Alley Urchin Page 17

  Molly was just on the point of stepping from the canal bank and over the short wall – beyond which was the road and the Navigation – when the merest flicker of movement caught her eye and made her turn her head. In that split second she saw a boy on the bank, moving slowly at first, then staggering clumsily until, even as Molly looked, he lost his footing altogether. With a pitiful, weak cry he fell sideways and down, slithering into the water and disappeared out of sight, his small white hand grasping at the air in an effort to save himself. By the time Molly had sprinted the few yards to where he had vanished into the water, there was no sign of him at all, save for an odd bubble here and there, and the scuff mark along the bank where he had fallen in.

  In a minute Molly had slipped out of her frock and was launching herself into the air, towards the spot where she had seen the boy go down. Surprisingly the water struck cold as she sliced into it, but the deeper she went, the warmer it seemed. Molly was a strong swimmer, having learned the skill as naturally as she had learned to walk, and often she had scoured the canal bottom in search of the odd coin which might have rolled from a drunk’s pocket. Yet in the murky depths a coin might sparkle and catch the daylight from above, whereas there was nothing Molly thought as she swam this way and that, that might sparkle on a drowning boy. Except perhaps the terror in his eyes.

  Molly would not give up though. She would go on searching until her lungs came near to bursting. Straining her eyes, she noticed a patch of unusually thick reeds where the fish had been disturbed. Quickly, she kicked her strong legs and swam the short distance, and in a minute she had caught sight of the boy. Thank God, she thought, his lungs were not yet swamped, seeing a thin spasmodic trail of bubbles escaping from within the tangle of reeds. Quickly she had him freed and in her grasp, a rush of relief flooding her heart. At the same time, Molly was aware of the desperate urgency to get him to the surface.

  On the bank, Molly pummelled and squeezed him, until he began coughing and spluttering. ‘Good!’ she told the wet and bedraggled boy, yanking him to a sitting position, before pulling on her frock, and hoisting him to his feet. ‘Now, lean on me, because we’ve a fair way to go afore we come to the hut.’

  Later, when his clothes were dried and he was full of Molly’s hot tea and jam butties, the boy sat by the rusty stove which Molly had lit to thaw his bones. ‘You’re a silly bugger!’ she chided him. ‘What were you doing . . . wandering along the bank like that? Don’t you know better?’ She had little patience with such foolishness.

  The boy gave no answer. He just kept his eyes fixed on the stove and began shivering again. He wasn’t sure how to react. In fact, he had no idea how he came to be ‘wandering along the bank’. He didn’t even know his own name. All he knew was that he had found himself in an alley, then he had walked and walked until he came to the canal. It was all a nightmare to him, and he knew above all else that if it had not been for this scruffy girl with the big black eyes and sharp temper he would surely have drowned. But he did not want to speak to her, because he hurt all over, and he was afraid.

  ‘Oh, I see . . . cat got your tongue, has it?’ teased Molly. Then, as he bent his head away from her, she saw the deep gash and the hair still matted round it. ‘When did that happen?’ she asked, reaching forward on her stool to take a closer look. ‘That’s bad!’ In a minute, she had gone to fill the pan and, while it boiled, she searched about for a clean piece of cloth with which to bathe the wound. Tearing a strip from the pillow-slip, she tested the water in the pan. Finding it warm enough, she drew the pan away and stood it on the stool. ‘Keep still now. I don’t want you struggling,’ she instructed the boy. He did not move though, and nor did he protest because he felt lost and confused, but he had no intention of betraying his fears to a girl.

  ‘Me and Sal . . . we never light this old stove, because it smokes like the billows and burns up more wood than we can find.’ Molly kept up a banter of talk as she swabbed the gash on his head. She wished he would talk back, but she respected the way he must feel. He had suffered a nasty shock, she knew. But what puzzled her most was that the boy couldn’t swim. Most children in these parts could swim before their legs were properly grown. That was another thing: Molly didn’t think the boy came from here, or she would have remembered him. Yet she hadn’t seen his face, not properly, because he kept avoiding her, turning his head away so she wouldn’t get a good look at him. She supposed he must feel embarrassed at being rescued by a girl. Boys were like that, she knew. Strange though, how he couldn’t swim. And he wasn’t the usual sort of scruff because, although his clothes were tatty and probably smelt to high heaven before they got a ducking in the canal, his hair was properly cut, and his nails were clean. Strangest of all though, were his hands: so small and lily-white, it was plain he had never done any coal shovelling or hard work of any kind!

  ‘Where do you come from?’ she asked him now. ‘And why were you stumbling along the bank, with such a terrible gash on your head?’ A thought suddenly came to her. ‘Did somebody knock you on the head?’ That would account for why he was staggering like he was drunk. ‘Is that it? Were you set on by somebody?’ She was sure of it now. ‘You ain’t from these parts, are you?’ Molly leaned forward as she spoke, hoping she might get a look at his face again, because she was growing more curious by the minute. But he deliberately turned his face from her. The things she was saying made him think, and the things that began creeping into his mind were too unpleasant to dwell on.

  ‘All right then. You lie on the bed and rest awhile. When you’re feeling stronger, just let yourself out and shut the door behind you. I’ve got to go and see about Sal’s funeral.’ She opened the door and threw out the remainder of the water from the pan. ‘You don’t have to tell me nothing,’ she called to him. When she came back into the hut, the boy was lying on his side, with his back to her. ‘You’re a strange one,’ she murmured, her gaze resting on his tousled dark hair, ‘and no mistake!’ For a long poignant moment, Molly kept her gaze fixed on him, thinking how she had found Sal in that very bed, not so long ago. Sal, who had always been there, drunk or sober, Molly’s best friend. Now she was gone, and the more Molly thought about it, the more desolate she felt. Without her being conscious of it, the tears began filling her eyes, then spilling over to run down her face.

  It was then that the boy turned to look at Molly. When he saw her crying, she quickly looked away and pretended to busy herself clearing away the pan and other things. Of a sudden, she was aware that he was taking an interest in the tiny watch that hung forward from her neck as she stooped. ‘I’ll be on my way in a minute,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘When I come back, I’ll expect you to be gone.’ When she straightened up to glance at him, he was still looking at her, his dark green eyes resting on her face, and Molly was riveted with shock. She knew him! How could she forget those emerald-green eyes and that particular way he had looked at her in the market place that day? Sal too had remarked on the boy’s eyes. ‘’E put me in mind o’ the little people . . . gave me a real nasty turn,’ she had told Molly afterwards. She had told Molly something else as well: the boy was none other than Justice Crowther’s grandson!

  Molly was mesmerised as her own dark puzzled gaze bore into the boy’s face. How could it be Justice Crowther’s grandson? Molly began vaguely to recall snippets of what the shrew-like woman had told her only this very day. ‘Justice Crowther’s own grandson . . . after the wheels and hooves had gone over him, there wasn’t much left, so they say.’ How could it be then? How was it possible that the boy she had saved from drowning could also be the same boy? The answer was that he could not. Molly looked at his quiet face; she saw how clean and decent it was; she saw those eyes and that rich dark hair, cut in the way of a gentry; she remembered how clean his nails were, then how soft and white his hands. And she knew! Knew without a doubt that somehow there had been a trick played on Justice Crowther. She couldn’t quite fathom it out, but she was certain of it. This boy was Justice Crowth
er’s grandson, not the boy in the fancy togs who was run over by a coach and four. Something else was triggered off in Molly’s mind. Something the shrew-like woman had said, to do with the undertaker remarking how the boy who was mangled ‘had big coarse feet for a young gentry’. Of course he did, thought Molly now. Of course he did, because he wasn’t a gentry, that was why!

  ‘How did you come to be wandering along the canal bank?’ she asked him now, coming closer to the bed. ‘Did you run away? Who knocked you on the head? Somebody did, I’m thinking . . . because there ain’t nothing in the water that could have done it.’

  ‘I don’t know . . . anything,’ Edward Trent replied, meeting Molly’s gaze and feeling certain he had seen her before. Of a sudden, he recalled disjointed images of himself sneaking out from a big house, and of running from the devil in a dark alley. But the more he tried to think, the more he became confused. ‘I know you though . . . I’m sure of it. I’ve seen you somewhere . . . somewhere.’ The pain in his eyes deepened as he struggled to remember.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Molly assured him, becoming convinced of his identity by the refined tone of his voice and the fact that he had seen her somewhere before . . . in the market place, no doubt. ‘You’ll be fine . . . after you’ve rested. You’ve had a nasty knock on the head . . . and you nearly drowned. It’s not surprising that you can’t properly recall what happened. Don’t you worry. Get some sleep, and you’ll be fine, I promise.’ A plan was forming in her mind. A daring plan that might be the way to pay for Sal’s burial. But she’d have to be quick, or it might be too late.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the boy asked, settling himself into the bed as weariness came over him.

  ‘Molly. I’m Sal Tanner’s lass.’ Molly felt a deal of pride as she told him that. But it was mingled with a deep and painful sense of loss, which betrayed itself in her dark eyes. The boy was quick to notice, and to recall that Molly had earlier remarked that she had to go and ‘see about Sal’s funeral’. His instincts told him not to talk of ‘Sal’, or outstay his welcome. ‘I want to thank you for what you’ve done for me,’ he said, ‘if I can just rest awhile, I’ll be gone and I won’t be a burden, I promise.’

  ‘That’s right,’ encouraged Molly, ‘you rest, while I go about my business. But you don’t need to hurry away.’ If her plan was to work, the boy must be kept here. ‘Old Sal used to give me a herbal drink when I was feeling under the weather and couldn’t sleep. I’ll get you a drop,’ she told him. After a frantic search, she discovered Sal’s gin bottle hidden inside the orange-box. Quickly mixing a measure of it with a drop of water and a sprinkle of sugar, she held it to the boy’s lips. ‘Here we are. Drink this and you’ll sleep like a hedgehog in winter.’

  When Molly was satisfied that he was in a deep contented slumber, she covered him over, took one of the shoes which had shrunk to his feet after the canal soaking, then went swiftly from the hut, shutting the door tight behind her. Glancing up to ensure that the window was left open for ventilation, she tucked the expensive shoe into the pocket of her frock and went at top speed along the bank.

  Molly was not too proud of what she intended to do now, because she liked the boy. She thought him to be a cut above the other gentry she had come across, but she made herself recall an old saying of Sal’s – one which she often used to excuse her more unsavoury activities: when needs must, the devil pays, was what Sal would claim in her own defence. It was what Molly told herself now, as she sped through Mill Hill and on towards the outlying fields. She had a rough idea that she was heading in the right direction. Anyway, Breckleton House shouldn’t be too difficult to find.

  ‘Get away from here, yer little ruffian!’ Cook had been summoned to the kitchen door by Molly’s insistent knocking, and she was not too pleased at the sight of a filthy little urchin standing there. ‘There’s misery enough in this house today . . . wi’out us being bothered by beggars!’ She would have slammed the door in Molly’s face, but when she was told, ‘Justice Crowther’s grandson ain’t dead. I’ve got him!’ Cook hesitated, just long enough for Molly to blurt out, ‘He’s got dark eyes the colour of emeralds . . . and he can’t swim.’

  ‘How do yer know that?’ Cook demanded, inching the door open, yet not coming back out. ‘An’ when did a filthy little baggage the likes o’ you see the colour of ’is eyes, eh?’ There was no doubt she was intrigued, because it was true that the young master had never learned to swim. There had been arguments about it between his mother, who saw it as being unnecessary, and his father, who claimed that every boy should be given the opportunity to learn to swim, especially when he might follow in his father’s footsteps and be a sailor. Martha Trent’s reply had been a caustic one, ‘I shall never let him be a sailor!’ From there, the argument had raged on.

  ‘How d’yer know all this?’ insisted Cook, keeping her sizeable frame secure behind the door.

  ‘I know . . . because he fell in the canal and I saved him from drowning,’ replied Molly, beginning to take the shoe from her pocket. ‘He wasn’t the one who was run over and killed. I reckon as it was another fellow altogether. I don’t know if it were a rogue or a gentry, but it weren’t Edward Trent, I’m telling you, missus. Because I’ve got Justice Crowther’s grandson, hidden away and safe enough.’ She brought the shoe with the shiny buckle from her pocket, and when Cook saw it, she nearly fainted. ‘Oh, upon my word . . . it’s the young master’s boot!’ she cried, flinging the door open and making a grab for it.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ warned Molly, immediately dodging backwards and remaining at a safe distance. ‘I ain’t giving this shoe to nobody . . . anyway, not till you fetch the lady of the house. Don’t fetch the Justice, because I’ll not tell him nothing! I’ll only do business with the lady of the house.’ Molly had never forgotten Sal’s warning concerning Justice Crowther, and the very idea of being confronted by the fellow himself made her shiver in her boots.

  ‘As it happens, yer little dirty baggage . . . there’s only the mistress and the boy’s mother here. The Justice is at the undertakers, making final arrangements.’ She rolled her eyes upwards and made the sign of the cross on herself.

  ‘In that case, he’s making final arrangements for somebody else,’ Molly reminded her, ‘because I’ve got his grandson safe, I’m telling you. Now . . . if you’d be so kind as to fetch her ladyship?’

  ‘You cheeky little madam!’ snorted Cook. For two pins she would have brought Thomas to see the little wretch off down the road, but there was too much in what the girl said. Cook felt it was more than her life was worth to ignore the evidence of the shoe and all. ‘Wait here. I’ll see if the mistress is interested in what you have to say . . . but let me warn you: if you’re here to cause mischief, you’ll be given every opportunity to explain it to the authorities!’

  When the door swung to, leaving Molly staring at the grotesque brass gargoyle which served as a knocker, she put out her tongue at it. She went to the window, where she pulled herself up by the wall and sat on the deep stone window-ledge, swinging her skinny legs back and forth, and waited somewhat nervously for the lady of the house to emerge.

  Molly did not have to wait long: no sooner had she settled herself than there came a flurry of activity at the kitchen door. ‘Where is she?’ came a woman’s agitated voice. Then, as Agnes Crowther swept out on to the flag stones, one hand plucking the folds of her long taffeta skirt and the other waving loosely in the air, she caught sight of Molly, who quickly jumped down from the window-ledge. Molly’s stomach turned nervous somersaults at the sight of this fancy lady, whose husband had the power to have her flayed alive. As Agnes Crowther approached, Molly backed away. ‘Don’t you come no nearer, missus,’ she warned, ‘if you try to grab me, I’ll make a run for it and you won’t see your lad again.’

  ‘No!’ Agnes Crowther stopped some short distance away, lifting her hand from her skirt and putting both palms up to Molly. ‘It’s all right . . . I won’t come any nearer.’ She gestured for Co
ok and the maid, Amy, to go back, saying, ‘Make sure that my daughter is not disturbed. Let her sleep.’ When the two women were out of sight Agnes Crowther turned her attention to Molly. ‘Tell me all you know of my grandson . . . please.’ Then, in a harsher tone, ‘But be careful you tell me no lies, or you will live to regret it, I promise!’ She then recovered her composure, stiffened her back and raised her two hands together in a posture of prayer, holding them close to her breast as she asked, ‘What do you know? Cook tells me you don’t believe it was Master Edward who was killed. What makes you say such a thing? The truth, girl. Out with it!’

  Her courage returning, and with Sal’s predicament paramount in her mind, Molly described how she had seen the boy stumble and fall into the canal. ‘He would have drowned, missus . . . he would, if I hadn’t saved him,’ she assured Agnes Crowther, who merely nodded impatiently and bade her go on. Molly then explained how, in spite of the boy’s clothes, she suspected that he was not an urchin off the streets. ‘His nails were too clean, and his hands were too soft and white,’ she said. After which she went into great detail regarding his appearance, how dark was his hair, and how deepgreen his eyes. She told of the way he had spoken to her. ‘Too posh by half! . . . And look here’ – she snatched the shoe from the depths of her ragged frock – ‘this is the boy’s shoe!’

  All the while Molly had been talking, Agnes Crowther had paid the closest attention, and the more she heard, the paler she became. When the shoe was brandished before her, she cried out and swayed as though she might faint, her posture of prayer broken as she put out an arm to grasp the wall for support. ‘It is Edward’s shoe!’ she gasped, her eyes fixed on the black ankle boot which had a small decorative buckle to the side. ‘Oh . . . I had my suspicions all along that it was not my grandson lying there in the mortuary . . . but no one would listen. They were all quick to grieve. Too blinded by what they saw before them, and too easily led by what they were told.’ Of a sudden she was moving forward, her face a study in compassion, and her arm outstretched as though to take the shoe from Molly’s grasp. ‘Where is he . . . this boy? You must take me to him at once!’ she urged.