Plague Child. Peter Ransley

make a great fortune. And lose it.’

      ‘A crown?’

      He shook with laughter. He seemed to have returned to his normal self. I loved his laughter, which made his cheeks and his belly shake, for, although he was always making fun of me, there was kindness in it.

      ‘Rather more than a crown, boy.’

      He put the pendant in the pouch, and pulled down his shirt and jerkin. The falcon seemed to flutter as it disappeared, reminding me of the bird on the flag flying on the old gentleman’s ship.

      ‘Is the pendant something to do with the old gentleman?’ I said.

      He seized me by the throat. For a moment I thought he was going to make up for never beating me by throttling the life out of me. ‘Who told you that? Who told you? Answer me!’

      ‘No one!’ I choked. ‘The bird is like the one on the ship’s flag.’

      He laughed, releasing me. ‘Nothing like! Nothing like at all.’

      I thought he was lying. He whirled round at a movement in the shadows, but it was only a dog searching for scraps.

      ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘if you ever see a man – he calls himself a gentleman these days – with a scar on his face.’ He pulled his face into a smile that was not a smile, and drew his finger down the line of it, on his right cheek, down to his neck. ‘He works for the old gentleman. Meet him, and you wouldn’t think the old gentleman so kind.’ When I said nothing, he pushed his face into mine with such a sudden ferocity I jumped in fright.

      ‘Do you understand?’

      I nodded dumbly. I understood that the old gentleman, the man with a scar and the pendant were somehow connected. And I understood that Matthew was a thief, for how else would he have got the pendant? I did not mind that, for Poplar was full of people running away from something: cutpurses, refugees, apprentices, debtors, whores. But I thought it was something more than being a thief he was running from, and I minded very much not knowing what it was.

      ‘I don’t understand what is story and what is truth,’ I said.

      He roared with laughter. ‘If people ever knew the difference between those two,’ he said, ‘the world would be a very different place.’

      He would say no more, except, ‘You’re a strange boy, a very particular boy,’ as he took me home, all kindness again.

      That night I woke up hearing him arguing with Susannah downstairs, where they slept. I slept upstairs with sailors they took in as lodgers.

      ‘A boat?’ she shouted. ‘I’ve never been on a boat in my life! Where would we go?’

      I heard no more because he beat her. The next day he told me we were going on a boat to Hull. I had seen so many built I was passionate to go out to sea and bombarded him with questions about what part of the Indies Hull was in and were there parrots and elephants?

      But before the boat sailed, they came. A waterman brought them, and a shipwright took me to them. Matthew was nowhere to be found. Fearfully I looked up at the faces of both of them, but there was no scar that I could see.

      Master Black was dressed to suit his name, in sober black, brightened only by a froth of fine linen at the cuffs and collar. He had a cane, and walked with a slight limp. The man whom I came to call Gloomy George was a thin man with narrow suspicious eyes, always looking about him as if he was afraid his pocket was about to be picked.

      Susannah went into one of her trembling fits when I was took home, but instead of the words pouring out of her, she seemed scarce able to speak. The two men almost filled our tiny room. Susannah ran to a neighbour, Mother Banks, for weak beer, but Mr Black took one look at the pitcher and refused it curtly.

      Gloomy George brought out a Bible from the case he carried. I thought then they were from the Church, come to test the truth of me being a miracle, because I had been given the gift of reading. He opened the book at Ecclesiasticus. My heart would have sunk into my boots if I had had any boots; for though I loved the New Testament, which is about love, I hated the Old for it is as full of revenge and hatred as it is of long words. I stared with mounting panic at the passage, which was about wisdom.

      ‘My son, learn the lessons of youth,’ I managed well enough; stumbled at ‘garnering wisdom’, then, at ‘Only to undisciplined minds she seems an over-hard task mistress’, the words fell about me like so many pieces of ship’s timber when a lifting tackle breaks.

      ‘Wisdom is an over-hard task mistress to you, is she Tom?’ Mr Black said.

      ‘No, sir,’ I mumbled, I think truthfully, for I liked wisdom, what little I knew of it; although perhaps I also said it because I thought it was the answer he expected.

      ‘Then what do the words mean?’

      I stared into his eyes, as black as his garments and as cold as frost. I shook my head, sick and ashamed. I had been found out. Not only was I not a miracle, I was a cheat and a fraud. I can still see Susannah’s wringing hands and downcast eyes. She began to say that it was her fault, she had boasted too much to the neighbours and God had punished her by taking the words away, but Mr Black silenced her by snapping the book shut.

      From the case, Gloomy George took out a writing table, a quill, ink and paper. He dipped the quill in the ink and handed it to me.

      ‘Perhaps you can write better than you can read.’

      I stared at the blank sheet of paper, as I now stare at the sheet in front of me, scarce able to believe I acted as I did.

      ‘Come now, you can write your name, child.’

      I could, in a laboured scrawl I was proud of; but I could see their sneers and hear the contempt in their voices. I would not give them that satisfaction. The blood burned in my cheeks and I flung the quill from me. A spray of ink peppered the fine linen of Mr Black’s cuff. I saw the horror on Gloomy George’s face an instant before I felt the blow of Mr Black’s cane across my shoulders.

      I reeled forward, knocking over the writing table, ink spilling from the horn. Another blow struck me across the head and I fell to the floor. Susannah was screaming. Above me was a blur of boots and the metal tip of the cane rising and falling. I flung my hands about my head and rolled away among the mess of paper and ink. As the cane hit the floor near me I grabbed at it and held on. To avoid falling over, Mr Black was forced to release it.

      I scrambled up, gripping the cane. If he was angry when I flung the quill, he was now astonished. He backed away, almost knocking over Gloomy George in his haste. Susannah stared, her mouth open. Smeared with ink, as well as with the blood now trickling down my face, I must have looked to the two men like a wild animal. Children did not seize canes. They did not beat, they were beaten.

      I was wild, but I was not an animal. The great difference between me and my fellows was that I was loved.

      In families with ten or eleven children love was in short supply. Children died too often to risk love. They were wet-nursed, lost amongst the others. Susannah had had other babies, but they were dead when they came out of her, or after a cry or two at her breast. I never thought to ask why I alone was so strong and vigorous, so determined to live.

      So they cared for me too much because I was all they had; and that made me selfish and bold as I gripped Mr Black’s cane, feeling a strange sense of power as I looked at the expressions on their faces. I do not know what I would have done if there had not been at that moment a hammering at the door.

      My boldness left me. I thought it the constable, come to take me to Paddington Fair. My mouth went dry and the cane slipped from me. Mr Black seized it as George answered the door. It was not the constable, but the waterman’s boy.

      The boat had to leave in half an hour to catch the evening tide. Mr Black said curtly he would take it. His rage seemed to be spent and he did not look at me as George packed the case and Susannah wiped my face and tearfully whispered to me to apologise to the gentlemen, but I would not. Apologise to him for