Jack Maggs - Couverture rigide

It was a Saturday night when the man with the red waistcoat arrived in London. It was, to be precise, six of the clock on the fifteenth of April in the year of 1837 that those hooded eyes looked out the window of the Dover coach and beheld, in the bright aura of gas light, a golden bull and an overgrown mouth opening to devour him--the sign of his inn, the Golden Ox.

The Rocket (as his coach was aptly named) rattled in through the archway to the inn's yard and the passengers, who had hitherto found the stranger so taciturn, now noted the silver-capped cane--which had begun to tap the floor at Westminster Bridge--commence a veritable tattoo.

He was a tall man in his forties, so big in the chest and broad in the shoulder that his fellows on the bench seat had felt the strain of his presence, but what his occupation was, or what he planned to do in London, they had not the least idea. One privately imagined him a book-maker, another a gentleman farmer and a third, seeing the excellent quality of his waistcoat, imagined him an upper servant wearing his master's cast-off clothing.

His face did not deny the possibility of any of these occupations; indeed he would have been a singular example of any one of them. His brows pushed down hard upon the eyes, and his cheeks shone as if life had scrubbed at him and rubbed until the very bones beneath his flesh had been burnished in the process. His nose was large, hawkish, and high-bridged. His eyes were dark, inquiring, and yet there was a bruised, even belligerent quality which had kept his fellow passengers at their distance all through that long journey up from Dover.

No sooner had they heard the coachman's Whoa-up than he had the door open and was out into the night without having said a single word.

The first of the passengers to alight after him saw the stranger take the porter, a famously insolent individual, firmly by the shoulder blade. He held him there for a good moment, and it was obvious from the look which appeared on that sandy-haired individual's face, that he held him very hard indeed.

"Now pay attention to me, Sir Reverence."

The porter was roughly escorted to the side of the coach.

"You comprennay-voo?" The stranger pointed with his cane to a large trunk on the roof. "The blue item. If it would not inconvenience your Lordship."

The porter made it clear that it would not inconvenience him in the least. Then some money changed hands and the man with the red waistcoat set off into the night, his cane tapping on the cobblestones, and straight up into the Haymarket, his chin up and the orbs of his eyes everywhere reflecting an unearthly flare and glare.

This light had shone all the way from the Elephant and Castle: gas light, blazing and streaming like great torches; sausages illuminated, fish and ice gleaming, chemist shops aglow like caves with their variegated vases illuminated from within. The city had become a fairground, and as the coach crossed the river at Westminster the stranger saw that even the bridges of the Thames were illuminated.

The entire Haymarket was like a grand ball. Not just the gas, the music, the dense, tight crowds. A man from the last century would not have recognized it; a man from even fifteen years before would have been confused. Dram shops had become gin palaces with their high great plate-glass windows, their engraved messages: "Gin at Threepence--Generous Wines--Hot Spiced." This one here--it was like a temple, damned if it was not, the door surrounded by stained panes of rich dye: rosettes, bunches of grapes. The big man pushed his way up to the bar and got himself a dram of brandy which he drank in a gulp. When he turned, his face revealed a momentary confusion.

Two children were now tugging around his sleeves but he seemed so little aware of their presence that he walked out into the street without once looking down at them.

All around him was uproar, din, the deafening rush, the smell of horse shit, soot, that old yellow smell of London Town.

"Come on, Guv, come with me."

"Come on, Sir."

A young woman with a feathered hat had placed her hand on his elbow: such a handsome face, such short legs. He tugged himself free, walked on a yard or so, and blew his great hawk's nose like a mighty trumpet. As he carefully refolded his handkerchief--a bright green Kingsman of an earlier time--he inadvertently revealed the stumps of the two middle fingers on his left hand, a sight which had already excited curiosity aboard the Rocket.

His Kingsman safely put away for the moment, he started along the Strand, then seemed to change his mind, for a moment later he was heading up Agar Street, then cutting up to Maiden Lane.

In Floral Street, he paused before the now illuminated window of McClusky's Pudding Shop. He blew his nose again, whether from soot or sentiment the face gave no indication, and then, having entered that famously lopsided little shop, emerged with a syrup dumpling sprinkled liberally with confectioner's sugar. He ate the dumpling in the street, still walking. What he began in Floral Street he finished back on St Martin's Lane. Here, just a little south of Seven Dials, the stranger stood on a quiet dark corner, alone, free from the blaze of gas.

It was Cecil Street he had come to, a very short street linking Cross Street to St Martin's Lane. He dusted down his face carefully with his kerchief, and then set off into the darkness, peering to find what street numbers he could see--none.

He had almost arrived at the great river of Cross Street, with its noise and congestion of gigs and post-chaises, hackney cabs and dog-carts, when he came upon a single phaeton stopped in the street. It was a most expensive equipage, that much was clear even in the dark, and indeed, once he had crossed the street, there was sufficient light to make out a gold coronet emblazoned on the shining black door. From inside he could hear the sound of a young woman weeping.

A moment later, he would have been in Cross Street. However, the door of the carriage opened and a matron in a long dress descended from the coach and addressed the person still seated inside. "Good night, Mum," she said.

Hearing this voice, the stranger stopped abruptly in his tracks.

The phaeton drove off but the stranger stayed very still in the shadow of a doorway whilst the matron opened the gate leading to a high narrow house directly opposite him. A feeble yellow light showed through the fan light above the front door.

Then he spoke: "Excuse me, Missus, but is this Number Four?"

"If you've come for tablets, come back tomorrow."

"Mary Britten," he said.

He could hear her rattling a big bunch of keys.

"You come back tomorrow," she said.

The stranger stepped into the middle of the street.

"Get a lamp, Mary."

"Who's that?"

"Someone you should recognize, Mary Britten."

She remained with her back to him, still busy with her bunch of keys. "It's dark. Come back tomorrow."

"Someone you should recognize covered with soot."

Finally, she found the right key. The door swung open, and the feeble yellow light--there was an oil lamp burning in the hallway of the house--revealed a tall, handsome woman in a long dress: blue or green, very fancy-looking, shimmering like silk. She hesitated a moment, an old lady, all of seventy years, but such was her carriage and her bearing that she would pass, in this light anyway, for fifty.

"So this is Cecil Street," he said. "I thought it would be posher."

She hesitated, peering into the night, one hand ready on the door handle. "What you doing here?" she whispered. "You're a dead man if they find you."

"That's a nice home-coming."

"Don't bring your trouble here," she said.

"You got respectable."

"You come to put the bite?"

"I'm doing well myself," the stranger said. "You going to ask me in?"

She made no move to offer an invitation, but her tone did become more solicitous. "They treat you bad?"

"Bad enough."

"How'd you know I was here?"

"I saw your puff in the newspaper."

"And now you've come home to play the old dart, you varmint."

"No, Ma. I'm retired. I come here for the culture."

She laughed harshly. "The operah?"

"Oh yes," said the stranger seriously. "The opera, the theatre, I got a lot of time to make up for."

"Well, I must go to bed, Jack. So you must forgive me not inviting you in to have a chat."

"Perhaps I'll look up Tom."

"Oh Jesus, Jack."

"What?"

"You bastard," she cried with real emotion. "You know he's dead."

"No! No, I never."

"God help me, Jack, God save me. I ain't so green as that. I know who you paid. I know how it were arranged and all."

"I didn't pay no one nothing, I swear."

"What do you want, Jack?" said the old woman, and this time her voice quavered. "What're you doing here in London?"

"It's my home," Jack said, raising his voice and revealing the fiercer character which the porter at the Golden Ox had briefly glimpsed. "That's what I want. My home."

"I still got my Bilboa, so don't think I wouldn't use it."

The stranger shook his head, and laughed. "You worried I might have a bone to pick with you, Ma?"

"Aren't you worried someone's going to hang you, Jack?" Having made this bitter speech, she stepped inside the house and closed the door behind her.

"I'm coming back, Ma."

There was no retort from inside the house, merely the heavy clanking of some chains which seemed to amuse the visitor.

"I'll be back tomorrow morning. We'll have a proper chat when I come back."

There is no doubt that Jack Maggs planned to keep his promise, but the morrow held events he could not foresee. Three weeks would pass before he would call at Cecil Street again.

Chapter Two

Great Queen Street had once been home to the pugnacious Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Lord Bristol had lived there. Also Lord Chancellor Finch, and the Conway and Paulett families. But on that damp Sunday morning when Jack Maggs came marching up from Long Acre with his silver-capped cane tucked under his arm, all that remained of the Golden Age were some pilasters and other ornaments still clinging to the façades of a few houses on the west.

There was now a tobacconist in Great Queen Street, a laundry, and a narrow little workroom where glass eyes were made for dolls and injured gentlemen. Actors lived in rooms at Number 30. A retired grocer from Clerkenwell now had the leasehold to Number 29.

But it was Number 27 which seemed to take Jack Maggs's close attention, and he stood across the street and stared at it very hard. It was a handsome house--four storeys, a high iron fence, a pretty gate leading down to the servants' entrance. It had a bright front door, a brass door knocker, a fan light, and such was his excitement to behold this property that the left side of his firmly sculpted face was soon visibly quivering.

A dog-cart came travelling pell-mell down the street towards Long Acre with its driver, a young man no more than twenty years, standing upright in the seat. All the visitor's attention was on the house, until the moment the driver cracked his whip.

Then Jack Maggs jumped out of his skin. He stepped out into the road, and raised his stick as if he intended to chase the offender and punish him, but a moment later he was a perfect gent, presenting himself on the doorstep of 27 Great Queen Street with his distress reduced to a small flickering on his left cheek.

Jack Maggs Esquire removed his hat and grasped that brass knocker. He knocked quickly, firmly, but politely.

When there was no immediate answer, he knocked again. And then, a minute later--Rap-rap-rap.

It was not possible that there was no one home. The caller was well informed about the residents of 27 Great Queen Street. There was a butler in this house, a housekeeper, a cook.

He stepped back onto the edge of the roadside so he might look up at the high windows. He observed their dark and curtained aspect with agitated eyes, then, turning impulsively, he opened the little gate leading down to the servants' entrance.

It was at this moment that Mercy Larkin came to the parlour window of the house next door. Mercy was the kitchen maid, by title, but being the only maid in that confusing household, was presently arranging her employer's small library of books where he liked them set--upon the little cedar dresser with the oilcloth square atop it.

She saw the man she would soon know as Jack Maggs descending the steps to the servants' entrance of Number 27. He had come, so she imagined, to take Mrs Halfstairs's examination for the post of footman. The moment she saw him, she knew he was the one. He had the right size, the right legs, but was at the wrong address.

Then Jack Maggs turned and caught her eye. It was not really a footman's face, or no footman she had ever seen. She stood at the parlour window, her duster in her hand, and shivered.

Jack Maggs had not the least knowledge of Mercy Larkin, Mrs Halfstairs or the rest of Mr Buckle's chaotic household, but as he shut the area gate behind him he saw the maid was still staring at him. He saw her pale skin, her pretty ringlets spilling out from under her cap. Had you asked him his impression of her appearance, he would not have heard your question. He had been spotted. He felt the rough rope of Newgate round his neck.

He descended the last steps, escaping her gaze. With his broad back pressed against the wall, he could look into the kitchen. It was his profession to recognize an empty house when he saw one, and this house was like a grave. And yet he knocked, tapping and scratching against the pane.

"Excuse me down there."

He resisted the urge to flatten himself further against the wall, but rather stepped out where the maid could inspect him.

"All's well," he smiled. It was an easy smile, and his teeth were very good and regular. "I'm expected."

"They've gone," the maid said, staring at him very hard. "No one home but draughts and mice."

"Gone?" he said hoarsely.

"You've come to see about the footman's position, am I right now?"

The stranger smiled.

"It's Mr Buckle's residence you were wanting," she suggested.

"Gone where? Where have they gone? I am expected." He ascended the stairs to the street.

"Gone to Calais," she said. "The Spanish Main. How would I know? The gentleman didn't have the manners to inform me of his destination."

The stranger was now at the top of the area steps, and Mercy could see that he had a twitching palsy in his cheek. He put his hand to it.

"Sometimes," Mercy continued, "they send a servant in a coach, but no one stays for long."

"So they are not gone totally?" he asked.

"As I said, they come and go." She paused. "I really thought you were come to be our footman. Mrs Halfstairs is most particular about the height of our second footman. She is sitting in there with her ruler."

"Footman?"

"You're the height, and all. It's a right shame you're not a footman. You're not a footman?" she repeated.

He watched her say it, like you watch an auctioneer raise a hammer, but in truth he had already decided what he was to do.

"I'm their footman," he said. "I'm Mr Phipps's new footman."

"So you are a footman," she said, smiling. "I knew you was a footman."

"Of course I am the footman, girl. I am a footman to young Mr Phipps who has all my papers," Jack Maggs said to the maid. "My letters of recommendation, all locked inside. What...

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