Thursday 16 August 2012

Days 13, 14 and 15

Days 13 and 14  - 0 word count (getting back from festival, work, and the need for an early night!)

Day 15 1601 words


Gabriel lived in a tall, white townhouse beside a square in Bloomsbury. Ernest had never been to this part of London before, and kept looking around nervously as if he expected someone to shoo him away. But he found his way to the house and went around the side to the tradesman’s entrance. This caused confusion in the house, with the kitchen maid refusing to let him in, on the grounds that she could not ask Master Gabriel to set foot in the kitchen, and she could not let ‘the likes of him’ go upstairs. Eventually Ernest heard Gabriel calling for him from somewhere above, and ducked past the maid to make his escape. Gabriel looked as if he was about to make some witticism at Ernest’s expense, but seeing that Ernest was genuinely panicked by his surroundings to the point of being close to tears, he did not. Instead he took his friend by the hand and led him up the carpeted stairs to the nursery and schoolroom.
Ernest was most fascinated by the electric lights, and then by the shelf of neatly painted tin soldiers, and then by several shelves of books. He turned the pages carefully, diving in and out of different stories. Gabriel leaned against the large rocking horse and watched him.  ‘Anything you’ve not already had a read of, you’re welcome to borrow. For as long as you like.’
Ernest did not hear the diplomacy. ‘I’ve never read a book except the Bible and the hymn book.’
‘Then you are welcome to start with some of these. Walter Scott’s a good ‘un.’
Ernest looked at the tiny print of Ivanhoe, and raised his eyebrows. ‘I think, because I’d be reading it with candlelight…’ he muttered, putting it back. He pulled out The Blue Fairy book and glanced at the inscription on the frontispiece.
‘To our Darling Boy on his Sixth Birthday from his loving Mama and Papa.’ Ernest read, but it was the date that made him gasp ‘You have my birthday!’
Gabriel laughed. ‘Or you have mine, dear boy. Of course if this were one of Scott’s devilishly knotted stories, we would be long lost twins.’
Ernest wondered if Gabriel were making fun of him. He closed the book and wandered across the room to look out of the window across the square.  ‘What does your Papa do?’ he asked.
‘Well he don’t go about making half brothers.’ Said Gabriel, sounding genuinely cross. Ernest felt so ashamed he could have thrown himself out of the window. He stuttered an apology. Gabriel sighed.
‘Don’t trouble yourself. I understand. Papa is gentry. He don’t have to do anything. Mama likes to keep herself busy, she says. Charities and the like. She’s even managed to extract money for poor children from Mr Gladstone.’
Ernest could not help wondering why none of Mr Gladstone’s charity had ever reached him or his Mother. Gabriel felt the faux pas he had committed, drawing attention to the status of his guest. ‘Lord we are getting off to an awkward start. This small talk business is quite a strain. Let’s go and scoff some cake instead.’
In the adjoining schoolroom there were more books, a large coloured map of the world on the wall, and a spread of small sandwiches, biscuits and fruitcake laid out on what would otherwise be the teacher’s desk. ‘Tutor did a bunk a while back’ said Gabriel, picking up a handful of sandwiches with little care as to table manners. ‘Mama asked Papa to catch another one, but Papa asked me if I wanted a rest. Of course I said yes.’ Gabriel ate three fishpaste sandwiches before he said ‘Hate to admit it, but the days are somewhat long and low without a bit of schooling.’
‘But who is taking care of you?’ asked Ernest
Gabriel shrugged. ‘I take care of myself. I please myself what I do. At the moment I choose to study the habits of actresses at night, and sleep during the afternoon.’
‘Don’t you have anything to do – I mean here, fetching coal or water or helping your Mama?’
Gabriel smiled and shook his head ‘Don’t happen in my world. Children should be seen and not heard. Most think they shouldn’t be seen, either.’
‘But your parents. I thought, if one had money, that one’s parents would give you anything you needed – send you off to school and touring abroad.’
‘So that’s what costermongers talk about. The Grand Tour and finishing schools.’ Gabriel smiled to show he was joking and poured some tea.
‘Mother told me about it. She was  - she says she was sent away to school.’ Ernest noted the slight disbelief in his own words.
‘Gels is kept on a short lead. So I understand, not having any sisters of my own.’
Ernest put down his cup. He looked closely at Gabriel, staring again into the image of his own face, and noting the similarity in the expression. Ernest, working in an adult world, keeping close to his Mother, had no friends of his own. Gabriel seemed to want for nothing, but had been abandoned to fend for himself in an almost empty house, with everything but friends and company. No mystery that both boys had been so delighted by the warm welcome of the members of the Cabinet of Talents.
After they had eaten their way through the food and emptied the teapot down to the leaves, Gabriel set out the tin soldiers to explain the first Boer War, where his Grandfather had played a distinguished part, and then into what could be learned of the current Boer War, judging from the reports in The Times. He showed Ernest a postcard of his Father, posing outside a tent, a cache of captured weapons and insignia beneath his feet.  Ernest scrutinised the grey photograph, but there was little detail in the face of the man, and the whiskers obscured the features. In his general shape he looked like Gabriel, and therefore like Ernest, but that was all that could be said. As it grew dark outside, and the electric lights blazed harsh and clear in the house, Gabriel’s Nanny threatened to give both boys a bath, so Ernest ducked past her with a swift ‘good night, Miss’ and bounded down the stairs, this time daring to go out through the front door. In good spirits he jogged back across the city, only slowing down when he saw the familiar curve of St Pauls and heard the bells of St Giles in the distance. He wished he had remembered to borrow a book. He hoped that he would be able to return and do so.
The winter wrapped around the city, and although everyone that Ernest met on the streets seemed to be looking forward to Christmas and the new year, the new century, they were having to keep their spirits up through cold days and freezing nights, and the thickest fog that anyone had seen for years.
‘This is worse than when Jack was walking the streets’ grumbled the applewoman, wrapping another shawl around her.
‘Who’s Jack?’ asked Ernest, being polite as he escorted her home through the fog.
‘Bless you for an innocent. Jack the Ripper my deary. Jack who ripped our girls to shreds. Did terrible things to their innards. Laid their  -  their private bits out  for all to see. Left them looking like offal on a slab.’
Ernest swallowed. ‘When was this?’
‘Bout ten year ago, I reckon. Must be. Before my Lucy was born. When we still had the dog.’
‘But they caught him?’
‘No. No they never did. Some says he did away with himself, cos it all went quiet. There was ooo must have been a dozen girls and a couple of boys done for. All street workers – you know. Police reckons six or seven was  down to Jack but we know better. Ann Marie what sells the buns now, near you – she was one that got away.’ The apple woman let out a cough that was more of a bark. ‘This fog fair eats yer lungs out, don’t it.’
‘What happened? To Ann Marie?’ Ernest asked.
‘Well I don’t like to share the details, my deary, you being so young and your Ma so particular. But let’s just say she saw the fiend close up, saw his knife an all, and took to her heels. She always was a fast one. But the rozzers never minded a word she said cos there was stories and panic in the fog all across town.’
‘But she saw his face?’
‘No my love. That she did not. Said he was wearing a scarf pulled right up’ Here the applewoman threw her shawl across her face with a dramatic gesture. ‘So she only saw his eyes. But she says she’ll never forget ‘em till her dying day. Says they was so evil – nothing in ‘em you see, no rage or malice but blank. Blank like a painting, dead and cold.’
Ernest shuddered.
‘Oh sweetie have I scared you? Don’t you worry about me telling tales in the fog. I reckon Jack’s six feet under, or at the bottom of the river by now.’ She reached her front door. ‘Well here I am safe and sound, and you’ve only got to go a step more.’ She pinched Ernest’s cheek. ‘If he ain’t dead, he’s in Bedlam, and he might as well be dead then. Sleep tight, nighty night.’
Ernest ran all the way back to his house and took the stairs to his room two at a time.







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