Page 27 of The Secret Word
“Yes,” Harry agreed. “I don’t have the authority to speak for my father, Chris. He and his cousin did not get on, and that is putting it mildly, I gather. He’ll need to know more before he decides to take you into the bosom of the family. But he won’t queer your pitch.” He paused. “What do you need us to do?”
Chris exchanged glances with Clem. This had all been much easier than they expected. “Thank you,” he said.
Michael handed Chris his glass in a mute request for a refill. As Chris refreshed all the glasses, his cousin asked, “Who rescued you when you were turned away by Harry’s grandfather, if I might ask? Lady Fernvale said some kind person took you in.”
Again, Chris and Clem exchanged glances. They had been tolerant so far. But how would they react to his personal history as a street rat, a pickpocket, and then an errand boy for Ramping Billy? Ah well. It was the truth, after all.
“A gang of pickpockets,” he said. “They robbed me and then took pity on me. They gave me some rags to wear and taught me their trade.”
Harry was staring at him with his mouth open. “You were a pickpocket? Good God!”
Michael, meanwhile, was chuckling. “I cannot wait to tell my father. You must have been a good one, for here you are.”
“Not good enough,” Chris said. “Ramping Billy O’Hara caught me picking his pocket, and decided to keep me. You’ve heard of Ramping Billy?”
Harry nodded and Michael whistled. “He was your kind person?”
“When I told Aunt Fern that, I meant the pickpockets, but yes. Billy has been surprisingly kind to me. He gave me a job upstairs in the brothel above his first gambling den—emptying chamber pots, sweeping the floor, and collecting dirty linens, mostly. And then different tasks as I grew older. He made sure I was educated. And when I showed some talent with mathematics, he hired me as his bookkeeper.”
“I’ve never seen you at O’Hara’s places,” Michael commented.
“I work out of sight and I don’t gamble or frequent the ladies,” Chris told him. “I mostly work out of Fortune’s Fool.”
Michael whistled again, and this time Harry shook his head. “Ramping Billy. My father is not going to like that.”
“I didn’t like being put out on the street,” Chris retorted, irritated on Billy’s behalf.
Harry gave him a wry smile. “I’ll make sure to point that out to him, cousin.”
“Did you really work in a brothel?” Michael asked, then seemed to remember that Clem was there, for he shot her a glance and muttered, “Never mind.” Clearly, he wanted salacious details. He was doomed to be disappointed, for Chris wouldn’t share the few he had available.
“This place runs a depository for letters,” Chris said, changing the subject. “If you need to reach me, or if I need to let you know something, write to me here. I’ll be collecting letters addressed to C. Waite.”
“Oh fun,” Michael said. “I’ve always wanted my own secret correspondent, like in the Gothic novels. I’ll be M. Good, shall I?”
“What can I be?” Harry asked. “H. Satters might not be different enough, if someone asks the right questions. C. Waite writing to H. Satters would give it away immediately. Let’s say S. Henry.”
“Very good,” Chris approved.
The cousins parted in charity with one another, and Clem reflected Chris’s feelings when she said, “That went quite well, I thought.”
Better than Chris had expected, and certainly better than his next encounter with family.
The sign that something was wrong came from one of Billy’s boys. He was waiting by the door under the supervision of Billy’s lieutenant, Tiny, and approached Chris nervously. “Mister, I’m sorry, mister. I di’n’t know I shouldn’t, only ’e said ’e were yer gaffer, so I let ’im in.”
Chris looked at Tiny over the boy’s head. “My grandfather?”
“Seemingly. The boss said might as well see him now as later.”
Chris crouched to look the boy in the face. Like most of them, he had old eyes in a young scrawny body. He flinched, as if expecting a blow, then peeked at Tiny and straightened, settinghis chin and squaring his shoulders, as if determined to take whatever happened. Jim, this one was called, though whether it was the name he had as a baby or one he’d adopted since was anyone’s guess.
Jim was a recent addition to Billy’s crew. Chris might have been the first boy Billy took from the streets, but he was far from the last. Billy’s people fed them, civilized them, educated them in useful skills and in basic writing and arithmetic, and when they were finally of some use, they disappeared. But others always took their place.
People had dozens of theories about what happened to the trained boys, some more lurid than others, none even close to the truth. Chris, as Billy’s bookkeeper, knew they all went to legitimate positions. Households and businesses throughout England hired on Billy’s former boys.
If Chris managed to set up his school, he planned to ask Billy to send the most promising to him, for he himself was the only boy he knew about who had been educated beyond the basics. Chris thought that was a waste, for there were other intelligent lads who would go far with the right education.
“Is my grandfather in my office, Jim?” Chris asked.
