Upon hearing the news, Kitty was once more victim to a confusion of feeling. For Luke she cried; but then, looking at Michael, who gurgled happily in Pol’s arms, she could not deny a lift of pure relief. Two years’ reprieve. Two years of safety. Two years in which to decide what to do for the best. And surely, in those years Luke might come round to seeing that what she wanted for the child was for the best?
She took it as a good sign that he did not want to see her – she knew through Pol that on the rare occasions that permission for visits could be obtained Lottie it was that went with Spider. She was astonished and disgusted with herself at the faint stab of jealousy she found that could still cause. And though the thought of Luke incarcerated, humiliated, probably – for she knew too well his pride and his temper – ill-treated, haunted her, yet still that small glimmer of relief burned steadily. Though she would not have had it for such a reason, he was kept from her and from Michael, and for that she could only be grateful. As the months passed the imminent threat of him faded. Almost she persuaded herself of what she wanted to believe – this was the turning point, this would show him that she was right and he wrong. Luke Peveral, now, was surely out of her life forever. Meanwhile once again she was doing very well. Hardly a month went by without the offer of an engagement. Barton set to work on some new songs and one of them, the saucy story of a raffish young sailor with a girl or two in every port, rivalled The Dipper in popularity and the broadsheets sold in the streets of London outside every theatre.
By Christmas and Michael’s first birthday she was once more well established upon the London stage and starting the long climb back. In January Charles paid a fleeting visit but she would not at that moment be tempted back to Paris. By all accounts La Ville Lumière was as glittering and as enticing as ever – yet she was surprised to hear of strikes and unrest, of ragged marchers in Haussmann’s wide boulevards and of effigies hung from lamp posts as to the strains of The Blue Danube the cream of Paris society still danced beneath the brilliant chandeliers of the Tuileries.
Charles dismissed it all, as he dismissed the growing unneighbourliness of a unified and belligerent Prussia, with a characteristic shrug and a dismissive click of his fingers. ‘What do they know, the rabble? No, chérie – Paris has no worries, France has no worries – if that opéra-comique German Bismarck sticks his fat belly over our borders we will stick him like the pig he is and send him back to his Emperor. Come back to Paris, Kitty – she waits with open arms.’
But Kitty would not be tempted. Indeed there was more than one very good reason for her to stay in London. Michael was settled and happy, she herself was gaining very quickly an immense popular following, and – most exciting of all – Patrick Kenny, who by now was doing extremely well for himself, was talking of commissioning a musical play, the very latest in popular entertainment, with Kitty playing one of her already well-loved characters in the leading role. The lure was irresistible.
By the summer of 1869, a year after the bombshell of Luke’s arrest, plans were well under way and Kitty, nervously excited, was busy preparing herself for the venture that could be the final making of her. Once again she was financially independent – almost obsessively she saved every penny she could, for her own future and for Michael’s. Eventually she planned to buy a small house in Hampstead for herself, Amy and the boy; but for now she was content with Pascal Road and the gruelling work of preparing for the new show.
The play – a musical adaptation of a vastly popular book about a gutter-urchin whose unlikely generosity to an old beggar-woman led him on to even more unlikely fame, fortune and the hand of a duke’s younger daughter – opened in September to faint praise from the critics and standing room only in the theatre. The audiences loved it. The critics might say what they liked; night after night the house was packed and the curtain came down to roaring, stamping pandemonium. Patrick Kenny had a runaway success on his hands, and he was astute enough to know who to thank for it.
All at once the world was at Kitty Daniels’ feet. She was wined and dined and squired about town as again the ‘Johnnies’ queued at her door. On only a couple of occasions did her loneliness and the physical needs that she so stubbornly tried to ignore get the better of her common sense. The first was a light-hearted affair involving a baronet’s penniless and utterly charming second son who persuaded her one evening to join him in a splendid meal for which he had not the means to pay and then – having accepted with guileless grace her offer to foot the bill – amused her so well that, happily and just once, they made love on the floor of his garret amidst champagne and laughter.
The second was of rather more moment and taught her a lesson she did not quickly forget. A handsome young actor, tall and dark, joined the company, and within weeks his attentions and apparently slavish devotion had aroused emotions she had foolishly believed long dead. For an infatuated month she imagined herself in love with him, and though she found their first lovemaking obscurely disappointing, still she could not take her eyes from the dark, handsome face, nor her attention from the movement of his long, slender hands. For weeks she blinded herself to weakness and petulance, to self-centredness and sheer unkindness – until the day when, with a shock that took her breath away, she recognized the root of her infatuation in his physical resemblance to Luke, which she had not allowed herself to see before, and the young man’s short reign was over. She was much more careful after that.
The show ran through Christmas and into the spring. As a treat for Michael’s second birthday she took him, with Amy, to the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park, a treat that was really a little beyond his baby years but which entirely enthralled both Kitty and Amy. They peered up at the bizarre giraffes and down at the gruff sealions, exclaimed at the hippopotamus, declared the anteater magnificently ugly and were astounded by the great African elephants, Alice and Jumbo, who had for the last eighteen months been the zoo’s greatest attractions. As they laughed at the antics of the chimpanzees a woman recognized Kitty, and as a small crowd gathered she was prevailed upon to stand on a bench and lead them all in the Great Vance’s popular music hall song, Walking in the Zoo Is the OK Thing to Do. As she sang, at the back of the crowd she saw a tall dark man, a child of about Michael’s age sitting astride his shoulders, tiny hands buried fast in the father’s hair as gently the man’s hands steadied the boy. She brushed impatiently aside the small twinge of pain that the sight brought, but yet was subdued as the hansom clopped steadily back to Paddington through the gaily decorated and crowded Christmas streets. It was Luke’s second Christmas in prison. The question could not be had he changed, but – how had he changed? And somehow, the innocent joy was gone from the day at the thought. And yet, for all her regrets, her resolve remained. Luke should not have Michael. The child was hers. He was growing into a bright, happy, handsome little boy. Never – never – would she allow the stain of Luke’s fatherhood to shadow his life or his future.
And when she prayed, which admittedly was not often, she prayed, often with a lamentable lack of faith, that Luke would accept that.
The one disappointment in a life that on the whole moved on smoothly and successfully was that she heard not one word from Jem. She wrote several letters, none of which were answered. Neither Charles nor Genevieve, with whom she corresponded regularly, had seen or heard anything from or of him. It was as if the man she had kissed so perfunctorily and left on the quayside that day, the man who had shared with her those strange, magically timeless months by the slow-moving waters of the Lot, had disappeared without trace. For months she worried, and then, caught in the exigencies of a frantically busy life, gradually she forgot. Jem had turned up unexpectedly before, undoubtedly he would do so again. But yet she was a little hurt that such a good friend should so desert her.
It happened that Lottie too, in Luke’s enforced absence, had had some small measure of success and for that, despite their mutual dislike, Kitty was glad. She knew from Pol, who often cared for Poppy, that whilst Luke was in prison Lot
tie was living in his idiosyncratic home – and no doubt, Kitty thought acidly, had every intention of remaining there when at last he returned. Kitty noticed Lottie’s name occasionally on the supporting list of a handbill of one or other of the smaller theatres, but professionally their paths never crossed, and for that she was profoundly grateful.
There was, too, an unwritten law concerning the small world of Pol’s kitchen – if Pol ‘happened’ to mention to Kitty that Lottie intended to visit Kitty made sure she was elsewhere at the given time. Yet, strangely and ironically, their two children were fast friends, since on many occasions it would happen that Pol with Poppy and Amy with Michael would spend a happy day together.
‘It’s a downright pleasure to see them kids together,’ wise Pol said one day to Kitty. ‘Get on like an ’ouse on fire they do. Brings little Poppy right out of ’erself it does. Poor young mite. Proper little mother she is, given ’alf a chance—’
And so, living from day to day and with a growing sense of security, Kitty found that life had settled into a happy and successful routine.
Until Luke came home.
* * *
It seemed to her that, contrary to all her hopes and expectations, he came straight to her, the stink of Newgate clinging to him still. His changed appearance was a shock in itself: always slim, he was now skeletal. Against the grey prison-pallor of his swarthy skin the angry red welt of a scarce-healed new scar cut across his left cheekbone. The long soft hair was gone and in its place a dark cap of shorn bristles that starkly outlined the shape of his skull. There were new, bitter lines too in his face, etched deeply at the corners of his mouth. And yet still, undeniably, the immediate and maddening magnetism of the man was there, despite his forbidding appearance and the obviously now habitual grim expression on his face. The first sight of him stopped her breath and set her heart thumping erratically in her throat. He came to the little house in Pascal Road on a June morning when she was playing with Michael in the sunshine of the tiny back garden that Amy kept as neatly and tidily as she kept the parlour. On sturdy little legs the child toddled after the ball she threw, tumbling like a puppy on the grass, squealing with delight as she swept him up into her arms.
‘Little tinker! Don’t try to ran so fast! You’ll—’ She stopped, frozen, clutching the child, who struggled impatiently to be put down.
She fought her treacherous emotions, and won. ‘Luke,’ she said, very calmly, and took not one step towards him.
He stood in the shadows of the kitchen doorway, Amy hovering anxiously behind him. His eyes were fixed upon the child in Kitty’s arms.
‘Down!’ Michael squealed, imperatively. ‘Down, Mama!’
Very, very carefully she set him upon his uncertain feet, but kept his hand protectively in hers. Catching sight of Luke he drew back, clinging to his mother’s skirts, his dark eyes huge, wary, but not altogether unfriendly. In his small world very little had ever actually threatened him.
‘He looks like Matt,’ Luke said, his voice oddly remote. ‘And – a little – like me.’
She swallowed. ‘Yes.’
He stepped into the sunlight and with an unexpected stab of pain she saw the brutal changes in him.; saw too the harsher line of mouth, the savagely stubborn set of jaw and knew with sinking heart that prison had neither weakened nor gentled Luke Peveral. She took a deep breath, trying to quell the fear that rose in a cold tide within her, and in defence against it spoke crisply, as if this disturbing near-stranger were a casual acquaintance she had seen mere days before. ‘How are you?’
He half-shrugged, his eyes still upon the child. ‘As you see,’ he said, indifferently.
In the tree above them a bird sang, the sound cascading about them, sweet as honey, piercing through the traffic sounds from the road outside.
She stood in silence, waiting, her hand fondling her son’s dark head.
He lifted his eyes to her at last. ‘You look well.’
She nodded.
‘Mama—?’ One eye still upon the tall, intriguing stranger, Michael swung upon her hand, sure of her attention. With the deft easy movement of much practice she swung him onto her hip. Once safe in his mother’s arms the child stuck his thumb in his mouth and regarded Luke with large, curious eyes, no longer intimidated.
‘Time for your rest,’ Kitty said firmly, and stepped past the intently watching Luke to Amy. ‘Amy – would you take him for me?’
‘’Course.’ With manifest relief Amy relieved her of the child, and with one swift apprehensive glance at Luke disappeared into the house.
Kitty turned. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked with commendable composure, aware of the absurdity of the everyday question in this far from everyday situation.
The faintest glimmer of the old wry amusement crossed his face and was gone. ‘No,’ he said, and then, ‘thank you,’ awkwardly enough for Kitty to wonder how long it was since he had spoken those words.
‘We have a little port if you would prefer? I’m afraid we don’t keep anything stronger in the house.’
He shook his head, faint impatience in the movement.
‘So.’ She folded her arms across her breast, forced herself to look steadily into the intolerant eyes. ‘Tell me. What do you want?’
‘We have to talk.’
She let a small silence develop, her eyes steady. ‘About what?’
‘About the child.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘And I say yes.’ Face and voice were implacable. The dark cloak of violence hung about him. To Kitty it seemed that his every movement, his every glance, threatened danger. ‘He’s my son.’
‘In no one’s eyes but your own.’
‘You cannot keep him from me.’
Fool she had been! To believe he might change, that he might listen to the voice of reason – why, oh why, hadn’t she taken Michael away while the going was good?
From the alleyway that ran behind the wall at the bottom of the garden came the sound of voices, laughter, hurrying footsteps.
‘I say what I said before.’ She kept her voice low. ‘You shan’t have him. He’s mine.’ Try as she might she could not keep the betraying tremor from her words.
He stepped to her, catching her wrist, his grip calculatingly and cruelly painful. ‘Listen to me. I will have him. And you with him. No child of mine shall be called bastard. You’ll save yourself a lot of sorrow if you admit it now rather than later. I’ll see you dead – you hear me? – dead – before you escape me. You think you can fight me? Try it—’ Roughly, and before she suspected his intention he pulled her to him, grinding his mouth savagely upon hers, kissing her with no trace of tenderness, no attempt at gentleness, but with the awful, pent-up hunger of two long, harrowing years. For a fatal moment she could not fight him, caught helpless on the sudden and shockingly unexpected wave of a desire that equalled his. For the briefest of moments she acknowledged her body’s craving for him and gave way to the bitter excitement of his angry embrace.
Neither of them heard the back gate open, but they heard the deliberate slam of its shutting. Luke stepped back from Kitty, his face still a white blaze of rage and hunger.
‘Well,’ Lottie said, quietly vicious, ‘so now we know, do we?’ Pol stood beside her, her good-natured face a picture of bemused disbelief, Poppy’s small hand in hers.
Kitty licked her bruised lower lip and tasted the salt taste of blood. In a spasm of self-disgust she dashed her hand across her face, scrubbing at it.
‘Well?’ Lottie’s hard-held control was breaking. ‘Bloody well?’
No one answered.
Fury lending her an unusual courage, Lottie flew at Luke, screaming like one demented. ‘What d’you think yer doin’? Eh? You think yer can throw me over now – fer that?’ She all but spat the word in Kitty’s direction. ‘Oh, no yer don’t! Not now – not after all this! I sticks by you, an’ this is what I get fer it? Oh, no! Not this time! I’ll tell you this – I’ll see you with yer thr
oat cut – you ’ear me? – I’ll see you dead an’ buried – before I’ll see you go to ’er!’
For a moment Kitty thought Luke would strike the shrieking girl, and she took a swift half-step forward. But Luke, simply and violently, brushed past Lottie, sending her reeling into Kitty, before he strode with no backward glance through the gate, leaving it swinging gently in the soft breeze behind him.
In the stunned silence left by his going, Poppy sobbed incoherently, clinging for comfort to Pol’s hand.
Pol dropped to one knee beside her, put an arm about the child. ‘All right. It’s all right. The bogeyman’s gone.’ She sent a look of dry dislike towards the gate that still swung slowly upon its hinges.
Kitty had caught Lottie to steady her. Now the girl tore herself from her hands and turned on her like a small, frenzied animal. Kitty saw her arm go back but was unable to avoid the wild blow the girl aimed at her, and Lottie’s open hand cracked painfully across her already bloodied mouth.
‘Oh, no!’ Pol left the crying child and leapt forward, dragging Lottie back. ‘We’ll ’ave none o’ that, my girl! Ease off there—’
Lottie struggled for a moment but was no match for plump Pol’s strength. She subsided at last, spitting hatred at Kitty. ‘You wait! You just wait! I’ll get you – you an’ your bleedin’ brat – if it’s the last thing I do on this earth! You shan’t ’ave ’im! You shan’t! Luke Peveral’s mine, if ’e knows it or not—’
‘Lottie, for God’s sake—’
‘’E’s mine – you ’ear?’
‘Lottie – I don’t want Luke.’
Lottie stared at her, the lovely face made ugly by spite and hysteria. ‘’Oo you tryin’ to kid, me or yerself ? I got eyes, ain’t I? I bloody saw you! If that’s the way you are when you don’t want ’em, you slut, what do you do when you do? Bleedin’ eat ’em?’
‘Lottie!’ Pol exclaimed.
But Lottie was far beyond hearing. ‘You bin nothin’ but soddin’ trouble since the day you came – you an’ that no-good bastard brother of yours—’ Kitty was horrified at the depths of loathing in the blazing eyes; it seemed to her to verge upon madness. ‘Walkin’ in, makin’ out yer don’t shit the way the rest of us do – takin’ my friend – takin’ my job – takin’ my Luke!’ Tears were streaming down the ravaged face as she sobbed out the venom of her rage and jealousy. ‘Well yer soddin’ brother finished up dancin’ on air, an’ good riddance, an’ so will you!’
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