our place? At Bart's Building? It'd be quieter there. She—she'd not feel easy in—in your lordship's house; 'tis much too grand, she's not accustomed—"

"Oh? Very well. Mijnheer X shall be escorted to Bart's Building later this evening. Now leave me, if you please."

"Your lordship don't want any therapeutical music this evening...?"

"No. I am well. Leave me."

Mr. Twite scuttled away, dragging Dido after him.

"Hey! Wait a bit, Pa! I want my own does and sheepskin jacket back," she protested, as he was about to whisk her out through the front entrance. "Look—there's that Boletus chap—I'll ask him for them."

"Oh, never mind them, my sparrow. I'll get you others—"

But Dido, knowing the nature of her father's promises, disengaged herself from his nervous clutch and asked the steward for her clothes.

"I'll make sure this rig is sent back to you soon's my breeks are dry," she said politely.

Boletus curtly instructed a page to find the clothes—"if they have not already been burned," he added.

Dido's mouth and eyes opened wide at this, but fortunately, before she could speak her mind about people who burned up other people's trousers, a redheaded page was able to produce the damp bundle. He looked a little downcast as he handed it to Dido; she wondered if he had planned to sell them to a ragman. "Thanks, cully, much obliged," she said to him gruffly. "I sets store by that there jacket; a pal gave it to me." Hoping to soften his disappointment, and remembering the apple boy, she added, "My birthday's March the fust. When's yours?"

His face lit up. "July second!" he whispered. "In the days of Queen Dick!"—and he gave Dido a quick, friendly grin before dashing away up the marble stair.

"Who's this cove I've got to teach, Pa?" Dido asked as she and her father walked homeward.

Mr. Twite seemed very preoccupied. "
Fireworks,
" he
was muttering. "Fireworks and promises—both made to be blown to blazes! Yet it is true, matters are in a different train now that the Prince Over the Water is under the ground—"

"Is it true, then, Pa—that Bonnie Prince Georgie has croaked?"

"
Hush,
child! Mind your tongue in the open street!" Mr. Twite glanced round warily. But the streets of Wapping were even emptier than before; it snowed harder than ever. He added in a low tone, "Yes, I fear that our gallant leader is no more. Alas! But"—brightening up—"his excellency the margrave is never at a loss. Such a mind! Such a sagacity! He has already found an alternative. But let me think now—let me think how my Tunnel Music can be brought into play."

"An alternative?" said Dido slowly. "Oh,
now
I begin to twig. Was that what his nabs meant by 'the replacement'? The cove that I'm to teach? But what am I to teach him? Don't he speak English?"

"Why, as to that, my dove, I really cannot say," her father answered hastily. "But I am very sure that you will be able to instruct him in whatever is needful—and so I told his excellency—you are such a remarkably clever chick! And you had better do so, and quickly—mind that!" he added. "It was only because I persuaded the margrave as to—as to your special knowledge—that he agreed to give you a trial. Otherwise, believe me, you would by now be floating in the Pool of London along with Lord Forecastle and the others—and
that
would be a hem waste," he added to himself, "if what the costermonger said is right."