by Edith Layton
“But she’s accustomed to roving the streets by herself,” Lord Montrose said with a touch of sadness. He looked at Elizabeth.
She lowered her own gaze. She knew what he was trying to hint at and understood why he didn’t come right out and say it in front of Theo. He might be the enemy, but he was a gentleman.
“She does,” she admitted, “but she always comes back, and lately returns more often to see Nibs because he’s growing so infirm. There’s a remarkable affection between the two of them,” she said, meeting Lord Montrose’s eyes directly. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Yes. But have you considered that if a female cat is expecting a litter, she’ll sometimes go away until they are born, and then bring them back?”
“She hasn’t had a litter in three years,” Theo said hotly. “I’d of knowed it if she was about to. I’m not a fool!”
“Theo,” Elizabeth said with warning. Then she spoke to Lord Montrose. “The cat was not about to have a litter. Nor was she in the habit of straying. Her disappearance was odd. Your coming to our district to find a Queen’s cat was even stranger, sir.”
He stared at her. But she wasn’t alarmed. Now that she saw him in the light, she realized he wasn’t as old or as stern as his disability made him appear to be. As she continued to look at him, she realized he exuded the same air of power and attraction that Thomas Farrow did. Even so, she felt as safe with him as she had with the fair-haired palace guard.
He admired her looks, she recognized that. But he didn’t presume. He remained pleasant but aloof, and appeared to be a decent gentleman. She relaxed.
“Is it strange?” Lord Montrose asked gently. “We searched everywhere, and I assure you, we had a great many people to do it. The bushes were beaten, dislodging all sorts of creatures, but not that cat. It may have strayed to the border of the palace grounds. There, however, it’s not unreasonable to assume someone could have scooped her up to hold for ransom. Or perhaps, and even more distressing, someone inside the palace could have whisked her away for the same purpose. As I said, we have a great many people there, and I never discount the vagaries of human nature.
“Given that, and though I don’t want to disparage your neighbors, you will admit it’s not at all unlikely that in such a case the cat would quite naturally have shown up around here.”
Elizabeth felt her face grow warm.
“So,” he went on, “the point is that that you’re going around London accusing the Queen of abducting your cat.”
“Yes. How did you hear it?”
“It’s my business to know such things, and it wasn’t difficult, I doubt there was anyone you didn’t ask at the palace today. Mind, I don’t blame you. But this charge is untrue. Moreover, it could become embarrassing. Most of all, we’d rather our Queen didn’t hear of it; it would quite naturally distress her. She’s always concerned about her subjects as well as their animals. So, I’ve come to tell you some facts you may not know. One is that the Queen has recognized the animal.”
Elizabeth shot a warning glance at Theo and he closed his mouth on what he was about to say.
“Further proof is that the cat seems content where she is. Come, Theo,” Lord Montrose said, “if she were yours, wouldn’t she be pining for home, as Nibs is pining for her? Wouldn’t she try to get out and back to you? But she seems content. How can that be if she’s yours?”
Theo grew so pale his freckles stood out in bold relief. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “But cats are different, aren’t they? Anyway, she’s probably locked up in a room somewhere and there’s hundreds of rooms. No sense to her starving, is there? She’s a clever puss, she’s probably just biding her time, building herself up, waiting for her chance to escape.”
“I tell you what,” Lord Montrose said as he rose to his full height. “I’ll look in on the cat this very night. And I’ll come back as soon as I can to let you know everything about her and her habits. Will that appease you? The Queen is a very good lady, and growing old. I’d like to see her do that in peace. She’s leaving the palace soon. All she wanted was assurance that her cat was back before she left to spend Christmas with her family where she usually does.”
“Is she taking the cat with her?” Theo asked anxiously.
“I confess I don’t know,” Lord Montrose said. “What I do know is that gossip seeps through the world, spreading its stain everywhere. The fact is that our Queen doesn’t even know her cat went missing.”
“Or that you took my cat to bring her instead,” Theo said stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Oh, dear,” Lord Montrose said. “I’ll have to work to convince you, won’t I?” He made his halting way to the door. “I’ll return,” he told Elizabeth, who had come to see him out. “If I am permitted?”
“Of course,” she said, if only because they both knew there was no way she could have said no.
* * *
The next morning dawned crisp, so cold the snow squeaked underfoot. Elizabeth had gone down to the bakeshop while Theo was sleeping to bring in hot buns for their breakfast. Pedestrians slipped and coaches were skidding around town, but what would usually be cursed at was endured with a smile. Christmas was coming and it seemed in keeping with the season. But Elizabeth couldn’t smile.
She came back to see Theo brooding by the window. She sighed. She knew it was difficult for him to think of his cat, beyond his reach in a Queen’s palace. But it was good that he believed Peaches to be snug in the Queen’s chamber. Otherwise he’d be beside himself worrying. She herself had thought about it much of the night as a cruel wind whistled down the alley. She didn’t know what the truth was, but now hoped it was their cat sitting on a silken cushion in front of a fire, enjoying royal companionship, rather than lying frozen in a gutter. But she couldn’t tell her brother that, because if the cat wasn’t Peaches…
“Maybe it would be better if you didn’t go to work today,” she said. “We’ve enough to see us through the week, and Christmas is coming, after all. Mrs. Sunshine often gives her girls an extra bit for the holiday. We’ve been looking forward to it. Yes, I think it’s best if you stay here and take care of Nibs until I get home. Then we’ll have a little pre-Christmas feast.”
“No, I’ve got things to do,” he said softly. “But I’ll be back in time for dinner. And p’rhaps I’ll have a surprise for you for Christmas too.”
She gave him a tender smile. Whatever he gave her for Christmas wasn’t as valuable as the joy he gave her every day. They didn’t have much but they had each other. It was only too bad that their little family was threatened. First by losing Peaches, and now with Nibs doing so poorly.
She finished her breakfast and put on her coat again. After reminding Theo to put on two sweaters, she went to work, a little corner of her mind sadly noting no orange shape streaking past her as she opened the door, a larger part worried about where the cat was, and what she could do about it.
She couldn’t trust anyone anymore. Augustus Quimby had obviously told Lord Montrose of her quest. Lord Montrose had in effect warned her not to make trouble. And trouble was embodied in Thomas Farrow, whether he helped her or not.
* * *
The boys were in the basement of a cracked house that they’d found and occupied. They gathered around a small trash fire glowing in a half-collapsed hearth.
“Nah,” Bill declared, when Theo stopped explaining his plan. He wiped his nose on the back of one ragged mitten and shook his head sadly. “There’s no way to get in!”
“There is,” Theo insisted. “I just need you to help me.”
“Once you get in,” Barry, another of Bill’s brothers, said glumly, “there’s no way to get out.”
“I’ll be in and out in a trice, and with my cat, if you help me,” Theo said.
“You can do what no one done before? Ho!” Bill said hollowly.
“Who says no one did it before?” Theo asked.
Now he had the attention of all the boys in th
e basement. “They wouldn’t want it to get out if someone had, would they? I can’t believe no one ever in the whole history of the palace didn’t sneak in and sneak something out. Can you?”
The boys looked dumbfounded. One of the reasons they liked Theo was he could tell stories. Now he’d given them more. This was an entirely new concept.
“Still,” Bill said slowly. “There’s got to be hundreds of rooms, acres of grounds. Even if you got in you’d never find her.”
“She’s in the Queen’s quarters,” Theo said. “And big as the palace is, the Queen doesn’t live in more than a few rooms, does she? I can find out where they are, whisk in and fly out before anyone sees me. I’m small and fast, and smart.”
All this was true. Bill’s crew pondered it.
“So,” Theo said, pressing his luck while they dreamed new dreams, “will you help me?”
“Depends,” Bill said, and studied the thought a moment more. Then he tentatively asked, “What do you need?”
“You worked for a sweep once, didn’t you? I thought of it last night. Just show me how to look like a sweep’s monkey, like you were. The palace must have dozens of fireplaces. Dress me like a sweep’s boy and I can go anywhere.”
“Devil you can!” Bill said. “They don’t let you go anywheres but up the chimney. They watch like hawks so you don’t drop soot on nothing. You’re so dirty they make you stand on rags after you leave a chimney, then tie rags to your feet so you can go out the door. If they could drop you straight down the chimney and then haul you up to the roof when you’re done, ’stead of setting foot in the house, they’d do it. No way on earth they’d let a sweep’s boy take a step from the hearth in a palace!”
Theo looked ill. That had been his only plan.
“But…” Bill’s older brother Ben said slowly, rising from the fire he’d been kneeling at, warming his hands, “they lets a page go anywhere. The palace got dozens, coming and going.”
“A page? But they have livery. Where am I going to get that?” Theo said miserably.
“Happens I knows a fella that runs a few kiddie lays here and there,” Ben said smugly. “Him and his crew does snatch and runs, smash and grabs, push and smash, and pocket work in the street too. They also run a fine rig at gentleman’s clubs and such. See, they got so many pages running messages from one big house or club to another the butlers and footmen can’t keep track of faces. And what you can’t keep track of you lose. ’Specially when the messages got money in ’em. So who’s to know if suddenly there’s one more page, eh? Not even the other lads. I worked that lay ’til I got too big, and went out on my own.”
“You could get me those clothes?” Theo asked with dawning hope.
“Happen I could…if you was to pay me.”
Theo’s face fell. “I’ve no money, only the tuppence.”
“Not now, you don’t,” Ben said. “But a boy in a palace with his wits about him can take more than a cat out with him, can’t he?”
Theo looked blank.
“They got gold snuffboxes,” Ben said dreamily. “They got gold bowls and trays and plates and pictures, Lord love you, Theo, they got gold laying about everywhere. So. If I gets you the finery, will you get us some too? The gold kind?”
Theo hesitated.
“Hellfire,” Ben said. “If you’re hanged for stealing a cat, why not try for a candlestick whilst you’re at it? What’s the difference?”
Theo thought of Peaches, and Nibs and his sister and Thomas Farrow. “No,” he said, raising his head high. “I won’t be hanged. But I’ll be hanged if I don’t do it!”
* * *
The palace was bustling. The Queen’s entourage was finally readying for her journey north. Lady’s maids were packing, gentlemen’s valets were fussing. Tailors and dressmakers were delivering freshly cleaned clothing, hairdressers and barbers were hurrying to service important clients one last time. Minions from the laundress were harrying the minions from the housekeeper to get beds stripped, footmen were helping remove baggage. And since the palace staff itself was being severely reduced again, many house servants were packing for themselves too. Last-minute instructions and messages were being sent and received, and the corridors were thronged with people hurrying on errands.
One more young page boy in servant’s livery was hardly noticed standing stock still in the great hall, gazing around himself with apparent awe. Until a hurrying footman almost fell over him.
“Buy a ticket for visitor’s day if you want to gawk, nodcock,” the footman called over his shoulder as he ran on.
Theo straightened and adjusted his jacket in hopes of looking as neat as he had when Bill and his crew had finished preparing him for his role as a page. He was afraid to even touch the fine blue suit with gold lacing in case he dirtied it, though they’d made him scrub his hands until they stung. His fitted suit was blue with gold trim, enough like the livery of several real houses to get him in anywhere, yet not really like any of them, Ben had said. He couldn’t turn his head because of all the starch in his collar, but Bill said that was fine, because it would remind him to go straight ahead.
That, he was determined to do. He’d hesitated long enough, waiting outside the palace gates to get the courage to go in. Once he found it, he’d determined not to falter.
Still, he had to make sure of his disguise. He ran a hand over his hair to be sure it wasn’t out of place. It felt odd, hard and slippery. He dropped his hand, wishing he hadn’t touched his hair, because now he was afraid he’d get pomade on his suit as well. He felt like he was wearing a helmet, just like the one on that marble head that was sneering at him from a nearby table.
“Got to look the part,” Bill had muttered. And so Theo’s hair had been brushed and slicked until it glowed like the polished mahogany railings of the great staircase he now faced.
He swallowed hard. The palace wasn’t huge. It was enormous.
Heaven must look like this, Theo thought with wonder. Heaven for aristocrats, that was. He didn’t see how any other kind of soul could be really comfortable here. It was too grand a place to relax in even if a fellow didn’t know he was an impostor about to become a thief.
The floors were marble, so immaculate they were whiter than the bottoms of dishes he ate from. The ceilings were so high it looked like their paintings could actually be real gods and goddesses in the clouds looking down at him. The furniture he’d spied since he’d been shown in the door was huge too, great pieces of carved wood constructed for purposes he couldn’t even imagine. There were carved columns and gilded ones, tapestries and paintings covered in gold glinting on the walls. As to that, Ben had been right. There was more gold here than Theo had ever seen. Vases and statues and…
“Where are you bound, young man?” a stern voice asked him.
Theo looked up, so startled he forgot what he’d rehearsed saying if he were questioned.
“First day, eh?” the stout well-dressed gentleman chuckled. “I well remember that feeling myself. But you won’t go far by gaping. Now, close your mouth and then open it to tell me where you’re going, lad. And don’t worry, butlers do not bite. So?”
“I—I am to deliver a message to a lady in the Queen’s employ,” Theo managed to say.
“I see. And since there are about a few hundred of those in this wing alone, who might she be?”
“She’s a lady, sir,” Theo said, casting his too-candid gaze downward, as he’d been instructed. “A married lady of some degree. And my master’d skin me if I gave her whole name. He said I was to deliver it into her hand alone.” He dropped his voice as well, to add, as a real blush stained his cheeks at the lie, “I can tell you she’s one of Her Majesty’s ladies in waiting, sir. But for reasons I cannot divulge, he said all I can say is that she’s to be called ‘Lady T’.”
“Oho!” the butler said, raising his bushy eyebrows. “Here’s a coil.” He frowned, and Theo’s heart stuttered.
But the butler wasn’t frowning at him. “Nasty piece o
f work your master is, I’d wager,” he mused, “sending a lad like you about such business. Still, work’s work, isn’t it? And we all have to eat.” He sighed. “And all’s a pother here today with our lady leaving, so I suppose new arrangements must be made for those in her train, no matter how indiscreet…especially if they’re indiscreet. Let me see, ‘Lady T,’ is it? That could be—no, not her. Oh yes, it has to be…”
The butler pointed at the staircase. “Take that stair, lad, and turn to the right. Then at the next turning, right again, and again. Then take a short left turn, go down about…one hundred, no, in your case, three hundred paces until you see a statue of the cupid. A boy with wings. Do not turn right again, for that leads to the Queen’s own corridor where you are not permitted. Rather, go left and ask the first woman you meet where you may find the lady you seek. Go on, then. Sooner done, sooner you’ll get your coin for it.”
“Thank you, sir,” Theo breathed, feeling even more terrible because this man was so kind.
Still, he’d things to find and things to steal, and the butler was right. The sooner he did, the sooner he’d get his reward—his cat.
Theo went up the stair.
He tried not to linger, but his legs felt more weighted with every step he climbed. The great chandelier overhead, big as the whole house that he lived in, he’d bet, twinkled above him, seeming to cast him in merciless light for what he was…a thief.
His steps faltered as he looked around from a higher vantage point. This place was so big and grand, how could he find one small cat in it, much less nip off with her?
But then, amidst all the splendor, he thought of Nibs, and the cat he was seeking. He thought of his snug room, and the homey way the dog and cat would curl up in their pile of rags every night, and his step quickened. Those things were real; this place had nothing to do with him, or his cat. He hurried up the stair. Time he found Peaches and freed her in order to heal old Nibs and set his own heart right again.
He went up the stair, blinking because of the sunlight coming in through a high window, making all the gilt shine around him. He banished to the back of his mind, for later the thought of the gold he’d promised Ben. He could do anything once he had Peaches in his arms again and was fleeing this place forever.