The Foundling

by Halls, Stacey

  Catherine barely glanced at us before pulling us inside. Her thin hair was falling out of her cap, and the baby in her arms was a scarlet ball of fury. Ned was slumped at the table with his shirtsleeves rolled up, as though he was ready to fight. His face was gaunt, and there were shadows beneath his eyes.

  ‘We thought you was the bailiffs,’ said Catherine, putting a hand to her hip. But it wasn’t a defiant gesture; she appeared to be holding herself together at the seams. ‘Who’s this, then?’ she asked, noticing Charlotte, who, despite every effort to blend in, still gave off the air of a child in disguise.

  ‘I want my money,’ I said to Ned, moving towards him with an outstretched palm, Charlotte’s hand in the other. ‘Come on, Ned. You stole it when I was out, like the coward you are, and now I want it back. Don’t tell me you’ve spent it.’

  ‘You stole from Bess?’ Catherine said, her voice high. ‘How could you do that, Ned?’

  Ned was silent, and stared hatefully at the table. Baby Edmund had stopped crying at the sound of my voice and sat in Catherine’s arms, looking from me to Ned and back again, his cheeks damp with tears.

  ‘He’s gone and sold everything,’ Catherine said. ‘The cupboard, the bed, the pans. The sheets. Even the pissin’ chamber pot.’

  The room, I noticed, was almost bare. What little food they had sat on a shelf to keep it from the mice, and there was a lumpy mattress in one corner, made of straw wrapped in blankets. Along with a little pile of folded linen on a broken stool and a bowl so chipped it wouldn’t have held soup, these appeared to be the sum of Mr and Mrs Bright’s belongings.

  Finally Ned looked up, and nodded at Charlotte. ‘That your broken leg, is it?’

  ‘Don’t call her that. Don’t even look at her. I’m talking to you.’

  ‘Found her, then, did you? Don’t tell me, you’ve brought her back here to save her from a life of wealth and privilege.’

  ‘You’re a thief.’

  ‘I ain’t the one who’s snatched a child. You think you’re doing her a favour, taking her out of that house I saw? She’ll be dead in a week.’

  I pushed her behind me. ‘If she is, it’ll be your fault,’ I roared. ‘You stole my savings! What did you do with them, Ned? Because if you’ve spent all that down the gin shop I’m amazed you’re still alive, and disappointed, frankly.’

  ‘Go and swim in the Thames, Bess.’

  ‘That was mine and Charlotte’s. I’ll bet your children haven’t seen a penny of it.’

  ‘Ha,’ Catherine laugh darkly. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’

  Quick as a flash, Ned leapt from his chair and sent his fist across her face. The sound of it cracked across the room, and plunged us into silence. Then several things happened at once: the baby began to scream again, Charlotte pressed into my skirts and started to scream noisily, and Ned spread his hands over the table and rested on his wrists. I noticed he was shaking, but perhaps not with anger. He was damp with sweat. A powerful need to escape overcame me; I could not bear to stand in that miserable little room another minute.

  ‘If Mama could see you now,’ I said, at a loss for anything else. Ned did not move, and I looked at the familiar way his hair curled over his ears, and wondered where my brother had gone.

  I took Charlotte and led her from the room.

  CHAPTER 17

  The entrance to Black and White Court was a passage, no more than two feet wide, a quarter of the way up Ludgate Hill between a victualler’s and a cooper’s shop. The passage led to Bell Savage Yard, which was long and narrow, strung with laundry between the buildings, and Black and White Court was beyond that, at the end of the yard on the right. With Charlotte ahead of me, we came into Bell Savage Yard just as a tall, well-dressed man in an ink-black hat reached the far end and disappeared around the corner. Bell Savage Yard and Black and White Court joined as a thoroughfare to Fleet Lane and the Old Bailey, but not a well-trodden one. In short, you only went there if you had to.

  The man, I told myself, may well have been harmless – a visitor, a bailiff, an inspector. I knew, though, that he was not. I swore under my breath and pulled Charlotte to a stop. She looked at me as if to ask what was the matter, and I dithered for a moment, hopping on my heels and turning once, twice, before cursing again, and finally deciding to leave like the chicken-hearted sneak I was.

  ‘Leading a merry jig, are you?’

  Half-concealed by a drying sheet, Lyle Kozak was standing against the wall of Bell Savage Yard with his arms folded, looking for all the world like he was watching a game of cock-a-hoop. He was quite at odds in daylight without his torch, though his features still had a shadowy quality about them, as though he had been drawn with coal. His black eyes glittered, even from a distance.

  ‘You look better in the dark,’ I said.

  He grinned. ‘You Billingsgate coolers know how to woo.’

  I jerked my head towards the passage and he was alert at once, following me back into the tide of Ludgate.

  ‘How goes it, miss?’ he asked Charlotte, as we walked. He waited for the girl’s attention before pulling a coin from his ear and handing it to her. She smiled and took it, and I realised I had not seen her smile since we’d left her house. ‘Go and buy yourself a currant bun from the baker’s in there, you see? Go on.’ After a moment’s hesitation and a reassuring nod from me, she slipped into the open doorway we stood beside, and I looked hard at Lyle.

  ‘Did you see that man just now, who came in before me?’

  ‘The jemmy fellow? I saw him. Thief-taker, I reckon.’

  I swore and looked up and down the hill. ‘All my things are in there! And Abe – he won’t know I’ve gone again.’

  ‘Whoa, Nelly. He didn’t find you, did he? There’s nothing in there I can’t get for you. You got some balsam?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘About six shillings.’

  ‘Say it a bit louder, I don’t think the deaf wench in Westminster heard.’

  ‘Oh, shut it, will you! Don’t make out you’re the only one who has your wits about you. I’ve got us this far, haven’t I?’

  ‘I got us this far,’ he said, with a powerfully irritating wink. Charlotte came out of the baker’s with a bun the size of her head. ‘That ain’t all for you, is it?’ Lyle teased, when she’d reached us. ‘You won’t need to eat till next Saturday.’

  At that moment, a woman stepped out of the passage with two of her children, and I recognised her as Helena Cooke, a shy mother of five who lived with her husband and mother at number eight. I pulled my cloak over my head and faced into the baker’s window, and Lyle shifted immediately to cover me. I waited for Ludgate Hill to swallow them up.

  ‘Are you peckish?’ Lyle asked, once they’d gone.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

  ‘Let’s go to the beef house and I’ll get you a chop. Oi, Tom Thumb.’ He collared the first boy he could find, a dirty, idle-looking lad of about thirteen, and then two more, a wide-eyed child of around eight and a stocky thing who looked like a fighting dog, giving each of them a penny to watch the court’s three exits. ‘Whoever sees him first, follow him to his digs,’ he told them, ‘then come back here and wait for us and there’ll be a bit of balsam in it for you.’ They hurried off, each of them eager to win.

  Fifteen minutes later, Lyle, Charlotte and I were seated at a bench in the dim, smoky basement of a beef house off the Fleet Market, each with a bowl of stew, a heel of bread and a cup of milky tea. Since living at Devonshire Street my appetite had grown, and my waistline with it. My stays were pressing at my waistband, and Lyle watched me enjoy the food with a smug smile. He himself ate in a surprisingly delicate way, almost like a swell. He didn’t put his elbows on the table or drink his stew from the bowl like some men did, chewing instead in thoughtful little mouthfuls as I told him about Ned stealing my money, and how I’d soon have nowhere to stay.

  ‘So you need an escape,’ he said, after the pockmarked serving girl had po
ured us more tea from the kettle.

  I nodded, and wiped Charlotte’s collar absently where she’d spilled her stew. She was shyly fascinated by the eating house, which was dark and loud and pungent, with the smell of roast meat from the kitchen, unwashed bodies and spilled beer. Almost every seat was taken at the long scrubbed benches, and dirty plates covered every surface. Smoke clung to the low ceiling, and elbows bashed against one another as people laughed, gossiped and quarrelled. The din rang in my ears, though it never used to.

  ‘Here’s what we’ll do,’ Lyle said, leaning in. ‘My sister works in Lambeth, on a dairy farm by the marshes. It’s only two or three miles from where we are now. I’ll go and see her and ask if she can get you a position – a dairymaid or summink – where Charlotte can go, too.’

  ‘I’ve never been to Lambeth. Ain’t it countryside there?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Lyle turned to Charlotte, and realised she was listening. ‘Can you milk a cow?’ he asked.

  She looked so affronted we couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But, Lyle, only if she can come. It’s no good me finding a position and they won’t take her in.’

  He waved a hand. ‘We’ll tell ’em you’re a widow; we can get you a bit of tin for your finger.’

  I sighed, rubbing my face, and tucked my hair into my cap. ‘Who sent you?’ I said. ‘I must have done something right in a different life.’

  ‘Or summink wrong in this one.’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to hide till we hear from your sister. I’ll go to my friend Keziah’s. Can you come there when you know? She’s at Broad Court, off Shoemaker Row by Houndsditch. Can you remember that?’

  ‘Shoe Court, Houndsmaker Row, Broad Ditch.’

  ‘Lyle!’

  ‘I know it, girl.’

  ‘I just got to hope that man don’t find me in the meantime.’

  ‘You’re golden. What’s a thief-taker got to go on: a brown-haired woman and a little girl? There’s ten thousand of them all over London. Now,’ he said, draining his cup. ‘I’ll go and find out what them Tom Thumbs have to say for themselves, and I’ll get your things. Where shall I meet you?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Paternoster Row, behind St Paul’s, where the book stalls are.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll see you there in twenty minutes, half an hour at most. Then you can get yourself to your friend’s. But remember to keep your head down.’

  ‘Have you quite finished telling me what to do?’ I teased, handing him my key, which he shoved inside his jacket.

  ‘Nobody tells Bess Bright what to do, eh? Well, I’m looking after you. Sounds like you ain’t used to it.’

  The streets off Ludgate Hill were quieter, and Paternoster Row was a prosperous, gloomy lane in the shadow of St Paul’s. Nobody would be suspicious of a mother and daughter browsing prayerbooks at the wooden stalls outside the printing houses, when the industry of pages and words was a world away from my own. I knew nobody who could read or write, or any of the book printers, whose customers came for gold-edged Bibles if they had money, and secondhand volumes if they did not. I told Charlotte we were to look at books, and she brightened at once. Lyle peeled off into the courts and we walked slowly up Ave Maria Lane.

  ‘Charlotte,’ I said very quietly. ‘We need to seem as though we’re out on an errand, but don’t stop for too long anywhere, and don’t look anybody in the eye.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because we don’t want to be seen.’

  The street was shady, and positioned in front of the printing houses were two dozen stalls, heaped with books. Holding hands, we walked to the end before coming back down, and I nodded briefly at a stallholder, who tipped his hat, and shook my head at another one who proffered a cheap Bible. A woman selling turbans wandered around, spinning them on her hands, and two priests in robes glided over the cobbles, talking quietly.

  ‘Why don’t we try and find some of your books here?’ I said to Charlotte.

  ‘My books?’ She was confused.

  ‘No, not your books. They’re not here, but the stories will have been printed more than once.’

  She frowned in confusion, and that was when I saw him at the next stall along. The thief-taker was moving idly up Paternoster Row, glancing at the book stalls and stopping here and there where they caught his attention. I could only see the back of him, his cloak and hat, and a brief glimpse of the side of his wide, smooth face. I hadn’t seen him properly before, but I knew instinctively he was the same man, as a rabbit knows a fox. I felt as though I’d been doused with ice, and gripped Charlotte’s hand to move away, but she pulled back and reached for a little red book.

  ‘What’s this one?’ she asked.

  I tried to guide her away, every line of me ringing with fear and alarm, but she brushed me off crossly and said: ‘I am looking at this.’

  ‘Can I help you, miss?’ The stallholder approached us, and I felt my insides turn to slush.

  ‘Put that down,’ I hissed.

  ‘I want it! It’s red, like Biddy Johnson.’

  ‘I haven’t the money,’ I murmured. ‘Now put it down.’

  I felt the thief-taker’s unbearable presence move closer, heard his shoes rap smartly on the ground.

  I cast about wildly for something, anything, to make us invisible. If he moved around me, and saw her face, and then mine . . .

  ‘Speak French,’ I hissed urgently. ‘Tell me the garden story, now, quick!’

  Charlotte stared at me wide-eyed, but was old enough and clever enough to sense unspoken danger. The thief-taker moved very closely behind us, and wordlessly I urged her to speak.

  ‘Le jardin est magnifique en été,’ she said. I nodded, and noticed that he had stopped behind us now. I turned slowly towards the stall, trying to appear natural, and Charlotte went on haltingly. ‘Les roses s’épanouissent sous le chaud soleil et les parterres sont d’un éclat de couleurs.’

  ‘Excuse me, miss?’

  I closed my eyes, and felt the ground slide beneath me. Could I pretend not to have heard? Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, iron-like, and spun around to look into his face with an expression of confusion.

  ‘Oui?’ It was the only word I knew. He was peering at me very closely; his eyes were small, and sat in his large face like currants in a bun. He wore no wig, and his hat and clothes were expensive. I returned his stare, praying with every fibre that Charlotte would stay silent.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked me. His voice was Cockney, but smoothed at the edges; nobody would mistake him for a swell, though he wished to appear as one.

  I frowned and shook my head, gesturing that I did not understand with one hand, and squeezing Charlotte’s fingers hard with the other. She winced, and he looked at her. After an age of pure agony, he said, ‘Good day,’ and after a final long look, moved on, with his hands behind his back.

  ‘Who was—?’ Charlotte asked not five seconds later, and I shushed her before she could finish, and turned back to the stall, moving my shawl over my head so it sat like a hood. I could sense the man had not left Paternoster Row, could feel him like a lump beneath the skin. When a minute or two had passed, I stole a glance down the street and saw him at one of the last stalls, weighing a volume here and there in his black gloves, and putting them back. In case he was still watching us, I tried to look as though we had found nothing of interest, and moved very slowly back the way we had come. It felt as though we were turning our backs on a lion. There was no sign of Lyle, but I decided we could not wait.

  ‘You were very good then,’ I told her, glancing here and there as we turned right instead of left, moving away from Ludgate Hill and Lyle. I realised I was trembling. ‘You did what I said and spoke beautifully. We’re playing a game, you see, where we don’t look at people or speak to them, and move as quickly as we can. If anyone talks to us we’ve got to talk French, and tell them we don’t have any English.’

  ‘Why?’

 
‘Because,’ I replied, ‘those are the rules of the game.’

  ‘Where are we going? We said we would meet Lyle at the book stalls.’ I realised with relief that she had no idea of the real danger we’d been in. ‘We can’t do that now, but don’t worry. He’ll find us.’

  Keziah’s court was empty when we arrived. I hurried across to her window to knock, keeping my face hidden beneath my hood to avoid the attention of her neighbours who overlooked the dim yard. We had criss-crossed our way through the city to wring out the afternoon until I knew Keziah would be packing up her cart and trundling home, feeling all the time as though we were being followed, that the thief-taker would be around every corner, leaning languidly in a doorway, waiting for me to fly directly into his web. Our tedious dance through the city, where I’d felt every pair of eyes upon us, had made us both tired and anxious, and then it had begun to rain. Somewhere around Cornhill, Charlotte had complained that she was wet, and her boots hurt, and she needed the chamber pot, so I’d lifted her skirts for her to go in an alley. She refused, white with dread, insisting she needed the pot, so I’d had to lift my own to show her how it was done. A spasm of something had crossed her face then, as if she was ashamed of me, but I’d brushed it aside.

  Finally Keziah’s face appeared at the window, and a moment later the door opened, and she hurried us inside and into her rooms.

  The Gibbons boys were eating meat pies at the large table, their legs dangling inches from the floor. Keziah crouched before Charlotte and grasped her shoulders.