The Newgate Jig (3 page)

And that was our first
encounter, Trimmer and I, though we regularly shared Garraway's breakfast
parlour, and Brutus, needing no introduction now, looked for him every morning.
Trimmer was not always there, and I soon realized that his breakfast very much
depended upon the condition of his purse. Sometimes I didn't see him for weeks,
when I supposed he was on what theatricals call a 'starve'. If he appeared and
ordered only a single cup of coffee and a slice of bread, then chink was
scarce. But when he breakfasted regally upon coffee and bread and bacon, and
invited me and my canine pals to join him, then it was certain that he had sold
a story or found a manager interested in his latest dramatic piece.

'Please, Chapman - Bob
- come and join me! Here, you -' to the hovering waiter, 'set another place for
my friend.'

There would appear a
snowy white cloth, and Trimmer, beaming and bountiful, made regular belly-cheer
of Garraway's humble fare. Neither were Brutus and Nero ignored, for bread and
bacon were brought for them, as well as any scraps the cook might have put by
for the cats'-meat-man, until I quite feared for their condition. Satiated, we
would enjoy a pipe, and it was in these confidential moments that Trim spoke of
his work for Barnard's and the business of the dramatic writer, which seemed to
necessitate the continuous burning of sixpenny candles until the sun rose.
Messrs Barnard were voracious in their appetite for his stories, he said, and
would take one a week, if he could only turn them out! But he had his dramatic
work as well, and it was a keen balancing act he must perform. There were
starves and feasts in the pen-driver's world, just as there was in the
exhibition business, and he could not rest from either.

One morning, we were
enjoying a modest repast (the needle was still hovering above wet and windy' for
us both), and Trim was musing, as ever, over his prospects. He had just
finished another dramatic piece,
Elenore the Female Pirate; or
the Gold of the Mountain King,
for Mr Carrier, the manager of
the Pavilion, as well as a story,
The Vulture's Bride; or the
Adventures of Fanny Campbell, the Terror of the High Seas,
for
Barnard's Penny Series.

He smiled. 'I know what
you're thinking, Bob. Far too many female pirates! But, you know, they're very
much "the thing", and I'm eager to have "the thing" at my pen's
end. I don't care much whether it's a thundering melodrama at the Pavilion or a
bloody romance in the hands of old man Barnard. I've had some little success in
both camps, you know. Gentlemen highwaymen, for example. My pocket novel,
The
Black Highwayman; or Roderick, the Knight of the Road,
has been
constantly in print with Messrs Barnard for the last half year. And Lovegrove
did sterling work in
Jack Blackwood the Gentleman Robber
at the Pav.'

I tried not to smile,
for my friend was desperately proud of his success in the penny novel line, and
aspired to great things on the stage. It was only a matter of time, he often
told me, before Mr Phelps of Drury-lane noticed him, and the great publishing
houses of Chapman and Hall or Murray of Albemarle-street were sure to recognize
his talent, which he sincerely believed was quite the equal of Messrs Thackeray
and Dickens. As for the stories of pirates and the highwaymen, they were
simply journeyman tasks, whilst he waited for the jewel of his inspiration and
a hearty dose of luck to arrive. Then he produced two packets from his coat and
laid them reverently upon the table.

'Here, Bob, is
The
Vulture's Bride,
a roistering tale of romance on the Spanish
Main, which I shall deliver to the copyist before I attend the Pavilion Theatre
where, at ten o'clock, we read the new Christmas piece,
Elenore
the Female Pirate. En assemble,
of course. I think old Carrier
will be pleased with it. Pirates and savages are certainly a change from
Harlequins and all that old-fashioned baggage!'

I was not convinced.
Call me a sentimental sort, but I like a pantomime at Christmas, no matter how
old the jests or tawdry the tinsel. That is the essence of pantomime, in my
book. A jolly jaunt with familiar friends, Harlequin and Columbine and
Pantaloon. And if poor old Clown has been forced to change his clothes and
masquerade as a Policeman, I can bite my tongue and still give him three
cheers, as long as he is predictable and merry. But do away with him altogether?
Even worse, do away with the Harlequinade and the Transformation Scene, where
the skill of the scenic painter is shown in rippling water and toadstools
becoming fairies? Never! Do away with this, and there will be more than me
offended! Half of London will be on their feet, roaring, and the other half
keeping their sixpences in their pockets and staying away from the theatre.

But
Trim will have none of it.

'Oh, come now, Bob!' he
said, seeing my downcast face. 'We must embrace change. Even in the theatre.
The Pavilion will survive Christmas without a dusty, old-fashioned pantomime!'

I was still not
convinced. Folks around here are keen on old-fashioned things, dusty or not.
But it was a hopeless cause, for Trim was already wiping his mouth and wrapping
his muffler three times about his neck to keep out the cold and damp which had
descended, like a stage cloth, about the city. And he was as cheerful as a dog
with two tails.

'I have a full day's
work ahead of me, Bob,' he cried, 'and at its close, a month's rent and
breakfasts. If not more!' and he strode out of Garraway's like a man just
knighted! It was a pleasure to see him thus, for my friend Trimmer was given
(he won't mind me saying) to periods of gloom and despondency, when the blue
devils sit on his shoulder and he is fearsomely dejected. I think it is the
artist in him, for I have noted in other men, the great Mr Dickens among them,
and Mr Thackeray also, a world-weary disposition when I linger over their
photographic portraits, displayed in the shop windows.

But this morning,
Brutus, Nero and I did not stop at the stationers on our way to the Aquarium.
And it was not our day to take the quickest route around the back rows, nor a
picturesque ramble along thriving streets of shops and new houses with their glimpses
of cottage gardens. Today, our morning walk took us to a nearby expanse of
wasteland which had been growing for some months and which seemed to change at
every visit, for there was much hurry to complete a new railway line, part of
which went under the ground in just this region and emerged, like a mole, miles
away. Only a week ago, houses stood above the great cavern which had been dug
out, and now, like a basher's grin, there was nothing but jagged gaps and piles
of smoking rubble. A new vista, like a panorama, had opened up, showing the
backs of buildings: dirty windows with missing panes and doors which had not
seen a lick of paint, nor the soft end of a duster, in all their lives,
displayed now for anyone to gawp at. Beyond them, an entire church spire rose
up, where before there was just a weathercock, and everywhere seemed wider and
bigger. At my feet, among the clayey puddles and mounds of earth, I had come
across coins and pieces of ancient pot lying on the ground for anyone to find,
and I had once again taken up my old pastime of antique-hunting, while my
canine pals wandered at will with their noses to the ground.

But this morning was
mizzley, and not the weather for digging. A bitter wind laced with rain was at
our back, and then flew in our faces like a scold's fury as we rounded the
corner of Hob-lane, with the attic roof of the Aquarium just in view, and even
Brutus and Nero looked enquiringly at me as we bent into the blast. On the
other side of the deep chasm, a line of tidy, old houses, home to families on
every floor (and in the cellar and attic too), was leaning further southward,
like a deck of cards, and, by evening, might be boarded up or simply have
tumbled into a heap of dust. For, in these days of improvement, many buildings simply
fell down unaided, slipping into piles of bricks or collapsing into the great
holes which suddenly appeared beneath them, their occupants killed, and even
innocent passers-by. These houses, however, though their roof tiles had slid
away and rags of curtains fluttered in the glassless windows, were at least
shored up with timbers which stretched like bones out of joint into the soggy
ground.

On the fencing made
from more old timbers (to prevent, I supposed, the houses falling in the other
direction, into the diggings) the bill-poster had been active. A pageant of
colourful announcements of sales and circuses, balloon ascents, gaff theatres
and even the Aquarium, marched in close order in great black, inky letters on
yellow, red and blue backgrounds. How strange to see them, fluttering and
bright, across the terrible dark gulf carved out of the mire and mud. Before
us lay the chasm, very deep, and at its bottom the dismal blackness of the
railway cutting and a tunnel being built, one of many burrowing through the
city. It was my horror. And my fascination. I was drawn to the very edge of
it, to look down into its depths, to smell that stink of old earth and
rottenness, and sometimes felt that an unseen force was pulling me towards it
and I was powerless to resist, and it was only the hooting of the labourers
that brought me to my senses.

But what labourers they
were! For this hard work attracted a species of 'cazzelty' (in the common
tongue) like no other, one accustomed to the darkness and toil, and whose
natural state was to be covered in dirt and clay. One newspaper writer claimed
that these railway workings had produced 'a new species of men', 'troglodytes'
he called them, and an artist in Mr Lemon's
Punch
showed them
in a comical picture with shovels and picks for arms. And, in spite of my
horror, I was fascinated, and have stood and watched them digging and clawing
in the soil, hauling upon ropes and hoists to lower timbers and bricks and
drawing up cart-loads of spoil, whilst roaring and cursing like savages. But in
these foul places, where the filth and stench of the earth take the place of
God's good air, men, I think, become more like beasts, and are reduced to the
very baseness of their natures.

Even in the regions above,
there was no escaping them. Those cazzelties who could not afford lodgings
simply claimed an empty house or set up make-shift camps, and here and there on
the wasteland, thin strings of smoke from fires and from the canvas mushrooms
of their rough tents rose into the murk. It seemed to me the most wretched of
existences, yet these men brought their families with them, and I have seen
grubby, bright-eyed children splashing in the muddy pools whilst their mothers
crouched over blackened pots, all of them as filthy as if they had just crept
out of the mire below. Of course, tales about them quickly sprang up, though
not so pleasant even as your Bluebeards or Spring-heeled Jacks. Stories were
rife of thievings and barbarous assaults (the usual crimes done by the poor and
ignorant), but also of attacks upon women and child-stealing, which we all know
are the crimes favoured by foreigners, and gypsies especially. Not a hundred
paces away, a woman and two small children were watching me, so I gave them a
wide berth, straying closer to the chasm's edge, close enough indeed to have
that stink of wet earth and ancient corruption rise up to greet me from the
gloom like an old friend, and to feel myself, as ever, drawn to those fearsome
regions.

Suddenly, there was a
rush, a roar and the world turned over, with me in its arms. Someone, no more
than a bundle of rags, I at first thought, and in a great hurry, glanced my
shoulder, sending me careering to the ground, where I landed heavily in a pool
of clayey water. I lay there, momentarily stunned, as cheers and laughter rose
up from the cazzelties below, although whether at my dousing or in
encouragement or warning to the boy, it was impossible to say. What is certain
is that the plunging figure
was
a boy, and he
was
running and sliding along the top of the rough embankment as though every devil
in hell was at his heels. He was in a desperate, a frantic hurry, perilously
close to the rough edge of the chasm, and entirely careless of his own safety.
But why he was running, or from who or what, was a mystery. When the cry of
'Who chases?' rose up from the cazzelties, I expected at every moment to see a
burly constable or chimney-master in pursuit of him. But there was no one. The
sky had grown dark with clouds and rain, the air thick and murky, almost a fog
now, and all I could see were a handful of idlers peering over the fence on the
opposite side of the cutting. Not a cry, nor a 'Stop, thief!', just the
muffling dankness of the winter morning. And certainly no one in pursuit of
the fleeing boy. But pursued he believed he was, for I watched him from my
puddle, slipping and sliding and constantly looking over his shoulder, running
blind again, teetering upon the brink and almost losing his footing and
threatening to descend, head over tip, into that oblivion, only to recover
himself at the last moment and press on.

I did not see it
happen, and could only suppose that the boy did stumble and lose his footing
and slipped over the edge of the cutting. But if he grasped at the muddy banks,
at the loose boulders and soil, even the straggling bushes and grasses, he did
so silently, and then plunged out of sight, for he made not a murmur. Of
course, I struggled to my knees and crawled through the sticky mire to find
him, but when I reached the edge of the chasm, on all fours, with the mud
soaking into my clothes, expecting to see him clinging to the bankside, he was
nowhere to be seen. And below was that terrible descent of clay and rock and
darkness.