The Petticoat Men (39 page)

In Wakefield-street Dodo made many cakes.

But everyone who had known Elijah Fortune understood what Dodo had understood: that something had happened to his spirit. His work and his home had been conjoined; they were his life. He had been at the heart of the Parliament buildings; what he had not realised was that the Parliament buildings had been at the heart of himself.

Members of Parliament missed him. He had been there always; so many of them had taken advice and tea in the doorkeeper’s cubby: ‘Where is Elijah?’ they asked. But word very quickly got around that he had been somehow involved in the scandalous business of Lord Arthur Clinton, and that of course made things tricky for his parliamentary acquaintances.

Stage-doorkeepers of London theatres, knowing him from his old days at Drury Lane, heard of his trouble, asked for news of him, didn’t give a threepenny damn about Men in Petticoats: they saw men, and women, in petticoats, often. But none had work for him. Old friends asked for him in the Central Lobby; they were told that he was no longer in the red room in the bowels of the building where he and Dodo had lived for so long, and that his whereabouts were unknown. A porter at Billingsgate heard of Elijah’s fate, said, ‘Them bleeding hypocrites!’ and went to find him at the Palace of Westminster with a large basket of fish; he was turned away most rudely from the Central Lobby. (The new Head Doorkeeper tried to keep the fish, but met his match in the Billingsgate man, whose loud and violent swearing was unmatched by mere parliamentary doorkeepers.)

Elijah Fortune, who had known everybody in London, suddenly had no job and no references, and he was the same age as the Prime Minister of England: sixty-one years old.

Finally Billy was able to obtain clerical work for him at the funeral parlour in Tottenham Court Road. Occasionally, when they were short of staff or death was busy, Elijah too had to walk with Billy behind the black horses with their funereal plumes. Sometimes they spoke as they walked, even joked with a grave black humour, but keeping their faces solemn at all times, of the Palace of Westminster. Elijah and Dodo insisted on paying Mrs Stacey something for the room; in vain she told them that there was enough money in the house: there were two salesmen from the North who still took rooms when they came to London, who were much taken with the cakes that were pressed upon them by the new lodger. Mr Flamp still lived in his small room and received cakes also, and Mattie Stacey continued to make beautiful hats.

Then Elijah, with the help of one of the many people he knew in London, found extra work, unpaid but very interesting, teaching grown men to read and write at a working men’s night school near Tavistock Square, which gave him some pleasure; he whistled occasionally. But there was something sad about him; the old Elijah Fortune was missing.

Expenses incurred by Lord Arthur Pelham Clinton remained unpaid and no memorial was placed upon his grave in Christchurch Cemetery.

37

I
N
WINTER
,
SCRUBBING
our steps, I’d often hear boots walking before I could see them, with the mornings so foggy and cold. So I was scrubbing our steps one morning, God my hands were red and chilled, when I heard feet, then I saw feet – some boots stopped just by where I was scrubbing. I looked up.

‘Hello, Miss Mattie,’ said the boot owner. And guess what! it was that Mackie, that smuggler, or fisherman – the man from Mudeford who gave me rides on the back of his horse. I was so surprised that I laughed, kneeling there, which might have seemed a bit rude but he looked so out of place in Wakefield-street with his sea-cloak and that beard and wild hair like someone from history, different from most Londoners, and that deep slow rumbling voice with that different way of talking. He laughed too, at my amazed face I suppose.

‘However did you know where we lived?’ I asked him.

‘Can you believe it – even in Mudeford we read the newspapers.’

‘Well – well – that was months and months ago, whatever are you doing here?’

‘Business,’ he said. ‘You could say.’ (I supposed smuggling went on in London as well only we didn’t know about it; or he could fish in the Thames.)

‘Well – well – would you like to have a cup of tea with our Ma? We told her you were kind to us.’

‘I would,’ he said.

There is one thing that is hard having a thing wrong with your foot and that’s standing up from kneeling on our front steps. But Mackie knew of course, and helped me and picked up my bucket and my scrubbing brush.

He came down to our kitchen, Ma was making one of her big stews. She and Dodo had taken no time to have an arrangement – Dodo made her cakes really early in the morning, there was something lovely about getting dressed to the smell of cooking cakes wafting up the stairs. Billy had painted the table in their room red, we’d found some cosy red cushions and made her a comfortable chair by the window where even winter sun came in sometimes, if there was any, so when she’d finished her cakes she came back to the red room and read her newspapers and her novels. (I gave her
Agnes Grey
and
The Woman in White
.) And then Ma made stews and things later in the day. And by the way we were all getting fat in our family, because the cakes were so enticing.

So: I took Mackie in and introduced him to Ma – she offered the parlour first but he said no, then he’d feel he should take off his boots and Ma laughed and gave him some bread and jam and put a plate of Dodo’s cakes out, we all sat at our kitchen table and the fire in the stove made it cosy and warm.

‘Thank you for being kind to my children, Mackie,’ said Ma and he said, ‘I thought your children were kind too.’

‘How’s the fishing, Mackie?’ I asked (well, I couldn’t very well say, ‘How’s the smuggling?’).

He shook his head. ‘There was an almighty storm,’ he said. ‘One of those once in a lifetime storms and I was out at sea. I got back to the coast but my
Annabelle
didn’t make it.’ He shook his head again as if he still didn’t quite believe it. ‘I’d had her for years.’ (And I immediately imagined smuggling in storms and coastguards and wild adventures.)

‘Did you have to
swim
?’

‘I held on to part of the hull and one of the other fishermen found me, they’d come looking for me.’ We listened, fascinated. ‘I’ve got some work for a while on one of those ferries that ply from Blackfriars to Gravesend, we know one of the owners, he’s from Mudeford long ago.’ We all spread jam on our bread. ‘Where’s your lad?’

‘He’s gone to a funeral,’ said Ma.

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘Nah – he works for a funeral parlour,’ I said. ‘He got dismissed from his job as a clerk in the Houses of Parliament when our name got in the newspapers. He was so good at writing that he actually worked sometimes with Mr Gladstone – and now he’s blooming walking behind hearses.’

‘Is that right?’ said Mackie.

‘Billy might be home soon, it was a very early funeral today because the man was a burglar.’

‘Is there some logic in that?’ asked Mackie, but as if I had conjured a spirit, the front door banged and Billy in his long-tailed black jacket and with his fine top hat in his hand came down the stairs and into the kitchen. When he saw Mackie sitting at our kitchen table it was as if he had to look twice, to make sure of what he was seeing: there was the Mudeford man eating bread and jam with me and Ma.

‘Hello, Mr Stacey,’ said Mackie.

‘Hello, Mackie,’ said Billy, ‘call me Billy,’ and then he laughed, looking like our Pa. ‘Well – welcome to 13 Wakefield-street, but what are you doing here? Fishing in the Thames?’

‘Lost my boat in a storm. Looking to buy a new one, I’m working on a ferry till I decide what to do next.’

‘Aint they got boats in Christchurch?’ said Ma.

‘I felt like a visit to London,’ he said calmly, ‘just to have a look.’

‘He’s going to work on one of them ferries from Blackfriars,’ I said to Billy and I gave him a little look. Those ferries weren’t
fishing
boats, we knew that! They took people to Gravesend to get on huge steamers to cross the world but there might be smuggling chances there, for smugglers.

‘Well,’ said Billy. ‘I am sorry about your fishing boat. And glad to see you, excuse my funeral attire but I’ve got a couple of hours off till the next one so I’ll have some bread and jam.’ He carefully took off his beautiful jacket Ma had made and hung it behind the door and then he sat at the table and reached for the bread knife.

‘Very gentlemanly clothes you have for your new position,’ said Mackie dryly.

Billy nodded, spread jam, said nothing more. We were all silent for a moment as if we were shy.

Then Mackie said quietly: ‘Those hypocrites,’ surprising Ma and Billy and me. ‘All the noble gentlemen, saved from scandal and it was you who lost your job I hear, lad. Did you know Lord Arthur Clinton was the brother of the Duke of Newcastle, that young fella that gambles all the time in Paris and his father was in the government?’

‘It never exactly mentioned all that in the newspapers,’ said Ma. ‘How did you know that?’

‘We’re not stupid down in Mudeford. We even saw that young duke briefly. Or at least, it was said to be him but no one was really sure. Whoever it was couldn’t get away from the funeral quick enough, him and that Mr Roberts. I reckon they weren’t there above fifteen minutes.’ He put down a piece of bread he was in the middle of eating and leaned back in our chair that was almost too small for him. ‘What happened in the end to those young fellows Lord Arthur was involved with that lived here? It all went very quiet after he died didn’t it?’

‘Freddie and Ernest?’ Ma’s voice was scornful. ‘
We
dont know. Our lives have been turned upside down and Billy fired but I suppose they wont come near Wakefield-street again. They let them out on bail months ago but we aint seen them, never saw them again. The papers said there would be a trial “one day”, ha!’

‘Do you know what?’ said Mackie. ‘Hardly anyone in Mudeford or Christchurch got paid for spending money to look after that sad fellow. Except the King’s Arms Hotel – owned by a big businessman in the town and known to a few royals who sometimes stay along the Mudeford coast. You two came to the egg lady’s house – do you know where she was? She took a blanket and lived down the back with her hens those days he was there, she didn’t have a good year and Johnny Hewlettson thought she could make a bit extra, giving a hiding nobleman in trouble her own house. Eightpence a night was all she asked him, eightpence – not even a shilling! To a Lord – and who’d look for Lord Arthur Clinton in the egg lady’s house? Not a penny has she seen. Other debts everywhere, most of them with people who dont have much money and put themselves out for him – and they’re still unpaid. And he the brother of the Duke of Newcastle.’ He shook his head and then he looked at Ma.

‘Mrs Stacey, do you have a room for a few weeks?’ All our faces must’ve looked really surprised. ‘I can work on this ferry as long as I like and I have to – decide what to do next.’

‘It’s a bit of a walk to Blackfriars and back from here,’ said Ma.

‘We’re walkers in Mudeford,’ said Mackie. ‘Even though we own a horse.’

‘We do have a room on the first floor,’ said Ma, but I could tell she was a bit reluctant. ‘We’re not as full as we used to be, thanks to Ernest and Freddie and Lord Arthur. Ten and sixpence per week.’

He took out his purse from his waistcoat and immediately put a guinea on the table.

‘Where’s your things?’

He looked a bit surprised. From the big pocket inside his cloak he pulled out a toothbrush that was all the rage, and some folded gentleman’s undergarments. He placed these next to his purse.

‘Those are my things,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy another shirt. If you’ll show me the room and give me a key I’d best be off to Blackfriars,’ and he stood.

‘Wait,’ said Billy quickly. He stopped eating, looked at Mackie very carefully. ‘Could you stay for a minute?’ Mackie waited, but a bit careful also: they were both looking at each other, sort of weighing each other. Then Billy said: ‘Would you sit down again?’ Mackie sat, didn’t speak. Then Billy just plunged in, like diving. ‘About what you said. There’s another man living here in our house who lost his job also. Elijah Fortune, he was the Head Doorkeeper at the Parliament, been there for years and years. And he was trying to raise some money to help Lord Arthur to get to France, because he knew Lord Arthur’s father. So he lost his position too.’ Again he looked at Mackie carefully before he spoke further. ‘We found out things about Lord Arthur Clinton. Did you find out things, Mackie?’