5

"We are here from his excellency the margrave," said one of the two men in black hats. "We have brought the gentleman who is to lodge with Mr. Bredalbane."

"Lodge?" said Dido, startled. "I didn't reckon as he was to lodge here? I thought he was just to step round for a bit o' conversation once in a while. You'd best talk to my pa." And she called, "Pa? Pa? There's a cove here from his nabs—"

"Hush, hush, my canary," exclaimed Mr. Twite, hurrying up the basement stair and jingling a fistful of farthings as he came. "Bricks have ears, and cobbles have eyes. Now then, what's all this, pray?"

"We've brought the chap as is to lodge with you. Here's his traps"—and the black-hatted man produced a carpetbag and a portmanteau. The bandaged stranger meanwhile stood silent in his linen wrappings. Dido, somewhat awestruck and mystified, wondered if he were able to speak; his mouth was all covered over by white strapping.

Mr. Twite reacted just as his daughter had done.

"Lodge here? No one said anything about his lodging here." He scowled at the stranger.

"His excellency thought it best," said one of the two escorts stolidly. "Dr. Finster will be round to see the gentleman in the morning. He will call twice a day."

And with that the two men in black turned smartly on their heels and marched off into the darkness.

"Canker it!" muttered Mr. Twite, evidently much discomposed. "I never reckoned as the plaguy fellow was going to be bedded on us; that's the outside of enough, that is!"

He looked indecisively at the two bags on the floor, and the bandaged man standing helpless in the doorway.

"Blest if I know what to do about it," grumbled Mr. Twite.

Without making the least effort to welcome the unexpected caller, or even address him, Mr. Twite returned to the back room, calling over his shoulder, "Shut the door, daughter, do; we don't want half Wapping gleering in at us; and it sets up a freezing draft, furthermore."

From sounds within the room, Dido gathered that her father was helping himself to another jorum of organ grinder's oil.

Dido felt sorry for the visitor standing there abandoned by his escorts and blinded by bandages.

"Shall I take the cove—shall I take the gentleman to a room, Pa?" she suggested, putting her head round the door. "Or would Mrs. Bloodvessel rather—"

She stopped, for it was plainly no use expecting any instructions from Mrs. Bloodvessel, who was snoring loudly on the tousled couch. Her head dangled upside down over the side, above a glass which had rolled across the dusty floor, leaving a trail of red syrup. A half-smoked cigar still dangled from her fingers. Dido removed it and dropped it into the dying fire.

"A room, a room," mumbled Mr. Twite. "A room, a-rum, a-rum, a-riddle-me-ree! What'll we do with the bandaged stranger? Feed him in the stable, bed him in the manger..." And he gave a great wrenching yawn, looking fondly at the couch where Mrs. Bloodvessel lay, in which there was just room for a second person, provided that person were thin.

"We haven't got a manger, Pa," said Dido impatiently. "Let alone a stable."

She felt dog-tired herself; the ill effects of Mrs. Bloodvessel's potion had by no means worn, off, and she too longed to lie down somewhere peaceful and sleep for hours together. Dunno when I last slept in a proper bed, she thought; and it won't be for a fair stretch yet, I reckon.

But there the stranger stood, blinded, powerless, and dependent on the inhabitants of Bart's Building for some sort of hospitality. If there was a tiresome job to be done, Dido preferred to do it at once and get it out of the way.

"I'll put him somewhere, then, Pa; he shouldn't be left standing about like a hitching post, poor devil. Here, where's those keys?"

With distaste, she knelt by the unconscious Mrs. Bloodvessel and managed to untie the whole bunch of keys that dangled from her belt. The woman snored and rolled over but took no other notice of Dido's action.

"That's the ticket, my aphasia," yawned Mr. Twite. "Give him—hic!—one o' the best rooms, wi' paneling and bed curtains. Nothing too good for his nabs's candi-his-candi-diggle. Any friend of Eisengrim is a friend of Desmond Twite—hic!—ipso hicso facto. Let him lay his head on a goosefeather bed ... and rest his feet on a silken sheet. Hickety-cup!"

Dido picked up a straight-backed chair and carried it into the hall. It would not, she thought, be at all possible to lead the blind visitor through the total muddle of that back room.

"Would you please to sit there a minute, sir," she said, and guided him to the chair. "I'll just step upstairs and find a room for you, and I'll be down again directly."

Carrying a lighted candle and the heavy bunch of keys, she made her way upstairs.

The house called Bart's Building proved to have three upper stories, including the attics. Starting at the top, Dido unlocked and flung open all the doors in turn. Nobody was in any of the rooms; the house appeared to be unused, apart from Mr. Twite and Mrs. Bloodvessel on the ground floor, and the Slut and the lollpoops in the basement.

All the doors were locked, though there seemed little purpose in this, as many of the cold, high-ceilinged rooms were unfurnished. One was piled high with clothes, very gorgeous clothes—Mrs. Bloodvessel's, perhaps, from some earlier period of her life. One of the three attics, as Dido had expected, was the room she had been shut up in. The attics were approached by a ladder.

Pa and Mrs. B. must have had the dickens of a job hoisting me up there, thought Dido with a grin.

The stairs to the upper floors were so steep that a ship's rope ran up beside them instead of a rail.

In a room on the third floor Dido found some articles that she recognized as belonging to her father: several hoboys, a dusty spinnet with one key missing, some shoes, some books, lying on the floor; and a bundle of music. There was also a rather nice bag of her own, with blue flowers on it, which a fagott-playing friend of her father's had once given her; it had vanished long ago, when she was seven or eight. It held a comb and a razor. Fancy it being here all that time, Dido thought; wonder how many years Pa has been coming to this house?

If Pa had to pick a lady friend, she thought, walking into another room and inspecting it with her candle, wouldn't you think he'd pick one with a bit better looks and better temper? Mrs. B. seems just as disagreeable as Ma, there's naught to choose between 'em.

Of course it's true Mrs. B. has a house of her own—leastways one she rents from the margrave, thought Dido, descending the stairs to the first floor.

The rooms here were even higher. What a lot o' locked rooms, thought Dido, going from one to another. What a lot o' keys. Suppose I were to collect all the keys from all the houses in the street; suppose I were to pile up all the keys in London. What a pile that 'ud be. High as a church tower, very likely. All made so folk can keep themselves private. Wonder who first made a key and stuck it in a lock? Pa ought to write a bit o' music about keys and locks.... You'd have one part for the lock—with a kind of space in it, a-waiting—and then the other part for the key, long and thin...

Blimey, I ain't half tired, thought Dido.

She was now in a room that contained a four-poster bed, a three-legged stool, and a sailor's chest; it was the most fully furnished chamber she had yet discovered, and she decided that it would have to do for the bandaged gentleman. There were no sheets or blankets, but she recalled piles of such coverings in the all-purpose room where her father and Mrs. Bloodvessel spent their time. Slipping back there, she helped herself to an armful of bedding, also some other comforts: a candle, lucifer matches, a plate and mug, and a tin basin.

"That's the dandy, my serviceable sprite," murmured her father, who neither helped nor hindered these activities but drowsily reclined on the bed by Mrs. Bloodvessel, occasionally picking out a pattern of notes on his hoboy.

"Dido Twite, a serviceable sprite," he warbled, and as Dido climbed the stairs a second time with her load she heard him begin to set those words to a slippery, catchy little tune which he repeated in several different keys.

Just fancy! thought Dido, Pa's gone and made up a tune about me! and she could not help feeling rather proud, with part of her mind, though the other half wished impatiently that her father would do something more helpful about the bandaged guest.

When the upstairs room had been rendered as comfortable as seemed possible, she returned to the hall and laid her hand upon the bandaged man's arm.

"Will you please to follow me up the stairs, mister?" she said, and took his hand to lead him. He came after her bid-dably, and appeared quite content with the room—what he could see of it through his eyeholes; though, thought Dido, it must seem poor and bare compared with any chamber in the margrave's establishment.

"D'you want any supper, mister?" inquired Dido, wondering what she would do if he said yes. But luckily he shook his head. Maybe he can't eat, with his mouth all bandaged up, she thought; but then, to her great surprise, he carefully unwound the bandage from around the upper and lower parts of his face and head, leaving only the portion covering his nose. There seemed nothing wrong with the expanse of skin thus uncovered.

"Croopus! What was the point of all them bandages then?" Dido exclaimed.

"His excellency thought it best—" said the man, after clearing his throat. "So that I should not be recognized in the street; or tempted to speak, you know..."

Dido stared at him, really puzzled now, studying what she could see of his face.

"Great fish, sir, ain't you the king?" He shook his head. "Well you're as like him as one pin to another. Did you know that? Are you his brother?"

He shook his head again.

"No, there is no kinship. And I was not so like him before. My nose was a different shape from his, but his excellency's doctor has changed that"—he touched the bandaged nose delicately; "and now you, it seems, have to teach me to speak exactly like his majesty."

"Yus; and I can see I'm a-going to have my work cut out," said Dido bluntly. "You ain't even English, are you?"

"No, I am Dutch. But I speak the English very well. My name is Henk van Doon."

"But what's the point? Why should the king have a ringer?"

"?"

"A double, a look-alike."

"Oh, it is not at all uncommon. To take the king's place if he feels ill; or for boring business—you know, opening hospitals, cutting ribbons, talking to burgomasters—"

"Mayors," corrected Dido. "And you should say it bur-gomasster—that's the way the king does—short, like that."

"Mayors, I thank you. Masster. Many royal persons have such a double-goer to save them trouble. I am—I am to be a gift from his excellency the margrave to his cousin the king."

"Well, I think it's right rum. And you must have to keep it mighty dark. Once folk got to know, they'd everlastingly be a-wondering whether they'd got the real 'un—the real king—or only the ringer."

"Oh, yes, I shall have to live very private. People must not know."

"But do you want to do it?" Dido stared at him. "Ain't you got anything else you'd rather be doing? Seems a shravey kind of life. What did you do before?"

"I am an actor—a comic actor, a clown."

"Well?" demanded Dido. "Ain't that better than letting on to be a king, allus cutting ribbons? What's the point? Making jokes, making folk laugh, is better. I know which I'd rather!"

Henk van Doon suddenly looked desperately sad.

"My child, you do not understand. The jokes left me. They flew away."

"Why?"

"I had a hard loss. My dear wife, my little daughter of six years—they caught the cholera. They died. How can I make jokes then?"

"Send your voice up, at the end," absently corrected Dido. "'Make jokes then?'"

"Then. I thank you. How can I make jokes then?"

"So what did you do?"

"The heart went out of me. I was starving in the streets of Leyden. And a man from his excellency's household saw me; I was brought to him at his house in Bad Wald; he said he would pay me well to play this part of king, all I need is a new nose, and to learn to speak like King Richard—"

"If you could go and live with the king, in his house, that would be best—and study the way he talks—"

"But then too many people would know that there are two of us."

"Humph. No, it ain't easy, I see," pondered Dido.

A flight of joyful notes rose from below, like birds circling upward on an evening wind, and steps were heard on the stairs.

"Here comes Pa. Have you all you want, mister?"

"Yes, I thank you, my good child."

"See you in the morning, then, mister, and we'll talk some more."

"Oh, tooral eye ooral eye agony," sang Mr. Twite ascending the stairs:

"Oh, pickle a pocket of rye.
If a man can't find cheer in a flagon, he
Might as well lie down and die.

That's well, that's good, my fairy Time you betook yourself to the downy. Time all juvenile females was abed. I'll take care of the visitor," said Mr. Twite loftily. And he lurched past his daughter, who began climbing the ladder toward her own attic, greatly relieved at the prospect of being able, at last, to lie down and sleep. Halfway up, though, she remembered her promise to take down some bedding to the Slut. Poor little devil, huddling alone there in that damp cellar hole without a scrap of cloth to cover her; it's not to be borne, thought Dido angrily; and she turned round and went downstairs again. Her father, in the Dutchman's room, seemed to be singing the visitor to sleep. Dido wondered if van Doon was glad of this attention.

Mrs. Bloodvessel still snored in the lower room by the last glow of the fire. Taking a tattered but ample quilt, Dido made off with it to the basement, past the locked door of the lollpoops' room (inside which she could hear a faint murmuring and shuffling like a flock of starlings settling to sleep). There's another lot of poor devils, but croopus, I can't find quilts for all of 'em, and anyways, I reckon they must all keep each other warm, packed together like pickles in a jar; and anyhow, Pa's got the key...

Thinking about keys, she slipped into the Slut's room and heard a faint gasp of fright.

"It's all rug—it's only me, Dido. I brung you a comforter, like I said. Don't make a row or Pa'll hear."

Mr. Twite's music had returned to the ground floor; apparently the Dutch gentleman had not welcomed his lullabies.

"Ain't that a rip-smashing tune, though," sighed Dido, as the notes of the hoboy scribbled a silvery pattern above their heads.

"It makes me want to spew!" croaked the Slut suddenly from her dark corner. "Gives me a pain in me belly. Makes me want to lob me groats."

"Pa's music does? My blessed stars! Why?" demanded Dido, really amazed; though after a moment she thought she began to guess the answer.

"I hates that cove. She treated me a bit better before he come to live here. I just wisht he was dead."

It was astonishing that such a tiny, bony creature, crouched in such a damp, dark cellar, could speak with such ferocious force.

"Well—dunno as I blame you," murmured Dido. "Still—you know—it don't do no good to think that way. Here. Have a warm-up"—and she felt her way across the room and wrapped a capacious fold of the quilt around the Slut, who, however, shook it off fiercely.

"I don't want his mucky quilt. Or hers! They don't give me one. She don't! He don't! You swiped it."

"Well, blister me, girl," remonstrated Dido. "You'll freeze to death down here, one o' these nights. You wants to stay alive, don't you?"

"Yus," agreed the Slut, after some thought about this. "And give 'im and Mrs. B. a taste o' their own!"

"Well, then. Wrap up."

"No, I tell-ee. I don't want her slummocky quilt."

The Slut was crying with rage now. Dido's gift of half a fagot seemed to have fortified her with a fiery spirit and sense of her wrongs.

"All right; suit yourself," said Dido crossly, and started for the door. But she trod in a puddle on the way, and heard something scuttle along beside the wall. She stopped again.

"I can't leave you in this nook-shotten place with nowt—Was that a rat?"

"There's plenty rats," sobbed the Slut indifferently. "Ten rats for every 'uman, they say. Rats don't bother me. I got a cat. Hain't I, Figgin?"

A sound between a waul and a snarl answered her.

"Figgin had a bite o' fagot too," said the Slut with pride. "We looks arter each other."

"I reckon Figgin wouldn't say no to a bit of quilt to curl up in," suggested Dido shrewdly. "You oughta think of him as well as yourself."

There was a silence. Then—

"Would you stay too?"

Dido's mind filled with longing for the attic.

Shut up in it, this morning, she had found little in its favor. But now how peaceful, airy, and clean it seemed—far cleaner, at least, than this dank den.

"Guess I will, if you want me," she said reluctantly.

"If 'e finds you here in the morning, mebbe 'e won't give me the stick. Or not so much. 'E thinks a deal o' you."

"How do you know that?" said Dido doubtfully.

"'Eard 'em talk. 'That Dido'll make all our fortunes yet,' he say to 'er."

"What the pize could he mean by that?" wondered Dido, arranging herself and the Slut in the driest corner—which she could by now make out, tolerably well, by the light of passing barges. It was much harder to see Figgin, who seemed to be pure black; but by the feel of him he must be the scrawniest, boniest cat in Wapping, with a coat as bristly as a doormat and a tendency to bite. "You keep Figgin on your side," Dido recommended.

"Now: tell me summat," said Is.

"What? Tell you what?" yawned Dido, who was dying to go to sleep.

"I don't care. Anything! You musta seens lotsa things. I never had no one to keep me company afore."

"How long have you been here?"

"Dunno. Since I can remember."

"Is Mrs. B. your ma?"

"Dunno. She never say. Tell me summat!"

In her mind's eye Dido could dimly see all the adventures of her life, like a huge tapestry covered with tangled pictures: trees and rivers; ships and horses; people, good, bad, or wicked; mountains bursting into flames; St. Paul's Cathedral sliding into the Thames; rough seas filled with whales; men firing guns; cats carrying messages in the collars round their necks. There seemed far too much to put into words.

Instead, she remembered the pile of keys she had imagined as she climbed the stairs.

"Once there was a king as lost the key to his money-box," began Dido dreamily. "So he made a law that everyone in the whole country hadda bring all their keys and lay 'em in a heap in front of St. Jim's Palace. So he could find if any of 'em fitted. All the folk brought their keys: church keys, stable keys, desk keys, strongbox keys, door keys, watch keys, clock keys—"

"Did any of 'em fit?" croaked the Slut.

"The heap was so huge that it filled the whole square, higher than the palace. And when the sun shone, didn't those keys half glitter! Then ... the king said..."

"Said what?" demanded Is, but her voice trailed away in a yawn.

Dido was already asleep.

Just before she drifted off she had a quick thought about the Dutchman, van Doon, training himself to look and sound exactly like the king. That's a right rum business: can it be all hunky-dory? Or is the margrave up to summat?

Anything that my pa's in must be crooked, thought Dido.

Then she floated into dreams.