Jarvit

Jarvit Ch7 p3

The next day they reached the fishing village.

            ‘You are welcome to stay with me lad,’ Bender had reassured him. ‘I’m sure the wife’ll be pleased to have someone young to fuss over.’

            ‘Thanks,’ said Jarvit with relief, he had been wondering how he would live. ‘I’d like that.’

            ‘GREGSON ANDERS! How dare you bring a filthy mule to this house! And look at the state of you! Don’t you come back expecting a warm welcome, oh no. Not after all the worry you cause me! And what do you call this?’ Jarvit and Bender stood in the street outside a worn looking house that advertised for boarders. Bender smiled shamefaced at Jarvit who found himself hauled up by the shoulder. The tall, thin woman who had opened the door to Bender’s mild knock was not the type of person he had imagined as Bender’s wife. She sniffed at him with her thin angular nose.

            ‘That,’ she said releasing him and wiping her hands on her apron as though he had dirtied them. ‘That is not sleeping in my house. This is a respectable boarding house this is.’

            ‘But my dear-’ Bender began twisting his hat in his hands.

            ‘DON’T you ‘but my dear’ me Gregson Anders! You waltz off for most of the year and turn up here when it suits you, bringing all sorts of clutter that I haven’t got room for and that’s to eat me out of house and home most like. There’s paying guests to consider. I don’t know how you think I support myself when I don’t see hide nor hair of you from one years end to the next. Leaving a defenceless woman alone in this den of iniquity. I hope you know if it’s trustworthy or not. I don’t want any murderers under my roof thank you very much.’ Jarvit noticed passers by smiling at the tirade the two were receiving. Bender said nothing but hung his head meekly. Jarvit did the same. ‘Well take that wretched cart and it around the back. Where you are going to house the mule I don’t know! Just take it out of my sight! Put that thing in the yard and the maid will bring out a bath for it to wash in.’ Jarvit found himself poked in the shoulder by a hard bone of a finger. It made him stagger back. The door was slammed shut.

            A meek Bender led Jarvit and the mule further along the street, rounding a corner and turning down an alley that ran along the back of the buildings.

            ‘Don’t worry,’ Bender said. ‘She’ll calm down. It upsets her to have her routine thrown out. She’s like that every time I come home. Slats and Stretcher don’t know how lucky they are.’ The two other bodgers had left Jarvit and Bender in the town square to find a lodging together. At the rear of the buildings was a row of small yards. Bender entered the wicket gate of one. Jarvit saw a small stable, a cobbled surface, a water pump in one corner and a tin bath set in the middle.

            ‘Looks like she meant it about the wash. Sorry lad,’ Bender said as he led the mule toward the stable. Together they unhitched it and Bender began unloading the cart. He stored his tools away in the roof of the stable and wheeled the cart close against a wall. Then he pumped water into a bucket and poured it into the bath. Jarvit had grown used to washing in cold water but it was the imperious shout that made him stop in his tracks. A window was thrown open.

            ‘Get those rags off him and burn them! I am certain they are crawling with all manner of disgusting things and I don’t want them in my house. Not to mention the state they are in! And make sure he uses the scrubbing brush!’ A large brush was hurled from the window and clattered to the ground beside Jarvit. He picked it up, it looked like a brush he used to scrub the floors at Magistrate Hep’s. Bender gave him a rueful smile. Jarvit looked down at his clothes, he had not realised how worn they had become since the Sprightly had given them to him.