A Very Peculiar Plague Read Online Free PDF Page A

in and out of several nearby taverns – because that was how he’d always spent most of his time. Watching. Listening.
    These days, however, he wasn’t on the lookout for a well-padded pocket. These days he was watching and listening for Sarah Pickles.
    It was while enjoying a scuffle between two drunk navvies that he spied a familiar face in front of the George. He couldn’t remember whose face it was, and it disappeared so quickly into the Newgate Street crowd that for a moment he thought he might have imagined it. But was he likely to have imagined a face that he couldn’t put a name to? A woman’s face, fat and colourless and pock-marked, with a red nose, a sulky mouth and a wall eye . . .?
    He was still racking his brain when the ’bus arrived, some ten minutes later.
    Twopence gained Alfred a seat on the ’bus, but Jem had to sit on his knee – for even the benches up on the roof were packed with people. Wedged between a carpenter in a flannel jacket and a factory girl who kept coughing into her handkerchief, Jem sat with his feet dangling, clutching Alfred’s sack and making funny faces at the little girl who was perched in the lap of the woman directly opposite. Jem enjoyed making this little girl wriggle and titter. He enjoyed the whole trip, though it was very slow. The horses seemed to be struggling, weighed down by the water on their coats or the mud on their fetlocks. The road was rough, so the vehicle rocked from side to side, making doors rattle and heads bang together. The passengers themselves, squeezed in flank to flank, were forced to breathe into one another’s faces and tread on one another’s toes.
    But Jem so rarely had the pleasure of watching London roll past from the window of an omnibus that he savoured every minute. Through the steamed-up glass he caught glimpses of many theatres and music halls, all larger and finer than those in the East End. The shops were finer too; even the coal merchants’ shops looked cleaner than the ones in Whitechapel. And some of the horses were a delight to behold.
    At last the bus reached Bloomsbury Street, where Alfred and Jem alighted. From there it was just a short walk to their destination. They found themselves splashing through puddles as they hurried down streets full of tall, white terraces. Then Alfred stopped suddenly in front of a narrow brick house near St George’s church. He hesitated, as if wondering whether to climb a modest flight of stairs to the front door or descend another, longer flight to the stone-flagged area in front of the kitchen.
    Jem was glad when he chose the front door.
    ‘That’s Birdie,’ said Alfred, after he had rung the bell. ‘D’you hear? She’s singing.’
    Jem heard. Somewhere inside, a pure, high voice was trilling away, repeating the same notes over and over again. ‘La- la- LA- LA- LA- la -la.’ It wasn’t much of a tune, Jem thought.
    All at once the door opened. A red-haired, freckle-faced maid peered out.
    ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘It’s you, is it?’ She didn’t sound too pleased. And she grimaced when her gaze drifted down to Jem’s bare, muddy feet. ‘What do you want?’
    Alfred took off his hat. ‘Is Miss Eames in?’ he asked.
    ‘I’ll see,’ the girl replied ungraciously, slamming the door in their faces. Jem scowled. He was about to stick out his tongue when the door was abruptly jerked open again – this time by Miss Edith Eames.
    ‘Mr Bunce!’ she exclaimed. ‘Master Barbary! How very nice to see you!’
    Jem had never known quite what to make of Miss Eames. She wasn’t as pretty as Mabel Lillimere, who was plumper, with a rounder face and pinker cheeks. Miss Eames was skinny and pale and at least thirty years old; she even had touches of grey in her dark hair. Her manner was a little too brisk for Jem’s taste, and he didn’t like the way she made him feel – as if he had to be constantly apologising for his habits and appearance.
    But Miss Eames was also as smart as a whip,