Maureen JENNINGS - Under the Dragon’s Tail

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“The house could fall down and you wouldn’t wake up,” said Freddie, making a tentative joke. “They were yelling like a pair of teamsters, they were.”

George shrugged. “So? Missus was always having a barney with somebody.”

“What if the woman clobbered Mrs. Mother? Sent her off.”

George grinned. “Good on her if she did.”

“Should we tell the blues about it?”

“Tell the frogs? Have you lost a slate? It’s nothing to do with us, is it? We were tucked up with Lethy, weren’t we?” He thumped the other boy again. “Weren’t we?”

Freddie clasped at his arm, weighing one fear against another.

“There’s something else.”

“What? You’re getting up my snout with your mithering.”

“There was another person as came.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I heard somebody else. A bit after.”

“Must have been that same woman come back.”

Freddie shook his head. “Seemed different. Mrs. Mother wasn’t fumy. They went into the parlour. They was talking soft. No row, not like the first one. Mrs. Mother laughed. You know how she did.”

He imitated a sort of mirthless cackle. George well knew what he meant. Such a laugh was always followed by some punishment, swift, capricious, and severe. He remembered and unconsciously touched a deep scar on his chin where Dolly’s ring had once caught him.

“George?”

“What? Spit it out for Christ’s sake.”

“Just after that I heard a big bump. Real loud like something fell.”

“You’re a dolt, my lad. We know she fell. That was the sound. Her idea pot kissing the fender.” He paused. “Did you hear the cove leave?”

Freddie nodded. “A bit after I heard footsteps in the hall and the front door opened.”

“How much after?”

“I don’t know.”

George raised his hand to slap the other boy. “Do I have to knock some sense into your thick head? How much after? An hour? Two minutes?”

“Don’t hit me. I’m trying to tell you, honest I am. It was soon.” He struggled to express the concept of time elapsing. “Five or ten minutes perhaps.”

“Was there a carriage outside?”

“Didn’t hear one.”

George rolled onto his back and laced his hands behind his head.

“Did you hear Missus after that?”

“Not a peep.” Freddie paused, trying to find his courage. “Do you think this cove did for her?”

“’Course not. How many times do I have to repeat it?” He punched the other boy with the knuckle of his forefinger. “She fell. The copper didn’t think she’d been done in, did he? We’d be sitting in the clink answering questions, wouldn’t we? Like happened to Lily.”

Freddie shivered. “I think we should tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“That I heard somebody.”

“No.” For George, deceit was as instinctive as a blink. “It’s nothing to do with us,” he continued. “You was probably dreaming if truth be told. You know how you are. We won’t say nothing. No need. Let the bluebottles do their own work.” Suddenly, he squeezed Freddie’s chin in his hand. “Cheer up, you little gawdelpus. It’ll be all right. Look.” He slipped his hand into a hole in his pillow and fished around. “See.”

He pulled out a small bundle wrapped in newspaper. Inside were several bank notes, mostly one-dollar bills. He flapped them under the other boy’s nose.

“Smell good, don’t they.”

“Where’d you get those?”

George explored the pillow again and removed a leather thong that had a small brass key attached to it.

“Where’d you think?”

“You pinched her money?”

“Not pinched, took back. By rights this money is ours considering all the work we’ve done for her. I just claimed our just wages.” He fanned the bank notes. “There’s almost fifty dollars. We can live like kings.”

Freddie’s dark eyes widened and George smiled.

“Now come on give us a kiss and go to sleep.”

Such unencumbered friendliness was so rare that Freddie wanted to cry. George turned onto his side, pulling the boy close against his back.

“George?”

“What now?”

“Say it really was some cove who did for Mrs. Mother, what if they come after us?”

“Us? Don’t be so nocky. We’ve done nothing. Lots of coves have had quarrels with Missus, wanting the dosh they lent her. She never paid anybody back, remember? It’s nothing to do with us.”

“What if that cove thinks we know something?”

“But we don’t, do we? We don’t know anything.”

He made it clear the talk was over, and Freddie didn’t want to risk spoiling the momentary softness. George was probably right. Nobody had a reason to come after them. Nevertheless, he inched closer and lay with his eyes open for a long time, watching the candle flicker and finally go out.

Maud Pedlow woke with a start, the fear that sleep temporarily had held at bay broke through into consciousness. She lay unmoving, watching a patch of sunlight tremble on the ceiling. Walter was snuffing beside her and she didn’t want to wake him, didn’t want his intrusive curiosity. He’d complained several times in the last few days that she was in a pet, liverish, moody. None of this was spoken with sympathy or an invitation to unburden herself.

Carefully she got out of the bed, soft and stale from the night. She looked down at her husband. His mouth was slightly open, his hands folded across his chest, and he hardly seemed to breathe as if even in sleep he was wary of the world. She moved away and reached for her wrapper. The touch of the satin was a momentary comfort but she glimpsed her reflection in the standing mirror and the silver grey and lace gown seemed drab and ghostlike.

Maud had long given up regretting her marriage. She was thirty years of age when Walter proposed to her, and she was quite aware of her choices. There had been no other suitors willing to brave the bastion of her disfigurement, and her father was not wealthy enough to sweeten the lure. Walter was a widower, one year older than her own father, and she found him humourless and crotchety. However, he had social position and money, her father was ailing, and she knew that trying to live on pretensions and a tiny income with her mother was a bleak prospect. She accepted Walter’s offer of marriage at once.

At the bedroom door she paused. Downstairs she could hear the household stirring as the servants began their chores for the day. The tea cups clinked on the breakfast tray, the shovel clattered in the ashes of the stove. A male voice, probably Meredith, laughed and was answered by a burst of high-pitched giggling, quickly suppressed, from the young maid, Susan.

“Do your duty,” her mother whispered to her timidly the night before her wedding. “You can’t afford to be haughty.” That was the only instruction as to conjugal life she received, but she was grateful to Walter, wanted to love him. She was quite prepared to be affectionate and do what married women were required to do.

On their first night together he had fallen asleep, and she assumed he was being considerate of her inexperience. The second night, he mounted her without preamble, penetrated her painfully and quickly, but complained about how difficult it was. They had attempted relations only once after that, unsuccessfully. Walter sometimes liked to lie beside her and take his own pleasure while looking at her naked body but even that was not often. Maud soon settled into the common rut of wives with inconsiderate husbands. She busied herself with a round of dining engagements and took undue pleasure from expensive clothes. She was always in search of new medical discoveries that could repair her face but found none.