Person or Persons Unknown Read Online Free Page A

and tuppence pieces were thrown down by the crowd in appreciation. Scrambling about, she gathered them up, and when she passed near me, I tossed her a shilling, one of three I had left in my pocket. She saw from whence it came, fixed me with her dark eyes and kissed the coin with her sweet lips. Then she called her thanks to me in a strange tongue, perhaps the very same phrase she had used some minutes ago when we had parted, the one that sounded a bit like “moldy grass.” Ah, how that touched me! Even more was I moved by her gesture of blessing my gift with a kiss, and most of all by the look in her eyes; with it she recognized me, in spite of my young years, as a person of consequence. For weeks afterwards I returned to Covent Garden on Sundays, hoping to see her again and make her acquaintance — all to no avail. I later learned that such performers move constantly from fair to fair and town to town. There could be no telling where they might be.
    As I sat in the vestibule, stretching my legs and twiddling my thumbs, I listened to the sounds of the Lord Chief Justice’s household, as they came to me from near and far. It appeared to be empty of all but servants, yet in such a house as this, larger even than Black Jack Bilbo’s, there must be an army of maids and servers and footmen about. The sounds I heard were, near as I could tell, those of cleaning. A maid called for a footman’s help in moving furniture, and there were soon bumps and thumps as he complied. A ditty was hummed up above, perhaps to make the work go faster. The house, empty of its master and mistress, was fair humming with activity.
    And I? I simply sat alone with my thoughts, and my thoughts were all of Mariah. There was no doubt of her situation. Alone in London, deceived into separating from her family, she had been forced to prostitute herself in order to survive. How long could she last? When first I laid eyes upon her two years past she had seemed younger than me, and now she looked a bit older. Give her some time on the street, and she would appear very much older — and not by the artifice of rouge and paint. No, if she followed the course described to me by Mr. Bilbo, the depredations of disease and gin would take their toll. While I might daydream an exchange of loving kisses with her, I would not allow myself even to imagine taking her in a more carnal embrace — though it were easily bought, and I had the price. Though I had great fear of disease, and every day had examples before me of the ravages of the pox, even more did I fear besmirching the tender affection I felt for Mariah with base brutish desires. Any man on the street could take her for two shillings — or was it just one? Only I could give her…
    What was it I could give her? Was it love, this overflowing of attention, this constant doting upon her which seemed to have possessed me so completely? In a way I liked it not, for I seemed to have lost mastery over my own mind, and I, let me assure you, reader, had always considered myself a serious lad. Yet it was so pleasant simply to sit and wallow in thoughts of Mariah and so easy to do just that — for the little good it did.
    For yet again, what could I give her? With my whole heart I wished to alter her situation, to make it possible for her to leave the streets. Yet how could I do that? I was but fifteen years of age; I had no money of my own, no regular employment. In my dependent state — I was an orphan, after all — I could do no more than wish that I could help her. Perhaps I had chosen wrong when Sir John was so eager to have me enter the printing trade; with all that I had learned from my father and my facility at setting type, I might by now have been a journeyman, able to live independent, even perhaps able to marry. But Sir John’s great example blinded me to practical considerations, encouraged me to elevate my ambitions to the law, perhaps too high for such as me.
    Ah, what I could do with a bit of