Chapter 2

Over the next while, Chance didn’t think about Emily at all ― that was until, heading down the Thames toward the lower docks, he caught sight of a Dubineau sign boldly painted on a warehouse near shore. Chance couldn’t read―not really. He’d had no formal education, and what little he knew was learned by experience. He learned his letters by scratching whatever text he saw into the dirt, and whenever he could find someone to ask what it meant, he did. So after a fashion he could read, slowly, painfully putting together the sounds. It was the same with counting. He still used his fingers to add and subtract, and for higher arithmetic he drew lines on the ground, adding them up as required.

It was strange that the Dubineau sign had caught his eyes. He wasn’t looking for it―not consciously at least. He was aware of some background irritation he couldn’t place, which came with some unease, that in the end he linked with Emily Dubineau―but not until that sign. Then he couldn’t stop thinking of her. Life experience hadn’t taught him to link cause to effect, or to interpolate or extrapolate: he took things at face value and did what was required of him. And perhaps because of that simplified view of life, he fit into whatever situation he found himself; he didn’t question his circumstances or resist them, but he simply went along with them. That changed with Emily. Chance tried to imagine what it was like to be rich, to be served, be pampered, taken care of every step of the way. He couldn’t picture it. To be loved, to be cherished―none of that had he experienced in his life of eighteen years. If, on the end of any day, he had enough food in his belly and if he had covers, he considered himself happy. Few wasted a kind word on him, and if they did he didn’t know how to value it. In that sense, cursing was the same as praising, it had little to do with him.

But now, here was Emily, a child of affluence whose every wish was somebody’s command; she was going to be stolen, held captive and then what? Yes, what? She could be killed. Not all kidnap victims were returned even if the ransom had been paid. He heard gossip at the wells and water pumps, at the locks, where all such grisly news was commonly discussed.

Chance knew something vital that affected someone’s life and he couldn’t escape it. He tried to think of something else. He had no cause to mix with rich folk. They lived in a very different world that had nothing to do with him. In the end the huge social distance insulated him, like a warm coat on a winter day.

On June 7, the Hardcastle Rose was off loading coal at the Quality Fuels and Kitchen Heat ramp, with a gang of eight men shoveling coal from the hold of the narrow boat into buckets that were lugged back into warehouse bins, where they were bagged and sold to heat stoves and houses all over London.

Chance was sent to the bakery to buy bread. Waiting his turn to be served, he listened as the other customers talked excitedly about the upcoming jubilee, the third anniversary of the young queen’s ascension. Even the bakery sold commemorative plates of the event. Chance peered curiously at the portrait of a young woman reflected on the fine porcelain. She didn’t look the twenty she was supposed to be.

“I don’t know about Albert. He’s her cousin,” said a matron with a large basket in her grasp.

“Second cousin?”

“Once or twice removed?” a woman with a harelip wanted to know.

Chance didn’t know what they were talking about. He vaguely remembered having brothers and sisters, but could hardly recall their names. His knowledge of family ties didn’t extend to cousins.

“There’s going to be a procession from Buckingham Palace to the abbey for a commemorative mass,” the matron declared enthusiastically. “My cousin works in an office on the second floor overlooking the route and I’ll be there to see the Queen and her consort ride by in the royal carriage.”

Chance got his loaf of light rye and left. He walked along the crowded sidewalk as carriages rattled along the cobbled street. Every once in a while a racy cabriolet cut in and out of the slower traffic. Near a book shop, a puppy got disoriented, halfway crossed the street, then froze and was run over by a coach drawn by four horses. The coach didn’t even pause. The puppy died in the arms of a young girl who cried and cried. Chance was no stranger to death, animal or human. He had often seen the dead carted off from overcrowded tenements. And in the workhouse hall, there was always one or two who wouldn’t wake up. About death, he remembered the stench most vividly.

“Can you help the little thing, Mister?” The tearstained young girl held out the puppy to him.

“Afraid not,” Chance replied sadly. As he looked at the limp body, at the creature that didn’t even know what destroyed him, he suddenly had a flash: the same was going to happen to Emily; she was going to be destroyed by forces she couldn’t anticipate. Just as helpless as this little pup, she would be destroyed, or changed beyond recognition. It wasn’t fair, but such was life. Ought he not do something to prevent it? If he could have he would have stopped the little dog and saved him. Had he only known. But he did know what was going to happen to Emily.

These thoughts stayed with him throughout the day and uncharacteristically for him, they wouldn’t let him sleep. He knew what was going to happen, he’d heard every detail of it. Should he not stop it? And would God be angry with him if he didn’t? A God who didn’t care: how could He, there was too much misery in the world.

Emily stirred his conscience as nothing else had. He hadn’t even known that he had a conscience up to now. Now it wouldn’t let him be. After hours of indecision, he resolved to go to the police tomorrow, even though he didn’t trust the police, feared and avoided them as best as he could. No officer had ever done anything for him. Still he must undertake something to prevent a crime and the police were the ones in charge of crimes.

Early next morning, Chance was in front of the Charing Cross Precinct station. Two policemen were guarding the entrance, swinging batons, lazily marking time as they walked up and down in front of the building. Still Chance was undecided. He feared he wouldn’t be believed. What proof did he have? None. Only his word. How much was the word of a riverrat worth? Enough to be taken seriously? He took a step this way and two steps back. The young cop with a freckled face and crooked teeth had been watching him loitering. He stepped toward Chance and demanded aggressively, “Well, what’ll it be?” He swung his baton in a circle, slapping it into his open palm. He took one more step closer. “Well out with it, boy, what’ve you done?”

“Me...? Nothing. I swear.”

“I dunno. You look somehow guilty to me.” He pushed his face into Chance’s, who recoiled from the man’s bad breath. No doubt this reaction confirmed his guilt.

“I haven’t done anything!”

“Then you have nothing to do here... so move along.”

Chance retreated. This was not what he’d expected, although he was unsure what he’d thought would happen. Still, it seemed the police were not interested in talking to him. What next? Nothing next, he decided, he’d tried. If officialdom didn’t want to listen then he couldn’t help that. He noted, however, that it was now June 8th.

He had another restless night, wrestling with his conscience. But what could he do, he’d tried but got nowhere. Still there ought to be a way. He slept only fitfully and woke heavy-lidded the next day. It’s June 9th, was his first thought.

Now that the Hardcastle Rose was empty, Chance and Colin cleaned out the holds of coal dust. The horses were being boarded in a large horse barn, so they also had a chance to clean out the stall. It was nice to sleep a couple of days without the biting smell of fresh manure constantly up one’s nose.

They sat around the breakfast table with nothing real to do. Ruth cleared off the dishes and made tea, not from the expensive oriental leaves, but from locally harvested nettles. Nigel lit up his pipe and puffed on it contentedly.

“I was born and raised on a narrow boat, but my parents were from the north country. They talked about sheep, hay and grass all the time. We couldn’t pass a pasture by the canal without my father commenting that the hay had gone to seed or would rot in the wet weather. He got real nostalgic-like around shearing time. Even though we were on water now, he wanted to be working the land. Mother talked about the large kitchen she grew up with, and how everyone had their own bedroom, imagine that. I didn’t care, I was a real waterbug. Me and my brothers slept forward like you two, the girl squeezed in with my parents. Every morning we woke in a different place and couldn’t imagine being tied to one spot for the rest of our lives. We used to watch the kids on shore, going to school with books under their arms, poor sods. We never had a day of schooling, never had a teacher demanding what’s two times two. Never wrote a single word. But we never got caned either. We had father to do that. Those were good times.”

“If your parents loved the land, why did they leave it?” Colin asked, chewing on a crust of bread.

“They were tenants and were thrown off the land. The landlord wanted something more profitable. Our place was strip mined for brown coal. Lots of people lost their homes and a living in those days. The countryside changed in one generation. People had to move into the cities and work in shops and factories.”

“But you like living on the water?” Chance wanted to know. If he was to spend his life on a narrow boat he wanted to know if it was worth it.

“What’s there to like? Do I like living in cramped quarters, and not escape the smell of you all? No, but I remember nothing else. Otherwise, work is work, as hard on shore as on water.”

Afterward Chance was sent to a store an hour’s walk away that sold fair quality cheese for a better price. Nigel trusted him with the money, something he didn’t let Colin near. It was a long walk, filled with sights and sounds of the city working. Some streets were torn up entirely to make room for the new sewer system to crisscross the city. The authorities were afraid of a fresh outbreak of the 1832 cholera epidemic in which over 800 died. The sewers were supposed to fix that.

When Chance got back with the cheese and change, he heard that Mr. Robson had come and gone. He was disappointed; he’d hoped to ask the boat owner what he ought do about the Brook brothers. He tried talking about it with Nigel, but as soon as he mentioned the brothers the man unleashed a tirade that swamped Chance’s concerns. “I tell you, stay clear of them bully boys. They’re bad, bad news, never up to any good. If I catch you dealing with them, I’ll boot you from this boat.”

“I’m not dealing with them,” Chance protested but in his anger, Nigel was past hearing. Won’t anybody listen? Chance thought desperately.

The tiller of the boat had to be reworked, as the wood was partially rotten and could break any time. Rather than buying a new tiller, Mr. Robson decided to refurbish the old at half the cost. But this would lay the Hardcastle Rose up for a week and a half while the repairs were made, so they were tied up at a wharf in East London. This part of the port was heavily influenced by the tides and at times the boat sat on stinking tidal mud. It didn’t help that 35 yards down river a drainage ditch emptied into the Thames. But then, this was why they were called riverrats.

This interruption in their schedule didn’t help Chance any; it gave him more time to worry about Emily Dubineau. Another few days slipped away and it was already June 13, 1840 with the Queen’s jubilee just a week away.

Chance decided that maybe his best course was to try to let the Dubineaus know about the danger to their daughter. He went to the firm’s head office on Bond Street and asked to see Mr. Henry Dubineau. A bespectacled secretary regarded him with skepticism from behind his big desk.

“Do you have an appointment?” The man made the pretense of consulting his calendar.

“No, but I have important information for Mr. Henry―”

“No one sees Mr. Dubineau without an appointment,” the secretary ruled, snapping the appointment book shut.

“It’s really important for me to talk to him―” Chance took a step closer, wringing his cap in his hands.

“No exceptions!” The secretary returned to his ledger, dismissing Chance. He looked up a minute later, frowning. “Are you still here? Do I have to call the guard?”

“No, no...” Chance left, disheartened.

He was still downcast when he returned to the Hardcastle Rose. In the small cabin he found a visitor talking earnestly with Neal. He was introduced as Mr. Archibald Abercrombie, someone from the Lighthouse Mission, a charitable organization that worked toward improving the condition of the canal people.

“We want especially to reach the young people. There is a shocking lack of education on the water. People don’t know how to read or write and know little of mathematics, history...”

“I can sign my name,” Ruth declared proudly.

“Good for you, lass. That’s the first step.” The man beamed at her and turned toward the boys. “And you?”

“I don’t need to read... or write,” Colin asserted. “I have a good mouth to talk my way through any conversation.”

“You can’t talk a letter.”

“I don’t have anyone to send a letter to.” Colin dismissed the whole issue, and took himself above deck. Mr. Abercrombie turned toward Chance.

“I can read... sort of.”

“That’s great. Who taught you?”

“No one. What little I know, I learned myself.”

“How?” Mr. Abercrombie looked puzzled.

Chance shrugged. “There are signs everywhere. Painted on walls and billboards. On the sides of carriages, above shops, pretty near everywhere. You see a letter, hear the words, you learn.”

“Amazing. You’ve done well for yourself.” Then he explained how the Mission ran a number of boats up and down the major canals, with teachers on board and small libraries. “We spend a lot of money civilizing the world, educating the colonies but shamefully ignore our own people. We must seek betterment at home too...” Mr. Abercrombie spoke with zeal and thumped a text book he was showing.

Nigel frowned. “People work too hard, even the kids. They’re tired after a long day. Too exhausted to learn, all they want to do is sleep.”

“That’s the same problem in the factories and workhouses, I fear. Yet, education is the key to the future. We’re strong and powerful and are the leading nation in the world today because of what we know and what we’ve accomplished. We have the best machines in the world, the smartest minds to design them. Machines which should make our lives easier, but the way it is now, we’re slaves to them...”

Nigel MacGrath listened to the man, to fill the waiting hours. Chance, who rarely thought of such things, concentrated hard to keep up with the conversation. He knew little of the world and didn’t know what a colony was, only that England had a number of them.

After about three hours Mr. Abercrombie left, leaving a few books behind. Chance picked one up and puzzled through the dense print of the first pages. He spent some time on the illustrations, impressed by the artistry. Ruth served lentils with a bit of pork, but Chance had little appetite for it.

“Mrs. Summers died on the Garfield Cove,” Ruth told them. “Of food poisoning. In summer the food spoils quickly.” She’d cooked their meal an extra long time, turning it into mush.

“That’s too bad about her. I used to job with Sid Summers on a ferry from Glasgow down the river Clyde over to the islands. That was before he got married. How many kids did they have?”

“Ten.” Ruth had got the latest news at the water pump.

“Good grief! Where did they put them all? The Garfield Cove is the same size as the Hardcastle Rose, not much room in it.” Puzzled, Nigel looked around the cabin, trying to visualize ten kids with parents. Chance was mouthing the words, reading. It took him over an hour to get through the page, piecing each word together, often guessing at the meaning. By evening the page swam before his eyes and he took a headache to bed.

Colin was in the opposing hammock already, smoking a clay pipe and avidly perusing a poster of a dancing girl doing high kicks.

“Where did you get that?”

“From a back wall of a dance hall.” Chance peered at the picture, but Colin withheld it from him. “You didn’t lend me any money when I needed it, so I won’t let you look at this now.”

“I didn’t have any money,” Chance growled, then turned his back on Colin and tried to sleep, but Emily wouldn’t let him. It was getting close to the time frame that the Brook brothers had planned to snatch her. Tomorrow is the 14th.

By the next day, Chance had decided to try contacting the Dubineaus at home. They have to be warned. He didn’t know where they lived, but after asking the newsboy near the Dubineau firm he was told to look for Hatfield House on Moss Park Avenue. Chance was not familiar with that part of the city and it was only after asking several times for directions that he finally found the place. It turned out to be an imposing three story house, with double baked bricks and tall windows covered by fine lace curtains.

Chance slicked down his hair and with a hammering heart he knocked on the well-appointed front door. A doorman in an immaculate white shirt and black vest opened the portal and regarded him frostily.

“No beggars,” the presence said.

“I’m not begging―”

“No solicitation―”

“I’m not soli… solisitting,” Chance stumbled over the unfamiliar word, wondering what the heck it meant. The man made to close the door. “Wait!” Chance implored. “I have something important to―” But it was already too late, the door was closed.

Taking a big breath, Chance used the brass knocker to insist. The door swung open this time and a large brawny man filled the threshold, his mouth set in a sneer.

“You been told to bugger off, so go bugger...” The door slammed close again.

Twice repulsed, Chance retreated. He didn’t understand how people refused to listen to him when he had such a dire warning of impending danger to communicate. Someone needed to hear this!

Passing one of the many churches he went inside, thinking to pray. He wasn’t at all religious but he didn’t know what else to do. It was a high Anglican church, empty except at the far end, where people waited at the confessional. I will tell the priest, maybe he’ll help me, flashed through Chance’s thoughts. He joined the waiting people and sat as one by one, a sinner went in and a penitent left the confessional booth. Then it was his turn, Chance pulled the curtain closed behind him and knelt down, wondering what else he ought to do. He sensed the priest behind the screen but suddenly didn’t know what to say.

“Your sins then,” a soft voice prompted.

“I don’t have any,” Chance muttered.

“Then why are you here?”

“I overheard something. Something bad. People wanting to do bad things to others... for money. To capture and hold prisoner,” Chance said in a rush.

“Slow down, my son. Take it slow.”

Chance rattled off the facts, desperate to convince the priest. After he was through, there was a long silence.

“This sounds like a criminal matter. Something for the police. I hear your confession and absolve you, but you’re talking about someone else’s sins, and that’s beyond my calling.”

“But the police won’t listen to me...” And Chance told the priest all he’d tried.

“Write a letter then, to warn the family.”

Now that was an idea. He was dismissed and out of the confessional before he realized that he couldn’t really write, but he was determined to try. He walked back to the Hardcastle Rose, settled himself into the stall and tried to write a letter. He gripped a piece of lead and wrote with large awkward strokes, painfully piecing together a warning. “Mitter Henry. Emilee in dangr. Wiil bee atakt. Keep homme. Leto Not on stret.”

He frowned at the piece of paper, knowing things were wrong but not how. Finally he crumpled it up and threw it away. Taking another section of wrapping paper, he tried again with no better result. After four attempts he gave up. Writing was harder than he’d ever imagined. He despaired: it wasn’t going to work. Who was going to believe a message written on paper that was used to wrap a fish from the fishmonger?

Disgusted with his inability to make progress, Chance washed his hands of the whole problem. He had tried everything he could think of, nothing worked thus far. Let someone else struggle with it.

On the 15th, they had a visitor, Sergeant Major George Willis, formerly of the British East India Regulars. He was an old crony of Nigel’s, and nursing a bottle of cheap gin, they talked louder and louder as the gin disappeared. Ruth was washing socks. Chance leaned back against the wall and wondered what and where India was.

“I tell you, this country’s obsession with steam will be our undoing. Used to be you could heat your place with coal, cook all your meals... now that costs almost triple. Who can afford such increases? And why? Because the factories, the foundries and the mills need steam to drive the industry. And don’t forget the monster iron ships, needing mountains of coal to get around the world. What was wrong with sailing anyway? The wind was free. It didn’t have to be mined and transported, fed into boilers. True it didn’t always blow from the right direction, but it was clean.”

“About one third of the coal we transport is for the lower port of London, for the ships. They say that sail will completely disappear by the turn of the century.” Nigel took a big pull on his pipe. “Would be a shame to lose the tall ships, the fast cutters. A glorious sight with their full spread of sails coming up the Thames.”

“The world is going to the dogs, I tell you. Look at the cities nowadays. Full of factories, belching chimneys everywhere you look. And soot on everything. On the furniture, even in your food. I can hear it crunching sometimes in my bread. Is that anyway to live, I ask you? The smoke gets so bad sometimes, it’s hard to breathe it’s so thick. I remember a clean country when I left for service in India but when I came back...” He opened the stove door and spit noisily into the ash bed.

“How was India?”

“Bad, in a different way. Burning hot in summer, then rain the rest of the year. Crowding and poverty like you wouldn’t believe. People live on the open street, die there too, rotting under the sun.” He shook his head to shed the memory. “I was involved in two uprisings and a major war in 1817. Three thousand of us faced 30,000 of the Maratha enemy, and for a while they had the better of us but then we mowed them down with our musketry. You should’ve seen it, volley after volley cutting their ranks like a wheat field under the scythe at harvesting. They were forming up for a final charge but we hit them with a preemptive attack and sent them running, though we were outnumbered 10 to 1.”

“Preemptive?” Nigel asked.

“You do unto them what they would do unto you, but sooner, catching them off guard, spoiling their plans.” George Willis smiled, relishing the glory of those days, then his face darkened. “I got shot there, and shipped back to Calcutta, never fired another shot. I still carry a musket ball...” he pulled up his shirt to show a scar in his side. “When I came back in ‘31, England had changed. Everywhere factories and iron beasts. Iron bridges, iron rails, heck, narrow boats made of iron. And look at the railroads. Everyone wants to travel on them. Big stinking worms, dragging themselves through the countryside, spoiling nature’s view with their tracks and constant whistling at every crossing.”

George Willis liked to talk and once started he was hard to stop―not that people wanted him to, he was full of interesting tales. But he had his own perception on things. “You know the Ludders might have been right in 1812 when they destroyed the mechanical looms, the start of mechanization. Or in the Swing Riots in the 30’s of rural laborers destroying the threshing machines that threatened their livelihood. The fact is machines steal jobs from workers and with jobs, steal their livelihood. How’re we supposed to live without a way to earn a living? With the canal boats it’s the railroads. Every year more miles of tracks are laid and the canals are used less. No wonder that the waterways are deteriorating and locks fall into disrepair. Why invest money in a dying concern?”

“Surely, it’s not that bad...” Nigel protested; he didn’t like where George was taking the country.

“Just wait 20, 25 years. You’ll not see freight moved by water, it’ll all be by railroads.” George left behind a foreboding silence in his wake.

“Uncle Nigel, it’s not that bad, is it?”

“Nah, Child. George always likes to exaggerate.”

The talk stirred Chance up. Lying in his hammock, he tried imagining this fabulous place called India, mahar something, princes, and uprisings and wars. What would it be like to stand in the forefront of a battle, bravely exchanging fire with the enemy, then attack... a special attack... preemptive attack to disrupt the enemy’s plans. Then to be wounded and shipped back and find the home country changed. Chance had to wonder about the last. He wasn’t old enough to note such changes; to him everything was normal, the way it’d always been. George must have been exaggerating, as Nigel claimed.