Except the Dying (12 page)

Murdoch took out his own briar pipe and lit it. Immediately, there was a nudge in his arm.

“Got some clippings to spare, mister?”

The boy next to him on the bench was still so small and young his boots barely touched the floor. His cloth cap was too big, and stringy fair hair almost obscured his eyes. Murdoch handed him a pinch but right away two or three other grimy hands thrust out at him.

“Some for me, mister?” “Hey, what about me?”

He distributed the last of the tobacco from his pouch and was grateful when there was a drum roll from the direction of the stage, indicating the meeting was ready to start. The boys nearby lit their pipes, first borrowing a match from him, and the row was in danger of disappearing into a fug of smoke.

“’Oo are you?” asked his neighbour as he puffed contentedly on a stubby, blackened pipe. Before Murdoch could answer, the master of ceremonies, a rotund man whose bald head shone white in the gas light, trotted onto the stage.

Murdoch had come to the newsboys’ meeting in the hope of getting their help. They were denizens of the streets, sharp and ruthless, honed to survive like cubs. If anyone would pay attention to a young girl out on the street on a winter’s night, they would. The master of ceremonies had agreed to let him talk from the platform
after the guest speaker. No point in stealing his thunder with exciting talk of missing young girls. That suited Murdoch. The speaker was Godfrey Shepcote, and he wanted the chance to study him.

Shepcote was waiting in the wings. The hubbub from the boys excited him, and his round cheeks were even more flushed than usual. His valet, Canning, was beside him and he gave his master a quick brush-down across the shoulders. Shepcote had chosen his wardrobe carefully, a tweed jacket over a fawn waistcoat, beige knickerbockers, brown high boots that his servant had polished to a mirrorlike shine. The impression was of a man of affluence but insouciance. The rewards of the world sat visibly but lightly on his wide shoulders.

In fact, the annual newsboys’ meeting at Temperance Hall was one of the bright spots of Shepcote’s year. After him on the programme came a fiddler, a juggler and a mind reader, but this was his moment of glory and he knew the boys were waiting eagerly.

The master of ceremonies finally managed to get the audience sufficiently quieted down to make himself heard.

“Thank you, gentlemen, thank you. And a braver bunch of choristers I never did hear …”

This elicited cheers and ear-splitting whistles. “All right, then, I know you’re all on pins and needles waiting
for our next speaker. At least I assume that’s why you’re fidgeting in your seats like that …”

There was great laughter at this remark. Newsboys, plagued by worms and lice, were notoriously itchy.

“Seriously, our man needs no introduction. You heard him last year and loved him; you heard him the year before that and loved him; you begged him to come back this year. So here he is, gentlemen. I give you Mr. Godfrey Shepcote.”

The noise was stupendous, the boys only too glad to let off steam, their voices stentorian from long practice.

Shepcote walked out to the lectern, bowed, basked in the din for a moment, then raised his hands for silence. A few whistles more and the throng quieted down, ready to listen. When he was sure he had their complete attention, he began.

“Fellow newsboys – I can say that in all honesty because you and me are fellows …” He waited for the cheers to subside. “And even though many years have passed since I stood on those windy corners, I still consider myself a newsboy … just a grown-up one.” He paused and pointed at somebody in the front row. “I saw doubt on that face … and I don’t blame him. Who am I to stand up here and say those things?” He patted his paunch. “I don’t look like a newsboy. Yes, you may laugh, you may be skeptical, but I tell you,
we are fellows.”
He paused and leaned forward on the lectern. “I know what it’s like to be so cold your fingers and toes
are dead wood, so cold your ears could snap off like pieces of frozen cabbage. I know because I was there. I know that ever-present companion of newsboys, the dog-fox called Hunger. He that gnaws at your innards ’til you could cry out with it … but you don’t because you have pride. The pride of those who must fend for themselves and who ask no quarter.”

There was now complete silence in the hall.

“I remember the voice of fear. I know that devil who perches on your shoulders and whispers in your ear, ‘Where is my next piece of bread coming from?’”

A sigh rippled through the packed ranks like wind through a hay field. Shepcote scanned the rows and it was as if his eyes met those of everyone in front of him. Even the tobacco pipes were laid down. The gathering was under his spell.

Murdoch became aware that a man was standing at his elbow and moved over to give him room. It was Shepcote’s manservant, incongruous in this crowd in his sober black suit and grey gloves, dark hair well-oiled and smoothed back from his brow. He nodded in the direction of the stage.

“He’s in fine fettle tonight, isn’t he?”

Murdoch agreed. “Amazing.”

Shepcote took a sip of water, moving slowly and deliberately. He knew how to play an audience the way the fishermen back east had known how to play a big fish, thought Murdoch.

Shepcote’s voice dropped lower. “I said
my fellows
and I mean
my fellows
because I have not forgotten, nor ever will forget, those many nights when the hard pavement was my bed, the celestial heavens themselves my roof, and my only covers the very newspapers I was selling …”

There were some groans of recognition from the boys. Shepcote stepped closer to the edge of the stage, his face glistening with sweat. “Within these walls I have told my story before, but with your permission I would like to tell it again. Because even though it is my story, I know it is not unique to me. It could be the story of you, John Jarvis, you, Tim Black. Among all of you gathered here tonight there are similar journeys yet to be made, lives to be lived that may be even harder than mine was. And if I can be a guide to you, an inspiration, I will fall on my knees and give thanks to Our Father that my pain and my tribulations have not been in vain. So I ask you, brothers, can I tell my tale again?”

He reached out with his arms like a supplicant.

The boy beside Murdoch whistled shrilly, his fingers in his mouth, and others echoed him. Shepcote waved his hands and waited for silence. It came at once.

“When I was a boy, so young I was hardly out of skirts, my father died. He was a good, Christian man, hardworking to a fault, but his illness was protracted and when he was finally called to his Maker, my mother
was left destitute. I had one sister, a girl so fine of character, so noble of spirit, she had no place on this earth. My mother had barely put off her widow’s mourning garb when she was stricken again with grief. My sister went to join the angels, a far more fitting place for her than this vale of sin we mortals call home.”

He pulled a white handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped at his face. “At the tender age of four, I was left the sole support of a bereaved and poor woman. My mother was so overcome with her sorrows she repined on her bed, unmoving day after day. What could I do? I prayed every night for guidance until my knees ached. It was a bitter cold winter and I made a few pence by sweeping away snow, carrying bags for the wealthy women who shopped on King Street. Some of them were kind, some of them paid me no more attention than if I had been a wheelbarrow …”

“Shame,” yelled the boys. “Boo! Boo!”

“Come, boys, we must leave their sort to the judgment of the Almighty. Let me continue … It was December, one week before Christmas. I had stayed out especially late, hoping against hope to make a little more money so I could buy my mother a gift for Our Lord’s nativity. But it was so cold nobody was abroad and I could find no employment at all. I had not eaten. I was exhausted. Finally unable to walk another step, I curled up in a drift of snow against the cathedral. And I tell you, my dear, dear fellows, at that moment I cared
not whether I lived or died. Perhaps I fell asleep, I know not, but suddenly I heard a voice, a kind deep voice. I opened my eyes and there was a man standing in front of me. ‘Child, you cannot sleep here. It is too cold,’ he said. ‘You must get home.’ Perhaps it was his kindness, the gentle expression on his face, that I was not accustomed to. Whichever it was, it touched my heart and tears sprang to my eyes and sobs tore, red-hot, at my throat. I know what you are thinking: what sort of unmanly behaviour is that? But remember, I was still a mere prattling child and I was close to starving. I will pass on over the words we exchanged, that man and me. All I need to tell you is that he vowed to help me, not through mere charity, although he did that, but by guiding me to where I could earn my own living, to where I could hold my head up with pride. He bade me come early the next morning to a certain corner. I could sell the newspapers I would find there. I determined to do exactly what he ordered and as dawn was breaking I arose and went to that same corner. The stranger was nowhere to be seen, but as he had promised there was a pile of newspapers, neatly bundled up …”

There was a hush in the hall. Murdoch could sense the stillness in the man Canning. Shepcote looked up to the ceiling.

“Who was he? I don’t know. I never saw him again and sometimes I wonder to myself if indeed he was of mortal flesh … but no matter. I had my newspapers
and I seized my chance to earn my pitiful living. No playmates for me, no hoops and balls to wile away the careless hours. I was still so small the sandwich board was bigger than I was. In fact, on rainy days I would creep inside it for shelter …”

This stirred a waft of laughter. Many of those present had done the same.

“But I worked hard. Where other boys walked a mile to sell their papers, I walked two. Where they got up at six to catch the first edition, I got up at five. Where they went home at nine, I stayed until ten. And so we eked out a living. I took home my earnings to my mother, who with that pittance fed us both.”

He wagged his hand playfully at his audience. “Unlike many of my friends here, I did not waste one single penny on beer or tobacco.”

More laughter and friendly catcalling. Shepcote continued.

“In spite of my best efforts, my mother seemed weaker, more and more frail. Every night when I came home there was a nourishing broth ready, sometimes a hot stew. Oh, not a banquet by rich men’s standards, a paltry meal to them, but prepared with such love I felt as if I was eating ambrosia itself, and I left the table sated. Every night I asked her to join me at the meal but she always said she had already eaten. Child that I was, I took her at her word.” He pressed the handkerchief to his eyes. “Forgive me, boys, I can never say this part of
my story without tears … I was fortunate to have such a mother. I know that many of you have never been so blessed … that you have never known the joy of a mother’s smile or the sweet sorrow as her loving tears fall on your cheeks. My dear mother died. You see, what I did not realize was that with the loving self-sacrifice only mothers can show, she was giving all her food to me and she herself was starving.”

He paused, searching the rows in front of him for acknowledgement. He found it on more than one thin face. Some of the boys were crying quietly. One or two put their arms around younger fellows. Murdoch himself felt a lump in his throat. The little boy next to him gave a loud sniff, and he patted his shoulder. The boy smiled up at him gratefully. Canning never moved his gaze from the stage.

“My dear mother passed away. Peacefully and piously, as she had lived. But she left me a gift. After her funeral, overwhelmed by my sorrow, I opened her battered old Bible to pray, and there, tucked inside, was an envelope. Puzzled, I opened it up … and took out …”

He paused, and one bold youth shouted, “Fifty dollars!”

Shepcote smiled good-naturedly. “Exactly. Fifty dollars. She had scrimped and saved and gone without so she could give me this legacy. Not a princely sum by most standards … not enough to start a bank …”

A lot of laughter now, the boys glad to be taken away from their painful thoughts.

“By the greatest of good fortunes, there was a stall for sale on my street, the owner old and tired. When I went to him with my fifty dollars in hand he laughed in my face. ‘Send your father, laddie,’ he said, ‘then we’ll do business.’ It took him a long time to believe I was buying the stall myself.”

According to Shepcote’s narrative, thought Murdoch, he would have been about six years old at this point, but none of the audience was critical and he was never questioned.

“And that’s how it began. I worked hard and honourably. No wasting my money on dice … yes, you know what I’m talking about. I prospered. I bought another stall, and another, and then I bought the newspaper itself.”

He waited while they applauded and whistled.

“Now I have the great honour to represent the good people of our fair city as an alderman. The other day, one of my fellow councillors came to me. I won’t name him because it is to his everlasting shame that he said what he did. ‘Tell me, Mr. Shepcote,’ he said, ‘why do you, a busy man, an alderman whom so many people look up to, why do you waste your valuable time going to speak to a group of rowdy good-for-nothings?’ It’s true, those were the words he used, I regret to say. I looked him in the eye. ‘Why? I’ll tell you why. Because
among these so-called rowdy good-for-nothings might be the future leaders of the city. Wait … wait. Among those rowdies are as good men as you will find in your banks and law courts. Among that rough lot are diamonds.’”

The whistles and shouting broke out and he could not continue. Finally he yelled, “All they need is a chance to show what they are made of!”

The boys stamped their feet, awash in the waves of excitement, empty bellies temporarily forgotten. Shepcote knew that the city council was planning to eliminate the grant to the newsboys’ lodge this year, but he was not going to tell them that bad news. They would find out soon enough when the lodge door closed to them and indeed the pavement would become their bed.