Dodger (27 page)

He warmed to his subject. ‘What I really like about the English is that they don’t have theories. No Englishman would ever have said, “I think, therefore I am.” Although possibly he might have said, “I think, therefore I am, I think.” The world can have too much order, alas. Ah, here we are at last. Mind your manners and remember what I told you about how to eat with so much cutlery
¹
– which, I have to reiterate, I would rather you did not attempt to steal. I know you to be a well-intentioned young man, but occasionally you get a little mmm absent-minded around small light objects; please refrain from the habit of a lifetime, just for tonight, please?’

‘I’m not a thief!’ said Dodger. ‘I can’t help it if things are left lying around.’ Then he nudged Solomon’s arm and said, ‘Just kidding. I will be on my best behaviour and a credit to my wonderful unmentionables – I’ve never had a garment that fitted so well in the groin. If I’d known what it feels like to be among the gentry I would have applied for a ticket a long time ago!’

The driver stopped just short of their destination; private coaches and growlers were politely jostling to disgorge their passengers without their drivers having to swear at one another more than usual. They got out and walked up the steps of the very pleasant building Dodger had hardly noticed the night before. Solomon raised his hand to knock on the door and magically the
door
opened before he had touched it, to reveal Geoffrey the butler.

The important thing to do, Dodger thought, was to keep close to Solomon, who seemed to be entirely in his element. The guests were still coming in, and most of them knew one another, and they certainly knew where the drinks were, and therefore Dodger and Solomon were ignored right up until Charlie and Mister Disraeli returned together from wherever it was they had huddled to exchange current information.

Disraeli made a beeline for Solomon and said, ‘How nice it is to see you here!’ They shook hands, but Dodger read from their faces that here were two people who distrusted each other quite a lot. Then Disraeli, with a glint in his eye, turned to Dodger and said, ‘Oh, wonderful, the young tosher transmuted into a gentleman! Excellent!’

This slightly annoyed Dodger, though he couldn’t exactly figure out why, but he said, ‘Yes, sir, indeed, tonight I am a gentleman and tomorrow I might turn out to be a tosher again!’ As the words dropped into Dodger’s ears, his brain clicked again, telling him: This is the opportunity, don’t mess it up! And so, grinning, he added, ‘I can be a gentleman, and I can be a tosher; can
you
be a tosher, Mister Disraeli?’

For a moment, and probably entirely unnoticed by anyone else in the throng apart from the four of them, there was a moment when the world froze, and then thawed instantly the moment Mister Disraeli had decided what to do, which was to smile like the morning sun with a knife in its teeth. He said, ‘My dear boy, do you think I would make a tosher? Hardly a profession I had reason to contemplate, I must say!’

He had to pause because Charlie had slapped him on the back,
saying
, ‘It’s just scrambling in the mud to find the hidden treasure, my friend, and I might suggest it is remarkably like politics! If I was you I would take the opportunity to learn something very valuable about the world. I always do!’

Disraeli glanced at Dodger and said, ‘Well, now I come to think of it, quite possibly a reconnaissance of the underbelly of the city would be sensible at this time.’

‘And indeed,’ said Charlie, grinning like a man who has dropped a sixpence and picked up a crown, ‘it would show, do you not think, that you are being very careful of public opinion in the matter of drainage in this city, which is in fact antiquated and noisome, to say the least. A canny politician would, I am sure, like to show his concern for this scandalous state of affairs. Our friends in
Punch
magazine would certainly portray you as a forward-looking politician, careful of the city as a whole.’

For a moment Disraeli looked rather solemn, playing with his little goatee beard as if lost in thought, then he said, ‘Yes indeed, Charlie, I think you may have a point.’

It seemed to Dodger that the two men were each hatching plans of their own; he could smell the smell of a man who scents an opportunity and was deciding how to bend it to his own advantage, just like he was. He thought, Good old Charlie knows that whether Mister Disraeli comes out of the sewer covered in richards or covered in diamonds, Charlie will have covered a very good story.

Disraeli lit up like a very enthusiastic candle and his smile broadened as he turned and said, ‘Very well, Mister Dodger, let no one say that I am averse to a challenge. I will indeed, if you are prepared to be my Virgil, take a subterranean ramble with you in
the
public interest. Let me see – the day after tomorrow perhaps? After all, a politician should do more than just talk!’

He looked around approvingly, and Dodger said, ‘I’d like you to understand, sir, I ain’t a virgin, you just ask Ginny-Come-Lately! But I would be quite happy to give you a little tour, sir. Not near the hospitals, of course. The breweries are pretty good; down there, even the rats smell good.’

At that point Miss Burdett-Coutts passed, circulating among her growing crowd of guests, and Charlie said, ‘Here’s a go, Angela. Ben and young Dodger here are hatching up a scheme to go down into our wretched sewers shortly, on a voyage of exploration for the public good. Don’t you think that is a fine thing?’

‘Are they? I certainly hope they tidy themselves up before they come back here again!’ Angela smiled at Dodger, held out her hand and said, ‘So nice to see you again, Mister Dodger. I see you have raised your game considerably when it comes to your clothing. Excellent!’

Dodger took the lady’s outstretched hand and kissed it, to her surprise and his own, but to the great edification and amusement of both Charlie and Disraeli; Solomon certainly hadn’t told him to do this but, well, he was Dodger, and Miss Burdett-Coutts was smiling as if a favourite dog had done a good trick, but at the same time would quite like the dog to know that it was only allowed one bite. The unspoken code was that once was fine and twice would be taking liberties, and she was sure that Dodger would not need telling twice.

She looked at Solomon and said, ‘Ah, the most learned Mister Cohen, I presume? I have heard so much about you. I believe the Papal Nuncio told me a wonderful story about your perspicacity.’
She
turned back to Dodger and said, ‘Mister Dodger, I believe you might be interested to meet Miss Simplicity Parish, a cousin of mine from the country.’

Almost immediately, Simplicity stepped out from behind Miss Coutts, and for Dodger every single person in the room once again disappeared, leaving only Simplicity. After a moment, Simplicity, clearly realizing that if she didn’t say anything, Dodger was likely to be there with his mouth open for the rest of the evening, held out her hand and said, ‘My word, so you are the famous Mister Dodger. I am very happy to meet you.’

Angela, glancing at Dodger, said, ‘When dinner is announced, I would be happy for you to take Miss Simplicity through to the dining area. You may sit beside me so that the proprieties are maintained.’ Having neatly put Simplicity and Dodger together, Miss Coutts then cased the room, Dodger thought, like a burglar anxious to find every piece of silverware, scanning all the newcomers milling around. ‘Do you see that gentleman over there, by the fireplace?’ she said with a small gesture of her head. ‘That is Sir George Cayley, who certainly has demonstrated to us exactly why birds are able to fly and I believe is determined to see that humans do the same, although I suspect that William Henderson might beat him to it – I have been hearing much about his prototype steam-powered aerial carriage. If things look promising, I might consider funding further progress. It would be such a boon for mankind. Just imagine if you could fly to France in one day!’

That would be like the railways, Dodger thought. If you had money, you find someone who is, you are sure, going to change the world, and get more money back if it works. After all, money doesn’t do much when it’s just standing still. It’s when it’s moving
around
that it really works. He felt quite pleased with himself for coming up with this observation.

One of the guests had cracked a joke on the other side of the room and there was general laughter, and then in a low voice Angela said to Dodger and Simplicity, ‘Do you see that rather taciturn gentleman over there who looks as if he lost a guinea and found a farthing? That’s Charles Babbage, and he has made a machine that can add up, and that’s very interesting and I am very fond of interesting people. Although in his case, he is not really very keen on other people at all, apart from having excellent taste when it comes to his lady friends. And I see that Mister Cohen is already in conversation with Mister Babbage and his friend, Ada Lovelace, who is a most elegant lady and a credit to her father. I am sure they will have a lot to talk about. If ever there is a man who introduces himself, it is Mister Cohen.’ Suddenly she said happily, ‘Ah, there’s Sir Robert Peel. I’m so glad he could come. I was told that he had been held up on a bit of business at Scotland Yard.’ She swept away into the chattering throng.

Sir Robert Peel? The boss of the crushers! Being a tosher wasn’t exactly illegal – Grandad had told Dodger a coin was a coin, and if you picked it out of the mud, well, who knew whose coin it had been? Mind you, there was the little matter of
getting
into the sewers, that probably being a matter of trespass. Nobody bothered all that much though, except for the work gangs, who thought that loose coinage was their legal perk. The public at large didn’t care a fig; toshers could scrabble in the dark and come up with a copper or two, or they could scrabble in the dark and die, at no extra charge.

But peelers, well, sometimes they had their own interpretation
of
the spirit of the law, and some of them saw it as their duty to make life a little more tricky for those people on the edge of society, which was why they were having so many fights with the Cockney lads, which amounted to a small war.

Toshers were small fry, but in the rookeries, well, peelers were the
enemy
. Dodger didn’t know the word ‘visceral’, he just understood the situation: you would do yourself no good mixing with the peelers, and now here he was in the same room as their boss and, as sure as sixpence, Angela was going to introduce Dodger to him. He told himself that he had done nothing wrong – well, maybe a few things hardly worth mentioning and mostly a long time ago – but if you came from the rookeries the peelers didn’t listen for long.

On the other hand, of course, he thought, it was quite possible that Angela might object to people being arrested in her house.

He didn’t panic, because people on the tosh who panicked would sooner or later knock themselves out and lose their bearings. But Simplicity was watching him with a slightly worried smile, and by sheer main force he calmed himself down as if nothing had happened, because in fact nothing
had
happened, and by degrees he was feeling better. All he had to do was not get excited and keep as far away as possible from Sir Robert.

To his surprise, Simplicity stroked his hand and said, ‘Are you all right, Dodger? I know you have had such a busy time, all because of me, and I am so very grateful.’

Charlie and Disraeli had drifted off on another current in this room, where it appeared that nobody stood in one place for very long before seeing somebody else that they also wanted to talk to. So gossip and people oscillated through the air, with at the moment himself and Simplicity in a little bubble.

He managed to say, ‘Oh, don’t worry about me, miss. How is life here?’

‘Angela is very kind,’ said Simplicity. ‘Really very kind, and . . . how can I put this . . .? Very understanding.’

Dodger said, ‘I asked you this once before, and now things is different but there’s no change in the question. What would you like to happen next? Do you want to stay here?’

Her face went solemn. ‘Yes, Angela is very kind. But I know I am here because I am a problem, and I do not wish to be a problem. Sooner or later, problems get solved. I wonder how that might happen.’

Dodger looked around, but no one was paying them any attention so he plucked up his courage and said, ‘Supposing as you could go somewhere where you could be anybody you wanted to be? Not no problem to nobody. Because, you see, I think I might have a plan. It’s quite a good plan, but I only got one part this evening so I’m still working on it. It might be risky and it could mean a bit of play-acting, but if I trust in the Lady, I think it will work – she has never let me down this far.’ Then he had to explain to her who the Lady was.

At last, Simplicity said, ‘I see. I mean, I think I see. But, dear Dodger, would I be right in believing that the success of this plan will end up with you and me together somewhere safe?’

Dodger cleared his throat. ‘Yes, that is the plan.’

She stared at him. There was always something delightfully solemn in the way Simplicity spoke, and she said softly, ‘I think that would be an excellent plan, Dodger, don’t you?’

Dodger said, ‘You agree?’

‘Oh yes, indeed, you are kind, very kind. I don’t know about
loving
; we shall see. I have had what I believed was love, but it was an untrue thing, what I think is called a forgery, a bad coin, and not what I thought it was.’ She hesitated. ‘What I thought of as a shining sixpence proved to be a farthing, as you would say. But I have found that kindness lasts a lot longer than love, because my mother always said that kindness was love in disguise. And, Dodger, where you are, the world seems to fizz. You make everything seem possible.’