Birdie blinked. She was about to mumble her thanks when a horrible thought struck her. ‘I never said I were orphaned just to get more cake!’ she protested. ‘I ain’t no cadger, ma’am!’
‘No, of course not. That is to say, while I’ve no idea what a cadger might be, if it is in any way wicked or dishonest, I’m quite convinced that you’re nothing of the sort.’
‘Yes, but—’
her head, so that her ringlets bounced like coils of wire.
‘Take it, dear.’ Mrs Heppinstall smiled and bobbed Then she leaned towards Birdie and with a twinkle in her eye murmured, ‘I’m not fond of plum cake, but Edith will have it. Our cook’s next cake will be an almond one.’
‘Birdie!’ It was Alfred, calling from the front doorstep. Birdie flashed a grin at Mrs Heppinstall and ran to join him, clutching her slab of plum cake beneath the folds of her little yellow cape.
‘So I shall meet you tomorrow at three o’clock,’ Miss Eames was saying to Alfred, as Birdie dodged past her. ‘Near the sewage outfall at the bottom of New Gravel Lane, in Shadwell.’
‘Aye, but . . .’ Alfred hesitated for a moment before feebly protesting, ‘It ain’t no place for a lady, miss.’
‘I shall wear clothes appropriate to the task,’ Miss Eames promised. ‘There will be a lot of mud, I know.’
Alfred glanced at Birdie, who saw the appeal in his eyes. So she piped up, ‘Them docks is as rough as fustian, miss. If you dress like a lady, there’ll be hell to pay.’ Seeing Miss Eames wince at the word ‘hell’, Birdie flushed and said, ‘Begging yer pardon.’
‘They don’t like toffs in Shadwell,’ Alfred confirmed.
‘You should buy yerself some slops,’ Birdie went on, thinking of all the bedraggled petticoats and moth-eaten jackets for sale in the slop-seller’s stall near her own house. ‘Or borrow one o’ Mary’s dresses. And don’t take a cab. Not to Shadwell.’
‘I’ll – I’ll take an omnibus,’ Miss Eames stammered.
‘As far as Commercial Road,’ Birdie agreed. ‘But on no account ask the way, or you’ll make a mark o’ yerself. Stay mum till you find us.’
‘If you find us,’ Alfred muttered, as a parting shot.
Birdie followed him down the front steps. When she turned back to wave at Miss Eames, however, she suffered a pang of remorse. Poor Miss Eames looked so anxious!
‘Don’t worry, miss, we’ll keep you safe,’ Birdie promised. ‘There ain’t a soul on the docks would cross a bogler, for fear o’ what he fights. Once you’re with us, you can do all the talking you want.’
Then she offered Miss Eames a wink and a grin before racing to catch up with Alfred.
6
THE COLLAR
‘Birdie! Hi! Come ’ere!’
Birdie stopped and glanced around. She was picking her way along a narrow, busy street, carrying a covered basket full of cooked tripe. To her left was a jellied eel shop. To her right was a slop-seller’s. Peering through a stream of pedestrians, Birdie caught sight of the slop-seller, Emma Bridewell, waving at her.
‘Birdie! Come see what I got!’ Emma cried. ‘It’s the prettiest article I ever laid eyes on!’
Birdie hesitated for a moment, but the lure of the old clothes was too strong. Emma’s shop was so thickly hung with garments that its walls were barely visible. Coats, capes and gowns dangled above her head. Battered boots were lined up near the door. Piles of handkerchiefs spilled from a wooden tub.
Emma herself wore a skirt and blouse much drabber than most of the items she sold. She was a stout young woman with a slight limp and eyes permanently inflamed by her dusty, musty stock. ‘Look at this here collar!’ she was saying. ‘Real point lace, fine as fine! Did you ever see such piecework?’ She darted forward to arrange the collar around Birdie’s neck, then thrust Birdie towards a spotted mirror hanging by the shop door. ‘There, now! Ain’t you a picture? That’ll dress up any frock, no matter how plain.’
It was true. Though slightly torn and yellow, the collar made Birdie’s soiled cotton dress look almost like a ball gown.
‘How much?’ Birdie asked, gently fingering a knotted leaf.
‘For you, dear, only a shilling.’
‘A shilling? Why, I could buy a pair o’ wool trousers for ninepence!’
‘But this is point lace, Birdie – real point lace, same as royalty wears.’ Emma whipped the collar off Birdie’s shoulders and held it up to the light. ‘That’s silk, that is. Handmade. Feel it. There’s ladies in the West End would be glad to pay a florin for quality stuff like this.’
Birdie thought briefly about Mrs Heppinstall’s white lace cap. Then she shook her head. ‘I ain’t got the chink,’ she said ruefully.
‘Ninepence-ha’penny. That’s me last offer.’
‘No.’ Birdie turned away. Her visit to Bloomsbury the previous afternoon had exposed her to a whole new world of daintiness; for the first time she found herself pining after lace and fresh flowers and gold-rimmed teacups. But she knew that such things were beyond her reach. ‘Lace is for ladies,’ she told Emma, averting her eyes from all the silk and satin on display. As she moved off down the street, she reminded herself that Miss Eames, for all her elegance, wouldn’t know what to do with a bogle. A bogle wouldn’t be discouraged by clean, polished surfaces or well-aired rooms. It wouldn’t be bribed with plum cake, or repelled by reasoned argument. When it came to bogles, a lady’s only defence was someone like Alfred – with someone like Birdie at his side.
‘Oi! Birdie McAdam!’
This time the voice hailing her didn’t belong to a shopkeeper. It belonged to a skinny, undersized boy with snapping dark eyes and so much thick, black, shiny hair that his head looked too big for his body. His name was Jem Barbary, and he was a thief. Birdie had seen him about. Unlike most of Sarah’s lads, who tended to be rather pale and quiet, Jem was lively, restless and quick to talk.
He wore a shapeless cloth cap, an oversized flannel shirt, and striped canvas trousers torn off at the knee. Birdie had always judged him to be about her own age.
‘They say you bin mixing with toffs,’ he remarked, with a teasing grin. His teeth were surprisingly good. ‘Prancing about in hackney cabs, I heard.’
Birdie sniffed. She had paused for a moment, but didn’t like being jostled by the crowd. So she began to move on again, anxious not to be seen conversing with a known pickpocket.
Jem kept pace with her, dodging hawkers and porters and piles of manure. He was very quick on his feet. ‘I got a job for you,’ he said. ‘Unless you’re too high and mighty to be chasing down work, nowadays?’
‘I know what you call a job,’ Birdie rejoined, ‘and don’t want no part of it.’
‘Are you sure? For it’s bogling work.’ Jem smirked as Birdie stopped in her tracks. ‘That’s right,’ he went on, lowering his voice. ‘Sal’s acquainted with a feller named George Hobney. He’s the night porter at Hackney workhouse, and will turn a blind eye to what goes in and comes out, if you know what I mean.’
Jem waited, searching Birdie’s face with a bright, penetrating gaze. Since he had just confessed that Sarah Pickles was having goods smuggled in and out of an institution specifically designed to feed and house paupers, he may have been expecting Birdie to comment. Birdie, however, was speechless. Any mention of the workhouse always silenced her, because she feared the place as much as she feared prison. From what she could tell, the workhouse was almost as bad as prison. The food was supposed to be dire, the work punishing, and the discipline much too strict.
Birdie knew that she might have ended up in a workhouse, if Alfred hadn’t plucked her out of the Limehouse canal. And she also knew that she wasn’t safe, even now. One stroke of ill luck and she could easily find herself destitute again. If Alfred should die – or if he should one day tell her that she was too old to act as bogle-bait – and if she didn’t then find work as a matchgirl, or laundress, or clothespeg maker . . .
With a shudder she dismissed the thought, turning her attention
to what Jem was saying.
‘There’s four children gone from Hackney spike, and now the workhouse well is beginning to stink,’ he revealed. ‘They dragged it and found nothing. No bones. No clothes. The master claims it’s proof them children hooked it, on account o’ there’s allus kids running away from that place. But certain people in the workhouse think otherwise. They think it might be a bogle as took ’em. And when Sal heard, she told George to hire a Go-Devil man.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Birdie asked suspiciously, edging away from a coster’s donkey that had halted in the middle of the street. ‘Why not speak to Mr Bunce?’
‘I tried,’ Jem countered. ‘He ain’t at home. I just come from there.’
‘He’s at the pub,’ Birdie had to concede. She still didn’t like what she was hearing, though. ‘Why would Sarah Pickles want to tout for Mr Bunce? She ain’t never done it previous to this.’
‘She says it’s by way o’ payment. For any help she’ll need finding her boys as went missing.’ Jem’s face darkened suddenly, and he looked away. For the first time Birdie noticed the graze on his chin and the dark smudges under his eyes.
‘Did you know them kids?’ she queried.
Jem gave a nod. Studying him, Birdie couldn’t help remarking, ‘You should be careful, then.’
‘Hah!’ Jem scoffed. ‘Ain’t no bogle fast enough to catch me.’
‘Mebbe it weren’t no bogle as took ’em,’ Birdie pointed out. ‘Don’t you think it’s queer they was all working for Sarah Pickles?’
Jem scowled. ‘You’d better stow that kind o’ talk, if you want a quiet life,’ he snapped, ducking to avoid a wooden beam that was balanced on the head of a passing porter. Though the warning unnerved her, she shrugged off the threat with a fine show of confidence.
‘I’m just saying as how you should mebbe give up the work, since it’s so perilous,’ she said.
‘And do what?’ Jem sneered. ‘Sell chickweed? Round up stray hogs?’
‘At least it would be honest toil.’
‘So that’s what you’ll be doing, is it? When you get too old for bogling?’ Jem’s taunt was accompanied by another sly smirk, which annoyed Birdie so much that she set off down the street again.
Jem followed her. ‘A prig can be any age,’ he continued. ‘Ain’t no one too old for hoisting or tooling – which is a sight easier’n killing bogles.’
‘I ain’t no thief,’ Birdie spat.
‘Are you sure about that?’ As Birdie halted again, glaring at Jem, he added, ‘What is it the parsons say? Summat about not casting the first stone?’
As his gaze slid towards her basket, Birdie’s stomach seemed to turn over. With a gasp and a start, she twitched aside the cloth that covered her purchases – and almost fainted.
Emma Bridewell’s lace collar was sitting on top of the tripe.
‘It’s a mortal shame you don’t have the chink to buy what you want,’ Jem taunted, as Birdie tried to think straight. How had he done it? Or had someone else done it, while Jem was distracting her . . .?
‘You was the decoy!’ she blurted out, as white as salt. Looking around frantically, she caught a glimpse of Charlie Pickles, who was ducking behind a nearby dustman’s cart.
‘That weren’t too clever,’ Jem observed. Though his tone was breezy, he couldn’t quite meet her eye. ‘If I was you, I’d hook it and stay low. On account o’ the dealer knows you, and how much you like such baubles—’
‘Oh, the dealer knows me, all right! She knows me better’n you do!’ Birdie swung around and began to retrace her steps, ignoring Jem’s frantic jabbering. He was telling her that it wasn’t worth risking arrest. He was telling her that Emma Bridewell knew where she lived, but would never find her if Sarah Pickles took her in. He was telling her that if she joined up with Jem and his mates, she could have all the lace collars she wanted . . .
‘Emma! Hi!’ Birdie called, having spied the slop-seller through a screen of moving bodies. As Emma glanced around, Birdie pressed forward – and Jem suddenly melted away into the crowd.
‘Why, whatever’s the matter with you?’ Emma stared at Birdie, who was flushed and panting, with a distraught expression plastered all over her face. ‘You got a fever?’
‘I didn’t have nothing to do with it, Emma! It were them lads as took it!’ Birdie thrust the lace collar under Emma’s nose. ‘And now I’m bringing it back!’
‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’ the slop-seller asked.
Birdie’s jaw dropped.
‘Did Jem give it to you?’ Emma went on, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘He’s proper smitten, that lad.’
‘Y-you mean – you mean – he bought it?’ Birdie stammered.
‘And beat me down on the price. But I’ll not hold it against him.’ Leaning down, Emma put her mouth to Birdie’s ear. ‘You should take it, love, in all good conscience. Don’t turn up yer nose at a gift o’ the heart. Them tokens’ll stop coming to you soon enough! And Jem Barbary’s got the makings, beneath all his bluster . . .’
As she talked, Emma gently guided the scrap of lace back into Birdie’s basket. Birdie, meanwhile, stood stiff and mute, so angry that she could hardly breathe. She felt like hitting someone. But mixed in with the anger was a kernel of fear. Could Sarah Pickles really be so desperate to recruit her? Had Sarah’s three missing pickpockets left a gap so large that she was willing to use a thinly veiled threat to secure Birdie’s services – even at the risk of offending Alfred?
I can’t tell Mr Bunce, she thought, on her way past a coal-merchant’s shop. He’ll give Sarah what for, and then she’ll get back at him secretly. She’ll do worse’n plant stolen goods on him . . .
Not that the collar was stolen. But it could have been; that was the point. Sarah’s warning was clear enough. She was saying that she could force Birdie to thieve for her. A well-placed scrap of silk, planted by a deft hand, could put Birdie in danger of arrest – even imprisonment – unless Sarah stepped in to help.
I’ll have to be on me guard, Birdie decided. I’ll have to make sure she don’t take advantage of me or Mr Bunce. I’ve faced down bogles; I can deal with an old toad like Sal. Why, if it comes to that, I’ll tell police she killed her missing boys!
Turning into her own street, Birdie paused for an instant, scanning every shadow for a trace of Jem or Charlie. Though she couldn’t see them, that didn’t mean they weren’t out there, watching her.
Just in case they were, she tossed the lace collar into a puddle of mud and marched away with her chin in the air.
7
LOW TIDE
A dozen young scavengers worked regularly around the coal wharf at Shadwell. From the banks of the River Thames they picked up iron, coal and copper, wood and canvas, old lengths of rope and lumps of fat. Sometimes they found coins or antiquities. If they were lucky, their labours earned them a shilling a day. Each.
Even after pooling their funds, they hadn’t been able to collect more than four shillings to pay Alfred for killing the sewer-bogle that appeared to be stalking mudlarks along the river flats. Luckily, Bill Crabbe, the tosher, had come to their rescue. Bill had seen the sewer-bogle. Though he’d caught only a glimpse of it, he was keen to make sure that he didn’t see it again.
‘Ah’ve three children work the sewers, and didn’t raise ’em to fill the belly of no grindylow,’ he told Alfred, as they stood gazing down at the river. ‘So ah went to t’other toshers hereabouts, and we stumped up half a crown between us. For there’ll be no peace without this thing is nobbled – and right quick, besides.’
Bill was a small man, very thin and yellow, with a bad cough. Despite the heat of the day, he was well wrapped in a tattered oilskin coat over a wool vest and flannel shirt. He had met Alfred and Birdie at a well-known riverside public house, and from there had guided them to the site of ‘the little lad’s doom’, as he called it. This was a patch of mud near the very end of Wapping High Street. It was a strange place, busy yet desolate, flanked by a wa
ll of warehouses on one side and a forest of ships’ masts on the other. Empty boats littered the mud flats, which smelled very bad in the summer sun. Toiling among the jetties were men too preoccupied to notice a small knot of idlers who were nodding and pointing at the mouth of a nearby drain.
This drain was a perfect bolthole. It lurked behind a barricade of casks, barges, broken crates and coils of rope. There was enough foot traffic to guarantee a steady supply of food, yet all the business of the riverbank would serve to distract people in the immediate neighbourhood. Frightened screams would be masked by the cries of coal whippers and ballast heavers. Brief scuffles would be concealed by overturned keels or piles of fishing nets.
Birdie shuddered as she peered at the rank, boggy, cluttered stretch of riverbank. ‘That’s a sad spot to meet yer end,’ she observed to the boy standing beside her, who nodded, but said nothing. His name was Ned Roach. Having been entrusted with the mudlarks’ share of Alfred’s fee, he had tagged along with Bill Crabbe to make sure the money didn’t go to waste. Birdie wasn’t quite sure what to make of Ned. She thought he was probably about eleven. Though plastered with filth and missing a couple of teeth, he was pleasant enough to look at, with his sturdy build and springy brown hair. But he didn’t have much to say for himself. At first Birdie had wondered if he was deaf and dumb – or just stupid. Only after he had corrected one of Bill’s statements about the afternoon tides did she realise that he wasn’t stupid at all.
He was either afraid of boglers or suspicious of them.
‘Did you know the two missing lads?’ she asked him, keeping one eye cocked for Miss Eames.
He answered with a nod.
‘What names did they go by?’
‘Dick. And Herbert.’ All at once Ned frowned. Following his gaze, Birdie saw that Bill was making his way down to the mudflats, using a short flight of stone stairs.
Alfred was following him.
‘Them two’ll come to no harm,’ Birdie assured Ned, ‘but don’t you go after ’em, else you might get ate.’ She smiled up at him reassuringly, and was surprised when he coloured. ‘Did you ever see this bogle yerself?’ she queried.
A Very Unusual Pursuit Page 4