The Toymakers(55)

‘Mrs Hornung …’

‘Don’t you mind me, girl. I was here to see it happen, opening up to flush out the cobwebs when they bouldered up the mews. Foreign dogs, they shouted. Foreign dogs, as if their mamas and papas hadn’t brought them to these same doors every Christmas and spoiled them with Mr Godman’s toys. I tried to reason with them, but those butcher’s boys had their bucket and …’

For the first time she stopped scrubbing and turned to face Cathy. The pig’s blood had made a merry mess of her apron; it ran in the creases of her neck, giving the impression that somebody had come for her with a knife.

‘Let’s get you upstairs, Mrs Hornung.’

‘Not a chance, girl, not until this is done. I won’t have those blackguards winning. It’s like Mr Godman says. We was all babes once. English and German and even Spaniards, I should say.’

Cathy rolled up her sleeves. ‘Two backs are better than one, Mrs Hornung. You move on up, those flagstones are going to need some working …’

She had not yet broken a sweat (though the work was hard, the blood needed scouring from each stone) when she heard more footsteps thundering up Iron Duke Mews. Instinct told her this was another villain come to daub their Emporium walls – just as they had daubed the fronts of every emigrant bookseller, locksmith and chocolatier since the day war was declared – but, when she looked up, an altogether more bewildering sight was coming their way. Emil was hurrying back into the Emporium in great, loping strides. His chest was heaving, his fists were bunched, and though he hopped ungainly through the sea of dried blood, he kept his head steadfastly up, refusing to acknowledge Cathy and Mrs Hornung on their knees at his feet. ‘Emil?’ Cathy cried out, but in response he contorted past them and was lost to the darkness of the summer aisles.

Cathy stared for a long time after he had gone. ‘When was the last time Emil left the Emporium, Mrs Hornung?’

‘More than out here, to sign for a tradesman? I should think it’s been half that boy’s life.’

Mrs Hornung had not broken her rhythm. She was still scouring the flagstones into submission. But, after that, and though she kept on scrubbing, Cathy’s mind was not on the task at hand, nor even on the pig’s head that stared at her with such derision. She could still picture Emil’s face, seen as if from below. She was not mistaken: Emil had been crying.

Emil did not appear when the gong sounded for dinner that night. Martha (whose tutor Mr Atlee had just departed, leaving her with a composition on the works of Charles Perrault) was the last to the table. After that, Papa Jack recited some words of thanks in that language Cathy still could not understand, and then Mrs Hornung served up her rich chicken broth. When Emil had still not appeared by the time she wheeled out her suet pudding and plum sauce, Cathy teased Sirius’s ears and sent him down to the workshop on the shopfloor. Who knew how Emil understood the patchwork dog, but before the plates were clean, there he was, forearms raw with scratches from the workshop lathe. He made a muted hello, took his place at his father’s right hand, and set about devouring what was left.

‘This thing isn’t going away,’ Papa Jack began. Ordinarily newspapers were good for only one thing in the Emporium – every gazette that came through the door was shredded up for papier maché, or used to line the workshop floors – but he had a collection at his feet and, brushing aside one of the patchwork cats who had escaped from its packing, he lifted up the first. Liège had been broken, Alsace and Lorraine were overrun, but so too were islands in the South Pacific rearing up. French and British soldiers had marched into Togo and taken it from its German governors, and into the fray marched legions from that vastness Jekabs Godman had once called home. The Russians were in East Prussia and marching west. ‘I think we have to accept that. Two hundred thousand English boys already in France. That changes everything. Cathy?’

Cathy had wanted to usher Martha out of the room, but the girl would only listen with an ear at the wall. Standing up, she held forth a leaf of paper. The letter had arrived with the day’s second post. She had known it was Lizzy by the florid script on the front (her father sometimes sent cards, but his was a simple, workmanlike hand), but she had not known what its contents would be. ‘She’s going too. They’re taking nurses out of Homerton and sending them out, with the British Red Cross. My little sister, going to war.’

It seemed scarcely credible, even as Cathy gave it voice. Lizzy Wray, destined to marry rich and live a spoilt life, was off to save lives while the world frayed apart all around her. Something had changed in Lizzy the year Cathy ran away. Cathy had thought she might come to the Emporium, spend seasons with her and Martha in the aisles, but instead Lizzy had landed in Homerton to train as a nurse. Cathy had often wondered: was she looking for her own Emporium? Well, now she had found it, in the makeshift barracks and tents of some French field.

Cathy trembled as she read out the letter. It was so inordinately foolish, so incredibly brave. Lizzy Wray, who wouldn’t get dirt beneath her nails without causing a fuss …

‘Well,’ said Mrs Hornung, because somebody had to fill the silence, ‘we must all do our part.’

By the head of the table, Emil sat bolt upright, spraying suet pudding. ‘Just what do you mean by that?’

All eyes turned on him. His face was purpling with rage. When nobody answered him, he was on his feet. When they kept staring, his fists were up. Beneath the table, Sirius yapped.