“CALAMITY!” the figure shouted.
Someone else was leaning out of an upstairs window, banging copper pots together.
“Call the Thieftaker! We’ve been robbed!”
“Is that …” She could not be sure. “Is that the Cloakmakers?”
“Come on,” Sam muttered, pulling Cordelia away down a side street. “Let’s not get tangled up in all that.”
“That’s two robberies,” Cordelia panted, jogging beside Sam as he marched along. “Us last night and now them this morning! Do you think it was the same person?”
Sam frowned. “Prob’ly.”
They passed the Glovemakers on Henrietta Place. Cordelia glanced at Glovemaker House (which was actually two identical pink houses, side by side) and wondered how such a sweet-looking home could contain such odious children as the two sets of Glovemaker twins.
Sam shuffled his newspapers back into a neat stack. “This looks like a good place ta hawk a bit more bad news,” he announced.
“I’ve got to go,” Cordelia said. “With or without Goose, I’ve got to get to Wapping!”
“Bye, Cor!” Sam called after her.
As Cordelia hurried away down the street, she heard Sam shout, “GETCHA SLAPP ’ERE!”
CHAPTER 16
CORDELIA SMELLED THE DOCKS AT WAPPING before she saw them: the tang of tarry ship’s rigging combined with the muddy reek of the Thames.
A girl selling cockles from a handcart swerved around her, sailors heaving heavy sacks stumped past. Mules brayed, complaining, as they hauled wagons loaded with barrels. Cordelia goggled at the sheer volume of goods being carried in and out of Wapping. It seemed everything that came into London came through the docks.
She wove through the crowds and out onto the quayside. Moored at the wharves were several huge ships. They were ocean-going vessels, their enormous bodies stirring like sleeping giants on the tidal swell of the river.
Sailors whistled instructions to each other as they winched crates from the decks to the dockside. Girls sang ditties to advertise their wares.
“Fresh briny winkles!”
“Sugarcane of Caribbee!”
“Baccy from the New World!”
“Excuse me!” Cordelia called up to a sailor, lounging on top of a bale of cotton the size of a carriage. “Which way to the sickbay?”
The sailor pointed, and Cordelia pushed through the crowd. The sickbay was nothing more than a ramshackle shed. Inside, she found coils of thick rope stacked by the door and masses of slimy rigging abandoned in tangled heaps.
“Hello?” she called.
The air was stale and stifling. A dirty old piece of canvas sail was draped over a railing to make a curtain. She reached out toward it—
“ARRR!”
Cordelia jumped. Something stirred in the shadows. She squinted into the darkness.
Asleep, splayed on a pile of rope, was an old seadog. He was a man, not a dog, but he was so grizzled and unkempt that Cordelia immediately felt he should be thought of as a seadog. She peered at him. He clutched a bottle to his chest and twitched in his sleep.
“RAR … arrr,” he growled, huddling down into his rope-nest.
She considered waking him, but thought it was probably best to let sleeping seadogs lie. She pulled aside the sail-curtain and there, in a bed made from shipping crates and old sacking, lay Jack Fortescue: the cabin boy from the Jolly Bonnet.
Cordelia had last seen him scrambling up the rigging to the crow’s nest. Now he lay, small and still, his sleeping face puckered in a distressed expression.
“Jack?” she whispered.
She crept to his bedside, glad she had brought something for him. From her basket she took out the slab of fruitcake she had stolen from the kitchen and unwrapped it.
“Jack?” she whispered again. “You awake?”
She held the fruitcake near his face, hoping the sweet smell would wake him up.
“Jack?”
She wafted it under his nose but he did not stir. She shook him gently. His body was heavy like a sack of flour. Her heart started to pound. The cabin boy was in a deep sleep—too deep.
“JACK!” she shouted, shaking him harder. “WAKE UP!”
She looked around desperately. Perched on a nearby barrel was a jug of water and a small, dark bottle that looked like medicine. She snatched up the jug and threw the contents on Jack’s face.
“WATER!” he wailed, lurching upright. “WATER!” His face was dripping wet and terrified, his mouth a black O gasping for breath.
“It’s all right, Jack! You’re all right!” Cordelia cried.
“TOO MUCH WATER!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she said, sobbing. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Everywhere! It’s everywhere!” Jack scrabbled frantically, as though he was trying to fight a great wave bearing down on him.
“You’re safe!” Cordelia whispered. “You’re safe!”
She caught his arms and held them steady. His breath came in shuddering gasps. She looked into his frightened eyes and tried to smile in a reassuring way.
“You’re all right, Jack,” she murmured. “You’re safe, you’re on dry land. See? Here, I’ve brought you some fruitcake.”
He clung to her as if she was saving him from drowning. His ragged gasping calmed a little, but he was still delirious.
“Jack?”
He blinked woozily at her and collapsed back onto the sacking. “In the drink,” he muttered.
Cordelia nodded. The drink was what sailors sometimes called the sea.
“I know you were, but you survived,” she said soothingly.
He shuddered and closed his eyes.
“I know this isn’t an ideal time to talk about this,” she said, stroking his hand gently. “But it’s really important. It’s about my father, Captain Hatmaker.”
Jack’s eyes snapped open. “Hat—Hatmaker! Captain Hatmaker!”
“Yes!” Cordelia cried, hope and fear shooting through her belly. She was on her feet. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”
Jack was agitated, struggling to sit up. “Cor—Cor—” he stammered. “Dil-ly!”
“Yes! It’s me! Can you tell me where Father is?”
Jack reached a shaking hand into his shirt. He pulled something out, burbling words Cordelia could not fathom. He was clutching a leather tube. She reached for it, but he swung it wildly to the side. The medicine bottle fell to the floor and smashed. A dark, bitter smell burned Cordelia’s nostrils.
“Oh, no!”
Exhausted, Jack dropped the leather tube onto his lap.
“For you,” he murmured. “From him.”
And he was asleep.
From him. For her! Cordelia snatched up the leather tube. It was heavier than it looked, capped at one end, and still damp from the sea. Fingers trembling, she pulled off the cap and tipped the tube upside down.
A shiny brass instrument slid out onto the bed. It was her father’s treasured telescope! He carried it at his side whenever he was on board ship.
She picked it up. The hands that had last held this instrument were her father’s. But why had he sent it to her?
“It must be a message,” she whispered. “Or some kind of sign?” She paused, almost expecting it to speak its message to her.
Carefully, she put her eye to the spying end of it. The pile of ropes near the bed was so close she could see the individual strands in the coarse twist of hemp. She took her eye away and blinked.
It was, as far as Cordelia could tell, just a normal telescope. All her hope and fear and excitement were ebbing away, leaving her empty and confused.
She put it back to her eye and swung it around.
“YAARRR!”
Bared yellow teeth and one popping eye!
“AAH!” Cordelia jerked the telescope away from her face. It was the old seadog. He stood swaying beside the dirty sail, his single, bloodshot eye fixed on Cordelia.
“What’s this, missy?” he rasped.<
br />
Cordelia caught a whiff of stale rum. “I—I’m his sister,” she invented. “I’ve come to visit him.”
The seadog tilted his head woozily. “Arr.” He caught sight of the broken medicine bottle on the ground and kicked it. “Blast. He’ll be in a bate ’bout it.”
“Is he going to be all right?” Cordelia asked, tucking the telescope safely out of sight inside her jacket.
The seadog swiveled his eye toward her.
“The sea does strange things to folk,” he muttered, before turning and lurching back past the sail-curtain. She heard glugging, then rattling snores a moment later.
She gazed down at Jack’s sleeping face.
“You know the truth, I’m certain of it,” she said softly to him. “But it’s all swirled up inside your head at the moment.”
“Cordelia!”
She swung around.
“Miss Starebottom!”
It was her governess, looking very out of place in her prim gray dress among all the rotting ship’s equipment.
“What on earth are you doing here, child?” she cried. “When Master Bootmaker told me that you were likely on the way to Wapping, I barely believed him. Nevertheless, I hurried here as soon as I could!”
Miss Starebottom picked her way delicately through the slimy ropes, looking around in disgust.
“This is no place for a young lady, Miss Hatmaker!” she said, pinching her nose closed. She took a pretty bottle out of her purse and sprayed Cordelia liberally with lavender water.
“Am I—in—trouble?” Cordelia coughed as the sweet scent tickled her throat.
“Oh, yes, you are in a great deal of trouble,” Miss Starebottom confirmed. “But I am at least happy to have found you before something dreadful happened. Come along—I’m taking you home. I have a phaeton waiting.”
Cordelia hesitated. She had been so close to finding out the truth about her father. She looked from her governess to Jack.
“Can we bring him with us?” she asked. “He needs looking after.”
Miss Starebottom peered at the sleeping cabin boy.
“He looks rather grubby,” she said disapprovingly. “You can ask your aunt when we get home.”
“But he needs looking after now! He’s sick!” Cordelia insisted.
Miss Starebottom raised one eyebrow. Cordelia knew this warning sign—one eyebrow meant Danger ahead, while two eyebrows meant Too late.
“Please?” Cordelia begged, in spite of the eyebrow.
In answer, Miss Starebottom took Cordelia’s hand and pulled her toward the door. The seadog snorted awake as they passed, but the governess emptied her entire bottle of lavender water on him and he collapsed in a cacophony of coughs.
Miss Starebottom whisked Cordelia out of the shed and along the docks toward the phaeton. They were going at a very unladylike pace indeed, but Miss Starebottom did not appear to care.
CHAPTER 17
AS THE PHAETON TURNED UP WIMPOLE STREET, Miss Starebottom cleared her throat delicately.
“Of course, today is Tuesday,” she said. “And technically I am governess to Master Bootmaker today. Therefore, I could not possibly have been in Wapping with Miss Hatmaker.”
Her eyes twinkled conspiratorially. Cordelia grinned and tapped her nose.
“Not a word, Miss Starebottom. I promise.”
The carriage rolled to a halt and Cordelia jumped out.
“Good luck,” the governess whispered, rapping the side of the carriage. It whisked her away down the street.
Cordelia bounded up the front steps of Hatmaker House and threw open the door.
“Aunt!” she called, galloping through the hall and up the stairs. “Aunt! Where are you?”
Aunt Ariadne appeared in the workshop doorway, holding a steaming kettle in her hand.
“There you are!” she exclaimed. “You’ve been a terribly long time! Do you have the Mellow Daisies?”
“What?” Cordelia had forgotten all about collecting Mellow Daisies. “Oh! No—I didn’t get any. But, Aunt, there’s something much more important! I found Jack Fortescue. He’s alive—he’s in Wapping!”
Uncle Tiberius appeared, frowning.
“You’ve been to Wapping?” Aunt Ariadne said.
“Yes!” Cordelia said breathlessly. “Cos the princess told me—”
“Jack Fortescue?” Uncle Tiberius rumbled.
“Yes!” Cordelia was impatient to tell them about him. “But he’s sick. He needs looking after, and not by a seadog who smells of rum.” Her aunt and uncle stared down at her. Their slowness was infuriating. “And he knows something about my father. He can tell me how to find him, I am absolutely sure of it!”
Cordelia’s whole body and soul were tensed.
“Jack survived the wreck?” said Aunt Ariadne.
Cordelia nodded. She felt her eyes widen, pleading.
“And now he’s in a sickbay in Wapping?”
“It’s more of a shed than a sickbay,” Cordelia said.
“We must fetch him here and nurse him back to health,” Aunt Ariadne said decisively. “Go and tell Jones to ready the carriage.”
Cordelia’s soul soared. She flew back down the stairs, tore through the kitchen and out into the mews behind Hatmaker House. “Jones!” she shouted. “Ready the carriage!”
She rushed back inside and began to collect things that she thought Jack might need for the journey—a blanket, the rest of the fruitcake, a bottle of milk.
“You won’t be going, Cordelia,” Aunt Ariadne told her. “I need you to tidy the workshop. It’s in a terrible state after the robbery. An unruly workshop makes for unruly hats. We can’t have an unruly Peace Hat on the princess’s head. That would make for an unruly peace.”
“But—”
“Jones is perfectly capable of collecting Jack without your help.”
Very reluctantly, Cordelia bundled her collection of supplies into the carriage, gave Jones detailed directions to the sickbay in Wapping and waved him off.
Aunt Ariadne ushered her upstairs. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, Dilly,” she said. “And I’ve got to start steaming the felt for the new Peace Hat while your uncle goes to collect those Mellow Daisies.”
Cordelia sighed and rolled up her sleeves. She began by tidying away all the buttons and beetle wings that had been thrown to the floor in the mad search for the missing hat. She had not had time to go up to her room to put her father’s telescope away, so it poked her in the ribs as she worked.
What does it mean? she wondered, untangling a muddle of wriggly ribbons. Why did he give the telescope to Jack to give to me? What for?
Tidying the workshop took a very long time, although Hatmaker House did give Cordelia a little help with her chores. Her aunt did not approve of the ingredients or cupboards in the workshop getting “too involved” in Hatmaking, but when she was out of the room, the bobbins helpfully rolled around on the floor, neatly re-spooling their Dwam Threads. A flock of feathers drifted back up to their places on the wall and some Risible Mushrooms hopped back into their box of their own accord.
“Thank you,” Cordelia whispered to them, just as her aunt marched back into the workshop with Uncle Tiberius behind her, arms full of Mellow Daisies.
“Don’t forget my filing system, Dilly!”
Uncle Tiberius’s filing system was extremely complicated and involved about a thousand small sandalwood boxes all labeled with tiny writing. You could not simply put an azure-blue Moonwing feather into a box that said:
Feathers
Or even:
Feathers ~ Blue
You had to find exactly the right box, which in the case of an azure-blue Moonwing feather was the box inscribed:
Feathers ~ Blue ~ (strong, light)
Avi-ornithological ~ Northern Europe
Tranquil ~ Lunal ~ Phoenix Rising
Dream-Benevolent ~ Aspect-Providential
Silver-mark Felicitous
✷✷✷☾
The little
diagram of stars and a moon on the label meant something important.
Squinting at the spidery writing, Cordelia felt it would be a lot more fun to Make a hat using pure instinct, rather than consulting all the tiny labels and poring over books for hours before starting. But she did not think it wise to suggest this to her uncle, whose frustrated sighs ruffled the silence as he tried to weave an uncooperative strand of Concord Moss into a hatband.
Cordelia put the seashells back in their saltwater tank, polished the Sooth Crystals and laid them carefully in their velvet-lined box, swept the floor (the ticklish floorboard shivered as the broom touched it), and rearranged the wooden hat blocks on the shelves. But she was still nowhere near coming up with a sensible answer to the question of the telescope.
When he’s feeling better, Jack will be able to tell me why he sent it, she thought. And where Father is.
But Jones was still not back from Wapping with Jack.
Cordelia pressed her face to the window. It was getting dark. “They should have been back ages ago!” she said.
Her uncle shrugged, weaving the last flower into a delicate Mellow Daisy chain. Aunt Ariadne looked up, pink-faced from the steam. She wiped her damp forehead.
“Well done, Cordelia,” she said. “Beautifully tidy.”
Cordelia nodded. “Much more ruly.”
“Ruly?”
“You said it was unruly before,” Cordelia reasoned. “So now I’ve tidied it, it must be ruly.”
Cook rang the supper bell.
Cordelia fidgeted at the kitchen table. She tried to concentrate on eating, but every carriage that rolled down the street made her jump up and run to the window.
“Cordelia,” Aunt Ariadne barked the ninth time it happened. “Please sit down.”
“It’s really them this time!” Cordelia cried, rushing to open the door.
Cook was already dishing up a bowl of stew for Jack, but Jones came inside alone.
“Where is he?” Cordelia exclaimed.
Jones shook his head, took his hat off and slumped down heavily on the bench.
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