The Cockney Sparrow

by Dilly Court

  ‘Get up then, you idle slut. I got work for you.’

  Clemency leapt to her feet, making a grab for his arm in an effort to stop him hitting her mother. ‘Leave her be, Hardiman.’

  He threw her off so that she staggered and fell back on the pile of straw that served as her bed. She struggled to her feet as Jack dragged his withered limbs across the stone floor. ‘Get off her, you bastard.’

  ‘Don’t, Jack,’ Clemency cried, terrified that one blow from Hardiman could kill him. She threw herself between them. ‘Leave Ma be. Can’t you see she’s sick?’

  ‘The bitch is still drunk.’ Hardiman caught Edith by the hair and dragged her to her feet.

  She screamed but she did not attempt to fight him off. ‘For pity’s sake, Todd.’

  ‘Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.’ Still holding Edith by her fiery red hair, Hardiman turned to Clemency with a threatening scowl. ‘You stay back. Your ma has to earn her living like the rest of us. Say another word and I’ll give you what for.’

  ‘I ain’t frightened of you,’ Clemency cried, sticking out her chin. ‘You’re a pimp and a rotten bully. She’s had enough of you making her sell herself to dirty old buggers.’

  Edith rolled her eyes, stretching her arms out to Clemency in a pleading gesture. ‘Don’t get his temper up, Clemmie. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘You’re coming with me,’ Hardiman said, twisting her hair around his hand with a spiteful jerk. ‘And you’ll walk proper. No calling out for help or making out you’re badly done to.’

  ‘You’re scum,’ Jack roared, trying ineffectually to get past Clemency. ‘If I had me legs I’d knock seven bells out of you.’

  ‘But you ain’t got no legs, have you, sonny?’ Hardiman grinned, displaying a row of blackened stumps that had once been teeth. ‘You’re a cripple what lives off the immoral earnings of his slut of a mother. And it won’t be long afore your sister goes down that road too. I got me eye on you, Clemmie. But first we needs to fatten you up a bit.’ He plunged his hand in the pocket of his pea jacket and producing a silver sixpence, he tossed it on the floor at Clemency’s feet. ‘There’s an advance on your ma’s earnings, not that she’s worth more than a threepenny bit, but you put on a bit of flesh, chicken, and I reckon I could get a sov a time for you.’

  Clemency fisted her hands and went to punch him, but he fended her off with the toe of his boot. ‘Sparky little thing, ain’t you? Well, the punters like a bit of spirit.’

  ‘Don’t touch her, Todd,’ Edith screamed. ‘I’m warning you.’

  ‘I’ll see you in hell,’ Jack said, beating the flagstones with his fists.

  ‘Very likely.’ Hardiman hoisted Edith over his shoulder and slammed out of the basement.

  ‘I will kill him, Clemmie.’ Jack punctuated his words by punching the ground. ‘One day I’ll get him, if it’s the last thing I does.’

  ‘He’s a devil, Jack. I hates him.’ Clemency stared at the frosted windowpanes, watching helplessly as Hardiman hefted her mother up the area steps. Her body hung slackly over his shoulder like a rag doll and her hair trailed in the snow.

  ‘Why does she let him treat her like that? She could set the rozzers on him for what he’s done to her.’ Jack ground his knuckles into his eyelids as if he were trying to gouge out the sight of his mother’s helplessness. ‘Why?’

  ‘I dunno. But for all he’s done to her, I think in a funny sort of way that she still loves him. Don’t ask me why, but whenever I’ve tried to talk to her about Hardiman, on the odd times when she’s sober, she says he weren’t always like this. She says he can be kind and loving. If that’s kind and loving, then I don’t want none of it.’

  Jack sniffed and wiped his nose on the frayed sleeve of his jacket. ‘I hates being so bloody helpless. I hates meself for being a cripple, Clemmie. I’m no use to man nor beast.’

  ‘No, don’t you never say that, Jack. You’re a better man than any I know. One day you’ll walk proper, I’m sure of it.’

  Jack took a deep breath and gave her a wobbly smile. ‘You know that ain’t true, poppet. But I swear to God, I will do for Hardiman. One day, I will.’

  ‘You’re not to talk like that.’ Clemency bent down to retrieve the sixpence. ‘I’d like to ram this up his bum so far that he coughed it up out of his mouth, but seeing as how that’s impossible, I’ll go out and spend it on candles, coal and something to eat.’

  ‘No!’ Jack’s deep voice reverberated round the bare walls. ‘It’s blood money. Help me up the steps, Clemmie. I’ll beg in the streets rather than take anything from him.’

  ‘It’s freezing outside. You wouldn’t last five minutes out there. Be sensible, Jack.’ Clemency snatched up her damp shawl and wrapped it around her head and shoulders. ‘I got to take the pitcher back to the pub and they’ll give me back me deposit. I’ll see what I can get with it, but only if you promises to stay here until I gets back.’

  Jack bowed his head, saying nothing, but she could see his shoulders heave and she winced, feeling his pain. There was nothing she could say, and she hurried from the dingy basement, and set off for Carter Lane.

  The taproom of the Crown and Anchor was empty except for a couple of old men crouched by the fire in the inglenook. The potman was busy collecting tankards that had been left from the previous night’s drinking session, and a whey-faced girl of twelve or thirteen was wiping the wooden tables with a damp rag. Clemency marched up to the bar and set the empty pitcher on the polished oak counter. ‘Shop!’

  The door behind the bar opened and a middle-aged woman wearing a mobcap and a frown gave her an appraising glance. She hesitated, and then bustled up to the bar counter wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I come to claim back me deposit, missis. Twopence it was.’

  ‘I doubt if the jug is worth twopence. Who give it you?’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

  ‘We’ll see.’ The woman went to the inner door. ‘Ned, come here.’ She turned back to face Clemency, folding her arms across her ample bosom. ‘Ned was serving last night. He’ll sort you out. And what’s a child like you doing in a place like this, I ask myself? And you with barely any clothes on your back and bare feet too. In this weather! What is your ma thinking about letting you go out like that?’

  Clemency shifted from one foot to the other. She did not want to admit that her mother was always dead drunk, or else flat on her back beneath some punter, or the bastard, Todd Hardiman. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m an orphan, ain’t I? Not that it’s any of your business, lady.’

  ‘Mrs Hawkes to you, girl.’

  ‘What’s the problem, Ma?’ Ned Hawkes poked his curly head round the door. A smile of recognition lit his face as he looked past his mother and saw Clemency. ‘Why, if it ain’t the youngster what sang like a lark last night and had hard men weeping into their beer.’

  ‘So you know her then, Ned?’ Nell Hawkes’s expression softened as she looked at her son. ‘Give her what’s due to her and then send her round to the kitchen. The poor little scrap looks perished, and I daresay a cup of tea wouldn’t do her no harm.’

  She disappeared through the door leaving Ned to take two pennies out of the till, which opened with a loud kerching. He handed them to Clemency with a friendly grin. ‘There you are young ’un.’

  ‘Ta!’ Clemency seized the money and was about to leave when Ned called her back.

  ‘Don’t go, nipper. Didn’t you hear what me mum said? She don’t give out cups of tea to every waif and stray what comes begging.’

  ‘I ain’t begging. And she can keep her tea for them what is.’

  Ned threw back his head and laughed. ‘Hoity toity!’ He lifted the flap in the bar counter and stood looking at her with a mixture of admiration and amusement. ‘What’s your name, nipper?’

  Clemency shot him a sideways glance. He was not exactly good-looking, but he had an open, pleasant face with a snub nose and a generous mouth. He was not much above ave
rage in height, but he looked as though he could heft a barrel of beer on his broad shoulders without too much difficulty. Last night it had served her purpose to be thought of as a child, but now it was mortifying. ‘Me name is Clemency Skinner and I’ll have you know I ain’t a nipper. I’ll be nineteen in September.’

  He executed a mock bow, chuckling. ‘Sorry, Miss Skinner. But whatever age you happen to be, you sing like an angel. How would you like to come along tonight and give the punters another treat.’

  She was not sure if he was serious or simply teasing her. She eyed him suspiciously. ‘What sort of treat, mister?’

  ‘It’s Ned, Ned Hawkes. And I meant a song or two, of course.’

  ‘Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. Tell your Ma I thanks her for the offer of tea, but I got business to do what won’t wait.’ Clemency met his eyes and relented when she read genuine hurt and disappointment in his frank gaze. She smiled. ‘I might just happen along around nine o’clock.’ She had the satisfaction of seeing his features relax, and she left the pub with the coins jingling in her pocket. The cold outside hit her like a smack in the face, and she gasped as the icy air seemed to freeze in her lungs. She had secreted the toff’s wallet in her skirt pocket and now she headed for Minski’s pawnshop in Fish Street.

  Minski was huddled behind the counter in his cellar room beneath a tobacconist’s shop. He was muffled in an army greatcoat with several scarves wound round his scraggy neck, and his fingers protruded from greasy woollen mittens like bent twigs.

  ‘Hello, young Clemmie. What you got for me today?’

  She slapped the wallet down on the counter. She had been dealing with Minski, who was a notorious fence, since she first started pickpocketing at the age of seven. Hardiman had started her in the business by making sure that Ma was permanently drunk and incapable. He had found Clemency one day, hanging round in Stew Lane, cold and hungry, having returned from the ragged school and finding herself locked out of their lodgings. Jack had been out selling bootlaces in the street, and Hardiman had promised that he would take her to her mother. Instead, he had taken her to St Paul’s Churchyard and left her with a group of urchins who worked the area picking pockets. Operating in pairs, they taught her how to lift a handkerchief from a gentleman’s pocket so that he was quite unaware that he had been robbed, and how to avoid capture if the victim raised the alarm. Clemency had learned quickly and had soon become more adept and skilful than any of the boys. She had graduated on to scarf pins and pocket books with no trouble at all, and Minski was always waiting to do a deal.

  ‘How much?’ Clemency demanded. ‘It’s good leather and it’s nearly new.’

  He examined the wallet, peering at it in the glimmer of light from an oil lamp. ‘Empty, was it?’

  Clemency nodded.

  ‘I’ll give you a tanner for it.’

  ‘You old villain. It’s worth ten times that.’

  ‘Not to me it ain’t. Take it or leave it, young Clemmie.’

  She thought quickly. She was used to bargaining with Minski and she knew that he was trying to do her down. She strolled round the dank cellar, rifling through the racks of clothes that hung damply in the foul air. If she were to oblige young Ned Hawkes, and she was considering it, then she would need to dress up a bit. She fingered a pink satin gown, stroking the cool, slippery material with the tips of her fingers. It felt like a baby’s skin and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, but much too fine for her to wear, and not at all suitable. The punters would think she was a harlot touting for business. Reluctantly, she passed it by and found a navy-blue serge skirt and a white, if slightly yellowed, cambric blouse with a high neck and full sleeves. ‘Throw in these duds and we got a deal.’

  ‘I ain’t the bleeding Sally Army, girl. This ain’t a charity.’

  Clemency snatched the garments off the rail; she knew by the whining tone of his voice that she was going to win. ‘And a pair of boots.’

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  Clemency chuckled. ‘I’m sure Hardiman could arrange it. Tell you what, Minski. I’ll give you another twopence for the boots and I won’t tell Hardiman of our little deal.’

  She left the cellar wearing a pair of rather down-at-heel, but quite serviceable, high-button boots, and with the skirt and blouse wrapped in a tight bundle beneath her arm.

  On her way home, she stopped at a shop in Knightrider Street, and purchased a bag of coal, some kindling, a bundle of candles, a poke of tea and one of sugar, a loaf and a pot of beef dripping. She gave the shop boy a halfpenny to carry the coal back to Stew Lane. He managed to heft it to their door but slipped as he attempted to negotiate the snow-covered steps and scraped his shins. His flesh was mottled and so cold that, at first, the wound did not bleed. He seemed almost too weak to cope with the pain and his small face, covered with weeping sores, puckered into a grimace. Tears spilled from his eyes and rolled down his hollow cheeks. Stricken with pity, Clemency gave him her last penny for his trouble. His simian face cracked into a grin, and he scampered up the remaining steps as if the devil were after him.

  With her hand on the latch, Clemency was about to go inside when she heard raised voices. One was Jack’s and the other she did not recognise. She burst into the room to find a brute of a man with his hands round Jack’s throat.

  Chapter Two

  Clemency dropped her packages on the floor and hurled herself on top of Jack’s assailant, punching, kicking and screaming at him. He lurched to his feet tossing her to the ground as if she weighed less than a bag of feathers.

  ‘Jack, are you all right?’ Her first concern was for her brother, who lay back against the wall, blue in the face, clutching his hands to his throat and gasping for breath. He nodded dumbly. Clemency jumped up to face the intruder. ‘You bugger! What d’you think you was doing to a poor crippled boy?’ For a moment, she thought the big brute was going to strike her to the ground, but he seemed to change his mind, and he shuffled towards the open door.

  ‘Ask him,’ he growled. ‘Ask him.’ He barged out of the room, slamming the door behind him so that the sash window rattled.

  There was silence except for Jack’s rasping cough as he fought to regain control of his breathing. Clemency bent over him, peering anxiously into his face. ‘Are you all right?’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘Who was he, Jack? And why did he go for you as if he meant to kill you?’

  With beads of perspiration standing out on his forehead, Jack attempted a wobbly smile. ‘He’s one of Hardiman’s gang …’ He broke off, overcome by a fit of coughing.

  ‘Never mind that now.’ Clemency straightened up. This was not the time for explanations – they would come later. ‘I’m going to get a fire going, and then I’ll fetch water from the pump and make you a nice cup of tea. You rest there, ducks.’

  It took her some time to drag the sack of coal from the snow-filled area into the room and to get a fire going in the small grate. It took even longer to negotiate the slippery streets to get to the communal pump to fetch water. By the time she had made a pot of tea, cut slices from the loaf and spread them with dripping, making sure that Jack had most of the nourishing brown jelly at the bottom of the pot, he had recovered enough to tell her what had happened.

  ‘He come bursting in,’ he said, in between sips of hot, sweet tea, ‘without a by your leave, saying that Hardiman had sent him.’ He paused, shaking angry tears from his eyes. ‘And all I could do was sit here and try to fend the bugger off with me bare hands.’

  With anger and hatred for Hardiman raging in her breast, Clemency bit into a chunk of bread, allowing Jack time to compose himself. If only she were a man, she would show Hardiman and his bully boys what was what.

  Jack wiped his eyes on his sleeve and took a shuddering breath. ‘It were a warning, Clemmie. He never meant to kill me; it were a threat of what was to come if I didn’t do what he wanted.’

  ‘But what did he want?’

  ‘Hardiman is dangerous, Clemm
ie. He sees you taking Ma’s place in his dirty dealings, and he wants me to persuade you to go with him. You got to get away from here, girl. You ain’t safe and I’m only half a man. I can’t protect you.’

  ‘I won’t have it.’ Clemency jumped to her feet, dropping her bread on the floor and ignoring the rat that popped out of a hole in the wall to scurry across the floor, seize the food and carry it off in the blink of an eye. ‘I’d rather die than sell me body to dirty, stinking men like Hardiman. I’m going to get us all out of this hell-hole if it’s the last thing I do.’ She retrieved the bundle of clothes that she had dropped near the doorway and began stripping off her ragged garments.

  ‘Clemmie, for God’s sake, what are you going to do?’ Jack’s voice rose in alarm.

  Used as she was to living in the confines of one cramped room, Clemency was not shy about undressing in front of her brother. Shivering in her thin cotton shift, she reached for the white blouse and put it on, fastening the tiny buttons with trembling fingers. ‘I don’t know yet, but I’m going to put a stop to Hardiman’s game.’ She stepped into the skirt and wrapped it around her slim waist. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Fine. Promise me you won’t do nothing stupid, Clemmie.’

  ‘I wish I had a mirror,’ Clemency said, peering into the glass windowpanes in an attempt to view her reflection. ‘I got to do something with my hair.’ She went down on her hands and knees, feeling under the thin flock mattress that was Edith’s sleeping place. ‘I seen her hiding her bits and pieces somewhere.’ Her fingers closed around a cotton pouch. ‘Found it.’ She sat back on her haunches and tipped the contents into her lap. In the dim light of the tallow candle, she went through the items one by one. Her mother’s treasured possessions were pathetically few: a string of glass beads, a black velvet ribbon and three tortoiseshell combs. ‘I can remember her wearing these. She was so pretty in them days.’ There was a lump in Clemency’s throat as she remembered her mother before drink and prostitution had left her with a broken spirit and faded beauty.