The Toymakers(62)

‘We are representatives,’ the woman began, as if reading from a hymn sheet, ‘of the Order of the White Feather. We are the champions of fairness and courage. We who are forbidden from defending our King and Country must do our part nonetheless. And it is with this ambition that I present this feather to you, as a mark of your cowardice, your lack of brotherhood, your childishness, that you are not with our fathers and brothers, defending the realm.’

The feather was in Emil’s fingers before he could reply, the woman turning on her heel to join her elders, who had been looking admiringly on.

That feather, that white feather – and it hadn’t even belonged to a swan! It had been torn from the wing of some scrubbed-out seagull, its quill still marked with the poor bird’s blood.

He felt the eyes of every boy playing his Long War on him. That they should think him a coward was the most injurious of all. Letting the feather slip through his fingers (it floated dreamily over the battlefield; the toy soldiers must have thought it some angel from above), he took off at a run.

The women were already marching back along the aisle. They had handed a white feather to one of the Emporium customers as well, a boy barely out of short trousers who had (to his playmate’s horror) been gazing up at the dancing ballerina bears when the Order descended.

They were leafletting too. Handing leaflets out in his Emporium! Emil tore one from the hand of a stunned mother as he cartwheeled past.

*

TO THE YOUNG WOMEN OF LONDON!

Is your best boy wearing khaki? If not, don’t YOU THINK

he should be?

If he does not think that you and your country are worth

fighting for – do you think he is WORTHY of you?

If your young man neglects his duty to King and Country,

the time may come when he will NEGLECT YOU

JOIN THE ARMY TO-DAY!

*



Emil tore it into a thousand shreds, cast it all around him to join the confetti snow. Then he ploughed after the woman, up into the half-moon hall.

‘I don’t have to explain myself to you. This is my Emporium, mine, and you’re here at my consent or not at all. But, since you’ve flaunted your way in here to make your accusations, I’ll have you know this: I was the first to sign up. I was at the recruiting office when summer was still high. I’d be in France now, doing my part for my King and my Country, if they would have had me. Coward? Walk into my Emporium and call me a coward? I’m no coward, madam. My name is Emil Godman and, what’s more, I am no one’s young man. I am nobody’s, do you hear? I’m not in danger of neglecting a soul, because I don’t have a soul I could neglect! Do you understand!?’

The woman had stopped in the doorway, while her elders streamed out into Iron Duke Mews. She turned. Now that she was alone, without those harridans on her shoulder, she did not look as imperious, nor as severe. Her pale eyes were even beautiful, Emil thought, and that was such a terrible thing to have noticed.

‘Nobody?’ she asked, and Emil stood there dumbly, wondering what on earth she could have meant.

By special dispensation, and in accordance with the benefits of its Royal Warrant, Papa Jack’s Emporium opened long into the night. The sounds of games being played, the roar of a winter dragon, all of this carried out into Iron Duke Mews and the quiet cityscape beyond. Joy was infectious and London deserved its joy, in this of all winters.

When the shopfloor was finally silent – and Sally-Anne leading the shop girls in their nightly parade of the aisles, rooting out any adventurers hoping to hide out overnight – Cathy slipped through the refracting snowflaks and up the servants’ stair. As was his habit, Papa Jack had not been there to watch over opening night (though perhaps he watched through his phoenix’s eyes, entangled with the spyglass hanging over his workshop hearth). The toymaker remained in his workshop, spiriting new creations into being – and that was where Cathy found him, with his hands deep in the innards of some patchwork beast.

‘A spider,’ he said as Cathy stepped through. ‘A giant, to hide in the cellars and scare boys adventurous enough to venture down. Perhaps, a legend to last the winters to come …’

Cathy strode across the workshop and, before Papa Jack lifted himself from the beast, she cast the bundle of Kaspar’s letters on to the trunk at his side. There they splayed open, Kaspar’s florid hand across each: Mrs K. Godman, Papa Jack’s Emporium, Iron Duke Mews.

‘He’s lying to me. He’s been lying all along. Robert Kesey is dead. Who knows how many more?’ She did not tremble, for she had done her trembling now. ‘None of them made it home by first frost, so it isn’t as if they’re the only ones who lied. The whole world is living a lie, one that nobody cares to acknowledge. It will be fast, they told us. It’s barely even a war. Who would dare stand up to our brave British boys …’ She paused. ‘I’m afraid for him, Jekabs – but, if all these letters are lies, if he daren’t tell the truth, well, then he doesn’t care for me at all.’

Papa Jack stood, the gears in the spider’s chest winding down. ‘Hush now, Cathy, he’s your Kaspar. Don’t call them lies. Instead, call them … fancies. Hasn’t Martha slept more easily at night, knowing her papa’s safe and sound? Haven’t you?’

Cathy was about to reply when something stalled her. ‘You … knew?’