Dodger felt the man still watching him, and sure enough, Mister Mayhew said, ‘So if you don’t mind . . . where were you born, Mister Dodger?’
He had to wait until Dodger had finished the plateful of food and licked the knife on both sides. Then Dodger said, ‘Bow, sir, though don’t know for sure.’
‘Would you mind telling me about your upbringing . . . how you came to be a tosher?’
Dodger shrugged. ‘Was a mudlark for a while first, ’cos, well, that’s the kind of stuff you like as a kid – it sort of comes natural, if you know what I mean, mucking about in the river mud picking up bits of coal and suchlike. Not bad in the summer, bloody awful in the winter, but if you are smart you can find a place to sleep and earn yourself a meal. I done a bit of time as a chimney sweep’s lad, like I told Charlie, but then one day I began toshing, and never looked back, sir. Took to it like a pig to a muck heap, which is pretty much the same. Never found a tosheroon yet, but I hope to do so before I die.’
He laughed and decided to give the very serious-looking man something to think about, and so he added, ‘Of course I found practically everything else, sir – everything what folk throw away, or lose, or don’t care about. It’s amazing what you can find down there, especially under the teaching hospitals, oh my word yes! I can walk from one side of London to another underground, come up anywhere I like, and I’ll tell you, sir, you won’t believe me sometimes, sir, beautiful so it is! It’s like walking through old houses sometimes, the slopes of the stairs and stuff growing on the walls – the Grotto, Windy Corner, the Queen’s Bedroom, the Chamber of Whispers and all the other places we toshers know like the backs of our hands, sir, once we’ve washed them, of course. When the evening light strikes and comes off the river, it looks like a paradise, sir. I can’t expect you to believe it, but so it does.’
Dodger paused and considered what he had just said, common sense meaning that he wouldn’t tell a man with a poised pencil about stealing things and being a snakesman and a thief; that sort of revelation was fine for someone like Charlie, but for the likes of Mister Mayhew it seemed more sensible to put a shine on things.
‘One time I even found an old bedstead down there. And it’s amazing how the light finds a way in,’ he finished, and smiled at Mister Mayhew, who was looking at him with an expression halfway between shock and puzzlement, with perhaps a tiny bit of admiration.
Now the man said, ‘One last thing, Mister Dodger. Would you mind telling me how much you glean from your labours as a tosher?’
Dodger had pretty much expected something like this. He instinctively halved the amount of his earnings, saying, ‘Well, there’s good days and there’s bad days, sir, but I reckon I might earn as much as a chimney sweep, with every now and again a little windfall.’
‘And are you happy in your occupation?’
‘Oh yes, sir. I go where I please, I ain’t answerable to anybody, and every day is a sort of adventure, sir, if you get my meaning.’ And in order to boost his bona fides as an upstanding young gentleman he added, ‘Of course, sometimes I find something down there that someone has lost, and it does my heart good to give it back to them.’ Well, it was technically true, he thought to himself, even if a few shillings did come into the picture.
After a while the man cleared his throat and said, ‘Mister Dodger, thank you for that insight. I see that you have finished your breakfast to the extent that the plate positively shines, and now perhaps it is time to let you meet our guest again. Have you ever had such a thing as a bath? I must say that, considering your calling, you look reasonably clean.’
Dodger smirked at this. ‘That’s because of Solomon, sir, the cove what I live with. He is a devil for dirt, sir, on account of being one of the chosen people. And yes, there is a bath in the back room, sir – one of those little ones you stand in, kind of like washing yourself down with a rag, sir, and soap too, my oath, yes. I heard someone say cleanliness is next to godliness, but I reckon Sol reckons that cleanliness gives godliness a run for its money.’
Mister Mayhew was staring at Dodger like a man who has found a sixpence in a handful of farthings. Now he said, ‘You amaze me, Mister Dodger; you appear to be a brand plucking himself from the burning. Please do follow me.’
A minute later Dodger was ushered into the rather dark maids’ room upstairs. The golden-haired girl was sitting upright on one of the beds, like somebody who has just got up; and the room was suddenly bright from the girl’s smile, at least in the depths of Dodger, whose heart, somewhat corroded, was beating fast.
Mister Mayhew said, ‘Here is the young lady, whom I’m glad to say is making progress.’ He gestured to the other person in the room. ‘This, of course, is my wife Jane, whom I believe you met earlier but have not been introduced to as yet. My dear, this is Mister Dodger, the saviour of damsels in distress, as I believe you know.’
Dodger wasn’t sometimes certain that he understood what Mister Mayhew was saying, but he thought it would be sensible to point out, just in case there would be trouble later, ‘There was only one damsel in distress, sir – if the damsel means a lady, of course. But just one, sir.’
Mrs Mayhew – who had been sitting beside the girl, a soup bowl and spoon in her hand – stood up and held out her hand. ‘One damsel in distress, indeed, Mister Dodger. How foolish of my husband to believe that there might be more than one.’ She smiled, and so did her husband, and Dodger wondered if he had missed some kind of joke, but Mrs Mayhew hadn’t finished yet.
Dodger knew about families, and husbands and wives; often, wives helped their menfolk who sold stuff on the streets like baked potatoes and sandwiches – although baked potatoes were always a treat – and whole families worked at the game. Dodger, who had the eye for this sort of thing, watched the families and watched their faces and watched how they spoke to one another, and sometimes it seemed to him that although the man was the master, which was of course only right and proper, if you watched and listened you would see that their marriage was like a barge on the river, with the wife being the wind that told the captain which way the barge would sail. Mrs Mayhew, if not being the wind, certainly knew when to apply the right puff.
The couple smiled at one another, and Mrs Mayhew said sadly, ‘I’m afraid that the dreadful beating this young lady had – and I suspect had not endured for the first time – has in some way tangled her wits, so unfortunately I cannot introduce you properly. “Simplicity” will suffice for a name, a good Christian name, until we know more. And the name belonged to an old friend of mine, and so I am fond of it. She is quite young and one must hope that she will heal rapidly. At the moment, however, I keep the curtains mostly closed to keep out as much as possible of the noise of carriages in the streets – they appear to make Simplicity fearful. However, I’m glad to see that her physical faculties seem to be coming back slowly and the bruises are fading. Unfortunately I am led to believe that her life in recent times has not been . . . pleasant, although there are signs that at one time it may have been rather more . . . agreeable. After all, surely somebody must have cared for her to give her that wonderful ring she wears.’
Dodger didn’t need to know the precise code that passed between Mister Mayhew and his wife, but he could see that much of it consisted of meaningful looks from one to the other, and one of the messages was: Better not to talk about a valuable ring in front of this lad.
He said, ‘She gets worried when she hears carriages, does she? What about other street noises, like horses or honey wagons1 – they tend to rumble a lot?’
Mrs Mayhew said, ‘You are a very astute young man.’
Dodger blushed, and said, ‘I’m sorry, missus, but my best trousers are in the wash.’