Quarmy got to his feet, a half-eaten pie in hand. ‘I am a prince, sir. I can no more work my passage than sweep the streets! But I have not told you the half of it! Please, sir! Wait!’
There was much work to do: errands to half of London for Mother Hopkins, more clothes for Bella to be found for an Ice Ball in Mayfair. ‘Quarmy, I am sorry.’ Cato smiled a half-smile and slid between the benches of the pie shop and out into the street. He heard Quarmy calling after him and felt more than a little guilty. He turned round and saw the young man standing at the door, pie in hand. He yelled at the top of his voice, pointing at Cato with his half pie.
‘Cato Hopkins! I . . . I command you!’
The imperious sound of Quarmy’s voice carried down the street and Cato’s guilt rose up into the cold London air like a pauper’s breath and vanished. He turned and shouted back, ‘Sir Prince! I think you’ll find I’m not your subject!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
View Halloo
‘SORTED, MA!’ SAM said, putting his hands out to warm. There was a big pine log crackling on the fire, which scented the room and made Cato think of Christmas. ‘Bella will invite the Stapletons to Carfax this next Monday. And Jack gets to put the boots on again.’
‘Oh, those boots look better and better on my feet every time I wear ’em. I swear those Russkies know how to keep a body warm,’ Jack said.
‘Well, make sure you keep your mouth sealed shut. I don’t want a word – even a sound – out of your lips that will betray you’re from Islington Spa rather than St Petersburg.’ Mother Hopkins looked straight at Jack.
‘You can count on me, Ma. You’ll not hear a squeak,’ Jack said. ‘And Bella’s already told Elizabeth – you heard she calls her “cousin” now! – that I lost my tongue in a skirmish outside Pskoff. And she has planted the seeds of our investment opportunity.’
Mother Hopkins sucked hard on her pipe. ‘Tobacco,’ she said, leaning back. ‘The gold that grows on trees.’ She blew out a cloud of thick blue smoke.
‘It’s bushes, Ma, not trees,’ Sam said.
‘Bushes! Trees! It’s God’s own green leaves that turn to hard cash. And more modern than a playhouse gold mine. If you’d told me when I was your age, Cato, that we’d be playing a scheme with leaves, I’d have thought you soft-headed! Tobacco! Who’d think it?’
‘And the price in the London Exchange rises almost daily,’ Cato said. ‘People are mad – after all, you cannot eat or wear the stuff.’
‘You can’t eat gold either, Cato. That’s how it is, and our Bella – Ekaterina – is in London to purchase tobacco trading rights in the Baltic. She’ll make the whole deal seem unmissable. I’ve spoken to Joshua – Master Tunnadine – and he will be our broker. He’ll put a bad American wig on his bald Kentish pate and play a cove hot-foot from the colonies.’ Mother Hopkins smiled. ‘He’s as good a man as ever lived, old Joshua Tunnadine! He’ll paint up a picture so rosy the Stapletons’ll be waving their goree in the air and begging he’ll take it off ’em!’
For a minute, when she mentioned Tunnadine, Cato thought Mother Hopkins’s eyes misted over, but it passed instantly. He wanted to ask her about Newgate, and about himself, but there were too many people around, and Jack and Sam would only rib him about it. He sighed and inched closer to the warmth of the fire.
‘What’re you sighing for, Cato?’ Jack asked. ‘Lost love? Laziness, more like. I know you – you’re needing a bit more of the action. Or maybe you’re troubling yourself about tomorrow night?’
Cato sat up straight. ‘No, never! It’ll make a change from nights sat in while you lot gad about playing Russians.’
‘He wants a go of your boots, Jack,’ Sam said, laughing.
‘Wearing a pair of fancy boots is a deal easier than breaking into a body’s business. In the dark!’ Cato was indignant.
Mother Hopkins leaned down to where he was sitting by the fire and ruffled his hair. Cato pulled away and then, for a quick second, wished he hadn’t.
‘You’re a good lad,’ she said. ‘There’s not a boy in town could get in among Sir John’s accounts as fine or as fast as you. Addy’ll let you in by the area door and you’re to be in and out quicker than a dog down a rat hole. We know they’ll be at the ball with Bella till past midnight.’ Mother Hopkins looked hard at Cato.
‘Are you sure it’s not too much of a risk for nothing, Ma? I mean, we know they’re loaded,’ Sam said.
Mother Hopkins tapped the side of her nose. ‘There’s rich folk and rich folk, and there’s some that do a mighty good job of looking like rich folk. No point in us wasting our precious time taking down a pair of coves who are all front with nothing in the bank. What if all the cash went on that fancy house?’
Sam and Jack nodded.
‘And, Cato, mind you tell our Addeline our thoughts are with her. Now, you should get along to your bed and dream of barrel locks and Dutch teeth, or whatever it is those infernal things are called. And, Jack and Sam, have a mind to look for Bella. She should be at home now, not out gallivanting in borrowed clothes. You go and fetch her home please. Go! I need my thinking time.’
Cato got up in a hurry. Mother Hopkins liked her thinking time uninterrupted. He was climbing the stairs on his way to bed when he heard Jack and stopped still.
‘One thing, Ma, before we go. Old Ezra said as how he’d seen one leery-looking cove hanging about The Vipers like a bad smell the last day or so, and he was there again this afternoon when we came in from town.’
Cato stood stock-still on the stairs and listened as hard as he could.
‘Ezra said he was pacing about on the street outside like he wanted something badly but didn’t know how to ask, or, worse, like he was being paid to watch us. Although, if someone is paying him, it can’t be much on account of how he sticks out like a man looking for a wife down Haymarket. Blacker than Sam, he was, but with these patterns all over his face like he was, I dunno, like he was embroidered . . .’
Cato slipped into the area of the Stapletons’ house. His feet were chilled in his soft-soled slippers; under his coat his lock picks and tools were rolled up in a case of yellow leather. He knew the parish watchman was still on the far side of the square, where Sam Caesar had engaged him in conversation about the excessive number of foreigners working on the building sites that seemed to have sprung up in every corner of the city. He hadn’t bumped into Quarmy – and from Jack’s description Cato was sure it had been him hanging around outside The Vipers – even though he had spent most of the day watching out for him.
Cato knocked twice on the area door, firmly but softly. Addy must have been waiting there because the door was opened in a second. Cato tried not to gasp, because even in the pale moonlight that filtered down into the basement he could see she looked tired. Her shoulders drooped and the fierce set of her chin was somehow less fearsome. Even her hair was smoothed back into submission.
She put a hand to his mouth. ‘Don’t say anything. I know I’m a state.’
‘I never—’
‘Cato Hopkins, I can read your face quicker than you read a ballad sheet,’ Addy hissed. ‘I can’t wait till this damnable lay is done with. Whatever you do, Cato, never, ever go into service, not for all the gold in Threadneedle Street. Come on upstairs, and don’t tread on the fourth step up. It creaks like Mother’s bones on a rainy day!’
Cato followed Addeline silently up to the first floor, keeping his eyes on the familiar curve of her back. When they reached the landing, she opened a door for him and stood aside.
‘I’ll wait out here. If you hear any sound, you know the game’s up. And for God’s sake be quick.’ She leaned over and passed him a candle stub on a saucer, then kissed him. For a second Cato thought her face softened; he felt himself flush hot and was glad there was no light from the curtained and shuttered windows.
He heard the door close behind him and suddenly it was dark. He lit the candle and the room flickered into life.
Cato knew where to go: the sm
all blond-wood bureau with an inlaid pattern of a rose in darker wood. The outer door opened easily and he flipped the writing desk top down to reveal several small drawers and cubby holes. None of them moved and, to cap it all, there were no keyholes. Cato cursed under his breath.
He had heard much of these modern cabinets: no visible locks, but secret sprung mechanisms that opened to a touch, if you knew where to touch, that is. But he’d only ever seen one, only ever practised on one.
Cato took a deep breath and ran his hands under the drawers at the back of the desk. Nothing moved.
He leaned over and felt all around the back of the bureau, moving his fingers very slowly but with an even pressure. Suddenly he was aware of a depression in the wood, a place where he could press harder, and then there was the softest of cracking sounds before a deep, heavy drawer slid open under his eyes as if by magic.
Cato smiled. Sometimes there was no better feeling in the world than beating a lock.
Inside, a roll of papers, some envelopes sealed with carbuncles of red wax, navy leather-bound inventories of the house in London and the house in Hampshire, of the farms and estates in England and in the Caribbean; lists of acreage and cattle; lists of furniture, of paintings, silver and jewellery; and after all that lists of people, of Negroes, of men, women and children. These were only things to the Stapletons, just like the fine wooden bureau Cato sat at in the dark.
The names were numerous: Jupiter, Tom Turkey, Femmy, Oxford, Glasgow. Just reading them, Cato was aware of a knot growing in his stomach and he thanked God and Mother Hopkins that his life was not theirs.
He closed the inventory book. He had business. Quickly he flicked through as much as he could, looking for signs of bad debts, but there were none. The Stapletons’ wealth was solid as the dome on the new cathedral. Mother Hopkins would be pleased.
The door opened and Cato felt his heart jump up into his throat.
‘Are you done?’
It was only Addy, whispering.
‘You could have stopped my heart!’ he hissed back at her.
Addeline came inside and shut the door behind her. ‘Have you finished? Only I been counting – I got up to five hundred. You should be done by now.’ She sat down on a chair. ‘I am so tired.’
‘Nearly done.’ Cato shut the drawer and pushed the bureau back against the wall slowly and silently. ‘There. No one’ll know I’ve been,’ he said.
Addy yawned. ‘It’s not just the work, Cato! I miss The Vipers so much it’s like I feel sick to my stomach all the time.’
Cato thought she looked thin. ‘You must eat, Addeline. You need your strength. You’ll be home soon, you know that.’ He checked the desk was exactly as it had been. ‘And you can get straight to your bed now.’
‘You know, that’s the only comfort there is in this place. I tell you clear, I ain’t never working for no one in service ever, ever again.’ Addy pushed herself up off the chair and opened the door to the landing. Suddenly, from the street, there was a clattering of hooves and iron wheels. Addy ran back and looked between the curtains and out through the crack in the shutters.
‘Don’t worry, Cato, it won’t be for the Stapletons. That’s not their horses, nor their carriage neither.’
Cato nodded.
‘Hang on! The cove’s only getting down and coming here!’ She blew out the candle and the room was in darkness again. There were shouts from below and someone thumping on the front door as if their life depended on it. Cato and Addy froze.
More knocking and shouting. They could hear it from the first floor.
‘A message for the Stapleton household! Open up with all speed, I beg you! Good people, terrible news! News from the country!’
Cato looked at Addy, but there was so little light in the room he could only imagine her face mirrored the shock in his own. He took a deep breath. ‘He’s not going to come up here, Addy.’
But Addy just said, ‘Hide!’ and she was gone from his side. Cato felt his way around the room. There was a couch against the wall and he threw himself under it. He heard Addy slip through the door onto the landing and then a great deal of thumping and running up and down stairs. Whatever was happening, the whole house seemed to be awake now – ribbons of yellow light showed under the door, more footsteps thumped. He tried to turn and banged his elbow into the wall. Then it seemed like hours before he heard the handle turning; he held his breath until he was sure it was Addy.
She hustled him down the stairs and into the front area. Whenever he opened his mouth to ask her what was going on, she shushed him.
‘You have to go! The Stapletons are called home from the dance.’
‘But the coach. It’s in the square. Someone will see.’
‘I’ll go up first and talk to the driver – you run the other way,’ she said hurriedly.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Old man Stapleton is dead. Our Sir John’s a bleedin’ marquess now. They’ll be insufferable,’ she complained. ‘Come on.’
Outside it had started snowing. Addy let Cato out of the house into the silent square. The carriage was being led away into the mews and the falling snow made a useful curtain. It would be hard to see a boy slip through the area gate, and any footsteps he left on the new yellow stone pavement would be covered almost instantly. Cato found Sam Caesar waiting at the corner of the square and they both started walking briskly back to The Vipers. As they turned into Piccadilly, the Stapletons’ flash brougham pulled by matching greys passed, going the other way at double speed, one horse almost slipping on the frozen road.
‘They’re back in a hurry. What happened?’ Sam asked. ‘I saw the coach and pair arrive earlier – he was driving like he had a ghost on his tail.’
‘I s’pose he did, in a manner of speaking,’ said Cato. ‘Old man Stapleton, our Stapleton’s father the marquess, died this afternoon up in the country.’
‘Mother Hopkins won’t like it. She likes a lay to go nice and smooth.’
Cato pulled his coat close and hurried to keep up with Sam. ‘She can’t stop the dead from dying though. And look on the bright side – they might be swimming up to their necks in even more cash!’
Sam was quiet for a while before he spoke. ‘So much cash that a couple of fields of tobacco won’t mean so much as a fig. And they’ll be so busy with the mourning and that, they won’t want Bella spouting cod Russian in their ears.’ He sighed.
Cato thought Sam might be right, but he didn’t answer. There was a knot in his middle just below his ribs and above his stomach. This lay was on the wrong road for success, he was sure of it. He wanted it all to be over and done with and Addy to come home. He shivered, and it wasn’t just the thickly falling snow.
The streets were still busy enough that no one paid them any attention, and the snow meant no one stopped to wonder what two young black men were doing out at this ungodly hour.
Cato was more pleased than usual when they turned the corner into Great Queen Street and saw the lights burning in the windows of the Nest of Vipers. The snow had begun to settle and The Vipers’ sign creaked under the extra weight.
It was a relief to be home. Cato stamped the snow off his feet and took himself upstairs. Mother would be waiting and he’d have to break the bad news, but at least there’d be a warm drink and a hot fire.
Upstairs, Mother Hopkins was sitting in her chair by the fire. The smell of tobacco filled the room, but through the smoke Cato could see that the look on her face was dark as thunder. Maybe she’d heard about the death – or perhaps it was worse: Bella had been unmasked; the magistrates had put her in the Westminster lock-up and were on their way.
He looked at Sam, neither of them wanting to speak first.
‘There’s news, Mother,’ Cato said as he took off his jacket. ‘Old man Stapleton is dead—’ He stopped.
‘We’ve company,’ Mother Hopkins said, and suddenly Cato realized he was looking at Quarmy, sitting by the fire in the upstairs room of The Vipers, firelight
shining on his skin as if he’d sat there all his life.
‘And more than that,’ she said. ‘Master Tunnadine is called back to Kent.’
No wonder she looked grim, Cato thought.
Mother Hopkins refilled her pipe. ‘And if the old marquess is dead, in one night our world is changed, turned upside down. All plans must be remade. We’ll need more than the promise of another fortune to reel these fishes in.’
It was hours later when Cato led Quarmy down the stairs and out of The Vipers. Although it was not yet dawn, the city was beginning to wake up, the first rattles of market traders pushing barrows west to Covent Garden. The snow that had fallen all night made everything seem clean and sparkling, as if London was a place where only good deeds and kind thoughts flourished. All the dirt and sin scoured clean away – or rather covered in a blanket of shining white. The reflecting snow gave the still-dark early morning a strange lightness, an unearthly, unreal glow, and the harsh cold sent those poor souls who slept in doorways straight to heaven or hell.
Quarmy was tired but walked out into the street, head held high as if reviewing his courtiers rather than making for Soho Square. He turned and waved.
‘I knew Mother Hopkins would help,’ he said.
Cato wanted to answer that all was not over yet, and counting chickens before they were hatched was always a bad idea. He bolted the front door behind Quarmy and made his way back up the stairs. Addeline would be getting up, lighting the fires, as he made for his bed. Too much had happened in one night. Not only was there a death in the Stapleton family, but Master Tunnadine would no longer play the inside man for them, the tobacco baron home from Virginia with investment opportunities a-plenty. His wife had heard he might be falling in with his old, and not entirely straightforward, lifestyle.
Quarmy had brought the bad news that Tunnadine had gone and then petitioned Mother Hopkins. He wanted help with his schoolmaster, who was refusing his daughter’s hand in marriage while holding onto his funds so Quarmy could neither return to Africa nor set himself up in London as he wished.
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