‘My Pa says thinking’s the scourge of a decent man’s proper rest,’ the child informed her.
‘But I’m not a decent man,’ Tyballis smiled to her shadow, hovering small and dark below her swinging toes. A sharp wind was sweeping up from the river. She pulled her cape tighter and said, ‘I don’t think I’m a decent anything. But at least I’m not as hungry as I was.’
‘Nor me, thanks to you, missus.’ The child paused. ‘So, I’ll be going now, then?’ She looked up hopefully, but when nothing more was offered, she slipped off the wall, bare feet to the mud, and began trotting east along Distaff Street. Tyballis watched her go and then turned in the opposite direction. After a moment she paused and looked back over her shoulder. The child, tiny now in the distance, had stopped at the same moment and was also looking back.
‘Where do you live?’ Tyballis called.
‘It’s a real long way,’ answered the child. ‘T’other side of the city.’
‘No matter,’ Tyballis said. ‘I need to walk, and I need to think. I’ll see you home. You can tell me your name and something about yourself on the way.’
Chapter Three
Having sold the recently acquired cloak, Tyballis was once again reduced to the threadbare inadequacy of her knitted and unlined cape, but the child’s lack of any warm covering shamed her shivers. The intermittent sun shone pallid.
They walked briskly through the back streets, sheltered from the river chill by the wharves and warehouses along the bank. The scuttle of shoppers had thinned, few women clutching their headdresses and men clutching their feathers remained, for the bustling barter of shopkeepers was over, stalls were closing, and shutters were hoisted fast. The sun had dipped into its afternoon slide towards grey, and as they passed through the huge shadows of The Tower, it seemed that night was already come. Then, once beyond the turreted walls, an open sweep of grassy rises claimed the horizon. They skirted Tower Hill and headed for the Aldgate, crossing the bridged ditch into the first streets outside London.
‘Ellen, then. Well, Ellen,’ Tyballis said as they walked, ‘can your parents not feed you? Now we’ve crossed the whole city gate to gate. It seems you walked a very long way to search for food.’
‘No point begging round my way,’ said the child. ‘Folks is poor as us and twice as stingy. My Ma tries, but there’s all the little ones to feed.’
Tyballis nodded. ‘I see, though I should call you quite little yourself. Doesn’t your father have employment?’
‘My Pa can do anything,’ Ellen insisted, ‘but there ain’t decent work to be had no more. We’ll be rich one day, when Pa gets the job he proper deserves.’
Between London’s wall and the distant pastures, the weavers, dyers and their tenters crammed into the Portsoken Ward. Tyballis and the child walked between the long dark of the tenements, skies hidden behind rooftops, streets dipping down towards the river and the docks. Then, one corner more and up a hidden lane, and a sudden explosion of greenery danced in the brief unleashed sunbeams. An unguarded entrance lay open with iron gates slumped on their broken hinges. A swaying tumult of leaf and bough filled the stretch of gardens within. Beyond the trees, echoes of reflected light glistened along two rows of windows, and tall brick chimneys striped the sky.
‘Here,’ said Ellen.
‘You live here?’ Tyballis gazed, disbelieving.
Ellen was disappointed. ‘Don’t you like it, missus? I reckon it’s a grand house. I’ll show you. Come in and meet my Ma.’
Tyballis shook her head. ‘Who owns this place? Not your family, surely?’
Ellen giggled. ‘No, silly. Not likely. ’Tis Drew’s house. Mister Cobham. He lets us stay, like all the others. There ain’t none of us has money, though nor does Drew, far as I can see. But he won’t likely be in. Never is past midday. Come on. Come meet my folks.’
The pocket of sunshine persisted, but the insidious smell of the tanneries blew in from the east as the wind announced encroaching cloud and rain to come. Within two hours or three, ice would lid the puddles with moonshine and traceries of frost would clamber along the window ledges.
‘I might come in, for a moment,’ Tyballis said. It was a long walk back to her Bishopsgate house, with nothing there but unpleasantness. She would, of course, keep her silence regarding her theft of Borin’s pie, but Margery would certainly discover it the following day when she visited her son at Newgate. A month of misery would then bridge the slide from autumn into winter. It was not something to rush home for.
The wide avenue inside the gates was trampled mud beneath wet leaf from the overhanging trees. At its end, a house of long windows gazed back. The upper storey jutted out precariously over the lower, its supports cracked and sagging. The old plaster flaked like oats ready for porridge, while the unpainted beams had lost their nails. There were thorn bushes around the doorway where the little hedges of a once-trim garden had now grown wild, but the doors were brass-handled and the tiled roof, peaked over the attic’s dormer windows, appeared in good repair. Huge chimney pots smoked, and a weather vane swung hard, a ship in full sail riding the breezes. So, the old sad house had been beautiful once.
Ellen pushed the door wide. Inside was blackness. Ellen called, ‘Come on. Upstairs.’ Without lamp or candle, Tyballis followed the blonde bounce of curls. Ten careful steps into the darkness, and she felt the curve of a balustrade and held to it, then the touch of the first stair against her toe. She stepped up, moved forwards – and found her way blocked.
The sudden shadow had a voice. A bright voice, a young voice, and welcoming words. ‘Well now, darling. Nice to see a new face. And a pretty young face it is, too.’
He stood on the stairs directly in front of her, a thin man with a large smile emerging from the darkness. Tyballis frowned. ‘I’ve come – with the child.’
Ellen sniffed. ‘No need to answer him. He’s nobody. Lodges free here, like the rest of us.’
From behind and below, a sudden shaft of light, cerise and gold, slanted through a ground-floor window. The sun was setting. Tyballis clung to cape and balustrade as the child and the nobody were lit with unexpected brilliance. The nobody wore black-and-gold striped hose and a peacock-blue doublet beneath a draped coat so fiercely scarlet it challenged the sinking sun. He bowed, grinned and stood his ground. ‘Davey Lyttle at your service, ma’am, long as that service earns the proper reward it deserves.’
‘I need no service and have nothing to offer as reward, sir.’ Tyballis followed as the child pushed past.
The staircase was handsome and wide, but many steps were broken where splintered holes gaped through the tread. ‘Best not touch much,’ advised Ellen. ‘There’s summit or other breaks most days.’ Doors opened either side along the lightless upstairs passageway, but Ellen marched past them all. Someone was singing, a woman’s voice, high and thin, and Ellen flung open the door to her left. Light once again dazzled as Tyballis walked into a chamber of immediate warmth. She heard the snoring and the singing before she saw either of them. The man was sprawled asleep across the cushioned settle. The woman on her knees by the hearth, turned, a broken stool, part singed, still in her hand. Ellen said, “Look, Ma. It’s my new friend, what gived me half her pie. Look, this is my Ma. Mistress Felicia Spiers they calls her. Being as that’s her name.”
Ellen’s mother wiped her hands on her apron. ‘How kind of you, my dear,’ she said. ‘But I’ve nought to give in return. Only a good, warm fire and my thanks.’ A scramble of small legs, skinny pink arms and little grasping fingers entangled her skirts. The woman lifted one wailing bundle and nodded earnestly at the other two. She wiped three pairs of eyes with the corner of her apron. ‘Poor little mites are hungry, too,’ she said. ‘But my Jon can’t get work this whole year past, so we must wait for Mister Cobham to return, and hope he has a crust or more to share with us.’