Chapter 4 - A Proposition

The children ignored the voice from behind them, yet the boy continued to walk alongside, talking idly to them as if they were a couple of old friends. Then he quickened his stride and raced ahead of them. Once a few yards in front, he turned and stood directly in their way halting their progress.

"I beg your pardon. Allow me to introduce myself." He spoke in a tone of mock respect and bowed to them, removing his flat cap from his head. "My name is Charles Deptford. But you may, if you so wish, call me Charlie. Now, you are probably unaware that this is my lane. Strangers who wish to pass this way must pay me a little fee or offer something in return for my hospitality. On this occasion, I shall allow you to pass - but only if you would be so polite as to listen to a little proposition I have for you."

That word again - proposition. It felt like a shard of ice entering Maggie's heart. She had heard it plenty of times recently - from older, richer men in expensive carriages; from poorer, violent-looking men around the streets of Wapping; even from seemingly respectable looking and well-dressed women walking the streets. She had never heard the word pass from the lips of a boy not much older than herself, however. She wondered if the boy's proposition was of a similar nature to that offered her by the adults she had encountered.

She felt trapped.

She looked behind; still the gang stood lounging on the corner. She thought for a moment about running.

Then, in a dramatic movement, Charlie opened up his jacket and tucked into the top of his trousers she caught sight of a blade's handle.

"We simply want to make our way to the charitable school," she lied. "We haven't eaten for days and -"

"I don't think you heard me, my sweet little lady. This is my manor. That is my crew," he pointed back to the gang on the corner. "Now you've only got this far on account of my kind-hearted ways." He tapped the blade's handle then let his jacket fall back across it, so it was hidden from view once more.

"We have no money, nothing. What would you want from us?"

He laughed. "Deary me, I can see by looking at you that you ain't nothing but scrags." He shook his head. "All the same, if you listen to my little proposition, both of us shall prosper - of that I'm sure. You look like you are in need of a few bob."

"What happens if we just keep walking?" asked Tom.

"You won't! And don't be silly and try anything neither; you hear me. I can't let this lot go thinking I'm going soft-hearted in my old age." He pointed back over to the corner

Maggie paused for a moment and held on to Thomas' hand. With this boy, she thought, it was now territorial - as well as business. She saw his eyes piercing hers, his stare so fixed as if trying to read her mind.

"We'll listen, if you promise to let us go as soon as you've finished whatever it is you have to say." Before he could reply, she continued, "And you let us go away and think over your offer, without any bother from the rest of them." She pointed back over at the gang.

"It's only you I need my little angel." He paused, his stare as intense as ever. "Okay, I agree to your terms. This little mumper can go play -"

"I'm staying with Maggie," replied Tom.

"Maggie - lovely name. Strange tongue you have though, Maggie. But a lovely, lovely name," he repeated. "Follow me then. We need a bit more privacy than this place affords. Our crib is over the way," Charlie said beckoning them back towards the gang on the corner.

***

They appeared to be walking in the opposite direction to the one the crossing sweeper boy had earlier told them to pursue. Charlie led the way, with the entire gang of tatty boys, and equally scruffy girls, following behind. He chatted to Maggie, whom he linked arms with, as if they were out on a Sunday afternoon walk in Hyde Park. Thomas trotted behind trying to keep up. The rest of the gang passed a bottle between them and a couple of the younger children seemed half-drunk as they staggered behind trying to keep up.

"Here you go, Captain!" said one boy, passing the bottle to Charlie. But Charlie declined the offer with a dismissive wave of a hand. Maggie later discovered his name was Jack, and he seemed to be second in the gang's pecking order. She also recognised him as the crossing sweeper, the one who had directed her straight into the hands of the gang.

"I'll have that!" demanded the tallest of the girls - who may have been twelve, or even as old fourteen - grasping the bottle from Jack's hand. The gang called her Kitten, and as soon as she started glugging from the bottle, the smaller members of the gang flocked beneath her filthy, billowing dress, and held up their hands, chanting her name in unison, hoping to be the next to swig upon the bottle.

The streets became grimier and the roads muddier than they had appeared around Fleet Street. There were still people on the roads selling produce, but it looked less appetizing and the sellers less enthusiastic about the wares they had on offer. Infants and children, some not much younger than Tom, ran naked or half-naked around the streets while mothers and fathers sat on doorsteps smoking pipes or stood on corners chatting idly, glancing occasionally toward their offspring.

Soon they arrived at a set of squalid houses, which looked set for demolition, and they entered an old, dilapidated house. The building looked like it had long been evacuated and as if it may fall to the ground at any moment.

"Enough for now!" shouted Charlie. "This is serious, Kitten. I'm going to need you sober today, so lay off it for a while." He snatched the bottle from her hand and smashed it to the ground. Kitten hissed and snarled, looked offended but did not say anything in return. On the short journey through the streets, Charlie greeted small annoyances with ferocious responses.

Once inside, they went up a set of decrepit stairs that moaned with every step. Then they entered a large dusty room - unfurnished but for squares of blankets dotted in twos and threes in each corner. Sunshine poured into through a large, broken window and the damp could be felt in the air as soon as the children entered.

Maggie was beginning to think she had made a terrible mistake. But there seemed no way out. And what choice did I really have, she thought.

Under Charlie's orders the gang began to position themselves by sitting around in a semi-circle. He sat on a stool in the middle of the circle. At the edge of the broken circle stood Tom and Maggie. Charlie urged them to kneel down and watch and listen as he explained his plan.

"Every so often, we have a break from our usual graft of begging, petty thievery, forking out a wallet or two, and pursue a much bigger fish," he began. "But this special little money earner can't be undertaken too often. Doing it too often would mean the peelers getting wind, and we might find ourselves attracting the attention of the rags too. And if that happens, we is finished."

"So, anyway, this is how we goes about a pick up." He took a thin, long stick and using the film of dust on the floor as his canvas, began to draw a plan of the area near to Drury Lane. Using small stones to indicate the various members of the gang, including Maggie - if she so wished to take part - he explained the plan in elaborate detail.

The first part of the plot revolved around spotting a man of means, a suitably drunken gentleman, who could be led by the nose to a quiet location in the nearby rookery - using the combined charms of both Maggie and Kitten as bait.

He concluded his explanation with a vivid description of a hapless gentleman - floored, beaten and threatened - relieved of all his portable property.

He then asked Maggie, "You see how it goes?"

"Very clearly," she answered, startled. Her shock came partly from the fact that she felt desperate enough to be lured into joining such a venture.

"So what d'you think? Interested?" asked Charlie.

"It could be very dangerous for me - and the others," she stammered.

There was a slight snigger from one of the gang.

"Also, it's criminal. It's a crime you're committing; it's not right."

At this, a chorus of laughter.

"He's a rich gentlemen who can replace whatever he loses. The stuff we take are merely objects to him," argued Charlie amidst the continued sniggering of the gang.

"What, then, if we get caught?" replied Maggie searching for another way to disentangle herself from Charlie's plot.

There was another loud chorus of laughter.

"How long have we been up to this lark?" Charlie asked of Jack.

"Must be at least a year now, Captain," replied Jack

"And have we ever been nabbed yet?" Asked Charlie.

"We're still out on the streets ain't we? So I reckon they ain't never got a grip of us yet," Jack said smiling.

"There you goes. Anyways, do you really think a gentleman is going to report this to the peelers? And by the time we've finished with him, this mug won't know if he's a coming or a going - let alone what day it is."

At this he took out the knife and looked at it as if admiring a lover. "Even if he remembers what happened, he ain't coming anywhere near me. And after a few days I'm sure, as always, everything will blow over. All shall be forgotten; you wait and see. Sadly, the mug will think twice about who he should trust, be a bit weary where he goes about town in the future. But you've nothing to worry about my little angel. Because you'll have been the real victim in all this."

***