Dido and Pa (9 page)

Dido stared frowningly at her father; then walked along beside him in silence, deep in thought. The margrave is arranging for all the king's friends to be killed off, she thought; or anyone who knows him to speak to. There aren't many of those. Why's he doing that? So as no one will cut up rough when this other cove is fetched in? But who is the other cove—the one I'm to teach? Bonnie Prince Georgie's son? His brother?—And
that's
why Simon is in danger, she thought: because he knows the king, he said so. Croopus, things around here are in a rabshackle way. I ought to warn Simon; but if I sent a message it might just make more danger for him.

One thing's for certain, she thought: that margrave is a right spooky devil. I sure don't go for him above half. And here's Pa, a-readied to lick a path for the guy, all the way down the stairs and out into the street, do he only say the word. It's fair disgusting.

"Pa," she said after a while, "that was a ripsmashing piece that you and the others was a-playing on your fagotts and hoboys."

"Naturally it was," her father replied absently. "I am the greatest composer of these times."

"What's it called?"

"It is my Eisengrim Concerto number three. I am writing a set of seven, in honor of the margrave."

"
Must
you work for that pesky fellow, Pa? I don't like him."

"My sylph, he is the only one who appreciates me. Furthermore, if King Richard's officers were aware of my presence in London, I would be hanged up directly, like a flitch of bacon. A musician of my caliber!"

But that ain't to do with your music, thought Dido; it's naught to do with music; it's on account of your havey-cavey Hanoverian dealings.

Oh, why can't people do just
one
thing, instead of being so muxed-up?

She sighed, and said, "I ain't half hungry, Pa."

"I could peck a bit myself," he said. "We'll send the Slut round to the cooked meat shop."

The Slut, Dido wondered. And who may the Slut be?

They were now back in Farthing Fields, and soon turned into Farthing Court, the narrow alley in which Bart's Building stood. Dido had a momentary impulse to take to her heels and make a dash for it; she could easily outrun her father and would soon be clear away from him in the network of dark silent streets. She could ask her way to Chelsea.... But there was the man in the three-cornered hat at the end of the street. Once he'd seen you, you'd get no farther, her father had said.

And then Simon would be in horrible danger. Maybe things is best as they are, Dido thought. The way I'm fixed here, teaching this Mijnheer X, whoever he be, mayhap I can find out more about what old Margrave Eisengrim is up to, and put a spoke in his wheel. He's one as'll bear watching, that's certain. I reckon it'd be a good thing for King Dick if that one were under hatches.

Mr. Twite had brought a key with him this time and used it to unlock the door. As they reentered the black, silent, leaning house by the water's edge, Dido asked, "Do this house belong to Mrs. Bloodvessel, Pa?"

"She rents it from the margrave, child," he replied absently. "The margrave owns much property hereabouts." He was paying little heed, for, as they passed through the door, loud hysterical sobs could be heard coming from the room where, that morning, Dido had been given the overspiced eggnog.

When they entered the room—which was thick with blue cigar smoke—Dido found that the source of the noise was Mrs. Bloodvessel, who seemed very afflicted, crying, wailing, and shrieking, throwing herself back and forth in an armchair until she nearly tipped it over, and exclaiming at the top of her lungs that savage ants were walking over her.

"
Oh!
they bite!
Oh!
they sting! They are drilling holes right through me! Yellow and creeping and biting and boring! Ants, ants, and devilish pinching crabs!"

"Mercy, what's amiss with her?" said Dido, startled and shaken. "
I
don't see no ants."

"Ah, it is a mere hysterical spasm. It will pass. I know what she needs," said Mr. Twite, who did not seem surprised or perturbed. "Fetch the Slut, will you, child? She can run round to the druggist and get us some supper as well, while she's out."

"Who's this here Slut?"

"Down the basement stair. First door on the left." Mr.
Twite selected a key from the bunch at Mrs. Bloodvessel's belt—not without some trouble, for she was writhing from side to side, screaming that a crocodile was gnawing a hole in her back.

"
Help
me,
help
me, why won't you
help
me?"

"We're a-going to help you, Lily, you'll be slap up to the echo in no time," said Mr. Twite, calmly passing the key to Dido, who ran down the basement stair and unlocked the designated door. The room it gave onto was pitch-dark, and she would have been able to see nothing inside, had not one small window opened onto the river, and the rigging lights from a passing barge, slowly battling its way against the tide, thrown a dim, sliding glimmer across the floor. In this half-light Dido could just make out a tiny huddled dark shape perched on something that was probably a box. The floor itself was shining with wet, and the room was icy cold.

"Hilloo?" called Dido softly and doubtfully. "Is—is anyone here?"

She found it hard to believe that a live person could emerge from such a dank and freezing lair.

"Who're
you?
" breathed a voice.

"Dido Twite. My dad's upstairs. He wants you to go for a bit o' supper. And some medicine for Mrs. Bloodvessel."

"Yes, miss," whispered the voice meekly, and the small shape removed itself from the box and limped slowly across the floor. Dido and whoever it was returned up the stairs, and in the light of the room above, where Mr. Twite had kindled several lamps, the Slut was revealed as a tiny girl,
wearing a grubby apron over a skimpy dress, and a bunchy calico cap bound round her head with a bit of string. She was the most mournful, wizened, shrunken little creature that Dido had ever laid eyes on; she might be nine or ten, perhaps, but her size was that of a six-year-old, and her face drawn and haggard as that of an old woman. Her limp was explained by the fact that on her feet she wore canvas shoes which were evidently several sizes too small, for her toes had pushed their way through the canvas and stuck out in two blue and battered rows.

Mr. Twite greeted her with a sharp box on the ear.

"Took your time getting here, didn't you, you Slut! Here's your mistress sick and sorry. Remember, you
run
when she needs you."

"Yes, sir," whispered the child.

"Now you run to the druggist's in Wapping High Street, and buy your mistress six penn'orth of laudanum—here's sixpence; and on the way back stop at the cookshop in Ryke Street and buy three hot fagots—here's threepence for them—and a jug of gravy—there's a halfpenny for the gravy—and a quartern loaf—there's another fourpence. Mind you don't nibble the bread on the way back, for I shall see directly if you have. And I shall give you
such
a beating! There, now, make haste; you'll get a thump for every minute over ten that you take. Here's the bottle for the laudanum."

The child nodded, took bottle and money, which she counted carefully, then hobbled off as fast as her tight, broken shoes would allow.

Dido, looking after the Slut, recollected that in the past her father used to thump
her
on the ear, quite often, if she annoyed him or failed to obey his orders. Reckon he wouldn't try it now, she thought, and realized how much she had grown during the years she had been away from home. He knows I'd give him as good as I got. It's a hem shame the way he clobbered that little 'un.

The child heeded Mr. Twite's warning and, despite her bad footwear, made good speed; in six or seven minutes she was back, and this was just as well, for all the time she was out of the house, Mrs. Bloodvessel continued to shriek and writhe. Mr. Twite seemed accustomed to this, and paid it little heed.

"She often gets seized this way of an evening," he explained. He took the laudanum the Slut had bought—it was a red, syrupy liquid—poured a spoonful into a glass, added some spirits of Geneva from a square bottle, and a teaspoonful of sugar, then administered the dose to Mrs. Bloodvessel.

It soon calmed her; she drew a deep breath, smiled, looked at herself in the glass, and, muttering that she was a sight, withdrew and was heard going upstairs, but called down to ask that her fagot be set before the fire to keep hot, for she was sharp set and would be down to eat it directly.

Mr. Twite sliced up the loaf of bread, having first inspected it narrowly to make sure that the crust had not been nibbled. Then he gave Dido her fagot. (This was quite different from the instruments played upon by Mr. Twite's companions.) It consisted of a lump of chopped liver and
lights, rolled into a ball and cooked inside a pig's caul. It was served on a slice of bread, with gravy poured over.

Being ravenous, Dido was about to take a bite, when Mr. Twite said to the Slut, "What are
you
hanging about for? Get back to the basement."

"Don't
she
get no supper?" demanded Dido, surprised; and the Slut humbly whispered, "Oh, please, sir, mayn't I have a bit o' bread?"

"
Fresh bread?
D'you think we are aldermen?" growled Mr. Twite. "Wait till your mistress comes down."

The shuffling steps of Mrs. Bloodvessel were now heard descending. When she came in, with her hair newly dressed in corkscrew curls and some rouge dabbed about her cheeks, Mr. Twite said:

"Here's the Slut asking for dinner."

"Ho, she is, is she?"

Mrs. Bloodvessel unlocked a small cupboard with a zinc mesh across the front, and took from it a tin plate on which lay some stale crusts and half a cold potato.

"There, then, take that and go back below," she said shortly, pushing it at the servant.

"Don't she get no fagot?" said Dido.

The Slut gaped at Dido, as if she had said something in Portuguese.

"Meat? For her? Are you daft, girl?" said Mrs. Bloodvessel. "Give us another dram of loddy, Desmond."

While Mr. Twite was mixing the drink, Dido quickly broke her own fagot in half—by no means an easy operation, for it was soft, hot, and greasy—and put the larger portion of it on the child's plate, gesturing with a nod that she had better make off with it before anybody noticed. The Slut's eyes and mouth opened so wide that there was nothing left of her face; staring at the plate as if it held a ruby-studded crown, she slip-slopped out of the room at top speed.

"Best lock her in, Desmond," said Mrs. Bloodvessel, sipping her ruby drink. "Or there's no saying what she'll be up to."

"Dido will do that," said Mr. Twite. "Take the key, Dido."

A candle on the hall table was guttering toward its end in a pool of wax. Dido blew out the candle, scooped it and the hot wax together into a lump, and then pressed the key, hard, into the side of the lump. She wrapped this inside her bundle of jacket and trousers, which had been left on the stairs, then ran softly down to the basement room.

"You got any bedclothes in there?" she asked.

"What, miss?" mumbled the Slut, who was eating as fast as she could.

"Bedding, covers?"

"No, miss."

"I'll only make believe to lock up. Then later I'll see if I can bring you summat."

"All right, miss."

The Slut sounded doubtful; probably she did not believe Dido meant what she said.

"What's your name?"

"I dunno, miss; sometimes 'e calls me Is."

"Is? Is that a name? When's your birthday? Mine's March first."

"I don't think as I've got a birthday, miss; what is a birthday?"

"Oh, never mind," said Dido. "I'll be back soon."

She left the door unlocked and went back up the stairs rather slowly.

Mr. Twite and Mrs. Bloodvessel, having finished their meal and taken several more drams—he of Geneva, she of laudanum—became cheerful and talkative over pipe and cigar.

"If what the costermonger said is true, Dido will be a gold mine to us, my amaranth," said Mr. Twite, looking fondly at Dido. '"A gold crown in her hand,' he said—sure as I stand here."

"Maybe he meant a crown piece," said the lady, yawning and swaying tipsily, dropping a great worm of cigar ash down her muslin frills.

"You are as shrewd as you are beautiful, my dove, but no: I am convinced he didn't. A
royal
crown was what he meant. Hooraluyah! Think what that must mean!"

"Hark," said Mrs. Bloodvessel, "I hear St. Paul's strike. The lollpoops'll be along; you go down, Twite, and take their fardens; I feel nohowish. If any of 'em wants to lie flat, it's a ha'penny. Remember that. And don't forget to lock both doors when they're all in."

"Couldn't Dido do it?" suggested Mr. Twite hopefully.

Mrs. Bloodvessel shot a sharp glance at Dido. Though
her face was jollier-looking now, being flushed with food and spirits, the three-cornered eyes were keen as flint arrowheads; there was something in their survey that reminded Dido of the margrave.

"
Her
take the money? Not on your oliphant. We'd not see her for dust."

"Oh, very well," Mr. Twite said discontentedly, then selected another pair of keys from the bunch and departed for the basement, swaying rather as he walked.

He had not been gone a couple of minutes when there came a sharp peal at the front door bell.

"
Now
what?" grumbled Mrs. Bloodvessel. "Don't tell me as how those little monsters expects to be let in at the front door now, like quality? Go answer it, you, whatsyername, and send 'em down smartly to the area. With a flea in their ear! Here's the front door key."

On the way to answer the front door Dido took the opportunity of pressing the key into the other side of her lump of wax. Come, we're making progress, she thought; all we want now's a locksmith.

"Who is it?" called Mrs. Bloodvessel from the inner room. "Is it a lollpoop?"

"No, it ain't," called back Dido. "It's three men."

They stood in a silent row on the doorstep. Two of them wore long caped black coats and three-cornered hats, like the watchers at the street corners. The third one, who stood between them, had his head entirely wrapped in bandages, with two small holes cut for eyes.