“Yes, who ruled with an iron fist over a little kingdom of eight obedient offspring.”He made a rueful face.“Wallace told me you too come from a clerical family?”
“In a manner of speaking.Revivalists, you know.”
Vaughan gave him a perceptive look.“Not a happy family?”
Solomon had nothing much to say against his parents.He remembered them as always being very busy, carrying out the work of the Lord as manifested in the desires of Joseph Crawford, travelling preacher.And Mr Crawford had never said that Man was put on Earth to behappy.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said.
“And yet here you are in London without them.”
“Yes.”Solomon shrugged.After a moment he admitted, “There are some people I miss.Childhood friends.But… it’s been years since last I saw them.”
Perseverance had been sixteen the last time he saw her, but now she was no doubt married to another of the Converted, though she had always said it was the last thing she wanted.And as for Ephraim, the preacher’s son, with his soft voice and hesitant smile… It broke Solomon’s heart to think that he had doubtless been browbeaten into following in his father’s footsteps.The three of them had discussed running away so often, but in the end, Solomon had left them behind.
“I do sometimes wish I knew how they’re keeping,” he added.
“It’s not easy, is it?”Vaughan said.“One has built a life for oneself, happy and flourishing, but one cannot help worrying about those left behind.”
It was almost uncanny how he seemed to see directly into Solomon’s heart, bringing his worst fears to light and making them seem, perhaps, not so bad after all.
“Yes, that’s exactly how it is.”
Vaughan made a little humming in his throat.“Going away to sea was a great relief to me.An escape, one might almost say.And yet…” His voice trailed off.His eyes had been on the pattern he was tracing in a drop of split beer on the table, but now he looked up at Solomon.“One hears a great deal about the duty of filial obedience.But I always felt a greater duty to my younger siblings.A duty that I then shirked.”
It was odd, this thrill of fellow feeling.Vaughan had a way about him that invited confidence.Solomon found himself telling him things he had never intended to share with another living soul, as they talked late into the evening.
Summer turned into winter.The ostlers went about bundled up in multiple layers of clothing, fumbling with numb fingers at ice-cold harness buckles.
The day of the first snow, the stable boys were irrepressible, shirking work to throw snowballs.Watching them, Solomon was reminded of snow fights with Ephraim and Perseverance, the year they’d spent the winter near Manchester.Mr Crawford had drawn crowds of tens of thousands, who braved the cold to hear him preach about the fires of hell.
That was the year Solomon had learnt to drive a cart—and how proud he had been.Of course, he’d then had to stand up in the weekly meeting and accuse himself of the insidious sin of Pride.
He shook off those thoughts and went in search of Wallace, finding him on the kitchen threshold.“Ready to go?”They both had a night off at the same time, and when that happened they usually walked out to Bermondsey together.
“I’m not coming tonight,” Wallace said.“Hugo has gone out of town.”
Solomon regarded him with bemusement.“What has that to do with anything?It don’t stop you going without him, surely.”
“Oh, I don’t think Hugo would like that.”
Solomon grinned.“What, you reckon he’d be jealous?Surely not.Not over a drink with some friends.And”—he winked—“you can look but not touch, you know.”
But Wallace still refused, and Solomon went off alone, tramping through the snow, feeling somewhat disgruntled.
Vaughan’s return to Town was delayed for a few days by the snow, but when he finally returned he was at his wittiest, full of amusing stories about the house party he had attended just south of London.
“I am what they call a hanger-on, you see,” he confided in Jed and Solomon over a pint.“I am called upon when a hostess needs someone to make up the numbers.Entertain the ladies and show the gentlemen in a better light.”
“Make conversation at the dinner table too, I suppose,” Solomon suggested.“I expect you’re good at that.”
“Well, I am, rather.And what dinners!I am more than compensated for my efforts by the excellent spread.Mrs Jennings knows how to furnish a table.”
“I thought you were going to see a fellow called Forsythe,” Wallace objected.
“Mrs Jennings is his mistress.His wife has gone off to Harrogate, I believe.”
Wallace’s eyes widened.“I didn’t think a gentleman would bring his mistress into his home, never mind have her welcome his friends.”
