Page 56 of By Marsh and By Moor
“My dear boy, you are a perfect innocent sometimes.What a foolish little notion.”
Solomon blinked, taken aback.That seemed rather harsh.But Wallace only smiled, so Solomon did too.
“Now let me tell you about the woman Sir Richard brought with him.A delightful creature—”
Later that night, as Jed and Solomon walked back to the Crown together, Wallace said shyly, “Hugo has asked me to live with him.”
“But… what about work?”
The ostlers had to sleep at the Crown, where they could be called upon at any time, day or night.Some of them were married and had set up their wives and children in rooms near the Crown, but even those men could only visit their families a few times a week.
“Hugo says he has work for me.I’m to help him in his business dealings.And there’s a club he knows as is looking for waiters.”
Wallace loved working with horses.It was hard to imagine him serving drinks to gentlemen and being happy doing it.But what did Solomon know?
“I’ll be sorry to see you go.”
“You’ll still see me in Bermondsey,” Wallace said.
But they didn’t, in fact, see much of each other in the following months.As winter turned into spring, Wallace was at the alehouse less and less often when Solomon went there; Hugo Vaughan, too, was rarely to be seen.
Then the head ostler at the Crown broke his leg, and Solomon was asked to step into his shoes, at least temporarily.On his very occasional nights off, he rarely had the time or energy to walk as far as Bermondsey.When he did make it there, he always left a message for Wallace at the alehouse, but Wallace never received it.
“No, he en’t been in,” the barman always said.“Nor that fancy gent he keeps company with.But you know”—he winked—“they’re very much in love.Everyone knows that.Wrapped up in each other.Don’t need to come here and bother with the likes of us.”
Solomon murmured something noncommittal.He tried not to feel hurt that Wallace seemed to have quite forgotten him.The barman was right: Wallace was in love.
One afternoon around Eastertide, at the Borough Market, Solomon was stopped by a man he vaguely recognised.
“You’re one of the ostlers at the Crown, en’t you?”
Solomon nodded.
“Is Wallace Acton still working there?We en’t seen him at choir practice in months now.”
“Oh,” Solomon said, surprised.He could place the man now: he was one of Wallace’s friends from the Dissenter meeting house.
This wasn’t the first time someone had asked after Wallace—acquaintances at the Bermondsey alehouse had too.But Wallace seemed to have drifted away from all his old friends.
Solomon felt a stirring of hurt and unease.Had Wallace left the neighbourhood entirely, without even telling him?
Chapter Fourteen
It was almost a year before Solomon saw Wallace again.He was leaving the tack room at the Crown, late one evening, when he caught sight of Wallace standing in the shadows by the stableyard’s side entrance.Solomon dropped the empty bucket he’d been carrying and hurried to join him.
“Wallace!”Solomon pulled him into an embrace, then stepped back to take a look at him.“How are you?I thought you must have disappeared off the face of the Earth!How’s Hugo?”
“Oh, he’s keeping well,” Wallace said vaguely.
He wasn’t wearing a coat, Solomon noticed with a frown.“En’t you cold?It’s already November, and you’re walking around in your shirt sleeves.”
“I had to go out in a hurry, and I forgot my coat, that’s all.”
“Has something happened?What’s wrong?”
“Well… as a matter of fact, I just came to ask if you could lend me a shilling or two?I—I should warn you that I can’t tell when I’ll be able to pay you back.”
Solomon stuck his hand in his pocket, and came up with no more than sixpence.“I can give you whatever I get tomorrow.”The ostlers were only paid their wages four times a year, on quarter days, and tided themselves over in the meantime with the tips they received each day.Seeing Wallace’s face fall, Solomon added, “But you need it tonight, I collect?What’s going on?Are you stuck for somewhere to sleep tonight?Something to eat?En’t you staying with Hugo anymore?”
