City of Secrets Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO
Jebediah Hill hitched his thumbs into his belt and bent over the boy cowering on the cobbles.
“Give me one reason why we shouldn’t beat the living daylights out of you,” he growled. “You’re a piece of scum what’s pinched our supper. Isn’t that so?” Straightening up he half turned towards Letty and winked. The skirts of his coat swirled round his legs and the coins in his pockets jangled. He had no need of left overs. Later that night, when he had collected the rest of the pickings due to him, he would treat himself and Mango to a hot steak and kidney pudding and a pint of ale at the Landogandcrow.
“I know it’s wrong to steal,” the child said bravely. “But I haven’t had anything to eat for so long.” His bottom lip trembled.
“Yeah,” Jeb snarled, still pretending to be angry. He, like Letty and Mango, knew all about being hungry.
“Keep the pie,” Letty said quickly. “It’s old.” She shot a warning glance at Jeb. “You can have another one,” she told Mango, who pounced gleefully and began shovelling the greasy pastry into his mouth before she could change her mind. “Let him be, Jeb. He hasn’t done nothing to you.”
“No Miss, thank you Miss,” the boy managed as he crammed the food into his mouth.
“I’m not a miss, I’m Letty Parker, the pie girl and this is Jeb and that greedy squirt calls himself Mango Jack.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the boy mumbled.
“And you are?” Letty demanded.
“George Arthur Worthington St. Clair.” The boy wiped his mouth with his sleeve and gave a little bow. “Delighted to make your acquaintance.”
“Bleedin ink,” Jeb whistled. “Right little snob you are.”
“George.” Mango flourished a hand and danced a step. “Arthur,” his voice rose in imitation. “Worthington,” he shrieked. “St. Clair,” he yelped, swaying with laughter. “Delighted is we to make your ‘quaintance.” George’s cheeks flushed. His eyes filled.
“Oh don’t be so ignorant,” Letty scolded. “Chipped off the bottom of a bleedin spice clipper you were Mango.”
“Was not. My Ma was from Tiger Bay.”
“You crawled out of the bilge of a coal barge then,” Letty flashed back.
“Stow it,” Jeb ordered.
“Don’t mind him, George. He’s harmless,” Letty said. Mango scowled. “Well mostly harmless,” she amended swiftly.
“It’s all right, thank you. My Mamma told me that I should never be upset by rudeness from the lower orders. They don’t know any better.”
“Lower orders,” Jeb sneered. “Who do you think you are? Crawling out from under a crate and nicking our pies. What’s your precious Mamma going to say about that?”
“My Mamma is with the angels,” George said and this time the tears spilled down his cheeks and his shoulders shook with sobs.
“So you’re an orphan. Is that how you ended up here?” Letty said gently. He was a strange little kid with a face like one of those half dressed babies with wings she’d seen in St. Nicholas Church. George went on sobbing.
“If he don’t want to share his scrip, I’m off,” Jeb said dismissively.
“No,” George hiccupped, his hand reaching out for the edge of Jeb’s coat as he moved away. “Don’t go. I’ll do whatever you want, only don’t leave me here. There’s rats and other things,” he glanced over his shoulder at the spot where Gabriel had been sitting and shuddered. “You won’t let him get me, will you?”
“Who?” Jeb stopped.
“Him.” George crept closer to Letty. “The one in the black coat.”
“Oh he’s gone,” she said airily.
“He scares me,” George said seriously. “Everything scares me.” His thin body pressed against her skirt. She smelt the sourness of his hunger and her stomach dropped. The kid was a right one. No fight in him; soft as a lump of Ma Prentis’s lard. He wasn’t going to last more than a few days on the wharves, not unless she and Jeb could do something for him. She stuck her thumbnail behind her front teeth and sucked hard; the taste of salt and sweat always helped her think.
“He’s so skinny, he’d slip down a drainpipe easy.” Jeb was thinking along the same lines.
“Hey what about me? That’s my job,” Mango said plaintively.
“You’re an outside man,” Jeb gave him his professional opinion. “This one here we could send up inside the pipe. Like up the flue,” he explained.
The child shuddered, his skin turning the colour of curdled milk. “Oh no, please don’t send me up a chimney again. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.”
“He’s one of Moore’s boys then,” Jeb looked at Letty. “A sweep’s monkey. And he said he was a gentleman.”
“I am,” the child wailed. “I was going to be in the choir in the cathedral. My mamma said I have the voice of an angel, but my step papa said I should be in business like him. I was going to start at the bottom...” His shoulders straightened, his eyes focused as if trying to remember a lesson. “I was to start at the bottom of the ladder and work my way up to the top. That’s it. Step by step. He said I was to be apprenticed and sent me off with Mr Mark the pedlar, who brought me to Bristol on his cart.” His face crumpled. “I think he sold me,” he whispered.
“Rats,” Letty hissed. Jeb’s face darkened.
“Then what?” he demanded.
“When we got here Mr Mark said I was worth ten shillings, but Mr Moore, he laughed and said he’d give him two and sixpence and he was lucky to get that much for a skinny little weasel like me. They spat and shook and then,” his body began to shake. “I couldn’t do it. The blackness and the soot. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move and Mr Moore he,” overcome with the horror of it, he stopped.
“He lit a bleedin fire under you,” Jeb supplied. “Well never you mind kid. What I’ve got in mind won’t scorch your backside.”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t.” George was still lost in the blackness of the chimney. “I ran away,” he said at last. “I’m never going to be a businessman like my step papa am I? Or sing in the cathedral like my mamma wanted. She said,” his voice wavered “I have the voice of an angel.” He gulped, his chest heaved and shuddered then he took another breath. Joining his hands, lifting his head, he breathed in and out. The shuddering stopped. He unclasped his hands and broke into song.
Sweet, yet sharp with longing, his voice spiralled through the evening mist. It rose to the topssails of the ships riding at anchor, echoed in narrow alleyways and billowed out over the river. He sang of the last rose of summer, the fading of love and happiness, of families torn apart and broken hearted lovers. Sailors hurrying to the tavern thought of girls they had left behind in foreign ports, hat girls and nail makers on their way home sighed for lost sweethearts, clerks in the warehouses paused over their ledgers remembering a time when they were not chained to their desks. Even the preachers, lurking outside inns and ale houses with their message of sin and hell fire, found their thoughts turning to a kinder heaven.
Mango stuck his thumb into his mouth. Letty squeezed her eyes tight. There was an empty ache inside her. A dim memory of warm arms and a welcoming lap. Jeb clenched his fists inside his pockets.
The last notes soared, then died. George looked at them expectantly. After a moment Jeb cleared his throat and said,
“Blimey, you could pass the hat round at the Landogandcrow and it’d be filled with guineas.” Mango swallowed and nodded, his head moving up and down like a clockwork toy.
Letty wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Sorted,” she said shakily. “I know what you can do, but you’ll have to wait a bit.” The boy’s face fell. “No don’t look like that. He won’t get you. I promise.”
“Old Moore won’t be down the docks not to chase a monkey,” Jeb added.
“Stay low and I’ll be back for you tomorrow. All right?” The boy nodded miserably.
“Please,” he held out his hands. “Don’t leave me here all on my own.”
“I said, we’ll sort it,” Letty said harshly. She didn’t like leaving him, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t take every pathetic little kid home with her.
“You’ll be all right. It won’t be long,” she added more gently. Thinking she was softening George took hold of her skirt.
“Come on Let,” Jeb said “Stop mathering him.”
“I’m not,” Letty said sharply. She didn’t want Jeb to think she was going soft. She tugged her skirt free and picked up her tray ledging it on her hips so the little boy could not get close. Then without a backward glance she followed Jeb.
George started after them; he ran a few steps, but Mango turned and darted towards him. Grinning horribly, he thrust his face into his.
“Letty says stay. You stay,” he hissed triumphantly. Terrified George nodded frantically. “That’s right. That’s good,” Mango whirled around, flapping his arms at him, before dancing away along the wharf. George stood and watched until the three of them disappeared, then he crawled back into his crate.