He shook his head. ‘I hope you ain’t caught, cos the watchmen, they been looking for you. And another cove, a thief-taker. He’s been no less than three times, bashing at the door, wanting to know if you’ve been back to see your old man. I’ve been dreading you coming back when he’s there.’
‘I know he’s been after me, and he shan’t find me, with any luck. Here.’ I fished in my pocket for the remaining shillings I had, and gave him three. He began to protest, but we both knew it was in vain and he needed them. Wordlessly, he put them into his pocket with a sigh. ‘I’ll send more when I can,’ I said.
‘Jesus Christ, I wish you’d be careful.’
‘I am, aren’t I? I had her with me that night I came back, and you didn’t know. If only you could have met her, Abe. You’d love her, I know you would.’
He looked very old, then, and the lines around his eyes and mouth seemed to deepen. ‘This ain’t right, Bess. I wish you hadn’t done it. What a mess it is. Ain’t she better off in that fancy ken where she came from? What kind of life can you give her? You should have left her where she was.’
I felt a flash of fury. ‘She lived with a mother who didn’t love her, didn’t want her. It was like a prison there, Abe. She never went outside. I might only have a shilling to my name but I’m her mother.’
‘You might well be, girl, but a child needs a father as well. How do you expect to live?’
‘I told you, we’ve got positions, both of us. She’s old enough to work. Heavens, you had me on the stall after my old mum died; it ain’t much different. I only had you, all this time. We done all right, haven’t we?’
He shook his head again. At that moment one of the painted doors in the square opened and a housemaid stepped out with a dustpan. She gave us a hard look, emptied the pan onto the cobbles and waited. I could see how we looked, two shabbily dressed vagrants, who had no place in this handsome square. I glared back and turned away, moving into the passage.
‘I have to go now, but I came to tell you I’m all right, and I’ll see you . . . oh, I don’t know when I’ll see you, but I will.’ I pulled him into an embrace. He smelled of the market, which to me was like home. The enormity of what I was doing, what I was leaving, hit me then, and I held him hard and tried not to cry as he squeezed back. We didn’t need to speak, me and him. We woke together, walked to work together. I might’ve gone around the city, the coffee houses and taverns and markets, but I always went back to him, and there’d be a fresh basket of shrimp waiting for me, like he knew I was coming. Our words were in the way he took my plate off my lap when I’d fallen asleep, and when I passed him his hat before we left the house. The way we sat quiet on a Sunday when it rained outside, and brewed a pot of tea with the used leaves from the charwoman.
I didn’t know when I’d see my home again, couldn’t imagine a day when I’d be able to walk through the court and let myself in at the door. I’d never forget it, though: the floorboards where I’d learned to crawl, and the sloping ceilings. The pictures I’d pinned to the wall as a girl, faded now, of frivolous things like balls and lovers, and ballads I’d picked up off the street that I couldn’t read but that showed girls looking longingly out over fields, with long dark hair like mine. The dirty lace at the window, and the chair Abe sat in, with its old red cushion, and the door to the bedroom in which Ned and I dreamed and whispered and laughed, with the enamel jug on the side, and my mother’s chest, carved with roses.
‘Best of luck, Bessie,’ Abe said, and his voice cracked. ‘Watch yer back, won’t you?’
‘Thanks.’
I pecked my pa on the cheek, trying not to cry, and could not look at him again: at the doubt and shame and fear in his milky eyes, for they mirrored my own. I embraced him once more, tightly, and let the crowd swallow me up.
By the time the clock struck half past ten, we were ready to go. It would take an hour or more to walk across the city to Westminster Bridge, and a light drizzle had begun to fall. We would go along the river, keeping it on our left and following the bend of it, like a tobacco pipe turned upside down. The canvas sack had been packed again, and Charlotte and I were wrapped against the wind and rain. William’s idea to make Charlotte look like a boy had been a good one, though she had complained as we plaited her hair and pinned it beneath one of Moses’s caps and dressed her in Jonas’s jacket and trousers.
‘Ain’t you the little swell!’ Keziah had exclaimed, and Charlotte had scowled, making us laugh. The boys watched with glee as I did up her buttons and laced her own boots. When the clock struck ten, my stomach had twisted itself into knots as I went over our things again: dresses, shawls and drawers, two blankets, a few candle stubs, two tin mugs and plates, a bottle of beer, and Charlotte’s playing cards and her copy of Biddy Johnson. I had asked Keziah to buy her an orange as a treat, which I would save until it was needed. There was a dreadful finality to it all, as though we were going on a very long journey to a foreign land, and not a few miles from where we stood.
‘Are you sure you don’t want William to go with you?’ Keziah asked.
‘Thank you, but no. It has to be just us. You won’t follow us, will you?’ I asked him, and he shook his head. He had no work that night, and had gone out for some beer to go with our tripe stew. Perhaps sensing the atmosphere, Charlotte had been fussy with her food and refused to eat it, and I’d lost my temper, telling her she had to start work in the morning, and would not be able to on an empty stomach. Then I was angry at myself. I should have been tucking her into bed with a doll, not making her walk through London in the middle of the night. But climbing into bed seemed so distant; a simple thing I would never again take for granted.
Hatefully, shamefully, in the darkest part of my mind a tiny thought had burrowed and planted itself as she whined, to go not along the river but into the city and up the thoroughfares, where the maze of little streets and alleys gave way to wide, empty roads with tall houses, and knock on the door at number 13. I let the image take shape, picturing Mrs Callard’s white-faced shock, Agnes’s trembling relief. And Charlotte, clinging to me, sobbing on the doorstep . . . no . . . No good. I could never do it. She was mine.
I had told her that our life would be hard from now, that she would have to work and rise early, and would be very tired and hungry, but Mama would always be close by. I knew that she would find it tough, that she had been spoiled, and I would have to unspoil her. Churning butter, milking cows, lifting pails: I had prepared her for all these things in the stretching hours at Keziah’s, but I could tell she was listening as if it was a story, not real life. And what if she refused to work? If she threw tantrums and made a show, and lost us our places, what then? No, don’t think on it. All we had to do for now was get safely to Westminster, and stand on the bridge and wait for Lyle. I did not know if he’d hire a trap for the journey or if he’d come on foot. I would have to watch very carefully, and try not to draw attention.
We kissed inside the Gibbonses’ door and said our goodbyes, and my stomach twisted worse than ever because I could see the fear in Keziah’s face. I told her I would find a way to send a message, and she laughed then, and told me if I ever learned to write she’d frame my first letter on the wall, and we smiled at one another and hugged fiercely. And then the door was closing, and I saw the red curtain twitch as they looked out, and felt choked with emotion – and relief, too, that they were no longer in danger.
‘Bye!’ Charlotte called, and I had to shush her. She shrank away from me, frowning, as though I would scold her again.
I crouched down and tucked at some stray bits of hair that had drifted out of the cap. ‘We have a very long way to walk now,’ I told her. ‘I know it’s dark and raining, but we have no choice. Will you stay close to me and try to keep going, even when you want to stop?’
She looked solemnly at me, and I rubbed at her cheek. She nodded.
‘Good girl. Off we go.’
We made our way to Westminster Bridge as best we could in the dark. We cou
ldn’t go along the river itself, as the Thames bank was filled with complicated little wharves and stairs and piers, and there was no path, but I was sure to keep it in sight as we travelled west. Knowing it was there, wide and glittering beneath the night sky, was a feeble sort of relief; I made my living from the water, and it was a comfort to have it there beside me like a faithful old dog.
I told Charlotte about the market as we walked, and where the ships came from and what they brought, and the characters who worked there. She liked hearing about the dead shark that was hung on the dockside, like an ugly mermaid that had its teeth pulled out one by one.
Around halfway the drizzle eased, but a dreadful knowl-edge set in as Thames Street tapered to an end and I realised why. We were approaching the Fleet Ditch, the river that sprang north of London and flowed beneath the city, reappearing again below Farringdon, where it funnelled down and emptied itself into the Thames. There was only one way to cross it: over a bridge at the end of Ludgate Hill. The tight lanes and streets this close to the river were dark and quiet. Alehouses and taverns lined the riverbank that would be filled now with wharfmen, dock workers and lightermen, but they were all I could hope to meet at this hour on their way home. I led us hurriedly north, telling Charlotte again not to look at anyone, and wrapping my shawl more firmly around my head. The narrow bridge and the streets either side were mercifully empty, and we crossed at speed without looking back.
It was a quarter to midnight by the time we drew up at the northern bank of Westminster Bridge, damp but triumphant. A few torches burned here in the smarter part of town, and the river gleamed blackly beneath us, stretching and yawning around its curve. The moon was behind cloud, which had served us well, for we had not been noticed. I put my hand on the balustrade and finally allowed myself to relax. Lyle would be here in fifteen minutes. We had done it: we had got here.
‘That’s the hard part over with,’ I told Charlotte, lifting her up and setting her on the low stone wall. ‘Now, what do I have in my bag of tricks for a good little girl?’ She watched, her little pink tongue darting through the gap in her front teeth. I brought out the orange and joy broke over her face, and she asked me to peel it. ‘Let’s get to the middle of the bridge and I’ll do it while we wait for Lyle.’
There were one or two people about: two men in conversation striding across the other side of the bridge, and part-way along, a vagrant bundled against the balustrade, heaped with rags. I took Charlotte by the hand and walked with her over the river, pointing at the dozen or so boats going their different ways, for the traffic was quieter at night.
‘That’s a trawler, see, like I told you fetches the shrimp from Leigh,’ I pointed out. ‘And do you see those little ones, going between the big boat and the quay? They’re lighters, what carry the cargo to shore, because the boat’s too big to get up alongside it, you see? It looks like they’re carrying timber, look.’
We walked further along and came to a stop in the middle. A coach-and-two passed by us. The mail coaches would be leaving London now, starting their long routes into the country. I told Charlotte we could write Moses and Jonas a letter once we’d arrived for their father to read to them. I rubbed her hands with my own, for the rain had made the air cold. After a few minutes, I saw Lyle approaching from the north bank, hunched against the wind, with his cap pulled low. My heart began beating fast, and I smiled, standing away from the balustrade so he could see us better. But he gave no sign of recognition, and did not slow down to approach us – nor did he break into a smile. As the distance closed between us, I realised it was not Lyle. The man’s face was pale, and he was taller, and leaner, with wide, clear eyes. There was a flash of red hair at the sides of his cap.
‘Ned,’ I said in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’ I was smiling, but frowning, too, and felt strange, as though I was seeing him in a dream. And then I understood.
Another man was gliding towards us, from the direction Ned had come: a tall man, with a black cocked hat and thick cloak. He wore leather gloves. He and Ned were the men I had seen on the opposite side of the bridge five minutes earlier.
I felt as though an ice bucket had been tipped down my back as the thief-taker regarded me coldly, seeing the recognition in my eyes mirror his own. I was clutching Charlotte’s hand very tightly now, and she winced. I pushed her behind me, and hoped she would not feel me trembling.
Ned would not look at me, and turned to the thief-taker.
‘This is her,’ he said flatly, nodding once at Charlotte.
‘We’ve met before,’ the man said softly. His voice was deep and cracked, like leather.
‘No—’
He darted towards her. Ned took my wrists, restraining me as I cried out, as the thief-taker gripped Charlotte by the shoulders, making her sob and cling to me. Our hands were ripped apart, and hers flailed through the air, reaching for me.
‘Ned, no! Don’t do this!’
A carriage had been waiting at the north end of the bridge, and it drew up beside us, slowing to a stop. In a flurry of darkness, like shadows wrestling, the thief-taker bundled my screaming child inside, and her cries tore through the air, tore through my very soul. In a moment the reins were shaken and the horse pulling. The wheels turned, and the carriage moved in a wide circle across the bridge, going back the way it had come. At the same time a figure was hurrying towards us from the north bank. There was a long instrument in his hand, like a baton, or a torch.
‘Lyle!’ I screamed. ‘He’s got Charlotte!’ Ned held my wrists still, too tightly, and I spat in his face just as Lyle reached us and landed his fist in Ned’s face. But Ned had been prepared and swerved the impact of it, dropping me from his grip and swinging back at Lyle. Before I knew it the two of them were grappling in the road. The torch had been dropped somewhere nearby, and I almost tripped over it as I went hurtling after the carriage that cut sleekly through the night and was swallowed at the end of the bridge. It was no good running after it; I knew where it was going.
I stood numb, shattered, looking at the place it had disappeared, trying to put together in my mind what had happened. Behind me, grunts and blows carried over the lonely cobbles as the two men tore at one another. Lyle had begun using the torch as a club, and I heard the dull thud of it cracking into my brother. I wanted Lyle to kill him. If I’d had a pistol, a knife, a bludgeon, I’d have done it myself; I’d bash and stab and blast the life out of him until he leaked scarlet and his glassy eyes no longer saw the stars. But no, his blood would not run red. His blood would be black as his soul.
PART FOUR
ALEXANDRA
CHAPTER 19
The red-headed man came that afternoon. I’d been sitting in a chair at the window beneath a blanket, looking out at the street. This was the sixth day, and it had rained all morning, hissing at the windows and making the road slick. When the door-knocker sounded in the hall I had left my mind again, going into that distant place I seemed to exist in now. But its rap jolted me back to my seat, and I was instantly alert. There was no carriage in the street. Someone on foot, then. My heart thudded briefly, and then, as quickly as it had arrived, the spasm of intrigue passed, and I sat back as dullness consumed me again. It was most likely Doctor Mead, who had attended me these past days with the dedication of a dutiful nephew, and I his invalid aunt. I had not wanted his tonics or snuffs; did not care for food and drink, even, taking bits of meat and the odd bread roll in this chair, when I ate at all, and remaining until the small hours in the darkness with no candles lit, to better see the street. None of my clothes were warm enough, even with the fire piled high, so I’d taken to wearing one of Daniel’s old greatcoats around my shoulders, like a general in retirement.
I waited for Agnes to announce whomever it was, and a minute later the door pushed against the carpet, and I felt her presence in the room. I had not turned from my chair, and when she told me a gentleman was here to see me, at first I did not know his name. She showed him in and closed the door, and I tu
rned, finally, to look into the face of Bess’s brother. I knew him at once as the lean, pale-faced man who had looked over the yard wall all those weeks ago.
Agnes had been wrong: he was not a gentleman. Shabbily dressed, he did not quiver so much as jerk, and his gaze was very intense; it felt as though he was touching me all over, and his fervour repulsed me. His manner was the least repulsive thing about him, though, as it turned out. When he offered me information on Charlotte’s whereabouts, or rather, where she would be, at first I thought he was playing a trick. I said nothing, as he told me in a stammering voice that, for a fee, he would reveal Bess and Charlotte’s location. He knew they were fleeing the city tonight, and could bring me the child. He’d stumbled over his words and shaken so badly I thought him ill, but then I noticed the slight slur, and the grey pallor and, though he could not have been out of his twenties, there was already a purpling map of blood vessels beneath his skin. Oh, I thought, with detached interest. He’s a drunk. It went a way to explaining why he would betray his sister, and I believed Bess was his sister now, for they had the same small nose, and large, slightly bulging eyes, which she had passed to Charlotte. Which meant, then, that this man was a relative of Charlotte, too.
I listened to what he had to say, then asked what fee he commanded. At this, he went very still and thoughtful, then regained himself, clearing his throat and announcing with false bravado that a hundred pounds should cover it.
After a long silence I said: ‘Very well.’
He had pulled a face then, and I realised he was smiling. He said: ‘Thank you, miss, much obliged to you, you shan’t regret it, miss, very much appreciated,’ and passively I wondered if he was here under someone else’s design. By that time I wanted him from the room: I could smell drink on him, and there was something deeply unsettling about his desperation, and the deferential way in which he treated me. But he hesitated, and I sensed there was something he wanted to ask me. I waited.
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