Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

Thus installed, Mrs. Gargery began to wave in the royal manner, keeping the forearm fixed and the wrist and hand in constant lateral motion. “Oh look, Sarah — Mrs. Feenix is waving back, and there is Mrs. Kitt and Lillie Pawkins. I should like to go with them, but alas, Sarah, I have no invitation. I had an invitation but I gave it to Miss Bocker. Now where is Miss Bocker? For she could go if she wanted; she has Mrs. Pyegrave’s own invitation now.”

Said a groggy voice behind Mrs. Gargery, “Antonia cannot go, Cornelia, because she is presently locked away in a gaol cell.”

“Goodness, Georgianna, why has our friend Antonia been put into the gaol house?”

“For the crime of mannish rudeness, I have no doubt,” said Georgianna Milvey in a bored voice, whilst filliping her flask and repining with a frown its present inconvenient hollowness.

The faces of those who marched in the cavalcade of the Eighty-three Elect gave a variety of expressions. Some shewed happiness to be leaving this Paradise-turned-Golgotha. Others could not hold back the tears that flowed from being separated from that place which had been the only home they had ever known and a good and decent home at that. Still others betrayed no emotion at all, but were set in their dutiful look and in their steady, stoical eye. Such a stare of impassiveness characterised the faces of Lord Mayor Feenix, and Montague Pupker, and Judge Fitz-Marshall — who did not avert his gaze from the path ahead, even when bid goodbye by his forsaken little clerk, Mr. Meagles, who held the judge’s gavel limply at his side as if it were become some token of painful remembrance.

Sheriff Billy Boldwig, his own eyes in constant vigilant motion, walked alongside his father and mother, and shewed little expression either save that of ever-attentive keeper of the law and of the peace and of the overall decorum of the stately procession. The excessively freckled Boy Sheriff had been charged with taking the Eighty-three Elect to the Summit, whilst his deputies were to remain below at the foot of the mountain, having still not been told the true reason for the fête champêtre. There was, no doubt, another emotion that would have registered upon the face of the young sheriff had he permitted it: worry. Over whether or no he would achieve success in this afternoon’s all-important commission. Would the procession proceed smoothly? Would the East Enders misbehave and grow unruly, perhaps even violent, as they had only the day before? Up to now they had staid safely on their side of the bridge. Would they remain there?

Mrs. Gargery waved and Sarah waved and Mr. Toddles was, with some assistance, made to wave his little paw, too, as Miss Milvey crept away to rummage through her friend’s dining-room cellaret, which was the cabinet in which Mrs. Gargery had once told her she liked to keep her brandy.

Jemima Pilkins and her daughters Charity and Mercy raised their heads from their current chore: the full soapy laving of their Saint Bernard Caddy. (And an onerous task it was, the dog being quite large and quite fluffy and really quite in need of a good bath.) The parade was passing along a cross street in such profound, sepulchral silence that the Pilkins would most certainly have missed it had Caddy not barked to inform them. Jemima rose to her feet and wiped her sudsy hands upon her apron. Seeing Dr. Towlinson near the head of the marchers, she called out, “Dr. Towlinson. Whither are you going? Who is looking after my brother Walter?”

“We are merely going to an assemblage upon the Summit,” Towlinson called back. “A celebration. Your brother is in good hands.”

“That is rather odd,” said Jemima to her daughters. “A party upon the Summit. Whilst there has been such trouble in the streets. And look at all these constables that come along. But let us seise this opportunity, darling daughters. Let us go to the asylum and see just who is left in charge of that place. Perhaps the surrogate will give us leave to see Walter!”

Headmaster Chowser and his cook Maggy Finching were delivering the last of the now school-less boys to his parent, the responsibility of this particular placement having fallen to the two by earlier mutual arrangement. Each pair of staff members of the Chowser School had been given a certain lot of boys to escort home, and Chowser and his cook had had eight Milltowner youths to drop off, not including young Jack Snicks who came along as somewhat of a little helper, since his aunt was dead and there was no one else to whom he could presently be assigned. “Now, Mrs. Sliderskew,” said Chowser to the woman standing in the doorway, “you will note that master Abraham here has acquired an aversion to split peas and calves’ foot jelly, so we would advise against serving either to him in the short term. And feather pillows will make him sneeze. He prefers to lie with a horsehair pillow if you can find one.” To young Abraham: “Goodbye, little man. It was a joy to teach you.” Chowser touzled the boy’s head as the little man blotted away a tear with his sleeve.

“And a joy it was, as well, to feed you, Master Abraham,” joined in Maggy. “Jack — Jack, look up at me. I’m speaking to you now. Will you not say goodbye to your friend Abe?”

But Jack would not. He was too busy at that moment watching the approaching cortege.

“Good God,” said Chowser under his breath, as he also took keen notice. “What’s this?”

Mrs. Sliderskew, who stood clutching her boy Abraham to her waist, shook her head.

“They look to be going on a picnic,” said Maggy. “See, some of the women hold wicker baskets. Oh fie for shame! The Dell burning itself down and crime and general discontentment breaking out all over, and our Dinglian gentry are off to sit upon blankets and eat sirloins of beef upon sticks. It is all quite remarkable.”

“Let the Bashaws have their frolics,” returned Chowser in a low voice. “We haven’t time to repine it. Did you not wish to see your Mr. Muntle as soon as the boys were deposited with their families?”

“Most certainly,” said Maggy, not turning to Chowser, but keeping a hard look upon the parade, which now passed close by. “But if I had a potato, I would throw it.”

“Don’t give Jack any ideas,” said Chowser. “And don’t give them any reason to put all the rest of us into confinement at the Inn-of-Justice!”

“There you are still,” said Harry Scadger to his brother Mel who knelt before the upstairs window, which overlooked the lane. Melchisedech Scadger had not surrendered the pistol since he first took possession of it, even when his curious brothers asked to hold it. Nor did he surrender it when it came time to bury their brother Solomon in a plot of dirt in Mrs. Lumbey’s fenced-in rear area. There had been a little service for the dead brother held only a few hours earlier, but Mel had not participated. He had stood amongst his weeping brothers and all the weeping wives and children and had caressed the gun in his hand and had imagined himself firing upon the deputy who had murdered his brother in cold blood.

Mel confessed as much to Harry upon returning to his sentry post at the upstairs bedchamber window — sentry post and waiting spot, for Harry’s younger brother vowed that if he should have to wait ten years for Deputy Gradgrind to appear, it would be worth it, the privilege of revenge being all the sweeter with the passage of time and the dulling of memory on the part of the one who deserved retribution. “There are more productive things that you should be doing, brother,” said Harry. “And let us say that you see the killer in the next hour for that matter. By firing upon him you will only invite an assault upon this house.”

“The assault is coming withal, brother. It only be a matter of time. We meet it early, we meet it late. It makes no never mind to me.”