9

THE DINNER THAT the Duke of Battersea gave Dr Furneaux’s students was long remembered at the Academy of Art. As the Duke explained apologetically, the menu was put together at such short notice that the guests could only expect pot luck; just a neatish meal. There were but three courses: the first consisted of oysters, lobsters, salmon, turtle-soup, and some haunches of turbot; this was followed by turkeys, chickens, a side of beef, and a whole roast pig; the last course consisted of veal-and-ham pies, venison pasties, salads, vegetables, jellies, creams and fruit. ‘Just a pic-nic,’ as the Duke observed. ‘But as we are all such near neighbours, I hope you won’t take offence that we haven’t been able to do better in the time.’

Neither Dr Furneaux nor his students showed any tendency to take offence. The students, many of whom had never seen so much food in their lives before, ate like famished wolves. Gus, sitting by Simon, and surrounded by high ramparts of oyster shells, had eaten steadily and in silence for an hour when at last he broke off to announce with a sigh:

‘It’s no use: I couldn’t cram in another crumb, not if you was to pay me. It does seem a waste with all that’s left! Ah well, this dinner ought to do me for a week, then it’s back to apple-peel and Mrs Gropp’s parsley. I must say, his Grace is a prime host, ain’t he, Fothers? Nothing behindhand about this set-out, is there?’

Fothers could not reply; he had eaten nineteen jellies and was leaning back in his chair with a glazed expression.

The Duke stood up and cleared his throat rather shyly, amid shouts of ‘Three cheers for his Grace!’ ‘Silence for the Dook!’ ‘Pray hush for old Batters!’

‘Gentlemen,’ the Duke said. ‘My wife and I are very happy to welcome you here tonight. You saved our lives yesterday and we shan’t forget it. There has always been a bond between my family and the Academy of Art ever since it was founded by Marius Rivière, who, as you may know, married my aunt, Lady Helen Bayswater. From now on the bond will be even closer. I should like to make this dinner an annual event—’ (‘Hooroar for Battersea!’ ‘Good health to old Strawberry Leaves!’) – ‘and I am also going to endow the Academy with five scholarships for needy and deserving students. They will be known as the Thames Rescue Bursaries. The first two have already been awarded by myself and Dr Furneaux in consultation to Mr Augustus Smallacombe and to Mr Simon – I’m afraid I don’t know your last name,’ the Duke ended, breaking off and looking apologetically at Simon, who was so astonished that he stammered:

‘M-mine, your G-grace? – I don’t know it either.’

‘Were you never christened?’ asked his Grace, much interested, ‘or had your parents no surname?’

‘Why, you see, sir, I was an orphan,’ Simon explained. ‘I never knew my parents.’

‘Then where –’ The Duke’s further question was interrupted by Jabwing the footman, who chanced to drop a very large silver tureen full of oyster shells with a resounding crash just behind his Grace’s chair. Then the students began cheering Gus and Simon so vociferously that no more could be said. The Duke smilingly nodded to Simon and indicating that he would very much like to hear his history on a later occasion, stood up and invited his guests to come and view the restored Rivière canvas.

They all trooped up the great flight of stairs from the banqueting-hall to the library. Here the end wall had been curtained off by a large piece of material – was it the Duchess’s tapestry turned back to front? Simon rather thought so – and when everybody had been marshalled in, and Dr Furneaux shoved to a position of honour at the front, the Duchess pulled a string to unveil the picture.

The material fell to the ground and there followed a silence of astonishment.

‘Devil take it!’ exclaimed his Grace. ‘What’s become of the picture? Scrimshaw, Jabwing, Midwink – where’s the Rivière gone?’

Nobody knew.

‘It was there this morning, your Grace,’ Jabwing said.

‘Well, I know that, stupid! You didn’t take it out for a last clean-up, did you, my boy?’ the Duke asked Simon, who shook his head.

The Duchess, feeling that the spirits of the party might be sadly lowered by this mishap, cried, ‘Oh, do not regard it, William! ’Tis odds but it’s merely been mislaid and will turn up directly if we do but keep our heads. Let us think no more about it, but, instead, amuse ourselves and our guests with dancing or diversions which I’m sure the young people would much prefer.’

‘Let’s play Hunt the Picture!’ exclaimed Gus.

‘Capital notion!’ shouted somebody else.

‘Huzza for Gus!’

‘We’ll find the picture for your Graces, never fear!’

In a trice the high-spirited students had scattered from the library and were darting upstairs and downstairs, along galleries, through suites, in and out of closets, saloons, antechambers, armouries, falconries, heronries, butleries, and pantries all over Battersea Castle in search of the missing picture. They turned the whole place topsy-turvey in their enthusiasm, but the Rivière canvas was not forthcoming, though innumerable other pictures were whisked down from the walls and submitted for the Duke’s inspection.

‘Is this it, your Grace?’

‘Is this?’

‘Is this?’

Pictures were soon piled high in the library. But the Duke shook his head to all of them.

‘Dear me,’ sighed the Duchess, ‘I could wish that these delightful young people were a little less volatile.’

At that moment a chandelier, on which Fothers had been swinging from side to side as he examined some pictures that hung rather high up, fell to the floor with a loud crash. The chandelier was shattered but Fothers was unhurt, though he looked rather green.

‘Dashed uneasy motion,’ he murmured. ‘Like on board ship. Shan’t try that again.’

He picked himself up and went off to search in the muniment rooms.

‘Oh, fol-de-rol, my dove,’ said the Duke, ‘I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed myself so much. Never seen the old place looking so lively. Anyway, we won’t trouble our heads any longer about the picture – of a certainty some poor half-witted niddlenoll must have gone off with it – one of those whatd’yecallems with a mad craving for pictures. I’ll tell the magistrates about it tomorrow and ten to one the feller will be laid by the heels in a couple of days if he doesn’t walk in with it saying he’s Henry the Eighth.’

Soon after this Simon took his leave, expressing warm gratitude to the Duke and Duchess for their hospitality and for the unexpected and most welcome Thames Rescue Bursary. It was nearly time for his appointment with Sophie.

As he ran down the stairs – matters were in such chaos all over the Castle, with students dashing hither and thither, that no footman attempted to see him out – he thought he heard somebody trying to attract his notice.

‘Hey there, you! Hillo! Psst!’

He looked round the hallway and saw Justin waving to him from behind a suit of armour.

‘What is it?’ Simon said.

‘I’m coming to the fair with you tomorrow.’

‘Famous,’ said Simon. ‘I told his Grace about it and he doesn’t mind.’

‘That ain’t to the purpose,’ Justin said. ‘I tell you, Uncle Bill’s always agreeable. It’s Buckle who’d put a spoke in the wheel – sour old cheesebox – but it’s the luckiest thing in the world, he’s been called away to Deptford on two days’ urgent private business – rich aunt dying or some such humdudgeon – and won’t be back till tomorrow evening. Where shall I meet you?’

‘On Chelsea Bridge, an hour after noon,’ Simon suggested.

‘Tooralooral,’ Justin said conspiratorially, and disappeared back behind the suit of armour as if he expected that the very walls would report on his plans to Mr Buckle.

Sophie, true to her word, had finished the blue dress.

‘Soph, you’re the kindest good girl in the world,’ Simon said, and gave her a hug. ‘I’ll buy you some fairings tomorrow, see if I don’t. Now, shall I take you back to the Castle?’

‘No, for Mrs Cobb’s invited me to stop the night here, thank you.’

As Simon had half expected, Dido was lurking up in his room, on tenterhooks with anticipation.

‘Have you got it? Have you got it?’ she demanded in a whisper before he was through the door. When he lit a candle and showed her the dress she was absolutely dumbstruck with admiration.

‘Oh!’ she breathed. She took it reverently from him, laid it out on the bed, and stroked it as if it had been a living thing. ‘Oh! Ain’t it naffy! Shall I put it on now?’ She held it up against her.

‘Certainly not,’ said Simon firmly. ‘If you did, it’s odds but you’d go to bed in it and come out tomorrow looking like a piece of mousetrap. You’d best leave it here, where it won’t get dropped and trampled on – I know how you treat your things.’

‘I never would with this! Oh, wouldn’t Penny be green if she could see it! I wish I could see her face.’

‘Well, run along now, cully,’ Simon said. ‘The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner morning will come.’

She started towards the door, then turned and, coming back, pulled his head down to her level. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered gruffly in his ear, then bolted from the room.

But Simon, getting into bed, felt a pang of dismay. Did Dido but know it, she had little cause to thank him for what he was going to do soon.

They set off for the fair next day in high fettle, met Justin on the bridge, as arranged, and went on to collect Sophie from the Cobbs. Dido was delighted to meet the kitten again there and begged that it might be allowed to accompany them to the fair, but Simon felt that this would be too much of an anxiety; he had enough responsibility as it was. At first Justin and Dido were inclined to regard one another with jealous suspicion and hostility: Justin looked down on Dido as a gutter-brat, and she sneered at him as a high-nosed counter-coxcomb. But Simon and Sophie were so cheerful and good-natured that no one could be long in their company without succumbing to their influence, and soon the whole party were in charity with one another and marched off towards Clapham in good spirits. Dido thanked Sophie very prettily for the blue dress, while Justin went so far as to say that she looked quite well in it and he wouldn’t have recognized her.

The fair was already in full swing when they reached Clapham Common. Hucksters were shouting their wares, shrill music from the trumpets and hurdy-gurdies competed with them, and the roar of the happy crowds could be heard above that of the giddy-go-round.

‘What shall we do first?’ said Simon, surveying the colourful booths. ‘Shooting Gallery, Imperial Theatre showing Panoramas from History, Fat Lady, Snake-Charmer, Living Skeleton, Mermaid, Flying-Boats, Wise Pig, Drury Lane Drama, Swan-Boats on the Long Pond, Whirligigs?’

‘Oh!’ cried Dido. ‘Everything! Everything!’

Simon looked at Sophie. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes shone bright with excitement. ‘Isn’t this famous!’ she said. ‘Who’d have thought, a year ago, that we’d ever be having such a gay time?’

They did everything. They won coconuts at the coconut-shies, looked at the Fat Lady and the Living Skeleton (very poor show for a penny, Dido considered), flew on the flying-boats (Justin turned very pale, but recovered himself after partaking of seven ginger-nuts and a glass of lemonade) and sampled the Drury Lane Drama and the Imperial Theatre. They interviewed the Talking Pig, which would answer any question put to it – and found that the answers consisted of grunts. They ate oysters and plum cake and ginger-wine at Barney’s Restaurant. Justin treated Dido to two rides on the giddy-go-round (the Duke had given him half a guinea and he had forgotten to return Simon’s half-crown); they whirled off, riding on a golden goose and a scarlet camel respectively. Simon took Sophie sailing in a swan-boat, and the whole party met again at the shooting-gallery, where Simon, whose marksmanship was excellent after several years of hunting for his dinner with a bow-and-arrow, knocked down ten bottles with ten shots.

‘First prize, sir,’ said the man glumly, and handed Simon a huge china vase. It was so big that Dido could have climbed inside it.

‘He doesn’t want to carry that about,’ said the quick-witted Sophie. ‘Give him what it’s worth instead.’

The showman gave Simon ten shillings (‘I daresay it’s worth three times as much,’ muttered Justin) and he spent it on doughnuts for the whole party and a visit to the Fire-Breathing Dragon (where Dido disgraced them by tiptoeing round to the back and discovering a little man in the dragon’s stomach producing jets of steam by means of a boiling kettle).

Then they listened to a lady singing ‘Cherry Ripe’, and inspected the Mysterious Minnikins, who proved to be puppets.

Then, feeling somewhat tired and hungry, they ate mutton-pies and drank pineapple punch at a chop-stall by the Amazing Arcade, where there were little tables set out on the grass.

By now evening had come and fireworks from the Spectacular Pyrotechnical Display were making wonderful swoops and sparkles and whirls of colour against the darkening sky.

‘I suppose we should be going soon,’ Simon said. ‘Mrs Twite said be back by ten, and so did the Duke.’

Justin and Dido immediately broke into pleading for ‘just one more show’. ‘Look, there’s a fortune-teller, Madam Lolla,’ said Dido. ‘We ain’t been to her yet. Oh, please, Simon!’

Simon counted his money and reckoned that he had just enough for the fortune-teller and the journey home, so they entered Madam Lolla’s booth.

She was a fat, dark gypsy-woman with black eyes and a pronounced moustache, impressively dressed in a quantity of purple draperies.

‘Cross my hand with silver, young ladies and gentlemen,’ she said affably, and told them that Simon would have a long journey over water, that Justin would soon meet a long-lost relative, and that Sophie would be lucky all her life ‘because of your pretty face and taking ways, my dearie’.

‘Pho, what dull, mingy fortunes,’ cried Dido. ‘Tell mine! I’ll lay there’s something more exciting than that in it!’

She stuck out her grubby hand to the gypsy who pored over it for a minute and then looked at her oddly.

‘What’s the score, then missis?’ Dido said. ‘Doesn’t I get a fortune?’

‘Yes, of course, dearie,’ the gypsy said quickly. ‘You’ll meet a tall dark stranger and have a surprise and go on a journey.’

‘Oh, what stuff.’ Dido was impatient. ‘Nothing else?’

‘Only one other thing,’ the gypsy said. ‘You had a present today, didn’t you, missy?’

‘Yes I did.’ Dido glanced down proudly at her dress, which, contrary to her usual habit, she had contrived to keep clean and unspotted through all the hurly-burly of the fair.

‘Well, soon you’ll be giving a present,’ said the gypsy. ‘You’ll be giving it to the two people as gave you yours, and it’ll be a gift as costs all you’ve got to give, and is worth more than they know. And there’ll be sorrow in the gift as well as happiness, but they’ll be grateful to you for it as long as they live.’

‘Is that all? Pooh, what a capsy, weevilly fortune. Give a present, indeed! I’d like to know how, when I ain’t got any mint-sauce. Nothing more?’

‘No,’ snapped the gypsy, suddenly and unaccountably angry. ‘You’ve tired me out, the lot of you. Be off, and leave me in peace.’

They were all tired, they realized now. Justin stayed with the two girls under a tree at the common’s edge, watching the fireworks, while Simon ran off and found a hackney carriage. They drove home in the silence of exhaustion, first to the Cobbs, to drop Sophie who was staying there for her week’s holiday, and then on to Battersea Castle. Justin wanted to be left at the entrance to the tunnel, but Simon, who had promised the Duke to look after his nephew carefully, thought it best to take him to the main door.

‘Ain’t this swish?’ Dido kept murmuring as they bowled up the long drive between the gas flares.

‘Oh, odds boddikins,’ muttered Justin uneasily as they pulled up. A tall figure stood on the Castle steps awaiting them with folded arms.

‘It’s Uncle Buckle!’ exclaimed Dido. She put down the window on her side and called out. ‘Hillo, Uncle Buckle! Look at me! Ain’t I the dandy? We’ve been to the fair!’

‘Dido!’ exclaimed Mr Buckle, thunderstruck. He then turned to Justin, who was just alighting, and said terribly, ‘My Lord Bakerloo! What is the meaning of this – this escapade?’

‘Uncle Bill said I might go,’ Justin mumbled sulkily.

‘I am sure he had no idea you would be consorting with such low – vulgar – companions as these.’

‘I ain’t low!’ Dido called out indignantly, but Mr Buckle took no further notice of her, and went on rating Justin in a harsh, carrying voice. As there was nothing they could do for the unfortunate boy, and it seemed unkind to listen to his set-down, Simon asked the jarvey to drive on to Southwark, the coach turned, and they continued their journey.

‘Poor Justin,’ said Dido, giggling, as they rumbled through the dark streets. ‘I wonder if Uncle Buckle will dust his jacket for him? D’you reckon Ma will give me a trimming for going on the spree with a Dook’s nevvy?’

Simon thought it unlikely.

‘Anyways,’ said Dido with a sigh, ‘I wouldn’t care if she did! It’s been the best bang-up day of my whole life and I’ll never forget it, never! Wasn’t the Punch and Judy a ripsmasher!’ She fell into a silence of recollection.

‘I never knew Mr Buckle was your uncle,’ Simon remarked presently.

‘Lor, yes, he’s Ma’s brother, but we ain’t gentility enough for him, so he don’t visit us above once in a blue moon. I’ll tell you what, Simon,’ said Dido, looking carefully around as if to make sure that Mr Buckle was not riding with them in the hack, ‘I can’t give you a present, like Madam Lolla said, but there’s one thing I can do for you – and I’d like to, as you’ve give me such a prime good time – I can tell you what happened to Dr Field!’

Simon was silent with astonishment for a moment or two.

At last he said cautiously:

‘I should like to know that, Dido.’

‘Well, it was like this,’ she told him. ‘Pa said I was never to mention it to a living soul, or he’d beat me and shut me up in the boot-hole, but I don’t care! You see Dr Field used to lodge in our house –’

At this moment the hack turned into Rose Alley and stopped outside No. 8.

‘Why, there’s Ma!’ cried Dido. ‘Wait till I tell her what a famous time I’ve had. Ma, Ma, we saw the Drury Lane Drama!’ She opened the door and tumbled out on to the pavement, eager to relate her day’s doings. Mrs Twite, however, only said:

‘It’s long past your bedtime, child. Come along in at once.’

Simon paid off the driver and turned to follow Mrs Twite. But she seemed to have locked the door behind her, and, as he rattled the latch unavailingly and then rapped the knocker, something dark and soft and suffocating was forced down over his head, and a pair of hands gripped his throat. He struggled and struck out, but other hands pinioned his arms and legs, while the clutch on his throat tightened. A rocket seemed to explode on the back of his head, he crumpled forward on to the steps, and was conscious of nothing more.