Yearn (4 page)

“Come to the point, Stanley; I am damp and there is supper waiting,” D'Arcy interrupted rudely, eager to avoid one of the longiloquent monologues the lawyer was prone to.

“The ‘point,' Master Hammer, is simply that your stipend will cease altogether by the fourth of next month, after which your father expects you to be able to support both yourself and your future wife through the profits of your profession. He also expects your stipend to be paid back in total by the time you are thirty-five. There is a biography due to be published, is there not?”

“There is, but—”

“There are no buts, Master Hammer, not this time. Your father's decision is final,” the lawyer concluded, and then, after reading the young man's expression, placed a clammy hand on his arm. He was not a cruel man and, having known the writer since he was a child, was rather fonder of D'Arcy than the writer was of him. “I am sorry, Master Hammer.”

Overwhelmed by this latest turn of events, D'Arcy sat down abruptly. Then, in a feeble attempt to conceal his reaction, he covered his brow with his hand. It felt as if the whole world was conspiring to cause his downfall. How could he possibly afford to marry Clementine now, never mind keep her as a wife, without his father's financial support? And how could he possibly rely on his biography being a success now that his rival planned to publish the same biography? And as for the stipend to be repaid within three years—the only way he could imagine that to be possible would be to sell his very soul, an option that would not, in any case, bring him any great fortune, as he suspected he might have sold it already, thanks to his extracurricular activities with Prudence O'Malley. Life looked very bleak indeed. “I do not blame my father, Stanley; he has been generous to have supported me thus far.” D'Arcy's voice was small, broken, as he now wallowed in self-pity.

“Indeed,” the lawyer added, then subtly placed a banknote on a side table. “This should see you through until then, D'Arcy.” And then, to avoid further humiliation for our now penniless author, he left, closing the door silently behind him.

 • • • 

Later that afternoon D'Arcy, still dazed by the reversal of fortune that had left him unable to recognize the confident writer of some twenty-four hours earlier, sat at his desk staring blankly out the window in a manner young writers are so often apt to do. Outside the storm had cleared and late afternoon sunshine now streamed across the town square, transforming the tall, leaf-covered chestnut tree branches into luminous green giants, comforting in their optimistic beauty.

“I am defeated,” he said out loud, glancing across at his manuscript, untouched since the previous morning. “I cannot even muster the enthusiasm to finish. I have been pipped at the post even before publication.” He finished his address to the bust of Joseph Banks; it sounded depressingly like an apology. His gloomy reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door, which he had intended to ignore, except that it occurred twice and then thrice. “Come in!” he yelled, a little more bad-tempered than he intended. A chimney sweep bearing brushes entered. He tipped his cap politely.

“Sorry, Gov, the housekeeper told me you wouldn't be in. Should I leave, sir? Seeing you're working and all . . .”

“No, please continue with your task. The chimney does need cleaning. . . .” Despite his anxiety D'Arcy welcomed the distraction. The sweep, a handsome lad of about twenty, appeared to be somewhat of a dandy within the confines of his uniform. His cap was set at a rakish angle, there was a yellow carnation in the buttonhole of his worn overalls, and his mustache was groomed. There was an intelligence in his gaze and he seemed blessed with that particular optimism found in the working classes, D'Arcy noted, envying the simplicity of both the man's life and profession. After all, in that moment, cleaning chimneys appeared an honest day's work from D'Arcy's jaded perspective. Whistling, the sweep began to unpack his brushes. “You a writer then, sir?” he asked after glancing at the pile of papers.

“A biographer. I write about other people's lives.”

“Sounds like a pretty living.”

“It is precarious like all others.”

“You're not wrong there, sir. Course it must help arriving at a life worth telling—wouldn't be much in me own, that's for sure. I'd be quite boring to read. Although what I've seen of others—now that would be worth telling.” The sweep laughed, a salacious chuckle that made D'Arcy a little uncomfortable, as if he too had unwittingly partaken in the workman's voyeurism.

“I only write about great men, men that have inspired and made a contribution to our great nation,” D'Arcy replied haughtily, then immediately regretted the sound of his own pompous voice. “Like Joseph Banks,” he continued, “the subject of my current work—although I am somewhat stultified having arrived at an impasse.” To his surprise the sweep immediately stopped unpacking his brushes and stood amazed.

“Joseph Banks—Sir Joseph Banks?” he asked, astonished.

“The very same. You have heard of him?”

“Heard of him? I sweep the chimneys over at the Royal Institute. I 'ave swept the very same chimney his honorable personage no doubt once toasted his honorable feet at, in what was once, I was told, his study. One could say I have stirred the embers of greatness.”

“One could say,” D'Arcy echoed, amused, “but it is not such a coincidence. Mayfair is a small world, and you are a local business.”

“Indeed, sir. Perhaps you are right, but then I am a superstitious man,” the sweep replied enigmatically before covering the hearth and its surrounds with a sheet and returning to his brushes. He began assembling a particularly long one. As he screwed one wooden pole into another, he kept glancing over at the manuscript while D'Arcy, having again sunk into despair, reached for his snuffbox and sniffed a pinch as a consolation. “Funny you should be writing about Sir Banks, sir, because I came, innocently mind you, upon a document I believe belonged to the man, when I was cleaning the very same 'forementioned chimney.”

It was an extraordinary admission. Startled, D'Arcy spilled his snuff all over his left hand. In a futile attempt to appear calm and indifferent he carefully swept the expensive powder onto a glass-topped side table. “You did?” He kept his tone level; he didn't want the sweep to suspect that he might be in possession of something financially valuable.

“I did, sir, concealed halfway up, wrapped carefully in an oiled canvas bag so it wouldn't soil, a section of a diary, signed I believe by the knighted gentleman himself. Obviously it were something he didn't want his public getting hold of, I believe, else why would he go to so much trouble hiding it?” the sweep nonchalantly replied while vigorously inserting the long brush into D'Arcy's own chimney. As he pushed the brush energetically up and down inside the chimney, dislodging a small cloud of soot down onto the sheets, D'Arcy watched him, transfixed. Could this be his Gabriel in disguise? His angel of deliverance?

“Do you still have the section?” A note of tremulous expectation entered the writer's voice despite his feigned indifference.

The sweep pulled his brush out dramatically, a cascade of soot blackening the hearth and grid. “I do indeed, sir, but I have it at my humble lodgings, in Soho.” Now the sweep turned and looked at him frankly, his gaze traveling from the writer's feet to his face. It was a gaze D'Arcy couldn't quite fathom the meaning of, but found disturbing nevertheless. The sweep smiled saucily. “Would you care to see it, sir?” D'Arcy's heart was now pounding so hard he was concerned its movement might have been visible through the cloth of his waistcoat. He slipped one hand into his trouser pocket to conceal his trembling fingers.

“I would indeed. Is this evening convenient?”

“You are eager, sir. . . .” The sweep, still smiling, seemed almost provocative.

Suddenly D'Arcy realized he
was
being provocative. The young biographer blushed furiously. Ignorant as he was of the behavior of men who desire their own gender, he realized he had not been aware of any such signal until now. And yet he still needed to lay his hands on that secret section.

“The diary, it does really exist? For that would be my only motivation for visiting you, you understand,” D'Arcy added, abandoning all etiquette to make sure there would be no further misunderstanding.

“Oh yes, sir, I can assure you of that.” And if the sweep was disappointed he concealed it prettily. Instead he turned back to D'Arcy's fireplace. “Your chimney was really filthy, sir. It must feel a lot better 'aving all that dirt pushed out of your pipes. I suppose that's why some call me ‘the good time man.' After I've come they can breathe a whole lot easier,” he concluded cheerfully and seemingly without nuance. He began to pack his brushes away.

D'Arcy turned back to his desk, his heart still thumping. “I will get my hands on this secret diary. I will,” he reassured himself, but sensing that both tact and strategy were required, he busied himself with some trivial footnotes as he waited for the sweep to broach the subject again. It felt like the workman was taking an eternity to gather his equipment. Finally the sweep turned to leave. Before he walked out whistling he placed a business card on D'Arcy's desk.

“Number ten, Golden Square. Ask for Harry. I'll expect you at eight on the dot and I'll have the desired object unpacked and waiting.” And then, to D'Arcy's disconsolation, he winked.

 • • • 

Stepping over the rivulet of raw sewage that wound its way between the cobbled pavement and the front steps of the Georgian house with the number ten welded into its rickety iron gate, D'Arcy wondered whether he might have been a little rash—it might have been wiser to have asked the sweep to visit him again at his aunt's mansion. But somehow it had felt safer and less conspicuous for him to visit the sweep. After all, he could not afford to be seen by any of his Mayfair or literary acquaintances, and he wanted to be entirely confident the existence of the diary would not be leaked to Tuttle.

And so it was, dressed suitably casually in a sack coat (which he now found to be unseasonably warm), checked trousers, and soft-crowned brown hat, D'Arcy came once more to find himself unintentionally in the vicinity of Prudence O'Malley, his moral weakness and object of great sensual distraction. Although her dwelling was situated on the other side of the square, the young biographer could even now feel the pull of her upon him. Forcing himself back to the task at hand, he approached a small female child of about six years or so, playing marbles on the step.

“Excuse me, young miss, I am after a Mr. Harry—the chimney sweep?”

The redheaded waif stared up at him, then thoughtfully picked her nose. “'Ow much is it worth to you?”

Reluctantly D'Arcy handed her a penny. She bit it, then, with practiced expertise, slipped it into a pocket hidden in her dirty petticoat. “He's on the top floor, is Harry. No doubt he'd be expecting a gentleman like you,” she added with a lewd sort of sophistication that D'Arcy found momentarily repulsive.

Ignoring the waif's comment, he stepped over her and entered the Georgian townhouse. Once a grand residence, it had, like all of its neighboring fellows, fallen into neglect and decay. The entrance hall was dark and dingy—a terrible stench rose up from the cellar below and somewhere beyond the darkened arch at the back of the house D'Arcy could hear the sound of a baby wailing.

Holding a handkerchief to his face, determined not to catch some dreadful disease through inhaling the foul and polluted miasma, D'Arcy began climbing the stairs and the air became less foul as he ascended each landing. The sweep's residence was at the fourth landing, in what might have served originally as the servants” quarters. And Harry, out of uniform and dressed surprisingly in an elegant but obviously secondhand morning coat, was already waiting for him at the top.

“Prompt, sir, that is indeed the mark of good breeding, is it not?” There was a new shyness about the man, as if by removing the uniform he had removed some of the obvious social differences between them.

“Indeed, it is, Harry.” D'Arcy, winded by his climb, leaned for a moment against the railings.

“Please excuse my humble dwelling—isn't a lot of money in soot,” the sweep explained as, holding up a smoldering oil lamp, he led the young biographer through a narrow corridor with a repressively low wooden ceiling toward a set of double doors. The smell of boiling cabbage became progressively stronger as they approached. “Not until I own me own set of brushes and then I can employ some lads below me. See, I have ambition, sir, and in my position ambition is both a blessing and a curse,” he concluded as they reached the door. Behind him D'Arcy had silently begun calculating how much money he could afford to pay the sweep for the diary since it was now apparent that obtaining the diary would require commerce.

Harry knocked three times and a tiny woman, her white hair hidden under a grimy bonnet, opened the door. She looked eighty but was probably not much more than fifty.

“Mother, this is the eminent biographer we was expecting,” Harry announced. After a demure curtsy, she silently let them pass. The large room contained two beds and a table placed in a low window alcove that looked as if it served as both kitchen and dining table. A copper cooking pot hung over the hearth and there was a small washstand in one corner. Despite being meager it was spotlessly clean, much to D'Arcy's relief.

“I live here with my four sisters, but they are all out working. In the theater. They are handsome girls and they do handsomely, don't they, Mother?” In response the old woman suddenly smiled, an expression that instantly transformed her face. To D'Arcy's surprise, he could see where the son might have inherited some of his beauty. “Now to the diary, sir. Sit yourself down over there; Mother will bring you a mug of tea and I shall fetch it.” D'Arcy, his head lowered to avoid bumping it on the ceiling, made his way over to the table. Through the grubby diamond-shaped windowpanes he could just see the skyline of London, with a large, sickly yellow full moon rising up over the high roofs of Mayfair. It looked ominous and, again, D'Arcy wondered about the turn of circumstances that now found him in such a situation. The old woman poured tea out of a saucepan that had been sitting over the fire grate, then placed before him with a delicate grace a chipped china cup of the dark brew. On the other side of the room Harry reached under one of the beds and pulled out an old tea chest. At the rustle of paper, D'Arcy turned. Triumphantly the sweep held a small canvas bag aloft. “I knew I had it in here somewhere. I've not read it meself, out of respect for the great dead gentleman, but you, sir, are his official biographer so I'm sure he wouldn't mind. . . .” Unable to contain himself, D'Arcy snatched it from the sweep's hands and stepped into the only pool of light in the room, cast from a single oil lamp hanging from the ceiling. He pulled open the bag with his trembling fingers. The canvas smelt and felt old, at least sixty or seventy years of age. Carefully D'Arcy slipped out the collection of pages it contained. It was a slim notebook of ten pages or so, held together by string. On the thick oiled cover were written the words:
The pages of my journal kept only for myself to avoid condemnation from God, my fellow scientists and perhaps, even my future wife . . .
D'Arcy recognized the handwriting immediately.