I did not correct her.
“Miss Susanna will sing for us,” she announced to the assembly, and hiccuped discreetly.
There was a tipsy roar as I stepped out, and some began to clap. I could still hear talking, but thought I should begin. I fixed my eyes on a far alcove where there was a plaster statue of a girl with a tiny linnet on her shoulder; she was almost naked. The Eagle preserve me, I thought, and I began to sing.
I gave them “Come, Let Us Frolic While We May,” for I hoped it might sober them up with its mournful message of mortality. My mouth was very dry; I could scarce get the words out. All the same, my weak little rendering was greeted with leery applause.
As the clapping died away, I heard the knocker go again, the front door open. A cold draft blew into the room, and more guests—two young men, youths. Darting around them like a puppy was Shadow.
I felt a rush of heat to my face, and my heart began to beat quickly. I dared not look more closely, for with one quick glance I had recognized the Lord Protector’s son, Caleb Grouted, and with him, Corporal Chance.
I lowered my head and melted back behind the piano and Connie’s seated figure. I stood against the curtains where I hoped the candlelight would not reach me, and looked around for Becca. She was seated at a table in an alcove nearby, with an old gentleman, who was almost asleep—or drunk—his lolling head propped on his hand and his powdered wig off and sitting on the tabletop like a large iced cake.
I could see Anora at the end of the room, seating the two young men with many a curtsey and coquettish flutter of her fan. She knew who they were, although they wore no uniforms. The other guests paid them little attention, continuing their carousing and making an immodest amount of noise.
Somewhere Shadow hovered beyond the candlelight; I could no longer see him. I prayed he was still there and making some plan for my escape. I wondered how I could ever leave the room without being seen.
I slipped over to Becca. “Sing in place of me,” I pleaded.
She looked up in surprise. The old man gave a gentle snore. “But what will Anora say?”
“Please. It’s important.” She understood it was, by the look on my face, and stood up immediately. She went to the piano and whispered to Connie, who began the first bars of the song that begins “Sweet Sir, I Must Say No,” while I drew back, away from the candles.
Becca sang with gusto and a great deal louder than I had; but it seemed that some of the guests were discontent. To my dismay and alarm, I heard mutterings of “Can we not have the other one again—Miss Susanna?”
I could hide no longer.
“There she is,” someone cried, and the next moment Anora had glided over to me and had pulled me into the candlelight in front of the piano.
“My voice has gone,” I muttered to her, trying to shrink into the polished floorboards. I dared not raise my head.
“Nonsense, girl,” she hissed, endeavoring to keep the smile attached to her face. Her eyes had a hard glitter.
“Sing them something—anything! You know who is here!” She moved back so that I stood alone before them all. I looked up at last.
Caleb Grouted would have no idea that I was the girl he had been looking for, since he had never seen me face to face. I could not see if Corporal Chance recognized me, for he sat in shadow. I began hesitantly to sing “I Left My Love by the Amber Gate,” for I could not think of another; it was the song that came into my head, with all the words complete.
Gradually, the murmuring ceased, and, apart from the crackling of the fire and the occasional snore from the gentleman in the alcove, there was silence in the room. The strange dreaminess of the song seemed to hold them all, like a magical binding of beasts. For the length of the first verse, their glassy eyes grew focused, their befuddled faces sober.
Then the spell was broken. I hesitated a little too long before starting on the second verse. In that moment the Lord Protector’s son leapt to his feet and shouted thickly, “And what do you know of the Amber Gate, Miss Susanna?”
I stared at him in bewilderment. Was this some trick question to trap me?
“It is merely a song, Sir,” purred Anora, but her hands clenched together in agitation at her bosom. “It has naught of fact to do with the old story of the lost gate. Does she not sing it to your liking?”
“Aye, let the wench proceed,” shouted another guest. “What nonsense is this?”
“Get on with it!” hissed Anora, glaring at me.
But the words had gone.
I stared in consternation from one face to another, trying to remember the words of the song, while the murmuring grew to a grumble of impatience. Caleb Grouted had subsided into his seat, muttering. Chance had shifted into the candlelight and was staring at me too hard, his mouth compressed.
I lurched sideways, as if faint. It was a desperate ploy, but as if I had rehearsed her, Becca rushed toward me, crying out, “She needs fresh air!” She bent over me, and whispered in my ear, “I’ll get you out!”
I leaned on her heavily, my eyes half-closed. “Whatever happens, you’ll always be my friend, Becca.” Did I think it or say it? I hope I managed to say it, for it was in my heart and still is now.
Connie rose as soon as she saw us and made as if to help support me from the room, but suddenly Anora was there, brushing both of them aside in fury. She whipped a tiny bottle under my nose. I knew I was lost, then.
“You will recover and sing on!” she said grimly, and held me fast.
21
The smelling-salts were vile; I flailed in her grip, choking. Becca and Connie, on either side of us, gave little cries of distress; one or two of the guests began to protest.
And then, cutting through the confusion by the piano, a boy’s high voice yelled out from the doorway: “Look to yer backs, Sirs! The Lawman comes!”
I don’t know what happened then, there was such uproar in the room: shrieks and swearing and commotion. Caleb Grouted and Chance were somewhere in the midst of the throng pressing forward to the door and out into the hall. Connie had blown out the candles. Anora had left my side immediately and was nowhere to be seen.
“She’s gone to open the back door,” whispered Becca, in my ear. She pulled at my arm. “Come upstairs with us now, out of the way.”
The other girls had already disappeared. The Lawman was the last person I wanted to see, but I hesitated a moment in the confusion and darkness, and lost Becca. Then I felt a tug on my skirt. It was Shadow. “Wot yer doin’, ‘angin’ about?” he hissed fiercely. “Look slippy!”
In bewilderment, I let him drag me from the room, which had now almost emptied. The front door was wide open onto the dark street. I could hear running water outside, and quick footsteps—people leaving the house, or coming toward it?
The steps died away into the distance, and then suddenly it was just Shadow and me outside on the cobbles and the house was behind us; and we were dashing down Kaye Street, toward the riverfront.
The moon was out over our heads like a great silver ball, bouncing off the rooftops. A touch of frost nipped the air and cut through my thin silk gown. “Shadow!” I gasped, struggling to keep my skirts from dragging in the rivulets of filthy water. “Shadow! The Lawman!”
His eyes glinted in the moonlight. “Nifty wheeze, eh?”
“You mean, it wasn’t true?”
“Nah!” He looked scornful. “That lot gets taken in easy. Terrified of losin’ their tradin’ licenses. The Lawman round ‘ere, ‘e’s dozy, always tucked up snorin’ instead of doin’ ‘is duty.”
I was overcome with gratitude. “Thank you, Shadow. I could never have escaped without you.”
He put his hand out to slow me. “Careful,” he whispered. “There’s people about.”
We could hear footsteps clipping the cobbles along a side street a little way behind us. It sounded like two different pairs of feet, but their owners were trying to tread softly, warily. The hairs on the back of my neck stirred.
Shadow
put a finger to his lips, then pulled me into a narrow doorway out of the moonlight. He kept a grip on my skirt as if he suspected I might flee in fear, and we waited, my heart hammering.
After a minute they came swiftly past us, two male guests from the salon, still breathing heavily, too intent on their flight to notice us. They must have left through the back door, gone past the cottages and cut through. We stayed where we were, scarce breathing, straining our ears.
More footsteps, not so quiet this time. As they came closer I heard a voice: young, careless, arrogant, the words slurred with drink. A voice I knew.
“Wasn’t worth staying for, anyway. Glad to be out of it, eh, Chance?” Feet scuffled as Caleb Grouted nudged Chance.
“Still, if we’d been caught there, Mather would not have been pleased, nor my pa for that matter.” A snigger, then, peevishly, “Where are those damned horses? Hope you know your way in this squalid little place.” The Lord Protector’s son kicked out and a fish head flew past my skirts.
I couldn’t hear what Chance replied, but I saw him, clear in the moonlight. He seemed sober, looking to left and right as he strode along, as if watching for any sign of the Lawman. I felt Shadow’s clutch tighten on me as he reached us; Chance looked away across the street and then straight at us in the doorway.
His eyes rested on us for a second, then swept on, and he passed by.
“Close shave, eh?” whispered Shadow after their footsteps had died away into the night.
I took in a breath of cold, salty air. My teeth were chattering. “Thank the Almighty!” I said, and I put my hand up to the amber on its thong. “But where can I hide till it’s light?”
“Easy. You can rest safe on Redwing.”
“On the barge?”
He nodded, and I caught the flash of his teeth. “You stay ‘ere a mo.”
“Don’t leave me!” I said, frightened.
“I’m only gonna nip down the end of the street, see it’s all clear.”
I waited, shivering, in the rank hole of the doorway, my shoes grating on fish bones, my arms wrapped around me for warmth. Shadow’s small, soft boots made no sound on the cobbles beyond, so I could not guess where he was. It seemed very quiet, and the tall bulk of the warehouses on the other side was gloomy and oppressive, throwing the street between into darkness. I was beginning to worry about what could have happened to him when a dark arm reached in at last and grasped me.
“Got you!” hissed the voice of Corporal Chance. “I knew it was you.”
I couldn’t say a word. I was too busy kicking, squirming. I knew everything was over, but some instinct for survival drove me to struggle as he wrenched me out of the doorway. I could hear him grunt as he tried to keep hold of me. He was behind me now, gasping with the effort of holding me; he had pinioned me to him, his arms around my chest so that I could scarce move.
“I heard you sing,” he whispered hoarsely into my ear. “A girl from a Home shouldn’t sing like that. Not as if she still had a heart.”
I looked down and saw the muscles bulging beneath the worsted of his jacket sleeves as he held me. The backs of his hands were bare and smooth. I lowered my head, and sank my teeth into the hand closest to my mouth.
Then out of the darkness came Shadow, flying like a little raggedy crow. As Chance straightened with a yell, Shadow came running straight at him from nowhere and butted him plumb in the middle. It was a hearty thwack and maybe got him where it was most painful, for next minute he was lying groaning on the cobbles.
“Scarper!” shouted Shadow, and hand in hand we belted down the street like mad things, me with my skirts held up round my waist.
There were braziers burning along the causeway, and wharf-keepers and watchmen about, but Shadow avoided them, dodging into the dark nooks and crannies between warehouses.
We arrived out of breath at the quay where the Redwing was moored. I was trembling and Shadow had to help me along now, for I could scarce move my limbs anymore.
“On with you, then,” said Shadow, and he helped me across onto the deck. A tiny light gleamed at the top of the tallest mast.
“This way,” said Shadow, and he led the way down a ladder into darkness. I hung back, but he tugged me down after him so that I almost fell, and pushed me into a narrow passage lit by a hanging lantern, and on through a door.
Once he had lit a stump of candle, I saw I was in a tiny cabin. “This is mine,” he said with pitiful pride, looking around at its only furnishings: a bunk, a sea chest. There was scarce room in there to twirl a turn.
“You can ‘ave it,” he said. “I’ll sleep in the galley.” He looked at me, his head cocked. “Are you in trouble, Miss Scuff?”
“Why should you think so?” I said, trying to unscramble my wits.
“I’ve a nose for it.”
“I am, indeed,” I burst out, too weary to dissemble. “Those were soldiers after me!”
“And one of ’em a very important personage. My, what ‘ave you bin and done, Miss Scuff?”
I shook my head weakly.
“Never mind,” he said, with a wink. “Yer safe wiv me. Now, rest a sec, and I’ll bring you a toddy.”
I didn’t know what that was, but I sank against the edge of the bunk in the dim light and waited. I could hear voices somewhere—outside, or in the boat? Had Shadow told the bargemaster, Mr. Butley? Could I trust either of them?
Shadow returned, after an eternity it seemed, but he was alone and holding a pewter mug in triumph. “Swill it down,” he ordered, pressing the mug into my cold hands, where it burned them.
I put it to my lips tentatively: hot, sugary water—sweet, very sweet—with a powerful kick to it. I could feel the heat of it trickle through me as I sipped.
He grinned at me. “Just what the quack ordered, eh? Guarantees a good night’s kip.” He nodded grandly at the chest. “And you can ‘elp yerself to what’s in there.” He seemed about to leave me again.
“Wait,” I begged; I had all sorts of questions.
“I must go,” he said. “Mr. Butley will be wonderin’ where I am. Sleep tight.”
And then I was alone.
I perched on the end of the bunk and tried to calm myself. After a while I stirred and opened the chest to see if I could find something warm to put around my shoulders. There was a pair of boy’s dirty breeches that looked as if they could stand on their own legs, and a tatty cloth jacket lying on top of a couple of folded blankets. I poked around the cabin in the candlelight to see if I could find the mahogany box, but it wasn’t there; there was nothing else in there at all.
I didn’t blow out the candle before I climbed into the bunk; I left it burning, careless of safety, and lay down in my underskirt and the jacket, pulling the blankets over me. They scratched and smelled damp and sour. The bunk was a wooden board with a thin straw mattress that prickled through my skirt. But I was exhausted, and glad of the warmth glowing in my limbs from the drink. I must have fallen fast asleep, in spite of the strangeness of lying above an unknown deepness of water.
An unfamiliar motion finally woke me. I was aware of having to brace myself very slightly where I lay. I heard a sucking, slapping sound beneath me, the creak and complaint of wooden timbers.
I opened my eyes and saw daylight filter through a tiny porthole, moving and flickering over the wooden walls of the cabin. Even then I think I was too bemused, too dazed with sleep, to understand. Then at last I roused myself and knelt up to look out.
Land moved past outside. There were no houses or cottages, only shingle banks tufted with coarse grass. We were approaching the rivermouth, would soon be over the bar. The noise of rushing water increased, though the flatbottomed barge remained steady. I heard feet on the deck over my head, and realized I had heard them through my dreams.
Some time while I was asleep—perhaps only recently—the Redwing had set sail.
I threw myself off the bunk and at the door, twisting the handle, frantic to get out, to alert someone so they could let me
off. What had happened? Why hadn’t Shadow woken me?
The door was locked.
I flung myself back at the porthole. I could see a gray expanse of choppy water, little waves, white-topped, pointed like arrowheads. They looked sharp enough to pierce the timbers of the boat. I could even see—close enough to swim to if I’d been able—a muddy shore where waders pecked. A fan of swans bobbed serenely with the waves, as if the violence of the current was nothing to them.
I began to batter at the door with my hands again, shouting out, “Shadow! Shadow!”
I heard his light, quick steps outside; a key turned in the lock and he was there, looking as innocent as you please.
“’Ow did you sleep, Miss Scuff?”
I dodged past him, but he caught me at once; his small, wiry arms were surprisingly strong. “ ’Ang on.”
“I want to get off!” I cried, struggling.
He pushed me down on the bunk none too gently. I glared up at him.
“Too late, can’t turn about now,” he said earnestly. “Listen. I locked you in for safety last night. They was prowlin’ all around, two of’em, after you. They raised up the Lawman to help search. Lucky you was sleepin’ fast, for they made some racket.”
“Why didn’t you wake me this morning before you set sail?” I demanded suspiciously. I glared at his cheeky little face, his beguiling grin. Was he telling the truth?
He looked injured at my ingratitude. “Wot, and leave you all alone in Poorgrass with them fellers around? This is ‘uman kindness, this is, to take you on wiv us. Mr. Butley says it’s all right wiv ‘im. You can ‘ave free passage in return for a bit of cookin’ and bottle washin’.”
I put my head in my hands. There was a bitter taste in my mouth—from the toddy last night or my own feelings of dread, I wasn’t sure. “I needed to stay in Poorgrass!” I said at last. “That was where I was to find employment.”
Ambergate Page 12