5

Next day, chancing to wake early, Simon looked out of his front window into Rose Alley and saw his unfortunate donkey, Caroline, struggling to pull an outrageously heavy milk cart loaded with churns, and being encouraged thereto by the shrewish dairywoman, who was beating her with a curtain pole.

Simon threw on his clothes and ran down to the street.

"Hey!" he shouted after the milkwoman. She turned, scowling, and snapped, "Penny a gill, and only if you've got your own jug."

"I don't want milk," Simon said (indeed it looked very blue and watery). "I want my donkey." And before she could object, he kicked a brick under the wheel of the cart and slipped the relieved Caroline out from between the shafts. In two days she seemed to have grown noticeably thinner and to have acquired several weals.

"I'm not leaving her with you a minute longer," Simon told the woman. "You ought to be ashamed to treat her so."

"I suppose you are the president of the Royal Humane Society," she sneered. Then she turned and bawled, "Tod! Bring the mule."

"Coming, Aunt Poke," called a voice, and the boy Tod appeared leading a scraggy mule with one hand and holding his trousers around his neck with the other. He put out his tongue at Simon, and remarked, "What price cat's meat?"

It was still very early, and Simon decided this would be a good time to make inquiries about Dr. Field at the shops in the neighborhood. There was a greengrocer's next to the dairy, adorned with piles of wizened radishes and bunches of drooping parsley. He saw Mrs. Grotch, Aunt Tinty, watering these with dirty water from a battered can. Guessing that he would get no help from her he passed to the next shop, a bakery.

"Can you tell me if a Dr. Gabriel Field ever bought bread here?" he asked, stepping into the warm, sweet-smelling place.

"Dr. Field?" The baker scratched his head, then called to his wife, "Polly? Know anything about a Dr. Field?"

"Was he the one that lanced Susie's carbuncle?" The baker's wife came through into the shop, wiping her hands on her apron.

Just at that moment Simon heard a voice behind him. Tod, having harnessed the mule to his Aunt Poke's milk float, had wandered along the lane and was spinning a top outside the door and singing in a loud, shrill voice,

"Nimmy, nimmy, not,
My name's Tom Tit Tot."

Whether this song had any effect on the baker and his wife, or whether they had just recollected a piece of urgent business, Simon could not be sure, but the baker said hastily, "No, there's no doctor of that name round here, young man," and hurried out of the shop, while his wife cried, "Mercy! my rolls are burning," and bustled after him.

Simon walked the length of the row of shops, asking at each one, but all his questions, perhaps because of Tod, were equally fruitless, and at length, discouraged, he set off for the academy, while Tod turned a series of cartwheels along Rose Alley (keeping his trousers on only with the greatest difficulty) and launched a defiant shout of "My name's Tom Tit Tot" after Simon which it seemed wisest to ignore.

It was still only half-past seven, so there was time to call at the Cobbs' and ask if Caroline might be boarded at the stables there.

The Cobbs were at breakfast and received Simon with great cordiality, offering him marmalade pie, cold fowl, and hot boiled ham. Mrs. Cobb, a stout, motherly woman, insisted on his having a mug of her Breakfast Special to see him through the day. This was a nourishing mixture of hot milk and spices, tasting indeed so powerfully of aniseed that Simon thought it would see him through not only that day but several days to come.

"Ah, it's a reg'lar cockle-warmer, Flossie's Breakfast Special," Mr. Cobb said fondly and proudly. "You see, young 'un, my wife was a Fidgett, from Loose Chippings; those Fidgett girls know more about housewifery and the domestic arts by the time they marry than most women learn in a lifetime."

Simon was very interested to hear that Mrs. Cobb came from the same part of the country as himself, while Mrs. Cobb was amazed to learn that Simon had passed the early part of his life at Gloober's Poor Farm.

"And you such a stout, sensible lad, too!" she exclaimed. "I thought they all turned out half-starved and wanting in the head, poor things. O' course we'll keep the donkey here, and gladly won't we, Cobby! The lad won't mind if little Libby has a turnout on her now and then, I daresay?"

As little Libby Cobb was only two, and looked extremely seraphic, in complete contrast to Miss Dido Twite, Simon had not the least objection to this.

He bade farewell to the Cobbs, hastened down to the academy, and set to work in the Mausoleum, drawing a bronze figure with a trident. He had not, however, been at this occupation very long when Dr. Furrneaux appeared and whisked him away to another room where an old lavender-seller had been established with her baskets on a platform to have her portrait painted by a dozen students.

They had been working for a couple of hours and Dr. Furrneaux was giving a lecture from the platform (largely incomprehensible because he had somehow got his whiskers smothered in charcoal dust and kept breaking off to sneeze) when two people entered the room.

Glancing around his easel Simon recognized the boy Justin, whom he now knew to be young Lord Bakerloo, the Duke of Battersea's nephew, and his tutor, the pale-eyed Mr. Buckle. Justin looked wan but triumphant; his right arm was heavily bandaged and he carried it in a sling.

Buckle addressed Dr. Furrneaux in low tones. Meanwhile Justin had caught sight of Simon and nodded to him familiarly.

"Brought it off!" he confided, gesturing with his bandaged arm (which appeared to give him no great pain). "Done old Fur-nose brown, I have. Can't paint with my dib-dabs in a clout, can I?"

"Did you take a toss?" Simon asked, remembering the headlong way Justin had galloped across the twilit park.

"Walker!" Justin replied, laying the first finger of his left hand alongside his nose. "That'd be telling."

"Yes indeed, most regrettable," Mr. Buckle was saying sorrowfully to Dr. Furrneaux. "But we must be thankful the accident was no worse. The doctor fears Lord Bakerloo will not be able to use his right hand for at least a month."

"My dear Justin—my poor Justin!" Dr. Furrneaux exclaimed warmly, darting to Justin, who winced away nervously. "Ziss is most tragic news! A painter has no business wiss riding on a horse—it is by far too dangerous."

"I'm not a painter, I'm a Duke's grandson," Justin muttered, but he concealed from Dr. Furrneaux his look of satisfaction at being told not to return until his arm was completely healed.

When evening came and the students departed to their homes, Simon returned to Mr. Cobb's yard, where he was to meet Sophie, and occupied the interval by blacksmith's work. He had just finished bending an iron rim onto a wheel when she arrived.

"Why!" cried Mr. Cobb. "Is this your friend? It's the bonny lass as waits on her Grace. Dang me, but you're a lucky young fellow!"

Sophie had brought a basket of fruit and proposed that she and Simon should walk into Battersea Park and eat their supper sitting on the grass. But the hospitable Mr. Cobb would not hear of such a plan.

"Look at the sky!" he admonished them. "Full to busting! There's enough rain up there for a week of Sundays. You'll just be a-setting down to your first nibble when it comes peltering down on you. No, no, you come upstairs and eat your dinners comfor'ble under a roof; Flossie would never let me hear the last of it if I let two young 'uns go off to catch their deaths of pewmony."

Sophie protested that it was putting the Cobbs to a deal too much trouble but as the sky was indeed very threatening they finally accepted, and in return offered to mind Miss Libby Cobb while her mother slipped around the corner to buy two pounds of Best Fresh and a gallon jar of pickled onions.

Young Miss Cobb proved remarkably easy to amuse; she and the kitten chased one another till both were exhausted, and when that happened Simon or Sophie had only to imitate the noise of some animal to put her in fits of laughter. Meanwhile Sophie told Simon all that had happened to her since Simon had run away from Gloober's Poor Farm.

"I was lucky," she said. "You remember I always liked needlework and Mrs. Gloober used to get me to do her mending? Then she began buying fashion magazines and bringing them home for me to make up her dresses. One time I was at work on a blue peau de chameau ball dress with Vandykes of lace and plush roses when her Grace the Duchess came in to inspect the Poor Farm and saw the dress. Next day a pony trap came over from Chippings Castle: the Duchess's compliments and she'd take the little girl who was so clever with her needle to be a sewing maid. Mrs. Gloober was very angry but she didn't dare refuse because the Duchess was on the Board. But she packed me off without a thing to wear. Since then her Grace has been so kind to me, and now I'm her lady's maid; when their Graces came up to London for the summer I came with them."

Then Simon in turn told his story, finishing with the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Field and the odd and suspicious behavior of the Twite family.

Meanwhile Miss Libby Cobb had again started in pursuit of the kitten. At this moment she caught her foot in a thick rag rug, the pride of Mrs. Cobb's heart, tripped, and fell against the door opening onto the stairhead. Not firmly latched, it flew open, and there was a thump and a shout. Sophie sprang to catch Libby before she could tumble downstairs, and exclaimed, "Why, it's Jem! What ever are you doing there, Jem?"

Jem indeed it was, but in no condition to answer. He must have been just outside the door when Libby fell against it, and the unexpected push had sent him down the stairs. He lay groaning at the bottom.

"We'd best get the poor fellow up here," Simon proposed, but before they could do so Mrs. Cobb returned from her shopping and let out a shriek of dismay.

"Eh, Jem my man, never tell me you're in the wars again, just when I'd set you right with a tar poultice! What happened?" she asked, as she and Simon between them supported the unlucky Jem up the stairs.

"The door flew open and knocked me down," he muttered.

"And what was you doing then—listening at the keyhold?" Jem turned pale. "Nay, only my joke, lad, never heed it. I do believe all the ill-luck in Battersea falls on your poor head. Come you in and lie down on Libby's bed while I put a bit o' vinegar on it."

While Mrs. Cobb ministered to the afflicted Jem, Sophie flew about very capably and set to cooking the Best Fresh, and Simon made a monstrous heap of toast and extracted the stopper of the pickled-onion jar. Soon they sat down to a very cheerful meal with the Cobbs.

Sophie and Mrs. Cobb had a fine time exchanging gossip, for Mrs. Cobb, it appeared, had been a parlormaid at Chippings Castle before she got married.

"Ah, you're in clover working for her Grace," she declared. "As sweet a lady you'll not find this side of Ticklepenny Corner, poor thing. It's a shame she never had no little ones of her own; if she'd 'a had, I'll be bound they'd be worth twenty of that puny little whey-faced lad they call Lord Bakerloo. He's the Duke's nevvy, you see," she went on (like all old retainers, she loved talking about the Family). "The Duke's younger brother, Henry, he married his own cousin, and they had Justin, that was born abroad in Hanoverian parts and sent back to England as a babby when both his parents died. Deary dear, it was a sad end, poor young things, and a sad beginning too—there was aplenty trouble when they married."

"Why?" asked Sophie.

"Because they were cousins, and she was half French, and a wild one! Her ma was Lady Helen Bayswater, that's the present Duke's aunt—she fell in love with a French painter escaped from France in the revolution they had, and married him in the teeth of her family as you might say. Famous, he was, but not grand family."

"Was his name Marius Rivière?" asked Simon.

"That's it! I never can get my tongue round those Frenchy names! He married Lady Helen and they had the one daughter—what was her name? It'll come to me in a minute—and for some time they was at daggers drawn with the old Duke. They say Rivière had been great friends with all the family before, and painted pictures of 'em, but the marriage broke it up. Then Lady Helen's daughter met her cousin, his present Grace's younger brother, and they fell in love, and the trouble began all over. They ran off to Hanover, where his regiment was, and got married. And that was the last that was heard, till word was sent they was dead, and Mr. Buckle fetched back the poor babby. By that the old Duke was dead, and his present Grace had always been fond of his brother, and stood by him, so he brought up Justin."

"It's rather sad," Sophie said. "Poor Justin. You can understand why he always seems so miserable. Specially if he has been looked after by that sour Mr. Buckle all his life."

"Do you know," exclaimed Mrs. Cobb, who had been scrutinizing Simon and Sophie as they sat side by side in the window seat, "you two are as alike as two chicks in a nest! I declare, you might be brother and sister. Are you related?"

They stared at one another in astonishment. Such an idea had never occurred to them. How strange it would be if they were!

"We don't know, ma'am," Sophie said at length. "We came to the Poor Farm at different times, you see. I was brought up by a kind old man, a charcoal burner in the forest, till I was seven, and then the parish overseer came and took me away and said I must be with the other orphans. But the old man was not my father, I know. I can remember when he first found me."

"Who looked after you before that, then, child?"

"An otter in the forest," Sophie explained. "I can still recall how difficult it was to learn human language, and how strange it seemed to eat anything but fish."

"An otter! Merciful gracious!" Mrs. Cobb flung up her hands. "An otter and then a charcoal burner! It's a wonder you grew up such a beauty, my dear! I'd 'a thought you'd have had webbed feet at the very least!"

"They were both very kind to me," Sophie said, laughing. "I was dreadfully sad when the overseer came and took me to Gloober's."

"I don't wonder, my dear, from what I've heard of the place."

"If Simon hadn't taken care of me there I don't know how I'd have got on for the first few years. Later it wasn't so bad, when I learned dressmaking, and Mrs. Gloober found I could be useful to her."

"But you like it better with her Grace?"

"Oh yes, a thousand times! Her Grace is so kind! Sometimes she seems more like an aunt or a godmother than a mistress! Mercy!" Sophie suddenly cried, jumping up as the solemn notes of the Chelsea Church clock boomed out the hour. "Ten o'clock already! It's time I was getting back to make her Grace's hot posset. She always likes it soon after ten."

"I'll see you home," Simon said. They bade good-by to the kindly Cobbs, who invited them to come again whenever they had an hour to spare. Halfway down the stairs they were halted by a hoarse shout from above, and turned to see Jem looking through the bedroom doorway, his hair all in spikes and his eyes staring with sleep.

"Soph ... please..." he mumbled. "Could ... give ... note ... Mr. Buckle?" He thrust a piece of crumpled paper into Sophie's hand.

"He's half asleep. It's the poppy syrup I gave him," said Mrs. Cobb concernedly, and steered him back to bed.

"I'll deliver your note!" Sophie called, but Jem was already unconscious again. Sophie tried to straighten out the paper, which appeared to be a sugar bag. The large sprawling script on it covered both sides:

MISTER BUKKLE. SUM ONE CUMS FROM U NO
WHERE. JEM.

"Oh dear," Sophie said, "Now I've read it, but I didn't mean to. In any case I haven't the least notion what it means. I hope Mr. Buckle will understand it."

"By the way," Simon said, "I had a queer invitation after I saw you last. You remember that odd-spoken old gentleman who was slung up in the top of the tunnel and spoke so sharply to Midwink? When I was on my way back he invited me to go and play chess with him one evening next week. Should I take the invitation seriously or is he a bit cracked? Who is he, anyway?"

Sophie turned to look at him incredulously.

"Don't you know?"

"Of course I don't know." Simon gave her a good-humored pat on the shoulder. "Don't forget I've only just arrived in London. I'm not such an almanac as you, my bright girl. Who is he, then?"

Sophie burst into a fit of laughter which lasted her as far as the servants' entrance to Battersea Castle. "Why," she gasped, wiping the tears of merriment from her eyes, "he's the Duke of Battersea, that's all! Certainly you must keep the appointment—his feelings would be hurt if you didn't."

She gave Simon a quick goodnight hug, and he heard her laughing again as she ran down the tunnel and out of sight.