She ran into the dining room. A pile of newspapers were folded neatly on a side-table, waiting for her father. Hannah glanced at the date on the top one. It was four days old. She grabbed the whole pile and hurried back to the sitting room.
The one hot coal was barely glowing. Hannah peeled a tiny strip of newspaper, and laid it gently over the coal. She didn’t want to smother it any more than she already had. The edges of the paper glowed red, then suddenly a flame sparked into life, and, just as suddenly, was gone. Hannah tore off another strip, a longer one, and tried again.
‘Catch,’ she muttered. ‘Catch.’
She wasn’t sure if she were talking to herself or to the fire. She ripped off an entire page of newspaper, and scrunched it into a ball. She poked it into the fireplace, snuggled up against the hot coal. It smouldered, then went up in a sheet of yellow flame.
Nearly an hour later, Hannah had used up four editions of the Morning Post, and two of The Times. She sat back on her heels, exhausted but satisfied. It was not the cheery, lively fire that normally burned in the grate, but the lopsided arrangement of coal was definitely producing heat. Hannah brushed the coal dust and scraps of newspaper from her nightgown. Her stomach growled. It was time for breakfast.
She made her way down to the kitchen, feeling rather pleased with herself, and found a stale loaf of bread, a dish of butter and a knife.
Back upstairs, Hannah sat in one of the chintz armchairs, chewed on the hard bread and considered her predicament.
There were no servants. No food. The fire was burning now, but for how much longer? There was only so much newspaper in the house.
She had no money of her own – her father bought her anything she wanted. He said it was vulgar for a woman to handle money. Not ladylike, he said. Inappropriate. But perhaps Papa would have some money in his room.
His tallboy contained yards and yards of unstarched white linen, ready to be pressed and folded into elaborate neckties. There were also some strange linen articles that Hannah could only assume were undergarments. Blushing, she replaced them hastily, and turned to her father’s dressing-table.
It was covered in little pots and jars with the most enticing names. Pomade de Neroles was a dark, crumbly substance that smelled of violets. Olympian Dew was clear and sticky like honey. Liquid Bloom of Roses was red and waxy. Pearl of India was a fine white powder, delicately scented.
There were also nail-scissors, shaving equipment and other implements too strange to guess their uses. Hannah was astounded that such a handsome gentleman needed so many accessories.
There was no money.
***
The man who lay in the corner kept Hannah awake all night with a rasping, choking cough that made her throat hurt just hearing it. The next morning, he was sweating profusely, and shaking at the same time. Someone tried to give him a drink of water, but he wouldn’t swallow. He took to sleeping in the darkest corner of the cell, shielding his eyes from the light, and moaning and muttering to himself as he shook and convulsed.
After two days, a red, angry rash appeared on his chest, and spread rapidly over the rest of his body. The other inmates kept as far away from him as they could, covering their mouths with scraps of fabric. A doctor came and forced a slippery silver liquid into the man’s mouth, but he showed no sign of improvement.
On the fifth day, he was dead.
five
Scatterheart and the white bear travelled a long, long way, until they came to a castle, high up on a white mountain. In Scatterheart’s chamber there was a bed as white as you can imagine, with silken pillows and gold fringe. The bear told her she could go anywhere in the castle or its gardens. But there was one place she could not go. In the garden there was a great white wall of ice, with a little door set in it. Scatterheart was never to open that door.
***
Hannah stayed in the cell for twelve days. Each day when the turnkey came to dump the bucket of scraps on the floor, Hannah would plead with him to let her speak to someone in charge. The turnkey ignored her until the sixth day, when he saw the dead man in the cell. He immediately backed away, digging in his pocket to find a handkerchief, which he held over his mouth and nose. He barked a command, and two burly men appeared. They entered the cell, kicking aside sleeping prisoners. The women simpered.
‘Fancy a tumble, mister?’
‘I bet you dance the featherbed jig very fine, sir.’
‘Come on, love, let’s blow the grounsils!’
The men ignored them, and bent over to pick up the dead man. His head lolled to one side, and a string of saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth. As his head fell back, his eyes stared straight at Hannah. She let out a small scream. The dead man’s head rolled back the other way as he was hoisted up between the two men. Hannah climbed over the sleeping bodies to the door of the cell.
‘Please,’ she said to the turnkey. ‘I’m not supposed to be here.’
Hannah felt dizzy from hunger and fear and exhaustion. She touched the turnkey’s arm.
‘My name is Hannah Cheshire,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘I’m a gentleman’s daughter. I’m Quality. You know I don’t belong here.’
***
Hannah was in the sitting room, half-heartedly working on her embroidery, when she heard the knocker rap three times on her front door. Papa was home! She raced into the hallway and wrenched the front door open.
It was not Papa. It was Thomas. He loomed out of the sickly fog, his shoulders hunched against the cold.
He took his hat off when the door opened, then blushed madly and looked away when he saw Hannah still in her nightdress. Hannah wrapped her shawl around herself. He wore the red coat and brass buttons of a marine.
It made him look different. Younger, and at the same time more grown up. A part of her wanted to burst into tears and tell him about everything that had happened, but something stopped her. He had been so … forward last time. So inappropriate. Arthur Cheshire would have called it vulgar. Thomas Behr wasn’t like her. He wasn’t a person of Quality.
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘I want to know if you’ve thought about my offer.’
Hannah sighed. ‘Good day, Mr Behr.’
She moved to close the door, but he threw out an arm and stopped her.
‘Hannah,’ he said. ‘Please. There is a bounty on your father’s head. If he returns to London he will hang.’
The fog slithered about them.
‘Listen,’ said Thomas Behr. ‘I don’t have much time. I have a new job. As an officer in the New South Wales Corps. But our ship leaves the day after tomorrow. I’ve spoken with my commanding officer, and I’ve been granted leave to bring you with me, but we have to be married.’
‘You can’t seriously think I would consider this,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘When I marry, it will be to a gentleman of Quality. My husband would never even dream of suggesting something as vulgar as taking me on a boat, to a prison on the other side of the world!’
‘It’s a ship, not a boat.’ Thomas Behr grinned at her, and despite herself, Hannah smiled back.
‘Come on, Hannah,’ he said. ‘It’ll be an adventure! Like Robinson Crusoe!’
His eyes shone. She imagined them together on a ship, the wind rushing through their hair as they sailed over an ocean that sparkled grey like his eyes. For a moment, she believed him. It would be an adventure. Then she remembered who she was.
‘Robinson Crusoe,’ she said, ‘was shipwrecked for twenty-eight years, and encountered savages, captives and mutineers. Hardly appropriate company for a young lady of Quality.’
‘Who cares about appropriate?’ said Thomas. ‘Think of the adventure! Who cares about Quality?’
‘I do,’ replied Hannah. ‘I care.’
‘So you’d rather stay here and marry old Harris.’
Hannah thought about Mr Harris’s sweat stains, and his moist fleshy lips. And she thought about his big house in Grosvenor Square, and his chai
se-and-four.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I would.’
Thomas took a step back, confusion and hurt on his face.
‘Really?’ he asked, his voice suddenly very quiet.
Hannah felt as if something were dying inside her, like a candle was being snuffed out.
‘Really,’ she said.
‘Hannah,’ said Thomas. ‘He wouldn’t have you, not anymore.’
For a moment, neither of them said anything. Hannah could barely stand to look at him. It was like he could see right through her, into her heart. The expression on his face frightened her. It was so raw, all hurt and angry and all sorts of other things that Hannah didn’t understand. She wanted to reach out and touch his pink cheek, feel his ridiculous messy straw-hair under her fingers. She shivered.
‘Let me help you,’ said Thomas.
The fog rolled away in whirls and billows.
‘I don’t want you, Thomas.’ She closed the door.
***
‘Cheshire?’ The turnkey looked at her. ‘Not Arthur Cheshire’s girl?’
Hannah found herself weeping with relief. Finally, someone knew who she was. He could explain the mistake to everyone, and she’d be free to go. But where? a niggling voice inside her wanted to know. She shook it away. She curled her fingers around the turnkey’s sleeve.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m Arthur Cheshire’s daughter.’
The turnkey shook her hand from his arm. ‘Then you belong in here as surely as night follows day,’ he said. ‘Criminality descends, you know. And your father was a criminal, all right.’
Hannah closed her eyes. Even the turnkey thought her father was a villain. It must be true.
The two men shuffled past, the corpse swaying between them. The turnkey slammed the door.
‘Cheshire, eh?’ said Long Meg’s voice behind her.
Hannah turned around. There was a strange expression on Long Meg’s face. It seemed almost … respectful. Hannah sniffed, and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
‘My papa is a gentleman,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘A good man.’ She wasn’t sure if she believed it anymore.
‘Well,’ said Meg. ‘I don’ts know if he’s a good man, but he sure is a good–’ she paused and took in Hannah’s tear-stained face, ‘gambler.’
Hannah drew herself up. ‘You don’t know my father,’ she said.
‘Poppet, every girl in London Town knows your daddy,’ chuckled Meg. ‘Quality or no.’
***
‘Everyone in London knows of Arthur Cheshire.’
Hannah froze. She was still in bed. There was someone downstairs. Unfamiliar voices in the hall.
Snatches of conversation drifted up to her.
‘…Catch him, he’ll have cotton in his ears.’
‘…dine on a hearty-choke an’ caper sauce…’
‘…a right tangerine…’
The words meant nothing to Hannah. She listened to them walk from one room of the house to another, the floorboards creaking under their feet. She wondered why she hadn’t thought to lock the front door, then realised she didn’t know where to find the key.
It was not until she heard their tread on the staircase that she looked around for a place to hide. Their voices grew louder and more intelligible.
‘Well, if Newgate doesn’t get ’im, it’s only a matter o’ time before one of ’is cent per centers does,’ said one voice, harsh and common.
‘They say he’s been in dun territory for nigh on five years. Five years, and not so much as a monkey to his name.’ The other voice sounded more educated, but didn’t have the sophisticated air of a man of Quality.
The other man laughed. ‘A monkey? Poor fellow doesn’t even ’ave a pony. Pockets to let, ’e does.’
They reached the top of the stairs, and Hannah dropped to the floor and wriggled under her bed. The stench of her chamber pot, unemptied for many days, was almost unbearable. Her stomach heaved, but she bit down hard on her bottom lip. She thought about screaming for help, but who would hear her? All their neighbours had left town, and wouldn’t return until the Spring.
‘Terrible rake,’ said the second voice, as they entered her room. ‘Look here, this is a girl’s room. They said he had a daughter, but I didn’t believe it.’
Hannah’s heart beat so loudly that she thought they must be able to hear it. What would happen if they found her?
The first man swore. ‘Keepin’ a young lady in this kind of sit-choo-ashun? Where’s ’er mama, then?’
‘Died,’ said the other man, shortly. ‘Just as well, really. They says he only married her for the money. He was flashing his screens and chasing bits of muslin about town before she was cold in the grave. Now he’s drowning in vowels. If he comes back…’
‘A babe in the woods,’ said the first man morosely.
‘Pity about the girl, though.’
The other man spat. Hannah saw it land, not two feet away from her face. It glistened there, wet and shining.
‘Well she ain’t ’ere. Come on then, we’ve seen enough. Let’s go tell Jones, before we both end up punting on the river Tick.’
The men left the room, and Hannah listened carefully as their footsteps grew fainter. It was only when she heard the front door bang that she allowed herself to breathe again. He only married her for the money, they’d said. Her father didn’t mention her mother often. Hannah had always assumed that it was because his heart was still broken from her death. She remembered him describing how beautiful she was. Didn’t that mean he had really loved her?
She lay on the dusty floorboards, waiting for her heart to calm down, and for the trembling in her hands to subside. He must have loved her. He loved Hannah, after all, didn’t he?
Hannah crawled out from underneath the bed, and brushed the dust off her nightgown. She caught her reflection in the mirror. A pale, frightened face looked back at her.
Food. She needed food. She combed her father’s room again for money, but found nothing. So she selected her least favourite necklace from her dressing-table, and wrapped it in a linen handkerchief. She would have to sell it.
Hannah dressed herself with difficulty – she had never done it unassisted before. She found a clean linen corselet, lacing it clumsily behind her. Then she pulled on a pair of flesh-coloured pantaloons that reached to her ankles, warm woollen stockings and a flannel petticoat. Next, she selected her warmest dress – a pale pink gown made of fine wool and trimmed with lace. She struggled with the buttons, her fingers cold and stiff.
She pulled on a full-length, fur-trimmed pelisse in dark green, and a pair of kidskin ankle-boots.
She pulled a brush through her tangled hair, but it kept getting stuck. She tried to yank it through, but it pulled on her hair so hard that she yelped, and tears started to her eyes. She put down the brush and worked at the knot with her fingers. She remembered a story Mr Behr had told her about Alexander the Great cutting through an intricate knot with a sword. She thought about the little silver nail-scissors she had seen on her father’s dressing-table, but decided against it. She didn’t want to ruin her hair. Papa was so fond of it.
Once the knot was finally loosened, Hannah attempted to pin her hair into place. The pins slipped from her fingers, and more than once she stabbed herself in the head with their sharp ends. By the time she had finished, one of her fingers was bleeding, her head ached, and her jaw was clenched to keep her from crying. Hannah dabbed a little scent behind her ears, and pulled on warm gloves.
Finally, she clipped on the sapphire earrings her father had bought her, and admired her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was a little askew, and her pelisse did not sit quite right, but overall she looked like any young lady of Quality.
She dropped the necklace into a pink satin reticule, daintily embroidered and beaded in green. She lifted a velvet bonnet from its stand, and tied the strings under her chin. She tucked her reticule under her arm, and, almost as an afterthought, put Thomas Behr’s handkerchief in her p
ocket. Then she swept from her room, down the stairs and out the front door.
She stood on the front step for a moment. It was the first time she had been outside – really outside, not just into the garden – for nearly two months. The fog hung thick and heavy over the deserted street, as cold and empty as the house she had left behind. Her cheeks and nose burned with cold. She pulled the door closed behind her and took a step forward. The hunger gnawing at her stomach pushed her on.
She thought about Scatterheart and the white bear. Are you afraid? he had asked her.
Hannah plunged into the fog.
***
six
Scatterheart was happy for a while, doing as she pleased, and dressing in fine silks and jewels, but soon she turned lonely, silent and sorrowful. She only saw the white bear at dinner-time, and all day she was alone. She began to wonder what lay behind the little door set in the wall of ice. So, one day, she ventured out into the garden.
***
On her twelfth day in the cell, Hannah woke covered in sweat. It was raining heavily outside, and the room was damp. Hannah’s stockings were full of holes. Her hands shook. Today she would attend the Sessions.
‘Gentlemen of the court,’ she muttered to herself. ‘A series of misfortunes and calamities…’
She ran her trembling fingers through her hair, splashed some cold water on her face. Her dress was no longer a delicate pale pink, it was now an indiscriminate greyish-brown. But she smoothed it as best she could, and bit off the loose threads that hung where the lace had been ripped off. The other inmates watched her with some amusement, but made no effort to smarten themselves up. Long Meg was in a corner with Black Jack, giggling and whispering as if it were a day like any other.
Hannah scratched at her louse bites absently as she waited for the turnkey to arrive. The bites were red and angry-looking. Her heart pounded, and she felt a little light-headed from the lack of food and water. She drew Thomas’s handkerchief out from inside her dress, where she kept it safe from thieving hands. It was now filthy, but she held it tightly.
***
Hannah followed the dim orange haloes of the gas lamps, which seemed to be suspended in mid-air, their lampposts obscured by the yellow murkiness. She turned right down Oxford Street.
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