What Darkness Brings

Chapter 7

The boy looked to be eight or nine years old at most, his face round, with widespread eyes and a short upper lip, his sandy hair as dirty and matted as moldy hay.

He sat on the bottom step of the Church of St. Giles, a cheap, ragged broom clutched in one fist, his head tipped back as he peered up at Hero. He wore tattered corduroy trousers and a threadbare man’s coat so big its tails hung down to his ankles and he’d had to roll up the sleeves like a washerwoman. His hands, like his feet, were bare, and every inch of visible skin so grimy as to resemble aged oak in hue. But his light brown eyes were bright and lively, his features mobile and expressive as he let his gaze take in the glory of Hero’s braid-trimmed gown and plumed, broad-brimmed velvet hat.

“Are you really a viscountess?” he asked, lisping slightly.

“I am, yes.” Hero nodded to the elegant equipage drawn up at the kerb beside them. “See my carriage?”

The urchin-who said his name was Drummer-stared at the shiny, yellow-bodied carriage with its team of restless, highbred blacks, its liveried coachman and footman waiting impassively. “And ye want to talk to me?” said the boy on a rapt exhalation of breath.

“I do, yes. I want to know how long you’ve been working as a crossing sweep.”

The lad screwed up his features with the effort of thought. There were thousands of poor boys and girls like him across London-children who made their living by sweeping the mud and manure from the city’s street crossings. In a sense, it was a form of begging, although the children did perform a service. Since they staked out a site and worked the same location for years, the trustworthy ones soon became known in a neighborhood and could also earn extra money by running errands, holding horses, or carrying packages for the area’s inhabitants.

“Well,” he said, “I started at it right after me da died, the winter I turned ten. I’m twelve now, so it’s been more’n two years, I guess.”

Hero made a surreptitious adjustment to the notes she was taking in her notebook. “And is your mother still living?”

“No, m’lady. She died o’ the flux just six months after me da. He used to be a bricklayer, ye know. But he fell off a scaffold and broke his leg so bad he died from it. At first I tried tatting hair nets, like me mum used to do. But I weren’t no good at it. Then I seen other children getting money for sweeping the crossings, so I bought meself a broom and took it up. I usually work this corner with another boy named Jack, but he ain’t been well lately.”

“Where do you live?”

“Usually I takes a room with some other lads in a lodging house up the lane there. But it’s thruppence a night, and with winter comin’ soon, I’m saving me money so’s I can buy me a pair o’ boots.”

“So where are you sleeping now?”

“Here, m’lady. If I rolls up in a tight ball in the shadows by the door, the charlie don’t usually see me. And even if he does rouse me, I just come back once he’s gone.”

Hero refused to let herself think about the fear, loneliness, and hunger that must haunt this child as he curled up for the night on the cold stone steps. Yet she found she still had to clear her throat before she could ask, “And how much do you earn, on average, with your sweeping?”

The boy looked confused. “On average?”

“How much do you usually make a day?”

“Yesterday I only took in tuppence ha’penny, it was so dry. Dry days is always the worst. We likes it when it rains-particul’rly a hard wettin’ what makes lots o’ mud but then clears up, so that folks come out again. On a good day, I can make as much as tenpence. But the brooms wear out faster when it’s muddy. A broom costs tuppence ha’penny, and it’ll only last four or five days in wet weather, where’s I can get a fortnight out o’ one if things is dry.”

Hero glanced down at the boy’s broom, which was basically a bundle of twigs lashed to a stout stick. He might lack an understanding of the concept of averaging, but he obviously had a solid grasp of the economics of his business-and the forethought to forgo lodgings on an autumn night in order to save for the boots he knew he’d be needing in the coming winter.

“What hours do you normally work?”

“The take is best here between nine and seven, although I know some lads what work Mayfair, and they don’t usually start till noon or even one, when the nobs come out. I wish I could get in with them,” Drummer added wistfully. “They can take as much as a shilling a day, only their spots is all full up right now. But I goes with them at night to the opera and tumbles.”

“You tumble?”

“Aye. We do cat’un-wheels and flips, and the gentlemen comin’ out o’ the opera’ll laugh and give us a few pence, especially if they’ve a girl on their arm. There’s one boy by the name o’ Louis who gets e’en more tin give him, on account of he can do backflips. Me, I ain’t so good even at the cat’un wheels. I get giddy after jist two or three.”

“So you don’t go to sleep until after the opera lets out?”

“Oh, no, m’lady. Then we goes to the Haymarket-’cept on Sundays, when we goes there earlier.”

“What do you do there?” Hero asked. An ancient thoroughfare running from Piccadilly to Pall Mall, the Haymarket was crowded with theaters, hotels, supper houses-and prostitutes.

“Well, sometimes a gentleman’ll drive up in a carriage and tell us to bring him a girl. We can get as much as five or sixpence for that. If the gentleman is dressed nice, we’ll fetch him a real pretty girl.”

Hero stared at the guileless young pimp before her in horrified fascination. “And if he’s not ‘dressed nice’?”

The boy grinned. “Well, then we’ll fetch him one o’ the girls what ain’t so young and pretty. But sometimes, we gives the best chances to girls what’ve been kind to us. Sometimes a girl’ll go by and we’ll shout out, ‘Good luck to you!’ and she’ll give us a copper.”

“These girls whom you, um”-Hero hesitated, searching for an appropriate word-“supply,” she said finally, “do you find them walking in the street?”

“Sometimes. But if we don’t find any girls walking, we know what lodging houses to go to, to get ’em. And the next day, they’ll usually give us a copper or two, by way o’ thanks.”

“So at what time do you finally quit working?”

“We all meets at three o’clock, on the steps o’ St. Anne’s, and reckon up what we’ve taken.”

Good heavens, thought Hero; the child worked from nine in the morning to three the next day. She said, “And then you come here to sleep?”

“Aye. Although I gots to move when the sun comes up.” The fatigue that shadowed the boy’s eyes and sagged his jaw was obvious. “I’ll be glad when I saves up enough to buy them boots. Last night was nippy.”

Hero pressed a coin into the sweeper’s palm and closed his fist around it. “Here’s a guinea for you, my little man. Thank you for agreeing to talk to me.”

Then she turned and walked rapidly back to her carriage, before she was tempted to empty her purse into his thin, grubby hands.