Black Hearts in Battersea Read online

  ‘I ain’t hungry …’

  In Simon’s feverish fancy the rock seemed to sway up and down as the Dark Dew had done – tilting, tilting, now this way, now that … Or was he on the branch of a tree, back at home in the forest of Willoughby? Was that sound not the howl of the sea but the howl of wolves? No, it was the sea, but Dido was talking about wolves in the forest; her words came dreamily, in disjointed snatches:

  ‘Climbing from one tree to the next … I’d have liked that … Shying sticks and stones at the wolves down below … you could laugh at ’em … it must have been prime. I wouldn’t ’a wanted to go to London, dunno why you did. You will take me there some day, won’t you? To the forest? You said you would. And I’ll throw stones at the wolves … I’m glad you came to London, Simon. Nobody ever told me such tales afore … and you took me to the fair … Coo, that dragon was a proper take-in, though, wasn’t it? … I liked the Talking Pig best …’

  She coughed and crept closer still against Simon. For some time there was silence, except for the harsh screams of gulls. Simon drifted further and further away towards the frontiers of unconsciousness.

  ‘Simon,’ Dido said presently in a small voice. His only response was a faint movement of his head.

  ‘Simon, I think the tide’s coming in. It’s coming higher up the rock. I – I don’t think there’s going to be room here for both of us. Maybe – maybe I’d better try and float to the shore to get help?’

  Simon did not answer. His eyes were closed, and he lay limp, white, and motionless, with the waves breaking not three feet below him.

  11

  SOPHIE WAS PUZZLED. She had been staying at the Cobbs’ for five days now, during which time Simon had not once come to see her or to work in Mr Cobb’s yard. Mr Cobb was puzzled too.

  ‘Simon’s sich a reglar-working cove in the usual way. I hope there’s nowt amiss,’ he muttered, looking with knit brows at the panel of a barouche which Simon had been in process of adorning with a viscount’s coat-of-arms. ‘Here’s thisyer job promised to Lord Thingumbob for Toosday, and looks like I’ll be obleeged to cry rope, which ain’t my way. I hope the boy’s all right. Hey, Sophie, lass! How about your taking a hack – here’s a crown for the fare–and tooling round to Southwark to see if he’s sick abed?’

  Sophie agreed with alacrity and was about to fetch her bonnet when a small grubby boy sidled into Mr Cobb’s yard and made his way towards her.

  ‘Is you Miss Sophie?’ he asked, fixing her with a piercing eye.

  ‘Yes I am,’ she replied. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You’re sure as how you’re Miss Sophie? Cos I wasn’t to give it to no one else, and, Croopus, I’ve had sich a time finding you. Fust I axes at the Castle – nobody gammons – nearly gets chucked in a horse-trough for me trouble. Then a gaffer says to come here. Is she Miss Sophie?’ he demanded of Mr Cobb.

  ‘Miss Sophie she be,’ Mr Cobb answered heartily.

  ‘Then I can give it you.’ He handed her a very dirty folded bit of paper, and added hopefully, ‘She says as you was very kind and ’ud likely give me a farden. And, please, I cooden come afore today, my gammy’s that strict I cooden give her the slip, but today she’s laid up with a proud toe.’

  Sophie laughed at this and gave him sixpence, saying, ‘Thank you, my dear. Here you are, then – buy yourself some Banbury cakes. But who told you to come?’

  He looked conspiratorially round the yard, sank his voice to a whisper, and said, ‘Why, she done. Young Dido Twite. But she’s gorn now – along o’ the others.’ Then he bolted off between the carriages and vanished out of the gate.

  Sophie opened the note which was addressed, in staggering capitals, to MIZ SOPHY.

  Dere Miz Sophy. i thankx yu onst agin fer the dress. its reel Prime. Fust nue dress i iver wuz giv. Simon as bin kid naped in a Shipp. Me an Justin is goin 2 for the Lark. i like Simon an it isn Fare he shd be All Alone. the Shipp is the dark due. Yrs respeckfly Dido Twite

  ‘Good gracious!’ exclaimed Sophie, when she had read this letter twice. ‘He has been kidnapped! And Justin too! Can this be true? I must inform her Grace!’

  ‘Kidnapped? Young Simon?’ Mr Cobb fairly gaped at her.

  ‘Yes, on board a ship called the Dark Due. Do you know of such a vessel?’

  ‘The Dark Dew? By Ringo, yes! She and a couple of others belong to that shifty, havey-cavey Nathaniel Dark, the one who ran off with Buckle’s wife.’

  ‘Mr Buckle? Justin’s tutor? I didn’t know he’d ever been married,’ said Sophie, momentarily diverted from her worry.

  ‘It was years ago. Buckle was glad to be rid of the woman. By all I hear she never stopped talking. Dear knows what Nat Dark did with her, for he didn’t marry her. Left her in furrin parts, I daresay. He’s a dicey cove; up to the teeth with the Hanoverians, too. That settles it,’ said Mr Cobb, grabbing his hat from a mounting-block and cramming it on his head. ‘I’m for Bow Street. Young Simon said summat once about Hanoverians –’

  ‘The Twites, in Rose Alley,’ said Sophie, nodding.

  ‘Ah, and I said, “Leave well alone”. But when it comes to kidnapping … It’s as plain as a pike what’s happened: he’s twigged their lay and been put away.’

  ‘But where will they have taken him?’

  ‘Ah, there, lass, now you’re asking. Those Dark ships goes coasting all the way up to Newcassel and then across to Hanover – they might put him anywhere that’s awkud to get at. Only thing is to nobble the bunch – at Rose Alley, you say? – and winch ’em tight till they lets on where he’s to.’

  Mr Cobb started for the gate, then paused to ask, ‘Was you wishful to see me, Jem?’

  ‘Only to ask was his Grace’s curricle ready yet, Mr Cobb?’ said Jem, coming out from behind a pile of wheels.

  ‘Ready this evening, tell Mr Waters.’ Jem nodded and followed Mr Cobb into the street, where he set off at a run towards the Castle.

  Sophie was not long in following him. Inquiring for their Graces, however, she learnt that they were calling on His Majesty. Not surprisingly, the Castle was in an uproar over the disappearance of Lord Bakerloo, and the Duke had gone to ask that a national proclamation be made offering a reward for information as to the whereabouts of the Battersea heir.

  Sophie found the Duchess’s embroidery (which was suffering from a week’s neglect) and sat putting it to rights in the library, waiting for their Graces to return.

  The whole chamber was still stacked high with the piles of pictures which the Academy students had taken down during their vain hunt for the Rivière. There had been no time to rehang them in the more urgent search for Justin. Sophie, established with her embroidery on a footstool by the fire, was screened by a pile of canvases from the view of anybody entering the room.

  Presently she heard two people speaking in low tones.

  ‘This has put a pretty crimp in our plan,’ a voice said angrily. ‘What was that fool, Dark, about not to notice he’d two other brats on board? And Justin, of all people – it couldn’t be worse.’

  Sophie recognized Midwink’s tones.

  ‘What I’ll do to that boy when I catch him!’ The other speaker was Mr Buckle. ‘The whole thing nearly in our hands and he has to run off like a – like a guttersnipe! If those students hadn’t been on the river-bank the other day – or if that meddlesome girl hadn’t gone to the opera – Justin would have been Duke of Battersea by now and we’d be in clover.’

  ‘Well, as things are, he’s not,’ said Midwink sourly. ‘And the old boy’s still alive, and till we get Justin back we’d best keep him alive; we don’t want some cousin stepping in and claiming the dukedom. I’ve got the poison but I won’t use it till Dark brings back the boy.’

  ‘I only hope Dark has the sense to do so,’ Buckle said with a curse. ‘It drives me wild having to rely on such a nabble-head. And now we’ve got to shift the ken from Rose Alley – and if Jem doesn’t warn Ella before the Bow Street runners get there –’

 
‘Jem’s trusty enough,’ Midwink said. ‘He took the Duke’s fastest chaser – he’ll be there by now. Where did you tell Ella to take the stuff?’

  Buckle sank his voice to a murmur and Sophie could only catch the words ‘vegetable cart’. Midwink gave a cackle of laughter and said, ‘They’ll never think of looking there. But are you sure no one will blab?’

  ‘I don’t believe there’s a soul in the Castle that’s not a Hanoverian to the hilt,’ Buckle replied. ‘Barring the girl. Now as to my plan. Soon as we hear from Dark that he has Justin safe – If we hear before the mince-pie ceremony –’

  ‘Aha you mean to poison the Christmas mince-pies?’

  ‘No, better than that.’ Buckle dropped his voice again and Sophie missed the next words. He ended – ‘all sky-high together – and the wench as well. My heart’s in my mouth, now, every time the Duchess looks at her. Why did she have to pick that one, out of all the paupers at Gloober’s … I thought she’d died in the woods but it must be –’

  ‘Hush!’ said Midwink. ‘Is that the carriage? Best not be found here.’

  The two men left the room.

  Sophie remained where she was, almost paralysed by fear and astonishment. So Buckle was at the bottom of the plot – Buckle and Midwink! And Jem was with them, and had galloped off to warn the Twites to leave Rose Alley. And every servant in the Castle – almost everybody – was a Hanoverian to the hilt. Moreover, it was plain that the Duke and Duchess were in grave danger – two attempts at murder had only accidentally failed and a third, somehow connected with mince-pies, was merely postponed until Justin’s return. Why Justin? Sophie wondered, and then realized that if Justin became the sixth Duke of Battersea, following the murder of his uncle, he would still be so much under his tutor’s thumb that Buckle would in fact control all the ducal power and money. Perhaps it was a blessing, then, that Justin had run away.

  But meantime how to protect the helpless, elderly Duke and Duchess? The Duke had the greatest respect for Buckle, and would be most unlikely to believe in any accusation against him unless it were backed by positive proof. Perhaps the raid on Rose Alley would provide this. If not, it seemed to Sophie that the best plan would be to get the Duke and Duchess away from Battersea. But how was this to be achieved?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the Duchess, who arrived in a great bustle.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Sophie, dear child! I am so delighted to see you again. We are to depart instantly for Chippings – His Majesty very sensibly suggested that that naughty Justin might have run off there for a bit of wolf-hunting. Pack me up a few odds and ends, will you, my dear, just for a night or two – warm things, it will be cold in the North – Don’t forget the croquet and my water-colours … Ah, you have the tapestry, that’s right. You are to come, too, of course, so pack for yourself as well. We start as soon as the train is ready.’

  ‘The train, ma’am? Won’t his Grace be using the coach?’

  ‘No, he thinks a train will be quicker. He has gone to charter it now.’

  Sophie was thunderstruck. She had never travelled on a train in her life – indeed the nearest station to Chippings was at York, over thirty miles away, for the Duke, who considered trains to be dirty, noisy things, flatly refused to have them running over his land.

  Sophie struggled with her conscience. This seemed a heaven-sent opportunity to get their Graces away from trouble, and she was excited at the prospect of the journey, but still it was her duty to mention Dido’s letter. She showed it to the Duchess, who read it with astonishment.

  ‘Dido Twite? Who is Dido Twite, my child?’

  ‘Oh, she is a poor little thing that Simon has befriended, the daughter of his landlady.’

  ‘But why should Simon have been kidnapped? And why should Justin have gone with him? Depend upon it,’ said the Duchess, ‘this will turn out to be nothing but a Banbury Story. Is this Dido Twite a truthful little child?’

  Sophie was bound to admit that she hardly thought it likely.

  ‘I have it!’ declared her Grace. ‘You say this Dark Dew belongs to Captain Nathaniel Dark? Yes, and I remember him – a shifty rogue who tried to sell his Grace a shipment of abominable smuggled prune brandy, watered, my dear, and tasting of tar. His ships put in regularly at the port of Chipping Fishbury – be sure, those naughty boys have begged a sea-passage in order to get to Chippings, and if we travel by train, like as not we shall be there before them. Yes, yes, my dear, I will show the note to his Grace, but, depend upon it, that is the solution. Now, run and pack the croquet things, and do not forget the billiard-balls and my small harpsichord.’

  With a clear conscience Sophie ran off to carry out her Grace’s wishes. Packing the water-colours neatly into a crate with the harpsichord, she remembered that curious remark of Buckle’s concerning herself – ‘Why she had to pick that one, out of all the paupers at Gloober’s – my heart’s in my mouth, now, every time the Duchess looks at her –’ What could he have meant? Sophie’s heart began to beat rather fast. Might it be possible that, all the time, she had relations somewhere? But why should Buckle know anything about it? Pray, Sophie, do not be nonsensical, she admonished herself, and knelt to fasten the croquet mallets into their case.

  An hour later they set off. The Duke, not very well-informed about trains, was indignant to discover that even when he chartered a special one it would not come to his door, but had to be boarded at the station. However, a pair of carriages transported the party across London with their baggage to the terminus, where a strip of red carpet running the length of the platform, a bowing station-master, and porters bearing bouquets and baskets of fruit restored his Grace to good humour.

  Sophie learnt with joy that neither Buckle nor Midwink were to be of the party. The first six hours of the journey passed peacefully. After a light luncheon they played billiards in the billiard car until the increasing motion of the train, as they entered more hilly country, rendered this occupation too hazardous. The Duke, having nearly spitted his lady with a cue, returned to the saloon coach, sighing that he wished they had Simon with them, for there was nothing in the world he would like so much as a game of chess.

  ‘I can play a little, your Grace,’ Sophie said. ‘Simon has been teaching me. But I fear I am only a beginner.’

  His Grace was delighted, declaring that any opponent was better than none. ‘For her Grace can’t be bothered to learn the moves.’ Sophie unpacked the glass set from his valise and they played two or three games with great enjoyment, the more so as his Grace won them all. Then, unfortunately, a lurch of the train threw the black glass Queen to the floor and broke off her crown.

  The Duke was greatly vexed by this, but the Duchess said placidly:

  ‘Do not put yourself in a pucker, my dear. If you recall, I had this set made for your birthday by the old glass-burner in the forest and, depend upon it, he will be able to put Her Majesty to rights again. We can call at his hut on the way to Chippings.’

  ‘Ay, so we can, my dear,’ said the Duke. ‘What a head you have on your shoulders. Old Turveytop can do the business in a twinkling, I daresay.’

  Sophie became very excited. ‘Is that old Turveytop the charcoal-burner, your Grace? Why, it was he who brought me up! I should dearly like to see the old man again – he was always so kind to me.’

  ‘Old Turveytop brought you up, did he? But you are not related to him, child?’

  ‘No, ma’am. He found me in the forest when I was little more than a baby.’

  ‘But you had no clothes, child – nothing to indicate where you had come from?’

  ‘Nothing, ma’am, except a little silver chain-bracelet with my name, Sophie, on a shield, and on the other side a kind of picture with tiny writing that was too small for my foster-father to read.’

  ‘Have you the bracelet yet, my dear?’ said the Duchess, showing the liveliest curiosity. ‘I should so like to see it. Since we looked at the Rivière picture I have had the strangest feeling –’

 
Sophie’s face had clouded at a sad recollection. ‘When I grew, and the bracelet would not meet round my wrist, my foster-father put it away for me, your Grace. I am sure he will have it still –’

  ‘Why did he not give it to you when they took you to the Poor Farm, my child?’

  ‘He was not there at the time,’ Sophie said miserably. ‘He was away on the wolds cutting peat when the overseer came and took me away. I have so often wondered if he knew what had become of me.’

  ‘Could you not write to him?’

  ‘Mrs Gloober would not allow it.’

  ‘Never mind, child, soon you will be able to tell him yourself.’

  Poor Sophie was to be disappointed, however. Night had come when they reached York, and they were obliged to rack up at an inn rather than undertake the dangerous journey across the wolf-infested wolds in the dark. They set out early next day in a pair of hired carriages, and, after several hours’ brisk driving, had reached the outskirts of Chipping Wold, a huge, wild, and desolate tract of country, moorland and forest, which must be traversed before they reached the village of Loose Chippings. Sophie was on her home ground, here; her eyes brightened and she gazed eagerly about, recognizing every tree, rock, and tumbling stream

  ‘There! There it is,’ she presently exclaimed. ‘There is the track leading to my foster-father’s hut.’

  The Duke ordered the baggage-coach to wait on the turnpike while the party jolted along the rocky track in the smaller open carriage. Soon they were passing among dark trees growing steeply up the sides of a narrow glen, and the driver whipped up his team and laid his musket ready on the box. After about half a mile the track widened, however, and they reached an open, sunny space where stood a small log-and-turf hut.

  Sophie could restrain herself no longer. She tumbled out of the carriage, crying, ‘Turvey, Turvey! Are you there? It’s me – Sophie! I’ve come back!’

  The door of the hut opened and a young man came out. Sophie halted in dismay.

  ‘Who – who are you?’ she stammered. ‘Where’s Turvey?’