Sweet Songbird

by Sweet Songbird (retail) (epub)

  Someone had struck up an energetic polka on the piano. She stood up briskly, holding out her hand to Luke. ‘Let’s dance?’

  They went back to his room long before the celebrations, that looked set to continue into the following day, had even begun to wane. They walked the narrow streets that were still littered with the detritus of the day, clambered precariously across the wooden plank and walked the canyoned alleys down which Kitty had fled in panic that day so many months before, to the church. Behind them flitted the watching shadow that was Spider.

  ‘Where does he live?’ Kitty asked, in curiosity. ‘Where does he sleep?’

  Luke shrugged. ‘He has places.’

  ‘But – no home?’

  Luke shrugged.

  ‘But – that’s a pretty awful life, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s what he wants. I’ve tried to change him. He won’t listen. He’s doing what he wants to do.’

  ‘Looking after you.’

  ‘I suppose so; yes.’

  ‘Why?’ There was real curiosity in her sideways glance.

  ‘I saved his life once. He thinks he owes it to me.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ she said, positively.

  He turned her into his arms, kissed her. She closed her eyes and snuggled to him. She was pleasantly light-headed from the wine she had drunk. They strolled on.

  ‘Someone—’ he mused, ‘was it the Greeks? I can’t remember – someone used to believe that if you saved a person’s life you became responsible for them. They belonged to you – you became’ – he paused – ‘irretrievably entangled.’

  They had entered the dark porch. ‘Do you remember the first time you came here?’

  She shivered a little. ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘You probably saved my life that night.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’d have got away somehow.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘Such touching faith, Miss Daniels—’

  They slipped into the alcove, started up the stairs. Suddenly then Luke’s hand was an iron grip upon her wrist, his voice a breath in her ear, all mockery gone from it. ‘Wait!’

  She saw it too. Above them a faint light filtered into the stairway through the open door.

  She sensed rather than saw the finger he put to his lips. Silent as a menacing shadow, he continued up the stairs.

  She waited for a tense moment before, unable to remain behind, heart pounding and head suddenly and uncomfortably clear, she followed.

  Luke stood like a statue by the door. She looked past him. Sprawled on the rug by the empty fireplace lay the body of a man.

  Kitty put a hand to her mouth.

  Then she saw the empty bottle that had rolled a little way from the lax, open hand.

  Jem O’Connell stirred, snorted, lapsed again into unconsciousness, dead drunk.

  Chapter 8

  (i)

  It took three days properly to sober up the young American, three days during which he slept a lot, wept at least once and divulged not one word of what had happened to bring him back, and in such a state.

  ‘Leave him,’ Luke said. ‘What he wants us to know he’ll tell us in his own good time.’

  But he did not. Neither then nor later did Kitty learn the details of Jem O’Connell’s last and obviously harrowing trip home. Remembering their conversation in the gardens, there was a lot at which she could guess but she, like Luke, respected Jem’s silence and did not question. Just once he spoke, bitterly and close again to tears, of the helpless vulnerability to hurt that could be inflicted by love, and it occurred to Kitty that his treatment at the hands of his mother and sister had deeply damaged an open and loving nature. It would be a long time, she thought, before Jem O’Connell would be ready to give his heart into the hands of a woman and once again leave himself open to such pain. His mother and sister had rejected him – how brutally could only be judged by the depth of his distress. Whatever had happened, it had driven him from home for good. He was on his way back to Paris, he told them, and this time to stay. ‘At least,’ he said with a flicker of a smile, ‘a man can drink himself to death there in good company and with no interference.’

  That possibility, a concerned Kitty felt, was not in fact as remote as could be wished. Not even the ravages that Jem suffered after that first spectacular bout of drinking that had left him unconscious on Luke’s floor could keep him from determined and almost self-destructive intoxication; she suspected too that he had discovered the doubtful pleasures of the Oriental waterfront bars, where more than alcohol was offered as a way to oblivion. His talent he wantonly neglected. In the three months between that unheralded and drunken arrival and his equally abrupt if slightly more sober disappearance just after Christmas Kitty never once saw him pick up a paintbrush. It surprised and hurt her more than a little that he left without saying goodbye, except by means of a brief, self-mocking little note in which he apologized for the outrageous inconvenience to which he knew he had put them and promised, sooner or later, to be in touch if and when he was ever sober again.

  ‘I suppose he’s gone back to Paris?’ Sadly Kitty fingered the pens and pencils he had left behind, which she had seen him use so often and with such skill. She had grown very fond indeed of Jem O’Connell and had found it painful to watch his degeneration over these past months.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ Luke folded and refolded the note, tossed it in the fire and watched it burn. ‘He has friends there, after all.’

  ‘He has friends here.’

  He said nothing.

  The anger of frustration and worry sharpened Kitty’s voice. ‘Some friends. Seems to me they’re the kind that will help him drink himself to death rather than hinder him!’

  He shrugged. ‘You have to let a man go his own way.’

  She lifted her head sharply at that.

  He did not notice.

  * * *

  It was an irony that, during those months that Kitty found herself helplessly watching as Jem drowned himself and his talent at the bottom of a whisky bottle, her own star had risen beyond any expectation or dream she had ever dared entertain. She had completed her first contract with Kenny and had signed another. She had been delighted and astonished to discover that she could now command a salary of thirty guineas a week – an absolute fortune to one who had once scrubbed floors for seven a year and worked a long hard day in Covent Garden for a shilling. She was able now to pay Pol a regular salary, and had found a niche too for Barton, as secretary, songwriter and general factotum. Matt, stubbornly, refused her help. He was unreservedly pleased for her and proud of her. But he would not join her. And finally she realized she would have to give up. Matt would do what he wanted, and nothing would stop him.

  To Luke’s amusement she still would not leave Pascal Road for more splendid accommodation. For her, the little house had become more a home than any she had ever had, and she needed nothing grander. She, Pol and Amy Buckley were the firmest of friends, living together in easy companionship. Number twenty-three was a haven for Kitty, a place where she could be herself and where warmth and undemanding affection were assured. Amy looked after their physical well-being with the skill and pleasure of a born mother – Kitty often felt saddened for her that there had been no little Buckleys to appear before her husband had died of fever the winter before. Pol was Kitty’s strong right hand, a happy combination of mother, friend, sister and maid, whose sense of humour rarely failed and whose loyalty was absolute. Kitty happily used some of her new-found wealth to make them comfortable; no longer did Amy Buckley have to scrape and save to provide a meal each evening. They ate and drank of the best. She bought comfortable furniture for the sitting room, a sewing machine for Pol. She filled the bunker in the back yard with coal. Just before Christmas she took Amy and Pol to the wonderful new showrooms of Messrs Swan and Edgar at Piccadilly Circus and bought each of them a fashionable new outfit as a Christmas present. She enjoyed spending money, and spend it she did.

  But
for every penny spent there was a penny saved. Kitty Daniels was never going to be poor again, on that she was determined. Her thrifty saving was, she knew, another thing that amused Luke. When she tried to pay him back the money he had paid to release Pol he grinned. ‘Put it in your moneybox, little miser. It means a lot more to you than it does to me.’

  Jem left them in January, with bitter winds scouring the city and Croucher and his mates working the ‘shatter dodge’ – begging, half-dressed and half-frozen in the winter streets. At this time the relatively new music halls were perhaps the most popular and expanding entertainment in London, and the prospect of fame and fortune upon its stage was no longer for Kitty simply a dream. Fortunes were being made overnight by those with the talent and the strength to exploit the possibilities. At the top of the tree a hundred guineas a week and more could be earned, and of course for a pretty girl the lure of a liaison, or even in some cases a marriage, with wealth and title, was the glittering lure that was to lead some to brilliant fortune but many more to disillusion and obscurity.

  Kitty had her admirers, and she learned very quickly to play the game that was expected of her with skill; but for her still the reality of her complex and often difficult relationship with Luke precluded the possibility of any other. And Luke’s reputation was such, she soon discovered, as to keep the most persistently amorous swain at bay, no matter what his place in society. But though the addiction of his powerful attraction still held her fast, their life together was far from peaceful, and at the beginning of a cold February they had a very typical quarrel, blown from nothing to something in a second and, once started, all but impossible to stop.

  Kitty was not at her best – she always suffered depression for a couple of days before her monthly period started, and the strain of performing on stage at these times inevitably stretched her nerves and shortened her temper. Their lovemaking that afternoon was brief and for her less than satisfying. She wished she had the strength at such times to explain, to refuse him, but though often she made the resolution she never carried it through. She lay on her stomach, her head pillowed on her crossed arms. When Luke spoke she stirred, a little sleepily. ‘Sorry?’

  He was sitting on the side of the bed pulling his shirt over his head, and his voice was muffled. ‘I said how long are you thinking of staying with Kenny at the Cambridge?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.’

  ‘Well, you should, don’t you think?’

  She swallowed the first stirrings of irritation. ‘I will,’ she said, mildly.

  ‘Soon.’

  Exasperated she lifted her head. ‘Luke – for heaven’s sake! I wish you wouldn’t lecture me! Do I go around telling you what to do and what not to do?’

  He paused, one foot poised above his trouser leg. ‘There’s no need to be so touchy.’

  ‘I’m not!’ she snapped.

  ‘I’m only trying to help.’

  She relented. ‘I know. I do know. But – as I said – the truth is I don’t know quite where I want to go from here. Pat wants me to extend the new contract—’

  ‘So he told me.’

  Firmly she quelled the renewed spurt of irritation the inference of the casual words aroused.

  ‘You could get more elsewhere,’ he said.

  ‘We don’t know that. I might get less.’

  ‘Not if you play your cards right.’

  She ducked her head again, not looking at him, praying for patience. ‘Luke – I’m not playing cards! I’m living my life. Or trying to. I don’t want to take too many chances too soon.’

  ‘I can understand that, I suppose, but you must surely see that—’

  She interrupted him. ‘The one who took the chance was Pat Kenny. I feel I owe him something. I can’t just up and walk off—’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  Her mouth clamped shut. The uncertain temper that so plagued her prompted words that she would not speak. In silence she sat up and began to dress with quick, angry movements.

  ‘Why not try Morton at the Canterbury?’ He seemed entirely unaware of her anger.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.’

  ‘If you aren’t ready now, you never will be.’

  Grimly she wrenched at outrageously expensive white silk stockings. Why were the damned things never long enough? Four petticoats were strewn, crumpled about the floor. Her heelless buttoned boots lay where she had kicked them off on the rug before the fire. Grumpily she scavenged for her clothes. ‘Perhaps later on in the spring,’ she said, sweetly reasonable.

  ‘Perhaps that will be too late?’

  That did it. ‘And perhaps,’ she said very precisely, ‘that’s my business?’

  He treated her to a long, cool look. She turned from him and began to struggle into the voluminous petticoats. She glanced at the clock that ticked quietly on the mantelshelf. In two hours she was due on stage. She was late.

  ‘You have to move on,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do!’ There was open challenge in her voice. Absurdly angry she struggled into the violet velvet, bustled daydress that seemed determined to fight her very inch of the way. ‘God! Why must women be so afflicted with buttons and bows and bloody trimmings? What’s the matter with this damned thing?’ She fumbled with the last of the fastenings, snatched the matching jacket from a nearby chair.

  He would not give an inch. ‘Kitty, do stop being so childish. We have to talk about this—’

  She straightened to face him. Shook her head. ‘No, Luke. We don’t have to talk about it at all. I have to think about it and I have to make a decision. This is my business. Mine! Do I try to tell you what to do? Do we hold a board meeting about every decision you take?’

  He made an irritated, dismissive gesture. ‘That’s different—’

  ‘It bloody isn’t!’ She stormed to the mirror, brush in hand, and with swift, angry movements swept her straight hair into a severe centre parting and pinned it into a bun at the nape of her neck.

  He watched her, and she saw in the mirror his effort at self-control. ‘Fair enough,’ he said, coolly.

  She said nothing. Cursorily she finished her sketchy toilette. Glanced again at the clock. ‘I’ll have to go.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Will you be there tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The chill was there, barely beneath the surface.

  She paused at the door. ‘Please yourself.’ She shut the door very quietly behind her.

  A dozen steps up the road she wanted to turn back. But she did not.

  (ii)

  In her oversensitive mood the quarrel, silly and slight as it was, upset her badly. That evening she was absent with Pol, downright distant with poor garrulous Barton. In her head, as so often, she argued with the absent Luke, finding too late the reasoned words that had earlier eluded her, firmly saying all the right things—

  ‘It’s almost time,’ Pol said.

  ‘Thank you.’ Why hadn’t she kept her stupid temper? How had she been reduced to such childishness? And why, oh why, couldn’t Luke learn that she had to be independent – didn’t need or want to be looked after like some kind of backward infant?

  ‘Miss Daniels. Miss Daniels. Five minutes, please.’

  She stood up, peered at her transformed self in the mirror, picked up her top hat and cane. Tonight she would speak to him. Tonight she would be all reason and charm, but she would make him understand. Tonight, when he came – if he came – she would, oh she would keep her temper—

  Two hours later she sat before the same mirror and knew that her resolutions had been for nothing. Luke was not coming. She felt restless now, and full of that strange energy that her stage performances seemed to generate within her. Despite her earlier depression and despite Luke’s absence she felt stimulated and exhilarated. The audience had loved her. She had taken three curtain calls. She could barely sit still now as Pol brushed out her hair, the
echoes of applause still filling her ears.

  ‘Went down well ternight from the sound of it.’ Pol brushed her hair with long, soothing strokes.

  ‘Yes.’ She leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to relax. Why should she care if Luke chose to sulk?

  ‘They liked the new verses?’

  ‘Loved them. I must remember to tell poor Barton. I’m afraid I rather snapped his head off earlier.’

  Pol smoothed the heavy hair with her hand, bound it into a loose knot. ‘What’s goin’ on ternight? You comin’ ’ome? There’s a cab waitin’.’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Luke’s’ – she hesitated – ‘busy.’

  Pol did not comment. ‘You could do with an early – ’oo the ’ell’s that?’

  The sharp rap sounded again at the door. ‘Mam’selle Daniels?’ An assured voice, heavily accented.

  Pol’s eyes met Kitty’s in the mirror, eyebrows raised. Kitty shrugged. ‘Be a dear – get rid of him for me?’

  Pol went to the door and opened it a crack. ‘Can I ’elp you?’

  ‘I wish to see Mam’selle Kitty Daniels on a matter of the most extreme importance. You’ll please tell her?’

  From the mirror Kitty gained an impression of a square, heavily handsome face, eyes of velvet brown beneath shining hair black and smooth as jet, and a picturesquely neat Imperial moustache and beard. The man’s accent was magnificently Gallic.

  ‘Miss Daniels isn’t available.’ Pol’s voice was brusque. She didn’t care for foreigners.

  ‘But no! I insist! I tell you I have something of very great importance to discuss with her—’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Pol said firmly.

  ‘But tomorrow, Mam’selle, may be too late! I really must see her—’

  Pol was having some difficulty in shutting the door. Kitty saw with some amusement the toe of a shining boot planted firmly in the opening.