Walking in Pimlico (28 page)

I nearly dropped it. I wonder now if I should have dashed its brains out upon the steps and – but, no. Joe took it from me and pulled the towel about it.

‘The poor creature has come before its time. It needs milk, which she cannot provide. She is too weak. I think she will die.’

‘Then
it’ll
die, Joe, and a good thing too.’

He shook his head and frowned. ‘It’s a life, Mr Corney, and we must preserve it. What milk do we have?’

Only the mare, Cora, whose foal had died. The poor creature was milk-bound and suffered agonies each day while hard-handed grooms relieved her.

And so, as its mother slept, never stirring, hardly seeing day or night, her child lay in Joe’s arms and supped on mare’s milk.

Until this time I was mostly lined up. I had my berth in the circus, and an eye on Mrs Chittick, who was tipping me the nod and letting me know she was not disinclined herself. There was steady work to get the show ready for the tenting and the prospect of employment for as-long-as, and I didn’t mind the clowning now I had some wheezes in my pocket and wasn’t all the time being kicked by the horses or the Gov’nor. I had a comfortable shop in the Mammoth establishment, and no cause to complain.

But the fetch-and-carry of life changed all that and no mistake. Here was a sick woman and a sick baby, and neither one of them looked likely to see Christmas. The lady said her name was Marsh (but I know now that it was a false one) and she was fairly wrung out, and slept so long I thought she would never wake. Maybe it would
have been better if she
had
just slipped off in her sleep, for then she wouldn’t have had the world of troubles that she faced when she woke up.

It was the day after the child was born when she started very sick, and Joe, who was already fagged, was looking out for her again. Mrs Chittick looked into the wagon once and pronounced ‘childbed fever’ and made haste away. The fever was on her, red-hot, so that she knew no one and saw visions that sent her shouting and thrashing about. Then she complained of pains and how they hurt so much she could not bear to move so much as a finger. And the smell was like she was rotting from inside. Indeed, it hung about the wagon fearfully, for Joe would have the door and window open, saying (to me) that there needed to be clean air about her. And he had buckets of water and soap to scrub the floors, and had all the bed-linen burned and fresh brought (Mrs Chittick sent her third best).

We were burning sulphur candles, of course, for Joe said they was the only thing. But Chittick was afeard the stink would drive away customers, and having the wagon in the yard and Joe in attendance did cause some interest of the wrong sort. Mrs Marsh was in a poor way, her fever showing no sign of letting up, even after three days, and Joe all the time by her side, and Chittick getting impatient. The truth was that he was anxious to leave, there being only a children’s audience these days, which made a deal of mess and trouble. So the wagons were brung out, and mornings were spent painting and oiling, and repairing rotten bottoms. Bills had been printed, announcing ‘Last Week of the Season’ in black letters which shouted about ‘specials’ and ‘benefits’ which, of course, never come about. Not like the theatre, where benefits are the marker for the end of the season, and all the company hopes to put a bit extra in their pocket by a good turnout. Chittick was not of that mould, and what he took in the box he was inclined to keep. Not a man who
had charitable thoughts, wasn’t Chittick, but a man of business on account of having pulled himself up, as he often reminded me. I knew he was on the lookout for me, and had avoided him, being more nimble of foot than he, but he caught me one evening after the show had finished, when I was sat on an upturned bucket taking a breather.

‘You, Duke o’ York,’ he cried, ‘when’s your Mrs What’s-her-name-beyond going to be out of my wagon? I aren’t no Chittick’s Mammoth Charity, unless you didn’t know.’

I could see he was pleased with his clever remark, for he was puffing and huffing himself about, and waiting for me to laugh. But I was in no mood. Truth to tell, the last few days had made me think again and my thoughts were that I might clock out of the clowning business, having taken one too many cuffs from the Gov’nor, not to mention a decided coldness on the part of Mrs Chittick. Pleasant though some of it was, there was not enough money in the circus life to make it worth enduring the thumps and cusses I regular received, and a cold cot to boot rendered it hardly comfortable.

The Gov was in full flow now, fairly bursting with funniosities.

‘She does nowt but wail,’ he was complaining in a feigned northern accent. I heard tell he was from Putney, which is south, and also Easington-lane, which is north, but my view is that he was from nowhere at all, born on the road. The point being, of course, that he believed he knew all men and tongues.

‘She stinks the place out, and Mrs says there have been complaints from our neighbours.’

Who were, on one side, a glue factory, and on the other a brewery: complainants who knew a good stink when they nosed one, I reminded him.

But
he
was the only man making wheezes, and I ducked under his fist as he made to cuff me.

‘
I
keep you, and don’t you forget it!’ he said with that nasty curl
to his mouth. ‘
I’m
master around here.
I’m
the one who’s pulled himself up, and
I’ll
say what’s what.
She
goes.’

I had half expected it. He knew a good trap when he saw one.

‘Now,’ he says, ‘we are moving shortly, and if you wants to keep your shop, you’ll get rid of her.’

I protested. How could I do such a thing? She was sick and likely to die. And where would she go? He was not inclined to listen, he said. It was not his business. No more was it mine. She had outstayed her welcome. And indeed, he had been more than generous in allowing her to lay her head in his caravan which, though it no more belonged to him than to me, was a-setting on land for which he was paying rent. Therefore – and how he did enjoy holding forth like a lawyer’s clerk! – no court in this great land would deny him his right to turn her off as soon as he liked.

I blame myself for what happened next, for I should have been more careful. It was like this. Joe and I had some talks (at a distance from the circus, of course) about Mrs Marsh and her kiddie. Joe was of the opinion (and I had no cause to doubt him, since he’d been on the spot up to now), that she was not long under the stars. Only days, he said, and certain she looked in a very bad way. Indeed, worse than her child, which though it was a terrible creature to look upon and no mistake, seemed not against supping mare’s milk and rallying. And while its mother sweated and turned about in her bed, it lay still and calm, with eyes as big as balloons, and arms and legs all the time grasping and kicking against thin air like a spider’s. The hair what covered it when it was born still remained, like cobwebs, and long too. And when it cried – oh, my life! Not loud, but unnatural, dry and thin in the back of its throat. Not like a baby at all.

Joe undertook to care for both of them, as well as his grooming and sweeping. Some days he couldn’t hardly support himself on his two feet, and I felt bad for him and would have helped only – I cannot tell a lie – I had a horror of the child and would rather sit out
upon the road than sit within and know it was a-lying there in its box in the corner. I think Joe understood for he never pressed me, but just seemed glad of my company whether I was within or without. So we were odd pals, and many in the circus made comment, if not about Joe, then about the ailing woman what most of them had never seen. And truth to say, it
was
a strange thing for though circus folk are generous to their own, they are not always welcoming of outsiders. They are, so to speak, wary of them, and even I was still looked upon without favour by some. Equestriennes in particular. When they slipped into their St Giles’s Greek, these ladies abused you something terrible, Joe told me, and never held back, so you felt like you was in a foreign land in your own country when you stepped past them and they began jabbering and nodding to each other.

They were curious about Mrs Marsh, and rightly so, for most mothers want to show off their babby even if they’re not feeling too spry. But we were ‘closed up’ and babby was not for view, naturally, so they were feeling put out and suspicious. It was only a matter of time, though, before the true state of play was known and it happened almost by accident. Miss Rosa (Daisy Birkin to her mother) was passing by the caravan, saw the door open and unguarded, and went in sharpish. Simple as soap. But she come out all of a-shake, and it took no time at all for her to do the rounds of the other horse-ladies and for them all to come out and stare at the wagon. Then out comes Mrs Chittick and they bend her ear, and then the Gov, puffing and huffing and grizzly, for he’s been brung out of the public before his time, and he comes bursting forward and elbows himself past me, who is a-sitting on the steps and trying not to be noticed, and into the wagon, where there’s Joe and Mrs Marsh and babby.

He comes out a deal quieter than he went in, and takes Mrs to one side, and she – I suppose she thought he was boozy – digs him hard and goes in herself to verify. And
she
comes out, with Joe, who is wiping his hands and looking ready for a fight. But there is no
fight, and everyone goes back to their business, and I get ready for the show, and Joe, after giving the world the dark eye, shuts the door tight.

If the Gov knew something about babbies and childbearing, he also knew something about exhibiting, for, no doubt about it, he had words with Mrs and stared at the bottom of a few glasses and, red as a boiled lobster, caught me by the sleeve as I was crossing the yard. I will not attempt to describe the many rambles he went through to find his way to his finish, but it turned out something like this.

‘She goes. Babby stays.’

I protested. She was the babby’s mother, and it was not Christian, not human, not right to separate them. Gov shook his head like it would fall off into his lap.

‘Babby will make bags of shiners, if it’s given out properly, and who knows better than me, Chittick, how to do that.’ And he puffs himself up and waves his arm in the direction of the caravan where, because it’s getting dark, Joe has drawn the little curtains and put a friendly lamp in the window. Gov is in full flow of his own importance. ‘It’s all in the telling, Corney. You know, a good showman can make a flatfish a whale, and turn water into best ale if he knows how to talk them up. And here’ – and he waves again at the caravan with a triumphant, know-it-all look on his face – ‘here is the Fairy Child what I, Chittick, will talk up.’

I had no doubt at all that the Gov was as good as his claims and could make something of the babby, for in truth it had a good start, being a monster to begin with. But I couldn’t in my conscience forget Mrs Marsh, whose pale face and terrible cries haunted me by day and night. I wondered if it was time to get out that piece of paper she had given me weeks ago and seek those friends of hers (and mine, of course) in Lower Marlpool-street. I resolved to do so, and showed the paper to Joe, and told him what Chittick planned
and what I planned: to go to the Great Turk and see if they were still there. But I kept it close that I knew Lucy, for I still had a worry, like an itch I couldn’t reach, and I didn’t know what it was. Joe was all for the plan.

‘I think that is all we can do for her, Mr Corney. We should find her friends and beg them to care for her and the child.’

Which is what we did the following day, leaving the poor lady sweating and only half herself, and the child lying in its box.

Corney Sage – Brummagem streets

J
oe and I set off, tidy and licked, with a notion that our errand would be soon crossed off, that Mrs Marsh and her kid had the prospect of kind friends and a brighter future, and that afterwards we might look after ourselves. The prospect of tenting around the country, building up and pulling down the tent every day, with Chittick nasty and tight as a Jew’s pocket, had bothered me for a while, and not being one to stand about and wait for the situation to slap me around the face, I had already consulted the Organ of the Profession and found myself a nobby little shop (so I hoped) in a town I had never heard of, but whose name suggested country and quiet. I was thinking on this and how I ought to look out my little book of wheezes and songs and write out a few notes for the bandsmen as we traversed the Brummagem streets.