THE PROPOSITION Read online

  A tall, half-naked man—his frock coat open, his shirt partly out and mostly undone, his trousers unbuttoned at the top—careened into the room. "Blimey!" he shouted as a furled umbrella behind him whooshed through the air, narrowly missing his head.

  The weapon was wielded by a woman who chased in after him. She yelled, "You blighter! You—you—you ratcatcher!" as she attempted to thrash him with her umbrella.

  Another man, then two more charged in behind the woman, a parade of ranting people all of whom seemed intent on catching the fellow for reasons that did not sound for a minute friendly.

  "When I get me 'ands on you…!"

  "We'll be makin' meat pies out a' ya!"

  "Yer dirty ferrets can pick yer bones when we're through…"

  Edwina laughed at first, at the surprise, the unlikely spectacle that had claimed the crowded, dignified tea parlor.

  A young woman charged in behind the others. She wept and called to the rest—something about nothing having happened like they thought. Ah, Edwina concluded, young lovers caught en flagrante delicto.

  More people entered. Another man raced in behind the crying girl. After him, two well-dressed gentlemen trotted in, though once inside they immediately stepped back against the wall as if to watch—the wild goings-on apparently bringing in the curious from the street.

  Edwina herself came to her feet. Other patrons of the teahouse rose, tried to move back, yet it was hard to tell which way to turn in order to stay out of the fray. She was stranded in the midst of clamor that grew around her. Over the sound of ladies' shrieking and men's "Now see here!" carried the righteous exclamations and bitter complaint of the fleeing fellow. His pursuers shouted after him, promising mayhem, while he narrowly avoided it, cursing them and dashing round one table then the next. He left behind him a trail of quickly vacated chairs and tables and clanking, shimmying china.

  His adversaries, less spry and more worked up, whipped against people and objects he avoided, rather like the tail of a cyclone. They knocked chairs sideways, overturned a table, then sent one man sprawling. When they grabbed for the frisky fellow over another table, they ended up pulling off the table linen. They sloshed over countless teapots and tossed clotted cream onto the floor by the bowlful.

  At this point, an apron-fronted waiter joined in, then another waiter. Mr. Abernathy himself materialized from the back offices, his glasses on his forehead. The stout little owner frowned, then waved, trying to organize his staff; he gave chase, too.

  Thus pursuers multiplied. Then divided—Mr. Abemathy and the waiters split up, darting round a table from two directions in an effort to corner a fellow who couldn't be cornered: His frock coat and shirt flapping open on his bare chest, the man vaulted the dessert trolley (with nary a cream puff disturbed). Everyone in pursuit, from both sides and behind, collided at the cart—catching their prey only insofar as to spatter the backs of his leaping boots and trousers with crème anglaise. Every last pursuer went down, their limbs floundering like spatulas in a concoction of mixed pastries. As they rose, they were covered in berries, cake, cream-puff cream, and biscuit bits.

  Edwina laughed outright. Even though it wasn't funny, of course. No, no. It was awful that Abernathy and Freigh's famous Saturday afternoon cream tea should become a free-for-all. She put her hand to her mouth, stifling the laughter that wanted to break out.

  The leader of the parade headed for the front door in the lull, and would have made his exit, but a bobby came in just as the fellow was about to run out. "Dia-bol-ical!" he said emphatically as the bobby spread his arms, blocking the doorway.

  The fellow swerved back into the room. The umbrella-flourishing woman—who now looked familiar somehow, as if Edwina would know her in a different context—landed a good swipe as he sailed past. "Ai! That 'urts, loov," he said.

  The vaguely familiar woman led the pack again and, for a brief moment, was close enough to deliver several more thwacks on the man's forearm as he protected his head.

  "Stop! This be blewdy insane, ye silly old cow."

  Edwina tilted her head, her interest shifting. The man had the oddest speech pattern. Beneath a strong dose of East Side London lay a country idiom that rarely left the southwest tip of England. A mishmash of Cornish and Cockney. Remarkable.

  "Beggar me," he protested. "Nothin' 'appened!" After which his feet hit some of the cream that had spilled on the floor. His arms flew out as he slipped in it, his reflexes agile enough to keep him upright—though not sufficient to keep him from pure, blind swearing. "Aw-w, blewdy 'ell fokin' mawther a' Gawd…"

  His words gave Edwina only momentary pause. She quickly ducked down under her table to dig a notebook and pen from her drawstring purse. What luck. Why, she could have traveled miles and never heard the Queen's English so marvelously slaughtered.

  "What's he saying?" someone asked behind her as she took a step back.

  She interrupted her rapid scribbles, thinking the question addressed to her. But no, she realized it was one of the two curiosity-seekers who had followed the commotion in; they were talking together.

  "Who cares?" answered the second. "I'll give you five-to-one odds they brain him here."

  "Here in the tearoom?" asked the other. Both men were well-dressed: dark frock coats, striped trousers, gray gloves, gray top hats, as if they had come from a garden party or wedding. Then she blinked and looked again: The men were twins, all but identical. One was perhaps ever so slightly taller and thinner.

  "No, no," the taller one said, "they'll get hold of him by the scruff here, drag him into the street, and brain him outside. My fifty against your ten pound note."

  "You're on. He's bigger than any of them. And faster—they aren't even going to catch him; they've been trying for more than a city block…"

  She dismissed their silly conversation; neither the syntax nor inflection was interesting. Both born near Brighton. Upper-class. The taller one had been to Eton; neither had seen university.

  Inflections and syntax, yes. She made notes: The crying girl was from the London district of Whitechapel; so were her relatives—the pursuers were all related, same household, though the girl and the woman with the umbrella had veneers of refined diction, the sort learned if trained in a nice London shop.

  It occurred to Edwina: the seamstress and her assistant from the dress shop off Queen's Gate. That's who the two women were. Not that it mattered. Any interesting facts buried in their speech were tidbits, mere crumbs of richness, when compared to the treasure trove of linguistic atrocities coming from the mouth of the elusive, bare-chested man.

  As an extra bonus, his voice rang, distinctive, deep; it carried with an athletic vocal clarity. Which made for a nice, clean study of the aberrations he put into English speech. His attack of initial H's, some dropped, some added where they didn't belong, was unequivocal. His short vowels were prolonged so clearly they almost made for an extra syllable.

  Rarely had she heard anyone who could so completely distinguish himself, by simply opening his mouth, as coming from the bottommost rung of the lowest order of society.

  His speech put him from the mining districts of Cornwall, come to London now no doubt to make his fortune as a—well, he could have been anything from a dustman to a pickpocket. Or a ratcatcher, wasn't that what someone had called him? Perfect.

  His resounding voice all at once let out a roar. "Na-a-w! Bugger me!"

  Edwina looked up from her notebook just in time to see her study-subject dive after something, something that seemed to have come from his coat pocket. A live something. A brown bit of fur scampered into the debris on the floor.

  With more guttural sounds of exasperation, the fellow rose onto his hands and knees. Several of his assailants tripped over him as he scooted toward the thing, making small smacking sounds with his lips. "'Ere, loov. Now, now. Come to yer Mick, loovey."

  His importuning made the thing halt. It looked to be no more than a wiggly tail of an animal, a tail come alive on tiny paws. With
it momentarily stopped, the man snatched it up and dropped it back into his pocket. Before he could get to his feet, though, a waiter had hold of his coattail. The seamstress and her umbrella got another clear shot. She landed a blow on the kneeling fellow's back. He flinched, raising an arm in defense, and grabbed, knocking the umbrella flying. But the two older men got hold of his arm, and he was down—protecting whatever was in his coat by putting his cheek to the floor, tenting himself over his swinging pockets.

  At this point, confusion broke out in earnest as everyone converged on him.

  Those who had chased him in wanted his hide.

  Mr. Abernathy pounded his fist on his palm, demanding recompense for untold damages.

  Patrons spoke loudly in umbrage at the mess of their clothes.

  The bobby called for order, but didn't get it.

  Everyone talked at once, while the poor fellow on his knees and cheek, one arm pinned back, cursed the air blue as he absorbed blows from any enemy who could reach him.

  The police officer yelled louder. Edwina stopped writing when, over her spectacles, she saw the man on his knees take—she blinked, her chest tightening in spasm—a blow from the policeman's billy truncheon.

  No. Perhaps he deserved trouble. Yet he had stayed so swashbucklingly ahead of it until he'd decided to save the tail-thing that had leaped from his pocket: He didn't deserve to be on his knees taking a clubbing—or at least he didn't deserve it more than anyone else who'd participated in the chase. No, no—

  "Excuse me," she said. She began to push her way into the little pack of arguing people. "Excuse me, please," she repeated, this time louder in her no-nonsense tone. She felt less confident than she sounded, but the crowd opened up for her anyway. She marched forth, a tall woman with a businesslike walk.

  At the front of the group, the bobby was saying to the captured man, "I'm asking you again, Do you live here in London?"

  "Ace, ye bug-brine," said the man below him, his slander, happily, skewed by the fact that his mouth was pressed to the floorboards. "Ace, ace, ace."

  The policeman raised his billy again. "If you answer 'Ace' one more time—"

  "Yes," Edwina interrupted. "He means yes. If you'll let him up, you'll be able to understand him better."

  "Do you know this man, miss?"

  "No."

  "Why are you speaking up for him then?"

  "I'm not—"

  "Then mind your own business. He's bein' smart—"

  "With regard to that particular word, he's being Cornish—in a way one hardly hears in London. He was raised somewhere near St. Just, I'd say." The man below them made a sound of satisfactory startlement, an indication that she was on the mark. More confidently, she added, "Though heaven knows his accent has more than Cornwall in it. Let him up, would you please."

  One thing she could say for herself: Her own accent—through little or no effort of her own—was as genteel as ever came from a lady's lips. The diction of the Queen herself did not imply more quiet authority. It always struck her as a marvelous contradiction that she could sound so sure of herself for no more reason than the openness of her vowels and the briefness of her final R's.

  The little group straightened themselves, looking from one to the other as they stepped back and let the bobby and a waiter bring the fellow up by his arms.

  The man they brought to his feet was huge, much taller than she'd thought, wild-looking, and utterly furious. If his good nature were put upon by being chased, it did not survive at all being pinned to the ground and beaten. He stared narrowly down at her.

  A novel experience. A man had to be over six feet to look down at Edwina Bollash. This man was easily. Long-limbed, wide-shouldered, he stood at least six and a quarter feet tall. He was also more robust than she had imagined. Not heavy so much as well-built, filled-out—with his arms held back, his frock coat and shirt gaped open onto chest muscles that looked akin to the tanned, tooled breastplate of an old Roman culrass, if such armor had had—

  Edwina blinked, widened her eyes, then glanced down. (While her mind continued on its own: Hair, if such armor had hair that flowed into a wedge of black that narrowed downward into a neat line. She had never seen a man's naked chest, except of course on statues, which never had hair. She felt a pinch of betrayal—what else, she wondered, was inaccurate on the stone men she had so carefully and curiously studied?)

  "Could someone get him a proper shirt?" she asked. She might have requested instead that he button his own or his coat, except his shirt had exactly two buttons on it, both at the bottom, and was ripped down the front as if it had caught on something. His coat had no buttons at all, not a one down its long placket.

  After a small to-do, a tablecloth was draped over the fellow's shoulders. As it fell over the front of him, he spoke to her. "Ye'll be excusin' me, duck," he said. "Idden me choice to stand 'ere without me shirt done up."

  "I'm sure," she said. She let herself take in the more modest sight of him, tilting her head till the flowers on her hat shifted, taking her head sideways another degree.

  The hair on his head was long, wild, and dark. He wore a positively feral mustache—walrus-like and jet black. It went with the dense stubble on his cheeks. Beyond this, he had a faintly alarming face: a broad, square jaw, its sharp right angles below his ears made more severe by knots of muscle that flexed, an angry man trying regain control of himself. Dark coloring. A deep, jutting brow. It was a dramatic face, strong. The word villainous immediately leaped to mind, though, in fairness, it was a handsome face—handsome enough at least for a seamstress's assistant to risk her reputation.

  Edwina couldn't help but ask, "So you were born in St. Just, but how long have you lived in Whitechapel?"

  He frowned at her. "Do I know ye?"

  "No. I'm a philologist. I study people's speech. And yours is most interesting."

  The bobby interrupted. "Excuse me, miss, but we have things to settle: I'll be arresting this fellow now."

  "Arresting me? What'd I do 'cept keep meself from bein' kilt? In fact, I be reporting these bug-brines here fer…"

  Bug-brains. Diabolical a few minutes ago. He was verbal in the way some Cockneys were: a love of words and colorful talk. Neither won him any ground here, however.

  Mr. Abernathy drowned him out, calling for everyone's arrest. Others joined in, the chaos rising again in waves of defense and accusation. The apparent father of the weepy shop assistant said something that made her begin to cry again. The seamstress, the girl's aunt apparently, stiff-armed the father with the heel of her hand, telling him to button his lip. And so it would have begun all over.

  Except, surprisingly, one of the gentlemen twins who had followed the fracas in stepped from behind Edwina and held up his hand. "Stop! Stop!" he called.

  The group quieted reluctantly—as they watched him remove a notecase from his coat pocket.

  "Most of this is just mess," he said, then added cavalierly, "that the waiters can clean up. Other than mess, I see one broken chair, which I am happy to pay for." He slid a ten-pound note from the notecase's billfold, enough to buy half a dozen chairs, offering it to Mr. Abernathy. "Call it the cost of a morning's good sport." He beamed at the fellow wearing the table-cloth. "You led one jolly good chase, old chap. And earned me fifty quid for it."

  The mustachioed fellow laughed as if they were suddenly mates. "Which we'd be 'appy to take 'alf of." Tike 'arf of Edwina was mesmerized by the muddled syntax and thickness of his self-invented dialect.

  The other brother, standing beside her, concurred. "Amazing," he said, "I can barely understand a word he says. It's English though, isn't it?" He shook his head, a condescending smirk on his lips. "Honestly, don't prolong his agony by helping him, Jeremy. If you had any mercy, you'd just shoot him for being so poor and stupid."

  The Cornish-Cockney turned around sharply. "I ain't stupid," he said. Styoo-pid. He mimicked the other man's pronunciation quite well. "And I ain't a blewdy poncey-arsed nob whot thinks his buttocks
don't smell when he shites."

  Happily, the smug twin didn't understand what the man had said. He turned his back as his brother with the open notecase withdrew another bill. When Mr. Abernathy still didn't take the money, the mediating twin swung his arm like a boom around toward the whimpering girl and her family. "She's your daughter, yes? It seems you could do the lady the honor of believing her. When a lady says nothing happened, then nothing happened."

  The idea of the girl's being a lady made her whole family scratch their heads—and stare at the money. As encouragement, he added, "The truth is, I'd pay a good bit to beat my brother here in a bet. Take this money for the young lady's trousseau or dowry, then let her be." He nodded, a small bow toward her as he offered the money to her father. "To your future, mademoiselle."

  The father snatched it up.

  To Abernathy, the gentleman opened his billfold, showing a wad of bills inside. "How much? What is the price of a new chair, a good mopping, of asking your baker to come in early and turn out some more of those delicious scones? Why, sir, by tomorrow, you could be as good as new. In fact, better than before. Everyone will want to come see the scene of today's adventure. You will be the talk of London."

  It took three more bills to appease Mr. Abernathy, along with the assurance from first one brother then the other that they were very willing to take tea presently at a small side table while the mess was being cleared away.

  And that was that. As if by magic, the angry group dispersed. Mr. Abernathy ordered his waiters to get mops. The bobby followed the family out. Edwina was left at the side of a demolished tearoom standing with a tall ratcatcher wearing a tablecloth.

  "I thank ye kindly," he said, "fer speakin' up fer me." He ran his hand down the front of his threadbare frock coat, as if straightening an elegant garment. Then he bent forward slightly, adjusting himself into his trousers before his grimy fingers rather indiscreetly fastened the top button.