The stall set up, Charlie produced a large umbrella – which he called, a little confusingly, a ‘gingham’ – and set it above them. Then he showed Kitty how to stack the fruit and vegetables the best to display them. ‘Careful now, girl – good stuff at the front, see? Doan’ want ter put the punters orf, do we? That’s the ticket. An’ if yer serves, yer serves from the back, see?’ She nodded, and carefully set about her task. He watched her for some few minutes then, apparently satisfied with her efforts, he scratched his dirty neck with a long black fingernail and said, ‘Right – you two can carry on, can’t yer? Got ter see a man about a dog. Won’t be two shakes. If anyone wants me—’ he added over his shoulder, already pushing into the crowds, ‘tell ’em I’m in the Mar-Kwiss—’
Kitty stared at his departing back blankly. ‘The what?’ she asked her brother.
He snorted with laughter. ‘The Marquis. The pub we passed on the way in.’ He stood beside her, fidgeting, his bright dark eyes narrowed against the rising sun as he took in the scene about him, one long, narrow finger resting pensively upon his lower lip. Alarm bells rang very loud and clear in Kitty’s ears. She reached a firm hand.
‘You stay right here, you hear me? Help me with these carrots—’
For one moment he stood, as if poised for movement, an eager young animal sensing the wilderness and hearing its call. Then he relaxed and, shrugging, he reached for a carrot, rubbing it absent-mindedly upon his already filthy shirt before taking half of it at one bite.
Kitty hid her relief. ‘Stack them,’ she said, ‘don’t eat them.’
Of course there was no hope – and in a small honest corner of her heart she knew it – that she could keep him by her side all day. As the late August sun rose in the sky and the customers began to arrive Charlie reappeared, his stained grin a little wider, his gait noticeably more unsteady. Business was for a while brisk and Kitty was kept busy replenishing the display of fruit and vegetables. By mid-morning, despite the welcome shade of the gingham, she was unpleasantly warm, her clothes stained and sticky with sweat. The market place was like an oven and great, disgusting bluebottles buzzed about the foetid pile of rotten merchandise that had gathered in the gutter near them. Charlie – finding urgent business once more with the man who owned the dog – disappeared again in the direction of The Marquis and came back a couple of hours later with what he himself described as ‘a bit of a shake in me pins’ – which, more honestly translated, meant that he could barely stand on his feet. By now the rush was over. Kitty settled him on the battered chair that was set by the stall and in no time he was asleep, head sunk upon his meagre chest. She could not resist the thought that had Charlie met up with a less honest companion for the day he might have ended up much the poorer for it.
‘Vi’lets, dear? Buy a bunch o’ pretty vi’lets?’ The light, sing-song voice came from beside her. ‘On’y a penny. ’Apenny the little ’uns. Vi’lets?’ The girl was little more than a child, pale-faced and undernourished, but with long-lashed eyes the colour of the wilting flowers she was trying to sell and a pretty, beseeching smile.
Regretfully Kitty shook her head. The girl turned away, stopped as she found herself confronted by Matt’s agile, lanky form that had moved – faster, Kitty thought sardonically, than it had all day – from behind the stall to block her way. In her brother’s long fingers, shining in the sun, was a bright copper penny. ‘What else do I get for this?’
The girl giggled. ‘Don’ be cheeky!’
Kitty opened her mouth to remonstrate with her brother – for there was but one place the penny could have sprung from, and it had no business in Matt’s fingers getting itself spent on violets – and then, glancing in some disgust at the snoring Charlie, shut it again. Damn it, if the man cared to pass half the day in a drunken stupor he’d be lucky if a penny were all he lost.
‘Come on, now’ – Matt’s voice was warm and wheedling – ‘take off that owd bonnet. I’ll bet you’ve got hair as pretty as summer sunshine hid under there?’
‘Ooh – get on wiv yer!’
Kitty’s attention was drawn from her brother’s sly wooing by a smattering of applause from a small crowd that gathered, not far from the stall, upon the steps of the church. Standing on tiptoe she saw a small, flying figure that tumbled and spun in the air, landing neatly and precisely upon dirty bare feet before spinning again into a dizzying succession of cartwheels and handsprings which drew appreciative cries from the audience. Thin and supple as a whip, long hair flying, the boy’s every movement was graceful as a cat’s. Kitty watched the display in fascination. Almost faster than the eye could follow he flipped into the air, over and over like a spinning coin, to land on his hands, steady as a man might on his two feet; Kitty glanced wryly at Charlie and corrected the thought – steadier than some. Bare, dirty feet bouncing about his lifted, tousled head, the urchin ran like a monkey around the circle on his hands and then with no apparent effort flipped himself into another flawless somersault.
‘Matt, look! Did you see—?’ She stopped in mid-sentence. Charlie snored unconcernedly. And Matt was nowhere to be seen.
Her mouth tightening upon a spurt of anger, she turned back to the spectacle. Let the untrustworthy little devil go. Why should she play nursemaid? When did it ever stop? But a darkness had fallen on the day just as surely as if the hot August sun had slid behind storm clouds – a darkness that was deepened when her practised eye noted a new activity amongst the growing crowd about the young acrobat. To an innocent eye it might have meant nothing – two or three small street arabs squirming through the crowd to get a better look at the entertainment – but with Matt for a brother Kitty knew differently and saw all too clearly the swift fingers, the pattern of movement, the perilous dance of theft. Then, as she watched, one of the urchins whistled, sharply, and disappeared, fast as a lizard under a stone. Ponderously, sweating in his heavy uniform, the Beadle came, leaning upon his staff, mopping his florid face with a large, dirty handkerchief.
The young pickpockets had disappeared, like smoke before the wind.
There came another burst of applause as the acrobatic entertainer finished his display with a dazzling string of somersaults, and the chink of coppers as the more generous onlookers tossed coins into the lad’s cap. Kitty looked around for her errant brother, one worried eye upon the portly Beadle. There was no possibility, she knew – and had to admit had known all along – that her brother would be able to resist such temptation as faced him here. The Beadle had moved on now, was standing in earnest conversation with a stall-holder on the far side of the square. Kitty hoped fervently that if her brother were thereabouts the man might prove as stupidly unobservant as he had a few moments before.
And in that, in her innocence, she erred badly; for a very few hours later she and her brother were to learn in painful fashion that the law was far from the primary danger that faced Matt and his nimble fingers in this harsh new world they had entered.
(ii)
With the waning of the afternoon, custom all but died. Here and there about the square early leavers began to clear their stalls, leaving their fly-blown rubbish in foul-smelling heaps behind them. Charlie slept on, Kitty’s half-hearted attempts to wake him irritably brushed away. She sat upon the high kerb, her back against a lamp post, and dozed a little, her irresistibly heavy eyelids and suddenly leaden limbs clear legacy of an uncomfortable and sleepless night. With the new philosophy that had been forced upon her by the past fugitive weeks she closed her mind to the uncertainties of the future and relaxed, enjoying, simply, the blessed warmth of the sun on her face. When, however, that sun dropped with unexpected speed behind the steepled rooftops and the long, cool fingers of the lengthening shadows brushed her skin to goosebumps, she jumped awake. Charlie had not moved. Matt regarded her with laughing eyes. ‘The Sleeping Beauty awakes,’ he said, ‘though Prince Charming seems to have had something of an accident—’ He rolled mischievous eyes towards the snoring Charlie.
‘Where�
�?’ she began, and then stopped, her quick anger dying almost as it was born. What was the point? She scrambled stiffly to her feet, brushing the dust from her worn and grubby skirt. The scene around them resembled in more ways than one the aftermath of battle. The shadowed market building rang eerily with the echo of men’s voices; and with the evil-smelling detritus of the day littering the square the scavengers were already at work. Ragged children, male and female, lean as skinned rabbits and gaunt as death foraged about the disgusting heaps, squabbling viciously over the pickings, stuffing themselves voraciously with the maggot-ridden market leavings that had festered all day in the hot sun. Kitty was appalled. She could not imagine such hunger. She turned away, sickened. All the neighbouring stalls were cleared. The Piazza was quiet. On the shallow steps close at hand two dirty little street arabs regarded her with interest. She leaned towards Charlie. ‘Wake up! Charlie – wake up!’ Suddenly uneasy, she looked at her brother. ‘It’s time we were going. We have to find somewhere to sleep.’
He grinned at her, blithe and mischievous, for all the world as if there were no such place as Colchester and no still-bloody scars upon his face. Clearly, as he laughed and shoved his hands into his pockets, she heard the jingle of coins. ‘We’re safe for the night,’ he grinned, ‘not to worry. What’s your fancy? Champagne and oysters?’
Heartsick, she turned from him. Ninepence she had earned, if lucky, by the labours of the day. What indeed did that merit but scorn? Strongly, and – perhaps strangely – for the first time, resentment welled. ‘Charlie!’ Her husky voice was suddenly harsh, and she kicked ill-temperedly at the leg of the sleeping man’s chair. ‘Wake up!’
He jumped, wagged his head groggily. ‘What’s up?’
‘Everyone’s gone. And we’ve to be off too.’ She planted herself firmly before him, determination in her eye. ‘You owe me a shilling,’ she said, flatly.
‘What?’ That woke him, spluttering. ‘A shillin’?’
‘That’s right.’
‘A tanner, I said—’
‘Ninepence, you said. And help, you said – not running the whole damned stall by myself while you drank yourself stupid with your mates. A shilling.’ She was aware, as he must have been, of interested onlookers. The two urchins on the steps had been joined by three or four others. They sat, tiered like a theatre audience, openly watching the entertainment. Perhaps oddly, far from abashing her their presence goaded her further; she well knew how clearly she could project her low-pitched voice. ‘There’s two of us and one of you—’ She paused, added drily, ‘Less than one of you.’ The watching children sniggered. ‘Now. You want that cart loaded so you can get off home to that poor old wife of yours? We’ll do it. For a shilling.’ She held out a dirty, flat-palmed hand. ‘Anything else, Charlie, and we might find it in our hearts to hinder rather than help. Now, you wouldn’t want that, would you?’ She was aware of her brother’s dark, astonished eyes upon her. She did not look at him. ‘Well?’
The man pulled himself unsteadily to his feet. ‘Well, I’ll be buggered,’ he said mildly, and reached for the tin that held the day’s takings. ‘’Ere.’ A shining coin spun in the air and Kitty deftly caught it. ‘Now,’ Charlie said, mournfully, ‘give us a quick ’and, eh? She’ll top me proper if I gets ’ome late.’
They loaded the cart for him and Matt held the patient horse’s head whilst Charlie, with some difficulty, climbed aboard. As they watched the vehicle lumber across the square it seemed to Kitty that its driver was asleep again before it had turned into the shadows of Southampton Street. She felt an absurd sense of melancholy. Charlie and his cart may not have been much, but they had been all the friendship offered them so far in this daunting city.
They stood for a moment, brother and sister, side by side, looking after the departing cart. ‘Well,’ she said at last into the quiet. ‘Here we are. What do we do now?’ Suddenly aware of a strange quality to her brother’s silence, she glanced at him. He had half-turned from her and was looking towards the steps of the church. The expression on his face spun her to face the sidling, malevolent threat that had crept up on them like disease, or death. She caught her breath. Perhaps two dozen ragamuffin boys had gathered, ragged, barefoot, hard-faced. As, despite themselves, both Matt and Kitty fell back a step the urchins fanned out silently and surrounded them, pinning them with the wall to their backs. In the centre of the threatening half-circle a boy of about Matt’s own age regarded them with intent, hostile eyes. His growth was stunted – in height and reach Matt outmatched him by inches – but there was about him an aura of embittered strength and cunning that chilled Kitty’s blood. The boy’s eyes, in a face death-pale, were black as the pit, ancient with spite and experience, his unkempt hair lustreless and dark as soot. Beside him, impassive, stood the young acrobat, wand-thin and graceful, utterly venomous.
There hung a long, still moment of silence.
‘Well, me ol’ chinas—’ The black-haired boy took a light, menacing step forward. His voice was flatly conversational. ‘’Ere’s a thing, eh?’ He let the words drop into the silence like stones into a cold pool, and like ripples on dark water the sound echoed faintly out into the all-but-empty square. His eyes were upon Matt, direct and deadly. ‘A fine wirer. Good, too – I’ll grant ’im that. But’ – he paused – ‘a bit, as yer might say, unwelcome, eh? Very, very unwelcome.’ The slow words were spoken with such unmistakable threat that Kitty’s skin crawled. With a sharp jerk the dark head flicked up and the black, lightless eyes moved to Kitty and then back to Matt. ‘Sarf Bankers, are we?’ he asked, softly. ‘That it? Yer a long way from ’ome, mateys, a very long way. Yer got yer nerve, I’ll say that for yer. Where’s yer bullies, then? Scarpered, ’ave they? Bust me if I blame ’em, eh, lads?’
A small ripple of sycophantic laughter rustled and was still. The boy stood waiting. ‘Well?’ he said sharply after a moment.
Helplessly Matt shook his head. ‘I – I don’t understand you. I don’t know what you mean.’
A small, tow-headed brat crouched upon the steps not far from Kitty let out a discordant shriek of laughter. ‘Ay – joo ’ere that? Oi doan unnerstan’ yer – It’s a pair o’ friggin’ country bumpkins!’
‘Shut up, Weed.’
The child subsided, still snorting unpleasantly.
The eyes now held a light of malicious interest that if anything Kitty found even more unnerving than the undisguised hostility of a moment before. ‘You sayin’ you ain’t Sarf Bank?’
‘I tell you I don’t know what you mean.’
‘’E don’t know what I mean,’ the other boy said, mockingly mournful. ‘Poor little bastard. ’E don’t know what I mean.’ The boy turned to his audience, affecting a drama of gesture and voice that brought another ripple of laughter. ‘What d’yer fink o’ that, my bullies?’ With a speed that had Kitty’s heart jumping in her throat he spun to face Matt again, a pale, bony finger levelled like a blade at the other boy’s throat. ‘But yer knows abaht dippin’, doesn’t yer, cully? An’ yer bin workin’ the market, ’aven’t yer?’ He waited. ‘Aven’t yer?’
Matt’s shoulders lifted in the faintest of shrugs. ‘Yes.’
‘An’ no one does that, country-boy dipper – straw-arsed fine wirer! – wivaht talkin’ first ter Croucher! That right, lads?’ The last three words, in contrast to the ferocity of what had gone before, were conversationally mild. Answering grins flitted across dirty faces.
There was an expectancy, an anticipation in the air that Kitty could sense, and it terrified her. She stepped forward. ‘Please, I’m sure that—’
‘Shut yer mouth, Duchess.’ The tone was still deceptively mild. ‘One at a time, if yer please. We’ll deal wiv you later.’
‘Watch ’er friggin’ tongue, Crouch,’ a reedy voice piped. ‘She’ll cut yer froat wivaht gettin’ near yer!’
Shouts of laughter greeted this witticism. Croucher’s eyes did not leave Matt’s face. ‘So—’ he said, ignoring Kitty, ‘I s’pects we can settle
this like genn’lemen, eh?’
Matt relaxed a little. ‘Yes.’
A narrow, grubby hand reached, palm up.
Matt frowned.
The thin, grimy fingers snapped and rubbed, indicating impatience. ‘The lot,’ Croucher said. ‘Fer good will, like.’
Matt shook his head.
‘Matt! For God’s sake! – give it to him! What does it matter?’
Slow colour was creeping into Matt’s lean face. He shook his head again, mouth set.
‘Oh dear. Deary me. Goin’ ter be difficult, are we?’ The wicked eyes rolled, drolly. ‘’Ow did I guess that was goin’ ter ’appen, eh? ’Ow did I guess?’
‘Yer juss too sharp fer yer own good, Crouch.’
‘Fer the dipper’s good, yer mean,’ said another voice, grimly amused.
‘Matt!’
Kitty’s voice distracted her brother; he shifted his stance, glancing at her, and in the blink of an eye his antagonist was crouched suddenly a scant two yards from him, bare feet spread upon the dusty ground, the fingers of one hand crooked, tense and claw-like, the glint of steel in the other, weaving and glimmering, slicing in a deadly arc before Matt’s dumbfounded eyes. Matt leapt backwards, almost falling over an abandoned box. Recovering his balance he steadied himself, eyes fixed upon the flickering needlepoint of the knife.
‘We don’t – take kindly – to any ol’ – Tom – Dick – or bleedin’ ’Arry – workin’ our market – do we boys?’ Each phrase was emphasized by a lethal, flashing pass with the knife, inches from Matt’s sweating face.
The sound that rose from the watching youngsters was a primitive growl of anticipation and rapacious excitement that turned Kitty’s stomach with fear. Here, she knew instinctively, was something more malevolent, more truly and brutally savage than anything she had ever encountered – or even envisaged – in her life before. The boy Croucher, still grinning with wolfish enjoyment, jumped at Matt uttering a short, staccato barking sound as if in spiteful play, then leapt back. Dark blood dripped from Matt’s jaw, and the knife’s gleam was sullied. Kitty flinched, her hand to her mouth. For a moment Matt stood like a statue, his eyes riveted as if in fascination upon his tormentor, making no attempt to defend himself.
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